absolute ::: adj. 1. Free from all imperfection or deficiency; complete, finished; perfect, consummate. 2. Of degree: Complete, entire; in the fullest sense. 3. Having ultimate power, governing totally; unlimited by a constitution or the concurrent authority of a parliament; arbitrary, despotic. 4. Existing without relation to any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing. 5. Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned. 6. Considered independently of its being subjective or objective. n. 7. Something that is not dependent upon external conditions for existence or for its specific nature, size, etc. (opposed to relative). Absolute, Absolute"s, absolutes, absoluteness.
adj. 1. Beautiful. 2. Fine, bright, sunny. 3. Free from blemish, imperfection, or anything that impairs the appearance, quality, or character. 4. Of pleasing form or appearance. 5. Neither excellent nor poor; moderately or tolerably good. fairer.* *n. 6.* That which is fair (in senses of the adj.*).
asiddhi ::: failure; imperfection; negation of siddhi; denial of progress in yoga, relapse; the power that works against the achievement of perfection in the yoga or in any part of the yoga.
At the beginning the soul in Nature, the psychic entity, whose unfolding is the first step towards a spiritual change, is an entirely veiled part of us, although it is that by which we exist and persist as individual beings in Nature. The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame. This spiritual stuff is immaculate and luminous and, because it is perfectly luminous, it is immediately, intimately, directly aware of truth of being and truth of nature; it is deeply conscious of truth and good and beauty because truth and good and beauty are akin to its own native character, forms of something that is inherent in its own substance. It is aware also of all that contradicts these things, of all that deviates from its own native character, of falsehood and evil and the ugly and the unseemly; but it does not become these things nor is it touched or changed by these opposites of itself which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation of mind, life and body. For the soul, the permanent being in us, puts forth and uses mind, life and body.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 924-25
imperfection ::: 1. The quality or condition of being imperfect; incomplete; defective. 2. Something imperfect; a defect or flaw. imperfection"s, imperfections.
imperfection ::: a. --> The quality or condition of being imperfect; want of perfection; incompleteness; deficiency; fault or blemish.
". . . imperfection is not a thing to be at all deplored, but rather a privilege and a promise, for it opens out to us an immense vista of self-development and self-exceeding.” The Human Cycle etc.*
“… imperfection is not a thing to be at all deplored, but rather a privilege and a promise, for it opens out to us an immense vista of self-development and self-exceeding.” The Human Cycle etc.
imperfection ::: “… our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; …” The Life Divine
(b) In theology: Mediation is an important aspect of the doctrine and practice of many religions; particularly in Judaism and Christianity because of the Transcendency of God and the imperfection of men. Mediation is an important function of Christ; as the God-Man, He is eminently fitted to form the connecting link between God and creatures; His Incarnation is considered as supplying the means (i.e. media) of salvation to man. -- V.J.B.
blur ::: v. t. --> To render obscure by making the form or outline of confused and uncertain, as by soiling; to smear; to make indistinct and confused; as, to blur manuscript by handling it while damp; to blur the impression of a woodcut by an excess of ink.
To cause imperfection of vision in; to dim; to darken.
To sully; to stain; to blemish, as reputation. ::: n.
But at the same time there is a fivefold grouping which in contrast with the sevenfold denotes evil and imperfection (cf SD 2:575-6).
cold-shut ::: a. --> Closed while too cold to become thoroughly welded; -- said of a forging or casting. ::: n. --> An imperfection caused by such insufficient welding.
decay ::: v. i. --> To pass gradually from a sound, prosperous, or perfect state, to one of imperfection, adversity, or dissolution; to waste away; to decline; to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay; hopes decay. ::: v. t. --> To cause to decay; to impair.
defect ::: an imperfection that causes inadequacy or failure; a shortcoming.
defectibility ::: n. --> Deficiency; imperfection.
defect ::: n. --> Want or absence of something necessary for completeness or perfection; deficiency; -- opposed to superfluity.
Failing; fault; imperfection, whether physical or moral; blemish; as, a defect in the ear or eye; a defect in timber or iron; a defect of memory or judgment. ::: v. i.
defectuosity ::: n. --> Great imperfection.
deficiency ::: n. --> The state of being deficient; inadequacy; want; failure; imperfection; shortcoming; defect.
demand and the full dedication of all you possess and receive and all your power of acquisition to the Divine Shakti and her work are the signs of this freedom. Any perturbation of mind with regard to money and its use, any claim, any grudging is a sure index of some imperfection or bondage.
detached ::: 1. Impartial or objective; disinterested; unbiased. 2. Not involved or concerned; aloof. ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Detachment means that one stands back from [imperfections and weakness of the nature, etc.] , does not identify oneself with them or get upset or troubled because they are there, but rather looks on them as something foreign to one"s true consciousness and true self, rejects them and calls in the Mother"s Force into these movements to eliminate them and bring the true consciousness and its movements there.” Letters on Yoga
detached ::: “Detachment means that one stands back from [imperfections and weakness of the nature, etc.] , does not identify oneself with them or get upset or troubled because they are there, but rather looks on them as something foreign to one’s true consciousness and true self, rejects them and calls in the Mother’s Force into these movements to eliminate them and bring the true consciousness and its movements there.” Letters on Yoga
dosha&
emaculate ::: v. t. --> To clear from spots or stains, or from any imperfection.
failing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Fail ::: n. --> A failing short; a becoming deficient; failure; deficiency; imperfection; weakness; lapse; fault; infirmity; as, a mental failing.
The act of becoming insolvent of bankrupt.
fair ::: superl. --> Free from spots, specks, dirt, or imperfection; unblemished; clean; pure.
Pleasing to the eye; handsome; beautiful.
Without a dark hue; light; clear; as, a fair skin.
Not overcast; cloudless; clear; pleasant; propitious; favorable; -- said of the sky, weather, or wind, etc.; as, a fair sky; a fair day.
Free from obstacles or hindrances; unobstructed;
fault ::: a defect, imperfection, flaw, failing.
flaw ::: a feature that mars the perfection of something; an imperfection, defect, or blemish.
Gum's cr.padfiet ::: One can lia*c a Guru •■'/crK'f n tpiD- lual capacity (to onc\clf or to other Gunn) carry trp in h'-n tnjf) human imperfectiona and >cl, if ymi hue the faitS. ihf«rj;h attain to ■.p'mtual cspcticricc^. to ipnituai irafnatlfm. enm Srfo'r tlic Guru himveU.
He taught that the primal cause, which he names Bythos (depth), manifested itself as the pleroma (fullness), the sum total of all manifestation. His teachings on pleroma are defined by a vast, intricate diagrammatic scheme, representing a process of emanation on a hierarchical plan with threefold, sevenfold, tenfold, and twelvefold hierarchies; mankind itself forming a lower branch of these hierarchies. Thus he is enabled to explain the origin of mixture or evil, and to reconcile the goodness of God with the imperfection of nature by pointing to minor demiurgic creators; thus too he can give the true meaning of Christ and redemption.
humility ::: n. --> The state or quality of being humble; freedom from pride and arrogance; lowliness of mind; a modest estimate of one&
Illness marks some imperfection or weakness or else opening to adverse touches in the physical nature and is often connected also with some obscurity or dlsbannony in the low'd vital or the phj^ical mind or elsewhere.
Immortality ::: A term signifying continuous existence or being; but this understanding of the term is profoundlyillogical and contrary to nature, for there is nothing throughout nature's endless and multifarious realmsof being and existence which remains for two consecutive instants of time exactly the same.Consequently, immortality is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusory phantom of reality. When thestudent of the esoteric wisdom once realizes that continuous progress, i.e., continuous change inadvancement, is nature's fundamental procedure, he recognizes instantly that continuous remaining in anunchanging or immutable state of consciousness or being is not only impossible, but in the last analysis isthe last thing that is either desirable or comforting. Fancy continuing immortal in a state of imperfection such as we human beingsexemplify -- which is exactly what the usual acceptance of this term immortality means. The highest godin highest heaven, although seemingly immortal to us imperfect human beings, is nevertheless anevolving, growing, progressing entity in its own sublime realms or spheres, and therefore as the ages passleaves one condition or state to assume a succeeding condition or state of a nobler and higher type;precisely as the preceding condition or state had been the successor of another state before it.Continuous or unending immutability of any condition or state of an evolving entity is obviously animpossibility in nature; and when once pondered over it becomes clear that the ordinary acceptance ofimmortality involves an impossibility. All nature is an unending series of changes, which means all thehosts or multitudes of beings composing nature, for every individual unit of these hosts is growing,evolving, i.e., continuously changing, therefore never immortal. Immortality and evolution arecontradictions in terms. An evolving entity means a changing entity, signifying a continuous progresstowards better things; and evolution therefore is a succession of state of consciousness and being afteranother state of consciousness and being, and thus throughout duration. The Occidental idea of staticimmortality or even mutable immortality is thus seen to be both repellent and impossible.This doctrine is so difficult for the average Occidental easily to understand that it may be advisable onceand for all to point out without mincing of words that just as complete death, that is to say, entireannihilation of consciousness, is an impossibility in nature, just so is continuous and unchangingconsciousness in any one stage or phase of evolution likewise an impossibility, because progress ormovement or growth is continuous throughout eternity. There are, however, periods more or less long ofcontinuance in any stage or phase of consciousness that may be attained by an evolving entity; and thehigher the being is in evolution, the more its spiritual and intellectual faculties have been evolved orevoked, the longer do these periods of continuous individual, or perhaps personal, quasi-immortalitycontinue. There is, therefore, what may be called relative immortality, although this phrase is confessedlya misnomer.Master KH in The Mahatma Letters, on pages 128-30, uses the phrase ``panaeonic immortality" tosignify this same thing that I have just called relative immortality, an immortality -- falsely so called,however -- which lasts in the cases of certain highly evolved monadic egos for the entire period of amanvantara, but which of necessity ends with the succeeding pralaya of the solar system. Such a periodof time of continuous self-consciousness of so highly evolved a monadic entity is to us humans actually arelative immortality; but strictly and logically speaking it is no more immortality than is the ephemeralexistence of a butterfly. When the solar manvantara comes to an end and the solar pralaya begins, evensuch highly evolved monadic entities, full-blown gods, are swept out of manifested self-consciousexistence like the sere and dried leaves at the end of the autumn; and the divine entities thus passing outenter into still higher realms of superdivine activity, to reappear at the end of the pralaya and at the dawnof the next or succeeding solar manvantara.The entire matter is, therefore, a highly relative one. What seems immortal to us humans would seem tobe but as a wink of the eye to the vision of super-kosmic entities; while, on the other hand, the span ofthe average human life would seem to be immortal to a self-conscious entity inhabiting one of theelectrons of an atom of the human physical body.The thing to remember in this series of observations is the wondrous fact that consciousness frometernity to eternity is uninterrupted, although by the very nature of things undergoing continuous andunceasing change of phases in realization throughout endless duration. What men call unconsciousness ismerely a form of consciousness which is too subtle for our gross brain-minds to perceive or to sense or tograsp; and, secondly, strictly speaking, what men call death, whether of a universe or of their ownphysical bodies, is but the breaking up of worn-out vehicles and the transference of consciousness to ahigher plane. It is important to seize the spirit of this marvelous teaching, and not allow the imperfectbrain-mind to quibble over words, or to pause or hesitate at difficult terms.
IMPERFECTIONS. ::: To sec them clearly and acknowledge them is the first step ; to have the firm will to reject them is the next ; to separate yourself from them entirely so that if they enter at all it will be as foreign elements, no longer parts of your normal nature but suggestions from outside, brings their Iasi state ; even, once seen and rejected, they may automatically fall away and disappear.
Indeterminacy Used in science to mean that the investigation of intra-atomic phenomena has (for the time being) reached the limits of human power to determine the behavior of a particle. The Heisenberg principle of uncertainty states that it is impossible to increase the accuracy of measurement of the velocity of a particle without by this very observational act introducing an uncertainty into the determination of its position. The attempt to represent phenomena as a chain of cause and effect must lead sooner or later to a point where we can no longer trace the cause — not because causes vanish, but because of the imperfection of our observation and of our instruments, so that the chain of causation continues until we lose track of it because of incapacity. Hence we are unable to predict the behavior of a particle. Subsequent investigation may enable us to carry the chain of causation farther, but the process cannot go on indefinitely without carrying us beyond the physical plane. The standards of measurement successfully adopted for molar physics and for phenomena within terrestrial limits have proved inadequate for the definition of phenomena outside those limits; and both theory and experiment show that these standards are largely conceptual and must be changed to suit new conditions.
• individual being is subjected to Nature which acts here as the lower Prakriti, a force of Ignorance, Avidya. The Purusha in itself is divine, but exteriorised in the ignorance of Nature it is the individual apparent being imperfect with her imperfection.
infirmity ::: a. --> The state of being infirm; feebleness; an imperfection or weakness; esp., an unsound, unhealthy, or debilitated state; a disease; a malady; as, infirmity of body or mind.
A personal frailty or failing; foible; eccentricity; a weakness or defect.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
It is a wTong attitude to put too much stress either on them or on the difficulties they create, or to distrust the Divine work- ing because of the difficulties one experiences, or to lay too continual an emphasis on the dark side of things. To do this increases the force of the difficulties, gives a heater right of continuance to the imperfections.
"It is He that has gone abroad — That which is bright, bodi-less, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker,(1) the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.” The Upanishads
“It is He that has gone abroad—That which is bright, bodi-less, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker,(1) the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.” The Upanishads
“It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truth-consciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.” The Supramental Manifestation
It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truthconsciousness, and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truthconsciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit to conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must to that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 13, Page: 536-37
Jhumur: “The soul has made this sacrifice of entering into darkness and now it has to pay the price of pain and suffering and work its way up. But each time it makes some kind of forward progress, more darkness, constantly more unconscious movements, imperfections, pile up. One might say the price that the spirit has to pay for having made this daring descent keeps on going up. It is like a very long journey and she [Savitri] has come to strike that out.”
Market imperfection - Any factor which hinders the free operation of markets, such as where one firm dominates resulting in exploitation.
Matter: That the defining characteristic of which is extension, occupancy of space, mass, weight, motion, movability, inertia, resistance, impenetrability, attraction and repulsion, or their combinations; these characteristics or powers themselves; the extra-mental cause of sense experience; what composes the "sensible world"; the manipulate; the permanent (or relatively so); the public (accessible to more than one knower, non-pn'vate); the physical or non-mental; the physical, bodily, or non-spiritual; the relatively worthless or base; the inanimate; the worldly or natural (non-supernatural); the wholly or relatively indeterminate; potentiality for receiving form or what has that potentiality; that which in union with form constitutes an individual; differentiating content as against form; the particular as against the universal; the manifold of sensation; the given element in experience as against that supplied by mind; that of which something consists; that from which a thing develops or is made; the first existent or primordial stuff; what is under consideration. Philosophers conceive matter as appearance or privation of reality, as one or the only reality; as the principle of imperfection and limitation, as potentially or sometimes good; as substance, process, or content; as points, atoms, substrata, or other media endowed with powers mentioned above. -- M.T.K.
Maya(Sanskrit) ::: The word comes from the root ma, meaning "to measure," and by a figure of speech it alsocomes to mean "to effect," "to form," and hence "to limit." There is an English word mete, meaning "tomeasure out," from the same IndoEuropean root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, in theGreek as med, and it is found in the Latin also in the same form.Ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy maya was understood very differently from what it isnow usually understood to be. As a technical term, maya has come to mean the fabrication by man's mindof ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, hence the illusory aspect of man's thoughts as heconsiders and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings; and thence was derived thesense which it technically bears, "illusion." It does not mean that the exterior world is nonexistent; if itwere, it obviously could not be illusory. It exists, but is not. It is "measured out" or is "limited," or itstands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in theirreality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye.The familiar illustrations of maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanicalteachings have taken and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: Aman at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope isthere, but no serpent. The second illustration is what is called the "horns of the hare." The animal calledthe hare has no horns, but when it also is seen at eventide, its long ears seem to project from its head insuch fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns,but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there.That is what maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mindperverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the realinterpretation and meaning of the world or of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by risingup, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards towards thatplane where truth abides in fullness.H. P. Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine:Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism -- though it regards the objectiveUniverse and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion -- draws a practical distinction betweencollective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objectiverelations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.The teaching is that maya is thus called from the action of mulaprakriti or root-nature, the coordinateprinciple of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call parabrahman. From the momentwhen manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say that everything in nature from that pointonwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good andevil, consciousness and nonconsciousness, etc., and that all these things are essentially mayic or illusory-- real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that theself-conscious soul learns truth. It might be said, in conclusion, that another and very convenient way ofconsidering maya is to understand it to mean "limitation," "restriction," and therefore imperfect cognitionand recognition of reality. The imperfect mind does not see perfect truth. It labors under an illusioncorresponding with its own imperfections, under a maya, a limitation. Magical practices are frequentlycalled maya in the ancient Hindu books.
Mortal mind: In Christian Science, “that self-contradictory consciousness with which the individual mortal man identifies himself, unless by education and religious craving for metaphysical completeness he recognizes its fallacious character. It has a certain resemblance to Maya (q.v.). Christian Science explains that mortal mind consciousness is an erroneous point of view, and asserts that all imperfection, evil, physical objectivity seen as matter, are misrepresentations of a metaphysically perfect universe. Mortal mind stands in opposition to the ethical nature of the metaphysical universe.” (H. W. Steiger.)
Nature ::: The consciousness side of nature is composed of vast hierarchies of gods, developed cosmical spirits,spiritual entities, cosmic graduates in the university of life. The material side of nature is theheterogeneous matter, the material world in its many various planes, in all stages of imperfection -- butall these stages filled with armies of entities evolving and growing. The proper term for nature in moderntheosophical usage is prakriti or still more accurately mulaprakriti -- the ever-living kosmic producer, theeternally fecund mother, of the universe. When a theosophist speaks of nature, unless he limits the termto the physical world, he never means the physical world alone, but the vast reaches of universal kosmosand more particularly the inner realms, the causal factors of the boundless All. Hence, a growingunderstanding of nature in this sense -- which is another way of saying an understanding of reality -obviously provides the only basis of a religion founded on the changeless realities.
ordure ::: n. --> Dung; excrement; faeces.
Defect; imperfection; fault.
::: "Out of imperfection we have to construct perfection, out of limitation to discover infinity, out of death to find immortality, out of grief to recover divine bliss, out of ignorance to rescue divine self-knowledge, out of matter to reveal Spirit. To work out this end for ourselves and for humanity is the object of our Yogic practice.” *Essays Divine and Human
“Out of imperfection we have to construct perfection, out of limitation to discover infinity, out of death to find immortality, out of grief to recover divine bliss, out of ignorance to rescue divine self-knowledge, out of matter to reveal Spirit. To work out this end for ourselves and for humanity is the object of our Yogic practice.” Essays Divine and Human
parisuddhabuddhaksetra. (T. sangs rgyas kyi shing yongs su dag pa; C. qingjing foguotu; J. shojo bukkokudo; K. ch'ongjong pulgukt'o 清淨佛國土). In Sanskrit, "purified buddha-field." In the MAHĀYĀNA, when a buddha attains enlightenment, he not only achieves the three bodies (TRIKĀYA) of a buddha, but also creates a land in which he will preach the dharma. That land can be either pure, impure, or mixed. A pure buddha field may be one in which the inhabitants engage in only virtuous deeds and experience no suffering. The term is also used to describe a buddha-field that does not include the unfortunate realms (APĀYA; DURGATI) of animals, ghosts, and hell denizens. The buddha-field of Amitābha, SUKHĀVATĪ, is a pure field in these two senses (although the term parisuddhabuddhaksetra does not appear in the SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA). The term may also be used with regard to whether the inhabitants of the buddha-field are all BODHISATTVAs, or all ĀRYABODHISATTVAs, that is, those who have achieved at least the first BHuMI. It is possible that the Chinese term JINGTU (the source of the English term "PURE LAND"), which does not appear to be a direct translation from Sanskrit, derives from parisuddhabuddhaksetra, perhaps as an abbreviation of it. In the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA's explanation of the PANCAVIMsATISĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA, the parisuddhabuddhaksetra is twofold, corresponding to the BHĀJANALOKA ("container world," referring to the wider environment or the physical or inanimate world) and the SATTVALOKA, the "world of sentient beings," who are the inhabitants of that "container." A degraded environment with treeless deserts, thornbushes, and so on is impure; when beings are sick and hungry, etc., the sattvaloka is impure. The perfect purity of a buddha-field comes about when a bodhisattva achieves the purity of those two worlds by counteracting their imperfections through the creation of an entirely pleasant environment, and through the supply of food, clothing, shelter, etc.
purify ::: v. t. --> To make pure or clear from material defilement, admixture, or imperfection; to free from extraneous or noxious matter; as, to purify liquors or metals; to purify the blood; to purify the air.
Hence, in figurative uses: (a) To free from guilt or moral defilement; as, to purify the heart.
To free from ceremonial or legal defilement.
To free from improprieties or barbarisms; as, to purify
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; . . . .” *The Life Divine
Statement: See Meaning, Kinds of, 1. Statistics: The systematic study of quantitative facts, numerical data, comparative materials, obtained through description and interpretation of group phenomena. The method of using and interpreting processes of classification, enumeration, measurement and evaluation of group phenomena. In a restricted sense, the materials, facts or data referring to group phenomena and forming the subject of systematic computation and interpretation. The Ground of Statistics. Statistics have developed from a specialized application of the inductive principle which concludes from the characteristics of a large number of parts to those of the whole. When we make generalizations from empirical data, we are never certain of having expressed adequately the laws connecting all the relevant and efficient factors in the case under investigation. Not only have we to take into account the personal equation involved and the imperfection of our instru ments of observation and measurement, but also the complex character of physical, biological, psychological and social phenomena which cannot be subjected to an exhaustive analysis. Statistics reveals precisely definite trends and frequencies subject to approximate laws, in these various fields in which phenomena result from many independently varying factors and involve a multitude of numerical units of variable character. Statistics differs fiom probability insofar as it makes a more consistent use of empirical data objectively considered, and of methods directly inspired by the treatment of these data.
Supermind ::: The Supermind [Supramental consciousness] is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights, it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness. All the life and action and leading of the Supermind is guarded in its very nature from the falsehoods and uncertainties that are our lot; it moves in safety towards its perfection. Once the truth-consciousness was established here on its own sure foundation, the evolution of divine life would be a progress in felicity, a march through light to Ananda. Supermind is an eternal reality of the divine Being and the divine Nature. In its own plane it already and always exists and possesses its own essential law of being; it has not to be created or to emerge or evolve into existence out of involution in Matter or out of non-existence, as it might seem to the view of mind which itself seems to its own view to have so emerged from life and Matter or to have evolved out of an involution in life and Matter. The nature of Supermind is always the same, a being of knowledge, proceeding from truth to truth, creating or rather manifesting what has to be manifested by the power of a pre-existent knowledge, not by hazard but by a self-existent destiny in the being itself, a necessity of the thing in itself and th
refore inevitable. Its -manifestation of the divine life will also be inevitable; its own life on its own plane is divine and, if Supermind descends upon the earth, it will bring necessarily the divine life with it and establish it here. Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life. It is indeed so that life and mind involved in Matter have realised themselves here; for only what is involved can evolve, otherwise there could be no emergence. The manifestation of a supramental truth-consciousness is th
refore the capital reality that will make the divine life possible. It is when all the movements of thought, impulse and action are governed and directed by a self-existent and luminously automatic truth-consciousness and our whole nature comes to be constituted by it and made of its stuff that the life divine will be complete and absolute. Even as it is, in reality though not in the appearance of things, it is a secret self-existent knowledge and truth that is working to manifest itself in the creation here. The Divine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality and it is this reality that we have to manifest; it is that which constitutes the urge towards the divine living and makes necessary the creation of the life divine even in this material existence. A manifestation of the Supermind and its truth-consciousness is then inevitable; it must happen in this world sooner or later. But it has two aspects, a descent from above, an ascent from below, a self-revelation of the Spirit, an evolution in Nature. The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolutionary or revolutionary change, conversion or transformation into the divine reality and it may happen by a process and progress or by a rapid miracle. The descent or self-revelation of the Spirit is an act of the supreme Reality from above which makes the realisation possible and it can appear either as the divine aid which brings about the fulfilment of the progress and process or as the sanction of the miracle. Evolution, as we see it in this world, is a slow and difficult process and, indeed, needs usually ages to reach abiding results; but this is because it is in its nature an emergence from inconscient beginnings, a start from nescience and a working in the ignorance of natural beings by what seems to be an unconscious force. There can be, on the contrary, an evolution in the light and no longer in the darkness, in which the evolving being is a conscious participant and cooperator, and this is precisely what must take place here. Even in the effort and progress from the Ignorance to Knowledge this must be in part if not wholly the endeavour to be made on the heights of the nature, and it must be wholly that in the final movement towards the spiritual change, realisation, transformation. It must be still more so when there is a transition across the dividing line between the Ignorance and the Knowledge and the evolution is from knowledge to greater knowledge, from consciousness to greater consciousness, from being to greater being. There is then no longer any necessity for the slow pace of the ordinary evolution; there can be rapid conversion, quick transformation after transformation, what would seem to our normal present mind a succession of miracles. An evolution on the supramental levels could well be of that nature; it could be equally, if the being so chose, a more leisurely passage of one supramental state or condition of things to something beyond but still supramental, from level to divine level, a building up of divine gradations, a free growth to the supreme Supermind or beyond it to yet undreamed levels of being, consciousness and Ananda.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 13, Page: 558-62
Surrender ::: There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature.The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychics should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be inno part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or
refuses.If part of the being surrenders, but another part reserves itself, follows its own way or makes its own conditions, then each time that that happens, you are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you.If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put these things in place of the true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose them on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the divine Grace to transform you.If you open yourself on one side or in one part to the Truth and on another side are constantly opening the gates to hostile forces, it is vain to expect that the divine Grace will abide with you. You must keep the temple clean if you wish to install there the living Presence.If each time the Power intervenes and brings in the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has been expelled, it is not the divine Grace that you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection of your own surrender.If you call for the Truth and yet something in you chooses what is false, ignorant and undivine or even simply is unwilling to reject it altogether, then always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you. Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you rightly call for the divine Power to transform you.Do not imagine that truth and falsehood, light and darkness, surrender and selfishness can be allowed to dwell together in the house consecrated to the Divine. The transformation must be integral, and integral th
refore the rejection of all that withstands it.The Mother
Swabhava ::: Swabhava means one thing in the highest spiritual nature and takes quite another form and significance in the lower nature of the three gunas. There too it acts, but is not in full possession of itself, is seeking as it were for its own true law in a half light or a darkness and goes on its way through many lower forms, many false forms, endless imperfections, perversions, self-losings, self-findings, seekings after norm and rule before it arrives at self-discovery and perfection. Our nature here is amixed weft of knowledge and ignorance, of truth and falsehood, of success and failure, of right and wrong, of finding and losing, of sin and virtue.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 19, Page: 520-21
"The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.” *The Life Divine
“The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.” The Life Divine
The psychic part oS us is something that comes direct from the Divine and is in touch with the Divine. In its origin Jt is the nucleus pregnant with divine possibilities that supports this lower triple ma^estation of mind, life and body. There is this divine element in all living beings, but it stands bidden behind the ordinary cemsdousness, is not at first developed and, even when developed, is not always or often in the front ; it expresses itself so far as the imperfection of the instruments anon’s, by their means and imdcr their limitations. It grows in the cons- ciousness by Godward experience, gaining strength every time there is a Wgher movement in us, and, finally, by the accumu- lation of these deeper and higher movements, there is developed a psychic individuality, — that which we call usually the psychic being, ft is afways tius p^-chic hem? ffcif £f c&e reaf, often the secret cause of man’s turning to the spiritual life and his greatest help in it.
There is an automatic phase of free will in the purposeful instinct which marks the various activities of even minute and lowly forms of life. The unself-conscious beasts are protected, and therefore guided, by the wills of celestial beings who make the so-called laws of nature, yet even the beasts instinctively choose to run true to their own inner types or svabhava. They unconsciously will to be themselves and to copy no other. They have free will exactly in proportion to their consciousness, just as any person has it in the higher degrees of his intelligence and more active intuition. Thus human beings have the power to work out their evolution, for the kingdom of heaven is taken by strength. The gods have gone ahead on the pathway towards omniscience — so far as our universe is concerned — by their own individual efforts consciously to act with an ever-enlarging measure of harmony with the one divine will. Thus the volume or power of free will is in strict proportion with the degree in which the entity has brought forth the central spark of divine willing fire which animates all that is. Nevertheless no single being or entity has completely unfettered and perfectly irresponsible free will, because of its relative imperfection and because of its inescapable subordination to greater wills, each such entity ever evolving from its stage of imperfection as it ascends along the scales of being: those on the higher rungs of the hierarchical ladder consciously willing in ever-enlarging degree to follow the greater divine will which holds all in its keeping.
The rudras here are collectively spoken of as an individual equivalent to Siva, who has always been recognized as the patron or chief of initiates and of occult training. He is often spoken of as the destroyer, whereas regenerator would be a better term. Rudra is truly the Siva of the Rig-Veda, and in many respects the Agni of later writings. Like Siva, Rudra is a beneficent deity (because regenerating), and a mistaken maleficent deity (because destroying falsehoods and imperfections at the same time). As the beneficent one or spiritual healer, Rudra is the higher human ego aspiring to its own spiritual pure state; and as the destroyer he is the same imprisoned higher human ego whose war against imperfection, evil, and sin make him the “roarer” or the “terrible.”
The soul, on the contrary, is something. that comes down into birth and passes through death — although it does not itself die, for it is immortal — from one state to another, from the earth plane to other planes and back again to the earth'cxisteoce. ft goes on with this progression from life to life through an evolu- tion which leads it up to the human state and evolves through it all a being of itself which we call the psychic being that sup- ports the evolution and develops a physical, a vital, a mental human consciousness as its instruments of world-experience and of a disguised, imperfect, but growing self-expression. All this it does from behind a veil showing something of its divine self only in so far as the imperfection of the instrumental being will allow it. But a time comes when it is able to prepare to come out from behind the veil, take command and turn all the instru- mental nature towards a divine fulfilment. This is the beginning of the true spiritual life. The soul is able now to make itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested consciousness than the mental human — it can pass from the mental to the spiritual and through degrees of the spiritual to the supramental state. _ ,
"The Spirit is the truth of our being; mind and life and body in their imperfection are its masks, but in their perfection should be its moulds.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“The Spirit is the truth of our being; mind and life and body in their imperfection are its masks, but in their perfection should be its moulds.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
The subconscient is not the whole foundation of the nature; it is only the lower basis of the Ignorance and affects mostly the lower vital and physical exterior consciousness and these again affect the higher parts of the nature. While it is well to see what it is and how it acts, one must not be too preoccupied with this dark side or this apparent aspect of the instrumental being. One should rather regard it as something not oneself, a mask of false nature imposed on the true being by the Ignorance. The true being is the inner with all its vast possibilities of reaching and expressing the Divine and especially the inmost, the soul, the psychic Purusha which is always in its essence pure, divine, turned to all that is good and true and beautiful. The exterior being has to be taken hold of by the inner being and turned into an instrument no longer of the upsurging of the ignorant subconscient Nature, but of the Divine. It is by remembering always that and opening the nature upwards that the Divine Consciousness can be reached and descend from above into the whole inner and outer existence, mental, vital, physical, the subconscient, the subliminal, all that we overtly or secretly are. This should be the main preoccupation. To dwell solely on the subconscient and the aspect of imperfection creates depression and should be avoided. One has to keep a right balance and stress on the positive side most, recognising the other but only to reject and change it. This and a constant faith and reliance on the Mother are what is needed for the transformation to come. P.S. It is certainly the abrupt and decisive breaking that is the easiest and best way for these things—vital habits.
Ref: SABCL Vol. 22-23-24, Page: 355
"The Supermind is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness.” The Supramental Manifestation
“The Supermind is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness.” The Supramental Manifestation
This something larger is the cosmic drama written, staged, and acted by the Absolute, who is artist and actor as well as a rational intelligence, intent no less upon dramatic than upon intelligible unity and self-expression. The world-process is tragic, witness the sin and suffering and imperfection with which it is fraught. But in the infinite tragedy, as well as in the tragedies composed by men, evil is contributory to the perfection of the whole, and, when seen and accepted as such by the finite individual, not only loses its sting but produces a "catharsis" of his attitude towards it, in which he cheerfully accepts it, battles with it, and finds his triumph over it in nobly enduring it. This "catharsis," identifying him as it does with the meaning of the life of the Absolute, is his peace and his salvation. Main works: Logic, 1888; The Philosophical Theory of the State, 1899; Value and Destiny of the Individual, 1913. -- B.A.G.F.
"Though man is infinitely greater than the plant or the animal, he is not perfect in his own nature like the plant and the animal. This imperfection is not a thing to be at all deplored, but rather a privilege and a promise, for it opens out to us an immense vista of self-development and self-exceeding. Man at his highest is a half-god who has risen up out of the animal Nature and is splendidly abnormal in it, but the thing which he has started out to be, the whole god, is something so much greater than what he is that it seems to him as abnormal to himself as he is to the animal. This means a great and arduous labour of growth before him, but also a splendid crown of his race and his victory. A kingdom is offered to him beside which his present triumphs in the realms of mind or over external Nature will appear only as a rough hint and a poor beginning. The Human Cycle
“Though man is infinitely greater than the plant or the animal, he is not perfect in his own nature like the plant and the animal. This imperfection is not a thing to be at all deplored, but rather a privilege and a promise, for it opens out to us an immense vista of self-development and self-exceeding. Man at his highest is a half-god who has risen up out of the animal Nature and is splendidly abnormal in it, but the thing which he has started out to be, the whole god, is something so much greater than what he is that it seems to him as abnormal to himself as he is to the animal. This means a great and arduous labour of growth before him, but also a splendid crown of his race and his victory. A kingdom is offered to him beside which his present triumphs in the realms of mind or over external Nature will appear only as a rough hint and a poor beginning. The Human Cycle
Thus maya means that our minds are blinded and perverted by our own preconceptions and imperfections, and so does not interpret the world as it is.
.Thus the soul or psychic essence, which is the Purusha entering into the evolution and supporting it, carries in itself all the divine potentialities ; but the individual psychic being which it puts forth as its representative assumes the imperfection of Nature and evolves in it till it has recovered its full psychic essence and united itself with the Self above of which the soul is the individual projection in the evolution. This duality in the being on all its planes, — for it is true in different ways not only of the Self and the psychic, but of the mental, vital and physical
Transcendent: (L. transcendere to climb over, surpass, go beyond) That which is beyond, in any of several senses. The opposite of the immanent (q.v.). In Scholasticism notions are transcendent which cannot be subsumed under the Aristotelian categories. The definitive list of transcendentia comprises ens, unum, bonum, verum, res, and aliquid. For Kant whatever is beyond possible experience is transcendent, and hence unknowable. Metaphysics and Theology: God (or the Absolute) is said to be transcendent in the following senses: perfect, i e., beyond limitation or imperfection (Scholasticism); incomprehensible (negative theology, mysticism); remote from Nature (Deism); alienated from natural man (Barthianism). Pluralism posits the essential mutual transcendence of substances or reals. Epistemology: Epistemological dualism (q.v.) holds that the real transcends apprehending consciousness, i.e., is directly inaccessible to it. Thought is said to be "self-transcendent" when held to involve essentially reference beyond itself (s. intentionahty). Ethics. Moral idealism posits the transcendence of the will over Nature (see Freedom). --W.L. Transcendent Reference: The reference of a mental state to something beyond itself. See Reference. -- L.W.
transformation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body — and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended — they can only be mended by transformation.” *Letters on Yoga
"‘Transformation" is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind") to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence" of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” *Letters on Yoga
"It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truth-consciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.” The Supramental Manifestation
The Mother: "Transformation. The change by which all the elements and all the movements of the being become ready to manifest the supramental Truth.”
"One thing you must know and never forget: in the work of transformation all that is true and sincere will always be kept; only what is false and insincere will disappear.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
transformation ::: “Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body—and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended—they can only be mended by transformation.” Letters on Yoga
unperfection ::: n. --> Want of perfection; imperfection.
varisse ::: n. --> An imperfection on the inside of the hind leg in horses, different from a curb, but at the same height, and frequently injuring the sale of the animal by growing to an unsightly size.
Vatthupamasutta. (C. Shuijing fanzhi jing; J. Suijobonjikyo; K. Sujong pomji kyong 水淨梵志經). In Pāli, the "The Simile of the Cloth Discourse"; the seventh sutta in the MAJJHIMANIKĀYA (a separate SARVĀSTIVĀDA recension appears as the ninety-third SuTRA in the Chinese translation of the MADHYAMĀGAMA, as well as an unidentified recension in the Chinese translation of the EKOTTARĀGAMA); preached by the Buddha to a group of disciples in the JETAVANA grove in the town of Sāvatthi (S. sRĀVASTĪ). The Buddha describes the difference between a pure mind and a defiled mind by citing the example of cloth: just as only a clean cloth will absorb dye properly, so only a pure mind will be receptive to the dharma. The Buddha then lists a set of seventeen imperfections that defile the mind, which the monk must learn to abandon in order to gain confidence in the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) and ultimately liberation.
Veda: The highest authority among the Aryans of India; it is held that this was never written by anyone and it is, therefore, free from the imperfections to which human productions are subject. When it is forgotten, it is reproduced by Rishis by doing meditation. As the sounds forming the text of the Veda occur in the same order and are pronounced in the same manner, it is said to be eternal; it teaches who and what Brahman is, and how He should be worshipped. Smritis, Itihasas and Puranas only amplify its teaching. It is the most ancient, authentic scripture of the Hindus.
vice ::: 1. An immoral or evil habit or practice. 2. Immoral conduct; depraved or degrading behaviour. 3. A flaw or imperfection; a defect. 4. Sexual immorality or depravity.
vice ::: n. --> A defect; a fault; an error; a blemish; an imperfection; as, the vices of a political constitution; the vices of a horse.
A moral fault or failing; especially, immoral conduct or habit, as in the indulgence of degrading appetites; customary deviation in a single respect, or in general, from a right standard, implying a defect of natural character, or the result of training and habits; a harmful custom; immorality; depravity; wickedness; as, a life of vice; the vice of intemperance.
vran.a ::: wound; flaw, "scar of imperfection". [Cf. Īsa Upanis.ad 8] vrana
waster ::: v. t. --> One who, or that which, wastes; one who squanders; one who consumes or expends extravagantly; a spendthrift; a prodigal.
An imperfection in the wick of a candle, causing it to waste; -- called also a thief.
A kind of cudgel; also, a blunt-edged sword used as a foil.
When referring to causes containing the perfection of their effect. Formally, virtually, and eminently are said of causes according as they contain the perfection of their effect. For an effect is said to be contained formally in its cause, when the nature of the effect which is produced, is found in the cause itself, thus heat is contained formally in fire, because fire also contains in itself the heat which it produce. An effect is contained virtually in its cause when the cause can indeed produce such an effect, but the nature of the effect is not found in the cause itself, e.g. the statue is contained virtually in the artist. Lastly, an effect is contained eminently in its cause, when the cause is much more perfect than the effect and is without the imperfections which are found in the effect. E.g. God eminently contains the perfections of creatures. -- H.G.
Will, there are many tangfed knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura and Rakshasa hold this evolving earthly nature and have to be met and conquered on their own terms in their own long-conquered fief and pro- vince ; the human in us has to be led and prepared to transcend its limits and is too weak and obscure to be lifted up suddenly to a form far beyond it. The Divine Consciousness and Force are there and do at each moment the thing that is needed in the conditions of the labour, take always the step that fs decreed and shape In the midst of imperfection the perfection that is to come. But only when the supermiod has descended in you can she deal directly as the supramental Shakti with supramental natures. If you follow your mind, it will not recognise the hiother even when she is manifest before you. Follow your soul and not your mind, your soul that answers to the Truth, not your mind that leaps at appearances ; trust the Divine Power and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of Divine Nature.
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19 Sri Aurobindo
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1:All pain and suffering are a sign of imperfection, of incompleteness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
2:Good is our nature, perfection is our nature, not imperfection, not impurity — and we should remember that. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
3:Nature will not suffer human egoism to baffle for ever her fixed intention and necessity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Imperfection of Past Aggregates, #KEYS
4:An imperfection dogs our highest strength;
Portions and pale reflections are our share. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Heavens of the Ideal,#KEYS
5:The perfect society will be that which most entirely favours the perfection of the individual. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Imperfection of Past Aggregates, #KEYS
6:The assumption of imperfection by the perfect is the whole mystic phenomenon of the universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, #KEYS
7:To Him belong Beauty, Majesty and Perfection. His Perfection can be attained only by whose imperfection has passed away. ~ Abul Qasim al-Qushayri (r), @Sufi_Path #KEYS
8:Abnormality in Nature is no objection, no necessary sign of imperfection, but may well be an effort at a much greater perfection. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Necessity of the Spiritual Transformation, #KEYS
9:Suffering is due only to our weakness and imperfection. When external forces affect us, if we have acquired sufficient strength to assimilate them, we derive joy from them, otherwise they produce pain.
~ Anilbaran Roy, Interviews and Conversations,#KEYS
10:The realised being does not see the world as being apart from the Self, he possesses true knowledge and the internal happiness of being perfect, whereas the other person sees the world apart, feels imperfection and is miserable. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
11:All undelight, all pain and suffering are a sign of imperfection, of incompleteness; they arise from a division of being, an incompleteness of consciousness of being, an incompleteness of the force of being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
12:The knowledge of the saints is more excellent than the knowledge of the wayfarer, and yet faith is more properly said of the wayfarer's knowledge, because the word "faith" denotes an imperfection of knowledge ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.174.2ad3)., #KEYS
13:That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.
~ Albert Pike,#KEYS
14:All we have acquired soon loses worth,
An old disvalued credit in Time's bank,
Imperfection's cheque drawn on the Inconscient. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness
Time's bank
Though Time is immortal,
Mortal his works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Poetry and Art, Hexameters, Alcaics, Sapphics,#KEYS
15:7. Don't entertain such thoughts of imperfection, lack of qualities, etc. You are already perfect. Get rid of the ideas of imperfection and need for development. There is nothing to realize or annihilate. You are the Self. The ego does not exist. Pursue the enquiry and see if there is anything to be realised or annihilated. See if there is any mind to be controlled. Even the effort is being made by the mind which does not exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Surpassing Love and Grace An Offering from His Devotees, #KEYS
16:But his most important capacity is that of developing the powers of the higher principles in himself, a greater power of life, a purer light of mind, the illumination of supermind, the infinite being, consciousness and delight of spirit. By an ascending movement he can develop his human imperfection towards that greater perfection. But whatever his aim, however exalted his aspiration, he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection, to take full account of it and see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection. This present law of his being starts from the inconscience of the material universe, an involution of the soul in form and subjection to material nature; and
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Psychology Of Perfection,#KEYS
17:But if in passing from one domain to another we renounce what has already been given us from eagerness for our new attainment, if in reaching the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life which is our basis, or if we reject the mental and physical in our attraction to the spiritual, we do not fulfil God integrally, nor satisfy the conditions of His selfmanifestation. We do not become perfect, but only shift the field of our imperfection or atmost attain a limited altitude. However high we may climb, even though it be to the Non-Being itself, we climb ill if we forget our base. Not to abandon the lower to itself, but to transfigure it in the light of the higher to which we have attained, is true divinity of nature. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time; we also, manifesting the nature of Brahman, should become integral and all-embracing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
18:Other impacts it meets, but finds them too strong for it or too dissimilar and discordant or too weak to give it satisfaction; these are things which it cannot bear or cannot equate with itself or cannot assimilate, and it is obliged to give to them reactions of grief, pain, discomfort, dissatisfaction, disliking, disapproval, rejection, inability to understand or know, refusal of admission. Against them it seeks to protect itself, to escape from them, to avoid or minimise their recurrence; it has with regard to them movements of fear, anger, shrinking, horror, aversion, disgust, shame, would gladly be delivered from them, but it cannot get away from them, for it is bound to and even invites their causes and therefore the results; for these impacts are part of life, tangled up with the things we desire, and the inability to deal with them is part of the imperfection of our nature. Other impacts again the normal mind succeeds in holding at bay or neutralising and to these it has a natural reaction of indifference, insensibility or tolerance which is neither positive acceptance and enjoymentnor rejection or suffering.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 730,#KEYS
19:Ishwara-Shakti is not quite the same as Purusha-Prakriti; for Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers, but Ishwara and Shakti contain each other. Ishwara is Purusha who contains Prakriti and rules by the power of the Shakti within him. Shakti is Prakriti ensouled by Purusha and acts by the will of the Ishwara which is her own will and whose presence in her movement she carries always with her. The Purusha-Prakriti realisation is of the first utility to the seeker on the Way of Works; for it is the separation of the conscient being and the Energy and the subjection of the being to the mechanism of the Energy that are the efficient cause of our ignorance and imperfection; by this realisation the being can liberate himself from the mechanical action of the nature and become free and arrive at a first spiritual control over the nature. Ishwara-Shakti stands behind the relation of Purusha-Prakriti and its ignorant action and turns it to an evolutionary purpose. The Ishwara-Shakti realisation can bring participation in a higher dynamism and a divine working and a total unity and harmony of the being in a spiritual nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 216, #KEYS
20:Sometimes when an adverse force attacks us and we come out successful, why are we attacked once again by the same force?
Because something was left inside. We have said that the force can attack only when there is something which responds in the nature - however slight it may be. There is a kind of affinity, something corresponding, there is a disorder or an imperfection which attracts the adverse force by responding to it. So, if the attack comes, you must keep perfectly quiet and send it back, but it does not necessarily follow that you have got rid of that small part in you which allows the attack to come.
You have something in you which attracts this force; take, for example (it is one of the most frequent things), the force of depression, that kind of attack of a wave of depression that falls upon you: you lose confidence, you lose hope, you have the feeling you will never be able to do anything, you are cast down.
It means there is in your vital being something which is naturally egoistic, surely a little vain, which needs encouragement to remain in a good state. So it is like a little signal for those forces which intimates to them: "You can come, the door is open." But there is another part in the being that was watching when these forces arrived; instead of allowing them to enter, the part which... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
21:To see life steadily and see it whole is only permitted to a Perfect and Infinite Consciousness standing outside Time, Space and Conditions. To such a divine Vision the working out of preordainment may present itself as a perfect, immediate and unhindered consummation. God said, 'Let there be Light' and, straightway,there was Light; and when the Light came into being, God saw that it was good. But to the imperfect finite consciousness, Light seems in its inception to have come into being by a slow material evolution completed by a fortuitous shock of forces; in its operation to be lavished with a prodigal wastefulness since only a small part is used for the purposes of life; in its presentation to be conveyed to a blinking and limited vision, hampered by obstacles and chequered with darkness. Limitation, imperfection, progression and retrogression are inseparable from phenomenal work, phenomenal intelligence, phenomenal pleasure and satisfaction. To Brahman the Will who measures all Time in a moment, covers all Space with one stride, embraces the whole chain of causation in one glance, there is no limitation, imperfection, progression or retrogression. He looks upon his work as a whole and sees that it is good. But the Gods cannot reach to His completeness, even though they toil after it; for ever He outruns their pursuit, moving far in front. Brahman, standing still, overtakes and passes the others as they run.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad,#KEYS
22:challenge for the Integral Yogin :::
Nor is the seeker of the integral fulfilment permitted to solve too arbitrarily even the conflict of his own inner members. He has to harmonise deliberate knowledge with unquestioning faith; he must conciliate the gentle soul of love with the formidable need of power; the passivity of the soul that lives content in transcendent calm has to be fused with the activity of the divine helper and the divine warrior. To him as to all seekers of the spirit there are offered for solution the oppositions of the reason, the clinging hold of the senses, the perturbations of the heart, the ambush of the desires, the clog of the physical body; but he has to deal in another fashion with their mutual and internal conflicts and their hindrance to his aim, for he must arrive at an infinitely more difficult perfection in the handling of all this rebel matter. Accepting them as instruments for the divine realisation and manifestation, he has to convert their jangling discords, to enlighten their thick darknesses, to transfigure them separately and all together, harmonising them in themselves and with each other, -- integrally, omitting no grain or strand or vibration, leaving no iota of imperfection anywhere. All exclusive concentration, or even a succession of concentrations of that kind, can be in his complex work only a temporary convenience; it has to be abandoned as soon as its utility is over. An all-inclusive concentration is the difficult achievement towards which he must labour.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 78, [T9],#KEYS
23:There is in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle. All her divinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective process, the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dangerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Divine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks from the battle. Intolerant of imperfection, she deals roughly with all in man that is unwilling and she is severe to all that is obstinately ignorant and obscure; her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery and falsehood and malignity, ill-will is smitten at once by her scourge. Indifference, negligence and sloth in the divine work she cannot bear and she smites awake at once with sharp pain, if need be, the untimely slumberer and the loiterer. The impulses that are swift and straight and frank, the movements that are unreserved and absolute, the aspiration that mounts in flame are the motion of Mahakali. Her spirit is tameless, her vision and will are high and far-reaching like the flight of an eagle, her feet are rapid on the upward way and her hands are outstretched to strike and to succour. For she too is the Mother and her love is as intense as her wrath and she has a deep and passionate kindness. When she is allowed to intervene in her strength, then in one moment are broken like things without consistence the obstacles that immobilise or the enemies that assail the seeker
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [19],#KEYS
24:The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist. That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her most outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life. Each of the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother. Each is something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of beauty and power and created in her Ananda.
But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the Divine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. All beings there live and move in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness, because she carries them safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti.
The Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world of the Ignorance stands in an intermediate plane between the supramental Light, the Truth life, the Truth creation which has to be brought down here and this mounting and descending hierarchy of planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit. Determining all that shall be in this universe and in the terrestrial evolution by what she sees and feels and pours from her, she stands there... ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
25:To Know How To Suffer
IF AT any time a deep sorrow, a searing doubt or an intense pain overwhelms you and drives you to despair, there is an infallible way to regain calm and peace.
In the depths of our being there shines a light whose brilliance is equalled only by its purity; a light, a living and conscious portion of a universal godhead who animates and nourishes and illumines Matter, a powerful and unfailing guide for those who are willing to heed his law, a helper full of solace and loving forbearance towards all who aspire to see and hear and obey him. No sincere and lasting aspiration towards him can be in vain; no strong and respectful trust can be disappointed, no expectation ever deceived.
My heart has suffered and lamented, almost breaking beneath a sorrow too heavy, almost sinking beneath a pain too strong.... But I have called to thee, O divine comforter, I have prayed ardently to thee, and the splendour of thy dazzling light has appeared to me and revived me.
As the rays of thy glory penetrated and illumined all my being, I clearly perceived the path to follow, the use that can be made of suffering; I understood that the sorrow that held me in its grip was but a pale reflection of the sorrow of the earth, of this abysm of suffering and anguish.
Only those who have suffered can understand the suffering of others; understand it, commune with it and relieve it. And I understood, O divine comforter, sublime Holocaust, that in order to sustain us in all our troubles, to soothe all our pangs, thou must have known and felt all the sufferings of earth and man, all without exception.
How is it that among those who claim to be thy worshippers, some regard thee as a cruel torturer, as an inexorable judge witnessing the torments that are tolerated by thee or even created by thy own will?
No, I now perceive that these sufferings come from the very imperfection of Matter which, in its disorder and crudeness, is unfit to manifest thee; and thou art the very first to suffer from it, to bewail it, thou art the first to toil and strive in thy ardent desire to change disorder into order, suffering into happiness, discord into harmony.
Suffering is not something inevitable or even desirable, but when it comes to us, how helpful it can be!
Each time we feel that our heart is breaking, a deeper door opens within us, revealing new horizons, ever richer in hidden treasures, whose golden influx brings once more a new and intenser life to the organism on the brink of destruction.
And when, by these successive descents, we reach the veil that reveals thee as it is lifted, O Lord, who can describe the intensity of Life that penetrates the whole being, the radiance of the Light that floods it, the sublimity of the Love that transforms it for ever! ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, To Know How To Suffer, 1910,#KEYS
26:O Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world
Assailed by thee and of its road unsure,
Peopled by imperfect minds and ignorant lives,
And sayest God is not and all is vain.
How shall the child already be the man?
Because he is infant, shall he never grow?
Because he is ignorant, shall he never learn?
In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks,
In a tiny gene a thinking being is shut;
A little element in a little sperm,
It grows and is a conqueror and a sage.
Then wilt thou spew out, Death, God's mystic truth,
Deny the occult spiritual miracle?
Still wilt thou say there is no spirit, no God?
A mute material Nature wakes and sees;
She has invented speech, unveiled a will.
Something there waits beyond towards which she strives,
Something surrounds her into which she grows:
To uncover the spirit, to change back into God,
To exceed herself is her transcendent task.
In God concealed the world began to be,
Tardily it travels towards manifest God:
Our imperfection towards perfection toils,
The body is the chrysalis of a soul:
The infinite holds the finite in its arms,
Time travels towards revealed eternity.
A miracle structure of the eternal Mage,
Matter its mystery hides from its own eyes,
A scripture written out in cryptic signs,
An occult document of the All-Wonderful's art.
All here bears witness to his secret might,
In all we feel his presence and his power.
A blaze of his sovereign glory is the sun,
A glory is the gold and glimmering moon,
A glory is his dream of purple sky.
A march of his greatness are the wheeling stars.
His laughter of beauty breaks out in green trees,
His moments of beauty triumph in a flower;
The blue sea's chant, the rivulet's wandering voice
Are murmurs falling from the Eternal's harp.
This world is God fulfilled in outwardness.
His ways challenge our reason and our sense;
By blind brute movements of an ignorant Force,
By means we slight as small, obscure or base,
A greatness founded upon little things,
He has built a world in the unknowing Void.
His forms he has massed from infinitesimal dust;
His marvels are built from insignificant things.
If mind is crippled, life untaught and crude,
If brutal masks are there and evil acts,
They are incidents of his vast and varied plot,
His great and dangerous drama's needed steps;
He makes with these and all his passion-play,
A play and yet no play but the deep scheme
Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways
To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night:
Above her is the vigil of the stars;
Watched by a solitary Infinitude
She embodies in dumb Matter the Divine,
In symbol minds and lives the Absolute.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Debate of Love and Death,#KEYS
27:on purifying ego and desire :::
The elimination of all egoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly the key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it where it is centrally tied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and not the heart of our bondage.These are the two knots of our subjection to this ignorant and divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire has its native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there affects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it casts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there that it becomes fully self conscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the obsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate.
In the field of action desire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital selfs craving or seeking after the fruit of our works. The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, -wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niskama karma. ...
The test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful event leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [102],#KEYS
28:It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it. The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life-motives, enlarges and newmodels increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half-inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half-inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 183, #KEYS
1:Existence is an imperfection. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 2:The essence of man is imperfection. ~ norman-cousins, @wisdomtrove 3:Without imperfection, you or I would not exist. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 4:The soul has neither sex, nor caste nor imperfection. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 5:Producing perfection from imperfection is, after all, the highest of art forms. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 6:A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 7:Man's freedom is relative and it cannot be held solely responsible for the imperfection of his nature. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 8:The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 9:When a man is perfect, he sees perfection in others. When he sees imperfection, it is his own mind projecting itself. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 10:It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 11:So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 12:Greed is an imperfection that defiles the mind; hate is an imperfection that defiles the mind; delusion is an imperfection that defiles the mind. ~ buddha, @wisdomtrove 13:The result of law inviolate is perfection‚Äìright‚Äìnegative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong, positive pain. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 14:I'm never more courageous than when I'm embracing imperfection, embracing vulnerabilities, and setting boundaries with the people in my life. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 15:Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 16:The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 17:Everything is already perfect. And if you can accept that everything is already perfect, the imperfection is a part of the perfection. What's to worry about? ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 18:One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist... ..Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 19:So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 20:Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 21:The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 22:... what makes humanity beautiful is our free will, our individuality, our endless striving in spite of our imperfection. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON Chapter 27 Page 214 ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 23:To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 24:To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 25:There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 26:And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 27:What interests me so much about the characters of the Bible is that they make mistakes but God uses them anyway, in important ways. Nobody's perfect, but God can even use our imperfection. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 28:Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 29:The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare intervals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 30:The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man; neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten His divinity, that Christ can help us, in Him there is no imperfection. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 31:The saddest thing in the world was that human beings, for all their ardent striving and desire, could never achieve physical, emotional, or intellectual perfection. The species was doomed to imperfection; it thrashed forever in despair or denial of that fact. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 32:The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti - freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 33:Meditation means conscious self-expansion. Meditation means one's conscious awareness of the transcendental Reality. Meditation means the recognition or the discovery of one's own true self. It is through meditation that we transcend limitation, bondage and imperfection. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 34:We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 35:Perfection isn't human. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love& 36:There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 37:Our divine perfection - not registered by the physical eye but only by the heart’s knowing - is who we truly are. Our mortal imperfections - registered by the physical senses - are not who we truly are. Yet we keep trying, in love, to find each other’s perfection within the world of imperfection. And it simply is not there. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 38:I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 39:The value of the Old Testament may be dependant on what seems its imperfection. It may repel one use in order that we may be forced to use it in another way-to find the Word in it... to re-live, while we read, the whole Jewish experience of God's gradual and graded self-revelation, to feel the very contentions between the Word and the human material through which it works. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 40:Teach us, O God, that nothing is necessary to Thee. Were anything necessary to Thee that thing would be the measure of Thine imperfection: and how could we worship one who is imperfect? If nothing is necessary to Thee, then no one is necessary, and if no one, then not we. Thou dost seek us though Thou does not need us. We seek Thee because we need Thee, for in Thee we live and move and have our being. Amen. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 41:For, above all, I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 42:But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 43:That's why I like listening to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all his performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally I find that encouraging. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:embrase imperfection ~ Ali Edwards, #NFDB
2:flawless imperfection, ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
3:Imperfection is endearing. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
4:Imperfection is true perfection. ~ T A Uner, #NFDB
5:There’s comfort in imperfection. ~ Ginger Scott, #NFDB
6:Existence is an imperfection. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
7:O woman, thou art my imperfection! ~ Pawan Mishra, #NFDB
8:Imperfection means perfection hid. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
9:The essence of man is imperfection. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
10:Perfection itself is imperfection. ~ Vladimir Horowitz, #NFDB
11:We are perfect in our imperfection. ~ Megan McCafferty, #NFDB
12:Perfection can mask imperfection. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
13:Evil then results from imperfection. ~ Philip James Bailey, #NFDB
14:Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius ~ Marilyn Monroe, #NFDB
15:imperfection is the rule, not the exception. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
16:"There is no being without imperfection." ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
17:I do think imperfection's underrated. ~ Helena Bonham Carter, #NFDB
18:Our perfection lies in our imperfection. ~ Sandor Ellix Katz, #NFDB
19:Humans were taught to run from imperfection. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
20:Imperfection is a core dimension of freedom. ~ Yochai Benkler, #NFDB
21:"There is no being without imperfection." ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
22:You are Perfection and Imperfection's Love Child. ~ Sera Beak, #NFDB
23:Our love, in all its imperfection, was perfect. ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
24:Imperfection is an end. Perfection is only an aim. ~ Ivor Cutler, #NFDB
25:Where imperfection ceaseth, heaven begins. ~ Philip James Bailey, #NFDB
26:Man is not interesting without some imperfection ~ Soichiro Honda, #NFDB
27:Perfection can be a mask for imperfection. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
28:Without imperfection, you or I would not exist. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
29:Without imperfection [...] there would be no story. ~ Ernest Kurtz, #NFDB
30:What I have always loved most in men is imperfection. ~ Liv Ullmann, #NFDB
31:What I have always loved most in men is imperfection. ~ Linn Ullmann, #NFDB
32:She had accomplished great things despite imperfection. ~ Katie Cross, #NFDB
33:... imperfection would get me farther than perfection. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
34:Je tiens à mon imperfection comme à ma raison d'être. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
35:true freedom is being “without anxiety about imperfection. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
36:Evolution crawls to imperfection. It ends in extinction. ~ Gregory Keyes, #NFDB
37:The soul has neither sex, nor caste nor imperfection. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
38:The whole point about beauty is its imperfection. ~ Diane von Furstenberg, #NFDB
39:Imperfection is underrated. Perfection is overrated. ~ Helena Bonham Carter, #NFDB
40:Perfection is unattainable, so I like to live in imperfection. ~ Nikki Sixx, #NFDB
41:I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
42:Practice doesn't make perfect.
Practice reduces the imperfection. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
43:Even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state. ~ Thomas de Quincey, #NFDB
44:Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
45:Love springs from the ability to prefer imperfection over perfection. ~ Rein Raud, #NFDB
46:the people's imperfection is what makes them perfect for someone else. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
47:We see our troubles through the filter of our own imperfection... ~ Roland Merullo, #NFDB
48:I’m drawn to the imperfection in him amidst all that surface pretty. ~ Lauren Blakely, #NFDB
49:My message behind this album was finding the beauty in imperfection. ~ Beyonce Knowles, #NFDB
50:I don't want to call myself a perfectionist because perfection is imperfection. ~ Ne Yo, #NFDB
51:It is the function of perfection to make one know one's imperfection. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
52:If someone is too perfect they won't look good. Imperfection is important. ~ Eric Cantona, #NFDB
53:Imperfection is not our personal problem - it is a natural part of existing. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
54:Adventures are what happens when an event is flawed, a mark of imperfection. ~ Kij Johnson, #NFDB
55:Maybe, just maybe, the perfection of the world was found in the imperfection. ~ Peter Monn, #NFDB
56:My photographs are not pure: they are a seething wealth of imperfection. ~ Frederick Sommer, #NFDB
57:The human condition is imperfection. And that's how it's supposed to be. ~ Katherine Center, #NFDB
58:Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
59:It is a great imperfection to complain unceasingly of little things. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
60:There is no light without shadow, and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
61:The world is a lot more fun when you approach it with an exuberant imperfection. ~ Chris Baty, #NFDB
62:They were utopian, which meant they saw imperfection everywhere they looked. ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
63:Accept yourself irrespective of your imperfection and express your skills. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
64:It’s where a thing can’t be beautiful or perfect without an imperfection. Say, ~ Samantha Hunt, #NFDB
65:If you see faults in others, look the other way. Don't linger on imperfection. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
66:My husband and I will always be two people living one life of perfect imperfection. ~ Nina Lane, #NFDB
67:Producing perfection from imperfection is, after all, the highest of art forms. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
68:The point of imperfection which we occupy -- is it on the way up or down? ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
69:economics is a living thing—and to live implies both imperfection and change. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
70:Every imperfection you have as a man makes a sound as it knifes through satin sheets. ~ Jay Mohr, #NFDB
71:Imperfection is the prerequisite for grace. Light only gets in through the cracks. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
72:A society that does not make room for imperfection can never be a happy society. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
73:I went from being embarrassed by every extra pound to being proud of every imperfection. ~ Jenn Sadai, #NFDB
74:Wabi Sabi", named after a Japanese notion of appreciating the perfection in imperfection. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
75:To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
76:In your flaws are hidden your strength. Your perfect imperfection will lead you to change. ~ Tonto Dikeh, #NFDB
77:Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
78:... the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
79:Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being “without anxiety about imperfection. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
80:Perfection in anything is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection. ~ Colleen McCullough, #NFDB
81:Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
82:You have to embrace the idea of imperfection, even if the thing that is most perfect for you. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
83:You have to embrace the idea of imperfection, even in the thing that is most perfect for you. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
84:I think every single imperfection adds to your beauty. I'd rather be imperfect than perfect. ~ Sonam Kapoor, #NFDB
85:Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
86:Perfection, in anything, is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection. ~ Colleen McCullough, #NFDB
87:Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even it's imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
88:There’s a beauty to imperfection. This is the essence of the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
89:We can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
90:Not every imperfection needs fixing...Sometimes you have to accept the flaw and live with it. ~ Sarah Morgan, #NFDB
91:The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection. ~ Junot Diaz, #NFDB
92:We need imperfection in our relationships, else we would die from the thickness of intimacy. ~ Gail Caldwell, #NFDB
93:... when one's outward lot is perfect, the sense of inward imperfection is the more pressing. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
94:A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
95:I share with Henry an anger not at the imperfection of women, but at the foulness of living itself. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
96:"Recognition of the shadow . . . leads to the modesty we need in order to acknowledge imperfection." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
97:It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
98:Man's freedom is relative and it cannot be held solely responsible for the imperfection of his nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
99:The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
100:What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
101:Evil is only imperfection, that which is not complete, which is becoming, but has not yet found its end. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
102:All pain and suffering are a sign of imperfection, of incompleteness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #NFDB
103:Why do we lose our temper? Because we love perfection. Create a little room for imperfection in your life. ~ Eric Weiner, #NFDB
104:reporter told me that after reading The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly, he wanted to start working ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
105:developing tolerance for imperfection is the key factor in turning chronic starters into consistent finishers. ~ Jon Acuff, #NFDB
106:Dismiss perfection as an ache of the greedy, but do not give in to the mass modesty of easy imperfection. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
107:Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. ~ Marilyn Monroe, #NFDB
108:"Recognition of the shadow, on the other hand, leads to the modesty we need in order to acknowledge imperfection." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
109:Self-compassion embraces imperfection with love, providing the fertile soil needed for romance to truly flourish. ~ Kristin Neff, #NFDB
110:greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
111:Second, developing tolerance for imperfection is the key factor in turning chronic starters into consistent finishers. ~ Jon Acuff, #NFDB
112:The true Power is always quiet. Restlessness, agitation, impatience are the sure signs of weakness & imperfection. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
113:An absolutely perfect world would be a deadly boring place. There’s some kind of perfection in slight imperfection. ~ Sahara Sanders, #NFDB
114:why can't we control our anger? because we love perfection. make a little room for imperfection in our lives. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
115:Pride is not the heritage of man; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection. ~ Albert Pike, #NFDB
116:The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being "without anxiety about imperfection. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
117:Likewise the subjection of woman to man results from the perfection of the male and the imperfection of the female sex. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
118:Perhaps the most serious complaint you could make about Bach is that he has every quality of humanity except imperfection. ~ Jeremy Denk, #NFDB
119:The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
120:All perfection hath some imperfection joined to it in this life, and all our power of sight is not without some darkness. ~ Thomas Kempis, #NFDB
121:When a man is perfect, he sees perfection in others. When he sees imperfection, it is his own mind projecting itself. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
122:As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man. ~ Ernst Fischer, #NFDB
123:It is often our own imperfection which makes us reprove the imperfection of others; a sharp-sighted self-love of others ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
124:It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
125:It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
126:A poem is the perfect place to celebrate imperfection and exult in the ways you fall short of being the person you want to be. ~ Taylor Mali, #NFDB
127:Never attribute to malice or other deliberate decision what can be explained by human frailty, imperfection, or ignorance. ~ Harold S Kushner, #NFDB
128:An imperfection dogs our highest strength;
Portions and pale reflections are our share. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Heavens of the Ideal,#NFDB
129:False notes [on the piano] are human. Why does everything have to be perfect? You know, perfection itself is imperfection. ~ Vladimir Horowitz, #NFDB
130:The greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
131:The simplicity or imperfection of external objects often serves to develop the activity and the dexterity of the pupils. This ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
132:Your desire for perfection is the cause of anger. Leave room for imperfection. Perfection in action is almost impossible. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
133:Every human being who loves another loves imperfection, for there is no perfect being on this earth--nothing is so simple as that. ~ Susan Cooper, #NFDB
134:God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth. ~ William Ellery Channing, #NFDB
135:Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
136:Part of what I love about getting older is realizing that there's something perfect in the imperfection. It's all very human. ~ Patricia Arquette, #NFDB
137:Perfect people don't exist. And perfect people, if they existed, would be very boring. It is imperfection that keeps life interesting. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
138:How did people do this - swallow all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
139:Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
140:I had not considered the idea; rather than seeking to rule out variations in quality, accept and adopt the reality of imperfection. ~ Nick Harkaway, #NFDB
141:[...] in our imperfection and ignorance we are constantly breaking universal law. Let us be given the wisdom and the strength to correct our errors, #NFDB
142:So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
143:Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
144:How did people do this - swallow all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had... ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
145:Being stigmatied by sex is being marked by its meaning in a human life of loneliness and imperfection, where some pain is indelible. ~ Andrea Dworkin, #NFDB
146:Just because you can't tolerate imperfection in yourself doesn't mean you shouldn't tolerate it in him; that just isn't fair of you. ~ Molly Caro May, #NFDB
147:The fact that the task to write perfect software is virtually impossible does not mean you aren’t responsible for the imperfection. ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
148:When we relax about imperfection, we no longer lose our life moments in the pursuit of being different and in the fear of what is wrong. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
149:He forgot everything: the sorcerer upstairs, the mission, his own imperfection, and the shame and bitterness that came with it. ~ Cinda Williams Chima, #NFDB
150:The result of law inviolate is perfection–right–negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong, positive pain. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
151:Each act of obedience by the Christian is a modest proof, unequivocal for all its imperfection, of the reality of what he attests."1 ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
152:I don’t crop my images and I always shoot handheld. By doing that I build in a kind of imperfection and this helps to emphasize reality. ~ Anton Corbijn, #NFDB
153:Why?” “Because it reminds them without flaws, beauty wouldn’t shine as bright, and that it’s their job to find heaven in imperfection. ~ Emme Rollins, #NFDB
154:Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason—or at least they appeal to certain types of people. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
155:Safety is an illusion, as is faith without temptation. We’re imperfect, unlike the gods, but in that imperfection we may yet make them jealous. ~ Ken Liu, #NFDB
156:Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason –or at least they appeal to certain types of people. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
157:humans are born in truth, but we grow up believing in lies. one of the biggest lies in the story of humanity is the lie of our imperfection. ~ Miguel Ruiz, #NFDB
158:This means accepting our human existence and all of life as it is. Imperfection is not our personal problem—it is a natural part of existing. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
159:works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason – or at least they appeal to certain types of people. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
160:I'm never more courageous than when I'm embracing imperfection, embracing vulnerabilities, and setting boundaries with the people in my life. ~ Brene Brown, #NFDB
161:Here’s how I see the progression of my work: The Gifts of Imperfection—Be you. Daring Greatly—Be all in. Rising Strong—Fall. Get up. Try again. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
162:Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” —Marilyn Monroe ~ Bathroom Readers Institute, #NFDB
163:Where there are many beauties in a poem I shall not cavil at a few faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature. ~ Horace, #NFDB
164:humans are born in truth, but we grow up believing in lies. one of the biggest lies in the story of humanity is the lie of our imperfection. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz, #NFDB
165:Nature will not suffer human egoism to baffle for ever her fixed intention and necessity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Imperfection of Past Aggregates, #NFDB
166:Perfection scribbled out or the imperfection that makes you, me, anyone perfect and complete because it includes the truth of our mortality. Get ~ Samantha Hunt, #NFDB
167:A poor self-image is the magnifying glass that can transform a trivial mistake or an imperfection into an overwhelming symbol of personal defeat. ~ David D Burns, #NFDB
168:Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
169:Love is rarely flawless,” Carter pointed out. “Humans delude themselves by thinking it has to be. It is the imperfection that makes love perfect. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
170:The hope in literature is that we are allowed to be imperfect, to write of our imperfection, without being overly critiqued for being unlikeable. ~ Kate Zambreno, #NFDB
171:Greed is an imperfection that defiles the mind; hate is an imperfection that defiles the mind; delusion is an imperfection that defiles the mind. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
172:Surely the novel should be a form of art - but art was not enough. It must contain not only the perfection of art, but the imperfection of nature. ~ Ellen Glasgow, #NFDB
173:To sit in judgment of those things which you perceive to be wrong or imperfect is to be one more person who is part of judgment, evil or imperfection. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
174:Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. ~ Ieyasu Tokugawa, #NFDB
175:The perfect society will be that which most entirely favours the perfection of the individual. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Imperfection of Past Aggregates, #NFDB
176:To the absolutist in every craftsman, each imperfection is a failure; to the practitioner, obsession with perfection seems a perception for failure. ~ Richard Sennett, #NFDB
177:All of us are broken in some way, Miriam. How we respond to our troubles, the strength we show in our trials, is far more telling than any imperfection. ~ Sarah M Eden, #NFDB
178:From imperfection’s murkiest cloud,
Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
One flash of Heaven’s glory."
-from "Song of the Universal ~ Walt Whitman,#NFDB
179:The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
180:The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
181:I had yet to learn that all human relationships end in pain—it is the price that our imperfection has allowed Satan to exact from us for the privilege of love. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
182:Everything is already perfect. And if you can accept that everything is already perfect, the imperfection is a part of the perfection. What's to worry about? ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
183:One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist.....Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
184:The assumption of imperfection by the perfect is the whole mystic phenomenon of the universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, #NFDB
185:Every person is capable of seeing himself, hearing himself, and modifying what he sees—not because he sees imperfection, but because he sees infinite potential. ~ Miguel Ruiz, #NFDB
186:Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
187:So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
188:The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
189:The world is evolving from imperfection to perfection. It needs all love and sympathy; great tenderness and watchfulness are required from each one of us. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
190:Imperfection is inherited, therefore we all sin, but fighting the war of sin is the greatest war of all because we all die in the end no matter how hard we fight. ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
191:...what makes humanity beautiful is our free will, our individuality, our endless striving in spite of our imperfection. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON Chapter 27 Page 214 ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
192:Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
193:Don’t pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it’d lose even its imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
194:If you look closely at a tree you'll notice it's knots and dead branches, just like our bodies. What we learn is that beauty and imperfection go together wonderfully. ~ Matthew Fox, #NFDB
195:The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
196:To be sure, it takes a stronger gaze and a better will to further that which is evolving and imperfect, rather than to penetrate its imperfection and reject it. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
197:A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
198:In fact, since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
199:All we are doing is telling each other things that can only be told by the rubbing together of two imperfect lumps of flesh. By doing this, we are sharing our imperfection. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
200:Love is no individual's experience; and though we are imperfect mediums, it does not partake of our imperfection; though we are finite, it is infinite and eternal. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
201:Our relationship, our love, cannot and will never be perfect. It will, however, always belong only to us in all its flawed, intense beauty. Perfect in its very imperfection. ~ Nina Lane, #NFDB
202:All my labors are marred by sin and imperfection. As I think of every act I have ever done for God, I can only cry out, ‘Oh, God, forgive the iniquity of my holy things.’”5 ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
203:But imperfection is where we thrive. In the dark alleyways of society where we first met. I take her face in my hands and kiss her again, our teeth clashing together. Imperfect. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
204:I need you because I know I deserve you but let me fall in love with you one last time before I let go. So I can remember the beautiful imperfection that rattled my bones. ~ Robert M Drake, #NFDB
205:...what makes humanity beautiful is our free will, our individuality, our endless striving in spite of our imperfection.
BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON
Chapter 27 Page 214 ~ Dean Koontz,#NFDB
206:There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
207:And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turned to beautiful results. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
208:Beloveds, you are fine, just the way you are! Perfect in your imperfection! You are divine! Growing brighter and more brilliant each day, you can accept the truth of who you are. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
209:Human beings and their social orders are intrinsically imperfectible and fortunately so. In a constantly changing world, we need the flexibility that only imperfection provides. ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
210:should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering—you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
211:The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection. ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
212:There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
213:To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
214:Ryder Delaney was the one imperfection in my life.He was the bad boy,black sheep,the one your mother always warned you about.He had
only one hard-and-fast rule-Don't Fall In Love ~ Paige Weaver,#NFDB
215:What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
216:You call it justice but how much punishment is adequate - when is it fine to forgive and move on? A society that does not make room for imperfection can never be a happy society. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
217:But those who seek only reassurance from life will never be more than tourists—seeing everything and trying to possess what can only be felt.
Beauty is the shadow of imperfection. ~ Simon Van Booy,#NFDB
218:Don’t water your testimony with your righteous expectations of church members. Their imperfection will disappoint you every time and cause you to leave every church you try to join. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
219:He was Will, in all his perfect imperfection; Will, whose heart was as easy to break as it was carefully guarded; Will, who loved not wisely but entirely and with everything he had. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
220:I accept that today may be imperfect... I accept that I may be as well. What I don't accept is that imperfection should be the crutch I use to excuse myself from participating in joy. ~ Shane Koyczan, #NFDB
221:she also liked to remember that there could be no such thing as an intentional imperfection. People are always mistaking something that looks good for something that feels good. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
222:Hmm, what’d you miss…A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost. ~ John Green, #NFDB
223:What I mean is that nothing ever happens the way it’s supposed to. Everything is messed up. Everything is flawed. And if we didn’t have imperfection, I’m not sure what we would have left. ~ Peter Bognanni, #NFDB
224:One aspect of perfection, after all, it stands to reason, will be that our need for imperfection will cease. Or, perhaps more precisely: that imperfection itself will cease to have meaning. ~ Ron Currie Jr, #NFDB
225:He was Will, in all his perfect imperfection; Will, whose heart was as easy to break as it was carefully guarded; Will, who loved not wisely but entirely and with everything he had. “Tess, ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
226:But Lauderback was not the kind of man for whom a sartorial imperfection could lessen the impact of his bearing—in fact, the very opposite was true: the damp suit only made the man look finer. ~ Eleanor Catton, #NFDB
227:Like most garden lovers, he could never enjoy the perfection of the garden as much as he wished, because his overzealous eye saw always some imperfection, too minute to be noticed by a stranger. ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
228:Abnormality in Nature is no objection, no necessary sign of imperfection, but may well be an effort at a much greater perfection. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Necessity of the Spiritual Transformation, #NFDB
229:A common, false assumption is that aiming for perfection gets you closer to it. The opposite is true: Embracing imperfection will bring you closer to perfection than a perfectionist mindset will. ~ Stephen Guise, #NFDB
230:I think beauty is youth; it's energy. I'm attracted to imperfection, style, confidence, and experimentation. So beauty, to me, is really a lot of things. It's kind of unexpected-what surprises you. ~ Marc Jacobs, #NFDB
231:War was neither a means in the hands of policy nor was it an end in itself. Instead it was regarded as an evil; albeit one that was sometimes made necessary by the imperfection of the world. ~ Martin van Creveld, #NFDB
232:We learn as much by others' failings as by their teachings. Examples of imperfection is just as useful for achieving perfection as are models of competence and perfection. ~ Madeleine de Souvre marquise de Sable, #NFDB
233:Love is not the mere opening of two souls' doors. Nor is it a palliative to the troubled heart; it is a stimulant. Under its influence, that heart grows until each tiny imperfection is not tiny. ~ Richard Harvell, #NFDB
234:Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
235:I am broken," she said. "I always will be."
"All of us are broken in some way, Miriam. How we respond to our troubles, the strength we show in our trials, is far more telling than any imperfection. ~ Sarah M Eden,#NFDB
236:In the ultimate sense, the world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. In the realization of this, failure is itself eliminated. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
237:'Solutionism' for me is, above all, an unthinking pursuit of perfection - by means of technology - without coming to grips with the fact that imperfection is an essential feature of liberal democracy. ~ Evgeny Morozov, #NFDB
238:Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
239:Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
240:Where the perhapses are found something has to be done about it and since art deals in the perhapses & maybe sos why not call it the consummate science — which gets its perfection from seeming imperfection. ~ John Marin, #NFDB
241:Brené is also the New York Times best-selling author of Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection, Rising Strong, and Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
242:Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived. Any erroneous thought of man is a result of an imperfection, large or small, in his discernment. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
243:All praise of Civilization, or Art, or Contrivance, is so much dispraise of Nature ; an admission of imperfection, which it is man's business, and merit, to be always endeavouring to correct or mitigate. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
244:The essence of man is imperfection. Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. If we learn to embrace that new definition of failure, then we are free to start moving ahead - and failing forward. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
245:I don't even bother trying to picture a perfect world, because I don't think that perfection is something to strive for. I prefer imperfection. That's what makes things special. You know, things that change ~ Anthony Kiedis, #NFDB
246:The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
247:The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
248:Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
249:if I can be allowed a mediocre generalization, don’t pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it’d lose even its imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
250:She is so beautiful she is unnatural; her beauty is an abnormality, a deformity, for none of her features exhibit any of those touching imperfections that reconcile us to the imperfection of the human condition. ~ Angela Carter, #NFDB
251:Caleb had been my imperfection, with his slightly Americanized British accent, and the way he could play any sport and quote any philosopher. He was such a mix of class and jock, romance and jerk, it made me crazy. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
252:His two front teeth are slightly crooked, veer just a tiny bit to the right, as if they've decided perfection is overrated. His smile is like unlocking a riddle. How does an imperfection make him seem more perfect? ~ Julie Buxbaum, #NFDB
253:Politicians are forever coming up with 'solutions' to virtually every imaginable imperfection in life. But, if we give them more power and more of our money, we are very unlikely to end up better off on net balance. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
254:We don't have to be perfect to be a blessing. We are asked only to be real, trusting in His perfection to cover our imperfection, knowing that one day we will finally be all that Christ saved us for and wants us to be. ~ Gigi Graham, #NFDB
255:I regard it as an inelegance, or imperfection, in quaternions, or rather in the state to which it has been hitherto unfolded, whenever it becomes or seems to become necessary to have recourse to x, y, z, etc. ~ William Rowan Hamilton, #NFDB
256:I don't love Photoshop; I like imperfection. It doesn't mean ugly. I love a girl with a gap between her teeth, versus perfect white veneers. Perfection is just... boring. Perfect is what's natural or real; that is beauty. ~ Marc Jacobs, #NFDB
257:If I can be honest, the real problem with the gap in my countertop was my own pride. It’s a sign of imperfection, and I don’t like my imperfections to show. Lord, please set my heart free from these prideful tendencies. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
258:Many states and even many people who are in support of the death penalty question their support of the death penalty because of the imperfection of our courts. Through DNA testing, we don't always get it right, even with that. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
259:Peace and harmony do not require perfection. Thank goodness for that—because life so often seems to be an itch here, a glitch there, a mess waiting to happen. Harmony is flexible. It bends with imperfection. So should you. ~ Jerry Spinelli, #NFDB
260:High achievers are typically the worst at this, constantly overlooking or minimizing their accomplishments, beating themselves up over every mistake and imperfection, and never feeling like anything they do is quite good enough. ~ Hal Elrod, #NFDB
261:All undelight, all pain and suffering are a sign of imperfection, of incompleteness; they arise from a division of being, an incompleteness of consciousness of being, an incompleteness of the force of being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#NFDB
262:In The Gifts of Imperfection, I write, “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
263:I am a pationate lover of the snapshot, because of all photographic images, it comes closest to the truth ... the snapshooter['s] pictures have an apparent disorder and imperfection which is exactly their appeal and their style. ~ Lisette Model, #NFDB
264:Every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded. ~ Humphry Davy, #NFDB
265:I've learned recently to love imperfection a lot because it shines such a big light on God's grace. And if someone has grace for you that's when you feel their love the most and they see you for who you are and they love you anyway. ~ Lacey Mosley, #NFDB
266:If all men were perfect, then every individual would be replaceable by anyone else. From the very imperfection of men follows the indispensability and inexchangeability of each individual; for each is imperfect in his own fashion. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
267:Suffering is due only to our weakness and imperfection. When external forces affect us, if we have acquired sufficient strength to assimilate them, we derive joy from them, otherwise they produce pain.
~ Anilbaran Roy, Interviews and Conversations,#NFDB
268:Haute couture consists of secrets whispered from generation to generation, If, in ready-to-wear, a garment is manufactured according to standard sizes, the haute couture garment adapts to any imperfection in order to eliminate it. ~ Yves Saint Laurent, #NFDB
269:When you are filming, you have to let the thing really open so you can bring more life and details into it and even look for some kind of imperfection. It's good to have a good script but then you must make a mess out of it, I think. ~ Pascal Chaumeil, #NFDB
270:A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
271:Grain is life, there's all this striving for perfection with digital stuff. Striving is fine, but getting there is not great. I want a sense of the human and that is what breathes life into a picture. For me, imperfection is perfection. ~ Anton Corbijn, #NFDB
272:The primary benefits of becoming an imperfectionist are reduced stress and greater results by taking positive action in more situations. The more fearless, confident, and free a person is, the more they embrace imperfection in their life. ~ Stephen Guise, #NFDB
273:So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost. ~ John Green, #NFDB
274:You have to embrace the idea of imperfection, even in the thing that is most perfect for you. Your brother whisked away a girl and got married in a whirlwind and could be discovering right now that she snores so loudly, he can’t even sleep.” I ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
275:So you've been gone a couple days,' Allison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss... A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost. ~ John Green, #NFDB
276:Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. Blushing has little less power; and modesty in general, which is a tacit allowance of imperfection, is itself considered as an amiable quality, and certainly heightens every other that is so. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
277:Thank you for being you… for sharing your love with me… for inspiring me to accept myself… for helping me see the unique beauty in imperfection… for showing me that love is something you do; something not just to be said, but also to be shown. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
278:I ended up becoming a playwright because you can be grammatically incorrect: people speaking in bad poetry or people attempting to speak well and sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. The whole imperfection of it suddenly felt freeing to me. ~ Annie Baker, #NFDB
279:Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
280:I see that there will be no end to imperfection, or to doing things the wrong way. Even if you grow up, no matter how hard you scrub, whatever you do, there will always be some other stain or spot on your face or stupid act, somebody frowning. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
281:I think it was the right move, but if I can be allowed a mediocre generalization, don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it'd lose even its imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
282:The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare intervals. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
283:I think it was the right move, but if I can be allowed a mediocre generalization, don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
284:I am not perfect, but if I looked perfect to everyone I must have been rocking imperfect perfectly to a few imperfect souls that seek imperfection vs. perfection, in an imperfect world where God asks us to seek perfection for our imperfect souls. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
285:The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man; neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten His divinity, that Christ can help us, in Him there is no imperfection. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
286:The spiritual aspiration is innate in man; for he is, unlike the animal, aware of imperfection and limitation and feels that there is something to be attained beyond what he now is.
The Life Divine, Chapter XXIII - Man and the Evolution, p.875 ~ Sri Aurobindo,#NFDB
287:Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them anyways. ~ Marilyn, #NFDB
288:What you are trying to do is a piece of art that is perfect in itself as art and yet retains the imperfection, the human fragmented, chaotic characteristics of a diary written on the spot in white heat. I don’t know whether it can be done. It’s a problem. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
289:We like people for their qualities, but we love them for their defects.” In writing this line I meant to say that we must not simply “accept” imperfection when it is revealed to us—we must celebrate it. This, I assure you, is the true sign of friendship. ~ Ron Perlman, #NFDB
290:Even allowing for the imperfection of myths, it is enough to make us question, for that time and ours, the excuse of progress in the annihilation of races, and the telling of history from the standpoint of the conquerors and leaders of Western civilization. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
291:The saddest thing in the world was that human beings, for all their ardent striving and desire, could never achieve physical, emotional, or intellectual perfection. The species was doomed to imperfection; it thrashed forever in despair or denial of that fact. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
292:Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason - or at least they appeal to certain types of people... You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart - or maybe we should say that the work discovers you. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
293:I think you are beautiful,” he kissed her again, before pulling back to look deep in her eyes, “I love every imperfection on you, because they make you perfect, Elli.” He kissed her nose as her eyes went wide, and tears rushed to her eyes. “You’re perfect to me. ~ Toni Aleo, #NFDB
294:There is no humility in calling yourself a Christian; placing Christ in the role of colleague. The humility lies in the truth of your imperfection and a more accurate description as a student of Christianity; placing Christ back in the role as head teacher. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
295:We are less justified in saying that the thinking life of humanity is a miraculous perfectioning of animal and physical life than that it is an imperfection in the organization of spiritual life as rudimentary as the communal existence of protozoa in colonies. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
296:Either still I find Some imperfection in the chosen theme, Or see of absolute accomplishment Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself, That I recoil and droop, and seek repose In listlessness from vain perplexity, Unprofitably travelling towards the grave. ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
297:Learning to live, in the end, is learning to live with imperfection in this way, and even to embrace it. Our being is cemented with sickly qualities … Whoever should remove the seeds of these qualities from man would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life. ~ Sarah Bakewell, #NFDB
298:Perfection, rather, is the ability to incorporate imperfection! There’s no other way to live: You either incorporate imperfection, or you fall into denial. That’s how the Spirit moves in or out of our lives. —from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
299:Silence falls, pulsing with the truth of what I’ve learned and what Dean has yet to acknowledge. Our relationship, our love, cannot and will never be perfect. It will, however, always belong only to us in all its flawed, intense beauty. Perfect in its very imperfection. ~ Nina Lane, #NFDB
300:The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti - freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
301:the disgust that exists indelibly between men and women and that you are always trying to purge with what you call frankness. As soon as you cease to be frank, you see a stain, you are forced to acknowledge imperfection, and you want only to run away and hide in shame. ~ Rachel Cusk, #NFDB
302:Evolutionary plasticity can be purchased only at the ruthlessly dear price of continuously sacrificing some individuals to death from unfavourable mutations. Bemoaning this imperfection of nature has, however, no place in a scientific treatment of this subject. ~ Theodosius Dobzhansky, #NFDB
303:Meditation means conscious self-expansion. Meditation means one's conscious awareness of the transcendental Reality. Meditation means the recognition or the discovery of one's own true self. It is through meditation that we transcend limitation, bondage and imperfection. ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
304:A human relationship is not based on differentiation & perfection, for these only emphasize the differences or call forth the exact opposite; it is based, rather, on imperfection, on what is weak, helpless and in need of support – the very ground and motive of dependence. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
305:Humanity, in other words, was not some genetically uniform stock that could be purged of a few defectives. Penrose saw our species as rich with genetic diversity, and forever falling short of genetic perfection. To eliminate imperfection would demand eliminating humanity itself. ~ Carl Zimmer, #NFDB
306:It is wise to face the possibility that the whole human race (being a small thing in the universe) is, in fact, just such a local pocket of evil—an isolated bad school or regiment inside which minimum decency passes for heroic virtue and utter corruption for pardonable imperfection. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
307:God bears with imperfect beings even when they resist His goodness. We ought to imitate this merciful patience and endurance. It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become toward the defects of other people. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
308:If we were faultless, we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate. If we were to acknowledge honestly that we have not virtue enough to bear patiently with our neighbor's weaknesses, we should show our own imperfection, and this alarms our vanity. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
309:Every form, not being the whole, must, of necessity, be imperfect; less than the whole, it cannot be identical with the whole, and being less than the whole and, therefore, imperfect by itself, it shows imperfection as evil, and only the totality of a universe can mirror the image of God. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
310:Your fellow man is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself. ~ Baal Shem Tov, #NFDB
311:One point of this book is to remind us that imperfection is the rule, not the exception. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, who worked as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair department store, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger in Jim Crow–era Alabama. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
312:Ever since the Christmas of ’53, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving—Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who’s not home. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
313:First imperfection: spiritual pride. 2. Fed by Satan. 3. Rebellion against confessors. 4. Deceitful confessions. 5. Pride of impatience with self. 6. Continuation. 7. Conduct of the humble beginner. 8–10. Marks of true, simple spirituality. 11. How the humble man bears his own imperfections. ~ Juan de la Cruz, #NFDB
314:Ever since the Christmas of 1953, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
315:Ever since the Christmas of '53, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving--Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
316:We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
317:When you are older, you will, I hope, learn something of the world and understand that each man carries with him imperfection and regret, and day by day he strives to make right the wrongs he has committed, to repair what he has broken. This is what I have struggled to do, in ways human and flawed. ~ Tara Conklin, #NFDB
318:There's a beauty to imperfection. This is the essence of the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi values character and uniqueness over a shiny facade. It teaches that cracks and scratches in things should be embraced. It's also about simplicity. You strip things down and then use what you have. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
319:It seems impossible that she could have liked someone like Mitchell when there was someone like this guy in the world, someone tall and lanky, with tousled hair and startling green eyes and a speck of mustard on his chin, like the one small imperfection that makes the whole painting work somehow. ~ Jennifer E Smith, #NFDB
320:Language is evidently one of the principle instruments or helps of thought; and any imperfection in the instrument, or in the mode of employing it, is confessedly liable, still more than in almost any other art, to confuse and impede the process, and destroy all ground of confidence in the result. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
321:Eastwood was distorted for me, a picturesque place meant to lull its residents into believing that behind our gates and beyond our curfew, nothing bad could ever happen with any sort of permanence. It was a place so fatally flawed that it refused to acknowledge that any such imperfection was possible. ~ Robyn Schneider, #NFDB
322:[The cause of inaction in war] ... is the imperfection of human perception and judgment which is more pronounced in war than anywhere else. We hardly know accurately our own situation at any particular moment while the enemy's, which is concealed from us, must be deduced from very little evidence. ~ Carl von Clausewitz, #NFDB
323:The true God is not a form idealized; he/she/it is real and therefore, by definition, imperfect; only an abstraction can be free of flaws. And since God is imperfect, there will be suffering.... There is no perfect God. And your suffering requires no more explanation than that unavoidable imperfection. ~ Robert J Sawyer, #NFDB
324:Mandy's friends gathered around her as she told the story-the true and somewhat heartbreaking story of her first time. It hadn't been perfect, but she now knew that imperfection was okay-part of life, even. And for the first time in her life, Mandy Walters was realizing that she could live with imperfection. ~ Kate Brian, #NFDB
325:People are afraid to cross the line over to complete honesty and imperfection because they worry about losing things they do not have or even worse, things they have but that do not REALLY matter to them. Keeping up an act of any sort is easier in the short term, but becomes soul draining as life goes on. ~ Srinivas Rao, #NFDB
326:Perfection isn't human. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love--and I mean love, not lust--is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real person peaks through, say, 'This is a challenge to my compassion.' Then make a try, and something might begin to get going. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
327:To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species. The essence of man is imperfection. Imperfection and blazing contradictions-between mixed good and evil, altruism and selfishness, cooperativeness and combativeness, optimism and fatalism, affirmation and negation. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
328:What does it take to live and love from a place of worthiness? How do we embrace imperfection? How do we cultivate what we need and let go of the things that are holding us back? The answers to all of these questions are courage, compassion, and connection—the tools we need to work our way through our journey. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
329:Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are ~ Bren Brown,#NFDB
330:Till we come to try to put our own thoughts upon paper, we can have no notion how broke and imperfect they are, or find where the imperfection lies. Language is a scheme of machinery of so subtle a kind, that it is only by long habits that we can learn to conduct it in a masterly manner, or to the best purposes. ~ William Godwin, #NFDB
331:If they who understand the utmost refinement of any art will enjoy the perfection of it in a manner superior to other men, will they not amply pay for that advantage in feeling more than other men the imperfection of it, which in the natural course of things must so much oftener fall in their way? ~ Fulke Greville 1st Baron Brooke, #NFDB
332:For true devotion must issue from the heart, and consist in the truth and substances alone of what is represented by spiritual things; all the rest is affection and attachment proceeding from imperfection; and in order that one may pass to any kind of perfection it is necessary for such desires to be killed. ~ Saint John of the Cross, #NFDB
333:There is no perfect plan and no perfect scenario, because life happens. As helpful it is to be able to plan, it’s equally important to adapt to changing circumstances and problems. It’s important to understand that you will be significantly and continually impacted by imperfection—from yourself, the world, and others. ~ Stephen Guise, #NFDB
334:It is imperfection - not perfection - that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain, and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development. ~ Rita Levi Montalcini, #NFDB
335:We attempted perfection; we wanted an object to be without flaw, so we cut the papers with a razor, pasted them down meticulously, but it buckled and was ruined... that is why we decided to tear prewrinkled paper, so that in the finished work of art imperfection would be an integral part, as if at birth death were built in. ~ Hans Arp, #NFDB
336:For some of the kids on my bus, the deviation is so small: an imperfection in the DNA strand so tiny that an electron microscope cranked to 100,000X magnification shows but a shadow. A knot of rogue atoms. Weightless. A body forms itself around that anomaly, and next comes a life, and the lives of that person's family. ~ Craig Davidson, #NFDB
337:A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
338:I feel like the live record thing is something that I've been getting used to as the years go by and with this being my second one, I'm continuing to learn what works and what doesn't work. A live record is an example of that authenticity and that realness that you find in imperfection and you can hear that in this record. ~ Josh Turner, #NFDB
339:That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light. ~ Albert Pike, #NFDB
340:That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.
~ Albert Pike,#NFDB
341:Toby had received, though not yet digested, one of the earliest lessons of adult life: that one is never secure. At any moment one can be removed from a state of guileless serenity and plunged into its opposite, without any intermediate condition, so high about us do the waters rise of our own and other people's imperfection. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
342:Toby had received, though not yet digested, one of the earliest lessons of adult life: that one is never secure. At any moment one can be removed from a state of guileless serenity and plunged into its opposite, without any intermediate condition, so high about us do the waters rise of our own and other people’s imperfection. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
343:So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost.' I smiled. 'You can't go disappearing on everybody like this, Hazel. You miss too much. ~ John Green, #NFDB
344:There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
345:Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
346:as humans, we automatically attach a whole string of judgments, interpretations, questions, and beliefs to situations. Our task involves accepting the imperfection of our own humanity and loving ourselves for having these judgments, including the one that says we must be a spiritually moribund person for creating this reality. ~ Colin C Tipping, #NFDB
347:Nostalgia is a powerful force, and in the maelstrom of the moment many of us seek comfort in imagining that once there was a Camelot—without quite remembering that the Arthurian legend itself was about a court riven by ambition and infidelity. One point of this book is to remind us that imperfection is the rule, not the exception. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
348:There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and at the same time, all-powerful being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
349:In the face of sorrow, imperfection and the fleetingness of our affections and joys, we ask ourselves ‘why?’. We need reassurance. We look to art for the proof that life in this world is meaningful and that suffering is not the pointless thing that it so often appears to be, but the necessary part of a larger and redeeming whole. ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
350:Intuitive cognition of a thing is cognition that enables us to know whether the thing exists or does not exist, in such a way that, if the thing exists, then the intellect immediately judges that it exists and evidently knows that it exists, unless the judgment happens to be impeded through the imperfection of this cognition. ~ William of Ockham, #NFDB
351:Our divine perfection - not registered by the physical eye but only by the heart’s knowing - is who we truly are. Our mortal imperfections - registered by the physical senses - are not who we truly are. Yet we keep trying, in love, to find each other’s perfection within the world of imperfection. And it simply is not there. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
352:There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
353:There's always room out there for the hand-drawn image. I personally like the imperfection of hand drawing as opposed to the slick look of computer animation. But you can do good stuff either way. The Pixar movies are amazing in what they do, but there's plenty of independent animators who are doing really amazing things as well. ~ Matt Groening, #NFDB
354:As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we? ~ Hugh Laurie, #NFDB
355:If you’re watching Netflix every time it’s time for you to do X, that’s a hiding place. You’re afraid to face the fear of imperfection that comes along with every endeavor, so you’re hiding from it by doing something that requires no skill. You might write a bad sentence on your blog, but no one’s going to critique the way you watch TV. “I ~ Jon Acuff, #NFDB
356:Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
357:Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, #NFDB
358:Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, #NFDB
359:Jade didn’t care about the victims, exactly. He cared about them inexactly. They were grains of sand in an hourglass, scars to be tallied like points against him. Sometimes, he even hated them. They were glaring symbols of his imperfection. And right now, he couldn’t shake them out of his head. He turned them over in his mind obsessively. ~ Gregg Hurwitz, #NFDB
360:I believe in a set of values I cannot live by. I set high goals for myself, I seek perfection, dream of exotic faraway places. But ultimately, what I long for isn't far away at all. It's in my own backyard. Imperfection charms me, familiar things move me... a celebration of what we have, instead of what we long for. That for me, is glamor. ~ Isabella Rossellini, #NFDB
361:One of the things I love so much about Valerie [Belin] is that she inhabits her body so completely. She has no self-consciousness about having stretch marks or having given birth. It's just so amazing that she has nothing to hide. Whereas all these other women see every little - supposed - imperfection - anything irregular is seen as an imperfection. ~ Nan Goldin, #NFDB
362:I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message. ~ Osho, #NFDB
363:The reality is, I like imperfection. You take away from the world when you're not yourself. Whatever is unique and special about you was designed by God. And when you try to be someone else, we don't get you. Who knows what you would have contributed to the world had you just been yourself, if you had just celebrated who you are and just walked boldly? ~ Queen Latifah, #NFDB
364:I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
365:The snapshooter’s pictures have an apparent disorder and imperfection, which is exactly their appeal and their style. The picture isn’t straight. It isn’t done well. It isn’t composed. It isn’t thought out. And out of this imbalance, and out of this not knowing, and out of this real innocence toward the medium comes an enormous vitality and expression of life. ~ Lisette Model, #NFDB
366:We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
367:We all have our reasons. Sometimes we're fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we're shattered by things we never would have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source for our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
368:I realise that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors - but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch, in the next 200 years, will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. My regret will have been that I could not behold its demise. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
369:Dreams are imperfections of sleep; even so is consciousness the imperfection of waking. Dreams are impurities in the circulation of the blood; even so it's consciousness a disorder of life. Dreams are without proportion, without good sense, without truth; so also is consciousness. Awake from dream, the truth is known: awake from waking. The truth is: The Unknown ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
370:Descartes’s argument turns out to be a reworking of Anselm’s Ontological Proof. When we doubt, the limitations and finite nature of the ego are revealed. Yet we could not arrive at the idea of “imperfection” if we did not have a prior conception of “perfection.” Like Anselm, Descartes concluded that a perfection that did not exist would be a contradiction in terms. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
371:The value of the Old Testament may be dependant on what seems its imperfection. It may repel one use in order that we may be forced to use it in another way-to find the Word in it...to re-live, while we read, the whole Jewish experience of God's gradual and graded self-revelation, to feel the very contentions between the Word and the human material through which it works. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
372:I love monsters. If I go to a church, I'm more interested in the gargoyles than the saints. I really don't care much about the idea of normal - that's very abstract to me. I think that perfection is practically unattainable but imperfection is right at hand. So that's why I love monsters: because they represent a side of us we should actually embrace and celebrate. ~ Guillermo del Toro, #NFDB
373:In every country where man is free to think and to speak, difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
374:Holding Naoko in my arms, I wanted to explain to her, "I am having intercourse with you now. I am inside you. But this is really nothing. It doesn't matter. It is nothing but the joining of two bodies. All we are doing is telling each other things that can only be told by the rubbing together of two imperfect lumps of flesh. By doing this, we are sharing our imperfection. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
375:But thank God there's imperfection in the World, Since imperfection is a thing, And the existence of mistaken People is original, And the existence of sick People makes the world interesting. If there were no imperfection, there would be one less thing, And there should be many Things, So that we will have a lot to see and hear For as long as Our eys and ears remain open... ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
376:Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system. (1794) ~ Erasmus Darwin, #NFDB
377:Even when I'm singing on record there's a lot of times when I'll fight for a bit of imperfection. I might not have quite hit the note to the perfect pitch, but there was a soul in there and feeling that,to me, delivers the emotion of that moment. For me, doing a show, the excitement of singing live, and the possibility that you're not going to be perfect - that's the thrill of it. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
378:The best literature is always a take [in the musical sense]; there is an implicit risk in its execution, a margin of danger that is the pleasure of the flight, of the love, carrying with it a tangible loss but also a total engagement that, on another level, lends the theater its unparalleled imperfection faced with the perfection of film. I don’t want to write anything but takes. ~ Julio Cortazar, #NFDB
379:Man is flawed; universe is imperfect; the functioning of the cosmos is defective! Everything seems to be severely punished by the imperfection! May be the real challenge of men is to correct all these flaws! It is possible to think that God is an evolutionary perfectionist! He creates things as unimportant and faulty; then let them all alone and fateless to evolve to perfection! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
380:The progression of minor keys...they're meant to represent imperfection..."
I understand. But that is a philosophical conceit. All artists strive toward perfection or else lack fire."
Imperfections make the gods draw near. They crave to fix things. Same way some people leap in to finish other people's sentences. God loves nothing better than to break perfect things. ~ Carla Speed McNeil,#NFDB
381:the liberal believes in the permanence of humanity’s imperfection, he resigns himself to a regime in which the good will be the result of numberless actions, and never the object of a conscious choice. Finally, he suscribes to the pessimism that sees, in politics, the art of creating the conditions in which the vices of men will contribute to the good of the state. —RAYMOND ARON, L’OPIUM ~ Clive James, #NFDB
382:Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for beings vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about representations of women. As if a woman were a mere colored superficies! You must wait for movement and tone. There is a difference in their very breathing: they change from moment to moment. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
383:The best literature is always a take [in the musical sense]; there is an implicit risk in its execution, a margin of danger that is the pleasure of the flight, of the love, carrying with it a tangible loss but also a total engagement that, on another level, lends the theater its unparalleled imperfection faced with the perfection of film.
I don’t want to write anything but takes. ~ Julio Cort zar,#NFDB
384:The Secret of Enlightenment is not in Perfection but in Completeness. Everything that is below the Abyss carries the imperfection within.
After the Infinite establishes Divine Order, the Life of Duality as we know it on Earth begins. It is Yin and Yang in its Manifestation, and only through the two meeting, marrying, merging, they both reach God.’ Ama Alchemy of Love by Nuit Quote ~ Nata a Nuit Pantovi,#NFDB
385:Well, I cannot find, and have never found, any way of comforting such people, except to express great sorrow at their trouble, which, when I see them so miserable, I really do feel. It is useless to argue with them, for they brood over their woes and make up their minds that they are suffering for God’s sake, and thus never really understand that it is all due to their own imperfection. And ~ Teresa of vila, #NFDB
386:I decided to lock myself in. A forced segregation. Sabbatical. A retreat into myself. My selves. Play hide and go seek in the looking-glass. The mirror angled at the foot of my bed. Twisted reflections bouncing off into infinity. Obsessed with my image, the myriad of distored figurines who danced in front of me in rapid succession, every feature exaggerated, every slight imperfection a new delicacy. ~ Lydia Lunch, #NFDB
387:All we have acquired soon loses worth,
An old disvalued credit in Time’s bank,
Imperfection’s cheque drawn on the Inconscient. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit’s Freedom and Greatness
Time's bank
Though Time is immortal,
Mortal his works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Poetry and Art, Hexameters, Alcaics, Sapphics,#NFDB
388:Attaining the goal of a full, happy life, ripe with experiences well-used, means that each of us will become a paradox—free, yet constrained by necessity; shrewd, yet innocent; open to others, yet self-reliant; strong, yet able to yield; centered on the highest values, yet able to accept imperfection; realistic about the suffering existence imposes on us, yet full of gratitude for life as it is. ~ Don Richard Riso, #NFDB
389:We are nature; we are nature as we munch gum and check the phone; we are nature as we queasily regret our imperfection, turning the glossy page, turning our glossy stomachs; we are nature as we hear them witter inanely on the radio, desecrating the silence with the violence of their idiocy and dumb verdicts, chattering and grooming, picking through the ticks in their hair, marveling at new minutia. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
390:In the context of novel writing, this means you should lower the bar from “best-seller” to “would not make someone vomit.” Exuberant imperfection encourages you to write uncritically, to experiment, to break your time-honored rules of writing just to see what happens. In a first draft, nothing is permanent, and everything is fixable. So stay loose and flexible, and keep your expectations very, very low. ~ Chris Baty, #NFDB
391:What unites all of these individual Scientologists is a belief in their inherent spiritual imperfection, which can be rectified—if not totally reversed—only through intense study of, and rigid adherence to, the teachings of a single man: Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Though he has been dead some twenty years, Hubbard’s followers regard him as a living, vital entity—a personal Jesus of sorts. ~ Janet Reitman, #NFDB
392:Just thinking about them brought a sob to her throat. Chloe pressed her back against the wall and lowered herself to the cold floor. “God, please, bring to mind Scriptures you want me to hear right now. Don’t let hunger or fatigue or fear keep me from remembering. You know who I am and who I’m not. I just want to be what you want me to be. You know better than I that you’re working with imperfection here. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
393:Ainsi leur rencontre avait eu l'importance d'une aventure. Ils s'étaient, tout de suite, accrochés par des fibres secrètes. D'ailleurs, comment expliquer les sympathies? Pourquoi telle particularité, telle imperfection indifférente ou odieuse dans celui-ci enchante-t-elle dans celui-là? Ce qu'on appelle le coup de foudre est vrai pour toutes les passions. Avant la fin de la semaine, ils se tutoyèrent ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
394:Teach us, O God, that nothing is necessary to Thee. Were anything necessary to Thee that thing would be the measure of Thine imperfection: and how could we worship one who is imperfect? If nothing is necessary to Thee, then no one is necessary, and if no one, then not we. Thou dost seek us though Thou does not need us. We seek Thee because we need Thee, for in Thee we live and move and have our being. Amen. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
395:I sing the Equalities, modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues—Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice;
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration. ~ Walt Whitman,#NFDB
396:We live in a world with "free" content, and this freedom is not an imperfection. We listen to the radio without paying for the songs we hear; we hear friends humming tunes that they have not licensed. We tell jokes that reference movie plots without the permission of the directors. We read our children books, borrowed from a library, without paying the original copyright holder for the performance rights. ~ Lawrence Lessig, #NFDB
397:And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results, And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death, And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
398:If [being confident stems from] a self-esteem issue, it's important to embrace the things you might define as so-called imperfections - because something that you might call an imperfection, someone else might find so amazing and so beautiful. It's all in how you embrace yourself, your faults, and your mistakes in life. There's no better way to learn and become a better person than to go through those moments. ~ John Slattery, #NFDB
399:Let others all Commend the marriage rites of gold and jade; I still recall The bond of old by stone and flower made; And while my vacant eyes behold Crystalline shows of beauty pure and cold, From my mind can not be banished That fairy wood forlorn that from the world has vanished. How true I find That every good some imperfection holds! Even a wife so courteous and so kind No comfort brings to my afflicted mind. ~ Cao Xueqin, #NFDB
400:As for the spirit of poverty, I do not remember any moment when it was not in me, although only to that unhappily small extent compatible with my imperfection. I fell in love with Saint Francis of Assisi as soon as I came to know about him. I always believed and hoped that one day Fate would force upon me the condition of a vagabond and a beggar which he embraced freely. Actually I felt the same way about prison. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
401:If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
402:Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to 'blame' for our errors-- neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else. Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing. Spirituality accepts that 'If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. ~ Ernest Kurtz, #NFDB
403:For, above all, I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
404:worry that younger women are striving so hard to present a compelling story via images that they’re ignoring the substance that makes the story true. Ultimately, they’re going to end up really bitter later in life (and not the good kind of bitter that sells books). My message to these women is this—if you want to avoid regrets later, give yourselves a break now and just be real. Enjoy the mess. Revel in the imperfection. ~ Jen Lancaster, #NFDB
405:A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of-- that a certain type of perfection can only be realised through a limitless accumulation of imperfect. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
406:I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
407:My husband and I will always be two people living one life of perfect imperfection. We’ll always live here, in the place of Liv and Dean, where problems are solved and locks are opened. A place of infinite love, persistence, tenderness, passion, acceptance, and forgiveness. A place where wishes are granted, dreams come true, and stories have happy endings—not because of fate or magic, but because we love each other so hard and so well. ~ Nina Lane, #NFDB
408:Marion discovered an underlying theme in her clients’ dreams. She discovered that her addicted clients lived divided lives—lives split between body and soul, between perfection and imperfection, between light and dark. Healing came about through integrating these “pairs of opposites.” She came into an understanding of the way in which longing for our idealized images of life separates us from our true selves and from our true callings. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
409:And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and
can be none in the future,
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to
beautiful results,
And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are
compact,
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each
as profound as any. ~ Walt Whitman,#NFDB
410:A child’s sense of secure attachment—this idea that I, in all my glory, as well as all my stinkiness and imperfection, am loved and accepted—allows him not only to take risks in the world but also to take risks with his own emotions. Knowing he will not be invalidated, rejected, punished, or shamed for feeling whatever he feels, he can test out sadness, happiness, or anger and figure out how to manage or respond to each of these emotions in turn. ~ Susan David, #NFDB
411:The Jews have made him [Yahweh] the assassin of the human species, to make room for the religion of the Jews. The Christians have made him the murderer of himself, and the founder of a new religion to supersede and expel the Jewish religion. And to find pretence and admission for these things, they must have supposed his power or his wisdom imperfect, or his will changeable; and the changeableness of the will is the imperfection of the judgement. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
412:No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
413:Everyone is imperfect.” Mohandas Gandhi was imperfect and Joseph Stalin was imperfect, but they were not the same shade of imperfection. “Everyone is imperfect” is an excellent example of replacing a two-color view with a one-color view. If you say, “No one is perfect, but some people are less imperfect than others,” you may not gain applause; but for those who strive to do better, you have held out hope. No one is perfectly imperfect, after all. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
414:When the heavens are obscured to us, and nothing noble or heroic appears, but we are oppressed by imperfection and shortcoming on all hands, we are apt to suck our thumbs and decry our fates. As if nothing were to be done in cloudy weather, or, if heaven were not accessible by the upper road, men would not find out a lower... There are two ways to victory, - to strive bravely, or to yield. How much pain the last will save we have not yet learned. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
415:His sorrow was magnified by the fact that he knew he was too hard on them, too demanding, too impatient. They were Yahweh’s way of pounding the selfishness out of his own soul. And in their youthful flaws he could see himself before his heavenly father. His own imperfection, his own selfish demands and need for guidance and wisdom. They taught him as much about his heavenly father’s love for him as any of the sacrifices could. But now they were all dead. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
416:Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason—or at least they appeal to certain types of people. Just like you’re attracted to Soseki’s The Miner. There’s something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realized novels like Kokoro or Sanshiro. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart—or maybe we should say the work discovers you. Schubert’s Sonata in D Major is sort of the same thing. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
417:Every state of life, every decision, includes some pain that must be accepted if you are to enter fully into those decisions, and into new life. “All symphonies remain unfinished,” said Karl Rahner. There is no perfect decision, perfect outcome, or perfect life. Embracing imperfection helps us relax into reality. When we accept that all choices are conditional, limited, and imperfect, our lives become, paradoxically, more satisfying, joyful, and peaceful. ~ James Martin, #NFDB
418:The Church is in the world, it is part of the suffering in the world, and though Christ condemned the disciple who struck off the ear of the high priest's servant, our hearts go out in sympathy to all who are moved to violence by the suffering of others. The Church condemns violence, but it condemns indifference more harshly. Violence can be the expression of love, indifference never. One is an imperfection of charity, the other the perfection of egoism. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
419:If you don’t love yourself for your flaws and imperfections, you can’t expect anyone else to either. Sometimes the very thing we are most insecure about is the feature that people like the most about us. You’re not supposed to look like everyone else. We are each made differently, so find whatever flaw or imperfection you have and start embracing it because it’s part of you. Goal: Be proud of your originality. There’s no one else in the world that’s like you. ~ Demi Lovato, #NFDB
420:Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call Imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,(9)
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance(10) and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the GOD of GOD! ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
421:The most we can hope for when we write anything is dazzling imperfection. The least we can hope for is accolades from one or two people who don't know us. Spending all afternoon on "the right word" is probably foolish (though I've done it many times), but then again, it may not be. There may be people out there who'll read that nearly-perfect sentence (or paragraph), with its "right word," and they'll nod and smile and say to themselves, "Hey, that's not too bad. ~ T M Wright, #NFDB
422:to us consciousness, or “the spirit,” appears as a symptom of a relative imperfection of the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a misunderstanding, as an affliction which uses up nervous force unnecessarily—we deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as it is done consciously. The “pure spirit” is a piece of pure stupidity: take away the nervous system and the senses, the so-called “mortal shell,” and the rest is miscalculation—that is all!... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
423:But I guess you have to get cracked wide open and exposed raw to become your best self. Nothing is transformed that is not discovered or exposed. And we are all constant imperfection in a state of evolution until we leave this place. It seems important to acknowledge that none of us, not even the greatest gurus of our time, are completely transformed. It's a great unraveling across a lifetime that is only accessed by the cracks in our ever-present false selves. ~ Jennifer DeLucy, #NFDB
424:I think about religion and how, once we because our own saviors, our own gods, most faiths became irrelevant. What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
425:I've always felt like my calling was to inspire people. And not with famed, epic accomplishments, but with imperfection, struggles and humanity. I want people to read my stories and books and blogs, and look at my life and say, "She should have had nothing going for her. Meager means, questionable looks, no apparent safety nets and an absence of impressive letters after her name. But she followed her bliss anyway. If she can do it, I can do it. I'm not giving up. ~ Jennifer DeLucy, #NFDB
426:Compassion, Brené Brown explains, is the expression of ‘a deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to each other’ by the bonds of shared human imperfection, of suffering and of love and of goodness. If we make the vulnerable choice to connect with empathy—to be vulnerable, excruciatingly so, in order to access that in me which has suffered as you are now suffering—we bring compassion alive by communicating that bond, so others know they are never alone. ~ Sarah Krasnostein, #NFDB
427:Why, then, make a show of the poverty of our life and our sad imperfection, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state? But what if this is in the writer's nature, and his own imperfection grieves him so, and the makeup of his talent is such, that he can only portray the poverty of our life, unearthing people from the backwoods, from the remote corners of the state! So here we are again in the backwoods, again we have come out in some corner! ~ Nikolai Gogol, #NFDB
428:Wake up early. Avoid distractions. Work three to five hours a day and then enjoy the rest of the day. Be as perfectionist as you can, knowing that imperfection will still rule. Have the confidence to be magical and stretch the boundaries of your medium. Combine the tools of the medium itself with the message you want to convey. Don’t get stuck in the same rut—move forward, experiment, but with the confidence built up over experience. Change the rules but learn them first. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
429:What I have always loved most in men is imperfection. I get moved by the wrinkles on the throat of a man. It makes me love him more. I think it is sad that more women don't take the chance that maybe men will be moved by seeing the chin a little less firm than it used to be, that a man will be more in love with his wife because he remembers who she was and sees who she is and thinks, God, isn't that lovely that this happened to her. And be moved by life telling its story there. ~ Liv Ullmann, #NFDB
430:Thus the universe is to be conceived as attaining the active self-expression of its own variety of opposites of its own freedom and its own necessity, of its own multiplicity and its own unity, of its own imperfection and its own perfection. All the opposites are elements in the nature of things, and are incorrigibly there. The concept of God is the way in which we understand this incredible fact that what cannot be, yet is. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), #NFDB
431:The criminal (as slave) often seeks a person of great perfection (and here, as a judge of people's imperfection, the criminal is much harsher than a good man), because he so wants to obtain trust from outside (not through an inner change of mind). If he believes he has found such a person, he gives himself up to him in the most complete slavery, and he searches in an importunate manner for people whom he could serve as a slave. He also wants to live as a slave so as never to be alone. ~ Otto Weininger, #NFDB
432:Authenticity is about imperfection. And authenticity is a very human quality. To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections. The great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don't know. The great leaders can't do everything; they are the ones who look to others to help them. Great leaders don't see themselves as great; they see themselves as human. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
433:7. Don't entertain such thoughts of imperfection, lack of qualities, etc. You are already perfect. Get rid of the ideas of imperfection and need for development. There is nothing to realize or annihilate. You are the Self. The ego does not exist. Pursue the enquiry and see if there is anything to be realised or annihilated. See if there is any mind to be controlled. Even the effort is being made by the mind which does not exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Surpassing Love and Grace An Offering from His Devotees, #NFDB
434:Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
435:Backtesting against historical data, all indications whispered confident promises for what this thing could do once set in motion. As John puts it, “A slight pattern emerged from the overwhelming noise; we had stumbled across a persistent pricing inefficiency in a corner of the market, a small edge over the average investor, which appeared repeatable.” Inefficiencies are what traders live for. A perfectly efficient market can’t be played, but if you can identify the right imperfection, it’s payday. ~ Eric Siegel, #NFDB
436:I think about religion and how, once we became our own saviors, our own gods, most faiths became irrelevant. What must it have been like to believe in something greater than ourselves? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. It must have been frightening. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
437:Of all the emotional relationships in life, is there any more delicate, more noble, and more intense than a boy's deep and yet so totally bashful love for another boy? The kind of love that never speaks, never dares give way to a caress, a glance, or a word, the kind of vigilant love that bitterly grieves over every shortcoming or imperfection in the one who is loved, a love which is longing and admiration and negation of self, and which is pride and humility and calmly breathing happiness. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen, #NFDB
438:It is significant that the socialist mentality is usually also an atheistic mentality, where atheism is understood not so much as the disbelief in God as the hatred of God˜an attitude as precarious logically as it has been destructive in practice. There is an important sense in which religion as traditionally understood reconciles humanity to imperfection and to failure. Since the socialist sets out to abolish failure, traditional religion is worse than _de trop_: it is an impediment to perfection. ~ Roger Kimball, #NFDB
439:If the composition's imperfect, why would so many pianists try to master it?'
'Good question. I have no great explanation for it, but one thing I can say. Works have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason. There's something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realized novels. ou discover something about that work that tugs at your heart- or maybe we should say the work discovers you. ~ Haruki Murakamipage 111
#canbetakenasacommentaryonthisnoveloverall ~ Haruki Murakami,#NFDB
440:Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
441:The weak link-- she liked the ring of it. To seek the imperfection in the chain that keeps you in bondage. Taken individually, the link was not much. But in concert with its fellows, a mighty iron that subjugated millions despite its weakness. The people she chose, young and old, from the rich part of town or the more modest streets, did not individually persecute Cora. As a community, they were shackles. If she kept at it, chipping away at weak links wherever she found them, it might add up to something. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
442:I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient! - I am not what I wish to be! I 'abhor what is evil,' and I would 'cleave to what is good!' - I am not what I hope to be! Soon, soon, I shall put off mortality: and with mortality all sin and imperfection! Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was - a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the Apostle, and acknowledge; By the grace of God, I am what I am! ~ John Newton, #NFDB
443:Knowledge based on the senses is therefore a subjective judgment, an ever-varying opinion without any absolute foundation. True knowledge, by contrast, is possible only from a direct apprehension of the transcendent Forms, which are eternal and beyond the shifting confusion and imperfection of the physical plane. Knowledge derived from the senses is merely opinion and is fallible by any nonrelative standard. Only knowledge derived directly from the Ideas is infallible and can be justifiably called real knowledge. ~ Richard Tarnas, #NFDB
444:In the light of this reasoning, life seems like a long nightmare from which one can free oneself with death, which would then be like a kind of awakening. But awaken to what? The unwillingness to throw myself into absolute and eternal nothingness is what has kept me from all these attempts at suicide. In spite from everything, man has such an attachment to all that exists that he prefers to put up with its imperfection and the pain of its ugliness, rather than destroy the phantasmagoria with an act of his own will. ~ Ernesto Sabato, #NFDB
445:Spirituality is one of those realities that you have only so long as you seek it; as soon as you think you have it, you’ve lost it. In rediscovering this basic spiritual insight, the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous tapped the essence of open-endedness that characterizes a spirituality of imperfection. Spirituality is boundless, unable to be fenced in: We do not capture it; it captures us. As much as we might like to “wrap things up,” to lock spirituality in and hold it fast, it will forever escape our grasp. ~ Ernest Kurtz, #NFDB
446:Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
447:There’s a natural tendency in American political life to think that things were always better in the past. The passions of previous years fade, to be inevitably replaced by the passions of the present. Nostalgia is a powerful force, and in the maelstrom of the moment many of us seek comfort in imagining that once there was a Camelot—without quite remembering that the Arthurian legend itself was about a court riven by ambition and infidelity. One point of this book is to remind us that imperfection is the rule, not the exception. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
448:Like I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of—that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
449:But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
450:All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
451:lives are meant to be our lives, and not a facade presented for the consumption of others; or, WE ARE NOT A MAGAZINE. I worry that younger women are striving so hard to present a compelling story via images that they’re ignoring the substance that makes the story true. Ultimately, they’re going to end up really bitter later in life (and not the good kind of bitter that sells books). My message to these women is this—if you want to avoid regrets later, give yourselves a break now and just be real. Enjoy the mess. Revel in the imperfection. ~ Jen Lancaster, #NFDB
452:To these somewhat contradictory remarks we learn that the gospel writers were not very sure what did happen to Judas. It appears that Judas is the Egyptian Typhon, Job's Satan, and Scandinavia's Loki. He is the personification of the adversary. He is introduced into the drama as a symbol of the intrinsic imperfection of all living things. In the zodiac, he is Scorpio by some calculations; and by others Capricorn. He is the backbiter, the destroyer. He is still preserved in the church as the "devil's advocate." ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
453:The voice was low and smooth, almost hypnotizing, and a second later the shadow shifted and stepped forward, resolving into a man with broad shoulders and a wiry form, all lean muscle and long bone. The FTF fatigues fit him perfectly, and beneath his rolled sleeves, small black crosses circled both forearms. Above a chiseled jaw, fair hair swept down into eyes as black as pitch. The only imperfection was a small scar running through his left eyebrow—a relic from his first years—but despite the mark, Leo Flynn looked more god than monster. ~ Victoria Schwab, #NFDB
454:Small-town churchgoers are often labeled hypocrites, and sometimes they are. But maybe they are also people who have learned to lived with imperfection, what Archbishop Rembert Weakland, a Benedictine, recently described as "the new asceticism." Living with people at close range over many years, as both monastics and small-town people do, is much more difficult than wearing a hair shirt. More difficult, too, I would add, than holding to the pleasant but unrealistic ideal of human perfectibility that seems to permeate much New Age thinking. ~ Kathleen Norris, #NFDB
455:I am not beautifully perfect as the flowers with which I worship. I have many flaws and blemishes. I am a traveller in the great world-path, my garments are dirty, and my feet are bleeding with thorns. Where should I achieve flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment’s life? The gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman. Here have all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling towards immortal life. Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble and grand. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
456:If you're thinking, 'Great! I just need to be a superhero to fight perfectionism,' I understand. Courage, compassion, and connection seem like big, lofty ideals. But in reality, they are daily practices that, when exercised enough, become these incredible gifts in our lives. And the good news is that our vulnerabilities are what force us to call upon these amazing tools. Because we're human and so beautifully imperfect, we get to practice using our tools on a daily basis. In this way, courage, compassion, and connection become gifts - the gifts of imperfection. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
457:Children come into the world with that sense of celebration and delight in the awesomeness of life. Then we eat of that wonderful, terrible fruit depicted in the story of the Garden of Eden, and our lives become divided. In childhood we have innocent wholeness, which then is transformed into informed separateness. If one is lucky, a second transformation occurs later in life, a transformation into informed wholeness. A proverb puts it this way: in life our task is to go from unconscious perfection to conscious imperfection and then to conscious perfection. ~ Robert A Johnson, #NFDB
458:Every perfection in this life has some imperfection mixed with it and no learning of ours is without some darkness. Humble knowledge of self is a surer path to God than the ardent pursuit of learning. Not that learning is to be considered evil, or knowledge, which is good in itself and so ordained by God; but a clean conscience and virtuous life ought always to be preferred. Many often err and accomplish little or nothing because they try to become learned rather than to live well.”
~ Thomas Kempis Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471); Imitation of Christ; Chapter 3 ~ Thomas Kempis,#NFDB
459:I existed on my own terms. I was different my entire life. Some called me divergent, wild, crazy, unpredictable and unconformed—an apostate to the rules of the majority. I called myself God’s creation and found purpose in the madness. When that day came, I didn’t allow other people to dictate how I should feel or act. I learned there was no shame in imperfection because history had shown being different had the power to change perspectives and eventually the world. This is when I realized that flaws had responsibility. This was the day that I learned I was truly BLESSED. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
460:Mr. Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, – but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
461:Are you all right?” I asked her.
She shrugged, her expression shuttered. “’Course.”
“Must you lie to me?” I sighed. “Of course you’re upset about what you’ve learned. I’d have to be an idiot not to know that.”
“Why’d you ask, then?”
Patience, please, patience.
And once I’d thought no one would test me as much as Taro always had.
“She’s going to start her deep breathing, now,” Taro told Aryne with a wink.
“Heh?”
“It’s what Shields do, when there’s a chance their vaunted calm might suffer from the slightest imperfection.”
Git. ~ Moira J Moore,#NFDB
462:It is a woeful thing to see souls beginning to chafe and grow disheartened because they find themselves still subject to imperfection after having made some attempt at leading a devout life, and well-nigh yielding to the temptation to give up in despair and fall back; but, on the other hand, there is an extreme danger surrounding those souls who, through the opposite temptation, are disposed to imagine themselves purified from all imperfection at the very outset of their purgation; who count themselves as full-grown almost before they are born, and seek to fly before they have wings. ~ Francis de Sales, #NFDB
463:That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. Like I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of—that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
464:That's why I like listening to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all his performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally I find that encouraging. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
465:It is a woeful thing to see souls beginning to chafe and grow disheartened because they find themselves still subject to imperfection after having made some attempt at leading a devout life, and well-nigh yielding to the temptation to give up in despair and fall back; but, on the other hand, there is an extreme danger surrounding those souls who, through the opposite temptation, are disposed to imagine themselves purified from all imperfection at the very outset of their purgation; who count themselves as full-grown almost before they are born, and seek to fly before they have wings. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
466:To every man, however holy he may be, there always remains some imperfection, because he has been drawn from nothingness: so that we do no injury to the saints when, in recounting their virtues, we relate their sins and defects; but, on the contrary, those who write their lives seem, for this reason, to do a great injury to making by concealing the sins and imperfections of the saints, under pretence of honouring them, not referring to the commencement of their lives, for fear of diminishing the esteem of their sanctity. Oh, no, indeed, this is not to act properly; but it is to wrong the saints and all posterity. ~ Francis de Sales, #NFDB
467:To every man, however holy he may be, there always remains some imperfection, because he has been drawn from nothingness: so that we do no injury to the saints when, in recounting their virtues, we relate their sins and defects; but, on the contrary, those who write their lives seem, for this reason, to do a great injury to making by concealing the sins and imperfections of the saints, under pretence of honouring them, not referring to the commencement of their lives, for fear of diminishing the esteem of their sanctity. Oh, no, indeed, this is not to act properly; but it is to wrong the saints and all posterity. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
468:. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit -- In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, "Whatever IS, is RIGHT. ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
469:No, let me finish. There isn’t beauty in perfection. It’s as fake as the image the word projects. Beauty is found in imperfection, Willow, because to admit you’re not perfect means you’re admitting you’re not whole and absolute. When I think of myself, I see someone willing to admit he’s as far from complete as it gets because, in order to get to that perfection, I need to find the other part of me who will make my life better. To take all the faults I have and fill them, and only then will I be there. You see, the way I see it, the only way to become perfect is to find that perfectly imperfect person who brings it out of you. ~ Harper Sloan, #NFDB
470:I am continuously struck by how frequently the various thought processes of the inner critic trigger overwhelming emotional flashbacks. This is because the PTSD-derived inner critic weds shame and self-hate about imperfection to fear of abandonment, and mercilessly drive the psyche with the entwined serpents of perfectionism and endangerment. Recovering individuals must learn to recognize, confront and disidentify from the many inner critic processes that tumble them back in emotional time to the awful feelings of overwhelming fear, self-hate, hopelessness and self-disgust that were part and parcel of their original childhood abandonment. ~ Pete Walker, #NFDB
471:True, the imperfection of biological evolution’, I began, but he didn’t let me finish. ‘Imperfection?!’ he snorted. ‘Droppings! Trash! An outright botch-job! If you can’t do something right, you shouldn’t do it at all!’ ‘Not that I want to make excuses’, I said quickly, ‘but Nature, don’t forget, worked with what it had at hand. In the primordial sea …’ ‘Garbage floated!!’ he roared so loud, I winced. ‘Isn’t that right? A star exploded, planets formed, and from the dregs, which couldn’t be used for anything, from those gobbets and scraps life arose! Enough, no more! No more of these pudgy suns, inane galaxies, this mucilage that has a soul – enough! ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
472:My whole life I wanted to be normal. Everybody knows there's no such thing as normal. There is no black-and-white definition of normal. Normal is subjective. There's only messy, inconsistant, silly, hopeful version of how we feel most at home in our own lives. But when I think about what I have, what I strived to reach my whole life, it's not the biggest or best or easiest or prettiest or most anything. It's not the Manor or the laundry closet. Not the multi-million dollar inheritance or the poorhouse. It's not superstardom or unemployment. It's family and love and safety. It's bravery and hope. It's work and laughter and imperfection. It's my normal. ~ Tori Spelling, #NFDB
473:Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world's sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I'd always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we're fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we're shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis of our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
474:Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world’s sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
475:The girls on the computer are so hot. Their bodies are perfect. I’ve spent many hours fantasizing about being with them. But lately, it seems like I can’t accept imperfection in the women I meet. I’ll start talking with a really nice girl at a bar. She’s cute and has a great sense of humor, but my interest only goes so far. She’s not a ‘ten.’ She has flaws. Her boobs are too small, her waist too thick, or her thighs too wide. I know it’s wrong to be rejecting women because they don’t look like the image of the supermodel girls I find sexy. Porn has created a huge gap between the kind of woman I enjoy being with and the kind of woman I actually desire sexually. ~ Wendy Maltz, #NFDB
476:Our own friends around us are not always merry and wise, nor, alas! always honest and true. They are often cross and foolish, and sometimes treacherous and false. They are so, and we are angry. Then we forgive them, not without a consciousness of imperfection on our own part. And we know — or, at least, believe, — that though they be sometimes treacherous and false, there is a balance of good. We cannot have heroes to dine with us. There are none. And were these heroes to be had, we should not like them. But neither are our friends villains, — whose every aspiration is for evil, and whose every moment is a struggle for some achievement worthy of the devil. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
477:The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, ridgidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom,--a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom,--is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyse vitality. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
478:To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection--one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
479:I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candour of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of forseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a... sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems and mechanisms that served specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
480:The final truth about a phenomenon resides in the mathematical description of it; so long as there is no imperfection in this, our knowledge of the phenomenon is complete. We go beyond the mathematical formula at our own risk; we may find a model or a picture which helps us understand it, but we have no right to expect this, and our failure to find such a model or picture need not indicate that either our reasoning or our knowledge is at fault. The making of models or pictures to explain mathematical formulas and the phenomena they describe is not a step towards, but a step away from reality; it is like making a graven image of a spirit. ~ Sir James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe (1930)., #NFDB
481:So many souls make little or no progress in the holiness that I desire for them because they do not trust in My grace. They attempt to change themselves by making use of purely human means, and forget that I am all-powerful, all-merciful, and ready at every moment to heal and sanctify those who entrust themselves, with their weaknesses and sins, to My most loving Heart. I do not ask for perfection from those whom I have chosen to be My friends; I ask only that they give Me their imperfection and the burden of their sins, and allow Me to do for them what, of themselves, they are incapable of doing. Did I not say to My Apostles on the night before I suffered, “Without Me, you can do nothing”?2 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
482:I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
483:We are not ‘everything,’ but neither are we ‘nothing.’ Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox’s extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed. Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to ‘blame’ for our errors — neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else. Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing. ~ Katherine Ketcham, #NFDB
484:There's a moment when you realise all your worst fears have come true. When the fat girl stuffing her face in the corner finally recognises food gives her the comfort she can't find in anyone else. When the gorgeous man with the body of a god realises he changes women like shoes because he's scared one won't find enough reason to stay. When you see the world for what it really is, see it for all the horrors the news can't or won't report. There's a moment when you realise and accept that you are the worthless piece of shit your father always said you were, because even a diseased crack-head wouldn't kill their own sister. It was a moment Kerestyan, a defining moment...an epiphany of imperfection. ~ Jennifer Turner, #NFDB
485:To breathe the air, how delicious! To speak, to walk, to seize something by the hand!... To be this incredible God I am!... O amazement of things, even the least particle! O spirituality of things! I too carol the Sun, usher'd or at noon, or as now, setting; I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth.... I sing to the last the equalities, modern or old, I sing the endless finales of things, I say Nature continues—glory continues. I praise with electric voice, For I do not see one imperfection in the universe, And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last." So Rousseau, writing of the nine years he spent at Annecy, with nothing but his happiness to tell:— ~ William James, #NFDB
486:We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.
We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our humanity. ~ Bryan Stevenson,#NFDB
487:It is this admirable, this immortal, instinctive sense of beauty that leads us to look upon the spectacle of this world as a glimpse, a correspondence with heaven. Our unquenchable thirst for all that lies beyond, and that life reveals, is the liveliest proof of our immortality. It is both by poetry and through poetry, by music and through music, that the soul dimly descries the splendours beyond the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings tears to our eyes, those tears are not a proof of overabundant joy: they bear witness rather to an impatient melancholy, a clamant demand by our nerves, our nature, exiled in imperfection, which would fain enter into immediate possession, while still on this earth, of a revealed paradise. ~ Charles Baudelaire, #NFDB
488:Lester Levenson used to say, 'Release and allow yourself to see the perfection where the seeming imperfection seems to be.' During this process, welcome your thoughts, your sensations, your feelings, and the stories that you tell yourself. Just allow them all to be here, and know that everything is okay as it is. Part of what happens when we release this is that we start to recognize the perfection underlying our thoughts and feelings. Begin by making yourself comfortable and focusing your attention inwardly. Now, bring to mind ... an issue that's currently up in your awareness. As you think about that situation, problem, intention, or goal, allow yourself to get in touch with your feelings about it right in this very moment.
~ Hale Dwoskin,#NFDB
489:There is no 'eugenics' in Nietzsche - despite occasional references to 'breeding'- at least no more than is implicit in the recommendation to choose a partner under decent lightning conditions and with one's self-respect intact. Everything else falls under training, discipline, education and self-design - the Übermensch implies not a biological but an artistic, not to say an acrobatic programme. The only thought-provoking aspect of the marriage recommendation quoted above is the difference between onward and upward propagation. This coincides with a critique of mere repetition - obviously it will no longer suffice in future for children, as one says, to 'return' in their children. There may be a right to imperfection, but not to triviality. ~ Peter Sloterdijk, #NFDB
490:But his most important capacity is that of developing the powers of the higher principles in himself, a greater power of life, a purer light of mind, the illumination of supermind, the infinite being, consciousness and delight of spirit. By an ascending movement he can develop his human imperfection towards that greater perfection. But whatever his aim, however exalted his aspiration, he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection, to take full account of it and see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection. This present law of his being starts from the inconscience of the material universe, an involution of the soul in form and subjection to material nature; and
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Psychology Of Perfection,#NFDB
491:Humor, humility, humanity … we cannot work on one without working on the others. We cannot have one without having the others. To attend to any one of the three begins the process of bringing us home—home to ourselves, to the mixed-up-ed-ness of our human be-ing. Home is the place where we can be ourselves and accept ourselves as both good and bad, beast and angel, saint and sinner. Home is the place where we can laugh and cry, where we can find some peace within all the chaos and confusion, where we are accepted and, indeed, cherished by others precisely because of our very mixed-upedness. Home is that place where we belong, where we fit precisely because of our very unfittingness. Humility allows us to find the fittingness in our own imperfection. ~ Ernest Kurtz, #NFDB
492:Would there be communion at all if there were no need on this earth, no suffering on this earth? If there were no sin? No imperfection? I think there would be no such communion as we now have. We would each live in our isolated worlds. I would not need you. I would not be drawn to you. I would be self-sufficient. I would be caught up smugly and happily in my own perfection. I would simply draw my life totally from within and would never need to look at the beauty or pain on others’ faces. This is the Gnostic temptation, condemned in some form in every century. There are two things that draw us outside of ourselves: pain on other people’s faces, and the unbelievable beauty that is other human beings at their best. Or in other words: cross and resurrection. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
493:But through the centuries a recurring spiritual theme has emerged, one that is more sensitive to earthly concerns than to heavenly hopes. This spirituality—the spirituality of imperfection—is thousands of years old. And yet it is timeless, eternal, and ongoing, for it is concerned with what in the human being is irrevocable and immutable: the essential imperfection, the basic and inherent flaws of being human. Errors, of course, are part of the game. They are part of our truth as human beings. To deny our errors is to deny ourself, for to be human is to be imperfect, somehow error-prone. To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find a way to healing through the hurt. ~ Ernest Kurtz, #NFDB
494:Rhonda looped, as unmitigated suffering descended on her; one wave of thought crashed over another without sensible demarcation; bamboo leaves swayed in maddening winds; jaded wetness danced upon purpled drizzles on towering trapeze; grapefruit vines bottled in brine; dewdrops on her eyes. All this, as though, a nonsensical midsummer’s night dream had occurred in an enchanted forest under the influence of Puck’s flower juices, wavering in the moonlight like many of her dreams. A thin line separated reality from dream; like being on a continuum, further up, cross over to another reality; an illusory realisation of a past hollered. Our roles played, but in innate imperfection, to the tune of some charm thrust upon as disposition in this enchanted forest of life. ~ Mehreen Ahmed, #NFDB
495:Oneness in Everything
Facing our darkness we struggle towards the light. Finally, worn away by the conflict the ego surrenders and we are taken beyond these opposites. Just as we first awoke to the pain of separation and the darkness of the lover's imperfection, so do we awaken to the higher consciousness of the Self that experiences the oneness in everything. People often have dreams of the teacher acting in an improper way, swearing in a church, smoking in a meditation room, in order to shock them into an awareness of this higher reality. The perfect man embraces both his own imperfection and also that of mankind. This is illustrated in the story of Jami who was mistaken for a thief. On being asked if he was a thief the saint replied, 'What am I not? ~ Llewellyn Vaughan Lee,#NFDB
496:There can never be a lasting civilization any more than there can be a lasting spring or lasting happiness in an individual life, or lasting stability in a society. (...) The world is full of the debris of past civilizations (...). This applies also to utopias of every kind, whatever their ideology may be, from the garden of Eden onwards. Such dreams of lasting felicity have cropped up and no doubt always will, but their realization is impossible for the simple reason that a fallen creature like man, though capable of conceiving perfection and aspiring after it, is in himself and in his works forever imperfect. Thus he's fated to exist in the no man's land between the perfection he can conceive and the imperfection that characterizes his own nature and everything he does. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge, #NFDB
497:In time, Arjuna tires of mere beauty and hearing tales about the valour of princess Chitrangada, he seeks her out. The princess then reveals her true self to Arjuna. Her words are one of the most beautiful declarations of the angst of a woman, ‘I am not beautifully perfect as the flowers with which I worship. I have many flaws and blemishes. I am a traveller in the great world-path, my garments are dirty, and my feet are bleeding with thorns. Where should I achieve flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment’s life? The gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman. Here have all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling towards immortal life. Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble and grand. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
498:In reality—these two are One—except, when the intellect or outer activity of the mind—the sense consciousness—accepts imperfection, inharmony, incompleteness or thinks itself a creation apart—from the All-Pervading One 'Presence' of Life. If the sense consciousness thinks itself something separate from God—Perfection—then that condition is established unto it—for what the sense consciousness thinks into its world—the world returns to it. "When one lets an idea of imperfection or separation from God occupy his attention, and therefore his mind—a condition corresponding to that begins to express itself in his body and world. This causes the person—to feel—himself an entity apart from his Source. The moment he thinks himself separated from God—he thinks his Life, Intelligence, and Power has beginning and end. ~ Godfr Ray King, #NFDB
499:our indwelling sin causes us to cherish the forthcoming day when it will be removed forever. The sense of our indwelling sin now entices our anticipation for the day we see Jesus, the day when every evil and every imperfection and every hindrance to full joy in Christ—every desire we have for sin—will be exterminated from our hearts. With the eradication of indwelling sin will come a full possession of eternal happiness to perfectly reflect the riches of God’s love for us and the sufficient work of Jesus. We will live in a curse-less creation, all will be made new, and all things will once again be freed from sin.41 But for now, indwelling sin is what sets our hope on this future day, prevents us from storing up treasures on earth, readies us for death, and keeps us in eager anticipation of our “glorious liberty” to come. ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
500:Some of these beginners, too, make little of their faults, and at other times become over-sad when they see themselves fall into them, thinking themselves to have been saints already; and thus they become angry and impatient with themselves, which is another imperfection. Often they beseech God, with great yearnings, that He will take from them their imperfections and faults, but they do this that they may find themselves at peace, and may not be troubled by them, rather than for God's sake; not realizing that, if He should take their imperfections from them, they would probably become prouder and more presumptuous still. They dislike praising others and love to be praised themselves; sometimes they seek out such praise. Herein they are like the foolish virgins, who, when their lamps could not be lit, sought oil from others. ~ Juan de la Cruz, #NFDB
501:Once we allow the logical reconstruction of something (a being, a theodicy, and the like) to have internal self contradiction, it obviously becomes possible to prove absolutely anything, whatever one pleases. Consider how the matter lies. We are speaking of creating someone and of endowing him with a particular logic, and then demanding that this same logic be offered up in sacrifice to a belief in the Maker of all things. If this model itself is to remain noncontradictory, it calls for the application, in the form of a metalogic, of a totally different type of reasoning from that which is natural to the logic of the one created. |If that does not reveal the outright imperfection of the Creator, then it reveals a quality that I would call mathematical inelegance – a sui generic unmethodicalness (incoherence) of the creative act. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
502:Where it Matters
Being with you today is worth all the broken hearts of yesterday. In a flash, all of the stumbling blocks of relationships gone wrong have become the stepping stones to our perfect love.
We fit. I now understand the feeling I used to think was pain that came along with love was actually the discomfort from being in a place I didn’t fit.
Thank you for being you… for sharing your love with me… for inspiring me to accept myself… for helping me see the unique beauty in imperfection… for showing me that love is something you do; something not just to be said, but also to be shown.
I am not perfect; neither are you. I love that!
Our love is perfect. And even though we may not be, our love creates a bridge that spans over our imperfections and joins us where it matters.
I love you! ~ Steve Maraboli,#NFDB
503:Which is to say, our indwelling sin causes us to cherish the forthcoming day when it will be removed forever. The sense of our indwelling sin now entices our anticipation for the day we see Jesus, the day when every evil and every imperfection and every hindrance to full joy in Christ—every desire we have for sin—will be exterminated from our hearts. With the eradication of indwelling sin will come a full possession of eternal happiness to perfectly reflect the riches of God’s love for us and the sufficient work of Jesus. We will live in a curse-less creation, all will be made new, and all things will once again be freed from sin.41 But for now, indwelling sin is what sets our hope on this future day, prevents us from storing up treasures on earth, readies us for death, and keeps us in eager anticipation of our “glorious liberty” to come.42 ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
504:The key is, when I do break down and “cheat” with a piece of fish, it doesn’t rob me of my focus or dedication. I don’t start telling myself, “I’m too weak to do this,” or that now I’m no longer a vegan. While my intention is to live a vegan lifestyle, I’m not perfect. And I accept my imperfection. Which is why when I slip up, I don’t start worrying about what other vegans would “think” if they knew I’d eaten some meat. Because if I allow myself to get caught up in those distractions, then I’ll feel like I’ve “failed” at being a vegan and will find myself back eating meat all the time again. Which of course in my eyes would be the real failure. Instead, I consider what just happened—basically that I became distracted by an urge—and rather than beat myself up over it, I just return to my vegan practice the next time I sit down to a meal. I ~ Russell Simmons, #NFDB
505:Once we allow the logical reconstruction of something (a being, a
theodicy, and the like) to have internal self contradiction, it obviously becomes possible
to prove absolutely anything, whatever one pleases. Consider how the matter lies. We are
speaking of creating someone and of endowing him with a particular logic, and then
demanding that this same logic be offered up in sacrifice to a belief in the Maker of all
things. If this model itself is to remain noncontradictory, it calls for the application, in the
form of a metalogic, of a totally different type of reasoning from that which is natural to
the logic of the one created. |If that does not reveal the outright imperfection of the
Creator, then it reveals a quality that I would call mathematical inelegance – a sui generic
unmethodicalness (incoherence) of the creative act. ~ Stanis aw Lem,#NFDB
506:Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. ~ Alhazen,“Muslim Journeys.” Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2013., #NFDB
507:In The Gifts of Imperfection, I defined ten “guideposts” for Wholehearted living that point to what the Wholehearted work to cultivate and what they work to let go of: Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To” Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
508:The Gifts of Imperfection, I defined ten “guideposts” for Wholehearted living that point to what the Wholehearted work to cultivate and what they work to let go of: Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To” Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control” As I analyzed ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
509:For as we would wish that a painter who is to draw a beautiful face, in which there is yet some imperfection, should neither wholly leave out, nor yet too pointedly express what is defective, because this would deform it, and that spoil the resemblance; so since it is hard, or indeed perhaps impossible, to show the life of a man wholly free from blemish, in all that is excellent we must follow truth exactly, and give it fully; any lapses or faults that occur, through human passions or political necessities, we may regard rather as the shortcomings of some particular virtue, than as the natural effects of vice; and may be content without introducing them, curiously and officiously, into our narrative, if it be but out of tenderness to the weakness of nature, which has never succeeded in producing any human character so perfect in virtue as to be pure from all admixture and open to no criticism. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
510:I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I cold not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I.comprehnded them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection, and took courage. I was with an equal-one with whom I might argue-one whom, if I saw good, I might resist. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
511:But if in passing from one domain to another we renounce what has already been given us from eagerness for our new attainment, if in reaching the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life which is our basis, or if we reject the mental and physical in our attraction to the spiritual, we do not fulfil God integrally, nor satisfy the conditions of His selfmanifestation. We do not become perfect, but only shift the field of our imperfection or atmost attain a limited altitude. However high we may climb, even though it be to the Non-Being itself, we climb ill if we forget our base. Not to abandon the lower to itself, but to transfigure it in the light of the higher to which we have attained, is true divinity of nature. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time; we also, manifesting the nature of Brahman, should become integral and all-embracing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #NFDB
512:And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present—and can be none in the future; And I will show that, whatever happens to anybody, it may be turned to beautiful results—and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death; And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any. I will not make poems with reference to parts; But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts, with reference to ensemble: And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days; And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference to the soul; Because, having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the soul. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
513:This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of variation and of correlation of growth. In the four succeeding chapters, the most apparent and gravest difficulties on the theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or in understanding how a simple being or a simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or elaborately constructed organ; secondly the subject of Instinct, or the mental powers of animals, thirdly, Hybridism, or the infertility of species and the fertility of varieties when intercrossed; and fourthly, the imperfection of the Geological Record. In ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
514:A TREE gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It “consents,” so to speak, to His creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree. The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him. If it tried to be like something else which it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give Him less glory. No two created beings are exactly alike. And their individuality is no imperfection. On the contrary, the perfection of each created thing is not merely in its conformity to an abstract type but in its own individual identity with itself. This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do. Do ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
515:Eyes
Lucy, what do you espy
In the cast in Jenny's eye
That should you to laughter move?
I far other feelings prove.
When on me she does advance
Her good-natured countenance,
And those eyes which in their way
Saying much, so much would say,
They to me no blemish seem,
Or as none I them esteem;
I their imperfection prize
Above other clearer eyes.
Eyes do not as jewels go
By the brightness and the show,
But the meanings which surround them,
And the sweetness shines around them.
Isabel's are black as jet,
But she cannot that forget,
And the pains she takes to show them
Robs them of the praise we owe them.
Ann's, though blue, affected fall;
Kate's are bright, and fierce withal;
And the sparklers of her sister
From ill-humour lose their lustre.
Only Jenny's eyes we see,
By their very plainness, free
From the vices which do smother
All the beauties of the other.
~ Charles Lamb,#NFDB
516:She had, Emma decided, a very particular beauty about her, a quality that required more than the possession of conventionally attractive features. Good looks could be a cliché, which meant that those who satisfied the normal criteria of beauty could fail its more subtle tests. Thus it was that those with very regular features could just miss being beautiful because they lacked some tiny human imperfection, some irregularity that imparted to their appearance the poignancy, the reminder of ordinary humanity, on which real beauty depended. It was quite possible to be too perfect, and end up being plastic, as Hollywood stars so often were, with their well-placed curves or sculpted chins. The heart would not stop at such features, whereas it might well do so when a snub nose, or one not quite dead-center, or ears that were just slightly too large, were combined with eyes that seem to reflect and enhance the light, or with lips that formed a tantalizing bow, or with perfectly unblemished skin. ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
517:We may observe that the teaching of Our Lord Himself, in which there is no imperfection, is not given us in that cut-and-dried, fool-proof, systematic fashion we might have expected or desired. He wrote no book. We have only reported sayings, most of them uttered in answer to questions, shaped in some degree by their context. And when we have collected them all we cannot reduce them to a system. He preaches but He does not lecture. He uses paradox, proverb, exaggeration, parable, irony; even (I mean no irreverence) the 'wisecrack'. He utters maxims which, like popular proverbs, if rigorously taken, may seem to contradict one another. His teaching therefore cannot be grasped by the intellect alone, cannot be 'got up' as if it were a 'subject'. If we try to do that with it, we shall find Him the most elusive of teachers. He hardly ever gave a straight answer to a straight question. He will not be, in the way we want, 'pinned down'. The attempt is (again, I mean no irreverence) like trying to bottle a sunbeam. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
518:Then came the reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the wellbeing of his children! The fact of their being children implied their need of an all-powerful father: must there not then be such a father? Therewith the truth dawned upon him, that first of truths, which all his church-going and Bible-reading had hitherto failed to disclose, that, for life to be a good thing and worth living, a man must be the child of a perfect father, and know him. In his terrible perturbation about his children, he lifted up his heart—not to the Governor of the world; not to the God of Abraham or Moses; not in the least to the God of the Kirk; least of all to the God of the Shorter Catechism; but to the faithful creator and Father of David Barclay. The aching soul which none but a perfect father could have created capable of deploring its own fatherly imperfection, cried out to the father of fathers on behalf of his children, and as he cried, a peace came stealing over him such as he had never before felt. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
519:I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with vehemence: "I know I've been wrong — often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be the better for, if you had them. If you were in fault ever - if you had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always enjoyed punishing me - you have always been hard and cruel to me: even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You have no pity: you have no sense of your own imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not fitting for a mortal - for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own virtues - you think they are great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness! ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
520:The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind's eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves between. The forest has never so good a setting, nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edge; for the water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case, but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, as where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it. The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each sends forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven a natural selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations from the low shrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces of man's hand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years ago. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
521:The thing that makes God the perfect spiritual object is precisely that he is abstract-as Hegel saw. He is not a concrete individuality, and so He does not limit our development by His own personal will and needs. When we look for the "perfect" human object we are looking for someone who allows us to express our will completely, without any frustration or false notes. We want an object that reflects a truly ideal image of ourselves. But no human object can do this; humans have wills and counterwills of their own, in a thousand ways they can move against us, their very appetites offend us. God's greatness and powers is something that we can nourish ourselves in, without its being compromised in any way by the happenings of the world. No human partner can offer this assurance because the partner is real. However much we may idealize and idolize him, he inevitably reflects earthly decay and imperfection. And as he is our ideal measure of value, this imperfection falls back upon us. If your partner is your "All" then any shortcoming in him becomes a major threat to you. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
522:Now,’ he continued, again addressing me, ‘I have received the pilgrim – a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.’ ‘To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all; I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection; one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure.’ ‘Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell11 with energy.’ ‘Sir?’ ‘I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
523:He would talk, and I would talk, and he would talk, and each of our words sounded out the deepest secret depths inside us. There are some forms of love that words can do no justice to. There are some scars that can't be seen. Perfection is in itself an imperfection. He had flaws. He was sick. He needed help. Is not everyone sick, at one time or another? That was part of his beauty, his sickness. If he had not been sick, he would not have been beautiful, in the way that consumptives are, burning themselves up in brilliant flashes of light . . . I don't expect you to be able to understand. Love is strong enough to resurrect the dead. I don't like the word scar, because it implies intent and blame. A soul as powerful as his had to burn. I have never known a love like this. You don't know. I would have done anything at all for him. You don't know. It feels so goddamn good to be needed, to have someone tell you that he has a gaping hole in him whose shape is made to fit you . . . I saw that he was burning a piece of art on me, a signature on my psyche because it filled the hole in his own, and he wanted to make me his. ~ Dexter Palmer, #NFDB
524:Other impacts it meets, but finds them too strong for it or too dissimilar and discordant or too weak to give it satisfaction; these are things which it cannot bear or cannot equate with itself or cannot assimilate, and it is obliged to give to them reactions of grief, pain, discomfort, dissatisfaction, disliking, disapproval, rejection, inability to understand or know, refusal of admission. Against them it seeks to protect itself, to escape from them, to avoid or minimise their recurrence; it has with regard to them movements of fear, anger, shrinking, horror, aversion, disgust, shame, would gladly be delivered from them, but it cannot get away from them, for it is bound to and even invites their causes and therefore the results; for these impacts are part of life, tangled up with the things we desire, and the inability to deal with them is part of the imperfection of our nature. Other impacts again the normal mind succeeds in holding at bay or neutralising and to these it has a natural reaction of indifference, insensibility or tolerance which is neither positive acceptance and enjoymentnor rejection or suffering.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 730,#NFDB
525:Ishwara-Shakti is not quite the same as Purusha-Prakriti; for Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers, but Ishwara and Shakti contain each other. Ishwara is Purusha who contains Prakriti and rules by the power of the Shakti within him. Shakti is Prakriti ensouled by Purusha and acts by the will of the Ishwara which is her own will and whose presence in her movement she carries always with her. The Purusha-Prakriti realisation is of the first utility to the seeker on the Way of Works; for it is the separation of the conscient being and the Energy and the subjection of the being to the mechanism of the Energy that are the efficient cause of our ignorance and imperfection; by this realisation the being can liberate himself from the mechanical action of the nature and become free and arrive at a first spiritual control over the nature. Ishwara-Shakti stands behind the relation of Purusha-Prakriti and its ignorant action and turns it to an evolutionary purpose. The Ishwara-Shakti realisation can bring participation in a higher dynamism and a divine working and a total unity and harmony of the being in a spiritual nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 216, #NFDB
526:Conditions can never improve for anyone until he desires Perfection and stops acknowledging a power opposed to God, or that there is something either in or outside of him that can prevent God’s Perfection from expressing. One’s very acknowledgment of a condition that is less than all of God is his deliberate choice of an imperfection, and that kind of choice is the fall of man. This is deliberate and intentional because he is free every moment to think whatsoever he chooses to think. Incidentally, it takes no more energy to think a thought or picture of Perfection than it does one of imperfection. “You are The Creator localized to design and create Perfection in your world and place in the Universe. If Perfection and Dominion are to be expressed, you must know and acknowledge only The Law of The One. The One exists and controls completely everywhere in the Universe. You are the Self-Consciousness of Life, The One Supreme ‘Presence’ of the Great Flame of Love and Light. You alone are the Chooser, the Decreer of the qualities and forms you wish to pour your Life into; for you are the only energizer of your world and all it contains. When you think or feel, part of your Life energy goes forth to sustain your creation. ~ Godfr Ray King, #NFDB
527:When one is born into a religion that is not too unsuitable for pronouncing the name of the Lord, when one loves that native religion, well-oriented and pure, it is difficult to conceive of a legitimate motive to abandon it before direct contact with God offers the soul to the divine will itself. Beyond this threshold, the change is only legitimate as an act of obedience. In fact history shows how this rarely happens. More often— perhaps always— the soul that reaches the highest spiritual regions is confirmed in the love of the tradition that served as its ladder. If the imperfection of the native religion is too great, or if it appears in a native environment under a form that is too corrupt, or if circumstances prevent that religion from being born or even kills it, the adoption of a strange religion is legitimate. Legitimate and necessary for certain people; not, without a doubt, for all. It is the same for those who have been raised without any religious practice. In all other cases, to change religions is an extremely grave (serious) decision and it is even more serious to push someone else to do so. It is still an infinitely more serious exercise, in this sense, to officially apply such pressure upon conquered lands. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
528:He went away, bent double with the pains of remorse and regret and the inward biting of a love which had now no means of expression. He remembered now when it was useless how the Abbess had told him that the way was always forward. Nick had needed love, and he ought to have given him what he had to offer, without fears about its imperfection. If he had had more faith he would have done so, not calculating either Nick’s faults or his own. Michael recalled too how, with Toby; he had acted with more daring, and had probably acted wrong. Yet no serious harm had come to Toby; besides he had not loved Toby as he loved Nick, was not responsible for Toby as he had been for Nick. So great a love must have contained some grain of good, something at least which might have attached Nick to this world, given him some glimpse of hope. Wretchedly Michael forced himself to remember the occasions on which Nick had appealed to him since he came to Imber, and how on every occasion Michael had denied him. Michael had concerned himself with keeping his own hands clean, his own future secure, when instead he should have opened his heart: should impetuously and devotedly and beyond all reason have broken the alabaster cruse of very costly ointment. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
529:Formerly we accorded to man, as his inheritance from some higher order of beings, what was called "free will"; now we have taken even this will from him, for the term no longer describes anything that we can understand. The old word "will" now connotes only a sort of result, an individual reaction, that follows inevitably upon a series of partly discordant and partly harmonious stimuli - the will no longer "acts," or "moves."... Formerly it was thought that man's consciousness, his "spirit," offered evidence of his high origin, his divinity. That he might be perfected, he was advised, tortoise-like, to draw his senses in, to have no traffic with earthly things, to shuffle off his mortal coil - then only the important part of him, the "pure spirit," would remain. Here again we have thought out the thing better: to us consciousness, or "the spirit," appears as a symptom of a relative imperfection of the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a misunderstanding, as an affliction which uses up nervous force unnecessarily - we deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as it is done consciously. The "pure spirit" is a piece of pure stupidity: take away the nervous system and the senses, the so-called "mortal shell," and the rest is miscalculation - that is all!... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
530:In the specially Christian case we have to react against the heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible to make the facts vivid, because the facts are familiar; and for fallen men it is often true that familiarity is fatigue. I am convinced that if we could tell the supernatural story of Christ word for word as of a Chinese hero, call him the Son of Heaven instead of the Son of God, and trace his rayed nimbus in the gold thread of Chinese embroideries or the gold lacquer of Chinese pottery, instead of in the gold leaf of our own old Catholic paintings, there would be a unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity of the story. We should hear nothing then of the injustice of substitution or the illogicality of atonement, of the superstitious exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible insolence of an invasion of the laws of nature. We should admire the chivalry of the Chinese conception of a god who fell from the sky to fight the dragons and save the wicked from being devoured by their own fault and folly. We should admire the subtlety of the Chinese view of life, which perceives that all human imperfection is in very truth a crying imperfection. We should admire the Chinese esoteric and superior wisdom, which said there are higher cosmic laws than the laws we know. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
531:There is no better people-watching than at the airport: the whole world packed into such a tight space, moving fast with all their essentials in their rolling bags. And what caught my attention, as I took a few breaths and lay my eyes on the crowds, were all the imperfections. Everybody had them. Every single person that walked past me had some kind of flaw. Bushy eyebrows, moles, flared nostrils, crooked teeth, crows'-feet, hunched backs, dowagers' humps, double chins, floppy earlobes, nose hairs, potbellies, scars, nicotine stains, upper arm fat, trick knees, saddlebags, collapsed arches, bruises, warts, puffy eyes, pimples. Nobody was perfect. Not even close. And everybody had wrinkles from smiling and squinting and craning their necks. Everybody had marks on their bodies from years of living - a trail of life left on them, evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights and practical jokes and heartbreaks that had made them who they were.
In that moment, I suddenly loved us all the more for our flaws, for being broken and human, for being embarrassed and lonely, for being hopeful or tired or disappointed or sick or brave or angry. For being who we were, for making the world interesting. It was a good reminder that the human condition is imperfection. And that's how it's supposed to be. ~ Katherine Center,#NFDB
532:I acknowledge my inadequacies as a spokesman. I acknowledge my many imperfections as a human being. And yet, as the Elders taught me, speaking out is my first duty, my first obligation to myself and to my people. To speak your mind and heart is Indian Way.
This book is not a plea or a justification. Neither is it an explanation or an apology for the events that overtook my life and many other lives in 1975 and made me unwittingly — and, yes, even unwillingly — a symbol, a focus for the sufferings of my people. But all of my people are suffering, so I'm in no way special in that regard.
You must understand.... I am ordinary. Painfully ordinary. This isn't modesty. This is fact. Maybe you're ordinary, too. If so, I honor your ordinariness, your humanness, your spirituality. I hope you will honor mine. That ordinariness is our bond, you and I. We are ordinary. We are human. The Creator made us this way. Imperfect. Inadequate. Ordinary.
Be thankful you weren't cursed with perfection. If you were perfect, there'd be nothing for you to achieve with your life. Imperfection is the source of every action. This is both our curse and our blessing as human beings. Our very imperfection makes a holy life possible.
We're not supposed to be perfect. We're supposed to be useful. ~ Leonard Peltier,#NFDB
533:It didn’t matter how stupid I was--how dumb, or awkward, or sweaty. It became clearer to me than ever, sitting on that ornate concrete bench, that Marlboro Man loved me. Really, really loved me. He loved me with a kind of love different from any I’d felt before, a kind of love I never knew existed. Other boys--at least, the boys I’d always bothered with--would have been embarrassed that I’d disappeared into the bathroom for half the night. Others would have been grossed out by my tale of sweaty woe or made jokes at my expense. Others might have looked at me blankly, unsure of what to say. But not Marlboro Man; none of it fazed him one bit. He simply laughed, kissed me, and went on. And my heart welled up in my soul as I realized that without question, I’d found the one perfect person for me.
Because more often than not, I was a mess. Embarrassing, clumsy things happened to me with some degree of regularity; this hadn’t been the first time and it sure wouldn’t be the last. The truth was, despite my best efforts to appear normal and put together on the outside, I’d always felt more like one of the weird kids.
But at last, miraculously, I’d found the one man on earth who would actually love that about me. I’d found the one man on earth who would appreciate my spots of imperfection…and who wouldn’t try to polish them all away. ~ Ree Drummond,#NFDB
534:You understand, my friends, that you need to be perfect to commune with God, both now and forever more. You need to be perfect. Now here's our problem. Not one of us is perfect. Not one of us is good. Not one of us is righteous. Uh-oh! We’re in trouble. What's the way to address that? You can't fix imperfection. You cannot perfect that which was once imperfect, because the imperfect still remains. How then do you address this? Through one perfect Man, who was the Son of God, who was perfect for you; and your sin is imputed to Him, and His righteousness is imputed to you so that you are accepted by God as perfect as you believe in Him. And so His obedience to this Law was absolutely necessary to the salvation of every man, woman, boy and girl from every tribe, tongue, people and nation who believes and trusts in His name alone for salvation as He is offered in the gospel. His obedience was necessary for that salvation, and Luke is telling you that from the time He was an infant He was perfectly observant of the Law of God and fulfilled its every demand. No other human being who ever lived — not Paul, not Moses, not Isaiah, not Jeremiah — no one can say that. Only Jesus. He alone fulfilled the totality of God's Law. So there's the first thing that Luke tells you. Who is Jesus? He's the only human being who ever fulfilled the Law of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
535:Sometimes when an adverse force attacks us and we come out successful, why are we attacked once again by the same force?
Because something was left inside. We have said that the force can attack only when there is something which responds in the nature - however slight it may be. There is a kind of affinity, something corresponding, there is a disorder or an imperfection which attracts the adverse force by responding to it. So, if the attack comes, you must keep perfectly quiet and send it back, but it does not necessarily follow that you have got rid of that small part in you which allows the attack to come.
You have something in you which attracts this force; take, for example (it is one of the most frequent things), the force of depression, that kind of attack of a wave of depression that falls upon you: you lose confidence, you lose hope, you have the feeling you will never be able to do anything, you are cast down.
It means there is in your vital being something which is naturally egoistic, surely a little vain, which needs encouragement to remain in a good state. So it is like a little signal for those forces which intimates to them: "You can come, the door is open." But there is another part in the being that was watching when these forces arrived; instead of allowing them to enter, the part which... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#NFDB
536:We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. I desperately wanted mercy for Jimmy Dill and would have done anything to create justice for him, but I couldn’t pretend that his struggle was disconnected from my own. The ways in which I have been hurt—and have hurt others—are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us. Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world’s sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
537:The Free Trader's Lament
Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice
And shells and corals, brought for my inspection
From the fair tropics-paid a Christian price
And was content in my fool's paradise,
Where never had been heard the word 'Protection.'
'T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone
No customs-house, collector nor collection,
But a man came, who, in a pious tone
Condoled with me that I had never known
The manifest advantage of Protection.
So, when the trading-boat arrived one day,
He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section.
The traders paddled for their lives away,
Nor came again into that haunted bay,
The blessed home thereafter of Protection.
Then down he sat, that philanthropic man,
And spat upon some mud of his selection,
And worked it, with his knuckles in a pan,
To shapes of shells and coral things, and span
A thread of song in glory of Protection.
He baked them in the sun. His air devout
Enchanted me. I made a genuflexion:
'God help you, gentle sir,' I said. 'No doubt,'
He answered gravely, 'I'll get on without
Assistance now that we have got Protection.'
Thenceforth I bought his wares-at what a price
For shells and corals of such imperfection!
'Ah, now,' said he, 'your lot is truly nice.'
But still in all that isle there was no spice
To season to my taste that dish, Protection.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
538:To see life steadily and see it whole is only permitted to a Perfect and Infinite Consciousness standing outside Time, Space and Conditions. To such a divine Vision the working out of preordainment may present itself as a perfect, immediate and unhindered consummation. God said, 'Let there be Light' and, straightway,there was Light; and when the Light came into being, God saw that it was good. But to the imperfect finite consciousness, Light seems in its inception to have come into being by a slow material evolution completed by a fortuitous shock of forces; in its operation to be lavished with a prodigal wastefulness since only a small part is used for the purposes of life; in its presentation to be conveyed to a blinking and limited vision, hampered by obstacles and chequered with darkness. Limitation, imperfection, progression and retrogression are inseparable from phenomenal work, phenomenal intelligence, phenomenal pleasure and satisfaction. To Brahman the Will who measures all Time in a moment, covers all Space with one stride, embraces the whole chain of causation in one glance, there is no limitation, imperfection, progression or retrogression. He looks upon his work as a whole and sees that it is good. But the Gods cannot reach to His completeness, even though they toil after it; for ever He outruns their pursuit, moving far in front. Brahman, standing still, overtakes and passes the others as they run.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad,#NFDB
539:Your true soul and body appear before me. Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should h
ave blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you. I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, none has understood you, but I understand you, none has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, none but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, none but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits instrinsically in yourself. O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time. I pursue you where none else has pursued you. Conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me. I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully to you. These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense and interminable as they, these furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution. ~ Walt Whitman,#NFDB
540:You didn’t even take a drink, did you?”
“I did so.”
Falco shook the container again. “I don’t believe you.”
Cass leaned in toward him and blew gently in his face. “See? You can smell that ghastly poison on my breath.”
Falco sniffed the air. “All I smell is canal water, and a hint of flowers, probably from whatever soap you use on your hair.” He put his face very close to Cass’s, reached out, and tilted her chin toward him. “Try again.”
Her lips were mere inches from his. Cass struggled to exhale. Her chest tightened as the air trickled out of her body. She noticed a V-shaped scar beneath Falco’s right eye. She was seized by an irrational urge to touch her lips to the small imperfection. “What about now?” she asked.
Falco brushed a spiral of hair from her freckled cheek and touched his forehead to hers. “One more time?” He closed his eyes. He reached up with one of his hands and cradled the back of her head, pulling her toward him.
He was going to kiss her. She was going to let him. Falco’s face blurred in the darkness as he closed the distance between them.
And then…it wasn’t Falco she was about to kiss. It was Luca. She lunged backward in her seat, causing the gondola to lurch to one side.
Falco’s eyes snapped open. “What happened?”
Cass had no idea what to say. “I--I thought I saw something,” she stammered out.
Falco glanced around, as if reaffirming that it would be impossible to see anything in the blackness under the bridge. “A vampire?” His voice was thick with sarcasm. ~ Fiona Paul,#NFDB
541:The Accuser jumped in, “But why does a loving God punish at all? Is it not his obligation to forgive all transgression large or small? What kind of a loving God punishes imperfection? What kind of a loving God casts people into Sheol? That is not love, that is cruelty.” Enoch sighed. He was already weary of hearing “what kind of a loving God” preface a horde of false accusations. But in the interest of fairness, he sought to address each one. “Firstly, I would like to establish that counsel is repeating a falsehood already laid to rest. It is not imperfection that is being punished, it is iniquity. Secondly, may I remind my accusing adversary that a just God is not obligated to forgive anyone anything. A just God punishes sin. Forgiveness without propitiation is the true cruelty. Worse, it is to denigrate the criminal’s own worth to nothing. For if the criminal is forgiven without the penalty being served, then both victim and victimizer have no value. But neither is “love” obligated to forgive, for that would make such actions duty and no longer gracious.” “Ah,” interrupted the Accuser, “But there you are on the horns of a dilemma. For Elohim to be just, he must punish, but for Elohim to be loving, he must forgive. So if he punishes, he is unloving, and if he forgives, he is unjust. So I ask the Judge with humility, submission and deference, which art thou, cruel or impotent?” Now that was a coup, thought the Accuser as he let his impeccable logic sink in to the minds and hearts of ten million “holy ones.” Holy, my rear end. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
542:And it is a very great fault amongst a very great part of Christians, that in their enquiries of religion, even the best of them ordinarily ask but these two questions, "Is it lawful? Is it necessary?" If they find it lawful, they will do it without scruple or restraint; and then they suffer imperfection, or receive the reward of folly: for it may be lawful, and yet not fit to be done; it may be it is not expedient; and he that will do all that he can do lawfully, would, if he durst, do something that is not lawful. And as great an error is on the other hand in the other question. He that too strictly enquires of an action whether it be necessary or no, would do well to ask also whether it be good? whether it be of advantage to the interest of his soul? For if a christian man or woman; that is, a redeemed, blessed, obliged person, a great beneficiary, endeared to God beyond all the comprehensions of a man's imagination, one that is less than the least of all God's mercies, and yet hath received many great ones and hopes for more, if he should do nothing but what is necessary, that is, nothing but what he is compelled to; then he hath the obligations of a son, and the affections of a slave, which is the greatest undecency of the world in the accounts of christianity. If a Christian will do no more than what is necessary, he will quickly be tempted to omit something of that also. . . .
He that will do every thing that is lawful, and nothing but what is necessary, will be an enemy when he dares, and a friend when he cannot help it. ~ Jeremy Taylor,#NFDB
543:challenge for the Integral Yogin :::
Nor is the seeker of the integral fulfilment permitted to solve too arbitrarily even the conflict of his own inner members. He has to harmonise deliberate knowledge with unquestioning faith; he must conciliate the gentle soul of love with the formidable need of power; the passivity of the soul that lives content in transcendent calm has to be fused with the activity of the divine helper and the divine warrior. To him as to all seekers of the spirit there are offered for solution the oppositions of the reason, the clinging hold of the senses, the perturbations of the heart, the ambush of the desires, the clog of the physical body; but he has to deal in another fashion with their mutual and internal conflicts and their hindrance to his aim, for he must arrive at an infinitely more difficult perfection in the handling of all this rebel matter. Accepting them as instruments for the divine realisation and manifestation, he has to convert their jangling discords, to enlighten their thick darknesses, to transfigure them separately and all together, harmonising them in themselves and with each other, -- integrally, omitting no grain or strand or vibration, leaving no iota of imperfection anywhere. All exclusive concentration, or even a succession of concentrations of that kind, can be in his complex work only a temporary convenience; it has to be abandoned as soon as its utility is over. An all-inclusive concentration is the difficult achievement towards which he must labour.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 78, [T9],#NFDB
544:the Pilgrim of the Way rises first of all to a degree corresponding to that of a star. The effulgence of that star's light appears to him., It is disclosed to him that the entire world beneath adores its influence and the effulgence of its light. And so, because of the very beauty and superbness of the thing, he is made aware of something which cries aloud saying, "This is my Lord?"[1] He passes on; and as he be. comes conscious of the light-degree next above. it, namely, that symbolized by the moon, lo! in the aerial canopy he beholds that star set, to wit, in comparison with its superior; and he saith, "Nought that setteth do I adore!" And so he rises till he arrives at last at the degree symbolized by the sun. This, again, he sees is greater and higher than the former, but nevertheless admits of comparison therewith, in,
[1. See for this whole passage S. 6, 75-8.]
{p. 128}
virtue of a relationship between the two. [31] But to bear relationship to what is imperfect carries with it imperfection-the "setting" of our allegory. And by reason thereof he saith: "I have turned my face unto That Who made the heavens and the earth! I am a true believer, and, not of those who associate other gods with Allah!" Now what is meant to be conveyed by this "THAT WHO" is the vaguest kind of indication, destitute of all relation or comparison. For, were anyone to ask, "What is the symbol comparable with or corresponding to this That?' no answer to the question could be conceived. Now He Who transcends all relations is ALLAH, the ONE REALITY. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,#NFDB
545:Try as we will to take the “cure” of ineffectuality; to meditate on the Taoist fathers’ doctrine of submission, of withdrawal, of a sovereign absence; to follow, like them, the course of consciousness once it ceases to be at grips with the world and weds the form of things as water does, their favorite element—we shall never succeed. They scorn both our curiosity and our thirst for suffering; in which they differ from the mystics, and especially from the medieval ones, so apt to recommend the virtues of the hair shirt, the scourge, insomnia, inanition, and lament.
“A life of intensity is contrary to the Tao,” teaches Lao Tse, a normal man if ever there was one. But the Christian virus torments us: heirs of the flagellants, it is by refining our excruciations that we become conscious of ourselves. Is religion declining? We perpetuate its extravagances, as we perpetuate the macerations and the cell-shrieks of old, our will to suffer equaling that of the monasteries in their heyday. If the Church no longer enjoys a monopoly on hell, it has nonetheless riveted us to a chain of sighs, to the cult of the ordeal, of blasted joys and jubilant despair.
The mind, as well as the body, pays for “a life of intensity.” Masters in the art of thinking against oneself, Nietzsche, Baudelaire, and Dostoevsky have taught us to side with our dangers, to broaden the sphere of our diseases, to acquire existence by division from our being. And what for the great Chinaman was a symbol of failure, a proof of imperfection, constitutes for us the sole mode of possessing, of making contact with ourselves. ~ Emil M Cioran,#NFDB
546:There is in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle. All her divinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective process, the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dangerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Divine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks from the battle. Intolerant of imperfection, she deals roughly with all in man that is unwilling and she is severe to all that is obstinately ignorant and obscure; her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery and falsehood and malignity, ill-will is smitten at once by her scourge. Indifference, negligence and sloth in the divine work she cannot bear and she smites awake at once with sharp pain, if need be, the untimely slumberer and the loiterer. The impulses that are swift and straight and frank, the movements that are unreserved and absolute, the aspiration that mounts in flame are the motion of Mahakali. Her spirit is tameless, her vision and will are high and far-reaching like the flight of an eagle, her feet are rapid on the upward way and her hands are outstretched to strike and to succour. For she too is the Mother and her love is as intense as her wrath and she has a deep and passionate kindness. When she is allowed to intervene in her strength, then in one moment are broken like things without consistence the obstacles that immobilise or the enemies that assail the seeker
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [19],#NFDB
547:The neurotic exhausts himself not only in self-preoccupations like hypochondrial fears and all sorts of fantasies, but also in others: those around him on whom he is dependent become his therapeutic work project; he takes out his subjective problems on them. But people are not clay to be molded; they have needs and counter-wills of their own. The neurotic's frustration as a failed artist can't be remedied by anything but an objective creative work of his own. Another way of looking at it is to say that the more totally one takes in the world as a problem, the more inferior or "bad" one is going to feel inside oneself. He can try to work out this "badness" by striving for perfection, and then the neurotic symptom becomes his "creative" work; or he can try to make himself perfect by means his partner. But it is obvious to us that the only way to work on perfection is in the form of an objective work that is fully under your control and is perfectible in some real ways. Either you eat up yourself and others around you, trying for perfection; or you objectify that imperfection in a work, on which you then unleash your creative powers. In this sense, some kind of objective creativity is the only answer man has to the problem of life. In this way he satisfies nature, which asks that he live and act objectively as a vital animal plunging into the world; but he also satisfies his own distinctive human nature because he plunges in on his own symbolic terms and not as a reflex of the world as given to mere physical sense experience. He takes in the world, makes a total problem out of it, and then gives out a fashioned, human answer to that problem. This, as Goethe saw in Faust, is the highest that man can achieve. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
548:Leyel had buried himself within the marriage, helping and serving and loving Deet with all his heart. She was wrong, completely wrong about his coming to Trantor. He hadn't come as a sacrifice, againt his will, solely because she wanted to come. On the contrary: because she wanted so much to come, he also wanted to come, changing even his desires to coincide with hers. She commanded his very heart, because it was impossible for him not to desire anything that would bring her happiness.
But she, no, she could not do that for him. If she went to Terminus, it would be as a noble sacrifice. She wold never let him forget that she hadn't wanted to. To him, their marriage was his very soul. To Deet, their marriage was just a friendship with sex. Her soul belonged as much to these other women as to him. By dividing her loyalties, she fragmented them; none were strong enough to sway her deepest desires. Thus he discovered what he supposed all faithful men eventually discover--that no human relationship is ever anything but tentative. There is no such thing as an unbreakable bond between people. Like the particles in the nucleus of the atom. They are bound by the strongest forces in the universe, and yet they can be shattered, they can break.
Nothing can last. Nothing is, finally, waht it once seemed to be. Deet and he had had a perfect marriage until there came a stress that exposed its imperfection. Anyonewho thinks he has a perfect marriage, a perfect friendship, a perfect trust of any kind, he only believes this becasue the stress that will break it has not yet come. He might die with the illusion of happiness, but all he has proven is that sometimes death comes before betrayal. If you live long enough, betrayal will inevitably come. ~ Orson Scott Card,#NFDB
549:It would be futile to delude ourselves that at present, readers find every pathography unsavory. This attitude is excused with the reproach that from a pathographic elaboration of a great man one never obtains an understanding of his importance and his attainments, that it is therefore useless mischief to study in him things which could just as well be found in the first comer. However, this criticism is so clearly unjust that it can only be grasped when viewed as a pretext and a disguise for something. As a matter of fact pathography does not aim at making comprehensible the attainments of the great man; no one should really be blamed for not doing something which one never promised. The real motives for the opposition are quite different. One finds them when one bears in mind that biographers are fixed on their heroes in quite a peculiar manner. Frequently they take the hero as the object of study because, for reasons of their personal emotional life, they bear him a special affection from the very outset. They then devote themselves to a work of idealization which strives to enroll the great men among their infantile models, and to revive through him, as it were, the infantile conception of the father. For the sake of this wish they wipe out the individual features in his physiognomy, they rub out the traces of his life's struggle with inner and outer resistances, and do not tolerate in him anything of human weakness or imperfection; they then give us a cold, strange, ideal form instead of the man to whom we could feel distantly related. It is to be regretted that they do this, for they thereby sacrifice the truth to an illusion, and for the sake of their infantile phantasies they let slip the opportunity to penetrate into the most attractive secrets of human nature. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
550:It is not Manu but nature that sets off in one class those who are chiefly intellectual, in another those who are marked by muscular strength and temperament, and in a third those who are distinguished in neither one way or the other, but show only mediocrity—the last-named represents the great majority, and the first two the select. The superior caste—I call it the fewest—has, as the most perfect, the privileges of the few: it stands for happiness, for beauty, for everything good upon earth. Only the most intellectual of men have any right to beauty, to the beautiful; only in them can goodness escape being weakness. Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:[30] goodness is a privilege. Nothing could be more unbecoming to them than uncouth manners or a pessimistic look, or an eye that sees ugliness—or indignation against the general aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; so is pessimism. “The world is perfect”—so prompts the instinct of the intellectual, the instinct of the man who says yes to life. “Imperfection, whatever is inferior to us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala themselves are parts of this perfection.” The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is in self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct. They regard a difficult task as a privilege; it is to them a recreation to play with burdens that would crush all others.... Knowledge—a form of asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them being the most cheerful and most amiable. They rule, not because they want to, but because they are; they are not at liberty to play second. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
551:January 28 MORNING “Perfect in Christ Jesus.” — Colossians 1:28 DO you not feel in your own soul that perfection is not in you? Does not every day teach you that? Every tear which trickles from your eye, weeps “imperfection;” every sigh which bursts from your heart, cries “imperfection;” every harsh word which proceeds from your lip, mutters “imperfection.” You have too frequently had a view of your own heart to dream for a moment of any perfection in yourself. But amidst this sad consciousness of imperfection, here is comfort for you — you are “perfect in Christ Jesus.” In God’s sight, you are “complete in Him;” even now you are “accepted in the Beloved.” But there is a second perfection, yet to be realized, which is sure to all the seed. Is it not delightful to look forward to the time when every stain of sin shall be removed from the believer, and he shall be presented faultless before the throne, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing? The Church of Christ then will be so pure, that not even the eye of Omniscience will see a spot or blemish in her; so holy and so glorious, that Hart did not go beyond the truth when he said — With my Saviour’s garments on, Holy as the Holy One.” Then shall we know, and taste, and feel the happiness of this vast but short sentence, “Complete in Christ.” Not till then shall we fully comprehend the heights and depths of the salvation of Jesus. Doth not thy heart leap for joy at the thought of it? Black as thou art, thou shalt be white one day; filthy as thou art, thou shalt be clean. Oh, it is a marvellous salvation this! Christ takes a worm and transforms it into an angel; Christ takes a black and deformed thing and makes it clean and matchless in His glory, peerless in His beauty, and fit to be the companion of seraphs. O my soul, stand and admire this blessed truth of perfection in Christ. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
552:The gondola slowed to a stop and Falco tied up the boat directly beneath the bridge. The stone structure blocked out the light and the wind, making Cass feel as if she and Falco were alone in a warm, dark room.
“Here,” he said, pulling a flask from his cloak pocket. “Celebratory libations.”
“What are we celebrating?” she asked.
“We set out to discover the dead girl’s identity,” Falco said. “And we did.” He pressed the slick metal container into Cass’s palm. “I say that’s progress.”
Cass sniffed the flash warily. The liquid within smelled sharp and sour, almost chemical.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Some witches’ brew I found in my master’s studio. Go on, try it.” He winked. “Unless you’re afraid.”
Cass put her lips to the flask and tipped it up just enough to let a tiny sip of liquid make its way into her mouth. She held her breath to keep from gagging. Whatever it was, it tasted awful, nothing like the tart sweetness of the burgundy wine to which she was accustomed.
Falco took the flask back and shook it in his hand as if he were weighing it. “You didn’t even take a drink, did you?”
“I did so.”
Falco shook the container again. “I don’t believe you.”
Cass leaned in toward him and blew gently in his face. “See? You can smell that ghastly poison on my breath.”
Falco sniffed the air. “All I smell is canal water, and a hint of flowers, probably from whatever soap you use on your hair.” He put his face very close to Cass’s, reached out, and tilted her chin toward him. “Try again.”
Her lips were mere inches from his. Cass struggled to exhale. Her chest tightened as the air trickled out of her body. She noticed a V-shaped scar beneath Falco’s right eye. She was seized by an irrational urge to touch her lips to the small imperfection. “What about now?” she asked.
Falco brushed a spiral of hair from her freckled cheek and touched his forehead to hers. “One more time?” He closed his eyes. He reached up with one of his hands and cradled the back of her head, pulling her toward him. ~ Fiona Paul,#NFDB
553:This,” I said, “was not how it was supposed to be.” The short sentence bounced around the cave,coming back to me Word for Word.
“I just want to be honest,”I said. “it seems silly to do anything else at this point. The truth is that we’re not supposed to be here, and we all know that. We’re not supposed to be inside of a church made by old – timey people. We weren’t supposed to bring Jonah here. We weren’t supposed to hide from an Italian park ranger on horseback.”
I paused and waited for my echoing voice to quiet.
“Also, Maybe this is obvious, but Jonah was not supposed to die. Not yet. None of it was supposed to happen like this.
Grace eyed me quizzically.
“I don’t mean to be bleak,” I continued “I know it sounds that way. What I mean is that nothing ever happens the way it supposed to. Everything is messed up. Everything is flawed. And if we didn’t have imperfection, I’m not sure what we would have left.”
I looked out into the light outside. What I could see of the landscape one year and went to the camera but me.
“The way I see it, we have a bunch of imperfect moments all lined up, one after the next, and we feel this strange, imperfect love. Then, before we know it, it’s all over. We give everything we have, but that can never be enough to make things just the way we want them, or to keep someone with us as long as we’d like. But the struggle is worth something. And the love is worth something even though it’s imperfect. And maybe we should try to celebrate this brief, incomplete thing we’ve been given. Maybe that’s all we can do when we find ourselves in the dark.”
Everyone remained quiet. I couldn’t tell by looking at them how they felt about what I was saying. Still, no one interrupted me, so I kept going.
“Just because something didn’t last as long as you needed doesn’t mean it wasn’t genuine. Jonah and I had an in perfect love. So what? That doesn’t cancel it. And it’s not gone. It’s still here. And, today, I just want to bring it back. I want to make it tangible again for a little while . ~ Peter Bognanni,#NFDB
554:An irregular birthmark stood out on the crest of her hip, like a splash of wine on snow.
He touched a finger to it, and she stirred.
“Don’t look at that,” she mumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I know it’s horrid.”
“Horrid?” Despite the pained expression on her face, he had to laugh. “Sweetheart, I can honestly say that there is nothing about you that’s horrid in the least.”
“My painting master would not agree.”
The bitter taste of envy filled his mouth. “Do you know, that Frenchman of yours had better hope I never meet with him.
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “Not Gervais. Never Gervais. My painting master was an old, balding prig called Mr. Turklethwaite.”
Gray’s bafflement must have been obvious.
She went on, “There was never any Gervais. I mean, you know that I’d never taken a man to my bed, but you must understand…I’ve never allowed another man into my heart, either.” She kissed his brow, then his lips. “I love you, only you.”
God. How brave she was. Tossing those words about as though they were feathers. Could she possibly suspect how they landed in his chest like cannonballs, detonating deep in his heart?
Struggling for equanimity, he asked casually, “So when did this other painting master have occasion to see your birthmark?”
She laughed. “He didn’t. But I painted something like it once, on a portrait of Venus. I told him I thought it lent her an air of reality. Oh, how he scolded me. A lady who paints, he said-“ She gave Gray a teasing look. “He would not apply the term “artist” to a female, you see.”
“I see.”
“A lady who paints, he said, should approach the art as she would any other genteel accomplishment. Her purpose is to please; her goal is to create an example of refinement. A true lady would not paint an imperfection, he said, any more than she would strike a false note in a sonata. Beauty is not real, and reality is not beautiful.”
Gray shook his head. “Remarkable. I believe I despise your real painting master even more than I hated the fictional one. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. ~ Tessa Dare,#NFDB
555:It is terrible to represent God as unrelated to us in the way of appeal to his righteousness. How should he be righteous without owing us anything? How would there be any right for the judge of all the earth to do if he owed nothing? Verily he owes us nothing that he does not pay like a God; but it is of the devil to imagine imperfection and disgrace in obligation. So far is God from thinking so that in every act of his being he lays himself under obligation to his creatures. Oh, the grandeur of his goodness, and righteousness, and fearless unselfishness! When doubt and dread invade, and the voice of love in the soul is dumb, what can please the father of men better than to hear his child cry to him from whom he came, 'Here I am, O God! Thou hast made me: give me that which thou hast made me needing.' The child's necessity, his weakness, his helplessness, are the strongest of all his claims. If I am a whale, I can claim a sea; if I am a sea, I claim room to roll, and break in waves after my kind; if I am a lion, I seek my meat from God; am I a child, this, beyond all other claims, I claim—that, if any of my needs are denied me, it shall be by the love of a father, who will let me see his face, and allow me to plead my cause before him. And this must be just what God desires! What would he have, but that his children should claim their father? To what end are all his dealings with them, all his sufferings with and for and in them, but that they should claim their birthright? Is not their birthright what he made them for, made in them when he made them? Is it not what he has been putting forth his energy to give them ever since first he began them to be—the divine nature, God himself? The child has, and must have, a claim on the father, a claim which it is the joy of the father's heart to acknowledge. A created need is a created claim. God is the origin of both need and supply, the father of our necessities, the abundant giver of the good things. Right gloriously he meets the claims of his child! The story of Jesus is the heart of his answer, not primarily to the prayers, but to the divine necessities of the children he has sent out into his universe. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
556:But first a description: Clara Bowden was beautiful in all senses except maybe, by virtue of being black, the classical. Clara Bowden was magnificently tall, black as ebony and crushed sable, with hair plaited in a horseshoe which pointed up when she felt lucky, down when she didn’t. At this moment it was up. It is hard to know whether that was significant.
She needed no bra – she was independent, even of gravity – she wore a red halterneck which stopped below her bust, underneath which she wore her belly button (beautifully) and underneath that some very tight yellow jeans. At the end of it all were some strappy heels of a light brown suede, and she came striding down the stairs on them like some kind of vision or, as it seemed to Archie as he turned to observe her, like a reared-up thoroughbred.
Now, as Archie understood it, in movies and the like it is common for someone to be so striking that when they walk down the stairs the crowd goes silent. In life he had never seen it. But it happened with Clara Bowden. She walked down the stairs in slow motion, surrounded by afterglow and fuzzy lighting. And not only was she the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, she was also the most comforting woman he had ever met. Her beauty was not a sharp, cold commodity. She smelt musty, womanly, like a bundle of your favorite clothes. Though she was disorganized physically – legs and arms speaking a slightly different dialect from her central nervous system – even her gangly demeanour seemed to Archie exceptionally elegant. She wore her sexuality with an older woman’s ease, and not (as with most of the girls Archie had run with in the past) like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it or when to just put it down.
‘Cheer up, bwoy,’ she said in a lilting Caribbean accent that reminded Archie of That Jamaican Cricketer, ‘it might never happen.’
‘I think it already has.’
Archie, who had just dropped a fag from his mouth which has been burning itself to death anyway, saw Clara quickly tread it underfoot. She gave him a wide grin that revealed possibly her one imperfection. A complete lack of teeth in the top of her mouth.
‘Man…dey get knock out,’ she lisped, seeing his surprise. ‘But I tink to myself: come de end of de world, d’Lord won’t mind if I have no toofs.’ She laughed softly. ~ Zadie Smith,#NFDB
557:As for the vice of lust - aside from what it means for spiritual persons to fall into this vice, since my intent is to treat of the imperfections that have to be purged by means of the dark night - spiritual persons have numerous imperfections, many of which can be called spiritual lust, not because the lust is spiritual but because it proceeds from spiritual things. It happens frequently that in a person's spiritual exercises themselves, without the person being able to avoid it, impure movements will be experienced in the sensory part of the soul, and even
sometimes when the spirit is deep in prayer or when receiving the sacraments of Penance or the Eucharist. These impure feelings arise from any of three causes outside one's control.
First, they often proceed from the pleasure human nature finds in spiritual exercises. Since both the spiritual and the sensory part of the soul receive gratification from that refreshment, each part experiences delight according to its own nature and properties. The spirit, the superior part of the soul, experiences renewal and satisfaction in God; and the sense, the lower part, feels sensory gratification and delight because it is ignorant of how to get anything else, and hence takes whatever is nearest, which is the impure sensory satisfaction. It may happen that while a soul is with God in deep spiritual prayer, it will conversely passively experience sensual rebellions, movements, and acts in the senses, not without its own great displeasure.
This frequently happens at the time of Communion. Since the soul receives joy and gladness in this act of love - for the Lord grants the grace and gives himself for this reason - the sensory part also takes its share, as we said, according to its mode. Since, after all, these two parts form one individual, each one usually shares according to its mode in what the other receives. As the Philosopher says: Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver. Because in the initial stages of the spiritual life, and even more advanced ones, the sensory part of the soul is imperfect, God's spirit is frequently received in this sensory part with this same imperfection. Once the sensory part is reformed through the purgation of the dark night, it no longer has these infirmities. Then the spiritual part of the soul, rather than the sensory part, receives God's Spirit, and the soul thus receives everything
according to the mode of the Spirit. ~ Juan de la Cruz,#NFDB
558:We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. I desperately wanted mercy for Jimmy Dill and would have done anything to create justice for him, but I couldn’t pretend that his struggle was disconnected from my own. The ways in which I have been hurt—and have hurt others—are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us. Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world’s sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. I thought of the guards strapping Jimmy Dill to the gurney that very hour. I thought of the people who would cheer his death and see it as some kind of victory. I realized they were broken people, too, even if they would never admit it. So many of us have become afraid and angry. We’ve become so fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak—not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors of murdered loved ones, and how we’ve pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we’ve legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we’ve allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We’ve submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible. But simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
559:The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist. That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her most outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life. Each of the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother. Each is something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of beauty and power and created in her Ananda.
But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the Divine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. All beings there live and move in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness, because she carries them safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti.
The Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world of the Ignorance stands in an intermediate plane between the supramental Light, the Truth life, the Truth creation which has to be brought down here and this mounting and descending hierarchy of planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit. Determining all that shall be in this universe and in the terrestrial evolution by what she sees and feels and pours from her, she stands there... ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#NFDB
560:"O Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world
Assailed by thee and of its road unsure,
Peopled by imperfect minds and ignorant lives,
And sayest God is not and all is vain.
How shall the child already be the man?
Because he is infant, shall he never grow?
Because he is ignorant, shall he never learn?
In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks,
In a tiny gene a thinking being is shut;
A little element in a little sperm,
It grows and is a conqueror and a sage.
Then wilt thou spew out, Death, God's mystic truth,
Deny the occult spiritual miracle?
Still wilt thou say there is no spirit, no God?
A mute material Nature wakes and sees;
She has invented speech, unveiled a will.
Something there waits beyond towards which she strives,
Something surrounds her into which she grows:
To uncover the spirit, to change back into God,
To exceed herself is her transcendent task.
In God concealed the world began to be,
Tardily it travels towards manifest God:
Our imperfection towards perfection toils,
The body is the chrysalis of a soul:
The infinite holds the finite in its arms,
Time travels towards revealed eternity.
A miracle structure of the eternal Mage,
Matter its mystery hides from its own eyes,
A scripture written out in cryptic signs,
An occult document of the All-Wonderful's art.
All here bears witness to his secret might,
In all we feel his presence and his power.
A blaze of his sovereign glory is the sun,
A glory is the gold and glimmering moon,
A glory is his dream of purple sky.
A march of his greatness are the wheeling stars.
His laughter of beauty breaks out in green trees,
His moments of beauty triumph in a flower;
The blue sea's chant, the rivulet's wandering voice
Are murmurs falling from the Eternal's harp.
This world is God fulfilled in outwardness.
His ways challenge our reason and our sense;
By blind brute movements of an ignorant Force,
By means we slight as small, obscure or base,
A greatness founded upon little things,
He has built a world in the unknowing Void.
His forms he has massed from infinitesimal dust;
His marvels are built from insignificant things.
If mind is crippled, life untaught and crude,
If brutal masks are there and evil acts,
They are incidents of his vast and varied plot,
His great and dangerous drama's needed steps;
He makes with these and all his passion-play,
A play and yet no play but the deep scheme
Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways
To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night:
Above her is the vigil of the stars;
Watched by a solitary Infinitude
She embodies in dumb Matter the Divine,
In symbol minds and lives the Absolute.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Debate of Love and Death,#NFDB
561:To Know How To Suffer
IF AT any time a deep sorrow, a searing doubt or an intense pain overwhelms you and drives you to despair, there is an infallible way to regain calm and peace.
In the depths of our being there shines a light whose brilliance is equalled only by its purity; a light, a living and conscious portion of a universal godhead who animates and nourishes and illumines Matter, a powerful and unfailing guide for those who are willing to heed his law, a helper full of solace and loving forbearance towards all who aspire to see and hear and obey him. No sincere and lasting aspiration towards him can be in vain; no strong and respectful trust can be disappointed, no expectation ever deceived.
My heart has suffered and lamented, almost breaking beneath a sorrow too heavy, almost sinking beneath a pain too strong.... But I have called to thee, O divine comforter, I have prayed ardently to thee, and the splendour of thy dazzling light has appeared to me and revived me.
As the rays of thy glory penetrated and illumined all my being, I clearly perceived the path to follow, the use that can be made of suffering; I understood that the sorrow that held me in its grip was but a pale reflection of the sorrow of the earth, of this abysm of suffering and anguish.
Only those who have suffered can understand the suffering of others; understand it, commune with it and relieve it. And I understood, O divine comforter, sublime Holocaust, that in order to sustain us in all our troubles, to soothe all our pangs, thou must have known and felt all the sufferings of earth and man, all without exception.
How is it that among those who claim to be thy worshippers, some regard thee as a cruel torturer, as an inexorable judge witnessing the torments that are tolerated by thee or even created by thy own will?
No, I now perceive that these sufferings come from the very imperfection of Matter which, in its disorder and crudeness, is unfit to manifest thee; and thou art the very first to suffer from it, to bewail it, thou art the first to toil and strive in thy ardent desire to change disorder into order, suffering into happiness, discord into harmony.
Suffering is not something inevitable or even desirable, but when it comes to us, how helpful it can be!
Each time we feel that our heart is breaking, a deeper door opens within us, revealing new horizons, ever richer in hidden treasures, whose golden influx brings once more a new and intenser life to the organism on the brink of destruction.
And when, by these successive descents, we reach the veil that reveals thee as it is lifted, O Lord, who can describe the intensity of Life that penetrates the whole being, the radiance of the Light that floods it, the sublimity of the Love that transforms it for ever! ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, To Know How To Suffer, 1910,#NFDB
562:Camille heard the rustle of grass. She opened one eye and saw Oscar settling down beside her.
“We can spare a few minutes,” he said. She sat up and cradled her knees in her arms. He plucked a blade of grass and commenced peeling it down the center. They heard the Australian snoring from his spot a few yards away, completely hidden in a blanket of green.
“I guess we can spare more than a few minutes.” Oscar smiled and met her gaze, holding it a moment. She suddenly realized how horrible she must look-her hair, her clothes, her skin.
“Do you miss him?” he asked, not seeming to notice any of those things.
Camille uprooted a purple flower and a white daisy near it. “Of course I do. But I’m hoping with the stone I won’t have to very long.”
“Not your father, Camille. Randall.”
She took a deep breath, shocked she hadn’t thought of her fiancé for so long. How many days had it been? A full week, maybe more.
“Oh. Well…I suppose I do.”
Oscar raised an eyebrow and laughed at her clear lack of conviction.
Camille shrugged. “What? A lot has happened and right now getting back to San Francisco isn’t something I’m concerned about.”
Oscar nodded and chewed on the tip of his blade of grass.
“It’s not that Randall isn’t a perfectly good man,” she said, fiddling with the flowers in her hands. The roots crumbled dirt onto her lap. “He’s kind and caring and handsome and an excellent businessman.”
Oscar continued to nod.
“And he’ll make a fine husband, I’m sure,” she added, knowing he really was all those things. If only all of them combined could make up for what she didn’t feel while with him.
“I’m sure,” Oscar repeated. Had he been mocking her? She thought she had caught a trace of sarcasm. All this talk about Randall had her itching.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just wondered if you missed home,” Oscar answered and threw the mangled blade of grass behind him.
“Do you?” she asked, ashamed to her Oscar know how little she desired to return. He thought for a moment, tugging up another switch of grass and rolling it between his fingers.
“No,” he answered with stark certainty. “I have everything I’d miss right here.”
Every inch of Camille’s body smoldered under Oscar’s gentle, and so very forward, gaze. He’d miss her. She looked into his gray-blue eyes, rimmed by thick, honey-colored lashes-had they always been so full? The bridge of his nose crooked to the left slightly, perhaps broken in a fight after he’d moved from her father’s carriage house to a small apartment along the San Francisco harbor front. She’d never noticed the charming imperfection before.
She watched as his eyes traveled over her own features, touching on the wound by her temple and settling on the heart-shaped fullness of her lips.
Oscar held his piercing stare. “We probably won’t arrive home in time for your wedding. ~ Angie Frazier,#NFDB
563:So which is more probable: That today's atheist apocalyptans are unique and right? Or that they are like their many predecessors—at the very least, in their motivations? If anything, the vehemence with which the believers in emergent complexity debunk all religion may betray their own creeping awareness of the religious underpinnings and precedents for their declarations.
In fact, the concept of Armageddon first emerged in response to the invention of monotheism by the ancient Persian priest Zoroaster, around the tenth or eleventh century BCE. Until that time, the dominant religions maintained a pantheon of gods reigning in a cyclical precession along with the heavens, so there was little need for absolutes. As religions began focusing on a single god, things got a bit trickier. For if there is only one god, and that god has absolute power, then why do bad things happen? Why does evil still exist?
If one's god is fighting for control of the universe against the gods of other people, then there's no problem. Just as in polytheism, the great achievements of one god can be undermined by the destructive acts of another. But what if a religion, such as Judaism of the First and Second Temple era, calls for one god and one god alone? How do its priests and followers explain the persistence of evil and suffering?
They do it the same way Zoroaster did: by introducing time into the equation. The imperfection of the universe is a product of its incompleteness. There's only one true god, but he's not done yet. In the monotheist version, the precession of the gods was no longer a continuous cycle of seasonal deities or metaphors. It was nor a linear story with a clear endpoint in the victory of the one true and literal god. Once this happens, time can end.
Creation is the Alpha, and the Return is the Omega. It's all good.
This worked well enough to assuage the anxieties of both the civilization of the calendar and that of the clock. But what about us? Without time, without a future, how to we contend with the lingering imperfections in our reality? As members of a monotheist culture—however reluctant—we can't help but seek to apply its foundational framework to our current dilemma. The less aware we are of this process—or the more we refuse to admit its legacy in our construction of new models—the more vulnerable we become to its excesses. Repression and extremism are two sides of the same coin.
In spite of their determination to avoid such constructs, even the most scientifically minded futurists apply the Alpha-Omega framework of messianic time to their upgraded apocalypse narratives. Emergence takes the place of the hand of God, mysteriously transforming a chaotic system into a self-organized one, with coherence and cooperation. Nobody seems able to explain how this actually happens. ~ Douglas Rushkoff,#NFDB
564:on purifying ego and desire :::
The elimination of all egoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly the key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it where it is centrally tied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and not the heart of our bondage.These are the two knots of our subjection to this ignorant and divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire has its native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there affects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it casts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there that it becomes fully self conscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the obsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate.
In the field of action desire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital selfs craving or seeking after the fruit of our works. The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, -wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niskama karma. ...
The test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful event leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [102],#NFDB
565:I opened myself up to the kiss and kissed him back with enthusiasm. Putting all my secret emotions and tender feelings into the embrace, I wound my arms around his neck and slid my hands into his hair. Pulling his body that much closer to mine, I embraced him with all the warmth and affection that I wouldn’t allow myself to express verbally.
He paused, shocked for a brief instant, and then quickly adjusted his approach, escalating into a passionate frenzy. I shocked myself by matching his energy. I ran my hands up his powerful arms and shoulders and then down his chest. My senses were in turmoil. I felt wild. Eager. I clutched at his shirt. I couldn’t get close enough to him. He even smelled delicious.
You’d think that several days of being chased by strange creatures and hiking through a mysterious kingdom would make him smell bad. In fact, I wanted him to smell bad. I’m sure I did. I mean, how can you expect a girl to be fresh as a daisy while traipsing through the jungle and getting chased by monkeys. It’s just not possible.
I desperately wanted him to have some fault. Some weakness. Some…imperfection. But Ren smelled amazing-like waterfalls, a warm summer day, and sandalwood trees all wrapped up in a sizzling, hot guy.
How could a girl defend herself from a perfect onslaught delivered by a pefect person? I gave up and let Mr. Wonderful take control of my senses. My blood burned, my heart thundered, my need for him quickened, and I lost all track of time in his arms. All I was aware of was Ren. His lips. His body. His soul. I wanted all of him.
Eventually, he put his hands on my shoulders and gently separated us. I was surprised that he had the strength of will to stop because I was nowhere near being able to. I blinked my eyes open in a daze. We were both breathing hard.
“That was…enlightening,” he breathed. “Thank you, Kelsey.”
I blinked. The passion that had dulled my mind dissipated in an instant, and my mind sharply focused on a new feeling. Irritation.
“Thank you? Thank you! Of all the-“ I slammed up the steps angrily and then spun around to look down at him. “No! Thank you, Ren!” My hands slashed at the air. “Now you got what you wanted, so leave me alone!” I ran up the stairs quickly to put some distance between us.
Enlightening? What was that about? Was he testing me? Giving me a one-to-ten score on my kissing ability? Of all the nerve?
I was glad that I was mad. I could shove all the other emotions into the back of my mind and just focus on the anger, the indignation.
He leapt up the stairs two at a time. “That’s not all I want, Kelsey. That’s for sure.”
“Well, I no longer care about what you want!”
He shot me a knowing look and raised an eyebrow. Then, he lifted his foot out of the opening, placed it on the dirt, and instantly changed back into a tiger.
I laughed mockingly. “Ha!” I tripped over a stone but quickly found my footing. “Serves you right!” I shouted angrily and stumbled blindly along the dim path.
After figuring out where to go, I marched off in a huff. “Come on, Fanindra. Let’s go find Mr. Kadam. ~ Colleen Houck,#NFDB
566:L’état humain — ou tout autre état « central » analogue — est comme entouré d’un cercle de feu : il n’y a là qu’un choix, ou bien échapper au « courant des formes » par le haut, en direction de Dieu, ou bien sortir de l’humanité par le bas, à travers le feu, lequel est comme la sanction de la trahison de ceux qui n’ont pas réalisé le sens divin de la condition humaine; si « la condition humaine est difficile à atteindre», comme l’estiment les Asiates « transmigrationnistes », elle est également difficile à quitter, pour la même raison de position centrale et de majesté théomorphe. Les hommes vont au feu parce qu’ils sont des dieux, et ils en sortent parce qu’ils ne sont que des créatures; Dieu seul pourrait aller éternellement en enfer s’il pouvait pécher. Ou encore : l’état humain est tout près du Soleil divin, s’il est possible de parler ici de « proximité »; le feu est la rançon éventuelle — à rebours — de cette situation privilégiée; on peut mesurer celle-ci à l’intensité et à l’inextin-guibilité du feu. Il faut conclure de la gravité de l’enfer à la grandeur de l’homme, et non pas, inversement, de l’apparente innocence de l’homme à l’injustice supposée de l’enfer.
[...] Bien des hommes de notre temps tiennent en somme le langage suivant : « Dieu existe ou il n ’existe pas ; s’il existe et s’il est ce qu’on dit, il reconnaîtra que nous sommes bons et que nous ne méritons aucun châtiment » ; c’est-a-dire qu’ils veulent bien croire à son existence s’il est conforme à ce qu’ils s’imaginent et s’il reconnaît la valeur qu’ils s’attribuent à eux-mêmes. C’est oublier, d’une part, que nous ne pouvons connaître les mesures avec lesquelles l’Absolu nous juge, et d’autre part, que le « feu » d’outre-tombe n’est rien d ’autre, en définitive, que notre propre intellect qui s’actualise à l'encontre de notre fausseté, ou en d’autres termes, qu’il est la vérité immanente qui éclate au grand jour. A la mort, l’homme est confronté avec l’espace inouï d’une réalité, non plus fragmentaire, mais totale, puis avec la norme de ce qu’il a prétendu être, puisque cette norme fait partie du Réel ; l’homme se condamne donc lui-même, ce sont — d’après le Koran — ses membres mêmes qui l’accusent ; ses violations, une fois le mensonge dépassé, le transforment en flammes ; la nature déséquilibrée et faussée, avec toute sa vaine assurance, est une tunique de Nessus. L’homme ne brûle pas que pour ses péchés; il brûle pour sa majesté d’image de Dieu. C’est le parti pris d’ériger la déchéance en norme et l’ignorance en gage d’impunité que le Koran stigmatise avec véhémence — on pourrait presque dire : par anticipation — en confrontant l’assurance de ses contradicteur avec les affres de la fin du monde (1).
En résumé, tout le problème de la culpabilité se réduit au rapport de la cause à l’effet. Que l’homme soit loin d'être bon, l’histoire ancienne et récente le prouve surabondamment, l’homme n’a pas l’innocence de l’animal, il a conscience de son imperfection, puisqu’il en possède la notion ; donc il est responsable. Ce qu’on appelle en terminologie morale la faute de l’homme et le châtiment de Dieu, n’est rien d ’autre, en soi, que le heurt du déséquilibre humain avec l’Equilibre immanent ; cette notion est capitale.[...]
(1) C'est la même un des thèmes les plus instamment répétés de ce livre sacré, qui marque parfois son caractère d'ultime message par une éloquence presque désespérée. ~ Frithjof Schuon,#NFDB
567:We also find *physics*, in the widest sense of the word, concerned with the explanation of phenomena in the world; but it lies already in the nature of the explanations themselves that they cannot be sufficient. *Physics* is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a *metaphysics* on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter. For it explains phenomena by something still more unknown than are they, namely by laws of nature resting on forces of nature, one of which is also the vital force. Certainly the whole present condition of all things in the world or in nature must necessarily be capable of explanation from purely physical causes. But such an explanation―supposing one actually succeeded so far as to be able to give it―must always just as necessarily be burdened with two essential imperfections (as it were with two sore points, or like Achilles with the vulnerable heel, or the devil with the cloven foot). On account of these imperfections, everything so explained would still really remain unexplained. The first imperfection is that the *beginning* of the chain of causes and effects that explains everything, in other words, of the connected and continuous changes, can positively *never* be reached, but, just like the limits of the world in space and time, recedes incessantly and *in infinitum*. The second imperfection is that all the efficient causes from which everything is explained always rest on something wholly inexplicable, that is, on the original *qualities* of things and the *natural forces* that make their appearance in them. By virtue of such forces they produce a definite effect, e.g., weight, hardness, impact, elasticity, heat, electricity, chemical forces, and so on, and such forces remain in every given explanation like an unknown quantity, not to be eliminated at all, in an otherwise perfectly solved algebraical equation. Accordingly there is not a fragment of clay, however little its value, that is not entirely composed of inexplicable qualities. Therefore these two inevitable defects in every purely physical, i.e., causal, explanation indicate that such an explanation can be only *relatively* true, and that its whole method and nature cannot be the only, the ultimate and hence sufficient one, in other words, cannot be the method that will ever be able to lead to the satisfactory solution of the difficult riddles of things, and to the true understanding of the world and of existence; but that the *physical* explanation, in general and as such, still requires one that is *metaphysical*, which would furnish the key to all its assumptions, but for that very reason would have to follow quite a different path. The first step to this is that we should bring to distinct consciousness and firmly retain the distinction between the two, that is, the difference between *physics* and *metaphysics*. In general this difference rests on the Kantian distinction between *phenomenon* and *thing-in-itself*. Just because Kant declared the thing-in-itself to be absolutely unknowable, there was, according to him, no *metaphysics* at all, but merely immanent knowledge, in other words mere *physics*, which can always speak only of phenomena, and together with this a critique of reason which aspires to metaphysics."
―from The World as Will and Representation . Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne. In Two Volumes, Volume II, pp. 172-173 ~ Arthur Schopenhauer,#NFDB
568:It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it. The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life-motives, enlarges and newmodels increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half-inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half-inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 183, #NFDB
569:In the night I awoke. Was this my own voice reciting what was written? “ ‘And every secret thing shall be opened, and every dark place illuminated.’ ” Dear God, no, do not let them know this, do not let them know the great accumulation of all of this, this agony and joy, this misery, this solace, this reaching, this gouging pain, this . . . But they will know, each and every one of them will know. They will know because what you are remembering is what has happened to each and every one of them. Did you think this was more or less for you? Did you think—? And when they are called to account, when they stand naked before God and every incident and utterance is laid bare—you, you will know all of it with each and every one of them! I knelt in the sand. Is this possible, Lord, to be with each of them when he or she comes to know? To be there for every single cry of anguish? For the grief-stricken remembrance of every incomplete joy? Oh, Lord, God, what is judgment and how can it be, if I cannot bear to be with all of them for every ugly word, every harsh and desperate cry, for every gesture examined, for every deed explored to its roots? And I saw the deeds, the deeds of my own life, the smallest, most trivial things, I saw them suddenly in their seed and sprout and with their groping branches; I saw them growing, intertwining with other deeds, and those deeds come to form a thicket and a woodland and a great roving wilderness that dwarfed the world as we hold it on a map, the world as we hold it in our minds. Dear God, next to this, this endless spawning of deed from deed and word from word and thought from thought—the world is nothing. Every single soul is a world! I started to cry. But I would not close off this vision—no, let me see, and all those who lifted the stones, and I, I blundering, and James' face when I said it, I am weary of you, my brother, and from that instant outwards a million echoes of those words in all present who heard or thought they heard, who would remember, repeat, confess, defend . . . and so on it goes for the lifting of a finger, the launching of the ship, the fall of an army in a northern forest, the burning of a city as flames rage through house after house! Dear God, I cannot . . . but I will. I will. I sobbed aloud. I will. O Father in Heaven, I am reaching to You with hands of flesh and blood. I am longing for You in Your perfection with this heart that is imperfection! And I reach up for You with what is decaying before my very eyes, and I stare at Your stars from within the prison of this body, but this is not my prison, this is my Will. This is Your Will. I collapsed weeping. And I will go down, down with every single one of them into the depths of Sheol, into the private darkness, into the anguish exposed for all eyes and for Your eyes, into the fear, into the fire which is the heat of every mind. I will be with them, every solitary one of them. I am one of them! And I am Your Son! I am Your only begotten Son! And driven here by Your Spirit, I cry because I cannot do anything but grasp it, grasp it as I cannot contain it in this flesh-and-blood mind, and by Your leave I cry. I cried. I cried and I cried. “Lord, give me this little while that I may cry, for I've heard that tears accomplish much. . . .” Alone? You said you wanted to be alone? You wanted this, to be alone? You wanted the silence? You wanted to be alone and in the silence. Don't you understand the temptation now of being alone? You are alone. Well, you are absolutely alone because you are the only One who can do this! What judgment can there ever be for man, woman, or child—if I am not there for every heartbeat at every depth of their torment? ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
570:Tell me something. Do you believe in God?'
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?'
'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?'
'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...'
'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.'
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
'There was Manicheanism...'
'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'
Snow pondered for a while:
'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.'
I kept on:
'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...'
'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.'
'If you're going to take what I say literally...'
...Snow asked abruptly:
'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is. ~ Stanis aw Lem,#NFDB
571:My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself. Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn't just illuminate the brokenness of others; in a moment of anguish and heartbreak, it also exposed my own brokenness. You can't effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it.
We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. The ways in which I have been hurt - and have hurt others - are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us.
Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I'd always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we're fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we're shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.
We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.
I thought of the guards strapping Jimmy Dill to the gurney that very hour. I thought of the people who would cheer his death and see it as some kind of victory. I realized they were broken people, too, even if they would never admit it. So many of us have become afraid and angry. We've become so fearful and vengeful that we've thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak - not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors of murdered loved ones, and how we've pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we've legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we've allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We've submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible.
But simply punishing the broken - walking away from them or hiding them from sight - only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.
I frequently had difficult conversations with clients who were struggling and despairing over their situations - over the things they'd done, or had been done to them, that had led them to painful moments. Whenever things got really bad, and they were questioning the value of their lives, I would remind them that each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. I told them that if someone tells a lie, that person is not just a liar. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, you are not just a thief. Even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer. I told myself that evening what I had been telling my clients for years. I am more than broken. In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things that you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us. ~ Bryan Stevenson,#NFDB
572:Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
To You
WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.
O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.
I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you;
None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself;
None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you;
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you;
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all;
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light;
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light;
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are—you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life;
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time;
What you have done returns already in mockeries;
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)
The mockeries are not you;
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me;
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.
There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you;
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you;
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you;
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.
Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they;
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.
The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency;
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself;
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted;
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way. ~ Walt Whitman,#NFDB
573:In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve?
The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success.
Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business.
When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic.
Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward.
Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience.
Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside.
Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?
Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem.
Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living.
Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.
Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new.
The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success.
If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.
The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.
Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action.
The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying?
Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline.
Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence.
Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might.
If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail.
The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface.
Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. ~ John C Maxwell,#NFDB
574:Wales Visitation
White fog lifting & falling on mountain-brow
Trees moving in rivers of wind
The clouds arise
as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist
above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed
along a green crag
glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine—
Bardic, O Self, Visitacione, tell naught
but what seen by one man in a vale in Albion,
of the folk, whose physical sciences end in Ecology,
the wisdom of earthly relations,
of mouths & eyes interknit ten centuries visible
orchards of mind language manifest human,
of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies’ pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs—
Remember 160 miles from London’s symmetrical thorned tower
& network of TV pictures flashing bearded your Self
the lambs on the tree-nooked hillside this day bleating
heard in Blake’s old ear, & the silent thought of Wordsworth in eld Stillness
clouds passing through skeleton arches of Tintern Abbey—
Bard Nameless as the Vast, babble to Vastness!
All the Valley quivered, one extended motion, wind
undulating on mossy hills
a giant wash that sank white fog delicately down red runnels
on the mountainside
whose leaf-branch tendrils moved asway
in granitic undertow down—
and lifted the floating Nebulous upward, and lifted the arms of the trees
and lifted the grasses an instant in balance
and lifted the lambs to hold still
and lifted the green of the hill, in one solemn wave
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A solid mass of Heaven, mist-infused, ebbs thru the vale,
a wavelet of Immensity, lapping gigantic through Llanthony Valley,
the length of all England, valley upon valley under Heaven’s ocean
tonned with cloud-hang,
—Heaven balanced on a grassblade.
Roar of the mountain wind slow, sigh of the body,
One Being on the mountainside stirring gently
Exquisite scales trembling everywhere in balance,
one motion thru the cloudy sky-floor shifting on the million feet of daisies,
one Majesty the motion that stirred wet grass quivering
to the farthest tendril of white fog poured down
through shivering flowers on the mountain’s head—
No imperfection in the budded mountain,
Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
grass shimmers green
sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
horses dance in the warm rain,
tree-lined canals network live farmland,
blueberries fringe stone walls on hawthorn’d hills,
pheasants croak on meadows haired with fern—
Out, out on the hillside, into the ocean sound, into delicate gusts of wet air,
Fall on the ground, O great Wetness, O Mother, No harm on your body!
Stare close, no imperfection in the grass,
each flower Buddha-eye, repeating the story,
myriad-formed—
Kneel before the foxglove raising green buds, mauve bells dropped
doubled down the stem trembling antennae,
& look in the eyes of the branded lambs that stare
breathing stockstill under dripping hawthorn—
I lay down mixing my beard with the wet hair of the mountainside,
smelling the brown vagina-moist ground, harmless,
tasting the violet thistle-hair, sweetness—
One being so balanced, so vast, that its softest breath
moves every floweret in the stillness on the valley floor,
trembles lamb-hair hung gossamer rain-beaded in the grass,
lifts trees on their roots, birds in the great draught
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hiding their strength in the rain, bearing same weight,
Groan thru breast and neck, a great Oh! to earth heart
Calling our Presence together
The great secret is no secret
Senses fit the winds,
Visible is visible,
rain-mist curtains wave through the bearded vale,
gray atoms wet the wind’s kabbala
Crosslegged on a rock in dusk rain,
rubber booted in soft grass, mind moveless,
breath trembles in white daisies by the roadside,
Heaven breath and my own symmetric
Airs wavering thru antlered green fern
drawn in my navel, same breath as breathes thru Capel-Y-Ffn,
Sounds of Aleph and Aum
through forests of gristle,
my skull and Lord Hereford’s Knob equal,
All Albion one.
What did I notice? Particulars! The
vision of the great One is myriad—
smoke curls upward from ashtray,
house fire burned low,
The night, still wet & moody black heaven
starless
upward in motion with wet wind.
~ Allen Ginsberg,#NFDB
575:Remords Posthume (Posthumous Remorse)
Lorsque tu dormiras, ma belle ténébreuse,
Au fond d'un monument construit en marbre noir,
Et lorsque tu n'auras pour alcôve et manoir
Qu'un caveau pluvieux et qu'une fosse creuse;
Quand la pierre, opprimant ta poitrine peureuse
Et tes flancs qu'assouplit un charmant nonchaloir,
Empêchera ton coeur de battre et de vouloir,
Et tes pieds de courir leur course aventureuse,
Le tombeau, confident de mon rêve infini
(Car le tombeau toujours comprendra le poète),
Durant ces grandes nuits d'où le somme est banni,
Te dira: «Que vous sert, courtisane imparfaite,
De n'avoir pas connu ce que pleurent les morts?»
— Et le vers rongera ta peau comme un remords.
Posthumous Remorse
When you will sleep, O dusky beauty mine,
Beneath a monument fashioned of black marble,
When you will have for bedroom and mansion
Only a rain-swept vault and a hollow grave,
When the slab of stone, oppressing your frightened breast
And your flanks now supple with charming nonchalance,
Will keep your heart from beating, from wishing,
And your feet from running their adventurous course,
The tomb, confidant of my infinite dreams
(For the tomb will always understand the poet)
Through those long nights from which all sleep is banned, will say:
'What does it profit you, imperfect courtesan,
Not to have known why the dead weep?'
— And like remorse the worm will gnaw your skin.
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— Translated by William Aggeler
Posthumous Remorse
When you're asleep, dear shadow-coloured wench,
Within a coal-black, marble monument:
When, for your room and mansion, you are pent
In a wet cellar and a hollow trench:
When the stone, pressing on your startled breast
And flanks in fluent suppleness competing,
Prevents your heart from wishing or from beating,
Your feet from racing on their reckless quest.
The tomb that shares my deathless recollection
(For poets best are understood by tombs)
On those long nights, when never sleep presumes,
Will say, 'What boots, frail vase of imperfection,
Not to have known what pains with death begin?' —
And, like remorse, the worm will gnaw your skin.
— Translated by Roy Campbell
Posthumous Remorse
When, O sweet dusky beauty, you shall rest
Deep under a bleak marble monument,
When for last manor yours the tenement
Of rainswept vault or hollow ditch at best,
When the long stone weighs down your frightened breast
And flanks — so supple now and indolent —
Choking your heart's beat and your feet's intent
To race again on their adventurous quest,
The tomb, confidant of my endless dreams, shall keep
Vigil through those long nights that know not sleep,
(Poet and tomb were friends since Time began)
Saying: 'What use, imperfect courtesan,
Not to make known what dead men mourn perforce?'
While the worm gnaws you sharply as remorse.
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— Translated by Jacques LeClercq
Remorse Too Late
My dark and lovely thing, when you at length lie dead,
And sleep beneath a slab of marble black as pitch;
And have, for perfumed alcove and seductive bed,
Only a rainy cavern and a hollow ditch;
When the oppressive stone upon your frightened breast
Lets settle all its weight, and on your supple thighs;
Restrains your heart from beating, flattens it to rest;
Bends down and binds your feet, so roving, so unwise;
The tomb, that knows me well and reads my dream aright,
(What poet but confides his secret to the tomb?)
Will say to you some day during that endless night,
'They fare but ill, vain courtesan, in this cold room,
Who bring here no warm memories of true love to keep!'
— And like remorse the worm will gnaw you in your sleep.
— Translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Remords posthume
when thou wilt sleep, dark girl of shadowy gaze,
down in the cold black marble of a tomb,
a dripping vault thine only tiring-room,
thine only bed a grave where all decays,
when rock shall press thy paling breast and graze
thy limbs now languorous-lovely in the gloom
— shall crush thy faltering heart, thy will consume
and halt thy feet in their adventurous ways,
the Grave, that knows what infinite dreams I keep,
(o Grave, the poet's friend forever, thou!)
all through the night bereft of exiled sleep,
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shall ask: 'art sorry, wretched wanton, now,
not to have learned why dead men weep, perforce?'
— and worms shall gnaw thy breast like sharp remorse.
— Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks
~ Charles Baudelaire,#NFDB
576: ON
POETS
"Since I have come to know the body better," Zarathustra said to one of his disciples, "the spirit is to me
only quasi-spirit; and all that is 'permanent is also a
mere parable."
"I have heard you say that once before," the disciple
replied; "and at that time you added, 'But the poets lie
too much.' Why did you say that the poets lie too
much?"
"Why?" said Zarathustra. "You ask, why? I am not
one of those whom one may ask about their why. Is my
experience but of yesterday? It was long ago that I
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experienced the reasons for my opinions. Would I not
have to be a barrel of memory if I wanted to carry my
reasons around with me? It is already too much for me
to remember my own opinions; and many a bird flies
away. And now and then I also find a stray in my dovecot that is strange to me and trembles when I place my
hand on it. But what was it that Zarathustra once said to
you? That the poets lie too much? But Zarathustra too
is a poet. Do you now believe that he spoke the truth
here? Why do you believe that?"
The disciple answered, "I believe in Zarathustra.'
But Zarathustra shook his head and smiled.
"Faith does not make me blessed," he said, 'especially
not faith in me. But suppose somebody said in all seriousness, the poets lie too much: he would be right; we
do lie too much. We also know too little and we are
bad learners; so we simply have to lie. And who among
us poets has not adulterated his wine? Many a poisonous
hodgepodge has been contrived in our cellars; much
that is indescribable was accomplished there. And because we know so little, the poor in spirit please us
heartily, particularly when they are young females. And
we are covetous even of those things which the old
females tell each other in the evening. That is what we
ourselves call the Eternal-Feminine in us. And, as if
there were a special secret access to knowledge, buried
for those who learn something, we believe in the people
and their 'wisdom.'
"This, however, all poets believe: that whoever
pricks up his ears as he lies in the grass or on lonely
slopes will find out something about those things that
are between heaven and earth. And when they feel
tender sentiments stirring, the poets always fancy that
nature herself is in love with them; and that she is
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creeping to their ears to tell them secrets and amorous
flatteries; and of this they brag and boast before all
mortals.
'Alas, there are so many things between heaven and
earth of which only the poets have dreamed.
"And especially above the heavens: for all gods are
poets' parables, poets' prevarications. Verily, it always
lifts us higher-specifically, to the realm of the clouds:
upon these we place our motley bastards and call them
gods and overmen. For they are just light enough for
these chairs-all these gods and overmen. Ah, how
weary I am of all the imperfection which must at all
costs become events Ah, how weary I am of poets!"
When Zarathustra spoke thus, his disciple was angry
with him, but he remained silent. And Zarathustra too
remained silent; and his eye had turned inward as if he
were gazing into vast distances. At last he sighed and
drew a deep breath.
"I am of today and before," he said then, "but there
is something in me that is of tomorrow and the day after
tomorrow and time to come. I have grown weary of the
poets, the old and the new: superficial they all seem to
me, and shallow seas. Their thoughts have not penetrated deeply enough; therefore their feelings did not
touch bottom.
"Some lust and some boredom: that has so far been
their best reflection. All their harp jingling is to me the
breathing and flitting of ghosts; what have they ever
known of the fervor of tones?
"Nor are they clean enough for me: they all muddy
their waters to make them appear deep. And they like
to pose as reconcilers: but mediators and mixers they
remain for me, and half-and-half and unclean.
"Alas, I cast my net into their seas and wanted to
catch good fish; but I always pulled up the head of
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some old god. Thus the sea gave him who was hungry a
stone. And they themselves may well have come from
the sea. Certainly, pearls are found in them: they are
that much more similar to hard shellfish. And instead
of a soul I often found salted slime in them.
"From the sea they learned even its vanity: is not the
sea the peacock of peacocks? Even before the ugliest
buffalo it still spreads out its tail, and never wearies of
its lace fan of silver and silk. Sulky, the buffalo stares
back, close to the sand in his soul, closer still to the
thicket, closest of all to the swamp. What are beauty
and sea and peacock's finery to him? This parable I
offer the poets. Verily, their spirit itself is the peacock of
peacocks and a sea of vanity! The spirit of the poet
craves spectators-even if only buffaloes.
"But I have grown weary of this spirit; and I foresee
that it will grow weary of itself. I have already seen thepoets changed, with their glances turned back on themselves. I saw ascetics of the spirit approach; they grew
out of the poets."
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, ON POETS
,#NFDB
577:Fragmentary Scenes From The Road To Avernus
Scene I
'Discontent'
LAURENCE RABY.
Laurence:
I said to young Allan M'Ilveray,
Beside the swift swirls of the North,
When, in lilac shot through with a silver ray,
We haul'd the strong salmon fish forth
Said only, 'He gave us some trouble
To land him, and what does he weigh?
Our friend has caught one that weighs double,
The game for the candle won't pay
Us to-day,
We may tie up our rods and away.'
I said to old Norman M'Gregor,
Three leagues to the west of Glen Dhu
I had drawn, with a touch of the trigger,
The best BEAD that ever I drew
Said merely, 'For birds in the stubble
I once had an eye-I could swear
He's down-but he's not worth the trouble
Of seeking. You once shot a bear
In his lair'Tis only a buck that lies there.'
I said to Lord Charles only last year,
The time that we topp'd the oak rail
Between Wharton's plough and Whynne's pasture,
And clear'd the big brook in Blakesvale
We only-at Warburton's double
He fell, then I finish'd the run
And kill'd clean-said, 'So bursts a bubble
That shone half an hour in the sun
What is won?
Your sire clear'd and captured a gun.'
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I said to myself, in true sorrow,
I said yestere'en, 'A fair prize
Is won, and it may be to-morrow
'Twill not seem so fair in thine eyes
Real life is a race through sore trouble,
That gains not an inch on the goal,
And bliss an intangible bubble
That cheats an unsatisfied soul,
And the whole
Of the rest an illegible scroll.'
Scene VII
'Two Exhortations'
A Shooting-box in the West of Ireland. A Bedchamber.
LAURENCE RABY and MELCHIOR. Night.
Melchior:
Surely in the great beginning God made all things good, and still
That soul-sickness men call sinning entered not without His will.
Nay, our wisest have asserted that, as shade enhances light,
Evil is but good perverted, wrong is but the foil of right.
Banish sickness, then you banish joy for health to all that live;
Slay all sin, all good must vanish, good being but comparative.
Sophistry, you say-yet listen: look you skyward, there 'tis known
Worlds on worlds in myriads glisten-larger, lovelier than our own
This has been, and this still shall be, here as there, in sun or star;
These things are to be and will be, those things were to be and are.
Man in man's imperfect nature is by imperfection taught:
Add one cubit to your stature if you can by taking thought.
Laurence:
Thus you would not teach that peasant, though he calls you 'father'.
Melchior: True,
I should magnify this present, mystify that future, too
We adapt our conversation always to our hearer's light.
Laurence:
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I am not of your persuasion.
Melchior: Yet the difference is but slight.
Laurence:
I, EVEN I, say, 'He who barters worldly weal for heavenly worth
He does well'-your saints and martyrs were examples here on earth.
Melchior:
Aye, in earlier Christian ages, while the heathen empire stood,
When the war 'twixt saints and sages cried aloud for saintly blood,
Christ was then their model truly. Now, if all were meek and pure,
Save the ungodly and the unruly, would the Christian Church endure?
Shall the toiler or the fighter dream by day and watch by night,
Turn the left cheek to the smiter, smitten rudely on the right?
Strong men must encounter bad men-so-called saints of latter days
Have been mostly pious madmen, lusting after righteous praise
Or the thralls of superstition, doubtless worthy some reward,
Since they came by their condition hardly of their free accord.
'Tis but madness, sad and solemn, that these fakir-Christians feel
Saint Stylites on his column gratified a morbid zeal.
Laurence:
By your showing, good is really on a par (of worth) with ill.
Melchior:
Nay, I said not so; I merely tell you both some ends fulfil
Priestly vows were my vocation, fast and vigil wait for me.
You must work and face temptation. Never should the strong man flee,
Though God wills the inclination with the soul at war to be. (Pauses.)
In the strife 'twixt flesh and spirit, while you can the spirit aid.
Should you fall not less your merit, be not for a fall afraid.
Whatsoe'er most right, most fit is you shall do. When all is done
Chaunt the noble Nunc Dimittis-Benedicimur, my son.
[Exit MELCHIOR.]
Laurence (alone):
Why do I provoke these wrangles? Melchior talks (as well he may)
With the tongues of men and angels.
(Takes up a pamphlet.) What has this man got to say?
(Reads.) Sic sacerdos fatur (ejus nomen quondam erat Burgo.)
Mala mens est, caro pejus, anima infirma, ergo
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I nunc, ora, sine mora-orat etiam Sancta Virgo.
(Thinks.)
(Speaks.) So it seems they mean to make her wed the usurer, Nathan Lee.
Poor Estelle! her friends forsake her; what has this to do with me?
Glad I am, at least, that Helen still refuses to discard
Her, through tales false gossips tell
in spite or heedlessness.-'Tis hard!
Lee, the Levite!-some few years back Herbert horsewhipp'd him-the cur
Show'd his teeth and laid his ears back. Now his wealth has purchased her.
Must his baseness mar her brightness? Shall the callous, cunning churl
Revel in the rosy whiteness of that golden-headed girl?
(Thinks and smokes.)
(Reads.) Cito certe venit vitae finis (sic sacerdos fatur),
Nunc audite omnes, ite, vobis fabula narratur
Nunc orate et laudate, laudat etiam Alma Mater.
(Muses.) Such has been, and such shall still be,
here as there, in sun or star;
These things are to be and will be, those things were to be and are.
If I thought that speech worth heeding I should-Nay, it seems to me
More like Satan's special pleading than like Gloria Domine.
(Lies down on his couch.)
(Reads.) Et tuquoque frater meus facta mala quod fecisti
Denique confundit Deus omnes res quas tetegisti.
Nunc si unquam, nunc aut nunquam, sanguine adjuro Christi.
Scene IX
'In the Garden'
Aylmer's Garden, near the Lake. LAURENCE RABY and ESTELLE.
He:
Come to the bank where the boat is moor'd to the willow-tree low;
Bertha, the baby, won't notice, Brian, the blockhead, won't know.
She:
Bertha is not such a baby, sir, as you seem to suppose;
Brian, a blockhead he may be, more than you think for he knows.
He:
This much, at least, of your brother, from the beginning he knew
Somewhat concerning that other made such a fool of by you.
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She:
Firmer those bonds were and faster, Frank was my spaniel, my slave.
You! you would fain be my master; mark you! the difference is grave.
He:
Call me your spaniel, your starling, take me and treat me as these,
I would be anything, darling! aye, whatsoever you please.
Brian and Basil are 'punting', leave them their dice and their wine,
Bertha is butterfly hunting, surely one hour shall be mine.
See, I have done with all duty; see, I can dare all disgrace,
Only to look at your beauty, feasting my eyes on your face.
She:
Look at me, aye, till your eyes ache! How, let me ask, will it end?
Neither for your sake, nor my sake, but for the sake of my friend?
He:
Is she your friend then? I own it, this is all wrong, and the rest,
Frustra sed anima monet, caro quod fortius est.
She:
Not quite so close, Laurence Raby, not with your arm round my waist;
Something to look at I may be, nothing to touch or to taste.
He:
Wilful as ever and wayward; why did you tempt me, Estelle?
She:
You misinterpret each stray word, you for each inch take an ell.
Lightly all laws and ties trammel me, I am warn'd for all that.
He (aside):
Perhaps she will swallow her camel when she has strained at her gnat.
She:
Therefore take thought and consider, weigh well, as I do, the whole,
You for mere beauty a bidder, say, would you barter a soul?
He:
Girl! THAT MAY happen, but THIS IS; after this welcome the worst;
Blest for one hour by your kisses, let me be evermore curs'd.
Talk not of ties to me reckless, here every tie I discard
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Make me your girdle, your necklace
She: Laurence, you kiss me too hard.
He:
Aye, 'tis the road to Avernus, n'est ce pas vrai donc, ma belle?
There let them bind us or burn us, mais le jeu vaut la chandelle.
Am I your lord or your vassal? Are you my sun or my torch?
You, when I look at you, dazzle, yet when I touch you, you scorch.
She:
Yonder are Brian and Basil watching us fools from the porch.
Scene X
'After the Quarrel'
Laurence Raby's Chamber. LAURENCE enters, a little the worse for liquor.
Laurence:
He never gave me a chance to speak,
And he call'd her-worse than a dog
The girl stood up with a crimson cheek,
And I fell'd him there like a log.
I can feel the blow on my knuckles yet
He feels it more on his brow.
In a thousand years we shall all forget
The things that trouble us now.
Scene XI
'Ten Paces Off'
An open country. LAURENCE RABY and FORREST, BRIAN AYLMER and PRESCOT.
Forrest:
I've won the two tosses from Prescot;
Now hear me, and hearken and heed,
And pull that vile flower from your waistcoat,
And throw down that beast of a weed;
I'm going to give you the signal
I gave Harry Hunt at Boulogne,
The morning he met Major Bignell,
And shot him as dead as a stone;
For he must look round on his right hand
To watch the white flutter-that stops
His aim, for it takes off his sight, and
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I COUGH WHILE THE HANDKERCHIEF DROPS.
And you keep both eyes on his figure,
Old fellow, and don't take them off.
You've got the sawhandled hair trigger
You sight him and shoot when I cough.
Laurence (aside):
Though God will never forgive me,
Though men make light of my name,
Though my sin and my shame outlive me,
I shall not outlast my shame.
The coward, does he mean to miss me?
His right hand shakes like a leaf;
Shall I live for my friends to hiss me,
Of fools and of knaves the chief?
Shall I live for my foes to twit me?
He has master'd his nerve again
He is firm, he will surely hit me
Will he reach the heart or the brain?
One long look eastward and northward
One prayer-'Our Father which art'
And the cough chimes in with the fourth word,
And I shoot skyward-the heart.
Last Scene
'Exeunt'
HELEN RABY.
Where the grave-deeps rot, where the grave-dews rust,
They dug, crying, 'Earth to earth'
Crying, 'Ashes to ashes and dust to dust'
And what are my poor prayers worth?
Upon whom shall I call, or in whom shall I trust,
Though death were indeed new birth.
And they bid me be glad for my baby's sake
That she suffered sinless and young
Would they have me be glad when my breasts still ache
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Where that small, soft, sweet mouth clung?
I am glad that the heart will so surely break
That has been so bitterly wrung.
He was false, they tell me, and what if he were?
I can only shudder and pray,
Pouring out my soul in a passionate prayer
For the soul that he cast away;
Was there nothing that once was created fair
In the potter's perishing clay?
Is it well for the sinner that souls endure?
For the sinless soul is it well?
Does the pure child lisp to the angels pure?
And where does the strong man dwell,
If the sad assurance of priests be sure,
Or the tale that our preachers tell?
The unclean has follow'd the undefiled,
And the ill MAY regain the good,
And the man MAY be even as the little child!
We are children lost in the wood
Lord! lead us out of this tangled wild,
Where the wise and the prudent have been beguil'd,
And only the babes have stood.
~ Adam Lindsay Gordon,#NFDB
578:An Epistle
I.
Master and Sage, greetings and health to thee,
From thy most meek disciple! Deign once more
Endure me at thy feet, enlighten me,
As when upon my boyish head of yore,
Midst the rapt circle gathered round thy knee
Thy sacred vials of learning thou didst pour.
By the large lustre of thy wisdom orbed
Be my black doubts illumined and absorbed.
II.
Oft I recall that golden time when thou,
Born for no second station, heldst with us
The Rabbi's chair, who art priest and bishop now;
And we, the youth of Israel, curious,
Hung on thy counsels, lifted reverent brow
Unto thy sanctity, would fain discuss
With thee our Talmud problems good and evil,
Till startled by the risen stars o'er Seville.
III.
For on the Synagogue's high-pillared porch
Thou didst hold session, till the sudden sun
Beyond day's purple limit dropped his torch.
Then we, as dreamers, woke, to find outrun
Time's rapid sands. The flame that may not scorch,
Our hearts caught from thine eyes, thou Shining One.
I scent not yet sweet lemon-groves in flower,
But I re-breathe the peace of that deep hour.
IV.
We kissed the sacred borders of thy gown,
29
Brow-aureoled with thy blessing, we went forth
Through the hushed byways of the twilight town.
Then in all life but one thing seemed of worth,
To seek, find, love the Truth. She set her crown
Upon thy head, our Master, at thy birth;
She bade thy lips drop honey, fired thine eyes
With the unclouded glow of sun-steeped skies.
V.
Forgive me, if I dwell on that which, viewed
From thy new vantage-ground, must seem a mist
Of error, by auroral youth endued
With alien lustre. Still in me subsist
Those reeking vapors; faith and gratitude
Still lead me to the hand my boy-lips kissed
For benison and guidance. Not in wrath,
Master, but in wise patience, point my path.
VI.
For I, thy servant, gather in one sheaf
The venomed shafts of slander, which thy word
Shall shrivel to small dust. If haply grief,
Or momentary pain, I deal, my Lord
Blame not thy servant's zeal, nor be thou deaf
Unto my soul's blind cry for light. AccordPitying my love, if too superb to care
For hate-soiled name-an answer to my prayer.
VII.
To me, who, vine to stone, clung close to thee,
The very base of life appeared to quake
When first I knew thee fallen from us, to be
A tower of strength among our foes, to make
'Twixt Jew and Jew deep-cloven enmity.
I have wept gall and blood for thy dear sake.
But now with temperate soul I calmly search
30
Motive and cause that bound thee to the Church.
VIII.
Four motives possible therefor I reachAmbition, doubt, fear, or mayhap-conviction.
I hear in turn ascribed thee all and each
By ignorant folk who part not truth from fiction.
But I, whom even thyself didst stoop to teach,
May poise the scales, weigh this with that confliction,
Yea, sift the hid grain motive from the dense,
Dusty, eye-blinding chaff of consequence.
IX.
Ambition first! I find no fleck thereof
In all thy clean soul. What! could glory, gold,
Or sated senses lure thy lofty love?
No purple cloak to shield thee from the cold,
No jeweled sign to flicker thereabove,
And dazzle men to homage-joys untold
Of spiritual treasure, grace divine,
Alone (so saidst thou) coveting for thine!
X.
I saw thee mount with deprecating air,
Step after step, unto our Jewish throne
Of supreme dignity, the Rabbi's chair;
Shrinking from public honors thrust upon
Thy meek desert, regretting even there
The placid habit of thy life foregone;
Silence obscure, vast peace and austere days
Passed in wise contemplation, prayer, and praise.
XI.
One less than thou had ne'er known such regret.
31
How must thou suffer, who so lov'st the shade,
In Fame's full glare, whom one stride more shall set
Upon the Papal seat! I stand dismayed,
Familiar with thy fearful soul, and yet
Half glad, perceiving modest worth repaid
Even by the Christians! Could thy soul deflect?
No, no, thrice no! Ambition I reject!
XII.
Next doubt. Could doubt have swayed thee, then I ask,
How enters doubt within the soul of man?
Is it a door that opens, or a mask
That falls? and Truth's resplendent face we scan.
Nay, 't is a creeping, small, blind worm, whose task
Is gnawing at Faith's base; the whole vast plan
Rots, crumbles, eaten inch by inch within,
And on its ruins falsehood springs and sin.
XIII.
But thee no doubt confused, no problems vexed.
Thy father's faith for thee proved bright and sweet.
Thou foundst no rite superfluous, no text
Obscure; the path was straight before thy feet.
Till thy baptismal day, thou, unperplexed
By foreign dogma, didst our prayers repeat,
Honor the God of Israel, fast and feast,
Even as thy people's wont, from first to least.
XIV.
Yes, Doubt I likewise must discard. Not sleek,
Full-faced, erect of head, men walk, when doubt
Writhes at their entrails; pinched and lean of cheek,
With brow pain-branded, thou hadst strayed about
As midst live men a ghost condemned to seek
That soul he may nor live nor die without.
No doubts the font washed from thee, thou didst glide
32
From creed to creed, complete, sane-souled, clear-eyed.
XV.
Thy pardon, Master, if I dare sustain
The thesis thou couldst entertain a fear.
I would but rout thine enemies, who feign
Ignoble impulse prompted thy career.
I will but weigh the chances and make plain
To Envy's self the monstrous jest appear.
Though time, place, circumstance confirmed in seeming,
One word from thee should frustrate all their scheming.
XVI.
Was Israel glad in Seville on the day
Thou didst renounce him? Then mightst thou indeed
Snap finger at whate'er thy slanderers say.
Lothly must I admit, just then the seed
Of Jacob chanced upon a grievous way.
Still from the wounds of that red year we bleed.
The curse had fallen upon our heads-the sword
Was whetted for the chosen of the Lord.
XVII.
There where we flourished like a fruitful palm,
We were uprooted, spoiled, lopped limb from limb.
A bolt undreamed of out of heavens calm,
So cracked our doom. We were destroyed by him
Whose hand since childhood we had clasped. With balm
Our head had been anointed, at the brim
Our cup ran over-now our day was done,
Our blood flowed free as water in the sun.
XVIII.
Midst the four thousand of our tribe who held
33
Glad homes in Seville, never a one was spared,
Some slaughtered at their hearthstones, some expelled
To Moorish slavery. Cunningly ensnared,
Baited and trapped were we; their fierce monks yelled
And thundered from our Synagogues, while flared
The Cross above the Ark. Ah, happiest they
Who fell unconquered martyrs on that day!
XIX.
For some (I write it with flushed cheek, bowed head),
Given free choice 'twixt death and shame, chose shame,
Denied the God who visibly had led
Their fathers, pillared in a cloud of flame,
Bathed in baptismal waters, ate the bread
Which is their new Lord's body, took the name
Marranos the Accursed, whom equally
Jew, Moor, and Christian hate, despise, and flee.
XX.
Even one no less than an Abarbanel
Prized miserable length of days, above
Integrity of soul. Midst such who fell,
Far be it, however, from my duteous love,
Master, to reckon thee. Thine own lips tell
How fear nor torture thy firm will could move.
How thou midst panic nowise disconcerted,
By Thomas of Aquinas wast converted!
XXI.
Truly I know no more convincing way
To read so wise an author, than was thine.
When burning Synagogues changed night to day,
And red swords underscored each word and line.
That was a light to read by! Who'd gainsay
Authority so clearly stamped divine?
On this side, death and torture, flame and slaughter,
34
On that, a harmless wafer and clean water.
XXII.
Thou couldst not fear extinction for our race;
Though Christian sword and fire from town to town
Flash double bladed lightning to efface
Israel's image-though we bleed, burn, drown
Through Christendom-'t is but a scanty space.
Still are the Asian hills and plains our own,
Still are we lords in Syria, still are free,
Nor doomed to be abolished utterly.
XXIII.
One sole conclusion hence at last I find,
Thou whom ambition, doubt, nor fear could swerve,
Perforce hast been persuaded through the mind,
Proved, tested the new dogmas, found them serve
Thy spirit's needs, left flesh and sense behind,
Accepted without shrinking or reserve,
The trans-substantial bread and wine, the Christ
At whose shrine thine own kin were sacrificed.
XXIV.
Here then the moment comes when I crave light.
All's dark to me. Master, if I be blind,
Thou shalt unseal my lids and bless with sight,
Or groping in the shadows, I shall find
Whether within me or without, dwell night.
Oh cast upon my doubt-bewildered mind
One ray from thy clear heaven of sun-bright faith,
Grieving, not wroth, at what thy servant saith.
XXV.
Where are the signs fulfilled whereby all men
35
Should know the Christ? Where is the wide-winged peace
Shielding the lamb within the lion's den?
The freedom broadening with the wars that cease?
Do foes clasp hands in brotherhood again?
Where is the promised garden of increase,
When like a rose the wilderness should bloom?
Earth is a battlefield and Spain a tomb.
XXVI.
Our God of Sabaoth is an awful God
Of lightnings and of vengeance,-Christians say.
Earth trembled, nations perished at his nod;
His Law has yielded to a milder sway.
Theirs is the God of Love whose feet have trod
Our common earth-draw near to him and pray,
Meek-faced, dove-eyed, pure-browed, the Lord of life,
Know him and kneel, else at your throat the knife!
XXVII.
This is the God of Love, whose altars reek
With human blood, who teaches men to hate;
Torture past words, or sins we may not speak
Wrought by his priests behind the convent-grate.
Are his priests false? or are his doctrines weak
That none obeys him? State at war with state,
Church against church-yea, Pope at feud with Pope
In these tossed seas what anchorage for hope?
XXVIII.
Not only for the sheep without the fold
Is the knife whetted, who refuse to share
Blessings the shepherd wise doth not withhold
Even from the least among his flock-but there
Midmost the pale, dissensions manifold,
Lamb flaying lamb, fierce sheep that rend and tear.
Master, if thou to thy pride's goal should come,
36
Where wouldst thou throne-at Avignon or Rome?
XXIX.
I handle burning questions, good my lord,
Such as may kindle fagots, well I wis.
Your Gospel not denies our older Word,
But in a way completes and betters this.
The Law of Love shall supersede the sword,
So runs the promise, but the facts I miss.
Already needs this wretched generation,
A voice divine-a new, third revelation.
XXX.
Two Popes and their adherents fulminate
Ban against ban, and to the nether hell
Condemn each other, while the nations wait
Their Christ to thunder forth from Heaven, and tell
Who is his rightful Vicar, reinstate
His throne, the hideous discord to dispel.
Where shall I seek, master, while such things be,
Celestial truth, revealed certainty!
XXXI.
Not miracles I doubt, for how dare man,
Chief miracle of life's mystery, say HE KNOWS?
How may he closely secret causes scan,
Who learns not whence he comes nor where he goes?
Like one who walks in sleep a doubtful span
He gropes through all his days, till Death unclose
His cheated eyes and in one blinding gleam,
Wakes, to discern the substance from the dream.
XXXII.
I say not therefore I deny the birth,
37
The Virgin's motherhood, the resurrection,
Who know not how mine own soul came to earth,
Nor what shall follow death. Man's imperfection
May bound not even in thought the height and girth
Of God's omnipotence; neath his direction
We may approach his essence, but that He
Should dwarf Himself to us-it cannot be!
XXXIII.
The God who balances the clouds, who spread
The sky above us like a molten glass,
The God who shut the sea with doors, who laid
The corner-stone of earth, who caused the grass
Spring forth upon the wilderness, and made
The darkness scatter and the night to passThat He should clothe Himself with flesh, and move
Midst worms a worm-this, sun, moon, stars disprove.
XXXIV.
Help me, O thou who wast my boyhood's guide,
I bend my exile-weary feet to thee,
Teach me the indivisible to divide,
Show me how three are one and One is three!
How Christ to save all men was crucified,
Yet I and mine are damned eternally.
Instruct me, Sage, why Virtue starves alone,
While falsehood step by step ascends the throne.
~ Emma Lazarus,#NFDB
579:A Hymn In Honour Of Beauty
Ah whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,
And up aloft above my strength dost raise
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.
That as I erst in praise of thine own name,
So now in honour of thy mother dear,
An honourable hymn I eke should frame,
And with the brightness of her beauty clear,
The ravish'd hearts of gazeful men might rear
To admiration of that heavenly light,
From whence proceeds such soul-enchanting might.
Thereto do thou, great goddess, queen of beauty,
Mother of love, and of all world's delight,
Without whose sovereign grace and kindly duty
Nothing on earth seems fair to fleshly sight,
Do thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light
T' illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,
And beautify this sacred hymn of thine:
That both to thee, to whom I mean it most,
And eke to her, whose fair immortal beam
Hath darted fire into my feeble ghost,
That now it wasted is with woes extreme,
It may so please, that she at length will stream
Some dew of grace into my withered heart,
After long sorrow and consuming smart.
WHAT time this world's great Workmaster did cast
To make all things such as we now behold,
It seems that he before his eyes had plac'd
A goodly pattern, to whose perfect mould
He fashion'd them as comely as he could;
That now so fair and seemly they appear,
As nought may be amended anywhere.
That wondrous pattern, wheresoe'er it be,
Whether in earth laid up in secret store,
Or else in heaven, that no man may it see
With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore,
Is perfect Beauty, which all men adore;
Whose face and feature doth so much excel
All mortal sense, that none the same may tell.
Thereof as every earthly thing partakes
Or more or less, by influence divine,
So it more fair accordingly it makes,
And the gross matter of this earthly mine,
Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refine,
Doing away the dross which dims the light
Of that fair beam which therein is empight.
For, through infusion of celestial power,
The duller earth it quick'neth with delight,
And lifeful spirits privily doth pour
Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight
They seem to please. That is thy sovereign might,
O Cyprian queen, which flowing from the beam
Of thy bright star, thou into them dost stream.
That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace
To all things fair, that kindleth lively fire,
Light of thy lamp, which, shining in the face,
Thence to the soul darts amorous desire,
And robs the hearts of those which it admire;
Therewith thou pointest thy son's poison'd arrow,
That wounds the life, and wastes the inmost marrow.
How vainly then do idle wits invent,
That beauty is nought else but mixture made
Of colours fair, and goodly temp'rament
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And pass away, like to a summer's shade;
Or that it is but comely composition
Of parts well measur'd, with meet disposition.
Hath white and red in it such wondrous power,
That it can pierce through th' eyes unto the heart,
And therein stir such rage and restless stour,
As nought but death can stint his dolour's smart?
Or can proportion of the outward part
Move such affection in the inward mind,
That it can rob both sense and reason blind?
Why do not then the blossoms of the field,
Which are array'd with much more orient hue,
And to the sense most dainty odours yield,
Work like impression in the looker's view?
Or why do not fair pictures like power shew,
In which oft-times we nature see of art
Excell'd, in perfect limning every part?
But ah, believe me, there is more than so,
That works such wonders in the minds of men;
I, that have often prov'd, too well it know,
And whoso list the like assays to ken,
Shall find by trial, and confess it then,
That beauty is not, as fond men misdeem,
An outward shew of things, that only seem.
For that same goodly hue of white and red,
With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,
And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay;
That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright,
Shall turn to dust; and lose their goodly light.
But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray
That light proceeds, which kindleth lovers' fire,
Shall never be extinguish'd nor decay;
But when the vital spirits do expire,
Unto her native planet shall retire;
For it is heavenly born and cannot die,
Being a parcel of the purest sky.
For when the soul, the which derived was,
At first, out of that great immortal Spright,
By whom all live to love, whilom did pass
10
Down from the top of purest heaven's height
To be embodied here, it then took light
And lively spirits from that fairest star,
Which lights the world forth from his fiery car.
Which power retaining still or more or less,
When she in fleshly seed is eft enraced,
Through every part she doth the same impress,
According as the heavens have her graced,
And frames her house, in which she will be placed,
Fit for herself, adorning it with spoil
Of th' heavenly riches which she robb'd erewhile.
Thereof it comes that these fair souls, which have
The most resemblance of that heavenly light,
Frame to themselves most beautiful and brave
Their fleshly bower, most fit for their delight,
And the gross matter by a sovereign might
Tempers so trim, that it may well be seen
A palace fit for such a virgin queen.
So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
For of the soul the body form doth take:
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Therefore wherever that thou dost behold
A comely corpse, with beauty fair endued,
Know this for certain, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed,
Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed.
For all that fair is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.
Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,
Either by chance, against the course of kind,
Or through unaptness in the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,
11
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is deform'd with some foul imperfection.
And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue)
That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born,
Is foul abus'd, and that celestial hue,
Which doth the world with her delight adorn,
Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn,
Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it,
But every one doth seek but to deprave it.
Yet nathëmore is that fair beauty's blame,
But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:
Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame
May be corrupt, and wrested unto will:
Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still,
However flesh{"e}s fault it filthy make;
For things immortal no corruption take.
But ye fair dames, the world's dear ornaments
And lively images of heaven's light,
Let not your beams with such disparagements
Be dimm'd, and your bright glory dark'ned quite;
But mindful still of your first country's sight,
Do still preserve your first informed grace,
Whose shadow yet shines in your beauteous face.
Loathe that foul blot, that hellish firebrand,
Disloyal lust, fair beauty's foulest blame,
That base affections, which your ears would bland,
Commend to you by love's abused name,
But is indeed the bondslave of defame;
Which will the garland of your glory mar,
And quench the light of your bright shining star.
But gentle Love, that loyal is and true,
Will more illumine your resplendent ray,
And add more brightness to your goodly hue,
From light of his pure fire; which, by like way
Kindled of yours, your likeness doth display;
Like as two mirrors, by oppos'd reflection,
Do both express the face's first impression.
12
Therefore, to make your beauty more appear,
It you behoves to love, and forth to lay
That heavenly riches which in you ye bear,
That men the more admire their fountain may;
For else what booteth that celestial ray,
If it in darkness be enshrined ever,
That it of loving eyes be viewed never?
But, in your choice of loves, this well advise,
That likest to yourselves ye them select,
The which your forms' first source may sympathize,
And with like beauty's parts be inly deckt;
For, if you loosely love without respect,
It is no love, but a discordant war,
Whose unlike parts amongst themselves do jar.
For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy,
To work each other's joy and true content,
Which they have harbour'd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here belov'd to be.
Then wrong it were that any other twain
Should in love's gentle band combined be
But those whom Heaven did at first ordain,
And made out of one mould the more t' agree;
For all that like the beauty which they see,
Straight do not love; for love is not so light
As straight to burn at first beholder's sight.
But they, which love indeed, look otherwise,
With pure regard and spotless true intent,
Drawing out of the object of their eyes
A more refined form, which they present
Unto their mind, void of all blemishment;
Which it reducing to her first perfection,
Beholdeth free from flesh's frail infection.
And then conforming it unto the light,
13
Which in itself it hath remaining still,
Of that first Sun, yet sparkling in his sight,
Thereof he fashions in his higher skill
An heavenly beauty to his fancy's will;
And it embracing in his mind entire,
The mirror of his own thought doth admire.
Which seeing now so inly fair to be,
As outward it appeareth to the eye,
And with his spirit's proportion to agree,
He thereon fixeth all his fantasy,
And fully setteth his felicity;
Counting it fairer than it is indeed,
And yet indeed her fairness doth exceed.
For lovers' eyes more sharply sighted be
Than other men's, and in dear love's delight
See more than any other eyes can see,
Through mutual receipt of beam{"e}s bright,
Which carry privy message to the spright,
And to their eyes that inmost fair display,
As plain as light discovers dawning day.
Therein they see, through amorous eye-glances,
Armies of loves still flying to and fro,
Which dart at them their little fiery lances;
Whom having wounded, back again they go,
Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;
Who, seeing her fair eyes' so sharp effect,
Cures all their sorrows with one sweet aspect.
In which how many wonders do they rede
To their conceit, that others never see,
Now of her smiles, with which their souls they feed,
Like gods with nectar in their banquets free;
Now of her looks, which like to cordials be;
But when her words' embássade forth she sends,
Lord, how sweet music that unto them lends.
Sometimes upon her forehead they behold
A thousand graces masking in delight;
Sometimes within her eyelids they unfold
14
Ten thousand sweet belgards, which to their sight
Do seem like twinkling stars in frosty night;
But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,
So many millions of chaste pleasures play.
All those, O Cytherea, and thousands more
Thy handmaids be, which do on thee attend,
To deck thy beauty with their dainties' store,
That may it more to mortal eyes commend,
And make it more admir'd of foe and friend:
That in men's hearts thou may'st thy throne install,
And spread thy lovely kingdom over all.
Then Iö, triumph! O great Beauty's Queen,
Advance the banner of thy conquest high,
That all this world, the which thy vassals bene,
May draw to thee, and with due fealty
Adore the power of thy great majesty,
Singing this hymn in honour of thy name,
Compil'd by me, which thy poor liegeman am.
In lieu whereof grant, O great sovereign,
That she whose conquering beauty doth captive
My trembling heart in her eternal chain,
One drop of grace at length will to me give,
That I her bounden thrall by her may live,
And this same life, which first fro me she reaved,
May owe to her, of whom I it received.
And you, fair Venus' darling, my dear dread,
Fresh flower of grace, great goddess of my life,
When your fair eyes these fearful lines shall read,
Deign to let fall one drop of due relief,
That may recure my heart's long pining grief,
And shew what wondrous power your beauty hath,
That can restore a damned wight from death.
~ Edmund Spenser,#NFDB
580:An Hymn In Honour Of Beauty
AH whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,
And up aloft above my strength dost raise
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.
That as I erst in praise of thine own name,
So now in honour of thy mother dear,
An honourable hymn I eke should frame,
And with the brightness of her beauty clear,
The ravish'd hearts of gazeful men might rear
To admiration of that heavenly light,
From whence proceeds such soul-enchanting might.
Thereto do thou, great goddess, queen of beauty,
Mother of love, and of all world's delight,
Without whose sovereign grace and kindly duty
Nothing on earth seems fair to fleshly sight,
Do thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling light
T' illuminate my dim and dulled eyne,
And beautify this sacred hymn of thine:
That both to thee, to whom I mean it most,
And eke to her, whose fair immortal beam
Hath darted fire into my feeble ghost,
That now it wasted is with woes extreme,
It may so please, that she at length will stream
Some dew of grace into my withered heart,
After long sorrow and consuming smart.
WHAT time this world's great Workmaster did cast
To make all things such as we now behold,
It seems that he before his eyes had plac'd
A goodly pattern, to whose perfect mould
He fashion'd them as comely as he could;
That now so fair and seemly they appear,
As nought may be amended anywhere.
35
That wondrous pattern, wheresoe'er it be,
Whether in earth laid up in secret store,
Or else in heaven, that no man may it see
With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore,
Is perfect Beauty, which all men adore;
Whose face and feature doth so much excel
All mortal sense, that none the same may tell.
Thereof as every earthly thing partakes
Or more or less, by influence divine,
So it more fair accordingly it makes,
And the gross matter of this earthly mine,
Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refine,
Doing away the dross which dims the light
Of that fair beam which therein is empight.
For, through infusion of celestial power,
The duller earth it quick'neth with delight,
And lifeful spirits privily doth pour
Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight
They seem to please. That is thy sovereign might,
O Cyprian queen, which flowing from the beam
Of thy bright star, thou into them dost stream.
That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace
To all things fair, that kindleth lively fire,
Light of thy lamp, which, shining in the face,
Thence to the soul darts amorous desire,
And robs the hearts of those which it admire;
Therewith thou pointest thy son's poison'd arrow,
That wounds the life, and wastes the inmost marrow.
How vainly then do idle wits invent,
That beauty is nought else but mixture made
Of colours fair, and goodly temp'rament
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And pass away, like to a summer's shade;
Or that it is but comely composition
Of parts well measur'd, with meet disposition.
Hath white and red in it such wondrous power,
36
That it can pierce through th' eyes unto the heart,
And therein stir such rage and restless stour,
As nought but death can stint his dolour's smart?
Or can proportion of the outward part
Move such affection in the inward mind,
That it can rob both sense and reason blind?
Why do not then the blossoms of the field,
Which are array'd with much more orient hue,
And to the sense most dainty odours yield,
Work like impression in the looker's view?
Or why do not fair pictures like power shew,
In which oft-times we nature see of art
Excell'd, in perfect limning every part?
But ah, believe me, there is more than so,
That works such wonders in the minds of men;
I, that have often prov'd, too well it know,
And whoso list the like assays to ken,
Shall find by trial, and confess it then,
That beauty is not, as fond men misdeem,
An outward shew of things, that only seem.
For that same goodly hue of white and red,
With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,
And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay;
That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright,
Shall turn to dust; and lose their goodly light.
But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray
That light proceeds, which kindleth lovers' fire,
Shall never be extinguish'd nor decay;
But when the vital spirits do expire,
Unto her native planet shall retire;
For it is heavenly born and cannot die,
Being a parcel of the purest sky.
For when the soul, the which derived was,
At first, out of that great immortal Spright,
By whom all live to love, whilom did pass
37
Down from the top of purest heaven's height
To be embodied here, it then took light
And lively spirits from that fairest star,
Which lights the world forth from his fiery car.
Which power retaining still or more or less,
When she in fleshly seed is eft enraced,
Through every part she doth the same impress,
According as the heavens have her graced,
And frames her house, in which she will be placed,
Fit for herself, adorning it with spoil
Of th' heavenly riches which she robb'd erewhile.
Thereof it comes that these fair souls, which have
The most resemblance of that heavenly light,
Frame to themselves most beautiful and brave
Their fleshly bower, most fit for their delight,
And the gross matter by a sovereign might
Tempers so trim, that it may well be seen
A palace fit for such a virgin queen.
So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
For of the soul the body form doth take:
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Therefore wherever that thou dost behold
A comely corpse, with beauty fair endued,
Know this for certain, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed,
Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed.
For all that fair is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.
Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,
Either by chance, against the course of kind,
Or through unaptness in the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,
38
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is deform'd with some foul imperfection.
And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue)
That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born,
Is foul abus'd, and that celestial hue,
Which doth the world with her delight adorn,
Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn,
Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it,
But every one doth seek but to deprave it.
Yet nathëmore is that fair beauty's blame,
But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:
Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame
May be corrupt, and wrested unto will:
Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still,
However flesh{"e}s fault it filthy make;
For things immortal no corruption take.
But ye fair dames, the world's dear ornaments
And lively images of heaven's light,
Let not your beams with such disparagements
Be dimm'd, and your bright glory dark'ned quite;
But mindful still of your first country's sight,
Do still preserve your first informed grace,
Whose shadow yet shines in your beauteous face.
Loathe that foul blot, that hellish firebrand,
Disloyal lust, fair beauty's foulest blame,
That base affections, which your ears would bland,
Commend to you by love's abused name,
But is indeed the bondslave of defame;
Which will the garland of your glory mar,
And quench the light of your bright shining star.
But gentle Love, that loyal is and true,
Will more illumine your resplendent ray,
And add more brightness to your goodly hue,
From light of his pure fire; which, by like way
Kindled of yours, your likeness doth display;
Like as two mirrors, by oppos'd reflection,
Do both express the face's first impression.
39
Therefore, to make your beauty more appear,
It you behoves to love, and forth to lay
That heavenly riches which in you ye bear,
That men the more admire their fountain may;
For else what booteth that celestial ray,
If it in darkness be enshrined ever,
That it of loving eyes be viewed never?
But, in your choice of loves, this well advise,
That likest to yourselves ye them select,
The which your forms' first source may sympathize,
And with like beauty's parts be inly deckt;
For, if you loosely love without respect,
It is no love, but a discordant war,
Whose unlike parts amongst themselves do jar.
For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy,
To work each other's joy and true content,
Which they have harbour'd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here belov'd to be.
Then wrong it were that any other twain
Should in love's gentle band combined be
But those whom Heaven did at first ordain,
And made out of one mould the more t' agree;
For all that like the beauty which they see,
Straight do not love; for love is not so light
As straight to burn at first beholder's sight.
But they, which love indeed, look otherwise,
With pure regard and spotless true intent,
Drawing out of the object of their eyes
A more refined form, which they present
Unto their mind, void of all blemishment;
Which it reducing to her first perfection,
Beholdeth free from flesh's frail infection.
And then conforming it unto the light,
40
Which in itself it hath remaining still,
Of that first Sun, yet sparkling in his sight,
Thereof he fashions in his higher skill
An heavenly beauty to his fancy's will;
And it embracing in his mind entire,
The mirror of his own thought doth admire.
Which seeing now so inly fair to be,
As outward it appeareth to the eye,
And with his spirit's proportion to agree,
He thereon fixeth all his fantasy,
And fully setteth his felicity;
Counting it fairer than it is indeed,
And yet indeed her fairness doth exceed.
For lovers' eyes more sharply sighted be
Than other men's, and in dear love's delight
See more than any other eyes can see,
Through mutual receipt of beam{"e}s bright,
Which carry privy message to the spright,
And to their eyes that inmost fair display,
As plain as light discovers dawning day.
Therein they see, through amorous eye-glances,
Armies of loves still flying to and fro,
Which dart at them their little fiery lances;
Whom having wounded, back again they go,
Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;
Who, seeing her fair eyes' so sharp effect,
Cures all their sorrows with one sweet aspect.
In which how many wonders do they rede
To their conceit, that others never see,
Now of her smiles, with which their souls they feed,
Like gods with nectar in their banquets free;
Now of her looks, which like to cordials be;
But when her words' embássade forth she sends,
Lord, how sweet music that unto them lends.
Sometimes upon her forehead they behold
A thousand graces masking in delight;
Sometimes within her eyelids they unfold
41
Ten thousand sweet belgards, which to their sight
Do seem like twinkling stars in frosty night;
But on her lips, like rosy buds in May,
So many millions of chaste pleasures play.
All those, O Cytherea, and thousands more
Thy handmaids be, which do on thee attend,
To deck thy beauty with their dainties' store,
That may it more to mortal eyes commend,
And make it more admir'd of foe and friend:
That in men's hearts thou may'st thy throne install,
And spread thy lovely kingdom over all.
Then Iö, triumph! O great Beauty's Queen,
Advance the banner of thy conquest high,
That all this world, the which thy vassals bene,
May draw to thee, and with due fealty
Adore the power of thy great majesty,
Singing this hymn in honour of thy name,
Compil'd by me, which thy poor liegeman am.
In lieu whereof grant, O great sovereign,
That she whose conquering beauty doth captive
My trembling heart in her eternal chain,
One drop of grace at length will to me give,
That I her bounden thrall by her may live,
And this same life, which first fro me she reaved,
May owe to her, of whom I it received.
And you, fair Venus' darling, my dear dread,
Fresh flower of grace, great goddess of my life,
When your fair eyes these fearful lines shall read,
Deign to let fall one drop of due relief,
That may recure my heart's long pining grief,
And shew what wondrous power your beauty hath,
That can restore a damned wight from death.
~ Edmund Spenser,#NFDB
581:An Essay On Man In Four Epistles: Epistle 1
To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.I.
Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?II.
Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
27
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?
Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be somewhere, such a rank as man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains:
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
28
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest today is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.III.
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.IV.
29
Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause.V.
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect?"--Why then man?
30
If the great end be human happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?
Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.VI.
What would this man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone?
31
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?VII.
Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier;
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
32
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought divide:
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one?VIII.
See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing!--On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread order break--for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!--Oh madness, pride, impiety!IX.
What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
33
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.X.
Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit.--In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
582:Essay On Man
The First Epistle
Awake, my ST. JOHN!(1) leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.
Let us (since Life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate(2) free o'er all this scene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot,
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts(3), the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate(4) the ways of God to Man.
1. Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What vary'd being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind!
92
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields(5) above,
Why JOVE'S Satellites are less than JOVE?(6)
Of Systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be, somewhere, such rank as Man;
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call,
Nay, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:(7)
Then shall Man's pride and dullness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought;
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest today is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.
III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
93
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer Being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore!
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To Be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's(8) fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call Imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,(9)
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
94
If Man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance(10) and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the GOD of GOD!
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel;
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause.
V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began,
And what created perfect?" -- Why then Man?
If the great end be human Happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia,(11) or a Catiline?(12)
Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce Ambition in a Caesar's(13) mind,
95
Or turns young Ammon(14) loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind:
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
and Passions are the elements of Life.
The gen'ral ORDER, since the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.
VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than Angel,(15) would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own;
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite,(16) not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia(17) darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
96
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring Zephyr,(18) and the purling rill?(19)
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the people grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious(20) on the tainted(21) green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,(22)
To that which warbles thro' the vernal(23) wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew:(24)
How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine:
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier;
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd;
What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide:
And Middle natures,(25) how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?
VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal,(26) human, angel, man
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from Infinite to thee,
97
From thee to Nothing! -- On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destoy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th' amazing whole;
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky,
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world,
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God:
All this dread ORDER break -- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! -- oh, Madness, Pride, Impiety!
IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd(27)
To serve mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body, Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal parts,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
X. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
98
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit -- In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, "Whatever IS, is RIGHT."
Argument of the Second Epistle:
Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to Himself, as an Individual. The
business of Man not to pry into God, but
to study himself.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,(28)
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
ENDNOTES:
99
1[His friend, Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke]
2[to wander]
3[hidden areas]
4[explain or defend]
5[silvery fields, i.e., the heavens]
6[the planet Jupiter]
7[ancient Egyptians sometimes worshipped oxen]
8[the highest level of angels]
9[pleasure]
10[the balance used to weigh justice]
11[Caesar Borgia (1476-1507) who used any cruelty to achieve his ends]
12[Lucious Sergius Catilina (108-62 B.C.) who was a traitor to Rome]
13[Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) who was thought to be overly ambitious Roman]
14[Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)]
15[Psalm 8:5--"Thou hast made him [man] a little lower than the angels...."]
16[small insect]
17[vapors which were believed to pass odors to the brain]
18[the West Wind]
19[stream]
20[able to pick up a scent]
21[having the odor of an animal]
22[ocean]
23[green]
24[honey was thought to have medicinal properties]
25[Animals slightly below humans on the chain of being]
26[heavenly]
27[complained]
28[i.e., on the chain of being between angels and animals]
~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
583:"As certain also of your own poets have said"
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")
To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
They give thy letter to me, even now:
I read and seem as if I heard thee speak.
The master of thy galley still unlades
Gift after gift; they block my court at last
And pile themselves along its portico
Royal with sunset, like a thought of thee:
And one white she-slave from the group dispersed
Of black and white slaves (like the chequer-work
Pavement, at once my nation's work and gift,
Now covered with this settle-down of doves),
One lyric woman, in her crocus vest
Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands
Commends to me the strainer and the cup
Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.
Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence!
For so shall men remark, in such an act
Of love for him whose song gives life its joy,
Thy recognition of the use of life;
Nor call thy spirit barely adequate
To help on life in straight ways, broad enough
For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest.
Thou, in the daily building of thy tower,
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth,
Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect,
Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope
Of some eventual rest a-top of it,
Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed,
Thou first of men might'st look out to the East:
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun.
For this, I promise on thy festival
To pour libation, looking o'er the sea,
Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak
Thy great words, and describe thy royal face
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most,
Within the eventual element of calm.
Thy letter's first requirement meets me here.
It is as thou hast heard: in one short life
I, Cleon, have effected all those things
Thou wonderingly dost enumerate.
That epos on thy hundred plates of gold
Is mine,and also mine the little chant,
So sure to rise from every fishing-bark
When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net.
The image of the sun-god on the phare,
Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine;
The Po'er-storied its whole length,
As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too.
I know the true proportions of a man
And woman also, not observed before;
And I have written three books on the soul,
Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again.
For music,why, I have combined the moods,
Inventing one. In brief, all arts are mine;
Thus much the people know and recognize,
Throughout our seventeen islands. Marvel not.
We of these latter days, with greater mind
Than our forerunners, since more composite,
Look not so great, beside their simple way,
To a judge who only sees one way at once,
One mind-point and no other at a time,
Compares the small part of a man of us
With some whole man of the heroic age,
Great in his waynot ours, nor meant for ours.
And ours is greater, had we skill to know:
For, what we call this life of men on earth,
This sequence of the soul's achievements here
Being, as I find much reason to conceive,
Intended to be viewed eventually
As a great whole, not analyzed to parts,
But each part having reference to all,
How shall a certain part, pronounced complete,
Endure effacement by another part?
Was the thing done?then, what's to do again?
See, in the chequered pavement opposite,
Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb,
And next a lozenge, then a trapezoid
He did not overlay them, superimpose
The new upon the old and blot it out,
But laid them on a level in his work,
Making at last a picture; there it lies.
So, first the perfect separate forms were made,
The portions of mankind; and after, so,
Occurred the combination of the same.
For where had been a progress, otherwise?
Mankind, made up of all the single men,
In such a synthesis the labour ends.
Now mark me! those divine men of old time
Have reached, thou sayest well, each at one point
The outside verge that rounds our faculty;
And where they reached, who can do more than reach?
It takes but little water just to touch
At some one point the inside of a sphere,
And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the rest
In due succession: but the finer air
Which not so palpably nor obviously,
Though no less universally, can touch
The whole circumference of that emptied sphere,
Fills it more fully than the water did;
Holds thrice the weight of water in itself
Resolved into a subtler element.
And yet the vulgar call the sphere first full
Up to the visible heightand after, void;
Not knowing air's more hidden properties.
And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to Zeus
To vindicate his purpose in our life:
Why stay we on the earth unless to grow?
Long since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out,
That he or other god descended here
And, once for all, showed simultaneously
What, in its nature, never can be shown,
Piecemeal or in succession;showed, I say,
The worth both absolute and relative
Of all his children from the birth of time,
His instruments for all appointed work.
I now go on to image,might we hear
The judgment which should give the due to each,
Show where the labour lay and where the ease,
And prove Zeus' self, the latent everywhere!
This is a dream:but no dream, let us hope,
That years and days, the summers and the springs,
Follow each other with unwaning powers.
The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far,
Through culture, than the wild wealth of the rock;
The suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe;
The pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet;
The flowers turn double, and the leaves turn flowers;
That young and tender crescent-moon, thy slave,
Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds,
Refines upon the women of my youth.
What, and the soul alone deteriorates?
I have not chanted verse like Homer, no
Nor swept string like Terpander, nonor carved
And painted men like Phidias and his friend:
I am not great as they are, point by point.
But I have entered into sympathy
With these four, running these into one soul,
Who, separate, ignored each other's art.
Say, is it nothing that I know them all?
The wild flower was the larger; I have dashed
Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's
Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,
And show a better flower if not so large:
I stand myself. Refer this to the gods
Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare
(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext
That such a gift by chance lay in my hand,
Discourse of lightly or depreciate?
It might have fallen to another's hand: what then?
I pass too surely: let at least truth stay!
And next, of what thou followest on to ask.
This being with me as I declare, O king,
My works, in all these varicoloured kinds,
So done by me, accepted so by men
Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts)
I must not be accounted to attain
The very crown and proper end of life?
Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up,
I face death with success in my right hand:
Whether I fear death less than dost thyself
The fortunate of men? "For" (writest thou)
"Thou leavest much behind, while I leave nought.
Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing,
The pictures men shall study; while my life,
Complete and whole now in its power and joy,
Dies altogether with my brain and arm,
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave,
Set on the promontory which I named.
And thatsome supple courtier of my heir
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps,
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down.
I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!"
Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind.
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief,
That admiration grows as knowledge grows?
That imperfection means perfection hid,
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time?
If, in the morning of philosophy,
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived,
Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked
On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird,
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage
Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced
The perfectness of others yet unseen.
Conceding which,had Zeus then questioned thee,
"Shall I go on a step, improve on this,
Do more for visible creatures than is done?"
Thou wouldst have answered, "Ay, by making each
Grow conscious in himselfby that alone.
All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock,
The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims
And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,
Till life's mechanics can no further go
And all this joy in natural life is put
Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same.
But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are;
It has them, not they it: and so I choose
For man, thy last premeditated work
(If I might add a glory to the scheme),
That a third thing should stand apart from both,
A quality arise within his soul,
Which, intro-active, made to supervise
And feel the force it has, may view itself,
And so be happy." Man might live at first
The animal life: but is there nothing more?
In due time, let him critically learn
How he lives; and, the more he gets to know
Of his own life's adaptabilities,
The more joy-giving will his life become.
Thus man, who hath this quality, is best.
But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said:
Let progress end at once,man make no step
Beyond the natural man, the better beast,
Using his senses, not the sense of sense."
In man there's failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life.
We called it an advance, the rendering plain
Man's spirit might grow conscious of man's life,
And, by new lore so added to the old,
Take each step higher over the brute's head.
This grew the only life, the pleasure-house,
Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul,
Which whole surrounding flats of natural life
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to;
A tower that crowns a country. But alas,
The soul now climbs it just to perish there!
For thence we have discovered ('tis no dream
We know this, which we had not else perceived)
That there's a world of capability
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us,
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all,
And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot more
Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad!
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought
Deduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,
It skills not! life's inadequate to joy,
As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.
They praise a fountain in my garden here
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow
Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise.
What if I told her, it is just a thread
From that great river which the hills shut up,
And mock her with my leave to take the same?
The artificer has given her one small tube
Past power to widen or exchangewhat boots
To know she might spout oceans if she could?
She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread:
And so a man can use but a man's joy
While he sees God's. Is it for Zeus to boast,
"See, man, how happy I live, and despair
That I may be still happierfor thy use!"
If this were so, we could not thank our lord,
As hearts beat on to doing; 'tis not so
Malice it is not. Is it carelessness?
Still, no. If carewhere is the sign? I ask,
And get no answer, and agree in sum,
O king, with thy profound discouragement,
Who seest the wider but to sigh the more.
Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well.
The last point now:thou dost except a case
Holding joy not impossible to one
With artist-giftsto such a man as I
Who leave behind me living works indeed;
For, such a poem, such a painting lives.
What? dost thou verily trip upon a word,
Confound the accurate view of what joy is
(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine)
With feeling joy? confound the knowing how
And showing how to live (my faculty)
With actually living?Otherwise
Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king?
Because in my great epos I display
How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act
Is this as though I acted? if I paint,
Carve the young Ph{oe}bus, am I therefore young?
Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself
The many years of pain that taught me art!
Indeed, to know is something, and to prove
How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:
But, knowing nought, to enjoy is something too.
Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,
Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.
I can write love-odes: thy fair slave's an ode.
I get to sing of love, when grown too grey
For being beloved: she turns to that young man,
The muscles all a-ripple on his back.
I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!
"But," sayest thou(and I marvel, I repeat,
To find thee trip on such a mere word) "what
Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die:
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs,
And Aeschylus, because we read his plays!"
Why, if they live still, let them come and take
Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup,
Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive?
Say rather that my fate is deadlier still,
In this, that every day my sense of joy
Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
While every day my hairs fall more and more,
My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase
The horror quickening still from year to year,
The consummation coming past escape,
When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy
When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
Alive still, in the praise of such as thou,
I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,
The man who loved his life so over-much,
Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,
I dare at times imagine to my need
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus,
Unlimited in capability
For joy, as this is in desire for joy,
To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us:
That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait
On purpose to make prized the life at large
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,
We burst there as the worm into the fly,
Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no!
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible!
Live long and happy, and in that thought die:
Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest,
I cannot tell thy messenger aright
Where to deliver what he bears of thine
To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him
I know not, nor am troubled much to know.
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,
Hath access to a secret shut from us?
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king,
In stooping to inquire of such an one,
As if his answer could impose at all!
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;
And (as I gathered from a bystander)
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.
NOTES
Form:
unrhyming
1.
The motto is from St. Paul's speech to the philosophers
of Athens, Acts. 17: 28. Cleon and King Protus are both
imaginary characters.
sprinkled isles: the Sporades, near Crete.
4.
tyranny: kingdom. In the Greek sense, tyrant simply
means absolute ruler, and implies no misgovernment or oppressions.
53.
P\;cile: the Portico in Athens.
140.
Terpander: founder of the first Greek School of
music (late seventh century B.C.).
141.
Phidias: famous Greek sculptor who supervised the
construction of the Parthenon, and made the great statue of
Pallas Athene for it. Died 432 B.C. "His friend" was Pericles,
ruler of Athens from 460-429 B.C.
305.
Aeschylus: the earliest of the great writers of Greek tragedy
(525-456 B.C.).
~ Robert Browning, Cleon
,#NFDB
182 Integral Yoga
21 Philosophy
14 Occultism
12 Christianity
8 Psychology
8 Poetry
3 Theosophy
3 Kabbalah
3 Hinduism
2 Yoga
1 Thelema
1 Sufism
1 Integral Theory
1 Fiction
1 Cybernetics
1 Buddhism
249 Sri Aurobindo
61 The Mother
31 Satprem
11 Nolini Kanta Gupta
9 Plotinus
8 Carl Jung
7 Saint Teresa of Avila
6 Rudolf Steiner
6 Aldous Huxley
5 Aleister Crowley
5 A B Purani
4 Plato
3 Walt Whitman
3 Vyasa
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Paul Richard
2 Nirodbaran
2 George Van Vrekhem
2 Friedrich Nietzsche
56 The Synthesis Of Yoga
53 Record of Yoga
21 The Life Divine
14 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
12 Letters On Yoga IV
11 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
11 Letters On Yoga II
10 Essays On The Gita
10 Dark Night of the Soul
9 Essays Divine And Human
8 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
8 The Human Cycle
8 Savitri
7 Prayers And Meditations
7 Letters On Yoga I
6 The Perennial Philosophy
5 The Way of Perfection
5 Talks
5 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
5 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
5 Mysterium Coniunctionis
5 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
4 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
4 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
4 Isha Upanishad
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
4 Agenda Vol 05
3 Whitman - Poems
3 Vishnu Purana
3 Questions And Answers 1954
3 Questions And Answers 1953
3 Liber ABA
3 General Principles of Kabbalah
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
3 Agenda Vol 12
3 Agenda Vol 10
3 Agenda Vol 09
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Practice of Psycho therapy
2 Theosophy
2 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
2 Questions And Answers 1955
2 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
2 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
2 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
2 On the Way to Supermanhood
2 Letters On Yoga III
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
2 Agenda Vol 13
2 Agenda Vol 04
2 Agenda Vol 01
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
and therefore the imperfection, of all the lower Sephiroth
in their essence.
--
Dreams are imperfections of sleep; even so is con-
sciousness the imperfection of waking.
Dreams are impurities in the circulation of the blood;
--
his imperfections. :It may be yonder beggar is a King."
But these considerations are not to trouble such mind
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The characteristic law of Spirit is self-existent perfection and immutable infinity. It possesses always and in its own right the immortality which is the aim of Life and the perfection which is the goal of Mind. The attainment of the eternal and the realisation of that which is the same in all things and beyond all things, equally blissful in universe and outside it, untouched by the imperfections and limitations of the forms and activities in which it dwells, are the glory of the spiritual life.
In each of these forms Nature acts both individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for it, or, rising to a truer perception of this complex universe, harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither to pursue egoistically his own material or mental progress or spiritual salvation without regard to his fellows, nor for the sake of the community to suppress or maim his proper development, but to sum up in himself all its best and completest possibilities and pour them out by thought, action and all other means on his surroundings so that the whole race may approach nearer to the attainment of its supreme personalities.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
passing, upon certain imperfections found in those who are about to enter it and
which it removes by the process of purgation. Such travellers are still untried
--
therefore still conduct themselves as children. The imperfections are examined one
by one, following the order of the seven deadly sins, in chapters (ii-viii) which once
--
aridity is a result of this Night or whether it comes from sins or imperfections, or
from frailty or lukewarmness of spirit, or even from indisposition or 'humours' of the
--
enkindlings of love (Chapter xi), which will serve to purify its sins and imperfections
and draw it gradually nearer to God; we have here, as it were, so many stages of the
--
rather than purgation. The reason is that all the imperfections and disorders of the
sensual part have their strength and root in the spirit, where all habits, both good
--
before doing so,10 for they still have many imperfections, both habitual and actual
(Chapter ii). After a brief introduction (Chapter iii), the Saint describes with some
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Our mask of imperfection has assumed,
He has made this tenement of flesh his own,
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism is the synthesis of collectivism and individualism. The past ages of society were characterised more or less by a severe collectivism. In ancient Greece, more so in Sparta and in Rome, the individual had, properly speaking, no separate existence of his own; he was merged in the State or Nation. The individual was considered only as a limb of the collective being, had to live and labour for the common weal. The value attached to each person was strictly in reference to the output that the group to which he belonged received from him. Apart from this service for the general unit the body politicany personal endeavour and achievement, if not absolutely discouraged and repressed, was given a very secondary place of merit. The summum bonum of the individual was to sacrifice at the altar of the res publica, the bonum publicum. In India, the position and function of the State or Nation was taken up by the society. Here too social institutions were so constituted and men were so bred and brought up that individuality had neither the occasion nor the incentive to express itself, it was a thing that remained, in the Kalidasian phrase, an object for the ear onlysrutau sthita. Those who sought at all an individual aim and purpose, as perhaps the Sannyasins, were put outside the gate of law and society. Within the society, in actual life and action, it was a sin and a crime or at least a gross imperfection to have any self-regarding motive or impulse; personal preference was the last thing to be considered, virtue consisted precisely in sacrificing one's own taste and inclination for the sake of that which the society exacts and sanctions.
Against this tyranny of the group, this absolute rule of the collective will, the human mind rose in revolt and the result was Individualism. For whatever may be the truth and necessity of the Collective, the Individual is no less true and necessary. The individual has his own law and urge of being and his own secret godhead. The collective godhead derides the individual godhead at its peril. The first movement of the reaction, however, was a run to the other extremity; a stern collectivism gave birth to an intransigent individualism. The individual is sacred and inviolable, cost what it may. It does not matter what sort of individuality one seeks, it is enough if the thing is there. So the doctrine of individualism has come to set a premium on egoism and on forces that are disruptive of all social bonds. Each and every individual has the inherent right, which is also a duty, to follow his own impetus and impulse. Society is nothing but the battle ground for competing individualities the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall. Association and co-operation are instruments that the individual may use and utilise for his own growth and development but in the main they act as deterrents rather than as aids to the expression and expansion of his characteristic being. In reality, however, if we probe sufficiently deep into the matter we find that there is no such thing as corporate life and activity; what appears as such is only a camouflage for rigorous competition; at the best, there maybe only an offensive and defensive alliancehumanity fights against nature, and within humanity itself group fights against group and in the last analysis, within the group, the individual fights against the individual. This is the ultimate Law-the Dharma of creation.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even
its righteousness and virtue are pretensions, imperfections and
prancings of self-approbatory egoism.... What is aimed at by us
--
one's nature and a mastery of one's imperfections. But to tell the
truth, it is not of capital importance, and it is far more important
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In all sincerity, I must say that when I was at Brewsters place in Almora, I felt very near to that state in which the Light must surge forth. I quite understand the imperfection of this process, which involves fleeing from difficulties, but this would only be a stage, a strategic retreat, as it were.
Mother, this is not a vital desire seeking to divert me from the sadhana, for my life has no other meaning than to seek the divine, but it seems to be the only solution that could bring about some progress and get me out of this lukewarm slump in which I have been living day after day. I cannot be satisfied living merely one hour a day, when I see you.
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I saw and understood very well that by concentrating, I could have given it the attitude of the absolute authority of the eternal Mother. When Sri Aurobindo told me, You are She, at the same time he bestowed upon my body this attitude of absolute authority. But as I had the inner vision of this truth, I concerned myself very little with the imperfections of the physical body I didnt bother about that, I only used it as an instrument. Sri Aurobindo did the sadhana for this body, which had only to remain constantly open to his action.1
Afterwards, when he left and I had to do the Yoga myself, to be able to take his physical place, I could have adopted the attitude of the sage, which is what I did since I was in an unparalleled state of calm when he left. As he left his body and entered into mine, he told me, You will continue, you will go right to the end of the work. It was then that I imposed a calm upon this body the calm of total detachment. And I could have remained like that.
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
68The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was Gods corrective for egoism. But mans egoism meets Gods device by being very dully alive to its own sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others.
(Mother laughs) Marvelous!
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
68The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was Gods corrective for egoism. But mans egoism meets Gods device by being very dully alive to its own sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others.
69Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. The sense of virtue helps us to cherish our sins in secret.
0 1963-07-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What the supramental will do the mind cannot foresee or lay down. The mind is ignorance seeking for the Truth, the supramental by its very definition is the Truth-Consciousness, Truth in possession of itself and fulfilling itself by its own power. In a supramental world imperfection and disharmony are bound to disappear. But what we propose just now is not to make the earth a supramental world but to bring down the supramental as a power and established consciousness in the midst of the restto let it work there and fulfill itself as Mind descended into Life and Matter and has worked as a Power there to fulfill itself in the midst of the rest. This will be enough to change the world and to change Nature by breaking down her present limits. But what, how, by what degrees it will do it, is a thing that ought not to be said nowwhen the Light is there, the Light will itself do its workwhen the supramental Will stands on earth, that Will will decide. It will establish a perfection, a harmony, a Truth-creation for the rest, well, it will be the rest that is all.
(XXII.13)
0 1963-12-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is equally ignorant and one thousand miles away from my teaching to find it in your relations with human beings or in the nobility of the human character or an idea that we are here to establish mental and moral and social Truth and justice on human and egoistic lines. I have never promised to do anything of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even its righteousness and virtue are pretensions, imperfections and prancings of a self-approbatory egoism. What is aimed at by us is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which are surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature.
I want to offer it to an American admiral who is here and who needs to know this.
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It [this body] wasnt much more interesting or important than many other bodiesit didnt at all have the sense of its importance. Even, in the overall vision of the Work, its present imperfections were quite simply tolerated, even accepted, not because they are unavoidable, but because the amount of concentration and exclusive attention necessary to change them does not appear to be important enough to stop or reduce the general work. Thats how it was there was a smile for lots of little things. Finally, as for the Thing (the great thing from the artistic point of view of the material appearance, great too from the point of view of public faith, which only goes by appearances, of course, and which will be convinced only when there is an obvious transformation), it appeared to be, for the moment, at any rate, something secondary and not urgent. But there was a fairly clear perception that soon (how can I put it?) the state of being or way of being (I think they say the modus vivendi) of the body, of this fragment of terrestrial Matter, could be altered, ruled, entirely driven by the direct Will. Because it was as if ALL the illusions had fallen away one after another, and every time an illusion disappeared it produced one of those little promises that came in succession, announcing something that would come about later. So that prepared the final realization.
When I got up this morning, I had the feeling that a corner had been turned. But not at alloh, not at all!a subjective thing, not at all: a corner has been turned FOR THE EARTH. It doesnt matter in the least if people arent aware of it.2
0 1964-07-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is said that divine Love doesnt manifest because, in the worlds present state of imperfection, the result would be a catastrophe thats a human vision. Divine Love manifests, has manifested eternally, will manifest eternally, and its the incapacity of the material world not only of the material world, but of the vital world and the mental world, and of many other worlds that arent ready, that are incapable but HE is there, He is there, right there! He is there permanently: its THE Permanence. The Permanence Buddha sought is there. He claims he found it in Nirvanait is there, in Love.
(silence)
0 1964-11-12, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And all of a sudden, I saw thats not it at all! When they have the experience, at the time of the experience, it is the thing ITSELF, the perfection ITSELF that has been reached, and they are in a state of perfection; and it is because they COME OUT of it that they feel they have to slowly prepare themselves for the result. I dont know if I am expressing myself clearly, but my notation was like this: perfection is there, always, coexisting with imperfectionperfection and imperfection are coexistent, always, and not only simultaneous, but in the SAME PLACE (Mother presses her two hands together), I dont know how to put itcoexistent. Which means that at any second and in any conditions, you can attain perfection: it isnt something that has to be gained little by little, through successive progress; perfection is THERE, and YOU change states, from the state of imperfection to the state of perfection; and it is the capacity to remain in that state of perfection that grows for some reason or other and gives you the feeling that you must prepare yourself or transform yourself.
That was very real and very concrete.
--
with the imperfection and attainable
at each and any moment.
--
Its the same thing again: Truth is there, Falsehood is there (Mother presses her two hands together); perfection is there, imperfection is there (same gesture); theyre perfectly coexistent, in the same place the minute you perceive perfection, imperfection disappears, the Illusion disappears.
Only, I am not speaking here of a mental conception of some vague and general state: I am referring to that state of infinitesimal vibration (which they discovered when they tried to find the makeup of Matter: thats what they are trying to reduce Matter to), it is that state of vibration, it is THERE, its in that state of vibration that, for the concrete world, imperfection must be replaced by perfection. Do you understand what I am saying? Or does it make no sense?
I dont see. You mean its at that stage, at that level that
0 1964-11-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Perhaps it was that very childlike, but very spontaneous and very simple movement of the body, conscious of Matters imperfection, We are so impure that we cannot even burn in front of You!perhaps thats what provoked that answer.
It was a wondera brief wonder!
0 1965-03-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In all cases the extent of the damage gives the measure of the imperfection and must be taken as a lesson for indispensable progress.
Yes, its the sequel to what you said the other day: those vibrations that enter only insofar as they meet a response.
0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Obviously we have to reconcile ourselves to it. The world is in a state of considerable imperfection, so everything that manifests in the world partakes of that imperfectionwhat can we do about it? The only thing we can do is to slowly try and transform but thats slow, so slow, unceasingtransform this body.
And as Sri Aurobindo very well put it (I understand quite well what he means), miracles do occur, but they are momentary; that is, for the space of a few minutes, sometimes a few hours (but thats rare), things are wholly different. But they dont remain that waythey dont, they go back to the old movement. Because EVERYTHING must have reached a certain degree (I suppose), a certain degree of receptivity, of preparation in the receptivity, so that may be established; otherwise, the old movement and the old law continue.
0 1968-03-16, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not divided. Its the union of the two states that constitutes the true consciousness; the union of the two (union still implies division), the identification of the two states is what constitutes the true consciousness. Then you get the sensation that its this consciousness which is the supreme Power. You understand, Power is limited by oppositions and negations: the most powerful power is the one that dominates the most but thats a complete imperfection! There is an all-powerful Power made up of the fusion of the two thats the absolute Power. And if That were realized physically probably it would be the end of the problem.
In fact, during the few hours I lived in that state this morning, there was the impression of having mastered everything and understood everythingunderstood, I mean this sort of understanding that constitutes absolute power. But naturally, it cant be expressed.
0 1968-05-25, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think its a very convenient way to get impunity. Because if you are perfect, they cant do anything against you. Its absolutely obvious. Its imperfections that give them power. So if we shift our standpoint as Sri Aurobindo did, well see, as he said, that the so-called adverse forces are tolerated because they are useful to awaken people to the need for transformation, to the urgency of purification.
***
0 1968-07-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo said that when you go beyond the Impersonal, you find the Personal: THE Person. I am sure he had the experience. My own sensation is a sort of fusiona fusion of all sense of personality into I dont mean into an impersonality, thats not true, but its something limitless, yet you get a sense, not personal at all in the narrow meaning of the word, but with all the concrete reality of the Person. You understand, its the bodys experience (I never had any difficulty in the other regions), the experience OF THE BODY. The body has the experience of that fusion, constantly; it constantly seems to melt, but for it, its nevertheless from the identical to the identical; the feeling (feeling or sensation) of otherness, of being other, it perceives as its own imperfection. Yet its not at all the experience of an immoderately magnified self, absolutely nothing of that sort, but Whats wholly concrete is the All-Consciousness (the body does feel its much more than that, its only one aspect and is much more than that). But its the constant, constant experience.
This idea of Personal or Impersonal has no meaning. It doesnt correspond to anything. The body has completely lost the sense of its personality, completely, and strangelyits strange. For instance (for the moment, everything, but everything expresses itself as phenomena of consciousness), for instance, I dont know how many times a day, there will suddenly come the awareness of a disorder, a pain or suffering somewheresomewhere in some part, but not a part shut in here (Mother points to her own body): like a spot in an immense body; and after a while, or a few hours later, Ill be told that someone or other has had such and such a pain, which was felt as being part of that immense body. It has become very odd. It has considerably increased with this cold. You see, Ive been seeing fewer people, doing less work, resting more I am putting it that way out of habit, but it doesnt quite correspond to the state When I say I, its as if I were putting myself in peoples thought and speaking of what corresponds in it to all that; but its not felt that way at all.
0 1969-02-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats it, I am literally overburdened with work and people. And no Command or Insistence to free myself from it. Theres a sort of laissez-faire on the part of this eternal and smiling Peace (immense, rhythmical gesture), very smilingeternal and smiling, like that. And a sort of constant demonstration to the body that its not what tires it, its not the work, not people, not things, its not that at all that tires it: its its own transitional state and its own imperfection thats it, nothing else. So there.
In this Consciousness, there is something smiling in such peace! Its absolutely wonderful, its Unless one has felt it, one cant understand what it is. Its something wonderful. And naturally thats what is trying to what is workingworking to take control of all these cells.
0 1969-10-18, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what made the body understand (because now it understands) the process of the creation. We could almost say that it began with a state of perfection, but an unconscious perfection, and that the creation must pass from that state of unconscious perfection to a state of conscious perfection, and in between is imperfection.
Words are stupid, but you understand.
0 1969-12-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Aphorism 68"The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was God's corrective for egoism. But man's egoism meets God's device by being very dully alive to its owns sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others."
***
0 1970-11-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The knowledge of past lives is interesting for a knowledge of ones nature and the mastery of ones imperfections. But to tell the truth, it has no crucial importance and it is far more important to concentrate on the future, on the consciousness we must acquire and the development of the nature, which is almost limitless for those who know how to do it.
We are at a specially favorable time of universal existence, when everything on the earth is preparing for a new creation, or rather a new manifestation in the eternal creation.
0 1971-07-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is because of our imperfections that its not; when the imperfections disappear, the difficulties disappear at the same time.
***
0 1971-08-28, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not try: only one minute like that is enough (gesture of stepping backward), and time doesnt matter anymore. Its very curious, I make experiments for every little movement of life, like meals, for example; well, when I curl up like this (gesture of interiorization), everything seems instantaneous. There isnt any time. When I am in the outer consciousness (what I call outer is a consciousness that witnesses the creation), then things take more or less time depending on the attention given it. And so everything, everything seems nothing seems to be (whats the word?) absolute, in the sense of realreal, a concrete realitynothing seems to be like that. Except unpleasant things in the body such as, for example, some functioning that goes wrong; that, you recognize as imperfection. The imperfection is what makes you feel the thing, otherwise its like this (same gesture of interiorization, curled up in the Lord). And like this, the Power is tremendous, in the sense that for instance, for some people, a particular illness vanishes (without my doing anything outwardly in fact, without my even speaking to anyone, absolutely nothingits cured); for still another person its the end, he goes over to the other side. But then that other side has become both quite familiar to me and totally unknown.
I remember a time when the memory of past lives, the memory of night activities was so very concrete; the so-called invisible world was totally concretenow now everything is like a dreameverythingeverything is like a dream veiling a Reality an unknown Reality, and yet appreciable. I seem to be talking nonsense.
0 1971-12-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the problem is fundamental. It is not a question of bringing a new philosophy to the world or new ideas or illuminations, as they are called. The question is not of making the Prison of our lives more habitable, or of endowing man with ever more fantastic powers. Armed with his microscopes and telescopes, the human gnome remains a gnome, pain-ridden and helpless. We send rockets to the moon, but we know nothing of our own hearts. It is a question, says Sri Aurobindo, of creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the Supramental being in a new evolution.3 For, in actuality, he says, the imperfection of Man is not the last word of Nature, but his perfection too is not the last peak of the Spirit.4 Beyond the mental man we are, there exists the possibility of another being who will be the spearhead of evolution as man was once the spearhead of evolution among the great apes. If, says Sri Aurobindo, the animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man, man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god.5 Sri Aurobindo has come to tell us how to create this other being, this supramental being, and not only to tell us but actually to create this other being and open the path of the future, to hasten upon earth the rhythm of evolution, the new vibration that will replace the mental vibrationexactly as a thought one day disturbed the slow routine of the beastsand will give us the power to shatter the walls of our human prison.
Indeed, the prison is already starting to collapse. The end of a stage of evolution, announced by Sri Aurobindo, is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.6 Everywhere about us we see this paroxysmal shattering of all the old forms: our borders, our churches, our laws, our morals are collapsing on all sides. They are not collapsing because we are bad, immoral, irreligious, or because we are not sufficiently rational, scientific or human, but because we have come to the end of the human! To the end of the old mechanism for we are on our way to SOMETHING ELSE. The world is not going through a moral crisis but through an evolutionary crisis. We are not going towards a better worldnor, for that matter, towards a worse onewe are in the midst of a MUTATION to a radically different world, as different as the human world was from the ape world of the Tertiary Era. We are entering a new era, a supramental Quinary. We leave our countries, wander aimlessly, we go looking for drugs, for adventure, we go on strike here, enact reforms there, foment revolutions and counterrevolutions. But all this is only an appearance; in fact, unwittingly, we are looking for the new being. We are in the midst of human evolution.
--
But if this new consciousness is not to be found on the peaks of the human, where then, are we to find it? Perhaps, quite simply in that which we have most neglected since we entered the mental cycle, in the body. The body is our base, our evolutionary foundation, the old stock to which we always return, and which painfully compels our attention by making us suffer, age and die. In that imperfection, Sri Aurobindo assures us, is the urge towards a higher and more many-sided perfection. It contains the last finite which yet yearns to the Supreme Infinite. God is pent in the mire but the very fact imposes a necessity to break through that prison.8 That is the old, uncured Illness, the unchanged root, the dark matrix of our misery, hardly different now from what it was in the time of Lemuria. It is this physical substance which we must transform, otherwise it will topple, one after another, all the human or superhuman devices we try to graft on it. This body, this physical cellular substance contains almighty powers,9 a dumb consciousness that harbors all the lights and all the infinitudes, just as much as the mental and spiritual immensities do. For, in truth, all is Divine and unless the Lord of all the universe resides in a single little cell he resides nowhere. It is this original, dark cellular Prison which we must break open; for as long as we have not broken it, we will continue to turn vainly in the golden or iron circles of our mental prison. These laws of Nature, says Sri Aurobindo, that you call absolute merely mean an equilibrium established to work in order to produce certain results. But, if you change the consciousness, then the groove also is bound to change.10
Such is the new adventure to which Sri Aurobindo invites us, an adventure into mans unknown. Whether we like it or not, the whole earth is moving into a new groove, but why shouldnt we like it? Why shouldnt we collaborate in this great, unprecedented adventure? Why shouldnt we collaborate in our own evolution, instead of repeating endlessly the same old story, instead of chasing hallucinatory paradises which will never quench our thirst or otherworldly paradises which leave the earth to rot along with our bodies? Why be born if it is to get out at the end? exclaims the Mother, who continues Sri Aurobindos work. What is the use of having struggled so much, suffered so much, of having created something which, in its outer appearance at least, is so tragic and dramatic, if it is only to learn how to get out of itit would have been better not to start at all. Evolution is not a tortuous course that brings us back, somewhat battered, to the starting point. Quite the contrary, it is meant, says Mother, to teach the whole of creation the joy of being, the beauty of being, the grandeur of being, the majesty of a sublime life, and the perpetual development, perpetually progressive, of this joy, this beauty, this grandeur. Then everything has a meaning.11
0 1972-03-29a, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In your reply to the Swedish magazine, you emphasize, The major obstacle to tolerance is not agnosticism but Manichaeism. That is also why religions will never be able to unite humanity, because they have remained Manichaean in their principle, because they are founded on morality, on a sense of good and evil, necessarily varying from one country to the next. Religions will not reconcile men with one another any more than they have reconciled men with themselves, or reconciled their aspiration to be with their need for action and for the same reasons, for in both cases they have dug an abyss between an ideal good, a being they have relegated to heaven, and an evil, a becoming, which reigns supreme in a world where all is vanity. I would like to quote here a passage from Sri Aurobindos Essays on the Gita which throws a clear light on the problem: To put away the responsibility for all that seems to us evil or terrible on the shoulders of a semi-omnipotent Devil, or to put it aside as part of Nature, making an unbridgeable opposition between world-nature and God-Nature, as if Nature were independent of God, or to throw the responsibility on man and his sins, as if he had a preponderant voice in the making of this world or could create anything against the will of God, are clumsily comfortable devices in which the religious thought of India has never taken refuge. We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in his being and that so he has made it. We have to see that Nature devouring her children, Time eating up the lives of creatures, Death universal and ineluctable and the violence of the Rudra forces in man and Nature are also the supreme Godhead in one of his cosmic figures. We have to see that God the bountiful and prodigal creator, God the helpful, strong and benignant preserver is also God the devourer and destroyer. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is his touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. It is only when we see with the eye of the complete union and feel this truth in the depths of our being that we can entirely discover behind that mask too the calm and beautiful face of the all-blissful Godhead and in this touch that tests our imperfection the touch of the friend and builder of the spirit in man. The discords of the worlds are Gods discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony.2 I believe that the characters of your books would not be seeking sacrifice and death so intensely if they did not feel the side of light and joy behind the mask of darkness in which they so passionately lose themselves.
Sri Aurobindo has constantly stressed that, through progressive evolutionary cycles, humanity must go beyond the purely ethical and religious stage, just as it must go beyond the infrarational and rational stage, in order to reach a new spiritual and suprarational ageotherwise we will simply remain doomed to the upheavals, conflicts and bloody sacrifices that shake our times, for living according to a code of morality is always a tragedy, as one of the characters in Hope notes.
0 1973-01-31, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Personally, I have a strange impression. In the past, years ago, I used to feel that a part of my consciousness was vast, was this or that; but now I understand fully well what you mean by an old piece of bark (you know, Theres only an old piece of bark left), I feel I am only a mass of flaws, of imperfections, of dark elements and so on, but the other part of myself completely eludes me. There is only this sort of facade full of unpleasant and clashing and false things. While the other part, the other me I dont know, it eludes me completely. I know its there, but I am mainly conscious of all this thats in front of me.
(Mother plunges in)
02.02 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
As yet earth's imperfection is our sphere,
Our nature's glass shows not our real self;
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The perfect longing for imperfection's charm,
The illumined caught by the snare of Ignorance,
02.10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Dimmed by the imperfection of its means:
The little Mind is tied to little things:
02.12 - The Heavens of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An imperfection dogs our highest strength;
Portions and pale reflections are our share.
03.03 - The House of the Spirit and the New Creation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To the gracious imperfections of our earth
And the sweet weaknesses of our mortal state.
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet mankind has always sought for an integral, an all comprehending fulfilment, a truth and a realisation that would go round his entire existence. Man has always aspired, in the midst of the transience and imperfection that the world is, for something stable and perfect, in the heart of disharmony for some core of perfect harmony. He termed it God, Atman, Summum Bonum and he sought it sometimes, as he thought necessary, even at the cost of the world and the life, if it is to be found elsewhere. Man aspired also always to find this habitation of his made somewhat better. Dissatisfied with his present state, he sought to mould it, remake it, put into it something which his aspiration and inspiration called the True, the Beautiful, the Good. There was always this double aspiration in man, one of ascent and the other of descent, one vertical and the other horizontal, one leading up and beyondtotally beyond, in its extreme urge the other probing into the mystery locked up there below, releasing the power to reform or recreate the world, although he was not always sure whether it was a power of mind or of matter.
This double aspiration has found its expression and symbol in the East and the West, each concentrating on one line, sometimes even to the neglect or denial of the other. But this division or incompatibility need not be there and must not be there. A new conception of the Spirit and a new conception of Matter are gaining ground more and more, moving towards a true synthesis of the two, making for the creation of a new world and a new human type.
06.23 - Here or Elsewhere, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I Have Nothing, I Am Nothing When imperfection is Greater Than Perfection
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part SixHere or Elsewhere
--
I Have Nothing, I Am Nothing When imperfection is Greater Than Perfection
06.24 - When Imperfection is Greater Than Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:06.24 - When imperfection is Greater Than Perfection
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
--
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part SixWhen imperfection is Greater Than Perfection
When imperfection is Greater Than Perfection
A perfected consciousness is attained in the highest status of being, when it is full of light and delight, peace and purity, one with the Divine Consciousness. Such a Consciousness, when it comes down upon earth in its original unmixed clarity, lives as a foreign element and has no real contact with the world; it can have only a very indirect influence upon men and things. If the perfect, the Divine Consciousness has to be truly effective, has to change human and world nature, it must put on partially at least that nature; it must share in the imperfection of ignorance so that it can show how that imperfection can be dealt with and transformed. The Divine has to become human, even the ordinary human, in a sense, in the outward instrumental aspect, to a greater or lesser degree as needed, so that He may come in living contact with the obscure lower consciousness and put His light into it and gradually purify and illumine it. If, however, the consciousness retains its fullness of power and light makes its appearance as such, it may dazzle and overwhelm, as a meteor miracle, but leave nothing substantial behind. This is what has happened in the past of man's history. The saints and sages, the greatest and the most genuine among them, mostly dwelt apart from humanity in consciousness and even away from human contact; the earth could not profit wholly by their example.
Therefore the Mother says in her Prayers and Meditations that having gone beyond all desires still she had to live in the midst of desires; she had no choice of her own, no preference, no attachment, no need of anything, yet she was put in the conditions of very ordinary life, the normal human life; she had to deal with the common man, handle the small insignificant objects of material existence. In one part of her being she had to identify herself with ignorance and obscurity, so much so that even the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness the conscient and the inconscientwas for a time obliterated. Naturally, the inmost being in its inner self remained always calm, luminous, inviolable, but it put around itself this body of ordinary nature to meet its ordinary reactions and through them gradually to uplift and train it to manifest and incarnate the inmost divine.
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.
***
06.25 - Individual and Collective Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When imperfection is Greater Than Perfection The Wonder of It All
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part Six Individual and Collective Soul
--
When imperfection is Greater Than Perfection The Wonder of It All
06.30 - Sweet Holy Tears, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It was not easy to prepare the Feast. I had to bear the full load of the cross and ascend the calvary. Jesus as he mounted to his destiny with the Cross on his back stumbled often and fell and rose again with bruised limbs to begin again the arduous journey. Even so, this being too had to go through many disillusions and deceptions, many painful and brutal experiences. It was not a smooth and straight going, but a tortuous and dangerous ascent. But at the end of the tunnel there is always the light. The calvary and the crucifixion culminated in the Resurrection: the divine Passion of Christ flowered into this supreme Recompense. Here too after all the dark and adverse vicissitudes lies the fulfilment of transformation. One must pass through the entire valley of death and rise to the topmost summit to receive and achieve the fullness of the glory. One must leave behind all the lower ranges of ignorance, the entire domain of human consciousness, come out of the imperfection man is made of; then only will he put on the divine nature as his own body and substance.
The Cross symbolises all the suffering and difficulty, the renunciation and self-denudation that the ascent to the Goal involves. The Calvary of the Christian legend means Ascension and Resurrection is Transformation in our sadhana. The Cross is also symbolic of the Transformed consciousness. It has three branches and represents the triple Divine, the Divine in his three modes of existence. The top branch, the vertical portion above the transverse line, stands for the supreme or transcendent Divine, one who is above manifestation; the middle the transverse or horizontal branch stands for the expanse of the universal consciousness, the Cosmic Divine; and the bottom portion, the vertical line below the transverse stands for the individual Divine immanent or imbedded in the manifestation. You will note that the flower we call transformation has a form similar to the Cross.
10.02 - The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Her mortal imperfections can erase,
Force on man's crooked ignorance Heaven's straight line
--
Thy human imperfection it must share:
Its forms in Nature disappoint the heart,
10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Our imperfection towards perfection toils,
The body is the chrysalis of a soul:
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Prana, therefore, which is active radiatory heat, varies in vibration and quality according to the receiving Entity. Man passes the prana through his etheric vehicle, colors it with his own peculiar quality, and so transmits it to the lesser lives that make up his little system. Thus, the great interaction goes on, and all parts blend, merge and are interdependent; and all parts receive, color, qualify and transmit. An endless circulation goes on that has neither a conceivable beginning nor possible end from the point of view of finite man, for its source and end are hid in the unknown cosmic fount. Were conditions everywhere perfected this circulation would proceed unimpeded and might result in a condition of almost endless duration, but limitation and termination result as the effects of imperfection giving place to a gradual perfection. Every cycle originates from another cycle of a relative completeness, and will give place ever to a higher spiral; thus eventuate periods of apparent relative perfection leading to those which are still greater.
The aim for this greater cycle is the blending, as we know, of the two fires of matter, latent and active, and their merging with the fires of mind and spirit till they are lost from sight in the general flame; the fires of mind and spirit burn up matter and thereby bring about liberation from the confining vehicles. The altar of earth is the birthplace of spirit, its liberator from the mother (matter), and its entrance into higher realms.
1.00d - Introduction, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But since the terrestrial body is one, the remedy is one, like Truth, and a single point transmuted will transmute all the others. That point, however, is not to be found in the improvement of our laws, our systems or sciences, our religions, schools of thought or many-hued isms all those are part of the old Machinery; not a single nut needs to be tightened, added or improved anywhere: we are suffocating in the extreme. Moreover, that point has nothing to do with our intelligence that is what has contrived the whole Machine in the first place or even with improving Man, which would amount only to glorifying his weaknesses and past greatness. The imperfection of Man is not the last word of Nature, said Sri Aurobindo, but his perfection too is not the last peak of the Spirit. Indeed, this point lies in a future beyond the grasp of our intelligence, but it is growing in the depths of the being like the flowers of the flame tree when all its leaves have fallen.
But there is a handle to the future, provided we go to the heart of the thing. But where is that heart if it is not in our human standards? One day, the first reptiles out of the water sought to fly, the first primates out of the jungle cast a strange new look over the world: one and the same irresistible urge was making them contemplate another state. And perhaps all the transforming power was already contained in that simple look TOWARD something else, as if that look, that urge, that point of the unknown crying out, had the power to unlock the floodgates to the future.
1.01 - Introduction, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
All is light, a lustre which blinds instead of enlightening us because it is too puissant for our gaze; for all the veils in which our vision is enveloped, are only veils of dazzlement. There are for our eyes excessive splendours as well as insufficient gleams. The measure of every obscurity is the imperfection of our vision and the night is the symbol of our ignorance.
But nothing is really hidden; for where shall anything whatsoever dissimulate its presence or its truth in the all that is universally self-evident? The things that are visible to us are those which are in correspondence with the measure of clarity already acquired by our consciousness and our mind.
1.01 - Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
8. It is He that has gone abroad - That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker,8 the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.
9. Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone.
1.01 - On knowledge of the soul, and how knowledge of the soul is the key to the knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
The science of the structure of the body is called anatomy : it is a great science, but most men are heedless of it. If any study it, it is only for the purpose of acquiring skill in medicine, and not for the sake of becoming acquainted with the perfection of the power of God. But whoever will occupy himself with anatomy, and therein contemplate the wonders of the works of God, will reap three advantages. The first advantage will be, that in learning the composition of the thing made, and thereby gaining a comprehensive and condensed view of all other things like it he will see that it is impossible to discover imperfection or incompetence in the being who has created him in such perfection. The Creator himself will be acknowledged to be almighty and perfect. The second advantage will be, that he will see that it is impossible that a being who has created an organization so intelligent, capable of comprehension, endowed with beauty, and useful, should be otherwise than perfect in knowledge himself. And lastly, we shall understand the mercy, favor and perfect compassion of God towards us. Nothing that is either useful or ornamental has been omitted in the framing of our bodies, whether it be such things as are the sources of life, like the spirit and the head; or such as sustain life, as the hand, the foot, the mouth and the teeth : or such as are a means of ornament, as the beard, elegance of form, black hair and the lips. It is to be observed that similar organs have been provided not only for man, but for all creatures, so that nothing is wanting to initiate and sustain life in the mouse, the wasp, the snake and the ant. God has done all things perfectly, and may his name be glorified !
The investigator of truth this fact well knows,
--
In short, man in this world, is framed in infirmity and imperfection. But if he desire and will to free himself from animal propensities, and ferocious and satanic qualities, he may attain future happiness, will be more exalted and excellent than a king and will be enriched with the vision of the beauty of the Lord. But if he incline towards the world, and retain only the qualities of animals and wild beasts, his future state will be worse even than theirs. For they turn to dust, and are delivered from pains and torment. Our refuge is in God !
The Alchemy of Happiness, by Mohammed Al-Ghazzali, the Mohammedan Philosopher, trans. Henry A. Homes (Albany, N.Y.: Munsell, 1873). Transactions of the Albany Institute, vol. VIII.
1.01 - Sets down the first line and begins to treat of the imperfections of beginners., #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
object:1.01 - Sets down the first line and begins to treat of the imperfections of beginners.
class:chapter
--
Sets down the first line and begins to treat of the imperfections of beginners.
INTO this dark night souls begin to enter when God draws them forth from the state of beginnerswhich is the state of those that meditate on the spiritual road and begins to set them in the state of progressiveswhich is that of those who are already contemplativesto the end that, after passing through it, they may arrive at the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God.
--
In the which things spiritual persons (though taking part in them with great efficacy and persistence and using and treating them with great care) often find themselves, spiritually speaking, very weak and imperfect. For since they are moved to these things and to these spiritual exercises by the consolation and pleasure that they find in them, and since, too, they have not been prepared for them by the practice of earnest striving in the virtues, they have many faults and imperfections with respect to these spiritual actions of theirs; for, after all, any man's actions correspond to the habit of perfection attained by him. And, as these persons have not had the opportunity of acquiring the said habits of strength, they have necessarily to work like feebler children, feebly. In order that this may be seen more clearly, and likewise how much these beginners in the virtues lacks with respect to the works in which they so readily engage with the pleasure aforementioned, we shall describe it by reference to the seven capital sins, each in its turn, indicating some of the many imperfections which they have under each heading; wherein it will be clearly seen how like to children are these persons in all they do. And it will also be seen how many blessings the dark night of which we shall afterwards treat brings with it, since it cleanses the soul and purifies it from all these imperfections.
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
totally free from the imperfections of samsara, remains
. in samsara to help all those who suffer.
1.01 - The Four Aids, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
24:The surest way towards this integral fulfilment is to find the Master of the secret who dwells within us, open ourselves constantly to the divine Power which is also the divine Wisdom and Love and trust to it to effect the conversion. But it is difficult for the egoistic consciousness to do this at all at the beginning. And, if done at all, it is still difficult to do it perfectly and in every strand of our nature. It is difficult at first because our egoistic habits of thought, of sensation, of feeling block up the avenues by which we can arrive at the perception that is needed. It is difficult afterwards because the faith, the surrender, the courage requisite in this path are not easy to the ego-clouded soul. The divine working is not the working which the egoistic mind desires or approves; for it uses error in order to arrive at truth, suffering in order to arrive at bliss, imperfection in order to arrive at perfection. The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage. These failings would not matter; for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness; he has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher. But by withdrawing our assent from the guidance we lose the consciousness, though not all the actuality-not, in any case, the eventuality -- of its benefit. And we withdraw our assent because we fail to distinguish our higher Self from the lower through which he is preparing his self-revelation. As in the world, so in ourselves, we cannot see God because of his workings and, especially, because he works in us through our nature and not by a succession of arbitrary miracles. Man demands miracles that he may have faith; he wishes to be dazzled in order that he may see. And this impatience, this ignorance may turn into a great danger and disaster if, in our revolt against the divine leading, we call in another distorting Force more satisfying to our impulses and desires and ask it to guide us and give it the Divine Name.
25:But while it is difficult for man to believe in something unseen within himself, it is easy for him to believe in something which he can image as extraneous to himself. The spiritual progress of most human beings demands an extraneous support, an object of faith outside us. It needs an external image of God; or it needs a human representative, -- Incarnation, Prophet or Guru; or it demands both and receives them. For according to the need of the human soul the Divine manifests himself as deity, as human divine or in simple humanity, -- using that thick disguise, which so successfully conceals the Godhead, for a means of transmission of his guidance.
--- Overview of noun imperfection
The noun imperfection has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. imperfection, imperfectness ::: (the state or an instance of being imperfect)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun imperfection
1 sense of imperfection
Sense 1
imperfection, imperfectness
=> state
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun imperfection
1 sense of imperfection
Sense 1
imperfection, imperfectness
=> failing, weakness
=> flaw
=> defect
=> defect, fault, flaw
=> wart
=> defectiveness, faultiness
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun imperfection
1 sense of imperfection
Sense 1
imperfection, imperfectness
=> state
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun imperfection
1 sense of imperfection
Sense 1
imperfection, imperfectness
-> state
=> feeling
=> skillfulness
=> cleavage
=> medium
=> ornamentation
=> condition
=> condition, status
=> conditionality
=> ground state
=> nationhood
=> situation, state of affairs
=> relationship
=> relationship
=> tribalism
=> utopia
=> dystopia
=> wild, natural state, state of nature
=> isomerism
=> degree, level, stage, point
=> office, power
=> status, position
=> being, beingness, existence
=> nonbeing
=> death
=> employment, employ
=> unemployment
=> order
=> disorder
=> hostility, enmity, antagonism
=> conflict
=> illumination
=> freedom
=> representation, delegacy, agency
=> dependence, dependance, dependency
=> motion
=> motionlessness, stillness, lifelessness
=> dead letter, non-issue
=> action, activity, activeness
=> inaction, inactivity, inactiveness
=> temporary state
=> imminence, imminency, imminentness, impendence, impendency, forthcomingness
=> readiness, preparedness, preparation
=> flux, state of flux
=> kalemia
=> enlargement
=> separation
=> union, unification
=> maturity, matureness
=> immaturity, immatureness
=> grace, saving grace, state of grace
=> damnation, eternal damnation
=> omniscience
=> omnipotence
=> perfection, flawlessness, ne plus ultra
=> integrity, unity, wholeness
=> imperfection, imperfectness
=> receivership
=> ownership
=> obligation
=> end, destruction, death
=> revocation, annulment
=> merchantability
=> turgor
=> homozygosity
=> heterozygosity
=> neotony
=> plurality
=> polyvalence, polyvalency
=> polyvalence, polyvalency, multivalence, multivalency
=> paternity
=> utilization
--- Grep of noun imperfection
imperfection
Wikipedia - Coma (optics) -- Aberration inherent to certain optical designs or due to imperfection in the lens
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The Pink Panther (1963) ::: 7.1/10 -- Approved | 1h 55min | Comedy, Crime, Romance | 18 March 1964 (USA) -- The bumbling Inspector Clouseau travels to Rome to catch a notorious jewel thief known as "The Phantom" before he conducts his most daring heist yet: a princess' priceless diamond with one slight imperfection, known as "The Pink Panther". Director: Blake Edwards Writers:
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Imperfection
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https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Saints_of_Imperfection_(episode)
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https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Saints_of_Imperfection
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difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - studysubjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null -Savitri - SA O TAOC -SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel -TLD -TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs