TERMS STARTING WITH
TERMS ANYWHERE
(5) If there is gossip about others and harsh criticism not to join— for these things are helpful in no way and only lower the consciousness from its higher level.
adequate ::: (vak) having the qualities of the lowest level of style, which "has the power to make us . . . see the object or idea in a certain temperate lucidity of vision"; most often combined with a higher level, as in the effective-adequate style or the inevitable form of the adequate.
adj. 1. Having dropped or come down from a higher place, from an upright position, or from a higher level, degree, amount, quality, value, number. 2. Having sunk in reputation or honour; degraded. 3. Overthrown, destroyed or conquered, esp. of those who have died in battle. (Also, pp. of fall**.**)
ALLOY "language" A language by Thanasis Mitsolides "mitsolid@cs.nyu.edu" which combines {functional programming}, {object-oriented programming} and {logic programming} ideas, and is suitable for {massively parallel} systems. Evaluating modes support serial or parallel execution, {eager evaluation} or {lazy evaluation}, {nondeterminism} or multiple solutions etc. ALLOY is simple as it only requires 29 primitives in all (half of which are for {object oriented programming} support). It runs on {SPARC}. {(ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/local/alloy/)}. ["The Design and Implementation of ALLOY, a Parallel Higher Level Programming Language", Thanasis Mitsolides "mitsolid@cs2.nyu.edu", PhD Thesis NYU 1990]. (1991-06-11)
ALLOY ::: (language) A language by Thanasis Mitsolides which combines functional programming, object-oriented programming and logic programming ideas, and is suitable for massively parallel systems.Evaluating modes support serial or parallel execution, eager evaluation or lazy evaluation, nondeterminism or multiple solutions etc. ALLOY is simple as it only requires 29 primitives in all (half of which are for object oriented programming support).It runs on SPARC. .[The Design and Implementation of ALLOY, a Parallel Higher Level Programming Language, Thanasis Mitsolides (1991-06-11)
Apart from the remarkable learning that these earlier works display, two things are noteworthy about them. The first is that they are principally based on a single source language or Buddhist tradition. The second is that they are all at least a half-century old. Many things have changed in the field of Buddhist Studies over the past fifty years, some for the worse, some very much for the better. One looks back in awe at figures like Louis de la Vallée Poussin and his student Msgr. Étienne Lamotte, who were able to use sources in Sanskrit, PAli, Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan with a high level of skill. Today, few scholars have the luxury of time to develop such expertise. Yet this change is not necessarily a sign of the decline of the dharma predicted by the Buddha; from several perspectives, we are now in the golden age of Buddhist Studies. A century ago, scholarship on Buddhism focused on the classical texts of India and, to a much lesser extent, China. Tibetan and Chinese sources were valued largely for the access they provided to Indian texts lost in the original Sanskrit. The Buddhism of Korea was seen as an appendage to the Buddhism of China or as a largely unacknowledged source of the Buddhism of Japan. Beyond the works of "the PAli canon," relatively little was known of the practice of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. All of this has changed for the better over the past half century. There are now many more scholars of Buddhism, there is a much higher level of specialization, and there is a larger body of important scholarship on each of the many Buddhist cultures of Asia. In addition, the number of adherents of Buddhism in the West has grown significantly, with many developing an extensive knowledge of a particular Buddhist tradition, whether or not they hold the academic credentials of a professional Buddhologist. It has been our good fortune to be able to draw upon this expanding body of scholarship in preparing The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism.
ARM7 "processor" A {RISC} {microprocessor} architecture from {Advanced RISC Machines} Ltd. (ARM). Building upon the {ARM6} family, the goal of the ARM7 design was to offer higher levels of raw compute performance at even lower levels of power consumption. The ARM7 architecture is now (Dec 1994) the most powerful low voltage {RISC} processor available on the market. The ARM7 offers several architectural extensions which address specific market needs, encompassing fast multiply and innovative embedded {ICE} support. Software development tools are available. The ARM7 architecture is made up of a core CPU plus a range of system peripherals which can be added to a CPU core to give a complete system on a chip, e.g. 4K or 8K {cache}, {Memory Management Unit}, {Write Buffer}, {coprocessor} interface, {ICEbreaker} embedded {ICE} support and {JTAG} {boundary scan}. The {ARM710} {microprocessor} is built around the ARM7 core. {(http://systemv.com/armltd/arm7.html)}. (1995-01-05)
Ascending arc: In theosophical occultism, the ascent of the evolving monads (q.v.) from the physical plane or globe upwards through the higher levels of existence. (Also called luminous arc.)
BARBARISM, STAGE OF The first or lowest of man&
Basic Input/Output System "operating system" (BIOS, ROM BIOS) The part of the {system software} of the {IBM PC} and compatibles that provides the lowest level interface to {peripheral} devices and controls the first stage of the {bootstrap} process, including installing the {operating system}. The BIOS is stored in {ROM}, or equivalent, in every PC. Its main task is to load and execute the operating system which is usually stored on the computer's {hard disk}, but may be loaded from {CD-ROM} or {floppy disk} at install time. In order to provide acceptable performance (e.g. for screen display), some software vendors access the routines in the BIOS directly, rather than using the higher level operating system calls. Thus, the BIOS in the compatible computer must be 100% compatible with the IBM BIOS. As if that wasn't bad enough, many {application programs} bypass even the BIOS and address the screen hardware directly just as the BIOS does. Consequently, {register} level compatibility is required in the compatible's display electronics, which means that it must provide the same storage locations and identification as the original IBM hardware. (1999-06-09)
Basic Input/Output System ::: (operating system) (BIOS, ROM BIOS) The part of the system software of the IBM PC and compatibles that provides the lowest level interface to system which is usually stored on the computer's hard disk, but may be loaded from CD-ROM or floppy disk at install time.In order to provide acceptable performance (e.g. for screen display), some software vendors access the routines in the BIOS directly, rather than using the higher level operating system calls. Thus, the BIOS in the compatible computer must be 100% compatible with the IBM BIOS.As if that wasn't bad enough, many application programs bypass even the BIOS and address the screen hardware directly just as the BIOS does. Consequently, electronics, which means that it must provide the same storage locations and identification as the original IBM hardware. (1999-06-09)
bhūsvarga (bhuswarga) ::: a heavenly world (svarga) belonging to the higher levels associated with the terrestrial plane (bhū) or to the subtle bhū.
bit pattern "data" A sequence of {bits}, in a memory, a communications channel or some other device. The term is used to contrast this with some higher level interpretation of the bits such as an integer or an {image}. A {bit string} is similar but suggests an arbitrary, as opposed to predetermined, length. (1998-09-27)
bit pattern ::: (data) A sequence of bits, in a memory, a communications channel or some other device. The term is used to contrast this with some higher level interpretation of the bits such as an integer or an image. A bit string is similar but suggests an arbitrary, as opposed to predetermined, length. (1998-09-27)
bodhisattvabhumi. (T. byang chub sems dpa'i sa; C. pusa di; J. bosatsuji; K. posal chi 菩薩地). In Sanskrit, lit. "ground" or "stage" (BHuMI) of a BODHISATTVA, referring to the systematic stages along the path (MARGA) of a bodhisattva's maturation into a buddha. A normative list of ten bhumis, which becomes standard in many MAHAYANA accounts of the bodhisattva path, appears in the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA, a sutra that was later incorporated into the AVATAMSAKASuTRA compilation. These ten stages (DAsABHuMI) of the Dasabhumikasutra correspond to the forty-first to fiftieth stages among the fifty-two bodhisattva stages, the comprehensive outline of the entire bodhisattva path taught in such scriptures as the AvataMsakasutra, the PUSA YINGLUO BENYE JING, and the RENWANG JING. The first bhumi begins on the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), and the other nine bhumis occur on the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA). (For detailed explication of each stage, see DAsABHuMI s.v.) The PRAJNAPARAMITA SuTRAs, and the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA and ABHISAMAYALAMKARA in their exegesis of these stages, explain that bodhisattvas reach each higher level along the path after completing the preparations (parikarman) for it; they set forth the same ten levels as the Dasabhumikasutra with the same names. Arya VIMUKTISENA, in his exegesis of the AbhisamayAlaMkAra, says bodhisattvas on the tenth bhumi are like TATHAGATAs who have passed beyond all stages, and lists eight other stages corresponding roughly to the stages of the eight noble persons (ARYAPUDGALA), with the first through ninth bodhisattva bhumis described as a transcendent ninth level. In contrast to the normative ten bhumis described in the Dasabhumikasutra, MAITREYANATHA/ASAnGA in the BODHISATTVABHuMI instead outlines a system of seven stages (bhumi), which are then correlated with the thirteen abodes (VIHARA). (See the following entry on the treatise for further explication.) The seven-bhumi schema of the Bodhisattvabhumi and the ten-bhumi schema of the Dasabhumikasutra are independent systematizations.
bottom-up implementation "programming" The opposite of {top-down design}. It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing detail until you get to actual code. Hackers often find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive operations and then knitting them together. [{Jargon File}] (1996-05-10)
bottom-up implementation ::: (programming) The opposite of top-down design. It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of *build* things in the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive operations and then knitting them together.[Jargon File] (1996-05-10)
caturyuga (chaturyuga) ::: a series of four ages (satyayuga, treta, dvapara and kaliyuga), one hundredth of a pratikalpa, forming a cycle of apparent decline leading to a new cycle beginning on a higher level in a "cosmic circling movement" through which "God is perpetually leading man onwards to loftier & more embracing manifestations of our human perfectibility".
Centralised - A management structure in which most decisions are taken at the centre, or at higher levels of management.
computer vision ::: A branch of artificial intelligence and image processing concerned with computer processing of images from the real world. Computer vision typically requires a remove noise, increase contrast) and higher level pattern recognition and image understanding to recognise features present in the image.Usenet newsgroup: comp.ai.vision. (1994-11-30)
CULTURE, STAGE OF The third of man&
Data Link Provider Interface "networking" (DLPI) The interface that a {network driver} presents to the (higher level) {logical link layer} for driving the network at the {datagram} level in a {Unix} {STREAMS} environment and possibly elsewhere. DLPI corresponds to {ISO 8802}/2 ({LLC}) which covers both {connection-oriented} and {connectionless} {protocols}. [Is this correct? Better explanation?] (1996-01-29)
Data Link Provider Interface ::: (networking) (DLPI) The interface that a network driver presents to the (higher level) logical link layer for driving the network at the datagram level in a Unix STREAMS environment and possibly elsewhere.DLPI corresponds to ISO 8802/2 (LLC) which covers both connection-oriented and connectionless protocols.[Is this correct? Better explanation?] (1996-01-29)
design recovery "process" A subtask of {reverse engineering} in which domain knowledge, external information, and deduction of fuzzy reasoning are added to the observations of the subject system to identify meaningful higher level abstractions beyond those obtained directly by examining the system itself. In other words, design recovery aims to work out what a system or component was designed to do rather than just examining its subcomponents and their interrelationships. (1996-12-08)
design recovery ::: (process) A subtask of reverse engineering in which domain knowledge, external information, and deduction of fuzzy reasoning are added to the observations of the subject system to identify meaningful higher level abstractions beyond those obtained directly by examining the system itself.In other words, design recovery aims to work out what a system or component was designed to do rather than just examining its subcomponents and their interrelationships. (1996-12-08)
Deva ::: An being in Buddhist tradition that entails a higher level of understanding and power than human consciousness. Associated with minor gods in other systems and can be considered an evolved form of humanity's current state.
DOUBLE MOVEMENT. ::: Our yoga is a double movement of ascent and descent ; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the body.
Emacs ::: (text, tool) /ee'maks/ (Editing MACroS, or Extensible MACro System, GNU Emacs) A popular screen editor for Unix and most other operating systems.Emacs is distributed by the Free Software Foundation and was Richard Stallman's first step in the GNU project. Emacs is extensible - it is easy to add new display. Emacs is writen in C and the higher levels are programmed in Emacs Lisp.Emacs has an entire Lisp system inside it. It was originally written in TECO under ITS at the MIT AI lab. AI Memo 554 described it as an advanced, self-documenting, customisable, extensible real-time display editor.It includes facilities to view directories, run compilation subprocesses and send and receive electronic mail and Usenet news (GNUS). W3 is a web browser, reducing start-up time and memory consumption. Many hackers (including Denis Howe) spend more than 80% of their tube time inside Emacs.GNU Emacs is available for Unix, VMS, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, MS Windows, MS-DOS, and other systems. Emacs has been re-implemented more than 30 times. Other variants include GOSMACS, CCA Emacs, UniPress Emacs, Montgomery Emacs, and XEmacs. Jove, epsilon, and MicroEmacs are limited look-alikes.Some Emacs versions running under window managers iconify as an overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the editor does not (yet) Storage, and Emacs Makes A Computer Slow (see recursive acronym). See also vi.Latest version: 20.6, as of 2000-05-11. 21.1 (RSN) adds a new redisplay engine with support for proportional text, images, toolbars, tool tips, toolkit scroll bars, and a mouse-sensitive mode line.FTP from your nearest GNU archive site.E-mail: (bug reports only) .Usenet newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug, alt.religion.emacs, gnu.emacs.sources, gnu.emacs.announce.[Jargon File] (1997-02-04)
Emacs "text, tool" /ee'maks/ (Editing MACroS, or Extensible MACro System, GNU Emacs) A popular {screen editor} for {Unix} and most other {operating systems}. Emacs is distributed by the {Free Software Foundation} and was {Richard Stallman}'s first step in the {GNU} project. Emacs is extensible - it is easy to add new functions; customisable - you can rebind keys, and modify the behaviour of existing functions; self-documenting - there is extensive on-line, context-sensitive help; and has a real-time "what you see is what you get" display. Emacs is writen in {C} and the higher levels are programmed in {Emacs Lisp}. Emacs has an entire {Lisp} system inside it. It was originally written in {TECO} under {ITS} at the {MIT} {AI lab}. AI Memo 554 described it as "an advanced, self-documenting, customisable, extensible real-time display editor". It includes facilities to view directories, run compilation subprocesses and send and receive {electronic mail} and {Usenet} {news} ({GNUS}). {W3} is a {web browser}, the ange-ftp package provides transparent access to files on remote {FTP} {servers}. {Calc} is a calculator and {symbolic mathematics} package. There are "modes" provided to assist in editing most well-known programming languages. Most of these extra functions are configured to load automatically on first use, reducing start-up time and memory consumption. Many hackers (including {Denis Howe}) spend more than 80% of their {tube time} inside Emacs. GNU Emacs is available for {Unix}, {VMS}, {GNU}/{Linux}, {FreeBSD}, {NetBSD}, {OpenBSD}, {MS Windows}, {MS-DOS}, and other systems. Emacs has been re-implemented more than 30 times. Other variants include {GOSMACS}, CCA Emacs, UniPress Emacs, Montgomery Emacs, and {XEmacs}. {Jove}, {epsilon}, and {MicroEmacs} are limited look-alikes. Some Emacs versions running under {window managers} iconify as an overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some hackers find Emacs too {heavyweight} and {baroque} for their taste, and expand the name as "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift" to spoof its heavy reliance on keystrokes decorated with {bucky bits}. Other spoof expansions include "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping", "Eventually "malloc()'s All Computer Storage", and "Emacs Makes A Computer Slow" (see {recursive acronym}). See also {vi}. Version 21.1 added a redisplay engine with support for {proportional text}, images, {toolbars}, {tool tips}, toolkit scroll bars and a mouse-sensitive mode line. {FTP} from your nearest {GNU archive site}. E-mail: (bug reports only) "bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org". {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:gnu.emacs.help}, {news:gnu.emacs.bug}, {news:alt.religion.emacs}, {news:gnu.emacs.sources}, {news:gnu.emacs.announce}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-02-04)
EPSILON ::: (language) A macro language with high level features including strings and lists, developed by A.P. Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1967. EPSILON was used to implement ALGOL 68 on the M-220.[Application of the Machine-Oriented Language Epsilon to Software Development, I.V. Pottosin et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp. 417-434].[Jargon File] (1995-05-10)
EPSILON "language" A {macro} language with high level features including strings and lists, developed by A.P. Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1967. EPSILON was used to implement {ALGOL 68} on the {M-220}. ["Application of the Machine-Oriented Language Epsilon to Software Development", I.V. Pottosin et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp. 417-434]. [{Jargon File}] (1995-05-10)
Financial gearing - Reflects the borrowing levels that the firm has undertaken. The operating income of the firm will see increased volatility with higher levels of financial gearing i.e. borrowing.
FLUB "language" The {abstract machine} for {bootstrapping} {STAGE2}. [Mentioned in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, p. 271]. (1995-03-13)
FLUB ::: (language) The abstract machine for bootstrapping STAGE2.[Mentioned in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, p. 271]. (1995-03-13)
gati. (T. 'gro ba; C. qu; J. shu; K. ch'wi 趣). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "destiny," "destination," or "bourne," one of the five or six places in SAMSĀRA where rebirth occurs. In ascending order, these bournes are occupied by hell denizens (NĀRAKA), hungry ghosts (PRETA), animals (TIRYAK), humans (MANUsYA), and divinities (DEVA); sometimes, demigods (ASURA) are added between humans and divinities as a sixth bourne. These destinies are all located within the three realms of existence (TRILOKA[DHĀTU]), which comprises the entirety of our universe. At the bottom of the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU) are located the denizens of the eight hot and cold hells (nāraka), of which the lowest is the interminable hell (see AVĪCI). These are said to be located beneath the continent of JAMBUDVĪPA. This most ill-fated of existences is followed by hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods, and the six sensuous-realm divinities, who live on MOUNT SUMERU or in the heavens directly above it. Higher levels of the divinities occupy the upper two realms of existence. The divinities of the BRAHMALOKA, whose minds are perpetually absorbed in one of the four meditative absorptions (DHYĀNA), occupy seventeen levels in the realm of subtle materiality (RuPADHĀTU). Divinities who are so ethereal that they do not require even a subtle material foundation occupy four heavens in the immaterial realm (ĀRuPYADHĀTU). The divinities in the immaterial realm are perpetually absorbed in formless trance states, and rebirth there is the result of mastery of one or all of the immaterial dhyānas (ĀRuPYĀVACARADHYĀNA). The bottom three destinies, of hell denizens, hungry ghosts, and animals, are referred to as the three evil bournes (DURGATI); these are destinies where suffering predominates because of the past performance of primarily unvirtuous actions. In the various levels of the divinities, happiness predominates because of the past performance of primarily virtuous deeds. By contrast, the human destiny is thought to be ideally suited for religious training because it is the only bourne where both suffering and happiness can be readily experienced in the proper balance (not intoxicated by pleasure or racked by pain), allowing one to recognize more easily the true character of life as impermanent (ANITYA), suffering (DUḤKHA), and nonself (ANĀTMAN). Some schools posit a transitional "intermediate state" (ANTARĀBHAVA) of being between past and future lives within these destinies. See also DAsADHĀTU.
Genken Programming Language ::: (language) (GPL) A variant of PL360 by K. Asai of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute.[Experience With GPL, K. Asai, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp. 371-376]. (1995-04-13)
Genken Programming Language "language" (GPL) A variant of {PL360} by K. Asai of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. ["Experience With GPL", K. Asai, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp. 371-376]. (1995-04-13)
GSL ::: Grenoble System Language. M. Berthaud, IBM, Grenoble. GSL Language Reference Manual, M. Berthaud et al, March 1973. A MOL-Based Software Construction System, M. Berthaud et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp.151-157.
GSL Grenoble System Language. M. Berthaud, IBM, Grenoble. "GSL Language Reference Manual", M. Berthaud et al, March 1973. "A MOL-Based Software Construction System", M. Berthaud et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp.151-157.
Hierarchy of Needs ::: Maslow’s Theory of Motivation which states that we must achieve lower level needs, such as food, shelter, and safety before we can achieve higher level needs, such as belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
In each case, the name of the realm indicates the object of meditation of the beings reborn there. Hence, in the first, for example, the beings perceive only infinite space. Rebirth in these different spheres is based on mastery of the corresponding four immaterial meditative absorptions (ĀRuPYĀVACARADHYĀNA; ārupyasamāpatti) in the previous life. While the devas of the sensuous realm and the realm of subtle materiality come to have larger and ever more splendid bodies at the more advanced levels of their heavens, the devas of the immaterial realm do not have even the subtlest foundation in materiality; their existence is so refined that it is not even possible to posit exactly where they dwell spatially. In some schools, such as the Sarvāstivāda, the immaterial realm does not even exist as a discrete place: rather, when a being who has mastered the immaterial absorptions dies, he is reborn at the very same location where he passed away, except now he is "immaterial" or "formless" and thus invisible to coarser beings. According to the Theravāda, even a mind-made body (MANOMAYAKĀYA) is excluded from this realm, for the devas here possess only the mind base (MANĀYATANA), mental objects (P. dhammāyatana), the elements of mental consciousness (P. manoviNNānadhātu), and the element of mental objects (P. dhammadhātu), needing only three nutriments (ĀHĀRA) to survive-contact (P. phassa), mental cognition (P. manosaNcetana), and consciousness (P. viNNāna). The Buddha claims to have lived among the devas of the immaterial realm in certain of his previous lives, but without offering any detailed description of those existences. ¶ In all realms, devas are born apparitionally. In the sensuous realm, devas are born in their mother's lap, appearing as if they are already five to ten years old at birth; by contrast, devas of the subtle-materiality and immaterial realms appear not to need the aid of parents; those in the subtle-materiality realm appear fully grown, while those in the immaterial realm do not appear at all, because they have no form. It is also said that, when devas are reborn, they are aware of their prior existence and of the specific KARMAN that led to their rebirth in the heavenly realms. The different deva realms are also distinguished by differences in nutriment, sexuality, requisites, and life span. The devas of the lower heavens of the sensuous realm consume ordinary food; those in the upper spheres of the sensuous realm and the lower levels of the realm of subtle materiality feed only on sensory contact; the devas of the upper levels of the realm of subtle materiality feed only on contemplation; those in the immaterial realm feed on cognition alone. Sexual differentiation remains only in the sensuous realm: in the heaven of the four heavenly kings and the heaven of the thirty-three, the devas engage in physical copulation, the devas of the yāma heaven engage in sexual union by embracing one another, the devas of the tusita heaven by holding hands, those of the nirmānarati heaven by smiling at one another, and those of the paranirmitavasavartin heaven by exchanging a single glance. Clothes are said to be used in all deva worlds except in the immaterial realm. The life spans of devas in the sensuous realm range from five hundred years for the gods of the heaven of the four heavenly kings to one thousand years for the trāyastriMsa gods, two thousand years for the yāma gods, four thousand years for the tusita gods, eight thousand years for the nirmānarati gods, and sixteen thousand years for the paranirmitavasavartin gods. However, there is a range of opinion of what constitutes a year in these heavens. For example, it is said that in the tusita heaven, four hundred human years equal one day in the life of a god of that heaven. The life spans of devas in the realm of subtle materiality are measured in eons (KALPA). The life spans of devas in the immaterial realm may appear as essentially infinite, but even those divinities, like all devas, are subject to impermanence (ANITYA) and will eventually die and be subject to further rebirths once the salutary meditative deed that caused them to be reborn there has been exhausted. The sutras say that for a deva of the sensuous realm, there are five portents of his impending death: the garlands of flowers he wears begin to fade, his clothes become soiled and his palace dusty, he begins to perspire, his body becomes opaque and loses its luster, and his throne becomes uncomfortable. At that point, the deva experiences a vision of his next place of rebirth. This vision is said to be one of the most horrible sufferings in saMsāra, because of its marked contrast to the magnificence of his current life. There are also said to be four direct reasons why devas die: exhaustion of their life spans, their previous merit, their food, and the arising of anger. ¶ Rebirth as a deva is presumed to be the reward of virtuous karman performed in previous lives and is thus considered a salutary, if provisional, religious goal. In the "graduated discourse" (P. ANUPUBBIKATHĀ; S. ANUPuRVIKATHĀ) taught by the Buddha, for example, the Buddha uses the prospect of heavenly rebirth (svargakathā), and the pleasures accruing thereto, as a means of attracting laypersons to the religious life. Despite the many appealing attributes of these heavenly beings, such as their physical beauty, comfortable lives, and long life span, even heavenly existence is ultimately unsatisfactory because it does not offer a definitive escape from the continued cycle of birth and death (saMsāra). Since devas are merely enjoying the rewards of their previous good deeds rather than performing new wholesome karman, they are considered to be stagnating spiritually. This spiritual passivity explains why they must be reborn in lower levels of existence, and especially as human beings, in order to further their cultivation. For these reasons, Buddhist soteriological literature sometimes condemns religious practice performed solely for the goal of achieving rebirth as a deva. It is only certain higher level of devas, such as the devas belonging to the five pure abodes (suddhāvāsa), that are not subject to further rebirth, because they have already eliminated all the fetters (saMyojana) associated with that realm and are destined to achieve arhatship. Nevertheless, over the history of Buddhism, rebirth in heaven as a deva has been a more common goal for religious practice, especially among the laity, than the achievement of nirvāna. ¶ The sutras include frequent reference to "gods and men" (S. devamanusya; C. tianren) as the objects of the Buddha's teachings. Despite the fact that this is how most Buddhist traditions have chosen to translate the Sanskrit compound, "gods" here is probably meant to refer to the terrestrial divinities of "princes" or "kings," rather than heavenly beings; thus, the compound should be more properly (if, perhaps, pedantically) rendered "princes and peoples." Similarly, as the "divinities" of this world, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats are also sometimes referred to as devas. See also DEVALOKA; DEVATĀ.
Intel 8086 "processor" A sixteen bit {microprocessor} chip used in early {IBM PCs}. The {Intel 8088} was a version with an eight-bit external data bus. The Intel 8086 was based on the design of the {Intel 8080} and {Intel 8085} (it was {source compatible} with the 8080) with a similar {register set}, but was expanded to 16 bits. The Bus Interface Unit fed the instruction stream to the Execution Unit through a 6 byte {prefetch} queue, so fetch and execution were concurrent - a primitive form of {pipelining} (8086 instructions varied from 1 to 4 bytes). It featured four 16-bit general {registers}, which could also be accessed as eight 8-bit registers, and four 16-bit {index registers} (including the {stack pointer}). The data registers were often used implicitly by instructions, complicating {register allocation} for temporary values. It featured 64K 8-bit I/O (or 32K 16 bit) ports and fixed {vectored interrupts}. There were also four {segment registers} that could be set from index registers. The segment registers allowed the CPU to access 1 meg of memory in an odd way. Rather than just supplying missing bytes, as most segmented processors, the 8086 actually shifted the segment registers left 4 bits and added it to the address. As a result, segments overlapped, and it was possible to have two pointers with the same value point to two different memory locations, or two pointers with different values pointing to the same location. Most people consider this a {brain damaged} design. Although this was largely acceptable for {assembly language}, where control of the segments was complete (it could even be useful then), in higher level languages it caused constant confusion (e.g. near/far pointers). Even worse, this made expanding the address space to more than 1 meg difficult. A later version, the {Intel 80386}, expanded the design to 32 bits, and "fixed" the segmentation, but required extra modes (suppressing the new features) for compatibility, and retains the awkward architecture. In fact, with the right assembler, code written for the 8008 can still be run on the most recent {Intel 486}. The {Intel 80386} added new {op codes} in a kludgy fashion similar to the {Zilog Z80} and {Zilog Z280}. The {Intel 486} added full {pipelines}, and {clock doubling} (like the {Zilog Z280}). So why did {IBM} chose the 8086 series when most of the alternatives were so much better? Apparently IBM's own engineers wanted to use the {Motorola 68000}, and it was used later in the forgotten {IBM Instruments} 9000 Laboratory Computer, but IBM already had rights to manufacture the 8086, in exchange for giving Intel the rights to its {bubble memory} designs. Apparently IBM was using 8086s in the IBM {Displaywriter} {word processor}. Other factors were the 8-bit {Intel 8088} version, which could use existing {Intel 8085}-type components, and allowed the computer to be based on a modified 8085 design. 68000 components were not widely available, though it could use {Motorola 6800} components to an extent. {Intel} {bubble memory} was on the market for a while, but faded away as better and cheaper memory technologies arrived. (1994-12-23)
Intel 8086 ::: (processor) A sixteen bit microprocessor chip used in early IBM PCs. The Intel 8088 was a version with an eight-bit external data bus.The Intel 8086 was based on the design of the Intel 8080 and Intel 8085 (it was source compatible with the 8080) with a similar register set, but was expanded Unit through a 6 byte prefetch queue, so fetch and execution were concurrent - a primitive form of pipelining (8086 instructions varied from 1 to 4 bytes).It featured four 16-bit general registers, which could also be accessed as eight 8-bit registers, and four 16-bit index registers (including the stack pointer). bit) ports and fixed vectored interrupts. There were also four segment registers that could be set from index registers.The segment registers allowed the CPU to access 1 meg of memory in an odd way. Rather than just supplying missing bytes, as most segmented processors, the 8086 different values pointing to the same location. Most people consider this a brain damaged design.Although this was largely acceptable for assembly language, where control of the segments was complete (it could even be useful then), in higher level languages retains the awkward architecture. In fact, with the right assembler, code written for the 8008 can still be run on the most recent Intel 486.The Intel 80386 added new op codes in a kludgy fashion similar to the Zilog Z80 and Zilog Z280. The Intel 486 added full pipelines, and clock doubling (like the Zilog Z280).So why did IBM chose the 8086 series when most of the alternatives were so much better? Apparently IBM's own engineers wanted to use the Motorola 68000, and it rights to its bubble memory designs. Apparently IBM was using 8086s in the IBM Displaywriter word processor.Other factors were the 8-bit Intel 8088 version, which could use existing Intel 8085-type components, and allowed the computer to be based on a modified 8085 design. 68000 components were not widely available, though it could use Motorola 6800 components to an extent.Intel bubble memory was on the market for a while, but faded away as better and cheaper memory technologies arrived. (1994-12-23)
Intermediate Programming Language "language" A very early attempt by Arthur W. Burks to express machine language at a higher level of abstraction. Like {Plankalkul}, it used a right-handed style of {assignment}, in which the location appears on the right. (1995-05-09)
Intermediate Programming Language ::: (language) A very early attempt by Arthur W. Burks to express machine language at a higher level of abstraction. Like Plankalk�l, it used a right-handed style of assignment, in which the location appears on the right. (1995-05-09)
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
“Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings’’. When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” The Life Divine
Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into andmodified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and th
refore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of stable lightnings.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 983
Inverse Address Resolution Protocol ::: (networking, protocol) (InARP) Additions to ARP typically used for Frame Relay. [Any other examples of its use?]Frame Relay stations route frames of a higher level protocol between LANs, across a Permanent Virtual Circuit. These stations are identified by their Data Link Control Identifier (DLCI), equivalent to an Ethernet address in a LAN itself.InARP allows a station to determine a protocol address (e.g. IP address) from a DLCI. This is useful if a new virtual circuit becomes available. Signalling messages announce its DLCI, but without the corresponding protocol address it is unusable: no frames can be routed to it.Reverse ARP (RARP) performs a similar task on an Ethernet LAN, however RARP answers the question What is my IP Address? whereas InARP answers the question What is your protocol address?.See RFC 2390.(2000-01-15)Incremental Prototyping Technology for Embedded Realtime
Inverse Address Resolution Protocol "networking, protocol" (InARP) Additions to {ARP} typically used for {Frame Relay}. [Any other examples of its use?] {Frame Relay} stations {route} {frames} of a higher level protocol between {LANs}, across a {Permanent Virtual Circuit}. These stations are identified by their {Data Link Control Identifier} (DLCI), equivalent to an {Ethernet address} in a {LAN} itself. InARP allows a station to determine a protocol address (e.g. {IP address}) from a DLCI. This is useful if a new {virtual circuit} becomes available. Signalling messages announce its DLCI, but without the corresponding protocol address it is unusable: no {frames} can be {routed} to it. {Reverse ARP} (RARP) performs a similar task on an {Ethernet} {LAN}, however RARP answers the question "What is my IP Address?" whereas InARP answers the question "What is your protocol address?". See {RFC 2390}. (2000-01-15)
Inverse Address Resolution Protocol ::: (networking, protocol) (InARP) Additions to ARP typically used for Frame Relay. [Any other examples of its use?]Frame Relay stations route frames of a higher level protocol between LANs, across a Permanent Virtual Circuit. These stations are identified by their Data Link Control Identifier (DLCI), equivalent to an Ethernet address in a LAN itself.InARP allows a station to determine a protocol address (e.g. IP address) from a DLCI. This is useful if a new virtual circuit becomes available. Signalling messages announce its DLCI, but without the corresponding protocol address it is unusable: no frames can be routed to it.Reverse ARP (RARP) performs a similar task on an Ethernet LAN, however RARP answers the question What is my IP Address? whereas InARP answers the question What is your protocol address?.See RFC 2390.(2000-01-15)
L0 "language" A low-level language developed at the {Technical University of Munich}. L0 was typed and had the usual {flow control}, but only 3-address expressions. Higher level languages, L1 and L2 were planned. ["Brief Survey of L0", H. Scheidig, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel ed, N-H 1974, pp. 239-247]. (2003-06-12)
L0 ::: (language) A low-level language developed at the Technical University of Munich. L0 was typed and had the usual flow control, but only 3-address expressions. Higher level languages, L1 and L2 were planned.[Brief Survey of L0, H. Scheidig, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel ed, N-H 1974, pp. 239-247].(2003-06-12)
Level: A grade or type of existence or being which entails a special type of relatedness or of organization, with distinctive laws. The term has been used primarily in connection with theories of emergent evolution where certain so-called higher levels, e.g. life, or mind, are supposed to have emerged from the lower levels, e.g. matter, and are considered to exhibit features of novelty not predictable from the lower levels. -- A.C.B.
Level: A grade or type of existence or being which entails a special type of relatedness or of organization, with distinctive laws. The term has been used primarily in connection with theories of emergent evolution where certain so-called higher levels, e.g. life, or mind, are supposed to have emerged from the lower levels, e.g. matter, and are considered to exhibit features of novelty not predictable from the lower levels.
LIS ::: Langage Implementation Systeme.A predecessor of Ada developed by Ichbiah in 1973. It was influenced by Pascal's data structures and Sue's control structures. A type declaration can have a low-level implementation specification.[The System Implementation Language LIS, J.D. Ichbiah et al, CII Honeywell-Bull, TR 4549 E/EN, Louveciennes France (Dec 1974)].[The Two-Level Approach to Data Independent Programming in LIS, J.D. Ichbiah et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel ed, N-H 1974, pp.161-169]. (1994-12-01)
LIS Langage Implementation Systeme. A predecessor of {Ada} developed by Ichbiah in 1973. It was influenced by {Pascal}'s data structures and {Sue}'s control structures. A type declaration can have a low-level implementation specification. ["The System Implementation Language LIS", J.D. Ichbiah et al, CII Honeywell-Bull, TR 4549 E/EN, Louveciennes France (Dec 1974)]. ["The Two-Level Approach to Data Independent Programming in LIS", J.D. Ichbiah et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel ed, N-H 1974, pp.161-169]. (1994-12-01)
LOWL "language" The {abstract machine} for {bootstrapping} {ML/1}, developed by P.J. Brown of the {University of Kent at Canterbury}. ["Macro Processors and Techniques for Portable Software", P.J. Brown, published by Wiley, ISBN 0.471.11005.1]. [Mentioned in "Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages", W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, p. 271]. [What does LOWL stand for?] (1997-11-04)
LOWL ::: (language) The abstract machine for bootstrapping ML/1, developed by P.J. Brown of the University of Kent at Canterbury.[Macro Processors and Techniques for Portable Software, P.J. Brown, published by Wiley, ISBN 0.471.11005.1].[Mentioned in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, p. 271].[What does LOWL stand for?] (1997-11-04)
machine cycle "processor" The four steps which the {CPU} carries out for each {machine language} instruction: fetch, decode, execute, and store. These steps are performed by the {control unit}, and may be fixed in the logic of the CPU or may be programmed as {microcode} which is itself usually fixed (in {ROM}) but may be (partially) modifiable (stored in {RAM}). The fetch cycle places the current {program counter} contents (the address of the next instruction to execute) on the {address bus} and reads in the word at that location into the {instruction register} (IR). In {RISC} CPUs instructions are usually a single word but in other architectures an instruction may be several words long, necessitating several fetches. The decode cycle uses the contents of the IR to determine which {gates} should be opened between the CPU's various {functional units} and busses and what operation the {ALU}(s) should perform (e.g. add, {bitwise and}). Each gate allows data to flow from one unit to another (e.g. from {register} 0 to ALU input 1) or enables data from one output onto a certain {bus}. In the simplest case ("{horizontal encoding}") each bit of the instruction register controls a single gate or several bits may control the ALU operation. This is rarely used because it requires long instruction words (such an architecture is sometimes called a {very long instruction word} architecture). Commonly, groups of bits from the IR are fed through {decoders} to control higher level aspects of the CPU's operation, e.g. source and destination registers, {addressing mode} and {ALU} operation. This is known as {vertical encoding}. One way {RISC} processors gain their advantage in speed is by having simple instruction decoding which can be performed quickly. The execute cycle occurs when the decoding logic has settled and entails the passing of values between the various function units and busses and the operation of the ALU. A simple instruction will require only a single execute cycle whereas a complex instruction (e.g. subroutine call or one using memory {indirect addressing}) may require three or four. Instructions in a RISC typically (but not invariably) take only a single cycle. The store cycle is when the result of the instruction is written to its destination, either a {register} or a memory location. This is really part of the execute cycle because some instructions may write to multiple destinations as part of their execution. (1995-04-13)
MEDITATION By meditating daily on desirable qualities man can acquire these in any percentage whatever. He will free himself of undesirable qualities by not attending to them and by meditating on their opposites. He will attain higher levels by meditating on the qualities of these higher levels. Without meditation, development is so slow that even after a hundred incarnations there is scarcely any noticeable progress. K 7.23.2
Meinong, Alexius: (1853-1921) Was originally a disciple of Brentano, who however emphatically rejected many of Meinong's later contentions. He claimed to have discovered a new a priori science, the "theory of objects" (to be distinguished from metaphysics which is an empirical science concerning reality, but was never worked out by Meinong). Anything "intended" by thought is an "object". Objects may either "exist" (such as physical objects) or "subsist" (such as facts which Meinong unfortunately termed "objectives", or mathematical entities), they may either be possible or impossible and they may belong either to a lower or to a higher level (such as "relations" and "complexions", "founded" on their simple terms or elements). In the "theory of objects," the existence of objects is abstracted from (or as Husserl later said it may be "bracketed") and their essence alone has to be considered. Objects are apprehended either by self-evident judgments or by "assumptions", that is, by "imaginary judgments". In the field of emotions there is an analogous division since there are also "imaginary" emotions (such as those of the spectator in a tragedy). Much of Meinong's work was of a psychological rather than of a metaphysical or epistemological character. -- H.G.
PEARL ::: 1. (language, mathematics) A language for constructive mathematics developed by Constable at Cornell University in the 1980s.2. (language, real-time) Process and Experiment Automation Real-Time Language.3. (language, education) One of five pedagogical languages based on Markov algorithms, used in Nonpareil, a Machine Level Machine Independent Language for the Study of Semantics, B. Higman, ULICS Intl Report No ICSI 170, U London (1968). Compare Brilliant, Diamond, Nonpareil, Ruby.4. (language) A multilevel language developed by Brian Randell ca 1970 and mentioned in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974.5. (language, tool, history) An obsolete term for Larry Wall's PERL programming language, which never fell into common usage other than in typographical errors. The missing 'a' remains as an atrophied remnant in the expansion Practical Extraction and Report Language.[Programming Perl, Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 0-93715-64-1].(2000-08-16)
PEARL 1. "language, mathematics" A language for {constructive mathematics} developed by Constable at {Cornell University} in the 1980s. 2. "language, real-time" {Process and Experiment Automation Real-Time Language}. 3. "language, education" One of five pedagogical languages based on {Markov} {algorithms}, used in "Nonpareil, a Machine Level Machine Independent Language for the Study of Semantics", B. Higman, ULICS Intl Report No ICSI 170, U London (1968). Compare {Brilliant}, {Diamond}, {Nonpareil}, {Ruby}. 4. "language" A multilevel language developed by Brian Randell ca 1970 and mentioned in "Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages", W. van der Poel, N-H 1974. 5. "language, tool, history" An obsolete term for {Larry Wall}'s {PERL} programming language, which never fell into common usage other than in typographical errors. The missing 'a' remains as an atrophied remnant in the expansion "Practical Extraction and Report Language". ["Programming Perl", Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 0-93715-64-1]. (2000-08-16)
PI ::: An interface between Prolog application programs and the X Window System that aims to be independent from the Prolog engine, provided that it has a Quintus Prolog and is divided in two libraries: Edipo - the lower level interface to the Xlib functions; and Ytoolkit - the higher level user interface toolkit. .E-mail: Ze' Paulo Leal . (1993-03-02)
ping ::: (networking, tool) (ping, originally contrived to match submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse) A program written in 1983 by Mike Muuss host is alive. Ping will often respond even when higher level, TCP-based services cannot.Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in a road accident on 2000-11-20.The term is also used as a verb: Ping host X to see if it is up.The Unix command ping can be used to do this and to measure round-trip delays.The funniest use of ping was described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time.Ping did not stand for Packet InterNet Groper, Dave Mills offered this backronym expansion some time later.See also ACK, ENQ, traceroute, spray. .Unix manual page: ping(8).(2005-06-22)
ping "networking, tool" (ping, originally contrived to match submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse) A program written in 1983 by Mike Muuss (who also wrote {TTCP}) used to test reachability of destinations by sending them one, or repeated, {ICMP} echo requests and waiting for replies. Since ping works at the {IP} level its server-side is often implemented entirely within the {operating system} {kernel} and is thus the lowest level test of whether a remote host is alive. Ping will often respond even when higher level, {TCP}-based services cannot. Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in a road accident on 2000-11-20. The term is also used as a verb: "Ping host X to see if it is up." The {Unix} command "ping" can be used to do this and to measure round-trip delays. The funniest use of "ping" was described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the {Usenet} group comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a {TCP/IP} {Ethernet} hooked up to a {NeXT} machine. Using the sound recording feature on the NeXT, he wrote a {script} that repeatedly invoked ping, listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned {packet}. This caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time. Ping did not stand for "Packet InterNet Groper", Dave Mills offered this {backronym} expansion some time later. See also {ACK}, {ENQ}, {traceroute}, {spray}. {The Story of the Ping Program (http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html)}. {Unix manual page}: ping(8). (2005-06-22)
PI "programming" An {interface} between {Prolog} {application programs} and the {X Window System} that aims to be independent from the {Prolog} {engine}, provided that it has a {Quintus} {foreign function} interface (e.g. {SICStus} and {YAP}). PI is mostly written in {Prolog} and is divided in two libraries: Edipo - the lower level interface to the {Xlib} functions; and Ytoolkit - the higher level user interface toolkit. {(ftp://ftp.ncc.up.pt/pub/prolog/ytoolkit.tar.Z)}. E-mail: Ze' Paulo Leal "zp@ncc.up.pt". (1993-03-02)
POFAC ::: A subset of Fortran.[Mentioned in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, p. 273].[POFAC Description, R. Haentjens, Report 19, Cenre d'Information, Ecole Royale Militaire, Brussels, 1973]. (1994-10-20)
POFAC A subset of {Fortran}. [Mentioned in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, p. 273]. ["POFAC Description", R. Haentjens, Report 19, Cenre d'Information, Ecole Royale Militaire, Brussels, 1973]. (1994-10-20)
Presentational Immediacy: (Lat. praesens ppr. of praeesse, and in + medius, middle) Presentational immediacy characterizes any items which are in the direct cognitive presence of the mind such as sense data, images, emotional and affective data. Immediacy is ascribed by some epistemologists to higher levels of knowledge, e.g. perception and memory and by the mystic to the knowledge of God. -- L.W.
Pure Land ::: Also "Buddha-Field". In Buddhism, these are realms of reality that have been created by highly realized Mahasiddhas for rebirth by those who practice phowa and attune to that particular world at the time of death. For eference, imagine a constructed world of your choosing that exists as an astral abode and imagine it at peak lucidity. Pure lands are like that but a stable home for the mind at much higher levels of bliss, clarity, and form freedom. These are the idealized afterlives of various traditions and religions.
Revaluation (economics) -Where the government re-pegs the exchange rate at a higher level.
reverse engineering "systems, product, design" The process of analysing an existing system to identify its components and their interrelationships and create representations of the system in another form or at a higher level of {abstraction}. Reverse engineering is usually undertaken in order to redesign the system for better maintainability or to produce a copy of a system without access to the design from which it was originally produced. For example, one might take the {executable code} of a computer program, run it to study how it behaved with different inputs and then attempt to write a program which behaved identically (or better). An {integrated circuit} might also be reverse engineered by an unscrupulous company wishing to make unlicensed copies of a popular chip. (1995-10-06)
saMsāra. (T. 'khor ba; C. lunhui/shengsi lunhui; J. rinne/shojirinne; K. yunhoe/saengsa yunhoe 輪迴/生死輪迴). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "wandering," viz., the "cycle of REBIRTH." The realms that are subject to rebirth are typically described as composed of six rebirth destinies (GATI): divinities (DEVA), demigods or titans (ASURA), humans (MANUsYA), animals (TIRYAK), ghosts (PRETA), and hell denizens (NĀRAKA). These destinies are all located within the three realms of existence (TRAIDHĀTUKA), which comprises the entirety of our universe (see also AVACARA; LOKADHĀTU). At the bottom of the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU; kāmāvacara) are located the denizens of the hells (NĀRAKA), the lowest of which is named the interminable (AVĪCI). This most ill-fated of existences is followed by ghosts, animals, humans, demigods, and the divinities of the six heavens of the sensuous realm. Higher levels of the divinities occupy the upper two realms of existence, the subtle-materiality realm (RuPADHĀTU) and the immaterial realm (ĀRuPYADHĀTU). The bottom three destinies, of hell denizens, hungry ghosts, and animals, are referred to as the three evil bournes (DURGATI); these are destinies where suffering predominates because of the past performance of unwholesome (AKUsALA) actions (KARMAN). In the various levels of the divinities, happiness predominates, because of the past performance of wholesome (KUsALA) actions. By contrast, the human destiny is thought to be ideally suited for religious training, because it is the only bourne where both suffering and happiness can be readily experienced, allowing the adept to recognize more easily the true character of life as impermanent (ANITYA), suffering (DUḤKHA), and nonself (ANĀTMAN). SaMsāra is said to have no beginning and to come to end only for those individuals who achieve liberation from rebirth through the practice of the path (MĀRGA) to NIRVĀnA. SaMsāra is depicted iconographically as a "wheel of existence" (BHAVACAKRA), which shows the six rebirth destinies, surrounding a pig, a rooster, and a snake, which symbolize ignorance (AVIDYĀ), desire (LOBHA), and hatred (DVEsA), respectively. Around the edge of the wheel are scenes representing the twelve links of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA). The relation between saMsāra and nirvāna is discussed at length in Buddhist texts, with NĀGĀRJUNA famously declaring that there is not the slightest difference between them, because the true nature of both is emptiness (suNYATĀ).
server ::: 1. A program which provides some service to other (client) programs. The connection between client and server is normally by means of message passing, for requests to arrive or it may be invoked by some higher level daemon which controls a number of specific servers (inetd on Unix).There are many servers associated with the Internet, such as those for HTTP, Network File System, Network Information Service (NIS), Domain Name System (DNS), FTP, news, finger, Network Time Protocol. On Unix, a long list can be found in /etc/services or in the NIS database services. See client-server.2. A computer which provides some service for other computers connected to it via a network. The most common example is a file server which has a local disk often using Sun's Network File System (NFS) protocol or Novell Netware on PCs. Another common example is a web server.[Jargon File](2003-12-29)
server 1. A program which provides some service to other ({client}) programs. The connection between client and server is normally by means of {message passing}, often over a {network}, and uses some {protocol} to encode the client's requests and the server's responses. The server may run continuously (as a {daemon}), waiting for requests to arrive or it may be invoked by some higher level daemon which controls a number of specific servers ({inetd} on {Unix}). There are many servers associated with the {Internet}, such as those for {HTTP}, {Network File System}, {Network Information Service} (NIS), {Domain Name System} (DNS), {FTP}, {news}, {finger}, {Network Time Protocol}. On Unix, a long list can be found in /etc/services or in the {NIS} database "services". See {client-server}. 2. A computer which provides some service for other computers connected to it via a network. The most common example is a {file server} which has a local disk and services requests from remote clients to read and write files on that disk, often using {Sun}'s {Network File System} (NFS) {protocol} or {Novell Netware} on {PCs}. Another common example is a {web server}. [{Jargon File}] (2003-12-29)
shamble ::: n. --> One of a succession of niches or platforms, one above another, to hold ore which is thrown successively from platform to platform, and thus raised to a higher level.
A place where butcher&
Siddhi ::: Abilities deemed supernatural by society that arise from meditative practices and higher levels of realization.
siksāpada. (P. sikkhāpada; T. bslab pa'i gzhi; C. xuechu; J. gakusho; K. hakch'o 學處). In Sanskrit, lit. "training step"; "training rules," "precepts," or "moral instructions"; viz., various rules of conduct incumbent on both lay and monastic adherents of Buddhism. Theoretically, the number of siksāpadas, in the sense of situations where it is incumbent on an adherent to maintain proper moral decorum, is infinite, but the number of rules a specific adherent was expected to follow depended on his or her level of commitment. All these moral instructions are administered in the formula, "I undertake the training rule (siksāpada) to abstain from..." Thus, the Buddhist moral codes are not regarded as commandments handed down from on high, but steps in training that are found to be useful in promoting wholesome actions (KUsALA-KARMAN) and in weaning the individual from clinging and attachment. It is generally understood that the practitioner must become adept in following these basic rules of training before he or she can go on to higher levels of training: the effective engagement in the cultivation of concentration (SAMĀDHI), wisdom (PRAJNĀ), and so on. The five basic rules of conduct required of all Buddhists, and specifically the laity, are the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA), viz., "undertaking the training rule to abstain from": (1) killing, (2) stealing, (3) sexual misconduct, (4) false speech, and (5) intoxicants. On full- and new-moon days (S. UPOsADHA, P. uposatha), the laity had the option of increasing the number of siksāpada for their training in morality and keeping an expanded set of eight precepts (P. uposathasīla, see AstĀnGASAMANVĀGATAM UPAVĀSAM) as a sort of temporary renunciation. These added three precepts to the preceding list of five, viz., abstaining from: (6) eating after midday, (7) dancing, singing, music, and other unseemly forms of entertainment, and using garlands, perfumes, and unguents (viz., cosmetics) to adorn the body, and (8) using high and luxurious beds and couches. Additionally on that day, the layperson was also expected to abstain from all sexual activity, rather than just sexual misconduct defined specifically for the lay person. Ordination as a male novice (sRĀMAnERA) or female novice (sRĀMAnERIKĀ) required the ordinand to increase the number of siksāpada (grounds for moral training) to ten (DAsAsĪLA) in the Pāli VINAYA, a number expanded to thirty-six in the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA. Fully ordained monks (BHIKsU) and nuns (BHIKsUnĪ) observed, in turn, a greatly expanded set of siksāpada codified in hundreds of specific training rules, set out in great detail in the various vinaya traditions. In MAHĀYĀNA and tantric Buddhist traditions, the siksāpada are expanded to include various activities, even those that seem antithetical to morality, under the general rubric of skillful means (UPĀYA). See also sĪLA; SAMVARA; PRĀTIMOKsA.
SPL ::: 1. Synchronous Programming Language. A DSP language. Introduction to the SPL Compiler, Computalker Consultants, 1986.2. Space Programming Language. Realtime language used by the US Air Force for aerospace software. Aka SPL/J6. Similar to JOVIAL. Space Programming Language Development, SAMSO TP 70-325, System Development Corp (Sep 1970). (See CLASP).3. System Programming Language. HP, 1977. An ALGOL-like language for the HP3000 computer allowing inline assembly code. MPE, the OS for the HP3000 was written in SPL. Pub.No.30000-90024, HP. See also SPLash!.4. Systems Programming Language.PRIME Computer, 80's. A variant of PL/I used on PRIME computers. PL/I subset G, less I/O plus a few extensions. SPL User's Reference Guide, Prime. (See PL/P.)5. Systems Programming Language.A PL/I subset/extension for the P1000.D.B. Wortman, U Toronto.Philips Data Sys, Netherlands, 1971.Symbolic constants, pointer arithmetic, inline assembly code. Used to implement compilers, operating systems, and database.[Experiences With SPL, J. Klunder in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp. 385-393].[Can 4 and 5 be the same?]6. Student Programming Language.A translator-interpreter for a dialect of PL/I.7. Set Priority Level[Jargon File] (1995-02-07)
SPL 1. Synchronous Programming Language. A DSP language. "Introduction to the SPL Compiler", Computalker Consultants, 1986. 2. Space Programming Language. Realtime language used by the US Air Force for aerospace software. Aka SPL/J6. Similar to JOVIAL. "Space Programming Language Development", SAMSO TP 70-325, System Development Corp (Sep 1970). (See CLASP). 3. System Programming Language. HP, 1977. An ALGOL-like language for the HP3000 computer allowing inline assembly code. MPE, the OS for the HP3000 was written in SPL. Pub.No.30000-90024, HP. See also {SPLash!}. 4. Systems Programming Language. PRIME Computer, 80's. A variant of PL/I used on PRIME computers. PL/I subset G, less I/O plus a few extensions. SPL User's Reference Guide, Prime. (See PL/P.) 5. Systems Programming Language. A PL/I subset/extension for the P1000. D.B. Wortman, U Toronto. Philips Data Sys, Netherlands, 1971. Symbolic constants, pointer arithmetic, inline assembly code. Used to implement compilers, operating systems, and database. ["Experiences With SPL", J. Klunder in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp. 385-393]. [Can 4 and 5 be the same?] 6. Student Programming Language. A translator-interpreter for a dialect of {PL/I}. 7. {Set Priority Level} [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-07)
sraddhānusārin. (P. saddhānusāri; T. dad pa'i rjes su 'brang ba; C. suixin xing; J. zuishingyo; K. susin haeng 隨信行). In Sanskrit, "follower of faith." The SARVĀSTIVĀDA (e.g., ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA) and Pāli (e.g., VISUDDHIMAGGA) traditions of mainstream Buddhism both recognize seven types of noble ones (ĀRYA, P. ariya): (1) follower of faith (S. sraddhānusārin; P. saddhānusāri); (2) follower of the dharma (S. DHARMĀNUSĀRIN, P. dhammānusāri); (3) one liberated through faith (S. sRADDHĀVIMUKTA; P. saddhāvimutta); (4) one who has formed right view (S. DṚstIPRĀPTA; P. ditthippatta), by developing both faith and wisdom; (5) the bodily witness (S. KĀYASĀKsIN; P. kāyasakkhi), viz., through the temporary suspension of mentality in the equipoise of cessation (NIRODHASAMĀPATTI); (6) one who is freed by wisdom (S. PRAJNĀVIMUKTA; P. paNNāvimutta), by freeing oneself through analysis; and (7) one who is freed both ways (S. UBHAYATOBHĀGAVIMUKTA; P. ubhatobhāgavimutta), by freeing oneself through both meditative absorption and wisdom. A follower of faith is a person who has attained the fruit of stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA) and in whom the faculty (INDRIYA) of faith (sRADDHĀ) is predominant. Such a person will eventually become one who is freed through faith (sRADDHĀVIMUKTA). In the Abhidharmakosabhāsya, there is a basic division of path types and personality types, where a faith-follower and a dharma-follower eliminate hindrances to goals all at once or in a series, and respectively either pass through the intermediate stages of once-returner and nonreturner, or else skip such stages completely, before finally becoming ARHATs. In general, dharma-followers are those who proceed based on knowledge of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS as it pertains to all three realms of existence; they eliminate hindrances to all goals all at once, while the achievements of faith-followers are more progressive. According to the Sarvāstivāda VAIBHĀsIKA school of ABHIDHARMA, an ARHAT whose liberation is grounded in faith may be subject to backsliding from that state, whereas those who are dharmānusārin are unshakable (AKOPYA), because they have experienced the knowledge of nonproduction (ANUTPĀDAJNĀNA), viz., that the afflictions (KLEsA) can never occur again, the complement of the knowledge of extinction (KsAYAJNĀNA). In the MAHĀYĀNA interpretation of the terms, bodhisattvas who are dharma-followers have knowledge of emptiness (suNYATĀ), i.e., they have gained a knowledge of the way things are (TATTVA) even at early stages of the path and will never revert to the HĪNAYĀNA; the faith-followers are not irreversible (AVAIVARTIKA) in that way until higher levels of the path. The sraddhānusārin is also found in the list of the members of the saMgha when it is subdivided into twenty (VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA). Among the sraddhānusārin, there are candidates for the fruit of stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNAPHALAPRATIPANNAKA), once-returner (SAKṚDĀGĀMIPHALAPRATIPANNAKA), and nonreturner (ANĀGĀMIPHALAPRATIPANNAKA). The first has eliminated up to five of the nine sets of afflictions (KLEsA) that cause rebirth in the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU), the second all but the final set, and the last all of the afflictions. The first takes a number of births (never more than seven) in the sensuous realm before reaching nirvāna, the second has only one rebirth in the sensuous realm left, and the nonreturner will never again take rebirth in the sensuous realm prior to reaching nirvāna.
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . thought in itself, in its origin on the higher levels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or of some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result of spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the self upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object.” *The Life Divine
Suttung, Suttungr (Icelandic) In the Norse Edda, a giant who guards the mead (of experience) in the depths of matter, where the gods must find it and raise it to higher levels. Odin is said to have enlisted the aid of a squirrel or bore to penetrate the mountain in which the mead was hidden, and to have entered through the borehole in the guise of a serpent. Once in, he seduced Suttung’s daughter into giving him a draft of the precious mead.
svarga. (P. sagga; T. mtho ris; C. tianshang; J. tenjo; K. ch'onsang 天上). In Sanskrit, "heaven," the realm of the divinities within the cycle of rebirth (SAMSĀRA). The terms encompasses the six heavens of the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU) as well as the heavens of the subtle-materiality realm (RuPADHĀTU) and the immaterial realm (ĀRuPYADHĀTU). Although sublime states, none of these are permanent abodes; the beings reborn there eventually die and are reborn elsewhere when the causes that led to their celestial births are exhausted. However, the Buddha repeatedly teaches the virtues that result in rebirth in heaven, and such rebirth has been one of the primary goals of Buddhist practice, especially among the laity, throughout the history of Buddhism. Rebirth as a divinity (DEVA) is presumed to be the reward of wholesome acts (KUsALA-KARMAN) performed in previous lives and is thus considered a salutary, if provisional, religious goal. For example, in his typical "graduated discourse" (P. ANUPUBBIKATHĀ) the Buddha uses the prospect of heavenly rebirth, and its attendant pleasures, as one means of attracting laypersons to the religious life. Despite the many appealing attributes of these heavenly beings, such as their physical beauty, comfortable lives, and long life spans, even heavenly existence is ultimately unsatisfactory because it does not offer permanent release from the continued cycle of birth and death (SAMSĀRA). Since devas are merely enjoying the rewards of their previous good deeds rather than performing new wholesome actions, they are considered to be spiritually stagnant, such that when the karmic effect of the deed that led to rebirth in heaven is exhausted, they are inevitably reborn in a lower realm of existence (GATI), perhaps even in one of the baleful destinies (DURGATI). For these reasons, Buddhist soteriological literature sometimes condemns religious practice performed solely for the goal of achieving rebirth in the heavens. It is only in certain higher level of the heavens, such as the those belonging to the five pure abodes (sUDDHĀVĀSA), that beings are not subject to further rebirth, because they have already eliminated all the fetters (SAMYOJANA) associated with that realm and are destined to achieve ARHATship. ¶ In traditional Indian cosmology, the heavens of the sensuous realm are thought to rest on and extend far above the peak of Mt. SUMERU, the axis mundi of the universe. They are ranked according to their elevation, so the higher the heaven, the greater the enjoyments of their inhabitants. The lowest of these heavens is the heaven of the four heavenly kings (CĀTURMAHĀRĀJAKĀYIKA), who are protectors of the dharma (DHARMAPĀLA). The highest is the heaven of the divinities who have power over the creations of others, or the divinities who partake of the pleasures created in other heavens (PARANIRMITAVAsAVARTIN), which is said to be the heaven where MĀRA resides. TUsITA, the heaven into which sĀKYAMUNI was born as the divinity sVETAKETU in his penultimate life, is the fourth of the kāmadhātu heavens, in ascending order. ¶ The heavens of the subtle-materiality realm are grouped into four categories that correspond to the four stratified levels of DHYĀNA-states of profound meditative concentration. Thus, rebirth into any one of these heavens is dependent on the attainment of the dhyāna to which it corresponds in the immediately preceding lifetime. Each of the four dhyāna has various heavens. The lowest of these heavens is the heaven of brahmā's retainers (BRAHMAKĀYIKA), which corresponds to the first subtle-materiality absorption (RuPĀVACARADHYĀNA), and the highest is the highest heaven (AKANIstHA), which is also classified as one of the "pure abodes," or sUDDHĀVĀSA. ¶ The heavens of the immaterial realm similarly correspond to the four immaterial dhyānas (ĀRuPYĀVACARADHYĀNA), beginning with the sphere of infinite space (ĀKĀsĀNANTYĀYATANA) and so on up to the sphere of neither perception nor nonperception (NAIVASAMJNĀNĀSAMJNĀYATANA). As noted, despite their many enjoyments, none of these realms is eternal and all are thus understood to fall within the realm of saMsāra. For a full account of all the heavens, see DEVA.
the act of rising to a higher level; ascent.
Theory of constraints – Refers to a management approach or theory that main focuses is on the identification and subsequent and relaxation of the constraints that may limit a firm's ability to achieve a higher level of their goal attainment.
Thoughts ::: Thought in itself, in its origin on the higher levels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or of some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result of spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the self upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 979-80
thought ::: “… thought in itself, in its origin on the higher levels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or of some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result of spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the self upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object.” The Life Divine
To higher levels persuades his parents’ steps,
transformation ::: A vertical change in deep structures. The emergence of deeper forms of agency and wider communions. A shift to any higher level in a holarchy. See Eros and Agape.
Turing Machine ::: (computability) A hypothetical machine defined in 1935-6 by Alan Turing and used for computability theory proofs. It consists of an infinitely long program specifies the new state and either a symbol to write to the tape or a direction to move the pointer (left or right) or to halt.In an alternative scheme, the machine writes a symbol to the tape *and* moves at each step. This can be encoded as a write state followed by a move state for the distance of zero. A further variation is whether halting is an action like writing or moving or whether it is a special state.[What was Turing's original definition?]Without loss of generality, the symbol set can be limited to just 0 and 1 and the machine can be restricted to start on the leftmost 1 of the leftmost infinite in one direction only, with the understanding that the machine will halt if it tries to move off the other end.All computer instruction sets, high level languages and computer architectures, including parallel processors, can be shown to be equivalent to a Turing Machine and thus equivalent to each other in the sense that any problem that one can solve, any other can solve given sufficient time and memory.Turing generalised the idea of the Turing Machine to a Universal Turing Machine which was programmed to read instructions, as well as data, off the microcode which directs the reading and decoding of higher level machine code instructions.A busy beaver is one kind of Turing Machine program.Dr. Hava Siegelmann of Technion reported in Science of 28 Apr 1995 that she has found a mathematically rigorous class of machines, based on ideas from chaos create artificial intelligence. Dr. Siegelmann's work suggests that this is true only for conventional computers and may not cover neural networks.See also Turing tar-pit, finite state machine. (1995-05-10)
Turing Machine "computability" A hypothetical machine defined in 1935-6 by {Alan Turing} and used for {computability theory} proofs. It consists of an infinitely long "tape" with symbols (chosen from some {finite set}) written at regular intervals. A pointer marks the current position and the machine is in one of a finite set of "internal states". At each step the machine reads the symbol at the current position on the tape. For each combination of current state and symbol read, a program specifies the new state and either a symbol to write to the tape or a direction to move the pointer (left or right) or to halt. In an alternative scheme, the machine writes a symbol to the tape *and* moves at each step. This can be encoded as a write state followed by a move state for the write-or-move machine. If the write-and-move machine is also given a distance to move then it can emulate an write-or-move program by using states with a distance of zero. A further variation is whether halting is an action like writing or moving or whether it is a special state. [What was Turing's original definition?] Without loss of generality, the symbol set can be limited to just "0" and "1" and the machine can be restricted to start on the leftmost 1 of the leftmost string of 1s with strings of 1s being separated by a single 0. The tape may be infinite in one direction only, with the understanding that the machine will halt if it tries to move off the other end. All computer {instruction sets}, {high level languages} and computer architectures, including {parallel processors}, can be shown to be equivalent to a Turing Machine and thus equivalent to each other in the sense that any problem that one can solve, any other can solve given sufficient time and memory. Turing generalised the idea of the Turing Machine to a "Universal Turing Machine" which was programmed to read instructions, as well as data, off the tape, thus giving rise to the idea of a general-purpose programmable computing device. This idea still exists in modern computer design with low level {microcode} which directs the reading and decoding of higher level {machine code} instructions. A {busy beaver} is one kind of Turing Machine program. Dr. Hava Siegelmann of {Technion} reported in Science of 28 Apr 1995 that she has found a mathematically rigorous class of machines, based on ideas from {chaos} theory and {neural networks}, that are more powerful than Turing Machines. Sir Roger Penrose of {Oxford University} has argued that the brain can compute things that a Turing Machine cannot, which would mean that it would be impossible to create {artificial intelligence}. Dr. Siegelmann's work suggests that this is true only for conventional computers and may not cover {neural networks}. See also {Turing tar-pit}, {finite state machine}. (1995-05-10)
VEGETABLE KINGDOM The second natural kingdom, or the lowest but one.
In this kingdom the monad acquires the ability to distinguish between attractive and repulsive vibrations, thereby having achieved contact with the emotional world (48:7).
Vegetable monads develop most quickly by being consumed by animals and men, thereby being subjected to the strong vibrations in their emotional envelopes. By learning to perceive these vibrations they become able gradually to attain higher levels in their kingdom. K 1.33.6
Zuse "language" (After {Konrad Zuse}) A descendant of {Ada}, {Modula-2}, {Mesa} and {Oberon-1}, described by Christian Collberg "collberg@dna.lth.se" in his PhD thesis 1991. Zuse supports several levels of information hiding. The Zuse type system includes fully hidden types (similar to {Modula-2} {opaque types} but without any implementation restriction), semi-open pointer types (same as {Modula-2} {opaque types}), extensible {record types} (similar to {Oberon-1} public projection types but without the compiler hint), {enumeration} types, extensible enumeration types, and extensible {subrange types}. A type can also be protected by specifying the operations that particular modules may perform (similar to {C++} {friend classes} and {Ada} {private types}). Zuse also includes hidden and extensible constants and hidden inline procedures. In order to support the higher levels of information hiding the implementation employs partial intermediate code linking. A version for {Sun-3} is available. (1999-02-18)
Zuse ::: (language) (After Konrad Zuse) A descendant of Ada, Modula-2, Mesa and Oberon-1, described by Christian Collberg in his PhD thesis 1991.Zuse supports several levels of information hiding. The Zuse type system includes fully hidden types (similar to Modula-2 opaque types but without any without the compiler hint), enumeration types, extensible enumeration types, and extensible subrange types.A type can also be protected by specifying the operations that particular modules may perform (similar to C++ friend classes and Ada private types). Zuse order to support the higher levels of information hiding the implementation employs partial intermediate code linking.A version for Sun-3 is available. (1999-02-18)
KEYS (10k)
2 Sri Aurobindo
1 Yamamoto Tsunetomo
1 M P Pandit
1 The Mother
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
7 Frederick Lenz
6 John C Maxwell
5 Anonymous
4 Terence McKenna
4 Robert M Sapolsky
4 Brian Tracy
3 Wayne Dyer
3 Steven Pressfield
3 Richard Rohr
3 Johann Hari
3 Eckhart Tolle
3 Dan Simmons
2 Yamamoto Tsunetomo
2 Vladimir Putin
2 Tony Robbins
2 Sri Aurobindo
2 Peter Voogd
2 Paul Levine
2 Oliver DeMille
2 Norman Vincent Peale
1:urage and jubilation. This is rising to a higher level. It is like the saying, "The more water there is, the higher the boat rises. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #KEYS
2:It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to pass on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 367, #KEYS
3:The most outward psychological form of these things is the mould or trend of the nature towards certain dominant tendencies, capacities, characteristics, form of active power, quality of the mind and inner life, cultural personality or type. The turn is often towards the predominance of the intellectual element and the capacities which make for the seeking and finding of knowledge and an intellectual creation or formativeness and a preoccupation with ideas and the study of ideas or of life and the information and development of the reflective intelligence. According to the grade of the development there is produced successively the make and character of the man of active, open, inquiring intelligence, then the intellectual and, last, the thinker, sage, great mind of knowledge. The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, for its communication to others, for its reign in the world, the reign of reason and right and truth and justice and, on a higher level of the harmony of our greater being, the reign of the spirit and its universal unity and light and love; a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality #KEYS
4: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
5:This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary conceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision of light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous enthousiasmos of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.
But these two stages of the ascent enjoy their authority and can get their own united completeness only by a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher summits where dwells the intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude. ... Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of stable lightnings.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:I'm an expert in higher level math. You + God = Enough ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 2:A higher level of consciousness is awakened. I get in touch with the vast realm of intelligence beyond thought. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 3:Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 4:But when I see that I have a higher level to my individuality, all of these problems evaporate. Death is not the end of my individuality. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 5:We will not find the inner strength to evolve to a higher level if we do not inwardly develop this profound feeling that there is something higher than ourselves. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 6:The wisdom of samadhi is quite different. Higher level wisdom cannot be written down. It cannot be spoken. True wisdom is the knowledge of the universe that is beyond physical expression. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 7:Make lists. Write down the things that give you power. Write down the things that take your power away also. Make lists of people close to you. Are you associations raising you to a higher level of attention? ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 8:At a simple level, good is that which helps people-evil is that which hurts people. At a higher level, good is that which is in harmony with divine purpose-evil is that which is out of harmony with divine purpose. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 9:Every positive change - every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness - involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 10:My daemon is dreaming itself to be & 11:Focus very clearly on a few small things. The purpose of a business is to give someone something that they want. Have a product or service that's really excellent. [... ] What can you offer that no one else can offer and will satisfy them at a higher level than what anyone else can? ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 12:The inner master, when confronted with an obstacle, uses it as fuel, like a fire which consumes things that are thrown into it. A small lamp would be snuffed out, but a big fire will engulf what is thrown at it and burn hotter; it consumes the obstacle and uses it to reach a higher level. ~ marcus-aurelius, @wisdomtrove 13:I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist - a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community - that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 14:Stress is a hindrance thinking Stress leads to poor health, poor decision-making, poor thinking, and poor socialization. We now understand that higher-level thinking is more likely to occur in the brain of a student who is emotionally secure than in the brain of a student who is scared, upset, anxious, or stressed. Mawhinney and Sagan ~ marc-and-angel-chernoff, @wisdomtrove 15:The beginning of freedom is the realisation that you are not the "thinker." The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realise that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also begin to realise that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 16:I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 17:Avataric periods are like the spring-tide of creation. They bring a new release of power, a new awakening of consciousness, a new experience of life - not merely for a few, but for all. Qualities of energy and awareness, which had been used and enjoyed by only a few advanced souls, are made available for all humanity. Life, as a whole is stepped up to a higher level of consciousness, is geared to a new rate of energy. The transition from sensation to reason was one such step; the transition from reason to intuition will be another. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
2:The rich live hand-to-mouth too-just on a higher level. ~ John Guare, #NFDB
3:In reality, a higher level of war always trumps a lower. ~ William S Lind, #NFDB
4:talk with people playing the game at a higher level than you, ~ Peter Voogd, #NFDB
5:We never see ourselves as being on a higher level than our fans. ~ Kirk Hammett, #NFDB
6:The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
7:You always share a higher level of trust with someone who pops your cherry. ~ K F Breene, #NFDB
8:Lies need not be told....hold yourself to a higher level of accountability”. ~ Devin Blue, #NFDB
9:Things fall apart, so they can fall together at a higher level of order. ~ Marilyn Ferguson, #NFDB
10:To reach a higher level of being, you must assume a higher concept of yourself. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
11:Music is a bridge, it connects floks on a higher level, saying what words can't say. ~ Emily Murdoch, #NFDB
12:Music is a bridge, it connects folks on a higher level, saying what words can't say. ~ Emily Murdoch, #NFDB
13:The falls of our life provide us with the energy to propel ourselves to a higher level. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
14:Mind doesn't work properly when taken into
a higher level where fear dominates the will. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
15:The human race finds itself in a better situation when it has the higher level of freedom. ~ Dante Alighieri, #NFDB
16:As man's faculty attains higher level of development and sophistication, so do his wants in life ~ Haile Selassie, #NFDB
17:Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
18:The problems of today can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than that which created them ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
19:And if God has given you a lot of ability, I believe you should be held to a higher level of expectation. ~ Tony Dungy, #NFDB
20:rise to a higher level of freedom. We are not being called to run away from danger but toward safety. ~ Gerald G Jampolsky, #NFDB
21:Temporal landmarks slow our thinking, allowing us to deliberate at a higher level and make better decisions ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
22:Second, the biblical principle of “ask, seek, and knock” is prudent advice for gaining a higher level of access. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
23:Women, I have long believed, are the more evolved of the species and have attained some higher level of being. ~ Paul Levine, #NFDB
24:You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them. ~ Idries Shah, #NFDB
25:People in positions of power and privilege have a duty to perform at a higher level. If not them, then who? ~ Kathleen Parker, #NFDB
26:The good guys had to operate on a higher level than the killers--just for society to keep track of who was who. ~ Keith Ablow, #NFDB
27:The purpose of art is to raise people to a higher level of awareness than they would otherwise attain on their own. ~ Brassai, #NFDB
28:Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
29:Leadership is producing a standard in someone that they will live by to produce higher level results consistently. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
30:The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
31:Given the difficulty of using wait and notify correctly, you should use the higher-level concurrency utilities instead. ~ Joshua Bloch, #NFDB
32:On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
33:Only art and science make us suspect the existence of life to a higher level, and maybe also instill hope thereof. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven, #NFDB
34:When I see and feel the life beat of Spirit in every object, I evolve to a higher level of transformation called consciousness ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
35:Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level. ~ Enrico Fermi, #NFDB
36:For higher-level execs with greater public visibility, social networks need to become as good at filtering as they are at connecting. ~ danah boyd, #NFDB
37:I was a goner for this girl. Was gone when I started lusting over her ankles but this was some higher-level cosmic soul mate shit. ~ Kate Canterbary, #NFDB
38:Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you... ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
39:The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow. ~ B H Liddell Hart, #NFDB
40:Knowing is not enough. You must accept My blessings in order to attain a better life. You must embrace a higher level of consciousness. ~ Mary B Morrison, #NFDB
41:Nearly everywhere Buddhism went, there had been a higher level of literacy, even in miserable Burma, not to mention Thailand and Sri Lanka. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
42:urage and jubilation. This is rising to a higher level. It is like the saying, “The more water there is, the higher the boat rises. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
43:Everybody's life has some mythical quality. You struggle against obstacles, you fight to get to a higher level and there are great loves. ~ Dolph Lundgren, #NFDB
44:The only problem we really have is we think we're not supposed to have problems! Problems call us to higher level- - face & solve them now! ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
45:Leaders are responsible for the design and operation of processes at a higher level of aggregation where others have less perspective and authority. ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
46:I already enjoy cooking. I like different flavors and putting different things together and really like taking normal recipes to a higher level. ~ Queen Latifah, #NFDB
47:When you get to a higher level of consciousness, though, when you get into a spiritual approach to life, you are not trying to get someplace else... ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
48:executives must cultivate a higher level of awareness about what truly matters, drawing on recent neuroscience research to demonstrate how they can do so. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
49:Top performers understand their field at a higher level than average performers do, and thus have a superior structure for remembering information about it. ~ Geoff Colvin, #NFDB
50:This detachment (poverty, chastity, etc.) must not be mere amputation; everything which is shaken off must be simultaneously found again at a higher level. ~ Gabriel Marcel, #NFDB
51:Once you start to question your life you get to a higher level of awareness. It's like turning a light on-voila you see you have choices and choices are sacred. ~ Naomi Judd, #NFDB
52:Stop using, "easier said than done", as an excuse to not change! Bringing your life to a higher level is challenging; get over it and rise to the challenge! ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
53:No matter how rich and prosperous, a nation without independence, cannot be subject to any behaviour before the humanity, at a higher level than serving. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, #NFDB
54:An analysis last year by the IMF showed that India’s corporate sector has a higher level of debt relative to equity than that of any other emerging market, bar Brazil. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
55:I have this hope that there is a better way. Higher-level tools that actually let you see the structure of the software more clearly will be of tremendous value. ~ Guido van Rossum, #NFDB
56:the opposite of reductionism, holism — the idea that the only legitimate explanations are in terms of higher-level systems — is an even greater error than reductionism. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
57:All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarise that society. We can brutalise it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level. ~ William Bernbach, #NFDB
58:My fans like to be romantic. I feel like I'm creating at least at the same level or even a higher level of creativity than I was at twenty-one. I've gotten better as an artist. ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB
59:Russia will always remember the contribution [of King Fahd] in the development of Russian-Saudi relations, which in recent years were raised to a qualitatively higher level. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
60:The central conception of Man in the Gospels is that he is an unfinished creation capable of reaching a higher level by a definite evolution which must begin by his own efforts. ~ Maurice Nicoll, #NFDB
61:there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level … that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
62:The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
63:Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level. ~ Alexander Haig, #NFDB
64:Higher level independence starts with the freedom and independence of the mind to think and act according to the highest principles of knowledge and worthy traditions of a nation. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud, #NFDB
65:I don't think success has changed us as people at all. We are the same lunatics that we were when this band first got going. We never see ourselves as being on a higher level than our fans. ~ Kirk Hammett, #NFDB
66:In symbiosis, the advantage of co-operation between two organisms lies in the improved viability of the emergent total system which represents a higher level. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
67:Japan has joined the sanctions against the Russian Federation. How are we going to further economic relations on a new and much higher basis, at a higher level under the sanctions regime? ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
68:The wisdom of samadhi is quite different. Higher level wisdom cannot be written down. It cannot be spoken. True wisdom is the knowledge of the universe that is beyond physical expression. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
69:World is a multi-dimensional reality. At lower level it is full with unconsciousness and competitiveness. At higher level it is full with beauty, bliss and divinity. Focus on higher dimensions. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
70:As a human being you are capable of a higher level of perception than you may now be cognizant of. You are not really who you think you are. There are many selves inside you, not just one. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
71:C is declining somewhat in usage compared to C++, and maybe Java, but perhaps even more compared to higher-level scripting languages. It's still fairly strong for the basic system-type things. ~ Dennis Ritchie, #NFDB
72:Greater success and happiness are only possible for you when you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable during the process of creating a new comfort zone at a higher level of effectiveness. ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
73:The reason I'm not a neurobiologist but a cognitive psychologist is that I think looking at brain tissue is often the wrong level of analysis. You have to look at a higher level of organization. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
74:In order to have middle-income, middle-paying jobs, the kinds of jobs that allow people to get ahead, you have to have higher level of training and skill acquisition and education than ever before. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
75:And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh. ~ David Hockney, #NFDB
76:Five hundred years ago the very concept of a device manipulating information, or software, would have been incomprehensible. Might there be a still higher level, as yet outside all human experience, ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
77:The inescapable truth of any relationship is that it can achieve no higher level of development than the level of maturity that both parties bring to it. ~ James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, #NFDB
78:Beneath the rubato of the day abided a stern pulse beating on, ineluctable, unforgiving, whereby whatever was evaded or put off now had to be made up for later, and at a higher level of intensity. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
79:Life is more than who’s fighting whom on UFC, what so-and-so tweeted, which celebrities just broke up, and what the latest and greatest food truck is serving up. You were meant to live on a higher level. ~ Levi Lusko, #NFDB
80:The principle of fasting is taught in almost all major world religions as a means of developing a higher level of self-mastery and self-control, and also a deeper awareness of how really dependent we are. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
81:And we're seeing a higher level of consciousness and many more opportunities for people to challenge their present ways of thinking and move into a grander and larger experience of who they really are. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
82:Reincarnation doesn't simply mean that at the end of this life you will move on to another life in another body, it means that the spirit of life is continually renewing itself and moving to a higher level. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
83:Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level. ~ Ai Weiwei, #NFDB
84:Make lists. Write down the things that give you power. Write down the things that take your power away also. Make lists of people close to you. Are you associations raising you to a higher level of attention? ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
85:what happens on the lower level is responsible for what happens on the higher level, it is nonetheless irrelevant to the higher level. The higher level can blithely ignore the processes on the lower level. ~ Douglas R Hofstadter, #NFDB
86:The citizens of Athens, like those of other cities in other ages and continents, showed a certain hostility to those who attempted to introduce a higher level of culture than that to which they were accustomed. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
87:The lesson is simple. If you want to move to a higher level of life, you have to be willing to let go of some of your old ways of thinking and being and adopt new ones. The results will eventually speak for themselves. ~ T Harv Eker, #NFDB
88:In fact, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar to a higher level than a candy bar does. And then, after about two hours, your blood sugar plunges and you get shaky, your brain feels foggy, you're hungry. ~ William Davis, #NFDB
89:Watching people reach a higher level of consciousness. A fixation. For a few moments in their lives, they transcend and become lost in the fantasy of it all. As a DJ, I'm trying to create the opportunity for this to happen. ~ Jeff Mills, #NFDB
90:Sometimes the elements of our life present us with a challenge that is an initiation in disguise, a fire walk that burns your lower nature right out of you so that you are able to adapt to a higher level of consciousness. ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
91:As I have pointed out, the union of opposites on a higher level of consciousness is not a rational thing, nor is it a matter of will; it is a process of psychic development that expresses itself in symbols. ~ Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies, #NFDB
92:There's a basic philosophy here that by empowering...workers you'll make their jobs far more interesting, and they'll be able to work at a higher level than they would have without all that information just a few clicks away. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
93:The HiiiPower Movement is a movement that's going on all throughout the world like a virus. It's about being on a higher level than the industry. It's a movement we started to be above all the bullshit that's been going on. ~ Kendrick Lamar, #NFDB
94:Innovation ensured that each cycle normally reached a higher level than its predecessor, but innovation was normally too slow to prevent an eventual collapse within each cycle, as populations outstripped available resources. ~ David Christian, #NFDB
95:The ability to get to a higher level in our life means that we have to generate the energy to be able to do so, and generally, we do that by a fall. Spiritual advances are almost always proceeded by a fall of one kind or another. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
96:a dynamic that allowed bad performers to remain bad: The less-talented are convinced they’re above average, so they tend to rest on their non-existent laurels instead of working toward a higher level of competence. ~ Bathroom Readers Institute, #NFDB
97:The tasks that we studied varied considerably in their effects on the pupil. At baseline, our subjects were awake, aware, and ready to engage in a task—probably at a higher level of arousal and cognitive readiness than usual. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
98:I see you resting and learning. I see you getting stronger. I see you preparing for greater things so you can take your life and business to a higher level. Always remember that our biggest battle comes before our greatest victory. ~ Jon Gordon, #NFDB
99:people don’t function like machines. They have feelings. They think. They have problems, hopes, and dreams. Though people can be managed, they would much rather be led. And when they are led, they perform at a much higher level. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
100:Our greatest fear is fear of success. When we are succeeding—that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level—that’s when panic strikes. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
101:I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness. ~ Huey Newton, #NFDB
102:The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
103:We’ll unbundle books into their constituent bits and pieces and knit those into the web, but the higher-level organization of the book will be the focus for our attention—that remaining scarcity in our economy. A book is an attention unit. A ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
104:I've always been like nah, I'm going to have it my way, that way, when I look out that window at the end of the day, I can say I did it my way, whether it's on a higher level, or a level where I can just maintain, I can still say I did it my way. ~ Ginuwine, #NFDB
105:Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level ... that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
106:The key then to attaining this higher level of intelligence is to make our years of study qualitatively rich. We don't simply absorb information - we internalize it and make it our own by finding some way to put this knowledge to practical use. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
107:The man who is at a lower level but is moving onward toward perfection is living a more moral, a better life, is more fully carrying out Christ's teaching, than the man on a much higher level of morality who is not moving onward toward perfection. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
108:It is not morbidity which draws crowds to scenes of disaster or unusual joy. It is the desire to participate in a moment when life breaks through to some higher level of intensity so that one's own life might take fire from that sudden spurted flame. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
109:One question remained to me. “If a higher level of bujutsu involves fighting with the mind, what then is the very highest level?” He closed his eyes for a while, seeing things he would never show me. “That,” he said, “would be never to fight at all. ~ Tan Twan Eng, #NFDB
110:Originally this was the most important thing about martial arts - to reach a higher level, to become a strong human being. Strong doesn't mean big arms. It means who can be a more strict human being with himself. That is the ideal of martial arts. ~ Tsutomu Ohshima, #NFDB
111:To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
112:The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to wake. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
113:I see myself more as an ambassador of the game. And I hope to bring chess to a higher level in the United States. Making bigger tournaments, more interesting events. Making it a respectable profession for young people to be able to pursue in the future. ~ Maurice Ashley, #NFDB
114:I don't need to have my convictions confirmed by a show of numbers. However, being among people in front of a band leads me to believe that all is not lost, that humans, now and then, can communicate on a higher level than the political and the practical. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
115:If everything on television is, without exception, part of a low-calorie (or even no-calorie) diet, then what good is it complaining about the adverts? By their worthlessness, they at least help to make the programmes around them seem of a higher level. ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
116:I really think my fun personality is my ace in the hole. I will never claim to be the most beautiful or most talented queen, because I can think of many queens who fit that description. However, it's my "charisma" that takes me to a higher level in my drag! ~ Manila Luzon, #NFDB
117:when we talk about the Background we are talking about a certain category of neurophysiological causation. Because we do not know how these structures function at a neurophysiological level, we are forced to describe them at a much higher level. There ~ John Rogers Searle, #NFDB
118:The creation of rule is more creative than the destruction of them. Creation demands a higher level of reasoning and draws connections between cause and effect. The best rules are never stable or permanent, but evolve naturally according to context or need. ~ Andrea Zittel, #NFDB
119:When Grant is working for days in isolation on a paper, in other words, he’s doing so at a higher level of effectiveness than the standard professor following a more distracted strategy in which the work is repeatedly interrupted by residue-slathering interruptions. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
120:People naturally tend toward inertia. That's why self improvement is such a struggle. But that's also why adversity lies at the heart of every success. The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
121:Take the self-driving car and the smartphone and put those together and think about how to manage a smart grid because suddenly you have all of this data coming from those two mechanisms that allow for a much higher level of allocating energy much more efficiently. ~ Jonathon Keats, #NFDB
122:Somebody like me - I am a member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change, we've been at this for several years now. To have somebody like the Prince of Wales talk about something [like climate changes] elevates that conversation to a much higher level. ~ Chris Barrie, #NFDB
123:The paradox therefore reflects a higher level of intellect and, by not forcibly representing the unknowable as known, gives a more faithful picture of the real state of affairs. ~ Carl JungThe Paramahamsa accepts only what is real, rejecting that which is unreal -- the phenomenal world, #NFDB
124:There can be conceptual skeletons on several different levels of abstraction. For instance, the "isomorphism" between Bongard problems 70 and 71, already pointed out, involves higher-level conceptual skeleton than that needed to solve either problem in isolation. ~ Douglas R Hofstadter, #NFDB
125:It is not sufficient just to remain calm in the event of catastrophe or emergency. When challenged by adversity, charge onwards with courage and jubilation. This is rising to a higher level. It is like the saying, “The more water there is, the higher the boat rises. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
126:The more independent the subsystems are, the more you make it safe to focus on one bit of complexity at a time. Carefully defined objects separate concerns so that you can focus on one thing at a time. Packages provide the same benefit at a higher level of aggregation. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
127:The first question which we had to decide had nothing to do with the occurrence or non-occurrence of any occult episode in the boy’s stream of consciousness; it was the question whether or not he had the required higher-level competence, that of knowing how to tie reef-knots. ~ Gilbert Ryle, #NFDB
128:When there is pain, the animal instinct is 'fight or flight' (i.e., to either strike back or run away) - reflect instead. When you can calm yourself down, thinking about the dilemma that is causing you pain will bring you to a higher level and enlighten you, leading to progress. ~ Ray Dalio, #NFDB
129:our threshold of survival-prone behavior is so high it takes the prospect of total extermination to activate modes of placation and compromise, may there not be other processes, equally life-preserving, which can similarly be triggered off only at a far higher level of stimulus ~ John Brunner, #NFDB
130:[p]eople who are mentally healthy and happy have a higher degree of "vertical coherence" among their goals - that is, higher-level (long term) goal and lower-level (immediate) goals fit together well so that pursuing one's short-term goals advances the pursuit of long-term goals. ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
131:Mark this point well. A person is not pulled up to a higher-level job. Rather, he is lifted up. In this day and age nobody has time or patience to pull another up the job ladder, degree by painful degree. The individual is chosen whose record makes him stand higher than the rest. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
132:Women, I have long believed, are the more evolved of the species and have attained some higher level of being. Men act as if we just crawled from the swamp, our webbed feet dripping brackish water as we waddle ashore, seeking to mate with a female or, lacking that, a warm patch of mud. ~ Paul Levine, #NFDB
133:A mentor will give you a plan and continuously raise your standards. A mentor will not let you get complacent. Finding a mentor will spark your mind because they’re already playing the game at a higher level than you. One of the best investments I have ever made was to invest in a mentor ~ Peter Voogd, #NFDB
134:The inner master, when confronted with an obstacle, uses it as fuel, like a fire which consumes things that are thrown into it. A small lamp would be snuffed out, but a big fire will engulf what is thrown at it and burn hotter; it consumes the obstacle and uses it to reach a higher level. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
135:I never want to code in a non-garbage-collected language again. Been there,
done that, got the T-shirt, and don’t want to go back, because I’d rather spend my time
at a higher level of abstraction, thinking about ways to solve complex business scenarios,
not complicated plumbing problem ~ Neal Ford,#NFDB
136:We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
137:This city is a keg of cordylleum about to go BOOM.
Part of her is proud: This is her operating at a much higher level. This is Jas wielding an entire city population as a weapon against her target. She's used to manipulating people, but this? This is magnified. This is something sublime. ~ Chuck Wendig,#NFDB
138:In our human lives, we are often impatient, ill-tempered, inappropriate. We find it difficult to treat our intimates with the love we really hold for them. Despite this, they bear with us because of the larger, higher level of family that they honor even in our outbursts. This is their commitment. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
139:I got involved, for the most part, in the actual song construction, lyrics even. I didn't want to write the lyrics, but if there was a howler in there, I definitely pointed it out. Just trying to bring it up to a higher level. Of course, after a couple records, people get fed up with that. That's fine. ~ Michael Gira, #NFDB
140:Dont ever be impressed with goal setting; be impressed with goal getting. Reaching new goals and moving to a higher level of performance always requires change, and change feels awkward. But take comfort in the knowledge that if a change doesn't feel uncomfortable, then it's propably not really a change. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
141:The big question about the hunter-gatherers, therefore, does not seem to be ‘How did they progress towards the higher level of an agricultural and politicised society?’ but ‘What persuaded them to abandon the secure, well-provided and psychologically liberating advantages of their primordial lifestyle?’.1 ~ Norman Davies, #NFDB
142:Whatever happens in Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood or Silicon Vally in the next ten years, it will be irrelevant if our families don't come together at a much higher level. Without a renaissance of family, no new candidate can rise to save us. No new legislation, policy or program will heal our land. ~ Oliver DeMille, #NFDB
143:transformational leaders understand (at least implicitly) that human beings have a dual nature. They set up organizations that engage, to some degree, the higher level of that nature. Good leaders create good followers, but followership in a hivish organization is better described as membership. POLITICAL ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
144:I tell young entrepreneurs to use the leader in their industry as a benchmark as they work to create their own brand. Dont look at what your competition is doing - if you emulate the leader in your industry, you will achieve a higher level of engagement with consumers and make their buying experience richer. ~ Steve Stoute, #NFDB
145:Resistance in my experience always kicks in when you're trying to move from a lower level to a higher level or to identify with a braver part of yourself or your higher nature. So it's that negative repelling force. It's kind of the dragon that we have to slay every day if we're artists or entrepreneurs. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
146:Two thousand years of inherited philosophy tugs on our ankles, our cognitive inertial mass being our evolutionarily endowed perceptual systems with their attendant higher-level cognitive structure of physical objects, animals, and plants from which the philosophical system of Aristotle was originally abstracted. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
147:Rather, each brain develops its own idiosyncratic representations of higher-level content. Which particular neuronal assemblies are recruited to represent a particular concept depends on the unique experiences of the brain in question (along with various genetic factors and stochastic physiological processes). ~ Nick Bostrom, #NFDB
148:When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him. You lift the relationship thereby to a higher level. The best in the other person begins to flow out toward you as your best flows toward him. In the meeting of the best in each a higher unity of understanding is established. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
149:Don't ever be too impressed with goal setting; be impressed with goal getting. Reaching new goals and moving to a higher level of performance always requires change, and change feels awkward. But, take comfort in the knowledge that if a change doesn't feel uncomfortable, then it's probably not really a change. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
150:On the contrary, it made me feel that faith is all the more essential. Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level … that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
151:We can begin to achieve higher frequencies by recognizing the pattern of “like attracts like.” More than just a saying, this is an energetic law. Frequencies are attracted to similar frequencies. We resonate at a higher frequency when we raise our vibration, and, therefore, attract higher-level experiences. ~ Caroline A Shearer, #NFDB
152:The work I have done has, already, been adequately rewarded and recognized. Imagination reaches out repeatedly trying to achieve some higher level of understanding, until suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature's pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed. That was my reward. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
153:One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich laying bricks in Siberia probably generated a higher level of happiness than one day in the life of a retired rock star in a Manhattan penthouse with all the beer he could drink. Work was crucial to sanity. Which was probably why George continued to perform on the cruise ship. ~ Graeme Simsion, #NFDB
154:When we are succeeding - that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level - that's when panic strikes. When we experience panic, it means that we're about to cross a threshold. We're poised on the doorstep of a higher plane. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
155:At a certain point, I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person, I needed rules - lots of them - or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission. ~ Matisyahu, #NFDB
156:I know you have this idea that a surgical mask and gown are all you need to handle an Ebola patient, but I think you need to use a higher level of containment,” and he offered to pick up the sick man in an Army ambulance—put him in an Army biocontainment pod—and carry the pod to the Army’s facilities at the Institute. ~ Richard Preston, #NFDB
157:Veganism has given me a higher level of awareness and spirituality, primary because the energy associated with eating has shifted to other areas. If you’re violent to yourself by putting [harmful] things into your body that violate its spirit, it will be difficult not to perpetuate that [violence] onto someone else. ~ Dexter Scott King, #NFDB
158:I like to play chess. I moved to a small town, and nobody played chess there, but one guy challenged me to checkers. I always thought it was kind of a simple game, but I accepted. And he beat me nine or ten games in a row. That’s sort of like living in a small town. It’s a simpler game, but it’s played to a higher level. ~ Peter Hessler, #NFDB
159:I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist -- a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community -- that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
160:The next day, William Lanney's much abused remains were carried in a coffin to the cemetery. The crowd of mourners was large. It included many of Lanney's shipmates, suggesting that the whaling profession in late-nineteenth-century Hobart was graced with a higher level of humanistic sensibility than the surgical profession. ~ David Quammen, #NFDB
161:Success is the ability to solve problems as well. A goal or an objective unachieved, in any area, is merely a problem unsolved. This is why a systematic approach to problem solving, one that works at a higher level and more consistently, is absolutely vital for you to achieve the maximum success that is possible for you. Think ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
162:There is so much more information about the scientific world than there was a generation ago that we have all increased our opportunities for ignorance. There are more things not to know. ... The machinery that we deal with is so much more complex that it is possible to become dysfunctional at a much higher level of performance. ~ Ellen Goodman, #NFDB
163:He refers to a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) study (Shaw et al. 2007) in his explanation that the brains of those with ADHD develop differently than the brains of others. It appears that with ADHD, the primary motor system matures early, while the higher-level brain center (the part that gives self-control) develops late. ~ Zoe Kessler, #NFDB
164:I'm a pretty sad example of what one should do with eternal life. I've never reached any higher level of consciousness, I don't have access to any great truths, and I've never borne witness to the divine or transcendent. Some of this is just bad luck. Like working in the fishing industry in Galilee and never once running into Jesus. ~ Gene Doucette, #NFDB
165:Most people are unhappy since they fail to get what they want in life. However, even when they actually get what they want, their happiness is short-lived because very soon they raise the bar to a higher level and again start struggling to achieve the next level. Their happiness level thus comes back to the original level as before. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
166:The opponent strikes you on your cheek, and you strike him on the heart by your amazing spiritual audacity in turning the other cheek. You wrest the offensive from him by refusing to take his weapons, by keeping your own, and by striking him in his conscience from a higher level. He hits you physically, and you hit him spiritually. ~ E Stanley Jones, #NFDB
167:For everything man does has significance. An evil act will generally cause some disruption or negative reaction in the vast system of the Sefirot; and a good act, correct or raise things to a higher level. Each of the reactions extends out into all of the worlds and comes back into our own, back upon ourselves, in one form or another. ~ Zachary Lazar, #NFDB
168:People think of a business cycle, which is a boom followed by a recession and then automatic stabilizers revive the economy. But this time we can't revive. The reason is that every recovery since 1945 has begun with a higher, and higher level of debt. The debt is so high now, that since 2008 we've been in what I call, debt deflation. ~ Michael Hudson, #NFDB
169:There's no adventure in knowing the outcome of who you're supposed to be with. If everybody did follow this device, and it was supposed to work, then I guess there would be no divorce, no children coming from broken homes and a lot fewer people in therapy. So ultimately society would be functioning at a much higher level. There would be advances. ~ Emma Caulfield, #NFDB
170:The level above Man is called the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God in the Gospels. It has many other names in different writings. In the Gospels, it is said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within. It is at a higher level of a man. To reach it, a man must reach a higher level in himself. If everyone did this, the level of life on this earth would change. ~ Maurice Nicoll, #NFDB
171:Originating at the top, simplification requires a leadership quality that’s often in short supply: courage. It requires a leap of faith, the belief that freeing people to do higher-level thinking will pay back dividends. And it requires a mindset—the will, foresight, and fortitude to push simplicity through. Do you as a leader have these things? If not, why not? ~ Lisa Bodell, #NFDB
172:To enter into the realm of contemplation, one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience as joy, as being. [Every form of intuition and experience] die to be born again on a higher level of life. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
173:On successively higher levels of the hierarchy we find more complex, flexible and less predictable patterns of activity, while on successively lower levels we find more and more mechanised, stereotyped and predictable patterns. In the language of the physicist, a holon on a higher level of the hierarchy has more degrees of freedom than a holon on a lower level. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
174:Men talk much of a new birth. The fact is fundamental. But the mistake is in treating it as an incident which can only happen to a man once in a lifetime: whereas the whole journey of life is a succession of them. A new life springs up in the soul with the discovery of every new agency by which the soul is raised to a higher level of wisdom: goodness and joy. ~ Frederick Douglass, #NFDB
175:...grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity. The maturation story is that we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older. ~ Angela Duckworth, #NFDB
176:When compassion for the common man was born on Christmas Day, with it was born new hope among the multitudes. They feel a great, ever-rising determination to lift themselves and their children our of hunger and disease and misery, up to a higher level. Jesus started a fire upon the earth, and it is burning hot today, the fire of a new hope in the hearts of the hungry multitudes. ~ Frank Laubach, #NFDB
177:I've wanted to feel pleasure to the point of insanity. They call it getting high, because it's wanting to know that higher level, that godlike level. You want to touch the heavens, you want to feel glory and euphoria, but the trick is it takes work. You can't buy it, you can't get it on a street corner, you can't steal it or inject it or shove it up your ass, you have to earn it. ~ Anthony Kiedis, #NFDB
178:There's a clarity that comes with great ideas: You can [easily and simply] explain why something's a great business, how and why it's cheap, why it's cheap for temporary reasons and how, on a normal basis, it should be trading at a much higher level. You're never sitting there on the 40th page of your spreadsheet, as Buffett would say, agonizing over whether you should buy or not. ~ Joel Greenblatt, #NFDB
179:Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This "progress" is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The European of today, in his essential worth, falls far below the European of the Renaissance; the process of evolution does not necessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
180:The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
181:Do you think it's possible that things that seem to be discrete in three dimensions might all be part of the same bigger object in four dimensions? ...What if humanity- that collective noun we so often employ- really is, at a higher level, a singular noun? What it what we perceive in three dimensions as seven billion individual human beings are really all just aspects of one giant being? ~ Robert J Sawyer, #NFDB
182:In Freud’s account, the male superego is established under the threat of castration anxiety, which forces the boy to abandon his oedipal ambitions, but little girls experience themselves as already castrated, and thus have less motivation to keep infantile instinctual impulses in check; consequently they have less energy available for the sublimation that fuels higher-level organization and ~ Stephen A Mitchell, #NFDB
183:When the first market towns emerged in Italy, they didn’t magically create some higher-level group consciousness. They simply widened the pool of minds that could come up with and share good ideas. This is not the wisdom of the crowd, but the wisdom of someone in the crowd. It’s not that the network itself is smart; it’s that the individuals get smarter because they’re connected to the network. ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
184:Then science came along and taught us that we are not the measure of all things, that there are wonders unimagined, that the Universe is not obliged to conform to what we consider comfortable or plausible. We have learned something about the idiosyncratic nature of our common sense. Science has carried human self-consciousness to a higher level. This is surely a rite of passage, a step towards maturity. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
185:We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. ~ James Callaghan, #NFDB
186:The ability of nonintelligent people to understand the most complicated mechanisms and to use them has always been to me a cause of astonishment: their inability to understand simple questions is even more astonishing. The general acceptance of simple ideas is difficult and rare, and yet it is only when simple, fundamental, ideas have been accepted that further progress becomes possible on a higher level. ~ George Sarton, #NFDB
187:The notion developed that the breach of reason with nature was a necessary one; that man had to make it in order to develop his powers of reason and abstraction. Schiller makes this point in his Letters on the Aestethic education of Man, as does Hölderin in his Hyperion Fragment. The belief was that the human destiny was to return to nature at a higher level, having made a synthesis of reason and desire. ~ Charles Taylor, #NFDB
188:You rise to a higher level of consciousness by taking your attention away from your present limitations and placing it upon that which you desire to be. Do not attempt this in day-dreaming or wishful thinking but in a positive manner. Claim yourself to be the thing desired. I AM that; no sacrifice, no diet, no human tricks. All that is asked of you is to accept your desire. If you dare claim it, you will express it. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
189:...education is the ability to retrieve information at will and analyze it. But you can't have higher-level learning- you can't analyze-without retrieving information.' And you can't retrieve information without putting the information in there in the first place. The dichotomy between "learning" and "memorizing" is false, Matthews contends. You can't learn without memorizing, and if done right, you can't memorize without learning. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
190:That fear, that terrible and petrifying fear, which he felt while he was rolling the dice, while he was worried about losing high stakes, that fear he loved and sought to always renew it, always increase it, always get it to a slightly higher level, for in this feeling alone he still felt something like happiness, something like an intoxication, something like an elevated form of life in the midst of his saturated, lukewarm, dull life. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
191:I think East Asian countries, I think they're very fortunate to have Buddhism survive as a strong influence because right from the time when Buddha himself, 2,500 years ago, made the point about the importance of education, and the word "Buddha" also means enlighten[ed] or educated. So all the Buddhist countries, not only Japan and Korea and China and Hong Kong and Thailand but also even Burma and Sri Lanka, had a higher level of education. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
192:You are better than you think you are; you can play at a higher level than you think you can; and you have the potential to beat so-called better players. If you’re a competitor and not just playing for exercise (and “cardio” tennis is great), don’t accept where you are; don’t settle for less. Shake yourself up in whatever manner it takes and you’ll get results. Like Murray and the Djoker you can turn things around and beat players who are beating you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
193:a perception of the cosmic unity of this higher level. And a feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naive faith in causality - the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this Kairos. ~ Tom Wolfe, #NFDB
194:If we were committing an injustice, we ought to think about it, and decide if it was necessary and inevitable, or if it was only the result of taking the easy way out, of laziness, of a lack of thought. It was a question of rigor. I knew that these decisions were made at a much higher level than our own; still, we weren’t automatons, it was important not just to obey orders, but to adhere to them; yet I was having doubts, and that troubled me. Finally ~ Jonathan Littell, #NFDB
195:In its fear of not being, the mind is attached to name, to furniture, to value; and it will drop these in order to be at a higher level, the higher being the more gratifying, the more permanent. The fear of uncertainty, of not being, makes for attachment, for possession. When the possession is unsatisfactory or painful, we renounce it for a more pleasurable attachment. The ultimate gratifying possession is the word God, or its substitute, the State. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
196:At some second transcendent moment in evolution, Edelman proposed, the development of “higher-order consciousness” was made possible in humans (and perhaps a few other species including apes and dolphins) by a higher level of reentrant signaling. Higher-order consciousness brings an unprecedented power of generalization and reflection, of recognizing past and future, so that finally self-consciousness, the awareness of being a self in the world, is achieved. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
197:The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
198:Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level. Many of my male colleagues, when they go to the House floor, you know, they've got some pie chart or graph behind them and they're talking about trillions of dollars and how, you know, the debt is awful and, you know, we all agree with that we need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman's level and what everything that she is balancing in her life - that's the way to go. ~ Renee Ellmers, #NFDB
199:It is amazing to note, however, that an increasing number if esoteric [New Age] organizations that don't function as a screen for criminal activities related to the New World Order are often reduced to idle intellectual speculations or ridiculous ceremony. Such practices should be intended to perfect the individual and, if possible, take him to the realizations of a higher level, i.e. the awakening of his own conscience, not such rubbish as is witnessed. ~ Leo Lyon Zagami, #NFDB
200:When two people become entangled, one person will conform to the energy of the other person. When one of them is a healer whose cells are vibrating at a higher level, the client's cells become entangled, and their energy is lifted. That's why that old saying, "physician heal thyself," is so important, even though most don't understand it: If the physician's energy is going to influence or, in scientific terms, "entrain" the patient's, the doctor's must be higher. ~ Bruce H Lipton, #NFDB
201:The best gift you can ever give your mentor is to grow. They feed off your growth. I believe that everyone has the seed of success inside, but too many people can't find it in themselves and as a result do not reach their potential. But there are those whose purpose in life is to fertilize the seed of potential in another, who are rewarded by seeing that person grow and blossom before their eyes. Raising up others to a higher level is a mentor's joy and sustenance. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
202:There is a strong current in contemporary culture advocating ' holistic ' views as some sort of cure-all... Reductionism implies attention to a lower level while holistic implies attention to higher level. These are intertwined in any satisfactory description: and each entails some loss relative to our cognitive preferences, as well as some gain... there is no whole system without an interconnection of its parts and there is no whole system without an environment. ~ Francisco Varela, #NFDB
203:One who possesses no worldly things may be attached to knowledge, to ideas; another may be attached to virtue, another to experience, another to name and fame, and so on. Without possessions, the “me” is not; the “me” is the possession, the furniture, the virtue, the name. In its fear of not being, the mind is attached to name, to furniture, to value; and it will drop these in order to be at a higher level, the higher being the more gratifying, the more permanent. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
204:I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
205:Each time we check a Twitter feed or Facebook update, we encounter something novel and feel more connected socially (in a kind of weird impersonal cyber way) and get another dollop of reward hormones. But remember, it is the dumb, novelty-seeking portion of the brain driving the limbic system that induces this feeling of pleasure, not the planning, scheduling, higher-level thought centers in the prefrontal cortex. Make no mistake: E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter checking constitute a neural addiction ~ Daniel J Levitin, #NFDB
206:This is a photograph, so it is as you see: there are no lies and no deceptions. One can detect here, elevated to an incomparably higher level, the same pathetic emotional appeal that lies concealed in every fake spiritualist photograph, every pornographic photograph; one comes to suspect that the strange, disturbing emotional appeal of the photographic art consists solely in that same repeated refrain: this is a true ghost... this is a photograph, so it is as you see: there are no lies, no deceptions. ~ Yukio Mishima, #NFDB
207:THE BEGINNING OF FREEDOM is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
208:Arabic is a subtle and sinuous language. Like all Semitic languages, it plays on words, taking a three-consonant root and building on it to create what sometimes seems an infinite number of meanings. Even the exact same word can have different connotations, depending on the context. Perhaps the best-known example is jihad, struggle, which can be either the inner striving to live the Islamic life and attain a higher level of spiritual consciousness, or the external armed confrontation with those seen as enemies of Islam. ~ Lesley Hazleton, #NFDB
209:In-formation, or phylogenetic history frozen into syntactically ordered form (such as genetic code, a social law, or a work of art) is “brought to life,” or placed in a time perspective, by in-struction from a higher level of coordination (bringing into play semantics, or the functional relations of a space-time structure to its environment); the result is in-tuition, or learning from within by re-ligio (connecting through a space-time continuum to one’s own origin.) ~ Erich Jantsch, Evolution and Consciousness - Human Systems in Transition, #NFDB
210:One of the great errors organizations make is shutting down what is a natural, life-enhancing process-chaos. We are terrified of chaos. As a manager, it signals failure. But if you move out of control and into an appreciation of natural order, you understand that the only way a system changes is when it is far from equilibrium, when it moves from the 'quiet' we treasure and is confronted with the choice to die or reorganize. And you can't reorganize to a higher level unless you risk the perils of the path through chaos. ~ Margaret J Wheatley, #NFDB
211:Avataric periods are like the spring-tide of creation. They bring a new release of power, a new awakening of consciousness, a new experience of life - not merely for a few, but for all. Qualities of energy and awareness, which had been used and enjoyed by only a few advanced souls, are made available for all humanity. Life, as a whole is stepped up to a higher level of consciousness, is geared to a new rate of energy. The transition from sensation to reason was one such step; the transition from reason to intuition will be another. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
212:Goal setting is fine if you want to be the warrior archetype. These people are setting goals constantly and trying to get someplace else. They say, "If you don't know where you are going, then you won't know when you get there." When you get to a higher level of consciousness, though, when you get into a spiritual approach to life, you are not trying to get someplace else, because you never can get it done. You never are going to get there. Instead, what you want to do is get to a place where you are at peace. You are connected to God. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
213:While this new motto might seem self-contradictory, Mark explains that it focuses on a higher-level goal. “The goal is to move fast,” Mark told me. “When we were smaller, being willing to break things allowed us to move faster. But as we grew, the willingness to break things actually started slowing us down, because increasing complexity made it harder and harder to fix things once they broke. By taking the extra time to focus on stable infrastructure, we reduce the impact and time to recover from breaking things, so that we can actually move faster. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
214:[In the story of the Good Samaritan,] everybody knows the robber is bad--but doesn't Jesus also imply an indictment on the priest and Levite? . . . The priest and Levite are over here. They are 'righteous' in a superficial way. They don't rob anybody. They're not like that lousy criminal who is over here, on the bad end of the line. Do you see it? That's the line we modern Christians try to live on the right end of it . . . The Samaritan traveler lives on a higher level, altogether. The issue isn't who is wrong or righteous; that's obvious. The issue is who is truly good. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
215:In the energy band and under conditions conductive to the types of macroorganization found in biological life, the laws of physics become accentuated in particular ways by a hierarchy of coordinative levels ranging from dissipative structures at the molecular level and within cells to bio-organisms, societies, ecosystems, and beyond. Even “mind” may now perhaps be understood as a higher-level coordination of the same processes which, at other levels, appear as “matter;” thus a duality vanishes that has long haunted Western thought. ~ Erich Jantsch, Evolution and Consciousness - Human Systems in Transition, #NFDB
216:We see Nature combining molecules and cells in the living body to construct separate individuals, and the same Nature, stubbornly pursuing the same course but on a higher level, combining individuals in social organisms to obtain a higher order of psychic results. The processes of chemistry and biology are continued without a break in the social sphere. This accounts for the tendency, which has been insufficiently noted, of every living phylum (insect and vertebrate) to group itself towards its latter end in socialized communities. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, A Great Event Foreshadowed - The Planetization of Mankind, #NFDB
217:It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to pass on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 367, #NFDB
218:there is something other than nature that accounts for nature and the regularities of nature. The laws of nature are “his” or “its” arrangements. And if they are, then he or it can change the conditions and manners of those arrangements to allow for or to bring about events that are totally out of character for nature “on its own.” Nature is, simply, not on its own. But then both the laws of nature and the change of their higher-level conditions—along with any resultant miraculous event and its “natural” consequences—are a part of a larger system of reality including both nature and the special purposes of God. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
219:Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This 'progress' is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. "Socialism ― or the tyranny of the meanest and the most brainless, ―that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the mummers, brought to its zenith, ―is, as a matter of fact, the logical conclusion of “modern ideas” and their latent anarchy: but in the genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming resolutions or even for coming to an end at all, is paralysed. Men follow―but no longer their reason. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
220:Empathy and integration permit effective cultural intelligence, which is to say, becoming able to understand how the society works. In Fourth Generation war, virtually all useful intelligence is human intelligence (HUMINT). Often, such HUMINT must both be gathered and acted on with stealth techniques, where the state’s actions remain invisible to the local population. As in Third Generation war (maneuver warfare), the tactical level in Fourth Generation conflicts is reconnaissance-driven, not intelligence-driven. The information state militaries need will almost always come from below, not from higher-level headquarters. ~ William S Lind, #NFDB
221:Matrices vary from fully automatized skills to those with a high degree of plasticity; but even the latter are controlled by rules of the game which function below the level of awareness. These silent codes can be regarded as condensations of learning into habit. Habits are the indispensable core of stability and ordered behaviour; they also have a tendency to become mechanized and to reduce man to the status of a conditioned automaton. The creative act, by connecting previously unrelated dimensions of experience, enables him to attain to a higher level of mental evolution. It is an act of liberation-the defeat of habit by originality. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
222:As we watch, therefore, the tragic mistakes and misfortunes in people’s lives—including our own—we should shed only tears of joy at the privilege of being able to offer help, even to ourselves. We should approach tragedy, whether in others’ or in our own lives, with an attitude of dynamic inner joy. The way to emerge from suffering is to raise to a higher level our own, or other people’s, consciousness. For ourselves, consciousness can be raised by right attitudes. In souls made in the image of God there is no room for disturbing emotions such as grief. The fundamental cure for all human ills is everywhere one and the same: to raise one’s consciousness. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
223:The typical, well-meaning liberal approach to solving social tensions is to treat every value as equal, and then try to force a leveling or redistribution of resources (money, rights, goods, land) while leaving the values untouched. The typical conservative approach is take its particular values and try to foist them on everybody else. The developmental approach is to realize that there are many different values and worldviews; that some are more complex than others; that many of the problems at one stage of development can only be defused by evolving to a higher level; and that only by recognizing and facilitating this evolution can social justice be finally served. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
224:Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi, but there is a hierarchy of deceptions.
Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat.
On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish.
Near the top of the ladder we encounter curious mixtures of untruth and truth that exert a lasting fascination on the intellectual community. ~ Walter Kaufmann,#NFDB
225:The first veil of organised matter spread over the earth could neither have established nor maintained itself without some network of influences and exchanges which made it a biologically cohesive whole. From its origin, the cellular nebula necessarily represented, despite its internal multiplicity, a sort of diffuse super-organism. Not merely a foam of lives but, to a certain extent, itself a living film. A simple reappearance, after all, in more advanced form and on a higher level of those much older conditions which we have already seen presiding over the birth and equilibrium of the first polymerised substances on the surface of the early earth. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
226:And what is marriage, if not a higher level of friendship, a timeless and selfless partnership? It is the manifestation of love in its purest form. It is the joy of looking at your partner and knowing that there will never be another who could give you their life like this.” “Marriage,” Derek added with a warm smile, “is a gift. A promise that in good and in bad, in peace and in war, in sickness and in health, in happiness and in grief, you will be together. You will be there for one another. You will love and cherish one another. You will honor and protect one another. You will be one, for as long as you both shall live, and well beyond the veil of death. Your souls will forever be bound. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
227:Our legal limits do not just enclose us, they are us. What happens when a higher-level government makes a ruling that conflicts with local interests? Vexing issues and lasting disputes arise from the multiple bounded arenas we live within and identify with. Fuzzy-edged cultural and business groups, each with a distinct agenda, permeate all levels of the comparatively crisp land-based lines. Laws apply property concepts to our bodies and our extended skins of homes and habits in a plethora of privacy issues. At big scales, nations accost one another by entering each other’s trousers, by physical force, unfair trade, and nearly unstoppable cultural incursion. ~ Tyler Volk, Metapatterns - Across Space, Time, and Mind, #NFDB
228:Wesley remembered his mother as a horrible cook who would load up his plate with food he loathed and insist he eat it all—or else. He did. In the process, Wesley learned to put himself on automatic pilot when he ate. He tuned out his sensations of hunger, fullness, and pleasure—and, as much as he could, his discomfort with feeling stuffed—and simply got the food down. Through no fault of his own, Wesley’s chronic overeating made him fat as a child and fat as an adult. When he grew up, he tried to stop overeating and turned instead to dieting. Over and over, he restricted his food intake and forced his weight down, only to give up the diet and gain the weight back—almost without exception to a higher level. ~ Ellyn Satter, #NFDB
229:[A] person's fate is determined by where he is born [...] I was, to be sure, brighter than the other children my age. I picked up reading and writing in no time at all. And I was able to calculate finances without any effort. To stretch myself and expand my knowledge, I wanted to continue my schooling and go on to higher-level classes. But my family was poor. They could only afford to send me to the village elementary school. When I realized that my dreams would never be realized, I suppose -- like a tree whose roots are stymied and twisted and not allowed to grow -- I began to nurture a dark jealousy in my heart, an ugly envy. I believed fate had determined that I would be born into this miserable existence. ~ Natsuo Kirino, #NFDB
230:It’s funny, really: the older you get, the more you know about the world. The synapses in your brain fire at a higher level and quicker function, your knowledge expands. But you lose part of yourself, that part able to imagine great armies that wait for nothing more than your command; the dragon that hides under your bed that only you can see, its long emerald tail flashing in the darkness; the ghost that lives in your attic that only moans at 3:23 in the morning. When you lose that innocence, the world’s hues become dark and muted, and you know that dragons aren’t real. There is no army. There is no ghost in the attic. But when you’re nine? When you’re nine, it’s all probable, it’s all realistic, and even more so, it’s all true. ~ T J Klune, #NFDB
231:Man fails to do the works of Jesus Christ because he attempts to accomplish them from his present level of consciousness. You will never transcend your present accomplishments through sacrifice and struggle. Your present level of consciousness will only be transcended as you drop the present state and rise to a higher level. You rise to a higher level of consciousness by taking your attention away from your present limitations and placing it upon that which you desire to be. Do not attempt this in day-dreaming or wishful thinking but in a positive manner. Claim yourself to be the thing desired. I AM that; no sacrifice, no diet, no human tricks. All that is asked of you is to accept your desire. If you dare claim it, you will express it. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
232:We cannot gain an essential knowledge of man through any method that is based on externalization of man's inner being and the placing of this externalized man, of the man who stands at the rim of the wheel of existence, as the subject that knows. If "essential" has any meaning at all, it must be related to the essence, to the Centre or axis which at once generates the spokes and the rim. Only the higher can comprehend the lower, for to "comprehend" means literally "to encompass", and only that which stands on a higher level of existence can encompass that which lies below it. The essence of man, that which is essential to human nature, can be understood only by the intellect, through "the eye of the heart" as traditionally understood. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
233:When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected) he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When troubles come along—illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation—he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
234:This brings up some lessons to be learned from cognitive linguistics. • Words are defined relative to conceptual frames. Words evoke frames, and if you want to evoke the right frames, you need the right words. • To use the other side’s words is to accept their framing of the issues. • Higher-level moral frames limit the scope of the frames defining particular issues. • To negate a frame is to accept that frame. Example: To carry out the instruction “Don’t think of an elephant” you have to think of an elephant. • Rebuttal is not reframing. You have to impose your own framing before you can successfully rebut. • The facts themselves won’t set you free. You have to frame facts properly before they can have the meaning you want them to convey. These ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
235:In fact, the belief that neurophysiology is even relevant to the functioning of the mind is just hypothesis. Who knows if we're looking at the right aspects of the brain at all. Maybe there are other aspects of the brain that nobody has even dreamt of looking at yet. That's often happened in the history of science. When people say that the mental is the neurophysiological at a higher level, they're being radically unscientific. We know a lot about the mental from a scientific point of view. We have explanatory theories that account for a lot of things. The belief that neurophysiology is implicated in these things could be true, but we have every little evidence for it. So, it's just a kind of hope; look around and you see neurons; maybe they're implicated. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
236:Panic Is Good Creative panic is good. Here’s why: Our greatest fear is fear of success. When we are succeeding—that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level—that’s when panic strikes. It did for me when my book crashed, and it was the best thing that happened to me all year. When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane. Have you ever watched a small child take a few bold steps away from its mother? The little boy or girl shows great courage. She ventures forth, feels exhilaration, and then … she realizes what she has done. She freaks. She bolts back to Mommy. That’s you and me when we’re growing. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
237:The causal efficacy of will, James had intuited more than one hundred years ago, is a higher-level manifestation of the causal efficacy of attention. To focus attention on one idea, on one possible course of action among the many bubbling up inchoate in our consciousness, is precisely what we mean by an act of volition, James was saying; volition acts through attention, which magnifies, stabilizes, clarifies, and otherwise makes predominant one thought out of many. The essential achievement of the will is to attend to one object and hold it clear and strong before the mind, letting all others—its rivals for attention and subsequent action—fade away like starlight swamped by the radiance of the Sun. That was just the idea that had emerged from the quantum approach. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
238:When I fight off a disease bent on my cellular destruction, when I marvelously distribute energy and collect waste with astonishing alacrity even in my most seemingly fatigued moments, when I slip on ice and gyrate crazily but do not fall, when I unconsciously counter-steer my way into a sharp bicycle turn, taking advantage of physics I do not understand using a technique I am not even aware of using, when I somehow catch the dropped oranges before I know I've dropped them, when my wounds heal in my ignorance, I realize how much bigger I am than I think I am. And how much more important, nine times out of ten, those lower-level processes are to my overall well-being than the higher-level ones that tend to be the ones getting me bent out of shape or making me feel disappointed or proud. ~ Brian Christian, #NFDB
239:No. Every time I’ve seen you reach out and love someone, take your hand and put it on a broken person’s arm and encourage them with your words, kiss me on the cheek and make me feel like the most important person in the universe, play a game with your little brother while you could be doing something else – that’s holy. Those moments when we’re together and we sink into that weird little world where it’s just the two of us and we almost feel like we’re glowing with love and then some vibrating entity that feels older than the sea filters in and hums between us – that’s religion. That’s us rising above our humanity – transcending the genre – and reaching a higher level, a galactic level. That’s love. That’s God. That’s grace. That’s majesty. And you love, Summer, so you’re God.” He laughed again, quieter this time. “To me, at least. ~ Seth King, #NFDB
240:You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can’t, except maybe for a moment or two. Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don’t even know that you are its slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
241:It goes without saying that it is the traditionally minded Hindu we have in view, and not one whose hereditary dispositions have deviated in an anti-traditional direction, to the point of proving that "corruptio optimi pessima." Hinduism, strictly speaking, has no "dogmas" in the sense that every concept may be denied, on condition that the argument used is intrinsically true; which amounts to saying that concepts can be denied from the standpoint of a higher level of truth, metaphysics standing above cosmology and realization above theory as such. However, on their own level, the scriptural symbols of Hinduism are just as immovable as the Semitic dogmas, and this excludes any fallacious comparison of Hindu doctrine with the opinions of philosophers. No orthodox Hindu can maintain that the Veda has been mistaken on any point whatsoever. ~ Frithjof Schuon, #NFDB
242:My most absorbing interests at the present time are etymologies of ancient languages, the newer works on the calculus of variations, and Hindu history. It's amazing the way things, apparently disconnected, hang together. I've moved up to another plateau, and now the streams of the various disciplines seem to be closer to each other as if they flow from a single source.
Strange how when I'm in the college cafeteria and hear the students arguing about history or politics or religion, it all seems so childish.
I find no pleasure in discussing ideas any more on such an elementary level. People resent being shown that they don't approach the complexities of the problem they don't know what exists beyond the surface ripples. It's just as bad on a higher level, and I've given up any attempt to discuss these things with the professors at Beekman. ~ Daniel Keyes,#NFDB
243:One company I know took the art of using cubicles to kill motivation to a higher level. They found out that employees had all kinds of personal mementoes on their desks, so the management redid the cubicles and made them 20 percent smaller, with less space for anything personal, but more space for more people. Another company came up with an even more brilliant idea that nobody could “own” their own cubicle, designing the system such that those who showed up to work earliest in the morning could claim the ones closest the windows. None of the cubicles has anything but a desk, a place to connect a computer, and a chair. No one could establish a sense of connection to their workspace. Ultimately, by setting the atmosphere this way, the company communicated to the employees that they are valued only for their direct productivity and that they are easily replaceable. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
244:Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This 'progress' is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The European of today, in his essential worth, falls far below the European of the Renaissance; the process of evolution does not necessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening.
True enough, it succeeds in isolated and individual cases in various parts of the earth and under the most widely different cultures, and in these cases a higher type certainly manifests itself; something which, compared to mankind in the mass, appears as a sort of superman. Such happy strokes of high success have always been possible, and will remain possible, perhaps, for all time to come. Even whole races, tribes and nations may occasionally represent such lucky accidents. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
245:Let the theorists consider themselves. How are they capable of reasoning at all if not because within them their visceral system has been taught to function automatically, while around them society is so well organized that they have both the strength and the leisure to calculate and reflect? What is true for each individual man is precisely what is happening at this moment on the higher level of mankind. Like a heavenly body that heats as it contracts, such, and in a twofold respect, is the Noösphere: first in intensity, the degree in which its tension and psychic temperature are heightened by the coming together and mutual stimulation of thinking centers throughout its extent; and also quantitatively through the growing number of people able to use their brains because they are freed from the need to labor with their hands. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Formation of the Noösphere, #NFDB
246:go. In order for the data-inputting side of her job to be both profitable and bearable she had to work fast. The first time an accountant gave her a job, he’d told her it was about six to eight hours’ work. She’d done it in four, charged him for six. Since her first job she’d gotten even faster. It was like playing a computer game, seeing if she could get to a higher level each time. It wasn’t her dream job, but she did quite enjoy the satisfaction of transforming a messy pile of paperwork into neat rows of figures. She loved calling up her clients, who were now mostly small-business people like Pete, and telling them she’d found a new deduction. Best of all, she was proud of the fact that she’d supported herself and Ziggy for the last five years without having to ask her parents for money, even if it had meant that she sometimes worked well into the night while he slept. This ~ Liane Moriarty, #NFDB
247:I came to realize that a female employee is more afraid of losing her job than a prostitute is of losing her life. An employee is scared of losing her job and becoming a prostitute because she does not understand that the prostitute’s life is in fact better than hers. And so she pays the price of her illusory fears with her life, her health, her body, and her mind. She pays the highest price for things of the lowest value. I now knew that all of us were prostitutes who sold themselves at varying prices, and that an expensive prostitute was better than a cheap one. I also knew that if I lost my job, all I would lose with it was the miserable salary, the contempt I could read every day in the eyes of the higher level executives when they looked at the lesser female officials, the humiliating pressure of male bodies on mine when I rode in the bus, and the long morning queue in front of a perpetually overflowing toilet. ~ Nawal El Saadawi, #NFDB
248:A Critic
That from _you_, neighbor! to whose vacant lot
Each rhyming literary knacker scourges
His cart-compelling Pegasus to trot,
As folly, fame or famine smartly urges?
Admonished by the stimulating goad,
How gaily, lo! the spavined crow-bait prances
Its cart before it-eager to unload
The dead-dog sentiments and swill-tub fancies.
Gravely the sweating scavenger pulls out
The tail-board of his curst imagination,
Shoots all his rascal rubbish, and, no doubt,
Thanks Fortune for so good a dumping-station.
To improve your property, the vile cascade
Your thrift invites-to make a higher level.
In vain: with tons of garbage overlaid,
Your baseless bog sinks slowly to the devil.
'Rubbish may be shot here'-familiar sign!
I seem to see it in your every column.
You have your wishes, but if I had mine
'Twould to your editor mean something solemn.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
249:There is one further attribute of language that places it at a higher level than any existing technological organization or facility; and that is, to function at all, it demands a reciprocal relation between producer and consumer, between sayer and listener: an inequality of advantage destroys in some degree the integrity and common value of the product. Unlike any historic economic system, the demand for words may be limited without embarrassing the supply: the capital reserves (vocabulary) may become huger and the capacity for production (speech, literature, sharable meanings) continue to increase without imposing any collective duty to consume the surplus. This relationship, embedded in the special form of language, the dialogue, is at last being undermined by a new system of control and one-way communication that has now found an electronic mode of operation; and the grave issues that have thus been raised must now be faced. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
250:DEDICATE YOURSELF this day to me, to my service, and to the service of humanity. Service is a wonderful healer, for as you forget yourself in service, you will find you will grow and expand in the most wonderful way. You will reach great heights and plumb great depths, and your love and understanding of life will begin to mean something to you. This day will afford you countless opportunities for stretching and growing. Accept each one with a heart filled with love and gratitude, and feel yourself growing in consciousness and in wisdom. Live it fully and abundantly with no restrictions, no limitations. Expect only the very best in everything and everyone, and see it come forth. Keep your heart open to one another. Look for the highest good in each other, and work from that higher level of consciousness. Encourage one another in every way possible; every soul needs encouragement. You will find as you help others, you help yourself to grow at the same time. ~ Eileen Caddy, #NFDB
251:It wasn’t until years later that I understood that a management failure doomed Challenger as much as the O-ring failure. Engineers working on the solid rocket boosters had raised concerns multiple times about the performance of the O-rings in cold weather. In a teleconference the night before Challenger’s launch, they had desperately tried to talk NASA managers into delaying the mission until the weather got warmer. Those engineers’ recommendations were not only ignored, they were left out of reports sent to the higher-level managers who made the final decision about whether or not to launch. They knew nothing about the O-ring problems or the engineers’ warnings, and neither did the astronauts who were risking their lives. The presidential commission that investigated the disaster recommended fixes to the solid rocket boosters, but more important, they recommended broad changes to the decision-making process at NASA, recommendations that changed the culture at NASA—at least for a while. ~ Scott Kelly, #NFDB
252:Have you ever heard of a biodome?” Cameron wanted to blink and ask the man to repeat himself. “They kept trying them, before all this started,” Andreus continued. “In the years before the first Mars missions, they ramped up. There was one in Canada, another in Europe. Truly isolated environments. But do you know why they’re so difficult to pull off in the long term?” The question was several paces ahead of Cameron. He knew nothing about biodomes beyond the concept: to wall off a piece of nature and see if it could sustain itself with no exchange beyond the bubble. Cameron shook his head. “It’s because nobody really understands the complex interactions of an ecosystem,” Nathan said, still glancing toward the window. “There’s the question of what eats what and what breathes what — biologist, ecologist stuff. But I think there’s a lot they’re forgetting, because it’s on a higher level. A thinking level perhaps. Like how a zoo animal will never truly behave like a wild one simply because it’s not free to wander. ~ Sean Platt, #NFDB
253:While we have taken over higher level education, it’s time to start infiltrating the elementary, middle, and high school levels, and turn them into indoctrination centers. Most of the parents in this country will be too busy with their careers to notice what they’re children are learning in school, so we will be able to do whatever we want. We will educate them to the point where they are the type of voters who are so low-information that they get their news from entertainment programs and not much else. There will be those few who educate their own children or put them in private education, but there’s not enough of them to make much of a dent in the future we will have planned. We have to teach these young people that America was started by bloodthirsty whites who wanted gold and silver, and the Puritans and others weren’t nearly as pure as they claimed. We have to make the Natives who were here out to be innocents, that none of them ever committed atrocities themselves, that they were what one writer once called ‘Noble Savages. ~ Cliff Ball, #NFDB
254:I propose that what we call “consciousness” is a feeling forming a backdrop to, or attached to, a current mental event or instinct. It is best grasped by considering a common engineering architecture called layering, which allows complex systems to function efficiently and in an integrated fashion, from atoms to molecules, to cells, to circuits, to cognitive and perceptual capacities. If the brain indeed consists of different layers (in the engineering sense), then information from a micro level may be integrated at higher and higher layers until each modular unit itself produces consciousness. A layer architecture allows for new levels of functioning to arise from lower-level functioning parts that could not create the “higher level” experience alone. It is time to learn more about layering and the wonders it brings to understanding brain architecture. We are on the road to realizing that consciousness is not a “thing.” It is the result of a process embedded in an architecture, just as a democracy is not a thing but the result of a process. ~ Michael S Gazzaniga, #NFDB
255:Two ways were in fact open for the development of human culture, once it had passed beyond the stage reached in the neolithic community-the way of the village or the way of the citadel: or, to speak in biological terms, the symbiotic and the predatory. They were not absolute choices, but they pointed in different directions. The first was the path of voluntary co-operation, mutual accomodation, wider communication and understanding: its outcome would be an organic association, of a more complex nature, on a higher level than that offered by the village community and its nearby lands. The other was that of predatory domination, leading to heartless exploitation and eventually to parasitic enfeeblement: the way of expansion, with its violence, its conflicts, its anxieties, turning the city itself into an instrument, as Childe properly observes, for the "extraction and concentration of the surplus." This second form has largely dominated urban history till our own age, and it accounts in no small degree for the enclosure and collapse of one civilization after another. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
256:Picture yourself, Jack, a confirmed homebody, a sedentary fellow who finds himself walking in a deep wood. You spot something out of the corner of your eye. Before you know anything else, you know that this thing is very large and that it has no place in your ordinary frame of reference. A flaw in the world picture. Either it shouldn't be here or you shouldn't. Now the thing comes into full view. It is a grizzly bear, enormous, shiny brown, swaggering, dripping slime from its bared fangs. Jack, you have never seen a large animal in the wild. The sight of this grizzer is so electrifyingly strange that it gives you a renewed sense of yourself, a fresh awareness of the self— the self in terms of a unique and horrific situation. You see yourself in a new and intense way. You rediscover yourself. You are lit up for your own imminent dismemberment. The beast on hind legs has enabled you to see who you are as if for the first time, outside familiar surroundings, alone, distinct, whole. The name we give this complicated process is fear. [...]
Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level.
(p. 218) ~ Don DeLillo,#NFDB
257:This is, in general, what iconicity
in language is: a metaphorical image-mapping in which the structure of the mean-
ing is understood in terms of the structure of the form of the language presenting
that meaning. Such mappings are possible because of the existence of image-
schemas, such as schemas characterizing bounded spaces (with interiors and exte-
riors), paths, motions along those paths, forces, parts and wholes, centers and pe-
ripheries, and so on. When we speak of the “form of language,” we are under-
standing that form in terms of such image-schemas. Thus, for example, one aspect of sentence structure is given in terms of parts and wholes, that is, the parts of
speech and the higher-level constituents containing them. Other aspects of a sen-
tence’s structure are given in terms of balance, proximity, subordination, sequence,
and so on. The schematic images that allow us to understand such syntactic no-
tions are also used in conceptual structure. It is for this reason that image-
schematic correspondences between form and meaning are possible. The mech-
anism that relates them is the same mapping mechanism used in metaphor. ~ George Lakoff,#NFDB
258:What are we, people, living for?
You know, what I can observe in our life is that all adults are mostly living for the reason to earn funds for being able to feed themselves and raise their kids; and then those kids grow up and living for the goal to feed themselves and their children… So this feels like an everlasting circle, isn’t it? I mean, shouldn’t each of us, humans, have some kinds of more interesting and important sense of life, except for just living for eating and feeding? Isn’t it sensless and way too primitive to live that way?
I believe… I feel I am living for some greater reason, than just eating to grow up to feed the kids to grow up…
How could it be right or “normal” that Lord, or the Universe, gave a human the precious gift of life for most of us just to live to eat and to raise kids, for them to only eat and grow their children, and nothing more than that? Could that way really be our gift back to God, in appreciation for what we got? Doesn’t such an existence seem useless and worthless without having some missions and goals of a higher level? Whether living like a “normal” appear to be not the most unworthy way to invest the time of your being? ~ Sahara Sanders,#NFDB
259:Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn't mean that you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems. Thats why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs. You have no interest in either. Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the “off” button? You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can't, except maybe for a moment or two. Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
260:work on it for an hour of completely focused and undistracted effort (notice I haven’t opened e-mail yet). Then, every morning at 7 a.m., I have what I call my calibration appointment, a recurring appointment set in my calendar, where I take fifteen minutes to calibrate my day. This is where I brush over my top three one-year and five-year goals, my key quarterly objectives, and my top goal for the week and month. Then, for the most important part of the calibration appointment, I review (or set) my top three MVPs (Most Valuable Priorities) for that day, asking myself, “If I only did three things today, what are the actions that will produce the greatest results in moving me closer to my big goals?” Then, and only then, do I open e-mail and send out a flurry of tasks and delegations to get the rest of my team started on their day. I then quickly close down my e-mail and go to work on my MVPs. The rest of the day can take a million different shapes, but as long as I go through my morning routine, a majority of the key disciplines I need to be practicing are taken care of, and I’m properly grounded and prepared to perform at a much higher level than if I started each day erratically—or worse, with a set of bad habits. ~ Darren Hardy, #NFDB
261:In this way the original arrival of textile machinery not only replaced cottage hand manufacturing, it set up an opportunity for a higher-level set of arrangements-the factory system-in which the machinery became merely a component. The new factory system in turn set up a chain of needs-for labor and housing-whose solutions created further needs, and all this in time became the Victorian industrial system. The process took a hundred years or more to reach anything like completion.
The reader might object that this makes structural change appear too simplistic-too mechanical. Technology A sets up a need for arrangements B; technology C fulfills this, but sets up further needs D and E; these are resolved by technologies F and G. Certainly such sequences do form the basis of structural change, but there is nothing simple about them. The factory system itself needed means of powering the new machinery, systems of ropes and pulleys for transmitting this power, means of acquiring and keeping track of materials, means of bookkeeping, means of management, means of delivery of the product. And these in turn were built from other components, and had their own needs. Structural change is fractal, it branches out at lower levels, just as an embryonic arterial system branches out as it develops into smaller arteries and capillaries. ~ W Brian Arthur,#NFDB
262:For example, in 2015, Payal Kadakia, the founder of ClassPass (a monthly subscription service for fitness classes) decided that she needed to double the size of her staff in just three months so that ClassPass would be able expand into more cities. To achieve this kind of speed, Kadakia and her team abandoned traditional hiring processes and followed two simple rules. First, they hired people from their personal networks, with an emphasis on “branded” talent. For example, if an employee had a friend, and that friend worked for the management consulting firm Bain & Company, that friend got hired because ClassPass could assume that the person was smart and would get along with people. Second, some of the time saved by not interviewing for skills allowed the team to interview for alignment with the company’s mission. Crazy? Perhaps. But ClassPass was in a crowded, emerging market, and being able to hire faster than the competition helped it maintain and increase its leadership position. Blitzscaling also requires a strong focus on risk management. While blitzscaling requires risk taking, it doesn’t require unnecessary risk taking. Indeed, the higher level of risk associated with blitzscaling makes risk management even more valuable and important. As Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang told us in an interview for Reid’s Masters of Scale podcast, “All bold strategies have a risk. If you don’t see it, you’re flying risk-blind. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
263:Here are four more strategies to help you stack the deck in your favor when seeking a raise or a promotion: ✓ DO YOUR RESEARCH: Understand your market value and, more important, your value to the company. Be prepared to explain, candidly and concretely, what you feel you’re doing that you’re not being compensated for. Have confidence in your own worth. ✓ ASK TO BE PAID FOR THE JOB YOU’RE ACTUALLY DOING: If your responsibilities have increased but you haven’t been recognized since, say, you’ve taken over for the manager who left several months earlier, approach your new boss and say, “I’ve been effectively doing this person’s job since she departed and I’d like to formally assume her position.” Have a conversation. Express that you feel confident you can grow in this role and create value for the organization. ✓ PROVE YOUR WORTH: To earn an increase in salary, you need to be increasing your responsibilities and performing at a higher level than when you were hired. ✓ DON’T NEGOTIATE IF YOUR BOSS SAYS NO: Typically no means no when it comes to this type of discussion. If your boss says no, you have two choices: you either accept the rationale, think about it, and grow based on the feedback, or you leave. This is a good time to be reflective. Ask why you haven’t earned the increase. You may not walk away with a new title or more money, but hopefully you’ll learn something that will help you correct your course moving forward. ~ Ivanka Trump, #NFDB
264:Greatness is the courage to overcome obstacles. It is the willingness to move to a higher level of love. It is the acceptance of others’ humanness and having compassion for their suffering by putting ourselves in their shoes. Out of the forgiveness of others come self-forgiveness and the relief of guilt. The real payoff we get is when we let go of our negativity and choose to be loving; we are the ones who benefit. We are the ones who gain from the real payoff. With this increased awareness of who we really are comes the progressive invulnerability to pain. Once we compassionately accept our own humanness and that of others, we are no longer subject to humiliation, for true humility is a part of greatness. Out of the recognition of who we really are comes the desire to seek that which is uplifting. Out of it arises a new meaning and context for life. When that inner emptiness, due to lack of self-worth, is replaced by true self-love, self-respect and esteem, we no longer have to seek it in the world, for that source of happiness is within ourselves. It dawns on us that it cannot be supplied by the world anyway. No amount of riches can compensate for an inner feeling of poverty. We all know of the many multimillionaires who try to compensate for their inner sense of hollowness and lack of inner worth. Once we have contacted this inner Self, this inner greatness, this inner completion, contentment, and true sense of happiness, we have transcended the world. The world is now a place to enjoy, and we are no longer run by it. We are no longer at the effect of it. ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
265:We've got two kinds of language in our heads. The kind we're using now is
acquired. It patterns our brains as we're learning it. But there's also a
tongue that's based in the deep structures of the brain, that everyone shares.
These structures consist of basic neural circuits that have to exist in order to
allow our brains to acquire higher languages."
"Linguistic infrastructure," Uncle Enzo says.
"Yeah. I guess 'deep structure' and 'infrastructure' mean the same thing.
Anyway, we can access those parts of the brain under the right conditions.
Glossolalia -- speaking in tongues -- is the output side of it, where the deep
linguistic structures hook into our tongues and speak, bypassing all the higher,
acquired languages. Everyone's known that for some time."
"You're saying there's an input side, too?" Ng says.
"Exactly. It works in reverse. Under the right conditions, your ears -- or
eyes -- can tie into the deep structures, bypassing the higher language
functions. Which is to say, someone who knows the right words can speak words,
or show you visual symbols, that go past all your defenses and sink right into
your brainstem. Like a cracker who breaks into a computer system, bypasses all
the security precautions, and plugs himself into the core, enabling him to exert
absolute control over the machine."
"In that situation, the people who own the computer are helpless," Ng says.
"Right. Because they access the machine at a higher level, which has now been
overridden. In the same sense, once a neurolinguistic hacker plugs into the
deep structures of our brain, we can't get him out -- because we can't even
control our own brain at such a basic level. ~ Neal Stephenson,#NFDB
266:A critical but often ignored impact of FDI is that on the (current and future) domestic competitors. An entry by a TNC through FDI can destroy existing national firms that could have 'grown up' into successful operations without this premature exposure to competition, or it can pre-empt the emergence of domestic competitors. In such cases, short-run productive capabilities are enhanced, as the TNC subsidiary replacing the (current and future) national firms is usually more productive than the latter. But the level of productive capability that the country can attain in the long run becomes lower as a result.
This is because TNCs do not, as a rule, transfer the most valuable activities outside their home country, as I will discuss in greater detail later. As a result, there will be a definite ceiling on the level of sophistication that a TNC subsidiary can reach in the long run. To go back to the Toyota example in chapter 1, had Japan liberalized FDI in its automobile industry in the 1960s, Toyota definitely wouldn't be producing the Lexus today-it would have wiped out or, more likely, have become a valued subsidiary of an American carmaker.
Given this, a developing country may reasonably decide to forego short-term benefits from FDI in order to increase the chance for its domestic firms to engage in higher-level activities in the long run, by banning FDI in certain sectors or regulating it. This is exactly the same logic as that of infant industry protection that I discussed in the earlier chapters-a country gives up the short-run benefits of free trade in order to create higher productive capabilities in the long run. And it is why, historically, most economic success stories have resorted to regulation of FDI, often in a Draconian manner, as I shall now show. ~ Ha Joon Chang,#NFDB
267:Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, might be a bit less certain in his gloomy assessment of human nature: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”10 Maybe, but cooperation runs deep in our species too. Recent findings in comparative primate intelligence have led researchers Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare to wonder whether an impulse toward cooperation might actually be the key to our species-defining intelligence. They write, “Instead of getting a jump start with the most intelligent hominids surviving to produce the next generation, as is often suggested, it may have been the more sociable hominids—because they were better at solving problems together—who achieved a higher level of fitness and allowed selection to favor more sophisticated problem-solving over time.”11 Humans got smart, they hypothesize, because our ancestors learned to cooperate. Innately selfish or not, the effects of food provisioning and habitat depletion on both wild chimpanzees and human foragers suggest that Dawkins and others who argue that humans are innately aggressive, selfish beasts should be careful about citing these chimp data in support of their case. Human groups tend to respond to food surplus and storage with behavior like that observed in chimps: heightened hierarchical social organization, intergroup violence, territorial perimeter defense, and Machiavellian alliances. In other words, humans—like chimps—tend to fight when there’s something worth fighting over. But for most of prehistory, there was no food surplus to win or lose and no home base to defend. ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
268:Since McDougall contrasts the behaviour of a
highly organised group with what has just been described,
we shall be particularly interested to learn
in what this organisation consists, and by what
factors it is produced. The author enumerates five
principal conditions '
for raising collective mental
life to a higher level.
The first and fundamental condition is that there
should be some degree of continuity of existence in
the group. This may be either material or formal:
the former, if the same individuals persist in the
group for some time; and the latter, if there is
developed within the group a system of fixed positions
which are occupied by a succession of individuals.
The second condition is that in the individual
member of the group some definite idea should be
formed of the nature, composition, functions and
capacities of the group, so that from this he may
develop an emotional relation to the group as a
whole.
The third is that the group should be brought
into interaction (perhaps in the form of rivalry) with
other groups similar to it but differing from it in
many respects.
The fourth is that the group should possess
traditions, customs and habits, and especially such as
determine the relations of its members to one
another.
The fifth is that the group should have a definite
structure, expressed in the specialisation and differentiation
of the functions of its constituents.
According to McDougall, if these conditions
are fulfilled, the psychological disadvantages of the
group formation are removed. The collective lowering
of intellectual ability is avoided by withdrawing
the performance of intellectual tasks from the group
and reserving them for individual members of it. ~ Sigmund Freud,#NFDB
269:The Enlightenment emphasized ways of learning that weren’t subservient to human power hierarchies. Instead, Enlightenment thinking celebrates evidence-based scientific method and reasoning. The cultures of sciences and engineering used to embrace Enlightenment epistemology, but now they have been overridden by horribly regressive BUMMER epistemology. You probably know the word “meme” as meaning a BUMMER posting that can go viral. But originally, “meme” suggested a philosophy of thought and meaning. The term was coined by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins proposed memes as units of culture that compete and are either passed along or not, according to a pseudo-Darwinian selection process. Thus some fashions, ideas, and habits take hold, while others become extinct. The concept of memes provides a way of framing everything non-nerds do—the whole of humanities, culture, arts, and politics—as similar instances of meme competition, mere subroutines of a higher-level algorithm that nerds can master. When the internet took of, Dawkins’s ideas were in vogue, because they flattered techies. There was a ubiquitous genre of internet appreciation from the very beginning in which someone would point out the viral spread of a meme and admire how cute that was. The genre exists to this day. Memes started out as a way of expressing solidarity with a philosophy I used to call cybernetic totalism that still underlies BUMMER. Memes might seem to amplify what you are saying, but that is always an illusion. You might launch an infectious meme about a political figure, and you might be making a great point, but in the larger picture, you are reinforcing the idea that virality is truth. Your point will be undone by whatever other point is more viral. That is by design. The architects of BUMMER were meme believers. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
270:It is important to note that the design of an entire brain region is simpler than the design of a single neuron. As discussed earlier, models often get simpler at a higher level—consider an analogy with a computer. We do need to understand the detailed
physics ofsemiconductors to model a transistor, and the equations underlying a single real transistor are complex. A digital circuit that multiples two numbers requires hundreds of them. Yet we can model this multiplication circuit very simply with one or
two formulas. An entire computer with billions of transistors can be modeled through its instruction set and register description, which can be described on a handful of written pages of text and formulas. The software programs for an operating system,
language compilers, and assemblers are reasonably complex, but modeling a particular program—for example, a speech recognition programbased on hierarchical hidden Markov modeling—may likewise be described in only a few pages of
equations. Nowhere in such a description would be found the details ofsemiconductor physics or even of computer architecture. A similar observation holds true for the brain. A particular neocortical pattern recognizer that detects a particular invariant
visualfeature (such as a face) or that performs a bandpass filtering (restricting input to a specific frequency range) on sound or that evaluates the temporal proximity of two events can be described with far fewer specific details than the actual physics and
chemicalrelations controlling the neurotransmitters, ion channels, and other synaptic and dendritic variables involved in the neural processes. Although all of this complexity needs to be carefully considered before advancing to the next higher conceptual level,
much of it can be simplified as the operating principles of the brain are revealed. ~ Ray Kurzweil,#NFDB
271:MRI testing again shows what may be the underlying brain mechanism. The amygdalae are two small lobes in the brain associated with fear, arousal, and emotions. When they are active, it is thought to be a sign of vigilance, meaning that the brain is wary and wants more information. A study at Massachusetts General Hospital found that when subjects looked at photographs of faces—half were white, half were black—MRI scans found high amygdala activity. This was considered to be a normal reaction to unfamiliar faces. When the subjects looked at the photographs a second time the faces were more familiar; only the other-race faces continued to provoke high amygdala activity. This was true for both blacks and whites, suggesting that encounters with people of different races keep the brain at a higher level of watchfulness.
Amygdalae notice race even when a person does not. William A. Cunningham of Ohio State University showed white subjects pictures of faces for only 30 milliseconds—not long enough for the subjects to be conscious of them—but black faces triggered greater amygdala activity than white faces. When he showed faces for a half a second—long enough for people to notice race—he found that black faces prompted greater activity in the pre-frontal areas, a part of the brain associated with detecting internal conflicts and controlling conscious behavior. This suggested the subjects were trying to suppress certain feelings about blacks.
Steven Neuberg of Arizona State University attributes instinctive bias to evolution during our hunter-gatherer past. “By nature, people are group-living animals—a strategy that enhances individual survival and leads to what we might call a ‘tribal psychology’, ” he says. “It was adaptive for our ancestors to be attuned to those outside the group who posed threats such as to physical security, health or economic resources. ~ Jared Taylor,#NFDB
272:The oxymoronic term blindsight may seem bizarre, but it accurately describes these individuals’ Shakespearean condition: to see, but not to see. A lesion in the primary visual cortex should make a person blind, and it does deprive such patients of their conscious vision—they assure you that they cannot see anything in a specific part of the visual field (which corresponds precisely to the destroyed area of cortex), and they behave as if they were blind. Incredibly enough, however, when an experimenter shows them objects or flashes of light, they accurately point to them. 10 In a zombielike manner, they unconsciously guide their hand to locations that they do not see—blindsight indeed. Which intact anatomical pathways support unconscious vision in blindsight patients? Clearly, in these patients, some visual information still makes it through from the retina to the hand, bypassing the lesion that makes them blind. Because the entry point into the patients’ visual cortex had been destroyed, the researchers initially suspected that their unconscious behavior arose entirely from subcortical circuits. A key suspect was the superior colliculus, a nucleus in the midbrain that specializes in the cross-registration of vision, eye movements, and other spatial responses. Indeed, the first functional MRI study of blindsight demonstrated that unseen targets triggered a strong activation in the superior colliculus. 11 But that study also contained evidence that the unseen stimuli evoked activations in the cortex—and sure enough, later research confirmed that invisible stimuli could still activate both the thalamus and higher-level visual areas of the cortex, somehow bypassing the damaged primary visual area. 12 Clearly, the brain circuits that take part in our unconscious inner zombie and that guide our eye and hand movements include much more than just old subcortical routes. ~ Stanislas Dehaene, #NFDB
273:transient and in the context of eternity ephemeral, only perceived as having such characteristics as ―solidity‖, ―liquidity‖, ―form‖ and other physically discernible characteristics through the mediation of the five physical senses, which in turn perpetuate these illusions. Earth Herself, the suns, planets, galaxies and other creations in the physical Universe were created by the Mind of The Source during an act of creation that commenced with The Source, The First Cause, God, projecting outwards with ever decreasing vibration and increasing density, until finally differentiating into matter, finally resulting in the formation of the physical Universe.Nevertheless, the physical Universe is still transient to the extent they can only exist in its present form while The Source chooses to continue to maintain the Thought Forms that constitute the physical Universe and all its manifestations. The discovery of the characteristics of Quanta further underlines the extremely important fact that everyone without exception creates their own reality. These factors equally apply to the inner worlds, including the Astral worlds to where most people will transition after physical death, and where anything can be manifested instantly through the focused powers of the Mind in the form of thoughts, intent and imagination. We will discuss manifestation with the power of the Mind in much more detail in later sections of this book. The Astral and inner dimensions or spheres of reality exist at a much higher level of vibration or Energy than the physical world, and Quanta of Energy, identical to vibration or Light in the Universal sense, are much more easily influenced by the power of the Mind―the inner spheres of life being ―Mind worlds‖. Physicist Nick Herbert likened the behaviour of Quanta to ―a radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup‖. Nick Herbert goes on to observe that ―humans can never experience the true nature of quantum reality, Life, the Universe and Destiny of Mankind 74 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
274:Thus, the person of experience and reflection writes history. Anyone who has not experienced life on a greater and higher level than everyone else will not know how to interpret the greatness and loftiness of the past. The utterance of the past is always an oracular pronouncement. You will understand it only as builders of the future and as people who know about the present. People now explain the extraordinarily deep and far-reaching effect of Delphi by the particular fact that the Delphic priests had precise knowledge about the past. It is appropriate now to understand that only the man who builds the future has a right to judge the past. In order to look ahead, set yourselves an important goal, and at the same time control that voluptuous analytical drive with which you now lay waste the present and render almost impossible all tranquility, all peaceful growth and maturing. Draw around yourself the fence of a large and extensive hope, an optimistic striving. Create in yourselves a picture to which the future is to correspond, and forget the myth that you are epigones. You have enough to plan and to invent when you imagine that future life for yourselves. But in considering history do not ask that she show you the 'How?' and the 'With what?' If, however, you live your life in the history of great men, then you will learn from history the highest command: to become mature and to flee away from that paralyzing and prohibiting upbringing of the age, which sees advantages for itself in not allowing you to become mature, in order to rule and exploit you, the immature. And when you ask after biographies, then do not ask for those with the refrain 'Mr. Soandso and His Age' but for those whose title page must read 'A Fighter Against His Age.' Fill your souls with Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourselves when you have faith in his heroes. With a hundred people raised in such an unmodern way, that is, people who have become mature and familiar with the heroic, one could permanently silence the entire noisy pseudo-education of this age. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
275:The challenge is that the demand in our lives increasingly exceeds our capacity. Think of capacity as the fuel that makes it possible to bring your skill and talent fully to life. Most of us take our capacity for granted, because for most of our lives we’ve had enough. What’s changed is that between digital technology and rising complexity, there’s more information and more requests coming at us, faster and more relentlessly than ever. Unlike computers, however, human beings aren’t meant to operate continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time. Rather, we’re designed to move rhythmically between spending and renewing our energy. Our brains wave between high and low electrical frequencies. Our hearts beat at varying intervals. Our lungs expand and contract depending on demand. It’s not sufficient to be good at inhaling. Indeed, the more deeply you exhale, the calmer and more capable you become. Instead, we live linear lives, progressively burning down our energy reservoirs throughout the day. It’s the equivalent of withdrawing funds from a bank account without ever making a deposit. At some point, you go bankrupt. The good news is that we can influence the way we manage our energy. By doing so skillfully, you can get more done in less time, at a higher level of quality, in a more sustainable way. A couple of key scientific findings point the way. The first is that sleep is more important than food. You can go a week without eating and the only thing you’ll lose is weight. Give up sleep for even a couple of days and you’ll become completely dysfunctional. Even so, we’re all too willing to trade away an hour of sleep in the false belief that it will give us one more hour of productivity. In fact, even very small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our cognitive capacity. The notion that some of us can perform adequately with very little sleep is largely a myth. Less than 2.5 percent of the population—that’s one in forty people—feels fully rested with less than seven to eight hours of sleep a night. The second key finding is that our bodies follow what are known as ultradian ~ Jocelyn K Glei, #NFDB
276: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, #NFDB
277:A few hundred million years later, some of these eukaryotes developed a novel adaptation: they stayed together after cell division to form multicellular organisms in which every cell had exactly the same genes. These are the three-boat septuplets in my example. Once again, competition is suppressed (because each cell can only reproduce if the organism reproduces, via its sperm or egg cells). A group of cells becomes an individual, able to divide labor among the cells (which specialize into limbs and organs). A powerful new kind of vehicle appears, and in a short span of time the world is covered with plants, animals, and fungi.37 It’s another major transition. Major transitions are rare. The biologists John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry count just eight clear examples over the last 4 billion years (the last of which is human societies).38 But these transitions are among the most important events in biological history, and they are examples of multilevel selection at work. It’s the same story over and over again: Whenever a way is found to suppress free riding so that individual units can cooperate, work as a team, and divide labor, selection at the lower level becomes less important, selection at the higher level becomes more powerful, and that higher-level selection favors the most cohesive superorganisms.39 (A superorganism is an organism made out of smaller organisms.) As these superorganisms proliferate, they begin to compete with each other, and to evolve for greater success in that competition. This competition among superorganisms is one form of group selection.40 There is variation among the groups, and the fittest groups pass on their traits to future generations of groups. Major transitions may be rare, but when they happen, the Earth often changes.41 Just look at what happened more than 100 million years ago when some wasps developed the trick of dividing labor between a queen (who lays all the eggs) and several kinds of workers who maintain the nest and bring back food to share. This trick was discovered by the early hymenoptera (members of the order that includes wasps, which gave rise to bees and ants) and it was discovered independently several dozen other times (by the ancestors of termites, naked mole rats, and some species of shrimp, aphids, beetles, and spiders).42 In each case, the free rider problem was surmounted and selfish genes began to craft relatively selfless group members who together constituted a supremely selfish group. ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
278:If my opinion that substance requires a true unity were founded only on a definition I had formulated in opposition to common usage, *then the dispute would be only one of words*. But besides the fact that most philosophers have taken the term in almost the same fashion, distinguishing between a unity in itself and an accidental unity, between substantial and accidental form, and between perfect and imperfect, natural and artificial mixtures, I take things to a much higher level, and setting aside the question of terminology, *I believe that where there are only beings by aggregation, there aren't any real beings*. For every being by aggregation presupposes beings endowed with real unity, because every being derives its reality only from the reality of those beings of which it is composed, so that it will not have any reality at all if each being of which it is composed is itself a being by aggregation, a being for which we must still seek further grounds for its reality, grounds which can never be found in this way, if we must always continue to seek for them. I agree, Sir, that there are only machines (that are often animated) in all of corporeal nature, but I do not agree that *there are only aggregates of substances, there must also be true substances from which all the aggregates result.
We must, then, necessarily come down to the atoms of Epicurus and Cordemoy (which are things you reject along with me), or else we must admit that we do not find any reality in bodies; or finally, we must recognize some substances that have a true unity. I have already said in another letter that the composite made up of the diamonds of the Grand Duke and of the Great Mogul can be called a pair of diamonds, but this is only a being of reason. And when they are brought closer to one another, it would be a being of the imagination or perception, that is to say, a phenomenon. For contact, common motion, and participation in a common plan have no effect on substantial unity. It is true that there are sometimes more, sometimes fewer, grounds for supposing that several things constitute a single thing, in proportion to the extent to which these things are connected. But this serves only to abbreviate our thoughts and to represent the phenomena.
It also seems that what constitutes the essence of a being by aggregation is only a mode (*maniére d'être*) of the things of which it is composed. For example, what constitutes the essence of an army is only a mode of the men who compose it. This mode therefore presupposes a substance whose essence is not a mode of substance. Every machine also presupposes some substance in the pieces of which it is made, and there is no plurality without true unities. To put it briefly, I hold this identical proposition, differentiated only by the emphasis, to be an axiom, namely, *that what is not truly* one *being is not truly one* being *either*. It has always been thought that one and being are reciprocal things. Being is one thing and beings are another; but the plural presupposes the singular, and where there is no being still less will there be several beings. What could be clearer? [[I therefore believed that I would be allowed to distinguish beings by aggregation from substances, since these beings have their unity in our mind only, a unity founded on the relations or modes [*modes*] of true substances. If a machine is one substance, a circle of men holding hands will also be one substance, and so will an army, and finally, so will every multitude of substances.]]."
—from Letters to Arnauld ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,#NFDB
279:If my opinion that substance requires a true unity were founded only on a definition I had formulated in opposition to common usage, *then the dispute would be only one of words*. But besides the fact that most philosophers have taken the term in almost the same fashion, distinguishing between a unity in itself and an accidental unity, between substantial and accidental form, and between perfect and imperfect, natural and artificial mixtures, I take things to a much higher level, and setting aside the question of terminology, *I believe that where there are only beings by aggregation, there aren't any real beings*. For every being by aggregation presupposes beings endowed with real unity, because every being derives its reality only from the reality of those beings of which it is composed, so that it will not have any reality at all if each being of which it is composed is itself a being by aggregation, a being for which we must still seek further grounds for its reality, grounds which can never be found in this way, if we must always continue to seek for them. I agree, Sir, that there are only machines (that are often animated) in all of corporeal nature, but I do not agree that *there are only aggregates of substances, there must also be true substances from which all the aggregates result.
We must, then, necessarily come down to the atoms of Epicurus and Cordemoy (which are things you reject along with me), or else we must admit that we do not find any reality in bodies; or finally, we must recognize some substances that have a true unity. I have already said in another letter that the composite made up of the diamonds of the Grand Duke and of the Great Mogul can be called a pair of diamonds, but this is only a being of reason. And when they are brought closer to one another, it would be a being of the imagination or perception, that is to say, a phenomenon. For contact, common motion, and participation in a common plan have no effect on substantial unity. It is true that there are sometimes more, sometimes fewer, grounds for supposing that several things constitute a single thing, in proportion to the extent to which these things are connected. But this serves only to abbreviate our thoughts and to represent the phenomena.
It also seems that what constitutes the essence of a being by aggregation is only a mode (*maniére d'être*) of the things of which it is composed. For example, what constitutes the essence of an army is only a mode of the men who compose it. This mode therefore presupposes a substance whose essence is not a mode of substance. Every machine also presupposes some substance in the pieces of which it is made, and there is no plurality without true unities. To put it briefly, I hold this identical proposition, differentiated only by the emphasis, to be an axiom, namely, *that what is not truly* one *being is not truly one* being *either*. It has always been thought that one and being are reciprocal things. Being is one thing and beings are another; but the plural presupposes the singular, and where there is no being still less will there be several beings. What could be clearer? [[I therefore believed that I would be allowed to distinguish beings by aggregation from substances, since these beings have their unity in our mind only, a unity founded on the relations or modes [*modes*] of true substances. If a machine is one substance, a circle of men holding hands will also be one substance, and so will an army, and finally, so will every multitude of substances.]]."
—from Letters to Arnauld ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,#NFDB
280:Let us now assume that under truly extraordinary circumstances, the daimon nevertheless breaks through in the individual, so to speak, and is this able to let its destructive transcendence be felt: then one would have a kind of active experience of death. Thereupon the second connection becomes clear: why the figure of the daimon or doppelgänger in the ancient myths could be melded with the deity of death. In the Nordic tradition the warrior sees his Valkyrie precisely at the moment of death or mortal danger.
In religious asceticism, mortification, self-renunciation, and the impulse of devotion to God are the preferred methods of provoking and successfully overcoming the crisis I have just mentioned. Everyone knows the expressions which refer to these states, such as the 'mystical death' or 'dark night of the soul', etc. In contrast to this, within the framework of a heroic tradition, the path to the same goal is the active rapture, the Dionysian unleashing of the active element. At its lower levels, we find phenomenons such as the use of dance as a sacred technique for achieving an ecstasy of the soul that summons and uses profound energies. While the individual’s life is surrendered to Dionysian rhythm, another life sinks into it, as if it where his abyssal roots surfacing. The 'wild host' Furies, Erinyes, and suchlike spiritual natures are symbolic picturings of this energy, thus corresponding to a manifestation of the daimon in its terrifying and active transcendence. At a higher level we find sacred war-games; higher still, war itself. And this brings us back to the ancient Aryan concept of battle and the warrior ascetic.
At the climax of danger and heroic battle, the possibility for such an extraordinary experience was recognized. The Lating ludere, meaning both 'to play' and 'to fight', seems to contain the idea of release. This is one of the many allusions to the inherent ability of battle to release deeply-buried powers from individual limitations and let them freely emerge. Hence the third comparison: the daimon, the Lar, the individualizing I, etc., are not only identical with the Furies, Erinyes, and other unleashed Dionysian natures, which themselves have many traits similar to the goddess of death — they are also synonymous with the storm maidens of battle, the Valkyries and Fravartis. In the texts, for example, the Fravartis are called 'the terrible, the all-powerful', 'those who attack in storm and bestow victory upon those who conjure them', or, more precisely, those who conjure them up in themselves.
From there to the final comparison is only a short step. In the Aryan tradition the same martial beings eventually take on the form of victory-goddesses, a transformation which denotes the happy completion of the inner experience in question. Just as the daimon or doppelgänger signifies a deep, supra-individual power in its latent condition as compared to ordinary consciousness; just as the Furies and Erinyes reflect a particular manifestation of daimonic rages and eruptions (and the goddesses of death, Valkyries, Fravartis, etc., refer to the same conditions, as long as these are facilitated by battle and heroism) — in the same way the goddess of victory is the expression of the triumph of the I over this power. She signifies the victorious ascent to a state unendangered by ecstasies and sub-personal forms of disintegration, a danger that always lurks behind the frenetic moment of Dionysian and even heroic action. The ascent to a spiritual, truly supra-personal condition that makes one free, immortal, and internally indestructible, when the 'Two becomes One', expresses itself in this image of mythical consciousness. ~ Julius Evola,#NFDB
281:This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary conceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision of light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous enthousiasmos of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.
But these two stages of the ascent enjoy their authority and can get their own united completeness only by a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher summits where dwells the intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude. ... Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of stable lightnings.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#NFDB
85 Integral Yoga
15 Psychology
15 Occultism
13 Christianity
10 Science
5 Philosophy
4 Yoga
3 Theosophy
2 Integral Theory
2 Fiction
76 Sri Aurobindo
35 Nolini Kanta Gupta
22 The Mother
12 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
11 Satprem
11 Carl Jung
5 Aldous Huxley
4 Jordan Peterson
3 Swami Krishnananda
3 Alice Bailey
3 A B Purani
2 James George Frazer
2 H P Lovecraft
2 Aleister Crowley
25 The Synthesis Of Yoga
11 The Life Divine
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
7 The Future of Man
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
6 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
6 Record of Yoga
5 The Perennial Philosophy
5 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
5 Letters On Yoga IV
5 Letters On Yoga III
4 Questions And Answers 1956
4 Maps of Meaning
4 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
3 The Study and Practice of Yoga
3 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
3 Mysterium Coniunctionis
3 Let Me Explain
3 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
3 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
2 Vedic and Philological Studies
2 The Practice of Psycho therapy
2 The Phenomenon of Man
2 The Human Cycle
2 The Golden Bough
2 Questions And Answers 1954
2 Questions And Answers 1953
2 Lovecraft - Poems
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Letters On Poetry And Art
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
2 Agenda Vol 07
2 Agenda Vol 03
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The one, however, is not completely divorced from the other. The apparent, the inferior nature is only a preparation for the real, the superior nature. The Path of the Fathers concerns itself with man as a mental being and seeks so to ordain and accomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to the Path of the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness should be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should develop along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as to make them fit to receive the light which belongs to the higher level, so allowing the human soul imbedded in them to extricate itself and pass on to the Immortal Life.
And they who are thus lifted up into the Higher Orbit are freed from the bondage to the cycle of rebirth. They enjoy the supreme Liberation that is of the Spirit; and even when they descend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as free agents, as vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring down something of the substance and nature of the Solar reality into the lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it is allowed, into the higher.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The anguish of the inner soul of India found expression through these passionate words of the young Gadadhar. For what did his unsophisticated eyes see around him in Calcutta, at that time the metropolis of India and the centre of modem culture and learning? Greed and lust held sway in the higher levels of society, and the occasional religious practices were merely outer forms from which the soul had long ago departed. Gadadhar had never seen anything like this at Kamarpukur among the simple and pious villagers. The sadhus and wandering monks whom he had served in his boyhood had revealed to him an altogether different India. He had been impressed by their devotion and purity, their self-control and renunciation. He had learnt from them and from his own intuition that the ideal of life as taught by the ancient sages of India was the realization of God.
When Ramkumar reprimanded Gadadhar for neglecting a "bread-winning education", the inner voice of the boy reminded him that the legacy of his ancestors — the legacy of Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya — was not worldly security but the Knowledge of God. And these noble sages were the true representatives of Hindu society. Each of them was seated, as it were, on the crest of the wave that followed each successive trough in the tumultuous course of Indian national life. All demonstrated that the life current of India is spirituality. This truth was revealed to Gadadhar through that inner vision which scans past and future in one sweep, unobstructed by the barriers of time and space. But he was unaware of the history of the profound change that had taken place in the land of his birth during the previous one hundred years.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
She has harmonised the bodily life with the material mind, she is harmonising it with the play of the intellectual mentality; for that, although it tends to a depression of the full animal and vital vigour, need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
Nor are the disturbances created by her process as great as is often represented. Some of them are the crude beginnings of new manifestations; others are an easily corrected movement of disintegration, often fruitful of fresh activities and always a small price to pay for the far-reaching results that she has in view.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here we have a pattern of thought-movement that does not seem to follow the lineaments of the normal brain-mind consciousness, although it too has a basis there: our customary line of reasoning receives a sudden shock, as it were, and then is shaken, moved, lifted up, transportedgradually or suddenly, according to the temperament of the listener. Besides, we have here the peculiar modern tone, which, for want of a better term, may be described as scientific. The impressimprimaturof Science is its rational coherence, justifying or justified by sense data, by physical experience, which gives us the pattern or model of an inexorable natural law. Here too we feel we are in the domain of such natural law but lifted on to a higher level.
This is what I was trying to make out as the distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness that seems to be developing in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical factor, that which gives form to the formless or definition to that which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to that which is far and alien. The fullness of the spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using a Vedantic terminology, that the mystic consciousness gives us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attribute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be considered as prajghana, the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge, the typal "wave-particles" of the Reality. In the former there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the spiritual poetry is solar in its nature, we can say, by extending the analogy, that mystic poetry is characteristically lunarMoon representing the delight and the magic that Mind and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus then we may distinguish three types of control on three levels. First, the natural control, secondly the conscious, i.e. to say the mental the ethical and religious control, and thirdly the spiritual or divine control. Now the spirit is the ultimate truth and reality, behind the forces that act in the mind and in the body, so that the natural control and the ethical control are mere attempts to establish and realise the spiritual control. The animal impulses feel the hidden stress of the divine urges that are their real essence and thus there rises first an unconscious conflict in the natural life and then a conscious conflict in the higher ethical life. But when both of these are transcended and the conflict is carried on to a still higher level, then do we find their real significance and arrive at the consummation to which they move. Yoga is the ultimate transvaluation of physical (and of moral) values, it is the trans-substantiation of life-power into its spiritual substance.
***
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral that a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
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.
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what I have been studying these past two daysnot for you in particular, but the general effect of japa, the reason for it in the organization of ones life. I cant say I have made any discoveries (maybe for myself, I dont know); but my study is not on higher levels, its right here.
It would take too long to give the details; I can summarize, but I dont want to make a doctrine, and for it to be living its bound to be long.
0 1962-10-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. But its the higher level of the musical zone. Each of these zones contains several levels, and the top of the musical zone is already starting to be waves, waves of vibration. But its still directly related to music, while those colored forces I am speaking of have to do with terrestrial transformations and actionsgreat actions. They are powers of action. This zone where you hear no sound eventually becomes sounds and music. It is the summit. Each zone contains several levels.
In short, when one rises to that Origin, one finds a single vibration, which can be expressed as music or thought or architectural or pictorial formsis that right?
0 1966-03-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a very long time, more than two years, I saw the world like this (ascending gesture, from one level to a higher level), and now I see it like this (descending gesture). I dont know how to explain it because theres nothing mentalized about it, and non-mentalized sensations have a certain haziness thats hard to define. But words and thought were a certain distance away (gesture around the head), like something that watches and appreciates, in other words, that tells what it sees something around. And today, it has been extremely strong two or three times (I mean that that state dominated the whole consciousness): a sort of impression (or sensation or perception, but its nothing like all that) of, I am a dead person living on earth.
How can I explain that?
0 1966-11-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother does not refer to a category of so-called higher "beings," but to higher levels of being or states of being.
If it is the battle of Magenta, it is not Murat but MacMahon. It seems more likely to be Murat and another battle.
0 1967-02-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yet outwardly, its apparent chaos. You know, an equilibrium is made up of a multitude of interlockings which hold together creating stability. But when you want to move on to a higher equilibrium, all that must be disintegrated, so to speak (gesture of a pyramid being flattened), then encompassed in a broader way, and all the interlockings must be formed again on a higher level. Its the transition from one to the other thats difficult. The disequilibrium is what prepares a new equilibrium.
We are in the middle of the chaos.
0 1969-12-27, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Intelligence at its higher level very easily understands that it knows nothing and is very easily in the attitude required to progress, but even those who have that intelligence, when they deal with material things, they instinctively feel all that is quite well known and based on established experiences. So there, one is vulnerable. Thats just what is being taught to the body: the inanity of this present way of seeing and understanding things based on the good and the bad, good and evil, the luminous and the dark all those contradictions; and the whole judgment, the whole conception of life (material life) is based on thatits to teach you the inanity of this base. I see that. The work has become very acute, very persistent, as if with a will to go fast.
Even the practical part which thought it knew how to live and knew what needs to be done and how it should be done, even it must understand that this isnt true knowledge, it isnt the true way of using external things.
0 1972-03-10, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But if you want to collaborate, it would be wonderful, you know! I need someone, you see, someone who could get around, talk to people, see, take notes: reestablish unity on a higher level. oh, that would be a wonderful work! Wonderful.
Once that is done, things would ease up. Its not that money is lacking, its just being wasted, scattered.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus we see that evolution, the unfolding of consciousness follows exactly the line of its involution, only the other way round: the mounting consciousness re-ascends step by step the same gradient, retraces the same path along which it had descended. The descending steps are broadly speaking (I) Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, (2) Supermind and its secondary form Overmind, (3) Mind(i) mind proper and (ii) the intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending consciousness starting from Matter rises into Life, passes on through Life and Psyche into Mind, driving towards the Supermind and Sachchidananda. At the present stage of evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it is now striving to cross it altogether and enter the Overmind and the Supermind. It will not rest content until it arrives at the organisation in and through the Supermind: for that is the drive and purpose of Nature in the next cycle of evolution.
Physical Science speaks of irreversibility and entropy in Nature's process. That is to say, it is stated that Nature is rushing down and running down: she is falling irrevocably from a higher to an ever lower potential of energy. The machine that Nature is, is driven by energy made available by a break-up of parts and particles constituting its substance. This katabolic process cannot be stopped or retraced; it can end only when the break-up ceases at dead equilibrium. You cannot lead the river up the channel to its source, it moves inevitably, unceasingly towards the sea in which it exhausts itself and finds its last repose andextinction. But whatever physical Science may say, the science of the spirit declares emphatically that Nature's process is reversible, that a growing entropy can be checked and countermanded: in other words, Nature's downward current resulting in a continual loss of energy and a break-up of substance is not the only process of her activity. This aspect is more than counterbalanced by another one of upward drive and building up, of re-energisation and re-integration. Indeed, evolution, as we have explained it, is nothing but such a process of synthesis and new creation.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.
02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
India culminated in Mayavada. Our Yoga is a double movement of ascent and descent; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the body.
And the highest of these levels, the one at which it aims is the supermind. Only when that can be brought down is a divine transformation possible in the earth-consciousness.
03.01 - The Malady of the Century, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To relieve life of this mingled strain and tension, to lift it out of this ambiguity and uncertainty, to free it from this gravitational force that drives it towards what is superficial and externalto endow it with its real worth, we must find and possess life at a higher level, at its unspoilt source; we must first draw back and re-establish, this time consciously and integrally, the lost connection with our soul, the Divine in our being.
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03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In Macbeth we move up one step farther; human consciousness attains here a higher level. Something of the mental being enters into the purely vital creature: instead of the Eater, the man with the mere stomach, we have here the Ruler, the Tyrant, the human being with its will and its arms that execute the will: the dominating motive is no longer hunger and greed and cruelty for cruelty's sake, but power and position and lordship, and the driving force, not blind passion and dark furysheer unconsciousness but deliberate resolution, foreseeing calculation and steady purposiveness; the Rakshasa gives place to the Asura. The Asura is the incarnation of conscious egotism, the will to dominate, to be the sole master and monarch; he is the self-aggrandising vaulting ambition. He does not seek to possess things for their own sake, not so much to enjoy them as to hold them as symbols of his royalty, of his personal worth and majesty. In Macbeth we have the world of the Asuraa creation of the mode of rajas.
Hamlet is the third stage; it is a vision of sattva-guna and a creation attempted by that vision. The human consciousness that was imprisoned in the vital mind, is released here into the higher or pure mind. The soul escapes from its sheath of sheer hunger and desire and egoism and self-aggrandisementyearns for light, more light. Lear is a dark mass of unconsciousness, crude and violent, even like the naked and raging elements into whose arms he is thrown; Macbeth is the beginning of consciousness in which one is conscious of one's own self alone, and keenly and deliberately attached to it,here light has dawned, but a lurid light. Hamlet is consciousness that is seeking to transcend the barrier of the little self and its narrow and vulgar appetites and impulses. Man here comes into touch with something that is impersonal, other-regarding, afar; he has grown interests that are not merely mundane, utilitarian, pragmatic, self-centred, but abstract, metaphysical, beyond the individual's own and immediate concern: he has now ideals and aspirationshe is a seeker of the true, the good, the beautiful. He has been initiated into the divinedaivanature. Culture, refinement, sensibility, understandingall the graces of a truly rational being make Hamlet the very flower of an evolving humanity.
03.12 - The Spirit of Tapasya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Real Tapasya, however, is not in relation to the body and its comforts and discomforts; it is in relation to the inner being, the consciousness and its directives and movements. Tapasya, austerity, consists in reacting to the downward pull of the ordinary consciousness, turning and attuning it to the rhythm of higher levels. To oppose the force of gravitation, to move ceaselessly towards purer and luminous heights of being and consciousness, that is Tapasya, Askesis, true asceticism.
Virgil, the great poet of a diviner order in human life, expressed the idea most beautifully and aptly in those well-known lines, one of the characteristic passages showing his genius at its best:
03.16 - The Tragic Spirit in Nature, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
A great personality means a great rise in consciousness, therefore it means also a strain upon the normal consciousness and hence a snap or scission sometime and somewhere. As the poet describes the tragic phenomenon
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We are familiar with the phrase "Augustan Age": it is in reference to a particular period in a nation's history when its creative power is at its highest both in respect of quantity and quality, especially in the domain of art and literature, for it is here that the soul of a people finds expression most easily and spontaneously. Indeed, if we look at the panorama that the course of human evolution unfolds, we see epochs of high light in various countries spread out as towering beacons or soaring peaks bathed in sunlight dominating the flat plains or darksome valleys of the usual normal periods. Take the Augustan Age itself which has given the name: it is a very crucial and one of the earlier outflowerings of the human genius on a considerable scale. We know of the appearance of individuals on the stage of life each with a special mission and role in various ages and various countries. They are great men of action, great men of thought, creative artists or spiritual and religious teachers. In India we call them Vibhutis (we can include the AvatarasDivine Incarnationsalso in the category). Even so, there is a collective manifestation too, an upsurge in which a whole race or nation takes part and is carried and raised to a higher level of living and achievement. There is a tide in the affairs not only of men, but of peoples also: and masses, large collectivities live on the crest of their consciousness, feeling and thinking deeply and nobly, acting and creating powerfully, with breadth of vision and intensity of aspiration, spreading all around something that is new and not too common, a happy guest come from elsewhere.
Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of European civilisationof the world culture reigning today, one can almost sayfound itself epitomised in the Periclean Age. The lightgrace, harmony, sweet reasonableness that was Greece, reached its highest and largest, its most characteristic growth in that period. Earlier, at the very beginning of her life cycle, there came indeed Homer and no later creation reached a higher or even as high a status of creative power: but it was a solitary peak, it was perhaps an announcement, not the realisation of the national glory. Pericles stood as the guardian, the representative, the emblem and nucleus of a nation-wide efflorescence. Not to speak of the great names associated with the age, even the common peoplemore than what was normally so characteristic of Greecefelt the tide that was moving high and shared in that elevated sweep of life, of thought and creative activity. Greece withdrew. The stage was made clear for Rome. Julius Caesar carried the Roman genius to its sublimest summit: but it remained for his great nephew to consolidate and give expression to that genius in its most characteristic manner and lent his name to a characteristic high-water mark of human civilisation.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Humanity as a race will then present the figure of a homogeneous unitit will be a unity of many diversified elements, not simply, however, a composition of discrete individuals, but of varied aggregations of individualseven as the body is not merely composed of cells, but also these cells are collected in aggregates forming various limbs and systems, each again with its own identity and function. Indeed, the cosmic or global humanity is very likely to be pyramidal in structurenot a flat and level construction. There will be an overall harmony and integration containing a rich variety of gradationsgradations of consciousness, as even now there are: only the whole will be more luminous, that is to say, more conscious and more concordant; for at the top, on the higher levels, new lights will show themselves and men embodying those lights. They will radiate and spread out, infiltrate into the lower ranges something of their enlightenment and harmony and happiness which will bring about a global purification and a new dispensation; even the material world, the vegetable and mineral domains too may be taken up into this luminous consummation and earth become the Garden of Eden that it once was, suffused with a new glory.
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05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This perhaps is not the general rule, especially on the higher levels, where the beings possess well developed and well organised individual personalities. It is more common in the earlier stages when the souls are just developing and are pliant and supple and can easily intermingle. But even on the higher reaches a merger is possible and does happen, when some special work has to be done. A god sometimes literally descends into a man, takes up the human soul within himself and becomes the man, transformed and transfigured, even as an Asura also may do the same thing. And human beings too on high altitudes of spiritual growth, major souls, can combine and fuse together to form a single soulsuch may be the demand of their individual lines of growth or the demand of a Higher Will and Purpose.
Reverting to the original question with which we started, we can say now that the birth of a soul is not like the birth of a living being or organism, that is to say, it does not happen at a given point of time. A soul is truly aja, unborn; it was always there imbedded as the element of secret consciousness in the bosom of the inconscient material Nature. Only it grew out, manifested itself, attaining gradually an individuality and an integrated personality. Neither can it be said that all souls originally, that is to say, at the very beginning of their evolutionary course, were of the same magnitude, equal in all respects. As we know the ultimate material particles the atoms of the different elements or their constituents, protons, etc.have not all the same mass or charge, even so the spiritual elements too have not the same potency or vibration: they are of varying sizes and strengths. The stress of the evolutionary urge in life expressed itself in multiple and varied figures and dispositions, variation being an inherent virtue of the stress. And the development too follows a chequered line: the direction, the tempo, the degree, the manner of the march all differ according to the case, each spark is or tends to be unique and sui generisand even erratic perhapsin its behaviour, like its physical counterpart, the indeterminate and indeterminable material particle. And yet all move towards a heightening, enlarging, deepening of the consciousness rivers flowing and broadening out in their meandering course to the sea: what was unformed, rudimentary, scarcely distinguishable from out of a homogeneous mass, detaches itself gradually, shapes itself into an organised individual entity and finally the fully conscious personality. But, as I have said, the growth does not follow a single one-track straight line: there can be a fusion of souls, the descent and integration of a being or soul from another level of consciousness into a developing soul or psychic element from out of Nature. In this sense then there can be a birth of souls too. The astronomers speak of novae, new stars that suddenly flare out in the sky, as if from nowhereeven though they or their elements were existent before the phenomenon happened. Souls too can come to birth in an analogous way. That is to say, it is due to a special descent of a formed being or consciousness into the human vehicle. The conception of the "twice-born caste" may be remembered in this connection. There is a physical birth and there is a spiritual birth: the latter takes place when the being on the physical plane, yet wholly belonging to evolving Nature, suddenly (it usually happens suddenly) opens and receives into itself a higher principle and becomes a conscious personality.
06.24 - When Imperfection is Greater Than Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The gods are perfect; but it is said, they have to become men, come down upon earth and assume human proportions that is, imperfections,if they wish to progress further, attain still higher levels of consciousness. For, the gods are perfect each in his own limited and well-defined and therefore unchangeable type; but man means an aspiring soul, that is to say, infinityhis very imperfection is a sign and symbol of ever greater possibility; the fluidity of his nature means an opportunity.
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06.36 - The Mother on Herself, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
The truth I bring will manifest itself and will be embodied upon earth; for, it is the earth's and world's inevitable destiny. The question of time is not relevant. In one respect the truth which I say will be made manifest is already fully manifest, is already realised and established: there is no question of time there. It is in a consciousness timeless or eternally present. There is a process, a play of translation between that timeless poise and the poise in time that we know here below. The measure of that hiatus is very relative, relative to the consciousness that measures, long or short according to the yardstick each one brings. But that is not the essence of the problem: the essence is that the truth is there active, in the process of materialisation, only one should have the eye to see it and the soul to greet it.
07.21 - On Occultism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What did the tiger represent? I told the painter that perhaps in the course of the day or at some time he was angry with someone and indulged in violent thoughts, wishing him harm, etc. Now as in the physical world, so too in the occult world there is a law of action and reaction or return movement. You cherish a bad thought; it returns upon you as an attack from outside. So the tiger might have represented some bad thought or impulse in him which came back upon him, like, as it is said, a boomerang. It is exactly one of the reasons why one should have control over one's thoughts and feelings and sensations. For if you think ill of a person, wish unpleasant things for him, then in your dream you are likely to see the person coming to attack you, more violently perhaps than you thought of doing. In your ignorance and impulse of self-justification you say, Just see, was I not right in my feeling towards this man, he wanted to kill me! In point of fact, however, the contrary is the truth. It is a common law in occultism that if you make a formationa mental formation, for example, to the effect that an accident or some unpleasant thing should happen to a person and you send out the formation to do its work, then, if it so happens that the person concerned is on a higher level of consciousness, that is to say, if he wishes harm to none, is quite disinterested and indifferent in the matter, then the formation approaches him but does not enter into his atmosphere or touch him, it rebounds upon the sender. In that case a serious accident may happen to the sender of the formation: if one wishes death to another, death may come to himself. That is often the result of black magic which is a de-formation of occultism.
Formations are of many kinds. A formation is made for a particular work. When the work is done, the formation too dissolves. But it is a huge and complex subject. You cannot learn the whole of chemistry in one hour.
07.40 - Service Human and Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You must look into yourself, question yourself before you do a thing and not do it simply because it is the thing normally done and it is how things are normally done. You can do good to others, if you know what is that good and if you possess that in yourself. If you wish to help others, you must be on a higher level than that of theirs. If you are one with the others, level with them in nature and consciousness, what can you do but share in their ignorance and blind movements and perpetuate them? So it happens really that the first thing to do is to serve yourself.
You will make a remarkable discovery as you proceed to know what you are and who you are. That is how you should begin. I want to serve humanity. How can I serve? Who is this 'I' that wants to serve? You say, I am such a person, this form and this name. But the form you have now was not there when you were a baby: it has been changing constantly All the elements of your body are being renewed totally. Neither are your sensations and feelings those you had a few years ago. Your thoughts and ideas have undergone revolutions. The I covers a sum of ever-changing factors. There is nothing particularly to be called I : it is only a ring of changes. An empty name seems to be the only constant thing. One element at a time comes forwardan idea, a feeling, an Impulse and that is your I for the moment. At another moment another element comes up and becomes your I. You are not one I but a crowd of many Is. So what is the value of the declaration of one of the 1's that it has found the goal, the truth, the duty you have to follow? Thus if you proceed further, questioning and analysing yourself thoroughly and sincerely, you will stumble upon the reality. You will find that I does not exist at all. What exists is something else: it is the one indivisible reality, the Divine alone.
08.10 - Are Not Dogs More Faithful Than Men?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, for it is their nature to be faithful and they have not man's mental complications. What prevents men from becoming faithful is the complexes of their mind. Most men are not faithful because they are afraid of being dupes, afraid of being cheated, exploited. Also behind the faithfulness they have there is always a large dose of egoism hidden, there is a bargaining more or less conscious, a give and take: 'I am faithful to you. You too must be faithful to me, in other words, you must be nice to me, must not exploit me etc. Dogs do not have these complexities, for they have a very rudimentary mind. They have not this marvellous capacity of reasoning which drives man to commit such follies. But, of course, we cannot go back to the dog state. What we have to do is to rise higher, to become a superman, to have the dog's quality on a higher level, if I am allowed to say so, i.e. instead of being faithful instinctively, blindly, half-consciously, through a kind of binding need, it must be a conscious, willing, deliberate faithfulness, above all, free from egoism. There is a point where all the virtues meet: it is the point that is beyond egoism. If we take faithfulness or devotion or love or the will to serve,all these when they are above the level of egoism are similar to one another in the sense that they give themselves and ask no return. And if you get up a step higher, you see they are done not through the sense of duty or abnegation but out of an intense joy that carries its own reward, which needs nothing in exchange, for it is joy itself. But for that you should have risen very high where there is no longer any turn-back on oneself, these movements that draw you down that kind of sympathy for oneself, the self-pity that one feels for oneself and says "Poor me I" This is a most degrading sentiment and it pulls you immediately into a dark hole.
You must leave that far behind if you will have the joy of faithfulness, the joy of self-giving, that does not notice at all whether it is properly received or not, whether there is a response or not. Never to wait for a return in exchange for what one does, wait for nothing, not through asceticism or the sense of sacrifice, but because of the joy of being in that consciousness: that is sufficient, that is much more that what one can receive from anything outside.
08.24 - On Food, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This energy that one takes in, if you reflect upon the matter you will easily admit, is the vital energy that is in the plant or the animal and logically it is of an inferior quality to that which should be man's who is supposed to be on a higher level in the scale of species. So it is impossible to eat without absorbing a large quantity of unconsciousness. Inevitably that makes you heavy and dense. And if you are in the habit of eating much, a good part of your consciousness is engaged in digesting and assimilating what you eat. Thus if you do not take food, that already frees you from this unconsciousness that you have no longer to assimilate and transform within you: in order to liberate energy in you. Then, as there is an instinct in the being to make up for the energy spent, if you do not gather it from food i.e. from below, you make automatically an effort to draw it from the universal vital energy which is free around you. And if you can assimilate that energy, assimilate it directly, then there is no limit to your energy.
It is not like your stomach which can digest only a limited quantity of food and this food again can give out only a portiona very small portionof its energy. For after the energy spent in swallowing, masticating, digesting, etc. how much of it still remains available? If, on the other hand, you learnyou learn instinctively, it is a kind of instinctto draw from the universal energy which is freely available in the world and in any quantity, you can take it in and absorb as much as you are capable of doing. Thus, as I have said, when there is not the support from below coming from food, the body makes an automatic movement to get the needed energy from the environment. It gets at times, more than enough, even an overdose and that puts you in a state of tension or stimulation. And if your body is strong and can remain without food for some time, then you can maintain your poise and utilise the energies in all waysto make inner progress, for example, to become more conscious, to change your nature. But if your body does not have much reserve, it gets easily weakened by fast, then there occurs a disharmony between the intensity of the energies you absorb and the capacity of the body to hold them and that upsets you. You lose your poise, the equilibrium of the forces is broken and anything can happen. In any case, if such a thing happens, you lose a good deal of self-control, you get excited and this unnatural excitement you consider as a higher state of consciousness. But it is an inner unbalance, nothing more. Otherwise, in that state your senses get refined and receptive. Thus when you fast and do not draw energy from below, if you smell a flower, you feel nourished, the perfume you brea the in serves as food, it gives you energy and this you would not have known but for the fasting.
10.02 - The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To higher levels persuades his parents' steps:
Inapt, they follow ill the daring guide.
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
Science, as we know, is fast reaching the point where it will be forced to admit the fact of the etheric body, because the difficulties of refusing to acknowledge it, will be far more insuperable than an admission of its existence. Scientists admit already the fact of etheric matter; the success of photographic endeavor has demonstrated the reality of that which has hitherto been considered unreal, because (from the standpoint of the physical) intangible. Phenomena are occurring all the time which remain in the domain of the supernatural unless accounted for through the medium of etheric matter, and in their anxiety to prove the spiritualists wrong, scientists have aided the cause of the true and higher spiritism by falling back on reality, and on the fact of the etheric body, even though they consider it a body of [89] emanative radiationbeing concerned with the effect and not having yet ascertained the cause. Medical men are beginning to study (blindly as yet) the question of vitality, the effect of solar rays upon the physical organism, and the underlying laws of inherent and radiatory heat. They are beginning to ascribe to the spleen functions hitherto not recognised, to study the effect of the action of the glands, and their relation to the assimilation of the vital essences by the bodily frame. They are on the right road, and before long (perhaps within this century) the FACT of the etheric body and its basic function will be established past all controversy, and the whole aim of preventive and curative medicine will shift to a higher level. All we can do here is to give simply, and in a condensed form, a few facts which may hasten the day of recognition, and further the interest of the true investigator. Let me, therefore, briefly state what will be dealt with in our remaining three points:
The functions of the etheric body.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
c. By the application of the Rod of Initiation the downflow of force from the Ego to the personality is tripled, the direction of that force being dependent upon whether the centres receiving attention are the etheric, or the astral at the first and second Initiations, or whether the initiate is standing before the LORD OF THE WORLD. In the latter case, his mental centres or their corresponding force vortices on higher levels, will receive stimulation. When the World Teacher initiates at the first and second Initiations, the direction of the Triadal force is turned to the vivification of the heart, and throat centres, and the ability to synthesise the force of the lower centres is greatly increased. When the One Initiator applies the Rod of His Power, the downflow is from the Monad, and though the throat and heart intensify vibration as a response, the main direction of the force is to the seven head centres, and finally (at liberation) to the radiant head centre above, and synthesising the lesser seven head centres.
d. The centres at initiation receive a fresh access of [209] vibratory capacity and of power, and this results, in the exoteric life, as:
10.10 - Education is Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have said that organisation means working for a common end and common purpose. That comes from an opening into a deeper and higher level of being. We name it the soul.
The soul's purpose, the soul's destiny has to be achieved and fulfilled. An organised and educated mind and life and body means to be the best and the most perfect vehicle for the expression upon earth of the soul's consciousness.
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
lective passion, we have a sense of rising to a higher level of hu-
man existence. All these spiritual reserves, guessed at and faintly
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
has evolved. Especially on the higher levels of esoteric teaching
the archetypes appear in a form that reveals quite unmistakably
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
consequence of social interaction, is implication for action, or at a higher level of analysis implication
for the configuration of the interpretive schema that produces or guides action.
1.01 - Seeing, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
gift of existence. And this, at a higher level, is man's condi-
tion. (P.M., p. 31.)
1.024 - Affiliation With Larger Wholes, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The urge that we feel from within to acquire more and more things, and to enjoy greater and greater degrees of happiness, is an insignia of the existence of such states where we can have that type of experience. An intellectual urge, moral urge, spiritual urge and aesthetic urge are all indications of the presence of certain values which cannot be comprehended at present by the powers of sense and reasoning. There is an irresistible desire to ask for more and more, and we cannot ask for more and more unless this 'more' exists. We will not ask for an empty thing. The idea of the more cannot arise in a mind which has not sensed the presence of that 'more' in some subtle manner. The mind has various levels of perception. Although through the conscious level it cannot directly perceive the existence of these higher levels of reality, it can sense the presence of these higher realities through other forms of apparatus that it has within, and it is due to the action of these inward sensations that it feels agonised and restless in any given condition of lower experience.
If we are not possessed of even the least tendency to recognise a higher value of life, we will be happy we will be perfectly contented. It is the impact of a higher state of life upon the present condition of existence that is the cause for our unhappiness and restlessness. If that impact were not to be there at all, there would be no contact between the present state of existence and the future possible state. When this contact is not there, there will be no asking for it, no aspiration for it, no feeling about it and, therefore, no unhappiness about the present state of affairs. So, we should be perfectly contented, but we are not; we are unhappy. We do not want the present condition to continue because we feel that there is inadequacy, shortcoming and all sorts of ugliness which we want to overcome and rectify, but which we cannot execute and achieve unless a higher condition does exist, and becomes practicable.
1.028 - Bringing About Whole-Souled Dedication, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Likewise, to know everything that will happen in the future also cannot be regarded as a happy state of affairs for minds that are incapable of understanding all aspects of things. Inasmuch as the prarabdhas in us have a restraining force upon us, all the gates will not open at one stroke. There is a gradual opening of the personality, like the blossoming of a flower from the state of a bud. Just as we grow from childhood to youth, etc., and do not suddenly jump into the skies, there is a gradual opening up of consciousness into higher and higher levels by the intensity of the daily practice. Each day we will find that there is a little progress, though it may not be all that we expect. All that we expect cannot come in one day, for reasons that we know very well. But there is bound to be progress, even if the practice is very little, provided that it is done with ardour and with great affection, intensity and wholeheartedness.
The condition mentioned in the sutra of Patanjali is: sa tu drghakla nairantarya satkra sevita dhabhmi (I.14). A very, very affectionate attitude towards this practice is one condition. We cannot have a greater love for anything in this world than we have for this practice. In fact, this practice is like a parent to us it will take care of us, protect us and provide us with everything that we need. This practice of yoga should be continued until the point of realisation, without asking for immediate results. Karmanyevdhikraste m phaleu kadcana(B.G. II.47), says Bhagavan Sri Krishna in the Bhagavadgita. Our duty is to act according to the discipline prescribed, and not to expect results. The results will follow in the long run, in due course of time.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
seen): what constitutes ends at a lower level of analysis becomes means at a higher level. It follows
that the gift of the hero constitutes normal and revolutionary adaptation, simultaneously normal
10.33 - On Discipline, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The heart of discipline then is the effort to surmount oneself. Instead of a lower self following the law of an inferior consciousness one is to rise to a higher level of consciousness and a greater law of being. Discipline thus is only another term for tapasy, replacing the lower law gradually by a higher and higher law.
Mother speaks of three lines of this higher law. First of all, the individual law which at its lowest and its most common form is the law of selfishness. It is the most elementary and superficial degree of consciousness when the being is confined to its own little person, confined mostly to its hungers and desires, to its sense of possession and appropriation. The human being starts with- this addiction to selfishness but he moves towards a gradual enlargement and rearrangement of this sense of personal value and importance. Therefore he is given a family, a nation, a grouping more or less large in which he can find other selves to meet and learn to live with harmoniously. A collective life whether in a nation or in the family or in any other group formation demands a control over the selfish impulses and egoistic urges. That is the discipline, that is to say, the necessity of submitting the law of one's ego-self to the law of collective selves, needed for the realisation of a collective ideal. When you playa game you have to obey the rule of the game and you have to dovetail your movements into the movements of your comrades, you cannot move as you please but must integrate your gestures with those of others. Even so as a member of a particular family or as a citizen of a particular country you have to rearrange your personal habits and movements in accordance with a more general and wider plan of living. The extent of this obedience depends upon the ideal that a particular collectivity pursues and the value of the obedience depends on the ideal thus pursued. And the largest collectivity is of course the human race, the humanity as a whole. The submission of the personal law to the law of humanity in general is also a discipline demanded of man but there too the value of the submission depends upon the exact nature of the humanity to which one is asked to submit. For as I have said, there are degrees of consciousness and levels of being mounting higher and higher in an increasing value in respect of width and intensity and essential character. For along with the widening of the consciousness there must be a heightening of it, a horizontal movement of the being must be supported or accentuated by a vertical movement. Even the widest consciousness, a consciousness one with the universe, as wide as creation itself, can still have a core of ego-sense left behind, however attenuated it may be; the ego-sense can be abolished only by a transcendence even of the universal consciousness and rise into the supra-conscious. And this brings us to the other line of discipline, the supreme discipline which means obedience not merely, not even to the cosmic law but to the transcendent Divine Law. Here the individual is absolutely, utterly, free from his little self, the minor self-law, he is totally merged in the Divine, his being and living becomes the Divine's own law of existence.
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
We see then that, when the crisis came, each of these young men forgot the particular personality, which he had built up out of the elements provided by his heredity and the environment in which he had grown up; that one resisted the normally irresistible temptation to identify himself with his mood of the moment, another the temptation to identify himself with his private day-dreams, and so on with the rest; and that all of them behaved in the same strikingly similar and wholly admirable way. It was as though the crisis and the preliminary training for crisis had lifted them out of their divergent personalities and raised them to the same higher level.
Sometimes crisis alone, without any preparatory training, is sufficient to make a man forget to be his customary self and become, for the time being, something quite different. Thus the most unlikely people will, under the influence of disaster, temporarily turn into heroes, martyrs, selfless labourers for the good of their fellows. Very often, too, the proximity of death produces similar results. For example, Samuel Johnson behaved in one way during almost the whole of his life and in quite another way during his last illness. The fascinatingly complex personality, in which six generations of Boswellians have taken so much delight the learned boor and glutton, the kindhearted bully, the superstitious intellectual, the convinced Christian who was a fetishist, the courageous man who was terrified of deathbecame, while he was actually dying, simple, single, serene and God-centred.
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
answer will come from the corresponding next higher level
in the pre-existing general manifestation (which Sri Aurob-
1.03 - Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of The Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are certain semblances of an equal spirit which must not be mistaken for the profound and vast spiritual equality which the Gita teaches. There is an equality of disappointed resignation, an equality of pride, an equality of hardness and indifference: all these are egoistic in their nature. Inevitably they come in the course of the sadhana, but they must be rejected or transformed into the true quietude. There is too, on a higher level, the equality of the stoic, the equality of a devout resignation or a sage detachment, the equality of a soul aloof from the world and indifferent to its doings. These too are insufficient; first approaches they can be, but they are at most early soul-phases only or imperfect mental preparations for our entry into the true and absolute self-existent wide evenness of the spirit.
For it is certain that so great a result cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous stages. At first we have to learn to bear the shocks of the world with the central part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind, heart, life are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our life, we must separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer workings of our nature. Afterwards, extending this calm and steadfastness of the detached soul to its instruments, it will become slowly possible to radiate peace from the luminous centre to the darker peripheries. In this process we may take the passing help of many minor phases; a certain stoicism, a certain calm philosophy, a certain religious exaltation may help us towards some nearness to our aim, or we may call in even less strong and exalted but still useful powers of our mental nature. In the end we must either discard or transform them and arrive instead at an entire equality, a perfect self-existent peace within and even, if we can, a total unassailable, self-poised and spontaneous delight in all our members.
1.03 - THE EARTH IN ITS EARLY STAGES, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Here again, but in a better defined field and on a higher level,
we find the fundamental condition characteristic of primordial
1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
that have risen to higher levels of culture. It was rife in ancient
India and ancient Egypt; it is by no means extinct among European
1.04 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
threshold of some higher level of consciousness. Whether Chris-
tian or non-Christian, the people inspired by this particular con-
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
such. Resolution is psychological reconstruction, reincorporation, rebirth on a higher level with
redemptive personal experience intact, but reintegrated in the corpus of current sociocultural myth and
1.04 - The Future of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
in him and through him, to a higher level - then a new
spring of energy will well forth in the heart of Earth's work-
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are here a number of words whose exact meaning is exceedingly important for any fruitful enquiry into the religious significance of the Vedas. The most important, the decisive & capital word in the passage is Ritam. Whatever it may be held to mean, it will decide for us the essential character of Varuna & his constant comradeMitra. I have already suggested in my first chapter the sense in which I understand Ritam. It is its ordinary sense in Sanscrit. Ritam is Truth, Law, that which is straight, upright, direct, rectum; it is that which gives everything its place & its motion (ritu), that which constitutes reason (ratio) in mind and rectitude in morals,it is the rightness or righteousness which makes the stars move in their orbits, the seasons occur in their order, thought & speech move towards truth, trees grow according to their seed, animals act according to their species & nature, & man walk in the paths which God has prescribed for him. It is that in the Akasha the Akasha where Varuna is lordwhich develops arrangement & order, it is the element of law in Nature. But not only in material Nature, not only in the moral akasha even,the akasha of the heart of which the Rishis spoke, but on higher levels also. I have pointed out that Ritam is the law of the Truth, of vijnana. It is this ideal Truth, the Truth of being, by which everything animate or inanimate knows in its fibres of being & serves in action & feeling the truth of itself, in which Law is born. This Law which belongs to Satyam, to the Mahas, is Ritam. Neither of the English words,Law & Truth, gives the idea; they have to be combined in order to be equivalent to ritam. Well, then Varuna is represented to us as increasing in his nature by this Truth & Law, attaining to it or possessing it; Law & Truth are the source of his strength, the means by which he has arrived at his present force & mightiness.
But he is more than that; he is tuvijata, urukshaya. Uru, we shall find in other hymns, the Vast, is a word used as equivalent to Brihat to describe the ideal level of consciousness, the kingdom of ideal knowledge, in its aspect of joyous comprehensive wideness and capacity. It is clearly told us that men by overcoming & passing beyond the two firmaments of Mind-invitality, Bhuvar, & mind in intellectuality, Swar, arrive in the Vast, Uru, and make it their dwelling place. Therefore Uru must be taken as equivalent to Brihat; it must mean Mahas. Our Vedic Varuna, then, is a dweller in Mahas, in the vastness of ideal knowledge. But he is not born there; he is born or appears first in tuvi, that is, in strength or force. Since Uru definitely means the Vast, means Mahas, means a particular plane of consciousness, is, in short, a fixed term of Vedic psychology, it is inevitable that tuvi thus coupled with it and yet differentiated, must be another fixed term of Vedic psychology & must mean another plane of consciousness. We have found the meaning of Mahas by consulting Purana & Vedanta as well as the Veda itself. Have we any similar light on the significance of Tuvi? Yes. The Puranas describe to us three worlds above Maharloka,called, respectively, in the Puranic system, Jana, Tapas and Satya. By a comparison with Vedantic psychology we know that Jana must be the world of Ananda of which the Mahajana Atma is the sustaining Brahman as the Mahan Atma is the sustaining Brahman of the vijnana, and we get this light on the subject that, just as Bhur, Bhuvah, Swar are the lower or human half of existence, the aparardha of the Brahmanda, (the Brahma-circle or universe of manifest consciousness), and answer objectively to the subjective field covered by Annam, Prana & Manas, just as Mahas is the intermediate world, link between the divine & human hemispheres, and corresponds to the subjective region of Vijnana, so Jana, Tapas & Satya are the divine half of existence, & answer to the Ananda with its two companion principles Sat andChit, the three constituting the Trinity of those psychological states which are, to & in our consciousness, Sacchidananda,God sustaining from above His worlds. But why is the world of Chit called Tapoloka? According to our conceptions this universe has been created by & in divine Awareness by Force, Shakti, or Power which [is] inherent in Awareness, Force of Awareness or Chit Shakti that moves, forms & realises whatever it wills in Being. This force, this Chit-shakti in its application to its work, is termed in the ancient phraseology Tapas. Therefore, it is told us that when Brahma the Creator lay uncreative on the great Ocean, he listened & heard a voice crying over the waters OM Tapas! OM Tapas! and he became full of the energy of the mantra & arose & began creation. Tapas & Tu or Tuvi are equivalent terms. We can see at once the meaning. Varuna, existing no doubt in Sat, appears or is born to us in Tapas, in the sea of force put out in itself by the divine Awareness, & descending through divine delight which world is in Jana, in production or birth by Tapas, through Ananda, that is to say, into the manifest world, dwells in ideal knowledge & Truth and makes there Ritam or the Law of the Truth of Being his peculiar province. It is the very process of all creation, according to our Vedic&Vedantic Rishis. Descending into the actual universe we find Varuna master of the Akash or ether, matrix and continent of created things, in the Akash watching over the development of the created world & its peoples according to the line already fixed by ideal knowledge as suitable to their nature and purposeya thatathyato vihitam shashwatibhyah samabhyah and guiding the motion of things & souls in the line of theritam. It is in his act of guidance and bringing to perfection of the imperfect that he increases by the law and the truth, desires it and naturally attains to it, has the spriha & the sparsha of the ritam. It is from his fidelity to ideal Truth that he acquires the mighty power by which he maintains the heavens and orders its worlds in their appointed motion.
1.05 - The Activation of Human Energy, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Similarly, on a higher level, it is through sympathy, and this
alone, that the human elements in a personalized universe
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
that conflict on a higher level. (I understand that this particular state of adult unconsciousness is
different from the original state of child-like unconsciousness, in which there is no long-term conflict.)
1.06 - Dhyana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
14:One of the simplest forms of Dhyana may be called "the Sun." The sun is seen (as it were) by itself, not by an observer; and although the physical eye cannot behold the sun, one is compelled to make the statement that this "Sun" is far more brilliant than the sun of nature. The whole thing takes place on a higher level.
15:Also the conditions of thought, time, and space are abolished. It is impossible to explain what this really means: only experience can furnish you with apprehension.
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
through him, to a higher level then a new spring of energy will
well forth in the heart of Earth's workers. The whole great human
--
gree of enslavement or a higher level of spiritual energy. It is too
early to say But I believe this can be said, that in so far as these first
--
through atomic affinity. Similarly, on a higher level, it is through
sympathy, and this alone, that the human elements in a personalized
1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
natives stand at a far higher level of culture than the Australian
aborigines, the constitution of society among them is still
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The Christian simplicity, of which Grou and Fnelon write, is the same thing as the virtue so much admired by Lao Tzu and his successors. According to these Chinese sages, personal sins and social maladjustments are all due to the fact that men have separated themselves from their divine source and live according to their own will and notions, not according to Taowhich is the Great Way, the Logos, the Nature of Things, as it manifests itself on every plane from the physical, up through the animal and the mental, to the spiritual. Enlightenment comes when we give up self-will and make ourselves docile to the workings of Tao in the world around us and in our own bodies, minds and spirits. Sometimes the Taoist philosophers write as though they believed in Rousseaus Noble Savage, and (being Chinese and therefore much more concerned with the concrete and the practical than with the merely speculative) they are fond of prescribing methods by which rulers may reduce the complexity of civilization and so preserve their subjects from the corrupting influences of man-made and therefore Tao-eclipsing conventions of thought, feeling and action. But the rulers who are to perform this task for the masses must themselves be sages; and to become a sage, one must get rid of all the rigidities of unregenerate adulthood and become again as a little child. For only that which is soft and docile is truly alive; that which conquers and outlives everything is that which adapts itself to everything, that which always seeks the lowest placenot the hard rock, but the water that wears away the everlasting hills. The simplicity and spontaneity of the perfect sage are the fruits of mortificationmortification of the will and, by recollectedness and meditation, of the mind. Only the most highly disciplined artist can recapture, on a higher level, the spontaneity of the child with its first paint-box. Nothing is more difficult than to be simple.
May I ask, said Yen Hui, in what consists the fasting of the heart?
1.07 - Note on the word Go, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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.
There is only one other passage we have now left for examination but it is of considerable importance & interest. It is in the hymn ascribed to the son of Madhuchchhanda, though very probably it isMadhuchchhandas own, the eleventh hymn and the fifth verse. Twam Valasya gomato apavar adrivo bilam, Twam deva abibhyushas tujyamanasa avishuh. Thou, O dweller on the mountain, didst uncover the lair of Vala the luminous, Thee the gods entered unfearing & protected. Indra, the dweller on the mountain of being, he who established in Swarga looks ever upward, has, to assist the strivings of man, uncovered the lair of Vala the luminous. Who is Vala the luminous? Does gomat mean the fellow who has the cows & is Vala a demon of cloud or darkness afflicted with the cow-stealing propensities, the Titanic bovi-kleptomania attributed by tradition to the Panis? He is, I suggest, one of the Titans who deny a higher ascent to man, a Titan who possesses but withholds & hides the luminous realms of ideal truth from man,interposing the hiranmayam patram of the Isha Upanishad, the golden cover or lid, by which the face of truth is concealed, satyasyapihitam mukham. Tat twam Pushan apavrinu, cries the Vedantic sage, using the same word apavri, but he calls to Surya, not to Indra, because he seeks the possession of the Vedanta, the sight of the rupam kalyanatamam which belongs to those who can meet Surya in his own home. The Vedic seer, at an earlier stage of the struggle, is satisfied with the minor conquests of Indra. He does not yet rise to those heights where Indra working in the mind is no longer a supreme helper, but may even be, as the Puranas tell us, an obstacle and an opponentbecause activity of mind even the highest, so long as it is not abandoned and overpassed, interferes with a yet higher attainment. It is only by rejecting Indra that we can dwell with Surya in his luminous halls, Tena tyaktena bhunjithah. Nevertheless the conquest over Bala is for humanity in its present stage a great conquest, and when & because it is accomplished the other gods can enter safely into the mental force & work in it, fearless because protected by Indras victorious might. For he is now Balabhid; he has pierced Bala & is no longer liable to that fear which overtook him when Vritra only had been overthrowna fear due to his perceiving the immensity of the task that still remained & the more formidable enemies beyond. We shall come again to Bala & the Titans & the meaning of these divine battles,viryani yani chakara prathamani vajri.
1.07 - Savitri, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
This is roughly the story of the grand epic Savitri traced from the earliest conception to its final consummation. Undoubtedly the first three Books were of a much higher level of inspiration and nearer perfection than the rest, for with ample leisure, and working by himself he could devote more time and care to that end, which unfortunately could not be said about the rest of the Books. Apart from the different versions I have mentioned, there is a huge mass of manuscripts which we have left unclassified since they are in fragments[4] all of which testifies to the immense labour of a god that has gone into the building of the magnificent epic. For a future research scholar, when Savitri earns as wide a recognition as, for instance, Dante's or Homer's epic, if not more, a very interesting work remains to be done; going into the minutest detail, he would show where new lines or passages have been added, or where one line slightly changed becomes an overhead line, or how another line after various changes comes back to its original version, etc., etc. I was chosen as a scribe probably because I didn't have all these gifts, so that I could, like a passive instrument, jot down faithfully whatever was dictated while Amal would have raised doubts, argued with him or been lost in sheer admiration of the beauty and the grandeur! Dilip would have started quoting line after line in rapturous ecstasy before the poem had come out! I submit no apology, nor am I conscience-stricken for my failures, for he knew what was the worth of his instrument. I am only grateful to him for being able to serve him with the very faculty which he had evolved and developed in me.
We can at last see how from among scattered seeds a single huge banyan tree has grown and spread itself to the transcendent and the cosmic infinite and excites our perpetual wonder. I wish I could provide a more faithful and vivid picture of its daily growth, a branch here, an offshoot there, trimming the old twigs, reviving the dying ones, discarding the outworn crowding branches till there soared up into the sky a majestic vision under whose perennial shade the world can repose awhile, in its long journey to the Eternal. To show how he expanded the poem I may quote one long new passage which he appended to the end of Book II, Canto VI, The Kingdoms and the Godheads of the Greater Life:
--
Then, with regard to hard labour on Savitri, he wrote: "That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began with it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from that level. Moreover I was particular if part seemed to me to come from any lower levels I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All had to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact, Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished; but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one's own Yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of God or the sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the moment."
All this was written to me in 1936. Since then the work proceeded slowly and gradually until between 1939 and 1950 he succeeded to a great extent in achieving what he aimed at, as stated in the letter above. I am sure if he had more time at his disposal and could work by himself, he would have raised it to his ideal of perfect perfection. As it is, Savitri is, I suppose, the example par excellence of the Future Poetry he speaks of in his book The Future Poetry. Founder of the New Age, pioneer in the field of poetry, as in many others, he has left us an inexhaustible heritage of words, images, ideas, suggestions and hints about which we can only say here is God's plenty. Rameshwar Gupta very aptly calls it Eternity in Words.[5] Generation after generation will drink in its soul's nectar from this perennial source. The life span of the English language itself has increased a thousandfold. Shakespeare, it is said, increased the life span of the English language by centuries. Sri Aurobindo said about Shakespeare, "That kind of spear does not shake everywhere." Now we find another far greater that will shake the world to its very roots. If for no other reason, the English speaking races ought to be eternally grateful to the supreme poet of the grand epic for this miracle.
1.07 - THE GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED - THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKIND, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
course but on a higher level, combining individuals in social or-
A GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED 125
1.07 - TRUTH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Non-rational creatures do not look before or after, but live in the animal eternity of a perpetual present; instinct is their animal grace and constant inspiration; and they are never tempted to live otherwise than in accord with their own animal dharma, or immanent law. Thanks to his reasoning powers and to the instrument of reason, language, man (in his merely human condition) lives nostalgically, apprehensively and hopefully in the past and future as well as in the present; has no instincts to tell him what to do; must rely on personal cleverness, rather than on inspiration from the divine Nature of Things; finds himself in a condition of chronic civil war between passion and prudence and, on a higher level of awareness and ethical sensibility, between egotism and dawning spirituality. But this wearisome condition of humanity is the indispensable prerequisite of enlightenment and deliverance. Man must live in time in order to be able to advance into eternity, no longer on the animal, but on the spiritual level; he must be conscious of himself as a separate ego in order to be able consciously to transcend separate selfhood; he must do battle with the lower self in order that he may become identified with that higher Self within him, which is akin to the divine Not-Self; and finally he must make use of his cleverness in order to pass beyond cleverness to the intellectual vision of Truth, the immediate, unitive knowledge of the divine Ground. Reason and its works are not and cannot be a proximate means of union with God. The proximate means is intellect, in the scholastic sense of the word, or spirit. In the last analysis the use and purpose of reason is to create the internal and external conditions favour able to its own transfiguration by and into spirit. It is the lamp by which it finds the way to go beyond itself. We see, then, that as a means to a proximate means to an End, discursive reasoning is of enormous value. But if, in our pride and madness, we treat it as a proximate means to the divine End (as so many religious people have done and still do), or if, denying the existence of an eternal End, we regard it as at once the means to Progress and its ever-receding goal in time, cleverness becomes the enemy, a source of spiritual blindness, moral evil and social disaster. At no period in history has cleverness been so highly valued or, in certain directions, so widely and efficiently trained as at the present time. And at no time have intellectual vision and spirituality been less esteemed, or the End to which they are proximate means less widely and less earnestly sought for. Because technology advances, we fancy that we are making corresponding progress all along the line; because we have considerable power over inanimate nature, we are convinced that we are the self-sufficient masters of our fate and captains of our souls; and because cleverness has given us technology and power, we believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that we have only to go on being yet cleverer in a yet more systematic way to achieve social order, international peace and personal happiness.
In Wu Chng-ns extraordinary masterpiece (so admirably translated by Mr. Arthur Waley) there is an episode, at once comical and profound, in which Monkey (who, in the allegory, is the incarnation of human cleverness) gets to heaven and there causes so much trouble that at last Buddha has to be called in to deal with him. It ends in the following passage.
1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
It is infinitely more than a rational decision to integrate oneself to a higher level of consciousness and to see that level in all things, for the change has been entirely due to the shattering experience that the centre of gravity, so to speak, lies beyond the Abyss. The Great Work itself consists of a simple operation - this changing of viewpoint, the slaying of the slayer of Reality - the Mind. But through aeons of evolutionary effort towards the development of a highly complex organization and constitution through which to contact the " external " universe for the obtaining of experience, we are unable to realize this simplicity and accomplish this operation at the outset, and so are obliged to struggle painfully through these difficult tasks in order to obtain the right degree of simplicity and penetrate the veil, to find our selves, spiritual centres of force, Yechidos, radiant with life and purpose and divinity.
Prof. Martin Buber, in his splendid work on Jewish
1.08 - Independence from the Physical, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
which are not directly related to any fault of ours: those that result from subconscious resistance (we will discuss them later with the purification of the subconscient) and those that may be called "yogic illnesses," which result from an uneven development between the higher levels of consciousness and our physical consciousness. For instance, our mental or vital consciousness may widen considerably and receive new intensities, while our physical consciousness still lags behind in old vibratory movements and cannot withstand this increased intensity. This leads to a loss of equilibrium that may bring on illnesses, not through the intrusion of any outer agent, microbe or virus, but through a disruption in the normal relationship among the inner parts of our being; such illnesses may include allergies, colloidal disorders of the blood, and nervous and mental disorders. Here we are touching the problem of matter's receptivity to the higher forces of consciousness, one of the major problems of the supramental yoga.
This is also one of the reasons why Sri Aurobindo and Mother insist so much on the development of our physical body; without it, we may be able to go into ecstasy and soar straight into the Absolute, but we are unable to bring the intensity and plenitude of the Spirit down to our "lower" kingdom the mental, vital, and material realm in order to create a divine life there.
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.
1.098 - The Transformation from Human to Divine, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Likewise is the transformation from the human to the higher levels of yoga, which are the stages of the ascent to the divine. We are becoming we are going to become divine, in different stages. So, we may say that every stage is a new encounter with a qualitative transformation of the personality, a condition with which we cannot compare anything in this world. There is nothing here with which we can compare that state of experience.
If we start comparing, we will be speaking like the frog in the well which had a talk with the frog that came from the ocean. The ocean is so big! Much bigger than the well, said the frog from the ocean. The frog that was in the well, which had never seen anything wider than the well, asked, How big is this ocean? Oh, very big! Is it so big? asked the frog in the well, expanding its body, swelling it. Is this how big the ocean is? Now, what is this that we are talking about? It is not like that, said the ocean frog. It is very big! The well frog swelled still further. Stouter it became, expanded its muscles and said, So big? The ocean is so big? No, no! It is not like that, said the frog from the ocean. It is much bigger than what we are thinking! Is it as big as this well, at least? asked the well frog. Oh, much bigger! said the ocean frog. The well frog was confused and said, What is this? What are we talking about? I cannot understand! The frog in the well could not appreciate anything bigger than the well. What is the ocean? It could not imagine it.
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When one steps over the ordinary human level and places ones feet on the next higher level, that condition is called prathama kalpita. It is a peculiar term which implies an experience of a first form of enlightenment. The first enlightenment that comes through yoga is called prathama kalpita. The next stage of enlightenment is called madhu bhumika, which literally means very sweet, like honey. Very exquisite is the experience, very delicious; that is what the word madhu actually means here madhu bhumika. The third transformation is called prajna jyotis. There is a flash of the supernal light of the purusha, or the Absolute. We begin to enter into the daylight of the Eternal. And the last stage is supposed to be the borderl and of the communion of the individual with the Absolute, the Universal. That is called atikranta bhavaniya, which surpasses all comprehension. No thought can understand or imagine what it is. Even the highest stretch of imagination cannot conceive what it is. Therefore, it is designated as atikranta bhavaniya.
Now, the teachers of yoga tell us that there are very great dangers which one has to face at certain stages of this ascent. These dangers come from the activity of the senses and the ego. Where do these dangers come from? They come from certain encounters of the meditative individual. What does it encounter? It encounters certain forces which present themselves as personalities, forms, shapes, objects, etc. These forms, which present themselves before ones experience, are the very counterparts of the desires of the senses and the ego. It is to be noted here that everything that is in our individual personality has a cosmical counterpart. Whether it is good or bad, whether it is of this nature or that nature, everything that is inside has a counterpart in the outer world. So, the pressure exerted by any particular aspect in the individual personality stirs up the corresponding counterpart in the outer world, and we encounter that. It is something like the operations of a puppet show. A person operating the movement of puppets with strings is the power that conditions these movements outside. The operator behind moves the fingers in a particular way and accordingly, correspondingly, there is the movement of the puppets outside.
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These personalities which the Puranas speak of do not necessarily come when we jump from the physical level to the higher level. They can press themselves into action even in this very level, so that we may not go to the higher realm at all. As a result, there can be very convenient situations and comfortable experiences of the senses as well as the ego, whose essential nature cannot easily be discovered. We will not know what is happening to us. We will only take it as a common presentation or an unusual experience of life. There is nothing usual in this world; everything is very peculiar. Everything has a novel character. Even these so-called usual experiences of our life even my sitting here and your listening to me is a very strange coordination of factors which are universal in their nature. They are not simply to be taken for an ordinary, simple social experience of human beings.
There is nothing which is not universal in life. Everything is a universal expression. Even a leaf that moves in a tree has a universal background behind it. Even the littlest of our experiences and the smallest of the deeds that we perform everything, for the matter of that is a symbol or an index of a universal pressure that is exerted from behind, which is invisible to the senses and incomprehensible to the ego. The yoga philosophy and psychology opens up before our mind a new world of perception and a new interpretation of values a system of an entirely new type of appreciation of things so that we will be able to discover new meaning even in the common and ordinary experiences of life. Even if we see a dog on the road, it is not an ordinary experience that is happening; we will begin to see a new meaning behind it. A cat crossing in front of us is not an ordinary experience. A wisp of breeze is not ordinary. Everything is extraordinary in this life. This meaning of an extraordinary significance present behind even ordinary experiences in life will be opened up only to a discriminative understanding.
1.09 - The Secret Chiefs, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The first condition of membership of the AA is that one is sworn to identify one's own Great Work with that of raising mankind to higher levels, spiritually, and in every other way.
Accordingly, it stands to reason that those charged with the conduct of the Order should be at least Masters of the Temple, or their judgment would be worthless, and at least Magi (though not that particular kind of Magus who brings the Word of a New Formula to the world every 2,000 years of so) or they would be unable to influence events on any scale commensurate with the scope of the Work.
11.04 - The Triple Cord, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The three cords are the three limitations of being and consciousness in the normal human creature. There is a wall or barrier up in the mind which shuts out the higher levels of consciousness that are beyond the mind the worlds of vision and revelation, of the Truth and the Vast. The middle knot shuts out the world around and abroad and limits the being to the ego, prevents the individual person from communicating with the Universal Being and Consciousness. It is the well known knot of the hearthdayagranthi the crux and kernel of the egoistic consciousness. It centres the whole being on itself, limits it to itself, does not let it go out of itself to belong to the world-being. It is also the pull that prevents the being from diving down into its true personality, the psychic, and finding its union with the inner Divine. This ego-centred knot has to be cut through and the thread to be scattered into the infinity of the deepest and of the widest being. The last barrier at the base of the human consciousness is the hard crust of the physical and the material being. It is closed to the regions behind, the occult sources of all external movements. This too
has to be pulled down and thrown into the gulfs of non-existenceprimal Prakriti, out of which they are bornso that the subliminal ranges of consciousness emerge and manifest themselves.
11.05 - The Ladder of Unconsciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness, the normal consciousness we know, has various degrees of potency: its familiar form is the rational consciousness or intellect; then at a higher level, there is the intuitive consciousness and at a still higher level the visionary consciousness, that is, the consciousness that sees the Truth, and at the highest, the objectless consciousness, consciousness in itself or the sachchidananda consciousness.
Likewise unconsciousness too has its own various degrees. As consciousness rises up to higher and higher grades of consciousness, so unconsciousness too descends into lower and lower grades of unconsciousness. The first degree of unconsciousness is simple forgetfulness. It is the absence of consciousness, not the loss of consciousness. The consciousness is there but it is not apparent or expressed, it is held back for the time. One can recall it; it can be remembered and brought forward. The abeyance of consciousness, when it persists, when it amounts to a turn of nature, is called ignorance. Yet ignorance is not the negation of consciousness, it is clouded or veiled consciousness; it is not that the sun is set and gone but simply that it is behind the clouds, it is up in the sky but shrouded. This behind-the-veil consciousness is the subliminal consciousness or simply sub-consciousness. Sub-consciousness is a consciousness that is not dormant or asleep, stilled into silence, it is at work but behind the normal waking state It is the swapna-state as the Indian sages termed it. Lower down is the state of unconsciousness proper. It is a still more diminished degree of consciousness, apparently a total absence of consciousness, not merely an abeyance or subsidence of consciousness, it is a lack of consciousness. The animal consciousness might be taken as an instance or expression of the ignorant consciousness, likewise the plant consciousness parallels the subliminal consciousness the Indian description of it is antapraja. Next to it is the consciousness in the mineral, it is unconsciousness. By unconsciousness it is meant here naturally the absence of the mental consciousness: the presence or absence of consciousness means the presence or absence of the mental consciousness. There is a generic consciousness, consciousness in itself, or pure consciousness, which is imbedded in all created things, for creation itself is at bottom a vibration or pulsation of consciousness (vijana-vijmbhaam). There is a range or rung still further below with a still lesser degree of consciousness: it is called the inconscient, which is a totally total, in depth and in extent, absence of consciousness. In the other degree that is above it, there is the probability of consciousness in the midst of apparent absence, here it is reduced almost to nothingness or to just a possibility: for, as I have said, some consciousness, the presence of Sachchidananda is always there everywhere in the core of things. Yet there is also an absolute negation and this has been termed Nescience, it is the zero of things, where there is no question of possibility or impossibility: it is the final and definite end, sunyam of the Buddhists, termed asat by the Vedantists.
1.10 - GRACE AND FREE WILL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Spiritual grace originates from the divine Ground of all being, and it is given for the purpose of helping man to achieve his final end, which is to return out of time and selfhood to that Ground. It resembles animal grace in being derived from a source wholly other than our self-conscious, human selves; indeed, it is the same thing as animal grace, but manifesting itself on a higher level of the ascending spiral that leads from matter to the Godhead. In any given instance, human grace may be wholly good, inasmuch as it helps the recipient in the task of achieving the unitive knowledge of God; but because of its source in the individualized self, it is always a little suspect and, in many cases, of course, the help it gives is help towards the achievement of ends very different from the true end of our existence.
All our goodness is a loan; God is the owner. God works and his work is God.
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
it is on a higher level than the individual that everything achieves
its fulfillment.
--
ment on the higher level of mankind. Like a heavenly body that
heats as it contracts, such, and in a twofold respect, is the Noo-
1.1.1.01 - Three Elements of Poetic Creation, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The originating source may be anywhere; the poetry may arise or descend from the subtle physical plane, from the higher or lower vital itself, from the dynamic or creative intelligence, from the plane of dynamic vision, from the psychic, from the illumined mind or Intuition,even, though this is the rarest, from the Overmind widenesses. To get the Overmind inspiration is so rare that there are only a few lines or short passages in all poetic literature that give at least some appearance or reflection of it. When the source of inspiration is in the heart or the psychic there is more easily a good will in the vital channel, the flow is spontaneous; the inspiration takes at once its true form and speech and is transmitted without any interference or only a minimum of interference by the brain-mind, that great spoiler of the higher or deeper splendours. It is the character of the lyrical inspiration, to flow in a jet out of the beingwhe ther it comes from the vital or the psychic, it is usually spontaneous, for these are the two most powerfully impelling and compelling parts of the nature. When on the contrary the source of inspiration is in the creative poetic intelligence or even the higher mind or the illumined mind, the poetry which comes from this quarter is always apt to be arrested by the outer intellect, our habitual thought-production engine. This intellect is an absurdly overactive part of the nature; it always thinks that nothing can be well done unless it puts its finger into the pie and therefore it instinctively interferes with the inspiration, blocks half or more than half of it and labours to substitute its own inferior and toilsome productions for the true speech and rhythm that ought to have come. The poet labours in anguish to get the one true word, the au thentic rhythm, the real divine substance of what he has to say, while all the time it is waiting complete and ready behind; but it is denied free transmission by some part of the transmitting agency which prefers to translate and is not willing merely to receive and transcribe. When one gets something through from the illumined mind, then there is likely to come to birth work that is really fine and great. When there comes with labour or without it something reasonably like what the poetic intelligence wanted to say, then there is something fine or adequate, though it may not be great unless there is an intervention from the higher levels. But when the outer brain is at work trying to fashion out of itself or to give its own version of what the higher sources are trying to pour down, then there results a manufacture or something quite inadequate or faulty or, at the best, good on the whole, but not the thing that ought to have come.
2 June 1931
11.11 - The Ideal Centre, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In life, which is necessarily corporate life (a centre essentially means a training and a realisation in corporate life) the first and last necessity is harmony, that is to say, understanding and union among the members of the corporate life. That is a self-evident truth understood and accepted by one and all. But the crux of the matter is how to achieve the harmony. It can be achieved only on a higher level of being and consciousness, on the lower ordinary level there can be only a compromise, an unstable balance, an uncertain counter-poising of diverse and divergent elements. Also, it must be noted, that the higher and deeper the consciousness, the wider and the more comprehensive, the more the harmony becomes natural, spontaneous, faultless, perfect: and on the highest level the harmony becomes not merely union but indivisible unity.
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.
1.11 - FAITH IN MAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
have reached a higher level of spiritual evolution? We may be in
two minds about this.
1.11 - Oneness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Cosmic Consciousness Sri Aurobindo had lived for months in a sort of phantasmagoric and empty dream set against the sole background of the Transcendent's static Reality. Strangely enough, however, it is in the midst of this Void, and as if issuing from it, that the world burst forth again with a new face, as if each time everything had to be lost in order to be found again at a higher level: Overpowered and subjugated, stilled, liberated from itself, the mind accepts the Silence itself as the Supreme. But afterwards the seeker discovers that all is there for him contained or new-made . . . then the void begins to fill, there emerges out of it or there rushes into it all the manifold Truth of the Divine, all the aspects and manifestations and many levels of a dynamic Infinite. 129 When we have seen only a static Infinite, we have seen only one face of God,
Whom we have excluded from this world (though a world we claim to be empty of God may be better than a world filled with a solemn and judgmental God), but once the Silence has washed away our solemnities, great and small, leaving us for a time filled with pure whiteness, we find the world and God together again at every level and in every point, as if they had never been separated except through an excess of materialism or spiritualism. It was in the Alipore courtyard, during the exercise period, that this new change of consciousness took place: I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no,
1.11 - The Change of Power, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
If we can catch that painful elf for it is pain itself just before it buries itself completely, it exhibits a whole daily, material and imperceptible mechanism. This is the great resistance to the change of power, the molehill trying to stay the law of Harmony. Therefore it is where the battle is taking place at this moment, in the microcosm and the macrocosm. It is like a caricature (or the more exact face) of all the polished and civilized activities of the brilliant elf of the higher levels: doubt, fear, avidity, self-centeredness, all the contractions, prehensions and apprehensions of the mental pseudopod. It is a minuscule and ridiculous functioning, and, if by chance we notice it, we shrug it off or attach no importance to it. But we are wrong. We look at everything from atop our mental arrogance, as if those trifles were inconsequential. But they have staggering consequences. We do not see it because we live in our logical and symmetrical clouds. But life grates; there is an immense, universal grating whose source lies in those ridiculous little grains of sand. At the level of matter, there are no little things, because everything is made of little things, and that absurd reaction of doubt or fear is the incalculable equivalent of the mental misjudgment that makes us shut the door on a brilliant opportunity. We are constantly shutting the door on Harmony, turning our backs on the miracle, locking out possibilities, and making ourselves sick into the bargain. For, at the material level, this Harmony does not flow in majestic symphonies through the great arteries of the spirit; it uses what it has. It percolates through minuscule channels, fragile filaments quivering within our material consciousness; it enters in droplets, spurts, discrete quanta that look like nothing a passing breath, a flicker of a smile, a wave of ease without reason which change everything. We do not notice the change because we live in our normal chaos, our usual suffocation, but the seeker, who has become a little clearer, begins to notice, to sense those minute changes of density, those sudden obstructions, those minuscule expansions, those air pockets in his material substance. He sees the almost instant effect of a tiny little emanation of doubt, an absurd fear or tensing up without apparent cause, a ridiculous and morbid imagination crossing his atmosphere. He discovers a thousand sly little pulsations, deceitful palpitations, dark impulses in the great material pond. He puts his finger on fear, the great, voracious and retractile Fear which covers the world like the protoplasm inside its gelatine membrane the slightest touch, the least breath of air, the tiniest ray of sun, and it contracts, shuts the door and rolls up into a ball in its membrane. The immediate reaction to everything is NO; then, sometimes, a yes blurted out, as if impelled by the same fear of missing something. He discovers the fantastic morbid and defeatist imagination of matter, as if, for matter, life represented a kind of dreadful invasion from which it had never quite recovered, a fall perhaps from the original bliss of the stone, an irruption of death into its peaceful routine. Everything is liable to bring catastrophe the great catastrophe of Life expectation of the worst, anticipation of the worst, almost a wish and call for the worst, so this tragedy of life may be stopped at last and everything return to the peace and beatific immobility of dust. He discovers how diseases break out, matter decays, substance ages the great difficulty of living, the contraction onto self, the suffocation inside, the hardening of all the little arteries through which a drop of all-curing harmony might have seeped in. He hears his fill of petty whining, small grudges, matter's wounded negations, and above all above all its despairing leitmotif: This is impossible, that is impossible.... For matter, everything is impossible, because the only sure possibility is the inviolable immobility of the stone. Because all movement of life and hope is still a stirring of death. And it shuts the door, turns off the light, refuses the miracle we all refuse the miracle. We are firmly seated atop our cancer, the doubters of the great immortal Harmony, the dwarves of the earth who believe in pain, believe in disease, believe in suffering, believe in death: This is impossible, impossible, impossible....
So the seeker learns of Harmony. He learns it step by step, by trial and error, tiny little errors that sow disease and confusion. At this stage, the experience no longer takes place in the intellect or heart; it takes place in the body. There is a minute play of sensations, as fleeting as must have been the first quiver of the radiolarian under the temperature changes in the Gulf Stream, and as laden with physical consequences as a storm over the lovely wheat fields of the mind or a typhoon over the murky seas of the vital. We are so dense and blind on our higher levels that we need to be hit over the head to understand that the man in front of us is angry and that murder is lurking in those eyes so transparent. But matter is refined; the more we experience it, the more we discover its incredible receptivity, working in both directions, alas. A hundred times or a thousand times, the seeker is confronted with those microtyphoons, those minute whirlwinds that abruptly overturn the whole equilibrium of the being, becloud everything, give a taste of ashes and despair to the slightest gesture, decompose the air he breathes and decompose everything an instantaneous general decomposition for one second, ten seconds. A hardening of everything. The seeker is suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue; he sees illness coming and it is indeed coming straight at him. Which illness? The Illness. And just behind, lying in wait, death. In one second, ten seconds, one goes straight to the point; one touches the thing. It is right there, irrefutable: the whole mechanism out in the open, like a sudden call of death. Yet, outside, everything is the same. The circumstances are the same, the gestures the same; the sun still shines and the body comes and goes as usual. But everything is changed. It is a flash-death, an instantaneous cholera. Then it vanishes, dissipates like a cloud, one hardly knows why. But if one gives in, one truly falls ill, breaks a leg or has a real accident. And the seeker starts learning the reason for those minuscule reversals of equilibrium. He tracks down a minuscule hell, which is perhaps the first seed of the great million-faced Evil, the first hardening of death's great blissful petrification. Everything is contained there, in a black spark. But the day we catch hold of that tiny poisonous vibration, we will have the secret of immortality, or at least that of the prolongation of life at will. We die because we give in, and we give in in thousands of little instances. The choice between death and immortality must be made again at every instant.
But this is still a negative and human way of approaching the experience. In fact, the Harmony, the marvelous Harmony that attends to everything, does not want to teach us the laws of hell, even a minute hell. It wants the sunlit law. It flings its typhoons and illnesses at us, casts us down into the black pit, only as much as is necessary for us to learn the lesson, not one minute more. And the second we have recaptured the speck of sun, the little note, the miraculous and tranquil little flowing in the heart of things, everything changes, is cured, tilts into the light an instantaneous miracle. Actually, it is not a miracle. The miracle is everywhere, at each instant; it is the very nature of the universe, its air, its sun, its breathing of harmony. Only we keep blocking the way, putting up our walls, our sciences, our millions of devices that know better than this Harmony. We must learn to let it flow freely, to let go there is no other secret. It does not push us down to crush us or punish us, but to teach us the technique of mastery. It wants us to be the true masters of its solar Secret, to be fully what we have always been, free and kings and joyous, and it will pound and pound our miserable secrets until we are forced to knock at its sunlit door, to open our hands and let its sweetness flow over the world and into our hearts.
1.1.1 - The Mind and Other Levels of Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
So long as the mind is not entirely transformed, that is, penetrated and changed by the spiritual consciousness, things from below can always run into it more or less and dim the vision of the higher levels. If you can keep the vision always, even though dimmed, it is already a great progress.
***
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
by the elevation of humanity as a whole to a higher level, yet
by an opening of the greater possibility to all of the race who
1.13 - The Supermind and the Yoga of Works, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
abnormality of any kind, even if it be an exalted abnormality, can be admitted as a way to self-fulfilment or spiritual realisation. Even when one enters into supernormal and suprarational experience, there should be no disturbance of the poise which must be kept firm from the summit of the consciousness to its base; the experiencing consciousness must preserve a calm balance, an unfailing clarity and order in its observation, a sort of sublimated commonsense, an unfailing power of self-criticism, right discrimination, coordination and firm vision of things; a sane grasp on facts and a high spiritualised positivism must always be there. It is not by becoming irrational or infrarational that one can go beyond ordinary nature into supernature; it should be done by passing through reason to a greater light of superreason. This superreason descends into reason and takes it up into higher levels even while breaking its limitations; reason is not lost but changes and becomes its own true unlimited self, a coordinating power of the supernature.
Another error that has to be guarded against is also one to which our mentality is easily prone; it is to take some higher intermediate consciousness or even any kind of supernormal consciousness for the supermind. To reach supermind it is not enough to go above the ordinary movements of the human mind; it is not enough to receive a greater light, a greater power, a greater joy or to develop capacities of knowledge, sight, effective will that surpass the normal range of the human being. All light is not the light of the spirit, still less is all light the light of the supermind; the mind, the vital, the physical itself have lights of their own, as yet hidden, which can be very inspiring, exalting, informative, powerfully executive. A breaking out into the cosmic consciousness may also bring in an immense enlargement of the consciousness and power. An opening into the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, any range of the subliminal consciousness, can liberate an activity of abnormal or supernormal powers of knowledge, action or experience which the uninstructed mind can easily mistake for spiritual revelations, inspirations, intuitions. An opening upward into the greater ranges of the higher mental being can bring down much light and force creating
1.16 - PRAYER, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In the words of Aquinas, it is legitimate for us to pray for anything which it is legitimate for us to desire. There are some things that nobody has the right to desiresuch as the fruits of crime or wrong-doing. Other things may be legitimately desired by people on one level of spiritual development, but should not be desired (and indeed cease to be desired) by those on another, higher level. Thus, St. Franois de Sales had reached a point where he could say, I have hardly any desires, but if I were to be born again I should have none at all. We should ask nothing and refuse nothing, but leave ourselves in the arms of divine Providence without wasting time in any desire, except to will what God wills of us. But meanwhile the third clause of the Lords Prayer is repeated daily by millions, who have not the slightest intention of letting any will be done, except their own.
The savour of wandering in the ocean of deathless life has rid me of all my asking;
1.17 - DOES MANKIND MOVE BIOLOGICALLY UPON ITSELF?, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
primeval pastures. At a higher level we see the somber threat, still
increasing despite the surgical operation of the second World War
--
ism. And on what is, in a sense, a higher level still we have the dis-
quieting example of such animal groups as termites, ants and bees,
--
as pursuing a collective course toward higher levels of complex-
ity and consciousness? Let such organizations as the U.N. and
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
like water receding into the sand. Diseases assail him as if he were a mere beginner; the bodily organs begin to deteriorate. Everything goes awry. It would seem that the body has to forget its old false, decaycausing operation for it to learn everything in a new way. Then death enters the picture. Between the old mode of functioning of the body and the new one, in which the symbolic organs will be replaced by the true Vibration, the line separating life from death is often very thin indeed; perhaps one must even be able to cross the line and come back for the conquest to be complete and real. This is what Mother called dying to death, after having undergone an experience from which she almost did not return. In other words, one has to face everything, and everything resists. We are already aware of the same phenomenon at the higher levels of consciousness. As the seeker set out on his path,
everything began going wrong: he who believed his mind to be firmly anchored in the truth was suddenly visited by a host of the most aggressive suggestions and doubts; he who believed himself pure and honest suddenly experienced an array of vital horrors, enough to scare off the worst villains in this world plus a few others from beyond. As Sri Aurobindo has already explained, one cannot solve a problem, on any plane, without confronting all the opposites of one's Goal.
--
For there would be still yet higher levels within the supramental realm,390 as the old Vedic poets knew when they spoke of the spiritual life as a constant ascent, 391
"The priests of the word climb thee like a ladder, O
1.18 - The Infrarational Age of the Cycle, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
At this point we see that Nature in her human mass tends to move forward slowly on her various lines of active mind and life towards a greater application of reason and spirituality which shall at last bring near the possibility of a rational and, eventually, a spiritual age of mankind. Her difficulties proceed from two sides. First, while she originally developed thought and reason and spirituality by exceptional individuals, now she develops them in the mass by exceptional communities or nations,at least in the relative sense of a nation governed, led and progressively formed and educated by its intellectually or spiritually cultured class or classes. But the exceptional nation touched on its higher levels by a developed reason or spirituality or both, as were Greece and later Rome in ancient Europe, India, China and Persia in ancient Asia, is surrounded or neighboured by enormous masses of the old infrarational humanity and endangered by this menacing proximity; for until a developed science comes in to redress the balance, the barbarian has always a greater physical force and unexhausted native power of aggression than the cultured peoples. At this stage the light and power of civilisation always collapses in the end before the attack of the outer darkness. Then ascending Nature has to train the conquerors more or less slowly, with long difficulty and much loss and delay to develop among themselves what their incursion has temporarily destroyed or impaired. In the end humanity gains by the process; a greater mass of the nations is brought in, a larger and more living force of progress is applied, a starting-point is reached from which it can move to richer and more varied gains. But a certain loss is always the price of this advance.
But even within the communities themselves reason and spirituality at this stage are always hampered and endangered by existing in a milieu and atmosphere not their own. The lite, the classes in charge of these powers, are obliged to throw them into forms which the mass of human ignorance they lead and rule will accept, and both reason and spirituality tend to be stifled by these forms, to get stereotyped, fossilised, void of life, bound up from their natural play. Secondly, since they are after all part of the mass, these higher enlightened elements are themselves much under the influence of their infrarational parts and do not, except in individuals, arrive at the entirely free play of the reason or the free light of the spirit. Thirdly, there is always the danger of these elements gravitating downward to the ignorance below or even collapsing into it. Nature guards herself by various devices for maintaining the tradition of intellectual and spiritual activity in the favoured classes; here she makes it a point of honour for them to preserve and promote the national culture, there she establishes a preservative system of education and discipline. And in order that these things may not degenerate into mere traditionalism, she brings in a series of intellectual or spiritual movements which by their shock revivify the failing life and help to bring about a broadening and an enlarging and to drive the dominant reason or spirituality deeper down into the infrarational mass. Each movement indeed tends to petrify after a shorter or longer activity, but a fresh shock, a new wave arrives in time to save and regenerate. Finally, she reaches the point when, all immediate danger of relapse overcome, she can proceed to her next decisive advance in the cycle of social evolution. This must take the form of an attempt to universalise first of all the habit of reason and the application of the intelligence and intelligent will to life. Thus is instituted the rational age of human society, the great endeavour to bring the power of the reason and intelligence to bear on all that we are and do and to organise in their light and by their guiding force the entire existence of the race.
1.2.1 - Mental Development and Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Reasons given [for reading newspapers] of course prove nothing they may be only excuses put forward by the mind for doing what the vital wants. The newspapers obviously carry with them a lowering atmosphere. It is a question of fact whether one can separate oneself sufficiently not to be pulled down by it. At the time of reading there is certainly a lower pitch of the consciousness in the frontal or outward parts. Only, if one has a consciousness behind which is not affected, then one can revert immediately after reading to the normal higher level.
***
1.2.4 - Speech and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(5) If there is gossip about others and harsh criticism (especially about sadhaks), not to join for these things are helpful in no way and only lower the consciousness from its higher level.
(6) To avoid all that would hurt or wound others.
1.24 - The Advent and Progress of the Spiritual Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This endeavour will be a supreme and difficult labour even for the individual, but much more for the race. It may well be that, once started, it may not advance rapidly even to its first decisive stage; it may be that it will take long centuries of effort to come into some kind of permanent birth. But that is not altogether inevitable, for the principle of such changes in Nature seems to be a long obscure preparation followed by a swift gathering up and precipitation of the elements into the new birth, a rapid conversion, a transformation that in its luminous moment figures like a miracle. Even when the first decisive change is reached, it is certain that all humanity will not be able to rise to that level. There cannot fail to be a division into those who are able to live on the spiritual level and those who are only able to live in the light that descends from it into the mental level. And below these too there might still be a great mass influenced from above but not yet ready for the light. But even that would be a transformation and a beginning far beyond anything yet attained. This hierarchy would not mean as in our present vital living an egoistic domination of the undeveloped by the more developed, but a guidance of the younger by the elder brothers of the race and a constant working to lift them up to a greater spiritual level and wider horizons. And for the leaders too this ascent to the first spiritual levels would not be the end of the divine march, a culmination that left nothing more to be achieved on earth. For there would be still yet higher levels within the supramental realm, as the old Vedic poets knew when they spoke of the spiritual life as a constant ascent,
brahmas tv atakrato
14.04 - More of Yajnavalkya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I said, in the early days the need to marry in any way a very free choice was given in the matter of the way of marriage and to procreate was a social duty: but note it is not for individual pleasure. Today we have discarded all notion of that kind of action as superstition, a form of tyranny. We are for freedom of the individual. Whatever we do we must do for our personal gain, our personal pleasure. But in those days that was not the ideal nor the custom. Even when you marry, you marry not for the sake of personal enjoyment but for the sake of the society, to give birth to healthy and useful children, to increase the number of able-bodied members of your society. Service for society, not personal pleasure was the aim. Yajnavalkya lifted that ideal on to a still higher level you exist not for your own sake of course-own means the personal ego individual but for the sake of your soul, the greater self.
In this connection I am reminded of what Sri Aurobindo said when he was taking leave of his students at Calcutta in his farewell address before starting his public political activity: he said, "When I come back I wish to see some of you becoming rich, rich not for yourselves but that you may enrich the Mother with your riches. I wish to see some of you becoming great, great not for your own sakes, not that you may satisfy your own vanity, but great for her, to make India great. . ."1: that is the ideal ideal, not individual satisfaction, exclusively personal accomplishment or achievement; one must work in view of the welfare of all, a global well-being. The goal is not one's own little self, but the Great Self in all. This is of course, in the secular way in the secular field. But here also the appeal, it must be observed, is not to the social life as a mere machine of which individuals are dead helpless parts and units meant to serve as obedient instruments in the production of useful goods. The appeal on the contrary is to the soul, the free inner individual, choosing its destiny but with a view to collaborating and uniting with others in the realisation of a global truth.
1929-06-02 - Divine love and its manifestation - Part of the vital being in Divine love, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To manifest the Divine love you must be capable of receiving the Divine love. For only those can manifest it who are by their nature open to its native movement. The wider and clearer the opening in them, the more they manifest love divine in its original purity; the more it is mixed with the lower human feelings, the greater is the deformation. One who is not open to love in its essence and in its truth cannot approach the Divine. Even the seekers through knowledge come to a point beyond which if they want to go farther, they are bound to find themselves entering at the same time into love and to feel the two as one, knowledge the light of the divine union, love the very heart of knowledge. There is a place in the souls progress where they meet and you cannot distinguish one from the other. The division, the distinction between the two that you make in the beginning are a creation of the mind: once you rise to a higher level, they disappear.
Among those who have come into this world seeking to reveal the Divine here and transform earthly life, there are some who have manifested the Divine love in a greater fullness. In some the purity of the manifestation is so great that they are misunderstood by the whole of humanity and are even accused of being hard and unloving, although the Divine love is there. But it is in them divine and not human in its form as in its substance. For when man speaks of love, he associates it with an emotional and sentimental weakness. But the divine intensity of self-forgetfulness, the capacity of throwing oneself out entirely, making no restriction and no reservation, as a gift, asking nothing in exchange, this is little known to human beings. And when it is there unmixed with weak and sentimental emotions, they find it hard and cold; they cannot recognise in it the very highest and intensest power of love.
1953-08-26, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Naturally, if man rises to a higher level and makes good use of his intelligence, then things can take on a much greater value. But between the two, there is a passage where man makes the most vulgar and low use of his intelligence; he makes it an instrument for calculation, domination, deception, and there it becomes very ugly. I have known in my life animals I considered much higher than many people, for that sordid calculation, that wish to cheat and profit was precisely not there in them. There are others that catch itthrough contact with man they catch it but there are those who dont have it.
The unselfish movement, uncalculating, is one of the most beautiful forms of psychic consciousness in the world. But the higher one rises in the scale of mental activity, the rarer it becomes. For with intelligence come all the skill and cleverness, and corruption, calculation. For instance, when a rose blossoms it does so spontaneously, for the joy of being beautiful, smelling sweet, expressing all its joy of living, and it does not calculate, it has nothing to gain out of it: it does so spontaneously, in the joy of being and living. Take a human being, well, apart from a very few exceptions, the moment his mind is active he tries to get some advantage out of his beauty and cleverness; he wants it to bring him something, either mens admiration or even much more sordid gains yet. Consequently, from the psychic point of view, the rose is better than human beings.
1953-09-02, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a great difference between the general principle, the theory seen in its totality over the millenniums, without taking any account of the number of years (not years, I say millenniums, thousands of centuries), a great difference between that and the practical facts. It can be said that the whole creation is moving towards union with its Creator, but there is the fact, first of all, that the whole evolutionary movement is a spiral movement. And in this spiral there are innumerable points, and at each point a progress in the vertical line is achieved. But one has to make a whole round in order to come back once more to the same point, but at a slightly higher level. And so, all the time you spend doing other things, reaching other points, the first one is as it were forgotten. In human history that is translated in this way:
There is a wonderful civilisation with all kinds of extraordinary productions, from the scientific point of view, the artistic point of view, even the political, organisational and social point of view. There were fine civilisations like those which have left a kind of occult memory of a continent that might have linked India with Africa, for example, of which no trace remains (unless some human races be the remnants of that civilisation). There are civilisations like that which disappear suddenly and then follows a whole period full of darkness, unconsciousness, ignorance, of altogether primitive races which seem so close to animals that one asks whether there is really any difference. And so there is a big hole in the darkness, passing through all kinds of disorders. Then all of a sudden there emerges to the top, and to a greater height still, with greater virtues, a greater realisation as though all those hours in the night, of labour in the night had prepared Matter so that it might express something higher. Then again another darkness, an oblivion: the earth becomes again barbarous, obscure, ignorant, painful. And suddenly some thousands of years later, a new civilisation comes.
1954-07-14 - The Divine and the Shakti - Personal effort - Speaking and thinking - Doubt - Self-giving, consecration and surrender - Mothers use of flowers - Ornaments and protection, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then theres all the stupidity You know, I also said that some people could begin to think only when they talked When they do not speak, they do not even think! They are not able to think in silence, so they get into the habit of speaking. But the more developed one is, the more intelligent one is and the less need one has to express oneself. It is always at a lower level that one needs to talk. And truly, a being who is very conscious, who is mentally, intellectually, very developed, talks only when it is necessary. He does not utter useless words. In the social scale it is like this. Take people right at the bottom of the scale: they talk the most, they spend their time in talking. They cant stop! Whatever happen to them they express immediately in words. And to the extent that one is developed and on a higher level of evolution, one feels much less need to speak.
It comes from two causes: one, because it is a new faculty which naturally and instinctively has the attraction of new faculties; the other, because it helps you to become aware of your own thought. Otherwise one doesnt think, one is not able to formulate his thought unless he expresses it in words, aloud. Except those who are talkers by profession that is, those who are in the habit of giving lectures or political speeches, or taking classes, giving lessonsexcept these people who, obviously, can be both intellectual and talkative at the same time, as a general rule, the more talkative people are, the less are they intellectually developed!
1954-09-22 - The supramental creation - Rajasic eagerness - Silence from above - Aspiration and rejection - Effort, individuality and ego - Aspiration and desire, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is rather a consequence than a fact. When one keeps his consciousness on a higher level, naturally it serves as a filter for thoughts and allows only thoughts of a higher nature. But it is rather a consequence than a fact. To keep ones consciousness in a higher state is to raise it above the lower levels in the being, it is to keep it in the light, in the peace, in the higher knowledge and harmony; that is, to place ones consciousness as high as possible in ones being, at the level where one is liberated from all lower movements. Then naturally, if the consciousness is there, the thoughts it receives are those of a higher order. And thought is only one form of activity of the consciousness, it is not the stuff of consciousness. There is a consciousness without thought, there is a very much higher state of consciousness in which there are no thoughts. It is a consciousness that can have a very perfect knowledge of things, without it being expressed in thoughts and words. Thought is only one form of activity.
Silence is more easily established by a descent from above. From above means what, Sweet Mother?
1955-04-06 - Freuds psychoanalysis, the subliminal being - The psychic and the subliminal - True psychology - Changing the lower nature - Faith in different parts of the being - Psychic contact established in all in the Ashram, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Pavitra) There is a paragraph: If you go down into your lower parts or ranges of nature, you must be always careful to keep a vigilant connection with the higher levels of the consciousness, etc. Then later: The safest way is to remain in the higher part of the consciousness and put a pressure from it on the lower to change.
Yes, but this has no connection with what you were asking.
1956-02-01 - Path of knowledge - Finding the Divine in life - Capacity for contact with the Divine - Partial and total identification with the Divine - Manifestation and hierarchy, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is very difficult to explain, but it is a fact. He is really identified with the Divine and has found the Divine; he is identified with the Divine but at one point. And so he who is able to identify himself in his totality with the Divine is necessarily, from the point of view of the universal realisation, on a much higher level of the hierarchy than one who could realise Him only at a single point.
And that is the true meaning of the spiritual hierarchy, this is why there is a whole spiritual hierarchical organisation, otherwise it would have no basis, for from the minute you touch the Divine, you touch Him perfectly: the point at which you touch Him is perfect in itself. And, from this point of view, all who are united with the Divine are equally perfect in their union but not equally complete, if I may say so.
1956-06-27 - Birth, entry of soul into body - Formation of the supramental world - Aspiration for progress - Bad thoughts - Cerebral filter - Progress and resistance, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If you know how to rise to a higher level, simply into a region of the speculative mind which is not quite the ordinary physical mind, you can see all this play and all this struggle, all this conflict, all these contradictions as a curiosity which does not touch or affect you. If you rise a step higher still and see the goal towards which you want to go, you will gradually come to discern between ideas favourable to your progress which you will keep, and ideas opposed to this progress which harm and impair it; and from above you will have the power to set them aside, calmly, without being otherwise affected by them. But if you remain there, at that level in the midst of that confusion and conflict, well, you risk getting a headache!
The best thing to do is to occupy yourself with something practical which will compel you to concentrate specially: studies, work or some physical occupation for the body which demands attentionanything at all that forces you to concentrate on what you are doing and no longer be a prey to these ramblings. But if you have the misfortune to remain there and look at them, then surely, as I said, you will get a headache. For it is a problem which must be resolved either by a descent into practical life and a concentration on some practical effort or else by rising above and looking from above at all this chaos so as to be able to bring some order into it and set it right.
1956-11-21 - Knowings and Knowledge - Reason, summit of mans mental activities - Willings and the true will - Personal effort - First step to have knowledge - Relativity of medical knowledge - Mental gymnastics make the mind supple, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, if you remember what Sri Aurobindo has said, you will understand that the first condition for having knowledge is to go beyond reason. That is why he says, Reason was the helperyes, during the whole childhood of humanity and the whole period of growth of the individual being but if you want to go beyond the human being, the ordinary human state, well, you must go beyond reason; and these things which seem to you so obvious that they are indisputable, you should be able to understand, to feel from within yourself that they are absolutely relative and that what seems completely similar, identical in everyones experiences, these very things, if seen from above with a higher consciousness, become absolutely subjective and relative and are only individual formations adapted to the individual need and consciousness, and that instead of having an absolute reality, they have only an altogether relative reality which completely disappears as soon as you rise to a higher level.
So now, if you look at the state of your thought in this light, you will see that it is not so easy to take even this first step.
1956-11-28 - Desire, ego, animal nature - Consciousness, a progressive state - Ananda, desireless state beyond enjoyings - Personal effort that is mental - Reason, when to disregard it - Reason and reasons, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to s on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness.
And indeed, for the ordinary elementary life of man, all the qualities belonging to the animal nature, especially those of the body, were indispensable, otherwise man would not have existed. But when man has become a conscious, mental being, everything that binds him to his animal origin necessarily becomes a hindrance to progress and to the liberation of the being.
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Reason is a very respectable person. Like all respectable people it has its limitations and prejudices, but that does not prevent it from being very useful. And it keeps you from making a fool of yourself. You would do many things if you did not have reason, things which would lead you straight to your ruin and could have extremely unfortunate consequences, for your best means of discernment until you have attained higher levels is reason. When one no longer listens to reason, one can be led into all sorts of absurdities. Naturally, it is neither the ideal nor the summit, it is only a kind of control and a guide for leading a good life, it keeps you from extravagances, excesses, inordinate passions and above all from those impulsive actions which may lead you to the abyss. There you are.
One must be very sure of oneself, quite free from the ego and perfectly surrendered to the divine Will to be able to do safely without reason.
1957-05-15 - Differentiation of the sexes - Transformation from above downwards, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are higher levels of the mind than any we now conceive and to these we must one day reach and rise beyond them to the heights of a greater, a spiritual existence. As we rise we have to open to them our lower members and fill these with those superior and supreme dynamisms of light and power; the body we have to make a more and more and even entirely conscious frame and instrument, a conscious sign and seal and power of the spirit. As it grows in this perfection, the force and extent of its dynamic action and its response and service to the spirit must increase, the control of the spirit over it also must grow and the plasticity of its functioning both in its developed and acquired parts of power and in its automatic responses down to those that are now purely organic and seem to be the movements of a mechanic inconscience. This cannot happen without a veritable transformation and a transformation of the mind and life and very body is indeed the change to which our evolution is secretly moving and without this transformation the entire fullness of a divine life on earth cannot emerge. In this transformation the body itself can become an agent and a partner. It might indeed be possible for the spirit to achieve a considerable manifestation with only a passive and imperfectly conscious body as its last or bottommost means of material functioning, but this could not be anything perfect or complete. A fully conscious body might even discover and work out the right material method and process of a material transformation. For this, no doubt, the spirits supreme light and power and creative joy must have manifested on the summit of the individual consciousness and sent down their fiat into the body.
The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, pp. 15-16
1957-08-21 - The Ashram and true communal life - Level of consciousness in the Ashram, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We are rather far away in the spiral from the line of realisation we had some years ago, but we shall come back to it on a higher level.
So that is the answer.
1957-09-11 - Vital chemistry, attraction and repulsion, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Therefore, it may be said in a general and almost absolute way that those who have very definite and impulsive likes and dislikes live in a vital consciousness. Mixed with this, there may be mental affinities; that is, some minds like to have relationships in common activities, but here too, these are people on a much higher level intellectually, and this is also expressed even more by a comparative ease in relationships and by something much more calm and detached. One takes pleasure in speaking with certain people, for others there is no attraction, one gains nothing from it. It is a little more distant and quiet; it belongs more to the field of reason. But likes and dislikes clearly belong to the vital world. Well, there is a vital chemistry just as there is physical chemistry: there are bodies which repel each other and others which attract; there are substances which combine and others which explode, and it is like that. There are some vital vibrations which harmonise, and harmonise to such an extent that ninety-nine times out of a hundred these sympathies are taken for what men call love, and suddenly people feel, Oh! He is the one I was waiting for, Oh! She is the one I was seeking! (laughing), and they rush towards each other, till they find out that it was something very superficial and that these things cant last. There. So the first advice given to those who want to do yoga: Rise above likes and dislikes. This is something without any deeper reality and it can at the very least lead you into difficulties which are at times quite hard to overcome. You can ruin your life with these things. And the best thing is not to take any notice of themto draw back a little into yourself and ask yourself whyits nothing very mysteriousyou like to meet this person, dont like to meet that one.
But, as I say, there comes a moment when one is exclusively occupied with ones sadhana, when one can feel but both more subtly and much more quietly that a particular contact is favourable to sadhana and another harmful. But that always takes a much more detached form, so to say, and often it even contradicts the so-called attractions and repulsions of the vital; very often it has nothing to do with them.
1958-02-19 - Experience of the supramental boat - The Censors - Absurdity of artificial means, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And each time you have made some progress, have passed on to a higher level, they make you face once again all the acts of your past life, and in a few months, a few days or a few minutes, they make you go through all your exams once again at a higher level. And it is not enough to brush the thought aside and say, Oh! I know, and throw a little cloak over it so as not to see. You must face it and conquer, keep your consciousness full of light, without the least tremor, without a word, without the slightest vibration in the cells of the body and then the attack melts away.
But our ideas of good and evil are so ridiculous! So ridiculous is our notion of what is close to the Divine or far from the Divine! The experience I had the other day, on the third of February, was for me revelatory, I came out of it completely changed. I suddenly understood very many things from the past, actions, parts of my life which had remained inexplicablein truth, the shortest way from one point to another is not the straight line that men imagine it is!
1958-03-26 - Mental anxiety and trust in spiritual power, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With man there has begun this perpetual worrying about what is going to happen, and this worry is the principal, if not the sole cause of his torment. With this objectivising consciousness there has begun anxiety, painful imaginations, worry, torment, anticipation of future catastrophes, with the result that most men and not the least conscious, the most consciouslive in perpetual torment. Man is too conscious to be indifferent, he is not conscious enough to know what will happen. Truly it could be said without fear of making a mistake that of all earths creatures he is the most miserable. The human being is used to being like that because it is an atavistic state which he has inherited from his ancestors, but it is truly a miserable condition. And it is only with this spiritual capacity of rising to a higher level and replacing the animals unconsciousness by a spiritual super-consciousness that there comes into the being not only the capacity to see the goal of existence and to foresee the culmination of the effort but also a clear-sighted trust in a higher spiritual power to which one can surrender ones whole being, entrust oneself, give the responsibility for ones life and future and so abandon all worries.
Of course, it is impossible for man to fall back to the level of the animal and lose the consciousness he has acquired; therefore, for him there is only one means, one way to get out of this condition he is in, which I call a miserable one, and to emerge into a higher state where worry is replaced by a trusting surrender and the certitude of a luminous culminationthis way is to change the consciousness.
1f.lovecraft - The Mound, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
rather higher level close to the brink. It was about this time that
light rainfall came. Zamacona noticed the occasional drops and drizzle,
1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
incline to the higher level.
I knew, of course, that I had the four-foot cleft to re-cross, yet was
20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ganga and Yamuna: the upward and the downward currents of consciousness and force. The ascending current leads the being to the higher and higher levels, while the descending current brings the riches from above into the lower regions. The companion who is with you and helps you through the journey is your inner deity represented here as the sea-elephant.
This is a familiar image in the orthodox Tantra. It also represents the Purusha-Prakriti play. Tantra speaks of the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna where one is to seize by violence the divine damsel.
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: In order to bring him down to the lower level, so as to prevent him from ascending to the higher levels of consciousness and organising anything there. When I go up in consciousness and try to organise something above, these forces come and attack me and I have to come down and meet them. There is some kind of organisation of the Higher Power here in the lower nature with which I have to meet them. For instance, it is possible to prevent people from getting ill, and this organisation is workable in practice and sufficient for us to go on with. But it is not what has got to be done, it is not the highest nor the perfect movement.
It is well known that once you come down in consciousness you find it difficult to go up again. There are two ways of meeting these attacks of the lower forces: (1) Either you have to remain perfectly calm and allow the Higher Power to protect you if it likes, or, (2) you have to come down and fight them with your forces.
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Or it can be quite another formation. "Why this Lila ?" you can ask. The questioner seems to think that on the higher level there will be a mental answer to this mental question. That is not true.
And this idea that Matter is something different from the Spirit is also not true. It is One thing. Even science now finds it so. It is the One Spirit. You can say: "In Matter the condensation of consciousness takes place. At each stage of manifestation there is a different vibration giving rise to different elements. Man is not a pure mental consciousness. He is a product of evolution from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind."
2.02 - On Letters, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: The Jiva is something more than the psychic being. The psychic being is behind the heart; while the Jiva is high above, connected with the Central Being. It is that which on every level of consciousness becomes the Purusha, the Prakriti and the personalities of Nature. The psychic being, one may say, is the soul-personality. The psychic being most purely reflects the Divine in the lower triplicity of mind, life and body. There are four higher levels: Sat, Chit, Ananda and Vijnana; they are in Knowledge, while below in the three levels mind, life and body there is a mixture of ignorance and knowledge. The psychic being is behind the mind, life and body; it is most open to the higher Truth; that is why it is indispensable for the manifestation of the Divine.
The psychic being alone can open itself completely to the Truth. This is so because the movements of the lower parts mind, life and body are full of defects, errors and mixtures and, however sincere they may be and however hard they may try to transform themselves into movements of the Truth, they cannot do it unless the psychic being comes to their help. Of course, these lower parts have their own sincerity.
2.04 - Positive Aspects of the Mother-Complex, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
by crook, a higher level of consciousness?" This is truly the cru-
cial question, and I do not find the answer easy. Instead of a real
2.04 - The Divine and the Undivine, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
more logical to speak of an ascent from level to higher level of a divine manifestation. It may be admitted that essentially, if we look at the inner reality alone and discount the suggestions of the outer figure, such might be the nature of the evolution, the change we have to undergo in Nature; so it would appear perhaps to the impartial eye of a universal vision untroubled by our dualities of knowledge and ignorance, good and evil, happiness and suffering and participating in the untrammelled consciousness and delight of Sachchidananda. And yet, from the practical and relative point of view as distinguished from an essential vision, the distinction between the divine and the undivine has an insistent value, a very pressing significance. This then is an aspect of the problem which it is necessary to bring into the light and assess its true importance.
The distinction between the divine and the undivine life is in fact identical with the root distinction between a life of
2.07 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Mind's power for ignorance. Mind has a power also for truth; it opens its thought-chamber to Vidya as well as to Avidya, and if its starting-point is Ignorance, if its passage is through crooked ways of error, still its goal is always Knowledge: there is in it an impulse of truth-seeking, a power - even though secondary and limited - of truth-finding and truth-creation. Even if it is only images or representations or abstract expressions of truth that it can show us, still these are in their own manner truth-reflections or truth-formations, and the realities of which they are forms are present in their more concrete truth in some deeper depth or on some higher level of power of our consciousness. Matter and life may be the form of realities of which Mind touches only an incomplete figure; Spirit may have secret and supernal realities of which Mind is only a partial and rudimentary receiver, transcriber or transmitter. It would then be only by an examination of other supramental and inframental as well as higher and deeper mental powers of consciousness that we can arrive at the whole reality. And in the end all depends on the truth of the supreme Consciousness - or the superconscience
- that belongs to the highest Reality and the relation to it of
2.13 - Exclusive Concentration of Consciousness-Force and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It must be remembered, however, that when we speak of a partial movement of Consciousness-Force absorbed in its forms and actions, in a limited field of its working, this does not imply any real division of its integrality. The putting of the rest of itself behind it has only the effect of making all that rest occult to the frontal immediately active energy in the limited field of movement, but not of shutting it out of the field; in fact the integral Force is there though veiled by the Inconscience, and it is that integral Force supported by the integral self-being which through its frontal energy does all the work and inhabits all the forms created by the movement. It is to be noted also that in order to remove the veil of the Ignorance the conscious Force of being in us uses a reverse action of its power of exclusive concentration; it quiets the frontal movement of Prakriti in the individual consciousness and concentrates exclusively on the concealed inner being, - on the Self or on the true inner, psychic or mental or vital being, the Purusha, - to disclose it. But when it has done so, it need not remain in this opposite exclusiveness; it can resume its integral consciousness or a global consciousness which includes both being of Purusha and action of Prakriti, the soul and its instruments, the Self and the dynamisms of the SelfPower, atmasakti: it can then embrace its manifestation with a larger consciousness free from the previous limitation, free from the results of Nature's forgetfulness of the indwelling Spirit. Or it may quiet the whole working it has manifested, concentrate on a higher level of Self and Nature, raise the being to it and bring down the powers of the higher level to transform the previous manifestation: all that is so transformed is still included, but as a part of the higher dynamism and its higher values, in a new and greater self-creation. This is what can happen when the
Consciousness-Force in our being decides to raise its evolution from the mental to the supramental level. In each case it is Tapas that is effective, but it acts in a different manner according to the thing that has to be done, according to the predetermined process, dynamism, self-deploying of the Infinite.
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
We saw, in chapter 2, that this was just another example of "holons all the way up, all the way down." And we can see now that this also means that mathematics simply issued a transfinite IOU to the Kosmos. Put rather simplistically, the only way for mathematics to avoid profound self-contradiction is to postulate a yet higher level of inclusion, which avoids the paradoxes of one level-but then faces the same paradoxes on its own level. Another yet- higher level is thus postulated, and this continues endlessly ("transfinitely").
Thus, the mathematical paradoxes and IOUs of one level can be superseded at the next higher level (the next more-encompassing set), but that set then faces its own IOU (it is either incomplete or inconsistent), and that continues . . . forever. The sets must be postulated to expand forever, because the moment they stop, mathematics becomes self-contradictory. Nobody ever actually sees all of these transfinite sets: they are just a promissory note that allows mathematics both to keep going and to get going in the first place.
Thus the IOU: it says, I cannot pay you now, but I will gladly pay you tomorrow. It will even gladly pay with lots of interest, because the point is: it can never actually pay. The debt is never settled. Mathematics, like all holons, lurches forward forever in an attempt to get over its inherent limitations, its "self-contradictions." (Recall Hegel: "Only insofar as something has contradiction in itself does it move, have impulse, or activity.")
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is what is meant by the struggle between the angels and the devils in the Bible. The being I spoke of with regard to T was not from the hostile vital world, it was from the higher level of the vital plane.
Disciple: What is meant by the Supermind? Is it what is called par akti?
2.1.7.05 - On the Inspiration and Writing of the Poem, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began with it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from that level. Moreover I was particularif part seemed to me to come from any lower level, I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All had to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact, Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from ones own Yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of God or the Sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the moment.
29 March 1936
2.18 - The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But here we have to observe two particularities of this human and at present highest development, which bring us to the heart of the matter. First, this taking up of the lower parts of life reveals itself as a turning downward of the master eye of the secret evolving spirit or of the universal Being in the individual from the height to which he has reached on all that now lies below him, a gazing down with the double or twin power of the being's consciousness-force, - the power of will, the power of knowledge, - so as to understand from this new, different and wider range of consciousness and perception and nature the lower life and its possibilities and to raise it up, it also, to a higher level, to give it higher values, to bring out of it higher potentialities. And this he does because evidently he does not intend to kill or destroy it, but, delight of existence being his eternal business and a harmony of various strains, not a sweet but monotonous melody the method of his music, he wishes to include the lower notes also and, by surcharging them with a deeper and finer significance, get more delight out of them than was possible in the cruder formulation. Still in the end he lays on them as a condition for his continued acceptance their consent to admit the higher values and, until they do consent, he can deal harshly enough with them even to trampling them under foot when he is bent on perfection and they are rebellious. And that indeed is the true inmost aim and meaning of ethics, discipline and askesis, to lesson and tame, purify and prepare to be fit instruments the vital and physical and lower mental life so that they may be transformed into notes of the higher mental and eventually the supramental harmony, but not to mutilate and destroy them. Ascent is the first necessity, but an integration is an accompanying intention of the spirit in Nature.
This downward eye of knowledge and will with a view to an all-round heightening, deepening and subtler, finer and richer intensification is the secret Spirit's way from the beginning. The plant soul takes, as we may say, a nervous-material view of its whole physical existence so as to get out of it all the vital-physical intensity possible; for it seems to have some intense excitations of a mute life-vibration in it, - perhaps, though that is difficult for us to imagine, more intense relatively to its lower rudimentary scale than the animal mind and body in its higher and more powerful scale could tolerate. The animal being takes a mentalised sense-view of its vital and physical existence so as to get out of it all the sense value possible, much acuter in many respects than man's as mere sensation or sense-emotion or satisfaction of vital desire and pleasure. Man, looking downward from the plane of will and intelligence, abandons these lower intensities, but in order to get out of mind and life and sense a higher intensity in other values, intellectual, aesthetic, moral, spiritual, mentally dynamic or practical - as he terms it; by these higher elements he enlarges, subtilises and elevates his use of life-values. He does not abandon the animal reactions and enjoyments, but more lucidly, finely and sensitively mentalises them. This he does even on his normal and his lower levels, but, as he develops, he puts his lower being to a severer test, begins to demand from it on pain of rejection something like a transformation: that is the mind's way of preparing for a spiritual life still beyond it.
But man not only turns his gaze downward and around him, when he has reached his higher level, but upward towards what is above him and inward towards what is occult within him.
In him not only the downward gaze of the universal Being in the evolution has become conscious, but its conscious upward and inward gaze also develops. The animal lives as if satisfied with what Nature has done for it; if there is any upward gaze of the secret spirit within its animal being, it has nothing consciously to do with it, that is still Nature's business: it is man who first makes this upward gaze consciously his own business.
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But where is the limit of effectuation in the evolutionary being's self-becoming by self-exceeding? In mind itself there are grades of the series and each grade again is a series in itself; there are successive elevations which we may conveniently call planes and sub-planes of the mental consciousness and the mental being. The development of our mental self is largely an ascent of this stair; we can take our stand on any one of them, while yet maintaining a dependence on the lower stages and a power of occasional ascension to higher levels or of a response to influences from our being's superior strata. At present we still normally take our first secure stand on the lowest sub-plane of the intelligence, which we may call the physical-mental, because it depends for its evidence of fact and sense of reality on the physical brain, the physical sense-mind, the physical sense-organs; there we are the physical man who attaches most importance to objective things and to his outer life, has little intensity of the subjective or inner existence and subordinates whatever he has of it to the greater claims of exterior reality. The physical man has a vital part, but it is mainly made up of the smaller instinctive and impulsive formations of life-consciousness emerging from the subconscient, along with a customary crowd or round of sensations, desires, hopes, feelings, satisfactions which are dependent on external things and external contacts and concerned with the practical, the immediately realisable and possible, the habitual, the common and average. He has a mental part, but this too is customary, traditional, practical, objective, and respects what belongs to the domain of mind mostly for its utility for the support, comfort, use, satisfaction and entertainment of his physical and sensational existence. For the physical mind takes its stand on matter and the material world, on the body and the bodily life, on sense-experience and on a normal practical mentality and its experience. All that is not of this order, the physical mind builds up as a restricted superstructure dependent upon the external sense-mentality. Even so, it regards these higher contents of life as either helpful adjuncts or a superfluous but pleasant luxury of imaginations, feelings and thought-abstractions, not as inner realities; or, even if it receives them as realities, it does not feel them concretely and substantially in their own proper substance, subtler than the physical substance and its grosser concreteness, - it treats them as a subjective, less substantial extension from physical realities. It is inevitable that the human being should thus take his first stand on Matter and give the external fact and external existence its due importance; for this is Nature's first provision for our existence, on which she insists greatly: the physical man is emphasised in us and is multiplied abundantly in the world by her as her force for conservation of the secure, if somewhat inert, material basis on which she can maintain herself while she attempts her higher human developments; but in this mental formation there is no power for progress or only for a material progress. It is our first mental status, but the mental being cannot remain always at this lowest rung of the human evolutionary ladder.
Above physical mind and deeper within than physical sensation, there is what we may call an intelligence of the life-mind, dynamic, vital, nervous, more open, though still obscurely, to the psychic, capable of a first soul-formation, though only of an obscurer life-soul, - not the psychic being, but a frontal formation of the vital Purusha. This life-soul concretely senses and contacts the things of the life-world, and tries to realise them here; it attaches immense importance to the satisfaction and fulfilment of the life-being, the life-force, the vital nature: it looks on physical existence as a field for the life-impulses' selffulfilment, for the play of ambition, power, strong character, love, passion, adventure, for the individual, the collective, the general human seeking and hazard and venture, for all kinds of life-experiment and new life-experience, and but for this saving element, this greater power, interest, significance, the physical existence would have for it no value. This life mentality is supported by our secret subliminal vital being and is in veiled contact with a life-world to which it can easily open and so feel the unseen dynamic forces and realities behind the material universe. There is an inner life-mind which does not need for its perceptions the evidence of the physical senses, is not limited by them; for on this level our inner life and the inner life of the world become real to us independent of the body and of the symbols of the physical world which alone we call natural phenomena, as if Nature had no greater phenomena and no greater realities than those of gross Matter. The vital man, moulded consciously or unconsciously by these influences, is the man of desire and sensation, the man of force and action, the man of passion and emotion, the kinetic individual: he may and does lay great stress on the material existence, but he gives it, even when most preoccupied with its present actualities, a push for life-experience, for force of realisation, for life-extension, for life-power, for lifeaffirmation and life-expansion which is Nature's first impetus towards enlargement of the being; at a highest intensity of this life impetus, he becomes the breaker of bonds, the seeker of new horizons, the disturber of the past and present in the interest of the future. He has a mental life which is often enslaved to the vital force and its desires and passions, and it is these he seeks to satisfy through the mind: but when he interests himself strongly in mental things, he can become the mental adventurer, the opener of the way to new mind-formations or the fighter for an idea, the sensitive type of artist, the dynamic poet of life or the prophet or champion of a cause. The vital mind is kinetic and therefore a great force in the working of evolutionary Nature.
2.19 - Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the superconscience beyond our present level of awareness are included the higher planes of mental being as well as the native heights of supramental and pure spiritual being. The first indispensable step in an upward evolution would be to elevate our force of consciousness into those higher parts of Mind from which we already receive, but without knowing the source, much of our larger mental movements, those, especially, that come with a greater power and light, the revelatory, the inspirational, the intuitive. On these mental heights, in these largenesses, if the consciousness could succeed in reaching them or maintain and centre itself there, something of the direct presence and power of the spirit, something even - however secondary or indirect - of the supermind could receive a first expression, could make itself initially manifest, could intervene in the government of our lower being and help to remould it. Afterwards, by the force of that remoulded consciousness, the course of our evolution could rise by a sublimer ascent and get beyond the mental into the supramental and the supreme spiritual nature. It is possible without an actual ascent into these at present superconscient mental planes or without a constant or permanent living in them, by openness to them, by reception of their knowledge and influences, to get rid to a certain extent of our constitutional and psychological ignorance; it is possible to be aware of ourselves as spiritual beings and to spiritualise, though imperfectly, our normal human life and consciousness. There could be a conscious communication and guidance from this greater more luminous mentality and a reception of its enlightening and transforming forces. That is within the reach of the highly developed or the spiritually awakened human being; but it would not be more than a preliminary stage. To reach an integral self-knowledge, an entire consciousness and power of being, there is necessary an ascent beyond the plane of our normal mind. Such an ascent is at present possible in an absorbed superconscience; but that could lead only to an entry into the higher levels in a state of immobile or ecstatic trance. If the control of that highest spiritual being is to be brought into our waking life, there must be a conscious heightening and widening into immense ranges of new being, new consciousness, new potentialities of action, a taking up - as integral as possible - of our present being, consciousness, activities and a transmutation of them into divine values which would effect a transfiguration of our human existence. For wherever a radical transition has to be made, there is always this triple movement - ascent, widening of field and base, integration - in Nature's method of self-transcendence.
Any such evolutionary change must necessarily be associated with a rejection of our present narrowing temporal ignorance. For not only do we now live from moment to moment of time, but our whole view is limited to our life in the present body between a single birth and death. As our regard does not go farther back in the past, so it does not extend farther out into the future; thus we are limited by our physical memory and awareness of the present life in a transient corporeal formation.
2.20 - The Lower Triple Purusha, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All these however are circumstances of the lower triple world of our being, the trailokya of the ancient sages. Living on these we are, whatever the enlargement of our powers and our consciousness, still living within the limits of the cosmic gods and subject, though with a much subtler, easier and modified subjection, to the reign of prakriti over Purusha. To achieve real freedom and mastery we have to ascend to a yet higher level of the many-plateaued mountain of our being.
author class:Sri Aurobindo
2.20 - The Philosophy of Rebirth, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What we see of Nature and of human nature justifies this view of a birth of the individual soul from form to form until it reaches the human level of manifested consciousness which is its instrument for rising to yet higher levels. We see that Nature develops from stage to stage and in each stage takes up its past and transforms it into stuff of its new development. We see too that human nature is of the same make; all the earth-past is there in it. It has an element of matter taken up by life, an element of life taken up by mind, an element of mind which is being taken up by spirit: the animal is still present in its humanity; the very nature of the human being presupposes a material and a vital stage which prepared his emergence into mind and an animal past which moulded a first element of his complex humanity.
And let us not say that this is because material Nature developed by evolution his life and his body and his animal mind, and only afterwards did a soul descend into the form so created: there is a certain truth behind this idea, but not the truth which that formula would suggest. For that supposes a gulf between soul and body, between soul and life, between soul and mind, which does not exist; there is no body without soul, no body that is not itself a form of soul: Matter itself is substance and power of spirit and could not exist if it were anything else, for nothing can exist which is not substance and power of Brahman; and if Matter, then still more clearly and certainly Life and Mind must be that and ensouled by the presence of the Spirit. If Matter and Life had not already been ensouled, man could not have appeared or only as an intervention or an accident, not as a part of the evolutionary order.
2.22 - Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For the soul personality, as it develops, must get sufficient power over its own nature-formation and a sufficient selfexpressive mental and vital individuality to persist without the support of the material body, as well as to overcome any excessive detaining attachment to the physical plane and the physical life: it would be sufficiently evolved to subsist in the subtle body which we know to be the characteristic case or sheath and the proper subtle-physical support of the inner being. It is the soul-person, the psychic being, that survives and carries mind and life with it on its journey, and it is in the subtle body that it passes out of its material lodging; both then must be sufficiently developed for the transit. But a transference to planes of mind existence or life existence implies also a mind and life sufficiently formed and developed to pass without disintegration and exist for a time on these higher levels. If these conditions were satisfied, a sufficiently developed psychic personality and subtle body and a sufficiently developed mental and vital personality, survival of the soul-person without an immediate new-birth would be secured and the pull of the other worlds would become operative. But this by itself would mean a return to earth with the same mental and vital personality and there would be no free evolution in the new birth. There must be an individuation of the psychic person itself sufficient for it not to depend on its past mind and life formations any more than on its past body, but to shed them too in time and proceed to a new formation for new experience. For this discarding of the old and preparation of new forms the soul must dwell for some time between two births somewhere else than on the entirely material plane in which we now move; for here there would be no abiding place for a disembodied spirit. A brief stay might indeed be possible if there are subtle envelopes of the earth-existence which belong to earth but are of a vital or mental character: but even then there would be no reason for the soul to linger there for a long period, unless it is still burdened with an overpowering attachment to the earth-life.
A survival of the material body by the personality implies a supraphysical existence, and this can only be in some plane of being proper to the evolutionary stage of the consciousness or, if there is no evolution, in a temporary second home of the spirit which would be its natural place of sojourn between life and life, - unless indeed it is its original world from which it does not return into material Nature.
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But the same solution can be elevated to a higher level of reason and given a greater plausibility and the colour of a cosmic principle. For, first, it may be based on the unassailable ground that all energies in Nature must have their natural consequence; if any are without visible result in the present life, it may well be that the outcome is only delayed, not withheld for ever. Each being reaps the harvest of his works and deeds, the returns of the action put forth by the energies of his nature, and those which are not apparent in his present birth must be held over for a subsequent existence. It is true that the result of the energies and actions of the individual may accrue not to himself but to others when he is gone; for that we see constantly happening, - it happens indeed even during a man's lifetime that the fruits of his energies are reaped by others; but this is because there is a solidarity and a continuity of life in Nature and the individual cannot altogether, even if he so wills, live for himself alone. But, if there is a continuity of his own life by rebirth for the individual and not only a continuity of the mass life and the cosmic life, if he has an ever-developing self, nature and experience, then it is inevitable that for him too the working of his energies should not be cut off abruptly but must bear their consequence at some time in his continuous and developing existence. Man's being, nature, circumstances of life are the result of his own inner and outer activities, not something fortuitous and inexplicable: he is what he has made himself; the past man was the father of the man that now is, the present man is the father of the man that will be.
Each being reaps what he sows; from what he does he profits, for what he does he suffers. This is the law and chain of Karma, of Action, of the work of Nature-Energy, and it gives a meaning to the total course of our existence, nature, character, action which is absent from other theories of life. It is evident on this principle that a man's past and present Karma must determine his future birth and its happenings and circumstances; for these too must be the fruit of his energies: all that he was and did in the past must be the creator of all that he now is and experiences in his present, and all that he is and is doing in the present must be the creator of what he will be and experience in the future. Man is the creator of himself; he is the creator also of his fate. All this is perfectly rational and unexceptionable so far as it goes and the law of Karma may be accepted as a fact, as part of the cosmic machinery; for it is so evident - rebirth once admitted - as to be practically indisputable.
2.22 - Vijnana or Gnosis, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In our perfect self-transcendence we pass out and up from the ignorance or half-enlightenment of our mental conscious-being into a greater wisdom-self and truth-power above it, there to dwell in the unwalled light of a divine knowledge. The mental man that we are is changed into the gnostic soul, the truth-conscious godhead, the vijnanamaya purusa. Seated on that level of the hill of our ascension we are in a quite different plane from this material, this vital, this mental poise of the universal spirit, and with this change changes too all our view and experience of our soul-life and of the world around us. We are born into a new soul-status and put on a new nature; for according to the status of the soul is the status of the prakriti. At each transition of the world-ascent, from matter to life, from life to mind, from mind bound to free intelligence, as the latent, half-manifested or already manifest soul rises to a higher and higher level of being, the nature also is elevated into a superior working, a wider consciousness, a vaster force and an intenser or larger range and joy of existence. But the transition from the mind-self to the knowledge-self is the great and the decisive transition in the Yoga. It is the shaking off of the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance and our firm foundation in the Truth of things, in a consciousness infinite and eternal and inviolable by obscurity, falsehood, suffering or error.
This is the first summit which enters into the divine perfection, sadharmaya, sadrsya; for all the rest only look up to it or catch some rays of its significance. The highest heights of mind or of overmind come still within the belt of a mitigated ignorance; they can refract a divine Light but not pass it on in undiminished power to our lower members. For so long as we are within the triple stratum of mind, life and body, our active nature continues to work in the force of the ignorance even when the soul in Mind possesses something of the knowledge. And even if the soul were to reflect or to represent all the largeness of the knowledge in its mental consciousness, it would be unable to mobilise it rightly in force of action. The truth in its action might greatly increase, but it would still be pursued by a limitation, still condemned to a divisibility which would prevent it from working integrally in the power of the infinite. The power of a divinely illumined mind may be immense compared with ordinary powers, but it will still be subject to incapacity and there can be no perfect correspondence between the force of the effective will and the light of the idea which inspires it. The infinite Presence may be there in status, but dynamis of the operations of nature still belongs to the lower prakriti, must follow its triple modes of working and cannot give any adequate form to the greatness within it. This is the tragedy of ineffectivity, of the hiatus between ideal and effective will, of our constant incapacity to work out in living form and action the truth we feel in our inner consciousness that pursues all the aspiration of mind and life towards the divinity behind them. But the vijnana or gnosis is not only truth but truth-power, it is the very working of the infinite and divine nature; it is the divine knowledge one with the divine will in the force and delight of a spontaneous and luminous and inevitable self-fulfilment. By the gnosis, then, we change our human into a divine nature.
2.23 - The Conditions of Attainment to the Gnosis, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But this centre and this action are free, not bound, not dependent on the physical machine, not clamped to a narrow ego-sense. It is not involved in body; it is not shut up in a separated individuality feeling out for clumsy contacts with the world out or groping inward for its own deeper spirit. For in this great transformation we begin to have a consciousness not shut up in a generating box but diffused freely and extending self-existently everywhere; there is or may be a centre, but it is a convenience for individual action, not rigid, not constitutive or separative. The very nature of our conscious activities is henceforth universal; one with those of the universal being, it proceeds from universality to a supple and variable individualisation. It has become the awareness of an infinite being who acts always universally though with emphasis on an individual formation of its energies. But this emphasis is differential rather than separative, and this formation is no longer what we now understand by individuality; there is no longer a petty limited constructed person shut up in the formula of his own mechanism. This state of consciousness is so abnormal to our present mode of being that to the rational man who does not possess it, it may seem impossible or even a state of alienation; but once possessed it vindicates itself even to the mental intelligence by its greater calm, freedom, light, power, effectivity of will, verifiable truth of ideation and feeling. For this condition begins already on the higher levels of liberated mind and can therefore be partly sensed and understood by mind-intelligence, only when it leaves behind the mental levels, but it rises to perfect self-possession only in the supramental gnosis.
In this state of consciousness the infinite becomes to us the .primal, the actual reality, the one thing immediately and sensibly true. It becomes impossible for us to think of or realise the finite apart from our fundamental sense of the infinite, in which alone the finite can live, can form itself, can have any reality or duration. So long as this finite mind and body are to our consciousness the first fact of our existence and the foundation of all our thinking, feeling and willing and so long as things finite are the normal reality from which we can rise occasionally, or even frequently, to all idea and sense of the infinite, we are still very far away from the gnosis. In the plane of the gnosis the infinite is-at once our normal consciousness of being, its first fact, our sensible substance. It is very concretely to us there the foundation from which everything finite forms itself and its boundless incalculable forces are the origination of all our thought, will and delight. But this infinite is not only an infinite of pervasion or of extension in which everything forms and happens. Behind that immeasurable extension the gnostic consciousness is always aware of a spaceless inner infinite. It is through this double infinite that we shall arrive at the essential being of Sachchidananda, the highest self of our own being and the totality of our cosmic existence. There is opened to us an illimitable existence which we feel as if it were an infinity above us to which we attempt to rise and an infinity around us into which we strive to dissolve our separate existence. Afterwards we widen into it and rise into it; we break out of the ego into its largeness and are that for ever. If this liberation is achieved, its power can take, if so we will, increasing possession of our lower being also until even our lowest and perversest activities are refashioned into the truth of the Vijnana.
2.25 - The Triple Transformation, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But all this change and all this experience, though psychic and spiritual in essence and character, would still be, in its parts of life-effectuation, on the mental, vital and physical level; its dynamic spiritual outcome6 would be a flowering of the soul in mind and life and body, but in act and form it would be circumscribed within the limitations - however enlarged, uplifted and rarefied - of an inferior instrumentation. It would be a reflected and modified manifestation of things whose full reality, intensity, largeness, oneness and diversity of truth and power and delight are above us, above mind and therefore above any perfection, within mind's own formula, of the foundations or superstructure of our present nature. A highest spiritual transformation must intervene on the psychic or psycho-spiritual change; the psychic movement inward to the inner being, the Self or Divinity within us, must be completed by an opening upward to a supreme spiritual status or a higher existence. This can be done by our opening into what is above us, by an ascent of consciousness into the ranges of overmind and supramental nature in which the sense of self and spirit is ever unveiled and permanent and in which the self-luminous instrumentation of the self and spirit is not restricted or divided as in our mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature. This also the psychic change makes possible; for lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature. as it opens us to the cosmic consciousness now hidden from us by many walls of limiting individuality, so also it opens us to what is now superconscient to our normality because it is hidden from us by the strong, hard and bright lid of mind, - mind constricting, dividing and separative. The lid thins, is slit, breaks asunder or opens and disappears under the pressure of the psycho-spiritual change and the natural urge of the new spiritualised consciousness towards that of which it is an expression here. This effectuation of an aperture and its consequences may not at all take place if there is only a partial psychic emergence satisfied with the experience of the Divine Reality in the normal degrees of the spiritualised mind: but if there is any awakening to the existence of these higher supernormal levels, then an aspiration towards them may break the lid or operate a rift in it. This may happen long before the psycho-spiritual change is complete or even before it has well begun or proceeded far, because the psychic personality has become aware and has an eager concentration towards the superconscience. An early illumination from above or a rending of the upper velamen can come as an outcome of aspiration or some inner readiness, or it may even come uncalled-for or not called for by any conscious part of the mind, - perhaps by a secret subliminal necessity or by an action or pressure from the higher levels, by something which is felt as the touch of the Divine Being, the touch of the Spirit, - and its results can be exceedingly powerful. But if it is brought about by a premature pressure from below, it can be attended with difficulties and dangers which are absent when the full psychic emergence precedes this first admission to the superior ranges of our spiritual evolution. The choice, however, does not always rest with our will, for the operations of the spiritual evolution in us are very various, and according to the line it has followed will be the turn taken at any critical phase by the action of the Consciousness-Force in its urge towards a higher self-manifestation and formation of our existence.
If the rift in the lid of mind is made, what happens is an opening of vision to something above us or a rising up towards it or a descent of its powers into our being. What we see by the opening of vision is an Infinity above us, an eternal Presence or an infinite Existence, an infinity of consciousness, an infinity of bliss, - a boundless Self, a boundless Light, a boundless Power, a boundless Ecstasy. It may be that for a long time all that is obtained is the occasional or frequent or constant vision of it and a longing and aspiration, but without anything further, because, although something in the mind, heart or other part of the being has opened to this experience, the lower nature as a whole is too heavy and obscure as yet for more. But there may be, instead of this first wide awareness from below or subsequently to it, an ascension of the mind to heights above: the nature of these heights we may not know or clearly discern, but some consequence of the ascent is felt; there is often too an awareness of infinite ascension and return but no record or translation of that higher state. This is because it has been superconscient to mind and therefore mind, when it rises into it, is unable at first to retain there its power of conscious discernment and defining experience. But when this power begins to awake and act, when mind becomes by degrees conscious in what was to it superconscient, then there begins a knowledge and experience of superior planes of existence. The experience is in accord with that which is brought to us by the first opening of vision: the mind rises into a higher plane of pure self, silent, tranquil, illimitable; or it rises into regions of light or of felicity, or into planes where it feels an infinite Power or a divine Presence or experiences the contact of a divine Love or Beauty or the atmosphere of a wider and greater and luminous Knowledge. In the return the spiritual impression abides; but the mental record is often blurred and remains as a vague or a fragmentary memory; the lower consciousness from which the ascent took place falls back to what it was, with only the addition of an unkept or a remembered but no longer dynamic experience. In time the ascent comes to be made at will and the consciousness brings back and retains some effect or some gain of its temporary sojourn in these higher countries of the spirit. These ascents take place for many in trance, but are perfectly possible in a concentration of the waking consciousness or, where that consciousness has become sufficiently psychic, at any unconcentrated moment by an upward attraction or affinity.
2.26 - Samadhi, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The sleep-state ascends to a higher power of being, beyond thought into pure consciousness, beyond emotion into pure bliss, beyond will into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born. But here we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of symbolic language. The use of the words dream and sleep for these higher states is nothing but an image drawn from the experience of the normal physical mind with regard to planes in which it is not at home. It is not the truth that the Self in the third status called perfect sleep, susupti, is in a state of slumber. The sleep self is on the contrary described as Prajna, the Master of Wisdom and Knowledge, Self of the Gnosis, and as Ishwara, the Lord of being. To the physical mind a sleep, it is to our wider and subtler consciousness a greater waking. To the normal mind all that exceeds its normal experience but still comes into its scope, seems a dream; but at the point where it borders on things quite beyond its scope, it can no longer see truth even as in a dream, but passes into the blank incomprehension and non-reception of slumber. This border-line varies with the power of the individual consciousness, with the degree and height of its enlightenment and awakening. The line may be pushed up higher and higher until it may pass even beyond the mind. Normally indeed the human mind cannot be awake even with the inner waking of trance, on the supramental levels; but this disability can be overcome. Awake on these levels the soul becomes master of the ranges of gnostic thought, gnostic will, gnostic delight, and if it can do this in Samadhi, it may carry its memory of experience and its power of experience over into the waking state. Even on the yet higher level open to us, that of the Ananda, the awakened soul may become similarly possessed of the Bliss-Self both in its concentration and in its cosmic comprehension. But still there may be ranges above from which it can bring back no memory except that which says, "somehow, indescribably, I was in bliss," the bliss of an unconditioned existence beyond all potentiality of expression by thought or description by image or feature. Even the sense of being may disappear in an experience in which the world-existence loses its sense and the Buddhistic symbol of Nirvana seems alone and sovereignly justified. However high the power of awakening goes, there seems to be a beyond in which the image of sleep, of susupti, will still find its application.
Such is the principle of the Yogic trance, Samadhi, -- into its complex phenomena we need not now enter. It is sufficient to note its double utility in the integral Yoga. It is true that up to a point difficult to define or delimit almost all that Samadhi can give, can be acquired without recourse to Samadhi. But still there are certain heights of spiritual and psychic experience of which the direct as opposed to a reflecting experience can only be acquired deeply and in its fullness by means of the Yogic trance. And even for that which can be otherwise acquired, it offers a ready means, a facility which becomes more helpful, if not indispensable, the higher and more difficult of access become the planes on which the heightened spiritual experience is sought. Once attained there, it has to be brought as much as possible into the waking consciousness. For in a Yoga which embraces all life completely and without reserve, the full use of Samadhi comes only when its gains can be made the normal possession and experience for an integral waking of the embodied soul in the human being.
2.26 - The Ascent towards Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought, but by vision; thought is here only a subordinate movement expressive of sight. The human mind, which relies mainly on thought, conceives that to be the highest or the main process of knowledge, but in the spiritual order thought is a secondary and a not indispensable process. In its form of verbal thought, it can almost be described as a concession made by Knowledge to the Ignorance, because that Ignorance is incapable of making truth wholly lucid and intelligible to itself in all its extent and manifold implications except through the clarifying precision of significant sounds; it cannot do without this device to give to ideas an exact outline and an expressive body. But it is evident that this is a device, a machinery; thought in itself, in its origin on the higher levels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or of some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result of spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the self upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object for all there is a diversity and multiplicity of the self.
In mind there is a surface response of perception to the contact of an observed or discovered object, fact or truth and a consequent conceptual formulation of it; but in the spiritual light there is a deeper perceptive response from the very substance of consciousness and a comprehending formulation in that substance, an exact figure or revelatory ideograph in the stuff of the being, - nothing more, no verbal representation is needed for the precision and completeness of this thought knowledge.
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Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of "stable lightnings". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.
Intuition has a fourfold power. A power of revelatory truth- seeing, a power of inspiration or truth-hearing, a power of truth-touch or immediate seizing of significance, which is akin to the ordinary nature of its intervention in our mental intelligence, a power of true and automatic discrimination of the orderly and exact relation of truth to truth, - these are the fourfold potencies of Intuition. Intuition can therefore perform all the action of reason - including the function of logical intelligence, which is to work out the right relation of things and the right relation of idea with idea, - but by its own superior process and with steps that do not fail or falter. It takes up also and transforms into its own substance not only the mind of thought, but the heart and life and the sense and physical consciousness: already all these have their own peculiar powers of intuition derivative from the hidden Light; the pure power descending from above can assume them all into itself and impart to these deeper heartperceptions and life-perceptions and the divinations of the body a greater integrality and perfection. It can thus change the whole consciousness into the stuff of intuition; for it brings its own greater radiant movement into the will, into the feelings and emotions, the life-impulses, the action of sense and sensation, the very workings of the body consciousness; it recasts them in the light and power of truth and illumines their knowledge and their ignorance. A certain integration can thus take place, but whether it is a total integration must depend on the extent to which the new light is able to take up the subconscient and penetrate the fundamental Inconscience. Here the intuitive light and power may be hampered in its task because it is the edge of a delegated and modified supermind, but does not bring in the whole mass or body of the identity knowledge. The basis of Inconscience in our nature is too vast, deep and solid to be altogether penetrated, turned into light, transformed by an inferior power of the Truth-nature.
2.27 - Hathayoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are almost as many ways of arriving at Samadhi as there are different paths of Yoga. Indeed so great is the importance attached to it, not only as a supreme means of arriving at the highest consciousness, but as the very condition and status of that highest consciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed while we are in the body, that certain disciplines of Yoga look as if they were only ways of arriving at Samadhi. All Yoga is in its nature an attempt and an arriving at unity with the Supreme, -- unity with the being of the Supreme, unity with the consciousness of the Supreme, unity with the bliss of the Supreme, -- or, if we repudiate the idea of absolute unity, at least at some kind of union, even If it be only for the soul to live in one status and periphery of being with the Divine, salokya, or in a sort of indivisible proximity, samipya. This can only be gained by rising to a higher level and intensity of consciousness than our ordinary mentality possesses. Samadhi, as we have seen, offers itself as the natural status of such a higher level and greater intensity. It assumes naturally a great importance in the Yoga of knowledge, because there it is the very principle of its method and its object to raise the mental consciousness into a clarity and concentrated power by which it can become entirely aware of, lost in, identified with true being. But there are two great disciplines in which it becomes of an even greater importance. To these two systems, to Rajayoga and Hathayoga, we may as well now turn; for in spite of the wide difference of their methods from that of the path of knowledge, they have this same principle as their final justification. At the same time, it will not be necessary for us to do more than regard the spirit of their gradations in passing; for in a synthetic and integral Yoga they take a secondary importance; their aims have indeed to be included, but their methods can either altogether be dispensed with or Hathayoga is a powerful, but difficult and onerous system whose whole principle of action is founded on an intimate connection between the body and the soul. The body is the key, the body the secret both of bondage and of release, of animal weakness and of divine power, of the obscuration of the mind and soul and of their illumination, of subjection to pain and limitation and of self-mastery, of death and of immortality. The body is not to the Hathayogin a mere mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being; one has even seen an ingenious exegete of the Hathayogic discipline explain the Vedantic symbol OM as a figure of this mystic human body. Although, however, he speaks always of the physical body and makes that the basis of his practices, he does not view it with the eye of the anatomist or physiologist, but describes and explains it in language which always looks back to the subtle body behind the physical system. In fact the whole aim of the Hathayogin may be summarised from our point of view, though he would not himself put it in that language, as an attempt by fixed scientific processes to give to the soul in the physical body the power, the light, the purity, the freedom, the ascending scales of spiritual experience which would naturally be open to it, if it dwelt here in the subtle and the developed causal vehicle.
To speak of the processes of Hathayoga as scientific may seem strange to those who associate the idea of science only with the superficial phenomena of the physical universe apart from all that is behind them; but they are equally based on definite experience of laws and their workings and give, when rightly practised, their well-tested results. In fact, Hathayoga is, in its own way, a system of knowledge; but while the proper Yoga of knowledge is a philosophy of being put into spiritual practice, a psychological system, this is a science of being, a psycho-physical system. Both produce physical, psychic and spiritual results; but because they stand at different poles of the same truth, to one the psycho-physical results are of small importance, the pure psychic and spiritual alone matter, and even the pure psychic are only accessories of the spiritual which absorb all the attention; m the other the physical is of Immense importance, the psychical a considerable fruit, the spiritual the highest and consummating result, but it seems for a long time a thing postponed and remote, so great arid absorbing is the attention which the body demands. It must not be forgotten, however, that both do arrive at the same end. Hathayoga, also, is a path, though by a long, difficult and meticulous movement, dunhkam aptume, to the Supreme.
2.27 - The Gnostic Being, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An aspiration, a demand for the supreme and total delight of existence is there secretly in the whole make of our being, but it is disguised by the separation of our parts of nature and their differing urge and obscured by their inability to conceive or seize anything more than a superficial pleasure. In the body consciousness this demand takes shape as a need of bodily happiness, in our life parts as a yearning for life happiness, a keen vibrant response to joy and rapture of many kinds and to all surprise of satisfaction; in the mind it shapes into a ready reception of all forms of mental delight; on a higher level it becomes apparent in the spiritual mind's call for peace and divine ecstasy. This trend is founded in the truth of the being; for Ananda is the very essence of the Brahman, it is the supreme nature of the omnipresent Reality. The supermind itself in the descending degrees of the manifestation emerges from the Ananda and in the evolutionary ascent merges into the Ananda. It is not, indeed, merged in the sense of being extinguished or abolished but is there inherent in it, indistinguishable from the self of awareness and the selfeffectuating force of the Bliss of Being. In the involutionary descent as in the evolutionary return supermind is supported by the original Delight of Existence and carries that in it in all its activities as their sustaining essence; for Consciousness, we may say, is its parent power in the Spirit, but Ananda is the spiritual matrix from which it manifests and the maintaining source into which it carries back the soul in its return to the status of the Spirit. A supramental manifestation in its ascent would have as a next sequence and culmination of self-result a manifestation of the Bliss of the Brahman: the evolution of the being of gnosis would be followed by an evolution of the being of bliss; an embodiment of gnostic existence would have as its consequence an embodiment of the beatific existence. Always in the being of gnosis, in the life of the gnosis some power of the Ananda would be there as an inseparable and pervading significance of supramental self-experience. In the liberation of the soul from the Ignorance the first foundation is peace, calm, the silence and quietude of the Eternal and Infinite; but a consummate power and greater formation of the spiritual ascension takes up this peace of liberation into the bliss of a perfect experience and realisation of the eternal beatitude, the bliss of the Eternal and Infinite. This Ananda would be inherent in the gnostic consciousness as a universal delight and would grow with the evolution of the gnostic nature.
It has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the spirit; there is an exaltation, exultation, excitement, a highest intensity of the joy of the heart and the pure inner soul-sensation that can be a splendid passage or an uplifting force but is not the ultimate permanent foundation. But in the highest ascents of the spiritual bliss there is not this vehement exaltation and excitement; there is instead an illimitable intensity of participation in an eternal ecstasy which is founded on the eternal Existence and therefore on a beatific tranquillity of eternal peace. Peace and ecstasy cease to be different and become one. The supermind, reconciling and fusing all differences as well as all contradictions, brings out this unity; a wide calm and a deep delight of all-existence are among its first steps of self-realisation, but this calm and this delight rise The Gnostic Being together, as one state, into an increasing intensity and culminate in the eternal ecstasy, the bliss that is the Infinite. In the gnostic consciousness at any stage there would be always in some degree this fundamental and spiritual conscious delight of existence in the whole depth of the being; but also all the movements of Nature would be pervaded by it, and all the actions and reactions of the life and the body: none could escape the law of the Ananda.
2.28 - The Divine Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3: It is consciousness and life that must be the keywords to what is being thus worked out in Time; for without them Matter and the world of Matter would be a meaningless phenomenon, a thing that has just happened by Chance or by an unconscious Necessity. But consciousness as it is, life as it is cannot be the whole secret; for both are very clearly something unfinished and still in process. In us consciousness is Mind, and our mind is ignorant and imperfect, an intermediate power that has grown and is still growing towards something beyond itself: there were lower levels of consciousness that came before it and out of which it arose, there must very evidently be higher levels to which it is itself arising. Before our thinking, reasoning, reflecting mind there was a consciousness unthinking but living and sentient, and before that there was the subconscious and the unconscious; after us or in our yet unevolved selves there is likely to be waiting a greater consciousness, self-luminous, not dependent on constructive thought: our imperfect and ignorant thought-mind is certainly not the last word of consciousness, its ultimate possibility. For the essence of consciousness is the power to be aware of itself and its objects, and in its true nature this power must be direct, self-fulfilled and complete: if it is in us indirect, incomplete, unfulfilled in its workings, dependent on constructed instruments, it is because consciousness here is emerging from an original veiling Inconscience and is yet burdened and enveloped with the first Nescience proper to the Inconscient; but it must have the power to emerge completely, its destiny must be to evolve into its own perfection which is its true nature. Its true nature is to be wholly aware of its objects, and of these objects the first is self, the being which is evolving its consciousness here, and the rest is what we see as not-self, - but if existence is indivisible, that too must in reality be self: the destiny of evolving consciousness must be, then, to become perfect in its awareness, entirely aware of self and all-aware. This perfect and natural condition of consciousness is to us a superconscience, a state which is beyond us and in which our mind, if suddenly transferred to it, could not at first function; but it is towards that superconscience that our conscious being must be evolving.
4: But this evolution of our consciousness to a superconscience or supreme of itself is possible only if the Inconscience which is our basis here is really itself an involved Superconscience; for what is to be in the becoming of the Reality in us must be already there involved or secret in its beginning. Such an involved Being or Power we can well conceive the Inconscient to be when we closely regard this material creation of an unconscious Energy and see it labouring out with curious construction and infinite device the work of a vast involved Intelligence and see, too, that we ourselves are something of that Intelligence evolving out of its involution, an emerging consciousness whose emergence cannot stop short on the way until the Involved has evolved and revealed itself as a supreme totally self-aware and all-aware Intelligence. It is this to which we have given the name of Supermind or Gnosis. For that evidently must be the consciousness of the Reality, the Being, the Spirit that is secret in us and slowly manifesting here; of that Being we are the becomings and must grow into its nature.
2.3.02 - The Supermind or Supramental, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Supramental is a higher level of consciousness than the mind in which one gets the direct truth of the Supreme and the whole truth. One can meet the One in the mind, but it is an imperfect knowledge and experience.
It is only the supramental that is all Knowledge. All below that from Overmind to Matter is Ignorance - an Ignorance growing at each level nearer to the full Knowledge. Below Supermind there may be Knowledge but it is not all Knowledge.
2.4.1 - Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Relations which are part of the ordinary vital nature in human life are of no value in the spiritual lifethey rather interfere with the progress; for the mind and vital also should be wholly turned towards the Divine. Moreover, the purpose of sadhana is to enter into a spiritual consciousness and base everything on a new spiritual basis which can only be done when one has entered into complete unity with the Divine. Meanwhile one has to have a calm goodwill for all, but relations of a vital kind do not help for they keep the consciousness down on a vital basis and prevent its rising to a higher level.
***
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Human affection is obviously unreliable because it is so much bound up with selfishness and desire; it is a flame of the ego sometimes turbid and misty, sometimes more clear and brightly coloured sometimes tamasic based on instinct and habit, sometimes rajasic and fed by passion or the cry for vital interchange, sometimes more sattwic and trying to be or look to itself disinterested. But fundamentally it depends on a personal need or a return of some kind inward or outward and when the need is not satisfied or the return ceases or is not given, it most often diminishes or dies or exists only as a tepid or troubled remnant of habit from the past or else turns for satisfaction elsewhere. The more intense it is, the more it is apt to be troubled by tumults, clashes, quarrels, egoistic disturbances of all kinds, selfishness, exactions, lapses even to rage and hatred, ruptures. It is not that these affections cannot lasttamasic instinctive affections last because of habit in spite of everything dividing the persons, e.g. certain family affections; rajasic affections can last sometimes in spite of all disturbances and incompatibilities and furious ruptures because one has a vital need of the other and clings because of that or because both have that need and are constantly separating to return and returning to separate, or proceeding from quarrel to reconciliation and from reconciliation to quarrel; sattwic affections last very often from duty to the ideal or with some other support though they may lose their keenness or intensity or brightness. But the true reliability is there only when the psychic element in human affection becomes strong enough to colour or dominate the rest. For that reason friendship is or rather can oftenest be the most durable of the human affections because there there is less interference of the vital and even though a flame of the ego it can be a quiet and pure fire giving always its warmth and light. Nevertheless reliable friendship is almost always with a very few; to have a horde of loving, unselfishly faithful friends is a phenomenon so rare that it can be safely taken as an illusion. In any case human affection whatever its value has its place, because through it the psychic being gets the emotional experiences it needs until it is ready to prefer the true to the apparent, the perfect to the imperfect, the divine to the human. As the consciousness has to rise to a higher level, so the activities of the heart also have to rise to that higher level and change their basis and character. Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine, so also love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundationto reach the Divine first leaving other things aside or to seek the Divine alone is the straight road towards that change. That means no attachmentit need not mean turning affection into disaffection or chill indifference. But X seems to want to take his vital emotions just as they aretels quelsinto the Divinelet him try and dont bother him with criticisms and lectures; if it cant be done, he will have to find it out himself. Or perhaps he wants to clap on the Divine to the rest as a crowning ornament, shikhara, of his pyramid of love and affections.
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It is not helpful to make so much of the past and give it such a primary value. Whatever may be the glamour of a vital love, once it falls away and one gets to a higher level, it should be seen to have been not the great thing one imagined. To keep the exaggerated estimate of it is to hold the consciousness back from the full essor towards the greater thing with which that cannot for a moment compare. If one keeps a fervour like that for an inferior past, it must make it more difficult to develop the entire person for a higher future. It is indeed not the Mothers wish that X or you either should look back in a spirit of enthusiastic appreciation to the old vital love. It was indeed so little in any true estimate of things. It is not at all a question of comparison or of exalting the vital passion of one at the expense of that of the other. It is the whole thing that must dwindle in its proportions and recede into the shadowy constructions of the past which have no longer any importance.
***
2 - Other Hymns to Agni, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
which is hers on higher levels where she is the radiant Cow of Light.
226
30.09 - Lines of Tantra (Charyapada), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Vedantic discipline is in a sense comparatively simple and easy. For it takes one straight path to the heights by rejecting all with its formula of "not this", "not that", neti, neti,its method is to fix the consciousness in the head, at the centre of knowledge, and from there to move to the higher levels with the Purusha-consciousness as the mainstay. Tantra has clung to Mother-Nature, that is, it has not sought to reject and deny the existence of the vital and physical movements. Its aim has been to establish on a sound basis these so-called lower but stronger movements, by controlling them and purifying them into their true elements. The ordinary man, every man in fact, has to live with his body and vital being, with the physical life and the vital force as his main supports. Since these things exist, they must have a purpose. They alone can delve into the mystery of the ordinary life who have been living the ordinary life. That is why this line of discipline is described as the line of the natural man; this is the Natural Path, the Way of Sahajiya. This Path has had greater attractions for the commonalty of men than for the learned men of intellect with their education and culture. It is among the lowest classes that it has found most votaries; there its influence has spread, there it has been best known.
In his inner make-up and outward activities man is a biune entity; here too as in the universe, there is an upper and a lower half. The upper half extends from the head to the chest, the lower from the navel to the feet. The upper half is represented by the Brahmin and the Kshatriya, and to the lower belong the Vaishya and the Shudra, including the Untouchable; the Shudra, says the Vedic text, was born of the Creator's feet, padbhyam sudra ajayata. The Veda and the Upanishads glorify the Brahmin and the Kshatriya; in Tantra, especially in the popular Tantra of the Siddhacharras, the greatness of the lower orders has been brought out.
3.01 - Forms of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
tion that this body will be resurrected. On a higher level, the
process is no longer understood in a gross material sense; it is
3.02 - The Psychology of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the female principle, and on a higher level the Mater Dei. (Cf. "Psychology and
Religion," pars. i24ff.) We may be dealing with the same kind of ambiguity as in
3.06 - Death, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
in other words, how much instinct insists that the higher level of
consciousness be attained. This urge to a higher and more comprehensive
3.1.01 - Distinctive Features of the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But it is better not to enter into sterile intellectual discussions. The intellectual mind cannot even realise what the supermind is; what use, then, can there be in allowing it to discuss what it does not know? It is not by reasoning, but by constant experience, growth of consciousness and widening into the Light that one can reach those higher levels of consciousness above the intellect from which one can begin to look up to the Divine Gnosis. Those levels are not yet the supermind, but they can receive something of its knowledge.
The Vedic Rishis never attained to the supermind for the earth or perhaps did not even make the attempt. They tried to rise individually to the supramental plane, but they did not bring it down and make it a permanent part of the earth-consciousness. Even there are verses of the Upanishad in which it is hinted that it is impossible to pass through the gates of the Sun (the symbol of the supermind) and yet retain an earthly body. It was because of this failure that the spiritual effort of India culminated in Mayavada. Our Yoga is a double movement of ascent and descent; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the body. And the highest of these levels, the one at which it aims is the supermind. Only when that can be brought down is a divine transformation possible in the earth-consciousness.
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3.1.04 - Transformation in the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo1 has no remarks to make on Huxleys comments with which he is in entire agreement. But in the phrase to its heights we can always reach very obviously we does not refer to humanity in general but to those who have a sufficiently developed inner spiritual life.2 It is probable that Sri Aurobindo was thinking of his own experience. After three years of spiritual effort with only minor results he was shown by a Yogi the way to silence his mind. This he succeeded in doing entirely in two or three days by following the method shown. There was an entire silence of thought and feeling and all the ordinary movements of consciousness except the perception and recognition of things around without any accompanying concept or other reaction. The sense of ego disappeared and the movements of the ordinary life as well as speech and action were carried on by some habitual activity of Prakriti alone which was not felt as belonging to oneself. But the perception which remained saw all things as utterly unreal; this sense of unreality was overwhelming and universal. Only some undefinable Reality was perceived as true which was beyond space and time and unconnected with any cosmic activity but yet was met wherever one turned. This condition remained unimpaired for several months and even when the sense of unreality disappeared and there was a return to participation in the world-consciousness, the inner peace and freedom which resulted from this realisation remained permanently behind all surface movements and the essence of the realisation itself was not lost. At the same time an experience intervened; something else than himself took up his dynamic activity and spoke and acted through him but without any personal thought or initiative. What this was remained unknown until Sri Aurobindo came to realise the dynamic side of the Brahman, the Ishwara, and felt himself moved by that in all his sadhana and action. These realisations and others which followed upon them, such as that of the Self in all and all in the Self and all as the Self, the Divine in all and all in the Divine, are the heights to which Sri Aurobindo refers and to which he says we can always rise; for they presented to him no long or obstinate difficulty. The only real difficulty which took decades of spiritual effort to carry out towards completeness was to apply the spiritual knowledge utterly to the world and to the surface psychological and outer life and to effect its transformation both on the higher levels of Nature and on the ordinary mental, vital and physical levels down to the subconscience and the basic Inconscience and up to the supreme Truth-consciousness or Supermind in which alone the dynamic transformation could be entirely integral and absolute.
In this letter to a disciple living outside the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo refers to himself in the third person.Ed.
31.06 - Jagadish Chandra Bose, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The speciality and distinctiveness of the truth and knowledge of the object that Jagadish Chandra has found without the accepted means and processes of knowledge arises from a speciality of that very direct insight and of that divine vision, the fundamental truth of which is oneness. All matter is one - even to a scientist this truth is not new - but then the unity and oneness that has attained such intensity and perfection in these days was not a familiar fact of the olden times. Jagadish Chandra has traced a new line of unity in the unity of matter; he has raised the unity of matter to a higher level and invested it with a new quality. Over and above the unity of matter in the world there is a unity of life; behind the rhythms of matter is the rhythm of life. Even mineral objects feel fatigued, they faint from the application of poison, they look dying, then die. Plants also are no mere sum of material elements; they too have pulsation and nervous response, vibration of the heart and feeling of joy and sorrow, they have an involved consciousness. Jagadish Chandra has in this way brought matter through the corridor of life right almost to the door-step of consciousness. Our ancient seer vision has thus been made sensible through in his genius.
All that we see is one, not many. That one is not inanimate matter, it is instinct with life, it is living, nay, not only living but conscious. The truth that the Rishi in his divine vision has seen, and experienced in his soul, how it manifests itself, how it proves itself, how the rhythm of the subtle has played into the gross, how the Self of the Spirit has not concealed itself outside or beyond its creation but has permeated the whole of creation, how its light has made the creation luminous - tasya bhasa sarvamidam bibhati - "his light illumines all this" - something of this knowledge Jagadish Chandra has placed before the physical eye of our ordinary belief.
3.10 - The New Birth, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
numbers is 10, which stands for unity on a higher level. The unarius
represents unity in the form of the res simplex, i.e., God as auctor rerum,
3.11 - Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
Uplift bestows increased spellcasting ability on one priest, including additional spells per level and use of spells beyond the caster's normal level. This cooperative spell requires two priests who must spend the day casting this spell. During the casting, the priests must decide which additional spells (of all levels) are desired. Upon completion of the casting, the priests touch palms, and the priest of higher level receives a charge of magical energy. This charge temporarily boosts the level of the priest for spellcasting purposes. The amount of increase is one level per five levels of the lower level caster
(fractions rounded up). If both priests are of equal level, the casters must decide who benefits from the spell.
32.06 - The Novel Alchemy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As the Vedic Rishis would say, Agni the Mystic Fire aspires to the heights, its flames continue to rise upwards. It purifies and brightens and adds keenness and strength to the consciousness and bears it upward through level after higher level until it reaches a proximity to and even an identity with the Supreme, in the very home of the gods. But Agni has an assistant and counterpart in Parjanya, the Rain-God. The work of this godhead is to help in the descent, the bringing down of the waters of heaven, as in a downpour of rain. To establish here on this earth what has risen to the heights and exists there, is the supreme and integral achievement.
The spiritualised body of man will not be simply a spiritual consciousness. It will be all-conscious no doubt, and yet its substance will still be matter. To prepare this new earth-matter will be the novel alchemy of the new age.
33.17 - Two Great Wars, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is something that happens always in the history of man, this battle of the gods and titans. Whenever there is a New Creation in the offing, and man is to be carried a step forward in his evolution, there comes up ranged against him the forces of Evil who do not want him to rise to a higher level of consciousness, towards the godhead. They want to hold man bound down in their grip.
Such a moment of crisis came to man in the time of Sri Krishna. The Kurukshetra War is known as a war of righteousness, dharma-yuddha;it was a war of the gods and titans. On the battlefield of Kurukshetra Sri Krishna gave his message that was to initiate the New Age that was coming. In exactly the same way, Sri Aurobindo began to proclaim his message with the opening of the guns in the first World War. The War began in August 1914; on the 15th August of the same year came out the first number of his Review, the Arya.Another point of note: the Aryacontinued almost as long as the War lasted. The "official end" of the War came towards the close of May, 1921; the Aryaceased in January of the same year. The Mother had arrived in the meantime to make Pondicherry her home.
3.4.2 - The Inconscient and the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I have explained to you why so many people (not by any means all) are in this gloomy condition, dull and despondent. It is the tamas, the inertia of the Inconscient, that has got hold of them. But also it is the small physical vital which takes only an interest in the small and trivial things of the ordinary daily and social life and nothing else. When formerly the sadhana was going on on higher levels (mind, higher vital etc.), there was plenty of vigour and verve and interest in the details of the Asram work and life as well as in an inner life; the physical vital was carried in the stream. But for many this has dropped; they live in the unsatisfied vital physical and find everything desperately dull, gloomy and without interest or issue. In their inner life the tamas from the Inconscient has created a block or a bottleneck and they do not find any way out. If one can keep the right condition and attitude, a strong interest in work or a strong interest in sadhana, then this becomes quiescent. That is the malady. Its remedy is to keep the right condition and to bring gradually or, if one can, swiftly the light of the higher aspiration into this part of the being also, so that whatever the conditions of the environment, it may keep also the right poise. Then the sunlit path should be less impossible.
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3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Our paradigmatic example, Mendeleev's Periodic Table, seems superficially to be constructed in terms of increasing atomic weights or atomic numbers. What this means on the higher level of background theory, however, is increasing control-capability in the nucleus with corresponding increases in the organized complexity of the electron cloud, and of the atom, the system they jointly constitute. So also with the Periodic Table of Human Cultures.
FIGURE IV-1 The kingdom of human cultures: Periods and Strata.
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Turning again to Figure IV-2, our explanation of how this came about is this: The first Stratum consists of the unmutated descendants of Period 1 people--though somewhat modified by the new foods and technology. (Unmutated descent is symbolized by the solid leftward arrows.) The much smaller upper Stratum, however, consists of a few descendants who have undergone a complex of so-called pleiotropic mutations, producing the psycho-physiological capability of conceptualizing and executing the new and more complex relations which we call Lower Agriculture and Higher Hunting. It also produces the capability of helping the unmutated relatives and neighbors, the Majority, to participate in, rather than to sabotage, these slow, difhcult and often tedious operations. This new psycho-genetic set of capabilities is summed up and called (for now) a higher level of abstraction, though other factors are involved besides abstraction.1
This second human abstraction level appears phenotypically by way of an additional ontogenetic stage, and is symptomatized by what Johnson O'Connor calls a higher vocabulary ceiling, presently to be described.5 (Mutated descent is symbolized in our figure by dotted rightward arrows.) Period 2 thus consists of two social Strata: the big, ancient, unmutated yet modified Majority, undergoing one human ontogenetic development-stage; and the small mutated Minority, undergoing two development stages. These are the two Sub-strata of Sub-stratum 2, and are labeled 1 and 2 respectively.
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As the braces in Figure IV-1 imply, I further predict discovery of a vocabulary level in the position and shape indicated by the dotted line I have drawn into Figure IV-3. This level will be displayed by the highest socio-genetic Stratum in Period 6. I also predict that at least one still higher level will be discovered. And finally that the new words which characterize each higher vocabulary level will be found to lie one level of abstraction higher than the highest of the preceding vocabulary ceiling. It follows th~.t the communities of every human Period after the first will be found to constitute what I propose to call a linguacline; and that the human Periods' top Strata form one too.
Space limitation permits mention of just one more item in the enormous array of evidence supporting our assembly of these data. Each Stratum's number is directly correlated with the economic value of its locality or neighborhood; and that, with its desireability in the eyes of the community.9 The geographic distribution of the socio-genetic Strata thus constitutes a geocline.
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The answer to these questions is now empirically quite clear. There are indeed discontinuities and qualitative differences in learning (i.e. behaviorally adaptive) capabilities as we go from one phyletic level to another. Behaviorally, the phylogenetic hierarchy is best characterized in terms of an increasing complexity of adaptive capabilities and an increasing breadth of transfer and generalization of learning, as we move from lower to higher phyla. It is a fact that every animal, at least above the level of worms, has the capacity to learn; that is, to form stimulus-response associations or conditioned responses. But the degree of complexity and abstractness of what can be learned shows distinct "quantum jumps" going from lower to higher phyla. Simpler capacities, and their neural substrate, persist as we move from lower to higher levels, but new adaptive capacities emerge in hierarchical layers as we ascend the phyletic scale. Each phyletic level possesses all the learning capacities (although not necessarily the same sensory and motor capacities) of the levels below itself in addition to new emergent abilities, which can be broadly conceived as an increase in the complexity of information processing. For example, studies by Bitterman (1965) of animals at various levels of the phyletic scale (earthworms, crabs, fishes, turtles, pigeons, rats and monkeys) have clearly demonstrated discontinuities in learning ability among different species and the emergence of more complex abilities corresponding to the phylogenetic hierarchy. In the experimental procedure known as habit reversal, a form of learning-to-learn in which the animal is trained to make a discriminative response to a pair of stimuli and then has to learn the reverse discrimination and the two are alternated repeatedly, a fish does not show any sign of learning-to-learn (i.e. each reversal is like a completely new problem and takes as long to learn as the previous problems), while a rat improves markedly in its speed of learning from one reversal to the next. When portions of the rat's cerebral cortex are removed, thereby reducing the most prominent evolutionary feature of the mammalian brain, the learning ability of the decorticate rat is exactly like that of the turtle, an animal with little cortex, and would probably be like that of the fish, if all of the rat's cortex could be removed. Harlow and Harlow (1962) have noted similar discontinuities at high levels of learning among rhesus monkeys, chimpanzees, and humans. Again, situations that involve some form of learning-to-learn are most sensitive to differences in capacity. No animals below primates have ever learned the so-called oddity--non-oddity problem no matter how much training they are given, and more complex variations of this type of problem similarly differentiate between rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees. The species differences are not just in speed of learning, but in whether the problem can be learned at all, given any amount of training. This is essentially what is meant by a hierarchical conception of learning ability. There is much evidence for this conception, which Jensen (in press) has summarized more extensively elsewhere. The evolution of humans from more primitive forms is now believed to be intimately related to the use of tools and weapons (Ardry, 1961). The mental capabilities involved in the use of implements for gaining ever greater control of the environment, in lieu of sheer physical strength, were just as subject to the evolutionary effects of natural selection as are any genetically mutated organs. More specifically, according to Haskell (1968, p. 475), "What primarily evolves in man is the nerve structure which confers the capacity to invent, to borrow, and to adapt culture traits."
Ontogeny of Human Mental Abilities.
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Mental development, as indexed by a wide variety of tests, is known to take place at different rates among children, and the final level of ability attained can be viewed as a hierarchical composite of earlier developed abilities, each level of the hierarchy being necessary but not sufficient for development of the next higher level. At maturity individuals differ with respect to the relative prepotence of different modes in the hierarchy of abilities and thus show differential capabilities for different kinds of learning and problem solving. The difficulty level of items in most standard intelligence tests (especially tests of the culture-fair variety, such as Raven's Progressive Matrices and Cattell's Culture-Fair Tests of g) reflects increasing dependence of the problem's solution upon higher level mental processes.
Over the past half century numerous studies (for reviews see Jensen 1967, 1969) based on a wide variety of tests of mental ability administered to persons of varying degrees of genetic and environmental relatedness, sampled from European and North American Caucasian populations, lead to the now generally accepted conclusion that in these populations genetic factors are approximately twice as important as environmental factors in accounting for individual differences in mental ability. This means, among other things, that variation in mental abilities can be, have been, and are subject to selective pressures of the environment and culture and are subject also to change through different systems of selective and assortative mating, just as is true of physical characteristics that display genetic variation.
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Scientific knowledge concerning the genetic aspect of ability differences among racial groups, having been generally shunned as a subject of scientific study in modern genetics and psychology, is far more ambiguous and more in dispute than social class differences. The uncertainty in this area will be reduced only through further appropriate research using the most advanced techniques of behavior-genetic analysis. Phenotypically, racial differences in abilities are well established, both with respect to overall average level of performance and to the pattern of relative strengths of various abilities (e.g. Lesser, Fifer, and Clark, 1965). Both social class and racial (Caucasian, Negro, and Oriental) differences have been found in rates of cognitive development as assessed by Piagetian test procedures, such as ability to grasp concepts of conservation of number, quantity, and volume (Tuddenham, 1968): Some indication of the role of genetic factors in the Piagetian indices of levels of cognitive development is shown in a study of Australian aboriginal children, the majority of whom, if full-blooded aborigines, do not show ability for grasping the concepts of conservation of quantity, weight, volume, number, and area, even by the time they have reached adolescence, while the majority of Caucasian children attain this level of mental development by seven years of age. However, aboriginal children having (on the average genetically) one Caucasian grandparent, but reared in the same circumstances as the full-blooded aborigines, performed significantly better (i.e. showed higher levels of cognitive development) than the full-blooded aborigines (De Lemos, 1966).
Personality Correlates of Ability.
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In order for this simple sameness to be repeated throughout the richly strange universe, there must be in existence a set of relational variables which all systems have in common. Moreover, there must be a totality of sets, and a relation among this totality's parts, such that all systems of the Systems-hierarchy display it, too, in common. This constant relation among the sets of relational variables is the invariant that all things must have in common for Cassidy's statement to be correct. It must exist, however, on a higher level than they, for it is their higher derivative, the constancy of change which Jonas calls becoming.
The next situation which is now upon us is made clear in Willard V. Quine's incisive exposition of what has here-to-fore been ontology's apparent relativity.46 This relativity is inherent in the one-field sciences' discrete studies of systems parts sub specie localis, Figure V-1, and is the transitory basis of existentialism, cultural relativity, promiscuity, and negative and zero value-biases, the modern forms of schizm of the soul.
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Unknown to myself, I presently "repeated" (on a higher level) one of the main steps by which leading 17th century scientists transmuted their obsolete medieval universities into the new kind of institution called for by the emerging Lower Industrial Culture: For many years in the mid-1600s, a group of the new (Copernican, Baconian and Galilean) scientists met in London, in and about Gresham College. They usually met after the lecture of the Professor of Astronomy, either in his rooms or at a nearby inn. Some people called them, rather aptly, The Invisible College.37 In time, however, when the British Monarchy was restored and the new King needed to make a new departure, he conferred upon this group--in which the original Copernican change was most highly developed--a Royal Charter, transforming it into the Royal Society.38 And the Royal Society--along with its sister societies all over Europe and America--transformed the slowly yet centripetally evolving medieval university into the centrifugal modern multiversity, capable of making enormous disintegrative progress (Figures IV-9, 10).
"It was indeed a new departure," observes Arthur Koestler. "The range and power of the main sense organ of homo sapiens had suddenly started to grow in leaps to thirty times, a hundred times, a thousand times its natural capacity. Parallel leaps and bounds in the range of other organs were soon to transform the species into a race of giants in power--without enlarging its moral power by an inch. It was a monstrously one-sided mutation--as if moles were growing the size of whales, but retaining the instincts of moles. The makers of the (first) scientific revolution were individuals who in the transformation of the race played the part of the mutating genes. Such genes are ipso facto unbalanced and unstable. The personalities of these `mutants' already foreshadowed the discrepancy in the next development of man: the intellectual giants of the (first) scientific revolution were moral dwarfs." p. 352.20
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21. This fact cannot be judged or even seen from the perspective of any one-field specialist: it seems to belong to anthropology, but it involves higher levels of abstraction. These include anthropology itself as a datum; also modern religion, philosophy, science, and ideology in general. This inclusiveness was predicted by Leibniz for the Universal Characteristic, of which the Periodic coordinate system is a model. (See Leibniz Selections, Phillip P. Wiener, editor. Scribner's, New York, 1951.)
22. Robinson, John A. T., Honest to God, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1963.
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Being (n.) sentient. (Res cogitans) Sentience is the capacity of a being or system to simulate systems behavior, as also to simulate simulation; that is, to simulate the behavior of sentient systems, living or mechanical, such as computers. Sentient systems thus form a systems-hierarchy (q.v.) such, that each higher member of the hierarchy accurately simulates the behavior of lower members than itself. (See Simulation.) The hierarchy evolves by emergence (through mutation, maturation, training or invention) of ever higher levels of abstraction (q.v.). Simulation of the behavior of higher by lower members of the hierarchy is called mimesis (q.v.). The part of the universe excluded from Western science in the l7th century by mutual consent of scientists and theologians.
Biocenose (n.) A living community, usually including abiotic, plant and animal components. (See Biome, Ecosystem.)
36.08 - A Commentary on the First Six Suktas of Rigveda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
What is externally the sacrifice of physical elements represents a Yoga of union in the inner-consciousness. The discipline of human life is also a sacrifice. What is the aim of such a sacrifice? Evolution, ascension, from the little to the vast, from suffering, weakness and ignorance to delight, strength and knowledge. How is it possible? By the same self-sacrifice, self-offering, dedication and prostration. The lower levels and the lower dharmas in us have to be quietened and surrendered to the higher and higher levels and dharmas. The Katha Upanishad declares:
Yacchedvammanasi prajastadyacchejjana atmani,
37.05 - Narada - Sanatkumara (Chhandogya Upanishad), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
Narada started on the march of consciousness with "Name". He has passed from stage to stage, from level to higher level, till at last he has crossed beyond the material "Name" to the Supreme Name, Brahman. Thus surpassing the state of mortal man, he has at last attained the status of Rishi.
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3.7.1.06 - The Ascending Unity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HE HUMAN mind loves a clear simplicity of view; the more trenchant a statement, the more violently it is caught by it and inclined to acceptance. This is not only natural to our first crudity of thinking, and the more attractive because it makes things delightfully easy to handle and saves an immense amount of worry of enquiry and labour of reflection, but, modified, it accompanies us to the higher levels of a more watchful mentality. Alexander's method with the fateful knot is our natural and favourite dealing with the tangled web of things, the easy cut, the royal way, the facile philosophy of this and not this, that and not that, a strong yes and no, a simple division, a pair of robust opposites, a clean cut of classification.
Our reason acts by divisions, even our ordinary illogical thought is a stumbling and bungling summary analysis and arrangement of the experience that offers itself to us with such unending complexity. But the cleanest and clearest division is that which sets us most at ease, because it impresses on our still childlike intelligence a sense of conclusive and luminous simplicity.
3.7.2.05 - Appendix I - The Tangle of Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For what we understand by law is a single immutably habitual movement or recurrence in Nature fruitful of a determined sequence of things and that sequence must be clear, precise, limited to its formula, invariable. If it is not that, if there is too much flexibility of movement, if there intervenes too embarrassing a variety or criss-cross of action and reaction, a too rich complex of forces, the narrow uncompromising incompetence of our logical intelligence finds there not law but an incertitude and a chaos. Our reason must be allowed to cut and hew and arbitrarily select its suitable circumstances, isolate its immutable data, skeletonise or mechanise life; otherwise it stands open-mouthed at a loss unable to think with precision or act with effect in a field of subtle and indefinite measures. It must be allowed to deal with mighty Nature as it deals with human society, politics, ethics, conduct; for it can understand and do good work only where it is licensed to build and map out its own artificial laws, erect a clear, precise, rigid, infallible system and leave as little room as possible for the endless flexibility and variety and complexity that presses from the Infinite upon our mind and life. Moved by this need we endeavour to forge for our own souls and for the cosmic Spirit even such a single and inflexible law of Karma as we would ourselves have made, had the rule of the world been left to us.Not this mysterious universe would we have made, but the pattern of a rational cosmos fitted to our call for a simple definite guidance in action and for a well-marked thumb rule facile and clear to our limited intelligence. But this force we call Karma turns out to be no such precise and invariable mechanism as we hoped; it is rather a thing of many planes that changes its face and walk and very substance as it mounts from level to higher level, and on each plane even it is not one movement but an indefinite complex of many spiral movements hard enough for us to harmonise together or to find out whatever secret harmony unknown to us and incalculable these complexities are weaving out in this mighty field of the dealings of the soul with Nature.
Let us then call Karma no longer a Law, but rather the many-sided dynamic truth of all action and life, the organic movement here of the Infinite. That was what the ancient thinkers saw in it before it was cut and shredded by lesser minds and turned into an easy and misleading popular formula. Action of Karma follows and takes up many potential lines of the spirit into its multitudinous surge, many waves and streams of combining and disputing world-forces; it is the processus of the creative Infinite; it is the long and multiform way of the progression of the individual and the cosmic soul in Nature. Its complexities cannot be unravelled by our physical mind ever bound up in the superficial appearance, nor by our vital mind of desire stumbling forward in the cloud of its own instincts and longings and rash determinations through the maze of these myriad favouring and opposing forces that surround and urge and drive and hamper us from the visible and invisible worlds. Nor can it be perfectly classified, accounted for, tied up in bundles by the precisions of our logical intelligence in its inveterate search for clear-cut dogmas. On that day only shall we perfectly decipher what is now to us Natures obscure hieroglyph of Karma when there rises in our enlarged consciousness the supramental way of knowledge. The supramental eye can see a hundred meeting and diverging motions in one glance and envelop in the largeness of its harmonising vision of Truth all that to our minds is clash and opposition and the collision and interlocked strife of numberless contending truths and powers. Truth to the supramental sight is at once single and infinite and the complexities of its play serve to bring out with an abundant ease the rich significance of the Eternals many-sided oneness.
4.04 - The Perfection of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The difficulty of the ascent is due to a natural ignorance. He is the Purusha, witness of mental and physical Nature, saksi, but not a complete knower of self and Nature, jnatr. Knowledge in the mentality is enlightened by his consciousness; he is the mental knower; but he finds that this is not a real knowledge, but only a partial seeking and partial finding, a derivative uncertain reflection and narrow utilisation for action from a greater light beyond which is the real knowledge. This light is the self-awareness and all-awareness of Spirit. The essential self-awareness he can arrive at even on the mental plane of being, by reflection in the soul of mind or by its absorption in spirit, as indeed it can be arrived at by another kind of reflection or absorption in soul of life and soul of body. But for participation in an effective all-awareness with this essential self-awareness as the soul of its action he must rise to supermind. To be lord of his being, he must be knower of self and Nature, jnata isvarah. Partially this may be done on a higher level of mind where it responds directly to supermind, but really and completely this perfection belongs not to the mental being, but to the ideal or knowledge Soul, vijnanamaya purusa. To draw up the mental into the greater knowledge being and that into the Bliss-Self of the spirit, anandamaya purusa, is the uttermost way of this perfection.
But no perfection, much less this perfection can be attained without a very radical dealing with the present nature and the abrogation of much that seems to be the fixed law of its complex nexus of mental, vital and physical being. The law of this nexus has been created for a definite and limited end, the temporary maintenance, preservation, possession, aggrandisement, enjoyment, experience, need, action of the mental ego in the living body. Other resultant uses are served, but this is the immediate and fundamentally determining object and utility. To arrive at a higher utility and freer instrumentation this nexus must be partly broken up, exceeded, transformed into a larger harmony of action. The Purusha sees that the law created is that of a partly stable, partly unstable selective determination of habitual, yet developing experiences out of a first confused consciousness of self and not-self, subjective being and external universe. This determination is managed by mind, life and body acting upon each other, in harmony and correspondence, but also in discord and divergence, mutual interference and limitation. There is a similar mixed harmony and discord between various activities of the mind in itself, as also between activities of the life in itself and of the physical being. The whole is a sort of disorderly order, an order evolved and contrived out of a constantly surrounding and invading confusion.
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[411] As I have said, the fact that one can get into this territory somehow or other does not mean that it belongs to me personally. The ego is Here and Now, but the outside-of-the-ego is an alien There, both earlier and later, before and after.176 So it is not surprising that the primitive mind senses the psyche outside the ego as an alien country, inhabited by the spirits of the dead. On a rather higher level it takes on the character of a shadowy semi-reality, and on the level of the ancient cultures the shadows of that land beyond have turned into ideas. In Gnostic-Christian circles these were developed into a dogmatic, hierarchically arranged cosmogonic and chiliastic system which appears to us moderns as an involuntary, symbolic statement of the psyche concerning the structure of the psychic non-ego.177
[412] This region, if still seen as a spectral land beyond, appears to be a whole world in itself, a macrocosm. If, on the other hand, it is felt as psychic and inside, it seems like a microcosm of the smallest proportions, on a par with the race of dwarfs in the casket, described in Goethes poem The New Melusine, or like the interior of the cucurbita in which the alchemists beheld the creation of the world, the marriage of the royal pair, and the homunculus.178 Just as in alchemical philosophy the Anthroparion or homunculus corresponds, as the lapis, to the Anthropos, so the chymical weddings have their dogmatic parallels in the marriage of the Lamb, the union of sponsus and sponsa, and the hierosgamos of the mother of the gods and the son.
4.09 - REGINA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[541] It would certainly be desirable if a psychological explanation and clarification could be given of what seems to be indicated by the mythologem of the marriage. But the psychologist does not feel responsible for the existence of what cannot be known; as the handmaid of truth he must be satisfied with establishing the existence of these phenomena, mysterious as they are. The union of conscious and unconscious symbolized by the royal marriage is a mythological idea which on a higher level assumes the character of a psychological concept. I must expressly emphasize that the psychological concept is definitely not derived from the mythologem, but solely from practical investigation of both the historical and the case material. What this empirical material looks like has been shown in the dream-series given in Psychology and Alchemy. It serves as a paradigm in place of hundreds of examples, and it may therefore be regarded as more than an individual curiosity.
[542] The psychological union of opposites is an intuitive idea which covers the phenomenology of this process. It is not an explanatory hypothesis for something that, by definition, transcends our powers of conception. For, when we say that conscious and unconscious unite, we are saying in effect that this process is inconceivable. The unconscious is unconscious and therefore can neither be grasped nor conceived. The union of opposites is a transconscious process and, in principle, not amenable to scientific explanation. The marriage must remain the mystery of the queen, the secret of the art, of which the Rosarium reports King Solomon as saying:
4.1.2.02 - The Three Transformations, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are three stages of the sadhana, psychic change, transition to the higher levels of consciousness - with a descent of their conscious forces - the supramental. In the last even the control over death is a later, not an initial stage. Each of these stages demands a great length of time and a high and long endeavour.
To be sthitaprajna merely means to have one's thinking mind settled in the spiritual consciousness in the realisation of Self. That does not necessarily transform the other parts of the nature. The bringing down of the Force and Light of the higher consciousness, the opening of the psychic and the centres of the mind, vital and physical, the consent and receptive opening of the nature to the workings of the psychic and the higher consciousness, finally the opening to the supramental are the conditions of transformation. What do you mean by "attaining" the higher consciousness? The higher consciousness is something above the mind, vital and body of the human being. It is wholly spiritual.
4.15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The most outward psychological form of these things is the mould or trend of the nature towards certain dominant tendencies, capacities, characteristics, form of active power, quality of the mind and inner life, cultural personality or type. The turn is often towards the predominance of the intellectual element and the capacities which make for the seeking and finding of knowledge and an intellectual creation or formativeness and a preoccupation with ideas and the study of ideas or of life and the information and development of the reflective intelligence. According to the grade of the development there is produced successively the make and character of the man of active, open, inquiring intelligence, then the intellectual and, last, the thinker, sage, great mind of knowledge. The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, for its communication to others, for its reign in the world, the reign of reason and right and truth and justice and, on a higher level of the harmony of our greater being, the reign of the spirit and its universal unity and light and love; a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge. If it is not there in all its sides, we have the imperfections or perversions of the type, a mere intellectuality or curiosity for ideas without ethical or other elevation, a narrow concentration on some kind of intellectual activity without the greater needed openness of mind, soul and spirit, or the arrogance and exclusiveness of the intellectual shut up in his intellectuality, or an ineffective idealism without any hold on life, or any other of the characteristic incompletenesses and limitations of the intellectual, religious, scientific or philosophic mind. These are stoppings short on the way or temporary exclusive concentrations, but a fullness of the divine soul and power of truth and knowledge in man is the perfection of this Dharma or Swabhava, the accomplished Brahminhood of the complete Brahmana.
On the other hand, the turn of the nature may be to the predominance of the will-force and the capacities which make for strength, energy, courage, leadership, protection, rule, victory in every kind of battle, a creative and formative action, the willpower which lays its hold on the material of life and on the wills of other men and compels the environment into the shapes which the shakti within us seeks to impose on life or acts powerfully according to the work to be done to maintain what is in being or to destroy it and make clear the paths of the world or to bring out into definite shape what is to be. This may be there in lesser or greater power or form and according to its grade and force we have successively the mere fighter or man of action, the man of self-imposing active will and personality and the ruler, conqueror, leader of a cause, creator, founder in whatever field of the active formation of life. The various imperfections of the soul and mind produce many imperfections and perversities of this type, -- the man of mere brute force of will, the worshipper of power without any other ideal or higher purpose, the selfish, dominant personality, the aggressive violent rajasic man, the grandiose egoist, the Titan, Asura, Rakshasa. But the soul-powers to which this type of nature opens on its higher grades are as necessary as those of the Brahmana to the perfection of our human nature. The high fearlessness which no danger or difficulty can daunt and which feels its power equal to meet and face and bear whatever assault of man or fortune or adverse gods, the dynamic audacity and daring which shrinks from no adventare or enterprise as beyond the powers of a human soul free from disabling weakness and fear, the love of honour which would scale the heights of the highest nobility of man and stoop to nothing little, base, vulgar or weak, but maintains untainted the ideal of high courage, chivalry, truth, straightforwardness, sacrifice of the lower to the higher self, helpfulness to men, unflinching resistance to injustice and oppression, self-control and mastery, noble leading, warriorhood and captainship of the journey and the battle, the high self-confidence of power, capacity, character and courage indispensable to the man of action, -- these are the things that build the make of the Kshatriya. To carry these things to their highest degree and give them a certain divine fullness, purity and grandeur is the perfection of those who have this Swabhava and follow this Dharma.
4.20 - The Intuitive Mind, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A second movement is one which comes naturally to those who commence the Yoga with the initiative that is proper to the way of Bhakti. It is natural to them to reject the intellect and its action and to listen for the voice, wait for the impulsion or the command, the adesa, obey only the idea and will and power of the Lord within them, the divine Self and Purusha in the heart of'lle creature, isvarah sarvabhutanam hrddese. This is a movement which must tend more and more to intuitivise the whole nature, for the ideas, the will, the impulsions, the feelings which come from the secret Purusha in the heart are of the direct intuitive character. This method is consonant with a certain truth of our nature. The secret Self within us is an intuitive self and this intuitive self is seated in every centre of our being, the physical, the nervous, the emotional, the volitional, the conceptual or cognitive and the higher more directly spiritual centres. And in each part of our being it exercises a secret intuitive initiation of our activities which is received and represented imperfectly by our outer mind and converted into the movements of the ignorance in the external action of these parts of our nature. The heart or emotional centre of the thinking desire-mind is the strongest in the ordinary man, gathers up or at least affects the presentation of things to the consciousness and is the capital of the system. It is from there that the Lord seated in the heart of all creatures turns them mounted on the machine of Nature by the Maya of the mental ignorance. It is possible then by referring back all the initiation of our action to this secret intuitive Self and Spirit, the ever-present Godhead within us, and replacing by its influences the initiations of our personal and mental nature to get back from the inferior external thought and action to another, internal and intuitive, of a highly spiritualised character. Nevertheless the result of this movement cannot be complete, because the heart is not the highest centre of our being, is not supramental nor directly moved from the supramental sources. An intuitive thought and action directed from it may be very luminous and intense but is likely to be limited, even narrow in its intensity, mixed with a lower emotional action and at the best excited and troubled, rendered unbalanced or exaggerated by a miraculous or abnormal character in its action or at least in many of its accompaniments which is injurious to the harmonised perfection of the being. The aim of our effort at perfection must be to make the spiritual and supramental action no longer a miracle, even if a frequent or constant miracle, or only a luminous intervention of a greater than our natural power, but normal to the being and the very nature and law of all its process. The highest organised centre of our embodied being and of its action in the body is the supreme mental centre figured by the yogic symbol of the thousand-petalled lotus, sahasradala, and it is at its top and summit that there is the direct communication with the supramental levels. It is then possible to adopt a different and a more direct method, not to refer all our thought and action to the Lord secret in the heart-lotus but to the veiled truth of the Divinity above the mind and to receive all by a sort of descent from above, a descent of which we become not only spiritually but physically conscious. The siddhi or full accomplishment of this movement can only come when we are able to lift the centre of thought and conscious action above the physical brain and feel it going on in the subtle body. If we can feel ourselves thinking no longer with the brain but from above and outside the head in the subtle body, that is a sure physical sign of a release from the limitations of the physical mind, and though this will not be complete at once nor of itself bring the supramental action, for the subtle body is mental and not supramental, still it is a subtle and pure mentality and makes an easier communication with the supramental centres. The lower movements must still come, but it is then found easier to arrive at a swift and subtle discrimination telling us at once the difference, distinguishing the intuitional thought from the lower intellectual mixture, separating it from its mental coatings, rejecting the mere rapidities of the mind which imitate the form of the intuition without being of its true substance. It will be easier to discern rapidly the higher planes of the true supramental being and call down their power to effect the desired transformation and to refer all the lower action to the superior power and light that it may reject and eliminate, purify and transform and select among them its right material for the Truth that has to be organised within us. This opening up of a higher level and of higher and higher planes of it and the consequent re-formation of our whole consciousness and its action into their mould and into the substance of their power and luminous capacity is found in practice to be the greater part of the natural method used by the divine shakti.
A fourth method is one which suggests itself naturally to the developed intelligence and suits the thinking man. This is to not to cherish its limitations, but to heighten its capacity, light, intensity, degree and force of activity until it borders on the thing that transcends it and can easily be taken up and transformed into that higher conscious action. This movement also is founded on the truth of our nature and enters into the course and movement of the complete Yoga of self-perfection. That course, as I have described it, included a heightening and greatening of the action of our natural instruments and powers till they constitute in their purity and essential completeness a preparatory perfection of the present normal movement of the shakti that acts in us. The reason and intelligent will, the Buddhi, is the greatest of these powers and instruments, the natural leader of the rest in the developed human being, the most capable of aiding the development of the others. The ordinary activities of our nature are all of them of use for the greater perfection we seek, are meant to be turned into material for them, and the greater their development, the richer the preparation for the supramental action.
4.23 - The supramental Instruments -- Thought-process, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The mental activity that can be most readily organised is, as has been already indicated, that of pure ideative knowledge. This is transformed on the higher level to the true jnana, supramental thought, supramental vision, the supramental knowledge by identity. The essential action of this supramental knowledge has been described in the preceding chapter. It is necessary however to see also how this knowledge works in outward application and how it deals with the data of existence. It differs from the action of the mind first in this respect that it works naturally with those operations that are to the mind the highest and the most difficult, acting in them or on them from above downward and not with the hampered straining upward of the mind or with its restriction to its own and the inferior levels. The higher operations are not dependent on the lower assistance, but rather the lower operations depend on the higher not only for their guidance but for their existence. The lower mental operations are therefore not only changed in character by the transformation, but are made entirely subordinate. And the higher mental operations too change their character, because, supramentalised, they begin to derive their light directly from the highest, the self-knowledge or infinite knowledge.
The normal thought-action of the mind may for this purpose be viewed as constituted of a triple motion. First and lowest and most necessary to the mental being in the body is the habitual thought mind that founds its ideas upon the data given by the senses and by the surface experiences of the nervous and emotional being and on the customary notions formed by the education and the outward life and environment. This habitual mind has two movements, one a kind of constant undercurrent of mechanically recurrent thought always repeating itself in the same round of physical, vital, emotional, practical and summarily intellectual notion and experience, the other more actively working upon all new experience that the mind is obliged to admit and reducing it to formulas of habitual thinking. The mentality of the average man is limited by this habitual mind and moves very imperfectly outside its circle.
4.3.1.06 - A Vision of the Universal Self, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
that Infinite. But in that Infinite there are higher and higher levels
and it is to these levels that the Mother was leading you when
4.4.2.07 - Ascent and Going out of the Body, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is no longer in the body or limited by it; it feels itself not only above it but extended in space; the body is below its high station and enveloped in its extended consciousness. Sometimes indeed the extension is felt only above on the higher level and the enveloping extension below comes only afterwards as a later experience. But the nature of it is to be definitive, it is not merely an experience but a realisation, a permanent change.
This brings a liberation from identification with the body which becomes only a circumstance in the largeness of the being, an instrumental part of it; or it is felt as something very small or
4.4.4.01 - The Descent of Peace, Force, Light, Ananda, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
and in it higher and higher levels above mind. Many people
get an opening into the cosmic consciousness first but without
4.4.4.08 - The Descent of Knowledge, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
a higher and higher level. First it is the higher or illumined
mind that predominates, then the intuition, next the overmind,
5.01 - EPILOGUE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
flesh ; then, on a still higher level, wickedness and the torture
of spirit as it analyses itself and makes choices. Statistically, at
5.02 - Perfection of the Body, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The essential purpose and sign of the growing evolution here is the emergence of consciousness in an apparently inconscient universe, the growth of consciousness and with it growth of the light and power of the being; the development of the form and its functioning or its fitness to survive, although indispensable, is not the whole meaning or the central motive. The greater and greater awakening of consciousness and its climb to a higher and higher level and a wider extent of its vision and action is the condition of our progress towards that supreme and total perfection which is the aim of our existence. It is the condition also of the total perfection of the body. There are higher levels of the mind than any we now conceive and to these we must one day reach and rise beyond them to the heights of a greater, a spiritual existence. As we rise we have to open to them our lower members and fill these with those superior and supreme dynamisms of light and power; the body we have to make a more and more and even entirely conscious frame and instrument, a conscious sign and seal and power of the spirit. As it grows in this perfection, the force and extent of its dynamic action and its response and service to the spirit must increase; the control of the spirit over it also must grow and the plasticity
532
--
If the emergence and growth of consciousness is the central motive of the evolution and the key to its secret purpose, then by the very nature of that evolution this growth must involve not only a wider and wider extent of its capacities, but also an ascent to a higher and higher level till it reaches the highest possible. For it starts from a nethermost level of involution in the Inconscience which we see at work in Matter creating the material universe; it proceeds by an Ignorance which is yet ever developing knowledge and reaching out to an ever greater light and ever greater organisation and efficacy of the will and harmonisation of all its own inherent and emerging powers; it must at last reach a point where it develops or acquires the complete fullness of its capacity, and that must be a state or action in which there is no longer an ignorance seeking for knowledge but Knowledge self-possessed, inherent in the being, master of
Perfection of the Body
5.03 - The Divine Body, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In any case these would be beginnings only and could not constitute the fullness of the divine life upon earth; it would be a new orientation of the earthly life but not the consummation of its change. For that there must be the sovereign reign of a supramental truth-consciousness to which all other forms of life would be subordinated and depend upon it as the master principle and supreme power to which they could look up as the goal, profit by its influences, be moved and upraised by something of its illumination and penetrating force. Especially, as the human body had to come into existence with its modification of the previous animal form and its erect figure of a new power of life and its expressive movements and activities serviceable and necessary to the principle of mind and the life of a mental being, so too a body must be developed with new powers, activities or degrees of a divine action expressive of a truth-conscious being and proper to a supramental consciousness and manifesting a conscious spirit. While the capacity for taking up and sublimating all the activities of the earth-life capable of being spiritualised must be there, a transcendence of the original animality and the actions incurably tainted by it or at least some saving transformation of them, some spiritualising or psychicising of the consciousness and motives animating them and the shedding of whatever could not be so transformed, even a change of what might be called its instrumental structure, its functioning and organisation, a complete and hitherto unprecedented control of these things must be the consequence or incidental to this total change. These things have been already to some extent illustrated in the lives of many who have become possessed of spiritual powers but as something exceptional and occasional, the casual or incomplete manifestation of an acquired capacity rather than the organisation of a new consciousness, a new life and a new nature. How far can such physical transformation be carried, what are the limits within which it must remain to be consistent with life upon earth and without carrying that life beyond the earthly sphere or pushing it towards the supra-terrestrial existence? The supramental consciousness is not a fixed quantity but a power which passes to higher and higher levels of possibility until it reaches supreme consummations of spiritual existence fulfilling supermind as supermind fulfils the ranges of spiritual consciousness that are pushing towards it from the human or mental level. In this progression the body also may reach a more perfect form and a higher range of its expressive powers, become a more and more perfect vessel of divinity.
***
5.05 - THE OLD ADAM, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[602] The old Adam corresponds to the primitive man, the shadow of our present-day consciousness, and the primitive man has his roots in the animal man (the tailed Adam),207 who has long since vanished from our consciousness. Even the primitive man has become a stranger to us, so that we have to rediscover his psychology. It was therefore something of a surprise when analytical psychology discovered in the products of the unconscious of modern man so much archaic material, and not only that but the sinister darkness of the animal world of instinct. Though instincts or drives can be formulated in physiological and biological terms they cannot be pinned down in that way, for they are also psychic entities which manifest themselves in a world of fantasy peculiarly their own. They are not just physiological or consistently biological phenomena, but are at the same time, even in their content, meaningful fantasy structures with a symbolic character. An instinct does not apprehend its object blindly and at random, but brings to it a certain psychic viewpoint or interpretation; for every instinct is linked a priori with a corresponding image of the situation, as can be proved indirectly in cases of the symbiosis of plant and animal. In man we have direct insight into that remarkable world of magical ideas which cluster round the instincts and not only express their form and mode of manifestation but trigger them off.208 The world of instinct, simple as it seems to the rationalist, reveals itself on the primitive level as a complicated interplay of physiological facts, taboos, rites, class-systems, and tribal lore, which impose a restrictive form on the instinct from the beginning, preconsciously, and make it serve a higher purpose. Under natural conditions a spiritual limitation is set upon the unlimited drive of the instinct to fulfil itself, which differentiates it and makes it available for different applications. Rites on a primitive level are uninterpreted gestures; on a higher level they become mythologized.
[603] The primary connection between image and instinct explains the interdependence of instinct and religion in the most general sense. These two spheres are in mutually compensatory relationship, and by instinct we must understand not merely Eros but everything that goes by the name of instinct.209 Religion on the primitive level means the psychic regulatory system that is coordinated with the dynamism of instinct. On a higher level this primary interdependence is sometimes lost, and then religion can easily become an antidote to instinct, whereupon the originally compensatory relationship degenerates into conflict, religion petrifies into formalism, and instinct is vitiated. A split of this kind is not due to a mere accident, nor is it a meaningless catastrophe. It lies rather in the nature of the evolutionary process itself, in the increasing extension and differentiation of consciousness. For just as there is no energy without the tension of opposites, so there can be no consciousness without the perception of differences. But any stronger emphasis of differences leads to polarity and finally to a conflict which maintains the necessary tension of opposites. This tension is needed on the one hand for increased energy production and on the other for the further differentiation of differences, both of which are indispensable requisites for the development of consciousness. But although this conflict is unquestionably useful it also has very evident disadvantages, which sometimes prove injurious. Then a counter-movement sets in, in the attempt to reconcile the conflicting parties. As this process has repeated itself countless times in the course of the many thousand years of conscious development, corresponding customs and rites have grown up for the purpose of bringing the opposites together. These reconciling procedures are rites performed by man, but their content is an act of help or reconciliation emanating from the divine sphere, whether in the present or in the past. Generally the rites are linked up with the original state of man and with events that took place in the age of the heroes or ancestors. This is as a rule a defective state, or a situation of distress, which is helped by divine intervention, and the intervention is repeated in the rite. To take a simple example: When the rice will not grow, a member of the rice-totem clan builds himself a hut in the rice-field and tells the rice how it originally grew from the rice-ancestor. The rice then remembers its origin and starts growing again. The ritual anamnesis of the ancestor has the same effect as his intervention.
[604] The prime situation of distress consists either in a withdrawal of the favourable gods and the emergence of harmful ones, or in the alienation of the gods by mans negligence, folly, or sacrilege, or else (as in the Taoist view) in the separation210 of heaven and earth for unfathomable reasons, so that they can now come together again only if the wise man re-establishes Tao in himself by ritual meditation. In this way he brings his own heaven and earth into harmony.211
5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
tal darkness. Only when his consciousness reached a higher level
could he detach the earlier state from himself and objectify it,
--
and higher level of consciousness enabled him to look back on
a lower and inferior state. It was only to be expected that a good
--
the fact that in the case of the trickster a higher level of con-
sciousness has covered up a lower one, and that the latter was
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
sudden growth represents the higher level or freeing of con-
sciousness induced by the movement to the right. For the same
7 - Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
is on a higher level of consciousness, that is to say, if he
wishes harm to none, is quite disinterested and indifferent
--
must be on a higher level than theirs. If you are one with
the others, level with them in nature and consciousness,
Appendix 4 - Priest Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
Casting a goodberry spell upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical. The caster (as well as any other caster of the same faith and 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. A detect magic spell discovers this also. Berries with the magic either enable a hungry creature of approximately man size to eat one and be as well-nourished as if a full normal meal were eaten, or else cure 1 point of physical damage from wounds or other similar causes, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.
The reverse of the spell, badberry, causes 2d4 rotten berries to appear wholesome, but each actually delivers 1 point of poison damage (no saving throw) if ingested.
--
Enchanted wood is affected only if the spellcaster is of higher level than the caster of the prior enchantment. The spellcaster has a 20% cumulative chance of success per level of difference (20% if one level higher, 40% if two levels higher, etc.). Thus, a door magically held or wizard locked by a 5th-level wizard is 40% likely to be affected by a warp wood spell cast by a 7th-level priest. Wooden magical items are considered enchanted at 12th level (or better). Extremely powerful items, such as artifacts, are unaffected by this spell.
The reversed spell, straighten wood, straightens bent or crooked wood, or reverses the effects of a warp wood spell, subject to the same restrictions.
--
Each effect or potion in the spell's area is checked to determine if it is dispelled. The caster can always dispel his own magic; otherwise, the chance depends on the difference in level between the magical effect and the caster. The base chance of successfully dispelling is 11 or higher on 1d20. If the caster is of higher level than the creator of the effect to be dispelled, the difference is subtracted from this base number needed. If the caster is of lower level, the difference is added to the base. A die roll of 20 always succeeds and a die roll of 1 always fails. Thus, if a caster is 10 levels higher than the magic he is trying to dispel, only a roll of 1 prevents the effect from being dispelled.
A dispel magic can affect only a specially enchanted item (such as a magical scroll, ring, wand, rod, staff, miscellaneous item, weapon, shield, or armor) if it is cast directly upon the item. This renders the item nonoperational for 1d4 rounds. An item possessed or carried by a creature has the creature's saving throw against this effect; otherwise, it is automatically rendered nonoperational. An interdimensional interface (such as a bag of holding) rendered nonoperational is temporarily closed. Note that an item's physical properties are unchanged: A nonoperational magical sword is still a sword.
--
Upon casting a speak with dead spell, the priest is able to ask several questions of a dead creature in a set period of time and receive answers according to the knowledge of that creature. Of course, the priest must be able to converse in the language that the dead creature once used. The length of time the creature has been dead is a factor, since only higher level priests can converse with a long-dead creature. The number of questions that can be answered and the length of time in which the questions can be asked depend on the level of experience of the priest. Even if the casting is successful, such creatures are as evasive as possible when questioned. The dead tend to give extremely brief and limited answers, often cryptic, and to take questions literally. Furthermore, their knowledge is often limited to what they knew in life.
A dead creature of different alignment or of higher level or Hit Dice than the caster's level receives a saving throw vs. spell. A dead creature that successfully saves can refuse to answer questions, ending the spell. At the DM's option, the casting of this spell on a given creature might be restricted to once per week.
The priest needs a holy symbol and burning incense in order to cast this spell upon the body, remains, or a portion thereof. The remains are not expended. This spell does not function under water.
--
By the use of this spell, the priest can transfer a limited number and selection of his currently memorized spells, and the ability to cast them, to another person. Only nonspellcasters (including rangers under 8th level and paladins under 9th level) can receive this bestowal; the imbue with spell ability enchantment does not function for those belonging to spellcasting classes, for unintelligent monsters, nor for any individual with less than 1 full Hit Die. In addition, the person thus imbued must have a Wisdom score of 9 or higher. Only priest spells of an informational or defensive nature or a cure light wounds spell can be transferred. Transferring any other spell type negates the entire attempt, including any allowable spells that were chosen. higher level persons can receive more than one spell at the priest's option:
Level of Recipient
--
The plant door spell opens a magical portal or passageway through trees, undergrowth, thickets, or any similar growth--even growth of a magical nature. The plant door is open to the caster who cast the spell, casters of a higher level, or dryads; others must be shown the location of the door. The door even enables the caster to enter a solid tree trunk and remain hidden there until the spell ends. The spell also enables the passage or hiding of any man-sized or smaller creature; hiding is subject to space considerations. If the tree is cut down or burned, those within must leave before the tree falls or is consumed, or else they are killed also. The duration of the spell is one turn per level of experience of the caster. If the caster opts to stay within an oak, the spell lasts nine times longer than normal; if within an ash tree, it lasts three times longer. The path created by the spell is up to 4 feet wide, 8 feet high, and 12 feet long per level of experience of the caster. This spell does not function on plant-based monsters (shambling mounds, molds, slimes, treants, etc.).
The material components for this spell are a piece of charcoal and the caster's holy symbol.
--
If cast upon an unwilling subject, the victim is allowed a saving throw. However, if the person quested agrees to a task--even if the agreement is gained by force or trickery--no saving throw is allowed. If a quest is just and deserved, a creature of the priest's religion cannot avoid it, and any creature of the priest's alignment saves with a -4 penalty to the saving throw. A quest cannot be dispelled, but it can be removed by a priest of the same religion or of higher level than the caster. Some artifacts and relics might negate the spell, as can direct intervention by a deity. Likewise, an unjust or undeserved quest grants bonuses to saving throws, or might even automatically fail.
The material component of this spell is the priest's holy symbol.
Blazing P2 - Map the Stages of Conventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
terms of its externals rather than in terms of feelings, in contrast to persons at higher levels.
Inner life he sees in banal terms such as happy, sad, glad, joy, sorrow, and love and
--
differences at higher levels.
A trait adjective common at this level, at least among women, is feminine. Different people
Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
cosmos as evolving to higher levels of consciousness and organization. The principle or end
of this evolution is love.
--
postulated to be the consciousness of animals, but at a much higher level, because animals
are in the Ground of All Being, but do not know the Ground of All Being. Unity
BOOK I. - Augustine censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the world, and especially the sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the gods, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those who are doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable opportunity, or because he fears they may be made worse by his rebuke, or that other weak persons may be disheartened from endeavouring to lead a good and pious life, and may be driven from the faith; this man's omission seems to be occasioned not by covetousness, but by a charitable consideration. But what is blameworthy is, that they who themselves revolt from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought to reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because[Pg 13] they fear to give offence, lest they should injure their interests in those things which good men may innocently and legitimately use,though they use them more greedily than becomes persons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope of a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren, who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have them), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle addresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how they should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the husbands with their wives, the children with their parents, and parents with their children, and servants with their masters, and masters with their servants,not only do these weaker brethren gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and temporal things on account of which they dare not offend men whose polluted and wicked life greatly displeases them; but those also who live at a higher level, who are not entangled in the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment, do often take thought of their own safety and good name, and abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them to such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet those very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission of, they often decline to find fault with, when possibly they might by finding fault prevent their commission. They abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good name are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of love.
Accordingly, this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good are chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit with temporal punishments the profligate manners of a community. They are punished together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because[Pg 14] the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind. These selfish persons have more cause to fear than those to whom it was said through the prophet, "He is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand."[46] For watchmen or overseers of the people are appointed in churches, that they may unsparingly rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of, who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of those with whom the relationships of this life bring him into contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet overlooks them, fearing to give offence, and lose such worldly blessings as may legitimately be desired, but which he too eagerly grasps. Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities the reason which Job's case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.[47]
r1912 12 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This was effected later in the day. The Master through the vani from above & by sukshma speech from outside began to manifest himself everywhere in a well-established stability with the character of youth & strength and as he manifests, the aspect of Love & Good Auspice manifests also . The first result has been a great increase in the satyam. The thought perception & trikaldrishti, as well as vani, became perfectly & minutely accurate for a time & continue to be so except, (1) in the more hasty perceptions, (2) in those which are still afflicted with doubt, (3) in the omission of important circumstances & their exact arrangement. When these are made perfectly effectual (and their survival in imperfection is a mere inert habit), the vijnana in its knowledge-side will be accomplishedonly the range will remain to be widened. The haste must make no difference to the truth, doubt must make no difference, omission of circumstance must not lead to incorrect conclusion, arrangement must be exact so far as it goes. It is now evident also that the knowledge was still acting on the levels of potentiality, where the thing arranged can be disturbed, because it is the arrangement of the Manishi, not the Kavi. It was, however, one of the higher levels on which the Manishi is strong in will, clearsighted in perception, but not able to embrace enough in his view (mahan, urushansa). The knowledge is now rising to the levels of the vijnana proper,becoming of the nature of vijnana and not only enlightened, helped or led by the vijnana. Power is working in the field of the Yogic karma, moulding the thoughts & feelings of others precisely in the immediate vicinity, but is not yet dominant in that province. It is reasserting its hold on immediately surrounding trifles.
Physical activity, 4 hours in the morning, 1 hours in the afternoon & from 5 to 11.30 with half an hours interval in the evening & night, 12 hours in all. The violent insistence of defect of anima became ineffective in the last period, but is still present in a modified form on the morning of the 20th. Sleep 6 hours.
r1914 03 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is now a double movement; the first, to replace the undefended intuitional ideality by an intuitional ideality defended by viveka; for it is found that when viveka is combined with the intuition (Daksha with Sarama), then there is less chance of the intellect misinterpreting or interfering with the truth. The second movement is to develop behind the higher or intuitional ideality an assistant revelatory (highest) ideality on a larger scale than any that has yet been manifested. Both, however, are on the lower rather than on the higher levels of their respective planes.
The difficulty now felt by the intellect with regard to the tapas, is why there should be insistence by the tapas on a movement not willed by God. So long as there is ignorance, the tapas may be exercised in the confidence that it is a means of Gods workings even when the event is to be the opposite of the result attempted; but in the present stage this rule no longer satisfies as a rule of action. It is evident that there is a movement towards the renunciation of preferential Tapas not in accordance with knowledge. It is not likely however that this movement will be seriously effective for some time to come. Still, from henceforth, intellectual tapas in action must be renounced, like intellectual tapas in knowledge.
r1914 07 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
On the contrary there is a distinct tendency for the Intelligence on a higher level of its secondary stage (sanu) to predominate, illuminated by vijnana, but always referring downwards, for the Mahasaraswati bhava to revive & replace or modify the Mahakali bhava & for the faith in rapidity to be replaced by the faith in a slow & gradual process. The persistence of these tendencies would mean the triumph of the old over the new & of the lower over the higher.
At the same time the vijnana proceeds with its organisation in knowledge, the telepathy is ever more comprehensive, telepathy of thought more & more justifies itself in spite of errors of reception, the sense of the triloka in Bhu becomes more & more ordinary & dominant. Tapas is attempting to change from the half-free, half-nervous method to a purer form of power; in the process its effectivity seems to have decreased or sometimes to be almost suspended. Rupa is still in the same condition of slow, arrested labour to advance.
--
This also has descended to the perception of the Lilamaya in the Jiva which is in the divine Lilamaya & reflects Him, but not, except in special perception, identical with him. The Master is once more a little remote & the Manomaya Purusha half veils the Vijnanamaya. There is continual advance & progress but on the old planes at a higher level & not on the new planes which seemed to have been permanently gained for the siddhi.
It is not precisely asiddhi that has conquered, but for the time being, a lower form of siddhi.
r1917 02 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(2) In swapna and sushupti all the elements, but not free in their manifestation, except continuity and stability of chhayamaya. Tejomaya has begun to be stable as chhayamaya tejomaya or tejomaya chhayamaya. At a higher level of tejas, it is sometimes stable, but only when the consciousness is not turned upon it; then it fades into the shadowy tejomaya.
Lipi in all three stages, but not copious; three kinds (1) self-writing, (2) written, (3) printed.
r1919 06 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ideality is now busy with the trikaldrishti, taking up and fighting all the old confusions. When done on the higher level, this process proceeds harmoniously with little flaw or mistake; on the lower level it is a slower progress of order in the midst of a chaos. All telepathies are now justified but at the moment the old intellectual intervention of false stress continually returns in a less or a greater degree. This difficulty is chiefly felt with regard to rapidly changing action.
Other defects of the ideality are also being taken up for correction
r1919 07 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The higher level of the thought and T is now (in the afternoon) beginning suddenly to rise to the revelatory inspired and inspired revelatory logistis. This is necessary in order that the inspired and intuitional inspired may take entirely the place of the intuitional thinking as the lower level of the thought process. This lower level represents the substitute for the former intellectually intuitive thought and uncertain telepathic perception, the thought of the possibility. The higher level rises towards the certitudes and more and more, as it rises in the scale, commands them in its light and power
Drishya of the panchabhuta, mass and karma, the pranic ether and some of its elementary incidents, wind, rain etc is now recommencing. This brings in three of the long suspended vishayas. The other vishayas are coming forward, but with no widening range. Sravana is the most difficult, because the physical ear is beset by physical sounds in the daytime and cannot easily distinguish the slighter subtle sonances.
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
the higher levels to turn to more challenging tasks. Thus the typist can
go on transcribing letters while t&inking of her boy friend; and the boy
--
a higher level; a progression from primordial unity through variety to
more complex patterns of unity-in-variety.
--
specialization foEowed by reintegrations on a higher level; from unity
to variety to more generalized patterns of unity-in-variety. The
--
servient to the co-ordinating centre on the next higher level In other
words it displays both self-assertive and participatory tendencies.
--
on a higher level of development at a higher turn of the spiral.
Until the end of the second or third year, while the separation of ego
--
synthesis, which in turn merges with others on a higher level of the
hierarchy; it is a process of successive confluences towards unitary,
--
new insight, regenerated on a higher level of integration.
The symbolic expressions of this pattern are as old as humanity. 1
--
pattern on a higher level of the perceptual hierarchy as far removed
from Freud's pleasure-principle as from the Oxford Dictionary's defini-
--
the next higher level as units. In every organic hierarchy, to para-
phrase Gertrude Stein's statement about the rose, a part is a whole is a
--
which functions at the higher levels do not deal directly with the ultimate
structural units, such as neurons or motor units, but operate by activa-
--
On the higher levels of the hierarchy, the autonomous function-
patterns of muscles and muscle-complexes are even more in evidence;
--
is control by a centre or system on the next higher level. The heart has
its own pacemaker-system which is in itself a threefold hierarchy;
--
of still higher levels. They are 'biassed homeostats* which can be 'set',
as a thermostat is 'set* by the tenant to keep a higher or lower room
--
but to the relation of a part to its controlling centre on the next higher level.
The stresses arise not between inputs 'competing for the final common
--
hierarchy; in other words a 'category c input on a higher level has
been translated into a 'category b' input on a lower level, activating
--
On higher levels of the evolutionary scale, regenerative processes
PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION
--
on the higher levels which co-ordinate the drive, and more rigid on
the lower levels. The autonomous sub-codes are restrained from
--
the consummatory act 21 The centres of the higher levels do control
purposive behaviour which is adaptive with regard to the mechanisms
--
one-way affair in the sense of higher levels in the hierarchy discharging
along fixed conduits into the lower level of consumxnatory acts, along
--
stimulus. The receptors are under efferent control from higher levels
of the central nervous system; the acceptance, suppression, or modi-
--
On higher levels of the animal kingdom the evidence becomes less
monotonous and depressing. What a relief to get out of the Skinner
--
art. These, of course, are activities on an incomparably higher level
than the play of kittens and birds; yet as Lorenz has pointed out, both
--
instruments, which are analysed on higher levels according to the
criteria of more complex rules of the game harmony, melodic, and
--
in all transformations. On a higher level, the tune as a whole again
PERCEPTION AND MEMORY
--
On an ever higher level, the concert pianist develops a repertory of
ceuvres that he can 'trigger off' as units and play by heart though
--
learning processes in the case of the cyclist starts on a higher level of
already integrated sub-skills, than in the examples previously dis-
--
to higher levels, and performance in the reverse direction, this does
not mean that in performing we run through the whole gamut of the
--
on a higher level than the purposive communication of dog or chimpanzee is the
varied combination of the same signs (words, pictures, gestures) for different pur-
--
of strategy on a higher level demand that each of these tactical rules
should be broken if the occasion warrants it. Sacrifices in material,
The Coming Race Contents, #The Coming Race, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
another. And as the higher level takes up
the law of the lower and evolves out of it a
--
the higher level with its characteristic func
tion is already involved and envisaged in the
The Riddle of this World, #unknown, #Unknown, #unset
and widening into the Light that one can reach those higher levels of
consciousness above the intellect from which one can begin to look up
--
descent; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at
the same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life,
The Shadow Out Of Time, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
and higher levels, and wide, cleared spaces amidst the gardens. The great roads held hints
of motion, but in the earlier visions I could not resolve this impression into details.
--
the higher level.
I knew, of course, that I had the four-foot cleft to re-cross, yet was too racked by other
--- Overview of adj high_level
The adj high-level has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. high-level, high-ranking, upper-level ::: (at an elevated level in rank or importance; "a high-level official"; "a high-level corporate briefing"; "upper-level management")
2. high-level, high-altitude ::: (occurring at or from a relative high altitude; "high-level bombing")
--- Similarity of adj high_level
2 senses of high-level
Sense 1
high-level, high-ranking, upper-level
=> superior (vs. inferior)
Sense 2
high-level, high-altitude
=> high (vs. low)
--- Antonyms of adj high_level
2 senses of high-level
Sense 1
high-level, high-ranking, upper-level
INDIRECT (VIA superior) -> inferior
Sense 2
high-level, high-altitude
INDIRECT (VIA high) -> low
--- Pertainyms of adj high_level
2 senses of high-level
Sense 1
high-level, high-ranking, upper-level
Sense 2
high-level, high-altitude
--- Derived Forms of adj high_level
Wikipedia - Biomagnification -- Any concentration of a toxin in tissues of tolerant organisms at successively higher levels in a food chain
Wikipedia - Intel Management Engine -- Firmware and software that runs on all modern Intel CPUs at a higher level than user-facing operating system
Wikipedia - ISO/IEC 2022 -- Higher-level 7-bit and 8-bit character encoding system
Wikipedia - Millicode -- Higher level of microcode
Wikipedia - Oxygen tent -- A canopy placed over a patient to provide oxygen at a higher level than normal
Wikipedia - Portfolio school -- Higher-level learning institution providing education for art and creative advertising
Wikipedia - Secondary education in the United States -- Last seven years of statutory formal education before higher level education
Wikipedia - SYCL -- Higher-level programming model for OpenCL
Wikipedia - Vocational school -- Higher-level learning institution providing education needed for specific occupations
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14796049-higher-level-trading
Psychology Wiki - Integral_psychology_(Sri_Aurobindo)#Higher_levels_of_Mind
Man Bites Dog(1992) - Woah! This film is so darkly comical it's set a higher level for films to work at. This movie actually won an oscar in the cannes film festival and was said to be probably the best film o
Sol Bianca -- -- AIC -- 2 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Space -- Sol Bianca Sol Bianca -- Five female pirates pilot the Sol Bianca, a starship with a higher level of technology than any other known. With it, they seek out riches, such as the Gnosis, an legendary item of power, and pasha, the most valuable mineral in the galaxy. Along the way, they must consider a stowaway's quest to save the one he loves, and seek revenge against those that have wronged them. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- OVA - Mar 21, 1990 -- 4,975 6.34
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hwdetect#Higher_level_modules
Hong Kong Higher Level Examination
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