TERMS STARTING WITH
boobies ::: pl. --> of Booby
boobyish ::: a. --> Stupid; dull.
booby ::: n. --> A dunce; a stupid fellow.
A swimming bird (Sula fiber or S. sula) related to the common gannet, and found in the West Indies, nesting on the bare rocks. It is so called on account of its apparent stupidity. The name is also sometimes applied to other species of gannets; as, S. piscator, the red-footed booby.
A species of penguin of the antarctic seas.
boodhism ::: n. --> Same as Buddhism.
boodhist ::: n. --> Same as Buddhist.
boodh ::: n. --> Same as Buddha.
boodle ::: n. --> The whole collection or lot; caboodle.
Money given in payment for votes or political influence; bribe money; swag.
boohoe ::: v. i. --> To bawl; to cry loudly.
boohooed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boohoe
boohooing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boohoe
boohoo ::: n. --> The sailfish; -- called also woohoo.
book 1. "text" {e-book}. 2. {book titles}. 3. "computer" {MacBook}. 4. {O'Reilly and Associates}.
bookbinder ::: n. --> One whose occupation is to bind books.
bookbindery ::: n. --> A bookbinder&
bookbinding ::: n. --> The art, process, or business of binding books.
book came finally into the possession of Solomon,
bookcase ::: n. --> A case with shelves for holding books, esp. one with glazed doors.
bookcraft ::: n. --> Authorship; literary skill.
booked ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Book ::: a. --> Registered.
On the way; destined.
booker ::: n. --> One who enters accounts or names, etc., in a book; a bookkeeper.
bookful ::: n. --> As much as will fill a book; a book full. ::: a. --> Filled with book learning.
book. Here then they are, from A to Y:
bookholder ::: n. --> A prompter at a theater.
A support for a book, holding it open, while one reads or copies from it.
booking clerk ::: --> A clerk who registers passengers, baggage, etc., for conveyance, as by railway or steamship, or who sells passage tickets at a booking office.
booking office ::: --> An office where passengers, baggage, etc., are registered for conveyance, as by railway or steamship.
An office where passage tickets are sold.
booking ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Book
bookish ::: a. --> Given to reading; fond of study; better acquainted with books than with men; learned from books.
Characterized by a method of expression generally found in books; formal; labored; pedantic; as, a bookish way of talking; bookish sentences.
bookkeeper ::: n. --> One who keeps accounts; one who has the charge of keeping the books and accounts in an office.
bookkeeping ::: n. --> The art of recording pecuniary or business transactions in a regular and systematic manner, so as to show their relation to each other, and the state of the business in which they occur; the art of keeping accounts. The books commonly used are a daybook, cashbook, journal, and ledger. See Daybook, Cashbook, Journal, and Ledger.
bookland ::: n. --> Alt. of Bockland
book-learned ::: a. --> Versed in books; having knowledge derived from books.
bookless ::: a. --> Without books; unlearned.
booklet ::: n. --> A little book.
bookmaker ::: n. --> One who writes and publishes books; especially, one who gathers his materials from other books; a compiler.
A betting man who "makes a book." See To make a book, under Book, n.
bookman ::: n. --> A studious man; a scholar.
bookmark ::: n. --> Something placed in a book to guide in finding a particular page or passage; also, a label in a book to designate the owner; a bookplate.
bookmark "web" A user's reference to a document on the {web} or other hypermedia system, usually in the form of a {URL} and a title or comment string. Most web and {Gopher} {browsers} can save and load a file of bookmarks to allow you to quickly locate documents to which you want to refer again. (1997-06-09)
bookmark ::: (World-Wide Web) A user's reference to a document on the World-Wide Web or other hypermedia system, usually in the form of a URL and a title or comment string.Most World-Wide Web and Gopher browsers can save and load a file of bookmarks to allow you to quickly locate documents to which you want to refer again. (1997-06-09)
bookmate ::: n. --> A schoolfellow; an associate in study.
bookmen ::: pl. --> of Bookman
bookmonger ::: n. --> A dealer in books.
book muslin ::: --> A kind of muslin used for the covers of books.
A kind of thin white muslin for ladies&
book ::: n. --> A collection of sheets of paper, or similar material, blank, written, or printed, bound together; commonly, many folded and bound sheets containing continuous printing or writing.
A composition, written or printed; a treatise.
A part or subdivision of a treatise or literary work; as, the tenth book of "Paradise Lost."
A volume or collection of sheets in which accounts are kept; a register of debts and credits, receipts and expenditures, etc.
book of black magic does not mean necessarily
bookofchanges ::: Book of Changes The Book of Changes is also known as divination. It consists of combinations of broken lines representing yin and yang, the interaction between which brings into effect all changes in the universe.
bookofshadows ::: Book of Shadows Gerald Gardner coined the term Book of Shadows as a substitute for Grimoire. In Wiccan tradition, the Book of Shadows is the book in which a coven or a solitary witch secretly keeps a record of spells and rituals. Most such books were hand written and elaborately decorated, although many today are created on computers.
bookplate ::: n. --> A label, placed upon or in a book, showing its ownership or its position in a library.
books, and in at least one passage (Zachariah 3:1)
books authored by Enoch. The name Orioc is
books dictated by Ezra. The other 4 “men” were
books dictated by Ezra. The other 4 scribes are
bookseller ::: n. --> One who sells books.
bookselling ::: n. --> The employment of selling books.
bookshelf ::: n. --> A shelf to hold books.
bookshelves ::: pl. --> of Bookshelf
bookshop ::: n. --> A bookseller&
book.
bookstall ::: n. --> A stall or stand where books are sold.
bookstand ::: n. --> A place or stand for the sale of books in the streets; a bookstall.
A stand to hold books for reading or reference.
bookstore ::: n. --> A store where books are kept for sale; -- called in England a bookseller&
books, unless Voltaire had in mind Sammael or
book, the angels of destruction correspond to the
book titles "publication" There is a tradition in hackerdom of informally tagging important textbooks and standards documents with the dominant colour of their covers or with some other conspicuous feature of the cover. Many of these are described in {this dictionary} under their own entries. See {Aluminum Book}, {Blue Book}, {Cinderella Book}, {Devil Book}, {Dragon Book}, {Green Book}, {Orange Book}, {Pink-Shirt Book}, {Purple Book}, {Red Book}, {Silver Book}, {White Book}, {Wizard Book}, {Yellow Book}, {bible}, {rainbow series}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-12-03)
book titles ::: (publication) There is a tradition in hackerdom of informally tagging important textbooks and standards documents with the dominant colour of their Pink-Shirt Book, Purple Book, Red Book, Silver Book, White Book, Wizard Book, Yellow Book, bible, rainbow series.[Jargon File] (1996-12-03)
book to Adam, and that the other angels, out of
book, Waite, the editor, in chapter 10, notes that,
bookwork ::: n. --> Work done upon a book or books (as in a printing office), in distinction from newspaper or job work.
Study; application to books.
bookworm ::: n. --> Any larva of a beetle or moth, which is injurious to books. Many species are known.
A student closely attached to books or addicted to study; a reader without appreciation.
booky ::: a. --> Bookish.
bool {Boolean}
boolies ::: pl. --> of Booly
booly ::: n. --> A company of Irish herdsmen, or a single herdsman, wandering from place to place with flocks and herds, and living on their milk, like the Tartars; also, a place in the mountain pastures inclosed for the shelter of cattle or their keepers.
boomdas ::: n. --> A small African hyracoid mammal (Dendrohyrax arboreus) resembling the daman.
boomed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boom
boomerang ::: n. --> A very singular missile weapon used by the natives of Australia and in some parts of India. It is usually a curved stick of hard wood, from twenty to thirty inches in length, from two to three inches wide, and half or three quarters of an inch thick. When thrown from the hand with a quick rotary motion, it describes very remarkable curves, according to the shape of the instrument and the manner of throwing it, often moving nearly horizontally a long distance, then curving upward to a considerable height, and finally taking a
boomeritis ::: A dysfunction whose name originates from its first and most famous victim: the Boomer generation (those born roughly between 1940-1960). The pathological combination of Green and Red altitude in any of the self-related lines of development. Also known as the “Mean Green Meme” (MGM) when used in reference to the Spiral Dynamics model of value memes.
boomer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, booms.
A North American rodent, so named because it is said to make a booming noise. See Sewellel.
A large male kangaroo.
One who works up a "boom".
booming ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boom ::: a. --> Rushing with violence; swelling with a hollow sound; making a hollow sound or note; roaring; resounding.
Advancing or increasing amid noisy excitement; as, booming prices; booming popularity.
boomkin ::: n. --> Same as Bumkin.
boom ::: n. --> A long pole or spar, run out for the purpose of extending the bottom of a particular sail; as, the jib boom, the studding-sail boom, etc.
A long spar or beam, projecting from the mast of a derrick, from the outer end of which the body to be lifted is suspended.
A pole with a conspicuous top, set up to mark the channel in a river or harbor.
A strong chain cable, or line of spars bound together,
boomorah ::: n. --> A small West African chevrotain (Hyaemoschus aquaticus), resembling the musk deer.
boomslange ::: n. --> A large South African tree snake (Bucephalus Capensis). Although considered venomous by natives, it has no poison fangs.
boon ::: 1. A blessing; something to be thankful for. 2. A timely blessing or benefit received in response to a request or prayer. boons.
boon ::: n. --> A prayer or petition.
That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift; a benefaction; a grant; a present.
Good; prosperous; as, boon voyage.
Kind; bountiful; benign.
Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
The woody portion flax, which is separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.
boorish ::: a. --> Like a boor; clownish; uncultured; unmannerly.
boor ::: n. --> A husbandman; a peasant; a rustic; esp. a clownish or unrefined countryman.
A Dutch, German, or Russian peasant; esp. a Dutch colonist in South Africa, Guiana, etc.: a boer.
A rude ill-bred person; one who is clownish in manners.
boort ::: n. --> See Bort.
boose ::: n. --> A stall or a crib for an ox, cow, or other animal. ::: v. i. --> To drink excessively. See Booze.
booser ::: n. --> A toper; a guzzler. See Boozer.
boosted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boost
boosting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boost
boost ::: v. i. --> To lift or push from behind (one who is endeavoring to climb); to push up; hence, to assist in overcoming obstacles, or in making advancement. ::: n. --> A push from behind, as to one who is endeavoring to climb; help.
boot {bootstrap}
bootblack ::: n. --> One who blacks boots.
boot block ::: (operating system) A program at some fixed location on a hard disk, floppy disk or other media, which is loaded when the computer is turned on or system. The loading and execution of the boot block is usually controlled by firmware in ROM or PROM. (1997-07-03)
boot block "operating system" A program on a {hard disk}, {floppy disk} or other media, which is loaded when the computer is turned on or rebooted and which controls the next phase of loading the actual {operating system}. The loading and execution of the boot block is usually controlled by {firmware} in {ROM} or {PROM}. It may be at some fixed location possibly or may be pointed to by the {master boot record}. (2009-05-19)
boot disk ::: (operating system) The magnetic disk (usually a hard disk) from which an operating system kernel is loaded (or bootstrapped). This second phase in possibly configured by data stored in some form of writable non-volatile storage.MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows can be configured (in the BIOS) to try to boot off either floppy disk or hard disk, in either order. By default they first check as a boot disk if present. If no disk is in the drive they then try to boot off the hard disk.Some operating systems, notably SunOS and Solaris, can be configured to boot from a network rather than from disk. Such a system can thus run as a diskless workstation. (1997-06-09)
boot disk "operating system" The {magnetic disk} (usually a {hard disk}) from which an {operating system} {kernel} is loaded (or "bootstrapped"). This second phase in system start-up is performed by a simple bootstrap loader program held in {ROM}, possibly configured by data stored in some form of writable {non-volatile storage}. {MS-DOS} and {Microsoft Windows} can be configured (in the {BIOS}) to try to boot off either {floppy disk} or {hard disk}, in either order. By default they first check for the presence of a {floppy disk} in the drive at start-up and try to use that as a boot disk if present. If no disk is in the drive they then try to boot off the hard disk. Some {operating systems}, notably {SunOS} and {Solaris}, can be configured to boot from a network rather than from disk. Such a system can thus run as a {diskless workstation}. (1997-06-09)
booted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boot
of Boot ::: a. --> Wearing boots, especially boots with long tops, as for riding; as, a booted squire.
Having an undivided, horny, bootlike covering; -- said of
bootee ::: n. --> A half boot or short boot.
bootes ::: n. --> A northern constellation, containing the bright star Arcturus.
boothale ::: v. t. & i. --> To forage for booty; to plunder.
booth ::: n. --> A house or shed built of boards, boughs, or other slight materials, for temporary occupation.
A covered stall or temporary structure in a fair or market, or at a polling place.
boothose ::: n. --> Stocking hose, or spatterdashes, in lieu of boots.
Hose made to be worn with boots, as by travelers on horseback.
booths ::: partly enclosed compartments or partitioned areas.
boothy ::: n. --> See Bothy.
A wooden hut or humble cot, esp. a rude hut or barrack for unmarried farm servants; a shepherd&
bootikin ::: n. --> A little boot, legging, or gaiter.
A covering for the foot or hand, worn as a cure for the gout.
booting {bootstrap}
booting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boot
of Boot ::: n. --> Advantage; gain; gain by plunder; booty.
A kind of torture. See Boot, n., 2.
A kicking, as with a booted foot.
bootjack ::: n. --> A device for pulling off boots.
bootless ::: a. --> Unavailing; unprofitable; useless; without advantage or success.
bootlick ::: n. --> A toady.
bootmaker ::: n. --> One who makes boots.
boot ::: n. --> Remedy; relief; amends; reparation; hence, one who brings relief.
That which is given to make an exchange equal, or to make up for the deficiency of value in one of the things exchanged.
Profit; gain; advantage; use.
A covering for the foot and lower part of the leg, ordinarily made of leather.
An instrument of torture for the leg, formerly used to extort
boots ::: n. --> A servant at a hotel or elsewhere, who cleans and blacks the boots and shoes.
bootstrap: A statistical re-sampling method for obtaining estimators of distribution parameters.
bootstrap loader ::: (operating system) A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer.On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer pulled itself up by its bootstraps to a useful operating state.Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the boot block. When control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.(2005-04-12)
bootstrap loader "operating system" A short {program} loaded from {non-volatile storage} and used to {bootstrap} a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to {toggle} in via the {front panel} switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex {program} (usually from {punched cards} or {paper tape}), to which it handed control. This {program} in turn read the {application} or {operating system} from a {magnetic tape} drive or {disk drive}. Thus, in successive steps, the {computer} "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in {ROM} or {EPROM}, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the {disk}, called the "{boot block}". When this {program} gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual {OS} and hand control over to it. A {diskless workstation} can use {bootp} to load its OS from the network. (2005-04-12)
bootstrap ::: (operating system, compiler) To load and initialise the operating system on a computer. Normally abbreviated to boot. From the curious expression to before any (normal) program can run. Derived terms include reboot, cold boot, warm boot, soft boot and hard boot.The term also applies to the use of a compiler to compile itself. The usual process is to write an interpreter for a language, L, in some other existing the compiler in L. This technique is often used to verify the correctness of a compiler. It was first used in the LISP community.See also My Favourite Toy Language.[Jargon File](2005-04-12)
bootstrap "operating system, compiler" To load and initialise the {operating system} on a computer. Normally abbreviated to "{boot}". From the curious expression "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps", one of the legendary feats of Baron von Munchhausen. The {bootstrap loader} is the program that runs on the computer before any (normal) program can run. Derived terms include {reboot}, {cold boot}, {warm boot}, {soft boot} and {hard boot}. The term also applies to the use of a {compiler} to compile itself. The usual process is to write an {interpreter} for a language, L, in some other existing language. The compiler is then written in L and the interpreter is used to run it. This produces an {executable} for compiling programs in L from the source of the compiler in L. This technique is often used to verify the correctness of a compiler. It was first used in the {LISP} community. See also {My Favourite Toy Language}. [{Jargon File}] (2005-04-12)
boottopping ::: n. --> The act or process of daubing a vessel&
boottree ::: n. --> An instrument to stretch and widen the leg of a boot, consisting of two pieces, together shaped like a leg, between which, when put into the boot, a wedge is driven.
boot virus An {MS-DOS} {virus} that infects the {boot record} program on {hard disks} and {floppy disks} or the {master boot record} on hard disks. The virus gets loaded into memory before {MS-DOS} and takes control of the computer, infecting any floppy disks subsequently accessed. An infected {boot disk} may stop the computer starting up at all. (1995-02-16)
boot virus ::: An MS-DOS virus that infects the boot record program on hard disks and floppy disks or the master boot record on hard disks. The virus gets loaded into memory subsequently accessed. An infected boot disk may stop the computer starting up at all. (1995-02-16)
booty ::: n. --> That which is seized by violence or obtained by robbery, especially collective spoil taken in war; plunder; pillage.
boozed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Booze
boozer ::: n. --> One who boozes; a toper; a guzzler of alcoholic liquors; a bouser.
booze ::: v. i. --> To drink greedily or immoderately, esp. alcoholic liquor; to tipple. ::: n. --> A carouse; a drinking.
boozing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Booze
boozy ::: a. --> A little intoxicated; fuddled; stupid with liquor; bousy.
Booch method ::: (programming) A widely used object-oriented analysis and object-oriented design method. .[Grady Booch, Object-oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, 2nd edition. Benjamin Cummings, Redwood City, ISBN 0-8053-5340-2, 1993](2000-05-23)
Booch method "programming" A widely used {object-oriented analysis} and {object-oriented design} method. {(http://hsr.ch/div/Booch/BoochReference/)}. [Grady Booch, "Object-oriented Analysis and Design with Applications", 2nd edition. Benjamin Cummings, Redwood City, ISBN 0-8053-5340-2, 1993] (2000-05-23)
Boodhasp (Chaldean) “An alleged Chaldean; but in esoteric teaching a Buddhist (a Bodhisattva), from the East, who was the founder of the esoteric school of Neo-Sabeism, and whose secret rite of baptism passed bodily into the Christian rite of the same name. For almost three centuries before our era, Buddhist monks overran the whole country of Syria, made their way into the Mesopotamian valley and visited even Ireland” (TG 61).
Boodin, John Elof: American philosopher born in Sweden in 1869 who emigrated in 1886 to the United States. Studied at the Universities of Colorado, Minnesota, Brown and especially Harvard under Royce with whom he kept a life-long friendship though he was opposed to his idealism. His works (Time and Reality, 1904 -- Truth and Reality, 1912 -- A Realistic Universe, 1916 -- Cosmic Evolution, 1925 -- Three Interpretations of the Universe, 1934 -- God, 1935 -- The Social Mind, 1940) form practically a complete system. His philosophy takes the form of a cosmic idealism, though he was interested for a time in certain aspects of pragmatism. It grew gradually from his early studies when he developed a new concept of a real and non-serial time. The structure of the cosmos is that of a hierarchy of fields, as exemplified in physics, in organisms, in consciousness and in society. The interpenetration of the mental fields makes possible human knowledge and social intercourse. Reality as such possesses five attributes: being (the dynamic stuff of all complexes, the active energy), time (the ground of change and transformation), space (which accounts for extension), consciousness (active awareness which lights up reality in spots; it becomes the self when conative tendencies cooperate as one active group), and form (the ground of organization and structure which conditions selective direction). God is the spirit of the whole. -- T.G.J Boole, George: (1815-1864) English mathematician. Professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork, 1849-1864. While he made contributions to other branches of mathematics, he is now remembered primarily as the founder of the Nineteenth Century algebra of logic and through it of modern symbolic logic. His Mathematical Analysis of Logic appeared in 1847 and the fuller Laws of Thought in 1854. -- A.C.
Book cost - This is the cost when asset is purchased or realised, i.e. or in other words the amount paid to get the asset.
Booker Prize: See Man Booker Prize.
Book I, Canto III
Bookkeeping - Accounting support functions performed by the book keeper. Bookkeeping is the most basic of the accounting duties and requires less education and experience.
Book of Adam and Eve, a pseudepigraphic work,
Book of Adam and Eve he presides over repentance.
Book of Adam and Eve, The. Also known as The History
Book of Bartholomew, etc.). London: British Museum,
Book of Beliefs and Opinions, by Saadia Gaon. See
Book of Black Magic and of Pacts. In The Sixth and
Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, p. 175. [Rf Scot,
Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, p. 204.]
Book of Black Magic and of Pacts.]
Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, The. See Waite.
Book of Ceremonial Magic.
Book of Ceremonial Magic, The. See Waite.
Book of Changes. See I CHING
Book of Changes, The: A Chinese collection of propositions and explanations used in divination, written by various authors of different periods up to the latter part of the third century B.C. (Chinese title: I Ching, also known as Yi King.)
Book of Concealed Mystery. Part of The Zohar, contained
Book of Concealed Mystery. See SIPHRA DI-TSENI‘UTHA’
Book of Dzyan [probably from Sanskrit dhyana intense spiritual meditation, wisdom, divine knowledge] An archaic work of enormous antiquity upon which Blavatsky based her Secret Doctrine. Dzyan has been variously spelled or transliterated, and under this form is a derivative of the Tibetan. Dzyan, dzen, or ch’an is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature.
Book of Enoch, 8:3) Araqiel does not seem to be a
Book of Enoch, p. 138 fn.; Schmidt, The Apocalypse
Book of Enoch. See Hechaloth for an angel so named.
Book of Formation (see Sefer Yetzirah).
Book of Hechaloth (Sefer Hechaloth). (tr.) A. Jellinek.
Book of James; Gospel of Nicodemus (1 and 2); Gospel of
Book of James, or Protovangelium. In M. R. James, The
Book of Job. See Jastrow; Raymond.
Book of John the Baptist. A Mandaean scripture titled
Book of John the Evangelist. In James, The Apocryphal New
Book of Jubilees 2:1; Enoch II, 29:3; Baruch III, 21;
Book of Jubilees, The (or The Little Genesis), (tr.) R. H.
Book of Kuzari (IV), taught that there were two classes or species of angels. He wrote: “As for the angels, some are
Book of Kuzari. See Judah ha Levi.
Book of Magic, p. 115.
Book of Mary. See Guinan.
Book of Mormon, The. (tr.) Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City:
Book of Numbers, Chaldean An ancient Chaldean work no longer popularly extant.
Book of Old Testament Illustrations. Sydney C. Cockerell.
Book of Power, The. Subtitled “Cabbalistic Secrets of the
Book of Protection ; Budge, Amulets and Talismans.]
Book of Protection.] In the Ozar Midrashim, Shamiel
Book of Protection .]
Book of Protection, The. See Gollancz.
Book of Scholia, The. See Bar-Khonai.
Book of Spirits, The. See Grillot.
Book of Splendor: The book Zohar, the principal part of the earlier Kabalah (13th century).
Book of Splendour. See ZOHAR
Book of the Angel Raziel; Budge, Amulets and
Book of the Angel Raziel, is reproduced in Budge,
Book of the Angel Raziel). [Rf. de Abano, The
Book of the Angel Raziel.]
Book of the Angel Raziel. Thrgar is also mentioned
Book of the Dead: Any one of a series of ancient Egyptian writings which set forth the substance of the magic, ritual and myths of their respective periods. The “Book” is the total of the inscriptions found on papyrus, tombs, monuments, etc.
Book of the Dead, Egyptian The name given to certain ancient papyri of the Egyptian, more correctly called Pert em hru (coming forth into day or light). They have been discovered in many of the tombs, interred with the mummies. Although by no means the only text of importance coming down from the ancient Egyptians, it is a work of extreme antiquity, containing the system expounded by the priests, and is far older than the two other extant works known as the Book of the Pylons and the Book of the Tuat. The work depicts in symbolic form the afterdeath state, as presented by the priests to the populace of Egypt. The soul is depicted in the guise of a pilgrim, journeying through various halls, at the portals of each of which he was obliged to give a correct answer — an account of the life he had lived upon earth. The pilgrim eventually reached the judgment hall, within which he was tried by the company of gods and goddesses. Before Osiris his heart was placed in a balance to testify for or against him. If he passed the test satisfactorily, he was permitted by Osiris to enter his domain and become as one of the deities.
Book of the Dead, Tibetan. See BARDO
Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (one of the finds
Book of the Great Logos According to the Mystery. A
Book of the Keys: Title of an ancient Kabalistic work.
Book of the Resurrection of Christ. See Bartholomew.
Book of The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage.]
Book of the Sacred Magic of Ahra-Melin, the Mage, The.
Book of the Treatise Concerning the Virtues. Oxford, 1895.
Book of Tobit. Later in the tale, Raphael reveals his
Book of Tohit, The. (tr.) Neubauer; Zimmermann.
Book of Wisdom, The. See Reider.
Bookreader ::: DEC's CD-ROM-based on-line documentation browser.
Bookreader {DEC}'s {CD-ROM}-based on-line documentation browser.
Books, 1962.
Book, sacred
Book/s - In accounting is used to refers to the ledgers or journals (for example: general journal). Used a verb it means to the recording of an entry (e.g to book the sale).
Books of account - Theses are the financial records of an entity.
Books of Kiute. See KIU-CHE, BOOK OF
Books of Moses), an angel of the Seal, summoned in
Books of Moses, a power angel of the 5th Seal.
Books of Moses.] In Ozar Midrashim II, 316, as
Books of Moses, p. 139.]
Books of Moses, p. 85.] The cabalistic instructions
Books of Moses.
Books of Moses.\
Books of Moses.]
Books of Occult Philosophy, where the sigil of this
Books of the Bible and in Excluded Books of the New
Books of the Bible.
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, pp. 204-205.]
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics.]
Books of the Maccabees. Books 1 and 2. (tr.) Sidney
Books of the Saviour. Extracts appended in Pistis
Book ; Some kind of knowledge.
Book titles are generally given in the language of original provenance, e.g., Saddharmapundarīkasutra, in Sanskrit, with cross-references to Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; Dasheng qixin lun, in Chinese, with cross-references to a putative Sanskrit reconstruction of the title, and Japanese and Korean. We also include some main entries to indigenous terms, book titles, personal names, or place names in other Asian languages, e.g.: Burmese, Thai, Lao, Nepalese, Sinhalese, Mongolian, and Vietnamese.
Book value - 1. net amount shown for an asset on the balance sheet. It equals the gross cost less the related valuation account. For example, the book value of an auto is its initial cost less the accumulated depreciation. Since book value is based on historical cost, it will differ from market value. Book value is a going-concern value. Or 2. carrying value of a liability equal to its face value less unamortised discount.
Book V, Canto III
BOOK vide Symbol
Bookviewer ::: A hypertext documentation system from Oracle based on Oracle Toolkit. It allows the user to create private links and bookmarks, and to make multimedia annotations.
Bookviewer A hypertext documentation system from Oracle based on Oracle Toolkit. It allows the user to create private links and bookmarks, and to make multimedia annotations.
Boolean algebra "logic" (After the logician {George Boole}) 1. Commonly, and especially in computer science and digital electronics, this term is used to mean {two-valued logic}. 2. This is in stark contrast with the definition used by pure mathematicians who in the 1960s introduced "Boolean-valued {models}" into logic precisely because a "Boolean-valued model" is an interpretation of a {theory} that allows more than two possible truth values! Strangely, a Boolean algebra (in the mathematical sense) is not strictly an {algebra}, but is in fact a {lattice}. A Boolean algebra is sometimes defined as a "complemented {distributive lattice}". Boole's work which inspired the mathematical definition concerned {algebras} of {sets}, involving the operations of intersection, union and complement on sets. Such algebras obey the following identities where the operators ^, V, - and constants 1 and 0 can be thought of either as set intersection, union, complement, universal, empty; or as two-valued logic AND, OR, NOT, TRUE, FALSE; or any other conforming system. a ^ b = b ^ a a V b = b V a (commutative laws) (a ^ b) ^ c = a ^ (b ^ c) (a V b) V c = a V (b V c) (associative laws) a ^ (b V c) = (a ^ b) V (a ^ c) a V (b ^ c) = (a V b) ^ (a V c) (distributive laws) a ^ a = a a V a = a (idempotence laws) --a = a -(a ^ b) = (-a) V (-b) -(a V b) = (-a) ^ (-b) (de Morgan's laws) a ^ -a = 0 a V -a = 1 a ^ 1 = a a V 0 = a a ^ 0 = 0 a V 1 = 1 -1 = 0 -0 = 1 There are several common alternative notations for the "-" or {logical complement} operator. If a and b are elements of a Boolean algebra, we define a "= b to mean that a ^ b = a, or equivalently a V b = b. Thus, for example, if ^, V and - denote set intersection, union and complement then "= is the inclusive subset relation. The relation "= is a {partial ordering}, though it is not necessarily a {linear ordering} since some Boolean algebras contain incomparable values. Note that these laws only refer explicitly to the two distinguished constants 1 and 0 (sometimes written as {LaTeX} \top and \bot), and in {two-valued logic} there are no others, but according to the more general mathematical definition, in some systems variables a, b and c may take on other values as well. (1997-02-27)
Boolean algebra ::: (mathematics, logic) (After the logician George Boole)1. Commonly, and especially in computer science and digital electronics, this term is used to mean two-valued logic.2. This is in stark contrast with the definition used by pure mathematicians who in the 1960s introduced Boolean-valued models into logic precisely because a Boolean-valued model is an interpretation of a theory that allows more than two possible truth values!Strangely, a Boolean algebra (in the mathematical sense) is not strictly an algebra, but is in fact a lattice. A Boolean algebra is sometimes defined as a complemented distributive lattice.Boole's work which inspired the mathematical definition concerned algebras of sets, involving the operations of intersection, union and complement on sets. complement, universal, empty; or as two-valued logic AND, OR, NOT, TRUE, FALSE; or any other conforming system. a ^ b = b ^ a a V b = b V a (commutative laws)(a ^ b) ^ c = a ^ (b ^ c) There are several common alternative notations for the - or logical complement operator.If a and b are elements of a Boolean algebra, we define a = b to mean that a ^ b = a, or equivalently a V b = b. Thus, for example, if ^, V and - denote set relation = is a partial ordering, though it is not necessarily a linear ordering since some Boolean algebras contain incomparable values.Note that these laws only refer explicitly to the two distinguished constants 1 and 0 (sometimes written as LaTeX \top and \bot), and in two-valued logic there are no others, but according to the more general mathematical definition, in some systems variables a, b and c may take on other values as well. (1997-02-27)
Boolean algebra: See Logic, Formal, §7. Bosanquet, Bernard: (1848-1923) Neo-Hegelian idealist, regards Reality as a single individual all-embracing, completely rational experience, combining universality and concreteness. It alone exists. All other particulars -- minds or things -- are only partially concrete, individual and real. The incidental, incomplete, dependent and only partially existent character of finite consciousness is shown by the reaching, seeking character of all its activities, sense-perceptions, thought, moral action, and even aesthetic contemplation -- all of which indicate that self-realization means self-abandonment to something larger than the self.
Boolean "logic" 1. {Boolean algebra}. "programming" 2. (bool) The type of an expression with two possible values, "true" and "false". Also, a variable of Boolean type or a function with Boolean arguments or result. The most common Boolean functions are {AND}, {OR} and {NOT}. (1997-12-01)
Boolean logic "logic" A {logic} based on {Boolean algebra}. (1995-03-25)
Boolean logic ::: (mathematics) A logic based on Boolean algebra. (1995-03-25)
Boolean ::: (mathematics, logic) 1. Boolean algebra.(programming) 2. (bool) The type of an expression with two possible values, true and false. Also, a variable of Boolean type or a function with Boolean arguments or result. The most common Boolean functions are AND, OR and NOT. (1997-12-01)
Boolean satisfiability problem
Boolean search "information science" (Or "Boolean query") A query using the {Boolean} operators, {AND}, {OR}, and {NOT}, and parentheses to construct a complex condition from simpler criteria. A typical example is searching for combinatons of keywords on a {web} {search engine}. Examples: car or automobile "New York" and not "New York state" The term is sometimes stretched to include searches using other operators, e.g. "near". Not to be confused with {binary search}. See also: {weighted search}. (1999-10-23)
Boolean search ::: (information science) (Or Boolean query) A query using the Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT, and parentheses to construct a complex condition from simpler criteria. A typical example is searching for combinatons of keywords on a World-Wide Web search engine.Examples: car or automobile The term is sometimes stretched to include searches using other operators, e.g. near.Not to be confused with binary search.See also: weighted search. (1999-10-23)
Boole, George {George Boole}
Boom Stick: Wand, staff, or device used to cast spectacularly vulgar spells.
Boom - The stage when an economy is at the peak
Booster ::: A data-parallel language.The Booster Language, E. Paalvast, TR PL 89-ITI-B-18, Inst voor Toegepaste Informatica TNO, Delft, 1989.
Booster A {data-parallel} language. "The Booster Language", E. Paalvast, TR PL 89-ITI-B-18, Inst voor Toegepaste Informatica TNO, Delft, 1989.
Boot ::: (Heb. Mud) Israeli slang term for Turkish coffee.
BOOTP ::: The Bootstrap Protocol.A protocol described in RFCs 951 and 1084 and used for booting diskless workstations.See also Reverse Address Resolution Protocol. (1995-02-16)
BOOTP The Bootstrap Protocol. A {protocol} described in {RFCs} 951 and 1084 and used for booting {diskless workstations}. See also {Reverse Address Resolution Protocol}. (1995-02-16)
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. To give light to; illuminate; shine on. 2. Make lighter or brighter. 3. To bestow spiritual enlightenment. 4. To enlighten, as with knowledge. 5. To make lucid or clear; throw light on (a subject). 6. To make resplendent or illustrious. 7. To decorate (a manuscript, book, etc.) with colours and gold or silver, as was often done in the Middle Ages. illumines, illumined, illumining, half-illumined.
20 Book
aboon ::: prep. --> and adv. Above.
above-cited ::: a. --> Cited before, in the preceding part of a book or writing.
abridgment ::: n. --> The act of abridging, or the state of being abridged; diminution; lessening; reduction or deprivation; as, an abridgment of pleasures or of expenses.
An epitome or compend, as of a book; a shortened or abridged form; an abbreviation.
That which abridges or cuts short; hence, an entertainment that makes the time pass quickly.
absey-book ::: n. --> An A-B-C book; a primer.
account book ::: --> A book in which accounts are kept.
adversaria ::: n. pl. --> A miscellaneous collection of notes, remarks, or selections; a commonplace book; also, commentaries or notes.
Again in Book II, Canto X, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind
Again, in In Book III Canto ii, The Adoration of the Divine Mother
agendum ::: n. --> Something to be done; in the pl., a memorandum book.
A church service; a ritual or liturgy. [In this sense, usually Agenda.]
al- ::: A prefix. --> All; wholly; completely; as, almighty, almost.
To; at; on; -- in OF. shortened to a-. See Ad-.
The Arabic definite article answering to the English the; as, Alkoran, the Koran or the Book; alchemy, the chemistry.
album ::: n. --> A white tablet on which anything was inscribed, as a list of names, etc.
A register for visitors&
alluminor ::: n. --> An illuminator of manuscripts and books; a limner.
almanac ::: n. --> A book or table, containing a calendar of days, and months, to which astronomical data and various statistics are often added, such as the times of the rising and setting of the sun and moon, eclipses, hours of full tide, stated festivals of churches, terms of courts, etc.
Amal: “The phrase ‘the Book of Bliss’ is a reference to the plane of Ananda which is beyond-behind the plane of the Supermind. I have equated ‘beyond’ to ‘behind’ because there is nothing higher than the Supermind. Through Supermind comes the disclosure of the supreme Ananda which may be called its inmost self.”
anatomy ::: n. --> The art of dissecting, or artificially separating the different parts of any organized body, to discover their situation, structure, and economy; dissection.
The science which treats of the structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.
A treatise or book on anatomy.
The act of dividing anything, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; analysis; as, the anatomy of a
And again, in Book II, Canto VIII, The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness,
And again, in Book X, Canto II, The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal we find these lines:
And, in Book II, Canto X, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind
And in Book VI, Canto II, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, Sri Aurobindo speaks to us again of man’s science:
annuary ::: a. --> Annual. ::: n. --> A yearbook.
anthology ::: n. --> A discourse on flowers.
A collection of flowers; a garland.
A collection of flowers of literature, that is, beautiful passages from authors; a collection of poems or epigrams; -- particularly applied to a collection of ancient Greek epigrams.
A service book containing a selection of pieces for the festival services.
antilegomena ::: n. pl. --> Certain books of the New Testament which were for a time not universally received, but which are now considered canonical. These are the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of James and Jude, the second Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, and the Revelation. The undisputed books are called the Homologoumena.
antiphonal ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to antiphony, or alternate singing; sung alternately by a divided choir or opposite choirs. ::: n. --> A book of antiphons or anthems.
antiphonary ::: n. --> A book containing a collection of antiphons; the book in which the antiphons of the breviary, with their musical notes, are contained.
antiphoner ::: n. --> A book of antiphons.
apocalypse ::: n. --> The revelation delivered to St. John, in the isle of Patmos, near the close of the first century, forming the last book of the New Testament.
Anything viewed as a revelation; a disclosure.
apostrophe ::: n. --> A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton&
apothesis ::: n. --> A place on the south side of the chancel in the primitive churches, furnished with shelves, for books, vestments, etc.
A dressing room connected with a public bath.
appendix ::: n. --> Something appended or added; an appendage, adjunct, or concomitant.
Any literary matter added to a book, but not necessarily essential to its completeness, and thus distinguished from supplement, which is intended to supply deficiencies and correct inaccuracies.
arcturus ::: n. --> A fixed star of the first magnitude in the constellation Bootes.
a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them.
arithmetic ::: n. --> The science of numbers; the art of computation by figures.
A book containing the principles of this science.
ascribe ::: v. t. --> To attribute, impute, or refer, as to a cause; as, his death was ascribed to a poison; to ascribe an effect to the right cause; to ascribe such a book to such an author.
To attribute, as a quality, or an appurtenance; to consider or allege to belong.
astronomy ::: n. --> Astrology.
The science which treats of the celestial bodies, of their magnitudes, motions, distances, periods of revolution, eclipses, constitution, physical condition, and of the causes of their various phenomena.
A treatise on, or text-book of, the science.
Aswapati ::: Purani: “Aswapathy, the father of Savitri, has been significantly called by the poet ‘the Lord of Life’. (book II, Canto XV). The name suggests an affinity to Vedic symbolism. In the Veda, Aswa, the horse, is the symbol of life-energy or vital power. Aswa + aty, Lord, would mean the ‘Lord of Life’. In the poem King Aswapathy is the symbol of the aspiring soul of man as manifested in life on earth.”Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
atheistical ::: a. --> Pertaining to, implying, or containing, atheism; -- applied to things; as, atheistic doctrines, opinions, or books.
Disbelieving the existence of a God; impious; godless; -- applied to persons; as, an atheistic writer.
augural ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to augurs or to augury; betokening; ominous; significant; as, an augural staff; augural books.
author ::: 1. An originator or creator, one who originates or gives existence to anything. 2. He who gives rise to or causes an action, event, circumstance, state, or condition of things. 3. The composer or writer of a treatise, play, poem, book, etc. authors.
author ::: n. --> The beginner, former, or first mover of anything; hence, the efficient cause of a thing; a creator; an originator.
One who composes or writes a book; a composer, as distinguished from an editor, translator, or compiler.
The editor of a periodical.
An informant. ::: v. t.
authorship ::: n. --> The quality or state of being an author; function or dignity of an author.
Source; origin; origination; as, the authorship of a book or review, or of an act, or state of affairs.
baboo ::: n. --> Alt. of Babu
baboonery ::: n. --> Baboonish behavior.
baboonish ::: a. --> Like a baboon.
baboon ::: n. --> One of the Old World Quadrumana, of the genera Cynocephalus and Papio; the dog-faced ape. Baboons have dog-like muzzles and large canine teeth, cheek pouches, a short tail, and naked callosities on the buttocks. They are mostly African. See Mandrill, and Chacma, and Drill an ape.
babion ::: n. --> A baboon.
bamboo ::: n. --> A plant of the family of grasses, and genus Bambusa, growing in tropical countries. ::: v. t. --> To flog with the bamboo.
bamboozled ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Bamboozle
bamboozler ::: n. --> A swindler; one who deceives by trickery.
bamboozle ::: v. t. --> To deceive by trickery; to cajole by confusing the senses; to hoax; to mystify; to humbug.
bamboozling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Bamboozle
bank book ::: --> A book kept by a depositor, in which an officer of a bank enters the debits and credits of the depositor&
barwood ::: n. --> A red wood of a leguminous tree (Baphia nitida), from Angola and the Gaboon in Africa. It is used as a dyewood, and also for ramrods, violin bows and turner&
battledoor ::: n. --> An instrument, with a handle and a flat part covered with parchment or crossed with catgut, used to strike a shuttlecock in play; also, the play of battledoor and shuttlecock.
A child&
bavian ::: n. --> A baboon.
boobies ::: pl. --> of Booby
boobyish ::: a. --> Stupid; dull.
booby ::: n. --> A dunce; a stupid fellow.
A swimming bird (Sula fiber or S. sula) related to the common gannet, and found in the West Indies, nesting on the bare rocks. It is so called on account of its apparent stupidity. The name is also sometimes applied to other species of gannets; as, S. piscator, the red-footed booby.
A species of penguin of the antarctic seas.
boodhism ::: n. --> Same as Buddhism.
boodhist ::: n. --> Same as Buddhist.
boodh ::: n. --> Same as Buddha.
boodle ::: n. --> The whole collection or lot; caboodle.
Money given in payment for votes or political influence; bribe money; swag.
boohoe ::: v. i. --> To bawl; to cry loudly.
boohooed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boohoe
boohooing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boohoe
boohoo ::: n. --> The sailfish; -- called also woohoo.
bookbinder ::: n. --> One whose occupation is to bind books.
bookbindery ::: n. --> A bookbinder&
bookbinding ::: n. --> The art, process, or business of binding books.
bookcase ::: n. --> A case with shelves for holding books, esp. one with glazed doors.
bookcraft ::: n. --> Authorship; literary skill.
booked ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Book ::: a. --> Registered.
On the way; destined.
booker ::: n. --> One who enters accounts or names, etc., in a book; a bookkeeper.
bookful ::: n. --> As much as will fill a book; a book full. ::: a. --> Filled with book learning.
bookholder ::: n. --> A prompter at a theater.
A support for a book, holding it open, while one reads or copies from it.
booking clerk ::: --> A clerk who registers passengers, baggage, etc., for conveyance, as by railway or steamship, or who sells passage tickets at a booking office.
booking office ::: --> An office where passengers, baggage, etc., are registered for conveyance, as by railway or steamship.
An office where passage tickets are sold.
booking ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Book
bookish ::: a. --> Given to reading; fond of study; better acquainted with books than with men; learned from books.
Characterized by a method of expression generally found in books; formal; labored; pedantic; as, a bookish way of talking; bookish sentences.
bookkeeper ::: n. --> One who keeps accounts; one who has the charge of keeping the books and accounts in an office.
bookkeeping ::: n. --> The art of recording pecuniary or business transactions in a regular and systematic manner, so as to show their relation to each other, and the state of the business in which they occur; the art of keeping accounts. The books commonly used are a daybook, cashbook, journal, and ledger. See Daybook, Cashbook, Journal, and Ledger.
bookland ::: n. --> Alt. of Bockland
book-learned ::: a. --> Versed in books; having knowledge derived from books.
bookless ::: a. --> Without books; unlearned.
booklet ::: n. --> A little book.
bookmaker ::: n. --> One who writes and publishes books; especially, one who gathers his materials from other books; a compiler.
A betting man who "makes a book." See To make a book, under Book, n.
bookman ::: n. --> A studious man; a scholar.
bookmark ::: n. --> Something placed in a book to guide in finding a particular page or passage; also, a label in a book to designate the owner; a bookplate.
bookmate ::: n. --> A schoolfellow; an associate in study.
bookmen ::: pl. --> of Bookman
bookmonger ::: n. --> A dealer in books.
book muslin ::: --> A kind of muslin used for the covers of books.
A kind of thin white muslin for ladies&
book ::: n. --> A collection of sheets of paper, or similar material, blank, written, or printed, bound together; commonly, many folded and bound sheets containing continuous printing or writing.
A composition, written or printed; a treatise.
A part or subdivision of a treatise or literary work; as, the tenth book of "Paradise Lost."
A volume or collection of sheets in which accounts are kept; a register of debts and credits, receipts and expenditures, etc.
bookplate ::: n. --> A label, placed upon or in a book, showing its ownership or its position in a library.
bookseller ::: n. --> One who sells books.
bookselling ::: n. --> The employment of selling books.
bookshelf ::: n. --> A shelf to hold books.
bookshelves ::: pl. --> of Bookshelf
bookshop ::: n. --> A bookseller&
bookstall ::: n. --> A stall or stand where books are sold.
bookstand ::: n. --> A place or stand for the sale of books in the streets; a bookstall.
A stand to hold books for reading or reference.
bookstore ::: n. --> A store where books are kept for sale; -- called in England a bookseller&
bookwork ::: n. --> Work done upon a book or books (as in a printing office), in distinction from newspaper or job work.
Study; application to books.
bookworm ::: n. --> Any larva of a beetle or moth, which is injurious to books. Many species are known.
A student closely attached to books or addicted to study; a reader without appreciation.
booky ::: a. --> Bookish.
boolies ::: pl. --> of Booly
booly ::: n. --> A company of Irish herdsmen, or a single herdsman, wandering from place to place with flocks and herds, and living on their milk, like the Tartars; also, a place in the mountain pastures inclosed for the shelter of cattle or their keepers.
boomdas ::: n. --> A small African hyracoid mammal (Dendrohyrax arboreus) resembling the daman.
boomed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boom
boomerang ::: n. --> A very singular missile weapon used by the natives of Australia and in some parts of India. It is usually a curved stick of hard wood, from twenty to thirty inches in length, from two to three inches wide, and half or three quarters of an inch thick. When thrown from the hand with a quick rotary motion, it describes very remarkable curves, according to the shape of the instrument and the manner of throwing it, often moving nearly horizontally a long distance, then curving upward to a considerable height, and finally taking a
boomer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, booms.
A North American rodent, so named because it is said to make a booming noise. See Sewellel.
A large male kangaroo.
One who works up a "boom".
booming ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boom ::: a. --> Rushing with violence; swelling with a hollow sound; making a hollow sound or note; roaring; resounding.
Advancing or increasing amid noisy excitement; as, booming prices; booming popularity.
boomkin ::: n. --> Same as Bumkin.
boom ::: n. --> A long pole or spar, run out for the purpose of extending the bottom of a particular sail; as, the jib boom, the studding-sail boom, etc.
A long spar or beam, projecting from the mast of a derrick, from the outer end of which the body to be lifted is suspended.
A pole with a conspicuous top, set up to mark the channel in a river or harbor.
A strong chain cable, or line of spars bound together,
boomorah ::: n. --> A small West African chevrotain (Hyaemoschus aquaticus), resembling the musk deer.
boomslange ::: n. --> A large South African tree snake (Bucephalus Capensis). Although considered venomous by natives, it has no poison fangs.
boon ::: 1. A blessing; something to be thankful for. 2. A timely blessing or benefit received in response to a request or prayer. boons.
boon ::: n. --> A prayer or petition.
That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift; a benefaction; a grant; a present.
Good; prosperous; as, boon voyage.
Kind; bountiful; benign.
Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
The woody portion flax, which is separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.
boorish ::: a. --> Like a boor; clownish; uncultured; unmannerly.
boor ::: n. --> A husbandman; a peasant; a rustic; esp. a clownish or unrefined countryman.
A Dutch, German, or Russian peasant; esp. a Dutch colonist in South Africa, Guiana, etc.: a boer.
A rude ill-bred person; one who is clownish in manners.
boort ::: n. --> See Bort.
boose ::: n. --> A stall or a crib for an ox, cow, or other animal. ::: v. i. --> To drink excessively. See Booze.
booser ::: n. --> A toper; a guzzler. See Boozer.
boosted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boost
boosting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boost
boost ::: v. i. --> To lift or push from behind (one who is endeavoring to climb); to push up; hence, to assist in overcoming obstacles, or in making advancement. ::: n. --> A push from behind, as to one who is endeavoring to climb; help.
bootblack ::: n. --> One who blacks boots.
booted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Boot
of Boot ::: a. --> Wearing boots, especially boots with long tops, as for riding; as, a booted squire.
Having an undivided, horny, bootlike covering; -- said of
bootee ::: n. --> A half boot or short boot.
bootes ::: n. --> A northern constellation, containing the bright star Arcturus.
boothale ::: v. t. & i. --> To forage for booty; to plunder.
booth ::: n. --> A house or shed built of boards, boughs, or other slight materials, for temporary occupation.
A covered stall or temporary structure in a fair or market, or at a polling place.
boothose ::: n. --> Stocking hose, or spatterdashes, in lieu of boots.
Hose made to be worn with boots, as by travelers on horseback.
booths ::: partly enclosed compartments or partitioned areas.
boothy ::: n. --> See Bothy.
A wooden hut or humble cot, esp. a rude hut or barrack for unmarried farm servants; a shepherd&
bootikin ::: n. --> A little boot, legging, or gaiter.
A covering for the foot or hand, worn as a cure for the gout.
booting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Boot
of Boot ::: n. --> Advantage; gain; gain by plunder; booty.
A kind of torture. See Boot, n., 2.
A kicking, as with a booted foot.
bootjack ::: n. --> A device for pulling off boots.
bootless ::: a. --> Unavailing; unprofitable; useless; without advantage or success.
bootlick ::: n. --> A toady.
bootmaker ::: n. --> One who makes boots.
boot ::: n. --> Remedy; relief; amends; reparation; hence, one who brings relief.
That which is given to make an exchange equal, or to make up for the deficiency of value in one of the things exchanged.
Profit; gain; advantage; use.
A covering for the foot and lower part of the leg, ordinarily made of leather.
An instrument of torture for the leg, formerly used to extort
boots ::: n. --> A servant at a hotel or elsewhere, who cleans and blacks the boots and shoes.
boottopping ::: n. --> The act or process of daubing a vessel&
boottree ::: n. --> An instrument to stretch and widen the leg of a boot, consisting of two pieces, together shaped like a leg, between which, when put into the boot, a wedge is driven.
booty ::: n. --> That which is seized by violence or obtained by robbery, especially collective spoil taken in war; plunder; pillage.
boozed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Booze
boozer ::: n. --> One who boozes; a toper; a guzzler of alcoholic liquors; a bouser.
booze ::: v. i. --> To drink greedily or immoderately, esp. alcoholic liquor; to tipple. ::: n. --> A carouse; a drinking.
boozing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Booze
boozy ::: a. --> A little intoxicated; fuddled; stupid with liquor; bousy.
bedagat ::: n. --> The sacred books of the Buddhists in Burmah.
Being, Book of
benedictional ::: n. --> A book of benedictions.
bene ::: n. --> See Benne.
A prayer; boon.
Alt. of Ben
bethumb ::: v. t. --> To handle; to wear or soil by handling; as books.
bible ::: n. --> A book.
The Book by way of eminence, -- that is, the book which is made up of the writings accepted by Christians as of divine origin and authority, whether such writings be in the original language, or translated; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; -- sometimes in a restricted sense, the Old Testament; as, King James&
bibliographical ::: a. --> Pertaining to bibliography, or the history of books.
bibliography ::: n. --> A history or description of books and manuscripts, with notices of the different editions, the times when they were printed, etc.
bibliolatrist ::: n. --> A worshiper of books; especially, a worshiper of the Bible; a believer in its verbal inspiration.
bibliolatry ::: n. --> Book worship, esp. of the Bible; -- applied by Roman Catholic divines to the exaltation of the authority of the Bible over that of the pope or the church, and by Protestants to an excessive regard to the letter of the Scriptures.
bibliology ::: n. --> An account of books; book lore; bibliography.
The literature or doctrine of the Bible.
bibliomaniacal ::: a. --> Pertaining to a passion for books; relating to a bibliomaniac.
bibliomaniac ::: n. --> One who has a mania for books. ::: a. --> Relating to a bibliomaniac.
bibliomania ::: n. --> A mania for acquiring books.
bibliopegic ::: a. --> Relating to the binding of books.
bibliopegistic ::: a. --> Pertaining to the art of binding books.
bibliopegist ::: n. --> A bookbinder.
bibliopegy ::: n. --> The art of binding books.
bibliophile ::: n. --> A lover of books.
bibliophilism ::: n. --> Love of books.
bibliophilist ::: n. --> A lover of books.
bibliophobia ::: n. --> A dread of books.
bibliopolar ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the sale of books.
bibliopole ::: n. --> One who sells books.
bibliopolism ::: n. --> The trade or business of selling books.
bibliotaphist ::: n. --> One who hides away books, as in a tomb.
bill book ::: --> A book in which a person keeps an account of his notes, bills, bills of exchange, etc., thus showing all that he issues and receives.
bill ::: n. --> A beak, as of a bird, or sometimes of a turtle or other animal.
The bell, or boom, of the bittern
A cutting instrument, with hook-shaped point, and fitted with a handle; -- used in pruning, etc.; a billhook. When short, called a hand bill, when long, a hedge bill.
A weapon of infantry, in the 14th and 15th centuries. A common form of bill consisted of a broad, heavy, double-edged,
binder ::: n. --> One who binds; as, a binder of sheaves; one whose trade is to bind; as, a binder of books.
Anything that binds, as a fillet, cord, rope, or band; a bandage; -- esp. the principal piece of timber intended to bind together any building.
bindery ::: n. --> A place where books, or other articles, are bound; a bookbinder&
binding ::: n. **1. The covering within which the pages of a book are abound. adj. 2.* Fig.* Commanding adherence to a commitment, obligatory.
bipontine ::: a. --> Relating to books printed at Deuxponts, or Bipontium (Zweibrucken), in Bavaria.
blackball ::: n. --> A composition for blacking shoes, boots, etc.; also, one for taking impressions of engraved work.
A ball of black color, esp. one used as a negative in voting; -- in this sense usually two words. ::: v. t. --> To vote against, by putting a black ball into a
black book ::: --> One of several books of a political character, published at different times and for different purposes; -- so called either from the color of the binding, or from the character of the contents.
A book compiled in the twelfth century, containing a description of the court of exchequer of England, an official statement of the revenues of the crown, etc.
A book containing details of the enormities practiced in the English monasteries and religious houses, compiled by order of
blacking ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Black ::: n. --> Any preparation for making things black; esp. one for giving a black luster to boots and shoes, or to stoves.
The act or process of making black.
black-letter ::: a. --> Written or printed in black letter; as, a black-letter manuscript or book.
Given to the study of books in black letter; that is, of old books; out of date.
Of or pertaining to the days in the calendar not marked with red letters as saints&
black letter ::: --> The old English or Gothic letter, in which the Early English manuscripts were written, and the first English books were printed. It was conspicuous for its blackness. See Type.
blasphemous ::: a. --> Speaking or writing blasphemy; uttering or exhibiting anything impiously irreverent; profane; as, a blasphemous person; containing blasphemy; as, a blasphemous book; a blasphemous caricature.
blessing ::: 1. Something promoting or contributing to happiness, well-being, or prosperity; a boon. 2. A ceremonial prayer invoking divine protection, grace, etc.
Bliss, the Book of
block book ::: --> A book printed from engraved wooden blocks instead of movable types.
blotter ::: n. --> One who, or that which, blots; esp. a device for absorbing superfluous ink.
A wastebook, in which entries of transactions are made as they take place.
blucher ::: n. --> A kind of half boot, named from the Prussian general Blucher.
blue book ::: --> A parliamentary publication, so called from its blue paper covers.
The United States official "Biennial Register."
bockland ::: n. --> See Bookland.
Charter land held by deed under certain rents and free services, which differed in nothing from free socage lands. This species of tenure has given rise to the modern freeholds.
bolye ::: n. --> Same as Booly.
bombilation ::: n. --> A humming sound; a booming.
bombinate ::: v. i. --> To hum; to boom.
Book I, Canto III
Book, sacred
Book ; Some kind of knowledge.
Book V, Canto III
BOOK vide Symbol
botanical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to botany; relating to the study of plants; as, a botanical system, arrangement, textbook, expedition.
botany ::: a. & n. --> The science which treats of the structure of plants, the functions of their parts, their places of growth, their classification, and the terms which are employed in their description and denomination. See Plant.
A book which treats of the science of botany.
boteless ::: a. --> Unavailing; in vain. See Bootless.
bothy ::: n. --> Alt. of Boothy
bottine ::: n. --> A small boot; a lady&
bouser ::: n. --> A toper; a boozer.
bouse ::: v. i. --> To drink immoderately; to carouse; to booze. See Booze. ::: n. --> Drink, esp. alcoholic drink; also, a carouse; a booze.
bousy ::: a. --> Drunken; sotted; boozy.
bowse ::: v. i. --> To carouse; to bouse; to booze.
To pull or haul; as, to bowse upon a tack; to bowse away, i. e., to pull all together. ::: n. --> A carouse; a drinking bout; a booze.
bowsprit ::: n. --> A large boom or spar, which projects over the stem of a ship or other vessel, to carry sail forward.
brawner ::: n. --> A boor killed for the table.
breviary ::: n. --> An abridgment; a compend; an epitome; a brief account or summary.
A book containing the daily public or canonical prayers of the Roman Catholic or of the Greek Church for the seven canonical hours, namely, matins and lauds, the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours, vespers, and compline; -- distinguished from the missal.
bride ::: Madhav: “The Bride is God as manifest in the world.” The Book of the Divine Mother
brigandish ::: a. --> Like a brigand or freebooter; robberlike.
brigand ::: n. --> A light-armed, irregular foot soldier.
A lawless fellow who lives by plunder; one of a band of robbers; especially, one of a gang living in mountain retreats; a highwayman; a freebooter.
brochure ::: v. t. --> A printed and stitched book containing only a few leaves; a pamphlet.
brodekin ::: n. --> A buskin or half-boot.
bugaboo ::: n. --> Alt. of Bugbear
bugbear ::: n. --> Something frightful, as a specter; anything imaginary that causes needless fright; something used to excite needless fear; also, something really dangerous, used to frighten children, etc.
Same as Bugaboo. ::: a. --> Causing needless fright.
buke muslin ::: --> See Book muslin.
bull brier ::: --> A species of Smilax (S. Pseudo-China) growing from New Jersey to the Gulf of Mexico, which has very large tuberous and farinaceous rootstocks, formerly used by the Indians for a sort of bread, and by the negroes as an ingredient in making beer; -- called also bamboo brier and China brier.
bumkin ::: n. --> A projecting beam or boom; as: (a) One projecting from each bow of a vessel, to haul the fore tack to, called a tack bumpkin. (b) One from each quarter, for the main-brace blocks, and called brace bumpkin. (c) A small outrigger over the stern of a boat, to extend the mizzen.
bump ::: v. t. --> To strike, as with or against anything large or solid; to thump; as, to bump the head against a wall. ::: v. i. --> To come in violent contact with something; to thump.
To make a loud, heavy, or hollow noise, as the bittern; to boom.
burnished ::: Madhav: “Burnished—repeatedly polished so that it shines by itself; it looks a blue seal of summer.” The Book of the Divine Mother
caboodle ::: n. --> The whole collection; the entire quantity or number; -- usually in the phrase the whole caboodle.
caboose ::: n. --> A house on deck, where the cooking is done; -- commonly called the galley.
A car used on freight or construction trains for brakemen, workmen, etc.; a tool car.
calaboose ::: n. --> A prison; a jail.
calf ::: n. --> The young of the cow, or of the Bovine family of quadrupeds. Also, the young of some other mammals, as of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and whale.
Leather made of the skin of the calf; especially, a fine, light-colored leather used in bookbinding; as, to bind books in calf.
An awkward or silly boy or young man; any silly person; a dolt.
A small island near a larger; as, the Calf of Man.
camboose ::: n. --> See Caboose.
cane ::: n. --> A name given to several peculiar palms, species of Calamus and Daemanorops, having very long, smooth flexible stems, commonly called rattans.
Any plant with long, hard, elastic stems, as reeds and bamboos of many kinds; also, the sugar cane.
Stems of other plants are sometimes called canes; as, the canes of a raspberry.
A walking stick; a staff; -- so called because originally
cannonade ::: n. --> The act of discharging cannon and throwing ball, shell, etc., for the purpose of destroying an army, or battering a town, ship, or fort; -- usually, an attack of some continuance.
Fig.; A loud noise like a cannonade; a booming. ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Cannonade
canon ::: n. --> A law or rule.
A law, or rule of doctrine or discipline, enacted by a council and confirmed by the pope or the sovereign; a decision, regulation, code, or constitution made by ecclesiastical authority.
The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration; the Bible; also, any one of the canonical Scriptures. See Canonical books, under Canonical, a.
canticle ::: n. --> A song; esp. a little song or hymn.
The Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, one of the books of the Old Testament.
A canto or division of a poem
A psalm, hymn, or passage from the Bible, arranged for chanting in church service.
canto ::: n. --> One of the chief divisions of a long poem; a book.
The highest vocal part; the air or melody in choral music; anciently the tenor, now the soprano.
carlot ::: n. --> A churl; a boor; a peasant or countryman.
carolina pink ::: --> See Pinkboot.
carriboo ::: n. --> See Caribou.
carry ::: v. t. --> To convey or transport in any manner from one place to another; to bear; -- often with away or off.
To have or hold as a burden, while moving from place to place; to have upon or about one&
case ::: n. --> A box, sheath, or covering; as, a case for holding goods; a case for spectacles; the case of a watch; the case (capsule) of a cartridge; a case (cover) for a book.
A box and its contents; the quantity contained in a box; as, a case of goods; a case of instruments.
A shallow tray divided into compartments or "boxes" for holding type.
An inclosing frame; a casing; as, a door case; a window case.
cashbook ::: n. --> A book in which is kept a register of money received or paid out.
casket ::: n. --> A small chest or box, esp. of rich material or ornamental character, as for jewels, etc.
A kind of burial case.
Anything containing or intended to contain something highly esteemed
The body.
The tomb.
A book of selections.
catalogue ::: n. --> A list or enumeration of names, or articles arranged methodically, often in alphabetical order; as, a catalogue of the students of a college, or of books, or of the stars. ::: v. t. --> To make a list or catalogue; to insert in a catalogue.
catboat ::: n. --> A small sailboat, with a single mast placed as far forward as possible, carring a sail extended by a gaff and long boom. See Illustration in Appendix.
catchpenny ::: a. --> Made or contrived for getting small sums of money from the ignorant or unwary; as, a catchpenny book; a catchpenny show. ::: n. --> Some worthless catchpenny thing.
catchword ::: n. --> Among theatrical performers, the last word of the preceding speaker, which reminds one that he is to speak next; cue.
The first word of any page of a book after the first, inserted at the right hand bottom corner of the preceding page for the assistance of the reader. It is seldom used in modern printing.
A word or phrase caught up and repeated for effect; as, the catchword of a political party, etc.
catechism ::: n. --> A form of instruction by means of questions and answers.
A book containing a summary of principles, especially of religious doctrine, reduced to the form of questions and answers.
caxton ::: n. --> Any book printed by William Caxton, the first English printer.
chacma ::: n. --> A large species of African baboon (Cynocephalus porcarius); -- called also ursine baboon. [See Illust. of Baboon.]
chapbook ::: n. --> Any small book carried about for sale by chapmen or hawkers. Hence, any small book; a toy book.
chapter ::: an important portion or division of anything, esp. of a book, treatise, or other literary work. chapter"s, Chapters.
chapter ::: n. --> A division of a book or treatise; as, Genesis has fifty chapters.
An assembly of monks, or of the prebends and other clergymen connected with a cathedral, conventual, or collegiate church, or of a diocese, usually presided over by the dean.
A community of canons or canonesses.
A bishop&
charta ::: n. --> Material on which instruments, books, etc., are written; parchment or paper.
A charter or deed; a writing by which a grant is made. See Magna Charta.
chelifer ::: n. --> See Book scorpion, under Book.
chronicle ::: n. --> An historical register or account of facts or events disposed in the order of time.
A narrative of events; a history; a record.
The two canonical books of the Old Testament in which immediately follow 2 Kings. ::: v. t.
churl ::: n. --> A rustic; a countryman or laborer.
A rough, surly, ill-bred man; a boor.
A selfish miser; an illiberal person; a niggard. ::: a. --> Churlish; rough; selfish.
citation ::: n. --> An official summons or notice given to a person to appear; the paper containing such summons or notice.
The act of citing a passage from a book, or from another person, in his own words; also, the passage or words quoted; quotation.
Enumeration; mention; as, a citation of facts.
A reference to decided cases, or books of authority, to prove a point in law.
cite ::: v. t. --> To call upon officially or authoritatively to appear, as before a court; to summon.
To urge; to enjoin.
To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another.
To refer to or specify, as for support, proof, illustration, or confirmation.
To bespeak; to indicate.
clamper ::: n. --> An instrument of iron, with sharp prongs, attached to a boot or shoe to enable the wearer to walk securely upon ice; a creeper.
cloddish ::: a. --> Resembling clods; gross; low; stupid; boorish.
clodhopping ::: a. --> Boorish; rude.
closer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, closes; specifically, a boot closer. See under Boot.
A finisher; that which finishes or terminates.
The last stone in a horizontal course, if of a less size than the others, or a piece of brick finishing a course.
clown ::: n. --> A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an ill-bred person; a boor.
One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl.
The fool or buffoon in a play, circus, etc. ::: v. i. --> To act as a clown; -- with it.
coboose ::: n. --> See Caboose.
codex ::: n. --> A book; a manuscript.
A collection or digest of laws; a code.
An ancient manuscript of the Sacred Scriptures, or any part of them, particularly the New Testament.
A collection of canons.
collate ::: v. t. --> To compare critically, as books or manuscripts, in order to note the points of agreement or disagreement.
To gather and place in order, as the sheets of a book for binding.
To present and institute in a benefice, when the person presenting is both the patron and the ordinary; -- followed by to.
To bestow or confer.
collationer ::: n. --> One who examines the sheets of a book that has just been printed, to ascertain whether they are correctly printed, paged, etc.
collation ::: v. t. --> The act of collating or comparing; a comparison of one copy er thing (as of a book, or manuscript) with another of a like kind; comparison, in general.
The gathering and examination of sheets preparatory to binding.
The act of conferring or bestowing.
A conference.
The presentation of a clergyman to a benefice by a
collator ::: n. --> One who collates manuscripts, books, etc.
One who collates to a benefice.
One who confers any benefit.
collector ::: n. --> One who collects things which are separate; esp., one who makes a business or practice of collecting works of art, objects in natural history, etc.; as, a collector of coins.
A compiler of books; one who collects scattered passages and puts them together in one book.
An officer appointed and commissioned to collect and receive customs, duties, taxes, or toll.
One authorized to collect debts.
colophon ::: n. --> An inscription, monogram, or cipher, containing the place and date of publication, printer&
colportage ::: n. --> The distribution of religious books, tracts, etc., by colporteurs.
colporteur ::: n. --> A hawker; specifically, one who travels about selling and distributing religious tracts and books.
commentary ::: v. i. --> A series of comments or annotations; esp., a book of explanations or expositions on the whole or a part of the Scriptures or of some other work.
A brief account of transactions or events written hastily, as if for a memorandum; -- usually in the plural; as, Caesar&
common ::: v. --> Belonging or relating equally, or similarly, to more than one; as, you and I have a common interest in the property.
Belonging to or shared by, affecting or serving, all the members of a class, considered together; general; public; as, properties common to all plants; the common schools; the Book of Common Prayer.
Often met with; usual; frequent; customary.
Not distinguished or exceptional; inconspicuous; ordinary;
compilation ::: n. --> The act or process of compiling or gathering together from various sources.
That which is compiled; especially, a book or document composed of materials gathering from other books or documents.
compiler ::: n. --> One who compiles; esp., one who makes books by compilation.
compile ::: v. t. --> To put together; to construct; to build.
To contain or comprise.
To put together in a new form out of materials already existing; esp., to put together or compose out of materials from other books or documents.
To write; to compose.
comprint ::: v. t. & i. --> To print together.
To print surreptitiously a work belonging to another. ::: n. --> The surreptitious printing of another&
concession ::: n. --> The act of conceding or yielding; usually implying a demand, claim, or request, and thus distinguished from giving, which is voluntary or spontaneous.
A thing yielded; an acknowledgment or admission; a boon; a grant; esp. a grant by government of a privilege or right to do something; as, a concession to build a canal.
concordance ::: n. --> Agreement; accordance.
Concord; agreement.
An alphabetical verbal index showing the places in the text of a book where each principal word may be found, with its immediate context in each place.
A topical index or orderly analysis of the contents of a book.
control ::: n. --> A duplicate book, register, or account, kept to correct or check another account or register; a counter register.
That which serves to check, restrain, or hinder; restraint.
Power or authority to check or restrain; restraining or regulating influence; superintendence; government; as, children should be under parental control.
cookbook ::: n. --> A book of directions and receipts for cooking; a cookery book.
cookroom ::: n. --> A room for cookery; a kitchen; the galley or caboose of a ship.
copy-book ::: a book containing models, usually of penmanship, for learners to imitate. Hence adj. commonplace; stereotyped.
copy ::: n. --> An abundance or plenty of anything.
An imitation, transcript, or reproduction of an original work; as, a copy of a letter, an engraving, a painting, or a statue.
An individual book, or a single set of books containing the works of an author; as, a copy of the Bible; a copy of the works of Addison.
That which is to be imitated, transcribed, or reproduced; a pattern, model, or example; as, his virtues are an excellent copy for
copyright ::: n. --> The right of an author or his assignee, under statute, to print and publish his literary or artistic work, exclusively of all other persons. This right may be had in maps, charts, engravings, plays, and musical compositions, as well as in books. ::: v. t. --> To secure a copyright on.
coronis ::: n. --> In Greek grammar, a sign [&
corsair ::: n. --> A pirate; one who cruises about without authorization from any government, to seize booty on sea or land.
A piratical vessel.
coucher ::: n. --> One who couches.
One who couches paper.
A factor or agent resident in a country for traffic.
The book in which a corporation or other body registers its particular acts.
countercaster ::: n. --> A caster of accounts; a reckoner; a bookkeeper; -- used contemptuously.
countingroom ::: v. --> The house or room in which a merchant, trader, or manufacturer keeps his books and transacts business.
cracowes ::: n. pl. --> Long-toed boots or shoes formerly worn in many parts of Europe; -- so called from Cracow, in Poland, where they were first worn in the fourteenth century.
cramp ::: n. --> That which confines or contracts; a restraint; a shackle; a hindrance.
A device, usually of iron bent at the ends, used to hold together blocks of stone, timbers, etc.; a cramp iron.
A rectangular frame, with a tightening screw, used for compressing the joints of framework, etc.
A piece of wood having a curve corresponding to that of the upper part of the instep, on which the upper leather of a boot is
crimper ::: n. --> One who, or that which, crimps
A curved board or frame over which the upper of a boot or shoe is stretched to the required shape.
A device for giving hair a wavy appearance.
A machine for crimping or ruffling textile fabrics.
crotch ::: n. --> The angle formed by the parting of two legs or branches; a fork; the point where a trunk divides; as, the crotch of a tree.
A stanchion or post of wood or iron, with two arms for supporting a boom, spare yards, etc.; -- called also crane and crutch.
culm ::: n. --> The stalk or stem of grain and grasses (including the bamboo), jointed and usually hollow.
Mineral coal that is not bituminous; anthracite, especially when found in small masses.
The waste of the Pennsylvania anthracite mines, consisting of fine coal, dust, etc., and used as fuel.
cunabula ::: n. pl. --> The earliest abode; original dwelling place; originals; as, the cunabula of the human race.
The extant copies of the first or earliest printed books, or of such as were printed in the 15th century.
daybook ::: n. --> A journal of accounts; a primary record book in which are recorded the debts and credits, or accounts of the day, in their order, and from which they are transferred to the journal.
Day ::: Madhav: “Day is luminous consciousness and night is obscure consciousness.” The Book of the Divine Mother
decadist ::: n. --> A writer of a book divided into decades; as, Livy was a decadist.
decimosexto ::: n. --> A book consisting of sheets, each of which is folded into sixteen leaves; hence, indicating, more or less definitely, a size of book; -- usually written 16mo or 16¡. ::: a. --> Having sixteen leaves to a sheet; as, a decimosexto form, book, leaf, size.
dedication ::: n. --> The act of setting apart or consecrating to a divine Being, or to a sacred use, often with religious solemnities; solemn appropriation; as, the dedication of Solomon&
dedicator ::: n. --> One who dedicates; more especially, one who inscribes a book to the favor of a patron, or to one whom he desires to compliment.
deep-read ::: a. --> Profoundly book- learned.
deistical ::: a. --> Pertaining to, savoring of, or consisting in, deism; as, a deistic writer; a deistical book.
delectus ::: n. --> A name given to an elementary book for learners of Latin or Greek.
demy ::: n. --> A printing and a writing paper of particular sizes. See under Paper.
A half fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or made of, the size of paper called demy; as, a demy book.
desk ::: n. --> A table, frame, or case, usually with sloping top, but often with flat top, for the use writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.
A reading table or lectern to support the book from which the liturgical service is read, differing from the pulpit from which the sermon is preached; also (esp. in the United States), a pulpit. Hence, used symbolically for "the clerical profession."
detur ::: n. --> A present of books given to a meritorious undergraduate student as a prize.
deuteronomy ::: n. --> The fifth book of the Pentateuch, containing the second giving of the law by Moses.
diary ::: n. --> A register of daily events or transactions; a daily record; a journal; a blank book dated for the record of daily memoranda; as, a diary of the weather; a physician&
diatessaron ::: n. --> The interval of a fourth.
A continuous narrative arranged from the first four books of the New Testament.
An electuary compounded of four medicines.
dictionary ::: n. --> A book containing the words of a language, arranged alphabetically, with explanations of their meanings; a lexicon; a vocabulary; a wordbook.
Hence, a book containing the words belonging to any system or province of knowledge, arranged alphabetically; as, a dictionary of medicine or of botany; a biographical dictionary.
Dionysion ::: Madhav: “Dionysian, belonging to the god of wine, the wine that is intoxicating joy; as if one had drunk from the cup of the god of wine.” The Book of the Divine Mother
directory ::: a. --> Containing directions; enjoining; instructing; directorial. ::: n. --> A collection or body of directions, rules, or ordinances; esp., a book of directions for the conduct of worship; as, the Directory used by the nonconformists instead of the Prayer Book.
disorderly ::: a. --> Not in order; marked by disorder; disarranged; immethodical; as, the books and papers are in a disorderly state.
Not acting in an orderly way, as the functions of the body or mind.
Not complying with the restraints of order and law; tumultuous; unruly; lawless; turbulent; as, disorderly people; disorderly assemblies.
Offensive to good morals and public decency;
dispensatory ::: v. t. --> Granting, or authorized to grant, dispensations. ::: n. --> A book or medicinal formulary containing a systematic description of drugs, and of preparations made from them. It is usually, but not always, distinguished from a pharmacop/ia in that it issued by private parties, and not by an official body or by
displace ::: v. t. --> To change the place of; to remove from the usual or proper place; to put out of place; to place in another situation; as, the books in the library are all displaced.
To crowd out; to take the place of.
To remove from a state, office, dignity, or employment; to discharge; to depose; as, to displace an officer of the revenue.
To dislodge; to drive away; to banish.
ditto ::: n. --> The aforesaid thing; the same (as before). Often contracted to do., or to two "turned commas" ("), or small marks. Used in bills, books of account, tables of names, etc., to save repetition. ::: adv. --> As before, or aforesaid; in the same manner; also.
divan ::: n. --> A book; esp., a collection of poems written by one author; as, the divan of Hafiz.
In Turkey and other Oriental countries: A council of state; a royal court. Also used by the poets for a grand deliberative council or assembly.
A chief officer of state.
A saloon or hall where a council is held, in Oriental countries, the state reception room in places, and in the houses of the
docket ::: n. --> A small piece of paper or parchment, containing the heads of a writing; a summary or digest.
A bill tied to goods, containing some direction, as the name of the owner, or the place to which they are to be sent; a label.
An abridged entry of a judgment or proceeding in an action, or register or such entries; a book of original, kept by clerks of courts, containing a formal list of the names of parties, and minutes of the proceedings, in each case in court.
document ::: n. --> That which is taught or authoritatively set forth; precept; instruction; dogma.
An example for instruction or warning.
An original or official paper relied upon as the basis, proof, or support of anything else; -- in its most extended sense, including any writing, book, or other instrument conveying information in the case; any material substance on which the thoughts of men are represented by any species of conventional mark or symbol.
dog-eared ::: a. --> Having the corners of the leaves turned down and soiled by careless or long-continued usage; -- said of a book.
dog-headed ::: a. --> Having a head shaped like that of a dog; -- said of certain baboons.
domebook ::: n. --> A book said to have been compiled under the direction of King Alfred. It is supposed to have contained the principal maxims of the common law, the penalties for misdemeanors, and the forms of judicial proceedings. Domebook was probably a general name for book of judgments.
dorse ::: n. --> Same as dorsal, n.
The back of a book.
The Baltic or variable cod (Gadus callarias), by some believed to be the young of the common codfish.
dunce ::: n. --> One backward in book learning; a child or other person dull or weak in intellect; a dullard; a dolt.
duodecimo ::: a. --> Having twelve leaves to a sheet; as, a duodecimo from, book, leaf, size, etc. ::: n. --> A book consisting of sheets each of which is folded into twelve leaves; hence, indicating, more or less definitely, a size of a book; -- usually written 12mo or 12¡.
ecclesiastes ::: a. --> One of the canonical books of the Old Testament.
ecclesiasticus ::: n. --> A book of the Apocrypha.
ecclesiast ::: n. --> An ecclesiastic.
The Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus.
edda ::: n. --> The religious or mythological book of the old Scandinavian tribes of German origin, containing two collections of Sagas (legends, myths) of the old northern gods and heroes.
editor ::: n. --> One who edits; esp., a person who prepares, superintends, revises, and corrects a book, magazine, or newspaper, etc., for publication.
effectless ::: a. --> Without effect or advantage; useless; bootless.
ego ::: [Madhav: “Ego is the point of concentration that involves us in the rounds of life.” The Book of the Divine Mother]
electrotype ::: n. --> A facsimile plate made by electrotypy for use in printing; also, an impression or print from such plate. Also used adjectively. ::: v. t. --> To make facsimile plates of by the electrotype process; as, to electrotype a page of type, a book, etc. See
elzevir ::: a. --> Applied to books or editions (esp. of the Greek New Testament and the classics) printed and published by the Elzevir family at Amsterdam, Leyden, etc., from about 1592 to 1680; also, applied to a round open type introduced by them.
embellish ::: v. t. --> To make beautiful or elegant by ornaments; to decorate; to adorn; as, to embellish a book with pictures, a garden with shrubs and flowers, a narrative with striking anecdotes, or style with metaphors.
emendation ::: n. --> The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement.
Alteration by editorial criticism, as of a text so as to give a better reading; removal of errors or corruptions from a document; as, the book might be improved by judicious emendations.
enamor ::: v. t. --> To inflame with love; to charm; to captivate; -- with of, or with, before the person or thing; as, to be enamored with a lady; to be enamored of books or science.
enchiridion ::: n. --> Handbook; a manual of devotions.
encyclopaedia ::: a book or set of books containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject.
enlimn ::: v. t. --> To adorn by illuminating or ornamenting with colored and decorated letters and figures, as a book or manuscript.
enshrine ::: Madhav: “To enshrine—to give a sanctified home to …” The Book of the Divine Mother
enter ::: v. t. --> To come or go into; to pass into the interior of; to pass within the outer cover or shell of; to penetrate; to pierce; as, to enter a house, a closet, a country, a door, etc.; the river enters the sea.
To unite in; to join; to be admitted to; to become a member of; as, to enter an association, a college, an army.
To engage in; to become occupied with; as, to enter the legal profession, the book trade, etc.
entitle ::: v. t. --> To give a title to; to affix to as a name or appellation; hence, also, to dignify by an honorary designation; to denominate; to call; as, to entitle a book "Commentaries;" to entitle a man "Honorable."
To give a claim to; to qualify for, with a direct object of the person, and a remote object of the thing; to furnish with grounds for seeking or claiming with success; as, an officer&
envoy ::: n. --> One dispatched upon an errand or mission; a messenger; esp., a person deputed by a sovereign or a government to negotiate a treaty, or transact other business, with a foreign sovereign or government; a minister accredited to a foreign government. An envoy&
epiphanies ::: Madhav: “Epiphanies are new manifestations, new revelations.” The Book of the Divine Mother
erebus ::: n. --> A place of nether darkness, being the gloomy space through which the souls passed to Hades. See Milton&
euchology ::: n. --> A formulary of prayers; the book of offices in the Greek Church, containing the liturgy, sacraments, and forms of prayers.
eudaemonised ::: Madhav: “To eudaemonise is to bestow happiness or felicity through an informal internal action on the spirit of a thing.” The Book of the Divine Mother
excellent ::: a. --> Excelling; surpassing others in some good quality or the sum of qualities; of great worth; eminent, in a good sense; superior; as, an excellent man, artist, citizen, husband, discourse, book, song, etc.; excellent breeding, principles, aims, action.
Superior in kind or degree, irrespective of moral quality; -- used with words of a bad significance. ::: adv.
Grace ::: Madhav: “Grace is that special movement of the Divine Consciousness, which enables us to live, to move.” The Book of the Divine Mother
He must live in his o^v^ soul beyond the written Truth. For he is not the sadhaka of a book or of many books ; he is a sadhaka of the Infinite.
Here, the living divine person in Aswapathy, finding earth too trifling, exceeds it and grows larger and larger, higher and higher, to encompass the unconquered worlds above.” The Book of the Divine Mother
http://savitri.in/books/narad-richard-eggenberger/lexicon-of-an-infinite-mind
"I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights, — yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,—yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
Inane ::: Madhav: “Inane is a vast, nebulous something, which has no character.” The Book of the Divine Mother
In Book II, Canto II, ‘a golden artifice’
In Book V, Canto I, Sri Aurobindo speaks of man…
inconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscient and the Ignorance may be mere empty abstractions and can be dismissed as irrelevant jargon if one has not come in collision with them or plunged into their dark and bottomless reality. But to me they are realities, concrete powers whose resistance is present everywhere and at all times in its tremendous and boundless mass.” *Letters on Savitri
". . . in its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in Itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities, something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. It is this that we see at the basis of the material world and speak of nowadays as the Inconscient — the Inconscient Ocean of the Rigveda in which the One was hidden and arose in the form of this universe — or, as it is sometimes called, the non-being, Asat.” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it — ‘an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force".” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient is the last resort of the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
"The body, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga :::
"The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of strivings without ultimate issue or the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the superconscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal.” The Life Divine
"Men have not learnt yet to recognise the Inconscient on which the whole material world they see is built, or the Ignorance of which their whole nature including their knowledge is built; they think that these words are only abstract metaphysical jargon flung about by the philosophers in their clouds or laboured out in long and wearisome books like The Life Divine. Letters on Savitri :::
"Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone" but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone". One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don"t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
**inconscient, Inconscient"s.**
inly ::: The child remembering inly a far home Madhav: “The child remembers inly, not in outer memory; mark the word inly, a typically Sri Aurobindo expression. The child remembers somewhere deep inside, its ‘far home’, her home is there far above.” The Book of the Divine Mother
In Savitri, Book II, Canto V, we find these lines:*
intelligence ::: “Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand, a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book-knowledge by itself is not the real thing, it has to be used as a help to the intelligence but it is often only a help to stupidity or ignorance—ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance.” Letters on Yoga
::: "I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated.” Letters on Yoga
“I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated.” Letters on Yoga
Jhumur: “The Book of bliss is really the ultimate Satchitananda, the everlasting day when one has moved out of all contact with the unconscious and lives no longer in between sunlight and darkness but wholly in the light, wholly in the Divine. There was once a question that somebody asked Mother when She used to take our classes. She (the person) said that in our world there is a change from lesser to greater if one tries to progress. It is a constant change. When one enters the higher plane, the upper hemisphere as you call it, will there be no change, will it always be the same? Mother said,”No, it is not that. One perfection can then be manifested later in another kind of perfection.” There is a variety of different laws of perfection, hence the myriad volumes of the Book of Bliss. Delight has so many modes of expression, perfection or delight, they are all the same and there is not just one way of manifesting the Divine. There are infinite modes of expression of that delight.”
Jhumur: “Throughout Savitri I have noticed all the different times of the day and the position of the sun in relation to the earth. It runs through the book, the symbol dawn, night, not only that but there are different states of illumination, awakening of the consciousness progressively. Sometimes it falls into the darkness, sometimes twilight when one is caught between two states, and at the end it is the everlasting day. So the kingdoms of the rising sun represent states of being where the light is the most important. Mother always says that the sun is the symbol of the supreme truth, the supreme, the supreme wisdom. It is the world where the supreme truth and supreme wisdom rule, govern. Whereas In many other worlds this light gets covered, it gets clouded over but here there are the kingdoms of the rising sun because they are the godheads of the mind and the mind is an instrument of light. But it is a small early instrument, little mind, so it is just rising, it hasn’t come to its full glory. The kingdoms are the planes of consciousness where you have a little light, a little clarity, a little illumination. That is how I understand the main function of the mind, to seek for light. It is an instrument for seeking light although it often dodges light where the perversity comes in.”
key-book ::: a book or other text containing the system or explanatory scheme for the interpretation of a cipher, code, or other composition of hidden or veiled meaning.
leaf ::: 1. A usually green, flattened, lateral structure attached to a stem and functioning as a principle organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in most plants. 2. A page of a book or manuscript. lotus-leaf. (See also gold-leaf.)
Madhav: “A Demiurge is a secondary creator. If God is the creator, then he has many assistants, the various gods; they are the Demiurges.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aeonic field, a field that has been there, cultivated and trodden across ages and ages, cycles of time, and Aswapathy represents the eternal seeker.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “A kakemono is a Japanese painting which is hung on the wall. It is a print in many colours, many designs. And this world picture is compared to a kakemono of significant forms. Each form is significant, each line is meaningful.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Alchemy is changing base metal into gold. So heaven experiments in changing this creature called man into a godhead. And this experiment is done on the base of nature, earth.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “All around is space, infinite space and in it is the Divine consciousness, the Divine concentration of consciousness, which is the ‘mystic heart’ of the world. The earth [She] is in communion with that ‘mystic heart’.” The Book of the Divine Mother`
Madhav: “Ambassadors, because they bring a message from the unseen empire of God.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Ancient Mother is the earth-mother.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “An oracle, as you know, is the speech of prophecy, usually by an inspired priest. It is a supernatural prophecy made through any agent. But this oracle will be tongueless to broadcast it, everybody will know this oracle without its being uttered through a tongue.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy in the epic is the representative of the aspiring humanity who prepares and lays the path to the Divine Glory.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy in the epic is the—representative of the aspiring humanity who prepares and—lays the path to the Divine Glory.”—The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy is in the mid-world. He is neither in the nether realms of struggle and obscurity nor in the brighter worlds above of power and rapture. He is in realms of Beauty that point to still happier altitudes. The Birds of Wonder are the marvellous beings of that region, the angels, who call upon the higher worlds of Light to manifest in their world.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy: Life is symbolised by Horse, aswa in the old tradition of the Vedas. The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy participates in the luminous manifestation of Inspiration, Revelation and Intuition on his way to the heights of the Overmind.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy steps into a veritable wonderland of the Glory of God. The Glory is pictured as a huge Bird whose wings are brooding over the new creation to come. Just as a hen broods over its egg, these Wings enfold and incubate the new truth in the offing.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Dissident—one who does not accept the discipline, the order of things that is being imposed. Some part or some element may be there, however minute, however small and thin which may not conform and it might escape.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Each of the seven worlds—the earths—were seen in their innate immortal nature. The principle of Sat-Chit-Ananda is embedded in each of them.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Eidolon is an unsubstantial figure. The name we give is only such an unsubstantial label. The secret is not touched. Gold is to indicate that though the name as such may appear to be unsubstantial, there is some truth in it.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Flood of thoughts, they are asking answers to their questions.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Gropes means moves without direction, searching for direction; our desires, our passions, our intensities search for this fulfilment in her [the Mother].” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Here is the Mother of all the Gods and all the Powers; she is the mediatrix, standing between the Supreme above and the earth below and firmly linking the earth to the Supreme.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Her [Savitri’s] hair is imaged as a cloud-net, net of clouds, in which delight shall sleep, …” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “He uses the word moon as a verb here. That is, the whole being, her entire body looks like a moon responding to the waves and seas of bliss.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “In the tantric symbology all the centres are represented as lotuses hanging downwards; as the kundalini [‘the yogic force asleep in the Muladhara and covered up in the other centres by the ordinary consciousness’—Sri Aurobindo] touches them they bloom upwards.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “It is what is described in the Upanishads as prajna-chakshu, the eye of Wisdom. And in the very act of regarding, the very act of the look, it supports. That regard itself is the sanction without which the movement would come to a standstill.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Mark the expression ‘formless Form’. It is a form and yet it is formless; one can feel that there is something, but there is no outline that we associate with form.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Mark the words—‘actor Will’. We think our will is our own, but actually our will is only playing out something which has been determined for it by someone or somebody else. This is true not only of our individual will but also of the Cosmic Will. This will now becomes ineffective and comes to a halt.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Moment is the sequence of Time. Each moment records what is happening at that point. It relates to the present. The Ray of the Eternal interrupts the movement of Time for a while and lights up things that are not yet manifest. It gives a peep into the future. The Ray of the Eternal is able to do it because the future is already present in the vision of the Eternal.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Morning star, the star before the morning of new creation.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Note the capital E. The Event to be is the manifestation to come, the next cycle in creation, symbolised by the Dawn.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Parent-sun, her spirit is always conscious of its source above, the sun of truth, the sun of divine joy.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Pen means to constrict. Do not limit thy force to earthly boundaries. There are regions beyond the earth. So extend that.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Pronunciamento is a proclamation issued by the revolutionaries; whenever there is a revolution, they declare their objectives and these are called pronunciamentos. They then fill the sky with their noise.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Purple rim is the border of the sun. So around the red border, the earth moves in ceaseless, uninterrupted motion.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Red Wolf is the hungry devourer, Killer-Desire, waiting for its prey on the banks of the river of life at a spot where the traveller cannot cross over, the waters being too deep.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Rose, here, signifies Divine Love. It is deathless because it is immortal. They are realms of pure Love. Read Sri Aurobindo in his sonnet, Light: . . . in my heart where blooms deathless rose.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Seed-self is the divine consciousness….” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: Serpent signifies seething energy with a consciousness proper to its order. There is the serpent of the material zone, serpent of the vital and so on. And this consciousness is the Power of Evolution. This Power of Evolution combines with the force that has emerged from below. It lends to it its character of consciousness, step by step. The Force that was hitherto un-conscious, insensible is taken up and given a direction by Nature’s conscious, dynamic Power.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Seven are the planes of existence that are embodied, in principle, in each grade of this creation. The stabs are the wounds inflicted by the Darkness and Falsehood of the Adversary on these seven formulations. The seven sorrows are the result of these seven stabs.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Space which is normally occupied by movements in the world is now occupied by the spiritual silence of the Self. Mark, it is not physical silence but spiritual silence. Spiritual silence permits activity, even speech, unlike physical silence which shuts off speech. Spiritual silence is silence of the whole being, whereas physical silence, mauna as we call it, is only abstention from speech, vocal activity, which makes the mind, very often, more active than before.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: Substance here is not something opposed to or foreign to the self, but a kind of harp created by the self; resonant i.e. always answering to the promptings of the self.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “… Symbolically it is matter. From it this man has come up, a product highly irrational.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The allusion is to the Vamana Avatar in Indian mythology. Vamana the Dwarf, Lilliputian in form, asks for a boon of three steps of land from the king. The king readily agrees. Suddenly the Dwarf assumes a stupendous shape and occupies both the worlds of earth and heaven and asks where he should place his third step. The king is obliged to offer his head. The Titan yields to the Divine in the form of Vamana.
Madhav: “The allusion is to the Vedic legend which narrates how the dark powers of the nether regions, i.e. the subconscient—and the still below—steal and hide the riches of the Gods in their subterranean chambers. They are called the Panis, thieves.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The Animal represents the lower rajasic nature; the sacred fence is the human being with all its scaffolding.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The arisen beast is man who has emerged from the animal state and though Aswapathy wears that form, he is a god.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The brilliant courtyard is the realm of the subtle-physical Matter that Aswapathy is leaving behind in his upward climb. He sees that with all its brilliant glow, this region is limited on all sides and it is only a courtyard—not yet the entrance proper—of the Mansion of Light, where the Light of God is ever manifest. Day in the spiritual symbolism signifies the reign of Light. Aswapathy seeks to enter the Order (symbolised by House) where the Light shines uninterrupted.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The common word of human speech diminishes an experience, weakens it, but here the Word with a capital W, is a mantric word which ‘ushers divine experience’ it brings out into the field a divine experience.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The curtain of ignorance has been lifted.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The Golden Child is the Divine Soul that is evolving in the universe; it has arrived at a stage where, as a result of the ingressions of the Light from the planes of Mind, the growing Soul is able to think and see.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The guardians of eternity, the gods, the higher gods, …” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The House of Flame is the plenary manifestation of Agni, the Mystic Fire of which the Seers of the Veda speak. Here blazes the Divine Consciousness in its incandescent purity.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The immense, massive base of Inconscience from which the world proceeds.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The law that compels evolution is diamond hard, it cannot be broken.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The manifestation of the One as the Individual, the Universal and the Transcendent: it is triple act of self-revelation.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The mind is pictured in terms of a seat with three legs: the physical mind (sense mentality); vital mind (desire mind, dynamic mentality); reason (thought mentality). The normal human mind has these three layers.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The red Wolf is the hungry Desire and the Snake the force of Treachery in the vital regions of this creation.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The reference is to Savitri, a companion of the Ray of Truth, Mist of the Ineffable and Flame of Will (Divine).” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The reference is to the flaming aspiration in the heart of the ascending Soul. This flame is immortal in its source and builds kingdoms at each step of its climb.” The Book of the Divine Mother.
Madhav: “There is an eternal light in every one of us. But it is as if guarded, protected from the profane, vulgar sight by a cave of darkness. Cave signifies a narrowing, dimming enclosure. This blanket of darkness guards that Light. Where there is such a concentration of thick darkness in yourself, you can be sure that deep inside there is the ‘Light Eternal’. This is the light of the Self of which the Rishi’s speak. It stands veiled by layers and layers of the darkness of Ignorance.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “There is another veil. First there is the veil of darkness, a veil of ignorance. Then there is a veil of light, a dazzling light. It acts as a curtain. If you look only at that light you get blinded.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “There is in this creation of God an everlasting No. ‘NO’ is negation of the fleeting pleasures of life, unsubstantial movements of life, the attraction of the senses, the hold of ego, ignorance. For that the answer is no. This is not it, this is not it, neti, neti, thou hast only neared this everlasting No.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The Scripture Wonderful refers to the Supreme Knowledge. The Spirit-mate of Life hopes to divine the Supreme Knowledge in the transcript made by Life of God’s intention; but that script, however bright and attractive is a product of her fancy. The true Word lies covered under her fanciful rendering. The Supreme Knowledge that holds the key to the celestial beatitudes escapes him.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “These are adjectives that apply to Aswapathy himself. He is a vehicle carrying the wonders of paradise, the wonders of heaven, which he has seen and experienced.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The seat occupied by the oracle in the mysteries had three supports; it was a tripod. Here the true oracular seat is deceptively covered by the false Idol.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The Serpent is the guardian Power of the interior.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The triple cord refers to the physical, the vital and the thought strands of the mind which constrict and narrow the range of human vision. As they are loosened, the gaze widens and larger horizons come into view.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The triple heavens are the heavens of Sat, Chit and Ananda.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The triple world is the world of higher thought: the lower reaches are close to the thinking human mind; the next pertains to a knowledge that knows the truth of things from within; the highest, bordering on the planes of eternity is where knowledge as such—with the triad of knower, known and knowledge—ceases and it is one with the truth of all. Three successive steps of ascent lead to this triple realm of higher thought.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The universe is always seen and experienced as concealed by a coloured veil. The veil is a deceptive veil.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The whole world is a play and God is the cosmic Player.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The Word from above is not uttered as the human word is. It is not articulated by the tongue. Unuttered Word—the silent Word. But the hushed heart—the heart in which all the emotive movements have been hushed, silent for the time being—hears the Word from above though it is not spelt out.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “This is another key idea in Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, that Nature, what is called Prakriti in Indian philosophy, is not different, not alien to the Purusha. Nature is not foreign to the soul, to God. It is a conscious front of God. Scratch Nature, look behind the exterior of Nature and you will find God. The apparent difference, distinction between Nature and God is only a superficial appearance. Nature is really a power of God. It is devatma shakti, the self-power of God—svagunair nigudham lost in its qualitative workings. She is not separate; conscious, not something unconscious. Nature is aware that it is only a front of God behind.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “This is a very important line. Name, secret name, name of a God, name of a Deity, name of the Divine, is a key to the Power, the qualities that are embodied in that Form. So, when that Name is uttered, all that Power, all that consciousness, is evoked. That is why the Seers keep this Name secret, give it only to those who are ready, who have been initiated, who have purified themselves.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Thy heart of flame—intense aspiration, . . . The Book of the Divine Mother.
Madhav: “Triple-plated gloom is the darkness with three successive layers: the material-physical, the vital and the mental. This is the Shadow that infests the three lower orders of existence.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Triune ecstasies are the rapturous delights of Sat, Chit, Ananda, each with its distinct flavour.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “When Aswapathy lifts the curtain of the flesh i.e. when he gets through the barrier of his physical existence, he comes to the threshold of another domain, subtle and occult. He sees a serpent watching, guarding the entrance. In all traditions, especially the ancient, at the doors of every subtle kingdom there is a sentinel and that sentinel is imaged as a serpent. In spiritual symbolism the serpent stands for Energy. Depending on the colour of the serpent, it is physical energy or vital energy, mental energy, spiritual energy. Unless this serpent allows one to pass one cannot enter. The serpent, in this context, is the guard whose consent is necessary before one can pass. The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Winged marvel is the soul.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Word here is expression, manifestation. Inevitable in the sense that it has to precede the manifestation.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Zero does not stand for nothing. Zero does not signify emptiness, but has behind it the face of the immortal.” The Book of the Divine Mother
marginal ::: written or printed in the margin of a book.
“Men have not learnt yet to recognise the Inconscient on which the whole material world they see is built, or the Ignorance of which their whole nature including their knowledge is built; they think that these words are only abstract metaphysical jargon flung about by the philosophers in their clouds or laboured out in long and wearisome books like The Life Divine.
missalled ::: with reference to the illumination of manuscripts and books of prayer; i.e. Savitri is likened to a beautifully illuminted book of prayer.
Nolini: “The book of fundamental existence, static existence, the truth that exists.”
Once our minds are reasonably fixed in the central vision and our wills are on the whole converted to the single pursuit, Life becomes our helper. Intent, vi^lant, integrally conscious, iwe can take every detail of its forms and every incident of its move- ments as food for the sacrificial Fire within us. Victorious in the struggle, we can compel Earth herself to be an aid towards our perfection and can enrich our realisation with the booty torn from the powers that oppose us. ; , ,
paged ::: indicated the sequence of pages in (a book, manuscript, etc.) by placing numbers or other characters on each leaf; Numbered the pages of; paginated.
plunder ::: property stolen by fraud or force; booty.
preface ::: a preliminary statement or essay introducing a book that explains its scope, intention, or background and is usually written by the author.
printing-house ::: a place where printing of books, pamphlets, etc. is done.
Purani: “Aswapathy, the father of Savitri, has been significantly called by the poet ‘the Lord of Life’. (book II, Canto XV). The name suggests an affinity to Vedic symbolism. In the Veda, Aswa, the horse, is the symbol of life-energy or vital power. Aswa + aty, Lord, would mean the ‘Lord of Life’. In the poem King Aswapathy is the symbol of the aspiring soul of man as manifested in life on earth.”Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
quagmire ::: Madhav: “Quagmire is almost the same as a bog, it is a little deeper, a little larger, where if you once get caught you can only move round and round, you cannot get out.” The Book of the Divine Mother
sacred Book
scripture ::: 1. Any writing or book, esp. when of a sacred or religious nature. 2. Written characters.
“So the possibility of the sunlit path is not a discovery or original invention of mine. The very first books on yoga I read more than thirty years ago spoke of the dark and sunlit way and emphasised the superiority of the latter over the former.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand, a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book-knowledge by itself is not the real thing, it has to be used as a help to the intelligence but it is often only a help to stupidity or ignorance — ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "So the possibility of the sunlit path is not a discovery or original invention of mine. The very first books on yoga I read more than thirty years ago spoke of the dark and sunlit way and emphasised the superiority of the latter over the former.” *Letters on Yoga
Still in Book II, Canto X, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind
study ::: n. 1. A room furnished with books and intended or equipped for studying or writing. 2. The pursuit of knowledge, as by reading, observation, or research. v. 3. To examine closely; scrutinize. Also fig. studies, studied, studying.
taboos ::: bans or inhibitions resulting from social customs or emotional aversions.
Tehmi: “I think it is the grain that grows from the earth and sap is a metaphor for the nutrients of pleasure and tears. The emphasis is on the earth in contrast to the ‘undying rapture’s boon’.”
text ::: 1. The original words of something written or printed, as opposed to a paraphrase, translation, revision, or condensation. 2. The body of a printed work as distinct from headings and illustrative matter on a page or from front and back matter in a book.
"The Gita in later chapters speaks highly of the Veda and the Upanishads. They are divine Scriptures, they are the Word. The Lord himself is the knower of Veda and the author of Vedanta, vedavid vedântakrt; the Lord is the one object of knowledge in all the Vedas, sarvair vedair aham eva vedyah, a language which implies that the word Veda means the book of knowledge and that these Scriptures deserve their appellation.” Essays on the Gita
“The Gita in later chapters speaks highly of the Veda and the Upanishads. They are divine Scriptures, they are the Word. The Lord himself is the knower of Veda and the author of Vedanta, vedavid vedântakrt; the Lord is the one object of knowledge in all the Vedas, sarvair vedair aham eva vedyah, a language which implies that the word Veda means the book of knowledge and that these Scriptures deserve their appellation.” Essays on the Gita
“The Gita in later chapters speaks highly of the Veda and the Upanishads. They are divine Scriptures, they are the Word. The Lord himself is the knower of Veda and the author of Vedanta, vedavidvedântakrt; the Lord is the one object of knowledge in all the Vedas, sarvairvedairahamevavedyah, a language which implies that the word Veda means the book of knowledge and that these Scriptures deserve their appellation.” Essays on the Gita
The Mother or myself send a force. If there is no openness, the force may be thrown back or returned (unless we put a great force which it is not always adwsablc to do) as from an obstruc- tion or resistance ::: if there is some openness, the result may be partial or slow ; if there is the full openness or receptivity, then the result may be immediate. Of course there are things that cannot be removed all at once, being an old part of the nature, but with receptivity these also can be more effectively and rapidly dealt with. Some people are so open that even by writing they get free before the book or letter reaches us.
"The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge," says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is sabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanâd rtasya, guhâyâm. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nânyad astîti vâdinah. This is a saving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the limited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before, that always is the truth which is seen by the heart of man in its illumined depths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda.” Essays on the Gita*
“The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge,’ says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is sabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanâd rtasya, guhâyâm. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nânyad astîti vâdinah. This is a saving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the limited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before, that always is the truth which is seen by the heart of man in its illumined depths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda.” Essays on the Gita
“The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge,’ says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is sabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanâdrtasya, guhâyâm. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nânyadastîtivâdinah. This is a saving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the limited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before, that always is the truth which is seen by the heartof man in its illumined depths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda.” Essays on the Gita
"The Veda is a book of esoteric symbols, almost of spiritual formulae, which masks itself as a collection of ritual poems.” The Secret of the Veda
“The Veda is a book of esoteric symbols, almost of spiritual formulae, which masks itself as a collection of ritual poems.” The Secret of the Veda
"The Vedas are the oldest holy books of India, perhaps the oldest of such works in the world. They are the foundation of the Hindu religion. The hymns they contain, written in an old form of Sanskrit, are said to have been ‘revealed" to the Rishis and subsequently were transmitted orally from generation to generation. They continued to be so handed down even after they had been collected and arranged by Krishna Dwaipayana (Veda Vyasa). It is not known when they were committed to writing. The Vedas are four in number: Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. In reality the Rig-Veda is the Veda; many of its hymns occur with a different arrangement in the other three Vedas. According to some scholars, each Veda is divided into four parts: Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanisad. But generally the term ‘Veda" is reserved for the Samhita, the metrical hymns. (Dow)” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
“The Vedas are the oldest holy books of India, perhaps the oldest of such works in the world. They are the foundation of the Hindu religion. The hymns they contain, written in an old form of Sanskrit, are said to have been ‘revealed’ to the Rishis and subsequently were transmitted orally from generation to generation. They continued to be so handed down even after they had been collected and arranged by Krishna Dwaipayana (Veda Vyasa). It is not known when they were committed to writing. The Vedas are four in number: Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. In reality the Rig-Veda is the Veda; many of its hymns occur with a different arrangement in the other three Vedas. According to somescholars, each Veda is divided into four parts: Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanisad. But generally the term ‘Veda’ is reserved for the Samhita, the metrical hymns. (Dow)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
thirst ::: Madhav: “… all the power, all the knowledge that the world can give us are products of time, products of the movements of time. Truly they cannot satisfy the sacred thirst of the spirit. Mark the words ‘sacred thirst’ (III. 1. 305.). Mother uses the word ‘thirst’ so often; it is an intense aspiration that cannot be satisfied, cannot be fulfilled by the gifts of time; it can be fulfilled only by the gifts of what is beyond time, of what is eternal. The hunger of the soul in us can be satisfied only by a response from the Eternal.” The Book of the Divine Mother
thunder ::: 1. The crashing or booming sound produced by rapidly expanding air along the path of the electrical discharge of lightning. 2. A sound that resembles or suggests thunder. thunder"s, thunder-chase, thunder drums, thunder-flash, thunder-hooved.
Trinity ::: Madhav: “The Trinity is Sat-Chit-Ananda, the triple formulation of the Reality as Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.” The Book of the Divine Mother
volume ::: 1. A book or something likened to it. 2. One of a number of books forming a related set or series.
wallet ::: a flat, folding pocketbook, especially one large enough to hold paper money, and sometimes having a compartment for coins.
winged ::: Madhav: “Winged marvel is the soul.” The Book of the Divine Mother
wonder-book of common things
wonder ::: n. 1. An event inexplicable by the laws of nature; a miracle; something strange and surprising brought about by a supernatural force. 2. A miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon. 3. The emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration. 4. Something strange, unexpected, or extraordinary. Wonder, wonder"s, Wonder"s, wonders, wonder-book, wonder-couch, wonder-dance, wonder-flecks, wonder-flowers, wonder-hues, wonder-plastics, wonder-rounds, wonder-rush, wonder-tree, wonder-web, wonder-weft, Wonder-worker, Wonder-worker"s, wonder-works, wonder-world, wonder-worlds. *adj. 5. Arousing awe or admiration; wonderful. v. 6. To be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; marvel (often followed by at); to think or speculate curiously (at or about); be curious to know. *wonders, wondered, wondering.
KEYS (10k)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
21 Anonymous
6 Victor Hugo
6 Thomas Jefferson
6 Simon Van Booy
5 John Green
4 Stephen King
4 Stephen Booth
4 Ray Bradbury
4 J K Rowling
4 Jane Austen
4 Elise Sax
3 Various
3 Rick Riordan
3 Nikola Tesla
3 Neil Gaiman
3 Lil Boosie
3 Khaled Hosseini
3 James Joyce
3 Clare Boothe Luce
3 Callimachus
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:I once wore a peekaboo blouse. People would peek and then they'd boo. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 2:If I wore a peek-a-boo dress, it would be like turning in a false alarm. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 3:You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says & *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Bad pony-men! BOO! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
2:Honey Boo Boo! ~ Rachel Ren e Russell, #NFDB
3:Fans don't boo nobodies. ~ Reggie Jackson, #NFDB
4:because her boils had erupted ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
5:you got problems,BOO FREAKIN HOO ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
6:You think your work is dreaming? ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
7:You don't BOO an Olympic Gold Medalist! ~ Kurt Angle, #NFDB
8:A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. ~ Lance Armstrong, #NFDB
9:Melly couldn't say boo to a goose. ~ Margaret Mitchell, #NFDB
10:Not inmune to engines huh? BOO-Yah!! -Leo ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
11:If young children boo me, that makes my day. ~ Tom Felton, #NFDB
12:Toby twisted around. "Boo." Emily screamed. ~ Sara Shepard, #NFDB
13:Not inmune to engines huh? BOO-Yah!!
-Leo ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
14:that the only Indians who went on trial were ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
15:naxalites se montrent particulièrement actifs ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
16:He wanted to go home to the place that he hated. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
17:Donald Trump is the Honey Boo Boo of rich people. ~ Morgan Freeman, #NFDB
18:The Hab was intact (yay!) and the MAV was gone (boo!). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
19:A girl could be virtuous without being perfect. Back ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
20:You don't boo at a Kemp rally. You boo at football games. ~ Jack Kemp, #NFDB
21:Where Old India and New India collide making New India ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
22:Sometimes audiences love you because they get to boo you. ~ Lisa Yuskavage, #NFDB
23:He wiped away her tears and kissed her boo-boos. Unfortunately, ~ Beth Flynn, #NFDB
24:Everything around us is roses, and we're the shit in between. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
25:You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. ~ Jodie Foster, #NFDB
26:Criticizing reporters is like boo-ing at the Special Olympics. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
27:stayed friends because they could keep each other’s secrets. Now, ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
28:And now out onto Airport Road and into the city’s horn-honk opera. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
29:Ghosts of women are the worst. Years go by and they don't leave you be ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
30:I once wore a peekaboo blouse. People would peek and then they’d boo. ~ Phyllis Diller, #NFDB
31:Annawadi—the land of annas, a respectful Tamil word for older brothers. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
32:Stereotypically speaking feminists can't take a joke. ::audience boo:: See? ~ Louis C K, #NFDB
33:If I wore a peek-a-boo dress, it would be like turning in a false alarm. ~ Phyllis Diller, #NFDB
34:Ghosts of women are the worst. Years go by and they don’t leave you be.” A ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
35:Boo-hoo. Help me, I'm a girl. What kind of modern woman are you? A smart one. ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
36:I'm a ghost," said the small figure, then added, a little uncertainly, "Boo? ~ John Connolly, #NFDB
37:The lyrics, in English, were meaningless to him, the bass line irresistible. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
38:When I hear people boo, that just makes me want to go out there and work harder. ~ John Cena, #NFDB
39:There is sickness here,” Henry said. “The bodywalker must tend to Boo Bear.” The ~ Anne Bishop, #NFDB
40:What Boo Rdley did might seem peculiar to us but it did not seem peculiar to him. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
41:Boo'ful," she said, "life could be so diff'rent—"
"But it never is," I said. ~ Ralph Ellison,#NFDB
42:He shifted, rolled. I ended up kneeling with him beneath me. Boo-ya! I was on top. ~ Devon Monk, #NFDB
43:Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
44:Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
45:Time is like a zombie. It moves slow, but all of a sudden 'BOO! Got your brains! ~ Jennie Breeden, #NFDB
46:He felt his mother hadn’t prepared him for what it felt like, falling alone. Which ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
47:I've never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout. ~ Babe Ruth, #NFDB
48:But Karam wasn't about to explain the economics of reprieve to his traumatized son. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
49:The astonishing thing is that some people are good, and that many others try to be. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
50:They can boo me, yell at me, and throw peanuts at me, as long as they pay to get in. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
51:Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
52:Every time we go by KFC, my kids ask me to honk and they yell 'Boo' out the window. ~ Pamela Anderson, #NFDB
53:Canadian hockey fans... They boo me every time I go anywhere. Because I play for Team USA. ~ Brett Hull, #NFDB
54:Much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
55:Think books aren't scary? Well, think about this: You can't spell "Book" without "Boo! ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
56:To be poor in Annawadi, or in any Mumbai slum, was to be guilty of one thing or another. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
57:Abdul rose with minimal whining, since the only whining his mother tolerated was her own. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
58:Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead. Clothes ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
59:But as he’d learned in the police station, being damaged was nothing like being dead. One ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
60:Snooki and Honey Boo Boo. These are big celebrities in the U.S. You want to throw up. ~ Andre Leon Talley, #NFDB
61:Much of her outrage derived from a belated recognition that she was as human as anyone else. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
62:You can't call me boo."
"Why not?"
"Because you're not a rapper, and I'm not your shorty. ~ R K Lilley,#NFDB
63:You may boo, you may turn your back, but I have devoted my life to the conservative cause. ~ Gresham Barrett, #NFDB
64:I don't care if people boo me or talk trash to me. I can't understand what they're saying anyways. ~ Jose Aldo, #NFDB
65:Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
66:In the age of globalization—an ad hoc, temp-job, fiercely competitive age—hope is not a fiction. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
67:Nothing a girl cleaned in Annawadi stayed clean. Why did people see it as a failure of the girl? ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
68:Everyone at school seems to go by a nickname. Kat, Frosty, Bronx, Boo Bear, Jelly Bean, Freckles. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
69:Allah, in His impenetrable wisdom, had cut him small and jumpy. A coward: Abdul said it of himself. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
70:In Aunt Boo’s opinion, it was better to know how to avoid danger than to avoid dangerous places. ~ Sarah Strohmeyer, #NFDB
71:Water and ice were made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
72:Oh, woe is me, I'm a vampire. I'm a horrible monster who eats babies and murders bunnies, boo hoo hoo ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
73:How would you like a job where, if you made a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo? ~ Jacques Plante, #NFDB
74:I grew up in a second when my mother died,” he told Sunil. “My father and brother didn’t understand me. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
75:You do not boo an Olympic Gold Medalist. I'm the best in the world. I came here for you. You don't boo me. ~ Kurt Angle, #NFDB
76:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust him ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
77:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust him. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
78:You might have seen us on YouTube. The Boo Squad? We get a lot of hits."
"Was one of them in the head? ~ Tessa Bailey,#NFDB
79:better arguments, maybe even better policies, get formulated when we know more about ordinary lives. While ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
80:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust them. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
81:When they learned that a family in the slum was making money, they visited every other day to extort some. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
82:His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
83:Jase, how do you stop a French tank?” Scott asked. “Don’t know. I give up.” “Just say boo,” Scott finished. ~ Mark A Cooper, #NFDB
84:We should confine booing in sports arenas to sport. I love a good boo as much as the next football fan. ~ Alastair Campbell, #NFDB
85:repeat: I recommend you get a Monitor or a used Aries before purchasing an electric autopilot. “Boo ~ Cap n Fatty Goodlander, #NFDB
86:You can always wake up on the wrong side of the bed and boo-hiss everyone suffers. We can all be temperamental. ~ John Lydon, #NFDB
87:I tell Allah I love Him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
88:I tell Allah I love him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
89:But in her current mood, small affronts were bundled with larger disappointments and became a body of evidence. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
90:A decent life was the train that hadn't hit you, the slumlord you hadn't offended, the malaria you hadn't caught. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
91:Maybe Macon Ravenwood wasn’t the only town shut-in. I didn’t think our town was big enough for two Boo Radleys. But ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
92:The better I know you, the more I will dislike you, and the more you will dislike me. So let us keep to ourselves. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
93:Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
94:I couldn’t tell if she found this idea helpful (Hooray, fewer to kill now!) or depressing (Boo, more to kill later!). ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
95:Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, "What a navigator I am!" And then the wind blows you east. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
96:Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, ‘What a navigator I am!’ And then the wind blows you east. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
97:It made sense to Abdul that in a polyglot city, people would sort themselves as he sorted his garbage, like with like. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
98:You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says 'Boo' and then laughs at itself for jumping. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
99:A boo is a lot louder than a cheer, if you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing. ~ Lance Armstrong, #NFDB
100:Do you want Uncle Troy to kiss your boo-boo, too? He always kisses mine because he says they make them feel all better. ~ Robin Bielman, #NFDB
101:For me it's the same thing if the fans boo or not, because my role is the villain. I'm happy when you clap me though. ~ Alberto Del Rio, #NFDB
102:Have a haunted haunted Christmas, And a scary New Year’s, too. Have a haunted haunted Christmas, And to one and all say, BOO. ~ R L Stine, #NFDB
103:She was simply Asha, a woman on her own. Had the situation been otherwise, she might not have come to know her own brain. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
104:If the house is crooked and crumbling, and the land on which it sits uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight? ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
105:A thunderous boo is one thousand times stronger, nobler, and more powerful than a standing ovation. Admiration corrupts. ~ Nelson Rodrigues, #NFDB
106:Boo was asking him who the hell he thought he was and also could he spare a few kitty treats for a poor, abused house cat? ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
107:Life was not good. In fact, it was shitzterhozen—hozen full of shitzter. I wanted to heckle life.
Boo-o-o and hiss-s-s! ~ Penny Reid,#NFDB
108:Well, that little woman, who never said boo to no one, put two locks in a sock, and she let that girl know what time it was. ~ Piper Kerman, #NFDB
109:flattening him against the entry’s wall. Me he urged forward with a flick of his tail. I didn’t check my hubby for boo-boos. ~ Hailey Edwards, #NFDB
110:I do have a boo-boo." Parker pouts, and it's kinda hot, and by ‘kinda’ I mean I kinda wanna sit on his face. Too blunt? My bad. ~ Ellie Messe, #NFDB
111:for the supervisor’s failure to promote us, for Boo-Boo’s cheating, and for the fact that we just can’t seem to get our lives ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
112:hoping that this was some jolly practical joke and that the real chap would shortly jump out from behind a chair and say “Boo! ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
113:The effect of corruption I find most underacknowledged is a contraction not of economic possibility but of our moral universe. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
114:This man's wife told him, "For Christmas, surprise me." On Christmas Eve he leaned over where she was sleeping and said, "Boo!" ~ Milton Berle, #NFDB
115:Like most people in the slum, and in the world, for that matter, he believed his own dreams properly aligned to his capacities. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
116:Taking his cup, the soldier had stared at her for a long moment and said, 'Don't stand in the sun-- you'll get too dark" (141). ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
117:You can hardly say boo to a goose in the House of Commons now without cries of "Ungentlemanly," "Not fair" and all the rest. ~ Harold MacMillan, #NFDB
118:Midnight was closing in, the one-legged woman was grievously burned, and the Mumbai police were coming for Abdul and his father. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
119:...oh boo hoo, everyone’s life was hard, and if you’d survived the hardship, why write about it? Survival itself was enough. ~ Meg Wolitzer, #NFDB
120:Asha believed a person seeking betterment should try as many schemes as possible, since it was hard to predict which one might work. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
121:I'd like to look like a wife with two kids who's been married for ten years and been in love every single day of it.
- from Boo ~ Rene Gutteridge,#NFDB
122:think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it’s because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
123:An awkward, uneducated boy might still be capable of righteousness: He intended to remember this and every other truth The Master spoke. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
124:One of the lambs fixed its attention on Jared. “Baa,” it flirted. “Boo,” said Jared. “Oh my God, Jared. Don’t tough-talk the lambs. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan, #NFDB
125:I suggest you leave. Now. (Nykyrian) (The would-be attackers flee.) Had you said ‘boo,’ I think they would have wet themselves. (Kiara) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
126:.. becoming attached to a country involves pressing, uncomfortable questions about justice and opportunity for its least powerful citizens. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
127:Shoulder up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs; instead, I saw Dill ringing the bell with all his might in Atticus's face. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
128:The forces of justice had finally come to Annawadi. That the beneficiaries were horses was a source of bemusement to Sunil and the road boys. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
129:Abdul knew this Gandhi as the one who cared for poor people, who liked Muslims as well as Hindus, who took on the British and made India free. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
130:Avoid trouble. This was the operating principle of Abdul Hakim Husain, an idea so fiercely held that it seemed imprinted on his physical form. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
131:Meow, meow, meow. Meow meow. Meoow,” Boo told me, obviously having a full day and feeling I needed to be kept apprised of every second of it. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
132:The best piece of advice that I have ever received is from my mom. And she said, "Do you, boo boo." That is forever going to be the best advice. ~ Willow Smith, #NFDB
133:In his first weeks back home, scavenging skills rusty, he took the sandals from the feet of his sleeping father and sold them to Abdul for food. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
134:I suggest you leave. Now. (Nykyrian)
(The would-be attackers flee.)
Had you said ‘boo,’ I think they would have wet themselves. (Kiara) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
135:I've become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town's Boo Radley, just like in To Kill A Mockingbird. ~ Kathryn Stockett, #NFDB
136:But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
137:Boo, Forever
Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you. ~ Richard Brautigan,#NFDB
138:Dill?" Mm?" Why do you reckon Boo Radleys never run off?" Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
139:But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained. As ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
140:In India, a land of few safe assumptions, chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted, creative problem-solvers. Among ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
141:I often say that if you see a ghost, face the ghost nose to nose and say “boo.” The ghost will run a mile; it’s more scared of you than you are of it. When ~ Ajahn Brahm, #NFDB
142:She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind. ~ Roddy Doyle, #NFDB
143:Love isn’t butterflies, boo. It isn’t weak knees. It’s a pride of lions. It’s a pack of wolves. It’s ‘I’ve got your back even if it costs me my own life, ~ J T Geissinger, #NFDB
144:Then I found it: the source of the blood, the place where he'd been shot. 'Total?' I said, and I got a slight whimper. 'You have a boo-boo on your tail. ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
145:Fear and I played peek-a-boo - it always seemed to grab my balls and twist just when it felt like something inside me could banish all the bullshit forever. ~ James Ellroy, #NFDB
146:Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
147:One of his private vanities was that all the garbage sorting had endowed his hands with killing strength—that he could chop a brick in half like Bruce Lee. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
148:Become a parent. Lose your autonomy, but gain the wondrous superpower of The Magic Kiss that instantly dries tears and makes the pain of boo-boos disappear. ~ Patricia V Davis, #NFDB
149:Dill?"
Mm?"
Why do you reckon Boo Radleys never run off?"
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
150:Too bad you’re like my older sister. We could have been something special.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Older? You’re seventy-six!”
“Boo, you whore,” he said. ~ T J Klune,#NFDB
151:The Indian criminal justice system was a market like garbage, Abdul now understood. Innocence and guilt could be bought and sold like a kilo of polyurethane bags. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
152:Abdul could control many of his desires, but not this one. He wanted to be recognized as better than the dirty water in which he lived. He wanted a verdict of ice. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
153:He had secret loves all over town, the kind of curly-haired big-bodied girls who wouldn't have said boo to a loser like him but about whom he could not stop dreaming. ~ Junot D az, #NFDB
154:He thought it better to start the day by acknowledging that it was going to be just as dull as the days preceding it. That way, you wouldn’t be disappointed. Abdul ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
155:Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn't hiss or boo me. ~ James Dean, #NFDB
156:Since there ain’t shit to do in Alabama, one day Scout and her crew decide they gonna start messin’ wit’ a shut-in named Boo Radley, who ain’t nobody seen for years. ~ Sparky Sweets, #NFDB
157:His general approach toward his neighbors was this: 'The better I know you, the more I will dislike you, and the more you will dislike me. So let us keep to ourselves. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
158:I don't enjoy the boo scare when you're watching a movie and then suddenly there's a big shark on the screen. The only thing they're doing is catching you off guard. ~ Sergio Aragones, #NFDB
159:Pulling on a pair of cotton gardening gloves that had been tucked into my belt, and launching into a loudly whistled rendition of “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” I went to work. ~ Alan Bradley, #NFDB
160:But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned too far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
161:The Indian criminal justice system was a market like garbage, Abdul now understood. Innocence and guilt could be bought and sold like a kilo of polyurethane bags. Abdul ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
162:I understand people who boo us. It's like going to Broadway show, you pay for your tickets and expect to be entertained. When you're not, you have a right to complain. ~ Sparky Anderson, #NFDB
163:One of the lambs fixed its attention on Jared. “Baa,” it flirted. “Boo,” said Jared. “Oh my God, Jared. Don’t tough-talk the lambs.” "It was giving me a funny look. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan, #NFDB
164:Asha grasped many of her own contradictions, among them that you could be proud of having spared your offspring hardship while also resenting them for having been spared. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
165:But not every dog was Boo Radley. Sometimes a dog was just a dog. Sometimes a cat was just a cat. Still, I opened the screen door and stuck a red sticker on Lucille’s head. ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
166:Only in the hours when the men came - husband at work, daughters at school - did the part of her body she had to offer feel more important than the part of it she lacked. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
167:Time to switch to decaf, princess. If you're going to shriek at every bogey that jumps out and says 'boo', you'll be exhausted before we reach the edge of the woods. -Puck ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
168:At the heart of her bad nature, like many bad natures, was probably envy. And at the heart of envy was possibly hope—that the good fortune of others might one day be hers. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
169:At the heart of her bad nature, like many bad natures, was probably envy. And at the heart of envy was possibly hope - that the good fortune of others might one day be hers ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
170:Though every community is different, my personal rule is pretty much the same: It’s O.K. to feel like an idiot going in as long as you don’t sound like an idiot coming out. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
171:But I am dead certain--ba-dump-bump-ching--that I'm the first guy to lead an army of spirits in an assault from the spirit-world side...and had them start off screaming, "BOO! ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
172:Boo fell in at my side. He is the only ghost dog I have ever seen. Animals always move on. For some reason he had lingered more than a year at the abbey. Perhaps waiting for me. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
173:I came back to my original wife. I came back to her after I made a few boo-boos in my life. Coming back to her was good for me, good for her and good for the children. ~ Jean Claude Van Damme, #NFDB
174:The new Pope, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is now Pope Francis the 1st. Francis was not his first choice for a name. But the Vatican wisely talked him out of Pope Boo Boo. ~ Craig Ferguson, #NFDB
175:I used to watch 'Top of the Pops' when I was a kid and say 'Yeah!' or 'Boo!' at every single song. So there was nothing in the middle. You brutally put it on one side or another. ~ Damien Hirst, #NFDB
176:Though Abdul had been afraid of ghosts as most Annawadi boys, these reports did no disturb him. Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
177:Some Disney character crawled up her ass and put her in this mood. I just hope she doesn’t have to have some sort of bibbidi-bobbidi-boo to get them out. Although, a Fantasia-like ~ Meghan Quinn, #NFDB
178:Though Abdul had been afraid of ghosts as most Annawadi boys, these reports did not disturb him. Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
179:One of the lambs fixed its attention on Jared. “Baa,” it flirted.
“Boo,” said Jared.
“Oh my God, Jared. Don’t tough-talk the lambs.”
"It was giving me a funny look. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,#NFDB
180:I tapped Boz on the shoulder and said, “Hey, gorgeous.” His face twisted in complete surprise, turning to stare in blank incomprehension at mine. I winked at him, and whispered, “Boo. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
181:Though Abdul had been as afraid of ghosts as most Annawadi boys, these reports did not disturb him. Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
182:Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
183:Epidemic boo-hoo — ‘DON’T TELL MY WIFE!’ Leg-shackle clangs — the prostie vans shook…Panic down below: Shriners bagged en masse. Five men, fez hats flying — a whore grabbed one and pranced. ~ James Ellroy, #NFDB
184:Sunil rarely got angry when he discovered the secret reasons behind the ways people behaved. Having a sense of how the world operated, beyond its pretense, seemed to him an armoring thing. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
185:When you're underperforming the index, you go home at night and cry in your beer. It's not fun, but who said this business should be fun. We're too well paid to hang our heads and say boo hoo. ~ Bill Gross, #NFDB
186:The boogeyman sleeps on your side of the bad
Whispers in my ear :"Better of Dead"
Fills my dreams with sirens and lights of regret
Kisses me gently when i wake up in a sweat
"boo! ~ Gayle Forman,#NFDB
187:Boo: "Go talk to her." Callum: "About what?" Boo: "Anything." Callum: "You want me to walk up to her and say, 'Are you a ghost?'" Boo: "I do that." Callum: "I love it when you get it wrong. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB
188:Of course I made many boo-boos. At first this broke my heart, but then I came to understand that learning how to fix one's mistakes, or live with them, was an important part of becoming a cook. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
189:On the stairs he was crying so much he hardly saw where he was going - not a mad boo-hoo but wailing sheets of tears, shaken into funny groans by the bump of each step as he hurried down. ~ Alan Hollinghurst, #NFDB
190:There should be more booing in shops and restaurants and places like that when when the service is bad. If you've had a poor breakfast in a hotel, you should put your knife and fork down and boo. ~ Jenny Eclair, #NFDB
191:We need to practice scaring people.” Marina eased into the night, her aura dimming as she screeched, “Dónde están mis hijos?” El Cucuy sauntered beside her and howled, “Bleah! Boo! Booga! Booga! ~ Mario Acevedo, #NFDB
192:It is easy, from a safe distance, to overlook the fact that in undercities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vie on scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
193:what she had come to understand... was that mourning was no crime. it wasn't her feeling all boo-hoo sorry for herself, or being disgustingly self - engrossed, it was what you had to do to go on. ~ Julia Gregson, #NFDB
194:Hey Boo, I'm in this now, too, & I got a lot of experience playing assholes like they're fucking harps. You need backup, I got you. Stop trying to convince yourself that you're in this alone. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
195:So do I have to teach you all over again how to make the rotis round?” Asha teased her daughter, merrily holding one of them up. “Come on! Who will marry you when you make such ridiculous bread?” The ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
196:He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai's dirty water, he wanted to be ice...He wanted to be recognized as better than the dirty water in which he lived. He wanted a verdict of ice. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
197:Do you feel blame? Are you mad? Uh, do you feel like wolf kabob Roth vantage? Gefrannis booj pooch boo jujube; bear-ramage. Jigiji geeji geeja geeble Google. Begep flagaggle vaggle veditch-waggle bagga? ~ Charles Manson, #NFDB
198:He knew why he and the other children received ice cream only when newspaper photographers came to visit, and why food and clothing donated for the children got furtively resold outside the orphanage gate. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
199:I remember one review of The Office Christmas Special that compared it unfavourably to Dickens. What? You're saying I'm not as good as the greatest storyteller ever. Boo! Boo! I think I can live with that. ~ Ricky Gervais, #NFDB
200:Neighbours bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbour. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good luck pennies, and our lives. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
201:There's always a moment in any stand-up show I do where people are booing. They kinda boo a premise. And then I bail myself out with a joke. But it's like trying to do movies where there's a dramatic undertone. ~ Chris Rock, #NFDB
202:There might simply be nothing going on that might activate it. Perhaps there isn't anything here that Alec is afraid of."
Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. "Boo."
Luke and Magnus, pg. 285 ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
203:Older Scout: [narrating] Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
204:To Annawadians, a difficult-to-raze house increased the odds that a family’s tenure on airport land would be acknowledged by the relocation authorities. And so they put their money into what would be destroyed. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
205:What you don’t want is always going to be with you What you want is never going to be with you Where you don’t want to go, you have to go And the moment you think you’re going to live more, you’re going to die. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
206:I wished i were seven feet tall. I'd hop up there and attack ol' Samson while the crowd went wild. I'd whip him good, send him flying, and become the biggest hero in Black Oak. But, for now, I could only boo him. ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
207:Abdul hadn’t previously thought of policemen as people with hearts and lungs who worried about money or their health. The world seemed replete with people as bad off as himself, and this made him feel less alone. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
208:As every slumdweller knew, there were three main ways out of poverty: finding an entrepreneurial niche, as the Husains had found in garbage; politics and corruption, in which Asha placed her hopes; and education. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
209:Fatima’s hair, what was left of it, had pulled free of the coil into which she’d put it before striking the match. Her face was now black and shiny, as if an artist commissioned to lacquer the eyes of a statue of ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
210:Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere... You don't have to dress up, for instance, and you can't hear them boo you right away. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
211:I had to stop traveling alone because I missed so many planes. When somebody runs up to you in the airport and begins to tell you their life story, you can't say, 'Excuse me, boo,' as they're weeping on your bosom. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
212:In the dark, I get a glimpse of myself from way above, like in a movie. I've become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town's Boo Radley, just like in To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Kathryn Stockett, #NFDB
213:What you don’t want is always going to be with you What you want is never going to be with you Where you don’t want to go, you have to go And the moment you think you’re going to live more, you’re going to die. Manju ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
214:What you don't want is always going to be with you
What you want is never going to be with you
Where you don't want to go, you have to go
And the moment you think you're going to live more, you're going to die ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
215:Besides, this was the gentle-going hour in which he hated Annawadi least. The pale sun lent the sewage lake a sparkling silver cast, and the parrots nesting at the far side of the lake could still be heard over the jets. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
216:In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov, #NFDB
217:Babyluv: If you need an anchor to hold your place in the world-not Boo'ya Moon but the one we shared, use the african. You know how to get it back. Kisses-at least a thousand, Scott
P.S. Everything the same. I love you. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
218:What you don’t want is always going to be with you
What you want is never going to be with you
Where you don’t want to go, you have to go
And the moment you think you’re going to live more, you’re going to die ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
219:While I was drying off Maddie after her bath tonight, she said, 'I love you' to me for the first time. It sounded like 'All lub boo,' but I didn't care. To reciprocate, I showed her what an ex-Marine looks like when he cries. ~ Jim Beaver, #NFDB
220:Director Ken Burns revealed that his next documentary is about Franklin Roosevelt, and it's fourteen hours long...which sounds like too much, until you realize there's been over thirty hours of TV dedicated to Honey Boo Boo. ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
221:I won't complain about touring, because I really do believe that a public-figure musician complaining about being a public-figure musician is just absurd. Like, 'Boo hoo hoo! I have to stand on stage and people pay attention to me!' ~ Moby, #NFDB
222:Boo: "Go talk to her."
Callum: "About what?"
Boo: "Anything."
Callum: "You want me to walk up to her and say, 'Are you a ghost?'"
Boo: "I do that."
Callum: "I love it when you get it wrong. ~ Maureen Johnson,#NFDB
223:Escape the situation if you know you’re going to be miserable. But I would kill myself by eating poison, not by burning. If you burned yourself, the last memory people would have of you is with your skin all spoiled and scary. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
224:The God of Scales and Silences is not sick,” said the mouse. The others joined in with nods and sounds of rodent agreement. “He is damaged, yes, and will need Tender Care and perhaps Kisses for his Boo-Boos, but he is not sick. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
225:There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it's all just noise that lets me know that I'm relevant. ~ Drake, #NFDB
226:We went across the South on Super Tuesday without a single catcall or boo, without a single ugly sign. Not until we got to New York and the North did the litmus test of race and religion spout from the mouths of public officials. ~ Jesse Jackson, #NFDB
227:Don't correct me, you don't have any rights over me." "What kind of life is this? So I sit at home , entirely dependent on this man, and then it turns out his heart was never with me. How is it possible to force someone to love me? ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
228:Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials and ideas?" She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
229:A joke is a joke, and people put too much meaning behind it. They react to it in the wrong way. I mean, you can boo or laugh, and that's pretty much what you're supposed to do with jokes. You're not supposed to take it any further than that. ~ Dave Attell, #NFDB
230:Sunil and Abdul sat together more often than before, but when they spoke, it was with the curious formality of people who shared the understanding that much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
231:I enjoy that atmosphere, because you play golf all the time but you don't get to play in front of this many people and feel the energy of the crowd.You hit a bad shot, they boo; you hit a good shot, they cheer you. It's awesome. So I love it. ~ Stephen Curry, #NFDB
232:Je pense à vous, chère mère et cher père. Avez-vous appris la nouvelle par téléphone? La police est-elle venue vous prévenir au salon de barbier? Je dois éviter de telles réflexions ; sinon, je risque de ne jamais reprendre mon souffle.
- Boo ~ Neil Smith,#NFDB
233:Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials
and ideas?"
She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled
face so solemn, as if
she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you. ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
234:the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn’t unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
235:The words are the words. Seriously. Meaning you don't have boo-boo words. You can do boo-boo things. You can have sex, carnage, mayhem, whatever you're looking for. "The Evil Dead" movies, in my opinion, function better in an unrestricted world. ~ Bruce Campbell, #NFDB
236:He always has a joke to tell or is doing something so seriously ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh at him. Last night, he tried to dry his socks in the microwave.
Yeah.
Then Boo yelled at him. She told him the oven works better. ~ Belle Aurora,#NFDB
237:They would all reach the next wells alive, said Master Suresh, so long as grown men didn’t sit and weep, boo hoo hoo like some sad whore, her six best boys lost this week to marriage. We must do now as she did then: dry the tears, and hustle! ~ Kai Ashante Wilson, #NFDB
238:Like most young Annawadians, the girls considered the caste obsession of their elders to be an irrelevant artifact. Manju and Meena had become friends because they both loved to dance, and stayed friends because they could keep each other’s secrets. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
239:Life meant reducing expectations and making-do with what one had. What was the point of boo-hooing, as she saw it, when "no man is a prince, except in the imagination"? It was the same thing Marcy had said: "No one is as good as you think they are. ~ Paula Marantz Cohen, #NFDB
240:Still, Kasab seemed lucky to Abdul. “They will probably beat him lots in the jail,” Abdul said one day, “but at least Kasab knows in his heart that he did what they said he did.” That had to be less stressful than being beaten when you were innocent. The ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
241:Summer, and he watches his children's heart break. Autumn again and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
242:We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got north to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan, and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history. ~ Jesse Jackson, #NFDB
243:Five Little Toes In The Morning
This little toe is hungryThis little toe is too,
This toe lies abed like a sleepy head,
And this toe cries 'Boo-hoo.'
This toe big and tall is the smartest of all
For he pops into stocking and shoe.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
244:The stock image of the early twentieth century, the "Negro" minstrel, a rural simpleton, the journalist Barbara Ehrenreich notes, has now been upgraded, whitened, and continued in such television programs as Duck Dynasty and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild, #NFDB
245:Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticus said no, it wasn't that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
246:Haunt an old house.
Ask for a treat.
Laugh like a witch.
Lick something sweet.
Offer a trick.
Wander a maze.
Echo a boo.
Exclaim the phrase—
Normal's unnatural on Halloween! ~ Richelle E Goodrich,#NFDB
247:San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean you. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. ~ George Halas, #NFDB
248:You. Are. The. Worst,” I enunciate, pointing at her. “What’s so hard about your life? Oh, boo-hoo, you’re missing a fashion show. Oh no, your parents want you to have a good and interesting education. What a shame, you have two of them, and they both care about you. ~ Rachel Hawkins, #NFDB
249:Boo, I think I no longer believe in monsters as faces in the floor or feral infants or vampires or whatever. I think at seventeen now I believe the only real monsters might be the type of liar where there's simply no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away. ~ David Foster Wallace, #NFDB
250:With one hand braced on the door of the lift to keep it from closing, he stepped out and scanned the corridor. Tempted to shove him and say boo, Kiara bet herself he’d jump twelve feet. Or shoot her. As an ex-League assassin, he would be very dangerous if startled. He ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
251:I’ve never seen a coyote at the moment its ears pick up the sound of doomed prey, but as I watch Declan watching Steve, I feel like I’m pretty close right now. It’s like When Animals Attack: Boston Brahmin Brawl—coming soon on The Learning Channel, right after Honey Boo Boo! ~ Julia Kent, #NFDB
252:She had seen behind the obvious truth--that Mumbai was a hive of hope and ambition--to a profitable corollary. Mumbai was a place of festering grievance and ambient envy. Was there a soul in this enriching, unequal city who didn't blame his dissatisfaction on someone else? ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
253:It seemed to him that in Annawadi, fortunes derived not just from what people did, or how well they did it, but from the accidents and catastrophes they dodged. A decent life was the train that hadn’t hit you, the slumlord you hadn’t offended, the malaria you hadn’t caught. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
254:Rich Indians typically tried to work around a dysfunctional government. Private security was hired, city water was filtered, private school tuitions were paid. Such choices had evolved over the years into a principle: The best government is the one that gets out of the way. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
255:She didn’t cry for the fate of her husband, son, and daughter, or for the great web of corruption she was now forced to navigate, or for a system in which the most wretched tried to punish the slightly less wretched by turning to a justice system so malign it sank them all. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
256:Rich people’s garbage was every year more complex, rife with hybrid materials, impurities, impostors. Planks that looked like wood were shot through with plastic. How was he to classify a loofah? The owners of the recycling plants demanded waste that was all one thing, pure. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
257:And they don't know me. To them, I'm just categories and clichés, too. The geek. The gay boy. The wimp. Even though I screamed at Doug in front of everyday at Boo, what have I done since then that anyone knows about? I'm happily a geek and happily gay, but I'm no longer a wimp. ~ Laurent Linn, #NFDB
258:The Prime Minister seems now to be basing his re-election campaign on this plot line. He is saying to the Australian people, look out, the baddies behind you - hiss, boo and whatever you do, don't vote Labor. This political parody of pantomime is looking and sounding desperate. ~ Julia Gillard, #NFDB
259:In America and Europe, it was said, people know what is going to happen when they turn on the water tap or flick on the light switch. In India, a land of few safe assumptions, chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted, creative problem-solvers. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
260:As Abdul and his family had already learned, the police station was not a place where victimhood was redressed and public safety held dear. It was a hectic bazaar, like many other public institutions in Mumbai, and investigating Kalu’s death was not a profit-generating enterprise. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
261:Between Jhansi and Bina, the sun and I became embroiled in a game of peek-a-boo. It darted over rooftops and ducked behind trees, hiding behind rogue clouds. But it soon became tired of the game, turning pink from exhaustion and slid down behind the hills, winking on its way out. ~ Monisha Rajesh, #NFDB
262:Everyone is Annawadi talks like this- oh, I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make us rich. It's vanity, nothing more. Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, "What a navigator I am!" And then the wind blows you east. -ABDUL'S FATHER, KARAM HUSAIN ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
263:He didn't feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you're in, you don't worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, here is where you are and here's where you've got to find a way to survive and lying in bed boo-hooing doesn't help much with that. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
264:Boo seemed to be less a ghost than he was a guardian spirit, always happy and ready to serve, still on the earth not because he had remained behind after death but because he had been sent back. Consequently, perhaps he had the power and permission to move between worlds as he wished. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
265:Instead of the patriotic pageantry Republicans typically produce, the four-day event was a strange, dark, almost dystopian affair whose attempt to unify the party was marred by Ted Cruz’s public refusal to endorse Trump, prompting the crowd to boo him off the stage during prime time. ~ Joshua Green, #NFDB
266:I'm not going to get a hit every time in clutch situations, but over the course of the season I'll get a lot of clutch hits. I'm disappointed it's come to a time when they (Orioles fans) boo me. And then to turn around and have the nerve to cheer for you, that's the way baseball goes. ~ Albert Belle, #NFDB
267:When he was nearly thirty-six, my brother Jem got his heart badly broken when his fourth marriage fell apart, mostly because his wife never could get used to Boo, who lived with them and creeped her out by making little wooden dolls of her and putting them in the hollow tree out front. ~ Silas House, #NFDB
268:In Delhi, politicians and intellectuals privately bemoaned the “irrationality” of the uneducated Indian masses, but when the government itself provided false answers to its citizens’ urgent concerns, rumor and conspiracy took wing. Sometimes, the conspiracies became a consolation for loss. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
269:Go talk to her," Boo said.
"About what?"
"Anything."
"You want me to walk up to her and say, 'Are you a ghost?'"
"I do that," she replied.
"I love it when you get it wrong," Callum said.
"Once. It happened once."
"It happened twice," Stephen said, looking over. ~ Maureen Johnson,#NFDB
270:To say it was a dark and stormy night would be a gross understatement. It was colder than witch's kiss, wetter than a spring swamp, and blacker than a tax collector's heart. A sane man would have been curled up in front of a fire with a cup of mulled wine and a good boo-, ah, a willing wench. ~ Hilari Bell, #NFDB
271:Mispronouncing “buoy.” The thing that floats in a navigation channel is not a “boo-ee.” It’s a “boy.” Think about it. Would you call something that floats “boo-ee-ant”? Also, in a similar vein, pronouncing Brett Favre’s last name as if the “r” comes before the “v.” It doesn’t, so stop it. Hotel ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
272:In Delhi, politicians and intellectuals privately bemoaned the “irrationality” of the uneducated Indian masses, but when the government itself provided false answers to its citizens’ urgent concerns, rumor and conspiracy took wing. Sometimes, the conspiracies became a consolation for loss. Trying ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
273:No one hid their interest when I walked into the room. I'm not sure if it was the news about Boo or my general appearance. At home, people would have asked. People would have been crawling all over me for information. At Wexford, they seemed to extract what they wanted to know by covert staring. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB
274:I think most kids have a place they go to when they’re scared or lonely or just plain bored. They call it NeverLand or the Shire, Boo’ya Moon if they’ve got big imaginations and make it up for themselves. Most of them forget. The talented few—like Scott—harness their dreams and turn them into horses. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
275:Well right about that time, people,
A fur trapper
Who was strictly from commercial
(Strictly Commershil)
Had the unmedicated audacity to jump up from behind my igyaloo
(Peek-a-Boo Woo-ooo-ooo)
And he started in to whippin' on my fav'rite baby seal
With a lead-filled snow shoe . . . ~ Frank Zappa,#NFDB
276:No one hid their interest when I walked into the room. I'm not sure if it was the news about Boo or my general appearance. At home, people would have asked. People would have been crawling all over me for information.
At Wexford, they seemed to extract what they wanted to know by covert staring. ~ Maureen Johnson,#NFDB
277:He personally found the bathing ritual not just pointless but self-deceiving. Getting fresh for a fresh day, in which something new might happen! He thought it better to start the day by acknowledging that it was going to be just as dull as the days preceding it. That way, you wouldn’t be disappointed. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
278:I dumped out the bag and found what had been inside was a bunched-up police uniform, complete with the vest. "Where did you get this?" Boo asked. "It's Callum's," he said. "What's he wearing?" "At the moment, not much of anything. Put it on." I noticed Book perk up a bit at this piece of information. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB
279:I think most kids have a place they go to when they're scared or lonely or just plain bored. They call it NeverLand or The Shire, Boo'ya Moon if they've got big imaginations and make it up for themselves. Most of them forget. The talented few - like Scott - harness their dreams and turn them into horses. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
280:In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
281:Hey, I think that's what a few of them were trying to say when I cut their throats. Can't be too sure, though, I didn't let them finish. Maybe they should have picked a different career path. Don't worry. I actually own a flower shop. I'll give you a discount on all the boo-hoo cards and flowers you want. ~ Glenn Bullion, #NFDB
282:And when we fall, God quickly lifts us up, leaping out into our lives like a mother playing peek-a-boo with her child, reassuring the baby with her touch. And when we have been strengthened by God’s action in our lives, then we choose with all our consciousness to serve God and be God’s lovers, endlessly. But ~ Julian of Norwich, #NFDB
283:When it was time to play Boo's big scene, Jem would sneak into the house, steal the scissors from the sewingmachine drawer when Calpurnia's back was turned, then sit in the swing and cut up newspapers. Dill would walk by, cough at Jem, and Jem would fake a plunge into Dill's thigh. From where I stood it looked real. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
284:POPPY (standing up to Paul): He fits me, and I don’t want to change. Not for you or anyone. I’m deeply in love with myself, and Emmett respects that...
“I’m not her (Christine). I don’t have a dream to fix animal boo-boos. Loving Emmett and living close to my family are the only dreams I see as worth having. ~ Bijou Hunter,#NFDB
285:Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” Atticus put his face in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned. Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. “Thank you for my children, Arthur,” he said. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
286:I feel everything very strongly, and that is why I am an actress. I have made such clear connections between some of my chronic boo-boos in my body and emotion. It is kind of fascinating. I really feel like as a society, we need tap into that and embrace that more and more instead of wondering why we are sick. ~ Caroline Dhavernas, #NFDB
287:I dumped out the bag and found what had been inside was a bunched-up police uniform, complete with the vest.
"Where did you get this?" Boo asked.
"It's Callum's," he said.
"What's he wearing?"
"At the moment, not much of anything. Put it on."
I noticed Book perk up a bit at this piece of information. ~ Maureen Johnson,#NFDB
288:I'm Min's fairy godmother, Charm Boy,' Liza said, frowning down at him. 'And if you don't give her a happily ever after, I'm going to come back and beat you to death with a snow globe.'
What happened to "bibbity bobbity boo"?' Cal asked Min.
That was Disney, honey,' Min said. 'It wasn't a documentary. ~ Jennifer Crusie,#NFDB
289:I wasn’t like, boo hoo, Bin Laden’s dead, but I wasn’t jumping. America’s a very nationalistic country, and in episodes like that of his death, it becomes jingoism. People are drinking, dancing in the street, chanting USA like they’re at the World Cup, like they won it… It’s sick that we turned it into a sporting event. ~ Jeremy Scahill, #NFDB
290:Aw, isn’t that sweet.” And Jackal sauntered into view, smirk firmly in place. “But don’t wait around on my account. It’s not like I can’t wait for yet another riveting night of listening to you people whine at each other. Oh, woe is me, I’m a vampire. I’m a horrible monster who eats babies and murders bunnies, boo hoo hoo. ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
291:There is a white girl from Australia that spits in an Australian accent, and her name is Chelsea Jane. That I can get into. Teach me Australian Hip-Hop culture. Don't come to America and try to convince me that you're Gangsta Boo...We're not going to believe you if you're trying to convince us that you're out here trap shooting. ~ Rah Digga, #NFDB
292:Aber wenn es nur eine Art von Menschen gibt, warum können sie dann nicht miteinander auskommen? Wenn sie alle gleich sind, warum haben sie dann nichts anderes im Kopf, als sich gegenseitig zu verabscheuen? Scout, so allmählich wird mir klar, weshalb Boo Radley die ganze Zeit im Haus bleibt ... Er tut's, weil er drinbleiben will. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
293:For years, Asha had hoped that her daughter wouldn’t guess about the men. Now she wished she had raised Manju to be worldly enough to understand. This wasn’t about lust or being modern, though she knew that many first-class people slept around. Nor was it just about feeling loved and beautiful. This was about money and power. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
294:No one knows, but don’t worry,” Zehrunisa said. “Just leave everything to God and keep praying. Now we have a lawyer who will say the right words, and then it will end, because the judge will pick up the truth.”
“Pick up the truth,” he repeated skeptically. As if truth were a coin on a footpath. He changed the subject. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
295:Food wasn’t one of the amenities at Cooper, the five-hundred-bed hospital on which millions of poor people depended. Nor was medicine. “Out of stock today” was the nurses’ official explanation. Plundered and resold out of supply cabinets was an unofficial one. What patients needed, families had to buy on the street and bring in. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
296:Nuclear, ecological, chemical, economic — our arsenal of Death by Stupidity is impressive for a species as smart as Homo sapiens ["Strange New World," http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/boo...]. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
297:Boo-hoo," said Dr Abbey. "Let me know when you people want to grow a pair and join the scientific community. We're looking for answers. We'd love access to your lab equipment."
"You mean join the mad scientists," spat Kelly, guilt turning into anger in an instant.
"You say potato, I say pass the jumper cables," said Dr Abbey. ~ Mira Grant,#NFDB
298:Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
299:Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad. I ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
300:If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
301:In Monsters, Inc., all of our very different plots shared a common feeling—the bittersweet goodbye you feel once a problem”—in this case, Sulley’s quest to return Boo to her own world—“has been solved. You suffer through it as you struggle to solve it, but by the end you’ve developed a sort of fondness for it, and you miss it when it is gone. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
302:Boo," I said. He reacted as all mutts react when I confront them. He leapt from his chair and dove for the nearest exit, shaking in terror. In my dreams. He glanced at me and started looking for Clay. It never failed. Mutts only quaked when I appeared because it usually meant Clayton wasn't far behind. I was nothing but a harbinger of doom. ~ Kelley Armstrong, #NFDB
303:I hear of this love so often that I think I know it, but I don’t feel it, and I myself don’t know why,” he fretted. “These people who love and then the girlfriend goes away—they cut their arms with a blade, they put a cigarette butt out in their hand, they won’t sleep, they won’t eat, they’ll sing—they must have different hearts than mine.” He ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
304:I hear of this love so often that I think I know it, but I don't feel it, and I myself don't know why,' he fretted. 'These people who love and then the girlfriend goes away - they cut their arms with a blade, they put a cigarette butt out on their hand, they won't sleep, they won't eat, they'll sing - they must have different hearts than mine. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
305:One of his private vanities was that all the garbage sorting had endowed his hands with killing strength—that he could chop a brick in half like Bruce Lee. “So let’s get a brick,” replied a girl with whom he had once, injudiciously, shared this conviction. Abdul had bumbled away. The brick belief was something he wanted to harbor, not to test. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
306:I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
307:I was hoping in the last fifteen minutes that Barcelona would beat them. I've made my mind up on Benitez tonight. He's a nice man but he's got a huge negative streak running through him. Liverpool was terrible in the second half. They didn't play football. If that was a concert, you'd boo. Gerrard: found out. A nothing player. They were terrible. Terrible. ~ Eamon, #NFDB
308:The hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened. ~ Richard Yates, #NFDB
309:While others who have something to say or who want to be effectual, like musicians or baseball players or politicians, have to get out there in front of people, writers, who tend to be shy, get to stay home and still be public. There are many obvious advantages to this. You don’t have to dress up, for instance, and you can’t hear them boo you right away. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
310:Zehrunisa didn’t know Abdul’s age herself. Seventeen was what she’d said before the burning, when people asked her, but he could have been twenty-seven, for all she knew. You didn’t keep track of a child’s years when you were fighting daily to keep him from starving, as she and many other Annawadi mothers had been doing when their teenagers were young. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
311:Aber wenn es nur eine Art von Menschen gibt, warum können sie dann nicht miteinander auskommen? Wenn sie alle gleich sind, warum haben sie dann nichts anderes im Kopf als sich gegenseitig zu verabscheuen? Scout, so allmählich wird mir was klar. So allmählich wird mir klar, weshalb Boo Radley die ganze Zeit im Haus bleibt... Er tut´s, weil er drinbleiben will ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
312:While independent India had been founded by high-born, well-educated men, by the twenty-first century few such types stood for elections, or voted in them, since the wealthy had extra-democratic means of securing their social and economic interests. Across India, poor people were the ones who took the vote seriously. It was the only real power they had. Another ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
313:I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable..." - Scout Finch ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
314:Joe Lauzon is not seen as the top guy in his division, He's not the champion. Do you know how many people go f--- crazy when I saw Joe Lauzon is on the card? Because people love to watch him fight. Joe Lauzon has won more fighter bonuses than I think anybody. If you are that guy, the system works for you. But if you are not that guy, then boo f--- hoo, you don't matter. ~ Dana White, #NFDB
315:Light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second. And still, it takes a billion years to get here. That’s how big the universe is. It’s 99.99999999 percent darkness. And did you know that the stars we’re looking at right now could be dead already? Burned up, nothing but a black hole. We’re just seeing their ghosts. Ghosts that traveled a quintillion miles just to say Boo! ~ Nick Cutter, #NFDB
316:Every month that passed, he felt less sure of where he belonged among the human traffic in the city below. Once he had believed he was smart and might become something - not a big something, like the people who frequented the airport, but a middle something. Being on the roof, even if he had come up to steal things, was a way of not being what he had become in Annawadi. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
317:The municipality sent water through six Annawadi faucets for ninety minutes in the morning and ninety minutes at night. Shiv Sena men had appropriated the taps, charging usage fees to their neighbors. These water-brokers were resented, but not as much as the renegade World Vision social worker who had collected money from Annawadians for a new tap, then run away with it. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
318:Don’t you dare mock me. I’ve seen more pain than you can even imagine. (Kiara)
Yeah, your mother was shot dead in front of you. Boo-hoo. So what? You think you’re the only one who ever lived through that? My father was publicly executed for the entire Ichidian Universe to watch. The saddest part of that is I just wish I’d been the one who’d gassed the bastard. (Syn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
319:Adrenal,’ Boo said. ‘It’s terribly rare. He had stomach pains, which they thought was appendicitis. By that stage it had already spread and he was dead within three months. But she was so strong; she kept it together for the children.’ Her tone was both reverential and self-satisfied, as if by reporting the saintliness of this Alice she was conferring some of it upon herself. ~ Sabine Durrant, #NFDB
320:To Americans, the outward display of intelligence is considered unseemly. The Donald Trumps of the world can boast about their penthouses and Ferraris, their women can wear baubles the size of Nebraska, and no one says boo. If you have money, you’re almost always expected to flaunt it. But intellect? This is something else entirely. Women, especially, are supposed to play dumb. ~ Stuart Rojstaczer, #NFDB
321:When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange small spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
322:I pictured Cupid sitting in a crappy little bar, drunk and depressed, while he moaned to the bartender, "That Jasmine Parks, gods, she pisses me off! Did you see what she just did? Totally blew off this immortal stud to play kiss-the-boo-boo with a fickle little rent-a-cop. Why? 'Cause she's the biggest chickenshit on the planet! I'm ready to toss my bow and pick up a bazooka! ~ Jennifer Rardin, #NFDB
323:Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows "Boo", he said. Jace was grinning. "Come on,surely you've got a phobia or two. What scares you?" Alec thought for a moment. "Spiders," he said. Clary turned to Luke. "Have you got a spider anywhere?" Luke looked exasperated. "Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?" No offense," Jace said, "but you kind of do. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
324:Everything on television announced a new and better India for women. Her favorite Tamil soap opera was about an educated single girl who worked in an office. In her favorite commercials, a South Indian movie siren named Asin was recommending, along with Mirinda orange soda, more fun, a little wildness. This new India of feisty, convention-defying women wasn’t a place Meena knew how to get to. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
325:This presents another wrinkle. As one nurse wondered, in a marriage class attended by journalist Katherine Boo in “The Marriage Cure,” her 2003 story on pro-marriage initiatives in Oklahoma, “How do you tell if he wants to marry you for the right reasons . . . ? When I wear my white uniform, guys around here know I’m working and chase me down the street to get their hands on my paycheck.”59 ~ Rebecca Traister, #NFDB
326:They’ve cranked up the lithium so high, I can hardly see straight. I feel like a robot, my feelings have completely evaporated and I couldn’t even say boo to a goose. I’m no danger to anyone.”
“I’m not thinking you’re a danger to anyone.”
“I’m no danger to myself, then.”
Rami stops, spaghetti-laden fork halfway to his mouth. There is a long pause. “Are you sure about that? ~ Tabitha Suzuma,#NFDB
327:When you are making a lot of money people forget you are trying to be creative and they picture you laughing all the way to the bank ... especially with an action script, automatically it gets boo-hooed as being worthless. It was very difficult to hear that sort of thing and I lost a good many friends over money issues because they didn't have money or their scripts weren't selling and mine were. ~ Shane Black, #NFDB
328:Kate Boo's reporting is a form of kinship. Abdul and Manju and Kalu of Annawadi will not be forgotten. She leads us through their unknown world, her gift of language rising up like a delicate string of necessary lights. There are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them. If we receive the fiery spirit from which it was written, it ought to change much more than that. ~ Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, #NFDB
329:Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows "Boo", he said. Jace was grinning. "Come on,surely you've got a phobia or two. What scares you?" Alec thought for a moment. "Spiders," he said. Clary turned to Luke. "Have you got a spider anywhere?"
Luke looked exasperated. "Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?"
No offense," Jace said, "but you kind of do. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
330:In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability to feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, the idea of the mutually supportive poor community is demolished. The poor blame one another for the choices of governments and markets, and we who are not poor are ready to blame the poor just as harshly. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
331:There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan, #NFDB
332:Here it comes," she said with an expression of pure bliss. "Drug rush ... any moment now ... the surge of warmth ... bye-bye, Mr. Pain..." "Vee-" "Knock, knock." "This is really important-" "Knock, knock." "It's about Elliot-" "Knock, knoooock," she said in a singsong voice. I sighed. "Who's there?" "Boo." "Boo who?" "Boo-hoo, somebody's crying, and it's not me!" She broke into hysterical laughter. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
333:Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained - if you ate animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
334:On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! And the Monkeys all say Boo! Theres a Nang Nong Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo On the Nong Ning Nang All the Mice go Clang! And you just cant catch em when they do! So its Ning Nang Nong! Cows go Bong! Nong Nang Ning! Trees go Ping! Nong Ning Nang! The mice go Clang! What a noisy place to belong,Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong! ~ Spike Milligan, #NFDB
335:That's what I thought, too," he said at last, "when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. . .it's because he want's to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
336:That's what I thought, too,' he said at last, 'when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it's because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
337:In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn't unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained unbreached. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
338:It took me a moment. I blinked, and suddenly it swam into focus and I had to frown very hard to keep myself from giggling out loud like the schoolgirl Deb had accused me of being. Because he had arranged the arms and legs in letters, and the letters spelled out a single small word: BOO. The three torsos were carefully arranged below the BOO in a quarter-circle, making a cute little Halloween smile. What a scamp. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
339:What, exactly, she had been protesting was subject to interpretation. To the poorest, her self-immolation was a response to enervating poverty. To the disabled, it reflected the lack of respect accorded the physically impaired. To the unhappily married, who were legion, it was a brave indictment of oppressive unions. Almost no one spoke of envy, a stone slab, a poorly made wall, or rubble that had fallen into rice. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
340:I think it was a modest thing I did (Fahrenheit 9/11) ... this is an election year ... I'm not telling them how to vote. I'm saying get information about the issues ... at first there's just silence, then there's 'Yeah!' and then there's 'Boo' ... I have never seen a reaction like this, in all my years of touring ... Clear Channel can't threaten to not play my records because they are not going to play them anyway. ~ Linda Ronstadt, #NFDB
341:When we get him,” Eve continued, “it’s going to come out that she—this symbol—knocked him around or boo-hoo broke his heart or made him feel weak and helpless. So his defense lawyers will come along saying: Oh, he was damaged, poor sick son of a bitch. He’s not responsible. And that’s a pile of shit, that’s a big, smelly pile of bullshit. Because nobody’s responsible for choking the life out of Elisa Maplewood but him. Nobody. ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
342:It took me a moment. I blinked, and suddenly it swam into focus and I had to frown very hard to keep myself from giggling out loud like the schoolgirl Deb had accused me of being.
Because he had arranged the arms and legs in letters, and the letters spelled out a single small word: BOO.
The three torsos were carefully arranged below the BOO in a quarter-circle, making a cute little Halloween smile.
What a scamp. ~ Jeff Lindsay,#NFDB
343:I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-legged, holding my Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother'sPTA and Boo's strange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,and led right to me.
"She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you. ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
344:Vera had not sensed my approach. She was peering into the instrument and turning knobs with child-like seriousness and ineptitude. It was obvious that she had never used a microscope before.
I stole closer to her, and then I said, "Boo!"
She jerked her head away from the eyepiece.
"Hello," I said.
"You scared me to death," she said.
"Sorry," I said, and I laughed.
These ancient games go on and on. It's nice they do. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,#NFDB
345:A few weeks ago, Abdul had seen a boy’s hand cut clean off when he was putting plastic into one of the shredders. The boy’s eyes had filled with tears but he hadn’t screamed. Instead he’d stood there with his blood-spurting stump, his ability to earn a living ended, and started apologizing to the owner of the plant. “Sa’ab, I’m sorry,” he’d said to the man in white. “I won’t cause you any problems by reporting this. You will have no trouble from me. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
346:...and maybe because of the boiling April sun, he thought about water and ice. Water and ice were made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too. He himself was probably a little different from the corrupt people around him. Ice was distinct from - and in his view, better than - what it was made of. He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai's dirty water, he wanted to be ice. He wanted to have ideals. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
347:Our special today is a Peach Pop Jack. That’s a generous helping of rotted peach peel mixed with our special blend of puréed poppyseed and a splash of arsenic to give it a kick.” “Rotted peach peel and arsenic!” Imogenia interrupted. “Are you trying to kill—” She stopped herself and smiled. “Sorry, I’m not used to being dead. You were saying?” “We also have our standard Boo Tea, curdled milk shakes, Soggy Surprise, and our famous Blackened Booger Sludge. ~ L R W Lee, #NFDB
348:When your husband is deployed you are the cook, the cleaner, boo-boo kisser, nightmare chaser—there’s not a single stinkin’ break when your husband is deployed. Ever. I think it was during the deployments when I realized none of it mattered because when you don’t know if your husband is coming home and when you see your friends lose their husbands, you realize it doesn’t matter if the floors are clean. Who cares that my baseboards are spiderwebby? ~ Jessica N Turner, #NFDB
349:It is easy, from a safe distance, to overlook the fact that in under-cities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vie on scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. The astonishment is that some people are good, and that many people try to be—all those invisible individuals who every day find themselves faced with dilemmas not unlike the one Abdul confronted, stone slab in hand, one July afternoon when his life exploded. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
350:On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
And the Monkeys all say Boo!
Theres a Nang Nong Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the Mice go Clang!
And you just cant catch em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong!
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning!
Trees go Ping!
Nong Ning Nang!
The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong,Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong! ~ Spike Milligan,#NFDB
351:You will never be a hero. You were never meant to be a hero."
Hero. that one word made Aru lift her chin. It made her think of Mini and Boo, her mom, and all the incredible things she herself had done in just nine days. Breaking the lamp hadn't been heroic... but everything else? Fighting for people she cared about and doing everything it took to fix her mistake? That was heroism.
Vajra became a spear in her hand.
"I already am. And it's heroine. ~ Roshani Chokshi,#NFDB
352:Leave the rest all to me. You know. O boo de la thing.’
‘What?’ said Archie, in his turn.
‘You know. The thing they say about camels. At the end of the trau …’
‘You mean the thing Mr Crawford says,’ said Archie with ungenerous malice. ‘Au bout de la trace on trouve toujours ou le chameau ou le propriétaire du chameau.’
‘That’s it!’ said Philippa. ‘That’s it exactly. Only of course,’ she said cheerfully, ‘Mr Crawford says it in French. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,#NFDB
353:And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright, orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They're often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
354:Here it comes," she said with an expression of pure bliss. "Drug rush ... any moment now ... the surge of warmth ... bye-bye, Mr. Pain..."
"Vee-"
"Knock, knock."
"This is really important-"
"Knock, knock."
"It's about Elliot-"
"Knock, knoooock," she said in a singsong voice.
I sighed. "Who's there?"
"Boo."
"Boo who?"
"Boo-hoo, somebody's crying, and it's not me!" She broke into hysterical laughter. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick,#NFDB
355:Triumphant, Asha felt confirmed in a suspicion she'd developed in her years of multi-directional, marginally profitable enterprise. Becoming a success in the great, rigged market of the overcity required less effort and intelligence than getting by, day to day, in the slums. The crucial things were luck and the ability to sustain two convictions: that what you were doing wasn't all that wrong, in the scheme of things, and that you weren't all that likely to get caught. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
356:Years ago, in my earliest and pastiest days as a would-be writer, I once read a new story aloud to S. and Boo Boo. When I was finished, Boo Boo said flatly (but looking over at Seymour) that the story was “too clever.” S. shook his head, beaming away at me, and said cleverness was my permanent affliction, my wooden leg, and that it was in the worst possible taste to draw the group’s attention to it. As one limping man to another, old Zooey, let’s be courteous and kind to each other. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
357:I have a lot of boo-boos, cowboy."
"Maybe I should kiss them." He leaned forward, brushed his lips against her forehead, just above the stitches over her eyebrow.
She held up her arm where there was an abrasion. "Hurts here too."
He kissed the spot.
"And here." She pointed to her mouth.
He kissed her with a pressure as light as the brush of a butterfly's wing.
She thought of a hundred places on her body she wanted him to kiss. "I hurt all over. ~ Lurlene McDaniel,#NFDB
358:...because "Mommy" is forever. It's such a powerful name. Mommy means "I trust you." Mommy means "you will protect me." Mommy is for shouting when you need someone dependable and for laughing with when you are excited. Mommy is for crying on and cuddling with when you are sad, or giggling and hiding behind when you are embarrassed. Mommy is the fixer of boo-boos and the mender of broken hearts. Mommy is a comfort place - a safe place. Mommy means "you are mine and I am yours and we are family. ~ Katie Davis, #NFDB
359:Koopsta Knicca, Gangsta Boo, Lord Infamous and Crunchy [Black]. The name of the group is Da Mafia 6iX. So like I said we can't consider it a Three 6 Mafia reunion without all the members of the [group] being in it so we'll just say that it's a reunion of members of the Mafia that created a totally new group called Da Mafia 6iX. [Fans] are going crazy about it on Twitter, they happy as hell, they've been waiting on this for years, some of these members have been gone since 2000, you know, it's 2013. ~ DJ Paul, #NFDB
360:I’m already further along than he got. Boo-yah!”
“Oh my God, really?” Of course he’d gotten further than Brandt. The moment my lips had touched his ... he’d been further along than Brandt had ever gotten. Setting my hands on my hips, I glared. “This is not a fucking competition between brothers.”
“Oh, I know,” he said seriously enough, right before he broke out in another grin and winked. “It’s still nice to know I’m in the lead, though.”
“Oh my God, you are so annoying. ~ Linda Kage,#NFDB
361:Every country has its myths, and one that successful Indians liked to indulge was a romance of instability and adaptation—the idea that their country’s rapid rise derived in part from the chaotic unpredictability of daily life. In America and Europe, it was said, people know what is going to happen when they turn on the water tap or flick the light switch. In India, a land of few safe assumptions, chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted, creative problem-solvers. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
362:...she's just an Italian momma. She worries a
lot." "Dude, whenever she knew you had a date, she'd call
during the day while you were at work, leaving you those disturbing messages—reading off detailed descriptions of what Jeffrey Dahmer did to his victims."
"She actually still does that." Gabe cringed, looking over at me. "She only wants me to be safe. The whole gay thing wasn't easy for her."
"Boo hoo," I said, "You're queer, not cancerous. She's had plenty of time to get the hell over it. ~ Ethan Day,#NFDB
363:When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. “Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
364:In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn’t unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large.
The gates of the rich occasionally rattled, remained class. The poor took down one another, and the world’s great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
365:When I got to his seat, I stood in back of his chair and waited. It took a couple of minutes before his head jerked up. He sniffed the air, then slowly turned.
“Boo,” I said.
He reacted as all mutts react when I confront them. He leapt from his chair and dove for the nearest exit, shaking in terror. In my dreams. He glanced at me and started looking for Clay. It never failed. Mutts only quaked when I appeared because it usually meant Clayton wasn’t far behind. I was nothing but a harbinger of doom. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
366:grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn’t unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained un-breached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world’s great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
367:Abdul’s deepest affection was for his two-year-old brother, Lallu, a fact that had begun
to concern him. Listening to Bollywood love songs, he could only conclude that his own
heart had been made too small. He’d never longed with extravagance for a girl, and
while he felt certain he loved his mother, the feeling didn’t come in any big gush. But he
could get tearful just looking at Lallu, who was as fearless as Abdul was flinchy. All
those swollen rat bites on his cheeks, on the back of his head. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
368:Once The Boo roamed this campus fierce, alert, and lion-voiced, and his wrath was a terrible thing. He could scream and rant and call us “bums” a thousand times, but he could not hide his clear and overwhelming love of the Corps. The Corps received that love, took it in, felt it in the deepest places, and now, tonight, we give it back at the school where we started out and we give it to The Boo, as a gift, because once, many years ago, The Boo loved us first, when we were cadets of boys and when we needed it the most. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
369:Witches cackle.
Goblins growl.
Spectres boo,
And werewolves howl.
Black cats hiss.
Bats flap their wings.
Mummies moan.
The cold wind sings.
Ogre’s roar.
And crows, they caw.
Vampires bahahahaha.
Warlocks swish their moonlit capes.
Loch Ness monsters churn the lake.
Skeletons, they rattle bones
While graveyards crack the old headstones.
All the while the ghouls, they cry
To trick-or-treaters passing by.
Oh, the noise on Halloween;
It makes me want to scream! ~ Richelle E Goodrich,#NFDB
370:When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears.
“Hey, Boo,” I said.
“Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
371:And what we’ve been always been is…?”
“Is living on borrowed time. Never caring about who’s paying for it, who’s starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs … planetwide, more every day, the payback keeps gathering. And meantime the only help we get from the media is boo hoo the innocent dead. Boo fuckin hoo. You know what? All the dead are innocent. There’s no uninnocent dead.”
After a while, “You’re not going to explain that, or…”
“Course not, it’s a koan. ~ Thomas Pynchon,#NFDB
372:Nobody's going to level you up. If you want that next level, take it. Take it for yourself. Grab it. Become it. Claim it. Write a treatise. Create an event. Champion a cause. Build something great. Speak your mind. Make the call. Build the business. Author the book. Send the email. Do it. Do it. If you fail, big deal. You might write something and nobody might read it. You might build it and nobody might come. You could fail and ruin your life. You could take a chance and end up looking really, really stupid. Boo-fucking-hoo. It doesn't matter. ~ Johnny B Truant, #NFDB
373:Rich Indians typically tried to work around a dysfunctional government. Private security was hired, city water was filtered, private school tuitions were paid. Such choices had evolved over the years into a principle: The best government is the one that gets out of the way.
The attacks on the Taj and the Oberoi, in which executives and socialites died, had served as a blunt correction. The wealthy now saw that their security could not be requisitioned privately. They were dependent on the same public safety system that ill served the poor. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
374:In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn’t unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained un-breached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world’s great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
375:For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny or even Mme. Boo Boo (who was only two years younger than myself, and often entirely the Lady), to take off his or her galoshes on coming into the apartment, each and all of them knew he mostly meant that the floor would get tracked up if they didn't and that Bessie would have to get out the mop. When I told them to take off their galoshes, they knew I mostly meant that people who didn't were slobs. It was bound to make no small difference in the way they kidded or ragged us separately. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
376:And all day long, it was hard not to walk around, thinking about the lastness of it all: The last time I stand in a circle outside the band room in the shade of this oak tree that has protected generations of band geeks. The last time I eat pizza in the cafeteria with Ben. The last time I sit in this school scrawling an essay with a cramped hand into a blue boo. The last time I glance up at the clock. The last time I see Chuck Parson prowling the halls, his smile half a sneer. God. I was becoming nostalgic for Chuck Parson. Something sick was happening inside of me. ~ John Green, #NFDB
377:Water and ice made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too...
If he had sort all the humanity by its material essence, he thought he would probably end up with a single gigantic pile. But here was the interesting thing. Ice was distinct from - and in his view, better than - what it was made of.
He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai's dirty water, he wanted to be ice. He wanted to have ideals. For self-interested reasons, one of the ideals he most wanted to have was a belief in the possibility of justice. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
378:When Scout finds Boo Radley hiding behind her bedroom door, she says something that is scary because it is calm. Something like, “Why, there’s the man right there, Mr. Tate.” Or whatever his name is. Scout’s not surprised to find a hollow-eyed monster in the form of Robert Duvall behind her door. She opens a line into magic, possibility. Or mystery, that’s a better word than magic. Like an open hole in the ground no one noticed until Scout pointed it out, a place where men with dark secrets live behind every bedroom door. Scout’s calm voice says, “The rest of you are blind. ~ Samantha Hunt, #NFDB
379:Ben, there are more important things going on,” I answered.
“DESIGNATED DRIVER!”
“What?”
“You’re my designated driver! Yes! You are so designated! I love that you answered! That’s so awesome! I have to be home by six! And I designate you to get me there! YESSSSSSS!”
“Can’t you just spend the night there?” I asked.
“NOOOO! Booooo. Booo on Quentin. Hey, everybody! Boooo Quentin!” And then I was booed. “Everybody’s drunk. Ben drunk. Lacey drunk. Radar drunk. Nobody drive. Home by six. Promised Mom. Boo, Sleepy Quentin! Yay, Designated Driver! YESSSS! ~ John Green,#NFDB
380:And you're also the kind of woman who a man sees curled in a protective ball, he's moved to do what he can to make certain that doesn't happen again."
"Is that why you're here?"
"I'm here cause when you come, you come hard, you don't hold back but you do hold on and you do it tight. I'm here, because, when you call me baby in this bed, I feel it in my dick. And I'm here because you don't hesitate throwing attitude when every other woman I know doesn't have the guts to say boo to me. Seeing you scared and wantin' to do something about it was just an extra reason that made me want to be here. ~ Kristen Ashley,#NFDB
381:What was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere, too. In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn't unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained unbreached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world's great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
382:What was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere, too. In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn’t unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained un-breached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world’s great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace. As ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
383:An overweight officer, having delivered a batch of children to the home, started telling one of the guards about his heart problem. “You think you want to be a cop, but you don’t, because it kills you,” said the officer, mopping his brow. Then he told of another officer with a lung problem, and one who had cancer, and of others who were stress-sick, and of how none of them earned enough to afford decent doctors. Abdul hadn’t previously thought of policemen as people with hearts and lungs who worried about money or their health. The world seemed replete with people as bad off as himself, and this made him feel less alone. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
384:Jace threw his hands up. "So it doesn't work."
"Not necessarily," Luke said. "There might simply be nothing going on that might activate it. Perhaps there isn't anything here that Alec is afraid of."
Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. "Boo," he said.
Jace was grinning. "Come on, surely you've got a phobia or two. What scares
you?"
Alec thought for a moment. "Spiders," he said.
Clary turned to Luke. "Have you got a spider anywhere?"
Luke looked exasperated. "Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?"
"No offense," Jace said, "but you kind of do. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
385:No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
....
"That's what I thought too," he said at last, "when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it's because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
386:turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while. “That’s what I thought, too,” he said at last, “when I was your age. If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it’s because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
387:One of the few things left in the world, aside from the world itself, that sadden me every day is an awareness that you get upset if Boo Boo or Walt tells you you're saying something that sounds like me. You sort of take it as an accusation of piracy, a little slam at your individuality. Is it so bad that we sometimes sound like each other? The membrane is so thin between us. Is it so important for us to keep in mind which is whose... For us, doesn't each of our individualities begin right at the point where we own up to our extremely close connections and accept the inevitability of borrowing one another's jokes, talents, idiocies? ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
388:And any room that I enter may become a sideshow tent where I must take my place upon a rickety old bench on the verge of collapse. Even now the Showman stands before my eyes. His stiff red hair moves a little toward one shoulder, as if he is going to turn his gaze upon me, and moves back again; then his head moves a little toward the other shoulder in this never-ending game of horrible peek-a-boo. I can only sit and wait, knowing that one day he will turn full around, step down from his stage, and claim me for the abyss I have always feared. Perhaps then I will discover what it was I did - what any of us did - to deserve this fate. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
389:For that matter," said Toussaint, "it's true. We would be assassinated before we'd have time to say Boo!
And then, since Monsieur doesn't sleep in the house. But don't be afraid, mademoiselle, I fasten the windows like
Bastilles. Women alone ! I'm sure that's enough to make us shudder! Just imagine! To see men come into the room
at night and say Hush ! to you and set themselves about cutting your throat. It isn't so much the dying, people
die, that's all right, we know very well that we have to die, but it is the horror of having such people touch yhaving such people touch you. And then their knives, they must cut badly ! 0 God ! ~ Victor Hugo,#NFDB
390:is a series of promises.” When she’d realized that—marriage equaled promises—she hadn’t feared it. As much. “Maybe you can’t keep them all. The whole till-death-do-us-part business. Maybe you can’t keep that one. Life can be long, and people change, circumstances change, so okay. You realize you don’t really want this life or this person, or the person you made the promises to isn’t who you thought, or they’ve changed in a way you can’t accept or support. Whatever. You make a choice. Stick and try to work it through, or don’t. But don’t give me the boo-hoo, I’m not happy so I’m getting naked with somebody else on the side. It insults everybody. ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
391:I couldn't think of anything helpful to say, so I resorted to humor, my shield of last resort. 'Just please tell me they don't have a dog and a picket fence.'
He smiled. 'No fence, but a dog, two dogs.'
'What kind of dogs?' I asked.
He smiled and glanced at me, wanting to see my reaction. 'Maltese. Their names are Peeka and Boo.'
'Oh, shit, Edward, you're joking me.'
'Donna wants the dogs included in the engagement pictures.'
I stared at him, and the look on my face seemed to amuse him. He laughed. 'I'm glad you're here, Anita, because I don't know a single other person who I'd have admitted this to. ~ Laurell K Hamilton,#NFDB
392:The African American man rolled his eyes, but Robert said, “He’s just kidding, Renny. Dexter Morgan, this is Renny Boudreaux!” He pronounced it “boo-drow,” and since I am a man of the world and recognize a French name when I hear one, I nodded to him and said, “Enchanté, m’sieu.” Boudreaux stared at me and then, with a look of wonder on his face, he said, “Is that French?! Goddamn, you are smooth. I like that. French, that’s— Tell me, Dexter, you ever fuck a black man?” I really wanted to believe I had misheard him, but he’d said it so loud and clear that there could be no mistake. So I just shook my head and said, “Not yet, no. But the day is young. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
393:I don’t know about your parental units, but mine really have it together when it comes to laundry. They have it together in many other ways, such as having a fully stocked fridge at all times—and not just with the basics, like bread, milk, and eggs. I’m talking about luxury spices that you might only see in a wicker basket on Chopped, vegan food items that Oprah has endorsed, and enough produce to make a fresh summer salad whenever the mood strikes. Just like when Honey Boo Boo said everyone is a little bit gay, it seems like every parent is a little bit Gwyneth Paltrow: the Goop Years after the kids leave the house. And Ma and Pa Robinson are no exception. ~ Phoebe Robinson, #NFDB
394:Wanting to kill myself is was an appropriate and reasonable response to a whole series of unfortunate events that had rendered life unlivable. Oh, yes, I know the shrinks would say that they could have helped, but that's half the trouble with this bloody country, isn't it? No one's willing to face their responsibilities. It's always someone else's fault. Boo hoo hoo. Well, I happen to be one of those rare individuals who believe that what went on with Mummy and Daddy had nothing to do with me screwing a fifteen-year-old. I happen to believe that I would have slept with her regardless of whether I'd been breast-fed or not, and it was time to face up to what I'd done. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
395:So, how do you feel? Any different?” Alec looked considering. “Not really.” Jace threw his hands up. “So it doesn’t work.” “Not necessarily,” Luke said. “There might simply be nothing going on that might activate it. Perhaps there isn’t anything here that Alec is afraid of.” Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. “Boo,” he said. Jace was grinning. “Come on, surely you’ve got a phobia or two. What scares you?” Alec thought for a moment. “Spiders,” he said. Clary turned to Luke. “Have you got a spider anywhere?” Luke looked exasperated. “Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?” “No offense,” Jace said, “but you kind of do. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
396:When I’d checked into the bathroom with Seymour’s diary under my arm, and had carefully secured the door behind me, I spotted a message almost immediately. It was not, however, in Seymour’s handwriting but, unmistakably, in my sister Boo Boo’s. With or without soap, her handwriting was always almost indecipherably minute, and she had easily managed to post the following message up on the mirror; 'Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man. Love, Irving Sappho, formerly under contract to Elysium Studios Ltd. Please be happy happy happy with your beautiful Muriel. This is an order. I outrank everybody on this block. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
397:No onlooker asked, Why fix a house when the airport authority might demolish it? Almost everyone here improved his hut when he was able, in pursuit not just of better hygiene and protection from the monsoon but of protection from the airport authority. If the bulldozers came to flatten the slum, a decent hut was seen as a kind of insurance. The state of Maharashtra had promised to relocate those families who had squatted at the airport since 2000 to tiny apartments in high-rises. To Annawadians, a difficult-to-raze house increased the odds that a family’s tenure on airport land would be acknowledged by the relocation authorities. And so they put their money into what would be destroyed. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
398:Regardless of what happens with the men, you’ll have a baby. An amazing little being who will blow your mind and expand your heart and make you think things you never thought and remember things you believed you forgot and heal things you imagined would never heal and forgive people you’ve begrudged for too long and understand things you didn’t understand before you fell madly in love with a tiny tyrant who doesn’t give a crap whether you need to pee. You will sing again if you stopped singing. You will dance again if you stopped dancing. You will crawl around on the floor and play chase and tickle and peek-a-boo. You’ll make towers of teetering blocks and snakes and rabbits with clay. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
399:Naw, Jem. I think that there is just one kind of folks. Folks."
Jen turned and punched his pillow. WHen he settle back his face was cloudy. He was going in to one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while.
That is what I thought, too," he said at last, "when I was your age. If there is just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go ut of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I am beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley stayed shut up in the house all this time...it's because he wants to stay inside ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
400:This is too grand to be said (so I’m just the man to say it), but I can’t be my brother’s brother for nothing, and I know – not always, but I know – there is no single thing I do that is more important than going into that awful Room 307. There isn’t one girl in there, including the Terrible Miss Zabel, who is not as much my sister as Boo Boo or Franny. They may shine with the misinformation of the ages, but they shine. This thought manages to stun me: There’s no place I’d really rather got right now than into Room 307. Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?
Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly. ~ J D Salinger,#NFDB
401:No, Jem, io credo che la gente sia di un tipo solo: gente, e basta!”
Jem si girò e prese a pugni il cuscino per gonfiarlo a dovere. Nell’appoggiarvisi, era accigliato e, temendo che stesse covando uno dei suoi scoramenti, divenni prudente. Corrugò la fronte fino a riunire le sopracciglia, strinse le labbra e non parlò per un pezzo.
“È quel che pensavo anch’io quando avevo la tua età,” disse infine. “Ma se gli uomini sono di un tipo solo, come ti spieghi che non vanno mai d’accordo tra loro? Se sono tutti eguali, perché passano la vita a disprezzarsi a vicenda? Comincio a capire una cosa, Scout: sai perché Boo Radley è rimasto chiuso in casa tutto questo tempo? Perché vuole starci dentro. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
402:Two boys who looked to be seven years old had been picked up while sweeping floors in a cheap hotel. They reminded Abdul of his little brothers, and he felt emotional being around them. He couldn’t see why the state had taken them from their parents. Being so poor that you had to work so young seemed like punishment enough.
Abdul had kept to himself in his first days at Dongri, aware of his inadequacy in the conversational arts, but the incarceration of the seven-year-olds inflamed him. “What’s the use, keeping them here?” he blurted out one day. “You see their faces? So much enthusiasm for life, they are going to break the walls of this jail. The government people should let them work, let them be free. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
403:Like most scavengers, Sunil knew how he appeared to the people who frequented the airport: shoeless, unclean, pathetic. By winter’s end, he had defended against this imagined contempt by developing a rangy, loose-hipped stride for exclusive use on Airport Road. It was the walk of a boy on his way to school, taking his time, eating air. His trash sack was empty on this first leg of his daily route, so it could be tucked under his arm or worn over his shoulders like a superhero cape. When Sister Paulette passed by in her chauffeured white van, it could be draped over his head. Sister Paulette-Toilet was how he thought of her now. He imagined her riding down Airport Road looking for children more promising than he. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
404:It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears, And seemed almost too good to be true. Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers: Then the ominous words “It’s a Boo–” Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air A weary and wandering sigh That sounded like “–jum!” but the others declare It was only a breeze that went by. a face in the underbrush They hunted till darkness came on, but they found Not a button, or feather, or mark, By which they could tell that they stood on the ground Where the Baker had met with the Snark. In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away— For the Snark was a Boojum, you see. THE END. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
405:Perhaps there isn’t anything Alec is afraid of.”
Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. “Boo,” he said.
Jace was grinning. “Come on, surely you’ve got a phobia or two. What scares you?”
Alec thought for a moment. “Spiders,” he said.
Clary turned to Luke. “Have you got a spider anywhere?”
Luke looked exasperated. “Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?”
“No offense,” Jace said, “But you kind of do.”
“You know”---Alec’s tone was sour---”Maybe this was a stupid experiment.”
“What about the dark?” Clary suggested. “We could lock you in the basement.”
“I’m a demon hunter,” Alec said, with exaggerated patience. “Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
406:Boo-Boo Pennyroyal did not like her male and female slaves to mingle. In the operas that she adored, young people brought together in tragic circumstances were forever falling in love with each other and then throwing themselves off things (cliffs, mostly, but sometimes battlements, or rooftops, or the brinks of volcanoes). Boo-Boo was fond of her slaves, and it pained her to think of them plummeting in pairs off the edges of Cloud 9, so she nipped all tragic love affairs firmly in the bud by forbidding the girls and boys to speak to one another. Of course, young people being what they were, girls sometimes fell in love with other girls, or boys with boys, but that never happened in the operas, so Boo-Boo didn't notice. ~ Philip Reeve, #NFDB
407:Do you favor mandated free tuition?” I answered: “Most positively not.” The crowd unanimously and lustily booed me. “Do you realize,” I persisted, “that you are asking men and women who are, many of them poorer than you, and poorer than your parents; many of whom earn less money than you yourselves will be earning in the course of a few years, to make sacrifices in your behalf?” Boo! “If you don’t believe me,” I said, “go to your economics teachers and ask them.” Boo! “All right,” I said, “don’t go to your economics teachers, and don’t discover the economic realities—you’ll find it much easier on the conscience not to know who is sustaining the hardship for your free education.” Applause!—as a matter of fact. On ~ William F Buckley Jr, #NFDB
408:Atticus sat looking at the floor for a long time. Finally he raised his head. “Scout,” he said, “Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?”
Atticus looked like he needed cheering up. I ran to him and hugged him and kissed him with all my might. “Yes sir, I understand,” I reassured him. “Mr. Tate was right.”
Atticus disengaged himself and looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”
Atticus put his face in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned. Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. “Thank you for my children, Arthur.” he said. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
409:These are touchy times. National sensitivities are on permanent alert and it's getting harder by the moment to say boo to a goose, lest the goose in question belong to the paranoid majority (goosism under threat), the thin-skinned minority (victims of goosophobia), the militant fringe (Goose Sena), the separatists (Goosistan Liberation Front), the increasingly well organised cohorts of society's historical outcasts (the ungoosables, or Scheduled Geese), or the the devout followers of of that ultimate guru duck, the sainted Mother Goose. Why, after all, would any sensible person wish to say boo in the first place? By constantly throwing dirt, such boxers disqualify themselves from serious consideration (they cook their own goose). ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
410:The last time we saw you, you had that teddy bear permanently attached to your side, didn’t you? What was his name again? Mr. Boo? Mr. Boony?”
Megan turned purple as the boys snickered. This was not happening. This could not be happening. Her teddy bear?
“John,” Regina said in a warning tone.
“I don’t really…remember,” Megan lied. Everyone was staring at her.
“Oh yes, you do! You wouldn’t put that thing down for the world!” John’s voice boomed. “Mr. Binky? Mr.--”
“Mr. Boogie,” she said.
The laughter was deafening.
“Yes! Mr. Boogie! I remember because you kept making him kiss me,” John said gleefully. “You still have that thing?”
“Um…no,” Megan lied. Mr. Boogie was tucked snugly at the bottom of her suitcase. ~ Kate Brian,#NFDB
411:POPPY: 25 December 2016
POPPY (standing up to Paul): You see family life as respecting boundaries and saying what makes people happy and treating everyone like they’re treasured but only in a sanitized way.
I see family life as invading everyone’s privacy and saying whatever I feel and treating everyone as they’re treasured because they’re my family and thus special as compared to the rest of the world.
I see a good family as loud and frantic and intrusive...He fits me, and I don’t want to change. Not for you or anyone. I’m deeply in love with myself, and Emmett respects that...
“I’m not her (Christine). I don’t have a dream to fix animal boo-boos. Loving Emmett and living close to my family are the only dreams I see as worth having. ~ Bijou Hunter,#NFDB
412:In my mind, she was Lebkuchen Spice—ironic, Germanic, sexy, and off beat. And, mein Gott, the girl could bake a damn fine cookie … to the point that I wanted to answer her What do you want for Christmas? with a simple More cookies, please!
But no. She warned me not to be a smart-ass, and while that answer was totally sincere, I was afraid she would think I was joking or,
worse, kissing up.
It was a hard question, especially if I had to batten down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas. I could play the boo-hoo orphan card and wish for my whole family to be together, but that was the last thing I wanted, especially at this late date. ~ David Levithan,#NFDB
413:We came to the street light in the corner, and I wondered how many times Dill stood there hugging the fat pole, watching, waiting, hoping. I wondered how many times Jem and I had made this journey, but I entered the Radley front gate for the seecond time in my life. Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again.
Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: w had given him nothing, and it made me sad. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
414:Rahul had been underwhelmed by the New Year's rituals of the rich. "Moronic," he had concluded. "Just people drinking and dancing and standing around acting stupid, like people here do every night."
"The hotel people get strange when they drink," he told his friends. "Last night at the end of the party, there was one hero-good-looking, stripes on his suit, expensive cloth. He was drunk, full tight, and he started stuffing bread into his pants pockets, jacket pockets. Then he put more rolls straight into his pants! Rolls fell on the floor and he was crawling under the table to get them. This one waiter was saying the guy must have been hungry, earlier- that whiskey brought back the memory. But when I get rich enough to be a guest at a big hotel, I'm not going to act like such a loser. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
415:The Little Peach"
A little peach in the orchard grew,—
A little peach of emerald hue;
Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
It grew.
One day, passing that orchard through,
That little peach dawned on the view
Of Johnny Jones and his sister Sue—
Them two.
Up at that peach a club they threw—
Down from the stem on which it grew
Fell that peach of emerald hue.
Mon Dieu!
John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew,—
Trouble the doctor couldn't subdue.
Too true!
Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,—
Boo hoo!
What of that peach of the emerald hue,
Warmed by the sun, and wet by the dew?
Ah, well, its mission on earth is through.
Adieu! ~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
416:Well that ain’t so. You get babies from each other. But there’s this man, too—he has all these babies just waitin‘ to wake up, he breathes life into ’em…” Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown doors.
“Dill?”
“Mm?”
“Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?”
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
“Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to… ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
417:The Little Peach
A little peach in the orchard grew,-A little peach of emerald hue;
Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
It grew.
One day, passing that orchard through,
That little peach dawned on the view
Of Johnny Jones and his sister Sue-Them two.
Up at that peach a club they threw-Down from the stem on which it grew
Fell that peach of emerald hue.
Mon Dieu!
John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew,-Trouble the doctor couldn't subdue.
Too true!
Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,-Boo hoo!
What of that peach of the emerald hue,
Warmed by the sun, and wet by the dew?
Ah, well, its mission on earth is through.
Adieu!
1880.
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
418:Author's Note: I wanted to read the book that would begin to answer some of my questions, because I felt I couldn't write it... I also doubted my ability to handle monsoon and slum conditions after years of lousy health. I made the decision to try in the course of an absurdly long night at home alone in Washington, D.C. Tripping over an unabridged dictionary, I found myself on the floor with a punctured lung and three broken ribs in a spreading pool of Diet Dr Pepper, unable to slither to a phone. In the hours that passed, I arrived at a certain clarity. Having proved myself ill-suited to safe cohabitation with an unabridged dictionary, I had little to lose by pursuing my interests in another quarter-- a place beyond my so-called expertise, where the risk of failure would be great but the interactions somewhat more meaningful. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
419:You know how you secretly worry that this is it, that it’s all downhill from here? I know you do. You worry that the children will turn into hulking criminals; their scalps will turn odorless. You lie in bed now during a thunderstorm, two sleeping, moonlit faces pressed against you, fragrant scalps intoxicating you, the rain on the roof like hoofbeats, heartbeats—and the calamity of raising young children falls away because this is all you ever wanted. Now you boo-hoo noiselessly into the kids’ hair because life is so beautiful and you don’t want it to change. Enjoy it. But let me tell you—you won’t believe it, but let me tell you anyway—you will watch them sleeping still and always: the illuminated down of their cheeks, their dark puffs of lips and dear, dark wedges of eyelashes, and you will feel exactly the way you feel now. Only better. ~ Catherine Newman, #NFDB
420:No, everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin’. That Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” Jem turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while. “That’s what I thought, too,” he said at last, “when I was your age. If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time … it’s because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
421:No, everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin’. That Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Jem turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while.
“That’s what I thought, too.” he said at last, “when I was your age. If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in that house all this time… it’s because he want wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
422:Raven, lying on the sandy ground, covered in creepy-crawlies. Spiders, cockroaches, termites, ants, crickets—they smother her, nibble on her, devouring her from hair to toenails in seconds, leaving just a skeleton behind. Apple, standing at the podium on Legacy Day. Poof, she disappears. And reappears in a goblin cave. The goblin troop moves in, brandishing salad bowls and chopping knives. Daring Charming, no story to call home, thins and melts into a wisp of a ghost, swimming endlessly through walls. The crowded Charmitorium at Ever After High, Headmaster Grimm on the stage. “And remember, students, no matter what you do, don’t follow the example of the worst, most despised, most selfish character in all of Ever After history—Raven Queen!” “Boo!” the students yell. “Boo!” says the Daring ghost. Apple’s head in a goblin bowl opens her eyes and looks straight at Raven. “Boo! ~ Shannon Hale, #NFDB
423:I really feel that we're not giving children enough credit for distinguishing what's right and what's wrong. I, for one, devoured fairy tales as a little girl. I certainly didn't believe that kissing frogs would lead me to a prince, or that eating a mysterious apple would poison me, or that with the magical "Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo" I would get a beautiful dress and a pumpkin carriage. I also don't believe that looking in a mirror and saying "Candyman, Candyman, Candyman" will make some awful serial killer come after me. I believe that many children recognize Harry Potter for what it is, fantasy literature. I'm sure there will always be some that take it too far, but that's the case with everything. I believe it's much better to engage in dialog with children to explain the difference between fantasy and reality. Then they are better equipped to deal with people who might have taken it too far. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
424:Jem: I’ve thought about it a lot lately and I’ve got it figured out. There’s four kinds of folks in Maycomb County. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes. The thing about it is, our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks.
Scout: Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.
Jem: That’s what I thought, too. When I was your age. If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
425:A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention. It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose's. . . . Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive. Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog. Summer, and he watched his children's heart break. Autumn again, and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
426:You saw a ghost, didn't you?" he said.
To my relief, I managed to laugh. "Hate to break it to you, but
there's no such thing as ghosts."
Huh."
His gaze traveled around the laundry room, like a cop searching
for an escaped convict. When he turned that
piercing look on me, its intensity sucked the backbone out of me.
What do you see, Chloe?"
I -I-I don't s-s-s-"
Slow down." He snapped the words, impatient. "What do they
look like? Do they talk to you?"
You really want to know?"
Yeah."
I chewed my lip, then lifted onto my tiptoes. He bent to listen.
They wear white sheets with big eye holes. And they say 'Boo!'" I
glowered up at him. "Now get out of my
way."
I expected him tosneer. Cross his arms and say, Make me, little girl.His lips twitched and I steeled myself, then I realized he was smiling.Laughing at me.
He stepped aside. I swept past him to the stairs. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
427:Would you like to know how Charlotte got those nine stitches?" I asked suddenly, in a tone of voice that sounded perfectly normal to me. "We were up at the Lake. Seymour had written to Charlotte, inviting her to come up and visit us, and her mother finally let her. What happened was, she sat down in the middle of our driveway one morning to pet Boo Boo's cat, and Seymour threw a stone at her. He was twelve. That's all there was to it.
He threw it at her because she looked so beautiful sitting there in the middle of the driveway with Boo Boo's cat. Everybody knew that for God's sake-me, Charlotte, Boo Boo, Waker, Walt, the whole family." I stared at the pewter ashtray on the coffee table. "Charlotte never said a word to him about it. Not a word." I looked up at my guest, rather expecting him to dispute me, to call me a liar. I am a liar, of course. Charlotte never did understand why Seymour threw that stone at her. My guest didn't dispute me though. ~ J D Salinger,#NFDB
428:Do you remember that piece of footage on the local news, just as the first tower comes down, woman runs in off the street into a store, just gets the door closed behind her, and here comes this terrible black billowing, ash, debris, sweeping through the streets, gale force past the window. . .that was the moment, Maxi. Not when 'everything changed.' When everything was revealed. No grand Zen illumination, but a rush of blackness and death. Showing us exactly what we've become, what we've been all the time."
"And what we've always been is. . .?"
"Is living on borrowed time. Getting away cheap. Never caring about who's paying for it, who's starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs. . .planetwide, more every day, the payback keeps gathering. And meantime the only help we get from the media is boo hoo the innocent dead. Boo fuckin hoo. You know what? All the dead are innocent. There's no uninnocent dead. ~ Thomas Pynchon,#NFDB
429:The story of Louis Bonaparte was the occasion for Marx’s remark about history taking place twice, the first time as tragedy (Napoleon), the second time as farce (the nephew). Marx wanted to draw from these events a lesson about the class struggle, but I think that he stumbled on a different and eternal truth, which has to do with the place of theater—of tragedy and farce, theatrical genres—in political life. Reality TV, in Trump’s version of it, is our modern farce. There are people who demand their daily farce: This was Marx’s unwitting discovery. They insist on being entertained. About the realities of their own political situation, those people may understand nothing. They understand a personal reality, though. They want to sit in the audience and laugh and cry. Especially they want to shake their fists at villains. They want to boo and hiss. They want to tremble in loathing. If someone comes out on stage who is capable of making them do so, they will clap. It is pathetic. ~ Paul Berman, #NFDB
430:Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Trez frowned at the sound. Cracking one eye open, he found his brother standing over his bed, Boo the black cat in the male’s arms, an expression of disapproval narrowing those icy eyes.
His brother’s, not the cat’s.
“Are you spending another night on your ass,” iAm bit out.
Not a question, so why bother throwing out an answer.
Groaning as he sat up, Trez had to brace his arms to keep his torso vertical. Apparently, while he’d been out of it, the world had turned into a hula hoop and the planet was going around and around his neck.
Losing the fight, he flopped back down.
As his brother kept standing there, he knew that this was the siren call back to reality. And he wanted to answer it, he really did. His body, however, was out of gas.
“When was the last time you fed?” iAm demanded.
He shifted his eyes over and dodged the question. “Since when are you an animal lover?”
“I hate this g*dd*mn cat.”
“I can tell. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
431:Now one of the other students flew into her hut with such velocity that a poster of Bal Thackeray, Shiv Sena’s aging founder, fluttered off its tack on the wall. “Devo! You’re early!” Manju protested. “And you forgot to take off your shoes!” Her eyes then moved from the mud tracks on the floor to his face, which was covered in blood. “Oh,” the boy said, holding his head. “A taxi …” Annawadi kids were always getting hit on the chaotic roads—usually, while crossing a treacherous intersection to get to Marol Municipal School. New drivers talking on new cellphones could be a lethal combination. Manju leaped up, grabbed the turmeric by the stove, and poured the yellow powder over Devo’s head. Turmeric, as good for wounds as for brides before weddings. She rubbed the spice until it blended with the blood into a bright orange paste, then pressed down hard. She was checking to see if she’d stanched the bleeding when Devo’s one-eyed, widowed mother came through the door, brandishing a foot-long piece of metal. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
432:As Tom Robinson gave his testimony, it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have
been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have
anything to do with her because she was white. She couldn’t live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who preferred the company of Negroes, because she didn’t own a riverbank and she wasn’t from a fine old family. Nobody said, “That’s just their way,” about the Ewells. Maycomb gave them Christmas baskets, welfare money, and the back of its hand. Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
433:Well then, how do you explain why the Cunninghams are different? Mr. Walter can hardly sign his name, I've seen him. We've just been readin' and writing' longer'n they have.”
"No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
Jen turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while.
"That's what I thought, too," he said at last, "when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think i'm beginning to understand something. I think i'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time ... its because he wants to stay inside. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
434:It sure if terrific to be in the back seat of a car full of all the people in your affinity group, and as you zip down the center of the road the radio is going boodeley-boodeley-boo in some bluegrass heart song to open space, and, whoopee, you’re hugging all the committed girls who love you just as the boys love you but even more so, maybe, because Bug never forgot that a Swiss army knife, for instance, does everything well and nothing excellently; and to do something excellently a good navy surplus kelp-slitting blade is far superior to a thousand sawtoothed frogman’s specials; and a gun is worth a thousand knives; and a good friend is worth a thousand guns; and ten minutes’ bored talk about the weather with any girl is worth a thousand friends at your back on the Great Trek of 1836, at least at that time in his life, perhaps because until he joined the affinity group none of his friends had ever been girls; but now everyone was his friend, especially the girls (but he only thought that; he didn’t say it, didn’t want anyone to claim that he was a sexist). ~ William T Vollmann, #NFDB
435:The Rock-A-By Lady
The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street
Comes stealing; comes creeping;
The poppies they hang from her head to her feet,
And each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet She bringeth her poppies to you, my sweet,
When she findeth you sleeping!
There is one little dream of a beautiful drum "Rub-a-dub!" it goeth;
There is one little dream of a big sugar-plum,
And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come
Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum,
And a trumpet that bloweth!
And dollies peep out of those wee little dreams
With laughter and singing;
And boats go a-floating on silvery streams,
And the stars peek-a-boo with their own misty gleams,
And up, up, and up, where the Mother Moon beams,
The fairies go winging!
Would you dream all these dreams that are tiny and fleet?
They'll come to you sleeping;
So shut the two eyes that are weary, my sweet,
For the Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street,
With poppies that hang from her head to her feet,
Comes stealing; comes creeping.
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
436:The most significant source of my adolescent period anxiety was the fact that, in America in 2016 (and far more so in 1993), acknowledging the completely normal and mundane function of most uteruses is still taboo. The taboo is so strong that it contributes to the widespread stonewalling of women from seats of power - for fear that, as her first act in the White House, Hillary might change Presidents' Day to Brownie Batter Makes the Boo-Hoos Stop Day. The taboo is strong enough that a dude once broke up with me because a surprise period started while we were having sex and the sight of it shattered some pornified illusion he had of women as messless pleasure pillows. The taboo is so strong that while we've all seen swimming pools of blood shed in horror movies and action movies and even on the news, when a woman ran the 2015 London Marathon without a tampon, photos of blood spotting her running gear made the social media rounds to near-universal disgust. The blood is the same - the only difference is where it's coming from. The disgust is at women's natural bodies, not at blood itself. ~ Lindy West, #NFDB
437:Why do we love nonsense? Why do we love Lewis Carroll with his “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe, all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe…”? Why is it that all those old English songs are full of “Fal-de-riddle-eye-do” and “Hey-nonny-nonny” and all those babbling choruses? Why is it that when we get “hep” with jazz we just go “Boody-boody-boop-de-boo” and so on, and enjoy ourselves swinging with it? It is this participation in the essential glorious nonsense that is at the heart of the world, not necessarily going anywhere. It seems that only in moments of unusual insight and illumination that we get the point of this, and find that the true meaning of life is no meaning, that its purpose is no purpose, and that its sense is non-sense. Still, we want to use the word “significant.” Is this significant nonsense? Is this a kind of nonsense that is not just chaos, that is not just blathering balderdash, but rather has in it rhythm, fascinating complexity, and a kind of artistry? It is in this kind of meaninglessness that we come to the profoundest meaning. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
438:This is your last chance to do the right thing.'
'Do you want to attack first, or will I?'
Skulduggery held up a finger. 'Do you mind if I confer with my colleague for a moment?'
'By all means.'
Skulduggery leaned in towards Valkyrie. 'Damn,' he whispered. 'She's not going to do the right thing.'
'Did you really think she would?'
'I was really hoping.'
'Can we beat her?' Valkyrie asked.
'I don't like our chances.'
'What are our chances?'
'We don't have any,' Skulduggery admitted. 'Do you think you can take Craven on your own?'
'No.'
'Me either. Do you want to leave him to me then, and you can take her?'
'I like that idea even less.'
'I don't blame you.'
She sighed. 'We're going to get killed, aren't we?'
'It looks likely. Our only hope is a surprise attack.'
'They're staring right at us.'
'Dammit.' Skulduggery straightened up. 'We have discussed the situation,' he said to them, 'and decided that it would be in everyone's best interests for me to fight you, Melancholia, and for both Valkyrie and Cleric Craven to stand back and cheer or boo as they see fit. ~ Derek Landy,#NFDB
439:Are you taking this bath alone?"
I felt my lips tip up. "Take your clothes off, Jasper."
"Well," he said with an eyebrow wiggle. "If you insist..."
I laughed at that, kicking out of my other boot while he lifted his shirt off. It had only been a few days, but it felt longer. Hell, being away from him for five minutes would probably be painful from this point forward. It seemed if I turned my back, he disappeared.
"I'm not going anywhere," he promised me, making my head jerk up a little guiltily. "I had to ask for asylum too. So you're stuck with me now, like it or not," he said with an almost vulnerable smile.
"Oh, I think I can learn to... tolerate you," I said, leaning into his naked chest.
"You know, I think I know a cure for that smart mouth of yours," he said, making me smile into his neck.
"Mmmhmm," I said a little dreamily, having forgotten how calming his presence could be.
"But let's get you bathed and fed and then we can talk about it."
"Boo... talking," I grumbled and his chuckle reverberated through my body, turning my insides liquid. ~ Jessica Gadziala,#NFDB
440:Do you ever think when you look at someone, when to you listen to someone, does that person really have a life?" Abdul was asking the boy who was not listening. "Like that woman who just went to hang herself, or her husband, who probably beat her before she did this? I wonder what kind of life is that," Abdul went on. "I go through tensions just to see it. But it is a life. Even the person who lives like a dog still has a kind of life. Once when my mother was beating me, and that thought came to me. I said, 'If what is happening now, you beating me, is to keep happening for the rest of my life, it would be a bad life, but it would be a life, too.' And my mother was so shocked when I said that. She said, "Don't confuse yourself by thinking about such terrible lives.'" Sunil though that he, too, had a life. A bad life, certainly-the kind that could be ended as Kalu's had been and then forgotten, because it made no difference to the people who lived in the overcity. But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned to far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
441:i mean talk about decadence," he declared, "how decadent can a society get? Look at it this way. This country's probably the psychiatric, psychoanalytical capital of the world. Old Freud himself could never've dreamed up a more devoted bunch of disciples than the population of the United States - isn't that right? Our whole damn culture is geared to it; it's the new religion; it's everybody's intellectual and spiritual sugar-tit. And for all that, look what happens when a man really does blow his top. Call the Troopers, get him out of sight quick, hustle him off and lock him up before he wakes the neighbors. Christ's sake, when it comes to any kind of showdown we're still in the Middle Ages. It's as if everybody'd made this tacit agreement to live in a state of total self-deception. The hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened. ~ Richard Yates, #NFDB
442:So?” Clary said. (After she Marked Alec with the Fearless rune.)
“So what?” Alec rolled his sleeve down, covering the Mark.
“So how do you feel? Any different?”
Alec looked considering. “Not really.”
Jace threw his hands up. “So it doesn’t work.”
“No necessarily,” Luke said. “There might simply be nothing going on that might activate it. Perhaps there isn’t anything here that Alec is afraid of.”
Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. “Boo,” he said.
Jace was grinning. “Come on, surely you‘ve got a phobia or two. What scares you?”
Alec thought for a moment. “Spiders,” he said.
Clary turned to Luke. “Have you got a spider anywhere?”
Luke looked exasperated. “Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?”
“No offense,” Jace said, “but you kind of do.”
“You know” -Alec‘s tone was sour- “maybe this was a stupid experiment.”
“What about the dark?” Clary suggested. “We could lock you in the basement.”
“I‘m a demon hunter,” Alec said, with exaggerated patience. “Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark.” ~ Cassandra Clarepg.284-285~ Cassandra Clare ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
443:I never knew what Mother knowed,
Like how a thread and needle sewed,
And how a kiss healed boo-boos fast.
Why family knots were made to last.
I never knew how Mother saw
A caring man in angry pa,
A smile beneath the teary gloom,
A game inside a messy room.
I never knowed what Mother knew,
Like how to smile when days were blue,
And how to laugh for laughter’s sake,
While giving up her slice of cake.
I never saw what Mother see’d
Like honor pulling garden weeds,
Or deep confessions in a look,
And hope alive in storybooks.
I never knew how Mother knowed
To hand out carrots when it snowed,
And why hot cocoa liked the rain,
While naptime kept a person sane.
For mother knowed and see’d it all.
A winner in a strike-out ball.
A 'yes, please' in a shoulder shrug.
A 'love you mostest' in a hug.
Perhaps, someday, I’ll come to know
What Mother saw and knowed as so.
Like how 'I’m right' can be all wrong,
And why the night requires a song.
But of the things I learned and knew
I never doubted one thing true.
My mother made it crystal clear,
she knowed and loved me ever dear. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,#NFDB
444:The attacks on the Taj and the Oberoi, in which executives and socialites died, had served as a blunt correction. The wealthy now saw that their security could not be requisitioned privately. They were dependent on the same public safety system that ill served the poor.
Ten young men had terrorized one of the world’s biggest cities for three days—a fact that had something to do with the ingenuity of a multi-pronged plot, but perhaps also to do with government agencies that had been operating as private market-stalls, not as public guardians. The crisis-response units of the Mumbai Police lacked arms. Officers in the train station didn’t know how to use their weapons, and ran and hid as two terrorists killed more than fifty travelers. Other officers called to rescue inhabitants of a besieged maternity hospital stayed put at police headquarters, four blocks away. Ambulances failed to respond to the wounded. Military commandos took eight hours to reach the heart of the financial capital—a journey that involved an inconveniently parked jet, a stop to refuel, and a long bus ride from the Mumbai airport. By the time the commandos arrived in south Mumbai, the killings were all but over. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
445:Peek-A-Boo
The cunningest thing that a baby can do
Is the very first time it plays peek-a-boo;
When it hides its pink little face in its hands,
And crows, and shows that it understands
What nurse, and mamma and papa, too,
Mean when they hide and cry, 'Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.'
Oh, what a wonderful thing it is,
When they find that baby can play like this;
And everyone listens, and thinks it true
That baby's gurgle means 'Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo';
And over and over the changes are rung
On the marvelous infant who talks so young.
I wonder if any one ever knew
A baby that never played peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.
'Tis old as the hills are. I believe
Cain was taught it by Mother Eve;
For Cain was an innocent baby, too,
And I am sure he played peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.
And the whole world full of the children of men,
Have all of them played that game since then.
461
Kings and princes and beggars, too,
Everyone has played peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.
Thief and robber and ruffian bold,
The crazy tramp and the drunkard old,
All have been babies who laughed and knew
How to hide, and play peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
446:The Naughty Little Fellow
When a naughty little fellow stands ashamed in front of you
And his lips begin to quiver and he's ready to boo-hoo,
When his big round eyes are filling with the tears he cannot check,
And at last you find him sobbing with his arms around your neck,
Don't you get a tender feeling sort of stealing over you,
Till you feel like crying with him? — Well, you bet your life I do.
When a naughty little fellow, who's the counterpart of you,
Has been guilty of the very willful deeds you used to do,
And you've got him on the carpet, where you often used to stand,
And you quickly feel the pressure of a grimy little hand
That has stolen rather slyly into yours and thrilled you through,
Don't you overlook his conduct? — Well, you bet your life I do.
When a naughty little fellow that has disobeyed his Ma
Has at last been brought to judgment in the presence of his Pa,
Who has heard that dreadful story of that very dreadful day,
And you know that he is worried over what you'll do or say,
And against your cheek you notice there's a cheek that's damp and hot,
Are you stern enough to whip him? — Well, you bet your life I'm not.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
447:Daylight...In my mind, the night faded. It was daytime and the neighborhood was busy. Miss Stephenie Crawford crossed the street to tell the latest to Miss Rachel. Miss Maudie bent over the azaleas.
It was summertime, and two children scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man waved, and the children raced each other to him. It was still summertime, and the children came closer. A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishingpole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yeard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention.
It was fall and his children fought ont he sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose's. The boy helped his sister to her feet and they made their way home. Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woe's and triymph's on their face. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled apprehensive.
Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. Winter and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and show a dog.
Summer, and he watched his children's heart break.
Autumn again, and Boo's children needed him. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
448:There is nothing wrong with entertainment. As some psychiatrist once put it, we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them. The communications media of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with telegraphy and photography at their center, called the peek-a-boo world into existence, but we did not come to live there until television. Television gave the epistemological biases of the telegraph and the photograph their most potent expression, raising the interplay of image and instancy to an exquisite and dangerous perfection. And it brought them into the home. We are by now well into a second generation of children for whom television has been their first and most accessible teacher and, for many, their most reliable companion and friend. To put it plainly, television is the command center of the new epistemology. There is no audience so young that it is barred from television. There is no poverty so abject that it must forgo television. There is no education so exalted that it is not modified by television. And most important of all, there is no subject of public interest—politics, news, education, religion, science, sports—that does not find its way to television. Which means that all public understanding of these subjects is shaped by the biases of television. ~ Neil Postman, #NFDB
449:Mirchi, I cannot lie to you,” Rahul said, grinning. “On my side of the hall there were five hundred women in only half-clothes—like they forgot to put on the bottom half before they left the house!”
“Aaagh, where was I?” said Mirchi. “Tell me. Anyone famous?”
“Everyone famous! A Bollywood party. Some of the stars were in the VIP area, behind a rope, but John Abraham came out to near where I was. He had this thick black coat, and he was smoking cigarettes right in front of me. And Bipasha was supposedly there, but I couldn’t be sure it was really her or just some other item girl, because if the manager sees you looking at the guests, he’ll fire you, take your whole pay—they told us that twenty times before the party started, like we were weak in the head. You have to focus on the tables and the rug. Then when you see a dirty plate or a napkin you have to snatch it and take it to the trash bin in the back. Oh, that room was looking nice. First we laid this thick white carpet—you stepped on it and sank right down. Then they lit white candles and made it dark like a disco, and on this one table the chef put two huge dolphins made out of flavored ice. One dolphin had cherries for eyes—”
“Bastard, forget the fish, tell me about the girls,” Mirchi protested. “They want you to look when they dress like that. ~ Katherine Boo,#NFDB
450:Scenario
Had enough of the old lonesome-and-blue scenario?
Up for a shot at the old I-love-you scenario?
Man enough to leave your comfort zone
in the good old get-drunk-and-screw scenario?
Let's be real. Love hurts. Even you, you stud, you.
Sure you can handle the old boo-hoo scenario?
Don't even try to guess what she really wants;
get ready for the old you-don't-have-a-clue scenario.
Tell her, "I'll always honor your personhood."
What's more of a drag than the old I'm-a-person-too scenario?
It's never not a good time to say, "My bad."
Don't lean too hard on the old I-never-knew scenario.
Caught in a little white lie? You're in deep shit
if you trapped yourself in the old I-swear-it's-true scenario.
Make sure she's down with each new trick in the sack
or you'll run smack into the old that's-taboo scenario.
Like what you're getting, but not sure she's The One?
You can string her along with the old don't-rock-the-canoe scenario,
but sooner or later it's gut-check time in Texas
and there's no way around the old we're-through scenario
unless you've got the cojones to suck it up
and go all in on the old I-do scenario.
Don't say Eric never told you: lovers
and poets live or die by the old make-it-new scenario.
~ Eric Torgersen,#NFDB
451:Hello nǐ hǎo knee how. (Think: How’s your knee, i.e., “How are you?”) Goodbye zàijiàn dzeye gee-en Thank you xiè xie syeh syeh (The second “xie” has no tone.) You’re welcome bú kè qi boo kuh chee (The “chee” has no tone.) Good morning zǎoshang hǎo dzow shahng how Please stand in line qǐng páiduì ching pie dway Too expensive taì guì le tie gway luh (Make it) cheaper piányi yìdiǎn pien yee ee dien (I; we) don’t want it búyào boo yow I want this one wǒ yào zhèige waw yow jay guh (Note: “guh” has no tone) How much (does it cost)? duóshǎo qian dwo shao chee-en Where is the bathroom? cèsuǒ zài nǎlǐ tsuh swo dz-eye nah lee Over there nàli nah lee (Note: “lee” has no tone) Please give me qǐng gěi wǒ ching gay waw Fine; OK; good; alright hǎo how Not OK; no good bùhǎo boo how I want to go Wǒ yào qù waw yow chee-you (Show taxi driver the address in Chinese.) (Want) to go to Wǒ yào dào qù waw you dow chee-you (e.g., when buying tickets at train or bus station) Police! jǐngchá! jing chah! (in case of theft or emergency) Help! Help! jiùmìng! jiùmìng! jee-oh ming! jee-oh ming! Faster! kuài yìdiǎn! kweye ee dien! Numbers one through ten: one yī ee two èr ar three sān sahn four sì szih five wǔ woo six liù leo seven qī chee eight bā bah nine jiǔ geo ten shí sure one of something yíge ee guh two of something liǎngge lee-ang guh three of something sānge sahn guh Etc. ~ Larry Herzberg, #NFDB
452:Salvini In America
Come, gentlemen-your gold.
Thanks: welcome to the show.
To hear a story told
In words you do not know.
Now, great Salvini, rise
And thunder through your tears,
Aha! friends, let your eyes
Interpret to your ears.
Gods! 't is a goodly game.
Observe his stride-how grand!
When legs like his declaim
Who can misunderstand?
See how that arm goes round.
It says, as plain as day:
'I love,' 'The lost is found,'
'Well met, sir,' or, 'Away!'
And mark the drawing down
Of brows. How accurate
The language of that frown:
Pain, gentlemen-or hate.
Those of the critic trade
Swear it is all as clear
As if his tongue were made
To fit an English ear.
Hear that Italian phrase!
Greek to your sense, 't is true;
But shrug, expression, gaze
Well, they are Grecian too.
But it is Art! God wot
Its tongue to all is known.
Faith! he to whom 't were not
Would better hold his own.
412
Shakespeare says act and word
Must match together true.
From what you've seen and heard,
How can you doubt they do?
Enchanting drama! Mark
The crowd 'from pit to dome',
One box alone is dark
The prompter stays at home.
Stupendous artist! You
Are lord of joy and woe:
We thrill if you say 'Boo,'
And thrill if you say 'Bo.'
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
453:My throat raw with emotion, I said, “I thought love was supposed to be weak knees and butterflies in your stomach and a terrible longing that could never be quenched.” Eeny shook her head, chuckled, came over and embraced me. “No, child,” she said gently, patting my back. “That’s romance. Romance is built on doubt. Love is solid. Constant. If you’re not careful, you might mistake it for bein’ boring because it’s so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath. “But it’s also fierce and strong and demands all the best parts of you, the parts that are giving and honest and true. Love makes you a better person. It makes you want to be a better person. You know it’s love when you feel comfortable just as you are, when you feel seen and understood, when you know you could tell all your darkest truths and they’d be accepted without judgement.” Eeny pulled away and gently smoothed a hand over my hair. “Love isn’t butterflies, boo. It isn’t weak knees. It’s a pride of lions. It’s a pack of wolves. It’s ‘I’ve got your back even if it costs me my own life,’ because unlike romance that fizzles at the first sign of trouble, love will fight to the death. When it’s love, you’ll go to war to avenge even the slightest offense. And you’ll be justified. “Because of all the marvelous and terrible things we can experience in this life, love is the only one that will last beyond it. ~ J T Geissinger, #NFDB
454:My throat raw with emotion, I said, “I thought love was supposed to be weak knees and butterflies in your stomach and a terrible longing that could never be quenched.”
Eeny shook her head, chuckled, came over and embraced me. “No, child,” she said gently, patting my back. “That’s romance. Romance is built on doubt. Love is solid. Constant. If you’re not careful, you might mistake it for bein’ boring because it’s so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath.
“But it’s also fierce and strong and demands all the best parts of you, the parts that are giving and honest and true. Love makes you a better person. It makes you want to be a better person. You know it’s love when you feel comfortable just as you are, when you feel seen and understood, when you know you could tell all your darkest truths and they’d be accepted without judgement.”
Eeny pulled away and gently smoothed a hand over my hair. “Love isn’t butterflies, boo. It isn’t weak knees. It’s a pride of lions. It’s a pack of wolves. It’s ‘I’ve got your back even if it costs me my own life,’ because unlike romance that fizzles at the first sign of trouble, love will fight to the death. When it’s love, you’ll go to war to avenge even the slightest offense. And you’ll be justified.
“Because of all the marvelous and terrible things we can experience in this life, love is the only one that will last beyond it. ~ J T Geissinger,#NFDB
455:A Piteous Plaint
I cannot eat my porridge,
I weary of my play;
No longer can I sleep at night,
No longer romp by day!
Though forty pounds was once my weight,
I'm shy of thirty now;
I pine, I wither and I fade
Through love of Martha Clow.
As she rolled by this morning
I heard the nurse girl say:
"She weighs just twenty-seven pounds
And she's one year old to-day."
I threw a kiss that nestled
In the curls upon her brow,
But she never turned to thank me-That bouncing Martha Clow!
She ought to know I love her,
For I've told her that I do;
And I've brought her nuts and apples,
And sometimes candy, too!
I'd drag her in my little cart
If her mother would allow
That delicate attention
To her daughter, Martha Clow.
O Martha! pretty Martha!
Will you always be so cold?
Will you always be as cruel
As you are at one-year-old?
Must your two-year-old admirer
Pine as hopelessly as now
For a fond reciprocation
Of his love for Martha Clow?
You smile on Bernard Rogers
And on little Harry Knott;
You play with them at peek-a-boo
21
All in the Waller Lot!
Wildly I gnash my new-cut teeth
And beat my throbbing brow,
When I behold the coquetry
Of heartless Martha Clow!
I cannot eat my porridge,
Nor for my play care I;
Upon the floor and porch and lawn
My toys neglected lie;
But on the air of Halsted street
I breathe this solemn vow:
"Though she be false, I will be true
To pretty Martha Clow!"
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
456:My apologies, see, I forgot my manners.
I get on the mic ’cause it’s my life. You show off for girls and cameras.
You a pop star, not a rapper. A Vanilla Ice or a Hammer.
Y’all hear this crap he dumping out? Somebody get him a Pamper.
And a crown for me. The best have heard about me.
You can only spell “brilliant” by first spelling Bri.
You see, naturally, I do my shit with perfection.
Better call a bodyguard ’cause you gon’ need some protection,
And on this here election, the people crown a new leader.
You didn’t see this coming, and your ghostwriters didn’t either.
I came here to ether. I’m sorry to do this to you.
This is no longer a battle, it’s your funeral, boo. I’m murdering you.
On my corner they call me coroner, I’m warning ya.
Tell the truth, this dude is borin’ ya.
You confused like a foreigner. I’ll explain with ease:
You’re just a casualty in the reality of the madness of Bri.
No fallacies, I spit maladies, causin’ fatalities,
And do it casually, damaging rappers without bandaging.
Imagining managing my own label, my own salary.
And actually, factually, there’s no MC that’s as bad as me.
Milez? That’s cute. But it don’t make me cower.
I move at light speed, you stuck at per hour.
You spit like a lisp. I spit like a high power.
Bri’s the future, and you Today like Matt Lauer.
You coward. But you’re a G? It ain’t convincing to me.
You talk about your clothes, about your shopping sprees.
You talk about your Glock, about your i-c-e.
But in this here ring, they all talking ’bout me,
Bri! ~ Angie Thomas,#NFDB
457:The hand that rested on my shoulder rubbed it a bit, comfortingly. Then it gave my shoulder a little squeeze. I leaned into him.
Maybe it was that I was broken. Maybe it was just that I was out of my mind. But it occurred to me that I was going to kiss him. The thought just arrived, certain knowledge, delivered from some greater, more knowledgeable place. I was going to kiss him. Stephen would not want to kiss me. He would back up in horror. And yet, I was still going to do it. I reached over, and put my hand against his chest, then I moved closer. I could feel just the very tips of the gentle stubble on his cheek brushing against my skin.
"Rory," he said. But it was a quiet protest, and it went nowhere.
For the first few seconds, he didn't move-he accepted the kiss like you might accept a spoonful of medicine. Then I heard it, a sigh, like he had finally set down a heavy weight.
I was pretty sure we were both kind of terrified, but I was completely sure that we were both doing this. We kissed slowly, very deliberately, coming together and then pulling apart and looking at each other. Then each kiss got longer, and then it didn't stop. Stephen put his hand just under the edge of my shirt, holding it on the spot where the scar was. Sometimes the skin around the scar got cold-now it was warm. Now it was alive.
"So Thorpe says that-Seriously?"
Callum was in the doorway.
Stephen mumbled what I think was a very obscene word right against my mouth.
"You realize I now owe Boo five pounds?" Callum said. "Boo! I owe you five pounds! ~ Maureen Johnson,#NFDB
458:My grandfather, also named Fraser Robinson, was decidedly less fun to be around, a cigar-puffing patriarch who’d sit in his recliner with a newspaper open on his lap and the evening news blaring on the television nearby. His demeanor was nothing like my father’s. For Dandy, everything was an irritant. He was galled by the day’s headlines, by the state of the world as shown on TV, by the young black men—“boo-boos,” he called them—whom he perceived to be hanging uselessly around the neighborhood, giving black people everywhere a bad name. He shouted at the television. He shouted at my grandmother, a sweet, soft-spoken woman and devout Christian named LaVaughn. (My parents had named me Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in honor of her.) By day, my grandmother expertly managed a thriving Bible bookstore on the Far South Side, but in her off-hours with Dandy she was reduced to a meekness I found perplexing, even as a young girl. She cooked his meals and absorbed his barrage of complaints and said nothing in her own defense. Even at a young age, there was something about my grandmother’s silence and passivity in her relationship with Dandy that got under my skin. According to my mother, I was the only person in the family to talk back to Dandy when he yelled. I did it regularly, from the time I was very young and over many years, in part because it drove me crazy that my grandmother wouldn’t speak up for herself, in part because everyone else fell silent around him, and lastly because I loved Dandy as much as he confounded me. His stubbornness was something I recognized, something I’d inherited myself, though I hoped in a less abrasive form. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
459:The Man In Chrysanthemum Land
There's a brave little berry-brown man
At the opposite side of the earth;
Of the White, and the Black, and the Tan,
He's the smallest in compass and girth.
O! he's little, and lively, and Tan,
And he's showing the world what he's worth.
For his nation is born, and its birth
Is for hardihood, courage, and sand,
So you take off your cap
To the brave little Jap
Who fights for Chrysanthemum Land.
Near the house that the little man keeps,
There's a Bug-a-boo building its lair;
It prowls, and it growls, and it sleeps
At the foot of his tiny back stair.
But the little brown man never sleeps,
For the Brownie will battle the Bear-He has soldiers and ships to command;
So take off you cap
To the brave little Jap
Who fights for Chrysanthemum Land.
Uncle Sam stands a-watching near by,
With his finger aside of his nose-John Bull with a wink in his eye,
Looks round to see how the wind blows-O! jolly old John, with his eye
Ever set on the East and its woes.
More than hoeing their own little rows
These wary old wags understand,
But they take off their caps
To the brave little Japs
Who fight for Chrysanthemum Land.
Now he's given us Geishas, and themes
For operas, stories, and plays,
His silks and his chinas are dreams,
And we copy his quaint little ways;
105
O! we look on his land in our dreams,
But his value we failed to appraise,
For he'll gather his laurels and bays-His Cruisers and Columns are manned,
And we take off our caps
To the brave little Japs
Who fight for Chrysanthemum Land.
~ Emily Pauline Johnson,#NFDB
460:Off To School
IT doesn't seem a year ago that I was tumbling out of bed,
The icy steps that lead below at 1 a.m., barefoot, to tread,
And puttering round the kitchen stove, while chills ran up and down my form
As I stood there and waited for her bottled dinner to get warm;
Then sampled it to see that it was not too hot or not too cool,
That doesn't seem a year ago, and now she's trudging off to school.
It doesn't seem a month ago that I was teaching her to walk,
And holding out my arms to her. And that was 'fore she learned to talk.
I stood her up against the wall, eager, yet watchful lest she fall,
Then suddenly she came to me—the first two steps those feet so small
Had, unassisted, ever made! Those feet I hope to guide and rule;
That doesn't seem a month ago—and now she's trudging off to school.
It doesn't seem a week ago that we were playing peeka-boo,
She'd lift her little dress and hide her face as all the babies do;
And then we'd laugh and romp and shout, and I would ride her pig-a-back.
A pair of gay disturbers we, with not a care along life's track!
The days were meant for laughter then, and I was glad to play the fool,
That doesn't seem a week ago—and now she's trudging off to school.
Oh, Father Time, line deep my brow, and tinge my thinning hair with gray,
Deal harshly with my battered form as you go speeding on your way;
Print on my face your marks of years, and stamp me with your yesterdays,
But, oh, tread softly now, I pray, the ground whereon my baby plays.
Pass over her with gentle touch; to keep her young break every rule,
But yesterday she was a babe—and now she's trudging off to school.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
461:FOR SOME TIME, I have believed that everyone should be allowed to have, say, ten things that they dislike without having to justify or explain to anyone why they don’t like them. Reflex loathings, I call them. Mine are: Power walkers. Those vibrating things restaurants give you to let you know when a table is ready. Television programs in which people bid on the contents of locked garages. All pigeons everywhere, at all times. Lawyers, too. Douglas Brinkley, a minor academic and sometime book reviewer whose powers of observation and generosity of spirit would fit comfortably into a proton and still leave room for an echo. Color names like taupe and teal that don’t mean anything. Saying that you are going to “reach out” to someone when what you mean is that you are going to call or get in touch with them. People who give their telephone number so rapidly at the end of long phone messages that you have to listen over and over and eventually go and get someone else to come and listen with you, and even then you still can’t get it. Nebraska. Mispronouncing “buoy.” The thing that floats in a navigation channel is not a “boo-ee.” It’s a “boy.” Think about it. Would you call something that floats “boo-ee-ant”? Also, in a similar vein, pronouncing Brett Favre’s last name as if the “r” comes before the “v.” It doesn’t, so stop it. Hotel showers that don’t give any indication of which way is hot and which cold. All the sneaky taxes, like “visitor tax” and “hospitality tax” and “fuck you because you’re from out of town tax,” that are added to hotel bills. Baseball commentators who get bored with the game by about the third inning and start talking about their golf game or where they ate last night. Brett Favre. I know that is more than ten, but this is my concept, so I get some bonus ones. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
462:What?” I cut him off. “That’s not true—I do take this seriously—”
“Bullshit.” He laughs a short, sharp, angry laugh. “All you do is sit around and think about your feelings. You’ve got problems. Boo-freaking-hoo,” he says. “Your parents hate you and it’s so hard but you have to wear gloves for the rest of your life because you kill people when you touch them. Who gives a shit?” He’s breathing hard enough for me to hear him. “As far as I can tell, you’ve got food in your mouth and clothes on your back and a place to pee in peace whenever you feel like it. Those aren’t problems. That’s called living like a king. And I’d really appreciate it if you’d grow the hell up and stop walking around like the world crapped on your only roll of toilet paper. Because it’s stupid,” he says, barely reining in his temper. “It’s stupid, and it’s ungrateful. You don’t have a clue what everyone else in the world is going through right now. You don’t have a clue, Juliette. And you don’t seem to give a damn, either.” I swallow, so hard. “Now I am trying,” he says, “to give you a chance to fix things. I keep giving you opportunities to do things differently. To see past the sad little girl you used to be—the sad little girl you keep clinging to—and stand up for yourself. Stop crying. Stop sitting in the dark counting out all your individual feelings about how sad and lonely you are. Wake up,” he says. “You’re not the only person in this world who doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. You’re not the only one with daddy issues and severely screwed-up DNA. You can be whoever the hell you want to be now.
You’re not with your shitty parents anymore. You’re not in that shitty asylum, and you’re no longer stuck being Warner’s shitty little experiment. So make a choice,” he says. “Make a choice and stop wasting everyone’s time. Stop wasting your own time. Okay? ~ Tahereh Mafi,#NFDB
463:The moment she stepped into the clearing holding Sawyer’s hand my heart sped up. Just seeing her made me a little crazy. I hated seeing her hand tucked in Sawyer’s, but she wasn’t paying any attention to Sawyer. She searching the crowd, for me. I threw my cup in the trash can and made my way over to them. Once I stepped out of the shadows, her eyes found mine and a pleased smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Desire curled in my gut, making it hard not to go jerk her away from Sawyer and claim her as mine. He shouldn’t be touching her.
“Sawyer,” I said, nodding to my cousin before allowing myself to stare at Ashton some more. The tight jeans she wore clung to her hips, while her flat, tanned stomach played peek-a-boo with the hem of her pale blue tank top. I knew exactly how soft that little strip of skin felt against my fingers. I lifted my eyes from her stomach to meet her gaze. “Ash.” I watched her blush prettily, then duck her head and glance over through her lowered lashes at the person standing beside her. I followed her gaze and saw who could only be a grownup version of Lana. She smiled at me, but I could see it was forced. It took all my restraint to hold back a chuckle. I’d tormented the girl when we were kids, but she had always been so mean to Ash.
“Beau, you remember Lana. I believe you once handcuffed her to the dog fence and forced her to sing loudly for her release.”
Ashton’s introduction made me laugh. I couldn’t stop myself this time. I remember seeing Ashton’s head full of blond curls peeking at me from around the tree trunk, covering her mouth as her shoulders shook from laughter. I’d been so proud of myself for avenging her honor and making her laugh all at the same time. I met Ashton’s amused gaze, wishing for the millionth time that things had gone differently and she was mine.
“I remember that. You tormented Lana so much, it’s a wonder she didn’t run screaming when she saw you tonight. ~ Abbi Glines,#NFDB
464:Daniel belayed back down as I got into position. His feet hit the ground with a thump, then he looked over at me.
“Ready?”
“Always.”
Nicole did the countdown from the top. I started fast, reaching the halfway mark head and shoulders above him. But that’s when things got tricky, the holds and grips a little farther apart, and he had the advantage. By the three-quarter mark, he’d caught up.
“Better kick it up a notch,” he said, as he drew alongside me. “I know you really want those extra holds.”
“And I’m sure you really don’t want to make them. But don’t forget the second part. You win, you gotta kiss me. Might be better to stick with the holds.”
He laughed and heaved up to the next grip, pulling away now. I grabbed another and found toeholds first, shooting a couple inches above him, the advantage lost a second later when his longer arms found the next grips as I was still getting leverage. I kept my face forward now, climbing in earnest for the first time since we’d started.
A hiss and boo from below told me I was in the lead. Then a grunt from beside me. A sharp intake of breath and I knew he was pulling up. The crowd cheered. I looked up to see Brooke leaning over the side, ropes in hand, urging me on. Only three feet to go. I could see Daniel out of the corner of my eye, his chin level with my nose, just a scant inch advantage, but I knew it was enough and as soon as he grabbed that top ledge and heaved himself up--
A grunt. Daniel wobbled and the grip slid out of his hand. He dropped only a few inches, but by the time he’d recovered, I was pulling myself over the top. Brooke and Nicole were cheering. The others below called up good-natured boos.
I took a breather as I hung off the ledge. I could hear Daniel panting beside me, but I didn’t look over.
There was no way he’d lost his hold on that grip. He’d let go. Given me the win at the last second as he realized what was coming if he’d won. A kiss he didn’t want. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
465:Fritz.”
The butler rushed over from the crudité arrangement he was working on. “Yes, master! I am eager to be of aid.”
“Take this.” iAm peeled the cat off himself, prying both of its front claws out of his fleece. “And do whatever it is you do with it.”
As he turned away, he felt like glancing back and making sure G*dd*mn was okay.
But why the fuck would he do that?
He had to get to Sal’s and check on his staff. Usually he hit the restaurant in the early afternoon, but shit had not been “usual,” what with that migraine: Every time his brother had one, they both got a headache. Now, though, with Trez rebounding and no doubt soon to be on the grind with that Chosen, it was time to get back on his own track. If only to keep himself from going psychotic.
Jesus Christ, Trez was now going to fuck that female. And God only knew where that was going to land them all.
Just as he hit the exit, he called out over his shoulder, “Fritz.”
Through the din of First Meal prep, the doggen answered back, “Yes, master?”
“I never find any seafood in this place. Why is that?”
“The King does not favor any manner of fin.”
“Would he allow it in here?”
“Oh, yes, master. Just not upon his table, and certainly never upon his plate.”
iAm stared at the panels of the door in front of him. “I want you to get some fresh salmon and poach it. Tonight.”
“But of course. I will not have it ready afore First Meal for you—”
“Not for me. I hate fish. It’s for G*dd*mn Cat. I want him served that regularly.” He pushed the door open. “And get him some fresh veggies. What kind of cat food does he eat?”
“Only the best. Hill’s Science Diet.”
“Find out what is in his food—and then I want everything hand-prepared. Nothing out of the bag for him from now on.”
Approval bloomed in the old doggen’s voice: “I’m sure Master Boo will appreciate your special interest.”
“I’m not interested in that bag of fur.”
-iAm, Fritz, & Boo ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
466:I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I
had never seen our neighborhood from this angle. There were Miss Maudie’s,
Miss Stephanie’s—there was our house, I could see the porch swing—Miss
Rachel’s house was beyond us, plainly visible. I could even see Mrs. Dubose’s.
I looked behind me. To the left of the brown door was a long shuttered window. I
walked to it, stood in front of it, and turned around. In daylight, I thought, you
could see to the postoffice corner.
Daylight… in my mind, the night faded. It was daytime and the neighborhood
was busy. Miss Stephanie Crawford crossed the street to tell the latest to Miss
Rachel. Miss Maudie bent over her azaleas. It was summertime, and two children
scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man
waved, and the children raced each other to him.
It was still summertime, and the children came closer. A boy trudged down the
sidewalk dragging a fishingpole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands
on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their
friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention.
It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose’s. The
boy helped his sister to her feet, and they made their way home. Fall, and his
children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day’s woes and triumphs on their
faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive.
Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing
house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a
dog.
Summer, and he watched his children’s heart break. Autumn again, and Boo’s
children needed him.
Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand
in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was
enough. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
467:Needless to say he had a newfound respect for that blind vampire.
There were very few things iAm hadn’t been able to move in his adult life.
He’d changed a tire while acting as his own tire iron.
Had been known to walk vats of sauce big as washing machines around a kitchen.
Hell, he’d even actually relocated a washer and dryer without thinking much about it.
And then he’d had to lift that truck off his brother about two years ago.
Another example of Trez’s love life getting out of control.
But down in the training center with Wrath?
There’d been no budging that fucker. The King had been bulldog-locked on—and the expression on his face? No emotion, not even a grimace of effort. And that body—viciously strong.
iAm shook his head as he crossed that apple tree in full bloom. Trying to budge Wrath had been like pulling on a boulder. Nothing moved; nothing gave.
That canine had gotten through, though. Thank God.
Now, ordinarily, iAm didn’t like animals in the house—and he definitely wasn’t a dog person. They were too big, too dependent, the shedding—too much. But he respected that golden whatever it was now—
Meeeeeeeeeeeerowwwwwwwwwwwwww.
“Fuck!”
Speak of the devil. As the queen’s black cat wound its way around his feet, he was forced to Michael Jackson it over the damn thing so he didn’t step on it.
“Damn it, cat!”
The feline followed him all the way into the kitchen, always with the in-and-out around the ankles—almost like it knew he’d been thinking benes about the dog and was establishing dominance.
Except cats couldn’t read minds, of course.
He stopped and glared at the thing. “What the hell do you want.”
Not really a question, as he didn’t care to give the feline an opening.
One black paw lifted and then . . . Next thing he knew, the g*dd*mn cat was leaping into his arms, rolling over onto its back . . . and purring like a Ferrari.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” he muttered.
-iAm & Boo ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
468:We could just chill if you want."
Emma raises a brow at Rachel. Rachel shrugs her innocence. "Nuh-uh. Don't look at me. I didn't teach him that."
"Picked it up all on my own," he says, retrieving his pencil from the floor.
"Figures," Emma sneers.
"Aww, don't hate on me, boo."
"Okay, I'm drawing the line at 'boo.' And don't call me 'shorty' either," Emma says.
He laughs. "That was next."
"No doubt. So, did anyone explain how you chill?"
Galen shrugs. "As far as I can tell, chillin' is the equivalent of being in a coma, only awake."
"That's about right."
"Yeah. Doesn't sound that appealing. Are all humans lazy?"
"Don't push it, Highness." But she's smirking.
"If I'm Highness, then you're 'boo.' Period."
Emma growls, but it doesn't sound as fierce as she intends. In fact, it's adorable. "Jeez! I won't call you Majesty either. And you Will. Not. Ever Call me 'boo' again."
His grin feels like it reaches all the way to his ears as he nods. "Did...did I just win an argument?"
She rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid. We tied."
He laughs. "If you say I won, I'll let you open your present."
She glances at the gift bag and bites her lip-also adorable. She looks back at him. "Maybe I don't care about the present."
"Oh, you definitely care," he says, confident.
"No. I definitely do NOT," she says, crossing her arms.
He runs a hand through his hair. If she makes it any more difficult, he'll have to tell her where they're going. He gives his best nonchalant shrug. "That changes everything. I just figured since you like history...Anyway, just forget it. I won't bother you about it anymore." He stands and walks over to the bag, fingering the polka-dot tissue paper Rachel engorged it with.
"Even if I say you win, it's still a lie, you know." Emma huffs.
Galen won't take the bait. Not today. "Fine. It's a lie. I just want to hear you say it."
With an expression mixing surprise and suspicion in equal parts, she says it. And it sounds so sweet coming from those lips. "You won. ~ Anna Banks,#NFDB
469:What, I wonder, does the reader know of large families? More important, how much can he stand hearing on the subject, from me? I must say at least this much: If you're an older brother in a large family (particularly where, as with Seymour and Franny, there's an age difference of roughly eighteen years), and you either cast yourself or just not very advertently become cast in the role of local tutor or mentor, it's almost impossible not to turn into a monitor, too. But even monitors come in individual shapes, sizes, and colors. For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny, or even Mme Boo Boo (who was only two years younger than myself, and often entirely the Lady), to take off his or her rubbers on coming into the apartment, each and all of them knew he mostly meant that the floor would get tracked up if they didn't and that Bessie would have to get out the mop. When I told them to take off their rubbers, they knew I mostly meant that people who didn't were slobs. It was bound to make no small difference in the way they kidded or ragged us separately.
Но, питам се, какво знае читателят за многочислените семейства? И което е по-важното, ще изтърпи ли не друг, а аз да му обясня този въпрос? Мога да кажа поне следното: ако си по-голям брат в многочислено семейство (в което разликата между Сиймор и Франи е горе-долу осемнайсет години) и сам си поел или някой е имал непредпазливостта да ти възложи ролята на наставник и опекун, почти невъзможно е да не се превърнеш и в надзирател. Но дори надзирателите се произвеждат в различни форми, размери и цветове. Така например, когато Сиймор кажеше на близнаците, на Зуи или Франи или дори на мадам Бу Бу (която е само две години по-малка от мен) да си събуват галошите, преди да влязат в апартамента, всеки от тях възприемаше думите му така: не се ли събуете, ще оставите стъпки по пода и после Беси ще трябва да се трепе с парцала. А когато аз им кажех да си събуят галошите, те го приемаха като обида: който не се събува е палачор. Оттук произтичаше и разликата в начина, по който те се шегуваха с него и с мен. ~ J D Salinger,#NFDB
470:Boo To Buddha
So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.
We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.
What scourge smote from the stars
What madness from the moon?
That night we broke the bars
Was quintessential June,
When you and I beneath the trees
Bartered our bold virginities.
Eighteen -years, months, or hours?
Time is a tyrant's toy!
Eternal are the flowers!
We are but girl and boy
Yet -since love leapt as swift to-night
As it had never left the light!
For fiercer from the South
Still flames your cruel hair,
And Trojan Helen's mouth
Still not so ripe and rare
As Helena's -nor love nor youth
So leaps with lust or thrills with truth.
Helena, still we hold
Flesh firmer, still we mix
Black hair with hair as gold.
Life has but served to fix
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Our hearts; love lingers on the tongue,
And who loves once is always young.
The stars are still the same;
The changeful moon endures;
Come without fear or shame,
And draw my mouth to yours!
Youth fails, however flesh be fain;
Manhood and womanhood attain.
Life is a string of pearls,
And you the first I strung.
You left -first flower of girls! Life lyric on my tongue,
An indefatigable dance,
An inexhaustible romance!
Blush of love's dawn, bright bud
That bloomed for my delight,
First blossom of my blood,
Burn in that blood to-night!
Helena, Helena, fiercely fresh,
Your flesh flies fervent to my flesh.
What sage can dare impugn
Man's immortality?
Our godhead swims, immune
From death and destiny.
Ignored the bubble in the flow
Of love eighteen short years ago!
Time -I embrace all time
As my arm rings your waist.
Space -you surpass, sublime,
As, taking me, we taste
Omnipotence, sense slaying sense,
Soul slaying soul, omniscience.
~ Aleister Crowley,#NFDB
471:When he can't take anymore, Galen plucks his phone from his pocket and dials, then hangs up. When the call is returned, he says, "Hey, sweet lips." The females at the table hush each other to get a better listen. A few of them whip their heads toward Emma to see if she's on the other end of the conversation. Satisfied she's not, they lean closer.
Rachel snorts. "If only you liked sweets."
"I can't wait to see you tonight. Wear that pink shirt I like."
Rachel laughs. "Sounds like you're in what we humans like to call a pickle. My poor, drop-dead-gorgeous sweet pea. Emma still not talking to you, leaving you alone with all those hormonal girls?"
"Eight-thirty? That's so far away. Can't I meet you sooner?"
One of the females actually gets up and takes her tray and her attitude to another table. Galen tries not to get too excited.
"Do you need to be checked out of school, son? Are you feeling ill?"
Galen tosses a glance at Emma, who's picking a pepperoni off her pizza and eyeing it as if it were dolphin dung. "I can't skip school to meet you again, boo. But I'll be thinking about you. No one but you."
A few more females get up and stalk their trays to the trash. The cheerleader in front of him rolls her eyes and starts a conversation with the chubby brunette beside her-the same chubby brunette she pushed into a locker to get to him two hours ago.
"Be still my heart," Rachel drawls. "But seriously, I can't read your signals. I don't know what you're asking me to do."
"Right now, nothing. But I might change my mind about skipping. I really miss you."
Rachel clears her throat. "All right, sweet pea. You just let your mama know, and she'll come get her wittle boy from school, okay?"
Galen hangs up. Why is Emma laughing again? Mark can't be that funny.
The girl beside him clues him in: "Mark Baker. All the girls love him. But not as much as they love you. Except maybe Emma, I guess."
"Speaking of all these girls, how did they get my phone number?"
She giggles. "It's written on the wall in the girls' bathroom. One hundred hall." She holds her cell phone up to his face. An image of his number scrawled onto a stall door lights up the screen. In Emma's handwriting. ~ Anna Banks,#NFDB
472:In Memoriam
Beauty (they called her) wasn't a maid
Of many things in the world afraid.
She wasn't a maid who turned and fled
At sight of a mouse, alive or dead.
She wasn't a maid a man could 'shoo'
By shouting, however abruptly, 'Boo!'
She wasn't a maid who'd run and hide
If her face and figure you idly eyed.
She was'nt a maid who'd blush and shake
When asked what part of the fowl she'd take.
(I blush myself to confess she preferred,
And commonly got, the most of the bird.)
She wasn't a maid to simper because
She was asked to sing-if she ever was.
In short, if the truth must be displayed
_In puris_-Beauty wasn't a maid.
Beauty, furry and fine and fat,
Yawny and clawy, sleek and all that,
Was a pampered and spoiled Angora cat!
I loved her well, and I'm proud that she
Wasn't indifferent, quite, to me;
In fact I have sometimes gone so far
(You know, mesdames, how silly men are)
As to think she preferred-excuse the conceit
_My_ legs upon which to sharpen her feet.
Perhaps it shouldn't have gone for much,
But I started and thrilled beneath her touch!
Ah, well, that's ancient history now:
The fingers of Time have touched my brow,
And I hear with never a start to-day
That Beauty has passed from the earth away.
Gone!-her death-song (it killed her) sung.
Gone!-her fiddlestrings all unstrung.
Gone to the bliss of a new _regime
Of turkey smothered in seas of cream;
Of roasted mice (a superior breed,
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To science unknown and the coarser need
Of the living cat) cooked by the flame
Of the dainty soul of an erring dame
Who gave to purity all her care,
Neglecting the duty of daily prayer,
Crisp, delicate mice, just touched with spice
By the ghost of a breeze from Paradise;
A very digestible sort of mice.
Let scoffers sneer, I propose to hold
That Beauty has mounted the Stair of Gold,
To eat and eat, forever and aye,
On a velvet rug from a golden tray.
But the human spirit-that is my creed
Rots in the ground like a barren seed.
That is my creed, abhorred by Man
But approved by Cat since time began.
Till Death shall kick at me, thundering 'Scat!'
I shall hold to that, I shall hold to that.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
473:Paw, paw, paw. On his shirt.
“Fucking hell.” He gave in and rubbed that black belly. “And no, I don’t need anything.”
The purring got so loud, he had to lean in to the butler. “What did you say?”
“I’m happy to oblige whatever you require.”
“Yeah. I know. But I’m going to take care of my brother. No one else. Are we clear.”
The cat was now rubbing its head into his pec. Then stretching up into the itching. Oh, God, this was awful—especially as the butler’s already droopy face sagged down to what were no doubt knobby knees.
“Ah, shit, Fritz—”
“Is he ill?”
iAm closed his eyes briefly as the female voice registered. Fantastic. Another party heard from.
“He’s fine,” iAm said without looking at the Chosen Selena.
Leaving the kibitzers in the dust, he went into the pantry with the freeloading cat and . . . Right. How was he going to get the load of post-migraine recovery rations down from the shelves with his arms full of— What was its name?
Fine. It was G*dd*mn Cat, then.
Looking down into those wide, contented eyes, iAm thinned his lips as he rubbed under its chin. Behind an ear.
“Okay, enough with this.” He played with one of the paws. “I gotta put you down now.”
Assuming control, he took the cat out of its recline and went to put it down on the—
Somehow the thing managed to claw its way into the very fibers of his fleece and hang off the front of him like a tie.
“Are you kidding me.”
More purring. A blink of those luminous eyes. An expression of self-possession that iAm took to mean this interaction was going to go the cat’s way—and no one else’s.
“Mayhap I shall help?” Selena asked softly.
iAm bit out a curse and glared at the cat.
Then at the Chosen.
But short of taking off his pullover? G*dd*mn Cat was sticking with him.
“I need some of those Milanos up there?”
The Chosen reached up and took a bag from the Pepperidge Farm munchie department.
“And he’s going to need some of those tortilla chips.”
“Plain or the lime flavor?”
“Plain.”
iAm gave up the ghost and resumed servicing G*dd*mn—and the cat immediately went into full La-Z-Boy again.
“He’s going to want one of the Entenmann’s pound cakes. And we’re going to bring him three ice-cold Cokes, two big Poland Springs, room temperature, and a partridge in a pear tree.”
-Boo, iAm, Fritz, & Selena ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
474:We stalked carefully through the park in best paramilitary fashion, the lost patrol on its mission into the land of the B movie. To Deborah’s credit, she was very careful. She moved stealthily from one piece of cover to the next, frequently looking right to Chutsky and then left at me. It was getting harder to see her, since the sun had now definitely set, but at least that meant it was harder for them to see us, too—whoever them might turn out to be. We leapfrogged through the first part of the park like this, past the ancient souvenir stand, and then I came up to the first of the rides, an old merry-go-round. It had fallen off its spindle and lay there leaning to one side. It was battered and faded and somebody had chopped the heads off the horses and spray-painted the whole thing in Day-Glo green and orange, and it was one of the saddest things I had ever seen. I circled around it carefully, holding my gun ready, and peering behind everything large enough to hide a cannibal. At the far side of the merry-go-round I looked to my right. In the growing darkness I could barely make out Debs. She had moved up into the shadow of one of the large posts that held up the cable car line that ran from one side of the park to the other. I couldn’t see Chutsky at all; where he should have been there was a row of crumbling playhouses that fringed a go-kart track. I hoped he was there, being watchful and dangerous. If anything did jump out and yell boo at us, I wanted him ready with his assault rifle. But there was no sign of him, and even as I watched, Deborah began to move forward again, deeper into the dark park. A warm, light wind blew over me and I smelled the Miami night: a distant tang of salt on the edge of rotting vegetation and automobile exhaust. But even as I inhaled the familiar smell, I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck and a soft whisper came up at me from the lowest dungeon of Castle Dexter, and a rustle of leather wings rattled softly on the ramparts. It was a very clear notice that something was not right here and this would be a great time to be somewhere else; I froze there by the headless horses, looking for whatever had set off the Passenger’s alarm. I saw and heard nothing. Deborah had vanished into the darkness and nothing moved anywhere, except a plastic shopping bag blowing by in the gentle wind. My stomach turned over, and for once it was not from hunger. My ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
475:Like a child, I close my eyes as if they can't see me either. The fire from the kiss broadcasts itself all over me in the form of a full-body blush.
Galen laughs. "There it is," he says, running his thumb over my bottom lip. "That is my favorite color. Wow."
I'm going to kill him. "Galen. Please. Come. With. Me," I coke out. Gliding past him, my bare feet slap against the tile until I'm stomping on carpet in the hallway, then up the stairs.
I can tell by the prickles on my skin that he's following like a good dead fish. As I reach the ladder to the uppermost level, I nod to him to keep following before I hoist myself up. Pacing the room until he gets through the trap door, I count more Mississipis than I've ever counted in my whole life.
He closes the door and locks it shut but makes no move to come closer. Still, for a person who's about to die, he seems more amused than he should. I point my finger at him, but can't decide what to accuse him of first, so I put it back down.
After several moments of this, he breaks the silence. "Emma, calm down."
"Don't tell me what to do, Highness." I dare him with my eyes to call me "boo."
Instead of the apology I'm looking for, his eyes tell me he's considering kissing me again, right now.
Which is meant to distract me. Tearing my gaze from his mouth, I stride to the window seat and move the mountains of pillows on it. Making myself comfortable, I lean my head against the window. He knows as well as I do that if we had a special spot, this would be it. For me to sit here without him is the worst kind of snub. In the reflection, I see him run his hand through his hair and cross his arms. After a few more minutes, he shifts his weight to the other leg.
He knows what I want. He knows what will earn him entrance to the window seat and my good graces. I don't know if it's Royal blood or manly pride that keeps him from apologizing, but his extended delay just makes me madder. Now I won't accept an apology. Now, he must grovel.
I toss a satisfied smirk into the reflection only to find he's not there anymore. His hand closes around my arm and he jerks me up against him. His eyes are stormy, intense. "You think I'm going to apologize for kissing you?" he murmurs.
"I. Yes. Uh-huh." Don't look at his mouth! Say something intelligent. "We don't have any clothes on." Fan-flipping-tastic. I meant to say he shouldn't kiss me in front of everyone, especially half naked.
"Mmm," he says, pulling me closer. Brushing his lips against my ear, he says, "I did happen to notice that. Which is why I shouldn't have followed you up here. ~ Anna Banks,#NFDB
476:What’s he doing?” I asked, leaning over the side of the boat, searching for him beneath the water. If the tow rope had gotten tangled, he might need help. And someone would need to go in the water with him, perhaps accidentally sliding against him down where no one else could see.
“Boo!” A handful of bryozoa rushed up at me from the lake.
I screamed (for once I didn’t have to think about this girl-reaction) and fell backward into the boat. Sean hefted himself over the side with one arm, holding the bryozoan high in the other hand. It dripped green slime through his fingers. “Bwa-ha-ha!” He came after me.
I squealed again. It was so unbelievably fantastic that he was flirting with me, but bryozoa was involved. Was it worth it? No. I paused on the side of the boat, ready to jump back into the water myself. He might chase me around the lake with the bryozoa, but at least it would be diluted. On second thought, I didn’t particularly want to jump into the very waters the bryozoa had come from.
Sean solved the problem for me. He slipped behind me and showed me he was holding the ties of my bikini in his free hand. If I jumped, Sean would take possession of my bikini top.
I had thought about double knotting my bikini. I’d hoped against hope that Stage Two: Bikini would work, and that Sean might try something like this. Of course, I didn’t really want my top to come off in front of everyone. Nay, in front of anyone. But I’d checked the double knots in the mirror. They’d looked…well, double knotted, for protection, sort of like wearing a turtleneck to the prom. I’d re-tied the strings normally.
Now I wished I’d double knotted after all. Sean brought the dripping slime close to my shoulder. “Go ahead and jump,” he said, twisting my bikini ties in his finges.
“Sean,” came McGullicuddy’s voice in warning. This surprised me. My brother had never taken up for me before. Of course, none of the boys had ever crossed this particular line.
But that was nothing compared with my surprise when the bryozoa suddenly lobbed out of Sean’s hand, sailed through the air, and plopped into the lake. Adam, standing behind him, must have shoved his arm.
Which meant I owed Adam my gratitude for saving me. Except I didn’t want him to save me from Sean, and I thought I’d made that clear. Saving me from Sean with bryozoa…that was a more iffy proposition. I wasn’t sure whether I should give Adam the little dolphin look again when our eyes met. But it didn’t matter. When I turned around, he was already stepping over Cameron’s legs to return to the driver’s seat. ~ Jennifer Echols,#NFDB
477:Mother Mary wants to draft two more kids,” Astrid told Sam.
“Okay. Approved.”
“Dahra says we’re running low on kids’ Tylenol and kids’ Advil, she wants to make sure it’s okay to start giving them split adult pills.”
Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “What?”
“We’re running low on kid pills, Dahra wants to split adult pills.”
Sam rocked back in the leather chair designed for a grown man. “Okay. Whatever. Approved.” He took a sip of water from a bottle. The wrapper on the bottle said “Dasani” but it was tap water. The dishes from dinner—horrible homemade split-pea soup that smelled burned, and a quarter cabbage each—had been pushed aside onto the sideboard where in the old days the mayor of Perdido Beach had kept framed pictures of his family. It was one of the better meals Sam had had lately. The fresh cabbage tasted surprisingly good.
There was little more than smears on the plates: the era of kids not eating everything was over.
Astrid puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Kids are asking why Lana isn’t around when they need her.”
“I can only ask Lana to heal big things. I can’t demand she be around 24/7 to handle every boo-boo.”
Astrid looked at the list she had compiled on her laptop. “Actually, I think this involved a stubbed toe that ‘hurted.’”
“How much more is on the list?” Sam asked.
“Three hundred and five items,” Astrid said. When Sam’s face went pale, she relented. “Okay, it’s actually just thirty-two. Now, don’t you feel relieved it’s not really three hundred?”
“This is crazy,” Sam said.
“Next up: the Judsons and the McHanrahans are fighting because they share a dog, so both families are feeding her—they still have a big bag of dry dog food—but the Judsons are calling her Sweetie and the McHanrahans are calling her BooBoo.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not kidding,” Astrid said.
“What is that noise?” Sam demanded.
Astrid shrugged. “I guess someone has their stereo cranked up.”
“This is not going to work, Astrid.”
“The music?”
“This. This thing where every day I have a hundred stupid questions I have to decide. Like I’m everyone’s parent now. I’m sitting here listening to how little kids are complaining because their older sisters make them take a bath, and stepping into fights over who owns which Build-A-Bear outfit, and now over dog names. Dog names?”
“They’re all still just little kids,” Astrid said.
“Some of these kids are developing powers that scare me,” Sam grumbled. “But they can’t decide who gets to have which special towel? Or whether to watch The Little Mermaid or Shrek Three?”
“No,” Astrid said. “They can’t. They need a parent. That’s you. ~ Michael Grant,#NFDB
478:The Princess's Finger-Nail: A Tale Of Nonsense Land
All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;
The maids of honor were sad and solemn;
The pages looked blank as they stood in column;
The court-jester blubbered, 'Boo-hoo, boo-hoo';
The cook in the kitchen dropped tears in the stew;
And all through the castle went sob and wail,
For the princess had broken her finger-nail:
The beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose,
Bride-elect of the Lord High-Nose,
Broken her finger-nail down to the quickNo wonder the queen and her court were sick.
Never sorrow so dread before
Had dared to enter that castle door.
Oh! what would my Lord His-High-Nose say
When she took off her glove on her wedding-day?
The fairest princess in Nonsense Land,
With a broken finger-nail on her hand!
'Twas a terrible, terrible accident,
And they called a meeting of parliament;
And never before that royal Court
Had come such question of grave import
As 'How could you hurry a nail to grow?'
And the skill of the kingdom was called to show.
They sent for Monsieur File-'em-off;
He smoothed down the corners so ragged and rough.
They sent for Madame la Diamond-Dust,
Who lived on the fingers of upper-crust;
They sent for Professor de Chamois-Skin,
Who took her powder and rubbed it in;
They sent for the pudgy nurse Fat-on-the-bone
To bathe her finger in eau de Cologne;
And they called the Court surgeon, Monsieur Red-Tape,
To hear what he thought of the new nail's shape.
Over the kingdom the telegrams flew
Which told how the finger-nail thrived and grew;
And all through the realm of Nonsense Land
659
They offered up prayers for the princess's hand.
At length the glad tidings were heard with a shout
That the princess's finger-nail had grown out:
Pointed and polished and pink and clean,
Befitting the hand of a some-day queen.
Salutes were fired all over the land
By the home-guard battery pop-gun band;
And great was the joy of my Lord High-Nose,
Who straightway ordered his wedding clothes,
And paid his tailor, Don Wait-for-aye,
Who died of amazement the self-same day.
My lord by a jury was judged insane;
For they said, and the truth of the saying was plain,
That a lord of such very high pedigree
Would never be paying his bills, you see,
Unless he was out of his head; and so
They locked him up without more ado.
And the beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose
Pined for her lover, my Lord High-Nose,
Till she entered a convent and took the veilAnd this is the end of my nonsense tale.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
479:The Straw Parlor
Way up at the top of a big stack of straw
Was the cunningest parlor that ever you saw!
And there could you lie when aweary of play
And gossip or laze in the coziest way;
No matter how careworn or sorry one's mood
No worldly distraction presumed to intrude.
As a refuge from onerous mundane ado
I think I approve of straw parlors, don't you?
A swallow with jewels aflame on her breast
On that straw parlor's ceiling had builded her nest;
And she flew in and out all the happy day long,
And twittered the soothingest lullaby song.
Now some might suppose that that beautiful bird
Performed for her babies the music they heard;
I reckon she twittered her répertoire through
For the folk in the little straw parlor, don't you?
And down from a rafter a spider had hung
Some swings upon which he incessantly swung.
He cut up such didoes--such antics he played
Way up in the air, and was never afraid!
He never made use of his horrid old sting,
But was just upon earth for the fun of the thing!
I deeply regret to observe that so few
Of these good-natured insects are met with, don't you?
And, down in the strawstack, a wee little mite
Of a cricket went chirping by day and by night;
And further down, still, a cunning blue mouse
In a snug little nook of that strawstack kept house!
When the cricket went "chirp," Miss Mousie would squeak
"Come in," and a blush would enkindle her cheek!
She thought--silly girl! 't was a beau come to woo,
But I guess it was only the cricket, don't you?
So the cricket, the mouse, and the motherly bird
Made as soothingsome music as ever you heard
And, meanwhile, that spider by means of his swings
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Achieved most astounding gyrations and things!
No wonder the little folk liked what they saw
And loved what they heard in that parlor of straw!
With the mercury up to 102
In the shade, I opine they just sizzled, don't you?
But once there invaded that Eden of straw
The evilest Feline that ever you saw!
She pounced on that cricket with rare promptitude
And she tucked him away where he'd do the most good;
And then, reaching down to the nethermost house,
She deftly expiscated little Miss Mouse!
And, as for the Swallow, she shrieked and withdrew-I rather admire her discretion, don't you?
Now listen: That evening a cyclone obtained,
And the mortgage was all on that farm that remained!
Barn, strawstack and spider--they all blew away,
And nobody knows where they're at to this day!
And, as for the little straw parlor, I fear
It was wafted clean off this sublunary sphere!
I really incline to a hearty "boo-hoo"
When I think of this tragical ending, don't you?
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
480:The Two Little Skeezucks
There were two little skeezucks who lived in the isle
Of Boo in a southern sea;
They clambered and rollicked in heathenish style
In the boughs of their cocoanut tree.
They didn't fret much about clothing and such
And they recked not a whit of the ills
That sometimes accrue
From having to do
With tailor and laundry bills.
The two little skeezucks once heard of a Fair
Far off from their native isle,
And they asked of King Fan if they mightn't go there
To take in the sights for awhile.
Now old King Fan
Was a good-natured man
(As good-natured monarchs go),
And howbeit he swore that all Fairs were a bore,
He hadn't the heart to say "No."
So the two little skeezucks sailed off to the Fair
In a great big gum canoe,
And I fancy they had a good time there,
For they tarried a year or two.
And old King Fan at last began
To reckon they'd come to grief,
When glory! one day
They sailed into the bay
To the tune of "Hail to the Chief!"
The two little skeezucks fell down on the sand,
Embracing his majesty's toes,
Till his majesty graciously bade them stand
And salute him nose to nose.
And then quoth he:
"Divulge unto me
What happenings have hapt to you;
And how did they dare to indulge in a Fair
So far from the island of Boo?"
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The two little skeezucks assured their king
That what he surmised was true;
That the Fair would have been a different thing
Had it only been held in Boo!
"The folk over there in no wise compare
With the folk of the southern seas;
Why, they comb out their heads
And they sleep in beds
Instead of in caverns and trees!"
The two little skeezucks went on to say
That children (so far as they knew)
Had a much harder time in that land far away
Than here in the island of Boo!
They have to wear clo'es
Which (as every one knows)
Are irksome to primitive laddies,
While, with forks and with spoons, they're denied the sweet boons
That accrue from free use of one's paddies!
"And now that you're speaking of things to eat,"
Interrupted the monarch of Boo,
"We beg to inquire if you happened to meet
With a nice missionary or two?"
"No, that we did not; in that curious spot
Where were gathered the fruits of the earth,
Of that special kind
Which Your Nibs has in mind
There appeared a deplorable dearth!"
Then loud laughed that monarch in heathenish mirth
And loud laughed his courtiers, too,
And they cried: "There is elsewhere no land upon earth
So good as our island of Boo!"
And the skeezucks, tho' glad
Of the journey they'd had,
Climbed up in their cocoanut trees,
Where they still may be seen with no shirts to keep clean
Or trousers that bag at the knees.
384
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
481:«Ehilà, reginetta di bellezza, sei pronta?» la voce di Rhage lo raggiunse in bagno. «O hai in mente di depilarti le sopracciglia?»
Qhuinn diede una rapida controllata alle basette con la mano. A posto. «Vaffanculo, Hollywood», strillò al di sopra del getto d'acqua.
Chiuse il rubinetto e uscì dalla doccia, asciugandosi mentre tornava in camera da letto.
Ritto accanto a un Tohr tutto sorridente, Rhage teneva le braccia dietro la schiena. «Bel modo di parlare al tuo cazzo di stilista.»
Qhuinn li guardò torvo. «Se lì dietro avete un tessuto hawaiano vi uccido.»
Rhage guardò Tohr, sogghignando. Quando l'altro fratello annuì, Hollywood tirò fuori quello che nascondeva dietro il corpo mastodontico.
Qhuinn rimase impietrito. «Un momento… quello è uno…»
«Smoking, credo che si chiami così», lo interruppe Rhage. «S–M–O–K–I–N–G.»
«È della tua taglia», disse Tohr. «E Butch dice che lo stilista è il migliore su piazza.»
«Ha lo stesso nome di un'automobile», bofonchiò Rhage. «Non ci si crede… uno tutto pieno di sé, con la puzza sotto il naso…»
«Ehi, avete visto anche voi Honey Boo Boo?» chiese Lassiter, piombando nella stanza. «Woooow, bello smoking…»
«Solo perché insisti ad accendere la tele su quell'orrore di reality nella sala del biliardo.» Hollywood si voltò proprio mentre V entrava dietro l'angelo. «Qhuinn non sapeva nemmeno cos'era, Vishous.»
«Lo smoking?» V si accese una delle sue sigarette rollate a mano. «Per forza. È un vero maschio.»
«Allora vuol dire che Butch è una ragazza», fece notare Rhage. «Perché l'ha comprato lui.»
«Ehi, quanta gente, siamo già nel pieno della festa», esclamò Trez, sopraggiungendo insieme ad iAm. «Oh, bello smoking. Non è un Tom Ford?»
«Non era un Dick Chrysler?», scherzò Rhage. «O un Harry GM… no, aspetta, questa suona come una battutaccia…»
«Meglio che ti vesti, Raperonzolo.» V controllò l'orologio. «Non abbiamo molto tempo.»
«Questo sì che è un signor smoking», sentenziò Phury, spalancando la porta insieme a Z. «Ne ho uno identico.»
«Fritz ha già acceso le candele», annunciò Rehv alle spalle dei gemelli. «Ehi, bello smoking. Ne ho uno identico.»
«Anch'io», ribadì Phury. «Il taglio è fantastico, vero?»
«Le spalle, giusto? Tom Ford è il migliore…»
Un pandemonio. Totale. Assoluto.
Osservando la scena, con tutti quei vampiri che parlavano uno sopra l'altro, dandosi il cinque e scambiandosi pacche sul sedere, Qhuinn rimase per un attimo senza fiato. Poi abbassò gli occhi sull'anello che gli aveva regalato Blay.
Avere una famiglia era… proprio, incredibilmente meraviglioso.
«Grazie», disse piano.
Tutti si bloccarono di colpo, voltandosi verso di lui e guardandolo, immobili, in perfetto silenzio.
Fu Z a prendere la parola, con gli occhi gialli che brillavano. «Mettiti il vestito della festa. Ci vediamo giù di sotto, playboy.»
Le pacche sulle spalle si sprecarono via via che tutti, uscendo, lo salutavano. Poi Qhuinn rimase da solo con il suo smoking.
«Coraggio, diamoci una mossa», disse all'abito. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
482:So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me.
"Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie."
"I see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the same
name."
I thought about this, then said, "Okay, then her name is Sabrina."
"Well, that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread,
kneading the dough
between her thick fingers. "What does she do?"
"Do?" I said.
"Yes." She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. "What
does she do?"
"She goes out with Ken," I said.
"And what else?"
"She goes to parties," I said slowly. "And shopping."
"Oh," Boo said, nodding.
"She can't work?"
"She doesn't have to work," I said.
"Why not?"
"Because she's Barbie."
"I hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town house
and the Corvette,"
Boo said cheerfully. "Unless Barbie has a lot of family money."
I considered this while I put on Ken's pants.
Boo started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top.
"You know what I
think, Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me.
"What?"
"I think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have a
productive and satisfying
career of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting its
position on the rack.
"But what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning the
house and going to PTA.
I couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots,
doing s.uch things.
Boo came over and plopped right down beside me. I always remember
her being on my level; she'd sit
on the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened to
the radio.
"Well," she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique.
"What do you want to
do when you grow up?"
I remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-
legged, holding my
Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother's
PTA and Boo's
strange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,
and led right to me.
"Well," I said abruptly, "I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where this came
from.
"Advertising," Boo repeated, nodding. "Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to go
to work every day,
coming up with ideas for commercials
and things like that."
"She works in an office," I went on. "Sometimes she has to work late."
"Sure she does," Boo said. "It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're Barbie."
"Because she wants to get promoted," I added. "So she can pay off the town house.
And the Corvette."
"Very responsible of her," Boo said.
"Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials
and ideas?"
"She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled
face so solemn, as if
she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you. ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
483:Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him.
Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand.
My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked.
I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red.
Why can't I use them?' he asked.
It landed in my father's back like a fist.
Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?'
My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?'
You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said.
Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest.
I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death.
I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?'
Is Keesha a girl at school?'
Yes!'
My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility.
I'm sorry. When did this happen?'
That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot.
Buck, stop!' my father cried.
My brother turned.
You don't get it, Dad,' he said.
I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.'
...
You act like she was yours only!'
Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?'
Put the clothes down.'
My father laid them gently on the ground.
It isn't about Keesha's dad.'
Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.'
She's dead.'
It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.'
But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.'
She will,' my father said.
But what about us?'
Who?'
Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.'
Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said.
I didn't say anything.'
Let go. Let go. Let go.
I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go.
My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him.
Dad?'
Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother.
I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran.
My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you. ~ Alice Sebold,#NFDB
484:Mugging (I)
Tonite I walked out of my red apartment door on East tenth street’s dusk—
Walked out of my home ten years, walked out in my honking neighborhood
Tonite at seven walked out past garbage cans chained to concrete anchors
Walked under black painted fire escapes, giant castiron plate covering a hole in
ground
—Crossed the street, traffic lite red, thirteen bus roaring by liquor store,
past corner pharmacy iron grated, past Coca Cola & Mylai posters fading scraped
on brick
Past Chinese Laundry wood door’d, & broken cement stoop steps For Rent hall
painted green & purple Puerto Rican style
Along E. 10th’s glass splattered pavement, kid blacks & Spanish oiled hair
adolescents’ crowded house fronts—
Ah, tonite I walked out on my block NY City under humid summer sky Halloween,
thinking what happened Timothy Leary joining brain police for a season?
thinking what’s all this Weathermen, secrecy & selfrighteousness beyond
reason—F.B.I. plots?
Walked past a taxicab controlling the bottle strewn curb—
past young fellows with their umbrella handles & canes leaning against a ravaged
Buick
—and as I looked at the crowd of kids on the stoop—a boy stepped up, put his
arm around my neck
tenderly I thought for a moment, squeezed harder, his umbrella handle against
my skull,
and his friends took my arm, a young brown companion tripped his foot ’gainst
my ankle—
as I went down shouting Om Ah Hūm to gangs of lovers on the stoop
watching
slowly appreciating, why this is a raid, these strangers mean strange business
with what—my pockets, bald head, broken-healed-bone leg, my softshoes, my
heart—
Have they knives? Om Ah Hūm—Have they sharp metal wood to shove in
eye ear ass? Om Ah Hūm
& slowly reclined on the pavement, struggling to keep my woolen bag of poetry
address calendar & Leary-lawyer notes hung from my shoulder
dragged in my neat orlon shirt over the crossbar of a broken metal door
dragged slowly onto the fire-soiled floor an abandoned store, laundry candy
counter 1929—
54
now a mess of papers & pillows & plastic car seat covers cracked cockroachcorpsed ground—
my wallet back pocket passed over the iron foot step guard
and fell out, stole by God Muggers’ lost fingers, Strange—
Couldn’t tell—snakeskin wallet actually plastic, 70 dollars my bank money for a
week,
old broken wallet—and dreary plastic contents—Amex card & Manf. Hanover
Trust Credit too—business card from Mr. Spears British Home Minister Drug
Squad—my draft card—membership ACLU & Naropa Institute Instructor’s
identification
Om Ah Hūm I continued chanting Om Ah Hūm
Putting my palm on the neck of an 18 year old boy fingering my back pocket
crying “Where’s the money”
“Om Ah Hūm there isn’t any”
My card Chief Boo-Hoo Neo American Church New Jersey & Lower East Side
Om Ah Hūm —what not forgotten crowded wallet—Mobil Credit, Shell? old
lovers addresses on cardboard pieces, booksellers calling cards—
—“Shut up or we’ll murder you”—“Om Ah Hūm take it easy”
Lying on the floor shall I shout more loud?—the metal door closed on blackness
one boy felt my broken healed ankle, looking for hundred dollar bills behind my
stocking weren’t even there—a third boy untied my Seiko Hong Kong watch
rough from right wrist leaving a clasp-prick skin tiny bruise
“Shut up and we’ll get out of here”—and so they left,
as I rose from the cardboard mattress thinking Om Ah Hūm didn’t stop em
enough,
the tone of voice too loud—my shoulder bag with 10,000 dollars full of poetry left
on the broken floor—
~ Allen Ginsberg,#NFDB
485:The Division Of Parts
1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my hand,
the gaudy fur animals
I do not know how to use,
settle on me like a debt.
A week ago, while the hard March gales
beat on your house,
we sorted your things: obstacles
of letters, family silver,
eyeglasses and shoes.
Like some unseasoned Christmas, its scales
rigged and reset,
I bundled out gifts I did not choose.
Now the houts of The Cross
rewind. In Boston, the devout
work their cold knees
toward that sweet martyrdom
that Christ planned. My timely loss
is too customary to note; and yet
I planned to suffer
and I cannot. It does not please
my yankee bones to watch
where the dying is done
in its usly hours. Black birds peck
at my window glass
235
and Easter will take its ragged son.
The clutter of worship
that you taught me, Mary Gray,
is old. I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own. I trip
on your death and jesus, my stranger
floats up over
my Christian home, wearing his straight
thorn tree. I have cast my lot
and am one third thief
of you. Time, that rearranger
of estates, equips
me with your garments, but not with grief.
2.
This winter when
cancer began its ugliness
I grieved with you each day
for three months
and found you in your private nook
of the medicinal palace
for New England Women
and never once
forgot how long it took.
I read to you
from The New Yorker, ate suppers
you wouldn't eat, fussed
with your flowers,
joked with your nurses, as if I
were the balm among lepers,
as if I could undo
a life in hours
if I never said goodbye.
But you turned old,
all your fifty-eight years sliding
like masks from your skull;
and at the end
I packed your nightgowns in suitcases,
paid the nurses, came riding
home as if I'd been told
I could pretend
236
people live in places.
3.
Since then I have pretended ease,
loved with the trickeries of need, but not enough
to shed my daughterhood
or sweeten him as a man.
I drink the five o' clock martinis
and poke at this dry page like a rough
goat. Fool! I fumble my lost childhood
for a mother and lounge in sad stuff
with love to catch and catch as catch can.
And Christ still waits. I have tried
to exorcise the memory of each event
and remain still, a mixed child,
heavy with cloths of you.
Sweet witch, you are my worried guide.
Such dangerous angels walk through Lent.
Their walls creak Anne! Convert! Convert!
My desk moves. Its cavr murmurs Boo
and I am taken and beguiled.
Or wrong. For all the way I've come
I'll have to go again. Instead, I must convert
to love as reasonable
as Latin, as sold as earthenware:
an equilibrium
I never knew. And Lent will keep its hurt
for someone else. Christ knows enough
staunch guys have hitched him in trouble.
thinking his sticks were badges to wear.
4.
Spring rusts on its skinny branch
and last summer's lawn
is soggy and brown.
Yesterday is just a number.
All of its winters avalanche
out of sight. What was, is gone.
Mother, last night I slept
in your Bonwit Teller nightgown.
Divided, you climbed into my head.
There in my jabbering dream
237
I heard my own angry cries
and I cursed you, Dame
keep out of my slumber.
My good Dame, you are dead.
And Mother, three stones
slipped from your glittering eyes.
Now it's Friday's noon
and I would still curse
you with my rhyming words
and bring you flapping back, old love,
old circus knitting, god-in-her-moon,
all fairest in my lang syne verse,
the gauzy bride among the children,
the fancy amid the absurd
and awkward, that horn for hounds
that skipper homeward, that museum
keeper of stiff starfish, that blaze
within the pilgrim woman,
a clown mender, a dove's
cheek among the stones,
my Lady of first words,
this is the division of ways.
And now, while Christ stays
fastened to his Crucifix
so that love may praise
his sacrifice
and not the grotesque metaphor,
you come, a brave ghost, to fix
in my mind without praise
or paradise
to make me your inheritor.
~ Anne Sexton,#NFDB
645 Integral Yoga
486 Poetry
171 Occultism
119 Fiction
84 Yoga
77 Christianity
71 Philosophy
57 Mysticism
46 Islam
40 Psychology
23 Hinduism
18 Mythology
16 Philsophy
14 Integral Theory
11 Sufism
11 Education
10 Theosophy
5 Cybernetics
5 Baha i Faith
4 Science
2 Zen
2 Buddhism
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
439 The Mother
296 Satprem
169 Sri Aurobindo
95 Aleister Crowley
87 Nolini Kanta Gupta
77 H P Lovecraft
75 William Wordsworth
53 Sri Ramakrishna
50 Percy Bysshe Shelley
46 Muhammad
42 Walt Whitman
40 John Keats
39 Carl Jung
37 William Butler Yeats
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
29 Robert Browning
27 Jorge Luis Borges
25 James George Frazer
23 A B Purani
20 Swami Vivekananda
18 Franz Bardon
17 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
16 Ralph Waldo Emerson
15 Rabindranath Tagore
14 Vyasa
14 Saint Teresa of Avila
14 Ovid
14 Nirodbaran
14 Aldous Huxley
12 Anonymous
11 Rudolf Steiner
11 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
11 Friedrich Nietzsche
10 George Van Vrekhem
9 Swami Krishnananda
9 Plotinus
9 Kabir
9 Friedrich Schiller
8 Plato
8 Li Bai
7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
7 Rainer Maria Rilke
6 Saint John of Climacus
6 Lucretius
6 Hafiz
6 Baha u llah
5 William Blake
5 Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
5 Norbert Wiener
5 Jordan Peterson
5 Ibn Ata Illah
4 Symeon the New Theologian
4 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
4 Patanjali
4 Joseph Campbell
4 Henry David Thoreau
4 Hakim Sanai
4 Edgar Allan Poe
4 Alice Bailey
4 Al-Ghazali
4 Alfred Tennyson
3 Saint Hildegard von Bingen
3 Moses de Leon
3 Ken Wilber
2 Yannai
2 Thubten Chodron
2 Taigu Ryokan
2 R Buckminster Fuller
2 Peter J Carroll
2 Paul Richard
2 Omar Khayyam
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Lalla
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Jalaluddin Rumi
2 Ibn Arabi
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Farid ud-Din Attar
2 Eleazar ben Kallir
2 Bulleh Shah
77 Lovecraft - Poems
75 Wordsworth - Poems
60 Magick Without Tears
52 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
50 Shelley - Poems
46 Quran
40 Keats - Poems
37 Yeats - Poems
37 Liber ABA
36 Whitman - Poems
36 Agenda Vol 03
34 Agenda Vol 02
32 Savitri
29 Browning - Poems
26 Agenda Vol 12
26 Agenda Vol 11
25 The Golden Bough
25 Agenda Vol 10
25 Agenda Vol 01
23 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
22 City of God
22 Agenda Vol 07
22 Agenda Vol 04
21 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
21 Questions And Answers 1953
20 Questions And Answers 1954
20 Agenda Vol 05
19 Questions And Answers 1955
19 Labyrinths
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
17 The Bible
17 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
16 Questions And Answers 1956
16 Mysterium Coniunctionis
16 Emerson - Poems
16 Agenda Vol 08
15 Tagore - Poems
15 Record of Yoga
15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
14 Vishnu Purana
14 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
14 The Synthesis Of Yoga
14 The Perennial Philosophy
14 Metamorphoses
13 Words Of Long Ago
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 Prayers And Meditations
13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
12 The Phenomenon of Man
12 Talks
11 On Education
11 Letters On Yoga II
10 The Way of Perfection
10 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
10 Preparing for the Miraculous
10 Faust
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
10 Collected Poems
10 Agenda Vol 13
10 Agenda Vol 09
9 The Study and Practice of Yoga
9 The Practice of Magical Evocation
9 Some Answers From The Mother
9 Schiller - Poems
9 Raja-Yoga
9 Letters On Yoga IV
9 Initiation Into Hermetics
9 Essays On The Gita
9 Agenda Vol 06
9 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 5.1.01 - Ilion
8 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
8 Li Bai - Poems
8 Aion
7 Twilight of the Idols
7 Rilke - Poems
7 On the Way to Supermanhood
7 Letters On Poetry And Art
7 Borges - Poems
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Red Book Liber Novus
6 Theosophy
6 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
6 Of The Nature Of Things
6 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
6 Bhakti-Yoga
5 Vedic and Philological Studies
5 The Practice of Psycho therapy
5 Songs of Kabir
5 Song of Myself
5 Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice
5 Maps of Meaning
5 Cybernetics
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
4 Walden
4 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
4 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
4 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
4 The Alchemy of Happiness
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
4 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
4 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 Hafiz - Poems
4 Essays Divine And Human
4 Dark Night of the Soul
4 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
3 Words Of The Mother III
3 The Life Divine
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Poe - Poems
3 Letters On Yoga I
3 Kena and Other Upanishads
3 Jerusalum
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
3 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
3 Anonymous - Poems
3 Amrita Gita
2 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
2 Words Of The Mother II
2 The Secret Of The Veda
2 The Problems of Philosophy
2 The Future of Man
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Divine Comedy
2 The Blue Cliff Records
2 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
2 Selected Fictions
2 Ryokan - Poems
2 Rumi - Poems
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
2 Liber Null
2 Let Me Explain
2 Isha Upanishad
2 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
2 Crowley - Poems
2 Arabi - Poems
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.00 - Publishers Note A, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
bookmark
A Yoga of the Art of Life
--
The present volume consists of the first seven parts of the book The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo which has run into twelve parts, as it stands now; of these twelve, parts five to nine are based upon talks of the Mother (given by Her to the children of the Ashram). In this volume the later parts of the Talks (8 and 9) could not be included: they are to wait for a subsequent volume. The talks, originally in French, were spread over a number of years, ending in about 1960. We are pleased to note that the Government of India have given us a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
13 January 1972
00.00 - Publishers Note B, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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Choosing To Do Yoga
--
The present volume consists of five parts of the book Yoga of Sri Aurobindo which has now run into twelve parts. Of these five parts, eight and nine are based on talks of the Mother given by Her, in French, to the children of the Ashram.
We are pleased to note that the Government of India have given us a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
00.00 - Publishers Note, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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The Approach to Mysticism
--
We have pleasure in presenting the Second Volume of the Collected Works of Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta. The six books in this volume were originally published separately. The Essays are mainly concerned with Mysticism and Poetry.
We are happy to note that the Government of India have given to our Centre of Education a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
The Mother has graciously permitted the use of her sketch of the author as a frontispiece to the book.
13 January 1971
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
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.
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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 brea the 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.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
IX. Nachiketas' Three boons
The three boons asked for by Nachiketas from Yama, Lord of Death, and granted to him have been interpreted in different ways. Here is one more attempt in the direction.
Nachiketas is the young aspiring human being still in the Ignorancenaciketa, meaning one without consciousness or knowledge. The three boons he asks for are in reference to the three fundamental modes of being and consciousness that are at the very basis, forming, as it were, the ground-plan of the integral reality. They are (i) the individual, (ii) the universal or cosmic and (iii) the transcendental.
The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of that individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution that Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity for the aspiring mortalfor, it is said, the body is the first instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region that Death lords it over. That is the divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jtaveds, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The book of the Law states simply, "Every man and every woman is a star." This is a startling thought for those who considered a star a heavenly body, but a declaration subject to proof by anyone who will venture into the realm of his own Unconscious. This realm, he will learn if he persists, is not hemmed in by the boundaries of his physical body but is one with the boundless reaches of outer space.
Those who, armed with the tools provided by the Qabalah, have made the journey within and crossed beyond the barriers of illusion, have returned with an impressive quantity of knowledge which conforms strictly to the definition of "science" in Winston's College Dictionary: "Science: a body of knowledge, general truths of particular facts, obtained and shown to be correct by accurate observation and thinking; knowledge condensed, arranged and systematized with reference to general truths and laws."
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Some of the passages in the book force me today to emphasize that so far as the Qabalah is concerned, it could and should be employed without binding to it the partisan qualities of any one particular religious faith. This goes as much for Judaism as it does for Christianity. Neither has much intrinsic usefulness where this scientific scheme is concerned. If some students feel hurt by this statement, that cannot be helped. The day of most contemporary faiths is over; they have been more of a curse than a boon to mankind. Nothing that I say here, however, should reflect on the peoples concerned, those who accept these religions. They are merely unfortunate. The religion itself is worn out and indeed is dying.
The Qabalah has nothing to do with any of them. Attempts on the part of cultish-partisans to impart higher mystical meanings, through the Qabalah, etc., to their now sterile faiths is futile, and will be seen as such by the younger generation. They, the flower and love children, will have none of this nonsense.
I felt this a long time ago, as I still do, but even more so. The only way to explain the partisan Jewish attitude demonstrated in some small sections of the book can readily be explained. I had been reading some writings of Arthur Edward Waite, and some of his pomposity and turgidity stuck to my mantle. I disliked his patronising Christian attitude, and so swung all the way over to the other side of the pendulum. Actually, neither faith is particularly important in this day and age. I must be careful never to read Waite again before embarking upon literary work of my own.
Much knowledge obtained by the ancients through the use of the Qabalah has been supported by discoveries of modern scientists- anthropologists, astronomers, psychiatrists, et al. Learned Qabalists for hundreds of years have been aware of what the psychiatrist has only discovered in the last few decades-that man's concept of himself, his deities and the Universe is a constantly evolving process, changing as man himself evolves on a higher spiral. But the roots of his concepts are buried in a race-consciousness that antedated Neanderthal man by uncounted aeons of time.
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I began the study of the Qabalah at an early age. Two books I read then have played unconsciously a prominent part in the writing of my own book. One of these was "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), which I must have first read around 1926. The other was "An Introduction to the Tarot" by Paul Foster Case, published in the early 1920's. It is now out of print, superseded by later versions of the same topic. But as I now glance through this slender book, I perceive how profoundly even the format of his book had influenced me, though in these two instances there was not a trace of plagiarism. It had not consciously occurred to me until recently that I owed so much to them. Since Paul Case passed away about a decade or so ago, this gives me the opportunity to thank him, overtly, wherever he may now be.
By the middle of 1926 I had become aware of the work of Aleister Crowley, for whom I have a tremendous respect. I studied as many of his writings as I could gain access to, making copious notes, and later acted for several years as his secretary, having joined him in Paris on October 12, 1928, a memorable day in my life.
All sorts of books have been written on the Qabalah, some poor, some few others extremely good. But I came to feel the need for what might be called a sort of Berlitz hand book, a concise but comprehensive introduction, studded with diagrams and tables of easily understood definitions and correspondences to simplify the student's grasp of so complicated and abstruse a subject.
During a short retirement in North Devon in 1931, I began to amalgamate my notes. It was out of these that A Garden of Pomegranates gradually emerged. I unashamedly admit that my book contains many direct plagiarisms from Crowley, Waite, Eliphas Levi, and D. H. Lawrence. I had incorporated numerous fragments from their works into my note books without citing individual references to the various sources from which I condensed my notes.
Prior to the closing down of the Mandrake Press in London about 1930-31, I was employed as company secretary for a while. Along with several Crowley books, the Mandrake Press published a lovely little monogram by D. H. Lawrence entitled "Apropos of Lady Chatterley's Lover." My own copy accompanied me on my travels for long years. Only recently did I discover that it had been lost. I hope that any one of my former patients who had borrowed it will see fit to return it to me forthwith.
The last chapter of A Garden deals with the Way of Return. It used almost entirely Crowley's concept of the Path as described in his superb essay "One Star in Sight." In addition to this, I borrowed extensively from Lawrence's Apropos. Somehow, they all fitted together very nicely. In time, all these variegated notes were incorporated into the text without acknowledgment, an oversight which I now feel sure would be forgiven, since I was only twenty-four at the time.
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The importance of the book to me was and is five-fold. 1) It provided a yardstick by which to measure my personal progress in the understanding of the Qabalah. 2) Therefore it can have an equivalent value to the modern student. 3) It serves as a theoretical introduction to the Qabalistic foundation of the magical work of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 4) It throws considerable light on the occasionally obscure writings of Aleister Crowley. 5) It is dedicated to Crowley, who was the Ankh-af-na-Khonsu mentioned in The book of the Law -a dedication which served both as a token of personal loyalty and devotion to Crowley, but was also a gesture of my spiritual independence from him.
In his profound investigation into the origins and basic nature of man, Robert Ardrey in African Genesis recently made a shocking statement. Although man has begun the conquest of outer space, the ignorance of his own nature, says Ardrey, "has become institutionalized, universalized and sanctified." He further states that were a brotherhood of man to be formed today, "its only possible common bond would be ignorance of what man is."
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
bootstraps." Today we are lifting ever lighter and stronger structural vessel "selves"by ever less effort of our scientific know-how bootstraps. No economist knows this.
It is the most highly classified of military and private enterprise secrets. Industry
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Gadadhar was on the threshold of youth. He had become the pet of the women of the village. They loved to hear him talk, sing, or recite from the holy books. They enjoyed his knack of imitating voices. Their woman's instinct recognized the innate purity and guilelessness of this boy of clear skin, flowing hair, beaming eyes, smiling face, and inexhaustible fun. The pious elderly women looked upon him as Gopala, the Baby Krishna, and the younger ones saw in him the youthful Krishna of Vrindavan. He himself so idealized the love of the gopis for Krishna that he sometimes yearned to be born as a woman, if he must be born again, in order to be able to love Sri Krishna with all his heart and soul.
--- COMING TO CALCUTTA
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In the twelve Siva temples are installed the emblems of the Great God of renunciation in His various aspects, worshipped daily with proper rites. Siva requires few articles of worship. White flowers and bel-leaves and a little Ganges water offered with devotion are enough to satisfy the benign Deity and win from Him the boon of liberation.
--- RADHAKANTA
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The main temple is dedicated to Kali, the Divine Mother, here worshipped as Bhavatarini, the Saviour of the Universe. The floor of this temple also is paved with marble. The basalt image of the Mother, dressed in gorgeous gold brocade, stands on a white marble image of the prostrate body of Her Divine Consort, Siva, the symbol of the Absolute. On the feet of the Goddess are, among other ornaments, anklets of gold. Her arms are decked with jewelled ornaments of gold. She wears necklaces of gold and pearls, a golden garland of human heads, and a girdle of human arms. She wears a golden crown, golden ear-rings, and a golden nose-ring with a pearl-drop. She has four arms. The lower left hand holds a severed human head and the upper grips a blood-stained sabre. One right hand offers boons to Her children; the other allays their fear. The majesty of Her posture can hardly be described. It combines the terror of destruction with the reassurance of motherly tenderness. For She is the Cosmic Power, the totality of the universe, a glorious harmony of the pairs of opposites. She deals out death, as She creates and preserves. She has three eyes, the third being the symbol of Divine Wisdom; they strike dismay into the wicked, yet pour out affection for Her devotees.
The whole symbolic world is represented in the temple garden — the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the Absolute (Siva), and Love (Radhakanta), the Arch spanning heaven and earth. The terrific Goddess of the Tantra, the soul-enthralling Flute-Player of the Bhagavata, and the Self-absorbed Absolute of the Vedas live together, creating the greatest synthesis of religions. All aspects of Reality are represented there. But of this divine household, Kali is the pivot, the sovereign Mistress. She is Prakriti, the Procreatrix, Nature, the Destroyer, the Creator. Nay, She is something greater and deeper still for those who have eyes to see. She is the Universal Mother, "my Mother" as Ramakrishna would say, the All-powerful, who reveals Herself to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarnations, the Visible God, who leads the elect to the Invisible Reality; and if it so pleases Her, She takes away the last trace of ego from created beings and merges it in the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated God. Through Her grace "the finite ego loses itself in the illimitable Ego — Atman — Brahman". (Romain Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
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There came to Dakshineswar at this time a brahmin woman who was to play an important part in Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual unfoldment. Born in East Bengal, she was an adept in the Tantrik and Vaishnava methods of worship. She was slightly over fifty years of age, handsome, and garbed in the orange robe of a nun. Her sole possessions were a few books and two pieces of wearing-cloth.
Sri Ramakrishna welcomed the visitor with great respect, described to her his experiences and visions, and told her of people's belief that these were symptoms of madness. She listened to him attentively and said: "My son, everyone in this world is mad. Some are mad for money, some for creature comforts, some for name and fame; and you are mad for God." She assured him that he was passing through the almost unknown spiritual experience described in the scriptures as mahabhava, the most exalted rapture of divine love. She told him that this extreme exaltation had been described as manifesting itself through nineteen physical symptoms, including the shedding of tears, a tremor of the body, horripilation, perspiration, and a burning sensation. The Bhakti scriptures, she declared, had recorded only two instances of the experience, namely, those of Sri Radha and Sri Chaitanya.
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Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
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Now one with Radha, he manifested the great ecstatic love, the mahabhava, which had found in her its fullest expression. Later Sri Ramakrishna said: "The manifestation in the same individual of the nineteen different kinds of emotion for God is called, in the books on bhakti, mahabhava. An ordinary man takes a whole lifetime to express even a single one of these. But in this body [meaning himself] there has been a complete manifestation of all nineteen."
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.
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Even when man descends from this dizzy height, he is devoid of ideas of "I" and "mine"; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he — that is to say, his body — is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of Light. In the Vedanta books it is said that after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for the world can return
from this height to the valleys of normal life. They live and move in the world for the welfare of mankind. They are invested with a supreme spiritual power. A divine glory shines through them.
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"Sri Ramakrishna had not read books, yet he possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of religions and religious philosophies. This he acquired from his contacts with innumerable holy men and scholars. He had a unique power of assimilation; through meditation he made this knowledge a part of his being. Once, when he was asked by a disciple about the source of his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge, he replied; "I have not read; but I have heard the learned. I have made a garland of their knowledge, wearing it round my neck, and I have given it as an offering at the feet of the Mother."
Sri Ramakrishna used to say that when the flower blooms the bees come to it for honey of their own accord. Now many souls began to visit Dakshineswar to satisfy their spiritual hunger. He, the devotee and aspirant, became the Master. Gauri, the great scholar who had been one of the first to proclaim Sri Ramakrishna an Incarnation of God, paid the Master a visit in 1870 and with the Master's blessings renounced the world. Narayan Shastri, another great pundit, who had mastered the six systems of Hindu philosophy and had been offered a lucrative post by the Maharaja of Jaipur, met the Master and recognized in him one who had realized in life those ideals which he himself had encountered merely in books. Sri Ramakrishna initiated Narayan Shastri, at his earnest request, into the life of sannyas. Pundit Padmalochan, the court pundit of the Maharaja of Burdwan, well known for his scholarship in both the Vedanta and the Nyaya systems of philosophy, accepted the Master as an Incarnation of God. Krishnakishore, a Vedantist scholar, became devoted to the Master. And there arrived Viswanath Upadhyaya, who was to become a favourite devotee; Sri Ramakrishna always addressed him as "Captain". He was a high officer of the King of Nepal and had received the title of Colonel in recognition of his merit. A scholar of the Gita, the Bhagavata, and the Vedanta philosophy, he daily performed the worship of his Chosen Deity with great devotion. "I have read the Vedas and the other scriptures", he said. "I have also met a good many monks and devotees in different places. But it is in Sri Ramakrishna's presence that my spiritual yearnings have been fulfilled. To me he seems to be the embodiment of the truths of the scriptures."
The Knowledge of Brahman in nirvikalpa samadhi had convinced Sri Ramakrishna that the gods of the different religions are but so many readings of the Absolute, and that the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed by human tongue. He understood that all religions lead their devotees by differing paths to one and the same goal. Now he became eager to explore some of the alien religions; for with him understanding meant actual experience.
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Keshab Chandra Sen and Sri Ramakrishna met for the first time in the garden house of Jaygopal Sen at Belgharia, a few miles from Dakshineswar, where the great Brahmo leader was staying with some of his disciples. In many respects the two were poles apart, though an irresistible inner attraction was to make them intimate friends. The Master had realized God as Pure Spirit and Consciousness, but he believed in the various forms of God as well. Keshab, on the other hand, regarded image worship as idolatry and gave allegorical explanations of the Hindu deities. Keshab was an orator and a writer of books and magazine articles; Sri Ramakrishna had a horror of lecturing and hardly knew how to write his own name, Keshab's fame spread far and wide, even reaching the distant shores of England; the Master still led a secluded life in the village of Dakshineswar. Keshab emphasized social reforms for India's regeneration; to Sri Ramakrishna God-realization was the only goal of life. Keshab considered himself a disciple of Christ and accepted in a diluted form the Christian sacraments and Trinity; Sri Ramakrishna was the simple child of Kali, the Divine Mother, though he too, in a different way, acknowledged Christ's divinity. Keshab was a householder holder and took a real interest in the welfare of his children, whereas Sri Ramakrishna was a paramahamsa and completely indifferent to the life of the world. Yet, as their acquaintance ripened into friendship, Sri Ramakrishna and Keshab held each other in great love and respect. Years later, at the news of Keshab's death, the Master felt as if half his body had become paralyzed. Keshab's concepts of the harmony of religions and the Motherhood of God were deepened and enriched by his contact with Sri Ramakrishna.
Sri Ramakrishna, dressed in a red-bordered dhoti, one end of which was carelessly thrown over his left shoulder, came to Jaygopal's garden house accompanied by Hriday. No one took notice of the unostentatious visitor. Finally the Master said to Keshab, "People tell me you have seen God; so I have come to hear from you about God." A magnificent conversation followed. The Master sang a thrilling song about Kali and forthwith went into samadhi. When Hriday uttered the sacred "Om" in his ears, he gradually came back to consciousness of the world, his face still radiating a divine brilliance. Keshab and his followers were amazed. The contrast between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmo devotees was very interesting. There sat this small man, thin and extremely delicate. His eyes were illumined with an inner light. Good humour gleamed in his eyes and lurked in the corners of his mouth. His speech was Bengali of a homely kind with a slight, delightful stammer, and his words held men enthralled by their wealth of spiritual experience, their inexhaustible store of simile and metaphor, their power of observation, their bright and subtle humour, their wonderful catholicity, their ceaseless flow of wisdom. And around him now were the sophisticated men of Bengal, the best products of Western education, with Keshab, the idol of young Bengal, as their leader.
--
Shivanath, one day, was greatly impressed by the Master's utter simplicity and abhorrence of praise. He was seated with Sri Ramakrishna in the latter's room when several rich men of Calcutta arrived. The Master left the room for a few minutes. In the mean time Hriday, his nephew, began to describe his samadhi to the visitors. The last few words caught the Master's ear as he entered the room. He said to Hriday: "What a mean-spirited fellow you must be to extol me thus before these rich men! You have seen their costly apparel and their gold watches and chains, and your object is to get from them as much money as you can. What do I care about what they think of me? (Turning to the gentlemen) No, my friends, what he has told you about me is not true. It was not love of God that made me absorbed in God and indifferent to external life. I became positively insane for some time. The sadhus who frequented this temple told me to practise many things. I tried to follow them, and the consequence was that my austerities drove me to insanity." This is a quotation from one of Shivanath's books. He took the Master's words literally and failed to see their real import.
Shivanath vehemently criticized the Master for his other-worldly attitude toward his wife. He writes: "Ramakrishna was practically separated from his wife, who lived in her village home. One day when I was complaining to some friends about the virtual widowhood of his wife, he drew me to one side and whispered in my ear: 'Why do you complain? It is no longer possible; it is all dead and gone.' Another day as I was inveighing against this part of his teaching, and also declaring that our program of work in the Brahmo Samaj includes women, that ours is a social and domestic religion, and that we want to give education and social liberty to women, the saint became very much excited, as was his way when anything against his settled conviction was asserted — a trait we so much liked in him — and exclaimed, 'Go, thou fool, go and perish in the pit that your women will dig for you.' Then he glared at me and said: 'What does a gardener do with a young plant? Does he not surround it with a fence, to protect it from goats and cattle? And when the young plant has grown up into a tree and it can no longer be injured by cattle, does he not remove the fence and let the tree grow freely?' I replied, 'Yes, that is the custom with gardeners.' Then he remarked, 'Do the same in your spiritual life; become strong, be full-grown; then you may seek them.' To which I replied, 'I don't agree with you in thinking that women's work is like that of cattle, destructive; they are our associates and helpers in our spiritual struggles and social progress' — a view with which he could not agree, and he marked his dissent by shaking his head. Then referring to the lateness of the hour he jocularly remarked, 'It is time for you to depart; take care, do not be late; otherwise your woman will not admit you into her room.' This evoked hearty laughter."
--
Mahimacharan and Pratap Hazra were two devotees outstanding for their pretentiousness and idiosyncrasies. But the Master showed them his unfailing love and kindness, though he was aware of their shortcomings. Mahimacharan Chakravarty had met the Master long before the arrival of the other disciples. He had had the intention of leading a spiritual life, but a strong desire to acquire name and fame was his weakness. He claimed to have been initiated by Totapuri and used to say that he had been following the path of knowledge according to his guru's instructions. He possessed a large library of English and Sanskrit books. But though he pretended to have read them, most of the leaves were uncut. The Master knew all his limitations, yet enjoyed listening to him recite from the Vedas and other scriptures. He would always exhort Mahima to meditate on the meaning of the scriptural texts and to practise spiritual discipline.
Pratap Hazra, a middle-aged man, hailed from a village near Kamarpukur. He was not altogether unresponsive to religious feelings. On a moment's impulse he had left his home, aged mother, wife, and children, and had found shelter in the temple garden at Dakshineswar, where he intended to lead a spiritual life. He loved to argue, and the Master often pointed him out as an example of barren argumentation. He was hypercritical of others and cherished an exaggerated notion of his own spiritual advancement. He was mischievous and often tried to upset the minds of the Master's young disciples, criticizing them for their happy and joyous life and asking them to devote their time to meditation. The Master teasingly compared Hazra to Jatila and Kutila, the two women who always created obstructions in Krishna's sport with the gopis, and said that Hazra lived at Dakshineswar to "thicken the plot" by adding complications.
--
The Master knew Hari's passion for Vedanta. But he did not wish any of his disciples to become a dry ascetic or a mere bookworm. So he asked Hari to practise Vedanta in life by giving up the unreal and following the Real. "But it is not so easy", Sri Ramakrishna said, "to realize the illusoriness of the world. Study alone does not help one very much. The grace of God is required. Mere personal effort is futile. A man is a tiny creature after all, with very limited powers. But he can achieve the impossible if he prays to God for His grace." Whereupon the Master sang a song in praise of grace. Hari was profoundly moved and shed tears. Later in life Hari achieved a wonderful synthesis of the ideals of the Personal God and the Impersonal Truth.
--- GANGADHAR
--
It took the group only a few days to become adjusted to the new environment. The Holy Mother, assisted by Sri Ramakrishna's niece, Lakshmi Devi, and a few woman devotees, took charge of the cooking for the Master and his attendants. Surendra willingly bore the major portion of the expenses, other householders contributing according to their means. Twelve disciples were constant attendants of the Master: Narendra, Rakhal, Baburam, Niranjan, Jogin, Latu, Tarak, the-elder Gopal, Kali, Sashi, Sarat, and the younger Gopal. Sarada, Harish, Hari, Gangadhar, and Tulasi visited the Master from time to time and practised sadhana at home. Narendra, preparing for his law examination, brought his books to the garden house in order to continue his studies during the infrequent spare moments. He encouraged his brother disciples to intensify their meditation, scriptural studies, and other spiritual disciplines. They all forgot their relatives and their
worldly duties.
0.00 - Publishers Note C, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present volume consists of three books: Light of Lights, Eight Talks and Sweet Mother; there are also translations from Sanskrit, Pali, Bengali and French. These, along with the translations of the Dhammapada and Charyapada, have been mostly serialised in Ashram journals.
His original writings in French have also been included here. We are grateful to the Government of India for a grant towards meeting the cost of publication of this volume.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
object:0.00 - The book of Lies Text
author class:Aleister Crowley
--
THE booK OF LIES ------- Aliester Crowley
March 21st, 1992 e.v. key entry by Frater E.A.D.N., San Diego,
--
THE booK OF LIES
Aliester Crowley
THE booK OF LIES
WHICH IS ALSO FALSELY
--
The number of the book is 333, as implying dis-
persion, so as to correspond with the title, "Breaks"
--
This book therefore consists of statements as nearly
true as is possible to human language.
--
THE booK OF LIES, first published in London
in 1913, Aleister Crowley's little master work, has
--
book that we can do no better that quote some
passages which we find scattered about in the un-
--
to THE booK OF LIES. In this there are 93 chapters:
we count as a chapter the two pages filled re-
--
subtly ironical or cynical. At first sight the book is a
jumble of nonsense intended to insult the reader. It
--
write a book `THE booK OF LIES, WHICH IS
ALSO FALSELY CALLED BREAKS, THE
--
into the book in a sort of anger at myself as a
deliberate act of spite towards my readers.
--
because I did not know it. He went to the book-
shelves; taking out a copy of THE booK OF LIES, he
pointed to a passage in the despised chapter. It
--
adumbration of the most daring thesis in this book-
Father and Son are not really two, but one; their unity
--
This is that which is written-Lurk!-in The book
of The Law.
--
This book would translate Beyond-Reason into the
words of Reason.
--
The slaves of reason call this book Abuse-of-
Language: they are right.
--
book, Laylah, who is the ultimate feminine symbol, to
be interpreted on all planes.
--
Yet a Looby to thee, and a booby to me, a Balassius
Ruby to GOD, may be!
--
to be the author, at the time of writing this book, which
he did when he was far from any standard works of
--
throughout the book on numerous occasions, and even
in the chapter itself it is employed in the last paragraphs.
--
throughout the whole of this book, in nearly every other sentence.
Transvaluation of values is only the moral aspect of the method
--
a greater feast for Death!" in THE booK OF
THE LAW.
--
There is a great deal of cynicism in this book, in one
place and another. It should be regarded as Angostura
--
self with the BEAST referred to in the book, and in the
Apocalypse, and in LIBER LEGIS. In paragraph 6 the
--
Fourscore and eleven books wrote I; in each did I
expound THE GREAT WORK fully, from The
--
The fourscore-and-eleven books do not, we think,
refer to the ninety-one chapters of this little master-
--
sense explained in the book of the Law, is the truer
key.
--
this book is evidently written.)
[125]
--
How Buddhahood would battle with The booze!
My certainty that destiny is "good"
--
and create no new, so that, as it were, the books are balanced. WHile you have
either a credit or a debit, you are still in account with the universe.
--
it, absurd that the the text of this book, composed as it is
of English, simple, austere, and terse, should need a
--
needed, for the book of Lies itself. In these few simple
words, it explains the necessity of the book, and offers it-
humbly, yet with confidence-as a means of redemption to
--
may this book be understood.
How much more then should He devote Himself to
AIWASS for the understanding of the Holy books
of {Theta-Epsilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha}?
--
communicates to him the Holy books.
Paragraphs 3 and 4 are explained by the 13th
--
form of Fire. (But see book 4, part III.)
Paragraphs 1-6. Out of Nothing, Nothing is made. The word
--
It is a good title for the last chapter of this book, and
it also symbolises the eventual coming out into the light
--
booKS BY ALEISTER CROWLEY
mentioned in the Commentary
--
The book of Thoth (The Tarot). London, 1944.
AHA! The Eqx., I, iii.
--
book 4, part III, same as Magick in Theory and
Practice. Paris, 1929.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"M", as the author modestly styles himself, was peculiarly qualified for his task. To a reverent love for his master, to a deep and experiential knowledge of that master's teaching, he added a prodigious memory for the small happenings of each day and a happy gift for recording them in an interesting and realistic way. Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he found himself, "M" produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. No other saint has had so able and indefatigable a Boswell. Never have the small events of a contemplative's daily life been described with such a wealth of intimate detail. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute a fidelity. To Western readers, it is true, this fidelity and this wealth of detail are sometimes a trifle disconcerting; for the social, religious and intellectual frames of reference within which Sri Ramakrishna did his thinking and expressed his feelings were entirely Indian. But after the first few surprises and bewilderments, we begin to find something peculiarly stimulating and instructive about the very strangeness and, to our eyes, the eccentricity of the man revealed to us in "M's" narrative. What a scholastic philosopher would call the "accidents" of Ramakrishna's life were intensely Hindu and therefore, so far as we in the West are concerned, unfamiliar and hard to understand; its "essence", however, was intensely mystical and therefore universal. To read through these conversations in which mystical doctrine alternates with an unfamiliar kind of humour, and where discussions of the oddest aspects of Hindu mythology give place to the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality, is in itself a liberal, education in humility, tolerance and suspense of judgment. We must be grateful to the translator for his excellent version of a book so curious and delightful as a biographical document, so precious, at the same time, for what it teaches us of the life of the spirit.
--------------------
--
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is the English translation of the Sri Sri Rmakrishna Kathmrita, the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees, and visitors, recorded by Mahendranth Gupta, who wrote the book under the pseudonym of "M." The conversations in Bengali fill five volumes, the first of which was published in 1897 and the last shortly after M.'s death in 1932. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, has published in two volumes an English translation of selected chapters from the monumental Bengali work. I have consulted these while preparing my translation.
M., one of the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, was present during all the conversations recorded in the main body of the book and noted them down in his diary.
They therefore have the value of almost stenographic records. In Appendix A are given several conversations which took place in the absence of M., but of which he received a first-hand record from persons concerned. The conversations will bring before the reader's mind an intimate picture of the Master's eventful life from March 1882 to April 24, 1886, only a few months before his passing away. During this period he came in contact chiefly with English-educated Benglis; from among them he selected his disciples and the bearers of his message, and with them he shared his rich spiritual experiences.
--
But these words were not the product of intellectual cogitation; they were rooted in direct experience. Hence, to students of religion, psychology, and physical science, these experiences of the Master are of immense value for the understanding of religious phenomena in general. No doubt Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu of the Hindus; yet his experiences transcended the limits of the dogmas and creeds of Hinduism. Mystics of religions other than Hinduism will find in Sri Ramakrishna's experiences a corroboration of the experiences of their own prophets and seers. And this is very important today for the resuscitation of religious values. The sceptical reader may pass by the supernatural experiences; he will yet find in the book enough material to provoke his serious thought and solve many of his spiritual problems.
There are repetitions of teachings and parables in the book. I have kept them purposely. They have their charm and usefulness, repeated as they were in different settings. Repetition is unavoidable in a work of this kind. In the first place, different seekers come to a religious teacher with questions of more or less identical nature; hence the answers will be of more or less identical pattern. Besides, religious teachers of all times and climes have tried, by means of repetition, to hammer truths into the stony soil of the recalcitrant human mind. Finally, repetition does not seem tedious if the ideas repeated are dear to a man's heart.
I have thought it necessary to write a rather lengthy Introduction to the book. In it I have given the biography of the Master, descriptions of people who came in contact with him, short explanations of several systems of Indian religious thought intimately connected with Sri Ramakrishna's life, and other relevant matters which, I hope, will enable the reader better to understand and appreciate the unusual contents of this book. It is particularly important that the Western reader, unacquainted with Hindu religious thought, should first read carefully the introductory chapter, in order that he may fully enjoy these conversations. Many Indian terms and names have been retained in the book for want of suitable English equivalents. Their meaning is given either in the Glossary or in the foot-notes. The Glossary also gives explanations of a number of expressions unfamiliar to Western readers. The diacritical marks are explained under Notes on Pronunciation.
In the Introduction I have drawn much material from the Life of Sri Ramakrishna, published by the Advaita Ashrama, Myvati, India. I have also consulted the excellent article on Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nirvednanda, in the second volume of the Cultural Heritage of India.
The book contains many songs sung either by the Master or by the devotees. These form an important feature of the spiritual tradition of Bengal and were for the most part written by men of mystical experience. For giving the songs their present form I am grateful to Mr. John Moffitt, Jr.
In the preparation of this manuscript I have received ungrudging help from several friends. Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson and Mr.Joseph Campbell have worked hard in editing my translation. Mrs.Elizabeth Davidson has typed, more than once, the entire manuscript and rendered other valuable help. Mr.Aldous Huxley has laid me under a debt of gratitude by writing the Foreword. I sincerely thank them all.
--
May this translation of the first book of its kind in the religious history of the world, being the record of the direct words of a prophet, help stricken humanity to come nearer to the Eternal Verity of life and remove dissension and quarrel from among the different faiths!
May it enable seekers of Truth to grasp the subtle laws of the supersensuous realm, and unfold before man's restricted vision the spiritual foundation of the universe, the unity of existence, and the divinity of the soul!
--
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.)
Imparting secular education was, however, only his profession ; his main concern was with the spiritual regeneration of man a calling for which Destiny seems to have chosen him. From his childhood he was deeply pious, and he used to be moved very much by Sdhus, temples and Durga Puja celebrations. The piety and eloquence of the great Brahmo leader of the times, Keshab Chander Sen, elicited a powerful response from the impressionable mind of Mahendra Nath, as it did in the case of many an idealistic young man of Calcutta, and prepared him to receive the great Light that was to dawn on him with the coming of Sri Ramakrishna into his life.
--
While many educated people heard Sri Ramakrishna's talks, it was given to this illustrious personage alone to leave a graphic and exact account of them for posterity, with details like date, hour, place, names and particulars about participants. Humanity owes this great book to the ingrained habit of diary-keeping with which M. was endowed.
Even as a boy of about thirteen, while he was a student in the 3rd class of the Hare School, he was in the habit of keeping a diary. "Today on rising," he wrote in his diary, "I greeted my father and mother, prostrating on the ground before them" (Swami Nityatmananda's 'M The Apostle and the Evangelist' Part I. P 29.) At another place he wrote, "Today, while on my way to school, I visited, as usual, the temples of Kli, the Mother at Tharitharia, and of Mother Sitala, and paid my obeisance to them." About twenty-five years after, when he met the Great Master in the spring of 1882, it was the same instinct of a born diary-writer that made him begin his book, 'unique in the literature of hagiography', with the memorable words: "When hearing the name of Hari or Rma once, you shed tears and your hair stands on end, then you may know for certain that you do not have to perform devotions such as Sandhya any more."
In addition to this instinct for diary-keeping, M. had great endowments contri buting to success in this line. Writes Swami Nityatmananda who lived in close association with M., in his book entitled M - The Apostle and Evangelist: "M.'s prodigious memory combined with his extraordinary power of imagination completely annihilated the distance of time and place for him. Even after the lapse of half a century he could always visualise vividly, scenes from the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Superb too was his power to portray pictures by words."
Besides the prompting of his inherent instinct, the main inducement for M. to keep this diary of his experiences at Dakshineswar was his desire to provide himself with a means for living in holy company at all times. Being a school teacher, he could be with the Master only on Sundays and other holidays, and it was on his diary that he depended for 'holy company' on other days. The devotional scriptures like the Bhagavata say that holy company is the first and most important means for the generation and growth of devotion. For, in such company man could hear talks on spiritual matters and listen to the glorification of Divine attri butes, charged with the fervour and conviction emanating from the hearts of great lovers of God. Such company is therefore the one certain means through which Sraddha (Faith), Rati (attachment to God) and Bhakti (loving devotion) are generated. The diary of his visits to Dakshineswar provided M. with material for re-living, through reading and contemplation, the holy company he had had earlier, even on days when he was not able to visit Dakshineswar. The wealth of details and the vivid description of men and things in the midst of which the sublime conversations are set, provide excellent material to re-live those experiences for any one with imaginative powers. It was observed by M.'s disciples and admirers that in later life also whenever he was free or alone, he would be pouring over his diary, transporting himself on the wings of imagination to the glorious days he spent at the feet of the Master.
During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition that when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility that he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason that no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, (Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all that." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
The two pamphlets in English entitled the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared in October and November 1897. They drew the spontaneous acclamation of Swami Vivekananda, who wrote on 24th November of that year from Dehra Dun to M.:"Many many thanks for your second leaflet. It is indeed wonderful. The move is quite original, and never was the life of a Great Teacher brought before the public untarnished by the writer's mind, as you are doing. The language also is beyond all praise, so fresh, so pointed, and withal so plain and easy. I cannot express in adequate terms how I have enjoyed them. I am really in a transport when I read them. Strange, isn't it? Our Teacher and Lord was so original, and each one of us will have to be original or nothing.
--
And Swamiji added a post script to the letter: "Socratic dialogues are Plato all over you are entirely hidden. Moreover, the dramatic part is infinitely beautiful. Everybody likes it here or in the West." Indeed, in order to be unknown, Mahendranath had used the pen-name M., under which the book has been appearing till now. But so great a book cannot remain obscure for long, nor can its author remain unrecognised by the large public in these modern times. M. and his book came to be widely known very soon and to meet the growing demand, a full-sized book, Vol. I of the Gospel, translated by the author himself, was published in 1907 by the Brahmavadin Office, Madras. A second edition of it, revised by the author, was brought out by the Ramakrishna Math, Madras in December 1911, and subsequently a second part, containing new chapters from the original Bengali, was published by the same Math in 1922. The full English translation of the Gospel by Swami Nikhilananda appeared first in 1942.
In Bengali the book is published in five volumes, the first part having appeared in 1902
and the others in 1905, 1907, 1910 and 1932 respectively.
--
M. was, in every respect, a true missionary of Sri Ramakrishna right from his first acquaintance with him in 1882. As a school teacher, it was a practice with him to direct to the Master such of his students as had a true spiritual disposition. Though himself prohibited by the Master to take to monastic life, he encouraged all spiritually inclined young men he came across in his later life to join the monastic Order. Swami Vijnanananda, a direct Sannysin disciple of the Master and a President of the Ramakrishna Order, once remarked to M.: "By enquiry, I have come to the conclusion that eighty percent and more of the Sannysins have embraced the monastic life after reading the Kathmrita (Bengali name of the book) and coming in contact with you." ( M
The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I, P 37.)
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
such is the kernel and conclusion of this book. But let us empha-
sise the point : union increases only through an increase in con-
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.
But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening from 1900 to 1910 could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his Yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.
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]
--
This possibility of the human touching and manifesting the Divine has been realised during the course of human history whenever a great spiritual Light has appeared on earth. One of the purposes of this book is to show how Sri Aurobindo himself reflected the unlimited Beyond in his own self.
Greatness is magnetic and in a sense contagious. Wherever manifested, greatness is claimed by humanity as something that reveals the possibility of the race. The highest utility of greatness is not merely to attract us but to inspire us to follow it and rise to our own highest spiritual stature. To the majority of men Truth remains abstract, impersonal and far unless it is seen and felt concretely in a human personality. A man never knows a truth actively except through a person and by embodying it in his own personality. Some glimpse of the Truth-Consciousness which Sri Aurobindo embodied may be caught in these Evening Talks.
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A small booklet is being published in Geneva, containing a talk
I gave in 1912, I think. It is a bit out-of-date, but I did not
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
month. Will you see if indeed the previous book is finished or
not, and act accordingly.
--
peace.... Why do men flee from these boons as though
they fear them?"3
--
I was imagining that Mother will throw away this book
in disgust, or that Sri Aurobindo will write two pages
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
After Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry from Chandernagore, he entered upon an intense period of Sadhana and for a few months he refused to receive anyone. After a time he used to sit down to talk in the evening and on some days tried automatic writing. Yogic Sadhan, a small book, was the result. In 1913 Sri Aurobindo moved to Rue Franois Martin No. 41 where he used to receive visitors at fixed times. This was generally in the morning between 9 and 10.30.
But, over and above newcomers, some local people and the few inmates of the house used to have informal talks with Sri Aurobindo in the evening. In the beginning the inmates used to go out for playing football, and during their absence known local individuals would come in and wait for Sri Aurobindo. Afterwards regular meditations began at about 4 p.m. in which practically all the inmates participated. After the meditation all of the members and those who were permitted shared in the evening sitting. This was a very informal gathering depending entirely upon Sri Aurobindo's leisure.
--
There were no formal evening sittings during these years, but what appeared to me important in our informal talks was recorded and has been incorporated in this book.
[1] Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram, 1985, p. 22.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
treated in the present stanza, and will be treated in the first part of this book.
And the second is of the spiritual part; of this speaks the second stanza,
--
In his three earlier books he has written of the Active Night, of Sense and of
Spirit; he now proposes to deal with the Passive Night, in the same order. He has
--
understand, and of great practical utility, comparable to those in the first book of
the Ascent which deal with the active purgation of the desires of sense.
--
from which the book passes on (Chapters xxii, xxiii) to extol the 'happy chance'
which led it to journey 'in darkness and concealment' from its enemies, both without
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If I find some solace in books, how can I say that nothing sustains me and that I am plunged in the divine life
through an absolute emptiness?
--
become restless. So I think it is better to choose one's books
carefully rather than stop reading altogether.
I am reading a book on cars, but I read it hastily; I skip
the descriptions of complicated mechanisms.
--
It is not a book of ideas; it is only for the beauty of its form and
style that it is remarkable.
When one reads a dirty book, an obscene novel, does
not the vital enjoy it through the mind?
--
have their books.
One must have a lot of patience with young children, and repeat
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
IN this book are first set down all the stanzas which are to be expounded; afterwards, each of the stanzas is expounded separately, being set down before its exposition; and then each line is expounded separately and in turn, the line itself also being set down before the exposition. In the first two stanzas are expounded the effects of the two spiritual purgations: of the sensual part of man and of the spiritual part. In the other six are expounded various and wondrous effects of the spiritual illumination and union of love with God.
STANZAS OF THE SOUL
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, I like to receive the book from you. It helps to keep the
contact materially.
--
for spoiling the book with this very crude offering.
Nothing to excuse, all is in the spirit of the offering....
--
standing before me ready to give a boon! In fact, I was
invoking Her and there you were with the pot of pickles
--
In my birthday book Sri Aurobindo has written,
"Rise into the higher Consciousness, let its light control
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How should we read your books and the books of Sri
Aurobindo so that they may enter into our consciousness
--
To read my books is not difficult because they are written in the
simplest language, almost the spoken language. To get help from
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
novels or dramas, but books that make you think. You must
meditate on what you have read, reflect on a thought until you
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rejected the undying rapture's boon:
Offered to the daughter of infinity
--
\t:End of book I - Canto I
TTS_LOC:"/home/j/Documents/Code/Python/TTS/MP3S"
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
bookmark
A Yoga of the Art of Life Sri Aurobindo and his School
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In thoughts and actions graved in Nature's book,
She accepted not to close the luminous page,
--
End of book I - Canto II
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Time's secrets were to him an oft-read book;
The records of the future and the past
--
\t:End of book I - Canto III
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"The Last Voyage" by Charles Williams-A Little book of Modern Verse, (Faber and Faber).
W. B. Yeats: "The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart"-The Wind among the Reeds.
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For any blow or boon that she may choose:
Even in what is suffering to our sense,
--
End of book I - Canto IV
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is the book of Being's index page;
The text and glossary of the Vedic truth
--
End of Canto V - End of book I
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A personal reminiscence. A young man in prison, accused of conspiracy and waging war against the British Empire. If convicted he might have to suffer the extreme penalty, at least, transportation to the Andamans. The case is dragging on for long months. And the young man is in a solitary cell. He cannot always keep up his spirits high. Moments of sadness and gloom and despair come and almost overwhelm him. Who was there to console and cheer him up? Vivekananda. Vivekananda's speeches, From Colombo to Almora, came, as a godsend, into the hands of the young man. Invariably, when the period of despondency came he used to open the book, read a few pages, read them over again, and the cloud was there no longer. Instead there was hope and courage and faith and future and light and air.
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!
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"The zeal for the Lord hath eaten me up." Such has indeed been the case with Pascal, almost literally. The fire that burned in him was too ardent and vehement for the vehicle, the material instrument, which was very soon used up and reduced to ashes. At twenty-four he was already a broken man, being struck with paralysis and neuras thenia; he died at the comparatively early age of 39, emulating, as it were, the life career of his Lord the Christ who died at 33. The Fire martyrised the body, but kindled and brought forth experiences and realisations that save and truths that abide. It was the Divine Fire whose vision and experience he had on the famous night of 23 November 1654 which brought about his final and definitive conversion. It was the same fire that had blazed up in his brain, while yet a boy, and made him a precocious genius, a marvel of intellectual power in the exact sciences. At 12 this prodigy discovered by himself the 32nd proposition of Euclid, book I. At sixteen he wrote a treatise on conic sections. At nineteen he invented a calculating machine which, without the help of any mathematical rule or process, gave absolutely accurate results. At twenty-three he published his experiments with vacuum. At twenty-five he conducted the well-known experiment from the tower of St. Jacques, proving the existence of atmospheric pressure. His studies in infinitesimal calculus were remarkably creative and original. And it might be said he was a pioneer in quite a new branch of mathematics, viz., the mathematical theory of probability. We shall see presently how his preoccupation with the mathematics of chance and probability coloured and reinforced his metaphysics and theology.
But the pressure upon his dynamic and heated brain the fiery zeal in his mindwas already proving too much and he was advised medically to take complete rest. Thereupon followed what was known as Pascal's mundane lifea period of distraction and dissipation; but this did not last long nor was it of a serious nature. The inner fire could brook no delay, it was eager and impatient to englobe other fields and domains. Indeed, it turned to its own field the heart. Pascal became initiated into the mystery of Faith and Grace. Still he had to pass through a terrible period of dejection and despair: the life of the world had given him no rest or relaxation, it served only to fill his cup of misery to the brim. But the hour of final relief was not long postponed: the Grace came to him, even as it came to Moses or St. Paul as a sudden flare of fire which burnt up the Dark Night and opened out the portals of Morning Glory.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
The conception of original sin is a cardinal factor in Christian discipline. The conception, of sinfulness is the very motive-power that drives the aspirant. "Seek tensely," it is said, "sorrow and sigh deep, mourn still, and stoop low till thine eye water for anguish and for pain." Remorse and grief are necessary attendants; the way of the cross is naturally the calvary strewn with pain and sorrow. It is the very opposite of what is termed the "sunlit path" in spiritual ascension. Christian mystics have made a glorious spectacle of the process of "dying to the world." Evidently, all do not go the whole length. There are less gloomy and happier temperaments, like the present one, for example, who show an unusual balance, a sturdy common sense even in the midst of their darkest nights, who have chalked out as much of the sunlit path as is possible in this line. Thus this old-world mystic says: it is true one must see and admit one's sinfulness, the grosser and apparent and more violent ones as well as all the subtle varieties of it that are in you or rise up in you or come from the Enemy. They pursue you till the very end of your journey. Still you need not feel overwhelmed or completely desperate. Once you recognise the sin in you, even the bare fact of recognition means for you half the victory. The mystic says, "It is no sin as thou feelest them." The day Jesus gave himself away on the Cross, since that very day you are free, potentially free from the bondage of sin. Once you give your adherence to Him, the Enemies are rendered powerless. "They tease the soul, but they harm not the soul". Or again, as the mystic graphically phrases it: "This soul is not borne in this image of sin as a sick man, though he feel it; but he beareth it." The best way of dealing with one's enemies is not to struggle and "strive with them." The aspirant, the lover of Jesus, must remember: "He is through grace reformed to the likeness of God ('in the privy substance of his soul within') though he neither feel it nor see it."
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
and I too have explained everything in the book Education. One
has to read, study and, above all, practise.
--
finish one of his books, I feel that I have gained nothing,
learned nothing new - that it was a waste of time.
--
wind that blows about him, by a book he reads or a
picture he sees. He is most vulnerable.
--
It seems that a list of books (English classics) was
sent to You for Your approval, but that You wish only
--
made is: you must read the books and study the teaching.
29 July 1964
--
Mother, I have started reading French books - X has
given me a list.
01.10 - Principle and Personality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world is full of ikons and archons; we cannot escape them, even if we try the world itself being a great ikon and as great an archon. Those who swear by principles, swear always by some personality or other, if not by a living creature then by a lifeless book, if not by Religion then by Science, if not by the East then by the West, if not by Buddha or Christ then by Bentham or Voltaire. Only they do it unwittingly they change one set of personalities for another and believe they have rejected them all. The veils of Maya are a thousand-fold tangle and you think you have entirely escaped her when you have only run away from one fold to fall into another. The wise do not attempt to reject and negate Maya, but consciously accept herfreedom lies in a knowing affirmation. So we too have accepted and affirmed an icon, but we have done it consciously and knowingly; we are not bound by our idol, we see the truth of it, and we serve and utilise it as best as we may.
***
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A similar compilation was published in the Arya, called The Eternal Wisdom (Les Paroles ternelles, in French) a portion of which appeared later on in book-form: that was more elaborate, the contents were arranged in such a way that no comments were needed, they were self-explanatory, divided as they were in chapters and sections and subsections with proper headings, the whole thing put in a logical and organised sequence. Huxley's compilation begins under the title of the Upanishadic text "That art Thou" with this saying of Eckhart: "The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without". It will be interesting to note that the Arya compilation too starts with the same idea under the title "The God of All; the God who is in All", the first quotation being from Philolaus, "The Universe is a Unity".The Eternal Wisdom has an introduction called "The Song of Wisdom" which begins with this saying from the book of Wisdom: "We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors".
Huxley gives only one quotation from Sri Aurobindo under the heading "God in the World". Here it is:
--
A sage can smile and smile delightfully! The parable illustrates the well-known Biblical phrase, 'the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'. The monkey is symbolical of the ignorant, arrogant, fussy human mind. There is another Buddhistic story about the monkey quoted in the book and it is as delightful; but being somewhat long, we cannot reproduce it here. It tells how the mind-monkey is terribly agile, quick, clever, competent, moving lightning-fast, imagining that it can easily go to the end of the world, to Paradise itself, to Brahmic status. But alas! when he thought he was speeding straight like a rocket or an arrow and arrive right at the target, he found that he was spinning like a top at the same spot, and what he very likely took to be the very fragrance of the topmost supreme heaven was nothing but the aroma of his own urine.
***
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One morning as I was reading Your book Prayers and
Meditations, I wished to know which movement comes
--
Savitri, book VI, Canto 2.
Is transparent sincerity a more effective, indispensable
--
Savitri, book X, Canto 1.
Series Eleven - To a Sadhak
--
Savitri, book X, Canto 2.
Once Mother spoke to me about total sincerity. What
--
Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, book I, Canto 3.
What should one do to reduce the range of the subconscient?
--
Savitri, book I, Canto 3.
Ibid., book I, Canto 5.
Series Eleven - To a Sadhak
--
Savitri, book I, Canto 3.
Ibid., book I, Canto 5.
Ibid., book I Canto 3.
It seems to me, Mother, that when man does not accept the Divine, it is more out of ignorance than out of
--
Savitri, book II, Canto 8.
Series Eleven - To a Sadhak
--
Savitri, book III, Canto 4.
Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, SABCL, Vol. 25, p. 20.
--
Savitri, book III, Canto 4.
It seems to me that to know things in detail, the ordinary
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your books before going to bed at night. But now I have
lost the habit and I do not even go to the Samadhi very
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before, when there were we started with 35 or 36 people but even when it got up to 150, even with 150it was as if they were all nestled in a cocoon in my consciousness: they were so near to me that I could constantly guide ALL their inner or outer movements. Day and night, at each moment, everything was totally under my control. And naturally, I think they made a great deal of progress at that time: it is a fact that I was CONSTANTLY doing the sadhana2 for them. But then, with this baby boom The sadhana cant be done for little sprouts who are 3 or 4 or 5 years old! Its out of the question. The only thing I can do is wrap them in the Consciousness and try to see that they grow up in the best of all possible conditions. However, the one advantage to all this is that instead of there being such a COMPLETE and PASSIVE dependence on the disciples part, each one has to make his own little effort. Truly, thats excellent.
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!
--
And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual that could give me just a little clue and tell me, Here. If you do such and such, you will find your pathwell I charged into it like a cyclone and nothing could have stopped me.
And how many years have you all been here, half-asleep? Naturally, youre happy to think about it now and thenespecially when I speak to you about it or sometimes when you read. But THATthat fire, that will which plows through all barriers, that concentration which can triumph over EVERYTHING
0 1955-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
2) To unfold ones being before Him, to open entirely ones body from head to toe, as one opens a book, spreading open ones centers so as to make all their movements visible in a total SINCERITY that allows nothing to remain hidden.
3) To nestle in His arms, to melt in Him in a tender and absolute CONFIDENCE.
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I feel a bit lost, cut off from you. The idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd and I am abandoning it. My friends tell me that I may remain with them as long as I wish, but this is hardly a solution; I dont even feel like writing a book any longernothing seems to appeal to me except the trees in this garden and the music that fills a large part of my days. There is no solution other than the Ashram or Brazil. You alone can tell me what to do.
I KNOW that ultimately my place is near you, but is that my place at present, after all these failings? Spontaneously, it is you I want, you alone who represent the light and all that is real in this world; I can love no one but you nor be interested in anything but this thing within me, but will it not all begin again once I have returned to the Ashram? You alone know the stage I am at, what is good for me, what is possible.
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The conflict that is tearing me apart is between this shadowy part of a past that does not want to die, and the new light. I wonder if, rather than escaping to some desert, it would not be wiser to resolve this conflict by objectify it, by writing this book I spoke to you about.
But I would like to know whether it is really useful for me to write this book, or whether it is not just some inferior task, a makeshift.
You told me one day that I could be useful to you. Then, by chance, I came across this passage from Sri Aurobindo the other day: Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse.
0 1957-04-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So what is to be done? I intend asking your permission to leave as soon as the book is finished (I am determined to finish it, for it will rid me of the past it represents). I expect nothing from the world, except a bit of external space, in the absence of another space.
Signed: Bernard
0 1957-04-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The book is finished.1 I would like to give it to you personally, if it would not disturb you, whenever you wish.
Your child,
0 1957-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of Mother's French translation of these two books by Sri Aurobindo.
***
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As for me, I am totally out of my element in this new life, as though I were uprooted from myself. I am living in the temple, in the midst of pujas,1 with white ashes on my forehead, barefoot dressed like a Hindu, sleeping on cement at night, eating impossible curries, with some good sunburns to complete the cooking. And there I am, clinging to you, for if you were not there I would collapse, so absurd would it all be. You are the only realityhow many times have I repeated this to myself, like a litany! Apart from this, I am holding up quite well physically. But inside and outside, nothing is left but you. I need you, thats all. Mother, this world is so horrifyingly empty. I really feel that I would evaporate if you werent there. Well, no doubt I had to go through this experience Perhaps I will be able to extract some book from it that will be of use to you. We are like children who need a lot of pictures in order to understand, and a few good kicks to realize our complete stupidity.
Swami must soon take to the road again, through Ceylon, towards March 20 or 25. So I shall go wandering with him until May; towards the beginning of May, he will return to India. I hope to have learned my lesson by then, and to have learned it well. Inwardly, I have understood that there is only you but its these problem children on the surface who must be made to toe the line once and for all.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I was young, I was as poor as a turkey, as poor as could be! As an artist, I sometimes had to go out in society (as artists are forced to do). I had lacquered boots that were cracked and I painted them so it wouldnt show! This is to tell you the state I was inpoor as a turkey. So one day, in a shop window, I saw a very pretty petticoat much in fashion then, with lace, ribbons, etc. (It was the fashion in those days to have long skirts which trailed on the floor, and I didnt have a petticoat which could go with such things I didnt care, it didnt matter to me in the least, but since Nature had told me I would always have everything I needed, I wanted to make an experiment.) So I said, Well, I would very much like to have a petticoat to go with those skirts. I got five of them! They came from every direction!
And it is always like that. I never ask for anything, but if by chance I say to myself, Hmm, wouldnt it be nice to have that, mountains of them pour in! So last year, I made an experiment, I told Nature, Listen, my little one, you say that you will collaborate, you told me I would never lack anything. Well then, to put it on a level of feelings, it would really be fun, it would give me joy (in the style of Krishnas joy), to have A LOT of money to do everything I feel like doing. Its not that I want to increase things for myself, no; you give me more than I need. But to have some fun, to be able to give freely, to do things freely, to spend freely I am asking you to give me a crore of rupees1 for my birthday!
0 1958-08-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There (gesture above the head), everything has been resolved, I could write books on how to resolve this or that, how the synthesis is made, etc., but here (the body) I live this synthesis stumblingly. The two coexist, but it is still not THAT (gesture, hands clasped together, pointing upwards).
(silence)
0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was waiting to answer your letter of the 21st until the Friday and Saturday you mentioned had gone by. And then I felt that you were returning the Aphorisms, so I waited a bit more. I have just received them along with your letter of the 23rd, but I have not yet looked at them. Besides, if you intend returning for the February darshan, I think it would be preferable for us to revise the whole book together. There will not be very much work on my side since the Wednesday and Friday classes were discontinued in the beginning of December, and I still do not know when they will resume.3 Right now, I am translating the Aphorisms all alone and it seems to go quickly and well. This could also be revised and the book on the Dhammapada prepared for publication.
For the time being, I am going downstairs only in the mornings at 6 for the balcony darshan and I immediately come back up without seeing anyone then in the afternoons, I go down once more at about 3 to take my bath and at 4:30 I come back up again. I do not yet know what will happen next month. I shall have to find some way to meet you so that we can work together I am going to think it over.
0 1959-03-10 - vital dagger, vital mass, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo calls this realm the intermediate zone, a zone in which, he says, you can have all the experiences you wish if you enter into it. But it isnt (laughing) very advisable!and I understand why! I had that experience because I had just read what Sri Aurobindo says on this subject in a letter in this latest book, On Yoga; I wanted to see for myself what it was. Ah, I understood!
And I express this in my own way when I say1 that thoughts come and go, flow in and out. But thoughts concerning material things are formations originating in that world, they are kinds of wills coming from the vital plane which try to express themselves, and most often they are truly deadly. If you are annoyed, for example, if someone says something unpleasant to you and you react It always happens in the same way; these little entities are there waiting, and when they feel its the right moment, they introduce their influence and their suggestions. This is what is vitally symbolized by the being with his dagger rushing forward to stab youand in the back, at that! Not even face to face! This then expresses itself in the human consciousness by a movement of anger or rage or indignation: How intolerable! How ! And the other fellow says, Yes! We shall put an end to it!
0 1959-04-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Here is the outline for the book on Sri Aurobindo for the ditions du Seuil.1
It is a rough sketch, and in the actual process of writing, the proposed sequence may change according to the inner necessity, but these are the themes to be developed. So now T would like to know what you feel and if you see anything to be changed, added or deleted.
--
A French publishing house that had asked for a book on Sri Aurobindo to be included in their collection, 'Spiritual Masters.'
***
0 1960-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Publisher and friend are here one in telling you that LOrpailleur is a beautiful book whose richness and force have struck me even more this time than before when I read the first version. I cannot tell you how much your Job is my brotherin his darkness as in his light. The joy, the wild, irrepressible joy that furtively yearns and at times bursts forth, embracing all, this joy at the heart of the book burns the reader for a few, in any case, who are prepared to be inflamed. In the end, I cant say if LOrpailleur will or will not be noticed, if the critics will or will not bestow an article, a comment, an echo upon it, if bookstores will or will not sell it (poor orpailleur!). But what I know is that for a few readers2, 3, 10 perhapsyour book will be the cry that will rip them from their sleep forever. To your song, another song in themselves will respond. Where, how shall this concert finish? Who knowsanything is possible!
My words are a bit disjointed but Im not in the mood to give an articulate discourse. Which is a way of saying, once again, how happy I amand grateful.
0 1960-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Ive booked my ticket to Rameswaram for the evening of the 13th, so I will probably reach there on the 15th.
I brought some work with me (revision of The Human Cycle), and that helps me to live. I still dont clearly see the meaning of this trip. Just before I left, I received word from the publisher in Paris that my book will come out in September.
There are moments when I feel you so close to mecould you not help me be more conscious of your presence (not as an impersonal force, but you)?
0 1960-04-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
My friend here gave me the book Templier et Alchimiste [Templar and Alchemist] to read; its published by the group he is going to join in France. They too speak of the transmutation of matter and proclaim the end of homo sapiens and the birth of the superman.
I long to be with you and work on the book on Sri Aurobindo I want to put all my soul into it and, with your grace, create something inflaming.
Sweet Mother, I am your child. I want to belong to you more and more completely.
--
You spoke of the book on Sri Aurobindo; I too am happy that we shall do this work together.
Yesterday was distribution. I am putting six handkerchiefs in this envelope for you and to give to others if you wish. I am also enclosing the April 24 message.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What I call studying is to take Sri Aurobindos books, where he quotes or speaks of one thing or another, then have the corresponding bookswhen he quotes something, you must take the book it corresponds to; when he speaks of something, you must study the writings on that subject. This is what I call studying. Then, after having read the corresponding works, you compare them with what Sri Aurobindo has said, and in this way there may be a beginning of understanding. If someone is very studious, he can review all that has ever been written or taught by going through Sri Aurobindos books. I mean this for someone who loves working.
I SEE this state of mind, this mental attitude Oh! Its its so repugnant. People are so afraid of taking sides, so afraid of appearing biased; they are so afraid of appearing to have faith, so afraid Oh, its disgraceful.
--
to prepare for the book.2 I havent quite finished, but nearly. Everyday I force myself to read (well, not exactly force )
But that one also is ex-traor-dinary!
--
Sri Aurobindo and the Transformation of the World, an initial book on Sri Aurobindo by Satprem that was never published. It was meant to be part of a certain 'Series of Spiritual Masters,' but finally Sri Aurobindo never took part.
***
0 1960-08-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Letter from Mother to Satprem regarding the first copy of his first book, L'Orpailleur)
8.16.60
--
A very beautiful book,
a great success
--
to other books
more beautiful still.
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Shall I take your book or ? Dont you want it?
I dont need it.
Dont you want it? I like it very much, very much. Its a very good friend (Mother holds the book against her heart).
Oh, I must write a few letters here and there, to France (to announce the publication of the book). I already wrote to A, but I must write him again. Though I suppose he knows that it has come ou the should know. I told him to follow it with
I dont know if the book has come out yet. I believe its to appear in early September.
Oh, so this was only the harbinger.
--
(Just at the doorstep, as She is leaving, Mother tells the disciple that She had seen three books, a trilogy, and the third one would be about Her. And She adds:)
Sri Aurobindo came during my japa to tell me, I will help him all through.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There was a considerable library in the studio; one whole end was given over to the librarymore than two thousand books belonging to my brother. There were even the complete works of several classical writers. And I had my entire collection of the Revue Cosmique, and my post card collection (it was down below)mainly post cards of Algeria, Tlemcen, nearly 200 of them. But there were five years of the Revue Cosmique. And written in such a French! How funny it was!
Theons wife dictated it in English while she was in trance. Another English lady who was there claimed to know French like a Frenchman. Myself, I never use a dictionary, she would say, I dont need a dictionary. But then she would turn out such translations! She made all the classic mistakes of English words that mustnt be translated like that. Then it was sent to me in Paris for correcting. It was literally impossible.
There was this Themanlys, my brothers schoolmate; he wrote books, but he was lazy-minded and didnt want to work! So he had passed that job on to me. But it was impossible, you couldnt do a thing with it. And what words! Theon would invent words for the subtle organs, the inner senses; he had found a word for each thinga frightful barbarism! And I took care of everything: I found the printer, corrected the proofsall the work for a long time.
They were stories, narratives, an entire initiation in the form of stories. There was a lot in it, really a lot. She knew many things. But it was presented in such a way that it was unreadable.
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
All this happened just on the day X1 was leaving. So I told S to take the photograph and letter to X and tell him the story. X consulted some book, did a very short japa for a few seconds and said, Oh, hell come back before September 26, BUT inform Mother so that She may see to ft. therefore, I concentrated a little.
About two weeks later (in other words, ten days or so before September 26), some more news the boys older brother, who lives in Ahmedabad (not Bombay), came to visit his mother, father and grandmo ther (theres also a grandmo ther), and he asked about his brother. He had come with a friend. Your brother has disappeared, they explained, we dont know what has happened to him. So the two of them decided to search for him: Well find him .
--
Obviously! Its boomeranging back on them. They must be having a rather hard time of it now, but too bad for them! They wont escape it.
I dont know whats going to happen to them They must have killed quite a few people. If thats discovered, theyll get what they deserve and well be rid of themtheyll become little disembodied demons! Its less dangerous.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Then suddenly I went into a little trance. And in it I saw you, but you were physically, you were on one plane, and then I saw another man on a different plane (I saw him quite concretely; he was rather tall, broad-shoulderednot so tall as broad, with a dark, European suit). And he took your hands and started shaking them enthusiastically!but you were quite indifferent, just as you are now, dressed in Indian fashion and sitting cross-legged. He took both your hands and started shaking them! And then I distinctly heard the words: Congratulations, its a great success!it had to do with your book.3 And at the same time, I saw all sorts of people and things who were touched by your bookall kinds of people, obviously French, or Westerners in any case women, men. There was even one woman (she must have been an actress or a singer or anyway, someone whose life was she was even dressed for the stage, with some kind of tightsa beautiful girl!) and she said to someone, Ah, it has even given me a taste for the spiritual life! It was extremely interesting All kinds of things of this nature. And then once again I came out of this trance and In the end, I tried to do some certain thing for you and it turned out well. It turned out quite well.
But then, just before that, there was this powdering of golden light coming down. And as it descended, it was white with a touch of gold (but it was white) and it came down in a column, with such POWER! And then, just at the end, this powdering of gold came and settled into this white light which had remained there the whole timeoh, it was so abundant. A great power of realization. I had a hard time coming out of it! At the start, I had decided to come out of it at half past, so I came out, but still not completely
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
All this came to me yesterday. I kept Z with me for more than half an hour, nearly 45 minutes. He told me some very interesting things. What he said was quite good and I encouraged him a great dealsome action on the right lines which will be quite useful, and then a book unfortunately mixed with an influence from that artificial world (but actually, even that can be used as a link to attract people). He must have spoken to you about this. He wants to write a kind of dialogue to introduce Sri Aurobindos ideasits a good idealike the conversations in Les Hommes de Bonne Volont by Jules Romain. He wants to do it, and I told him it was an excellent idea. And not only one typehe should take all types of people who for the moment are closed to this vision of life, from the Catholic, the fervent believer, right to the utmost materialist, men of science, etc. It could be very interesting.
This is what you see in life, its all like thateach thing has its place and its necessity. This has made me see a whole current of life I was very, very involved with people from this milieu during a whole period of my existence and in fact, its the first approach to Beauty. But it gets mixed.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Speaking of which, I looked at Ts most recent questions on the Aphorisms again. All these children havent the least sense of humor, so Sri Aurobindos paradoxes throw them into a kind of despair! The last aphorism went something like this: When I could read a wearisome book from one end to the other with pleasure, then I knew I had conquered my mind.2 So T asked me How can you read a wearisome book with pleasure?!! I had to explain it to her. And on top of that, I have to take on a rather serious tone, for were I to reply in the same ironic fashion, they would be totally drowned! It throws them into a terrible confusion!
Its a lack of plasticity in the mind, and they are bound by the expression of things; for them, words are rigid. Sri Aurobindo explained it so well in The Secret of the Veda; he shows how language evolves and how, before, it was very supple and evocative. For example, one could at once think of a river and of inspiration. Sri Aurobindo also gives the example of a sailboat and the forward march of life. And he says that for those of the Vedic age it was quite natural, the two could go together, superimposed; it was merely a way of looking at the same thing from two sides, whereas now, when a word is said, we think only of this word all by itself, and to get a clear picture we need a whole literary or poetic imagery (with explanations to boot!). Thats exactly the case with these children; theyre at a stage where everything is rigid. Such is the product of modern education. It even extracts the subtlest nuance between two words and FIXES it: And above all, dont make any mistake, dont use this word for that word, for otherwise your writings no good. But its just the opposite.
(silence)
--
I listen, I answer. Its not satisfactory! I told them. But theyve kept to their idea, they like it. When that first storm came some time back (you remember, with those terrible bolts of lightning and that asuric being P.K. saw and sketched): Dont you want us to destroy something? I got angry. But it was This influence was so close and acute that it gave you goose bumps! The whole time the storm lasted, I had to hold on tight in my bed, like this (Mother closes her fists tight as in a trance or deep concentration), and I didnt movedidnt movelike a a rock during the entire storm, until he consented to go a bit further away. Then I moved. And even now, it comesfrom others (theres not just one, you see, there are many): How about a good flood? A roof collapsed the other day with someone underneath, but he was able to escape. So roofs are collapsing, houses Arouse public sympathy, we must help the Ashram! Its no good, I said. But maybe thats whats responsible for this interminable rain. And they offer so many other things oh, what they parade past me! You could write books on all this!
But generally and this is something Theon had told me (Theon was very qualified on the subject of hostile forces and the workings of all that resists the divine influence, and he was a great fighteras you might imagine! He himself was an incarnation of an asura, so he knew how to tackle these things!); he was always saying, If you make a VERY SMALL concession or suffer a minor defeat, it gives you the right to a very great victory. Its a very good trick. And I have observed, in practice, that for all things, even for the very little things of everyday life, its trueif you yield on one point (if, even though you see what should be, you yield on a very secondary and unimportant point), it immediately gives you the power to impose your will for something much more important. I mentioned this to Sri Aurobindo and he said that it was true. It is true in the world as it is today, but its not what we want; we want it to change, really change.
--
The actual aphorism reads: 'When I read a wearisome book through and with pleasure, yet perceived all the perfection of its wearisomeness, then I knew that my mind was conquered.'
Yama: the god of Death. He is also the guardian of the Law.
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For a while, there was a Muslim girl close to me (not a believer, but her origins were Muslim; in other words, she wasnt at all Christian) who had a special fondness for Santa Claus! She had seen pictures of him, read some books, etc. Then one year while she was here, she got it into her head that Santa Claus had to bring me something. He has to bring you something for Christmas, she told me.
Try, I replied.
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The title of the folder is the line from Savitri that gave me the most overpowering experience of the entire book (because, as I told you, as I read, I would LIVE the experiencesreading brought, instantly, a living experience). And when I came to this particular line I was as if suddenly swept up and engulfed in (the is wrong, an is wrongits neither one nor the other, its something else) eternal Truth. Everything was abolished except this:
For ever love, O beautiful slave of God3
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I must say that after this, when I read The Secret of the Veda as I do each evening. In fact, I am in very close contact with the entire Vedic world since Ive been reading that book: I see beings, hear phrases. It comes up in a sort of subliminal consciousness, a lot of things are from the ancient Vedic tradition. (By the way, I have even come to see that the pink marble bathtub I told you about last time, which Nature had offered me, belongs to the Vedic world, to a civilization of that epoch.3) There werethere are alwaysSanskrit words coming up, sentences, bits of dialogue. This is of interest, because I realized that what I had seen the other day (I told you about it) and then what I saw yesterday that whole domainwas connected to what the Vedas call the dasyus the panis and the dasyus4the enemies of the Light. And this Force that came was very clearly a power like Indras5 (though something far, far greater), and at war with darkness everywhere, like this (Mother sketches in space a whirling force touching points here and there throughout the world), this Force attacked all darkness: ideas, people, movements, events, whatever made stains, patches of shadow. And it kept on going, a formidable power, so great that my hands were like this (Mother clenches her fists). Later when I read (I happened to be reading just the chapter concerning the fight against the dasyus), this proximity to my own experience became interesting, for it was not at all intellectual or mental there was no idea, no thought involved.
The remainder of the evening passed as usual. I went to bed, and at exactly a quarter to twelve I got up with the feeling that this presence in me had increased even further and really become rather formidable. I had to instill a great deal of peace and confidence into my body, which felt as though it wasnt so easy to bear. So I concentrated, I told my body to be calm and to let itself go completely.
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I can assure you that you are well fastened, very well indeed; you are automatically caught up in my whole forward movement. So dont worry. Begin your book on Sri Aurobindo.
But first I would have to reread everything!
--
In ten months Ive had time to read two books!
It doesnt matter! Put your ideas down on paper. There are things you already know you want to say. Put it all on paper. I assure you it will do you good. I have seen it several times recently and I wanted to tell you: begin your book on Sri Aurobindo! Begin anywhere at all, at any point the middle, the end, the beginningit doesnt matter! Whatever you feel you have to say, write it down. Its good to keep yourself occupied like that now, during this period. And for our next meetings you can work a little on The Synthesis of Yoga and we will look at it together instead of you always making me talk! I have increased your work, there will be no end to it. If it goes on like this, there will never be an end!
Fortunately!
So, mon petit, dont worry. You are SURE, sure not only to advance but to reach the goal. And as for this troubled mind, keep it occupied with the book on Sri Aurobindo.
Good-bye now, petit. Dont worry.
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(A short while later, concerning a book on Sri Aurobindo that Satprem was to write:4)
Have you seen Bharatidi?5
--
She saw your publishers in Paris and they told her they are impatiently awaiting (Mother is mocking) your book on Sri Aurobindo.
I wish I could help them out!
--
I dont know. Perhaps Im biased, but I feel that this book should flow from beginning to end.
Oh, yesterday or the day before, I had the occasion to write a sentence about Sri Aurobindo. It was in English and went something like this: In the worlds history, what Sri Aurobindo represents is not a teaching nor even a revelation, but a decisive ACTION direct from the Supreme.
--
I tell you this because just now as we were speaking about the book and you were saying it would come all at once in a single flow, I saw a kind of globe, like a suna sun shedding a twinkling dust of incandescent light (the sun was moving forward and this dust came twinkling in front of it), like this (gesture). It came towards you, then made a circle around you as if to say, Here is the formation. It was magnificent! There was a creative warmth in it, a warmth like the sunsa power of Truth. And here again, I was given the same impression: that what Sri Aurobindo has come to bring is not a teaching, not even a revelation, but a FORMIDABLE action coming direct from the Supreme.
It is something pouring over the world.
Your book should convey this feelingwithout stating it. Convey the feeling, transmit ittransmit this solar light.
(silence)
Our means are very poor, its true; if what I have just seen (and what Im still seeing right now) could be expressed what an absolutely splendid cover it would make for your book! But the best we can do is flat, flat, flat. Oh, our means are so poor!
***
--
I want you to have enough time to write your book, because I feel that Sri Aurobindo is interested in it the sun that came a while ago was from him. I feel he is interested and confident you can do it.
What have you reread?
--
And part of The Secret of the Veda, as well as two other things because they contain many of Sri Aurobindos letters: I re-read Zs book on Sri Aurobindo, since there are many letters in it, and.
Yes, only unfortunately he has tampered with it.
--
Sri Aurobindo had made certain statements about me in those letters, and Z deleted them. (Anyway, it makes no difference for your book, because Im not at all keen on having any statements about me published.)
But Z is not honest. He hasnt been honest at all. We were forced to intervene once or twice because his deletions distorted the meaning. We finally told him (for the book published here), We wont publish it unless you restore these things.
(silence)
--
Sri Aurobindo et la Transformation du Monde [Sri Aurobindo and the Transformation of the World], a book that Editions du Seuil had asked Satprem to write and subsequently refused on the pretext that it did not conform to the 'spirit of the collection.' This book would never see the light of day. Satprem would later write another book entitled Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.
A long-time disciple (Suzanne Karpeles) and a member of the cole Franaise d'Extrme Orient.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres an American living in Madras, a rather important man, it seems, and an intimate friend of Kennedy, the new President. He has read and reread all of Sri Aurobindos books and is extremely interested. He wrote to Kennedy that he would like him to come here so he can bring him to the Ashram. This man has posed a very interesting question, drawing an analogy. Deep in a forest, a deer goes to quench its thirst; no one is aware of it, yet someone who has made a special study of deer hunting would know by the tracks that the deer had passed bynot only what particular type of deer, but its age, size, sex, etc. Similarly, there must be people with a spiritual knowledge analogous to that of hunters, who can detect, perceive, that a person is in touch with the Supermind, while ordinary people know nothing about it and wouldnt notice. So he asks, I would like to know by what signs such a person can be recognized?
It is a very intelligent question.
0 1961-02-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Anyway, in reply to this nonsense, I have said: Your error, to be precise, is that you go to the Theosophical Society, for example, with the same opening as to the Christian religion or to the Buddhist doctrine or with which you read one of Sri Aurobindos booksand as a result, you are plunged into a confusion and a muddle and you dont understand anything about anything.
And then the reply came to me very strongly; something took hold of me and I was, so to say, obliged to write: What Sri Aurobindo represents in the worlds history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.2
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the occult sense, a 'formation' signifies a concentration of power or force directed towards a particular goal. it is like a bullet of force going inexorably to its target. In fact, all beings are constantly making 'formations' with their thoughts and desires, but these formations have scarcely any power other than that of clinging to the one who has made them or returning upon him like a boomerang.
The following undated note (which could date from this or any number of other times!) was found among Mother's scattered papers: Now the situation has become very critical, all the reserves have been swallowed up, there are debts, many important works remain unfinished and the daily life has become a problem. It is the subsistence of more than 1,200 people which is in question.
0 1961-04-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And if you really want to please me (I believe you do!), if you want to please me, concentrate on the book on Sri Aurobindoyou cant imagine how much I am interested! And as I LOOK, I see into the future (not with this little consciousness), I see that its a thing of GREAT importance. It will have a great action. So, I want to clear the way for you now, for us to have time.
I will surely need a quiet mind to prepare the work.3
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother comes in with a book by Alice Bailey, 'Discipleship in the New Age,' which had recently been sent to her. Pavitra is present and shows Mother a brochure he has received, 'World Goodwill Bulletin,' and protests against this proliferation of movements all claiming to work towards 'world union,' and proselytes making so-called 'spiritual' propaganda without having found, within and by themselves, the true spiritual foundation. Mother goes on.)
But these people just cant get out of their education! Here is a lady [A. Bailey], quite renowned, it seems (shes dead now), who became the disciple of a Tibetan lama and she still speaks of Christ as the sole Avatar! She just cant get out of it!
--
The first thing I did this morning was to open this book by Alice Bailey (Ive had it for several days, I had to have a look at it). So I looked Ah, I saidwell, well! Heres a person whos dead now, but she was the disciple of a Tibetan Buddhist lama and considered a very great spiritual leader, and she writes, Christ is the incarnation of divine love on earth. And thats that. And the world will be transformed when Christ is reborn, when he comes back to earth. But why the devil does she put Christ? Because she was born Christian? Its deplorable.
And such a mixture of everythingeverything! Instead of making a synthesis, they make a pot-pourri. They scoop it all up, toss it together, whip it up a little, use a bunch of words that have nothing to do with one another, and then serve it to you!
--
The following is the exact text referred to, an extract from one of Sri Aurobindo's letters: 'I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhereor it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the "religions" and is the reason of their failure....'
2.10.1934
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I still have five or six days of work left on the book.
Which one?
Pavitras book. Its a huge task. But anyway I feel your Forceo therwise
Good.
0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Personally, I dont see at all how to write this book on Sri Aurobindo. The further I go, the more it seems to me.
That is another matter. After all, you are writing it for people who know nothing.
0 1961-06-06, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And why did reading that book [On Himself] give me this malaise?
Oh, it was so lovely yesterday! The whole dayand all, all, all was the same as nowall the circumstances, the condition of the body, everything. It cant even be said that in one case the body was well and in the other it wasntit isnt true, it was all the same thing, all was the same. But in one case you floatyou float in a beatific light which carries you for all Eternity; and in the other case you seem to be walking through shifting sands without seeing clearly, without understandingdeadened, absolutely deadened.
0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But it doesnt keep them from starting up again! They did so particularly after I read the passage where Sri Aurobindo affirms, THIS time I have come for THATand I shall do it. The day when I read this I turned towards him, not actually putting the question to him but simply turning towards him, and he told me, Read the book through to the end. And I know, I know its truewhen I have read the book through to the end I will understand what he has done and I will even have the power to reply to all these suggestions. But meanwhile, everything that wants to keep me from doing it, all this obscure and subconscious ill will, tries its best to keep me from reading, including giving me this eye hemorrhage.
Well, since I believerightly or wrongly, I dont know that the doctor has more experience than I, that from the therapeutic and biological standpoint he knows a bit more, I showed him the eye and asked, Can I read? Better not read until its finished, he replied, and told me to wash my eyes with glucose. (Its a useful piece of information for those with tired eyes: mix the glucoseliquid glucose, the kind that comes in ampoules for injectionwith something like the blue water we make here, half and half. Open the ample, put a third of it in the eye-cup, then add the blue water.) I have already tried it once and found that it gives a great deal of strength to the eyes. Tomorrow Im going to start doing it regularly. There you are.
--
In the final analysis, everything obviously depends upon the Supremes Will because, if one looks deeply enough into the question, even physical laws and resistances are nothing for Him. But this kind of direct intervention takes place only at the extreme limit; if His Will is to be expressed in opposition, as it were, to the whole set of laws governing the Manifestationwell, that only comes at the very last second. Sri Aurobindo has expressed this so well in Savitri, so well! At least three times in the book he has expressed this Will that abolishes all established laws, all of them, and all the consequences of these laws, the whole formidable colossus of the Manifestation, so that in the face of it all, That can express itself and this takes place at the very last second, so to speak, at the extreme limit of possibility.
I must say that there was a time when, as Sri Aurobindo had entrusted his work to me, there was a kind of tension to do it (it cant be called an anxiety); a tension in the will. This too has now ended (Mother stretches her arms into the Infinite). Its finished. But there MAY still be something tense lurking somewhere in the subconscient or the inconscient I dont know, its possible. Why? I dont know. I mean I have never been told, at any time, neither through Sri Aurobindo nor directly, whether or not I would go right to the end. I have never been told the contrary, either. I have been told nothing at all. And if at times I turn towards Thatnot to question, but simply to know the answer is always the same: Carry on, its not your problem; dont worry about it. So now I have learned not to worry about it; I am consciously not worried about it.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have always known that cruelty, like sadism, is the need to cut through a thick layer of totally insensitive tamas1 by means of extremely violent sensationan extreme is needed if anything is to be felt through that tamas. I was always told, for example (in Japan it was strongly emphasized to me), that the people of the Far East are very tamasic physically. The Chinese in particular are said to be the remnants of a race that inhabited the moon before it froze over and forced them to seek refuge on earth (this is supposed to account for their round faces and the shape of their eyes!). Anyway (laughing), its a story people tell! But theyre extremely tamasic; their physical sensibility is almost nilappalling things are required to make them feel anything! And since they naturally presume that what applies to them applies to everyone, they are capable of appalling cruelty. Not all of them, of course! But this is their reputation. Have you read Mirbeaus book? (I believe thats his name.) I read it sixty years ago something on Chinese torture.
Yes, its well-known.
--
Yes. When I read that book (it was very well written), I understood the problem, and my understanding was confirmed when I went to Japan. Many Japanese also have a blunted sensibility (blunted in the sense that to feel anything they need extremely violent stimuli). Perhaps an explanation could be found along these lines.
But behind it all, the original problem remains unresolved: Why has it become like this? Why this deformation? Why has it all been deformed? There are some very beautiful things behind, very intense, infinitely more powerful than we ourselves can even bear, marvelous things. But why has it all become so dreadful here? Thats what comes up immediatelyits why I told you I had no inspiration.
0 1961-07-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is always what could almost be called a popular way of presenting things. Take the whole Story of the Creation, of how things have come about: it can be told as an unfolding story (this is what Theon did in a book he called The Traditionhe told the whole story in the Biblical manner, with psychological knowledge hidden in symbols and forms). There is a psychological manner of telling things and a metaphysical manner. The metaphysical, for me, is almost incomprehensible; its uninteresting (or interesting only to minds that are made that way). An almost childish, illustrative way of telling things seems more evocative to me than any metaphysical theory (but this is a personal opinion and of no great moment!). The psychological approach is more dynamic for transformation, and Sri Aurobindo usually adopted it. He doesnt tell us stories (I was the one who told him stories! Images are very evocative for me). But if one combines the two approaches. Actually, to be philosophical, one would have to combine the three. But I have always found the metaphysical approach ineffective; it doesnt lead to realization but only gives people the IDEA that they know, when they really know nothing at all. From the standpoint of push, of a dynamic urge towards transformation, the psychological approach is obviously the most powerful. But the other [the symbolic approach] is lovelier!
In The Hour of God, theres a whole diagram of the Manifestation made by Sri Aurobindo3: first comes this, then comes that, then comes the other, and so fortha whole sequence. They published this in the book in all seriousness, but I must say that Sri Aurobindo did it for fun (I saw him do it). Someone had spoken to him about different religions, different philosophical methods Theosophy, Madame Blavatski, all those people (there was Theon, too). Well, each one had made his diagram. So Sri Aurobindo said, I can make a diagram, too, and mine will be much more complete! When he finished it, he laughed and said, But its only a diagram, its just for fun. They published it very solemnly, as if he had made a very serious proclamation. Oh, its a very complicated diagram!
But the trouble is that people will say: whats the need for a descent if all is involved and then evolves? Why a descent? Why should there be an intervention from a higher plane?
--
As for hoping to make people understand! The only thing that really matters is that they read your book with interest. Let them read it with interest; each one will imagine he has understood (and of course he will have understood!), and through (I was going to say under) their interest, well, something will be awakened in their consciousness, a kind of first aspiration towards the need to realize thats all. If you do that, good Lord, you have done a great thing!
Make them understand! How to understand? As long as one is there [at the mind level], one does not understand. One can imagine all sorts of things, explain all sorts of things, but with a pinch of common sense, you see very well that you dont explain a thing.
--
Mother is referring to the book Satprem will write on Sri Aurobindo, which prompted the questions posed in this conversation.
'Evolutor': a word coined by Mother.
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And could he tell stories! I think he read every novel available, all the stories he could findextraordinary adventure stories, for he loved adventures. When we were kids he used to let us come into his room very early in the morning and, while still sitting in bed, tell us stories from the books he had read but he told them as if they were his own, as if hed had extraordinary adventures with outlaws, with wild animals. Every story he picked up he told as his own. We enjoyed it tremendously!
But one day when my brother had disobeyed him (Matteo must have been ten or eleven, and I perhaps nine or ten), I came into the dining room and saw my father sitting on a sofa with my brother across his knees; he had pulled down his trousers and was spanking him, I dont know what for. It wasnt a very serious spanking, but still. I came in, drew myself up to my full height and said, Papa, if you ever do that again, I am leaving this house! And with such authority, mon petit! He stopped and never did it again.
--
For the preparation of Satprem's book on Sri Aurobindo.
We are not sure, finally, if this envelope and the circumconscient are one and the same thing, but this is how Sri Aurobindo speaks of it: 'The first thing one sees when one has broken the barrier is the vital-physical body. It is around the physical body and with the physical it forms as it were the "nervous envelope." The force of a disease has to break through it to reach the bodyexcept for the attacks on the most material parts. You can then feel the disease coming and also feel in the nervous envelope the part of the body which it is going to, or intending to, attack because what is in the nervous envelope has a material counterpart in the body. Thus it is the vital-physical which is first attacked and then the force takes the form of a disease in the system. I had myself the experience of fever all around the body.'
0 1961-08-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the book on Sri Aurobindo that Satprem was preparing to write.)
Again this morning, between 3 and 4 oclock, Sri Aurobindo seemed to be showing me around the world of expression. I see a host of people I dont know (and some I do). There are immense roomsnot libraries (there are no books) yet everything is there, arranged and organized, in great open roofless rooms. And I walk along with Sri Aurobindo as he passes from one person to another, one group to another, one place to another, one room to another and he coordinates it all. To some he says a few words; others show him things. And its all for the background of your book, for it to be filled with all thisnot explicitly, but potentially for the Force to be there.
And the clarity! It is limpid-an atmosphere so transparent, so limpid, so clear! There are people of today, people of times past, people of forever. They are like living intelligences gathering together the earths memories. Day after day, day after day, Sri Aurobindo has been showing this to me.
--
(A little later Mother begins to sign some 300 books. She remarks:)
I have a convenient signature.
--
Thats all, petit. Once again Ive bored you with my stories instead of speaking with you about your book.
Ah, no!
0 1961-08-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem began his book on Sri Aurobindo on August 15.)
Have you been working?
0 1961-08-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The book isnt progressing very quickly, you know.
Its not progressing quickly. Did you begin at the beginning?
--
Nowadays I always spend a part of the night in the realm of expression, a realm where generally I never used to go at all. Its a very lovely place, very human in the sense that its not a scene from Nature: there are huge rooms and great, highly intellectual arrangements; yet its very lovely, with such a clear and limpid atmosphereall in clear shades (Mother gives up trying to describe it). Oh, its so luminous and lovely, very well organized, as far as the eye can see; it seems as big as the earth. The rooms are roofless, just imagine! Huge roofless rooms flooded with light, and transparent partitions. And the people inside seem very, very awarenot a lot of people, but extremely studious and attentive, and they are creating arrangements of things. They must be people writing books. They are making compositionsoh, if you knew how lovely it was! Its as if they were taking colors and more or less geometrical forms and placing them in relation to one another. There are huge pigeonholes where everything is in order, and yet without doors, not closed upwide open and still completely protected. An interesting place. I dont usually go there Ive gone maybe two or three times in my life, without paying much attention but lately, because of this book you are writing, Sri Aurobindo is taking me there all the time.
And there are people with no countryhe takes me to a place where the people have no country, no race, no special costume they seem very universal. And they move around harmoniously, silently, as though they were gliding and with precision, everything is extremely precise. Some of them have even shown me things: there were some lovely colored papers! But these colors are unearthly, somehow transparent. They were arranging it all, demonstrating and explaining to me how it has to be arranged to give the maximum effect.
0 1961-09-03, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The beginning of this conversation has unfortunately disappeared. It dealt with the book that Satprem was writing on Sri Aurobindo, and he spoke to Mother of his dream of writing automatically, without even needing to think, letting the writing flow along by itself.)
You would like to carry thought into higher domains, beyond the province of thought itself! This is something practically impossible.
You understand, if I were British and writing in English, I could try to do a book on Sri Aurobindo using Savitri alone. With quotations from Savitri one can maintain a certain poetical rhythm, and this rhythm can generate an opening. But in French it isnt possiblehow could it be translated?
Yes, thats what I mean-but even in English.
--
Its not so much a question of the reading public as a question of language. As for the readers you know, at any level whatsoever it is possible to suddenly touch a soul, anywhere. The level doesnt matter, and fundamentally if one reaches one or two souls with a book like this, its a fine result. It opens the way to people intellectually, and those who want to can follow along.
I dont think your book will hold any surprises for me when I have it! Sometimes I listen to whole sections of it. Last night it was almost as if you were reading the book to menot exactly with words but I woke up and Sri Aurobindo was there andas though you had been reading somethinghe approved of it, saying, Yes, its fine like that, its all right.
(silence)
0 1961-09-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(A little later, regarding the book on Sri Aurobindo:)
Anything one can write is so flat, so flat in comparison with what one perceives!
--
I dont know, but Sri Aurobindo spoke of it at the end of the book on the Vedas, in the chapter on the origin of languages. He seems to be saying that its better if one goes back to the origin of the vibrations. Ultimately, as a language grows more intellectual, it hardens and dries up. Perhaps when we had only sounds (the As and the Os; the Os especially are very flexible, the whole gamut of Os), perhaps it was more supple.
I feel this so often now. How to put it. I always try not to talktalking bothers me. Yes, its a real nuisance. When I see someone, the first thing I do is to avoid talking. Then, when the Vibration comes, its good; there is a sort of communication, and if the person is the least bit receptive, what comes is like a its subtler than music; its a vibration bringing its own principle of harmony. But people usually get impatient after a while and, wanting something more concrete, oblige me to talk. They always insist on it. Then, being in a certain atmosphere, a certain vibration, I immediately feel something going like this (gesture of a fall to another level), and then hardening. Even when I babble (you see, the very effort of trying to be more subtle makes me babble), even my babblings (laughing) become dry by comparison. There are all sorts of things that are so much fullerfull, packed with an inner richnessand as soon as this is put into words, oh!
--
Maybe this is what you were thinking ofwhat you would like to express in your book. It occurred in a place similar to the realm of expression where, as I told you, I have frequently been going lately. It is very, very vast, very open, but this time there were no walls. No ceiling, no walls. There was only a kind of groundvery pale, luminous, vast and very empty, empty. People were seated but I didnt see any chairs. Only the pianos were visible, and they were quite odd: you could hardly see anything but the keyboards, which were sort of overlapping. In front was a grand piano, and over here was a somewhat bigger one the one I had been leaning over sideways to play on and then there was one turned to the other side. And then this grand piano, right in front but with only the keyboard visible! Well, why shouldnt I be comfortable! I said to myself, and I sat down. Then everything became bluegreat, blue notes. How am I going to play? I wondered. I tried to play as usual and then: It doesnt work, it doesnt work, I said. Ah! It has to be played from aboveit has to be played from above! So I place my hands on the keys, I concentrate and brrff! It was like some not violent, not loud and noisy, butoh, overwhelming! Three, fournot notes: sounds, harmonies I dont really know what.
But this must be what you were thinking of, what you would like to use for your book.1
Yes, I would certainly like to.
0 1961-09-16, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem complains of his difficulties in writing the book on Sri Aurobindo. He says in particular that he has a feeling of being 'blocked'.)
I have asked Sri Aurobindo to help you.
--
There you are, petit. Now if I can pass this vision along to you, your book will come easily.
***
0 1961-09-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From time to time I use a line from Savitri, placing it in the book like an open window. Thats all I can do.
***
0 1961-09-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I feel completely abandoned to myself. This book is a real SUFFERING. I dont see where I am going, I am groping in all directions. Mother, do help me. Where lies the fault? I am suffering, you know. I would like to do it well, but it comes only in fits and starts, nothing coherent. Sometimes I feel quite incapable of carrying out this task properly.
What should I do?
0 1961-09-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Following the letter Satprem had written to Mother the previous day regarding the book on Sri Aurobindo:)
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.
--
This book is self-existent and you have only to follow it along, with simplicity, the way you would follow a path that has already been blazed that is already THERE, automatically brought into being by its own necessity. (For a long while Mother gazes in front of her) Dont be alarmed, Im just looking!
You dont need to suffer; its not necessary.
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Towards the end of the conversation, Satprem once again complains of his difficulties in writing his book. Mother proposes that he try to unblock the way by reading his manuscript to her.)
You know, it [Mothers consciousness] is an immobile mirror that projects things from below upwards and receives things from above to transmit them below. This mirror is two-surfaced, and absolutely immobile, not adding any vibration to what is received or transmitted: a perfect neutrality. In this mirror, therefore, you would be able to see your book a little more impersonally, outside yourself and your own creative power.
(Satprem makes a face; he feels shy about reading his text aloud)
--
If you give it to me to read when its all finished, as you did with the other one [LOrpailleur], thats how it will be received; it wont pass through the mind at all. It will be reflected in the mirror and from the mirror it will go above. Thats the way I saw the other book, and I was shown many things about you I hadnt known. So you can do it either way; I mean you can use the mirror before finishing the booknot for what I may think of it, because that has no importance at all, but for the effect it might have on your work. Its up to you.
Its not quite ready. I still have a lot to correct.
0 1961-10-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But it was a formidable experience! Formidable. And really proof that this book interests him.
But I have to do all last weeks work over.
--
And precisely because a large part of the book is reasonable enough, artistic, well-expressed and well-presented, it can afford a few pages (there need not be many), a few pages that are like a leap into sheer madness!
I SEE, I am looking at all that, sparkling.
--
If I say all this its because I see to what extent Sri Aurobindo views this book as an important tool for world-wide workfrom the beginning he has taken it seriously. And he is so very much HERE that it seems to me not at all impossible that he HIMSELF is stimulating the expression.
Its not so much a question of ideas, because all that is quite fine.
--
You are going to do it all over? But it doesnt matter. You know what the logic of a book means to me!
You see, when I want a TRUE impression of a book, I open it at random; then I look at the first page, the last page sometimes I read the ending, then I go back to the beginningit doesnt matter where. What I want to know is whether the Force is there.
Ordinary logic Read! Anywhere, the middle of a sentence, it doesnt matter!
--
Its not necessary for the whole book to proceed in the same way.
The most revelatory part can be in segments (you know, just as it comes). The thread is an invisible one the link of a Presenceo therwise it comes in bursts, and that has a lot of force.
--
I keep feeling that Sri Aurobindo wants the conclusion to be swift; and I myself (probably not with his power of comprehension) have a vision, a sort of feeling coming from a great height above, that the most important part of the book should be very abruptlike breaking through a door, flinging it wide-open, and emerging in a rush of light. Thats all. Now keep quiet and see what happens.
***
0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I would have liked at the beginning of the book is my visionhow I see him now. But its untranslatable.
(silence)
--
This book was like the initiator of the legend. Sri Aurobindo was there, Sri Aurobindo as I know him now the eternal Sri Aurobindo I know now.
And it was all so solid! oh, so cohesive, SO MASSIVE, and at the same time I dont know, its something completely different from anything you might expect. You cant imagine it.
--
It is not surprising, therefore, that exegetes have seen the Vedas primarily as a collection of propitiatory rites centered around sacrificial fires and obscure incantations to Nature divinities (water, fire, dawn, the moon, the sun, etc.), for bringing rain and rich harvests to the tribes, male progeny, blessings upon their journeys or protection against the thieves of the sunas though these shepherds were barbarous enough to fear that one inauspicious day their sun might no longer rise, stolen away once and for all. Only here and there, in a few of the more modern hymns, was there the apparently inadvertent intrusion of a few luminous passages that might have justifiedjust barely the respect which the Upanishads, at the beginning of recorded history, accorded to the Veda. In Indian tradition, the Upanishads had become the real Veda, the book of Knowledge, while the Veda, product of a still stammering humanity, was a book of Worksacclaimed by everyone, to be sure, as the venerable Authority, but no longer listened to. With Sri Aurobindo we might ask why the Upanishads, whose depth of wisdom the whole world has acknowledged, could claim to take inspiration from the Veda if the latter contained no more than a tapestry of primitive rites; or how it happened that humanity could pass so abruptly from these so-called stammerings to the manifold richness of the Upanishadic Age; or how we in the West were able to evolve from the simplicity of Arcadian shepherds to the wisdom of Greek philosophers. We cannot assume that there was nothing between the early savage and Plato or the Upanishads.5
***
0 1961-11-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother would prefer Satprem not to mention Paul Richard by name in his book on Sri Aurobindo.)
I have done my best, all these years, to try to keep him at a distance. He has a powera terrible asuric power. Between you and me, I saw him like that from the start thats why I became involved with him. I never intended to marry him (his family affairs made it necessary), but when we met, I recognized him as an incarnation of the Lord of Falsehood that is his origin (what he called the Lord of Nations); and in fact, this being has directed the whole course of world events during the last few centuries. As for Theon, he was.
--
At any rate, you understand that Im not very keen on having Richard introduced into the book the simple fact of mentioning him attracts him.3
He was a pastor at Lille, in France, for perhaps ten years; he was quite a practicing Christian, but he dropped it all as soon as he began to study occultism. He had first specialized in theological philosophy in order to pass the pastoral examinations, studying all the modem philosophy of Europe (he had a rather remarkable metaphysical brain). Then I met him in connection with Theon and the Cosmic Review, and I led him into occult knowledge. Afterwards, there were all sorts of uninteresting stories. He became a lawyer during the early period of our relationship and I learned Law along with him I could even have passed the exam! Then the divorce stories began: he divorced his wife; they had three children and he wanted to keep them, but to do so he had to be legally married, so he asked me to marry himand I said yes. I have always been totally indifferent to these things. Anyway, when I met him I knew who he was and I decided to convert him the whole story revolves around that.
As a matter of fact, the books he wrote (especially the first one, The Living Ether) were based on my knowledge; he put my knowledge into French and beautiful French, I must say! I would tell him my experiences and he would write them down. Later he wrote The Gods (it was incomplete, one-sided). Then he became a lawyer and entered politics (he was a first-class orator and fired his audiences with enthusiasm) and was sent to Pondicherry to help a certain candidate who couldnt manage his election campaign single-handed. And since Richard was interested in occultism and spirituality, he took this opportunity to seek a Master, a yogi. When he arrived, instead of involving himself in politics, the first thing he did was announce, I am seeking a yogi. Someone said to him, Youre incredibly lucky! The yogi has just arrived. It was Sri Aurobindo, who was told, Theres a Frenchman asking to see you. Sri Aurobindo wasnt particularly pleased but he found the coincidence rather interesting and received him. This was in 1910.
When Richard had finished his work, he returned to France with a poor photograph of Sri Aurobindo and a completely superficial impression of him, yet with the feeling that Sri Aurobindo KNEW (he hadnt at all understood the man that Sri Aurobindo was, he hadnt felt the presence of an Avatar, but he had sensed that he had knowledge). Moreover, I think he always held this opinion, because he used to say that Sri Aurobindo was a unique intellectual giant without many spiritual realizations! (The same type of stupidity as Romain Rollands.) Well, my relationship with Richard was on an occult plane, you see, and its difficult to touch upon. What happened was far more exciting than any novel imaginable.
--
Ah, no! It must all be erased. Simply put a note in your book: Paul Richard, who met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1910. And you can mention that he was a theological writer or something of the sort to explain how he prompted Sri Aurobindo to write.
When he returned, he told me he would take me there as soon as he could.
--
I wrote in my book that Paul Richard intended to bring out simultaneously in Paris a Review of the Great Synthesis. Is this true?5
No, its not true! This was never intended, never! The Arya was bilingual, one part in French and one in English, but it was one and the same magazine published here in Pondicherry. There was never any question of publishing anything in France; this is incorrect, entirely falsea myth. Besides, it was I who translated the English into French, and rather poorly at that!
--
Ever since Ive known that Sri Aurobindo attached importance to this book, I have been doing a great deal of looking. I told you what I saw the other day, didnt I? You asked my advice in choosing the photos and you had picked the one of him in meditation [Sri Aurobindo on his bed after he left his body]. Earlier, I had seen the photo of him young; and while I was looking at it, Sri Aurobindo was there and he suddenly took me thousands of years into the future Ive told you about thisand said to me, The beginning of the legend. Then I understood that this was the right photo for the book.
Evidently he is making your book the starting point for all that will be thought and said and done upon earth on the intellectual plane. And I assure you that I am helping you and he is helping you!
You much ask him.
0 1961-11-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yet in Vedic times they spoke of The Word the creative Word [Vak]. This is the idea behind the mantra. Too bad a book cant be written using mantras!
???
--
So I wonder, after all, if there arent many revelations in your book which MUST NOT be explained; then its left up to each ones capacity to muse over it, to fill in the gaps with his imagination.
In the end, it would be a very interesting attempt: a stimulant for peoples intuitive capacities, instead of taking them all for donkeys and spoon-feeding them, going yum-yum-yum-yum-yum so that theyll digest it!
0 1961-11-16b, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I find the book VERY BEAUTIFUL.
With all my tenderness,
0 1961-12-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He has understood NOTHING, felt nothing in this book, finding it too abstract. In a word, they wont accept it without extensive modifications and explanations.
May your will be done,
--
But dont go and spoil your book just to make it digestible for them.
We shall publish it here, taking out the unnecessary pictureshaving only a few will make the book more interesting.
I suppose you can return their money and cancel the contract but reserve the right to print the book yourself, changing the presentation to avoid any confusion with their collection.
***
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dear Sir I must begin by telling you that although this text is an excellent essay, it is not, in its present form, a book for the Spiritual Masters series. Let us enumerate the reasons for this. First of all, the general impression is of an ABSTRACT text. I can straight-away imagine your reaction to this and I dread misunderstandings! But putting myself in the readers place, since, once again, it does involve a collection intended for a wide public that we are beginning to know well, I can assure you that this public will not be able to follow page after page of reflections upon what one is bound to call a philosophical and spiritual system. Obviously this impression is caused primarily by the fact that you have begun with twenty-one pages where the reader is assumed to already know of Sri Aurobindos historical existence and the content of the Vedas and the Upanishads, plus I dont know how many other notions of rite, truth, divinity, wisdom, etc., etc. In my view, and the solution is going to appear cruel to you, for you certainly value these twenty-one pages [on the Secret of the Veda], they should purely and simply be deleted, for everything you say there, which is very rich in meaning, can only become clear when one has read what follows. There are many books in which readers can be asked to make the effort entailed in not understanding the beginning until they have read the end: but not books of popular culture. One could envisage an introduction of three or four pages to situate the spiritual climate and cultural world in which Sri Aurobindos thought has taken place, provided, however, that it is sufficiently descriptive, and not a pre-synthesis of everything to be expounded upon in what follows. In a general way you are going to smile, finding me quite Cartesian! But the readership we address is more or less permeated by a widespread Cartesianism, and you can help them, if you like, to reverse their methodology, but on the condition that you make yourself understood right from the start. Generally, you dont make enough use of analysis and, even before analysis, of a description of the realities being analyzed. That is why the sections of pure philosophical analysis seem much too long to us, and, even apart from the abstract character of the chapter on evolution (which should certainly be shorter), one feels at a positive standstill! After having waited patiently, and sometimes impatiently, for some light to be thrown on Sri Aurobindos own experience, one reads with genuine amazement that one can draw on energies from above instead of drawing on them from the material nature around oneself, or from an animal sleep, or that one can modify his sleep and render it conscious master illnesses before they enter the body. All of that in less than a page; and you conclude that the spirit that was the slave of matter becomes again the master of evolution. But how Sri Aurobindo was led to think this, the experiences that permitted him to verify it, those that permit other men to consider the method transmittable, the difficulties, the obstacles, the realizationsdoesnt this constitute the essence of what must be said to make the reader understand? Once again, it is the question of a pedagogy intimately tied in with the spirit of the collection. Let me add as well that I always find it deplorable when a thought is not expressed purely for its own sake, but is accompanied by an aggressive irony towards concepts which the author does not share. This is pointless and harms the ideas being presented, all the more so because they are expressed in contrast with caricatured notions: the allusions you make to such concepts as you think yourself capable of evoking the soul, creation, virtue, sin, salvationwould only hold some interest if the reader could find those very concepts within himself. But, as they are caricatured by your pen, the reader is given the impression of an all too easily obtained contrast between certain ideas admired and others despised. Whereas it would be far more to the point if they corresponded to something real in the religious consciousness of the West. I have too much esteem for you and the spiritual world in which you live to avoid saying this through fear of upsetting you.
Amen.
--
I dont believe your book can be changedits meaningless to snip at it. If you really want to know what I would do, I would write another one, putting myself in their place: something showing a comprehensible Sri Aurobindoalmost a congenial Sri Aurobindo that is, only the constructive side of his teaching, in its most external form, leaving out not the philosophical notions, but the truly spiritual ones, for that is completely sealed to their understanding.
They are not ready! They are not ready.
--
I feel that this man himself is the obstacle and that if the book came out, it would be understoodnot everywhere, but it would be understood. Not by those shut up in Catholicism (theres nothing to do for them), but Im sure its accessible to all who couldnt care less about that, who dont have Christian prejudices.
But I know that if we publish it here it will have a wide public in Europe and America swallowing it down like holy bread, and it will do a magnificent work. IF it comes from here. Not because of what they think of us [the Ashram], but because of what will be in it.
They want to tidy up your book, do they! They cant take it. I saw this when the book was sent off: they cant take it, they just cant. They put up a barrier; they cant receive what is in it, and so they will do all they can to annul its effects.
Coming from here, of course, it will take much more time to touch the general public, but I see how things work in the universe: it will go far more surely and directly to those who are ready to receive it. And we mustnt believe that only an elite public of especially intelligent and refined people will be touched: among very simple, open-hearted people there is a deep intelligence that understands and responds to these things far better than very cultivated people dofar betterbecause they feel, they feel the vibration of this profound Hope, this profound Joy, something corresponding to the intense need of their being. While the others begin to reason and sophisticate, which takes away half the power.
From the practical standpoint, I would much prefer the book to be printed here and for us to make the necessary effort for it to go out and touch as many people as possible. The publisher may be a handy and less troublesome channel, but hes not at all the best onefar from it. THAT I know, because I am constantly seeing your book with Sri Aurobindos perception, and I am absolutely positive that he likes it very much; he has put a lot into it and he sees that it can be an enormous help but not in the short run. There is always the sense of it needing a hundred years to have its full effect. With your publisher, on the other hand, the effects are far more violent, more external and noisy, but they fade far more quickly.
And I feel its rather essential to change all the emphasis on pictures. I let them go because there was nothing else to do, but I must say I wasnt too happy about it.1 it was not a deep understanding, a soul-understanding, that chose the pictures, but a very developed intellect.
--
One more thing. Despite their blockage from the deep spiritual viewpoint, they evidently represent a certain goodwill which can be utilized and should be recognizedit must be given a place. Thats why I was telling you to write a book on a much less elevated level, a book like the one I would write, if I ever wrote one!
But Mother.
--
My book, of course, would be: What I have known of Sri Aurobindo and on his supreme level. What I have known of Sri Aurobindo is what I have been able to perceive of the Avatar. What he represents. Thats how I see him. So, what I have known of Sri Aurobindo, expressed spontaneously, with a minimum of external events, the very minimum, but with all the experiences of our meetings: at that time, this opened that; at that moment, I realized this or saw that or felt something else ; and then I was able to do such and such and all of it was Sri Aurobindo.
I know it would create a furor if I wrote this book! Because any fool could read it like a story and feel perfectly satisfied and he wouldnt even notice it taking hold of him inside and changing him.
A philosophical book? No. A spiritual book? No, not at all! Just a nice, little commonsense book thats what they would see!
I dont have time.
I could possibly scribble a few things down and have you write a book with them, but. I dont have the time and anyway, I just thought of it this minute. I hadnt an inkling of it ten minutes ago.
I am seeing this book now. I see it. But when I leave here, with that whole throng around me and all that work to do, it will fade away. I would need to be very quiet, have nothing to do, and just write when it comes to me; because I cannot do things in a logical fashion I have never been able to, never. The experience must come suddenlya memory, an experience then I note it down, put it aside and leave it. And when another comes, the same thing. In this way there would be (smiling) no plan to the book! It would be very simple: no plan of ideas, no plan of development, nothing; simply a story.
For example, the importance of the departure2: how he was present the whole time I was away; how he guided my entire life in Japan; how. Of course, it would be seen in the mirror of my own experience, but it would be Sri Aurobindonot me, not my reactions: him; but through my experience because thats all I can speak of.
--
A book like that (sufficiently veiled, of course), written in the simplest way possible (like I wrote The Science of Living, I believe)and its fine, you speak to people in their own language. Above all, no philosophy! None! You simply tell some extraordinary stories in the same way you would tell an ordinary story. But the Story is there, thats the most important thing.
It started in my infancy the Story was already there.
--
Think it over. I would like us to publish your book exactly as it is, with its full force, with all that Sri Aurobindo has put into it; and we will give it a bit of help to go and do its work. And you should come to an understanding with these people. But first you should write just a simple book, quite simple and quite positive: the constructive aspectvery constructive, very simple. No attempt to convince, no big problemsno, no, no! Sri Aurobindo has come to tell the world that man is not the final creation, that there is another creation; and he said this not because he knew it but because he felt it. And he began to do it. And thats all.
It neednt be long.
You want me to write a book again!?
Yes if its not too much trouble! (Mother laughs) Spontaneously, simplyif you want to, if you feel like it. You know what I mean: a book that is TRUE, in the sense that you wont say anything not perfectly true, but accessible not only accessible to the superior man, but to the honest man who finds that life really isnt good or pleasant and is wondering if there isnt some way to make it better.
Without without great speculations.
There are many things like that in Sri Aurobindos book, On Himself, many things.
Just see if you feel like it, mon petit.
0 1961-12-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is something deeper. And within this deeper thing there was: quiet, quiet, quiet, we will wait; and the impression (but vague, distant and uncertain) of some attempt being made to introduce a very good possibility into the atmosphere. I never see on the purely physical plane, you know (its always on the subtle physical, the plane of possibilities thats more real to me; the purely physical generally eludes me, but I see the subtle physical clearly), and I was seeing I dont know, it was like something higher, from above, trying to make someone enter the field of possibilities, a brain that would suddenly be touched by the book and reverse the situation. I dont know who, I dont know what, I dont know how. Ah, you know that yellow rose I just gave you? Its fringed in pink. Well, what came was like a slender pink fringe winding through the atmosphere of this situation.
Its possibleall is possible!
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
During that return to the past over the last few days, the life I led with Sri Aurobindo suddenly came back to me. What helped this to happen was reading passages about me in his book,6 letters he wrote about me that I had never read before. And it all came back, those full thirty years I lived with him.
Psychologically, there was no struggle, no tension, no effortnot ONCE; I was living in total and confident serenity. On the material plane there were attacks, but even these he took upon himself. Well, I saw it all, all those thirty years of life; not for a SECOND did I have any sense of responsibility, in spite of all the work I was doing, all the organizing and everything. He had supposedly passed on the responsibility to me, you see, but he was standing behindHE was actually doing everything! I was active, but with absolutely no responsibility. I never felt responsible for a single minutehe took the full responsibility. It was really.
--
Yesterday evening I read something in the book9. Sri Aurobindo is writing to someone who said, How lucky people are who live near the Mother. You dont know what youre talking about! he replies. To live in the Mothers physical presence is one of the most difficult things. Do you remember this passage? I didnt know he had written that. Well, well I thought. He writes, It is hard to stay near her, because the difference between the physical consciousness of all you people and her physical consciousness is so enormous.10 Indeed, thats what tires me out. Thats what tires my body, because it is used to living in a certain rhythm, a universal rhythm.
(silence)
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing.4
Questioned about the meaning of these words, Mother said, "The state I was in was like a memory."
0 1962-01-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Savitri, book X, Canto 2 (Cent. Ed. XXIX. 613).
***
0 1962-02-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Concerning a European disciple who praises the merits of a certain pseudo-spiritual book, which Mother calls "spiritual romanticism":)
Its very European theyre like that.
--
Take Z, for instanceshe told me that Maharshi1 wrote in his book that if I were Hindu and did asanas every day, all India would be at my feet! This has certainly been Zs biggest difficulty: it was easy to come here, she could speak to me perfectly freely, I didnt behave mysteriously. So of course, it was too simple!
***
0 1962-02-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All sorts of things. But quite often we are looking for things related to expression sometimes images, sometimes sentences, sometimes. I have told you I frequently meet you in a kind of library without books. Its very interesting. It is open on top, below too, and no walls; it is extremely spacious, certainly almost as vast as the earth. And there are pigeonholes that seem to hang in the air, with all kinds of things filed in them. We are often sorting through these pigeonholes to find certain txtsideas, I mean. Ideas, explanations, sometimes memories, all kinds of things. This world is mental but very luminous and clear; full of clarity, perfectly ordered, without confusion, and all open. Wide open.
I frequently find you there.
--
The thought keeps coming to me that I will have to write a new book on Sri Aurobindo.1
***
0 1962-03-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because it comes from very highits not from here, not at all; it was decided on high, and a long, LONG time ago. Before you came here, I was constantly feeling. Besides, it hadnt been so long without Sri Aurobindo; when Sri Aurobindo was here I had nothing to say, and if I did speak it was almost by chance. Thats all. What had to be said was said by him. And when he left and I began to read his books (which I hadnt read before), I told myself, Well, what do you know! There was absolutely no need for me to say anything. And I had less and less desire to speak. The minute I met you, I began to get interested. Ah, I thought, collaboration! Something interesting can be done.
None of this is random chance. Its not that were taking advantage of circumstances, not at all; it was DECREED.
--
I like the form of your expression very, very much. It contains something deep, very supple and polished at the same timelike a lovely, finely chiseled statue. There is profound inspiration and a rhythm, a harmony, which I like very much. I really enjoyed reading your first book2the kind of enjoyment that comes from discovering beautiful forms, an original way of looking at things and expressing them. I appreciated it tremendously. Immediately, spontaneously, I ranked you as a true writer.
There you have it. I didnt think it was necessary to keep telling you all these things. But its true.
0 1962-04-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
1) I have received a letter from the publisher, who reiterates his requests for alterations. I am replying to him this very day that I will write another book. I have no idea how I am going to write the book!
2) I have finished the work you gave me. I will bring it to you when you wish, but there is no hurry at allrest.
0 1962-04-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It would be good to get moving again on the book.
These past few days I have started thinking about the August Bulletin. In a few days I will probably be able to start working. In that case, I could ask you to come in the morning and you could read me whatever you have ready.
0 1962-05-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sowhat about your book?
(The subject here is a letter, no longer extant, in which Satprem expresses his desire to go write his new book1 in the Himalayas, far from present circumstances. These circumstances included poor health, but mainly, lurking behind, was the violent and almost physical inner wound caused by his break with X. The idea was to go away for a change of air.)
(With an ironic smile) On the meandering path of the world, this trip doesnt look too bad! For you personally, its an experience that yes, that would give you a concrete sense of the vanity of a number of things that still. You see, throughout all ones lives and all of lifes circumstances, theres one thing after another, one thing after another, one thing after another (zigzag gesture) to remove the scales from your eyes.
--
About the book, for instance I dont know if its tamas [inertia], but I constantly feel like sitting and doing nothing! Or doing a minimum of work just to keep me in toucha bit of work for you, thats all, and then the rest of the time.
Yes, that wouldnt be so bad! Thats something I understand quite well!
Externally, with this book Im supposed to write, I would say I have no desire to do so. Nonetheless, Ive come to the point where I no longer pay attention to my desires or non-desires; but anyway, I cant say Im enthusiastic about it.
No, its not interesting for you. And that I can understand!
--
What I actually wanted to put before you is this lack of desire to write the book.
It doesnt matter, mon petit!
--
The book that became Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.
With the work on the Bulletin and other Ashram publications, translating Sri Aurobindo, working on this Agenda, writing his own books and doing many hours of japa, plus other tasks besides, Satprem had been working something like fifteen hours a day (except when he ran off somewhere and even then ...) for eight years nonstop.
***
0 1962-05-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But isnt this second book on Sri Aurobindo something imposed by circumstances? Is it really something that must be done, that already exists and has been decreed?
Personally, I do see one. I see a Sri Aurobindo.
--
Almost no philosophy, nothing intellectualalmost a story. His work presented in an entirely practical and matter-of-fact way, like the talks I used to give to the children here. When I said to the children, This, you know, is why you are here, I told them in a way they could understand, didnt I? Well the book should be like that. If I were to write (I will never write a book on Sri Aurobindo! Never, never, never I know it), but were I ever to write a book on Sri Aurobindo, thats the book I would write, something like a fairy tale. Just imagine. You see life, you see how it is, you are used to this sort of existence; and its dreary and its sad (some people find it entertainingbecause it doesnt take much to entertain them!). Well, behind it all there is a fairy tale. Something in the making, something thats going to be beautiful, beautiful, inexpressibly beautiful. And we shall take part in it. You have no idea, you think you will forget everything when you die, leave it all behind you but its not true! And all who feel the call to a beautiful, luminous, joyous, progressive life, well they will all take part in it, in one way or another. You dont know now, but you will after a while. There you are.
A fairy tale.
--
Done like that, mon petit, the book could be delightful!
Your first book is prophetic and most beautiful, but I must say its something beyond most peoples reachits really a book for us, to put us into contact with all who are interested in yo public.
What I see is almost a childrens book, fga, in the spiritual life: an elite. It is a book for an elite, not for the generalor a whole generation aged ten to eighteen, thousands of children. With lovely pictures.
(silence)
--
No, I dont really feel any need for the mountains. The idea came to me because of this book.
Frankly, I dont believe thats the problem, mon petit. Because I see this book, I feel it. And since I feel it so vividly, dont you think it would be easier to write it here than up there?
No, its solely a question of health. If I could. Listen, I also had a longing to go to the Himalayas, I had a great longing for it when I was in France. When I came here the first time it was fine, I was very happy, everything was beautiful, everything was perfect, but oh, to go to the Himalayas for a while! (I have always loved mountains.) I was living over there in the Dupleix house, and I used to meditate while walking back and forth. There was a small courtyard with a dividing wall, and shards of glass were stuck on top of the wall to keep out thieves. And I was meditatingmeditating on the spiritual lifewhen suddenly something caught my eye: a ray of sunlight on a sharp piece of blue glass on top of the wall. And positively, spontaneously, without thinking or reflecting or anything I saw the summits of the Himalayas: I was on the summits of the Himalayas.
--
Anyway, lets forget about this trip. When the book starts to come to me, well, Ill just get into it and that will be that.
Yes. But theres no hurry, is there?
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The talk turns again to the book like a fairy tale on Sri Aurobindo:)
Did our meditation have any effect?
--
Mother is not speaking here of only her mantra but of all mantras. As she later added: "No mantra has any effect unless it is ACCEPTED by the Power being addressed. When (like the Tantrics, for example) you do a mantra for a certain deity, if this deity accepts the mantra, that gives it power; but if the deity doesn't accept your mantra, it has no power at all. This isn't something I got out of a book, I know it from my own experience but I believe it has been explained in Tantric texts."
In the substance of the body.
0 1962-06-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Have you started your book?
No. I have to think about it, concentrate. That takes time.
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, you know what the publisher says: send us a book when you have one ready.
Oh! They said that?
--
But the book has to come to me!
Oh, its comingits coming. I have no doubt about that. All you have to do is turn this way (gesture above the head).
0 1962-06-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, mon petit write your book.
***
0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I would like you to write your book.
Its progressing not rapidly.
0 1962-06-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As a child, when I was around ten or twelve years old, I had some rather interesting experiences which I didnt understand at all. I had some history booksyou know, the text books they give you to learn history. Well, Id read and suddenly the book would seem to become transparent, or the printed words would become transparent, and Id see other words or even pictures. I hadnt the faintest idea what was happening to me! And it appeared so natural to me that I thought it was the same for everybody. But my brother and I were great chums (he was only a year and a half older), so I would tell him: They talk nonsense in history, you knowit is LIKE THIS; it isnt like that: it is LIKE THIS! And several times the corrections I got on one person or another turned out to be quite exact and detailed. And (I see it now I understood it later on) they were certainly memories. About some passages I would even say, How stupid! It was never that; THIS is what was said. It never happened like that; THIS is how it happened. And the book was simply open before me; I was just reading along like any other child and suddenly something would occur. It was something in me, of course, but I used to think it was in the book!
I found out many, many things about Joan of Arcmany things. And with stunning precision, which made it extremely interesting. I wont repeat them because I dont remember with exactness, and these things have no value unless they are exact. And then, for the Italian Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa; and for the French Renaissance: Franois I, Marguerite de Valois,2 and so forth.
0 1962-07-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, on with your book. Next time you can read me some of it.
Its not going fast!
0 1962-07-07, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother listens to Satprem read some passages from his new book on Sri Aurobindo. The first book, Sri Aurobindo and the Transformation of the World, was judged "abstract and nebulous" by the Paris publisher. Mother comments:)
They probably wont understand anything.
For me, the other book was more self-evident.
Yes, for me too. Writing it was more intense; I have no sense of inspiration with this one.
--
Its going well; it will be a very good book. But probably only a small portion of it will make them say, Ah, finally! Something practical!
The Ashram began with two houses and so many peoplein America thats all they ever wanted to know from me. When I asked for money from America, thats what they asked about, and thats what I had to send them: on such and such a date we started off with two houses and then little by little, like this and like that, it became what it is today. And now we have so many houses (Mother laughs), there are so many people, so many visitors per year, and the Samadhi has become a place of pilgrimage, and. In short, newspaper stories thats what I wrote to America! I put together papers, documents, statistics they were quite satisfied. If I had told them even a quarter of what you say, they would have replied, Oh, for heavens sake, be practical!
--
What youve written is for an enlightened public fond of ideasexcellent. But its not a book you buy for a couple of dollars and read on the train between stations; no, the reader must sit quietly and think about what hes reading. Theres not one in a million like that! They put it in their pocket, you see, and on the subwaymaybe not the subway, theres no time!but while theyre on the train, they pull it out of their pocket and.
(Satprem makes a discouraged gesture)
--
No, write your book as you see it.
I see a psychological book. I mean, someone doing research on himself, seeking to understand. Not a philosophical but a psychological booksomeone whos experimenting on himself.
What!
--
No, go ahead. Theyre simply going to tell you, Your book is very nice, but it drags in places. If youll let us cut them out (Mother laughs). Thats it. And whatever is truly psychological, well, theyll take big scissors and (Mother laughs).
But all that can be published separately.
--
But its good, this book of yours.
As I always say, Be at least two generations ahead. And this book is a generation ahead of them.
Mother was right (in part!). Satprem's second book was refused by this same publisher, then accepted by another.
Algeria's Independence has just been announced.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Next came the period of learning and developing, but on an ordinary mental levelschool years.1 Curiosity made me want to learn to read. Did I tell you how it happened? When I was around seven, just under seven, my brother, who was eighteen months older, used to bring big pictures home from school with him (you know, pictures for children with captions at the bottom; theyre still used nowadays) and he gave me one of them. Whats written there? I asked. Read it! he said. Dont know how, I replied. Then learn! All right, I told him, show me the letters. He brought me an A-B-C book. I knew it within two days and on the third day I started reading. Thats how I learned. Oh-oh, they used to say, this child is backward! Seven years old and she still cant readdisgraceful! The whole family fretted about it. And then lo and behold, in about a week I knew what should have taken me years to learnit made them think twice!
Then, school years. I was a very bright student, always for the same reason: I wanted to understand. I wasnt interested in learning things by heart like the others did I wanted to understand them. And what a memory I had, a fantastic memory for sounds and images! I had only to read a poem aloud at night, and the next morning I knew it. And after I had studied or read a book and someone mentioned a passage to me, I would say, Ah, yes thats on page so and so. I would find the page. Nothing had faded, it was all still fresh. But this is the ordinary period of development.
Then at a very young age (about eight or ten), along with my studies I began to paint. At twelve I was already doing portraits. All aspects of art and beauty, but particularly music and painting, fascinated me. I went through a very intense vital development during that period, with, just like in my early years, the presence of a kind of inner Guide; and all centered on studies: the study of sensations, observations, the study of technique, comparative studies, even a whole spectrum of observations dealing with taste, smell and hearinga kind of classification of experiences. And this extended to all facets of life, all the experiences life can bring, all of themmiseries, joys, difficulties, sufferings, everythingoh, a whole field of studies! And always this presence within, judging, deciding, classifying, organizing and systematizing everything.
0 1962-07-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Heres what he says: I read with great interest the Introduction to your new book on Shri Aurobindo. I must confess that if I have been late in replying it is because I am still very hesitant. The text reads well, but it leaves doubts as to how well the book that follows will conform to the norms of our Spiritual Masters series. I greatly fear that we will both end up disappointed again. The book you want to write is, I feel, very personal, whereas this series must consist of books which are essentially expositions, introductions, tools of information: etc.
(After a silence) I am getting a sort of indication: when I turn the beacon to this side, the resistance suddenly seems to give waythere must be a means of making it give way.
Dont reply, keep quiet. Write your book and we will see.
I have the feeling that, consciously or unconsciously (I dont know which), this gentleman has become a tool of Catholic resistance. It is very strong in the Old World and in America as well, although there its more Christian than specifically Catholic. But its terribly strong in France: it tries to take advantage of every opening and to block whatever might take a new turn.
--
I cant say this gentleman knows it (he probably doesntwhat goes on in the human brain is very incoherent). But in any case, something in him is wary: Whats to tell me this book wont lead me just where I dont want to go?
Their main complaint was, You are abstract. So if we want to be concrete, we have to speak of experiences.
--
Listen, dont think about it, dont pay it any attentionfinish the book.
Im not really satisfied.
0 1962-08-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All right then, keep on with your book. Its good, much better than you think! (gesture of denial from Satprem) Yes, yes, I know what you mean, definitive thingsits like me and my definitive transformations! We must learn how to wait. Later on, it will come.
It should be something like a mantra.
0 1962-08-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Concerning Satprem's new book on Sri Aurobindo, Mother foresees that again many cuts will be necessary, and emphasizes that the main point is to prevent the publisher from entrusting the book's editing to some ignoramus. And she adds:)
But its quite clear that these people cant grasp it; theyre a closed door! Not even a door of bronze, but of bricks and cementimpenetrable.
--
So you understand, you have only one thing to do: finish your book.
Yes oh, I would like to make such a beautiful Sri Aurobindo, and then.
0 1962-08-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem complains that he finds it difficult to write his book. Mother concentrates for about fifteen minutes, then says:)
All right.
0 1962-09-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So now I dont mind finishing The Synthesis. I was a little bothered because I have no other books by Sri Aurobindo to translate that can help me in my sadhana: there was only The Synthesis. As I said, it always came right on time, just when it was needed for a particular experience.
When this new translation is finished (because I know Savitri, I know what it is), I know that when its finished either Ill be there or else things will take a very long time.1
All his other books that could help me are already translated. And with Savitri, the idea isnt to make a translation, but to SEE. To try something. To give me the daily experience of that contact.
I had some magnificent experiences when I read it the first time (two years ago, I believe). Wonderful, wonderful experiences! And since then, each time I read those lines, the same thing happensnot the same experience, but I come in contact with the same realm.
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It will be a beautiful bookunusual. Its an original way of presenting things. Interesting, mon petit.
One day when you have time, Ill have to ask you some questions. Because for the Supraconscient, some things arent too clear in my mind.
--
But its better not to emphasize this [in your book]. As I have said, we can bypass that plane, or even pass through without knowing it. It interested me to read in the Vedas that if you dont ascend the way youre supposed to, if you try to bypass the gods, then unpleasant things happen to you and your way is blockeddo you remember that?1 That gives you an idea of what it is. Its like an intermediary zone, far superior to the earth, but still intermediary. Some have tried to cross it without stopping; and there, they say, you run into trouble. Personally, I am not sure, I can only speak of my own experience: there was always a sense of fraternityas you can imagine! I knew them, I was on friendly terms with them, so there was no question of bypassing them or not!
But I have a strong impression that that world is still a magnified version of our own, and part of the old path; it has nothing to do with the Supramental Creation, which will bring to earth the sense of the Supreme and the Unique.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Im asking you questions because Ive got a book to write!
Oh, but dont speak of this in your book! People will say youre completely cracked (Mother laughs).
Chakras: centers of consciousness.
0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a person I wont name who has read Sri Aurobindos books and thought he understood them. He has been following a yogic discipline (anyway, he thought he was doing yoga) and he pulled down the Force. The Force responded (Mother laughs). He wound up with a headache! He got frightened and wrote to me in these exact words: This Force is the Lords Force (which is true, quite true), and it has turned into fear. So (Mother laughs) fear is the Lords principal perversion. There you have it. He read in books that the Lord is behind everything, that there is nothing that isnt the Lord; so its the Lord who has become perverted in His manifestation, naturally. The Force of the Lord came to help him and was changed into fear, so the Lords principal perversion is fear!
If you read that, youd say he was going off his rocker.
--
Bring me your book on the 16th.
Thats whats difficultwriting.
0 1962-10-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, Id like to understand how it works. I have to talk about it in the book.
The first zone you encounter is the zone of painting, sculpture, architecture: everything that has a material form. It is the zone of forms, colored forms that are expressed as paintings, sculptures, and architecture. They are not forms as we know them, but rather typal forms; you can see garden types, for instance, wonderfully colored and beautiful, or construction types.
--
Beyond the musical zone lies thought: thoughts, organized thoughts for plays and books, abstractions for philosophies. But what used to interest me particularly were the combinations that give birth to novels or plays.
That is the third zone.
--
No, what you find there are thought formations that are expressed in each persons brain in his own language. There are thought combinations for novels, plays, even philosophical systems. They are combinations of pure thought, not formulated in any language, but they are automatically expressed in each ones brain according to his particular language. It is the domain of pure thought. Thats where you work when you want to work for the whole earth; you dont send out thoughts formulated in words, you send out a pure thought, which then formulates itself in any language in any brain: in all those who are receptive. These formations are at anyones disposalnobody can say, Its MY idea, its MY book. Anyone capable of ascending to that zone can get hold of the formations and transcribe them materially. I once made an experiment of that kind; I wanted to see what would happen, so I made a formation myself and let it go off on its way. And in the same year, two quite different people, who didnt even know each other, one in England and the other in America, got hold of my formation; the one in England wrote a book, while the one in America created a play. And circumstances so arranged themselves that both the book and the play found their way to me.
Higher up, there is a fourth zone, a zone of colored lights, plays of colored lights. Thats the order: first form, then sound, then ideas, then colored lights. But that zone is already more distant from humanity; it is a zone of forces, a zone which appears as colored lights. No formscolored lights representing forces. And one can combine these forces so that they work in the terrestrial atmosphere and bring about certain events. Its a zone of action, independent of form, sound and thought; it is above all that. A zone of active power and might you can use for a particular purposeif you have the capacity to do so.
--
Thus we have form, expressed in painting, sculpture or architecture; sound, expressed in musical themes; and thought, expressed in books, plays, novels, or even in philosophical and other kinds of intellectual theories (thats where you can send out ideas that will affect the whole world, because they influence receptive brains in any land, and are expressed by corresponding thoughts in the appropriate language). And above this zone, free of form, sound and though, is the play of forces appearing as colored lights. And when you go there and have the power, you can combine those forces so that they eventually materialize as creations on earth (it takes some time, its rarely immediate).
But those great waves of music you hear, which you said were beyond soundsare they part of that domain of luminous vibrations?
0 1962-11-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because my impression was that the higher I rise, the more I notice things below. I wasnt making a doctrine or theory of it, of course I got rid of that habit a long time ago. But I was looking at it, merely taking note of the fact, without telling myself it was for this or that reason (as you explain here in your book). I observed the phenomenon and was able to say: the more I feel this constant, luminous Presence, the more I see those things. So it has become very clear to me that it is impossible to manifest THAT integrally without everything below being offered up to the Light.
My method is essentially very simple: for each thing that comes, I say, Here, Lord, its for You; change it, transform it. A work of offering and dedication (gesture of presenting something to the Light). And this morning there was a sort of replynot exactly to a question, but as though I were wondering How do I do it? (because the Lord tells me I am here for His work), How do I do His work? Whats the new way of doing the Work? We know all the old ways, but whats the new way? And the reply came, very concrete, without words: By bringing the two extremes together. Everything you see, everything that comes to you or that you discover is automatically put in the presence of the Most High, of the Supreme. You join the two extremes. Your whole work is to make the junction.
0 1962-11-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So next time youll have your book with you.
Yes, I hope so.
--
I woke up after two thousand years with a rejuvenated body. It was a very amusing little story. And I say vision, but you dont watch these things like a movie: you LIVE them. I somehow extricated myself from that sort of sealed grotto, and where Pondicherry had once stood (it had been completely razed), I came upon some people working. They were VERY DIFFERENT, and quite bizarre. I myself must have looked funny, with a kind of costume totally alien to their epoch. (My clothing had also survived the destruction the whole thing was right out of a story book!) So of course I attracted some curiosity and they tried to make me understand. Ah, yes I know one of them said (I understood them because I could understand their thoughtsthose two thousand years had enabled me to read peoples minds), and they led me to a very old sage, a wise old fellow. I spoke to him and he began leafing through all kinds of books (he had many, many books), and suddenly he exclaimed, Ah, French! An ancient language, you see (Mother laughs).
It was very funny. I told the story to Sri Aurobindo, and he had a good laugh.
0 1962-11-23, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But your book shouldnt give the impression that its always that way that the Light cant be established on earth until all the Shadow is transformed. In fact, the very work of transformation is to change all this shadow into its aspect of light.1
Not to reject it: to transform it.
--
And just last time, when I told you I wasnt very well, it happened during the night, and it was the equivalent of what you write here, but purely material, in the body. In your book you describe it rather psychologically, like a phenomenon of consciousness, that is; but here its a phenomenon of the cells. So hurry to bring me the triumph! (Mother laughs) I was telling myself just this morning how exhausting it was, this perpetual battleoh, what a battle.
So when you write of the victory, perhaps I too will do a victory dance!
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont recall whether it was last night or the night before, but I saw you with him, the two of you were busy with the book. And Sri Aurobindo was pleased. When I saw him (I was there, seeing the two of you), I thought, Well, if Satprem could see this (laughing), at least hed be pleased for once.
Well, yes!
--
As soon as I saw that I understood. Well, I told myself, if I were a philosopher I could write a thick book about this! It made me laugh. Because its not just ONE thing: there are heaps of them, all the time, all the time. Things like this are happening all the time.
The Lord is enjoying himself!
0 1962-12-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was in both French and English. He called it Fundamental Axioms of Cosmic Philosophy. It was the work of a certain French metaphysician who was well known around the turn of the centuryhis name began with a B. He met Theon in Egypt when Theon was with Blavatski; they started a magazine with an ancient Egyptian name (I cant recall what it was), and then he told Theon (Theon must have already known French) to publish a Cosmic Review and the Cosmic books. And this B. is the one who formulated all this gobbledygook.
There used to be the name of the printer and the year it was printed, but its not there any more.
--
Now then, did you bring your book?
(Unenthusiastically.) Yes.
--
Oh, read me your book!
***
0 1962-12-19, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well now, have you brought your book?
Read.
--
And interestingly enough, as I told you last time, it follows my bodys experience quite closely and regularly. There are so many sides to the problem, you see, so many ways of approaching the problem and attempting the transformation, and it [the book] seems to follow very, very well. Its interesting. Your book, and also my translation and yet they are so different! But of course, the experience itself is very, very diverse, multifaceted, with all sorts of side roads or forks, tiny little signs on the way, simply as cluesa whole world!
And I see clearly that trying to formulate it would spoil everything. You really cant formulate a curve until you come to the end of itotherwise, you spoil its course.
--
Au revoir, mon petit; its goodits going well. Thats what Sri Aurobindo told me a few days ago (I spent two hours with him at night, with all sorts of very interesting things happening). He told me (in his joking way), You see! Ive got him doing the book that makes him progress. So I said, Good. Because he has been there all along since you embarked on this book, and he seems to be guiding you according to a plan he has worked out. Thats what he told me. I have seen him with you very frequently (as Ive told you), but the other day he told me this positively.
Its good. Its very good this time.
0 1962-12-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did you bring your book?
Its not so great.
0 1962-12-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What have you brought? Your book? Do you have your book?
A bit of it, yes.
--
Thats what I try to bring in when I listen to your book.
So go ahead now, I am listening.
--
Theres just one thing I dont know its when you say Sri Aurobindo succumbed on December 5, 1950. He didnt succumb. Its not that he couldnt have done otherwise. Its not the difficulty of the work that made him leave; its something else. You cant mention this in your book, of course, its impossible to talk about for the moment, but I would like you to use another word. What was your sentence again?
I said: Sri Aurobindo succumbed to this work on December 5, 1950.
--
The force or the light into the words of the book.
***
0 1963-01-12, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what made him lose his eyesight, you know; his eyes were overstrained. I know its due to that, because I heard him say so. Once, they had brought him a stack of books to sign and other things and, unaware that he could be heard, he exclaimed, Oh, they want to make me blind!1 Thats how I knew his eyes were tired. He was indeed losing his sight. At the end, he couldnt see a thing, he had to look at very close range.
So I am not giving in.
0 1963-01-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I very well see (because I told Him several times, You know, it would be great fun if I had plenty of money to play with), so I see that He laughs, but He doesnt answer! He teaches me to be able to laugh at this difficulty, to see the cashier send me his book in which the figures are growing astronomical ([laughing] its by 50,000, 60,000, 80,000, 90,000), while the drawer is nearly empty! And He wants me to learn to laugh at it. The day when I can really laughlaugh, enjoy myselfSINCERELY (not through effortyou can do anything you want through effort), when it makes me laugh spontaneously, I think it will change. Because otherwise its impossible. You see, we have fun with all sorts of things, theres no reason we couldnt have fun with more money than we need and do things in style! It will surely happen one day, but we shouldwe shouldnt be overwhelmed by the amount, and for that we shouldnt take money seriously.
We shouldnt take money seriously.
0 1963-01-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have finished my translation [of the Synthesis]. When you have finished your book and we have prepared the next Bulletin and we have a nice quiet moment, well go over it again. And then Ive begun Savitriah! As you know, I prepare some illustrations with H., and for her illustrations she has chosen some passages from Savitri (the choice isnt hers, its A.s and P.s and made intelligently), so she gives me these passages one by one, neatly typed (which is easier for my eyes). Its from the book I, Canto IV. And then, as I expected, the experience is rather interesting. I had noticed, while reading Savitri, that there was a sort of absolute understanding, that is to say, it cant mean this or that or thisit means THAT. It comes with an imperative. And thats what led me to think, When I translate it, it will come in the same way. And it did. I take the text line by line and make a resolve (not personal) to translate it line by line, without the slightest regard for the literary point of view, but rendering what he meant in the clearest possible way.
The way it comes is both exclusive and positiveits really interesting. Theres none of the minds ceaseless wavering, Is this better? Is that better? Should it be like this? Should it be like that? Noit is LIKE THIS (Mother brings down her hand in a gesture of imperative descent). And then in certain cases (without anything to do with the literary angle or even the sound of the wordnei ther sound nor anything, but meaning), Sri Aurobindo himself suggests a word. Its as if he were telling me, Isnt this better French, tell me?(!)
0 1963-02-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wanted the book [The Adventure of Consciousness] to come out for February 21, 1964. That doesnt leave too much time, because Thats another marvel, it must have been one of the things Sri Aurobindo was showing me: at the [Ashram] Press, theyre behind schedule for everything and they work night and day! They have never worked so hard! Very clearly, seen from above, its a lack of organization; for something requiring an ounce of force they have to put in ten pounds, and still it doesnt work.
It grinds and grates.
--
And it teaches me English without books! Now, whenever I have to write a letter, all the words come by themselves: the CONTENT of the word (just as I told you for moment and instant), now it works the same way with all words! Yesterday I wrote something in English for a doctor here (Mother looks for a paper): The world progresses so rapidly that we must be ready at any moment to over pass what we knew in order to know better. And you know, I never think: it just comes, either the sound or the written word (it depends on the case: now Ill see the written words, now Ill hear the sound). For instance, the word advance came first, and with it came quick, quickly, repeatedly [the world advances so quickly]. Then came progress, and quickly was out of the picture; and suddenly rapidly came forward. So I understood how it worked, how it works for all words! I understood: progress (the idea or inner meaning of progress) calls for rapidly; and advance calls for quickly. Putting it like this sounds like splitting hairs, but when I saw it, it was positively irrefutable! The word was alive, its content was alive, and along with it was its friend, the word that went with it; and the word that wasnt its friend was not to be seen, it wasnt in the mood! Oh, it was so funny! For that alone it is worth the trouble.
I have made some experiments with French too. I wrote something: Pour chacun, le plus important est de savoir si on appartient au passe qui se perpetue, au present qui sepuise, lavenir qui veut natre. [The most important point for everyone is to know whether he belongs to the past perpetuating itself, to the present exhausting itself, or to the future trying to be born.] I gave it to Zhe didnt understand. So I told him, It doesnt mean our past, our present or our future. I wrote this when I was in that state [the experience Mother told at the beginning of this conversation], and it was in connection with a very sweet old lady who has just left her body. This is what I said to her. Everybody had been expecting her departure for more than a month or two, but I said, You will see, she is going to last; she will last for at least another month or two. Because she knows how to live within, outside her body, and the body lives on out of habit, without jerks and jolts. That was her condition, and it could last a very long time. They had announced she would leave within two days, but I said, Its not true. I know her well, in the sense that she had come out of her body and there was a link with me. And I said to her, What do you care! (though she wasnt at all worried, she was staying peacefully with me), The whole point is to know whether one belongs to the past perpetuating itself, to the present exhausting itself, or to the future trying to be born. Sometimes what WE call the past is right here, its the future trying to be born; sometimes what WE call the present is something in advance, something that came ahead of time; but sometimes also its something that came late, that is still part of all that is to disappear I saw it all: people, things, circumstances, everything through that perception, the vibration that would go on transforming itself, the vibration that would exhaust itself and disappear, the vibration that, though manifested for a long time, would be entitled to continue, to persist that changes all notions! It was so interesting! So I wrote it down as it waswithout any explanations (you dont feel much like explaining in such a case, the thing is so self-evident!). Poor Z, he stared at meall at sea! So I told him, Dont try to understand. I am not speaking of the past, present and future as we know them, its something else. (Mother laughs)
0 1963-02-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The boon that we have asked from the Supreme is the greatest that the Earth can ask from the Highest, the change that is most difficult to realise, the most exacting in its conditions. It is nothing less than the descent of the supreme Truth and Power into Matter, the supramental established in the material plane and consciousness and the material world and an integral transformation down to the very principle of Matter. Only a supreme Grace can effect this miracle.
The supreme Power has descended into the most material consciousness but it has stood there behind the density of the physical veil, demanding before manifestation, before its great open workings can begin, that the conditions of the supreme Grace shall be there, real and effective.
0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Simply for want of training. If you train yourself, you remember quite well. There are small holes in the consciousness, gaps, and when you go through such a gap you forget. You may suddenly get a fleeting impression of something, and then it eludes youoh, its gone! Only, it takes a long time to train yourself; you shouldnt be in a hurry or too busy. I went through it at a time when I was bedridden for five months. I had nothing to do. (You cant keep reading all the timeduring those five months I read some eight hundred books no, nine hundred and fifty! But it tires the eyes.) So the rest of the time (you cant sleep too much either when youre in bed all the time), I trained myself: that was when I learned to have completely conscious nights. But its a discipline. When you wake up, either in the middle of the night or in the morning, dont budge, stay absolutely still, concentrated, very silent, and PULL the memory back. For one month, two months, you seem to get nowhere; after six months it begins to work; and eventually you remember everything. At the end, you do the opposite movement, in the sense that whenever you have an interesting dream, you wake up: you learn to wake up in the middle of the night every time you have a vision or a dream, or some activity (there are various cases), so that you can remember, and then you repeat it to your consciousness (once youre awake, you repeat it to yourself two or three or ten times, till youre certain not to forget), and then off you go again.
But you cant do that if, when morning comes, you have to leap out of your bed and attend to fifty thousand pressing matters. It isnt indispensable for the yoga, not at all. Its a hobby, rather, something to amuse yourself with.
0 1963-03-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, no, no, no! No need to Its only for our own enjoyment. And what about your book, how is it going on?
Slowly.
Ill soon start preparing next years February 29,8 and your book is part of the preparation. I am trying to find what to distributewhat will take place. I dont know yet what will take place. But many people, in all corners of the world, are expecting this February 29 (from everywhere they want to come), so I should at least have something ready for them.
The only thing that has come to my consciousness so far is for me to be in an inner state such that I could sit for two or three hours, while people file past me (of course, its out of the question to distribute anything myself, its impossible). Simply, for me to be absorbed in contemplation so that it wouldnt matter, people filing past wouldnt alter my state.
--
But one thing I know, I want your book to be published by then, to come out by the end of February, possibly for the 21st. But those people take ages to do things properly. Thats why I ask you.
I hope itll be finished at the beginning of next month.
0 1963-03-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother opens "Savitri." She intended to translate "The Debate of Love and Death." The book opens "by chance" on the last lines of Death's defeat, which Mother reads aloud:)
And [Death] left crumbling the shape that he had worn,
--
(Mother leafs through the book)
When she says I dont remember the words, she says:
--
(Mother goes back to the beginning of book X, Canto IV)
Here:
--
book X is long: The book of the Double Twilight. Of course, if I start reading
Youll end up at the beginning!
I would do the whole book!
(Mother leafs back)
--
So we would have to start at the beginning of the book of the Double Twilight, book X. Lets see how it goes.
(Mother reads)
--
And book XII [The Return to the Earth]. I dont know.
(Mother reads the concluding lines of Savitri:)
--
Lets see, open a page at random, I want to see if you find something interestingconcentrate a moment and open the book, Ill read it to you.
Just put your finger. Do you want a blade? (Mother gives Satprem a letter opener)
(Satprem concentrates and opens the book)
Oh!
0 1963-05-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once WE have published it, I am certaincertain that there will be people who will want to publish it. Besides, its not the kind of book to have a success for a while and then fall away. It will have a lasting action.
What does he mean by clumsy passages? Whatever he couldnt understand!
--
My own impression is rather that in order to appreciate the book fully, you must already know a lota lot more than those people know.
I have a strong impression and thats why Sri Aurobindo was so interested in the book and took such a part in it that it is the way of explaining things which those with a European education can best understand. Or those with a modern education, at any rate, with a modern turn of mind, because its very appropriate for America, too. And for the whole part of India thats under the influence of British education, it will put them in touch in a way they can understand.
Not for a second did I think they would publish itin fact, to tell you the truth, it wouldnt make me too happy either! Its not a book for their Collection. Their Collection is much too trite, too superficial.
Anyhow it wouldnt have been in their Collection because it has more than 300 pages and the books in their Collection have only 150. But it could have been outside the Collectionwell, it doesnt seem its going to happen. Id be curious to see their criticisms.
Oh, they wont understand anything anyway.
--
Id like to ask you a little question. In this book on Sri Aurobindo, I say in passing that the three aspectsTranscendent, Immanent, Cosmicprobably correspond to the Catholic Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Could you tell me the exact correspondence? The Father is clearly the Transcendent, but the Son?
The Son is the Immanent.
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Anyway, lets wait for the book, well see.
Because do you know the story of that Romanian who was tortured by the Communists and had visions of Sri Aurobindo2 (he didnt see him as he is, in fact, he saw him according to his own conception: thin and ascetic), and finally the apparition told him, I am your soul, and so on? But he had never read Sri Aurobindos name, he only heard it, and he wrote it in a very odd way [Aurobin Dogos]. It SEEMS to be something of Sri Aurobindo. Anyhow it gave him the strength to go through all those torturesappalling tortures, unimaginable. And he was able to escape, somebody helped him escape (now he is safe in England). But before that, he suffered so much that he thought of letting himself die, and that voice, that apparition which came and spoke to him for hours, was what gave him courage and told him that the soul NEVER gets discouraged, it has something to do, and you must endure. He endured thanks to that voice.
--
I suffer when I write. When I write, I burn. I burn, my body literally burns! When I wrote the book on Sri Aurobindo, I was exhaustedit burns me, you see, I am ablaze! And then I get covered all over with salt: I dont sweat but I get covered with salt!
Oh, youre really a man of the West.
--
Oh, as long as I dont write, it doesnt matter I dont suppose Im going to write books all the time?!
Next time, Ill give you a bottle of lotion. Before writing, rub yourself with it! (laughter) It keeps you cool.
0 1963-06-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All the details are clearit would take a book to write them. Everybody now has his place and meaning.3 And theyre all so content, so content! So BLISSFULLY ignorant of the condition they live in. And Im not speaking of people who know nothing: all those who were there last night were people full of philosophy, of knowledge, of spiritual experiences and all that the cream.
The elite of mankind.
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Later, the subject is the English translation of Satprems recent book on Sri Aurobindo:)
I think E. will be able to find a public over there, in America especiallymore than in France.
--
And in a way, it pains me to see that what little I can do, this book on Sri Aurobindo, for instance, isnt understood. There is a wall in Francea refusal, I cant get in there, its blocked. It pains me. With the people I know there its the same thing; everywhere I meet with a wall of incomprehensionits absolutely and completely closed.3
(Long silence) With Frances intellectual quality, the quality of her mind, the day she is truly touched spiritually (she never has been), the day she is touched spiritually, it will be something exceptional.
0 1963-07-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but when you read a mantra in a book, for instance, it is said theres no force in ithow is that, since the vibration is there?
But if you have the power within yourself and read the book, you will get the force! (Mother laughs) Whats required is the capacity to feel and make contact.
Ultimately, what does the guru do? He connects (gesture of junction), he is nothing but a link. Its not his power he gives you (thats what he thinks, but its not true): he is the link. He brings you into contact with the Powera contact you dont have without him. But those who dont need a guru will make contact WITHOUT a guru.
0 1963-07-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I must now bring myself to write to you. With regret and sadness, I confess, since it is to inform you that we do not think it possible to publish your book Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness. I confess that what prevented me from writing to you earlier is not so much the fear of causing you pain, for you are able to rise above the shock such news cannot but cause, as the fact that I knew it would be impossible to explain our reasons to you. Frankly, we cannot really understand this book. And how to explain the reasons for not understanding something? As for me, I often had the feeling of passing from one plane to another, from the level of fact to that of conjecture, from the level of logic (with defined terms as a starting point) to that of presupposition (within a coherence unconnected with the knowledge you offer). I know that all this is disputable. I also know or guess that behind those pages lies an entire lived experience, but one doesnt feel the reader can participate in it. For what reason? Once again, I cannot say. The readers blindness, quite possibly. The minds limitation, too. But a book must build a bridge, pierce the screen, and there are doubtless cases in which doing so no longer depends on the author. I must therefore return this manuscript to you.
(signed: P.A.L.)
--
Yes, it means the book is really very good.
!?
I had a feeling Sri Aurobindo put a lot of his force into it to make it a revelationa lot. And I became convinced that my impression was correct when Pavitra told me it had opened some doors to him that had never opened before. But that means it has to be read by people who already know a lot. This book is perhaps a step forward, not merely an explanation.
Well see in America; I think it will be a great success there.
0 1963-08-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw in France a patch of garden: it was surrounded by walls, and the land had belonged to someone who took great care of it and had planted flowers in it. It was fairly large, but completely enclosed. That person died. It was in southern France. He died and no one (there were no heirs), no one looked after the garden: it was closed and stayed that way. I saw that garden I dont remember now, but certainly more than five years afterwards. It probably happened that the lock broke little by little and came loose; I pushed the door open and entered. Ive never seen anything more beautiful! There werent any paths any more, there was no order any more, nothing but confusion but what confusion! Ive never seen anything more beautiful. I stood there in a sort of ecstasy. There is a book (I think its Le Paradou by Zola) in which there is a description of a fairy placeit was just like that: all the flowers and plants entangled, in an absolutely disorderly growth, but with a harmony of another type, a much vaster, much stronger harmony.
It was extraordinarily beautiful.
0 1963-08-28, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had already told you about my misgivings.1 As to the motives for the decision, it always boils down to the same point: a sincere (though ambiguous) will of ecumenism, a broad rather than deep intellectual curiosity, permit mentalities such as those that give our firm its orientation and public image to pay some attention to academic essays regarded (wrongly so in the present instance) as dealing with the famous Eastern spirituality. But as soon as the essays are lived from within, the goodwill withdraws into its shell. The reaction is even worse if the author is a renegade, a Westerner who has gone over to the enemy side. (I can vouch for that!2) I must emphasize that this whole process is not only unintentional but, more than that, unconscious (which is not an excuse but an aggravating circumstance). The opposition put up against your first manuscript3 rather hardened with the second, a much more personal book, I mean less detached, still less objective than the firstand more ample. Through the medium of literature, you were able to convey whatever you liked. Through a direct essay, you will reach and so much the worse, or so much the betteronly those who seek. Our firm and its public do not belong, for that matter, to the category of those who seek.
Hes conscious!
Its obvious, I told you so all along: your book isnt meant for them. There arent many who seek.
Those who seek really, there arent many.
--
In any case, your book will be published here, which means it will reach the few who are ready but not over there.
The Americans are more open, because they have remained more childlike they think they know everything on a material level, but they also know that there are things they dont know. While the others they are beyond childish religious beliefs, of course!
0 1963-10-05, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I thought it was something in the vital, because all my relationships with the people downstairs, before going back upstairs, were with their character, their vitalnot with material matter but with the character, vital nature. And it was! You could write books: an irony, a sharp perception, fine, delicatepriceless! Its charming, you know: each one with his own little flawthey were all people I know!
But there are some beings that have been in two or three persons: for example, a vital being that went from one person to another (a being I know very well, so I know it happened that way), and what I saw was the BEING, not the different persons. A vital, female-looking being (they take on a sexual appearance when they have been in human beings: they retain the female or male appearance), a female-looking being, and just when the question of preparing my bath arose (always that bath Ill have to find out what it means), she had something very urgent to do, went into her room, then (laughing) came out again a minute later with a dress a sort of green dressgrass green but brightwith an immense train! And she walked past so proudly: Yes, I wanted to show them who I am. What an admirable comedy! If I had the time to write, it could make utterly charming stories.
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is what happened: I do my usual bath of the Lord and it is arranged that, after a time, Champaklal opens the doorwhich signals to me the end of the visit. So I looked at X, just to see (I had looked at him several times before, but there was nothing particular), I looked at him and saw in front of him a sort of mass of substance, not material but responsive to a mental formation, which means that mental thought and will can make this substance take different shapes I know it (Mother makes a gesture of fingering the substance), its very like the sort of substance mediums use for their apparitions (less material, more mental, but anyway the same kind). There was a sort of mass in front of him, which was hiding him; it wasnt luminous, not black either, but dark enough. So I looked at it, STARED at it to see what it was, and as I was staring, I saw that there was a will or an effort to give that mass of substance a shape. It was exactly in front of Xs head and shoulders. And there was a will to give it a shape (gesture of molding). As I stared very carefully, it took the shape of Sri Aurobindos head as it appears in newspapers and magazines (what I call the popular Sri Aurobindo, as he is shown in books), the substance took that form. Immediately I thought (ironic tone), Oh, its the popular form, that doesnt resemble him! And instantly, the substance rearranged itself and took the form of Cartier-Bressons Sri Aurobindo1 (the three-quarter face photo, where he is seated in his armchair). That was better! (Mother holds back a chuckle) It wasnt yet quite good, but anyway it was better (although, mind you, it had neither light nor life: it was mattera subtle matter, of courseput into shape by a mental will). So I began to wonder: Whatever is this?! Does he want me to believe that Sri Aurobindo is in him, or what? Because Xs head and shoulders had completely disappeared, there was nothing left but that. And I thought (not a strong thought, just a reflection): No, its not very good, really not very lifelike! (Mother laughs) Then there was a last attempt and it became very like the photo that was taken when he left his body (that photo which we stood on end and called Meditation), it was very like the photo, (in an ironic tone) a very good likeness. And it stayed. So I thought, Oh yes! This is the photo.
Then I concentrated just a little and thought, Lets see, now. Whom is he trying to delude? And instantly, everything vanished. And I saw X, his head.
0 1963-11-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Satprem is at the moment working on the final revision of his book on Sri Aurobindo.
***
0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when you express yourself, you speak with the usual words and the usual language. Because to express one minute of that consciousness, it would almost take a book to make yourself understoodeven then you wouldnt be understood.
But in this case, on December 2nd, the thing was observed very attentively, because it was a limited field, and it lasted a certain number of hours (all the other occupations went on automatically, without interfering with the active consciousness, with the observation).
0 1963-12-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You should get some rest nevertheless. Its time this book was finished and those [Tantric] writings were finishedso you can go and sit facing the sea. And watch the waves move, no?
I still have eight days of work.
0 1963-12-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The conclusion is that when he has finished his book, Ill give you my manuscript to type. If my eyes were good, it would do, but theyre no good, the poor things (I cant speak ill of them, theyve served well, but anyway). Or else, he [Satprem] would have to correct directly on my manuscript, but that he wont do.
Ah, no!
0 1964-01-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you have the book? I saw the text not very long ago and I thought, Well, this is exactly it!
(Mother looks for the book)
But I gave you your name because There are many people who are very, very different apparently and are in relation with very different aspects of the Mother, yet who all, for a reason which I know, will find the fullness of their being only when, Truth having been fulfilled on earth, divine Love will be able to manifest purely thats why I called you Satprem. And there are other people, whom I know very well, who appear to be at the other end (how can I put it?) of the realization of their character (they are entirely different in origin, entirely different in influence), and yet who have exactly the same character with regard to something else, which I will tell only when the time comes. And its only when divine Love can manifest in its absoluteness that they will have the fullness of their being. So that for the moment they have, like you, but for very different reasons, the feeling that things dont move, nothing gets done, nothing changes you know, that all your efforts are useless; or else, for a few who do not have a sufficiently developed higher mind, they dont have faith: they think, Oh, its all promises, but (vague gesture, up above).
0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
G. brought back from Paris a book, an albuman album of photographs. On one side of the book there is a photograph, and on the other a facsimile of the handwriting probably of well-known authors, poets, writers, and so on I didnt read that. A facsimile and a photograph. They call it Dream Paris! (Mother raises her eyes heavenwards)
The photos attempt to be very artistic. They are taken from quite unusual angles and some are very fine. On the whole, a little vulgar: too many people kissing, socks hanging in the sunthey confuse the artistic with the uncommon, the unconventional. To be unconventional is very good, but still it could be directed towards the Beautiful rather than Anyway. I was looking at the book, turning the pages, and while looking I thought, Well, really, someone who doesnt know Paris at all would get a queer idea of it! There isnt one single picture that makes you say, Oh, thats beautiful, except a view of the Seine and also a few trees, which could as well be in the countryside. And I kept turning and turning the pages. Suddenly I saw (I had my magnifying glass to see better) a view of the banks of the Seine with the boxes of those what are they called?
The bouquinistes.1
--
That photograph was clearer than the others, less confusedit was clearer. And I looked at all the details, thinking, A pity the boxes werent open, the books could have been seen, it would have looked better. In other words, I looked at the photo attentively and saw all the details, the different intensities of shade and light: it wasnt just a passing glance. Then I went on looking up to the end of the book and gave it to someone to look at. Naturally, the first thing that someone said to me was, You dont quite get an impression of Paris. I said, True, but there was one photo that gave a very good impression of Paris: that of the bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine. He looked surprised; so I said, Of course! I took the book and started turning the pages. I turned all the pagesmy photo wasnt there! So I thought, Ive missed it (I was looking without my magnifying glass), I must have missed it. I took my magnifying glass, turned all the pages starting from the other end, very carefullynothing! No bouquinistes. I turned the pages a third time (Mother laughs), still no bouquinistes! I said to myself, Theres an aberration somewhere something that makes me turn two pages at a time or that veils my sight. So I said, All right, Ill look tomorrow morning, and I put the book aside.
The next morning I was alone, concentrating I concentrated a lot, saying to myself, I do not want to be under an illusion, I do not want to be fooled by something. I had seen the photo as clearly as I saw it, I looked at it for several MINUTES. Which is to say that I am absolutely sure of what I saw.
I looked through the book one, two, three timesnothing. So I thought, Its not possible, a spell has been cast! A. was coming that morning. When A. comes, Ill ask him to look for it. So I told him, Look for it. He did find bouquinistes, but not like in my photograph, and then I had seen it on this side of the book, while his was on the other side; and I knew his photo quite well (I knew my album by heart, you understand!), it wasnt the same at all, there werent any bouquinistes, only closed boxes. So it didnt look like much, and moreover it was on the other side of the book.
And it wasnt an animated view, it wasnt a vision: it was a PHOTO, just like the other photos, the same color as the other photosa photo which I even studied critically as a photo for the way it was taken. It doesnt exist!
--
Maybe they intended to include it in the book but didnt? Maybe the photo is with the books publisher? But the photo exists, I saw it materially with these eyes (Mother touches her eyes) and a magnifying glass. Anyway But it isnt in the book.2
(silence)
Some time ago, I was saying to myself, Some people see physical things at a distance, but I have never seen anything of the sort. I have seen things in the subtle physical (very close to the physical, with a very small difference), but that wasnt a physical vision: it was a vision in the subtle physical. Some time ago I said to myself, Thats odd, physically I have no special capacities, I have never observed interesting phenomena! (Mother laughs) But that was in passing. And now this story! But, mon petit, it took me forty-eight hours to be convinced that it wasnt in the book! I havent yet got over it! Because my eyes have the eyes memory, a very precise memory; they were educated by painting and they see things very exactly as they are (well, as they pretend to be materially). You know, I could have sworn that it was in the book. And clearly it isnt. Four people, apart from me, have seen the book, and its not there!
I found that interesting, its new.
--
And it exists in connection with this book.
I wasnt in a special state when I saw it. But the second time, in the morning, when I looked at it, I was in a very special state: there was a tension in all the physical cells to know the truth, the truth, the truth no illusions, and a call to the Lord, and a will for all this world of illusions to disappear the Truth, we want the Truth. And when I opened the book, there was a great call to the Lord for things to be exactly as they arenot as they are, but as they are according to the Truth. But the photo wasnt there!
It gave me an extraordinary intensity of aspiration in the body. I spent a part of the night in that tension: may all those illusions disappear, may there be only something wholly true, true, true ESSENTIALLY true, not what people are in the habit of calling trueone shouldnt confuse the real with the true (in this regard the body has made great progress!). But the photo isnt there.
--
Ill have to find the way to organize this new type of experience and make use of it but I need to know how it comes about! Because when I was looking at those pictures, I wasnt at all in a special state, I was looking at them somewhat superficially I was finding them hm! I saw their effort to be artistic and I found the perspectives from which the photos were taken interesting, but thats all. The subjects except for the angler (there were more than four anglers in the book, mon petit!) and people sleeping in the street, things of that sort. And then people kissing everywhere: on chairs, on the banks of the Seine, on benches, in swings in amusement parks. And rather vulgar. But the photos, the patches of light and shadewell taken. I didnt want to tire my eyes reading those peoples literature, but it must be very modern probably there were some authors signatures! The signature alone was the portrait of the individual: pretentious, affected.
The atmosphere of Paris is unbreathable. When I returned to France, first I fell sick, and then that atmosphere
--
Secondh and booksellers; on the banks of the Seine in Paris, their stalls consist of big wooden boxes.
See the end of this story in Agenda IX, May 22, 1968.
0 1964-02-15, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Then the question comes up of Mothers photograph with a veil and the date when it was taken. That photograph is to be included in Satprems book on Sri Aurobindo, and Mother had said to date it 1914.)
The photo was taken in 19 (Mother tries to remember).
--
But I hadnt changed: my appearance was exactly the same when I came here. So for your book, well say 1914, according to the appearance; in other words, thats how I looked when I met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914. Voil.
Mother went to Tlemcen twice, in 1906 and 1907.
0 1964-02-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They read with a grammar book at the back of their minds!
Those are the scholars, thats awful, but Ive never tried to convince a scholar!
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I wanted was to set a date, to get the book published I am not particularly keen that people [here at the Ashram] should read it! Because I have a feeling that after some time (now I understand better), when the atmosphere is quite ready, it will do a very useful work over there [in Europe], very useful.
France is a black hole in the atmosphere.
0 1964-04-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How empty the days arethey are full of empty things, of empty people and empty movement. You feel you must constantly pull down the Force in order to fill up this enormous Emptiness, or else you would be utterly crushed. I keep my watch by Indian time, so that I always know where you are, although I never know what time it is in France! I have to make a complicated calculation and subtract four and a half hours: its now 2:30 P.M. in our garden, therefore 10 A.M. here, and I have an appointment. I will probably see Corra1 tomorrow. My friend M. tells me that they definitely agree to publish the book, but they would like to cut certain passages! So I will have to argue to try and keep my book more or less whole! What a world! I will write to Mother tomorrow, once I know what the publishers demands are.
I have to see a doctor day after tomorrow but no doctor can close the hole in my heart.
0 1964-04-19, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
People are miserable in the midst of their wealth, their faces are hard and closed, they are harassed. There are fine beings, but all their energy is devoured by this devouring life I will never come back here, I dont belong here, Ive never belonged here! The best of their ideal is as aggressive as they themselves are I like them, but they are thousands and thousands of miles away from any true truth, it will take them many centuries to broaden a little. At any rate, it is clear that no book, no word will be able to change that, another Power is needed. I will nonetheless write that Sannyasin, but afterwards nothing but tales or poetry.
***
0 1964-04-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know whats going on, but all your letters arrive opencensored in India?? Its the third letter from you that has arrived like that, open, with the envelope half torn. Apart from that, the contract with Corra has been signed and they will publish the book in September, without cuts, 4,000 copies. They wanted to put me on television for an interview about this book, imagine! But I refusedthose advertising organizations are as full of falsehood as all the rest. They also wanted my photo; I told them it would be in bad taste to stick my photo in a book on Sri Aurobindo. Anyway, its done, the book will be published. I am writing to Mother to tell her (its my second letter).
My own little mother looks so much younger and radianttruly a natural, living soul, a living force.
0 1964-04-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is your second letter. I didnt answer the first one because of my eye, which needed complete rest. Now its better. But I immediately asked Sujata to write you that Id rather not have my photo published in the book, and that regarding Sri Aurobindos, the first one seemed to me the best.1 Now, if the contract is signed, there is nothing to add.
Yesterday, the 24th, there was a meditation.2 It was intense and formulated itself thus:
0 1964-06-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have received a letter from Bharatidi,1 who is reading your book with enthusiasm and a fine understanding.
You do not tell me anything about your health. I assume it is good thanks to the air of Brittany and that you will come back with a brand-new system.
0 1964-07-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Id like to talk to you about my brother and sister-in-law. They had an inner opening when they read the book.
I felt that.
--
And this is a photo of my friend the publisher, who helped me for the publication of The Gold-Washer and the book on Sri Aurobindo.
Oh, a familiar face.2
--
So he has felt the book?
He has been (gesture of a wall opening up).
0 1964-08-08, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The best thing is for them to translate for themselves. Thats the best way of reading; when you really want to understand a book, you should translate it.
***
0 1964-09-12, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I didnt read her books, incidentally.
Oh, I tried several times, but its really all stories, it gets on your nerves.
0 1964-09-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw two things, which were, so to speak, concomitant, or superimposed (they occupied the same space). One seemed to me to be what you wanted to write, the other seemed to me to be what you will write. It was the same book, but it was very differentvery, very different. Yet it was the same book. I even saw images, I saw scenes, I saw sentences and I saw almost the entire story (if it can be called a story). It was very interesting, because one was matt and concrete (there was a kind of hardness in it, it was precise), while the other was vibrant and still uncertain, and there were sparks of light in it that were calling down something, that were trying to make something descend. And one was endeavoring to take the place of the other.1
So I followed that very closely, and then, when the work was finished (gesture as of a screen being pulled up), it went away, as always.
--
I have the feeling that you will write the book only when that that old garment has fallen offwhen the other has taken its place.
I dont know, it was a few days ago, not very long ago, maybe a week or two, I dont remember (I never keep track of time), but anyway I had the feeling it was something being prepared in your subtle atmosphere, and that when the time has come, it will simply go like this (gesture of a vertical fall), it will drop down on your head (!), and then you will feel the urge to write.
--
I even saw rather interesting things, because there were events that were like reminiscences of your past lives, and they found a place in your book. Those things are still quite in your subliminal. (They call it subliminal, dont they? Its something thats neither the subconscient nor the clear supraconscient; its a sort of subliminal consciousness.) Theyre there, they have remained as a memory and it is clear. And those reminiscences are like you know, what they put inside a clay statue to hold it up?
An armature.
They are the armature of the book.
But an armature that, probably, will not reveal itself; its only something that will give a cohesion but not a visible one, an unexpressed cohesion.
--
But its interesting, because when I had finished seeing all those things, I said to myself, Well, well, would he be thinking of writing his book, by any chance?
I was thinking about it, but I didnt want it to be an arbitrary decision.
0 1964-10-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres also the story of that poor T. He gathered up from Sri Aurobindos books all the passages in which he says that mind is indispensable to man (Mother laughs), that mind is the means of progress, that without mind life would be incomplete, etc.there are many such passages, of course! And he forgot all the others. So as I am full of mischief, I gathered up (laughing) all the other passages and bombarded him with them!
He took it as a personal offense!
0 1964-10-17, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not old. Obviously, there was no cinema and no newspapers! But newspapers and all paper things cant last very long. In America, they have made underground shelters for booksthey take all the best, then they store it under certain conditions. But what if the earth and the continents move! And anyway, who will be able to read? Even the Assyrian inscriptions, which arent old, are still a riddle. They dont really know: they imagine they know. The names we were taught when we were small and the names todays children are taught are totally different, because they hadnt found the phonetic notation.
Ultimately, if we look at things with the slightest care, even OUTWARDLY, we know nothing.
0 1964-10-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its as if a fantastic amount of things were made known to me: people whom I dont know physically, things that I dont know physically. And with the clear vision of the true Consciousness behind it all: the workings of the Consciousness. Its interesting, but anyway It would be wonderful for a writer, he would have books and books to write! I even hear sentences; when things are written, I see them writtenits even more precise than in a film. And all the answers. And then the two consciousnesses side by side: the superficial consciousness, the way it works in people, and the true Consciousness that moves it all as it would puppets.
Its interesting, obviously.
0 1964-11-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the end of the conversation, Mother consults her appointment book:
Theres a crush of people. I ought to have some peace.
0 1964-11-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He continues to be happy with your book and its effectsbesides, its his book (laughing) as much as yours!
Oh, yes, I have no sensation of being an author!
0 1964-12-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is your book, just arrived from America.
I am sending it to you with all my love so that it may be the sign of the arrival of perfect balance and total health.
0 1965-03-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I learned the exact place, the relationship of those who work. But I cannot reveal it. But what I always told you about your place and your work was perfectly true I saw it at that moment. Perfectly true. Some things were revelations about other peoplenot many people; not many, but those who have a true relationship with me for the work. And very different relationships, in different worlds, on different levels and for different activities. But they arent very numerous, and it was very precise. And then I saw that what I had seen for you was perfectly correct, and that he is HERE, you understand: to do the work, he is with you. When I told you he was in your book, its an absolute fact.
That was one of the things I had decided to tell you one day, because
0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are odd phenomena. You didnt meet this B. when he was here? He introduced me to certain things I was unaware of: it seems there are in various corners of the world people who have received messages, and in particular a being who calls himself Truth and who speaks in my name. He says, The Mother says the Mother says and also, The Mother will make declarations, and you will have to take them very seriously. All sorts of things like that (people whom I dont know). Then there is someone, among those same people who receive messages and revelations, a spirit (I dont know if he is that same Truth or someone else, I dont remember in detail), who said, who announced 1967this is interesting. And I dont know those people at all. And it doesnt seem possible to me that they could have had in their hands books by Sri Aurobindo or me, I dont think. He announced that in 67 (I repeat roughly), we would have reached the point of the push button that triggers the destruction (because in those countries, they boast of being able to trigger a terrible destruction by pushing a button), and just when the catastrophe is about to take place, the supreme Power, as he says in a picturesque way, will push its own button and everything will be transformedjust when people expect complete destruction, the complete transformation will come.
Thats the domain in which their imagination works. They receive messages of that sort. Which means that people seem to be feeling very strongly that just before the change there will be an extremely critical moment. Only, of course, they tell you that in a quiet tone, The transformation will come and everything will be saved thats all very well, but
0 1965-05-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother puts aside the book)
It has been a revolution in the atmosphere, thats why I am telling you about it. Because all the experiences described [in Savitri] are precisely the experiences I have. So then, suddenly, in the body.. I was over there in the music room, and H. was reading to me; then when she had finished reading, all of a sudden the body sat up straight in an aspiration and a prayer of such intensity! It was a dreadful anguish, you know: See, the whole experience is here [in Mother], complete, total, perfect, and because this thing [the body] has lived too long, it no longer has the power of expression. And it said, But why, Lord? Why, why do You take away from me the power of expression because this has lived too long? It was a sort of revolution in the bodys consciousness.
0 1965-06-26, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a long time I have been in touch with C.S. about the German translation of the book [The Adventure of Consciousness]. He has thought about it a lot (so have I), and finally P. has made a suggestion. The word for spirit in German, Geist, is used indifferently, and of course especially to denote the mindas in French esprit is used very vaguely. So P. suggested we keep the word Geist for the mind and qualify it: thinking mind, illuminated mind, etc. But the word spirit would still have to be translated, and there is no word for it in German. There exist a few adjectives that derive from the Latin word spiritus, but nothing for spirit. P. suggested we use der Spirit, derived from Latin. C.S. hesitates. So I wanted to ask you if you had some impression or other. Can we introduce der Spirit in German? Thats the sort of thing that brings all the German translators into conflict.
But theres no guarantee of their accepting a suggestion.
If the word goes into the translation of this book as a first step and the book is read widely enough, it will provide a basis for them to accept it. I dont know.
Whats the Sanskrit for spirit?
0 1965-07-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
People make too many personal stories out of what I say; you know, the anecdote about the guru, as you read them in books.
Theyre silly!
0 1965-07-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A practical problem, not a yogic one! Its about Italy, N. and the publication of the book on Sri Aurobindo [The Adventure of Consciousness]. N. translated it and gave it to his friend S. to look after the publication in Italy. S. saw a publisher, who asked to read the book in French and found it interesting. And then, I dont know whether on the publishers suggestion or S.s, they are asking if it wouldnt be better to publish first a book by Sri Aurobindo like, for instance, The Guide to Yoga.
That doesnt exist!
--
That little book is all the way down (gesture at ground level).
Its difficult to make a book that gives an idea of Sri Aurobindo.
Because its always one minor aspect that will be chosen.
--
For Italy, its a sort of tactical question. As nothing by Sri Aurobindo has been published yet, is it better from a tactical standpoint to start by publishing a work by Sri Aurobindo, some small work, and then this book?
But thats not a work! This Guide to Yoga is not a work! Sri Aurobindo never says things like that. Thats exactly why doing so distorts him immediately.
One good thing would be to have a book by him ready, because people will ask to read Sri Aurobindo after they read your book that, yes, I agree, we should have something ready, but this Guide
But their idea is to publish something before the publication of my book.
No, its the other way around! Its the other way around! I dont know, but thats putting the cart before the horse. Unless the Italians walk on their hands! Thats possible.
No, if we wanted to show something to the public before the publication of your book, it would have to be a sort of biographical and bibliographical note: Sri Aurobindo was born at such and such a place, and so forth, and the list of his works, the totality of the written volumes. That, yes, it would be a good introduction. A bibliographical notenot a small book that distorts everything. A rather complete bibliographical note, something massive! (Mother laughs)
So you can tell N. on my behalf that this is how I see the thing: a quite complete biographical and bibliographical note should be prepared to tell them, Here is the gentleman Satprem is writing about. It could be published along with the book, or published in newspapers to announce the book (thats a practical question, it depends on what suits their taste better). It can be published in some newspapers or reviews or magazines before the release of the book, to announce it.
Of the book which book?
Your book, as an introduction to your book. And afterwardsafter they have read the bookif people ask, Ah, we would very much like to read what Sri Aurobindo wrote, then well have to start translating.
But I think N. is translating The Synthesis?
--
Announcing my book.
Announcing your book. Yes, as an introduction to the book.
And afterwards, translations.
--
Yes, not the small distorting books.
Oh, no! Quotations distort.
When we wanted a small book, we used to translated The Mother, but that touches mostly India, because they worship the Mother; but elsewhere, it doesnt have the same importance. Although a man like T., it was The Mother that touched him the mostan American, fully American. He said the book gave him the revelation, that there were all kinds of things he didnt understand and that with the book, he understood.
Now, the Italians worship the Virgin a lot, its a lot in their makeup, and through that they would understand (those who are intelligent and see the symbol behind the story). There was a Pope (not the present one or the previous one, but the one before1) who did remarkable things because he was in touch with the Virgin; he was a worshipper of the Virgin and that really put him on the right path. So I think that if they want a small book (it is a small book, you can even put it in your pocketpeople are afraid of big books, they dont have time), there are lots of things in that small book, The Mother, lots of things. But the part on the four aspects of the Mother can really be felt only by Indians; those who have a Christian education (laughing) must find it very frightening (!) But we could omit that chapter. You see, the book was made from letters, so each piece is a whole; it wasnt at all composed as one piece: we arranged it as it is following the instructions Sri Aurobindo gave. But that last chapter (the biggest, besides) is mostly for India. It can be omitted.
So you can say this to N.: a biographical note in dictionary style to announce the publication of your book.
Pius XII.
0 1965-09-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How many times, how many times have I seen that he had written down my experiences. Because for years and years I didnt read Sri Aurobindos books; it was only before coming here that I had read The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, and another one, too. For instance, Essays on the Gita I had never read, Savitri I had never read, I read it very recently (that is to say, some ten years ago, in 1954 or 55). The book Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother I had never read, and when I read it, I realized what he wrote to people about me I had no idea, he had never told me anything about it! You see, there are lots of things that I had said while speaking to people that I had said just like that, because they came (gesture from above) and I would say them and I realized he had written them. So, naturally, I appeared to be simply repeating what he had written but I had never read it! And now, its the same thing: I had read this passage from Savitri, but hadnt noticed itbecause I hadnt had the experience. But now that I have had the experience, I see that he tells it.
Its quite interesting.
0 1965-10-16, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If he was brought up in a Christian way, its the photo where he is young which is good, they instantly see in it the face of Christ I All of them. The day before yesterday again, an American painter, who is here and has read Sri Aurobindos books, wanted to do a portrait of Sri Aurobindo (he never saw him) from photosits just as it was with the bust in Sri Aurobindos room!1 They all make a mystic Sri Aurobindo with narrow temples, like that (gesture tapering upward), a long mystic face, because they cant get out of their Christianity! For them, of course, the Power, anything that expresses the Power, oh! (gesture of repulsion)
I wanted to say that to this American. For them, spiritual life is sacrifice, its the God who sacrifices himself: he renounces the joys of the earth and sacrifices his existence to save mankind. And they cant get out of it!
0 1965-11-27, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Take for instance a book like yours2 (but Ive known this from the beginning), a book of that sort will have fulfilled its full purpose if it touches just a dozen people. It doesnt need to sell by the thousands. If it touches a dozen people, it will have fulfilled its purpose to the full. Thats how it is.
I saw that, I have seen that so concretely.3 Besides those who are capable of preparing for the supramental transformation and the realization, whose number is necessarily very limited, there should be increasingly developed, in the midst of the ordinary human mass, a higher humanity that had towards the future or promised supramental being the same attitude as animality, for instance, has towards man. What is needed, besides those who work for the transformation and are ready for it, is a higher or intermediate humanity that would have found in itself or in life this harmony with lifethis HUMAN harmony and that would have the same sense of worship, of devotion, of faithful dedication to something that seems to it so superior that it doesnt even attempt to realize it, but which it worships and whose influence and protection it feels the need ofand the need to live in that influence and to have the joy of being under that protection. It was so clear. But not that anguish and agony of wanting something that eludes you becausebecause it isnt yet your destiny to have it, and because the amount of necessary transformation is premature for your existence, and so it creates a disorder and a suffering.
0 1966-01-31, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem's letters to Mother having disappeared, he does not remember what caused the "sadness" Mother refers to here, probably certain ways of being in life that he found hard to accept, or perhaps his own incapacity to tolerate life in the world as is it and his tendency to dart off to the heightsunless it was the abyss. Satprem then asked Mother if he should not start writing a new book, "The Sannyasin," in which he would attempt to exorcize a certain refusal of life as it is.)
Tell me, why do you feel sad?
--
I took a good look, and it is indeed possible that by writing this book you will get rid of something thats lingering onits possible. My hope was that it could go away simply through the inner movement; but when I received your note yesterday, I took a good look and thought, Yes, its probably necessary.
It has a drawback, but it will have that advantage. I am not referring to external drawbacks, that cant be helped, well have to manage.1 I mean for yourself: it concentrates you in an almost hypnotic way on that part of your being which is almost imprisoned in the form, in the form of expression, that is to say, the author, the writer. Yet I know, and its very clear, that your external being was formed in large part for that, but from a higher standpoint: more as a means than as an end.
You see, your book on Sri Aurobindo is exceptional in all respects and it was a sort of summit in expression. There was also the fact that Sri Aurobindo was always there while you were writing it. When it came, I had the sense of a summit that cannot be exceeded. Thats why I no longer thought about other books: my consciousness used this book on Sri Aurobindo as a starting point towards something else, something more complete. But when I read your letter yesterday, I thought, Maybe, after all, there is indeed something that has to be expressed; maybe it will be the right way to get rid of a past thats lingering on.
Thats what I wanted to tell you.
--
Cant it be also a means to make a truth descend, a truth-force, as the book on Sri Aurobindo was, but in another way?
Thats possible. Its possible, but (laughing) Ill tell you afterwards!
Just two days ago, I wrote to someone (someone who is a bit under the influence of ascetic ideas), and I told that person, Those thoughtsthose thoughts and that type of actionbelong, from the spiritual standpoint, to the ascetic belief, but it-is-no-longer-true. And I said it with terrible force: IT-IS-NO-LONGER-TRUE. And I saw that at one point in the history of the earth it was necessary to obtain a certain result, but now ITS NO LONGER TRUE. Voil. It has given way to a higher and more complete truth. From that point of view, your book can obviously be the expression of this new force.
Its possible, its by no means impossible.
--
I also felt that something else had to be written, going over your whole Agenda as I did for Sri Aurobindo (that has come to me several times very clearly), going over your whole Agenda from the beginning, and then You know that before I wrote the book on Sri Aurobindo, I took all his works to read them again, and while I read them I seemed to be told, This passage that passage this passage noted down all kinds of passages. And when afterwards I wrote the book, all those selected passages automatically came to mingle with what was coming to me. And Ive had the same impression with all these Agenda conversations: one day I should read them all again in that same consciousness and pick out a number of passages, which, afterwards, would crystallize into a book.
Yes, but not yetnot yet.2
--
No, to me, if you write this book, well see, because it depends if If that Truth descends, well, it will descend and then you will automatically express it. Of course, we can aspire for it to be that way. But we cant tell before it is so.
At any rate, whats quite certain is that this book can serve you as a rung to rise above the past and overcome certain difficulties in your nature. And then of course, from that point of view I immediately approve.
So theres no problem left at all, it only has to get done.
--
The thing is there in its old form.3 That you have things to say is beyond doubt, and that you will say them is beyond doubt; but it has remained in that form because of precisely because of a certain difficulty you complained about in your letter, and which persists. So its to get rid at the same time of a certain state of consciousness and, yes, of a certain difficulty. Your true consciousness, you know, the consciousness of your true being, is in a very rapid ascent; something in you isnt aware of that and lags behind, and thats what causes an unease in you. So its clear that writing is a good means (probably the best means) of getting rid of it: you throw it outside yourself by expressing it, and then its finished, youve got rid of it. Its the FORM, you understand, only the form; its always the same thing: the essence and spirit, and on the other hand the form. You are rising like an arrow, and you dont know it because something remains like that, hard, tight, and its only a form. Well, its better to get rid of it; its the most natural way for you to exteriorize the form, the state of consciousness and the difficulty, all of it together, at the same time as you write the book.
I am sure of it because I spent a large part of the night looking at it.
Yes, its fine, do it. It will certainly be a very interesting and excellent book, which will be helpful to many people, but anyway its not From our point of view, its secondary.
And now, of course, you are labeled, at least in France, in Germany, in the U.S.A. and here, as the author of the book on Sri Aurobindo: it will be a new book by the author of the book on Sri Aurobindo. So you will have a readership. All those things are secondary to me, but they are nonetheless true.
But what I am interested in The only thing I have to say in defense of the writers job is that, to me, writing is like a mantra: its embodying a vibration of truth.
--
Mother means the time that will have to be taken to write the book.
That will be eight years later, when Satprem will write his "trilogy" on Mother.
0 1966-03-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning, there was a very amusing story. I was rinsing my eyes and mouth; I do it before daybreak, that is, with electric light. And in my bathroom there is an emergency light. Its one of the latest inventions: its connected to the power and as long as there is power, the light remains off and a battery inside gets charged; as soon as the power fails, the light turns on and the battery is discharged to keep the light on. Its very well made, they invented it for hospitals and other places where any power failure must be avoided: as soon as the power goes, the light turns on instantaneously, and when the power returns, it goes off and gets recharged for the next time. They installed it for me in the bathroom. And this morning while I was washing my teeth, poff! the light went off. I continued, naturally, since I had that emergency light. But then, I did a study. The lights in C.s room (and everywhere) were on, it was only here, in this group of rooms. That was an odd phenomenon to begin with. Then I looked, and while I looked I noticed something I hadnt taken note of all these last few days: a will to disorganize all my personal life. And causing power failures is one of the known occult methods (I dont know how its done, in fact, but that man who wrote books and came here a very long time ago, Brunton, said it was one of the tricks known to those who practice occultism: a sudden failure of the lights). There are lots of other such tricks designed to disorganize peoples lives with the idea of frightening them or announcing catastrophes to them (I have always found this very childish). But then, I saw that there was (I think I know where, here, it comes from) a will for disorganization, and I saw the path it followed (winding gesture as if Mother were going back to the source). It had begun last night, in the middle of the night: when I got up around midnight, I saw a will wanting to preoccupy me with thoughts of money! And it was insisting: the thought that everything was going wrong, and so on. I saw that in the middle of the night. I was busy with other things, but I saw that will: formations; and naturally I dealt with them as they deserved. But I saw that it went on, trying to disturb people, to make them uncomprehending, and then to turn the power off, all sorts of silly things. Its not the first time it has happenedits not always the same people because generally, when they have tried and got a good knock in return, they dont try a second time, theyve had enough! But there are others who think they are very clever and want to prove to me (laughing) that they are right and I am wrongbecause ultimately it always comes to that! So I spent half an hour this morning, before they restored the power and I resumed my usual activities, half an hour having huge fun following the thread (same winding gesture going back to the source) wherever there was mischief, and then I very kindly answered.
In reality, people who live in the ordinary consciousness know very, very little of what goes on physicallyvery little. They think they know, but all they know is a very superficial appearance, just like like a sheet of paper wrapping a package; there is the whole package underneath with all that it contains, but all they see is an appearance (gesture of something as thin as cigarette paper). And they are so used to it that they always give an explanation. I asked, How is it that just this power connection here gave way? (Lights were on everywhere, only the connection here, which supplies my room, was off.) I asked to see. They told me, Oh, we dont know, maybe the wire was old and it broke! (Mother laughs) I said, Very well.
0 1966-04-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(About the book Satprem is writing, "The Sannyasin")
I still see that vision I had.1 Strangely, it was one of the most unexpected visions, in the sense that I had no mental preparation: all of a sudden I saw that Sannyasin, with his back to a wall and a sort of hurricane approaching. It was a hurricane of noise, of clamor. Nothing could be seen; nothing could be seen but the force of the vibrations coming up like a storm: he had his back to the wall, there was a sort of gale, and a chasm in front.
--
This vision is still living and clear, clear. I could almost make an illustration for the cover of your book!
Its quite symbolic, besides: the storm of revolt, of course, the revolt OF THE EARTH against the principle of the Sannyasin. Quite symbolic. And its a magnificent image in the sense that there is great majesty in the appearance.
0 1966-04-13, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(About Satprem's new book, "The Sannyasin.")
This morning again I got up more than half an hour late because of you!
--
I am constantly doing and undoing, because I realize its the old form of the book, what I had seen formerly.1
And also the old way of working, thats the difficulty.
--
But for this book, we meet in quite a new place, mon petit, quite new, and then so wonderful! Its a wonderful place that has nothing of the necessities and compulsions of this earth here. It is so luminous, so new, and so precise at the same time, so exact. Last night, it was in shades from a certain silver blue to pearl gray, and it had such precise forms, but at the same time with nothing of the hardness and commonplace quality of earthly things. And we were working so simply, effortlessly. I get up every day at the same time, half past four; well, for the second time (I told you the other day), instead of half past four it was ten to five. And I came from exactly the same place. And since that is the time when you are sleeping, it seems to me it must necessarily be getting in, no? When one is awake, it may not touch, but here And then, there is a thoroughly conscious part of you there. So what prevents you from being influenced by that must be a whole layer of old things.
Yes, the whole old form of the book is there.
Thats it.
--
This book should normally have been written four or five years earlier, and at the time Satprem saw it in the form of a Greek tragedy.
Petrea volubilis, crimson morning glory.
0 1966-04-16, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You read here [in the physical book], then you keep still, open a door, and it comes.
Its amusing, Ive just done that as if I had been made to do it. Usually its always blank and still here (gesture to the forehead), and thats what it gets inscribed on; but just now it wasnt like that: I read, it came here, then I made a movement backwards: a door opened, and then it was clearly written!
0 1966-04-27, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Apart from that, I understand: in order to write a book, one generally cannot describe more than one cycle, because theres a beginning, a development, and a culmination, a realization. Then another book, which starts from that realization and has the full experience of its futility. And then, the crowning realization: the return to life, free.
One may have the three together, but it makes a very compact book.
No, it has to be put together. But I dont know where to start. I started in one way and I realize thats not it.
--
And is that the story you tell in the book?
Thats what I started telling.
--
But if you take that attitude, you cant write a book!
Once again, these past few days, the memory of things I had written came back to mewhat I had imagined at some time and written at the beginning of the century (before you were born!), in Paris. I wondered, Strange, why am I thinking of this? And there was, in that thing I wrote, this: The love of beauty had saved her. It was the story of a woman who had had a heartbreak of so-called love, as human beings conceive it, but who had felt a need to manifest love, a marvelously beautiful love; and with that force and that ideal she had overcome her personal sorrow. I wrote a little book like that I dont know where it is, by the way, but that doesnt matter. But the memory of it suddenly came back and I wondered, Strange, why am I remembering this? And then I remembered the whole curve of the consciousness. At that time, I clearly understood that personal things had to be overcome by the will to realize something more essential and universal. And I followed the curve of my own consciousness, how it began like that, and how from there I went on to other things. I was eighteen. That was my first attempt to emerge from the exclusively personal viewpoint and pass on to a broader viewpoint, and to show that the broader, more universal viewpoint makes you overcome the personal things. But I wondered, Why am I remembering this? Now I understand! Its there in what you have written, its the same thing. Well, of course, now I wouldnt be able to write what I wrote, it would make me laugh!
I can write, I can always
--
You could begin your book with the end, and then you will see if a beginning is needed (!) or if, instead of a beginning, there is a sequel. That would be interesting!
Start with a bang: brrm! What you feel and see now. Situate it according to your broad outline, begin with that. Then, when its written, you will see if it needs the support of what precedes it or if you can move on to what follows.
0 1966-05-18, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ninety percent subjective. Regularly, for more than a year, every night at the same time and in the same way, I entered the vital to do a special work there. It wasnt the result of my own will: I was destined to do it. It was something I had to do. So then, the entry into the vital, for instance, is often described: there are passages where beings are stationed to stop you from entering (all those things are much talked about in all books of occultism). Well, I know from experience (not a passing one: an experience I learned repeatedly) that that opposition or ill will is ninety percent psychological, in the sense that if you dont anticipate it or dont fear it, or if there is nothing in you thats afraid of the unknown and none of those movements of apprehension and so on, its like a shadow in a picture, or a projected image: it has no concrete reality.
I did have one or two real battles in the vital, yes, while going to rescue someone who had gone astray. And both times I got blows, and in the morning when I woke up, there was a mark (Mother points to her right eye). Well, I know that in both cases, there was in me, not a fear (I never had any fear there), but it was because I expected it. The idea that it may well happen and my expecting it caused the blow to come. I knew that in a definite way. And if I had been in what I might call my normal state of inner certitude, it couldnt have touched me, it couldnt. And I had that apprehension because Madame Thon had lost an eye in a battle in the vital and had told me so; so (laughing) it gave me the idea that it was possible, since it had happened to her! But when I am in my state (I cant even say that, its not personal: its a way of being), when you have the true way of being, when you are a little conscious and have the true way of being, it CANNOT touch you.
--
So do I have to wait till the book is finished before I can hear it?
(Satprem makes a face)
0 1966-05-22, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Laughing) They are everywhere! Here, there, everywhere. Once, Sri Aurobindo (I think it was in 1920) said to me one day, Oh, they have put my room in order, I cant find anything anymore! For their part, they said he had his papers everywhere: on his bed, on the chairs, on the table, in the drawers, on the shelves; there were papers everywhere, notes and so on. But he knew exactly where everything was. Then they put things in order, they tidied upand he couldnt find anything anymore! It was very funny. I asked him, Would you like me to do your room and clean it? I wont touch anything.Ah, if you dont touch anything (Mother laughs) So I left the papers on the bed, on the chair, on the table, on the shelves! I cleaned a shelf, then in a book I found some money. I told him (thinking it had been forgotten), I told him, I found a hundred, two hundred rupees (I dont remember now) in a book. (One banknote was in one place, another note was in another place.) He replied, Yes, I am forced to hide it, otherwise they take it from me! (Mother laughs)
But I am no good at hiding places!
You see, I instinctively go and take the book, I open it and find the money. So I asked him, Would you like to entrust your money to me? I will keep it for you. He replied, That would make things simpler. But after a year, I had three thousand rupees of his money, coming from books, from here and there! I told him (laughing), See, it has borne fruit!
***
0 1966-06-02, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What about your book? How is it going?
Last night againvery often, almost every night, I spend a while in the night in the state of consciousness of your book: the manner of seeing, feeling and saying (Mother draws a strip in midair representing the books region), like that. So now and then, I make a suggestion, but not with words: I seem to introduce into it another way of seeing and feeling: Why not this way? It has happened several times. But when I wake up I dont remember the details because there are too many things. But its a place where the book is taking shape, so I enter that place and seem to bring currents of air into it! (Mother laughs) I make proposals. It happens very often. I think it regularly happens every night, but I remember only when I think it necessary.
***
0 1966-06-04, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I keep on writing endless pages! Yes, of your book. Its quite new. (Besides, once I am awake I no longer concern myself with it at all.) I spend part of my night like that, not writing with my own hand but dictating. While I do it I find it enjoyable, but not enjoyable enough for me to remember what I wrote. Stories! I appear to have much imagination. But when I read it, it gives me the impression of something I saw or lived.
***
0 1966-06-11, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The conversation begins with the book Satprem is writing, which Mother "dictates" at night, but which Satprem has difficulty receiving.)
Mon petit, I keep on writing! Its incredible! It has never happened to me.
0 1966-07-23, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Were still receiving a number of letters because of the article in Plante, or from people who have read your book. And there are lots of them who want to come here! Thats more serious! But anyway, we send them literature. We tell most of them that they have to prepare themselves. And I direct a large number towards Auroville; maybe thats the essential raison dtre of Auroville.
***
0 1966-08-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How is the book coming along?2
For my part, I go on dictating or hearing passages! Its very interesting. But theres no continuity: one sentence, one scene, two or three words. Strange. Its as if on a screen. And when you read last time, I recognized (how can I put it?) impressionsimpressions of images and wordsin what you read. But for me, it has no continuity; its something passing by, as if behind a screen, and at some point, toc! contact is made: I hear or say words, I see an image. And I can see that it goes on behind the screen; then another word, another image comes through the screen. And its always in that sort of immense, immense place, endless, very quiet, very luminous. Its a very pure, very quiet, very peaceful atmosphere. And something seems to fall from there as if in drops.
0 1966-08-24, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The beginning and end of the following conversation could not be tape-recorded because of mechanical trouble, and only the middle remains. The conversation was about an experience of Mothers; she described the place in which Satprem usually rests at night and from which he draws the atmosphere of his present book: a place very harmonious in color and substance. Then Sujata tells Mother a dream she had a few days ago.)
When you went to this place of harmony, did you play music? Because I saw you play music for him.
Thats something else. Possibly, I cant say. But last night or the night before, I suddenly felt as if someone were telling me, The best way to help him isnt meditation but music. And then I seemed to create harmonies and send them to you for your book.
(To Sujata:) When was your dream?
0 1966-08-27, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, yes, theyre all hooked on that. Its a book in which you find an answer to any question. But naturally, you bend all the words you read to your thought.
But can you see that! I have a stack of letters like this one, there isnt even one or two truly asking something that I alone can answer. In fact, thats the point, they should only ask me things I alone can answer. Otherwise, whats the use? And what they want is this: they want to hide behind my answer and be able to say, Ah, but you told me that Should I go and see the doctor? Should I have an operation? Should I accept this job I am offered? Should I start a new business? Should I marry this person? And behind it all, if anything goes wrong, there is, But you told me that
0 1966-09-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How is your book coming along?
Do you find its going too slow? Would you like it to go faster?
--
There is a new activity. At times I find myself (I catch myself doing something, to be precise) talking with people whom most of the time I dont know, then describing a scene: they can get such and such a thing done, they can be advised to do this or that thing, and it will end with such and such a thing. They are kinds of scenes from a book or scenes from a movie. Then, the same day or the next, someone suddenly tells me, I received a message from you and you told me to write to so-and-so and tell him such and such a thing! And I am not doing it mentally, its not that I think, A letter must be sent to so-and-so and such and such a thing must be done, not at all: I live I live a scene or narrate a scene, and its received by someone else (and I am not at all thinking of that someone else), its received by someone, this or that or this person, as a message in which I tell him to do this or that thing. And its happening here, in France, in America, everywhere. Its becoming amusing!
Someone writes to me, You told me this, and its one of my scenes! One of the scenes I livednot lived, lived and created at the same time! I dont know how to explain it. Its like a work of (Mother seems to feet an invisible substance between her fingers, as if fashioning it).
0 1966-09-21, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now I know, I remember, this whole experience came after I saw a book that was published quite recently in India, in English, which they entitled The Roll of Honour, and in which there is a photo and a short biography of all those who died in the fight against the British, for Indias freedom. There were photos everywhere, lots of them (some were only photos the police took after they had just been killed and were lying on the ground). And it all brought a certain atmosphere: the atmosphere of those disinterested goodwilled people who meet with a tragic fate. It had the same impression on me as the horrors of the Germans during the war over there. These things are obviously under the direct influence of certain adverse forces, but we know that the adverse forces are, so to say, permitted to workthrough the sense of horror, in factin order to hasten the awakening of consciousness. So then, that experience, which was very strong and was very like the one I had when I saw the photographs of German atrocities in France, put me in contact with the vision of the human, terrestrial, modern error (its modern: it began these last one thousand years and has become more and more acute in the last hundred years), with the aspiration to counterbalance that: How to do it? What is to be done? And the answer: Thats why you have created Auroville.
There is a perception of forces the forces that act directly in events, material events, which are illusory and deceptive. For instance, the man who fought for his countrys freedom, who has just been assassinated because he is a rebel, and who looks defeated, lying there on the edge of the roadhe is the real victor. Thats how it is, it clearly shows the kind of relationship between the truth and the expression. Then, if you enter the consciousness in which you perceive the play of forces and see the world in that light, its very interesting. And thats how, when I was in that state, I was told, clearly shown (its inexpressible because it isnt with words, but these are facts): Thats why you have created Auroville. Its the same thing as with that photo.3
0 1966-10-08, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It must be like that, because for you, the stocktaking began at the beginning of this month. And then it results in those birthday cards and in what I am going to tell you on your birthday. (None of this is thought out: it comes just like that, its very amusing, I witness a continuous spectacle.) And I saw something very interesting, maybe thats what I wanted to tell you for your book.1
Its like the meeting of two curves: one curve coming from the past and another curve going towards the future, and that day is the meeting point of these two curves. So then, I saw your book as a sort of culmination of the curve coming from the past. And there is a point that isnt yet clear in your thought or your conception there (gesture above the head): its something that belongs to the ascending curve of the future. That point is where the difficulty is: the movement that belongs to the curve of the past has difficulty connecting with the movement of the future. I see it as a graph. Its not a thought: its a graph. There is a point where the two curves havent connected.
I chose two cards. They are here. I am not showing them to you: you will have them on the 29th. I dont yet know what I will write or whether I will write anything.
--
By the Body of the Earth or the Sannyasin. Satprem complained of difficulty in writing the end of his book.
***
0 1966-11-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, in my first idea of the book, it was this child who was to die, and thats precisely what caused the people to riot and pursue this Sannyasin. Then I tried to present things without her dying.
Yes, thats better. Its better without the mobs pursuit, otherwise it may suggest that fear is what drives him to the wall, and then it doesnt have the same force anymore.
The vision was a memory, that is, something which exists in the earth memory. But thats no reason to make a story out of it. Its better for your book to have a deeper basis.
So then, is that when he has the reaction against asceticism?
--
I dont know, I havent read Pavitras book On Love. Have you? Is the point clear in his book?
(Satprem makes a face)
--
I find theres something false in his book something false or falsely expressed.
False?
--
As a matter of fact, in the book I am writing I show that when one has touched that Light, its the turning point before coming back down; that the truth isnt the end up aboveup above, its one half.
Yes, (laughing) its the beginning of the end!
My whole book is based on that.
Thats very important. Because all those who begin by being disgusted with life, their first movement is to get awayall of them. I receive truckloads of letters: as soon as they are disgusted with life, as soon as it stops being something marvelous, Oh, enough! I want to get away, I want to get away. Thats indeed the first movement: you climb up above, but it will be to come back down and change things here its not to abolish them, but to change them.
--
Yes, thats what I am saying. His entire book is like that: the outward path leads away from the Lord, and on the return path, you climb back to the Lord. [Turning to Sujata:] Its put like that in his book, isnt it?
(Sujata:) That book I dont know, I found it a little odd.
Going back to the Divine, yes, thats Nirvana.
0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Have you finished your book?
(Satprem, in a glum tone:) Yes.
--
When the words come quite spontaneously, its good, but Its an odd phenomenon: sometimes the pure experience alone is therewhat is it? You cant formulate it; in order to formulate it, you are immediately forced to use words, and words diminish. But I remember, at the time of the experience, I spoke, hardly hearing what I said, but I had the experience. (The experience was wonderfully clear, powerful, immenseuniversal, you know.) Then I listened to myself speaking, and I saw that first shrinkage. Then I began sensing the other mind making a tremendous effort to try and understand (!), and so I let the expression shrink a little more: I was obliged to let it shrink so as to make myself understood. And I followed all those phases of successive shrinkages. But at the time, the speech was very powerful: it was exactly Sri Aurobindos style and way of speaking, and very powerful. Now its only a vague impression, like a memory. But one always hasalways, in every case, even in the best conditions, even in a case like this one in which the formulation is given by Sri Aurobindo the sense of a shrinkage. A shrinkage in the sense that much escapes; its slightly hardened, weakened, diminished, and there are also certain subtleties that escape they escape, they evaporate, they are too subtle to be concretized in words. And if one had a will for a perfect expression, it would certainly be very disappointing. I quite understand; if you want your book to reach the peak of its perfection, its impossible. Its impossible to be realized, one feels the difference with whats up above and thats very disappointing.
I am constantly disappointed.
--
But in what Ive read of yours (I set apart the book on Sri Aurobindo because that was a very special case: all sensitive people have instantly been brought into contact with Sri Aurobindo; that was a very special case), but in your first book [The Goldwasher] which I read, I felt it came from above. I feel that. Only, of course, it would be unreadable: it has to be concretized, materialized. But if one has oneself a relationship with this plane above, one must feel it in what is written: many people feel a something that suffuses the whole thing. Thats why I want you to read me your new book, its to see if that is there. You know, I am like this (gesture to the forehead showing a vast stillness), it has become a constant state: a screen. A screen for absolutely everything. And really nothing comes from within: its either this way (horizontal gesture around Mother) or this way (gesture from above); horizontally from outside, or the response from above. Here (gesture to the level of the emotive heart), its something so neutral as to be nonexistent; and here (gesture to the forehead), its vast, even, still. So if I stop (gesture turned upward), right away, instantly, it comes in waves: a continuous light which comes down and through, comes down and through, comes down (gesture of a circulation through Mother as through a transmitter-receiver device). When something is read out to me or people ask me questions or they tell me about some matter or other, its always like that (a screen). And whats very interesting is that when its a question that deserves no answer or a matter that doesnt require my intervention, or anyway anything that can be expressed by Its no concern of mine, its none of my business, then theres an absolute blank: absolutely empty, neutral, without answer. I am obliged to say that there is no answer (if I were to tell the truth I should say, I cant hear anything, I dont understand). So its absolutely still and neutral, and if it remains like that, it means theres nothing, I have nothing to do with it. Otherwise, when there is an answer no time even elapses, theres hardly any lapse of time: the answer seems to come even as I am spoken to. Then I take the paper or letter right away and answer. Its automatic. The whole work is done like that. Theres nothing here (gesture to the forehead).
Obviously we have to reconcile ourselves to it. The world is in a state of considerable imperfection, so everything that manifests in the world partakes of that imperfectionwhat can we do about it? The only thing we can do is to slowly try and transform but thats slow, so slow, unceasingtransform this body.
--
Yogic Sadhana, a book written in automatic writing by Sri Aurobindo.
***
0 1966-12-20, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am writing to ask you for a grace. You know, you see. I would like you to tell me the truth about this book: is it part of the things that must be? Or is it the effort of the writers little persona? I read the long first chapter again this morning, and its unreadableit would need to be completely redone. I am wondering if its not the same thing with the other chapters? Would you out of grace tell me precisely what must be, whether I must strive on, do my best and rewrite what has to be rewritten, or give up everything.
I am a little sad, naturally, because I tried to write with the best of my soul, but I am not attached and am ready to make the offering of this failure at your feet, with the certainty that all is well, even if I do not yet see the Lords design. I would only like you to tell me the deeper truth about the bookif it must be, I am ready to make an effort and patiently correct or redo what has to be redone. But must it be?
Mother, That alone exists. That consoles me for everything.
--
I am sure the book MUST be written.
But to be perfectly frank, from the beginning and even after, I have felt that writing it was for you a sort of sadhana to get rid definitively of a whole way of being, thinking and writing that belongs to the past and no longer fits with your present state of consciousness.
--
Correcting the book will still be the continuation of this sadhana, but seen from that angle the labor will be less painful and much more interesting.
I thought I would answer you tomorrow morning, but I am sending you this right away so that you may look at the problem and ask me other questions tomorrow morning if you still have any.
0 1966-12-21, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I understand quite well, your letter was a grace for me in the sense that I saw clearly. The only thing is, its the whole book that I find inadequate.
Yes, I think the whole book is like that. I dont know, you havent read everything to me, but in what you read, in that dream notation, for instance, even there, now and then I felt the intrusion of the old habit.
But then, is it worth salvaging all that? I would have to re-create the book.
You mean it would be better to write another book?
Yes.
I told you: The book MUST be written, but its not necessarily the one that has been written: its the one that must be written! (Mother laughs). To me, you understand, there is a difference. Somewhere there is something that MUST be said, and that something is very useful: I see that the people, for example, who have come to place trust in you because of the book on Sri Aurobindo, will read you with an opening of mind, and if at that time you give them a sort of sensation of the experience, it will help them a lot. Its in that sense I say this book is useful. But for you personally, if youd rather rewrite it completely than correct it, it doesnt matter. Only, for you to be capable of rewriting it without falling back into the old state, you must have a decisive awareness of the difference in condition. Suppose you said, Ill rewrite the book, and once you started writing the same conflict recurred, that would be useless. Something must take place there, in the mind, thats where you must become totally conscious of the vibrations.
I see fairly clearly all that must be cut out. But theres a lot to cut out!
0 1967-02-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All these lessons I am given1 are like a boost to tell me, There, you must be ready for any eventuality. All right.
Its not in vain.
0 1967-04-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The conclusion is that the teachers themselves should have at least a sincere beginning of discipline and experience: it is not a question of piling up books and of repeating them like that. Thats not the way to be a teacher the whole earth is like that, let it be like that outside if it makes them happy! As for us, we arent propagandists, we simply want to show what can be done and try to prove that it MUST be done.
When you begin with very small children, its wonderful! With them, theres so little you have to do: it suffices TO BE.
0 1967-04-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To do things properly, we would need a small educational booklet for the children of the future. A preconceptional booklet to prepare the father and mother (especially the mother, thats the most important). Then a booklet for the first three years of life: the qualities required, the attitude to be taken. At any rate, the father and mother should first know the possibility (at least the possibility) of a child being more than a mere animal man.
Then, conception should take place entirely outside of desire. Thats another very difficult condition to be fulfilled.
0 1967-05-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother gives Satprem a new booklet, brown-coloured with the title in gold lettering: "God.")
I have a very nice little story The day before yesterday some people came (yesterday morning, I saw fifty-five people in the room over there fifty-five! The day before there were less, maybe forty-five), and there was a little child, less than a year old, carried by his father. He was sleepy, leaning on his fathers shoulder, like that. The father came in; when he came near me, the child saw mehe opened his eyes, a mans eyes! It wasnt a child anymore, you understand. Then he looked at me. He had a blissful smile and held his hand out to me! He caught hold of my hand, I gave him my handhow happy he was! But the father wanted to do pranam [prostration], so he put him down. There was a large tray beside me with about fifty of these small books (which contain all the quotations of the passages in which Sri Aurobindo spoke of God). The child looked; he took a book, looked at it, fingered it, tried to open itwithout a word, nothing. Naturally, the parents, who think they are very wise, the father who thinks he is a wise man, said, We cant leave this book in the childs hands, and he took it to put it back in its place the child howled! Then C. took the book and gave it to the little one, and while the others did pranam (there were a dozen people), all the while he kept looking at the golden letters, feeling them.
He is certainly one of the most remarkable, but not the only one. All the children less than a year old who are brought to me are like that (more or less). This one is very, very conscious. Such eyes, you knowfully conscious eyes.
--
So here is the book.
But the crowd is beyond all imagination.
0 1967-05-10, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I know I was his mother; at that moment I knew who I was, because I know that Amenhotep is so and sos son (and also I looked it up in history books). Otherwise theres no connection: a blank.
I always admire those mediums (they generally are very simple people) who have the exact memory of the sound and can tell you, This and that is what I said. That way we could have a phonetic notation. If I remembered the sounds I uttered we would have the notation, but I dont.
0 1967-05-27, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He writes a lot of books in Tamil.
Its the second card Ive received from him. In the first he wrote he was going round the world for the second time, especially round Europe, and that he had been invited to Russia. And he has written a whole book (in Tamil) on Sri Aurobindos yoga.
***
0 1967-06-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On the contrary, theyre taught to rely on books, precisely on encyclopedias. I had to come here to understand what it meant, why I used to pull from above. That is to say, it wasnt at all encouraged when I was a child.
But Z has done experiments like that. He told me the story of a girl at the School who had no imagination: when she was asked a question she could only answer what she had learned, and when she was given a problem she could never solve it. She was like that, blocked above. And he taught her to try and make contact precisely with that intuitive zone, by keeping quiet, falling silent and listening. And it seems that after some time, she had extraordinary results in that way, by falling silent and listeninganswers which were really remarkable and certainly came from the region of intuition. And thats a practical fact, he did it at the School.
0 1967-07-08, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know that I burned all those note books. For how many years?over at least four or five years, every day I used to write Prayers and Meditations (I had several big note books, big like this). Then, when Sri Aurobindo told me to make a book out of them (naturally, as it was written every day, there were some repetitions), so I made my selection; I selected and extracted all those he wanted (I kept a few, which I extracted and distributed), and as for the rest It was a long, long time ago, I was still living over there.1 The last time that I wrote, was after my return from Japan, that is, in 1920. In 1920 I still wrote a little, then stopped. Then Sri Aurobindo chanced upon it, and he told me it had to be published. I said all right, I made a selection, and what to do with the rest? So I burned it.
Oh, what didnt I hear!
0 1967-07-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a time I attended a private school: I didnt go to a state school because my mother considered it unfitting for a girl to be in a state school! But I was in a private school, a school of high repute at the time: their teachers were really capable people. The geography teacher, a man of renown, had written books, his books on geography were well-known. He was a fine man. So then, we were doing geography (I enjoyed maps more fully because it all had to be drawn) and one day, the teacher looked at me (he was an intelligent man), he looked at me and asked, Why are towns, the big cities, settled on rivers? I saw the students bewildered look, they were saying to themselves, Lucky the question wasnt put to me! I replied, But its very simple! Its because rivers are a natural means of communication. (Mother laughs) He too was taken aback! Thats how it was, all my studies were like that, I enjoyed myself all the timeenjoyed myself thoroughly, it was great fun!
The teacher of literature He was an old fellow full of all the most conventional ideas imaginable. What a bore he was, oh! So all the students sat there, their noses to the grindstone. He would give subjects for essaysdo you know The Path of Later On and the Road of Tomorrow? I wrote it when I was twelve, it was my homework on his question! He had given a proverb (now I forget the words) and expected to be told all the sensible things! I told my story, that little story, it was written at the age of twelve. Afterwards he would eye me with misgivings! (Laughing) He expected me to make a scene. Oh, but I was a good girl!
0 1967-09-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here are some brief samplings from the said letter: "... Someone said, Freedom is to be carried not like a standard but like a Cross.... In your book, there is no love for the Crosswhy? From all eternity the Cross has been the form that gathers up and rises. The form that will not rise alone; the form that, plunged into a mass, rises up again only with the entire mass the form that sticks to all the cardinal points and bleeds on all the cardinal points.... When I go to the lepers' workshop immediately after seeing you, I go and draw the Force not only to help them through financial means, a skill or friendship, but perhaps even to envisage being like them and going to the bottom of their real misery ..."
***
0 1967-09-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Osservatore Romano published in an article excerpts from a forthcoming book of conversations with the Pope by a lifelong friend, the French philosopher and academician, Jean Guitton.
I saw, as is said in the Apocalypse, a limitless crowd, a multitude, an enormous welcome. In those thousands of faces I read, stronger than curiosity, a kind of indescribable sympathy, the Pope said.
--
Anyway, about that German, its quite obviously a vital phenomenon. To be visible to the naked eye, it can only be a vital light. And he has innumerable disciples. He baptizes them for the second coming of Christ. It seems (I am not sure because it was written in German and only extracts were translated to me), but he doesnt at all seem to have a philosophical mind or conceptions: its only a kind of action to bring people into contact with that light. I heard about him from a German woman who is here (her mother is in Germany and she is a disciple of that man and she sent her the book). But her mother is a bit frightened.
There is something inexorablewhy? I dont understand. Because Christ came, on the contrary, to speak of brotherhood, goodness, charity, compassion. Yet this expression has something inexorableyes, there is no other word: thin-lipped and the mouth in a straight line like this (same blade-like gesture). It gives the appearance of a terrible nastiness, something inexorable (which found expression in the Inquisition, tortures and so on). Why is it there? But that German, for instance, the light was there when he was a baby, the day after his birthhe didnt have an inexorable mouth at that time!
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I know that, because I got a letter from her which gave a hint of it. She said that the Mother in her four Aspects, as in Sri Aurobindos book, was all very well for todays creation (lets not yet say yesterdays, lets say todays!), but for tomorrows creation, there must be the Mothers aspect of Love, which hasnt yet manifested. And it was put very cleverly, but in such a way it was impossible not to understand that it was this lady who was to manifest That.
As for me, I said, Very well! (Mother laughs) I said, What the Lord wants will be. But since then, I have been treating her as (what should I say?) more than an equalas a superior, and with assertions that are crushing for her. And I never miss an opportunity to tell her that in order to do this or that, or to manifest That or one must SPONTANEOUSLY AND DEFINITIVELY be above all desires, all ambitions, all preferencesevery time, like this (Mother makes a hammering gesture).
0 1967-10-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I also worry a lot over this book, this Sannyasin that I am rewriting. That difficulty of a PURE transcription.
(After a long silence) For my part, I have always felt that writing was your way of doing the sadhana. That is, not meditating or anything of the sort, but writing, is your way of doing the sadhana. When you write, I see a sort of transmutation taking place in you. Not only something you call personal, something which is your way of writing or your book, not only that, but formulating things in the most accurate, the most precise fashion, is your way of doing the sadhana. Its a sadhana up above.
That is to say that in my view, the process of expression is more important than the outer result. There is an inner result (which isnt expressed in words), which is far more important than the outer result. The last time, when you wrote the book on Sri Aurobindo, it was perfectly clear; with the last book too (the first version of the Sannyasin), but even more so: there was that sort of inner transmutation which was far more important than what you were writingin my view.
Its a process of inner fashioning of your consciousness.
0 1967-11-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, that experience, such as Ive told you, with the whole intensity of concrete reality, occurs not only daily, but several times a day. At times its very severe, that is, like a mass; at other times, its only like something that touches; then, in the body consciousness, its expressed like this, with a sort of thanksgiving: one more progress made over Unconsciousness. But those arent thunderous events, the human neighbour isnt even aware of them; he may note a sort of cessation in the outward activity, a concentration, but thats all.3 So of course, you dont talk about it, you cant write books about it, you dont do propaganda. Thats how the work goes.
None of the mental aspirations are satisfied with that.
0 1967-11-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And its the body that aspires, the body that says the mantra, the body that wants the light, the body that wants the consciousness you yourself may be thinking of something else, Tom, Dick or Harry or a book or anything, it doesnt matter.
But now I understand, I understand very well! In the beginning I didnt understand, I thought I had been made supposedly very ill in order to stop the life I led downstairs3the life I now lead is far busier than the one I led downstairs, therefore I wondered why, whether it was a transitional phase. But now I understand: cut off I would keep fainting. What made the doctor declare that I was ill is that I couldnt take a step without fainting: if I wanted to walk from here to there, poff! I would faint on the way; I had to be held so that my body wouldnt fall down. So the doctors decision: to bed and no moving. But on my part, not for one minute did I lose consciousness! I would faint but remain conscious, I would see my body and know I had fainted; I didnt lose consciousness, the body didnt lose consciousness. So now I understand! The body was cut off from the vital and the mind and left to its own means; and then little by little, little by little
0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What is the meaning of to get rid of all other mental influences? Is it this that I had better not read any other books except Sri Aurobindos or not try to learn anything by hearing or admiring others?
It is not a question of books or learning facts. When a woman loves or admires, her mind is instinctively moulded by the one she loves or admires, and this influence remains after the feeling itself has gone or appears to be gone. This does not refer to Xs influence merely. It is the general rule given to keep yourself free from any other admiration or influence.
May 30, 1932
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And she is (is or will be, I dont know, that depends on the people she speaks to) the incarnation of You know that in the book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo said there was the Mothers aspect of Love, which hadnt yet incarnated because the world wasnt ready. And thats Y.7
When you look at her you dont get that feeling.
0 1968-04-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, if I put anything else, I mean a photo of Sri Aurobindo, for instance, or books, it will look like it will be as if we wanted to start a new religion I dont want religions, an end to religions!
So its an attempt to realize.
0 1968-05-22, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There have been two little things, very little things, but amusing. A year or a year and a half ago (I dont remember), someone had sent me an album of photos of France, and Paris in particular, and I had looked at it; I looked at it, and as I looked, I saw a photo of the banks [of the Seine in Paris]. I saw it, looked at it attentively, in detail, saw the banks with all the bouquinistes [secondh and booksellers]. There was a bookseller in front, seated in the foreground, I saw him. Then I closed the album and put it aside. I wanted to mention it to someone and said, Would you like to see what the bouquinistes in Paris look like? Theres a photo I turned page after page after pagenot a single photo of a bookseller! I looked again and again not a single photo of a bookseller.3 It was enough of a problem for me to view the book several more times and even to try to find an explanation. And then M. and G. went to Paris and sent me a postcard of the banks with the bouquinistesit was my photo! I received it yesterday. It wasnt in the album: I received it yesterday, exactly my photo.
The other thing is about R., who had had an attack of filariasis a few years ago. He had told me about it and it had passed. Then it came back. It came back after some three or four years, very strongly, and he couldnt get rid of it. He wrote to me complaining. I told him there was a drop in his faith. It appears it was the third time Id written that to him (I knew nothing about it I never know either why or how I write things). So he wrote back to ask me, Its the third time youve told me that, what does it mean? I explained it to him. But while receiving his letter and explaining it to him, I did what I always do (I always do it, all the time), I put him in contact with the Lord and asked for his intervention. He got my letter, and today he writes to me that while he was reading it, in the space of about ten minutes, he actually saw (his foot had grown twice as big, his leg was swollen, you know how it is with elephantiasis), he actually saw it shrink and shrink, and in ten or fifteen minutes it was gone! He wrote it to me this morning. I had told him that the Force was the same, it was his faith that was no longer the same, and that was why the Force no longer had the same effect. And he writes in his letter, I was simply reading your letter, and it went away before my very eyes!
0 1968-06-05, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, shes even very pious. A nice woman, it seems. So P. L. asks if he shouldnt try to explain to her what hes doing here, to send her a few of your books and see how it acts. It might make her turn to something more interesting?
Isnt she a woman who wants peace on earth?
--
There is another fact regarding this Msgr. R., whose huge holdings were managed by P.L. There was a thought (it was J.s thought) to send him my book, the Adventure of Consciousness, and he has written an enthusiastic letter in which he says hes very taken with the book and is prodigiously interested. And he has sent P. L. a second letter, saying, If I werent detained in Rome, I would go and join you immediately.
Oh! Thats good. Its good.
0 1968-06-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know, and the book is going better!
Ah, good.
The book, I had thought about it three or four days before you wrote your letter, it came very stronglybefore you wrote.
As for the nights, I know!
--
What are you doing with your book? Are you revising it or
No, I am practically rewriting everything.
0 1968-07-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a whole series of things. First theres a note from J. whos received a letter from P.L.; she writes this to me: P.L. is fine. Msgr. R. told him he had discovered another world through your book.1 He has come into contact with Mother. He made P.L. see the importance of staying in this milieu for some more time if they want to transform it.
(Mother opens her eyes wide)
--
Finally, a letter from P.L. telling the story: I somewhat restrained myself from writing to you and telling you about my new situation, which might have been precipitated at any moment. On my return, the Vatican adopted a dual policy: threats on one hand, and on the other, promotions and offers of fine situations. I had been absent from Rome since December 9: what strange illness could last such a long time? There was talk of subjecting me to a medical examination by three physicians, demanding the names of the clinics2 visited, and so forth. I consulted His Eminence and Msgr. R. Being expelled by the application of the rule suited no one neither my family, nor the Cardinal himself. So the solution was to take up my new post, assuring them that I had fully recovered: thus the investigations stopped; I was no longer prosecuted, my case was shelved. No doubt, curiosity and suspicion havent been allayed, but my life has gone back to routine, and after some time everyone will forget. I will see the Pope next month, and I may accompany him in his journey to Colombia at the end of August I will keep you informed. There is still the difficulty of his health which may prevent the journey. All that I have just told you is quite external to myself and I hardly participate in it; Id rather write about my consciousness: it hasnt changedit has remained fastened to Mothers influence. I feel her protection; everything is easy, for she is with me; she gives me the suitable answer. Like a mantra, I repeat, Oh, Mother, with your help is anything impossible? More than that, the joy she has put in my heart remains unshakable. My thought flies away towards her, full of gratitude. Msgr. R. told His Eminence I had been at the Ashram: the Cardinal is delighted. R. has finished reading your book: in his mass he has preached Aurobindos ideas. He told me he has come into contact with Mother: he is going to write to her, and later will go and see her. He has accepted Aurobindos message as a solution for the world. I must still tell you the joy the telegram gave me: to Mother all my gratitude.
(Mother goes into a long contemplation)
0 1968-07-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a letter from Msgr. R. to you. It was sent through J. Heres what he writes J.: Let me first thank youonce again for Satprems book on Sri Aurobindo. I have finished reading it. This book has and will have a considerable influence on my life. Secondly, I thank you for the help you gave my dear P.L. He has come back transformed, purified, illuminated. Lastly, may I ask you to hand over to Mother the enclosed letter.
What does he say?
0 1968-09-07, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am now writing the last pages of my book [The Sannyasin].
Oh! Very well.
0 1968-10-23, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And your book?1
Its not easy. I am revising it.
0 1968-12-25, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then You know that from every side Ive been trying to get Sri Aurobindo published [in France], in particular The Human Cycle. At last I got a letter from a certain J. B., who writes: For a long time now, a publisher (F.) has been asking me to create a collection in his publishing house. I thought of a few books, mostly foreign ones, grouped around a title such as Towards the spiritual mutation and focused on the present researches, individual and clumsy, often dangerous, but sincere and undertaken in a spirit quite different from that of the former generation, the spirit of a certain youth I am in contact with. The idea is to show these young people that their attempts and aspirations are legitimate, even if they have discovered them through drugs, since in many cases drugs alone have been able to unmoor them from the Cartesian rationalist bedrock, to put before them experiences that, at least, are positive, and to offer them directions and models. In other words, the aspect of amateurism and exoticism found in Z [another publisher] would be replaced here by a practical and technical side, wide open to all spiritual researches, whatever they may be, to all duly controlled metapsychical experiments, serious psychedelic experiments (I have T. Leary in mind, for instance), new theologies Naturally, there would be room, a major place, for the Oriental endeavor. In sum, it would involve all researches and attempts to crack open that sort of corset within which the Western mind has been going in circles for such a long time. That does not in the least rule out, on the contrary, certain scientific worksof pure sciencein which, out of intrinsic necessity, this Cartesianism has already been singularly shaken. Of course, all that would make for quite an ill-assorted backdrop for Sri Aurobindos thought, a backdrop you will regard as unworthy of it. The planned Collection might be called Spiritual Adventures.
We can try.
0 1969-01-04, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your book has had an enormous action, enormous. Its still having it.
I remember that even here, when Pavitra read it, he told me (he was quite enthusiastic), he said to me, Oh, he has made me understand something I hadnt understood! (Mother laughs) Pavitra, one of the old disciples who lived with Sri Aurobindo!
0 1969-01-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I would have to revise it a bit, but its a matter of a months work. In that case, we could send them the first book, The Yoga of Divine Works.
Yes, the Yoga of Works.
0 1969-01-29, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So all the rest People give me books, give me letters, but I am not interested.
Thats it.
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Strange, isnt it? Its something that happened probably more than eighty years ago (eighty-two or three or four), yet it was intense, present, living, so extraordinary that if even now I look at it, I SEE: I see the scene so clearly, the apartment, the people, the setting, everything. It didnt come from within: it was shown to me (gesture of something imposing itself), and its while seeing it that suddenly I said within me, Hello, but I lived this! It was stored somewhere (gesture in the background), stored as you would keep a collection of memories for educational purposesits far more precise, complete, concrete than any book or anything people say with so many words.
(silence)
0 1969-03-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then he sends another note. In Rome they had the visit of Swami Z, and our friend P.L. had lunch with him (because they took the Swami to see the Pope, he had an audience with the Pope), they had lunch together and, writes Msgr. R., The Swami declared himself very happy about the audience with the Pope. He was able to give one of his books to the Holy Father, who told him (in English) that he liked India very much, that he thanked him for his spiritual work undertaken for the good of humanity, and encouraged him to pursue his mission. The Pope gave him a papal medal, and even added that he had great difficulty in developing his spirituality owing to his present entourage.
Oh, this is interesting! Its interesting.
0 1969-03-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Just two things: N. (you know, the Italian) asks me to bring this to you-the Italian translation of my book on Sri Aurobindo.
Very well. Whats this? (Mother looks at the cover) What does it represent?
--
No, it has nothing to do with the book, I agree.
(A photo of the Samadhi, then another that has nothing to do in here.)
--
Me, I dont keep any books. Have they put translated from the French or translated from the English?
Translated from the French.
--
For years C.S. has been battling to translate this book.
Oh, yes, yes.
0 1969-03-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The silence was dense, the stupefaction huge. And I went on again: But we believe we are the interpreters, and except us none has the right to speak. Nevertheless we are faced with the current phenomenon of anti-establishment protest. The youth is running away from us, our formulas are old, ineffective, we preach without conviction, we demand absurd things, and to have peace, we stick a label of sin on all ta boos. I know that my speech will be called subversive. In dictatorial or established regimes, those who move forward are suspicious. For twenty centuries we have used the weapon of heresy, and we know the atrocities that were committed in the name of Christ: that was our defenseit was his wisdom to keep power But if Christ suddenly appeared here, in front of us, do you think he would recognize himself in us? Is the Christ we preach the Christ of the BEATITUDES? Our preoccupation is to prohibit opening. And we make fools of ourselves with the pill. But are we also preoccupied with the TRUTH? Yet we should read our holy books again, but read them without passion, without egoistic interest; almost two thousand years ago, St. Paul said, Multifariam, multisque modis olim Deus loquens in prophetis, novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio (several times and in several ways God has spoken through the prophets, but now in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son Jesus Christ). Thus God has spoken in several ways. I know that a new light has just appeared, a new Consciousness let us go in search of it. But we shall have to step down from our throne, from our convenience; perhaps to leave the place to others and do away with the Hierarchy: no more Pope or Cardinals or Bishops, but all of us seekers of the TRUTH, of the CONSCIOUSNESS, the POWER, the SUPRANATURAL, the SUPRAHUMAN..
Satprem, I left the room and went away for a walk in the countryside. What is going to happen to me? Will they put me on trial? Will they declare me insane, heretic? I am waiting. I am eager to go and see Mother. I am preparing my travel for Easter. (That took place on Monday the 24th of February.) To this day, no reaction. Has the Pope been informed? I do not know. I have continued with the inquiry entrusted to me. I feel very calm, very strong. I have not spoken about all that to any of those close to me (not even to Msgr. R.). The malefic character seen in dream (Msgr. Z) was present, but he did not react either.
0 1969-04-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All sorts of people whove read the book [Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness].
I know that a few times, people told me they would like to see you. I said, Its no use, he has other things to do.
0 1969-04-09, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a question Id like to tell you about. Its about the publication of Sri Aurobindos books in France. You know that we sent The Synthesis of Yoga and The Human Cycle.1 The woman who looks after those publications hasnt reacted very well. And not because of the translation (which she finds good), but because of Sri Aurobindo and the text itself She rather arrogantly passes judgment on Sri Aurobindo, whom she doesnt understand at all but has sized up at a glance. A sort of arrogance
What has she read?
--
You have not stepped into Sri Aurobindo. On the other hand, I quite understand if intellectuals so easily step into Zen! But I do not want to compare merits. With Sri Aurobindo, I am content to see and smile. You have better understood my book, you say it has brought you more than Sri Aurobindo but of course! That does not surprise me, I am afraid: I simply entered the regions of the mentally obvious he neglected, I climbed down a number of degrees. The lines of force you felt are simply the little strings I hung here and there to try and hook people on to the true lines of force that seem to elude them completely, because they see and feel just at the level of the mental slit. But I will tell you again, if you have the least trust in me, that Sri Aurobindo is a tremendous giant and not one word of his is without a full meaning. Some time ago I wanted to have a music lover (a Westerner nurtured on true music like myself, formed in music) listen to a music of genius composed by an Indian; well, this poor boy could make no sense of it! He could not hear! His musical slit was open at one particular level, and he literally could not hear what was abovea true marvel, immense streams of music flowing straight from the Origin of Music.6 For him, it had no structure, it was shapeless musicwhereas I saw, I could see that marvel, I knew where it was coming from, I could touch that world, and as soon as that high musical tension slackened in the least, I instantly felt that it came down to touch a center on a lower level. It was the same thing in Egypt. For weeks I lived in an ecstatic state in Upper Egypt; I was with people who were looking at ruins, seeing beautiful statueswhile for me those statues were living, those places talked to me, those so-called ruins were full of overflowing life.
So what to do?
Sri Aurobindo often said or hinted that writing, for him, was a sort of concession to the mental world, but that he might very well have done without writing, and that his real Action, in fact, took place in silence. Sri Aurobindo was not a writer, but an evolutionary leaven, a tremendous impelling Force, like the Mother. So we may say that his books, even if poorly understood, or misunderstood, act as vehicles for this Force, and that we should just take the plunge and publish them anyhow, until the day that famous mental slit will open, and people will gape open-mouthed. The Work gets done in spite of mental incomprehension, even in spite of mental comprehension! Only, it is a pity that people do not see the beauty of the Play and do not consciously take part in it.
Before one takes a first step into the great Kingdom, I think one must have definitively felt all mental comprehension, all mental illumination, and naturally all mental explanation, to be worthless or inadequate. For more than ten years I have not read any book, but if I am given one in my hands, I immediately know the level of its vibration, In order to see clearly, one must get out of it, obviously. The same goes for the little individualrenouncing the individual is what you call saintliness, but its merely the beginning of Humanity! Does one renounce an anthill?One gets out of it! And it is wide and joyful. We are right in the middle of human infancy.
S.
0 1969-05-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I see, you know, because peoples consciousness is an open book for me (theres no difference, its an open book), and so I see: in the vast majority of people, when things become really difficult, there is that idea (that sort of idea is always there): Oh, one day, all that will be over.What a joke!
(silence)
0 1969-05-31, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Mother, do you know in the West, the influential books (not only influential, theyre read and devoured by all the young) are those of Mao Tse-tung?
Of?
--
Thats what they read in the West. And the latest bestseller is a book titled something like The Wretched, which is an apology of violence: Power must be seized through violence. Thats what is successful in the West, what all the students are devouring.1
Oh, an apology of violence
--
The book is The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, whose central theme is "Violence alone pays" (quoted in The Indian Express of May 30). An extract: "The practice of violence binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged upward." The book is prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre, who says even more explicitly, "Irrepressible violence... is man recreating himself." It is "mad fury" through which "the wretched of the earth" can "become men." "To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone... there remains a dead man and a free man."
On Thursday 29th May. On the 30th too, mother received no one. This is probably the course of experience that began a little before Pavitra's departure (see conversation of May 17).
0 1969-06-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then there is little S.U. (do you know S.U.?), who isnt too happy with her work and asked me if I couldnt help her make some progress. So I told her, Read Satprems book. She started reading Satprems book. She told me If I dont understand something, what do I do? I said, If you cant understand, ask me. So yesterday, she quoted a bit of a sentence to me (you know how they do: they take a bit of a sentence and ask you, Whatever does this mean?!). I answered. It was a sentence in which it was said that there were two positions: the materialist and the spiritualist; then you mention me, saying we should take another position, a third position. She didnt understand (Mother gives Satprem the childs letter).1
My answer is prompt. But I felt like saying to her, Another time, what if you went and asked Satprem?
--
You can keep this if it amuses you my comments on your book! (Mother gives her reply)
In the world, people generally classify themselves as materialists who believe in nothing but matter, or as spiritualists who reject matter in order to lean on the spirit alone.
--
But you know, this little S.U. (Ive never said this; I forget when it wasyears ago, she was big as a boot), when your famous Sannyasin3 came here, he wanted to do a worship to the Mother,4 and he did one thing which isnt regarded as very charitable (that individual had a certain capacity): he put into this child an emanation of a higher spirit (which he thought was an emanation of the Mother), he carried out the ceremony, and afterwards (it was infinitely too powerful for the child), he came to me and told me, Ill send her to you for you to take out the emanation, we cant keep that!
So he sent me the child.
--
"I like Satprem's book which You gave me. But I have two difficulties. The first is with the words. There are some words whose meaning I do not know. And the second is that some passages are not clear. Here is one: 'What we may call with Mother a third position, a 'something else' we tenaciously need, we who are neither narrow materialists nor exclusive spiritualists.'"
An Italian film maker, architect and painter.
0 1969-06-28, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, Ive received this from little S.U., again in relation to your book:
(Mother holds out a letter)
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes! There was even one amusing detail: among that pile of things that were there, there were books; then as he went by, Sri Aurobindo took one to see what was inside. But B. was there (you know, the Italian), and told him, You mustnt touch this without Mothers permission!4
(Mother laughs heartily) Oh, this is priceless!
0 1969-07-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Have you heard of that healer? Someone has written from France, the son of a farmer (I think), anyhow not an intellectual in the least, who by accident became aware that his hands have a healing power. So he writes a very long letter narrating all he did, how he developed himself, and so on, until he came across your book;1 and when he read your book, for him it was a revelation (he doesnt have a philosophical mind or anything), he said, Could it be that I am unknowingly following Sri Aurobindos yoga? So he writes to me narrating everything and asking me that question.
How this uneducated man read the book and it was like a revelation! He says hed like to come here for a few weeksin fact he is coming, he has already bought his ticket. It will be interesting.
Yes, surely.
--
But what I found interesting is that here is an uneducated manhe had no formal educationwho read your book and felt the Thing.
Oh, but those are much more receptive than the others!
--
Then F. here has read my book (I dont know why I was impelled to give it to her, because I didnt intend to), and she has been very touched, it seems. She has a friend in France and wants to ask her to present it to another publisher.3
(Mother nods her head)
--
I think your book is very fine.
Do you?
--
Of course, your book is very fine! But its a book of tomorrow, not a book of yesterday. And this gentleman of yours is probably a man of yesterday.
But I am hopeful.
--
I mean, someone who reads this book and doesnt feel anything has to be inwardly com-plete-ly obtuseits the mind going round in circles.
But the very strange thing is that for those people all that we find abstract and false, they find concrete and true!
--
In some fifty years, your book will be very famous. But its ahead of the times. But there may be some people with flairits a question of flair: they may not understand anything, but they feel.5
(long silence)
I have wondered if we couldnt have in Auroville a publishing house, because Auroville is an international township, and so we could have an INTERNATIONAL publishing house. There would be books in every language. That would be interesting.
Auroville is beginning to be fairly well known in America. Theres a lady (I told you about that) who is planning to come in a boat for 1972she is very interested in Auroville, she has gatherings and is in touch with the government. It seems to be moving fairly well there. So we could have a publishing house in several languages.
--
You know, F told me she saw this book as a film.
Yes, it could well be.
--
A book reaches but in a still limited way, whereas a film means millions of people reached all at once. So to make a beautiful, a TRUE film
Ah, but this book would make a very good film! You could see that when Paolo comes back, he is used to it.
It could start with Italy, it doesnt matter, then it would go to France, and then It can go everywhere.
--
But you could turn your book into a film?
Yes. It requires some work, but it can be done.
--
This book would have to be made into a film: in Italian if its for Italy, in French and in English, and then (smiling) we would see you understand, we would have to make three different films out Of it!
Yes, that would be very amusing!
--
As for me, I have SEEN scenes from your book, I have seen them I always see scenes. Even now, I see scenes Is it in this book that you write about someone who dreams he has died?
Yes.
--
Four years later, at the end of 1973, when Mother left her body, the French publisher Robert Laffont will take this book for publication.
For a long time Mother at times confused "superhuman" with "supramental," but she clearly means the latter and not the former.
0 1969-08-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am reading Savitri, the second book, I think, the transformation of the King, his experience.1 I had read it very long ago, I didnt remember at all, not at all; these days I have been reading it again and its like a detailed description of the experience my body is now having! Ex-traor-di-nar-y. When I read it again, I was flabbergasted. Its absolutely as if my body were trying to copy that! And I didnt remember at all, not in the least. which would mean that Sri Aurobindo had SEEN the thingdid he see it, or did he experience it? I dont know And thats what he regards as the supramentalization of the physical being.
Do you remember that in Savitri?
--
book Two, Canto XIV, "The World-Soul"..
***
0 1969-08-27, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a druid (laughing), a still-existing druid, from Brittany, who has written a letter to F. saying he had heard about Auroville from friends of hers and wants to come. He says, I am poor, I am not bringing anything (he is married, he and his wife intend to come together). He writes that he will bring a book; a book by one of his friends, who has had the economic and financial vision of the world. He will bring i the says its a revelation for it to be used in Auroville. So in my answer, I intend to tell him, Here is the basis on which Auroville is established
(Mother hands her note)
--
He regards that book by his friend as a very precious gift (I dont know whether its published or not), as a revolution. So I prefer to send him this note in advance, because, I dont know whats in that book, but if its a similar idea, I want him to know that we had it before!
(long silence)
0 1969-09-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, of course (laughter), the author of your book! No, you can speak with him and see. Youll tell me how he is. I put him up at Castellini because theres a large garden I hope hell be comfortable there. But youll see, youll try to make him tell a little what he is seeking by coming here.
What he is seeking.
--
Yesterday, I had the visit of the Vice-President1an intellectual. I am told he is a very remarkable lawyer, a man of law, and hes read Sri Aurobindos books, he regards himself as a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. He came from Delhi with his whole family specially to see me. He came: the Consciousness didnt manifest in the very leastnothing. It was like that (impassive, outspread gesture). Like that, still, nothing, absolutely nothing Thats curious. He gave me books to sign (he had just taken or received them, I dont now), a book by Sri Aurobindo, my photo. Anyway, he behaved like a disciple, he had brought his whole family along and the whole family expressed a lot of devotion and so onnothing. I dont know if it was there, but it didnt manifest: it was like this (same impassive gesture). Its curious.
But it feels the way people are, because did I tell you what the President said while leaving?
0 1969-09-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Hes come here with a questionnot a mental one. But I should perhaps tell you the stages of his discovery. As you know, he discovered experimentally on himself what was going on. So he sought to understand: he bought books, went to see so-called healers. The first people who taught him were Spiritualists. They told him, Use a pendulum. He used a pendulum to detect diseases, and it worked very well. Then, after a time, he thought, But this isnt reality. And then his Pendulum stopped working! Afterwards, he went to see someone else, who told him, But you should do magnetic passes. He was taught how to do it, and it worked very well: with his fingers he could feel the organs that were out of harmony (because, for him, the key word is Harmony or disharmony). Then, after a while, he said to himself, But this isnt reality either. And nothing worked anymore.
Oh, its very interesting!
--
Yes. Then the woman died the day after giving birth, and the child is now seventeen, I think. He told me, Thats how it is: there is NO power, it doesnt existthere is That, the Harmony; everyone has the capacity to call this Harmony, and It acts. And It acts in a second, instantly. But then, he told me, Here is my question (as far as I can express what he said). Basically, he is aware of quite an extraordinary Powerthough I should say I didnt feel a shadow of ego in this man, theres no trace of ego. He read my book, but that didnt teach him things, it only confirmed some experiences. This man spoke to me for more than three hours, and apart from you and Sri Aurobindo, I have heard no one speak like him. It was a sage who spoke, a living experience that sprang forth, there wasnt one thing he said you wouldnt subscribe to: those great Forces of Harmony that must be embodied on earth, brought down on earth It was really a sage who spoke, and those were your words, Sri Aurobindos words.
Thats what A. told me; the first day when he received him, he told me, I thought I was listening to you or to Sri Aurobindo!
0 1969-10-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but as for me, I have all the books to prepare! Its necessary.
Of course.
0 1969-11-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then, Id asked F to give him the booklet The Mother, but when she came to his place, he was already in meditation with a number of people (they were all holding hands). So we dont know at all what his reaction was. All that I know is that the day before he left, A.R. and Z made the trip together, and she asked him what the result of his stay here was, what he had learned. He replied, Oh, its too early to know, Ill know later.
That process of holding hands in meditation is the process you use when you want to circulate vital forces. I did that with a group in 1910. And as soon as I came here, all those things seemed to me to be not the true Thing. And yet he is open and receives the Force VERY WELL. But as soon as theres something else, it no longer works. So there.
0 1969-11-15, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, no! Ah, we have many little Aurovilians, lots of them, but you know, among them some are absolutely remarkable from the point of view of consciousness; theyre tall as a boot, mon petit, and theyre conscious! Its splendid. A few days ago, I held a Tamil baby in my hands, he was as big as this, like a doll (delightfully shaped, with exquisite tiny feet), and with this child I wanted to make the experiment: I took him on my lap, and I put the Forceyou should have seen the transformation of his expression! His eyes arent open yet, but a blissful peace seemed to come over him. I thought, Lets see whether hes asleep or conscious. Then I touched his foo the started, which means he wasnt asleep at all. Wonderful! A wonderful expression. I know another one who isnt yet two years old, but, mon petit, his way of seeing and acting is that of a five-year-old child! So something is happening nevertheless. And the last experience is a woman (she came with the caravan), who had a first child in France: she suffered for thirty-five hours to give birth. She gave birth to another one here (the day before yesterday, I think): one hour and without suffering. An hour later, when it was over, she was up and about! So she said, Thats Mother, because I dont know how its done!
Something is happening.
0 1969-11-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was wondering about what you told me some two weeks ago. You spoke about writing a new book. And you said it should crystallize the next step, the intermediary
Yes.
I was wondering in what direction that book should be: would it be a book about you, as I wrote the Adventure about Sri Aurobindo?
Oh, no, not about me! Please, it makes my work so much more complicated when people think of me.
--
Have you seen this (Mother points to the just released booklet, The Great Sense)? This is going to be very usefulso a sequel to it, you understand?
Yes, but still in the form of a book?
Yes, yes.
--
A book it could be a story, that I dont know. But then people wouldnt take it so seriously!
It would be the same genre as the Adventure of Consciousness?
--
He writes, The press hasnt said a word about your book, yet its selling well!
Its not the press! (Laughing) Its the consciousness!
--
In America, the book has a tremendous success.
Yes, one feels quite evidently the consciousness thats behind this book and touches people, because all of them have the same reaction: all of them, everywhere, at all levels, the more intellectual as much as the less intellectual.
Yes, as in A.R.s case, for instance.
--
The book, what you read me. Its very interesting, I was very interested, I felt very comfortable, but then there was a sort of its something that puts you (I dont know why) in contact with the whole part of the atmosphere that pulls you out of lifeBuddhism and all those things, the whole nihilism. It puts you in contact with that: the flight out of life. And its not intellectual, its not the ideas, not the words, not the facts, its What is it? I wondered a few times what made the book catch on to the nihilist atmosphere of Buddhism? Thats what would explain Its not that people dont like it, but its a non-creative force that acts. Why? I dont know.
But what this book tried to say, to show, is in fact the transition beyond that.
Yes, but Perhaps people arent ready? Now, I didnt read it in full, so I cant know. You only read me a few passages. But its not so much the words, you understand, it was the vision.
But since I read you those passages, I rewrote it. I wrote the book again after I read it to you.
You didnt show it to me, thats it.
--
(Mother laughs) Id like a beautiful prophetic book.
Its there somewhere: whats going to take place here is ALREADY there somewhere. Its not in a region where one sees, its (gesture showing the world of consciousness).
0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Id like to take a leaf out of your book!
Here! (Mother gives her hands, laughing)
0 1969-12-31, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In Italy, the book [The Adventure] is having a lot of success, a lot: Italians are coming in large numbers .
You know Paolo, have you seen him? Hes nice.
0 1970-01-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother, the problem is that we cant get the translations published at the Press, things arent moving. I have five books by Sri Aurobindo ready, and nothing is moving.
They cant manage to do their work.
0 1970-01-31, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you have news of your book?1
No, Mother.
--
No, no news. I dont quite know what attitude I should have with regard to this book. Not that I worry, but I think about it. I wonder whether its guided?
You know, mon petit, MORE AND MORE and in an ABSOLUTE way, I SEEI see, I feel that EVERYTHING is decided.
0 1970-03-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother laughs) Its because they all read your book.
Yes, they came to ask me if I would speak on the radio I said no!
--
Yes, lots and lots of people read the book; its having an enormous action. I constantly get letters from people who say, I have read The Adventure of Consciousness, its been a revelationconstantly, constantly. And the book is beginning to have a lot of effect in the U.S.A. and in Canada. So naturally, it gives you tiring nights!
(silence)
0 1970-04-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, oh, I get letters from people who have astounding experiences, quite out of proportion with their degree of intelligence or developmentastounding experiences. They themselves are astounded. Experiences very different from one another, but I know them all. I know them to be experiences of the subtle physical. People whom I know or not write to me (they come here, or they have read your book, or they have heard of Sri Aurobindo or), and they describe it as I might describe it myself, that is to say, with the full knowledge. And they know nothing! Its quite astounding, oh!
Yes. And then, when you are in that subtle physical consciousness, the laws changeyou can change the material law if you are in that consciousness.
0 1970-04-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, in the contact with people I hardly know who the people I see are (just about), so I see them without a thought, you understand, as they are, and AFTERWARDS I ask, or I am told about them, and (laughing) I realize that most of the time, if a contact is made (when I see them, a contact is made, a receptivity), its with the people most scorned by others, people who outwardly behave like real boors! Just recently again I had an experience like that.
One of the things hardest to bear is obviously self-righteous indignation. You know, people tell me whats going on (everyone tells me some story), and the vibrations hardest to bear, those that cause a (gesture of unpleasant friction) are those of self-righteous indignation.
0 1970-05-23, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother, I feel I should soon enough start work on another book
Ah!
--
The country seems to be falling apart, so there [in Delhi] they asked me what should be done. I told them that this Centenary [of Sri Aurobindo, in 1972] has come ON PURPOSE. Its certainly something thats coming now because the ONLY salvation for the country, the ONLY thing that can unify it, is for it to adopt Sri Aurobindos ideal for the countryhe had a plan, he very clearly saw how the country should be organized, he said it to me. Its there, if one reads his books seriously, one can see it. So I said that things should be so organized that THROUGHOUT India there should be study groups, libraries, lectures, anything whatever, so the whole country should know Sri Aurobindos thought and will. And the Centenary is an excellent opportunity. They asked me, Whats the way out of this chaos? On my advice, Indira has been trying to surround herself with people of value. (She had me told that she had forgotten questions of party and wants to surround herself with capable people.) The difficulty is to find upright people. So they need to be educated they dont even have a NOTION of how they can be! So I said, This Centenary should be organized right now, at once, like something covering the whole country on the occasion of the Centenary. And in what Sri Aurobindo wrote, they will find all they need to organize the country, and much better, I tell them, infinitely better than what I may say, because he knew the country infinitely better than I do, and the mental formation and everything.
People need occasions to do things. But this seems to have been wonderfully prepared ON PURPOSE.
--
To write this new book, shouldnt I read your whole Agenda again?
My Agenda?
0 1970-05-30, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I didnt remember this book [Thoughts and Aphorisms] at all. Have you seen the latest ones?
(Satprem reads)
0 1970-06-06, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a miraculous book! (Mother laughs)
Well continue in the same way.
0 1970-06-13, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother, theres an important problem Id like to sort out with you, if you have time. Its about my book, The Sannyasin. Something has taken place, and I dont know if its a sign of the Grace, or a sign of the opposition!
(Mother laughs)
You remember that we gave the book to P. L. [the disciple at the Vatican] so he would give it to a publisher he knows in Paris, Robert Laffont, because I wasnt too keen it should go into the hands of my usual publisher, with whom Ive had a good deal of trouble. But it so happens that before he went to Robert Laffont, P. L. had to go and see my usual publisher to sign the agreement for the Spanish translation of The Adventure of Consciousness. And heres what happened: P. L. writes to me, At first he raised, lots of difficulties. I told him I want no favors and am ready to pay him royalties straight away and sign the agreement. At one point, he asked me, But why are you interested in the problems and doctrines of India? I replied, Churches are in a crisis; and when the ship is sinking, theres no point discussing whether one should jump on the left or on the right! The spark of friendship flew at once; he told me he is Protestant and his father-in-law is a very important pastor in Paris, who was invited to the Vatican to hold a meeting between Catholics and Protestants. Then we signed the agreement. I told him I attach a great importance to this book in the whole of Latin America. He told me that in France, too, Satprems Sri Aurobindo is selling very well, but that there is a certain misunderstanding with you. Then I told him that after I leave, I proposed to go and see Laffont, another publisher, for I had with me your latest book, The Sannyasin. And I showed it to him. No sooner did he see it than he implored me not to deprive him of its publication, not to go to Laffont, and to leave the book with him, for he desired to read it immediately! I told him I would think it over.
Its yes.
0 1970-06-20, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Offer, O king, thy boons to tired spirits
(Mother smiles)
--
Surely thy boons are great since thou art He!
Savitri, X.IV.647
0 1970-07-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This rising of the kundalini, I had it in I was still in Paris. It was before I came to India. I had read Vivekanandas books about it. And when the Force rose, it emerged from the head through here (gesture at the top of the head); the [classic] experience was never described in that way. The Force came out and the consciousness settled here (gesture about eight inches above the head). So when I came here, I told Sri Aurobindo about it; he told me it had been the same thing with him, and that according to the teaching of [ancient] texts, you cannot live when that takes place: you die! So (laughing) he told me, Here are two who havent died!
The consciousness has remained there (gesture above), it didnt come down again; its there, its always there.
0 1970-07-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Were preparing a book about flowers. There will be color photos of flowers, their significance, and a comment by me! They make me write a comment on every flower. So Im having fun! It will be interesting.
But in the subconscient, some things have a power of recurrence.
0 1970-07-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
An old disciple, author of several books about Sri Aurobindo and editor of one of the Ashram's magazines.
Satprem's letter to T. and the following letter from A. are retranslated here from the French translation.
0 1970-07-29, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother, I have a certain influence over Z because it was through my book that she came, and every time she comes to see me as if to get an approval or confirmationshe feels theres something above. When she came to see me, I didnt budge, said nothing, despite all the danger and falsity I felt. But do you think I should intervene? Because if I do, she will listen to me.
I dont want her to stay.
0 1970-08-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive begun writing the new book.
Oh, thats good!
0 1970-09-30, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, the Dutch translation of the Adventure of Consciousness is going to be published, and D. asked A. M. to make a cover for the book. A. M. has done something hed like to show you. Here is what hes done.1 [Satprem shows the painting.]
Bah! its really dark.
--
No, not for your book. Instead of this, there should be something blossoming out. This is tight, confined, cramped something blossoming out in a great light.
It wont do at all.
The other book,2 you know, its an adventure.
(Laughing) So then?
--
Instead of a stem that writhes (you dont writhe! [laughter]), you can put seven linesseven lines. Then a gathering of the seven lines here (just above the surface of the waters). This is symbolic of the books formation. And then here (above the waters), rise straight and (Mother draws seven lines opening up at the top of a stem). You understand: seven ascents (below) and here (above) seven responses. Like this. Seven lines gathering at a point that corresponds to this [the other point where the seven lines from below gather]. Then it has a meaning.
***
0 1970-10-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If you. like, I could read you my new book.1 It will be reassuring because I dont know where I am going.
Thats good. Ill be happy to hear it.
--
So the next time, youll bring your book.
***
0 1970-10-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last time, we spoke about that book. Would you like me to read it?
Yes, I am listening.
--
Its not the beginning of the book?
Yes, yes, but I mean, all that Ive written, I really feel as if I were writing automatically.
--
So you know, its really a for me its something of an anguish to write this book. Not only I dont know whats going to come when I write a chapter, I dont know whats going to come when I write a paragraph, and when I start a sentence I dont know how I am going to end it.
Oh! Thats interesting.
--
I have dedicated the book At the feet of the Truth.
Thats good.
--
What could we do to spread it? It should be (gesture in every direction). A book isnt enough. We need something that would go everywhere.
(Mother remains thoughtful)
--
We have time, since you havent finished, but this introduction is what must be spread (the book will be a study). It must go everywhere.
Who could translate it?
In English, I dont know. Theres T, who translated my first book.
T. can translate. In English, its easy.
--
In principle, if all goes normally, I think the book will be finished in four months, around February.3 Then we could launch the introduction everywhere at the same time.
Yes, thats right. In February.
--
Satprem in fact wrote the whole book in three months and completed it in November.
***
0 1970-10-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for the book, it will do like The Adventure, it will spread little by little.
***
0 1970-10-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for me, I looked for one, but I cant find. It should be someone a bit intelligent. It should be ready for February. But the book, dont show it to anyone until its over.
Theres only Sujata who reads and types it.
--
The only advantage of publishers is that they have the name of their house and the way to reach the pressand to distribute the book. Thats their power.
But there would be a way to reach the press. There is a way.
0 1970-10-21, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
About nothing! He tells me that my book, The Adventure of Consciousness, is a huge falsehood
Does he say that?
Yes! He says his whole life has showed him that my book is a falsehood, because he has realized nothing of what I wrote, and its all false, a falsehood. So in every letter he would return to, Yes, you say that in Pondicherry, where you are in the light and peace, but as for us over here Your book is a falsehood!
Then whatever is he coming here for?!
0 1970-10-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a question regarding the English translation of my book. There are two possibilities for the title. In French its La Gense du Surhomme [The Genesis of the Superman] and in English, T. proposes either Superman in the Making or The Birth of the Superman.
(after a long silence)
--
I dont know if its meant to be like that or if it comes from me, but I am moving ahead very fast in this book, as if without developing things: I bring them out; I bring them out without really developing them.
Yes, its better not.
0 1970-11-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When you have finished your book, Ill speak.
Have you finished?
0 1970-11-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have finished my book.
Oh! Good, thats good.
0 1970-11-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What has happened to you! Mon petit, its (Mother looks much moved). This is really tomorrows book. Is it over?
Yes, I have finished the book.
Id like to see the last page!
0 1970-11-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it has a strange power to transform things. You understand, for me the Satprem of this book isnt the same Satprem as before. Everything takes on a a new appearance, I dont knowa new contact.
Its interesting.
0 1971-01-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Tell me, the introduction to your book1 was supposed to be published in January. But now January is almost over.
It was sent to France to the publisher of Plante [a magazine devoted to occultism and parapsychology]I still dont know if theyre going to take it, but it was sent to them.
--
But above all I am expecting the book to have a tremendous impact in America, ESPECIALLY there. I dont think I am wrong.
To tell you the truth, I wish this book could be translated into American English by an American.
Yes.
--
Now we should get the book moving.
It is supposed to come out [in the Ashram] in French next month.
--
There are the northern European countries. We have someone from there who has just been called back to his post in Sweden or Norway. He could do some work over there. He should be given the introduction and the book when it appears.
Yes, we should get it moving. I have the feeling this is the book that is going to electrify America. And when I saw the effect on R., I saw I wasnt wrong, because she represents the intellectual element of that country. She was so enthusiastic that if they are taken by it it can create a tremendous movement over there.
I am counting on it.
--
Its splendid. I personally have the feeling there is a close and invisible connection between Americas aspiration, as it is now, and the book. I have the feeling thats where the center of transformation will be. The European countries are old.
Old, thats right.
0 1971-01-30, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He has written a splendid book. I am counting on this book to revolutionize the world. You can be proud of your son.
(Satprems mother smiles and goes out)
Well, you have brought the book?
You want me to read to you this morning?
--
I dont believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their chest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhereor it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy or silence. It is what has happened to the religions and is the reason of their failure.
October 2, 1934
--
You see, theyve gone through an experience, theyve exhausted their possibility and realized it led nowhere, and unfortunately theyre now going backwardsit is the right time to give them the book.
If it were really translated into very good Russian it ought to be spread throughout the country. Now is just the time when it needs something. It has lost faith in what it thought it had found.
--
You could ask her. You could tell her that I would very much like the book to be translated into Russian by someone who writes well, who has a lively stylenot something dry and arid: someone who has a lively and appealing style. And we would arrange to print it somewhere.
Ill speak to S. about it.
0 1971-02-03, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(After Satprems reading of the book, Mother asks that it be translated into the languages of India and mentions Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, and Tamil.)
(To Sujata:) You dont know an Indian language well enough to translate it?
0 1971-02-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When will the book come out?
Theyre late. I hope at the beginning of next month.
--
I would like your book to be translated into every language.
(Mother takes Satprems hands, looks at him, smiles)
0 1971-03-03, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, I am forever struggling with people whove come here to be comfortable and free to do what they like, so I tell them, The world is big, you can go. No soul, no aspiration, nothing. I am counting on your book very much.
Has T. [the English translator] finished her translation?
--
But I am counting on your book to shake all that upits very well explained there, very well.
I remember the first time Pavitra read something of yours2 (it was a long time ago, several years), he told me, Oh, its a revelation for me! How many years had he been here!3 He said, Oh, at last Ive understood that its in simplicity.
It was a revelation for him. I am really counting a lot on your book.
Whenever I try to explain it to them, theyre always surprised at the simplicity of the thing.
--
I feel that it is the book that will give a new orientation there. Thats why I am insisting. And Russia. Russia, changed to the right side, it would be wonderful! I dont know why. Naturally I was Russian in a recent incarnation, when I was. Is it Catherine?
Catherine, yes.
--
Will the book be out then?
I dont think so. Next week, I think.
0 1971-03-06, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Has the book come out yet?
No. I hope towards the end of next week.
--
Oh, I am counting very, very, very much on your book.
(Mother takes Satprems hands)
0 1971-03-13, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a question of C.S. [a German translator]. Because there are differences between C.S. and T.K. [another translator] over the vocabulary to use. Three or four years ago already, when C.S. translated my first book, there was a whole discussion and you made certain suggestions. You said in particular that the word mental [mind] and the word esprit [spirit] should not be translated by the same word.
Of course not!
--
For example he said that since he has a book-sales office, he would refuse to sell any book using a different terminology!
Thats absurd.
What should be done for these books is to put a note in, to insert a note in each book saying that this particular word used here corresponds to that word used in the other booksto let people know. Because if its the same word as mental, that leads to terrible confusionterrible, the worst confusion. There has to be a distinction, its imperative: either T.K. has to put a note or. Because you see, if they put mental for both words, or even another word that means the same thing, it distorts the teaching immediately. It immediately creates terrible confusion.
In any event, there should be a note explaining that the word is taken in a particular sense.
Evidently, C.S. wanted to use the same vocabulary in the other book as the one he used in The Adventure of Consciousness.
Thats reasonable enough.
0 1971-03-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the introduction of your book in America.
Its in Ulster County [the piece had been submitted without comment by American friends to the Ulster County Townsman, a weekly newspaper published in Woodstock, New York, and the paper had published it].
0 1971-04-03, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Another sign of the times. This conversation concerns one of the Ashram presses which was, despite Mother's instructions, about to sell fraudulently a cheaper edition of "Supermanhood" in Europe and Canada, while the rights to the book were reserved. This cheaper edition was exclusively intended for India. Satprem protests in particular against the jacket and presentation of the book, which are patently designed to make as much money as possible at a minimum cost. Mother's face is swollen, her eyes too.)
I am disgusted. I cant trust anyone!
Theyre selling books the way youd sell margarine or peanuts.
When someone lies like that, its finished. I cant trust him anymore. You have to be very thick-skinned to lie to my face.
0 1971-04-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning I saw B.,1 who brought me the letter you wrote to M. [the manager of the press]. It pained me because it was an outburst of an excited mind, which is obviously not the luminous intelligence that wrote the book. I have arranged for B. to ask you for one or two cover designs you find suitable so I can make the final decision.2
But the lesson to be drawn from all this is to remain calm so as not to lose contact with the Supreme Lord.
--
The big book entrepreneur of the Ashram and brother of the would-be owner of Auroville.
The book cover took the forefront in the affair. What seems to have been conveniently forgotten is the sales methods of that Press: someone had dared to put his finger on the vast network of financial manipulations in foreign currencies. This is far from being the end of the story.
***
0 1971-04-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A. told me he liked your book1 very much.
Oh, yes! Good.
--
But you know, from the first reactions that are starting to come in, the book is creating a sort of schism!
What?
--
Oh! She had written me that there were passages she didnt like in your book.
Yes, they are repulsive, she told me.
--
So I said, I am terribly sorry, but I have to tell you that you do not understand the book. She never replied.
Yes, she wrote to me also.
--
No, not at all, Mother! But she told me there was no Presence in the book.
No what?
--
You see, she had sent me a passage from your book leaving out part of a sentence, which changed the meaning to the opposite of what was intended. So I understood that there is a (gesture of twisting).
Yes, they always cut things out.
0 1971-04-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theyre two very different kinds of book.
Oh, definitely! Supermanhood is the important one for me.
--
I dont very much like the destiny of the two books being mixed together. You see, I had made a special formation [for Supermanhood], I had put a special force, but it was on that one.
I can call him, its quite easy.
--
But I didnt say it was low. Its an entirely different kind of book.
Because basically, Supermanhood contains the essence of the Sannyasin; the whole of the Sannyasin is in Supermanhood. Supermanhood is simply concentrated and said with power, but everything is there in the Sannyasin as well.
0 1971-04-28, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
People who dont want to work. Now they say that according to your book, to get the true consciousness, one doesnt have to work!
Yes, thats it. I heard that also. They say, Work belongs to the old world!
--
Yes, you can write. Maybe they would listen to you, because theyre saying that in the name of your book, you see!
Oh, you know, in the name of my book they also say that Sri Aurobindo and Mother are now obsolete, and that in a way my book supersedes all that!
Yes, oh, exactly! (general laughter)
0 1971-05-05, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres the problem of the English translation of the book.
A. didnt tell me what he thought of it.
0 1971-05-26, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(M.:) My first reaction was this: I found the book very poetic, very lovely I mean the French.
Its good, isnt it?
--
She should have translated your book! Only, shes busy and writes herself. I am going to ask her. Only, the other one is going to be devastated! (laughter)
But I asked T. [the English translator] the sentences she objected to, and I told her, I am very sorry, but I see you havent understood the book in the least! She knows it.
(Satprem:) T. said some rather terrible things about my book.
Ah? (Mother laughs merrily)
--
So I tried to explain to her, Look, I dont know, the book literally fell on me.
(Mother laughs)
--
She wrote me about it, at any rate, saying that she didnt feel the Presence in the bookshe wrote, The Presence is missing in this book.
She knows better than I do.
--
(M.:) I didnt read it with a very critical mind, Mother, but one reaction I did have, I can say frankly: I felt that what Satprem says is natural and it should be kept simple. It reminded me of a similar analogy as when I do a mathematical problem that I find extremely difficult, but once Ive found the solution, I always think, But it was so simple! All you had to do was draw this line and everything comes out! I found the book a little like that.
(Mother nods her head)
But then I would like to ask one thing which I didnt find in the book: there is no express mention of the guru. Could a person do that all alone, without a guru?
(after a silence)
--
(Satprem to M.:) In a book you cant openly speak of a guru, telling the readers, You must follow such and such a person. You can only make them feel something and turn them toward it, but you cant very well tell them, You know, you have to follow such and such a person.
Yes, of course!
--
(M.:) Well, I mention this because, reading the book, I felt, If someone starts following this path without a guru, he may find himself in trouble. But its a book that inspires you to follow the path.
(silence)
--
(M.:) But it seemed to me it was your experience, especially toward the end of the book.
(Laughing) So I am responsible!
--
The translation of Satprem's article appearing in this book under the date May 15, 1971 has been done specially for the Agenda.
Satprem had informed Mother that he felt he was in the blackest hole of his life and that everything was as it used to be before, as if the seventeen years in the Ashram had never existed.
0 1971-06-23, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have some news from P.L. You know he had submitted the book On the Way to Supermanhood at the same time as The Sannyasin to Flammarion, a publisher in Paris. And they refused them.
Oh, they refused them!
--
No, I see a great success for the book, I see it, its concrete. There is a publisher who will be happy to take it, but I dont know the names.
(silence)
--
Perhaps someone who doesnt have a lot of money and would be only too happy to have our printed bookshe would only have to put on his own jacket.
I feel very strongly, you know.
0 1971-07-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
which were plain to me, like what I expressed in my booksits as if all that had turned to dust. As if it didnt have any yes, its dust. I dont have a single sure idea I can lean on. There are no more reference points.
But thats exactly what I just said in different words! Everything we think (its been ages since I had any ideas), is like that, it seems so futilely futile, I dont know.
0 1971-09-04, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Is something going to come to me? Something else [another book]?
People arent ready, mon petit! Every day I discover. Those who are left to their freedom are worthless. They have the most vulgar consciousness, its dreadfulno aspiration, no need for perfection, nothing at all.
--- Overview of noun boo
The noun boo has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. boo, hoot, Bronx cheer, hiss, raspberry, razzing, razz, snort, bird ::: (a cry or noise made to express displeasure or contempt)
--- Overview of verb boo
The verb boo has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (1) boo, hiss ::: (show displeasure, as after a performance or speech)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun boo
1 sense of boo
Sense 1
boo, hoot, Bronx cheer, hiss, raspberry, razzing, razz, snort, bird
=> cry, outcry, call, yell, shout, vociferation
=> utterance, vocalization
=> auditory communication
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun boo
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun boo
1 sense of boo
Sense 1
boo, hoot, Bronx cheer, hiss, raspberry, razzing, razz, snort, bird
=> cry, outcry, call, yell, shout, vociferation
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun boo
1 sense of boo
Sense 1
boo, hoot, Bronx cheer, hiss, raspberry, razzing, razz, snort, bird
-> cry, outcry, call, yell, shout, vociferation
=> bellow, bellowing, holla, holler, hollering, hollo, holloa, roar, roaring, yowl
=> blue murder
=> catcall
=> clamor, clamoring, clamour, clamouring, hue and cry
=> halloo
=> hoot
=> hosanna
=> noise
=> scream, screaming, shriek, shrieking, screech, screeching
=> whoop
=> war cry, war whoop, rallying cry, battle cry
=> yelling, shouting
=> yodel
=> boo, hoot, Bronx cheer, hiss, raspberry, razzing, razz, snort, bird
--- Grep of noun boo
baboo
bamboo
black bamboo
boo
boo-boo
boob
boob tube
booboisie
booby
booby hatch
booby prize
booby trap
boocercus eurycerus
boodle
booger
boogeyman
boogie
boogie-woogie
boojum tree
book
book agent
book bag
book binding
book fair
book jacket
book louse
book lover
book lung
book matches
book of account
book of amos
book of baruch
book of common prayer
book of daniel
book of deuteronomy
book of ecclesiastes
book of esther
book of exodus
book of ezekiel
book of ezra
book of facts
book of genesis
book of habakkuk
book of haggai
book of hosea
book of instructions
book of isaiah
book of jeremiah
book of job
book of joel
book of jonah
book of joshua
book of judges
book of judith
book of knowledge
book of lamentations
book of leviticus
book of malachi
book of maps
book of micah
book of mormon
book of nahum
book of nehemiah
book of numbers
book of obadiah
book of proverbs
book of psalms
book of revelation
book of ruth
book of susanna
book of the prophet daniel
book of tobit
book of zachariah
book of zephaniah
book review
book scorpion
book seller
book token
book value
bookbinder
bookbindery
bookbinding
bookcase
bookclub
bookdealer
bookend
booker
booker t. washington
booker taliaferro washington
bookfair
bookie
booking
booking agent
booking clerk
bookishness
bookkeeper
bookkeeping
booklet
booklouse
booklover
bookmaker
bookman
bookmark
bookmarker
bookmobile
bookplate
bookseller
bookshelf
bookshop
bookstall
bookstore
bookworm
boole
boolean algebra
boolean logic
boolean operation
boom
boom box
boom town
boomer
boomerang
boon
boondocks
boondoggle
boone
boor
boorishness
boost
booster
booster amplifier
booster cable
booster dose
booster rocket
booster shot
booster station
booster unit
boot
boot camp
boot maker
boot sale
bootblack
bootboys
booted armillaria
bootee
bootes
booth
boothose
bootie
bootjack
bootlace
bootleg
bootlegger
bootlegging
bootlicker
bootmaker
bootstrap
boott's goldenrod
booty
booyong
booze
booze-up
boozer
boozing
bugaboo
common bamboo
fishpole bamboo
giant bamboo
giant timber bamboo
jigaboo
peekaboo
taboo