TERMS STARTING WITH
fundamental ::: a. --> Pertaining to the foundation or basis; serving for the foundation. Hence: Essential, as an element, principle, or law; important; original; elementary; as, a fundamental truth; a fundamental axiom. ::: n. --> A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article,
fundamental attribution error: in attribution theory, the inclination to overemphasise the influence of dispositional factors (e.g. personality) and underestimating the role of situational factors (e.g. weather) on a persons behaviour.
fundamentally ::: adv. --> Primarily; originally; essentially; radically; at the foundation; in origin or constituents.
fundamental theorem of algebra: Analogous to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, it is a theorem which states that all complex monic polynomials can be uniquely expressed as the product of a unique set of monic linear expressions.
fundamental theorem of arithmetic: The theorem which states that all positive integers (apart from 1) can be expressed as the product of a unique set of prime numbers.
fundamental theorem of calculus: The theorem which states that differentiation and integration are opposite processes (or operations) of one another..
Fundamental analysis - Evaluation of a company's stock based on an examination of the firm's financial statements. It is distinguished from technical analysis, which attempts to predict the market price of a company's stock based on historical price performance and overall stock market trends. It considers overall financial health, economic and political conditions, industry factors, marketing aspects, management quality, and future outlook of the company.
Fundamental_analysis ::: is a method of evaluating a security in an attempt to assess its intrinsic value, by examining related economic, financial, and other qualitative and quantitative factors. Fundamental analysts study anything that can affect the security's value, including macroeconomic factors (e.g. economy and industry conditions) and microeconomic factors (e.g. financial conditions and company management). The end goal of fundamental analysis is to produce a quantitative value that an investor can compare with a security's current price, thus indicating whether the security is undervalued or overvalued.
Fundamental Attribution Error ::: The tendency to over estimate the internal attributes of another person&
Fundamentalism ::: A term originally applied to conservative, Bible-centered Protestant Christians (many of whom now prefer to call themselves "evangelicals"), but more recently extended to apply to the religiously authoritarian of all sorts who interpret their scriptures literally and in general favor a strict adherence to certain traditional doctrines and practices.
Fundamental Propositions In theosophy, the three fundamental religio-philosophic principles or propositions which Blavatsky states in the Proem to The Secret Doctrine are the foundation on which theosophy presents its modern philosophical teachings: 1) “An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception”; 2) “The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically ‘the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing’”; and 3) “The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul — a spark of the former — through the Cycle of Incarnation (or ‘Necessity’) in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term” (SD 1:14-17). There are also three fundamental propositions in volume 2:
Fundamentals - Factors that are “fundamental” to the operations of a firm’s business, its profitability, operating costs, technical innovations, product prices, etc.
Fundamentals ::: include the basic qualitative and quantitative information that contributes to the financial or economic well-being and the subsequent financial valuation of a company, security or currency. Analysts and investors examine these fundamentals to develop an estimate as to whether the underlying asset is considered a worthwhile investment; that is, whether it is fairly valued in the market, given an analysis of its business fundamentals. For businesses, information such as profitability, revenue, assets, liabilities and growth potential are considered fundamentals. Fundamental analysis, involving calculating a company's financial ratios, is the implementation of fundamentals into investment decision making.
TERMS ANYWHERE
2. In psychology, the act or process of exercising the mind, the faculty of connecting judgments; the power and fact of using reason; the thought-processes of discussion, debate, argumentation or inference; the manifestation of the discursive property of the mind; the actual use of arguments with a view to convince or persuade; the art and method or proving or demonstrating; the orderly development of thought with a view to, or the attainment of a conclusion believed to be valid. -- The origin, nature and value of reasoning are debated questions, with their answers ranging from spiritualism (reasoning as the exercise of a faculty of the soul) to materialism (reasoning as an epiphenomenon depending on the brain), with all the modern schools of psychology ordering themselves between them. A few points of agreement might be mentioned here: reasoning follows judgment and apprehension, whichever of the last two thought-processes comes first in our psychological development; reasoning proceeds according to four main types, namely deductive, inductive, presumptive and deceptive; reasoning assumes a belief in its own validity undisturbed by doubt, and implies various logical habits and methods which may be organized into a logical doctrine; reasoning requires a reference to some ultimate principles to justify its progress 3. In logic, Reasoning is the process of inference, it is the process of passing from certain propositions already known or assumed to be true, to another truth distinct from them but following from them; it is a discourse or argument which infers one proposition from another, or from a group of others having some common elements between them. The inference is necessary in the case of deductive reasoning; and contingent, probable or wrong, in the case of inductive, presumptive or deceptive reasoning respectively. -- There are various types of reasoning, and proper methods for each type. The definition, discussion, development and evaluation of these types and methods form an important branch of logic and its subdivisions. The details of the application of reasoning to the various sciences, form the subject of methodology. All these types are reducible to one or the other of the two fundamental processes or reasoning, namely deduction and induction. It must be added that the logical study of reasoning is normative logic does not analyze it simply in its natural development, but with a view to guide it towards coherence, validity or truth. -- T.G.
2. Under the influence of Franz Brentano (1838-1917), Husserl coined the name "Intentionalität" for what he saw is the fundamental character of subjective processes. The reflectively experienceable part of one's stream of consciousness is, on the one hand, consciousness of subjective processes as immanent in the stream itself and, on the other hand, consciousness of other objects as transcending the stieam. This character of subjective processes as consciousness of, as processes in which something is intended, is a property they have intrinsically, regardless of whether what is intended in them exists. Seeing intentionality as the fundamental attribute of subjective processes, Husseil held that phenomenology must describe them not only with respect to their immanent components but also with respect to their intended objects, as intended, in the language of his Ideen, phenomenological description must be "noematic," as well as "noetic" and "hyletic."
8. ALGEBRA OF RELATIONS or algebra of relatives deals with relations (q. v.) in extension whose domains and converse domains are each contained in a fixed universe of discourse (which must be a class having at least two members), in a way similar to that in which the algebra of classes deals with classes. Fundamental ideas involved are those of the universal relation and the null relation; the relations of identity and diversity; the contrary and the converse of a relation; the logical sum, the logical product, the relative sum, and the relative product of two relations.
Abhidhamma (Pali) Abhidhamma [from abhi towards, with intensified meaning + dhamma law, religion, duty from the verbal root dhr to hold fast, preserve, sustain] The supreme dhamma or law as expounded in the third and last portion of the Pali Tipitaka (Sanskrit Tripitaka) or “three baskets” of the canonical books of the Southern School of Buddhism. The Abhidhamma-pitaka, which deals with profound metaphysical themes, is believed to be the source from which the Mahayana and Hinayana got their fundamental doctrines.
ablative ::: a. --> Taking away or removing.
Applied to one of the cases of the noun in Latin and some other languages, -- the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away. ::: --> The ablative case.
absolute reality ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I would myself say that bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities; . . . .” Letters on Yoga
According to theosophy the forces of science are effects produced on the physical plane by elementals or nature forces, which are themselves secondary causes and the effects of primary causes, ultimately of divine origin, behind the veil of terrestrial phenomena. Descending through the planes of cosmos there is a chain of effects. Theosophy sees no fundamental difference between force and motion: eternal motion gives rise on every plane to the dual manifestation of force and matter, twin aspects of the same substance.
address 1. "networking" {e-mail address}. 2. "networking" {IP address}. 3. "networking" {MAC address}. 4. "storage, programming" An unsigned integer used to select one fundamental element of storage, usually known as a {word} from a computer's {main memory} or other storage device. The {CPU} outputs addresses on its {address bus} which may be connected to an {address decoder}, {cache controller}, {memory management unit}, and other devices. While from a hardware point of view an address is indeed an integer most {strongly typed} programming languages disallow mixing integers and addresses, and indeed addresses of different data types. This is a fine example for {syntactic salt}: the compiler could work without it but makes writing bad programs more difficult. (1997-07-01)
ADVAITA. :::One Existence; the One without a second; non-dual, absolute and indivisible unity; Monism.
People are apt to speak of the Advaita as if it were identical with Mayavada monism, just as they speak of Vedanta as if it were identical with Advaita only; that is not the case. There are several forms of Indian philosophy which base themselves upon the One Reality, but they admit also the reality of the world, the reality of the Many, the reality of the differences of the Many as well as the sameness of the One (bhedābheda). But the Many exist in the One and by the One, the differences are variations in manifestation of that which is fundamentally ever the same. This we actually see in the universal law of existence where oneness is always the basis with an endless multiplicity and difference in the oneness; as for instance there is one mankind but many kinds of man, one thing called leaf or flower, but many forms, patterns, colours of leaf and flower. Through this we can look back into one of the fundamental secrets of existence, the secret which is contained in the one reality itself. The oneness of the Infinite is not something limited, fettered to its unity; it is capable of an infinite multiplicity. The Supreme Reality is an Absolute not limited by either oneness or multiplicity but simultaneously capable of both; for both are its aspects, although the oneness is fundamental and the multiplicity depends upon the oneness.
Wide Realistic Advaita.
Aeriform Having the form or nature of air; used by Blavatsky to describe one of seven fundamental transformations of the constituent particles of matter of the globes (SD 1:205). Also used to describe primeval man on this earth during the fourth round, who was aeriform, devoid of compactness, and mindless (SD 2:80).
aesthesis ::: “By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit’s delight of existence, Ananda.” Letters on Savitri
Agnosticism [from Greek a not + gnostos known] The mental attitude denying the possibility of the real knowledge of truth and hence of the ultimate or fundamental nature of the universe. The term was coined by T. H. Huxley to denote his own attitude, in contrast to Gnosticism which implies the possibility of knowing truth and the inner and invisible realities of the universe. It differs from atheism in not denying the existence of God or cosmic divinities.
Aham Eva Parabrahma (Sanskrit) Aham eva parabrahma [from aham I + eva indeed, verily + para beyond + brahma creative deity from the verbal root bṛh to expand] Also aham asmi parabrahma. I am verily parabrahma, the Boundless; imbodies the teaching that above and within every entity whatsoever is everything that is in universal space or boundless infinitude, so that each person is fundamentally one with all that is because the same divine consciousness flows through every point in space, in that all worlds, gods, human beings, and atoms are each one derived from the same original source.
aham vritti. ::: the "I"-thought; the limited feeling of "I"-ness or "I am"-ness &
Akarsha (Sanskrit) Ākarṣa [from ā near to, towards + kṛṣ to draw, pull, lead] Drawing towards oneself, attraction, fascination as by magnetism. The law of attraction, and its alter ego repulsion, is a fundamental and universal operation of nature and is active on all planes and in all spaces and times. It is, in another sense, one of the functions of that unceasing motion which is an inherent attribute of cosmic consciousness. “Motion is the eternal order of things and affinity or attraction its handmaid of all works” (ML 67).
Alan Turing "person" Alan M. Turing, 1912-06-22/3? - 1954-06-07. A British mathematician, inventor of the {Turing Machine}. Turing also proposed the {Turing test}. Turing's work was fundamental in the theoretical foundations of computer science. Turing was a student and fellow of {King's College Cambridge} and was a graduate student at {Princeton University} from 1936 to 1938. While at Princeton Turing published "On Computable Numbers", a paper in which he conceived an {abstract machine}, now called a {Turing Machine}. Turing returned to England in 1938 and during World War II, he worked in the British Foreign Office. He masterminded operations at {Bletchley Park}, UK which were highly successful in cracking the Nazis "Enigma" codes during World War II. Some of his early advances in computer design were inspired by the need to perform many repetitive symbolic manipulations quickly. Before the building of the {Colossus} computer this work was done by a roomful of women. In 1945 he joined the {National Physical Laboratory} in London and worked on the design and construction of a large computer, named {Automatic Computing Engine} (ACE). In 1949 Turing became deputy director of the Computing Laboratory at Manchester where the {Manchester Automatic Digital Machine}, the worlds largest memory computer, was being built. He also worked on theories of {artificial intelligence}, and on the application of mathematical theory to biological forms. In 1952 he published the first part of his theoretical study of morphogenesis, the development of pattern and form in living organisms. Turing was gay, and died rather young under mysterious circumstances. He was arrested for violation of British homosexuality statutes in 1952. He died of potassium cyanide poisoning while conducting electrolysis experiments. An inquest concluded that it was self-administered but it is now thought by some to have been an accident. There is an excellent biography of Turing by Andrew Hodges, subtitled "The Enigma of Intelligence" and a play based on it called "Breaking the Code". There was also a popular summary of his work in Douglas Hofstadter's book "Gödel, Escher, Bach". {(http://AlanTuring.net/)}. (2001-10-09)
Al Farabi: Died 950, introduced Aristotelian logic into the world of Islam. He was known to posterity as the "second Aristotle". He continued the encyclopedic tradition inaugurated by Al Kindi. His metaphysical speculation influenced Avicenna who found in the works of his predecessor the fundamental notion of a distinction between existence and essence, the latter not implying necessarily in a contingent being the former which therefore has to be given by God. He also emphasizes the Aristotelian notion of the "first mover". The concretization of the universal nature in particular things points to a creative power which has endowed being with such a nature. Al Farabi's philosophy is dependent in certain parts on Neo-Platonism. Creation is emanation. There is an anima mundi the images of which become corporeal beings. Logic is considered as the preamble to all science. Physics comprises all factual knowledge, including psychology; metaphysics and ethics are the other parts of philosophy. Cl. Baeumker, Alfarabi, Ueber den Vrsprung der Wissensehaften, Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1916. Vol. XIX. M. Horten, Das Buch der Ringsteine Farabis. ibid. 1906. Vol. V. -- R.A. Al
“All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite’s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit’s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being,—an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves,—but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” The Life Divine
All electromagnetism is rooted in or takes its rise from the akasa, and the bipolarity of magnetism and electricity is simply a reproduction in our sphere — and even in human beings when they manifest themselves — of the fundamental bipolarity in cosmic structure inherent in the akasa, out of the womb of which the worlds are born. Magnetism might be considered the more subtle part of electricity, and electricity the grosser aspect of the fundamental force which is both. Both are fluids, emanations, from the akasa, and are really two aspects of the underlying fohat.
AM 1. "communications" {Amplitude Modulation}. 2. "artificial intelligence" A program by {Doug Lenat} to discover concepts in elementary mathematics. AM was written in 1976 in {Interlisp}. From 100 fundamental concepts and about 250 {heuristics} it discovered several important mathematical concepts including subsets, disjoint sets, sets with the same number of elements, and numbers. It worked by filling slots in {frames} maintaining an agenda of resource-limited prioritised tasks. AM's successor was {Eurisko}. {(http://homepages.enterprise.net/hibou/aicourse/lenat.txt)}. (1999-04-19)
(a) Metaphysical: The view that there is but one fundamental Reality; first used by Wolff. (A Universe.) Sometimes spoken of as Singularism. The classical ancient protagonist of an extreme monism is Parmenides of Elea; a modern exponent is Spinoza. Christian Science is an example of a popular contemporary religion built on an extreme monistic theory of reality. Most metaphysical monists hold to a modified or soft monistic theory (e.g. the metaphysics of Royce).
Among its members W. Dubislav (1937), K. Grelling, O. Helmer, C. G. Hempel, A. Herzberg, K.. Korsch, H. Reichenbach (q.v.), M. Strauss. Many members of the following groups may be regarded as adherents of Scientific Empiricism: the Berlin Society for Scientific Philosophy, the W arsaw School, the Cambridge School for Analytic Philosophy (q.v.), further, in U. S. A., some of the representatives of contemporary Pragmatism (q.v.), especially C. W. Morris, of Neo-Realism (q.v.), and of Operationalism (q.v.). Among the individual adherents not belonging to the groups mentioned: E. Kaila (Finland), J. Jörgensen (Denmark), A. Ness (Norway); A. J. Ayer, J. H. Woodger (England); M. Boll (France); K. Popper (now New Zealand); E. Brunswik, H. Gomperz, Felix Kaufmann, R. V. Mises, L. Rougier, E. Zilsel (now in U. S. A.); E. Nagel, W. V. Quine, and many others (in U.S.A.). The general attitude and the views of Scientific Empiricism are in esential agreement with those of Logical Empiricism (see above, 1). Here, the unity of science is especially emphasized, in various respects There is a logical unity of the language of science; the concepts of different branches of science are not of fundamentally different kinds but belong to one coherent system. The unity of science in this sense is closely connected with the thesis of Physicahsm (q.v.). There is a practical task in the present stage of development, to come to a better mutual adaptation of terminologies in different branches of science. There is today no unity of the laws of science. It is an aim of the future development of science to come, if possible, to a simple set of connected, fundamental laws from which the special laws in the different branches of science, including the social sciences, can be deduced. Here also, the analysis of language is regarded as one of the chief methods of the science of science. While logical positivism stressed chiefly the logical side of this analysis, it is here carried out from various directions, including an analysis of the biological and sociological sides of the activities of language and knowledge, as they have been emphasized earlier by Pragmatism (q.v.), especially C. S. Peirce and G. H. Mead. Thus the development leads now to a comprehensive general theory of signs or semiotic (q.v.) as a basis for philosophy The following publications and meetings may be regarded as organs of this movement. The periodical "Erkenntnis", since 1930, now continued as "Journal of Unified Science" The "Encyclopedia of Unified Science", its first part ("Foundations of the Unity of Science", 2 vols.) consisting of twenty monographs (eight appeared by 1940). Here, the foundations of various fields of science are discussed, especially from the point of view of the unity of science and scientific procedure, and the relations between the fields. Thus, the work intends to serve as an introduction to the science of science (q.v.). A series of International Congresses for the Unity of Science was started by a preliminary conference in Prague 1934 (see report, Erkenntnis 5, 1935). The congresses took place at Pans in 1935 ("Actes", Pans 1936; Erkenntnis 5, 1936); at Copenhagen in 1936 (Erkenntnis 6, 1937); at Paris in 1937; at Cambridge, England, in 1938 (Erkenntnis 7, 1938); at Cambridge, Mass., in 1939 (J. Unif. Sc. 9, 1941); at Chicago in 1941. Concerning the development and the aims of this movement, see O. Neurath and C. W. Morris (for both, see above, I D), further H. Reichenbach, Ziele and Wege der heutigen Naturphilosophie, 1931; S. S. Stevens, "Psychology and the Science of Science", Psych. Bull. 36, 1939 (with bibliography). Bibliographies in "Erkenntnis": 1, 1931, p. 315, p. 335 (Polish authors); 2, 1931, p. 151, p. 189; 5, 1935, p. 185, p. 195 (American authors), p. 199 (Polish authors), p. 409, larger bibliography: in Encycl. Unif. Science, vol. II, No. 10 (to ippetr in 1942). -- R.C.
A more mystical significance is founded in the fact that when a buddha or avatara appears or whenever an effort is made to aid mankind along spiritual lines, the powers of darkness automatically react along their own lines. This corresponding tendency to evil is the fundamental significance of Antichrist — Christos being the name of the high initiate in whom was imbodied a ray of the Logos.
Anatta (Pali) Anattā [from an not + attā self, soul] Non-self, nonegoity; a Buddhist doctrine postulating that there is no unchanging, permanent self (atta, Sanskrit atman) in the human being, in contrast to the Upanishad view that the atman or inner essence of a human being is identic with Brahman, the Supreme, which pervades and is the universe. While Gautama Buddha stresses the nonreality of self, regarding as continuous only its attributes (the five khandas; Sanskrit skandhas) which return at rebirth, there is scriptural testimony in both Southern and Northern Schools that the Buddha recognized a fundamental selfhood in the human constitution (ET 593-4 3rd & rev ed).
Anatta-vada: (Pali) Theory (vada) of the non-existence of soul (anatta) one of the fundamental teachings of Gautama Buddha (q.v.) who regarded all ideas about the soul or self wrong, inadequate or illusory. -- K.F.L.
Anaximenes of Miletus (611-547 BC) Ionian Greek philosopher, pupil of Anaximander, who held air to be the fundamental principle from which fire arose through rarefaction and water and solids arose through condensation. He also held that the universe was alive, and that the individual soul was a small portion of the most rarefied “air” or ultimate world-substance, trapped within the individual being (cf Guthrie, Greek Philosophers 80). He taught that mankind had evolved from the animals, though not in the Darwinian sense. (BCW 6:204) (BCW 11:270; IU 1:238, SD 1:77, 590)
. a-nirgun.a brahman ::: brahman perceived in the unity of its "two essential modes" as equally sagun.a ("qualitied") and nirgun.a ("unqualitied"); sagun.a brahman, "a fundamental divine Reality who is the source and container and master of all relations and determinations", realised on the foundation of nirgun.a brahman, "a fundamental divine Reality free from all relations or determinates".
anna1 (anna; annam) ::: (literally) food; matter, the principle on which the physical world (bhū) is based, the lowest of the three principles of the aparardha; in its fundamental nature, "a form of the force of conscious Being [sat], a form given by Mind and realised by Life";"the divisible being which founds itself on the constant changeableness of physical substance", the material body which, together with the physical pran.a, composes the sthūla deha.
Anthropogenesis That stage of theogony when the spiritual monads of the central spiritual fire are passing through the human kingdom. If we include under “human being” everything from the primal spark to the culminating point of evolution, then anthropogenesis would become coextensive with cosmogenesis. The two cannot be sharply separated, for not only is man involved in those cosmic kingdoms which are at other stages than the human, but the human being, in common with every other organism, is an epitome of the universe. Three lines of evolution converge in humankind: the monadic or divine-spiritual, the intellectual from the manasa-dhyanis, and the vital-astral-physical. But we are not a mere product generated by external forces or creative powers outside of ourselves; it is the growth outwards from our own inner essence that is fundamental.
Anu (Chaldean) Supreme god of the Babylonian pantheon, king of angels and spirits, ruler of destiny, lord of the city of Erech or Uruk — later Ur. One of the loftiest of Babylonian divinities, part of a trinity with Enlil and Ea, he was especially the god of heaven, creator of star spirits and of the demons of cold, rain, and darkness. His consort Antum or Anatum was mother of the gods. Anu was the concealed deity; in the Chaldean account of Genesis, he is the passive deity, however, “the primordial chaos, the god time and world at once, chronos, and kosmos, the uncreated matter issued from the one and fundamental principle of all things” (IU 2:423).
Aparinamin (Sanskrit) Apariṇāmin [from a not + pari around, about + the verbal root nam to bend, turn, change] Unchanging; used in connection with Purusha and prakriti or pradhana, when regarded in their fundamental essence of continuous spiritual substance. In the Puranas, for example, Purusha (spirit per se) is called both avyaya (imperishable, undecaying) and aparinamin (immutable, unchanging); while prahana or prakriti (matter in its elemental state) is vyaya (perishable) and parinamin (subject to change) (cf VP 1:2; SD 1:582). However, when Purusha and prakriti are regarded from the standpoint of the periods of manifestation, their aspects become mayavi (illusory), and hence in their interblending actions subject to the modifications of manvantaric evolution.
Apophansis: A Greek word for proposition involving etymologically a reference to its realist onto-logical background (Greek root of phaos, light). In this sense, a proposition expresses the illumination of its subject by its predicate or predicates; or again, It makes explicit the internal luminosity of its subject by positing against it as predicates its essential or accidental constituents. The Aristotelian apophansis or logosapopkantikos denotes the fundamental subject-predicate form, either as an independent propositlonal form or as a syllogistic conclusion, to which all other types of propositions may be reduced by analysis and deduction. It cannot be said that the controversies initiated by modern symbolic logic have destroyed the ontological or operational value of the Aristotelian apophantic form. -- T.G.
Arabic Philosophy: The contact of the Arabs with Greek civilization and philosophy took place partly in Syria, where Christian Arabic philosophy developed, partly in other countries, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt and Spain. The effect of this contact was not a simple reception of Greek philosophy, but the gradual growth of an original mode of thought, determined chiefly by the religious and philosophical tendencies alive in the Arab world. Eastern influences had produced a mystical trend, not unlike Neo-Platonism; the already existing "metaphysics of light", noticeable in the religious conception of the Qoran, also helped to assimilate Plotinlan ideas. On the other hand, Aristotelian philosophy became important, although more, at least in the beginning, as logic and methodology. The interest in science and medicine contributed to the spread of Aristotelian philosophy. The history of philosophy in the Arab world is determined by the increasing opposition of Orthodoxy against a more liberal theology and philosophy. Arab thought became influential in the Western world partly through European scholars who went to Spain and elsewhere for study, mostly however through the Latin translations which became more and more numerous at the end of the 12th and during the 13th centuries. Among the Christian Arabs Costa ben Luca (864-923) has to be mentioned whose De Differentia spiritus et animae was translated by Johannes Hispanus (12th century). The first period of Islamic philosophy is occupied mainly with translation of Greek texts, some of which were translated later into Latin. The Liber de causis (mentioned first by Alanus ab Insulis) is such a translation of an Arab text; it was believed to be by Aristotle, but is in truth, as Aquinas recognized, a version of the Stoicheiosis theologike by Proclus. The so-called Theologia Aristotelis is an excerpt of Plotinus Enn. IV-VI, written 840 by a Syrian. The fundamental trends of Arab philosophy are indeed Neo-Platonic, and the Aristotelian texts were mostly interpreted in this spirit. Furthermore, there is also a tendency to reconcile the Greek philosophers with theological notions, at least so long as the orthodox theologians could find no reason for opposition. In spite of this, some of the philosophers did not escape persecution. The Peripatetic element is more pronounced in the writings of later times when the technique of paraphrasis and commentary on Aristotelian texts had developed. Beside the philosophy dependent more or less on Greek, and partially even Christian influences, there is a mystical theology and philosophy whose sources are the Qoran, Indian and, most of all, Persian systems. The knowledge of the "Hermetic" writings too was of some importance.
archetype ::: n. --> The original pattern or model of a work; or the model from which a thing is made or formed.
The standard weight or coin by which others are adjusted.
The plan or fundamental structure on which a natural group of animals or plants or their systems of organs are assumed to have been constructed; as, the vertebrate archetype.
Arc(s), Ascending and Descending Also Luminous and Shadowy Arcs. A cycle of development, such as that of a planetary chain, can be divided into two halves, the first from the first globe to the middle of the most material globe, and the other extending from this midpoint upwards to the last globe. The first half is the downward or shadowy arc; the second is the ascending or luminous arc. The descending arc represents an involution of spirit and a concurrent evolution of matter resulting in a progressive materialization of spirit and a continuous grossening or concretion of the texture of matter; the ascending arc represents an evolution of spirit and involution of matter, resulting in a progressive dematerialization, spiritualization, or refinement of matter as it increasingly manifests the qualities of spirit. Yet spirit and matter are fundamentally one essence at different stages of development.
ASANA. ::: Fixed posture habituating the body to certain attitudes of immobility. The system of Asana has at its basis two profound ideas ::: control by physical immobility, power by immobility.
The sitting motionless posture is the natural posture for concentrated meditation - walking and standing are active conditions. It is only when one has gained the enduring rest and passivity of the consciousness that it is easy to concentrate and receive when walking or doing anything. A fundamental passive condition of the consciousness gathered into itself is the proper poise for concentration and a seated gathered immobility in the body is the best position for that. It can be done also lying down, but that position is too passive, tending to be inert rather than gathered. This is the reason why yogis always sit in an āsana. One can accustom oneself to meditate walking. standing, lying but sitting is the first natural position.
As early as one hundred years after the Buddha died and had entered his parinirvana, differences in the doctrines and discipline of the Order become manifest. In the course of the centuries two basic trends developed into what has become popular to call the Hinayana (the lesser vehicle or path) or Theravada (doctrine of the elders), and Mahayana (the greater vehicle or path). The Theravada emphasized the fourfold path leading to nirvana, total liberation of the arhat from material concerns. The Mahayana held the bodhisattvayana as the ideal, the way of compassion for all sentient beings, culminating in renunciation of nirvana in order to return and inspire others “to awake and follow the dhamma.” It is this fundamental difference in goal that characterizes the Old Wisdom School (arhatship) from the New Wisdom School (bodhsattvahood). See also BUDDHA OF COMPASSION; PRATYEKA BUDDHA
ASSIMILATION. ::: There has to be a period of assimilation. When the being is unconscious, the assimilation goes on behind the veil or below the surface and meanwhile the surface consciousness sees only dullness and the loss of what it had got; but when one is conscious, then one can see the assimilation going on and one sees that nothing is lost, it is only a quiet settling in of what has come down.
To remain quiet for a time after the descent of Force is the best way of assimilating it.
There are always pauses of preparation and assimilation between two movements.
The periods of assimilation continue till all that has to be done is fundamentally done. Only they have a different character in the later stages of sadhana. If they cease altogether at an early stage, it is because all that the nature was capable of has been done and that would mean it was not capable of much.
Astrology: The belief in and study of the influence upon human character of cosmic forces emanating from celestial bodies. There are two fundamentally different methods, or approaches, to astrology: geocentric astrology is based upon calculations of the planetary positions as seen by the observer on the Earth, i.e., using the Earth as a center; heliocentric astrology bases its interpretations upon positions within the solar system with reference to the Sun as the center. As to purpose and application, there are several distinct branches of astrology, such as agricultural, electional, horary, mundane, natal astrology, astrometeorology (q.v.), etc.
Atma-vidya (Sanskrit) Ātmavidyā [from ātma self + vidyā knowledge] Knowledge of the self; the highest form of spiritual-divine wisdom, because the fundamental or essential self is a flame or spark of the kosmic self. “Of the four Vidyas — out of the seven branches of Knowledge mentioned in the Puranas — namely, ‘Yajna-Vidya’ (the performance of religious rites in order to produce certain results); ‘Maha-Vidya,’ the great (Magic) knowledge, now degenerated into Tantrika worship; ‘Guhya-Vidya,’ the science of Mantras and their true rhythm or chanting, of mystical incantations, etc. — it is only the last one, ‘Atma-Vidya,’ or the true Spiritual and Divine wisdom, which can throw absolute and final light upon the teachings of the three first named. Without the help of Atma-Vidya, the other three remain no better than surface sciences, geometrical magnitudes having length and breadth, but no thickness. They are like the soul, limbs, and mind of a sleeping man: capable of mechanical motions, of chaotic dreams and even sleep-walking, of producing visible effects, but stimulated by instinctual not intellectual causes, least of all by fully conscious spiritual impulses. A good deal can be given out and explained from the three first-named sciences. But unless the key to their teachings is furnished by Atma-Vidya, they will remain for ever like the fragments of a mangled text-book, like the adumbrations of great truths, dimly perceived by the most spiritual, but distorted out of all proportion by those who would nail every shadow to the wall” (SD 1:168-9).
Atom ::: This word comes to us from the ancient Greek philosophers Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus, andthe hundreds of great men who followed their lead in this respect and who were therefore also atomists -such, for instance, as the two Latin poets Ennius and Lucretius. This school taught that atoms were thefoundation-bricks of the universe, for atom in the original etymological sense of the word meanssomething that cannot be cut or divided, and therefore as being equivalent to particles of whattheosophists call homogeneous substance. But modern scientists do not use the word atom in that senseany longer. Some time ago the orthodox scientific doctrine concerning the atom was basically thatenunciated by Dalton, to the general effect that physical atoms were hard little particles of matter,ultimate particles of matter, and therefore indivisible and indestructible.But modern science [1933] has a totally new view of the physical atom, for it knows now that the atom isnot such, but is composite, builded of particles still more minute, called electrons or charges of negativeelectricity, and of other particles called protons or charges of positive electricity, which protons aresupposed to form the nucleus or core of the atomic structure. A frequent picture of atomic structure isthat of an atomic solar system, the protons being the atomic sun and the electrons being its planets, thelatter in extremely rapid revolution around the central sun. This conception is purely theosophical in idea,and adumbrates what occultism teaches, though occultism goes much farther than does modern science.One of the fundamental postulates of the teachings of theosophy is that the ultimates of nature are atomson the material side and monads on the energy side. These two are respectively material and spiritualprimates or ultimates, the spiritual ones or monads being indivisibles, and the atoms being divisibles -things that can be divided into composite parts.It becomes obvious from what precedes that the philosophical idea which formed the core of the teachingof the ancient initiated atomists was that their atoms or "indivisibles" are pretty close to whattheosophical occultism calls monads; and this is what Democritus and Leucippus and others of theirschool had in mind.These monads, as is obvious, are therefore divine-spiritual life-atoms, and are actually beings living andevolving on their own planes. Rays from them are the highest parts of the constitution of beings in thematerial realms.
At the beginning the soul in Nature, the psychic entity, whose unfolding is the first step towards a spiritual change, is an entirely veiled part of us, although it is that by which we exist and persist as individual beings in Nature. The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame. This spiritual stuff is immaculate and luminous and, because it is perfectly luminous, it is immediately, intimately, directly aware of truth of being and truth of nature; it is deeply conscious of truth and good and beauty because truth and good and beauty are akin to its own native character, forms of something that is inherent in its own substance. It is aware also of all that contradicts these things, of all that deviates from its own native character, of falsehood and evil and the ugly and the unseemly; but it does not become these things nor is it touched or changed by these opposites of itself which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation of mind, life and body. For the soul, the permanent being in us, puts forth and uses mind, life and body.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 924-25
Attitude: (Ger. Einstellung) In Husserl: A habitual positing or neutral intending by the ego. The natural attitude: the fundamental protodoxic attitude of the transcendental ego towards the world. The natural attitude underlies and enters into all other positings except those of the transcendental ego in the transcendental-phenomenological attitude. -- D.C.
Aufklärung: In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition "Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority, which is the incapacity of using one's understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is caused when its source lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of determination and courage to use it without the assistance of another" (Was ist Aufklärung? 1784). In its historical perspective, the Aufklärung refers to the cultural atmosphere and contrlbutions of the 18th century, especially in Germany, France and England [which affected also American thought with B. Franklin, T. Paine and the leaders of the Revolution]. It crystallized tendencies emphasized by the Renaissance, and quickened by modern scepticism and empiricism, and by the great scientific discoveries of the 17th century. This movement, which was represented by men of varying tendencies, gave an impetus to general learning, a more popular philosophy, empirical science, scriptural criticism, social and political thought. More especially, the word Aufklärung is applied to the German contributions to 18th century culture. In philosophy, its principal representatives are G. E. Lessing (1729-81) who believed in free speech and in a methodical criticism of religion, without being a free-thinker; H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) who expounded a naturalistic philosophy and denied the supernatural origin of Christianity; Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) who endeavoured to mitigate prejudices and developed a popular common-sense philosophy; Chr. Wolff (1679-1754), J. A. Eberhard (1739-1809) who followed the Leibnizian rationalism and criticized unsuccessfully Kant and Fichte; and J. G. Herder (1744-1803) who was best as an interpreter of others, but whose intuitional suggestions have borne fruit in the organic correlation of the sciences, and in questions of language in relation to human nature and to national character. The works of Kant and Goethe mark the culmination of the German Enlightenment. Cf. J. G. Hibben, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. --T.G. Augustinianism: The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty-fourth year. Returning to Africa, he established numerous monasteries, became a priest in 391, Bishop of Hippo in 395. Augustine wrote much: On Free Choice, Confessions, Literal Commentary on Genesis, On the Trinity, and City of God, are his most noted works. He died in 430. St. Augustine's characteristic method, an inward empiricism which has little in common with later variants, starts from things without, proceeds within to the self, and moves upwards to God. These three poles of the Augustinian dialectic are polarized by his doctrine of moderate illuminism. An ontological illumination is required to explain the metaphysical structure of things. The truth of judgment demands a noetic illumination. A moral illumination is necessary in the order of willing; and so, too, an lllumination of art in the aesthetic order. Other illuminations which transcend the natural order do not come within the scope of philosophy; they provide the wisdoms of theology and mysticism. Every being is illuminated ontologically by number, form, unity and its derivatives, and order. A thing is what it is, in so far as it is more or less flooded by the light of these ontological constituents. Sensation is necessary in order to know material substances. There is certainly an action of the external object on the body and a corresponding passion of the body, but, as the soul is superior to the body and can suffer nothing from its inferior, sensation must be an action, not a passion, of the soul. Sensation takes place only when the observing soul, dynamically on guard throughout the body, is vitally attentive to the changes suffered by the body. However, an adequate basis for the knowledge of intellectual truth is not found in sensation alone. In order to know, for example, that a body is multiple, the idea of unity must be present already, otherwise its multiplicity could not be recognized. If numbers are not drawn in by the bodily senses which perceive only the contingent and passing, is the mind the source of the unchanging and necessary truth of numbers? The mind of man is also contingent and mutable, and cannot give what it does not possess. As ideas are not innate, nor remembered from a previous existence of the soul, they can be accounted for only by an immutable source higher than the soul. In so far as man is endowed with an intellect, he is a being naturally illuminated by God, Who may be compared to an intelligible sun. The human intellect does not create the laws of thought; it finds them and submits to them. The immediate intuition of these normative rules does not carry any content, thus any trace of ontologism is avoided. Things have forms because they have numbers, and they have being in so far as they possess form. The sufficient explanation of all formable, and hence changeable, things is an immutable and eternal form which is unrestricted in time and space. The forms or ideas of all things actually existing in the world are in the things themselves (as rationes seminales) and in the Divine Mind (as rationes aeternae). Nothing could exist without unity, for to be is no other than to be one. There is a unity proper to each level of being, a unity of the material individual and species, of the soul, and of that union of souls in the love of the same good, which union constitutes the city. Order, also, is ontologically imbibed by all beings. To tend to being is to tend to order; order secures being, disorder leads to non-being. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal each to its own place and integrates an ensemble of parts in accordance with an end. Hence, peace is defined as the tranquillity of order. Just as things have their being from their forms, the order of parts, and their numerical relations, so too their beauty is not something superadded, but the shining out of all their intelligible co-ingredients. S. Aurelii Augustini, Opera Omnia, Migne, PL 32-47; (a critical edition of some works will be found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna). Gilson, E., Introd. a l'etude de s. Augustin, (Paris, 1931) contains very good bibliography up to 1927, pp. 309-331. Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo, (London, 1937). Chapman, E., St. Augustine's Philos. of Beauty, (N. Y., 1939). Figgis, J. N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine's "City of God", (London, 1921). --E.C. Authenticity: In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of "authentic feelings"). This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with regard to the interpretation of texts and doctrines. --T.G. Authoritarianism: That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, "Fixation of Belief," in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. --A.C.B. Autistic thinking: Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. --A.C.B. Automaton Theory: Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism. Automatism: (Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Treatise on Man). Pure automatism for man as well as animals is advocated by La Mettrie (Man, a Machine, 1748). During the Nineteenth century, automatism, combined with epiphenomenalism, was advanced by Hodgson, Huxley and Clifford. (Cf. W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V.) Behaviorism, of the extreme sort, is the most recent version of automatism (See Behaviorism). (b) In psychology: Psychological automatism is the performance of apparently purposeful actions, like automatic writing without the superintendence of the conscious mind. L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine, N. Y., 1941. --L.W. Automatism, Conscious: The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. --L.W. Autonomy: (Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, § 2.) --L.W. Autonomy of ethics: A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. --W.K.F. Autonomy of the will: (in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. --P.A.S. Autonymy: In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself --for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is different. --A.C. Autotelic: (from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent in itself of which the person following his art impulse (q.v.) or playing is unaware, thus approaching a heterotelic (q.v.) conception. --K.F.L. Avenarius, Richard: (1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics --the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting on the biologic and economic function of thought, he thought the true method of science is to cure speculative excesses by a return to pure experience devoid of all assumptions. Philosophy is the scientific effort to exclude from knowledge all ideas not included in the given. Its task is to expel all extraneous elements in the given. His uncritical use of the category of the given and the nominalistic view that logical relations are created rather than discovered by thought, leads him to banish not only animism but also all of the categories, substance, causality, etc., as inventions of the mind. Explaining the evolution and devolution of the problematization and deproblematization of numerous ideas, and aiming to give the natural history of problems, Avenarius sought to show physiologically, psychologically and historically under what conditions they emerge, are challenged and are solved. He hypothesized a System C, a bodily and central nervous system upon which consciousness depends. R-values are the stimuli received from the world of objects. E-values are the statements of experience. The brain changes that continually oscillate about an ideal point of balance are termed Vitalerhaltungsmaximum. The E-values are differentiated into elements, to which the sense-perceptions or the content of experience belong, and characters, to which belongs everything which psychology describes as feelings and attitudes. Avenarius describes in symbolic form a series of states from balance to balance, termed vital series, all describing a series of changes in System C. Inequalities in the vital balance give rise to vital differences. According to his theory there are two vital series. It assumes a series of brain changes because parallel series of conscious states can be observed. The independent vital series are physical, and the dependent vital series are psychological. The two together are practically covariants. In the case of a process as a dependent vital series three stages can be noted: first, the appearance of the problem, expressed as strain, restlessness, desire, fear, doubt, pain, repentance, delusion; the second, the continued effort and struggle to solve the problem; and finally, the appearance of the solution, characterized by abating anxiety, a feeling of triumph and enjoyment. Corresponding to these three stages of the dependent series are three stages of the independent series: the appearance of the vital difference and a departure from balance in the System C, the continuance with an approximate vital difference, and lastly, the reduction of the vital difference to zero, the return to stability. By making room for dependent and independent experiences, he showed that physics regards experience as independent of the experiencing indlvidual, and psychology views experience as dependent upon the individual. He greatly influenced Mach and James (q.v.). See Avenarius, Empirio-criticism, Experience, pure. Main works: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der menschliche Weltbegriff. --H.H. Averroes: (Mohammed ibn Roshd) Known to the Scholastics as The Commentator, and mentioned as the author of il gran commento by Dante (Inf. IV. 68) he was born 1126 at Cordova (Spain), studied theology, law, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy, became after having been judge in Sevilla and Cordova, physician to the khalifah Jaqub Jusuf, and charged with writing a commentary on the works of Aristotle. Al-mansur, Jusuf's successor, deprived him of his place because of accusations of unorthodoxy. He died 1198 in Morocco. Averroes is not so much an original philosopher as the author of a minute commentary on the whole works of Aristotle. His procedure was imitated later by Aquinas. In his interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics Averroes teaches the coeternity of a universe created ex nihilo. This doctrine formed together with the notion of a numerical unity of the active intellect became one of the controversial points in the discussions between the followers of Albert-Thomas and the Latin Averroists. Averroes assumed that man possesses only a disposition for receiving the intellect coming from without; he identifies this disposition with the possible intellect which thus is not truly intellectual by nature. The notion of one intellect common to all men does away with the doctrine of personal immortality. Another doctrine which probably was emphasized more by the Latin Averroists (and by the adversaries among Averroes' contemporaries) is the famous statement about "two-fold truth", viz. that a proposition may be theologically true and philosophically false and vice versa. Averroes taught that religion expresses the (higher) philosophical truth by means of religious imagery; the "two-truth notion" came apparently into the Latin text through a misinterpretation on the part of the translators. The works of Averroes were one of the main sources of medieval Aristotelianlsm, before and even after the original texts had been translated. The interpretation the Latin Averroists found in their texts of the "Commentator" spread in spite of opposition and condemnation. See Averroism, Latin. Averroes, Opera, Venetiis, 1553. M. Horten, Die Metaphysik des Averroes, 1912. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin, 2d ed., Louvain, 1911. --R.A. Averroism, Latin: The commentaries on Aristotle written by Averroes (Ibn Roshd) in the 12th century became known to the Western scholars in translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Many works of Aristotle were also known first by such translations from Arabian texts, though there existed translations from the Greek originals at the same time (Grabmann). The Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle was held to be the true one by many; but already Albert the Great pointed out several notions which he felt to be incompatible with the principles of Christian philosophy, although he relied for the rest on the "Commentator" and apparently hardly used any other text. Aquinas, basing his studies mostly on a translation from the Greek texts, procured for him by William of Moerbecke, criticized the Averroistic interpretation in many points. But the teachings of the Commentator became the foundation for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at Paris. The most prominent of these scholars was Siger of Brabant. The philosophy of these men was condemned on March 7th, 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, after a first condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1210 had gradually come to be neglected. The 219 theses condemned in 1277, however, contain also some of Aquinas which later were generally recognized an orthodox. The Averroistic propositions which aroused the criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities and which had been opposed with great energy by Albert and Thomas refer mostly to the following points: The co-eternity of the created word; the numerical identity of the intellect in all men, the so-called two-fold-truth theory stating that a proposition may be philosophically true although theologically false. Regarding the first point Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity or against it; creation is an article of faith. The unity of intellect was rejected as incompatible with the true notion of person and with personal immortality. It is doubtful whether Averroes himself held the two-truths theory; it was, however, taught by the Latin Averroists who, notwithstanding the opposition of the Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained a great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy. Thomas and his followers were convinced that they interpreted Aristotle correctly and that the Averroists were wrong; one has, however, to admit that certain passages in Aristotle allow for the Averroistic interpretation, especially in regard to the theory of intellect. Lit.: P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin au XIIIe Siecle, 2d. ed. Louvain, 1911; M. Grabmann, Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1916 (Beitr. z. Gesch. Phil. d. MA. Vol. 17, H. 5-6). --R.A. Avesta: See Zendavesta. Avicehron: (or Avencebrol, Salomon ibn Gabirol) The first Jewish philosopher in Spain, born in Malaga 1020, died about 1070, poet, philosopher, and moralist. His main work, Fons vitae, became influential and was much quoted by the Scholastics. It has been preserved only in the Latin translation by Gundissalinus. His doctrine of a spiritual substance individualizing also the pure spirits or separate forms was opposed by Aquinas already in his first treatise De ente, but found favor with the medieval Augustinians also later in the 13th century. He also teaches the necessity of a mediator between God and the created world; such a mediator he finds in the Divine Will proceeding from God and creating, conserving, and moving the world. His cosmogony shows a definitely Neo-Platonic shade and assumes a series of emanations. Cl. Baeumker, Avencebrolis Fons vitae. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1892-1895, Vol. I. Joh. Wittman, Die Stellung des hl. Thomas von Aquino zu Avencebrol, ibid. 1900. Vol. III. --R.A. Avicenna: (Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17th century. His philosophy is contained in 18 vols. of a comprehensive encyclopedia, following the tradition of Al Kindi and Al Farabi. Logic, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics form the parts of this work. His philosophy is Aristotelian with noticeable Neo-Platonic influences. His doctrine of the universal existing ante res in God, in rebus as the universal nature of the particulars, and post res in the human mind by way of abstraction became a fundamental thesis of medieval Aristotelianism. He sharply distinguished between the logical and the ontological universal, denying to the latter the true nature of form in the composite. The principle of individuation is matter, eternally existent. Latin translations attributed to Avicenna the notion that existence is an accident to essence (see e.g. Guilelmus Parisiensis, De Universo). The process adopted by Avicenna was one of paraphrasis of the Aristotelian texts with many original thoughts interspersed. His works were translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus (Gondisalvi) with the assistance of Avendeath ibn Daud. This translation started, when it became more generally known, the "revival of Aristotle" at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Albert the Great and Aquinas professed, notwithstanding their critical attitude, a great admiration for Avicenna whom the Arabs used to call the "third Aristotle". But in the Orient, Avicenna's influence declined soon, overcome by the opposition of the orthodox theologians. Avicenna, Opera, Venetiis, 1495; l508; 1546. M. Horten, Das Buch der Genesung der Seele, eine philosophische Enzyklopaedie Avicenna's; XIII. Teil: Die Metaphysik. Halle a. S. 1907-1909. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'Avicennisme Latin, Bibl. Thomiste XX, Paris, 1934. --R.A. Avidya: (Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. --K.F.L. Avyakta: (Skr.) "Unmanifest", descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or "his" aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). --K.F.L. Awareness: Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received its epistemological development by Meinong, Husserl, Moore, Laird and Broad. See Intentionalism. --L.W. Axiological: (Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). --D.C. Axiological ethics: Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleological ethics. --W.K.F. Axiologic Realism: In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. --J.K.F. Axiology: (Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lambda). Stoics and Epicureans investigated the summum bonum. Christian philosophy (St. Thomas) built on Aristotle's identification of highest value with final cause in God as "a living being, eternal, most good." In modern thought, apart from scholasticism and the system of Spinoza (Ethica, 1677), in which values are metaphysically grounded, the various values were investigated in separate sciences, until Kant's Critiques, in which the relations of knowledge to moral, aesthetic, and religious values were examined. In Hegel's idealism, morality, art, religion, and philosophy were made the capstone of his dialectic. R. H. Lotze "sought in that which should be the ground of that which is" (Metaphysik, 1879). Nineteenth century evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics subjected value experience to empirical analysis, and stress was again laid on the diversity and relativity of value phenomena rather than on their unity and metaphysical nature. F. Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) aroused new interest in the nature of value. F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889), identified value with love. In the twentieth century the term axiology was apparently first applied by Paul Lapie (Logique de la volonte, 1902) and E. von Hartmann (Grundriss der Axiologie, 1908). Stimulated by Ehrenfels (System der Werttheorie, 1897), Meinong (Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, 1894-1899), and Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes, 1900). W. M. Urban wrote the first systematic treatment of axiology in English (Valuation, 1909), phenomenological in method under J. M. Baldwin's influence. Meanwhile H. Münsterberg wrote a neo-Fichtean system of values (The Eternal Values, 1909). Among important recent contributions are: B. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912), a free reinterpretation of Hegelianism; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918, 1921), defending a metaphysical theism; S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), realistic and naturalistic; N. Hartmann, Ethik (1926), detailed analysis of types and laws of value; R. B. Perry's magnum opus, General Theory of Value (1926), "its meaning and basic principles construed in terms of interest"; and J. Laird, The Idea of Value (1929), noteworthy for historical exposition. A naturalistic theory has been developed by J. Dewey (Theory of Valuation, 1939), for which "not only is science itself a value . . . but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) expounds the view of logical positivism that value is "nonsense." J. Hessen, Wertphilosophie (1937), provides an account of recent German axiology from a neo-scholastic standpoint. The problems of axiology fall into four main groups, namely, those concerning (1) the nature of value, (2) the types of value, (3) the criterion of value, and (4) the metaphysical status of value. (1) The nature of value experience. Is valuation fulfillment of desire (voluntarism: Spinoza, Ehrenfels), pleasure (hedonism: Epicurus, Bentham, Meinong), interest (Perry), preference (Martineau), pure rational will (formalism: Stoics, Kant, Royce), apprehension of tertiary qualities (Santayana), synoptic experience of the unity of personality (personalism: T. H. Green, Bowne), any experience that contributes to enhanced life (evolutionism: Nietzsche), or "the relation of things as means to the end or consequence actually reached" (pragmatism, instrumentalism: Dewey). (2) The types of value. Most axiologists distinguish between intrinsic (consummatory) values (ends), prized for their own sake, and instrumental (contributory) values (means), which are causes (whether as economic goods or as natural events) of intrinsic values. Most intrinsic values are also instrumental to further value experience; some instrumental values are neutral or even disvaluable intrinsically. Commonly recognized as intrinsic values are the (morally) good, the true, the beautiful, and the holy. Values of play, of work, of association, and of bodily well-being are also acknowledged. Some (with Montague) question whether the true is properly to be regarded as a value, since some truth is disvaluable, some neutral; but love of truth, regardless of consequences, seems to establish the value of truth. There is disagreement about whether the holy (religious value) is a unique type (Schleiermacher, Otto), or an attitude toward other values (Kant, Höffding), or a combination of the two (Hocking). There is also disagreement about whether the variety of values is irreducible (pluralism) or whether all values are rationally related in a hierarchy or system (Plato, Hegel, Sorley), in which values interpenetrate or coalesce into a total experience. (3) The criterion of value. The standard for testing values is influenced by both psychological and logical theory. Hedonists find the standard in the quantity of pleasure derived by the individual (Aristippus) or society (Bentham). Intuitionists appeal to an ultimate insight into preference (Martineau, Brentano). Some idealists recognize an objective system of rational norms or ideals as criterion (Plato, Windelband), while others lay more stress on rational wholeness and coherence (Hegel, Bosanquet, Paton) or inclusiveness (T. H. Green). Naturalists find biological survival or adjustment (Dewey) to be the standard. Despite differences, there is much in common in the results of the application of these criteria. (4) The metaphysical status of value. What is the relation of values to the facts investigated by natural science (Koehler), of Sein to Sollen (Lotze, Rickert), of human experience of value to reality independent of man (Hegel, Pringle-Pattlson, Spaulding)? There are three main answers: subjectivism (value is entirely dependent on and relative to human experience of it: so most hedonists, naturalists, positivists); logical objectivism (values are logical essences or subsistences, independent of their being known, yet with no existential status or action in reality); metaphysical objectivism (values --or norms or ideals --are integral, objective, and active constituents of the metaphysically real: so theists, absolutists, and certain realists and naturalists like S. Alexander and Wieman). --E.S.B. Axiom: See Mathematics. Axiomatic method: That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. --C.A.B. Ayam atma brahma: (Skr.) "This self is brahman", famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. --K.F.L.
“A work which contains all that is found in the Zohar of Simeon Ben-Jochai, and much more. It must be the older by many centuries, and in one sense its original, as it contains all the fundamental principles taught in the Jewish Kabbalistic works, but none of their blinds. It is very rare indeed, there being perhaps only two or three copies extant, and these in private hands” (TG 75).
aya ::: (c. 1931, in the diagram on page 1360) overmind in its fundamental power of measuring and limiting consciousness (maya), regarded as the essential form of overmind proper (see overmind system); "the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable".
based ::: 1. Formed or established as a base. 2. Supported as a base. 3. Conceived as the fundamental principle or underlying concept.
base ::: n. 1. The fundamental principle or underlying concept of a system or theory; a basis, foundation. 2. A fundamental ingredient; a chief constituent. adj. 3. Having or showing a contemptible, mean-spirited, or selfish lack of human decency; morally low. base"s. baser.
basis ::: n. --> The foundation of anything; that on which a thing rests.
The pedestal of a column, pillar, or statue.
The ground work the first or fundamental principle; that which supports.
The principal component part of a thing.
Before writing the Ideen, he had come to believe that, as the reflective observer of one's subjective processes, one can establish and maintain the attitude of a mere onlooker, who does not participate even in his own natural attitude of believing in a possible world and apprehending his consciousness as essentially possible in that world. If this attitude of self-restraint (epoche) is consistently maintained, one can discriminate a status of one's consciousness more fundamental than its actuality or its possibility in a world and one can see that this essential worldliness of consciousness is a reflexive consequence of its more fundamental character as consciousness of a world. One can then see, furthermore, that every intendable object is essentially, and most fundamentally, a noematic-intentional object (a phenomenon) and has its being and nature because consciousness -- regardless of the latter's secondary status as in the world -- is intrinsically an (actual or potential) intending of that object, in a certain manner, as having certain determinations. Such was Husserl's contention.
being ::: 1. The state or quality of having existence. 2. The totality of all things that exist. 3. One"s basic or essential nature; self. 4. All the qualities constituting one that exists; the essence. 5. A person; human being. 6. The Divine, the Supreme; God. Being, being"s, Being"s, beings, Beings, beings", earth-being"s, earth-beings, fragment-being, non-being, non-being"s, Non-Being, Non-Being"s, world-being"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence.” *The Life Divine :::
"The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.” *The Life Divine
"What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming.” Letters on Yoga
"Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness.” The Upanishads :::
"Our whole apparent life has only a symbolic value & is good & necessary as a becoming; but all becoming has being for its goal & fulfilment & God is the only being.” *Essays Divine and Human
"Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
Being and Nonbeing; Be-ness Equivalent to the Sanskrit sat, asat, and tat. Asat is “a philosophical term meaning ‘non-being,’ or rather non-be-ness. The ‘incomprehensible nothingness.’ Sat, the immutable, eternal, ever-present, and the one real ‘Be-ness’ (not Being) is spoken of as being born of Asat, and Asat begotten by ‘Sat.’ The unreal, or Prakriti, objective nature regarded as an illusion. Nature, or the illusive shadow of its one true essence” (TG 33). So asat or nonbeing is used both to denote that which precedes Being, and out of which Being is born — or vice versa; and to denote the illusory world in contrast with the essential or fundamental cosmic self. Sat (or asat) corresponds very largely with the Absolute of ordinary European philosophy, whereas Be-ness or nonbeing corresponds with the extremely metaphysical Vedic and Vedantic tat and parabrahman.
belief revision "artificial intelligence" The area of {theory change} in which preservation of the information in the theory to be changed plays a key role. A fundamental issue in belief revision is how to decide what information to retract in order to maintain consistency, when the addition of a new belief to a theory would make it inconsistent. Usually, an ordering on the sentences of the theory is used to determine priorities among sentences, so that those with lower priority can be retracted. This ordering can be difficult to generate and maintain. The postulates of the {AGM Theory for Belief Revision} describe minimal properties a revision process should have. [Better definition?] (1995-03-20)
Besides the universal intelligible being of things, Aristotle was also primarily concerned with an investigation of the being of things from the standpoint of their generation and existence. But only individual things are generated and exist. Hence, for him, substance was primarily the individual: a "this" which, in contrast with the universal or secondary substance, is not communicable to many. The Aristotelian meaning of substance may be developed from four points of view: Grammar: The nature of substance as the ultimate subject of predication is expressed by common usage in its employment of the noun (or substantive) as the subject of a sentence to signify an individual thing which "is neither present in nor predicable of a subject." Thus substance is grammatically distinguished from its (adjectival) properties and modifications which "are present in and predicable of a subject." Secondary substance is expressed by the universal term, and by its definition which are "not present in a subject but predicable of it." See Categoriae,) ch. 5. Physics: Independence of being emerges as a fundamental characteristic of substance in the analysis of change. Thus we have: Substantial change: Socrates comes to be. (Change simply). Accidental change; in a certain respect only: Socrates comes to be 6 feet tall. (Quantitative). Socrates comes to be musical (Qualitative). Socrates comes to be in Corinth (Local). As substantial change is prior to the others and may occur independently of them, so the individual substance is prior in being to the accidents; i.e., the accidents cannot exist independently of their subject (Socrates), but can be only in him or in another primary substance, while the reverse is not necessarily the case. Logic: Out of this analysis of change there also emerges a division of being into the schema of categories, with the distinction between the category of substance and the several accidental categories, such as quantity, quality, place, relation, etc. In a corresponding manner, the category of substance is first; i.e., prior to the others in being, and independent of them. Metaphysics: The character of substance as that which is present in an individual as the cause of its being and unity is developed in Aristotle's metaphysical writings, see especiallv Bk. Z, ch. 17, 1041b. Primary substnnce is not the matter alone, nor the universal form common to many, but the individual unity of matter and form. For example, each thing is composed of parts or elements, as an organism is composed of cells, yet it is not merely its elements, but has a being and unity over and above the sum of its parts. This something more which causes the cells to be this organism rather than a malignant growth, is an example of what is meant by substance in its proper sense of first substance (substantia prima). Substance in its secondary sense (substantia secunda) is the universal form (idea or species) which is individuated in each thing.
fundamental ::: a. --> Pertaining to the foundation or basis; serving for the foundation. Hence: Essential, as an element, principle, or law; important; original; elementary; as, a fundamental truth; a fundamental axiom. ::: n. --> A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article,
fundamentally ::: adv. --> Primarily; originally; essentially; radically; at the foundation; in origin or constituents.
Bhrantidarsana[tah] (Sanskrit) Bhrāntidarśana [from the verbal root bhram to wander + dṛṣ to see, know, perceive] False comprehension or false apprehension; perplexity or confusion in understanding due to false apprehension. Used to describe the illusions arising out of the egotistical, imperfect human mind in its attempts to understand reality, because this imperfectly evolved human mind is extremely apt to mistake illusions for verities, presentiments for realities, and appearances for the fundamental substratum of being. Any partially developed intellect or understanding can de facto have only an illusory conception of the manifestations of the supreme spirit.
Bhuman (Sanskrit) Bhūman [from the verbal root bhū to become] Space; it “conveys the fundamental idea of becoming, of growth and progress by serial steps. It is that portion of the universal akasa comprised within any single Brahmanda or cosmic hierarchy, and therefore on this smaller scale applies to the aggregate of all beings and things within that hierarchy. As such, it can carry the meaning of Pleroma or Fullness” (FSO 76n).
Bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities.
Blue ::: Fundamental colour of the Ananda ; Krishna’s special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests ;
brahman ::: (in the Veda) "the soul or soul-consciousness emerging from the secret heart of things" or "the thought, inspired, creative, full of the secret truth, which emerges from that consciousness and becomes thought of the mind"; (in Vedanta) the divine Reality, "the One [eka1] besides whom there is nothing else existent", the Absolute who is "at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements". Its nature is saccidananda, infinite existence (sat), consciousness (cit) and bliss (ananda), whose second element can also be described as consciousness-force (cit-tapas), making four fundamental principles of the integral Reality; brahman seen in all things in terms of these principles is called in the Record of Yoga the fourfold brahman, whose aspects form the brahma catus.t.aya. The complete realisation of brahman included for Sri Aurobindo not only the unification of the experiences of the nirgun.a brahman (brahman without qualities) and sagun.a brahman (brahman with qualities), but the harmonisation of the impersonal brahman which is "the spiritual material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe" with the personal isvara in the consciousness of parabrahman, the brahman in its supreme status as "a transcendent Unthinkable too great for any manifestation", which "is at the same time the living supreme Soul of all things" (purus.ottama) and the supreme Lord (paramesvara) and supreme Self (paramatman), "and in all these equal aspects the same single and eternal Godhead". Brahman is represented in sound by the mystic syllable OM.
Brahman (Sanskrit) Brahman [from bṛh to expand] Sometimes Brahma or Brahm. The one reality, “the impersonal, supreme and uncognizable Principle of the Universe from the essence of which all emanates, and into which all returns, which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal, beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as well as the smallest mineral atom” (TG 62). It involves both essential consciousness and substance, and is the spiritual background of the kosmos, the Cause of all Causes, what is commonly called the Unmanifest Logos: “Brahma, the Noumenon, never rests, as IT never changes and ever IS, though IT cannot be said to be anywhere” (SD 1:374). As the fundamental cosmic fountain of consciousness and spiritual substance, Brahman is the fundamental or cosmic self which, in the case of an individual being, becomes the kshetrajna, the spiritual sun within the individual. Thus the essential self of every being or entity from cosmos to physical atom is this Brahman itself, which is the cause of the familiar saying “tat tvam asi” (you are that).
Brotherhood Human beings, in common with all other entities in the universe, are inseparable members of a spiritual unity; and the illusion of eternally separate selves, and therefore equally permanent individual and diverse interests, is due to an ignorance of fundamental facts in nature. “If the action of one reacts on the lives of all, and this is the true scientific idea, then it is only by all men becoming brothers and all women sisters, and by all practising in their daily lives true brotherhood and true sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be attained” (Key 234).
brunonian ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or invented by, Brown; -- a term applied to a system of medicine promulgated in the 18th century by John Brown, of Scotland, the fundamental doctrine of which was, that life is a state of excitation produced by the normal action of external agents upon the body, and that disease consists in excess or deficiency of excitation.
B. The Probability-Relation. Considering the general grounds of probability, it is pertinent to analyze the proper characteristics of this concept and the valid conditions of its use in inferential processes. Probability presents itself as a special relation between the premisses and the conclusion of an argument, namely when the premisses are true but not completely sufficient to condition the truth of the conclusion. A probable inference must however be logical, even though its result is not certain, for its premisses must be a true sign of its conclusion. The probability-relation may take three aspects: it is inductive, probable or presumptive. In strict induction, there is an essential connection between the facts expressed in the premisses and in the conclusion, which almost forces a factual result from the circumstances of the predication. This type of probability-relation is prominent in induction proper and in statistics. In strict probability, there is a logical connection between the premisses and the conclusion which does not entail a definite factual value for the latter. This type of probability-relation is prominent in mathematical probability and circumstantial evidence. In strict presumption, there is a similarity of characteristics between the fact expressed in the conclusion and the real event if it does or did exist. This type of probability-relation is prominent in analogy and testimony. A presumptive conclusion should be accepted provisionally, and it should have definite consequences capable of being tested. The results of an inductive inference and of a probable inference may often be brought closer together when covering the same field, as the relations involved are fundamental enough for the purpose. This may be done by a qualitative analysis of their implications, or by a quantitative comparison of their elements, as it is done for example in the methods of correlation. But a presumptive inference cannot be reduced to either of the other two forms without losing its identity, because the connection between its elements is of an indefinite character. It may be said that inductive and probable inferences have an intrinsic reasonableness, while presumptive inferences have an extrinsic reasonableness. The former involve determinism within certain limits, while the latter display indeterminacy more prominently. That is why very poor, misleading or wrong conclusions are obtained when mathematical methods are applied to moral acts, judiciary decisions or indirect testimony The activity of the human will has an intricate complexity and variability not easily subjected to calculation. Hence the degree of probability of a presumptive inference can be estimated only by the character and circumstances of its suggested explanation. In moral cases, the discussion and application of the probability-relation leads to the consideration of the doctrines of Probabilism and Probabiliorism which are qualitative. The probability-relation as such has the following general implications which are compatible with its three different aspects, and which may serve as general inferential principle: Any generalization must be probable upon propositions entailing its exemplification in particular cases; Any generalization or system of generalizations forming a theory, must be probable upon propositions following from it by implication; The probability of a given proposition on the basis of other propositions constituting its evidence, is the degree of logical conclusiveness of this evidence with respect to the given proposition; The empirical probability (p = S/E) of a statement S increases as verifications accrue to the evidence E, provided the evidence is taken as a whole; and Numerical probabilities may be assigned to facts or statements only when the evidence includes statistical data or other numerical information which can be treated by the methods of mathematical probability. C. Mathematical Probability. The mathematical theory of probability, which is also called the theory of chances or the theory of relative possibilities, is concerned with the application of mathematical methods to the determination of the likelihood of any event, when there are not sufficient data to determine with certainty its occurrence or failure. As Laplace remarked, it is nothing more than common sense reduced to calculation. But its range goes far beyond that of common sense for it has not only conditioned the growth of various branches of mathematics, such as the theory of errors, the calculus of variations and mathematical statistics, but it has also made possible the establishment of a number of theories in the natural and social sciences, by its actual applications to concrete problems. A distinction is usually made between direct and inverse probability. The determination of a direct or a priori probability involves an inference from given situations or sets of possibilities numerically characterized, to future events related with them. By definition, the direct probability of the occurrence of any particular form of an event, is the ratio of the number of ways in which that form might occur, to the whole number of ways in which the event may occur, all these forms being equiprobable or equally likely. The basic principles referring to a priori probabilities are derived from the analysis of the various logical alternatives involved in any hypothetical questions such as the following: (a) To determine whether a cause, whose exact nature is or is not known, will prove operative or not in certain circumstances; (b) To determine how often an event happens or fails. The comparison of the number of occurrences with that of the failures of an event, considered in simple or complex circumstances, affords a baisis for several cases of probable inference. Thus, theorems may be established to deal with the probability of success and the probability of failure of an event, with the probability of the joint occurrence of several events, with the probability of the alternative occurrence of several events, with the different conditions of frequency of occurrence of an event; with mathematical expectation, and with similar questions. The determination of an a posteriori or inverse probability involves an inference from given situations or events, to past conditions or causes which rnay have contributed to their occurrence. By definition, an inverse probability is the numerical value assigned to each one of a number of possible causes of an actual event that has already occurred; or more generally, it is the numerical value assigned to hypotheses which attempt to explain actual events or circumstances. If an event has occurred as a result of any one of n several causes, the probability that C was the actual cause is Pp/E (Pnpn), when P is the probability that the event could be produced by C if present, and p the probability that C was present before the occurrence of that event. Inverse probability is based on general and special assumptions which cannot always be properly stated, and as there are many different sets of such assumptions, there cannot be a coercive reason for making a definite choice. In particular, the condition of the equiprobability of causes is seldom if ever fulfilled. The distinction between the two kinds of probability, which has led to some confusion in interpreting their grounds and their relations, can be technically ignored now as a result of the adoption of a statistical basis for measuring probabilities. In particular, it is the statistical treatment of correlation which led to the study of probabilities of concurrent phenomena irrespective of their direction in time. This distinction may be retained, howe\er, for the purpose of a general exposition of the subject. Thus, a number of probability theorems are obtained by using various cases of direct and inverse probability involving permutations and combinations, the binomial theorem, the theory of series, and the methods of integration. In turn, these theurems can be applied to concrete cases of the various sciences.
b) The usual meaning of the term the doctrine of the Trinitarians who hold that the nature of God is one in substance and three in embodiment (Latin: persona). Upon the basis of Platonic realism (q.v.) which makes the universal fundamental and the particulars real in terms of the universal, the Christian Trinitarians made philosophically clear their doctrine of one Godhead and three embodiments, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three and yet one. The doctrine was formulated to make religiously valid the belief in the complete Deity of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit (referred to in the New and the Old Testaments) and to avoid the pitfalls of polytheism. Jesus had become the object of Christian worship and the revealer of God and thus it was felt necessary to establish (together with the H.S.) his real Deity along with monotheistic belief. A long controversy over the relationship of the three led to the formulation by the Council of Nicea in 325, and after further disputes, by the Council of Constantinople in 381 of the orthodox Trinitarian creed (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan). Roman and Greek Catholicism split on the doctrine of the status of the H.S. The Western church added the expression "filioque" (the H.S. proceeding "and from the Son") making more explicit the complete equality of the three; the Eastern church maintained the original text which speaks of the H.S. as "proceeding from thet Father." Orthodox Protestantism maintains the Trinitarian conception. -- V.F.
Business Process Re-engineering "business" (BPR) Any radical change in the way in which an organisation performs its business activities. BPR involves a fundamental re-think of the business processes followed by a redesign of business activities to enhance all or most of its critical measures - costs, quality of service, staff dynamics, etc. (1999-09-27)
"By studying the principles of success and failure, preservation and destruction, calamity and prosperity from ancient to recent times, they learn how to hold what is essential and to grasp the fundamental. They guard themselves with purity and emptiness, in humility and weakness they maintain themselves . . . Afterwards those who act without restraint desired to reject learning and the rules of propriety, and at the same time, discard benevolence and righteousness. They said that the world could be governed simply by purity and emptiness."
cardinal ::: a. --> Of fundamental importance; preeminent; superior; chief; principal.
One of the ecclesiastical princes who constitute the pope&
Carnap's contributions to the study of epistemological and philosophical problems may be characterized as applications of the methods of logical analysis to the languages of everyday life and of science. His books contain applications to the fundamental problems of epistemology, expound the principles of physicalism (q.v.) which was developed by Carnap and Neurath and which offers, amongst others, a basis for a more cautious version of the ideas of older behaviorism and for the construction of one common unified language for all branches of empirical science (see Unity of Science). Main works: Logische Aufblou der Welt; Abriss der Logistik; Logische Syntax der Sprache "Testability and Meaning," Phil. of Sci. (1916). -- C.G.H.
case and paste "programming" (From "{cut and paste}") The addition of a new {feature} to an existing system by selecting the code from an existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes. This usually results in gross violation of the fundamental programming tenet, {Don't Repeat Yourself}. Common in telephony circles because most operations in a telephone switch are selected using "case" statements. Leads to {software bloat}. In some circles of {Emacs} users this is called "programming by Meta-W", because Meta-W is the Emacs command for copying a block of text to a {kill buffer} in preparation to pasting it in elsewhere. The term is condescending, implying that the programmer is acting mindlessly rather than thinking carefully about what is required to integrate the code for two similar cases. At {DEC}, this is sometimes called "clone-and-hack" coding. [{Jargon File}] (1996-03-01)
charte ::: n. --> The constitution, or fundamental law, of the French monarchy, as established on the restoration of Louis XVIII., in 1814.
Chenresi (Tibetan) spyan ras gzigs (chen-re-zi, or chen-re-si) [short for spyan ras gzigs dbang phyug (chen-re-zi-wang-chung) from spyan ras penetrating vision (cf Sanskrit avalokita) + gzigs forms (cf Sanskrit rūpa) + dbang phyug lord (cf Sanskrit īśvara)] The Lord who sees forms with his penetrating vision; translation of Sanskrit Avalokitesvara. Exoterically Chenresi is the greatest protector of Asia in general and Tibet in particular, mystically considered to have eleven heads and a thousand arms, each with an eye in the palm of the hand, these arms radiating from his body like a forest of rays: the thousand eyes representing him as on the outlook to discover distress and to succor the troubled. In this form his name is Chantong (he of the thousand eyes) and Jigtengonpo (protector and savior against evil). “Even the exoteric appearance of Dhyani Chenresi is suggestive of the esoteric teaching. He is evidently, like Daksha, the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all the human Races after the Third, the first complete one, and thus is represented as the culmination of the four primeval races in his eleven-faced form. It is a column built in four rows, each series having three faces or heads of different complexions: the three faces for each race being typical of its three fundamental physiological transformations. The first is white (moon-coloured); the second is yellow, the third, red-brown; the fourth, in which are only two faces — the third face being left a blank — (a reference to the untimely end of the Atlanteans) is brown-black. Padmapani (Daksha) is seated on the column, and forms the apex” (SD 2:178).
Chih: Wisdom, one of the three Universally Recognized Moral qualities of man (ta te), the Three Moral Qualities of the superior man (san te), the Four Fundamentals of the moral life (ssu tuan), and the Five Constant Virtues (wu ch'ang). (Confucianism.) Knowledge; intelligence. Discriminate knowledge; small knowledge, which is incapable of understanding Tao. Intuitive knowledge (liang chih). (Wang Yang-ming, 1473-1529.) --W.T.C Chih: Marks, designation, pointing at (with a finger, chih), an obscure term in the logic of Kung-sun Lung (c. 400 - c. 300 B.C.) which can be interpreted as:
Church of the SubGenius "body, humour" A mutant offshoot of {Discordianism} launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist Christianity by the "Reverend" Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich source of bizarre imagery and references such as "Bob" the divine drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists, and the Stark Fist of Removal. Much SubGenius theory is concerned with the acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of {slack}. {(http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius/slack.html)}. (1996-01-02)
Class struggle: Fundamental in Marxian social thought, this term signifies the conflict between classes (q.v.) which, according to the theory of historical materialism (see the entry, Dialectical materialism) may and usually does take place in all aspects of social life, and which has existed ever since the passing of primitive communism (q.v.). The class struggle is considered basic to the dynamics of history in the sense that a widespread change in technics, or a fuller utilization of them, which necessitates changes in economic relations and, in turn, in the social superstructure, is championed and carried through by classes which stand to gain from the change. The economic aspects of the class struggle under capitalism manifest themselves most directly, Marx held, in disputes over amount of wages, rate of profits, rate of interest, amount of rent, length of working day, conditions of work and like matters. The Marxist position is that the class struggle enters into philosophy, politics, law, morals, art, religion and other cultural institutions and fields in various ways, either directly or indirectly, and, in respect to the people involved, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly. In any case the specific content of any such field or institution at a given time it held to have a certain effect upon a given class in its conflicts with other classes, weakening or aiding it. Marxists believe that certain kinds of literature or art may inspire people with a lively sense of the need and possibility of a radical change in social relations, or, on the contrary, with a sense of lethargy or complacency, and that various moral, religious or philosophical doctrines may operate to persuade a given class that it should accept its lot without complaint or its privileges without qualms, or may operate to persuade it of the contrary. The Marxist view is that every field or institution has a history, an evolution, and that this evolution is the result of the play of conflicting forces entering into the field, which forces are connected, in one way or another, with class conflicts. While it is thus held that the class struggle involves all cultural fields, it is not held that any cultural production or phenomenon, selected or delimited at random, can be correlated in a one-to-one fashion with an equally delimited class interest. -- J.M.S.
clipboard "operating system" A temporary memory area, used to transfer information within a document being edited or between documents or between programs. The fundamental operations are "cut" which moves data from a document to the clipboard, "copy" which copies it to the clipboard, and "paste" which inserts the clipboard contents into the current document in place of the current selection. Different {Graphical User Interfaces} vary in how they handle the different types of data which a user might want to transfer via the clipboard, some (e.g. the {X Window System}) support only plain text, others (e.g. {NEXTSTEP}) support arbitrarily typed data such as images. (1996-08-23)
clock rate "processor, benchmark" The fundamental rate in {cycles} per second at which a computer performs its most basic operations such as adding two numbers or transfering a value from one {register} to another. The clock rate of a computer is normally determined by the frequency of a crystal. The original {IBM PC}, circa 1981, had a clock rate of 4.77 MHz (almost five million cycles/second). As of 1995, {Intel}'s Pentium chip runs at 100 MHz (100 million cycles/second). The clock rate of a computer is only useful for providing comparisons between computer chips in the same {processor family}. An {IBM PC} with an {Intel 486} {CPU} running at 50 MHz will be about twice as fast as one with the same CPU, memory and display running at 25 MHz. However, there are many other factors to consider when comparing different computers. Clock rate should not be used when comparing different computers or different processor families. Rather, some {benchmark} should be used. Clock rate can be very misleading, since the amount of work different computer chips can do in one cycle varies. For example, {RISC} CPUs tend to have simpler instructions than {CISC} CPUs (but higher clock rates) and {pipelined} processors execute more than one instruction per cycle. (1995-01-12)
complex number "mathematics" A number of the form x+iy where i is the square root of -1, and x and y are {real numbers}, known as the "real" and "imaginary" part. Complex numbers can be plotted as points on a two-dimensional plane, known as an {Argand diagram}, where x and y are the {Cartesian coordinates}. An alternative, {polar} notation, expresses a complex number as (r e^it) where e is the base of {natural logarithms}, and r and t are real numbers, known as the magnitude and phase. The two forms are related: r e^it = r cos(t) + i r sin(t) = x + i y where x = r cos(t) y = r sin(t) All solutions of any {polynomial equation} can be expressed as complex numbers. This is the so-called {Fundamental Theorem of Algebra}, first proved by Cauchy. Complex numbers are useful in many fields of physics, such as electromagnetism because they are a useful way of representing a magnitude and phase as a single quantity. (1995-04-10)
computer geek "jargon" (Or "turbo nerd", "turbo geek") One who eats (computer) {bugs} for a living. One who fulfils all the dreariest negative stereotypes about {hackers}: an asocial, malodourous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. The term cannot be used by outsiders without implied insult to all {hackers}; compare black-on-black usage of "nigger". A computer geek may be either a fundamentally clueless individual or a proto-hacker in {larval stage}. See also {Alpha Geek}, {propeller head}, {clustergeeking}, {geek out}, {wannabee}, {terminal junkie}, {spod}, {weenie}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-06-26)
cons cell "programming" /konz sel/ or /kons sel/ A {Lisp} {pair} object containing any two objects. In {Lisp}, "cons" (short for "construct") is the fundamental operation for building structures such as {lists} and other {binary trees}. The application of "cons" to objects H and T is written (cons H T) and returns a pair object known as a "cons", "cons cell" or {dotted pair}. Typically, a cons would be stored in memory as a two consecutive {pointers}. The two objects in a cons, and the functions to extract them, are called "car" and "cdr" after two 15-bit fields of the {machine code} {instruction} format of the {IBM 7090} that hosted the original LISP implementation. These fields were called the "address" and "decrement" parts so "car" stood for "Contents of Address part of Register" and "cdr" for "Contents of Decrement part of Register". In the typical case where the cons holds one node of a {list} structure, the car is the {head} of the list (first element) and the cdr is the {tail} of the list (the rest). If the list had only one element then the tail would be an empty list, represented by the cdr containing the special value "nil". To aid in working with nested structures such as lists of lists, Lisp provides functions to access the car of the car ("caar"), the car of the cdr ("cadr"), the cdr of the car ("cdar") and the cdr of the cdr ("cddr"). (2014-11-09)
Consciousness ::: Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence; it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it; not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance, when consciousness in its movement or rather a certain stress of movement forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently unconscious energy; when it forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality itis still consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of Matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as animal, as man and it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and becomes something more than mere man.
Ref: SABCL Vol. 22-23-24, Page: 237
consciousness ::: “Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” Letters on Yoga
Consciousness [from Latin conscio knowing with, knowing together] The active state of spirit or the supreme fundamental in manifested existence. Like light, consciousness can become manifest only by means of a vehicle, and it can have various degrees of manifestation according to the planes. Individual consciousness originates in the Logos of any hierarchy. Every manifested entity is conscious to some degree, and is an expression of divine consciousness or spirit. Buddhi is said to be latent spiritual consciousness which becomes manifest intellectually in manas, so far as the human constitution goes (SD 2:275). Human consciousness is also closely linked to the senses.
“Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” Letters on Yoga
Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range. There are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it uncons- cious, — supraroental or overmental and submental ranges.
By consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness exist cither in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state.
It is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest, developing them from above downward by a progressive coming down from spiri- tual levels towards involution in matter or formulating them In an upward working in the from what wc call evolution.
constitutionally ::: adv. --> In accordance with the constitution or natural disposition of the mind or body; naturally; as, he was constitutionally timid.
In accordance with the constitution or fundamental law; legally; as, he was not constitutionally appointed.
Consul "language" A {constraint}-based {declarative language} based on {axiomatic set theory} and designed for {parallel} execution on {MIMD} architectures. Consul's fundamental {data type} is the {set} and its fundamental {operators} are the {logical connectives} ("and", "or", "not") and {quantifiers} ("forall", "exists"). It is written in {Lisp}-like {syntax}, e.g., (plus x y z) which means the relation x = y+z (not an {assignment statement}). {["Design of the CONSUL Programming Language", D. Baldwin, C. A. Quiroz Gonzalez, University of Rochester. Computer Science Department, TR208, 1987 Feb (http://hdl.handle.net/1802/6372)]} {["Consul: A Parallel Constraint Language", D. Baldwin, IEEE Software 6(4):62-71, 1989 July (http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/52.31653)]} (2014-10-04)
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
Criterion: Broadly speaking, any ground, basis, or means of judging anything as to its quality. Since validity, truth, goodness, justice, virtue, and beauty are some of the most fundamental qualities for philosophic enquiry, criteria for these are embodied in almost all philosophies and are either assumed or derived. In logic, consistency is a generally recognized criterion; in epistemology, evidence of the senses, comparison, or reason may be regarded as criteria; in metaphysical speculation have been suggested. as criteria for truth, among others, correspondence, representation, practicability, and coherence; in religion, evidences of faith, revelation or miracle; in ethics, pleasure, desirability, utility, self-determination of the will, duty, conscience, happiness, are among common criteria, while in aesthetics there have been cited interest, satisfaction, enjoyment, utility, harmony. -- K.F.L.
Crook, Episcopal Part of the insignia of bishops and abbots in the Roman Catholic Church, said to have been adopted from the augurs of Etruria; usually considered as representing a shepherd’s crook, in allusion to Christ as the Good Shepherd and his delegated function as such. But, taken in connection with the archbishop’s crozier, which has a cross at the end, it seems likely to be one of the ancient geometrical symbols, perhaps the serpent. Some Egyptian divinities are represented with scepters in the form of a crook or bearing a resemblance to it: it always appears in the hands of Osiris, especially in his aspect of judge of the underworld. The fundamental significance of the crook was of spiritual and intellectual dynamic energy or power usable at the will of its holder or possessor.
Crystals, Crystallization The formation of crystals shows the working of intelligent life forces in the mineral world. The shapes of crystals show, in their harmony and proportion, the mathematical and geometrical principles permeant throughout the universe. A solution of salt, when evaporated, first crystallizes in triangular shapes and ultimately builds up cubes, both of which are symbolical figures of fundamental importance; and salt is a well-known alchemical symbol of the element of earth, also denoted by the cubical shape. Every salt has a particular form in which it crystallizes, or has perhaps two different forms; but different salts may have the same crystalline form. Snow crystals show the hexagonal patterns which display the septenate — a center from which six radii proceed. Cubic, tetragonal, hexagonal, and octagonal shapes occur; but the fivefold forms of the regular dodecahedron and icosahedron are not found. Clairvoyant sensitives see light emanating from crystals, and luminous phenomena are often seen at the formation or disruption of crystals. Blavatsky alludes to the idea that the process of crystallization might be a step in the evolution of the minerals to the next higher kingdom.
Cudworth, Ralph: (1617-1688) Was the leading Cambridge Platonist (q.v.). His writings were devoted to a refutation of Hobbesean materialism which he characterized as atheistic. He accepted a rationalism of the kind advanced by Descartes. He found clear and distinct fundamental notions or categories reflecting universal reason, God's mind, the nature and essence of things and the moral laws, which he held to be as binding on God as the axioms of mathematics. His two most important works are The True Intellectual System of the Universe, and A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. -- L.E.D.
Cyc "artificial intelligence" A large {knowledge-based system}. Cyc is a very large, multi-contextual {knowledge base} and {inference engine}, the development of which started at the {Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation} (MCC) in Austin, Texas during the early 1980s. Over the past eleven years the members of the Cyc team, lead by {Doug Lenat}, have added to the knowledge base a huge amount of fundamental human knowledge: {facts}, rules of thumb, and {heuristics} for reasoning about the objects and events of modern everyday life. Cyc is an attempt to do symbolic {AI} on a massive scale. It is not based on numerical methods such as statistical probabilities, nor is it based on {neural networks} or {fuzzy logic}. All of the knowledge in Cyc is represented {declaratively} in the form of logical {assertions}. Cyc presently contains approximately 400,000 significant assertions, which include simple statements of fact, rules about what conclusions to draw if certain statements of fact are satisfied, and rules about how to reason with certain types of facts and rules. The {inference engine} derives new conclusions using {deductive reasoning}. To date, Cyc has made possible ground-breaking pilot applications in the areas of {heterogeneous} database browsing and integration, {captioned image retrieval}, and {natural language processing}. In January of 1995, a new independent company named Cycorp was created to continue the Cyc project. Cycorp is still in Austin, Texas. The president of Cycorp is {Doug Lenat}. The development of Cyc has been supported by several organisations, including {Apple}, {Bellcore}, {DEC}, {DoD}, {Interval}, {Kodak}, and {Microsoft}. {(http://cyc.com/)}. {Unofficial FAQ (http://robotwisdom.com/ai/cycfaq.html)}. (1999-09-07)
derivative ::: a. --> Obtained by derivation; derived; not radical, original, or fundamental; originating, deduced, or formed from something else; secondary; as, a derivative conveyance; a derivative word. ::: n. --> That which is derived; anything obtained or deduced from another.
Dhammapada (Pali) Dhammpada [from dhamma law, moral conduct (cf Sanskrit dharma) + pada a step, line, stanza] A fundamental text of Southern Buddhism: a collection of 423 verses believed to be the sayings of Gautama Buddha, gathered from older sources and strung together on 26 selected topics. Dealing with a wide range of philosophic and religious thought, with particular emphasis on ethics, they are often couched in beautiful imagery, so that they make a ready and profound appeal to the reader. Self-culture and self-control are forcibly inculcated, and when the precepts are followed they lead to the living of an exalted as well as useful life.
dharma ::: law of being; "a fundamental law of our nature which secretly conditions all our activities"; the law of religious and spiritual life; the religious or spiritual part of karma.
Didactics: (Gr. didaktikos, taught) The branch of education concerned with methods of teaching and instruction. In theology and religion didactics in contradistinction to catechetics, is instiuction in fundamentals of religious doctrine. -- L.W.
digital computer "computer" A {computer} that represents numbers and other data using discrete internal states, in contrast to the continuously varying quantities used in an {analog computer}. Some of the fundamental ideas behind the digital computer were proposed by {Alan Turing} between 1936 and 1938. The design of the {Atanasoff-Berry Computer} (1937-1942) included some of the important implementation details but the first digital computer to successfully run real programs was the {Z3} (1941). {ENIAC} (1943-1946) was the first electronic digital computer but was only programmable by manual rewiring or switches. (2003-10-01)
dimorphous ::: a. --> Characterized by dimorphism; occurring under two distinct forms, not dependent on sex; dimorphic.
Crystallizing under two forms fundamentally different, while having the same chemical composition.
disparate ::: fundamentally distinct or different in kind; entirely dissimilar.
Divine Presence ::: It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one’s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any farther qualification or description. Thus of the "ineffable Presence"20 it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance,—the essential perception of the essential presence supporting everything else.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 106
double-ended queue "algorithm" /dek/ (deque) A {queue} which can have items added or removed from either end[?]. The Knuth reference below reports that the name was coined by E. J. Schweppe. [D. E. Knuth, "The Art of Computer Programming. Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms", second edition, Sections 2.2.1, 2.6, Addison-Wesley, 1973]. {Silicon Graphics (http://sgi.com/tech/stl/Deque.html)}. [Correct definition? Example use?] (2003-12-17)
Dualism In theology, the doctrine that there are two independent and opposing deific powers conjointly ruling the universe as, for instance, in the Zoroastrian system when it teaches that Ormazd and Ahriman, the good and evil deities, divide between them the supremacy. It is opposed to monotheism, but not necessarily to polytheism. In philosophy, the doctrine that there are two fundamental principles underlying all manifestation, such as spirit and matter, force and matter, mind and matter and in a more extended sense good and evil, high and low, black and white; in fact the doctrine has its origin in the so-called pairs of opposites in nature. Here, it is opposed to monism but not necessarily to pluralism. These oppositions of ideas in both theology and philosophy are often quite unnecessary, and rise from the tendency of the mind to keep conceptions in rigidly thought-tight compartments, without that intermingling of principle to principle, based on a fundamental unity, which is demonstrated to be true by all we know of even physical nature.
duality ::: “The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operations of the self-manifestation of the being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature.” The Life Divine
Eclectic [from Greek eklektikos selective, picking out] Applied to systems of philosophy or religion which cull the best from a variety of systems, with the view of thus arriving at essentials. It was applied to the School of Ammonius Saccas and other Alexandrian philosophers, implying that they picked out what was best in all faiths in order to make a new system, doing so because they knew that all the major systems of human religion and philosophy fundamentally derive from a common wisdom-religion of remote antiquity, and therefore that each such system contains at least some elements of truth. Hence they were teaching the wisdom-religion through synthesizing, and by illustrating it from various faiths. The word is also applied to other matters, e.g. schools of painting.
Ehrenfels, Maria Christian Julius Leopold Karl, Freiherr von: (1859-1932) As one of the leaders of the "Brentano School", he affirmed that the fundamental factor in valuation was desire. His principal interest was to trace the way in which desires and motives generate values. He described for the most part the development, the conflict, the hierarchy, and the obsolescence of values. Having a major influence upon the analytic approach to value theory, his outlook was relativistic and evolutionary. Main works: Uber Gestaltqualitäten (1890), System der Werttheorie (1897); Sexualethik (1907). -- H.H.
Elementary Texts: T. Dewey and J. H. Tufts, Ethics, Rev. Ed. 1932. W. M. Urban, Fundamentals of Ethics, 1930.
Element [from Latin elementa first principles; also (singular) elementum an element; cf Sanskrit lī to dissolve] Though element may be applied to anything, it more specifically refers to the matterside of nature; and thus the primordial element is found in mulaprakriti, the fundamental root-substance which underlies all manifestation. Schools of philosophy have seen fire, air, or water (not as understood in the usual sense) as the primal element; or have recognized fire, air, water, earth, and sometimes aether as primal elements.
element ::: n. --> One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based.
One of the ultimate, undecomposable constituents of any kind of matter. Specifically: (Chem.) A substance which cannot be decomposed into different kinds of matter by any means at present employed; as, the elements of water are oxygen and hydrogen.
One of the ultimate parts which are variously combined in
Engels, Frederick: Co-founder of the doctrines of Marxism (see Dialectical materialism) Engels was the life-long friend and collaborator of Karl Marx (q.v.). He was born at Barmen, Germanv, in 1820, the son of a manufacturer. Like Marx, he became interested in communism early in life, developing and applying its doctrines until his death, August 5, 1895. Beside his collaboration with Marx on Die Heilige Familie, Die Deutsche Ideologie, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Anti-Dühring and articles for the "New York Tribune" (a selection from which constitutes "Germany: revolution and counter-revolution"), and his editing of Volumes II and III of Capital, published after Marx's death, Engels wrote extensively on various subjects, from "Condition of the Working Class in England (1844)" to military problems, in which field he had received technical training. On the philosophical side of Marxism, Engels speculated on fundamental questions of scientific methodology and dialectical logic in such books as Dialectics of Nature and Anti-Dühring. Works like Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy and Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State are likewise regarded as basic texts. The most extensive collection of Engels' works will be found in Marx-Engels "Gesamtausgabe", to which there is still much unpublished material to be added. -- J.M.S.
Entelechy [from Greek entelecheia from en telos echein to be complete] In Aristotelian philosophy, actuality as opposed to potentiality: water is potentially solid, liquid, or gas, but actually only one of these at a time. Soul is spoken of by Aristotle as the entelecheia of body — the subsisting principle of the body’s existence, and therefore the real although unseen actuality of the body’s being, irrespective of emanated monads from the fundamental spirit-substance (svabhavat), when the latter is considered as their collective unity. It is the principle or substantive element of a being or thing, which produces or makes the actuality of such being or thing, considered apart from or irrespective of dependent or derivative powers or qualities.
Esoteric Doctrine ::: The body of mystical and sacred teachings reserved for students of high and worthy character. This bodyof teachings has been known and studied by highly evolved individuals in all ages. The esoteric doctrineis the common property of mankind, and it has always been thus. In all the various great religions andphilosophies of the world, the student will find fundamental principles in each which, when placed sideby side and critically examined, are easily discovered to be identic. Every one of such fundamentalprinciples is in every great world religion or world philosophy; hence the aggregate of these worldreligions or world philosophies contains the entirety of the esoteric doctrine, but usually expressed inexoteric form.However, no one of these world religions or world philosophies gives in clear and explicit shape or formthe entirety of the body of teachings which are at its heart; some religions emphasize one or more of suchfundamental principles; another religion or philosophy will emphasize others of these principles; in eithercase others again of the principles remaining in the background. This readily accounts for the fact that thevarious world religions and world philosophies vary among themselves and often, to the unreflectingmind, superficially seem to have little in common, and perhaps even to be contradictory. The cause ofthis is the varying manner in which each such religion or philosophy has been given to the world, theform that each took having been best for the period in which it was promulgated. Each such religion orphilosophy, having its own racial sphere and period of time, represents the various human minds whohave developed it or who, so to say, have translated it to the world in this or in that particularpromulgation.These manners or mannerisms of exoteric thinking we may discard if we wish; but it is the fundamentalprinciples behind every great religion or great philosophy which in their aggregate are the universalesoteric doctrine. In this universal esoteric doctrine lies the mystery-field of each great religion orphilosophy -- this mystery-teaching being always reserved for the initiates. The esoteric philosophy ordoctrine has been held from time immemorial in the guardianship of great men, exalted seers and sages,who from time to time promulgate it, or rather portions of it, to the world when the spiritual andintellectual need for so doing arises. The origins of the esoteric doctrine are found in themystery-teachings of beings from other and spiritual spheres, who incarnated in the early humanity of thethird root-race of this fourth round of our globe, and taught the then intellectually nascent mankind thenecessary certain fundamental principles or truths regarding the universe and the nature of the worldsurrounding us.
etymon ::: n. --> An original form; primitive word; root.
Original or fundamental signification.
eudipleura ::: n. pl. --> The fundamental forms of organic life, that are composed of two equal and symmetrical halves.
European Computer-Industry Research Centre GmbH "body" (ECRC) A joint research organisation founded in 1984 on the initiative of three major European manufacturers: {Bull} (France), {ICL} (UK) and {Siemens} (Germany). Its activities were intended to enhance the future competitive ability of the European {Information Technology} industry and thus complement the work of national and international bodies. The Centre is intended to be the breeding ground for those ideas, techniques and products which are essential for the future use of electronic information processing. The work of the Centre will focus on advanced information processing technology for the next generation of computers. ECRC is an independent company, owned equally by its shareholders. The formal interface between ECRC and its shareholders consists of two bodies: The Shareholders' Council, which approves the Centre's programmes and budgets and supervises their execution and the Scientific Advisory Board, which advises the Shareholders' Council in determining future research directions. There are many collaborations between ECRC and its shareholders' companies on specific projects (Technology Transfer, prospective studies etc). The Centre is staffed by highly qualified scientists drawn from different countries. Research staff are hired directly by ECRC, as well as some who come on assignment from the member companies, and others seconded from public research agencies and universities. Seminars are held which bring together specialists from the Centre and the member companies. ECRC's mission is to pursue research in fundamental areas of computer science. The aim is to develop the theory, methodologies and tools needed to build innovative computer applications. ECRC contributes actively to the international effort that is expanding the frontiers of knowledge in computer science. It plays an important role in bridging the gap between research and industry by striving to work at the highest academic level with a strong industrial focus. ECRC constitutes an opportunity in Europe for the best scientists and offers young researchers the possibility to mature in an environment which exposes them to both fundamental research and the process of delivering the results to industry. ECRC plays an important role in Europe and is involved in several European Community initiatives. It is regularly consulted by the Commission of the European Communities on strategic issues, such as the definition of future research plans, international co-operation and relationships between academia and industry. Address: ECRC GmbH, Arabellastrasse 17, D-81925 Munich, Germany. {(http://ecrc.de/)}. Telephone: +49 (89) 926 99 0. Fax: +49 (89) 926 99 170. (1994-12-01)
Euthanasia [from Greek eu well +thanatos death] Easy death, a painless death; used for the practice of mercifully killing people who would otherwise suffer a painful death. To decide if a person should or should not be kept alive by artificial means or a life ended by artificial means requires almost superhuman discernment. An individual is not his body nor even his mind, but fundamentally a spiritual being. Physical suffering from bodily ills, however unpleasant, provides an opportunity to meet and dispose of certain karmic causes, and thereby learn and grow. Aside from the difficulty of preventing abuses in legalized euthanasia, the ethical and spiritual questions surrounding artificial prolongation and shortening of life remain extremely complex. The Stoics held that life is a gift of the gods and therefore no person has the right to reject that gift — for oneself or another — until the gods themselves call it back.
Every sadbaka Is faced with two elements in him, the inner being which wants the Divine and the sadhana and the outer mainly vital and physical being which does not want them but remains attached to the things of the ordinary life. The mind is sometimes led by one, someUoves by the other. One of the most important things he has to do, therefore, is to decide fundamentally the quarrel between these two parts and to persuade or compel by psychic aspiration, by steadiness of the mind’s thought and will, by the choice of the higher vital in his emotional being, the opposing elements to be first quiescent and then consenting. So long as he is not able to do that his progress must be either very slow or fluctuating and chequered as the aspiration within cannot have a continuous action or a continuous result. Besides so long as thb is so, there are likely to be periodical revolts of the vita! repining at the slow progress, des- pairing, desponding, declaring the Adhar unfit ; calls from old life will come ; circumstances will be attracted which seem to justify it, suggestions will come from men and unseen powers pressing the sadhaka away from the sadhana and pointing back- ward to the former life. And yet in that life he is not likely to get any real satisfaction.
Evolution ::: As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powersand faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generallyspeaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception issvabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merelytopped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations -- not at all; for thiswould make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without anessential unity or indeed any unifying principle.In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everythingthat the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man fromthe universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringingforth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances -- nature, touse the popular word -- is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function,upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reactioninvariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolvingentity.There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of itas ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers ofconsciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endlesscourse of unceasing growth.Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but theexpression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual wordevolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a generalterm, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days theconcept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an importantone, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in anyactual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word fortheosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident,that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into andmanifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity. Theosophists, therefore, are, strictlyspeaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obviousthat the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses anddetails there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the FrenchmanLamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of everyorganic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in variousvehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, butalso the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending fromthe divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolvingentity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself -- therefore evolution isa bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)
Existential Philosophy arose from disappointment with Kant's "thing-in-itself" and Hegel's metaphysicism whose failure was traced back to a fundamental misrepresentation in psychology. It is strictly non-metaphysical, anti-hypothetical, and contends to give only a simple description of existent psychological realities. "Existence" is therefore not identical with the metaphysical correlative of "essence". Consciousness is influenced by our nerveous system, nutrition, and environment; these account for our experiences. Such terms as being, equal, similar, perceived, represented, have no logical or truth-value; they are merely biological "characters", a distinction between physical and psychological is unwarranted. Here lies the greatest weakness of the Existential Philosophy, which, however, did not hinder its spreading in both continents.
extrinsic value ::: One of three main types of value that holons possess, along with intrinsic and Ground value. Refers to the partness of a holon in relation to its larger whole(s), or communion value. The more networks and wholes of which a holon is a part, then the greater its extrinsic value. Thus, the more extrinsic value a holon has, the more fundamental it is, since its existence is instrumental to the existence of so many other holons. See intrinsic value and Ground value.
family ::: v. t. --> The collective body of persons who live in one house, and under one head or manager; a household, including parents, children, and servants, and, as the case may be, lodgers or boarders.
The group comprising a husband and wife and their dependent children, constituting a fundamental unit in the organization of society.
Those who descend from one common progenitor; a tribe, clan, or race; kindred; house; as, the human family; the family of
FASE Fundamentally Analyzable Simplified English. L.E. McMahon, Bell Labs. [Sammet 1969, p.720]. (1994-11-09)
fibre ::: 1. A filamentous substance; a web of thread-like tissue such as composes living tissue generally. 2. That which fundamentally constitutes the strength of a thing; sinew; stuff; character. fibres, fibred.
…for since the nature of the Knowledge is to find the Truth and the fundamental Truth is the One, —the Veda speaks repeatedly of it as "That Truth" and "That One",—Vidya, Knowledge in its highest spiritual sense, came to mean purely and trenchantly the knowledge of the One.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 508
“For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga
FP2 Functional Parallel Programming. A {term rewriting} language which unifies {functional programming} and {parallel programming}. Every object is a term and every computation is done by rewriting. Rewrite rules are used to specify {algebraic data types} and parallel processes. ["Term Rewriting as a Basis for the Design of a Functional and Parallel Programming Language. A Case Study: The Language FP2", Ph. Jorrand in Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence, LNCS 258, Springer 1986, pp. 221-276]. (1994-10-20)
Fundamental Attribution Error ::: The tendency to over estimate the internal attributes of another person&
Fundamental Propositions In theosophy, the three fundamental religio-philosophic principles or propositions which Blavatsky states in the Proem to The Secret Doctrine are the foundation on which theosophy presents its modern philosophical teachings: 1) “An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception”; 2) “The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically ‘the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing’”; and 3) “The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul — a spark of the former — through the Cycle of Incarnation (or ‘Necessity’) in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term” (SD 1:14-17). There are also three fundamental propositions in volume 2:
Fund - Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, by G. de Purucker
Gay, John: (1669-1745) English schohr and clergyman, not to be confused with his contemporary, the poet and dramatist of the same name. He is important in the field of ethics for his Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality. This little work influenced David Hartley in his formulation of Associationism in Psychology and likewise sened to suggest the foundation for the later English Utilitarian School. -- L.E.D.
generator ::: n. --> One who, or that which, generates, begets, causes, or produces.
An apparatus in which vapor or gas is formed from a liquid or solid by means of heat or chemical process, as a steam boiler, gas retort, or vessel for generating carbonic acid gas, etc.
The principal sound or sounds by which others are produced; the fundamental note or root of the common chord; -- called also generating tone.
genus ::: n. --> A class of objects divided into several subordinate species; a class more extensive than a species; a precisely defined and exactly divided class; one of the five predicable conceptions, or sorts of terms.
An assemblage of species, having so many fundamental points of structure in common, that in the judgment of competent scientists, they may receive a common substantive name. A genus is not necessarily the lowest definable group of species, for it may often be divided into
Gnostics Various schools — agreeing in fundamentals, differing in details according to their teachers — which inculcated gnosis (divine wisdom); they preceded or coincided with the early centuries of Christianity, and were grouped about Alexandria, Antioch, and other large centers of the Jewish-Hellenic-Syrian culture. The teachers include Philo Judaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Simon Magus and his pupil Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, Celsus, and others. Their teachings in many respects were those of the ancient wisdom, derived from contact with the still extant sources in Egypt, India, Persia, and elsewhere.
Gravitation, like all the other phenomena of nature, is to be attributed to living beings of cosmic magnitude by reason of the vital electricity or vital magnetism emanating from these beings, which electricity or magnetism is at once one of the phenomena of life and of cosmic intelligence. In the lower scale of magnitudes found in and among the molecules, atoms, and electronic particles, the same observations apply. Cohesion among the infinitesimals is the microcosmic working of the same fundamental qualities that manifest themselves in macrocosmic phenomena, such as gravitation.
Green's Theorem "humour" (TMRC) For any story, in any group of people there will be at least one person who has not heard the story. A refinement of the theorem states that there will be *exactly* one person (if there were more than one, it wouldn't be as bad to re-tell the story). The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in calculus. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-16)
groundwork ::: n. --> That which forms the foundation or support of anything; the basis; the essential or fundamental part; first principle.
guna. ::: fundamental operating principle or quality; mode of nature; attribute; property
gunas. ::: a cosmic quality of which there are three fundamental operating principles &
Guru-parampara(Sanskrit) ::: This is a compound formed of guru, meaning "teacher," and a subordinate compoundparam-para, the latter compound meaning "a row or uninterrupted series or succession." Henceguru-parampara signifies an uninterrupted series or succession of teachers. Every Mystery school oresoteric college of ancient times had its regular and uninterrupted series or succession of teachersucceeding teacher, each one passing on to his successor the mystical authority and headship he himselfhad received from his predecessor.Like everything else of an esoteric character in the ancient world, the guru-parampara or succession ofteachers faithfully copied what actually exists or takes place in nature herself, where a hierarchy with itssummit or head is immediately linked on to a superior hierarchy as well as to an inferior one; and it is inthis manner that the mystical circulations of the kosmos, and the transmission of life or vital currentsthroughout the fabric or web of being is assured.From this ancient fact and teaching of the Mystery schools came the greatly distorted ApostolicSuccession of the Christian Church, a pale and feeble reflection in merely ecclesiastical government of afundamental spiritual and mystical reality. The great Brotherhood of the sages and seers of the world,which in fact is the association of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion headed by the Maha-chohan,is the purest and most absolute form or example of the guru-parampara existing on our earth today. (Seealso Hermetic Chain)
H. B. Curry, A revision of the fundamental rules of combinatory logic, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, vol. 6 (1941), pp. 41-53.
heresy ::: n. --> An opinion held in opposition to the established or commonly received doctrine, and tending to promote a division or party, as in politics, literature, philosophy, etc.; -- usually, but not necessarily, said in reproach.
Religious opinion opposed to the authorized doctrinal standards of any particular church, especially when tending to promote schism or separation; lack of orthodox or sound belief; rejection of, or erroneous belief in regard to, some fundamental religious doctrine
Heresy of Separateness The belief that one’s self is or can be separate in essence from all other selves. Our apparent separation is functional, not organic or real. This heresy is the one fundamental error against which all theosophical students are warned, and is alluded to in Christian mystic thought as the sin against the Holy Ghost. See also BROTHERHOOD
He was the first to recognize a fundamental critical difference between the philosopher and the scientist. He found those genuine ideals in the pre-Socratic period of Greek culture which he regarded as essential standards for the deepening of individuality and real culture in the deepest sense, towards which the special and natural sciences, and professional or academic philosophers failed to contribute. Nietzsche wanted the philosopher to be prophetic, originally forward-looking in the clarification of the problem of existence. Based on a comprehensive critique of the history of Western civilization, that the highest values in religion, morals and philosophy have begun to lose their power, his philosophy gradually assumed the will to power, self-aggrandizement, as the all-embracing principle in inorganic and organic nature, in the development of the mind, in the individual and in society. More interested in developing a philosophy of life than a system of academic philosophy, his view is that only that life is worth living which develops the strength and integrity to withstand the unavoidable sufferings and misfortunes of existence without flying into an imaginary world.
Hierarchy ::: The word hierarchy merely means that a scheme or system or state of delegated directive power andauthority exists in a self-contained body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority,called the hierarch. The name is used by theosophists, by extension of meaning, as signifying theinnumerable degrees, grades, and steps of evolving entities in the kosmos, and as applying to all parts ofthe universe; and rightly so, because every different part of the universe -- and their number is simplycountless -- is under the vital governance of a divine being, of a god, of a spiritual essence; and allmaterial manifestations are simply the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of thesespiritual beings behind it.The series of hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions. If he so choose for purposes of thought,man may consider himself at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending series of stepsupon steps of higher beings of all grades -- growing constantly less material and more spiritual, andgreater in all senses -- towards an ineffable point. And there the imagination stops, not because the seriesitself stops, but because our thought can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this series, aninfinitely great series of beings and states of beings descends downwards (to use human terms) -downwards and downwards, until there again the imagination stops, merely because our thought can gono farther.The summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (or the hyparxis) of any series of animate and"inanimate" beings, whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven or ten or twelve(according to whichever system we follow), is the divine unity for that series or hierarchy, and thishyparxis or highest being is again in its turn the lowest being of the hierarchy above it, and so extendingonwards forever -- each hierarchy manifesting one facet of the divine kosmic life, each hierarchyshowing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers.Various names were given to these hierarchies considered as series of beings. The generalized Greekhierarchy as shown by writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity may be collected andenumerated as follows: (1) Divine; (2) Gods, or the divine-spiritual; (3) Demigods, sometimes calleddivine heroes, involving a very mystical doctrine; (4) Heroes proper; (5) Men; (6) Beasts or animals; (7)Vegetable world; (8) Mineral world; (9) Elemental world, or what was called the realm of Hades. TheDivinity (or aggregate divine lives) itself is the hyparxis of this series of hierarchies, because each ofthese nine stages is itself a subordinate hierarchy. This (or any other) hierarchy of nine, hangs like apendant jewel from the lowest hierarchy above it, which makes the tenth counting upwards, which tenthwe can call the superdivine, the hyperheavenly, this tenth being the lowest stage (or the ninth, countingdownwards) of still another hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.One of the noblest of the theosophical teachings, and one of the most far-reaching in its import, is that ofthe hierarchical constitution of universal nature. This hierarchical structure of nature is so fundamental,so basic, that it may be truly called the structural framework of being. (See also Planes)
Higher Triad ::: The imperishable spiritual ego considered as a unity. It is the reincarnating part of man's constitutionwhich clothes itself in each earth-life in a new personality or lower quaternary. The higher triad, speakingin the simplest fashion, is the unity of atman, buddhi, and the higher manas; and the lower quaternaryconsists of the lower manas or kama-manas, the prana or vitality, the linga-sarira or astral model-body,and the physical vehicle.Another manner of considering the human constitution in its spiritual aspects is that viewed from thestandpoint of consciousness, and in this latter manner the higher triad consists of the divine monad, thespiritual monad, and the higher human monad. The higher triad is often spoken of in a collective sense,and ignoring details of division, as simply the reincarnating monad, or more commonly the reincarnatingego, because this latter is rooted in the higher triad.Many theosophists experience quite unnecessary difficulty in understanding why the human constitutionshould be at one time divided in one way and at another time divided in another way. The difficulty liesin considering these divisions as being absolute instead of relative, in other words, as representingwatertight compartments instead of merely indefinite and convenient divisions. The simplestpsychological division is probably that which divides the septenary constitution of man in three parts: anuppermost duad which is immortal, an intermediate duad which is conditionally immortal, and a lowertriad which is unconditionally mortal. (See Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, 1st ed., pp. 167,525; 2nd rev. ed., pp. 199, 601).
Hilbert and Ackermann, Grundzuge der theoretischen Logik, 2nd edn., Berlin, 1938. Logic, traditional: the name given to those parts and that method of treatment of formal logic which have come down substantially unchanged from classical and medieval times. Traditional logic emphasizes the analysis of propositions into subject and predicate and the associated classification into the four forms, A, E, I, O; and it is concerned chiefly with topics immediately related to these, including opposition, immediate inference, and the syllogism (see logic, formal). Associated with traditional logic are also the three so-called laws of thought -- the laws of identity (q. v.), contradiction (q. v.) -- and excluded middle (q. v.) -- and the doctrine that these laws are in a special sense fundamental presuppositions of reasoning, or even (by some) that all other principles of logic can be derived from them or are mere elaborations of them. Induction (q. v.) has been added in comparatively modern times (dating from Bacon's Novum Organum) to the subject matter of traditional logic. -- A. C.
His fundamental problem was the relation between sensibility and intelligibility. Being creates existence. The universal spirit becomes individual by its own creation. Thus, the source of individuality is not subjective but divine. And individuality returns to universality when it attains the state of intelligibility from the state of sensibility.
homomorphy ::: n. --> Similarity of form; resemblance in external characters, while widely different in fundamental structure; resemblance in geometric ground form. See Homophyly, Promorphology.
homotype ::: n. --> That which has the same fundamental type of structure with something else; thus, the right arm is the homotype of the right leg; one arm is the homotype of the other, etc.
Hume, David: Born 1711, Edinburgh; died at Edinburgh, 1776. Author of A Treatise of Human Nature, Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, Enquiry Concerning the Passions, Enquiry Concerning Morals, Natural History of Religion, Dialogues on Natural Religion, History of England, and many essays on letters, economics, etc. Hume's intellectual heritage is divided between the Cartesian Occasionalists and Locke and Berkeley. From the former, he obtained some of his arguments against the alleged discernment or demonstrability of causal connections, and from the latter his psychological opinions. Hume finds the source of cognition in impressions of sensation and reflection. All simple ideas are derived from and are copies of simple impressions. Complex ideas may be copies of complex impressions or may result from the imaginative combination of simple ideas. Knowledge results from the comparison of ideas, and consists solely of the intrinsic resemblance between ideas. As resemblance is nothing over and above the resembling ideas, there are no abstract general ideas: the generality of ideas is determined by their habitual use as representatives of all ideas and impressions similar to the representative ideas. As knowledge consists of relations of ideas in virtue of resemblance, and as the only relation which involves the connection of different existences and the inference of one existent from another is that of cause and effect, and as there is no resemblance necessary between cause and effect, causal inference is in no case experientially or formally certifiable. As the succession and spatio-temporal contiguity of cause and effect suggests no necessary connection and as the constancy of this relation, being mere repetition, adds no new idea (which follows from Hume's nominalistic view), the necessity of causal connection must be explained psychologically. Thus the impression of reflection, i.e., the felt force of association, subsequent to frequent repetitions of conjoined impressions is the source of the idea of necessity. Habit or custom sufficently accounts for the feeling that everything which begins must have a cause and that similar causes must have similar effects. The arguments which Hume adduced to show that no logically necessary connection between distinct existences can be intuited or demonstrated are among his most signal contributions to philosophy, and were of great importance in influencing the speculation of Kant. Hume explained belief in external existence (bodies) in terms of the propensity to feign the independent and continued existence of perceptual complexes during the interruptions of perception. This propensity is determined by the constancy and coherence which some perceptual complexes exhibit and by the transitive power of the imagination to go beyond the limits afforded by knowledge and ordinary causal belief. The sceptical principles of his epistemology were carried over into his views on ethics and religion. Because there are no logically compelling arguments for moral and religious propositions, the principles of morality and religion must be explained naturalistically in terms of human mental habits and social customs. Morality thus depends on such fundamental aspects of human nature as self-interest and altruistic sympathy. Hume's views on religion are difficult to determine from his Dialogues, but a reasonable opinion is that he is totally sceptical concerning the possibility of proving the existence or the nature of deity. It is certain that he found no connection between the nature of deity and the rules of morality. -- J.R.W.
Hydrogen The chemical element hydrogen is a terrestrial manifestation of an Element fundamental throughout the universe; and it is in this general sense that it is often spoken of in The Secret Doctrine. There we find hydrogen described as the material and spiritual basis, its subjective or abstract essence occupying a similar position in the world of mental and subjective phenomena to that which its physical equivalent occupies among the chemical elements. It is Spiritual Fire, the Ray which proceeds from its still greater Spiritual Noumenon, the Dhyani of the First Element. It is a gas only on our terrestrial plane, and is very closely allied to the physical protyle or root-element. It is the Upadhi of both Air and Water, and is fire, air, and water — one under three aspects (SD 2:105, 112-13).
Hypothesis: In general, an assumption, a supposition, a conjecture, a postulate, a condition, an antecedent, a contingency, a possibility, a probability, a principle, a premiss, a ground or foundation, a tentative explanation, a probable cause, a theoretical situation, an academic question, a specific consideration, a conceded statement, a theory or view for debate or action, a likely relation, the conditioning of one thing by another. In logic, the conditional clause or antecedent in a hypothetical proposition. Also a thesis subordinate to a more general one. In methodology, a principle offered as a conditional explanation of a fact or a group of facts; or again, a provisional assumption about the ground of certain phenomena, used as a guiding norm in making observations and experiments until verified or disproved by subsequent evidence. A hypothesis is conditional or provisional, because it is based on probable and insufficient arguments or elements; yet, it is not an arbitrary opinion, but a justifiable assumption with some foundation in fact, this accounts for the expectation of some measure of agreement between the logical conclusion or implications drawn from a hypothesis, and the phenomena which are known or which may be determined by further tests. A scientific hypothesis must be proposed after the observations it must explain (a posteriori), compatible with established theories, reasonable and relevant, fruitful in its applications and controllable, general in terms and more fundamental than the statements it has to explain. A hypothesis is descriptive (forecasting the external circumstances of the event) or explanatory (offering causal accounts of the event). There are two kinds of explanatory hypotheses the hypothesis of law (or genetic hypothesis) which attempts to determine the manner in which the causes or conditions of a phenomenon operate and the hypothesis of cause (or causal hypothesis) which attempt to determine the causes or conditions for the production of the phenomenon. A working hypothesis is a preliminary assumption based on few, uncertain or obscure elements, which is used provisionally as a guiding norm in the investigation of certain phenomena. Often, the difference between a working hypothesis and a scientific hypothesis is one of degree; and in any case, a hypothesis is seldom verified completely with all its detailed implications. The Socratic Method of Hypothesis, as developed by Plato in the Phaedo particularly, consists in positing an assumption without questioning its value, for the purpose of determining and analyzing its consequences only when these are clearly debated and judged, the assumption itself is considered for justification or rejection. Usually, a real condition is taken as a ground for inferences, as the aim of the method is to attain knowledge or to favor action. Plato used more specially the word "hypothesis" for the assumptions of geometry (postulates and nominal definitions) Anstotle extended this use to cover the immediate principles of mathematics. It may be observed that the modern hypothetico-deductive method in logical and mathematical theories, is a development of the Socratic method stripped of its ontological implications and purposes.
I: Change (often spelled yi), a fundamental principle of the universe, arising out of the interaction of the two cosmic forces of yin and yang, or passive and active principles, and manifested in natural phenomena, human affairs, and ideas. According to Confucian and Nco-Confucian cosmology, "In the system of Change, there is the Great Ultimate (T'ai Chi) which engenders the Two Modes (i). The Two Modes engender the Four Secondary Modes (hsiang), which in turn give rise to the Eight Trigirams (pa kua). These Eight Trigrams (or Elements) determine all good and evil and the great complexity of life." Thus it involves in the first place, the meaning of i, or simplicity from which complexity is evolved, in the second place, the meaning of hsiang, that is, phenomenon, image, form, and in the third place, the idea of "production and reproduction." -- W.T.C.
Idea, as Plato pointed out, means primarily a prototype existing in the cosmic mind and manifested in forms by the action of cosmic energy, guided by ideation, working in matter. Therefore it must be regarded as innate, and our thoughts are mental manifestations of ideas. With Plato and Aristotle (when not using the word to denote species), ideas were the fundamental roots of manifested things, as viewed under the aspect of consciousness rather than under that of matter. Hence the faculty of ideation, considered cosmically, is originative and creative of what lies latent in ideation itself, and can be so in the human being, since each individual is a microcosm. This is quite different from the faculty of making mental images of sensory experiences, these images being really what the Greeks called phantasmata. Yet even this is a degree of the original process and may be called, perhaps, astral ideation.
Idealism: Any system or doctrine whose fundamental interpretative principle is ideal. Broadly, any theoretical or practical view emphasizing mind (soul, spirit, life) or what is characteristically of pre-eminent value or significance to it. Negatively, the alternative to Materialism. (Popular confusion arises from the fact that Idealism is related to either or both uses of the adjective "ideal," i.e., (a) pertaining to ideas, and (b) pertaining to ideals. While a certain inner bond of sympathy can be established between these two standpoints, for theoretical purposes they must be clearly distinguished.) Materialism emphasizes the spatial, pictorial, corporeal, sensuous, non-valuational, factual, and mechanistic. Idealism stresses the supra- or non-spatial, non-pictorial, incorporeal, suprasensuous, normative or valuational, and teleological. The term Idealism shares the unavoidable expansion of such words as Idea, Mind, Spirit, and even Person, and in consequence it now possesses usefulness only in pointing out a general direction of thought, unless qualified, e.g., Platonic Idealism, Personal Idealism, Objective Idealism, Moral Idealism, etc.
Idealism Philosophical systems based fundamentally on consciousness, as contrasted with systems based on sensation or materialism. It affirms that the universe is an imbodiment of mind or, as stated by theosophy, the aggregated imbodiments of hierarchies of minds proceeding from a unitary divine root or universal hierarch. It states that reality is essentially divine, spiritual, or noumenal and, on a lower plane, that the psychic is noumenal to the physical, which is its phenomenon. As a theory of knowledge, idealism identifies reality, so far as humankind is concerned, with inner conscious experience, or asserts that the mental life alone is truly knowable.
Identity-philosophy: In general the term has been applied to any theory which failed to distinguish between spirit and matter, subject and object, regarding them as an undifferentiated unity; hence such a philosophy is a species of monism. In the history of philosophy it usually signifies the system which has been called Identitätsphilosophie by Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling who held that spirit and nature are fundamentally the same, namely, the Absolute. Neither the ego nor the non-ego are the ultimate principles of being; they are both relative concepts which are contained in something absolute. This is the supreme principle of Absolute Identity of the ideal and the real. Reasoning does not lead us to the Absolute which can only be attained by immediate intellectual intuition. In it we find the eternal concepts of things and from it we can derive everything else. We are obliged to conceive the Absolute Identity as the indifference of the ideal and the real. Of course, this is God in Whom all opposites are united. He is the unity of thought and being, the subjective and the objective, form and essence, the general and infinite, and the particular and finite. This teaching is similar to that of Spinoza. -- J.J.R.
If we deal only with formulas of the algebra of classes which are equations (i.e., which have the form A = B), the above description by reference to the functional calculus may be replaced by a simpler description using the applied propositional calculus (§ 1) whose fundamental proposittonal symbols are xε∨, xε∧, xεa, xεb, xεc, . . . . Given an equation, C of the algebra of classes, the corresponding formula C† of the propositional calculus is obtained by replacing equality ( = ) by the biconditional ( ≡ ), replacing complementation, logical sum, and logical product respectively by negation, inclusive disjunction, and conjunction, and at the same time replacing ∨, ∧, a, b, c, . . . respectively by xε∨, xε∧, xεa, xεb, xεc, . . . . An equation C is a theorem of the algbera of classes if and only if the inference from xε∨, ∼xε∧ to C† is a valid inference of the propositional calculus; analogously for valid inferences of the algebra of classes in which the formulas involved are equations.
I: In Chinese philosophical terminology: (1) The One, which is engendered by Tao and which in turn engenders the Two (yin and yang). (Lao Tzu.) (2) Unity of mind, “not allowing one impression to harm another.” (3) The number for Heaven, as two is the number for Earth. (4) Righteousness, justice; one of the four Confucian Fundamentals of the Moral Life (ssu tuan) and the Five Constant Virtues (wu ch’ang). It is the virtue “by which things are made proper,” “by which the world is regulated.”
Immortality ::: A term signifying continuous existence or being; but this understanding of the term is profoundlyillogical and contrary to nature, for there is nothing throughout nature's endless and multifarious realmsof being and existence which remains for two consecutive instants of time exactly the same.Consequently, immortality is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusory phantom of reality. When thestudent of the esoteric wisdom once realizes that continuous progress, i.e., continuous change inadvancement, is nature's fundamental procedure, he recognizes instantly that continuous remaining in anunchanging or immutable state of consciousness or being is not only impossible, but in the last analysis isthe last thing that is either desirable or comforting. Fancy continuing immortal in a state of imperfection such as we human beingsexemplify -- which is exactly what the usual acceptance of this term immortality means. The highest godin highest heaven, although seemingly immortal to us imperfect human beings, is nevertheless anevolving, growing, progressing entity in its own sublime realms or spheres, and therefore as the ages passleaves one condition or state to assume a succeeding condition or state of a nobler and higher type;precisely as the preceding condition or state had been the successor of another state before it.Continuous or unending immutability of any condition or state of an evolving entity is obviously animpossibility in nature; and when once pondered over it becomes clear that the ordinary acceptance ofimmortality involves an impossibility. All nature is an unending series of changes, which means all thehosts or multitudes of beings composing nature, for every individual unit of these hosts is growing,evolving, i.e., continuously changing, therefore never immortal. Immortality and evolution arecontradictions in terms. An evolving entity means a changing entity, signifying a continuous progresstowards better things; and evolution therefore is a succession of state of consciousness and being afteranother state of consciousness and being, and thus throughout duration. The Occidental idea of staticimmortality or even mutable immortality is thus seen to be both repellent and impossible.This doctrine is so difficult for the average Occidental easily to understand that it may be advisable onceand for all to point out without mincing of words that just as complete death, that is to say, entireannihilation of consciousness, is an impossibility in nature, just so is continuous and unchangingconsciousness in any one stage or phase of evolution likewise an impossibility, because progress ormovement or growth is continuous throughout eternity. There are, however, periods more or less long ofcontinuance in any stage or phase of consciousness that may be attained by an evolving entity; and thehigher the being is in evolution, the more its spiritual and intellectual faculties have been evolved orevoked, the longer do these periods of continuous individual, or perhaps personal, quasi-immortalitycontinue. There is, therefore, what may be called relative immortality, although this phrase is confessedlya misnomer.Master KH in The Mahatma Letters, on pages 128-30, uses the phrase ``panaeonic immortality" tosignify this same thing that I have just called relative immortality, an immortality -- falsely so called,however -- which lasts in the cases of certain highly evolved monadic egos for the entire period of amanvantara, but which of necessity ends with the succeeding pralaya of the solar system. Such a periodof time of continuous self-consciousness of so highly evolved a monadic entity is to us humans actually arelative immortality; but strictly and logically speaking it is no more immortality than is the ephemeralexistence of a butterfly. When the solar manvantara comes to an end and the solar pralaya begins, evensuch highly evolved monadic entities, full-blown gods, are swept out of manifested self-consciousexistence like the sere and dried leaves at the end of the autumn; and the divine entities thus passing outenter into still higher realms of superdivine activity, to reappear at the end of the pralaya and at the dawnof the next or succeeding solar manvantara.The entire matter is, therefore, a highly relative one. What seems immortal to us humans would seem tobe but as a wink of the eye to the vision of super-kosmic entities; while, on the other hand, the span ofthe average human life would seem to be immortal to a self-conscious entity inhabiting one of theelectrons of an atom of the human physical body.The thing to remember in this series of observations is the wondrous fact that consciousness frometernity to eternity is uninterrupted, although by the very nature of things undergoing continuous andunceasing change of phases in realization throughout endless duration. What men call unconsciousness ismerely a form of consciousness which is too subtle for our gross brain-minds to perceive or to sense or tograsp; and, secondly, strictly speaking, what men call death, whether of a universe or of their ownphysical bodies, is but the breaking up of worn-out vehicles and the transference of consciousness to ahigher plane. It is important to seize the spirit of this marvelous teaching, and not allow the imperfectbrain-mind to quibble over words, or to pause or hesitate at difficult terms.
Immortality ::: ...immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spirit’s timeless existence is the true immortality.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 767 ::: Immortality does not mean survival of the self or the ego after dissolution of the body.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 58
::: ". . . immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spirit"s timeless existence is the true immortality.” *The Life Divine
“… immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spirit’s timeless existence is the true immortality.” The Life Divine
In 1920, Lukasiewicz introduced a three-valued propositional calculus, with one designated value (interpreted as true) and two non-designated values (interpreted as problematical and false respectively). Later lie generalized this to n-valued propositional calculi with one designated value (first published in 1929). Post introduced n-valued propositional calculi with an arbitrary number of designated values in 1921. Also due to Post (1921) is the notion of symbolic completeness -- an n-valued propositional calculus is symbolically complete if every possible truth-function is expressible by means of the fundamental connectives.
inconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscience is an inverse reproduction of the supreme superconscience: it has the same absoluteness of being and automatic action, but in a vast involved trance; it is being lost in itself, plunged in its own abyss of infinity.” *The Life Divine
"All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite"s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit"s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being, — an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, — but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” *The Life Divine
"Once consciousnesses separated from the one consciousness, they fell inevitably into Ignorance and the last result of Ignorance was Inconscience.” Letters on Yoga
*inconscience.
Individuality ::: Theosophists draw a sharp and comprehensive distinction between individuality and personality. Theindividuality is the spiritual-intellectual and immortal part of us; deathless, at least for the duration of thekosmic manvantara -- the root, the very essence of us, the spiritual sun within, our inner god. Thepersonality is the veil, the mask, composed of various sheaths of consciousness through which theindividuality acts.The word individuality means that which cannot be divided, that which is simple and pure in thephilosophical sense, indivisible, uncompounded, original. It is not heterogeneous; it is not composite; it isnot builded up of other elements; it is the thing in itself. Whereas, on the contrary, the intermediate natureand the lower nature are composite, and therefore mortal, being builded up of elements other thanthemselves. Strictly speaking, individuality and monad are identical, but the two words are convenientbecause of the distinctions of usage contained in them; just as consciousness and self-consciousness arefundamentally identical, but convenient as words on account of the distinctions contained in them. (Seealso Monad)
indriya (indriya; indriyam) ::: sense-organ, especially any of "the five perceptive senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell, which make the five properties of things their respective objects" (see vis.aya); the sense-faculty in general, "fundamentally not the action of certain physical organs, but the contact of consciousness with its objects" (saṁjñana). Each of the physical senses has two elements, "the physical-nervous impression of the object and the mental-nervous value we give to it"; the mind (manas) is sometimes regarded as a "sixth sense", though "in fact it is the only true sense organ and the rest are no more than its outer conveniences and secondary instruments". indriyaindriya-ananda
Indriyatman (Sanskrit) Indriyātman [from indriya sense + ātman self] A term used by Blavatsky (SD 2:108) to represent the third stage in the descending scale of the manifestation of Brahman. It implies that the spiritual or intellectual soul through its own particular radiations is the fundamental or guiding essence bringing about the evolution of the interior senses and their corresponding physical organs, and is likewise the latent guiding intelligence and instinct behind them.
In his chief work, the Ethica, Spinoza's teaching is expressed in a manner for which geometry supplies the model. This expository device served various purposes. It may be interpreted as a clue to Spinoza's ideal of knowledge. So understood, it represents the condensed and ordered expression, not of 'philosophy' alone, but rather of all knowledge, 'philosophy' and 'science', as an integrated system. In such an ideal ordering of ideas, (rational) theology and metaphysics provide the anchorage for the system. On the one hand, the theology-metaphysics displays the fundamental principles (definitions, postulates, axioms) upon which the anchorage depends, and further displays in deductive fashion the primary fund of ideas upon which the inquiries of science, both 'descriptive' and 'normative' must proceed. On the other hand, the results of scientific inquiry are anchored at the other end, by a complementary metaphysico-theological development of their significance. Ideally, there obtains, for Spinoza, both an initial theology and metaphysics -- a necessary preparation for science -- and a culminating theology and metaphysics, an interpretative absorption of the conclusions of science.
"In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
“In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
In philosophy he taught atoms and a void as the cosmic fundamentals; but his atoms were not the material particles of later European science, but the living monads or intelligent souls of the older Atomists. He did not attempt to represent the universe under the form of physical matter, but merely insisted upon the substantial nature of all being and life in protest against the impractical idealism which had reduced significant values to unrealities.
In relation to the universe the Supreme is Brahman, the one Reality which is not only the spiritual material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe, but their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and supracosmic Spirit. All the last terms to which we can reduce the universe, Force and Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and Prakriti, are still not entirely that which the universe really is, either in itself or its nature. As all that we are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression of a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is the play and form and cosmic soul-expression and nature-expression of a supreme Existence which is unconditioned by force and matter, unconditioned by idea and name and form, unconditioned by the fundamental distinction of Purusha and Prakriti. Our supreme Self and the supreme Existence which has become the universe are one Spirit, one self and one existence. The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 296
Integral Post-Metaphysics ::: An AQAL approach to ontology and epistemology that replaces perceptions with perspectives, and thus redefines the manifest realm most fundamentally as the realm of perspectives, not things, nor events, nor processes. This also amounts to “post-ontology” and “post-epistemology,” although the terms “ontology” and “epistemology” are still used loosely given the lack of alternatives.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
In the first edition of the Logische Untersuchungen phenomenology was defined (much as it had been by Hamilton and Lazarus) as descriptive analysis of subjective processes Erlebnisse. Thus its theme was unqualifiedly identified with what was commonly taken to be the central theme of psychology; the two disciplines were said to differ only in that psychology sets up causal or genetic laws to explain what phenomenology merely describes. Phenomenology was called "pure" so far as the phenomenologist distinguishes the subjective from the objective and refrains from looking into either the genesis of subjective phenomena or their relations to somatic and environmental circumstances. Husserl's "Prolegomena zur reinen Logik" published as the first part of the Logische Untersuchungen, had elaborated the concept of pure logic, a theoretical science independent of empirical knowledge and having a distinctive theme: the universal categorial forms exemplified in possible truths, possible facts, and their respective components. The fundamental concepts and laws of this science, Husserl maintained, are genuine only if they can be established by observing the matters to which they apply. Accordingly, to test the genuineness of logical theory, "wir wollen auf die 'Sachen selbst' zurückgehen": we will go, from our habitual empty understanding of this alleged science, back to a seeing of the logical forms themselves. But it is then the task of pure phenomenology to test the genuineness and range of this "seeing," to distinguish it from other ways of being conscious of the same or other matters. Thus, although pure phenomenology and pure logic are mutually independent disciplines with separate themes, phenomenological analysis is indispensible to the critical justification of logic. In like manner, Husserl maintained, it is necessary to the criticism of other alleged knowledge; while, in another way, its descriptions are prerequisite to explanatory psychology. However, when Husserl wrote the Logische Untersuchungen, he did not yet conceive phenomenological analysis as a method for dealing with metaphysical problems.
In the foregoing the list of fundamental propositional symbols has been left unspecified. A case of special importance is the case that the fundamental propositional symbols are an infinite list of variables, p, q, r, . . ., which may be taken as representing ambiguously any proposition whatever -- or any proposition of a certain class fixed in advance (the class should be closed under the operations of negation, conjunction, and inclusive disjunction). In this case we speak of the pure propositional calculus, and refer to the other cases as applied propositional calculus (although the application may be to something as abstract in character as the pure propositional calculus itself, as, e.g., in the case of the pure functional calculus of first order (§3), which contains an applied propositional calculus).
In the Ideen and in later works, Husserl applied the epithet "transcendental" to consciousness as it is aside from its (valid and necessary) self-apperception as in a world. At the same time, he restricted the term "psychic" to subjectivity (personal subjects, their streams of consciousness, etc.) in its status as worldly, animal, human subjectivity. The contrast between transcendental subjectivity and worldly being is fundamental to Husserl's mature concept of pure phenomenology and to his concept of a universal phenomenological philosophy. In the Ideen, this pure phenomenology, defined as the eidetic science of transcendental subjectivity, was contrasted with psychology, defined as the empirical science of actual subjectivity in the world. Two antitheses are involved, however eidetic versus factual, and transcendental versus psychic. Rightly, they yield a four-fold classification, which Husserl subsequently made explicit, in his Formale und Transzendentale Logik (1929), Nachwort zu meinen Ideen (1930), and Meditations Cartesiennes (1931). In these works, he spoke of psychology as including all knowledge of worldly subjectivity while, within this science, he distinguished an empirical or matter-of-fact pure psychology and an eidetic pure psychology. The former is "pure" only in the way phenomenology, as explicitly conceived in the first edition of the Logische Untersuchungen, is pure: actual psychic subjectivity is abstracted as its exclusive theme, objects intended in the investigated psychic processes are taken only as the latter's noematic-intentional objects. Such an abstractive and self-restraining attitude, Husserl believed, is necessary, if one is to isohte the psychic in its purity and yet preserve it in its full intentionality. The instituting and maintaining of such an attitude is called "psychological epoche"; its effect on the objects of psychic consciousness is called "psychological reduction." As empiricism, this pure psychology describes the experienced typical structures of psychic processes and of the typical noematic objects belonging inseparably to the latter by virtue of their intrinsic intentionality. Description of typical personalities and of their habitually intended worlds also lies within its province. Having acquired empirical knowledge of the purely psychic, one may relax one's psychological epoche and inquire into the extrapsychic circumstances under which, e.g., psychic processes of a particulai type actually occur in the world. Thus an empirical pure intentional psychology would become part of a concrete empirical science of actual psychophysical organisms.
In theosophy, devachan is the interlude between earth-lives during which the strictly higher human part of the human composite constitution, the reincarnating ego or higher manas, rests in perfect bliss. Recurring time periods of manifestation and quiescence are fundamental in nature, and devachan is the subjective part of the cyclic rhythm of human evolution on this globe. It corresponds, post-mortem, to the sleeping state of the imbodied, but the devachanic “dreams” are far more vivid and real than ordinary dreams; as a matter of fact, earth life is more truly a dream — to many oftentimes a nightmare.
intrinsic value ::: One of three main types of value that holons possess, along with extrinsic and Ground value. Refers to the wholeness of a holon. The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its intrinsic value and its significance. A deer, for example, due to a richer interior, has more intrinsic value than an atom and is therefore more significant than an atom. But the atom has a greater extrinsic value than the deer and is thus more fundamental. See extrinsic value and Ground value.
Involution ::: The reverse process or procedure of evolution. As evolution means the unfolding, the unwrapping, therolling forth, of what already exists and is latent, so involution means the inwrapping, the infolding, theingoing of what previously exists or has been unfolded, etc. Involution and evolution never in anycircumstances can be even conceived of properly as operative the one apart from the other: every act ofevolution is an act of involution, and vice versa. To illustrate, as spirit and matter are fundamentally oneand yet eternally coactive and interactive, so involution and evolution are two names for two phases ofthe same procedure of growth, and are eternally coactive and interactive. As an example, the so-calleddescent of the monads into matter means an involution or involving or infolding of spiritual potenciesinto material vehicles which coincidently and contemporaneously, through the compelling urge of theinfolding energies, unfold their own latent capacities, unwrap them, roll them forth; and this is theevolution of matter. Thus what is the involution of spirit is contemporaneously and pari passu theevolution of matter. Contrariwise, on the ascending or luminous arc when the involved monadic essencesbegin to rise towards their primordial spiritual source they begin to unfold or unwrap themselves aspreviously on the descending arc they had infolded or inwrapped themselves. But this process ofunfolding or evolution of the monadic essences is contemporaneous with and pari passu with theinfolding and inwrapping, the involution, of the material energies and powers.Human birth and death are outstanding illustrations or examples of the same thing. The child is born, andas it grows to its full efflorescence of power it evolves or rolls forth certain inherent characteristics orenergies or faculties, all derived from the human being's svabhava or ego. Contrariwise, when the declineof human life begins, there is a slow infolding or inwrapping of these same facilities which thus seemgradually to diminish. These facilities and energies thus evolved forth in earth-life are the working of theinnate spiritual and intellectual and psychical characteristics impelling and compelling the vehicular orbody sides of the human constitution to express themselves as organs becoming more and more perfectas the child grows to maturity.After death the process is exactly the reverse. The material or vehicular side of the being grows less andless strong and powerful, more and more involved, and becoming with every step in the process moredormant. But contemporaneously and coincidently the distinctly spiritual and intellectual powers andfaculties themselves become released from the vehicles and begin to expand into ever largerefflorescence, attaining their maximum in the devachan. It is only the usual carelessness in accuratethinking that induces the idea that evolution is one distinct process acting alone, and that involution -about which by the way very little is heard -- is another process acting alone. The two, as said above, arethe two phases of activity of the evolving monads, and these phases exist contemporaneously at anymoment, each of the two phases continually acting and interacting with the other phase. They areinseparable.Just so with spirit and matter. Spirit is not something radically distinct from and utterly separate frommatter. The two are fundamentally one, and the two are eternally coactive and interactive.There are several terms in Sanskrit which correspond to what the theosophist means by evolution, butperhaps the best general term is pravritti, meaning to "revolve" or to "roll forwards," to unroll or tounwrap. Again, the reverse procedure or involution can probably best be expressed in Sanskrit by theterm nivritti, meaning "rolling backwards" or "inwrapping" or "infolding." A term which is frequentlyinterchangeable with evolution is emanation. (See also Evolution)
I: Righteousness, justice; one of the four Confucian Fundamentals of the Moral Life (ssu tuan) and the Five Constant Virtues (wu ch'ang). It is the virtue "by which things are made proper," "by which the world is regulated." It means the proper application of filial piety. It means, as in Han Yu (767-824), "the proper application of the principle of true manhood (jen)." It also means the removal of evil in the world. Mencius (371-289 B.C.) said that "righteousness is man's path, whereas true manhood is man's mind." Tung Chung-shu (177-104 B.C.) regarded it as the cardinal virtue by which one's self is rectified, whereas benevolence (jen) is the virtue by which others are pacified. To the Nco-Confucians, "seriousness (ching) is to straighten one's internal life and righteousness is to square one's external life." It is to regulate things and affairs by Reason (li). -- W.T.C.
iteration "programming" Repetition of a sequence of instructions. A fundamental part of many {algorithms}. Iteration is characterised by a set of initial conditions, an iterative step and a termination condition. A well known example of iteration in mathematics is Newton-Raphson iteration. Iteration in programs is expressed using a {loop}, e.g. in {C}: new_x = n/2; do { x = new_x; new_x = 0.5 * (x + n/x); } while (abs(new_x-x) " epsilon); Iteration can be expressed in functional languages using recursion: solve x n = if abs(new_x-x) " epsilon then solve new_x n else new_x where new_x = 0.5 * (x + n/x) solve n/2 n (1998-04-04)
It is held that society has not accomplished many basic transformations peacefully, that fundamental changes in the economic system or the social superstructure, such as that from medieval serf-lord to modern worker-capitalist economy, have usually involved violence wherein the class struggle passes into the acute stage of revolution because the existing law articulates and the state power protects the obsolete forms and minority-interest classes which must be superseded. The evolution of capitalism is considered to have reached the point where the accelerating abundance of which its technics are capable is frustrated by economic relationships such as those involved in individual ownership of productive means, hiring and firing of workers in the light of private profits and socially unplanned production for a money market. It is held that only technics collectively owned and production socially planned can provide employment and abundance of goods for everyone. The view taken is that peaceful attainment of them is possible, but will probably be violently resisted by priveleged minorities, provoking a contest of force in which the working class majority will eventually triumph the world over.
It is in his biology that the distinctive concepts of Aristotle show to best advantage. The conception of process as the actualization of determinate potentiality is well adapted to the comprehension of biological phenomena, where the immanent teleology of structure and function is almost a part of the observed facts. It is here also that the persistence of the form, or species, through a succession of individuals is most strikingly evident. His psychology is scarcely separable from his biology, since for Aristotle (as for Greek thought generally) the soul is the principle of life; it is "the primary actualization of a natural organic body." But souls differ from one another in the variety and complexity of the functions they exercise, and this difference in turn corresponds to differences in the organic structures involved. Fundamental to all other physical activities are the functions of nutrition, growth and reproduction, which are possessed by all living beings, plants as well as animals. Next come sensation, desire, and locomotion, exhibited in animals in varying degrees. Above all are deliberative choice and theoretical inquiry, the exercise of which makes the rational soul, peculiar to man among the animals. Aristotle devotes special attention to the various activities of the rational soul. Sense perception is the faculty of receiving the sensible form of outward objects without their matter. Besides the five senses Aristotle posits a "common sense," which enables the rational soul to unite the data of the separate senses into a single object, and which also accounts for the soul's awareness of these very activities of perception and of its other states. Reason is the faculty of apprehending the universals and first principles involved in all knowledge, and while helpless without sense perception it is not limited to the concrete and sensuous, but can grasp the universal and the ideal. The reason thus described as apprehending the intelligible world is in one difficult passage characterized as passive reason, requiring for its actualization a higher informing reason as the source of all intelligibility in things and of realized intelligence in man.
It is only in this world that the action of fate seems extraneous to human will, for in reality we are the weaver of our own fates. The Morai are karmic agents or forces rather than karma, which is fundamentally the law governing universal equilibrium. In its essence the constant working of cosmic harmony, karma must of necessity manifest itself in multimyriad forms and manners — in and through multimyriad agents or forces. Karma being essentially the law of cosmic unity and concord, it is only the individuals which disturb this universal equilibrium who can feel the reaction therefrom, whether in one life or in a later one; but the karmic effects are by no means always identic with the originating causative action of the individual, because of the karmic agents of many kinds through which karma works. Thus, the gods, all human beings, the earth itself, and all its component forces and substances are karmic agents constantly interacting upon each other; so that while abstractly the action of karma is infallible and infinitely unerring and cannot ever be escaped or set aside, its reactions upon the individual who broke its laws may take place in diverse ways and usually through agents or instruments, since karma is no individual or cosmic god.
It is the reproducing agent, principle, or instrument in the constitution of a being such as man, which brings about the repetitive reimbodiments that such being is impelled, and in one sense compelled, by karma to undergo. Such a reimbodiment can be of two types: if the causal instrument is on a high plane, such as buddhi-manas — the treasury of all ingathered seeds of being which will reproduce themselves in future existences as the higher parts of an individual — then in such case it is the buddhi-manas which is the karana-sarira; on the other hand, if the main causal instrument or principle bringing about such repetitive imbodiments is of a lower type, and reproduces existences for the reincarnating entity in lower vehicles, then we can say it is the kama-manas or lower manas which is the karana-sarira. Thus there are in the composite human constitution at least two such karanic or causal elements, one of a higher and one of a lower character. However, neither the karana-sarira nor the karanopadhi is, strictly speaking, the inner god of man which is the atman or fundamental self of our reimbodying monad, called the karanatman.
“It is this essential indeterminability of the Absolute that translates itself into our consciousness through the fundamental negating positives of our spiritual experience, the immobile immutable Self, the Nirguna Brahman, the Eternal without qualities, the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities, the Non-being, the Ineffable and the Unknowable. On the other side it is the essence and source of all determinations, and this dynamic essentiality manifests to us through the fundamental affirming positives in which the Absolute equally meets us; for it is the Self that becomes all things, the Saguna Brahman, the Eternal with infinite qualities, the One who is the Many, the infinite Person who is the source and foundation of all persons and personalities, the Lord of creation, the Word, the Master of all works and action; it is that which being known all is known: these affirmatives correspond to those negatives. For it is not possible in a supramental cognition to split asunder the two sides of the One Existence,—even to speak of them as sides is excessive, for they are in each other, their co-existence or one-existence is eternal and their powers sustaining each other found the self-manifestation of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
I would myself say that bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities; …” Letters on Yoga
Jean E. Sammet "person" Author of several surveys of early programming languages, refererred to in many entries in this dictionary. E-mail: sammet@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu Relevant publications include: [Sammet, Jean E., "Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals", P-H 1969. QA76.5 .S213]. The definitive work on early computer language development. [Sammet, Jean E., "Programming Languages: History and Future", CACM 15(7):601-610, Jul 1972]. [Sammet, Jean E., "Roster of Programming Languages" Computers & Automation 16(6):80-82, June 1967; Computers & Automation 17(6):120-123, June 1968; Computers & Automation 18(7):153-158, June 1969; Computers & Automation 19(6B):6-11, 30 Nov 1970; Computers & Automation 20(6B):6-13, 30 Jun, 1971; Computers & Automation 21(6B), 30 Aug 1972; Computing Reviews 15(4): 147-160, April 1974; CACM 19(12):655-669, Dec 1976; SIGPLAN Notices 13(11):56, Nov 1978]. (1998-10-03)
Jen: Man. Goodness; virtue in general; the moral principle; the moral ideal of the superior man (chun. tzu); the fundamental as well as the sum total of virtues, just as the Prime (yuan) is the origin and the vital force of all things --jen consisting of "man" and "two" and yuan consisting of "two" and "man". (Confucianism.) True manhood; man's character; human-heartedness; moral character; being man-like; "that by which a man is to be a man;" "realization of one's true self and the restoration of the moral order." (Confucius and Mencius.) "The active (yang) and passive (yin) principles are the way of Heaven; the principles of strength and weakness are the way of Earth; and true manhood and righteousness (i) are the way of Man." "True manhood is man's mind and righteousness is man's path." It is one of the three Universally Recognized Moral Qualities of man (ta te), the four Fundamentals of the Moral Life (ssu tuan), and the five Constant Virtues (wu ch'ang). True manhood and righteousness are the basic principles of Confucian ethics and politics. (Confucianism.) The golden rule; "Being true to the principles of one's nature (chung) and the benevolent exercise of them in relation to others (shu)." "The true man, having established his own character, seeks to establish the character of others; and having succeeded, seeks to make others succeed." (Confucius.) Love; benevolence; kindness; charity; compassion; "the character of the heart and the principle of love;" "love towards all men and benefit towards things." (Confucianism.) "Universal love without the element of self," (Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.) "Universal Love." (Han Yu, 767-824.) The moral principle with regard to others. "True manhood is the cardinal virtue by which others are pacified, whereas righteousness is the cardinal principle by which the self is rectified." It means "to love others and not the self." (Tung Chung-shu, 177-104 B.C.) Love of all men and things and impartiality and justice towards all men and things, this virtue being the cardinal virtue not only of man but also of the universe. "Love means to devote oneself to the benefit of other people and things." "Love implies justice, that is, as a man, treating others as men." "The true man regards the universe and all things as a unity. They are all essential to himself. As he realizes the true self, there is no limit to his love." (Ch'eng Ming-tao, 1032-1068.) "Love is the source of all laws, the foundation of all phenomena." "What is received from Heaven at the beginning is simply love, and is therefore the complete substance of the mind." "Love is the love of creating in the mind of Heaven and Earth, and men and other creatures receive it as their mind." (Chu Hsi, 1130-1200.)
Jewels of Wisdom, The Seven Theosophical term for seven fundamental teachings explanatory of the universe, its structure, laws, and operations. As enumerated with their Sanskrit names, they are: 1) reimbodiment (punarjanman); 2) the doctrine of consequences, results, or of causes and effects (karma); 3) hierarchies (lokas and talas); 4) individual characteristics involving self-generation or self-becoming (svabhava); 5) evolution and involution (pravritti and nivritti); 6) the two paths (amritayana and pratyekayana); and 7) the knowledge of the divine self and how the One becomes the many (atma-vidya).
Jhumur: “ I think Amal and many others have talked about it. Sri Aurobindo is talking about the mind. Two powers and yet it is the same bird. At a certain level of our mental approach we perceive by opposites, we only see half the truth and only understand this half in relation only to the other. If this is white, this has to be black. And yet, it is one bird. It is fundamentally one truth, that is the mystic truth. Beyond the opposition there is the wholeness which sometimes we don’t perceive. We are so busy looking at the black head or the white tail and finding opposites.”
John Dewey prefers to call his philosophy experimentalism, or even instrumentalism, but the public continues to regard him as the leading exponent of pragmatism. Dewey's pragmatism (like that of Peirce and James), is (1) a theory of meaning, and of truth or "warranted assertibihty", and (2) a body of fairly flexible philosophical doctrines. The connection between (1) and (2) requires analysis. Joseph Ratner (editor of volumes of Dewey's philosophy), claims that if Dewey's analysis of experimentalism is accepted almost everything that is fundamental in his philosophy follows (Intelligence in the Modern World, John Dewey's Philosophy, ed. Joseph Ratner, N. Y., 1939), but on the other hand it might also be claimed that Dewey's method, whatever name is given to it, can be practiced by philosophers who have important doctrinal differences.
Johnson recognizes two fundamentally distinct types of continuant: physical and psychical, -- the "occupant" (of space), and the "experient". -- F.L.W.
Jon Postel "person" (Jonathan Bruce Postel, 1943 - 1998-10-16) /p*-stel'/ One of the {Internet}'s founding fathers. Jon's name is prominent on many of the fundamental {standards} on which the Internet is built, such as {UDP}. He ran {IANA} for as long as anybody could remember, in fact for most of the time he *was* IANA. He wrote {STD 1}, {STD 2} and several dozen other {RFCs}. His friend {Vinton Cerf} noted his passing in {RFC 2468}. (1998-10-21)
Joseph, Albo: (1380-1444) Jewish philosopher. His Ikkarim, i.e., Dogmas is devoted primarily to the problem of dogmatics. He differs with Maimonides who fixed the Articles of Creed at thirteen, and posits only three fundamental dogmas. Belief in the existence of God; Divine origin of the Torah; Reward and punishment. The others are of secondary importance. See Jewish Philosophy. -- M. W.
J. W. Young, Lectures on Fundamental Concepts of Algebra and Geometry, New York, 1911.
Karanatman (Sanskrit) Kāraṇātman [from kāraṇa cause + ātman self] The causal self; the divine source of one’s being, from which flow forth in a descending scale in continuously less ethereal grades and qualities the various elements which form the human compound constitution. It is the causal self because from it as the primordial fountain of consciousness and being flow forth all the elements, principles, qualities, characteristics — the svabhava — of any entity undergoing its long evolutionary peregrination in the realms of the manifested universe. It is equivalent to atman, called in Hindu literature Isvara (Lord). The various monads in the human constitution — divine, spiritual, human, animal, and astral-vital — are derivatives from this fundamental or supreme atman in the constitution, its children or offspring. These various monads by their reproductive action actually are the causal principles or instruments of the various and unending series of reimbodiments that any entity during the kosmic manvantara is under karmic necessity of undergoing; and it is, therefore, these various monads in their outer or vehicular aspect which are the respective karanopadhis or karana-sarira.
::: "Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence — it cannot be, for when the soul first entered this existence, it had no Karma.” *Letters on Yoga
“Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence—it cannot be, for when the soul first entered this existence, it had no Karma.” Letters on Yoga
Karma is only a machinery ; it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence ; it cannot be, for when the soul first entered this existence, it had no Karma.
Karma(Karman, Sanskrit) ::: This is a noun-form coming from the root kri meaning "to do," "to make." Literallykarma means "doing," "making," action. But when used in a philosophical sense, it has a technicalmeaning, and this technical meaning can best be translated into English by the word consequence. Theidea is this: When an entity acts, he acts from within; he acts through an expenditure in greater or lessdegree of his own native energy. This expenditure of energy, this outflowing of energy, as it impactsupon the surrounding milieu, the nature around us, brings forth from the latter perhaps an instantaneousor perhaps a delayed reaction or rebound. Nature, in other words, reacts against the impact; and thecombination of these two -- of energy acting upon nature and nature reacting against the impact of thatenergy -- is what is called karma, being a combination of the two factors. Karma is, in other words,essentially a chain of causation, stretching back into the infinity of the past and therefore necessarilydestined to stretch into the infinity of the future. It is unescapable, because it is in universal nature, whichis infinite and therefore everywhere and timeless; and sooner or later the reaction will inevitably be feltby the entity which aroused it.It is a very old doctrine, known to all religions and philosophies, and since the renascence of scientificstudy in the Occident has become one of the fundamental postulates of modern coordinated knowledge.If you toss a pebble into a pool, it causes ripples in the water, and these ripples spread and finally impactupon the bank surrounding the pool; and, so modern science tells us, the ripples are translated intovibrations, which are carried outward into infinity. But at every step of this natural process there is acorresponding reaction from every one and from all of the myriads of atomic particles affected by thespreading energy.Karma is in no sense of the word fatalism on the one hand, nor what is popularly known as chance, onthe other hand. It is essentially a doctrine of free will, for naturally the entity which initiates a movementor action -- spiritual, mental, psychological, physical, or other -- is responsible thereafter in the shape ofconsequences and effects that flow therefrom, and sooner or later recoil upon the actor or prime mover.Since everything is interlocked and interlinked and interblended with everything else, and no thing andno being can live unto itself alone, other entities are of necessity, in smaller or larger degree, affected bythe causes or motions initiated by any individual entity; but such effects or consequences on entities,other than the prime mover, are only indirectly a morally compelling power, in the true sense of the wordmoral.An example of this is seen in what the theosophist means when he speaks of family karma as contrastedwith one's own individual karma; or national karma, the series of consequences pertaining to the nationof which he is an individual; or again, the racial karma pertaining to the race of which the individual is anintegral member. Karma cannot be said either to punish or to reward in the ordinary meaning of theseterms. Its action is unerringly just, for being a part of nature's own operations, all karmic actionultimately can be traced back to the kosmic heart of harmony which is the same thing as saying pureconsciousness-spirit. The doctrine is extremely comforting to human minds, inasmuch as man may carvehis own destiny and indeed must do so. He can form it or deform it, shape it or misshape it, as he wills;and by acting with nature's own great and underlying energies, he puts himself in unison or harmonytherewith and therefore becomes a co-worker with nature as the gods are.
keynote ::: n. --> The tonic or first tone of the scale in which a piece or passage is written; the fundamental tone of the chord, to which all the modulations of the piece are referred; -- called also key tone.
The fundamental fact or idea; that which gives the key; as, the keynote of a policy or a sermon.
K. Gödel, The Consistency of the Axiom of Choice and of the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis with the Axioms of Set Theory. Princeton, N.J., 1940. Chou Tun-i: (Chou Lien-hsi, Chou Mao-shu, 1017-1073) Was active in government and was a renowned judge. He was the pioneer of Neo-Confucianism (li hsueh), anticipating the Ch'eng brothers. He wrote the T'ung-shu (explanation of the Book of Changes) and the T'aichi T'u-shu (explanation of the diagram of the Great Ultimate), fundamental texts of Neo-Confucian philosophy. -- W.T.C.
Kundalini, Kundalini-sakti (Sanskrit) Kuṇḍalinī, Kuṇḍalinī-śakti [from kuṇḍalinī circular, spiral + śakti power, force] The circular power; one of the mystic, recondite powers in the human constitution. It “is called the ‘Serpentine’ or the annular power on account of its spiral-like working or progress in the body of the ascetic developing the power in himself. It is an electric fiery occult or Fohatic power, the great pristine force, which underlies all organic and inorganic matter”; “it is Buddhi considered as an active instead of a passive principle (which it is generally, when regarded only as the vehicle, or casket of the Supreme Spirit Atma). It is an electro-spiritual force, a creative power which when aroused into action can as easily kill as it can create” (VS 77-8, 76-7). Kundalini works in and through the human auric egg on all levels: “In its higher aspect Kundalini is a power or force following winding or circular pathways carrying or conveying thought and force originating in the Higher Triad. Abstractly, in the case of man it is of course one of the fundamental energies or qualities of the Pranas. Unskilled or unwise attempts to interfere with its normal working in the human body may readily result in insanity or malignant or enfeebling disease” (OG 83).
Kundalini or Kundalini-Sakti(Sanskrit) ::: A term whose essential meaning is "circular" or "winding" or "spiral" or "coiling" action, orrather energy, and signifies a recondite power in the human constitution. Kundalini-sakti is derivative ofone of the elemental forces of nature. It works in and through, in the case of man, his auric egg, andexpresses itself in continuous action in many of the most familiar phenomena of existence even whenman himself is unconscious of it. In its higher aspect Kundalini is a power or force following winding orcircular pathways carrying or conveying thought and force originating in the higher triad. Abstractly, inthe case of man it is of course one of the fundamental energies or qualities of the pranas. Unskilled orunwise attempts to interfere with its normal working in the human body may readily result in insanity ormalignant or enfeebling disease.
Left-hand Path or path of shadows, those taking it called in theosophy brothers of the shadow. One of the two fundamental paths or courses in nature, the left-hand path or path of matter in contrast to the right-hand path or path of spirit. Shadow signifies matter, for spirit may be considered to be pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadow world or vehicular world in which the energy, spirit, or pure light works. Matter is but a generalizing term, comprised of an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from the grossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, providing the logic of calling this the path of shadows. Those on this path are often called black magicians in contrast to white magicians or sons of light who follow the path of self-renunciation, self-conquest, and an expansion of the heart, mind, and consciousness in love and service for all that lives.
Life-Atoms ::: The physical body is composed essentially of energy, of energies rather, in the forms that are spoken ofin modern physical science as electrons and protons. These are in constant movement; they areincessantly active, and are what theosophists call the imbodiments or manifestations of life-atoms. Theselife-atoms are inbuilt into man's body during the physical life which he leads on earth, although they arenot derivative from outside, but spring forth from within himself -- at least a great majority of them aresuch. This is equivalent to saying that they compose both his physical as well as his intermediate nature,which latter is obviously higher than the physical.When the man dies -- that is to say, when the physical body dies -- its elements pass, each and all, intotheir respective and appropriate spheres: some into the soil, to which those that go there are drawn bymagnetic affinity, an affinity impressed upon their life-energies by the man when alive, whoseovershadowing will and desires, whose overlordship and power, gave them that direction. Others passinto the vegetation from the same reason that the former are impelled to the mineral kingdom; others passinto the various beasts with which they have, at the man's death, magnetic affinity, psychic affinity moreaccurately, an affinity which the man has impressed upon them by his desires and various impulses; andthose which take this path go to form the interior or intermediate apparatus of the beasts into which theypass. So much for the course pursued by the life-atoms of the man's lowest principles.But there are other life-atoms belonging to him. There are life-atoms, in fact, belonging to the sphere ofeach one of the seven principles of man's constitution. This means that there are life-atoms belonging tohis intermediate nature and to his spiritual nature and to all grades intermediate between these two higherparts of him. And in all cases, as the monad "ascends" or "rises" through the spheres, as he goes step bystep higher on his wonderful postmortem journey, on each such step he discards or casts off thelife-atoms belonging to each one of these steps or stages of the journey. With each step, he leaves behindthe more material of these life-atoms until, when he has reached the culmination of his wonderfulpostmortem peregrination, he is, as Paul of the Christians said, living in "a spiritual body" -- that is tosay, he has become a spiritual energy, a monad.Nature permits no absolute standing still for anything, anywhere. All things are full of life, full of energy,full of movement; they are both energy and matter, both spirit and substance; and these two arefundamentally one -- phases of the underlying reality, of which we see but the maya or illusory forms.The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man'sconstitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are asnumerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, decillions upondecillions of them, in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a being which isliving, moving, growing, never standing still -- evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimatelybecomes divinity.
"Life is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify, even to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with mutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character.” The Life Divine
“Life is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify, even to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with mutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character.” The Life Divine
Limbus Major (Latin) [from limbus border + major great] Used by Paracelsus for the fundamental matter from which all creatures have sprung — Adam’s Earth. He also applied it to the manifestation of that primordial substance in each one of the creatures.
linear topology "theory" A linear topology on a {left A-module} M is a {topology} on M that is invariant under translations and admits a {fundamental system of neighborhood} of 0 that consists of {submodules} of M. If there is such a topology, M is said to be linearly topologized. If A is given a {discrete topology}, then M becomes a topological A-module with respect to a linear topology. [Wikipedia] (2014-06-30)
Lisp "language" LISt Processing language. (Or mythically "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses"). {Artificial Intelligence}'s mother tongue, a symbolic, {functional}, {recursive} language based on the ideas of {lambda-calculus}, variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types and the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa. Data objects in Lisp are lists and {atoms}. Lists may contain lists and atoms. Atoms are either numbers or symbols. Programs in Lisp are themselves lists of symbols which can be treated as data. Most implementations of Lisp allow functions with {side-effects} but there is a core of Lisp which is {purely functional}. All Lisp functions and programs are expressions that return values; this, together with the high memory use of Lisp, gave rise to {Alan Perlis}'s famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar Wilde quote) that "Lisp programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing". The original version was {LISP 1}, invented by {John McCarthy} "jmc@sail.stanford.edu" at {MIT} in the late 1950s. Lisp is actually older than any other {high level language} still in use except {Fortran}. Accordingly, it has undergone considerable change over the years. Modern variants are quite different in detail. The dominant {HLL} among hackers until the early 1980s, Lisp now shares the throne with {C}. See {languages of choice}. One significant application for Lisp has been as a proof by example that most newer languages, such as {COBOL} and {Ada}, are full of unnecessary {crocks}. When the {Right Thing} has already been done once, there is no justification for {bogosity} in newer languages. See also {Association of Lisp Users}, {Common Lisp}, {Franz Lisp}, {MacLisp}, {Portable Standard Lisp}, {Interlisp}, {Scheme}, {ELisp}, {Kamin's interpreters}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-16)
Lullic art: The Ars Magna or Generalis of Raymond Lully (1235-1315), a science of the highest and most general principles, even above metaphysics and logic, in which the basic postulates of all the sciences are included, and from which he hoped to derive these fundamental assumptions with the aid of an ingenious mechanical contrivance, a sort of logical or thinking machine. -- J.J.R.
Macintosh user interface "operating system" The {graphical user interface} used by {Apple Computer}'s {Macintosh} family of {personal computers}, based on graphical representations of familiar office objects (sheets of paper, files, wastepaper bin, etc.) positioned on a two-dimensional "{desktop}" workspace. Programs and data files are represented on screen by small pictures ({icons}). An object is selected by moving a {mouse} over the real desktop which correspondingly moves the {pointer} on screen. When the pointer is over an icon on screen, the icon is selected by pressing the button on the mouse. A {hierarchical file system} is provided that lets a user "{drag}" a document (a file) icon into and out of a {folder} (directory) icon. Folders can also contain other folders and so on. To delete a document, its icon is dragged into a {trash can} icon. For people that are not computer enthusiasts, managing files on the Macintosh is easier than using the {MS-DOS} or {Unix} {command-line interpreter}. The Macintosh always displays a row of menu titles at the top of the screen. When a mouse button is pressed over a title, a {pull-down menu} appears below it. With the mouse button held down, the option within the menu is selected by pointing to it and then releasing the button. Unlike the {IBM PC}, which, prior to {Microsoft Windows} had no standard {graphical user interface}, Macintosh developers almost always conform to the Macintosh interface. As a result, users are comfortable with the interface of a new program from the start even if it takes a while to learn all the rest of it. They know there will be a row of menu options at the top of the screen, and basic tasks are always performed in the same way. Apple also keeps technical jargon down to a minimum. Although the Macintosh user interface provides consistency; it does not make up for an {application program} that is not designed well. Not only must the application's menus be clear and understandable, but the locations on screen that a user points to must be considered. Since the mouse is the major selecting method on a Macintosh, mouse movement should be kept to a minimum. In addition, for experienced typists, the mouse is a cumbersome substitute for well-designed keyboard commands, especially for intensive text editing. {Urban legned} has it that the Mac user interface was copied from {Xerox}'s {Palo Alto Research Center}. Although it is true that Xerox's {smalltalk} had a GUI and Xerox introduced some GUI concepts commercially on the {Xerox Star} computer in 1981, and that {Steve Jobs} and members of the Mac and {Lisa} project teams visited PARC, Jef Raskin, who created the Mac project, points out that many GUI concepts which are now considered fundamental, such as dragging objects and pull-down menus with the mouse, were actually invented at Apple. {Pull-down menus} have become common on {IBM}, {Commodore} and {Amiga} computers. {Microsoft Windows} and {OS/2} {Presentation Manager}, {Digital Research}'s {GEM}, {Hewlett-Packard}'s {New Wave}, the {X Window System}, {RISC OS} and many other programs and operating environments also incorporate some or all of the desktop/mouse/icon features. {Apple Computer} have tried to prevent other companies from using some {GUI} concepts by taking legal action against them. It is because of such restrictive practises that organisations such as the {Free Software Foundation} previously refused to support ports of their software to Apple machines, though this ban has now been lifted. [Why? When?] (1996-07-19)
Madhavacharya (Sanskrit) Mādhavācārya [from Mādhava + āchārya teacher, preceptor] Celebrated religious teacher and scholar of the 14th century, one of the main teachers of the Dvaita-Vedanta school of pronounced dualism. It teaches the existence or permanent reality of two fundamental principles in universal nature: spirit and matter, or divinity and the universe. This dualism is in direct contrast with the unity doctrine taught in the Advaita-Vedanta or nondualistic system of Sankaracharya.
Madhyamikas (Sanskrit) Mādhyamika-s Belonging to the middle way; a sect mentioned in the Vishnu-Purana, probably at first a sect of Hindu atheists. A school of the same name was founded later in Tibet and China, and as it adopted some of the esoteric principles taught by Nagarjuna, one of the great founders of the esoteric Mahayana system, it had certain elements of esoteric truth. But because of its tendency by means of thesis and antithesis to reduce everything into contrary categories, and then to deny both, it may be called a school of Nihilists for whom everything is an illusion and an error in the world of thought, in the subjective as well as in the objective universe. This school is a good example of the danger of wandering too far in mere intellectual disquisition from the fundamental bases of the esoteric philosophy, for such merely brain-mind activity will infallibly lead to a philosophy of barren negation.
magna charta ::: --> The great Charter, so called, obtained by the English barons from King John, A. D. 1215. This name is also given to the charter granted to the people of England in the ninth year of Henry III., and confirmed by Edward I.
Hence, a fundamental constitution which guaranties rights and privileges.
Mahasunya or Mahasunyata (Sanskrit) Mahāśūnya, Mahāśūnyatā [from mahā great + śūnyatā emptiness] The great void; when considered in its positive aspect, boundless space, including all the spaces of space, and therefore the universe and all that is in it considered from the spiritual and divine standpoints, which to intelligences living in lower realms seem to be the great Void. When considered from its negative aspect, cosmic illusion (mahamaya) because the entire boundless objective universe with all its visible or invisible planes is, from the standpoint of the divine-spiritual, unreal and illusive, i.e., impermanent and transitory, although lasting spans which to human comprehension might seem almost an eternity. Thus both the positive and negative significances are based upon the fundamental idea of the utter reality of the divine-spiritual, and the unreality, impermanence, and fleeting character of all that is objective.
Mahat (Sanskrit) Mahat [from the verbal root mah to be great] The great; cosmic mind or intelligence, the basis and fundamental cause of the intelligent operations in and of nature considered as an organism. Blavatsky called it the first product of pradhana, the first-born of the Logos, universal mind limited by manvantaric duration, the cosmic noumenon of matter, the one impersonal architect of the universe, the great manvantaric principle of intelligence, the Third Logos, and the divine mind in active operation.
malebranchism ::: n. --> The philosophical system of Malebranche, an eminent French metaphysician. The fundamental doctrine of his system is that the mind can not have knowledge of anything external to itself except in its relation to God.
Manifestation ::: The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for a vacant Absolute is no Absolute,—our conception of a Void or Zero is only a conceptual sign of our mental inability to know or grasp it: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world’s existence. It is this realisable actuality actualized or this permanent truth deploying its possibilities that we call manifestation and see as the universe.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 664
Man ::: Man is in his essence a spark of the central kosmic spiritual fire. Man being an inseparable part of theuniverse of which he is the child -- the organism of graded consciousness and substance which thehuman constitution contains or rather is -- is a copy of the graded organism of consciousnesses andsubstances of the universe in its various planes of being, inner and outer, especially inner as being by farthe more important and larger, because causal.Human beings are one class of "young gods" incarnated in bodies of flesh at the present stage of theirown particular evolutionary journey. The human stage of evolution is about halfway between theundeveloped life-atom and the fully developed kosmic spirit or god.From another point of view, man is a sheaf or bundle of forces or energies. Force and matter, or spiritand substance being fundamentally one, hence, man is de facto a sheaf or bundle of matters of variousand differing grades of ethereality, or of substantiality; and so are all other entities and thingseverywhere.Man's nature, and the nature of the universe likewise, of which man is a reflection or microcosm or "littleworld," is composite of seven stages or grades or degrees of ethereality or of substantiality; or,kosmically speaking, of three generally inclusive degrees: gods, monads, and atoms. And so far as man isconcerned, we may take the New Testament division of the Christians, which gives the same triformconception of man, that he is composed of spirit, soul, body -- remembering, however, that all these threewords are generalizing terms.Man stands at the midway point of the evolutionary ladder of life: below him are the hosts of beings lessthan he is; above him are other hosts greater than he is only because older in experience, riper in wisdom,stronger in spiritual and in intellectual fiber and power. And these beings are such as they are because ofthe evolutionary unfoldment of the inherent faculties and powers immanent in the individuality of theinner god -- the ever-living, inner, individualized spirit.Man, then, like everything else -- entity or what is called "thing" -- is, to use the modern terminology ofphilosophical scientists, an "event," that is to say, the expression of a central consciousness-center ormonad passing through one or another particular phase of its long, long pilgrimage over and throughinfinity, and through eternity. This, therefore, is the reason why the theosophist often speaks of themonadic consciousness-center as the pilgrim of eternity.Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential upadhis or bases: first, the monadic ordivine-spiritual; second, that which is supplied by the Lords of Light, the so-called manasa-dhyanis,meaning the intellectual and intuitive side of man, the element-principle that makes man Man; and thethird upadhi we may call the vital-astral-physical.These three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separatehierarchies of being. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; heis a composite entity, a "thing" built up of various elements, and hence his principles are to a certainextent separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others withoutbringing about the death of the man physically. But the elements that go to form any one of these basescannot be separated without bringing about physical dissolution or inner dissolution.These three lines of evolution, these three aspects or qualities of man, come from three differenthierarchies or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from thevital-astral-physical earth, ultimately from the moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasicor intellectualintuitional, from the sun. The monadic from the monad of monads, the supreme flower oracme, or rather the supreme seed of the universal hierarchy which forms our kosmical universe oruniversal kosmos.
mantra ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” *The Future Poetry
mantra ::: Sri Aurobindo: “The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” The Future Poetry
mantra ::: : “The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” The Future Poetry
Materialism: A proposition about the existent or the real: that only matter (q.v.) is existent or real; that matter is the primordial or fundamental constituent of the universe; atomism; that only sensible entities, processes, or content are existent or real; that the universe is not governed by intelligence, purpose, or final causes; that everything is strictly caused by material (inanimate, non-mental, or having certain elementary physical powers) processes or entities (mechanism); that mental entities, processes, or events (though existent) are caused solely by material entities, processes, or events and themselves have no causal effect (epiphenomenalism); that nothing supernatural exists (naturalism); that nothing mental exists; a proposition about explanation of the existent or the real: that everything is explainable in terms of matter in motion or matter and energy or simply matter (depending upon conception of matter entertained); that all qualitative differences are reducible to quantitative differences; that the only objects science can investigate are the physical or material (that is, public, manipulable, non-mental, natural, or sensible); a proposition about values: that wealth, bodily satisfactions, sensuous pleasures, or the like are either the only or the greatest values man can seek or attain; a proposition about explanation of human history: that human actions and cultural change are determined solely or largely by economic factors (economic determinism or its approximation); an attitude, postulate, hypothesis, assertion, assumption, or tendency favoring any of the above propositions; a state of being limited by the physical environment or the material elements of culture and incapable of overcoming, transcending, or adjusting properly to them; preoccupation with or enslavement to lower or bodily (non-mental or non-spiritual) values. Confusion of epiphenomenalism or mechanism with other conceptions of materialism has caused considerable misunderstanding. -- M.T.K.
Materialism: A proposition that only matter is existent or real; that matter is the primordial or fundamental constituent of the universe; that only sensible entities, processes, or content are existent or real; that the universe is not governed by intelligence, purpose, or final causes; that everything is strictly caused by material (inanimate, non-mental, or having certain elementary physical powers) processes or entities (mechanism); that mental entities, processes, or events (though existent) are caused solely by material entities, processes, or events and themselves have no causal effect (epiphenomenalism); that nothing supernatural exists (naturalism); that nothing mental exists; that everything is explainable in terms of matter in motion or matter and energy or simply matter (depending upon the conception of matter entertained); that the only objects science can investigate are the physical or material (that is, public, manipulable, non-mental, natural, or sensible). Materialism denies the truth of all doctrines and beliefs of occultism, metaphysics, esoteric philosophy, etc.
Matter ::: Being manifested as substance; substance of the one Conscious Being. A self-formed mask and robe of the divine Spirit, matter is not fundamentally real, but a form of the force of Conscious Being.
Matter In the widest sense, the negative pole of the one universal life regarded as a duality. The manifested One, considered as a unit, is called the manifested Logos; and as a duad it becomes spirit-matter or life. Matter is thus co-eternal with spirit, forming the vehicular or passive aspect of every plane. It is equivalent to prakriti (or sakti, maya, or pradhana), and just as there are seven, ten, or twelve prakritis, so there are seven, ten, or twelve matters: the root-essence of all the series is what the Hindus called mulaprakriti (root-nature). Equivalently, matter may also be defined as the illusory aggregate of veils surrounding the fundamental essence of the universe.
Matter is by no means fundamentally real; it is a structure of Energy.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 679
matter ::: “Matter is by no means fundamentally real; it is a structure of Energy.” The Life Divine
matter ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Matter is by no means fundamentally real; it is a structure of Energy.” *The Life Divine
Matter ::: What men call matter or substance is the existent but illusory aggregate of veils surrounding thefundamental essence of the universe which is consciousness-life-substance. From another point of view,matter or substance is in one sense the most evolved form of expression of manifested spirit in anyparticular hierarchy. This is but another way of saying that matter is but inherent energies or powers orfaculties of kosmical beings, unfolded, rolled out, and self-expressed. It is the nether and lowest pole ofwhat the original and originating spirit is; for spirit is the primal or original pole of the evolutionaryactivity which brought forth through its own inherent energies the appearance or manifestation in thekosmic spaces of the vast aggregate of hierarchies. Between the originant or spirit and the resultant ormatter, there is all the vast range of hierarchical stages or steps, thus forming the ladder of life or theladder of being of any one such hierarchy.When theosophists speak of spirit and substance, of which latter, matter and energy or force are thephysicalized expressions, we must remember that all these terms are abstractions -- generalizedexpressions for hosts of entities manifesting aggregatively. The whole process of evolution is the raisingof units of essential matter, life-atoms, into becoming at one with their spiritual and inmost essence. Asthe kosmic aeons slowly drop one after the other into the ocean of the past, matter pari passu is resolvedback into the brilliant realms of spirit from which it originally came forth. All the sheaths ofconsciousness, all the blinding veils around it, arise from the matter side or dark side or night side ofnature, which is matter -- the nether pole of spirit.
M. Bocher, The fundamental conceptions and methods of mathematics, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 11 (1904), pp. 115-135.
McDougall, William: (1871-1938) Formerly of Oxford and later of Harvard and Duke Universities, was the leading exponent of purposive or "hormic" (from Gr. horme, impulse) psychology. "Purposive psychology . . . asserts that active striving towards a goal is a fundamental category of psychology, and is a process of a type that cannot be mechanistically explained or resolved into mechanistic sequences." Psychologies of 1930, p. 4. In his epoch-making book, Introduction to Social Psychology (1908), McDougall developed a purposive theory of the human instincts designed to serve as an adequate psychological foundation for the social sciences. His social psychology listed among the primary instincts of man: flight, repulsion, curiosity, self-abasement, self-assertion and the parental instinct. McDougall's teleological theory is psychological rather than metaphysical, but he believed that the psychological fact of purpose was a genuine instance of teleologilcal causation. (Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution, 1929.) He was also led by his psychological studies to adopt a metaphysical dualism and interactionism which he designated "animism." See Body and Mind, 1911. -- L.W.
Mean: In general, that which in some way mediates or occupies a middle position among various things or between two extremes. Hence (especially in the plural) that through which an end is attained; in mathematics the word is used for any one of various notions of average; in ethics it represents moderation, temperance, prudence, the middle way. In mathematics: The arithmetic mean of two quantities is half their sum; the arithmetic mean of n quantities is the sum of the n quantities, divided by n. In the case of a function f(x) (say from real numbers to real numbers) the mean value of the function for the values x1, x2, . . . , xn of x is the arithmetic mean of f(x1), f(x2), . . . , f(xn). This notion is extended to the case of infinite sets of values of x by means of integration; thus the mean value of f(x) for values of x between a and b is ∫f(x)dx, with a and b as the limits of integration, divided by the difference between a and b. The geometric mean of or between, or the mean proportional between, two quantities is the (positive) square root of their product. Thus if b is the geometric mean between a and c, c is as many times greater (or less) than b as b is than a. The geometric mean of n quantities is the nth root of their product. The harmonic mean of two quantities is defined as the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of their reciprocals. Hence the harmonic mean of a and b is 2ab/(a + b). The weighted mean or weighted average of a set of n quantities, each of which is associated with a certain number as weight, is obtained by multiplying each quantity by the associated weight, adding these products together, and then dividing by the sum of the weights. As under A, this may be extended to the case of an infinite set of quantities by means of integration. (The weights have the role of estimates of relative importance of the various quantities, and if all the weights are equal the weighted mean reduces to the simple arithmetic mean.) In statistics, given a population (i.e., an aggregate of observed or observable quantities) and a variable x having the population as its range, we have: The mean value of x is the weighted mean of the values of x, with the probability (frequency ratio) of each value taken as its weight. In the case of a finite population this is the same as the simple arithmetic mean of the population, provided that, in calculating the arithmetic mean, each value of x is counted as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population. In like manner, the mean value of a function f(x) of x is the weighted mean of the values of f(x), where the probability of each value of x is taken as the weight of the corresponding value of f(x). The mode of the population is the most probable (most frequent) value of x, provided there is one such. The median of the population is so chosen that the probability that x be less than the median (or the probability that x be greater than the median) is ½ (or as near ½ as possible). In the case of a finite population, if the values of x are arranged in order of magnitude --repeating any one value of x as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population --then the middle term of this series, or the arithmetic mean of the two middle terms, is the median. --A.C. In cosmology, the fundamental means (arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic) were used by the Greeks in describing or actualizing the process of becoming in nature. The Pythagoreans and the Platonists in particular made considerable use of these means (see the Philebus and the Timaeus more especially). These ratios are among the basic elements used by Plato in his doctrine of the mixtures. With the appearance of the qualitative physics of Aristotle, the means lost their cosmological importance and were thereafter used chiefly in mathematics. The modern mathematical theories of the universe make use of the whole range of means analyzed by the calculus of probability, the theory of errors, the calculus of variations, and the statistical methods. In ethics, the 'Doctrine of the Mean' is the moral theory of moderation, the development of the virtues, the determination of the wise course in action, the practice of temperance and prudence, the choice of the middle way between extreme or conflicting decisions. It has been developed principally by the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks; it was used with caution by the Christian moralists on account of their rigorous application of the moral law. In Chinese philosophy, the Doctrine of the Mean or of the Middle Way (the Chung Yung, literally 'Equilibrium and Harmony') involves the absence of immoderate pleasure, anger, sorrow or joy, and a conscious state in which those feelings have been stirred and act in their proper degree. This doctrine has been developed by Tzu Shu (V. C. B.C.), a grandson of Confucius who had already described the virtues of the 'superior man' according to his aphorism "Perfect is the virtue which is according to the mean". In matters of action, the superior man stands erect in the middle and strives to follow a course which does not incline on either side. In Buddhist philosophy, the System of the Middle Way or Madhyamaka is ascribed more particularly to Nagarjuna (II c. A.D.). The Buddha had given his revelation as a mean or middle way, because he repudiated the two extremes of an exaggerated ascetlsm and of an easy secular life. This principle is also applied to knowledge and action in general, with the purpose of striking a happy medium between contradictory judgments and motives. The final objective is the realization of the nirvana or the complete absence of desire by the gradual destruction of feelings and thoughts. But while orthodox Buddhism teaches the unreality of the individual (who is merely a mass of causes and effects following one another in unbroken succession), the Madhyamaka denies also the existence of these causes and effects in themselves. For this system, "Everything is void", with the legitimate conclusion that "Absolute truth is silence". Thus the perfect mean is realized. In Greek Ethics, the doctrine of the Right (Mean has been developed by Plato (Philebus) and Aristotle (Nic. Ethics II. 6-8) principally, on the Pythagorean analogy between the sound mind, the healthy body and the tuned string, which has inspired most of the Greek Moralists. Though it is known as the "Aristotelian Principle of the Mean", it is essentially a Platonic doctrine which is preformed in the Republic and the Statesman and expounded in the Philebus, where we are told that all good things in life belong to the class of the mixed (26 D). This doctrine states that in the application of intelligence to any kind of activity, the supreme wisdom is to know just where to stop, and to stop just there and nowhere else. Hence, the "right-mean" does not concern the quantitative measurement of magnitudes, but simply the qualitative comparison of values with respect to a standard which is the appropriate (prepon), the seasonable (kairos), the morally necessary (deon), or generally the moderate (metrion). The difference between these two kinds of metretics (metretike) is that the former is extrinsic and relative, while the latter is intrinsic and absolute. This explains the Platonic division of the sciences into two classes: those involving reference to relative quantities (mathematical or natural), and those requiring absolute values (ethics and aesthetics). The Aristotelian analysis of the "right mean" considers moral goodness as a fixed and habitual proportion in our appetitions and tempers, which can be reached by training them until they exhibit just the balance required by the right rule. This process of becoming good develops certain habits of virtues consisting in reasonable moderation where both excess and defect are avoided: the virtue of temperance (sophrosyne) is a typical example. In this sense, virtue occupies a middle position between extremes, and is said to be a mean; but it is not a static notion, as it leads to the development of a stable being, when man learns not to over-reach himself. This qualitative conception of the mean involves an adaptation of the agent, his conduct and his environment, similar to the harmony displayed in a work of art. Hence the aesthetic aspect of virtue, which is often overstressed by ancient and neo-pagan writers, at the expense of morality proper. The ethical idea of the mean, stripped of the qualifications added to it by its Christian interpreters, has influenced many positivistic systems of ethics, and especially pragmatism and behaviourism (e.g., A. Huxley's rule of Balanced Excesses). It is maintained that it is also involved in the dialectical systems, such as Hegelianism, where it would have an application in the whole dialectical process as such: thus, it would correspond to the synthetic phase which blends together the thesis and the antithesis by the meeting of the opposites. --T.G. Mean, Doctrine of the: In Aristotle's ethics, the doctrine that each of the moral virtues is an intermediate state between extremes of excess and defect. -- O.R.M.
medusoid ::: a. --> Like a medusa; having the fundamental structure of a medusa, but without a locomotive disk; -- said of the sessile gonophores of hydroids. ::: n. --> A sessile gonophore. See Illust. under Gonosome.
Metaphysical philosophy is an attempt to fix the fundamental realities and principles of being as distinct from its processes and the phenomena which result from those processes. But it is on the fundamental realities that the processes depend: our own process of life, its aim and method, should be in accordance with the truth of being that we see; otherwise our metaphysical truth can be only a play of the intellect without any dynamic importance.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 693
metre "unit" (US "meter") The fundamental {SI} unit of length. From 1889 to 1960, the metre was defined to be the distance between two scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. This replaced an earlier definition as 10^-7 times the distance between the North Pole and the Equator along a meridian through Paris; unfortunately, this had been based on an inexact value of the circumference of the Earth. From 1960 to 1984 it was defined to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line of krypton-86 propagating in a vacuum. It is now defined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. (1998-02-07)
Microcosm(Greek) ::: A compound meaning "little arrangement," "little world," a term applied by ancient and modernmystics to man when considering the seven, ten, and even twelve aspects or phases or organic parts of hisconstitution, from the superdivine down to and even below the physical body.Just as throughout the macrocosm there runs one law, one fundamental consciousness, one essentialorderly arrangement and habitude to which everything contained within the encompassing macrocosm ofnecessity conforms, just so does every such contained entity or thing, because it is an inseparable part ofthe macrocosm, contain in itself, evolved or unevolved, implicit or explicit, active or latent, everythingthat the macrocosm contains -- whether energy, power, substance, matter, faculty, or what not. Themicrocosm, therefore, considered as man or indeed any other organic entity, is correctly viewed as areflection or copy in miniature of the great macrocosm, the former being contained, with hosts of otherslike it, within the encircling frontiers of the macrocosm. Thus it was stated by the ancient mystics that thedestiny of man, the microcosm, is coeval with the universe or macrocosm. Their origin is the same, theirenergies and substances are the same, and their future is the same, of course mutatis mutandis. It was novain figment of imagination and no idle figure of speech which brought the ancient mystics to declareman to be a son of the Boundless.The teaching is one of the most suggestive and beautiful in the entire range of the esoteric philosophy,and the deductions that the intuitive student will immediately draw from this teaching themselvesbecome keys opening even larger portals of understanding. The universe, the macrocosm, is thus seen tobe the home of the microcosm or man, in the former of which the latter is at home everywhere.
microfortnight One millionth of the fundamental unit of time in the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system of measurement; 1.2096 sec. (A furlong is 1/8th of a mile; a firkin is 1/4th of a barrel; the mass unit of the system is taken to be a firkin of water). The VMS operating system has a lot of tuning parameters that you can set with the SYSGEN utility, and one of these is TIMEPROMPTWAIT, the time the system will wait for an operator to set the correct date and time at boot if it realises that the current value is bogus. This time is specified in microfortnights! Multiple uses of the millifortnight (about 20 minutes) and {nanofortnight} have also been reported.
Mind The ancient wisdom taught that mind is one of the functions or innate attributes of the fundamental selfhood or consciousness of the monadic entity. There is the fundamental self, known from time immemorial as the atman, which in its self-unfolding or emanational activities produces the various attributes of itself, among which three almost indistinguishable attributes are what we call mind, intellect, and consciousness. When manifestation is ended, these various qualities are rolled back into themselves and gathered up into the fundamental monadic self, upon which the monad begins its periodic enjoyment — to use the Eastern term — of its own selfhood, unadulterate, noumenal, and unitary. Thus, in its widest sense, mind is an attribute of the spirit side of being, as contrasted with the matter side, which latter nevertheless is intrinsically unevolved or latent mind; hence we speak of cosmic mind, of which there are innumerable limited aspects in the manifested worlds.
Modern Freemasonry includes many Rites and Degrees, all the so-called higher degrees being based upon the three fundamental craft degrees — 1) Entered Apprentice; 2) Fellow Craft; and 3) Master Mason — which degrees alone comprise true Masonic secrets and have any valid claim to descent from ancient Masonry. The lessons or keynotes of these three degrees are respectively 1) ethical, to subdue the passions; 2) intellectual, the training of the mind, the seven liberal arts and sciences, and the mounting of the stairway of wisdom; and 3) spiritual, the conquest of death. The lessons in each degree are enforced and illustrated by appropriate symbols and allegories. The central theme of modern Masonry is the building of King Solomon’s Temple; the death of Hiram Abif and the consequent loss of the Word; the raising of Hiram Abif, and the communication of a Substitute Word.
Morals, Morality ::: What is the basis of morals? This is the most important question that can be asked of any system ofthought. Is morality based on the dicta of man? Is morality based on the conviction in most men's heartsthat for human safety it is necessary to have certain abstract rules which it is merely convenient tofollow? Are we mere opportunists? Or is morality, ethics, based on truth, which it is not merelyexpedient for man to follow, but necessary? Surely upon the latter! Morals is right conduct based uponright views, right thinking.In the third fundamental postulate of The Secret Doctrine [1:17] we find the very elements, the veryfundamentals, of a system of morality greater than which, profounder than which, more persuasive thanwhich, perhaps, it would be impossible to imagine anything.On what, then, is morality based? And by morality is not meant merely the opinion which somepseudo-philosophers have, that morality is more or less that which is "good for the community," based onthe mere meaning of the Latin word mores, "good customs," as opposed to bad. No! Morality is thatinstinctive hunger of the human heart to do righteousness, to do good to every man because it is good andsatisfying and ennobling to do so.When man realizes that he is one with all that is, inwards and outwards, high and low; that he is one withall, not merely as members of a community are one, not merely as individuals of an army are one, butlike the molecules of our own flesh, like the atoms of the molecule, like the electrons of the atom,composing one unity -- not a mere union but a spiritual unity -- then he sees truth. (See also Ethics)
Mukhya (Sanskrit) Mukhya As an adjective, first or primary. In the Puranas, seven creations of Brahma are enumerated, the fourth being called Mukhya, or the fundamental formation, production, or emanation of perceptible beings and things — the evolution or emanation of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. This creation is called primary (mukhya), and not secondary, because it relates to the primordial cosmic emanative activities. As such, although the fourth in certain enumerations, it is considered the first as productive of the rupa worlds below. The powers, prakritis, and vikaras beginning with these rupa worlds are alluded to as the secondary emanation.
nanosecond "unit" (ns) 10^-9 seconds; one thousand millionth part of a second. This is the unit in which the fundamental logical operations of modern digital circuits are typically measured. For example, a {microprocessor} with a {clock} frequency of 100 {megahertz} will have a 10 nanosecond clock period. (1996-11-15)
Natural Theology: In general, natural theology is a term used to distinguish any theology based upon the fundamental premise of the ability of man to construct his theory of God and of the world out of the framework of his own reason and of reasonable probability from the so-called "revealed theology" which presupposes that God and divine purposes are not open to unaided human understanding but rest upon a supernatural and not wholly understandable basis. See Deism; Renaissance. During the 17th and 18th centuries there were attempts to set up a "natural religion" to which men might easily give their assent and to offset the extravagant claims of the supernaturalists and their harsh charges against doubters. The classical attempt to make out a case for the sweet reasonableness of a divine purpose at work in the world of nature was given by Paley in his Natural Theology (1802). Traditional Catholicism, especially that of the late middle Ages developed a kind of natural theology based upon the metaphysics of Aristotle. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz developed a more definite type of natural theology in their several constructions of what now may well be called philosophical theology wherein reason is made the guide. Natural theology has raised its head in recent times in attempts to combat the extravagant declarations of theologians of human pessimism. The term, however, is unfortunate because it is being widely acknowledged that so-called "revealed theology" is natural (recent psychological and social studies) and that natural theology need not deny to reason its possible character as the bearer of an immanent divine revelation. -- V.F.
Nevertheless, theosophy postulates the existence of atomic and subatomic ethers of various degrees of tenuity, ranging from physical to spiritual. Collectively these ethers are the different planes or ranges of akasa, the fundamental substratum of the universe and the garment in which the kosmic divinity clothes itself — the various prakritis as outlined especially in the Sankhya philosophy. Any scientific ether is not the akasa or aether, but solely the lowest plane of the akasic plenum, some of the ranges of the astral light, which in one sense is the highest principle of the earth’s atmosphere — a subtle ethereal energy-stuff permeant through and interpenetrating physical matter of all kinds. See also Aether; Ether
New Realism: A school of thought which dates from the beginning of the twentieth century. It began as a movement of reaction against the wide influence of idealistic metaphysics. Whereas the idealists reduce everything to mind, this school reduced mind to everything. For the New Realists Nature is basic and mind is part and parcel of it. How nature was conceived (whether materialistic, neutralistic, etc.) was not the important factor. New Realists differed here among themselves. Their theory of knowledge was strictly monistic, the subject and object are one since there is no fundamental dualism. Two schools of New Realists are recognized:
Nirvana, then, does not mean utter annihilation, nor did the Buddha teach utter annihilation or wiping out. Thus fundamental consciousness is uninterrupted from eternity to eternity, although undergoing continual change. But such change is not a difference of essence, but a continuously enlarging and ever greater unfolding of the inner essence.
Nolini: “The book of fundamental existence, static existence, the truth that exists.”
Note on the Indian Sign-Language. Certain general principles concerning gesture speech may be established, by considering the sign-language of the North American Indian which seems to be the most developed. A sign-language is established when equally powerful tribes of different tongues come into contact. Better gestures are composed and undesirable ones are weeded out, partly as a result of tribal federations and partly through the development of technical skills and crafts. Signs come into being, grow and die, according to the needs of the time and to the changes in practical processes. Stimulus of outside intercourse is necessary to keep alive the interest required for the maintenance and growth of a gesture speech; without it, the weaker tribe is absorbed in the stronger, and the vocal language most easily acquired prevails. Sign-languages involve a basic syntax destined to convey the fundamental meanings without refinement and in abbreviated form. Articles, prepositions and conjunctions are omitted; adjectives follow nouns; verbs are used in the present tense; nouns and verbs are used in the singular, while the idea of plurality is expressed in some other way. The use of signals with the smoke, the pony, the mirror, the blanket and the drum (as is also the case with the African tam-tams) may be considered as an extension of the sign-language, though they are related more directly to the general art of signalling. -- T.G.
Nuñez Regüeiro, Manuel: Born in Uruguay, March 21, 1883. Professor of Philosophy at the National University of the Litoral in Argentine. Author of about twenty-five books, among which the following are the most important from a philosophical point of view: Fundamentos de la Anterosofia, 1925; Anterosofia Racional, 1926; De Nuevo Hablo Jesus, 1928; Filosofia Integral, 1932; Del Conocimiento y Progreso de Si Mismo, 1934; Tratado de Metalogica, o Fundamentos de Una Nueva Metodologia, 1936; Suma Contra Una Nueva Edad Media, 1938; Metafisica y Ciencia, 1941; La Honda Inquietud, 1915; Conocimiento y Creencia, 1916. Three fundamental questions and a tenacious effort to answer them run throughout the entire thought of Nuñez Regüeiro, namely the three questions of Kant: What can I know? What must I do? What can I expect? Science as auch does not write finis to anything. We experience in science the same realm of contradictions and inconsistencies which we experience elsewhere. Fundamentally, this chaos is of the nature of dysteleology. At the root of the conflict lies a crisis of values. The problem of doing is above all a problem of valuing. From a point of view of values, life ennobles itself, man lifts himself above the trammels of matter, and the world becomes meaning-full. Is there a possibility for the realization of this ideal? Has this plan ever been tried out? History offers us a living example: The Fact of Jesus. He is the only possible expectation. In him and through him we come to fruition and fulfilment. Nuñez Regüeiro's philosophy is fundamentally religious. -- J.A.F.
occam "language" (Note lower case) A language based on {Anthony Hoare}'s {CSP} and {David May}'s {EPL}. Named after the English philosopher, William of Occam (1300-1349) who propounded {Occam's Razor}. The occam language was designed by David May of {INMOS} to easily describe {concurrent} processes which communicate via one-way channels. It was developed to run on the {INMOS} {transputer} but {compilers} are available for {VAX}, {Sun} and {Intel} {MDS}, inter alia. The basic entity in occam is the process of which there are four fundamental types, {assignment}, input, output, and wait. More complex processes are constructed from these using SEQ to specify sequential execution, PAR to specify parallel execution and ALT where each process is associated with an input from a channel. The process whose channel inputs first is executed. The fourth constructor is IF with a list of conditions and associated processes. The process executed is the one with the first true condition in textual order. There is no {operator precedence}. The original occam is now known as "occam 1". It was extended to {occam 2}. {Simulator for VAX (ftp://watserv1.waterloo.edu/)}. Tahoe mailing list: "occam@sutcase.case.syr.edu". [David May et al, 1982. "Concurrent algorithms"]. ["Occam", D. May, SIGPLAN Notices 18(4):69-79, 1983]. (1994-11-18)
OLE for Process Control "standard" (OPC) A set of seven open standards for connectivity and interoperability of industrial automation and the enterprise systems. Based on fundamental and evolving standards and technology of the general computing market, the OPC Foundation adapts and creates specifications that fill industry-specific needs. {OPC Foundation (http://opcfoundation.org/)}. (2003-05-21)
Online Computer Library Center, Inc. "library" (OCLC) A nonprofit membership organisation offering computer-based services and research to libraries, educational organisations, and their users. OCLC operates the OCLC Cataloging PRISM service for cataloging and resource sharing, provides on-line reference systems for both librarians and end-users, and distributes on-line electronic journals. OCLC's goals are to increase the availability of library resources and reduce library costs for the fundamental public purpose of furthering access to the world's information. The OCLC library information network connects more than 10,000 36,000 libraries worldwide. Libraries use the OCLC System for cataloguing, interlibrary loan, collection development, bibliographic verification, and reference searching. Their most visible feature is the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalog). {(http://oclc.org/)}. (2000-03-23)
on the satisfaction of cgo-dcsire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. It is a while flame, not a red one ; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety in its ardour. It is true that the psychic love does not usually get its full play in human rela- tions and human nature ; it finds the fullness of -its fire and ecstasy more easily when it is lifted towards the Divine. In the human relation the psychic love gets mixed up with other ele- ments which seek at once to use it and overshadow it. It gels an outlet for its o^vn full intensities only at rare moments. Other- wise it comes in only as an element, but even so it contributes all the higher things in a love fundamentally vital-— all the finer sweetness, tenderness, fidelity, self-giving, self-sacrifice, rcachings of soul to soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself, come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other elements, mental, vital, phj-sieal, of human love, then love could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life.
Ontology: The theory of being as being. For Aristotle, the First Philosophy, the science of the essence of things. The science of fundamental principles; the doctrine of the categories. Ultimate philosophy; rational cosmology. Synonymous with metaphysics.
organically ::: adv. --> In an organic manner; by means of organs or with reference to organic functions; hence, fundamentally.
Overmind ::: Overmind is the highest source of the cosmic consciousness available to the embodied being in the Ignorance. It is part of the cosmic consciousness—but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-Life- Matter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive mind movements, illuminations, various kinds of powers and illumined light, liberation, Ananda. But to rise fully into the Intuition is rare, to reach the Overmind still rarer— although influences and experiences can come down from there.
Ref: CWSA Vol.28, Letters on Yoga-I, Page: 152
overtone ::: n. --> One of the harmonics faintly heard with and above a tone as it dies away, produced by some aliquot portion of the vibrating sting or column of air which yields the fundamental tone; one of the natural harmonic scale of tones, as the octave, twelfth, fifteenth, etc.; an aliquot or "partial" tone; a harmonic. See Harmonic, and Tone.
P. E. B. Jourdain, Tales with philosophical morals, The Open Court, vol 27 (1913), pp. 310-315. Parallelism: (philosophiol) A doctrine advanced to explain the relation between mind and body according to which mental processes vary concomitantly with simultineous physiological processes. This general description is applicable to all forms of the theory More strictly it assumes that for every mental change there exists a correlated neural change, and it denies any causal relation between the series of conscious processes and the series of processes of the nervous system, acknowledging, however, causation within each series. It was designed to obviate the difficulties encountered by the diverse interaction theories Moreover, no form of parallelism admits the existence of a spiritual substance of a substantial soul. Some regard consciousness as the only reality, the soul which is but an actuality, as the sum of psychic acts whose unity consists in their coherence. Others accept the teaching of the fundamental identity of mind and body, regarding the two corresponding series of psychical and physical processes as aspects of an unknown series of real processes. Thus mind and body are but appearances of a hidden underlying unity. Finally there are those who hold that the series of conscious states which constitute the mind is but an epiphenomenon, or a sort of by-product of the bodily organism. See Mind-Body Relation. -- J.J.R.
Personalistics: Term used bv William Stern in psychology to indicate a study of the facts that are true of man as a meaningful living whole -- a fundamental science of the human person. The Personalist, XVIII, p 50. -- R.T.F.
Phenomenology: Since the middle of the Eighteenth Century, "Phänomenologie," like its English equivalent, has been a name for several disciplines, an expression for various concepts. Lambert, in his Neue Organon (1764), attached the name "Phänomenologie" to the theory of the appearances fundamental to all empirical knowledge. Kant adopted the word to express a similar though more restricted sense in his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786). On the other hand, in Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807) the same word expresses a radically different concept. A precise counterpart of Hegel's title was employed by Hamilton to express yet another meaning. In "The Divisions of Philosophy" (Lectures on Metaphysics, 1858), after stating that "Philosophy properly so called" is "conversant about Mind," he went on to say: "If we consider the mind merely with the view of observing and generalizing the various phaenomena it reveals, . . . we have . . . one department of mental science, and this we may call the Phaenomenology of Mind." Similarly Moritz Lazarus, in his Leben der Seele (1856-57), distinguished Phänomenologie from Psychologie: The former describes the phenomena of mental life; the latter seeks their causal explanation.
Philosophy ::: All philosophy is concerned with the relations between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 13, Page: 106
philosophy ::: “All philosophy is concerned with the relations between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience.” The Hour of God
Philosophy ::: An operation of the human spirit-mind in its endeavor to understand not merely the how of things, but thewhy of things -- why and how things are as they are. Philosophy is one phase of a triform method ofunderstanding the nature of nature, of universal nature, and of its multiform and multifold workings, andphilosophy cannot be separated from the other two phases (science and religion), if we wish to gain atrue and complete picture of things as they are in themselves. It is a capital mistake of Western thought tosuppose that science, religion, and philosophy are three separate and unrelated operations of thought. Theidea when pondered upon is immediately seen to be ludicrously false, because all these three are butphases of operations of human consciousness. Not one of these three -- philosophy, religion, or science -can be divorced from the other two, and if the attempt be made so to divorce them, the result is spiritualand intellectual dissatisfaction, and the mind senses an incompleteness. Consequently any philosophywhich is unscientific and irreligious, or any religion which is unscientific and unphilosophical, and anyscience which is unphilosophical and unreligious, is de facto erroneous because incomplete. These threeare simply three aspects or phases of a fundamental reality which is consciousness.Philosophy is that aspect of the human consciousness which is correlative, and which seeks the bonds ofunion among things and exposes them, when found, as existing in the manifold and diverse forms ofnatural processes and the so-called laws which demonstrate their existence. (See also Religion, Science)
Philosophy of Change: The theory that change itself is the only enduring pnnciple and therefore the fundamental reality. Applied to the views of Heraclitus, and in modern times to those of Henri Bergson. -- R.T.F.
Philosophy of Discontinuity: The theory that the principle of change is the fundamental basis of reality; that natural law is but the outward aspect of what is internally habit Being as an irreducible synthesis of possibility and action. God the Creator and Essence of things. Applied to the thought of Renouvier, Boutroux, and Lachelier. -- R.T.F.
physicist ::: n. --> One versed in physics.
A believer in the theory that the fundamental phenomena of life are to be explained upon purely chemical and physical principles; -- opposed to vitalist.
Pity: A more or less condescending feeling for other living beings in their suffering or lowly condition, condoned by those who hold to the inevitability of class differences, but condemned by those who believe in melioration or the establishment of more equitable relations and therefore substitute sympathy (q.v.). Synonymous with "having mercy" or "to spare" in the Old Testament (the Lord is "of many bowels"), Christians also are exhorted to be pitiful (e.g., 1. Pet. 3.8). Spinoza yet equates it with commiseration, but since this involves pain in addition to some good if alleviating action follows, it is to be overcome in a life dictated by reason. Except for moral theories which do not recognize feeling for other creatures as a fundamental urge pushing into action, such as utilitarianism in some of its aspects and Hinduism which adheres to the doctrine of karma (q.v.), however far apart the two are, pity may be regarded a prime ethical impulse but, due to its coldness and the possibility of calculation entering, is no longer countenanced as an essentially ethical principle in modern moral thinking. -- K.F.L.
Planck's constant: In quantum mechanics (q.v.), a fundamental physical constant, usually denoted by the letter h, which appears in many physical formulas. It may be defined by the law that the quantum (q.v.) of radiant energy of any frequency is equal to the frequency multiplied by h. see further Uncertainty principle. -- A.C.
Planetary Chain ::: Every kosmic body or globe, be it sun or planet, nebula or comet, atom or electron, is a composite entityformed of or comprised of inner and invisible energies and substances and of an outer, to us, and oftenvisible, to us, physical vehicle or body. These elements all together number seven (or twelve), being whatis called in theosophy the seven principles or elements of every self-contained entity; in other words, ofevery individual life-center.Thus every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied bysix invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is the case with everysun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise the case with thenebulae and the comets as above stated: all are septiform entities, all have a sevenfold constitution, evenas man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is in the great, there being for us one life inthat universe, one natural system of "laws" in that universe. Every entity in the universe is an inseparablepart of it; therefore what is in the whole is in every part, because the part cannot contain anything that thewhole does not contain, the part cannot be greater than the whole.Our own earth-chain is composed of seven (or twelve) globes, of which only one, our earth, is visible onthis our earth plane to our physical sense apparatus, because that apparatus is builded or rather evolved tocognize this earth plane and none other. But the populations of all the seven (or twelve) globes of thisearth-chain pass in succession, and following each other, from globe to globe, thus gaining experience ofenergy and matter and consciousness on all the various planes and spheres that this chain comprises.The other six (or eleven) globes of our earth-chain are invisible to our physical sense, of course; and,limiting our explanation only to the manifest seven globes of the complete chain of twelve globes, the sixglobes other and higher than the earth exist two by two, on three planes of the solar system superior toour physical plane where our earth-globe is -- this our earth. These three superior planes or worlds areeach one superior to the world or plane immediately beneath or inferior to it.Our earth-globe is the fourth and lowest of all the manifest seven globes of our earth-chain. Three globesprecede it on the descending or shadowy arc, and three globes follow it on the ascending or luminous arcof evolution. The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky and the more recent work, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy (1932), contain most suggestive material for the student interested in this phase ofthe esoteric philosophy. (See also Ascending Arc)
plastin ::: n. --> A substance associated with nuclein in cell nuclei, and by some considered as the fundamental substance of the nucleus.
pleomorphism ::: n. --> The property of crystallizing under two or more distinct fundamental forms, including dimorphism and trimorphism.
The theory that the various genera of bacteria are phases or variations of growth of a number of Protean species, each of which may exhibit, according to undetermined conditions, all or some of the forms characteristic of the different genera and species.
Pluralism: This is the doctrine that there is not one (Monism), not two (Dualism) but many ultimate substances. From the earliest Ionian fundamentals of air, earth, fire and water, to the hierarchy of monads of Leibniz, the many things-in-themselves of Herbart and the theory of the many that "works" in the latter day Pragmatism of James and others, we get a variety of theories that find philosophic solace in variety rather than in any knowable or unknowable one. See Dualism, Idealism, Materialism, Monism, Political Philosophy (Laski). -- L.E.D.
Political Philosophy: That branch of philosophy which deals with political life, especially with the essence, origin and value of the state. In ancient philosophy politics also embraced what we call ethics. The first and most important ancient works on Political Philosophy were Plato's Politeia (Republic) and Aristotle's Politics. The Politeia outlines the structure and functions of the ideal state. It became the pattern for all the Utopias (see Utopia) of later times. Aristotle, who considers man fundamentally a social creature i.e. a political animal, created the basis for modern theories of government, especially by his distinction of the different forms of government. Early Christianity had a rather negative attitude towards the state which found expression in St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei. The influence of this work, in which the earthly state was declared to be civitas diaboli, a state of the devil, was predominant throughout the Middle Ages. In the discussion of the relation between church and empire, the main topic of medieval political philosophy, certain authors foreshadowed modern political theories. Thomas Aquinas stressed the popular origin of royal power and the right of the people to restrict or abolish that power in case of abuse; William of Ockham and Marsiglio of Padua held similar views. Dante Alighieri was one of the first to recognize the intrinsic value of the state; he considered the world monarchy to be the only means whereby peace, justice and liberty could be secured. But it was not until the Renaissance that, due to the rediscovery of the individual and his rights and to the formation of territorial states, political philosophy began to play a major role. Niccolo Machiavelli and Jean Bodin laid the foundation for the new theories of the state by stressing its independence from any external power and its indivisible sovereignty. The theory of popular rights and of the right of resistance against tyranny was especially advocated by the "Monarchomachi" (Huguenots, such as Beza, Hotman, Languet, Danaeus, Catholics such as Boucher, Rossaeus, Mariana). Most of them used the theory of an original contract (see Social Contract) to justify limitations of monarchical power. Later, the idea of a Natural Law, independent from divine revelation (Hugo Grotius and his followers), served as an argument for liberal -- sometimes revolutionary -- tendencies. With the exception of Hobbes, who used the contract theory in his plea for absolutism, almost all the publicists of the 16th and 17th century built their liberal theories upon the idea of an original covenant by which individuals joined together and by mutual consent formed a state and placed a fiduciary trust in the supreme power (Roger Williams and John Locke). It was this contract which the Pilgrim Fathers translated into actual facts, after their arrival in America, in November, 1620, long before John Locke had developed his theorv. In the course of the 17th century in England the contract theory was generally substituted for the theory of the divine rights of kings. It was supported by the assumption of an original "State of Nature" in which all men enjoyed equal reciprocal rights. The most ardent defender of the social contract theory in the 18th century was J. J. Rousseau who deeply influenced the philosophy of the French revolution. In Rousseau's conception the idea of the sovereignty of the people took on a more democratic aspect than in 17th century English political philosophy which had been almost exclusively aristocratic in its spirit. This tendency found expression in his concept of the "general will" in the moulding of which each individual has his share. Immanuel Kant who made these concepts the basis of his political philosophy, recognized more clearly than Rousseau the fictitious character of the social contract and treated it as a "regulative idea", meant to serve as a criterion in the evaluation of any act of the state. For Hegel the state is an end in itself, the supreme realization of reason and morality. In marked opposition to this point of view, Marx and Engels, though strongly influenced by Hegel, visualized a society in which the state would gradually fade away. Most of the 19th century publicists, however, upheld the juristic theory of the state. To them the state was the only source of law and at the same time invested with absolute sovereignty: there are no limits to the legal omnipotence of the state except those which are self imposed. In opposition to this doctrine of unified state authority, a pluralistic theory of sovereignty has been advanced recently by certain authors, laying emphasis upon corporate personalities and professional groups (Duguit, Krabbe, Laski). Outspoken anti-stateism was advocated by anarchists such as Kropotkin, etc., by syndicalists and Guild socialists. -- W.E.
Por immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some'kind of penonal survival of the bodily death ; we are im- mortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds ; the spirit’s timeless existence is the true immortality.
positional representation "mathematics" The conventional way of writing numbers as a string of digits in which each digit, D, has value D * R^I, where R is the {radix} or (number) base and I is the digit's position counting leftward from zero at the least significant (right-hand) end. Each digit can be zero to R-1. Each position has a weight or significance R times greater than the position to its right and the right-most place has a weight of one. Decimal numbers are radix ten, {binary} numbers are radix two, {octal} radix eight and {hexadecimal} radix 16. Positional representation makes arithmetic operations on large numbers much easier than, say, {roman numerals}. It is fundamental to the binary representation used by {digital computers}. (2006-11-10)
Pragmatism: (Gr. pragma, things done) Owes its inception as a movement of philosophy to C. S. Peirce and William James, but approximations to it can be found in many earlier thinkers, including (according to Peirce and James) Socrates and Aristotle, Berkeley and Hume. Concerning a closer precursor, Shadworth Hodgson, James says that he "keeps insisting that realities are only what they are 'known as' ". Kant actually uses the word "pragmatic" to characterize "counsels of prudence" as distinct from "rules of skill" and "commands of morality" (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, p. 40). His principle of the primacy of practical reason is also an anticipation of pragmatism. It was reflection on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason which originally led Peirce to formulate the view that the muddles of metaphysics can be cleared up if one attends to the practical consequences of ideas. The pragmatic maxim was first stated by Peirce in 1878 (Popular Science Monthly) "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object". A clearer formulation by the same author reads: "In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception, and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception". This is often expressed briefly, viz.: The meaning of a proposition is its logical (or physical) consequences. The principle is not merely logical. It is also admonitory in Baconian style "Pragmatism is the principle that everv theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose onlv meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the impentive mood". (Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, 5.18.) Although Peirce's maxim has been an inspiration not only to later pragmatists, but to operationalists as well, Peirce felt that it might easily be misapplied, so as to eliminate important doctrines of science -- doctrines, presumably, which hive no ascertainable practical consequences.
Prakriti(Sanskrit) ::: A compound consisting of the prepositional prefix pra, meaning "forwards" or "progression,"and kriti, a noun-form from the verbal root kri, "to make" or "to do." Therefore prakriti means literally"production" or "bringing forth," "originating," and by an extension of meaning it also signifies theprimordial or original state or condition or form of anything: primary, original substance. The root orparent of prakriti is mula-prakriti or root of prakriti. Prakriti is to be considered with vikriti -- vikritisignifying change or an alteration of some kind, or a production or evolution from the prakriti whichprecedes it.As an illustration, the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen combine in the proportion H2O,producing thus a substance known in its most common form as water; but this same H2O can appear asice as well as vapor-gas; hence the vapor, the water, and the ice may be called the vikritis of the originalprakriti which is the originating hydrogen and oxygen. The illustration is perhaps not a very good one butis suggestive.In common usage prakriti may be called nature in general, as the great producer of entities or things, andthrough this nature acts the ever-active Brahma or Purusha. Purusha, therefore, is spirit, and prakriti is itsproductive veil or sheath. Essentially or fundamentally the two are one, and whatever prakriti throughand by the influence of Purusha produces is the multitudinous and multiform vikritis which make theimmense variety and diversity in the universe around us.In one or more of the Hindu philosophies, prakriti is the same as sakti, and therefore prakriti and sakti arevirtually interchangeable with maya or maha-maya or so-called illusion. Prakriti is often spoken of asmatter, but this is inexact although a very common usage; matter is rather the "productions" or phasesthat prakriti brings about, the vikritis. In the Indian Sankhya philosophy pradhana is virtually identicalwith prakriti, and both are often used to signify the producing element from and out of which all illusorymaterial manifestations or appearances are evolved.
premananda ::: the ananda of love, the form of subjective ananda that premananda manifests in the vital-emotional being (pran.a and citta); the "fundamental ecstasy of being" translated "in the heart into a wide or deep or passionate delight of universal union and love and sympathy and the joy of beings and the joy of things". prema n natha
prerogative ::: n. --> An exclusive or peculiar privilege; prior and indefeasible right; fundamental and essential possession; -- used generally of an official and hereditary right which may be asserted without question, and for the exercise of which there is no responsibility or accountability as to the fact and the manner of its exercise.
Precedence; preeminence; first rank.
presence ::: 1. The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence. 2. A divine, spiritual, or supernatural spirit or influence felt or conceived as present. 3. The immediate proximity of someone or something.
Sri Aurobindo: "It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, — the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” Essays Divine and Human
"But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master — a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within.” *The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
"If we need any personal and inner witness to this indivisible All-Consciousness behind the ignorance, — all Nature is its external proof, — we can get it with any completeness only in our deeper inner being or larger and higher spiritual state when we draw back behind the veil of our own surface ignorance and come into contact with the divine Idea and Will behind it. Then we see clearly enough that what we have done by ourselves in our ignorance was yet overseen and guided in its result by the invisible Omniscience; we discover a greater working behind our ignorant working and begin to glimpse its purpose in us: then only can we see and know what now we worship in faith, recognise wholly the pure and universal Presence, meet the Lord of all being and all Nature.” *The Life Divine
"The presence of the Spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being.” *The Life Divine
"There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one"s own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.” *Letters on Yoga
"For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” *Essays Divine and Human
The Mother: "For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart — not in the physical heart but the psychic centre — of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.” Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
Presence ::: It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one’s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any farther qualification or description. Thus of the "ineffable Presence"20 it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance,—the essential perception of the essential presence supporting everything else.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 106
presence ::: “It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one›s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence’ it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance,—the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” Letters on Yoga
primary ::: a. --> First in order of time or development or in intention; primitive; fundamental; original.
First in order, as being preparatory to something higher; as, primary assemblies; primary schools.
First in dignity or importance; chief; principal; as, primary planets; a matter of primary importance.
Earliest formed; fundamental.
Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some
principia ::: n. pl. --> First principles; fundamental beginnings; elements; as. Newton&
Principle: A fundamental cause or universal truth; that which is inherent in anything. That which ultimately accounts for being. According to occult philosophy, fundamental aspects of the Universal Reality, which are the primary source of all being, actuality and knowledge.
Principle: (Lat. principe, from principium, a beginning) A fundamental cause or universal truth, that which is inherent in anything. That which ultimately accounts for being. According to Aristotle, the primary source of all being, actuality and knowledge. (a) In ontology: first principles are the categories or postulates of ontology. (b) In epistemology: as the essence of being, the ground of all knowledge. Syn. with essence, universal, cause. -- J.K.F.
principle ::: n. --> Beginning; commencement.
A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
An original faculty or endowment.
A fundamental truth; a comprehensive law or doctrine, from which others are derived, or on which others are founded; a general truth; an elementary proposition; a maxim; an axiom; a
Propositional calculus: See Logic, formal, § 1. Propositional calculus, many-valued: The truth-table method for the classical (two-valued) propositional calculus is explained in the article logic, formal, § 1. It depends on assigning truth-tables to the fundamental connectives, with the result that every formula -- of the pure propositional calculus, to which we here restrict ourselves for the sake of simplicity -- has one of the two truth-values for each possible assignment of truth-values to the variables appearing. A formula is called a tautology if it has the truth-value truth for every possible assignment of truth-values to the variables; and the calculus is so constructed that a formula is a theorem if and only if it is a tautology.
proton ::: a positively charged elementary particle that is a fundamental constituent of all atomic nuclei.
Psychic feelins • There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all, but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another.
Psychic love and spiriitial ::: The true love for the Divine is in its fundamental nature psychic and spiritual. The psychic element is the need of the inmost being for self-giving, love, adoration, union which can only be fully satisfied by the Divine
Psychic yvorld ; The psychic being stands behind mind, life and body, supporting them ; so also the psychic world is not one world in the scale like the mental, vital or physical worlds, but stands behind all these and it is there that the souls evolving here retire for the time between life and life. It is a plane where it (evolutionary being) retires into itself for rest, for a spiritual assimilation of what it has experienced and for a replunging into its own fundamental consciousness and psychic nature.
Races ::: During evolution on our earth (and on the other six manifest globes of the planetary chain of earthcorrespondentially), mankind as a life-wave passes through seven evolutionary stages called root-races.Seven such root-races form the evolutionary cycle on this globe earth in this fourth round through theplanetary chain; and this evolutionary cycle through our globe earth is called one globe round. We are atthe present time in the fourth subrace of our present fifth root-race, on globe D or our earth.Each root-race is divided in our teachings into seven minor races, and each one of these seven minorraces is again in its turn subdivided into seven branchlet or still smaller racial units, etc.The student who is interested in the matter of tracing the evolutionary arrangement or history of theseven root-races on our globe earth is referred primarily to H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, andsecondarily to Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.Each one of the seven root-races reaches its maximum of material efflorescence and power at about itsmiddle point. When half of the cycle of any one of the seven root-races is run, then the racial cataclysmensues, for such is the way in which nature operates; and at this middle racial point, at the middle pointof the fourth subrace of the mother-race or root-race, a new root-race begins or is born out of thepreceding root-race, and pursues its evolution from birth towards maturity, side by side with, or rather inconnection with, the latter half of the preceding mother-race or root-race. It is in this fashion that theroot-races overlap each other, a most interesting fact in ethnological or racial history. This overlappinglikewise takes place in the cases of the minor and branchlet races.It will be between sixteen thousand and twenty thousand years more before the racial cataclysm willensue which will cut our own fifth root-race in two -- exactly as the same racial cataclysmic occurrencehappened to the fourth-race Atlanteans who preceded us, and to the third-race Lemurians who precededthem; and as it will happen to the two root-races which will follow ours, the sixth and seventh -- for weare now approaching the middle point of our own fifth root-race, because we are nearing the middle pointof the fourth subrace of this fifth root-race. (See also Globe, Planetary Chain, Round)
radical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the root; proceeding directly from the root.
Hence: Of or pertaining to the root or origin; reaching to the center, to the foundation, to the ultimate sources, to the principles, or the like; original; fundamental; thorough-going; unsparing; extreme; as, radical evils; radical reform; a radical party.
Belonging to, or proceeding from, the root of a plant; as, radical tubers or hairs.
radically ::: adv. --> In a radical manner; at, or from, the origin or root; fundamentally; as, a scheme or system radically wrong or defective.
Without derivation; primitively; essentially.
Radio Frequency Interference "hardware, testing" (RFI) Electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by electrical circuits carrying rapidly changing signals, as a by-product of their normal operation, and which causes unwanted signals (interference or noise) to be induced in other circuits. The most important means of reducing RFI are: use of bypass or "decoupling" {capacitors} on each active device (connected across the power supply, as close to the device as possible), risetime control of high speed signals using series resistors and {VCC filtering}. Shielding is usually a last resort after other techniques have failed because of the added expense of RF gaskets and the like. The efficiency of the radiation is dependent on the height above the ground or power plane (at RF one is as good as the other) and the length of the conductor in relationship to the wavelength of the signal component (fundamental, harmonic or transient (overshoot, undershoot or ringing)). At lower frequencies, such as 133 MHz, radiation is almost exclusively via I/O cables; RF noise gets onto the power planes and is coupled to the line drivers via the VCC and ground pins. The Rf is then coupled to the cable through the line driver as common node noise. Since the noise is common mode, shielding has very little effect, even with differential pairs. The RF energy is capacitively coupled from the signal pair to the shield and the shield itself does the radiating. At higher frequencies, usually above 500 Mhz, traces get electrically longer and higher above the plane. Two techniques are used at these frequencies: wave shaping with series resistors and embedding the traces between the two planes. If all these measures still leave too much RFI, sheilding such as RF gaskets and copper tape can be used. Most digital equipment is designed with metal, or coated plastic, cases. Switching power supplies can be a source of RFI, but have become less of a problem as design techniques have improved. Most countries have legal requirements that electronic and electrical hardware must still work correctly when subjected to certain amounts of RFI, and should not emit RFI which could interfere with other equipment (such as radios). See also {Electrostatic Discharge}, {Electromagnetic Compatibility}. (1998-01-26)
radix ::: n. --> A primitive word, from which spring other words; a radical; a root; an etymon.
A number or quantity which is arbitrarily made the fundamental number of any system; a base. Thus, 10 is the radix, or base, of the common system of logarithms, and also of the decimal system of numeration.
A finite expression, from which a series is derived.
The root of a plant.
Realisation ::: Realisations are the reception in the consciousness and the establishment there of the fundamental truths of the Divine, of the Higher or Divine Nature, of the world-consciousness and the play of its forces, of one's own self and real nature and the inner nature of things, the power of these things growing in one till they are a part of one's inner life and existence, as for instance, the realisation of the Divine Presence, the descent and settling of the higher Peace, Light, Force, Ananda in the consciousness, their workings there, the realisation of the divine or spiritual love, the perception of one's own psychic being, the discovery of one's own true mental being, true vital being, true physical being, the realisation of the overmind or the supramental consciousness, the clear perception of the relation of all these things to our present inferior nature and their action on it to change that lower nature. The list, of course, might be infinitely longer. These things also are often called experiences when they only come in flashes, snatches or rare visitations; they are spoken of as full realisations only when they become very positive or frequent or continuous or normal.
Ref: SABCL Vol. 22-23-24, Page: 884-85 Settled experience.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 120
realisation ::: the reception in the consciousness and the establishment there of the fundamental truths of the Divine; the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine.
Rebirth ::: In former times the doctrine used to pass in Europe under the grotesque name of transmigration which brought with it to theWestern mind the humorous image of the soul of Pythagoras migrating, a haphazard bird of passage, from the human form divine into the body of a guinea-pig or an ass. The philosophical appreciation of the theory expressed itself in the admirable but rather unmanageable Greek word, metempsychosis, which means the insouling of a new body by the same psychic individual. The Greek tongue is always happy in its marriage of thought and word and a better expression could not be found; but forced into English speech the word becomes merely long and pedantic without any memory of its subtle Greek sense and has to be abandoned. Reincarnation is the now popular term, but the idea in the word leans to the gross or external view of the fact and begs many questions. I
refer "rebirth", for it renders the sense of the wide, colourless, but sufficient Sanskrit term, punarjanma, "again-birth", and commits us to nothing but the fundamental idea which is the essence and life of the doctrine.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 13, Page: 259
regulative ::: a. --> Tending to regulate; regulating.
Necessarily assumed by the mind as fundamental to all other knowledge; furnishing fundamental principles; as, the regulative principles, or principles a priori; the regulative faculty.
Reincarnation ::: Reincarnation is the now popular term, but the idea in the word leans to the gross or external view of the fact and begs many questions. I
refer "rebirth", for it renders the sense of the wide, colourless, but sufficient Sanskrit term, punarjanma, "again-birth", and commits us to nothing but the fundamental idea which is the essence and life of the doctrine.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 13, Page: 259
Relativity ::: The modern scientific doctrine of relativity, despite its restrictions and mathematical limitations, isextremely suggestive because it introduces metaphysics into physics, does away with purely speculativeideas that certain things are absolute in a purely relative universe, and brings us back to an examinationof nature as nature is and not as mathematical theorists have hitherto tacitly taken it to be. The doctrine ofrelativity in its essential idea of relations rather than absolutes is true; but this does not mean that wenecessarily accept Einstein's or his followers' deductions. These latter may or may not be true, and timewill show. In any case, relativity is not what it is often misunderstood to be -- the naked doctrine that"everything is relative," which would mean that there is nothing fundamental or basic or real anywhere,whence other things flow forth; in other words, that there is no positively real or fundamental divine andspiritual background of being. The relativity theory is an adumbration, a reaching out for, a groping after,a very, very old theosophical doctrine -- the doctrine of maya.The manner in which theosophy teaches the conception of relativity is that while the universe is a relativeuniverse and all its parts are therefore relative -- each to each, and each to all, and all to each -- yet thereis a deathless reality behind, which forms the substratum or the truth of things, out of which thephenomenal in all its myriad relative manifestations flows. And there is a way, a road, a path, by whichmen may reach this reality behind, because it is in man as his inmost essence and therefore primal origin.In each one is fundamentally this reality of which we are all in search. Each one is the path that leads toit, for it is the heart of the universe.In a sense still more metaphysical, even the heart of a universe may be said to exist relatively inconnection with other universes with their hearts. It would be quite erroneous to suppose that there is oneAbsolute Reality in the old-fashioned European sense, and that all relative manifestations flow forth fromit, and that these relative manifestations although derived from this Absolute Reality are without links ofunion or origin with an Absolute even still more essential and fundamental and vaster. Once theconception of boundless infinitude is grasped, the percipient intelligence immediately realizes that it issimply hopeless, indeed impossible, to postulate ends, absolute Absolutes, as the divine ultima thule. Nomatter how vast and kosmic an Absolute may be, there are in sheer frontierless infinitude alwaysinnumerable other Absolutes equal to or greater than it.
Reliability, Availability, Serviceability "systems, design, hardware, software" (RAS) Three key attributes of a computing system design. See {reliability}, {availability}, and {serviceability}. The term "RAS" is fairly common in the computing industry (particularly computers and storage) as computing becomes more fundamental. For example, a vehicle may depend on dozens of computers, and the consequences of the failure can be significant (e.g., an ambulance's engine won't start). (2000-08-13)
Religion ::: An operation of the human spiritual mind in its endeavor to understand not only the how and the why ofthings, but comprising in addition a yearning and striving towards self-conscious union with the divineAll and an endlessly growing self-conscious identification with the cosmic divine-spiritual realities. Onephase of a triform method of understanding the nature of nature, of universal nature, and its multiformand multifold workings; and this phase cannot be separated from the other two phases (science andphilosophy) if we wish to gain a true picture of things as they are in themselves.Human religion is the expression of that aspect of man's consciousness which is intuitional, aspirational,and mystical, and which is often deformed and distorted in its lower forms by the emotional in man.It is usual among modern Europeans to derive the word religion from the Latin verb meaning "to bindback" -- religare. But there is another derivation, which is the one that Cicero chooses, and of course hewas a Roman himself and had great skill and deep knowledge in the use of his own native tongue. Thisother derivation comes from a Latin root meaning "to select," "to choose," from which, likewise, we havethe word lex, "law," i.e., the course of conduct or rule of action which is chosen as the best, and istherefore followed; in other words, that which is the best of its kind, as ascertained by selection, by trial,and by proof.Thus then, the meaning of the word religion from the Latin religio, means a careful selection offundamental beliefs and motives by the higher or spiritual intellect, a faculty of intuitional judgment andunderstanding, and a consequent abiding by that selection, resulting in a course of life and conduct in allrespects following the convictions that have been arrived at. This is the religious spirit.To this the theosophist would add the following very important idea: behind all the various religions andphilosophies of ancient times there is a secret or esoteric wisdom given out by the greatest men who haveever lived, the founders and builders of the various world religions and world philosophies; and thissublime system in fundamentals has been the same everywhere over the face of the globe.This system has passed under various names, e.g., the esoteric philosophy, the ancient wisdom, the secretdoctrine, the traditional teaching, theosophy, etc. (See also Science, Philosophy)
RESISTANCE. ::: When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt — which may create mental and vital su/Tering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature ivhose principal characer is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffer- ing of the mind and vital parts. The pbj-sical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incom- prehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it docs not want to do so ; both lital and physical suffer- ing may be the consequence. There is, moreover, the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence in the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to (he
Richard Hamming "person" Professor Richard Wesley Hamming (1915-02-11 - 1998-01-07). An American mathematician known for his work in {information theory} (notably {error detection and correction}), having invented the concepts of {Hamming code}, {Hamming distance}, and {Hamming window}. Richard Hamming received his B.S. from the University of Chicago in 1937, his M.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1939, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1942. In 1945 Hamming joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. In 1946, after World War II, Hamming joined the {Bell Telephone Laboratories} where he worked with both {Shannon} and {John Tukey}. He worked there until 1976 when he accepted a chair of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. Hamming's fundamental paper on error-detecting and error-correcting codes ("{Hamming codes}") appeared in 1950. His work on the {IBM 650} leading to the development in 1956 of the {L2} programming language. This never displaced the workhorse language {L1} devised by Michael V Wolontis. By 1958 the 650 had been elbowed aside by the 704. Although best known for error-correcting codes, Hamming was primarily a numerical analyst, working on integrating {differential equations} and the {Hamming spectral window} used for smoothing data before {Fourier analysis}. He wrote textbooks, propounded aphorisms ("the purpose of computing is insight, not numbers"), and was a founder of the {ACM} and a proponent of {open-shop} computing ("better to solve the right problem the wrong way than the wrong problem the right way."). In 1968 he was made a fellow of the {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers} and awarded the {Turing Prize} from the {Association for Computing Machinery}. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded Hamming the Emanuel R Piore Award in 1979 and a medal in 1988. {(http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hamming.html)}. {(http://zapata.seas.smu.edu/~gorsak/hamming.html)}. {(http://webtechniques.com/archives/1998/03/homepage/)}. [Richard Hamming. Coding and Information Theory. Prentice-Hall, 1980. ISBN 0-13-139139-9]. (2003-06-07)
Romanticism: As a general philosophical movement, romanticism is best understood as the initial phase of German Idealism, serving as a transition from Kant to Hegel, and flourishing chiefly between 1775 and 1815. It is associated primarily with the Schlegel brothers, Novalis, Fried, Schelling, and Schleiermacher, with Schelhng as its culmination and most typical figure. The philosophical point of departure for romanticism is the Kantian philosophy, and romanticism shares with all German Idealism both the fundamental purpose of extending knowledge to the realm of noumena, and the fundamental doctrine that all reality is ultimately spiritual, derivative from a living spirit and so knowable by the human spirit. The essence of philosophical romanticism as expressed by Schelhng, that which differentiates it from other types of Idealism, resides in its conception of Spirit; upon this depend its metaphysical account of nature and man, and its epistemological doctrine of the proper method for investigating and understanding reality. Romanticism holds that Spirit, or the Absolute, is essentially creative; the ultimate ground of all things is primarily an urge to self-expression, and all that it has brought into being is but a means to its fuller self-realization. If the Absolute of Fichte is a moralist, and that of Hegel a logician, then that of the romanticists is primarily an artist. From this basic view there springs a metaphysic that interprets the universe in terms of the concepts of evolution, process, life, and consciousness. The world of nature is one manifestation of Spirit, man is another and a higher such manifestation, for in man Spirit seeks to become conscious of its own work. The metaphysical process is the process by which the Absolute seeks to realize itself, and all particular things are but phases within it. Hence, the epistemology of romanticism is exclusively emotional and intuitive, stressing the necessity for fullness of experience and depth of feeling if reality is to be understood. Reason, being artificial and analytical, is inadequate to the task of comprehending the Absolute; knowing is living, and the philosopher must approach nature through inspiration, longing, and sympathy.
Saadia, ben Joseph: (Arabic Sa'id Al-Fayyumi) (892-942) Born and educated in Egypt, he left his native country in 915 and settled in Babylonia where he was appointed in 928 Gaon of the Academy of Sura. He translated the Bible into Arabic and wrote numerous works, both in Hebrew and Arabic, in the fields of philology, exegesis, Talmudics, polemics, Jewish history, and philosophy. His chief philosophical work is the Kitab Al-Amanat wa'l-Itikadat, better known by its Hebrew title, Emunot we-Deott, i.e., Doctrines and Religious Beliefs. Its purpose is to prove the compatibility of the principles of Judaism with reason and to interpret them in such a way that their rationality be evident The first nine sections establish philosophically the ten fundamental articles of faith, and the tenth deals with ethics. Philosophically, Saadia was influenced by the teachings of the Mutazilia. See Jewish Philosophy. -- Q.V.
Sakti(Sanskrit) ::: A term which may be briefly defined to mean one of what in modern Occultism are called theseven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh unmanifest, or only partly manifest.Sakti in general may be described as universal energy, and is, as it were, the feminine aspect of fohat. Inpopular Hinduism the various saktis are the wives or consorts of the gods, in other words, the energies oractive powers of the deities represented as feminine influences or energies.These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The saktis of nature are reallythe veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. Assubstance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, as modern science in its researches hasbegun to discover, it becomes apparent that even these saktis or sheaths or veils are themselves energic tolower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized sakti of universal nature in so far as our solar system is concerned.
SAMSKARA. ::: Fundamental tendencies; habitual impul- sions ; old associations.
Sanctis, Francesco: Born at Morra Irpina (Avellino), March 28, 1817. Died at Naples, December 19, 1883. Imprisoned and exiled because liberal, 1848. Professor in Zurich and later in Naples. Minister of Public Education. His History of Italian Literature (1870) is still considered fundamental.
sapta vanih ::: the seven Words or fundamental expressions of the divine Mind. [Ved.]
sat ::: being, existence; substance; "pure existence, eternal, infinite, indefinable, not affected by the succession of Time, not involved in the extension of Space, beyond form, quantity, quality", the first term of saccidananda and the principle that is the basis of satyaloka;"the spiritual substance of being" which is cast "into all manner of forms and movements"; existence as "the stuff of its own becoming", which on every plane is "shaped into the substance with which Force has to deal" and "has formed itself here, fundamentally, as Matter; it has been objectivised, made sensible and concrete to its own .. self-experiencing conscious-force in the form of self-dividing material substance" (anna1); short for sat brahman.
sat brahman (sat brahman; sat-brahman) ::: brahman as universal Being, same as sarvaṁ brahma; "Existence pure, indefinable, infinite, absolute, . . . the fundamental Reality which Vedantic experience discovers behind all the movement and formation which constitute the apparent reality".
Sat(Sanskrit) ::: A word meaning the real, the enduring fundamental essence of the world. In the ancientBrahmanical teachings the terms sat, chit, ananda, were used to signify the state of what one may call theAbsolute: sat meaning "pure being"; chit, "pure thought"; ananda, "bliss," and these three words werecompounded as sachchidananda. (See also Asat)
Sat: (Skr.) Being, a metaphysical concept akin to Eleatic thinking, which a school of thinkers regards as fundamental, as in Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.1 "In the beginning . . . this world was just being, one only, without a second." It refutes the theory of non-being. (See asat). -- K.F.L.
SATTVA. ::: Prindple of assimilation, equilibrium and har- mony ; force of equilibrium, translates in quality as good and harmony and happiness and Kghf ; the quality that illumines ; one of the three gunas, fundamental qualities or modes of nature.
Sattva(Sanskrit) ::: One of the trigunas or "three qualities," the other two being rajas and tamas. Sattva is thequality of truth, goodness, reality, purity. These three gunas or qualities run all through the web or fabricof nature like threads inextricably mingled, for, indeed, each of these three qualities participates likewiseof the nature of the other two, yet each one possessing its predominant (which is its own svabhava) orintrinsic characteristic. One who desires to gain some genuine understanding of the manner in which thearchaic wisdom looks upon these three phases of human intellectual and spiritual activity must rememberthat not one of these three can be considered apart from the other two. The three are fundamentally threeoperations of the human consciousness, and essentially are that consciousness itself.
Science admits the existence of vast stores of latent energy in the atoms; and considering everything as a question of physical dynamics, it infers that an equivalent quantity of physical energy must have been expended in creating the atom. Energy or life is a fundamental attribute and function of the universe, which has its manifestations on all seven or ten planes of prakriti, appearing as centers of energy which radiate outwards from within. Also used to denote the female potency or sakti (SD 1:l36); aether too is mentioned as the quintessence of energy. Energy expended on the astral plane is far more productive of results than the same amount expended on the physical plane, according to occult dynamics.
Scottish philosophy: Name applied to the current of thought originated by the Scottish thinker, Thomas Reid (1710-1796), and disseminated by his followers as a reaction against the idealism of Berkeley and empiricism and skepticism of Hume. Its most salient characteristic is the doctrine of common sense, a natural instinct by virtue of which men are prompted to accept certain fundamental principles as postulates without giving a reason for their truth. Reason is subordinated to the role of a servant or able assistant of common sense. Philosophy must be grounded on common sense, and skepticism is a consequence of abandoning its guidance. -- J.J.R.
Self is the fundamental aspect of the Brahman with a certain stress on its impersonality. We arc conscious of Self as eternal, unborn, unembodied, uninvolved in its workings. It is omni- present, same in everything, intimate, pure and intangible. The
Sign-Language: A system of signs established either traditionally (primitive tribes) or technically (deaf-mutes) for the purpose of communicating concepts or sentences, rather than letters or sounds or words as in signalling The question of the priority of vocal and gesture speech is much debated, but there is no doubt that primitive peoples used signs for communicating intentions and expressing their needs, especially when dealing with tribes with a different tongue. This is almost a psychological reflex, as it may be noted in the elementary improvised mimic of travellers among people they do not understand, and also in the vivid gestures accompanying the utterances of even civilized people like those of the Mediternnean shores. Sign-languages have a psychological, sociological and ethnological importance, as they may reveal the fundamental trains of thought, the sociological status, the race peculiarities, the geographical segregation, and even the beliefs and rituals of those who use them. Their study would also give material for various syntactical, semantical and logical problems.
SIMULA I "language" SIMUlation LAnguage. An extension to {ALGOL 60} for the {Univac 1107} designed in 1962 by Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl and implemented in 1964. SIMULA I was designed for {discrete simulation}. It introduced the {record} {class}, leading the way to {data abstraction} and {object-oriented programming} languages like {Smalltalk}. It also featured {coroutines}. SIMULA's philosophy was the result of addressing the problems of describing complex systems for the purpose of simulating them. This philosophy proved to be applicable for describing complex systems generally (not just for simulation) and so SIMULA is a general-purpose object-oriented application programming language which also has very good discrete event simulation capability. Virtually all OOP products are derived in some manner from SIMULA. For a description of the evolution of SIMULA and therefore the fundamental concepts of OOP, see Dahl and Nygaard in ["History of Programming Languages". Ed. R. W. Wexelblat. Addison-Wesley, 1981]. (1995-03-29)
Since the Consciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in that world. Equally, for each individual being, his seeing or representation to himself of the world he lives in will depend on the poise or make which that Consciousness has assumed in him. Our human mental consciousness sees the world in sections cut by the reason and sense and put together in a formation which is also sectional; the house it builds is planned to accommodate one or another generalised formulation of Truth, but excludes the rest or admits some only as guests or dependents in the house. Overmind Consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision. Thus the mental reason sees Person and the Impersonal as opposites: it conceives an impersonal Existence in which person and personality are fictions of the Ignorance or temporary constructions; or, on the contrary, it can see Person as the primary reality and the impersonal as a mental abstraction or only stuff or means of manifestation. To the Overmind intelligence these are separable Powers of the one Existence which can pursue their independent self-affirmation and can also unite together their different modes of action, creating both in their independence and in their union different states of consciousness and being which can be all of them valid and all capable of coexistence. A purely impersonal existence and consciousness is true and possible, but also an entirely personal consciousness and existence; the Impersonal Divine, Nirguna Brahman, and the Personal Divine, Saguna Brahman, are here equal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal. Impersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a mode of expression; but, equally, Person can be the reality with impersonality as a mode of its nature: both aspects of manifestation face each other in the infinite variety of conscious Existence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are to the Overmind intelligence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the universal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world is a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or again it sees the world and all things as born of, existing by and going back to the Real-Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an idealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of these ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each way excludes the others. Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual world-formula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers. The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit, each of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its self-expression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation. In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence, each affirming its separate reality but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a complex universe. …
Singular proposition: See logic, formal, §§4, 5. Skepticism: Sec Scepticism. Skolem paradox: See Löwenheim's theorem. Smith, Adam: (1723-1790) Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Glasgow. He is best known for his The Wealth of Nations, but he is not to be forgotten for his contributions to the study of ethics, expressed principally in his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." He finds sympathy as the fundamental fact of the moral consciousness and he makes of sympathy the test of morality, the sympathy of the impartial and well informed spectator. -- L.E.D.
Smalltalk "language" The pioneering {object-oriented programming} system developed in 1972 by the Software Concepts Group, led by {Alan Kay}, at {Xerox PARC} between 1971 and 1983. It includes a language, a programming environment, and an extensive object library. Smalltalk took the concepts of {class} and {message} from {Simula-67} and made them all-pervasive. Innovations included the {bitmap display}, windowing system, and use of a {mouse}. The {syntax} is very simple. The fundamental construction is to send a message to an {object}: object message or with extra parameters object message: param1 secondArg: param2 .. nthArg: paramN where "secondArg:" etc. are considered to be part of the message name. Five pseudo-variables are defined: "self", "super", "nil", "true", "false". "self" is the receiver of the current message. "super" is used to delegate processing of a message to the {superclass} of the receiver. "nil" is a reference to "nothing" (an instance of UndefinedObject). All variables initially contain a reference to nil. "true" and "false" are {Booleans}. In Smalltalk, any message can be sent to any object. The recipient object itself decides (based on the message name, also called the "message selector") how to respond to the message. Because of that, the {multiple inheritance} system included in the early versions of Smalltalk-80 appeared to be unused in practice. All modern implementations have single inheritance, so each class can have at most one superclass. Early implementations were {interpreted} but all modern ones use {dynamic translation} (JIT). Early versions were Smalltalk-72, Smalltalk-74, Smalltalk-76 (inheritance taken from Simula, and concurrency), and Smalltalk-78, {Smalltalk-80}. Other versions include {Little Smalltalk}, {Smalltalk/V}, {Kamin's interpreters}. Current versions are {VisualWorks}, {Squeak}, {VisualAge}, {Dolphin Smalltalk}, {Object Studio}, {GNU Smalltalk}. See also: {International Smalltalk Association}. {UIUC Smalltalk archive (http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/)}. {FAQ (http://XCF.Berkeley.EDU/pub/misc/smalltalk/FAQ/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.smalltalk}. ["The Smalltalk-76 Programming System Design and Implementation", D.H. Ingalls, 5th POPL, ACM 1978, pp. 9-16]. (2001-09-11)
smoke test 1. A rudimentary form of testing applied to electronic equipment following repair or reconfiguration, in which power is applied and the tester checks for sparks, smoke, or other dramatic signs of fundamental failure. See {magic smoke}. 2. By extension, the first run of a piece of software after construction or a critical change. See and compare {reality check}. There is an interesting semi-parallel to this term among typographers and printers: When new typefaces are being punch-cut by hand, a "smoke test" (hold the letter in candle smoke, then press it onto paper) is used to check out new dies. [{Jargon File}]
Socialism, Marxian: Early in their work, Marx and Engels called themselves communists (e.g., the "Communist Manifesto"). Later they found it more accurate, in view of the terminology of the day, to refer to themselves as socialists. During the war of 1914- '18, when socialists split into two camps, one supporting and the other opposing participation in the war, Lenin proposed for the latter group, which became the Third International, a return to the name communist, so far as a party designation was concerned, which proposal was adopted. Those who remained connected with the Second International retained the name socialist as a party designation. This split not only involved the problem of the war, but crystallized other fundamental divergences. For example, among "socialists", there was a widespread belief in gradualism -- the doctrine that the socialist society could be attained by piecemeal reform within the capitalist svstem and that no sudden change or contest of force need be anticipated. These beliefs were rejected by the "communists".
software patent "legal" A patent intended to prevent others from using some programming technique. There have been several infamous patents for software techniques which most experienced programmers would consider fundamental or trivial, such as the idea of using {exclusive-or} to plot a cursor on a {bitmap display}. The spread of software patents could stifle innovation and make programming much harder because programmers would have to worry about patents when designing or choosing {algorithms}. There are over ten thousand software patents in the US, and several thousand more are issued each year. Each one may be owned by, or could be bought by, a grasping company whose lawyers carefully plan to attack people at their most vulnerable moments. Of course, they couch the threat as a "reasonable offer" to save you miserable years in court. "Divide and conquer" is the watchword: pursue one group at a time, while advising the rest of us to relax because we are in no danger today. Compuserve developed the {GIF} format for graphical images many years ago, not knowing about {Unisys}'s 1985 patent covering the {LZW} data compression {algorithm} used in GIF. GIF was subsequently adopted widely on the {Internet}. In 1994 Unisys threatened to sue Compuserve, forcing them to impose a sublicensing agreement for GIF on their users. Compuserve users can accept this agreement now, or face Unisys later on their own. The rest of us don't have a choice -- we get to face Unisys when they decide it's our turn. So much trouble from just one software patent. Patents in the UK can't describe {algorithms} or mathematical methods. See also {LPF}, {software law}. {patent search (http://sunsite.unc.edu/patents/intropat.html)}. (1995-01-06)
Space ::: Our universe, as popularly supposed, consists of space and matter and energy; but in theosophy we saythat space itself is both conscious and substantial. It is in fact the root of the other two, matter andenergy, which are fundamentally one thing, and this one fundamental thing is SPACE -- their essentialand also their instrumental cause as well as their substantial cause -- and this is the reality of being, theheart of things.Our teaching is that there are many universes, not merely one, our own home-universe; therefore arethere many spaces with a background of a perfectly incomprehensible greater SPACE inclosing all -- aspace which is still more ethereal, tenuous, spiritual, yes, divine, than the space-matter that we know orrather conceive of, which in its lowest aspect manifests the grossness of physical matter of commonhuman knowledge. Space, therefore, considered in the abstract, is BEING, filled full, so to say, withother entities and things, of which we see a small part -- globes innumerable, stars and planets, nebulaeand comets.But all these material bodies are but effectual products or results of the infinitudes of the invisible andinner causal realms -- by far the larger part of the spaces of Space. The space therefore of any oneuniverse is an entity -- a god. Fundamentally and essentially it is a spiritual entity, a divine entity indeed,of which we see naught but what we humans call the material and energic aspect -- behind which is thecausal life, the causal intelligence.The word is likewise frequently used in theosophical philosophy to signify the frontierless infinitudes ofthe Boundless; and because it is the very esse of life-consciousness-substance, it is incomparably morethan the mere "container" that it is so often supposed to be by Occidental philosophers. (See alsoUniverse; Milky Way)
SPARKS "language" Fortran superset, used in Fundamentals of Data Structures, E. Horowitz & S. Sahni, Computer Science Press 1976. (2007-03-21)
Specifically, naturalism usually refers to the doctrines and practices of the 19th century school of realism which arose as the literary analogue of positivism, and whose great masters were Flaubert, Zola, and de Maupassant. The fundamental dogma of the movement, as expressed by Zola in "Le Roman experimental" and "Les Romanciers naturalistes", states that naturalism is "the scientific mdhod applied to literature". Zola maintains that the task of the artist is to report and explain what happens in nature, art must aim at a literal transcript of reality, and the artist attains this by making an analytic study of character, motives, and behavior. Naturalism argues that all judgments of good and bad are conventional, with no real basis in nature, so art should seek to understand, not to approve or condemn. Human behavior is regarded as largely a function of environment and circumstances, and the novelist should exhibit these in detail, with no false idealizing of character, no glossing over of the ugly, and no appeal to supposed hidden forces. -- I.J.
Spiritual evolution ::: It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the menial being realised in the fully deve- loped man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the mental, into the supramental consciousness and the supramental being, the Truth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an ignorance seeking for knowledge ; it is only the supramental Truth-Cons- ciousness that can bring us the true and whole Self-Knowledge and world-KnowIedge ; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and fulfilment of our spiritual evolution.
Sri Aurobindo: "All philosophy is concerned with the relations between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience.” *The Hour of God
Sri Aurobindo: "By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit"s delight of existence, Ananda.” *Letters on Savitri
Sri Aurobindo: "Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence — it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it — not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for a vacant Absolute is no Absolute, — our conception of a Void or Zero is only a conceptual sign of our mental inability to know or grasp it: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world"s existence.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operations of the self-manifestation of the being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no necessity in the essential nature of mind, sense, life that they should be so limited: for the physical sense-organs are not the creators of sense-perceptions, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic sense; the nervous system and vital organs are not the creators of life"s action and reaction, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Life-force; the brain is not the creator of thought, but itself the creation, the instrument and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Mind. The necessity then is not absolute, but teleological; it is the result of a divine cosmic Will in the material universe which intends to posit here a physical relation between sense and its object, establishes here a material formula and law of Conscious-Force and creates by it physical images of Conscious-Being to serve as the initial, dominating and determining fact of the world in which we live. It is not a fundamental law of being, but a constructive principle necessitated by the intention of the Spirit to evolve in a world of Matter.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: “There is no necessity in the essential nature of mind, sense, life that they should be so limited: for the physical sense-organs are not the creators of sense-perceptions, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic sense; the nervous system and vital organs are not the creators of life’s action and reaction, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Life-force; the brain is not the creator of thought, but itself the creation, the instrument and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Mind. The necessity then is not absolute, but teleological; it is the result of a divine cosmic Will in the material universe which intends to posit here a physical relation between sense and its object, establishes here a material formula and law of Conscious-Force and creates by it physical images of Conscious-Being to serve as the initial, dominating and determining fact of the world in which we live. It is not a fundamental law of being, but a constructive principle necessitated by the intention of the Spirit to evolve in a world of Matter.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be an unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is therefore called Vidya, the Knowledge.” *The Upanishads
Ssu te: The Four Virtues Being attentive to the fundamentals, penetrative, beneficial, and unflinching --the virtues of the trigram ch'ien (Heaven, male, yang) and therefore ethical ideals of the superior man. Filial piety, respect for elders, loyalty to superiors (chung), and good faith in social relationship (hsin). Lady-like conduct, speech, skill, and appearance. Also called ssu hsing.
standpoint ::: n. --> A fixed point or station; a basis or fundamental principle; a position from which objects or principles are viewed, and according to which they are compared and judged.
::: "Still the One is the fundamental Truth of existence, the Many exist by the One and there is therefore an entire dependence of the manifested being on the Ishwara.” *The Life Divine
“Still the One is the fundamental Truth of existence, the Many exist by the One and there is therefore an entire dependence of the manifested being on the Ishwara.” The Life Divine
St. Thomas was a teacher and a writer for some twenty years (1254-1273). Among his works are: Scriptum in IV Libros Sententiarum (1254-1256), Summa Contra Gentiles (c. 1260), Summa Theologica (1265-1272); commentaries on Boethius. (De Trinitate, c. 1257-1258), on Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (De Divinis Nominibus, c. 1261), on the anonymous and important Liber de Causis (1268), and especially on Aristotle's works (1261-1272), Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, On the Soul, Posterior Analytics, On Interpretation, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption; Quaestiones Disputatae, which includes questions on such large subjects as De Veritate (1256-1259); De Potentia (1259-1263); De Malo (1263-1268); De Spiritualibus Creaturis, De Anima (1269-1270); small treatises or Opuscula, among which especially noteworthy are the De Ente et Essentia (1256); De Aeternitate Mundi (1270), De Unitate Intellecus (1270), De Substantiis Separatis (1272). While it is extremely difficult to grasp in its entirety the personality behind this complex theological and philosophical activity, some points are quite clear and beyond dispute. During the first five years of his activity as a thinker and a teacher, St. Thomas seems to have formulated his most fundamental ideas in their definite form, to have clarified his historical conceptions of Greek and Arabian philosophers, and to have made more precise and even corrected his doctrinal positions, (cf., e.g., the change on the question of creation between In II Sent., d.l, q.l, a.3, and the later De Potentia, q. III, a.4). This is natural enough, though we cannot pretend to explain why he should have come to think as he did. The more he grew, and that very rapidly, towards maturity, the more his thought became inextricably involved in the defense of Aristotle (beginning with c. 1260), his texts and his ideas, against the Averroists, who were then beginning to become prominent in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris; against the traditional Augustinianism of a man like St. Bonaventure; as well as against that more subtle Augustinianism which could breathe some of the spirit of Augustine, speak the language of Aristotle, but expound, with increasing faithfulness and therefore more imminent disaster, Christian ideas through the Neoplatonic techniques of Avicenna. This last group includes such different thinkers as St. Albert the Great, Henry of Ghent, the many disciples of St. Bonaventure, including, some think, Duns Scotus himself, and Meister Eckhart of Hochheim.
stuff ::: v. t. --> Material which is to be worked up in any process of manufacture.
The fundamental material of which anything is made up; elemental part; essence.
Woven material not made into garments; fabric of any kind; specifically, any one of various fabrics of wool or worsted; sometimes, worsted fiber.
Furniture; goods; domestic vessels or utensils.
supermind ::: "a principle superior to mentality", which "has the knowledge of the One, but is able to draw out of the One its hidden multitudes" and "manifests the Many, but does not lose itself in their differentiations", forming a link between "the unitarian or indivisible consciousness of pure Sachchidananda in which there are no separating distinctions" and "the analytic or dividing consciousness of Mind which can only know by separation and distinction" and making it "possible for us to realise the one Existence, Consciousness,Delight in the mould of the mind, life and body"; (up to 1920) a general term for the supra-intellectual faculty or plane (vijñana); (c.December 1926) the "Truth-Mind" or plane of "luminous DivineMind-Existence" below the "Divine Truth and Vastness" of mahad . brahma; (in 1927 before 29 October) same as supreme supermind, one of a series of planes above ideality which seem to correspond to those later included in the overmind system, a series that also included other planes sometimes designated as forms of "supermind", such as supreme supramental supermind and gnostic supermind; (from 29October 1927 onwards) equivalent to divine gnosis, the plane of "selfdetermining infinite consciousness" above overmind, from which it differs in that "the overmind knows the One as the support, essence, fundamental power of all things, but in the dynamic play proper to it it lays emphasis on its divisional power of multiplicity", while in the supermind all is "held together as a harmonised play of the one Existence" even in its "working out of the diversity of the Infinite".
Supermind ::: the Supramental, the Truth-Consciousness, the Divine Gnosis, the highest divine consciousness and force operative in the universe. A principle of consciousness superior to mentality, it exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions. Its fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by which the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of manifestation is known because this too is that.
Sutratman(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word meaning "thread-self," the golden thread of individuality -- the stream ofself-consciousness -- on which all the substance-principles of man's constitution are strung, so to say, likepearls on a golden chain. The sutratman is the stream of consciousness-life running through all thevarious substance-principles of the constitution of the human entity -- or indeed of any other entity. Eachsuch pearl on the golden chain is one of the countless personalities which man uses during the course ofhis manvantara-long evolutionary progress. The sutratman, therefore, may be briefly said to be theimmortal or spiritual monadic ego, the individuality which incarnates in life after life, and therefore isrightly called the thread-self or fundamental self.It is this sutratman, this thread-self, this consciousness-stream, or rather stream of consciousness-life,which is the fundamental and individual selfhood of every entity, and which, reflected in and through theseveral intermediate vehicles or veils or sheaths or garments of the invisible constitution of man, or ofany other being in which a monad enshrouds itself, produces the egoic centers of self-consciousexistence. The sutratman, therefore, is rooted in the monad, the monadic essence.
Svabhava(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word derived from the verb-root bhu, meaning "to become" -- not so much "tobe" in the passive sense, but rather "to become," to "grow into" something. The quasi-pronominal prefixsva, means "self"; hence the noun means "self-becoming," "self-generation," "self-growing" intosomething. Yet the essential or fundamental or integral Self, although following continuously its ownlofty line of evolution, cannot be said to suffer the changes or phases that its vehicles undergo. Like themonads, like the One, thus the Self fundamental -- which, after all, is virtually the same as the onemonadic essence -- sends down a ray from itself into every organic entity, much as the sun sends a rayfrom itself into the surrounding "darkness" of the solar universe.Svabhava has two general philosophical meanings: first, self-begetting, self-generation, self-becoming,the general idea being that there is no merely mechanical or soulless activity of nature in bringing us intobeing, for we brought ourselves forth, in and through and by nature, of which we are a part of theconscious forces, and therefore are our own children. The second meaning is that each and every entitythat exists is the result of what he actually is spiritually in his own higher nature: he brings forth thatwhich he is in himself interiorly, nothing else. A particular race, for instance, remains and is that race aslong as the particular race-svabhava remains in the racial seed and manifests thus. Likewise is the casethe same with a man, a tree, a star, a god -- what not!What makes a rose bring forth a rose always and not thistles or daisies or pansies? The answer is verysimple; very profound, however. It is because of its svabhava, the essential nature in and of the seed. Itssvabhava can bring forth only that which itself is, its essential characteristic, its own inner nature.Svabhava, in short, may be called the essential individuality of any monad, expressing its owncharacteristics, qualities, and type, by self-urged evolution.The seed can produce nothing but what it itself is, what is in it; and this is the heart and essence of thedoctrine of svabhava. The philosophical, scientific, and religious reach of this doctrine is simplyimmense; and it is of the first importance. Consequently, each individual svabhava brings forth andexpresses as its own particular vehicles its various svarupas, signifying characteristic bodies or images orforms. The svabhava of a dog, for instance, brings forth the dog body. The svabhava of a rose bringsforth the rose flower; the svabhava of a man brings forth man's shape or image; and the svabhava of adivinity or god brings forth its own svarupa or characteristic vehicle.
Svabhavat(Sanskrit) ::: The neuter present participle of a compound word derived from the verb-root bhu, meaning "tobecome," from which is derived a secondary meaning "to be," in the sense of growth.Svabhavat is a state or condition of cosmic consciousnesssubstance, where spirit and matter, which arefundamentally one, no longer are dual as in manifestation, but one: that which is neither manifestedmatter nor manifested spirit alone, but both are the primeval unity -- spiritual akasa -- where mattermerges into spirit, and both now being really one, are called "Father-Mother," spirit-substance.Svabhavat never descends from its own state or condition, or from its own plane, but is the cosmicreservoir of being, as well as of beings, therefore of consciousness, of intellectual light, of life; and it isthe ultimate source of what science, in our day, so quaintly calls the energies of nature universal.The northern Buddhists call svabhavat by a more mystical term, Adi-buddhi, "primeval buddhi"; theBrahmanical scriptures call it akasa; and the Hebrew Old Testament refers to it as the cosmic "waters."The difference in meaning between svabhavat and svabhava is very great and is not generallyunderstood; the two words often have been confused. Svabhava is the characteristic nature, thetype-essence, the individuality, of svabhavat -- of any svabhavat, each such svabhavat having its ownsvabhava. Svabhavat, therefore, is really the world-substance or stuff, or still more accurately that whichis causal of the world-substance, and this causal principle or element is the spirit and essence of cosmicsubstance. It is the plastic essence of matter, both manifest and unmanifest. (See also Akasa)
symbolic inference The derivation of new facts from known facts and {inference rules}. This is one of the fundamental operations of {artificial intelligence} and {logic programming} languages like {Prolog}. Inference is a basic part of human reasoning. For example given that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, it is a trivial step to infer that Socrates is mortal. We might express these symbolically: man(X) =" mortal(X). man(socrates). ("if X is a man then X is mortal" and "Socrates is a man"). Here, "man", "mortal" and "socrates" are just arbitrary symbols which the computer manipulates without reference to or knowledge of their external meaning. A {forward chaining} system (a {production system}) could use these to infer the new fact mortal(socrates). simply by matching the left-hand-side of the implication against the fact and substituting socrates for the variable X. (1994-10-28)
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy "communications, standard" (SDH) An international digital telecommunications network hierarchy which standardises transmission around the bit rate of 51.84 megabits per second, which is also called STS-1. Multiples of this bit rate comprise higher bit rate streams. Thus STS-3 is 3 times STS-1, STS-12 is 12 times STS-1, and so on. STS-3 is the lowest bit rate expected to carry {ATM} traffic, and is also referred to as STM-1 (Synchronous Transport Module-Level 1). The SDH specifies how payload data is framed and transported synchronously across {optical fibre} transmission links without requiring all the links and nodes to have the same synchronized clock for data transmission and recovery (i.e. both the clock frequency and phase are allowed to have variations, or be {plesiochronous}). SDH offers several advantages over the current {multiplexing} technology, which is known as {Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy}. Where PDH lacks built-in facilities for automatic management and routing, and locks users into proprietary methods, SDH can improve network reliability and performance, offers much greater flexibility and lower operating and maintenance costs, and provides for a faster provision of new services. Under SDH, incoming traffic is synchronized and enhanced with {network management} bits before being multiplexed into the STM-1 fixed rate {frame}. The fundamental clock frequency around which the SDH or {SONET} framing is done is 8 KHz or 125 microseconds. SONET ({Synchronous Optical Network}) is the American version of SDH. (1995-03-02)
TAMAS. ::: One of the three gut^as, fundamental qualities or modes of Nature ; principle of inertia of consciousness and force ; translates in quality as obscurity and incapacity and inaction.
Taoism, however, became too mystical, and Confucianism too formalistic. "Hundred schools" grew and flourished, many in direct opposition to Taoism and Confucianism. There was Mohism (Mo, founded by Mo Tzu, between 500 and 396 B.C.) which rejected formalism in favor of "benefit" and "utility" which are to be promoted through universal love (chien ai), practical observation and application, and obedience to the will of Heaven. There was Neo-Mohism (Mo che, 300 B.C.) which, in trying to prove the thesis of Mohism, developed an intricate system of logic. There was Sophism (ming chia, 400 B.C.) which displayed much sophistry about terms and concepts, particularly about the relationship between substance and quality (chien pai). There was Legalism (fa chia, 500-200 B.C.) which advocated law, statecraft, and authority as effective instruments of government. finally, there was the Yin Yang school (400-200 B.C.) which emphasized yin and yang as the two fundamental principles, always contrasting but complementary, and underlying all conceivable objects, qualities, situations, and relationships. It was this school that provided a common ground for the fusion of ancient divergent philosophical tendencies in medieval China.
tat ::: that; "That which escapes definition or description and is yet not only real but attainable", a word used to indicate parabrahman as "something utterly Transcendent, something that is unnameable and mentally unknowable, a sheer Absolute". Since this Absolute "is in itself indefinable by reason, ineffable to the speech", it can only "be approached through experience", either "through an absolute negation of existence, as if it were itself a supreme Non-Existence, a mysterious infinite Nihil" (asat) or else "through an absolute affirmation of all the fundamentals of our own existence, . . . through an inexpressible absolute of being" (sat).
Tattvas(Sanskrit) ::: A word the meaning of which is the elementary principles or elements of original substance, orrather the different principles or elements in universal, intelligent, conscious nature when consideredfrom the standpoint of occultism. The word tattva perhaps may be literally translated or rendered as"thatness," reminding one of the "quiddity" of the European Scholastics.The number of tattvas or nature's elemental principles varies according to different systems ofphilosophy. The Sankhya, for instance, enumerates twenty-five tattvas. The system of the Mahesvaras orworshipers of Siva with his consort Durga, reckons five principles, which are simply the five elements ofnature found in all ancient literatures. Occultism, of course, recognizes seven tattvas, and, indeed, tenfundamental element-principles or element-substances or tattvas in universal nature, and each one ofthese tattvas is represented in the human constitution and active therein. Otherwise, the humanconstitution could not cohere as an organic entity.
tattva (Tattwa) ::: "thatness", a fundamental cosmic principle.
technique ::: 1. Technical skill; ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result. 2. The way in which the fundamentals, as of an artistic work, are handled and the skill or command in handling them.
Tetractys: The “perfect number” of the Pythagoreans and of the numerologists, composed of the Divine monad (One), the dyad (Two), the primeval triad (Three) and the fundamental sacred tetrad (Four). The symbol of the tetractys, originated by Pythagoras, consists of ten dots arranged in four rows above each other (four dots in the bottom line, three dots in the one above them, two in the next line, and a single dot on top), forming an equilateral triangle. In occultism, this diagram is also referred to as tetractys and is believed to have very great occult, mystic power and significance.
“The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.” The Life Divine
The fundamental idea in these various manners of adoring fire was that, because of the warming and life-giving functions of this universal element, it symbolized the vital and all-penetrating activity of cosmic life. Furthermore, because the sun was the focus or heart through which pours the life of any solar system, therefore the ideas connected with ancient fire worship are likewise intimately connected with the teachings concerning the solar orb and its indwelling divinity.
The capital roman letters here denote arbitrary formulas of the propositional calculus (in the technical sense defined below) and the arrow is to be read "stands for" or "is an abbreviation for." Suppose that we have given some specific list of propositional symbols, which may be infinite in number, and to which we shall refer as the fundamental propositional symbols. These are not necessarily single letters or characters, but may be expressions taken from any language or system of notation; they may denote particular propositions, or they may contain variables and denote ambiguously any proposition of a certain form or class. Certain restrictions are also necessary upon the way in which the fundamental propositional symbols can contain square brackets [ ]; for the present purpose it will suffice to suppose that they do not contain square brackets at all, although they may contain parentheses or other kinds of brackets. We call formulas of the propositional calculus (relative to the given list of fundamental propositional symbols) all the expressions determined by the four following rules: all the fundamental propositional symbols are formulas if A is a formula, ∼[A] is a formula; if A and B are formulas [A][B] is a formula; if A and B are formulas [A] ∨ [B] is a formula. The formulas of the propositional calculus as thus defined will in general contain more brackets than are necessary for clarity or freedom from ambiguity; in practice we omit superfluous brackets and regard the shortened expressions as abbreviations for the full formulas. It will be noted also that, if A and B are formulas, we regard [A] | [B], [A] ⊃ [B], [A] ≡ [B], and [A] + [B], not as formulas, but as abbreviations for certain formulas in accordance with the above given definitions.
The conditions of the future birth arc determined fundamental- ly not during the stay in the psychic world but at the time of death — the psychic being then chooses what it should work out in the next appearance and the conditions arrange themselves accordingly.
The declared purpose of the Neoplatonists was to demonstrate the reality of a fundamental wisdom, to draw together the elect of every faith, and likewise to sow the seeds for a unification of faiths. The teachings are religious in the sense that they appeal to the religious instincts and inculcate the loftiest and purest morality; but on the other hand no church or creed was founded. The conditions of the times did not call for a scientific presentation of the ancient teachings; the regimentation of external life had turned men’s hopes inward. Such a system could not be created by merely putting together borrowings from Plato and Pythagoras, the Jews, and Gnostics, etc. Behind the movement must have been minds initiated in the lore of ancient Egypt and India, and thus supplied with the design which alone could make a unity out of the elements. Through succeeding centuries, revivals of Neoplatonism have appeared, sometimes using the name itself. It deeply influenced the Christian church, not only in early times but later under the influence of the pseudo-Dionysius and still later of Erigena.
The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost illimitable decree. It must be remem- bered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only , taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or Jifc-cncrgy acting directly on mate- rial energy aird substance ; if they do they can make a material object do things or rather can do things with a material object which wiould be to that object in its ordinary poise 'or ‘law* unhabitual and therefore apparently impossible.
The general philosophical position which has as its fundamental tenet the proposition that the natural world is the whole of reality. "Nature" and "natural world" are certainly ambiguous terms, but this much is clear in thus restricting reality, naturalism means to assert that there is but one system or level of reality, that this system is the totality of objects and events in space and time; and that the behavior of this system is determined only by its own character and is reducible to a set of causal laws. Nature is thus conceived as self-contained and self-dependent, and from this view spring certain negations that define to a great extent the influence of naturalism. First, it is denied that nature is derived from or dependent upon any transcendent, supernatural entities. From this follows the denial that the order of natural events can be intruded upon. And this in turn entails the denial of freedom, purpose, and transcendent destiny.
"The gospel of the Gita reposes upon this fundamental Vedantic truth that all being is the one Brahman and all existence the wheel of Brahman, a divine movement opening out from God and returning to God. All is the expressive activity of Nature and Nature a power of the Divine which works out the consciousness and will of the divine Soul master of her works and inhabitant of her forms.” Essays on the Gita
“The gospel of the Gita reposes upon this fundamental Vedantic truth that all being is the one Brahman and all existence the wheel of Brahman, a divine movement opening out from God and returning to God. All is the expressive activity of Nature and Nature a power of the Divine which works out the consciousness and will of the divine Soul master of her works and inhabitant of her forms.” Essays on the Gita
The Hinayana school is the oldest, while the Mahayana is of a later period, having originated after the death of Buddha. Yet the tenets of the latter are ancient indeed, and both schools in reality teach the same doctrine. The Mahayana system exists in different schools varying among themselves to a greater or less degree as regards interpretation of fundamental tenets which all these subordinate schools nevertheless accept.
The Ineffable: *Sri Aurobindo: "It is this essential indeterminability of the Absolute that translates itself into our consciousness through the fundamental negating positives of our spiritual experience, the immobile immutable Self, the Nirguna Brahman, the Eternal without qualities, the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities, the Non-being, the Ineffable and the Unknowable. On the other side it is the essence and source of all determinations, and this dynamic essentiality manifests to us through the fundamental affirming positives in which the Absolute equally meets us; for it is the Self that becomes all things, the Saguna Brahman, the Eternal with infinite qualities, the One who is the Many, the infinite Person who is the source and foundation of all persons and personalities, the Lord of creation, the Word, the Master of all works and action; it is that which being known all is known: these affirmatives correspond to those negatives. For it is not possible in a supramental cognition to split asunder the two sides of the One Existence, — even to speak of them as sides is excessive, for they are in each other, their co-existence or one-existence is eternal and their powers sustaining each other found the self-manifestation of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
"The intermediate link exists. We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.” The Life Divine
“The intermediate link exists. We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.” The Life Divine
The linga-sarira has great tensile strength. It changes continuously during a lifetime, although these changes never depart from the fundamental human type or pattern, just as the physical body alters every moment. It also possesses the ability to exteriorize itself to a certain distance from its physical encasement, but in no case more than a few feet. It is composed of electromagnetic matter, which is somewhat more refined than the matter of our physical body. The whole world was composed of such matter in far past ages before it became the dense physical sphere it now is. After long ages the astral form had evolved and perfected, so that it has the form that the human races had during the early period of the third root-race — a more or less materialized concretion of the still more ethereal astrals of the first and second root-races. After another long period, during which the cycle of further descent into matter progressed, the gradually thickening astral form oozed forth from itself a coat of skin, corresponding to the Hebrew allegory of the Garden of Eden. Thus the present physical flesh-form of mankind appears.
The male and female principles are not entities in themselves but aspects of a unity; and since every element is compound, the words male and female as applied to any element signify merely a temporary predominance of the one or the other quality. Again, the distinction is not one of fundamental nature but of relationship, so that what is female in relation to one thing may be male in relation to another.
The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 27, Page: 26-27
The One is the fundamental tniih of existence.
Theosophy teaches that unity and duality, with their development as plurality in manifestation, subsist throughout the universe, every duality being comprised in a unity existing on a higher plane of being than its dual manifestation — and the duality reproducing itself in the webwork of pluralities composing the manifested universe. This is on the principle of the Pythagorean Monad producing the Duad, which produces the Triad, the last again reproducing itself in incomputable hierarchical numbers. Thus, light and dark are the dual manifestations of that which is called at once absolute light and darkness; spirit and matter are the dual manifestations of the one life; the most fundamental duality being the alternation between manvantara and pralaya, which are aspects of the ever-productive ineffable source. Monistic and dualistic philosophies merely accentuate each its own side of the question, and in reality each view more or less implies the other. The Zoroastrian doctrine, for example, in its esoteric side recognized that dualism applies only to the planes of manifestation which flow forth from it.
"The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.” *The Life Divine
“The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.” The Life Divine
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
“The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
There are two classes of thmgs that happen in yoga, realisa- tions and experiences. Realisations are the reception in the cons- ciousness and the establishment there of the fundamental truths of the Divine, of the Higher or Divine Nature, of the world- consciousness and the play of its forces, of one’s own self and real nature and the inner nature of things, the power of these things growing in one till they arc part of one’s inner life and existence, — as for instance, the realisation of the Divine Pre- sence, the Descent and settling of the higher Peace, Light, Force,
There is yet a third kind of epohe that allegedly enables one to discriminate subjectivity qua transcendental -- by effecting yet another kind of reduction, which Husserl eventually called "transcendental-phenomenological." (In his Ideen he called it simply "phenomenological.") By refraining from participition in one's inveterate (and justifiable) natural attitude of presupposing the world and the status of one's subjectivity in the world, one can see the world (and whatever else one may intend) as fundamentally a noematic-intentional object for transcendental subjectivity -- for one's individual self, the subject whose life is one's own transcendental stream of consciousness, and for other transcendental subjects. As one can describe one's actual psychic subjectivity, so one can describe one's actual transcendental subjectivity and thus produce an empirical transcendental phenomenology. Again, as in the case of the purely psychic, so in the case of the purely transcendental, an eidetic reduction enables one to produce a purely eidetic science -- here an eidetic transcendental phenomenology, the theme of which is the absolutely universal domain of transcendental subjectivity in general, including the latter's noematic-objective sense: the entire world and all its possible variants. This eidetic transcendental phenomenology is what Husserl ordinarily meant when, in the Ideen or subsequent works, he spoke simply of "phenomenology. "
“[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one’s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one’s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
These five- or seven-voweled voices, sounds, or breathings also represent the seven fundamental fires or energies of the human constitution. All ancient mystical schools had their own way of viewing and explaining these vowels.
". . . the Self is a fundamental aspect of Brahman, but with a certain stress on its impersonality;. . . .” The Life Divine
“… the Self is a fundamental aspect of Brahman, but with a certain stress on its impersonality;….” The Life Divine
The sex-crergy utilised by Nature for the purpose of repro- duction is in its real nature a fundamental energy of life. It can be used not for the heightening but for a certain intensification of the vital-emotional life ; it can be controlled and diverted from the sex-purpose and used for aesthetic and artistic or other crea- tion and productiveness or preserved for heightening of the intel- lectual or other energies. Entirely controlled it can be turned into a force of spiritual energy also. This was well-known tn ancient India and was described as the conversation of retas into ojas by brahmacarya. Sex-energy misused turns to disorder and disintegration of the life-energy and its powers.
The social theory, termed historical materialism, represents the application of the general principles of materialist dialectics to human society, by which they were first suggested. The fundamental changes and stages which society has passed through in the course of its complex evolution are traced primarily to the influence of changes taking place in its economic base. This base has two aspects: material forces of production (technics, instrumentalities) and economic relations (prevailing system of ownership, exchange, distribution). Growing out of this base is a social superstructure of laws, governments, arts, sciences, religions, philosophies and the like. The view taken is that society evolved as it did primarily because fundamental changes in the economic base resulting from conflicts of of interest in respect to productive forces, and involving radical changes in economic relations, have compelled accommodating changes in the social superstructure. Causal action is traced both ways between base and superstructure, but when any "higher" institution threatens the position of those who hold controlling economic power at the base, the test of their power is victory in the ensuing contest. The role of the individual in history is acknowledged, but is seen in relation to the movement of underlying forces. Cf. Plekhanov, Role of the Individual m History.
The solar system as a whole has its corresponding cosmic lokas and talas; so has any planetary chain of the solar system and any globe of such chain. Each one of these different scales is built of its own series of lokas and talas on the analogical principle that what prevails in the cosmic whole as its fundamental structure must necessarily prevail in its every portion.
The state of grace ” is often prepared by a long tapasyii or purification in which nothing decisive seems to happen, only touches or glimpses or passing experiences at the most, and comes suddenly without warning. When it comes the fundamental difficulties can in a moment and generally do disappear.
“The Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three powers overarching, underlying and penetrating the whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the unfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental terms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the experience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we wake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the universal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by a still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits that is founded on the Absolute.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The Truth-Consciousness whether above or in the universe by which the Divine knows not only hts own essence and being but his manifestation also. The fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by that the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of manifestation is known because this too is That, Mind is an Instrument of the Ignorance trying to know •— Supermind is the Knower possessing Knowledge, because one with it and the known, therefore seeing all things in the light of His own Truth, the light of their true self which is He. U is a dynamic and not only a siatic Power, not only a
The word can also be translated as pleasure-born, because chhanda often means joy or pleasure, since will and innate desire are different phases of the same fundamental fact.
This decisive touch comes most easily to the baby cat ” people, those who have at some point between the psychic and the emotional vital a quick and decisive movement of surrender to the Guru or the Divine. I have seen that when that is there and there is the conscious central dependence compelling the mind also and the rest of the vital, then the fundamental diffi- culty disappears. If others remain they are not felt as difficulties, but simply as things that have just to be done and need cause no worry. Sometimes no tapasya is necessary — one just refers things to the Power that one feels guiding or doing the sadhana and assents to its action, rejecting all that is contrary to it, and the Power removes what has to be removed or changes what
This may be generalized by arbitrarily taking n different truth-values, t1, t2, . . . , tm, f1, f2, . . . , fn-m, of which the first m are called designated values -- and then setting up truth tables (in terms of these n truth-values) for a set of connectives, which usually includes connectives notationally the game as the fundamental connectives of the classical calculus, and may also include others. A formula constructed out of these connectives and variables is then called a tautology if it has a designated value for each possible assignment of truth-values to the variables, and the theorems of the n-valued propositional calculus are to coincide with the tautologies.
Though the supermind is suprarational to our intelligence and its workings occult to our apprehension, it is nothing irrationally mystic, but rather its existence and emergence is a logical necessity of the nature of existence, always provided we grant that not matter or mind alone but spirit is the fundamental reality and everywhere a universal presence. All things are a manifestation of the infinite spirit out of its own being, out of its own consciousness and by the self-realising, self-determining, self-fulfilling power of that consciousness. The Infinite, we may say, organises by the power of its self-knowledge the law of its own manifestation of being in the universe, not only the material universe present to our senses, but whatever lies behind it on whatever planes of existence. All is organised by it not under any inconscient compulsion, not according to a mental fantasy or caprice, but in its own infinite spiritual freedom according to the self-truth of its being, its infinite potentialities and its will of self-creation out of those potentialities, and the law of this self-truth is the necessity that compels created things to act and evolve each according to its own nature. The Intelligence— to give it an inadequate name—the Logos that thus organises its own manifestation is evidently something infinitely greater, more extended in knowledge, compelling in self-power, large both in the delight of its self-existence and the delight of its active being and works than the mental intelligence which is to us the highest realised degree and expression of consciousness. It is to this intelligence infinite in itself but freely organising and self-determiningly organic in its self-creation and its works that we may give for our present purpose the name of the divine supermind or gnosis.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 785-86
Three senses of "Ockhamism" may be distinguished: Logical, indicating usage of the terminology and technique of logical analysis developed by Ockham in his Summa totius logicae; in particular, use of the concept of supposition (suppositio) in the significative analysis of terms. Epistemological, indicating the thesis that universality is attributable only to terms and propositions, and not to things as existing apart from discourse. Theological, indicating the thesis that no tneological doctrines, such as those of God's existence or of the immortality of the soul, are evident or demonstrable philosophically, so that religious doctrine rests solely on faith, without metaphysical or scientific support. It is in this sense that Luther is often called an Ockhamist. Bibliography: B. Geyer, Ueberwegs Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Phil., Bd. II (11th ed., Berlin 1928), pp. 571-612 and 781-786; N. Abbagnano, Guglielmo di Ockham (Lanciano, Italy, 1931); E. A. Moody, The Logic of William of Ockham (N. Y. & London, 1935); F. Ehrle, Peter von Candia (Muenster, 1925); G. Ritter, Studien zur Spaetscholastik, I-II (Heidelberg, 1921-1922). --E.A.M. Om, aum: (Skr.) Mystic, holy syllable as a symbol for the indefinable Absolute. See Aksara, Vac, Sabda. --K.F.L. Omniscience: In philosophy and theology it means the complete and perfect knowledge of God, of Himself and of all other beings, past, present, and future, or merely possible, as well as all their activities, real or possible, including the future free actions of human beings. --J.J.R. One: Philosophically, not a number but equivalent to unit, unity, individuality, in contradistinction from multiplicity and the mani-foldness of sensory experience. In metaphysics, the Supreme Idea (Plato), the absolute first principle (Neo-platonism), the universe (Parmenides), Being as such and divine in nature (Plotinus), God (Nicolaus Cusanus), the soul (Lotze). Religious philosophy and mysticism, beginning with Indian philosophy (s.v.), has favored the designation of the One for the metaphysical world-ground, the ultimate icility, the world-soul, the principle of the world conceived as reason, nous, or more personally. The One may be conceived as an independent whole or as a sum, as analytic or synthetic, as principle or ontologically. Except by mysticism, it is rarely declared a fact of sensory experience, while its transcendent or transcendental, abstract nature is stressed, e.g., in epistemology where the "I" or self is considered the unitary background of personal experience, the identity of self-consciousness, or the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifoldness of ideas (Kant). --K.F.L. One-one: A relation R is one-many if for every y in the converse domain there is a unique x such that xRy. A relation R is many-one if for every x in the domain there is a unique y such that xRy. (See the article relation.) A relation is one-one, or one-to-one, if it is at the same time one-many and many-one. A one-one relation is said to be, or to determine, a one-to-one correspondence between its domain and its converse domain. --A.C. On-handedness: (Ger. Vorhandenheit) Things exist in the mode of thereness, lying- passively in a neutral space. A "deficient" form of a more basic relationship, termed at-handedness (Zuhandenheit). (Heidegger.) --H.H. Ontological argument: Name by which later authors, especially Kant, designate the alleged proof for God's existence devised by Anselm of Canterbury. Under the name of God, so the argument runs, everyone understands that greater than which nothing can be thought. Since anything being the greatest and lacking existence is less then the greatest having also existence, the former is not really the greater. The greatest, therefore, has to exist. Anselm has been reproached, already by his contemporary Gaunilo, for unduly passing from the field of logical to the field of ontological or existential reasoning. This criticism has been repeated by many authors, among them Aquinas. The argument has, however, been used, if in a somewhat modified form, by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz. --R.A. Ontological Object: (Gr. onta, existing things + logos, science) The real or existing object of an act of knowledge as distinguished from the epistemological object. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ontologism: (Gr. on, being) In contrast to psychologism, is called any speculative system which starts philosophizing by positing absolute being, or deriving the existence of entities independently of experience merely on the basis of their being thought, or assuming that we have immediate and certain knowledge of the ground of being or God. Generally speaking any rationalistic, a priori metaphysical doctrine, specifically the philosophies of Rosmini-Serbati and Vincenzo Gioberti. As a philosophic method censored by skeptics and criticists alike, as a scholastic doctrine formerly strongly supported, revived in Italy and Belgium in the 19th century, but no longer countenanced. --K.F.L. Ontology: (Gr. on, being + logos, logic) The theory of being qua being. For Aristotle, the First Philosophy, the science of the essence of things. Introduced as a term into philosophy by Wolff. The science of fundamental principles, the doctrine of the categories. Ultimate philosophy; rational cosmology. Syn. with metaphysics. See Cosmology, First Principles, Metaphysics, Theology. --J.K.F. Operation: "(Lit. operari, to work) Any act, mental or physical, constituting a phase of the reflective process, and performed with a view to acquiring1 knowledge or information about a certain subject-nntter. --A.C.B. In logic, see Operationism. In philosophy of science, see Pragmatism, Scientific Empiricism. Operationism: The doctrine that the meaning of a concept is given by a set of operations. 1. The operational meaning of a term (word or symbol) is given by a semantical rule relating the term to some concrete process, object or event, or to a class of such processes, objectj or events. 2. Sentences formed by combining operationally defined terms into propositions are operationally meaningful when the assertions are testable by means of performable operations. Thus, under operational rules, terms have semantical significance, propositions have empirical significance. Operationism makes explicit the distinction between formal (q.v.) and empirical sentences. Formal propositions are signs arranged according to syntactical rules but lacking operational reference. Such propositions, common in mathematics, logic and syntax, derive their sanction from convention, whereas an empirical proposition is acceptable (1) when its structure obeys syntactical rules and (2) when there exists a concrete procedure (a set of operations) for determining its truth or falsity (cf. Verification). Propositions purporting to be empirical are sometimes amenable to no operational test because they contain terms obeying no definite semantical rules. These sentences are sometimes called pseudo-propositions and are said to be operationally meaningless. They may, however, be 'meaningful" in other ways, e.g. emotionally or aesthetically (cf. Meaning). Unlike a formal statement, the "truth" of an empirical sentence is never absolute and its operational confirmation serves only to increase the degree of its validity. Similarly, the semantical rule comprising the operational definition of a term has never absolute precision. Ordinarily a term denotes a class of operations and the precision of its definition depends upon how definite are the rules governing inclusion in the class. The difference between Operationism and Logical Positivism (q.v.) is one of emphasis. Operationism's stress of empirical matters derives from the fact that it was first employed to purge physics of such concepts as absolute space and absolute time, when the theory of relativity had forced upon physicists the view that space and time are most profitably defined in terms of the operations by which they are measured. Although different methods of measuring length at first give rise to different concepts of length, wherever the equivalence of certain of these measures can be established by other operations, the concepts may legitimately be combined. In psychology the operational criterion of meaningfulness is commonly associated with a behavioristic point of view. See Behaviorism. Since only those propositions which are testable by public and repeatable operations are admissible in science, the definition of such concepti as mind and sensation must rest upon observable aspects of the organism or its behavior. Operational psychology deals with experience only as it is indicated by the operation of differential behavior, including verbal report. Discriminations, or the concrete differential reactions of organisms to internal or external environmental states, are by some authors regarded as the most basic of all operations. For a discussion of the role of operational definition in phvsics. see P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, (New York, 1928) and The Nature of Physical Theory (Princeton, 1936). "The extension of operationism to psychology is discussed by C. C. Pratt in The Logic of Modem Psychology (New York. 1939.) For a discussion and annotated bibliography relating to Operationism and Logical Positivism, see S. S. Stevens, Psychology and the Science of Science, Psychol. Bull., 36, 1939, 221-263. --S.S.S. Ophelimity: Noun derived from the Greek, ophelimos useful, employed by Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) in economics as the equivalent of utility, or the capacity to provide satisfaction. --J.J.R. Opinion: (Lat. opinio, from opinor, to think) An hypothesis or proposition entertained on rational grounds but concerning which doubt can reasonably exist. A belief. See Hypothesis, Certainty, Knowledge. --J.K.F- Opposition: (Lat. oppositus, pp. of oppono, to oppose) Positive actual contradiction. One of Aristotle's Post-predicaments. In logic any contrariety or contradiction, illustrated by the "Square of Opposition". Syn. with: conflict. See Logic, formal, § 4. --J.K.F. Optimism: (Lat. optimus, the best) The view inspired by wishful thinking, success, faith, or philosophic reflection, that the world as it exists is not so bad or even the best possible, life is good, and man's destiny is bright. Philosophically most persuasively propounded by Leibniz in his Theodicee, according to which God in his wisdom would have created a better world had he known or willed such a one to exist. Not even he could remove moral wrong and evil unless he destroyed the power of self-determination and hence the basis of morality. All systems of ethics that recognize a supreme good (Plato and many idealists), subscribe to the doctrines of progressivism (Turgot, Herder, Comte, and others), regard evil as a fragmentary view (Josiah Royce et al.) or illusory, or believe in indemnification (Henry David Thoreau) or melioration (Emerson), are inclined optimistically. Practically all theologies advocating a plan of creation and salvation, are optimistic though they make the good or the better dependent on moral effort, right thinking, or belief, promising it in a future existence. Metaphysical speculation is optimistic if it provides for perfection, evolution to something higher, more valuable, or makes room for harmonies or a teleology. See Pessimism. --K.F.L. Order: A class is said to be partially ordered by a dyadic relation R if it coincides with the field of R, and R is transitive and reflexive, and xRy and yRx never both hold when x and y are different. If in addition R is connected, the class is said to be ordered (or simply ordered) by R, and R is called an ordering relation. Whitehcid and Russell apply the term serial relation to relations which are transitive, irreflexive, and connected (and, in consequence, also asymmetric). However, the use of serial relations in this sense, instead ordering relations as just defined, is awkward in connection with the notion of order for unit classes. Examples: The relation not greater than among leal numbers is an ordering relation. The relation less than among real numbers is a serial relation. The real numbers are simply ordered by the former relation. In the algebra of classes (logic formal, § 7), the classes are partially ordered by the relation of class inclusion. For explanation of the terminology used in making the above definitions, see the articles connexity, reflexivity, relation, symmetry, transitivity. --A.C. Order type: See relation-number. Ordinal number: A class b is well-ordered by a dyadic relation R if it is ordered by R (see order) and, for every class a such that a ⊂ b, there is a member x of a, such that xRy holds for every member y of a; and R is then called a well-ordering relation. The ordinal number of a class b well-ordered by a relation R, or of a well-ordering relation R, is defined to be the relation-number (q. v.) of R. The ordinal numbers of finite classes (well-ordered by appropriate relations) are called finite ordinal numbers. These are 0, 1, 2, ... (to be distinguished, of course, from the finite cardinal numbers 0, 1, 2, . . .). The first non-finite (transfinite or infinite) ordinal number is the ordinal number of the class of finite ordinal numbers, well-ordered in their natural order, 0, 1, 2, . . .; it is usually denoted by the small Greek letter omega. --A.C. G. Cantor, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, translated and with an introduction by P. E. B. Jourdain, Chicago and London, 1915. (new ed. 1941); Whitehead and Russell, Princtpia Mathematica. vol. 3. Orexis: (Gr. orexis) Striving; desire; the conative aspect of mind, as distinguished from the cognitive and emotional (Aristotle). --G.R.M.. Organicism: A theory of biology that life consists in the organization or dynamic system of the organism. Opposed to mechanism and vitalism. --J.K.F. Organism: An individual animal or plant, biologically interpreted. A. N. Whitehead uses the term to include also physical bodies and to signify anything material spreading through space and enduring in time. --R.B.W. Organismic Psychology: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, an instrument) A system of theoretical psychology which construes the structure of the mind in organic rather than atomistic terms. See Gestalt Psychology; Psychological Atomism. --L.W. Organization: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, work) A structured whole. The systematic unity of parts in a purposive whole. A dynamic system. Order in something actual. --J.K.F. Organon: (Gr. organon) The title traditionally given to the body of Aristotle's logical treatises. The designation appears to have originated among the Peripatetics after Aristotle's time, and expresses their view that logic is not a part of philosophy (as the Stoics maintained) but rather the instrument (organon) of philosophical inquiry. See Aristotelianism. --G.R.M. In Kant. A system of principles by which pure knowledge may be acquired and established. Cf. Fr. Bacon's Novum Organum. --O.F.K. Oriental Philosophy: A general designation used loosely to cover philosophic tradition exclusive of that grown on Greek soil and including the beginnings of philosophical speculation in Egypt, Arabia, Iran, India, and China, the elaborate systems of India, Greater India, China, and Japan, and sometimes also the religion-bound thought of all these countries with that of the complex cultures of Asia Minor, extending far into antiquity. Oriental philosophy, though by no means presenting a homogeneous picture, nevertheless shares one characteristic, i.e., the practical outlook on life (ethics linked with metaphysics) and the absence of clear-cut distinctions between pure speculation and religious motivation, and on lower levels between folklore, folk-etymology, practical wisdom, pre-scientiiic speculation, even magic, and flashes of philosophic insight. Bonds with Western, particularly Greek philosophy have no doubt existed even in ancient times. Mutual influences have often been conjectured on the basis of striking similarities, but their scientific establishment is often difficult or even impossible. Comparative philosophy (see especially the work of Masson-Oursel) provides a useful method. Yet a thorough treatment of Oriental Philosophy is possible only when the many languages in which it is deposited have been more thoroughly studied, the psychological and historical elements involved in the various cultures better investigated, and translations of the relevant documents prepared not merely from a philological point of view or out of missionary zeal, but by competent philosophers who also have some linguistic training. Much has been accomplished in this direction in Indian and Chinese Philosophy (q.v.). A great deal remains to be done however before a definitive history of Oriental Philosophy may be written. See also Arabian, and Persian Philosophy. --K.F.L. Origen: (185-254) The principal founder of Christian theology who tried to enrich the ecclesiastic thought of his day by reconciling it with the treasures of Greek philosophy. Cf. Migne PL. --R.B.W. Ormazd: (New Persian) Same as Ahura Mazdah (q.v.), the good principle in Zoroastrianism, and opposed to Ahriman (q.v.). --K.F.L. Orphic Literature: The mystic writings, extant only in fragments, of a Greek religious-philosophical movement of the 6th century B.C., allegedly started by the mythical Orpheus. In their mysteries, in which mythology and rational thinking mingled, the Orphics concerned themselves with cosmogony, theogony, man's original creation and his destiny after death which they sought to influence to the better by pure living and austerity. They taught a symbolism in which, e.g., the relationship of the One to the many was clearly enunciated, and believed in the soul as involved in reincarnation. Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plato were influenced by them. --K.F.L. Ortega y Gasset, Jose: Born in Madrid, May 9, 1883. At present in Buenos Aires, Argentine. Son of Ortega y Munillo, the famous Spanish journalist. Studied at the College of Jesuits in Miraflores and at the Central University of Madrid. In the latter he presented his Doctor's dissertation, El Milenario, in 1904, thereby obtaining his Ph.D. degree. After studies in Leipzig, Berlin, Marburg, under the special influence of Hermann Cohen, the great exponent of Kant, who taught him the love for the scientific method and awoke in him the interest in educational philosophy, Ortega came to Spain where, after the death of Nicolas Salmeron, he occupied the professorship of metaphysics at the Central University of Madrid. The following may be considered the most important works of Ortega y Gasset: Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914; El Espectador, I-VIII, 1916-1935; El Tema de Nuestro Tiempo, 1921; España Invertebrada, 1922; Kant, 1924; La Deshumanizacion del Arte, 1925; Espiritu de la Letra, 1927; La Rebelion de las Masas, 1929; Goethe desde Adentio, 1934; Estudios sobre el Amor, 1939; Ensimismamiento y Alteracion, 1939; El Libro de las Misiones, 1940; Ideas y Creencias, 1940; and others. Although brought up in the Marburg school of thought, Ortega is not exactly a neo-Kantian. At the basis of his Weltanschauung one finds a denial of the fundamental presuppositions which characterized European Rationalism. It is life and not thought which is primary. Things have a sense and a value which must be affirmed independently. Things, however, are to be conceived as the totality of situations which constitute the circumstances of a man's life. Hence, Ortega's first philosophical principle: "I am myself plus my circumstances". Life as a problem, however, is but one of the poles of his formula. Reason is the other. The two together function, not by dialectical opposition, but by necessary coexistence. Life, according to Ortega, does not consist in being, but rather, in coming to be, and as such it is of the nature of direction, program building, purpose to be achieved, value to be realized. In this sense the future as a time dimension acquires new dignity, and even the present and the past become articulate and meaning-full only in relation to the future. Even History demands a new point of departure and becomes militant with new visions. --J.A.F. Orthodoxy: Beliefs which are declared by a group to be true and normative. Heresy is a departure from and relative to a given orthodoxy. --V.S. Orthos Logos: See Right Reason. Ostensible Object: (Lat. ostendere, to show) The object envisaged by cognitive act irrespective of its actual existence. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ostensive: (Lat. ostendere, to show) Property of a concept or predicate by virtue of which it refers to and is clarified by reference to its instances. --A.C.B. Ostwald, Wilhelm: (1853-1932) German chemist. Winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1909. In Die Uberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialistmus and in Naturphilosophie, his two best known works in the field of philosophy, he advocates a dynamic theory in opposition to materialism and mechanism. All properties of matter, and the psychic as well, are special forms of energy. --L.E.D. Oupnekhat: Anquetil Duperron's Latin translation of the Persian translation of 50 Upanishads (q.v.), a work praised by Schopenhauer as giving him complete consolation. --K.F.L. Outness: A term employed by Berkeley to express the experience of externality, that is the ideas of space and things placed at a distance. Hume used it in the sense of distance Hamilton understood it as the state of being outside of consciousness in a really existing world of material things. --J.J.R. Overindividual: Term used by H. Münsterberg to translate the German überindividuell. The term is applied to any cognitive or value object which transcends the individual subject. --L.W. P
Thus the ark has both a cosmic and a human significance. In one sense it is man himself who is the ark; for, having appeared at the beginning of sentient life, man (as he then was) became the living and animal unit, whose cast-off clothes determined the shape of every life and animal in this round. In its widest sense the symbolism refers to the first cosmic flood, the primary creation, and so the ark also is Mother Nature; but it likewise refers to terrestrial deluges where its application is twofold, for it means the saving of mankind through physical generation, and also cyclic deluges, especially the Atlantean one. The ark is argha in Chaldean, vara in Persian, and is referred to in the stories about Noah, Deucalion, Xisuthrus, Yima, etc. The ark in which the infant Moses is saved is an instance of many similar legends conveying the same root idea. The ark, therefore, is the receptive aspect of the principle of reproduction and regeneration, ranging from the most fundamental Mother Nature to her every correspondence on the various planes.
Thus was formed the Great Brotherhood or Great White Lodge, which has remained on earth to this day in its secret retreat, known in Hindu legends as Sambhala. From time to time messengers are sent forth from this Brotherhood into the world, and these emissaries impart the holy doctrine of which they are the carriers to those who prove themselves ready, fit, and worthy to receive it. Such centers of esoteric training and communication have always been called the Mysteries, or Mystery schools; and the emissaries establish new centers or Mystery schools when and where it is found proper to do so. Every race and nation has had its teachers and their esoteric centers; the one fundamental doctrine of the heart was taught alike in them all, albeit after different manners, in different languages, and by different approaches, according to the psychological readiness and the needs of the people to whom these emissaries came. In later times, when these Mystery schools had to a greater or less degree lost the original impress and inspiration of the first communication, they were called sacerdotal colleges, or even temple-colleges or in ancient Greece the Mysteries. Such esoteric centers, where the original and archaic doctrine is taught, exist even today.
. ti (para prakriti) ::: the higher (spiritual and supramental)Nature, the "supreme nature of the Divine which is the real source of cosmic existence and its fundamental creative force and effective energy and of which the other lower and ignorant Nature [apara prakr.ti] is only a derivation and a dark shadow"; prakr.ti in the parardha or higher hemisphere of existence. para purus purusa
. ti (traigunyamayi prakriti) ::: the lower nature . yamayi prakr (apara prakr.ti) whose process is an interaction of the three gun.as (sattva, rajas and tamas), "the inferior nature of things" in which "the play of infinite quality [anantagun.a] is subject to a limited measure" and "managed by a fundamental working in three qualitative modes [traigun.ya] which conflict and combine together in all her creations". traigun traigunyasiddhi . yasiddhi (traigunyasiddhi; traigunya-siddhi; traigunya siddhi)
To be an Aristotelian under such extremely complicated circumstances was the problem that St. Thomas set himself. What he did reduced itself fundamentally to three points: (a) He showed the Platonic orientation of St. Augustine's thought, the limitations that St. Augustine himself placed on his Platonism, and he inferred from this that St. Augustine could not be made the patron of the highly elaborated and sophisticated Platonism that an Ibn Gebirol expounded in his Fons Vitae or an Avicenna in his commentaries on the metaphysics and psychology of Aristotle. (b) Having singled out Plato as the thinker to search out behind St. Augustine, and having really eliminated St. Augustine from the Platonic controversies of the thirteenth century, St. Thomas is then concerned to diagnose the Platonic inspiration of the various commentators of Aristotle, and to separate what is to him the authentic Aristotle from those Platonic aberrations. In this sense, the philosophical activity of St. Thomas in the thirteenth century can be understood as a systematic critique and elimination of Platonism in metaphysics, psychology and epistemology. The Platonic World of Ideas is translated into a theory of substantial principles in a world of stable and intelligible individuals; the Platonic man, who was scarcely more than an incarcerated spirit, became a rational animal, containing within his being an interior economy which presented in a rational system his mysterious nature as a reality existing on the confines of two worlds, spirit and matter; the Platonic theory of knowledge (at least in the version of the Meno rather than that of the later dialogues where the doctrine of division is more prominent), which was regularly beset with the difficulty of accounting for the origin and the truth of knowledge, was translated into a theory of abstraction in which sensible experience enters as a necessary moment into the explanation of the origin, the growth and the use of knowledge, and in which the intelligible structure of sensible being becomes the measure of the truth of knowledge and of knowing.
"To regard the fundamental as the refined essence and to regard things as its coarse embodiment; to regard accumulation as deficiency; to dwell quietly and alone with the spiritual and the intelligent; these were some aspects of the system of Tao of the ancients . . . They built their system upon the principle the eternal Non-Being and centered it upon the idea of Ultimate Unity. Their outward expression was weakness and humility. Pure emptiness without injury to objective things was for them true substance. Kuan Yin said, "Establish nothing in regard to oneself. Let things be what they are; move like water; be tranquil like a mirror; respond like an echo. Pass quickly like the non-existent; be quiet like purity . . .' Lao Tan (Lao Tzu) said, 'Know manhood (active force), and preserve womanhood (passive force); become the ravine of the world. Know whiteness (glory); endure blackness (disgrace); become a model of the world.' Men all seek the first; he alone took the last . . . Men all seek for happiness; he alone sought contentment in adaptation . . . He regarded the deep as the fundamental, moderation as the rule . . .
trancscendental ::: a. --> Supereminent; surpassing others; as, transcendental being or qualities.
In the Kantian system, of or pertaining to that which can be determined a priori in regard to the fundamental principles of all human knowledge. What is transcendental, therefore, transcends empiricism; but is does not transcend all human knowledge, or become transcendent. It simply signifies the a priori or necessary conditions of experience which, though affording the conditions of
transcendentalism ::: n. --> The transcending, or going beyond, empiricism, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of human knowledge.
Ambitious and imaginative vagueness in thought, imagery, or diction.
Transcendental Philosophy: Kant's name for his proposed a priori science of pure science ("pure reason") which would include both a detailed analysis of its fundamental concepts and a complete list of all derivative notions. Such a study would go beyond the purpose and scope of his Critique of Pure Reason. Name given to Kant's philosophy. Schelling's term for his science of Mind, as opposed to the science of Nature. Transcendentalism (q.v.). --W.L. Transcendental proof: In Kant's Philosophy: Proof by showing that what is proved is a necessary condition without which human experience would be impossible and therefore valid of all phenomena. -- A.C.E.
transcendent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence — and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal — of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth — a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"The Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three powers overarching, underlying and penetrating the whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the unfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental terms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the experience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we wake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the universal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by a still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits that is founded on the Absolute.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"We see then that there are three terms of the one existence, transcendent, universal and individual, and that each of these always contains secretly or overtly the two others. The Transcendent possesses itself always and controls the other two as the basis of its own temporal possibilities; that is the Divine, the eternal all-possessing God-consciousness, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, which informs, embraces, governs all existences. The human being is here on earth the highest power of the third term, the individual, for he alone can work out at its critical turning-point that movement of self-manifestation which appears to us as the involution and evolution of the divine consciousness between the two terms of the Ignorance and the Knowledge.” The Life Divine
The Transcendent
This is what is termed the Adya Shakti; she is the Supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her — the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities.” Letters on Yoga
**Transcendent"s.**
transistor "electronics" A three terminal {semiconductor} amplifying device, the fundamental component of most active electronic circuits, including digital electronics. The transistor was invented on 1947-12-23 at {Bell Labs}. There are two kinds, the {bipolar transistor} (also called the junction transistor), and the {field effect transistor} (FET). Transistors and other components are interconnected to make complex {integrated circuits} such as {logic gates}, {microprocessors} and memory. (1995-10-05)
trimorphism ::: n. --> The property of crystallizing in three forms fundamentally distinct, as is the case with titanium dioxide, which crystallizes in the forms of rutile, octahedrite, and brookite. See Pleomorphism.
The coexistence among individuals of the same species of three distinct forms, not connected, as a rule, by intermediate gradations; the condition among individuals of the same species of having three different shapes or proportions of corresponding parts; --
truth ::: 1. (Often cap.) Ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience. 2. Conformity to fact or actuality. Truth, truth"s, Truth"s, truths, Truths, truth-conscious, Truth-gaze, Truth-speaking, All-Truth, dream-truth, half-Truth, half-truths, heaven-truth, soul-truth.
Truth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our fast conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an isaoionce seeking for know- ledge ; it is only the Supramental Truth-Consciousness that can bring us the true and whole Self-Knowledge and world-know- ledge ; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and fulfilment of our spiritual evolution. '
twenty tenets ::: Twenty of the most fundamental patterns of evolution across all domains. Applicable only to individual and social holons, not artifacts or heaps.
two-valued logic "logic" (Commonly known as "{Boolean algebra}") A mathematical system concerning the two {truth values}, TRUE and FALSE and the functions {AND}, {OR}, {NOT}. Two-valued logic is one of the cornerstones of {logic} and is also fundamental in the design of {digital electronics} and {programming languages}. The term "Boolean" is used here with its common meaning - two-valued, though strictly {Boolean algebra} is more general than this. Boolean functions are usually represented by {truth tables} where "0" represents "false" and "1" represents "true". E.g.: A | B | A AND B --+---+-------- 0 | 0 | 0 0 | 1 | 0 1 | 0 | 0 1 | 1 | 1 This can be given more compactly using "x" to mean "don't care" (either true or false): A | B | A AND B --+---+-------- 0 | x | 0 x | 0 | 0 1 | 1 | 1 Similarly: A | NOT A A | B | A OR B --+------ --+---+-------- 0 | 1 0 | 0 | 0 1 | 0 x | 1 | 1 1 | x | 1 Other functions such as {XOR}, {NAND}, {NOR} or functions of more than two inputs can be constructed using combinations of AND, OR, and NOT. AND and OR can be constructed from each other using {DeMorgan's Theorem}: A OR B = NOT ((NOT A) AND (NOT B)) A AND B = NOT ((NOT A) OR (NOT B)) In fact any Boolean function can be constructed using just NOR or just NAND using the identities: NOT A = A NOR A A OR B = NOT (A NOR B) and {DeMorgan's Theorem}. (2003-06-18)
Under Kierkegaard's influence, he pursues an "existential" analysis of human existence in order to discuss the original philosophical question of being in a new way. He explores many hitherto unexplored phenomena which ontology disregarded. Sorge (concern), being par excellence the structure of consciousness, is elevated to the ultimate. Concern has a wholly special horizon of being. Dread (Angst), the feeling of being on the verge of nothing, represents an eminently transcendental instrument of knowledge. Heidegger gives dread a content directed upon the objective world. He unfolds the essence of dread to be Sorge (concern). As concern tends to become obscured to itself by the distracted losing of one's selfhood in the cares of daily life, its remedy is in the consideration of such experiences as conscience, forboding of death and the existential consciousness of time. By elevating Sorge to the basis of all being, he raised something universally human to the fundamental principle of the world. It is only after an elementary analysis of the basic constitution of human existence that Heidegger approaches his ultimate problem of Being and Time, in which more complicated structures such as the existential significance of death, conscience, and the power of resolute choice explain the phenomena of man's position in daily life and history.
underlying ::: 1. Being at the basis of; forming the foundation of. 2. Implicit; discoverable only by close scrutiny or analysis. 3. Fundamental; basic.
underlying ::: a. --> Lying under or beneath; hence, fundamental; as, the underlying strata of a locality; underlying principles.
Unity and Multiplicity ::: Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is th
refore called Vidya, the Knowledge.
unity ::: “Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be an unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is therefore called Vidya, the Knowledge.” The Upanishads
Unity ::: Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is th
refore called Vidya, the Knowledge
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 51
Universal Brotherhood ::: Universal brotherhood as understood in the esoteric philosophy, and which is a sublime natural fact ofuniversal nature, does not signify merely sentimental unity, or a simple political or social cooperation. Itsmeaning is incomparably wider and profounder than this. The sense inherent in the words in their widesttenor or purport is the spiritual brotherhood of all beings; particularly, the doctrine implies that allhuman beings are inseparably linked together, not merely by the bonds of emotional thought or feeling,but by the very fabric of the universe itself, all men -- as well as all beings, both high and low andintermediate -- springing forth from the inner and spiritual sun of the universe as its hosts of spiritualrays. We all come from this one source, that spiritual sun, and are all builded of the same life-atoms onall the various planes.It is this interior unity of being and of consciousness, as well as the exterior union of us all, whichenables us to grasp intellectually and spiritually the mysteries of the universe; because not merelyourselves and our own fellow human beings, but also all other beings and things that are, are children ofthe same kosmic parent, great Mother Nature, in all her seven (and ten) planes or worlds of being. We areall rooted in the same kosmic essence, whence we all proceeded in the beginning of the primordialperiods of world evolution, and towards which we are all journeying back. This interlocking andinterblending of the numberless hierarchies of beings forming the universe itself extends everywhere, inthe invisible worlds as well as in the worlds which are visible.Finally, it is upon this fact of the spiritual unity of all beings and things that reposes the basis andfoundation of human ethics when these last are properly understood. In the esoteric philosophy ethics areno mere human convention or rules of action convenient and suitable for the amelioration of theasperities of human intercourse, but are fundamental in the very structure and inextricably coordinatedoperations of the universe itself.
unknown ::: “The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” The Life Divine
VI. Probability as a Limit of Frequencies. According to this view, developed especially by Mises and by Wald, the probability of an event is equal to its total frequency, that is to the limit, if it exists, of the frequency of that event in n trials, when n tends to infinity. The difficulty of working out this conception led Mises to propose the notion of a collective in an attempt to evolve conditions for a true random sequence. A collective is a random sequence of supposed results of trials when (1) the total frequency of the event in the sequence exists, and (2) the same property holds with the same limiting value when the sequence is replaced by any sequence derived from it. Various methods were devised by Copeland, Reichenbach and others to avoid objections to the second condition: they were generalized by Wald who restricted the choice of the "laws of selection" defining the ranks of the trials forming one of the derived sequences, by his postulate that these laws must form a denumerable set. This modification gives logical consistency to this theory at the expense of its original simplicity, but without disposing of some fundamental shortcomings. Thus, the probability of an event in a collective remains a relative notion, since it must be known to which denumerable set of laws of selection it has been defined relatively, in order to determine its meaning, even though its value is not relative to the set. Controversial points about the axiomatization of this theory show the possibility of other alternatives.
virya ::: dynamical force; spiritual force; the fundamental svabhavasakti or the energy of the divine temperament expressing itself in the fourfold type of the caturvarna. ::: viryam [nominative]
VisiCalc "application, tool, business, history" /vi'zi-calk/ The first {spreadsheet} program, conceived in 1978 by {Dan Bricklin}, while he was an MBA student at Harvard Business School. Inspired by a demonstration given by {Douglas Engelbart} of a {point-and-click} {user interface}, Bricklin set out to design an {application} that would combine the intuitiveness of pencil and paper calculations with the power of a {programmable pocket calculator}. Bricklin's design was based on the (paper) financial spreadsheet, a kind of document already used in business planning. (Some of Bricklin's notes for VisiCalc were scribbled on the back of a spreadsheet pad.) VisiCalc was probably not the first application to use a spreadsheet model, but it did have a number of original features, all of which continue to be fundamental to spreadsheet software. These include {point-and-type} editing, {range} {replication} and formulas that update automatically with changes to other {cells}. VisiCalc is widely credited with creating the sudden demand for desktop computers that helped fuel the {microcomputer} boom of the early 1980s. Thousands of business people with little or no technical expertise found that they could use VisiCalc to create sophisticated financial programs. This makes VisiCalc one of the first {killer apps}. {Dan Bricklin's Site (http://bricklin.com/visicalc.htm)}. (2003-07-05)
void ::: “The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for a vacant Absolute is no Absolute,—our conception of a Void or Zero is only a conceptual sign of our mental inability to know or grasp it: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world’s existence.” The Life Divine
V. Probability as an Operattonal Concept: In this interpretation, which is due particularly to Kemble, probability is discussed in terms of the mental operations involved in determining it numerically. It is pointed out that probability enters the postulates of physical theories as a useful word employed to indicate the manner in which results of theoretical calculations are to be compared with experimental data. But beyond the usefulness of this word, there must be a more fundamental concept justifying it; this is called primary probability which should be reached by an instrumentalist procedure. The analogy of the thermometer, which connects a qualitative sensation with a number, gives an indication for such a procedure. The expectation of the repetition of an event is an elementary form of belief which can be strengthened by additional evidence. In collecting such evidence, a selection is naturally made, by accepting the relevant data and rejecting the others. When the selected data form a pattern which does not involve the event as such or its negative, the event is considered as probable. The rules of collecting the data and of comparing them with the theoretical event and its negative, involve the idea ol correspondence which leads to the use of numbers for its expression. Thus, probability is a number computed from empirical data according to given rules, and used as a metric and a corrective to the sense of expectation, and the ultimate value of the theory of probability is its service as a guide to action. The main interest of this theory lies in its psychological analysis and its attempt to unify the various conceptions of probability. But it is not yet complete; and until its epistemological implications are made clear, its apparent eclecticism may cover many of the difficulties it wishes to avoid. -- T.G.
vyapti ::: the pervasion of all by a universal consciousness; a stream of conscious connection between beings arising from a fundamental unity; (also called receptive vyapti) the reception of thoughts, feelings, etc., entering into one"s mind from others, one of the two siddhis of knowledge whose combination constitutes telepathy; (also called effective or communicative vyapti) the transmission of thoughts or states of consciousness to others, an agent of vasita. vyaptih., prakamyam, aisvaryam, isita, vasita, mahima, laghima, vyaptih, an.ima, iti as.t.asiddhih. (vyaptih, prakamyam, aishwaryam, ishita,
wannabee /won'*-bee/ (Or, more plausibly, spelled "wannabe") [Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol; probably originally from biker slang] A would-be {hacker}. The connotations of this term differ sharply depending on the age and exposure of the subject. Used of a person who is in or might be entering {larval stage}, it is semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most hackers remember that they, too, were once such creatures. When used of any professional programmer, CS academic, writer, or {suit}, it is derogatory, implying that said person is trying to cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally, have a prayer of understanding what it is all about. Overuse of hacker terms is often an indication of the {wannabee} nature. Compare {newbie}. Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different flavour now (1993) than it did ten or fifteen years ago. When the people who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in {larval stage}, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious and unaffected by models known in popular culture - communities formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focussed desire to become similarly wizardly. Those days of innocence are gone forever; society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer after 1980 included the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of folk hero, and the result is that some people semi-consciously set out to *be hackers* and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the popular image of hackers. Fortunately, to do this really well, one has to actually become a wizard. Nevertheless, old-time hackers tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about the change; among other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects of public compendia of lore like this one. [{Jargon File}]
We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 153
". . . what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical constitution of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature — this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised, — a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.” The Life Divine
“… what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical constitution of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature—this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised,—a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.” The Life Divine
What is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical construction of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us.We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature—this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised,—a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 382-383
When said of an effect: An effect is taken formally when it is looked at according to itself, but it is taken radically or fundamentally when it is looked at according to its cause, root, or foundation. Thus visibility taken formally is a property of man, and is distinguished by the mind from rationality; but taken radically, it is the same as rationality, inasmuch as rationality is the root of visibility.
While the highest truths or the pure ideas are to the ideative mind abstractions, because mind lives partly in the phenomenal and partly in intellectual constructions and has to use the method of abstraction to arrive at the higher realities, the supermind lives in the spirit and th
refore in the very substance of what these ideas and truths represent or rather fundamentally are and truly realises them, not only thinks but in the act of thinking feels and identifies itself with their substance, and to it they are among the most substantial things that can be.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, , Page: 844-45
Whitehead and Russell use the term propositional function in approximately the sense above described, but qualify it by holding, as a corollary of Russell's doctrine of descriptions (q.v.), that propositional functions are the fundamental kind from which other kinds of functions are derived -- in fact that non-propositional ("descriptive") functions do not exist except as incomplete symbols. For details of their view, which underwent some changes between publication of the first and the second edition of Principia Mathematica, the reader is referred to that work.
Windelband, Wilhelm: Wmdelband (1848-1915) was preeminently an outstanding historian of philosophy. He has nowhere given a systematic presentation of his own views, but has expressed them only in unconnected essays and discourses. But in these he made some suggestions of great import on account of which he has been termed the founder and head of the "South-Western German School." He felt that he belonged to the tradition of German Idealism without definitely styling himself a Neo-Kantian, Neo-Fichtean or Neo-Hegelian. His fundamental position is that whereas it is for science to determine facts, it is for philosophy to determine values. Facts may be gathered from experience, but values, i.e., what "ought" to be thought, felt and done, cannot and hence must in some sense be a priori. Of particular significance was his effort -- later worked out by H. Rickert -- to point out a fundamental distinction between natural and historical science: the former aims at establishing general laws and considers particular facts only insofar as they are like others. In contrast to this "nomothetic" type of science, history is "idiographic", i.e., it is interested in the particular as such, but, of course, not equally in all particulars, but in such only as have some significance from the point of view of value. -- H.G.
With reference to the approach to the central reality of religion, God, and man's relation to it, types of the Philosophy of Religion may be distinguished, leaving out of account negative (atheism), skeptical and cynical (Xenophanes, Socrates, Voltaire), and agnostic views, although insertions by them are not to be separated from the history of religious consciousness. Fundamentalism, mainly a theological and often a Church phenomenon of a revivalist nature, philosophizes on the basis of unquestioning faith, seeking to buttress it by logical argument, usually taking the form of proofs of the existence of God (see God). Here belong all historic religions, Christianity in its two principal forms, Catholicism with its Scholastic philosophy and Protestantism with its greatly diversified philosophies, the numerous religions of Hinduism, such as Brahmanism, Shivaism and Vishnuism, the religion of Judaism, and Mohammedanism. Mysticism, tolerated by Church and philosophy, is less concerned with proof than with description and personal experience, revealing much of the psychological factors involved in belief and speculation. Indian philosophy is saturated with mysticism since its inception, Sufism is the outstanding form of Arab mysticism, while the greatest mystics in the West are Plotinus, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Ruysbroek, Thomas a Kempis, and Jacob Bohme. Metaphysics incorporates religious concepts as thought necessities. Few philosophers have been able to avoid the concept of God in their ontology, or any reference to the relation of God to man in their ethics. So, e.g., Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schelling, and especially Hegel who made the investigation of the process of the Absolute the essence of the Philosophy of Religion.
word "storage" A fundamental unit of storage in a computer. The size of a word in a particular computer architecture is one of its chief distinguishing characteristics. The size of a word is usually the same as the width of the computer's {data bus} so it is possible to read or write a word in a single operation. An instruction is usually one or more words long and a word can be used to hold a whole number of characters. These days, this nearly always means a whole number of {bytes} (eight bits), most often 32 or 64 bits. In the past when six bit {character sets} were used, a word might be a multiple of six bits, e.g. 24 bits (four characters) in the {ICL 1900} series. (1994-11-11)
Yi: Chinese for change, a fundamental principle of the universe, arising out of the interaction of the two cosmic forces of yin and yang, or passive and active principles, and manifested in natural phenomena, human affairs, and ideas. (Also spelled i.)
Yuan: The beginning. For the One Prime, see: i yuan. The beginning of number, one. The beginning of the material principle or the vital force (ch'i). The originating power of the Heavenly Element (chien) in the system of the Eight Elements (pa kua), "being attentive to the fundamentals --the first and the chief quality of goodness," one of the four virtues (ssu te). The great virtue of Heaven and Earth which expresses itself in production and reproduction .
Yuga(Sanskrit) ::: A word meaning an "age," a period of time. A yuga is a period of mundane time, and four ofthese periods are usually enumerated in "divine years":1. Krita or Satya Yuga. . . . 4,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 400Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,8002. Treta Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . 3,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 300Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,6003. Dvapara Yuga. . . . . . . . 2,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,4004. Kali Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200TOTAL . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .12,000This rendered in years of mortals equals:4,800 x 360 = 1,728,0003,600 x 360 = 1,296,0002,400 x 360 = 864,0001,200 x 360 = 432,000. . . . . .Total 4,320,000Of these four yugas, our present racial period is the fourth or kali yuga, often called the "iron age" or the"black age." It is stated to have commenced at the moment of Krishna's death, usually given as 3,102years before the Christian era. There is a very important point of the teaching in connection with theyugas which must not be forgotten. It is the following: The four yugas as above outlined refer to whatmodern theosophical philosophy calls a root-race, although indeed a root-race from its individualbeginning to its individual ending is about double the length of the composite yuga above set forth incolumnar form. The racial yugas, however, overlap because each new great race is born at about themiddle period of the parent race, although the individual length of any one race is as above stated. Thus itis that by the overlapping of the races, a race and its succeeding race may for a long time becontemporaneous on the face of the globe.As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itselfand of the planetary chain, therefore the same scheme of yugas applies also on a cosmic scale -- thereexist the four series of satya yuga, treta yuga, dvapara yuga, and kali yuga, in the evolution of the earth,and on a still larger scale in the evolution of a planetary chain. Of course these cosmic yugas are verymuch longer than the racial yugas, but the same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout. For furtherdetails of the teaching concerning the yugas, the student should consult H. P. Blavatsky's The SecretDoctrine, and the work by the present author, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.
Zen Buddhism: The Japanese “mediation school” of Buddhism, based on the theories of the “universality of Buddha-nature” and the possibility of “becoming a Buddha in this very body.” It teaches the way of attaining Buddhahood fundamentally by meditation.
zeroth "jargon" First. Since zero is the lowest value of an {unsigned} {integer}, which is one of the most fundamental types in programming and {hardware} design, it is often natural to count from zero rather than one, especially when the integer is actually an {index} or {offset}, as used when addressing {hardware} and {arrays}. Hackers, computer scientists and pure mathematicians often like to call the first chapter of a publication "Chapter 0", especially if it is of an introductory nature (one of the classic instances was in the First Edition of {K&R}). Zero-based numbering tends to reduce {fencepost errors}, though it cannot eliminate them entirely. Logically, the next item after the zeroth should be the "oneth" but this is never used. [Dijkstra, "Why Numbering Should Start at Zero" {(http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html)}]. [{Jargon File}] (2010-02-28)
KEYS (10k)
30 Sri Aurobindo
4 Ken Wilber
2 Max Planck
2 Aswaghosha
2 Saint Thomas Aquinas
1 W V O Quine
1 to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth
1 Tolstoi
1 that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate
1 Taigen Dan Leighton
1 Sri Aurobindo
1 Shunryu Suzuki
1 Pope Francis
1 Marijn Haverbeke
1 Louis Dupré
1 LOIS MAI CHAN
1 Karol Wojtyla to Henri de Lubac
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jordan Peterson
1 James Clerk Maxwell
1 Isaac Newton
1 id
1 Gabriel Marcel
1 Evelyn Underhill
1 Erwin Schrodinger
1 Elon Musk
1 Donna Lu
1 Carl Sagan
1 Awaghosha
1 Alexander von Humboldt to Schelling
1 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
1 Paracelsus
1 Heraclitus
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
31 Anonymous
11 Dalai Lama XIV
10 Richard Dawkins
8 Pope Francis
8 Bertrand Russell
6 Stephen King
6 Mahatma Gandhi
6 Desmond Tutu
6 Cornel West
6 Albert Einstein
5 Terry Pratchett
5 Steven Weinberg
5 Stefan Molyneux
5 John Green
5 Jiddu Krishnamurti
5 James Gleick
4 Stephen R Covey
4 Stephen Covey
4 Sri Aurobindo
4 Sam Harris
1:Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences. ~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, p.93, #KEYS
2:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
~ Isaac Newton,#KEYS
3:Things in their fundamental nature can neither be named nor explained. They cannot be expressed adequately in any form of language. ~ Aswaghosha, #KEYS
4:Believe in the fundamental truth; it is to meditate with rapture on the Everlasting. ~ Awaghosha, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
5:Existence is a fundamental unity under a superficial diversity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, The Eternal in His Universe, #KEYS
6:You know, when real trouble comes your humanity is awakened. The fundamental human experience is that of compassion. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey, #KEYS
7:Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Rebirth, #KEYS
8:Three fundamental aspects of the Divine - the Individual or Immanent, the Cosmic and the Transcendent
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
9:Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ~ Erwin Schrodinger, #KEYS
10:Limitation by ignorance and error is the fundamental defect of an untransformed mind, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Divine Body, #KEYS
11:In the true nature of Matter is the fundamental law of the Spirit. In the true nature of Spirit is the fundamental law of Matter. ~ id, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
12:Things in their fundamental nature can neither be named nor explained. They cannot be expressed adequately in any form of language. ~ Aswaghosha, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
13:I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. ~ Max Planck, #KEYS
14:The fundamental is not the final, the pratistha is not the consummation but only the means to the consummation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #KEYS
15:To seek for delight is therefore the fundamental impulse and sense of Life; to find and possess and fulfil it is its whole motive. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Double Soul in Man, #KEYS
16:The fundamental truth of Being must necessarily be the fundamental truth of Becoming. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #KEYS
17:All philosophy is concerned with the relations between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
18:One has to keep a certain balance by which the fundamental consciousness remains able to turn from one concentration to another with ease. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work, #KEYS
19:Providing it is taken in its metaphysical and not its physical sense, the distinction between the *full* and the *empty* seems to me more fundamental than that between the *one* and the *many.* ~ Gabriel Marcel, 'The Ontological Mystery', #KEYS
20:There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #KEYS
21:Philosophy can never prove a hindrance to the advance of empirical science. On the contrary, she traces every new discovery back to fundamental principles, and that lays the foundation for fresh discoveries. ~ Alexander von Humboldt to Schelling, #KEYS
22:Classification, broadly defined, is the act of organizing the universe of knowledge into some systematic order. It has been considered the most fundamental activity of the human mind.
~ LOIS MAI CHAN, CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION: AN INTRODUCTION,#KEYS
23:The knowledge of the Self includes also the knowledge of the principles of Being, its fundamental modes and its relations with the principles of the phenomenal universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Modes of the Self, #KEYS
24:Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into a multiplicity of his desires, in refusing to await the time of promise, his life story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants. ~ Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei 13, #KEYS
25:Indeed, consciousness itself may be a fundamental property of matter, if so then there was no such thing as a 'pre-conscious" universe. ~ Donna Lu, (technical reporter) article "What is Reality," in magazine "New Scientist" Feb. 1-7, 2020, Special Issue. [IMHO: Worth a read]., #KEYS
26:Metaphysics requires more than debunking epistemological foundationalism: it presupposes a receptivity to principles that lie beyond linguistic pragmatism as well as beyond epistemic subjectivism. Above all, it must accept the fundamental givenness of the real. ~ Louis Dupré, #KEYS
27:I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." ~ Max Planck, (1858 - 1947) German physicist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
28:We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do... forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in , the fundamental verb, to Be." ~ Evelyn Underhill, (1875 - 1941), Wik., #KEYS
29:I devote my very rare free moments to... the metaphysical sense and mystery of the person. The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person. ~ Karol Wojtyla to Henri de Lubac, #KEYS
30:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and cleaR But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You're building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.
~ Marijn Haverbeke,#KEYS
31:The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day." ~ Heraclitus, ( c. 535 - c. 475 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, believed that change is fundamental essence of the universe, Wikipedia., #KEYS
32:For who could be taught the knowledge of experience from paper? Since paper has the property to produce lazy and sleepy people, who are haughty and learn to persuade themselves and to fly without wings. . . . Therefore the most fundamental thing is to hasten to experience. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
33:We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 153,#KEYS
34:In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
35:I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths ... and then reason up from there. ~ Elon Musk, #KEYS
36:ever be cowardly in the face of sin; say not to thyself. "I cannot do otherwise, I am habituated, I am weak." As long as thou livest, thou canst always strive against sin and conquer it, if not today, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, the day after, if not the day after, surely before thy death. But if from the beginning thou renounce the struggle, thou renouncest the fundamental sense of living. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
37:This is our time ~ to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can! ~ Barack Obama (2008), #KEYS
38:'Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman, all things are Brahman' is the triple formula of the comprehensive Supermind, a single truth of self-manifestation in three aspects which it holds together and inseparably in its self-view as the fundamental knowledge from which it proceeds to the play of the cosmos.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 01: Omnipresent Reality and the Universe, The Supreme Truth-Consciousness [149] [T1],#KEYS
39:There is first a central change of the consciousness and a growing direct experience, vision, feeling of the Supreme and the cosmic existence, the Divine in itself and the Divine in all things; the mind will be taken up into a growing preoccupation with this first and foremost and will feel itself heightening, widening into a more and more illumined means of expression of the one fundamental knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Yoga of Divine Works, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1 [T1],#KEYS
40:The fundamental realisations of this yoga are: 1. The psychic change so that a compete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of the thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. 2. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light, etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. 3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
41:Even in the Inconscient there seems to be at least an urge of inherent necessity producing the evolution of forms and in the forms a developing Consciousness, and it may well be held that this urge is the evolutionary will of a secret Conscious-Being and its push of progressive manifestation the evidence of an innate intention in the evolution. Truth of Being inevitably fulfilling itself would be the fundamental fact of the evolution, but Will and its purpose must be there as part of the instrumentation, as an element in the operative principle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
42:There are only three fundamental obstacles that can stand in the way: (1) Absence of faith or insufficient faith. (2) Egoism - the mind clinging to its own ideas, the vital preferring its own desires to a true surrender, the physical adhering to its own habits. (3) Some inertia or fundamental resistance in the consciousness, not willing to change because it is too much of an effort or because it does not want to believe in its own capacity or the power of the Divine - or for some other more subconscient reason. You have to see for yourself which of these it is.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path,#KEYS
43:Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism. ~ W V O Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, 1951, #KEYS
44:At the base of all spiritual knowledge is this consciousness of identity and by identity, which knows or is simply aware of all as itself. Translated into our way of consciousness this becomes the triple knowledge thus formulated in the Upanishad, 'He who sees all existences in the Self', 'He who sees the Self in all existences', 'He in whom the Self has become all existences', -inclusion, indwelling and identity: but in the fundamental consciousness this seeing is a spiritual self-sense, a seeing that is self-light of being, not a separative regard or a regard upon self turning that self into object.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, 565,#KEYS
45:Theres another class of people and I would say this is one of the pathologies of being creative so if your a high open person and you have all those things its not going to be enough. you are going to have to pick another domain where you are working on something positive and revolutiony because like the creative impulse for someone who is open we know it is a fundamental personallity dimension, ... and if the ones who are high in openness arent doing something creative they are like dead sticks adn cant live properly. And I think those are the people who benefit particularly from depth psychological approaches, especially Jungian approaches. ~ Jordan Peterson, 015 Maps of Meaning 4: Narrative, Neuropsychology & Mythology II / Part 1, #KEYS
46:It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, — the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga #KEYS
47:Overmind is the highest source of the cosmic consciousness available to the embodied being in the Ignorance. It is part of the cosmic consciousness-but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-Life-Matter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive mind movements, illuminations, various kinds of powers and illumined light, liberation, Ananda. But to rise fully into the Intuition is rare, to reach the Overmind still rarer- although influences and experiences can come down from there.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, 152,#KEYS
48:But it is evident that all analogies of this kind depend on principles of a more fundamental nature; and that, if we had a true mathematical classification of quantities, we should be able at once to detect the analogy between any system of quantities presented to us and other systems of quantities in known sciences, so that we should lose no time in availing ourselves of the mathematical labors of those who had already solved problems essentially the same. [...] At the same time, I think that the progress of science, both in the way of discovery, and in the way of diffusion, would be greatly aided if more attention were paid in a direct way to the classification of quantities. ~ James Clerk Maxwell, Remarks on the mathematical classification of physical quantities, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 1871, #KEYS
49:the fundamental experience :::
There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
50:But, apart from all these necessities, there is the one fundamental necessity of the nature and object of embodied life itself, which is to seek infinite experience on a finite basis; and since the form, the basis by its very organisation limits the possibility of experience, this can only be done by dissolving it and seeking new forms. For the soul, having once limited itself by concentrating on the moment and the field, is driven to seek its infinity again by the principle of succession, by adding moment to moment and thus storing up a Time-experience which it calls its past; in that Time it moves through successive fields, successive experiences or lives, successive accumulations of knowledge, capacity, enjoyment, and all this it holds in subconscious or superconscious memory as its fund of past acquisition in Time.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
51:The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery ~ even if mixed with fear ~ that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence ~ as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature., #KEYS
52:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#KEYS
53:The pure existent is then a fact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The supreme intuition and its corresponding experience may correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence and of worldexistence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the facts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.
Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous. World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Pure Existent, 85,#KEYS
54:For our concentration on the Eternal will be consummated by the mind when we see constantly the Divine in itself and the Divine in ourselves, but also the Divine in all things and beings and happenings. It will be consummated by the heart when all emotion is summed up in the love of the Divine, - of the Divine in itself and for itself, but love too of the Divine in all its beings and powers and personalities and forms in the Universe. It will be consummated by the will when we feel and receive always the divine impulsion and accept that alone as our sole motive force; but this will mean that, having slain to the last rebellious straggler the wandering impulses of the egoistic nature, we have universalised ourselves and can accept with a constant happy acceptance the one divine working in all things. This is the first fundamental siddhi of the integral Yoga.
It is nothing less that is meant in the end when we speak of the absolute consecration of the individual to the Divine. But this total fullness of consecration can only come by a constant progression when the long and difficult process of transforming desire out of existence is completed in an ungrudging measure. Perfect self-consecration implies perfect self-surrender.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 85-86, [T1],#KEYS
55:The Twenty Tenets of Holons
1. Reality as a whole is not composed of things, or processes, but of holons.
2. Holons display four fundamental capacities:
a. self-preservation,
b. self-adaptation,
c. self-transcendence.
d. self-dissolution.
3. Holons emerge.
4. Holons emerge holarchically.
5. Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessor.
6. The lower sets the possibilities of the higer; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower.
7. "The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is 'shallow' or 'deep'; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its 'span'" (A. Koestler).
8. Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span.
9. Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it.
10. Holarchies coevolve.
11. The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth.
12. Evolution has directionality:
a. Increasing complexity.
b. Increasing differentiation/integration.
c. Increasing organisation/structuration.
d. Increasing relative autonomy.
e. Increasing telos.
~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, 1995, p. 35-78.,#KEYS
56:Shouldn't we consider in every nation major changes in the traditional ways of doing things, a fundamental restructuring of economic political social and religious institutions. We've reached a point where there can be no more special interests or special cases, nuclear arms threaten every person on the Earth. Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labelled impractical or contrary to human nature, as if nuclear war were practical or as if there's only one human nature. But fundamental changes can clearly be made, we're surrounded by them. In the last two centuries abject slavery which was with us for thousands of years has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring worldwide revolution. Women, systematically mistreated for millennia are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied them and some wars of aggression have recently been stopped or curtailed because of a revulsion felt by the people in the aggressor nations. The old appeals to racial sexual religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalist fervor are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
57:There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of our limited and distorted egoistic life and works into the large and direct outpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports us. This greater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no longer must it remain, as now, only a superconscious, upholding and permitting Force. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the all-wise purpose and process of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent Knowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily consenting and participating channel all our transmuted nature. This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [92],#KEYS
58:For invincible reasons of homogeneity and coherence, the fibers of cosmogenesis require to be prolonged in ourselves far more deeply than flesh and bone. We are not being tossed about and drawn along in the vital current merely by the material surface of our being. But like a subtle fluid, space-time, having drowned our bodies, penetrates our soul. It fills it and impregnates it. It mingles with its powers, until the soul soon no longer knows how to distinguish space-time from its own thoughts. Nothing can escape this flux any longer, for those who know how to see, even though it were the summit of our being, because it can only be defined in terms of increases of consciousness. For is not the very act by which the fine point of our mind penetrates the absolute a phenomenon of emergence? In short, recognized at first in a single point of things, then inevitably having spread to the whole of the inorganic and organic volume of matter, whether we like it or not evolution is now starting to invade the psychic zones of the world.... The human discovers that, in the striking words of Julian Huxley, we are nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself. It seems to me that until it is established in this perspective, the modern mind...will always be restless. For it is on this summit and this summit alone that a resting place and illumination await us.... All evolution becomes conscious of itself deep within us.... Not only do we read the secret of its movements in our slightest acts, but to a fundamental extent we hold it in our own hands: responsible for its past and its future. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #KEYS
59:IN OUR scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit's own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real essence. All are powers of one Power of being and not other than that All-Existence, All-Consciousness, All-Will, All-Delight which is the true truth behind every appearance. And they are not only one in their reality, but also inseparable in the sevenfold variety of their action. They are the seven colours of the light of the divine consciousness, the seven rays of the Infinite, and by them the Spirit has filled in on the canvas of his self-existence conceptually extended, woven of the objective warp of Space and the subjective woof of Time, the myriad wonders of his self-creation great, simple, symmetrical in its primal laws and vast framings, infinitely curious and intricate in its variety of forms and actions and the complexities of relation and mutual effect of all upon each and each upon all. These are the seven Words of the ancient sages; by them have been created and in the light of their meaning are worked out and have to be interpreted the developed and developing harmonies of the world we know and the worlds behind of which we have only an indirect knowledge. The Light, the Sound is one; their action is sevenfold.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 7 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, 499,#KEYS
60:Though the supermind is suprarational to our intelligence and its workings occult to our apprehension, it is nothing irrationally mystic, but rather its existence and emergence is a logical necessity of the nature of existence, always provided we grant that not matter or mind alone but spirit is the fundamental reality and everywhere a universal presence. All things are a manifestation of the infinite spirit out of its own being, out of its own consciousness and by the self-realising, self-determining, self-fulfilling power of that consciousness. The Infinite, we may say, organises by the power of its self-knowledge the law of its own manifestation of being in the universe, not only the material universe present to our senses, but whatever lies behind it on whatever planes of existence. All is organised by it not under any inconscient compulsion, not according to a mental fantasy or caprice, but in its own infinite spiritual freedom according to the self-truth of its being, its infinite potentialities and its will of self-creation out of those potentialities, and the law of this self-truth is the necessity that compels created things to act and evolve each according to its own nature. The Intelligence- to give it an inadequate name-the Logos that thus organises its own manifestation is evidently something infinitely greater, more extended in knowledge, compelling in self-power, large both in the delight of its self-existence and the delight of its active being and works than the mental intelligence which is to us the highest realised degree and expression of consciousness. It is to this intelligence infinite in itself but freely organising and self-determiningly organic in its self-creation and its works that we may give for our present purpose the name of the divine supermind or gnosis.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 785-86,#KEYS
61:There is one point in particular I would like to single out and stress, namely, the notion of evolution. It is common to assume that one of the doctrines of the perennial philosophy... is the idea of involution-evolution. That is, the manifest world was created as a "fall" or "breaking away" from the Absolute (involution), but that all things are now returning to the Absolute (via evolution). In fact, the doctrine of progressive temporal return to Source (evolution) does not appear anywhere, according to scholars as Joseph Campbell, until the axial period (i.e. a mere two thousand years ago). And even then, the idea was somewhat convoluted and backwards. The doctrine of the yugas, for example, sees the world as proceeding through various stages of development, but the direction is backward: yesterday was the Golden Age, and time ever since has been a devolutionary slide downhill, resulting in the present-day Kali-Yuga. Indeed, this notion of a historical fall from Eden was ubiquitous during the axial period; the idea that we are, at this moment, actually evolving toward Spirit was simply not conceived in any sort of influential fashion.
But sometime during the modern era-it is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly-the idea of history as devolution (or a fall from God) was slowly replaced by the idea of history as evolution (or a growth towards God). We see it explicitly in Schelling (1775-1854); Hegel (1770-1831) propounded the doctrine with a genius rarely equaled; Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) made evolution a universal law, and his friend Charles Darwin (1809-1882) applied it to biology. We find it next appearing in Aurobindo (1872-1950), who gave perhaps its most accurate and profound spiritual context, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) who made it famous in the West.
But here is my point: we might say that the idea of evolution as return-to-Spirit is part of the perennial philosophy, but the idea itself, in any adequate form, is no more than a few hundred years old. It might be 'ancient' as timeless, but it is certainly not ancient as "old."...
This fundamental shift in the sense or form of the perennial philosophy-as represented in, say, Aurobindo, Hegel, Adi Da, Schelling, Teilhard de Chardin, Radhakrishnan, to name a few-I should like to call the "neoperennial philosophy." ~ Ken Wilber, The Eye Of Spirit,#KEYS
62:higher mind or late vision logic ::: Even more rare, found stably in less than 1% of the population and even more emergent is the turquoise altitude.
Cognition at Turquoise is called late vision-logic or cross-paradigmatic and features the ability to connect meta-systems or paradigms, with other meta-systems. This is the realm of coordinating principles. Which are unified systems of systems of abstraction to other principles. ... Aurobindo indian sage and philosopher offers a more first-person account of turquoise which he called higher-mind, a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamism capable of formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming of all of which a spontaneous inherient knowledge.
Self-sense at turquoise is called Construct-aware and is the first stage of Cook-Greuter's extension of Loveigers work on ego-development. The Construct-aware stage sees individuals for the first time as exploring more and more complex thought-structures with awareness of the automatic nature of human map making and absurdities which unbridaled complexity and logical argumentation can lead. Individuals at this stage begin to see their ego as a central point of reference and therefore a limit to growth. They also struggle to balance unique self-expressions and their concurrent sense of importance, the imperical and intuitive knowledge that there is no fundamental subject-object separation and the budding awareness of self-identity as temporary which leads to a decreased ego-desire to create a stable self-identity. Turquoise individuals are keenly aware of the interplay between awareness, thought, action and effects. They seek personal and spiritual transformation and hold a complex matrix of self-identifications, the adequecy of which they increasingly call into question. Much of this already points to Turquoise values which embrace holistic and intuitive thinking and alignment to universal order in a conscious fashion.
Faith at Turquoise is called Universalising and can generate faith compositions in which conceptions of Ultimate Reality start to include all beings. Individuals at Turquoise faith dedicate themselves to transformation of present reality in the direction of transcendent actuality. Both of these are preludes to the coming of Third Tier. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-54, Higher Mind,#KEYS
63:But even before that highest approach to identity is achieved, something of the supreme Will can manifest in us as an imperative impulsion, a God-driven action; we then act by a spontaneous self-determining Force but a fuller knowledge of meaning and aim arises only afterwards. Or the impulse to action may come as an inspiration or intuition, but rather in the heart and body than in the mind; here an effective sight enters in but the complete and exact knowledge is still deferred and comes, if at all, lateR But the divine Will may descend too as a luminous single command or a total perception or a continuous current of perception of what is to be done into the will or into the thought or as a direction from above spontaneously fulfilled by the lower members. When the Yoga is imperfect, only some actions can be done in this way, or else a general action may so proceed but only during periods of exaltation and illumination. When the Yoga is perfect, all action becomes of this character. We may indeed distinguish three stages of a growing progress by which, first, the personal will is occasionally or frequently enlightened or moved by a supreme Will or conscious Force beyond it, then constantly replaced and, last, identified and merged in that divine Power-action. The first is the stage when we are still governed by the intellect, heart and senses; these have to seek or wait for the divine inspiration and guidance and do not always find or receive it. The second is the stage when human intelligence is more and more replaced by a high illumined or intuitive spiritualised mind, the external human heart by the inner psychic heart, the senses by a purified and selfless vital force. The third is the stage when we rise even above spiritualised mind to the supramental levels. In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218, #KEYS
64:The fundamental nature of this supermind is that, all its knowledge is originally a knowledge by identity and oneness and even when it makes numberless apparent divisions and discriminating modifications in itself, still all the knowledge that operates in its workings even in these divisions, is founded upon and sustained and lit and guided by this perfect knowledge by identity and oneness. The Spirit is one everywhere and it knows all things as itself and in itself, so sees them always and therefore knows them intimately, completely, in their reality as well as their appearance, in their truth, their law, the entire spirit and sense and figure of their nature and their workings. When it sees anything as an object of knowledge, it yet sees it as itself and in itself, and not as a thing other than or divided from it about which therefore it would at first be ignorant of the nature, constitution and workings and have to learn about them, as the mind is at first ignorant of its object and has to learn about it because the mind is separated from its object and regards and senses and meets it as something other than itself and external to its own being. ..... This is the second character of the supreme supermind that its knowledge is a real because a total knowledge. It has in the first place a transcendental vision and sees the universe not only in the universal terms, but in its right relation to the supreme and eternal reality from which it proceeds and of which it is an expression. It knows the spirit and truth and whole sense of the universal expression because it knows all the essentiality and all the infinite reality and all the consequent constant potentiality of that which in part it expresses. It knows rightly the relative because it knows the Absolute and all its absolutes to which the relatives refer back and of which they are the partial or modified or suppressed figures. It is in the second place universal and sees all that is individual in the terms of the universal as well as in its own individual terms and holds all these individual figures in their right and complete relation to the universe. It is in the third place, separately with regard to individual things, total in its view because it knows each in its inmost essence of which all else is the resultant, in its totality which is its complete figure and in its parts and their connections and dependences, -- as well as in its connections with and its dependences upon other things and its nexus with the total implications and the explicits of the universe.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
65:There is one fundamental perception indispensable towards any integral knowledge or many-sided experience of this Infinite. It is to realise the Divine in its essential self and truth unaltered by forms and phenomena. Otherwise we are likely to remain caught in the net of appearances or wander confusedly in a chaotic multitude of cosmic or particular aspects, and if we avoid this confusion, it will be at the price of getting chained to some mental formula or shut up in a limited personal experience. The one secure and all-reconciling truth which is the very foundation of the universe is this that life is the manifestation of an uncreated Self and Spirit, and the key to life's hidden secret is the true relation of this Spirit with its own created existences. There is behind all this life the look of an eternal Being upon its multitudinous becomings; there is around and everywhere in it the envelopment and penetration of a manifestation in time by an unmanifested timeless Eternal. But this knowledge is valueless for Yoga if it is only an intellectual and metaphysical notion void of life and barren of consequence; a mental realisation alone cannot be sufficient for the seeker. For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge. This infinite and eternal Self of things is an omnipresent Reality, one existence everywhere; it is a single unifying presence and not different in different creatures; it can be met, seen or felt in its completeness in each soul or each form in the universe. For its infinity is spiritual and essential and not merely a boundlessness in Space or an endlessness in Time; the Infinite can be felt in an infinitesimal atom or in a second of time as convincingly as in the stretch of the aeons or the stupendous enormity of the intersolar spaces. The knowledge or experience of it can begin anywhere and express itself through anything; for the Divine is in all, and all is the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice,#KEYS
66:There is no invariable rule of such suffering. It is not the soul that suffers; the Self is calm and equal to all things and the only sorrow of the psychic being is the sorrow of the resistance of Nature to the Divine Will or the resistance of things and people to the call of the True, the Good and the Beautiful. What is affected by suffering is the vital nature and the body. When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt - which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is moreover the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence on the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to the Divine, refuses to admit them. This is the subjective form of the universal resistance, but it may also take an objective form - opposition, calumny, attacks, persecution, misfortunes of many kinds, adverse conditions and circumstances, pain, illness, assaults from men or forces. There too the possibility of suffering is evident. There are two ways to meet all that - first that of the Self, calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to the divine Will, and then there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple, - until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable. There is also the way of the psychic, - when the psychic being comes out in its inherent power, its consecration, adoration, love of the Divine, self-giving, surrender and imposes these on the mind, vital and physical consciousness and compels them to turn all their movements Godward. If the psychic is strong and master...
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Resistances, Sufferings and Falls, 669,#KEYS
67:I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great Yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences; they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one - and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the Yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of déchéance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one's own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time he conceals himself, and then in his own right time he will reveal his Presence.
I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explain things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, the rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
68:GURU YOGA
Guru yoga is an essential practice in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. This is true in sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen. It develops the heart connection with the masteR By continually strengthening our devotion, we come to the place of pure devotion in ourselves, which is the unshakeable, powerful base of the practice. The essence of guru yoga is to merge the practitioner's mind with the mind of the master.
What is the true master? It is the formless, fundamental nature of mind, the primordial awareness of the base of everything, but because we exist in dualism, it is helpful for us to visualize this in a form. Doing so makes skillful use of the dualisms of the conceptual mind, to further strengthen devotion and help us stay directed toward practice and the generation of positive qualities.
In the Bon tradition, we often visualize either Tapihritsa* as the master, or the Buddha ShenlaOdker*, who represents the union of all the masters. If you are already a practitioner, you may have another deity to visualize, like Guru Rinpoche or a yidam or dakini. While it is important to work with a lineage with which you have a connection, you should understand that the master you visualize is the embodiment of all the masters with whom you are connected, all the teachers with whom you have studied, all the deities to whom you have commitments. The master in guru yoga is not just one individual, but the essence of enlightenment, the primordial awareness that is your true nature.
The master is also the teacher from whom you receive the teachings. In the Tibetan tradition, we say the master is more important than the Buddha. Why? Because the master is the immediate messenger of the teachings, the one who brings the Buddha's wisdom to the student. Without the master we could not find our way to the Buddha. So we should feel as much devotion to the master as we would to the Buddha if the Buddha suddenly appeared in front of us.
Guru yoga is not just about generating some feeling toward a visualized image. It is done to find the fundamental mind in yourself that is the same as the fundamental mind of all your teachers, and of all the Buddhas and realized beings that have ever lived. When you merge with the guru, you merge with your pristine true nature, which is the real guide and masteR But this should not be an abstract practice. When you do guru yoga, try to feel such intense devotion that the hair stands upon your neck, tears start down your face, and your heart opens and fills with great love. Let yourself merge in union with the guru's mind, which is your enlightened Buddha-nature. This is the way to practice guru yoga.
The Practice
After the nine breaths, still seated in meditation posture, visualize the master above and in front of you. This should not be a flat, two dimensional picture-let a real being exist there, in three dimensions, made of light, pure, and with a strong presence that affects the feeling in your body,your energy, and your mind. Generate strong devotion and reflect on the great gift of the teachings and the tremendous good fortune you enjoy in having made a connection to them. Offer a sincere prayer, asking that your negativities and obscurations be removed, that your positive qualities develop, and that you accomplish dream yoga.
Then imagine receiving blessings from the master in the form of three colored lights that stream from his or her three wisdom doors- of body, speech, and mind-into yours. The lights should be transmitted in the following sequence: White light streams from the master's brow chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your entire body and physical dimension. Then red light streams from the master's throat chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your energetic dimension. Finally, blue light streams from the master's heart chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your mind.
When the lights enter your body, feel them. Let your body, energy, and mind relax, suffused inwisdom light. Use your imagination to make the blessing real in your full experience, in your body and energy as well as in the images in your mind.
After receiving the blessing, imagine the master dissolving into light that enters your heart and resides there as your innermost essence. Imagine that you dissolve into that light, and remain inpure awareness, rigpa.
There are more elaborate instructions for guru yoga that can involve prostrations, offerings, gestures, mantras, and more complicated visualizations, but the essence of the practice is mingling your mind with the mind of the master, which is pure, non-dual awareness. Guru yoga can be done any time during the day; the more often the better. Many masters say that of all the practices it is guru yoga that is the most important. It confers the blessings of the lineage and can open and soften the heart and quiet the unruly mind. To completely accomplish guru yoga is to accomplish the path.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep, [T3],#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:The human mind is our fundamental resource. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 2:The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 3:The fundamental glue that holds any relationship together is trust. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 4:Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe there is a reason. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 5:Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 6:Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 7:I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 8:A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 9:When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 10:I am my own worst enemy. This, more than any other trait, proves my fundamental humanity. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 11:The quest for simplicity has to pervade every part of the process. It really is fundamental. ~ jony-ive, @wisdomtrove 12:Appraise war in terms of the fundamental factors. The first of these factors is moral influence. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 13:The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress and all moral development. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 14:Music is... a fundamental way of expressing our humanity - and it is often our best medicine. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove 15:An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 16:Our fundamental relationship is soul-to-soul. As we become multi-sensory, we become aware of it. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 17:One of the fundamental choices you face in every encounter is the choice to approach or avoid. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 18:Poverty is the fundamental cause of most of the physical, moral and economic ills of humanity. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 19:Physics is based on the assumption that certain fundamental features of nature are constant. ~ rupert-sheldrake, @wisdomtrove 20:At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, That nothing with God can be accidental. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 21:There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 22:The fundamental basis of above-average performance in the long run is sustainable competitive advantage. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 23:Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 24:I think of compassion as the fundamental religious experience and, unless that is there, you have nothing. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 25:A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 26:Interconnectedness is a fundamental principle of nature. Nothing is isolated. Each event connects with others. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 27:The fundamental laws are in the long run merely statements that every event is itself and not some different event. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 28:The power of music to integrate and cure. . . is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove 29:Physics is a good framework for thinking. ... Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 30:Leadership is about tapping the wellsprings of human motivation - and about fundamental relations with one's fellows. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 31:A fundamental responsibility of leadership is make sure that everybody knows the mission, understands it, lives it. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 32:One cannot apologize for something fundamental, and a child feels and knows this as well and as deeply as any sage. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 33:There are two components that are fundamental to enjoy life and feel good about yourself: continual learning and service. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 34:Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 35:The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 36:The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 37:There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 38:For our duties and our needs, in all the fundamental things for which we were created, come down in practice to the same thing. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 39:The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 40:Freud was way off base in considering sex the fundamental motivation. The ruling passion in men is minding each other's business. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 41:We do not seek to thrust the principles of our religion upon anyone. The fundamental principles of our religion forbid that. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 42:Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference we should each be treated with appropriate respect. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 43:Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 44:What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 45:The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 46:The fundamental principle of our constitution ... enjoins the sense of command, duty that the will of the majority shall prevail. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 47:The fundamental basis of education must always remain that one must act for oneself. That is clear. One must act for him or herself. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove 48:Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 49:What's hot today isn't likely to be hot tomorrow. The stock market reverts to fundamental returns over the long run. Don't follow the herd. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 50:Institutions don't change the world in fundamental ways. The way the world changes is heart to heart to heart by individuals, not by institutions. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 51:Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 52:The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 53:No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 54:Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 55:Knowledge of life in the astral world leads us to a conclusion of fundamental importance, namely that the physical world is the product of the astral world. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 56:My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings - what we sometimes call "mind" - are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 57:Lack of self-worth is the fundamental source of all emotional pain. A feeling of insecurity, unworthiness and lack of valueis the core experience of powerlessness. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 58:While other [military] alliances have been formed to win wars, our fundamental purpose is to prevent war while preserving and extending the frontiers of freedom. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 59:Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove 60:The biggest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in the fundamental law. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 61:Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 62:If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 63:The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 64:The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 65:There are fundamental laws of life (Truths) that operate with unerring consistency - and you are better off to the degree to which you learn to live according to them. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove 66:I think actually the marketing community is approaching a crisis: There are just too many messages competing for too little attention. That is the fundamental problem. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 67:There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 68:I know it's hard being a single mother baby, he said, but we're talking fundamentals here. Homemade cookies are one of the best parts of christmas. It's an absolute fundamental. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 69:No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 70:It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law... that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 71:I dare say that I have worked off my fundamental formula on you that the chief end of man is to frame general propositions and that no general proposition is worth a damn. ~ oliver-wendell-holmes-jr, @wisdomtrove 72:Common sense is the fundamental factor in all spiritual disciplines. No rule is an eternal rule. Rules change from place to place, time to time and from one condition to another condition. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 73:Conservation of our resources is the fundamental question before this nation, and that our first and greatest task is to set our house in order and begin to live within our means. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 74:My experience of fundamental Truth is that it’s a place of extraordinary intelligence. It’s a place from which great intelligence arises. I call it a place of absolute infinite potential. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 75:A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 76:Every event is the effect and the expression of the whole and is in fundamental harmony with the whole. All response from the whole must be right, effortless and instantaneous. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 77:In nature there is a fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 78:I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 79:Virtue, mindfulness, and wisdom are the pillars of everyday well-being, personal growth, and spiritual practice; they draw on the three fundamental neural functions of regulation, learning, and ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 80:If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior... you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 81:One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you've got to focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible. ~ leo-babauta, @wisdomtrove 82:We are asking a really fundamental question whether thought can ever be creative. If thought is not the ground of creation then what is creation? Is love the only factor that is creative? ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 83:Politician, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 84:Well, gauge theory is very fundamental to our understanding of physical forces these days. But they are also dependent on a mathematical idea, which has been around for longer than gauge theory has. ~ roger-penrose, @wisdomtrove 85:There are no new fundamentals. You've got to be a little suspicious of someone who says, "I've got a new fundamental." That's like someone inviting you to tour a factory where they are manufacturing antiques. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 86:I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 87:Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove 88:Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard. ~ oliver-wendell-holmes-jr, @wisdomtrove 89:We are dealing with a fundamental characteristic, inherent in human nature, a potentiality given to all or most human beings at birth, which most often is lost or buried or inhibited as the person gets enculturated. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 90:We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 91:In a Nutshell - Fundamental Techniques In Handling People; Principle 1 - Don't criticize, condemn or complain; Principle 2 - Give honest and sincere appreciation; Principle 3 - Arouse in the other person an eager want. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 92:There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 93:The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no in the endeavor of science. We do not know in advance who will discover fundamental insights. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 94:One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion. ~ reinhold-niebuhr, @wisdomtrove 95:Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little more to eat next winter but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come? ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 96:To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent - herein lie the techniques of Tao of the ancients. ~ zhuangzi, @wisdomtrove 97:What I ask of [the writer] is not to ignore the reality and the fundamental problems that exist. The world's hunger, the atomic threat, the alienation of man, I am astonished that they do not color all our literature. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 98:The idea of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination, may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to creation. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 99:There is no fundamental difference between one religion and another, because each religion embodies the ultimate Truth. Each religion is right, absolutely right, because each religion conveys the message of Truth in its own way. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 100:On one occasion when [William] Smart found him engrossed with his fundamental theory, he asked Eddington how many people he thought would understand what he was writing-after a pause came the reply, & 101:When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are not many different kinds; there's only one kind. It uses about fifty fundamental biological building blocks, organic molecules. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 102:What we really want is & 103:They are the carrion birds of humanity... [speaking of the Jews] are a state within a state. They are certainly not real citizens... The evils of Jews do not stem from individuals but from the fundamental nature of these people. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 104:The fundamental principles of the Sufis may be simply stated in these words: God is all there is; besides Him there is naught; the universe is but a reflection or idea in the mind of God, and has no existence outside of Him. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 105:Be a good human being, a warm-hearted affectionate person. That is my fundamental belief. Having a sense of caring, a feeling of compassion will bring happiness and peace of mind to oneself and automatically create a positive atmosphere. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 106:Belonging is a circle that embraces everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature.The word & 107:For me, science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance. ~ paul-davies, @wisdomtrove 108:One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree - make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 109:Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 110:Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 111:Physicists love this number not just because it is dimensionless, but also because it is a combination of three fundamental constants of nature. Why do these constants come together to make the particular number 1/137.036 and not some other number? ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove 112:I am in the state of detached but affectionate awareness. When this awareness turns upon itself, you may call it the Supreme State. But the fundamental reality is beyond awareness, beyond the three states of becoming, being and not-being. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 113:Popular privileges are consistent with a state of society in which there is great inequality of position. Democratic rights, on the contrary, demand that there should be equality of condition as the fundamental basis of the society they regulate. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 114:The fundamental insight of polytheism, which distinguishes it from monotheism, is that the supreme power governing the world is devoid of interests and biases, and therefore it is unconcerned with the mundane desires, cares and worries of humans. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 115:What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove 116:The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out can. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 117:Our educational system in its entirety does nothing to give us any kind of material competence. In other words, we don't learn how to cook, how to make clothes, how to build houses, how to make love, or to do any of the absolutely fundamental things of life. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 118:The unawakened life is permeated by a type of suffering he called dukkha. Dukkha is an underlying unease and discontent. An existential SOS that arises from the knowledge of death. A fundamental sense of separateness from others. An alienation from the world. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 119:It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly problems that had originated within me. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 120:One of the things that is particularly precious about working at Apple is that many of us on the design team have worked together for 15-plus years, and there's a wonderful thing about learning as a group. A fundamental part of that is making mistakes together. ~ jony-ive, @wisdomtrove 121:There's a fundamental difference, if you sort of look into the future, between a humanity that is a space-faring civilization, that's out there exploring the stars... compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 122:The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am." He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 123:Under the urge of nature and according to the laws of development, though not understood by the adult, the child is obliged to be serious about two fundamental things ... the first is the love of activity... The second fundamental thing is independence. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove 124:To be human is to belong. Belonging is a circle that embraces everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature. The word ‘belonging’ holds together the two fundamental aspects of life: Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 125:What is the singularity? We could say it’s the primal oneness that has evolved into the multifarious variety of life. The fundamental simplicity which is the source of the astonishing complexity of the universe. The nothing which contained the potential for everything. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 126:Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at the bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily given for the future. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 127:If the gentleman is not serious, he will not be respected, and his learning will not be on a firm foundation. He considers loyalty and faithfulness to be fundamental, has no friends who are not like him, and when he has made mistakes, he is not afraid of correcting them. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 128:Cosmologists have attempted to account for the day-to-day laws you find in textbooks in terms of fundamental & 129:Don’t just follow the trend. You may have heard me say that it’s good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles. Which is, rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and you reason up from there. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 130:The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the Earth was tainted and somehow nasty, while the heavens were perfect and divine. The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the Universe, was rejected and forgotten. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 131:There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . . ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 132:The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job. In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 133:This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 134:Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery - the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets - is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 135:I think the idea that women have all this wonderful emotion is a myth, as well as the fact that men do not. I mean, people are people. What is happening across the board is that the recognition that emotions, and the spirit and soul play a fundamental part in the art of healing. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 136:Observation and thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, insofar as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our spirit. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 137:The fundamental trouble with marriage is that it shakes a man's confidence in himself, and so greatly diminishes his general competence and effectiveness. His habit of mind becomes that of a commander who has lost a decisive and calamitous battle. He quite trusts himself thereafter. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 138:With a father who is a fabulous craftsman, I was raised with the fundamental belief that it is only when you personally work with a material with your hands, that you come to understand its true nature, its characteristics, its attributes, and I think - very importantly - its potential. ~ jony-ive, @wisdomtrove 139:It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to & 140:I have come to believe that energy medicine is a practice of healing that is dependent upon the energy of time. Whereas allopathic medicine uses linear time as a fundamental healing measure. Energy medicine needs to understand the dynamic of chiros time, that is the time without time. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 141:The kingdom of God is not in words. Words are only incidental and can never be fundamental. When evangelicalism ceased to emphasize fundamental meanings and began emphasizing fundamental words, and shifted from meaning to words and from power to words, they began to go down hill. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 142:Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 143:I think the idea that women have all this wonderful emotion is a myth, as well as the fact that men do not. I mean, people are people. What is happening across the board is that the recognition that emotions, and the spirit and soul play a fundamental part in the art of healing. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 144:Mathematics is not something that you find lying around in your back yard. It's produced by the human mind. Yet if we ask where mathematics works best, it is in areas like particle physics and astrophysics, areas of fundamental science that are very, very far removed from everyday affairs. ~ paul-davies, @wisdomtrove 145:I have come to believe that energy medicine is a practice of healing that is dependent upon the energy of time. Whereas allopathic medicine uses linear time as a fundamental healing measure. Energy medicine needs to understand the dynamic of chiros time, that is the time without time. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 146:In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for & 147:It's like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there's some fundamental technology shift, it's just over. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 148:There is a geographical element in all belief-saying what seem profound truths in India have a way of seeming enormous platitudes in England, and vice versa . Perhaps the fundamental difference is that beneath a tropical sun individuality seems less distinct and the loss of it less important. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 149:We can't build a safer world with honorable intentions and good will alone. Achieving the fundamental goals our nation seeks in world affairs - peace, human rights, economics progress national independence and international stability - means supporting our friends and defending our interests. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 150:I highly recommend the approach Marshall Rosenberg details in Nonviolent Communication (2nd Edition 2008), which has essentially three parts: When X happens [described factually, not judgmentally], I feel Y [especially the deeper, softer emotions], because I need Z [fundamental needs and wants]. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 151:If I want to read something that's really giving me something serious and fundamental to think about, about the human condition, if you like, or what we're all doing here, or what's going on, then I'd rather read something by a scientist in the life sciences, like Richard Dawkins, for instance. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 152:In our instinctive attachments, our fear of change, and our wish for certainty and permanence, we may undercut the impermanence, which is our greatest strength, our most fundamental identity. Without impermanence, there is no process. The nature of life is change. All hope is based on process. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 153:As I have often written, power is the fundamental ingredient of the human experience. Every action in life, every thought, every choice we make-even down to what we wear and whether we are seating in first class or coach-represents a negotiation of power somewhere on the scale of power that constitutes life. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 154:Each of us must make the effort to contribute to the best of our ability according to our individual talents. And then we put all the individual talents together for the highest good of the group. Understanding that the good of the group comes first is fundamental to being a highly productive member of a team. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 155:As I have often written, power is the fundamental ingredient of the human experience. Every action in life, every thought, every choice we make-even down to what we wear and whether we are seating in first class or coach-represents a negotiation of power somewhere on the scale of power that constitutes life. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 156:The principal reason, invariably, most "successful" giant companies rather quickly become also-rans, or just amorphous blobs on the competitive landscape, is their failure to re-tool in anything like a fundamental way. In fact, the worse things get, typically, the more they dig in their heels and defend yesterday's turf. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 157:We are great fools. "He has passed his life in idleness," we say. "I have done nothing today." What! Haven't you lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. Michel de Montaigne ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 158:For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 159:Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American's capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 160:your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That. Although your true nature may be hidden momentarily by stress and worry, anger and unfulfilled longings, it still continues to exist. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 161:Religion has traditionally been the domain of such fundamental inquiries within a spiritual framework, but mindfulness has little to do with religion, except in the most fundamental meaning of the word, as an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 162:There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 163:A fundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man . . . A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no right man. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 164:The division of the psychical into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise of psycho-analysis; and it alone makes it possible for psycho-analysis to understand the pathological processes in mental life, which are as common as they are important, and to find a place for them in the framework of science. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 165:The most fundamental paradox is that if we're never to use force, we must be prepared to use it and to use it successfully. We Americans don't want war and we don't start fights. We don't maintain a strong military force to conquer or coerce others. The purpose of our military is simple and straightforward: we want to prevent war. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 166:The only place where you could see life and death, i. e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bull ring and I wanted very much to go to Spain where I could study it. I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all and the most fundamental is violent death. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 167:Give up all forms of parrotry. Start practicing whatever you truly feel to be true and justly to be just. Do not make a show of your faith and beliefs. You have not to give up your religion, but to give up clinging to the husk of mere ritual and ceremony. To get to the fundamental core of Truth underlying all religions, reach beyond religion. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 168:All sectarian religions take for granted that all men are equal. This is not warranted by science. There is more difference between minds than between bodies. One fundamental doctrine of Hinduism is that all men are different, there being unity in variety. Even for a drunkard, there are some Mantras-even for a man going to a prostitute! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 169:Labels such as, & 170:“But some numbers, called dimensionless numbers, have the same numerical value no matter what units of measurement are chosen. Probably the most famous of these is the "fine-structure constant," ... . Physicists love this number not just because it is dimensionless, but also because it is a combination of three fundamental constants of nature. ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove 171:The fundamental motif at the heart of many ancient myths is that the primal oneness of being is manifesting as the multiplicity of life, so that it can come to know itself. As the Gnostic sage Simon Magus says in ‘The Great Announcement’: There is one power… begetting itself, increasing itself, seeking itself, finding itself… One root of the All. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 172:It’s a remarkable fact that the people who have gone the very deepest into the mind—the sages and saints of every religious tradition—all say essentially the same thing: your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 173:Your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That. Although your true nature may be hidden momentarily by stress and worry, anger and unfulfilled longings, it still continues to exist. Knowing this can be a great comfort. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 174:The bosses of the Democratic party and the bosses of the Republican party alike have a closer grip than ever before on the party machines in the States and in the Nation. This crooked control of both the old parties by the beneficiaries of political and business privilege renders it hopeless to expect any far-reaching and fundamental service from either. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 175:The fundamental rights of [humanity] are, first: the right of habitation; second, the right to move freely; third, the right to the soil and subsoil, and to the use of it; fourth, the right of freedom of labor and of exchange; fifth, the right to justice; sixth, the right to live within a natural national organization; and seventh, the right to education. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 176:There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer. ~ albert-camus, @wisdomtrove 177:I believe that a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self- esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude—that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove 178:Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 179:I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 180:The First Amendment reads more like a dream than a law, and no other nation, so far as I know, has been crazy enough to include such a dream among its fundamental legal documents. I defend it because it has been so successful for two centuries in preserving our freedom and increasing our vitality, knowing that all arguments in support of it are certain to sound absurd. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 181:Gradually, physicists began to realise that nature, at the atomic level, does not appear as a mechanical universe composed of fundamental building blocks, but rather as a network of relations, and that, ultimately, there are no parts at all in this interconnected web. Whatever we call a part is merely a pattern that has some stability and therefore captures our attention. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 182:There is a fundamental difference between separation of church and state and denying the spiritual heritage of this country. Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. are Jefferson's words, & 183:People on a spiritual path - personal growth, spiritual practice, recovery, yoga and so forth - are the last people who should be sitting out the social and political issues of our day. And there’s an important reason for this: People on such journeys are adepts at change. They know that the mechanics of the heart and mind are the fundamental drivers of transformation. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 184:I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels& 185:Reverence for Life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting, and enhancing life and that to destroy, harm, or to hinder life is evil. Affirmation of the world - that is affirmation of the will to live, which appears in phenomenal forms all around me - is only possible for me in that I give myself out for other life. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 186:We can't say that all religions are the same, different religions have different views and fundamental differences. But it does not matter, as all religions are meant to help in bringing about a better world with better and happier human beings. On this level, I think that through different philosophical explanations and approaches, all religions have the same goal and the same potential. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 187:What is meant by charity? Charity is not fundamental. It is really helping on the misery of the world, not eradicating it. One looks for name and fame and covers his efforts to obtain them with the enamel of charity and good works. He is working for himself under the pretext of working for others. Every so-called charity is an encouragement of the very evil it claims to operate against. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 188:Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 189:There is no patent recipe for getting good citizenship. You get it by applying the old, old rules of decent conduct, the rules in accordance with which decent men have had to shape their lives from the beginning .. fundamental precepts, put forth in the Bible and embodied consciously or unconsciously in the code of morals of every great and successful nation from antiquity to modern times. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 190:It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics. ~ martin-rees, @wisdomtrove 191:Loneliness is the fundamental force that urgees mystics to a deeper union with God... An experience of God quenches this thirst for the absolute but at the same time, paradoxiacally, whets it, because this is an experience that can never be total; by necessity, the knowledge of God is always partial. So loneliness opens up mystics to a desire to love each other and every human being as God loves them. ~ jean-vanier, @wisdomtrove 192:The longing for initiation is universal and for modern youth, it is a desperate need. When nothing is offered in the way of spiritual initiation to prove one's entry into the world of men and women, initiation happens instead in the road or the street, in cars at high speed, with drugs, with dangerous sex, with weapons. However troubling, this behavior is rooted in a fundamental truth; a need to grow. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 193:In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 194:Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of religion. Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of science. In other words, religion has become a matter of the heart and science has become a matter of the mind. This regrettable state of affairs does not reflect the fact that physiologically , one cannot exist without the other. Mind and heart are only different aspects of us. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 195:If there is one tendency of the day which more than any other is unhealthy and undesirable, it is the tendency to deify mere "smartness," unaccompanied by a sense of moral accountability. We shall never make our republic what it should be until as a people we thoroughly understand and put in practice the doctrine that success is abhorrent if attained by the sacrifice of the fundamental principles of morality. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 196:The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 197:When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove 198:Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man & 199:Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by & 200:In ordinary life, we are not aware of the unity of all things, but divide the world into separate objects and events. This division is useful and necessary to cope with our everyday environment, but it is not a fundamental feature of reality. It is an abstraction devised by our discriminating and categorising intellect. To believe that our abstract concepts of separate & 201:The scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our ideas are gradually brought into conformity with the facts by the painful process of selection,-for intuition runs equally into truth and into error, and can settle nothing if not controlled by experience,-we gain vastly in our command over our environment. This is the fundamental value of natural science ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 202:At this point in our global ecological crisis, the survival of humanity will require a fundamental shift in our attitude toward nature: from finding out how we can dominate and manipulate nature to how we can learn from her. In this brilliant and hopeful book, Jay Harman shows us how far the new field of Biomimicry has already progressed toward this goal. The Shark's Paintbrush makes for fascinating and joyful reading - much needed in these dark times. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 203:Really believe in what you are doing, but not just from a blind faith standpoint. To have really thought about it and say okay, this is true, I'm convinced it's true, and I've tried every angle to figure out if it's untrue, and sought negative feedback to figure out if I'm maybe wrong, and after all that, okay it still seems this is the right way to go. then that I think gives one a fundamental conviction and an ability to convey that conviction to others. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 204:There are solutions to the major problems of our time; some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview in science and society, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican revolution. Unfortunately, this realization has not yet dawned on most of our political leaders, who are unable to connect the dots, to use a popular phrase. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 205:The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 206:The new paradigm may be called a holistic world view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term ecological is used in a much broader and deeper sense than usual. Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical process of nature. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 207:A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions... . He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer& 208:The new paradigm may be called a holistic world view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term & 209:That was one of the most fundamental and sacred duties good friends and families performed for one another! They tended the flame of memory, so no one’s death meant an immediate vanishment from the world; in some sense the deceased would live on after their passing, at least as long as those who loved them lived. Such memories were an essential weapon against the chaos of life and death, a way to ensure some continuity from generation to generation, an order of endorsement and meaning. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 210:You know how we say things like I just have to be true to myself? What does that mean? Great people always say, There's something I was meant to do. That knowingness is what the soul understands. You have fundamental agreements that you simply feel. You can't put your finger on them because they reveal themselves to you within the context of your life through coincidence, synchronicity, and obligations you can't get out of. Together, these things form the whole of your sacred contract. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 211:Albert Einstein, for one, repeatedly expressed these feelings, as in the following celebrated passage (Einstein, 1949, p. 5): The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science…the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 212:For they (capitalists) hold as their chief heresy, in a coarser form, the fundamental falsehood that things are not made to be used but made to be sold. All the collapse of their commercial system in their own time has been due to that fallacy of forcing things on a market where there was no market; of continually increasing the power of supply without increasing the power of demand; of briefly, of always considering the man who sells the potato and never considering the man who eats it. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 213:One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within the States. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 214:You know how we say things like I just have to be true to myself? What does that mean? Great people always say, There's something I was meant to do. That knowingness is what the soul understands. You have fundamental agreements that you simply feel. You can't put your finger on them because they reveal themselves to you within the context of your life through coincidence, synchronicity, and obligations you can't get out of. Together, these things form the whole of your sacred contract. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 215:All combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 216:There are many other (besides testosterone) behaviour-eliciting hormones fundamental for humen well-being, including estrogen and progesterone in females. The fact that complex behavioural patterns can be triggered by a tiny concentration of moleculas coursing through the bloodstream, and that different animals of the same species generate different amounts of these hormones, is something worth thinking about when it's time to judge such matters as free will, individual responsibility, and law and order. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 217:The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 218:Spirituality emerged as a fundamental guidepost in Wholeheartedness. Not religiosity but the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to one another by a force greater than ourselves& 219:If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 220:It’s a remarkable fact that the people who have gone the very deepest into the mind—the sages and saints of every religious tradition—all say essentially the same thing: your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That. Although your true nature may be hidden momentarily by stress and worry, anger and unfulfilled longings, it still continues to exist. Knowing this can be a great comfort. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 221:Here is one of the fundamental defects of American fiction& 222:We are for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 223:There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfilment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy. The need to live is our physical need for such things as food, clothing, shelter, economical well- being, health. The need to love is our social need to relate to other people, to belong, to love and to be loved. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow. And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove 224:Supporters of this fundamental change in immigration policy say we need to import more well-educated talent if we're to stay competitive. But exactly whose competitiveness are we talking about? Not the competitiveness of, say, American-born computer engineers. Adjusted for inflation, their earnings haven't gone anywhere in years. That's in part because American companies have been sending so much of their high-tech work abroad. Bringing more foreign-born engineers here under an expanded H1-B visa program, or a point system for that matter, will just depress wages even further. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 225:Whether one is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or nonbelieving, man or woman, black, white, or brown, we are all the same. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, we are all equal. We all share basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and love. We all aspire to happiness and we all shun suffering. Each of us has hopes, worries, fears, and dreams. Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones. We all experience pain when we suffer loss and joy when we achieve what we seek. On this fundamental level, religion, ethnicity, culture, and language make no difference. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 226:To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will-to-life. At the same time the man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give every will-to-live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own. He experiences that other life as his own. He accepts as being good: to preserve life, to raise to its highest value life which is capable of development; and as being evil: to destroy life, to injure life, to repress life which is capable of development. This is the absolute, fundamental principle of the moral, and it is a necessity of thought. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 227:Trying to become a good or better human being sounds like a commendable and high-minded thing to do, yet it is an endeavour you cannot ultimately succeed in unless there is a shift in consciousness. This is because it is still part of the same dysfunction, a more subtle and rarified form of self-enhancement, of desire for more and a strengthening of one's conceptual identity, one's self- image. You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 228:Whether future growth is to come through additional incarnations on this earth, or in other worlds, or whether the Soul once released from the bonds of earthly flesh, goes into other planes of existence, there to grow, is not fundamental— not material. The Universe is large, and it is just possible that we may be given an opportunity of visiting all parts of it in our development, in which case it would seem that we are on a comparatively low plane of life just now— are just awakening into a consciousness of what it all means, and in the future we will be conscious of our growth and progress and development. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 229:First, identify your core aims. What are your purposes and principles in relationships? For example, one fundamental moral value is not to harm people,including yourself. If your needs are not being met in a relationship, that’s harmful to you. If you are mean or punishing, that harms others. Another potential aim might be to keep discovering the truth about yourself and the other person. Second, stay in bounds. The Wise Speech section of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path offers good guidelines for communication that stays within the lines: Say only what is well-intended, true, beneficial, timely, expressed without harshness or malice, and—ideally—what is wanted. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 230:If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription, who has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer - even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American or Mexican-American family being rounded up by John Ashcroft without benefit of an attorney or due process, I know that that threatens my civil liberties. And I don't have to be a woman to be concerned that the Supreme Court is trying to take away a woman's right, because I know that my rights are next. It is that fundamental belief - I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper - that makes this country work. ~ barack-obama, @wisdomtrove 231:The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us. Religion has traditionally been the domain of such fundamental inquiries within a spiritual framework, but mindfulness has little to do with religion, except in the most fundamental meaning of the word, as an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 232:Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment–just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!–an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 233:The Battle of Good and Evil Polytheism gave birth not merely to monotheist religions, but also to dualistic ones. Dualistic religions espouse the existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Unlike monotheism, dualism believes that evil is an independent power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between these two forces, and that everything that happens in the world is part of the struggle. Dualism is a very attractive world view because it has a short and simple answer to the famous Problem of Evil, one of the fundamental concerns of human thought. ‘Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Monotheists have to practise intellectual gymnastics to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God allows so much suffering in the world. One well-known explanation is that this is God’s way of allowing for human free will. Were there no evil, humans could not choose between good and evil, and hence there would be no free will. This, however, is a non-intuitive answer that immediately raises a host of new questions. Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard monotheist account, this choice must bring divine punishment in its wake. If God knew in advance that a particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal tortures in hell, why did God create her? Theologians have written countless books to answer such questions. Some find the answers convincing. Some don’t. What’s undeniable is that monotheists have a hard time dealing with the Problem of Evil. For dualists, it’s easy to explain evil. Bad things happen even to good people because the world is not governed single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was created by a single God, it’s clear why it is such an orderly place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can fight one another because both obey the same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in both countries. When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws? So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The most fundamental seems fickle. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
2:Music is a fundamental human right ~ Gustavo Dudamel, #NFDB
3:Reading is fundamental - fun to mental. ~ Eddie Griffin, #NFDB
4:Action is the fundamental key to success. ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
5:Collaborative work] is absolutely fundamental… ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
6:Courage is the most fundamental of all virtues. ~ Max Anders, #NFDB
7:The human mind is our fundamental resource. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
8:The most fundamental constraint is limited time ~ Gary Becker, #NFDB
9:Religious freedom is a fundamental human right. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
10:The fundamental issue is the moral issue. ~ David Attenborough, #NFDB
11:To work in fundamental theory, one must be stupid. ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
12:The most fundamental constraint is limited time ~ Gary S Becker, #NFDB
13:the fundamental problem of the value of money. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
14:Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
15:El tumulto es fundamental; es el sentido de este libro ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
16:Freedom is the fundamental condition for any growth. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
17:Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
18:Meditation is THE fundamental practice of the Quest. ~ Paul Brunton, #NFDB
19:The fundamental condition of man is his verticality. ~ Laura Fraser, #NFDB
20:The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
21:Alleviation of suffering is my fundamental principle. ~ Yusuf Hamied, #NFDB
22:Charts are a leading indicator of fundamental analysis ~ John Murphy, #NFDB
23:Fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
24:Know your numbers' is a fundamental precept of business. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
25:Love is the fundamental relatedness in the universe. ~ Ron Smothermon, #NFDB
26:Science is a fundamental part of our existence. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
27:Elasticity is a fundamental principle of perception, ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
28:La simpatía es fundamental. Nace de la imperfección. ~ Federico Moccia, #NFDB
29:The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
30:A fundamental duty of government is to protect its people. ~ Brad Henry, #NFDB
31:I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process. ~ Baz Luhrmann, #NFDB
32:"Inter-dependence ... is a fundamental law of nature." ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
33:this ability to focus one’s attention was fundamental. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
34:Variability is the world’s most fundamental quality. For ~ Vadim Zeland, #NFDB
35:It strikes at a fundamental human need to be organized. ~ Donna Dubinsky, #NFDB
36:Theories come and go, but fundamental data always remains. ~ Mary Leakey, #NFDB
37:The fundamental human experience is that of compassion. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
38:The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature. ~ William James, #NFDB
39:there is a fundamental messiness to the nature of the good. ~ Tyler Cowen, #NFDB
40:I think the fundamental part of my technique is my vibrato. ~ Robin Trower, #NFDB
41:Out: Reading is fundamental. In: Feeling is fundamental. ~ Michelle Malkin, #NFDB
42:The freedom to convert is fundamental to freedom of religion. ~ Bob Inglis, #NFDB
43:The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. ~ Ariel Durant, #NFDB
44:a relationship could only function when honesty was fundamental. ~ R J Lewis, #NFDB
45:...mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life. ~ A C Grayling, #NFDB
46:The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
47:Chemists all agree on the fundamental facts of chemistry. ~ Richard C Carrier, #NFDB
48:Culture is fundamental. Literature saves you. Cinema saves you. ~ Lea Seydoux, #NFDB
49:I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. ~ Joseph Lister, #NFDB
50:"Play it as it lies" is one of the fundamental dictates of golf ~ Henry Beard, #NFDB
51:The basic fundamental of behaviour should be to give. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
52:Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
53:fundamental principle of management: what gets measured gets done. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
54:As muito feias que me perdoem
Mas beleza é fundamental. ~ Vinicius de Moraes,#NFDB
55:Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics. ~ Roman Jakobson, #NFDB
56:clean nails, like clean shoes, are fundamental to self-respect. ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
57:I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business. ~ Harvey S Firestone, #NFDB
58:la conciencia podría ser la base fundamental de toda la realidad. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
59:Modern man is battered by the fundamental forces of his own psyche. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
60:Something fundamental about the myth of the Jew has resurfaced. ~ Steven T Katz, #NFDB
61:The fundamental idea of design is to make the world a better place. ~ Bruce Mau, #NFDB
62:The fundamental response to change is not logical, but emotional. ~ Tom DeMarco, #NFDB
63:Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. ~ Alveda King, #NFDB
64:Education is fundamental to any success. That's your baseboard. ~ Richard Sherman, #NFDB
65:Security isn't just a feature, it's a base, it's a fundamental, right. ~ Tim Cook, #NFDB
66:Change is fundamental in story. If things go static, stories die. ~ Andrew Stanton, #NFDB
67:Sign, I was now convinced, was a fundamental language of the brain. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
68:The fundamental construct of self and other is becoming untenable. ~ James Hamblin, #NFDB
69:The fundamental question is is the Conservative Party leadable ~ Michael Heseltine, #NFDB
70:The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire. ~ Joseph Sobran, #NFDB
71:We believe in the fundamental principles of the European economy. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
72:Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing. ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
73:Having the right attitude is fundamental to being an effective leader. ~ Jim George, #NFDB
74:The circle is the fundamental geometry of open human communication. ~ Harrison Owen, #NFDB
75:The fundamental loss of a desire for God is the heart of original sin. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
76:Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. ~ Charles Baudelaire, #NFDB
77:Fundamentalists of all faiths are the fundamental evil of our time. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
78:On a fundamental level, I am someone who would throw sand at children. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
79:Provision for others is a fundamental responsibility of human life. ~ Woodrow Wilson, #NFDB
80:The fundamental laws of human nature are overlooked by social planners. ~ James Cook, #NFDB
81:The fundamental question is how to develop and maintain compassion. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
82:To keep one’s word is the fundamental principle of dharma,’ said ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
83:A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
84:Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe there is a reason. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
85:I'm not a fundamentalist, though I'm fundamental in all of my doctrine. ~ Bill Bright, #NFDB
86:Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
87:Sin is a fundamental failure to rejoice in what we should rejoice in. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
88:Socialism and SF are the two most fundamental influences in my life. ~ China Mieville, #NFDB
89:Entrenched bureaucracies are always opposed to fundamental changes. ~ Christopher Dodd, #NFDB
90:Good sexual chemistry is fundamental to a vibrant intimate relationship. ~ John Friend, #NFDB
91:Learning has replaced control as the fundamental role of management. ~ Shoshana Zuboff, #NFDB
92:The fundamental law of nature is to not know too much about yourself. ~ Damon Lindelof, #NFDB
93:The need for growth, for development, for change, is fundamental to life. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
94:Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
95:The fundamental axiom of economics is the human mercenary instinct. Without ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
96:There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about. ~ Antonio Tabucchi, #NFDB
97:An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
98:God is therefore unknowable. This is the fundamental premise of the Bible. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
99:I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
100:Play is not only our creative drive; it's a fundamental mode of learning. ~ David Elkind, #NFDB
101:Private property is a very fundamental and very long-term institution. ~ Anatoly Chubais, #NFDB
102:A fundamental new rule for business is that the Internet changes everything. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
103:Asking is, in itself, the fundamental building block of any relationship. ~ Amanda Palmer, #NFDB
104:Because the fundamental human problem is that people are afraid of change. ~ Rei Kawakubo, #NFDB
105:The fundamental skill of all mothers—the management of time—was beyond her. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
106:The fundamental thing about sketching is that it isabout asking not telling ~ Bill Buxton, #NFDB
107:The most fundamental form of integrative power is the power of love. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
108:WFor to put oneself above the law is a fundamental recipe for disaster. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
109:Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
110:A fundamental rule in technology says that whatever can be done will be done. ~ Andy Grove, #NFDB
111:Dialogue is the fundamental unfolding of a gift of oneself to another. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
112:I have a fundamental faith in folk, that people are interesting and good. ~ Martin Firrell, #NFDB
113:six fundamental virtues: love, wisdom, truth, goodness, mercy and justice ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
114:The program of our movement stems from the fundamental moral laws and order. ~ Lech Walesa, #NFDB
115:Dios es la norma fundamental y final para todas las afirmaciones de la verdad. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
116:Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science - in all of biology. ~ Ray Comfort, #NFDB
117:Look at me. Look at me is one of the fundamental desires of human heart. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
118:Nourishment is a factor which touches on the fundamental right to life. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
119:Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe. ~ Dianne Feinstein, #NFDB
120:Community is essential, but the fundamental calling of the church is global. ~ Calvin Miller, #NFDB
121:I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions. ~ David Antin, #NFDB
122:Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. ~ Erik Qualman, #NFDB
123:A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
124:I value peace, too, when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies. ~ Elia Kazan, #NFDB
125:The fundamental fact about him was that he viewed the world through Marxism. ~ Stephen Kotkin, #NFDB
126:was so fundamental to creative work. Employees were spread out over four floors, ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
127:A fundamental sense of terror is built into us humans, on the instinctual level. ~ K ji Suzuki, #NFDB
128:A sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
129:I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story. ~ Joyce Maynard, #NFDB
130:I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
131:joy is in fact our birthright and even more fundamental than happiness. “Joy, ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
132:The alienation of man thus appeared as the fundamental evil of capitalist society. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
133:The fundamental human need to touch drove me nuts—knowing I couldn’t risk it. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
134:The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
135:The right to happiness is fundamental; men live so little time and die alone. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
136:Fundamental rights belong to the human being just because you are a human being. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
137:Fundamental [tax] reform almost always runs the risk of making things worse. ~ Dan Rostenkowski, #NFDB
138:The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it. ~ Thomas Hobbes, #NFDB
139:The fundamental law of truth is that it penetrates through all darkness. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi, #NFDB
140:The most likely site for error is in the most fundamental of our beliefs. ~ Samuel Warren Carey, #NFDB
141:The need to belong is among the most fundamental of all personality processes. ~ Angela Marsons, #NFDB
142:Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and therefore a basic human right. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
143:A fundamental sanity in Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
144:Fundamental renegotiation is very, very unlikely to produce any significant change ~ Vince Cable, #NFDB
145:Innocence and optimism have one basic failing: they have no fundamental depth. ~ Charles A Reich, #NFDB
146:The fundamental language of life is change. Life will keep on changing. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
147:We are human beings, beings whose fundamental food is the experience of truth. ~ Jacob Needleman, #NFDB
148:You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
149:Believe in the fundamental truth; it is to meditate with rapture on the Everlasting. ~ Aҫwaghosha, #NFDB
150:fundamental Bannonism: stop thinking you can somehow get along with your enemies. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
151:Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
152:One of the most fundamental of human fears is that our existence will go unnoticed. ~ Ralph Keyes, #NFDB
153:There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
154:There’s a fundamental stupidity in mankind which is as eternal as life itself. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
155:Your endurance is strongly influenced by
your fundamental myth about the fighting. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
156:A fundamental contradiction does not exist between socialism and a market economy. ~ Deng Xiaoping, #NFDB
157:Legal aid... is fundamental to giving everybody in this country access to justice. ~ Jeremy Corbyn, #NFDB
158:The fundamental premise of liberalism is the moral incapacity of the American people. ~ Alan Keyes, #NFDB
159:The fundamental question of politics has always been whether there should be politics. ~ Karl Hess, #NFDB
160:The fundamental sanity of Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
161:The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills. ~ Travis Nichols, #NFDB
162:There's a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness. ~ Michael Porter, #NFDB
163:Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
164:at its most fundamental level science is not undertaken for any practical reason. ~ Steven Weinberg, #NFDB
165:Conocerse a uno mismo, ese es el principio fundamental de la verdadera sabiduría Humana. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
166:It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
167:It's a fundamental human right to decide to have children or not to have children. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
168:Reincarnation is implicit in the manifested universe and is a basic and fundamental. ~ Alice Bailey, #NFDB
169:When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
170:Consciousness and logic are not reliable standards. —COGITORS, Fundamental Postulate ~ Brian Herbert, #NFDB
171:He was going to show that the paradoxes were not excrescences; they were fundamental. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
172:I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens. ~ Al Franken, #NFDB
173:six fundamental virtues: love, wisdom, truth, goodness, mercy and justice. “Through ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
174:So this is a fundamental problem, being out of a loop that I don't even believe in. ~ James P Othmer, #NFDB
175:The fundamental deception of Satan is the lie that obedience can never bring happiness. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
176:the fundamental rule of life: Things were never so bad that they couldn’t get worse. ~ Tommy Wallach, #NFDB
177:The two most fundamental strategic choices are deciding where to play and how to win. ~ Roger Martin, #NFDB
178:This is the fundamental question about life. How do you want to spend this moment? People ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
179:To bring about a fundamental, radical revolution, we must begin with ourselves. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
180:What we call fundamental truths are simply the ones we discover after all the others. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
181:Work and rest in the proper proportions are fundamental to health and productivity. ~ Ann Somerville, #NFDB
182:In a similar way, The Art of War pinpoints anger and greed as fundamental causes of defeat. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
183:I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness. ~ Max Planck, #NFDB
184:Remember one fundamental law: that which can exist just for a moment can also become eternal – ~ Osho, #NFDB
185:When people gain income, they gain choice, and that is fundamental to dignity. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz, #NFDB
186:But I know what it's like to be not good enough, in some bone-deep fundamental way. ~ Becky Albertalli, #NFDB
187:Dissatisfaction with oneself is one of the fundamental qualities of every true talent. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
188:If there is one thing fundamental to the life of the spirit it is the absence of force. ~ Harold Laski, #NFDB
189:I think people will always love a heavy Sabbath riff because it's fundamental to rock. ~ Stone Gossard, #NFDB
190:La desazón es el modo fundamental, aunque cotidianamente encubierto, del estar‐en‐el‐mundo ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
191:La razón fundamental de mi soledad es que ni siquiera yo sé de qué historia formo parte. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
192:Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge. ~ Bill Cosby, #NFDB
193:Maybe knowledge is as fundamental, or even more fundamental than [material] reality. ~ Anton Zeilinger, #NFDB
194:Soon we had tumbled into a most fundamental debate. How can different religions coexist? ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
195:The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results. ~ John Rawls, #NFDB
196:Their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
197:We need to make some real fundamental change from the Constitution down in this country. ~ Al Sharpton, #NFDB
198:A belief in God is fundamental; upon it rest the influences that control life. ~ William Jennings Bryan, #NFDB
199:A genuine smile touches something fundamental in us: our natural appreciation of kindness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
200:I am my own worst enemy. This, more than any other trait, proves my fundamental humanity. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
201:information, they wonder whether it may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
202:It is a fundamental axiom of married life that you must lie to a woman. She likes it! ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
203:Technology is similarly just a catalyst at times for fundamental forces already present. ~ Scott D Cook, #NFDB
204:The average human's fundamental project is to find someone else to blame for their problems. ~ Jim Goad, #NFDB
205:The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
206:their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
207:The key to recognizing who Jesus was is to recognize this fundamental truth: He was a Jew. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
208:War is fundamental. A man’s views on war tell you the basic axioms of his view on life. ~ John C Wright, #NFDB
209:It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of government. ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
210:Know thyself" is one of the fundamental commands that aim at human strength and happiness. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
211:Things change only in relation to one another. At a fundamental level, there is no time. ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
212:Our stories are so fundamental to us that it’s easy to forget that we choose them. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
213:The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
214:The fundamental goal of Buddhism is the realization of the peace and happiness of humankind. ~ Josei Toda, #NFDB
215:The nature of our mind may be displayed in many ways, but Ashe is the fundamental basis. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
216:Un ser humano debe tener clara conciencia de los momentos en que la espera es lo fundamental. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
217:Appraise war in terms of the fundamental factors. The first of these factors is moral influence. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
218:El sentido fundamental de la buena educación es inequitativamente repartido al nacer. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
219:It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher. ~ William James, #NFDB
220:The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there. ~ Hakuun Yasutani, #NFDB
221:The fundamental principle of true healing consists of a return to natural habits of living. ~ Jethro Kloss, #NFDB
222:The more spacious and larger our fundamental nature, the more bearable the pains in living. ~ Wayne Muller, #NFDB
223:The second fundamental feature of culture is that all culture has an element of striving. ~ Johan Huizinga, #NFDB
224:What you need is a fundamental humility - the belief that you can learn from anyone. ~ Clayton Christensen, #NFDB
225:I am willing to take any measures when it comes to the fundamental principle of human rights. ~ Ban Ki moon, #NFDB
226:in 2011 the United Nations declared “access to the Internet” a fundamental human right. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
227:Is it not obvious that science only pretends to explain the cosmos on its fundamental level? ~ Robert Lanza, #NFDB
228:Knowing how things work reduces the effort.
This is the fundamental principle of technology. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
229:Music is...a fundamental way of expressing our humanity - and it is often our best medicine. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
230:My misfortune is my ability to see both sides even of the fundamental religious question. ~ Henrietta Szold, #NFDB
231:"The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there." ~ Yasutani Roshi, #NFDB
232:The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress and all moral development. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
233:The quest for simplicity has to pervade every part of the process. It really is fundamental. ~ Jonathan Ive, #NFDB
234:Einstein occasionally used “God” as a metaphor for the unknown fundamental laws of nature. ~ Steven Weinberg, #NFDB
235:Fundamental violations of human rights always lead to people feeling less and less human. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, #NFDB
236:Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
237:witness the sad demise of fundamental Western values. Pride. Order. Personal responsibility. ~ Richard Russo, #NFDB
238:A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out. ~ John F Kerry, #NFDB
239:An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
240:As time passes, I feel more and more a sense of acting being a fundamental part of who I am. ~ Michael C Hall, #NFDB
241:Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is a fundamental, inescapable property of the world. The ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
242:If magic violates the fundamental laws of nature, they clearly weren't all that fundamental. ~ Ruthanna Emrys, #NFDB
243:If the government can't get the economy moving again, they have a lot of fundamental problems. ~ David Wessel, #NFDB
244:my desire of argument and religious discussion implied a fundamental and utter lack of faith, ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
245:Our fundamental relationship is soul-to-soul. As we become multi-sensory, we become aware of it. ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
246:People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about. ~ Thomas Frank, #NFDB
247:Poverty is the fundamental cause of most of the physical, moral and economic ills of humanity. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
248:Proclaiming the gospel to all mankind is a fundamental part of the mission of the Church. ~ M Russell Ballard, #NFDB
249:Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Religion of Man, #NFDB
250:There are not over two dozen funds in the U.S. devoted to fundamental cancer research. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
251:We have no more fundamental obligation in government than to ensure the safety of our citizens. ~ Bob Ehrlich, #NFDB
252:What are these fundamental principles, if they are not atoms?" "Stories. And they give me hope. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
253:fundamental nature of social categorization and group identification as a foundation for prejudice ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
254:It is a fundamental rule of human life, that if the approach is good, the response is good. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru, #NFDB
255:[Mystery] is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
256:Their most telling improvement involved a fundamental parameter: population size of the hosts. ~ David Quammen, #NFDB
257:Hope is the sun. It is light. It is passion. It is the fundamental force for life's blossoming. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
258:physical energy is the fundamental source of fuel, even if our work is almost completely sedentary. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
259:The fundamental difference between the sexes is this: men make assumptions, but women rarely do. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
260:The fundamental work of investment management is filtering. The question is what do you filter. ~ Donald Luskin, #NFDB
261:The most fundamental thing is just to make sure these kids feel cared for. And it’s that simple. ~ Michelle Kuo, #NFDB
262:It's almost as if this is the fundamental procedure in modern society: duplication and recycling. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
263:Our fundamental job is to love like God loves, not to pretend that we know what only God knows. ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
264:The fundamental axiom, then, for the study of man is the existence of individual consciousness ~ Murray Rothbard, #NFDB
265:the fundamental differences between the sexes is this: men make assumptions, but women rarely do. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
266:The global response to global terrorism must not endanger fundamental human rights and freedoms. ~ Stjepan Mesic, #NFDB
267:The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. ~ Rupert Murdoch, #NFDB
268:What are these fundamental principles, if they are not atoms?"
"Stories. And they give me hope. ~ Neil Gaiman,#NFDB
269:Authenticity and knowing who you are is fundamental to being an effective and long-standing leader. ~ Ann M Fudge, #NFDB
270:Las oportunidades van y vienen, y ser capaz de tomar decisiones es una habilidad fundamental. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
271:The fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life. ~ Karen Hughes, #NFDB
272:There is kind of a fundamental conformity, which is a virtual requirement to enter into the media. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
273:At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, That nothing with God can be accidental. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
274:At least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
275:"In reality, as the preceding chapters will have shown, it is a question of a fundamental opposition." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
276:I take as my fundamental starting point the fundamental distinction between work and interaction ~ Jurgen Habermas, #NFDB
277:Reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival. ~ Richard Louv, #NFDB
278:The fundamental law of human beings is interdependence. A person is a person through other persons. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
279:There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
280:To have a successful marriage, a man must, on a fundamental level be scared shitless of his wife. ~ Dustin Hoffman, #NFDB
281:What you want—really, deeply want—is fundamental because deliberate practice is a heavy investment. ~ Geoff Colvin, #NFDB
282:You, a girl. That’s what he meant. Like owning a vagina made me inferior in some fundamental way. ~ Laura Thalassa, #NFDB
283:Boredom, rooted in a fundamental discomfort with the self, is one of the least tolerable mental states. ~ Gabor Mat, #NFDB
284:Fundamental tiredness” suspends egological isolation and founds a community that needs no kinship. ~ Byung Chul Han, #NFDB
285:Health care and education, in my view, are next up for fundamental software-based transformation. ~ Marc Andreessen, #NFDB
286:"He who wants to protect everything, protects nothing," is one of the fundamental rules of defense. ~ Adolf Galland, #NFDB
287:If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics. ~ Harriet Lerner, #NFDB
288:Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
289:The fundamental grey which differentiates the masters, expresses them and is the soul of all colour. ~ Odilon Redon, #NFDB
290:The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed - socialism doesn't work. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
291:The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality. ~ Garrett Hardin, #NFDB
292:This was his fundamental innovation in governing: regular, uncontrolled bursts of anger and spleen. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
293:Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
294:When you realize you’re fighting a fundamental law of the universe, it’s best to surrender to nature. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
295:Arson is the single most fundamental form of terrorism.It`s the simplest terrorist tactic. ~ Malcolm Wrightson Nance, #NFDB
296:"Before you ask any other question, first ask the most fundamental question of your life: Who am I?" ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
297:[Sidenote: Perfection comes only when matter, spirit and intelligence are associated.] Fundamental, ~ John A Widtsoe, #NFDB
298:So far as we know, all the fundamental laws of physics, like Newton's equations, are reversible. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
299:So usually you have to have product distribution as more fundamental than what the actual product is. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
300:Spare me the mantra that the “fundamentals” are sound. Credit is the ultimate fundamental. ~ Ambrose Evans Pritchard, #NFDB
301:The essence of instability [in fundamental forces of nature] is that small fluctuations get amplified. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
302:the fundamental difference between luck and a wheelbarrow; only one of them was designed to be pushed.) ~ K J Parker, #NFDB
303:A fundamental understanding of the human psyche is the essential key to successful magic. ~ Jean Eugene Robert Houdin, #NFDB
304:A religious test for entering our country is not reflective of America's fundamental values. I reject it. ~ Paul Ryan, #NFDB
305:Compassion, love, and forgiveness, however, are not luxuries. They are fundamental for our survival. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
306:How wonderful it is to by my age - our age - and learn you were wrong about such a fundamental thing. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
307:I am here to urge [you] that all must recognize that simulation is fundamental to readiness for war, ~ Annie Jacobsen, #NFDB
308:The fundamental principle is that no battle, combat, or skirmish is to be fought unless it will be won. ~ Che Guevara, #NFDB
309:The fundamental skill of all mothers—the management of time—was beyond her. She measured time in pages. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
310:The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
311:There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion. ~ Jeane Kirkpatrick, #NFDB
312:You know, in life there are only three or four fundamental decisions to make. The rest is just luck. ~ Raymond Aubrac, #NFDB
313:Love was such a fundamental part of what drove her, she didn't even know who she'd be without love. ~ Stephanie Garber, #NFDB
314:Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences. ~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, p.93, #NFDB
315:Regarding the fundamental investigations of mathematics, there is no final ending... no first beginning. ~ Felix Klein, #NFDB
316:Taking people on a journey is the fundamental element of underground dance music. I don't sell records. ~ Seth Troxler, #NFDB
317:There are five known fundamental tastes in the human palate: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
318:A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times. ~ Raymond Williams, #NFDB
319:Escribir un poema es reparar la herida fundamental, la desgarradura. Porque todos estamos heridos. ~ Alejandra Pizarnik, #NFDB
320:I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
321:Regarding the fundamental investigations of mathematics, there is no final ending ... no first beginning. ~ Felix Klein, #NFDB
322:That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, #NFDB
323:The 4DX framework is based on the fundamental premise that execution is more difficult than strategizing. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
324:The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
325:The one thing that's missing to create a fundamental shift in work capacity: courage. Leadership courage. ~ Bill Jensen, #NFDB
326:We are ignorant of the fundamental nature of the way things exist, and we feel anxiety because of this. ~ Tashi Tsering, #NFDB
327:Equity, dignity, happiness, sustainability - these are all fundamental to our lives but absent in the GDP. ~ Helen Clark, #NFDB
328:God … has no more significance for religion than a fundamental general principle has for … science[.] ~ Ludwig Feuerbach, #NFDB
329:In the great tradition of Paris Is Burning, bring out your library cards! Because reading is what? Fundamental! ~ RuPaul, #NFDB
330:Reason is incompetent to answer any fundamental question about God, or morality, or the meaning of life. ~ Carl L Becker, #NFDB
331:That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. ~ William Blackstone, #NFDB
332:The family unit is fundamental not only to society and to the Church, but to our hope for eternal life. ~ Henry B Eyring, #NFDB
333:The idea of human rights as a fundamental principle can be seen to underlie throughout Islamic teachings. ~ Ali Khamenei, #NFDB
334:Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
335:Envy and jealousy stem from the fundamental inability to rejoice at someone else's happiness or success ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
336:Es difícil porque lo arduo está en mantener nuestra mente y nuestra práctica puras en su sentido fundamental. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
337:I believe that the ability to laugh at oneself is fundamental to the resiliency of the human spirit. ~ Jill Conner Browne, #NFDB
338:None of these start-ups understand the objective. The objective should be—what delivers fundamental value. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
339:The fundamental basis of above-average performance in the long run is sustainable competitive advantage. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
340:The need for love and intimacy is a fundamental human need, as primal as the need for food, water, and air. ~ Dean Ornish, #NFDB
341:The self-awareness of independence is seen by many as the fundamental reality of the human condition: ~ Stephen E Flowers, #NFDB
342:A man cannot have character unless he lives within a fundamental system of morals that creates character. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
343:Become an expert in one fundamental area of your market or business, no one starts out as a generalist. ~ A Alfred Taubman, #NFDB
344:come to grips with the fundamental obstacles and problems that stand in the organization’s way. Looking ~ Richard P Rumelt, #NFDB
345:Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
346:Learning power comprises both literacy and numeracy, and is ultimately more fundamental than either of them. ~ Guy Claxton, #NFDB
347:The courage to work with ourselves comes as basic trust in ourselves, as a sort of fundamental optimism. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
348:Through daily yoga practice we can become present to our own fundamental goodness and the goodness of others ~ Donna Farhi, #NFDB
349:We believe in the fundamental strength of Israel's economy and have confidence in its long-term potential. ~ Ari Fleischer, #NFDB
350:believe that the difference in death rates can be traced to the fundamental human need for a reason to live. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
351:En el nuevo paradigma el síntoma se transforma en una oportunidad, y en un elemento fundamental para el cambio. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
352:Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
353:running is different from drinking in at least one fundamental way—you never regret it when you’re done. ~ J Maarten Troost, #NFDB
354:Someone once said the fundamental reason we get married is because have a universal human need for a witness. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
355:There's something fundamental you have to understand about yourself before you can change your life for good. ~ Ali Vincent, #NFDB
356:Toată lumea se așteaptă ca educația să fie un drept fundamental și nu pun mare preț pe ea când o primesc! ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
357:Topology is the science of fundamental pattern and structural relationships of event constellations. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
358:A second quality of mature sirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
359:However, when the idea that objects inherently exist takes hold, fundamental ignorance has been introduced. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
360:I think of compassion as the fundamental religious experience and, unless that is there, you have nothing. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
361:I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times. ~ Mukesh Ambani, #NFDB
362:Right Response to Reality—the Three R’s—is the fundamental principle of morality, of sanctity, and of sanity. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
363:Successful basketball coaches are those that subscribe to a system that is based on sound fundamental teachings. ~ Don Meyer, #NFDB
364:The fundamental keys to the culture of any organization can only be achieved when everyone is on the same page. ~ Tony Dungy, #NFDB
365:The fundamental story arc of the Bible is God is passionate about rescuing this world, restoring it, renewing it. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
366:The most fundamental principle of learning theory is that behavior is a function of its consequences. When ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer, #NFDB
367:Existence is a fundamental unity under a superficial diversity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, The Eternal in His Universe, #NFDB
368:I didn’t arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”—A. Einstein ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
369:¿Qué es más fuerte que la realidad? Saber que tú eres el creador de tu realidad. Ese es el punto fundamental. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
370:Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it's as fundamental a problem as getting enough to eat or a place to sleep. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
371:Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged. ~ James D Watson, #NFDB
372:By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
373:de la Gran Depresión existe consenso en que el legado de la Primera Guerra Mundial fue su antecedente fundamental, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
374:Discipline in art is a fundamental struggle to understand oneself, as much as to understand what one is drawing. ~ Henry Moore, #NFDB
375:Leadership is inherent in our nature and is fundamental to our origins, our human makeup –and our destiny. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
376:Let me start with a fundamental observation: most people don't know what they want unless they see it in context. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
377:One of the fundamental truths of psychiatry was that sometimes you had to leave a patient who needed you. She ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
378:The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
379:A fundamental role in the renewal of society is played, of course, by the family and especially by young people. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
380:All the big powers... they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right. ~ Jack Kevorkian, #NFDB
381:At least in Europe, we consider the right to privacy a fundamental right and it is a very serious matter. ~ Jose Manuel Barroso, #NFDB
382:Bitter experience has taught us how fundamental our values are and how great the mission they represent. ~ Jan Peter Balkenende, #NFDB
383:Different constraints are decisive for different situations, but the most fundamental constraint is limited time. ~ Gary Becker, #NFDB
384:Energy is simply the capacity to do work. Our most fundamental need as human beings is to spend and recover energy. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
385:I think that [there is] this fundamental right to privacy and the philosophy that government shouldn't be intrusive. ~ Tim Cook, #NFDB
386:It’s a fundamental human need to pass music around, and however the technology evolves, the music keeps moving. ~ Rob Sheffield, #NFDB
387:The fundamental laws are in the long run merely statements that every event is itself and not some different event. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
388:The heart of strategy is the answer to two fundamental questions: where will you play, and how will you win there? ~ A G Lafley, #NFDB
389:A stable climate is the most fundamental resource of all. No one has yet built a civilisation in an unstable climate ~ Tom Burke, #NFDB
390:Fundamental preparation is always effective. Work on those parts of your game that are fundamentally weak. ~ Kareem Abdul Jabbar, #NFDB
391:Information is a basic human right and the fundamental foundation for the formation of democratic institutions. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
392:Magic is the fifth fundamental force and is even more mysterious than gravity, which is really saying something. ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
393:Physics is a good framework for thinking. ... Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there. ~ Elon Musk, #NFDB
394:The fundamental cure for all human ills is everywhere one and the same: to raise one’s consciousness. In ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
395:the fundamental maxim of Artistotle, that true virtue is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices. ~ Edward Gibbon, #NFDB
396:the fundamental pillar in constructing a reputation is exclusivity. Applying for jobs at random undermines exclusivity ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
397:the fundamental process of Nature lies outside space-time but generates events that can be located in space-time. ~ Amit Goswami, #NFDB
398:...the fundamental things in a man are not the things he explains, but rather the things he forgets to explain. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
399:The power of music to integrate and cure. . . is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
400:We have not yet realized that the Indian and his culture were fundamental to the growth of Canadian institutions. ~ Harold Innis, #NFDB
401:We see the world through the lens of all our experiences; that is a fundamental part of the human condition. ~ Madeleine M Kunin, #NFDB
402:A fundamental error in many Christian attacks on Harry Potter has been a narrow, simplistic reading of symbolism. ~ Travis Prinzi, #NFDB
403:«El que vigila al pueblo acaba siendo vigilado por el pueblo. Hay una fundamental lógica democrática en ello» ~ David Lagercrantz, #NFDB
404:It is a fundamental denial of your humanity to narrow the size of your life to the size of your own existence, ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
405:The formulaic repetitiveness of filing and stuffing envelopes appeals to me in some fundamental life-affirming way. ~ Paul Beatty, #NFDB
406:The fundamental misunderstanding of humanity is believing that we can achieve all our desires without limitation. ~ Momofuku Ando, #NFDB
407:There’s no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
408:Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
409:Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. ~ James Clear, #NFDB
410:I can think of no right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
411:If experiments on animals were abandoned on grounds of compassion, mankind would have made a fundamental advance. ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
412:In almost all sciences the fundamental knowledge is either found in earliest times or is still being sought. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
413:It is a fundamental fact that if you know your job well, naturally you have all the confidence to do it well. ~ Rajendra B Aklekar, #NFDB
414:Leadership is about tapping the wellsprings of human motivation - and about fundamental relations with one's fellows. ~ Tom Peters, #NFDB
415:Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. ~ Lord Chesterfield, #NFDB
416:Mostly, Texas women are tough in some very fundamental ways. Not unfeminine, nor necessarily unladylike, just tough! ~ Molly Ivins, #NFDB
417:One of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying, which is the worship of authority. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
418:Self restraint in speech, food, entertainment and vanity are the most essential fundamental of spiritual growth. ~ Nouman Ali Khan, #NFDB
419:The achievement of high universal literacy is the key to all other fundamental improvements in American education. ~ E D Hirsch Jr, #NFDB
420:The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
421:There’s no need to suffer. Which I’d argue is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the human predicament, but okay. ~ John Green, #NFDB
422:When you don't understand something, you label it and condemn it" (94) - Danny Glover, "The Fundamental Things ~ Denzel Washington, #NFDB
423:A fundamental responsibility of leadership is make sure that everybody knows the mission, understands it, lives it. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
424:As much as 95% of quality related problems in the factory can be solved with seven fundamental quantitative tools. ~ Kaoru Ishikawa, #NFDB
425:Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
426:If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning of life, and identity then it is an idol. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
427:I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population ~ David Attenborough, #NFDB
428:It is a fundamental misperception," Fouts says to me, "to think human life has more value than any other life form. ~ Lauren Slater, #NFDB
429:Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Rebirth, #NFDB
430:Nonverbal communication forms a social language that is in many ways richer and more fundamental than our words. ~ Leonard Mlodinow, #NFDB
431:One cannot apologize for something fundamental, and a child feels and knows this as well and as deeply as any sage. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
432:The fundamental reason is that we each carry within us an evolutionary blueprint for making a good society. ~ Nicholas A Christakis, #NFDB
433:The moral foundation of the society, the way we interact with each other is more fundamental than the Supreme Court. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
434:The only fundamental truth is greed, and the only question is who is up front about this. That’s the new authenticity ~ Nathan Hill, #NFDB
435:The value she gave to the power of relationship was fundamental to Lucretia [Mott]'s sense of social activism. ~ Helen LaKelly Hunt, #NFDB
436:To escape the boundary of the plantation was to escape the fundamental principles of your existence: impossible. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
437:Unless you find the fundamental cause and treat that, the same problem will surface later on in a different form. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
438:Why is it that the most fundamental life lesson—LIVE!—is the only one I continually forget to put into practice? ~ Megan McCafferty, #NFDB
439:I think the fundamental apprehension is that the city's an organism of some form, rather than being governed from above. ~ Will Self, #NFDB
440:It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
441:Music is a fantastic peacekeeper of the world, it is integral to harmony, and it is a required fundamental of human emotion. ~ Xunzi, #NFDB
442:One of the fundamental conditions of happiness is to know that everything that one does has a meaning in eternity ~ Titus Burckhardt, #NFDB
443:The fundamental problem here isn’t the money; it’s the notion that the people these tissues come from don’t matter. ~ Rebecca Skloot, #NFDB
444:The only fundamental truth is greed, and the only question is who is up front about this. That’s the new authenticity. ~ Nathan Hill, #NFDB
445:Criminal justice is about respecting the law and being respected by the law so there is a fundamental respect issue here. ~ Tim Kaine, #NFDB
446:Even more fundamental than housing to the global financial economy is the idea that the U.S. government is a safe asset. ~ Ezra Klein, #NFDB
447:It's not just the NFL. Every other league has a draft. It has been fundamental to the success of professional sports. ~ Roger Goodell, #NFDB
448:My fundamental philosophy is that you owe it to society to transfer to them any knowledge you have that might be useful. ~ Leroy Hood, #NFDB
449:Overcoming fear and conceiving this 'art of more' should be a fundamental practice in what it is that you do and make. ~ Chase Jarvis, #NFDB
450:Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. They’re fundamental. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
451:The difference - the fundamental difference between theater acting and film acting is that film acting is disjunctive. ~ James Lipton, #NFDB
452:The fundamental experience of human suffering is the experience of alienation from the self, from the source—from God. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
453:the great fundamental questions looming before us,”21 namely, the unnatural alliance of politics and corporations. It ~ Edmund Morris, #NFDB
454:America doesn't border on Muslim countries. European countries do and that seems to be a fundamental difference. ~ Samuel P Huntington, #NFDB
455:Comparisons must be enforced within the scope of the eyespan, a fundamental point occasionally forgotten in practice. ~ Edward R Tufte, #NFDB
456:Education is a fundamental principle of what made America a success. We can't afford to throw any young people away. ~ Benjamin Carson, #NFDB
457:Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. ~ Milan Kundera, #NFDB
458:If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
459:In the true nature of Matter is the fundamental law of the Spirit. In the true nature of Spirit is the fundamental law of Matter. ~ id, #NFDB
460:I was unhindered by internal conflict—a state of being that I have come to see as fundamental to the learning process. ~ Josh Waitzkin, #NFDB
461:Respondent would have us announce a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do. ~ Byron White, #NFDB
462:the most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
463:We are the land. To the best of my understanding, that is the fundamental idea that permeates American Indian life. ~ Paula Gunn Allen, #NFDB
464:You know, when real trouble comes your humanity is awakened. The fundamental human experience is that of compassion. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
465:By the end of the 1940s, support for the hypothesis that DNA had a fundamental role in heredity had grown much stronger. ~ Matthew Cobb, #NFDB
466:I believe that everyone has the fundamental right to head to city hall with the person they love and get married. Period. ~ Lea Salonga, #NFDB
467:L'absurde est la notion essentielle et la premie' re ve? rite? . The absurd is the fundamental idea and the first truth. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
468:Like most modern Americans, I assume individuality is not only a fundamental value, but a goal in life, an art form. ~ Howard Rheingold, #NFDB
469:Men's fundamental attitudes toward the world are fixed by the scope and qualities of the activities in which they partake. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
470:Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
471:study shows that exercise—or at least the resulting fitness levels—can have a powerful impact on that fundamental skill. ~ John J Ratey, #NFDB
472:The fact that so many are willing to accept need-based aid signals a fundamental change in the American character. ~ Nicholas Eberstadt, #NFDB
473:There are two components that are fundamental to enjoy life and feel good about yourself: continual learning and service. ~ Tim Ferriss, #NFDB
474:We must live by the fundamental, dialectical principle that progress comes only from struggling to resolve contradictions. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
475:An important and fundamental premise of the American judicial system is the presumption of innocence, that is until proven guilty. ~ DMX, #NFDB
476:Art attempts to find in the universe, in matter as well as in the facts of life, what is fundamental, enduring, essential. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
477:Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth,"—is the fundamental law of criticism. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
478:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
479:Martin Rees, in Just Six Numbers, lists six fundamental constants, which are believed to hold all around the universe. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
480:The basic idea is to shove all fundamental difficulties onto the neutron and to do quantum mechanics in the nucleus. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
481:The reason why we fail to prevail with unconverted men is due to our more fundamental failure to prevail with God in prayer. ~ John Mott, #NFDB
482:There is in each of us a fundamental split between what we think we know and what we know but may never be able to think. ~ Dani Shapiro, #NFDB
483:But not to believe in miracles means not believing that God can do anything, which seems a fundamental tenet of Christianity. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
484:I'd say seeking is one of the fundamental artistic impulses. Art is about discovery. The medium is not the message. ~ John Paul Caponigro, #NFDB
485:If I were to be asked: What now constitutes the main and fundamental feature of your existence? I would answer: Insomnia. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
486:On some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are. ~ John Green, #NFDB
487:The fundamental cause of trouble in the world is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
488:The fundamental laws of the universe which correspond to the two fundamental theorems of the mechanical theory of heat. ~ Rudolf Clausius, #NFDB
489:The New Deals enmity for that system of free and competitive private enterprise which we call capitalism was fundamental. ~ Garet Garrett, #NFDB
490:When all around take fundamental ideas for granted, these must be the truth. For most minds there is no comfort like it. ~ Jacques Barzun, #NFDB
491:[Quantity is the fundamental feature of things,] the 'primarium accidens substantiae,' ...prior to the other categories. ~ Johannes Kepler, #NFDB
492:Something in the world forces us to think. This something is an object not of recognition but of a fundamental encounter. ~ Gilles Deleuze, #NFDB
493:The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
494:The fundamental task of the evangelization of culture is the challenge to make God visible in the human face of Jesus. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
495:The issue of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issues and also one of the most sensitive and controversial. ~ Ali Khamenei, #NFDB
496:The more we split and pulverise matter artificially, the more insistently it proclaims its fundamental unity. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #NFDB
497:There are two fundamental reasons that drive all purchase decisions: People buy either to feel good or to solve a problem. ~ Jeffrey J Fox, #NFDB
498:There is a fundamental humility to decentralization, an admission that headquarters does not have all the answers ~ William N Thorndike Jr, #NFDB
499:The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
500:we are confident that the fundamental principle of long-term ownership of quality companies is a sensible one, new ~ Lawrence A Cunningham, #NFDB
501:Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in persons and things. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
502:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
~ Isaac Newton,#NFDB
503:It makes no difference whether a work is naturalistic or abstract; every visual expression follows the same fundamental laws ~ Hans Hofmann, #NFDB
504:No one had ever asked them to question such fundamental concepts that drove their lives and motivated their criminal choices. ~ Laura Bates, #NFDB
505:The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, #NFDB
506:The most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
507:America is conservative in fundamental principles... but the principles conserved are liberal and some, indeed, are radical. ~ Gunnar Myrdal, #NFDB
508:At its most fundamental, information is a binary choice. In other words, a single bit of information is one yes-or-no choice. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
509:Immigration was not just Trumpism’s sine qua non, it was the fundamental intellectual pillar that any dope could understand. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
510:I remind myself of the fundamental notion of what it means to be a writer. A writer is the one who controls the narrative. ~ Meena Kandasamy, #NFDB
511:she still had that fundamental insecurity that one bout of poverty can inflict for a lifetime, and no amount of money remedy. ~ Len Deighton, #NFDB
512:that was less about the fundamental nature of the visions than the fact Gianni kept interrupting Chen, and she was sick of it. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
513:That was the remarkable thing about humans—their ability to shape the path of other species, to change their fundamental nature. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
514:the ability to kindle a fire, swiftly and without fail, remains the most fundamental skill of life support in the boreal forest. ~ Ray Mears, #NFDB
515:The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of 'identity.' ~ Alfred Korzybski, #NFDB
516:A genuinely fundamental and hopeful improvement in "systems" cannot happen without a significant shift in human consciousness. ~ Vaclav Havel, #NFDB
517:A great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle, but it is also a struggle that has to be waged intelligently. ~ Zbigniew Brzezi ski, #NFDB
518:Even in the vast and mysterious reaches of the sea we are brought back to the fundamental truth that nothing lives to itself. ~ Rachel Carson, #NFDB
519:Fundamental problem in American democracy is that we are allowing congressmen and senators to be bought and sold like sneakers. ~ Alex Gibney, #NFDB
520:If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder, then the most fundamental act of resistance is to establish order. ~ Rod Dreher, #NFDB
521:It is the most fundamental thing I know about being alive: Everything that lasts is invention followed by tenacious faith. ~ Alexander Maksik, #NFDB
522:Let us never forget this fundamental truth: The State has no source of money other than the money people themselves earn. ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
523:remember that even truthfulness in the practice of the profession cannot cure it of the fundamental defect that vitiates it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
524:The binding of reason and intuition is the fundamental crisis of the era we call humanity. Transcedence of duality is the key. ~ Phil Collins, #NFDB
525:The formula Muscovy + Ukraine = Russia does not feature in the Russians’ own version of their history; but it is fundamental. ~ Norman Davies, #NFDB
526:The fundamental thing is to drop the split, to become one. Be one, and then all else is possible; even the impossible is possible. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
527:But for you to make this move would reveal the two fundamental tenets of true atheism. One: There is no God. Two: I hate Him. ~ Douglas Wilson, #NFDB
528:Can anything be more ridiculous than a religion that builds on a fundamental refusal to acknowledge what is known to be true? Can ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
529:Let’s call “doctrines” the cardinal truths or fundamental principles of the faith, summaries of biblical revelation on key topics. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
530:Memory has always been fundamental for me. In fact, remembering what I had forgotten is the way most of the poems get started. ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
531:Taste is the fundamental quality which sums up all other qualities. It is the ne plus ultra of the intelligence. ~ Isidore Ducasse Lautreamont, #NFDB
532:the fundamental needs of a vibrant economy and the fundamental needs of a happy individual are not necessarily the same. ~ Daniel Todd Gilbert, #NFDB
533:The fundamental premise of sci-fi is not spaceships and lasers - it's that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents. ~ David Brin, #NFDB
534:There is a fundamental flaw in interpretations of sharia that say a woman or man should be punished for sex outside of marriage. ~ Asra Nomani, #NFDB
535:There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
536:Business is just about enabling human beings, nothing more, nothing less. Businesses need to recognize this fundamental fact. ~ Bruce Dickinson, #NFDB
537:For our duties and our needs, in all the fundamental things for which we were created, come down in practice to the same thing. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
538:The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
539:The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
540:The fundamental delusion of human beings is the belief that we exist separately and independently from the rest of the universe. ~ Reb Anderson, #NFDB
541:The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
542:The invisible is more substantial than the visible; ?he future shapes the past; The new is more fundamental than the old. ~ Sinclair B Ferguson, #NFDB
543:Three fundamental aspects of the Divine - the Individual or Immanent, the Cosmic and the Transcendent
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#NFDB
544:Along with planes, running water, electricity, and motorized transportation, the internet is now a fundamental fact of modern life. ~ danah boyd, #NFDB
545:Anyway, to cut off one's biological dreams seems to me the most fundamental form of psychic castration that you could imagine. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
546:autoimmune diseases suggests they originate from fundamental disconnect between the outside world and an understimulated biology. ~ Scott Carney, #NFDB
547:Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
548:Freud was way off base in considering sex the fundamental motivation. The ruling passion in men is minding each other's business. ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
549:Liberty of conscience is for those who truly fear the Lord. A fundamental task of the state is the establishment of pure religion. ~ John Cotton, #NFDB
550:May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
551:There's something fundamental to the harp that has retained its appeal my whole life. It's an instrument I am just in love with. ~ Joanna Newsom, #NFDB
552:Things in their fundamental nature can neither be named nor explained. They cannot be expressed adequately in any form of language. ~ Aswaghosha, #NFDB
553:We do not seek to thrust the principles of our religion upon anyone. The fundamental principles of our religion forbid that. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
554:External, social arrangements may be useful to this end, but they are not the end, nor are they a fundamental part of the means. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
555:It was safe and everything smelled good and tasted delicious, and those things are the fundamental building blocks of a great day. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
556:The fundamental business of the country, that is production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
557:The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
558:The fundamental problem has nothing to do with your behavior or your attitude. It has everything to do with having a wrong map. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
559:There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting, and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility. ~ Tony Kushner, #NFDB
560:Things in their fundamental nature can neither be named nor explained. They cannot be expressed adequately in any form of language. ~ Aswaghosha, #NFDB
561:Those who spy on the people end up themselves being spied on by the people. There’s a fundamental democratic logic to it.> ~ David Lagercrantz, #NFDB
562:We are not becoming more educated; we are simply acquiring more knowledge. There is a fundamental difference between the two. ~ Massimo Pigliucci, #NFDB
563:emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
564:I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth Today" and, "We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox ~ David Foreman, #NFDB
565:I don’t read fiction for fun—I try to read novels that express some fundamental part of the human condition or some hard won truth. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
566:I know we all are lonely. Locked off from one another in some fundamental secrecy. But some of us declare war and some of us don't. ~ Jack Ketchum, #NFDB
567:Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
568:I think Enlightenment as an epistemic ideal involves rejecting the appeal to a fundamental stratum of non-conceptual self-evidence. ~ Ray Brassier, #NFDB
569:It was the fundamental flaw of democracy: Power found its way into the hands of liars and mobs instead of the cunning and the strong. ~ Kyle Mills, #NFDB
570:Legislation is about three fundamental things - affordability, access, and quality. That's what the American people want. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell, #NFDB
571:Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
572:P: ¿Cuál es el error fundamental del hombre?
R: Pensar que está vivo, cuando simplemente se ha dormido en la antesala de la vida. ~ Idries Shah,#NFDB
573:P: ¿Cuál es un error fundamental del hombre?
R: Pensar que está vivo, cuando simplemente se ha dormido en la antesala de la vida. ~ Idries Shah,#NFDB
574:Q: What is a fundamental mistake of man's?
A: To think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life's waiting-room. ~ Idries Shah,#NFDB
575:Science and technology benefit each other, but at its most fundamental level science is not undertaken for any practical reason. ~ Steven Weinberg, #NFDB
576:Selling drug secrets violates a trust that is fundamental to the integrity of both scientific research and our financial markets. ~ Chuck Grassley, #NFDB
577:The most fundamental and the most important aspect of the spiritual process can in no way be stopped by anybody - except yourself. ~ Jaggi Vasudev, #NFDB
578:Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference we should each be treated with appropriate respect. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
579:Accepting necessary conflicts for the sake of improving the lives of children is the only fundamental moral crusade that matters. ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
580:Aprendí entonces una lección fundamental: que una relación entre dos personas se juzga a partir de la lista de cosas que ambas callan. ~ Anna Carey, #NFDB
581:economics could never be a real science. The fundamental basis of all economics is that people act in their rational self-interest. ~ Victor Methos, #NFDB
582:Emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
583:Globalization really is a concrete, fundamental fact in everybody's lives, and you really see that come to life in soccer stadiums. ~ Franklin Foer, #NFDB
584:Having a place to live is a fundamental right and the state must establish a framework that ensures that apartments are affordable. ~ Martin Schulz, #NFDB
585:I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions. ~ Jeane Kirkpatrick, #NFDB
586:I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
587:It can scarcely be denied that the fundamental phenomena which first led mankind into chemical inquiries are those of combustion. ~ William Crookes, #NFDB
588:It’s not about revenues: the fundamental economics in digital business is scale and margins. The top line has become the bottom line. ~ Yuri Milner, #NFDB
589:Maintaining the balance of power should be as fundamental to American foreign policy as the Bill of Rights is to domestic policy. ~ George Friedman, #NFDB
590:One very fundamental thing has not changed and I realized that it will never change... is that I really need to go home and practice. ~ Pat Metheny, #NFDB
591:The fundamental difference between pleasure and satisfaction is that pleasure cannot be sustained beyond the activity producing it. ~ Matthew Kelly, #NFDB
592:The fundamental human values all emanate from Dharma, based on Truth. If human behaviour has no such basis, it leads to disaster. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
593:The philosopher: he alone knows how to live for himself. He is the one, in fact, who knows the fundamental thing: how to live. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
594:What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
595:Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
596:And biblically, again, I'm going to go right back to my fundamental Christian beliefs marriage is between one man and one woman. ~ Rebecca Kleefisch, #NFDB
597:at the heart of the unconscious mind there is a panoramic intelligence that is deeply connected with fundamental human consciousness. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
598:Ele tinha uma presença tão apagada. Era como estar em uma sala com uma pena. Mas a alma dele brilhava com uma bondade fundamental... ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
599:Emotional responses are not always external mirrors of internal feelings. but are rather controlled by more fundamental processes. ~ Joseph E LeDoux, #NFDB
600:Emotion is not opposed to reason. Emotions guide and manage thought in fundamental ways and complement the deficiencies of thinking. ~ Les Greenberg, #NFDB
601:I had learned a fundamental truth about killing: The victim's anguish is brief and fleeting, but the murderer's endures forever. ~ Jeanne Kalogridis, #NFDB
602:Just fundamental things - I played guard and I played forward, so you get into a position where you are pivoting out on the court. ~ Oscar Robertson, #NFDB
603:Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently. ~ Joseph Stiglitz, #NFDB
604:On a more fundamental level, research suggests that religious people—all else being equal—are happier than less religious people. ~ Timothy P Carney, #NFDB
605:pivot is a special kind of change designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
606:The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
607:The fundamental dilemma faced by climatologists is that global warming is a long-term problem that might require a near-term solution. ~ Nate Silver, #NFDB
608:Transcending divisiveness is one of the dreams of centrists, as if disagreement were a bad habit rather than fundamental to politics. ~ Doug Henwood, #NFDB
609:Ultimately, both parties are trying to answer one simple, fundamental question: Do we sense that we are meant to journey together? ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
610:"Art is the ability to turn one's gaze to the world of oblivion." This is the way in which I understand art at fundamental level. ~ Yasumasa Morimura, #NFDB
611:Each generation has to stand up for democracy. It can't take anything for granted and may have to fight fundamental battles anew. ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
612:For me to dominate the Congress in spite of these fundamental differences is almost a species of violence which I must refrain from. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
613:Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
614:Sharing knowledge is the most fundamental act of friendship. Because it is a way you can give something without loosing something. ~ Richard Stallman, #NFDB
615:The fundamental disagreement most Republicans have is they don't think health care is a right. They think it is a privilege, not a right. ~ Joe Biden, #NFDB
616:The fundamental principle of our constitution ... enjoins the sense of command, duty that the will of the majority shall prevail. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
617:Those who seek to become immortals must regard loyalty, filiality, peacefulness, obedience, benevolence and trustworthiness as fundamental. ~ Ge Hong, #NFDB
618:To do research on the fundamental laws that govern the universe would require a commitment of time that most people don’t have; the ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
619:A pivot is a special kind of change designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
620:Azi ştiu că a fi matur, a fi om întreg, nu înseamnă altceva decât a înţelege că eşti rău, fundamental şi dincolo de orice altceva. ~ Mircea C rt rescu, #NFDB
621:first impression (in other words, announcing your idea in a supercredible way) is fundamental to launching a breakthrough concept. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
622:I believe the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
623:Limitation by ignorance and error is the fundamental defect of an untransformed mind, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Divine Body, #NFDB
624:Opposites attract, and I think temperament is so fundamental that you end up craving someone of the opposite temperament to complete you. ~ Susan Cain, #NFDB
625:Proclamations and policy changes on paper will not create the fundamental changes to DNA that organizations need to catalyze change. ~ Judith E Glaser, #NFDB
626:Peace is not a luxury. It's not an option. It is fundamental to the existence and well-being of a human being to have peace in their life. ~ Prem Rawat, #NFDB
627:The fundamental basis of education must always remain that one must act for oneself. That is clear. One must act for him or herself. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
628:The real essentials of life - compassion, kindness, good will, forgiveness - are what is fundamental to living as a true human being. ~ Eknath Easwaran, #NFDB
629:When it comes to the fundamental issues that humanity faces, I think that solutions involve shifting consciousness towards cooperation. ~ Jeremy Gilley, #NFDB
630:A kingdom always includes three fundamental components: a ruler, a realm of subjects who fall under his rule, and the rules or governances. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
631:And so there was a fundamental scepticism about the ability of any institution, even one like the novel, to tell us anything true. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg, #NFDB
632:And those cuts stem from a fundamental misconception that art classes are about learning to draw. In fact, they are about learning to see.) ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
633:Does a person have a right to change his or her own religion? This is a fundamental human right, just like a right to freedom of speech. ~ Miroslav Volf, #NFDB
634:Every century or so, fundamental changes in the nature of consumption create new demand patterns that existing enterprises can't meet. ~ Shoshana Zuboff, #NFDB
635:I think wanting to write is a fundamental sign of disease and discomfort. I don't think people who are comfortable want to write. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
636:It is where life is fundamental and free that men develop the vision needed to reveal the human soul in the blossoms it puts forth. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, #NFDB
637:Learning to create is essential, necessary, vital & fundamental. It is the centrepiece in which you create the life that you really want ~ John Whitmore, #NFDB
638:Moral leadership emerges from, and always returns to, the fundamental wants and needs, aspirations, and values of the followers. ~ James MacGregor Burns, #NFDB
639:Social media are fundamental to communicate and understand what happens in the world. It's a point of view and an immediate commentary. ~ Franca Sozzani, #NFDB
640:The old question still remains: Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion? ~ Gerald R Ford, #NFDB
641:This man was hurt, damaged in some fundamental way. She saw it not in those scars upon his body but in the haunted expression in his eyes. ~ Emily March, #NFDB
642:With impressive proof on all sides of magnificent progress, no one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
643:At its most fundamental level, leadership depends on the ability to communicate effectively and in ways that inspire people to action. ~ David S Pottruck, #NFDB
644:Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
645:Motherhood changed me because it is so fundamental what you're doing for another person. And you are able to do it even though it takes a lot. ~ Meg Ryan, #NFDB
646:No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive. ~ Lou Gerstner, #NFDB
647:She often told us that teeth and hair are the roots, maybe even the fundamental source, of a person. My mother wanted our teeth to be perfect. ~ Kim Th y, #NFDB
648:The art of learning fundamental common values is perhaps the greatest gain of travel to those who wish to live at ease among their fellows. ~ Freya Stark, #NFDB
649:The fundamental problem for Republicans when it comes to the environment is that whatever you say is viewed through the prism of suspicion. ~ Frank Luntz, #NFDB
650:There is no getting around the fundamental fact that we need to interact with everything in order to manifest the wholeness we are born with. ~ Mark Nepo, #NFDB
651:This is a fundamental irony of most people’s lives. They don’t quite know what they want to do with their lives. Yet they are very active. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
652:You were able to kill him,” Will said. You, a girl. That’s what he meant. Like owning a vagina made me inferior in some fundamental way. ~ Laura Thalassa, #NFDB
653:A hungry man is not a free man. Freedom from hunger is a fundamental right. Without this freedom, such fundamental right cannot exist. ~ Silvio Berlusconi, #NFDB
654:And so we must dig in to see where raw words and fundamental sounds are buried so that the great silence within can finally be decoded. ~ Raymond Federman, #NFDB
655:Es mucho más importante con quién comes que lo que comes. Ése es un derecho fundamental; el de decidir con quién compartes el pan y la sal. ~ Benito Taibo, #NFDB
656:Ice melts into water; water boils into steam. As a start-up scales up from one phase to the next, it undergoes fundamental changes as well. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
657:If you can become anything, then you aren’t anything. Right? Like there’s some fundamental way in which the you of you doesn’t exist anymore. ~ Doug Dorst, #NFDB
658:In Buddhism, ignorance as the root cause of suffering refers to a fundamental misperception of the true nature of the self and all phenomena. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
659:It's not what people do to us that hurts us. In the most fundamental sense, it is our chosen response to what they do to us that hurts us. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
660:John Coffey was torn open by what he had done... but he would live. The girls would not. They had been torn open in a more fundamental way. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
661:only the heat of that compassion united with wisdom can melt the ore in our minds, so as to liberate the gold of our fundamental nature. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
662:The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
663:All polynomials of degree n-those that have a leading term of x^n- split into n distinct terms. This is the fundamental theorem of algebra. ~ Charles Seife, #NFDB
664:Believing that fundamental conditions of the country are sound ... my son and I have for some days been purchasing sound common stocks ~ John D Rockefeller, #NFDB
665:Beneath all differences of doctrine or discipline there exists a fundamental agreement as to the simple, absolute essentials in religion. ~ Julia Ward Howe, #NFDB
666:Common-sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
667:Frankl discovered that a human being’s fundamental dignity lies in his capacity to choose his response to any situation—his response-ability. ~ Fred Kofman, #NFDB
668:I think, no matter how much life changes us, there are fundamental aspects of who we are that become part of our core. That never disappears. ~ Marti Green, #NFDB
669:It is simply the truth that the political system that I am part of has degenerated to the point that it needs fundamental change. ~ Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, #NFDB
670:the fundamental fact that law directs the ongoing of society. It is rooted in the past, determines the present, and protects the future. ~ James A Michener, #NFDB
671:The study of psychological trauma has repeatedly led into realms of the unthinkable and foundered on fundamental questions of belief. ~ Judith Lewis Herman, #NFDB
672:When there is that total attention given to observation, that which is observed undergoes a fundamental transformation. Got it? Do it! ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
673:all theisms—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—the difference between the self and God is radical. Pride is the fundamental sin of human beings. ~ James W Sire, #NFDB
674:Fair treatment in the work force is no longer exclusively a labor issue, nor is it a women's issue - it is a fundamental economic issue. ~ Madeleine M Kunin, #NFDB
675:I underlined this: “The fundamental note which she sounds is that of pain. The pain of isolation. The very keynote of the artist’s eternal rack. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
676:Knowing that we are responsible—“response-able”—is fundamental to effectiveness and to every other habit of effectiveness we will discuss. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
677:Many in the American military have learned the fundamental dilemma of modern warfare: More money and better weapons don't mean that you win. ~ Gabriel Kolko, #NFDB
678:More than a mere alternative strategy, regenerative agriculture represents a fundamental shift in our culture’s relationship to nature. ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
679:No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
680:Quantum mechanics as it stands would be perfect if we didn’t have the quantum-gravity issue and a few other very deep fundamental problems. ~ Gerard t Hooft, #NFDB
681:The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: “I think, therefore I am. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
682:The second noble truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
683:What's hot today isn't likely to be hot tomorrow. The stock market reverts to fundamental returns over the long run. Don't follow the herd. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
684:You've recognised a fundamental feature of an addict's life. Maintaining your habit is so important you've no real interest in anything else. ~ Marian Keyes, #NFDB
685:If one comes to fundamentals then this is the most fundamental thing: the moment you are not, enlightenment is. With emptiness, the matter is settled. ~ Osho, #NFDB
686:Institutions don't change the world in fundamental ways. The way the world changes is heart to heart to heart by individuals, not by institutions. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
687:it seemed that young people, despite their fundamental decency, now had to buy into a mind-set which made viciousness and treachery come easy. ~ Irvine Welsh, #NFDB
688:it’s often the ideas that sound most absurd and counterintuitive at first that later cause fundamental shifts in the way we see the world. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
689:I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects. ~ Piet Mondrian, #NFDB
690:Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
691:Shakespeare's stories are still very strong. He structured fantastic stories about things that were fundamental to the human being and psyche. ~ James McAvoy, #NFDB
692:Temporary success can be achieved in spite of lack of other fundamental qualities, but no advancements can be maintained without hard work. ~ William Feather, #NFDB
693:They're all the same-- the cop, the criminal, the defense, the prosecutor-- they all share a fundamental belief in the malleability of truth ~ Louise Erdrich, #NFDB
694:Anyone who puts a small gloss on a fundamental technology, calls it proprietary, and then tries to keep others from building on it, is a thief. ~ Tim O Reilly, #NFDB
695:Being gay is a fundamental part of my being - the core of who I've always been, and the thing that I had repressed and run from all my life. ~ James McGreevey, #NFDB
696:Few books I had read so directly and wholly addressed that fundamental fact of existence: all organisms, whether goldfish or grandchild, die. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
697:I left with my canvas bag in which a few fundamental things were packed and took off for the Pacific Ocean with the fifty dollars in my pocket. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
698:In the end, there will always be a fundamental difference of perspective between New Zealand and Australia on defense, whoever is in government. ~ Helen Clark, #NFDB
699:In the modern world, economic policy takes precedence over foreign policy. This is a fundamental change in the way the world is moving today. ~ K Natwar Singh, #NFDB
700:She was my first in every way, in a way that messed up something fundamental inside me when I realized we weren’t going to be each other’s last. ~ Ella Fields, #NFDB
701:The imagination is an essential tool of the mind, a fundamental way of thinking, an indispensable means of becoming and remaining human. We ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
702:When it comes to LGBT civil rights, as with other marginalized groups, our fundamental personhood is not an issue that has two sides. ~ Michelangelo Signorile, #NFDB
703:Christians belong in American politics because there is not and cannot be a fundamental separation between our moral vocation and our citizenship. ~ Alan Keyes, #NFDB
704:here you are, violating society’s most fundamental taboos, and yet formaldehyde is a powerful appetite stimulant, so you also crave a burrito. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
705:Modern redistribution is built around a logic of rights and a principle of equal access to a certain number of goods deemed to be fundamental. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
706:Society needs to see science not as a luxury of funding but as a fundamental activity that drives enlightenment, economics, and security. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
707:The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
708:The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
709:We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
710:We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused. ~ Michael Ignatieff, #NFDB
711:When it comes to France, it seems to me the fundamental question is how a former colonial power should interact with its former colony. ~ Alvaro de Vasconcelos, #NFDB
712:After all, the fundamental question of philosophy (like that of psychoanalysis) is the same as the question of the detective novel: who is guilty? ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
713:Can accelerating technology disrupt our entire system to the point where a fundamental restructuring may be required if prosperity is to continue? ~ Martin Ford, #NFDB
714:Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them. ~ Ha Joon Chang, #NFDB
715:Essentially, there's no scientific evidence whatsoever that could ever be presented to me that would wipe out my fundamental spiritual beliefs. ~ Damon Lindelof, #NFDB
716:Quantum uncertainty is a fundamental limit on what can be known, arising from the fact that quantum objects have both particle and wave properties. ~ Chad Orzel, #NFDB
717:The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
718:The energies represented by the four # elements are ulitimately the fundamental realities of life that are being analysed with # astrology ~ Stephen Arroyo, #NFDB
719:The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
720:The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day. ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
721:The goal of particle physics is to discover matter’s most basic constituents and the most fundamental physical laws obeyed by those constituents. ~ Lisa Randall, #NFDB
722:You cannot tell the enemy you're going to leave and expect the enemy to not - and expect to succeed. I mean, that's just a fundamental of warfare. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
723:A good game impresses you with what you're doing. I think that's a fundamental difference that I as a game designer need to recede in the background. ~ Sid Meier, #NFDB
724:Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen. ~ Robert P Murphy, #NFDB
725:Fundamentals are right down to earth. And one fundamental is: You have to make calls. Nothing happens until you make a call. It’s that fundamental! ~ Ben Feldman, #NFDB
726:I could never understand how someone would embark on their life without having first confronted and clarified the truly fundamental questions. ~ Thomas Metzinger, #NFDB
727:If the main pillar of the system is living a lie,” wrote Havel, “then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living in truth. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
728:If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives. ~ Greg Boyle, #NFDB
729:It is my conviction that the fundamental trouble with the people of the United States is that they have gotten too far away from Almighty God. ~ Warren G Harding, #NFDB
730:Once again I repeat: the aim pf physics at its most fundamental level is not just to describe the world but ti explain why it is the way it is. ~ Steven Weinberg, #NFDB
731:Organizations need to undergo fundamental changes, both in order to adapt to the new business environment and to become ecologically sustainable. ~ Fritjof Capra, #NFDB
732:President Obama's actions are an unconscionable betrayal of America's fundamental values and a profound insult to the oppressed Cuban people. ~ Mario Diaz Balart, #NFDB
733:The day you stop learning is the day you begin to die. Lack of knowledge is the fundamental principle for killing "alive and kicking" dreams. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
734:The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society. ~ David Suzuki, #NFDB
735:The fundamental conflict of our time is that between the creaturely life of Nature’s world and the increasingly mechanical life of modern humans. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
736:The love is what's left at the end because it's the bedrock, fundamental reality that gets hidden all the time, but never really goes away. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
737:The problem with all these tired excuses for inaction is that it suggests a fundamental lack of faith in American business and American ingenuity. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
738:There is a fundamental shift that social media necessitates in business today - the need to transition from 'Me First' to 'We First' thinking. ~ Simon Mainwaring, #NFDB
739:There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment. ~ Stanislav Grof, #NFDB
740:And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
741:Predictions are nice, if you can make them. But the essence of science lies in explanation, laying bare the fundamental mechanisms of nature. ~ M Mitchell Waldrop, #NFDB
742:The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. ~ Claude Shannon, #NFDB
743:The most fundamental problem in software development is complexity. There is only one basic way of dealing with complexity: divide and conquer ~ Bjarne Stroustrup, #NFDB
744:If, therefore, a man will so live as to show that he feels and believes the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, he must live above the world. ~ William Law, #NFDB
745:I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe.... They are nations of eternal war. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
746:I was brought up on the proletarian left, and I remain there. The fair go for workers is fundamental, and I don't believe the free market has a mind. ~ Clive James, #NFDB
747:Systems, whether educational or political, are not changed mysteriously; they are transformed when there is a fundamental change in ourselves. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
748:That Hegel is a metaphysician, and that he thinks metaphysics is fundamental to philosophy, is plain enough from his definition of philosophy. ~ Frederick C Beiser, #NFDB
749:The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Judith Orloff, #NFDB
750:A fundamental requirement, overriding any other for this job, is an understanding of deafness-what it is and how it affects the educational experience. ~ Paul Simon, #NFDB
751:I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it? ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
752:If death is the basic and the fundamental fear, then only one thing can make you fearless, and that is an experience within you of a deathless consciousness. ~ Osho, #NFDB
753:I still believe that the mission of Business 2.0 is very strong, very fundamental, and we're really at the beginning of where they're going to take us. ~ James Daly, #NFDB
754:I think that's the fundamental thing - you can go anywhere you like as long as you're following a character that the audience likes and understands. ~ Ricky Gervais, #NFDB
755:It's because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional resources. ~ Eric Schmidt, #NFDB
756:Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed—his relationship with God—then nothing else can be truly in order. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
757:One of the few things I’ve learned since then about the fundamental differences between the sexes is this: men make assumptions, but women rarely do. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
758:Seek God, not happiness - this is the fundamental rule of all meditation. If you seek God alone, you will gain happiness: that is its promise. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
759:shattered for all time a complex of fundamental articles of our cultural faith: that the world was capable of repairing any damage we might do to it; ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
760:The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
761:There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
762:What’s the fundamental physics breakthrough you’d most like to see? Breakthroughs, by definition, are unanticipated surprises that lead to great things. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
763:But after that you don't see a lot of real good fundamental play. You see a showboat-type basketball which is almost parallel to street basketball. ~ Oscar Robertson, #NFDB
764:Christopher Bollas, writes: “There is in each of us a fundamental split between what we think we know and what we know but may never be able to think. ~ Dani Shapiro, #NFDB
765:Experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes. ~ Patrick Lencioni, #NFDB
766:For Heidegger, boredom is a privileged fundamental mood because it leads us directly into the very problem complex of being and time. ~ Lars Fredrik H ndler Svendsen, #NFDB
767:Grief produces an abundant energy that must find a way to burn itself up. And that is the fundamental problem, one that can take a lifetime to exhaust. ~ Bill Carter, #NFDB
768:In war, resources lead to success: in business, success leads to resources. This is a fundamental difference between the processes of war and competition. ~ John Kay, #NFDB
769:Law matters, because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy. ~ Elena Kagan, #NFDB
770:The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”—Bertrand Russell ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
771:The fundamental problem most patients have is an inability to love themselves, having been unloved by others during some crucial part of their lives. ~ Bernie Siegel, #NFDB
772:Yet how strong was friendship? Could it banish disagreement over a fundamental issue of human liberty—as if the issue and the disagreement didn’t exist? ~ John Jakes, #NFDB
773:After the destructionofthe Second Temple Jewslived by an ancient and fundamental insight, that God does not live in buildings but in the human heart. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
774:All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance. ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
775:I see real love as the most fundamental of our innate capacities, never destroyed no matter what we might have gone through or might yet go through. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
776:Our basic fundamental desires are overly stimulated. A friend of mine said, "you have a generation of people that have been accidentally marketed to." ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
777:The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. ~ Philip Warren Anderson, #NFDB
778:The fundamental idea...is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
779:The success of any trap lies in its fundamental simplicity. The reverse trap by the nature of its single complication must be swift and simpler still. ~ Robert Ludlum, #NFDB
780:We would be deliberately violating the fundamental obligations we assumed in the Act of Bogota establishing the Organization of American States. ~ J William Fulbright, #NFDB
781:en todas las experiencias que pueden desanimarles o corromperles, los elementos espirituales son la realidad fundamental, e ignorarlos es ser un escapista. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
782:Having a good set of automated tests for your system allows you to make fundamental architectural changes with minimal risk. It gives you space to work in. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
783:I have been able to hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes along. If there has been one fundamental reason for my success, this is it. ~ Gene Sarazen, #NFDB
784:In dreams you can become everything you're not. You can reverse the most fundamental truths of your life. You can taste death, the ultimate opposite. ~ Robin Wasserman, #NFDB
785:I've been to Africa three times. All right? You can't bring Western reasoning into the culture. The same way you can't bring it into fundamental Islam. ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
786:No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
787:Speed, the fundamental condition of the activities of our day is the power of photography, indeed the modern art of today, the art of the split second. ~ Lisette Model, #NFDB
788:There is no way that we can understand it all. So the heart's response to that mystery is faith - a trust in the fundamental orderliness of the universe. ~ Ajahn Amaro, #NFDB
789:The true measure of runway is how many pivots a startup has left: the number of opportunities it has to make a fundamental change to its business strategy. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
790:We are all Malaysians. This is the bond that unites us. Let us always remember that unity is our fundamental strength as a people and as a nation. ~ Tunku Abdul Rahman, #NFDB
791:Differentiation of treatment is not motivated by the difference of value of the two races, but of the fundamental difference of their respective natures. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
792:From my own experience in dealing with the Nazi-grandpas, who have now clearly made a return, I would recommend a bit of fundamental imperturbability. ~ Joschka Fischer, #NFDB
793:I don't see how the study of language and literature can be separated from the question of free speech, which we all know is fundamental to our society. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
794:If the main pillar of the system is living a lie,” wrote Havel, “then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living in truth.” Since ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
795:I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all and the most fundamental is violent death. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
796:Just be honest with Dr. Singh, okay? There’s no need to suffer.” Which I’d argue is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the human predicament, but okay. ~ John Green, #NFDB
797:She offends the fundamental human dignity of her son,–she treats him as if he were a doll, when he is, instead, a man confided by nature to her care. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
798:Total fundamental thoughts of the Universe is always constant. Therefore, the sum of all forms of thoughts remains constant- changes are due to combinations. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
799:anonymity is valuable for all the reasons I’ve discussed in this chapter. It protects privacy, it empowers individuals, and it’s fundamental to liberty. ~ Bruce Schneier, #NFDB
800:By manipulating queuing, by manipulating expectation, you can lead people to a fundamental confrontation, not only with themselves, but with the Other. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
801:Dishonesty is fundamental to the progressive cause since the cause is always about an imagined future whose panaceas cannot pass the test of experience. ~ David Horowitz, #NFDB
802:Early experience shapes the structure and function of the brain. This reveals the fundamental way in which gene expression is determined by experience. ~ Daniel J Siegel, #NFDB
803:I don’t mean that my mother didn’t love me but she was not a domestic person: her life was in her mind. The fundamental skill of all mothers—the management ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
804:I’m not sure I could trust a man who would bypass an Oreo in favor of vanilla wafers. It’s a fundamental character flaw, possibly a sign of true evil. ~ Jonathan Maberry, #NFDB
805:On my return to Pittsburgh, I resolved to go back to the fundamental problems of electronic structure that I had contemplated abstractly many years earlier. ~ John Pople, #NFDB
806:Principles are deep fundamental truths... lightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty and strength through the fabric of life. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
807:That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer. ~ Morton Gould, #NFDB
808:The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
809:Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
810:Always, even on a solemn occasion like this, an undercurrent of laughter in her voice. She possessed a keen sense of the fundamental absurdity of life. ~ Leah Hager Cohen, #NFDB
811:Do we want to live in a controlled society or do we want to live in a free society? That’s the fundamental question we’re being faced with.’ EDWARD SNOWDEN ~ Luke Harding, #NFDB
812:in a story there is always a reader, and this reader is a fundamental ingredient not only of the process of storytelling but also of the tale itself. Today, ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
813:It's not only possible, but likely that the Nobel Prize in economics will go in alternate years to people who disagree on nearly everything fundamental. ~ Jerry Pournelle, #NFDB
814:Love and gratitude This crystal is as perfect as can be. This indicates that love and gratitude are fundamental to the phenomenon of life in all of nature. ~ Masaru Emoto, #NFDB
815:Modern workers might be free to switch sweatshops or minimum-wage jobs, but that freedom is meaningless if it doesn’t change their fundamental circumstances. ~ Tim Tigner, #NFDB
816:Somewhere in the crowd was at least one potential friend who'd understand the fundamental value of goofing off.
Because if not, how boring would that be? ~ Alyson Noel,#NFDB
817:specified a two-tiered family of five criteria of excellence (expertise) in the domain, fundamental pragmatics of life. At the first level, expertise consists ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
818:The family is the single most important institution in Afghan culture. It is described in the countrys constitution as the fundamental pillar of society. ~ Asne Seierstad, #NFDB
819:The world of fundamental religion does not recognize even the slightest variation in meaning should this meaning fall outside its own definition of truth. ~ Susan Griffin, #NFDB
820:To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us. ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
821:Balance is the natural state of life, because the basic characteristic of the fundamental element of life, pure consciousness, is complete balance. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
822:Fundamental Attribution Error.” The error lies in our inclination to attribute people’s behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in. ~ Chip Heath, #NFDB
823:It's a fundamental aspect of the free enterprise system and economics: If there's no penalty associated with increased costs, why not lay on increased costs? ~ John McCain, #NFDB
824:like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn’t going to work. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
825:The materialist dialectic and political activity weren’t antagonistic for Marx; his conception of class is fundamental to his understanding of human agency[9]. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
826:The removal of an electron from the surface of an atom - that is, the ionization of the atom - means a fundamental structural change in its surface layer. ~ Johannes Stark, #NFDB
827:In the beginning, the feminine principle was seen as the fundamental cosmic force. All ancient peoples believed that the world was created by a female Diety. ~ Judy Chicago, #NFDB
828:[Our] struggle for liberation has significance only if it takes place within a feminist movement that has as its fundamental goal the liberation of all people. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
829:Our universe, one could almost say, is actually built out of loneliness; and that fundamental loneliness persists upwards to haunt every one of its residents. ~ Paul Murray, #NFDB
830:The only thing that is fundamental (real) is consciousness itself; all else is virtual- i.e., a result of an exchange of information within consciousness. ~ Thomas Campbell, #NFDB
831:The tradition of always looking for the answer in the most fundamental way available - that is a great tradition, and it saves a lot of time in this world. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
832:With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
833:Even in our busy, driven, and often isolated lives, we can remember this fundamental reality, that we’re all interdependent and connected with one another. ~ Daniel J Siegel, #NFDB
834:Food is so fundamental, more so than sexuality, aggression, or learning, that it is astounding to realize the neglect of food and eating in depth psychology. ~ James Hillman, #NFDB
835:Knowledge of life in the astral world leads us to a conclusion of fundamental importance, namely that the physical world is the product of the astral world. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #NFDB
836:My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings - what we sometimes call "mind" - are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
837:The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
838:The notion that journalism can regularly produce a product that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and advertisers ... is absurd. ~ Robert Waterman McChesney, #NFDB
839:There has been a fundamental paradigm shift. Today's customer expectations are: If i can imagine it, it simply has to be there; if not, I'll invent it myself' ~ Kim Williams, #NFDB
840:Yet evolutionary science has come to see cooperation, and its core emotions of empathy, compassion, and generosity, as fundamental to our species’ survival. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
841:A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
842:All fundamental political problems are problems of relationships; therefore, all fundamental solutions have to involve fundamental changes in relationships. ~ F David Mathews, #NFDB
843:Approved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint even though each man may like his cell. ~ Erving Goffman, #NFDB
844:Climate change has taken on political dimensions. That's odd because I don't see people choosing sides over E=Mc2 or other fundamental facts of science. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
845:Consciousness doesn't emerge from matter because it has always been in matter. Consciousness is a fundamental quality that exists everywhere and in everything. ~ Steve Taylor, #NFDB
846:For me, drawing is a way of navigating the imagination and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice. Drawing allows me to be at my most inventive. ~ Shahzia Sikander, #NFDB
847:Los sentimientos desempeñan un papel fundamental para navegar a través de la incesante corriente de las decisiones personales que la vida nos obliga a tomar. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
848:One of the fundamental aspects of leadership, I realized more and more, is the ability to instill confidence in others when you yourself are feeling insecure ~ Howard Schultz, #NFDB
849:The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor. ~ Isaiah Berlin, #NFDB
850:The most fundamental change in people at this time was a weakening of their sense of individual identity; their sense of fate grew correspondingly stronger. ~ Vasily Grossman, #NFDB
851:There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory. ~ Neil Postman, #NFDB
852:This admission is a fundamental step in changing the situation in the family. As long as the fantasy of love is maintained, there will be no real change. ~ Robert W Firestone, #NFDB
853:this was the fundamental hypothesis of the senior staff, shared by Walsh and everyone else: Trump must know what he was doing, his intuition must be profound. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
854:Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. ~ Thomas Kuhn, #NFDB
855:An Attack on the fundamental democratic foundation-Modern European white industry does not even theoretically seek the good of all but simply of all Europeans. ~ W E B Du Bois, #NFDB
856:Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ~ Erwin Schr dinger, #NFDB
857:Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ~ Erwin Schrodinger, #NFDB
858:government should be elevated into a living moral force, capable of inspiring the people with a just recognition of the fundamental principles of society; ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
859:I attribute my whole success in life to a rigid observance of the fundamental rule - Never have yourself tattooed with any woman's name, not even her initials. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
860:I cannot hold the Bible in my hand while denying the Trinity. There is a fundamental contradiction there. The Trinity is a doctrine for Bible-believing people. ~ James R White, #NFDB
861:I don't see how the study of language and literature can be separated from the question of free speech, which we all know is fundamental to our society. [p.92] ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
862:If not now, then when? If not you, then who? If we are able to answer these fundamental questions, then perhaps we can wipe away the blot of human slavery. ~ Kailash Satyarthi, #NFDB
863:if they did not interrogate their most fundamental beliefs, they would live superficial, expedient lives, because “the unexamined life is not worth living.”7 ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
864:No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
865:That is the fundamental question; how to trust that she has a heart and that she can, little by little, receive love, be transformed by love, and then give love. ~ Jean Vanier, #NFDB
866:The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life. ~ Franz Alexander, #NFDB
867:The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion. ~ Leon Trotsky, #NFDB
868:The photon is the first example we will encounter of a gauge boson, a fundamental, elementary particle that is responsible for communicating a particular force. ~ Lisa Randall, #NFDB
869:With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly. “I ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
870:Your error is fundamental to the human psyche: you have allowed yourself to believe that others are mechanisms, static and solvable, whereas you are an agent. ~ Seth Dickinson, #NFDB
871:Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ~ Erwin Schrodinger, #NFDB
872:Education belongs pre-eminently to the church ... neutral or lay schools from which religion is excluded are contrary to the fundamental principles of education. ~ Pope Pius XI, #NFDB
873:I really like telling stories. When I was a kid, I wanted to write songs. In quite a fundamental, gratifying, childish way, I enjoy the doing of telling a story. ~ Paul Bettany, #NFDB
874:It is a remarkable honor to receive a Nobel Prize, because it not only recognizes discoveries, but also their usefulness to the advancement of fundamental science. ~ Peter Agre, #NFDB
875:Lack of self-worth is the fundamental source of all emotional pain. A feeling of insecurity, unworthiness and lack of valueis the core experience of powerlessness. ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
876:No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature's ecosystems. ~ Arthur Erickson, #NFDB
877:The fundamental belief in the authenticity of photographs explains why photographs of people no longer living and of vanished architecture are so melancholy. ~ Beaumont Newhall, #NFDB
878:The fundamental peculiarity of the photographic medium; the physical objects themselves print their image by means of the optical and chemical action of light. ~ Rudolf Arnheim, #NFDB
879:The fundamental principle of Ayurvedic medicine is simple and empowering: You can become your own best doctor if you acknowledge the power of self-healing. ~ Suhas G Kshirsagar, #NFDB
880:The Fundamental Principle that governs - or ought to govern -human affairs if we wish to avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, or pointless utopias, is negotiation. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
881:The more prose I wrote, the more the pendulum swung back toward the middle, merging some poetic sensibilities with the more fundamental elements of creative prose. ~ Alex Lemon, #NFDB
882:With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there — not always, but more often than not. With girls, 'Why her?' came up so quickly. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
883:All my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
884:By getting to smaller and smaller units, we do not come to fundamental or indivisible units. But we do come to a point where further division has no meaning. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
885:Collisions are the fundamental life-giving processes of the universe. Ideas are no different. The best ideas come from collisions between newer and older ideas. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
886:I believe we have a profound fundamental need for areas of the earth where we stand without our mechanisms that make us immediate masters over our environment. ~ Howard Zahniser, #NFDB
887:It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of socialism. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
888:La necesidad de aliviar la tensión sólo motiva parcialmente la atracción entre los sexos; la motivación fundamental es la necesidad de unión con el otro polo sexual. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
889:The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
890:The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.
~ Iris Murdoch,#NFDB
891:We believe that the fundamental sexual unit is one person; adding more people to that unit may be intimate, fun, and companionable but does not complete anybody. ~ Dossie Easton, #NFDB
892:While other [military] alliances have been formed to win wars, our fundamental purpose is to prevent war while preserving and extending the frontiers of freedom. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
893:Work is fundamental to the dignity of a person. . . . It gives one the ability to maintain oneself, one's family, to contribute to the growth of one's own nation. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
894:A bed is a place where so much of life is played out - births and deaths and passions and dreaming - all the most fundamental moments of our fragile human existence. ~ Tracy Rees, #NFDB
895:Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, #NFDB
896:It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder, #NFDB
897:It was crime at its purest, in which empathy, that most fundamental aspect of human morality, evaporated and another being became only a target for untamed fantasy. ~ Scott Turow, #NFDB
898:Li had stumbled on a deep and fundamental principle of oncology: cancer needed to be systemically treated long after every visible sign of it had vanished. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
899:One may deal with things without love...but you cannot deal with men without it...It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
900:profession? A report by the Institute of Medicine on medical training concluded that the fundamental approach to medical education has not changed since 1910.127 ~ Michael Greger, #NFDB
901:Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them. ~ Allen Tate, #NFDB
902:The appetite for adventure and risk is not exclusive to young Christians. In face, it seems to be a fundamental yearning, knitted into the fabric of the human soul. ~ Alan Hirsch, #NFDB
903:The free flow of information has become so important to all of us that in 2011 the United Nations declared “access to the Internet” a fundamental human right. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
904:The most fundamental in me is coming uppermost, and the transient, the sensational, is dispersing, because it can't adversely influence what is essential to me. ~ Oskar Kokoschka, #NFDB
905:was a glaring, undeniable example of one of the most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
906:I mean, that which appears to our senses is not the fundamental truth. Things that are seen and heard and done by the flesh are mere shadows of a deeper reality. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
907:Indeed, through fundamental advances in bionics in this century, we will set the technological foundation for an enhanced human experience, and we will end disability. ~ Hugh Herr, #NFDB
908:No, no es tan ridículo como usted se figura. Se basa en una necesidad fundamental de la naturaleza humana, en la necesidad de hablar, de revelarse uno a sí mismo ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
909:The biggest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in the fundamental law. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
910:The distinction, therefore, between general names, and individual or singular names, is fundamental; and may be considered as the first grand division of names. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
911:The fundamental problem with arguing that things are true “by definition” is that you can’t make reality go a different way by choosing a different definition. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
912:The real case against socialism is not its economic inefficiency, though on all sides there is evidence of that. Much more fundamental is its basic immorality. ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
913:There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man. A close connection between race and personality has never been established. ~ Franz Boas, #NFDB
914:What we'd like to think of YouTube as is a part of Google with very overlapping goals and values. We're a fundamental part of the advertising business for Google. ~ Salar Kamangar, #NFDB
915:Aunque las lesbianas tratan de imitar con servilismo las costumbres del heteropatriarcado para no parecer peligrosas, no pueden redimir su deslealtad fundamental. ~ Sheila Jeffreys, #NFDB
916:Freud’s fundamental thought, on which these remarks are based, is formulated by the assumption that “consciousness comes into being at the site of a memory trace. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
917:I like to think that when an athlete wears Armani, it makes him or her feel confident, and as we all know, confidence is fundamental to winning in any competition. ~ Giorgio Armani, #NFDB
918:Knowledge has the form of a tree, and since metaphysics is the most fundamental one of the theoretical disciplines, it represents the roots of the tree. ~ Gonzalo Rodriguez Pereyra, #NFDB
919:Nature's patterns sometimes reflect two intertwined features: fundamental physical laws and environmental influences. It's nature's version of nature versus nurture. ~ Brian Greene, #NFDB
920:new forms of contraception, new methods of child rearing, and new forms of education and public welfare have provoked a fundamental renegotiation of gender roles. ~ David Christian, #NFDB
921:Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
922:Question everything. I am particularly fond of “stupid” questions. A stupid question asks about things so fundamental that everyone assumes the answer is obvious. ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
923:The fundamental difference between someone you trust and someone you don’t is your belief in whether or not they are looking out for your best interest above their own. ~ Tim Grahl, #NFDB
924:The fundamental is not the final, the pratistha is not the consummation but only the means to the consummation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #NFDB
925:The fundamental problem with the immigration system in America is that it serves the needs of wealthy donors, political activists and powerful, powerful politicians. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
926:This is a critical and very fundamental point to remember: we don’t ever have to eat any sugar or starch of any kind at all in order to be optimally healthy. Our ~ Nora T Gedgaudas, #NFDB
927:This is why I am so reticent about our relationship--because on some basic, fundamental level, I recognize within me a deep-seated compulsion to be loved and cherished. ~ E L James, #NFDB
928:Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It's fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
929:aggressive behavior is basic and fundamental, and that an animal cannot feel or express affection until channels have been provided for the expression of aggression. ~ Maxwell Maltz, #NFDB
930:A surprising number of government committees will make important decisions on fundamental matters with less attention than each individual would give to buying a suit. ~ Herman Kahn, #NFDB
931:Common stock investors can make money by predicting the outcomes of practice evolution. You can't derive this by fundamental analysis - you must think biologically. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
932:Einstein once wrote, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
933:It's one of the most fundamental desires of man, of being free and flying unhindered, and it really seems to go a lot with our founding fathers' principles of freedom. ~ Dean Potter, #NFDB
934:Life is not a search for experience, but for ourselves. Having discovered our own fundamental level we realize that it conforms to our own destiny and we find peace. ~ Cesare Pavese, #NFDB
935:Most people assume that women are responsible for households and child care. Most couples operate that way - not all. That fundamental assumption holds women back. ~ Sheryl Sandberg, #NFDB
936:The homosexual agenda represents a clear and present danger to virtually every fundamental right given to us by our Creator and enshrined for us in our Constitution. ~ Bryan Fischer, #NFDB
937:The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them. ~ Max Barry, #NFDB
938:You still need to understand what your fundamental and primary jobs are you have to make sure that you execute those before you can really dabble into something else. ~ Tye Sheridan, #NFDB
939:A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions. ~ William Kingdon Clifford, #NFDB
940:And we must—absolutely must—maintain a fundamental humility before the Great Mystery. If we do not, religion always worships itself and its formulations and never God. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
941:At a fundamental level photography is much like pointing, and all of us occasionally point at things: look at that, look at that sailboat, look at that tree, etc. etc. ~ Keith Carter, #NFDB
942:Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the internet. And now, is the basis of the society built on the internet. ~ Tim Berners Lee, #NFDB
943:Free speech is a sign of a strong first-person plural, which enables people who disagree over fundamental things to live together in a condition of mutual toleration. ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
944:If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
945:Materialism attempts to reduce conscious experience to physical entities like these particles. As such, it assumes consciousness to be derivative, not fundamental. ~ Bernardo Kastrup, #NFDB
946:My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings—what we sometimes call “mind”—are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more. —CARL SAGAN ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
947:phi·los·o·phy n. (pl.-phies) the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline. See ~ Oxford University Press, #NFDB
948:Strategies, tactics, skills, and practices are empty without an understanding of the fundamental human aspirations that connect leaders and their constituents. Model ~ James M Kouzes, #NFDB
949:That being said, experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes. ~ Patrick Lencioni, #NFDB
950:The fundamental message: think. If necessary, discuss your orders. Even criticize them. And if you absolutely must—and you better have a good reason—disobey them.4 ~ Philip E Tetlock, #NFDB
951:una verdad convencional puede ser importante, es fundamental para aprender matemáticas elementales, por ejemplo—, no te proporcionará ninguna ventaja. No es un secreto. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
952:What is especially striking and remarkable is that in fundamental physics a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than a theory that is inelegant. ~ Murray Gell Mann, #NFDB
953:When I think of civil liberties I think of the founding principles of the country. The freedoms that are in the First Amendment. But also the fundamental right to privacy. ~ Tim Cook, #NFDB
954:Autonomy is something fundamental that your child needs. (Francoise Dolto said that by age six, a child should be able to do everything at home that concerns him.) ~ Pamela Druckerman, #NFDB
955:Growing up in Jamaica, the Pentecostal church wasn't that fiery thing you might think. It was very British, very proper. Hymns. No dancing. Very quiet. Very fundamental. ~ Grace Jones, #NFDB
956:I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father, mother, children - is fundamental to our civilisation. ~ Rupert Murdoch, #NFDB
957:I pledged that the United States would be a strong partner to all those across Asia and the world who were dedicated to human rights and fundamental freedoms. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
958:The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
959:The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
960:There's the unique case of Ronald Reagan, who cited [founders] some 850 times, and in a way that was absolutely fundamental to understanding Reagan's vision for America. ~ Paul Kengor, #NFDB
961:Civil religion gives American culture its direction and defines its fundamental values, but it does not determine the diversified contents of American national culture. ~ Edward Hirsch, #NFDB
962:As a matter of fact, it's in our interests that we help reformers across the Middle East achieve their objectives. This is the fundamental challenge of the 21st century. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
963:Einstein once wrote, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Alan Lightman, #NFDB
964:Familiaris Consortio (“On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World”), that “Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being” (No. 11). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
965:General Musharraf needs my participation to give credibility to the electoral process, as well as to respect the fundamental right of all those who wish to vote for me. ~ Benazir Bhutto, #NFDB
966:Human beings have a fundamental need for physical and emotional space, and the desire to extinguish another life can arise when the boundaries of that space are violated. ~ Kanae Minato, #NFDB
967:It is time for a new compact among the civilized peoples of this world to eradicate war at its most fundamental source: the corruption of young minds by violent ideology. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
968:Know your value and you know your place in the order. To escape the boundary of the plantation was to escape the fundamental principles of your existence: impossible. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
969:Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . . ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
970:The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue.... Four out of every five toxic-waste dumps in America is in a black neighborhood. ~ Robert F Kennedy Jr, #NFDB
971:The fundamental mistake I had always made ... was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl." (pg. 199) ~ John Green, #NFDB
972:The most fundamental laws of physics are not restrictions on the behaviour of matter. Rather, they are restrictions on the way physicists may describe that behaviour. ~ Victor J Stenger, #NFDB
973:the real threats to our well-being are attachment, anger, and ignorance—the three fundamental deluded minds that lead to all other afflictions, both mental and physical. ~ Tashi Tsering, #NFDB
974:The scientific attitude implies the postulate of objectivity-that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan; that there is no intention in the universe. ~ Jacques Monod, #NFDB
975:A pivot requires that we keep one foot rooted in what we’ve learned so far, while making a fundamental change in strategy in order to seek even greater validated learning. In ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
976:Believe me, you don’t want to be at a company where there is more candor in the hallways than in the rooms where fundamental ideas or matters of policy are being hashed out. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
977:I think actually the marketing community is approaching a crisis: There are just too many messages competing for too little attention. That is the fundamental problem. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
978:I wish to emphasize to the millions of my fellow Buddhists worldwide the need to take science seriously and to accept its fundamental discoveries within their worldview. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
979:As a counselor I have been taught, and I hold it to be a fundamental truth of human nature, that when someone withholds something traumatic it can cause great damage. When ~ Dave Grossman, #NFDB
980:El vicio fundamental de los seres humanos es el de querer contra viento y marea seguir vivos y con buena salud, es querer actualizar a toda costa las imágenes de la esperanza. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
981:Given any rule, however fundamental or necessary for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite. ~ Paul Feyerabend, #NFDB
982:Is that which was deemed to be of so fundamental a nature as to be written into the Constitution to endure for all times to be the sport of shifting winds of doctrine? ~ Felix Frankfurter, #NFDB
983:It astonished me that Muslims, who put such store on emulation of their prophet, didn’t wish to emulate him in something so fundamental as fathering daughters. Muhammad ~ Geraldine Brooks, #NFDB
984:It is my conviction that basic Reality is not all that perplexing. What seems difficult to assimilate are the manifold details of Reality, not its fundamental elements. ~ Richard Matheson, #NFDB
985:Na verdade, a mesquinhez era uma característica fundamental de uma revolução em que se celebravam a intrusão e a ignorância, e incorporava-se a inveja no sistema de controle. ~ Jung Chang, #NFDB
986:To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
987:A fundamental lesson on being fired: Never lie about it. People will know what you're saying is a cover-up for how you really feel - embarrassed, discouraged, and afraid. ~ Mika Brzezinski, #NFDB
988:faith in progress was fundamental to western Christianity. As for Orthodox Christianity in the Byzantine East, it prohibited both clocks and pipe organs from its churches.51 ~ Rodney Stark, #NFDB
989:I believe that physical labor confers a dignity fundamental to all human beings, a nobility that’s diluted by dull daily routine. I regain that nobility when I come here. ~ Dolores Redondo, #NFDB
990:I can't speak for others, but I find the fundamental idea that a life worth living is one during which one strives every day to become a better person to be compelling. ~ Massimo Pigliucci, #NFDB
991:In fact the taboo
against killing and eating one's relatives is the most fundamental
precondition if people are to live together and cooperate on a
daily basis. ~ Marvin Harris,#NFDB
992:Liverpool is a fundamental part of my life. They don't remember me that way, but time will change that. I could not have chosen a better place to go when I left Atletico. ~ Fernando Torres, #NFDB
993:...one Greek city state had a fundamental law: anyone proposing revisions to the constitution did so with a noose around his neck. If his proposal lost he was instantly hanged. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
994:Our duty is wakefulness, the fundamental condition of life itself. The unseen, the unheard, the untouchable is what weaves the fabric of our see-able universe together. ~ Robin Craig Clark, #NFDB
995:successful firms do flourish by holding fast to fundamental values: sticking to the right path; taking the long-term view; and insisting always on quality and excellence. ~ Charles D Ellis, #NFDB
996:the most fundamental and radical of these changes is learning how to love and accept your precious body right now. It is, after all, the temple that houses your soul. ~ Christiane Northrup, #NFDB
997:There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
998:There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized. Unity and complementarity constitute reality. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
999:To seek for delight is therefore the fundamental impulse and sense of Life; to find and possess and fulfil it is its whole motive. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Double Soul in Man, #NFDB
1000:By centering our lives on timeless, unchanging principles, we create a fundamental paradigm of effective living. It is the center that puts all other centers in perspective. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
1001:Can you believe that, to say that ours is the only path when the fundamental thing in art is freedom! In art, there are millions of paths—as many paths as there are artists. ~ Rufino Tamayo, #NFDB
1002:Fundamental modes of speech, the bulk of the vocabulary, are formed in the ordinary intercourse of life, carried on not as a set means of instruction but as a social necessity. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
1003:It is disastrous to own more of anything than you can possess, and it is one of the most fundamental laws of human nature that our power actually to possess is limited. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch, #NFDB
1004:Sentirse seguro sobre sus derechos es fundamental para que exista una sociedad libre. Pero los jueces han sido sensibles a la corrupción y la administración de justicia ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, #NFDB
1005:Speech sounds can be analyzed into fundamental units called phonemes; these move around like protozoa in a drop of water, and, like protozoa, join together and split up. ~ L Sprague de Camp, #NFDB
1006:The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion of treason as scheme and treason as language. ~ Juan Goytisolo, #NFDB
1007:There is an underlying, fundamental reliance on the Internet, which continues to grow in the number of users, country penetration and both fixed and wireless broadband access. ~ Vinton Cerf, #NFDB
1008:To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1009:Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects. ~ David Markson, #NFDB
1010:He is—and this is a fundamental entrepreneurial talent—a master illusionist. It’s the essential entrepreneurial skill, to convince people you are what you have yet to become. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
1011:Just as the great oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so too there is but one taste fundamental to all true teachings of the way, and this is the taste of freedom. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
1012:Noether's theorem fused together symmetries and conservation laws-these two giant pillars of physics are actually nothing but different facets of the same fundamental property. ~ Mario Livio, #NFDB
1013:No one wants to die, and no one wants to die poor. These are the two fundamental truths that transcend culture, they transcend politics, they transcend economic cycles. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1014:On a borderless planet stitched together by feed, nothing conceals the fundamental unfairness of some people owning almost everything while everyone else fights for the scraps. ~ Eliot Peper, #NFDB
1015:So that's when I saw the DNA model for the first time, in the Cavendish, and that's when I saw that this was it. And in a flash you just knew that this was very fundamental. ~ Sydney Brenner, #NFDB
1016:the fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, #NFDB
1017:There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1018:There is a fundamental tension between science and freedom - no matter how science is viewed by its practitioners nor how freedom is sensed by those who believe they have it. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
1019:The supreme thing is worship. The attitude of worship is the attitude of a subject bent before the King... The fundamental thought is that of prostration, of bowing down. ~ G Campbell Morgan, #NFDB
1020:What the stoics discovered and Ferris unearthed was the fundamental truth that we frequently avoid making choices not because the outcome is bad, but simply because it’s unknown. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1021:Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental. ~ Alison Gopnik, #NFDB
1022:Fundamental disposition towards others, assuming the character either of Envy or of Sympathy, is the point at which the moral virtues and vices of mankind first diverge. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1023:Fundamental problems are the same for everyone,” I reply as we move ahead again, then stop again. “Life, death, sickness, diets, relationships, bills that need to be paid. ~ Patricia Cornwell, #NFDB
1024:Giving gifts to others is a fundamental activity, as old as humanity itself. Yet in the modern, complex world, the particulars of gift-giving can be extraordinarily challenging. ~ Andrew Weil, #NFDB
1025:However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics; ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious. ~ Garrett Hardin, #NFDB
1026:Humility is the fundamental principle that builds up greatness. Arrogance on the other hand never brings anything good. When you are humble, you’ll learn to become better. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1027:I know it's hard being a single mother baby, he said, but we're talking fundamentals here. Homemade cookies are one of the best parts of christmas. It's an absolute fundamental. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1028:In Italian, the word for novel is romanzo, "the romance." The English is "novel" - something new. Both of those elements, experimentation and love, are fundamental to the form. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
1029:Justice has nothing to do with expediency. Justice has nothing to do with any temporary standard whatever. It is rooted and grounded in the fundamental instincts of humanity. ~ Woodrow Wilson, #NFDB
1030:No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
1031:Patriarchy is a fundamental imbalance underlying society And it's one we rarely address because it's so universal. But as I get older, I see that peace is a product of balance. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
1032:the biggest lever for change is not a change in self-belief but a fundamental change in the way one sees and regards one’s connections with and obligations to others. ~ The Arbinger Institute, #NFDB
1033:The deepest level of truth uncovered by science, & by philosophy, is the fundamental truth of unity. At that deepest subnuclear level of our reality, you & i are literally one. ~ John Hagelin, #NFDB
1034:The first step to be taken, is to study carefully the fundamental phenomenon above described, and to examine all the various circumstances under which it presents itself. ~ Jean Baptiste Biot, #NFDB
1035:The fundamental truth of Being must necessarily be the fundamental truth of Becoming. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #NFDB
1036:A fundamental principle of Jewish leadership is intimated here for the first time: a leader does not need faith in himself, but he must have faith in the people he is to lead. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1037:I wrote poems and an essay about that weird language. We still remember it to a certain extent, and it still comes up when we're all together. It's so fundamental to how I think. ~ Paul Beatty, #NFDB
1038:Jesus Christ rose from the grave.' With this proclamation, the Christian church began. This may be the fundamental element of Christian faith; certainly it is the most radical. ~ Elaine Pagels, #NFDB
1039:Not by discovering new wow things you are able to understand the truth about nature, but by changing the very fundamental way of perceiving anything you've ever seen in daily life. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
1040:Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles. ~ Pierre de Coubertin, #NFDB
1041:Principles don't die. They aren't here one day and gone the next. They can't be destroyed by fire, earthquake or theft. Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
1042:So conceived, the English police force served to emphasize a fundamental truth about the English law, which is that it exists not to control the individual but to free him. The ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
1043:Sports are fundamental for growing in a healthy way: they represent fair competition, strength, and exercise, which enhance the body's healthy balance and strengthen the mind. ~ Giorgio Armani, #NFDB
1044:Tenían pocos motivos de discusión y ninguno de pelea, estaban de acuerdo en lo fundamental y se sentían tan cómodos y contentos en presencia del otro como si estuvieran solos. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
1045:The Bible consistently and directly indicates that when we give generously, we're serving, honoring, and glorifying God. After all, generosity is fundamental to God's nature. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
1046:The consequences of decisions don't just affect spreadsheets... They affect, in fundamental ways, the lives of people and they often mean the difference between life and death. ~ Phil Bredesen, #NFDB
1047:There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
1048:We have to get to the point where each individual, each corporation, each community chooses low carbon, because it makes fundamental sense. It should become a no-brainer. ~ Christiana Figueres, #NFDB
1049:We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
1050:2. Inclusivism: This stance, while affirming the truth of fundamental Christian claims, nevertheless insists that God has revealed himself, even in saving ways, in other religions. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1051:As yet, if a man has no feeling for art he is considered narrow-minded, but if he has no feeling for science this is considered quite normal. This is a fundamental weakness. ~ Isidor Isaac Rabi, #NFDB
1052:During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius. ~ Lytton Strachey, #NFDB
1053:He stated that I had no place in a society whose most fundamental rules I ignored and that I could not appeal to the same human heart whose elementary response I knew nothing of. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1054:I know how to make other women look beautiful: from hair to makeup to wardrobe. So, I feel that I have a gift with imaging, and that's kind of fundamental to the music video process. ~ Nia Long, #NFDB
1055:In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence - ignorance... about the separation of self and other... about the consequences of our actions. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
1056:[One] of the fundamental principles of statesmanship: to persuade radicals that change must be gradual in order to be permanent, and to persuade conservatives that change must be. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1057:The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality fo result. Its equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference. ~ Robert Reich, #NFDB
1058:All philosophy is concerned with the relations between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #index, #NFDB
1059:Beyond the curiosity and the problem-solving challenge fundamental to good research, I believe that the fantasy of controlling nature lies at the very basis of modern science. ~ Sherwin B Nuland, #NFDB
1060:I do believe that sometimes—whether it’s fate or accidental—we cross paths with someone who shatters us on a fundamental level and remakes us into a better version of ourselves. ~ Hailey Edwards, #NFDB
1061:I said, well, it's a very primitive country, the United States, and it's full of superstitions, which come out of a very fundamental religious bias, which is primitive Christianity. ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
1062:It's man's most basic and sacred stewardship-to serve as the guardian of his own behavior. And it's man's blackest and most fundamental evil to try and overthrow that stewardship ~ Gerald N Lund, #NFDB
1063:la experiencia me ha enseñado que los líderes más eficientes coinciden en un aspecto fundamental: todos poseen un gran nivel de lo que ha dado en llamarse inteligencia emocional ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
1064:"The discomfort associated with groundlessness, with the fundamental ambiguity of being human, comes from our attachment to wanting things to be a certain way. ~ Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully, #NFDB
1065:The fundamental truth guiding social justice comedy is that people are not shitty. That sounds cheesy, but that's how I have to approach it. Everybody has the capacity for change. ~ Negin Farsad, #NFDB
1066:The second reason was to make public and visible an invisible spiritual reality. This is the purpose of all the sacraments. Indeed, it is the fundamental purpose of matter itself. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
1067:We never know, do we, if the future is just more of the present pushed forward, or whether the look and feel, not to mention the fundamental essence of life might not be changing ~ Sven Birkerts, #NFDB
1068:Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. They’re fundamental. They’re essentially unarguable because they are self-evident. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1069:The fundamental failure of most graphic, product, architectural and even urban design is its insistence on serving the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good. ~ Richard Saul Wurman, #NFDB
1070:The fundamental problem is that there's no credibility in the judicial system, which is a system that's been completely politicized. This is retaliation and selective repression. ~ Leopoldo Lopez, #NFDB
1071:[T]he history of science has proved that fundamental research is the lifeblood of individual progress and that the ideas that lead to spectacular advances spring from it. ~ Edward Victor Appleton, #NFDB
1072:The matters we or the world might consider trivial, He cares about and wants to remedy. He longs to relieve our worries and has promised to supply our most fundamental needs. ~ Charles R Swindoll, #NFDB
1073:Through all the relationship stuff I've gone through in the past few years, I know there are fundamental differences in how men and women view sex and how they view their futures. ~ Aaron Eckhart, #NFDB
1074:To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil. ~ Charles Krauthammer, #NFDB
1075:Anger does not make history. Power does. And power may be supplemented by anger, but it derives from more fundamental realities; geography, demographics, technology, and culture. ~ George Friedman, #NFDB
1076:From the first, in people and in things, there is no such thing as trash. These words point to the fundamental truth of Buddhism, a truth I could not as yet conceive in those days. ~ Soko Morinaga, #NFDB
1077:Fundamental analysis seeks to establish how underlying values are reflected in stock prices, whereas the theory of reflexivity shows how stock prices can influence underlying values ~ George Soros, #NFDB
1078:human rights" cannot serve as a stable, shared basis for morality in a society riven by fundamental disagreement about what "human" means, as is apparent from the abortion debate. ~ Brad S Gregory, #NFDB
1079:In my opinion, if we have not achieved peace, it is because people forget its most fundamental aspect. Before we talk about peace among nations, we must settle our peace with God. ~ Sun Myung Moon, #NFDB
1080:Is there something inside of you that is favoring peace? Because if there is, then congratulations: you are a human being. You have just reached, and felt, your most fundamental want. ~ Prem Rawat, #NFDB
1081:It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
1082:Our sexuality is fundamental to who we are, surely the crux of this debate is whether or not we accord equal right and respect and esteem to people regardless of their sexuality. ~ Sarah Wollaston, #NFDB
1083:The first thing you have to do is acknowledge the basic and fundamental goodness of all beings. If you don't, then you are going to have conflict. That's at the core of Shambhala. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
1084:the key factor in our mutual pleasure was that we enjoyed each other’s company, which, banal though it may seem, is the fundamental explanation of any successful and enduring union. ~ William Boyd, #NFDB
1085:The mess of the human condition is that fundamental trust has not yet been realized. The true value of profound spiritual experience lies in the discovery of that fundamental trust. ~ Andrew Cohen, #NFDB
1086:there are only two fundamental canons: I. The External Canon: MANUSCRIPTS ARE TO BE WEIGHED AND NOT COUNTED. II. The Internal Canon: THAT READING IS BEST WHICH BEST EXPLAINS THE OTHERS ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1087:There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1088:We need fundamental change. In the past, national development led to people's happiness but now the link between national growth and improvement in people's lives has been severed. ~ Park Geun hye, #NFDB
1089:You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well. We demonstrated this emphasis on details, and saw it pay off, in our approach to hamburger patties. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
1090:As J. S. Mill wrote, “No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1091:Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
1092:I do believe that sometimes—whether it’s fate or accidental—we cross paths with someone who shatters us on a fundamental level and remakes us into a better version of ourselves.” I ~ Hailey Edwards, #NFDB
1093:If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1094:If the Declaration of Independence states our creed, there can be no right to abortion, since it means denying the most fundamental right of all to the unborn child, the right to life. ~ Alan Keyes, #NFDB
1095:It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1096:Not only do innovators have to deal with all of the fundamental challenges of innovation, they have to do so in an environment that often is implicitly hostile towards innovation. ~ Scott D Anthony, #NFDB
1097:People or philosophers keep saying that our fundamental objective in life is to be happy! This is wrong! Our fundamental objective in life is to exist, either happy or unhappy! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1098:The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life. — FRANZ ALEXANDER, M. D. ~ Lissa Rankin, #NFDB
1099:The main problem is to free your mind when you play. I find that in my own playing, whenever I feel any kind of tension, I'm restricted to playing the most fundamental kinds of things. ~ Art Farmer, #NFDB
1100:THERE is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1101:There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
1102:African Americans continue to be the canaries in our coal-mine—the citizens whose unequal opportunities and unequal rights reveal a deeper truth about the fundamental sins of our nation. ~ D Watkins, #NFDB
1103:All basic scientists who look to the NCI for funding should know that I will tolerate no retreat on the study of model systems and the pursuit of fundamental biological principles. ~ Harold E Varmus, #NFDB
1104:All I can do is just go in there and tighten up my game, tighten up my handles. Just all the little basic things that you wouldn't even think about, the fundamental parts of the game. ~ Derrick Rose, #NFDB
1105:Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
1106:Geometry, like arithmetic, requires for its logical development only a small number of simple, fundamental principles. These fundamental principles are called the axioms of geometry. ~ David Hilbert, #NFDB
1107:I dare say that I have worked off my fundamental formula on you that the chief end of man is to frame general propositions and that no general proposition is worth a damn. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, #NFDB
1108:If you operate a TV or radio station, you have to have a license. It has nothing to do with fundamental freedom. It has to do with protection of the average citizen against abuses. ~ Robert Cailliau, #NFDB
1109:Luther and the Reformation were of fundamental importance to Denmark. We Danes are still Lutherans today. We spoke about him a lot in school, and we feel very close to him. ~ Margrethe II of Denmark, #NFDB
1110:No hay más que un problema filosófico verdaderamente serio: el suicidio. Juzgar si la vida vale o no vale la pena de ser vivida es responder a la pregunta fundamental de la filosofía. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1111:No, I'm thinking about myself - my black old inside self, the real one, with the fundamental honesty that keeps me from being absolutely wicked by making me realize my own sins. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1112:Românii nu se implică, românii în loc de soluţii colective, caută mici rezolvări individuale şi atunci nimic fundamental nu se rezolvă, iar tensiunile, fără
încetare se acumulează. ~ Lucian Boia,#NFDB
1113:The fundamental question facing Iraq government is whether or not we will stand with reformers across the region. It's really the task. And we're going to stand with this government. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1114:The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotion, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit. ~ Anna Julia Cooper, #NFDB
1115:The only fundamental basis for understanding is that one himself becomes what he understands and one understands only in proportion to becoming himself that which he understands. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1116:The universe runs on a fundamental and oh-so-wonderful principle... when you get really clear and honest about what you want, everything in the universe conspires to help you get it. ~ Michael Neill, #NFDB
1117:William Fix, in Pyramid Odyssey, said, "Making sense of the Great Pyramid and the information encoded in it requires a fundamental re-visioning of history and the nature of man."2 ~ Christopher Dunn, #NFDB
1118:Although my book is banned I am still allowed to go to China and travel. There is no longer the kind of control that Mao used to have-there have been deep fundamental changes in society. ~ Jung Chang, #NFDB
1119:Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
1120:life can be defined as freedom. Life is freedom. Freedom is the fundamental principle of life. That is the boundary – between freedom and slavery, between inanimate matter and life. ~ Vasily Grossman, #NFDB
1121:Many business leaders are asking fundamental questions about what business they're in, why they are doing it and how it can be used as a means of healing human and natural communities. ~ Amory Lovins, #NFDB
1122:The fundamental postulate of the theory of relativity, as it was called, was that the laws of science should be the same for all freely moving observers, no matter what their speed. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1123:The grudge was fundamental. Perhaps he could not have given it up if he tried. Perhaps he got more satisfaction out of feeling himself abused that he would have got out of being loved. ~ Willa Cather, #NFDB
1124:There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. ~ William Styron, #NFDB
1125:The subjectivity of consciousness is an irreducible feature of reality, and it must occupy as fundamental a place in any credible world view as matter, energy, space, time and numbers. ~ Thomas Nagel, #NFDB
1126:A strong feeling of adventure is animating those who are working on bacterial viruses, a feeling that they have a small part in the great drive towards a fundamental problem in biology. ~ Max Delbruck, #NFDB
1127:But on a night like this, of a restless mind and dreams of ghosts, time feels secondary to the true prime mover—memory. Perhaps memory is fundamental, the thing from which time emerges. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
1128:Common sense is the fundamental factor in all spiritual disciplines. No rule is an eternal rule. Rules change from place to place, time to time and from one condition to another condition. ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
1129:Conservation of our resources is the fundamental question before this nation, and that our first and greatest task is to set our house in order and begin to live within our means. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1130:In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim - that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people. ~ George Mason, #NFDB
1131:... it is a fundamental principle of testing that you must know in advance the answer each test case is supposed to produce. If you don't, you are not testing; you are experimenting. ~ Brian Kernighan, #NFDB
1132:Make obedience your fundamental. If you prioritize obedience, everything else will fall into place. Prioritizing obedience in the face of stress is a wonderful way that to disarm it. ~ Rachel Jankovic, #NFDB
1133:Markets may initially trend for fundamental reasons, but prices overshoot by ludicrous amounts. At some point, prices go up today simply because they went up yesterday. Michael Platt ~ Michael W Covel, #NFDB
1134:My experience of fundamental Truth is that it’s a place of extraordinary intelligence. It’s a place from which great intelligence arises. I call it a place of absolute infinite potential. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
1135:quantum mechanics was clever stuff. Most of it danced to its own tune, but there was still enough fundamental mathematics underlying all the pretty manipulations to keep me interested. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
1136:research finally established the dominant role of fatty acids in supplying energy for the body, and the fundamental role of insulin and adipose tissue as the regulators of energy supply. ~ Gary Taubes, #NFDB
1137:Standardization is indeed the fundamental principle of desperation: when no other solution appears possible, simply design everything the same way, so people only have to learn once. ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
1138:Teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. This is where the "rubber stamp meets the road"; unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn. ~ Peter Senge, #NFDB
1139:the main necessity on both sides of a revolution is kindness, which makes possible the most surprising things. To treat one's neighbor as oneself is the fundamental maxim for revolution. ~ Freya Stark, #NFDB
1140:We have enshrined in our founding documents and promoted the fundamental truth, all around the world, that the rights of all men, women and children ,not simply Americans come from God. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1141:We’ve always been involved with issues that deal with the fundamental human rights of people, whether that means the right to political freedom or the right to breathe air that’s clean. ~ Mary Travers, #NFDB
1142:Arlie Russell Hochschild resume "el daño colateral" fundamental causado en el curso de la invasion consumista en una expresion tan incisiva como sucinta: "la materialización del amor". ~ Zygmunt Bauman, #NFDB
1143:However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power ~ Kate Millett, #NFDB
1144:Soros regards himself as more a philosopher than a hit man. His book The Alchemy of Finance (1987) begins with a bold critique of the fundamental assumptions of economics as a subject, ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1145:The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable. ~ Richard Louv, #NFDB
1146:The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1147:the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. Brandeis ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, #NFDB
1148:The ultimate vision is to instate in the Muslim world the notion of multiculturalism, which is part of our heritage and history, part of the fundamental, mainstream ideals of Islam. ~ Feisal Abdul Rauf, #NFDB
1149:We've had the U.N. for almost 60 years, yet we've never actually made a fundamental list of all the big things that we can do in the world, and said, 'Which of them should we do first?' ~ Bjorn Lomborg, #NFDB
1150:What makes it [economics] most fascinating is that its fundamental principles are so simple that they can be written on one page, that anyone can understand them, and yet very few do. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1151:When our eyes fall from God to humanity, social ills replace sin, horizontal problems replace the fundamental vertical problem between us and God, winning elections eclipses winning souls. ~ Mark Dever, #NFDB
1152:Access to information and freedom of access to it may seem like a fundamental right but there are many people who think, rightly or wrongly, it is for your own good that it is hidden. ~ Alberto Gonzales, #NFDB
1153:A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1154:As from the 1970's onward, digital code started to drive the global economy, now life code is beginning to be the fundamental driver of the global economy over the next 10, 20, 30 years. ~ Juan Enriquez, #NFDB
1155:Congress, we have held, does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions - it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouse-holes. ~ Antonin Scalia, #NFDB
1156:However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power. ~ Kate Millett, #NFDB
1157:I believe that the fundamental alternative for man is the choice between "life" and "death"; between creativity and destructive violence; between reality and illusions; between objectivity ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1158:If this interior experience was possible in the twentieth century b.c. it is also possible in the twentieth century a.d. The fundamental nature of man has not changed during the interval. ~ Paul Brunton, #NFDB
1159:In learning about the myths and legends of old, we learn something of ourselves. Stories, Maisie, are never just stories. They contain fundamental truths about the human condition. ~ Jacqueline Winspear, #NFDB
1160:I really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
1161:My job is to interpret. I'm an interpreter. I can add things and bring unique qualities to the role that the writer may not have thought of, but someone else created the fundamental idea. ~ Kevin Spacey, #NFDB
1162:On a waiter’s check pad,” said Slartibartfast, “reality and unreality collide on such a fundamental level that each becomes the other and anything is possible, within certain parameters. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1163:Power affects our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and even physiology in fundamental ways that directly facilitate or obstruct our presence, our performance, and the very course of our lives. ~ Amy Cuddy, #NFDB
1164:The American Dream is a term that is often used but also often misunderstood. It isn't really about becoming rich or famous. It is about things much simpler and more fundamental than that. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1165:The awareness is not part of the darkness or the pain; it holds the pain, and knows it, so it has to be more fundamental, and closer to what is healthy and strong and golden within you. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
1166:The trick is not to learn to trust your gut feelings, but rather to discipline yourself to ignore them. Stand by your stocks as long as the fundamental story of the company hasn’t changed. ~ Peter Lynch, #NFDB
1167:American life is builded ... upon that fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago ... [It] can not survive with the defense of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper? ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
1168:Beneath the surface, unnoticed by many, an even deeper force was at work—the rise of creativity as a fundamental economic driver, and the rise of a new social class, the Creative Class. ~ Richard Florida, #NFDB
1169:I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I've assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities? ~ Wynton Marsalis, #NFDB
1170:If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence. ~ Luis Bunuel, #NFDB
1171:If you don't love your fellow man, women, person, then you don't have anything. If you don't treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated that to me is the fundamental message. ~ Denzel Washington, #NFDB
1172:Miller had discovered that our ability to process information and make decisions in the world is limited by a fundamental constraint: We can only think about roughly seven things at a time. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
1173:On the left-hand side of the field equation we may add the fundamental tensor guv, multiplied by a universal constant, -λ, at present unknown, without destroying the general covariance. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1174:Standardization is indeed the fundamental principle of desperation: when no other solution appears possible, simply design everything the same way, so people only have to learn once. If ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
1175:That’s what people didn’t understand about this grief. It was fundamental. The person you were before this happened was eviscerated, destroyed. In its place was someone unrecognizable. ~ Brianna Labuskes, #NFDB
1176:The fundamental principle of human action, the law, that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion ~ Henry George, #NFDB
1177:We must now, in the 21st century, protect democracy, one which rests on fundamental rights for all, regardless of skin color, gender, race or religion. Nothing less than that is at stake. ~ Martin Schulz, #NFDB
1178:When the Negro musician or dancer swings the blues, he is fulfilling the same fundamental existential requirement that determines the mission of the poet, the priest and the medicine man. ~ Albert Murray, #NFDB
1179:after all, our purpose in theoretical physics is not just to describe the world as we find it, but to explain — in terms of a few fundamental principles — why the world is the way it is. ~ Steven Weinberg, #NFDB
1180:Everything teeters between pathos and bathos: here you are, violating society's most fundamental taboos and yet formaldehyde is a powerful appetite stimulant, so you also crave a burrito. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
1181:For the future, I would suggest avoiding subjects of too vast a scale. It would be useful to make out a list of fundamental questions on the matter to be dealt with, and discuss only those. ~ Karl Lehmann, #NFDB
1182:If we look at the way the universe behaves, quantum mechanics gives us fundamental, unavoidable indeterminacy, so that alternative histories of the universe can be assigned probability. ~ Murray Gell Mann, #NFDB
1183:I think the social faux par is probably what most people fear... more people fear public speaking than death and that's because we don't want to make a fool of ourselves. It's fundamental. ~ Ricky Gervais, #NFDB
1184:Not the way it’s supposed to be.” Evil is exactly that—a fundamental and troubling departure from goodness. The Bible uses the word evil to describe anything that violates God’s moral will. ~ Randy Alcorn, #NFDB
1185:The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles. ~ Alan Lightman, #NFDB
1186:The most fundamental reason that even businesspeople underestimate the importance of sales is the systematic effort to hide it at every level of every field in a world secretly driven by it. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
1187:This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path—the my-isn’t-that-impressive path—and keep you there for a long time. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
1188:Childhood is a fundamental part of all human lives, parents or not, since that's how we all start out. And yet babies and young children are so mysterious and puzzling and even paradoxical. ~ Alison Gopnik, #NFDB
1189:Everything teeters between pathos and bathos: here you are, violating society’s most fundamental taboos, and yet formaldehyde is a powerful appetite stimulant, so you also crave a burrito. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
1190:For scholars, such as Paul Ekman (1992), there are a number of discrete emotions or emotional states whose adaptive function was shaped by evolution to deal quickly with “fundamental life-tasks ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1191:If everything in the universe depends upon everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1192:if there isn’t deep integrity and fundamental character strength, the challenges of life will cause true motives to surface and human relationship failure will replace short-term success. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1193:Involuntary organizations ought to be tolerant, but voluntary organizations, so far as the fundamental purpose of their existence is concerned, must be intolerant or else cease to exist. ~ J Gresham Machen, #NFDB
1194:I rather think the world is like sand. The fundamental nature of sand is very difficult to grasp when you think of it in its stationary state. Sand not only flows, but this very flow is the sand. ~ K b Abe, #NFDB
1195:One has to keep a certain balance by which the fundamental consciousness remains able to turn from one concentration to another with ease. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work, #NFDB
1196:That's really the fundamental question we face here in the beginning of this 21st century is whether or not we believe as a nation and others believe it is possible to defeat this ideology. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1197:The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die. ~ Barry Commoner, #NFDB
1198:The fundamental problem with the immigration system in our country is that it serves the needs of wealthy donors, political activists and powerful, powerful politicians. It's all you can do. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1199:The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship. ~ Amelia Earhart, #NFDB
1200:Women especially are trained to protect other people's feelings, and a lot of that involves not telling the truth even about the fundamental details of your own experiences and your own life. ~ Emily Gould, #NFDB
1201:Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
1202:Fundamentally, Buddhism is for the awakenment and benefit of beings. So, you can't say, "Oh, you can't have it because you're not ready for it." That goes against the fundamental principle. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
1203:humankind’s fundamental understanding of the nature of reality. If an observer could alter the universe by his observation, then didn’t the universe require consciousness to even exist? ~ Douglas E Richards, #NFDB
1204:In nature there is a fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1205:I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1206:Is cruelty a moral judgment if it is fundamental to forms of life? Who is man to say that the workings of nature, and therefore of the divine plan of which he himself is part, are cruel? ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
1207:Of course, relative citation frequencies are no measure of relative importance. Who has not aspired to write a paper so fundamental that very soon it is known to everyone and cited by no one? ~ Abraham Pais, #NFDB
1208:On the distinctive principles of the Government ... of the U. States, the best guides are to be found in ... The Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental Act of Union of these States. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
1209:Therefore, let me reiterate that the rate should not meet the interests of a specific group or one or two groups, it should meet the fundamental development interests of the economy itself. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
1210:your success in the world depends essentially on how well you harness the prowess of the body and mind. So, in order to achieve success, pleasantness has to be the fundamental quality within you. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
1211:As retail goes through a fundamental shift into the digital world, I believe Ocado's model and the high standards of customer service it provides will see it emerge as a powerful online player. ~ Stuart Rose, #NFDB
1212:But, if we let it, technology can also add a lot of noise and distraction that get in the way of our most fundamental creative capabilities—instead of freeing us, it can consume us. What ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
1213:Design isn’t just about iPods and cool products; it’s about improving people’s lives and making things clear and accessible. Design, at its most fundamental level, is about finding solutions. ~ Garr Reynolds, #NFDB
1214:If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior...you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1215:In the most fundamental way I have my first glimpse of how the ingredients come together, how each is nothing in particular by itself but once they are joined they can make something miraculous. ~ Jeanne Ray, #NFDB
1216:I put priority on such artists who focus on the world of "oblivion" and who consider placing themselves into the world of "oblivion" as fundamental to their attitude for their expression. ~ Yasumasa Morimura, #NFDB
1217:It’s a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1218:Mathematics is one of the deepest and most powerful expressions of pure human reason, and, at the same time, the most fundamental resource for description and analysis of the experiential world. ~ Hyman Bass, #NFDB
1219:Millions like me in Russia want a free press, the rule of law, social justice, and free and fair elections. My new job is to fight for those people and to fight for these fundamental rights. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
1220:Scientific achievements seem evanescent, because the very progress of science causes their supersedure; yet some of them are of so fundamental a nature that they are immortal in a deeper way. ~ George Sarton, #NFDB
1221:There always has to be a balance between freedom and restriction; that is fundamental to any society. Without law there is anarchy. But too much law, applied rigorously, becomes oppression ~ Peter F Hamilton, #NFDB
1222:This is an eternal and fundamental principle, inherent in all things, in every system of philosophy, in every religion, and in every science. There is no getting away from the law of love. ~ Charles F Haanel, #NFDB
1223:We all face a fundamental choice in our lives. Do we take the path prescribed by our “now you’re supposed to” society, or do we take our own path toward the life we feel we ought to be living? ~ Sean Patrick, #NFDB
1224:Work is fundamental to the dignity of the person. Work, to use an image, 'anoints' with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God who has worked and still works, who always acts. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1225:Degrees of accuracy are only degrees of refinement and magnitude in no way affects the fundamental reliability, which refers, as directional or angular sense, toward centralized truths. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
1226:Instead, the stagnation of median incomes primarily reflects a fundamental change in how the economy apportions income and wealth. The median worker is losing the race against the machine. ~ Erik Brynjolfsson, #NFDB
1227:I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1228:Jess understood, at a very fundamental level, that when he’d seen that book being destroyed, he’d seen a light pass out of the world. “Why did you do it, Da? Why did you sell it to him?” Callum ~ Rachel Caine, #NFDB
1229:La distinción entre una mujer que elige controlar su fertilidad y el gobierno que elige limitar su fertilidad es fundamental y la gente con frecuencia parece perder de vista esta diferencia. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
1230:Many, many times I would shake my head in dismay at the goings-on in the House of Commons, but that never caused me to lose my fundamental faith in the values of our parliamentary institutions. ~ Jason Kenney, #NFDB
1231:There are also fundamental issues related to what the current leader, President [Barack] Obama, said. I am referring to his idea about American exceptionalism. I am skeptical about this idea. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
1232:This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path--the my-isn't-that-impressive- path-- and keep you there for a long time. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
1233:We are asking a really fundamental question whether thought can ever be creative. If thought is not the ground of creation then what is creation? Is love the only factor that is creative? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
1234:All we can do is to prepare for a universal language that will go on changing for ever. We don’t know everything. We aren’t final. I wish we could make that statement a part of the Fundamental Law. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1235:As long as man remains an inquiring animal, there can never be a complete unanimity in our fundamental beliefs. The more diverse our paths, the greater is likely to be the divergence of beliefs. ~ Arthur Keith, #NFDB
1236:A virtude da identidade nacional é, portanto, “pragmática”, pois serve a uma função fundamental como “conto de fadas para adultos”, cumprindo um papel semelhante ao das antigas religiões mundiais. ~ Jess Souza, #NFDB
1237:Ignorance is the root of many ills. Knowledge must be the fundamental ally of nations that aspire, despite all their tragedies and problems, to become truly emancipated, to build a better world. ~ Fidel Castro, #NFDB
1238:Isn't it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1239:I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another where the best fruit is. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1240:It is a fundamental human truth, transcending cultures and traditions, that the wisest response to situations that are beyond our control, circumstances that we cannot change, is noncontention. ~ Toni Bernhard, #NFDB
1241:It is a fundamental right for people to be allowed to love who they want to love and marry who they want to marry and stop holding on to some form of discrimination that it's just isn't fair. ~ Ellen DeGeneres, #NFDB
1242:Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1243:Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1244:Making a nation awesome takes more than just Twitter outrage, street protests and a toppling of governments in elections. It asks for a fundamental shift in societal values, culture and habits. ~ Chetan Bhagat, #NFDB
1245:Most people who open restaurants will fail, because they lack the fundamental understanding of restaurant math. Either they think they're superstar cooks or they think they're superstar hosts. ~ Joe Bastianich, #NFDB
1246:Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy. ~ Joseph Gordon Levitt, #NFDB
1247:The fundamental problem lost sinners face isn’t that they’re sick and need a remedy. The problem is that they’re “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) and need to experience resurrection. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
1248:The theory of emptiness…is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1249:This is a fundamental question, Mr. Mayor [ Rudy Giuliani ]. Is the president of the United States legitimate or not? Do you believe it? If you believe it, why doesn't your candidate state it. ~ Chris Matthews, #NFDB
1250:Those who have been outspoken in advocating human rights during these last forty years, have themselves grabbed the most fundamental of human rights from the people of the Third-World countries. ~ Ali Khamenei, #NFDB
1251:Trump’s self-conception as the all-powerful Apprentice boss blinded him to a fundamental truth of the modern presidency: that the president needs Congress more than Congress needs the president. ~ Joshua Green, #NFDB
1252:Vipassana: looking into something with clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct, piercing all the way through so as to perceive the most fundamental reality of that thing. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
1253:When you think about it, a lot of fundamental physics is the solemn statement of the absurdly obvious. Any drunk who has tried to put his car where a lamppost stands is a self-educated physicist. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1254:As the capacity to coerce declines, it is natural to turn to control of opinion as the basis for authority and domination - a fundamental principle of government already emphasized by David Hume. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1255:Emotions—sexuality, aggression, pleasure, fear, and pain—are instinctive processes. They color our lives and help us confront the fundamental challenges of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. We ~ Eric R Kandel, #NFDB
1256:en la mayoría de las ocasiones la transmisión del saber es imposible, la diversidad de las inteligencias es extrema y que nada puede suprimir ni siquiera atenuar esa desigualdad fundamental ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
1257:Fisher's Fundamental Theorem states—in terms appropriate to the present context—that the better adapted a system is to a particular environment, the less adaptable it is to new environments. ~ Gerald M Weinberg, #NFDB
1258:Good writing is good writing no matter what genre you're writing in, and I believe that there are only a handful of fundamental craft tools that are essential for any genre-including nonfiction. ~ Georgia Heard, #NFDB
1259:Hepatitis C was a devastating disease but because fundamental research was done in hepatitis C, it is now curable. It is now absolutely curable with new medications. So this is transformative. ~ Laurie Glimcher, #NFDB
1260:I always admired Walt's optimism. He seemed to know the direction he was going to. When I was at the studio, I remember he kept driving all of us back down to a more fundamental level all the time. ~ John Hench, #NFDB
1261:I discovered not only Hana-ogi's enormous love but I also discovered her land, the tragic , doomed land of Japan, and from it I learned the fundamental secret of her country: too many people. ~ James A Michener, #NFDB
1262:It is significant that racism is part of colonialism throughout the world; and it is no coincidence. Racism sums up and symbolizes the fundamental relation which unites colonialist and colonized. ~ Albert Memmi, #NFDB
1263:This gets back to the fundamental lesson of political survival that Bill Clinton taught me, which is if you make it about the American people's lives instead of your life, you're going to be okay. ~ Paul Begala, #NFDB
1264:We all face a fundamental choice in our lives. Do we take the path prescribed by our “now you’re supposed to” society, or do we take our own path to toward the life we feel we ought to be living? ~ Sean Patrick, #NFDB
1265:I can’t offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens of fulfilled NR I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1266:Information of fundamental importance to the general problem of atomic structure has resulted from systematic studies of the cosmic radiation carried out by the Wilson cloud-chamber method. ~ Carl David Anderson, #NFDB
1267:same spirit which gave it forth,"—is the fundamental law of criticism. A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1268:The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought , for one would thereby dispense with man himself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1269:(1) irreversible processes are as real as reversible ones. (2) irreversible processes play a fundamental constructive role in the physical world. (3) irreversibility is deeply rooted in dynamics. ~ Ilya Prigogine, #NFDB
1270:A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so regularly and so remorsely into war and imperial expansion abroad. ~ Linda Colley, #NFDB
1271:A modern mathematical proof is not very different from a modern machine, or a modern test setup: the simple fundamental principles are hidden and almost invisible under a mass of technical details. ~ Hermann Weyl, #NFDB
1272:A non-virtual function says, you have to do this and you must do it this way. A virtual function says you have to do this, but you don't have to do it this way. That's their fundamental difference. ~ Scott Meyers, #NFDB
1273:Data is the lifeblood of decision making for any company, but it is particularly fundamental if it informs the design of your product, or if acquisition marketing is your key distribution strategy. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
1274:Fundamental science is theoretical knowledge, while technology is utilitarian knowledge and contemplative science is liberating knowledge. They can thus complete each other without any conflict. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
1275:Long life, short life-did it matter when each day was the same, when humans were incapable of living for the moment because of their fundamental need for order, for the comfort of everyday routine. ~ Gemma Malley, #NFDB
1276:Many who wave American flags also practice discrimination on the basis of race. Many who wave American flags practice anti-Semitism. We think that betrays the fundamental ideals of our democracy. ~ Billy Campbell, #NFDB
1277:The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20-50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whole process is two steps forward and one step back. ~ Fred Brooks, #NFDB
1278:There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #NFDB
1279:These two revolutions of faith and feminism, though very different, were built upon the same fundamental assumption: every person is intrinsically as valuable and worthy of love as any other. ~ Helen LaKelly Hunt, #NFDB
1280:Well, first let's say that the fundamental responsibility of any government is national security - in the preamble to the Constitution, provide for the common defense and insure domestic tranquility. ~ Angus King, #NFDB
1281:and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation’s Galaxy-wide success is founded – their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1282:A patchwork of expedients, conflicting principles, innovations nobody understood, holdovers that ought to have been taken off the books years ago. Yet in the midst of modern confusion, fundamental ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
1283:As human being, we live in a perpetual conversation between conversation and violence; what apart from fundamental willingness to be reasonable, can guarantee that we will keep talking to one another? ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
1284:But isn’t it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1285:If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth. This is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else. ~ V clav Havel, #NFDB
1286:In other words, one of the most fundamental ideas woven into the American ethos—the belief that anyone can get ahead through hard work and perseverance—really has little basis in statistical reality. ~ Martin Ford, #NFDB
1287:Never ask anyone to do what you haven't done before and wouldn't do again. That's a pretty fundamental rule in leadership... treat them like you treat yourself. Things you don't like, they don't like. ~ Ross Perot, #NFDB
1288:POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
1289:self-compassion is one of the most fundamental determinants of resilience and success. Where excessive self-criticism can leave us weak and distraught, self-compassion is at the heart of empowerment. ~ Emma Sepp l, #NFDB
1290:the fundamental most comical tragedy of parenthood: that if you do your job properly, if you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won’t need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1291:The fundamental point in fabricating a chain reacting machine is of course to see to it that each fission produces a certain number of neutrons and some of these neutrons will again produce fission. ~ Enrico Fermi, #NFDB
1292:The organic fundamental error of humanism was that it desired to educate the common people (on whom it looked down) from its lofty stance instead of trying to understand them and to learn from them. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1293:There is a fundamental humility to decentralization, an admission that headquarters does not have all the answers and that much of the real value is created by local managers in the field. ~ William N Thorndike Jr, #NFDB
1294:The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our ability is the most fundamental duty there is. ~ Aubrey de Grey, #NFDB
1295:The self... is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented. ~ Erving Goffman, #NFDB
1296:We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1297:Conscious of our many problems, I seek today to lay a foundation to our public policy. My fundamental purpose is to devote my term of office to raising the standard of public service in New Jersey. ~ Charles Edison, #NFDB
1298:Hah! How does that work for you, you authoritarian oafs!” Hessler yelled. “Think of that next time you trifle with someone who makes his living understanding the fundamental forces of the universe! ~ Patrick Weekes, #NFDB
1299:If freedom's best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come ~ Mitch Daniels, #NFDB
1300:Integrating in the society is a fundamental scriptural Christian trait. This integration is a must - moderate constructive integration. All of us, as Egyptians, have to participate. ~ Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, #NFDB
1301:memory's malfunctions can be divided into seven fundamental transgressions or "sins," which I call transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. ~ Daniel L Schacter, #NFDB
1302:most fundamental principle of the organized mind, the one most critical to keeping us from forgetting or losing things, is to shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world. ~ Daniel J Levitin, #NFDB
1303:Our politics have become paralyzed and sometimes poisonous. Instead of protecting Americans' fundamental right to vote, the Supreme Court has protected corporations' right to buy elections. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
1304:That's the fundamental question. Do we have a check and balance system? Do we have three equal branches or do we have one supreme branch, not just the Supreme Court? That's the fundamental question. ~ Mike Huckabee, #NFDB
1305:The fundamental magic of flying, a miracle that has nothing to do with any of its practical purposes - purposes of speed, accessibility, and convenience - and will not change as they change. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
1306:The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
1307:The poetic function is the set towards the message itself, focus on the message for its own sake which by promoting the palpability of signs, deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects. ~ Roman Jakobson, #NFDB
1308:Well, gauge theory is very fundamental to our understanding of physical forces these days. But they are also dependent on a mathematical idea, which has been around for longer than gauge theory has. ~ Roger Penrose, #NFDB
1309:We must recognize the fact that many Nazis, Marxists and Fascists believe passionately in their fundamental rightness, and allow nothing to hinder them from their goal in the pursuit of their mission. ~ Dorothy Day, #NFDB
1310:We [US government] have no fundamental disagreement with the Saudis - I mean, excuse me, with the Iraqis any more than we do with the Arab League, which we happen to support the position they're taking. ~ Joe Biden, #NFDB
1311:Genuine power has an attraction more fundamental than gravity,” Baronski once told Charlotte. “No matter whether it is an influence for good or supreme evil, it pulls people in and holds them spellbound. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1312:If Australia had large and growing gaps between rich and poor, if minorities were persecuted, if we were struggling to meet an existential challenge, there’d be every reason to want fundamental change. ~ Tony Abbott, #NFDB
1313:In Michael Roes, we once again see the fundamental paradox of self-help: If it works, people should emerge from their larval state and become the fully evolved individuals SHAM vowed to help them be. ~ Steve Salerno, #NFDB
1314:It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life; any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1315:The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1316:There is a fundamental difference, however, between asking to be permitted to keep a vegetative relative on costly machinery, and asking the taxpayers or society as a whole to pay for such machinery. ~ Jacob M Appel, #NFDB
1317:There was an ancient word, originating in one of the lost languages of Pre-Atomic Terra—sixtifor. It meant, the basic, fundamental, question. Rovard Javasan, he suspected, had just asked the sixtifor. ~ H Beam Piper, #NFDB
1318:The worst thing we can do as a nation is taking the easy way out. If you start opening up offshore drilling, then you are buying time and you are not addressing the fundamental problem with fossil fuels. ~ Joe Biden, #NFDB
1319:This is the fundamental problem of hope—not an uneducated Thinking Brain, but an uneducated Feeling Brain, a Feeling Brain that has adopted and accepted poor value judgments about itself and the world. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
1320:Yes, gay marriage is about symbolically blessing a relationship, but the larger issue is about transmitting a fundamental message about equality. Gay people should have equality in law everywhere. ~ Daniel Radcliffe, #NFDB
1321:A creative element is surely present in all great systems, and it does not seem possible that all sympathy or fundamental attitudes of will can be entirely eliminated from any human philosophy. ~ Morris Raphael Cohen, #NFDB
1322:I am very excited to be supporting one of the world's most visionary efforts to seek basic answers to some of the fundamental question about our universe and what other civilisations may exist elsewhere. ~ Paul Allen, #NFDB
1323:It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of America. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
1324:The fundamental idea of modern capitalism is not the right of the individual to possess and enjoy what he has earned, but the ;thesis that the exercise of this right redounds to the general good. ~ Ralph Barton Perry, #NFDB
1325:The internet might be a convenience, but it hasn't yet, for me, been a fundamental reordering. These things are supposed to be time-savers, so you have more time standing at your easel if you so choose. ~ Joe Bradley, #NFDB
1326:The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1327:The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
1328:The most fundamental principle of the organized mind, the one most critical to keeping us from forgetting or losing things, is to shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world. ~ Daniel Levitin, #NFDB
1329:Tom finally understood why his father saw humanity as worthless. It was hard to see much fundamental value in anything when the bad guys always won.
Maybe this was simply what it was like to grow up. ~ S J Kincaid,#NFDB
1330:We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? -shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power? -is it better to be good, or to be strong? ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1331:We hope that through this or that action we can bring about happiness. Everything we do, not only as individuals but also at the level of society, can be seen in terms of this fundamental aspiration. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1332:What radical constructivism may suggest to educators is this: the art of teaching has little to do with the traffic of knowledge, its fundamental purpose must be to foster the art of learning. ~ Ernst von Glasersfeld, #NFDB
1333:You see I want to be quite obstinate about insisting that we have no way of knowing—beyond that fundamental loyalty to the social code—what is “right” and what is “wrong,” what is “good” and what “evil. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
1334:Eventually, if there isn’t deep integrity and fundamental character strength, the challenges of life will cause true motives to surface and human relationship failure will replace short-term success. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1335:Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1336:I was working with stem cells as part of a NASA programme. We realised that the science of stem-cell proliferation was also fundamental to cancer cells when cancer enters the phase of metastasis. ~ Patrick Soon Shiong, #NFDB
1337:Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action. ~ Emile Durkheim, #NFDB
1338:We may consequently state the fundamental theorem of Natural Selection in the form: The rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time. ~ Ronald Fisher, #NFDB
1339: Consensus is one of the most important and fundamental problems in distributed computing. On the surface, it seems simple: informally, the goal is simply to get several nodes to agree on something. ~ Martin Kleppmann, #NFDB
1340:Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind tham lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be. ~ Francis Spufford, #NFDB
1341:Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be. ~ Francis Spufford, #NFDB
1342:Hacer una pausa en lugar de llenar inmediatamente el espacio es una experiencia transformadora. Cuando esperamos, empezamos a conectar tanto con la inquietud fundamental como con la amplitud fundamental. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1343:If we wait for the entertainment industry to change its fundamental values, we may be waiting a long time. But we don't have to wait another day to scale back our own private consumption of television. ~ Michael Medved, #NFDB
1344:On a fundamental level, I am someone who would throw sand at children. I know this because I have had to resist doing it, and that means that it's what I would naturally be doing if I wasn't resisting it. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
1345:On a fundamental level, I am someone who would throw sand at children. I know this because I have had to resist doing it, and that means that it’s what I would naturally be doing if I wasn’t resisting it. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
1346:Plato in some sense anticipated the Catholic realism, as attacked by the heretical nominalism, by insisting on the equally fundamental fact that ideas are realities; that ideas exist just as men exist. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1347:Sustainable development is a fundamental break that's going to reshuffle the entire deck. There are companies today that are going to dominate in the future simply because they understand that. ~ Francois Henri Pinault, #NFDB
1348:The controversy as to whether socialism is possible has been settled by the fact that it exists, and it is a fundamental axiom of my philosophy, at any rate, that anything that exists, is possible. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
1349:The most fundamental principle of the organized mind, the one most critical to keeping us from forgetting or losing things, is to shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world. ~ Daniel J Levitin, #NFDB
1350:There are people who can afford to eat healthfully and there are people who cannot. I’d say that represents a fundamental brokenness of our system and our food supply. It doesn’t have to be like that. ~ Michael Ruhlman, #NFDB
1351:Theres one fundamental law that all of nature obeys that mankind breaks every day. Now, this is a law thats evolved over billions of years, and the law is this: Nothing in nature takes more than it needs. ~ Tom Shadyac, #NFDB
1352:The technology is here; it’s never been easier to communicate and collaborate with people anywhere, any time. But that still leaves a fundamental people problem. The missing upgrade is for the human mind. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
1353:a better explanation may be the fundamental deterioration of standards in both legislation and governance that we see in nearly every democracy, regardless of their different twentieth-century histories ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1354:I had the idea that it would be wonderful to be a physicist or a mathematician maybe 500 years ago around the time of Newton when there were really fundamental things just lying around to be discovered. ~ David Chalmers, #NFDB
1355:It is absurd if something that is fundamental for humanity and for its survival should in itself be defined as submission. That would mean that society can't carry on without the submission of women. ~ Kristina Schroder, #NFDB
1356:It just seems so fundamental to me. I'm able to marry the person I wanted to marry. That's the fundamental human imperative. Those of us who have been lucky enough should expand these rights to others. ~ Chelsea Clinton, #NFDB
1357:Newton’s laws aren’t fundamental, they are emergent; that is, they are what happens when quantum matter aggregates into macroscopic fluids and objects. It is a collective organizational phenomenon. ~ Michael S Gazzaniga, #NFDB
1358:Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals. ~ Ray Dalio, #NFDB
1359:Rather than a universe of static certainty, at the most fundamental level of matter, the world and its relationships were uncertain and unpredictable, a state of pure potential of infinite possibility. ~ Lynne McTaggart, #NFDB
1360:The fact that the Hebrew word 'adam', meaning 'man', is identical with Adam as the name of the father of Seth plays a fundamental role in fusing the three stories (Gen 2:7-3:24, 4:1, 4:25 and 5:1) in one. ~ Kamal Salibi, #NFDB
1361:There are no new fundamentals. You've got to be a little suspicious of someone who says, "I've got a new fundamental." That's like someone inviting you to tour a factory where they are manufacturing antiques. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
1362:Though the immediate impression of rebellion may obscure the fact, the task of authentic literature is nevertheless only conceivable in terms of a desire for fundamental communication with the reader. ~ Georges Bataille, #NFDB
1363:three questions that are fundamental to any company’s ability to create economic value: Who will we target as customers? What product or service will we offer? How will we provide this product at a profit? ~ Donald Sull, #NFDB
1364:To plunge one thing into the shape or nature of another is a fundamental gesture of creative insight, part of how we make for ourselves a world more expansive, deft, fertile, and startling in richness. ~ Jane Hirshfield, #NFDB
1365:What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism? ~ James Madison, #NFDB
1366:Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than anything in the Galaxy--with the possible exception of procrastinating soldiers. That could indicate the fundamental difference between statecraft and war. ~ H Beam Piper, #NFDB
1367:Anybody who pretends that how you read the 10th and 11th Amendment doesn't have a fundamental impact on the things we care about is kidding themselves. They're either uninformed or they're kidding themselves. ~ Joe Biden, #NFDB
1368:But it must not be forgotten that ‘politics’ has been conceived as a continuation, if not exactly and directly of war, at least of the military model as a fundamental means of preventing civil disorder. ~ Michel Foucault, #NFDB
1369:Cathy O’Neil claims that this reliance on historical data is a fundamental problem with many algorithmic systems: “Big data processes codify the past,” she writes. “They do not invent the future. ~ Sara Wachter Boettcher, #NFDB
1370:Human beings are not meant to live alone. There is a fundamental biological imperative that propels you and every organism on this planet to be in a community, to be in relationship with other organisms. ~ Bruce H Lipton, #NFDB
1371:I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1372:In this context, the church supports and favors every effort today to seek the full development of the personality of all human beings, and to promote their fundamental rights, their dignity and liberty. ~ Claudio Hummes, #NFDB
1373:I see all this and know that if we are to save the Jewish state and its three-and-a-half million Jews from terrible horrors, we must rise up and demand a fundamental change in the very system of government. ~ Meir Kahane, #NFDB
1374:I would love to see a fundamental re-thinking of whether we truly want to be the world's largest debtor nation, feeding an insatiable desire for mall-crawling with cheaply made crap from all over the world. ~ Denis Hayes, #NFDB
1375:My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity-the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
1376:One of my earliest ventures was when I was nine years old. I realized there was a shortage of pencils at school, so I started Rent-a-Pencil. But I made a fundamental mistake. Everybody stole my pencils. ~ Bruce Dickinson, #NFDB
1377:That risk is the progressive socialist takeover of our country, the “fundamental transformation of the United States of America” that Obama proclaimed just five days before the general election in 2008. The ~ Aaron Klein, #NFDB
1378:The fundamental principle of scientific pedagogy must be, indeed, the liberty of the pupil;–such liberty as shall permit a development of individual, spontanous manifestations of the child's nature. If ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
1379:The word pivot sometimes is used incorrectly as a synonym for change. A pivot is a special kind of change designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
1380:We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
1381:Whether he is aware of it or not, every human being dwells in tradition and history. Human memory is this constant dwelling in tradition. It constitutes that fundamental human characteristic of historicity. ~ Medard Boss, #NFDB
1382:For a guy who struggled with finding his place in the world, standing next to Maggie, I understood one thing on a very fundamental level. Wherever she went, whatever she did, that is where I belonged. ~ A Meredith Walters, #NFDB
1383:Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society... It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff. ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
1384:IN A NUTSHELL FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE PRINCIPLE 1 Don’t criticise, condemn or complain. PRINCIPLE 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation. PRINCIPLE 3 Arouse in the other person an eager want. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1385:It is a fundamental denial of your humanity to narrow the size of your life to the size of your own existence, because you were created to be an “above and more” being. You were made to be transcendent. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
1386:Neoclassical economics ... has uncovered important truths about the nature of money and markets because its fundamental model of rational self-interested human behavior is correct about 80% of the time. ~ Francis Fukuyama, #NFDB
1387:One common way of judging whether housing's price is in line with its fundamental value is to consider the ratio of housing prices to rents. This is analogous to the ratio of prices to dividends for stocks. ~ Janet Yellen, #NFDB
1388:Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works - but our lives refute our faith. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
1389:Regardless of what the object of design is, humans need design. For anything humans use in their day to day life, they need design and it is a clear and concrete proof of the fundamental human right to live. ~ Kenji Ekuan, #NFDB
1390:The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1391:we can get the most from the technologies when we “listen” to the direction the technologies lean, and bend our expectations, regulations, and products to these fundamental tendencies within that technology. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
1392:Communication is an artificial, intentional, dialogic, collective act of freedom, aiming at creating codes that help us forget our inevitable death and the fundamental senselessness of our absorb existence. ~ Vil m Flusser, #NFDB
1393:Couldn’t you have lied about something else?"
OWEN gave me a long, blank look, as if by asking this question I had betrayed a fundamental lack of understanding with respect to the intensity of his hangover. ~ Seth Fried,#NFDB
1394:Even Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that the Roman Catholic church, up to the Council of Trent, was basically orthodox - a true church with sound fundamental doctrines as well as significant error. ~ Norman Geisler, #NFDB
1395:I have heard that this pain can be converted, as it were, by accepting “the fundamental impermanence of all things.” This acceptance bewilders me: sometimes it seems an act of will; at others, of surrender. ~ Maggie Nelson, #NFDB
1396:Julian is bluff and sturdy, royal; he possesses a gracefully muscular, equine beauty so natural it suggests that beauty itself is a fundamental human condition and not a mutation in the general design. ~ Michael Cunningham, #NFDB
1397:Marx's early manuscripts, with their roots in the Enlightenment and Romanticism, derived fundamental concepts such as alienation from a conception of human nature - what we would call genetically determined. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1398:Optimism is, in the first instance, a way of explaining failure, not prophesying success. It says that there is no fundamental barrier, no law of nature or supernatural decree, preventing progress. Whenever ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
1399:The ancient traditions, even Christianity, say God is Love. There is symmetry here. The fundamental step where you get into this transcendent state is this feeling of ebullience, love and caring and unity. ~ Edgar Mitchell, #NFDB
1400:The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20–50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whole process is two steps forward and one step back. ~ Frederick P Brooks Jr, #NFDB
1401:There is a fundamental irony at work. More and more of us keep pouring into the region, in no small part because it seems relatively empty compared to the rest of the country. What attracts us we then ruin. ~ David Gessner, #NFDB
1402:What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights. ~ B R Ambedkar, #NFDB
1403:You can look at the cost structure of an incumbent company and discover: where are they not going to be able to drop their prices... because that business model is fundamental to the existence of the company. ~ Aaron Levie, #NFDB
1404:A Seed Not Planted Cannot Grow
Hidden in every success story are tears.
A seed that is not planted cannot grow. People ignorant of this fundamental law of cause-and-effect are greatly to be pitied. ~ Kentetsu Takamori,#NFDB
1405:falsamente que el protagonista Maitland sigue aquí la línea idealista de Platón, cuya pregunta fundamental es «cómo nosotros llegamos a la verdadera realidad de las ideas a partir de la realidad fenoménica, ~ Byung Chul Han, #NFDB
1406:Once you start rewriting, you're not able to stop. With each draft the fundamental banality and worthlessness of the material becomes more evident even as its vitality and spontaneity are drained from it. ~ Barry N Malzberg, #NFDB
1407:"Spirituality" in business sounds lofty. How practical is it? The answer is "very." There's a fundamental way in which Spirit and consciousness contribute to worldly success-and it has long been ignored. ~ Patricia Aburdene, #NFDB
1408:The fundamental mistake I had always made-and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make-was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1409:The structure underlying the phenomena is not given by material objects like the atoms of Democritus but by the form that determines the material objects. The Ideas are more fundamental than the objects. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
1410:They could justify our abuse simply because we were something they were not. At least in appearance. And such difference, particularly in color, undoubtedly equaled a fundamental inequity in their minds. None ~ Daniel Black, #NFDB
1411:This gets into a fundamental change in how marriage is viewed. Today we see getting married as finding a life partner. Someone we love. But this whole idea of marrying for happiness and love is relatively new. ~ Aziz Ansari, #NFDB
1412:Time travel may be achieved one day, or it may not. But if it is, it should not require any fundamental change in world-view, at least for those who broadly share the world view I am presenting in this book. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
1413:To Lincoln’s mind, the fundamental test of a democracy was its capacity to “elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin, #NFDB
1414:We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better “me” who one day will emerge. We can’t just jump over ourselves as if we were not there. It’s better to take a straight look at all our hopes and fears. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1415:What I was feeling was a fundamental numbness. The numbness your heart automatically activates to lessen the awful pain when you want somebody desperately and they reject you. A kind of emotional morphine. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1416:bond markets have power because they’re the fundamental base for all markets. The cost of credit, the interest rate [on a benchmark bond], ultimately determines the value of stocks, homes, all asset classes. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1417:Finally, assuming that many of those are fulfilled, which won't be easy in tight budget times, we're taking the supply side at the basic research level, because that's where government is absolutely fundamental. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1418:He had found the secret of keeping for ever on the run the fundamental imbecility of mankind; he had the secret of life, that confounded dying man, and he made himself master of every moment of our existence. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
1419:Modern redistribution, as exemplified by the social states constructed by the wealthy countries in the twentieth century, is based on a set of fundamental social rights: to education, health, and retirement. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
1420:Over the last few millennial, we've invented a series of technologies … that have made it progressively easier and easier for us to externalize our memories, for us to outsource this fundamental human capacity. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
1421:So much feminist and antiracist work is the work of trying to convince others that sexism and racism have not ended; that sexism and racism are fundamental to the injustices of late capitalism; that they matter. ~ Sara Ahmed, #NFDB
1422:That torture is wrong can never be the conclusion to any line of reasoning because it has to be a fundamental premise. Witnessing to the humanity of the other is the place where all moral reasoning must begin. ~ Giles Fraser, #NFDB
1423:There is a French expression that says: to be exposed to an accident, to cross a street without looking at the cars means exposing oneself to be run over. This is more than a play with words, it's fundamental. ~ Paul Virilio, #NFDB
1424:There is no fundamental cleavage between Hindus and Mussalmans. We have lived in the same land as brothers for generations and what has been possible all these years will certainly be possible in the future. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1425:There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, lead to one or another impulse to act. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
1426:What has changed is that the kind of work needed to advance society taps into fundamental human drives now. Complex, entrepreneurial work is both more valuable and more in line with traditional human drives. ~ Taylor Pearson, #NFDB
1427:I guarantee if you walk into 100 spider webs, you will have changed your fundamental human behavior. And you can apply this to anything, And figure out a way to reprogram yourself, to change your primal fear. ~ Chris Hadfield, #NFDB
1428:IN A NUTSHELL FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE PRINCIPLE 1 Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. PRINCIPLE 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation. PRINCIPLE 3 Arouse in the other person an eager want. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1429:Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
1430:Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1431:Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other pretexts. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
1432:The fundamental mistake I had always made--and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make--was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1433:We are always creating new tools and techniques to help people, but the fundamental framework is remarkably resilient, which means it must have something to do with the nature of organizations or human nature. ~ John P Kotter, #NFDB
1434:We at Google have made tremendous advances in understanding language. Our knowledge graph has been fundamental to that. The new algorithm that we launched today called Hummingbird has been a great leap forward. ~ Amit Singhal, #NFDB
1435:Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, #NFDB
1436:If those arrangements [the fundamental arrangements of knowledge] were to disappear as they appeared... then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea. ~ Michel Foucault, #NFDB
1437:It has been suggested that human beings need myths. We need them at the most fundamental level of our beings. There are truths which are too complex to be relegated to the language of practicality or science. ~ Arielle Guttman, #NFDB
1438:The fundamental danger with all critical study of the Bible lies in what hermeneutical experts call distanciation. Distanciation is a necessary component of critical work; but it is difficult and sometimes costly. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1439:The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1440:The human brain is hardwired to have this fundamental experience of universal consciousness, which is available to anyone from any culture, of any age, any religion, and without any philosophical predisposition. ~ John Hagelin, #NFDB
1441:These stark divides prompt a simple but fundamental question: why can’t White Christian America understand how African Americans feel about the black men who have died at the hands of white police officers? To ~ Robert P Jones, #NFDB
1442:To Lincoln’s mind, the fundamental test of a democracy was its capacity to “elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all.” A ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin, #NFDB
1443:Free speech is one of our fundamental principles and it's pretty hard to speak freely when people are yelling at you when it's your turn. That would never be allowed in a classroom or in any other kind of meeting. ~ Jack Layton, #NFDB
1444:If we wish to ensure everyone’s peace and happiness we need to cultivate a healthy respect for the diversity of our peoples and cultures, founded on an understanding of this fundamental sameness of all human beings ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1445:It is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1446:Knowledge of the natural world and how it works should be counted as fundamental to informed governance. You can't have a functioning democracy, if the electorate is under-informed or, worse, mis-informed. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1447:Love is the fundamental building block of all human relationships. It will greatly impact our values and morals. I am also convinced that love is the most important ingredient in the single 's search for meaning. ~ Gary Chapman, #NFDB
1448:O que não sei dizer é mais importante do que o que digo. [...] Cada vez mais escrevo com menos palavras. Meu livro melhor acontecerá quando eu de todo não escrever. Eu tenho uma falta de assunto fundamental. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
1449:That goodness is what survives death, a fundamental goodness that is in each and every one of us. The whole of our life is a teaching of how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
1450:The agony of a man's affliction is often necessary to put him into the right mood to face the fundamental things of life. The Psalmist says: "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy Word. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
1451:The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1452:There’s so much distance between the fundamental rules and the final phenomenon, that it’s almost unbelievable that the final variety of phenomenon can come from such a steady operation of such simple rules. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
1453:Those who yearn for the end of capitalism should pray for government by men who believe that all positive action is inimical to what they call thoughtfully the fundamental principles of free enterprise. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
1454:Yet all are operating businesses that share the fundamental platform DNA—they all exist to create matches and facilitate interactions among producers and consumers, whatever the goods being exchanged may be. ~ Geoffrey G Parker, #NFDB
1455:If any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1456:It is essential that anyone reading this book know at the outset that the author is apolitical. I was convinced in 1927 that humanity's most fundamental survival problems could never be solved by politics. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
1457:Principles are not values. A gang of thieves can share values, but they are in violation of fundamental principles. Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1458:She played the game the way that it was meant to be played⎼as if her life depended on it. And she seemed driven by some need, or struggle, or fundamental resolve, that preceded the basketball and made it possible.. ~ Nina Revoyr, #NFDB
1459:The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' I will be, but until I'm the president, it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1460:The story enchanted me, and I took to carrying the book with me everywhere, as if it were some powerful talisman, as if it contained some magic that might somehow convey or explain something fundamental to me. ~ Richard Flanagan, #NFDB
1461:We ask for happiness but what we get is unhappiness. We all put our efforts into trying to be happy but we make a fundamental mistake: happiness is not related to the effort, happiness is related to not asking for it. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1462:Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made—and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make—was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1463:By relying on the decisions of others to drive portfolio choices, investors fail to take responsibility for the most fundamental fiduciary responsibility—designing a portfolio to meet institution-specific goals. ~ David F Swensen, #NFDB
1464:In other words - and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxywide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1465:The fundamental basis of this Nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
1466:The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
1467:What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life. All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance. ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
1468:Any reform of that fundamental nature, potentially constitutional, it has to go to the people. It has to be a be a referendum, and that's why it was a plebiscite in all of the provinces in which it's been attempted. ~ Rona Ambrose, #NFDB
1469:But the more we search the Scriptures, the more we perceive, in this doctrine, the fundamental truth of the gospel - that truth which gives to redemption its character, and to all other truths their real power. ~ John Nelson Darby, #NFDB
1470:Can the fundamental nature of matter really be lawlessness? Can the stability and order of the world be but a temporary dynamic equilibrium achieved in a corner of the universe, a short-lived eddy in a chaotic current? ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
1471:I had always believed that if somebody who worked with me went home feeling like a jerk for giving their time and their genuine effort, then it was me who had failed them—and in a very personal, fundamental way. ~ Anthony Bourdain, #NFDB
1472:I think there's just some fundamental decisions at the beginning that are going to make it different. Our show The Right Now Show is going to be specifically different than Mr. Show because of the talent involved. ~ Scott Aukerman, #NFDB
1473:Perhaps the seeds of redemption lay not just in perseverance, hard work, and rugged individualism. Perhaps they lay in something more fundamental—the simple notion of everyone pitching in and pulling together. ~ Daniel James Brown, #NFDB
1474:the only reason anything good ships is because of the programmers. They are everything. They are not factory employees; they are craftspeople, craftspeople who are the fundamental creative engine of making software. ~ Scott Berkun, #NFDB
1475:[...]to be real--to become fluent, natural, to cut out the detour that sweeps us around what's fundamental to events, preventing us from touching their core: the detour that makes us all second-hand and second-rate. ~ Tom McCarthy, #NFDB
1476:Too many people view on [space exploration] as a luxury rather than as a fundamental driver to stimulate interest in science to everyone in the educational pipeline. It's vital to our prosperity and security. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1477:You see, there's a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1478:You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1479:I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe ~ Brian Greene, #NFDB
1480:IN A NUTSHELL
FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES
IN HANDLING PEOPLE PRINCIPLE 1 Don’t criticise, condemn or complain. PRINCIPLE 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation. PRINCIPLE 3 Arouse in the other person an eager want. ~ Dale Carnegie,#NFDB
1481:I think the first and principle objective is to repeal Obamacare before it does lasting, fundamental damage to our health care system, to our individual liberty, to the relationship each of us has with his or her doctor. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
1482:Karma is the seed that ripens into suffering. But karmic actions are triggered by our delusions, which themselves can be broken down into our afflictive emotions and the fundamental confusion that is the root cause. ~ Tashi Tsering, #NFDB
1483:So the hierarchy of goals is roughly: satisfy hunger; eat; cook; read cookbook; get more light. This is called a root cause analysis: asking “Why?” until the ultimate, fundamental cause of the activity is reached. ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
1484:The distinction between the religious and secular orders is a fundamental aspect of Christianity. This distinction is an innovation compared to Islam and Judaism, and it is an advantage that has helped shape Europe. ~ Walter Kasper, #NFDB
1485:the land market necessarily internalizes all the fundamental underlying contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. It thereby imposes those contradictions upon the very physical landscape of capitalism itself. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1486:This fundamental discovery that all bodies owe their origin to arrangements of a single initial corpuscular type is the beacon that lights the history of the universe to our eyes. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
1487:With theory, we can separate fundamental characteristics from fascinating idiosyncrasies and incidental features. Theory supplies landmarks and guideposts, and we begin to know what to observe and where to act. ~ John Henry Holland, #NFDB
1488:As would be the case all through her life, she had a store of nervous energy, unavailable at ordinary times but able to serve her in sudden need. It was a fundamental reserve that a stronger person might never know. ~ Winston Graham, #NFDB
1489:But I was wrong. Being wrong in this fundamental way, how could I now make sense of the life we had led together? All these years, in a house I did not choose, what was the point of it? How much of a fool had I been? ~ Anne Youngson, #NFDB
1490:I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe. ~ Brian Greene, #NFDB
1491:In all human societies, health and education have an intrinsic value: the ability to enjoy years of good health, like the ability to acquire knowledge and culture, is one of the fundamental purposes of civilization. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
1492:It is also why there is so little tolerance for substantive dis- sent, or fundamental critique, in America. Since our identity is in fact quite brittle, we have to be constantly telling ourselves how fabulous we are. ~ Morris Berman, #NFDB
1493:It is not advisable to hasten development, because everything needs time. Patience, perseverance and tenacity are fundamental conditions of the development. The pains taken in one's development will be amply rewarded. ~ Franz Bardon, #NFDB
1494:Minimalism is not a style, it is an attitude, a way of being. It’s a fundamental reaction against noise, visual noise, disorder, vulgarity. Minimalism is the pursuit of the essence of things, not the appearance. ~ Claudio Silvestrin, #NFDB
1495:None of these start-ups understand the objective. The objective should be—what delivers fundamental value. I think it’s important to look at things from a standpoint of what is actually the best thing for the economy. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
1496:shoulder with the men, I’m just one more laborer. I believe that physical labor confers a dignity fundamental to all human beings, a nobility that’s diluted by dull daily routine. I regain that nobility when I come ~ Dolores Redondo, #NFDB
1497:The knowledge of the Self includes also the knowledge of the principles of Being, its fundamental modes and its relations with the principles of the phenomenal universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Modes of the Self, #NFDB
1498:The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” —Pema Chödrön ~ Maria Shriver, #NFDB
1499:There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
1500:Ultimately these battles are about females, which means that the fundamental difference between our two closest relatives is that one resolves sexual issues with power, while the other resolves power issues with sex. ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
320 Integral Yoga
56 Occultism
50 Christianity
33 Psychology
30 Science
25 Philosophy
13 Integral Theory
9 Theosophy
4 Fiction
4 Education
4 Cybernetics
4 Baha i Faith
2 Yoga
2 Poetry
2 Buddhism
1 Sufism
1 Mythology
1 Hinduism
1 Alchemy
287 Sri Aurobindo
131 Nolini Kanta Gupta
74 The Mother
44 Satprem
44 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
28 Carl Jung
21 Aleister Crowley
15 A B Purani
10 Rudolf Steiner
10 George Van Vrekhem
10 Aldous Huxley
7 Paul Richard
7 James George Frazer
6 Friedrich Nietzsche
5 Jordan Peterson
5 Franz Bardon
5 Baha u llah
5 Alice Bailey
4 Plotinus
4 Norbert Wiener
4 H P Lovecraft
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 R Buckminster Fuller
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Plato
2 Nirodbaran
2 Ken Wilber
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Bokar Rinpoche
68 The Synthesis Of Yoga
44 The Life Divine
42 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
28 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
25 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
23 Letters On Yoga IV
20 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
19 The Future of Man
19 Letters On Yoga II
16 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
15 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
13 The Practice of Psycho therapy
13 Letters On Yoga III
13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
12 The Phenomenon of Man
12 Record of Yoga
12 Magick Without Tears
12 Letters On Yoga I
11 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
11 Let Me Explain
11 Essays On The Gita
10 The Perennial Philosophy
10 The Human Cycle
10 Preparing for the Miraculous
9 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
9 Mysterium Coniunctionis
9 Liber ABA
9 Essays Divine And Human
8 Vedic and Philological Studies
7 The Golden Bough
7 Talks
7 Agenda Vol 02
6 Twilight of the Idols
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Questions And Answers 1956
6 Questions And Answers 1953
6 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
6 Agenda Vol 03
6 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
5 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
5 Maps of Meaning
5 Isha Upanishad
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
4 The Problems of Philosophy
4 Theosophy
4 The Blue Cliff Records
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Lovecraft - Poems
4 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
4 Initiation Into Hermetics
4 Cybernetics
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
4 Agenda Vol 01
3 The Secret Of The Veda
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Some Answers From The Mother
3 Questions And Answers 1954
3 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
3 On the Way to Supermanhood
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
3 Agenda Vol 12
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 Tara - The Feminine Divine
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice
2 Questions And Answers 1955
2 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
2 On Education
2 Labyrinths
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 Hymn of the Universe
2 City of God
2 Agenda Vol 13
2 Agenda Vol 08
2 Agenda Vol 06
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When a Mystic refers to the Solar Light or to the Fire the light, for example, that struck down Saul and transformed him into Saint Paul or the burning bush that visited Moses, it is not the physical or material object that he means and yet it is that in a way. It is the materialization of something that is fundamentally not material: some movement in an inner consciousness precipitates itself into the region of the senses and takes from out of the material the form commensurable with its nature that it finds there.
And there is such a commensurability or parallelism between the various levels of consciousness, in and through all the differences that separate them from one another. Thus an object or a movement apprehended on the physical plane has a sort of line of re-echoing images extended in a series along the whole gradation of the inner planes; otherwise viewed, an object or movement in the innermost consciousness translates itself in varying modes from plane to plane down to the most material, where it appears in its grossest form as a concrete three-dimensional object or a mechanical movement. This parallelism or commensurability by virtue of which the different and divergent states of consciousness can portray or represent each other is the source of all symbolism.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
My suggestion is that the dog is a symbol of the keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for Knowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding, an Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of the same species in its train. They were all linked together organically that is the significance of the circle, and formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth (Om). It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn to chant, the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the consciousness to truths that come from above and beyond.
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking, however, symbols are not chosen in a subtle or spiritual experience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
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The three fires are named elsewhere Garhapatya, Dakshina, and Ahavaniya.9 They are the three tongues of the one central Agni, that dwells secreted in the hearth of the soul. They manifest as aspirations that flame up from the three fundamental levels of our being, the body, the life and the mind. For although the spiritual consciousness is the natural element of the soul and is gained in and through the soul, yet, in order that man may take possession of it and dwell in it consciously, in order that the soul's empire may be established, the external being too must respond to the soul's impact and yearn for its truth in the Spirit. The mind, the life and the body which are usually obstructions in the path, must discover the secret flame that is in them tooeach has his own portion of the Soul's Fireand mount on its ardent tongue towards the heights of the Spirit.
Garhapatya is the Fire in the body-consciousness, the fire of Earth, as it is sometimes called; Dakshina is the Fire of the moon or mind, and Ahavaniya that of life.10 The earthly fire is also the fire of the sun; the sun is the source of all earth's heat and symbolises at the same time the spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar fire is also the fire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being the consorts or powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic experience, the intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has its symbol in lightning, electric energy being its vehicle.
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The five elements of the ancientsearth, water, fire, air and ether or spaceare symbols taken from the physical world to represent other worlds that are in it and behind it. Each one is a principle that constitutes the fundamental nature of a particular plane of existence.
Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of existence, the world that supports other worlds (dhar, dharitri),the first or the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man it is his body. The principle here is that of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency.
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The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and illustrates the process of the birth of the body, the passage of the soul into earth existence. It describes the advent of the child, the building of the physical form of the human being. The process is conceived of as a sacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression of their vision and perception of universal processes of Nature, physical and psychological. Here, the child IS said to be the final fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the process being: (i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v) Child. Soma means Rasaphysically the principle of water, psychologically the 'principle of delightand symbolises and constitutes the very soul and substance of life. Now it is said that these five principles the fundamental and constituent elementsare born out of the sacrifice, through the oblation or offering to the five Agnis. The first Agni is Heaven or the Sky-God, and by offering to it one's faith and one's ardent desire, one calls into manifestation Soma or Rasa or Water, the basic principle of life. This water is next offered to the second Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain, again, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings forth Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the Father or Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid.
Finally, this fluid is offered to the fifth Agni, the Mother or the Female, who delivers the Child.
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The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
The Supreme Reality which is always called Brahman in the Upanishads, has to be known and experienced in two ways; for it has two fundamental aspects or modes of being. The Brahman is universal and it is transcendental. The Truth, satyam, the Upanishad says in its symbolic etymology, is 'This' (or, He) and 'That' (syat+tyat i.e. sat+tat). 'This' means the Universal Brahman: it is what is referred to when the Upanishad says:
Ivsyamidam sarvam: All this is for habitation by the Lord;
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It would be interesting to know what the five ranges or levels or movements of consciousness exactly are that make up the Universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in thingsmadhuvidy. The five ranges are the five fundamental principles of delightimmortalities, the Veda would say that form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They form a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the godsAgni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahmawith their emanations and instrumental personalities the Vasus, the Rudras, the Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest that these refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or nodi of consciousness or something very much like them. The Upanishad speaks elsewhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras of Tantric system lie in the same line. The first and the basic mode is the physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni and the Vasus are always intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras the navel centre). Indra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is more often considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the present passage, Indra is taken in his second aspect and instead of the Maruts with whom he is usually invoked has the Rudras as his agents and associates.
The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lightsperhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Marutsthis seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, neverna ca punarvartate na ca punarvartate.
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In Yajnavalkya's enumeration, however, it is to be noted, first of all, that he stresses on the number three. The principle of triplicity is of very wide application: it permeates all fields of consciousness and is evidently based upon a fundamental fact of reality. It seems to embody a truth of synthesis and comprehension, points to the order and harmony that reigns in the cosmos, the spheric music. The metaphysical, that is to say, the original principles that constitute existence are the well-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit, Ananda; and (ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mindthis being a reflection or translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is found in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says 14 yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a portion, a fraction of the One. And in the end, in the ultimate analysis, or rather synthesis, there is but one single undivided and indivisible unity. The thousands and hundreds, very often mentioned also in the Rig Veda, are not simply multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its many-sidedness; it indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete completeness (prasya pram) of the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a rounded totality, a full circle. The hundred-gated and the thousand-pillared cities of which the ancient Rishis chanted are formations and embodiments of consciousness human and divine, are realities whole and entire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness.
Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
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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.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
it cannot be defined or figured in the terms of the phenomenal consciousness. In speaking of it, however, the Upanishads invariably and repeatedly refer to two attributes that characterise its fundamental nature. These two aspects have made such an impression upon the consciousness of the Upanishadic seer that his enthusiasm almost wholly plays about them and is centred on them. When he contemplates or communes with the Supreme Object, these seem to him to be the mark of its au thenticity, the seal of its high status and the reason of all the charm and magic it possesses. The first aspect or attri bute is that of light the brilliance, the solar effulgenceravituly-arpa the bright, clear, shadow less Light of lightsvirajam ubhram jyotim jyoti The second aspect is that of delight, the bliss, the immortality inherent in that wide effulgencenandarpam amtam yad vibhti.
And what else is the true character, the soul of beauty than light and delight? "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." And a thing of joy is a thing of light. Joy is the radiance rippling over a thing of beauty. Beauty is always radiant: the charm, the loveliness of an object is but the glow of light that it emanates. And it would not be a very incorrect mensuration to measure the degree of beauty by the degree of light radiated. The diamond is not only a thing of value, but a thing of beauty also, because of the concentrated and undimmed light that it enshrines within itself. A dark, dull and dismal thing, devoid of interest and attraction becomes aesthetically precious and significant as soon as the artist presents it in terms of the values of light. The entire art of painting is nothing but the expression of beauty, in and through the modalities of light.
And where there is light, there is cheer and joy. Rasamaya and jyotirmayaare thus the two conjoint characteristics fundamental to the nature of the ultimate reality. Sometimes these two are named as the 'solar and the lunar aspect. The solar aspect refers obviously to the Light, that is to say, to the Truth; the lunar aspect refers to the rasa (Soma), to Immortality, to Beauty proper,
yatte suamam hdayam adhi candramasi ritam
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
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The Vedic Poet is doubtless the poet of Life, the architect of Divinity in man, of Heaven upon earth. But what is true of Life is fundamentally true of Art tooat least true of the Art as it was conceived by the ancient seers and as it found expression at their hands.32
Rig Veda, X. 124. 7
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
comprehension of the fundamental structuring principles and their military
developments and profitable commercial uses. But only vast money investments or
--
Malthusian concept of the fundamental inadequacy of life support, and so they have
misused their minds to develop only personal and partisan advantages, intellectual
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.
Holding within their definition, we define Universe as the aggregate of allhumanity's consciously apprehended and communicated, nonsimultaneous, and only partially overlapping experiences. An aggregate of finites is finite. Universe is a finite but nonsimultaneously conceptual scenario.
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While it takes but meager search to discover that many well-known concepts are false, it takes considerable search and even more careful examination of one's own personal experiences and inadvertently spontaneous reflexing to discover that there are many popularly and even professionally unknown, yet nonetheless fundamental, concepts to hold true in all cases and that already have been discovered by other as yet obscure individuals. That is to say that many scientific generalizations have been discovered but have not come to the attention of what we call the educated world at large, thereafter to be incorporated tardily within the formal education processes, and even more tardily, in the ongoing political-economic affairs of everyday life. Knowledge of the existence and comprehensive significance of these as yet popularly unrecognized natural laws often is requisite to the solution of many of the as yet unsolved problems now confronting society. Lack of knowledge of the solution's existence often leaves humanity confounded when it need not be.
Intellectually advantaged with no more than the child's facile, lucid eagerness to understand constructively and usefully the major transformational events of our own times, it probably is synergetically advantageous to review swiftly the most comprehensive inventory of the most powerful human environment transforming events of our totally known and reasonably extended history. This is especially useful in winnowing out and understanding the most significant of the metaphysical revolutions now recognized as swiftly tending to reconstitute history. By such a comprehensively schematic review, we might identify also the unprecedented and possibly heretofore overlooked pivotal revolutionary events not only of today but also of those trending to be central to tomorrow's most cataclysmic changes.
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Furthermore, today's hyperspecialization in socioeconomic functioning has come to preclude important popular philosophic considerations of the synergetic significance of, for instance, such historically important events as the discovery within the general region of experimental inquiry known as virology that the as-yet popularly assumed validity of the concepts of animate and inanimate phenomena have been experimentally invalidated. Atoms and crystal complexes of atoms were held to be obviously inanimate; the protoplasmic cells of biological phenomena were held to be obviously animate. It was deemed to be common sense that warm- blooded, moist, and soft-skinned humans were clearly not to be confused with hard, cold granite or steel objects. A clear-cut threshold between animate and inanimate was therefore assumed to exist as a fundamental dichotomy of all physical phenomena. This seemingly placed life exclusively within the bounds of the physical.
The supposed location of the threshold between animate and inanimate was methodically narrowed down by experimental science until it was confined specifically within the domain of virology. Virologists have been too busy, for instance, with their DNA-RNA genetic code isolatings, to find time to see the synergetic significance to society of the fact that they have found that no physical threshold does in fact exist between animate and inanimate. The possibility of its existence vanished because the supposedly unique physical qualities of both animate and inanimate have persisted right across yesterday's supposed threshold in both directions to permeate one another's-previously perceived to be exclusive- domains. Subsequently, what was animate has become foggier and foggier, and what is inanimate clearer and clearer. All organisms consist physically and in entirety of inherently inanimate atoms. The inanimate alone is not only omnipresent but is alone experimentally demonstrable. Belated news of the elimination of this threshold must be interpreted to mean that whatever life may be, it has not been isolated and thereby identified as residual in the biological cell, as had been supposed by the false assumption that there was a separate physical phenomenoncalled animate within which life existed. No life per se has been isolated. The threshold between animate and inanimate has vanished. Those chemists who are preoccupied in synthesizing the particular atomically structured molecules identified as the prime constituents of humanly employed organisms will, even if they are chemically successful, be as remote from creating life as are automobile manufacturers from creating the human drivers of their automobiles. Only the physical connections and development complexes of distinctly "nonlife" atoms into molecules, into cells, into animals, has been and will be discovered. The genetic coding of the design controls of organic systems offers no more explanation of life than did the specifications of the designs of the telephone system's apparatus and operation explain the nature of the life that communicates weightlessly to life over the only physically ponderable telephone system. Whatever else life may be, we know it is weightless. At the moment of death, no weight is lost. All the chemicals, including the chemist's life ingredients, are present, but life has vanished. The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic.
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Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious Universe.
And whence will come the wealth with which we may undertake to lead world man into his new and validly hopeful life? From the wealth of the minds of world man-whence comes all wealth. Only mind can discover how to do so much with so little as forever to be able to sustain and physically satisfy all humanity.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That which Nature has evolved for us and has firmly founded is the bodily life. She has effected a certain combination and harmony of the two inferior but most fundamentally necessary elements of our action and progress upon earth, -
Matter, which, however the too ethereally spiritual may despise it, is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations, and the Life-Energy which is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities. She has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement which is at once sufficiently steady and durable and sufficiently pliable and mutable to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity. This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad which tells us that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when man was produced, cried out, "This indeed is perfectly made," and consented to enter in. She has effected also a working compromise between the inertia of matter and the active Life that lives in and feeds on it, by which not only is vital existence sustained, but the fullest developments of mentality are rendered possible. This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man and is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HESE relations between the different psychological divisions of the human being and these various utilities and objects of effort founded on them, such as we have seen them in our brief survey of the natural evolution, we shall find repeated in the fundamental principles and methods of the different schools of Yoga. And if we seek to combine and harmonise their central practices and their predominant aims, we shall find that the basis provided by Nature is still our natural basis and the condition of their synthesis.
In one respect Yoga exceeds the normal operation of cosmic
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
impresses indelibly upon the mind the fundamental concept of this most sublime of
all purgations. Marvellous, indeed, are its effects, from the first enkindlings and
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
there must be something fundamentally wrong. What is
it, Mother?
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Another humanity is rising out of the present human species. The beings of the new order are everywhere and it is they who will soon hold sway over earth, be the head and front of the terrestrial evolution in the cycle that is approaching as it was with man in the cycle that is passing away. What will this new order of being be like? It will be what man is not, also what man is. It will not be man, because it will overstep the limitations and incapacities inherent in man; and it will be man by the realisation of those fundamental aspirations and yearnings that have troubled and consoled the deeper strata the soulin him throughout the varied experiences of his terrestrial life.
The New Man will be Master and not slave. He will be master, first, of himself and then of the world. Man as he actually is, is but a slave. He has no personal voice or choice; the determining soul, the Ishwara, in him is sleep-bound and hushed. He is a mere plaything in the hands of nature and circumstances. Therefore it is that Science has become his supreme Dharmashastra; for science seeks to teach us the moods of Nature and the methods of propitiating her. Our actual ideal of man is that of the cleverest slave. But the New Man will have found himself and by and according to his inner will, mould and create his world. He will not be in awe of Nature and in an attitude of perpetual apprehension and hesitation, but will ground himself on a secret harmony and union that will declare him as the lord. We will recognise the New Man by his very gait and manner, by a certain kingly ease and dominion in every shade of his expression.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
But the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need not at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam alone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processes of consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and Brahman, as though one has to leap from the one into the other somehow. This hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga by the principle of Supermind, not synthetic-analytic2 in knowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence, but inescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity. Supermind is the Truth-consciousness at once static and dynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic consciousness Sachchidanandais ever self-aware and ever manifested and embodied in fundamental truth-powers and truth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the One breaks out into the Many and the Many still remain one, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the One; it develops the spiritual archetypes, the divine names and forms of all individualisations of an evolving existence.
SRI AUROBINDO
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In one's own soul lies the very height and profundity of a god-head. Each soul by bringing out the note that is his, makes for the most wondrous symphony. Once a man knows what he is and holds fast to it, refusing to be drawn away by any necessity or temptation, he begins to uncover himself, to do what his inmost nature demands and takes joy in, that is to say, begins to create. Indeed there may be much difference in the forms that different souls take. But because each is itself, therefore each is grounded upon the fundamental equality of things. All our valuations are in reference to some standard or other set up with a particular end in view, but that is a question of the practical world which in no way takes away from the intrinsic value of the greatness of the soul. So long as the thing is there, the how of it does not matter. Infinite are the ways of manifestation and all of them the very highest and the most sublime, provided they are a manifestation of the soul itself, provided they rise and flow from the same level. Whether it is Agni or Indra, Varuna, Mitra or the Aswins, it is the same supreme and divine inflatus.
The cosmic soul is true. But that truth is borne out, effectuated only by the truth of the individual soul. When the individual soul becomes itself fully and integrally, by that very fact it becomes also the cosmic soul. The individuals are the channels through which flows the Universal and the Infinite in its multiple emphasis. Each is a particular figure, aspectBhava, a particular angle of vision of All. The vision is entire and the figure perfect if it is not refracted by the lower and denser parts of our being. And for that the individual must first come to itself and shine in its opal clarity and translucency.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is there not a fundamental difference, difference not merely with regard to the poetic personality, but with regard to the very stuff of consciousness? There is direct vision here, the fullness of light, the native rhythm and substance of revelation, as if
In the dead wall closing from a wider self,
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This, I say, is something different from the religious and even from the mystic. It is away from the merely religious, because it is naked of the vesture of humanity (in spite of a human face that masks it at times) ; it is something more than the merely mystic, for it does not stop being a signpost or an indication to the Beyond, but is itself the presence and embodiment of the Beyond. The mystic gives us, we can say, the magic of the Infinite; what I term the spiritual, the spiritual proper, gives in addition the logic of the Infinite. At least this is what distinguishes modern spiritual consciousness from the ancient, that is, Upanishadic spiritual consciousness. The Upanishad gives expression to the spiritual consciousness in its original and pristine purity and perfection, in its essential simplicity. It did not buttress itself with any logic. It is the record of fundamental experiences and there was no question of any logical exposition. But, as I have said, the modern mind requires and demands a logical element in its perceptions and presentations. Also it must needs be a different kind of logic that can satisfy and satisfy wholly the deeper and subtler movements of a modern consciousness. For the philosophical poet of an earlier age, when he had recourse to logic, it was the logic of the finite that always gave him the frame, unless he threw the whole thing overboard and leaped straight into the occult, the illogical and the a logical, like Blake, for instance. Let me illustrate and compare a little. When the older poet explains indriyani hayan ahuh, it is an allegory he resorts to, it is the logic of the finite he marshals to point to the infinite and the beyond. The stress of reason is apparent and effective too, but the pattern is what we are normally familiar with the movement, we can say, is almost Aristotelian in its rigour. Now let us turn to the following:
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. ||26.15||
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is Reason, the faculty that is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of knowledge that Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the particular faculty or instrument by which we know, that determines the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them. It has three component elements that have been defined as observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition of Reason shows that it cannot be a perfect instrument of knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of the component elements. As regards observation there is a two-fold limitation. First, observation is a relative term and variable quantity. One observes through the prism of one's own observing faculty, through the bias of one's own personality and no two persons can have absolutely the same manner of observation. So Science has recognised the necessity of personal equation and has created an imaginary observer, a "mean man" as the standard of reference. And this already takes us far away from the truth, from the reality. Secondly, observation is limited by its scope. All the facts of the world, all sense-perceptions possible and actual cannot be included within any observation however large, however collective it may be. We have to go always upon a limited amount of data, we are able to construct only a partial and sketchy view of the surface of existence. And then it is these few and doubtful facts that Reason seeks to arrange and classify. That classification may hold good for certain immediate ends, for a temporary understanding of the world and its forces, either in order to satisfy our curiosity or to gain some practical utility. For when we want to consider the world only in its immediate relation to us, a few and even doubtful facts are sufficient the more immediate the relation, the more immaterial the doubtfulness and insufficiency of facts. We may quite confidently go a step in darkness, but to walk a mile we do require light and certainty. Our scientific classification has a background of uncertainty, if not, of falsity; and our deduction also, even while correct within a very narrow range of space and time, cannot escape the fundamental vices of observation and classification upon which it is based.
It might be said, however, that the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the fundamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see that all the facts are conformableto it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can judge only truths that are of a certain type.
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It may be retorted that if Reason is condemned, it is condemned by itself and by no other authority. All argumentation against Reason is a function of Reason itself. The deficiencies of Reason we find out by the rational faculty alone. If Reason was to die, it is because it consents to commit suicide; there is no other power that kills it. But to this our answer is that Reason has this miraculous power of self-destruction; or, to put it philosophically, Reason is, at best, an organ of self-criticism and perhaps the organ par excellence for that purpose. But criticism is one thing and creation another. And whether we know or act, it is fundamentally a process of creation; at least, without this element of creation there can be no knowledge, no act. In knowledge there is a luminous creativity, Revelation or Categorical Imperative which Reason does not and cannot supply but vaguely strains to seize. For that element we have to search elsewhere, not in Reason.
Does this mean that real knowledge is irrational or against Reason? Not so necessarily. There is a super-rational power for knowledge and Reason may either be a channel or an obstacle. If we take our stand upon Reason and then proceed to know, if we take the forms and categories of Reason as the inviolable schemata of knowledge, then indeed Reason becomes an obstacle to that super-rational power. If, on the other hand, Reason does not offer any set-form from beforehand, does not insist upon its own conditions, is passive and simply receives and reflects what is given to it, then it becomes a luminous and sure channel for that higher and real knowledge.
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path that it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
Sri Aurobindo does not preach flight from life and a retreat into the silent and passive Infinite; the goal of life is not, in his view, the extinction of life. Neither is he satisfied on that account to hold that life is best lived in the ordinary round of its unregenerate dharma. If the first is a blind alley, the second is a vicious circle,both lead nowhere.
Sri Aurobindo's sadhana starts from the perception of a Power that is beyond the ordinary nature yet is its inevitable master, a fulcrum, as we have said, outside the earth. For what is required first is the discovery and manifestation of a new soul-consciousness in man which will bring about by the very pressure and working out of its self-rule an absolute reversal of man's nature. It is the Asuras who are now holding sway over humanity, for man has allowed himself so long to be built in the image of the Asura; to dislodge the Asuras, the Gods in their sovereign might have to be forged in the human being and brought into play. It is a stupendous task, some would say impossible; but it is very far removed from quietism or passivism. Sri Aurobindo is in retirement, but it is a retirement only from the outward field of present physical activities and their apparent actualities, not from the true forces and action of life. It is the retreat necessary to one who has to go back into himself to conquer a new plane of creative power,an entrance right into the world of basic forces, of fundamental realities, into the flaming heart of things where all actualities are born and take their first shape. It is the discovery of a power-house of tremendous energism and of the means of putting it at the service of earthly life.
And, properly speaking, it is not at all a school, least of all a mere school of thought, that is growing round Sri Aurobindo. It is rather the nucleus of a new life that is to come. Quite naturally it has almost insignificant proportions at present to the outward eye, for the work is still of the nature of experiment and trial in very restricted limits, something in the nature of what is done in a laboratory when a new power has been discovered, but has still to be perfectly formulated in its process. And it is quite a mistake to suppose that there is a vigorous propaganda carried on in its behalf or that there is a large demand for recruits. Only the few, who possess the call within and are impelled by the spirit of the future, have a chance of serving this high attempt and great realisation and standing among its first instruments and pioneer workers.
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian disciplinesay, of Janaka and Yajnavalkyalabours, however, in reality, under the influence of European activism and ethicism. It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress has not been thoroughly obliterated even in the best of our modern exponents. The bias of the vital urge and of the moral imperative is apparent enough in the modernist conception of a dynamic spirituality. fundamentally the dynamism is made to reside in the lan of the ethical man,the spiritual element, as a consciousness of supreme unity in the Absolute (Brahman) or of love and delight in God, serving only as an atmosphere for the mortal activity.
Sri Aurobindo has raised action completely out of the mental and moral plane and has given it an absolute spiritual life. Action has been spiritualised by being carried back to its very source and origin, for it is the expression in life of God's own Consciousness-Energy (Chit-Shakti).
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All movementswhe ther of thought or of life, whether in the individual or in the massproceed from a fundamental intuition which lies in the background as the logical presupposition, the psychological motive and the spiritual force. A certain attitude of the soul, a certain angle of vision is what is posited first; all other thingsall thoughts and feelings and activities are but necessary attempts to express, to demonstrate, to realise on the conscious and dynamic levels, in the outer world, the truth which has thus already been seized in some secret core of our being. The intuition may not, of course, be present to the conscious mind, it may not be ostensibly sought for, one may even deny the existence of such a preconceived notion and proceed to establish truth on a tabula rasa; none the less it is this hidden bias that judges, this secret consciousness that formulates, this unknown power that fashions.
Now, what is the intuition that lies behind the movements of the new age? What is the intimate realisation, the underlying view-point which is guiding and modelling all our efforts and achievementsour science and art, our poetry and philosophy, our religion and society? For, there is such a common and fundamental note which is being voiced forth by the human spirit through all the multitude of its present-day activities.
A new impulse is there, no one can deny, and it has vast possibilities before it, that also one need not hesitate to accept. But in order that we may best fructuate what has been spontaneously sown, we must first recognise it, be luminously conscious of it and develop it along its proper line of growth. For, also certain it is that this new impulse or intuition, however true and strong in itself, is still groping and erring and miscarrying; it is still wasting much of its energy in tentative things, in mere experiments, in even clear failures. The fact is that the intuition has not yet become an enlightened one, it is still moving, as we shall presently explain, in the dark vital regions of man. And vitalism is naturally and closely affianced to pragmatism, that is to say, the mere vital impulse seeks immediately to execute itself, it looks for external effects, for changes in the form, in the machinery only. Thus it is that we see in art and literature discussions centred upon the scheme of composition, as whether the new poetry should be lyrical or dramatic, popular or aristocratic, metrical or free of metre, and in practical life we talk of remodelling the state by new methods of representation and governance, of purging society by bills and legislation, of reforming humanity by a business pact.
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This then is the mantra of the new ageLife with Intuition as its guide and not Reason and mechanical efficiency, not Man but Superman. The right mantra has been found, the principle itself is irreproachable. But the interpretation, the application, does not seem to have been always happy. For, Nietzsche's conception of the Superman is full of obvious lacunae. If we have so long been adoring the intellectual man, Nietzsche asks us, on the other hand, to deify the vital man. According to him the superman is he who has (1) the supreme sense of the ego, (2) the sovereign will to power and (3) who lives dangerously. All this means an Asura, that is to say, one who has, it may be, dominion over his animal and vital impulsions in order, of course, that he may best gratify them but who has not purified them. Purification does not necessarily mean, annihilation but it does mean sublimation and transformation. So if you have to transcend man, you have to transcend egoism also. For a conscious egoism is the very characteristic of man and by increasing your sense of egoism you do not supersede man but simply aggrandise your humanity, fashion it on a larger, a titanic scale. And then the will to power is not the only will that requires fulfilment, there is also the will to knowledge and the will to love. In man these three fundamental constitutive elements coexist, although they do it, more often than not, at the expense of each other and in a state of continual disharmony. The superman, if he is to be the man "who has surmounted himself", must embody a poise of being in which all the three find a fusion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangerously may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangerously means to have eternal opponents, that is to say, to live ever on the same level with the forces you want to dominate. To have the sense that one has to fight and control means that one is not as yet the sovereign lord, for one has to strive and strain and attain. The supreme lord is he who is perfectly equanimous with himself and with the world. He has not to batter things into a shape in order to create. He creates means, he manifests. He wills and he achieves"God said 'let there be light' and there was light."
As a matter of fact, the superman is not, as Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem capable. For that is after all humanity only accentuated in certain other fundamentally human modes of existence. It does not carry far enough the process of surmounting. In reality it is not a surmounting but a new channelling. Instead of the ethical and intellectual man, we get the vital and aesthetic man. It may be a change but not a transfiguration.
And the faculty of Intuition said to be the characteristic of the New Man does not mean all that it should, if we confine ourselves to Bergson's definition of it. Bergson says that Intuition is a sort of sympathy, a community of feeling or sensibility with the urge of the life-reality. The difference between the sympathy of Instinct and the sympathy of Intuition being that while the former is an unconscious or semi-conscious power, the latter is illumined and self-conscious. Now this view emphasises only the feeling-tone of Intuition, the vital sensibility that attends the direct communion with the life movement. But Intuition is not only purified feeling and sensibility, it is also purified vision and knowledge. It unites us not only with the movement of life, but also opens out to our sight the Truths, the fundamental realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition. Since existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?
Matter forms the lowest level of reality. Above it is the elan vital. Above the elan vital there is yet the domain of the Spirit. And the Spirit is a static substance and at the same a dynamic creative power. It is Being (Sat) that realises or expresses itself through certain typal nuclei or nodi of consciousness (chit) in a continuous becoming, in a flow of creative activity (ananda). The dynamism of the vital energy is only a refraction or precipitation of the dynamism of the spirit; and so also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypesswarupa and swabhavain the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The consciously purposive activity of the poetic consciousness in fact, of all artistic consciousness has shown itself with a clear and unambiguous emphasis in two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the "given" as the final and definitive norm of things. It wishes to discover and establish other norms, it strives to bring about changes in the nature and condition of things, envisage the shape of things to come, work for a brave new world. The poet of today, in spite of all his effort to remain a pure poet, in spite of Housman's advocacy of nonsense and not-sense being the essence of true Art, is almost invariably at heart an incorrigible prophet. In revolt against the old and established order of truths and customs, against all that is normally considered as beautiful,ideals and emotions and activities of man or aspects and scenes and movements of Natureagainst God or spiritual life, the modern poet turns deliberately to the ugly and the macabre, the meaningless, the insignificant and the triflingtins and teas, bone and dust and dustbin, hammer and sicklehe is still a prophet, a violent one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly jealous being, that seeks to pull down the past, erase it, to break and batter and knead the elements in order to fashion out of them something conforming to his heart's desire. There is also the class who have the vision and found the truth and its solace, who are prophets, angelic and divine, messengers and harbingers of a new beauty that is to dawn upon earth. And yet there are others in whom the two strains mingle or approach in a strange way. All this means that the artist is far from being a mere receiver, a mechanical executor, a passive unconscious instrument, but that he is supremely' conscious and master of his faculties and implements. This fact is doubly reinforced when we find how much he is preoccupied with the technical aspect of his craft. The richness and variety of patterns that can be given to the poetic form know no bounds today. A few major rhythms were sufficient for the ancients to give full expression to their poetic inflatus. For they cared more for some major virtues, the basic and fundamental qualitiessuch as truth, sublimity, nobility, forcefulness, purity, simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness; they were more preoccupied with what they had to say and they wanted, no doubt, to say it beautifully and powerfully; but the modus operandi was not such a passion or obsession with them, it had not attained that almost absolute value for itself which modern craftsmanship gives it. As technology in practical life has become a thing of overwhelming importance to man today, become, in the Shakespearean phrase, his "be-all and end-all", even so the same spirit has invaded and pervaded his aesthetics too. The subtleties, variations and refinements, the revolutions, reversals and inventions which the modern poet has ushered and takes delight in, for their own sake, I repeat, for their intrinsic interest, not for the sake of the subject which they have to embody and clothe, have never been dream by Aristotle, the supreme legislator among the ancients, nor by Horace, the almost incomparable craftsman among the ancients in the domain of poetry. Man has become, to be sure, a self-conscious creator to the pith of his bone.
Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of Homo Faber, has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their task is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic creation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary which the older mould would find it impossible to render adequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was not to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the pressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of truth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was that of the great Unconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our poets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into that region and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an emanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it can have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be truly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world being nothing but Spirit made visible is, according to Tagore, fundamentally a thing of beauty. The scars and spots that are on the surface have to be removed and mankind has to repossess and clo the itself with that mantle of beauty. The world is beautiful, because it is the image of the Beautiful, because it harbours, expresses and embodies the Divine who is Beauty supreme. Now by a strange alchemy, a wonderful effect of polarisation, the very spiritual element in Tagore has made him almost a pagan and even a profane. For what are these glories of Nature and the still more exquisite glories that the human body has captured? They are but vibrations and modulations of beauty the delightful names and forms of the supreme Lover and Beloved.
Socrates is said to have brought down Philosophy from Heaven to live among men upon earth. A similar exploit can be ascribed to Tagore. The Spirit, the bare transcendental Reality contemplated by the orthodox Vedantins, has been brought nearer to our planet, close to human consciousness in Tagore's vision, being clothed in earth and flesh and blood, made vivid with the colours and contours of the physical existence. The Spirit, yes and by all means, but not necessarily asceticism and monasticism. So Tagore boldly declared in those famous lines of his:
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Tagore is no inventor or innovator when he posits Spirit as Beauty, the spiritual consciousness as the ardent rhythm of ecstasy. This experience is the very core of Vaishnavism and for which Tagore is sometimes called a Neo-Vaishnava. The Vaishnava sees the world pulsating in glamorous beauty as the Lila (Play) of the Lord, and the Lord, God himself, is nothing but Love and Beauty. Still Tagore is not all Vaishnava or merely a Vaishnava; he is in addition a modern (the carping voice will say, there comes the dilution and adulteration)in the sense that problems exist for himsocial, political, economic, national, humanitarianwhich have to be faced and solved: these are not merely mundane, but woven into the texture of the fundamental problem of human destiny, of Soul and Spirit and God. A Vaishnava was, in spite of his acceptance of the world, an introvert, to use a modern psychological phrase, not necessarily in the pejorative sense, but in the neutral scientific sense. He looks upon the universe' and human life as the play of the Lord, as an actuality and not mere illusion indeed; but he does not participate or even take interest in the dynamic working out of the world process, he does not care to know, has no need of knowing that there is a terrestrial purpose and a diviner fulfilment of the mortal life upon earth. The Vaishnava dwells more or less absorbed in the Vaikuntha of his inner consciousness; the outer world, although real, is only a symbolic shadowplay to which he can but be a witness-real, is only a nothing more.
A modern idealist of the type of a reformer would not be satisfied with that role. If he is merely a moralist reformer, he will revolt against the "witness business", calling it a laissez-faire mentality of bygone days. A spiritual reformer would ask for morea dynamic union with the Divine Will and Consciousness, not merely a passive enjoyment in the Bliss, so that he may be a luminous power or agent for the expression of divine values in things mundane.
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, what such an uncompromising individualism fails to recognise is that individuality and ego are not the same thing, that the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice his ego, that the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say that man is only a fighting animal and not a loving god, that the self within the individual realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose that it has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to remain by that struggle. Struggle is only one aspect of the thing, a particular form at a particular stage, a temporary manifestation due to a particular system and a particular habit and training. It would be nearer the truth to say that society came into being with the demand of the individual soul to unite with the individual soul, with the stress of an Over-soul to express itself in a multitude of forms, diverse yet linked together and organised in perfect harmony. Only, the stress for union manifested itself first on the material plane as struggle: but this is meant to be corrected and transcended and is being continually corrected and transcended by a secret harmony, a real commonality and brotherhood and unity. The individual is not so self-centred as the individualists make him to be, his individuality has a much vaster orbit and fulfils itself only by fulfilling others. The scientists have begun to discover other instincts in man than those of struggle and competition; they now place at the origin of social grouping an instinct which they name the herd-instinct: but this is only a formulation in lower terms, a translation on the vital plane of a higher truth and reality the fundamental oneness and accord of individuals and their spiritual impulsion to unite.
However, individualism has given us a truth and a formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit him for its own benefit. But that does not necessarily mean that collectivism has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism signifies that the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be shut up in his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the Gita says. Collectivism demands that the individual need not and should not exhaust himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but that he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds is this that the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In his inquiry into truth and certitude Pascal takes his stand upon what he calls the geometrical method, the only valid method, according to him, in the sphere of reason. The characteristic of this method is that it takes for granted certain fundamental principles and realitiescalled axioms and postulates or definitionsand proceeds to other truths that are infallibly and inevitably deduced from them, that are inherent and implied in them. There is no use or necessity in trying to demonstrate these fundamentals also; that will only land us into confusion and muddle. They have to be simply accepted, they do not require demonstration, it is they that demonstrate others. Such, for instance, are space, time, number, the reality of which it is foolishness and pedantry to I seek to prove. There is then an order of truths that do not i require to be proved. We are referring only to the order of I physical truths. But there is another order, Pascal says, equally I valid and veritable, the order of the Spirit. Here we have another set of fundamentals that have to be accepted and taken for granted, matrix of other truths and realities. It can also be called the order of the Heart. Reason posits physical fundamentals; it does not know of the fundamentals of the Heart which are beyond its reach; such are God, Soul, Immortality which are evident only to Faith.
But Faith and Reason, according to Pascal, are not contraries nor irreconcilables. Because the things of faith are beyond reason, it is not that they are irrational. Here is what Pascal says about the function and limitation of reason:
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The recent science of Psycho-analysis has brought to light certain hidden springs and undercurrents of the mind; it has familiarised us with a mode of viewing the entire psychical life of man which will be fruitful for our present enquiry. Mind, it has been found, is a house divided, against itself, that is to say it is an arena where different and divergent forces continually battle against one another. There must be, however, at the same time, some sort of a resolution of these forces, some equation that holds them in balance, otherwise the mind the human being itselfwould cease to exist as an entity. What is the mechanism of this balance of power in the human mind? In order to ascertain that we must first of all know the fundamental nature of the struggle and also the character of the more elemental forces that are engaged in it.
There are some primary desires that seek satisfaction in man. They are the vital urges of life, the most prominent among them being the instinct of self-preservation and that of self-reproduction or the desire to preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities that are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order that he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most fundamental elements that enter into his structure and composition.
It would have been an easy matter if these vital urges could flow on unhindered in their way. There would have been no problem at all, if they met satisfaction easily and smoothly, without having to look to other factors and forces. As a matter of fact, man does not and cannot gratify his instincts whenever and wherever he chooses and in an open and direct manner. Even in his most primitive and barbarous condition, he has often to check himself and throw a veil, in so many ways, over his sheer animality. In the civilised society the check is manifold and is frankly recognised. We do not go straight as our sexual impulsion leads, but seek to hide and camouflage it under the institution of marriage; we do not pounce upon the food directly we happen to meet it and snatch and appropriate whatever portion we get but we secure it through an elaborate process, which is known as the economic system. The machinery of the state, the cult of the kshatriya are roundabout ways to meet our fighting instincts.
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The method of unconscious or subconscious nature is fundamentally that of repression. Apart from Defence Reaction which is a thing of pure coercion, even in Substitution and Sublimation there always remains in the background a large amount of repressed complexes in all their primitive strength. The system is never entirely purified but remains secretly pregnant with those urges; a part only is deflected and camouflaged, the surface only assumes a transformed appearance. And there is always the danger of the superstructure coming down helplessly by a sudden upheaval of the nether forces. The whole system feels, although not in a conscious manner, the tension of the repression and suffers from something that is unhealthy and ill-balanced. Dante's spiritualised passion is a supreme instance of control by Sublimation, but the Divina Comedia hardly bears the impress of a serene and tranquil soul, sovereignly above the turmoils of the tragedy of life and absolutely at peace with itself.
In conscious control, the mind is for the first time aware of the presence of the repressed impulses, it seeks to release them from the pressure to which they are habitually and normally subjected. It knows and recognises them, however ugly and revolting they might appear to be when they present themselves in their natural nakedness. Then it becomes easy for the conscious determination to eliminate or regulate or transform them and thus to establish a healthy harmony in the human vehicle. The very recognition itself, as implied in conscious control, means purification.
Yet even here the process of control and transformation does not end. And we now come to the Fifth Line, the real and intimate path of yoga. Conscious control gives us a natural mastery over the instinctive impulses which are relieved of their dark tamas and attain a purified rhythm. We do not seek to hide or repress or combat them, but surpass them and play with them as the artist does with his material. Something of this katharsis, this aestheticism of the primitive impulses was achieved by the ancient Greeks. Even then the primitive impulses remain primitive all the same; they fulfil, no doubt, a real and healthy function in the scheme of life, but still in their fundamental nature they continue the animal in man. And even when Conscious Control means the utter elimination and annihilation of the primal instinctswhich, however, does not seem to be a probable eventualityeven then, we say, the basic problem remains unsolved; for the urge of nature towards the release and a transformation of the instincts does not find satisfaction, the question is merely put aside.
Yoga, then, comes at this stage and offers the solution in its power of what we may call Transubstantiation. That is to say, here the mere form is not changed, nor the functions restrained, regulated and purified, but the very substance of the instincts is transmuted. The power of conscious control is a power of the human will, i.e. of an individual personal will and therefore necessarily limited both in intent and extent. It is a power complementary to the power of Nature, it may guide and fashion the latter according to a new pattern, but cannot change the basic substance, the stuff of Nature. To that end yoga seeks a power that transcends the human will, brings into play the supernal puissance of a Divine Will.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To remain human means to continue the fundamental nature of man. In what consists the humanity of man? We can ascertain it by distinguishing what forms the animality of the animal, since that will give us the differentia that nature has evolved to raise man over the animal. The animal, again, has a characteristic differentiating it from the vegetable world, which latter, in its turn, has something to mark it off from the inorganic world. The inorganic, the vegetable, the animal and finally manthese are the four great steps of Nature's evolutionary course.
The differentia, in each case, lies in the degree and nature of consciousness, since it is consciousness that forms the substance and determines the mode of being. Now, the inorganic is characterised by un-consciousness, the vegetable by sub-consciousness, the animal by consciousness and man by self-consciousness. Man knows that he knows, an animal only knows; a plant does not even know, it merely feels or senses; matter cannot do that even, it simply acts or rather is acted upon. We are not concerned here, however, with the last two forms of being; we will speak of the first two only.
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So the humanity of man consists in his consciousness of the self or ego. Is there no other higher mode of consciousness? Or is self-consciousness the acme, the utmost limit to which consciousness can raise itself? If it is so, then we are bound to conclude that humanity will remain eternally human in its fundamental nature; the only progress, if progress at all we choose to call it, will consist perhaps in accentuating this consciousness of the self and in expressing it through a greater variety of stresses, through a richer combination of its colour and light and shade and rhythm. But also, this may not be sothere may be the possibility of a further step, a transcending of the consciousness of the self. It seems unnatural and improbable that having risen from un-consciousness to self-consciousness through a series of continuous marches, Nature should suddenly stop and consider what she had achieved to be her final end. Has Nature become bankrupt of her creative genius, exhausted of her upward drive? Has she to remain content with only a clever manipulation, a mere shuffling and re-arranging of the materials already produced?
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
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This passage from the self-conscient to the super-conscient does not imply merely a shifting of the focus of consciousness. The transmutation of consciousness involves a purer illumination, a surer power and a wider compass; it involves also a fundamental change in the very mode of being and living. It gives quite a different life-intuition and a different life-power. The change in the motif brings about a new form altogether, a re-casting and re-shaping and re-energising of the external materials as well. As the lift from mere consciousness to self-consciousness meant all the difference between an animal and a man, so the lift again from self-consciousness to super-consciousness will mean the difference of a whole world between man and the divine creature that is to be.
Indeed it is a divine creature that should be envisaged on the next level of evolution. The mental and the moral, the psychical and the physical transfigurations which must follow the change in the basic substratum do imply such a mutation, the birth of a new species, as it were, fashioned in the nature of the gods. The vision of angels and Siddhas, which man is having ceaselessly since his birth, may be but a prophecy of the future actuality.
This then, it seems to us, is the immediate problem that Nature has set before herself. She is now at the parting of the ways. She has done with man as an essentially human being, she has brought out the fundamental possibilities of humanity and perfected it, so far as perfection may be attained within the cadre by which she chose to limit herself; she is now looking forward to another kind of experiment the evolving of another life, another being out of her entrails, that will be greater than the humanity we know today, that will be superior even to the supreme that has yet been actualised.
Nature has marched from the unconscious to the sub-conscious, from the sub-conscious to the conscious and from the conscious to the self-conscious; she has to rise yet again from the self-conscious to the super-conscious. The mineral gave place to the plant, the plant gave place to the animal and the animal gave place to man; let man give place to and bring out the divine.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
problem and various possible methods of physical education. The fundamental problem is this: how can we
The Queen of Jhansi who died on the battlefield in 1858 while fighting British
01.10 - Principle and Personality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet we yield to none in our demand for holding forth the principles always and ever before the wide open gaze of all. The principle is there to make people self-knowing and self-guiding; and the man is also there to illustrate that principle, to serve as the hope and prophecy of achievement. The living soul is there to touch your soul, if you require the touch; and the principle is there by which to test and testify. For, we do not ask anybody to be a mere automaton, a blind devotee, a soul without individual choice and initiative. On the contrary, we insist on each and every individual to find his own soul and stand on his own Truththis is the fundamental principle we declare, the only creedif creed it be that we ask people to note and freely follow. We ask all people to be fully self-dependent and self-illumined, for only thus can a real and solid reconstruction of human nature and society be possible; we do not wish that they should bow down ungrudgingly to anything, be it a principle or a personality. In this respect we claim the very first rank of iconoclasts and anarchists. And along with that, if we still choose to remain an idol-lover and a hero-worshipper, it is because we recognise that our mind, human as it is, being not a simple equation but a complex paradox, the idol or the hero symbolises for us and for those who so will, the very iconoclasm and anarchism and perhaps other more positive things as wellwhich we behold within and seek to manifest.
The world is full of ikons and archons; we cannot escape them, even if we try the world itself being a great ikon and as great an archon. Those who swear by principles, swear always by some personality or other, if not by a living creature then by a lifeless book, if not by Religion then by Science, if not by the East then by the West, if not by Buddha or Christ then by Bentham or Voltaire. Only they do it unwittingly they change one set of personalities for another and believe they have rejected them all. The veils of Maya are a thousand-fold tangle and you think you have entirely escaped her when you have only run away from one fold to fall into another. The wise do not attempt to reject and negate Maya, but consciously accept herfreedom lies in a knowing affirmation. So we too have accepted and affirmed an icon, but we have done it consciously and knowingly; we are not bound by our idol, we see the truth of it, and we serve and utilise it as best as we may.
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The rise of this spirit in modern times and conditions is a phenomenon that has to be explained and faced: it is a ghost that has come out of the past and has got to be laid and laid for good. First of all, it is a reaction from modernism; it is a reaction from the modernist denial of certain fundamental and eternal truths, of God, soul, and immortality: it is a reaction from the modernist affirmation of the mere economic man. And it is also a defensive gesture of a particular complex of consciousness that has grown and lives powerfully and now apprehends expurgation and elimination.
In Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the religious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St. Bartholomews, died away: it died, and (or, because) it was replaced by a spirit that was felt as being equally, if not more, au thentic and, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a large and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man's aspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It was a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on that level it brought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interesta humanistic culture, as it is calledwhich constituted a living and unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great French Revolution which was the final coup de grace to all that still remained of mediaevalism, even in its outer structure, political and economical.
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Only, the religious spirit has to be bathed and purified and enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: that is to say, one must learn and understand and realize that Spirit is the thing the one thing needfulTamevaikam jnatha; 'religions' are its names and forms, appliances and decorations. Let us have by all means the religious spirit, the fundamental experience that is the inmost truth of all religions, that is the matter of our soul; but in our mind and life and body let there be a luminous catholicity, let these organs and instruments be trained to see and compare and appreciate the variety, the numberless facets which the one Spirit naturally presents to the human consciousness. Ekam sat viprh bahudh vadanti. It is an ancient truth that man discovered even in his earliest seekings; but it still awaits an adequate expression and application in life.
II
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The year 1949 has just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great force of light that was Goethe. We too remember him on the occasion, and will try to present in a few words, as we see it, the fundamental experience, the major Intuition that stirred this human soul, the lesson he brought to mankind. Goe the was a great poet. He showed how a language, perhaps least poetical by nature, can be moulded to embody the great beauty of great poetry. He made the German language sing, even as the sun's ray made the stone of Memnon sing when falling upon it. Goe the was a man of consummate culture. Truly and almost literally it could be said of him that nothing human he considered foreign to his inquiring mind. And Goe the was a man of great wisdom. His observation and judgment on thingsno matter to whatever realm they belonghave an arresting appropriateness, a happy and revealing insight. But above all, he was an aspiring soulaspiring to know and be in touch with the hidden Divinity in man and the world.
Goe the and the Problem of Evil
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One view considers Evil as coeval with Good: the Prince of Evil is God's peer, equal to him in all ways, absolutely separate, independent and self-existent. Light and Darkness are eternal principles living side by side, possessing equal reality. For, although it is permissible to the individual to pass out of the Darkness and enter into Light, the Darkness itself does not disappear: it remains and maintains its domain, and even it is said that some human beings are meant eternally for this domain. That is the Manichean principle and that also is fundamentally the dualistic conception of chit-achit in some Indian systems (although the principle of chit or light is usually given a higher position and priority of excellence).
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All elemental personalities have something of the unconventional and irrational in them. And Roerich is one such in his own way. The truths and realities that he envisages and seeks to realise on earth are elemental and fundamental, although apparently simple and commonplace.
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0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One would like to have the fundamental realisation that
the Divine is all and everything.
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The difficultyits not even a difficulty, its just a kind of precaution that is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isnt done through the will and reason, its automatic. Yet I feel that the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But its progressive, it cant be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I dont bother about itits not my concern and I dont bother about itHe makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that ones head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.
Only, one must be careful to keep the sense of the Unmanifest sufficiently present so that the various things the elements, the cells and all thathave time to adapt. The sense of the Unmanifest, or in other words, to step back into the Unmanifest.6 This is what all those who have had experiences have done; they always believed that there was no possibility of adaptation, so they left their bodies and went off.
0 1959-01-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And it happened just as I was despairing of ever getting out of it. I seemed to be touching a kind of fundamental bedrock, so painful, so suffering, and full of revolt because of too much suffering. And I saw that all my efforts, all the meditations, aspirations, mantras, were only covering up this suffering bedrock without touching it. I saw this fundamental thing in me very clearly, a poignant knot, ever ready for an absolute negation. I saw it and I said to you, Mother, only your grace can remove this. I said this to you in the temple that morning, in total despair. And then, the knot was undone. Xs action contri buted a lot, with your grace acting through him. But truly, I have traversed a veritable hell this last while.
X continues his work on me daily; it is to last 41 days in all. He told me that he wants to undo the things of several births. When it is over, he will explain it all to me. I do not know how to tell you how luminous and good this man is, he is a very great soul. He is also giving me Sanskrit lessons, and little by little, each evening, speaks to me of the Tantra.
0 1959-03-26 - Lord of Death, Lord of Falsehood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Concerning Satprem's most recent peregrinations and his fundamental rebelliousness, which periodically makes him take to the road)
Behind the Titan attacking us particularly now, there is something else. This Titan has been delegated by someone else. He has been there since my birth, was born with me. I felt him when I was very young, but only gradually, as I became conscious of myself, did I understand WHO he was and what was behind him.
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If there is one fundamental necessity, it is humility. To be humble. Not humble as it is normally understood, such as merely saying, I am so small, Im nothing at allno, something else Because the pitfalls are innumerable, and the further you progress in yoga, the more subtle they become, and the more the ego masks itself behind marvelous and saintly appearances. So when somebody says, I no longer want to rely on anything but Him. I want to close my eyes and rest in Him alone, this comfortable Him, which is exactly what you want him to be, is the egoor a formidable Asura, or a Titan (depending on each ones capacity). Theyre all over the earth, the earth is their domain. So the first thing to do is to pocket your egonot preserve it, but get rid of it as soon as possible!
You can be sure that the God youve created is a God of the ego whenever something within you insists, This is what I feel, this is what I think, this is what I see; its my way, my very ownits my way of being, my way of understanding, my relationship with the Divine, etc.
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have this experience when for some reason or other, depending on the case, you come into contact with the universal consciousness not in its limitless essence but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness, a purely material consciousness and an even more generally prevailing psychological consciousness. When, through interiorization or a sort of withdrawal from the ego you enter into contact with that zone of consciousness we can call psychological terrestrial or human collective (there is a difference: human collective is restricted, while terrestrial includes many animal and even plant vibrations; but in the present case, since the moral notion of guilt, sin and evil belongs exclusively to human consciousness, let us simply say human collective psychological consciousness); when you contact that through identification, you naturally feel or see or know yourself capable of any human movement whatsoever. To some extent, this constitutes a Truth-Consciousness, or at such times the egoistical sense of what does or doesnt belong to you, of what you can or cannot do, disappears; you realize that the fundamental construction of human consciousness makes any human being capable of doing anything. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, you are aware at the same time that to feel judgmental or disgusted or revolted would be an absurdity, for EVERYTHING is potentially there inside you. And should you happen to be penetrated by certain currents of force (which we usually cant follow: we see them come and go but we are generally unaware of their origin and direction), if any one of these currents penetrates you, it can make you do anything.
If one always remained in this state of consciousness, keeping alive the flame of Agni, the flame of purification and progress, then after some time, not only could one prevent these movements from taking an active form in oneself and becoming expressed physically, but one could act upon the very nature of the movement and transform it. Needless to say, however, that unless one has attained a very high degree of realization it is virtually impossible to keep this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately one falls back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self, and all the difficulties return: disgust, the revolt against certain things and the horror they create in us, and so on.
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It doesnt matter. fundamentally, it doesnt matter. Yesterday, while I was walking I was walking in a kind of universe that was EXCLUSIVELY the Divineit could be touched, felt: it was within, without, everywhere. For three-quarters of an hour, NOTHING but that, everywhere. Well, I can assure you, at that moment there were certainly no more problems! And what simplicitynothing to think about, nothing to want, nothing to decide: to BE, be, be! (Mother seems to dance) To be in the infinite complexity of a perfect unity: all was there but nothing was separate; all was in movement yet nothing changed place. Truly an experience.
When we become like that, it will be very easy.
0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Every word, mon petit! Every word and the POSITION of the word in the sentenceeven the position of an adverb has a fundamental importance for the meaning. All the finesse, all the profound wisdom evaporates in translation, and finally we express only platitudes by comparisonplatitudes. They are not platitudes compared to ordinary intellect, but they are platitudes compared to the kind of keen PRECISION with which Sri Aurobindo discerns things.
And the trouble is that if one translates literally, into poor French, it doesnt yield the deeper sense either, because that also considerably demolishes the meaning.
0 1961-06-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
fundamentally, I have noticed one thing: if you yourself are in the right state, the right atmosphere is immediately created. And in addition, I am always in a sort of not even a convictionan ABSOLUTE perception that all that happens is the Lords doing. When He makes me late going upstairs its because He wants me to be late, and consequently, if I take it wellif instead of closing myself and getting annoyed I say, Good, thats fineimmediately a very interesting atmosphere is created, because at the same time I see all the advantages of this change. But this movement must not be mentalit has to be spontaneous.
Therefore, I have told her (to put it simply): provided you are sincere in your attitude, all is well.
0 1961-09-03, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother does not reply directly to this question (although she would probably have answered in the affirmative, since the point is indeed to LIVE this supramental consciousness), but she does reply directly to what is BEHIND Satprem's question that is, this fundamental, deep-rooted assumption that physical life is the sole, concrete reality.
This conversation was interrupted before Mother could conclude.
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Seen from the European angle, Sri Aurobindo represents an immense spiritual revolution, redeeming Matter and the creation, which to the Christian religion is fundamentally a fallits really unclear how what has come from God could become so bad, but anyway, better not be too logical! its a fall. The creation is a fall. And thats why they are far more easily convinced by Buddhism. I saw this particularly with Richard, whose education was entirely in European philosophy, with Christian and positivist influences; under these two influences, when he came into contact with Theons cosmic philosophy and later Sri Aurobindos revelation, he immediately explained, in his Wherefore of the Worlds, that the world is the fruit of DesireGods desire. Yet Sri Aurobindo says (in simple terms), God created the world for the Joy of the creation, or rather, He brought forth the world from Himself for the Joy of living an objective life. This was Theons thesis too, that the world is the Divine in an objective form, but for him the origin of this objective form was the desire to be. All this is playing with words, you understand, but it turns out that in one case the world is reprehensible and in the other it is adorable! And that makes all the difference. To the whole European mind, the whole Christian spirit, the world is reprehensible. And when THAT is pointed out to them, they cant stand it.
So the very normal, natural reaction against this attitude is to negate the spiritual life: lets take the world as it is, brutally, materially, short and sweet (since it all comes to an end with this short life), lets do all we can to enjoy ourselves now, suffer as little as possible and not think of anything else. Having said that life is a condemned, reprehensible, anti-divine thing, this is the logical conclusion. Then what to do? We dont want to do away with life, so we do away with the Divine.
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mindto take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow termsruns riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
0 1962-05-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Striking though the parallel may be, there is still a fundamental difference between these mathematical concepts and Mothers experience. In the first case, we are dealing with conceptual instruments used by the human mind to better explain and master the world: no one has actually seen electromagnetic wavesnot to speak of gravitational ones! They are images, convenient models, invisible and nonexistent in themselves. They exist only through their effects: a beam of sunlight, which is an electromagnetic wave, strikes our retina and enables us to distinguish a flower; by means of gravitational waves, Newtons apple falls from the tree but no one has lived the reality of those waves. The way Mother grasps reality, on the contrary, is first and foremost through lived experience. She is the movement, she is the wave: I walk around the room, and that is what is walking. Here we touch upon a stupendous mystery and a formidable question: How is it possible for a material and cellular body to be the wave that at once constitutes and carries the worlds along in its infinite undulating movement and governs the existence of atoms and galaxies? How is it possible to be an infinite and ubiquitous electromagnetic wave while remaining within the narrow confines of a human body?
In being THAT, it might be said, Mother thus resolves the famous question of the unified-field theory, the theory to which Einstein devoted the last years of his life in vain, that would describe the movements of both planets and atoms in a single mathematical equation. Mothers body-consciousness is one with the movement of the universe, Mother lives the unified-field theory in her body. In so doing she opens up to us not merely one more physical theory, but the very path to a new species on earth, a species that will physically and materially live on the scale of the universe. The posthuman species might not simply be one with a few organs more or less, but rather one capable of being at every point in the universe. A sort of material ubiquity. It may not be so much a new as an ubiquitous species, a species that embraces everything, from the blade of grass under our feet to the far galaxies. A multifarious, undulating existence. A resume or epitome of evolution, really, which at the end of its course again becomes each point and each species and each movement of its own evolution.
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The old way of yoga failed to bring about the harmony or unity of Spirit and life: it instead dismissed the world as Maya [Illusion] or a transient Play. The result has been loss of life-power and the degeneration of India. As was said in the Gita, These peoples would perish if I did not do worksthese peoples of India have truly gone down to ruin. A few sannyasins and bairagis [renunciants] to be saintly and perfect and liberated, a few bhaktas [lovers of God] to dance in a mad ecstasy of love and sweet emotion and Ananda [Bliss], and a whole race to become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep tamas [inertia]is this the effect of true spirituality? No, we must first attain all the partial experiences possible on the mental level and flood the mind with spiritual delight and illumine it with spiritual light, but afterwards we must rise above. If we cannot rise above, to the supramental level, that is, it is hardly possible to know the worlds final secret and the problem it raises remains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of opposition between the Spirit and Matter, between truth of spirit and truth of life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes possible to fully know and fully realize Godto do what is said in the Gita, To know Me integrally. The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and the Ananda these are the spirits five levels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman [Absolute] but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, its fundamental principle.
This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that through me God will give to others the siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in Gods appointed time. I have no hasty or disorderly impulse to rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but Gods. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move.
--
The peculiarity of this yoga is that until there is siddhi above the foundation does not become perfect. Those who have been following my course had kept many of the old samskaras; some of them have dropped away, but others still remain. There was the samskara of Sannyasa, even the wish to create an Aravinda Math [Sri Aurobindo monastery]. Now the intellect has recognized that Sannyasa is not what is wanted, but the stamp of the old idea has not yet been effaced from the prana [breath, life energy]. And so there was next this talk of remaining in the midst of the world, as a man of worldly activities and yet a man of renunciation. The necessity of renouncing desire has been understood, but the harmony of renunciation of desire with enjoyment of Ananda has not been rightly seized by the mind. And they took up my Yoga because it was very natural to the Bengali temperament, not so much from the side of Knowledge as from the side of Bhakti and Karma [Works]. A little knowledge has come in, but the greater part has escaped; the mist of sentimentalism has not been dissipated, the groove of the sattwic bhava [religious fervor] has not been broken. There is still the ego. I am not in haste, I allow each to develop according to his nature. I do not want to fashion all in the same mould. That which is fundamental will indeed be one in all, but it will express itself in many forms. Everybody grows, forms from within. I do not want to build from outside. The basis is there, the rest will come.
What I am aiming at is not a society like the present rooted in division. What I have in view is a Samgha [community] founded in the spirit and in the image of its oneness. It is with this idea that the name Deva Samgha has been given the commune of those who want the divine life is the Deva Samgha. Such a Samgha will have to be established in one place at first and then spread all over the country. But if any shadow of egoism falls over this endeavor, then the Samgha will change into a sect. The idea may very naturally creep in that such and such a body is the one true Samgha of the future, the one and only centre, that all else must be its circumference, and that those outside its limits are not of the fold or even if they are, have gone astray, because they think differently.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother is referring to a letter of Sri Aurobindo's which Satprem had quoted in his manuscript: "... in the calm mind, it is the substance of the mental being that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace. Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even intensely and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillnessoriginating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage."
Cent. Ed., XXIII. 637.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That was the impression: a very localized disease (anyone can catch it, but its still very localized). While here, this conflict seems to have fundamentalLY disrupted somethingprofoundly. Is it because people THINK it may have a global consequence? I dont know. Or is it truly the first sign of something very very momentous?
(silence)
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.
0 1964-01-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The extreme acuteness of your difficulties is due to the yoga having come down against the bed-rock of Inconscience which is the fundamental basis of all resistance in the individual and in the world to the victory of the Spirit and the Divine Work that is leading toward that victory. The difficulties themselves are general in the Ashram as well as in the outside world.
The description follows. You would think it was happening now:
0 1965-09-18, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In his message of August 15, 1947, on the occasion of India's independence, Sri Aurobindo wrote: "...The old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India's internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under whatever form the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India's future."
Cent. Ed., 26.404-405
0 1965-12-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It corresponds to a sort of vibration the vibration received from people who hate. Its a vibration which is, so to say, fundamentally the same as the vibration of love. At its very bottom, there is the same sensation. Although on the surface its the opposite, it is supported by the same vibration. And we could say that we are just as much the slaves of what we hate as of what we lovemaybe even more. Its something that keeps hold of you, that obsesses you and which you cherish; a sensation you cherish, because beneath its violence there is a warmth of attraction as great as that which you feel for what you love. And it seems its only in the activity of the manifestation, that is to say, quite on the surface, that there is this distorted appearance.
You are obsessed by what you hate still more than by what you love. And the obsession stems from that inner vibration.
0 1966-08-31, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It wasnt personal. I told you how the true movement gets distorted, and I gave you examples. Very interesting examples because they dont look like much, but its something fundamental, in the sense that thats how Truth is turned into falsehood. And its so subtle that unless one has experienced it, mentally one cannot understand. What I explained to you was the experience, and there were two examples, which I told you in a very precise way now I dont remember the words.
You dont remember?
0 1967-04-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. Buddhism, Jainism, Illusionism were sufficient to sap all energy out of the country.
True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something else than matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere. That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in the muddle.
0 1967-09-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Even that apparently rather fundamental difference between those who regard the Manifestation as divine and essential and those who consider that in order to reach the essential Divine you must leave the Manifestation (because its an error that is, an error that took place in the Consciousness), even those two positions are the same thing! But how can you explain it? When you say that, it seems foolish, yet up above its true. Its truetrue and full. Its full, not hollowhere everything rings hollow, so hollow; the hollowness of inadequacy. But up above
Its almost like a kaleidoscope: you turn it and get one picture, turn it again and get another picture, turn it again yet its always the same thing!
0 1968-06-15, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, it gives increasingly a sense of the unreality the fundamental unrealityof illnesses. Thats what I say here [in the Talk]: its merely a disequilibrium. Its the habit of leaving it to a sort of impersonal collective will of the most material Nature, which organizes things IN THEIR APPEARANCE.
Thats the sort of work being done at present, these last few daysconstantly, constantly. The only moment when its not done is when I see people, because when I see people, theres only one thing left: the Lords Presence, and plunging them in that bath of the Lord. That goes on, its always there. So that even if, before [seeing people], there was a difficulty or struggle or conflict between the two states, and a will to hold on, at such times it goes away, because thats not the work then: the work is to plunge all those coming near into the Presence the immutable Presence, constant, active close.
0 1969-11-15, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What is the fundamental difference between the Ashrams ideal and Aurovilles?
There is no fundamental difference in the attitude with regard to the future and the service of the Divine.
But people in the Ashram are regarded as having dedicated their lives to the yoga (except naturally for the students, who are here only for their studies and who have not been asked to choose in life).
0 1971-04-28, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a fundamental flaw in all that, you know.
But how can that be?
0 1971-12-04, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If India is in danger, Pondicherry cannot be expected to remain outside the danger zone. It will share the fate of the rest of the country. The protection I can give is not unconditional. It is idle to hope that in spite of anything and everything, the protection will be there over all. My protection is there if conditions are fulfilled. It goes without saying that any sympathy or support for the Nazis (or for any ally of theirs) automatically cuts across the circle of protection. Apart from this obvious and external factor, there are more fundamental psychological conditions which demand fulfillment. The Divine can give protection only to those who are whole-heartedly faithful to the Divine, who live truly in the spirit of sadhana and keep their consciousness and preoccupation fixed upon the Divine and the service of the Divine. Desire, for example, insistence on ones likes and conveniences, all movements of hypocrisy and insincerity and falsehood, are great obstacles standing in the way of the Divines protection. If you seek to impose your will upon the Divine, it is as if you were calling for a bomb to fall upon you. I do not say that things are bound to happen in this way; but they are very likely to happen, if people do not become conscious and strictly vigilant and act in the true spirit of a spiritual seeker. If the psychological atmosphere remains the same as that of the outside world, there can be no wall of security against the dark Forces that are working out in it the ordeal of danger, suffering and destruction entering here.
The Mother
0 1971-12-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the problem is fundamental. It is not a question of bringing a new philosophy to the world or new ideas or illuminations, as they are called. The question is not of making the Prison of our lives more habitable, or of endowing man with ever more fantastic powers. Armed with his microscopes and telescopes, the human gnome remains a gnome, pain-ridden and helpless. We send rockets to the moon, but we know nothing of our own hearts. It is a question, says Sri Aurobindo, of creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the Supramental being in a new evolution.3 For, in actuality, he says, the imperfection of Man is not the last word of Nature, but his perfection too is not the last peak of the Spirit.4 Beyond the mental man we are, there exists the possibility of another being who will be the spearhead of evolution as man was once the spearhead of evolution among the great apes. If, says Sri Aurobindo, the animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man, man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god.5 Sri Aurobindo has come to tell us how to create this other being, this supramental being, and not only to tell us but actually to create this other being and open the path of the future, to hasten upon earth the rhythm of evolution, the new vibration that will replace the mental vibrationexactly as a thought one day disturbed the slow routine of the beastsand will give us the power to shatter the walls of our human prison.
Indeed, the prison is already starting to collapse. The end of a stage of evolution, announced by Sri Aurobindo, is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.6 Everywhere about us we see this paroxysmal shattering of all the old forms: our borders, our churches, our laws, our morals are collapsing on all sides. They are not collapsing because we are bad, immoral, irreligious, or because we are not sufficiently rational, scientific or human, but because we have come to the end of the human! To the end of the old mechanism for we are on our way to SOMETHING ELSE. The world is not going through a moral crisis but through an evolutionary crisis. We are not going towards a better worldnor, for that matter, towards a worse onewe are in the midst of a MUTATION to a radically different world, as different as the human world was from the ape world of the Tertiary Era. We are entering a new era, a supramental Quinary. We leave our countries, wander aimlessly, we go looking for drugs, for adventure, we go on strike here, enact reforms there, foment revolutions and counterrevolutions. But all this is only an appearance; in fact, unwittingly, we are looking for the new being. We are in the midst of human evolution.
0 1972-02-02, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is extremely important. An extremely important discovery. It was fundamental. It is WE, the distortion within OUR consciousness that changes into pain what in the divine Consciousness is perfect peace, and even joyan immutable joy, you know. Its fantastic. And Ive experienced this CONCRETELY. But its difficult to put into words.
***
0 1972-03-29a, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It may seem strange to speak of you in an Indian Ashram that one would consider far removed from the world and the agonizing problems and struggles of the Human Condition, but as a matter of fact Sri Aurobindos Ashram is concerned with this earthly life; it wants to transform it instead of fleeing it as all traditional Indian and Western religions do, forever proclaiming that His kingdom is not of this world. Knowing that there exists a fundamental reality beyond man, religions have focussed on that other realm to find the key to man just as your heroes focus on their death to discover the fundamental reality that will be able to stand in the face of death. But religion has not justified this life, except as a transition toward a Beyond which is supposedly the supreme goal; and your heroesthough so close to lifes throbbing heart that at times it seems to explode and reveal its poignant secretfinally plunge into death, as if to free themselves from an Absolute they cannot live in the flesh.
The young Indian students with whom I discuss your books understand perhaps better than Westerners the reason for all those bloody and apparently useless sacrifices the torments conflicts and revolts of your heroes condemned to death, the great Hunger that drives them beyond themselves for they know that these are like the contractions of childbirth, and that the thick shell of egoism, routine, conformism, intellectual and sentimental habits must be broken for the inner Divine to transpierce the surface of this life for the Divine is indeed WITHIN man, and life harbors its own hidden justification. Echoing the Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo tells us that The earth is His foothold. He also wrote, God is not only in the still small voice, but in the fire and the whirlwind.
--
At this crucial juncture in human evolution, Sri Aurobindo brings a luminous message to which I hope to draw your attention through this letter and the book I am taking the liberty of sending you. I think the youth of Europe have a profound need to hear a great voice that would bring them face to face with their fundamental truths; none can, better than you, touch that youth and awaken the anguished Occident.
I deeply hope, Sir, that Sri Aurobindos works will be a new source of inspiration for you.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing menaceeven though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstancesyet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that one has become sura, divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a definite pattern of qualities and activitiesgunakarma. Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence; by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated drive of all that we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out. It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras are bhogamaya purusha, beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admitsat times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if not wholly consciously that such is not the ideal way, that these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.
The outrages committed by Spain in America, the oppression of the Christians by Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment of Christians by Christians themselves (the inquisition, that is to say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were wrong and, in many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare with what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the world, we find that there is a difference between the two not only in degree, but in kind.One is an instance of the weakness of man, of his flesh being frail; the other illustrates the might of the Asura, his very spirit is unwilling. One is undivine; the other antidivine, positively hostile. They who cannot discern this difference are colour-blind: there are eyes to which all deeper shades of colour are black and all lighter shades white.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The absolute in its triple or triune status (not in its supreme being but as we see it prior to manifestation) is in essence and principle an infinity and unity. Indeed, it is the infinite unity, and its fundamental character is a supreme and utter equalitysamam brahma. It is then a status or statis, that is to say, a state of perfectly stable equilibrium in which there is no movement of difference or distinction, no ripple of high and low or ebb and flow, no mark of quantity or quality. It is a stilled sea of self-identity, a vast limitless or pure consciousness brooding in trance and immobility. And yet in the bosom of this ineffable and inviolable equality, in the very hush and lull there lies secreted an urge, a pressure, a possibility towards activity, variation and even an eventual inequality. For the presence and possibility of dynamism is posited by the very infinity of the Infinite, since without it, the Infinite would be incapable of motion, expression and fulfilment of its Force.
There is thus inherent in the vast inalienable equality of the absolute Reality, a Force which can bring out centres of pressure, nuclei of dynamism, nodes of modulation. It is precisely round these centres of precipitation that the original and basic unity crystallises itself and weaves a pattern of harmonious multiplicity. Consciousness, by self-pressure,tapas taptv turns its even and undifferentiated pristine equanimity into ripples and swirls, eddies and vortices of delight, matrices of creative activity. Thus the One becomes Many by a process of self-concentration and self-limitation.
At the very outset when and where the Many has come out into manifestation in the Onehere also it must be remembered that we are using a temporal figure in respect of an extra-temporal factthere and then is formed a characteristic range of reality which is a perfect equation of the one and the many: that is to say, the one in becoming many still remains the same immaculate one in and through the many, and likewise the many in spite of its manifoldnessand because of the special quality of the manifoldnessstill continues to be the one in the uttermost degree. It is the world of fundamental realities. Sri Aurobindo names it the Supermind or Gnosis. It is something higher than but distantly akin to Plato's world of Ideas or Noumena (ideai, nooumena) or to what Plotinus calls the first divine emanation (nous). These archetypal realities are realities of the Spirit, Idea-forces, truth-energies, the root consciousness-forms, ta cit, in Vedic terminology. They are seed-truths, the original mother-truths in the Divine Consciousness. They comprise the fundamental essential many aspects and formulations of an infinite Infinity. At this stage these do not come into clash or conflict, for here each contains all and the All contains each one in absolute unity and essential identity. Each individual formation is united with and partakes of the nature of the one supreme Reality. Although difference is born here, separation is not yet come. Variety is there, but not discord, individuality is there, not egoism. This is the first step of Descent, the earliest one-not, we must remind ourselves again, historically but psychologically and logically the descent of the Transcendent into the Cosmic as the vast and varied Supermindcitra praketo ajania vibhw of the Absolute into the relational manifestation as Vidysakti (Gnosis).
The next steps, farther down or away, arrive when the drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation increase in degree and emphasis. The lines of individuation fall more and more apart from each other, tending to form closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively to itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in the first instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is the level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the One and the Many is disturbed and the emphasis begins to be laid on the many. The source of incompatibility between the two just starts here as if Many is notOne and One is not Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still in the higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity is yet maintained, although there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of the two; they are experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward, yet the unity is also there supporting it-the unity is an immanent godhead, controlling the patent reality of the Many. It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that unity is thrown into the background half-submerged, flickering, and the principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does not disappear altogether, only it remains very much inactive, like a sleeping partner. It is not directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but is evoked as reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first crystallisation of the Infinite into individual centres, in the Overmind these centres at the outset become more exclusively individualised and then jealously self-centred.
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Today I will speak of one of the Vedic rishis. Some names of great Vedic rishis must have reached your earsVashishtha, Vishwamitra, Atri, Parasara, Kanwa (I do not know if it is the same Kanwa of whom Kalidasa speaks in his Shakuntala), Madhuchchanda. All of them are seers of mantra, hearers of mantra, creators of mantra; all of them occupy a large place in the Veda. Each one of them has his speciality, each one delivers a mantra that is in its tone, temper and style his own although the subject matter, the substance, the fundamental realisation is everywhere the same. For example, Vashishtha is characterised by a happy clarity, Vishwamitra has force and energy, Kutsa is sweetness, Dirghatama is well known for his oblique utterances, his paradoxical apopthegms.1
Today precisely it is of Dirghatama that we will speak. Dirghatama does not mean as the word would indicate to the layman, one who is verytalllaprmurmahbhuja in Kalidasa's phrase. Tama is not the superlative suffix (most), it istamas, darkness. So, from the name itself one may naturally expect that the person was not of an ordinary category. Indeed the amount of stories and legends that have been woven around the name is fantasticqueer, odd, unbelievable, impossible in every way. I need not open that chapter.
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About the Word, the mystery which Dirghatama unveils is an extraordinary revelationso curious, so illuminating. In later times many lines of spiritual discipline have adopted his scheme and spread it far and wide. Dirghatama himself was an uncommon wizard of words. The truths he saw and clothed in mantras have attained, as I have already said, general celebrity. He says: "The Word is off our categories. It has four stations or levels or gradations." The Rishi continues: "Three of them are unmanifested, unbodied; only the fourth one is manifest and bodied, on the tongue of man." This terminology embodying a fundamental principle has had many commentaries and explanations. Of these the most well-known is that given by the Tantras. They have named the fourfold words as (1) par, supreme; (2) payant, the seeing one; (3) madhyam, the middle one or the one within and (4) vaikhar, the articulate word. In modern language we may say that the first one is the self-vibration of the Supreme Being or Consciousness; the second is the vibration of the higher-mind or the pure intelligence; the third is the vibration of the inner heart; and the fourth the vibration of physical sound, of voice. In philosophical terms of current English we may name these as (1) revelatory, (2) intuitive, (3) inspirational and (4) vocal.
Now in conclusion I will just speak of the fundamental vision of the rishi. His entire realisation, the whole Veda of his life, he has, it appears, pressed into one single k We have heard it said that the entire range of all scriptures is epitomised in the Gita and the Gita' itself is epitomised in one slokasarvadharmn parityajya... Even so we may say that Rishi Dirghatama has summarised his experience, at least the fundamental basic one, and put it into a sutra. It is the famous k with which he opens his long hymn to Surya:
Lo, this delightful ancient Priest and Summoner; he has a second brother who is the devourer. There is a third brother with a dazzling luminous facetthere I saw the Master of the worlds along with his seven sons.8
This is again a sphinx puzzle indeed. But what is the meaning? The universe, the creation has its fundamental truth in a Trinity: Agni (the Fire-god) upon earth, Vayu (the Wind-god) in the middle regions and in heaven the Sun. In other words, breaking up the symbolism we may say that the creation is a triple reality, three principles constitute its nature. Matter, Life and Consciousness or status, motion and Light. This triplicity however does not exhaust the whole of the mystery. For the ultimate mystery is imbedded within the heart of the third brother, for our rishis saw there the Universal Divine Being and his seven sons. In our familiar language we may say it is the Supreme Being, God himself (Purushottama) and his seven lines of self-manifestation. We have often heard of the seven worlds or levels of being and consciousness, the seven chords of the Divine Music. In more familiar terms we say that body and life and mind form the lower half of the cosmic reality and its upper half consists of Sat-Chit-Ananda (or Satya- Tap as-Jana). And the link, the nodus that joins the two spheres is the fourth principle (Turya), the Supermind, Vijnana. Such is the vision of Rishi Dirghatama, its fundamental truth in a nutshell. To know this mystery is the whole knowledge and knowing this, one need know nothing else.
A word is perhaps necessary to complete the sense of the commentary. Agni has been called old and ancient (Palita), but why? Agni is the first among the gods. He has come down upon earth, entered into matter with the very creation of the material existence. He is the secret energy hidden in the atom which is attracting, invoking all the other gods to manifest themselves. It is he who drives the material consciousness in its evolutionary re-course upward towards the radiant fullness in the solar Supra-Consciousness at the summit. He is however not only energy, he is also delight (vma). For he is the Soma, the nectarous flow, occult in the Earth's body. For Earth is the storehouse of the sap of Life, the source of the delightful growths of Life here below.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fact is admitted, on the whole, unless one is a fundamentalist and prefers still to live in the consciousness of a bygone century. Difference comes in when the question of explanations and of viewpoints regarding them is raised. A materialist like Professor Broad would consider Mind and Life as fundamentally formations of Matter, however different they might seem from each other and from the latter. Water, the so-called miracle product of Oxygen and Hydrogen, according to him, is as material as these two; even so Life and Mind, however miraculously produced, being born of Matter, are nothing but the same single reality, only in different forms. Others, who are more or less idealists, Alexander and Lloyd Morgan, for example (some of them call themselves neo-realists, however), would not view the phenomenon in the same way. Alexander says that Matter and Life and Mind are very different from each other; they are truly emergents, that is to say, novelties; but how the thing has been possible, one need not inquire; one should accept the fact with natural piety.
Morgan proffers an explanation. He says that whatever there is, exists in God who is the all-continent. In fact, everything that is or was or shall be is in Him. And the evolutionary gradation expresses or puts in front, one by one, all the principles or types of existence that God holds in Himself. The explanation hardly explains. It simply posits the existence of Matter and Life and Mind and whatever is to come hereafter in the infinity of God, but the passage from one to another, the connecting link between two succeeding terms, and the necessity of the link, are left as obscure as before. Life is tagged on to Matter and Mind is tagged on to Life in the name of the Lord God.
02.04 - The Right of Absolute Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A nation cannot claim the right, even in the name of freedom, to do as it pleases. An individual has not that right, the nation too has not. A nation is a member of humanity, there are other members and there is the common welfare of all. A nation by choosing a particular line of action, in asserting its absolute freedom, may go against other nations, or against the general good. Such freedom has to be curbed and controlled. Collective lifeif one does not propose to live the life of the solitary the animal or the saintis nothing if not such a system of controls. "The whole of politics is an interference with personal liberty. Law is such an interference; protection is such an interference; the rule which makes the will of the majority prevail is such an interference. The right to prevent such use of personal liberty as will injure the interests of the race is the fundamental law of society. From this point of view the nation is only using its primary rights when it restrains the individual from buying or selling foreign goods." Thus spoke a great Nationalist leader in the days of Boycott and Swadeshi. What is said here of the individual can be said of the nation too in relation to the greater good of humanity. The ideal of a nation or state supreme all by itself, with rights that none can challenge, inevitably leads to the cult of the Super-state, the Master-race. If such a monster is not to be tolerated, the only way left is to limit the absolute value of nationhood, to view a nation only as a member in a comity of nations forming the humanity at large.
A nation not free, still in bondage, cannot likewise justify its claim to absolute freedom by all or any means, at all times, in all circumstances. There are times and circumstances when even an enslaved nation has to bide its time. Man, in order to assert his freedom and individuality, cannot sign a pact with Mephistopheles; if he does so he must be prepared for the consequences. The same truth holds with regard to the nation. A greater danger may attend a nation than the loss of freedom the life and soul of humanity itself may be in imminent peril. Such a cataclysmic danger mankind has just passed through or is still passing through. All nations, however circumstanced in the old world, who have stood and fought on the side of humanity, by that very gesture, have acquired the rightand the might too,to gain freedom and greatness and all good things which would not be possible otherwise.
02.07 - India One and Indivisable, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is no use laying stress on distinctions and differences: we must, on the contrary, put all emphasis upon the fundamental unity, upon the demand and necessity for a dynamic unity. Naturally there are diverse and even contradictory elements in the make-up of a modern nation. France, for example, was not one, but many to start with and for long. We know of the mortal feud between the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs and the struggle among the Barons generally, some even siding with foreigners against their own countrymen (an Indian parallel we have in the story of Prithwiraj and Jayachand), poor Jeanne d'Arc lamenting over the 'much pity' that was in sweet France. There were several rival languagesBreton, Gascon, Provenal, besides the French of Isle de France. Apart from these provincial or regional rivalries there were schisms on religious groundsHuguenots and Catholics, Jansenists and Arians were flying at each other's throat and made of France a veritable bedlam of confusion and chaos. Well, all that was beaten down and smoothed under the steam-roller of a strong centralised invincible spirit of France, one and indivisible and inexorable, that worked itself out through Jeanne d'Arc and Francis the First and Henry the Great and Richelieu and Napoleon. But all nations have the same story. And it is too late now in the day to start explaining the nature and origin of nationhood; it was done long ago by Mazzini and by Renan and once for all.
Indeed, what we see rampant in India today is the mediaeval spirit. This reversion to an olderan extinct, we ought to have been able to saytype of mentality is certainly a fall, a lowering of the collective consciousness. It bas got to be remedied and set right. Whatever the motive forces that lie at the back of the movement, motives of fear or despair or class interest or parochial loyalty, motives of idealism, misguided and obscurantist, they have to be taken by the horns and dominated and eliminated. A breath of modernism, some pure air of clear perception and knowledge and wider consciousness must blow through the congested hectic atmosphere of the Indian body politic.
02.11 - Hymn to Darkness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
He names her Douve, perhaps in memory of his first master Jouve, and addresses her as Sombre Lumire (Dark Light). He evidently means his poetic inspiration; his vision of the other shore is that of the world of his poetic experiences and realisations. But the nature of the contents of that world is very characteristic. They are apparently qualities and objects fundamentally spiritualtransparent fire and even motionless silence. Yes, that world is of wind and fire (compare our world of Tapas) and yet calm and tranquil. So the poet sings:
Douve sera ton nom au loin parmi les pierres,
02.12 - The Ideals of Human Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A different type of wider grouping is also being experimented upon nowadays, a federal grouping of national units. The nation is taken in this system as the stable indivisible fundamental unit, and what is attempted is a free association of independent nations that choose to be linked together because of identity of interests or mutual sympathy in respect of ideal and culture. The British Empire is a remarkable experiment on this line: it is extremely interesting to see how an old-world Empire is really being liquidated (in spite of a Churchill) and transformed into a commonwealth of free and equal nations. America too has been attempting a Pan-American federation. And in continental Europe, a Western and an Eastern Block of nations seem to be developing, not on ideal lines perhaps at present because of their being based upon the old faulty principle of balance of power hiding behind it a dangerously egoistic and exclusive national consciousness; but that may change when it is seen and experienced that the procedure does not pay, and a more natural and healthier approach may be adopted.
Now out of this complex of forces and ideals, what seems to stand out clearly is this: (i) the family unit remains for practical purposes,whatever breaking or modification affects its outward forms, the thing seems to be a permanent feature of life organization; (ii) the nation too has attained a firm stability and inviolability; it refuses to be broken or dissolved and in any larger aggregate that is formed this one has to be integrated intact as a living unit. The other types of aggregates seem to be more in the nature of experiments and temporary necessities; when they have served their purpose they fade and disappear or are thrown into the background and persist as vestigial remains. It seems to us that the clan, the tribe, the race are such formations. Regionalism, Imperialism (political, economic or religious) are also not stable aggregates.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A social organization must have two fundamental objects. The central purpose is to serve and help the individual. That is the first thing to be remembered. Organization for the sake of organization is not the end. Organization for the sake of perpetuating a system, however laudable it may be, is not the end either. It is, as I say, by the service that an organization renders to its individual members, and not merely by its mechanical order and efficiency that it is to be judged. This service, I have said, is twofold. First, each individual must find his proper vocation: the right man in the right place. The function of each man must be in accordance with his nature and character. Secondly, each person, while fulfilling his Dharma, (that is the right word) must be trained, must have the opportunity to grow and increase in his being and consciousness. First of all, a prosperous, at least an adequately equipped outer life, and then as adequate a lebensraum for the inner personality to have its free and full play and expression.
A totalitarian equality takes men as blocks or chunks of wood and also cuts and clips them as such whenever and wherever needed, thrusts them indiscriminately into any nook and corner of the social framework for the sake of its upkeep and maintenance. It is something that is characteristic of a modern armythoroughly mechanisedin which men are not different from the nuts and bolts of a machine, all forming a stream-lined massive unity, where persons and individuals as such have no value or consideration, they are dumb and almost dead materials and when worn out just simply to be replaced by others. If it is to be compared to any living thing, we can think of only the regimentation that obtains in an ant-hill or a bee-hive.
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fundamentally all human society is built upon this pattern which is psychological and which seems to be Nature's own life-plan. There is always this fourfold stratification or classification of members in any collective human grouping: the Intellectual (taken in the broadest sense) or the Intelligentsia, the Military, the Trader and the Labourer. In the earlier civilisationswhen civilisation was being formedespecially in the East, it ,was the first class that took precedence over the rest and was especially honoured; for it is they who give the tone and temper and frame of life in the society. In later epochs, in the mediaeval age for example, the age of conquerors and conquistadors, and of Digvijaya, man as the warrior, the Kshattriya, the Samurai or the Chivalry was given the place of honour. Next came the age of traders and merchants, and the industrial age with the invention of machines. Today the labourer is rising in his turn to take the prime place.
As we have said, a normally healthy society is a harmonious welding of these four elements. A society becomes diseased when only one member gets inflated and all-powerful at the expense of others or whenever there is an unholy alliance of some against the rest. Priest-craft, the Church militant, Fanaticism (religious or ideological), Inquisition are corruptions that show themselves when the first principle, the principle of Brahminhood, becomes exclusive and brings in arrogance and ignorance. Similarly colonisation and imperialism of the type only too familiar to us are aberrations of the spirit that the second principle embodies the spirit of the Kshattriya. Likewise financial cartels, the industrial magnates, the profiteer, the arriviste are diseased growths in the economic body of a modern society which has forgotten the true Vaishya spirit that seeks to produce wealth in order to share and distribute fairly and equitably. The remedy of these ills society has suffered from is not the introduction of a fourth evil, the tyranny of the Fourth Estate of the proletariate. The Fourth was reduced, it is true, to a state of slavery and serfdom, of untouchability, at its reductio ad absurdum. The cure, we say, is not in blind revolt and an inauguration of the same evil under a new name and form, which means its perpetuation, but in the creation of a new life and soul, that can happen only with the creation of a new head and front Zeus-like that would give birth to the goddess of light and knowledge, inspirer of a true Brahminhood.
02.14 - Panacea of Isms, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, Communism is best taken as a symptom of the disease society suffers from and not as a remedy. The disease is a twofold bondage from which man has always been trying to free himself. It is fundamentally the same "bondage which the great French Revolution sought most vigorously and violently to shake offan economic and an ideological bondage, that is to say, translated in the terms of those days, the tyranny of the court and the nobility and the tyranny of the Church. The same twofold bondage appears, again today combated by Communism, viz., Capitalism and Bourgeoisie. Originally and essentially, however, Communism meant an economic system in which there is no personal property, all property being held in common. It is an ideal that requires a good deal of ingenuity to be worked out in all details, to say the least. Certain religious sects within restricted membership tried the experiment. Indeed some kind of religious mentality is required, a mentality freed from normal mundane reactions, as a preliminary condition in order that such an attempt might be successful. A perfect or ideal communism may be possible only when man's character and nature has undergone a thorough and radical change. Till then it will be a Utopia passing through various avatars.
Socialism
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Humanism proper was bornor rebornwith the Renaissance. It was as strongly and vehemently negative and protestant in its nature as it was positive and affirmative. For its fundamental character that which gave it its very namewas a protest against, a turning away from whatever concerned itself with the supra-human, with God or Self, with heaven or other worlds, with abstract or transcendental realities. The movement was humanistic precisely because it stood against the theological and theocratical mediaeval age.
The Graeco-Latin culture was essentially and predominantly humanistic. Even so, the mediaeval culture also, in spite of its theological stress, had a strong basis in humanism. For the religion itself, as has been pointed out, is deeply humanistic, in the sense that it brought salvation and heaven close to the level of human frailtythrough the miracle of Grace and the humanity of Christand that it envisaged a kingdom of heaven or city of God the body of Christformed of the brotherhood of the human race in its solidarity.
03.01 - The Evolution of Consciousness, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In my explanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a spiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the mental, into the Supramental consciousness and the Supramental being, the Truth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an ignorance seeking for knowledge; it is only the Supramental
Truth-Consciousness that can bring us the true and whole SelfKnowledge and world-Knowledge; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and the fulfilment of our spiritual evolution.
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Consciousness is a fundamental thing, it is the fundamental thing in existence - it is the energy, the action, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it
- not only the macrocosm, but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance when consciousness in its movement, or rather a certain stress of movement, forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently "unconscious" energy; when it forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality it is still consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as the animal, as man and it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become something more than mere man.
03.01 - The Malady of the Century, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have sought to increase our consciousness, but away from the centre of consciousness; so what we have actually gained is not an increase, in the sense of a growth or elevation of consciousness, but an accumulation of consciousnesses, that is to say, many forms and external powers or applications of consciousness. A multiplicity of varied and independent movements of consciousness that jostle and hurt and limit one another, because they are not organized round a fundamental unity, forms the personality of the modern man, which is therefore tending to become on the whole more and more ill-balanced and neuras thenic and attitudinizing, in comparison with the simpler and less equivocal temperament that mankind had in the past. And a good part of the catholicity or liberalism or toleration that appears to be more in evidence in the present-day human consciousness is to be attributed not so much to the sense of unity or identity, that is the natural and inevitable outcome of a real growth in consciousness, but rather to the doubt and indecision and hesitation, to the agnosticism and dilettantism and cynicism of a pluralistic consciousness.
Cut away from the soul, from the central fount of its being, the human consciousness has been, as it were, desiccated and pulverized; it has been thrown wholly upon its multifarious external movements and bears the appearance of a thirsty shifting expanse of desert sands.
03.02 - Aspects of Modernism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Science indeed gave a very decided turn to the slowly advancing humanity. It brought with it something that meant in the march of evolution a saltum, a leap wide and clear; it landed man all of a sudden into a new world, a new state of consciousness. It is this state of consciousness, the fundamental way of being, inculcated by the scientific spirit that is of capital importance and possesses a survival value. It is not the content of Science, but its intent, not its riches, but its secret inspiration, its motive power, that will give us a right understanding of the change it has effected. The material aspect of the event has lost much of its value; the mechanical inventions and discoveries, bringing in their train a revolution in the external organization of life, have become a matter of course, and almost a matter of the past. But the reactions set up in the consciousness itself, the variations brought about in the very stuff and constitution of life still maintain a potency for the future and are to be counted.
The scientific spirit, in one word, is rationalisationrationalisation of Mind as well as of Life. With regard to Mind, rationalisation means to get knowledge exclusively on the data of the senses; it is the formulation, in laws and principles, of facts observed by the physical organs, these laws and principles being the categories of the arranging, classifying, generalising faculty, called reason; its methodology also demands that the laws are to be as few as possible embracing as many facts as possible. Rationalisation of life means the government of life in accordance with these laws, so that the wastage in natural life due to the diversity and disparity off acts may be eliminated, at least minimised, and all movements of life ordered and organised in view of a single and constant purpose (which is perhaps the enhancement of the value of life). This rationalisation means further, in effect, mechanisation or efficiency, as its protagonists would prefer to call it. However, mechanistic efficiency, whether in the matter of knowledge or of lifeof mind or of morals was the motto of the early period of the gospel of science, the age of Huxley and Haeckel, of Bentham and the Mills. The formula no longer holds good either in the field of pure knowledge or in its application to life; it does not embody the aspiration and outlook of the contemporary mind, in spite of such inveterate rationalists as Russell and Wells or even Shaw (in Back to Methuselah, for example), who seem to be already becoming an anachronism in the present age.
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Consciousness has two primary movements. In one it penetrates, enters straight into the heart of things; in the other it spreads out, goes about and round the object. The combination of the two powers is a rarity; ordinarily man follows the one to the exclusion of the other. The modern age in its wide curiosity has neglected the penetrative and intensive movement and is therefore marred by superficiality. It is eager to go over the entire panorama of creation at one glance, if that is possible, to have a telescopic view of things; but it has been able to take in only the surface, the skin, the crust. Even the entrance into the world of atoms and cellsof protons and electrons, of chromosomes and genesis not really a penetrative or intensive movement. It is only another form of the movement of pervasion or extension: it is still a going abroad, only on another line, in a different direction, but always fundamentally on the same horizontal plane. The microscope is only an inverted telescope. Our instruments are the external mind and senses and these move laterally and have not the power to leap on to a different level of vision. The earlier ages of mankind, narrow and circumscribed in many respects, possessed nevertheless that intensive and in-gathering movement, which is a kind of movement in the fourth dimension; it was a sixth sense leading into the Behind or Beyond of things.
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03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In a general way we may perhaps say, without gross error, that every man has the right to become a poet, a scientist or a politician. But when the question rises in respect of a particular person, then it has to be seen whether that person has a natural ability, an inherent tendency or aptitude for the special training so necessary for the end in view. One cannot, at will, develop into a poet by sheer effort or culture. He alone can be a poet who is to the manner born. The same is true also of the spiritual life. But in this case, there is something more to take into account. If you enter the spiritual path, often, whether you will or not, you come in touch with hidden powers, supra-sensible forces, beings of other worlds and you do not know how to deal with them. You raise ghosts and spirits, demons and godsFrankenstein monsters that are easily called up but not so easily laid. You break down under their impact, unless your adhr has already been prepared, purified and streng thened. Now, in secular matters, when, for example, you have the ambition to be a poet, you can try and fail, fail with impunity. But if you undertake the spiritual life and fail, then you lose both here and hereafter. That is why the Vedic Rishis used to say that the ear then vessel meant to hold the Soma must be properly baked and made perfectly sound. It was for this reason again that among the ancients, in all climes and in all disciplines, definite rules and regulations were laid down to test the aptitude or fitness of an aspirant. These tests were of different kinds, varying according to the age, the country and the Path followedfrom the capacity for gross physical labour to that for subtle perception. A familiar instance of such a test is found in the story of the aspirant who was asked again and again, for years together, by his Teacher to go and graze cows. A modern mind stares at the irrelevancy of the procedure; for what on earth, he would question, has spiritual sadhana to do with cow-grazing? In defence we need not go into any esoteric significance, but simply suggest that this was perhaps a test for obedience and endurance. These two are fundamental and indispensable conditions in sadhana; without them there is no spiritual practice, one cannot advance a step. It is absolutely necessary that one should carry out the directions of the Guru without question or complaint, with full happiness and alacrity: even if there comes no immediate gain one must continue with the same zeal, not giving way to impatience or depression. In ancient Egypt among certain religious orders there was another kind of test. The aspirant was kept confined in a solitary room, sitting in front of a design or diagram, a mystic symbol (cakra) drawn on the wall. He had to concentrate and meditate on that figure hour after hour, day after day till he could discover its meaning. If he failed he was declared unfit.
Needless to say that these tests and ordeals are mere externals; at any rate, they have no place in our sadhana. Such or similar virtues many people possess or may possess, but that is no indication that they have an opening to the true spiritual life, to the life divine that we seek. Just as accomplishments on the mental plane,keen intellect, wide studies, profound scholarship even in the scriptures do not entitle a man to the possession of the spirit, even so capacities on the vital plane,mere self-control, patience and forbearance or endurance and perseverance do not create a claim to spiritual realisation, let alone physical austerities. In conformity with the Upanishadic standard, one may not be an unworthy son or an unworthy disciple, one may be strong, courageous, patient, calm, self-possessed, one may even be a consummate master of the senses and be endowed with other great virtues. Yet all this is no assurance of one's success in spiritual sadhana. Even one may be, after Shankara, a mumuksu, that is to say, have an ardent yearning for liberation. Still it is doubtful if that alone can give him liberation into the divine life.
03.03 - Arjuna or the Ideal Disciple, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What makes a true disciple? For it is not everyone that can claim or be worthy of or meet the demands of the title. Disciplehood, like all great qualities, that is to say, qualities taken at their source and origin, is a function of the soul. Indeed, it is the soul itself coming up and asking for it'! native divine status; it is the call of the immortal in the mortal, the voice of the inmost being rising above the clamours and lures of the world, above the hungers and ties of one's own nature. When that rings out clear and unmistakable, the Divine reveals Himself as the Guru, the Path is shown and the initiation given. Even such a cry was Arjuna's when he said: iyaste ham sdhi mm twam prapannamit is a most poignant utterance in which the whole being bursts forth as it were, and delivers itself of all that it needs and of all that it gives. It needs the Illumination: it can no longer bear the darkness and confusion of Ignorance in which it is entangled; and it gives itself whole and entire, absolutely and without reserve, throws itself simply at the mercy of the Divine. Arjuna fulfils, as very few can so completely, the fundamental conditions the sine qua nonof discipleship.
A certain modern critic, however, demurs. He asks why Arjuna was chosen in preference to Yudhisthira and doubts the wisdom and justice of the choice (made by Sri Krishna or the author of the Gita). Is not the eldest of the Pandavas also the best? He possesses in every way a superior dhra. He has knowledge and wisdom; he is free from passions, calm and self-controlled; he always acts according to the dictates of what is right and true. He is not swayed by the impulses of the moment or by considerations relating to his personal self; serene and unruffled he seeks to fashion his conduct by the highest possible standard available to him. That is why he is called dharmarja. If such a one is not to be considered as an ideal disciple, who else can be?
03.03 - Modernism - An Oriental Interpretation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the past we used to see the world, experience and express life, mainly if not exclusively, in terms of the mind and the heart. These were the two fundamental categories or basic forms in and through which we built up our universe. It was our ideas and ideals, our notions and conceptions, our imagination and sentiment that viewed and interpreted, guided and shaped our earthly existence and creativity. Whether morally or esthetically, the domination of the mind and the heart over life was the characteristic stamp of the movement of the human spirit in the past.
Modernism means the release of life from this subjugation; it means the expression of life's own truths in its own way, life's self-determination: that is the great endeavour and achievement of today. It was a rationalised, emotionalised, idealised life that man sought to live and create yesterday; his art too consisted in showing life through that mask and veil, because it considered that that was the way to bring out the beautiful in life.
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But there is a point of doubt. Two different and distinct entities, in order to be complementary, must first of all be commensurable; that is to say, both must belong to the same order of reality, there must lie between them something fundamentally common which would give them a similar mode of being, a parallel rhythm of movement. Otherwise, two entities that are not only different but disparate can never be brought together to complement each other.
So it is contended by some dissident voices that Europe and Asia are, as a matter of fact, different and disparate and incommensurable bodies they belong to categories that are as poles asunder; and therefore the twain can and shall never merge nor meet. For Europe, on the one hand, with her materialistic and mechanistic culture, forms one indivisible unity, her entire life in its manifold expression is moulded according to a definite pattern, forming a closed circle; on the other hand, Asia basing herself upon the spiritual and the other world has in quite a different way fashioned an altogether different culture-complex. One cannot take some spiritual element out of Asiatic culture and mix it with some profane element extracted from European culture, serving the product to humanity as its universal Ideal. The details the multitudinous forms and forces that make up an integral whole are irrevocably determined by a basic intuition which is the soul of that integrality; the entire edifice is a compact unityeach piece of brick, every bit of space is in its own place and has its own function by virtue of a dominant, a compelling Idea. Like an object of art, even like a living organism, a "body cultural" is inviolable in its self-sufficient and jealous completeness.
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Herein lay Europe's soul; and to it turned often and anon the gaze of those who, among a profane humanity, are still the guardians of the Spiritpoets and artistswho, even in the very midst of the maelstrom of Modernism, sought to hark back, back to the rock of the ages. The mediaevalism and archaicism of which a Rossetti or a Morris, for example, is often accused embodies only a defensive reaction on the part of Europe's soul; it is an attempt to return to her more fundamental life-intuition.
In this connection the history of Ireland's destiny affords an instructive study, since it is symbolic also of Europe's life-course. It was the natural idealism, the inborn spiritual outlook which Ireland possessed of yore the Druidic Mysteries were more ancient than the Greek culture and formed perhaps the basis of the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysterieswhich impelled her foremost to embrace the new revelation brought on by Christianity. As she was among the pioneers to champion the cause of the Christ, she became also the fortress where the new cult found a safe refuge when the old world was being overwhelmed and battered to pieces by the onrush of peoples of a dense and rough-hewn nature. When continental Europe lay a desert waste under the heels of the barbarians that almost wiped away the last vestiges of the Classical Culture, it was Ireland who nursed and reared the New Child in her bosom and when the time came sent Him out again to reconquer and revivify Europe. Once more when the tide of Modernism began to rise and swell and carry everything before it, Ireland stood firm and threw up an impregnable barrier. The story of Ireland's struggle against Anglo-Saxon domination is at bottom the story of the struggle between Europe's soul power and body power. Ireland was almost slain in the combat, physically, but would not lose her soul. And now she rises victorious at long last, her ancient spirit shines resplendent, the voice of the Irish Renaissance that speaks through Yeats and Russell1 heralds a new dawn for her and who knows if not for Europe and the whole West?
Is it meant that "Mediaeval obscurantism" was Europe's supreme ideal and that the cry should be: "Back to the Dark Age, into the gloom of Mystic superstitions and Churchian dogmas?" Now, one cannot deny that there was much of obscurantism and darkness in that period of Europe's evolution. And the revolt launched against it by the heralds of the Modern Age was inevitable and justified to some extent; but to say that unadulterated superstition was what constituted the very substance of Middle Age Culture and that the whole thing was more or less a nightmare, is only to land into another sort of superstition and obscurantism. The best when corrupt does become the worst. The truth of the matter is that in its decline the Middle Age clung to and elaborated only the formal aspect of its culture, leaving aside its inner realisation, its living inspiration. The Renaissance was a movement of reaction and correction against the lifeless formalism, the dry scholasticism of a decadent Middle Age; it sought to infuse a new vitality, by giving a new outlook and intuition to Europe's moribund soul. But, in fact, it has gone a little too far in its career of correction. In its violent enthusiasm to pull down the worn-out edifice of the past and to build anew for the future, it has almost gone to the length of digging up the solid foundation and erasing the fundamental ground-plan upon which Europe's real life and culture reposed and can still safely repose.
If then Europe can cut across the snares that Modernism has spread all about her and get behind the surface turmoils and ebullitions and seek that which she herself once knew and esteemed as the one thing needful, then will she really see what the East means, then only will she find the bond of indissoluble unity with Asia. For the Truth that Europe carried in her bosom is much bigger than anything she ever suspected even in her best days. And she carried it not with the full illumination and power of a Master, but rather in the twilight consciousness of a servant or a devotee. The Truth in its purity flowed there for the most part much under the main current of life, and its formulations in life were not its direct expressions and embodiments but echoes and images. It is Asia who grasps the Truth with the hand of the Master, the Truth in its full and absolute truth and it is Asia who can show in fact and life how to embody it integrally.
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
On the other hand, although difficult, it may not prove impossible to cast the nature, character and reactions of the aggregate into the mould prepared out of spiritual realities by those who have realised and lived them. Some theocratic social organisations, at least for a time, during the period of their apogee illustrate the feasibility of such a consummation. Only, in the present age, when all foundations seem to be shaking, when all principles on which we stood till now are crumbling down, when even fundamentalsthose that were considered as suchcan no more give assurance, well, in such a revolutionary age, one has perforce to be radical and revolutionary to the extreme: we have to go deep down and beyond, beyond the shifting sands of more or less surface realities to the un-shaking bed-rock, the rock of ages.
And India is pre-eminently fitted to discover this pattern of spiritual values and demonstrate how our normal lifeindividual and collectivecan be moulded and built according to that pattern. It has been India's special concern throughout the millenaries of her history to know and master the one thing needful (tamevaikam jnatha tmnam any vaco vimucatha), knowing which one knows all (tasmin vijte sarvam vijtam). She has made countless experiments in that line and has attained countless achievements. Her resurgence can be justified and can be inevitable only if she secures the poise and position which will enable her to impart to the world this master secret of life, this art of a supreme savoir vivre. A new India in the old way of the nations of the world, one more among the already too many has neither sense nor necessity. Indeed, it would be the denial of what her soul demands and expects to be achieved and done.
03.05 - Some Conceptions and Misconceptions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's view is different. It is something like this I am putting the thing as simply as possible, without entering into details or mysteries that merely confuse the brain. The Absolute Reality contains all, nothing can be outside it, pain and sin and all; true. But these do not exist as such in the supreme status, they are resolved each into its ultimate and fundamental force of consciousness. When we say I all things, whatever they are, exist in the Divine Consciousness, the Absolute, we have an idea that they exist there as they do here as objects or entities; it goes without saying, they do not. Naturally we have to make a distinction between things of Knowledge and things of Ignorance. Although there is a gradation between the twoKnowledge rolls or wraps itself gradually into Ignorance and Ignorance unrolls or unfolds itself slowly into Knowledgestill in the Divine Consciousness things of Knowledge alone exist, things of Ignorance cannot be said to exist there on the same title, because, as I have said, the original truths of things alone are therenot their derivations and deformations. One can say, indeed, that in the supreme Light darkness exists as a possibility; but this is only a figure of speech. Possibility does not mean that it is there like a seedor even a chromosome rodto sprout and grow. Possibility really means just a chance of the consciousness acting in a certain way, developing in a particular direction under certain conditions.
Matter exists in the absolute Consciousness, not as Matter but as its fundamental substratum, as that radical mode of being or consciousness which by the devolution of consciousness and the interaction of Knowledge and Ignorance in the end works itself out as Matter. So also with regard to Life and with regard to Mind. If things are to exist in the highest status of consciousness, the Divine Consciousness, exactly as they exist now, there would be no point or meaning in creation or manifestation. Manifestation or creation does not mean merely unveiling or unrolling in the sense of unpacking. It means a gradual shift in the stress of consciousness, giving it a particular mode of action.
The unrolling or Involution is the path traced by consciousness in its changing modes of concentration. The principle of concentration is inherent in consciousness. Sri Aurobindo speaks of four modes or degrees of this concentration: (I) the essential, (2) the integral, (3) the total or global and (4) the separative. The first is a sole in-dwelling or an entire absorption in the essence of its own being it is the superconscient Silence, at one end, and the Inconscience, at the other. The second is the total Sachchidananda, the supramental concentration; the third, multiple or totalising overmental awareness; the fourth is the concentration of Ignorance. All the four, however, form the integral play of one indivisible consciousness.
03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is it that we precisely mean when we say that India is spiritual? For, that is how we are accustomed to express India's special geniusher backbone, as Vivekananda puts it the fundamental note of her culture and nature, which distinguishes her from the rest of the world. What then are the distinguishing marks of spirituality? How does a spiritual collectivity live and movekim sita vrajeta kim? And do we find its characteristic gait and feature exclusively or even chiefly in India?
Was not Europe also in her theocratic and mediaeval ages as largely spiritual and as fundamentally religious as India? Churches and cathedrals and monasteries grew like mushrooms in every nook and corner, in all the countries of Europe; it was the clergy who, with their almost unbounded influence and power, moulded and guided the life and aspiration of the people; devotion to God and love of prayer and pilgrimage were as much in the nature of the average European of those times as they are in any Indian of today; every family considered it a duty and an honour to rear up one child at least to be consecrated to the service of God and the Church. The internal as well as the external life of the men of mediaeval Europe was steeped through and through in a religious atmosphere.
The whole world, in fact, was more or less religious in the early stages of its evolution; for it is characteristic of the primitive nature of man to be god-fearing and addicted to religious rite and ceremony. And Europe too, when she entered on a new cycle of life and began to reconstruct herself after the ruin of the Grco-Latin culture, started with the religion of the Christ and experimented with it during a long period of time. But that is what wasTroja fuit. Europe has outgrown her nonage and for a century and a half, since the mighty upheaval of the French Revolution, she has been rapidly shaking off the last vestiges of her mediaevalism. Today she stands clean shorn of all superstition, which she only euphemistically calls religion or spirituality. Not Theology but Science, not Revelation but Reason, not Magic but Logic, not Fiction but Fact, governs her thoughts and guides her activities. Only India, in part under the stress of her own conservative nature, in part under compelling circumstances, still clings to her things of the past, darknesses that have been discarded by the modern illumination. Indian spirituality is nothing but consolidated mediaevalism; it has its companion shibboleth in the cry, "Back to the village" or "Back to the bullock-cart"! One of the main reasons, if not the one reason why India has today no place in the comity of nations, why she is not in the vanguard of civilisation, is precisely this obstinate atavism, this persistent survival of a spirit subversive of all that is modern and progressive.
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Thus Religion and Spirituality, two fundamental categories that form one realm when held up in opposition to Materialism, are, when considered by themselves, really very different things and may be even contradictory to and destructive of each other. What then is Religion? and what, on the other hand, is Spirituality? Religion starts from and usually ends with a mental and emotional approach to realities beyond the mind; Spirituality goes straight forward to direct vision and communion with the Beyond. Religion labours to experience and express the world of Spirit in and through a turn, often a twist, given by the mental beingmanuin man; it bases itself upon the demands of the mental, the vital and the physical complex the triple nexus that forms the ordinary human personality and seeks to satisfy them under a holier garb. Spirituality knows the demands of the Spirit alone; it lives in a realm where the body, the life and the mind stand uplifted and transmuted into their utter realities. Religion is the human way of approaching and enjoying the Divine; Spirituality is the divine way of meeting the Divine. Religion, as it is usually practised, is a special art, one the highest it may be, still only oneamong many other pursuits that man looks to for his enjoyment and fulfilment; but spirituality is nothing if it does not swallow up the entire man, take in his each and every preoccupation and new-create it into an inevitable expression of its own master truth. Religion gives us a moral discipline for the internal consciousness, and for the external life, a code of conduct based upon a system of rules and rites and ceremonies; spirituality aims at a revolution in the consciousness and in the being.
Keeping this difference in view, we may at once point out that Europe, when she is non-materialist, is primarily religious and only secondarily spiritual, but India is always primarily spiritual and only secondarily religious. The vein of real spirituality in European culture runs underground and follows narrow and circuitous by-paths; rarely does it appear on the top in sudden and momentary flashes and even then only to dive back again into its subterranean hiding-place; upon the collective life and culture it acts more as an indirect influence, an auxiliary leaven than as a direct and dynamic Force. In India there is an abundance, a superfluity even, of religious paraphernalia, but it is the note of spirituality that rings clear and high above all lesser tones and wields a power vivid and manifest. We could say in terms of modern Biology that spirituality tends to be a recessive character in European culture, while in India, it is dominant.
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That is not to say that other peoples of the world are soulless, and that India alone may claim to possess the treasure. But no other people has lived so much in and from the soul, none other has sacrificed so much for the sake of this one thing needful. The soul-consciousness in other nations lies veiled behind the more pressing activities and immediate occupations of the external nature; at the most, what is characteristic in them is the soul, not in its pure and fundamental being, but expressed, and therefore encased and limited, within some particular mode of becoming. In India, on the other hand, the external activities and operations have never altogether swamped or clouded this soul-consciousness; they have been either subjugated to it as minor auxiliaries or totally sacrificed as obstacles. The Indian's soul is not imbedded in some far-off region of his unconscious nature; he has succeeded in raising it up and bringing it forward to the level of his waking consciousnessas the gold-tusked Divine Boar lifted the Earth out of the dark depths of the primeval deluge to the light of the Day.
The French, for example, have developed as a people a special characteristic and mental turn that has set its pervading impress upon their culture and civilisation, upon their creations and activities; that which distinguishes them is a fine, clear and subtle, rational, logical, artistic and literary mind. France, it has often been said, is the head of modern Europe. The Indians are not in the same way a predominantly intellectual race, in spite of the mighty giants of intellect India has always produced, and still produces. Nor are they a literary race, although a rich and grandiose literature, unrivalled in its own great qualities, is their patrimony. It was the few, a small minority, almost a closed circle, that formed in India the elite whose interest and achievement lay in this field; the characteristic power, the main life-current of the nation, did not flow this way, but followed a different channel. Among the ancients the Greeks, and among the moderns the French alone, can rightfully claim as their special genius, as the hallmark of their corporate life, a high intellectual and literary culture. It is to this treasure,a serene and yet vigorous and organized rational mind, coupled with a wonderful felicity of expression in speech,that one turns when one thinks of the special gift that modern France and ancient Greece have brought to the heritage of mankind.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Humanism proper was bornor rebornwith the Renaissance.It was as strongly and vehemently negative and protestant in its nature, on one side, as it was positive and affirmative on the other. For its fundamental character that which gave it its Very namewas a protest against a turning away from, whatever concerned itself with the supra-human, with God or Self, with heaven or other worlds, with abstract or transcendental realities. The movement was humanistic precisely because it stood against the theological and theocratical mediaeval age.
The Grco-Latin culture was essentially and predominantly humanistic. Even so, the mediaeval culture too, in spite of its theological stress, had a strong basis in humanism. For the religion itself, as has been pointed out, was deeply humanistic, in the sense that it brought salvation and heaven close to the level of human frailtythrough the miracle of Grace and the humanity of Christand that it envisaged a kingdom of heaven or city of God the body of Christformed of the brotherhood of the human race in its solidarity.
03.06 - The Pact and its Sanction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A true covenant there can be only between parties that work for the light, are inspired by the same divine purpose. Otherwise if there is a fundamental difference in the motive, in the soul-impulse, then it is no longer a pact between comrades, but a patchwork of irreconcilable elements. I have spoken of the threefold sanction of the covenant. The sanction from the top initiates, plans and supports, the sanction from the bottom establishes and furnishes the field, but it is the sanction from the mid-region that inspires, executes, makes a living reality of what is no more than an idea, a possibility. On one side are the Elders, the seasoned statesmen, the wise ones; on the other, the general body of mankind waiting to be moved and guided; in between is the army of young enthusiasts, enlightened or illumined (not necessarily young in age) who form the pra, the vital sheath of the body politic. Allby far the largest part of itdepends upon the dreams that the Prana has been initiated and trained to dream.
This life principle of a body politic seems in Pakistan to be represented by the Ansars. The question then to be determined is whether they have accepted the Pact or not. If they have, is it merely a political expedient or do they find in it a real moral value? We have to weigh and judge the ideal and motive that inspire this organisation which seeks to be the steel frame supporting or supported by the Government. We ask: is this a nucleus, a seed bed for the new life to take birth and grow, the new life that would go to the making of the new world and humanity? And we have to ask India too, has she found her nucleus or nuclei, on her side, that would generate and foster the power of her soul and spirit? The high policy of a government remains a dead law or is misconstrued and misapplied through local agents: they are in fact the local growths that feed the national life and are fed by it and they need careful nurture and education, for upon them depends ultimately the weal or the woe of the race.
03.07 - Brahmacharya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The basis and the immediate aim of education according to the ancient system was to develop this fundamental mental capacity: the brain's power to think clearly, consistently and deeply, to undergo labour without tiring easily and also a general strength and steadiness in the nerves. The transference of nervous energy into brain energy is also a secret of the process of sublimation. It is precisely this aspect of education that has been most neglected in modern times. We give no thought to this fundamental: we leave the brain to develop as it may (or may not), it is made to grow under pressuremore to inflate than to growby forcing into it masses of information. The result at best is that it is sharpened, made acute superficially or is overgrown in a certain portion of it in respect of a narrow and very specialised function, losing thereby a healthy harmony and homogeneity in the total movement. The intellectual's nervous instability is a very common phenomenon among us.
In recent times, however, we have begun to view children's education in a different light. It is being more and more realised that things are not to be instilled into the child from outside, but that the child should be allowed to grow and imbibe naturally. The teacher is only a companion and a guide: he is to let the child move according to its own inclinations, follow its own line of curiosity; he can open up and present new vistas of curiosity, seek to evoke new interests. Sympathy and encouragement on his side giving scope to freedom and autonomous development for the childthis is the watchword and motto for the ideal teacher.
03.08 - The Spiritual Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is then this singular and utter harmony in the divine consciousness resolving all contraries and incompatibles. Neha nnsti kicana, there is no division or disparity here. Established in this consciousness, the spiritual man naturally and inevitably finds that he is in all and all are in him and that he is all and all are he, for all and he are indivisibly that single (yet multiple) reality. The brotherhood of man is only a derivative from the more fundamental truth of the universal selfhood of man.
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03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other art shows the world of creative imagination, the world reconstructed by the mind's own formative delight; the Indian artist reveals something more than that the faculty through which he seeks to create is more properly termed vision, not imagination; it is the movement of an inner consciousness, a spiritual perception, and not that of a more or less outer sensibility. For the Indian artist is a seer or rishi; what he envisages is the mystery, the truth and beauty of another worlda real, not merely a mental or imaginative world, as real as this material creation that we see and touch; it is indeed more real, for it is the basic world, the world of fundamental truths and realities behind this universe of apparent phenomena. It is this that he contemplates, this I upon which his entire consciousness is concentrated; and all his art consists in giving a glimpse of it, bodying it forth or expressing it in significant forms and symbols.
European the Far Westernart gives a front-view of reality; Japanese the Far Easternart gives a side-view; Indian art gives a view from above. 1 Or we may say, in psychological terms, that European art embodies experiences of the conscious mind and the external senses, Japanese art gives expression to experiences that one has through the subtler touches of the nerves and the sensibility, and Indian art proceeds through a spiritual consciousness and records experiences of the soul.
The frontal view of reality lays its stress upon the display of the form of things, their contour, their aspect in mass and volume and dimension; and the art, inspired and dominated by it, is more or less a sublimated form of the art of photography. The side-view takes us behind the world of forms, into the world of movement, of rhythm. And behind or above the world of movement, again, there is a world of typal realities, essential form-movements, fundamental modes of consciousness in its universal and transcendent status. It is this that the Indian artist endeavours to envisage and express.
A Greek Apollo or Venus or a Madonna of Raphael is a human form idealized to perfection,moulded to meet the criterion of beauty which the physical eye demands. The purely sthetic appeal of such forms consists in the balance and symmetry, the proportion and adjustment, a certain roundedness and uniformity and regularity, which the physical eye especially finds beautiful. This beauty is akin to the beauty of diction in poetry.
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It is not my intention to say that the art of character, even in the deeper sense, is totally absent in Europe. On the contrary, it is that which has been growing day by day,although perhaps often along rather odd lines. It is a moot question how far this orientation is due to the influence of the Eastern, especially, the Far Eastern art. In speaking of Europe, I was referring to the bedrock of the artistic tradition of Europe, its fundamental classical tone.
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03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
For Hinduism means all things to all men, while a personal religion is meant truly for a certain type of persons. Hinduism recognises differences and distinction even while admitting the fundamental unity of mankind; it does not impose uniformity as the other type does. Hinduism embraces all varieties of religious experience; it is not based on a single experience however overwhelming that may be.
Varying the metaphor we may say again that Buddhism rises sheer in its monolithic structure, an Asokan pillar towering in its linear movement; Hinduism has its towers, but they are part of a vast architecture, spread out on ample and chequered grounds-even like a temple city.
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This creation has a fundamental basic reality. Behind the fleeting appearances there is a solid truth of Being. Everything else may pass away but That abides for ever. This is Hindu or Vedic tradition.
The Buddha says, take off the elements that compose the creation one by one, nothing would remain in the end. Creation is only an agglomeration of discrete elements; there is nothing behind them or within them that is permanent and holding them together. When names and forms go, at the end there is only dissolution, pure and simple, Nothing, Nihil.
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Buddhism came as a blaze of lightning across the sky of India's tradition; it was almost a fiery writing on the wall, bearing the doom of a world. Buddhism opposed and denied some of the very fundamental principles upon which the old world rested. It was perhaps the greatest iconoclastic movement ever thrown up by the human consciousness. First of all, it denied the tradition itself; it did not recognise the authority and sanctity of the prve pitara, the ancient fathers, nor their revealed knowledge, the Veda. Buddhism enjoined the priority and supremacy of the individual's own consciousness, own effort and own realisation. Be thou thy own light. Work out thy own salvation. That was the injunction given. Not to take anything for grantednot even God or Brahman but to judge and see for yourself where and what is the truth. It was the first protestant reaction recorded in human history.
Buddhism has sometimes been called the rebel child of Hinduism. The word need not be a term of abuse. A rebel is not always a mere destroyer, a pure negator. A negation can be only a form of stating something positive, an affirmation of a truth and reality. Not unoften a rebel means a call back to a truth that has been neglected, inadequately treated or completely omitted and by-passed; it is an urgent demand that that which has been forgotten and left behind, uncared for and undeveloped, must now be taken up again and brought forward, made a full-grown and mature element in a greater and more perfect organisation of human consciousness.
03.14 - Mater Dolorosa, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is that the whole truth? We, for ourselves, do not subscribe to this view. Truth is a very complex entity, the universe a mingled strain. It is not a matter of merely sinners and innocents that we have to deal with. The problem is deeper and more fundamental. The whole question is, where, in which world, on which level of consciousness do we stand, and, what is more crucial, how much of that consciousness is dynamic and effective in normal life. If we are in the ordinary consciousness and live wholly with that consciousness, it is inevitable that, being in the midst of Nature's current, we should be buffeted along, the good and the evil, as we conceive them to be, befalling us indiscriminately. Or, again, if we happen to live in part or even mainly in an inner or higher consciousness, more or less in a mood of withdrawal from the current of life allowing the life movements to happen as they list, then too we remain, in fact, creatures and playthings of Nature and we must not wonder if, externally, suffering becomes the badge of our tribe.
And yet the solution need not be a total rejection and transcendence of Nature. For what is ignored in this view is Nature's dual reality. In one form, the inferior (apar), Nature means the Law of Ignoranceof pain and misery and death; but in another form, the superior (par), Nature's is the Law of Knowledge, that is to say, of happiness, immunity and immortality, not elsewhere in another world and in a transcendent consciousness, but here below on the physical earth in a physical body.
03.16 - The Tragic Spirit in Nature, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There runs a pessimistic vein in Nature's movement. Due to the original Inconscience out of which she is built and also because of a habit formed through millenniums it is not possible for her to expect or envisage anything else than decay, death and frustration in the end or on the whole. To every rise there must be a fall, a crest must end in a trough. Nature has not the courage nor the faculty to look for any kind of perfection upon earth. Not that within her realm one cannot or should not try for the good; the noble, even the perfect, but one must be ready to pay the price. Good there is and may be, but it is suffered only on payment of its Danegeld to Evil. That is the law of sacrifice that seems to be fundamental to Nature's governance.
The Evil, we have said, is nothing else than the basis of unconsciousness or Inconscience in Nature. It is this which pulls the beingwhatever structure of consciousness can be reared upon itdown to decay and frustration. It is the force of gravitation or inertia. Matter is unconsciousness; the body, formed basically of matter, is unconsciousness too. The natural tendency of Matter is towards disintegration and dissolution; the body, therefore, is mortalbhasmntamidam arram. The scope and range of mortality is measured by the scope and range of unconsciousness. Matter is the most concrete and solid form of unconsciousness; but it casts its shadow upon the higher levels toolife and mind always lie in the penumbra of this original evil.
04.01 - The Divine Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret. That is the mechanism adopted by the Divine to cure and transmute human illshimself becoming a man, taking upon himself the burden of the evil that vitiates and withers life and working it out in and through himself. Something of this truth has been caught in the Christian view of Incarnation. God sent upon earth his only begotten son to take upon himself the sins of man, suffer vicariously for him, pay the ransom and thus liberate him, so that he may reach salvation, procure his seat by the side of the Father in Heaven. Man corrupted as he is by an original sin cannot hope by his own merit to achieve salvation. He can only admit his sin and repent and wait for the Grace to save him. The Indian view of Incarnation laid more stress upon the positive aspect of the matter, viz, the role of the Incarnation as the inaugurator and establisher of a new order in lifedharmasasthpanrthya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has -served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention upon the Goodreyasand did not consider it essential to dwell upon the Evil. For one who finds and sees the Good always and everywhere, the Evil does not exist. Sri Aurobindo lays equal emphasis on both the aspects. Naturally, however, he does not believe in an original evil, incurable upon earth and in earthly life. In conformity with the ancient Indian teaching he declares the original divinity of man: it is because man is potentially and essentially divine that he can become actually and wholly divine. The Bible speaks indeed of man becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect: but that is due exclusively to the Grace showered upon man, not because of any inherent perfection in him. But in according full divinity to man, Sri Aurobindo does not minimise the part of the undivine in him. This does not mean any kind of Manicheism: for Evil, according to Sri Aurobindo, is not coeval or coterminous with the Divine, it is a later or derivative formation under given conditions, although within the range and sphere of the infinite Divine. Evil exists as a stern reality; even though it may be temporary and does not touch the essential reality, it is not an illusion nor can it be ignored, brushed aside or bypassed as something superficial or momentary and of no importance. It has its value, its function and implication. It is real, but it is not irremediable. It is contrary to the Divine but not contradictory. For even the Evil in its inmost substance carries or is the reality which it opposes or denies outwardly. Did not the very first of the apostles of Christ deny his master at the crucial moment? As we have said, evil is a formation necessitated by certain circumstances, the circumstances changed, the whole disposition as at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally.
The Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essencesarvabhtntratm but as an individual person embodying that essencemnu tanumritam. Man too, however earthly and impure he maybe, is essentially the Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the supreme consciousness that he is in his true and highest reality. That is how in him is bridged the gulf that apparently exists between the mortal and the immortal, the Infinite and the Finite, the Eternal and the Momentary, and the Divine too can come into him and become, so to say, his lower self.
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The Divine descends as an individual person fundamentally to hasten the evolutionary process and to complete it; he takes the human form to raise humanity to divinity. The fact and the nature of the process have been well exemplified in Sri Ramakrishna who, it is said, took up successively different lines of spiritual discipline and by a supreme and sovereign force of concentration achieved realisation in each line in the course of a few days what might take in normal circumstances years or even lives to do. The Divine gathers and concentrates in himself the world-force, the Nature-Energyeven like adynamo and focuses and canalises it to give it its full, integral and absolute effectivity. And mortal pain he accepts, and swallows the poison of ignorant lifeeven like Nilakantha Shivato transmute it into ecstasy and immortality. The Divine Mother sank into the earth-nature of a human body:
Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword. . .
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Greece and Rome may be taken to represent two types of culture. And accordingly we can distinguish two types of elevation or crest-formation of human consciousness one of light, the other of power. In certain movements one feels the intrusion, the expression of light, that is to say, the play of intelligence, understanding, knowledge, a fresh outlook and consideration of the world and things, a revaluation in other terms and categories of a new consciousness. The greatest, at least, the most representative movement of this kind is that of the Renaissance. It was really a New Illumination: a flood of light poured upon the mind and intellect and understanding of the period. There was a brightness, a brilliance, a happy agility and keenness in the movements of the brain. A largeness of vision, a curious sensibility, a wide and alert consciousness: these are some of the fundamental characteristics of this remarkable New Birth. It is the birth of what has been known as the scientific outlook, in the- broadest sense: it is the threshold of the modern epoch of humanity. All the modern European languages leaped into maturity, as it were, each attaining its definitive form and full-blooded individuality. Art and literature flooded in their magnificent creativeness all nations and peoples of the whole continent. The Romantic Revival, starting somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century, is another outstanding example of a similar phenomenon, of the descent of light into human consciousness. The light that descended into human consciousness at the time of the Renaissance captured the higher mind and intelligence the Ray touched as it were the frontal lobe of the brain; the later descent touched the heart, the feelings and emotive sensibility, it evoked more vibrant, living and powerful perceptions, created varied and dynamic sense-complexes, new idealisms and aspirations. The manifestation of Power, the descent or inrush of forcemighty and terriblehas been well recognised and experienced in the great French Revolution. A violence came out from somewhere and seized man and society: man was thrown out of his gear, society broken to pieces. There came a change in the very character and even nature of man: and society had to be built upon other foundations. The past was gone. Divasa gatah. Something very similar has happened again more recently, in Russia. The French Revolution brought in the bourgeois culture, the Russian Revolution has rung in the Proletariate.
In modern India, the movement that led her up to Independence was at a crucial moment a mighty evocation of both Light and Power. It had not perhaps initially the magnitude, the manifest scope or scale of either the Renaissance or the Great Revolutions we mention. But it carried a deeper import, its echo far-reaching into the future of humanity. For it meant nothing less than the spiritual awakening of India and therefore the spiritual regeneration of the whole world: it is the harbinger of the new epoch in human civilisation.
04.02 - A Chapter of Human Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In India we meet a characteristic movement. As I said the Vedas represented the Mythic Age, the age when knowledge was gained or life moulded and developed through Vision and Revelation (Sruti, direct Hearing). The Upanishadic Age followed next. Here we may say the descending light touched the higher reaches of the Mind, the mind of pure, fundamental, typical ideas. The consciousness divested itself of much of the mythic and parabolic apparel and, although supremely immediate and intuitive, yet was bathed with the light of the day, the clear sunshine of the normal wakeful state. The first burgeoning of the Rational Mind proper, the stress of intellect and intellectuality started towards the end of the Upanishadic Age with the Mahabharata, for example and the Brahmanas. It flowered in full vigour, however, in the earlier philosophical schools, the Sankhyas perhaps, and in the great Buddhist illuminationBuddha being, we note with interest, almost a contemporary of Socrates and also of the Chinese philosopher or moralist Confuciusa triumvirate almost of mighty mental intelligence ruling over the whole globe and moulding for an entire cycle human culture and destiny. The very name Buddha is significant. It means, no doubt, the Awakened, but awakened in and through the intelligence, the mental Reason, buddhi. The Buddhist tradition is that the Buddhist cycle, the cycle over which Buddha reigns is for two thousand and five hundred years since his withdrawal which takes us, it seems, to about 1956 A.D.
The Veda speaks of Indra who became later on the king of the gods. And Zeus too occupies the same place in Greek Pantheon. Indra is, as has been pointed out by Sri Aurobindo, the Divine Mind, the leader of thought-gods (Maruts), the creator of perfect forms, in which to clo the our truth-realisations in life. The later traditional Indra in India and the Greek Zeus seem to be formulations on a lower level of the original archetypal Indra, where the consciousness was more mentalised, intellectualised, made more rational, sense-bound, external, pragmatic. The legend of Athena being born straight out of the head of Zeus is a pointer as to the nature and character of the gods. The Roman name for Athena, Minerva, is significantly derived by scholars from Latin mens, which means, as we all know, mind.
04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The old intellectualism generally and on the whole, was truly formal and even to a great extent verbal. In other words, it sought to find norms and categories in the mind itself and impose them upon, objects, objects of experience, external or internal. The first discovery of the pure mind, the joy of indulging in its own free formations led to an abstraction that brought about a cleavage between mind and nature, and when a harmony was again attempted between the two, it meant an imposition of one (the Mind) upon another (Matter), a subsumption of the latter under the former. Such scholastic formalism, although it has the appearance of a movement of pure intellect, free from the influence of instinctive or emotive reactions, cannot but be, at bottom, a mythopoeic operation, in the Jungian phraseology; it is not truly objective in the scientific sense. The scientific procedure is to find Nature's own categories the constants, as they are called and link up mind and intellect with that reality. This is the Copernican revolution that Science brought about in the modern outlook. Philosophers like Kant or Berkeley may say another thing and even science itself just nowadays may appear hesitant in its bearings. But that is another story which it is not our purpose to consider here and which does not change the fundamental position. We say then that the objectivity of the scientific outlook, as distinguished from the abstract formalism of old-world intellectualism, has given a new degree of mental growth and is the basis of themechanistic methodology of which we have been speaking. '
Indeed, what we lay stress upon is the methodology of modern scientific knowledge the apparatus of criticism and experimentation.
04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now this superconsciousness is the true origin of creation, although the apparent and objective creation starts with and is based upon Unconsciousness. All norms and archetypes belong to the superconsciousness; for the sake of material creation they are thrown down or cast as seed into the Unconscious and in this process they undergo a change, a deformation and aberration. All the major themes of dream myths and prehistoric legends which the psychologists claim to have found imbedded in man's subconscient consciousness are in fact echoes and mirages of great spiritualsuperconscientrealities reflected here below. The theme of the Hero of the Dual Mother (Dark and Fair), of Creation and Sacrifice, these are, according to Jung, dramatisations of some fundamental movements and urges in the dark subconscient nature. Jung, however, throws a luminous suggestion in characterising the nature of this vast complex. The general sense, Jung says; is that of a movement forward, of a difficult journey, of a pull backward and downward, of yawning abysses that call, of a light that beckons. It is an effort, a travail of what lies imbedded and suppressed to come out into the open, into the normal consciousness and thus release an unhealthy tension, restore a balance in the individual's system. Modern psychology lays great stress upon the integration of personality. Most of the ills that human nature suffers from, they say, are due to this division or schism in it, a suppressed subconsciousness and an expressed consciousness seeking to express a negation of that subconsciousness. Modern psychology teaches that one should dive into the nether regions and face squarely whatever elements are there, help these to follow their natural bent to come up and see the light of the day. Only thus there can be established a unitary movement, an even consistency and an equilibrium throughout the entire consciousness and being.
So far so good. But two things are to be taken note of. First of all, the resolution of the normal conflict in man's consciousness, the integration of his personality, is not wholly practicable within the scope of the present nature and the field of the actual forces at play. That can give only a shadow of the true resolution and integration. A conscious envisaging of the conflicting forces, a calm survey of the submerged or side-tracked libidos in their true nature, a voluntary acceptance, of these dark elements as a part of normal human nature, does not automatically make for their sublimation and purification or transformation. The thing is possible only through another force and on another level, by the intervention and interfusion precisely of the superconsciousness. And here comes the second point to note. For it is this superconsciousness towards which all the strife and struggle of the under-consciousness are turned and directed. The yearning and urge in the subconsciousness to move forward, to escape outside into the light does not refer merely to the march towards normal awareness and consciousness: it has a deeper direction and a higher aimit seeks that of which it is an aberration and a deformation, the very origin and source, the height from which it fell.
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This view finds its justification because of a particular outlook on spirituality and non-spirituality. If the Spirit and things spiritual are taken to mean something transcending and rejecting the world and the things of the world, something exclusive of life and its fulfilment here on earth, if on the other hand, the world and its life are given only their face value emptying them of their deeper and transcendent contentsin the manner of the great Laplace who could find no place for God in his map of the world which seemed to be quite complete in itself, if this trenchant division is made in the very definition of the terms, in our primary axioms and postulates, then, of course, we cannot avoid a scission and an eternal struggle. If you consider the Spirit as only pure spirit, an absolute without any relation, as, an ever-fixed and static entity and if we view Matter as purely material and the law of mechanics as supreme and inviolable, then there cannot be a reconciliation or even a meeting between the two. There are some who have a great goodwill, who wish to avoid clash and quarrel and are for concord and harmony. They have tried the reconciliation, but failed. The two positions being fundamentally exclusive of each other can, at best, be juxtaposed, but not unified or fused together.
And yet mankind has always sought for an integral, an all comprehending fulfilment, a truth and a realisation that would go round his entire existence. Man has always aspired, in the midst of the transience and imperfection that the world is, for something stable and perfect, in the heart of disharmony for some core of perfect harmony. He termed it God, Atman, Summum Bonum and he sought it sometimes, as he thought necessary, even at the cost of the world and the life, if it is to be found elsewhere. Man aspired also always to find this habitation of his made somewhat better. Dissatisfied with his present state, he sought to mould it, remake it, put into it something which his aspiration and inspiration called the True, the Beautiful, the Good. There was always this double aspiration in man, one of ascent and the other of descent, one vertical and the other horizontal, one leading up and beyondtotally beyond, in its extreme urge the other probing into the mystery locked up there below, releasing the power to reform or recreate the world, although he was not always sure whether it was a power of mind or of matter.
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The Spirit is not the static transcendent absolute entity only. It is dynamic Force, creative conscious Energy. The spiritual is not mere silence and status it is expression and movement also. Any silence and any status are not the silence and the status of the Spirit the silence and status of death, for example; so too any expression and movement are not of the Spirit either but this does not mean that the Spirit cannot have its own expression and movement. God too likewise is not a mere supracosmic beinga somewhat aggrandised human beingtreating and dominating man and the world as something foreign and essentially antagonistic to his nature. God himself has made himself all creatures and all worlds. He is That and He is This fundamentally and integrally. Again, at the other end, Matter is not mere dead mechanical matter. It is vibrant energy, but energy that conceals within it life and consciousness. Besides, the whirl and motion of energies is not all, something inherently static looms large behind: you call it ether, field, space or substratumit is being, one would like to say, infused with a secret consciousness and will.
We say then, symbolically at least, if not literally, that the West is looking to the East for this revelation towards which it is groping or moving in its own way: the secret spirit-consciousness that is alive in and through the material cosmos, that alone gives its total sense and significance. And the secret spirit must embody itself here below in material life, the status must be made supremely dynamic the transcendent consciousness, even while maintaining its transcendence, has to deploy its immanence in things of the earth and earthly existence. That is what the West brings to the East; that is what the Scientific and materialist look and labour offer to be integrated into the aspiration and realisation of the East.
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As I said, the East usually ignores this correspondence and posits an exclusive either-or relation between the two terms. The individual, according to it, can reach its true individuality by only dissolving itin the Infinite. Of course, I am referring to an extreme position which is general in the East and symptomatic of its fundamental character. The West does not concern itself with these higher lines of individual growth and fulfilment, it limits the individual within the social frame and his mundane or profane life; but what we learn from this outlook is the necessity of the collective growth through which only can the individual thrive and grow. It is however a growth in extension, rather than in intensity i.e. depth and height. This outlook errs in the limitation put upon individuality, precisely identifying it more or less with the "egoism" to which the spirituality of the East objects. This normal individual in its normal development cannot go very far, nor can he lead the others, the society or humanity, to a perfect and supreme fulfilment. The ego-bound normal individuality must transcend itselfexactly the thing that the East teaches; only this transcendence need not mean an abolition of all individuality, but a transformation, a higher integration in a spiritualised, a universalised and divinised individuality.
Such an individual will not be like the blind leading the blind, one ego, .in its half-light, with its small narrow mental formation imposing its ignorant and ineffective will upon others in the same state of consciousness, but, as I have said, a universalised individual, who has identified himself with all and everyone in his being and consciousness, who has also at the same time transcended himself and others and attained a supreme unitary consciousness and being. It is such a person who is called the leader of human or terrestrial evolution and they who are of the same make are the pioneers who shall build heaven upon earth.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Humanity is evolving and developing the various groupings to manifest fundamental aspects of its cosmic person. Ancient Egypt, for example, brought us in contact with an occult world and a subliminal consciousness. We know also of the nature of the Hebraic genius, the moral fervour, the serious, almost grim spirit of Righteousness that formed and even now forms a major strain in the European or Christian culture and civilisation. The famous "sweetness and light" of the Hellenic mind supplied the other strain. The Roman genius for law and government is a well-known commonplace of history. Well-known also India's spirituality. All these modes of consciousness are elementsforces, energies and personalities that build up the godhead of humanity. Peoples and races in the past were the scattered limbs of the godhead-scattered and isolated from one another, because of the original unconsciousness and sharp egocentricity out of which Nature started its course of evolution. The disjecta membra are being collected together by a growing consciousness.
Such then is the destiny of man and mankindman to rise to higher heights of consciousness beyond mental reason that are not governed by the principle of division, separation, antithesis but by the principle of unity, identity, mutuality and totality. In other words, he will take his seat in the status of his soul, his inner and inmost being, his divine personality where he is one with all beings and with the world. This is a rare and difficult realisation for man as he is today, but tomorrow it will be his normal nature. The individual will live in his total being and therefore in and through other individuals; as a consequence the nature too in each will undergo a divine transmutation, a marvellous sea-change.
04.04 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the I infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience of a cosmic and transcendental reality does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alterations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a typal domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or evolution.
Is it so in fact? For, if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an annamaya purua; then he raised himself and centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a prnamaya purua; next he climbed into the mental consciousness and became a maomaya purua; from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned according to the central character, the lawdharmaof that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pau bhva), the heroic (vra bhva) and the godly or divine (deva bhva). The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.
The Divine or the spiritual consciousness, instead of being a simple unitary entity, is a vast, complex, stratified reality. There are many chambers in my Father's mansion, says the Bible: many chambers on many stories, one may add. Also there are different levels or approaches that serve different seekers each with his own starting-point, his point de repaire. When one speaks of union with the Divine or of entering into the spiritual consciousness, one does not refer to the same identical truth or reality as any other. There is a physical Divine, a vital Divine, a mental Divine; and beyond the mindfrom where one may consider that the region of true spirit begins there are other innumerable modes, aspects, manifestations of the Divine.
As we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook, rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape from them into some thing beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that (neti): the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.
But once there is the possibility gained of a more normalised, familiar and wider reconnaissance of the Beyond, when the human being has been mentalised to a degree and in a manner that makes it inevitable for him to overpass to a higher status and live there habitually, then it becomes an urgent matter of concern to know and find out where one goes exactly, on which level and in what domain, once one is beyond. The question, it is true, engaged the attention of the ancients too; but it was more or less an interesting inquiry, a good part speculative and theoretical; it had not the reality and insistence of the need of the hour. We have today chalked out an almost exhaustive science of the inferior consciousness, of the lower hemisphereof course, so far as it is possible for such a science to be exhaustive moving in the light of the partial and inferior consciousness. In the same way we need at the present hour a complete and precise science of the Divine Consciousness. As there is a logic of the finite, there is also a logic of the infinite, not merely its magic, and that too has to be discovered and laid out.
04.05 - The Freedom and the Force of the Spirit, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
On lower levels, a conscious will made up of a compound energy of the mental and vital and physical will, when in sufficient proportions, has considerable effective force: great men of action have this distinction. Even then, however, theirs is not that type which is absolute or never-failing, nor that especial category which will bring about a collective change, a fundamental change, intensive as well as extensive, needed at this evolutionary crisis of earth and humanity.
The ordinary average man is part and parcel of Nature's movement and his life is almost wholly moulded by circumstances: he has not developed an independent inner being that can react against the universal Nature's current, that is to say, the Nature as it is, as it is actually and dynamically expressed. He is the creature, described graphically in the Gita, as being moved helplessly on the circling wheel of Ignorance.2 But even among the average men there are many who are called men of will, they are not entirely submerged in Nature's current, but endeavour to have their own way even against that current. Their psycho-vital, aided often by their physical consciousness, has an independent formation, being a strong centre of self-driven force, and can impress upon the outer Nature and circumstances its own pattern and disposition. Naturally, all depends upon the degree and character of that consciousness.
04.05 - The Immortal Nation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is true there were periods of decline and almost total disintegration in India, but she survived and revived. And the revival did not mean a negation of her past and of her origins, a complete severance from her essential life and genius. The spirit and even the fundamental outline of the form in which that spirit moulded itself did not change, they remained constant and the same. It is said the Varna and the Ashrama (roughly translated as caste and order) that give the characteristic structure of Indian society even today characterised also the Vedic society; and the system of village autonomy that survives even today ruled Harappan India also. It has also been pointed out that the administrative system pursued by the British in India was nothing brand new imported from outside, but only a continuation, with minor adaptations, of the system consolidated by the Moguls who again had taken it up from the Mauryas; a system initiated perhaps by still earlier legislators and builders of Indian polity. Mussolini of twentieth century Italy is in no way related to Cato or Julius Caesar of ancient Rome, but Sri Ramakrishna or Sri Aurobindo is a direct descendant of the Vedic Rishis.
What is the cause of this strange longevity or stability that India or China enjoys? Whence this capacity to renew life, to rejuvenate the past that survives and persists? Before dealing with this question let us turn for a while to another curious phenomenon : which is allied to it and may throw some light upon it.
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The truth then is this: the stronger the inner life a nation builds up and organises, the longer it lives and the greater the power it acquires to revive when it falls for a time into decline. Naturally, a good deal depends upon the nature and quality of this inner life. There are certain types of inner life which mean the very source of life, there are others that are only secondary sources. Ancient Greece or even modern France has had a well-developed inner life, but this inner life was very strongly wedded to and welded into the outer life, it lay at least at one remove farther from the true source of life. Ancient Egypt less intellectual, less mentally cultivated, was in contact with the occult, the subliminal base of life, more potent and dynamic springs of consciousness. This was the cause of Egypt's greater longevity and some capacity of renewal. The older people generally lived in, or at least, were in living contact with principles of existence more fundamental and therefore more enduring. The gods of the mind and of the inner vital enjoy a longer immortality than the deities that rule man's outer life and body.
Viewed from this standpoint India stands as a case sui generis. She did not stop short satisfied with the lesser gods. She aspired for the highest One, the supreme spiritual reality and it was her mission, her destiny, to foster it and keep guard over it for the sake of humanity. Whatever the outer vicissitudes, she maintained throughout the inner continuity of her spiritual life and realisation. That is where she drank of the nectar of immortality and that is how she could always revive and renew herself after a period of decline and almost disintegration, because she possessed the mystery of the self. Other peoples were busy about many other things important or unimportant in some measure, but here was a race that never forgot the one thing needful. India of today, we repeat, is fundamentally and essentially the India of the Vedas, even in a more literal sense than that China of Mao-tse- Tung (or Sun-yat-Sen) is the China of Lao-tse.
A race dies out altogether or continues to lead a superficial mechanical existence, that is to say, vegetates as an inchoate mass, when it knows to live only in its body, confined only to the demands of the barest physical necessities. The life of a race gains a meaning and a new vitality when a higher light and aspiration inspire and move its spirit; when a deeper and finer sensibility, a nobler ambition stir its affections, when a superior intelligence and understanding illumine its mental horizon, its lease of life is increased by that and also its power of recuperation and renewal. And the further it enters into these basic constants of existence the greater that power of rejuvenation. 1
04.06 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one Reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience, of a cosmic and transcendental reality, does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alterations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a type domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or evolution.
Is it so in fact? For if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an annamaya purua; then he raised himself and was centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a pramaya purua ; next the climbed into the mental consciousness and became the manomaya purua; from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned' according to the central character, the lawdharmaof that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of grow and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pau bhva) the heroic (Vra bhva) and the godly or divine (deva bhva). The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.
The Divine or the spiritual consciousness, instead of being a simple unitary entity, is a vast, complex stratified reality. "There are many chambers in my Father's mansions", says the Bible: many chambers on many storeys, one may add. Also there are different levels or approaches that serve different seekers, each with his own starting-point, his point de repre. When one speaks of union with the Divine or of entering into the spiritual consciousness, one does not refer to the same identical truth or reality as any other. There is a physical Divine, a vital Divine, a mental Divine; and beyond the mindfrom where one may consider that the region of true spirit begins there are other innumerable modes, aspects, manifestations of the Divine.
As we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook, rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape, from them into something beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that (neti): the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.
But once there is the possibility gained of a more normalised, familiar and wider reconnaissance of the Beyond, when the human being has been mentalised to a degree and in a manner that makes it inevitable for him to overpass to a higher status and live there habitually, then it becomes an urgent matter of concern to know and find out where one goes exactly, on which level and in what domain, once one is beyond. The question, it is true, engaged the attention of the ancients too; but it was more or less an interesting enquiry, a good part speculative and theoretical; it had not the reality and insistence of the need of the hour. We have today chalked out an almost exhaustive science of the inferior consciousness, of the lower hemisphereof course, so far as it is possible for such a science to be exhaustive moving in the light of the partial and inferior consciousness. In the same way we need at the present hour a complete and precise science of the Divine Consciousness. As there is a logic of the finite, there is also a logic of the infinite, not merely its magic, and that too has to be discovered and laid out.
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"A moral problem, un cas de conscience (a case of conscience), as they say in French. To defend yourself against your attacker and kill him who comes to kill you or stand disarmed and let yourself be killedwhich is better, which has the greater moral value? To fight your enemy is normal, is human. To preserve yourself, that is to say, your body, is the very first injunction of Nature. That is Nature's primary and fundamental demand. And to preserve one's life one has to take others' life. That is also Nature. But then, it is said, man is meant to rise above Nature, live (even if it means to die) according to a higher lawnot the biological law, the law of tooth and claw. The higher law is for the preservation of life indeed, but others' life, not one's own, if it comes to that; it is not self-centred, but wholly other-regarding, it is for harmony, for peace and amity, not violence and battle. If one demurs and points out that it requires two to be friends and at peace, the answer is that one side must begin, and the merit goes to him who begins. One need not worry about the other side, which may be left to follow its own law of life, which, however, can be gained over only in this way and not by compulsion or coercion or violence. Na hi vairea vairai smyantha kadcana. Never by enmity is enmity appeased, says the Dhammapada.1
This is a way of cutting the Gordian knot. But the problem is not so simple as the moralist would have it. Resist not evil: if it is made an absolute rule, would not the whole world be filled with evil? Evil grows much faster than good. By not resisting evil one risks to perpetuate the very thing that one fears; it deprives the good of its chance to approach or get a foothold. That is why the Divine Teacher declares in the Gita that God comes down upon earth, assuming a human body,2to protect the good and slay the wicked,3 slay not metaphorically but actually and materially, as he did on the field of the Kurus.
04.07 - Readings in Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The deepest and the most fundamental mystery of the human consciousness (and in fact of the earth consciousness) is not that there is an unregenerate aboriginal being there as its bed-rock, a being made of the very stuff of ignorance and I inconscience and inertia that is Matter: it is this that the I submerged being is not merely dead matter, but a concentrated, a solidified flame, as it were, a suppressed aspiration that burns inwardly, all the more violent because it is not articulate and in the open. The aboriginal is that which harbours in its womb the original being. That is the Inconscient Godhead, the Divinity in painMater Dolorosa the Divine Being who lost himself totally when transmuted into Matter and yet is harassed always by the oestrus of a secret flame driving it to know itself, to find itself, to be itself again. It is Rudra, the Energy coiled up in Matter and forging ahead towards a progressive evolution in light and consciousness. That is what Savitri, the universal Divine Grace become material and human, finds at the core of her being, the field and centre of concentrated struggle, a millennial aspiration petrified, a grief of ages congealed, a divinity lone and benumbed in a trance. This divinity has to awake and labour. The god has to be cruel to himself, for his divinity demands that he must surpass himself, he cannot abdicate, let Nature go her own way, the inferior path of ease and escape. The godhead must exercise its full authority, exert all its pressure upon itselftapas taptv and by this heat of incubation release the energy that leads towards the light and the high fulfilment. In the meanwhile, the task is not easy. The divine sweetness and solicitude lights upon this hardened divinity: but the inertia of the Inconscient, the 'Pani', hides still the light within its rocky cave and would not deliver it. The Divine Grace, mellow with all the tears of love and sympathy and tenderness she has gathered for the labouring godhead, has pity for the hard lot of a humanity stone-bound to the material life, yet yearning and surging towards freedom. The godhead is not consoled or appeased until that freedom is achieved and light and immortality released. The Grace is working slowly, laboriously perhaps but surely to that end: the stone will wear down and melt one day. Is that fateful day come?
That is the meaning of human life, the significance of even the very ordinary human life. It is the field of a dire debate, a fierce question, a constant struggle between the two opposing or rather polar forces, the will or aspiration to be and the will of inertia not to be the friction, to use a Vedic image, of the two batons of the holy sacrificial wood, arani out of which the flame is to leap forth. The pain and suffering men are subject to in this unhappy vale of tears physical illness and incapacity, vital frustration or mental confusionare symbols and expressions of a deeper fundamental Pain. That pain is the pain of labour, the travail for the birth and incarnation of a godhead asleep or dead. Indeed, the sufferings and ills of life are themselves powerful instruments. They inevitably lead to the Bliss, they are the fuel that kindles, quickens and increases the Fire of Ecstasy that is to blaze up on the day of victory in the full and integral spiritual consciousness. The round of ordinary life is not vain or meaningless: its petty innocent-looking moments and events are the steps of the marching Divinity. Even the commonest life is the holy sacrificial rite progressing, through the oblations of our experiences, bitter or sweet, towards the revelation and establishment of the immortal godhead in man.
II
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is again a point of view to say that things are fundamentally values only, as "philosophers of value" seem to declare today. It would be equally true to say that masses are fundamentally energies or that particles are merely waves. The truth of the matter, here as elsewhere, is globalubhayameva, in the famous phrase of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. In other words, values and things are aspects, polarisations of one single reality. Things have values; things are values: things are also things. .
Value refers to the particular poise or status, the mode of being or function of a thing. In its ultimate formulation we can say it is the rhythm or force of consciousness that vibrates in an object, it is the becomingof the being:but becoming does not cancel being, it only activises, energises, formulates. The debate brings us back to the ancient quarrel between the Buddhists and the Vedantists, the latter posits sat, being or existence, while the former considers sat as only an assemblage of asat. The object and its function, the thing-in-itself and its attribute (the fire and its burning power, as the Indian logicians used to cite familiarly as an example) are not to be separated they are not separated in fact but given together as one unified entity; it is the logical mind that separates them artificially.
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The crucial problem however lies, in a sense, in the way that the goal is to be reached, in the modus operandi. How is the higher status, whatever it is, to be brought down, made effective, be established here on earth and in life. Ideals there have been always and many; evidently we do not know how to go about the business and actualise what is thought and dreamed. About the new ideal too, suggestions have been made with regard to the path to be followed to reach it and are being tried and tested. Some say a life of inner or ethical discipline, conscious effort on the part of each Individual for his own sake is needed: the higher reality must be reached first by a few individuals, it cannot be attained by 'mass action. Others declare that personal effort will not lead very far; if there is to be a great or fundamental change in human nature, it is the Divine Grace alone that can bring it about. The surpassing of man is a miracle and only the supreme magician as an Avatara can do it. Others, again, are not prone to believe in a physical Incarnationsomewhat difficult usually for a European mind but would accept subtler forces or even superior beings, other than the human category, as aids and agents in the working out of the great future.
It is India's great achievement and speciality that she has found the way the way to all truly high fulfilment. It is Yoga and the Yogic consciousness. Yoga is the science and art of discovering the higher truths, indeed, the highest reality and of living there, not a midway moral elevation only. In its integral view it combines all the three processes mentioned above. The Yogic consciousness seeks to lift the consciousness as high as possible, in fact, to the very highestit literally means union or identity (with the highest Reality, Spirit or God). Thus it has the true perception or vision of the forces that act in and upon the world and the powers that decide and is in union with them. The Yogic consciousness and power is also embodied in the Divine Incarnation for he is Yogeshwara: and in India it is accepted as a commonplace that God descends in a human shape, whenever there is a great crisis and man needs salvaging and salvation. God comes then with all his angels, with the divine host to battle for him and with him to establish the Dharma.
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Earth symbolises and epitomises material Nature. It is the body and substance, the very personification, of unconsciousness Ignorance carried to the last limit and concretised. It represents, figures the very opposite of the Reality at the summit. The supreme and original Reality is the quaternary:(1) Light, (2) Truth, (3) Love and (4) Life. They are the first and primal godheads with whom creation starts and who preside over the whole play of the manifestation. These gods that emanated out of the supreme consciousness of the Divine Mother as her fundamental aspects and personalities had automatically an absolute freedom of action and movement, otherwise they would not be divine personalities. And this freedom could be exercised and was in fact exercised in cutting the tie with the mother consciousness, in order to follow a line of independent and separate development instead of a merger life of solidarity with the Supreme. The result was immediate and drastic the precipitation of a physical life and an earthly existence which negated the very principles of the original nature of the godheads and brought forth exactly their contraries: instead of Light there brooded Darkness and Inconscience, Truth turned to Falsehood, Love and Delight gave place to Hatred and Suffering and finally, instead of Life and Immortality there appeared Death. That was how separation, "the disobedience" of the Bible, caused the distortion that turned the gods into Asuras, that was how Lucifer became Satan.
And that was how Paradise was lost. But the story of Paradise Regained is yet more marvellous. When the Divine Mother, the creative infinite Consciousness found herself parcelled out and scattered (even like the body of Sati borne about by Shiva, in the well-known Indian legend) and lost in unconsciousness, something shot down from the Highest into the lowest, something in response to an appeal, a cry, as it were, from the depth of the utter hopelessness in the heart of Matter and the Inconscient. A dumb last-minute S O S from belowa De profundis clamaviwent forth and the Grace descended: the Supreme himself came down and entered into the scuttled dead particles of earth's dust as a secret core of light and flame, just a spark out of his own conscious substance. The Earth received the Grace and held it in her bosom. Thus she had her soul born in her the psychic being that is to grow and evolve and bring about her redemption, her transmutation into the divine substance.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine acts in three different ways in his three well-known aspects. As the transcendent Reality he is above and beyond creation, he is the Unmanifest, although he may hold within either involved or dissolved the entire manifestation. Next, he is the manifestation, the cosmic or the universal; he is one with creation, immanent in it, still its master and lord. Finally, he has an individual aspect: he is a Person with whom human beings can enter into relations of love and service. The Divine incarnate as a human being, is a special manifestation of the Individual Divine. Even then, as an embodied earthly person, he may act in a way characteristic of any of the three aspects. The Divine descended upon earth, as viewed by Sri Aurobindo, does not come in his transscendental aspect, fundamentally aloof and away, in his absolute power and consciousness, working miracles here; for transcendence can do nothing but that in the midst of conditions left as they are. Nor does he manifest himself only as his cosmic power and consciousness, imbedded in the creation and all-pervading, exercising his influence through the pressure of Universal Law, perhaps in a concentrated form, still working gradually, step by step, as though through a logical process, for the maintenance of the natural order and harmony, lokasagraha. God can be more than that, individualised in a special, even a human sense. His individual being can and does hold within itself his cosmic and transcendental self covertly in a way but overtly too in a singular manner at the same time. The humanised personality of the Divine with his special role and function is at the very centre of Sri Aurobindo's solution of the world enigma. The little poem A God's Labour in its short compass outlines and explains beautifully the grand Mystery.
The usual idea of God (as the theists hold, for example) is that he is an infinite eternal impassible being, aloof from human toils and earthly turmoils, himself untouched by these and yet, in and through them, directing the world for an inscrutable purpose, unless it is for leaning towards it and stretching out the hand of Grace to those of the mortals who wish to come out of the nightmare of life, sever the coils of earthly existence. But the Divine in order to be and remain divine need not hold to his seat above and outside the creation, severely separated from his creatures. He can, on the contrary, become truly the ordinary man and labour as all others, yet maintaining his divinity and being conscious of it. After all, is not man, every human being, built in the same pattern, a composite of the earthly human element supported and infused by a secret divine element? However, God, the individual Divine, does become man, one of them and one with them. Only, his labour thereby increases manifold, hard and heavy, although for that very reason full of a bright rich multiple promise. The Divine's self-hurilanisation has for it a double purpose: (I) to show man by example how he can become what he truly is, how he can divinise himself: the Divine as man lives out the life of a sadhakawholly and completely; (2) to help concretely by his own force of consciousness the world and man in their endeavour for progress and evolution, to give the help wholly and completely from the innermost status of the self down to the most external physical body and the material field. This help again is a twofold function. The first is to make available, gather within easy reach, the high realisations, the spiritual treasures that are normally stored in a heaven somewhere else. The Divine Man brings down the divine attributes close to our earth, turns them from mere far possibilities into near probabilities, even imminent realities. They are made part and parcel, constituent elements of the earthly atmosphere, so that one has only to open one's mouth to brea the in, extend one's arms to seize and possess them: even to this opening and this gesture man is helped by the concrete touch and presence of the Divine. Further, the help and succour come in another way which is more intimate, more living and appealing to man.
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Sri Aurobindo aims at a power of consciousness, a formulation of the divine being that is integral. It takes up the whole man and it embraces all men: it works on a cosmic scale individually and collectively. That force of consciousness identifies itself with each and every individual being in all its parts and limbs; establishing itself in and working through their normal and habitual functionings, it moulds and refashions the earthly vessel. It is a global power, first of all, because it is the supreme creative Power, the original energy of consciousness that brought out this manifested universe, the matrix or the nodus that holds together and in an inviolable unity and harmony the fundamental truth-aspects of the' one and indivisible Reality. This luminous source and substance of all created things consists of their basic true truths which assume disguised and deformed appearances under the present conditions of the world. It is therefore, in the second instance, the secret power in created things which manifests in them as the evolutionary urge, which drives them to rediscover their reality and re-form the appearance as the direct expression and embodiment of this inner soul.
The Divine incarnates, as an individual in the concrete material actuality, this double aspect of the utter truth and reality. There are, what may be called, intermediary incarnations, some representing powersaspects of the Divinein the higher mental or overmental levels of consciousness, others those of the inner heart, yet others again those of the dynamic vital consciousness. But the integral Divine, he who unites and reconciles in his body the highest height and the lowest depth, who has effectuated in him something like the "marriage of Heaven and Hell" is an event of the futureeven perhaps of the immediate future. The descent into hell is an image that has been made very familiar to man, but all its implications have not been sounded. For what we were made familiar with was more or less an image of hell, not hell itself, a region or experience in the vital (may be even in the mental): real hell is not the mass of desires or weaknesses of the flesh, not "living flesh", but dead Matter whose other name is Inconscience. In the older disciplines the central or key truth, the heart of reality where the higher and the lowerBrahman and Maya, the Absolute and the Contingency, the One and the Many, God and the Worldmet and united in harmony was bypassed: one shot from below right into the supreme Absolute; the matrix of truth-creation was ignored. Even so, at the other end, the reality of brute matter was not given sufficient weight, the spiritual light disdained to reach it (vijigupsate).
05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Let us repeat here what we have often said elsewhere. The creation and development of souls is a twofold process. First, there is the process of growth from below, and secondly there is the process of manifestation or expression from above, the movements of ascent and descent, as spoken of by Sri Aurobindo. The souls start on their evolutionary journey on the material plane as infinitesimal specks of consciousness imbedded in the vast expanse of the Inconscient; but they are parts and parcels of a homogeneous mass: in fact they are not distinguishable from each other at that level. There is as it were a secret vibration of consciousness with which the material infinity all around is shot through. With evolution, that is to say, with the growth and coming forward of the consciousness, there arise sparks, glowing centres here and there, forms shape and isolate themselves in the bosom of the original formless mass; they rise and they subside, others rise, coalesce, separatesome grow, others disappear. These sparks or centres, as they develop or evolve, slowly assume definiteness,of form and function,attain an individuality and finally a personality. Looked at from below there is no counting of these sparks or rudimentary souls; they are innumerable and infinitely variable. It is something like the nebula out of which the galaxies are supposed to be formed. The line of descent, however, presents a different aspect. Looked from above, at the summit there is the infinite supreme Being and Consciousness and Bliss (Sachchidananda) and in it too there cannot be a limit to the number of Jivatmas that are its formulations, like the waves in the bosom of the sea, according to the familiar figure. This is the counterpart of the infinity at the other end, where also the rudimentary souls or potential individualities are infinite. Moving down along the line of descent at a certain stage, under a certain modality of the creative process, certain types or fundamental formations are put forward that give the ground-plan, embody the matrix of the subsequent creation or manifestation. The Four Great Personalities (Chaturvyuha), the Seven Seers, the Fourteen Manus or Human Ancestors point to the truth of a fixed number of archetypes that are the source and origin of emanations forming in the end the texture of earthly lives and existences. The number and scheme depends upon a given purpose in view and is not an eternal constant. The types and archetypes with which we, human beings, are concerned in the present cycle of evolution belong to the supramental and overmental planes of consciousness; they are the beings known familiarly as gods and presiding deities. They too have emanations, each one of them, and these emanations multiply as they come down the scale of manifestation to lower and lower levels, the mental, the vital and the physical, for example. And they enter into human embodiments, the souls evolving and ascending from the lower end; they may even take upon themselves human character and shape.
There are thus chains linking the typal beings in the world above with their human embodiments in the physical world; an archetype in the series of emanations branches out, as it were, into its commensurables and cognates in human bodies. Hence it is quite natural that many persons, human embodiments, may have so to say one common ancestor in the typal being (that gives their spiritual gotra); they all belong to the same geneological tree. Souls aspiring and ascending to the higher and fuller consciousness, because of their affinity, because together they have to fulfil a special role, serve a particular purpose in the cosmic plan, because of their spiritual consanguinity, call on the same godhead as their Master-soul or Over-soul, the Soul of their souls. Their growth and development are along similar or parallel lines, they are moulded and shaped in the pattern set by the original being. This must not be understood to mean that a soul is bound exclusively to its own family and cannot step out of its geneological system. As I have said in the beginning, souls are not material particles hard and rigid and shut out from each other, they are not obliged to obey the law of impenetrability that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time. They meet, touch, interchange, interpenetrate, even coalesce, although they may not belong to the same family but follow different lines of, evolution. Apart from the fact that in the ultimate reality each is in all and all is in each, not only so, each is all and all is eachthus beings on no account can be kept in water-tight compartmentsapart from this spiritual truth, there is also a more normal and apparent give and take between souls. The phenomenon known as "possession", for example, is a case in point. "Possession", however, need not be always a ghostly possession in the modern sense of the possession by evil spirits, it may be also in a good sense, the sense that the word carried among mediaeval mystics, viz.,spiritual.
05.05 - In Quest of Reality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Take for instance, the romantic story of the massof a body. Mass, at one time, was considered as one of the fundamental constants of nature: it meant a fixed quantity of substance inherent in a body, it was an absolute quality. Now we have discovered that this is not so; the mass of a body varies with its speed and an object with infinite speed has an infinite masstheoretically at least it should be so. A particle of matter moving with the speed of light must be terribly massive. Butmirabile dictue!a photon has no mass (practically none). In other words, a material particle when it is to be most materialexactly at the critical temperature, as it wereis dematerialised. How does the miracle happen?
In fact, we are forced to the conclusion that the picture of a solid massive material nature is only a mask of the reality; the reality is,that matter is a charge of electricity and the charge of electricity is potentially a mode of light. The ancient distinction between matter and energy is no longer valid. In fact energy is the sole reality, matter is only an appearance that energy puts on under a certain condition. And this energy too' is not mechanical (and Newtonian) but radiant and ethereal. We can no longer regret with, the poet:
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So far so good. But it is evidently not far enough, for one can answer that all this falls within the dominion of Matter and the material. The conception of Matter has changed, to be sure: Matter and energy are identified, as we have said, and the energy in its essential and significant form is light (which, we may say, is electricity at its highest potential). But this does not make any fundamental change in the metaphysical view of the reality. We have to declare in the famous French phrase plus a change, plus a reste Ie mme(the more it changes the more it remains the same). The reality remains material: for light, physical light is not something spiritual or even immaterial.
Well, let us proceed a little further. Admitted the universeis a physical substance (although essentially of the nature of lightadmitted light is a physical substance, obeying the law of gravitation, as Einstein has demonstrated). Does it then mean that the physical universe is after all a dead inert insentient thing, that whatever the vagaries of the ultimate particles composing the universe, their structure, their disposition is more or less strictly geometrical (that is to say, mechanical) and their erratic movement is only the errantry of a throw of dicea play of possibilities? There is nothing even remotely conscious or purposive in this field.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The essential appearance of Man is, as we have said, the prototype of the actual man. That is to say, the actual man is a projection, even though a somewhat disfigured projection, of the original form; yet there is an essential similarity of pattern, a commensurability between the two. The winged angels, the cherubs and seraphs are reputed to be ideal figures of beauty, but they are nothing akin to the Prototype, they belong to a different line of emanation, other than that of the human being. We may have some idea of what it is like by taking recourse to the distinction that Greek philosophers used to make between the formal and the material cause of things. The prototype is the formal reality hidden and imbedded in the material reality of an object. The essential form is made of the original configuration of primary vibrations that later on consolidate and become a compact mass, arriving finally at its end physico-chemical composition. A subtle yet perfect harmony of vibrations forming a living whole is what the prototype essentially is. An artist perhaps is in a better position to understand what we have been labouring to describe. The artist's eye is not confined to the gross physical form of an object, even the most realistic artist does not hold up the mirror to Nature in that sense: he goes behind and sees the inner contour, the subtle figuration that underlies the external volume and mass. It is that that is beautiful and harmonious and significant, and it is that which the artist endeavours to bring out and fix in a system or body of lines and colours. That inner form is not the outer visible form and still it is that form fundamentally, essentially. It is that and it is not that. We may add another analogy to illustrate the point. Pythagoras, for example, spoke of numbers being realities, the real realities of all sensible objects. He was evidently referring to the basic truth in each individual and this truth appeared to him as a number, the substance and relation that remain of an object when everything concrete and superficial is extractedor abstractedout of it. A number to him is a quality, a vibration, a quantum of wave-particles, in the modern scientific terminology, a norm. The human prototype can be conceived as something of the category of the Pythagorean number.
The conception of the Purusha at the origin of things, as the very source of things, so familiar to the Indian tradition, gives this high primacy to the human figure. We know also of the cosmic godhead cast in man's mouldalthough with multiple heads and feetvisioned and hymned by sages and seers. The gods themselves seem to possess a human frame. The Upanishads say that once upon a time the gods looked about for a proper body to dwell in, they were disappointed with all others; it is only when the human form was presented that they exclaimed, This is indeed a perfect form, a perfect form indeed. All that indicates the feeling and perception that there is something eternal and transcendent in the human body-frame.
05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All creation is fundamentally an act of self-division.
The multiplicity of the divided selves of the Supreme forms the created universe.
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The lesser gods and the pseudo-gods are none other than the various forces that reign in the world of the mental, the vital or the physical consciousness. These are the three planes that, in the cosmic as well as in the human scale, form the fundamental notes of the Inferior Hemisphere of Nature.
The true gods belong to higher reaches, they are powers of the Superior Hemisphere; living beyond the triple mundane consciousness, in the Fourth-turya-they are native to the domain of the Spirit. They embody the mighty universal laws of that vaster Truth-Consciousness (tam).
05.06 - Physics or philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Physical Science in the nineteenth century did indeed develop or presuppose a philosophy of its own; it had, that is to say, a definite outlook on the fundamental quality of things and the nature of the universe. Those were days of its youthful self-confidence and unbending assurance. The view was, as is well-known, materialistic and deterministic. That is to say, all observation and experiment, according to it, demonstrated and posited:
First, that this universe is made up of particles that push and pull each other, the particles having certain constant values, such as in respect of mass and volume. secondly, that the laws governing the relations among the particles, in other words, their push and pull, are laws of simple mechanics; they are fixed and definite and give us determinable and mensurable quantities called co-ordinatesby which one can ascertain the pattern or configuration of things at a given moment and deduce from that the pattern or configuration of things at any other moment: the chain that hangs things together is fixed and uniform and continuous and is not broken anywhere.
The scientific view of things thus discovered or affirmed certain universal and immutable factsaxiomatic truthswhich were called constants of Nature. These were the very basic foundations upon which the whole edifice of scientific knowledge was erected. The chief among them were:(I) conservation of matter, (2) conservation of energy, (3) uniformity of nature and (4) the chain of causality and continuity. Above all, there was the fundamental implication of an independentan absolutetime and space in which all things existed and moved and had their being.
The whole business of experimental science was just to find the absolutes of Nature, that is to say, facts and laws governing facts that do not depend for their existence upon anything but themselves. The purely objective world without any taint of an intruding subject was the field of its inquiry. In fact, the old-world or Mediaeval Science there was a Science even thencould not develop properly, did not strike the right line of growth, precisely because it had a strong subjective bias: the human factor, the personal element of the observer or experimenter was unconsciously (at times even deliberately) introduced into the facts and explanations of Nature. The new departure of Modern Science consisted exactly in the elimination of this personal element and making observation and experiment absolutely impersonal and thoroughly objective.
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The second element brought in in the indeterminacy picture is the restoration of the "subject" to its honoured or even more than the honoured place it had in the Mediaeval Ages, and from which it was pulled down by young arrogant Science. A fundamental question is now raised in the very methodology of the scientific apparatus. For Science, needless to say, is first and foremost observation. Now it is observed that the very fact of observation affects and changes the observed fact. The path of an electron, for example, has to be observed; one has then to throw a ray of lighthurl a photonupon it: the impact is sufficient to deflect the electron from the original path. If it is suggested that by correction and computation, by a backward calculation we can deduce the previous position, that too is not possible. For we cannot fix any position or point that is not vitiated by the observer's interference. How to feel or note the consistency of a thing, if the touch itself, the temperature of the finger, were sufficient to change the consistency? The trouble is, as the popular Indian saying goes, the very amulet that is to exorcise the ghost is possessed by the ghost itself.
So the scientists of today are waking up to this disconcerting fact. And some have put the question very boldly and frankly: do not all laws of Nature contain this original sin of the observer's interference, indeed may not the laws be nothing else but that? Thus Science has landed into the very heart the bog and quagmire, if you likeof abstruse metaphysics. Eddington says, there is no other go for Science today but to admit and delcare that its scheme and pattern of things, as described by what is called laws of Nature, is only a mental construct of the Scientist. The "wonderful" discoveries are nothing but jugglery and legerdemain of the mindwhat it puts out of itself unconsciously into the outside world, it recovers again and is astonished at the miracle. A scientific law is a pure deduction from the mind's own disposition. Eddington goes so far as to say that if a scientist is sufficiently introspective he can trace out from within his brain each and every law of Nature which he took so much pains to fish out from Nature by observation and experiment. Eddington gives an analogy to explain the nature of scientific law and scientific discovery. Suppose you have a fishing net of a particular size and with interstices of a particular dimension; you throw it into the sea and pull out with fishes in it. Now you count and assort the fishes, and according to the data thus obtained, you declare that the entire sea consists of so many varieties of fish and of such sizes. The only error is that you could not take into account the smaller fishes that escaped through the interstices and the bigger ones that did not at all fall into the net. Scientific statistics is something of this kind. Our mind is the net, and the pattern of Nature is determined by the mind's own pattern.
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Apart from the standpoint of theoretical physics developed by Einstein, the more practical aspect as brought out in Wave Mechanics leads us into no less an abstract and theoretical domain. The Newtonian particle-picture, it is true, has been maintained in the first phase of modern physics which specialised in what is called Quantum Mechanics. But waves or particlesalthough the question as to their relative validity and verity still remains opendo not make much difference in the fundamental outlook. For in either view, the individual unit is beyond the ken of the scientist. A wave is not a wave but just the probability of a wave: it is not even a probable wave but a probability wave. Thus the pattern that Wave Mechanics weaves to show the texture of the ultimate reality is nothing more than a calculus of probabilities. By whichever way we proceed we seem to arrive always at the same inevitable conclusion.
So it is frankly admitted that what Science gives is not a faithful description of actuality, not a representation of material existence, but certain conventions or convenient signs to put together, to make a mental picture of our sensations and experiences. That does not give any clue to what the objective reality mayor may not be like. Scientific laws are mental rules imposed upon Nature. It may be asked why does Nature yield to such imposition? There must be then some sort of parallelism or commensurability between Nature and the observing Mind, between the pattern of Nature and the Mind's scheme or replica of it. If we successfully read into Nature things of the Mind, that means that there must be something very common between the two. Mind's readings are not mere figments, hanging in the air; for they are justified by their applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing in a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would say. What are facts? What is life? Anything more than what the senses and the mind have built up for us?
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That seems to be the burden, the underlying preoccupation of modern physical science: it has been forced to grope towards some kind of mystic perception; at least, it has been put into a frame of mind, due to the crumbling of the very fundamentals of the past structure, which is less obstructive to other sources and spheres and ways of knowledge. Certainly, we must admit that we have moved very far from Laplace when we hear today a hard-boiled rationalist like De Broglie declare:
The idealisations more or less schematic that our mind builds up are capable of representing certain facets of things, but they have inherent limitations and cannot contain within their frames all the richness of the reality. 4
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Things need not, however, be so dismal looking. The difficulty arises because of a fundamental attitude the attitude of a purely reasoning being. But Reason or Mind is only one layer or vein of the reality, and to see and understand and explain that reality through one single track of approach will naturally bias the view, it will present only what is real or immediate to it, and all the rest will appear as secondary or a formation of it. That is, of course, a truth that has been clearly brought out by the anti-intellectualist. But the vitalist's view is also likewise vitiated by a similar bias, as he contacts reality only through this prism of vital force. It is the old story of the Upanishad in which the seeker takes the Body, the Life and the Mind one after another and declares each in its turn to be the only and ultimate reality, the Brahman.
The truth of the matter is that the integral reality is to be seized by an integral organon. To an integralised consciousness the integral reality is directly and immediately presented, each aspect is apprehended in and through its own truth and substance. The synthesis or integration is reached by a consciousness which is the basis and continent of all, collectively and severally, and of which all are various formations and expressions on various levels and degrees. This is the knowledge and experience given by the supreme spiritual consciousness.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The scientific outlook was a protest against the extreme subjective view: it started with the extreme objective standpoint and that remained the fundamental note till the other day, till the fissure of the nucleus opened new horizons to our somewhat bewildered mentality. We seem to have entered into a region where we still hold to the objective, no doubt, but not absolutely free from an insistent presence of the subjective. It is the second of the intermediate positions we have tried to describe. Science has yet to decide the implications of that position; whether it will try to entrench itself as much as possible on this side of the subjective or whether it can yield further and go over to or link itself with the deeper subjective position.
The distinction between the two may after all be found to be a matter of stress only, involving no fundamental difference, especially as there are sure to be gradations from the one to the other. The most important landmark, however, the most revolutionary step in modern science would be the discovery of the eternal observer or some sign or image of his seated within the observed phenomena of moving thingspuruah prakritisthohi, as the Gita says.
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05.08 - An Age of Revolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There has been a revolutionary change in the scientific outlook in recent times. A very fundamental principle the very postulate on which the whole edifice of physical Science has been built upis now being called in question. We thought that the unity and uniformity of Nature is a cardinal fact and nothing can shake it. Well, it appears that solid basis too has proved to be no more than an eidolon.
The search for a universal principle of Nature is a meta-physical as well as a scientific preoccupation. In ancient days, fo example, we had the Water of Thales or the Fire of Heraclitus as the one original unifying principle of this kind. With the coming of the Renascence and the New Illumination we laughed them out and installed instead the mysterious Ether. For a long time this universalreigned supreme and now that too has gone the way of its predecessors. We thought for a time that we had found in Electric Energy the one sovereign principle in Nature. At a time when we had a few elementsdiscrete, different, fundamental units that in their varying combinations built up the composite structure of Nature, apart from the fact that they reposed finally on the ultimate unifying principle of Ether, it was found also that they all behaved in a uniform and identical and therefore predictable manner. The time and the place (and the mass) being given, everything went according to a pattern and a formula, definite, fixed, mathematically rigid. Even the discovery of one element after another till the number reached the famous figure 92 (itself following a line of mathematically precise and inevitable development) did not materially alter the situation and caused no tribulation. For on further scrutiny a closer unity revealed itself: the supposed disparity in the substance of the various elements was found to be an illusion, for they all appeared now as different organisations or dispositions of the same electric energy (although the identity of electric energy with radiant energy was not always very clear). Thus we could conclude that as the substance was the same, its mode of working also would be' uniform and patterned. In other words, the mechanistic conception still ruled our view' of Nature. That means, the ultimate units, the particles (of energy) that compose Nature are like sea-sands or water-drops, each one is fundamentally similar to any other and all behave similarly, reacting uniformly to the same forces that act upon them.
Well, it is now found that they do not do so. However same or similar constitutionally, each unit is sui generisand its movement cannot be predicted. That movement does not depend upon its mass or store of energy or its position in a pattern, as a wholly mechanistic conception would demand: it is something incalculable, one should say even, erratic. In a radioactive substance, the particle that is shot out, becomes active, cannot be predetermined by any calculation, even if that is due to a definitely and precisely arranged bombardment. So we have come to posit a principle of uncertainty, as a very fundamental law of Nature. It practically declares that the ultimate particle is an autonomou unit, it is an' individual, almost a personality, and seems to have a will of its own. A material unit acts very much like a biological unit: it does not obey mechanically, answer mechanically as an automaton, but seems to possess a capacity for choice, for assent or refusal, for a free determination. The mechanistic view presented is due to an average functioning. The phenomenon has been explained by a very apt image. It is like an army. A group of soldiers, when they are on parade, look all similar and geometrically patterned: each is just like another and all move and march in the same identical manner. But that' is when you look at the whole, the collectivity, but looked individually, each one regains his separate distinct personality, each having his own nature and character, his own unique history: there no two are alike, each is non pareil and behaves differently, incalculably.
That is how we have been led almost to the threshold of a will, of a life principle, of a consciousness, however rudimentary, imbedded in the heart of Matter. All the facts that are now cropping up, the new discoveries that are being made and which we have to take into cognisance lead inevitably towards such a conclusion. Without such a conclusion a rational co-ordination of all the data of experience is hardly possible. A physical scientist may not feel justified to go beyond the purely physical data, but the implications of even such data, the demand for a fair hypothesis that can harmonise and synthesise them are compelling even a physicist to become a psychologist and a metaphysician.
05.09 - The Changed Scientific Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a scientific obscurantism, which is not less obscure because it is scientific, and one must guard against it with double care and watchfulness. It is the mentality of the no-changer whose motto seems to be: plus a change, plus a reste le mme.. Let me explain. The scientist who prefers still to be called a materialist must remember that the (material) ground under his feet has shifted considerably since the time he first propounded his materialistic position: he does not stand in the same place (or plane?) as he did even twenty years ago. The change has been basic and fundamental fundamental, because the very definitions and postulates with which we once started have been called in question, thrown overboard or into the melting-pot.
Shall we elucidate a little? We were once upon a time materialists, that is to say, we had very definite and fixed notions about Matter: to Matter we gave certain invariable characteristics, inalienable properties. How many of them stand today unscathed on their legs? Take the very first, the crucial property ascribed to Matter: "Matter is that which has extension." Well, an electric charge, a unit energy of it, the ultimate constituent of Matter as discovered by Science today, can it be said to occupy space? In the early days of Science, one Boscovich advanced a theory according to which the ultimate material particle (a molecule, in his time) does not occupy space, it is a mere mathematical point toward or from which certain forces act. The theory, naturally, was laughed out of consideration; but today we have come perilously near it. Again, another postulate describing Matter's dharma was: "two material particles cannot occupy the same place at the same time". Now what do you say of the neutron and proton that coalesce and form the unit of a modern atomic nucleus? Once more, the notion of the indestructibility of Matter has been considerably modified in view of the phenomenon of an electric particle (electron) being wholly transmuted ("dematerialised" as the scientists themselves say) into a light particle (photon). Lastly, the idea of the constancy of massa bed-rock of old-world physicsis considered today to be a superstition, an illusion. If after all these changes in the idea of Matter, a man still maintains that he is a materialist, as of old, well, I can only exclaim in the Shakespearean phrase: "Bottom, thou art translated"! What I want to say is that the changes that modern physics proposes to execute in its body are not mere amendments and emendations, but they mean a radical transfiguration, a subversion and a mutation. And more than the actual changes effected, the possibilities, the tendencies that have opened out, the lines along which further developments are proceeding do point not merely to a reformation, but a revolution.
05.09 - Varieties of Religious Experience, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Sufi doctrine also occupies an intermediate position, like the Christian, between the Chaldean and the Vedantic. The absolute identity of the human lover and the Divine Beloved, a complete fusion of the two at a particular stage or moment of consciousness is one of the cardinal experiences in the Sufi discipline. But that is an innermost state, not normal or habitual in life and activity, where the difference, the separation between the adorer and the adored is maintained exactly for the delight of play. But the dualism in the Indian discipline is more than compensated by the doctrine of Incarnation which obliterates fundamentally all difference between the human and the Divine. According to it, God does not become man only once, as in the Christian view, but that it is one of his constant functions. Indeed, the Indian tradition is that He is always the leader of terrestrial evolution; at each crisis, at each moment of need for guidance, He comes down in flesh and blood, in the form of an earthly creature to show the way, how to live and move and act.
The special gift of the Chaldean line of discipline lay in another direction. It cultivated not so much the higher lines of spiritual realisation but was occupied with what may be called the mid regions, the occult world. This material universe is not moved by the physical, vital or mental forces that are apparent and demonstrable, but by other secret and subtle forces; in fact, these are the motive forces, the real agents that work out and initiate movements in Nature, while the apparent ones are only the external forms and even masks. This occultism was also practised very largely in ancient Egypt from where the Greeks took up a few threads. The MysteriesOrphic and Eleusiniancultivated the tradition within a restricted circle and in a very esoteric manner. The tradition continued into the Christian Church also and an inner group formed in its heart that practised and kept alive something of this ancient science. The external tenets and dogmas of the Church did not admit or tolerate this which was considered as black magic, the Devil's Science. The evident reason was that if one pursued this line of occultism and tasted of the power it gave, one might very likely deviate from the straight and narrow path leading to the Spirit and spiritual salvation. In India too the siddhis or occult powers were always shunned by the truly spiritual, although sought by the many who take to the spiritual lifeoften with disastrous results. In Christianity, side by side with the major saints, there was always a group or a line of practicants that followed the occult system, although outwardly observing the official creed. It is curious to note that often where the original text of the Bible speaks of gods, in the plural, referring to the deities or occult powers, the official version translates it as God, to give the necessary theistic value and atmosphere.
05.10 - Knowledge by Identity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In seeking to disvalue the principle of identity as a fundamental element in knowing, Prof. Das brings in to witness on his side the logical copula. Some logicians, of course, assert a parallelism if not identity between the laws of thought and the laws of language, language being conceived as the very imagea photographof thought, but the truth of the matter is that it is and it is not so, as in many other things. However, here when it is stated that the copula disjoining the subject and the predicate is the very pattern of all process of knowledge, one mistakes, we are afraid, a scheme or a formula, for the thing itself, a way of understanding a fact for the fact itself. Such a formula for understanding, however it may be valid for more or less analytical languages, those of later growth, need not and did not have the same propriety in respect of other older languages. We know the evolution of language has been in the direction of more and more disjunction of its component limbs even like the progression of the human mind and intellect. The modern analytical languages with their army of independent prepositions have taken the place of the classical languages which were predominantly inflexional. The Greek and Latin started the independent prepositional forms in the form of a fundamentally inflexional structure. Still further back, in Sanskrit for example, the inflexional form reigns supreme. Prefixes and affixes served the role of prepositions. And if we move further backward, the synthetic movement is so complete that the logical components (the subject, the copula, the predicate) are fused together into one symbol (the Chinese ideogram). We are here nearer to the original nature and pattern of knowledgea single homogeneous movement of apperception. There is no sanctity or absoluteness in the logical disposition of thought structure; the Aristotelian makes it a triplicity, the Indian Nyaya would extend the dissection to five or seven limbs. But whatever the logical presentation, the original psychological movement is a single indivisible lan and the Vedantic fusion of the knower, the knowledge and the known in identity remains the fundamental fact.
Calcutta Review, 1948 August-September.
05.11 - The Place of Reason, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In Sri Aurobindo, Reason and Intuition possess a dual relation of mutual negation and mutual affirmation, of exclusiveness and inclusiveness, as indeed is the relation of Brahman and the World. One negates the other in the sphere of ignorance but in knowledge one affirms the other. That is to say, Reason or mental logic, so long as it is dominated by the senses, by the external impressions from things and by its analytic or exclusively separative method of procedure, is a denial of Intuition and a bar to spiritual experience. But Reason can be purified, relieved of its dross, illumined (sam-buddha)sublimated and uplifted then it comes to its own, becomes what it really is and should bea frame to give body to what is beyond and unembodied, a mirror in conceptual terms to what is supra-conceptual. It loses its hard rigidity and becomes supple, loses its obscurity, density and becomes transparent: it attains a new rhythm and gait and capacity. Many of the Upanishadic mantras, a good part of the Gita, do that. And Sri Aurobindo's own exposition is a miracle in that style. "Reason was a helper, Reason is the bar"and, we can add, Reason will again be an aid. The world, as it is, is anything but Divine; and yet it is nothing but the Divine essentially and fundamentally; it can and will attain the divine figure apparently and externally too. Even so with regard to man's mind and reason and all his other limbs.
Calcutta Review, January 1949.
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The souls group themselves into natural types according to the fundamental mode of consciousness and its dynamism. And they form a hierarchy: they exist and function in an organisation, the type and pattern of which is the pyramid. At the apex is the One Supreme, at the base the infinity of individual and disparate souls, earthly sparks, that are emanations, derivations, scattered condensations, parts and parcels of that One Supreme. In between, from the top towards the bottom, lie in a graded scale formations more and more specialised, particularised and concretised: as we rise we meet the larger, vaster more comprehensive forms of the same entities till we arrive at the typal and original, the source being. Thus we can view a soul along its line of emanation from the central source as a series of beings, the higher enclosing and encompassing the lower. Not only so, a higher entity can have several lower emanations and each of these again can emanate several others. The number of emanations multiply as one goes down and they decrease as one goes up. We can understand now what is meant when we speak of kindred souls. When there is an inexplicable natural affinity or similarity between two souls, it happens in such a case that the souls are emanations of the same Over-Soul. And it happens also sometimes that the guardian angel or daemon whom one may contact is none other than one's own Over-Soul. The term Over-Soul takes thus a literal and a profound significance.
We may illustrate here a little. At the apex of the pyramid of existence is the Divine, the Supreme Person, the Purushottama. Even there as He begins to lean and look dawn, He expresses himself at the very outset as the dual personality of Ishwara and Shakti (the Divine Father and the Divine Mother)sa dvityam aicchat, as the Upanishad says. That is still the Divine in His highest transcendent status, partpara. Next, this dual or biune or divalent reality shows itself or throws itself further out in a fourfold valency of the dynamic truth consciousness, creating and leading the cosmic evolution. The Four Aspects of Ishwara, forming the male or purua line, are the great names: Mahavira, Balarama, Pradyumna and Aniruddha. And the corresponding four aspects of Ishwari form the other great quaternary: Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. They embody the four major attri butes of the Divine in his relation to the created universe: Knowledge, Power, Love and skill in work. They also represent thus a divine fourfold order. The first embodies the Brahmin quality of large wisdom, wide comprehension, a vast consciousness; the second has the Kshatriya quality of force, dynamism, concentration and drive of energy; the third possesses the Vaishya quality of harmony, beauty, mutuality and the fourth has the Shudra quality of perfect execution, thoroughness in detailed working, order and arrangement.
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Another tradition gives the Four Supernals as (1) Light or Consciousness, (2) Truth or Knowledge, (3) Life and (4) Love. The tradition also says that the beings representing these four fundamental principles of creation were the first and earliest gods that emanated from the Supreme Divine, and that as they separated themselves from their source and from each other, each followed his own independent line of fulfilment, they lost their divinity and turned into their oppositesLight became obscurity, Consciousness unconsciousness or the inconscient, Truth became falsehood and Knowledge ignorance, Life became death and finally Love and Delight became suffering and hatred. These are the fallen angels, the Asuras that deny their divine essence and now rule the world. They have possessed mankind and are controlling earthly existence. They too have their emanations, forces and beings that are born out of them and serve them in their various degrees of power. Men talk and act inspired and impelled by these beings and when they do so, they lose their humanity and become worse than animals.
But still the Pure Reality descends undeviated in its own line and man enshrines that within him, the undying fire that will clean him and bear him to the source from where he came. And there are luminous godheads that help him and wish themselves to participate in the terrestrial transformation. There is a pressure from above and there is an urge from below, between these two infinities all is ground and moulded and changed. Even the Lords of Denial will in the end change and learn to affirm, become again what they truly were and are.
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Man, the soul, we said, comes direct from the Divine and is thrown and almost stuck into the earth as a spark, as a point of luminous consciousness-force. This soul, as it develops, we find, belongs to one or other of the fundamental type of divine personality, it is a lineal descendant, as it were, of one of the quaternary and its growth means growing into the nature of that particular godhead and its fulfilment means identification with that.
We may try to illustrate by examples, although it is a rather dangerous game and may tend to put into a too rigid and' mathematical formula something that is living and variable. Still it will serve to give a clearer picture of the matter. Napoleon, evidently was a child of Mahakali; and Caesar seems to have been fashioned largely by the principle of Maheshwari; while Christ or Chaitanya are clearly emanations in the line of Mahalakshmi. Constructive geniuses, on the other hand, like the great statesman Colbert, for example, or Louis XIV, Ie grand monarque, himself belong to a family (or gotra, as we say in India) that originated from Mahasaraswati. Poets and artists again, although generally they belong to the clan of Mahalakshmi, can be regrouped according to the principle that predominates in each, the godhead that presides over the inspiration in each. The large breath in Homer and Valmiki, the high and noble style of their movement, the dignity and vastness that compose their consciousness affiliate them naturally to the Maheshwari line. A Dante, on the other hand, or a Byron has something in his matter and manner that make us think of the stamp of Mahakali. Virgil or Petrarch, Shelley or our Tagore seem to be emanations of Beauty, Harmony, LoveMahalakshmi. And the perfect artisanship of Mahasaraswati has found its especial embodiment in Horace and Racine and our Kalidasa. Michael Angelo in his fury of inspirations seems to have been impelled by Mahakali, while Mahalakshmi sheds her genial favour upon Raphael and Titian; and the meticulous care and the detailed surety in a Tintoretto makes us think of Mahasaraswati's grace. Mahasaraswati too seems to have especially favoured Leonardo da Vinci, although a brooding presence of Maheshwari also seems to be intermixed there.
05.13 - Darshana and Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
European thought, European philosophy particularly, moves under the aegis of the Mind. It takes its stand within the Mind and from there tries to reach out to truths and realities; and therefore, however far it goes, its highest flights of perception, its most intimate contacts with spirit-truths are 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought'. The Indian standpoint, on the contrary, is first to contact the truth by a direct realisationthrough meditation, concentration, an uplifting and a deepening of the consciousness, through Yoga, spiritual discipline, and then endeavour to express the truth thus realised, directly intuited or revealed, through mental terms, to make it familiar and communicable to the normal intelligence. Mind, so subordinated and keyed to a new rhythm, becomes, as far as it is possible for it, a channel, a vehicle and not a veil. All the main systems of Indian philosophy have this characteristic as their background. Each stands on a definite experience, a spiritual realisation, a direct contact with an aspect of truth and in and -through that seeks to give a world-view, building "up an intellectual system, marshalling rational conclusions that are natural to it or derive inevitably from it. In the Upanishads, which preceded the Darshanas, the spiritual realisations were not yet mentally systematised or logically buttressed: truths were delivered there as self-evident statements, as certitudes luminous in their own au thenticity. We accept them without question and take them into our consciousness as forming its fundamental norms, structuring its most intimate inscape. This is darana, seeing, as philosophy is named in India. One sees the truth or reality and describes it as it is seen, its limbs and gestures, its constituents and functions. Philosophy here is fundamentally a recording of one's vision and a translation or presentation of it in mental terms.
The procedure of European philosophy is different. There the reason or the mental light is the starting-point. That light is cast about: one collects facts, one observes things and happenings and then proceeds to find out a general trutha law, a hypothesisjustified by such observations. But as a matter of fact this is the ostensible method: it is only a make-believe. For mind and reason are not normally so neutral and impersonal, a tabula rasa. The observer already comes into the field with a definite observational angle and a settled viewpoint. The precise sciences of today have almost foundered on this question of the observer entering inextricably into his observations and vitiating them. So in philosophy too as it is practised in Europe, on a closer observation, if the observer is carefully observed, one finds not unoften a core of suppositions, major premises taken for granted hidden behind the logical apparatus. In other words, even a hardened philosopher cherishes at the back of his mind a priorijudgments and his whole philosophy is only a rationalisation of an inner prejudgment, almost a window-dressing of a perception that came to him direct and in other secret ways. That was what Kant meant when he made the famous distinction between the Pure and the Practical Reason and their categories. Only the direct perceptions, the spiritual realisations are so much imbedded behind, covered so much with the mist of mind's struggle and tension and imaginative construction that it is not always easy to disengage the pure metal from the ore.
We shall take the case of one such philosopher and try to illustrate our point. We are thinking of Whitehead. The character of European philosophical mind is well exemplified in this remarkable modern philosopher. The anxiety to put the inferences into a strict logical frame makes a naturally abstruse and abstract procedure more abstruse and abstract. The effort to present suprarational truths in terms of reason and syllogism clouds the issues more than it clarifies them. The fundamental perception, the living intuition that is behind his entire philosophy and world outlook is that of an Immanent God, a dynamic evolving Power working out the growth and redemption of mankind and the world {the apotheosis of the World, as he puts it). It is the theme which comes last in the development of his system, as the culminating conclusion of his philosophy, but it is the basic presupposition, the first principle that inspires his whole outlook, all the rest is woven and extended around this central nucleus. The other perception intimate to this basic -original perception and inseparable from it is a synthetic view in which things that are usually supposed to be contraries find their harmony and union, viz.,God and the World, Permanence and Flux, Unity and Multiplicity, the Universal and the Individual. The equal reality of the two poles of an integral truth is characteristic of many of the modern philosophical systems. In this respect Whitehead echoes a fundamental conclusion of Sri Aurobindo.
There is another concept in Whitehead which seems to be moulded after a parallel concept in Sri Aurobindo: it is with regard to the working out of the process of creation, the mechanism of its dynamism. It is almost a glimpse into the occult functioning of the world forces. Whitehead speaks of two principles that guide the world process, first, the principle of limitation, and second, the principle of ingress. The first one Sri Aurobindo calls the principle of concentration (and of exclusive concentration) by which the infinite and the eternal limits himself, makes himself finite and temporal and infinitesimal, the universal transforms itself into the individual and the particular. The second is the principle of descent, which is almost the corner-stone in Sri Aurobindo's system. There are layers of reality: the higher forces and formulations enter into the lower, work upon it and bring about a change and transformation, purification and redemption. All progress and evolution is due to this influx of the higher, the deeper into , the lower and superficial plane of existence.
05.15 - Sartrian Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Freedom cannot be real freedom unless it is licence : yet society means a curtailment or inhibition or modification of this absolute liberty. This, conflict has never been resolved in Sartre and is fundamental to his ideology, 'the source of his tragic nihilism. That is because the consciousness here lives horizontally, level with the normal, what we described as psycho-vital consciousness. The way out lies in transcendence, in a vertical uplifting of the consciousness and the being.
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05.32 - Yoga as Pragmatic Power, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fundamental truth to be noted is that the Spirit is power, not merely consciousness: indeed the very definition of the spirit is that it is consciousness-energy. And it is this consciousness-energy that is at the source of all cosmic activities. Man's action too springs from this original source, although apparently it seems to be caused by other secondary and derivative energies. As a matter of fact what these energies that seem to be actually in play do is not the origination but rather the deviation and diversion, a diminution and adulteration of the supreme energy, a lowering of the quality, the tone and temper of the dynamism. In other words, as we have already said, a thought force, a vital force, a nervous or physical force, all these are only lower, even minima values, more or less distant and deformed echoes of a true and absolute Power behind and above them all. These forces become powerful in proportion as they are instruments and functions of that one mother energy. The truth is most beautifully illustrated in the story of Brahma a and the gods in the Kena Upanishad. The gods conquered and were proud of their conquest; each thought that it was due to his own personal prowess that he conquered. But they were utterly discomfited and shamed when the Divine Power appeared and proved to them that but for this Power they would not be able even to tackle a blade of grassFire would not burn it, Water would not drench it, Wind would not move it.
The Life Divine, by Sri Aurobindo
06.31 - Identification of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness being one and the same everywhere fundamentally, through your own consciousness you can identify yourself with the consciousness that inhabits any other particular formation, any object or being or world. You can, for example, identify your consciousness with that of a tree. Stroll out one evening, find a quiet place in the countryside; choose a big treea mango tree, for instance and go and take your seat at its root, with your back resting or leaning against the trunk. Still yourself, be quiet and wait, see or feel what happens in you. You will feel as if something is rising up within you, from below upward, coursing like a fluid, something that makes you feel at once happy and contented and strong. It is the sap mounting in the tree with which you have come in contact, the vital force, the secret consciousness in the tree that is comforting, restful and health-giving. Well, tired travellers sit under a banyan tree, birds rest upon its spreading branches, other animalsand even beings too (you must have heard of ghosts haunting a tree)take shelter there. It is not merely for the cool or cosy shade, not merely for the physical convenience it gives, but the vital refuge or protection that it extends. Trees are so living, so sentient that they can be almost as friendly as an animal or even a human being. One feels at home, soothed, protected, streng thened under their overspreading foliage.
I will give you one instance. There was an old mango tree in one of our gardensvery old, leafless and dried up, decrepit and apparently dying. Everybody was for cutting it down and making the place clean and clear for flowers or vegetables. I looked at the tree. Suddenly I saw within the dry bark, at the core, a column of thin and and dim light, a light greenish in colour, mounting up, something very living. I was one with the consciousness of the tree and it told me that I should not allow it to be cut down. The tree is still living and in fairly good health. As a young girl barely in my teens I used to go into the woods not far from Paris, Bois de Fontainebleau: there were huge oak trees centuries old perhaps. And although I knew nothing of meditation then, I used to sit quietly by myself and feel the life around, the living presence of something in each tree that brought to me invariably the sense of health and happiness.
06.33 - The Constants of the Spirit, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine exists in three modes: (I) Existence, (2) Consciousness and (3) Bliss. Pure existence, pure consciousness and pure blissSat-Chit-Ananda these are the three fundamental elements out of which the world is made; they are everywhere in all things, in all beings, in all domains and levels of being. Sachchidananda is the supreme reality that is behind all, even here below, behind the mind, behind the life and behind the body too and behind each form in each of these domains. It is that which upholds and sustains everything. Therefore in order to realise it, it is not necessary to mount up, leaving behind the mental, the vital and physical existence and go beyond. Usually when one seeks Sachchidananda one looks for it outside the universe, above and beyond the creation, in the transcendent. In reality, however, one can meet it from any place where one happens to be, either in the mind or in the vital or even in the physical; one has only to withdraw and sink down, or get behind: it is there always. To meet Sachchidananda in and through the physical existence is not very much more difficult or rare a thing than the other ways; it is more difficult and rare to maintain it there constantly and consciously, to make of it a dynamic physical possession. That is the work to be done and for which Sri Aurobindo came.
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06.36 - The Mother on Herself, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You will say if the truth I bring is supreme and omnipotent, why does it not compel the world to accept it, why can it not break the world's resistance, force man to accept the good it refuses? But that is not the way in which the world was created nor the manner in which it moves and develops. The origin of creation is freedom: it is a free choice in the consciousness that has projected itself as the objective world. This freedom is the very character of its fundamental nature. If the world denies its supreme truth, its highest good, it does so in the delight of its free choice; and if it is to turn back and recognise that truth and that good, it must do so in the same delight of free choice. If the erring world was ordered to turn right and immediately did so, if things were done in a trice, through miracles, there would be then no point in creating a world. Creation means a play of growth: it is a journey, a movement in time and space through graded steps and stages. It is a movement awayaway from its source and a movement towards: that is the principle or plan on which it stands. In this plan there is no compulsion on any of the elements composing the world to forswear its natural movement, to obey to a dictate from outside: such compulsion would break the rhythm of creation.
And yet there is a compulsion. It is the secret pressure of one's own nature that drives it forward through all vicissitudes back again to its original source. When it is said that the Divine Grace can and should do all, it means nothing more and nothing less than that: the Divine Grace only accelerates the process of return and recognition. But on the side of the journeying element, the soul, there must be awakened a conscious collaboration, an initial consent and a constantly renewed adhesion. It is this that brings out, at least helps to establish outside on the physical level, the force that is already and has always been at work within and on the subtler and higher levels. That is the pattern of the play, the system of conditions under which the game is carried out. The Grace works and incarnates in and through a body of willing and conscious collaborators; these become themselves part and parcel of the Force that works.
07.03 - This Expanding Universe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The universe is a manifestation, that is to say, the unfolding of infinite possibilities. The unfolding has not stopped, it is continuing and will continue, throwing out or bringing into physical expression all that lies behind and latent. The universe may be considered as a sphere or a globe, a totality or assemblage containing everything that exists here and is being manifested. Beyond and outside, as it were, this circle of creation lies the transcendent, the Supreme Divine, in his own status. The transcendent means the unmanifest. It does not mean, however, the void; for it contains all that is to be manifested, each and everything in its potentiality, its essence, in a seed form. All is there as a latent possibility, a fundamental truth of beingall is there not simply as a general idea, but in every detail, though as it were on a microscopic scale, something like the chromosomes in life plasm. The transcendent is beyond time and space. Manifestation or creation begins with the formulation of time and space, the frame in which what lay latent is gradually brought out and displayed. The transcendent is consciousness absorbed in itself, identified with itself; manifestation is consciousness waking and looking at itself as its object (La prise de conscience objective de soi).
Now, one can be seated or fixed exclusively in the status of the unmanifest; to such a one the infinite and eternal is an ever-present reality, there is nothing like past or future, every-thing is. One knows and is in the presence of a fixed actuality; whatever happened, whatever will happenas it seems to us all are there realised on the same plane and at the same moment (although the terms plane and moment do not quite apply there). It is the world or status of the absolutely determined. Free choice or indeterminacy, the unexpected and the unforeseen have no place here.
07.17 - Why Do We Forget Things?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are many reasons, of course. First and the most important is that we use the faculty of memory in order to remember. Memory is a mental instrument depending upon the formation and growth of the brain. Your brain is developing constantly unless, of course, it is already degenerating; the development can continue for a long time, longer than that of the body. In the process there are necessarily things replaced by others; and as the instrument grows, elements that were useful in one state are no longer so in a subsequent state and have to give place to others more suitable. The net result of our acquisitions remains there in essence, but all that had led to it, the intermediary steps are suppressed. Indeed, a good memory means nothing more than that that is to say, to remember the results only, so that the fundamentals are sifted and stored, namely, those alone that are useful for further construction. This is more important than just trying to retain some particular items in a rigid manner.
There is another thing. Apart from the fact that memory by itself in its very nature is a defective organ, there is the other fact that I there are different states of consciousness one following another. Each state faithfully records the phenomena of that moment, whatever they may be. Now, if your mind is calm and clear, wide and strong, you can by concentrating your consciousness on that moment bring out of it and recall in your present active state what is recorded there of your movements then; you can, that is to say, go back to the particular state of consciousness at a given moment and live it again. What is registered in your consciousness is never obliterated and hence not really forgotten. You can live a thousand years and you will not have forgotten that. Therefore, if you do not want to forget a thing, you must retain it through your consciousness, and not through your mental memory. As I have said, the mental memory fades away, new things, things of today replace old things, things of yesterday. But that of which you are conscious in your conscious-ness, you can never forget. It lies somewhere in the background, returns to you at your bidding. You have only to withdraw to that state of the consciousness where it lies imbedded. In this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how you remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, it is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you have learnt with this superficial instrument laboriouslyonly read, heard, noted, underlinedleaves no lasting mark, but what is imbibed, breathed in into the stuff of consciousness remains. The brain is being constantly renewed and reformed. Old cells, cells that have become weak and atrophied are replaced by younger and stronger ones or the old cells combine differently or enter into other organisations. Thus the old impressions or memories they carried are obliterated.
07.19 - Bad Thought-Formation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are many things in the world you do not approve of. Some people who, as they put it, wish to have the knowledge, want to find out why it is so. It is a line of knowledge. But I say it is much more important to find out how to make things otherwise than they are at present. That is exactly the problem Buddha set before himself. He sat under a tree and continued till he found the solution. The solution, however, is not very satisfactory: You say, the world is bad, let us then do away with the world; but to whose profit, as Sri Aurobindo asks very pertinently? The world will no longer be bad, since it will exist no more. The world will have to be rolled back into its origin, the original pure existence or non-existence. Then man will be, in Sri Aurobindo's words, the all-powerful master of something that does not exist, an emperor without an empire, a king without a kingdom. It is a solution. But there are others, which are better. We consider ours to be the best. There are some who say, like the Buddha, evil comes from ignorance, remove the ignorance and evil will disappear. Others say that evil comes from division, from separation; if the universe were not separated from its origin, there would be no evil. Others again declare that it is an evil will that is the cause of all, of separation and ignorance. Then the question is, where does this bad will come from? If it were at the origin of things, it must have been in the origin itself. And then some question the bad will itself,there is no such thing, essentially, fundamentally, it is pure illusion.
Do animals have a bad will?
07.29 - How to Feel that we Belong to the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Three hundred years is the minimum, I should say. You must realise what it means to transform the body. The body with all its organs and functionings works automatically without the intervention of your consciousness, and is built upon an animal plan. If your heart stops for the hundredth part of a second, your body goes off. You cannot do without a single one of your organs and you must keep watch over their proper functioning. Transformation means the replacement of this purely material arrangement by a systematic concentration of forces. You must bring about an arrangement of forces, according to a certain kind of vibration, replacing each organ by a centre of self-conscious energy which governs through the concentration of a higher force. There will no longer be a stomach, no more a heart even. These things will give place to a system of vibrations which represent what they really are. The material organs are symbols of energy centres; they are not the essential reality, they only give a form or figure to it under certain circumstances. The transformed body will function through its real energy centres, not through their representatives as developed in an animal body. For that you must first of all be conscious of these centres and their functionings; instead of an unconscious automatic movement there has to be a movement of conscious control. Thus one will have at his disposal not physical animal organs but the symbolic vibrations, the symbolic energies. This does not mean that there will not be any definite recognizable form. The form will be built up with qualities rather than with solid (dust) particles. It will be, so to say, a practical or pragmatic form: it will be supple and mobile, unlike the fixed grossly material shape. As the expression of your face changes with your feeling, impulsion, even so the body will change according to the need of the inner movement: have you never had this kind of experience in your dream? You rise up in the air and you give as it were a push with your elbow in one direction and your body extends that way; you give a kick with your foot and you land somewhere else: you can be transparent at will and go easily through a solid wall! The transformed body will behave somewhat in the same way, it will be light, luminous, elastic. Lightness, luminosity, elasticity will be the very fundamental qualities of the body.
To prepare such a body 300 years is nothing; even a thousand years will not be too much. Naturally, I am speaking of the same body. If you change your body in between, it will no longer be the same body. At 50 the body already begins to wear out. But, on the contrary, if you have a body that goes on perfecting itself; if each passing year represents a step in progress, then you can continue indefinitely: for after all, you are immortal.
08.22 - Regarding the Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fatigue of the body comes from an inner disharmony. There may be many other apparent reasons, but all amount to that fundamental circumstance viz. a want of balance among the different parts of the being. That may occur on a day when, for example, you had a lot of energy and you spent too much. But such is usually not the case with children. They spend and go on spending till they are not able to do any more. A child is very active till the last moment when it drops dead asleep. A minute before it was moving about, running, shouting, all on a sudden it falls down into deep sleep. And that is how they grow and gain strength. So the trouble does not lie in spending. Spending is easily repaired by necessary rest. Fatigue and lethargy come from a different source.
People think they have only to continue to do what they do everyday, perform the same work, with the same state of consciousness regularly and everything will be all right. But things do not happen that way. All on a sudden in the midst of the regular movement, you do not know why or how, a part of your beingsome feeling, or thoughtmakes a progress, discovers a new thing, receives a light or a higher impulsion. That part shoots ahead, as it were, and goes forward: the other parts remain behind. That brings about a disharmony and it is quite sufficient to cause fatigue, even much fatigue. Truly, however, this is not fatigue, but a desire to keep quiet, to concentrate, to remain within oneself and build a new harmony between the disparate parts. And such a state or period is quite necessary which is a period of assimilation of what one has learnt, of harmonisation of all the limbs.
08.36 - Buddha and Shankara, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But taken in its fundamental principle it has not helped much in the transformation of earth and earthly life. It has not encouraged the descent of a higher Consciousness into earthly life; instead it has very strongly encouraged the separation of the Consciousness, which he said was the only truth, from all external expression.
And as to the existence or manifestation of the Divine upon earth, they who believed in Buddha have now made him a God. You have only to look at the Buddhist temples and all their divinities to know that human nature has always the tendency to deify what it admires.
09.05 - The Story of Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When it climbs back to its origin, it returns to the starting point with something more than what it had before it started. It is the experience of the universe and universality. fundamentally, that is the reason for the existence of creation. Consciousness would not be what it is had it not been expressed in a creation. There is an enrichment of consciousness through the experience gathered in an objective universe, a richness of content and a plenitude it would not have if there were not a manifested universe.
The return movement of creation is not a thing that happens in time. It is difficult to conceive, because for us things are successive. But if one could conceive a movement as a whole embracing everything, which would be at the same time the beginning and the end, and contain all, it would then be not a return in time, but a return in consciousness.
100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
impinging at both ends of their actions to give us something very fundamental: a
tetrahedron, a system, a division of Universe into inside and outside. We get the
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humans on infinitesimally minor Earth.171.00 All the fundamental nuclear simplexes of the 92 inherently
selfregenerative physical Universe elements are a priori to human mind
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will always be fundamental to the design laws, both primary and corollary.
172.00 Biological designs a priori to human alteration contriving are directly
1.001 - The Aim of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
In short, I may conclude by saying that happiness, joy, success, or the discovery of the significance of things, including the significance of one's own life and the life of everyone, would not be possible of achievement if the basic structural fundamentals are missed in life and we emphasise only the outer aspects which are only the rim of the body of life whose vital soul we are unable to perceive, because we do not have the instrument to perceive the soul of life. We have the instruments, called the senses, to perceive the body of life, but the soul of life we cannot perceive, because while the senses can perceive the bodies and the things outside, the soul of things can be perceived only by the soul. It is the soul that sees the soul of things.
When my soul can visualise your soul, then we become really friends; otherwise, we are not friends. Any amount of roundtable conferences of individuals with no soulful connection will not lead to success. Ultimately, success is the union of souls; and yoga aims, finally, at the discovery of the Universal Soul, about which I shall speak in some detail later on.
10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The relation between the Supreme (over and above the creation) and the individual in the creation representing the creation is sometimes described in human terms to give it a concrete and graphic form. This relationship characteristically indicates the fundamental nature of the Reality it deals with. Thus in the Vedantic tradition the Supreme is worshipped as the Father (pit no asi). It is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. Ii brings out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine Mother holding the universe in her arms. The individual worships and adores the Supreme Prakriti as a human child does. The Vaishnava makes the relation as between the lover and the beloved, and the love depicted is intensely vital and even physical, as intense and poignant as the ordinary ignorant human passion. It is to show that the Love Divine can beat the human love on its own ground, that is to say, it can be or it is as passionately sweet and as intensely intimate as any human love. It is why Bhakta Prahlad said to his beloved Vishnu "O Lord, what ordinary men feel and enjoy in and through their physical senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee."
Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness.
10.07 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is already a realised unity; that unity runs as the fundamental chord in and through differing and discordant notes. These different and discordant and even denying notes have to be re-conditioned, blended, harmonised; that is the effective and patent unity that lies in potentia and has to be brought forth in front. The world is one at bottom; it is to be made one upto the brim.
The material world is a factual unity. For it is one matter that exists everywhere; the same fundamental elements constitute, although in different degrees, the earth, the sun, the stars, the distant galaxies and the extragalactic rays. It is in the last analysis charges of electricityinfinitesimal and infinite charges of electric force, points of energy that form the entire creationpullulating particles that fill the universe; but they are not isolated, disconnected, disunited, they are a continuum. This continuum was called 'ether' at one time, it is now called 'field'. This material unity consists in the one extension that turns and swirls into creases and eddies giving the impression of separativeness and disunity. The task of the scientist is to know how to recondition the swirling dispersing expanse so as to as similarise, polarise the disparate elements. That is the meaning of what the scientists are now handling as the 'laser' or 'maser' beams.1
Likewise, the vital world is also one. It is one life that pulsates in and through all living formationsone sea as it were, swaying and heaving and breaking into innumerable waves and ripples. In spite of infinite variations there is one overall pattern that persists through the living creation. Anatomy and more clearly physiology links in a strange way even the plant and the animal and man. And in humanity if there is a great vital upsurge somewhere, it spreads its vibration far and wide like a seismic motion. And it is because of this vital unity that there arises the phenomenon known as contagion or pest and pestilence that is to say, mass-movements are occasioned by one indivisible life-urge. A common suffering or a common elation is normal to human life.
The fundamental unity, here too, works through discord and disunion, battle and conflict, denial and negation. Here too the drive or purpose of progress and of evolution is towards the same polarisation, that is to say, reorientation, evocation of vibrations that are a pure or harmonious expression of the unity.
Coming next to Mind, the unity here too, is quite marked, clearly discernible. There is only one Mind that rules the myriad mentalities of this world. Thoughts and ideas are not in reality personal creations, they are various formulations of the one universal Mind; they enter into and possess individual minds as receptacles, and no doubt in the process undergo particular modifications in their general character. It is a very common experience to see the same or very similar ideas and thoughts expressed by individuals (or groups) living far from each other, having practically no mutual contact. We have known of "independent discoveries" of the same truth or fact and innumerable instances of this kind has history provided for us. It is not a freak of nature that we find Socrates and Buddha and Confucius as contemporaries. Contemporaries also were India's Akbar, England's Elizabeth and Italy's Leo X. Also the year 1905 has been known as Annus Mirabilis, a year of seminal importance the sowing of the seed of a new earth-lifesignificant for the whole human race, for the East and for the West, particularly for India, for Japan, for Russia and even for England. And today's world has indeed become a world of compact unity in human achievement and also alas, in human distress!
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
We must remember that in both the astral and the mental sheaths there exist the counterparts of the centres as found in the physical body. These centres concern matter and its evolution. One fundamental statement can be laid down anent the internal fires of all these four (sun, planet, man, and atom):
There exists in the Sun, in the planet, in man, and in the atom, a central point of heat, or ((if I might use so limiting and inappropriate a term) a central cavern of fire, or nucleus of heat, and this central nucleus reaches the bounds of its sphere of influence, its ring-pass-not by means of a threefold channel. [xvii]17
--
Certain facts are known in connection with the fire spirits (if so they may be termed). The fundamental fact that should here be emphasised is that AGNI, the Lord of Fire, rules over all the fire elementals and devas on the three planes of human evolution, the physical, the astral, and the mental, and rules over them not only on this planet, called the Earth, but on the three planes in all parts of the system. He is one of the seven Brothers (to use an expression familiar to students of the Secret Doctrine) Who each embody one of the seven principles, or Who are in Themselves the seven centres in the body of the cosmic Lord of Fire, called by H. P. B. "Fohat." He is that active fiery Intelligence, Who is the basis of the internal fires of the solar system. On each plane one of these Brothers holds sway, and the three elder Brothers (for always the three will be seen, and later the seven, who eventually merge into the primary three) rule on the first, third and the fifth planes, or on the plane of adi, of atma [xxii]22 and of manas. It is urgent that we here remember that They are fire viewed [66] in its third aspect, the fire of matter. In Their totality these seven Lords form the essence of the cosmic Lord, called in the occult books, Fohat. [xxiii]23
This is so in the same sense as the seven Chohans, [xxiv]24 with Their affiliated groups of pupils, form the essence or centres in the body of one of the Heavenly Men, one of the planetary Logoi. These seven again in Their turn form the essence of the Logos.
1.00b - DIVISION B - THE PERSONALITY RAY AND FIRE BY FRICTION, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The karma of form is likewise a vast subject, too [76] involved for average comprehension but a factor of real importance which should not be overlooked in connection with the evolution of a world, a synthesis of worlds, or of a system when viewed from higher levels. Everything is, in its totality, the result of action taken by cosmic Essences and Entities in earlier solar systems, which is working out through the individual atoms, and through those congeries of atoms which we call forms. The effect of the personality Ray upon the internal fires is therefore, in effect, the result of the influence of the planetary Logos of whatever ray is implicated, as He works out that portion of Karma which falls to His share in any one cycle, greater or lesser. He thus brings about and eventually transmutes, the effects of causes which He set in motion earlier in relation to His six Brothers, the other planetary Logoi. We get an illustrative parallel in the effect which one individual will have upon another in worldly contact, in moulding and influencing, in stimulating or retarding. We have to remember that all fundamental influence and effects are felt on the astral plane and work thence through the etheric to the dense physical thereby bringing matter under its sphere of influence, yet not itself originating on the physical plane.
[77]
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Two fundamental truths stand out from the aggregate of facts so slightly dealt with here:
[101]
--
We will now study the etheric body, and its ills and also its after death condition. This matter can be only briefly touched upon. All that may now be indicated is a general idea of the fundamental ailments to which the etheric may be subject, and the trend which applied medicine may later take when occult laws are better understood. One fact must here be brought outa fact but little comprehended or even apprehended. This is the significant fact that the ills of the etheric vehicle, in the case of the microcosm, will be found likewise in the Macrocosm. Herein lies the knowledge that ofttimes explains the apparent miseries of nature. Some of the great world evils have their source in etheric ills, extending the idea of the etheric to planetary conditions and even to solar. As we touch upon the causes of etheric distress in man, their planetary and solar correspondences and reactions may perhaps be realised. We will need to bear carefully in mind when studying this matter, that all the diseases of the etheric body will appertain to its threefold purpose and be either:
a. Functional and thereby affecting its apprehension of prana,
--
Viewed from the planetary standpoint the same conditions will be perceived, and the etheric planetary body [105] (which is fundamentally the body in the case of the sacred planets, of which the Earth is not one) will have its functional disorders, which will affect its reception of prana, will suffer its organic troubles which may affect its distribution, and those disorders which permit of trouble in the etheric web, which forms the ring-pass-not for the involved planetary Spirit. Here I would point out that in the case of the planetary Spirits Who are on the divine evolutionary arc, the Heavenly Men Whose bodies are planets, the etheric web does not form a barrier, but (like the Karmic Lords on a higher plane) They have freedom of movement outside the bounds of the planetary web within the circumference of the solar ring-pass-not. [xlvii]46
Again from the systemic standpoint, these same effects may be observed, functionally, this time in connection with the cosmic centre; organically, in connection with the sum total of the planetary systems; and statically, in connection with the solar or logoic ring-pass-not.
--
The three fundamental centres whereby reception is brought about must be allowed to function with greater freedom, and with less restriction. Now, owing to centuries of wrong living, and to basic mistakes (originating in Lemurian days) man's three pranic centres are not in good working order. The centre between the shoulder blades is in the best receptive condition, though owing to the poor condition of the spinal column (which in so many is out of accurate alignment), its position in the back is apt to be misplaced. The splenic centre near the diaphragm is sub-normal in size and its vibration is not correct. In the case of the aboriginal dwellers in such localities as the South Seas, better etheric conditions will be found; the life they lead is more normal (from the animal standpoint) than in any other portion of the world.
The race suffers from certain incapacities, which may be described as follows:
--
For the sake of those who read this treatise, and because the sequential repetition of fact makes for clarity, let us here briefly tabulate certain fundamental hypotheses that have a definite bearing upon the matter in hand, and which may serve to clear up the present existing confusion concerning the matter of the solar system. Some of the facts stated are already well known, others are inferential, while some are the expression of old and true correspondences couched in a more modern form.
a. The lowest cosmic plane is the cosmic physical, and it is the only one which the finite mind of man can in any way comprehend.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
I would point out primarily and emphasize the fact that the motion we are considering is that due to the fire latent in matter itself, a motion that is the prime characteristic and basic quality of the Primordial Ray of Active Intelligence. To express it otherwise: it is the outstanding faculty of the third Logos, of Brahma [142] viewed as the Creator, and this faculty is the product or result of an earlier manifestation. Each of the three Logoi, when in manifestation and thus personified, is exemplifying some one quality which predominates over the others. Each, more or less, exemplifies all, but each demonstrates one of the three aspects so profoundly as to be recognised as that aspect itself. In much the same way, for instance, the different incarnating jivas carry a vibration which is their main measure, though they may also have lesser vibrations that are subsidiary to them. Let us get this clear, for the truth embodied is fundamental.
1. The threefold goal,
--
b. His function is, by means of will, to hold them in manifestation for the desired period, and later to abstract them, and blend them again with their spiritual source. Hence the necessity of remembering that fundamentally, the first Logos controls the cosmic entities or extra-systemic beings; the second Logos controls the solar entities; the third Logos controls the lunar entities and their correspondences elsewhere in the system.
This rule must not be carried too far in detail as long as man's mind is of its present calibre. The mystery lies in the realisation that all is carried on in a divine co-operation that has its base outside the system. Hence too the fact that the first Logos is called the Destroyer, because He is abstraction, if viewed from below upwards. His work is the synthesis of Spirit with Spirit, their [149] eventual abstraction from matter, and their unification with their cosmic source. Hence also He is the one who brings about pralaya or the disintegration of form,the form from which the Spirit has been abstracted.
--
All these spheres conform to certain rules, fulfil certain conditions and are characterised by the same fundamental qualifications. Later we will consider these conditions, [154] but must now continue with the effect of rotary action.
2. Momentum, resulting therefore in repulsion, was produced by the rotary movement. We have referred to the Law of Repulsion as one of the subsidiary branches of the great Law of Economy, which governs matter. Repulsion is brought about by rotary action, and is the basis of that separation which prevents the contact of any atom with any other atom, which keeps the planets at fixed points in space and separated stably from each other; which keeps them at a certain distance from their systemic centre, and which likewise keeps the planes and subplanes from losing their material identity. Here we can see the beginning of that age-long duel between Spirit and matter, which is characteristic of manifestation, one aspect working under the Law of Attraction, and the other governed by the Law of Repulsion. From aeon to aeon the conflict goes on, with matter becoming less potent. Gradually (so gradually as to seem negated when viewed from the physical plane) the attractive power of Spirit is weakening the resistance of matter till, at the close of the greater solar cycles, destruction (as it is called) will ensue, and the Law of Repulsion be overcome by the Law of Attraction. It is a destruction of form and not of matter itself, for matter is indestructible. This can be seen even now in the microcosmic life, and is the cause of the disintegration of form, which holds itself as a separated unit by the very method of repulsing all other forms. It can be seen working out gradually and inappreciably in connection with the Moon, which no longer is repulsive to the earth, and is giving of her very substance to this planet. H. P. B. hints at this in The Secret Doctrine, and I have here suggested the law under which this is so. [lxxii]70, [lxxiii]71
--
The centres in the human being deal fundamentally with the FIRE aspect in man, or with his divine spirit. They are definitely connected with the Monad, with the will aspect, with immortality, with existence, with the will to live, and with the inherent powers of Spirit. They are not connected with objectivity and manifestation, but with force, or the powers of the divine life. The correspondence in the Macrocosm can be found in the force which manipulates the cosmic nebulae and which by its whirling rotary motion eventually builds them into planets or spheroidal bodies. These planets are each of them an expression of the "will to live" of some cosmic entity, and the force that swirled, that rotated, that built, that solidified, and that continues to hold in form coherent, is the force of some cosmic Being.
This force originates on cosmic mental levels, from certain great foci there, descends to the cosmic astral, forming corresponding cosmic focal points, and on the fourth cosmic etheric level (the buddhic plane of our solar system) finds its outlet in certain great centres. These [166] centres are again reflected or reproduced in the three worlds of human endeavor. The Heavenly Men, therefore, have centres on three solar planes, a fact to be remembered.
--
As regards taste and smell, we might call them minor senses, for they are closely allied to the important sense of touch. They are practically subsidiary to that sense. This second sense, and its connection with this second solar system, should be carefully pondered over. It is predominantly the sense most closely connected with the second Logos. This conveys a hint of much value if duly considered. It is of value to study the extensions of physical plane touch on other planes and to see whither we are led. It is the faculty which enables us to arrive [197] at the essence by due recognition of the veiling sheath. It enables the Thinker who fully utilises it to put himself en rapport with the essence of all selves at all stages, and thereby to aid in the due evolution of the sheath and actively to serve. A Lord of Compassion is one who (by means of touch) feels with, fully comprehends, and realises the manner in which to heal and correct the inadequacies of the not-self and thus actively to serve the plan of evolution. We should study likewise in this connection the value of touch as demonstrated by the healers of the race (those on the Bodhisattva line) [lxxxv]83 and the effect of the Law of Attraction and Repulsion as thus manipulated by them. Students of etymology will have noted that the origin of the word touch is somewhat obscure, but probably means to 'draw with quick motion.' Herein lies the whole secret of this objective solar system, and herein will be demonstrated the quickening of vibration by means of touch. Inertia, mobility, rhythm, are the qualities manifested by the not-self. Rhythm, balance, and stable vibration are achieved by means of this very faculty of touch or feeling. Let me illustrate briefly so as to make the problem somewhat clearer. What results in meditation? By dint of strenuous effort and due attention to rules laid down, the aspirant succeeds in touching matter of a quality rarer than is his usual custom. He contacts his causal body, in time he contacts the matter of the buddhic plane. By means of this touch his own vibration is temporarily and briefly quickened. fundamentally we are brought back to the subject that we deal with in this treatise. The latent fire of matter attracts to itself that fire, latent in other forms. They touch, and recognition and awareness ensues. The fire of manas burns continuously and is fed by that which is attracted and repulsed. When the two [198] blend, the stimulation is greatly increased and the ability to touch intensified. The Law of Attraction persists in its work until another fire is attracted and touched, and the threefold merging is completed. Forget not in this connection the mystery of the Rod of Initiation. [lxxxvi]84 Later when we consider the subject of the centres and Initiation it must be remembered that we are definitely studying one aspect of this mysterious faculty of touch, the faculty of the second Logos, wielding the law of Attraction.
Let us now finish what may be imparted on the remaining three sensessight, taste, smell and then briefly sum up their relationship to the centres, and their mutual action and interaction. That will then leave two more points to be dealt with in this first division of the Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and a summing up. We shall then be in a position to take up that portion of the treatise that deals with the fire of manas and with the development of the manasaputras, [lxxxvii]85 both in their totality and likewise individually. This topic is of the most imperative importance as it deals entirely with man, the Ego, the thinker, and shows the cosmic blending of the fires of matter and of mind, and their utilisation by the indwelling Flame.
--
In connection with this there is a fundamental point that must never be forgotten: these seven Heavenly Men might be considered as being in physical incarnation through the medium of a physical planet, and herein lies the mystery of planetary evolution. Herein lies the mystery of our planet, the most mysterious of all the planets. Just as the karma of individuals differs, so differs the karma of the various Logoi, and the karma of our planetary Logos has been a heavy one, and veiled in the mystery of personality at this time.
Again, according as the centres are active or inactive, so the manifestation differs likewise, and the study which opens up is of vast and abstruse interest in connection with the solar system.
1.00 - Introduction to Alchemy of Happiness, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
Mohammedan scholars of the present day still hold him in such high respect, that his name is never mentioned by them without some such distinctive epithet, as the "Scientific [6] Imaum," or "Chief witness for Islamism." His rank in the eastern world, as a philosopher and a theologian, had naturally given his name some distinction in our histories of philosophy, and it is enumerated in connection with those of Averroes (Abu Roshd) and Avicenna (Abu Sina) as illustrating the intellectual life and the philosophical schools of the Mohammedans. Still his writings were less known than either of the two others. His principal work, The Destruction of the Philosophers, called forth in reply one of the two most important works of Averroes entitled The Destruction of the Destruction. Averroes, in his commentary upon Aristotle, extracts from Ghazzali copiously for the purpose of refuting bis views. A short treatise of his had been published at Cologne, in 1506, and Pocock had given in Latin his interpretation of the two fundamental articles of the Mohammedan creed. Von Hammer printed in 1838, at Vienna, a translation of a moral essay, Eyuha el Weled, as a new year's token for youth.
It has been reserved to our own times to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with Ghazzali, and this chiefly by means of a translation by M. Pallia, into French, of his Confessions, wherein he announces very clearly his philosophical views; and from an essay on his writings by M. Smolders. In consequence, Mr. Lewes, who in his first edition of the Biographical History of Philosophy, found no place for Ghazzali, is induced in his last edition, from the evidenee which that treatise contains that he was one of the controlling minds of his age, to devote an entire section to an exhibition of his opinions in the same series with Abclard and Bruno, and to make him the typical figure to represent Arabian philosophy. For a full account of Ghazzali's [7] school of philosophy, we refer to his history and to the two essays, just mentioned. We would observe, very briefly however, that like most of the learned Mohammedans of his age, he was a student of Aristotle. While they regarded all the Greek philosophers as infidels, they availed themselves of their logic and their principles of philosophy to maintain, as far possible, the dogmas of the Koran. Ghazzali's mind possessed however Platonizing tendencies, and he affiliated himself to the Soofies or Mystics in his later years. He was in antagonism with men who to him appeared, like Avicenna, to exalt reason above the Koran, yet he himself went to the extreme limits of reasoning in his endeavors to find an intelligible basis for the doctrines of the Koran, and a philosophical basis for a holy rule of life. His character, and moral and intellectual rank are vividly depicted in the following extract from the writings of Tholuck, a prominent leader of the modern Evangelical school of Germany.
1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The whole matter dealt with in this Treatise concerns the subjective essence of the solar system, not primarily either the objective or spiritual aspect. It concerns the Entities who indwell the form, who demonstrate as animating factors through the medium of matter, and primarily through etheric matter; who are evolving a second faculty, the fire of mind, and who are essentially themselves points of fire, cast off through cosmic friction, produced by the turning of the cosmic wheel, swept into temporary limited manifestation and due eventually to return to their central cosmic centre. They will return plus the results of evolutionary growth, and through assimilation they will have intensified their fundamental nature, and be spiritual fire plus the fire manasic.
The internal fire of matter is called in the Secret Doctrine "Fire by Friction." It is an effect and not a cause. It is produced by the two fires of spirit and of mind (electric and solar fire) contacting each other through the medium of matter. This energy demonstrates in [51] matter itself as the internal fires of the sun, and of the planets and finds a reflection in the internal fires of man. Man is the Flame Divine and the fire of Mind brought into contact through the medium of substance or form. When evolution ends, the fire of matter is not cognisable. It persists only when the other two fires are associated, and it does not persist apart from substance itself.
1.00 - Main, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Whoso hath not recognized this sublime and fundamental verity, and hath failed to attain this most exalted station, the winds of doubt will agitate him, and the sayings of the infidels will distract his soul. He that hath acknowledged this principle will be endowed with the most perfect constancy. All honour to this all-glorious station, the remembrance of which adorneth every exalted Tablet. Such is the teaching which God bestoweth on you, a teaching that will deliver you from all manner of doubt and perplexity, and enable you to attain unto salvation in both this world and in the next. He, verily, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Bountiful. He it is Who hath sent forth the Messengers, and sent down the Books to proclaim "There is none other God but Me, the Almighty, the All-Wise".
164
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
If both parts are thoroughly studied and understood, the pupil will have obtained a real grasp of all the fundamentals and essentials of both Magick and Mysticism.
I wrote this book down from Frater Perdurabo's dictation at the Villa Caldarazzo, Posilippo, Naples, where I was studying under him, a villa actually prophesied to us long before we reached Naples by that Brother of the A.'.A.'. who appeared to me in Zurich. Any point which was obscure to me was cleared up in some new discourse (the discourses have consequently been re-arranged). Before printing, the whole work was read by several persons of rather less than average intelligence, and any point not quite clear even to them has been elucidated.
1.00 - The way of what is to come, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
5. In Goethe's Faust, Faust says to Wagner: What you call the spirit of the times / is fundamentally the gentleman's own mind, / in which the times are reflected (Faust I, lines 577-79).
6. The Draft continues: then one whom I did not know, but who evidently had such knowledge, said to me: What a strange task you have! You must disclose your innermost and lowermost. /This I resisted since I hated nothing more than that which seemed to me unchaste and insolent (p. I).
1.012 - Sublimation - A Way to Reshuffle Thought, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Perceptions need not always be correct, though perceptions may insist that as long as they are there, the object is real. As long as the perceptions are there, their objects certainly will look real. Otherwise, it would not be a perception. But is the perception correct? This is the question. Here we raise a very fundamental question which is philosophical, and even deeper than philosophical. When the emotion, the consciousness, directs itself towards an object for the achievement of its purpose, is it being motivated by a correct perception of values, or is it blundering in its attitude towards things due to certain other factors? Perhaps it is mistaken. Yet it will not accept the mistake as long as it sees things by an identification of itself with the object in front of it.
Here, we feel that the withdrawal of consciousness from its object would be something like tearing off our own skin from our body. How can we tear off our own skin? It would be terrible, but this is what is happening when we practise self-control. We are tearing off our flesh, and it is so painful. But the pain is lessened if the consciousness is properly educated and made to reasonably accept the background of its attitudes and the incorrectness of its perceptions, for reasons which are superior to the one that it is adopting at the present moment.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
of the principal four fundamental human characteristics
and the ways they are worked out in society. It is noticea-
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
far practical experimentation has failed to modify the fundamental
characteristics of even the most humble plant. Human suffering,
--
it is the fundamental paradox of Nature as we see it now that
its universal plasticity seems suddenly to have hardened. Like an
--
ness we are compelled to wonder whether the true fundamental
impulse underlying the growth of animal forces has not been the
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the events of nature. The projection is so fundamental that it
has taken several thousand years of civilization to detach it in
1.01 - Fundamental Considerations, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
object:1.01 - fundamental Considerations
class:chapter
--
Scarcely five hundred years ago, during the Renaissance, an unmistakable reorganization of our consciousness occurred: the discovery of perspective which opened up the three-dimensionality of space. This discovery is so closely linked with the entire intellectual attitude of the modern epoch that we have felt obliged to call this age the age of perspectivity and characterize the age immediately preceding it as the unperspectival age. These definitions, by recognizing a fundamental characteristic of these eras, lead to the further appropriate definition of the age of the dawning new consciousness as the aperspectival age, a definition supported not only by the results of modern physics, but also by developments in the visual arts and literature, where the incorporation of time as a fourth dimension into previously spatial conceptions has formed the initial basis for manifesting the new.Aperspectival is not to be thought of as merely the opposite or negation of perspectival; the antithesis of perspectival is unperspectival. The distinction in meaning suggested by the three terms unperspectival, perspectival, and aperspectival is analogous to that of the terms illogical, logical, and alogical or immoral, moral, and amoral. We have employed here the designation aperspectival to clearly emphasize the need of overcoming the mere antithesis of affirmation and negation. The so-called primal words (Urworte), for example, evidence two antithetic connotations: Latin altus meant high as well as low; sacer meant sacred as well as cursed. Such primal words as these formed an undifferentiated psychically-stressed unity whose bivalent nature was definitely familiar to the early Egyptians and Greeks. This is no longer the case with our present sense of language; consequently, we have required a term that transcends equally the ambivalence of the primal connotations and the dualism of antonyms or conceptual opposites.
Hence we have used the Greek prefix a- in conjunction with our Latin-derived word perspectival in the sense of an alpha privativum and not as an alpha negativum, since the prefix has a liberating character (privativum, derived from Latin privare, i.e., to liberate). The designation aperspectival, in consequence, expresses a process of liberation from the exclusive validity of perspectival and unperspectival, as well as pre-perspectival limitations. Our designation, then, does not attempt to unite the inherently coexistent unperspectival and perspectival structures, nor does it attempt to reconcile or synthesize structures which, in their deficient modes, have become irreconcilable. If aperspectival were to represent only a synthesis it would imply no more than perspectival-rational and it would be limited and only momentarilyvalid, inasmuch as every union is threatened by further separation. Our concern is with integrality and ultimately with the whole; the word aperspectival conveys our attempt to deal with wholeness. It is a definition which differentiates a perception of reality that is neither perspectivally restricted to only one sector nor merely unperspectivally evocative of a vague sense of reality.
Finally, we would emphasize the general validity of the term aperspectival; it is definitely not intended to be understood as an extension of concepts used in art history and should not be so construed. When we introduced the concept in 1936/1939, it was within the context of scientific as well as artistic traditions. The perspectival structure as fully realized by Leonardo da Vinci is of fundamental importance not only to our scientific-technological but also artistic understanding of the world. Without perspective neither technical drafting nor three-dimensional painting would have been possible. Leonardo - scientist, engineer, and artist in one - was the first to fully develop drafting techniques and perspectival painting. In this same sense, that is from a scientific as well as artistic standpoint, the term aperspectival is valid, and the basis for this significance must not be overlooked, for it legitimizes the validity and applicability of the term to the sciences, the humanities, and the arts.
It is our intent to furnish evidence that the aperspectival world, whose nascence we are witnessing, can liberate us from the superannuated legacy of both the unperspectival and the perspectival worlds. In very general terms we might say that the unperspectival world preceded the world of mind- and ego-bound perspective discovered and anticipated in late antiquity and first apparent in Leonardos application of it. Viewed in this manner the unperspectival world is collective, the perspectival individualistic. That is, the unperspectival world is related to the anonymous one or the tribal we, the perspectival to the I or Ego; the one world is grounded in Being, the other, beginning with the Renaissance, in Having; the former is predominantly irrational, the later rational.
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There is hardly another text extant that describes so succinctly and so memorably the collapse of an entire world and a hitherto valid and effectual human attitude. The magic-mythical world of the Mexicans could not prevail against the Spaniards; it collapsed the moment it encountered the rational-technological mentality. The materialistic orientation of present-day Europeans will tend to attribute this collapse to the Spaniards technological superiority, but in actual fact it was the vigor of the Spanish consciousness vis--vis the weakness of the Mexican that was decisive. It is the basic distinction between theego-less man, bound to the group and a collectivementality, and the individual securely conscious of his individuality. Au thentic spell-casting, a fundamental element of the collective consciousness for the Mexicans, is effective only for the members attuned to the group consciousness. It simply by-passes those who are not bound to, or sympathetic toward, the group. The Spaniards superiority, which compelled the Mexicans to surrender almost without a struggle, resulted primarily from their consciousness of individuality, not from their superior weaponry. Had it been possible for the Mexicans to step out of their egoless attitude, the Spanish victory would have been less certain and assuredly more difficult.
What is of interest to us within the present context is not the historical predicament occasioned by the collision of peoples of differing might, but rather the supersession of the magic group-consciousness and its most potent weapon, spell-casting, by rational, ego-consciousness. Today this rational consciousness, with nuclear fission its strongest weapon, is confronted by a similar catastrophic situation of failure; consequently, it too can be vanquished by a new consciousness structure. We are convinced that there are powers arising from within ourselves that are already at work overcoming the deficiency and dubious nature of our rational ego-consciousness via the new aperspectival awareness whose manifestations are surging forth everywhere. The aperspective consciousness structure is a consciousness of the whole, an integral consciousness encompassing all time and embracing both mans distant past and his approaching future as a living present. The new spiritual attitude can take root only through an insightful process of intensive awareness. This attitude must emerge from its present concealment and latency and become effective, and thereby prepare the transparency of the world and man in which spirituality can manifest itself.
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Several devoted expositors of impeccable scholarship in the last half of the nineteenth century were responsible for the modern regeneration of the fundamental and saner
HISTORICAL SURVEY 27
1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
He must begin with a certain fundamental attitude of soul. In spiritual science this fundamental attitude is called the path of veneration, of devotion to truth and knowledge. Without this attitude no one can become a student. The disposition
p. 6
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Noiseless and unnoticed by the outer world is the treading of the Path of Knowledge. No change need be noticed in the student. He performs his duties as hitherto; he attends to his business as before. The transformation goes on only in the inner part of the soul hidden from outward sight. At first his entire inner life is flooded by this basic feeling of devotion for everything which is truly venerable. His entire soul-life finds in this fundamental feeling its pivot. Just as the sun's rays vivify everything living, so does reverence in the student vivify all feelings of the soul.
It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do
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In all spiritual science there is a fundamental principle which cannot be transgressed without sacrificing success, and it should be impressed on the student in every form of esoteric training. It runs as follows: All knowledge pursued merely for the enrichment of personal learning and the accumulation of personal treasure leads you away from the path; but all knowledge pursued for growth to ripeness within the process of human ennoblement and cosmic development brings you a step forward. This law must be strictly observed, and no student is genuine until he has adopted it as a guide for his whole life. This truth can be expressed in the following short sentence: Every idea which does not become your ideal slays a force in your soul; every idea which becomes your ideal creates within you life-forces.
Inner Tranquility
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
the direction such use is to take has been determined, through application of more fundamental narrative
processes).
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breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the belief in God, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces: one
has nothing of any consequence left in ones hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know,
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invalidated. But the theory survives. The fundamental tenets of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition
continue to govern every aspect of the actual individual behavior and basic values of the typical Westerner
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meaningful. We continue to act and think as if, however as if nothing fundamental has really changed.
That does not change the fact that our integrity has vanished.
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empirical or post-experimental description. It is this fundamentally absurd insistence that, above all, has
destabilized the effect of religious tradition upon the organization of modern human moral reasoning and
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But this is not accurate. Thinking also and more fundamentally is specification of value is specification of
implication for behavior. This means that categorization, with regards to value determination (or even
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genuinely artistic and creative production. The fundamental propositions of fascism and communism were
rational, logical, statable, comprehensible and terribly wrong. No great ideological struggle presently
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logically, therefore, myth presents information relevant to the most fundamental of moral problems: what
should be? (what should be done?) The desirable future (the object of what should be) can only be
--
Our answers to these three fundamental questions modified and constructed in the course of our social
interactions constitutes our knowledge, insofar as it has any behavioral relevance; constitutes our
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of life. The form of the way, its most fundamental aspect, is the apparently intrinsic or heritable possibility
of positing or of being guided by a central idea. This apparently intrinsic form finds its expression in the
1.01 - Meeting the Master - Authors first meeting, December 1918, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
All the energies of the leaders were taken up by the freedom movement. Only a few among them attempted to see beyond the horizon of political freedom some ideal of human perfection; for, after all, freedom is not the ultimate goal but a condition for the expression of the cultural Spirit of India. In Swami Shraddhananda, Pandit Madanmohan Malavia, Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi to name some leaders we see the double aspect of the inspiration. Among all the visions of perfection of the human spirit on earth, I found the synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo the most rational and the most satisfying. It meets the need of the individual and collective life of man today. It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture. It is, Dr. S. K. Maitra says, the message which holds out hope in a world of despair.
This aspect of Sri Aurobindo's vision attracted me as much as the natural affinity which I had felt on seeing him. I found on making a serious study of the Arya that it led me to very rational conclusions with regard to the solutions of the deepest problems of life. I opened correspondence with him and in 1916, with his permission, began to translate the Arya into Gujarati.
1.01 - Necessity for knowledge of the whole human being for a genuine education., #The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Zen
Rather than groping about in abstractions, lets just look at specifics; we shall examine one particular characteristic in human nature the temperament. Lets begin by looking not at a childs temperament, which of course offers us no choicewe have to educate each human being regardless of temperament (and well speak later about the childrens temperaments)but lets begin rather by looking at the teachers temperament. The teacher enters the school and meets the child with a very specific tem- peramentcholeric, sanguine, melancholic, or phlegmatic. The question is: As educators, what can we do to control our own temperaments; how can we perhaps educate ourselves in relation to our own temperament? To answer this question we must first look directly at the fundamental question: How does a teachers temperament affect the child, just by being what it is?
The Choleric Temperament
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Thus, we see that a fundamental issue in teaching and educa- tion is the question of who the teacher is. What must really live in the children, what must vibrate and well up into their very hearts, wills, and eventually into their intellect, lives initially in the teach- ers. It arises simply through who they are, through their unique nature, character, and attitude of soul, and through what they bring the children out of their own self-development. So we can see how it is only a true knowledge of human nature, cultivated comprehensively, that can serve as the foundation for a true art of teaching and fulfill the living needs of education. Im eager to pursue these matters further in the lectures that follow.
1.01 - Newtonian and Bergsonian Time, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
closed mechanics, the fundamental laws of this mechanics were
unaltered by the transformation of the time variable t into its
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thermal energy of the heat engine. All the fundamental notions
are those associated with energy, and the chief of these is that
1.01 - Principles of Practical Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
psyche satisfactorily. One of the fundamental antinomies is the
statement that psyche depends on body and body depends on psyche.
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
All this sheds some lightdim, it is true, and merely inferentialon the problem of the perennialness of the Perennial Philosophy. In India the scriptures were regarded, not as revelations made at some given moment of history, but as eternal gospels, existent from everlasting to everlasting, inasmuch as coeval with man, or for that matter with any other kind of corporeal or incorporeal being possessed of reason. A similar point of view is expressed by Aristotle, who regards the fundamental truths of religion as everlasting and indestructible. There have been ascents and falls, periods (literally roads around or cycles) of progress and regress; but the great fact of God as the First Mover of a universe which partakes of His divinity has always been recognized. In the light of what we know about prehistoric man (and what we know amounts to nothing more than a few chipped stones, some paintings, drawings and sculptures) and of what we may legitimately infer from other, better documented fields of knowledge, what are we to think of these traditional doctrines? My own view is that they may be true. We know that born contemplatives in the realm both of analytic and of integral thought have turned up in fair numbers and at frequent intervals during recorded history. There is therefore every reason to suppose that they turned up before history was recorded. That many of these people died young or were unable to exercise their talents is certain. But a few of them must have survived. In this context it is highly significant that, among many contemporary primitives, two thought-patterns are foundan exoteric pattern for the unphilosophic many and an esoteric pattern (often monotheistic, with a belief in a God not merely of power, but of goodness and wisdom) for the initiated few. There is no reason to suppose that circumstances were any harder for prehistoric men than they are for many contemporary savages. But if an esoteric monotheism of the kind that seems to come natural to the born thinker is possible in modern savage societies, the majority of whose members accept the sort of polytheistic philosophy that seems to come natural to men of action, a similar esoteric doctrine might have been current in prehistoric societies. True, the modern esoteric doctrines may have been derived from higher cultures. But the significant fact remains that, if so derived, they yet had a meaning for certain members of the primitive society and were considered valuable enough to be carefully preserved. We have seen that many thoughts are unthinkable apart from an appropriate vocabulary and frame of reference. But the fundamental ideas of the Perennial Philosophy can be formulated in a very simple vocabulary, and the experiences to which the ideas refer can and indeed must be had immediately and apart from any vocabulary whatsoever. Strange openings and theophanies are granted to quite small children, who are often profoundly and permanently affected by these experiences. We have no reason to suppose that what happens now to persons with small vocabularies did not happen in remote antiquity. In the modern world (as Vaughan and Traherne and Wordsworth, among others, have told us) the child tends to grow out of his direct awareness of the one Ground of things; for the habit of analytical thought is fatal to the intuitions of integral thinking, whether on the psychic or the spiritual level. Psychic preoccupations may be and often are a major obstacle in the way of genuine spirituality. In primitive societies now (and, presumably, in the remote past) there is much preoccupation with, and a widespread talent for, psychic thinking. But a few people may have worked their way through psychic into genuinely spiritual experiencejust as, even in modern industrialized societies, a few people work their way out of the prevailing preoccupation with matter and through the prevailing habits of analytical thought into the direct experience of the spiritual Ground of things.
Such, then, very briefly are the reasons for supposing that the historical traditions of oriental and our own classical antiquity may be true. It is interesting to find that at least one distinguished contemporary ethnologist is in agreement with Aristotle and the Vedantists. Orthodox ethnology, writes Dr. Paul Radin in his Primitive Man as Philosopher, has been nothing but an enthusiastic and quite uncritical attempt to apply the Darwinian theory of evolution to the facts of social experience. And he adds that no progress in ethnology will be achieved until scholars rid themselves once and for all of the curious notion that everything possesses a history; until they realize that certain ideas and certain concepts are as ultimate for man, as a social being, as specific physiological reactions are ultimate for him, as a biological being. Among these ultimate concepts, in Dr. Radins view, is that of monotheism. Such monotheism is often no more than the recognition of a single dark and numinous Power ruling the world. But it may sometimes be genuinely ethical and spiritual.
1.01 - The Human Aspiration, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3:For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. They arise from the perception of an unsolved discord and the instinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity. To rest content with an unsolved discord is possible for the practical and more animal part of man, but impossible for his fully awakened mind, and usually even his practical parts only escape from the general necessity either by shutting out the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise. For essentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, life and matter in their own sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its perceptions. The greater the apparent disorder of the materials offered or the apparent disparateness, even to irreconcilable opposition, of the elements that have to be utilised, the stronger is the spur, and it drives towards a more subtle and puissant order than can normally be the result of a less difficult endeavour. The accordance of active Life with a material of form in which the condition of activity itself seems to be inertia, is one problem of opposites that Nature has solved and seeks always to solve better with greater complexities; for its perfect solution would be the material immortality of a fully organised mind-supporting animal body. The accordance of conscious mind and conscious will with a form and a life in themselves not overtly self-conscious and capable at best of a mechanical or subconscious will is another problem of opposites in which she has produced astonishing results and aims always at higher marvels; for there her ultimate miracle would be an animal consciousness no longer seeking but possessed of Truth and Light, with the practical omnipotence which would result from the possession of a direct and perfected knowledge. Not only, then, is the upward impulse of man towards the accordance of yet higher opposites rational in itself, but it is the only logical completion of a rule and an effort that seem to be a fundamental method of Nature and the very sense of her universal strivings.
4:We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Consciousness. And then there seems to be little objection to a farther step in the series and the admission that mental consciousness may itself be only a form and a veil of higher states which are beyond Mind. In that case, the unconquerable impulse of man towards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality presents itself in its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulse by which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond Mind, and appears to be as natural, true and just as the impulse towards Life which she has planted in certain forms of Matter or the impulse towards Mind which she has planted in certain forms of Life. As there, so here, the impulse exists more or less obscurely in her different vessels with an ever-ascending series in the power of its will-to-be; as there, so here, it is gradually evolving and bound fully to evolve the necessary organs and faculties. As the impulse towards Mind ranges from the more sensitive reactions of Life in the metal and the plant up to its full organisation in man, so in man himself there is the same ascending series, the preparation, if nothing more, of a higher and divine life. The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God? For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her pause at a given stage of her evolution, nor have we the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.
1.01 - The Lord of hosts, #Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice, #Anonymous, #Various
Yah, 1 the Lord of hosts, the living God, King of the Universe, Omnipotent, All-Kind and Merciful, Supreme and Extolled, who is Eternal, Sublime and Most-Holy, ordained (formed) and created the Universe in thirty-two 2 mysterious paths 3 of wisdom by three 4 Sepharim, namely: 1) S'for ; 2) Sippur ; and 3) Sapher which are in Him one and the same. They consist of a decade out of nothing 5 and of twenty-two fundamental letters. He divided the twenty-two consonants into three divisions: 1) three mothers, fundamental letters or first elements; 2) seven double; and 3) twelve simple consonants.
SECTION 2.
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2) Air emanated from the spirit by which He formed and established twenty-two consonants, stamina. Three of them, however, are fundamental letters, or mothers, seven double and twelve simple consonants; hence the spirit is the first one.
3) Primitive water emanated from the air. He formed and established by it Bohu 14 (water, stones) mud and loam, made them like a bed, put them up like a wall, and surrounded them as with a rampart, put coldness upon them and they became dust, as it reads: "He says to the snow (coldness) be thou earth." (Job 37, 6.)
1.01 - THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
artificially, the more insistently it proclaims its fundamental unity.
In its most imperfect form, but the simplest to imagine, this
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electrons. This fundamental discovery that all bodies owe their
origin to arrangements of a single initial corpuscular type is the
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Every synthesis costs something. That is a fundamental con-
dition of things which persists, as we know, even into the spiritual
1.02.3.2 - Knowledge and Ignorance, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which
all multiplicity would be unreal and an impossible illusion. The
10.23 - Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This wonder-lyre has three strings, giving out a triple note or strain: there is a strain of philosophy, there is a strain of yoga and there is a strain of poetry. We may also call them values and say there is a philosophical, a yogic and a poetic value in these contemplations. The philosophical strain or value means that the things said are presented, explained to the intellect so that the human mind can seize them, understand them. The principles underlying the ideal, the fundamental ideas are elaborated in terms of reason and logical comprehension, although the subject-matter treated is in the last analysis' beyond reason and logic. For example, here is true philosophy expressed in a philosophic manner as neatly as possible.
A quoi servirait l'homme s'il n'tait pas fait pour jeter un pont entre Ce qui est ternellement, mais qui n' est pas manifest, et ce qui est manifest, entre toutes les transcendances, toutes les splendeu-rs de la vie divine et toute l'obscure et douloureuse ignorance du monde matriel? L'homme est le lien entre ce qui doit tre et ce qui est; il est la passerelle jete sur l' abme, il est le grand X en croix, le trait d'union quaternaire. Son domicile vritable, le sige effectif de sa conscience doit tre dans le monde intermdiaire au point de jonction des quatre bras de la croix, l, o tout l'infini de l'impensable vient prendre forme prcise pour tre projet dans l'innombrable manifestation.1
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Once, in connection with Shakespeare, I said that a poet's language, which is in truth the poet himself, may be considered as consisting of unit vocables, syllables, that are as it were fundamental particles, even like the nuclear particles, each poet having his own type of particle, with its own charge and spin and vibrations. Shakespeare's, I said, is a particle of Life-energy, a packet of living blood-vibration, pulsating as it were, with real heart-beat. Likewise in Dante one feels it to be a packet of Tapasof ascetic energy, a bare clear concentrated flame-wave of consciousness, of thought-force. In the Prayers and Meditations the fundamental unit of expression seems to be a packet of gracious lightone seems to touch the very hem of Mahalakshmi.
The voice in the Prayers and Meditations is Krishna's flute calling the souls imprisoned in their worldly household to come out into the wide green expanses of infinity, in the midst of the glorious herds of light, to play and enjoy in the company of the Lord of Delight.
1.02.4.1 - The Worlds - Surya, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
self-knowledge and will are divided. We start with a fundamental
falsehood, that we have a separate existence from others and we
10.26 - A True Professor, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is the first and primary necessity. When the teacher approaches the pupil, he must know how to do it in and through that inner intimate consciousness. It means a fundamental attitude, a mode of being of the whole nature rather than a scientific procedure: all the manuals of education will not be able to procure you this treasure. It is an acquisition that develops or manifests spontaneously through an earnest desire, that is to say, aspiration for it. It is this that establishes a strange contact with the pupil, radiates or infuses the knowledge, even the learning that the teacher possesses, infallibly and naturally into the mind and brain of the pupil.
Books and programmes are of secondary importance, they are only a scaffolding, the building within is made of a different kind of bricks. A happy luminous consciousness within is the teacher's asset, with that he achieves all; without it he fails always.
1.02 - In the Beginning, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
One can conceive such a unity, it is true, as an existence without cause, but it is only by totally ignoring the conditions of thought and the fundamental demands of Reason that one can see in it the cause of existences. Mere unity is by its very definition entire sterility; it is multiplicity alone that can produce multiplicity. The notion of cause is exclusive of the notion of unity; for the essence of unity is an indivisible, indiscernable, immobile identity.
If then we give the name of God to the primordial existence which produces the universe, we postulate the whole of universal multiplicity in this essential cause and all the possibilities of the world are totalised in the first Being, creator of the world.
1.02 - Isha Analysis, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
The central idea of the Upanishad, which is a reconciliation and harmony of fundamental opposites, is worked out symmetrically in four successive movements of thought.
FIRST MOVEMENT
1.02 - Karmayoga, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There have been others in the past which have powerfully influenced the national mind and there is no reason why there should not be a yet more perfect synthesis in the future. It is such a synthesis, embracing all life and action in its scope, that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have been preparing. What is dimly beginning now is a repetition on a wider stage of what happened once before in India, more rapidly but to smaller issues, when the Buddha lived and taught his philosophy and ethics to the Aryan nations. Then as now a mighty spirit, it matters not whether Avatar or Vibhuti, the full expression of God in man or a great outpouring of the divine energy, came down among men and brought into their daily life and practice the force and impulse of utter spirituality. And this time it is the full light and not a noble part, unlike Buddhism which, expressing Vedantic morality, yet ignored a fundamental reality of Vedanta and was therefore expelled from its prime seat and cradle. The material result was then what it will be now, a great political, moral and social revolution which made India
Karmayoga
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
Along with our animal cousins, we devote ourselves to fundamentals: will this (new) thing eat me? Can
I eat it? Will it chase me? Should I chase it? Can I make love to it? We model facts there is no doubt
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do so. We must model meanings, however, in order to survive. Our most fundamental maps of experience
maps which have a narrative structure portray the motivational value of our current state, conceived of in
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two fundamental and mutually interdependent poles, one present, the other, future. The present is sensory
experience as it is currently manifested to us as we currently understand it granted motivational
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negative valence. The fundamental problem with this argument is one of parsimony. It is impossible to
know an animals reinforcement history particularly if that animal is as complex and long-lived as a
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sidestep the fundamental issue, and to make inappropriate generalizations. It didnt matter how a rat related
to his mother, six months earlier, if you could make him food-deprived enough. The (short-term) fact of
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when we know what we are doing; when we are engaged with the familiar these fundamental
tendencies suffice. Our actual situations, however, are almost always more complex. If things or situations
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even to those things as primary or fundamental as food and family. We remain indeterminately
constrained, however, by the fact of our biological limits.
--
Nonetheless, something fundamental has been altered and I dont know how fundamental. I am now in a
place I cannot easily leave. I am faced with a number of new problems, in addition to my unresolved
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and act while surrounded by uncertainty. Just as fundamentally, however, we always know something, no
matter who we are, or when we live. We tend to view the environment as something objective, but one
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might be regarded as more fundamental than any objective characterization if we make the presumption
that what we have adapted to is, by definition, reality. For it is the case that the human brain and higher
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manifests itself in emotion, thought and behavior, that is at the core of the fundamental human response to
the novel or unknown. This reflex takes a biologically-determined course, ancient in nature, primordial as
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relevance or valence. Such knowledge is most fundamentally how to behave, and what to expect as a
consequence, in a particular situation, defined by culturally-modified external environmental circumstance
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serves, to state it once again, as an aid to the more fundamental process of evaluation; merely serves to
determine the precise nature of relevant or potentially relevant phenomena.
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that compose the more fundamental or primary components of the brain). These desire-driven fantasies
might be regarded as motivated hypotheses about the relatively likelihood of events produced in the course
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contrast avoidance or escape leaves the novel object firmly entrenched in its initial, natural, anxietyprovoking category. This observation sets the stage for a fundamental realization: human beings do not
learn to fear new objects or situations, or even really learn to fear something that previously appeared
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of the story or, more fundamentally, the myth. Myths describing the known, explored territory, constitute
what we know about our knowing how, before we can state, explicitly, what it is that we know how. Myth
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filling in a definite fundamental scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always
revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with
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phenomena cannot be understood, except from a cultural perspective. This fundamental problem (among
others) makes verification of theories in the domain of value difficult.
--
account for what he found that is, the collective unconscious appears fundamentally untenable, from
the modern empirical perspective (although the idea is much more complex, and much less easily
--
unconscious is, from this perspective, embodied behavioral wisdom, in its most fundamental form is the
cumulative transmitted consequences of the fact of exploration and culture on action.
--
most fundamental axioms of the body of law that we imitate (that governs our behavior) are
inextricably embedded in the conception of natural rights (which is to say, is embedded in a statement of
--
object constitutes an elementary but fundamental form of classification (constitutes, in fact, the most
fundamental of all classifications; the classification from which all abstracted divisions are derived). The
--
the fundamental meanings of things by observing how we respond to them. The unknown becomes
classifiable, in this manner, because we respond to its manifestation predictably. It compels our actions,
--
These elements, in what is perhaps their most fundamental pattern of inter-relationship, are portrayed in
Figure 17: The Constituent Elements of Experience. This figure might be conceptualized as three disks,
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defined end). Narrative myth, most fundamentally can be more accurately regarded as description of
the world as it signifies (for action). The mythic universe is a place to act, not a place to perceive. Myth
--
which more differentiated but still fundamental structures and processes or spirits issued: at that time,
were the gods created with them.226 The precosmogonic egg inhabited by Tiamat and Apsu gave rise
--
serves most fundamentally to transform the unknown and terrifying world into the comforting,
productive and familiar. He is able to bind the unknown; to limit its sphere of action, and to bring it
--
established. The attri bution of femininity to this deity, so to speak, occurs most fundamentally because the
unknown serves as the matrix from which determinate forms are borne. The negative attri bution (Tiamat
--
colors (or, alternatively, has been derived from) fundamental human presumption and activity. The world
is explored territory, surrounded by mystery; that mystery is experienced as undifferentiated but oftmenacing chaos. Everything that occupies such chaos is directly perceived as (not abstractly
--
subjective observer and is still fundamentally experienced in that manner today. Rudolf Otto, in his
seminal investigation into the nature of religious experience, described such experience as numinous,290 as
--
and irresistible drive. That drive constitutes what might be regarded as the most fundamental religious
impulse constitutes the culturally universal attempt to define and establish a relationship with God and
--
committed appear to have provided the initial material for the most primordial and fundamental aspects
of formalized religions. Appreciation of the nature of the unknown as a category developed as a
--
impulse, in an endless counterpoint of fecundity and decay. The most basic, fundamental and necessary
aspects of experience are at the same time most dangerous and unacceptable.
--
The fundamental act of creativity in the human realm, in the concrete case, is the construction of a
pattern of behavior which produces emotionally-desirable results in a situation that previously reeked of
--
reprogramming of fundamental behavioral assumption and associated episodic or semantic representation.
Such reprogramming also constitutes creativity but of the revolutionary type, generally associated with
--
does not determine, the general course of history; expresses one fundamental preconception, in a thousand
different ways. This idea (analogous in structure to the modern hypothesis, although not explicitly
--
and provides the precondition for change. The most fundamental presumption of the myth of the hero is
that the nature of human experience can be (should be) improved by voluntary alteration in individual
--
This most fundamental of stories is portrayed schematically in Figure 38: The Metamythology of the
Way, Revisited.328 Chaos breeds novelty, promising and threatening; the hero leaves his community,
1.02 - Self-Consecration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
23:The Yoga must start with an effort or at least a settled turn towards this total concentration. A constant and unfailing will of consecration of all ourselves to the Supreme is demanded of us, an offering of our whole being and our many-chambered nature to the Eternal who is the All. The effective fullness of our concentration on the one thing needful to the exclusion of all else will be the measure of our self-consecration to the One who is alone desirable. But this exclusiveness will in the end exclude nothing except the falsehood of our way of seeing the world and our will's ignorance. For our concentration on the Eternal will be consummated by the mind when we see constantly the Divine in itself and the Divine in ourselves, but also the Divine in all things and beings and happenings. It will be consummated by the heart when all emotion is summed up in the love of the Divine, -- of the Divine in itself and for itself, but love too of the Divine in all its beings and powers and personalities and forms in the Universe' It will be consummated by the will when we feel and receive always the divine impulsion and accept that alone as our sole motive force; but this will mean that, having slain to the last rebellious straggler the wandering impulses of the egoistic nature, we have universalised ourselves and can accept with a constant happy acceptance the one divine working in all things. This is the first fundamental siddhi of the integral Yoga.
24:It is nothing less that is meant in the end when we speak of the absolute consecration of the individual to the Divine. But this total fullness of consecration can only come by a constant progression when the long and difficult process of transforming desire out of existence is completed in an ungrudging measure. Perfect self-consecration implies perfect self-surrender.
1.02 - SOCIAL HEREDITY AND PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the fundamental progress of science consist in, except the discov-
ery of the organic, structural value of what is most general and
1.02 - Taras Tantra, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
- fundamental Tantra on Tara's Origin
- Violent and Wrathful Tantra
1.02 - The 7 Habits An Overview, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
"asserting themselves," and "doing their own thing" often reveals more fundamental dependencies that cannot be run away from because they are internal rather than external -- dependencies such as letting the weaknesses of other people ruin our emotional lives or feeling victimized by people and events out of our control.
Of course, we may need to change our circumstances. But the dependence problem is a personal maturity issue that has little to do with circumstances. Even with better circumstances, immaturity and dependence often persist.
--
In the human area, the P/PC Balance is equally fundamental, but even more important, because people control physical and financial assets.
When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the softness, and spontaneity begin to deteriorate. The goose gets sicker day by day.
1.02 - The Age of Individualism and Reason, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
They found and held it with enthusiasm in the discoveries of physical Science. The triumphant domination, the all-shattering and irresistible victory of Science in nineteenth-century Europe is explained by the absolute perfection with which it at least seemed for a time to satisfy these great psychological wants of the Western mind. Science seemed to it to fulfil impeccably its search for the two supreme desiderata of an individualistic age. Here at last was a truth of things which depended on no doubtful Scripture or fallible human authority but which Mother Nature herself had written in her eternal book for all to read who had patience to observe and intellectual honesty to judge. Here were laws, principles, fundamental facts of the world and of our being which all could verify at once for themselves and which must therefore satisfy and guide the free individual judgment, delivering it equally from alien compulsion and from erratic self-will. Here were laws and truths which justified and yet controlled the claims and desires of the individual human being; here a science which provided a standard, a norm of knowledge, a rational basis for life, a clear outline and sovereign means for the progress and perfection of the individual and the race. The attempt to govern and organise human life by verifiable Science, by a law, a truth of things, an order and principles which all can observe and verify in their ground and fact and to which therefore all may freely and must rationally subscribe, is the culminating movement of European civilisation. It has been the fulfilment and triumph of the individualistic age of human society; it has seemed likely also to be its end, the cause of the death of individualism and its putting away and burial among the monuments of the past.
For this discovery by individual free-thought of universal laws of which the individual is almost a by-product and by which he must necessarily be governed, this attempt actually to govern the social life of humanity in conscious accordance with the mechanism of these laws seems to lead logically to the suppression of that very individual freedom which made the discovery and the attempt at all possible. In seeking the truth and law of his own being the individual seems to have discovered a truth and law which is not of his own individual being at all, but of the collectivity, the pack, the hive, the mass. The result to which this points and to which it still seems irresistibly to be driving us is a new ordering of society by a rigid economic or governmental Socialism in which the individual, deprived again of his freedom in his own interest and that of humanity, must have his whole life and action determined for him at every step and in every point from birth to old age by the well-ordered mechanism of the State.1 We might then have a curious new version, with very important differences, of the old Asiatic or even of the old Indian order of society. In place of the religio-ethical sanction there will be a scientific and rational or naturalistic motive and rule; instead of the Brahmin Shastrakara the scientific, administrative and economic expert. In the place of the King himself observing the law and compelling with the aid and consent of the society all to tread without deviation the line marked out for them, the line of the Dharma, there will stand the collectivist State similarly guided and empowered. Instead of a hierarchical arrangement of classes each with its powers, privileges and duties there will be established an initial equality of education and opportunity, ultimately perhaps with a subsequent determination of function by experts who shall know us better than ourselves and choose for us our work and quality. Marriage, generation and the education of the child may be fixed by the scientific State as of old by the Shastra. For each man there will be a long stage of work for the State superintended by collectivist authorities and perhaps in the end a period of liberation, not for action but for enjoyment of leisure and personal self-improvement, answering to the Vanaprastha and Sannyasa Asramas of the old Aryan society. The rigidity of such a social state would greatly surpass that of its Asiatic forerunner; for there at least there were for the rebel, the innovator two important concessions. There was for the individual the freedom of an early Sannyasa, a renunciation of the social for the free spiritual life, and there was for the group the liberty to form a sub-society governed by new conceptions like the Sikh or the Vaishnava. But neither of these violent departures from the norm could be tolerated by a strictly economic and rigorously scientific and unitarian society. Obviously, too, there would grow up a fixed system of social morality and custom and a body of socialistic doctrine which one could not be allowed to question practically, and perhaps not even intellectually, since that would soon shatter or else undermine the system. Thus we should have a new typal order based upon purely economic capacity and function, guakarma, and rapidly petrifying by the inhibition of individual liberty into a system of rationalistic conventions. And quite certainly this static order would at long last be broken by a new individualist age of revolt, led probably by the principles of an extreme philosophical Anarchism.
1.02 - The Child as growing being and the childs experience of encountering the teacher., #The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Zen
This is also true of spiritual facts. When we speak of the material nature of plants, animals, minerals, or the human physical body, we need to prove our statements through experiment and sense observation. This kind of proof, like the example mentioned, suggests that an object must be supported. In the free realm of the spirit, however, truths support one another. The only validation required is their mutual support. Thus, in representing spiritual reality, every idea needs to be placed clearly within the whole, just as Earth or any other heavenly body moves freely in cosmic space. Truths must support one another. Anyone who tries to understand the spiritual realm must first examine truths coming from other directions, and how they support the one truth through the free activity of their gravitational force of proof, as it were. In this way, that single truth is kept free in the cosmos, just as a heavenly body is supported freely in the cosmos by the countering forces of gravity. We need to develop the capacity to think the spiritual as a fundamental, inner disposition; otherwise, though we may be able to understand and educate the human soul, well remain unable to grasp, cultivate, and educate the spirit that also lives and moves within us as human beings.
The Individuals Entry into the World
--
These expressions may seem contradictory, but their very contradic- tion represents the truth. We have to observe such things with our whole being, and not just theoretically. If we observe the struggle unfolding in the child before uswithin this fundamental, natural religious elementif we observe the struggle between the heredi- tary forces and what the individuals forces develop as the second self through the power brought from pre-earthly life, then, as teach- ers, we also develop a religious mood. But, whereas the child with a physical body develops the religious mood of the believer, the teacher, in gazing at the wonders that occur between birth and the change of teeth, develops a priestly religious attitude. The posi- tion of teacher becomes a kind of priestly office, a ritual performed at the altar of universal human lifenot with a sacrificial victim to be led to death, but with the offering of human nature itself, to be awakened to life. Our task is to ferry into earthly life the aspect of the child that came from the divine spiritual world. Together with the childs own forces, this fashions a second organism out of the being that came to us from the divine spiritual life.24
Pondering such things awakens something in us like a priestly attitude in education. Until this priestly feeling for the first years of childhood has become a part of education as a whole, educa- tion wont find the conditions that bring it to life. If we merely try to understand the requirements of education intellectually, or try rationally to design a method of education based on external observations of a childs nature, at best we accomplish a quarter education. A complete educational method cant be formulated by the intellect alone; rather, it has to flow from the whole of human naturenot merely from the part that observes externally in a rational way, but the whole that deeply and inwardly experi- ences the secrets of the universe.
--
This must be our attitude toward the developing child; its essential to any educational method. Without this fundamental attitude, without this priestly element in the teacher (and I mean this, of course, in a cosmic sense), education cant progress. Therefore, any attempt to reform the methods of education requires a return from the intellectual element, which has become dominant since the fourteenth century, to the domain of soul and feelings, to what springs forth from human nature as a whole, and not just from the head. If we look at children without preconceptions, the childs own nature will teach us to read these things.
The Effects of a Teachers Inner Development on the Child
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
is the fundamental tenet of the philosophy of the Arya.
These statements were found in his notes, now published
1.02 - The Divine Teacher, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When we thus understand the conception of Avatarhood, we see that whether for the fundamental teaching of the Gita, our present subject, or for spiritual life generally the external aspect has only a secondary importance. Such controversies as the one that has raged in Europe over the historicity of Christ, would seem to a spiritually-minded Indian largely a waste of time; he would concede to it a considerable historical, but hardly any religious importance; for what does it matter in the end whether a Jesus son of the carpenter Joseph was actually born in Nazareth or Bethlehem, lived and taught and was done to death on a real or trumped-up charge of sedition, so long as we can know by spiritual experience the inner Christ, live uplifted in the light of his teaching and escape from the yoke of the natural Law by that atonement of man with God of which the crucifixion is the symbol? If the Christ, God made man, lives within our spiritual being, it would seem to matter little whether or not a son of
Mary physically lived and suffered and died in Judea. So too the Krishna who matters to us is the eternal incarnation of the
1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Three great Gods, origin of the Puranic Trinity, largest puissances of the supreme Godhead, make possible this development and upward evolution; they support in its grand lines and fundamental energies all these complexities of the cosmos.
Brahmanaspati is the Creator; by the word, by his cry he creates - that is to say he expresses, he brings out all existence and conscious knowledge and movement of life and eventual forms from the darkness of the Inconscient. Rudra, the Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, presides over the struggle of life to affirm itself; he is the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts forcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs and resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers and complains and submits. Vishnu of the vast pervading motion holds in his triple stride all these worlds; it is he that makes a wide room for the action of Indra in our limited mortality; it is by him and with him that we rise into his highest seats where we find waiting for us the Friend, the Beloved, the Beatific Godhead.
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, if we brought as much sincerity, meticulousness, and perseverance to the study of the inner world as we do to the study of our books, we would go fast and far the West also has surprises in store for us but it must first get rid of its preconceptions (Columbus did not draw the map of America before leaving Palos). These simple truths may be worth repeating, for the West seems to be caught between two falsehoods: the overly serious falsehood of the spiritualists, who have already settled the question of God in a few infallible paragraphs, and the not-serious-enough falsehood of the rudimentary occultists and psychics, who have reduced the invisible to a sort of freak-show of the imagination. India, wisely, refers us to our own direct experience and to experimental methods. Sri Aurobindo would soon put this fundamental lesson of experimental spirituality into practice.
But what kind of men, what human substance, was he going to find in that India he did not know? Once we have set aside the exotic facade and the bizarre (to us) customs that amuse and intrigue tourists,
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
To this the fully developed Perennial Philosophy has at all times and in all places given fundamentally the same answer. The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances) susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being. This Absolute is the God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical phraseology. The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground the knowledge that can come only to those who are prepared to the to self and so make room, as it were, for God. Out of any given generation of men and women very few will achieve the final end of human existence; but the opportunity for coming to unitive knowledge will, in one way or another, continually be offered until all sentient beings realize Who in fact they are.
The Absolute Ground of all existence has a personal aspect. The activity of Brahman is Isvara, and Isvara is further manifested in the Hindu Trinity and, at a more distant remove, in the other deities or angels of the Indian pantheon. Analogously, for Christian mystics, the ineffable, attributeless Godhead is manifested in a Trinity of Persons, of whom it is possible to predicate such human attri butes as goodness, wisdom, mercy and love, but in a supereminent degree.
1.02 - The Pit, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
In view of this continual source of misunderstanding, it is clearly necessary to establish a fundamental and universal language for the communication ofideas, One understands with bitter approval the sad outburst of the aged Fichte :
" If I had my life to live over again, the first thing I would do would be to invent an entirely new system of symbols whereby to convey my ideas." As a matter of fact, had he but known this, certain people-principally some of the early Qabalists, among whom we may include Raymond Lully, William
--
The Qabalist, therefore, is in no fear of attack from hostile sources because of his use of symbols, for the real basis of the Holy Qabalah, the tcn Sephiros and the twentytwo Paths, is mathematically sound and definite. We can easily discard the theological and dogmatic interpretations of the ancient Rabbanim as useless, and not affecting this real basis itself, and refcr everything in the universe to the fundamental system of pure Number. Its symbols will be intelligible to all rational minds in an identical sense, since the relations obtaining between these symbols are fixed by nature.
It is this consideration which has led to the adoption of the Qabalistic " Tree of Life" as the basis of the universal philosophical alphabet.
1.02 - The Principle of Fire, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Bible we read: Fiat Lux There shall be light. The origin of the light, of course, is to be sought in the fire. Each element and therefore that of fire, too, has two polarities, i.e., the active and the passive one, which means positive (+) and negative (-). Plus will always signify the constructive, the creative, the productive sources whereas minus stands for all that is destructive or dissecting. There are always two basic qualities, which must be clearly distinguished in each element. Religions have always imputed the good to the active and the evil to the passive side. But fundamentally spoken, there are no such things as good or bad; they are nothing but human conceptions. In the Universe there is neither good nor evil, because everything has been created according to immutable rules, wherein the Divine Principle is reflected and only by knowing these rules, shall we be able to come near to the Divinity.
As mentioned before, the fiery principle owns the expansion, which I shall call electrical fluid for the sake of better comprehension. This definition does not just point to the roughly material electricity in spite of its having a certain analogy to it.
1.02 - The Three European Worlds, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
There is a document extant that unforgettably mirrors this gain and loss, this surrender and beginning; in a few sentences it depicts the struggle of a man caught between two worlds. We refer to the remarkable letter of the thirty-two year old Petrarch to Francesco Dionigidi Borgo San Sepolcro in 1336 (the first letter of his Familiari, vol. 4), in which he describes his ascent of Mount Ventoux. For his time, his description is an epochal event and signifies no less than the discovery of landscape: the first dawning of an awareness of space that resulted in a fundamental alteration of European man's attitude in and toward the world.
Mount Ventoux is located to the northeast of Avignon, where the Rhne separates the French Alps from the Cevennes and the principal mountain range of Central France. The mountain is distinguished by clear and serene contours; viewed from Avignon to the south, its ridge slowly and seamlessly ascends against the clear Provenal sky, its south western slope sweeping broadly with soft restraint toward the valley. After a downhill sweep of nearly two kilometers, it comes to rest against the sycamore slopes of the Carpentras, which shelter the almond trees from the northern winds.
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This overwhelming new discovery and encounter, this elemental irruption of the third dimension and transformation of Euclidean plane surfaces, is so disorienting that it at first brought about an inflation and inundation by space. This is clearly evident in the numerous experimental representations of perspective. We will have occasion to note a parallel confusion and disorder in the painting of the period alter1800when we consider the new dimension of emergent consciousness in our own day. But whereas the preoccupation of the Early Renaissance was with the concretion of space, our epoch is concerned with the concretion of time. And our fundamental point of departure, the attempt to concretize time and thus realize and become conscious of the fourth dimension, furnishes a means whereby we may gain an all-encompassing perception and knowledge of our epoch.
The early years of the Renaissance, which one might even characterize as being dramatic, are the source of further writings in the wake of Cennini's treatise. Of equally epochal importance are the three volumes of Leon Battista Alberti'sDellapittura of 1436,which, besides a theory of proportions and anatomy based anVitruvius, contain a first systematic attempt at a theory of perspectival construction (the chapter "Della prospettiva"). Earlier, Brunelleschi had achieved a perspectival construction in his dome for the cathedral of Florence, and Manetti justifiably calls him the "founder of perspectival drawing." But it was Alberti who first formulated an epistemological description of the new manner of depiction, stated, still in very general terms, in the words: "Accordingly, the painting is a slice through the visual pyramid corresponding to a particular space or interval with its Center and specific hues rendered an a given surface by lines and colors." What Vitruvius in his Architettura still designated as "scenografia" has become for Alberti a "prospettiva", a clearly depicted visual pyramid.
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Above and beyond this Leonardos establishment of the laws of perspective is significant in that it made technical drafting feasible and thereby initiated the technological age. This concluded a process which had required centuries before it entered human consciousness and effected a fundamental transformation of man's world. It is only after Leonardo that the unperspectival world finally passes out of its dream-like state, and the perspectival world definitely enters awareness. Having attempted to show the initial thrust toward awareness of space documented in Petrarch's letter, and to account for the process of painful withdrawal from traditional perceptions, we would here like to indicate the nature of Leonardos decisive development, for it was he who fully realized Petrarch's discovery.
Among the thousands of Leonardo's notes and diary entries, there are several which, if we compare those of presumably earlier with those of presumably later origin, can document the course of his emergent spatial awareness and thus his extrication from the world he inherited.
1.02 - The Two Negations 1 - The Materialist Denial, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
15:The Unknown is not the Unknowable;4 it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity. And since in man there is the inalienable impulse of Nature towards self-realisation, no struggle of the intellect to limit the action of our capacities within a determined area can for ever prevail. When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has found its convenience in that temporary limitation, must cry to us, like the Vedic Restrainers, "Forth now and push forward also in other fields."5
16:If modern Materialism were simply an unintelligent acquiescence in the material life, the advance might be indefinitely delayed. But since its very soul is the search for Knowledge, it will be unable to cry a halt; as it reaches the barriers of senseknowledge and of the reasoning from sense-knowledge, its very rush will carry it beyond and the rapidity and sureness with which it has embraced the visible universe is only an earnest of the energy and success which we may hope to see repeated in the conquest of what lies beyond, once the stride is taken that crosses the barrier. We see already that advance in its obscure beginnings.
1.02 - The Ultimate Path is Without Difficulty, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
in terms of the fundamental matter. Thus he would have said,
"When we're reviling each other, I let you clamp beaks with
1.02 - The Vision of the Past, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
The fundamental line of growth - one becomes progressively
less able to avoid this almost direct evidence - is the advance
1.02 - THE WITHIN OF THINGS, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
and roots by reason of the fundamental unity of the world.
Whither does this rule lead us if we apply it to the instance of
--
To avoid a fundamental dualism, at once impossible and anti-
scientific, and at the same time to safeguard the natural complexity
--
nature ; but add that in each particular element this fundamental
energy is divided into two distinct components : a tangential
1.02 - Twenty-two Letters, #Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice, #Anonymous, #Various
There are twenty-two letters, stamina. Three of them, however, are the first elements, fundamentals or mothers, seven double and twelve simple consonants. The three fundamental letters have as their basis the balance. In one scale 17 is the merit and in the other criminality, which are placed in equilibrium by the tongue. The three fundamental letters signify, as is mute like the water and hissing like the fire, there is among them, a breath of air which reconciles them.
SECTION 2.
10.32 - The Mystery of the Five Elements, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The five elements are thus the five orders of material existence viewed as correlates to the five senses of man. But they are also realities in their own right. They represent the fundamental principles underlying or characterising the nature of matter. Science speaks of the three states of mattersolid, liquid and gaseous. The five elements enumerate five states instead. Thus earth = solid, water = liquid, fire = gaseous or radiant, air = fluid, ether or space = etheric. A distinction is made between gaseous and fluid, fluid being still more dispersive and tenuous. We might take air as representing the ether spoken of in science and what we have been equating with ether may be termed the field the gravitational field, for example, of our days.
The last two may, however, be represented somewhat differently. The Maruts may symbolise the region of the subtler or supra-electromagnetic forceswhat are now called cosmic rays: they are waves or particles of such infinitesimal magnitude that some of them at least have only a mathematical substance or reality, a probability-point, although of calculable or incalculable energy! Vayu then would represent the fundamental field where these forces playperhaps something like the Einsteinian field with its "corrugated" surface: or it is like the "Pradhana" of Sankhya, the original Prakriti or basic Nature before it burst out in its creative activity.
Again, the five elements are not merely substances or states and qualities of substance, but they are also forces and energies, material forces and energiessince we have confined ourselves to matter and the material world. Science (we are always referring to Science, we have to do so since we are dealing with and speaking from the standpoint of matter and material existence), Science has familiarised us with the various forms and types of forces and energies. They are, starting from the most patent and gross, going up to more and more subtle energies, first of all mechanical energy, then (2) chemical energy, (3) electrical energy, (4) gravitational energy, and finally (5) the field energy; the last two are perhaps not very clearly differentiated and distinguished, but still one may make the distinction. And this mounting ladder of energy with its various steps, with its five steps corresponds exactly to the old Indian quintetearth, water, fire, air, space.
--
Science, that is modem Science, will perhaps demur a little; for Science holds sound to be the exclusive property of air, it is the vibration of air that comes to the ear as sound, Where there is no air, there is no sound. But Science itself admits now that sound audible to the human ear is only a section of a whole gamut of vibrations of which the ear catches only a portion, vibrations of certain length and frequency. Those that are outside this limit, below or above, are not seized by the ear. So there is a sound that is unheard. The poets speak of unheard melodies. The vibrations the sound-vibrationsare in fact not merely in the air; but originally and fundamentally in a more subtle material medium, referred to by the ancients as vyom.. The air-vibrations are derivations or translations, in a more concrete and gross medium, of these subtler vibrations. These too are heard as sound by a subtle hearing. The very original seed-sound is, of course, Om, nda. That, however, is another matter.
Like inaudible sound, we know now, there is also invisible light. The visible light, as given in the spectrum, is only a section of the entire series of light-vibrations. There is a range above and one belowboth are invisible to the normal physical eye.
10.35 - The Moral and the Spiritual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The sense of sin is the fundamental inspiration behind some religious disciplines, even the sense of something irrevocably bad or something irreparable; for that gives a stronger impetus, a more dynamic urge to the spur of the religious consciousness. The sense of something irreparable, a final doom, has before it the vision of an eternal hell, the Lord of hell and his hosts and his captives. Upon this basic picture of Hell has loomed out Dante's vision of Paradise.
The Indian consciousness did not consider anything essentially evil, anything irrevocably and eternally condemned to perdition. Even the Asura, the anti-Divine is viewed, in the last analysis of things, also as an aspect, a formation of the Divine himself. Diti and Aditi are sisters, twin aspects of the same Supreme Being. All the legends in narrating the life history of the Asura describe his end as a submission to the Divine Will and a merging in Him. An entire life of bitter hostility culminates in the same degree of love for the Divine. The process of enmity seems to have a deeper occult meaning conducive to the more perfect union with the Divine. We know in Savitri how Sri Aurobindo speaks of Death as only a mask of Immortality.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
the development of adult personality; follows the fundamental pattern of the cyclic, circular cosmogonic
myth. The culturally-determined rites and biological processes associated with initiation constitute absolute
--
are generally predicated upon enaction of the fundamental narrative structure the Way previously
presented. Ritual initiation, for example a ubiquitous formal feature of pre-experimental culture 365
--
filling in a definite fundamental scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always
revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with
--
be paid, in the initial stages of abstract representation) to the more fundamental, but more abstract and
difficult, meta-problem of adaptation how is (or was) how to behave determined? or what is the
--
The first requirement is so fundamental, even in the short term, that it appears self-evident. A culture
must promote activities that allow for its own maintenance, or it will devour itself. The second requirement
1.03 - Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
it is a fundamental psychic factor of great practical importance,
no matter whether the individual psycho therapist or psycholo-
1.03 - Man - Slave or Free?, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is from these false and dangerous doctrines of materialism which tend to subvert mans future and hamper his evolution, that Yoga gives us a means of escape. It asserts on the contrary mans freedom from matter and gives him a means of asserting that freedom. The first great fundamental discovery of the Yogins was a means of analysing the experiences of the mind and the heart. By Yoga one can isolate mind, watch its workings as under a microscope, separate every minute function of the various parts of the antakaraa, the inner organ, every mental and moral faculty, test its isolated workings as well as its relations to other functions and faculties and trace backwards the operations of mind to subtler and ever subtler sources until just as material analysis arrives at a primal entity from which all proceeds, so Yoga analysis arrives at a primal spiritual entity from which all proceeds. It is also able to locate and distinguish the psychical centre to which all psychical phenomena gather and so to fix the roots of personality. In this analysis its first discovery is that mind can entirely isolate itself from external objects and work in itself and of itself. This does not, it is true, carry us very far because it may be that it is merely using the material already stored up by its past experiences. But the next discovery is that the farther it removes itself from objects, the more powerfully, surely, rapidly can the mind work with a swifter clarity, with a victorious and sovereign detachment. This is an experience which tends to contradict the scientific theory, that mind can withdraw the senses into itself and bring them to bear on a mass of phenomena of which it is quite unaware when it is occupied with external phenomena. Science will naturally challenge these as hallucinations. The answer is that these phenomena are related to each other by regular, simple and intelligible laws and form a world of their own independent of thought acting on the material world. Here too Science has this possible answer that this supposed world is merely an imaginative reflex in the brain of the material world and to any arguments drawn from the definiteness and unexpectedness of these subtle phenomena and their independence of our own will and imagination it can always oppose its theory of unconscious cerebration and, we suppose, unconscious imagination. The fourth discovery is that mind is not only independent of external matter, but its master; it can not only reject and control external stimuli, but can defy such apparently universal material laws as that of gravitation and ignore, put aside and make nought of what are called laws of nature and are really only the laws of material nature, inferior and subject to the psychical laws because matter is a product of mind and not mind a product of matter. This is the decisive discovery of Yoga, its final contradiction of materialism. It is followed by the crowning realisation that there is within us a source of immeasurable force, immeasurable intelligence, immeasurable joy far above the possibility of weakness, above the possibility of ignorance, above the possibility of grief which we can bring into touch with ourselves and, under arduous but not impossible conditions, habitually utilise or enjoy. This is what the Upanishads call the Brahman and the primal entity from which all things were born, in which they live and to which they return. This is God and communion with Him is the highest aim of Yogaa communion which works for knowledge, for work, for delight.
***
1.03 - Master Ma is Unwell, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
with others on the basis of the fundamental matter, how could
we have the shining light of this Path? If you know what this
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
squarely: The fundamental laws [of physics] are now
about possibilities and no longer about certitudes.
--
There is no fundamental significance in things if you
miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a
--
own access to reality, for it has chosen as its fundamental
premise that all existence is material and nothing else. In a
--
human and indeed animal in its origin and fundamental
character, and this would impose its own inevitable limita-
1.03 - Questions and Answers, #Book of Certitude, #unset, #Zen
106. He is God, exalted be He, the Lord of majesty and power! The Prophets and Chosen Ones have all been commissioned by the One True God, magnified be His glory, to nurture the trees of human existence with the living waters of uprightness and understanding, that there may appear from them that which God hath deposited within their inmost selves. As may be readily observed, each tree yieldeth a certain fruit, and a barren tree is but fit for fire. The purpose of these Educators, in all they said and taught, was to preserve man's exalted station. Well is it with him who in the Day of God hath laid fast hold upon His precepts and hath not deviated from His true and fundamental Law. The fruits that best befit the tree of human life are trustworthiness and godliness, truthfulness and sincerity; but greater than all, after recognition of the unity of God, praised and glorified be He, is regard for the rights that are due to one's parents. This teaching hath been mentioned in all the Books of God, and reaffirmed by the Most Exalted Pen. Consider that which the Merciful Lord hath revealed in the Qur'an, exalted are His words: "Worship ye God, join with Him no peer or likeness; and show forth kindliness and charity towards your parents..." Observe how loving-kindness to one's parents hath been linked to recognition of the one true God! Happy they who are endued with true wisdom and understanding, who see and perceive, who read and understand, and who observe that which God hath revealed in the Holy Books of old, and in this incomparable and wondrous Tablet.
107. In one of the Tablets He, exalted be His words, hath revealed: And in the matter of Zakat, We have likewise decreed that you should follow what hath been revealed in the Qur'an.
1.03 - Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of The Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.
Even for those whose first natural movement is a consecration, a surrender and a resultant entire transformation of the thinking mind and its knowledge, or a total consecration, surrender and transformation of the heart and its emotions, the consecration of works is a needed element in that change. Otherwise, although they may find God in other-life, they will not be able to fulfil the Divine in life; life for them will be a meaningless undivine inconsequence. Not for them the true victory that shall be the key to the riddle of our terrestrial existence; their love will not be the absolute love triumphant over self, their knowledge will not be the total consciousness and the all-embracing knowledge. It is possible, indeed, to begin with knowledge or Godward emotion solely or with both together and to leave works for the final movement of the Yoga. But there is then this disadvantage that we may tend to live too exclusively within, subtilised in subjective experience, shut off in our isolated inner parts; there we may get incrusted in our spiritual seclusion and find it difficult later on to pour ourselves triumphantly outwards and apply to life our gains in the higher Nature. When we turn to add this external kingdom also to our inner conquests, we shall find ourselves too much accustomed to an activity purely subjective and ineffective on the material plane. There will be an immense difficulty in transforming the outer life and the body.
1.03 - Some Aspects of Modern Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
other spheres), even he was forced to discuss fundamental principles that
go far beyond purely medical considerations. The most cursory
--
which differ fundamentally, namely introversion and extraversion. Both are
perfectly good ways of living, so long as they co-operate reasonably well. It
1.03 - THE EARTH IN ITS EARLY STAGES, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
This fundamental composition may have varied and become
elaborated in detail, but by and large it can be said to have estab-
--
we find the fundamental condition characteristic of primordial
matter the unity of plurality. The earth was probably born by
1.03 - THE GRAND OPTION, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
senting the fundamental dilemma upon which every man is com-
pelled to pronounce, implicitly or explicitly, by the very fact of
--
others, by isolation, is a fundamental error. The individual, if he is
to fulfill and preserve himself, must strive to break down every kind
--
knowledge that it is the fundamental impulse of Life, or, if you pre-
fer, the one natural medium in which the rising course of evolution
--
by the fundamental mechanism of union the elements of con-
sciousness, drawing together, enhance what is most incommunica-
--
of higher consciousness. Having been initially the fundamental
choice of the individual, the Grand Option, that which decides in
1.03 - The Phenomenon of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
We may now examine more closely the fundamental law of this
cosmic evolution, which makes it coherent for us.
--
When we introduce into our fundamental plan of the
Universe this axis of complexities, it is not simply the result
--
tion of a fundamental cosmic tendency (as fundamental as
entropy or gravitation) which may be called the 'Law of
--
present itself as essential and fundamental. Not only a physi-
cal phenomenon, but the phenomenon. We have already
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
It was only in the last century that we had the statement of Eliphaz Levi that were a man incarcerated in a dungeon cell in solitary confinement, without books or instructions of any kind, it would still be possible for him to obtain from this set of cards an encyclopaedic knowledge of the essence of all sciences, religions, and philosophies. Ignoring this specimen of typical Levi verbosity, it is only necessary to point out that instead of using the ten digits and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet for the basis of his magical alphabet, Levi adopted as his fundamental framework the twenty-two trump cards of the Book of
Thoth, attri buting to them his knowledge and experience in a way similar to the attri butions of the thirty-two Paths of Wisdom.
1.03 - The Uncreated, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
When we speak of the One, we are only affirming the fundamental Monism of our thought and indicating the ultimate point from which the mind takes its first step into the universe. This One is the universe in its potentiality; it is the state of indivisibility of the All.
When the mind, starting from this unity, takes its second step, it arrives at a point where the possibility of differentiation manifests itself by a sort of duplication of the Unique in its two complementary elements. From the realist standpoint this duplication takes the form of an opposition between Force and the resistance to Force,inverse movements, contrary currents passing between two opposite signs of one and the same essence. From the idealist standpoint it can be regarded as a sort of objectivisation of the subjective by which universal being takes cognizance of itself.
1.03 - Time Series, Information, and Communication, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
that we are here assuming the variable to have a fundamental
equipartition; that is, our results will not in general be the same
1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
1769 by Trei. z In Detailed Study of the fundamental Principles of the Five Houses of Zen (Goke sansh yro
mon) Trei explains the Zen terms "gains you half" (literally, "raises it up halfway") and "gaining it all" as follows: "'Raising it totally up' refers to grasping the treasury of the Buddha's true Dharma eye and making it one's own activity. 'Raising it partially up' refers to not having yet achieved this total attainment; to having achieved only half, or only one tenth" (hoz, 7:157-58). aa No source has been found for this quotation; it may have been written by Hakuin. bb "If you cease your mind from its constant strivings, you are no different from the Buddhas and patriarchs. You want to grasp the Buddhas and patriarchs, but you yourself, the person listening to my teaching at this moment, are the Buddha-patriarch" (see Record of Lin-chi, 23).
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The seventeenth-century Frenchmans vocabulary is very different from that of the seventh-century Chinamans. But the advice they give is fundamentally similar. Conformity to the will of God, submission, docility to the leadings of the Holy Ghostin practice, if not verbally, these are the same as conformity to the Perfect Way, refusing to have preferences and cherish opinions, keeping the eyes open so that dreams may cease and Truth reveal itself.
The world inhabited by ordinary, nice, unregenerate people is mainly dull (so dull that they have to distract their minds from being aware of it by all sorts of artificial amusements), sometimes briefly and intensely pleasurable, occasionally or quite often disagreeable and even agonizing. For those who have deserved the world by making themselves fit to see God within it as well as within their own souls, it wears a very different aspect.
1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
spiritual or personal agency. Thus its fundamental conception is
identical with that of modern science; underlying the whole system
--
of two great fundamental laws of thought, namely, the association of
ideas by similarity and the association of ideas by contiguity in
--
turned from their purpose by persuasion, it stands in fundamental
antagonism to magic as well as to science, both of which take for
--
consideration of the fundamental notions of magic and religion may
incline us to surmise that magic is older than religion in the
--
consideration of the fundamental ideas of magic and religion is
confirmed inductively by the observation that among the aborigines
1.04 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Let me here repeat the two fundamental equations or equiva-
lents which we have established:
--
any fundamental synthesis; and in consequence it engenders no
growth of consciousness. It materializes, in short, instead of spiri-
--
This being so, the more I consider the fundamental question
of the future of the earth, the more it appears to me that the gen-
--
at odds with itself, but to find what they have fundamentally in
common. We seek a new spirit for a new order.
--
process as generalized and fundamental as the first: I mean that of
the gradual concentration of its physicochemical elements in nu-
--
most fundamental concepts of his Faith, those of Divine Omnipo-
tence, detachment and charity. First, Divine Omnipotence: God
1.04 - The Aims of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
disposition, some special character, some fundamental psychological fact
that is more or less universal. Were we to exclude one such opinion as
--
I can accuse neither of these two investigators of any fundamental
error; on the contrary, I endeavour to apply both hypotheses as far as
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
Moral theories necessarily share common features with other theories. One of the most fundamental shared
features of theories, in general, is their reliance on extra-theoretical presuppositions. The extratheoretical presuppositions of explicit moral theorems appear to take implicit form in image and, more
--
implicit and fundamental. The capacity to abstract which has facilitated the communication of very
complex and only partially understood ideas is therefore also the capacity to undermine the very
--
most fundamental of the shared features of systems was identified by Kurt Godel. Godels Incompleteness
Theorem demonstrated that any internally consistent and logical system of propositions must necessarily be
--
reappearance of the Great Mother or, more fundamentally, of the Dragon of Chaos) are in consequence
necessarily contaminated with images of the sterile, senescent, or tyrannical king, whose inflexibility
--
and be reborn to ensure constant update of the techniques of survival. The second, more fundamental, is
that the hero the active agent of adaptation must eternally upset the protective structure of tradition and
--
ideas do not produce fundamental conflict do not threaten key beliefs. When basic concepts are
threatened, however, the unbearable, terrible unknown once again rises up, and once firm ground begins to
--
agree, fundamentally, about the nature of the unbearable present, the ideal future, and the means to
transform one into the other. Every individual plays out that conceptualization, in terms of his or her own
--
the proper consequence. Any assumption can be challenged. The most fundamental expectation of my
fantasies whatever they might be is that my assumptions are valid. Mismatch between what I desired
--
paradigm. Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes
some of the fields most elementary theoretical generalizations as well as many of its paradigm methods
--
European cognitive process, had the capacity to undermine the most fundamental presuppositions of
Russian culture (as it had undermined those of the West):
--
relevance of a given phenomenon which, most fundamentally, is its significance for goal-directed
behavior is a consequence of the operation of the goal-oriented schema, which finds partial expression in
--
narrative process). Furthermore, pure knowledge of the sensory world what is, most fundamentally does
not include knowledge about how to adapt to or behave in that world (even though the gathering of such
--
essential and fundamental structure to his very bones. Eliade states:
The total crisis of the future shaman, sometimes leading to complete disintegration of the personality
--
all intents and purposes. This initial division provides the prototypic structure, and the fundamental
228
--
fundamental to the world of experience as fundamental as things themselves. The matter of mythology
therefore seems more than superstition, that must be transcended seems more than the dead stuff of the
--
himself appears to have added another.) The modern mind would consider nothing fundamental altered
by such internal transformation (as it considers consciousness epiphenomenal to reality). The
--
and the most fundamental and necessary of biological pleasures with the inevitability of decay and of death,
the ultimate punishment. The Buddhas struggle with and eventual victory over his emergent tragic selfconsciousness comprises the rest of the great tale: first, Gautama incorporates the knowledge of his
--
note, therefore, that its theme also informs the most fundamental levels of Western sensibility. The JudeoChristian tale of redemption is predicated upon representation of the individual subject, marred with
Original Sin, fallen from grace, conscious of life and the borders of life, irretrievably blessed and cursed
--
boundaries of subjective existence, as the fundamental precondition of tragic self-awareness:
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
--
drink: this is, and must remain, a fundamental experience so long as man shall exist.452
The act of defiant incorporation, initiating alienation from paradise and God, is instigated by the serpent, an
--
representative of fundamental, undifferentiated uroboric power. The Edenic serpent provides the individual
with the knowledge of the gods, without their compensatory power and immortality. His enlightenment
--
power, once transmitted and cortically represented, must become capable of fundamentally altering
restricting and extending innate personal experience. One inevitable consequence of this shared
1.04 - The Conditions of Esoteric Training, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
It must be clearly realized that the purpose of this training is to build and not to destroy. The student should therefore bring with him the good will for sincere and devoted work, and not the intention to criticize and destroy. He should be capable of devotion, for he must learn what he does not yet know; he should look reverently on that which discloses itself. Work and devotion, these are the fundamental qualities which must be demanded of the student. Some come to realize that they are making no progress, though in their own opinion they are untiringly active. The reason is that they have not grasped the meaning of work and devotion in the right way. Work done for the sake of success will be the least successful,
p. 128
1.04 - The Crossing of the First Threshold, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
pp. 129-209; "A New Classification of the fundamental Elements of the TarBaby Story on the Basis of Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven Versions," ibid., 56,
1943, pp. 31-37; and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, "A Note on the Stickfast
1.04 - The Discovery of the Nation-Soul, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The primal law and purpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development. Consciously or half consciously or with an obscure unconscious groping it strives always and rightly strives at self-formulation,to find itself, to discover within itself the law and power of its own being and to fulfil it. This aim in it is fundamental, right, inevitable because, even after all qualifications have been made and caveats entered, the individual is not merely the ephemeral physical creature, a form of mind and body that aggregates and dissolves, but a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a self-manifesting spirit. In the same way the primal law and purpose of a society, community or nation is to seek its own self-fulfilment; it strives rightly to find itself, to become aware within itself of the law and power of its own being and to fulfil it as perfectly as possible, to realise all its potentialities, to live its own self-revealing life. The reason is the same; for this too is a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a self-manifestation of the cosmic Spirit, and it is there to express and fulfil in its own way and to the degree of its capacities the special truth and power and meaning of the cosmic Spirit that is within it. The nation or society, like the individual, has a body, an organic life, a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind and a soul behind all these signs and powers for the sake of which they exist. One may say even that, like the individual, it essentially is a soul rather than has one; it is a group-soul that, once having attained to a separate distinctness, must become more and more self-conscious and find itself more and more fully as it develops its corporate action and mentality and its organic self-expressive life.
The parallel is just at every turn because it is more than a parallel; it is a real identity of nature. There is only this difference that the group-soul is much more complex because it has a great number of partly self-conscious mental individuals for the constituents of its physical being instead of an association of merely vital subconscious cells. At first, for this very reason, it seems more crude, primitive and artificial in the forms it takes; for it has a more difficult task before it, it needs a longer time to find itself, it is more fluid and less easily organic. When it does succeed in getting out of the stage of vaguely conscious self-formation, its first definite self-consciousness is objective much more than subjective. And so far as it is subjective, it is apt to be superficial or loose and vague. This objectiveness comes out very strongly in the ordinary emotional conception of the nation which centres round its geographical, its most outward and material aspect, the passion for the land in which we dwell, the land of our fathers, the land of our birth, country, patria, vaterland, janma-bhmi. When we realise that the land is only the shell of the body, though a very living shell indeed and potent in its influences on the nation, when we begin to feel that its more real body is the men and women who compose the nation-unit, a body ever changing, yet always the same like that of the individual man, we are on the way to a truly subjective communal consciousness. For then we have some chance of realising that even the physical being of the society is a subjective power, not a mere objective existence. Much more is it in its inner self a great corporate soul with all the possibilities and dangers of the soul-life.
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The master word of the address to the Aswins is the verb chanasyatam, take your delight. The Aswins, as I understand them, are the masters of strength, youth, joy, swiftness, pleasure, rapture, the pride and glory of existence, and may almost be described as the twin gods of youth and joy. All the epithets applied to them here support this view. They are dravatpani subhaspati, the swift-footed masters of weal, of happiness and good fortune; they are purubhuja, much enjoying; their office is to take and give delight, chanasyatam. So runs the first verse, Aswin yajwaririsho dravatpani subhaspati, Purubhuja chanasyatam. O Aswins, cries Madhuchchhanda, I am in the full rush, the full ecstasy of the sacrificial action, O swift-footed, much-enjoying masters of happiness, take in me your delight. Again they are purudansasa, wide-distributing, nara, strong. O strong wide-distributing Aswins, continues the singer, with your bright-flashing (or brilliantly-forceful) understanding take pleasure in the words (of the mantra) which are now firmly settled (in the mind). Aswina purudansasa nara shaviraya dhiya, Dhishnya vanatam girah. Again we have the stress on things subjective, intellectual and spiritual. The extreme importance of the mantra, the inspired & potent word in the old Vedic religion is known nor has it diminished in later Hinduism. The mantra in Yoga is only effective when it has settled into the mind, is asina, has taken its seat there and become spontaneous; it is then that divine power enters into, takes possession of it and the mantra itself becomes one with the god of the mantra and does his works in the soul and body. This, as every Yogin knows, is one of the fundamental ideas not only in the Rajayogic practice but in almost all paths of spiritual discipline. Here we have the very word that can most appropriately express this settling in of the mantra, dhishnya, combined with the word girah. And we know that the gods in the Veda are called girvanah, those who delight in the mantra; Indra, the god of mental force, is girvahas, he who supports or bears the mantra. Why should Nature gods delight in speech or the god of thunder & rain be the supporter or bearer of any kind of speech? The hymns? But what is meant by bearing the hymns? We have to give unnatural meanings to vanas & vahas, if we wish to avoid this plain indication. In the next verse the epithets are dasra, bountiful, which, like wide-distributing is again an epithet appropriate to the givers of happiness, weal and youth, rudravartani, fierce & impetuous in all their ways, and Nasatya, a word of doubtful meaning which, for philological reasons, I take to mean gods of movement.As the movement indicated by this and kindred words n, (natare), especially meant a gliding, floating, swimming movement, the Aswins came to be especially the protectors of ships & sailors, and it is in this capacity that we find Castor & Polydeuces (Purudansas) acting, their Western counterparts, the brothers of Helen (Sarama), the swift riders of the Roman legend. O givers, O lords of free movement, runs the closing verse of this invocation, come to the outpourings of my nectar, be ye fierce in action;I feel full of youthful vigour, I have prepared the sacred grass,if that indeed be the true & early meaning of barhis. Dasra yuvakavah suta nasatya vriktabarhishah, Ayatam rudravartani. It is an intense rapture of the soul (rudravartani) which Madhuchchhandas asks first from the gods.Therefore his first call is to the Aswins.
Next, it is to Indra that he turns. I have already said that in my view Indra is the master of mental force. Let us see whether there is anything here to contradict the hypothesis. Indra yahi chitrabhano suta ime tu ayavah, Anwibhis tana putasah. Indrayahi dhiyeshito viprajutah sutavatah Upa brahmani vaghatah. Indrayahi tutujana upa brahmani harivah Sute dadhishwa nas chanah. There are several important words here that are doubtful in their sense, anwi, tana, vaghatah, brahmani; but none of them are of importance for our present purpose except brahmani. For reasons I shall give in the proper place I do not accept Brahma in the Veda as meaning speech of any kind, but as either soul or a mantra of the kind afterwards called dhyana, the object of which was meditation and formation in the soul of the divine Power meditated on whether in an image or in his qualities. It is immaterial which sense we take here. Indra, sings the Rishi, arrive, O thou of rich and varied light, here are these life-streams poured forth, purified, with vital powers, with substance. Arrive, O Indra, controlled by the understanding, impelled forward in various directions to my soul faculties, I who am now full of strength and flourishing increase. Arrive, O Indra, with protection to my soul faculties, O dweller in the brilliance, confirm our delight in the nectar poured. It seems to me that the remarkable descriptions dhiyeshito viprajutah are absolutely conclusive, that they prove the presence of a subjective Nature Power, not a god of rain & tempest, & prove especially a mind-god. What is it but mental force which comes controlled by the understanding and is impelled forward by it in various directions? What else is it that at the same time protects by its might the growing & increasing soul faculties from impairing & corrupting attack and confirms, keeps safe & continuous the delight which the Aswins have brought with them? The epithets chitrabhano, harivas become at once intelligible and appropriate; the god of mental force has indeed a rich and varied light, is indeed a dweller in the brilliance. The progress of the thought is clear. Madhuchchhanda, as a result of Yogic practice, is in a state of spiritual & physical exaltation; he has poured out the nectar of vitality; he is full of strength & ecstasy This is the sacrifice he has prepared for the gods. He wishes it to be prolonged, perhaps to be made, if it may now be, permanent. The Aswins are called to give & take the delight, Indra to supply & preserve that mental force which will sustain the delight otherwise in danger of being exhausted & sinking by its own fierceness rapidly consuming its material in the soul faculties. The state and the movement are one of which every Yogin knows.
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
This quotation is fundamental in the number philosophy of the Qabalah, indicating that the existence of these letters and the impress which they leave in every particle of creation, constitutes the harmony of the cosmos. The idealistic position that thoughts are things is analogous, and in the Sepher Yetsirah, the twenty-two letters or sets of ideas are observed to be the underlying forms and essences which go to make up the whole manifested universe in all its variety.
The Tree of Life consists of the thirty-two Paths of
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is one fundamental perception indispensable towards any integral knowledge or many-sided experience of this Infinite. It is to realise the Divine in its essential self and truth unaltered by forms and phenomena. Otherwise we are likely to remain caught in the net of appearances or wander confusedly in a chaotic multitude of cosmic or particular aspects, and if we avoid this confusion, it will be at the price of getting chained to some mental formula or shut up in a limited personal experience. The one secure and all-reconciling truth which is the very foundation of the universe is this that life is the manifestation of an uncreated Self and Spirit, and the key to lifes hidden secret is the true relation of this Spirit with its own created existences. There is behind all this life the look of an eternal Being upon its multitudinous becomings; there is around and everywhere in it the envelopment and penetration of a manifestation in time by an unmanifested timeless Eternal. But this knowledge is valueless for Yoga if it is only an intellectual and metaphysical notion void of life and barren of consequence; a mental realisation alone cannot be sufficient for the seeker. For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.
This infinite and eternal Self of things is an omnipresent Reality, one existence everywhere; it is a single unifying presence and not different in different creatures; it can be met, seen or felt in its completeness in each soul or each form in the universe. For its infinity is spiritual and essential and not merely a boundlessness in Space or an endlessness in Time; the Infinite can be felt in an infinitesimal atom or in a second of time as convincingly as in the stretch of the aeons or the stupendous enormity of the intersolar spaces. The knowledge or experience of it can begin anywhere and express itself through anything; for the Divine is in all, and all is the Divine.
This fundamental experience will yet begin differently for different natures and take long to develop all the Truth that it conceals in its thousand aspects. I see perhaps or feel in myself or as myself first the eternal Presence and afterwards only can extend the vision or sense of this greater self of mine to all creatures. I then see the world in me or as one with me. I perceive the universe as a scene in my being, the play of its processes as a movement of forms and souls and forces in my cosmic spirit; I meet myself and none else everywhere. Not, be it well noted, with the error of the Asura, the Titan, who lives in his own inordinately magnified shadow, mistakes ego for the self and spirit and tries to impose his fragmentary personality as the one dominant existence upon all his surroundings. For, having the knowledge, I have already seized this reality that my true self is the non-ego, so always my greater Self is felt by me either as an impersonal vastness or an essential Person containing yet beyond all personalities or as both these together; but in any case, whether Impersonal or illimitable Personal or both together, it is an ego-exceeding Infinite. If I have sought it out and found it first in the form of it I call myself rather than in others, it is only because there it is easiest for me, owing to the subjectivity of my consciousness, to find it, to know it at once and to realise it. But if the narrow instrumental ego does not begin to merge in this Self as soon as it is seen, if the smaller external mind-constructed I refuses to disappear into that greater permanent uncreated spiritual I, then my realisation is either not genuine or radically imperfect. There is somewhere in me an egoistic obstacle; some part of my nature has opposed a self-regarding and self-preserving denial to the all-swallowing truth of the Spirit.
On the other hand and to some this is an easier way I may see the Divinity first in the world outside me, not in myself but in others. I meet it there from the beginning as an indwelling and all-containing Infinite that is not bound up with all these forms, creatures and forces which it bears on its surface. Or else I see and feel it as a pure solitary Self and Spirit which contains all these powers and existences, and I lose my sense of ego in the silent Omnipresence around me. Afterwards it is this that begins to pervade and possess my instrumental being and out of it seem to proceed all my impulsions to action, all my light of thought and speech, all the formations of my consciousness and all its relations and impacts with other soul-forms of this one worldwide Existence. I am already no longer this little personal self, but That with something of itself put forward which sustains a selected form of its workings in the universe.
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These are the three fundamental realisations, so fundamental that to the Yogin of the way of Knowledge they seem ultimate, sufficient in themselves, destined to overtop and replace all others. And yet for the integral seeker, whether accorded to him at an early stage suddenly and easily by a miraculous grace or achieved with difficulty after a long progress and endeavour, they are neither the sole truth nor the full and only clues to the integral truth of the Eternal, but rather the unfilled beginning, the vast foundation of a greater divine Knowledge. Other realisations there are that are imperatively needed and must be explored to the full limit of their possibilities; and if some of them appear to a first sight to cover only Divine Aspects that are instrumental to the activity of existence but not inherent in its essence, yet, when followed to their end through that activity to its everlasting Source, it is found that they lead to a disclosure of the Divine without which our knowledge of the Truth behind things would be left bare and incomplete. These seeming Instrumentals are the key to a secret without which the fundamentals themselves would not unveil all their mystery. All the revelatory aspects of the Divine must be caught in the wide net of the integral Yoga.
***
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If a departure from the world and its activities, a supreme release and quietude were the sole aim of the seeker, the three great fundamental realisations would be sufficient for the fulfilment of his spiritual life: concentrated in them alone he could suffer all other divine or mundane knowledge to fall away from him and himself unencumbered, depart into the eternal Silence. But he has to take account of the world and its activities, learn what divine truth there may be behind them and reconcile that apparent opposition between the Divine Truth and the manifest creation which is the starting-point of most spiritual experience. Here, on each line of approach that he can take, he is confronted with a constant Duality, a separation between two terms of existence that seem to be opposites and their opposition to be the very root of the riddle of the universe. Later, he may and does discover that these are the two poles of One Being, connected by two simultaneous currents of energy negative and positive in relation to each other, their interaction the very condition for the manifestation of what is within the Being, their reunion the appointed means for the reconciliation of lifes discords and for the discovery of the integral truth of which he is the seeker.
For on one side he is aware of this Self everywhere, this everlasting Spirit-SubstanceBrahman, the Eternal the same self-existence here in time behind each appearance he sees or senses and timeless beyond the universe. He has this strong overpowering experience of a Self that is neither our limited ego nor our mind, life or body, world-wide but not outwardly phenomenal, yet to some spirit-sense in him more concrete than any form or phenomenon, universal yet not dependent for its being on anything in the universe or on the whole totality of the universe; if all this were to disappear, its extinction would make no difference to this Eternal of his constant intimate experience. He is sure of an inexpressible Self-Existence which is the essence of himself and all things; he is intimately aware of an essential Consciousness of which thinking mind and life-sense and body-sense are only partial and diminished figures, a Consciousness with an illimitable Force in it of which all energies are the outcome, but which is yet not explained or accounted for by the sum or power or nature of all these energies together; he feels, he lives in an inalienable self-existent Bliss which is not this lesser transient joy or happiness or pleasure. A changeless imperishable infinity, a timeless eternity, a self-awareness which is not this receptive and reactive or tentacular mental consciousness, but is behind and above it and present too below it, even in what we call Inconscience, a oneness in which there is no possibility of any other existence, are the fourfold character of this settled experience. Yet this eternal Self-Existence is seen by him also as a conscious Time-Spirit bearing the stream of happenings, a self-extended spiritual Space containing all things and beings, a Spirit-Substance which is the very form and material of all that seems non-spiritual, temporary and finite. For all that is transitory, temporal, spatial, bounded, is yet felt by him to be in its substance and energy and power no other than the One, the Eternal, the Infinite.
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For it is behind the mystery of the presence of personality in an apparently impersonal universeas in that of consciousness manifesting out of the Inconscient, life out of the inanimate, soul out of brute Matter that is hidden the solution of the riddle of existence. Here again is another dynamic Duality more pervading than appears at first view and deeply necessary to the play of the slowly self-revealing Power. It is possible for the seeker in his spiritual experience, standing at one pole of the Duality, to follow Mind in seeing a fundamental Impersonality everywhere. The evolving soul in the material world begins from a vast impersonal Inconscience in which our inner sight yet perceives the presence of a veiled infinite Spirit; it proceeds with the emergence of a precarious consciousness and personality that even at their fullest have the look of an episode, but an episode that repeats itself in a constant series; it arises through experience of life out of mind into an infinite, impersonal and absolute Superconscience in which personality, mind-consciousness, life-consciousness seem all to disappear by a liberating annihilation, Nirvana. At a lower pitch he still experiences this fundamental impersonality as an immense liberating force everywhere. It releases his knowledge from the narrowness of personal mind, his will from the clutch of personal desire, his heart from the bondage of petty mutable emotions, his life from its petty personal groove, his soul from ego, and it allows them to embrace calm, equality, wideness, universality, infinity. A Yoga of works would seem to require Personality as its mainstay, almost its source, but here too the impersonal is found to be the most direct liberating force; it is through a wide egoless impersonality that one can become a free worker and a divine creator. It is not surprising that the overwhelming power of this experience from the impersonal pole of the Duality should have moved the sages to declare this to be the one way and an impersonal Superconscience to be the sole truth of the Eternal.
But still to the seeker standing at the opposite pole of the Duality another line of experience appears which justifies an intuition deeply-seated behind the heart and in our very life-force, that personality, like consciousness, life, soul, is not a brief-lived stranger in an impersonal Eternity, but contains the very meaning of existence. This fine flower of the cosmic Energy carries in it a forecast of the aim and a hint of the very motive of the universal labour. As an occult vision opens in him, he becomes aware of worlds behind in which consciousness and personality hold an enormous place and assume a premier value; even here in the material world to this occult vision the inconscience of Matter fills with a secret pervading consciousness, its inanimation harbours a vibrant life, its mechanism is the device of an indwelling Intelligence, God and soul are everywhere. Above all stands an infinite conscious Being who is variously self-expressed in all these worlds; impersonality is only a first means of that expression. It is a field of principles and forces, an equal basis of manifestation; but these forces express themselves through beings, have conscious spirits at their head and are the emanation of a One Conscious Being who is their source. A multiple innumerable personality expressing that One is the very sense and central aim of the manifestation and if now personality seems to be narrow, fragmentary, restrictive, it is only because it has not opened to its source or flowered into its own divine truth and fullness packing itself with the universal and the infinite. Thus the world-creation is no more an illusion, a fortuitous mechanism, a play that need not have happened, a flux without consequence; it is an intimate dynamism of the conscious and living Eternal.
This extreme opposition of view from the two poles of one Existence creates no fundamental difficulty for the seeker of the integral Yoga; for his whole experience has shown him the necessity of these double terms and their currents of Energy, negative and positive in relation to each other, for the manifestation of what is within the one Existence. For himself Personality and Impersonality have been the two wings of his spiritual ascension and he has the prevision that he will reach a height where their helpful interaction will pass into a fusion of their powers and disclose the integral Reality and release into action the original force of the Divine. Not only in the fundamental Aspects but in all the working of his sadhana he has felt their double truth and mutually complementary working. An impersonal Presence has dominated from above or penetrated and occupied his nature; a Light descending has suffused his mind, life-power, the very cells of his body, illumined them with knowledge, revealed him to himself down to his most disguised and unsuspected movements, exposing, purifying, destroying or brilliantly changing all that belonged to the Ignorance. A Force has poured into him in currents or like a sea, worked in his being and all its members, dissolved, new-made, reshaped, transfigured everywhere. A Bliss has invaded him and shown that it can make suffering and sorrow impossible and turn pain itself into divine pleasure. A Love without limits has joined him to all creatures or revealed to him a world of inseparable intimacy and unspeakable sweetness and beauty and begun to impose its law of perfection and its ecstasy even amidst the disharmony of terrestrial life. A spiritual Truth and Right have convicted the good and evil of this world of imperfection or of falsehood and unveiled a supreme good and its clue of subtle harmony and its sublimation of action and feeling and knowledge. But behind all these and in them he has felt a Divinity who is all these things, a Bringer of Light, a Guide and All-Knower, a Master of Force, a Giver of Bliss, Friend, Helper, Father, Mother, Playmate in the world-game, an absolute Master of his being, his souls Beloved and Lover. All relations known to human personality are there in the souls contact with the Divine; but they rise towards superhuman levels and compel him towards a divine nature.
It is an integral knowledge that is being sought, an integral force, a total amplitude of union with the All and Infinite behind existence. For the seeker of the integral Yoga no single experience, no one Divine Aspect,however overwhelming to the human mind, sufficient for its capacity, easily accepted as the sole or the ultimate reality,can figure as the exclusive truth of the Eternal. For him the experience of the Divine Oneness carried to its extreme is more deeply embraced and amply fathomed by following out to the full the experience of the Divine Multiplicity. All that is true behind polytheism as well as behind monotheism falls within the scope of his seeking; but he passes beyond their superficial sense to human mind to grasp their mystic truth in the Divine. He sees what is aimed at by the jarring sects and philosophies and accepts each facet of the Reality in its own place, but rejects their narrownesses and errors and proceeds farther till he discovers the One Truth that binds them together. The reproach of anthropomorphism and anthropolatry cannot deter him,for he sees them to be prejudices of the ignorant and arrogant reasoning intelligence, the abstracting mind turning on itself in its own cramped circle. If human relations as practised now by man are full of smallness and perversity and ignorance, yet are they disfigured shadows of something in the Divine and by turning them to the Divine he finds that of which they are a shadow and brings it down for manifestation in life. It is through the human exceeding itself and opening itself to a supreme plenitude that the Divine must manifest itself here, since that comes inevitably in the course and process of the spiritual evolution, and therefore he will not despise or blind himself to the Godhead because it is lodged in a human body, mnu tanum ritam. Beyond the limited human conception of God, he will pass to the one divine Eternal, but also he will meet him in the faces of the Gods, his cosmic personalities supporting the World-Play, detect him behind the mask of the Vibhutis, embodied World-Forces or human Leaders, reverence and obey him in the Guru, worship him in the Avatar. This will be to him his exceeding good fortune if he can meet one who has realised or is becoming That which he seeks for and can by opening to it in this vessel of its manifestation himself realise it. For that is the most palpable sign of the growing fulfilment, the promise of the great mystery of the progressive Descent into Matter which is the secret sense of the material creation and the justification of terrestrial existence.
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
upon the fundamental difference between Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga (purna yoga) and the other yogas. If one has practiced other methods of yoga before Sri Aurobindo's, one experiences an ascending Force (called kundalini in India), which awakens rather brutally at the base of the spine and rises from level to level until it reaches the top of the head, where it blossoms into a sort of luminous and radiating pulsation, bringing a sensation of immensity (and often a loss of consciousness called ecstasy), as if one had forever emerged Elsewhere. All yogic methods, which might be called thermogenetic
the asanas of hatha yoga, the concentrations of raja yoga, the breathing exercises of pranayama, etc. aim at arousing that ascending Force; they can be dangerous and cause profound perturbations, which make the presence and protection of an enlightened Master indispensable. We will return to this later. The difference in the direction of the current, ascending vs. descending,
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and it is this Force that will universalize our being, right down to the lowest layers. This is the fundamental experience of the integral yoga.
When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre . . . then into the navel and other vital centres . . . then into the
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the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even intensely and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillness originating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately,
though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage.41
1.04 - What Arjuna Saw - the Dark Side of the Force, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Inconscience which is the fundamental basis of all resist-
ance in the individual and in the world, 29 the situation of
1.04 - Wherefore of World?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
When we speak of first reasons, we affirm by implication that there is a principle of Reason in the very essence of things. We admit, in other words, that the fundamental law of the universe responds to the rule and need order and arrangement in our own mentality.
Even if we suppose at the beginning of things a chaos such as sometimes confuses our own ideas, we cannot refuse to this melancholy condition the power to assume progressive form, that is to say, to realise the principle of order which it holds in itself. Otherwise there would be no possibility of anything more rational issuing out of that chaos.
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Still, the mind is justified in translating its first data into its own language in preference to another. And, even, this preference is forced upon it. For what has more than anything else hampered its attempt to discover the cause of the world, is the search for it in a domain alien to the minds own activities. The problem of the initial movement will always remain insoluble to it, if the data are not first translated into psychological terms. It is in its own fundamental dynamism that it must discover the primary energy, in its own secret that it must seek for the secret of the universe.
But there is another thing which prevents it from resolving the riddle of the world, and that is the arbitrary reduction of the whole formula of being into the terms of mental knowledge. For the domain of mind, intelligence, thought, is only one domain of the universal; its reality represents only one of the forms, one of the aspects of existence. The fact of existence is not exhausted by the idea; therefore its principle cannot be defined from the sole point of view of Mind.
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
teaching. The fundamental message, in the words of the
17 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, p. 153.108
1.05 - Buddhism and Women, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
occupies a fundamental place in buddhism. In fact, it
is considered that without the presence of a potential
1.05 - CHARITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Our present economic, social and international arrangements are based, in large measure, upon organized lovelessness. We begin by lacking charity towards Nature, so that instead of trying to co-operate with Tao or the Logos on the inanimate and subhuman levels, we try to dominate and exploit, we waste the earths mineral resources, ruin its soil, ravage its forests, pour filth into its rivers and poisonous fumes into its air. From lovelessness in relation to Nature we advance to lovelessness in relation to arta lovelessness so extreme that we have effectively killed all the fundamental or useful arts and set up various kinds of mass production by machines in their place. And of course this lovelessness in regard to art is at the same time a lovelessness in regard to the human beings who have to perform the fool-proof and grace-proof tasks imposed by our mechanical art-surrogates and by the interminable paper work connected with mass production and mass distribution. With mass-production and mass-distribution go mass-financing, and the three have conspired to expropriate ever-increasing numbers of small owners of land and productive equipment, thus reducing the sum of freedom among the majority and increasing the power of a minority to exercise a coercive control over the lives of their fellows. This coercively controlling minority is composed of private capitalists or governmental bureaucrats or of both classes of bosses acting in collaborationand, of course, the coercive and therefore essentially loveless nature of the control remains the same, whether the bosses call themselves company directors or civil servants. The only difference between these two kinds of oligarchical rulers is that the first derive more of their power from wealth than from position within a conventionally respected hierarchy, while the second derive more power from position than from wealth. Upon this fairly uniform groundwork of loveless relationships are imposed others, which vary widely from one society to another, according to local conditions and local habits of thought and feeling. Here are a few examples: contempt and exploitation of coloured minorities living among white majorities, or of coloured majorities governed by minorities of white imperialists; hatred of Jews, Catholics, Free Masons or of any other minority whose language, habits, appearance or religion happens to differ from those of the local majority. And the crowning superstructure of uncharity is the organized lovelessness of the relations between state and sovereign statea lovelessness that expresses itself in the axiomatic assumption that it is right and natural for national organizations to behave like thieves and murderers, armed to the teeth and ready, at the first favourable opportunity, to steal and kill. (Just how axiomatic is this assumption about the nature of nationhood is shown by the history of Central America. So long as the arbitrarily delimited territories of Central America were called provinces of the Spanish colonial empire, there was peace between their inhabitants. But early in the nineteenth century the various administrative districts of the Spanish empire broke from their allegiance to the mother country and decided to become nations on the European model. Result: they immediately went to war with one another. Why? Because, by definition, a sovereign national state is an organization that has the right and duty to coerce its members to steal and kill on the largest possible scale.)
Lead us not into temptation must be the guiding principle of all social organization, and the temptations to be guarded against and, so far as possible, eliminated by means of appropriate economic and political arrangements are temptations against charity, that is to say, against the disinterested love of God, Nature and man. First, the dissemination and general acceptance of any form of the Perennial Philosophy will do something to preserve men and women from the temptation to idolatrous worship of things in timechurch-worship, state-worship, revolutionary future-worship, humanistic self-worship, all of them essentially and necessarily opposed to charity. Next come decentralization, widespread private ownership of land and the means of production on a small scale, discouragement of monopoly by state or corporation, division of economic and political power (the only guarantee, as Lord Acton was never tired of insisting, of civil liberty under law). These social rearrangements would do much to prevent ambitious individuals, organizations and governments from being led into the temptation of behaving tyrannously; while co-operatives, democratically controlled professional organizations and town meetings would deliver the masses of the people from the temptation of making their decentralized individualism too rugged. But of course none of these intrinsically desirable reforms can possibly be carried out, so long as it is thought right and natural that sovereign states should prepare to make war on one another. For modern war cannot be waged except by countries with an over-developed capital goods industry; countries in which economic power is wielded either by the state or by a few monopolistic corporations which it is easy to tax and, if necessary, temporarily to nationalize; countries where the labouring masses, being without property, are rootless, easily transferable from one place to another, highly regimented by factory discipline. Any decentralized society of free, uncoerced small owners, with a properly balanced economy must, in a war-making world such as ours, be at the mercy of one whose production is highly mechanized and centralized, whose people are without property and therefore easily coercible, and whose economy is lop-sided. This is why the one desire of industrially undeveloped countries like Mexico and China is to become like Germany, or England, or the United States. So long as the organized lovelessness of war and preparation for war remains, there can be no mitigation, on any large, nation-wide or world-wide scale, of the organized lovelessness of our economic and political relationships. War and preparation for war are standing temptations to make the present bad, God-eclipsing arrangements of society progressively worse as technology becomes progressively more efficient.
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
ognition of its supremacy, leads to a fundamental conflict, to a
real suspension between opposites (reminiscent of the crucified
1.05 - Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Strangely enough, once we have found it, we find the same thing everywhere, in all beings and in all things; we can communicate directly, as if everything were the same, without separation. We have touched something within us that is not the mere puppet of universal forces, not the narrow and dry "I think, therefore I am," but the fundamental reality of our being, our true self, true center, warmth and being, consciousness and force.50
As this inner urge or force takes on a distinct individuality, as it grows as indeed a child grows, the seeker will become aware that it does not move at random, as he had thought at first, but converges at certain points of his being, depending upon his current activity, and is in fact behind each of the centers of consciousness: behind the mental centers when we think, assert a will or express something; behind the vital centers when we feel, suffer or desire; or farther down or farther up. That force actually becomes aware of things; all the centers,
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vital, physical, but it does link everything together, animates everything. It is the fundamental substance of the universe:
Consciousness-Force, Chit-Agni.
1.05 - Hsueh Feng's Grain of Rice, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
as the fundamental vehicle?" Te Shan struck him a blow and
said, "What are you saying?" Because of this, Hsueh Feng had
1.05 - Knowledge by Aquaintance and Knowledge by Description, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: _Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted_.
We shall not at this stage attempt to answer all the objections which may be urged against this fundamental principle. For the present, we shall merely point out that, in some way or other, it must be possible to meet these objections, for it is scarcely conceivable that we can make a judgement or entertain a supposition without knowing what it is that we are judging or supposing about. We must attach _some_ meaning to the words we use, if we are to speak significantly and not utter mere noise; and the meaning we attach to our words must be something with which we are acquainted. Thus when, for example, we make a statement about Julius Caesar, it is plain that Julius Caesar himself is not before our minds, since we are not acquainted with him. We have in mind some description of Julius Caesar: 'the man who was assassinated on the
Ides of March', 'the founder of the Roman Empire', or, perhaps, merely
1.05 - Problems of Modern Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
mathematical physics, and which is fundamentally a truth of the Far East
whose ultimate effects we cannot at present foresee.
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consummation of human life. From this fundamental attitude comes the
widespread social activity of the Adlerian school, but also its depreciation
1.05 - Some Results of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
ONE of the fundamental principles of true spiritual science is that the one who devotes himself to its study should do so with full consciousness; he should attempt nothing and practice nothing without knowledge of the effect produced. A teacher of spiritual science who gives advice or instruction will, at the same time, always explain to those striving for higher knowledge the effects produced on body, soul and spirit, if his advice and instructions be followed.
Some effects produced upon the soul of the student will here be indicated. For only those who know such things as they are here communicated can undertake in full consciousness the exercises that lead to knowledge of the higher worlds. Without the latter no genuine esoteric
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Finally, the eighth is as follows: The student must, from time to time, glance introspectively into himself, sink back into himself, take counsel with himself, form and test the fundamental principles
p. 141
--
Through inward application to the fundamental truths derived from spiritual science the student learns to set in motion and then to direct the currents proceeding form the lotus flower between the eyes.
It is at this stage of development especially that the value of sound judgment and a training in clear and logical thought come to the fore. The higher self, which hitherto slumbered unconsciously in an embryonic state, is now born into conscious existence. This is not a figurative but a positive birth in the spiritual world, and the being now born, the higher self, must enter that world with all the necessary organs and aptitudes if it is to be capable of life. Just as nature must provide for a child being born into the world with suitable eyes and ears, to too, the laws of self-development must provide for the necessary capacities with which the higher self can enter existence. These laws governing the development of the higher spiritual organs are none other than the laws of sound reason and morality of the physical world. The spiritual self matures in the
1.05 - The Activation of Human Energy, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
hope to discover the fundamental conditions which govern
the general functioning of the universe.
--
on earth, the fundamental problem of action has finally
60
--
small to satisfy it, he will strive to compensate a fundamental
imbalance by materialism or an ever-increasing multiplicity
1.05 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice - The Psychic Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For the same reason the ethical solution is insufficient; for an ethical rule merely puts a bit in the mouth of the wild horses of Nature and exercises over them a difficult and partial control, but it has no power to transform Nature so that she may move in a secure freedom fulfilling the intuitions that proceed from a divine self-knowledge. At best its method is to lay down limits, to coerce the devil, to put the wall of a relative and very doubtful safety around us. This or some similar device of self-protection may be necessary for a time whether in ordinary life or in Yoga; but in Yoga it can only be the mark of a transition. A fundamental transformation and a pure wideness of spiritual life are the aim before us and, if we are to reach it, we must find a deeper solution, a surer supra-ethical dynamic principle. To be spiritual within, ethical in the outside life, this is the ordinary religious solution, but it is a compromise; the spiritualisation of both the inward being and the outward life and not a compromise between life and the spirit is the goal of which we are the seekers. Nor can the human confusion of values which obliterates the distinction between spiritual and moral and even claims that the moral is the only true spiritual element in our nature be of any use to us; for ethics is a mental control and the limited erring mind is not and cannot be the free and everluminous Spirit. It is equally impossible to accept the gospel that makes life the one aim, takes its elements fundamentally as they are and only calls in a half-spiritual or pseudo-spiritual light to flush and embellish it. Inadequate too is the very frequent attempt at a misalliance between the vital and the spiritual, a mystic experience within with an aestheticised intellectual and sensuous Paganism or exalted hedonism outside leaning upon it and satisfying itself in the glow of a spiritual sanction; for this too is a precarious and never successful compromise and it is as far from the divine Truth and its integrality as the puritanic opposite. These are all stumbling solutions of the fallible human mind groping for a transaction between the high spiritual summits and the lower pitch of the ordinary mind-motives and life-motives. Whatever partial truth may be hidden behind them, that truth can only be accepted when it has been raised to the spiritual level, tested in the supreme Truth-Consciousness and extricated from the soil and error of the Ignorance.
In sum, it may be safely affirmed that no solution offered can be anything but provisional until a supramental Truth-Consciousness is reached by which the appearances of things are put in their place and their essence revealed and that in them which derives straight from the spiritual essence. In the meanwhile our only safety is to find a guiding law of spiritual experience -- or else to liberate a light within that can lead us on the way until that greater direct Truth-Consciousness is reached above us or born within us. For all else in us that is only outward, all that is not a spiritual sense or seeing, the constructions, representations or conclusions of the intellect, the suggestions or instigations of the Life-force, the positive necessities of physical things are sometimes half-lights, sometimes false lights that can at best only serve for a while or serve a little and for the rest either detain or confuse us. The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and comm and and dynamic presence of the Divine shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is no absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind formations and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the hands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine-tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within us. That is the inner light we must liberate; for the light of this inmost soul is our one sure illumination so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-Consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our Godward endeavour. The working of the Divine Force in us under the conditions of the transition and the light of the psychic being turning us always towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instigations of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner law of our action which continues till the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature. In the transition there may well be a period in which we take up all life and action and offer them to the Divine for purification, change and deliverance of the truth within them, another period in which we draw back and build a spiritual wall around us admitting through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of the spiritual transformation, a third in which a free and all-embracing action, but with new forms fit for the utter truth of the Spirit, can again be made possible. These things, however, will be decided by no mental rule but in the light of the soul within us and by the ordaining force and progressive guidance of the Divine Power that secretly or overtly first impels, then begins clearly to control and order and finally takes up the whole burden of the Yoga.
--
There are two signs of the transformation of the seeker's mind of knowledge and works of knowledge from the process of the Ignorance to the process of a liberated consciousness working partly, then wholly in the light of the Spirit. There is first a central change of the consciousness and a growing direct experience, vision, feeling of the Supreme and the cosmic existence, the Divine in itself and the Divine in all things; the mind will be taken up into a growing preoccupation with this first and foremost and will feel itself heightening, widening into a more and more illumined means of expression of the one fundamental knowledge. But also the central Consciousness in its turn will take up more and more the outer mental activities of knowledge and turn them into a parcel of itself or an annexed province; it will infuse into them its more au thentic movement and make a more and more spiritualised and illumined mind its instrument in these surface fields, its new conquests, as well as in its own deeper spiritual empire. And this will be the second sign, the sign of a certain completion and perfection, that the Divine himself has become the Knower and all the inner movements, including the activities of what was once a purely human mental action, have become his field of knowledge. There will be less and less individual choice, opinion, preference, less and less of intellectualisation, mental weaving, cerebral galley-slave labour; a Light within will see all that has to be seen, know all that has to be known, develop, create, organise. It will be the inner Knower who will do in the liberated and universalised mind of the individual the works of an all-comprehending knowledge.
These two changes are the signs of a first effectuation in which the activities of the mental nature are lifted up, spiritualised, widened, universalised, liberated, led to a consciousness of their true purpose as an instrumentation of the Divine creating and developing its manifestation in the temporal universe. But this cannot be the whole scope of the transformation; for it is not in these limits that the integral seeker can cease from his ascension or confine the widening of his nature. For, if it were so, knowledge would still remain a working of the mind, liberated, universalised, spiritualised, but still, as all mind must be, comparatively restricted, relative, imperfect in the very essence of its dynamism; it would reflect luminously great constructions of Truth, but not move in the domain where Truth is au thentic, direct, sovereign and native. There is an ascension still to be made from this height, by which the spiritualised mind will exceed itself and transmute into a supramental power of knowledge. Already in the process of spiritualisation it will have begun to pass out of the brilliant poverty of the human intellect; it will mount successively into the pure broad reaches of a higher mind and next into the gloaming belts of a still greater free intelligence illumined with a Light from above. At this point it will begin to feel more freely, admit with a less mixed response the radiant beginnings of an Intuition, not illumined, but luminous in itself, true in itself, no longer entirely mental and therefore subjected to the abundant intrusion of error. Here too is not an end, for it must rise beyond into the very domain of that untruncated Intuition, the first direct light from the self-awareness of essential Being and, beyond it, attain that from which this light comes. For there is an overmind behind Mind, a Power more original and dynamic which supports Mind, sees it as a diminished radiation from itself, uses it as a transmitting belt of passage downward or an instrument for the creations of the Ignorance. The last step of the ascension would be the surpassing of overmind itself or its return into its own still greater origin, its conversion into the supramental light of the Divine Gnosis. For there in the supramental Light is the seat of the divine Truth-Consciousness that has native in it, as no other consciousness below it can have, the power to organise the works of a Truth which is no longer .tarnished by the shadow of the cosmic Inconscience and Ignorance. There to reach and thence to bring down a supramental dynamism that can transform the Ignorance is the distant but imperative supreme goal of the integral Yoga.
1.05 - The Creative Principle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
By their mutual ignorance the various theories of the beginning of things only reveal their fundamental ignorance of the causes of existence. And one may class among these theories even those speculations which under the philosophic name of Agnosticism avow their ignorance and affirm it expressly as their point of departure. For if they do not pose the question of the wherefore of the worlds, it is because in reality they hold it to be solved. Under their Agnosticism their lurks, tacitly and ill-disguised, the postulate of an unknown First Principle. Some, even, perceive clearly that it is impossible to escape from the necessity of this postulate and affirm under the name of the Unknowable such a First Principle. But even those which confine themselves to the assertion of the empirical fact of evolution, those in whose view the universe is nothing but a perpetual motion without cause or finality, will be found always ready to assert that this motion reposes on the existence of an eternal force or an eternal substance. For many physicists nowadays the notion of ether as an absolute substratum of all phenomena takes the place of a creative Deity.
And, on the other hand, is not this formula of a creative God, which is the conclusion of the majority of the other theories, itself the most supremely agnostic of all formulas? Does it not unconsciously disguise in its appeal to the miracle, the mystery of the primal act, the very ignorance that the partisans of the Unknowable avow? Does not the affirmation of an eternal Being, creator of things, amount in fact to the statement of a principle of uncreated force or substance from which things must have arisen?
--
But if we must attribute this form of relative affirmation to some power of primary activity and of creation, we may at least discover a preliminary and fundamental antecedent in the affirmation, also creative, of the Absolute itself in which all is included.
If this Absolute escapes our thought, it is because all our contradictories become indistinguishable in its identity. It is indivisible and indiscernable unity. And nevertheless it discerns in this very unity the infinite multiplicity. It is the non-manifest which manifests itself to itself. And in its eternal objectivisation at once conscient and substantial is contained the foundation of the principle of distinction, determination, differentiation, without which things and the idea of things could not be.
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
noted previously463 that the answer to the question what is the good? must in fact be sought in the metadomain, so to speak: the more fundamental mystery given the context-dependent nature of the good is
how are answers to the question what is the good? endlessly and appropriately generated? The good,
--
the most fundamental divisions of Tao comprise the basic maternal and patriarchal constituent elements
of experience. Much of ancient Chinese philosophy (cosmology, medicine, political theory, religious
--
is to establish or re-establish the harmony between the fundamental feminine and masculine principles,
and to diagnosis and cure the faulty action or irresponsible inactions that led to their original discord. The
--
too terrifying to be encountered or considered, in its most fundamental form. To avoid something is also
to define it and, in a more general sense, to define oneself. To avoid is to say that is too terrible, and
--
these most fundamental of issues have been resolved, that the means of resolution themselves can be
questioned. This act of higher-order conceptualization means emergence of ability to play games, with the
--
of God. The Decalogue is the single most fundamental subset of the new code:
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
--
experience derived from past observation of behavior relevant from the perspective of fundamental
motivation and affect. Myth simultaneously provides a record of historical essential, in terms of behavior,
--
What this means, at the most fundamental level of analysis, is that the pattern of action, imagination and
thought that Christ represents is necessarily there in any narrative or mythology, sufficiently compelling
--
its existence. Morality, at its most fundamental level, is an emergent property of social interaction,
embodied in individual behavior, implicit in the value attri buted to objects and situations, grounded
--
interest in the psychology of religion (which is, after all, a fundamental aspect of human psychology and
culture). Even the Pulitzer-Prize winning sociologist Ernest Becker, who was favourably (and critically)
--
of narrative, of the episodic memory system which he thought of, fundamentally, as the collective
unconscious. Comprehension of this language is perhaps more difficult than development of fluency in an
--
the course of goal-directed behavior are classified most fundamentally with regards to their relevance, or
irrelevance, to that end. Those that are relevant are further discriminated into those that are useful, and
--
by its restricted animal nature to fundamental processes of exploration the block soon becomes irrelevant.
It signifies no danger, in the course of interaction; it cannot be eaten; it is useless as nesting material.... The
--
affective import. This more fundamental mode of thought, concerned with behavioral adaptation to
circumstance, is how man thought, prior to the formalization of scientific methodology and how man
--
the beginning of all things; then, the interplay of four fundamental forces; then simple hydrogen, coalescing
into a star; then, matter transformed by gravity and nuclear processes; then a rock on Earth; finally,
--
pondering the nature of the prima materia the fundamental constituent element of experience easily
became possessed by intimations of the infinite possibility of matter: of the boundless significance of the
--
truthful, the selfless may deserve, it would still be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for
life might have to be ascribed to deception, selfishness and lust. It might even be possible that what
--
because they are lost. This presupposes a judgment rendered, at a very fundamental level of analysis. Grief
presupposes having loved, presupposes the judgment that this persons specific, bounded existence was
--
following conclusion: the more fundamental the problem, the more fundamental the error in my own
viewpoint.
--
brain asymmetry and fundamental dimensions of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 62, 672-687.
--
(relevance, in its most fundamental guise) that normally lie beyond [Huxley, A. (1956).] William Blakes doors of
perception, and that lend to existence itself its intrinsic (and sometimes overwhelming) meaning:
1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
I have thus explained to you, excellent Muni, six[8] creations. The first creation was that of Mahat or Intellect, which is also called the creation of Brahmā[9]. The second was that of the rudimental principles (Tanmātras), thence termed the elemental creation (Bhūta serga). The third was the modified form of egotism, termed the organic creation, or creation of the senses (Aindrīyaka). These three were the Prākrita creations, the developements of indiscrete nature, preceded by the indiscrete principle[10]. The fourth or fundamental creation (of perceptible things) was that of inanimate bodies. The fifth, the Tairyag yonya creation, was that of animals. The sixth was the Ūrddhasrotas creation, or that of the divinities. The creation of the Arvāksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man. There is an eighth creation, termed Anugraha, which possesses both the qualities of goodness and darkness[11]. Of these creations, five are secondary, and three are primary[12]. But there is a ninth, the Kaumāra creation, which is both primary and secondary[13]. These are the nine creations of the great progenitor of all, and, both as primary and secondary, are the radical causes of the world, proceeding from the sovereign creator. What else dost thou desire to hear?
MAITREYA. Thou hast briefly related to me, Muni, the creation of the gods and other beings: I am desirous, chief of sages, to hear from thee a more ample account of their creation.
1.06 - A Summary of my Phenomenological View of the World, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
This means that all around us the fundamental process of
Cosmogenesis is continuing just as before (or even with
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Science is fundamentally a form of knowledge, it is the
mind searching for the Truth behind the workings of Na
1.06 - Five Dreams, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The first of these dreams was a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India. India today is free but she has not achieved unity. At one moment it almost seemed as if in the very act of liberation she would fall back into the chaos of separate States which preceded the British conquest. But fortunately it now seems probable that this danger will be averted and a large and powerful, though not yet a complete union will be established. Also, the wisely drastic policy of the Constituent Assembly has made it probable that the problem of the depressed classes will be solved without schism or fissure. But the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India's internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under whatever form the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India's future.
Another dream was for the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilisation. Asia has arisen; large parts are now quite free or are at this moment being liberated: its other still subject or partly subject parts are moving through whatever struggles towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations.
1.06 - Gestalt and Universals, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
transposition of music from one fundamental pitch to another
is nothing but a translation of the logarithm of the frequency,
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
which is fundamental to the elaboration of organized matter. Mat-
ter does not vitalize or supervitalize itself except by compression.
1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the fundamental glory of ancient chiefs and heroes, and it seems
probable that it may have been the origin of chieftainship. The man
1.06 - Man in the Universe, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
19:On the other hand, we have hazarded the suggestion that since all is one Reality, this inferior negation also, this other contradiction or non-existence of Sachchidananda is none other than Sachchidananda itself. It is capable of being conceived by the intellect, perceived in the vision, even received through the sensations as verily that which it seems to deny, and such would it always be to our conscious experience if things were not falsified by some great fundamental error, some possessing and compelling Ignorance, Maya or Avidya. In this sense a solution might be sought, not perhaps a satisfying metaphysical solution for the logical mind, - for we are standing on the border-line of the unknowable, the ineffable and straining our eyes beyond, - but a sufficient basis in experience for the practice of the divine life.
20:To do this we must dare to go below the clear surfaces of things on which the mind loves to dwell, to tempt the vast and obscure, to penetrate the unfathomable depths of consciousness and identify ourselves with states of being that are not our own. Human language is a poor help in such a search, but at least we may find in it some symbols and figures, return with some just expressible hints which will help the light of the soul and throw upon the mind some reflection of the ineffable design.
1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Although it is a divine love for the supreme and universal Divine that must be the rule of our spiritual existence, this does not exclude altogether all forms of individual love or the ties that draw soul to soul in manifested existence. A psychic change is demanded, a divestiture of the masks of the Ignorance, a purification of the egoistic mental, vital and physical movements that prolong the old inferior consciousness; each movement of love, spiritualised, must depend no longer on mental preference, vital passion or physical craving, but on the recognition of soul by soul, - love restored to its fundamental spiritual and psychic essence with the mind, the vital, the physical as manifesting instruments and elements of that greater oneness.
In this change the individual love also is converted by a natural heightening into a divine love for the Divine Inhabitant immanent in a mind and soul and body occupied by the One in all creatures.
1.06 - The Desire to be, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
For desire represents in the being that first active form of Thought in which we must seek for the initial spring conscient or inconscient of its energies, the obscure genesis of its will and that first spontaneity of fundamental egoism by which the I of the relativity manifests.
Thought and Desire are for the inner universe what extension and movement are for the universe without. And if all the phenomena of the objective world can be reduced to the simple notion of movement, does not movement itself render sensible this first conceptual principle of the being,desire?
--
That self-regarding desire which is preeminently the egoistic principle was the first cause of the world, appears clearly if we consider the fact that it is the fundamental law of all individual life, the very root of the living existence.
Strip man of his visible and conscious egoisms and under the ashes of his consumed desires you will discover the fire of ego smouldering still; under the transfigured forms you will find always that attachment to the I without which the being would no longer exist.
1.06 - THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
unfamiliar involves danger, anxiety and care,--the fundamental instinct
is to get rid of these painful circumstances. First principle: any
--
consciousness(--inthis way the most fundamentally fraudulent character
of psychology was established as the very principle of psychology
1.06 - The Three Schools of Magick 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
These Schools represent three perfectly distinct and contrary theories of the Universe, and, therefore, practices of spiritual science. The magical formula of each is as precise as a theorem of trigonometry. Each assumes as fundamental a certain law of Nature, and the subject is complicated by the fact that each School, in a certain sense, admits the formul of the other two. It merely regards them as in some way incomplete, secondary, or illusory. Now, as will be seen later, the Yellow School stand aloof from the other two by the nature of its postulates. But the Black School and the White are always more or less in active conflict; and it is because just at this moment that conflict is approaching a climax that it is necessary to write this essay. The adepts of the White School consider the present danger to mankind so great that they are prepared to abandon their traditional policy of silence, in order to enlist in their ranks the profane of every nation.
We are in possession of a certain mystical document*[AC13] which we may describe briefly, for convenience sake, as an Apocalypse of which we hold the keys, thanks to the intervention of the Master who has appeared at this grave conjuncture of Fate. This document consists of a series of visions, in which we hear the various Intelligences whose nature it would be hard to define, but who are at the very least endowed with knowledge and power far beyond anything that we are accustomed to regard as proper to the human race.
1.07 - Bridge across the Afterlife, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the fundamental thing (conscious knowledge) rather than on
its derivative (material brain). 6
1.07 - Cybernetics and Psychopathology, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
tional mental disorders as fundamentally diseases of memory, of
the circulating information kept by the brain in the active state,
1.07 - Medicine and Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
we say, he is fils papa. Here something fundamental has been said about
the content of the neurosis and about the difficulties to be expected in the
1.07 - Note on the word Go, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I pass now to a third passage, also instructive, also full of that depth and fine knowledge of the movements of the higher consciousness which every Yogin must find in the Veda. It is in the 9th hymn of the Mandala and forms the seventh verse of that hymn. Sam gomad Indra vajavad asme prithu sravo brihat, visvayur dhehi akshitam. The only crucial question in this verse is the signification of sravas.With our modern ideas the sentence seems to us to demand that sravas should be translated here fame. Sravas is undoubtedly the same word as the Greek xo (originally xFo); it means a thing heard, rumour, report, & thence fame. If we take it in that sense, we shall have to translate Arrange for us, O universal life, a luminous and solid, wide & great fame unimpaired. I dismiss at once the idea that go & vaja can here signify cattle and food or wealth. A herded & fooded or wealthy fame to express a fame for wealth of cattle & food is a forceful turn of expression we might expect to find in Aeschylus or in Shakespeare; but I should hesitate, except in case of clear necessity, to admit it in the Veda or in any Sanscrit style of composition; for such expressions have always been alien to the Indian intellect. Our stylistic vagaries have been of another kind. But is luminous & solid fame much better? I shall suggest another meaning for sravas which will give as usual a deeper sense to the whole passage without our needing to depart by a hairs breadth from the etymological significance of the words. Sruti in Sanscrit is a technical term, originally, for the means by which Vedic knowledge is acquired, inspiration in the suprarational mind; srutam is the knowledge of Veda. Similarly, we have in Vedic Sanscrit the forms srut and sravas. I take srut to mean inspired knowledge in the act of reception, sravas the thing acquired by the reception, inspired knowledge. Gomad immediately assumes its usual meaning illuminated, full of illumination. Vaja I take throughout the Veda as a technical Vedic expression for that substantiality of being-consciousness which is the basis of all special manifestation of being & power, all utayah & vibhutayahit means by etymology extended being in force, va or v to exist or move in extension and the vocable j which always gives the idea of force or brilliance or decisiveness in action or manifestation or contact. I shall accept no meaning which is inconsistent with this fundamental significance. Moreover the tendency of the old commentators to make all possible words, vaja, ritam etc mean sacrifice or food, must be rejected,although a justification in etymology might always be made out for the effort. Vaja means substance in being, substance, plenty, strength, solidity, steadfastness. Here it obviously means full of substance, just as gomad full of luminousness,not in the sense arthavat, but with another & psychological connotation. I translate then, O Indra, life of all, order for us an inspired knowledge full of illumination & substance, wide & great and unimpaired. Anyone acquainted with Yoga will at once be struck by the peculiar & exact appropriateness of all these epithets; they will admit him at once by sympathy into the very heart of Madhuchchhandas experience & unite him in soul with that ancient son of Visvamitra. When Mahas, the supra-rational principle, begins with some clearness to work in Yoga, not on its own level, not swe dame, but in the mind, it works at first through the principle of Srutinot Smriti or Drishti, but this Sruti is feeble & limited in its range, it is not prithu; broken & scattered in its working even when the range is wide, not unlimited in continuity, not brihat; not pouring in a flood of light, not gomat, but coming as a flash in the darkness, often with a pale glimmer like the first feebleness of dawn; not supported by a strong steady force & foundation of being, Sat, in manifestation, not vajavad, but working without foundation, in a void, like secondh and glimpses of Sat in nothingness, in vacuum, in Asat; and, therefore, easily impaired, easily lost hold of, easily stolen by the Panis or the Vritras. All these defects Madhuchchhanda has noticed in his own experience; his prayer is for an inspired knowledge which shall be full & free & perfect, not marred even in a small degree by these deficiencies.
The combination of go & vaja occurs again in the eleventh hymn where the seer writes Purvir Indrasya ratayo na vi dasyanti utayah, yadi vajasya gomatah stotribhyo manhate magham. The former delights of Indra, those first established his (new &larger) expansions of being do not destroy or scatter, when to his praisers he enlarges the mass of their illuminated substance or strength of being. Here again we have Madhuchchhandas deep experience & his fine & subtle knowledge. It is a common experience in Yoga that the ananda and siddhi first established, is destroyed in the effort or movement towards a larger fullness of being, knowledge or delight, and a period of crisis intervenes in which there is a rending & scattering of joy & light, a period of darkness, confusion & trouble painful to all & dangerous except to the strongest. Can these crises, difficulties, perilous conditions of soul be avoided? Yes, says Madhuchchhandas in effect, when you deliver yourself with devotion into the care of Indra, he comes to your help, he removes that limitation, that concentration in detail, in the alpam, the little, that consequent necessity of losing hold of one thing in order to give yourself to another, he increases the magha, the vijnanamay state of mahattwa or relative non-limitation in the finite which shows itself by an increase of fundamental force of being filled with higher illumination. That support of vaja prevents us from falling from what we have gained; there is sufficient substance of being expressed in us to provide for the new utayah without sacrificing the joys already established; there is sufficient luminousness of mind to prevent darkness, obscuration & misery supervening. Thus we see still the same symbolic sense, the same depth, the same experience as true to the Yogin today as to Madhuchchhandas thousands of years ago.
Now that we have thus substantially fixed the meaning of go and gomat, we can go back to a passage already to some extent discussed, the third verse of the seventh hymn. Indro dirghaya chakshasa a suryam rohayad divi, vi gobhir adrim airayat; Indra for far vision ascended to the sun in heaven; he sent him abroad over all the mountain with his rays. This is so plainly the meaning of the verse that I cannot understand, once it is perceived & understood, how we can accept any other rendering. I have already discussed the relations of Indra, Surya & the Mountain of our graded ascent in beingSri Ramakrishnas staircase to the Sad Brahman. The far vision is the unlimited knowledge acquired in Mahas, in the wide supra-rational movement of our consciousness as opposed to the contracted rational or infrarational vision which works only on details or from & by details, the alpam; for that Mind has to ascend to the Sun in Heaven, the principle of Mahas on the higher levels of mind itself, not on the supra-rational level, not swe dame. Because it is not swe dame, the full illumination is not possible, we cannot become practically omniscient; all Indra can do is to send down the sun, not in itself, but in its rays to various parts of the mountain of being, all over it, it is true, but still revealing only the higher truth in its parts, not in its full sum of knowledge. The language is so precise, once we understand the Vedic terminology, that I do not think we can be mistaken in this interpretation, which, moreover, agrees perfectly with Yogic experience and the constant theme of Madhuchchhandas. He is describing the first dawn & development of the higher knowledge in the mind, still liable to attack & obstruction, (yujam vritreshu vajrinam), still uncertain in quantity (Indram vayam mahadhane indram arbhe havamahe). Irayat is naturally transitive, bears the meaning it has in prerana, prerita, and can have no object but Surya, unless we suppose, which is less natural, that it is Surya who sends Indra to the mountain accompanied by his rays.
1.07 - On Our Knowledge of General Principles, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
These three laws are samples of self-evident logical principles, but are not really more fundamental or more self-evident than various other similar principles: for instance, the one we considered just now, which states that what follows from a true premiss is true. The name 'laws of thought' is also misleading, for what is important is not the fact that we think in accordance with these laws, but the fact that things behave in accordance with them; in other words, the fact that when we think in accordance with them we think _truly_. But this is a large question, to which we must return at a later stage.
In addition to the logical principles which enable us to prove from a given premiss that something is _certainly_ true, there are other logical principles which enable us to prove, from a given premiss, that there is a greater or less probability that something is true. An example of such principles--perhaps the most important example is the inductive principle, which we considered in the preceding chapter.
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We have now seen that there are propositions known _a priori_, and that among them are the propositions of logic and pure mathematics, as well as the fundamental propositions of ethics. The question which must next occupy us is this: How is it possible that there should be such knowledge? And more particularly, how can there be knowledge of general propositions in cases where we have not examined all the instances, and indeed never can examine them all, because their number is infinite?
These questions, which were first brought prominently forward by the German philosopher Kant (1724-1804), are very difficult, and historically very important.
1.07 - Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
24:The ethical idealist tries to discover this supreme law in his own moral data, in the inferior powers and factors that belong to the mental and ethical formula. And to sustain and organise them he selects a fundamental principle of conduct essentially unsound and constructed by the intellect - utility, hedonism, reason, intuitive conscience or any other generalised standard. All such efforts are foredoomed to failure. Our inner nature is the progressive expression of the eternal Spirit and too complex a power to be tied down by a single dominant mental or moral principle. Only the supramental consciousness can reveal to its differing and conflicting forces their spiritual truth and harmonise their divergences.
25:The later religions endeavour to fix the type of a supreme truth of conduct, erect a system and declare God's law through the mouth of Avatar or prophet. These systems, more powerful and dynamic than the dry ethical idea, are yet for the most part no more than idealistic glorifications of the moral principle sanctified by religious emotion and the label of a superhuman origin. Some, like the extreme Christian ethic, are rejected by Nature because they insist unworkably on an impracticable absolute rule. Others prove in the end to be evolutionary compromises and become obsolete in the march of Time. The true divine law, unlike these mental counterfeits, cannot be a system of rigid ethical determinations that press into their cast-iron moulds all our life-movements. The Law divine is truth of life and truth of the spirit and must take up with a free living plasticity and inspire with the direct touch of its eternal light each step of our action and all the complexity of our life issues. It must act not as a rule and formula but as an enveloping and penetrating conscious presence that determines all our thoughts, activities, feelings, impulsions of will by its infallible power and knowledge.
1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
The world is seen as a great relativistic cybernetic system, so "holistic" that it leaves no room for the actual subject in the objective network. The self therefore hovers above reality, disengaged, disenchanted, disembodied. It is "close to a solipsistic position": hyperagency cut off from all communions. And this, as we have seen, is essentially the fundamental Enlightenment paradigm: a perfectly holistic world that leaves a perfectly atomistic self.8
A transcendental self can bond with other transcendental selves, whereas a merely empirical self disappears into the empirical web and interlocking order, never to be heard from again. (No strand in the web is ever or can ever be aware of the whole web; if it could, then it would cease to be merely a strand. This is not allowed by systems theory, which is why, as Habermas demonstrated, systems theory always ends up isolationist and egocentric, or "solipsistic.")
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This developmental model has also been found to be consistent with the stages of mystical or interior prayer found in the Jewish (Kabbalist), Islamic (Sufi), and Christian mystical traditions (see, for example, Chirban's chapter in Transformations), and Brown has also found it in the Chinese contemplative traditions. Theorists such as Da Avabhasha have given extensive hermeneutic and developmental readings from what now appears to be at least a representative sampling from every known and available contemplative tradition (see, for example, The Basket of Tolerance), and they are in fundamental and extensive agreement with this overall developmental model.
The evidence, though still preliminary, strongly suggests that, at a minimum, there are four general stages of transpersonal development, each with at least two substages (and some with many more). These four stages I call the psychic, the subtle, the causal, and the nondual.
1.07 - The Fire of the New World, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
If we are to believe materialistic mechanics, nothing can come out of a system except what is already contained in it; we can only perfect what is there, in the little bubble. In a sense, they are right, but one may wonder if a perfected ass will ever yield anything other than an ass. It would seem that the closed system of the materialists is doomed to ultimate poverty, and that, by reducing everything to the degree of development of chromosomes and the perfection of gray matter, they have dedicated themselves to a supermechanization of the machine from which they started (machinery can only lead to machinery). But the ape, the mole and the chameleon do just that; they add and subtract; and our machinery is not fundamentally more advanced than theirs, even though it sends firecrackers to the moon. In short, we are some perfected protoplasm with greater swallowing capacity and smarter (?) tropisms, and soon we shall be able to calculate all that is required to produce biological Napoleons and test-tube Einsteins. All the same, our earth would hardly be a happier place with legions of blackboards and supergenerals, who would not know which way to turn they would set out to colonize other earths... and fill them with blackboards. There is no way out of it, by definition, since the system is closed, closed, closed.
We suggest that there is a better materialism, less impoverishing, and that matter is less stupid than is usually said. Our materialism is a relic of the age of religions, one could almost say its inevitable companion, like good and evil, black and white, and all the dualities stemming from a linear vision of the world which sees one tuft of grass after another, a bump after a hole, and sets the mountains against the plains, without realizing that everything together is equally and totally true and makes a perfect geography in which there is not a single hole to fill, a single bump to take away, without impoverishing all the rest. There is nothing to suppress; there is everything to view in the global truth. There are no contradictions; there are only limited visions. We thus claim that matter our matter is capable of greater wonders than all the mechanical miracles we try to wrest from it. Matter is not coerced with impunity. It is more conscious than we believe, less closed than our mental fortress it goes along for a while, because it is slow, then takes its revenge, mercilessly. But one has to know the right lever. We have tried to find that lever by dissecting it scientifically or religiously; we have invented microscopes and scalpels, and still more microscopes that probed deeper, saw bigger, and discovered smaller and smaller and still smaller reality, which always seemed to be the coveted key but merely opened the door onto another, smaller existence, endlessly pushing back the limits enclosed in other limits that enclosed other limits and the key kept escaping us, even as it let loose a few monsters on us in the process. We peered at an ant that was growing bigger and bigger but kept perpetually having six legs despite the superacids and superparticles we discovered in its ant belly. Perhaps we will be able to manufacture another one, even a three-legged ant. Some breakthrough! We do not need another ant, even an improved one. We need something else. Religiously, too, we have tried to dissect matter, to reduce it to a fiction of God, a vale of transit, a kingdom of the devil and the flesh, the thousand and one particles of our theological telescopes. We peered higher and higher into heaven, more and more divinely, but the ant kept painfully having six legs or three between one birth and another, eternally the same. We do not need an ant's salvation; we need something other than an ant. Ultimately, we may not need to see bigger or higher or farther, but simply here, under our nose, in this small living aggregate which contains its own key, like the lotus seed in the mud, and to pursue a third path, which is neither that of science nor that of religion although it may one day combine both within its rounded truth, with all our whites and blacks, goods and evils, heavens and hells, bumps and holes, in a new human or superhuman geography that all these goods and evils, holes and bumps were meticulously and accurately preparing.
This new materialism has a most powerful microscope: a ray of truth that does not stop at any appearance but travels far, far, everywhere, capturing the same frequency of truth in all things, all beings, under all the masks or scrambling interferences. It has an infallible telescope: a look of truth that meets itself everywhere and knows, because it is what it touches. But that truth has first to be unscrambled in ourselves before it can be unscrambled everywhere; if the medium is clear, everything is clear. As we have said, man has a self of fire in the center of his being, a little flame, a pure cry of being under the ruins of the machine. This fire is the one that clarifies. This fire is the one that sees. For it is a fire of truth in the center of the being, and there is one and the same Fire everywhere, in all beings and all things and all movements of the world and the stars, in this pebble beside the path and that winged seed wafted by the wind. Five thousand years ago the Vedic Rishis were already singing its praises: O Fire, that splendour of thine, which is in heaven and which is in the earth and in growths and its waters... is a brilliant ocean of light in which is divine vision...9 He is the child of the waters, the child of the forests, the child of things stable and the child of things that move. Even in the stone he is there for man, he is there in the middle of his house...10 O Fire... thou art the navel-knot of the earths and their inhabitants.11 That fire the Rishis had discovered five thousand years before the scientists they had found it even in water. They called it the third fire, the one that is neither in the flame nor in lightning: saura agni, the solar fire,12 the sun in darkness.13 And they found it solely by the power of direct vision of Truth, without instruments, solely by the knowledge of their own inner Fire from the like to the like. While through their microscopes the scientists have only discovered the material support the atom of that fundamental Fire which is at the heart of things and the beginning of the worlds. They have found the effect, not the cause. And because they have found only the effect, the scientists do not have the true mastery, or the key to transforming matter our matter and making it yield the real miracle that is the goal of all evolution, the point of otherness that will open the door to a new world.
It is this Fire that is the power of the worlds, the original igniter of evolution, the force in the rock, the force in the seed, the force in the middle of the house. This is the lever, the seer, the one that can break the circle and all the circles of our successive thralldoms material, animal, vital and mental. No species, even pushed to its extreme of efficiency and intelligence and light, has the power to transcend its own limits not the chameleon, not the ape, not man by the fiat of its improved chromosomes alone. It is only this Fire that can. This is the point of otherness, the supreme moment of imagination that sets fire to the old limits, as one day a similar supreme moment of imagination lit one and the same fire in the heart of the worlds and cast that solar seed upon the waters of time, and all those waves, those circles around it, to help it grow better, until each rootlet, each branch and twig of the great efflorescence is able to attain its own infinite, delivered by its very greatness.
1.07 - THE GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED - THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKIND, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
manifestations of a single, fundamental, granular structural prin-
ciple of the Universe simply larger or smaller particles.
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with atomic disintegration, to be a fundamental universal current
(the current); not only does Man, with his billions of interacting ner-
1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
So also with the fundamental principles of the Qabalah.
First the original seed of the few important correspondences, upon which the whole superstructure depends, should be committed to memory and made an integral part of one's everyday consciousness. In order to facilitate study, the reader who is really interested in proving to himself the inestimable value of the Tree of Life as a method of
1.07 - The Primary Data of Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
But if we refer the fundamental categories to the principle of desire, it is then possible to understand how they derive from the very character of that desire.
The desire to be implies, in fact, a tendency towards the beings particular affirmation, towards the distinction of itself from the Absolute. It contains in this tendency a first principle of activity which is the very principle of Time.
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If we wish to carry farther that play of mind which consists in representing symbolically by means of abstract notions the very life of the essential and untranslateable Reality, it can be shown how all relative notions are attached to absolute categories and how from the fundamental principles of unity and immutability the mind can deduce its most general concepts.
Inseparable, indiscernable in their origin these principles of the Absolute can only be disjoined and dissociated if they exclude each other by a mutual opposition of their contraries.
1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
connecting our various states of being (the prime result of mental silence and of quieting the vital has even been to separate this consciousness-force from the mental and vital activities in which it is usually embroiled), and we have felt this current of force, or consciousness, as the fundamental reality of our being behind our various states. But this consciousness-force must be the consciousness of someone. Who or what is conscious in us? Where is the center, the master? Are we merely the puppets of some universal Being, who is our true center, since all the mental, vital and physical activities are in fact universal ones? The truth is twofold, but in no way are we puppets, except when we insist on mistaking the frontal being for our self, for it is a puppet. We do have an individual center, which Sri Aurobindo calls the psychic being, and a cosmic center or central being. Step by step, we must recover the one and the other, and become Master of all our states. For the moment, we will try to discover our individual center, the psychic being, which others call the soul.
It is at once the simplest thing in the world and the most difficult.
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Black School of Magick, which must by no means be confused with the School of Black Magick or Sorcery, which latter is a perversion of the White tradition, is distinguished fundamentally from the Yellow School in that it considers the Universe not as neutral, but as definitely a curse. Its primary theorem is the "First Noble Truth" of the Buddha "Everything is Sorrow." In the primitive classics of this School the idea of sorrow is confused with that of sin. (This idea of universal lamentation is presumably responsible for the choice of black as its symbolic colour. And yet? Is not white the Chinese hue of mourning?)
The analysis of the philosophers of this School refers every phenomenon to the category of sorrow. It is quite useless to point out to them that certain events are accompanied with joy: they continue their ruthless calculations, and prove to your satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, that the more apparently pleasant an event is, the more malignantly deceptive is its fascination. There is only one way of escape even conceivable, and this way is quite simple, annihilation. (Shallow critics of Buddhism have wasted a great deal of stupid ingenuity on trying to make out that Nirvana or Nibbana means something different from what etymology, tradition and the evidence of the Classics combine to define it. The word means, quite simply, cessation: and it stands to reason that, if everything is sorrow, the only thing which is not sorrow is nothing, and that therefore to escape from sorrow is the attainment of nothingness.)
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This School being debased by nature, is not so far removed from conventional religion as either the White or the Yellow. Most primitive fetishistic religions may, in fact, be considered fairly faithful representatives of this philosophy. Where animism holds sway, the "medicine-man" personifies this universal evil, and seeks to propitiate it by human sacrifice. The early forms of Judaism, and that type of Christianity which we associate with the Salvation Army, Billy Sunday and the fundamentalists of the back-blocks of America, are sufficiently simple cases of religion whose essence is the propitiation of a malignant demon.
When the light of intelligence begins to dawn dimly through many fogs upon these savages, we reach a second stage. Bold spirits master courage to assert that the evil which is so obvious, is, in some mysterious way, an illusion. They thus throw back the whole complexity of sorrow to a single cause; that is, the arising of the illusion aforesaid. The problem then assumes a final form: How is that illusion to be destroyed.
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We may complete the whole tradition of the Indian peninsula very simply. To the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Tripitaka of the Buddhists, we have only to add the Tantras of what are called the Vamacharya Schools. Paradoxical as it may sound the Tantrics are in reality the most advanced of the Hindus. Their theory is, in its philosophical ultimatum, a primitive stage of the White tradition, for the essence of the Tantric cults is that by the performance of certain rites of Magick, one does not only escape disaster, but obtains positive benediction. The Tantric is not obsessed by the will-to-die. It is a difficult business, no doubt, to get any fun out of existence; but at least it is not impossible. In other words, he implicitly denies the fundamental proposition that existence is sorrow, and he formulates the essential postulate of the White School of Magick, that means exist by which the universal sorrow (apparent indeed to all ordinary observation) may be unmasked, even as at the initiatory rite of Isis in the ancient days of Khem. There, a Neophyte presenting his mouth, under compulsion, to the pouting buttocks of the Goat of Mendez, found himself caressed by the chaste lips of a virginal priestess of that Goddess at the base of whose shrine is written that No man has lifted her veil.
The basis of the Black philosophy is not impossibly mere climate, with its resulting etiolation of the native, its languid, bilious, anaemic, fever-prostrated, emasculation of the soul of man. We accordingly find few true equivalents of this School in Europe. In Greek philosophy there is no trace of any such doctrine. The poison in its foulest and most virulent form only entered with Christianity.*[AC17] But even so, few men of any real eminence were found to take the axioms of pessimism seriously. Huxley, for all of his harping on the minor key, was an eupeptic Tory. The culmination of the Black philosophy is only found in Schopenhauer, and we may regard him as having been obsessed, on the one hand, by the despair born of that false scepticism which he learnt from the bankruptcy of Hume and Kant; on the other, by the direct obsession of the Buddhist documents to which he was one of the earliest Europeans to obtain access. He was, so to speak, driven to suicide by his own vanity, a curious parallel to Kiriloff in The Possessed of Dostoiewsky.
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Let us leave the sinister figure of Schopenhauer for the mysteriously radiant shape of Spinoza! This latter philosopher, in respect at least of his Pantheism, represents fairly enough the fundamental thesis of the White tradition. Almost the first observation that we have to make is that this White tradition is hardly discoverable outside Europe. It appears first of all in the legend of Dionysus. (In this connection read carefully Browning's Apollo and the Fates.)
The Egyptian tradition of Osiris is not dissimilar. The central idea of the White School is that, admitted that "everything is sorrow" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "Everything is joy." There is no question of any ostrich-ignoring of fact, as in Christian Science. There is not even any more or less sophisticated argument about the point of view altering the situation as in Vedantism. We have, on the contrary, and attitude which was perhaps first of all, historically speaking, defined by Zoroaster, "nature teaches us, and the Oracles also affirm, that even the evil germs of Matter may alike become useful and good." "Stay not on the precipice with the dross of Matter; for there is a place for thine Image in a realm ever splendid." "If thou extend the Fiery Mind to the work of piety, thou wilt preserve the fluxible body."*[AC19]
1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Slayer of the Real. Let the disciple slay the Slayer." The theory here is that the mind is but a mechanism for dealing symbolically with impressions, though its construction tempts one to take these impressions for Reality. Conscious thought, hence, is fundamentally false, preventing one from perceiving reality.
There is but one simple fundamental essential to medita- tion, beyond all dogma and morality, viz. to stop thinking.
This explanation of the major step leading to the Mystic experience is highly significant. It explains prayer, and its purpose ; and all the several practices are seen to be simply
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Yet it is not, to continue to use paradox, so much self- destruction as a return to the underlying Reality. It is a destruction of the paralysing bonds of Buach, but it reveals that fundamental Life which forms and permeates the whole of manifestation. At the same time individuality is retained- jubilantly retained, as is shown when Blavatsky
wrote in The Voice of the Silence : " Joy unto ye, O men of
1.08 - Attendants, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
By the very mould of his nature a bhakta, he came into our midst by his innate right, as I have said. Not a bhakta of the traditional type, but one who has chosen service as the means of self-expression and fundamental realisation. Even the word realisation may not be correct, for self-giving alone is what counts with him. Service is his very food. If any of us did his part of the job, he would get annoyed and exclaim, "You are depriving me of my food; I can remain without food but not without work." That sums up Champaklal and that is exactly the spirit he maintained unflinchingly throughout the long decade that we lived and worked together. The Mother had entire trust in him and putting him in Sri Aurobindo's service along with us, felt quite at ease. Sri Aurobindo also relied on him for all necessary information regarding the Mother and other particulars. Once the Mother came to Sri Aurobindo's room and sat as usual on the couch opposite. We were just watching. Sri Aurobindo signed to Champaklal turning his glance towards the Mother. Champaklal understood and jumped up and put some cushions at the Mother's back. That is their way!
I am firmly convinced that through the ages he has been closely connected with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, otherwise how could he have been selected as Sri Aurobindo's personal attendant, even as a young man, as soon as he arrived? When he came to see Sri Aurobindo for the first time, he lay prostrate at his feet for an hour, all bathed in happy tears! And when he was leaving, Sri Aurobindo asked one of his older companions to bring him back with him! It is he who first accepted Sri Aurobindo as the Divine Father and called him Father, accepted the Mother as the Divine Mother and began to call her Mother. When he offered to wash the 'Father's' clothes, Sri Aurobindo warned him that he would be mocked at, but that did not deter him. He had gone without food and sleep, had not moved from his place lest the Master should need something or should even have to wait a minute more. To serve Sri Aurobindo was in one way quite easy, for he would never make any demands on us, was content with the main necessities being met and would never express any displeasure if we failed him. This very easiness kept us alert, for one who didn't ask for more than the bare minimum, needed a careful, vigilant watch so that he could be given a little more comfort and ease. Champaklal kept that vigilant eye always. He was more familiar with Sri Aurobindo's nature and temperament by love and long experience and felt his needs on his very pulse. If he saw that Sri Aurobindo needed some side pillows, he got them made; if his footstool was a bit high or low, he adjusted it to the required height. He put a time-piece by his side, for he knew that Sri Aurobindo was in the habit of frequently seeing the time. Such small things that would pass unnoticed because our imaginative perception was perhaps dull, were caught by his sensitive insight and he tried to make "happy and comfortable" the life of the impersonal Brahman. Sri Aurobindo, when he sat on the edge of the bed and had to wait long for the Mother's arrival, seemed to feel drowsy; his body would lean backwards and would then right itself. Still, he would not ask for any assistance but this, not from any sense of egoism. He would put up with any inconvenience but if we offered him some help, he did not refuse it. We simply looked on without knowing how to meet the situation, but Champaklal rose to the occasion: he made a pile of pillows to serve as his back-rest and to prevent them from tumbling down, supported them from behind. To observe economy due to the War, the Mother advised us not to change Sri Aurobindo's bed-sheets too often, but if there was a tiny stain on an otherwise clean white sheet, Champaklal would hesitate to use it, saying, "How can we use anything unclean for the Lord?" His making the bed was a sight worth seeing. I wonder if even an expert housewife would do it so perfectly! The bed-sheet had not the slightest crease anywhere, it shone with a marble smoothness. In everything his aim was to be flawless. Thus it put others who had to work with him into a very difficult corner. He claimed to have acquired this thoroughness under the apprenticeship of the Mother. I sometimes got my share of rebuke from him if I was not tidy or clean enough: "You are a doctor and you still don't wash your hands?" he would say. The fact in his case was that over and above his own training he belonged to a very orthodox Brahmin family and had meticulously observed all the practices ordained by the Shastras and enjoined upon the children by his orthodox priest-father. We were quite modern people having our own ideas of things, so sometimes clash and conflict would arise. Besides, he was in some parts sensitive like a child. We had to be very careful not to upset him and to spare his feelings as much as we could. He could not understand jokes or any round-about manner. He told me that Sri Aurobindo had once spoken about this to the Mother. It was just after he had settled here. His father wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo saying that Champaklal's marriage had been fixed; he had only to go, undergo the marriage ceremony and then come back. Sri Aurobindo gravely said, "I suppose we have to send back Champaklal." He was much perturbed to hear it. Then Sri Aurobindo added, "He doesn't understand jokes." He knew, however, how to get things done by the Divine, blessings written on a book, for instance, an autograph on a photo. If asked by Champaklal, Sri Aurobindo would not refuse. The Mother too has to accede to the wishes of her bhakta, her "most faithful child".
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
mention them only to show that the treatment of the psyche in times goneby had in view the same fundamental facts of human life as modern
psycho therapy. But how differently religion deals with the parental
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about a fundamental transformation of personality. I have called the
process that leads to this experience the process of individuation. If I
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
All knowledge, as we have seen, is a function of being. Or, to phrase the same idea in scholastic terms, the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. In the Introduction reference was made to the effect upon knowledge of changes of being along what may be called its vertical axis, in the direction of sanctity or its opposite. But there is also variation in the horizontal plane. Congenitally by psychophysical constitution, each one of us is born into a certain position on this horizontal plane. It is a vast territory, still imperfectly explored, a continent stretching all the way from imbecility to genius, from shrinking weakness to aggressive strength, from cruelty to Pickwickian kindliness, from self-revealing sociability to taciturn misanthropy and love of solitude, from an almost frantic lasciviousness to an almost untempted continence. From any point on this huge expanse of possible human nature an individual can move almost indefinitely up or down, towards union with the divine Ground of his own and all other beings, or towards the last, the infernal extremes of separateness and selfhood. But where horizontal movement is concerned there is far less freedom. It is impossible for one kind of physical constitution to transform itself into another kind; and the particular temperament associated with a given physical constitution can be modified only within narrow limits. With the best will in the world and the best social environment, all that anyone can hope to do is to make the best of his congenital psycho-physical make-up; to change the fundamental patterns of constitution and temperament is beyond his power.
In the course of the last thirty centuries many attempts have been made to work out a classification system in terms of which human differences could be measured and described. For example, there is the ancient Hindu method of classifying people according to the psycho-physico-social categories of caste. There are the primarily medical classifications associated with the name of Hippocrates, classifications in terms of two main habits the phthisic and the apoplecticor of the four humours (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile) and the four qualities (hot, cold, moist and dry). More recently there have been the various physiognomic systems of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the crude and merely psychological dichotomy of introversion and extraversion; the more complete, but still inadequate, psycho-physical classifications proposed by Kretschmer, Stockard, Viola and others; and finally the system, more comprehensive, more flexibly adequate to the complex facts than all those which preceded it, worked out by Dr. William Sheldon and his collaborators.
1.08 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL REPERCUSSIONS OF THE ATOM BOMB, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
upon our attitude to a fundamental choice; the point where our
conflicts may begin again, and fiercely, but by other means and on
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yet the most fundamental and important part of this imperishable Scripture, the actual hymns and mantras of the Sanhitas, has long been a sealed book to the Indian mind, learned or unlearned. The other Vedic books are of minor authority or a secondary formation. The Brahmanas are ritual, grammatical & historical treatises on the traditions & ceremonies of Vedic times whose only valueapart from interesting glimpses of ancient life & Vedantic philosophylies in their attempt to fix and to interpret symbolically the ritual of Vedic sacrifice. The Upanishads, mighty as they are, only aspire to bring out, arrange philosophically in the language of later thinking and crown with the supreme name of Brahman the eternal knowledge enshrined in the Vedas. Yet for some two thousand years at least no Indian has really understood the Vedas. Or if they have been understood, if Sayana holds for us their secret, the reverence of the Indian mind for them becomes a baseless superstition and the idea that the modern Indian religions are Vedic in their substance is convicted of egregious error. For the Vedas Sayana gives us are the mythology of the Adityas, Rudras,Maruts, Vasus,but these gods of the Veda have long ceased to be worshipped,or they are a collection of ritual & sacrificial hymns, but the ritual is dead & the sacrifices are no longer offered.
Are we then to conclude that the reverence for the Vedas & the belief in the continued authority of the Vedas is really no more than an ancient superstition or a tradition which has survived its truth? Those who know the working of the human mind, will be loth to hasten to that conclusion. Great masses of men, great nations, great civilisations have an instinct in these matters which seldom misleads them. In spite of forgetfulness, through every misstatement, surviving all cessation of precise understanding, something in them still remembers their origin and holds fast to the vital truth of their being. According to the Europeans, there is a historical truth at the basis of the old persistent tradition, but a historical truth only, a truth of origin, not of present actuality. The Vedas are the early roots of Indian religion, of Indian civilisation; but they have for a long time past ceased to be their present foundation or their intellectual substance. It is rather the Upanishads & the Puranas that are the living Scriptures of mediaeval and modern Hinduism. But if, as we contend, the Upanishads & the Puranas only give us in other language, later symbols, altered forms of thought the same religious truths that we find differently stated in the Rigveda, this shifting of the immediate point of derivation will make no real difference. The waters we drink are the same whether drawn at their clear mountain sources or on their banks in the anchorites forest or from ghats among the faery temples and fantastic domes of some sacred city.The Hindus belief remains to him unshaken.
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But for my own part I do not hold myself bound by European research&European theories.My scepticism of nineteenth century results goes farther than is possible to any European scepticism. The Science of comparative religion in Europe seems to me to be based on a blunder. The sun & star theory of comparative mythology with its extravagant scholastic fancies & lawless inferences carries no conviction to my reason. I find in the Aryan & Dravidian tongues, the Aryan and Dravidian races not separate & unconnected families but two branches of a single stock. The legend of the Aryan invasion & settlement in the Panjab in Vedic times is, to me, a philological myth. The naturalistic interpretation of theVedas I accept only as a transference or adhyaropa of European ideas into the Veda foreign to the mentality of the Vedic Rishis & Max Mullers discovery of Vedic henotheism as a brilliant & ingenious error. Whatever is sound & indisputable in European ideas & discoveries, I am bound to admit & shall use, but these large generalisations & assumptions ought, I think, no longer to pass current as unchallengeable truth or the final knowledge about the Vedas. My method is rather to make a tabula rasa of all previous theories European or Indian & come back to the actual text of the Veda for enlightenment, the fundamental structure & development of the old Sanscrit tongue for a standard of interpretation and the connection of thought in the hymns for a guide to their meaning. I have arrived as a result at a theory of the Vedic religion, of which this book is intended to give some initial indications.
I put aside at the beginning the common assumption that since religion started from the fears & desires of savages a record of religion as ancient as the Vedas must necessarily contain a barbarous or semi-barbarous mythology empty of any profound or subtle spiritual & moral ideas or, if it contains them at all, that it must be only in the latest documents. We have no more right to assume that the Vedic Rishis were a race of simple & frank barbarians than to assume that they were a class of deep and acute philosophers. What they were is the thing we have to discover and we may arrive at either conclusion or neither, but we must not start from our goal or begin our argument on the basis of our conclusion. We know nothing of the history & thought of the times, we know nothing of the state of their intellectual & social culture except what we can gather from the Vedic hymns themselves. Indications from other sources may be useful as clues but the hymns are our sole authority.
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Moreover, even their moralised gods were only the superficial & exterior aspect of the Greek religion. Its deeper life fed itself on the mystic rites of Orpheus, Bacchus, the Eleusinian mysteries which were deeply symbolic and remind us in some of their ideas & circumstances of certain aspects of Indian Yoga. The mysticism & symbolism were not an entirely modern development. Orpheus, Bacchus & Demeter are the centre of an antique and prehistoric, even preliterary mind-movement. The element may have been native to Greek religious sentiment; it may have been imported from the East through the Aryan races or cultures of Asia Minor; but it may also have been common to the ancient systems of Greece & India. An original community or a general diffusion is at least possible. The double aspect of exoteric practice and esoteric symbolism may have already been a fundamental characteristic of the Vedic religion. Is it entirely without significance that to the Vedic mind men were essentially manu, thinkers, the original father of the race was the first Thinker, and the Vedic poets in the idea of their contemporaries not merely priests or sacred singers or wise bards but much more characteristically manishis & rishis, thinkers & sages?We can conceive with difficulty such ideas as belonging to that undeveloped psychological condition of the semi-savage to which sacrifices of propitiation & Nature-Gods helpful only for material life, safety & comfort were all-sufficient. Certainly, also, the earliest Indian writings subsequent to Vedic times bear out these indications. To the writers of the Brahmanas the sacrificial ritual enshrined an elaborate symbolism. The seers of the Upanishad worshipped Surya & Agni as great spiritual & moral forces and believed the Vedic hymns to be effective only because they contained a deep knowledge & a potent spirituality. They may have been in errormay have been misled by a later tradition or themselves have read mystic refinements into a naturalistic text. But also & equally, they may have had access to an unbroken line of knowledge or they may have been in direct touch or in closer touch than the moderns with the mentality of the Vedic singers.
The decision of these questions will determine our whole view of Vedic religions and decide the claim of the Veda to be a living Scripture of Hinduism. It is of primary importance to know what in their nature and functions were the gods of the Veda. I have therefore made this fundamental question form the sole subject matter of the present volume. I make no attempt here to present a complete or even a sufficient justification of the conclusions which I have been led to. Nor do I present my readers with a complete enquiry into the nature & functions of the Vedic pantheon. Such a justification, such an enquiry can only be effected by a careful philological analysis & rendering of the Vedic hymns and an exhaustive study of the origins of the Sanscrit language. That is a labour of very serious proportions & burdened with numerous difficulties which I have begun and hope one day to complete myself or to leave to others ready for completion. But in the present volume I can only attempt to establish a prima facie [case] for a reconsideration of the whole question. I offer the suggestion that the Vedic creed & thought were not a simple, but a complex, not a barbarous but a subtle & advanced, not a naturalistic but a mystic & Vedantic system.
It is necessary, in order that the reader may follow my arguments with a better understanding, to sketch briefly the important lines of that system as it reveals itself in the ten mandalas of the Rigveda. Its fundamental conception was the unity in complexity of the apparent universe. The Vedic mind, looking out on the great movement of material forces around it, aware of their regularity, law, universality, saw in them symbols and expressions of a diviner life behind. Everywhere they felt the presence of intelligence, of life, of a soul. But they did not make the common distinction between soul and matter. Matter was to them itself a term and expression of the life and soul they had discovered. It was this peculiarity of thought which constituted the essential characteristic of the Vedic outlook and has stood at the root and basis of all Indian thought and religion then & subsequently.
Nevertheless existence is not simple in its infinite oneness. Matter is prithivi, tanu or tanva (terra), a wide yet formal extension of being; but behind matter and containing it is a term of being, not formal though instrumentally creative of form, measuring & containing it, mind, mati or manas. Mind itself is biune in movement, modified mind working in direct relation to material life (anu, the Vedantic prana) and moulding itself to its requirements in order to seize and enjoy it, and pure mind above and controlling it. For each of these three subjective principles there must exist in the nature of things an objective world in which it fulfils its tendencies and in which beings of that particular order of consciousness can live and manifest themselves. The three worlds, tribhuvana, trailokya are called in Vedic terminology, Bhu, the material world, Bhuvar, the intermediate world and Swar, the pure blissful mental world,Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, earth, the lower heavens and paradise, are the three sacred & mighty vyahritis of the Veda, and the great Vedic formula OM Bhur Bhuvah Swah expressive of our manifest existence triply founded in matter, mind-in-sense & vital movement and pure mind, still resounds in the Indian consciousness & comes with a solemnity, ill-understood but felt, to the descendants of the ancient Rishis. They persist in later belief as three inferior worlds of the Purana, constituents of the aparardha, or lower hemisphere of conscious existence, in which the Vedantic principles of matter, life & mind, anna, prana and manas severally predominate and determine the conditions of existence. Bhuvar & Swar are the two heavens, the double firmament, ubhe rodasi so frequently mentioned in the sacred verses.
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Now a brilliant or luminous food, jyotishmat ish, is an absurdity which we certainly shall not accept; nor is there any reason for taking jyotih in any other than its ordinary sense of radiance, lustre. We must, therefore, seek some other significance for ish. It is the nature of the root ish, as of its leng thened form, sh, and the family to which it belongs, to suggest intensity of motion or impulsion physical or subjective and the state or results of such intensity. It means impulse, wish, impulsion; sending, casting, (as in ishu, an arrow or missile), strength, force, mastery; in the verb, it signifies also striving, entreating, favour, assent, liking; in the noun, increase, affluence, or, as applied by the ritualists in the Veda, drink or food. We see, then, that impellent force or strength is the fundamental significance, the idea [of] food only a distant, isolated & late step in the sense-evolution. If we apply this fundamental sense in the rik we have quoted from Praskanwas hymn to the Aswins, we get at once the following clear, straightforward & lucid meaning, The luminous force (force of the Mahas, or vijnana, the true light, ritam jyotih of [I.23.5]) which has carried us, O Aswins, through the darkness to its other shore, in that in us take delight or else that force give to us. Apply the same key-meaning to this first rik of Madhuchchhandas lines to the same deities, we get a result equally clear, straightforward&lucid, O Aswins, swift-footed, much-enjoying lords of bliss, take your pleasure in the forces of the sacrifice. We have in Praskanwa & Madhuchchhandas the same idea, the same deities, the same prayer, the same subjective function of the gods & subjective purport of the words. We feel firm soil under our feet; a flood of light illumines our steps in these dim fields of Vedic interpretation.
What is this subjective function of the Aswins? We get it, I think, in the key words chanasyatam, rsthm. Whatever else may be the character of the Aswins, we get from the consonance of the two Rishis this strong suggestion that they are essentially gods of delight. Is there any other confirmation of the suggestion? Every epithet in this first rik testifies strongly to its correctness. The Aswins are purubhuj, much-enjoying; they are ubhaspat, lords of weal or bliss, or else of beauty for ubh may have any of these senses as well as the sense of light; they are dravatpn, their hands dropping gifts, says Sayana, and that agrees well with the nature of gods of delight who pour from full hands the roses of rapture upon mortals, manibus lilia plenis. But dravat usually means in the Veda, swift, running, and pni, although confined to the hands in classical Sanscrit, meant, as I shall suggest, in the old Aryan tongue any organ of action, hand, foot or, as in the Latin penis, the sexual organ. Even so, we have the nature of the Aswins as gods of delight, fully established; but we get in addition a fresh characteristic, the quality of impetuous speed, which is reinforced by their other epithets. For the Aswins are nar, the Strong ones; rudravartan,they put a fierce energy into all their activities; they accept the mantras of the hymn avray dhiy, with a bright-flaming strength of intelligence in the understanding. The idea of bounteous giving, suggested by Sayana in dravatpn and certainly present in that word if we accept pni in its ordinary sense, appears in the dasra of the third rik, O you bounteous ones. Sayana indeed takes dasr in the sense of destroyers; he gives the root das in this word the same force as in dasyu, an enemy or robber; but das can also mean to give, dasma is sometimes interpreted by the scholiasts sacrificer and this sense of bounteous giving seems to be fixed on the kindred word dasra also, at least when it is applied to the Aswins, by the seventeenth rik of the thirtieth Sukta, unahepas hymn to Indra & the Aswins,
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For what functions are they called to the Sacrifice by Madhuchchhanda? First, they have to take delight in the spiritual forces generated in him by the action of the internal Yajna. These they have to accept, to enter into them and use them for delight, their delight and the sacrificers, yajwarr isho .. chanasyatam; a wide enjoyment, a mastery of joy & all pleasant things, a swiftness in action like theirs is what their advent should bring & therefore these epithets are attached to this action. Then they are to accept the words of the mantra, vanatam girah. In fact, vanatam means more than acceptance, it is a pleased, joyous almost loving acceptance; for vanas is the Latin venus, which means charm, beauty, gratification, and the Sanscrit vanit means woman or wife, she who charms, in whom one takes delight or for whom one has desire. Therefore vanatam takes up the idea of chanasyatam, enlarges it & applies it to a particular part of the Yajna, the mantras, the hymn or sacred words of the stoma. The immense effectiveness assigned to rhythmic Speech & the meaning & function of the mantra in the Veda & in later Yoga is a question of great interest & importance which must be separately considered; but for our present purpose it will be sufficient to specify its two chief functions, the first, to settle, fix, establish the god & his qualities & activities in the Sacrificer,this is the true meaning of the word stoma, and, secondly, to effectualise them in action & creation subjective or objective,this is the true meaning of the words rik and arka. The later senses, praise and hymn were the creation of actual ceremonial practice, and not the root intention of these terms of Veda. Therefore the Aswins, the lords of force & joy, are asked to take up the forces of the sacrifice, yajwarr isho, fill them with their joy & activity and carry that joy & activity into the understanding so that it becomes avra, full of a bright and rapid strength.With that strong, impetuously rapid working they are to take up the words of the mantra into the understanding and by their joy & activity make them effective for action or creation. For this reason the epithet purudansas is attached to this action, abundantly active or, rather, abundantly creative of forms into which the action of the yajwarr ishah is to be thrown. But this can only be done as the Sacrificer wishes if they are in the acceptance of the mantra dhishny, firm and steady.Sayana suggests wise or intelligent as the sense of dhishnya, but although dhishan, like dh, can mean the understanding & dhishnya therefore intelligent, yet the fundamental sense is firm or steadily holding & the understanding is dh or dhishan because it takes up perceptions, thoughts & feelings & holds them firmly in their places.Vehemence & rapidity may be the causes of disorder & confusion, therefore even in their utmost rapidity & rapture of action & formation the Aswins are to be dhishnya, firm & steady. This discipline of a mighty, inalienable calm supporting & embracing the greatest fierceness of action & intensity of joy, the combination of dhishny & rudravartan , is one of the grandest secrets of the old Vedic discipline. For by this secret men can enjoy the world as God enjoys it, with unstinted joy, with unbridled power, with undarkened knowledge.
Therefore the prayer to the Aswins concludes: The Soma is outpoured; come with your full bounty, dasr & your fierce intensity, rudravartan. But what Soma? Is it the material juice of a material plant, the bitter Homa which the Parsi priests use today in the ceremonies enjoined by the Zendavesta? Does Sayanas interpretation give us the correct rendering? Is it by a material intoxication that this great joy & activity & glancing brilliance of the mind joined to a great steadfastness is to be obtained? Yuvkavah, says Sayana, means mixed & refers to the mixing of other ingredients in the Soma wine. Let us apply again our usual test. We come to the next passage in which the word yuvku occurs, the fourth rik of the seventeenth Sukta, Medhatithi Kanwas hymn to Indra & Varuna.
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We have reached a subjective sense for yuvku. But what of vriktabarhishah? Does not barhih always mean in the Veda the sacred grass strewn as a seat for the gods? In the Brahmanas is it not so understood and have [we] not continually the expression barhishi sdata? I have no objection; barhis is certainly the seat of the Gods in the sacrifice, stritam nushak, strewn without a break. But barhis cannot originally have meant Kusha grass; for in that case the singular could only be used to indicate a single grass and for the seat of the Gods the plural barhnshi would have to be used,barhihshu sdata and not barhishi sdata.We have the right to go behind the Brahmanas and enquire what was the original sense of barhis and how it came to mean kusha grass. The root barh is a modified formation from the root brih, to grow, increase or expand, which we have in brihat. From the sense of spreading we may get the original sense of seat, and because the material spread was usually the Kusha grass, the word by a secondary application came to bear also that significance. Is this the only possible sense of barhis? No, for we find it interpreted also as sacrifice, as fire, as light or splendour, as water, as ether. We find barhana & barhas in the sense of strength or power and barhah or barham used for a leaf or for a peacocks tail. The base meaning is evidently fullness, greatness, expansion, power, splendour or anything having these attri butes, an outspread seat, spreading foliage, the outspread or splendid peacocks tail, the shining flame, the wide expanse of ether, the wide flow of water. If there were no other current sense of barhis, we should be bound to the ritualistic explanation. Even as it is, in other passages the ritualistic explanation may be found to stand or be binding; but is it obligatory here? I do not think it is even admissible. For observe the awkwardness of the expression, sut vriktabarhishah, wine of which the grass is stripped of its roots. Anything, indeed, is possible in the more artificial styles of poetry, but the rest of this hymn, though subtle & deep in thought, is sufficiently lucid and straightforward in expression. In such a style this strained & awkward expression is an alien intruder. Moreover, since every other expression in these lines is subjective, only dire necessity can compel us to admit so material a rendering of this single epithet. There is no such necessity. Barhis means fundamentally fullness, splendour, expansion or strength & power, & this sense suits well with the meaning we have found for yuvkavah. The sense of vrikta is very doubtful. Purified (cleared, separated) is a very remote sense of vrij or vrich & improbable. They can both mean divided, distributed, strewn, outspread, but although it is possible that vriktabarhishah means their fullness outspread through the system or distributed in the outpouring, this sense too is not convincing. Again vrijana in the Veda means strong, or as a noun, strength, energy, even a battle or fight. Vrikta may therefore [mean] brought to its highest strength. We will accept this sense as a provisional conjecture, to be confirmed or corrected by farther enquiry, and render the line The Soma distillings are replete with energy and brought to their highest fullness.
But to what kind of distillings can such terms be applied? The meaning of Soma & the Vedic ideas about this symbolic wine must be examined by themselves & with a greater amplitude. All we need ask here [is], is there any indication in this hymn itself, that the Soma like everything else in the Sukta is subjective & symbolic? For, if so, our rendering, which at present is clouded with doubt & built on a wide but imperfectly solid foundation, will become firm & established. We have the clear suggestion in the next rik, the first of the three addressed to Indra. Sut ime tw yavah. Our question is answered. What has been distilled? Ime yavah. These life-forces, these vitalities. We shall find throughout the Veda this insistence on the life, vitality,yu or jva; we shall find that the Soma was regarded as a life-giving juice, a sort of elixir of life, or nectar of immortality, something at least that gave increased vitality, established health, prolonged youth. Of such an elixir it may well be said that it is yuvku, full of the force of youth in which the Aswins must specially delight, vriktabarhish, raised to its highest strength & fullness so that the gods who drink of it, become in the man in whom they enter and are seated, increased, vriddha, to the full height of their function and activity,the Aswins to their utmost richness of bounty, their intensest fiery activity. Nectarjuices, they are called, indavah, pourings of delight, yavah, life forces, amritsah, elixirs of immortality.
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The word Brahma is a great word in Indian thought, the greatest of all the words in which Indian spirituality has expressed itself; it means in the Upanishads, in all later literature, the Brahman, the Supreme & the All, the Spirit of Things & the sole reality. We need not ask ourselves, as yet, whether this crowning conception has any place in the Vedic hymns; all we need ask is whether Brahman in the Rigveda means hymn & only hymn or whether it has some sense by which it could pass naturally into the great Vedantic conception of the supreme Spirit. My suggestion is that Brahma in the Rigveda means often the soul, the psuche of the Greeks, animus of the Romans, as distinguished from the manas, mens or . This sense it must have borne at some period of Indian thought antecedent to the Upanishads; otherwise we cannot explain the selection of a word meaning hymn or speech as the great fundamental word of Vedanta, the name of the supreme spiritual Reality. The root brih, from which it comes, means, as we have seen in connection with barhis, to be full, great, to expand. Because Brahman is like the ether extending itself in all being, because it fills the body & whole system with its presence, therefore the word brahma can be applied to the soul or to the supreme Spirit, according as the idea is that of the individual spirit or the supreme Existence. It is possible also that the Greek phren, mind, phronis, etc may have derived from this root brih (the aspirate being thrown back on the initial consonant),& may have conveyed originally the same association of ideas. But are we justified in supposing that this use of Brahma in the sense of soul dates back to the Rigveda? May it not have originated in the intermediate period between the period of the Vedic hymns and the final emergence of the Upanishads? In most passages brahma can mean either hymn or soul; in some it seems to demand the sole sense of hymn. Without going wholly into the question, I shall only refer the reader to the hymn ofMedhatithi Kanwa, to Brahmanaspati, the eighteenth of the first Mandala, and the epithets and functions there attri buted to the Master of the Brahman. My suggestion is that in the Rigveda Brahmanaspati is the master of the soul, primarily, the master of speech, secondarily, as the expression of the soul. The immense importance attached to Speech, the high place given to it by the Vedic Rishis not only as the expression of the soul, but that which best increases & expands its substance & power in our life & being, is one of the most characteristic features of Vedic thought. The soul expresses itself through conscious knowledge & in thought; speech stands behind thought & connects knowledge with its expression in idea. It is through Vak that the Lord creates the world.
Brahmni therefore may mean either the soul-activities, as dhiyas means the mental activities, or it may mean the words of the mantra which express the soul. If we take it in the latter sense, we must refer it to the girah of the second rik, the mantras taken up by the Aswins into the understanding in order to prepare for action & creation. Indra is to come to these mantras and support them by the brilliant substance of a mental force richly varied in its effulgent manifestation, controlled by the understanding and driven forward to its task in various ways. But it seems to me that the rendering is not quite satisfactory. The main point in this hymn is not the mantras, but the Soma wine and the power that it generates. It is in the forces of the Soma that the Aswins are to rejoice, in that strength they are to take up the girah, in that strength they are to rise to their fiercest intensity of strength & delight. Indra, as mental power, arrives in his richly varied lustre; yhi chitrabhno. Here says the Rishi are these life-forces in the nectar-wine; they are purified in their minute parts & in their whole extent, for so I understand anwbhis tan ptsah; that is to say the distillings of Ananda or divine delight whether in the body as nectar, [or] in the subjective system as streams of life-giving delight are purified of all that impairs & weakens the life forces, purified both in their little several movements & in the whole extent of their stream. These are phenomena that can easily be experienced & understood in Yoga, and the whole hymn like many in the Veda reads to those who have experience like a practical account of a great Yogic internal movement accurate in its every detail. Streng thened, like the Aswins, by the nectar, Indra is to prepare the many-sided activity supported by the Visve devah; therefore he has to come not only controlled by the understanding, dhishnya, like the Aswins, but driven forward in various paths. For an energetic & many-sided activity is the object & for this there must be an energetic and many-sided but well-ordered action of the mental power. He has to come, thus manifold, thus controlled, to the spiritual activities generated by the Soma & the Aswins in the increasing soul (vghatah) full of the life-giving nectar, the immortalising Ananda, sutvatah. He has to come to those soul-activities, in this substance of mental brilliancy, yhi upa brahmni harivas. He has to come, ttujna, with a protective force, or else with a rapidly striving force & uphold by mind the joy of the Sacrificer in the nectar-offering, the offering of this Ananda to the gods of life & action & thought, sute dadhishwa na chanah. Protecting is, here, the best sense for ttujna. For Indra is not only to support swift & energetic action; that has already been provided for; he has also to uphold or bear in mind and by the power of mind the great & rapid delight which the Sacrificer is about to pour out into life & action, jvayja. The divine delight must not fail us in our activity; hostile shocks must not be allowed to disturb our established pleasure in the great offering. Therefore Indra must be there in his light & power to uphold and to protect.
1.08 - The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
5:In a sense all our experience is psychological since even what we receive by the senses, has no meaning or value to us till it is translated into the terms of the sense-mind, the Manas of Indian philosophical terminology. Manas, say our philosophers, is the sixth sense. But we may even say that it is the only sense and that the others, vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste are merely specialisations of the sense-mind which, although it normally uses the sense-organs for the basis of its experience, yet exceeds them and is capable of a direct experience proper to its own inherent action. As a result psychological experience, like the cognitions of the reason, is capable in man of a double action, mixed or dependent, pure or sovereign. Its mixed action takes place usually when the mind seeks to become aware of the external world, the object; the pure action when it seeks to become aware of itself, the subject. In the former activity, it is dependent on the senses and forms its perceptions in accordance with their evidence; in the latter it acts in itself and is aware of things directly by a sort of identity with them. We are thus aware of our emotions; we are aware of anger, as has been acutely said, because we become anger. We are thus aware also of our own existence; and here the nature of experience as knowledge by identity becomes apparent. In reality, all experience is in its secret nature knowledge by identity; but its true character is hidden from us because we have separated ourselves from the rest of the world by exclusion, by the distinction of ourself as subject and everything else as object, and we are compelled to develop processes and organs by which we may again enter into communion with all that we have excluded. We have to replace direct knowledge through conscious identity by an indirect knowledge which appears to be caused by physical contact and mental sympathy. This limitation is a fundamental creation of the ego and an instance of the manner in which it has proceeded throughout, starting from an original falsehood and covering over the true truth of things by contingent falsehoods which become for us practical truths of relation.
6:From this nature of mental and sense knowledge as it is at present organised in us, it follows that there is no inevitable necessity in our existing limitations. They are the result of an evolution in which mind has accustomed itself to depend upon certain physiological functionings and their reactions as its normal means of entering into relation with the material universe. Therefore, although it is the rule that when we seek to become aware of the external world, we have to do so indirectly through the sense-organs and can experience only so much of the truth about things and men as the senses convey to us, yet this rule is merely the regularity of a dominant habit. It is possible for the mind - and it would be natural for it, if it could be persuaded to liberate itself from its consent to the domination of matter, - to take direct cognisance of the objects of sense without the aid of the sense-organs. This is what happens in experiments of hypnosis and cognate psychological phenomena. Because our waking consciousness is determined and limited by the balance between mind and matter worked out by life in its evolution, this direct cognisance is usually impossible in our ordinary waking state and has therefore to be brought about by throwing the waking mind into a state of sleep which liberates the true or subliminal mind. Mind is then able to assert its true character as the one and allsufficient sense and free to apply to the objects of sense its pure and sovereign instead of its mixed and dependent action. Nor is this extension of faculty really impossible but only more difficult in our waking state, - as is known to all who have been able to go far enough in certain paths of psychological experiment.
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11:Sad Brahman, Existence pure, indefinable, infinite, absolute, is the last concept at which Vedantic analysis arrives in its view of the universe, the fundamental Reality which Vedantic experience discovers behind all the movement and formation which constitute the apparent reality. It is obvious that when we posit this conception, we go entirely beyond what our ordinary consciousness, our normal experience contains or warrants. The senses and sense-mind know nothing whatever about any pure or absolute existence. All that our sense-experience tells us of, is form and movement. Forms exist, but with an existence that is not pure, rather always mixed, combined, aggregated, relative. When we go within ourselves, we may get rid of precise form, but we cannot get rid of movement, of change. Motion of Matter in Space, motion of change in Time seem to be the condition of existence. We may say indeed, if we like, that this is existence and that the idea of existence in itself corresponds to no discoverable reality. At the most in the phenomenon of selfawareness or behind it, we get sometimes a glimpse of something immovable and immutable, something that we vaguely perceive or imagine that we are beyond all life and death, beyond all change and formation and action. Here is the one door in us that sometimes swings open upon the splendour of a truth beyond and, before it shuts again, allows a ray to touch us, - a luminous intimation which, if we have the strength and firmness, we may hold to in our faith and make a starting-point for another play of consciousness than that of the sense-mind, for the play of Intuition.
12:For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest. Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind. For Intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience. It knows what is because it is, because itself it is of that and has come from that, and will not yield it to the judgment of what merely becomes and appears. What the Intuition tells us of, is not so much Existence as the Existent, for it proceeds from that one point of light in us which gives it its advantage, that sometimes opened door in our own self-awareness. Ancient Vedanta seized this message of the Intuition and formulated it in the three great declarations of the Upanishads, "I am He", "Thou art That, O Swetaketu", "All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman".
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16:Nevertheless, the main conceptions of the earlier Vedanta remained in parts in the various philosophical systems and efforts were made from time to time to recombine them into some image of the old catholicity and unity of intuitional thought. And behind the thought of all, variously presented, survived as the fundamental conception, Purusha, Atman or Sad Brahman, the pure Existent of the Upanishads, often rationalised into an idea or psychological state, but still carrying something of its old burden of inexpressible reality. What may be the relation of the movement of becoming which is what we call the world to this absolute Unity and how the ego, whether generated by the movement or cause of the movement, can return to that true Self, Divinity or Reality declared by the Vedanta, these were the questions speculative and practical which have always occupied the thought of India.
1.08 - The Splitting of the Human Personality during Spiritual Training, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
After these preliminary observations that should dispel any element of terror, a description of some of the so-called dangers will be given. It is true that great changes take place in the student's finer bodies, as described above. These changes are connected with certain processes in the development of the three fundamental forces of the soul, with willing, feeling, and thinking. Before esoteric training, these forces are subject to a connection ordained by higher cosmic laws. Man's willing, feeling and thinking are not arbitrary. A particular idea arising in the mind is attended by a particular feeling, according to natural laws; or it is followed by a resolution of the will in equally natural sequence. We enter a room, find it stuffy, and open the window. We hear our name called and follow the call. We are questioned and we answer. We perceive an ill-smelling object and experience a feeling of disgust. These are simple connections between thinking, feeling, and willing. When we survey human life we find that everything is built up on such connections. Indeed, life is not termed normal unless such a connection, founded on the laws of human nature, is observed between thinking, feeling
p. 222
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All this arises from the fact that in the finer soul-vehicles of man the central points of the three forces-thinking, feeling and willing-are connected with each other according to laws. This connection in the finer soul organism has its counterpart in the coarser physical body. In the latter, too, the organs of will are connected according to laws with those of thinking and feeling. A particular thought, therefore, inevitably evokes a feeling or an activity of will. In the course of higher development, the threads interconnecting the three fundamental forces are severed. At first this severance occurs only within the finer soul organism, but at a still higher stage
p. 223
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It is only through this transformation of his being that the student can enter consciously into relation with certain supersensible forces and beings, for his own soul forces are related to certain fundamental forces of the world. The force, for instance, inherent in the will can affect definite things and the beings of the higher worlds, and also perceive them; but it can only do so when liberated from its connection with thinking and feeling within the soul. The moment this connection is severed, the activity of the will can be exteriorized. The same applies to the forces of thinking and feeling. A feeling of hatred sent out by a person is visible to the clairvoyant as a fine luminous cloud of special coloring; and the clairvoyant can ward off this feeling of hatred, just as an ordinary
p. 225
person wards off a physical blow that is aimed at him. In the supersensible world, hatred becomes a visible phenomenon, but the clairvoyant can only perceive it in so far as he is able to project outwards the force lying in his feeling, just as the ordinary person directs outwards the receptive faculty of his eye. And what is said of hatred applies also to far more important phenomena of the physical world. The student can enter into conscious intercourse with them, thanks to the liberation of the fundamental forces of his soul.
Through the separation of the forces of thinking, feeling, and willing, the possibility of a three-fold aberration arises for anyone neglecting the injunctions given by esoteric science. Such an aberration can occur if the connecting threads are severed before the higher consciousness is sufficiently advanced to hold the reins and guide properly the separated forces into free and harmoniously combined activity. For as a rule, the three human soul-forces are not equally advanced in their development at any given period of life. In one person, thinking is ahead of feeling and willing; in a second, another soul-force has the upper hand over its companions. As long as the
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neuras thenic person. Of course, the student must not resemble these. It is essential for him that the three fundamental soul-forces, thinking, feeling, and willing, should have undergone harmonious development before being released from their inherent connection and subordinated to the awakened higher consciousness. For once a mistake is made and one of the soul-forces falls a prey to unbridled excess, the higher soul comes into existence as a miscarriage. The unrestrained force pervades the individual's entire personality, and for a long time there can be no question of the balance being restored. What appears to be a harmless characteristic as long as its possessor is without esoteric training, namely, a predominance of thinking or feeling or willing, is so intensified in an esoteric student that the universally human element, indispensable for life, becomes obscured.
Yet a really serious danger cannot threaten the student until he has acquired the ability to include in his waking consciousness the experiences forthcoming during sleep. As long as there is only the question of illumination of the intervals of sleep, the life of the senses, regulated by universal cosmic laws, reacts during the waking hours
1.08 - The Supreme Will, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
17:In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother
18:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda.
1.08 - THINGS THE GERMANS LACK, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
schools are one and all established upon a fundamentally doubtful
mediocre basis. Everywhere, too, a hastiness which is unbecoming rules
1.09 - Civilisation and Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The pursuit of the mental life for its own sake is what we ordinarily mean by culture; but the word is still a little equivocal and capable of a wider or a narrower sense according to our ideas and predilections. For our mental existence is a very complex matter and is made up of many elements. First, we have its lower and fundamental stratum, which is in the scale of evolution nearest to the vital. And we have in that stratum two sides, the mental life of the senses, sensations and emotions in which the subjective purpose of Nature predominates although with the objective as its occasion, and the active or dynamic life of the mental being concerned with the organs of action and the field of conduct in which her objective purpose predominates although with the subjective as its occasion. We have next in the scale, more sublimated, on one side the moral being and its ethical life, on the other the aesthetic; each of them attempts to possess and dominate the fundamental mind stratum and turn its experiences and activities to its own benefit, one for the culture and worship of Right, the other for the culture and worship of Beauty. And we have, above all these, taking advantage of them, helping, forming, trying often to govern them entirely, the intellectual being. Mans highest accomplished range is the life of the reason or ordered and harmonised intelligence with its dynamic power of intelligent will, the buddhi, which is or should be the driver of mans chariot.
But the intelligence of man is not composed entirely and exclusively of the rational intellect and the rational will; there enters into it a deeper, more intuitive, more splendid and powerful, but much less clear, much less developed and as yet hardly at all self-possessing light and force for which we have not even a name. But, at any rate, its character is to drive at a kind of illumination,not the dry light of the reason, nor the moist and suffused light of the heart, but a lightning and a solar splendour. It may indeed subordinate itself and merely help the reason and heart with its flashes; but there is another urge in it, its natural urge, which exceeds the reason. It tries to illuminate the intellectual being, to illuminate the ethical and aesthetic, to illuminate the emotional and the active, to illuminate even the senses and the sensations. It offers in words of revelation, it unveils as if by lightning flashes, it shows in a sort of mystic or psychic glamour or brings out into a settled but for mental man almost a supernatural light a Truth greater and truer than the knowledge given by Reason and Science, a Right larger and more divine than the moralists scheme of virtues, a Beauty more profound, universal and entrancing than the sensuous or imaginative beauty worshipped by the artist, a joy and divine sensibility which leaves the ordinary emotions poor and pallid, a Sense beyond the senses and sensations, the possibility of a diviner Life and action which mans ordinary conduct of life hides away from his impulses and from his vision. Very various, very fragmentary, often very confused and misleading are its effects upon all the lower members from the reason downward, but this in the end is what it is driving at in the midst of a hundred deformations. It is caught and killed or at least diminished and stifled in formal creeds and pious observances; it is unmercifully traded in and turned into poor and base coin by the vulgarity of conventional religions; but it is still the light of which the religious spirit and the spirituality of man is in pursuit and some pale glow of it lingers even in their worst degradations.
1.09 - FAITH IN PEACE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
from the fundamental set of the tide? I do not think so. When I con-
sider the inexorable nature of the universal impulse which for more
1.09 - Fundamental Questions of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
object:1.09 - fundamental Questions of Psycho therapy
author class:Carl Jung
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a bad mistake to try to alter anything in the fundamental idea, the
collective representation. That would only thrust the patient still deeper
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as being the cornerstone of a mans fundamental beliefs. Seen in the light
of medical experience, however, this attempt was, in a sense, thoroughly
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inevitably involves a discussion of fundamental questions. Such people
often know very wellwhat the neurotic seldom or never knows that
their conflicts have to do with the fundamental problem of their own
attitude, and that this is bound up with certain principles or general ideas,
1.09 - Man - About the Body, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
I do not intend to describe the physical occurrences in the body because everybody can find information about it in any respective work. What I shall teach is to regard man from the hermetic standpoint, and I shall enlighten interested people as to how to use the fundamental key, the influence of the elements on man, in the right way.
A well-known maxim says, A sound mind in a sound body. The genuine truth of this aphorism represents itself immediately to everybody dealing with the problem of man. There surely will arise the question, what health is from the hermetic point of view. Not every one is capable to answer this question at the first instant. Seen from the hermetic angle, health is the perfect harmony of all the forces operating inside the body with respect to the basic qualities of the elements. There need not prevail such a great disharmony of the element a to set free a visible effect which is called disease.
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It has been said in the fundamental key about the forces of the principle of earth that it has the function inside the body to keep together the influences of the three elements.
In the active form of the earthy principle, it has an animating, vivifying, invigorating influence and, in the negative form, it is the other way round. The earthy principle is responsible for the thriving as well as for the ageing of the body. We could mention quite a lot of analogies with respect to the influence of the elements inside the body, but let it be enough with the foregoing explanations.
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The food contains the elements mingled with each other. The result of taking in food is a chemical process by which the elements are preserved in our body. From the medical point of view, the taking in of any kind of food, together with the breathing, causes a process of combustion. The hermetist sees far more in this process than just a simple chemical event. He regards this combustion as the mutual dissolving of food, just like the fire is kept burning by fuel. Therefore the whole life depends on the continuous supply of fuel, that is the food and the breathing. To supply every element with the necessary preserving substances, a mixed food is advisable which contains the fundamental materials of the elements. If we were to restrict our whole life to a one-sided kind of food only, our body would, without any doubt, fall ill, meaning that such a kind of food would produce a disharmony in the body. By the disintegration of air and food, the elements are provided with the supporting substances and in this way their activity is maintained. Such is mans natural mode of life. If an element is missing, as it were, the fuel, all the functions depending on it are immediately affected. If, e.g., the fiery element in the body works excessively, we feel thirsty, the air element makes us feel hungry, the element of water causes a feeling of cold, and the earthy element produces tiredness. On the other hand, every over-saturation of the elements causes reinforced effects in the body. A surplus of the fiery element creates a yearning for movement and activity. If this be the case with the watery element, the secretive process will be stronger. Any over-saturation of the airy element indicates that we must be moderate in taking food at all. An over-saturation of the earth element affects the aspects of sexual life, which must not necessarily find expression in the sexual instinct in the fleshly sense. It is quite possible -- and this will especially occur in the case of elderly people that they will feel a longing for increased activity and for productive agility.
In their active and passive polarity the electric and the magnetic fluids have the task of forming acid combinations in all the organic and inorganic bodies, from the chemical point of view, eventually from the alchemistic standpoint too. In the active sense they are constructive, and in the negative sense they are destructive, dissolving and disintegrating. All this explains the biological functions in the body. The final result is the circulation of life, which is brought into existence, thrives, ripens and fades away. This is the sense of evolution of all things created. a.
1.09 - Saraswati and Her Consorts, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Vedic system, as in most very ancient schools of thought. We find it recurring constantly, - the seven delights, sapta ratnani; the seven flames, tongues or rays of Agni, sapta arcis.ah., sapta jvalah.; the seven forms of the Thought-principle, sapta dhtayah.; the seven Rays or Cows, forms of the Cow unslayable, Aditi, mother of the gods, sapta gavah.; the seven rivers, the seven mothers or fostering cows, sapta matarah., sapta dhenavah., a term applied indifferently to the Rays and to the Rivers. All these sets of seven depend, it seems to me, upon the Vedic classification of the fundamental principles, the tattvas, of existence.
The enquiry into the number of these tattvas greatly interested the speculative mind of the ancients and in Indian philosophy we find various answers ranging from the One upward and running into the twenties. In Vedic thought the basis chosen was the number of the psychological principles, because all existence was conceived by the Rishis as a movement of conscious being.
1.09 - SKIRMISHES IN A WAY WITH THE AGE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
little poison into praise. In his fundamental instincts he is plebeian
and next of kin to Rousseau's resentful spirit: consequently he is
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in their instincts fundamentally related; but they have gradually
specialised in their particular branch, and become separated--even
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something?... Is his most fundamental instinct concerned with art?
Is it not rather concerned with the purpose of art, with life? with
1.09 - Sleep and Death, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
consciousness in every other way: death will really be death, and sleep really a stupor. To become aware of these different planes of reality is therefore our fundamental work. Once we have done this work integrally, the artificial boundaries that separate our different modes of existence will crumble; we will move without break, without any gap of consciousness, from life to sleep to death. More precisely, death and sleep will cease to exist as we understand them, to be replaced by different manners of continuously perceiving the total Reality, and perhaps ultimately by an integral consciousness that will perceive everything simultaneously. Our evolution is far from over. Death is not a denial of Life but a process of Life.96
This physical life in this physical body has, therefore, a special prominence among all our modes of existence, because it is here that we can become conscious; this is the field of work, as the Mother says,
1.09 - Sri Aurobindo and the Big Bang, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
an amputated version. To solve its own fundamental prob
lems, to approach closer to reality, and to see ultimately
1.09 - The Pure Existent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:But is this a true record? May it not be that Time and Space so disappear merely because the existence we are regarding is a fiction of the intellect, a fantastic Nihil created by speech, which we strive to erect into a conceptual reality? We regard again that Existence-in-itself and we say, No. There is something behind the phenomenon not only infinite but indefinable. Of no phenomenon, of no totality of phenomena can we say that absolutely it is. Even if we reduce all phenomena to one fundamental, universal irreducible phenomenon of movement or energy, we get only an indefinable phenomenon. The very conception of movement carries with it the potentiality of repose and betrays itself as an activity of some existence; the very idea of energy in action carries with it the idea of energy abstaining from action; and an absolute energy not in action is simply and purely absolute existence. We have only these two alternatives, either an indefinable pure existence or an indefinable energy in action and, if the latter alone is true, without any stable base or cause, then the energy is a result and phenomenon generated by the action, the movement which alone is. We have then no Existence, or we have the Nihil of the Buddhists with existence as only an attribute of an eternal phenomenon, of Action, of Karma, of Movement. This, asserts the pure reason, leaves my perceptions unsatisfied, contradicts my fundamental seeing, and therefore cannot be. For it brings us to a last abruptly ceasing stair of an ascent which leaves the whole staircase without support, suspended in the Void.
8:If this indefinable, infinite, timeless, spaceless Existence is, it is necessarily a pure absolute. It cannot be summed up in any quantity or quantities, it cannot be composed of any quality or combination of qualities. It is not an aggregate of forms or a formal substratum of forms. If all forms, quantities, qualities were to disappear, this would remain. Existence without quantity, without quality, without form is not only conceivable, but it is the one thing we can conceive behind these phenomena.
9:Necessarily, when we say it is without them, we mean that it exceeds them, that it is something into which they pass in such a way as to cease to be what we call form, quality, quantity and out of which they emerge as form, quality and quantity in the movement. They do not pass away into one form, one quality, one quantity which is the basis of all the rest, - for there is none such, - but into something which cannot be defined by any of these terms. So all things that are conditions and appearances of the movement pass into That from which they have come and there, so far as they exist, become something that can no longer be described by the terms that are appropriate to them in the movement. Therefore we say that the pure existence is an Absolute and in itself unknowable by our thought although we can go back to it in a supreme identity that transcends the terms of knowledge. The movement, on the contrary, is the field of the relative and yet by the very definition of the relative all things in the movement contain, are contained in and are the Absolute. The relation of the phenomena of Nature to the fundamental ether which is contained in them, constitutes them, contains them and yet is so different from them that entering into it they cease to be what they now are, is the illustration given by the Vedanta as most nearly representing this identity in difference between the Absolute and the relative. Necessarily, when we speak of things passing into that from which they have come, we are using the language of our temporal consciousness and must guard ourselves against its illusions. The emergence of the movement from the Immutable is an eternal phenomenon and it is only because we cannot conceive it in that beginningless, endless, ever-new moment which is the eternity of the Timeless that our notions and perceptions are compelled to place it in a temporal eternity of successive duration to which are attached the ideas of an always recurrent beginning, middle and end.
10:But all this, it may be said, is valid only so long as we accept the concepts of pure reason and remain subject to them. But the concepts of reason have no obligatory force. We must judge of existence not by what we mentally conceive, but by what we see to exist. And the purest, freest form of insight into existence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former objective, the latter subjective. Extension is real, duration is real, Space and Time are real. Even if we can go behind extension in Space and perceive it as a psychological phenomenon, as an attempt of the mind to make existence manageable by distributing the indivisible whole in a conceptual Space, yet we cannot go behind the movement of succession and change in Time. For that is the very stuff of our consciousness. We are and the world is a movement that continually progresses and increases by the inclusion of all the successions of the past in a present which represents itself to us as the beginning of all the successions of the future, - a beginning, a present that always eludes us because it is not, for it has perished before it is born. What is, is the eternal, indivisible succession of Time carrying on its stream a progressive movement of consciousness also indivisible.2 Duration then, eternally successive movement and change in Time, is the sole absolute. Becoming is the only being.
11:In reality, this opposition of actual insight into being to the conceptual fictions of the pure Reason is fallacious. If indeed intuition in this matter were really opposed to intelligence, we could not confidently support a merely conceptual reasoning against fundamental insight. But this appeal to intuitive experience is incomplete. It is valid only so far as it proceeds and it errs by stopping short of the integral experience. So long as the intuition fixes itself only upon that which we become, we see ourselves as a continual progression of movement and change in consciousness in the eternal succession of Time. We are the river, the flame of the Buddhist illustration. But there is a supreme experience and supreme intuition by which we go back behind our surface self and find that this becoming, change, succession are only a mode of our being and that there is that in us which is not involved at all in the becoming. Not only can we have the intuition of this that is stable and eternal in us, not only can we have the glimpse of it in experience behind the veil of continually fleeting becomings, but we can draw back into it and live in it entirely, so effecting an entire change in our external life, and in our attitude, and in our action upon the movement of the world. And this stability in which we can so live is precisely that which the pure Reason has already given us, although it can be arrived at without reasoning at all, without knowing previously what it is, - it is pure existence, eternal, infinite, indefinable, not affected by the succession of Time, not involved in the extension of Space, beyond form, quantity, quality, - Self only and absolute.
12:The pure existent is then a fact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The supreme intuition and its corresponding experience may correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence and of worldexistence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the facts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.
13:Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous. World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing.
1.1.02 - Sachchidananda, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness is not, to my experience, a phenomenon dependent on the reactions of personality to the forces of Nature and amounting to no more than a seeing or interpretation of these reactions. If that were so, then when the personality becomes silent and immobile and gives no reactions, as there would be no seeing or interpretative action, there would therefore be no consciousness. That contradicts some of the fundamental experiences of Yoga, e.g., a silent and immobile consciousness infinitely spread out, not dependent on the personality but impersonal and universal, not seeing and interpreting contacts but motionlessly self-aware, not dependent on the reactions, but persistent in itself even when no reactions take place. The subjective personality itself is only a formation of consciousness which is a power inherent, not in the activity of the temporary manifested personality, but in the being, the Self or Purusha.
Consciousness is a reality inherent in existence. It is there even when it is not active on the surface, but silent and immobile; it is there even when it is invisible on the surface, not reacting on outward things or sensible to them, but withdrawn and either active or inactive within; it is there even when it seems to us to be quite absent and the being to our view unconscious and inanimate.
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This is the crucial point in the question, what is consciousness, whether it is a temporary phenomenon of Nature or a reality in itself fundamental to existence. The first is the conclusion that is drawn, and must be drawn, from normal experience on the surface. The other is at best a metaphysical speculation or an instinctive feeling in humanity unless we go beyond the normal experience, deepen and widen the range of our present consciousness and test its inner depths and inferior abysses and supernormal heights, until we can touch its fundamental or its ultimate or its total reality as is done in Yoga. To judge from only normal and superficial experience as the ordinary mind does with phenomena is to miss the truth of things - we have to go behind the surface phenomenon to find the reality of what a
Sachchidananda
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The ordinary view of consciousness is based on normal superficial experience plus science. For physical science consciousness is a temporary phenomenon in an unconscious world, something evolved in an animate organisation that somehow develops in an originally inanimate and unconscious Matter. It is not inherent in life, for the plant has it not, it is rather a growing flicker that, once established, lasts intermittently through sleep and waking while life lasts and disappears with the dissolution of life. The ordinary mind identifies consciousness with human waking consciousness possibly shared by the animal - though that is not certain, for many refuse consciousness to the animal. A man is conscious while he lives, when he is dead consciousness disappears, when he is asleep, stunned, drugged, anaesthetised, in trance, then his consciousness is suspended; he is temporarily unconscious. How far is this scientific-superficial view correct or maintainable? For it raises two fundamental questions - is the waking surface consciousness the only form of consciousness possible? and again, is the consciousness synonymous with mind, is all consciousness mental or are other forms of it, supramental or submental, possible?
Outer Consciousness and Inner Consciousness
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Consciousness is a fundamental thing, it is the fundamental thing in existence - it is the energy, the action, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it
- not only the macrocosm, but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance when consciousness in its movement, or rather a certain stress of movement, forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently "unconscious" energy; when it forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality it is still consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as the animal, as man and it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become something more than mere man.
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Now that is what consciousness is - it is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest - developing them from above downward by a progressive coming down from spiritual levels towards the evolution in matter or formulating them in an upward working in the front by this process that we call evolution. If it chooses to work in you through the sense of ego, you think that it is the clear-cut individual I that does everything; if it begins to release itself from that limited working, then you too either begin to expand your sense of I till it bursts into infinity and no longer exists or to shed it and flower into spiritual wideness. Of course this is not what is spoken of in modern materialistic thought as consciousness, because that thought is governed by science.
Science sees consciousness only as a phenomenon which emerges out of inconscient Matter and consists of certain reactions of the system to outward things. But that is phenomenon of consciousness, it is not consciousness itself, it is even only a very small part of the possible phenomena of consciousness and can give no clue to the true nature of Consciousness, the spiritual Reality which is of the very essence of existence.
That is all at present. You will have to fix yourself in that - for it is fundamental - before it can be useful to go any farther.
Certainly, the mind and the inner being are consciousness. For human beings who have not got deeper into themselves mind and consciousness are synonymous. Only when one becomes more aware of oneself by a growing consciousness, then one
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It is fundamentally true for most people that the pleasure of life, of existence in itself, predominates over the troubles of life; otherwise most people would want to die whereas the fact is that everybody wants to live - and if you proposed to them an easy means of eternal extinction they would decline without thanks. That is what X is saying and it is undeniable. It is also true that this comes from the Ananda of existence which is behind everything and is reflected in the instinctive pleasure of existence. Naturally, this instinctive essential pleasure is not the
Ananda, - it is only a pale and dim reflection of it in an inferior life-consciousness - but it is enough for its purpose. I have said that myself somewhere and I do not see anything absurd or excessive in the statement.
1.1.02 - The Aim of the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The fundamental difference is in the teaching that there is a dynamic divine Truth (the Supermind) and that into the present world of Ignorance that Truth can descend, create a new Truthconsciousness and divinise Life. The old Yogas go straight from mind to the absolute Divine, regard all dynamic existence as
Ignorance, Illusion or Lila: when you enter the static and immutable Divine Truth, they say, you pass out of cosmic existence.
11.02 - The Golden Life-line, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is not merely children's homesickness; it is a fundamental note of the human nature as it is at present constituted. We always look backward, we always are tied to our roots and it is with great difficulty and much effort that we advance and go forward or upward away from our origins. In a nobler language this is called tradition. Often tradition is made identical with and taken for both life and culture. Denying the past is looked upon almost as refusing the source of life and light.
Viewed from another standpoint this harking back to the past, to the roots, as we say, is the greatest obstacle to human progress. Man progresses, indeed the whole creation advances, by breaking with the past. The leap from the mineral to the plant, from the inorganic to the organic, is the first and most significant break. Even so, are the progressive breaks from the plant to the animal and from the animal to man. In man too similar progressive, that is, radically progressive steps or leaps are recognisable. The ape man without tools and the first man with tools mark very different stages in human consciousness and life. And we have carried on more or less the same manner of progression till today. But against this forward movement of nature, there is a counter-pull backward. The principle of inertia, of standing still, is of the very nature of matter, the basic fact of creation. The force of gravity, earth's pull, does not allow you to shoot up; it brings you down, and if you stand erect, the innate tendency of the body is to sit down or lie flat, 'obedient to the earth's attraction. This physical inertia acts also upon the mind, including the vital consciousness. This is translated in the consciousness as an attachment to the past, to what man has been familiar with. Conservation is the term in respect of physical Nature and atavism is its expression in human nature.
1.1.04 - Philosophy, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The logician thinks he has ensured himself against error when he has made a classification of particular fallacies; but he forgets the supreme and general fallacy, the fallacy of thinking that logic can, as a rule, prove anything but particular and partial propositions dealing with a fragmentary and one-sided truth. Logic? But Truth is not logical; it contains logic, but is not contained by it. A particular syllogism may be true, so far as it goes, covering a sharply limited set of facts, but even a set of syllogisms cannot exhaust truth on a general subject, for the simple reason that they necessarily ignore a number of equally valid premises, facts or possibilities which support a modified or contrary view. If one could arrive first at a conclusion, then at its exact opposite and, finally, harmonise the contradiction, one might arrive at some approach to the truth. But this is a process logic abhors. Its fundamental conception is that two contradictory statements cannot be true at the same time and place & in the same circumstances. Now, Fact and Nature and
God laugh aloud when they hear the logician state his fundamental conception. For the universe is based on the simultaneous existence of contradictions covering the same time, place and circumstances. The elementary conception that God is at once
One and Many, Finite & Infinite, Formed and Formless and that each attribute is the condition of the existence of its opposite, is a thing metaphysical logic has been boggling over ever since the reign of reason began.
1.10 - Aesthetic and Ethical Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The conflict arises from that sort of triangular disposition of the higher or more subtle mentality which we have already had occasion to indicate. There is in our mentality a side of will, conduct, character which creates the ethical man; there is another side of sensibility to the beautiful,understanding beauty in no narrow or hyper-artistic sense,which creates the artistic and aesthetic man. Therefore there can be such a thing as a predominantly or even exclusively ethical culture; there can be too, evidently, a predominantly or even exclusively aesthetic culture. There are at once created two conflicting ideals which must naturally stand opposed and look askance at each other with a mutual distrust or even reprobation. The aesthetic man tends to be impatient of the ethical rule; he feels it to be a barrier to his aesthetic freedom and an oppression on the play of his artistic sense and his artistic faculty; he is naturally hedonistic,for beauty and delight are inseparable powers, and the ethical rule tramples on pleasure, even very often on quite innocent pleasures, and tries to put a strait waistcoat on the human impulse to delight. He may accept the ethical rule when it makes itself beautiful or even seize on it as one of his instruments for creating beauty, but only when he can subordinate it to the aesthetic principle of his nature,just as he is often drawn to religion by its side of beauty, pomp, magnificent ritual, emotional satisfaction, repose or poetic ideality and aspiration,we might almost say, by the hedonistic aspects of religion. Even when fully accepted, it is not for their own sake that he accepts them. The ethical man repays this natural repulsion with interest. He tends to distrust art and the aesthetic sense as something lax and emollient, something in its nature undisciplined and by its attractive appeals to the passions and emotions destructive of a high and strict self-control. He sees that it is hedonistic and he finds that the hedonistic impulse is non-moral and often immoral. It is difficult for him to see how the indulgence of the aesthetic impulse beyond a very narrow and carefully guarded limit can be combined with a strict ethical life. He evolves the puritan who objects to pleasure on principle; not only in his extremesand a predominant impulse tends to become absorbing and leads towards extremes but in the core of his temperament he remains fundamentally the puritan. The misunderstanding between these two sides of our nature is an inevitable circumstance of our human growth which must try them to their fullest separate possibilities and experiment in extremes in order that it may understand the whole range of its capacities.
Society is only an enlargement of the individual; therefore this contrast and opposition between individual types reproduces itself in a like contrast and opposition between social and national types. We must not go for the best examples to social formulas which do not really illustrate these tendencies but are depravations, deformations or deceptive conformities. We must not take as an instance of the ethical turn the middle-class puritanism touched with a narrow, tepid and conventional religiosity which was so marked an element in nineteenth-century England; that was not an ethical culture, but simply a local variation of the general type of bourgeois respectability you will find everywhere at a certain stage of civilisation,it was Philistinism pure and simple. Nor should we take as an instance of the aesthetic any merely Bohemian society or such examples as London of the Restoration or Paris in certain brief periods of its history; that, whatever some of its pretensions, had for its principle, always, the indulgence of the average sensational and sensuous man freed from the conventions of morality by a superficial intellectualism and aestheticism. Nor even can we take Puritan England as the ethical type; for although there was there a strenuous, an exaggerated culture of character and the ethical being, the determining tendency was religious, and the religious impulse is a phenomenon quite apart from our other subjective tendencies, though it influences them all; it is sui generis and must be treated separately. To get at real, if not always quite pure examples of the type we must go back a little farther in time and contrast early republican Rome or, in Greece itself, Sparta with Periclean Athens. For as we come down the stream of Time in its present curve of evolution, humanity in the mass, carrying in it its past collective experience, becomes more and more complex and the old distinct types do not recur or recur precariously and with difficulty.
1.10 - Conscious Force, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
6:Physical analysis of Matter by modern Science has come to the same general conclusion, even if a few last doubts still linger. Intuition and experience confirm this concord of Science and Philosophy. Pure reason finds in it the satisfaction of its own essential conceptions. For even in the view of the world as essentially an act of consciousness, an act is implied and in the act movement of Force, play of Energy. This also, when we examine from within our own experience, proves to be the fundamental nature of the world. All our activities are the play of the triple force of the old philosophies, knowledge-force, desire-force, action-force, and all these prove to be really three streams of one original and identical Power, Adya Shakti. Even our states of rest are only equable state or equilibrium of the play of her movement.
7:Movement of Force being admitted as the whole nature of the Cosmos, two questions arise. And first, how did this movement come to take place at all in the bosom of existence? If we suppose it to be not only eternal but the very essence of all existence, the question does not arise. But we have negatived this theory. We are aware of an existence which is not compelled by the movement. How then does this movement alien to its eternal repose come to take place in it? by what cause? by what possibility? by what mysterious impulsion?
1.10 - GRACE AND FREE WILL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Take note of this fundamental truth. Everything that works in nature and creature, except sin, is the working of God in nature and creature. The creature has nothing else in its power but the free use of its will, and its free will hath no other power but that of concurring with, or resisting, the working of God in nature. The creature with its free will can bring nothing into being, nor make any alteration in the working of nature; it can only change its own state or place in the working of nature, and so feel or find something in its state that it did not feel or find before.
William Law
1.10 - Harmony, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But wrong thoughts, too, are a surprising source of discoveries. As a matter of fact, more and more, he realizes that this kind of distinction is meaningless. What, in the end, is not for our own good? What does not ultimately turn out to be our greater good? The wrong paths are part of the right one and pave a broader way, a larger view of our indivisible estate. The only wrong is not to see; it is the vast grayness of the terra incognita of our limited maps. And we indeed limit our maps. We have attributed those thoughts, feelings, reactions and desires to the little Mississippi flowing through our lands, to the thriving Potomac rivers lined with stone buildings and fortresses and indeed, they have got into the habit of running through those channels, cascading here or there, boiling a little farther below, or disappearing into our marshes. It is a very old habit, going back even before us or the ape, or else a scarcely more recent one going back to our schooldays, our parents or yesterday's newspaper. We have opened paths, and the current follows them it follows them obstinately. But for the demechanized seeker, the meanders and points of entry begin to become more visible. He begins to distinguish various levels in his being, various channeling centers, and when the current passes through the solar plexus or through the throat, the reactions or effects are different. But, mostly, he discovers with surprise that it is one and the same current everywhere, above or below, right or left, and those which we call thought, desire, will or emotion are various infiltrations of the same identical thing, which is neither thought nor desire nor will nor anything of the sort, but a trickle, a drop or a cataract of the same conscious Energy entering here or there, through our little Potomac or muddy Styx, and creating a disaster or a poem, a millipede's quiver, a revolution, a gospel or a vain thought on the boulevard we could almost say at will. It all depends on the quality of our opening and its level. But the fundamental fact is that this is an Energy, in other words, a Power. And thus, very simply, quite simply, we have the all-powerful source of all possible changes in the world. It is as we will it! We can tune in either here or there, create harmony or cacophony; not a single circumstance in the world, not one fateful event, not one so-called ineluctable law, absolutely nothing can prevent us from turning the antenna one way or the other and changing this muddy and disastrous flood into a limpid stream, instantly. We just have to know where we open ourselves. At every moment of the world and every second, in the face of every dreadful circumstance, every prison we have locked ourselves alive in, we can, in one stroke, with a single cry for help, a single burst of prayer, a single true look, a single leap of the little flame inside, topple all our walls and be born again from top to bottom. Everything is possible. Because that Power is the supreme Possibility.
But if we believe only in our little Mississippi or our little Potomac, it is clearly hopeless. And we do indeed believe passionately, millennially in the virtue of our old ways. They also hold an immense power that of habit. It is remarkable, for they seem as solid as concrete, as convincing as all the old reasons of the world, the old habits of flowing in one direction or another, as irrefutable as Newton's apple, and yet, for the eye beginning to lose its scales, as unsubstantial as a cloud one blows on them and they fall away. This is the mental Illusion, the formidable illusion that is blinding us.
1.10 - The Absolute of the Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The concept of the infinite manifestation enables us to understand and so to justify one of the fundamental tendencies of the being, one of the essential characteristics of desire.
If the being is entirely an exclusive will towards self-affirmation, towards individual fixity, it is also by a sort of self-contradiction the field of the most constantly changing desires. This contradiction carries in it the mark of the beings origin and essence. It wishes at one and the same time for the unity and the infinity of being of the Absolute because, itself one of the possibilities of the Absolute, it implies and desires all the others. But desiring itself more than the others it leaves the eternal plenitude to enter into the limitation, into the privation, into the inconstant state of the relative.
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
powerful field of attraction, the fundamental divergent tendency of
the evolutionary radiations is overcome by a stronger force induc-
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but fundamentally biological, nature of the collective human com-
plex is accepted, nothing prevents us (provided we take into ac-
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of fundamental and irresistible movement.
So it is with the Noosphere.
1.10 - The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We find this fundamental idea of the Vedic Rishis brought out in the Hymn of Creation (X.129) where the subconscient is thus described. "Darkness hidden by darkness in the beginning was this all, an ocean without mental consciousness . . . out of it the One was born by the greatness of Its energy. It first moved in it as desire which was the first seed of mind. The Masters of Wisdom found out in the non-existent that which builds up the existent; in the heart they found it by purposeful impulsion and by the thought-mind. Their ray was extended horizontally; there was something above, there was something below." In this passage the same ideas are brought out as in Vamadeva's hymn but without the veil of images. Out of the subconscient ocean
The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers
1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
dict the fundamental nature of its being. This and this alone
is the root-problem. ... There is an anandamaya behind the
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comprehensible. But if the fundamental Vedantic premises
and the Vedantic conception of the universe are accepted
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was necessary. It is fundamentally a cosmic problem and
can be understood only from the cosmic consciousness. If
1.10 - The Revolutionary Yogi, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
was to be, for Sri Aurobindo, the starting point of new, higher experiences integrating the truth of the world and the truth of the beyond into a total, continuous and divine Reality. This is indeed a fundamental consideration, the understanding of which is central to the very meaning of our existence, for there are only two alternatives:
either the supreme Truth is not of this world, as all the world religions have proclaimed, and we are wasting our time with futilities; or there is something else besides everything we have been told. The consideration is all the more relevant since it is not a theory but a practical experience. Here is what Sri Aurobindo reported: I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit other things into itself or modify itself at all . . . in the end it began to disappear into a greater Super-consciousness from above. . . . The aspect of an illusionary world gave place to one in which illusion is only a small surface phenomenon with an immense Divine Reality behind it and a supreme Divine Reality above it and an intense Divine Reality in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cinematic shape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment in the senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it came rather as a constant heightening and widening of the Truth. . . . Nirvana in my liberated consciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realization, a first step towards the complete thing, not the sole true attainment possible or even a culminating finale.118
1.10 - The Roughly Material Plane or the Material World, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The earthy element implies the four-pole magnet with its polarity and the effect of the other elements. The fiery principle, in its active form, causes the vivifying principle in nature and in the negative form the destructive and disintegrating one. The principle of water, in its negative form, is operating the contrary effect. The principle of air, with its bipolar polarity, represents the neutral, the balancing and the preserving essence in nature. The earthy element, according to its peculiarity of cohesion, has as a basis the two great fundamental elements of fire and water together with the neutralization of the airy principle. Hence it must be regarded as the most grossly material element. By the interaction of the fiery and the watery element, we have, as already mentioned in connection with the body, got the magnetic and the electric fluid, the two basic fluids originating, according to the same laws, in the body and having their mutual effects. Both these elements, with their fluids, are the cause of all that happens materially on our earth; they influence all the chemical processes inside and outside of the earth in the kingdoms of minerals, plants and animals. Hence you see that the electric fluid is to be found in the centre of the earth, whereas the magnetic one is on the surface of our earth. This magnetic fluid of the earth surface, apart from the property of the principle of water or the cohesion, attracts and holds all material and compound things.
According to the specific properties of a body, which depend on the composition of the elements, each object, with respect to the electric fluid, owns certain emanations, the so-called electronic vibrations that are attracted by the general magnetic fluid of the entire material world. This attraction is called the weight. Consequently, weight is an appearance of the attractive power of the earth. The well known attractive power of iron and nickel is a little example respecting an imitation of that which is happening, in a big measure, on our whole earth. What we understand, on our earth, a magnetism and electricity, is nothing else but an appearance of the four-pole magnet. For, as we know already, by an arbitrary pole-changing, electricity can be obtained from magnetism and, in a mechanical way, we get magnetism through electricity. The transmutation of one power into another, properly speaking, is already an alchemistic or magic process, which, however, in the course of time, has been generalized so much that it is no longer regarded as alchemy or magic, but is simply ascribed to physics. For this reason, it is obvious that the four-pole magnet can be used here also.
--
Everything on our earth, all thriving, ripening, life and death depend on the statements made in these chapters. Hence the adept fully conceives that physical death does not mean disintegration, passing into nothingness, but what we consider as annihilation or death is nothing else but the transition from one stage into another. The material world has emerged from the principle of akasa, i.e., the known ether. The world also is controlled and kept by this same principle. Therefore it is understandable that it is the transmission of the electric or the magnetic fluid on which are based all the inventions connected with the communication at distance, through the ether, such as radio, telegraphy, telephony, television and all the other invent ions to be achieved in the future, with the aid of the electric or magnetic fluid in the ether. But the fundamental principles and laws were, are and always will be the same.
A very extensive and exciting book could be written solely about the effects of the various magnetic and electric fluids on the grossly material plane. But the interested reader who has decided to walk on the path of initiation and will not be deterred by the study of the principles, will find out by himself all about the varieties of powers and properties. The fruits and the insights he earned, in the course of his studies, will indemnify him amply.
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The distinction is of the greatest importance; for not only does it show that the substance of our religious mentality and discipline goes back to the prehistoric antiquity of the Upanishads, but it justifies the hypothesis that the Vedantins of the Upanishads themselves held it as an inheritance from their Vedic forefa thers. If the Upanishads were only a record of intellectual speculations, the theory of a progression from Vedic materialism to new modes of thought would be entirely probable and no other hypothesis could hold the field without first destroying the rationalistic theory by new and unsuspected evidence. But the moment we perceive that the Upanishads are the result of this ancient & indigenous system of truth-finding, we are liberated from the burden of European examples. Evidently, we have here to deal with phenomena of thought which do not fall within the European scheme of a rapid transition from gross savage superstition to subtle metaphysical speculation. We have phenomena which are either sui generis or, if at any time common to humanity both within and outside India, then more ancient or at any rate earlier in the progression of mind than the modern intellectual methods first universalised by the Hellenic & Latin races; we have an intuitive and experiential method of truth finding, a fixed psychological theory and discipline, a system in which observation & comparison of subjective experiences forms the basis of fixed & verifiable psychological truth, just as nowadays in Europe observation & comparison of objective experiences forms the basis of fixed and verifiable physical truth. The difference between the speculative method and the experiential is that the speculative aims only at logical harmony and, due to the rigid abstract tendency, drives towards new blocks of thought and new mental attitudes; the experiential aims at verification by experience and drives towards the progressive discovery or restatement of eternal truths and their application to varying conditions. The indispensable basis of all Science is the invariability of the same result from the same experiment, given the same conditions; the same experiment with oxygen & hydrogen will always, in whatever age or clime it is applied, have one invariable result, the appearance of water. The indispensable basis of all Yoga is the same invariability in psychological experiments & their results. The same experiment with the limited waking or manifest consciousness and the unlimited unmanifest consciousness from which it is a selection and formation will always, in whatever age or clime it is applied, have the same result, the dissolution, gradual or rapid, complete or partial according to the instruments and conditions of the experiment, of the waking ego into the cosmic consciousness. In each method, physical Science or psychological Science, different Scientists or different teachers may differ as to some of the final generalisations to be drawn from the facts & the most appropriate terms to be used, or invent different instruments in the hope of arriving at a more rapid or a more delicate process, but the facts and the fundamental truths remain common to all, even if stated in different terms, because they are the subjects of a common experience. Now the facts discovered by the Indian method, the duality of Purusha and Prakriti, the triple states of conscious being, the relation between the macrocosm & the microcosm, the fivefold and sevenfold principles of consciousness, the existence of more than one bodily case in which, simultaneously, we dwell, these and a number of other fixed ideas which the modern Yogins hold not as speculative propositions but as observable and verifiable facts of experience, are to be found in the Upanishads already enounced in more ancient formulae and in a slightly different language. The question arises, when did they originate? If they are facts, when were they first discovered? If they are hallucinations, when were the methods of subjective experiment which result so persistently in these hallucinations, first evolved and fixed? Not at the time of the Upanishads, for the Upanishads professedly record the traditional knowledge of older Rishis which is still verifiable by the moderns, prvebhir rishibhir dyo ntanair uta.Then, some time before the composition of the Upanishads, either by the earlier or later Vedic Rishis or by predecessors of the Vedic Rishis or in the interval between the Vedic hymns and the first Vedantic compositions. But for the period between Veda & Vedanta we have no documents, no direct & plain evidence. The question therefore can only be decided by an examination of the Vedic hymns themselves. Only by settling the meaning of Veda can we decide whether the early Vedantins were right in supposing that they were merely restating in more modern terms the substantial ideas & experiences of Vedic Rishis or whether this grand assumption of the Upanishads must take its rank among those pious fictions or willing & half honest errors which have often been immensely helpful to the advance of human knowledge but are none the less impostures upon posterity.
European scholars believe that they have fixed finally the meaning of Veda. Using as their tools the Sciences of Comparative Philology & Comparative Mythology, itself a part of the strangely termed Science of Comparative Religion, they have excavated for us out of the ancient Veda a buried world, a forgotten civilisation, lost names of kings and nations, wars & battles, institutions, social habits & cultural ideas which the men of Vedantic times & their forerunners never dreamed were lying concealed in the revered & sacred words used daily by them in their worship and the fount and authority for their richest spiritual experiences deepest illuminated musings. The picture these discoveries constitute is a remarkable composition, imposing in its mass, brilliant and attractive in its details. The one lingering objection to them is a possible doubt of the truth of these discoveries, the soundness of the methods used to arrive at them. Are the conclusions of Vedic scholarship so undoubtedly true or so finally authoritative as to preclude a totally different hypothesis even though it may lead possibly to an interpretation which will wash out every colour & negative every detail of this great recovery? We must determine, first, whether the foundations of the European theory of Veda are solid & certain fact or whether it has been reared upon a basis of doubtful inference and conjecture. If the former, the question of the Veda is closed, its problem solved; if the latter, the European results may even then be true, but equally they may be false and replaceable by a more acceptable theory and riper conclusions.
1.10 - THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray
from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral
--
of the Socratic schools as a key to what is fundamentally Hellenic!...
The philosophers are of course the decadents of Hellas, the
--
Christianity which, with its fundamental resentment against life, made
something impure out of sexuality: it flung _filth_ at the very basis,
11.11 - The Ideal Centre, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is the goal towards which a dedicated centre, that is to say, a spiritually aspiring group should move and labour. And that also is the primary work, the first and foremost for which the centre stands as the field. And this work can be done and has to be achieved through the discipline enunciated in just the previous, our third mantra the fundamental attitude with which the work has to be done. It is said there that the work, consecrated work or service is the prayer of the body. Mind's prayer is expressed in words, body's prayer in-works. Work is the prayer in its dynamic and concrete form, it is the utterance of the physical, the language it knows in order to ask for and seek the union with the Divine. It is the holy ritual expressing and embodying in the physical, material life, one's adoration, one's adhesion to the ideal, to the deity one worships.
Work or service expressing harmonisation needs to be based, as I have said, upon a higher and higher consciousness. Work done as prayer is the best means of effecting an ascent in consciousness. This is the lesson that each individual of a centre must learn from the very outset and ever afterwards., He must always try to rise in consciousness, reach an ever higher status of being and from there let the work flow, as it were, from a spontaneous spring. As one rises in consciousness and being) naturally and inevitably this consciousness widens and one feels naturally and spontaneously kinship and union with all others. Work or service is then only a dynamic means of achieving and realising the sense of perfect unity of oneself with all other selves.
1.11 - Delight of Existence - The Problem, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11:This recoil or dislike is the primary origin of ethics, but is not itself ethical. The fear of the deer for the tiger, the rage of the strong creature against its assailant is a vital recoil of the individual delight of existence from that which threatens it. In the progress of the mentality it refines itself into repugnance, dislike, disapproval. Disapproval of that which threatens and hurts us, approval of that which flatters and satisfies refine into the conception of good and evil to oneself, to the community, to others than ourselves, to other communities than ours, and finally into the general approval of good, the general disapproval of evil. But, throughout, the fundamental nature of the thing remains the same. Man desires self-expression, self-development, in other words, the progressing play in himself of the consciousforce of existence; that is his fundamental delight. Whatever hurts that self-expression, self-development, satisfaction of his progressing self, is for him evil; whatever helps, confirms, raises, aggrandises, ennobles it is his good. Only, his conception of the self-development changes, becomes higher and wider, begins to exceed his limited personality, to embrace others, to embrace all in its scope.
12:In other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to all stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards selfexpression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical in the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical for it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove when done to ourselves. In this respect man even now is only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so there may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive, which is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and attitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by which it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience and broken up by Life into individual discords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient oneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal, this means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the qualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally dissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.
--
14:That which is common to all is, we have seen, the satisfaction of conscious-force of existence developing itself into forms and seeking in that development its delight. From that satisfaction or delight of self-existence it evidently began; for it is that which is normal to it, to which it clings, which it makes its base; but it seeks new forms of itself and in the passage to higher forms there intervenes the phenomenon of pain and suffering which seems to contradict the fundamental nature of its being. This and this alone is the root-problem.
15:How shall we solve it? Shall we say that Sachchidananda is not the beginning and end of things, but the beginning and end is Nihil, an impartial void, itself nothing but containing all potentialities of existence or non-existence, consciousness or non-consciousness, delight or undelight? We may accept this answer if we choose; but although we seek thereby to explain everything, we have really explained nothing, we have only included everything. A Nothing which is full of all potentialities is the most complete opposition of terms and things possible and we have therefore only explained a minor contradiction by a major, by driving the self-contradiction of things to their maximum. Nihil is the void, where there can be no potentialities; an impartial indeterminate of all potentialities is Chaos, and all that we have done is to put Chaos into the Void without explaining how it got there. Let us return, then, to our original conception of Sachchidananda and see whether on that foundation a completer solution is not possible.
1.11 - FAITH IN MAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
The fact remains that at the present time a fundamental inner
impulse, newly born in our hearts, is tending to find a dual, and di-
1.11 - GOOD AND EVIL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The nature of a mans being determines the nature of his actions; and the nature of his being comes to manifestation first of all in the mind. What he craves and thinks, what he believes and feelsthis is, so to speak, the Logos, by whose agency an individuals fundamental character performs its creative acts. These acts will be beautiful and morally good if the being is God-centred, bad and ugly if it is centred in the personal self. The stone, says Eckhart, performs its work without ceasing, day and night. For even when it is not actually falling the stone has weight. A mans being is his potential energy directed towards or away from God; and it is by this potential energy that he will be judged as good or evil for it is possible, in the language of the Gospel, to commit adultery and murder in the heart, even while remaining blameless in action.
Covetousness, envy, pride and wrath are the four elements of self, or nature, or hell, all of them inseparable from it. And the reason why it must be thus, and cannot be otherwise, is because the natural life of the creature is brought forth for the participation of some high supernatural good in the Creator. But it could have no fitness, no possible capacity to receive such good, unless it was in itself both an extremity of want and an extremity of desire for some high good. When therefore this natural life is deprived of or fallen from God, it can be nothing else in itself but an extremity of want continually desiring, and an extremity of desire continually wanting. And because it is that, its whole life can be nothing else but a plague and torment of covetousness, envy, pride and wrath, all which is precisely nature, self, or hell. Now covetousness, pride and envy are not three different things, but only three different names for the restless workings of one and the same will or desire. Wrath, which is a fourth birth from these three, can have no existence till one or all of these three are contradicted, or have something done to them that is contrary to their will. These four properties generate their own torment. They have no outward cause, nor any inward power of altering themselves. And therefore all self or nature must be in this state until some supernatural good comes into it, or gets a birth in it. Whilst man indeed lives among the vanities of time, his covetousness, envy, pride and wrath may be in a tolerable state, may hold him to a mixture of peace and trouble; they may have at times their gratifications as well as their torments. But when death has put an end to the vanity of all earthly cheats, the soul that is not born again of the supernatural Word and Spirit of God, must find itself unavoidably devoured or shut up in its own insatiable, unchangeable, self-tormenting covetousness, envy, pride and wrath.
1.11 - The Influence of the Sexes on Vegetation, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
more fundamental, is capable of overmastering the latter. In short,
the savage is willing to restrain his sexual propensity for the sake
1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
time the Son of God and the Son of Man. The fundamental
difference with Hinduism is that in Christianity Christ is
1.11 - The Master of the Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In a Yoga lived entirely on the spiritualised mental plane it is possible and even usual for these three fundamental aspects of the divine -- the Individual or Immanent, the Cosmic and the Transcendent -- to stand out as separate realisations. Each by itself then appears sufficient to satisfy the yearning of the seeker. Alone with the personal Divine in the inner heart's illumined secret chamber, he can build his being into the Beloved's image and ascend out of fallen Nature to dwell with him in some heaven of the Spirit. Absolved in the cosmic wideness, released from ego, his personality reduced to a point of working of the universal Force, himself calm, liberated, deathless in universality, motionless in the Witness Self even while outspread without limit in unending Space and Time, he can enjoy in the world the freedom of the Timeless. One-pointed towards some ineffable Transcendence, casting away his personality, shedding from him the labour and trouble of the universal Dynamis, he can escape into an inexpressible Nirvana, annul all things in an intolerant exaltation of flight into the Incommunicable.
But none of these achievements is enough for one who seeks the wide completeness of an integral Yoga. An individual salvation is not enough for him; for he finds himself opening to a cosmic consciousness which far exceeds by its breadth and vastness the narrower intensity of a limited individual fulfilment, and its call is imperative; driven by that immense compulsion, he must break through all separative boundaries, spread himself in world-Nature, contain the universe. Above too, there is urgent upon him a dynamic realisation pressing from the Supreme upon this world of beings, and only some encompassing and exceeding of the cosmic consciousness can release into manifestation here that yet unlavished splendour. But the cosmic consciousness too is not sufficient; for it is not all the Divine Reality, not integral. There is a divine secret behind personality that he must discover; there, waiting in it to be delivered here into Time, stands the mystery of the embodiment of the Transcendence. In the cosmic consciousness there remains at the end a hiatus, an unequal equation of a highest Knowledge that can liberate but not effectuate with a Power seeming to use a limited Knowledge or masking itself with a surface Ignorance that can create but creates imperfection or a perfection transient, limited and in fetters. On one side there is a free undynamic Witness and on the other side a bound Executrix of action who has not been given all the means of action. The reconciliation of these companions and opposites seems to be reserved, postponed, held back in an Unmanifest still beyond us. But, again, a mere escape into some absolute Transcendence leaves personality unfulfilled and the universal action inconclusive and cannot satisfy the integral seeker. He feels that the Truth that is for ever is a Power that creates as well as a stable Existence; it is not a Power solely of illusory or ignorant manifestation. The eternal Truth can manifest its truths in Time; it can create in Knowledge and not only in Inconscience and Ignorance. A divine Descent no less than an ascent to the Divine is possible; there is a prospect of the bringing down of a future perfection and a present deliverance. As his knowledge widens, it becomes for him more and more evident that it was this for which the Master of Works cast down the soul within him here as a spark of his fire into the darkness, that it might grow there into a centre of the Light that is for ever.
The Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three powers overarching, underlying and penetrating the whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the unfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental terms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the experience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we wake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the universal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by a still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits that is founded on the Absolute. And yet in this ascension we do not really abolish but take up and transfigure what we seem to leave; for there is a height where the three live eternally in each other, on that height they are blissfully joined in a nodus of their harmonised oneness. But that summit is above the highest and largest spiritualised mentality, even if some reflection of it can be experienced there; mind, to attain to it, to live there, must exceed itself and be transformed into a supramental gnostic light, power and substance. In this lower diminished consciousness a harmony can indeed be attempted, but it must always remain imperfect: a co-ordination is possible, not a simultaneous fused fulfilment. An ascent out of the mind is, for any greater realisation, imperative. Or else, there must be, with the ascent or consequent to it, a dynamic descent of the self-existent Truth that exists always uplifted ill its own light above Mind, eternal, prior to the manifestation of Life and Matter.
For Mind is Maya, sat-asat: there is a field of embrace of the true and the false, the existent and the non-existent, and it is in that ambiguous field that Mind seems to reign; but even in its own reign it is in truth a diminished consciousness, it is not part of the original and supremely originating power of the Eternal. Even if Mind is able to reflect some image of essential Truth in its substance, yet the dynamic force and action of Truth appears in it always broken and divided. All Mind can do is to piece together the fragments or deduce a unity; truth of Mind is only a half-truth or a portion of a puzzle. Mental knowledge is always relative, partial and inconclusive, and its outgoing action and creation come out still more confused in its steps or precise only in narrow limits and by imperfect piecings together. Even in this diminished consciousness the Divine manifests as a Spirit in Mind, just as he moves as a Spirit in Life or dwells still more obscurely as a Spirit in Matter; but not here is his full dynamic revelation, not here the perfect identities of the Eternal. Only when we cross the border into a larger luminous consciousness and self-aware substance where divine Truth is a native and not a stranger, will there be revealed to us the Master of our existence in the imperishable integral truth of his being and his powers and his workings. Only there, too, will his works in us assume the flawless movement of his unfailing supramental purpose.
1.11 - The Seven Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The sevenfold waters thus rise upward and become the pure mental activity, the Mighty Ones of Heaven. They there reveal themselves as the first eternal ever-young energies, separate streams but of one origin - for they have all flowed from the one womb of the super-conscient Truth - the seven Words or fundamental creative expressions of the divine Mind, sapta van.h.. This life of the pure mind is not like that of the nervous life which devours its objects in order to sustain its mortal existence; its waters devour not but they do not fail; they are the eternal truth robed in a transparent veil of mental forms; therefore, it is said, they are neither clothed nor naked (v. 6).
But this is not the last stage. The Force rises into the womb or birthplace of this mental clarity (ghr.tasya) where the waters flow as streams of the divine sweetness (srava the madhunam); there the forms it assumes are universal forms, masses of the vast and infinite consciousness. As a result, the fostering rivers in the lower world are nourished by this descending higher sweetness and the mental and physical consciousness, the two first mothers of the all-effecting Will, become in their entire largeness perfectly equal and harmonised by this light of the
--- Overview of noun fundamental
The noun fundamental has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. fundamental ::: (any factor that could be considered important to the understanding of a particular business; "fundamentals include a company's growth, revenues, earnings, management, and capital structure")
2. fundamental, fundamental frequency, first harmonic ::: (the lowest tone of a harmonic series)
--- Overview of adj fundamental
The adj fundamental has 3 senses (first 3 from tagged texts)
1. (10) cardinal, central, fundamental, key, primal ::: (serving as an essential component; "a cardinal rule"; "the central cause of the problem"; "an example that was fundamental to the argument"; "computers are fundamental to modern industrial structure")
2. (7) fundamental, rudimentary, underlying ::: (being or involving basic facts or principles; "the fundamental laws of the universe"; "a fundamental incomatibility between them"; "these rudimentary truths"; "underlying principles")
3. (1) fundamental, profound ::: (far-reaching and thoroughgoing in effect especially on the nature of something; "the fundamental revolution in human values that has occurred"; "the book underwent fundamental changes"; "committed the fundamental error of confusing spending with extravagance"; "profound social changes")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun fundamental
2 senses of fundamental
Sense 1
fundamental
=> factor
=> cause
=> origin, origination, inception
=> beginning
=> happening, occurrence, occurrent, natural event
=> event
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
fundamental, fundamental frequency, first harmonic
=> harmonic
=> tone, pure tone
=> sound, auditory sensation
=> sensation, esthesis, aesthesis, sense experience, sense impression, sense datum
=> perception
=> basic cognitive process
=> process, cognitive process, mental process, operation, cognitive operation
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun fundamental
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun fundamental
2 senses of fundamental
Sense 1
fundamental
=> factor
Sense 2
fundamental, fundamental frequency, first harmonic
=> harmonic
--- Similarity of adj fundamental
3 senses of fundamental
Sense 1
cardinal, central, fundamental, key, primal
=> important (vs. unimportant), of import
Sense 2
fundamental, rudimentary, underlying
=> basic (vs. incidental)
Sense 3
fundamental, profound
=> significant (vs. insignificant), important
--- Antonyms of adj fundamental
3 senses of fundamental
Sense 1
cardinal, central, fundamental, key, primal
INDIRECT (VIA important) -> unimportant
Sense 2
fundamental, rudimentary, underlying
INDIRECT (VIA basic) -> incidental, incident
Sense 3
fundamental, profound
INDIRECT (VIA significant) -> insignificant, unimportant
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun fundamental
2 senses of fundamental
Sense 1
fundamental
-> factor
=> fundamental
=> parameter
=> unknown quantity
=> wild card
=> releasing factor, releasing hormone, RF
=> intrinsic factor
Sense 2
fundamental, fundamental frequency, first harmonic
-> harmonic
=> fundamental, fundamental frequency, first harmonic
=> overtone, partial, partial tone
--- Pertainyms of adj fundamental
3 senses of fundamental
Sense 1
cardinal, central, fundamental, key, primal
Sense 2
fundamental, rudimentary, underlying
Sense 3
fundamental, profound
--- Derived Forms of adj fundamental
--- Grep of noun fundamental
fundamental
fundamental analysis
fundamental frequency
fundamental interaction
fundamental law
fundamental measure
fundamental particle
fundamental principle
fundamental quantity
fundamentalism
fundamentalist
fundamentals
fundamentals analysis
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Wikipedia - Fundamental theorem of linear programming -- Extremes of a linear function over a convex polygonal region occur at the region's corners
Wikipedia - Fundamental Theorem of Line Integrals
Wikipedia - Fundamental theorem of poker -- It's best to play your hand the way you would have played it if you'd seen all their cards
Wikipedia - Fundamental theorem of software engineering -- A general principle for managing complexity through abstraction
Wikipedia - Fundamental theorem on homomorphisms -- Theorem relating a group with the image and kernel of a homomorphism
Wikipedia - Fundamental theorems of welfare economics -- Complete, full information, perfectly competitive markets are Pareto efficient
Wikipedia - Fundamental Tour -- Concert tour
Wikipedia - Fundamental unit
Wikipedia - Gas -- One of the four fundamental states of matter
Wikipedia - Geological formation -- The fundamental unit of lithostratigraphy
Wikipedia - Hizb ut-Tahrir -- Pan-Islamist and fundamentalist organization
Wikipedia - Human rights -- Inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled
Wikipedia - Inertial frame of reference -- Fundamental concept of classical mechanics
Wikipedia - Inertia -- Fundamental principle of classical physics
Wikipedia - Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences
Wikipedia - International Symposium on Fundamentals of Computation Theory
Wikipedia - Islamic fundamentalism -- Muslims who seek to return to the fundamentals of the Islamic religion
Wikipedia - Jewish fundamentalism -- Jewish anti-modernist movements based on biblical literalism
Wikipedia - Katz-Lang finiteness theorem -- On kernels of maps between abelianized fundamental groups of schemes and fields
Wikipedia - Liquid -- One of the four fundamental states of matter
Wikipedia - List of fundamental theorems
Wikipedia - List of theorems called fundamental -- A result considered to be the most central and important one in some field
Wikipedia - Logical consequence -- Fundamental concept in logic
Wikipedia - Manfred Max-Neef's Fundamental human needs
Wikipedia - Manitou -- Fundamental life force among Algonquian groups in the Native American mythology
Wikipedia - Margolus-Levitin theorem -- Theorem which gives a fundamental limit on quantum computation
Wikipedia - Market fundamentalism
Wikipedia - Memristor -- Nonlinear two-terminal fundamental circuit element
Wikipedia - Merit (Buddhism) -- Concept considered fundamental to Buddhist ethics
Wikipedia - Metanoia (psychology) -- Fundamental change in the human personality (psychology)
Wikipedia - Millenarianism -- Belief in a coming fundamental transformation of society
Wikipedia - Missing fundamental
Wikipedia - Mormon fundamentalism -- Belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century
Wikipedia - Mytheme -- Fundamental generic unit of narrative structure
Wikipedia - New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist -- An association of King James Bible only independent Baptist churches
Wikipedia - Panpsychism -- View that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality
Wikipedia - Paradigm shift -- Fundamental change in concepts
Wikipedia - Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of canon law
Wikipedia - Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law
Wikipedia - Photonics and Nanostructures: Fundamentals and Applications -- Journal
Wikipedia - Physics -- Study of the fundamental properties of matter and energy
Wikipedia - Plasma (physics) -- One of the four fundamental states of matter
Wikipedia - Point (geometry) -- Fundamental object of geometry
Wikipedia - PratM-DM-+tyasamutpada -- Fundamental Buddhist teaching on reincarnation
Wikipedia - Preamble to the United States Constitution -- Introductory statement of the US Constitution's fundamental purposes
Wikipedia - Radical politics -- intent of fundamental societal change
Wikipedia - Reading Is Fundamental -- US non-profit organization
Wikipedia - Religious fundamentalism
Wikipedia - Revolution -- Rapid and fundamental political change
Wikipedia - Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- fundamentalist Mormon sect based in Iron County, Utah
Wikipedia - Rights -- Fundamental legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory
Wikipedia - Root cause analysis -- Method of identifying the fundamental causes of faults or problems
Wikipedia - Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology -- Fundamentalist Christian sect
Wikipedia - Scarcity -- Fundamental problem of economics where there are limited resources to fulfill society's unlimited wants
Wikipedia - Second fundamental form -- Quadratic form related to curvatures of surfaces
Wikipedia - Seifert-van Kampen theorem -- Describes the fundamental group in terms of a cover by 2 open path-connected subspaces
Wikipedia - Shafarevich-Weil theorem -- Relates fundamental classes of Galois extensions of fields to extensions of Galois groups
Wikipedia - Solid -- One of the four fundamental states of matter
Wikipedia - Superposition principle -- Fundamental physics principle stating that physical solutions of linear systems are linear
Wikipedia - Taliban -- Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan
Wikipedia - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Wikipedia - Template talk:Fundamental interactions
Wikipedia - Ten Commandments -- Set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in the Abrahamic religions
Wikipedia - Texel (graphics) -- Fundamental unit of a texture map
Wikipedia - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God -- Fundamentalist church in the Latter-day Saint movement
Wikipedia - The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis
Wikipedia - The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
Wikipedia - The Fundamentals of Caring -- 2016 American film by Rob Burnett
Wikipedia - The Fundamentals -- A set of essays defending Protestant beliefs
Wikipedia - The Sword of the Lord -- A Christian fundamentalist Baptist biweekly newspaper
Wikipedia - Timeline of Fundamental Physics Discoveries
Wikipedia - Timeline of fundamental physics discoveries
Wikipedia - Ultimate reality -- Supreme, final, and fundamental power in all reality
Wikipedia - Virtually Haken conjecture -- Every compact, irreducible 3-manifold with infinite fundamental group is virtually Haken
Wikipedia - Vsevolod Tkachuk -- Soviet and Russian biochemist. Academician of RAMS and RAS. Dean of the Faculty of fundamental medicine of Lomonosov Moscow State University.
Wikipedia - Warren Jeffs -- convicted child rapist and leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Wikipedia - Wedge strategy -- Creationist political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, aiming is to change U.S. culture by shaping public policy to reflect politically conservative fundamentalist evangelical Protestant values
Wikipedia - Wikipedia:Five pillars -- The fundamental principles of Wikipedia
Wikipedia - Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs -- thin client operating system from Microsoft
Wikipedia - Worldview -- Fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society
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Integral World - Agnosticism and Fundamentalist Mediumship, Elliot Benjamin
Integral World - The Fundamental Ken Wilber: What Ken Wilber Really Says About Human Growth, Hugh & Kaye Martin
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selforum - fundamental lack in buddhism
selforum - agape and eros two fundamental motive
selforum - fundamentalism freedom immortality
selforum - chaudhuri listed 12 fundamental
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Science Court (1997 - 2000) - The half-hour program mixed courtroom drama, science experiments, and humor to teach fundamental concepts in elementary and middle school science such as the water cycle, work, matter, gravity, flight, and energy. As each case unfolded, the characters in the trial used humor to highlight scientific...
Big Love (2006 - 2011) - Big Love is an American television drama series that aired on HBO between March 2006 and March 2011. The series charts the family's life in and out of the public sphere in their Salt Lake City suburb, as well as their associations with a fundamentalist compound in the area.
Sakigake!! Otokojuku (1988 - 1988) - Charge!! Men's Private School. Otokojuku: a private school for juvenile delinquents that were previously expelled from normal schools. At this school, Japanese chivalry is taught through feudal and military fundamentals. Similar to an action film, the classes are overwhelmed by violence. Only those...
Guze no Tomogara) who are able to manipulate the Power of Existence ( Sonzai no Chikara), a fundamental power within any bio...
Existo(1999) - Artists have become revolutionaries and a singer/songwriter is an enemy of the state in the musical satire Existo. After Christian fundamentalist groups have taken over America, leftists and bohemians are driven underground as subversives. Existo (Bruce Arnston) is a musician whose songs have earned...
At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) ::: 6.9/10 -- R | 3h 9min | Drama, Romance | 6 December 1991 (USA) -- Martin and Hazel Quarrier are small-town fundamentalist missionaries sent to the jungles of South America to convert the Indians. Their remote mission was previously run by the Catholics, ... S Director: Hector Babenco Writers:
I Origins (2014) ::: 7.4/10 -- R | 1h 46min | Drama, Mystery, Romance | 19 September 2014 (South -- I Origins Poster -- A molecular biologist and his laboratory partner uncover evidence that may fundamentally change society as we know it. Director: Mike Cahill Writer:
Surface ::: TV-14 | 1h | Adventure, Drama, Mystery | TV Series (20052006) -- A marine biologist, an insurance salesman and a teen-aged boy find their lives fundamentally changed by the emergence of a new, and often dangerous, species of sea life, while government agents work to keep the affair under wraps. Creators:
The Fundamentals of Caring (2016) ::: 7.3/10 -- TV-MA | 1h 37min | Comedy, Drama | 24 June 2016 (USA) -- A man suffering a family loss enrolls in a class about care-giving that changes his perspective on life. Director: Rob Burnett Writers: Rob Burnett (screenplay), Jonathan Evison (novel)
The Handmaid's Tale ::: TV-MA | 1h | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller | TV Series (2017- ) Season 4 Premiere Wednesday, April 28 Episode Guide 47 episodes The Handmaid's Tale Poster -- Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship. Creator:
The Handmaid's Tale ::: TV-MA | 1h | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller | TV Series (2017 ) -- Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship. Creator: Bruce Miller
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) ::: 6.9/10 -- R | 2h 10min | Drama, Thriller | 17 May 2013 (India) -- A young Pakistani man is chasing corporate success on Wall Street. He finds himself embroiled in a conflict between his American Dream, a hostage crisis, and the enduring call of his family's homeland. Director: Mira Nair Writers:
The Yacoubian Building (2006) ::: 7.5/10 -- Omaret yakobean (original title) -- The Yacoubian Building Poster Meditations on corruption, fundamentalism, prostitution, homosexuality, and drugs in central Cairo. Director: Marwan Hamed Writers: Alaa' Al-Aswany (novel), Wahid Hamed (as Wahid Hamid) Stars:
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Fullmetal Alchemist -- -- Bones -- 51 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Magic Military Shounen -- Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Alchemist -- Edward Elric, a young, brilliant alchemist, has lost much in his twelve-year life: when he and his brother Alphonse try to resurrect their dead mother through the forbidden act of human transmutation, Edward loses his brother as well as two of his limbs. With his supreme alchemy skills, Edward binds Alphonse's soul to a large suit of armor. -- -- A year later, Edward, now promoted to the fullmetal alchemist of the state, embarks on a journey with his younger brother to obtain the Philosopher's Stone. The fabled mythical object is rumored to be capable of amplifying an alchemist's abilities by leaps and bounds, thus allowing them to override the fundamental law of alchemy: to gain something, an alchemist must sacrifice something of equal value. Edward hopes to draw into the military's resources to find the fabled stone and restore his and Alphonse's bodies to normal. However, the Elric brothers soon discover that there is more to the legendary stone than meets the eye, as they are led to the epicenter of a far darker battle than they could have ever imagined. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America, Funimation -- 1,197,219 8.15
Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Demons Fantasy Mystery Shoujo Supernatural -- Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- The Nocturnal Community Relations Division is a team of people who specialize in solving cases involving the ominous occult creatures of the night unseen by ordinary humans. Young and unsuspecting Arata Miyako has been assigned to the Shinjuku Ward Office of the division, where he meets his fellow members Theo Himezuka and Kyouichi Sakaki. -- -- On his first night, Arata finds himself on a mission where he discovers to his surprise that not only does every supernatural creature he once thought to be fictional actually exist, but also that he is the only human who can understand their non-human speech. Arata's surprises do not end there, as later that night, he meets a legendary creature called a Tengu that refers to him as the famous Heian-era exorcist, Abe no Seimei. Unfamiliar with the exorcist, Arata pays no mind and continues to work with his team, utilizing his unique ability to assist in the resolution of their cases. -- -- Mistaken by many occult creatures as Abe no Seimei and quickly becoming notorious for his special ability during his work, Arata becomes curious of his origins and invests himself more into solving cases regarding occult creatures he encounters once he learns of a certain connection between himself and the exorcist. However, Arata will quickly find that dealing with supernatural creatures is not as simple as he thought, as danger begins to play a fundamental role in his everyday findings and his ability starts to present an unexpected issue. -- -- 51,199 6.71
Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Demons Fantasy Mystery Shoujo Supernatural -- Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- The Nocturnal Community Relations Division is a team of people who specialize in solving cases involving the ominous occult creatures of the night unseen by ordinary humans. Young and unsuspecting Arata Miyako has been assigned to the Shinjuku Ward Office of the division, where he meets his fellow members Theo Himezuka and Kyouichi Sakaki. -- -- On his first night, Arata finds himself on a mission where he discovers to his surprise that not only does every supernatural creature he once thought to be fictional actually exist, but also that he is the only human who can understand their non-human speech. Arata's surprises do not end there, as later that night, he meets a legendary creature called a Tengu that refers to him as the famous Heian-era exorcist, Abe no Seimei. Unfamiliar with the exorcist, Arata pays no mind and continues to work with his team, utilizing his unique ability to assist in the resolution of their cases. -- -- Mistaken by many occult creatures as Abe no Seimei and quickly becoming notorious for his special ability during his work, Arata becomes curious of his origins and invests himself more into solving cases regarding occult creatures he encounters once he learns of a certain connection between himself and the exorcist. However, Arata will quickly find that dealing with supernatural creatures is not as simple as he thought, as danger begins to play a fundamental role in his everyday findings and his ability starts to present an unexpected issue. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 51,199 6.71
No Game No Life -- -- Madhouse -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Game Adventure Comedy Supernatural Ecchi Fantasy -- No Game No Life No Game No Life -- No Game No Life is a surreal comedy that follows Sora and Shiro, shut-in NEET siblings and the online gamer duo behind the legendary username "Blank." They view the real world as just another lousy game; however, a strange e-mail challenging them to a chess match changes everything—the brother and sister are plunged into an otherworldly realm where they meet Tet, the God of Games. -- -- The mysterious god welcomes Sora and Shiro to Disboard, a world where all forms of conflict—from petty squabbles to the fate of whole countries—are settled not through war, but by way of high-stake games. This system works thanks to a fundamental rule wherein each party must wager something they deem to be of equal value to the other party's wager. In this strange land where the very idea of humanity is reduced to child's play, the indifferent genius gamer duo of Sora and Shiro have finally found a real reason to keep playing games: to unite the sixteen races of Disboard, defeat Tet, and become the gods of this new, gaming-is-everything world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 1,835,953 8.17
Sakigake!! Otokojuku -- -- Toei Animation -- 34 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Martial Arts School Shounen -- Sakigake!! Otokojuku Sakigake!! Otokojuku -- Otokojuku: a private school for juvenile delinquents that were previously expelled from normal schools. At this school, Japanese chivalry is taught through feudal and military fundamentals. Similar to an action film, the classes are overwhelmed by violence. Only those who survive it become true men. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 10,374 7.38
Sword Art Online: Alicization -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Game Adventure Romance Fantasy -- Sword Art Online: Alicization Sword Art Online: Alicization -- The Soul Translator is a state-of-the-art full-dive interface which interacts with the user's Fluctlight—the technological equivalent of a human soul—and fundamentally differs from the orthodox method of sending signals to the brain. The private institute Rath aims to perfect their creation by enlisting the aid of Sword Art Online survivor Kazuto Kirigaya. He works there as a part-time employee to test the system's capabilities in the Underworld: the fantastical realm generated by the Soul Translator. As per the confidentiality contract, any memories created by the machine in the virtual world are wiped upon returning to the real world. Kazuto can only vaguely recall a single name, Alice, which provokes a sense of unease when mentioned in reality. -- -- When Kazuto escorts Asuna Yuuki home one evening, they chance upon a familiar foe. Kazuto is mortally wounded in the ensuing fight and loses consciousness. When he comes to, he discovers that he has made a full-dive into the Underworld with seemingly no way to escape. He sets off on a quest, seeking a way back to the physical world once again. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 699,385 7.56
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28 Fundamental Beliefs
Antifundamental representation
Association of Fundamental Baptist Churches in the Philippines
Bifundamental representation
Book:Fundamentals of quantum mechanics
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
Carper's fundamental ways of knowing
Catalogues of Fundamental Stars
Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
Christian fundamentalism
Christian fundamentalism and conspiracy theories
CM101MMXI Fundamentals
Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
Egyptian Fundamental Ordinance
Ehrenpreis's fundamental principle
tale fundamental group
Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches
First and second fundamental theorems of invariant theory
First fundamental form
Fundamental
Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony
Fundamental analysis
Fundamental Articles
Fundamental Articles of 1871
Fundamental Astronomy
Fundamental attribution error
Fundamental (Bonnie Raitt album)
Fundamental breach
Fundamental class
Fundamental constant
Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina
Fundamental diagram of traffic flow
Fundamental domain
Fundamental Epistle
Fundamental error
Fundamental frequency
Fundamental Fysiks Group
Fundamental group
Fundamental groupoid
Fundamental interaction
Fundamental interpersonal relations orientation
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism Project
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Fundamentalisti
FundamentalistModernist controversy
Fundamentalist Presbyterian Church in Brazil
Fundamentalists and gradualists
Fundamental justice
Fundamental law
Fundamental Law of Education
Fundamental Laws of England
Fundamental lemma (Langlands program)
Fundamental lemma of calculus of variations
Fundamentally based indexes
Fundamental matrix
Fundamental matrix (computer vision)
Fundamental Methodist Conference, Inc.
Fundamental modeling concepts
Fundamental normality test
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
Fundamental pair of periods
Fundamental parallelogram
Fundamental (Pet Shop Boys album)
Fundamental physical constant
Fundamental plane
Fundamental polygon
Fundamental resolution equation
Fundamental rights
Fundamental Rights Agency
Fundamental Rights and Duties in Nepal
Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India
Fundamental rights in India
Fundamental rights of the people of Bangladesh
Fundamental series
Fundamentals of Biochemistry
Fundamentals of Engineering Examination
Fundamentals of MarxismLeninism
Fundamentals of Physics
Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion
Fundamental Statute of the Kingdom of Albania (1928)
Fundamental structure
Fundamental theology
Fundamental theorem of algebra
Fundamental theorem of arithmetic
Fundamental theorem of asset pricing
Fundamental theorem of calculus
Fundamental theorem of curves
Fundamental theorem of Galois theory
Fundamental theorem of poker
Fundamental theorem of Riemannian geometry
Fundamental theorem on homomorphisms
Fundamental theorems of welfare economics
Fundamental theory
Fundamental thermodynamic relation
Fundamental Tour
Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism in Iran
Jewish fundamentalism
Khutabat: Fundamentals of Islam
List of former Mormon fundamentalists
List of Mormon fundamentalist leaders
List of theorems called fundamental
Lost boys (Mormon fundamentalism)
Manfred Max-Neef's Fundamental human needs
Market fundamentalism
Method of fundamental solutions
Missing fundamental
Mormon fundamentalism
MSU Faculty of Fundamental Medicine
National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS)
New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist
Opinion polling and analysis about Islamic fundamentalism
Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of canon law
Photonics and Nanostructures: Fundamentals and Applications
Portal:India/SC Summary/SA Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India
Portal:India/SC Summary/SA Fundamental Rights in India
Reading Is Fundamental
Reformed fundamentalism
Second fundamental form
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Hyderabad
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
The Fundamental Component
The Fundamental Elements of Southtown
The Fundamentals
The Fundamentals of Caring
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (film)
Timeline of fundamental physics discoveries
Time-variation of fundamental constants
Union of Forces for Democracy and DevelopmentFundamental
Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
World union for peace and fundamental human rights and the rights of peoples
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