| 881:The Two Paths Of Yoga ::: 14 April 1929 - What are the dangers of Yoga? Is it especially dangerous to the people of the West? Someone has said that Yoga may be suitable for the East, but it has the effect of unbalancing the Western mind. Yoga is not more dangerous to the people of the West than to those of the East. Everything depends upon the spirit with which you approach it. Yoga does become dangerous if you want it for your own sake, to serve a personal end. It is not dangerous, on the contrary, it is safety and security itself, if you go to it with a sense of its sacredness, always remembering that the aim is to find the Divine. Dangers and difficulties come in when people take up Yoga not for the sake of the Divine, but because they want to acquire power and under the guise of Yoga seek to satisfy some ambition. if you cannot get rid of ambition, do not touch the thing. It is fire that burns. There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasya (discipline), and the other of surrender. The path of tapasya is arduous. Here you rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength. You ascend and achieve according to the measure of your force. There is always the danger of falling down. And once you fall, you lie broken in the abyss and there is hardly a remedy. The other path, the path of surrender, is safe and sure. It is here, however, that the Western people find their difficulty. They have been taught to fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers' milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls. On the other hand, the baby cat does not hold to its mother, but is held by the mother and has no fear nor responsibility; it has nothing to do but to let the mother hold it and cry ma ma. If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more danger or serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, do not begin Yoga. If you were dealing in human affairs, then you could resort to deception; but in dealing with the Divine there is no possibility of deception anywhere. You can go on the Path safely when you are candid and open to the core and when your only end is to realise and attain the Divine and to be moved by the Divine. There is another danger; it is in connection with the sex impulses. Yoga in its process of purification will lay bare and throw up all hidden impulses and desires in you. And you must learn not to hide things nor leave them aside, you have to face them and conquer and remould them. The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test. The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them; they protest too vehemently and endeavour to control them by coercion, hold them within and sit upon them. But the more you think of a thing and say, "I don't want it, I don't want it", the more you are bound to it. What you should do is to keep the thing away from you, to dissociate from it, take as little notice of it as possible and, even if you happen to think of it, remain indifferent and unconcerned. The impulses and desires that come up by the pressure of Yoga should be faced in a spirit of detachment and serenity, as something foreign to yourself or belonging to the outside world. They should be offered to the Divine, so that the Divine may take them up and transmute them. If you have once opened yourself to the Divine, if the power of the Divine has once come down into you and yet you try to keep to the old forces, you prepare troubles and difficulties and dangers for yourself. You must be vigilant and see that you do not use the Divine as a cloak for the satisfaction of your desires. There are many self-appointed Masters, who do nothing but that. And then when you are off the straight path and when you have a little knowledge and not much power, it happens that you are seized by beings or entities of a certain type, you become blind instruments in their hands and are devoured by them in the end. Wherever there is pretence, there is danger; you cannot deceive God. Do you come to God saying, "I want union with you" and in your heart meaning "I want powers and enjoyments"? Beware! You are heading straight towards the brink of the precipice. And yet it is so easy to avoid all catastrophe. Become like a child, give yourself up to the Mother, let her carry you, and there is no more danger for you. This does not mean that you have not to face other kinds of difficulties or that you have not to fight and conquer any obstacles at all. Surrender does not ensure a smooth and unruffled and continuous progression. The reason is that your being is not yet one, nor your surrender absolute and complete. Only a part of you surrenders; and today it is one part and the next day it is another. The whole purpose of the Yoga is to gather all the divergent parts together and forge them into an undivided unity. Till then you cannot hope to be without difficulties - difficulties, for example, like doubt or depression or hesitation. The whole world is full of the poison. You take it in with every breath. If you exchange a few words with an undesirable man or even if such a man merely passes by you, you may catch the contagion from him. It is sufficient for you to come near a place where there is plague in order to be infected with its poison; you need not know at all that it is there. You can lose in a few minutes what it has taken you months to gain. So long as you belong to humanity and so long as you lead the ordinary life, it does not matter much if you mix with the people of the world; but if you want the divine life, you will have to be exceedingly careful about your company and your environment. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931 , #KEYS |
| 882:This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice. Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self-giving to the Eternal. All our actions, not less the smallest and most ordinary and trifling than the greatest and most uncommon and noble, must be performed as consecrated acts. Our individualised nature must live in the single consciousness of an inner and outer movement dedicated to Something that is beyond us and greater than our ego. No matter what the gift or to whom it is presented by us, there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being in all beings. Our commonest or most grossly material actions must assume this sublimated character; when we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that Presence in us; it must be a sacred offering in a temple and the sense of a mere physical need or self-gratification must pass away from us. In any great labour, in any high discipline, in any difficult or noble enterprise, whether undertaken for ourselves, for others or for the race, it will no longer be possible to stop short at the idea of the race, of ourselves or of others. The thing we are doing must be consciously offered as a sacrifice of works, not to these, but either through them or directly to the One Godhead; the Divine Inhabitant who was hidden by these figures must be no longer hidden but ever present to our soul, our mind, our sense. The workings and results of our acts must be put in the hands of that One in the feeling that that Presence is the Infinite and Most High by whom alone our labour and our aspiration are possible. For in his being all takes place; for him all labour and aspiration are taken from us by Nature and offered on his altar. Even in those things in which Nature is herself very plainly the worker and we only the witnesses of her working and its containers and supporters, there should be the same constant memory and insistent consciousness of a work and of its divine Master. Our very inspiration and respiration, our very heart-beats can and must be made conscious in us as the living rhythm of the universal sacrifice. It is clear that a conception of this kind and its effective practice must carry in them three results that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal. It is evident, to begin with, that, even if such a discipline is begun without devotion, it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible; for it must deepen naturally into the completest adoration imaginable, the most profound God-love. There is bound up with it a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our thought, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved consecration to the Divine of the totality of our being. Now these implications of the Yoga of works are also of the very essence of an integral and absolute Bhakti. The seeker who puts them into living practice makes in himself continually a constant, active and effective representation of the very spirit of self-devotion, and it is inevitable that out of it there should emerge the most engrossing worship of the Highest to whom is given this service. An absorbing love for the Divine Presence to whom he feels an always more intimate closeness, grows upon the consecrated worker. And with it is born or in it is contained a universal love too for all these beings, living forms and creatures that are habitations of the Divine - not the brief restless grasping emotions of division, but the settled selfless love that is the deeper vibration of oneness. In all the seeker begins to meet the one Object of his adoration and service. The way of works turns by this road of sacrifice to meet the path of Devotion; it can be itself a devotion as complete, as absorbing, as integral as any the desire of the heart can ask for or the passion of the mind can imagine. Next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, and a constant active externalising of it in works comes in too to intensify the remembrance. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self-dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into a profound and uninterrupted vision and a vivid and all-embracing consciousness of that which we so powerfully remember or on which we so constantly meditate. For it compels a constant reference at each moment to the Origin of all being and will and action and there is at once an embracing and exceeding of all particular forms and appearances in That which is their cause and upholder. This way cannot go to its end without a seeing vivid and vital, as concrete in its way as physical sight, of the works of the universal Spirit everywhere. On its summits it rises into a constant living and thinking and willing and acting in the presence of the Supramental, the Transcendent. Whatever we see and hear, whatever we touch and sense, all of which we are conscious, has to be known and felt by us as That which we worship and serve; all has to be turned into an image of the Divinity, perceived as a dwelling-place of his Godhead, enveloped with the eternal Omnipresence. In its close, if not long before it, this way of works turns by communion with the Divine Presence, Will and Force into a way of Knowledge more complete and integral than any the mere creature intelligence can construct or the search of the intellect can discover. Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine. Nothing must be attempted for ourselves as a separate existence; nothing done for others, whether neighbours, friends, family, country or mankind or other creatures merely because they are connected with our personal life and thought and sentiment or because the ego takes a preferential interest in their welfare. In this way of doing and seeing all works and all life become only a daily dynamic worship and service of the Divine in the unbounded temple of his own vast cosmic existence. Life becomes more and more the sacrifice of the eternal in the individual constantly self-offered to the eternal Transcendence. It is offered in the wide sacrificial ground of the field of the eternal cosmic Spirit; and the Force too that offers it is the eternal Force, the omnipresent Mother. Therefore is this way a way of union and communion by acts and by the spirit and knowledge in the act as complete and integral as any our Godward will can hope for or our soul's strength execute. It has all the power of a way of works integral and absolute, but because of its law of sacrifice and self-giving to the Divine Self and Master, it is accompanied on its one side by the whole power of the path of Love and on the other by the whole power of the path of Knowledge. At its end all these three divine Powers work together, fused, united, completed, perfected by each other. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga The Yoga of Divine Works, #KEYS |
| 883: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 therefore 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 therefore 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. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga 558, #KEYS |
| 884:Intuition And The Value Of Concentration ::: Mother, how can the faculty of intuition be developed? ... There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us. Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere near the level of the solar plexus, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations. For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified. In other cases there is something that urges, indicates, insists - I am not speaking of impulses, you understand, of all the movements which come from the vital and much lower still - indications which are behind the feelings, which come from the affective part of the being; there too one can receive a fairly sure indication of the thing to be done. These are forms of intuition or of a higher instinct which can be cultivated by observation and also by studying the results. Naturally, it must be done very sincerely, objectively, without prejudice. If one wants to see things in a particular way and at the same time practise this observation, it is all useless. One must do it as if one were looking at what is happening from outside oneself, in someone else. It is one form of intuition and perhaps the first one that usually manifests. There is also another form but that one is much more difficult to observe because for those who are accustomed to think, to act by reason - not by impulse but by reason - to reflect before doing anything, there is an extremely swift process from cause to effect in the half-conscious thought which prevents you from seeing the line, the whole line of reasoning and so you don't think that it is a chain of reasoning, and that is quite deceptive. You have the impression of an intuition but it is not an intuition, it is an extremely rapid subconscious reasoning, which takes up a problem and goes straight to the conclusions. This must not be mistaken for intuition. In the ordinary functioning of the brain, intuition is something which suddenly falls like a drop of light. If one has the faculty, the beginning of a faculty of mental vision, it gives the impression of something coming from outside or above, like a little impact of a drop of light in the brain, absolutely independent of all reasoning. This is perceived more easily when one is able to silence one's mind, hold it still and attentive, arresting its usual functioning, as if the mind were changed into a kind of mirror turned towards a higher faculty in a sustained and silent attention. That too one can learn to do. One must learn to do it, it is a necessary discipline. When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form - at the top of the head and a little further above if possible - a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can - perhaps not immediately - but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition. It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a mirror, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre. Naturally, first these two faculties must be developed; then, as soon as there is any result, one must observe the result, as I said, and see the connection with what is happening, the consequences: see, observe very attentively what has come in, what may have caused a distortion, what one has added by way of more or less conscious reasoning or the intervention of a lower will, also more or less conscious; and it is by a very deep study - indeed, almost of every moment, in any case daily and very frequent - that one succeeds in developing one's intuition. It takes a long time. It takes a long time and there are ambushes: one can deceive oneself, take for intuitions subconscious wills which try to manifest, indications given by impulses one has refused to receive openly, indeed all sorts of difficulties. One must be prepared for that. But if one persists, one is sure to succeed. And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed - as one can also succeed in developing one's personal will and making it into a very considerable power - but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour. Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster - but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything! (Silence) Moreover, whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - that's not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate. And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention. And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important. There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958 , #KEYS |
885:Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi. But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge. If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge. Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder. Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter. Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind. Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory. Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together. When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931 93?
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886:[The Gods and Their Worlds] [...] According to traditions and occult schools, all these zones of realities, these planes of realities have got different names; they have been classified in a different way, but there is an essential analogy, and if you go back far enough into the traditions, you see only the words changing according to the country and the language. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists offer great similarities. All who set out on the discovery of these invisible worlds and make a report of what they saw, give a very similar description, whether they be from here or there; they use different words, but the experience is very similar and the handling of forces is the same. This knowledge of the occult worlds is based on the existence of subtle bodies and of subtle worlds corresponding to those bodies. They are what the psychological method calls "states of consciousness", but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult procedure consists then in being aware of these various inner states of being or subtle bodies and in becoming sufficiently a master of them so as to be able to go out of them successively, one after another. There is indeed a whole scale of subtleties, increasing or decreasing according to the direction in which you go, and the occult procedure consists in going out of a denser body into a subtler body and so on again, up to the most ethereal regions. You go, by successive exteriorisations, into bodies or worlds more and more subtle. It is somewhat as if every time you passed into another dimension. The fourth dimension of the physicists is nothing but the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge. To give another image, one can say that the physical body is at the centre - it is the most material, the densest and also the smallest - and the inner bodies, more subtle, overflow more and more the central physical body; they pass through it, extending themselves farther and farther, like water evaporating from a porous vase and forming a kind of steam all around. And the greater the subtlety, the more the extension tends to unite with that of the universe: one ends by universalising oneself. And it is altogether a concrete process which gives an objective experience of invisible worlds and even enables one to act in these worlds. There are, then, only a very small number of people in the West who know that these gods are not merely subjective and imaginary - more or less wildly imaginary - but that they correspond to a universal truth. All these regions, all these domains are filled with beings who exist, each in its own domain, and if you are awake and conscious on a particular plane - for instance, if on going out of a more material body you awake on some higher plane, you have the same relation with the things and people of that plane as you had with the things and people of the material world. That is to say, there exists an entirely objective relation that has nothing to do with the idea you may have of these things. Naturally, the resemblance is greater and greater as you approach the physical world, the material world, and there even comes a time when the one region has a direct action upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the overmental worlds, you will find a concrete reality absolutely independent of your personal experience; you go back there and again find the same things, with the differences that have occurred during your absence. And you have relations with those beings that are identical with the relations you have with physical beings, with this difference that the relation is more plastic, supple and direct - for example, there is the capacity to change the external form, the visible form, according to the inner state you are in. But you can make an appointment with someone and be at the appointed place and find the same being again, with certain differences that have come about during your absence; it is entirely concrete with results entirely concrete. One must have at least a little of this experience in order to understand these things. Otherwise, those who are convinced that all this is mere human imagination and mental formation, who believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have thought them to be like that, and that they have certain defects and certain qualities because men have thought them to be like that - all those who say that God is made in the image of man and that he exists only in human thought, all these will not understand; to them this will appear absolutely ridiculous, madness. One must have lived a little, touched the subject a little, to know how very concrete the thing is. Naturally, children know a good deal if they have not been spoilt. There are so many children who return every night to the same place and continue to live the life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoilt with age, you can keep them with you. At a time when I was especially interested in dreams, I could return exactly to a place and continue a work that I had begun: supervise something, for example, set something in order, a work of organisation or of discovery, of exploration. You go until you reach a certain spot, as you would go in life, then you take a rest, then you return and begin again - you begin the work at the place where you left off and you continue it. And you perceive that there are things which are quite independent of you, in the sense that changes of which you are not at all the author, have taken place automatically during your absence. But for this, you must live these experiences yourself, you must see them yourself, live them with sufficient sincerity and spontaneity in order to see that they are independent of any mental formation. For you can do the opposite also, and deepen the study of the action of mental formation upon events. This is very interesting, but it is another domain. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you become aware of how far you can delude yourself. So you must study both, the dream and the occult reality, in order to see what is the essential difference between the two. The one depends upon us; the other exists in itself; entirely independent of the thought that we have of it. When you have worked in that domain, you recognise in fact that once a subject has been studied and something has been learnt mentally, it gives a special colour to the experience; the experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact that the subject was known and studied lends a particular quality. Whereas if you had learnt nothing about the question, if you knew nothing at all, the transcription would be completely spontaneous and sincere when the experience came; it would be more or less adequate, but it would not be the outcome of a previous mental formation. Naturally, this occult knowledge or this experience is not very frequent in the world, because in those who do not have a developed inner life, there are veritable gaps between the external consciousness and the inmost consciousness; the linking states of being are missing and they have to be constructed. So when people enter there for the first time, they are bewildered, they have the impression they have fallen into the night, into nothingness, into non-being! I had a Danish friend, a painter, who was like that. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of the body; he used to have interesting dreams and thought that it would be worth the trouble to go there consciously. So I made him "go out" - but it was a frightful thing! When he was dreaming, a part of his mind still remained conscious, active, and a kind of link existed between this active part and his external being; then he remembered some of his dreams, but it was a very partial phenomenon. And to go out of one's body means to pass gradually through all the states of being, if one does the thing systematically. Well, already in the subtle physical, one is almost de-individualised, and when one goes farther, there remains nothing, for nothing is formed or individualised. Thus, when people are asked to meditate or told to go within, to enter into themselves, they are in agony - naturally! They have the impression that they are vanishing. And with reason: there is nothing, no consciousness! These things that appear to us quite natural and evident, are, for people who know nothing, wild imagination. If, for example, you transplant these experiences or this knowledge to the West, well, unless you have been frequenting the circles of occultists, they stare at you with open eyes. And when you have turned your back, they hasten to say, "These people are cranks!" Now to come back to the gods and conclude. It must be said that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence - gods or demons, invisible beings and powers - do not possess what the Divine has put into man: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindness, which compensate for all his external defects. In the gods there is no fault because they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint: as gods, it is their manner of being. But if you take a higher point of view, if you have a higher vision, a vision of the whole, you see that they lack certain qualities that are exclusively human. By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods and even more, when he is not egoistic, when he has surmounted his egoism. If he fulfils the required condition, man is nearer to the Supreme than the gods are. He can be nearer. He is not so automatically, but he has the power to be so, the potentiality. If human love manifested itself without mixture, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love there is as much love of oneself as of the one loved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself. - 4 November 1958 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III 355
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| 887:The Science of Living To know oneself and to control oneself AN AIMLESS life is always a miserable life. Every one of you should have an aim. But do not forget that on the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life. Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others. But whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realised unless you have realised perfection in yourself. To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour. As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection. All this can be realised by means of a fourfold discipline, the general outline of which is given here. The four aspects of the discipline do not exclude each other, and can be followed at the same time; indeed, this is preferable. The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name "psychic" to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it. In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perception and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realise. This discovery and realisation should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think. To complement this movement of inner discovery, it would be good not to neglect the development of the mind. For the mental instrument can equally be a great help or a great hindrance. In its natural state the human mind is always limited in its vision, narrow in its understanding, rigid in its conceptions, and a constant effort is therefore needed to widen it, to make it more supple and profound. So it is very necessary to consider everything from as many points of view as possible. Towards this end, there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a larger, higher and more comprehensive idea. Many other exercises of the same kind can be undertaken; some have a beneficial effect on the character and so possess a double advantage: that of educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it. For it is an instrument of formation, of organisation and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness. There is another practice which can be very helpful to the progress of the consciousness. Whenever there is a disagreement on any matter, such as a decision to be taken, or an action to be carried out, one must never remain closed up in one's own conception or point of view. On the contrary, one must make an effort to understand the other's point of view, to put oneself in his place and, instead of quarrelling or even fighting, find the solution which can reasonably satisfy both parties; there always is one for men of goodwill. Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration. The vital is a good worker, but most often it seeks its own satisfaction. If that is refused, totally or even partially, the vital gets vexed, sulks and goes on strike. Its energy disappears more or less completely and in its place leaves disgust for people and things, discouragement or revolt, depression and dissatisfaction. At such moments it is good to remain quiet and refuse to act; for these are the times when one does stupid things and in a few moments one can destroy or spoil the progress that has been made during months of regular effort. These crises are shorter and less dangerous for those who have established a contact with their psychic being which is sufficient to keep alive in them the flame of aspiration and the consciousness of the ideal to be realised. They can, with the help of this consciousness, deal with their vital as one deals with a rebellious child, with patience and perseverance, showing it the truth and light, endeavouring to convince it and awaken in it the goodwill which has been veiled for a time. By means of such patient intervention each crisis can be turned into a new progress, into one more step towards the goal. Progress may be slow, relapses may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness. Lastly, by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us. In fact, the body must not rule, it must obey. By its very nature it is a docile and faithful servant. Unfortunately, it rarely has the capacity of discernment it ought to have with regard to its masters, the mind and the vital. It obeys them blindly, at the cost of its own well-being. The mind with its dogmas, its rigid and arbitrary principles, the vital with its passions, its excesses and dissipations soon destroy the natural balance of the body and create in it fatigue, exhaustion and disease. It must be freed from this tyranny and this can be done only through a constant union with the psychic centre of the being. The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is able to do so many more things than one usually imagines. If, instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that now govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, you will be amazed at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, at every minute it will be able to put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action and to recuperate, through contact with the universal forces, the energies it expends consciously and usefully. In this sound and balanced life a new harmony will manifest in the body, reflecting the harmony of the higher regions, which will give it perfect proportions and ideal beauty of form. And this harmony will be progressive, for the truth of the being is never static; it is a perpetual unfolding of a growing perfection that is more and more total and comprehensive. As soon as the body has learnt to follow this movement of progressive harmony, it will be possible for it to escape, through a continuous process of transformation, from the necessity of disintegration and destruction. Thus the irrevocable law of death will no longer have any reason to exist. When we reach this degree of perfection which is our goal, we shall perceive that the truth we seek is made up of four major aspects: Love, Knowledge, Power and Beauty. These four attributes of the Truth will express themselves spontaneously in our being. The psychic will be the vehicle of true and pure love, the mind will be the vehicle of infallible knowledge, the vital will manifest an invincible power and strength and the body will be the expression of a perfect beauty and harmony. Bulletin, November 1950 ~ The Mother, On Education , #KEYS |
| 888:Mental EducationOF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient. Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language. A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are: (1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention. (2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness. (3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life. (4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants. (5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being. It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given. Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more. For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know. This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched. You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy. In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him. Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise. It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly. All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable. And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions. For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there. But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties. The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep. When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951 ~ The Mother, On Education , #KEYS |
| 889:The Supreme Discovery IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life. Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light. This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages. The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning? The ancient traditions rightly said: "Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one." And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity. Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him. For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself? It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not." That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God." This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life. That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe. Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds. The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it. In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light. But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows! On this a sage has said: "I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'" Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle. This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths. What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams? For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren. How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things.... And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity. To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path. Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames. You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness. But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace. You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring. And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself! Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves! Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light! If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours. You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies! You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches. You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best. Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory. And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater. Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy. Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory! Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary. That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he! In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago The Supreme Discovery, #KEYS |
| 890:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step. But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort. Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection. You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, WIKI am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: WIKI have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages. In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything. It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM. My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga. All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind. These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness. And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed. And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen. My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal. Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967 ~ The Mother, Sweet Mother The Mother to Mona Sarkar, #KEYS |
| 891:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passageOmnes eodem cogimur, omniumVersatur urna serius ociusSors exitura et nos in aeternumExilium impositura cymbae.Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vainUpon the axis of its pain,Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!'Farewell, farewell! but this I tellTo thee, thou Wedding-Guest!He prayeth well, who loveth wellBoth man and bird and beast.He prayeth best, who loveth bestAll things both great and small;For the dear God who loveth us,He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno , #KEYS |
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M *** |
| 1:Knowledge is power, ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB |
| 2:knowledge of the ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB |
| 3:Knowledge comes ~ Dante Alighieri, #NFDB |
| 4:Knowledge isn’t love ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB |
| 5:Knowledge always liberates. ~ Osho, #NFDB |
| 6:Knowledge is night! ~ Walter Moers, #NFDB |
| 7:Knowledge Is Power ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB |
| 8:Knowledge is true opinion. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 9:Knowledge is power. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB |
| 10:knowledge is power. ~ Maggie Shayne, #NFDB |
| 11:knowledge is light ~ Wasif Ali Wasif, #NFDB |
| 12:Knowledge never hurts. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB |
| 13:Update your knowledge. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB |
| 14:All knowledge hurts. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB |
| 15:All Knowledge is dangerous ~ Jo Graham, #NFDB |
| 16:Knowledge always liberates. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB |
| 17:Knowledge is power. ~ Abraham Verghese, #NFDB |
| 18:Knowledge is power, Clark ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB |
| 19:Knowledge is Power. ~ Elizabeth Hunter, #NFDB |
| 20:We are here for knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 21:Foreknowledge is power. ~ Auguste Comte, #NFDB |
| 22:Knowledge is annoying ~ Karl Pilkington, #NFDB |
| 23:Knowledge is limited. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 24:Knowledge is power!! ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB |
| 25:Not-knowing is true knowledge. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 26:The knowledge of my sin ~ Bayard Taylor, #NFDB |
| 27:intuitive form of knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 28:Knowledge doesn't fail us. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB |
| 29:Knowledge is no burden. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB |
| 30:Knowledge is power. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB |
| 31:Knowledge is the key. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB |
| 32:All knowledge is but remembrance. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 33:Knowledge can be dangerous, ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB |
| 34:Knowledge itself is power ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB |
| 35:Lack of knowledge is the ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB |
| 36:No knowledge is ever wasted. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB |
| 37:Knowledge enlightens. ~ Eric Jerome Dickey, #NFDB |
| 38:Knowledge Gives You Power. ~ Maxwell Maltz, #NFDB |
| 39:Knowledge is justice ~ Charlie Jane Anders, #NFDB |
| 40:Knowledge is our ultimate good. ~ Socrates, #NFDB |
| 41:Knowledge is the food of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 42:Don't mistake knowledge for wisdom. ~ Lil B, #NFDB |
| 43:Knowledge is not intelligence. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB |
| 44:Knowledge sharpens your wits. ~ Janie Chang, #NFDB |
| 45:Knowledge will make you be free. ~ Socrates, #NFDB |
| 46:No knowledge is wasted, ~ Mary Alice Monroe, #NFDB |
| 47:Great knowledge can be lonely. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB |
| 48:Growth follows knowledge; ~ Charles F Haanel, #NFDB |
| 49:Knowledge is a mimic creation. ~ Horace Mann, #NFDB |
| 50:Knowledge is Life with wings ~ William Blake, #NFDB |
| 51:Love follows knowledge. ~ Catherine of Siena, #NFDB |
| 52:with knowledge comes pain. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB |
| 53:By knowledge we approach God. ~ Brian L Weiss, #NFDB |
| 54:by knowledge we approach God, ~ Brian L Weiss, #NFDB |
| 55:For whatever be the knowledge which ~ Origen, #NFDB |
| 56:Seek (beneficial) knowledge, ~ Ibn Taymiyyah, #NFDB |
| 57:Fear is incomplete knowledge ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB |
| 58:For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. ~ W E B Griffin, #NFDB |
| 59:Knowledge is currency here.... ~ Joanne Harris, #NFDB |
| 60:Knowledge is justified belief. ~ Jerome Bruner, #NFDB |
| 61:Knowledge is of more value than gold ~ Solomon, #NFDB |
| 62:Love follows knowledge. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB |
| 63:Money is not a fund of knowledge. ~ John Kluge, #NFDB |
| 64:Speculation is not knowledge. ~ Robert M Price, #NFDB |
| 65:All men by nature desire knowledge. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB |
| 66:Curiosity is a call from knowledge. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB |
| 67:Faith first, knowledge afterwards. ~ The Mother, #NFDB |
| 68:Fear is incomplete knowledge. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB |
| 69:Information is not knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 70:Knowledge must come through action. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB |
| 71:Knowledge talks, wisdom listens. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB |
| 72:Self knowledge is always bad news. ~ John Barth, #NFDB |
| 73:Wonder is the seed of knowledge ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB |
| 74:All knowledge is worth having ~ Jacqueline Carey, #NFDB |
| 75:How imperfect is all our knowledge! ~ John Donne, #NFDB |
| 76:I acknowledge myself a unitarian ~ Abigail Adams, #NFDB |
| 77:Ignorance is a knowledge illiteracy. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB |
| 78:Knowledge is not what is memorised. ~ Al Shafi i, #NFDB |
| 79:Knowledge makes everything simpler. ~ John Maeda, #NFDB |
| 80:Knowledge needs to be a verb. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB |
| 81:Knowledge without action cost money ~ David Bach, #NFDB |
| 82:O my Lord! Increase me in knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 83:Whoever has received knowledge ~ Marie de France, #NFDB |
| 84:You do not install knowledge. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB |
| 85:Acknowledge people, not their jobs. ~ Joey Reiman, #NFDB |
| 86:All knowledge is worth having. ~ Jacqueline Carey, #NFDB |
| 87:Creativity is a form of knowledge. ~ Diane Paulus, #NFDB |
| 88:Knowledge increases responsibility. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB |
| 89:Knowledge is never too dear. ~ Francis Walsingham, #NFDB |
| 90:Knowledge was meant to be shared. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB |
| 91:no knowledge obtained without risk ~ Stephen King, #NFDB |
| 92:Science is organised knowledge. ~ Herbert Spencer, #NFDB |
| 93:Science is organized knowledge. ~ Herbert Spencer, #NFDB |
| 94:Stuff your brain with knowledge. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB |
| 95:To rule by knowledge ravages the country. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 96:True knowledge is earned, not given. ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB |
| 97:All knowledge is self-reflective. ~ Jerry Uelsmann, #NFDB |
| 98:All knowledge leads to self-knowledge. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB |
| 99:Certainty, not data, is knowledge. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB |
| 100:Experience is retrospect knowledge. ~ Hosea Ballou, #NFDB |
| 101:Incomplete knowledge brings harm. ~ Karpov Kinrade, #NFDB |
| 102:Knowledge applied is productivity. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB |
| 103:Knowledge enormous makes a God of me. ~ John Keats, #NFDB |
| 104:Knowledge enormous makes a god of me. ~ John Keats, #NFDB |
| 105:Knowledge is bigger than debate,” I ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB |
| 106:Knowledge is only potential power. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB |
| 107:knowledge is power is time is money ~ Robert Thier, #NFDB |
| 108:knowledge that she was not alone. ~ Angela Marsons, #NFDB |
| 109:Love without knowledge is demonic. ~ G I Gurdjieff, #NFDB |
| 110:Socrates said, our only knowledge was ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB |
| 111:The desire for knowledge shapes a man, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 112:Unacknowledged fear is a weakness, ~ Scarlett Cole, #NFDB |
| 113:Wisdom is an ethics of knowledge ~ J rgen Moltmann, #NFDB |
| 114:After such knowledge, what forgiveness? ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB |
| 115:Become as knowledgeable as possible. ~ Jane Goodall, #NFDB |
| 116:Give me knowledge or give me death. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB |
| 117:Knowledge isn't always good for you. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB |
| 118:Knowledge is power is time is money. ~ Robert Thier, #NFDB |
| 119:Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB |
| 120:Love is the garment of knowledge. ~ Kenneth Rexroth, #NFDB |
| 121:Opinion is the death of knowledge. ~ Jennifer Stone, #NFDB |
| 122:The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 123:Zeal will do more than knowledge. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB |
| 124:Abandon knowledge and your worries are over. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 125:A little knowledge can go a long way. ~ Jenny Holzer, #NFDB |
| 126:For knowledge, too, is itself power. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB |
| 127:Knowledge is a plant of slow growth. ~ Thomas Cooper, #NFDB |
| 128:Knowledge is finite. Wonder is infinite. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB |
| 129:Knowledge is more virtue than power. ~ Nick McDonell, #NFDB |
| 130:Knowledge is not happiness, and science ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB |
| 131:Knowledge is the antidote to fear. ~ Gerd Gigerenzer, #NFDB |
| 132:Knowledge is the death of research. ~ Walther Nernst, #NFDB |
| 133:Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB |
| 134:Research is creating new knowledge. ~ Neil Armstrong, #NFDB |
| 135:The best prescription is knowledge. ~ C Everett Koop, #NFDB |
136:Tota est scientia
Knowledge is all ~ Rachel Caine,#NFDB |
| 137:Fine art is knowledge made visible. ~ Gustave Courbet, #NFDB |
| 138:Knowledge counters fear. It always has. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB |
| 139:Knowledge fueled by emotion equals action. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB |
| 140:Knowledge has a beginning but no end. ~ Geeta Iyengar, #NFDB |
| 141:Knowledge is the harvest of attention ~ Charles Olson, #NFDB |
| 142:Knowledge is the only elegance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 143:Knowledge is the sharpest of weapons. ~ Heather Lyons, #NFDB |
| 144:knowledge without accomplishment is pain’. ~ Samarpan, #NFDB |
| 145:Poems come from incomplete knowledge. ~ Diane Wakoski, #NFDB |
| 146:The knowledge is as good as freedom. ~ Naomi Alderman, #NFDB |
| 147:Experience builds knowledge, not age. ~ David A Santos, #NFDB |
| 148:Hic scientia finit: Knowledge Stops Here. ~ Donna Leon, #NFDB |
| 149:Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved. ~ Thucydides, #NFDB |
| 150:Imagination is better than knowledge. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB |
| 151:Information is not knowledge, mind you. ~ John le Carr, #NFDB |
| 152:It's a truth universally acknowledged... ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB |
| 153:Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. ~ Alfred Tennyson, #NFDB |
| 154:Knowledge exists to be imparted. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 155:Knowledge is love and light and vision. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB |
| 156:Knowledge is pain that's why it hurts to know. ~ Drake, #NFDB |
| 157:knowledge is the cause of human progress. ~ Abdu l Bah, #NFDB |
| 158:Mystery is more important than knowledge. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB |
| 159:Our end is the acquisition of knowledge. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB |
| 160:The knowledge may help us to defeat him! ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB |
| 161:To receive the transcendental knowledge we ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 162:Experience alone does not create knowledge ~ Kurt Lewin, #NFDB |
| 163:Facts themselves do not give knowledge ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB |
| 164:Hip is the knowledge and Hop is the movement. ~ KRS One, #NFDB |
| 165:Ignorance is never better than knowledge ~ Enrico Fermi, #NFDB |
| 166:Knowledge is constructed, not transferred ~ Peter Senge, #NFDB |
| 167:Knowledge is potential; action is power. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB |
| 168:Knowledge is the antidote to fear ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 169:Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man. ~ William Penn, #NFDB |
| 170:Knowledge must become capability. ~ Carl von Clausewitz, #NFDB |
| 171:Knowledge studies others, wisdom is self known. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 172:Life is knowledge, livin it is Succes! ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB |
| 173:Pedantry is the dotage of knowledge. ~ Holbrook Jackson, #NFDB |
| 174:pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 175:Science is only a Latin word for knowledge ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB |
| 176:Seek knowledge from the Cradle to the Grave ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 177:The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB |
| 178:The love of knowledge is a kind of madness. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB |
| 179:Violence begins where knowledge ends. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB |
| 180:Wisdom lies not in possessing knowledge ~ Paul Johnson, #NFDB |
| 181:With every word, I drop knowledge. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda, #NFDB |
| 182:Acknowledge the elegance of simplicity. ~ Giorgio Armani, #NFDB |
| 183:All knowledge degenerates into probability. ~ David Hume, #NFDB |
| 184:Belief is harder to shake than knowledge. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB |
| 185:Doubt grows with knowledge. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB |
| 186:Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge. ~ Paul Tillich, #NFDB |
| 187:Eloquence is the child of knowledge. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB |
| 188:Every person has a season for knowledge. ~ Elana Johnson, #NFDB |
| 189:Experience alone does not create knowledge. ~ Kurt Lewin, #NFDB |
| 190:Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge ~ Roshani Chokshi, #NFDB |
| 191:Hidden knowledge differs little from ignorance. ~ Horace, #NFDB |
| 192:I don't respect killers, I respect O.G. knowledge, ~ Nas, #NFDB |
| 193:Imagination is greater than knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 194:I've come to acknowledge the turd". ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB |
| 195:Knowledge alone can make us perfect. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB |
| 196:Knowledge and action are one and the same. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB |
| 197:Knowledge is a weight added to conscience. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB |
| 198:Knowledge is more important than space. ~ Edward Glaeser, #NFDB |
| 199:Knowledge not shared remains unknown ~ Chris Grabenstein, #NFDB |
| 200:Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. ~ James Madison, #NFDB |
| 201:Knowledge without courage is sterile. ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB |
| 202:Knowledge without courage is sterile. ~ Baltasar Graci n, #NFDB |
| 203:Knowledge without understanding is useless. ~ Thucydides, #NFDB |
| 204:Romance depends upon imperfect knowledge. ~ Harold Bloom, #NFDB |
| 205:Stupidity is not another form of knowledge. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB |
| 206:Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. ~ Philip Sidney, #NFDB |
| 207:There is no knowledge without theory. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB |
| 208:There is no substitute for knowledge. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB |
| 209:Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail. ~ David Hare, #NFDB |
| 210:Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB |
| 211:With knowledge grows doubt. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB |
| 212:A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB |
| 213:All knowledge, is ultimately, self knowledge. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB |
| 214:All the knowledge is in the connections ~ David Rumelhart, #NFDB |
| 215:Deception is the knowledge of kings. ~ Cardinal Richelieu, #NFDB |
| 216:Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism. ~ Francis Crick, #NFDB |
| 217:Expert knowledge is limited knowledge ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB |
| 218:Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge. ~ Roshani Chokshi, #NFDB |
| 219:He that hath knowledge spareth his words. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB |
| 220:Ignorance is bold, and knowledge is reserved ~ Thucydides, #NFDB |
| 221:Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~ Confucius, #NFDB |
| 222:Information is bad for knowledge. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB |
| 223:It is what we imagine knowledge to be: ~ Elizabeth Bishop, #NFDB |
| 224:Knowledge and truth are different things. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB |
| 225:Knowledge is not power unless it is used. ~ Harvey Mackay, #NFDB |
| 226:Knowledge is only one half. Faith is the other. ~ Novalis, #NFDB |
| 227:Knowledge is pleasure as well as power. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB |
| 228:Knowledge is speaking, Wisdom is listening ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB |
| 229:Knowledge is speaking, wisdom is listening ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB |
| 230:Knowledge is the antidote to fear,- ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 231:Knowledge may be power, but money buys both. ~ V E Schwab, #NFDB |
| 232:knowledge of this deal?’ added Peterson. ~ Robert Bryndza, #NFDB |
| 233:Lives are short, but knowledge is eternal. ~ Rachel Caine, #NFDB |
| 234:Man's wonder grows with his knowledge. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB |
| 235:Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine ~ George Santayana, #NFDB |
| 236:Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB |
| 237:Some knowledge is inherently corrupting, ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB |
| 238:Special knowledge is a terrible disadvantage. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB |
| 239:The best antidote for fear is knowledge. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB |
| 240:The desire for knowledge shapes a man, ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB |
| 241:The desire for knowledge shapes a man. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB |
| 242:Wonder is the desire of knowledge. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB |
| 243:All knowledge is valuable to a librarian. ~ Beverly Cleary, #NFDB |
| 244:All of us judge by sight and not by knowledge. ~ Euripides, #NFDB |
| 245:Common knowledge, but important nonetheless ~ Reggie Watts, #NFDB |
| 246:Experiment is the mother of knowledge. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB |
| 247:Garner knowledge, by any means possible ~ Jacqueline Carey, #NFDB |
| 248:Ignorance is death, Knowledge is life. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB |
| 249:Ignorance is death, knowledge is life. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB |
| 250:It's strange how knowledge changes perception. ~ John Dear, #NFDB |
| 251:Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, ~ William Cowper, #NFDB |
| 252:Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 253:Knowledge can communicated but not wisdom. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB |
| 254:Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB |
| 255:Knowledge isn’t power until it is applied. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB |
| 256:knowledge isn’t power until it is applied; ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB |
| 257:Knowledge is the heaviest weight of all. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB |
| 258:Knowledge is the rediscovering of our own insight. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 259:Knowledge travels in the baggage of languages. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 260:Knowledge without courage is sterile. v ~ Baltasar Graci n, #NFDB |
| 261:Knowledge without mileage equals bullshit. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB |
| 262:knowledge” o puffs up, p but love builds up. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 263:Life without knowledge is death in disguise. ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB |
| 264:Like anything else, knowledge must evolve. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB |
| 265:The only value of wasted time is knowledge. ~ Monica Drake, #NFDB |
| 266:There is no greater weapon than knowledge. ~ Mindee Arnett, #NFDB |
| 267:The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB |
| 268:Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB |
| 269:Where knowledge ends, religion begins. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB |
| 270:You can't change what you don't acknowledge. ~ Phil McGraw, #NFDB |
| 271:Acknowledge your good fortune by sharing it. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB |
| 272:All our knowledge begins with the senses... ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB |
| 273:All our knowledge is symbolic. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB |
| 274:anthology knowledge isn't real knowledge. ~ Nicholson Baker, #NFDB |
| 275:author Agatha Christie was knowledgeable ~ Jessica Fletcher, #NFDB |
| 276:A wise ignorance is an essential part of knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 277:Black Swan Is Relative to Knowledge ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB |
| 278:First Love, First Knowledge, First Sorrow ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB |
| 279:Half-knowledge is worse than ignorance. ~ Thomas B Macaulay, #NFDB |
| 280:Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish. ~ KRS One, #NFDB |
| 281:Knowledge and increase of enduring joy ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB |
| 282:Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB |
| 283:Knowledge is after all a non-rivalrous good ~ Mark O Connor, #NFDB |
| 284:knowledge is a true power in any society ~ Peter F Hamilton, #NFDB |
| 285:Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB |
| 286:Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB |
| 287:Knowledge is the key to making a difference. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB |
| 288:Knowledge is your weapon...Kill them with it. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB |
| 289:Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB |
| 290:Lack of knowledge - that is the problem. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB |
| 291:Man is an ignoramus athirst for knowledge. ~ Charles Wagner, #NFDB |
| 292:Science begets knowledge; opinion, ignorance. ~ Hippocrates, #NFDB |
| 293:Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB |
| 294:The intellect is not sovereign: knowledge is. ~ Idries Shah, #NFDB |
| 295:The knowledge of all things is possible ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB |
| 296:The only secure knowledge is that I exist. ~ Rene Descartes, #NFDB |
| 297:There is a knowledge in the heart of sleep. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB |
| 298:The true method of knowledge is experiment. ~ William Blake, #NFDB |
| 299:What is not acknowledged, cannot be transformed ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB |
| 300:Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB |
| 301:Wit does not take the place of knowledge. ~ Luc de Clapiers, #NFDB |
| 302:You cannot heal what you cannot acknowledge. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB |
| 303:Zen is all about self-study/knowledge and self-help! ~ Mika, #NFDB |
| 304:A brave man acknowledges the strength of others, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 305:All knowledge is a threat to someone.” Vaelin ~ Anthony Ryan, #NFDB |
| 306:All our knowledge originates in opinion. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB |
| 307:Belief is the wound that knowledge heals. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB |
| 308:Don’t over-estimate your self-knowledge. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB |
| 309:Faith is your guide in the absence of knowledge. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB |
| 310:For a man, knowledge is as good as a foreplay. ~ Dan Skinner, #NFDB |
| 311:How awful a knowledge of the truth can be. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB |
| 312:I am custodian of the knowledge hoarded here. ~ Brandon Mull, #NFDB |
| 313:Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB |
| 314:I have this strength that comes from knowledge. ~ Faith Hill, #NFDB |
| 315:Intuition is the source of scientific knowledge. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB |
| 316:Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know? ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB |
| 317:Knowledge counts but common sense matters. ~ LouAnne Johnson, #NFDB |
| 318:Knowledge is essential to freedom. ~ William Ellery Channing, #NFDB |
| 319:Knowledge is only as safe as our wisdom. ~ Michael C Grumley, #NFDB |
| 320:knowledge is only evil if it is used as such, ~ Dakota Krout, #NFDB |
| 321:Knowledge is Power, and it's very lightweight. ~ Cody Lundin, #NFDB |
| 322:Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB |
| 323:Knowledge is so comforting, but so is mystery. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB |
| 324:Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave. ~ Frederick Douglass, #NFDB |
| 325:Knowledge without education is but armed injustice. ~ Horace, #NFDB |
| 326:Knowledge without wisdom is double folly. ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB |
| 327:No knowledge about self is self-slavery! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB |
| 328:Science is public, not private, knowledge. ~ Robert K Merton, #NFDB |
| 329:Test of the poet is knowledge of love, ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 330:The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. ~ William Golding, #NFDB |
| 331:The eye has knowledge the mind cannot share ~ Hayden Carruth, #NFDB |
| 332:There is no knowledge without risk taking. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB |
| 333:The test of all knowledge is experiment. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB |
| 334:Use this knowledge to be gentle and gracious. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB |
| 335:We tend to use knowledge as therapy. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB |
| 336:You can never get sick of too much knowledge. ~ Jason Fagone, #NFDB |
| 337:Activity is the only road to knowledge. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB |
| 338:A little self-knowledge is a dangerous thing. ~ Malcolm Lowry, #NFDB |
| 339:And knowledge management is a means, not an end. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB |
| 340:A traveler without knowledge is a bird without wings. ~ Saadi, #NFDB |
| 341:Braille is knowledge, and knowledge is power. ~ Louis Braille, #NFDB |
| 342:Curiosity is more important than knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 343:Don't go to college, unless to get knowledge. ~ Satchel Paige, #NFDB |
| 344:Doubting charms me not less than knowledge. ~ Dante Alighieri, #NFDB |
| 345:Experience is more important than knowledge. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB |
| 346:Experimental science is the queen of knowledge. ~ Roger Bacon, #NFDB |
| 347:Faith rests not on ignorance, but on knowledge. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB |
| 348:Geometry is knowledge of the eternally existent. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB |
| 349:How often ignorance stings less than knowledge. ~ Janny Wurts, #NFDB |
| 350:If ignorance is bliss, then knowledge is a cage. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB |
| 351:Knowledge by suffering entereth, ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, #NFDB |
| 352:Knowledge gropes but meets not Wisdom's face. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB |
| 353:Knowledge is not information, it's transformation. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB |
| 354:Knowledge is the very nature [of Self]. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB |
| 355:Knowledge keeps no better than fish. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB |
| 356:Knowledge, learning, is an eternal thing. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB |
| 357:Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 358:paradox—it takes knowledge to gain knowledge—is ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB |
| 359:Product of optimism and knowledge is a constant. ~ Lev Landau, #NFDB |
| 360:Some people still think knowledge is power. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB |
| 361:The only source of knowledge is experience. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 362:True knowledge of God is born out of obedience. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB |
| 363:Understanding means throwing away your knowledge. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB |
| 364:We should not confuse information with knowledge. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB |
| 365:With knowledge comes more doubt. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB |
| 366:Without action, knowledge is often meaningless. ~ Shawn Achor, #NFDB |
| 367:You don’t gain knowledge without a little pain. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB |
| 368:Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge! ~ William Hague, #NFDB |
| 369:Art is a higher type of knowledge than experience. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB |
| 370:Bravery is knowledge of the cowardice of the enemy. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB |
| 371:Imagination is more important than knowledge ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 372:Imagination is more powerful than knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 373:I'm old and my knowledge is strictly horizontal. ~ Greg Proops, #NFDB |
| 374:Knowledge, after all, could not be unlearned. ~ Alison Goodman, #NFDB |
| 375:Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB |
| 376:knowledge elevates you, no matter who you are. ~ Sabrina Paige, #NFDB |
| 377:Knowledge is knowing as little as possible. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB |
| 378:Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another. ~ John Henry Newman, #NFDB |
| 379:knowledge is only part of the fight for survival. ~ Max Brooks, #NFDB |
| 380:Knowledge is power, I said at last. "Let's do it. ~ Karen Lord, #NFDB |
| 381:Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom. ~ Roger Bacon, #NFDB |
| 382:Knowledge was like a mouthful of dust. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB |
| 383:Knowledge without transformation is not wisdom. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB |
| 384:Metadata liberates us, liberates knowledge. ~ David Weinberger, #NFDB |
| 385:My knowledge of art ended at impressionism. ~ Peggy Guggenheim, #NFDB |
| 386:Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 387:Poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge. ~ Brooks Atkinson, #NFDB |
| 388:Psychological knowledge has made us dull. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB |
| 389:The equation for ego is: One over Knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 390:The Essence of Knowledge is, having it, to use it. ~ Confucius, #NFDB |
| 391:The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation. ~ Epicurus, #NFDB |
| 392:The knowledge one does not practise is a poison. ~ Hitopadesha, #NFDB |
| 393:There is no knowledge that is not power. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 394:There's no such thing as knowledge management; ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB |
| 395:To know one's ignorance is the best part of knowledge. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 396:True knowledge lies in knowing how to live. ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB |
| 397:True knowledge lies in knowing how to live. ~ Baltasar Graci n, #NFDB |
| 398:When knowledge becomes rigid, it stops living. ~ Anselm Kiefer, #NFDB |
| 399:Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB |
| 400:Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB |
| 401:Acknowledge your folly or depart from my dominions. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 402:... Desire baffles knowledge and power. ~ Jean Fran ois Lyotard, #NFDB |
| 403:Doubt is not below knowledge, but above it. ~ Alain Rene Lesage, #NFDB |
| 404:Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB |
| 405:Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 406:From a knowledge of His work, we shall know Him. ~ Robert Boyle, #NFDB |
| 407:Ignorance is better than knowledge misapplied. ~ Norm MacDonald, #NFDB |
| 408:Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 409:Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB |
| 410:In a hollow head there is much room for knowledge. ~ Karl Kraus, #NFDB |
| 411:Instinct is something which transcends knowledge ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB |
| 412:Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB |
| 413:Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. ~ Frederick Douglass, #NFDB |
| 414:One paid for one's knowledge with one's skin. ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB |
| 415:The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB |
| 416:The first product of self-knowledge is humility, ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB |
| 417:There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance. ~, #NFDB |
| 418:The supreme guide in life is knowledge. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, #NFDB |
| 419:three o’clock Phineas was acknowledged to be ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB |
| 420:What is research but a blind date with knowledge? ~ Will Harvey, #NFDB |
| 421:Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB |
| 422:Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB |
| 423:A brave man acknowledges the strength of others. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB |
| 424:Acknowledgement is the only way to keep love alive. ~ Barry Long, #NFDB |
| 425:Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB |
| 426:All knowledge depends upon calmness of mind. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB |
| 427:All knowledge meets an end at the question '...Why? ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB |
| 428:All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB |
| 429:[B]eauty is always an affair of knowledge. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB |
| 430:But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB |
| 431:His knowledge of war has fed a passion for peace. ~ Bill Clinton, #NFDB |
| 432:i felt a glow at the knowledge that she was happy ~ Alice Oseman, #NFDB |
| 433:Knowledge about a thing is not the thing itself. ~ William James, #NFDB |
| 434:Knowledge is a destination. Truth, the journey. ~ Terry Goodkind, #NFDB |
| 435:Knowledge is information that changes something ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB |
| 436:Knowledge is never in doubt. Wisdom is never certain. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB |
| 437:Knowledge is often a responsibility nobody wants ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB |
| 438:Knowledge is structured in consciousness ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB |
| 439:Knowledge is the currency of the universe. ~ Giorgio A Tsoukalos, #NFDB |
| 440:Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing. ~ Horace, #NFDB |
| 441:Knowledge of anatomy is a tool like good brushes. ~ Robert Henri, #NFDB |
| 442:Knowledge of death is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Mallory Ortberg, #NFDB |
| 443:Knowledge of yoga is no substitute for practice. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB |
| 444:knowledge wasn’t created but discovered; ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB |
| 445:Love takes up where knowledge leaves off. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB |
| 446:Man's wonder grows with his knowledge. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB |
| 447:Mind of a loving heart is the fountain of knowledge. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB |
| 448:no true knowledge is ever reached without pain. ~ Naomi Alderman, #NFDB |
| 449:Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge. ~ Arthur Rimbaud, #NFDB |
| 450:Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB |
| 451:Our knowledge of life is limited to death ~ Erich Maria Remarque, #NFDB |
| 452:Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB |
| 453:Stories, knowledge...they set the mind alight. ~ Roshani Chokshi, #NFDB |
| 454:The greatest danger in art is too much knowledge. ~ Andre Derain, #NFDB |
| 455:The greatest sin is judgment without knowledge. ~ Kelsey Grammer, #NFDB |
456:The habit of knowledge
is not human but devine. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB |
| 457:The natural desire of good men is knowledge. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB |
| 458:The only real ill-doing is the deprivation of knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 459:The only source of knowledge is the experience ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 460:This thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB |
| 461:Visualization is more important than knowledge ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB |
| 462:We gather knowledge faster than we gather wisdom. ~ William Bell, #NFDB |
| 463:Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB |
| 464:When wisdom and knowledge appear, great pretense arises. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 465:Where is all the knowledge we lost with information? ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB |
| 466:After all, all knowledge simply means self-knowledge. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB |
| 467:A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers. ~ Plato, #NFDB |
| 468:All true knowledge of God is born out of obedience. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB |
| 469:belief is to knowledge as shadow is to original ~ Simon Blackburn, #NFDB |
| 470:Books without the knowledge of life are useless. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB |
| 471:Good taste is not a substitute for knowledge ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, #NFDB |
| 472:I analyze religious knowledge and consciousness. ~ Youssef Ziedan, #NFDB |
| 473:I became a passionate seeker of childbirth knowledge. ~ Robin Lim, #NFDB |
| 474:I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew. ~ Jonathan Ames, #NFDB |
| 475:If we acknowledge our need for God, he will help us. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB |
| 476:Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB |
| 477:I look at his hands. In those hands is new knowledge. ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB |
| 478:Investment in knowledge pays the best interest. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB |
| 479:It is knowledge that ultimately gives salvation. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB |
| 480:Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness. ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB |
| 481:Knowledge gives a wider choice and more anguish. ~ Samuel Florman, #NFDB |
| 482:Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB |
| 483:Knowledge is taken from breath, not lives in a book ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB |
| 484:Knowledge is the most democratic source of power. ~ Alvin Toffler, #NFDB |
| 485:Knowledge, I suppose, blocked the gates of vision. ~ Mary Stewart, #NFDB |
| 486:Knowledge—self-knowledge in particular—is freedom. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB |
| 487:Knowledge will give you power, but character respect. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB |
| 488:Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB |
| 489:No honey is sweeter than that of knowledge. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB |
| 490:Once he could read, all knowledge was within reach. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB |
| 491:Opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. ~ John Milton, #NFDB |
| 492:People are difficult to rule, because of their knowledge. ~ Laozi, #NFDB |
| 493:The first product of self-knowledge is humility, ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB |
| 494:The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge. ~ Oliver Goldsmith, #NFDB |
| 495:they that increase knowledge also increase sorrow. ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB |
| 496:Wealth is knowledge and its origin is evolution ~ Eric Beinhocker, #NFDB |
| 497:You cannot heal what you do not first acknowledge. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB |
| 498:Abbreviators do harm to knowledge and to love. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB |
| 499:Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB |
| 500:A good decision is based on knowledge, and not on numbers. ~ Plato, #NFDB |