TERMS STARTING WITH
primary ::: a. --> First in order of time or development or in intention; primitive; fundamental; original.
First in order, as being preparatory to something higher; as, primary assemblies; primary schools.
First in dignity or importance; chief; principal; as, primary planets; a matter of primary importance.
Earliest formed; fundamental.
Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some
primary auditory cortex ::: The major cortical target of the neurons in the medial geniculate nucleus.
primary cache ::: (hardware, architecture) (L1 cache, level one cache) A small, fast cache memory inside or close to the CPU chip.For example, an Intel 80486 has an eight-kilobyte on-chip cache, and most Pentiums have a 16-KB on-chip level one cache that consists of an 8-KB instruction cache and an 8-KB data cache.The larger, slower secondary cache is normally connected to the CPU via its external bus. (1997-06-25)
primary cache "hardware, architecture" (L1 cache, level one cache) A small, fast {cache} memory inside or close to the {CPU} chip. For example, an {Intel 80486} has an eight-{kilobyte} on-chip cache, and most {Pentiums} have a 16-KB on-chip level one cache that consists of an 8-KB {instruction cache} and an 8-KB {data cache}. The larger, slower {secondary cache} is normally connected to the CPU via its external {bus}. (1997-06-25)
primary carer: the individual that holds primary responsibility for the care of an infant, often the biological mother.
primary hierarchies voices and apparitions.
primary ideality ::: in May-June 1918, the same as inferior ideality during the same period; cf. the logistic ideality of 1919-20.
primary key ::: (database) A unique identifier, often an integer, that labels a certain row in a table of a relational database.When this value occurs in other tables as a reference to a particular row in the first table it is called a foreign key.Some RDBMSes can generate a new unique identifier each time a new row is inserted, others merely allow a column to be constrained to contain unique values.A table may have multiple candidate keys, from which the primary key is chosen. The primary key should be an arbitrary value, such as an autoincrementing columns with real-world meaning (e.g. a person's name) or other external identifier (e.g. social security number).There should be enough possible primary key values to cater for the current and expected number of rows, bearing in mind that a wider column will generally be slower to process.(2006-05-29)
primary key "database" A unique {identifier}, often an {integer}, that labels a certain row in a table of a {relational database}. When this value occurs in other tables as a reference to a particular row in the first table it is called a "foreign key". Some {RDBMS}es can generate a new unique identifier each time a new row is inserted, others merely allow a column to be constrained to contain unique values. A table may have multiple {candidate keys}, from which the primary key is chosen. The primary key should be an arbitrary value, such as an {autoincrementing} integer. This avoids dependence on uniqueness, permanence and format of existing columns with real-world meaning (e.g. a person's name) or other external identifier (e.g. social security number). There should be enough possible primary key values to cater for the current and expected number of rows, bearing in mind that a wider column will generally be slower to process. (2006-05-29)
primary logistic gnosis ::: same as intuitional ideality. primary utth utthapana
primary management domain ::: (messaging) (PRMD) The component of an X.400 electronic mail address that gives the organisation name, usually abbreviated to p= in written addresses.See also ADMD.(2003-05-15)
primary management domain "messaging" (PRMD) The component of an {X.400} {electronic mail address} that gives the organisation name, usually abbreviated to p= in written addresses. See also {ADMD}. (2003-05-15)
primary motor cortex ::: A major source of descending projections to motor neurons in the the spinal cord and cranial nerve nuclei; located in the precentral gyrus (Brodmann’s area 4) and essential for the voluntary control of movement.
primary neuron ::: A neuron that directly links muscles, glands, and sense organs to the central nervous system.
primary prevention: strategies that aim to prevent disease in currently healthy individuals, by focusing on the development of good health habits and discouraging poor ones.
primary reinforcer: reinforcers based on innate biological significance, such as food or water.
primary sensory cortex ::: Any one of several cortical areas receiving the thalamic input for a particular sensory modality.
primary storage {main memory}
primary visual cortex ::: see striate cortex.
primary visual pathway (retinogenticulocortical pathway) ::: Pathway from the retina via the lateral genticulate nucleus of the thalamus to the primary visual cortex; carries the information that allows conscious visual perception.
Primary data - Information which does not already exist and is collected through the use of field research.
Primary Domain Controller "networking" (PDC) Each {Windows NT} {domain} has a Primary Domain Controller and zero or more {Backup Domain Controllers}. The PDC holds the {SAM} database and authenticates access requests from {workstations} and {servers} in the domain. (2003-07-16)
Primary Domain Controller ::: (networking) (PDC) Each Windows NT domain has a Primary Domain Controller and zero or more Backup Domain Controllers. The PDC holds the SAM database and authenticates access requests from workstations and servers in the domain.(2003-07-16)
Primary Drinking Water Regulation::: Applies to public water systems and specifies a contaminant level, which, in the judgment of the EPA Administrator, will not adversely affect human health.
Primary health care - Health service provision based upon preventing rather than curing diseases. It includes clean water supply, sanitation, immunization and nutritional and family planning services.
Primary labour market - The market for permanent full-time core workers.
Primary market – 1. (Accounting}, The first sale of a newly issued security to the market. Those new securities are purchased within the primary market. All trading of those securities subsequently is done via secondary market. Or 2. (Economics) - The market for primary products.
Primary production - The production of goods that are sold or used as they are they are found in nature e.g. fish, trees, diamonds, oil.
Primary Qualities: The inherent qualities of bodies solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest, number. These qualities are conceived to be utterly inseparable from objects, they are constant. John Locke made classic the distinction of primary and secondary qualities made by Galileo and Descartes. -- V.F.
Primary Rate Interface ::: (PRI) A type of ISDN connection. In North America and Japan, this consists of 24 channels, usually divided into 23 B channels and 1 D channel, and runs over the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI has 31 user channels, usually divided into 30 B channels and 1 D channel and is based on the E1 interface.PRI is typically used for connections such as one between a PBX (private branch exchange, a telephone exchange operated by the customer of a telephone company) and a CO (central office, of the telephone company) or IXC (inter exchange carrier, a long distance telephone company). (1995-01-18)
Primary Rate Interface (PRI) A type of {ISDN} connection. In North America and Japan, this consists of 24 channels, usually divided into 23 B channels and 1 D channel, and runs over the same physical interface as {T1}. Elsewhere the PRI has 31 user channels, usually divided into 30 B channels and 1 D channel and is based on the {E1} interface. PRI is typically used for connections such as one between a PBX (private branch exchange, a telephone exchange operated by the customer of a telephone company) and a CO (central office, of the telephone company) or IXC (inter exchange carrier, a long distance telephone company). (1995-01-18)
Primary Reinforcer ::: A reinforcer that meets our basic needs such as food, water, sleep, or love.
Primary research - The collection and collation of original data via direct contact with potential or existing customers. Also called field research.
Primary school enrolment rate - The number of children of primary school age, usually 6 to 11 years, who are enrolled at school as a percentage of the age group. Sometimes this is greater than 100% due to younger and older pupils enrolling.
Primary sector - Industry which extracts the natural resources of the earth.
Primary truth: A conception or proposition which is dependent for its truth on no other principle in the same order of thought; it may be considered self-evident from common experience, special intuitive insight, or even by postulation; but it is not demonstrated.
Primary truth: (Lat. primus, first) A conception or proposition which is dependent for its truth on no other principle in the same order of thought, it may be considered self-evident from common experience, special intuitive insight, or even by postulation, but it is not demonstrated -- V.J.B.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. The Petrarchan sonnet (or Italian sonnet): an eight line stanza, called an octave, which is followed by a six line stanza, called a sestet. The initial octave has two quatrains (4 lines) that generally rhyme abba, abba. The first of these quatrains offers the theme, whilst the second develops this main idea. Later in the sestet, the primary three lines offer a reflection on or exemplify the theme. The final three lines bring the poem to a cohesive end. The sestet is sometimes arrangedcdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce.
(2) More generally: the circumstances attending any use of speech from which some of the defining characteristics of a primary speech situation are absent. See Language. -- M.B.
2. The second triad of sefirot, which together constitute the primary emotions (see Chabad, Nehi).
3Com Corporation "company, networking" A manufacturer of {local area network} equipment. 3Com was founded in 1979. They acquired {BICC Data Networks} in 1992, {Star-Tek} in 1993, {Synernetics} in 1993, {Centrum} in 1994, {NiceCom} in 1994 {AccessWorks}, {Sonix Communications}, {Primary Access} and {Chipcom} in 1995 and {Axon} and {OnStream Networks} in 1996. They merged with {U.S. Robotics} in 1997. {(http://3com.com/)}. (1998-04-03)
3. The term actuarial expectation is used analogically by Lloyd Morgan to denote the qualitative probability of the emergence of a genuine or primary novelty. -- T.G.
Abba Ila&
Abraham ::: Patriarch recognized as the founder of monotheism, Abraham is respected in all three primary monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Presumed to have lived sometime in the period 2000-1700 B.C. E., Abraham was the father of Ishmael (progenitor of Islam) through his wife Hagar, and of Isaac (progenitor of Judaism) by his wife Sarah. (See also Genesis 12-25 [Old Testament]; Galatians 3-4 [New Testament]; and Quran 37. 83-113, 2.124-140).
acclamations are one of 3 primary angelic hier¬
“ . . .According to the Occult Doctrine, this planet is our Earth’s primary, and its spiritual prototype. . . .
According to theosophy the forces of science are effects produced on the physical plane by elementals or nature forces, which are themselves secondary causes and the effects of primary causes, ultimately of divine origin, behind the veil of terrestrial phenomena. Descending through the planes of cosmos there is a chain of effects. Theosophy sees no fundamental difference between force and motion: eternal motion gives rise on every plane to the dual manifestation of force and matter, twin aspects of the same substance.
achromatic ::: a. --> Free from color; transmitting light without decomposing it into its primary colors.
Uncolored; not absorbing color from a fluid; -- said of tissue.
Activated Sludge ::: Product that results when primary effluent is mixed with bacteria-laden sludge and then agitated and aerated to promote biological treatment, speeding the breakdown of organic matter in raw sewage undergoing secondary waste treatment.
Advanced Communication Function/Network Control Program "networking" (ACF/NCP, usually called just "NCP") The primary {SNA} {network control program}, one of the {ACF} products. ACF/NCP resides in the {communications controller} and interfaces with {ACF/VTAM} in the {host processor} to control network communications. NCP can also communicate with multiple {hosts} using {local channel} or remote links ({PU} type 5 or PU type 4) thus enabling cross {domain} application communication. In a multiple {mainframe} SNA environment, any terminal or application can access any other application on any host using cross domain logon. See also {Emulator program}. [Communication or Communications?] (1999-01-29)
Advanced Communication Function/Network Control Program ::: (networking) (ACF/NCP, usually called just NCP) The primary SNA network control program, one of the ACF products. ACF/NCP resides in the communications controller and interfaces with ACF/VTAM in the host processor to control network communications.NCP can also communicate with multiple hosts using local channel or remote links (PU type 5 or PU type 4) thus enabling cross domain application communication. In a multiple mainframe SNA environment, any terminal or application can access any other application on any host using cross domain logon.See also Emulator program.[Communication or Communications?] (1999-01-29)
Ahammana (Sanskrit) Ahaṃmāna [from aham ego + māna from the verbal root man to think, reflect upon] Egoism, self-illusion; hence spiritual ignorance, the maya produced by reflecting upon or imagining one’s “I” as of primary importance. “When soul is associated with prakriti, it is vitiated by egotism [ahammana] and the rest, and assumes the qualities of grosser nature, although essentially distinct from them, and incorruptible [avyaya]” (VP 6:7).
Air One of the four primary elements which also include fire, water, and earth. It does not denote the earth’s atmosphere, since ordinary air is a particular gas, and the gaseous state is only one of the conditions of matter — it might be called the air division or air condition of earth, since earth denotes physical matter. The primary elements have secondary derivatives, and these have again other derivatives. In the first round only one element was developed, fire; in the second round the elements were fire and air; in the third, water was added; in the fourth, earth; and ether will appear in the fifth round. Fire is spoken of as the One, air as the Two, water as the Three, earth as the Four. Air is the Father, the creative element. The Vishnu-Purana describes the attributes of air: it corresponds to the sense of touch, and gives bulk.
aladr.s.t.i ::: the intuitive knowledge of things in the present "that are beyond the range of our physical senses or the reach of any means of knowledge open to the surface intelligence". primary d dasya
allegory ::: n. --> A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion
All these seven emanations or creations of Brahma refer to the seven periods of the evolution of living racial classes, whether higher or lower, and whether involving large or smaller time periods. The Tiryaksrotas (or Tiaryagyonya) creation corresponds only on earth to the dumb animal creation. “That which is meant by ‘animals,’ in primary Creation, is the germ of awakening consciousness or of apperception, that which is faintly traceable in some sensitive plants on Earth and more distinctly in the protistic monera” (SD 1:455). See also URDHVASROTAS
American Telephone and Telegraph, Inc. "company, telecommunications, Unix" (AT&T) One of the largest US telecommunications providers, also noted for being the birthplace of the {Unix} {operating system} and the {C} and {C++} programming languages. AT&T was incorporated in 1885, but traces its lineage to Alexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone in 1876. As parent company of the former {Bell System}, AT&T's primary mission was to provide telephone service to virtually everyone in the United States. In its first 50 years, AT&T established subsidiaries and allied companies in more than a dozen other countries. It sold these interests in 1925 and focused on achieving its mission in the United States. It did, however, continue to provide international long distance service. The Bell System was dissolved at the end of 1983 with AT&T's divestiture of the Bell telephone companies. AT&T split into three parts in 1996, one of which is {Lucent Tecnologies}, the former systems and equipment portion of AT&T (including Bell Laboratories). See also {3DO}, {Advanced RISC Machine}, {Berkeley Software Distribution}, {Bell Laboratories}, {Concurrent C}, {Death Star}, {dinosaurs mating}, {InterNIC}, {System V}, {Nawk}, {Open Look}, {rc}, {S}, {Standard ML of New Jersey}, {Unix International}, {Unix conspiracy}, {USG Unix}, {Unix System Laboratories}. {AT&T Home (http://att.com/)}. (2002-06-21)
amphetamine delusional disorder: a form of mental disorder resulting from the excessive use of amphetamines; its primary symptom, extreme paranoiddelusions, can make it appear symptomatically identical to paranoid schizophrenia.
Amulet ::: (processor) An implementation or the Advanced RISC Machine microprocessor architecture using the micropipeline design style. In April 1994 the Amulet circuit and the world's first implementation of a commercial microprocessor architecture (ARM) in asynchronous logic.Work was begun at the end of 1990 and the design despatched for fabrication in February 1993. The primary intent was to demonstrate that an asynchronous microprocessor can consume less power than a synchronous design.The design incorporates a number of concurrent units which cooperate to give instruction level compatibility with the existing synchronous part. These control path which performs instruction decode. These units only synchronise to exchange data.The design demonstrates that all the usual problems of processor design can be solved in this asynchronous framework: backward instruction set compatibility, code sequences is continuous rather than discrete, and the nondeterminism in external behaviour must also be taken into account.The chip was designed using a mixture of custom datapath and compiled control logic elements, as was the synchronous ARM. The fabrication technology is the same as that used for one version of the synchronous part, reducing the number of variables when comparing the two parts.Two silicon implementations have been received and preliminary measurements have been taken from these. The first is a 0.7um process and has achieved about 28 AMULET1 it is likely that this speed is limited by the memory system cycle time (just over 50ns) rather than the processor chip itself.A fair comparison of devices at the same geometries gives the AMULET1 performance as about 70% of that of an ARM6 running at 20MHz. Its power several design iterations. AMULET2 (currently under development) is expected to be three times faster than AMULET1 - 120 kdhrystones - and use less power.The macrocell size (without pad ring) is 5.5 mm by 4.5 mm on a 1 micron CMOS process, which is about twice the area of the synchronous part. Some of the to the asynchronous control logic, this is estimated to be closer to 20% than to the 100% suggested by the direct comparison.AMULET1 is code compatible with ARM6 and is so is capable of running existing binaries without modification. The implementation also includes features such as interrupts and memory aborts.The work was part of a broad ESPRIT funded investigation into low-power technologies within the European Open Microprocessor systems Initiative (OMI) role asynchronous logic might play has now demonstrated that asynchronous techniques can be applied to problems of the scale of a complete microprocessor. . (1994-12-08)
Amulet "processor" An implementation or the {Advanced RISC Machine} {microprocessor} architecture using the {micropipeline} design style. In April 1994 the Amulet group in the Computer Science department of {Manchester University} took delivery of the AMULET1 {microprocessor}. This was their first large scale asynchronous circuit and the world's first implementation of a commercial microprocessor architecture (ARM) in {asynchronous logic}. Work was begun at the end of 1990 and the design despatched for fabrication in February 1993. The primary intent was to demonstrate that an asynchronous microprocessor can consume less power than a synchronous design. The design incorporates a number of concurrent units which cooperate to give instruction level compatibility with the existing synchronous part. These include an Address unit, which autonomously generates instruction fetch requests and interleaves ({nondeterministic}ally) data requests from the Execution unit; a {Register} file which supplies operands, queues write destinations and handles data dependencies; an Execution unit which includes a multiplier, a shifter and an {ALU} with data-dependent delay; a Data interface which performs byte extraction and alignment and includes an {instruction prefetch} buffer, and a control path which performs {instruction decode}. These units only synchronise to exchange data. The design demonstrates that all the usual problems of processor design can be solved in this asynchronous framework: backward {instruction set} compatibility, {interrupts} and exact {exceptions} for {memory faults} are all covered. It also demonstrates some unusual behaviour, for instance {nondeterministic} prefetch depth beyond a branch instruction (though the instructions which actually get executed are, of course, deterministic). There are some unusual problems for {compiler} {optimisation}, as the metric which must be used to compare alternative code sequences is continuous rather than discrete, and the {nondeterminism} in external behaviour must also be taken into account. The chip was designed using a mixture of custom {datapath} and compiled control logic elements, as was the synchronous ARM. The fabrication technology is the same as that used for one version of the synchronous part, reducing the number of variables when comparing the two parts. Two silicon implementations have been received and preliminary measurements have been taken from these. The first is a 0.7um process and has achieved about 28 kDhrystones running the standard {benchmark} program. The other is a 1 um implementation and achieves about 20 kDhrystones. For the faster of the parts this is equivalent to a synchronous {ARM6} clocked at around 20MHz; in the case of AMULET1 it is likely that this speed is limited by the memory system cycle time (just over 50ns) rather than the processor chip itself. A fair comparison of devices at the same geometries gives the AMULET1 performance as about 70% of that of an {ARM6} running at 20MHz. Its power consumption is very similar to that of the ARM6; the AMULET1 therefore delivers about 80 MIPS/W (compared with around 120 from a 20MHz ARM6). Multiplication is several times faster on the AMULET1 owing to the inclusion of a specialised asynchronous multiplier. This performance is reasonable considering that the AMULET1 is a first generation part, whereas the synchronous ARM has undergone several design iterations. AMULET2 (under development in 1994) was expected to be three times faster than AMULET1 and use less power. The {macrocell} size (without {pad ring}) is 5.5 mm by 4.5 mm on a 1 micron {CMOS} process, which is about twice the area of the synchronous part. Some of the increase can be attributed to the more sophisticated organisation of the new part: it has a deeper {pipeline} than the clocked version and it supports multiple outstanding memory requests; there is also specialised circuitry to increase the multiplication speed. Although there is undoubtedly some overhead attributable to the asynchronous control logic, this is estimated to be closer to 20% than to the 100% suggested by the direct comparison. AMULET1 is code compatible with {ARM6} and is so is capable of running existing {binaries} without modification. The implementation also includes features such as interrupts and memory aborts. The work was part of a broad {ESPRIT} funded investigation into low-power technologies within the European {Open Microprocessor systems Initiative} (OMI) programme, where there is interest in low-power techniques both for portable equipment and (in the longer term) to alleviate the problems of the increasingly high dissipation of high-performance chips. This initial investigation into the role {asynchronous logic} might play has now demonstrated that asynchronous techniques can be applied to problems of the scale of a complete {microprocessor}. {(http://cs.man.ac.uk/amulet)}. (1994-12-08)
Anal Stage ::: Freud&
PRIMARY MATTER When primordial atoms have been introduced into the cosmos from chaos, they form the compounded atomic kinds 2-49.
These atoms have rotatory motion. Therefore, this first matter is called rotatory matter or primary matter. In worlds 43-49, the atoms of primary matter are further composed to form 42 molecular kinds. Primary matter has only potential consciousness. Primary matter exists in all the worlds 1-49.
Synonym: involvatory matter. (K 1.7, 6.8.18; P 2.9, 2.4.3)
SECONDARY MATTER Primary matter is rotatory matter. The atom rotates round its axis with enormous rapidity. To this motion is added, through the process of involution, a cyclic spiral motion (which the ancients called the elemental essence), in which the atom revolves round a central, focal point in a constantly ascending spiral.
The rotatory motion of the atom of primary matter makes the formation of molecules possible. The rotatory cyclic spiral motion of secondary matter makes it possible to form aggregates, material forms. This makes it possible to construct and progressively differentiate the series of ever higher, ever more refined forms of life, which serve to afford consciousness, step by step, with the different organs it needs for the slow activation of molecular consciousness.
Secondary matter is called involutionary or elemental matter. P 2.9.4ff (K
6.8.18)
Ancient cosmogonies in general begin with the secondary creation and with the creation of manifested light; what precedes this is called darkness or night, because the unmanifested absolute light can thus be named only by contrast with the manifested light. Thus in Genesis 1:2, darkness is upon the face of the deep, and in verse 3 “light” is created. When spirit has permeated every atom of the seven principles of kosmos, there is a period of stabilization and preparation, and then the secondary creation begins. In the primary creation earth is in possession of the three elemental kingdoms (SD 1:449-50, 2:312). In the primary creation, mahat functions as universal ideation or divine thought, while in the secondary it differentiates into innumerable emanating streams of individualization, which is the field for the coming into activity of the innumerable hosts of monads — described as the appearance of egoity. The primary creation is that of light or spirit; the secondary that of darkness or matter — these being employed in a relative sense, and in a sense the reverse of that mentioned above.
ancillary characters: From the Latin ancilla, which means "helper" or "maid", the phrase refers to less significant characters who are not the primary protagonist or antagonist. They nevertheless interact with the more important characters in such a way as to offer insight into the narrative action.
Ancillary - Normally is used to refer to something lesser or extra importance. An example of ancillary revenue would be revenue gained from the selling of products or services that are not considered to be primary to the businesses generation of revenue.
and for itself: (Ger. an und für sich) An sich is the given primary, latent, undeveloped immediacy. The bare intrinsic and inherent essence of an object. Für sich is a greater, developed intensity of immediacy; an object genuinely independent either of consciousness or of other things; something for itself. In and for itself belongs to the Absolute alone. Its asserted independence is the developed result of its nature and as a system of internal relations it is independent of external relations. -- H.H.
An :::economic_network ::: is a combination of individuals, groups or countries interacting to benefit the community as a whole. The primary goal of the group in an economic network is to strengthen its position in a market.
anisopleura ::: n. pl. --> A primary division of gastropods, including those having spiral shells. The two sides of the body are unequally developed.
anti-anxiety drug: a drug which functions as a central nervous systemdepressant, but whose primary behavioural effect is the reduction of anxiety.
apana ::: same as primary utthapana.
apastron ::: n. --> That point in the orbit of a double star where the smaller star is farthest from its primary.
Apperception Perception involving self-consciousness; cognition through the relating of new ideas to familiar ideas. Used by Leibniz to denote a stage higher or more subtle than perception. The impressions received through perception are apprehended by the mind and are related to other impressions which the memory holds, so that complex ideas are formed. Apperception may be called perception accompanied by awareness and an interpretative power. In contrast to the theory that the higher faculties of mind are built up synthetically from the lower, Leibniz’s views support the theory that the intuitive or original inner powers are primary. “Nascent apperception, which is the Mahat of the lower kingdoms, especially developed in the third order of Elementals . . . [is] succeeded by the objective kingdom of minerals, in which latter that apperception is entirely latent, to re-develop only in the plants”; and “that which is meant by ‘animals,’ in primary Creation, is the germ of awakening consciousness or of apperception, that which is faintly traceable in some sensitive plants on Earth and more distinctly in the protistic monera. . . . Neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two” (SD 1:454-5&n; cf ET 505 3rd & rev ed ).
Arab Boycott ::: Formally declared by the newly formed Arab League Council on December 2, 1945. The boycott consists of the primary boycott, which prohibits direct trade between Israel and the Arab nations, the secondary boycott, which is directed at companies that do business with Israel and the tertiary boycott, which involves the blacklisting of firms that trade with other companies that do business with Israel.
archical ::: pref. --> Chief; primary; primordial.
Ari or Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria) :::Ari is an acronym for &
Articles of incorporation - The primary legal document of a corporation; they serve as a corporation's constitution. The articles contain basic information on the corporation as required by law.
As an emergent materialist, he holds that everything happens by the blind combination of the elements of matter or energy, without any guidance, excluding the assumption of a non-material component. While he regards primary qualities as physical emergents, he yet considers secondary qualities, such as color, taste, and smell, as transphysical emergents. He favors the emergence of laws, qualities and classes. Psyche, physical in nature, combines with other material factors to make the life of the mind. Broad holds to a generative view of consciousness. Psyche persists after death for some time, floats about in cosmic space indefinitely, ready to combine with a material body under suitable conditions. He calls this theory the "compound theory of materialistic emergency." Sensa, he holds, are real, particular, short-lived existents. They are exclusively neither physical nor mental. He replaces the neo-realistic contrast between existents and subsistents, by a contrast between existents and substracta. Main works: Scientific Thought, 1923; The Mind and Its Place in Nature, 1925; Five Types of Ethical Theory, 1930. -- H.H.
As to the position of humanity in regard to the fifth root-race: “we are in the mid-point of our sub-race of the Fifth Root Race — the acme of materiality in each . . .” (SD 1:610). This is interpreted by de Purucker as meaning “the middle point of the fourth of any cyclical series: for instance, the fourth Primary Subrace; the fourth subrace of the fourth primary subrace of the fifth root-race” (Fund 281). Thus we have at present nearly reached the middle period of the fifth root-race, and are therefore in our fourth primary subrace, but in a smaller sub-subrace which is the fifth of its own cycle.
As to the vegetable kingdom, vegetation began in its ethereal form before what is termed the Primordial Epoch, continuing on through the Primary Era, during which it condensed, to our own time. It reached its fullest physical efflorescence in the early part of the Secondary, and probably even during the middle and later Primary, where the great coal deposits are now found.
asya (dasyam) ::: the lowest form of dasya, also called primary dasya or personal / egoistic dasya, "the dasya of the servant", characterised by "that obedience to the divine impulsion which is selfchosen & depends on the individual"s intelligence of God"s will and his consent, his readiness to obey".
asya ::: same as primary / simple dasya, also called egoistic dasya, the form of dasya in which one "learns, still using the personal will, personal effort, personal energies, to employ them as representatives of the higher Power and in conscious obedience to the higher Influence".
asya ::: same as primary / simple dasya, also called personal dasya, the form of dasya in which "between the various impulses of Prakriti, we have the sense of choosing, of an active & constant freedom, & although we choose what we understand to be God"s will, it is still our choice that determines the action in the adhara & not His direct and imperative Will".
attachment theory: a psychodynamic approach to developmental psychology, which places a lot of emphasis on the formation of a secure attachment between infant and primary carer(s).
Attachment ::: The strong bond a child forms with his or her primary caregiver.
Attention is drawn to the philosophic need of making a sharp distinction between what Blavatsky has called primary creation and secondary creation, the former referring to the one divine unity in which all later manifesting hierarchies primordially inhere as One; whereas the secondary creation or stage in cosmic evolution begins with the fourth stage or fourth cosmic plane beneath the former, where polarity, duality, and the consequent emanational elaboration of the universe into its hierarchical structures begins. Thus through emanational cosmic evolution the One breaks through its two aspects of parabrahman and mulaprakriti into the cosmically androgyne and phenomenal finite manifested universe.
Attribute: Commonly, what is proper to a thing (Latm, ad-tribuere, to assign, to ascribe, to bestow). Loosely assimilated to a quality, a property, a characteristic, a peculiarity, a circumstance, a state, a category, a mode or an accident, though there are differences among all these terms. For example, a quality is an inherent property (the qualities of matter), while an attribute refers to the actual properties of a thing only indirectly known (the attributes of God). Another difference between attribute and quality is that the former refers to the characteristics of an infinite being, while the latter is used for the characteristics of a finite being. In metaphysics, an attribute is what is indispensable to a spiritual or material substance; or that which expresses the nature of a thing; or that without which a thing is unthinkable. As such, it implies necessarily a relation to some substance of which it is an aspect or conception. But it cannot be a substance, as it does not exist by itself. The transcendental attributes are those which belong to a being because it is a being: there are three of them, the one, the true and the good, each adding something positive to the idea of being. The word attribute has been and still is used more readily, with various implications, by substantialist systems. In the 17th century, for example, it denoted the actual manifestations of substance. [Thus, Descartes regarded extension and thought as the two ultimate, simple and original attributes of reality, all else being modifications of them. With Spinoza, extension and thought became the only known attributes of Deity, each expressing in a definite manner, though not exclusively, the infinite essence of God as the only substance. The change in the meaning of substance after Hume and Kant is best illustrated by this quotation from Whitehead: "We diverge from Descartes by holding that what he has described as primary attributes of physical bodies, are really the forms of internal relationships between actual occasions and within actual occasions" (Process and Reality, p. 471).] The use of the notion of attribute, however, is still favoured by contemporary thinkers. Thus, John Boodin speaks of the five attributes of reality, namely: Energy (source of activity), Space (extension), Time (change), Consciousness (active awareness), and Form (organization, structure). In theodicy, the term attribute is used for the essential characteristics of God. The divine attributes are the various aspects under which God is viewed, each being treated as a separate perfection. As God is free from composition, we know him only in a mediate and synthetic way thrgugh his attributes. In logic, an attribute is that which is predicated or anything, that which Is affirmed or denied of the subject of a proposition. More specifically, an attribute may be either a category or a predicable; but it cannot be an individual materially. Attributes may be essential or accidental, necessary or contingent. In grammar, an attribute is an adjective, or an adjectival clause, or an equivalent adjunct expressing a characteristic referred to a subject through a verb. Because of this reference, an attribute may also be a substantive, as a class-name, but not a proper name as a rule. An attribute is never a verb, thus differing from a predicate which may consist of a verb often having some object or qualifying words. In natural history, what is permanent and essential in a species, an individual or in its parts. In psychology, it denotes the way (such as intensity, duration or quality) in which sensations, feelings or images can differ from one another. In art, an attribute is a material or a conventional symbol, distinction or decoration.
Augmented_reality ::: is an enhanced version of the real physical world through the use of visual elements, sound or other sensory stimuli. It is a growing trend among companies involved in mobile computing and business applications in particular. Amid the rise of data collection and analysis, one of augmented reality’s primary goals is to highlight specific features of the physical world, increase understanding of those features and derive smart and accessible insight that can be applied to real-world applications. Such big data can help inform companies' decision-making and gain insight into consumer spending habits, among others.
avyakta ::: unmanifest, latent, concealed; the unmanifestation, unmanifest principle; [in samkhya]: the primary unmanifest seed-state of the manifest active eightfold nature of things; [in vedanta]: the power involved or inherent in unmanifest Spirit or Self out of which cosmos comes and into which it returns.
Backup Domain Controller "networking" (BDC) A server in a {network} of {Microsoft Windows} computers that maintains a copy of the {SAM} database and handles access requests that the {Primary Domain Controller} (PDC) doesn't respond to. There may be zero or more BDCs in a network. They increase reliability and reduce load on the PDC. (2006-09-18)
Backup Domain Controller ::: (networking) (BDC) A server in a network of Microsoft Windows computers that maintains a copy of the SAM database and handles access requests that the Primary Domain Controller (PDC) doesn't respond to. There may be zero or more BDCs in a network. They increase reliability and reduce load on the PDC.(2006-09-18)
basic anxiety: in Horney's psychodynamic theory, an intense sense of isolation and helplessness which is the primary source of human motivation.
bells and whistles "jargon" (By analogy with the "toyboxes" on theatre organs). Features added to a program or system to make it more {flavourful} from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily adding to its utility for its primary function. Distinguished from {chrome}, which is intended to attract users. "Now that we've got the basic program working, let's go back and add some bells and whistles." No one seems to know what distinguishes a bell from a whistle. [{Jargon File}] (2007-04-03)
Besides the universal intelligible being of things, Aristotle was also primarily concerned with an investigation of the being of things from the standpoint of their generation and existence. But only individual things are generated and exist. Hence, for him, substance was primarily the individual: a "this" which, in contrast with the universal or secondary substance, is not communicable to many. The Aristotelian meaning of substance may be developed from four points of view: Grammar: The nature of substance as the ultimate subject of predication is expressed by common usage in its employment of the noun (or substantive) as the subject of a sentence to signify an individual thing which "is neither present in nor predicable of a subject." Thus substance is grammatically distinguished from its (adjectival) properties and modifications which "are present in and predicable of a subject." Secondary substance is expressed by the universal term, and by its definition which are "not present in a subject but predicable of it." See Categoriae,) ch. 5. Physics: Independence of being emerges as a fundamental characteristic of substance in the analysis of change. Thus we have: Substantial change: Socrates comes to be. (Change simply). Accidental change; in a certain respect only: Socrates comes to be 6 feet tall. (Quantitative). Socrates comes to be musical (Qualitative). Socrates comes to be in Corinth (Local). As substantial change is prior to the others and may occur independently of them, so the individual substance is prior in being to the accidents; i.e., the accidents cannot exist independently of their subject (Socrates), but can be only in him or in another primary substance, while the reverse is not necessarily the case. Logic: Out of this analysis of change there also emerges a division of being into the schema of categories, with the distinction between the category of substance and the several accidental categories, such as quantity, quality, place, relation, etc. In a corresponding manner, the category of substance is first; i.e., prior to the others in being, and independent of them. Metaphysics: The character of substance as that which is present in an individual as the cause of its being and unity is developed in Aristotle's metaphysical writings, see especiallv Bk. Z, ch. 17, 1041b. Primary substnnce is not the matter alone, nor the universal form common to many, but the individual unity of matter and form. For example, each thing is composed of parts or elements, as an organism is composed of cells, yet it is not merely its elements, but has a being and unity over and above the sum of its parts. This something more which causes the cells to be this organism rather than a malignant growth, is an example of what is meant by substance in its proper sense of first substance (substantia prima). Substance in its secondary sense (substantia secunda) is the universal form (idea or species) which is individuated in each thing.
BJC4000 A colour {bubble jet} printer from {Canon}. Released in September 1994. It features 720 x 360 dots per inch in black and white mode and 360 x 360 in colour. It has two cartridges: one for black and one for the three primary colours so it prints true black when printing in colour. (1994-11-29)
BJC4000 ::: A colour bubble jet printer from Canon. Released in September 1994. It features 720 x 360 dots per inch in black and white mode and 360 x 360 in colour. It has two cartridges: one for black and one for the three primary colours so it prints true black when printing in colour. (1994-11-29)
Blavatsky also states that all the matter of the universe, when analyzed by science to its ultimates, yields only four elements: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. These four are the basis of organic matter, and are correlated with the four lower human principles: hydrogen with kama and with the primary creative powers, so that the trinity of Mother-Father-Son corresponds to hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen (SD 2:592-3).
Blavatsky calls the anugraha creation a blind, “for it refers to a purely mental process: the cognition of the ‘ninth’ creation, which, in its turn, is an effect, manifesting in the secondary of that which was a ‘Creation’ in the Primary (Prakrita) Creation. The Eighth, then, called Anugraha (the Pratyayasarga or the intellectual creation of the Sankhyas . . .), is ‘that creation of which we have a perception’ — in its esoteric aspect — and ‘to which we give intellectual assent (Anugraha) in contradistinction to organic creation.’ It is the correct perception of our relations to the whole range of ‘gods’ and especially of those we bear to the Kumaras — the so-called ‘Ninth Creation’ — which is in reality an aspect of or reflection of the sixth in our manvantara (the Vaivasvata)” (SD 1:456).
Blood Rites Ceremonies, covenants, and observances in which blood is used as part of the rites or performances. “The arcane doctrine teaches that the ‘blood’ rites are as old as the Third-Root race, being established in their final form by the Fourth Parent race in commemoration of the separation of androgynous mankind, their forefathers, into males and females” (BCW 8:251). Whatever sacred meaning may have entered into this primary memorial of the ethereal forms and forces of androgynous humanity becoming separate, physicalized, warm-blooded bodies, has been forgotten, misunderstood, or perverted in the exoteric rites which have come down to us.
Mutual Inductance - Measures the amount of overlap between the magnetic flux produced in one coil and that which passes through a second coil, thus the amount of EMP induced in a secondary coil by the varying flux in the primary coil.
primary ::: a. --> First in order of time or development or in intention; primitive; fundamental; original.
First in order, as being preparatory to something higher; as, primary assemblies; primary schools.
First in dignity or importance; chief; principal; as, primary planets; a matter of primary importance.
Earliest formed; fundamental.
Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some
primary cache ::: (hardware, architecture) (L1 cache, level one cache) A small, fast cache memory inside or close to the CPU chip.For example, an Intel 80486 has an eight-kilobyte on-chip cache, and most Pentiums have a 16-KB on-chip level one cache that consists of an 8-KB instruction cache and an 8-KB data cache.The larger, slower secondary cache is normally connected to the CPU via its external bus. (1997-06-25)
primary cache "hardware, architecture" (L1 cache, level one cache) A small, fast {cache} memory inside or close to the {CPU} chip. For example, an {Intel 80486} has an eight-{kilobyte} on-chip cache, and most {Pentiums} have a 16-KB on-chip level one cache that consists of an 8-KB {instruction cache} and an 8-KB {data cache}. The larger, slower {secondary cache} is normally connected to the CPU via its external {bus}. (1997-06-25)
primary carer: the individual that holds primary responsibility for the care of an infant, often the biological mother.
primary hierarchies voices and apparitions.
primary ideality ::: in May-June 1918, the same as inferior ideality during the same period; cf. the logistic ideality of 1919-20.
primary key ::: (database) A unique identifier, often an integer, that labels a certain row in a table of a relational database.When this value occurs in other tables as a reference to a particular row in the first table it is called a foreign key.Some RDBMSes can generate a new unique identifier each time a new row is inserted, others merely allow a column to be constrained to contain unique values.A table may have multiple candidate keys, from which the primary key is chosen. The primary key should be an arbitrary value, such as an autoincrementing columns with real-world meaning (e.g. a person's name) or other external identifier (e.g. social security number).There should be enough possible primary key values to cater for the current and expected number of rows, bearing in mind that a wider column will generally be slower to process.(2006-05-29)
primary key "database" A unique {identifier}, often an {integer}, that labels a certain row in a table of a {relational database}. When this value occurs in other tables as a reference to a particular row in the first table it is called a "foreign key". Some {RDBMS}es can generate a new unique identifier each time a new row is inserted, others merely allow a column to be constrained to contain unique values. A table may have multiple {candidate keys}, from which the primary key is chosen. The primary key should be an arbitrary value, such as an {autoincrementing} integer. This avoids dependence on uniqueness, permanence and format of existing columns with real-world meaning (e.g. a person's name) or other external identifier (e.g. social security number). There should be enough possible primary key values to cater for the current and expected number of rows, bearing in mind that a wider column will generally be slower to process. (2006-05-29)
primary logistic gnosis ::: same as intuitional ideality. primary utth utthapana
primary management domain ::: (messaging) (PRMD) The component of an X.400 electronic mail address that gives the organisation name, usually abbreviated to p= in written addresses.See also ADMD.(2003-05-15)
primary management domain "messaging" (PRMD) The component of an {X.400} {electronic mail address} that gives the organisation name, usually abbreviated to p= in written addresses. See also {ADMD}. (2003-05-15)
primary prevention: strategies that aim to prevent disease in currently healthy individuals, by focusing on the development of good health habits and discouraging poor ones.
primary reinforcer: reinforcers based on innate biological significance, such as food or water.
primary storage {main memory}
Primary Coil - Transformer coil that, when connected to voltage source, creates varying magnetic flux.
Primary Light Colors - Red, green, or blue light.
Primary Pigment - Yellow, Green or Magenta Light.
brain stem: the region at the top of the spinal cord, composed of three primary structures; the medulla, the pons and the midbrain.
bronchus ::: n. --> One of the subdivisions of the trachea or windpipe; esp. one of the two primary divisions.
Built-in Self Test (BIST) The technique of designing circuits with additional logic which can be used to test proper operation of the primary (functional) logic. (1995-02-14)
Built-in Self Test ::: (BIST) The technique of designing circuits with additional logic which can be used to test proper operation of the primary (functional) logic. (1995-02-14)
cache "memory management" /kash/ A small fast memory holding recently accessed data, designed to speed up subsequent access to the same data. Most often applied to processor-memory access but also used for a local copy of data accessible over a network etc. When data is read from, or written to, {main memory} a copy is also saved in the cache, along with the associated main memory address. The cache monitors addresses of subsequent reads to see if the required data is already in the cache. If it is (a {cache hit}) then it is returned immediately and the main memory read is aborted (or not started). If the data is not cached (a {cache miss}) then it is fetched from main memory and also saved in the cache. The cache is built from faster memory chips than main memory so a cache hit takes much less time to complete than a normal memory access. The cache may be located on the same {integrated circuit} as the {CPU}, in order to further reduce the access time. In this case it is often known as {primary cache} since there may be a larger, slower {secondary cache} outside the CPU chip. The most important characteristic of a cache is its {hit rate} - the fraction of all memory accesses which are satisfied from the cache. This in turn depends on the cache design but mostly on its size relative to the main memory. The size is limited by the cost of fast memory chips. The hit rate also depends on the access pattern of the particular program being run (the sequence of addresses being read and written). Caches rely on two properties of the access patterns of most programs: temporal locality - if something is accessed once, it is likely to be accessed again soon, and spatial locality - if one memory location is accessed then nearby memory locations are also likely to be accessed. In order to exploit spatial locality, caches often operate on several words at a time, a "{cache line}" or "cache block". Main memory reads and writes are whole {cache lines}. When the processor wants to write to main memory, the data is first written to the cache on the assumption that the processor will probably read it again soon. Various different policies are used. In a {write-through} cache, data is written to main memory at the same time as it is cached. In a {write-back} cache it is only written to main memory when it is forced out of the cache. If all accesses were writes then, with a write-through policy, every write to the cache would necessitate a main memory write, thus slowing the system down to main memory speed. However, statistically, most accesses are reads and most of these will be satisfied from the cache. Write-through is simpler than write-back because an entry that is to be replaced can just be overwritten in the cache as it will already have been copied to main memory whereas write-back requires the cache to initiate a main memory write of the flushed entry followed (for a processor read) by a main memory read. However, write-back is more efficient because an entry may be written many times in the cache without a main memory access. When the cache is full and it is desired to cache another line of data then a cache entry is selected to be written back to main memory or "flushed". The new line is then put in its place. Which entry is chosen to be flushed is determined by a "{replacement algorithm}". Some processors have separate instruction and data caches. Both can be active at the same time, allowing an instruction fetch to overlap with a data read or write. This separation also avoids the possibility of bad {cache conflict} between say the instructions in a loop and some data in an array which is accessed by that loop. See also {direct mapped cache}, {fully associative cache}, {sector mapping}, {set associative cache}. (1997-06-25)
cache ::: (memory management) /kash/ A small fast memory holding recently accessed data, designed to speed up subsequent access to the same data. Most often applied to processor-memory access but also used for a local copy of data accessible over a network etc.When data is read from, or written to, main memory a copy is also saved in the cache, along with the associated main memory address. The cache monitors memory read is aborted (or not started). If the data is not cached (a cache miss) then it is fetched from main memory and also saved in the cache.The cache is built from faster memory chips than main memory so a cache hit takes much less time to complete than a normal memory access. The cache may be the access time. In this case it is often known as primary cache since there may be a larger, slower secondary cache outside the CPU chip.The most important characteristic of a cache is its hit rate - the fraction of all memory accesses which are satisfied from the cache. This in turn depends on the cache design but mostly on its size relative to the main memory. The size is limited by the cost of fast memory chips.The hit rate also depends on the access pattern of the particular program being run (the sequence of addresses being read and written). Caches rely on two operate on several words at a time, a cache line or cache block. Main memory reads and writes are whole cache lines.When the processor wants to write to main memory, the data is first written to the cache on the assumption that the processor will probably read it again soon. to main memory at the same time as it is cached. In a write-back cache it is only written to main memory when it is forced out of the cache.If all accesses were writes then, with a write-through policy, every write to the cache would necessitate a main memory write, thus slowing the system down to because an entry may be written many times in the cache without a main memory access.When the cache is full and it is desired to cache another line of data then a cache entry is selected to be written back to main memory or flushed. The new line is then put in its place. Which entry is chosen to be flushed is determined by a replacement algorithm.Some processors have separate instruction and data caches. Both can be active at the same time, allowing an instruction fetch to overlap with a data read or say the instructions in a loop and some data in an array which is accessed by that loop.See also direct mapped cache, fully associative cache, sector mapping, set associative cache. (1997-06-25)
candidate key "database" One of several possible attributes or combinations of attributes which can be used to uniquely identify a body of information (a "{record}"). The chosen candidate key is called the {primary key}. (2006-05-29)
candidate key ::: (database) One of several possible attributes or combinations of attributes which can be used to uniquely identify a body of information (a record). The chosen candidate key is called the primary key.(2006-05-29)
Cardinal virtues: The cardinal virtues for a given culture are those which it regards as primary, the others being regarded either as derived from them or as relatively unimportant. Thus the Greeks had four: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice; to which the Christians added three: faith, hope, and love or charity.
Cardinal virtues: The cardinal virtues for a given culture are those which it regards as primary, the others being regarded either as derived from them or as relatively unimportant. Thus the Greeks had four, wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, to which the Christians added three, faith, hope, and love or charity. -- W.K.S.
Cartesianism: The philosophy of the French thinker, Rene Descartes (Cartesius) 1596-1650. After completing his formal education at the Jesuit College at La Fleche, he spent the years 1612-1621 in travel and military service. The reminder of his life was devoted to study and writing. He died in Sweden, where he had gone in 1649 to tutor Queen Christina. His principal works are: Discours de la methode, (preface to his Geometric, Meteores, Dieptrique) Meditationes de prima philosophia, Principia philosophiae, Passions de l'ame, Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Le monde. Descartes is justly regarded as one of the founders of modern epistemology. Dissatisfied with the lack of agreement among philosophers, he decided that philosophy needed a new method, that of mathematics. He began by resolving to doubt everything which could not pass the test of his criterion of truth, viz. the clearness and distinctness of ideas. Anything which could pass this test was to be readmitted as self-evident. From self-evident truths, he deduced other truths which logically follow from them. Three kinds of ideas were distinguished: innate, by which he seems to mean little more than the mental power to think things or thoughts; adventitious, which come to him from without; factitious, produced within his own mind. He found most difficulty with the second type of ideas. The first reality discovered through his method is the thinking self. Though he might doubt nearly all else, Descartes could not reasonably doubt that he, who was thinking, existed as a res cogitans. This is the intuition enunciated in the famous aphorism: I think, therefore I am, Cogito ergo sum. This is not offered by Descartes as a compressed syllogism, but as an immediate intuition of his own thinking mind. Another reality, whose existence was obvious to Descartes, was God, the Supreme Being. Though he offered several proofs of the Divine Existence, he was convinced that he knew this also by an innate idea, and so, clearly and distinctly. But he did not find any clear ideas of an extra-mental, bodily world. He suspected its existence, but logical demonstration was needed to establish this truth. His adventitious ideas carry the vague suggestion that they are caused by bodies in an external world. By arguing that God would be a deceiver, in allowing him to think that bodies exist if they do not, he eventually convinced himself of the reality of bodies, his own and others. There are, then, three kinds of substance according to Descartes: Created spirits, i.e. the finite soul-substance of each man: these are immaterial agencies capable of performing spiritual operations, loosely united with bodies, but not extended since thought is their very essence. Uncreated Spirit, i.e. God, confined neither to space nor time, All-Good and All-Powerful, though his Existence can be known clearly, his Nature cannot be known adequately by men on earth, He is the God of Christianity, Creator, Providence and Final Cause of the universe. Bodies, i.e. created, physical substances existing independently of human thought and having as their chief attribute, extension. Cartesian physics regards bodies as the result of the introduction of "vortices", i.e. whorls of motion, into extension. Divisibility, figurability and mobility, are the notes of extension, which appears to be little more thin what Descartes' Scholastic teachers called geometrical space. God is the First Cause of all motion in the physical universe, which is conceived as a mechanical system operated by its Maker. Even the bodies of animals are automata. Sensation is the critical problem in Cartesian psychology; it is viewed by Descartes as a function of the soul, but he was never able to find a satisfactory explanation of the apparent fact that the soul is moved by the body when sensation occurs. The theory of animal spirits provided Descartes with a sort of bridge between mind and matter, since these spirits are supposed to be very subtle matter, halfway, as it were, between thought and extension in their nature. However, this theory of sensation is the weakest link in the Cartesian explanation of cognition. Intellectual error is accounted for by Descartes in his theory of assent, which makes judgment an act of free will. Where the will over-reaches the intellect, judgment may be false. That the will is absolutely free in man, capable even of choosing what is presented by the intellect as the less desirable of two alternatives, is probably a vestige of Scotism retained from his college course in Scholasticism. Common-sense and moderation are the keynotes of Descartes' famous rules for the regulation of his own conduct during his nine years of methodic doubt, and this ethical attitude continued throughout his life. He believed that man is responsible ultimately to God for the courses of action that he may choose. He admitted that conflicts may occur between human passions and human reason. A virtuous life is made possible by the knowledge of what is right and the consequent control of the lower tendencies of human nature. Six primary passions are described by Descartes wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sorrow. These are passive states of consciousness, partly caused by the body, acting through the animal spirits, and partly caused by the soul. Under rational control, they enable the soul to will what is good for the body. Descartes' terminology suggests that there are psychological faculties, but he insists that these powers are not really distinct from the soul itself, which is man's sole psychic agency. Descartes was a practical Catholic all his life and he tried to develop proofs of the existence of God, an explanation of the Eucharist, of the nature of religious faith, and of the operation of Divine Providence, using his philosophy as the basis for a new theology. This attempted theology has not found favor with Catholic theologians in general.
caucus ::: n. --> A meeting, especially a preliminary meeting, of persons belonging to a party, to nominate candidates for public office, or to select delegates to a nominating convention, or to confer regarding measures of party policy; a political primary meeting. ::: v. i. --> To hold, or meet in, a caucus or caucuses.
Central Channel ::: In the etheric body, this is the main channel that runs vertically down the physical body. It is related to the spine and central nervous system and establishes a central conduit for the movement of awareness as it snaps to and coheres around the primary chakras.
"Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection. Reflections themselves of the Real, they again are reflected in the more concrete workings of our existence. The Supramental Manifestation
Churning of the Ocean The agitation of milk, separating the uniform fluid into butter and buttermilk, is used as a figure with various applications, but chiefly to a stage in cosmogenesis when the one cosmic substance becomes differentiated into the “cosmic curds.” By this churning, according to the Hindu tale, is produced amrita, the cosmic soma, the fluid of immortality; but inevitably at the same time is produced visha (poison), this being the polar qualities in the cosmic forces, and likewise in ethics good and evil. The Ocean of Milk or Life, space, is churned by the gods; the radiant essence curdled and spread throughout the depths. It is said in the Satapatha-Brahmana that this took place in satya yuga, but the reference here is to cosmic yugas, a period before the earth’s earliest formation. The allegory however may apply to the initial stages of cycles of various magnitudes, and has also astronomical and geographical applications to the formation of world-stuff out of primary matter and to the dvipas or climatic zones, whether celestial or terrestrial, which are spoken of as seas of milk or of curds.
citta (chitta) ::: the "primary stuff of consciousness" which is "universal in Nature, but is subconscient and mechanical in nature of Matter"; the "pervading and possessing action of consciousness" in the living body which forms into the sense-mind (manas); it consists of a lower layer of passive memory in which "the impressions of all things seen, thought, sensed, felt are recorded", and a higher layer (also called manas-citta) of the emotional mind where "waves of reaction and response . . . rise up from the basic consciousness"; also short for cittakasa.
Class: (Socio-economic) Central in Marxian social theory (see Historical materialism) the term class signifies a group of persons having, in respect to the means of production, such a common economic relationship as brings them into conflict with other groups having a different economic relationship to these means. For example, slaves and masters, serfs and lords, proletariat and capitalists are considered pairs of classes basic respectively to ancient, medieval and modern economies. At the same time many subordinate classes or sub-classes are distinguished besides or within such primary ones. In "'Revolution and Counter-Revolution" for instance, Marx applies the term class to the following groups, feudal nobility, wealthy bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, small farmers, proletariat, agricultural laborers, subdividing the class of small farmers into two further "classes", peasant free-holders and feudal tenants. The conflict of interests involved has many manifestations, both economic and non-economic, all of which are considered part of the class struggle (q.v.) -- J.M.S.
CMYK "graphics" cyan, magenta, yellow, key. A {colour model} that describes each {colour} in terms of the quantity of each secondary colour (cyan, magenta, yellow), and "key" (black) it contains. The CMYK system is used for printing. For mixing of pigments, it is better to use the secondary colours, since they mix subtractively instead of additively. The secondary colours of light are cyan, magenta and yellow, which correspond to the primary colours of pigment (blue, red and yellow). In addition, although black could be obtained by mixing these three in equal proportions, in four-colour printing it always has its own ink. This gives the CMYK model. The K stands for "Key' or 'blacK,' so as not to cause confusion with the B in {RGB}. Alternative colour models are {RGB} and {HSB}. (1994-12-22)
COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS All consciousness is at the same time collective consciousness. This is so because there is no personal isolation, although only those who have acquired essential consciousness (46) can live in the collective consciousness.
There are innumerable kinds of collective consciousness: atomic, molecular, aggregate, world, planetary, systemic, and after these, different kinds of cosmic consciousness. The higher the kingdom attained by the monad, the more is embraced by the collective consciousness in which the self, with its self-consciousness preserved, experiences other selves as its own larger self.
Or, to put it differently, all consciousness in the whole cosmos constitutes a common, inevitable, indivisible unity in which every individual has a smaller or greater part, depending on the level of development he has attained. K 1.16.3ff
The collective consciousness is the primary and common one; the individual self-consciousness the individual must acquire by himself throughout ever higher natural kingdoms, this being possible because of his very participation in the collective consciousness. K 2.4.2
Anything that can form a collective consciousness by reason of some kind of relatedness, automatically constitutes one. K 2.4.4
Colors and sounds have great potency in practical magic, as cosmic powers can be evoked by an understanding use of the proper colors and sounds. The seven colors correspond with other septenates, such as the notes of the musical octave, the sacred planets, and the seven primary elements. It is the universal septenate viewed from a visual aspect as manifested light.
complication ::: n. --> The act or process of complicating; the state of being complicated; intricate or confused relation of parts; entanglement; complexity.
A disease or diseases, or adventitious circumstances or conditions, coexistent with and modifying a primary disease, but not necessarily connected with it.
Concurrence: The doctrine of Augustine that before the Fall it was possible for man not to sin, but he needed God's help, adjutorium sine quo non. After the Fall man needs God's grace or concurrence which acts with him, adjutotium quo, with which he must co-operate. The term also signifies, concursus, or the general cooperation of God, the primary cause, with the activity of all creatures, as secondary causes. -- J.J.R.
Conduit - The primary means by which something is transmitted.
Confounding Factors::: Variables that may introduce differences between cases and controls which do not reflect differences in the variables of primary interest.
context-sensitive menu "operating system" A {menu} which appears in response to a user action (typically a {mouse} click) and whose contents are determined by which {application window} was clicked or has the {input focus}. Most {GUIs} use a secondary mouse button (right or middle) to call up a context-sensitive menu as the {primary mouse button} is normally used to interact with objects which are already visible. The context-sensitive menu often contains functions that are also available in a {menu bar} but the context-sensitive menu provides quick access to a subset of functions that are particularly relevant to the window area clicked on. The {RISC OS} {WIMP} uses only context-sensitive menus (always invoked using the middle mouse button). This saves screen space and reduces mouse movement compared to a {menu bar}. (1999-09-22)
context-sensitive menu ::: (operating system) A menu which appears in response to a user action (typically a mouse click) and whose contents are determined by which application window was clicked or has the input focus.Most GUIs use a secondary mouse button (right or middle) to call up a context-sensitive menu as the primary mouse button is normally used to interact with objects which are already visible.The context-sensitive menu often contains functions that are also available in a menu bar but the context-sensitive menu provides quick access to a subset of functions that are particularly relevant to the window area clicked on.The RISC OS WIMP uses only context-sensitive menus (always invoked using the middle mouse button). This saves screen space and reduces mouse movement compared to a menu bar. (1999-09-22)
COSMIC MOTION Cosmic motion (in the 49 atomic kinds) is the result of a constant current of primordial atoms (primary matter) flowing down from the highest atomic world through the atoms of all the worlds unto the lowest world. These primordial atoms then return to the highest world to begin their circulation anew, and this continues as long as the existence of the lower worlds is necessary. There are two kinds of atoms: negative and positive. In the negative (receptive), material energy flows from a higher atomic kind to a lower; in the positive (propulsive), from a lower to a higher. It is this current that maintains the atoms, molecules, material aggregates, in their given forms. K 1.27.1 (P 2.57.2, 2.12.7)
1) In P, the opposite polarity is stated because the starting-point is the opposite and so the terminology is adapted to this condition.
Cost accumulation - Collection of costs in an organized fashion by means of a cost accounting system. There are two primary approaches to cost accumulation: JOB ORDER and PROCESS COSTING. Under a job order system, the three basic elements of manufacturing costs - direct materials, direct labour, and factory overhead are accumulated according to assigned job numbers. Under a process cost system, manufacturing costs are accumulated according to processing department or cost centre.
(c) Secondary Modes (or Forms), namely, Major Yang, Minor Yang, Major Yin, and Minor Yin, which are engendered by the Two Primary Modes, Yin and Yang, products of the Great Ultimate (T'ai Chi).
Cupid [from Latin cupido desire, equivalent to Greek eros] A being symbolizing desire in the various senses of the term, ranging from that primary formative force which brings about the union of spirit and matter, to erotic passion. See also EROS; KAMA; PSYCHE
Cyrix 6x86 "processor" (6x86) {IBM} and {Cyrix}'s {sixth-generation}, 64-bit {80x86}-compatible {microprocessor}. The 6x86 combines aspects of both {RISC} and {CISC}. It has a {superscalar}, {superpipelined} {core}, and performs {register renaming}, {speculative execution}, {out-of-order completion}, and {data dependency removal}. It has a 16-kilobyte {primary cache} and is socket-compatible with the {Pentium} P54C. It has four performance levels: PR 120+, PR 150+, PR 166+ and PR 200+. The chip was designed by Cyrix and is manufactured by IBM. The architecture of the 6x86 is more advanced than that of the Pentium, incorporating some of the features of Intel's {Pentium Pro}. At a given {clock rate} it executes most code more quickly than a Pentium would. However, its {FPU} is considerably less efficient than Intel's. {IBM FAQ (http://chips.ibm.com/products/x86/6x86/faqs/6x86_faqs.html)}, {Cyrix FAQ (http://cyrix.com/process/prodinfo/6x86/faq-6x86.htm)}. (1997-05-26)
Cyrix 6x86 ::: (processor) (6x86) IBM and Cyrix's sixth-generation, 64-bit 80x86-compatible microprocessor. The 6x86 combines aspects of both RISC and has a 16-kilobyte primary cache and is socket-compatible with the Pentium P54C. It has four performance levels: PR 120+, PR 150+, PR 166+ and PR 200+.The chip was designed by Cyrix and is manufactured by IBM.The architecture of the 6x86 is more advanced than that of the Pentium, incorporating some of the features of Intel's Pentium Pro. At a given clock rate it executes most code more quickly than a Pentium would. However, its FPU is considerably less efficient than Intel's. , . (1997-05-26)
data abstraction "data" Any representation of data in which the implementation details are hidden (abstracted). {Abstract data types} and {objects} are the two primary forms of data abstraction. [Other forms?]. (2003-07-03)
data abstraction ::: (data) Any representation of data in which the implementation details are hidden (abstracted). Abstract data types and objects are the two primary forms of data abstraction.[Other forms?].(2003-07-03)
daybook ::: n. --> A journal of accounts; a primary record book in which are recorded the debts and credits, or accounts of the day, in their order, and from which they are transferred to the journal.
Defense Data Network Network Information Center (DDN NIC or just "The NIC") The {DDN} {NIC}'s primary responsibility is the assignment of {Internet address}es and {Autonomous System numbers}, the administration of the root domain, and providing information and support services to the {DDN}. It is also a primary repository for {RFCs}. See also {Internet Registry}. (1994-12-07)
Defense Data Network Network Information Center ::: (DDN NIC or just The NIC) The DDN NIC's primary responsibility is the assignment of Internet addresses and Autonomous System numbers, the administration of the root domain, and providing information and support services to the DDN. It is also a primary repository for RFCs.See also Internet Registry. (1994-12-07)
Delivered Source Instruction "programming, unit" (DSI) One line of source code (LOC) developed by a project. DSI is the primary input to many tools for estimating software cost. The term "delivered" is generally meant to exclude non-delivered support software such as test drivers. However, if these are developed with the same care as delivered software, with their own reviews, test plans, documentation, etc., then they should be counted. The "source instructions" include all program instructions created by project personnel and processed into {machine code} by some combination of preprocessors, compilers, and assemblers. It excludes comments and unmodified utility software. It includes {job control language}, format statements, and data declarations. (1996-05-29)
Delivered Source Instruction ::: (programming, unit) (DSI) One line of source code (LOC) developed by a project.DSI is the primary input to many tools for estimating software cost. The term delivered is generally meant to exclude non-delivered support software such as utility software. It includes job control language, format statements, and data declarations. (1996-05-29)
demon ::: 1. (operating system) (Often used equivalently to daemon, especially in the Unix world, where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic). A program or part of a program which is not invoked explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur.At MIT they use demon for part of a program and daemon for an operating system process.Demons (parts of programs) are particularly common in AI programs. For example, a knowledge-manipulation program might implement inference rules as demons. could continue with whatever its primary task was. This is similar to the triggers used in relational databases.The use of this term may derive from Maxwell's Demons - minute beings which can reverse the normal flow of heat from a hot body to a cold body by only and it is only in the absence of such a supply that heat must necessarily flow from hot to cold.Walt Bunch believes the term comes from the demons in Oliver Selfridge's paper Pandemonium, MIT 1958, which was named after the capital of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost. Selfridge likened neural cells firing in response to input patterns to the chaos of millions of demons shrieking in Pandemonium.2. (company) Demon Internet Ltd.3. A program generator for differential equation problems.[N.W. Bennett, Australian AEC Research Establishment, AAEC/E142, Aug 1965].[Jargon File] (1998-09-04)
demon 1. "operating system" (Often used equivalently to {daemon}, especially in the {Unix} world, where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic). A program or part of a program which is not invoked explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. At {MIT} they use "demon" for part of a program and "daemon" for an {operating system} process. Demons (parts of programs) are particularly common in {AI} programs. For example, a {knowledge}-manipulation program might implement {inference rules} as demons. Whenever a new piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main program could continue with whatever its primary task was. This is similar to the {triggers} used in {relational databases}. The use of this term may derive from "Maxwell's Demons" - minute beings which can reverse the normal flow of heat from a hot body to a cold body by only allowing fast moving molecules to go from the cold body to the hot one and slow molecules from hot to cold. The solution to this apparent thermodynamic paradox is that the demons would require an external supply of energy to do their work and it is only in the absence of such a supply that heat must necessarily flow from hot to cold. Walt Bunch believes the term comes from the demons in Oliver Selfridge's paper "Pandemonium", MIT 1958, which was named after the capital of Hell in Milton's "Paradise Lost". Selfridge likened neural cells firing in response to input patterns to the chaos of millions of demons shrieking in Pandemonium. 2. "company" {Demon Internet} Ltd. 3. A {program generator} for {differential equation} problems. [N.W. Bennett, Australian AEC Research Establishment, AAEC/E142, Aug 1965]. [{Jargon File}] (1998-09-04)
Dependent - Person who derives primary support from another party. In order for a person to qualify as a dependent for federal income tax exemption purposes, five tests must be met: support test, gross income test, joint return test, citizenship or residency test, and relationship or member of household test.
deuterozooid ::: n. --> One of the secondary, and usually sexual, zooids produced by budding or fission from the primary zooids, in animals having alternate generations. In the tapeworms, the joints are deuterozooids.
Dhaivata (Sanskrit) Dhaivata The sixth of the seven primary musical notes of the Hindu scale. See also SHADJA
Dialectic: (Gr. dia + legein, discourse) The beginning of dialectic Aristotle is said to have attributed to Zeno of Elea. But as the art of debate by question and answer, its beginning is usually associated with the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues. As conceived by Plato himself, dialectic is the science of first principles which differs from other sciences by dispensing with hypotheses and is, consequently, "the copingstone of the sciences" -- the highest, because the clearest and hence the ultimate, sort of knowledge. Aristotle distinguishes between dialectical reasoning, which proceeds syllogistically from opinions generally accepted, and demonstrative reasoning, which begins with primary and true premises; but he holds that dialectical reasoning, in contrast with eristic, is "a process of criticism wherein lies the path to the principles of all inquiries." In modern philosophy, dialectic has two special meanings. Kant uses it as the name of that part of his Kritik der reinen Vernunft which deals critically with the special difficulties (antinomies, paralogisms and Ideas) arising out of the futile attempt (transcendental illusion) to apply the categories of the Understanding beyond the only realm to which they can apply, namely, the realm of objects in space and time (Phenomena). For Hegel, dialectic is primarily the distinguishing characteristic of speculative thought -- thought, that is, which exhibits the structure of its subject-matter (the universal, system) through the construction of synthetic categories (synthesis) which resolve (sublate) the opposition between other conflicting categories (theses and antitheses) of the same subject-matter. -- G.W.C.
diploblastic ::: a. --> Characterizing the ovum when it has two primary germinal layers.
divided into 3 primary choirs called (by Fludd)
dual boot "operating system" Any system offering the user the choice of two {operation systems} (OSes) under which to start a computer. A dual boot system allows the user to run programs for both operating systems on a single computer (though not simultaneously). The term "multiple boot" or "multiboot" extends the idea to more than two OSes. The OSes are generally unaware of each other's existence. They are installed on separate {hard disk} {partitions} or on separate disks. They may be able to access each other's files, possibly via some extra {driver} software if they use different {file systems}. The OSes need not be completely different - they might be different versions of {Microsoft Windows} (e.g. {Windows XP} and {Windows NT}) or {Linux} (e.g. {Debian} and {Fedora}). A dual boot system differs from an {emulator} such as {vmware}, which runs one or more OSes "on top" of the primary OS, using its resources. (2005-02-01)
dual boot ::: (operating system) Any system offering the user the choice of two operation systems (OSes) under which to start a computer. A dual boot system (though not simultaneously). The term multiple boot or multiboot extends the idea to more than two OSes.The OSes are generally unaware of each other's existence. They are installed on separate hard disk partitions or on separate disks. They may be able to access each other's files, possibly via some extra driver software if they use different file systems.The OSes need not be completely different - they might be different versions of Microsoft Windows (e.g. Windows XP and Windows NT) or Linux (e.g. Debian and Fedora).A dual boot system differs from an emulator such as vmware, which runs one or more OSes on top of the primary OS, using its resources.(2005-02-01)
eclipse ::: n. --> An interception or obscuration of the light of the sun, moon, or other luminous body, by the intervention of some other body, either between it and the eye, or between the luminous body and that illuminated by it. A lunar eclipse is caused by the moon passing through the earth&
Economic_forecasting ::: is the process of attempting to predict the future condition of the economy using a combination of important and widely followed indicators. Economic forecasting typically tries to come up with a future gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, involving the building of statistical models with inputs of several key variables, or indicators. Some of the primary economic indicators include inflation, interest rates, industrial production, consumer confidence, worker productivity, retail sales and unemployment rates, to name several.
Economic structure - The classification of a country according to the proportion of output produced by the primary sector, secondary sector and tertiary sectors.
Ectoplasm: A term coined by Professor Richet (a contraction of the Greek words ektos, exteriorized, and plasma, substance) for the mysterious protoplasmic substance which streams forth from the bodies of mediums, producing super-physical phenomena, including materializations, under manipulation by a discarnate intelligence. Ectoplasm is described as matter which is invisible and impalpable in its primary state, but assuming the state of a vapor, liquid or solid, according to its stage of condensation. It emits an ozone-like smell. The ectoplasm is considered by spiritualists to be the materialization of the astral body.
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was the first to apply the name "Phänomenologie" to a whole philosophy. His usage, moreover, has largely determined the senses commonly attached to it and cognate words in the Twentieth Century. In his Logische Untersuchungen (1900-01), Husserl gave the name to such investigations and theories as make up most of that work and of the only published volume of his Philosophie der Arithmetik (1891). This established what was to remain the primary denotation of the term in all his later writings. On the other hand -- owing to changes in his concept of his unchanging theme -- the explicit connotation of the term, as used by him, underwent development and differentiation.
Effect: (in Scholasticism) Formal: is the effect of a formal cause a primary and intrinsic formal effect is a concrete composite, or a designation resulting from form united to an apt subject. (i.e. to a subject capable of receiving that form) e.g. the formal primary and intrinsic effect of heat by which water is made warm is the warm water itself, so also a holy man is the formal effect of grace united to man. But that which is called secondary and extrinsic is any effect whether positive or negative, which so results, from the union of form with its subject that it may be adequately distinguished from or remain extrinsic to the form, e.g. the driving out of cold from the water. -- H.G.
elderfuthark ::: Elder Futhark The Elder Futhark is the oldest of the runic alphabets, and consists of three sets of eight letters. The primary characteristic distinguishing runic alphabets from others is that each letter, or rune, has a specific meaning. Although runecasting is classed as 'divination', a runecaster does not see, or even attempt to see into the future. Instead, he/she examines the cause and effect and points out a probable outcome. Odin, the Norse God, supposedly hung upside down for nine days in order to gain 'the wisdom of the runes'.
elemental ::: a. --> Pertaining to the elements, first principles, and primary ingredients, or to the four supposed elements of the material world; as, elemental air.
Pertaining to rudiments or first principles; rudimentary; elementary.
endogen ::: n. --> A plant which increases in size by internal growth and elongation at the summit, having the wood in the form of bundles or threads, irregularly distributed throughout the whole diameter, not forming annual layers, and with no distinct pith. The leaves of the endogens have, usually, parallel veins, their flowers are mostly in three, or some multiple of three, parts, and their embryos have but a single cotyledon, with the first leaves alternate. The endogens constitute one of the great primary classes of plants, and included all
escape literature: Fiction written with the primary purpose being for the reader to escape from reality.
Essence: (Lat. essentia, fr. essens, participle of esse, to be) The being or power of a thing; necessary internal relation or function. The Greek philosophers identified essence and substance in the term, ousia. In classic Latin essence was the idea or law of a thing. But in scholastic philosophy the distinction between essence and substance became important. Essence began to be identified, as in its root meaning, with being, or power. For Locke, the being whereby a thing is what it is. For Kant, the primary internal principle of all that belongs to the being of a thing. For Peirce, the intelligible element of the possibility of being. (a) In logic: definition or the elements of a thing; the genus and differentia. See Definition. (b) In epistemology: that intelligible character which defines what an indefinite predicate asserts. The universal possibility of a thing. Opposite of existence. Syn. with being, possibility. See Santayana's use of the term in Realm of Essence, as a hybrid of intuited datum and scholastic essence (q.v.). See Eternal object. -- J.K.F.
EUnet Ltd. EUnet Ltd. is jointly owned by the EUnet national service providers and {EurOpen}, the European Forum for Open Systems. EUnet services include {electronic mail} ({Internet}-style {RFC 822} as well as {X.400}), {InterEUnet} ({Internet Protocol}) connectivity and services such as {remote login} and {file transfer} over {leased lines}, {dial-up lines}, {X.25} and {Integrated Services Digital Network}. EUnet is the primary European region provider of {network news} and the top-level European distributor of {Internet Talk Radio}. EUnet operates its own infrastructure across Europe and is the largest European component of the {Internet}. EUnet is a member of {Commercial Internet Exchange} and {Ebone93}, a research network consortium. E-mail: "info@EU.net". {(http://eu.net/)}.
EUnet Ltd. ::: EUnet Ltd. is jointly owned by the EUnet national service providers and EurOpen, the European Forum for Open Systems.EUnet services include electronic mail (Internet-style RFC 822 as well as X.400), InterEUnet (Internet Protocol) connectivity and services such as remote Services Digital Network. EUnet is the primary European region provider of network news and the top-level European distributor of Internet Talk Radio.EUnet operates its own infrastructure across Europe and is the largest European component of the Internet. EUnet is a member of Commercial Internet Exchange and Ebone93, a research network consortium.E-mail: .
existence from one of the primary properties.
Expressionism: In aesthetics, the doctrine that artistic creation is primarily an expressive act, a process of clarifying and manifesting the impressions, emotions, intuitions, and attitudes of the artist. Such theories hold that art has its foundation in the experiences and feelings of its creator; it is a comment on the artist's soul, not on any external object, and its value depends on the freshness and individuality of this creative spirit. The artist is he who feels strongly and clearly; his art is a record of what he has felt. It is maintained that the artist has no responsibility to respect reality nor to please an audience, and the primary synonyms of beauty become sincerity, passion, and originality. -- J.J.
Family Race In theosophy, each of the main seven racial cycles is first divided into seven primary subraces, each of which is again divided into seven secondary or sub-subraces, each of which latter is divided into seven so-called family races. The period of such a family race is generally given as that of the precessional cycle (25,920 years).
Fascism ::: A social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms.
Field research - Primary research.
Fire is spoken of as the Primary in the Stanzas of Dzyan: “The Spirit, beyond manifested Nature, is the fiery breath in its absolute Unity. In the manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial god. And in, on, and around the Earth, the fiery Spirit thereof — air, fluidic fire; water, liquid fire; Earth, solid fire. All is fire — ignis, in its ultimate constitution, or I, the root of which is 0 (nought) in our conceptions, the All in nature and its mind. Pro-Mater is divine fire. It is the Creator, the Destroyer, the Preserver. The primitive names of the gods are all connected with fire, from Agni, the Aryan, to the Jewish god who ‘is a consuming fire’ ” (ibid.).
Flexible budget (variable budget) – A budget based on different volumes of activity. It is an extremely useful tool for the comparison the actual cost incurred to the cost that are allowed for a given activity level. It is dynamic by its nature rather than static. By using the cost volume formula (or flexible budget formula), a series of budgets can be developed easily for various levels of activity. Flexible budgeting is a way of distinguishing between the fixed and variable expenses, thus allowing for a more flexible budget that is able to be automatically adjusted (via changes in variable cost totals) to the particular level of activity which is actually achieved. Thus variances between actual costs and budgeted costs are adjusted for volume ups and downs before differences due to price and quantity factors are computed. The primary use of the flexible budget is for accurate measure of performance by comparing actual costs for a given output with the budgeted costs for the same level of output.
foreign key ::: (database) A column in a database table containing values that are also found in some primary key column (of a different table). By extension, any reference to entities of a different type.Some RDBMSs allow a column to be explicitly labelled as a foreign key and only allow values to be inserted if they already exist in the relevant primary key column.[Is it still a foregn key if the primary key is in a different column in the _same_ table?](2005-01-14)
foreign key "database" A {column} in a database {table} containing values that are also found in some {primary key} column (of a different table). By extension, any reference to entities of a different type. Some {RDBMSs} allow a column to be explicitly labelled as a foreign key and only allow values to be inserted if they already exist in the relevant primary key column. [Is it still a foreign key if the primary key is in a different column in the __same__ table?] (2005-01-14)
Four Elements: The four primary kinds of body recognized by the Greek philosophers, viz. fire, air, water, and earth. -- G.R.M.
Functional currency - Legal tender of the primary economic environment in which a company operates.
fundamental ::: a. --> Pertaining to the foundation or basis; serving for the foundation. Hence: Essential, as an element, principle, or law; important; original; elementary; as, a fundamental truth; a fundamental axiom. ::: n. --> A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article,
Gandhara (Sanskrit) Gāndhāra The third of the seven primary notes of the Hindu musical scale. See also SHADJA
Gharma-ja (Sanskrit) Gharma-ja [from gharma heat, warmth, perspiration from the verbal root ghṛ to moisten, wet (cf Greek thermos heat) + ja born] Sweat-born; title of Karttikeya, said to have been born of Siva’s vital sweat. Karttikeya is one of the most important of the kumaras of archaic Hindu occult legends, the kumaras being virginal divinities who sprang from the body of Brahma. As Brahma is the Third Logos, whatever minor parts the kumaras may play in subsequent cosmic history, their primary importance was in the building of the universe.
Greece. Homeric thought centered in Moira (Fate), an impersonal, immaterial power that distributes to gods and men their respective stations. While the main stream of pre-Socratic thought was naturalistic, it was not materialistic. The primordial Being of things, the Physis, is both extended and spiritual (hylozoism). Soul and Mind are invariably identified with Physis. Empedocles' distinction between inertia and force (Love and Hate) was followed by Anaxagoras' introduction of Mind (Nous) as the first cause of order and the principle of spontaneity or life in things. Socrates emphasized the ideological principle and introduced the category of Value as primary both in Nature and Man. He challenged the completeness of the mechanical explanation of natural events. Plato's theory of Ideas (as traditionally interpreted by historians) is at once a metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. Ideas, forming a hierarchy and systematically united in the Good, are timeless essences comprising the realm of true Being. They are archetypes and causes of things in the realm of Non-Being (Space). Aristotle, while moving in the direction of common-sense realism, was also idealistic. Forms or species are secondary substances, and collectively form the dynamic and rational structure of the World. Active reason (Nous Poietikos), possessed by all rational creatures, is immaterial and eternal. Mind is the final cause of all motion. God is pure Mind, self-contained, self-centered, and metaphysically remote from the spatial World. The Stoics united idealism and hylozoistic naturalism in their doctrine of dynamic rational cosmic law (Logos), World Soul, Pneuma, and Providence (Pronoia).
(g) The problem of the structure of the knowledge-situation is to determine with respect to each of the major kinds of knowledge just enumerated -- but particularly with respect to perception -- the constituents of the knowledge-situation in their relation to one another. The structural problem stated in general but rather vague terms is: What is the relation between the subjective and objective components of the knowledge-situation? In contemporary epistemology, the structural problem has assumed a position of such preeminence as frequently to eclipse other issues of epistemology. The problem has even been incorporated by some into the definition of philosophy. (See A. Lalande, Vocabulaire de la Philosophie, art. Theorie de la Connaissance. I. and G.D. Hicks, Encycl. Brit. 5th ed. art. Theory of Knowledge.) The principal cleavage in epistemology, according to this formulation of its problem, is between a subjectivism which telescopes the object of knowledge into the knowing subject (see Subjectivism; Idealism, Epistemological) and pan-objectivism which ascribes to the object all qualities perceived or otherwise cognized. See Pan-obiectivism. A compromise between the extrernes of subjectivism and objectivism is achieved by the theory of representative perception, which, distinguishing between primary and secondary qualities, considers the former objective, the latter subjective. See Representative Perception, Theory of; Primary Qualities; Secondary Qualities.
Hazard Ranking System (HRS) ::: The principle screening tool used by EPA to evaluate risks to public health and the environment associated with abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The HRS calculates a score based on the potential of hazardous substances spreading from the site through the air, surface water, or groundwater, and on other factors such as density and proximity of human population. This score is the primary factor in deciding if the site should be on the National Priorities List and, if so, what ranking it should have compared to other sites on the list.
hello packet ::: (networking, communications) An OSPF packet sent periodically on each network interface, real or virtual, to discover and test connections to multicasting or broadcasting to enable dynamic router discovery. They include the parameters that routers connected to a common network must agree on.Hello packets increase network resilience by, e.g., allowing a router to establish a secondary connection when a primary connection fails. (1999-11-02)
hello packet "networking, communications" An {OSPF} {packet} sent periodically on each {network interface}, real or {virtual}, to discover and test connections to neighbours. Hello packets are multicast on physical networks capable of {multicasting} or {broadcasting} to enable dynamic {router} discovery. They include the parameters that routers connected to a common network must agree on. Hello packets increase network resilience by, e.g., allowing a router to establish a secondary connection when a primary connection fails. (1999-11-02)
Hermes says that matter becomes; formerly it was — profound expressions indeed; and Fichte expresses the same idea in his distinction between Seyn and Daseyn. In this sense, matter or worlds may be said to be brought forth or created, with the significance of becoming. See also PRIMARY CREATION; SECONDARY CREATION
Hetu (Sanskrit) Hetu Cause, motive, impulse; in the Nyaya system of philosophy, a logical reason or deduction or argument; the reason for an inference, applied especially to the second member or avayava of the five-membered syllogism. In Buddhism, a primary cause, opposed to pratyaya (concurrent cause).
Hobbes, Thomas: (1588-1679) Considering knowledge empirical in origin and results, and philosophy inference of causes from effects and vice versa, regarded matter and motion as the least common denominators of all our percepts, and bodies and their movements as the only subject matter of philosophy. Consciousness in its sensitive and cognitive aspects is a jarring of the nervous system; in its affectional and volitional, motor aspects, a kick-back to the jar. Four subdivisions of philosophy cover all physical and psychological events: geometry describing the spatial movements of bodies; physics, the effects of moving bodies upon one another; ethics, the movements of nervous systems; politics, the effects of nervous systems upon one another. The first law of motion appears in every organic body in its tendency, which in man becomes a natural right, to self-preservation and self-assertion. Hence the primary condition of all organic as of all inorganic bodies is one of collision, conflict, and war. The second law of motion, in its organic application, impels men to relinquish a portion of their natural right to self-assertion in return for a similar relinquishment on the part of their fellows. Thus a component of the antagonistic forces of clashing individual rights and wills is established, embodied in a social contract, or treaty of peace, which is the basis of the state. To enforce this social covenant entered into, pursuant to the second law of motion, by individuals naturally at war in obedience to the first, sovereignty must be set up and exercised through government. Government is most efficient when sovereignty, which has in any case to be delegated in a community of any size, is delegated to one man -- an absolute monarch -- rather than to a group of men, or a parliament.
Holy Ghost [from Greek hagion pneuma holy spirit or breath] The Holy Ghost or Spirit in the Occident usually means the Third Person of the Christian Trinity or Triune God. The typical form of the primary philosophic and cosmogonic triad is Father-Mother-Son with the female potency figuring both as mother, wife, and daughter of the Son. The Holy Ghost is strictly speaking the feminine principle in the Christian Trinity, and in primitive Christianity was counted the second in serial order or procession, although in later times the West, led by the Roman Catholic Church, transferred the position of the Holy Ghost from second to third. Thus the original series was Father, Holy Ghost or Mother, and Son, whereas the Occident now reckons the series in the procession as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and this difference of opinion which arose in the Middle Ages was one of the great factors splitting the Christian Church into the Eastern or Greek Orthodox and the Western. In Christianity, the Son is said to be God made manifest in a particular man; the Holy Ghost is the divine spirit which works in all men and brings them into conformity with the image of the Son or Christ.
hue ::: n. --> Color or shade of color; tint; dye.
A predominant shade in a composition of primary colors; a primary color modified by combination with others.
A shouting or vociferation.
Humanism: (Lat. humanus, human) Any view in which interest in human welfare is central. Renaissance revival of classical learning as opposed to merely ecclesiastical studies. An ethical and religious movement culminating in Auguste Comte's "Worship of Humanity," better known as Humanitarianism. Philosophical movement represented by F. C. S. Schiller in England, better known as Pragmatism. See Pragmatism. Literary Humanism, movement led in America by Irving Babbit, Paul Elmer More, Norman Foerster protesting against extreme emphasis on vocational education and recommending return to a classical type of liberal education or study of "the Humanities." Sociological term for tendency to extend ideals, such as love, loyalty, kindness, service, honesty, which normally prevail in primary or intimate groups to guide conduct in non-primary or impersonal groups. Religious Humanism is any view which does not consider belief in a deity vital to religion, though not necessarily denying its existence and not necessarily denying practical value to such belief. Represented by a group of left-wing Unitarian ministers and university professors who, in May, 1933, published "The Humanist Manifesto," wherein religion is broadly viewed as a "shared quest for the good life" and social justice and social reform are stressed as important in religious endeavor.
Hurd "operating system" The {GNU} project's replacement for the {Unix} {kernel}. The Hurd is a collection of {servers} that run on the {Mach} {microkernel} to implement {file systems}, {network protocols}, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels such as {Linux}. The GNU {C Library} provides the {Unix} {system call} interface, and calls the Hurd for services it can't provide itself. The Hurd aims to establish a framework for shared development and maintenance, allowing a broad range of users to share projects without knowing much about the internal workings of the system - projects that might never have been attempted without freely available source, a well-designed interface, and a multi-server-based design. Currently there are free ports of the {Mach} {kernel} to the {Intel 80386} {IBM PC}, the {DEC} {PMAX} {workstation}, the {Luna} {88k}, with more in progress, including the {Amiga} and {DEC} {Alpha}-3000 machines. According to Thomas Bushnell, BSG, the primary architect of the Hurd: 'Hurd' stands for 'Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons' and 'Hird' stands for 'Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. Possibly the first software to be named by a pair of {mutually recursive} acronyms. {The Hurd Home (http://gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html)}. [June 1994 GNU's Bulletin]. (2004-02-24)
Hurd ::: (operating system) The GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement Library provides the Unix system call interface, and calls the Hurd for services it can't provide itself.The Hurd aims to establish a framework for shared development and maintenance, allowing a broad range of users to share projects without knowing much about the without freely available source, a well-designed interface, and a multi-server-based design.Currently there are free ports of the Mach kernel to the Intel 80386 IBM PC, the DEC PMAX workstation, the Luna 88k, with more in progress, including the Amiga and DEC Alpha-3000 machines.According to Thomas Bushnell, BSG, the primary architect of the Hurd: 'Hurd' stands for 'Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons' and 'Hird' stands for 'Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. Possibly the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms. .[June 1994 GNU's Bulletin].(2004-02-24)
Hylosystemism: A cosmological theory developed by Mitterer principally, which explains the constitution of the natural inorganic body as an atomary energy system. In opposition to hylomorphism which is considered inadequate in the field of nuclear physics, this system maintains that the atom of an element and the molecule of a compound are reallv composed of subatomic particles united into a dynamic system acting as a functional unit. The main difference between the two doctrines is the hylomeric constitution of inorganic matter: the plurality of parts of a particle form a whole which is more than the sum of the parts, and which gives to a body its specific essence. While hylomorphism contends that no real substantial change can occur in a hylomeric constitution besides the alteration of the specific form, hvlosystemism maintains that in substantial change more remains than primary matter and more changes than the substantial form. -- T.G.
Hylotheism: (Gr. hyle matter, and theism q.v.). A synonym for either pantheism or materialism in that this doctrine identifies mattei and god, or has the one merge into the other. -- K.F.L Hylozoism: (Gr. hyle, mattei -- zoe, life) The doctrine that life is a property of matter, that matter and life are inseparable, that life is derived from matter, or that matter has spiritual properties. The conception of nature as alive or animated, of reality as alive. The original substance as bearing within itself the cause of all motion and change. The early Greek cosmologists of the Milesian school made statements which implied a belief in life for their primary substances. For Straton of Lampsacus each of the ultimate particles of matter possesses life. For the Stoics the universe as a whole is alive. For Spinoza different kinds of things possess life in different grades. -- J.K F.
ideality ::: the supra-intellectual faculty (vijñana) with its powers of smr.ti (consisting of intuition and discrimination), sruti (or inspiration) and dr.s.t.i (or revelation), usually distinguished from (but sometimes including) vijñanabuddhi or intuitive mind. The plane of ideality or vijñana generally referred to in the early period of the Record of Yoga appears to be what in 1918 was designated primary / inferior ideality, above which Sri Aurobindo then distinguished a secondary / superior ideality. In 1919, the lower plane came to be called logistic ideality in a scheme of three planes, of which the higher two were termed hermetic ideality (later srauta vijñana) and seer ideality. Up to 1920, "ideality" by itself continued to refer mainly to the first of these planes.
identifier ::: 1. (programming, operating system) A formal name used in source code to refer to a variable, function, procedure, package, etc. or in an operating system to refer to a process, user, group, etc.Each different type of entity may have a different range of valid identifiers or name space. For example, an identifier in C is a series of one or more has a type, e.g. integer variable, hash, variant and a scope, e.g. block, global.(2006-05-29)2. (database) (id) A primary key. The column containing a table's primary key is frequently named after the table with _id appended, e.g. customer_id.(2006-05-29)
identifier 1. "programming, operating system" A formal name used in {source code} to refer to a {variable}, {function}, {procedure}, {package}, etc. or in an {operating system} to refer to a {process}, {user}, {group}, etc. Each different type of entity may have a different range of valid identifiers or "name space". For example, an identifier in {C} is a series of one or more letters, digits and {underscores} that does not begin with a digit. An identifier has a type, e.g. integer variable, {hash}, {variant} and a {scope}, e.g. {block}, {global}. (2006-05-29) 2. "database" (id) A {primary key}. The column containing a table's primary key is frequently named after the table with "_id" appended, e.g. "customer_id". (2006-05-29)
::: "Identity is the first truth of existence; division is the second truth; all division is a division in oneness. There is one Existence which looks at itself from many self-divided unities observing other similar and dissimilar self-divided unities by the device of division. Being is one; division is a device or a secondary condition of consciousness; but the primary truth of consciousness also is a truth of oneness and identity.” Essays Divine and Human
“Identity is the first truth of existence; division is the second truth; all division is a division in oneness. There is one Existence which looks at itself from many self-divided unities observing other similar and dissimilar self-divided unities by the device of division. Being is one; division is a device or a secondary condition of consciousness; but the primary truth of consciousness also is a truth of oneness and identity.” Essays Divine and Human
idiopathy ::: n. --> A peculiar, or individual, characteristic or affection.
A morbid state or condition not preceded or occasioned by any other disease; a primary disease.
Imma Ila&
Impact statement - A document that analyses the projected effects of a contemplated project. A primary reference point within this statement concerns probable externalities (e.g., negative implications to the environment). An example would be the proposal of a large industrial corporation located on an upriver site to dump some level of pollutants into the air and streams. The proposal would lead to an environmental impact statement about the effects upon health.
implacentalia ::: n. pl. --> A primary division of the Mammalia, including the monotremes and marsupials, in which no placenta is formed.
In harmony with Kant's major concern in his other Critiques, -- namely the establishment of lawfulness in each respective sphere (of scientific knowledge, of moral action, and of artistic and religious hopefulness) -- Kant's primary aim in ethics is the unification or synthesis of the field of action. Since, however, action is ever changing and since eternally new and creative possibilities of action are constantly coming into view, Kant saw that lawfulness in the ethical sphere could not be of either a static or predetermined nature.
In his chief work, the Ethica, Spinoza's teaching is expressed in a manner for which geometry supplies the model. This expository device served various purposes. It may be interpreted as a clue to Spinoza's ideal of knowledge. So understood, it represents the condensed and ordered expression, not of 'philosophy' alone, but rather of all knowledge, 'philosophy' and 'science', as an integrated system. In such an ideal ordering of ideas, (rational) theology and metaphysics provide the anchorage for the system. On the one hand, the theology-metaphysics displays the fundamental principles (definitions, postulates, axioms) upon which the anchorage depends, and further displays in deductive fashion the primary fund of ideas upon which the inquiries of science, both 'descriptive' and 'normative' must proceed. On the other hand, the results of scientific inquiry are anchored at the other end, by a complementary metaphysico-theological development of their significance. Ideally, there obtains, for Spinoza, both an initial theology and metaphysics -- a necessary preparation for science -- and a culminating theology and metaphysics, an interpretative absorption of the conclusions of science.
initiate ::: Initiate Someone who has undergone, or is about to undergo, the primary rite of entry into an order or Pagan/Neopagan organisation.
In most arguments about the nature of space, space is unconsciously assumed at the outset of the inquiry, so that the reasoning becomes viciously circular. Is space the ultimate residue left after we have removed everything conceivable? In that case how can we define it in terms of anything which is supposed to be derived from it? We must either leave it undefined, as a primary postulate, or else define it in terms of something which lies beyond the physical plane altogether.
Integrated Services Digital Network "communications" (ISDN) A set of communications {standards} allowing a single wire or {optical fibre} to carry voice, digital network services and video. ISDN is intended to eventually replace the {plain old telephone system}. ISDN was first published as one of the 1984 {ITU-T} {Red Book} recommendations. The 1988 {Blue Book} recommendations added many new features. ISDN uses mostly existing {Public Switched Telephone Network} (PSTN) switches and wiring, upgraded so that the basic "call" is a 64 kilobits per second, all-digital end-to-end channel. {Packet} and {frame} modes are also provided in some places. There are different kinds of ISDN connection of varying bandwidth (see {DS level}): DS0 = 1 channel PCM at 64 kbps T1 or DS1 = 24 channels PCM at 1.54 Mbps T1C or DS1C = 48 channels PCM at 3.15 Mbps T2 or DS2 = 96 channels PCM at 6.31 Mbps T3 or DS3 = 672 channels PCM at 44.736 Mbps T4 or DS4 = 4032 channels PCM at 274.1 Mbps Each channel here is equivalent to one voice channel. DS0 is the lowest level of the circuit. T1C, T2 and T4 are rarely used, except maybe for T2 over microwave links. For some reason 64 kbps is never called "T0". A {Basic Rate Interface} (BRI) is two 64K "bearer" channels and a single "delta" channel ("2B+D"). A {Primary Rate Interface} (PRI) in North America and Japan consists of 24 channels, usually 23 B + 1 D channel with the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI usually has 30 B + 1 D channel and an {E1} interface. A {Terminal Adaptor} (TA) can be used to connect ISDN channels to existing interfaces such as {EIA-232} and {V.35}. Different services may be requested by specifying different values in the "Bearer Capability" field in the call setup message. One ISDN service is "telephony" (i.e. voice), which can be provided using less than the full 64 kbps bandwidth (64 kbps would provide for 8192 eight-bit samples per second) but will require the same special processing or {bit diddling} as ordinary PSTN calls. Data calls have a Bearer Capability of "64 kbps unrestricted". ISDN is offered by local telephone companies, but most readily in Australia, France, Japan and Singapore, with the UK somewhat behind and availability in the USA rather spotty. (In March 1994) ISDN deployment in Germany is quite impressive, although (or perhaps, because) they use a specifically German signalling specification, called {1.TR.6}. The French {Numeris} also uses a non-standard protocol (called {VN4}; the 4th version), but the popularity of ISDN in France is probably lower than in Germany, given the ludicrous pricing. There is also a specifically-Belgian V1 experimental system. The whole of Europe is now phasing in {Euro-ISDN}. See also {Frame Relay}, {Network Termination}, {SAPI}. {FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.dcom.isdn/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.isdn}. (1998-03-29)
Integrated Services Digital Network ::: (communications) (ISDN) A set of communications standards allowing a single wire or optical fibre to carry voice, digital network services and video. ISDN is intended to eventually replace the plain old telephone system.ISDN was first published as one of the 1984 ITU-T Red Book recommendations. The 1988 Blue Book recommendations added many new features. ISDN uses mostly so that the basic call is a 64 kilobits per second, all-digital end-to-end channel. Packet and frame modes are also provided in some places.There are different kinds of ISDN connection of varying bandwidth (see DS level): DS0 = 1 channel PCM at 64 kbpsT1 or DS1 = 24 channels PCM at 1.54 Mbps used, except maybe for T2 over microwave links. For some reason 64 kbps is never called T0.A Basic Rate Interface (BRI) is two 64K bearer channels and a single delta channel (2B+D). A Primary Rate Interface (PRI) in North America and Japan interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI usually has 30 B + 1 D channel and an E1 interface.A Terminal Adaptor (TA) can be used to connect ISDN channels to existing interfaces such as EIA-232 and V.35.Different services may be requested by specifying different values in the Bearer Capability field in the call setup message. One ISDN service is require the same special processing or bit diddling as ordinary PSTN calls. Data calls have a Bearer Capability of 64 kbps unrestricted.ISDN is offered by local telephone companies, but most readily in Australia, France, Japan and Singapore, with the UK somewhat behind and availability in the USA rather spotty.(In March 1994) ISDN deployment in Germany is quite impressive, although (or perhaps, because) they use a specifically German signalling specification, Germany, given the ludicrous pricing. There is also a specifically-Belgian V1 experimental system. The whole of Europe is now phasing in Euro-ISDN.See also Frame Relay, Network Termination, SAPI. .Usenet newsgroup: comp.dcom.isdn. (1998-03-29)
Internet Protocol version 6 ::: (networking, protocol) (IPv6, IPng, IP next generation) The most viable candidate to replace the current Internet Protocol. The primary purpose of IPv6 is to solve the problem of the shortage of IP addresses.The following features have been purposed: 16-byte addresses instead of the current four bytes; embedded encryption - a 32-bit Security Association ID Configuration Protocol); support for delay-sensitive traffic - a 24 bit flow ID field in headers to denote voice or video, etc.One possible solution is based on the TUBA protocol (RFC 1347, 1526, 1561) which is itself based on the OSI Connectionless Network Protocol (CNLP). Another is TP/IX (RFC 1475) which changes TCP and UDP headers to give a 64-bit IP address, a 32-bit port number, and a 64 bit sequence number.RFC 1550 is a white paper on IPng. .[Doubts About IPng could create TCP/IP chaos, Johna Till Johnson, Data Communications, Nov 1994].(2004-06-17)
Internet Protocol version 6 "networking, protocol" (IPv6, IPng, IP next generation) The most viable candidate to replace the current {Internet Protocol}. The primary purpose of IPv6 is to solve the problem of the shortage of {IP addresses}. The following features have been purposed: 16-byte addresses instead of the current four bytes; embedded {encryption} - a 32-bit {Security Association ID} (SAID) plus a variable length initialisation vector in {packet} headers; user {authentication} (a 32-bit SAID plus variable length {authentication} data in headers); autoconfiguration (currently partly handled by {Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol}); support for {delay-sensitive traffic} - a 24 bit flow ID field in headers to denote voice or video, etc. One possible solution is based on the {TUBA} protocol (RFC 1347, 1526, 1561) which is itself based on the {OSI} {Connectionless Network Protocol} (CNLP). Another is {TP/IX} (RFC 1475) which changes {TCP} and {UDP} headers to give a 64-bit {IP address}, a 32-bit {port} number, and a 64-bit sequence number. {RFC 1550} is a white paper on IPng. {IPv6.org (http://ipv6.org/)}. ["Doubts About IPng could create TCP/IP chaos", Johna Till Johnson, Data Communications, Nov 1994]. (2004-06-17)
In the Hindu zodiac the sixth sign is also named the Virgin, Kanya and is presided over by Karttikeya, the god of war. Subba Row says that Kanya represents Sakti or Mahamaya, and its number six indicates that there are six primary forces in nature, which in their unity represent the astral light, this unity thus making a seventh (Theosophist Nov 1881, p. 43). To this Blavatsky added: “Even the very name of Kanya (Virgin) shows how all the ancient esoteric systems agreed in all their fundamental doctrines. The Kabalists and the Hermetic philosophers call the Astral Light the ‘heavenly or celestial Virgin.’ The Astral Light in its unity is the 7th. Hence the seven principles diffused in every unity or the 6 and one — two triangles and a crown.”
In these circumstances real knowledge is very limited. "Universals" register superficial resemblances, not the real essences of things. Experience directly "intuits" identity and diversity, relations, coexistences and necessary connections in its content, and, aided by memory, "knows" the agreements and disagreements of ideas in these respects. We also feel directly (sensitive knowledge) that our experience comes from without. Moreover, though taste, smell, colour, sound, etc. are internal to ourselves (secondary qualities) extension, shape, rest, motion, unity and plurality (primary qualities) seem to inhere in the external world independently of our perception of it. Finally, we have "demonstrative knowledge" of the existence of God. But of anything other than God, we have no knowledge except such as is derived from and limited by the senses.
In the subconscient the intuition manifests itself in the action, in effectivity, and the knowledge or conscious identity is either entirely or more or less concealed in the action. In the superconscient, on the contrary, Light being the law and the principle, the intuition manifests itself in its true nature as knowledge emerging out of conscious identity, and effectivity of action is rather the accompaniment or necessary consequent and no longer masks as the primary fact. Between these two states reason and mind act as intermediaries which enable the being to liberate knowledge out of its imprisonment in the act and prepare it to resume its essential primacy. When the selfawareness in the mind applied both to continent and content, to own-self and other-self, exalts itself into the luminous selfmanifest identity, the reason also converts itself into the form of the self-luminous intuitional3 knowledge. This is the highest possible state of our knowledge when mind fulfils itself in the supramental.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 72
intuitional intellectuality ::: the lowest level of idealised mentality, the "primary intuitive action" of the intuitive mind, which "dealing with the triple time movement . . . sees principally the stream of successive actualities in time, even as the ordinary mind, but with an immediate directness of truth and spontaneous accuracy of which the ordinary mind is not capable".
intuitionalism ::: n. --> The doctrine that the perception or recognition of primary truth is intuitive, or direct and immediate; -- opposed to sensationalism, and experientialism.
intuition ::: n. --> A looking after; a regard to.
Direct apprehension or cognition; immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness; -- distinguished from "mediate" knowledge, as in reasoning; as, the mind knows by intuition that black is not white, that a circle is not a square, that three are more than two, etc.; quick or ready insight or apprehension.
Any object or truth discerned by direct cognition; especially, a first or primary truth.
INVOLVATIONAL MATTER See PRIMARY MATTER
IPO (Initial public offering) - The first / primary offering of stock/shares to the public via listing on a public stock exchange.
i: The Great Unit. See t'ai i. T'ai Chi: The Great Ultimate or Terminus, which, in the beginning of time, "engenders the Two Primary Modes (i), which in turn engender the Four Secondary Modes or Forms (hsiang), which in their turn give rise to the Eight Elements (pa kua) and the Eight Elements determine all good and evil and the great complexity of life." (Ancient Chinese philosophy). The Great Ultimate which comes from, but is originally one with, the Non-Ultimate (wu chi). Its movement and tranquillity engender the active principle, yang, and the passive principle, yin, respectively (the Two Primary Modes), the transformation and the union of which give rise to the Five Agents (wu hsing) of Water, Fire, Wood, Metal, and Earth, and thereby the determinate things (Chou Lien-hsi, 1017-1073). The Great Ultimate which is One and unmoved, and which, when moved, becomes the Omnipotent Creative Principle (shen) which engenders Number, then Form, and finally corporeality. Being such, the Great Ultimate is identical with the Mind, it is identical with the Moral Law (tao). (Shao K'ang-chieh, 1011-1077) The Great Ultimate which is identical with the One (1), or the Grand Harmony (T'ai Ho). (Chang Heng-ch'u, 1020-1077). The Great Ultimate which is identical with the Reason (li) of the universe, of the two (yin and yang) vital forces (ch'i), and of the Five Elements (wu hsing). It is the Reason of ultimate goodness. ''Collectively there is only one Great Ultimate, but there is a Great Ultimate in each thing" (Chu Hsi, 1130-1200).
It is in his biology that the distinctive concepts of Aristotle show to best advantage. The conception of process as the actualization of determinate potentiality is well adapted to the comprehension of biological phenomena, where the immanent teleology of structure and function is almost a part of the observed facts. It is here also that the persistence of the form, or species, through a succession of individuals is most strikingly evident. His psychology is scarcely separable from his biology, since for Aristotle (as for Greek thought generally) the soul is the principle of life; it is "the primary actualization of a natural organic body." But souls differ from one another in the variety and complexity of the functions they exercise, and this difference in turn corresponds to differences in the organic structures involved. Fundamental to all other physical activities are the functions of nutrition, growth and reproduction, which are possessed by all living beings, plants as well as animals. Next come sensation, desire, and locomotion, exhibited in animals in varying degrees. Above all are deliberative choice and theoretical inquiry, the exercise of which makes the rational soul, peculiar to man among the animals. Aristotle devotes special attention to the various activities of the rational soul. Sense perception is the faculty of receiving the sensible form of outward objects without their matter. Besides the five senses Aristotle posits a "common sense," which enables the rational soul to unite the data of the separate senses into a single object, and which also accounts for the soul's awareness of these very activities of perception and of its other states. Reason is the faculty of apprehending the universals and first principles involved in all knowledge, and while helpless without sense perception it is not limited to the concrete and sensuous, but can grasp the universal and the ideal. The reason thus described as apprehending the intelligible world is in one difficult passage characterized as passive reason, requiring for its actualization a higher informing reason as the source of all intelligibility in things and of realized intelligence in man.
Judaism ::: Oldest of the three primary monotheistic faiths; Judaism traces it's philosophy and tradition through the Torah and cultural roots to the Land of Israel.
Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt, and his primary sacred animal is the eagle,[1] which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices[2] and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila). The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins.[3] As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline (“Capitol Hill”), where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus.[4] In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.
Kanya (Sanskrit) Kanyā Virgin; the sixth zodiacal sign, Virgo, which may represent mahamaya or sakti. The saktis or six primary forces in nature (parasakti, jnanasakti, ichchhasakti, kriyasakti, kundalinisakti, and mantrikasakti) together are represented by the astral light, called the heavenly or celestial Virgin by Kabalists and Hermetic philosophers.
Karma (Sanskrit) Karma [from the verbal root kṛ to do, make, denoting action] Action, the causes and consequences of action; that which produces change. One of the primary postulates of every comprehensive system of philosophy, described as a universal law, unceasingly active throughout universal nature and rooted in cosmic harmony, in its operations existing from eternity, inevitable, inherent in the very nature of things. It is action, absolute harmony, the adjuster; it preserves equilibrium by compensating and adjusting all actions, excessive or defective. Hence it is called the law of retribution, implying neither reward nor punishment, based on nature’s own urge of harmonious equilibrium. As such it has been personalized as Nemesis and by many other names, a practice which lends itself to popular imagining of avenging deities, such as God or Gods, Furies, Fates, Destiny, etc. As there are no such things as inanimate beings in the universe, it is not surprising to hear of karmic agents and of scribes or lipika who record karma. Karma must necessarily be transmitted by living beings of one grade or another, because there is no other means possible, and universal nature is but a vast, virtually frontierless being whose entire structure, laws, and operations are the innumerable hierarchies of beings in all-various grades, which thus not only condition nature, but are in fact universal nature itself. By our acts we create living beings which act upon other people and ultimately react upon ourselves. These beings, then, are agents of karma on one plane; on higher planes other orders of beings are such agents.
Kindi: Of the tribe of Kindah, lived in Basra and Bagdad where he died 873. He is the first of the great Arabian followers of Aristotle whose influence is noticeable in Al Kindi's scientific and psychological doctrines. He wrote on geometry, astronomy, astrology, arithmetic, music (which he developed on arithmetical principles), physics, medicine, psychology, meteorology, politics. He distinguishes the active intellect from the passive which is actualized by the former. Discursive reasoning and demonstration he considers as achievements of a third and a fourth intellect. In ontology he seems to hypostasize the categories, of which he knows five: matter, form, motion, place, time, and which he calls primary substances. Al Kindi inaugurated the encyclopedic form of philosophical treatises, worked out more than a century later by Avicenna (q.v.). He also was the first to meet the violent hostility of the orthodox theologians but escaped persecution. A. Nagy, Die philos. Abhandlungen des Jacqub ben Ishaq al-Kindi, Beitr, z. Gesch. d. Phil. d. MA. 1897, Vol. II. -- R.A.
Kosa (Sanskrit) Kośa [from the verbal root kuś to hold, enclose, embrace] A sheath or covering; its primary meaning is of enfoldment or containment. Philosophically, it is generally rendered sheath or encasement, also sometimes principle by Blavatsky. Five are enumerated in Vedantic philosophy (the panchakosa), corresponding very closely with the theosophical sevenfold classification of human principles, as seen in the following table made by Subba Row:
L1 cache ::: primary cache
L1 cache {primary cache}
level 1 cache {primary cache}
level one cache {primary cache}
Levush (Garment; pl. levushim) :::Levush is one of the three primary &
Life-Atom ::: A learning, evolving entity, each one a unit in one or other of the numberless hosts or hierarchies of themwhich exist. A life-atom is a vital individualized vehicle or body of a spiritual monad, which latter is theconsciousness-center, the ultimate, noblest, highest, finest part of us. The heart of every life-atom is aspiritual monad. Life-atoms are young gods, embryo gods, and are, therefore, in a continuous process ofself-expressing themselves on the planes of matter.A life-atom may be briefly said to be the ensouling power in every primary or ultimate particle. An atomof physical matter is ensouled by such a life-atom, which is its pranic-astral-vital primary, the life-atomof it. The life-atom is not the physical atom, which latter is but its garment or vehicle and is compoundedof physical matter only, which breaks up when its term of life has run, and which will return again inorder to reimbody itself anew through the instrumentality and by the innate force or energy latent in itsensouling primary, the life-atom.In other words, the life-atom has a house of life, and this house of life is its body or physical atom; andthe life-atom itself is the lowest expression of the monadic light within that atomic house.
Life-atom In theosophical literature, the vital ensouling power or vital entified unit in every primary or ultimate physical particle, itself a vital quasi-conscious individualized vehicle of the spiritual monad or highest consciousness-center. A life-atom is not the physical atom of science, which is but the vehicle or garment of the former, compounded of physical or physical-astral matter only. This being so, an atom decomposes when its term of expression on this plane is ended, but it reimbodies itself again, doing so by the innate force or life which its ensouling monad (life-atom) radiates. The term does not mean the ultimates or primary particles of prana (life principle or life force). Prana, itself derivative from the jiva, is as an entity quite distinct from the atoms it animates. The physical atoms belong to the lowest or grossest state of matter on our plane, while jiva essentially is an emanation or outpouring from atman or paramatman.
literally ::: adv. --> According to the primary and natural import of words; not figuratively; as, a man and his wife can not be literally one flesh.
With close adherence to words; word by word.
L. L. Post, Introduction to a general theory of elementary propositions, American Journal of Mathematics, vol. 43 (1921), pp. 163-185. Truth-value: On the view that every proposition is either true or false, one may speak of a proposition as having one of two truth-values, viz. truth or falsehood. This is the primary meaning of the term truth-value, but generalizations have been consideied according to which there are more than two truth-values -- see propositional calculus, many-valued. -- A.C.
Logical Unit "networking" (LU) A primary component of {SNA}, an {LU} is a type of {NAU} that enables end users to communicate with each other and gain access to SNA network resources. (1997-04-30)
Logical Unit ::: (networking) (LU) A primary component of SNA, an LU is a type of NAU that enables end users to communicate with each other and gain access to SNA network resources. (1997-04-30)
Love, hope have their primary seat in the heart, so with pity etc.
Madhyama (Sanskrit) Madhyama The fourth or middle tone of the seven primary notes of the Hindu musical scale.
Mahatma (Sanskrit) Mahātman [from mahā great + ātman self] Great soul or self; relatively perfected human beings, also called teachers, elder brothers, Masters, sages, seers, etc. They are human beings who, through self-directed evolution and spiritual striving over many lifetimes, have attained a lofty spiritual and intellectual state. They are farther advanced evolutionarily than the majority of people, possessing great knowledge and powers; but their primary duty is the instruction and protection of mankind. From this body of advanced human beings, which has existed since humanity attained self-consciousness, have come the great teachers and the wisdom at the root of the world’s great religious, philosophic, and scientific systems.
mailing list "messaging" (Often shortened in context to "list") An {electronic mail address} that is an alias (or {macro}, though that word is never used in this connection) which is expanded by a {mail exploder} to yield many other e-mail addresses. Some mailing lists are simple "reflectors", redirecting mail sent to them to the list of recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be "moderated". The term is sometimes used, by extension, for the people who receive e-mail sent to such an address. Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction, along with {Usenet}. They predate {Usenet}, having originated with the first {UUCP} and {ARPANET} connections. They are often used for private information-sharing on topics that would be too specialised for or inappropriate to public {Usenet} groups. Though some of these maintain almost purely technical content (such as the {Internet Engineering Task Force} mailing list), others (like the "sf-lovers" list maintained for many years by Saul Jaffe) are recreational, and many are purely social. Perhaps the most infamous of the social lists was the eccentric bandykin distribution; its latter-day progeny, {lectroids} and {tanstaafl}, still include a number of the oddest and most interesting people in hackerdom. Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike {Usenet}) don't tie up a significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet face-to-face. There are several programs to automate mailing list maintenance, e.g. {Listserv}, {Listproc}, {Majordomo}. Requests to subscribe to, or leave, a mailing list should ALWAYS be sent to the list's "-request" address (e.g. ietf-request@cnri.reston.va.us for the IETF mailing list). This prevents them being sent to all recipients of the list and ensures that they reach the maintainer of the list, who may not actually read the list. [{Jargon File}] (2001-04-27)
mailing list ::: (messaging) (Often shortened in context to list) An electronic mail address that is an alias (or macro, though that word is never used in this varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be moderated.The term is sometimes used, by extension, for the people who receive e-mail sent to such an address.Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction, along with Usenet. They predate Usenet, having originated with the first UUCP and ARPANET distribution; its latter-day progeny, lectroids and tanstaafl, still include a number of the oddest and most interesting people in hackerdom.Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at which point they can created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet face-to-face.There are several programs to automate mailing list maintenance, e.g. Listserv, Listproc, Majordomo.Requests to subscribe to, or leave, a mailing list should ALWAYS be sent to the list's -request address (e.g. for the IETF ensures that they reach the maintainer of the list, who may not actually read the list.[Jargon File](2001-04-27)
MANIFESTATION, PROCESS OF The process of manifestation consists of: the process of involvation and evolvation, the process of involution and evolution, the process of expansion.
The process of manifestation is the process in which the cosmos is formed, maintained, developed, and finally dissolved. (K 2.11)
The entire cosmos constitutes one continuous process of manifestation in which all monads participate with their consciousness manifestations, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally. The higher the world or kingdom, the higher the kind of consciousness, the greater is the monad's contribution to the process of manifestation. K 4.6.1
In the process of manifestation, the monads are at first primary matter devoid of consciousness, are subsequently involved to form secondary matter, forming out of it aggregates (elementals) with passive consciousness. After their transition to evolution the monads are at first tertiary matter with faint self-active consciousness. Finally the monads become quaternary matter with sufficiently self-active consciousness to be able to involve into envelopes and become the selves in these.
McDougall, William: (1871-1938) Formerly of Oxford and later of Harvard and Duke Universities, was the leading exponent of purposive or "hormic" (from Gr. horme, impulse) psychology. "Purposive psychology . . . asserts that active striving towards a goal is a fundamental category of psychology, and is a process of a type that cannot be mechanistically explained or resolved into mechanistic sequences." Psychologies of 1930, p. 4. In his epoch-making book, Introduction to Social Psychology (1908), McDougall developed a purposive theory of the human instincts designed to serve as an adequate psychological foundation for the social sciences. His social psychology listed among the primary instincts of man: flight, repulsion, curiosity, self-abasement, self-assertion and the parental instinct. McDougall's teleological theory is psychological rather than metaphysical, but he believed that the psychological fact of purpose was a genuine instance of teleologilcal causation. (Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution, 1929.) He was also led by his psychological studies to adopt a metaphysical dualism and interactionism which he designated "animism." See Body and Mind, 1911. -- L.W.
Mean Time To Recovery "specification" (MTTR) The average time that a device will take to recover from a non-terminal failure. Examples of such devices range from self-resetting fuses (where the MTTR would be very short, probably seconds), up to whole systems which have to be replaced. The MTTR would usually be part of a maintenance contract, where the user would pay more for a system whose MTTR was 24 hours, than for one of, say, 7 days. This means the supplier is guaranteeing to have the system up and running again within 24 hours (or 7 days) of being notified of the failure. Some devices have a MTTR of zero, which means that they have redundant components which can take over the instant the primary one fails, see {RAID} for example. See also {Mean Time Between Failures}. (1998-05-01)
Mean Time To Recovery ::: (specification) (MTTR) The average time that a device will take to recover from a non-terminal failure. Examples of such devices range from self-resetting fuses (where the MTTR would be very short, probably seconds), up to whole systems which have to be replaced.The MTTR would usually be part of a maintenance contract, where the user would pay more for a system whose MTTR was 24 hours, than for one of, say, 7 days. This means the supplier is guaranteeing to have the system up and running again within 24 hours (or 7 days) of being notified of the failure.Some devices have a MTTR of zero, which means that they have redundant components which can take over the instant the primary one fails, see RAID for example.See also Mean Time Between Failures. (1998-05-01)
Metaphysical essence: (in Scholasticism) The complexus of notes which are in a thing, as it is conceived by us -- i.e. the principle and primary notes by which that thing is sufficiently understood and distinguished from other things. -- H.G.
Microsoft Exchange "messaging" {Microsoft}'s messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an {electronic mail} {message store} but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data. [Better descripton? URL?] (1999-09-17)
Microsoft Exchange ::: (messaging) Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.[Better descripton? URL?] (1999-09-17)
mimamsa. ::: "investigation"; an orthodox school of hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas &
MIPS Technologies, Inc. ::: (company) A company which designs, develops, and licenses reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessors and compilers. MIPS of MIPS Computer Systems which was founded in 1984 and merged with Silicon Graphics on 29 June 1992.MIPS Technologies developed the world's first RISC VLSI microprocessors (1985) (or was it the ARM?), the first commercial 64-bit microprocessor (MIPS R4000, the next generation general-purpose MIPS microprocessor and the most powerful processor in the world (October 1994).MIPS' semiconductor company partners participate in the design and development of MIPS processors and software and then produce, market, and support the Corporation, NKK Corporation, Philips Semiconductors, Siemens AG, and Toshiba Corporation.MIPS' products include:R4000 - 100 MHz; 1.35M transistors, primary i/d cache 8KB/8KB, SPECint92 58.3/ SPECfp92 61.4.R4300i - 133 MHZ, 1.35M transistors; primary i/d cache, 16KB/8KB, SPECint92 80, SPECfp92 60.R4400 - 250 MHz, 2.3M transistors, primary i/d cache 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 175.8, SPECfp92 164.4.R4600 - 133 MHz, 1.9M transistors, primary i/d cache 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 85, SPECfp92 75.R8000/R8010 - 90 MHz, 2.6M, .83M transistors, primary i/d cache, 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 132, SPECfp92 396.R10000 - 200 MHz, 6.7M transistors, primary i/d cache 32KB/32KB, SPECint92 >300, SPECfp92 >600.MIPS' processor chips were used in the DEC 3100 series of workstations. .Usenet newsgroup: comp.sys.mips. (1996-03-01)
MIPS Technologies, Inc. "company" A company which designs, develops, and licenses {reduced instruction set computer} (RISC) {microprocessors} and compilers. MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of {Silicon Graphics, Inc.} and operates as an independent unit. MIPS is the successor to the processor business of MIPS Computer Systems which was founded in 1984 and merged with Silicon Graphics on 29 June 1992. MIPS Technologies developed the world's first RISC {VLSI} microprocessors (1985) (or was it the {ARM}?), the first commercial 64-bit microprocessor ({MIPS R4000}, 1992), announced MIPS R4300i - the first 64-bit RISC processor designed for interactive consumer applications (April 1995). They announced the MIPS R10000 - the next generation general-purpose MIPS microprocessor and the most powerful processor in the world (October 1994). MIPS' semiconductor company partners participate in the design and development of MIPS processors and software and then produce, market, and support the processors. MIPS itself does not fabricate or sell products. MIPS' semiconductor partners are: {Integrated Device Technology}, {LSI Logic Corporation}, {NEC Corporation}, {NKK Corporation}, {Philips Semiconductors}, {Siemens AG}, and {Toshiba Corporation}. MIPS' products include: R4000 - 100 MHz; 1.35M transistors, primary i/d cache 8KB/8KB, SPECint92 58.3/ SPECfp92 61.4. R4300i - 133 MHZ, 1.35M transistors; primary i/d cache, 16KB/8KB, SPECint92 80, SPECfp92 60. R4400 - 250 MHz, 2.3M transistors, primary i/d cache 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 175.8, SPECfp92 164.4. R4600 - 133 MHz, 1.9M transistors, primary i/d cache 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 85, SPECfp92 75. R8000/R8010 - 90 MHz, 2.6M, .83M transistors, primary i/d cache, 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 132, SPECfp92 396. R10000 - 200 MHz, 6.7M transistors, primary i/d cache 32KB/32KB, SPECint92 "300, SPECfp92 "600. MIPS' processor chips were used in the {DEC 3100} series of {workstations}. {(http://mips.com/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.mips}. (1996-03-01)
monad ::: n. --> An ultimate atom, or simple, unextended point; something ultimate and indivisible.
The elementary and indestructible units which were conceived of as endowed with the power to produce all the changes they undergo, and thus determine all physical and spiritual phenomena.
One of the smallest flangellate Infusoria; esp., the species of the genus Monas, and allied genera.
A simple, minute organism; a primary cell, germ, or plastid.
monoplastic ::: a. --> That has one form, or retains its primary form, as, a monoplastic element.
Mossad ::: (Heb. Hamossad Le’mode’in U’le’tafkidim Meyuchadim) The Israeli government's intelligence agency. Like the CIA, it uses agents to collect intelligence, conduct covert operations and counterterrorism. Its primary focus is on terrorist organizations and the Arab nations.
mouse "hardware, graphics" The most commonly used computer {pointing device}, first introduced by {Douglas Engelbart} in 1968. The mouse is a device used to manipulate an on-screen {pointer} that's normally shaped like an arrow. With the mouse in hand, the computer user can select, move, and change items on the screen. A conventional {roller-ball mouse} is slid across the surface of the desk, often on a {mouse mat}. As the mouse moves, a ball set in a depression on the underside of the mouse rolls accordingly. The ball is also in contact with two small shafts set at right angles to each other inside the mouse. The rotating ball turns the shafts, and sensors inside the mouse measure the shafts' rotation. The distance and direction information from the sensors is then transmitted to the computer, usually through a connecting wire - the mouse's "tail". The computer then moves the mouse pointer on the screen to follow the movements of the mouse. This may be done directly by the {graphics adaptor}, but where it involves the processor the task should be assigned a high {priority} to avoid any perceptible delay. Some mice are contoured to fit the shape of a person's right hand, and some come in left-handed versions. Other mice are symmetrical. Included on the mouse are usually two or three buttons that the user may press, or click, to initiate various actions such as running {programs} or opening {files}. The left-most button (the {primary mouse button}) is operated with the index finger to select and activate objects represented on the screen. Different {operating systems} and {graphical user interfaces} have different conventions for using the other button(s). Typical operations include calling up a {context-sensitive menu}, modifying the selection, or pasting text. With fewer mouse buttons these require combinations of mouse and keyboard actions. Between its left and right buttons, a mouse may also have a wheel that can be used for scrolling or other special operations defined by the software. Some systems allow the mouse button assignments to be swapped round for left-handed users. Just moving the pointer across the screen with the mouse typically does nothing (though some CAD systems respond to patterns of mouse movement with no buttons pressed). Normally, the pointer is positioned over something on the screen (an {icon} or a {menu} item), and the user then clicks a mouse button to actually affect the screen display. The five most common "gestures" performed with the mouse are: {point} (to place the pointer over an on-screen item), {click} (to press and release a mouse button), {double-click} {to press and release a mouse button twice in rapid succession}, {right-click} (to press and release the right mouse button}, and {drag} (to hold down the mouse button while moving the mouse). Most modern computers include a mouse as standard equipment. However, some systems, especially portable {laptop} and {notebook} models, may have a {trackball}, {touchpad} or {Trackpoint} on or next to the {keyboard}. These input devices work like the mouse, but take less space and don't need a desk. Many other alternatives to the conventional roller-ball mouse exist. A {tailless mouse}, or {hamster}, transmits its information with {infrared} impulses. A {foot-controlled mouse (http://footmouse.com/)} is one used on the floor underneath the desk. An {optical mouse} uses a {light-emitting diode} and {photocells} instead of a rolling ball to track its position. Some optical designs may require a special mouse mat marked with a grid, others, like the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer, work on nearly any surface. {Yahoo! (http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Computers/Hardware/Peripherals/Input_Devices/Mice/)}. {(http://peripherals.about.com/library/weekly/aa041498.htm)}. {PC Guide's "Troubleshooting Mice" (http://pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/mice.htm)}. (1999-07-21)
Mukhya (Sanskrit) Mukhya As an adjective, first or primary. In the Puranas, seven creations of Brahma are enumerated, the fourth being called Mukhya, or the fundamental formation, production, or emanation of perceptible beings and things — the evolution or emanation of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. This creation is called primary (mukhya), and not secondary, because it relates to the primordial cosmic emanative activities. As such, although the fourth in certain enumerations, it is considered the first as productive of the rupa worlds below. The powers, prakritis, and vikaras beginning with these rupa worlds are alluded to as the secondary emanation.
mula prakriti. ::: the primary essence from which all things are formed
National Emissions Standards For Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPS)::: Emissions standards set by EPA for an air pollutant not covered by NAAQS that may cause an increase in fatalities or in serious, irreversible, or incapacitating illness. Primary standards are designed to protect human health, secondary standards to protect public welfare (e.g., building facades, visibility, crops, and domestic animals).
National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations::: Commonly referred to as NIPDWRs.
Night In ancient cosmogonies night is placed before day because these cosmogonies begin with the secondary cosmic creation; and the light which was then created was contrasted with what seemed, relatively, the eternal darkness of primary creation. For manifested light proceeds from absolute light, which by contrast has to be called darkness.
nirukta ::: etymology; philology, part of sahitya: the study of the origins and development of language, especially with reference to Sanskrit, with the aim of creating "a science which can trace the origins, growth & structure of the Sanscrit language, discover its primary, secondary & tertiary forms & the laws by which they develop from each other, trace intelligently the descent of every meaning of a word in Sanscrit from its original root sense, account for all similarities & identities of sense, discover the reason of unexpected divergences, trace the deviations which separated Greek & Latin from the Indian dialect, discover & define the connection of all three with the Dravidian forms of speech".
Nishada (Sanskrit) Niṣāda The seventh of the seven primary notes of the Hindu musical scale. See also SHADJA
Node [from Latin nodus knot] Astronomically, the two points of intersection of the orbit of a planet with the ecliptic, or the two points of intersection of the orbit of a satellite with the plane of the orbit of its primary. The point at which the moving body is going north is called the north node or ascending node; the other is the south or descending node. These nodes have a motion opposite to that of the moving orb, and it is very slow in comparison with the speed of the moving orb. The spinning of a gyroscope illustrates the matter. The moon’s nodes revolve in 18.6 years; they are known in Hindu astrology as Rahu and Ketu, the Head and Tail of the dragon. They are also used in modern astrology. These nodes, and those of the planets with reference to the ecliptic, mark important cycles of time. The period of the moon’s nodes is not commensurate with the period of the moon’s revolution; approximate coincidence of the two cycles marks eclipses.
node ::: n. --> A knot, a knob; a protuberance; a swelling.
One of the two points where the orbit of a planet, or comet, intersects the ecliptic, or the orbit of a satellite intersects the plane of the orbit of its primary.
The joint of a stem, or the part where a leaf or several leaves are inserted.
A hole in the gnomon of a dial, through which passes the ray of light which marks the hour of the day, the parallels of the sun&
Occult and spiritual ::: The spiritual realisation is of primary importance and indispensable. I would consider it best to have the spiritual and psychic development first and have it with the same fullness before entering the occult regions. Those who enter the latter first may find their spiritual realisation much delayed ; others fall into the ma^ traps of the occult and do not come out in this life. Some no doubt can cany on both together, the occult and the spiritual, and make them help each other ; but the process I suggest is the safer.
Olamot (Worlds) :::Olamot are the four primary realms of Creation that emerge out of G-d?s infinite light and culminate in our finite physical universe.
Oral Stage ::: Freud&
oral stage: the first stage in Freud's theory of development, from birth to about 15 months, when the primary source of gratification is stimulation of the mouth and lips.
original ::: a. --> Pertaining to the origin or beginning; preceding all others; first in order; primitive; primary; pristine; as, the original state of man; the original laws of a country; the original inventor of a process.
Not copied, imitated, or translated; new; fresh; genuine; as, an original thought; an original process; the original text of Scripture.
Having the power to suggest new thoughts or combinations
originals ::: 1. Works that have been composed or created first-hand. 2. Primary forms or types.
originary ::: a. --> Causing existence; productive.
Primitive; primary; original.
Or la&
Overbought ::: refers to a security that analysts or traders believe is trading above its true value. Overbought generally describes recent or short-term movement in the price of the security, and reflects an expectation that the market will correct the price in the near future. This belief is often the result of technical analysis of the security’s price history. BREAKING DOWN 'Overbought' Overbought refers to a security which has been subject to a persistent upward pressure and that technical analysis suggests is due for a correction. The bullish trend may be due to positive news regarding the underlying company, its industry or the market in general. Upward movement can feed on itself and lead to continued bullishness beyond what many traders consider reasonable. When this is the case, traders refer to the asset as overbought and many will bet on a reversal in price. Traditionally, the standard indicator of a stock’s value has been the price-earnings ratio (P/E). Analysts and companies have used either publicly reported results or earnings estimates to identify the appropriate price for a particular stock. If a stock’s P/E rises above that of its sector or a relevant index, investors may see it as overvalued and as a smart buying opportunity for long-term investing. This is a form of fundamental analysis, which uses macroeconomic and industry factors to determine a reasonable price for a stock. The rise of technical analysis has allowed traders to focus on indicators of a stock to forecast price. Indicators include recent price, volume and momentum. Traders use technical tools to identify stocks that have become overvalued in recent trading and refer to these equities as overbought. Technical Analysis Tools for Identifying Oversold Stocks Technical analysis has provided traders with increasingly sophisticated calculations to identify overbought stocks. George Lane’s stochastic oscillator, which he developed in the 1950s, examines recent price movements to identify imminent changes in a stock’s momentum and pricing trend. This oscillator laid the foundation for the technical indicator which has become the primary indicator of an overbought stock, the relative strength index (RSI). The RSI measures the power behind price movements over a recent period, typically 14 days, using the following formula: RSI = 100 - 100/(1 + RS) RS represents the ratio of average upward movement to downward movement over a specified period of time. A high RSI, generally above 70, signals traders that a stock may be overbought and that the market should correct with downward pressure in the near term. Many traders use pricing channels like Bollinger Bands to confirm the signal that the RSI generates. On a chart, Bollinger Bands lie one standard deviation above and below the exponential moving average of a stock’s recent price. Analysts that identify a stock with a high RSI and a price that is edging toward the high end of its upper Bollinger Band will likely consider it to be overbought.
Panchama (Sanskrit) Pañcama The fifth of the seven primary musical notes of the Hindu scale. See also SHADJA
parabrahman ::: the supreme Reality (brahman), "absolute and ineffable . . . beyond all cosmic being", from which "originate both the mobile and the immobile, the mutable and the immutable, the action and the silence"; it "is not Being [sat] or Non-Being [asat], but something of which Being & Non-Being are primary symbols". As it is "indescribable by any name or definite conception", it is referred to by the neuter pronoun tat, That, in order "to speak of this Unknowable in the most comprehensive and general way . . . ; but this neuter does not exclude the aspect of universal and transcendent Personality". parabrahman-mah parabrahman-mahamaya
Parinama-vada: A theory of evolution expounded by the Sankhya (q.v.), according to which the disturbed equilibrium between two primary substances (prakriti and purusha) is responsible for change.
Parinama-vada: (Skr.) Theory of evolution expounded by the Sankhya (q.v.), according to which the disturbed equilibrium between two primary substances (prakrti and purusa) is responsible for change. -- K.F.L.
alkaline cell - A primary cell that delivers more current than a carbon-zinc cell. Also known as an "alkaline manganese cell".
primary - First winding of a transformer. Winding that is connected to the source as opposed to secondary which is a winding connected to a load.
primary cell - Cell that produces electrical energy through an internal electrochemical action. Once discharged a primary cell cannot be reused.
dot convention - Standard used with transformer symbols to indicate whether the secondary voltage is in phase or out of phase with the primary voltage.
mercury cell - Primary cell using a mercuric oxide cathode, a zinc anode and a potassium hydroxide electrolyte.
transformer - Inductor with two or more windings. Through mutual inductance, current in one winding called a primary will induce current into the other windings called secondaries.
turns ratio - Ratio of the number of turns in the secondary winding of a transformer to the number of turns in the primary winding.
voltaic cell - Primary cell having two unlike electrodes immersed in a solution that chemically interacts to produce a voltage.
PDC {Primary Domain Controller}
perspective ::: (games) In computer games, the virtual position from which the human player views the playing area. There are three different perspectives: first person, second person, and third person.First person perspective: Viewing the world through the eyes of the primary character in three dimensions. e.g. Doom, Quake.Second person perspective: Viewing the game through a spectator's eyes, in two or three dimensions. Depending on the game, the main character is always in view. e.g. Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider.Third person perspective: a point of view which is independent of where characters or playing units are. The gaming world is viewed much as a satellite would view a battlefield. E.g. Warcraft, Command & Conquer. (1997-06-19)
perspective "games" In computer games, the {virtual} position from which the human player views the playing area. There are three different perspectives: first person, second person, and third person. First person perspective: Viewing the world through the eyes of the primary character in three dimensions. e.g. Doom, Quake. Second person perspective: Viewing the game through a spectator's eyes, in two or three dimensions. Depending on the game, the main character is always in view. e.g. Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider. Third person perspective: a point of view which is independent of where characters or playing units are. The gaming world is viewed much as a satellite would view a battlefield. E.g. Warcraft, Command & Conquer. (1997-06-19)
Phallic Stage ::: Freud&
phanerogamia ::: n. pl. --> That one of the two primary divisions of the vegetable kingdom which contains the phanerogamic, or flowering, plants.
pinna ::: n. --> A leaflet of a pinnate leaf. See Illust. of Bipinnate leaf, under Bipinnate.
One of the primary divisions of a decompound leaf.
One of the divisions of a pinnate part or organ.
Any species of Pinna, a genus of large bivalve mollusks found in all warm seas. The byssus consists of a large number of long, silky fibers, which have been used in manufacturing woven fabrics, as a curiosity.
pinus ::: n. --> A large genus of evergreen coniferous trees, mostly found in the northern hemisphere. The genus formerly included the firs, spruces, larches, and hemlocks, but is now limited to those trees which have the primary leaves of the branchlets reduced to mere scales, and the secondary ones (pine needles) acicular, and usually in fascicles of two to seven. See Pine.
Pleasures of the imagination: The moderate, healthful, and agreeable stimulus to the mind, resulting (in the primary class) from the properties of greatness, novelty, and beauty (kinship, color, proportionality, etc. ) in objects actually seen; (in the secondary class) from the processes of comparison, association, and remodelling set up in the mind by the products of art or by the recollection of the beauties of nature. (Addison.) -- K.E.G.
PostScript "language, text, graphics" A {page description language} based on work originally done by John Gaffney at Evans and Sutherland in 1976, evolving through "JaM" ("John and Martin", Martin Newell) at {XEROX PARC}, and finally implemented in its current form by John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke founded {Adobe Systems, Inc.} in 1982. PostScript is an {interpreted}, {stack-based language} (like {FORTH}). It was used as a page description language by the {Apple LaserWriter}, and now many {laser printers} and on-screen graphics systems. Its primary application is to describe the appearance of text, graphical shapes, and sampled {images} on printed or displayed pages. A program in PostScript can communicate a document description from a composition system to a printing system in a device-independent way. PostScript is an unusually powerful printer language because it is a full programming language, rather than a series of low-level escape sequences. (In this it parallels {Emacs}, which exploited a similar insight about editing tasks). It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly {rasterisation}, from {Bezier curve} descriptions, of high-quality {fonts} at low (e.g. 300 dpi) resolution (it was formerly believed that hand-tuned {bitmap fonts} were required for this task). PostScript's combination of technical merits and widespread availability made it the language of choice for graphical output until {PDF} appeared. The {Postscript point}, 1/72 inch, is slightly different from other {point} units. {An introduction (http://cs.indiana.edu/docproject/programming/postscript/postscript.html)}. ["PostScript Language Reference Manual" ("The Red Book"), Adobe Systems, A-W 1985]. [{Jargon File}] (2002-03-11)
Pradhana: Sanskrit for primary matter; the primordial substance or primeval cosmic substance.
Prakriti; prakrti: Sanskrit for Substance (as opposed to or contrasted with Spirit). The cosmic substance which is the primary source of all things, uncaused cause of phenomenal existence, eternal, all-pervasive, indestructible, emanated from the Absolute.
Prakriti(Sanskrit) ::: A compound consisting of the prepositional prefix pra, meaning "forwards" or "progression,"and kriti, a noun-form from the verbal root kri, "to make" or "to do." Therefore prakriti means literally"production" or "bringing forth," "originating," and by an extension of meaning it also signifies theprimordial or original state or condition or form of anything: primary, original substance. The root orparent of prakriti is mula-prakriti or root of prakriti. Prakriti is to be considered with vikriti -- vikritisignifying change or an alteration of some kind, or a production or evolution from the prakriti whichprecedes it.As an illustration, the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen combine in the proportion H2O,producing thus a substance known in its most common form as water; but this same H2O can appear asice as well as vapor-gas; hence the vapor, the water, and the ice may be called the vikritis of the originalprakriti which is the originating hydrogen and oxygen. The illustration is perhaps not a very good one butis suggestive.In common usage prakriti may be called nature in general, as the great producer of entities or things, andthrough this nature acts the ever-active Brahma or Purusha. Purusha, therefore, is spirit, and prakriti is itsproductive veil or sheath. Essentially or fundamentally the two are one, and whatever prakriti throughand by the influence of Purusha produces is the multitudinous and multiform vikritis which make theimmense variety and diversity in the universe around us.In one or more of the Hindu philosophies, prakriti is the same as sakti, and therefore prakriti and sakti arevirtually interchangeable with maya or maha-maya or so-called illusion. Prakriti is often spoken of asmatter, but this is inexact although a very common usage; matter is rather the "productions" or phasesthat prakriti brings about, the vikritis. In the Indian Sankhya philosophy pradhana is virtually identicalwith prakriti, and both are often used to signify the producing element from and out of which all illusorymaterial manifestations or appearances are evolved.
Prakrti: (Skr.) Primary matter or substance, nature, with purusa (q.v.) one of the two eternal bases of the world according to the Sankhya and the Yogasutras. It is the unconscious yet subtle cause of all material phenomena having three gunas (q.v.), sativa, rajas, tamas. Modifications of this view may be met throughout Indian philosophy. -- K.F.L.
PRI ::: ISDN Primary Rate Interface.See also BRI (1994-12-08)
PRI {ISDN} {Primary Rate Interface}. See also {BRI} (1994-12-08)
primal ::: 1. Being first in time; original; primeval. 2. Of first importance; primary.
primal ::: a. --> First; primary; original; chief.
primaries ::: pl. --> of Primary
primarily ::: adv. --> In a primary manner; in the first place; in the first place; in the first intention; originally.
primariness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being primary, or first in time, in act, or in intention.
Primary data - Information which does not already exist and is collected through the use of field research.
Primary Domain Controller "networking" (PDC) Each {Windows NT} {domain} has a Primary Domain Controller and zero or more {Backup Domain Controllers}. The PDC holds the {SAM} database and authenticates access requests from {workstations} and {servers} in the domain. (2003-07-16)
Primary Domain Controller ::: (networking) (PDC) Each Windows NT domain has a Primary Domain Controller and zero or more Backup Domain Controllers. The PDC holds the SAM database and authenticates access requests from workstations and servers in the domain.(2003-07-16)
Primary Drinking Water Regulation::: Applies to public water systems and specifies a contaminant level, which, in the judgment of the EPA Administrator, will not adversely affect human health.
Primary health care - Health service provision based upon preventing rather than curing diseases. It includes clean water supply, sanitation, immunization and nutritional and family planning services.
Primary labour market - The market for permanent full-time core workers.
Primary lasted 103,040,000 years
Primary market – 1. (Accounting}, The first sale of a newly issued security to the market. Those new securities are purchased within the primary market. All trading of those securities subsequently is done via secondary market. Or 2. (Economics) - The market for primary products.
Primary production - The production of goods that are sold or used as they are they are found in nature e.g. fish, trees, diamonds, oil.
Primary Qualities: The inherent qualities of bodies solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest, number. These qualities are conceived to be utterly inseparable from objects, they are constant. John Locke made classic the distinction of primary and secondary qualities made by Galileo and Descartes. -- V.F.
Primary Rate Interface ::: (PRI) A type of ISDN connection. In North America and Japan, this consists of 24 channels, usually divided into 23 B channels and 1 D channel, and runs over the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI has 31 user channels, usually divided into 30 B channels and 1 D channel and is based on the E1 interface.PRI is typically used for connections such as one between a PBX (private branch exchange, a telephone exchange operated by the customer of a telephone company) and a CO (central office, of the telephone company) or IXC (inter exchange carrier, a long distance telephone company). (1995-01-18)
Primary Rate Interface (PRI) A type of {ISDN} connection. In North America and Japan, this consists of 24 channels, usually divided into 23 B channels and 1 D channel, and runs over the same physical interface as {T1}. Elsewhere the PRI has 31 user channels, usually divided into 30 B channels and 1 D channel and is based on the {E1} interface. PRI is typically used for connections such as one between a PBX (private branch exchange, a telephone exchange operated by the customer of a telephone company) and a CO (central office, of the telephone company) or IXC (inter exchange carrier, a long distance telephone company). (1995-01-18)
Primary Reinforcer ::: A reinforcer that meets our basic needs such as food, water, sleep, or love.
Primary research - The collection and collation of original data via direct contact with potential or existing customers. Also called field research.
Primary school enrolment rate - The number of children of primary school age, usually 6 to 11 years, who are enrolled at school as a percentage of the age group. Sometimes this is greater than 100% due to younger and older pupils enrolling.
Primary sector - Industry which extracts the natural resources of the earth.
Primary truth: A conception or proposition which is dependent for its truth on no other principle in the same order of thought; it may be considered self-evident from common experience, special intuitive insight, or even by postulation; but it is not demonstrated.
Primary truth: (Lat. primus, first) A conception or proposition which is dependent for its truth on no other principle in the same order of thought, it may be considered self-evident from common experience, special intuitive insight, or even by postulation, but it is not demonstrated -- V.J.B.
prime :::
primeval ::: a. --> Belonging to the first ages; pristine; original; primitive; primary; as, the primeval innocence of man.
primigenial ::: a. --> First born, or first of all; original; primary. See Primogenial.
primitive ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the beginning or origin, or to early times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as, primitive innocence; the primitive church.
Of or pertaining to a former time; old-fashioned; characterized by simplicity; as, a primitive style of dress.
Original; primary; radical; not derived; as, primitive verb in grammar.
primogenial ::: a. --> First born, made, or generated; original; primary; elemental; as, primogenial light.
primordial ::: a. --> First in order; primary; original; of earliest origin; as, primordial condition.
Of or pertaining to the lowest beds of the Silurian age, corresponding to the Acadian and Potsdam periods in American geology. It is called also Cambrian, and by many geologists is separated from the Silurian.
Originally or earliest formed in the growth of an individual or organ; as, a primordial leaf; a primordial cell.
principiation ::: n. --> Analysis into primary or elemental parts.
Principle: A fundamental cause or universal truth; that which is inherent in anything. That which ultimately accounts for being. According to occult philosophy, fundamental aspects of the Universal Reality, which are the primary source of all being, actuality and knowledge.
Principle: (Lat. principe, from principium, a beginning) A fundamental cause or universal truth, that which is inherent in anything. That which ultimately accounts for being. According to Aristotle, the primary source of all being, actuality and knowledge. (a) In ontology: first principles are the categories or postulates of ontology. (b) In epistemology: as the essence of being, the ground of all knowledge. Syn. with essence, universal, cause. -- J.K.F.
PRMD {primary management domain}
proembryo ::: n. --> The series of cells formed in the ovule of a flowering plant after fertilization, but before the formation of the embryo.
The primary growth from the spore in certain cryptogamous plants; as, the proembryo, or protonema, of mosses.
Prolepsis: (Gr. prolepsis) Notion, preconception. The term is used by the Stoics and Epicureans to denote any primary general notion that arises spontaneously and unconsciously in the mind is distinguished from concepts that result from conscious reflection. These prolepses are regarded by the Stoics as common to all men as rational beings, and are sometimes called innate (symphytoi), though in general they were looked upon as the natural outgrowth of sense-perception. -- G.R.M.
Protensity: (Lat. protensum from protendere, to stretch forth) Duration-spread considered as a primary characteristic of all conscious experience. This usage was introduced by Kant (Critique of Pure Reason, A 805- B 833) where the protensive is distinguished from the extensive and the intensive and this usage has been adopted by recent psychologists. -- L.W.
prothallus ::: n. --> The minute primary growth from the spore of ferns and other Pteridophyta, which bears the true sexual organs; the oophoric generation of ferns, etc.
proto- ::: --> A combining form prefix signifying first, primary, primordial; as, protomartyr, the first martyr; protomorphic, primitive in form; protoplast, a primordial organism; prototype, protozoan.
Denoting the first or lowest of a series, or the one having the smallest amount of the element to the name of which it is prefixed; as protoxide, protochloride, etc.
Sometimes used as equivalent to mono-, as indicating that the compound has but one atom of the element to the name of which it is
protonema ::: n. --> The primary growth from the spore of a moss, usually consisting of branching confervoid filaments, on any part of which stem and leaf buds may be developed.
prototype ::: n. --> An original or model after which anything is copied; the pattern of anything to be engraved, or otherwise copied, cast, or the like; a primary form; exemplar; archetype.
protozoonite ::: n. --> One of the primary, or first-formed, segments of an embryonic arthropod.
Proverbs ::: The Latinized word for the Book called "Mishlei Shlomoh" that is contained in Ketuvim (Writings). Its primary and most likely author is King Solomon and it contains stories of wisdom and guidance.
Psychoanalytic Theory ::: Theory developed by Freud consisting of the structural model of personality, topographical model of personality, defense mechanisms, drives, and the psychosexual stages of development. The primary driving force behind the theory is the id, ego and superego and the division of consciousness into the conscious mind, the pre/subconscious, and the unconscious.
purple ::: n. --> A color formed by, or resembling that formed by, a combination of the primary colors red and blue.
Cloth dyed a purple color, or a garment of such color; especially, a purple robe, worn as an emblem of rank or authority; specifically, the purple rode or mantle worn by Roman emperors as the emblem of imperial dignity; as, to put on the imperial purple.
Hence: Imperial sovereignty; royal rank, dignity, or favor; loosely and colloquially, any exalted station; great wealth.
Qualcomm "company" A California-based technology company; their primary product is the {OMNITRACS} tractor-trailer-tracking system. They also develop the free and commercial versions of {Eudora} for {Macintosh} and {IBM PC}. (1995-10-05)
Qualcomm ::: (company) A California-based technology company; their primary product is the OMNITRACS tractor-trailer-tracking system. They also develop the free and commercial versions of Eudora for Macintosh and IBM PC. (1995-10-05)
QUATERNARY MATTER Higher kind of evolutionary matter, individual matter. Before the monad can become quaternary matter, it must have been in succession primary (involvatory and evolvatory) matter, secondary (involutionary, elemental) matter, and tertiary (lower evolutionary) matter. Examples of quaternary matter are the monads in the natural kingdoms of evolution.
Race(s) During evolution on each of the globes of the earth-chain, the human life-wave passes through seven evolutionary stages called root-races, of which we are at present in the fifth root-race of the fourth round on the fourth globe. Each root-race is divided into seven subraces, of which we are now in the fourth of the fifth root-race. These subraces are themselves subdivided into smaller divisions, and these again into still smaller racial units. G. de Purucker divides each root-race into: 1) primary subrace; 2) secondary subrace; 3) family race; 4) national race; 5) tribal race; 6) tribal generation; and 7) individual man (about 72 years) — each division containing seven of the succeeding type.
Raja yoga ::: This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts th
refore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalinı, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi. By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world. For the ancient system of Rajayoga aimed not only at Swarajya, self-rule or subjective empire, the entire control by the subjective consciousness of all the states and activities proper to its own domain, but included Samrajya as well, outward empire, the control by the subjective consciousness of its outer activities and environment.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 36-37
RCA 1802 "processor" An extremely simple {microprocessor} fabricated in {CMOS}, running at 6.4 MHz at 10V (very fast for 1974). It could be suspended with the clock stopped. It was an 8-bit processor, with 16-bit addressing. Simplicity was the primary design goal, and in that sense it was one of the first {RISC} chips. It had sixteen 16-bit {registers}, which could be accessed as thirty-two 8-bit registers, and an {accumulator} D used for arithmetic and memory access - memory to D, then D to registers and vice versa, using one 16-bit register as an address. This led to one person describing the 1802 as having 32 bytes of {RAM} and 65535 I/O ports. A 4-bit control register P selected any one general register as the {program counter}, while control registers X and N selected registers for I/O Index and the operand for the current instruction. All instructions were 8 bits - a 4-bit {op code} (total of 16 operations) and 4-bit {operand register} stored in N. There was no real {conditional branching}, no {subroutine} support and no actual {stack} but these could be implemented by clever use of registers, e.g. changing P to another register allowed jump to a subroutine. Similarly, on an interrupt P and X were saved, then R1 and R2 were selected for P and X until an {RTI} restored them. The {RCA 1805} was an enhanced version. The 1802 was used in the {COSMAC} (VIP?) {microcomputer} kit, some video games from {RCA} and {Radio Shack}, and the {ETI-660} computer. It was chosen for the Voyager, Viking and Galileo space probes as it was also fabricated in {Silicon on Sapphire}, giving radiation and static resistance, ideal for space operation. {More history (http://cosmacelf.com)}. (2002-04-09)
repeating group "database" Any {attribute} that can have multiple values associated with a single instance of some {entity}. For example, a book might have multiple authors. Such a "-to-many" relationship might be represented in an unnormalised {relational database} as multiple author columns in the book table or a single author(s) column containing a string which was a list of authors. Converting this to "first normal form" is the first step in {database normalisation}. Each author of the book would appear in a separate {row} along with the book's {primary key}. Later nomalisation stages would move the book-author relationship into a separate table to avoid repeating other book attibutes (e.g. title, publisher) for each author. (2005-07-28)
Richard P. Feynman "person, computing, architecture" /fayn'mn/ 1918-1988. A US physicist, computer scientist and author who graduated from {Massachusetts Institute of Technology} and {Princeton}. Feynmane was a key figure in helping Oppenheimer and team develop atomic bomb. In 1950 he became a professor at {Caltech} and in 1965 became Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics for QED (quantum electrodynamics). He was a primary figure in "solving" the Challenger disaster O-ring problem. He "rediscovered" the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Tuva. The 2001 film "Infinity" about Feynman's early life featured Matthew Broderick and Patricia Arquette. In 2001, "QED", a play about Feynman's life featuring Alan Alda opened. {(http://www.feynman.com/)}. (2008-01-14)
Root-race, Fifth The human race at present on earth; the fifth root-race on this globe D in the fourth round originated from the seed-race of the middle fourth root-race and as the ages passed began to occupy the lands which have since gradually taken form in our present continental distribution. It is subdivided, like all other root-races, into seven subraces, and these again each into smaller divisions. The present predominant sub-subrace is the fifth of its fourth primary subrace, only a little beyond the point of greatest materiality of this root-race.
Root race: “Life as cultural complex is charted by the great continents or root races through which the human life stream establishes itself on the globe.... The great ages of mankind are the progressive epochs of dominant and cultural complexes. They are centered geographically in the continental areas where the streaming divine sparks converge into a particular aspect of experience and thereupon constitute a root race. There are seven of such primary aggregations according to the esoteric tradition ... namely the Polarian [or Adamic], the Hyperborean, the Lemurian, the Atlantean, the Aryan, and two still to come.” (Marc Edmund Jones.)
Rotae (Latin) Wheels, referring to the animating principles of the stars and planets; the Hebrew is ’ophanim (wheels), much used in Ezekiel in relation to cosmogony. Absolute motion, which during pralaya is consciousness pulsating in every atom, tends at the awakening of a new cosmic Day to become circular, thus becoming a center of force and called a wheel, the nuclei around which worlds are built. This would indicate that the circular motions of heavenly bodies are primary and intrinsic and not a result of rectilinear forces alone, which are merely components into which the circular motion has been resolved, agreeably to a proposed dynamical system. See also ROTATION
Rotation Circular motion seems to be a primary attribute of monads — cosmic, planetary, or atomic. The modern dynamic system of the universe will not solve the problem until it is recognized that physical forces are but manifestations of the intelligence of living beings — intracosmic and not extracosmic — forming the body of nature itself. The speed of the earth’s axial rotations has varied concurrently with changes in the inclination of its axis — which suggests gyroscopic action due to force external to the earth, but not external in the sense of being systemically distinct. Such a slackening of rotational speed caused the break-up of the Lemurian continent into smaller pieces. This cannot be the same as the alleged exceedingly slow secular retardation due to tidal friction.
ROTATORY MATTER See PRIMARY MATTER
samhita. ::: "compilation of knowledge"; a collection of vedic mantras or hymns mainly concerned with nature and deities; the Samhitas form the first part of each of the four Vedas; one of the two primary sections of each of the Vedas, containing hymns and sacred formulae, the other section being the Brahmanas
Satellite [from Latin satelles an attendant, assistant] Astronomically, a globe which revolves around a larger one which is its primary, but usually restricted to globes revolving around planets. The satellites of Uranus and Neptune have revolutions opposite in direction to that of the satellites of the other planets, said to be due to their axes having been inverted in the pregenetic battles fought by the growing planets before the final formation of the cosmos (SD 1:101).
Schedule - 1. to prioritise, arrange, or position with respect to a finite time period. Or 2. supporting set of calculations, data, information, or analysis that shows or amplifies how figures in primary statements are derived. An example is a schedule for an aging of accounts. Or 3. assignment of work to a facility and the specification of the sequence and timing of the work. Or 4. auditor's set of working papers for an audit.
school ::: n. --> A shoal; a multitude; as, a school of fish.
A place for learned intercourse and instruction; an institution for learning; an educational establishment; a place for acquiring knowledge and mental training; as, the school of the prophets.
A place of primary instruction; an establishment for the instruction of children; as, a primary school; a common school; a grammar school.
Schopenhauer, Arthur: (1738-1860) Brilliant, manysided philosopher, at times caustic, who attained posthumously even popular acclaim. His principal work, The World as Will and Idea starts with the thesis that the world is my idea, a primary fact of consciousness implying the inseparableness of subject and object (refutation of materialism and subjectivism). The object underlies the principle of sufficient reason whose fourfold root Schopenhauer had investigated previously in his doctoral dissertation as that of becoming (causality), knowing, being, and acting (motivation). But the world is also obstinate, blind, impetuous will (the word taken in a larger than the dictionary meaning) which objectifies itself in progressive stages in the world of ideas beginning with the forces of nature (gravity, etc.) and terminating in the will to live and the products of its urges. As thing-in-itself, the will is one, though many in its phenomenal forms, space and time serving as principia individuationis. The closer to archetypal forms the ideas (Platonic influence) and the less revealing the will, the greater the possibility of pure contemplation in art in which Schopenhauer found greatest personal satisfaction. Propounding a determinism and a consequential pessimism (q.v.), Schopenhauer concurs with Kant in the intelligible character of freedom, makes compassion (Mitleid; see Pity) the foundation of ethics, and upholds the Buddhist ideal of desirelessness as a means for allaying the will. Having produced intelligence, the will has created the possibility of its own negation in a calm, ascetic, abstinent life.
scratch disk ::: 1. (storage) See scratch.2. (operating system) Unallocated space on Windows 95's primary hard disk partition, used for virtual memory.Shortage of space on this partition can result in the error scratch disk full.(2000-03-07)
scratch disk 1. "storage" See {scratch}. 2. "operating system" Unallocated space on {Windows 95}'s primary {hard disk} {partition}, used for {virtual memory}. Shortage of space on this partition can result in the error "scratch disk full". (2000-03-07)
secondary ::: a. --> Suceeding next in order to the first; of second place, origin, rank, rank, etc.; not primary; subordinate; not of the first order or rate.
Acting by deputation or delegated authority; as, the work of secondary hands.
Possessing some quality, or having been subject to some operation (as substitution), in the second degree; as, a secondary salt, a secondary amine, etc. Cf. primary.
secondary cache "memory management" (Or "second level cache", "level two cache", "L2 cache") A larger, slower {cache} between the {primary cache} and main memory. Whereas the {primary cache} is often on the same {integrated circuit} as the {central processing unit} (CPU), a secondary cache is usually external. (1997-06-25)
secondary cache ::: (memory management) (Or second level cache, level two cache, L2 cache) A larger, slower cache between the primary cache and main memory. Whereas the primary cache is often on the same integrated circuit as the central processing unit (CPU), a secondary cache is usually external. (1997-06-25)
Secondary Creation The creation of the manifested universe, after that of the unmanifested universe which is called the primary creation. In a more restricted meaning, the evolution and progression into manifestation of the almost innumerable hierarchies of builders of the universe, both higher and lower — the primary in this connection referring to the purely spiritual hierarchies and individuals which issued from the womb of space along the lines of primary spiritual emanation as already residing karmically in cosmic ideation.
secondary key "database" A {candidate key} which is not selected as a {primary key}. (1997-04-26)
secondary key ::: (database) A candidate key which is not selected as a primary key. (1997-04-26)
Secondary Qualities: Those sensible qualities which are "nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities." This is the definition of John Locke. Such qualities (colors, sounds, tastes, smells) are distinguishable from primary in that they are highly variable, less constant. They appear in human consciousness in various forms, whereas the primary ones remain the same. See Primary Qualities. -- V.F.
secondary reinforcement: serves as a reinforcer through association with a primary reinforcement.
Secondary sector - Industry which manufactures goods using the raw materials provided by the primary sector.
secondhand ::: a. --> Not original or primary; received from another.
Not new; already or previously or used by another; as, a secondhand book, garment.
secure attachment: an attachment bond between the mother (or primary caregiver) and infant, whereby the mother is sensitive and responsive to the childs needs, who will not experience significant distress at separation from the caregiver, but who seek comfort from caregiver when frightened. Secure attachment is related to healthy subsequent cognitive and emotional development as adults, including high self-esteem and the ability to maintain loving, trusting relationships.
Self-love: The term may be used to denote self-complacency or self-admiration (see Spinoza, Ethics, Book III, Prop. 55, note), but in ethical discussion it usually designates concern for one's own individual interest, advantage, or happiness. Taking the term in this latter sense philosophers have debated the question whether or not all of our actions, approvals, etc., are motivated entirely by self-love. Hobbes holds that they are. Spinoza, similarity, holds that the endeavor to conserve oneself is the basis of all of one's actions and virtues. Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume, in opposition to Hobbes, argued that benevolence or sympathy and the moral sense or conscience are springs of action which are not reducible to self-love. Butler also pointed out that self-love itself presupposes the existence of certain primary desires, such as hunger, with whose satisfaction it is concerned, and which therefore cannot be subsumed under it. See Egoism. -- W.K.F.
seminal ::: a. --> Pertaining to, containing, or consisting of, seed or semen; as, the seminal fluid.
Contained in seed; holding the relation of seed, source, or first principle; holding the first place in a series of developed results or consequents; germinal; radical; primary; original; as, seminal principles of generation; seminal virtue. ::: n.
sensitive responsiveness: the extent to which a primary carer responds to an infants signals.
Sensorimotor Stage ::: The first stage in Piaget&
Separation Anxiety ::: Distress caused by the absence of an infant&
Sephira(h) or Sefira ::: (Heb. counting, number; pl. sefirot). In Jewish kabala, the sefirot are the primary emanations or manifestations of deity that together make up the fullness (Greek, pleroma) of the godhead. See also omer.
sex differences: commonly observed differences between males and females, that may be primary (associated with reproduction), secondary (biological, but not associated with reproduction) and differences of mental, emotional or behavioural characteristics.
Shadja (Sanskrit) Ṣaḍja Born of six; the first of the seven svaras or primary notes of music, so called because in Hindu theory it is supposed to be produced by six organs: tongue, teeth, palate, nose, throat, and chest. The other six svaras are riishabha, gandhara, madhyama, panchama, dhaivata, and nishada. Nishada and gandhara are referred to as the udatta accent, the acute accent or a high or sharp tone; rishabha and dhaivata as the anudatta accent, the grave accent or a general accentless neutral tone which is neither high nor low; and shadja, madhyama, and panchama as the svarita accent, corresponding to the Greek circumflex or a kind of mixed tone produced by a combination of a high tone and a low. The sound of the shadja is said to resemble the note of peacocks.
sharding "database" A form of {data partitioning} in which a large {database} {table} is split over multiple {servers} in order to {balance load (load balancing)}. Some property of the data is used to select which server should handle a given row, e.g. the {primary id} {modulo} the number of servers. Sharding should be a last resort in database performance optimisation because of the difficulty of changing the allocation of data to servers, e.g. if the number of servers changes or the distribution is found to be uneven. {Sharding Your Database, Ovid, perl.org (http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2010/05/sharding-your-database.html)}. (2010-05-16)
Since the Consciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in that world. Equally, for each individual being, his seeing or representation to himself of the world he lives in will depend on the poise or make which that Consciousness has assumed in him. Our human mental consciousness sees the world in sections cut by the reason and sense and put together in a formation which is also sectional; the house it builds is planned to accommodate one or another generalised formulation of Truth, but excludes the rest or admits some only as guests or dependents in the house. Overmind Consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision. Thus the mental reason sees Person and the Impersonal as opposites: it conceives an impersonal Existence in which person and personality are fictions of the Ignorance or temporary constructions; or, on the contrary, it can see Person as the primary reality and the impersonal as a mental abstraction or only stuff or means of manifestation. To the Overmind intelligence these are separable Powers of the one Existence which can pursue their independent self-affirmation and can also unite together their different modes of action, creating both in their independence and in their union different states of consciousness and being which can be all of them valid and all capable of coexistence. A purely impersonal existence and consciousness is true and possible, but also an entirely personal consciousness and existence; the Impersonal Divine, Nirguna Brahman, and the Personal Divine, Saguna Brahman, are here equal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal. Impersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a mode of expression; but, equally, Person can be the reality with impersonality as a mode of its nature: both aspects of manifestation face each other in the infinite variety of conscious Existence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are to the Overmind intelligence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the universal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world is a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or again it sees the world and all things as born of, existing by and going back to the Real-Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an idealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of these ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each way excludes the others. Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual world-formula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers. The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit, each of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its self-expression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation. In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence, each affirming its separate reality but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a complex universe. …
SlipKnot "web" A graphical {web browser} specifically designed for {Microsoft Windows} users who have {Unix} {shell accounts} with their service providers. Its primary feature is that it does not require {SLIP} or {PPP} or {TCP/IP} services. SlipKnot is distributed as restricted shareware. Version: 1.0. {SlipKnot home (http://micromind.com/slipknot.htm)}. E-mail: "slipknot@micromind.com". (2003-03-25)
SlipKnot ::: (web) A graphical World-Wide Web browser specifically designed for Microsoft Windows users who have Unix shell accounts with their service providers. Its primary feature is that it does not require SLIP or PPP or TCP/IP services. SlipKnot is distributed as restricted shareware.Version: 1.0. .E-mail: .(2003-03-25)
SO ::: 1. (character) Shift Out2. Significant Other, almost invariably written abbreviated and pronounced /S-O/ by hackers. Used to refer to one's primary relationship, especially a live-in to whom one is not married.[Jargon File]
SO 1. "character" {Shift Out} 2. Significant Other, almost invariably written abbreviated and pronounced /S-O/ by hackers. Used to refer to one's primary relationship, especially a live-in to whom one is not married. [{Jargon File}]
Solar Logoi Logos, when used in connection with the sun, is a generalizing term for the seven or twelve fundamental spiritual and intellectual solar powers, at the summit of which stands the solar hierarch, the physical sun being but the reflection or garment of these unified septenary or duodenary powers. In consequence, every being in the universe, great or small, has as its primordial origin a spiritual entity which, emanating from itself its own characteristic powers, produces these latter as its logoi. In the case of our sun there are seven or twelve chief forces or primary entitative rays which compose in their aggregate the true sun, unified at their summit or supreme hierarch; and these seven or twelve powers or forces are the solar logoi. On the descending evolutionary scale, each of these seven or twelve primary forces may be subdivided into seven or twelve minor powers or forces.
solidity ::: n. --> The state or quality of being solid; density; consistency, -- opposed to fluidity; compactness; fullness of matter, -- opposed to openness or hollowness; strength; soundness, -- opposed to weakness or instability; the primary quality or affection of matter by which its particles exclude or resist all others; hardness; massiveness.
Moral firmness; soundness; strength; validity; truth; certainty; -- as opposed to weakness or fallaciousness; as, the
Somatic Nervous System ::: Sub system of the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). Primary function is to regulate the actions of the skeletal muscles.
somatocyst ::: n. --> A cavity in the primary nectocalyx of certain Siphonophora. See Illust. under Nectocalyx.
Sons of Fohat The vital intelligent powers in nature subordinate to fohat, being the seven distinct primary forces of cosmic electricity or magnetism. These seven sons are also fohat’s brothers, for Fohat is forced to be born time after time whenever any two of his son-brothers indulge in too close contact — whether an embrace or a fight. To avoid this, he binds together and unites those of unlike nature and separates those of similar temperaments. This, of course, relates, as any one can see, to electricity generated by friction and to the law involving attraction between two objects of unlike, and repulsion between those of like polarity” (SD 1:145). The seven primary forces of cosmic electricity are only visible on our physical plane as physical effects, not as primary forces, and hence sound, light, color, magnetism, heat, cohesion, lightning, and so forth, are but its phenomena in the world of senses, the distant results of originating spiritual powers engendered by conscious causes.
Sound is a property of akasa, the primary of aether, sometimes called space. In the list of the five commonly accepted tattvas, senses, and organs, akasa-tattva is at the top, corresponding to sound and hearing. The aether of space has seven principles and is the vibratory soundboard of nature in all its seven differentiations. Sound is directed in its operations by fohat, being one of seven radicals.
Space is symbolized by the circle; a central point denotes spiritual monadic activity arising within abstract space. It is equivalent to akasa or aether, water or the waters; Chaos as the spatial deeps. Sometimes space in its manifestation is represented as a serpent with seven heads or as the great sea or deep. Occasionally called aupapaduka (parentless), because it is primary and the source of all, it is spoken of both as mulaprakriti and as parabrahman. In its manifested aspect it is bright space, son of dark space, the former being the ray dropped into cosmic depths. Parent space is the eternal ever-present cause of all — the incomprehensible divinity, whose invisible robes are the mystic root of all matter and of the universe. Space is called Mother before its cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of reawakening of manifestation.
Specific research – Refers to a method used when gathering primary information for a market survey where targeted customers / consumers are asked very specific and in-depth questions geared toward resolving problems found through prior exploratory research.
Spermatic word: A Stoic term for Primary Being, the creative force of the universe, which contains the seed or germ of all things.
sprang from one of the primary properties. [R/.
SR ::: (language) Synchronizing Resources.A language for concurrent programming.Resources encapsulate processes and variables they share. Each Resource can be separately compiled. Operations provide the primary mechanism for process interaction.SR provides a novel integration of the mechanisms for invoking and servicing operations. Consequently, it supports local and remote procedure call, rendezvous, message passing, dynamic process creation, multicast, semaphores and shared memory.Version 2.2 has been ported to Sun-3, Sun-4, Decstation, SGI Iris, HP PA, HP 9000/300, NeXT, Sequent Symmetry, DG AViiON, RS/6000, Multimax, Apollo and others. .E-mail: . Mailing list: [An Overview of the SR Language and Implementation, G. Andrews, ACM TOPLAS 10:51-86 (Jan 1988)].[The SR Programming Language: Concurrency in Practice, G.R. Andrews et al, Benjamin/Cummings 1993, ISBN 0-8053-0088-0]. (1992-09-01)
SR "language" Synchronizing Resources. A language for concurrent programming. "Resources" encapsulate processes and variables they share. Each Resource can be separately compiled. "Operations" provide the primary mechanism for process interaction. SR provides a novel integration of the mechanisms for invoking and servicing operations. Consequently, it supports local and {remote procedure call}, {rendezvous}, {message passing}, {dynamic process creation}, {multicast}, {semaphores} and {shared memory}. Version 2.2 has been ported to {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {Decstation}, {SGI Iris}, {HP PA}, {HP 9000/300}, {NeXT}, {Sequent Symmetry}, {DG AViiON}, {RS/6000}, {Multimax}, {Apollo} and others. {(ftp://cs.arizona.edu/sr/sr.tar.Z)}. E-mail: "sr-project@cs.arizona.edu". Mailing list: info-sr-request@cs.arizona.edu. ["An Overview of the SR Language and Implementation", G. Andrews, ACM TOPLAS 10:51-86 (Jan 1988)]. ["The SR Programming Language: Concurrency in Practice", G.R. Andrews et al, Benjamin/Cummings 1993, ISBN 0-8053-0088-0]. (1992-09-01)
Stirner, Max: Pen name of Johann Caspar Schmidt (1806-1856) Most extreme and thoroughgoing individualist in the history of philosophy. In his classic, The Ego and his Own, he regards everything except the individual as minor; family, state and society all disappear before the individual, the ego, as the primary power for life and living. -- L.E.D.
Sub-element Secondary elements derived from parent elements which to them are primary, as the physical elements in relation to their ultraphysical primaries; or chemical elements which have been proved to be resolvable into simpler elements. In this sense, the sub-elements are more compound and less simple than the elements; and the prefix denotes a lower order rather than an underlying essence.
Subjective idealism denies the existence of objective reality altogether, except perhaps as illusory, as for instance in the views of Berkeley. Objective idealism, such as the system of Schelling, recognizes the existence of objective worlds while regarding the ideal world as the primary production and paramount: the external world has a relative and temporary or mayavi reality. This latter view is the only strictly logical one; for if we annihilate the object, we must thereby annihilate the subject also, these two terms having no meaning except relatively to each other. In any theory of knowledge, there must be knower and thing known; and the latter is objective to the former. Absolute idealism logically is as unthinkable as is absolute materialism. See also MAYA
Substance is the term used to signify thit which is sought when philosophers investigate the primary being of things. Thus Plato was primarily concerned with investigating the being of things from the standpoint of their intelligibility. Hence the Platonic dialectic was aimed at a knowledge of the essential nature (ousia) of things. But science is knowledge of universals. so the essence of things considered as intelligible is the universal common to many; i.e., the universal Form or Idea, and this was for Plato the substance of things, or what they are primarily.
SuperJanet An initiative started in 1989, under the Computer Board, with the aim of developing of a national {broadband} network to support UK higher education and research. The preparatory work culminated in 1992 with the award of a contract worth 18M pounds to British Telecom to provide networking services over a four year period that extends to March 1997. The BT contract will provide a national network with two components: a high speed, configurable bandwidth network serving up to 16 sites, initially using {PDH} to be replaced with {SDH}, and a high speed switched data service ({SMDS}) serving 50 or more sites. The primary role of the PDH/SDH component will be to support the development and deployment of an {ATM} network. These components will be complemented by several high performance {Metropolitan Area Networks} each serving several closely located sites. The aim is to provide, within the first year of the project, a pervasive network capable of supporting a large and diverse user community. The network has two parts, an {IP} data network and an ATM network, both operating at 34Mbit/s. Early in August 1993 the pilot IP network was transferred to full service and was configured to provide a trunk network for JIPS, the {JANET IP Service}. In November 1993 work was well advanced on the next phase which aims to extend SuperJANET to a large number of sites. The pilot four site ATM network will be extended to serve twelve sites and will expand the scope of the video network. The principal vehicle used for the expansion of the data network will be the {SMDS} service provided by {BT}. Most of the work associated with the development of this phase is expected to be completed by the end of March 1994. [Joint Network Team, Network News 40, ISSN 0954 - 0636]. {(ftp://osiris.jnt.ac.uk/pub/newsfiles/documents/netwnews/news40+/news40.para)}. [Current status?] (1994-12-15)
surrogate key "database" A unique {primary key} generated by the {RDBMS} that is not derived from any data in the database and whose only significance is to act as the primary key. A surrogate key is frequently a sequential number (e.g. a {Sybase} "{identity column}") but doesn't have to be. Having the key independent of all other columns insulates the database relationships from changes in data values or database design and guarantees uniqueness. Some database designers use surrogate keys religiously regardless of the suitability of other {candidate keys}. However, if a good key already exists, the addition of a surrogate key will merely slow down access, particularly if it is indexed. Compare: {intelligent key}. (1999-12-07)
surrogate key ::: (database) A unique primary key generated by the RDBMS that is not derived from any data in the database and whose only significance is to act as the primary key.A surrogate key is frequently a sequential number (e.g. a Sybase identity column) but doesn't have to be. Having the key independent of all other columns insulates the database relationships from changes in data values or database design and guarantees uniqueness.Some database designers use surrogate keys religiously regardless of the suitability of other candidate keys. However, if a good key already exists, the addition of a surrogate key will merely slow down access, particularly if it is indexed.Compare: intelligent key. (1999-12-07)
Surya is only the appearance on this cosmic plane of the solar heart or central spiritual sun; although in a more mystical sense, Surya, our sun, is one of the reflections of a galactic center, which astronomically is the prototype, albeit far more advanced in cosmic evolution than is the sun itself. The visible reflection of the sun is composed of highly ethereal matter belonging to the fifth, sixth, and seventh substrates of the lowest cosmic plane or prithivi. Within and above all these rise in ever more sublime steps six other cosmic planes, on and in which are the other globes of the solar chain. The sun’s primary essence belongs to the highest division of the seventh state of mother-substance (adi-tattva). This primary sun, of which our visible sun is the reflection, is concealed from the gaze of all but the very highest dhyani-chohans.
tangram ::: n. --> A Chinese toy made by cutting a square of thin wood, or other suitable material, into seven pieces, as shown in the cut, these pieces being capable of combination in various ways, so as to form a great number of different figures. It is now often used in primary schools as a means of instruction.
tartramic ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or designating, an acid which is the primary acid amide derivative of tartaric acid.
Teba‘ (Hebrew) Ṭeba‘ [from Hebrew verbal root ṭāba‘, Chaldean verbal root ṭĕba‘ to assume shape, become round or spherical] Also tebah. In Chaldean, that which is to be formed or shaped — hence the primary substance of the world, the cosmic element — and also nature, which in late Hebrew “mystically and esoterically is the same as its personified Elohim” (TG 325).
Termmism: See Nominalism. Tertiary Qualities: Those qualities which are said to be imparted to objects by the mind. In contrast to primary and secondary qualities which are directed toward the objects (primary being thought of distinctly a part of objects) tertiary qualities are the subject's reactions to them. A thing, for example, is said to be good: The good points to the subject's reaction rather than to the object itself. -- V.F.
tertiary ::: a. --> Being of the third formation, order, or rank; third; as, a tertiary use of a word.
Possessing some quality in the third degree; having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals; as, a tertiary alcohol, amine, or salt. Cf. Primary, and Secondary.
Later than, or subsequent to, the Secondary.
Growing on the innermost joint of a bird&
Tevunah (&
The first root-race is called self-born, for the individuals of this race were the astral shadows of their progenitors, and their method of reproduction was by fission. Seven self-born primordial gods emanated from the triadic One. The self-born were the primary creation of seven creations, otherwise emanations of self-born gods, or ’elohim, as the Hebrews call them.
There is an old legend prevalent among many peoples that the color of human skin changes from light to dark as the ages slowly pass by: the legend stating that the first in any new great racial group or stock is light-colored or moon-colored, slowly changing to a more ruddy shade verging into cream or yellow, becoming gradually brown and darker brown, and ending with chocolate or what is called black. Yet the meaning is not that every race runs through these changing tints from light to dark during the course of its evolution, but that the different minor racial groupings, appearing each in its day during the course of the slow evolution of a root-race, gradually range from the root-race’s beginning from the light, and passing gradually through the different stages to the chocolate. Nor is it again to be understood that theosophy teaches that all mankind sprang either from an original pair, as metaphorically taught in the Bible, but that in the beginnings of time seven primary seed-groupings appeared on earth from inner realms, each with its own tint or color as we would now say, and each of the seven having its own karmically defined position on the ladder of evolution.
The rudras are highly intellectual and spiritual entities, having through previous evolutionary periods attained self-consciousness by individually passing through the equivalent of the human kingdom. The rudras represent an aggregate of entities in the primary formation of worlds, as well as the intellectually informing principles of man. They are mythologically said to be at war with the shadowy entities and powers of the lower spheres, and hence are sometimes spoken of as the destroyers of outward forms. The Vishnu-Purana states that “at the end of a thousand periods of four ages, which complete a day of Brahma, the earth is almost exhausted. The eternal Avyaya (Vishnu) assumes then the character of Rudra (the destroyer, Siva) and re-unites all his creatures to himself. He enters the Seven rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth. . . . Thus fed with abundant moisture the seven solar rays become seven suns by dilation, and they finally set the world on fire. Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is ‘the flame of time, Kalagni,’ finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming Janardana, breathes clouds and rain” (6:3).
The states of matter give clues by means of correspondence to the understanding of the primary elements. Gases are indefinitely expansible and their particles have great freedom and range of movement and are always in rapid motion. It would seem by analogy that the solid state corresponds to the physical planes, the liquid state to the astral or psychic plane, air to mind, and fire to spirit. Air may be called the vehicle of fire, as mind is the vehicle of spirit. Fire is analogous to points or foci of energy; air, being number two, suggests lines of force or radiation, motion. The air which, according to the teaching of the medieval Fire-philosophers, is the domain of sylphs is certainly not our familiar mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, which is merely a correspondence of the element on our plane; it is when on our own astral air plane that these beings may be encountered.
The Vedic seers seem to speak of two primary faculties of the "truthconscious" soul; they are Sight and Hearing, by which is intended direct operations of an inherent Knowledge describable as truth-vision and truth-audition and
reflected from far-off in our human mentality by the faculties of revelation and inspiration.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 183, 133
This primary, ultimate and eternal Existence, as seen by the Vedantins, is not merely bare existence, or a conscious existence whose consciousness is crude force or power; it is a conscious existence the very term of whose being, the very term of whose consciousness is bliss.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 1025
This "widespread instinctive conviction" in the order of nature, without its theological implications, became the basis and primary article of faith of modern natural science, whose aim is to express this rationality of nature as far as possible by the laws of natural science. Cf. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 5ff). Opposed to chaos, disorder, absence of law, irrationality. -- L-M.H.
Three senses of "Ockhamism" may be distinguished: Logical, indicating usage of the terminology and technique of logical analysis developed by Ockham in his Summa totius logicae; in particular, use of the concept of supposition (suppositio) in the significative analysis of terms. Epistemological, indicating the thesis that universality is attributable only to terms and propositions, and not to things as existing apart from discourse. Theological, indicating the thesis that no tneological doctrines, such as those of God's existence or of the immortality of the soul, are evident or demonstrable philosophically, so that religious doctrine rests solely on faith, without metaphysical or scientific support. It is in this sense that Luther is often called an Ockhamist. Bibliography: B. Geyer, Ueberwegs Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Phil., Bd. II (11th ed., Berlin 1928), pp. 571-612 and 781-786; N. Abbagnano, Guglielmo di Ockham (Lanciano, Italy, 1931); E. A. Moody, The Logic of William of Ockham (N. Y. & London, 1935); F. Ehrle, Peter von Candia (Muenster, 1925); G. Ritter, Studien zur Spaetscholastik, I-II (Heidelberg, 1921-1922). --E.A.M. Om, aum: (Skr.) Mystic, holy syllable as a symbol for the indefinable Absolute. See Aksara, Vac, Sabda. --K.F.L. Omniscience: In philosophy and theology it means the complete and perfect knowledge of God, of Himself and of all other beings, past, present, and future, or merely possible, as well as all their activities, real or possible, including the future free actions of human beings. --J.J.R. One: Philosophically, not a number but equivalent to unit, unity, individuality, in contradistinction from multiplicity and the mani-foldness of sensory experience. In metaphysics, the Supreme Idea (Plato), the absolute first principle (Neo-platonism), the universe (Parmenides), Being as such and divine in nature (Plotinus), God (Nicolaus Cusanus), the soul (Lotze). Religious philosophy and mysticism, beginning with Indian philosophy (s.v.), has favored the designation of the One for the metaphysical world-ground, the ultimate icility, the world-soul, the principle of the world conceived as reason, nous, or more personally. The One may be conceived as an independent whole or as a sum, as analytic or synthetic, as principle or ontologically. Except by mysticism, it is rarely declared a fact of sensory experience, while its transcendent or transcendental, abstract nature is stressed, e.g., in epistemology where the "I" or self is considered the unitary background of personal experience, the identity of self-consciousness, or the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifoldness of ideas (Kant). --K.F.L. One-one: A relation R is one-many if for every y in the converse domain there is a unique x such that xRy. A relation R is many-one if for every x in the domain there is a unique y such that xRy. (See the article relation.) A relation is one-one, or one-to-one, if it is at the same time one-many and many-one. A one-one relation is said to be, or to determine, a one-to-one correspondence between its domain and its converse domain. --A.C. On-handedness: (Ger. Vorhandenheit) Things exist in the mode of thereness, lying- passively in a neutral space. A "deficient" form of a more basic relationship, termed at-handedness (Zuhandenheit). (Heidegger.) --H.H. Ontological argument: Name by which later authors, especially Kant, designate the alleged proof for God's existence devised by Anselm of Canterbury. Under the name of God, so the argument runs, everyone understands that greater than which nothing can be thought. Since anything being the greatest and lacking existence is less then the greatest having also existence, the former is not really the greater. The greatest, therefore, has to exist. Anselm has been reproached, already by his contemporary Gaunilo, for unduly passing from the field of logical to the field of ontological or existential reasoning. This criticism has been repeated by many authors, among them Aquinas. The argument has, however, been used, if in a somewhat modified form, by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz. --R.A. Ontological Object: (Gr. onta, existing things + logos, science) The real or existing object of an act of knowledge as distinguished from the epistemological object. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ontologism: (Gr. on, being) In contrast to psychologism, is called any speculative system which starts philosophizing by positing absolute being, or deriving the existence of entities independently of experience merely on the basis of their being thought, or assuming that we have immediate and certain knowledge of the ground of being or God. Generally speaking any rationalistic, a priori metaphysical doctrine, specifically the philosophies of Rosmini-Serbati and Vincenzo Gioberti. As a philosophic method censored by skeptics and criticists alike, as a scholastic doctrine formerly strongly supported, revived in Italy and Belgium in the 19th century, but no longer countenanced. --K.F.L. Ontology: (Gr. on, being + logos, logic) The theory of being qua being. For Aristotle, the First Philosophy, the science of the essence of things. Introduced as a term into philosophy by Wolff. The science of fundamental principles, the doctrine of the categories. Ultimate philosophy; rational cosmology. Syn. with metaphysics. See Cosmology, First Principles, Metaphysics, Theology. --J.K.F. Operation: "(Lit. operari, to work) Any act, mental or physical, constituting a phase of the reflective process, and performed with a view to acquiring1 knowledge or information about a certain subject-nntter. --A.C.B. In logic, see Operationism. In philosophy of science, see Pragmatism, Scientific Empiricism. Operationism: The doctrine that the meaning of a concept is given by a set of operations. 1. The operational meaning of a term (word or symbol) is given by a semantical rule relating the term to some concrete process, object or event, or to a class of such processes, objectj or events. 2. Sentences formed by combining operationally defined terms into propositions are operationally meaningful when the assertions are testable by means of performable operations. Thus, under operational rules, terms have semantical significance, propositions have empirical significance. Operationism makes explicit the distinction between formal (q.v.) and empirical sentences. Formal propositions are signs arranged according to syntactical rules but lacking operational reference. Such propositions, common in mathematics, logic and syntax, derive their sanction from convention, whereas an empirical proposition is acceptable (1) when its structure obeys syntactical rules and (2) when there exists a concrete procedure (a set of operations) for determining its truth or falsity (cf. Verification). Propositions purporting to be empirical are sometimes amenable to no operational test because they contain terms obeying no definite semantical rules. These sentences are sometimes called pseudo-propositions and are said to be operationally meaningless. They may, however, be 'meaningful" in other ways, e.g. emotionally or aesthetically (cf. Meaning). Unlike a formal statement, the "truth" of an empirical sentence is never absolute and its operational confirmation serves only to increase the degree of its validity. Similarly, the semantical rule comprising the operational definition of a term has never absolute precision. Ordinarily a term denotes a class of operations and the precision of its definition depends upon how definite are the rules governing inclusion in the class. The difference between Operationism and Logical Positivism (q.v.) is one of emphasis. Operationism's stress of empirical matters derives from the fact that it was first employed to purge physics of such concepts as absolute space and absolute time, when the theory of relativity had forced upon physicists the view that space and time are most profitably defined in terms of the operations by which they are measured. Although different methods of measuring length at first give rise to different concepts of length, wherever the equivalence of certain of these measures can be established by other operations, the concepts may legitimately be combined. In psychology the operational criterion of meaningfulness is commonly associated with a behavioristic point of view. See Behaviorism. Since only those propositions which are testable by public and repeatable operations are admissible in science, the definition of such concepti as mind and sensation must rest upon observable aspects of the organism or its behavior. Operational psychology deals with experience only as it is indicated by the operation of differential behavior, including verbal report. Discriminations, or the concrete differential reactions of organisms to internal or external environmental states, are by some authors regarded as the most basic of all operations. For a discussion of the role of operational definition in phvsics. see P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, (New York, 1928) and The Nature of Physical Theory (Princeton, 1936). "The extension of operationism to psychology is discussed by C. C. Pratt in The Logic of Modem Psychology (New York. 1939.) For a discussion and annotated bibliography relating to Operationism and Logical Positivism, see S. S. Stevens, Psychology and the Science of Science, Psychol. Bull., 36, 1939, 221-263. --S.S.S. Ophelimity: Noun derived from the Greek, ophelimos useful, employed by Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) in economics as the equivalent of utility, or the capacity to provide satisfaction. --J.J.R. Opinion: (Lat. opinio, from opinor, to think) An hypothesis or proposition entertained on rational grounds but concerning which doubt can reasonably exist. A belief. See Hypothesis, Certainty, Knowledge. --J.K.F- Opposition: (Lat. oppositus, pp. of oppono, to oppose) Positive actual contradiction. One of Aristotle's Post-predicaments. In logic any contrariety or contradiction, illustrated by the "Square of Opposition". Syn. with: conflict. See Logic, formal, § 4. --J.K.F. Optimism: (Lat. optimus, the best) The view inspired by wishful thinking, success, faith, or philosophic reflection, that the world as it exists is not so bad or even the best possible, life is good, and man's destiny is bright. Philosophically most persuasively propounded by Leibniz in his Theodicee, according to which God in his wisdom would have created a better world had he known or willed such a one to exist. Not even he could remove moral wrong and evil unless he destroyed the power of self-determination and hence the basis of morality. All systems of ethics that recognize a supreme good (Plato and many idealists), subscribe to the doctrines of progressivism (Turgot, Herder, Comte, and others), regard evil as a fragmentary view (Josiah Royce et al.) or illusory, or believe in indemnification (Henry David Thoreau) or melioration (Emerson), are inclined optimistically. Practically all theologies advocating a plan of creation and salvation, are optimistic though they make the good or the better dependent on moral effort, right thinking, or belief, promising it in a future existence. Metaphysical speculation is optimistic if it provides for perfection, evolution to something higher, more valuable, or makes room for harmonies or a teleology. See Pessimism. --K.F.L. Order: A class is said to be partially ordered by a dyadic relation R if it coincides with the field of R, and R is transitive and reflexive, and xRy and yRx never both hold when x and y are different. If in addition R is connected, the class is said to be ordered (or simply ordered) by R, and R is called an ordering relation. Whitehcid and Russell apply the term serial relation to relations which are transitive, irreflexive, and connected (and, in consequence, also asymmetric). However, the use of serial relations in this sense, instead ordering relations as just defined, is awkward in connection with the notion of order for unit classes. Examples: The relation not greater than among leal numbers is an ordering relation. The relation less than among real numbers is a serial relation. The real numbers are simply ordered by the former relation. In the algebra of classes (logic formal, § 7), the classes are partially ordered by the relation of class inclusion. For explanation of the terminology used in making the above definitions, see the articles connexity, reflexivity, relation, symmetry, transitivity. --A.C. Order type: See relation-number. Ordinal number: A class b is well-ordered by a dyadic relation R if it is ordered by R (see order) and, for every class a such that a ⊂ b, there is a member x of a, such that xRy holds for every member y of a; and R is then called a well-ordering relation. The ordinal number of a class b well-ordered by a relation R, or of a well-ordering relation R, is defined to be the relation-number (q. v.) of R. The ordinal numbers of finite classes (well-ordered by appropriate relations) are called finite ordinal numbers. These are 0, 1, 2, ... (to be distinguished, of course, from the finite cardinal numbers 0, 1, 2, . . .). The first non-finite (transfinite or infinite) ordinal number is the ordinal number of the class of finite ordinal numbers, well-ordered in their natural order, 0, 1, 2, . . .; it is usually denoted by the small Greek letter omega. --A.C. G. Cantor, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, translated and with an introduction by P. E. B. Jourdain, Chicago and London, 1915. (new ed. 1941); Whitehead and Russell, Princtpia Mathematica. vol. 3. Orexis: (Gr. orexis) Striving; desire; the conative aspect of mind, as distinguished from the cognitive and emotional (Aristotle). --G.R.M.. Organicism: A theory of biology that life consists in the organization or dynamic system of the organism. Opposed to mechanism and vitalism. --J.K.F. Organism: An individual animal or plant, biologically interpreted. A. N. Whitehead uses the term to include also physical bodies and to signify anything material spreading through space and enduring in time. --R.B.W. Organismic Psychology: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, an instrument) A system of theoretical psychology which construes the structure of the mind in organic rather than atomistic terms. See Gestalt Psychology; Psychological Atomism. --L.W. Organization: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, work) A structured whole. The systematic unity of parts in a purposive whole. A dynamic system. Order in something actual. --J.K.F. Organon: (Gr. organon) The title traditionally given to the body of Aristotle's logical treatises. The designation appears to have originated among the Peripatetics after Aristotle's time, and expresses their view that logic is not a part of philosophy (as the Stoics maintained) but rather the instrument (organon) of philosophical inquiry. See Aristotelianism. --G.R.M. In Kant. A system of principles by which pure knowledge may be acquired and established. Cf. Fr. Bacon's Novum Organum. --O.F.K. Oriental Philosophy: A general designation used loosely to cover philosophic tradition exclusive of that grown on Greek soil and including the beginnings of philosophical speculation in Egypt, Arabia, Iran, India, and China, the elaborate systems of India, Greater India, China, and Japan, and sometimes also the religion-bound thought of all these countries with that of the complex cultures of Asia Minor, extending far into antiquity. Oriental philosophy, though by no means presenting a homogeneous picture, nevertheless shares one characteristic, i.e., the practical outlook on life (ethics linked with metaphysics) and the absence of clear-cut distinctions between pure speculation and religious motivation, and on lower levels between folklore, folk-etymology, practical wisdom, pre-scientiiic speculation, even magic, and flashes of philosophic insight. Bonds with Western, particularly Greek philosophy have no doubt existed even in ancient times. Mutual influences have often been conjectured on the basis of striking similarities, but their scientific establishment is often difficult or even impossible. Comparative philosophy (see especially the work of Masson-Oursel) provides a useful method. Yet a thorough treatment of Oriental Philosophy is possible only when the many languages in which it is deposited have been more thoroughly studied, the psychological and historical elements involved in the various cultures better investigated, and translations of the relevant documents prepared not merely from a philological point of view or out of missionary zeal, but by competent philosophers who also have some linguistic training. Much has been accomplished in this direction in Indian and Chinese Philosophy (q.v.). A great deal remains to be done however before a definitive history of Oriental Philosophy may be written. See also Arabian, and Persian Philosophy. --K.F.L. Origen: (185-254) The principal founder of Christian theology who tried to enrich the ecclesiastic thought of his day by reconciling it with the treasures of Greek philosophy. Cf. Migne PL. --R.B.W. Ormazd: (New Persian) Same as Ahura Mazdah (q.v.), the good principle in Zoroastrianism, and opposed to Ahriman (q.v.). --K.F.L. Orphic Literature: The mystic writings, extant only in fragments, of a Greek religious-philosophical movement of the 6th century B.C., allegedly started by the mythical Orpheus. In their mysteries, in which mythology and rational thinking mingled, the Orphics concerned themselves with cosmogony, theogony, man's original creation and his destiny after death which they sought to influence to the better by pure living and austerity. They taught a symbolism in which, e.g., the relationship of the One to the many was clearly enunciated, and believed in the soul as involved in reincarnation. Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plato were influenced by them. --K.F.L. Ortega y Gasset, Jose: Born in Madrid, May 9, 1883. At present in Buenos Aires, Argentine. Son of Ortega y Munillo, the famous Spanish journalist. Studied at the College of Jesuits in Miraflores and at the Central University of Madrid. In the latter he presented his Doctor's dissertation, El Milenario, in 1904, thereby obtaining his Ph.D. degree. After studies in Leipzig, Berlin, Marburg, under the special influence of Hermann Cohen, the great exponent of Kant, who taught him the love for the scientific method and awoke in him the interest in educational philosophy, Ortega came to Spain where, after the death of Nicolas Salmeron, he occupied the professorship of metaphysics at the Central University of Madrid. The following may be considered the most important works of Ortega y Gasset: Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914; El Espectador, I-VIII, 1916-1935; El Tema de Nuestro Tiempo, 1921; España Invertebrada, 1922; Kant, 1924; La Deshumanizacion del Arte, 1925; Espiritu de la Letra, 1927; La Rebelion de las Masas, 1929; Goethe desde Adentio, 1934; Estudios sobre el Amor, 1939; Ensimismamiento y Alteracion, 1939; El Libro de las Misiones, 1940; Ideas y Creencias, 1940; and others. Although brought up in the Marburg school of thought, Ortega is not exactly a neo-Kantian. At the basis of his Weltanschauung one finds a denial of the fundamental presuppositions which characterized European Rationalism. It is life and not thought which is primary. Things have a sense and a value which must be affirmed independently. Things, however, are to be conceived as the totality of situations which constitute the circumstances of a man's life. Hence, Ortega's first philosophical principle: "I am myself plus my circumstances". Life as a problem, however, is but one of the poles of his formula. Reason is the other. The two together function, not by dialectical opposition, but by necessary coexistence. Life, according to Ortega, does not consist in being, but rather, in coming to be, and as such it is of the nature of direction, program building, purpose to be achieved, value to be realized. In this sense the future as a time dimension acquires new dignity, and even the present and the past become articulate and meaning-full only in relation to the future. Even History demands a new point of departure and becomes militant with new visions. --J.A.F. Orthodoxy: Beliefs which are declared by a group to be true and normative. Heresy is a departure from and relative to a given orthodoxy. --V.S. Orthos Logos: See Right Reason. Ostensible Object: (Lat. ostendere, to show) The object envisaged by cognitive act irrespective of its actual existence. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ostensive: (Lat. ostendere, to show) Property of a concept or predicate by virtue of which it refers to and is clarified by reference to its instances. --A.C.B. Ostwald, Wilhelm: (1853-1932) German chemist. Winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1909. In Die Uberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialistmus and in Naturphilosophie, his two best known works in the field of philosophy, he advocates a dynamic theory in opposition to materialism and mechanism. All properties of matter, and the psychic as well, are special forms of energy. --L.E.D. Oupnekhat: Anquetil Duperron's Latin translation of the Persian translation of 50 Upanishads (q.v.), a work praised by Schopenhauer as giving him complete consolation. --K.F.L. Outness: A term employed by Berkeley to express the experience of externality, that is the ideas of space and things placed at a distance. Hume used it in the sense of distance Hamilton understood it as the state of being outside of consciousness in a really existing world of material things. --J.J.R. Overindividual: Term used by H. Münsterberg to translate the German überindividuell. The term is applied to any cognitive or value object which transcends the individual subject. --L.W. P
Thrud(r), Thrudgelmir (Icelandic) Trudgalmer (Swedish) [cf Greek gymnazein, Scandinavian idrott sport, German drude] The dynamic principle, Thor on a cosmic scale, where this dynamism is the primary force to emerge from the great Unknown at the start of any period of manifestation. In this capacity Thrud appears before any of the gods, as does the Hindu Kama and Greek Eros.
Thus the ark has both a cosmic and a human significance. In one sense it is man himself who is the ark; for, having appeared at the beginning of sentient life, man (as he then was) became the living and animal unit, whose cast-off clothes determined the shape of every life and animal in this round. In its widest sense the symbolism refers to the first cosmic flood, the primary creation, and so the ark also is Mother Nature; but it likewise refers to terrestrial deluges where its application is twofold, for it means the saving of mankind through physical generation, and also cyclic deluges, especially the Atlantean one. The ark is argha in Chaldean, vara in Persian, and is referred to in the stories about Noah, Deucalion, Xisuthrus, Yima, etc. The ark in which the infant Moses is saved is an instance of many similar legends conveying the same root idea. The ark, therefore, is the receptive aspect of the principle of reproduction and regeneration, ranging from the most fundamental Mother Nature to her every correspondence on the various planes.
tions are one of 3 primary hierarchies (each again
token economy: using the principles of operant conditioning, a behaviour modification technique used to encourage particular behaviour, through the employment of secondary reinforcers (tokens) after desirable behaviour, which can be collected and exchanged for primary reinforcers (a meaningful object or privilege).
Transaction Application Language "language" (TAL) Not "Tandem Application Language". A {block-structured}, {procedural} language optimised for use on {Tandem} {hardware}. TAL is a cross between {C} and {Pascal} and is the primary system programming language on {Tandem} computers. Tandem has no {assembler} and originally had no C or Pascal. [Was TAL derived from HP's System Programming Language?] (2001-07-09)
Transaction Application Language ::: (language, Tandem) (TAL) Not Tandem Application Language. A block-structured, procedural language optimised for use on Tandem hardware. TAL is a cross between C and Pascal and is the primary system programming language on Tandem computers. Tandem has no assembler and originally had no C or Pascal.[Was TAL derived from HP's System Programming Language?](2001-07-09)
tricrotism ::: n. --> That condition of the arterial pulse in which there is a triple beat. The pulse curve obtained in the sphygmographic tracing characteristic of tricrotism shows two secondary crests in addition to the primary.
triploblastic ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or designating, that condition of the ovum in which there are three primary germinal layers, or in which the blastoderm splits into three layers.
true hacker "person" (By analogy with "trufan" from SF fandom) One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, especially competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. "He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week - manifestly the act of a true-hacker". Compare {demigod}, opposite: {munchkin}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-07)
true hacker ::: (person) (By analogy with trufan from SF fandom) One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, especially competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week - manifestly the act of a true-hacker.Compare demigod, opposite: munchkin.[Jargon File] (1996-01-07)
Tung: (a) Activity; motion; "the constant feature of the active or male cosmic principle (yang)" of the universe, just as passivity is the constant feature of the passive or female cosmic principle (yin). According to Chou Lien-hsi 1017-1173), "the Great Ultimate (T'ai Chi) moves, becomes active, and generates the active principle (yang). When its activity reaches its limit, it becomes tranquil, engendering the passive principle (yin). When the Great Ultimate becomes completely tranquil, it begins to move again. Thus, movement and tranquillity alternate and become the occasion of each other, giving rise to the distinction of yin and yang, and the Two Primary Modes are thus established." To the entire Neo Confucian school, activity is potential tranquillity (ching).
Two aspects of Russell's work are likely to remain of permanent importance, his major part in the twentieth century renaissance of logic, his reiterated attempts to identify the methods of philosophy with those of the sciences. (1) While the primary objective of Principia was to prove that pure mathematics could be derived from logic, the success of this undertaking (as to which hardly any dissenting opinion persists) is overshadowed by the importance of the techniques perfected in the course of its prosecution. Without disrespect to other pioneers in the field, it is sufficient to point out that a knowledge of the symbolic logic of Russell and Whitehead is still a necessary prerequisite for understanding contemporary studies in logic, in the foundations of mathematics, and tht philosophy of science.
Twofold Man Used of the period in human history when human beings were androgynous. This in one sense was the representative on earth of the cosmic ’Adam Qadmon which becomes the Microprosopus (small face) as distinguished from the cosmos itself, called in the Qabbalah Macroprosopus (great face). The twofold man, whether cosmic or terrestrial, belongs to the secondary creation, the creation of darkness or matter, or the vast intricacies of cosmic differentiations, as distinguished from the primary creation, the first emanations from cosmic spirit imbodying entities of spiritual and intellectual power, and hence often called the creation of light, which in its latter stage became that of the self-evolved gods or ’elohim.
tzetze ::: n. --> Same as Tsetse. U () the twenty-first letter of the English alphabet, is a cursive form of the letter V, with which it was formerly used interchangeably, both letters being then used both as vowels and consonants. U and V are now, however, differentiated, U being used only as a vowel or semivowel, and V only as a consonant. The true primary vowel sound of U, in Anglo-Saxon, was the sound which it still retains in most of the languages of Europe, that of long oo, as in tool, and short oo, as in
Unity Kosmic unity, incomprehensible to humans, implies wholeness, homogeneity, uniformity, indivisibility — individuality. Its primary expression is kosmic space. Unity can be applied to any individual, such as the First Logos or any subordinate logos; again, any individual monadic unit is de facto a unity. Unity, in contrast with duality or multiplicity, is relative, as when we speak of a whole in relation to its parts, the unitary essence of a compound body, or the hyparxis of a hierarchy. The tendency of evolution on an upward arc is towards unity; on a downward arc, towards diversity; and both tendencies are active in the human being.
Universal Solar System The sum-total on all planes of all the bodies, visible or invisible, which pertain to the inclusive Brahmanda (egg of Brahma) of which our sun with its family of planetary chains forms a part. The Logos of the universal solar system, called the universal sun, has its foci of spiritual, psychological, ethereal, and material fields of action in and through emanated rays or minor logoi or suns, of which our sun is one, and each of these last has its corresponding subdivisional activities and functions. Our solar system, septenary or denary in itself, pertains to a single one of the primary seven rays of the universal solar system.
uranus ::: n. --> The son or husband of Gaia (Earth), and father of Chronos (Time) and the Titans.
One of the primary planets. It is about 1,800,000,000 miles from the sun, about 36,000 miles in diameter, and its period of revolution round the sun is nearly 84 of our years.
utthapana ::: (literally) raising, elevating; "the state of not being subutthapana ject to the pressure of physical forces", the second member of the sarira catus.t.aya, called utthapana or levitation because of its third and final stage (tertiary utthapana) in which "gravitation is conquered", but usually referring to either of two earlier stages (primary utthapana and secondary utthapana) in which "the habit by which the bodily nature associates certain forms and degrees of activity with strain, fatigue, incapacity" is rectified, resulting in a great increase in "the power, freedom, swiftness, effectiveness of the work whether physical or mental which can be done with this bodily instrument"; exercise for the development of utthapana (such as walking for primary utthapana). utth utthapana-sakti
Value added tax (VAT - applies to many countries) - A general tax applied at each point of exchange of goods or services from primary production to final consumption. It is levied on the difference between the sale price of the goods or services to which the tax is applied, and the cost of the goods or services brought into use in production.
Vegetable Kingdom In the vegetable stage of the monad’s evolution, the faculty of apperception begins to be clearly manifested, which differs from mere perception in that it is accompanied with a certain amount of awareness of results to be achieved. This is shown in the many ways in which plants can care for themselves, as in sending out rootlets for water or providing for fertilization. In the list of seven creations (cf SD 1:450), the fourth is there called the mukhya or primary because it begins the following system of the four subsequent creations; and the Hindu systems place vegetable bodies in this fourth emanation because they possess individualized lives. All the seven kingdoms or life-waves are manifestations of different groups or life-waves of monads in various degrees of emanational self-manifestation.
vijnana. ::: perfect knowledge of the Self; primary consciousness; Final Reality; pure intelligence
Visesha (Sanskrit) Viśeṣa [from the verbal root śiṣ to distinguish, particularize] Distinction, characteristic difference or property. In the Vaiseshika system used as the fifth padartha (logical category), visesha belonging to the nine substances (dravyas) of the Nyaya philosophy. Used in the Nyaya to signify the everlasting distinctions characterizing the primary substances or elements (mahabhutas).
Visual Basic for Applications "programming" (VBA) {Microsoft}'s common language for manipulating components of its {Microsoft Office} suite. It is used as the {macro} language for these applications and is the primary means of customising and extending them. A VBA program operates on {objects} representing the application and the entities it manipulates, e.g. a {spreadsheet} or a range of cells in {Microsoft Excel}. [Relationship to {Visual BASIC}? URL?] (1999-09-12)
Voluntarism: (Lat. voluntas, will) In ontology, the theory that the will is the ultimate constituent of reality. Doctrine that the human will, or some force analogous to it, is the primary stuff of the universe; that blind, purposive impulse is the real in nature. (a) In psychology, theory that the will is the most elemental psychic factor, that striving, impulse, desire, and even action, with their concomitant emotions, are alone dependable. (b) In ethics, the doctrine that the human will is central to all moral questions, and superior to all other moral criteria, such as the conscience, or reasoning power. The subjective theory that the choice made by the will determines the good. Stands for indeterminism and freedom. (c) In theology, the will as the source of all religion, that blessedness is a state of activity. Augustine (353-430) held that God is absolute will, a will independent of the Logos, and that the good will of man is free. For Avicebron (1020-1070), will is indefinable and stands above mature and soul, matter and form, as the pnmary category. Despite the metaphysical opposition of Duns Scotus (1265-1308) the realist, and William of Occam (1280-1347) the nominalist, both considered the will superior to the intellect. Hume (1711-1776) maintained that the will is the determining factor in human conduct, and Kant (1724-1804) believed the will to be the source of all moral judgment, and the good to be based on the human will. Schopenhauer (1788-1860) posited the objectified will as the world-substance, force, or value. James (1842-1910) followed up Wundt's notion of the will as the purpose of the good with the notion that it is the essence of faith, also manifest in the will to believe. See Will, Conation. Opposed to Rationalism, Materialism, Intellectualism. -- J.K.F.
V. Probability as an Operattonal Concept: In this interpretation, which is due particularly to Kemble, probability is discussed in terms of the mental operations involved in determining it numerically. It is pointed out that probability enters the postulates of physical theories as a useful word employed to indicate the manner in which results of theoretical calculations are to be compared with experimental data. But beyond the usefulness of this word, there must be a more fundamental concept justifying it; this is called primary probability which should be reached by an instrumentalist procedure. The analogy of the thermometer, which connects a qualitative sensation with a number, gives an indication for such a procedure. The expectation of the repetition of an event is an elementary form of belief which can be strengthened by additional evidence. In collecting such evidence, a selection is naturally made, by accepting the relevant data and rejecting the others. When the selected data form a pattern which does not involve the event as such or its negative, the event is considered as probable. The rules of collecting the data and of comparing them with the theoretical event and its negative, involve the idea ol correspondence which leads to the use of numbers for its expression. Thus, probability is a number computed from empirical data according to given rules, and used as a metric and a corrective to the sense of expectation, and the ultimate value of the theory of probability is its service as a guide to action. The main interest of this theory lies in its psychological analysis and its attempt to unify the various conceptions of probability. But it is not yet complete; and until its epistemological implications are made clear, its apparent eclecticism may cover many of the difficulties it wishes to avoid. -- T.G.
Water A primary cosmic element with almost innumerable manifestations, corresponding to the Hindu apas tattva and to the akasic waters of space. Its most fundamental meaning is that of space or akasa, the great mother of all, the feminine receptive principle over and in which broods the fire of spirit. “The first principle of things, according to Thales and other ancient philosophers. Of course this is not water on the material plane, but in a figurative sense for the potential fluid contained in boundless space. This was symbolized in ancient Egypt by Kneph, the ‘unrevealed’ god, who was represented as the serpent — the emblem of eternity — encircling a water-urn, with his head hovering over the waters, which he incubates with his breath. ‘And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ (Gen. i). The honey-dew, the food of the gods and of the creative bees on the Yggdrasil, falls during the night upon the tree of life from the ‘divine waters, the birth-place of the gods.’ Alchemists claim that when pre-Adamic earth is reduced by the Alkahest to its first substance, it is like clear water. The Alkahest is ‘the one and the invisible, the water, the first principle, in the second transformation’ ” (TG 368).
Will power is a mighty, colorless force or energy which can be set in motion by one who has the power and knowledge to do so. In India, in combination with abstract desire, it is mentioned as one of six primary powers (ichchhasakti) by which the adept accomplishes many of his wonders. “The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one’s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result . . . For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of the primordial divine Light and eternal Life “(SD 2:173). The occult power of will explains many scientific problems of animate and inanimate matter. In human beings, it may consciously and unconsciously act upon other human wills and upon that of beasts; likewise, it may act upon physical and astral substance to produce various phenomena such as levitation, fire-walking, birthmarks, etc. “Paracelsus teaches that ‘determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain’ ” (TG 370).
With these principles of matter and form, and the parallel distinction between potential and actual existence, Aristotle claims to have solved the difficulties that earlier thinkers had found in the fact of change. The changes in nature are to be interpreted not as the passage from non-being to being, which would make them unintelligible, but as the process by which what is merely potential being passes over, through form, into actual being, or entelechy. The philosophy of nature which results from these basic concepts views nature as a dynamic realm in which change is real, spontaneous, continuous, and in the main directed. Matter, though indeed capable of form, possesses a residual inertia which on occasion produces accidental effects; so that alongside the teological causation of the forms Aristotle recognizes what he calls "necessity" in nature; but the products of the latter, since they are aberrations from form, cannot be made the object of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, the system of nature as developed by Aristotle is a graded series of existences, in which the simpler beings, though in themselves formed matter, function also as matter for higher forms. At the base of the series is prime matter, which as wholly unformed is mere potentiality, not actual being. The simplest formed matter is the so-called primary bodies -- earth, water, air and fire. From these as matter arise by the intervention of successively more complex forms the composite inorganic bodies, organic tissues, and the world of organisms, characterized by varying degrees of complexity in structure and function. In this realization of form in matter Aristotle distinguishes three sorts of change: qualitative change, or alteration; quantitative change, or growth and diminution; and change, of place, or locomotion, the last being primary, since it is presupposed in all the others. But Aristotle is far from suggesting a mechanical explanation of change, for not even locomotion can be explained by impact alone. The motion of the primary bodies is due to the fact that each has its natural place to which it moves when not opposed; earth to the center, then water, air, and fire to successive spheres about the center. The ceaseless motion of these primary bodies results from their ceaseless transformation into one another through the interaction of the forms of hot and cold, wet and dry. Thus qualitative differences of form underlie even the most elemental changes in the world of nature.
X.400 "messaging" The set of {ITU-T} communications standards covering {electronic mail} services provided by data networks. X.400 was widely used in Europe and Canada. X.400 addresses tend to be much longer than {RFC 822} ones. They consist of a set of bindings for country (c), {administrative domain} (a), {primary management domain} (p), surname (s), given name (g). For example, the X.400 address, c=gb;a=attmail;p=Universal Export;s=Bond;g=James; might be equivalent to RFC 822 James.Bond@UniversalExport.co.uk [Reference?] (2003-06-24)
X.400 ::: (messaging) The set of ITU-T communications standards covering electronic mail services provided by data networks. X.400 was widely used in Europe and Canada.X.400 addresses tend to be much longer than RFC 822 ones. They consist of a set of bindings for country (c), administrative domain (a), primary management domain (p), surname (s), given name (g).For example, the X.400 address, c=gb;a=attmail;p=Universal Export;s=Bond;g=James; might be equivalent to RFC 822 [Reference?](2003-06-24)
Xerox Network System "networking" (XNS) A proprietary network architecture developed by the Xerox Office Systems Division of {Xerox corporation} at {Xerox PARC} in the late 1970s/early 1980s to run on {LAN} ({Ethernet}) and {WAN} networks. The XNS {protocol stack} provided {routing} and {packet delivery}. Implementations exist for {4.3BSD} derived systems and the {Xerox Star} computers. Novell based much of the lower layers of their protocol suite IPX/SPX on XNS. The main components are: Internet datagram protocol (IDP), Routing information protocol (RIP), Packet Exchange protocol (PEP), and Sequences packet protocol (SPP). XNS has strong parellels to {TCP/IP} in that the {network layer}, IDP, is roughly equivalent to IP. RIP has the same functions (and obviously name) as the routing information protocol, RIP. SPP, a connectionless transport layer protocol, is similar to {UDP}. PEP is also in the transport layer but is connection-oriented and similar to TCP. XNS specifically is no longer in use due to the all pervasiveness of IP. XNS denotes not only the protocol stack, but also an architecture of standard programming interfaces, conventions, and service functions for {authentication}, directory, filing, {e-mail}, and {remote procedure call}. XNS is also the name of Xerox's implementation. Many PC networking companies, such as {3Com}, {Banyan}, {Novell}, and {Ungermann-Bass Networks} used or use a variation of XNS as their primary transport protocol. XNS was desigined to be used across a variety of communication media, processors, and office applications. UB, (now a part of {Tandem Computers}) adopted XNS in developing its {Net/One} XNS routing protocol. [Or is it "Service(s)"? Date?] (2003-11-10)
Xerox Network System ::: (networking) (XNS) A proprietary network architecture developed by the Xerox Office Systems Division of Xerox corporation at Xerox PARC in the late 1970s/early 1980s to run on LAN (Ethernet) and WAN networks. The XNS protocol stack provided routing and packet delivery.Implementations exist for 4.3BSD derived systems and the Xerox Star computers. Novell based much of the lower layers of their protocol suite IPX/SPX on XNS.The main components are: Internet datagram protocol (IDP), Routing information protocol (RIP), Packet Exchange protocol (PEP), and Sequences packet protocol (SPP).XNS has strong parellels to TCP/IP in that the network layer, IDP, is roughly equivalent to IP. RIP has the same functions (and obviously name) as the routing similar to UDP. PEP is also in the transport layer but is connection-oriented and similar to TCP.XNS specifically is no longer in use due to the all pervasiveness of IP.XNS denotes not only the protocol stack, but also an architecture of standard programming interfaces, conventions, and service functions for authentication, directory, filing, e-mail, and remote procedure call. XNS is also the name of Xerox's implementation.Many PC networking companies, such as 3Com, Banyan, Novell, and Ungermann-Bass Networks used or use a variation of XNS as their primary transport protocol. XNS and office applications. UB, (now a part of Tandem Computers) adopted XNS in developing its Net/One XNS routing protocol.[Or is it Service(s)? Date?](2003-11-10)
Yesha Y S A ::: Yesha is the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yehuda, Shomron, Aza), also referred to as “the territories.” The Yesha Council was founded in the late 1970s as the successor to Gush Emunim, the organization that led the settling of Jews in the territories following the Six-Day War. Since its inception, the Yesha Council's primary goal has been to strengthen and increase the Jewish presence in the territories. The Council represents all of Israeli cities, towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Its plenum is comprised of 25 mayors and 10 other community leaders.
Yisrael Sabba (&
KEYS (10k)
8 Sri Aurobindo
2 The Mother
2 Saint Thomas Aquinas
1 Will Bowen
1 Martin Heidegger
1 Manly P Hall
1 Kevin Mitnick
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jordan B. Peterson
1 Denis Waitley
1 Cicero
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
38 Anonymous
27 Eckhart Tolle
19 Rush Limbaugh
16 Frederick Lenz
9 Noam Chomsky
8 Hillary Clinton
8 Albert Einstein
7 Ted Cruz
7 Mokokoma Mokhonoana
7 James C Collins
6 Warren Farrell
6 Viktor E Frankl
6 Steven Levitsky
6 Stephen R Covey
6 Aristotle
6 Alexis de Tocqueville
5 Terence McKenna
5 Robert Kiyosaki
5 Richard Rohr
5 John Shelby Spong
1:My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.
~ Kevin Mitnick,#KEYS
2:There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." ~ Denis Waitley, #KEYS
3:The primary and formal object of faith is the good which is the First Truth ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.7.1ad3)., #KEYS
4:For the awakened individual the realisation of his truth of being and his inner liberation and perfection must be his primary seeking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
5:In every moment you are creating your life with the thoughts you give primary 'attention' to." ~ Will Bowen, author of "A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted", (2007), ten million copies sold in 106 countries., #KEYS
6:This environmental milieu…does not consist just of things, objects, which are then conceived as meaning this and this; rather, the meaningful is primary and immediately given to me without any mental detours across thing-oriented apprehension. ~ Martin Heidegger, TDP p. 61, #KEYS
7:For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
8:There is a primary law, eternal, invariable, engraved in the heads of all; it is Right Reason. Never does it speak in vain to the virtuous man, whether it ordains or prohibits. The wicked alone are untouched by its voice. It is easy to be understood and is not different in one country and in another; it is today what it will be tomorrow and for all time. ~ Cicero, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
9:But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, - that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
10:We have to know ourselves as the self, the spirit, the eternal; we have to exist consciously in our true being. Therefore this must be our primary, if not our first one and all-absorbing idea and effort in the path of knowledge. But when we have realised the eternal self that we are, when we have become that inalienably, we have still a secondary aim, to establish the true relation between this eternal self that we are and the mutable existence and mutable world which till now we had falsely taken for our real being and our sole possible status.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
11:Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you." The alchemist, therefore is assured that if he achieved the inner mystery, the fulfillment of the outer part will be inevitable. But practically every charlatan in alchemy has determined primarily to achieve the physical purpose first. His primary interest has been to make gold, or perhaps one of the other aspects of it, such as a medicine against illness. He has wanted the physical effect first but because the physical effect was not intended to be first, when he starts to study and explore the various texts, he comes upon a dilemma, HIS OWN INTERNAL RESOURCES CANNOT DISCOVER THE CORRECT INSTRUCTIONS. The words may be there but the meaning eludes him because the meaning is not part of his own present spiritual integrity. ~ Manly P Hall, #KEYS
12:11. The Ultimate Boon:The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
13:Jnanaprakasha:: Jnana includes both the Para and the Apara Vidya, the knowledge of Brahman in Himself and the knowledge of the world; but the Yogin, reversing the order of the worldly mind, seeks to know Brahman first and through Brahman the world. Scientific knowledge, worldly information & instruction are to him secondary objects, not as it is with the ordinary scholar & scientist, his primary aim. Nevertheless these too we must take into our scope and give room to God's full joy in the world. The methods of the Yogin are also different for he tends more and more to the use of direct vision and the faculties of the vijnana and less and less to intellectual means. The ordinary man studies the object from outside and infers its inner nature from the results of his external study. The Yogin seeks to get inside his object, know it from within & use external study only as a means of confirming his view of the outward action resulting from an already known inner nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Record Of Yoga - I,#KEYS
14:the three successive elements :::
The progressive self-manifestation of Nature in man, termed in modern language his evolution, must necessarily depend upon three successive elements, that which is already evolved, that which is persistently in the stage of conscious evolution and that which is to be evolved and may perhaps be already displayed, if not constantly, then occasionally or with some regularity of recurrence, in primary formations or in others more developed and, it may well be, even in some, however rare, that are near to the highest possible realisation of our present humanity. For the march of Nature is not drilled to a regular and mechanical forward stepping. She reaches constantly beyond herself even at the cost of subsequent deplorable retreats. She has rushes; she has splendid and mighty outbursts; she has immense realisations. She storms sometimes passionately forward hoping to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. And these self-exceedings are the revelation of that in her which is most divine or else most diabolical, but in either case the most puissant to bring her rapidly forward towards her goal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Three Steps of Nature,#KEYS
15: There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration, -for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world, -- so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a Mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise, to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration, which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all ones inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion [T2],#KEYS
16:... one of the major personality traits was neuroticism, the tendency to feel negative emotion. He [Jung] never formalized that idea in his thinking. Its a great oversight in some sense because the capacity to experience negative emotion, when thats exaggerated that seems to be the core feature of everything we that we regard as psychopathology. Psychiatric and psychological illness. Not the only thing but its the primary factor. So.
Q: What is the best way to avoid falling back into nihilistic behaviours and thinking?
JBP:Well, a large part of that I would say is habit. The development and maintainance of good practices. Habits. If you find yourself desolute, neurotic, if your thought tends in the nihilistic direction and you tend to fall apart, organizing your life across multiple dimensions is a good antidote its not exactly thinking.
Do you have an intimate relationship? If not then well probably you could use one.
Do you have contact with close family members, siblings, children, parents, or even people who are more distantly related. If not, you probably need that.
Do you see your friends a couple of times a week? And do something social with them?
Do you have a way of productively using your time outside of employment?
Are you employed?
Do you have a good job? Or at least a job that is practically sufficient and enables you to work with people who you like working with? Even if the job itself is mundane or repetitive or difficult sometimes the relationships you establish in an employment situation like that can make the job worthwhile.
Have you regulated your response to temptations? Pornography, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, is that under control?
I would say differentiate the problem. Theres multiple dimensions of attainment, ambition, pleasure, responsibility all of that that make up a life, and to the degree that is it possible you want to optimize your functioning on as many of those dimensions as possible.
You might also organize your schedule to the degree that you have that capacity for discipline.
Do you get enough sleep?
Do you go to bed at a regular time?
Do you get up at a regular time?
Do you eat regularly and appropriately and enought and not too much?
Are your days and your weeks and your months characterized by some tolerable, repeatable structure? That helps you meet your responsibilities but also shields you from uncertainly and chaos and provides you with multiple sources of reward?
Those are all the questions decompose the problem into, the best way of avoiding falling into nihilistic behaviours and thinking. ~ Jordan B. Peterson, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-geMoCsNAw,#KEYS
17:The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, clear state of mind and heart is established.
This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 36,#KEYS
18:the process of unification, the perfecting our one's instrumental being, the help one needs to reach the goal :::
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 endeavor.
As you pursue this labor 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 movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection. ... It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us [the psychic being], 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 perfection 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 realize. This discovery and realization 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.
~ The Mother, On Education, [T1],#KEYS
19:To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?
Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.
Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested as the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down into our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth mount high in the heaven of our mentality.
Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, - truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is therefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things - for creation is out-bringing, expression by the Truth and Will - and the father, fosterer, enlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun who comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us night-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.
Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.
Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, - and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, - this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, - this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, - this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya. For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.
Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the chariot of the Ashwins, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of Truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of self-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.
There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.
All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, - Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.
The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels, - in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual and psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the Sun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Doctrine of the Mystics,#KEYS
20: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
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Feeling good is the primary intention ~ danielle-laporte, @wisdomtrove 2:Humor is one of the primary tools for liberation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 3:The primary task of a Jew in turbulent times is to be Jewish. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 4:Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything. ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 5:A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 6:One of the primary tactics for enduring winning is daily learning. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 7:The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 8:The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing; the primary fact. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 9:I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 10:Truth is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 11:The primary success factor is knowing how to learn from others and rely on yourself. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 12:A coach's primary function should be not to make better players, but to make better people ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 13:The primary Reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 14:The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 15:The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 16:Economists say the inability to delay gratification is a primary predictor of economic failure in life. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 17:... the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 18:The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 19:One of the primary goals in life ... should be to prepare for death. Everything else should be secondary. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 20:There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 21:Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 22:Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 23:You think that enlightenment is something other than what is happening right now. This is your primary mistake. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 24:There are seven primary centers, junctions, within the subtle physical body. These are called the seven chakras. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 25:A primary task of management in the developed countries in the decades ahead will be to make knowledge productive. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 26:It is the awareness that is of primary importance, no matter what the objects are that we are paying attention to. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 27:In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of servants of the primary instincts. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 28:The primary reason for underachievement and failure is that the great majority of people don't decide to be successful. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 29:Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 30:The primary aim of yoga is to restore the mind to simplicity, peace, and poise, to free it from confusion and distress. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 31:There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 32:The primary aim of modern warfare ... is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 33:This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 34:The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 35:The primary quality that Lao Tzu seems to emobdy is humility, which is the image of water - seeking the common level of existence. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 36:Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 37:One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense over sensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 38:The primary means of energy generation is going to solar. It will at least be a plurality, and probably be a slight majority in the long term. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 39:In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend. ~ alexander-hamilton, @wisdomtrove 40:The primary energy that is active in all things is kundalini. Kundalini energy is the energy of awareness. It can be used to modify awareness. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 41:Very few people are conscious of the deeper strata of eternity. The primary reason is either because they lack purity or they lack motivation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 42:Knowing how to deal with change effectively is a primary requirement for living successfully in perhaps the most exciting time in all of human history ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 43:Thought is the primary energy and vibration that emanated from God and is thus the creator of life, electrons, atoms, and all forms of energy. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 44:The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 45:All things being equal, the primary competitive advantage of your business will be your ability to grow Leaders Without Titles faster than your industry peers. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 46:Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit. Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything, the eternal field of consciousness. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 47:I am wholly in favour of & 48:Your spiritual journey and your spiritual welfare are really dependent on two primary factors: One, your ability to meditate and two, your ability to give of yourself. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 49:The primary place where most people lose energy is in their relationships with others. That means you lose your energy in your interactions with the people you know best. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 50:The foundation of a good relationship with intentions & goals is keeping in mind that the primary aim of setting and working toward them is to feel the way you want to feel. ~ danielle-laporte, @wisdomtrove 51:Even the experiencer is secondary. Primary is the infinite expanse of consciousness, the eternal possibility, the immeasurable potential of all that was, is, and will be. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 52:Human relationships are primary in all of living. When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the wind ... but we won't break. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 53:The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 54:Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior. ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 55:When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 56:Learn to raise capital by any means necessary. That's your primary job as an entrepreneur. You must continually raise capital from family and friends, banks, suppliers, customers and investors. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 57:The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 58:Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 59:There are two primary ways of studying Zen. Either an individual will enter into a Zen monastery and study with a Zen master there, or they will study with a Zen master who lives in the contemporary world. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 60:Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 61:But try getting blindly carried away by your feelings, without reasoning, without a primary cause, driving consciousness away at least for a time; start hating, or fall in love, only so as not to sit with folded arms. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 62:Each relationship requires a unique type of deposit. Some relationships equate hugs, compliments, and small gifts with deposits. For other relationships, dependability and pulling your weight are the primary deposits. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove 63:Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 64:Opening yourself to the emerging consciousness and bringing its light into this world then becomes the primary purpose of your life. Not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 65:In its primary aspect, a painting has no more spiritual message than an exquisite fragment of Venetian glass. The channels by which all noble and imaginative work in painting should touch the soul are not those of the truths of lives. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 66:Old Zen was very funny; there was a great deal of humor and happiness. Zen today seems much drier. While there's a certain amount of humor, it seems to lack that total intensity because humor is one of the primary tools for liberation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 67:The body is our primary feedback mechanism which can show us what is and isn't working about our ways of thinking, expressing, and living. As we live our truth more fully and freely, our body grows healthier, stronger, and more beautiful. ~ shakti-gawain, @wisdomtrove 68:Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 69:It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 70:Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 71:Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 72:The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 73:Many people think that it is the function of a spiritual teaching to provide answers to life's biggest questions, but actually, the opposite is true. The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions, but to question your answers." ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 74:I have a primary responsibility to myself; to make myself into the best person I can possibly be. Then and only then, will I have something worthwhile to share.- I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 75:Ministers are tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy.¶ But our task is the opposite of distraction‚¶ how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 76:If success in selling is my primary interest, I am not primarily a writer, but a salesperson. If I teach success in selling as the writer's primary objective, I am not teaching writing; I'm teaching, or pretending to teach, the production and marketing of a commodity. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 77:The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offence and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be over emphasized. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 78:A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country? ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 79:Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 80:If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 81:For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 82:This may be the primary purpose of dogs: to restore our sense of wonder and to help us maintain it, to make us consider that we should trust our intuition as they trust theirs and to help us realize that a thing known intuitively can be as real as anything known by material experience. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 83:For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 84:The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 85:Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove 86:You ask ‚Äòfor what‚Äô God wants you. Isn‚Äôt the primary answer that He wants you. We‚Äôre not told that the lost sheep was sought out for anything except itself [Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7]. Of course, He may have a special job for you: and the certain job is that of becoming more and more His. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 87:Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 88:Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet—because it is the purpose of humanity. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 89:The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another... It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 90:The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 91:Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 92:When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is, by resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached. It is this way that in mathematics speculative theorems and practical canons are reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms and postulates. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 93:When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. Its a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. Its a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 94:All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 95:It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Such communication has always been... one of the primary sources of progress. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 96:The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove 97:Be more interested in your inner-state in any given situation than what is happening in the outer situation. What is my inner- state at THIS moment is always primary. Dealing with external situations, the outcome of this situation or that situation or this person agrees with me or does not agree with me… all these are secondary things. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 98:In the one instance, the dreamerloses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestionsuntilhe finds the incitamentum, or first cause of his musings,... forgotten. In my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 99:Total experiences, of which there are many kinds, tend again and again to be apprehended only as revivals or translations of the religious imagination. To try to make a fresh way of talking at the most serious, ardent, and enthusiastic level, heading off the religious encapsulation, is one of the primary intellectual tasks of future thought. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 100:Those whose primary concern is to destroy others are at the lowest level of development. Those who are only interested in their own satisfaction are farther along. Those who both do things for their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of others are even father along. Then there are saints who just constantly live for the welfare of others. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 101:There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.There are not more than five primary colors, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 102:Willful sterility is, from the standpoint of the nation, from the standpoint of the human race, the one sin for which the penalty is national death, race death; a sin for which there is no atonement. No man, no woman, can shirk the primary duties of life, whether for love of ease and pleasure, or for any other cause, and retain his or her self-respect. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 103:Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 104:If there is nothing you can do, face what is and say, ‘Well, right now, this is how it is. I can either accept it, or make myself miserable.’ The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about the situation. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 105:There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 106:Q: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation? M: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 107:Jesus didn't come to earth to establish a new religion. He came to restore a broken relationship. He came to make the primary, primary again. The secondary activity of obedience to the law of God was always intended to serve the primary activity: to love God and enjoy Him forever. When that is primary, the secondary becomes a labor of love, a joyful, and "easy" burden to bear. (Matthew 11:28-30 ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 108:The difference between a man who is led by opinion or emotion and one who is led by reason. The former, whether he will or not, performs things of which he is entirely ignorant; the latter is subordinate to no one, and only does those things which he knows to be of primary importance in his life, and which on that account he desires the most; and therefore I call the former a slave, but the latter free. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 109:Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 110:Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 111:When you find yourself critical of the way anyone has attracted or is using money, you are pushing money away from yourself. But when you realize that what others do with money has nothing to do with you, and that your primary work is to think and speak and do what feels good to you, then you will be in alignment not only about the subject of money, but about every important subject in your physical experience. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 112:It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 113:If sophistication is a matter of being in control of our primary reactions, we may now be sophisticated. At least we shall be fairly confident of ourselves and may, with any luck, be confident of others. Our object will be to enjoy our selves. But to make sure that our names are permanently on the cast list, it will be advisable to be of interest to others. This aim must never be confused with the desire to be popular. ~ quentin-crisp, @wisdomtrove 114:So we find that in almost every religion these are the three primary things which we have in the worship of God - forms or symbols, names, God-men. All religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with each other... These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to pass; but if he is sincere, if he really wants to reach the truth, he goes higher than these, to a plane where forms are as nothing. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 115:As long as you believe that only the outer world is real, you remain its slave. To become free, your attention must be drawn to the & 116:Teaching, therefore, asks first of all the creation of a space where students and teachers can enter into a fearless communication with each other and allow their respective life experiences to be their primary and most valuable source of growth and maturation. It asks for a mutual trust in which those who teach and those who want to learn can become present to each other, not as opponents, but as those who share in the same struggle and search for the same truth. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 117:What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful & 118:I also believe - and hope - that politics and economics will cease to be as important in the future as they have been in the past; the time will come when most of our present controversies on these matters will seem as trivial, or as meaningless, as the theological debates in which the keenest minds of the Middle Ages dissipated their energies. Politics and economics are concerned with power and wealth, neither of which should be the primary, still less the exclusive, concern of full-grown men. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 119:Realise that your entire life journey ultimately consists of the step you are taking at this moment. There is always only this one step, and so you give it your fullest attention. This doesn't mean you don't know where you are going; it just means this step is primary, the destination secondary. And what you encounter at your destination once you get there depends on the quality of this one step. Another way of putting it: What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 120:If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success. This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convince others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope! ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 121:Many flagship state universities have wonderful digital libraries that are accessed by people around the world. In future, if not current, budget crises, trustees, board members, and administrators may wonder why these state institutions - with an articulated primary clientele of students, faculty, and staff members and a secondary clientele of all citizens of the state - should be spending resources on a digital library that is used by many people beyond the primary and secondary service populations. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 122:To the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy, the question whether Progress is inevitable or even real is not a matter of primary importance. For them, the important thing is that individual men and women should come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, and what interests them in regard to the social environment is not its progressiveness or non-progressiveness (whatever those terms may mean), but the degree to which it helps or hinders individuals in the their advance towards man's final end. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 123:Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 124:The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mould. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 125:I believe that the most urgent need of parents today is to instill in our children a moral vision: what does it mean to be a good person, an excellent neighbor, a compassionate heart? What does it mean to say that God exits, that He loves us and He cares for us? What does it mean to love and forgive each other? Parents and caregivers of children must play a primary role in returning our society to a healthy sense of the sacred. We must commit to feeding our children’s souls in the same way we commit to feeding their bodies. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 126:It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at a Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 127:Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether relatively to the larger size of his body, in comparison with that of woman, has not, I believe been fully ascertained. In woman the face is rounder; the jaws and the base of the skull smaller; the outlines of her body rounder, in parts more prominent; and her pelvis is broader than in man; but this latter character may perhaps be considered rather as a primary than a secondary sexual character. She comes to maturity at an earlier age than man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 128:Being present does not mean you neglect whatever needs to be done on a practical level. In fact, the doing unfolds not only more easily, but more powerfully when the dimension of Being is acknowledged and so becomes primary. The outer purpose of the universe is to create form and experience the interaction of forms—the play, the dream, the drama, or whatever you choose to call it. Its inner purpose is to awaken to its formless essence. Then comes the reconciliation of outer and inner purpose: to bring that essence—consciousness—into the world of form and thereby transform the world. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 129:Because the egoic mind has led us to feel separate from our immortal Ground of Being over the millennia, we have invented a number of immortality symbols to give us a precarious sense of security and identity in life. Traditionally, these have been religious in character, such as the belief in everlasting life after death, in the West, and the belief in reincarnation, in the East. However, today, it is money that provides the primary immortality symbol. It is our obsession for money that is driving humanity to extinction. For when we do not face our fears with full consciousness and intelligence, these fears will eventually come along to haunt us. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 130:TRY: During the day, see if you can detect the bloom of the present moment in every moment, the ordinary ones, the in-between ones, even the hard ones. Work at allowing more things to unfold in your life without forcing them to happen and without rejecting the ones that don’t fit your idea of what should be happening. See if you can sense the spaces through which you might move with no effort in the spirit of Chuang Tzu’s cook. Notice how if you can make some time early in the day for being, with no agenda, it can change the quality of the rest of your day. By affirming first what is primary in your own being, see if you don’t get a mindful jump on the whole day and wind up more capable of sensing, appreciating, and responding to the bloom of each moment. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 131:The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 132:We desire to abide in this most luminous darkness, and without sight or knowledge, to see that which is above sight or knowledge, by means of that very fact that we see not and know not. For this is truly to see and know, to praise Him who is above nature in a manner above nature, by the abstraction of all that is natural; as those who would make a statue out of the natural stone abstract all the surrounding material which hinders the sight of the shape lying concealed within, and by that abstraction alone reveal its hidden beauty. It is needful, as I think, to make this abstraction in a manner precisely opposite to that in which we deal with the Divine attributes; for we add them together, beginning with the primary ones, and passing from them to the secondary, and so to the last; but here we ascend from the last to the first, abstracting all, so as to unveil and know that which is beyond knowledge, and which in all things is hidden from our sight by that which can be known, and so to behold that supernatural darkness which is hidden by all such light as is in created things. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Gingrich - primary mission ~ Newt Gingrich, #NFDB
2:Respect is primary. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
3:My primary consultant is myself. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
4:The primary factor is proportions. ~ Arne Jacobsen, #NFDB
5:Your mind-set is your primary weapon ~ Jeff Cooper, #NFDB
6:is not your primary goal.” Farrin’s easy ~ K M Shea, #NFDB
7:Money has never been my primary goal. ~ Bryan Cranston, #NFDB
8:The primary wisdom is intuition. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
9:My primary responsibility is to be funny. ~ Al Madrigal, #NFDB
10:Mrs. Brown, whose primary job on the island ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
11:The primary pigment of poetry is the IMAGE. ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
12:My primary goal is to create prosperity. ~ Bashar al Assad, #NFDB
13:Waging war is not a primary physical need. ~ Susan Griffin, #NFDB
14:The primary reward of the gospel - God himself ~ David Platt, #NFDB
15:insights emerging from their primary language ~ Kelly M Kapic, #NFDB
16:Leisure, not work, should be our primary goal. ~ Gary Gutting, #NFDB
17:Writing is my primary way of expressing myself. ~ Annie Baker, #NFDB
18:Emotions are the primary tool of the Storyteller. ~ Ken Farmer, #NFDB
19:Pessimism is a primary source of passivity, ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
20:Humor is one of the primary tools for liberation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
21:Pessimism is a primary source of passivity. As ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
22:The primary purpose of life is in being in the NOW. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
23:Ava’s living area is made up of three primary spaces. ~ Alex Garland, #NFDB
24:Jobs and money are never the primary cause of stress. ~ Bob Proctor, #NFDB
25:When I was in my 40s, Microsoft was my primary activity. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
26:Fear is the primary color of the amateur’s interior world. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
27:Imagination is the primary gift of human consciousness. ~ Ken Robinson, #NFDB
28:My first presidential primary vote was for Bobby Kennedy. ~ Bob Gunton, #NFDB
29:The primary cause of disease is in us, always in us. ~ Antoine Bechamp, #NFDB
30:The primary factor in a successful attack is speed. ~ Lord Mountbatten, #NFDB
31:We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves. ~ Jean Guitton, #NFDB
32:Ignorance is the primary source of all misery and vice. ~ Victor Cousin, #NFDB
33:Diplomacy's primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION. ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
34:Leadership produces change. That is its primary function ~ John P Kotter, #NFDB
35:The primary asset of any business is its organization. ~ William Feather, #NFDB
36:To be active is the primary vocation of man. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
37:Washington and New York, two primary targets for Al Qaeda. ~ Howard Bloom, #NFDB
38:an organism’s primary directive is to continue to exist— ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
39:My primary process of perceiving is muscular and visual. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
40:The primary goal of spiritual life is human transformation. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
41:To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness. ~ Lord Kelvin, #NFDB
42:The primary notion i hold to be the Living Power. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
43:The primary task of a Jew in turbulent times is to be Jewish. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
44:We have got to lose the primary in order to win the general. ~ Sean Hannity, #NFDB
45:Ease of learning isn’t the primary force in language evolution. ~ Ted Chiang, #NFDB
46:Women's history is the primary tool for women's emancipation. ~ Gerda Lerner, #NFDB
47:Duplication is the primary enemy of a well-designed system. ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
48:A “god” is anyone or anything that enjoys your primary devotion. ~ O S Hawkins, #NFDB
49:Man has a primary property right to his person and his labor. ~ Adolphe Thiers, #NFDB
50:Conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. ~ Ronald A Heifetz, #NFDB
51:Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything. ~ Rhonda Byrne, #NFDB
52:SATAN’S PRIMARY TOOL IS NOT AN ACTIVE SINNER BUT AN INACTIVE SAINT. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
53:Work to recognize the primary importance of the present moment. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
54:All matter comes from a primary substance, the luminiferous ether ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
55:I do not elevate the time or mode of baptism to a primary doctrine. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
56:I guess I need a hobby. Currently my primary hobby is complaining. ~ Jay Duplass, #NFDB
57:Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
58:self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue. ~ Baruch Spinoza, #NFDB
59:The primary and most beautiful of nature's qualities is motion ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
60:Women’s history is the
primary tool for women’s emancipation. ~ Gerda Lerner,#NFDB
61:You can’t live most of your life with anger your primary emotion. ~ Susan Wilson, #NFDB
62:60 percent of girls finish primary school in low-income countries. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
63:A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg, #NFDB
64:One of the primary tactics for enduring winning is daily learning. ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
65:The primary reason for failure is that people do not develop new ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
66:The question is the primary form of communication for little kids. ~ Jim Gaffigan, #NFDB
67:The primary cause of this national crisis is the feminization of men. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
68:Ultimately what you do is secondary. But how you do it is primary. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
69:it tells me that consciousness is primary to the physical universe. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
70:The primary cause of unhappiness in the world today is... lack of faith. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
71:The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. ~ A J Liebling, #NFDB
72:Primary consciousness is a kind of ‘remembered present’… ~ James David Lewis Williams, #NFDB
73:The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
74:you can manage your mind in three primary ways: let be, let go, let in. ~ Rick Hanson, #NFDB
75:Clearing up your weaknesses is one of the primary reasons we're here. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
76:The Saturnian Spirit, Satan...ensouls the...Primary Ray of Deity. ~ Vera Stanley Alder, #NFDB
77:A competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us and we will win. ~ Mitt Romney, #NFDB
78:The primary goal isn't a financial gain; it's to put out interesting music. ~ Girl Talk, #NFDB
79:Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage. ~ Jacques Yves Cousteau, #NFDB
80:Footwork is one of the primary prerequisites to becoming a great player ~ Mike Krzyzewski, #NFDB
81:I thought Alchemists avoided alcohol the same way they do primary colors. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
82:Join me in validating masturbation as a primary form of sexual expression. ~ Betty Dodson, #NFDB
83:The primary purpose of prayer is not to get something, but to know Someone. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
84:Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
85:... there is one primary purpose of a Christian's business: to serve God. ~ Larry Burkett, #NFDB
86:The US is a business-run huckster society, and its primary value is deceit. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
87:To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
88:You might be a redneck if your primary source of income is the pawn shop. ~ Jeff Foxworthy, #NFDB
89:The primary killer of U.S. factory jobs isn’t China or Mexico but robots. ~ Timothy P Carney, #NFDB
90:We've got to be willing to lose the primary in order to win the general election. ~ Jeb Bush, #NFDB
91:What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
92:Customer service will become the primary value added function of every business. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
93:If we succeeded, we will have the primary satisfaction of ending the war ~ Carl Andrew Spaatz, #NFDB
94:The primary reason to leave was her art; the singular reason to stay was a man. ~ Gina Conkle, #NFDB
95:The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing; the primary fact. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
96:What is your Primary Aim? Where is the script to make your dreams come true? ~ Michael Gerber, #NFDB
97:I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
98:The primary imagination I hold to be the Living Power. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
99:The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
100:Did prisons have air-conditioning? Was it just primary schools that missed out? ~ Liane Moriarty, #NFDB
101:My primary interest has always been about exploring the human psyche and humanity. ~ Dana Snyder, #NFDB
102:The primary declaration of Christianity is not "This do!" but "This happened! ~ Evelyn Underhill, #NFDB
103:The primary responsibility of the mother is the nurture of those children. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
104:The sense of smell in all dogs is their primary doorway to the world around them. ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
105:A writer’s primary goal is to make sense. The bookstore’s is to make cents. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
106:The Michigan Republican primary apparently is tighter than Willie Nelson's headband. ~ Dan Rather, #NFDB
107:The primary means-of-reviva l that everyone agrees upon is extraordinary prayer. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
108:The rights of the individual should be the primary object of all governments. ~ Mercy Otis Warren, #NFDB
109:I believe primary and secondary education is the bedrock of any sustainable society. ~ Nita Ambani, #NFDB
110:I think that money spoils most things, once it becomes the primary motivating force. ~ John Cleese, #NFDB
111:Our attitude is the primary force that will determine whether we succeed or fail. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
112:The primary purpose of Buddhist contemplative practice is to alleviate suffering. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
113:bodily habits are the primary form in which human evil exists in practical life is ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
114:Her primary reason for living and my primary reason for living were awfully entangled. ~ John Green, #NFDB
115:primary distortion in my dharma life has been the age-old misery of self-absorption. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
116:The leading edge of reality is mind, and mind is the primary substratum of being. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
117:The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
118:In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized. ~ William James, #NFDB
119:The last time I threw a punch was in primary school, and that was probably a slap. ~ Martin Compston, #NFDB
120:The primary difference between rich people and poor people is how they handle fear ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
121:The primary reason we pay attention to dreams is that they do not arise from the ego. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
122:Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi. ~ Tahir Shah, #NFDB
123:Fear is based on ignorance. Lack of understanding is also a primary cause of anger. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
124:"The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
125:Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality. ~ Herman Kahn, #NFDB
126:I do think you need different primary kinds of love at different points in your life. ~ Kate Arrington, #NFDB
127:My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure. ~ Kevin Mitnick, #NFDB
128:The fact that women are the primary care-givers is a problem for women and men ~ Caroline Criado Perez, #NFDB
129:information, they wonder whether it may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
130:There are only five primary colours,13 but when blended, their shades and hues are limitless. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
131:Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody. ~ Paul Farmer, #NFDB
132:So the moral of the story is that the primary ingredient for a successful nation is guns. ~ Cory O Brien, #NFDB
133:The primary method by which governments increase their control is by creating fear. ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
134:The primary subject of fiction is and has always been human emotion, values, and beliefs. ~ John Gardner, #NFDB
135:The primary virtue is: hold your tongue; who knows how to keep quiet is close to God. ~ Cato the Younger, #NFDB
136:Widespread cultural acceptance of lying is a primary reason many of us will never know love ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
137:A coach’s primary function should be not to make better players, but to make better people. ~ John Wooden, #NFDB
138:My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.
~ Kevin Mitnick,#NFDB
139:Sexuality is the primary focus of our culture, and almost no one has come to resolve it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
140:The kundalini comes in two primary forms when it comes forward from a spiritual teacher. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
141:The primary and literal meaning of the Bible, then, is its centripetal or poetic meaning. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
142:The primary object of doctrine is God; the secondary object is all things in relation to God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
143:The primary symptom of a controller is denial, that is I can't see its symptoms in myself. ~ Keith Miller, #NFDB
144:The SIS was an agency that didn't exist. The primary focus of the group was counter-terrorism. ~ L T Ryan, #NFDB
145:While I think the earth is warming, I don't think that man-made causes are the primary factor. ~ Ken Buck, #NFDB
146:Widespread cultural acceptance of lying is a primary reason many of us will never know love. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
147:A primary method for gaining a mind of full peace is to practice emptying the mind. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
148:We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
149:Compared to 10 years ago the primary motivation for defection has gone from food, to freedom. ~ Kim Jong un, #NFDB
150:Credentialing, not education, has become the primary business of North American universities. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
151:The primary difference between a rich person and a poor person is how they manage fear. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
152:The primary Reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
153:Scientists now believe that the primary biological function of breasts is to make males stupid. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
154:Setting is my primary joy as a writer, building a world and watching people respond to it. ~ Nicola Griffith, #NFDB
155:The primary purpose of political discourse is to gain power and to stay in power. Those who fail ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
156:Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
157:Historically, its primary industries had been agriculture and a sort of willful illiteracy. ~ Daniel O Malley, #NFDB
158:Struggle is the father of all things, virtue lies in blood, leadership is primary and decisive ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
159:You cannot be happy if your primary identity is that of a victim, even if you really are one. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
160:All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
161:Candidates are making lasting impressions on voters, not just primary voters, in how they campaign. ~ Jeb Bush, #NFDB
162:compared to his sixty-six-thousand-square-foot, $63 million primary residence on Lake Washington. ~ David Rose, #NFDB
163:For most people, language is our primary interface with each other and with the external world. ~ Erin Kissane, #NFDB
164:God will give you anything as long as you understand that he is the primary and not the secondary. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
165:In my view, republican primary debates ought to be moderated by people who would vote in a primary. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
166:I spent almost 25 years as a foreign correspondent, and the world's primary problem is poverty. ~ P J O Rourke, #NFDB
167:The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
168:What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
169:Your primary role should be to share what you know, not to tell people how things should be done. ~ Steve Krug, #NFDB
170:A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of green paper. ~ Derrick Jensen, #NFDB
171:Is it any wonder somebody like Donald Trump is racing through the presidential primary process? ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
172:loose, with a primary budget deficit (that is, excluding interest payments on debt) of 6.6% of GDP. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
173:The primary reason diseases tend to run in families may be that diets tend to run in families. ~ Michael Greger, #NFDB
174:What is the purpose of life? What is the primary objective of life? To live. To sustain itself. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
175:Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. ~ Jonah Berger, #NFDB
176:City parks serve, day in and day out, as the primary green spaces for the majority of Americans. ~ Bruce Babbitt, #NFDB
177:If our primary concern is results, we will choose to work only with those who give us good ones. ~ Gregory Boyle, #NFDB
178:Sexual acts are one of the primary means by which we can act out our inarticulated inner lives. ~ Sallie Tisdale, #NFDB
179:That's a wonderful thing, because one of the primary qualities of a good performance is honesty. ~ Roberta Flack, #NFDB
180:The Clintons, on the other hand, registered to most conservatives as the primary and ever-present ~ Joshua Green, #NFDB
181:the primary practice of language is not in giving out information but being in relationship. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
182:Do you know the primary difference between men and gods? ... Gods don’t think they can become men ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
183:The primary battle which religion must fight today is the battle to justify its own existence. ~ Georgia Harkness, #NFDB
184:A man's primary fantasy is access to a variety of attractive women without the fear of rejection. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
185:Education had been the primary instrument of change in my own life, my lever upward in the world. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
186:The aesthetic pleasure of dance is a secondary reflection of the primary, vital joy of courtship. ~ Havelock Ellis, #NFDB
187:The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
188:You know, ISIS, their [Vatican] primary trophy. Very few people know this. Nobody even believed it. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
189:Casting the locals is my primary concern because all the other things you assume will be manageable. ~ Gus Van Sant, #NFDB
190:Cioran once said that “one touch of clearsightedness reduces us to our primary state: nakedness. ~ Rabih Alameddine, #NFDB
191:I have long been convinced that families are the primary agents of social change in any society. ~ Elise M Boulding, #NFDB
192:In my art, I deconstruct and then I reconstruct, so visual perception is one of my primary interests. ~ Chuck Close, #NFDB
193:In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
194:The searching-out and thorough investigation of truth ought to be the primary study of man. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
195:A national primary election would electrify the people and give them a larger stake in the outcome. ~ Leopoldo Lopez, #NFDB
196:Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
197:The primary carnivalistic act is the mock crowning and subsequent decrowning of the carnival king. ~ Mikhail Bakhtin, #NFDB
198:...the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
199:The primary role of professional societies is the lobbying of the government for special advantage ~ Richard Lindzen, #NFDB
200:An old man who plants a tree whose shade he will never use is the primary component of civilization. ~ Vaughn Heppner, #NFDB
201:Eckhart Tolle, the new age philosopher, says, “What you do is secondary. How you do it is primary. ~ Jennifer L Scott, #NFDB
202:Isn't one of the primary responsibilities of all relationships to help each other fulfill our dreams? ~ Matthew Kelly, #NFDB
203:Quality and longevity are the primary criteria, along with repairability and ease of production. ~ Patricia Piccinini, #NFDB
204:To become comfortable with uncertainty is one of the primary goals in the training of a physician. ~ Sherwin B Nuland, #NFDB
205:With China, their primary weapon in China is what they've done with the devaluation of their currency. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
206:I always tell people that my primary job is being a dad and husband. Music is just what pays the bills. ~ Aaron Watson, #NFDB
207:I got a feeling I had loads when I was in primary school, 'cause I had red hair; you know, like Duracell. ~ Aphex Twin, #NFDB
208:I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well. ~ Kenneth Lay, #NFDB
209:I saw you as a person of primary intensity - they are rare. They live in Hell a good part of their lives. ~ May Sarton, #NFDB
210:Learning. It's really the primary reason behind everything I do. Programming, entrepreneuring, writing. ~ Derek Sivers, #NFDB
211:Practical teaching that moves people to action is one of the primary things God uses to grow our faith. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
212:we should emphasize that the narrative of Scripture is a primary fund for the Christian imagination. ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
213:Our primary function is to create an emotion and our secondary function is to sustain that emotions. ~ Alfred Hitchcock, #NFDB
214:The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. ~ Benjamin Graham, #NFDB
215:If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
216:If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
217:I still have some of my old University essays, and I do still have my drawing book from primary year seven. ~ Iain Banks, #NFDB
218:I think in 2012 one of the primary issues that will get a lot of discussion will be comprehensive tax reform. ~ Tom Reed, #NFDB
219:One of the primary goals in life ... should be to prepare for death. Everything else should be secondary. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
220:Primary responsibility for Brexit lies with British conservatives, who took an entire continent hostage. ~ Martin Schulz, #NFDB
221:Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
222:The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
223:The primary task of the Church and of the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God. ~ D Martyn Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
224:What I try to do - and I think this is the former librarian in me - is to get primary source material. ~ Theresa Breslin, #NFDB
225:Actually you’ve never voted in a primary except once in your entire life,” Bossie said, citing the record. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
226:If God has created the world, his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
227:If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
228:Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
229:So long as the serpent continues to crawl on the ground, the primary influence of woman will be indirect. ~ Ellen Glasgow, #NFDB
230:Governments will use whatever technology is available to combat their primary enemy - their own population. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
231:I accept relationship as my primary teacher about myself, other people, and the mysteries of the universe. ~ Gay Hendricks, #NFDB
232:If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
233:...the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
234:There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
235:Do you know the primary difference between men and gods?” “No, sir.” “Gods don’t think they can become men. ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
236:I definitely wanted to earn my freedom. But the primary motivation wasn't making money, but making an impact. ~ Sean Parker, #NFDB
237:I know I earn less at my primary school than you do, but I don't have to work as hard at my primary school. ~ Arthur Adamov, #NFDB
238:in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a low-carb, high-fat diet was actually the primary treatment for diabetes! ~ Jimmy Moore, #NFDB
239:Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
240:"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
241:The ideas are secondary to the primary premise of people's potential. I'm always in wonder and astonishment. ~ Jean Houston, #NFDB
242:The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
243:The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions, but to question your answers. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
244:The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least ten times better at ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
245:You think that enlightenment is something other than what is happening right now. This is your primary mistake. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
246:Then I wondered, briefly, where one might obtain a prosthetic Adam’s apple, and what its primary use would be. ~ Graham Parke, #NFDB
247:there are three primary colors. Yellow, blue, and red. Those three colors create every other color ever. ~ Lynda Mullaly Hunt, #NFDB
248:After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
249:Few Christians go into media or the arts today, or see it as a primary mission field or battlefield. But it is. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
250:My primary calling, I always knew since the age of 11, was as a composer, and so that had to take priority. ~ Gunther Schuller, #NFDB
251:Originally, geological history was divided into four spans of time: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
252:Rep. James Clyburn, the state's only black congressman -- controls 20 percent to 25 percent of the primary vote. ~ Jim Clyburn, #NFDB
253:The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
254:The primary purpose of the Museum is to help people enjoy, understand, and use the visual arts of our time. ~ Alfred H Barr Jr, #NFDB
255:This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends and the highest compliment I can pay. ~ Robin Sloan, #NFDB
256:Your primary relationship needs to be with yourself, not your family, business, country, culture, or ethnicity. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
257:Oh the Christian church has encouraged enormous immaturity among the peoples who are its primary adherence. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
258:Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. ~ Richard J Foster, #NFDB
259:The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of, a virtuous life. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #NFDB
260:A man's primary duty in life is to earn his own living, but to what purpose if he did not have a wife and children? ~ Mario Puzo, #NFDB
261:Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now. ~ William Kristol, #NFDB
262:I had supported Governor George W. Bush over Senator John McCain in the 2000 Rhode Island presidential primary. ~ Lincoln Chafee, #NFDB
263:Terrorism is an act of violence whose primary purpose is to create fear and, through that, a political result. ~ George Friedman, #NFDB
264:His primary mission was to bring people to a place of decision to have faith in God, not merely to remove their pain. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
265:Intersectionality decentralizes people who are used to being the primary focus of the movements they are a part of. ~ Ijeoma Oluo, #NFDB
266:I remember my friends at primary and secondary school admiring my work and even paying me money for some of my pieces. ~ St Lucia, #NFDB
267:Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
268:Telling what must not be told is one of the writer's primary tasks. It is also a difficult and dangerous one. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
269:The key to human happiness lies within our own state of mind, and so too do the primary obstacles to that happiness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
270:You act without concern for the outcome of your actions. That is the primary sign of the immaturity of your species. ~ M R Forbes, #NFDB
271:A primary task of management in the developed countries in the decades ahead will be to make knowledge productive. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
272:If I had to summarize the primary New Testament motivation for “being good” in one word, I would choose gratitude. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
273:I regard freedom of expression as the primary right without which one can not have a proper functioning democracy. ~ Lord Hailsham, #NFDB
274:One of the primary reasons why people struggle financially is because they cannot control their emotion of fear. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
275:the hard-working, honest rich are the primary providers of jobs that allow us to have a middle class in this country. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
276:There are seven primary centers, junctions, within the subtle physical body. These are called the seven chakras. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
277:Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
278:Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
279:I don't know that I'm in a position to give campaign advice to Donald Trump, given that he just whipped me in a primary. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
280:If the primary ends up being a hard hitting, bloody battle, well so be it. Let's get ready for the general election ~ Steve Lonegan, #NFDB
281:I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story. ~ Wilkie Collins, #NFDB
282:it is the awareness that is of primary importance, no matter what the objects are that we are paying attention to. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
283:I was a dreamer when I was at high school and even primary school. I used to dream about doing adventurous things. ~ Edmund Hillary, #NFDB
284:My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden. ~ August Wilson, #NFDB
285:State has the primary responsibility but the citizen has to spend his or her funds. This is part of neo-liberalism. ~ Andre Vltchek, #NFDB
286:The gatekeepers of the invisible primary were not merely invisible; by 2016, they had left the building entirely. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
287:The primary function of a theatre is not to please itself, or even to please its audience. It is to serve talent. ~ Robert Brustein, #NFDB
288:The primary purpose of education is not to teach you to earn your bread, but to make every mouthful sweeter. ~ James Rowland Angell, #NFDB
289:The spirit of deception, you see,” Father Maximos explained, “has egotism and pride as its primary attribute. ~ Kyriacos C Markides, #NFDB
290:TO BE “THE SEWER OF CHRISTENDOM and drain all the discords out of it” was the primary function of the Crusades, ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
291:You have to reach the point that what people think is not your primary motivator. Reaching the goal is the motivator. ~ Dave Ramsey, #NFDB
292:If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
293:In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
294:Many of these individuals agree that sensory issues are the primary challenge of autism in their daily lives. There ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
295:Retirement is not the goal of a surrendered life, because it competes with God for the primary attention of our lives. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
296:The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure. ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
297:The primary reason for growth must be that one is “hungering for righteousness”—not for someone else, but for oneself. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
298:The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
299:Those old things were still painful to think about, still bright with the childish primary colors of fear and horror. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
300:Tranvestism is far more common among men, I noted, because it originates in the primary relation of mother and son. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
301:Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
302:I think because I was a mother, it helped me feel comfortable that really my primary goal there was to save my kids. ~ Elisabeth Shue, #NFDB
303:Bisexual people are the primary conduits for the cultural conversation that America is having about gay rights. ~ Jennifer Baumgardner, #NFDB
304:Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
305:when you are a small minority and you own the majority’s wealth, security is naturally a primary consideration. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
306:America is the primary engine of growth in the world and we are the only beacon of free trade left, and open markets. ~ Jon Huntsman Jr, #NFDB
307:Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
308:hereditary factors in conjunction with our unique environment are the primary factors in shaping our personalities. ~ David Lagercrantz, #NFDB
309:I`m 100 percent impartial. I`m - my responsibility is to manage this primary nominating contest neutrally and fairly. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
310:Imagining that you are deep and complex, but others are simple, is one of the primary signs of malignant selfishness. ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
311:My primary phone is the iPhone. I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do. ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
312:Play itself is a primary process, not a luxury, not a hobby, but something all children must do to survive into adulthood. ~ Sarah Ruhl, #NFDB
313:Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
314:The primary aim of yoga is to restore the mind to simplicity, peace, and poise, to free it from confusion and distress. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB
315:The primary purpose of the internet had changed from supporting a knowledge economy to growing an attention economy. ~ Douglas Rushkoff, #NFDB
316:To have your attention in the Now is not a denial of what is needed in your life. It is recognition of what is primary. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
317:When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object. ~ Patrick Henry, #NFDB
318:I could have possibly beaten Senator McCain in the primary. Then I could have been the candidate who lost to Barack Obama. ~ Mitt Romney, #NFDB
319:Just as mental toughness and physical energy are the primary traits of an army, they also mark God's beautiful woman. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
320:Money is important, but for most people (and certainly for the best people), money isn’t the primary motive for their work. ~ Dave Bruno, #NFDB
321:The most interesting part of filming is what the actors do. That's the primary link between the story and the audience. ~ Richard Ayoade, #NFDB
322:The physics of undergraduate text-books is 90% true; the contents of the primary research journals of physics is 90% false. ~ John Ziman, #NFDB
323:90 percent of girls of primary school age attend school. For boys, the figure is 92 percent. There’s almost no difference. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
324:At some point in my early forties I realized that my primary goal in just about any verbal exchange is to lighten the mood. ~ Meghan Daum, #NFDB
325:A vertical line is dignity. The horizontal line is peaceful. The obtuse angle is action. That's universal, it is primary. ~ Janet Collins, #NFDB
326:Besides language and music, mathematics is one of the primary manifestations of the free creative power of the human mind. ~ Hermann Weyl, #NFDB
327:If we make happiness our primary goal instead of our secondary goal, then we easily accomplish everything else we desire. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
328:One of my opponents [Romney] recently said that it would take an act of God for me to win this primary. I agree with him. ~ Rick Santorum, #NFDB
329:Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community - the people with whom we eat, play, converse, and study. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
330:Primary aim of quantum artificial intelligence is to improve human freedom, dignity, equality, security, and total well-being. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
331:The primary function of the government is - and here I am quoting directly from the U.S. Constitution - 'to spew out paper.' ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
332:There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them ~ Denis Waitley, #NFDB
333:There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
334:It is television's primary damage that it provides ten million children with the same fantasy, ready-made and on a platter. ~ Marya Mannes, #NFDB
335:I've been reading the books. It's the origination, it's the primary source. You should always go back to the books. ~ Benedict Cumberbatch, #NFDB
336:Nonetheless, in the Qur’an, one of Jesus’ primary missions is to prepare the way for Muhammad and to announce his coming: ~ Robert Spencer, #NFDB
337:Some of his transactions involved Ada policemen, specifically one Dennis Corvin, whom Gore described as a “primary supplier ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
338:Surveillance is the business model of the Internet for two primary reasons: people like free, and people like convenient. ~ Bruce Schneier, #NFDB
339:There are 2 primary choices in life:
To accept conditions as they exist, or to accept responsibility for changing them. ~ Denis Waitley,#NFDB
340:It has been said of many modern Christian theologians that their primary aim is to find ways to express disbelief as belief. ~ Rodney Stark, #NFDB
341:Self-improvement is the name of the game, and your primary objective is to strengthen yourself, not to destroy an opponent. ~ Maxwell Maltz, #NFDB
342:The primary purpose of a home is to reflect and to distribute the love of Christ. Anything that usurps that is idolatrous. ~ Ravi Zacharias, #NFDB
343:There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. ~ Dennis Waitley, #NFDB
344:What Shaylene saw as Burton’s primary symptom of traumatic stress, Flynne thought, was his ongoing failure to ask her out. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
345:When we talk mathematics, we may be discussing a secondary language built on the primary language of the nervous system. ~ John von Neumann, #NFDB
346:Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
347:Just because I'd kicked junk, after all, did not mean I'd kicked being a junkie. And junkies lie. It's their primary addition. ~ Jerry Stahl, #NFDB
348:Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis. ~ Karl Kraus, #NFDB
349:Preventing people from illegally immigrating to the United States should be the primary purpose of Customs and Border Protection. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
350:So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
351:The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition. ~ Alexander Calder, #NFDB
352:The universe is the primary revelation of the divine, the primary scripture, the primary locus of divine-human communication. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
353:Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one—and not necessarily the primary one. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
354:What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
355:Art's primary social function is to define the communal self, which includes redefining it when the community is changing. ~ Thomas McEvilley, #NFDB
356:living in harmony with nature and adopting some of the yogic principles were the primary reasons why I did not fall sick at all. I ~ Om Swami, #NFDB
357:Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
358:The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
359:This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
360:You might be a redneck if...you think that John Deere Green, Ford Blue, and Primer Gray are the three of the primary colors. ~ Jeff Foxworthy, #NFDB
361:A primary campaign can get very intense and times nasty. But it`s never going to be quite as vicious as between-parties rivalry. ~ Ruth Marcus, #NFDB
362:As you advance in life, different passions can take the front seat, so for me, business is where my primary focus is right now. ~ Marie Forleo, #NFDB
363:If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
364:My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
365:Pinochet and Barack Obama both have the same primary goal, and that's to be president and stay president as long as allowed. ~ Viggo Mortensen, #NFDB
366:Religion’s primary function is to awaken within us the experience of the sublime and to connect us with the mystery of existence. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
367:The primary aim of modern warfare ... is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
368:The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but you thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
369:When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people’s problems as our own. ~ Harriet Lerner, #NFDB
370:Your primary task is not to seek salvation through creating a better world, but to awaken out of identification with form. You ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
371:A can-do attitude, a positive personality, and a strong work ethic are still the primary ingredients for success at Nordstrom. ~ Robert Spector, #NFDB
372:All rich countries now employ legions of functionaries whose primary function is to make poor people feel bad about themselves. ~ David Graeber, #NFDB
373:In Buddhism, since the definition of “living” refers to sentient beings, consciousness is the primary characteristic of “life. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
374:Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it's a cure. ~ Thomas Szasz, #NFDB
375:Party gatekeepers failed at three key junctures: the “invisible primary,” the primaries themselves, and the general election. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
376:The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company ~ Seneca, #NFDB
377:The primary job for women in Hollywood is still super-attractive actress. That is the most high-profile women's job in Hollywood. ~ Diablo Cody, #NFDB
378:What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. —John Berger, English art critic ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
379:I never plan anything in an analytical way before I shoot, but when I look back there seems to be kind of a primary color palette. ~ Alex Prager, #NFDB
380:The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
381:The primary ingredient for progress is optimism. The unwavering belief that something can be better drives the human race forward. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
382:The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
383:The things we fear most in organisations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity. ~ Margaret J Wheatley, #NFDB
384:The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications, and muscle weakness. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
385:As far as young kids go, my primary interest is to get parents to read to their kids. That’s about the most you can do, I think. ~ Terry McMillan, #NFDB
386:It was one of the primary rules of thievery. When hiding, sneaking, and trickery are all out, the correct answer is "run like hell. ~ Ari Marmell, #NFDB
387:Sometimes their oppression of emotion and the weird way it comes out is more interesting than painting it in bold primary colors. ~ Edward Norton, #NFDB
388:The question of identity is a question involving the most profound panic—a terror as primary as the nightmare of the mortal fall. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
389:There's only one thing in life for a woman; it's to be a mother... A woman artist must be... capable of making primary sacrifices. ~ Mary Cassatt, #NFDB
390:this meant he had reached the end of the track that he had blindly followed from the first year of primary school to graduation. ~ Paolo Giordano, #NFDB
391:What was happening was the war on drugs. That was the primary culprit I could see that was getting in the way of black progress. ~ Eugene Jarecki, #NFDB
392:Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God. ~ Ravi Zacharias, #NFDB
393:It was one of the primary rules of thievery. When hiding, sneaking, and trickery are all out, the correct answer is "run like hell." ~ Ari Marmell, #NFDB
394:The shape of the heaven is of necessity spherical; for that is the shape most appropriate to its substance and also by nature primary. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
395:Trivia rarely affect efficiency. Are all the machinations worth it, when their primary effect is to make the code less readable? ~ Brian Kernighan, #NFDB
396:Advertising agencies primary goal is to advertise and sell themselves to the client. Selling the product to the public comes second. ~ Mark Jackson, #NFDB
397:In New York, we had primary elections for mayor. To improve their chances, all five candidates changed their name to Rudy Giuliani. ~ Conan O Brien, #NFDB
398:The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
399:The primary process had failed in its gatekeeping role and allowed a man unfit for office to run as a mainstream party candidate. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
400:The primary quality that Lao Tzu seems to emobdy is humility, which is the image of water - seeking the common level of existence. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
401:The primary question about life after death is not whether it is a fact, but even if it is, what problems that really solves. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
402:Your primary desire, says Epictetus, should be your desire not to be frustrated by forming desires you won’t be able to fulfill. ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
403:A corporation's primary goal is to make money. Government's primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others. ~ Larry Ellison, #NFDB
404:I am a great believer that all the primary research has to be done before principle writing begins. I'm a huge advocate of plotting. ~ Michael Scott, #NFDB
405:I'm not a propagandist, I'm not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work. ~ David Attenborough, #NFDB
406:I was in my mid 20s when email finally took off. Until then, the phone was my primary way of connecting with the people in my life. ~ Rainbow Rowell, #NFDB
407:Our primary problem as Christian women is not that we lack self-worth, not that we lack a sense of significance. It’s that we lack awe. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
408:The church is the primary arena in which we learn that glory does not consist in what we do for God but in what God does for us. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
409:The country was founded on the principle that primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
410:The primary ambition of Nietzsche's critique of knowledge is ... to demonstrate that 'truths' are fictions masking moral commitments. ~ John Carroll, #NFDB
411:The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments ~ Lee Iacocca, #NFDB
412:This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends (girl- and otherwise) and the highest compliment I can pay. ~ Robin Sloan, #NFDB
413:And what is the primary datum? It's the felt presence of immediate experience. In other words, being here now is the primary datum. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
414:Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level. ~ Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
415:Forget family, or ethnic and religious groupings: corporations have supplanted all these as the primary structure of the modern tribe. ~ Tom McCarthy, #NFDB
416:I don't like when things don't match. I love some Eighties fashion, like Grace Jones but primary colours only work in certain situations. ~ Kemp Muhl, #NFDB
417:I had turned personal validation into my primary source of meaning and value, so that without it I was miserable and depressed. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
418:The primary object of non-co-operation is nowhere stated to be paralysis of the Government. The primary object is self-purification. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
419:Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
420:India must protect her primary industries even as a mother protects her children against the whole world without being hostile to it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
421:I think my primary audience is in some sense an adult audience, because I think that will then have a knock-on effect for children. ~ Marcus du Sautoy, #NFDB
422:Not only can we lovingly detach from other people and take care of ourselves, it is our primary responsibility in life to do that. To ~ Melody Beattie, #NFDB
423:The science is crystal clear: we humans are the primary cause of global warming, and we face a bleak future if we fail to act quickly. ~ Joseph J Romm, #NFDB
424:This is the risk: the primary word can only be spoken with the whole being. He who gives himself to it may withhold nothing of himself. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
425:And never say that Chudi is "babysitting" - people who babysit are people for whom the baby is not a primary responsibility. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
426:Chaka Fattah already lost the seat in a Democratic primary. So, he's on his way out. And he formally resigned this week. ~ Christopher Michael Cillizza, #NFDB
427:Consciousness does matter. Matter is secondary. Consciousness is primary. Brain does not do consciousness, consciousness does the brain. ~ Amit Goswami, #NFDB
428:I think our nation's at war with radical Islam. The primary goal of these groups is to attack our nation. Washington's a prime target. ~ Lindsey Graham, #NFDB
429:I was touching on the idea of the autonomous militaristic or autonomous law enforcement idea, but it wasn't the primary driving force. ~ Neill Blomkamp, #NFDB
430:One of my primary objects is to form the tools so the tools themselves shall fashion the work and give to every part its just proportion. ~ Eli Whitney, #NFDB
431:The American Institute of Health estimates that 75–90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related problems. ~ Caroline Leaf, #NFDB
432:The primary wisdom is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
433:You have safety and soundness as primary purpose of the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the other agencies which control banking regulation. ~ Judd Gregg, #NFDB
434:Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused. ~ Joe Klein, #NFDB
435:Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
436:What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority. If voters care about parking lots, then talk about parking lots. ~ Newt Gingrich, #NFDB
437:A primary goal of teaching anything is the advantage that learning gives to people over their competitors who haven't been as well taught. ~ Bobby Knight, #NFDB
438:If someone should ask me, 'What does the soul do?' I would say, It does two things. It loves. And it creates. Those are its primary acts. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
439:Originality exists in every individual because each of us differs from the others. We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves. ~ Jean Guitton, #NFDB
440:Our primary identity has become that of being consumers – not mothers, teachers, or farmers, but of consumers. We shop and shop and shop. ~ Annie Leonard, #NFDB
441:The most common complaint heard by primary care physicians today is fatigue, and the most common cause of fatigue is sleep deprivation. ~ Douglas J Lisle, #NFDB
442:THE PRIMARY aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia. ~ James George Frazer, #NFDB
443:The primary fantasy bond is the core defense underlying our resistance to change. It is the major barrier to a full, rich existence. ~ Robert W Firestone, #NFDB
444:The primary rule of business success is loyalty to your employer. That's all right as a theory. What is the matter with loyalty to yourself? ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
445:The primary source of the appeal of Christianity was Jesus - His incarnation, His life, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. ~ Kenneth Scott Latourette, #NFDB
446:Yes I say that I am enlightened. What does that mean? It means I live in a condition of light...There really is no primary self anymore. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
447:It doesn't take an incredible manner of analysis to reveal that our primary desires are incessantly stimulated to keep us basic consumers. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
448:Man’s primary purpose is not to be happy but to continue to live, to continue to travel - happily or unhappily - on the path of life! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
449:One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense over sensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
450:Other surveys have found autonomy, or the feeling that you have control and can make decisions, is a primary factor in job satisfaction. A ~ Stephen Guise, #NFDB
451:Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary function of the neo-cortex, and the foundation of intelligence. ~ Jeff Hawkins, #NFDB
452:The primary component upon which all else rests in a kingdom is the authority of the ruler. Without that, there is anarchy resulting in mess. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
453:The primary means of energy generation is going to solar. It will at least be a plurality, and probably be a slight majority in the long term. ~ Elon Musk, #NFDB
454:[Charles] Darwin, for example, is the one who made us face the fact that the primary way we tell the Christ story doesn't work anymore. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
455:In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend. ~ Alexander Hamilton, #NFDB
456:Many people with secondary greatness—that is, social recognition for their talents—lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
457:[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society. ~ William Blackstone, #NFDB
458:Throughout civilization and around the world, six foods have provided our primary fuel: barley, corn, millet, potatoes, rice, and wheat. ~ John A McDougall, #NFDB
459:Many people who hold giver values in life choose matching as their primary reciprocity style at work, seeking an even balance of give and take. ~ Adam Grant, #NFDB
460:Since the human mind is the primary weapon of the human being, it is also therefore the primary and most significant instrument of violence. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
461:The imagination is our primary mode of access into the symbolic world; yet it has been denigrated by being regarded as mere fantasy. ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, #NFDB
462:When I was younger and in primary school, I'd do maybe a film a year, and I had to adapt to being away from everyone for a couple of months. ~ Saoirse Ronan, #NFDB
463:A man has two primary drives in early adulthood: one toward power, success, and accomplishment; the other toward love, companionship, and sex. ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
464:Do it together. Remember in primary school we learned that a verb is a 'doing' word? Well, a father is as much a verb as a mother. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
465:Our primary defaults are exhaustion and guilt. Meanwhile, we have beautiful lives begging to be really lived, really enjoyed, really applauded ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
466:The male or female that the child has the most exposure to in the first four to six years of its life is the primary imprinter of the child. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
467:The primary limitation in life is our low expectations for ourselves and others. When we expect minimum results, that's usually what we get. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
468:There is so much authority that comes out of the primary mystical experience that it can be threatening to existing hierarchical structures. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
469:Vocabulary and grammar are your primary tools. They're most effectively used, even most effectively abused, by people who understand them. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
470:Our primary relationship is really with ourselves. Our relationships with other people constantly reflect exactly where we are in the process. ~ Shakti Gawain, #NFDB
471:The mother is the early care giver and primary source of identification for all children.... A daughter continues to identify with the mother ~ Nancy Chodorow, #NFDB
472:Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need. ~ Primo Levi, #NFDB
473:From eternity’s perspective, what should be the primary things for which we should pray for our children, for ourselves, for our fellow believers? ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
474:Increasingly fed by a moral and political hysteria, warlike values produce and endorse shared fears as the primary register of social relations. ~ Henry Giroux, #NFDB
475:I was Santa Claus in first year of primary school, our elementarys school play, because I had most panache, that was probably why. I was 5. ~ James Frecheville, #NFDB
476:one of the primary reasons that you have to listen to outsiders: If you don’t, you will be driven by the complaints and demands of the insiders. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
477:The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
478:The primary energy that is active in all things is kundalini. Kundalini energy is the energy of awareness. It can be used to modify awareness. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
479:The primary ideology that operated to create, socialize, and reproduce them was not the ideology of racism. It was that of universalism. ~ Immanuel Wallerstein, #NFDB
480:The primary material conditions for the making of beauty have not changed. But the frame of attention, and the context of mattering—these have. ~ Sven Birkerts, #NFDB
481:The primary reason we do too much is that we have never taken the time to discover that portion of what we do that makes the biggest difference. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
482:The superimposition of two systems: thought and metre,' wrote Proust, 'is a primary element of ordered complexity, that is to say, of beauty. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
483:To me, one of the primary reasons E’s and S’s have difficulty moving to the B and I side is because they are too afraid of making mistakes. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
484:Very few people are conscious of the deeper strata of eternity. The primary reason is either because they lack purity or they lack motivation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
485:You can care very much about someone without being capable of becoming their primary caregiver in the event of their parents' untimely death. ~ Mallory Ortberg, #NFDB
486:Dani: "Warlock! You, pal, are the proverbial sight for sore eyes!"
Warlock: "Concern! Are selfriend's primary ocular sensors dysfunctional? ~ Chris Claremont,#NFDB
487:The guns seemed to address this country, which invented the streets that secured them with despotic police, in its primary language—violence. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
488:The primary aim, object, and purpose of consciousness is control. Consciousness in a mere automaton is a useless and unnecessary epiphenomenon. ~ C Lloyd Morgan, #NFDB
489:The primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of each one of the constituent members in a social group determine the necessity of education. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
490:Our habitual failure to recognise thought as thought, our habitual identification with discursive thought, is the primary source of human suffering. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
491:She sometimes felt less like a primary-care pediatrician and more like a battlefield surgeon, patching up her patients and sending them back to war. ~ Paul Tough, #NFDB
492:There are not more than five primary colors (blue, yellow, red, white, and black), yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
493:Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christlike, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
494:He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
495:Your primary purpose is to enable consciousness to flow into what you do. The secondary purpose is whatever you want to achieve through the doing. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
496:Being is primary and doing is secondary for them. Celebration comes first and work takes a back seat in their lives. Work is preparatory to celebration. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
497:family out there to make it their new primary residence. Because something was on the horizon. He felt surer as weeks became months. Every day without ~ Sean Platt, #NFDB
498:Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
499:In a justly organized community, however, government exists to secure the right to life and the other human rights that follow from that primary right. ~ Paul Ryan, #NFDB
500:Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
501:Primary purposes of a mirror: (1) To help civilized men realize their imperfections, and, (2) To help the imperfect hide their imperfections. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
502:Republican primary voters, whether they're close primaries or open, are voting for anybody but candidates attached to the Republican establishment. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
503:The establishment? Well, guess what? Donald Trump now is the establishment. His primary opponents, many of them are interviewing for White House gigs. ~ Chuck Todd, #NFDB
504:A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
505:A primary rule of assertiveness is that anyone has the right to ask you for anything; and you have the equal right to say no, without giving a reason. ~ Jonice Webb, #NFDB
506:Duplication is the primary enemy of a well-designed system. It represents additional work, additional risk, and additional unnecessary complexity. ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
507:knowing how to deal with change effectively is a primary requirement for living successfully in perhaps the most exciting time in all of human history ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
508:...once you recognize, or admit, that your primary goal is to fully express yourself, you will find the means to achieve the rest of your goals... ~ Warren G Bennis, #NFDB
509:One of the primary necessities of the world for the maintenance of peace is the elimination of the frictions which arise from competitive armament. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
510:We are, or rather our natural desire to evade pain and to attain pleasure is, the primary reason we do or say every single thing we do or say. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
511:A pardon for Edward Snowden would be good for America and would help burnish the president's legacy as one of the primary defenders of human rights. ~ Anthony Romero, #NFDB
512:Conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. People don't learn by staring into a mirror; people learn by encountering difference. ~ Ronald A Heifetz, #NFDB
513:primary mental abilities and perceptual and motor skills are the most influenced by heredity, while personality traits are the least influenced. If ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
514:Watching her made my heart ache, as if that organ had become linked to her emotional state, rather than targeting its primary task—keeping me alive. ~ Tammara Webber, #NFDB
515:And I already like Nicole enough to hope she'll consider being my consensually nonmonogamous polyamorous pluralistic multiple-relating primary partner. ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
516:Historically, the family has played the primary role in educating children for life, with the school providing supplemental scaffolding to the family. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
517:I felt like I had to prove myself, but I feel that you have to do that anyway, as an actor. You're there to do a job, and that's your primary concern. ~ Giles Matthey, #NFDB
518:I know it’s a big struggle—around the world there are fifty-seven million children who are not in primary school, thirty-two million of them girls. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
519:I thought, well, why am I giving up on my primary dream to work doubly hard, to do something as an alternative to what it really still want to? ~ Benedict Cumberbatch, #NFDB
520:Oneness of the Divine. It may be given a thousand names such as The Primary Cause / God / Energy / I. All that is created has its Self this Oneness. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
521:Thought is the primary energy and vibration that emanated from God and is thus the creator of life, electrons, atoms, and all forms of energy. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
522:we dubbed this host of problems the “true believers syndrome” and realized it is a primary reason that promising innovations often fail to spread. The ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
523:What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
524:While the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guide to religious truth. ~ Rodney Stark, #NFDB
525:Everything about my life was a lie and remained so until after his death. What I set as my primary goal in life was all a mirage in a vast, empty desert. ~ Mary Balogh, #NFDB
526:I think the one thing I would point to as a primary reason, basically, is that I was a gigantic ass, ... It's the first time I got dumped in my life. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
527:Microsoft is… a primary provider of cloud services, both for consumers and for enterprises, and that part of its business is expanding rapidly,” he writes. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
528:narcissistic personality disorder. This is the one you probably know something about. Its primary characteristics are grandiosity and lack of empathy. ~ William Landay, #NFDB
529:The behavioral doctrine was that human beings were motivated according to their primary drives of hunger, thirst, elimination, pain, and sex. Other ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
530:Age is no longer the primary factor that determines where you are on the map. Life is now less about how old you are and more about when you decide to live. ~ Jon Acuff, #NFDB
531:As to the 1,150,000,000 of the colored world, they are divided, as already stated, into four primary categories: yellows, browns, blacks, and reds. ~ T Lothrop Stoddard, #NFDB
532:In the midst of the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may be discovered, from which all others are derived. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
533:One primary reason is, [Donald Trump's] supporters didn't care - and, in fact (and frustratingly so), his supporters ate it up. His supporters loved it. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
534:Sisterhood - that is, primary and bonding love from women - is, like motherhood, a capacity, not a destiny. It must be chosen, exercised by acts of will. ~ Olga Broumas, #NFDB
535:The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone. ~ James A Baldwin, #NFDB
536:A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
537:I am wholly in favour of 'dull stodges'. A surprising large proportion prove 'educable': for which a primary qualification is the willingness to do work. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
538:If I were to give myself a pat on the back, it would be for sticking with bookmaking as my primary way of expressing myself over the span of fifty years. ~ Jerry Pinkney, #NFDB
539:Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic - a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
540:the primary goal of salvation: an eschatological people, who together live the life of the future in the present age as they await the final consummation. ~ Gordon D Fee, #NFDB
541:There are seven primary chakras located in the subtle physical body, the body of light and energy that is our awareness and that surrounds the physical. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
542:There have been a lot of murders and suicides in my family; it's like the primary cause of death. I wonder if there's a certain energy that attracts that. ~ Rose McGowan, #NFDB
543:Am I surprised that Joe Klein [pseudonymous author of Primary Colors which he denied writing] lied? No, because in my opinion reporters lie all the time. ~ James Carville, #NFDB
544:I don't think it's entirely paranoid to suspect that one day, you won't be able to so much as question the primary tenets of anti-racism without going to jail. ~ Jim Goad, #NFDB
545:The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize 'inconvenient' facts - I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. ~ Max Weber, #NFDB
546:The values and beliefs we observe in our parents and primary caregivers become an early and powerful stimulus, and often are assimilated and hardwired within. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
547:Acting is fun. It's not my whole life. It's not my entire being. It's secondary to my life. My life is primary. I'm running in the primary, as you know. ~ Elizabeth Taylor, #NFDB
548:[Donna] Brazil warned the campaign that [Hillary] Clinton might face a question over lead poisoning during a CNN primary debate, showing her partisan ties. ~ Donna Brazile, #NFDB
549:So Tracy had my three primary relationship requisites covered. Handily. So sex? Was it a problem? Yes. Did it sink our beautiful marriage? Not even close. ~ Frederick Marx, #NFDB
550:Twilight is about getting older and relationships - not about a murder mystery. It's about love when you reach a certain age; nothing is in primary colors. ~ Robert Benton, #NFDB
551:When psychological needs, rather than sin, are seen as our primary problem, not only is our self-understanding affected, but the gospel itself is changed. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
552:I don't ignore continuity, and try my best to stick as closely to the current status quo as possible, but it's not my primary concern when I start a story. ~ Grant Morrison, #NFDB
553:I have never felt that the primary use of these things was to cure what is called in modern parlance neurosis, what I call unhappiness. It isn't for that. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
554:Selfless giving is a choice. The primary choice we make is not what to give, how to give, where to give. What we are trying to do is become perfect givers. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
555:technology is important—you can’t remain a laggard and hope to be great. But technology by itself is never a primary cause of either greatness or decline. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
556:There are other relations besides reality, which the mind is capable of grasping and which also are primary, like chance, illusion, the fantastic, the dream. ~ Louis Aragon, #NFDB
557:The things that I want to see happen get no play in mainstream American politics. My primary interests are the legalization of sex work and prison abolition. ~ Grace Dunham, #NFDB
558:The value of the creative faculty derives from the fact that faculty is the primary mark of man. To deprive man of its exercise is to reduce him to subhumanity. ~ Eric Gill, #NFDB
559:Again and again, he and his followers taught that good human relationships were one of the primary ways that God changes our lives and heals us (1 Peter 4:10). ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
560:A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
561:For the primary and secondary school years, we will aid public schools serving low-income families and assist students in both public and private schools. ~ Lyndon B Johnson, #NFDB
562:I call the age we are entering the creative age because the key factor propelling us forward is the rise of creativity as the primary mover of our economy. ~ Richard Florida, #NFDB
563:If people are really excited about their music, and that's their primary motivation, then that comes through in demo tapes. That's the most important ingredient. ~ Greg Ginn, #NFDB
564:The tell tale sign of a worthless degree is when the only or primary application of the study is to merely re teach the same stuff to new and future students. ~ Aaron Clarey, #NFDB
565:The will to originality is not the will to be peculiar and unlike anybody else; it means the desire to derive one's consciousness from its primary source. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev, #NFDB
566:What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
567:What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
568:Word-of-mouth marketing is a crucial component of organic growth for startups and one of the primary ways that Weebly has grown to over 15 million customers. ~ David Rusenko, #NFDB
569:All things being equal, the primary competitive advantage of your business will be your ability to grow Leaders Without Titles faster than your industry peers. ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
570:few things enrage, confuse, and repulse audiences more than the suggestion that the primary visual purpose of a woman’s body is not the pleasure of men. ~ Anne Helen Petersen, #NFDB
571:The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
572:The town was made of cubical buildings with steep roofs, each one painted a bright primary color that through the long winters was said to be cheering. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
573:This animal body, for all its susceptibility and vertigo, remains the primary instrument of all our knowing, as the capricious earth remains our primary cosmos. ~ David Abram, #NFDB
574:Bowlby’s work emphasized that the relationship between a child and a mother or primary caregiver powerfully molds how that child will see herself and the world. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
575:Quran’s primary verses tells people “to fight in Allah’s way, so they slay and are slain.” Is it a mere coincidence that this chapter and verse is (9:111)? ~ Michael D Fortner, #NFDB
576:Reporters listen, photographers look. If you are doing your job seriously as a photojournalist, your sight must be the primary sense that you use at all times. ~ Bill Eppridge, #NFDB
577:The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour,or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
578:The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives. ~ John Taylor Gatto, #NFDB
579:Al-Shadhili became known as the Monk of Mokha, and Mokha became the primary point of departure for all the coffee grown in Yemen and destined for faraway markets. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
580:Being clever was, after all, my primary source of self-esteem. I’m a very sad person, in all senses of the word, but at least I was going to get into university. ~ Alice Oseman, #NFDB
581:Even after forty years of directing, shooting and editing films, when I collaborate with a male partner, people still perceive the man as the primary filmmaker. ~ Chris Hegedus, #NFDB
582:Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit. Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything, the eternal field of consciousness. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
583:I think Super Tuesday is the most important day of this entire primary election. It is the most delegates awarded in a single night will be awarded on Super Tuesday. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
584:Only brand names register in the mind... What you should generally do is take a regular word and use it out of context to connote the primary attribute of your brand. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
585:People need to realize that their thoughts are more primary than their genes, because the environment, which is influenced by our thoughts, controls the genes. ~ Bruce H Lipton, #NFDB
586:People sometimes ask me, "You're still in a primary - why are you criticizing [Donald] Trump?" It's because I don't want what he's saying to stand unanswered. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
587:The bilateral relationship is unshakable, but playing politics with that relationship could blunt Secretary Kerry's enthusiasm for being Israel's primary defender. ~ Ron Dermer, #NFDB
588:The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
589:The primary use of knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all circumstances as shall make living complete. All other uses of knowledge are secondary. ~ Herbert Spencer, #NFDB
590:The emotional brain is highly attuned to symbolic meanings and to the mode Freud called the 'primary process' - the messages of metaphor, story, myth, the arts. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
591:The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
592:To provide employment for the poor, and support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
593:Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
594:You can photograph anything. You can be inside, outside, doesn't matter, you're controlling the light. It gives you great flexibility. That was a primary motivation. ~ Alec Soth, #NFDB
595:In the US, the problem is primary and secondary education. We've had such an increase in inequality because a quarter of American kids don't finish high school! ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
596:I remember my mum explaining to me what adoption meant when I was still at primary school. 'Son,' she said to me, 'you didn't grow under my heart, you grew in it'. ~ Michael Gove, #NFDB
597:One of the primary tenets of the course was that highly successful leaders kept journals, morning and night, in order to stay tightly focused on their goals. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
598:The primary contribution of government to this world is to elicit, entrench, enable, and finally to codify the most destructive aspects of the human personality. ~ Jeffrey Tucker, #NFDB
599:Emergency rooms will be used the way they were intended to be used: not for primary care, but for when the average freaky American get some strange object up his ass. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
600:It was a world ruled these days by the gun, the guitar, and the needle, sexier than sex, where the good right hand had become the male's primary sexual organ... ~ Michael Moorcock, #NFDB
601:One of the primary reasons we don’t seek counsel from the wise people around us is that we already know what we are going to hear—and we just don’t want to hear it. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
602:The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the center - the central actor - in his own activity. ~ Alice Miller, #NFDB
603:If you want to be led by the Spirit of God, then devote yourself to the Word of God. The Spirit’s primary vehicle for moving and speaking in our lives is the Scriptures ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
604:One of the primary reasons we don't seek counsel from the wise people around us is that we already know what we are going to hear--and we just don't want to hear it. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
605:Stop worrying about being your child's buddy. You are the only one in the world with the primary responsibility of giving your child what he needs, not what he wants. ~ Chip Ingram, #NFDB
606:To have faith in a religion, any religion, is to accept at some primary level that its particular language of words and symbols says something true about reality. ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
607:Very few people really see things unless they've had someone in early life who made them look at things. And name them too. But the looking is primary, the focus. ~ Denise Levertov, #NFDB
608:Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance beween spirit and humility. ~ Gary Snyder, #NFDB
609:Demonstration is also something necessary, because a demonstration cannot go otherwise than it does, ... And the cause of this lies with the primary premises/principles. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
610:figurative language is one of the primary modes by which, past and present, the Church communicates truth to her people, in Scripture, Christian art, and the liturgy. ~ Holly Ordway, #NFDB
611:I hope to see Ruby help every programmer in the world to be productive, and to enjoy programming, and to be happy. That is the primary purpose of Ruby language. ~ Yukihiro Matsumoto, #NFDB
612:I would put primary emphasis on a good standard of living equitably distributed. It can't be equal, but one that eliminates the terrible cruelty of poverty. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
613:She eventually made it to the Bureau—a career advancement that had the primary benefit of keeping her keester out of the line of fire. Until today. “Local SWAT is en ~ Alan Jacobson, #NFDB
614:The primary moral judgment on candidates and their positions is to be made in the light of their concern for protecting human life from conception to natural death. ~ Francis George, #NFDB
615:To me the world of perfect forms is primary (as was Plato's own belief)-its existence being almost a logical necessity-and both the other two worlds are its shadows. ~ Roger Penrose, #NFDB
616:You still need to understand what your fundamental and primary jobs are you have to make sure that you execute those before you can really dabble into something else. ~ Tye Sheridan, #NFDB
617:Everything was curved to fit the walls: the stove, the sink and the cupboards, and all of it had been painted with flowers, insects and birds in bright primary colours. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
618:I was a kid who lived to read. It was the primary pleasure of my existence. It's still one of the primary pleasures of my existence. It's where I draw my sustenance. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
619:My primary lesson, however, was that I'm a solo writer, happiest when I'm making all the executive decisions. I've always been willing to rise or fall on my own merits. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
620:Survival is my primary instinct...it's out of my control. It's stronger than me. It's an outside force, a voice that says 'do this for your life or it will devour you.' ~ Grace Jones, #NFDB
621:The primary reason America has survived is that we have had leaders who've respected the Constitution, feared it and the rule of law, and we've been very lucky there. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
622:To produce a primary [karmic] cause which is potentially capable of having an effect, three things are necessary: intention, the actual action, and then satisfaction. ~ Namkhai Norbu, #NFDB
623:Manticore System's G0 primary and its G2 companion were dim behind her, reduced to two more stars amid millions, for the Junction lay almost seven light-hours from them. ~ David Weber, #NFDB
624:The Latin Cross is not inappropriate for a church that composed itself entirely of men, for in several early societies the Latin Cross was a primary phallic symbol. ~ Barbara G Walker, #NFDB
625:the primary and only necessary way of experiencing a work of literary art is not by “understanding” it in analytical terms; it is by thrumming to the work of art. ~ Robert Olen Butler, #NFDB
626:There are some for whom the good of mankind is their primary concern, and others who basically put their own considerations before everyone else. I was among the latter. ~ Peter David, #NFDB
627:The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them. ~ Claude Bernard, #NFDB
628:I'd love to go back and teach primary school. I used to teach fourth grade and fifth grade. I'd love to spend several years teaching kindergarten or maybe third grade. ~ Jonathan Kozol, #NFDB
629:Just as there are primary colors from which all of the others come forth when they're combined, so there are primary vibratory qualities of energy and light within us. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
630:People are social beings and want interaction and social learning is the primary form of learning, just as word of mouth advertising is the highest form of advertising. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
631:Putin clearly had signaled that engagement with us was not in his portfolio. Yet we understood from that session that he remained the primary decision maker in Russia. ~ Michael McFaul, #NFDB
632:Relationships are our primary teacher. They are the context in which we either grow into God consciousness, or deny ourselves and others the opportunity to do so. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
633:When in court, the primary role of lawyers is not to prove or disprove innocence; unbeknown to almost all lawyers and their clients, it is to save the court time. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
634:Your spiritual journey and your spiritual welfare are really dependent on two primary factors: One, your ability to meditate and two, your ability to give of yourself. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
635:For the awakened individual the realisation of his truth of being and his inner liberation and perfection must be his primary seeking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #NFDB
636:Responsibility has already changed the primary leaders of the Party very considerably,” he wrote. “There is every evidence that they are becoming constantly more moderate. ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
637:This position of detachment is a primary condition of consciousness, and it is the essence of its functioning to intensify and differentiate this attitude still further. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
638:In losing her he lost not merely his main source of companionship but also his primary adviser, whose observations he had found so useful in helping shape his own thinking. ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
639:I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I'm 'bad'. ~ Mark Fuhrman, #NFDB
640:I was very aggressive as a child. At primary school in London my attitude was 'If you don't do what I say, I'll knowk you out', and I was eventually expelled for fighting. ~ Lennox Lewis, #NFDB
641:The constant talking didn't bother her, for cats use their voices to say 'here I am, where are you?' and this seemed to be the primary intention of most human conversation. ~ Kij Johnson, #NFDB
642:The material particle nature of primary cosmic radiation has been confirmed, although the processes turned out to be extraordinarily more complicated than we had assumed. ~ Walther Bothe, #NFDB
643:The primary theological fact about prayer is this: We address a triune God, and our prayers can be heard only through the distinct work of every person in the Godhead. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
644:The true or primary purpose of your life cannot be found on the outer level. It does not concern what you do but what you are—that is to say, your state of consciousness. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
645:While combat efficiency is a primary function of Shaolin Kung Fu, a more immediate and useful benefit in our law-abiding society is attaining radiant health and vitality. ~ Wong Kiew Kit, #NFDB
646:It was just revealed that Donald Trump hasn't voted in primary elections in over 20 years. Or in simpler terms, Trump hasn't voted in primary elections in over three wives. ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
647:[Muhammad] Ali had [Jo] Frazier , that man had the joker, Coke had Pepsi and [Donald] Trump had [Barack] Obama, or 16 primary opponents or the entire political establishment. ~ Chuck Todd, #NFDB
648:My palette contains a warm and cool of each primary, plus four modifiers: Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Blue-Violet and Phthalo Yellow-Green just mix as I go for each painting. ~ Matt Smith, #NFDB
649:The primary place where most people lose energy is in their relationships with others. That means you lose your energy in your interactions with the people you know best. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
650:The Second Chancers’ welfare is our primary concern, which is why we like to bring in people who know them and can report on their progress from an insider’s perspective. ~ Megan Thomason, #NFDB
651:This unshakable faith in human reason is called rationalism. A rationalist is someone who believes that human reason is the primary source of our knowledge of the world. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
652:Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend. ~ Stephen Lang, #NFDB
653:Charlie can't keep you from visiting your mother. She still has primary custody.'
'Nobody has custody of me. I'm an adult.'
He flashed a brilliant smile. ' Exactly. ~ Stephenie Meyer,#NFDB
654:For we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles, and have carried our analysis as far as its simplest elements. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
655:The primary object of a student of literature is to be delighted. His duty is to enjoy himself, his efforts should be directed to developing his faculty of appreciation. ~ Lord David Cecil, #NFDB
656:[While] the primary responsibility, as we all acknowledge, (falls) with the family, ... Our homes, our families, our children's minds are being flooded by a tide of violence. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
657:You cannot force commitment, what you can do…You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create. ~ Peter Senge, #NFDB
658:After they leave, I look at the three of us and think about how there are three primary colors. Yellow, blue, and red. Those three colors create every other color ever. ~ Lynda Mullaly Hunt, #NFDB
659:My primary objective, my desire would be to see the Democrat Party get shellacked in every election, to never see the Democrats ever win one again, as currently constituted. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
660:One of the primary services the arts can render to theology is their integrative power, their ability to interrelate the intellect with the other facets of our human makeup. ~ Jeremy Begbie, #NFDB
661:Superorganism, ideas, and the pecking order—these are the primary forces behind much of human creativity and earthly good. They are the holy trinity of the Lucifer Principle. ~ Howard Bloom, #NFDB
662:The idea that vaccines are a primary cause of autism is not as crackpot as some might wish. Autism's 60-fold rise in 30 years matches a tripling of the US vaccine schedule. ~ Jenny McCarthy, #NFDB
663:There are so many young talented actors today whose work I respect and admire - Ryan Gosling is probably primary among them. I take inspiration from so many amazing actors. ~ Daniel Sunjata, #NFDB
664:Bits also play a part in logic, that strange blend of philosophy and mathematics for which a primary goal is to determine whether certain statements are true or false. True ~ Charles Petzold, #NFDB
665:Here, we suggest that humans so willingly self-disclose because doing so represents an event with intrinsic value, in the same way as with primary awards such as food and sex. ~ Matt Richtel, #NFDB
666:It has become evident that the primary lesson of the study of evolution is that all evolution is coevolution: every organism is evolving in tandem with the organisms around it. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
667:The primary function of the creative use of language - in our age - is to try to constantly restore words to their meanings, to keep the living tissue of responsibility alive. ~ Jorie Graham, #NFDB
668:The vocabulary for discussing smells, tastes and textures, the primary characteristics of wine, seems paltry compared with the far better developed lexicon for sights and sounds. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
669:You cannot force commitment, what you can do…You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
670:Historically, alliances had been formed to augment a nation’s strength in case of war; as World War I approached, the primary motive for war was to strengthen the alliances. ~ Henry Kissinger, #NFDB
671:I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school: I don't think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first years in primary school. ~ Nick Clegg, #NFDB
672:I think the lack of critical engagement with the food that we eat demonstrates the extent to which the commodity form has become the primary way in which we perceive the world. ~ Angela Davis, #NFDB
673:Offer someone the opportunity to rebuild a company or reinvent an industry as the primary incentive, and it will attract those drawn to the challenge first and the money second. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
674:The diaper bag, the car seat, the bottles, the pacifiers, the changing mat, the wipes, and all the toys in their primary colored glory; none of which would compliment my outfit. ~ Dina Silver, #NFDB
675:Consciousness even in my sleep changes primary colors. The features of my face melt like a wax doll in the fire. And who can consent to see in the mirror the mere face of man? ~ Czeslaw Milosz, #NFDB
676:First there was the New Hampshire primary, and we had nearly a year leading up to it. And now, look! Three primaries in one weekend! How many of these things are they going to have? ~ Ed Helms, #NFDB
677:In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
678:In traditional Indian morality tales, wayward children were the primary cause of heart conditions, cancerous lumps, hair loss and other ailments in their aggrieved parents. ~ Balli Kaur Jaswal, #NFDB
679:our primary practical commandment in this life, to love our neighbors: it is not only for their and our good in time, but also preparation for our and their eternal blessedness. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
680:Confused is of course the best state a mathematician can be in; the struggle out of that state is the primary drive for progress. ~ Dror Bar-Natan, Dror Bar-Natan's Research Statement for 2005., #NFDB
681:General [James] Mattis's primary experience - indeed, his only experience - is as a member of the United States Marine Corps, where he served for 41 years. That's his experience. ~ James Mattis, #NFDB
682:I believe that intelligence and rationality will always be primary no matter what shape sentient creatures take. To not think that would be to doubt the value of life itself. ~ Peter F Hamilton, #NFDB
683:It is said that the principal element that distinguishes a profession from a business is that in a profession, one’s primary obligation is to those he serves, not to himself. ~ Vincent Bugliosi, #NFDB
684:Mr. Putin’s primary aim is to stay in charge of the corruption banquet in order to avoid an opposition coming to power under which, at best, he’d spend the rest of his life in jail. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
685:The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
686:Otto contends that the presence of the powerful and overwhelming numen is primary, and this causes us to react to it with a sense of reverence, humility, and creatureliness.17 ~ Robert J Spitzer, #NFDB
687:Sam was alternately distant and clingy and mean, because I am the primary person he banks on and bangs on. I stayed close enough so he could push me away. Sadie slowly floated off. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
688:Since the conception of our country, America has held that parents, not schools, teachers, and certainly not courts, hold the primary responsibility of educating their children. ~ John Doolittle, #NFDB
689:The problem today is that too many have the idea that God’s primary plan is for them, and the church is secondary, the instrument to the realization of their individual significance. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
690:Today we are raised with the notion that to be secure is to be financially autonomous. Amassing wealth is viewed as the primary rite of passage to a secure, autonomous existence. ~ Jeremy Rifkin, #NFDB
691:A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn't forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student. ~ Richard Rodriguez, #NFDB
692:George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were gay, just for starters. They didn't have a name for it, but their primary affections and intellectual attractions were all for other men. ~ Larry Kramer, #NFDB
693:Being is central, and Being is now. The fulfillment of your life is not going to happen through anything. The outer activities in your life are secondary. What is Primary is Being. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
694:Crowley exemplified on a grand scale what the psychologist Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death called our adolescent need to be seen as “an object of primary value in the universe, ~ Gary Lachman, #NFDB
695:He and she become selective at different points; she can be selective when he wants his primary fantasy - sex; he can be selective when she wants her primary fantasy - commitment. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
696:The “feel” of a short story should be that it follows one trajectory, or arc. It concerns a character (or, in some cases, a group) heading through one primary crisis or concern. ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
697:The most wonderful thing about this whole process is that people's contributions to the lives of others become the primary means of getting the results they want in their own lives. ~ Brad Blanton, #NFDB
698:While many introverts are also shy, the primary characteristic of introverts is that their internal “battery” drains when spending time with others, and they “recharge” by being alone. ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
699:Christ as our Savior have received the automatic and glorious result of eternal salvation. However, the primary reason God left us on earth after our salvation was for our Christianity ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
700:English is not the primary language for universities in China, Korea, and Japan, but they are being evaluated on the basis of publications in English and courses taught in English. ~ Henry Rosovsky, #NFDB
701:It is one of the basic tenets of fascist leadership to keep primary libidinal energy on an unconscious level so as to divert its manifestations in a way suitable to political ends. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
702:Once such emotional engagement has been created - demand will always follow - yet one could say the "side product of your effort is demand" the primary purpose is to create love. ~ Martin Lindstrom, #NFDB
703:So if you are investing money to improve health on Level 1 or 2, you should put it into primary schools, nurse education, and vaccinations. Big impressive-looking hospitals can wait. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
704:The underlying, primary psychic reality is so inconceivably complex that it can be grasped only at the farthest reach of intuition, and then but very dimly. That is why it needs symbols ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
705:Exercise is beneficial, and I strongly recommend it. But a lack of exercise is not the primary reason for weight problems, and exercise can never take the place of a healthful diet. ~ Neal D Barnard, #NFDB
706:From here on, I’ll have to wing it.” She examined the mess of wires, aligning it with a diagram over her retina display. “Not like that hasn’t been my primary tactic this whole time. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
707:Love is as primary a phenomenon as sex. Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love. Sex is justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is a vehicle of love. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
708:That is, of course, the kind of perspective we expect from mobsters, dictators, and others whose primary regard is for unflinching support, not for allegiance to truth or facts. ~ David Cay Johnston, #NFDB
709:The objects of this primary education . . . would be . . . to form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
710:The primary reason in starting a business part-time is not so much to make a product great. The real reason for starting a part-time business is to make you a great businessperson. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
711:Therefore, organizations need to decide whether their primary objective is to deliver long-term accurate plans to its executives or if it is to deliver business value to its customers. ~ Gary Gruver, #NFDB
712:There were two primary distributors of books at that time, Ingram and Baker and Taylor, so a new retailer wouldn’t have to approach each of the thousands of book publishers individually. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
713:The underlying, primary psychic reality is so inconceivably complex that it can be grasped only at the farthest reach of intuition, and then but very dimly. That is why it needs symbols. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
714:What the head thinks, should be examined critically in the heart and this right decision should be carried out by the hands. This should be the primary product of the educational process. ~ Sai Baba, #NFDB
715:All superstructures, including the family, rest on the base of one thing, and one thing only – economics. The family is the first and the primary unit of oppression and exploitation. ~ Neel Mukherjee, #NFDB
716:For every thought supported by feeling, there is a muscle change. Primary muscle patterns being the biological heritage of man, man's whole body records his emotional thinking. ~ Mabel Elsworth Todd, #NFDB
717:From this I think we can all conclude that the cow was the primary instigator of everything that followed - war, Tribulation, the End of the Worlds. Lesson One: never trust a rumiant. ~ Joanne Harris, #NFDB
718:The term krino, a form of which Jesus uses here in Matthew 7, has as its primary meanings “to separate, make a distinction between, exercise judgment upon,” “to estimate or appraise. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
719:Assuming he wins his primary easily, and continues to push back when Donald Trump goes over the line, I think Paul Ryan is well positioned to run in 2020 if Trump loses. ~ Christopher Michael Cillizza, #NFDB
720:But what makes a good clock? The primary criterion is that it should be consistent—it wouldn’t do any good to have a clock that ticked really fast sometimes and really slowly at others. ~ Sean Carroll, #NFDB
721:Cancer of the brain comes in two varieties: primary cancers, which are born in the brain, and metastases, which emigrate from somewhere else in the body, most commonly from the lungs. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
722:Men do things. We can't help it. That's all there is to it. As you will discover in time, the primary choice every man has to make is whether he wants to be himself or if he wants peace. ~ Manu Joseph, #NFDB
723:Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior. ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
724:Self defense is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of society can abolish; the immediate gift of the Creator, obliges everyone to resist the first approaches of tyranny. ~ Elbridge Gerry, #NFDB
725:There are forty-three countries in the world that are poorer than Pakistan on a per capita GDP basis45 but twenty-four of them send more children to primary school than Pakistan does. ~ Husain Haqqani, #NFDB
726:To be emotionally resilient and to overcome your circumstances, not through fighting, but through being courageous and having endurance was something I thought was of primary importance. ~ Chris Weitz, #NFDB
727:A genuine primary is a fight within the family of the party - and, like any family fight, is apt to be more bitter and leave more enduring wounds than battle with the November enemy. ~ Theodore H White, #NFDB
728:But we all recognise the primary foible of frail humanity - our propensity for embracing hope and shunning logic, our tendency to believe what we desire rather than what we observe. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
729:From the primary school till he leaves the
university a young man does nothing but acquire books by heart without his
judgment or personal initiative being ever called into play. ~ Gustave Le Bon,#NFDB
730:We forget that God’s primary goal is not changing our situations and relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
731:1. Your Primary Aim 2. Your Strategic Objective 3. Your Organizational Strategy 4. Your Management Strategy 5. Your People Strategy 6. Your Marketing Strategy 7. Your Systems Strategy ~ Michael E Gerber, #NFDB
732:Dating becomes a lot about hiding who you really are, hiding you imperfections and in many cases, unfortunately, displaying and making primary what ought to be reserved only for marriage ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
733:Here is the primary means of training yourself: as soon as you leave in the morning, subject whatever you see or hear to close study. Then formulate answers as if they were posing questions. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
734:In other countries, the bureaucracy serves the needs of the people and the state; here, the bureaucracy itself is primary, and it takes precedence over the needs of the people and the state. ~ S Y Agnon, #NFDB
735:My primary job is to choose the programs, either to co-produce them, or acquire them after they're finished. So, I read a lot of scripts, I meet with producers and I read a lot of books. ~ Rebecca Eaton, #NFDB
736:Aristo rejected the study of logic and metaphysics, arguing that the primary concern of philosophers should be the study of ethics, an attitude we can find echoed in The Meditations. ~ Donald J Robertson, #NFDB
737:Dependence may be the primary trait of the millennial generation, but it is a structural dependence, caused not by "laziness" or "narcissism" but by a lack of options or social mobility. ~ Sarah Kendzior, #NFDB
738:My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well-known blues musicians. ~ Walter Becker, #NFDB
739:Occupying armies have responsibilities, not rights. Their primary responsibility is to withdraw as quickly and expeditiously as possible, in a manner determined by the occupied population. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
740:The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
741:The extraordinary fact that emerges from ancient DNA is that just five thousand years ago, the people who are now the primary ancestors of all extant northern Europeans had not yet arrived. ~ David Reich, #NFDB
742:The practice of yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum resonance and harmony. ~ Yehudi Menuhin, #NFDB
743:Einstein wrote that the aim of science is to capture the connection between all experiential data ‘in their totality’ – and to do this ‘by use of a minimum of primary concepts and relations’. ~ Paul Mason, #NFDB
744:I was right - Barack Obama's primary objective is to return the nation's wealth to it's rightful owners. This guy comes, if you look at some of his czars, for example, this Mark Lloyd guy. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
745:Love is not the icing on the cake of life. It is a basic primary need, like oxygen or water. Once we understand and accept this, we can more easily get to the heart of relationship problems. ~ Sue Johnson, #NFDB
746:Primary (the LDS Church's Sunday school for children) is where you go to do with somebody else's mother the things you would do with your own mother if she weren't so busy teaching Primary. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
747:The primary point of this existence is to live, and all living things move and grow. Therefore meditation should be integrated with the flow of life. It should not dominate above all else. ~ Ming Dao Deng, #NFDB
748:The primary things that people do on the Facebook is they use it to share with their friends and the people around them and their community, and they use it to keep in touch with people. ~ Mark Zuckerberg, #NFDB
749:The values in any primary key must be unique and non-null so you can use them to reference individual rows, but that’s the only rule—they don’t have to be consecutive numbers to identify rows. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
750:We teach what we like to learn and the reason many people go into teaching is vicariously to reexperience the primary joy experienced the first time they learned something they loved. ~ Stephen Brookfield, #NFDB
751:And just as you can find hip-hop lyrics beating up on all these groups, including young Black men themselves, the primary producers of the music, you can also find lyrics celebrating them. ~ Bakari Kitwana, #NFDB
752:it may well be that the subject-object dichotomy is false to begin with and that consciousness is primary in the cosmos, not just an epiphenomenon of physical processes in a nervous system. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
753:Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition. Love is not a good part of your life; it’s the most important part. The Bible says, “Let love be your greatest aim. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
754:Stoller’s direction offer proof that gender identity (I am a girl, I am a boy) is the primary identity any human being holds—the first as well as the most permanent and far-reaching. Stoller ~ Kate Millett, #NFDB
755:The New York Times is most definitely a left-wing concern that is openly contemptuous of the conservative, traditional point of view. That is the primary reason the paper may soon dissolve. ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
756:I'm a talentless but popular young singer and I have the feeling someone is watching me. I use the term loosely because I have few feelings, and even they're too simple, like primary colors. ~ Dennis Cooper, #NFDB
757:Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior. ~ Charlie Chaplin, #NFDB
758:The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call - in enemy nations - 'state indoctrination.' ~ Jonathan Kozol, #NFDB
759:The post-1972 primary system was especially vulnerable to a particular kind of outsider: individuals with enough fame or money to skip the “invisible primary.” In other words, celebrities. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
760:The programmer's primary weapon in the never-ending battle against slow system is to change the intramodular structure. Our first response should be to reorganize the modules' data structures. ~ Fred Brooks, #NFDB
761:The real primary diseases of man are such defects as pride, cruelty, hate, self- love, ignorance, instability and greed; and each of these, if considered, will be found to be adverse to Unity. ~ Edward Bach, #NFDB
762:There is only one candidate in this election who can universally mobilize conservatives, and as evident from the variety of primary victors, none of them is a Republican. It's Hillary Clinton. ~ Matt Labash, #NFDB
763:When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
764:A primary flaw in my psychology is that I'll give people a hundred yards' worth of rope with which to hang themselves, but once they reach that hundred-yard line, I strangle them to death with it. ~ Jim Goad, #NFDB
765:Coincidence, Jim, is just a word superstitious people use to describe complex events that in truth are the mathematically inevitable consequences of a primary cause. - Michael quoting Mr. Spock ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
766:God the Deliverer The primary truth about God is that He is the Deliverer, the Emancipator, and the Savior. He is God only to the free. Faith is a venture that turns life into an adventure. ~ Reinhard Bonnke, #NFDB
767:Metaphysics is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which it has. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
768:The best way to make money is not to have money as your primary goal. I've seen great people come into the business world primarily motivated to make money. Almost without exception they failed. ~ Ross Perot, #NFDB
769:We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language. ~ Gary Chapman, #NFDB
770:We forget that God's primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
771:Because the New Testament provides the primary historical source for information on the resurrection, many critics during the 19th century attacked the reliability of these biblical documents. ~ Josh McDowell, #NFDB
772:I think that science fiction has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
773:All artists are mothers. To be an artist is to be a creator, whether of a symphony or a supper or a painting or a person. Motherhood is the primary art, the art of creating (procreating) people. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
774:Knowing His will is more valuable than all the treasures we could ever have, and we must always esteem knowing His will as the true treasure, and therefore make it the primary thing that we seek. ~ Rick Joyner, #NFDB
775:Since anti-racist individuals did not control mass media, the media became the primary tool that would be used and is still used to convince black viewers, and everyone else, of black inferiority. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
776:Sometimes, with Cinnamon, it was like she fell into this "impress the guy" mode and forgot the primary rule of friendship, which was to make your bud look good in front of her boy. Not stupid. ~ Lauren Myracle, #NFDB
777:We have women entering lower-paying career fields. Women are still, culturally, the primary caregivers for children, even though we would love to have fathers and mothers share responsibility. ~ Martha McSally, #NFDB
778:Work to recognize the primary importance of the present moment. A good little pointer toward that is to ask yourself, "What is my relationship with the present moment? How am I relating to it?" ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
779:Donald would run for president after failing to vote in the 2002 general election and, as records indicate, in any Republican primary from 1989 until he voted for himself in 2016. Friedrich ~ David Cay Johnston, #NFDB
780:Frederick Douglass ran a primary campaign against [Abraham Lincoln] the second time around, in 1864. They hated him. Why'd they hate him? Because he said things like "I believe in white supremacy." ~ Bill Ayers, #NFDB
781:The primary conflict, I think, is between people whose interests are with already well-established economic activities, and those whose interests are with the emergence of new economic activities. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
782:The primary role of the music industry is to have artists be heard above the rest. It's a big needle in a haystack problem. The Internet has the service and tools to find the needle in a haystack. ~ Ali Partovi, #NFDB
783:This is government's primary function - to keep us safe - and when large percentages in America don't feel safe, they start asking: What am I paying my taxes for? What is government all about? ~ Charles Schumer, #NFDB
784:What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? And what if this had as much to do with our bodies as with our minds? ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
785:At the root of all emotions patients of depression experience, there are three primary feelings: first, a sense of insecurity; second, a sense of vulnerability; and finally, a sense of isolation. They ~ Om Swami, #NFDB
786:Learn to raise capital by any means necessary. That's your primary job as an entrepreneur. You must continually raise capital from family and friends, banks, suppliers, customers and investors. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
787:Many people I know who are doing truly helpful and healing ministry find their primary support from a couple of enlightened friends, and only secondarily, if at all, from the larger organizations. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
788:Newton's three laws of motion are less a product of novel experiments than of the attempt to reinterpret well-known observations in terms of motions and interactions of primary neutral corpuscles ~ Thomas S Kuhn, #NFDB
789:The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
790:Water deficit is the primary cause of many other disease symptoms too. Chronic pain, digestive distress, migraines, depression—all may be attributed at least partly to a lack of cellular hydration. ~ Darin Olien, #NFDB
791:Your task as a leader is to help others to succeed, not to strive only for your own success. If I don't trust your motives, nothing else will matter -because my primary concern is your integrity. ~ David Maister, #NFDB
792:The insanity rate per capita in South Africa is appalling. ...it is easily seen that a primary requisite in any programme of the rehabilitation of the Bantu in South Africa would be mental health. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
793:The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
794:What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is in short, the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of common meaning. ~ David, #NFDB
795:Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
796:Do you know what the primary infrastructure of the United States actually is, ladies and gentlemen? It's freedom - freedom and liberty - and that infrastructure certainly does need some rebuilding. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
797:Outsourcing is a reflection of a bad economic environment domestically. If you fix that, you fix outsourcing. Our primary export is paper money, and that should change if you change the monetary policy. ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
798:The boy crisis' primary cause is dad-deprived boys. Dad deprivation stems primarily from a lack of father involvement, and secondarily from devaluing what a father contributes when he is involved. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
799:The philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion,but determined to judge for himself.He should not be a respector of persons,but of things.Truth should be his primary object. ~ Michael Faraday, #NFDB
800:Concrete experiences serve as the primary building blocks from which we extend our capacity for thought and give rise to more abstracted concepts.
We understand the new in terms of the known. ~ Nick Sousanis,#NFDB
801:I completed the first three years of primary school in one year and was admitted to the local school the age of six directly into the fourth year, some two years younger than all my contemporaries. ~ Sydney Brenner, #NFDB
802:If you are not bored by life, and your primary motto is enthusiasm and if you like your friends, family around you, it all translates into your designs. That's what keeps the creativity alive. ~ Christian Louboutin, #NFDB
803:The last time she had had anything close to an enemy, she was in primary school herself. It had never crossed her mind that sending your child to school would be like going back to school yourself. ~ Liane Moriarty, #NFDB
804:As the New York primary approached, I certainly wasn’t against either candidate, but I still had to decide who to vote for. So I sat down with a yellow pad and made a list of pros and cons for each. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
805:I'm not going to name anybody, but I think there are about five to 10 global institutions that will emerge as our primary competitors across the board. They're adjusting to this new world, like we are. ~ Jamie Dimon, #NFDB
806:My ideas about time all developed from the realization that if nothing were to change we could not say that time passes. Change is primary, time, if it exists at all, is something we deduce from it. ~ Julian Barbour, #NFDB
807:Primary consciousness is a state of being aware of things in the world – of having mental images in the present.But it is not accompanied by any sense of a person with a past and future… ~ James David Lewis Williams, #NFDB
808:The rise of the Net and the Web represents a victory for the counterculture and the subculture. The next generation, raised on the Net as their primary medium, won't even know what consensus reality is. ~ R U Sirius, #NFDB
809:this is a serious development for our medical training establishment is that a host of technological enablers will fuel the disruption of specialists by primary care physicians in the future. ~ Clayton M Christensen, #NFDB
810:Whenever you meet anybody, it is a holy encounter. The primary event is the energy field of presence between you and the other human being that arises. You enjoy it. There is deep joy in the meeting. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
811:If one had to single out the most revolutionary novelty furnished by Qumran, its contribution to our understanding of the genesis of Jewish literary compositions could justifiably be our primary choice. ~ Geza Vermes, #NFDB
812:My primary reason for bringing my son on was to have a voice on the show [Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll] that would bring a 25 or 26 year old point of view to it, and my son is very capable of writing that stuff. ~ Denis Leary, #NFDB
813:...one of the primary differences between alcoholics and nonalcoholics is that nonalcoholics change their behavior to meet their goals and alcoholics change their goals to meet their behaviors. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
814:I'll give you a great example of an issue that no one brought up during this Florida primary, the fact that we're going to have a Chinese made oil rig put in place about 60 miles off the coast of Florida. ~ Allen West, #NFDB
815:It is only if the primary or only reason you do what you do is to make money that you will envy every random person who made or makes a lot of money (or money that exceeds what you made or make). ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
816:The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
817:Employing women as my primary protagonists has allowed me to step outside of myself, to distance myself from my own personality, far more easily than were I to look at events from a masculine perspective. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
818:Even if one child falls in a borewell, the entire country gets worried; we must generate more awareness about hundreds of children who are unable to survive due to lack of primary healthcare facilities. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
819:In knowledge-intensive business settings, where every manager has to oversee massive amounts of information as well as people, facilitating the use of psychic energy becomes a primary concern. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
820:it is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders’ hearth. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
821:Modernists claim that the lower story is the primary or sole reality—facts and science. Postmodernists claim that the upper story is primary—that even facts and science are merely mental constructs.15 ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
822:Not just in America. When I left my primary school, my father said, 'Son, you are now a man,' then he gave me a scented candle and told me how babies are made." Vik fought to keep his lips from twitching. ~ S J Kincaid, #NFDB
823:The Donald Trump I knew as a young reporter in New York was nothing if not media friendly. And for most of the past Republican primary, he was the most accessible major candidate. No one else was close. ~ Jonathan Karl, #NFDB
824:To lead any way other than by example, we send a fuzzy picture of leadership to others. If we work on improving ourselves first and make that our primary mission, then others are more likely to follow. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
825:I do believe that in America there needs to be a primary language and that English should be that language, it's not a radical position, it's a position that's held by countless people who are Latino. ~ Andrew Breitbart, #NFDB
826:I'd violated the primary rule of junior and senior high-- don't get people talking about you too much. This was wearing the brightest shirt on the playground. This was Mom giving you a kiss in the lobby. ~ Darin Strauss, #NFDB
827:I predict, that if the establishment can't stop Donald Trump in the primary process, they will make an effort to stop him at the convention. I mean, Governor Mitt Romney has pretty much telegraphed this. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
828:It's so logical and so simple. Fat is the backup fuel system. The role it plays in the body is that when there's no carbohydrate around, fat will become the primary energy fuel. That's pretty well known. ~ Robert Atkins, #NFDB
829:Matt Wilson, the colorist, has this great palate [in Paper Girls] that brings up all these emotions and this feel of the '80s without being actually as kind of as bright and primary as it could have been. ~ Cliff Chiang, #NFDB
830:My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
831:The primary economic conflict, I think, is between people whose interests are with already well-established economic activities, and those whose interests are with the emergence of new economic activities. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
832:The primary purpose of software estimation is not to predict a project's outcome; it is to determine whether a project's targets are realistic enough to allow the project to be controlled to meet them. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
833:Abraham Lincoln was interested in, in saving the Union. Well, most negroes have been tricked into thinking that Lincoln was a negro lover whose primary aim was to free them, and he died because he freed them. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
834:Although precautionary saving in anticipation of short-term shocks does indeed exist in the real world, it is clearly not the primary explanation for the observed accumulation and distribution of wealth. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
835:It`s basically a united [Republican ] party behind [Donald Trump] and Cruz`s numbers in Texas were plummeting and he was facing a possible primary challenge and this cements that this is the party of Trump. ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
836:The primary implication is that we're going to combine our intelligence with computers. We're going to make ourselves smarter. By the 2030s, they will literally go inside our bodies and inside our brains. ~ Judy Woodruff, #NFDB
837:The primary needs can be filled without language. We can eat, sleep, make love, build a house, bear children, without language. But we cannot ask questions. We cannot ask, 'Who am I? Who are you? Why? ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
838:The primary victims of Katrina, those who were given the least help by the government, those rescued last or not at all, were overwhelmingly people of color largely hidden from the mainstream of society. ~ Jonathan Kozol, #NFDB
839:Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
840:The fact that power plays a role in human motivation does not mean that it plays the only role, or even the primary role ... Beware of single cause interpretations--and beware the people who purvey them. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
841:The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down. ~ A J Liebling, #NFDB
842:A Christianity that does not have as its primary focus the deepening of passions for God is a false Christianity, no matter how zealously it seeks conversions or how forcefully it advocates righteous behavior. ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
843:A primary function of the Strict Father model is the protection of innocent children. Opposition to abortion provides an ideal opportunity to assert a protective function and justify Strict Father morality. ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
844:It is, I believe, the primary charm of poetry to give the lesson of mirage, that is, to show the fragile and vibrant movement of creation, in which the word is in a certain way human quintessence, prayer. ~ J M G Le Clezio, #NFDB
845:It is, I believe, the primary charm of poetry to give the lesson of mirage, that is, to show the fragile and vibrant movement of creation, in which the word is in a certain way human quintessence, prayer. ~ J M G Le Cl zio, #NFDB
846:Louis Armstrong was the primary contributor to jazz music in the 20th century. His improvisational skills served as the principal model for all who came after him, regardless of one's chosen instrument. ~ Ellis Marsalis Jr, #NFDB
847:There are two primary ways of studying Zen. Either an individual will enter into a Zen monastery and study with a Zen master there, or they will study with a Zen master who lives in the contemporary world. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
848:When I became secretary of state, I felt one of my primary jobs was building relationships around the world. And I did spend a lot of time and effort thinking through, How do I connect with this person?.. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
849:A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy in a party primary, as is any other citizen. The decision must be made by the constituents to whom he offers himself, and by nobody else. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
850:As for the status of Western Christianity, we are in a place where our task is to redefine the primary symbols of our faith or tradition in a more human direction. That's the thing I spend my time doing. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
851:How did people raise kids before plastic came along? "Everything for Baby", said the sign over the aisle we were in. It should have said, "Everything for Baby Is Made from Molded Plastic in Ugly Primary Colors. ~ Dan Savage, #NFDB
852:My dad's primary emotion is regret. It's like he made some giant mistake in his past, like he took a wrong turn, and instead of ending up wherever he was supposed to be, he ended up in this life [...] instead. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
853:Still, it is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders' hearth. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
854:The fact that power plays a role in human motivation does not mean that it plays the only role, or even the primary role ... Beware of single cause interpretations--and beware the people who purvey them. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
855:the paradox of vocation. We think that passion comes first, that our desire is primary; but if we are truly called, the work always comes before we are ready. We will have to act in spite of feeling unprepared. ~ Jeff Goins, #NFDB
856:Tonight was the CNN primary debate with the four remaining candidates. It was kind of a change for Newt Gingrich. Usually when he's arguing with three people at once, it's his wife, his ex-wife, and his mistress. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
857:What exactly is moral focus? It is giving moral priority to one particular domain of interest over others. The result is that one domain is seen as having primary moral significance over other domains. Thus, ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
858:Among the most important things to remember about evolution—and about its primary mechanism, natural selection, as limned by Darwin and his successors—is that it doesn’t have purposes. It only has results. To ~ David Quammen, #NFDB
859:Individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states,” one of the researchers was quoted as saying. They “return with a new perspective and profound acceptance. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
860:In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics. ~ Buzz Bissinger, #NFDB
861:I went to the local schools, the local state primary school, and then to the local grammar school. A secondary school, which technically was an independent school, it was not part of the state educational system. ~ John Hume, #NFDB
862:Our primary concern is that doing it [lifting] wrong is also inefficient, so we'll do it right because that ultimately allows us to lift more weight and get stronger, and safety will be a welcome side effect. ~ Mark Rippetoe, #NFDB
863:Phonocentrism places higher value on spoken language as being more primary than and thus superior to written language, which it conceives as necessarily corrupting the original Subject—the center of meaning. ~ Minae Mizumura, #NFDB
864:The early primary results show that Trump Country is made up of the places where civil society has eroded the most. Trump’s cities and towns and counties are the ones where community bonds are the weakest. ~ Timothy P Carney, #NFDB
865:The primary reason I'm in real estate, oil, gold, and silver is because the U.S. dollar has become the peso the world. It's becoming more and more worthless as the U.S. is the world's biggest debtor nation. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
866:This is stability at the cost of dependence − because the primary cause of ‘voluntary servitude’, i.e. submission to power, even if it's not required – according to Étienne de la Boétie – is simply a habit.5 ~ Zygmunt Bauman, #NFDB
867:Whenever you
become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight
of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is
primary, all else secondary. ~ Eckhart Tolle,#NFDB
868:Around the world we have girls in primary school at about the same rate now as boys, but keeping them in quality secondary schools is where the world is lagging. I'm seeing a lot of countries look at this now. ~ Melinda Gates, #NFDB
869:Fear gives life to anger. You don’t have peace when fear is there, so it becomes the soil on which anger can grow. Fear is based on ignorance, and this lack of understanding is also a primary cause of anger. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
870:I was attracted to their guns, because the guns seemed honest. The guns seemed to address this country, which invented the streets that secured them with despotic police, in its primary language - violence. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
871:Last night was Super Tuesday - a 10-state GOP Primary orgy. A big, sweaty pile of lever-yankin Republican voters. And like most orgies, it involves a bunch of middle aged guys who are not appealing to women. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
872:Still, it is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders' hearth. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
873:After all, history is a type of fantasy. For all the primary source research, in the end, the past world the historian builds is as weird and remote from our own as Middle Earth or Narnia, yet oddly familiar. ~ Ysabeau S Wilce, #NFDB
874:On the one hand, we had great filmic spectacles that brought in big audiences, adults as well as primary and secondary school students. On the other hand, there were attempts to create contemporary Polish film. ~ Andrzej Wajda, #NFDB
875:The evils of mankind are caused, not by the primary aggressiveness of individuals, but by their self-transcending identification with groups whose common denominator is low intelligence and high emotionality. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
876:But the primary reason for wanting the dollar to become more competitive in the near future is that we may need an increase in exports this year and in 2007 to sustain the economy's current pace of expansion. ~ Martin Feldstein, #NFDB
877:Even if I seemed to remember, I could not know. For just to remember something is not to know if it really happened. That is a primary fact of the inner life, the most difficult fact with which we must live. ~ Joyce Carol Oates, #NFDB
878:Freud said he did not know what a woman wanted. Most husbands say the same. Ready for it, guys? The answer is to be chosen. To be intensely desired. To be lusted after. A woman’s primary need is to be desired. ~ Shmuley Boteach, #NFDB
879:it is by no means surprising that though we are first commended to Wisdom by the primary natural instincts, afterwards Wisdom itself becomes dearer to us than are the instincts from which we came to her. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
880:Liberty and freedom were the primary reason that people wanted to come here. They wanted to escape bondage, slavery, tyranny, poverty, whatever, where they lived. It was America that promised a much better life. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
881:Most of what's around us we take for granted. We ignore it. Appreciation-spending time looking for the good-helps us overcome one of the primary limitations to enjoying the wealth we already have: ignoreance. ~ Peter McWilliams, #NFDB
882:Sex and race, because they are easy and visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour on which this system still depends. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
883:The design is a really flat primary color with all sorts of abstract geometric shapes, just implying something. And then you'd have your characters running from something with guns. It was very expressionistic. ~ Don Hertzfeldt, #NFDB
884:The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
885:we are constantly predicting the future and hypothesizing what we will experience. This expectation influences what we actually perceive. Predicting the future is actually the primary reason that we have a brain. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
886:A few primary keys to becoming a leader in business include having a clear intent or purpose, a truly inspiring vision, a grand message to share, a genuine social calling and a targeted niche to serve. ~ John Frederick Demartini, #NFDB
887:A successful student is one whose primary goal is to expand their knowledge and their ways of thinking and investigating the world. They do not see grades as an end in themselves but as means to continue to grow. ~ Carol S Dweck, #NFDB
888:Each character requires different language, and these issues become inseparable. You have all these balls in the air: language, character, narrative. For me, the primary focus must be words, sentences, paragraphs. ~ Dana Spiotta, #NFDB
889:I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
890:I do believe that the Church is God's primary instrument for ushering in the Kingdom (God's dream) on earth as it is in heaven, but God is not limited to use only the Church, or only Christians for that matter. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
891:In the Western consciousness, emotion has had a bad rap as the opposite of reason and good judgment. But psychological and neurological research reveal that emotion is the primary organizing force for human beings. ~ Mary Pipher, #NFDB
892:It is the primary duty of parents to make their children socially desirable. That will provide the child with opportunity, self-regard, and security. It's more important even than fostering individual identity. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
893:The primary reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. Although this living may not be a real living. God! What contradictions when we seek to join in wedlock life and reason! ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
894:Discipline, for the Christian, begins with the body. We have only one. It is this body that is the primary material given to us for sacrifice. We cannot give our hearts to God and keep our bodies for ourselves. ~ Elisabeth Elliot, #NFDB
895:Music, as long as it exists, will always take its departure from the major triad and return to it. The musician cannot escape it any more than the painter his primary colors or the architect his three dimensions. ~ Paul Hindemith, #NFDB
896:The primary purpose of the Electoral College is to maintain the power of the states and to support the idea that the election is decided by the states. It's not decided by the general population, and it never was. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
897:When governments take on debt, it has very serious implications, especially for future generations. Because their primary source of revenue is theft, government debt is a promise to steal from someone in the future. ~ Adam Kokesh, #NFDB
898:But to bang again on this rusty, perforated drum, the primary cause that is identified by every person in the system, every parliamentary report and every purse-lipped auditor remains lack of proper funding. ~ The Secret Barrister, #NFDB
899:Human beings, you see, do absolutely two primary things. We see like and unlike. Like becomes, in literature, simile and metaphor. Unlike becomes uniqueness and difference, from which I believe, the novel is born. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
900:It is the primary duty of parents to make their children socially desirable. That will provide the child with opportunity, self-regard, and security. It's more important even than fostering individual identity. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
901:I was really exposed to great old-time literature - the classics, the poetic realists like Strindberg and Ibsen and all those guys. I was really inspired by all those guys. That's when writing became a primary focus. ~ Kurt Sutter, #NFDB
902:Obama and his Democrats need to be placed on the defensive. They are the primary drivers of this spending; they are the obstructers of entitlement reform and the national debt continues to burn while they fiddle. ~ David Limbaugh, #NFDB
903:Today, I use Linux as my primary OS (on an x86 PC, and on a Thinkpad), and I also use Irix (on an SGI O2). Linux has improved a great deal since I wrote this, specifically with respect to its ease of installation. ~ Jamie Zawinski, #NFDB
904:Universities simply unable to play judge, jury and executioner when they're already having trouble playing educator. Resources are limited and colleges must put their focus on their primary objective: education. ~ Claire McCaskill, #NFDB
905:By overwhelming consensus, our culture locates the primary difficulty of relationships in finding the ‘right’ person rather than in knowing how to love a real — that is, a necessarily rather unright — human being. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
906:If anybody asks what Sufism is, what kind of religion is it, the answer is that Sufism is the religion of the heart, the religion in which the thing of primary importance is to seek God in the heart of mankind. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
907:Salesmen, whose primary characteristic and main asset is their ability to keep selling, constantly recast the world in positive terms. Discouragement for everyone else is merely the need to improve reality for them. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
908:The only real way to develop strategy is to use a process where one goes to ‘primary knowing,’ tapping into source and then listening deeply, moment to moment as the path unfolds—walking the path as it is created. ~ Joseph Jaworski, #NFDB
909:When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, but take every word at its primary, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context clearly indicate otherwise. —David L. Cooper, PhD ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
910:Human life, the person is no longer perceived as a primary value to be respected and protected, especially if poor or disabled, if not yet useful - such as the unborn child - or no longer needed - such as the elderly. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
911:It's interesting to see how acoustic guitars are emerging as a primary instrument once again ... reminds me very much of what Jim Messina and I were doing back then. You can't get too far away from an acoustic guitar ~ Kenny Loggins, #NFDB
912:Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
913:Some people each left their spouse or lover because he or she was no longer the primary source of their happiness; some, because their spouse or lover was, at that time, the primary source of their unhappiness. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
914:The president himself, absent any organizational rigor, often acted as his own chief of staff, or, in a sense, elevated the press secretary job to the primary staff job, and then functioned as his own press secretary ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
915:The primary agency responsible for rallying U.S.-led interests around the world appears to be having the air sucked out of it. If you are Russia and you are looking at that right now, do you love what you are seeing? ~ Rachel Maddow, #NFDB
916:Marianne Williamson has written that there are really only two primary emotions in the universe, love and fear. So anytime you're feeling anxious, insecure, worried, angry or resentful, you've left love and entered fear. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
917:Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
918:The experience of a cosmos existing in precarious balance on the edge of emergence from nothing and returning to nothing must be acknowledged, therefore, as lying at the center of the primary experience of the cosmos. ~ Eric Voegelin, #NFDB
919:The fight against AIDS in China is already well underway. The Chinese government and other funders are providing major support, and they'll continue to bear primary responsibility for delivering prevention and treatment. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
920:The universe, the solar system, and planet earth in themselves and in their evolutionary emergence constitute for the human community the primary revelation of that ultimate mystery whence all things emerge into being. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
921:They hold that the primary purpose of Acts was to give an account of how and where the gospel spread, rather than to be a defense of Paul’s ministry (thus accounting for the omission of the events at the end of his life). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
922:If we do take statements to be the primary bearers of truth, there seems to be a very simple answer to the question, what is it for them to be true: for a statement to be true is for things to be as they are stated to be. ~ J L Mackie, #NFDB
923:In the few short decades since King’s death, a new regime of racially disparate mass incarceration has emerged in Chicago and become the primary mechanism for racial oppression and the denial of equal opportunity. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
924:It was primary election, but [Donald] Trump hasn't spent a lot of money. Not compared to - I mean, Jeb Bush had a $115 million super PAC, and he has six delegates. It's not a dream, but it's something I do think about. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
925:Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. ~ Brene Brown, #NFDB
926:second model, that of a technical or trade school, would conceive the primary task of psychoanalytic education to be the learning of a clearly defined skill or trade, with no emphasis on artistic creativity. Teachers ~ Otto F Kernberg, #NFDB
927:The American myth is of free will in its simple, primary sense. One can choose oneself and will oneself; and this absurdly optimistic assumption so dominates the republic that it has bred all its gross social injustices. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
928:The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension. ~ Wassily Kandinsky, #NFDB
929:The presence of a column named id in every table is so common that this has become synonymous with a primary key. Programmers learning SQL get the false idea that a primary key always means a column defined in this manner. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
930:The primary reason people watch television is you want to see the world through somebody else's eyes, and learn what that's like. You can only live one life, and so you get to see other lives through these characters. ~ Frank Spotnitz, #NFDB
931:Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
932:And of course, if they do recognize that they are living through a historical crisis, it’s often too late—because, like it or not, the primary way that ordinary people create this distinct genre of history is by dying. ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
933:And try letting yourself be carried away by your feelings, blindly, without reflection, without a primary cause, repelling consciousness at least for a time, hate or love, if only not to sit with your hands folded. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
934:I still have friends from primary school. And my two best girlfriends are from secondary school. I don't have to explain anything to them. I don't have to apologize for anything. They know. There's no judgment in any way. ~ Emma Watson, #NFDB
935:The alarming thing in China is the almost total absence of primary care. Even in cities, there are no independent doctors' offices or neighborhood clinics, so people have to go to the hospital for every health care need. ~ Nancy Travis, #NFDB
936:A worthy editor has one primary directive: to make the creative people look good. To do this, he must sometimes demand further work. He doesn’t do it casually. Remember, more work for you means more work for him, too. If ~ Dennis O Neil, #NFDB
937:Identifying Your Dream
Some people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape. ~ S A R K,#NFDB
938:The primary contribution that the Church offers to the development of mankind and peoples does not consist merely in material means or technical solutions. Rather, it involves the proclamation of the truth of Christ. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
939:Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and wherever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well. That’s our primary duty. And our obligation. When action is our priority, vanity falls away. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
940:But try getting blindly carried away by your feelings, without reasoning, without a primary cause, driving consciousness away at least for a time; start hating, or fall in love, only so as not to sit with folded arms. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
941:Failure is not the opposite to success, it's a stepping stone to success. If our primary goal is to be approved of, then we are not going to take risks, we are not going to speak out, we are going to try to blend in. ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
942:His primary aim is to criticize Cartesianism and the thesis that we have direct intuitive knowledge – the type of intuition not determined by prior cognitions and one that can serve as an epistemological foundation. ~ Richard J Bernstein, #NFDB
943:The primary problem is to learn to be your own toughest critic. You have to pay attention to intelligent work, and to work at the same time. You see. I mean, you’ve got to bounce off better work. It’s matter of working. ~ Garry Winogrand, #NFDB
944:We should never lose sight of the underlying essence of a market-a place where buyers and sellers come together. Every other feature-whether crafted by tradition or technology-exists only to serve that primary purpose. ~ Arthur Levitt Jr, #NFDB
945:What the song expressed so perfectly from lyric to melody was unrequited love, and we men of the south loved nothing more than unrequited love, cracked hearts our primary weakness after cigarettes, coffee, and cognac. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
946:I got mugged about six months ago. The oddest thing about the entire situation, though, was that I wasn't afraid, which is strange because basically I experience my life through two primary emotions: fear and suppressed fear. ~ Dana Gould, #NFDB
947:The Muslim world and its subset the countries of the Middle East have been left behind in the marathon of political, economic and human development. For that, there is a tendency to blame others as the primary cause ~ Recep Tayyip Erdogan, #NFDB
948:Happiness is a by-product. It is not a primary product of life. It is a thing which you suddenly realize you have because you're so delighted to be doing something which perhaps has nothing whatever to do with happiness. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
949:My friends are the ones I've had since primary school. They're really cool and such a good bunch of people. They came to every one of my gigs before all of this happened, you know; they were there in the smoky pubs, wherever. ~ Leona Lewis, #NFDB
950:Russell Barkley similarly describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward. ~ Edward M Hallowell, #NFDB
951:Similarly, a primary objective for Christian educators and a major task of professional pastors, if not the foremost task, should be the wholesale elimination of condemnation and anti-intellectualism from the local church. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
952:The global financial collapse exposed the longstanding myth that commercial exchange is a primary institution. There are no examples in history where people created commercial markets and exchange before creating a culture. ~ Jeremy Rifkin, #NFDB
953:There is no substitute for finding true purpose. But the true or primary purpose of your life cannot be found on the outer level. It does not concern what you do but what you are—that is to say, your state of consciousness. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
954:They’re not pro-life. You know what they are? They’re anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don’t like them. They don’t like women. They believe a woman’s primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
955:I thought on it and Cane can roll with us . . . . but he definitely gotta be a sidekick. . . . That’s the rule, people. Sicka white dudes being all primary in shit. He can be the sidekick or the nosey neighbor. That’s it. ~ Daniel Jos Older, #NFDB
956:The primary asset that comes with a small house is freedom. The world gets a lot bigger when you are living small because I can afford to do a lot more things in terms of cash and time. Now the whole world is my living room. ~ Tammy Strobel, #NFDB
957:When I was in primary school, my best friend was a boy and we always goofed around, climbed trees, got holes in my trousers and muddied all my tops and things like that; a complete nightmare for the washing, but great fun. ~ Maisie Williams, #NFDB
958:Christians are always to preach the Gospel, but to use words only when necessary. This saying sums up rather well his attitude toward preaching: one’s way of life, rather than words, was to be one’s primary testimony of Christ. ~ Wyatt North, #NFDB
959:It is an article of faith with the Democrats that they must fool Americans by simulating agreement with normal people. The winner of the Democratic primary is always the candidate who does the best impersonation of an American. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
960:Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, - that of alchemy, operational success. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
961:There are only a very few countries in the world—exceptional places like Afghanistan or South Sudan—where fewer than 20 percent of girls finish primary school, and at most 2 percent of the world’s girls live in such countries. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
962:this is so important to the human animal, people will do almost anything to get attention, including committing a crime or attempting suicide. Look behind almost any action, and you will see this need as a primary motivation. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
963:If Lincoln's primary goal in the War was not the abolition of slavery but simply to preserve the Union, the question arises: Why did the Union need preserving? Or, more pointedly, why did the Southern states want to secede? ~ G Edward Griffin, #NFDB
964:I'm very sensitive. Because my mum was my primary emotional caregiver growing up, I found myself being pinned into dresses, darting her dresses, choosing her high heels for the evening or what to wear. I'm very much a mommy's boy. ~ Tom Hardy, #NFDB
965:I suspect that the happiest people you know are the ones who work at being kind, helpful and reliable - and happiness sneaks into their lives while they are busy doing those things. It is a by-product, never a primary goal. ~ Harold S Kushner, #NFDB
966:I think in those countries, including my own in India, where I think primary education has been badly neglected by successive governments, I blame the opposition as much. Why have they allowed the government to get away with it? ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
967:I think three debates [primary debates] is the right number. I think that, uh, they'll be extremely well watched. There are those who will say it will be one of the highest-rated shows in television history, if not the highest. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
968:It is a primary text of the Vaishnava branch of Hinduism, and one of the Cnanonical puranas of the Visnhu Category. Among the portions of interest are a cycle of legends of the boyhood deeds of Krishna and Rama. ~ Sacred Texts, in "Hinduism"., #NFDB
969:Sometimes she feels like a third gender-
preferring primary colors to pastels, the radio to singing. At least she's all mermaid: never gets tired of swimming, hates the thought of socks. -from "The Straight Forward Mermaid ~ Matthea Harvey,#NFDB
970:The primary cost of maintenance is in spelunking and risk. Spelunking is the cost of digging through the existing software, trying to determine the best place and the best strategy to add a new feature or to repair a defect. ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
971:This is one of the
primary mechanisms whereby, if a fool says the sun is shining, we do not
correctly discard this as irrelevant nonevidence, but rather find ourselves
impelled to say that it must be dark outside. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky,#NFDB
972:Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
973:automatic and glorious result of eternal salvation. However, the primary reason God left us on earth after our salvation was for our Christianity to “succeed” right here on this turf. We’re getting by but getting by, was never our ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
974:Poly isn’t about being completely fair for most people. There are some who run it with a near perfect equality, but for most of us there are primary relationships, there are secondary, and even ones less serious than that. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
975:The primary reason people seek job security is because that is what they are taught to seek, at home and at school..then with debt loads, they must cling even tighter to a job, or professional security, just to pay the bills. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
976:The tapestry of the universe is vast and complex, with infinite patterns. While threads of tragedy may form the primary weave, humanity with its undaunted optimism still manages to embroider small designs of happiness and love. ~ Brian Herbert, #NFDB
977:Design is the patterning and planning of any act toward a desired, foreseeable end... any attempt to separate design, to make it a thing-by-itself works, counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life. ~ Victor Papanek, #NFDB
978:In fundamentals, faith is primary, and we may not appeal to love as an excuse to deny essential faith. In nonfundamentals, however, love is primary, and we may not appeal to zeal for the faith as an excuse for failures in love. ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
979:...looking back, has this journalism experience been a nightmare for you?'
'Not entirely.'
'Did you enjoy any of it?'
'I liked going to the library,' he says. 'I think I prefer books to people -- primary sources scare me. ~ Tom Rachman,#NFDB
980:The primary objective of a branding program is never the market for the product or service. The primary objective of a branding program is always the mind of the prospect. The mind comes first; the market follows where the mind leads. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
981:when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation. ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
982:This reflects four primary goals for an ayurvedic asana practice: 1. To balance the doshas 2. To improve the structural condition of the body 3. To facilitate the movement and development of prana 4. To calm and energize the mind ~ David Frawley, #NFDB
983:Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
984:I hope that my children, at least, if not I myself, will see the day when ignorance of the primary laws and facts of science will be looked upon as a defect only second to ignorance of the primary laws of religion and morality. ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
985:Liberal studies means..." said Mrs Chatterway, who prided herself on being an advocate of progressive education, in which role she had made a substantial contribution to the illiteracy rate in several previously good primary schools. ~ Tom Sharpe, #NFDB
986:The primary message of the Christian Church is that we were born in sin and we need to be rescued; we cannot rescue ourselves, so God comes to our rescue, pays the price of our sin and transforms us through the death of Jesus. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
987:The Puranas, the Tantras, and all the other books, even the Vyasa Sutras, are of secondary, or tertiary authority, but primary are the Vedas. ~ Abhedānanda (Swami), in Vedanta philosophy: five lectures on reincarnation Abhedānanda (Swami), p. 294, #NFDB
988:this posterior firing of maps of the body represents a primary cortical representation and may involve the parietal lobe—a region that may turn out to play an important role in self-awareness and a sense of identity (for further ~ Daniel J Siegel, #NFDB
989:Your addiction has been your false secure base—your primary relationship. You have to give up your false idol if you want to rejoin the human race. Healing your toxic shame demands that you surrender to your powerlessness over it. ~ John Bradshaw, #NFDB
990:A primary goal of the spiritual life is to learn to quiet the mind through prayer and meditation, through spiritual practice, so that we can hear what in both Judaism and Christianity, is called the small, still voice within. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
991:Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence. ~ Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
992:Government's the primary source of prosperity for you, if you're on the left. And if you believe that business exists to kill you, if you believe that business exists to poison you, then government is a source of prosperity for you. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
993:Preaching is the primary means whereby the miracle of Cana continues, as Jesus turns our life from water — tasteless, colorless, odorless — into homemade vintage wine, known for its vibrant flavor, vivid sparkle, and alluring aroma. ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
994:The bond between a parent and child is the primary bond, the foundation for the rest of the child's life. The presence or absence of this bond determines much about the child's resiliency and what kind of adult they will grow up to be. ~ Jane Fonda, #NFDB
995:The primary focus of this path of choosing wisely, of this training to de-escalate aggression, is learning to stay present. Pausing very briefly, frequently throughout the day, is an almost effortless way to do this. ~ Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap, #NFDB
996:There are two roadblocks in the way of transforming India into an economic giant and one of them was education. I believe that if education is privatised at primary and secondary level, lot of our problems will be answered to ~ Kumar Mangalam Birla, #NFDB
997:Well I teach in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. So that's my primary work. I lecture on various campuses and in various communities across the country and other parts of the world. ~ Angela Davis, #NFDB
998:Who runs a combination cat shelter and hostel?" Keith asked. "With the cat shelter being the primary function? Only people who want to kill you with an axe and then put you in the garden and build a shed on you, that's who. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB
999:An artist’s job is to inspire, from the Latin inspirare: to breathe into. The primary function of art is to inspire new thought shaped by emotions using the creative mediums we master—be it painting, music, design, craft, or photography. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1000:Do you honestly think Lenin is any different from J.P. Morgan? That you, if you were given absolute power, would behave any differently? Do you know the primary difference between men and gods?...Gods don't think they can become men. ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
1001:The United Nations represents not a final stage in the development of world order, but only a primitive stage. Therefore its primary task is to create the conditions which will make possible a more highly developed organization. ~ John Foster Dulles, #NFDB
1002:And that’s the beginning of the primary conversation in African American literature, right there: the African descendant explaining to the European descendant about how white people’s actions are affecting the lives of black people.* In ~ Mat Johnson, #NFDB
1003:...[I am] utterly entranced, at times, with the mere fact that there are other people, and that they experience themselves as the primary center of consciousness just as I do. That fact alone...Well, that fact alone is staggering. ~ Joyce Carol Oates, #NFDB
1004:The so-called "secondary market" has also always been something that I'm comfortable with. I'm not a dealer who turns his nose up at that part of the business. I'm an art dealer - my primary responsibility is to represent the artist. ~ Larry Gagosian, #NFDB
1005:The typical engineer is an a-cultural illiterate, unable to absorb or appreciate carefully written prose, equally unable to express himself well, a socially deficient bore, whose primary role in life is to make new gadgets with his hands. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1006:Thought is the primary energy and vibration that emanated from God and is thus the creator of life, electrons, atoms, and all forms of energy. Thought itself is the finest vibratory energy, the speediest power among all powers. ~ Paramhansa Yogananda, #NFDB
1007:American presidential politics is entirely based on the myth that a perfect, omniscient, virtuous and incorruptible saviour will emerge from the New Hampshire primary every four years, and proceed to lead his people to the promised land. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
1008:As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures. ~ Mark Dever, #NFDB
1009:Consider the four primary ideals of social justice: Equality, Diversity, Tolerance, and Progress. They are not even remotely complementary, as Equality and Diversity are mutually exclusive as well as standing directly in the way of Progress. ~ Vox Day, #NFDB
1010:I think one of the primary goals of a feminist landscape architecture would be to work toward a public landscape in which we can roam the streets at midnight, in which every square is available for Virginia Woolf to make up her novels ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
1011:Prayer is not just a tangential or peripheral part of corporate worship. In ancient Israel, the primary function of worship was the offering of prayer. And so it should be in our churches today. Our sanctuaries should be houses of prayer. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1012:The primary role of the church is to reflect God's value system in society and to train people in that value system. It's not the government's responsibility, nor are they equipped to do that on the most local level where the need exists. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
1013:If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1014:In every man and woman there is an inner being whose primary function in the psyche is to serve as the psychopomp—the one who guides the ego to the inner world, who serves as mediator between the unconscious and the ego. ~ Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work, #NFDB
1015:Old Zen was very funny; there was a great deal of humor and happiness. Zen today seems much drier. While there's a certain amount of humor, it seems to lack that total intensity because humor is one of the primary tools for liberation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1016:One primary reason many believers today have a hard time accepting the role of suffering in their lives or in the lives of friends and loved ones is that they have failed to understand and accept the reality of divine sovereignty. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1017:What actions are required to reach the primary objective?” ** “What are my current strengths and resources?” ** “What obstacles will get in the way of my success?” ** “What additional skills do I need to develop to accomplish the main goal? ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
1018:Indeed, religions might be seen as elaborate, multilayered metaphors, with layers upon layers of submetaphors, constructions that point beyond themselves toward the primary experience of ultimate reality but do not capture it. ~ Zalman Schachter Shalomi, #NFDB
1019:...In primary school, sports day was the one day of the year when the less academically gifted students could triumph...As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
1020:America will nurture a new Muslim - one who can believe in Muhammad and the Quran but who abandons belief in a Shariah-based state and affirms the primary American value of individual liberty, which has not been a normative Islamic value. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1021:I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films—although I think they do have plots—but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are. ~ Jim Jarmusch, #NFDB
1022:In every man and woman there is an inner being whose primary function in the psyche is to serve as the psychopomp—the one who guides the ego to the inner world, who serves as mediator between the unconscious and the ego ~ Robert Johnson, #Dante #Beatrice, #NFDB
1023:I think one of the primary reasons young women don't identify as feminist is because they don't know any feminists and/or don't really have an accurate or comprehensive understanding of what it is - by proudly identifying as a feminist. ~ Julie Zeilinger, #NFDB
1024:I’ve just devoted much of this chapter to explaining why managers should not have authority. But hierarchy in decision-making is important. It’s the only way to break ties and is ultimately one of the primary responsibilities of management. ~ Laszlo Bock, #NFDB
1025:My preference is that we beat him [Donald Trump] outright in the primary process. And I believe that's exactly what's going to happen here in the next few weeks, especially as we move to winner-take-all states. The terrain begins to change. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1026:My two primary areas of focus have been open-space conservation and education, and I expect those to remain my priorities in the future. The Irvine open space and parklands provide serenity and balance to our unique Orange County lifestyle. ~ Donald Bren, #NFDB
1027:Pew survey found that 45 percent of the poorest Americans use a mobile phone as their primary internet device. Same with nearly half of all Americans aged 18–29, and particularly among minorities and the less-educated. Young, poor, not white: ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1028:The body is our primary feedback mechanism which can show us what is and isn't working about our ways of thinking, expressing, and living. As we live our truth more fully and freely, our body grows healthier, stronger, and more beautiful. ~ Shakti Gawain, #NFDB
1029:The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing your ego will lead you to the knowledge of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1030:The point is that you see candidates running in these different kinds of contests. A primary shows you something that's different from a state party convention, which shows you something that is different than what a caucus shows you. ~ Michael Beschloss, #NFDB
1031:The primary benefits of becoming an imperfectionist are reduced stress and greater results by taking positive action in more situations. The more fearless, confident, and free a person is, the more they embrace imperfection in their life. ~ Stephen Guise, #NFDB
1032:Everything I do, I do it for somebody I've never met before, something in the great beyond. That's my primary relationship, really, is with something divine. I feel a connection as real with that as I've ever had with anybody on this earth. ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
1033:Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art....It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world. ~ Joanna Macy, #NFDB
1034:In fact, in the early days of the Republican primary, I was pointing to Governor [Scott ] Walker as the one guy who was demonstrating he knew how to fight back against the radical left and win! And he's tough, and he didn't shrink from it. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1035:In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations. ~ Claude Bernard, #NFDB
1036:It is most certainly not the function of the Holy See to introduce Church reforms. The first duty of the Pope is to act as primary bishop, to watch over the traditions of the Church—her dogmatic, moral and liturgical traditions.”17 ~ Christopher A Ferrara, #NFDB
1037:My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance? ~ Colin Firth, #NFDB
1038:The primary function of a constitution was to mark out the boundaries of governmental powers-hence in England, where there was no constitution , there were no limits (save for the effect of trail by jury) to what the legislature might do. ~ Bernard Bailyn, #NFDB
1039:All the jokes about men sitting down on their hats are really theological jokes; they are concerned with the Dual Nature of Man. They refer to the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1040:few civilians understood that so much of FEMA’s resources went to its primary mission behind the scenes—coordinating the nation’s COG efforts—and that much of its funding was actually classified, hidden in the nation’s black budget. Under ~ Garrett M Graff, #NFDB
1041:I often think about how, if we were all placed in an apocalyptic situation, you'd realize quickly how stupid, petty things just don't matter anymore. Who you love is who you love, and it doesn't matter. Survival is your primary focus. ~ Alycia Debnam Carey, #NFDB
1042:It is really hurting; how big media plagiarize everyday and no one judges them; The real heroes are those tiny and small self-funded websites and blogs that provide all primary data for them to survive and it will continue as far they exist ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
1043:Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
1044:One of the primary differences for me between fiction and poetry is that fiction uses every sort of tool that poetry does but hides it much, much more. Fiction doesn't necessarily reveal what it's doing with rhythm and sound and patterning. ~ Brian Evenson, #NFDB
1045:Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1046:In primary school, every day and especially on Fridays, I was supposed to say, 'I am Turkish, and I am righteous and hardworking,' But all those things did not actually turn us into Turks. This system is somehow creating fake personalities. ~ Osman Baydemir, #NFDB
1047:Jesus’ primary concern—the very first petition of the prayer he teaches—is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God’s name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exists because this hallowing does not. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1048:Researchers Tamara Ferguson, Heidi Eyre, and Michael Ashbaker have found that “unwanted identity” is one of the primary elicitors of shame. They explain that unwanted identities are characteristics that undermine our vision of our ideal selves. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1049:But the officer stood up and stepped across the room to Ender. He held out his hand. “My name is Graff, Ender. Colonel Hyrum Graff. I’m director of primary training at Battle School in the Belt. I’ve come to invite you to enter the school. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
1050:I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are. ~ Jim Jarmusch, #NFDB
1051:In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science. ~ Eugenie Scott, #NFDB
1052:It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1053:Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1054:The only constitutional exception to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution.… On natural principles, a treaty, which should manifestly betray or sacrifice primary interests of the state, would be null. ~ Alexander Hamilton, #NFDB
1055:The path to the Truth is a labour of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing your ego will lead you to the knowledge of God. ~ Shams Tabrizi, #NFDB
1056:The primary goal of a righteous parent who has a daughter is to minimize the number of boys and men for whom their daughter will have willingly opened her legs come her wedding day; the closer to zero, the more righteous they will seem. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
1057:All human professions, institutions, and activities must be integral with the earth as the primary self-nourishing , self-governing and self-fulfilling community. To integrate our human activities within this context is our way into the future. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
1058:Madison, thirty-seven, was the primary author of the Constitution and one of the greatest political thinkers of his day. Monroe, thirty, was an established attorney with a record in combat that could hardly be equaled anywhere on the continent. ~ Chris DeRose, #NFDB
1059:Remember that the primary definition of “asylum” is “a place of refuge.” One of the nobler aspirations of a workplace should be that it’s a place of refuge where people are free to create, build, and grow. Why not let the inmates run the asylum? ~ Laszlo Bock, #NFDB
1060:The problem is not that public schools do not work well, but rather that they do. The first goal and primary function of schools is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we normally label state indoctrination. ~ Wendy McElroy, #NFDB
1061:The strong belief that the interests of a particular nation-state are of primary importance. Also, the belief that a people who share a common language, history, and culture should constitute an independent nation, free of foreign domination. ~ Ernest Gellner, #NFDB
1062:A 2001 survey of business owners with MBAs conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology found that money was the primary motivator for only 29% of women, versus 76% of men. Women prioritized flexibility, fulfillment, autonomy and safety. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
1063:In primary school when I was 6-7 years old, I always go to theater with my uncle, and I don't know why I like the atmosphere, dark only. The screen has some lighting, that kind of things, you can see the movie star and so that's why I like movies. ~ Andrew Lau, #NFDB
1064:That’s why I think that cultivation, ‘becoming a real human being,’ really is the primary leadership issue of our time, but on a scale never required before. It’s a very old idea that may actually hold the key to a new age of ‘global democracy. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
1065:The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares. ~ Alexander Hamilton, #NFDB
1066:There are few professions whose primary objective is to advance the cause of humanity rather than simply to make money or accrue power. Among this limited group of humanitarians I would number teachers, nurses, bookstore owners, and bartenders. ~ Jack McDevitt, #NFDB
1067:Marco Rubio said he was personally open over a long period of time to offering a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally. Rubio's work on a comprehensive immigration bill is one of his biggest vulnerabilities with Republican primary voters. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
1068:Start from the body, and then go, slowly slowly, deeper. And don't start with anything else unless you have first solved the primary. If your body is tense, don't start with the mind. Wait. Work on the body. And just small things are of immense help. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1069:I had vainly been seeking a description of consciousness within science; instead, what I and others have to look for is a description of science within consciousness. We must develop a science compatible with consciousness, our primary experience. ~ Amit Goswami, #NFDB
1070:When I'm choosing projects to be a part of it's always a combination of so many different things. The primary thing is the director. But a very important element is, is it different enough from anything else I've ever done, or what I've last done. ~ Helen Mirren, #NFDB
1071:Expressing love in the right language. We tend to speak our own love language, to express love to others in a language that would make us feel loved. But if it is not his/her primary love language, it will not mean to them what it would mean to us. ~ Gary Chapman, #NFDB
1072:I called for a consumer protection financial bureau before it was created. And I think the best evidence that the Wall Street people at least know where I stand and where I have always stood is because they are trying to beat me in this primary. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1073:In the case of EAP research, questions about learning transfer have been a primary concern because they relate in significant ways to arguments concerning the extent to which EAP courses prepare multilingual writers for coursework in their disciplines ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1074:Managing complexity is the most important technical topic in software development. In my view, it's so important that Software's Primary Technical Imperative has to be managing complexity. Complexity is not a new feature of software development. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1075:We knew that the referee [in primary debates] is on the side of the Democrats because the referee, whoever the referee is, is a Democrat first and a so-called journalist second. I mean, we know that Lester Holt did not challenge Hillary [Clinton]. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1076:Within the overall context of loving his wife, a husband’s first and primary role is to be the spiritual head and covering and teacher in the home. Through his words, lifestyle, and personal behavior the husband should teach the Word, the will, and ~ Myles Munroe, #NFDB
1077:Early childhood development has proved to be very beneficial and very cost-effective in societies where this is been tried. So let's not confine ourselves to primary education. Let's think of early childhood development and education as a whole. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, #NFDB
1078:In literature, questions of fact or truth are subordinated to the primary literary aims of producing a structure of words for its own sake, and the sign-values of symbols are subordinated to their importance as a structure of interconnected motifs. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
1079:One way in which Americans have always been exceptional has been in our support for education. First we took the lead in universal primary education; then the “high school movement” made us the first nation to embrace widespread secondary education. ~ Paul Krugman, #NFDB
1080:The reason is they failed to learned the primary lesson we should have learned from when Long Term Capital Management went belly up ten years ago. That is, investments that seem uncorrelated can be correlated simply because we're interested in it. ~ Richard Thaler, #NFDB
1081:We'll support the government on issues if it's essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians. ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
1082:While new rights are attributed to or indeed almost presumed by the individual, life is not always protected as the primary value and the primordial right of every human being. The ultimate aim of medicine remains the defence and promotion of life. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1083:You need to be passionate about the creative work that you're doing, but you need to be kind of emotionally separated from how people react to it or how it does. Those things should be secondary, and primary should be your love of the creative act. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
1084:Your primary purpose is to be here fully, and to be total in whatever you do so that the preciousness of the present moment does not become reduced to a means to an end. And there you have your life purpose. That's the very foundation of your life. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1085:Any concept of biology is not only sterile and profitless, it is distorted and untrue, if it puts its primary focus on unnatural conditions rather than on those vast forces not of man's making that shape and channel the nature and direction of life. ~ Rachel Carson, #NFDB
1086:Since the reduction of risk factors is the scientific basis for primary prevention, the World Health Organization promotes the development of an integrated strategy for prevention of several diseases, rather than focusing on individual ones. ~ Gro Harlem Brundtland, #NFDB
1087:The nearest we approach God ...is as creative beings. The poet, by echoing the primary imagination, recreates. Through his work he forces those who read him to do the same, thus bringing them... nearer to the actual being of God as displayed in action. ~ R S Thomas, #NFDB
1088:Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
1089:I know it's a lot harder for women who don't have enough help, but the truth is, no matter how much money you have, if you want to stay involved with your children and don't want to lose being a primary parent to them, you're still in the game. ~ Patricia Richardson, #NFDB
1090:The most effective CEOs have a primary source for tracking their markets. They meet with their teams frequently enough to keep innovation flowing, to reduce and focus costs, to be energized. They create a tight agenda and they set high goals. ~ Michael J Silverstein, #NFDB
1091:Borromeo also organized partial quarantines, especially for women, whom he regarded not only as more likely to occasion sin but as the primary carriers of plague (because, he said, they talked so much and constantly visited each other’s houses). ~ Andrew Graham Dixon, #NFDB
1092:Children's books aren't textbooks. Their primary purpose isn't supposed to be "Pick this up and it will teach you this." It's not how literature should be. You probably do learn something from every book you pick up, but it might be simply how to laugh. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1093:Eventually, it had to be accepted that God had created invisible stars and this was the very first hint that perhaps the Universe had not been created with human welfare as its primary object (a point I have never seen stressed in histories of science) ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
1094:Going onstage without my primary instrument is like being a guitarist and going up onstage with no guitar waiting for you. What do you do? That's why performance is painful for me, because I feel like I am always in a strange place with a bit of a handicap. ~ Son Lux, #NFDB
1095:I care deeply about Democratic party and our agenda and making sure that we can continue to build on President [Barack] Obama`s legacy. So any suggestion that I am doing anything other than manage this primary impartially and neutrally is ludicrous. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1096:Now nobody will begin to understand Thomas philosophy, or indeed Catholic philosophy, who does not realize that the primary and fundamental part of it is entirely the praise of Life, the praise of Being, the praise of God as the creator of the world. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1097:Starting from the primary schools, there must be compulsory ‘Cosmos’ classes throughout the education period. If a man thinks about and understands the universe, he will have wider horizons; he will be much less conceited and much more realistic. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1098:This fourth-generation warfare (4GW) codified the use of guerrilla and terrorist proxies as the primary means of warfare between states, large and small. In Lind et al.’s view, 4GW was a method of warfare that allowed the weak forces to defeat the strong. ~ John Robb, #NFDB
1099:Writing regularly has always been the primary way I’ve avoided a nervous breakdown, so it’s unclear to me whether it’s a joyful or medicinal activity. It’s probably both." @ catherinelacey, author of Certain American States, out today from @fsgbooks ~ Catherine Lacey, #NFDB
1100:A Republican primary race that has for months alternated between spectacle and abomination has over the past 20th hours ignited into a raging, full-blown dumpster fire. One stoke by a group of men who hope to become the most powerful person in the world. ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
1101:Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, where his primary activities are writing a review column for the local Rhinoceros Times and feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, and raccoons on the patio. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
1102:Jedes geeinzelte Du ist ein Durchblick zu ihm. Durch jedes geeinzelte Du spricht das Grundwort das Ewige an. Every particularThou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou; by means of every particularThou the primary word addresses the eternal Thou. 164 ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
1103:Moving forward, the best way is going to be something that is going to be a collective decision, that is made, of course, with President-elect [Donald] Trump having the primary say as to how to move forward. But all those opinions will be in the room. ~ Reince Priebus, #NFDB
1104:Once you have created some great technology, there remains the problem of effectively transferring it to the development organization,” Myhrvold wrote. “Failure to do this effectively is a primary reason that research work is ineffective at many companies. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1105:Our habitual identification with thought—that is, our failure to recognize thoughts *as thoughts,* as appearances in consciousness—is a primary source of human suffering. It also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one’s head. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
1106:The picture of bankers slavering after bonuses soon after they had been rescued by government bailouts was not only outrageous but also pitiable - pitiable because they were clamoring for their primary measure of self-worth and status to be restored ~ Raghuram G Rajan, #NFDB
1107:The primary task of the church and of the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God,” said Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “The decadent periods and eras in the history of the church have always been those periods when preaching had declined ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
1108:Actors are part of a certain percentage of people on this planet who have an emotional vocabulary as a primary experience. It's as if their life is experienced emotionally and then that is translated intellectually or conceptually into the performance. ~ Mary McDonnell, #NFDB
1109:Everything I’ve ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country, America, at this time with these opportunities for its citizens. It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids. ~ Thomas Friedman, #NFDB
1110:(Indeed there were outstanding examples of good governance in India at the time, notably the Travancore kingdom, which in 1819 became the first government in the world to decree universal, compulsory and free primary education for both boys and girls.) ~ Shashi Tharoor, #NFDB
1111:One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged. ~ Richard Hofstadter, #NFDB
1112:Truth is always an interior and inexplicable contact. My truest life is unrecognizable, extremely interior and there is not a single word that defines it. My heart has emptied itself of every desire and been reduced to its own final or primary beat. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
1113:Why has slamming a ball with a racquet become so obsessive a pleasure for so many of us? It seems clear to me that a primary attraction of the sport is the opportunity it gives to release aggression physically without being arrested for felonious assault. ~ Nat Hentoff, #NFDB
1114:I think a lot of Democrats I know, who will vote in the Democratic primary and vote for the Democratic nominee and later general, they go back and forth between two feelings. One is oh, my God, I`m terrified. Maybe this guy will be formidable in a general. ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
1115:Everything I’ve ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country, America, at this time with these opportunities for its citizens. It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids. ~ Thomas L Friedman, #NFDB
1116:One may speculate that perhaps in ancient times, the men who were wise enough to see that the immeasurable is the primary reality were also wise enough to see that measure is insight into a secondary and dependent but nonetheless necessary aspect of reality. ~ David Bohm, #NFDB
1117:The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
1118:Women make up half our workforce and this has an impact at home on spouses and children. This means the workplace must change because women - who have historically been the primary caregivers at home - are now fully in the workforce and here to stay. ~ Stewart D Friedman, #NFDB
1119:A second way to profit from the be-human rule is to let your action show you put people first. Show interest in your subordinates’ off-the-job accomplishments. Treat everyone with dignity. Remind yourself that the primary purpose in life is to enjoy it. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
1120:As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook physical gesturing as the primary means of communication for all human beings except Italians. (Earth (The Book), p. 36) ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
1121:Differences in religious beliefs, politics, social status, and position are all secondary. When we look at someone with compassion, we are able to see beyond these secondary differences and connect to the primary essence that binds all humans together as one. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1122:I think a primary always makes the other candidate a better candidate because you're battle-tested and you have to think in ways that other people are thinking in addition to your own vision, how to incorporate some fresher, newer thinking into all of that. ~ Nancy Pelosi, #NFDB
1123:The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colours, and hair bobbed in strange new ways... ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1124:Before the trip began we mapped out three primary goals: 1) to see and meet with our American troops, and thank them for their bravery and sacrifice; 2) to assess the security situation in Iraq; and 3) to give our support to Iraq's national unity government. ~ John Boehner, #NFDB
1125:Corruption is the primary reason societies fail to thrive; societies in which corruption is held in check prosper economically, socially, and morally. Nothing explains the success or failure of countries more than does the presence or absence of corruption. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1126:In the war upon the powers of darkness, prayer is the primary and mightiest weapon, both in aggressive war upon them and their works; in the deliverance of men from their power; and against them as a hierarchy of powers opposed to Christ and His Church. ~ Jessie Penn Lewis, #NFDB
1127:The only thing I shall talk about is my sporting achievements at school. My primary sporting achievement at school was that I dodged games for two complete years and was well through the third year before they discovered that I had completely avoided all games. ~ John Hume, #NFDB
1128:The primary epiphenomenona of any religion's foundation are the production and flourishment of hypocrisy, megalomania and psychopathy, and the first casualties of a religion's establishment are the intentions of its founder. ~ Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004), #NFDB
1129:The primary thing that I enjoy about Luke Cage is that he has a morality about him but it's conflicted. He's never sure what the right move is, but he at least contemplates it. He's a not a rash character. It's that thoughtfulness that I really identify with. ~ Mike Colter, #NFDB
1130:The Will to Meaning Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life... This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. ~ Viktor Frankl, #NFDB
1131:We can now explain the primary role of the productive forces in Marx’s theory of history in the same manner as we explained Hegel’s opposite conviction: for Marx the productive life of human beings, rather than their ideas and consciousness, is ultimately real. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1132:We must reject the idea... Well-intentioned, but dead wrong... That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business." Most businesses... Like most of anything else in life... Fall somewhere between mediocre and good. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1133:I see affect or feeling as the primary innate biological motivating mechanism, more urgent than drive deprivation and pleasure and more urgent than physical pain. He goes on to say that without feeling, nothing matters, and with feeling, anything can matter. ~ John Bradshaw, #NFDB
1134:The number one way a man can succeed in fulfilling a woman's primary love needs is through communication. By learning to listen to a woman's feelings, a man can effectively shower a woman with caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation, and reassurance. ~ John Gray, #NFDB
1135:... the school should be an appendage of the family state, and modeled on its primary principle, which is, to train the ignorant and weak by self-sacrificing labor and love; and to bestow the most on the weakest, the most undeveloped, and the most sinful. ~ Catharine Beecher, #NFDB
1136:We got the clearest picture of Donald Trump`s weaknesses and liabilities in a general election. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finally gave up on trying to convince Republican primary voters that Trump is not a real conservative, attacks that have failed to resonate. ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
1137:Despite the fact that the country was electing Republicans, Obama wasn't being stopped, and it's because of the political system. The political system has evolved into a giant bureaucracy, the primary purpose of which is self-preservation, not fixing anything. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1138:I believe we lose immortality because we have not conquered our opposition to death; we keep insisting on the primary, rudimentary idea: that the whole body should be kept alive. We should seek to preserve only the part that has to do with consciousness. ~ Adolfo Bioy Casares, #NFDB
1139:I have a primary responsibility to myself; to make myself into the best person I can possibly be. Then and only then, will I have something worthwhile to share.- I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
1140:Loans are often rolled over continuously, so that the principal is never repaid. This makes capital investment extremely attractive even when labor costs are low and has been one of the primary reasons that investment now accounts for nearly half of China’s GDP. ~ Martin Ford, #NFDB
1141:The aim of science is, on the one hand, as complete a comprehension as possible of the connection between perceptible experiences in their totality, and, on the other hand, the achievement of this aim by employing a minimum of primary concepts and relations. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1142:The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best superfluous. ~ Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, #NFDB
1143:Women are the primary resource of the planet. They give birth, we come from them. They are mothers, they are visionaries, they are the future. If we can figure out how to make women feel safe and honor women, it would be parallel or equal to honoring life itself. ~ Eve Ensler, #NFDB
1144:crippled the town, the primary symptom was chaos. They were pure primitives, moving and striking without thought or strategy. Michael could not believe that now they might be waiting patiently for him, luring him out into a trap. No, they were mindless savages, ~ K R Griffiths, #NFDB
1145:Herein, folks, lies the answer of [Donald] Trump's success. In other words, the media covers things as stories that you would read about in a book or watch in a movie or a television show - and in this case, in the Republican primary, Trump was not the villain. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1146:I entered politics out of a desire to serve, but I have always really wanted to achieve things in the private sector as well. As a father and a husband, that is my primary obligation, and that will always continue, whether I am in the Senate or out of the Senate. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1147:In my country, terawatt globes are reserved for police helicopter chases and warning sailors of hazardous shoals. This is despite the fact that practically every living creature there can kill you in under three minutes. Our primary spoken language is screaming. ~ David Thorne, #NFDB
1148:It's funny when I look at my life; my primary school was two-thirds male to one-third female. So I started my life that way. I have two brothers. And when I did Harry Potter, the ratio was more often than not, at the very least, one-third female, two-thirds male. ~ Emma Watson, #NFDB
1149:Ministers are tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy … But our task is the opposite of distraction … how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
1150:The Core theory, which summarizes our best current understanding of fundamental processes, is formulated in terms of quantum fields. Particles appear as secondary consequences; they are localized disturbances in the primary entities-that is, in quantum fields.- ~ Frank Wilczek, #NFDB
1151:The primary purpose of going to college isn't to get a great job. The primary purpose of college is to build a strong mind, which leads to greater self-awareness, capability, fulfillment, and service opportunities, which, incidentally, should lead to a better job. ~ Sean Covey, #NFDB
1152:To be great, one must make great work, and making great work is incredibly hard. It must be our primary focus. We must set out, from the beginning, with complete and total commitment to the idea that our best chance of success starts during the creative process. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1153:Before Freud and Jung, psychologists such as Charcot and Janet had discovered multiple centers of organization within the psyche, and they understood that a secondary personality could take over a person’s primary personality during altered states of consciousness. ~ Scott Hill, #NFDB
1154:[M]ost people offend God by passing judgment on the things others do, especially important people, not knowing the reasons why they are doing what they do; for when one does not know the primary cause of some matter, what conclusions can he draw from it? ~ Saint Vincent de Paul, #NFDB
1155:Obama's primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1156:Before, I was merely worried that it Operations was under attack by Development, Information Security, Audit, and the business. Now, I’m starting to realize that my primary managers seem to be at war with each other, as well. What will it take for us to all get along? ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
1157:Every dream either shows our effort to integrate some unconscious part of ourselves into consciousness or our resistance against the inner self, the ways we set up conflict with it rather than learn from it. This is the primary subject that our dreams are reporting. ~ RA Johnson, #NFDB
1158:I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it. ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
1159:Preaching the Word is the primary task of the Church, the primary task of the leaders of the Church, the people who are set in this position of authority; and we must not allow anything to deflect us from this, however good the cause, however great the need. ~ Martyn Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
1160:The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1161:When we are freed from the rules and regulations that are so often imposed on us in the name of God, we discover that creativity is the natural result of spirituality. And if this is true, then our soul is the primary material for all artistic expression. ~ Erwin Raphael McManus, #NFDB
1162:Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to the past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1163:I have always believed that the primary function of doctors should be to teach people how not to get sick in the first place. The word “doctor” comes from the Latin word for “teacher.” Teaching prevention should be primary; treatment of existing disease, secondary. I ~ Andrew Weil, #NFDB
1164:My goal was to have as many of the primary sources as I could made available for people to look at and understand. Climate change is probably the most important thing that's ever happened, and yet people's understanding of it and its history remains a little fuzzy. ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
1165:Jesus was always too busy being faithful to worry about success. I'm not opposed to success; I just think we should accept it only if it is a by-product of our fidelity. If our primary concern is results, we will choose to work only with those who give us good ones. ~ Gregory Boyle, #NFDB
1166:The primary mode of experiencing images is non-verbal... but once it's brought out into the light of the day, what's understood by the subconscious intuitive mind can be better grasped by the conscious rational mind. Aligning the two produces powerful results. ~ John Paul Caponigro, #NFDB
1167:There are two primary reasons: (1) The workday is being sliced into tiny, fleeting work moments by an onslaught of physical and virtual distractions. And (2) an unhealthy obsession with growth at any cost sets towering, unrealistic expectations that stress people out. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
1168:To function as a citizen, you need to know a little bit about a lot of different sciences—a little biology, a little geology, a little physics, and so on. But universities (and, by extension, primary and secondary schools) are set up to teach one science at a time. ~ Robert M Hazen, #NFDB
1169:We men are easily prone to sins of thought. Therefore, He who has formed each heart individually, knowing that the impulse received from the intention constitutes the major element in sin, has ordained that purity in the ruling part of our soul be our primary concern. ~ Saint Basil, #NFDB
1170:Biden’s national security advisor, Tony Blinken, didn’t like that format; he felt it disadvantaged Biden, as Medvedev had primary responsibility in his government for foreign policy and all things American, while Biden was not our point person for Russia. Obama was. ~ Michael McFaul, #NFDB
1171:Christ remains primary in your life only when he enjoys the first place in your mind and heart. Thus you must continuously unite yourself to him in prayer.... Without prayer there can be no joy, no hope, no peace. For prayer is what keeps us in touch with Christ. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
1172:I then realized that I could never be satisfied again with the mere natural charm of my voice, that I had to constantly paint when singing, melting all the colors, expressing reds and blacks that had to be less primary but bursting with subtly colored combinations. ~ Placido Domingo, #NFDB
1173:My own fault. The equipment had safeties but your primary piece of protective equipment was your brain. There was a presumption that anyone entering this room was intelligent enough to keep away from hot things, sharp things, and things carrying large stores of momentum. ~ Max Barry, #NFDB
1174:The primary object of meditation is to not become overly attached to any particular thoughts that may come into to the mind. It is most important to let the mind "flow," with less mental worry about, and attachment to, the various thoughts that may come into the mind. ~ Tim McCarthy, #NFDB
1175:This new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour. ~ Piet Mondrian, #NFDB
1176:Unwilling to be as blatant in their pro-Clinton bias as Huffington Post, VICE instead opted to fire Tracey after he pointed out that Lena Dunham could not have participated in the close Democratic primary in New York because she was not registered with the party. ~ Milo Yiannopoulos, #NFDB
1177:Globalization combined with technology, combined with social media and constant information, have disrupted people's lives sometimes in very concrete ways; a manufacturing plant closes and suddenly an entire town no longer has what was the primary source of employment. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
1178:The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces as the behavior it prevents-the talks, the games, the family activities and the arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and his character is formed. ~ Urie Bronfenbrenner, #NFDB
1179:Your primary presumption that The Bridge was proffered as an epic has no substantial foundation. You know quite well that I doubt that our present stage of cultural development is so ordered yet as to provide the means or method for such an organic manifestation as that. ~ Hart Crane, #NFDB
1180:For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self-mastery. . . . A man who indulged in excessive eating, drinking, sleeping or sex—who failed to ‘rule himself’—was considered unfit to rule his household, much less a polity. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1181:From Aftermath:
Dr. Oldfield “Single celled and oceanic forms will presumably survive but it might make life impossible for humans.”
President Saul: “Actually, that tends to be my primary concern. Sponges and oysters will have to take care of themselves. ~ Charles Sheffield,#NFDB
1182:I think you'll find that these are measures that have great bipartisan support, and so I expect, not only did we do well in the primary, I think we'll win by a wide margin in the fall because we're going to get a lot of independents and conservative Democrats coming to us. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
1183:Phones with numerical keypads worked best for dialing phone calls. Incidentally, phone calls tend to be the primary function of a phone. 'Smartphones' completely ignore these basic facts, resulting in some of the least intelligent devices I've seen yet. Oh the irony. ~ Ashly Lorenzana, #NFDB
1184:rationalist believes in reason as the primary source of knowledge, and he may also believe that man has certain innate ideas that exist in the mind prior to all experience. And the clearer such ideas may be, the more certain it is that they correspond to reality. You ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
1185:The primary thing I should do, apart from being a good husband, brother, son, and friend, is to be a citizen activist. But I'm afraid it takes away from the writing. Not that anything depends on whether I put an essay in 'The Nation' or not. But you want to participate. ~ Tony Kushner, #NFDB
1186:There are three primary things that we have to let go of. First is the compulsion to be successful. Second is the compulsion to be right—even, and especially, to be theologically right…. Finally there is the compulsion to be powerful, to have everything under control. I ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1187:The underlying message of all these rules is that inheritance tends to work against the primary technical imperative you have as a programmer, which is to manage complexity. For the sake of controlling complexity, you should maintain a heavy bias against inheritance. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1188:Achieving goals is a creative process. The first step in the creation of your primary goal takes place in your conscious mind. Through the aid of your senses and/or your imagination, you must form a very clear, concise image of yourself already in possession of your goal. ~ Bob Proctor, #NFDB
1189:Building a mission and building a business go hand-in-hand. It is true that the primary thing that makes me excited about what we're doing is the mission, but I also think, from the very beginning, we've had this healthy understanding which is that we need to do both. ~ Mark Zuckerberg, #NFDB
1190:Secondly, as a result of this political favoritism, the FDA has become a primary factor in that formula whereby cartel-oriented companies in the food and drug industry are able to use the police powers of government to harass or destroy their free-market competitors. ~ G Edward Griffin, #NFDB
1191:The first organization for the ministry of mercy is the Christian family. When God sees a person in need, he puts primary responsibility for aid on that person’s family. He who does not care for his own family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8; cf. Lev. 25:25). ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1192:We safeguard the right to attribution very strongly. After all, what we are fighting for is the intent of copyright as it is described in the US constitution: the promotion of culture. Many artists are using recognition as their primary driving force to create culture. ~ Rick Falkvinge, #NFDB
1193:While we are developing, we project parts of ourselves (usually parts we do not like or those from which we are disassociated) into the world. Recognizing and reclaiming these aspects is a primary means for developing our total personality & a wider range of consciousness. ~ Harris, #NFDB
1194:Without war no State could be. All those we know of arose through war, and the protection of their members by armed force remains their primary and essential task. War, therefore, will endure to the end of history, as long as there is a multiplicity of states. ~ Heinrich von Treitschke, #NFDB
1195:At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combined, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies—cotton—was America’s primary export. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
1196:Based on the number that they found, The New York Times reported that Hillary [Clinton] had basically clinched the primary 'cause you added the superdelegates to the number of delegates you'd already gotten. But this was on the eve of the California and New Jersey primary. ~ Terry Gross, #NFDB
1197:If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends. The research literature is quite clear on this. This matters, because peers are the primary source of socialization after the age of four. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1198:If success in selling is my primary interest, I am not primarily a writer, but a salesperson. If I teach success in selling as the writer's primary objective, I am not teaching writing; I'm teaching, or pretending to teach, the production and marketing of a commodity. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1199:is a given that profit is the goal of any business, but to suggest it is the primary responsibility of a business is misguided. It is the leaders of companies that see profit as fuel for their cultures that will outlast their dopamine-addicted, cortisol-soaked competitors. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
1200:The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.
Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,#NFDB
1201:Yes, it's vital to make lifestyle choices to mitigate damage caused by being a member of industrialized civilization, but to assign primary responsibility to oneself, and to focus primarily on making oneself better, is an immense copout, an abrogation of responsibility. ~ Derrick Jensen, #NFDB
1202:As we give grace to others, we receive more grace ourselves. As we affirm people and show a fundamental belief in their capacity to grow and improve, as we bless them even when they are cursing or judging us—we build primary greatness into our personality and character. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1203:In one of his most popular essays, "The Colloid and the Crystal," the nature writer Joseph Wood Krutch wrote about these opposing forces in nature. "Order and obedience are the primary characteristics of that which is not alive," he wrote. "Life is rebellious and anarchical. ~ Chet Raymo, #NFDB
1204:Look at Jeb Bush, $115 million and Jeb actually stated in December 2014 that he was going to win this primary by not winning it. He was going to win it without winning base voters. They have made it clear they want nothing of their base. They're embarrassed of their base. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1205:My primary goal is really to get people to open up and when they feel themselves contracting and collapsing to reduce that, and to know when that happens, "Oh, something's going on that's making me feel this way, and if I force my body open a bit, I will feel less powerless." ~ Amy Cuddy, #NFDB
1206:Oil is essential for a modern, industrial society. It's unique, first of all, because it's the primary source, at 40 percent, of the world's entire supply of energy, and it's irreplaceable in the transportation field; it provides 98 percent of world transportation energy. ~ Michael Klare, #NFDB
1207:Perhaps the primary example of our lack of attention to the Christ Mystery can be seen in the way we continue to pollute and ravage planet earth, the very thing we all stand on and live from. Science now appears to love and respect physicality more than most religion does! ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1208:The individual begins to find his own path & primary mask is gradually thrown off. This is known as the left-hand path. The right-hand path is living in the context of the ideology & persona system - of one's local village The left-hand path is that of individual quest ~ Campbell, #NFDB
1209:The Path to the Truth is a labour of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide. Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs (false ego) with your heart. Knowing your ego (higher self/soul) will lead you to the knowledge of God. (2) ~ Various, #NFDB
1210:We [me and my husban] like to honor both of our family traditions whenever possible . We show the girls lots of pictures and tell a lot of stories about both of our childhoods. We also try to teach them both Portuguese and Serbian, though English is their primary language. ~ Adriana Lima, #NFDB
1211:All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never-ending cycles all things and phenomena. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
1212:Everyone who ever did anything revolutionary was just an eighteen-year-old kid once. George Washington, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela... Social status is just a social construct, the primary function of which is to keep regular people oppressed and rebels in line. ~ Matthew Quick, #NFDB
1213:If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends. The research literature is quite clear on this. This matters, because peers are the primary source of socialization after the age of four. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1214:In the past 40 years, the United States lost more than a million farmers and ranchers. Many of our farmers are aging. Today, only nine percent of family farm income comes from farming, and more and more of our farmers are looking elsewhere for their primary source of income. ~ Tom Vilsack, #NFDB
1215:St. Thomas thus detects a primary source of presumption in seeking genuinely good things, like human happiness on earth, as if we did not need divine grace to attain them; and in the hope that we can obtain God’s pardon and mercy without our confessing and repenting of sin. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
1216:Freud's translator accidentally omitted 'fashion' in the psychoanalytic list of primary instinctual drives; along with the drive to sexuality there is the drive to wear odd garments that may cut off circulation, occlude vision, make toes grow sideways, cause riots. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, #NFDB
1217:So I believe then that the primary motive, the most intelligible motive of the doctrine of eternal return in Nietzsche is to make intelligible nature as humanly willed and not given. And the whole difficulty in Nietzsche’s philosophy, I believe, is concentrated in this point. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
1218:the inability to ameliorate the soul-destroying visual discord of corporate fast-food franchises. Some acquaintance or another would periodically drag me into one of the horrors, and, under the malign influence of a décor scheme that assaulted my retinas with primary colors, ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
1219:The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions. ~ Morris Raphael Cohen, #NFDB
1220:…the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author’s emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is commercial or literary; the two are still in sync, and everyone’s benefitting. ~ Eliot Schrefer, #NFDB
1221:Though nuanced and thorough, Piketty’s primary thesis can be summed up quite simply: economic growth of the kind that the United States enjoyed in the industrial heyday of the late nineteenth century and the first two-thirds of the twentieth century is an outlier. During ~ Marc Lamont Hill, #NFDB
1222:three subsistences, with three distinct persons. They subsist within the being of God. THE SPIRIT’S PERSONAL NATURE The fact that the Holy Spirit is a person is seen in a multitude of ways in Scripture. One of the primary evidences is that the Bible repeatedly and consistently ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1223:Women are the primary resource of the planet. They give birth, we come from them. They are mothers, they are visionaries, they are the future. If we can figure out how to make women feel safe and honor women, it would be parallel or equal to honoring life itself. Eve Ensler ~ Lucy H Pearce, #NFDB
1224:Conventional wisdom suggests the primary motivator for entrepreneurs is money or wealth creation and, in fact, much of the political debate tends to center around what kind of tax or regulatory policy changes will turn corporate suits into small business adventurers overnight. ~ Chip Conley, #NFDB
1225:Criticism is perhaps the citizen's primary weapon in the exercise of her legitimacy. That is why, in the corporatist society, conformism, loyalty and silence are so admired and rewarded; why criticism is so punished or marginalized. Who has not experienced this conflict? ~ John Ralston Saul, #NFDB
1226:The captain thought that Jon and Tom needn’t concern themselves with his primary motivation: the deep fascination with a city that was governed by gods who demanded constant human sacrifice. In Baltsaros’s esteem, the streets were coloured by something far richer than mere gold. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1227:There are literally a thousand works with the title Malcolm X in them. There are over 350 films and over 320 web-based educational resources with the title Malcolm X, yet the vast majority of them are based on secondary literatures, that is, not on primary source material. ~ Manning Marable, #NFDB
1228:Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it. ~ Ashwin Sanghi, #NFDB
1229:pre-Islamic period jahiliyyah, which is usually translated as “the time of ignorance.” But the primary meaning of the root JHL is “irascibility”—an acute sensitivity to honor and prestige, excessive arrogance, and, above all, a chronic tendency to violence and retaliation.4 ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1230:But the primary problem is the excessive insulin, not the insulin resistance. The tissues (heart, nerves, kidney, eyes) are all increasing their resistance to protect themselves from insulin’s toxic delivery. The disease is not insulin resistance. The disease is hyperinsulinemia. ~ Tim Noakes, #NFDB
1231:Perhaps the most important reason to be skeptical of government inflation numbers is that the government, like a fox campaigning to guard a hen house, has many reasons to be disingenuous. As the world's largest debtor, the Federal Government is inflation's primary beneficiary. ~ Peter Schiff, #NFDB
1232:The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offence and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be over emphasized. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
1233:Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand,— in the name of a concern for “human beings”— regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. ~ Barry Goldwater, #NFDB
1234:If you put me in charge of the medical research budget, I would cancel all primary research, I would cancel all new trials, for just one year, and I would spend the money exclusively on making sure that we make the best possible use of the clinical evidence that we already have. ~ Ben Goldacre, #NFDB
1235:The strength that comes from human collaboration is the central truth behind civilisation's success and the primary reason why cities existwe must free ourselves from our tendency to see cities as their buildings, and remember that the real city is made of flesh, not concrete. ~ Edward Glaeser, #NFDB
1236:ALMOST EVERYTHING MUSLIMS know about Muhammad comes to them orally, rarely from primary sources. Unlike Christians learning about Jesus from the Bible, the Quran has very little to say about Muhammad. Whether in the East or the West, Muslims usually only hear stories about him. ~ Nabeel Qureshi, #NFDB
1237:If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1238:Several times a session—and we had twenty-one of them in the general—just as he had warned, Philippe-as-Trump would say something so outlandish, none of us could quite believe it. Then he’d tell us it was almost verbatim from a Trump rally, interview, or primary debate. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
1239:So important is the Bible as the primary means of grace that God gives to his people that Charles Hodge reminds us that throughout history true Christianity has flourished “just in proportion to the degree in which the Bible is known, and its truths are diffused among the people. ~ Wayne Grudem, #NFDB
1240:These people were no more than my acquaintances; the women I had the unfortunate pleasure of crossing skipping ropes with on a daily basis. The worst breed of humans that one could meet – primary school mothers – better known to the likes of you and me as the Playground Mafia. ~ Christie Barlow, #NFDB
1241:Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own....Stand still, be quiet. ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
1242:We negotiated with the Honduran government the establishment of a regional military training center, for training central American forces, but the primary motivation for doing that was to be able to bolster the quality, improve the quality of the El Salvadoran fighting forces. ~ John Negroponte, #NFDB
1243:Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1244:I'm not going to play pundit on Donald Trump and criticize him. I will say the media's treatment of that illustrates a very, very different - I mean, it dominated the news for a week to 10 days once he was the nominee. In the primary, it didn't get, seemingly, even 30 seconds of news. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
1245:One legislator accused me of having a 19th century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law abiding citizens should be one of government's primary concerns. ~ Jeffrey Gitomer, #NFDB
1246:A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country? ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1247:Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1248:For an action to be judged good by God, it must fulfill two primary requirements. The first is that the action must correspond outwardly to the demands of the law. Second, the inward motivation for the act must proceed from a heart that is altogether disposed toward the glory of God. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1249:Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1250:Of course, your closest family and friends will want to get to know this little person, too, but make sure that visiting isn’t your primary activity these days—except for those truly helpful people who can make a meal, run a load of laundry, or hold the baby while you nap! The ~ Elizabeth Pantley, #NFDB
1251:One last thing on objectives - I like to make things, create things, so that's probably been the primary objective all along, even before the ego objective - to make. To record. But why record... that gets back to the ego, a little. Oh, well. Making is good. I like to make things. ~ Jonathan Ames, #NFDB
1252:the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts. Indeed, ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1253:There is a law out there, if not of thermodynamics then of something equally primary and inescapable, that explains why everything from instant messaging to fabulous sex to aspic can in the end be defined as an illustration of the futility of existence. And it really, really sucks. ~ Julie Powell, #NFDB
1254:This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends (girl- and otherwise) and the highest compliment I can pay. I’ve tried many times to figure out exactly what ignites it—what cocktail of characteristics comes together in the cold, dark cosmos to form a star. ~ Robin Sloan, #NFDB
1255:This is the primary argument to make to those who say that one should read only the Quran, for it has all knowledge within it. It has the key message of Allah. But even the Prophet is widely known for having encouraged us to go, even to China, in the search for knowledge. This ~ Omar Saif Ghobash, #NFDB
1256:Expectations are those desires you believe you have the right to see fulfilled. Due to our own conditioning by numerous factors, we develop expectations. They are the primary cause of all grief and stress. When we expect, we place a burden on ourselves as well as the one we expect from. ~ Om Swami, #NFDB
1257:If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
1258:Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses are the primary reason that the U.S. prison population has ballooned since the 1980s to over 2.5 million people, a nearly 300 percent increase. We now lock up one out of every hundred adults, far more than any other country in the world. ~ Piper Kerman, #NFDB
1259:One of the primary purposes of this book is to so elucidate the differences between consciousness and mind that the reader will immediately begin noticing when they are tuned to mind, which is the source of suffering, and in so realizing, choose to tune to consciousness instead. ~ Richard L Haight, #NFDB
1260:The emotive responses described under (b) and (c) generate provoked feelings rather than the spontaneous variety that arises from the primary homeostatic flow. Of note, the felt experiences of emotions are unfortunately known by exactly the same name as the emotions themselves. ~ Ant nio R Dam sio, #NFDB
1261:I wanted to write not exclusively for (or against) poets or scholars, though many of them are people, too! But that was not my primary audience. It was that person you like who tells you they don't get poetry, and you think to yourself, aw man, what can I do for this good person? ~ Matthew Zapruder, #NFDB
1262:Jeb Bush was supposed to be the establishment candidate, but he didn't catch on. And the extraordinary thing about this Republican primary is that the establishment, moderate wing of the party has sidelined itself. They're not coalescing around one candidate as they have in the past. ~ Mara Liasson, #NFDB
1263:See God as the source of life and all we need. See relationship as our primary need in life, with him and other people. Seek and practice grace and forgiveness. Submit to God as the boss. Seek his ways to live. Let God be in control of the world and others; develop control of oneself. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
1264:This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, lacking complete mental health. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
1265:Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own....Stand still, be quiet. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
1266:The preservation of liberty, not the promotion of efficiency, is the primary justification for private property. Efficiency is a happy, though not accidental, by-product - and a most important by-product because liberty could not have survived if it had not also produced affluence. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1267:There are so many things that we could do but education would be our primary need in this regard. And in obtaining this education we need to also educate ourselves and others to the truths that we have possessed from the beginning that allow men to live in harmony with one another. ~ Leonard Peltier, #NFDB
1268:This may be the primary purpose of dogs: to restore our sense of wonder and to help us maintain it, to make us consider that we should trust our intuition as they trust theirs and to help us realize that a thing known intuitively can be as real as anything known by material experience. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1269:What is fabulous about gay marriage is that it redefines the gender designated jobs, then you throw in transgender and you don't just have the five primary colors of the crayons. We have to really look at what it means to be a man or a woman in a much more generous and creative way. ~ Susan Sarandon, #NFDB
1270:If you look at the single-payer systems, like Scandinavia, Canada, and elsewhere, they can get costs down because, you know, although their care, according to statistics, overall is as good or better on primary care, in particular, they do impose things like waiting times, you know. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1271:In brief, we have the new paradigm where simulation and programs have replaced theory and observation, where government largely determines the nature of scientific activity, and where the primary role of professional societies is the lobbying of the government for special advantage. ~ Richard Lindzen, #NFDB
1272:This may be the primary purpose of dogs: to restore our sense of wonder and to help us maintain it, to make us consider that we should trust our intuition as they trust theirs, and to help us realize that a thing known intuitively can be as real as anything known by material experience. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1273:Great. Now Renata would have even more reason to dislike her. Jane would have an enemy. The last time she had had anything close to an enemy, she was in primary school herself. It had never crossed her mind that sending your child to school would be like going back to school yourself. ~ Liane Moriarty, #NFDB
1274:It can be said that there are four basic and primary things that the mass of people in a society wish for: to live in a safe environment, to be able to work and provide for themselves, to have access to good public health and to have sound educational opportunities for their children. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
1275:Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge to be good and what we judge to be evil. And this judgment is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created us to do, namely, love like He loves. ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
1276:People always assume that the church's primary business is to teach morality. But it isn't; it's to proclaim grace, forgiveness, and the free party for all. It's to announce the reconciling relationship of God to everybody and to invite them simply to believe it and celebrate it. ~ Robert Farrar Capon, #NFDB
1277:There is a line. It’s etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1278:The primary opportunity is to use a model or paradigm for describing ADD that's not disease-based and doesn't imply brain damage or what many children interpret as some type of retardation...a person must have hope; this model restores self-esteem, thus empowering individuals to change. ~ Thom Hartmann, #NFDB
1279:The way we consume information leads us to think less and less about more and more. We spend much of our time fixated on secondary questions (usually related to controversial and sensational issues) and very little time exploring the primary questions about our brief stay here on earth. ~ Matthew Kelly, #NFDB
1280:A tremendous volume of research indicates that the primary factor that motivates a soldier to do the things that no sane man wants to do in combat (that is, killing and dying) is not the force of self-preservation but a powerful sense of accountability to his comrades on the battlefield. ~ Dave Grossman, #NFDB
1281:Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted. ~ Isaiah Berlin, #NFDB
1282:I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1283:I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society; it gives a peculiar direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1284:It’s about what humans need to be happy. Sure, we evolved to live in complex interdependent social groups, but before that, we were nomads, pursuing resource opportunities in an open, sparsely populated landscape. That means for some people, solitude and independence are primary values. ~ Gardner Dozois, #NFDB
1285:Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
1286:You ask ‘for what’ God wants you. Isn’t the primary answer that He wants you. We’re not told that the lost sheep was sought out for anything except itself [Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7]. Of course, He may have a special job for you: and the certain job is that of becoming more and more His. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1287:In the primary debates for the 2016 election, every single Republican candidate was a climate change denier, with one exception, John Kasich - the "rational moderate" - who said it may be happening but we shouldn't do anything about it. For a long time, the media have downplayed the issue. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1288:Let’s get one thing straight: The robots are not destined to take all the jobs. That happens only if we let them—if we don’t accelerate innovation in the labor/education/start-up realms, if we don’t reimagine the whole conveyor belt from primary education to work to lifelong learning. ~ Thomas L Friedman, #NFDB
1289:The fantasy bond is an illusion of connectedness that the child creates in relation to the primary caregiver, who is shaming her. Paradoxically, the more a child is violated, the more she creates the fantasy bond. Bonding to abuse is one of the most perplexing aspects of shame inducement. ~ John Bradshaw, #NFDB
1290:The trouble is, the same thing that enabled us to survive evolution is also going to kill us, because in the final analysis, if survival is the primary motivation of every human being, then we will finally be in a situation where might will make right and only one person will survive. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1291:When the plain sense of prophecy makes sense, beware your own bias and seek the genre sense. Take every word at its primary, extraordinary, symbolic meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and historical facts, indicate clearly otherwise. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1292:Women are no more important than any other potential victims, but we are the primary targets of the messages and myths that sustain rape culture. We’re the ones asked to change our behavior, limit our movements, and take full responsibility for the prevention of sexual violence in society. ~ Kate Harding, #NFDB
1293:Much had impressed him about the Chinese in Lhasa: how quickly they built hospitals, bridges and the first-ever primary school, and how they did not take “as much as a needle” from the people. Even as they mocked and destroyed the culture, they also seemed to offer a route to the modern world. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1294:Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so. ~ Michael E Gerber, #NFDB
1295:Although many factors contributed to Donald Trump’s stunning political success, his rise to the presidency is, in good measure, a story of ineffective gatekeeping. Party gatekeepers failed at three key junctures: the “invisible primary,” the primaries themselves, and the general election. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
1296:For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
1297:Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1298:The Vagabond one told me what that clover symbol means. He said it represents the four primary roads you can take in life: happiness, hatred, success, and failure. They are balanced shoices, always intertwined with each other, and whichever of the four paths you take will lead you down another. ~ S M Boyce, #NFDB
1299:For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
1300:For most Americans, their primary aspiration is to achieve a better life... To earn a livable wage in a good job. To have the time to spend with family and do the things they enjoy. To be able to retire with security. And to give their own kids a chance to do as well or better than themselves. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1301:If one considers this question carefully, one can see that in a certain sense the East was right to see the immeasurable as the primary reality. For, as has already been indicated, measure is an insight created by man. A reality that is beyond man and prior to him cannot depend on such insight. ~ David Bohm, #NFDB
1302:It`s been a long and tumultuous relationship between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that started off more or less as allies during the Republican primary. As Trump took the early lead in polls, Cruz stuck with the strategy of drafting off of the front-runner waiting for the moment to make his move. ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
1303:Most psychologists agree that a child has to develop a secure attachment with at least one primary caregiver in order to learn how to effectively regulate her own emotions for the rest of her life, and in order to learn how to become attached in a healthy way in adult relationships. ~ Donna Jackson Nakazawa, #NFDB
1304:That’s one of the most interesting things about selfishness: When we’re constantly thinking about ourselves, our world shrinks and our pain becomes suffocating. But when we think about others, our world expands and our own pain becomes less intense—because it’s no longer our primary focus. ~ Seth Adam Smith, #NFDB
1305:The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1306:The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1307:The world-wide struggle between the primary races of mankind—the ‘conflict of color,’ as it has been happily termed—bids fair to be the fundamental problem of the twentieth century, and great communities like the United States of America, the South African Confederation, and Australasia ~ T Lothrop Stoddard, #NFDB
1308:As Charles Darwin said,'The economy shown by Nature in her resources is striking,'' says the Spirit. 'All wealth comes from Nature. Without it, there wouldn't be any economics. The primary wealth is food, not money. Therefore anything that concerns the handling of the land also concerns me. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
1309:For good or ill, the law always educates, even when it is silent. And although the law can never “make men moral,” it can, in a secondary way, profoundly assist or thwart the primary efforts of individuals, parents, spouses, friends, families, churches, and other primary bodies to make men moral. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1310:It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
1311:Lifetime corporate employment is dead; we’re all free agents now, managing our own careers across multiple jobs and companies. And because today’s primary currency is information, a wide-reaching network is one of the surest ways to become and remain thought leaders of our respective fields. ~ Keith Ferrazzi, #NFDB
1312:The primary motivation in the world of television is fear. People are scared to death. Ambition and enthusiasm and interest and the desire to excel are secondary. Because fear is an enormous motivating force, many in the medium are afraid to make decisions, take chances, do anything innovative. ~ Sally Quinn, #NFDB
1313:We should not lay all past mistakes on Chairman Mao. So we must be very objective in assessing him. His contributions were primary, his mistakes secondary. In China, we will inherit the many good things in Chairman Mao's thinking while at the same time explaining clearly the mistakes he made. ~ Deng Xiaoping, #NFDB
1314:When assignments were over, photography continued. One of the primary reasons it did was that I wanted and needed to have fresh work. Also, it's very stimulating to be around non-professional photographers. They're the ones with the purest flame burning about their photography. I appreciate that. ~ Sam Abell, #NFDB
1315:A man commonly makes the mistake of thinking that once he has met all of a woman’s primary love needs, and she feels happy and secure, that she should know from then on that she is loved. This is not the case. To fulfill her sixth primary love need he must remember to reassure her again and again. ~ John Gray, #NFDB
1316:My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1317:The commercial theatre may still be considered one of New York's primary tourist attractions, but . . . there is no longer an audience for serious Broadway plays. . . . Perhaps we should acknowledge that, having lost its traditional audience, Broadway can never again be a home for new plays. ~ Robert Brustein, #NFDB
1318:The life of doing is mundane; the life of being is sublime, is divine. I am not saying drop all doing, I am saying doing should be secondary in your life and being should be primary. Doing should be only for the necessities of life and being should be your real luxury, your real joy, your real ecstasy. ~ Osho, #NFDB
1319:The only colors I could see were the vibrant primary hues of the pinball machine, where a cartoon spacewoman with big conical breasts straddled the earth in a formfitting blue space suit and thigh-high yellow boots. Behind her, a big red dildo-shaped spaceship was just blasting off for the moon. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
1320:Within the overall context of loving his wife, a husband’s first and primary role is to be the spiritual head and covering and teacher in the home. Through his words, lifestyle, and personal behavior the husband should teach the Word, the will, and the ways of the Lord to his wife and children. ~ Myles Munroe, #NFDB
1321:California is having an election Tuesday, but it might as well be a secret to many of the state’s voters. After a June primary in which a record low 25 percent of registered voters cast ballots, political analysts are predicting that Tuesday’s turnout could be the worst ever for a general election. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1322:It is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment; indeed, one might almost say that it is the fact that anything is experienced and encountered at all. ~ Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World, #NFDB
1323:She told me, years later, that it was the lack of adult interaction that was really driving her nuts. All those hours with nursery rhymes, and Barney, and primary-colored blocks. She wasn't built for it. She had a sneaking suspicion no woman really was, only no one ever wanted to admit it. ~ Catherine McKenzie, #NFDB
1324:Countries can be redeemed. Entire cultures can be brought to "salvation". The land itself can be healed. ... And such miraculous change is brought about by one primary avenue: God working through the market place. ... The primary means to true revival, though, takes place first in the market place. ~ Ed Silvoso, #NFDB
1325:cultivation theory maintains that TV operates as the primary socializing agent in today’s world (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Signorielli, and Shanahan, 2002). In other words, the culture that people learn is influenced heavily by the culture portrayed on TV. This is especially so for heavy viewers of TV ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1326:Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge to be good and what we judge to be evil. And this judgment is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created and saved us to do, namely, love like he loves. ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
1327:Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one’s evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture?”[9 ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
1328:Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of each of us would some day depend upon our winning or losing a game of chess. Do you not think that we should all consider it to be our primary duty to learn at least the names of the pieces and how to position them on the chessboard? ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
1329:The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human comrades. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for genuine, warm, simple. ~ Joshua L Liebman, #NFDB
1330:If you don’t believe in your product, or if you’re not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down. The primary function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources and the wherewithal to do what it takes to make your product work. ~ Jay Conrad Levinson, #NFDB
1331:In a sense, all actors are character actors, because we're all playing different characters. But a lot of the time - and I don't know, because I'm not a writer - but writers a lot of times write second- and third-tier characters better than they write primary characters. I guess they're more fun. ~ Dennis Farina, #NFDB
1332:(Indeed there were outstanding examples of good governance in India at the time, notably the Travancore kingdom, which in 1819 became the first government in the world to decree universal, compulsory and free primary education for both boys and girls.) The British charges against the rulers they ~ Shashi Tharoor, #NFDB
1333:In reaching creative decisions, the raw materials are the ideas and suggestions of others. Don’t, of course, expect other people to give you ready-made solutions. That’s not the primary reason for asking and listening. Ideas of others help to spark your own ideas so your mind is more creative. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
1334:Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
1335:Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
1336:primary biblical protest against religion that has been reduced to explanations or “answers.” Many of the answers that Job’s so-called friends give him are technically true. But it is the “technical” part that ruins them. They are answers without personal relationship, intellect without intimacy. The ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1337:The primary benefit of a vegan diet is that the removal of animal products usually necessitates a higher amount of nutrient-rich plant produce. The cons of a vegan diet could be the inclusion of too much heavily processed food, including seitan and isolated soy protein, flour, sweeteners and oils. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
1338:The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
1339:Very few people can write in a crowd. This is a very solitary occupation. I have known people more talented than me who never made it. And the primary reason was always that they couldn't stand to be alone for several hours a day. Any writer worth anything has mastered the art. The art of solitude. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1340:When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicates clearly otherwise. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1341:And in her [Eleanor Roosevelt] letters, she writes the most, you know, fanciful letters: when we are together, and when we are reunited, and you know, I will be your surrogate wife. Of course she doesn't use that word, but I will be the mother to my brothers, and I will be your primary love. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook, #NFDB
1342:Biblical spirituality does not consist primarily of mystical, emotional experience, inward impressions and feelings, introspective meditation, or a monastic withdrawal from the world. The primary spiritual disciplines advocated by Scripture are prayer and the obedient study of God’s Word. ~ Andreas J K stenberger, #NFDB
1343:Fear and punishment can be effective in the moment, but they don’t work over the long term. And are fear, punishment, and drama really what we want to use as primary motivators of our children? If so, we teach that power and control are the best tools to get others to do what we want them to do. ~ Daniel J Siegel, #NFDB
1344:If the primary change in traditional diets with Westernization was the addition of sugar, flour, and white rice, and this in turn occurred shortly before the appearance of chronic disease, then the most likely explanation was that those processed, refined carbohydrates were the cause of the disease. ~ Gary Taubes, #NFDB
1345:Of the primary emotions, fear is the one that bears most directly on survival. Children show fear. Adults try not to, maybe because it's shameful, or, in some circumstances, dangerous. The fear response is automatic, though, and your body runs through its reflexes whether you want it to or not. ~ Sebastian Junger, #NFDB
1346:Your memories are eroding away. The futures you anticipate, will mostly not come to pass, and the real richness is in the moment. And it's not necessarily some kind of 'Be Here Now' feel-good thing because it doesn't always feel good. But it always feels. It is a domain of feeling. It's primary. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1347:Many countries that formerly saw Israel as an enemy now see Israel as a potential partner in addressing their primary security challenges. And so first and foremost, Iran. The rise of Iran, the empowerment of Iran has created a big change in the dynamics in the region. The second was the rise of ISIS. ~ Ron Dermer, #NFDB
1348:Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
1349:that meat production is the second or third largest contributor to environmental problems at every level and at every scale, from global to local. It is a primary culprit in land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, species extinction, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. ~ John Robbins, #NFDB
1350:The irony of primary parent laws is that on the one hand feminists were arguing for women's equal rights to jointly-created career assets that emanated from the male financial womb, but arguing against men's equal rights to jointly-created children that emanated from the woman's child-bearing womb. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
1351:The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity. ~ Seth Lloyd, #NFDB
1352:I create enclosed spaces mainly by means of thick concrete walls. The primary reason is to create a place for the individual, a zone for oneself within society. When the external factors of a city's environment require the wall to be without openings, the interior must be especially full and satisfying. ~ Tadao Ando, #NFDB
1353:I first started acting in primary school, just doing little plays. And from the moment I began, something just went 'click' inside me. Suddenly I wasn't shy anymore. Instead I felt confident and happy. I can remember the enormous sense of relief it gave me. I loved the feeling of making people laugh. ~ Sally Hawkins, #NFDB
1354:It is the primary form of “dying to the self” that Jesus lived personally and the Buddha taught experientially. The growing consensus is that, whatever you call it, such calm, egoless seeing is invariably characteristic of people at the highest levels of doing and loving in all cultures and religions. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1355:May the time not be far off when all other European nations will come to the realisation that the primary necessity is putting an end to the quarrels and strife of centuries and of building up of a finer community of all peoples is: The recognition of a higher common duty arising out of common rights? ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
1356:Processionalism is primary - how you get from one place to another, the relationships and effects of spaces as you move about in them. That's worked out awfully well in the State Theater. I'm a 'straight-in' man myself; I'm too nervous, I like to know where I am. I also like to know where I'm going. ~ Philip Johnson, #NFDB
1357:these sensory capacities are deeply interwoven with the complexity that we know of as the world. They are a primary point of interface between me and not me. For the ecological sophistication that we call Earth to exist, those interfaces must, of necessity, be extremely sophisticated as well. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
1358:What happens when we disclose information? What they found was that the reward areas of the brain light up when people share. “Here, we suggest that humans so willingly self-disclose because doing so represents an event with intrinsic value, in the same way as with primary awards such as food and sex. ~ Matt Richtel, #NFDB
1359:You’re fighting a war. It is a war for power….This party does not need another generation of cautious, prudent, careful, bland, irrelevant quasi-leaders….What we really need are people who are willing to stand up in a slug-fest….What’s the primary purpose of a political leader?…To build a majority. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
1360:Around the time I began starving, in the early eighties, the visual image had begun to supplant text as culture's primary mode of communication, a radical change because images work so differently than words: They're immediate, they hit you at levels way beneath intellect, they come fast and furious. ~ Caroline Knapp, #NFDB
1361:[...] it is generally accepted that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. That, at best, is a half-truth. Slavery was an issue, but the primary force for war was a clash between the economic interests of the North and the South. Even the issue of slavery itself was based on economics. ~ G Edward Griffin, #NFDB
1362:Maithanet carried a plague whose primary symptom was certainty. How the God could be equated with the absence of hesitation was something Achamian had never understood. After all, what was the God but the mystery that burdened them all? What was hesitation but a dwelling-within this mystery? Perhaps, ~ R Scott Bakker, #NFDB
1363:The Bible is not magical[...] nor is its primary function to answer our questions[...] The Bible is always more concerned with the decision-maker than with the decision itself. Its aim is to change our hearts so that we desire what God desires, rather than spoon-feed us answers to every decision in life. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
1364:A diet that emphasizes meat, fish, fowl, eggs, nuts, seeds, and colorful natural carbs, such as vegetables and fruits, is the primary way to improve your general health, control your weight, and minimize the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and other diet-influenced medical conditions. ~ Mark Sisson, #NFDB
1365:As a follower of Jesus through faith in Him, the Holy Spirit is your only hope of ever consistently acting like a man. He is the courage to make right choices, the guide toward truth and away from error, the source of our comfort, and the provider of our strength. His primary tool is the Word of God. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
1366:Barsavi realized something that too many men in the city were slow to grasp; an idea that he reinforced years later when he took the Berangias sisters to be his primary enforcers. He was wise enough to understand that the women of Camorr could be underestimated only at great peril to one's health. ~ Scott Lynch, #NFDB
1367:I can’t emphasize this enough: the quickest and easiest way to screw up your life is to take on too much debt. The primary reason people spend decades working in jobs they despise is to pay off their creditors. Financial stress can destroy relationships, threaten your health, and jeopardize your sanity. ~ Josh Kaufman, #NFDB
1368:Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. There ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
1369:The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another... It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
1370:There are the Podesta emails we've been publishing. [John] Podesta is Hillary Clinton's primary campaign manager, so there's a thread that runs through all these emails; there are quite a lot of pay-for-play, as they call it, giving access in exchange for money to states, individuals and corporations. ~ Julian Assange, #NFDB
1371:There are two primary forces in this world, fear and faith. Fear can move you to destructiveness or sickness or failure. Only in rare instances will it motivate you to accomplishment. But faith is a greater force. Faith can drive itself into your consciousness and set you free from fear forever. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
1372:A lot of our modern lifestyle is based on having things. Jesus rejected the idea that things should have a primary place in our lives. Other than the clothes on his back and the sandals on his feet, he had nothing. And his teachings constantly affirmed that people were primary and things were secondary. ~ Matthew Kelly, #NFDB
1373:Attachment. A secure attachment is the ability to bond; to develop a secure and safe base; an unbreakable or perceivable inability to shatter to bond between primary parental caregiver(s) and child; a quest for familiarity; an unspoken language and knowledge that a caregiver will be a permanent fixture. ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
1374:Good marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life. ~ Gary Chapman, #NFDB
1375:The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history... Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
1376:Visionary art sure has played a vital role in my own "soul's journey," and I would say it's been important for many artists and viewers throughout history. Visionary art is one of the primary ways that human contact with higher subtle dimensions gets translated into our communally shared physical dimension. ~ Alex Grey, #NFDB
1377:We no longer live addicted to speech; having lost our senses, now we are going to lose language, too. We will be addicted to data, naturally. Not data that comes from the world, or from language, but encoded data. To know is to inform oneself. Information is becoming our primary and universal addiction. ~ Michel Serres, #NFDB
1378:...whether you're talking about boners, infidelities, late rent, or the Democratic primary: a single plausible excuse will sound like a credible explanation while a basket full of excuses—even a basket stuffed with equally legitimate, plausible/probable excuses—will sound like a desperate/unbelievable lie. ~ Dan Savage, #NFDB
1379:Human beings, on the other hand, are symbolic creatures. Inside their heads they break down the outside world into a mass of mental symbols, then recombine those symbols to recreate that world. What they subsequently react to is often the mental construct, rather than the primary experiences themselves. ~ Ian Tattersall, #NFDB
1380:If we do, I want to be the bad cop.” “You’re a lousy bad cop, Feeney. Face it.” He gave her a mournful look. “I outrank you, Dallas.” “I’m primary, and I’m better at bad cop. Live with it.” “I always have to be the good cop,” he muttered as they stepped into a well-lighted hallway with more marble, more gilt. ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
1381:One of Josh’s primary presenting complaints was of being incapable of choosing and committing to a career. He had great difficulty figuring out what he was interested in, what he would be good at, or where he might fit in. It was evident that he had low self-esteem and a fragile, poorly developed identity. ~ Jonice Webb, #NFDB
1382:The Braintrust, which meets every few months or so to assess each movie we’re making, is our primary delivery system for straight talk. Its premise is simple: Put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid with one another. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1383:Communicatory inputs from the world can occur through any of the six primary sensory modalities at any time. The important thing is to first develop the capacity to feel the deeper meanings inside any of the sensory modalities, second to seek their meanings, and third to craft congruent responses. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
1384:I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper adult. I had been very grown-up in primary school. But as I continued through secondary school, I in fact became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time. ~ Hiromi, #NFDB
1385:The citizenry’s primary occupations are rubbish picking and luring strangers into the Acre to cosh them on the head and rob them. For amusement, they ingest whatever flammable liquids are at hand and sing badly at the top of their lungs. The area’s main exports are smelted iron slag, bone meal, and misery. ~ Ransom Riggs, #NFDB
1386:The holomovement which is 'life implicit' is the ground both of 'life explicit' and of 'inanimate matter', and this ground is what is primary, self-existent and universal. Thus we do not fragment life and inanimate matter, nor do we try to reduce the former completely to nothing but an outcome of the latter. ~ David Bohm, #NFDB
1387:Vision is the best manifestation of creative imagination and the primary motivation of human action. It’s the ability to see beyond our present reality, to create, to invent what does not yet exist, to become what we not yet are. It gives us capacity to live out of our imagination instead of our memory. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1388:For people, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. ... The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
1389:In The United States, the only real change I know has been Instant Runoff, which is usually applied to municipal elections. I see no real improvement. There's another aspect which comes out of the two-party system, which the primary, a funny kind of two-stage election. And people certainly have complained. ~ Kenneth Arrow, #NFDB
1390:I was always accused of being too stiff. In 1974, when I ran my first primary race for state rep, I was chief aide to the speaker of the House, I knew the issues and understood state government. But what I found out the hard way is that you can know all the ins and outs but people want to know you, your family. ~ Jim Edgar, #NFDB
1391:Surveillance is the business model of the Internet for two primary reasons: people like free, and people like convenient. The truth is, though, that people aren’t given much of a choice. It’s either surveillance or nothing, and the surveillance is conveniently invisible so you don’t have to think about it. ~ Bruce Schneier, #NFDB
1392:A vital difference between the professional man and a man of business is that money making to the professional man should, by virtue of his assumption, be incidental; to the businessman it is primary. Money has its limitations; while it may buy quantity, there is something beyond it and that is quality. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, #NFDB
1393:Mitt Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they're not usually inclined to do - replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent. ~ William Kristol, #NFDB
1394:Studies have shown touch to be the primary language of compassion, love and gratitude - emotions at the heart of trust and cooperation - even more than facial expressions and voice. Touch is the central medium in which the goodness of one individual can spread to another. Touch is the original contact high. ~ Dacher Keltner, #NFDB
1395:The higher education has always appealed to the South Asian social leaders across all the countries in South Asia. But primary education has been neglected. The oddity, by the way, is if you look at the contrast in India, there are some areas like Kerala where there's a long history of educational development. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
1396:the primary differences between alcoholics and nonalcoholics is that nonalcoholics change their behavior to meet their goals and alcoholics change their goals to meet their behavior. Everything that had been important to me, all of my dreams, goals, and aspirations, were swept away in a wave of booze. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
1397:The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1398:How can I call security a woman's primary fantasy if I am saying it is also her primary need? Because while her primary need is the security of a home and a family circle, her primary fantasy is that someone else will earn enough to pay for them. Hence the focus of 2 billion women on the latest royal wedding. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
1399:It is one of the primary motives of modern art that it wants to abolish the distance which the viewer, the consumer, the audience maintain vis-a-vis a work of art. There is no doubt that the leaders of the creative artists of the last 50 years concentrated their efforts mainly on eliminating that distance. ~ Hans Georg Gadamer, #NFDB
1400:The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1401:With no clear picture of how you wish your life to be, how on earth are you going to live it? What is your Primary Aim? Where is the script to make your dreams come true? what is the first step to take and how do you measure your progress? How far have you gone and how close are you to getting to your goals? ~ Michael E Gerber, #NFDB
1402:Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught that my primary purpose was to become a goddess in heaven so that I could multiply an earth.
I wanted that. I wanted to become a goddess with my husband... to be eternally pregnant and look down on an earth and say, "That's mine, and all those babies down there, I had! ~ Ed Decker,#NFDB
1403:If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality. ~ Tibor R Machan, #NFDB
1404:Instead, the situation has sparked an efflorescence of social media (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter): basically, of forms of electronic media that lend themselves to being produced and consumed while pretending to do something else. I am convinced this is the primary reason for the rise of social media... ~ David Graeber, #NFDB
1405:On the other hand, the shortage of primary care physicians is so severe that 43.7 percent of the 21,885 residency positions in internal medicine in 2005 were filled by graduates of foreign medical schools30—because most of those coming out of American medical schools opt for training as specialists. This ~ Clayton M Christensen, #NFDB
1406:Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
1407:Researchers Tamara Ferguson, Heidi Eyre, and Michael Ashbaker have found that “unwanted identity” is one of the primary elicitors of shame. They explain that unwanted identities are characteristics that undermine our vision of our ideal selves. Sick, unreliable, and undependable are huge unwanted identities for me. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1408:The main reason for insisting on the universal Flood as a fact of history and as the primary vehicle for geological interpretation is that God's Word plainly teaches it! No geologic difficulties, real or imagined, can be allowed to take precedence over the clear statements and necessary inferences of Scripture. ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
1409:The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary objective of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return. ~ Douglas MacArthur, #NFDB
1410:When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is, by resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached. It is this way that in mathematics speculative theorems and practical canons are reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms and postulates. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
1411:You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
1412:In a Republican primary every candidate is going to come in front of you and say I'm the most conservative guy that ever lived. Goshdarnit, whodidily, I'm conservative. You know what, talk is cheap. The word tells us you shall know them by their fruits ... Look every candidate in the eye and say 'Don't talk, show me.' ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
1413:Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, it is right in the midst of the major energy reserves in the world. Its been a primary goal of US policy since World War II to control what the State Department called "a stupendous source of strategic power" and one of the greatest material prizes in history. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1414:Many collectors died in process of searching for new species, and despite persistent reports that the men died from drowning, gunshot and knife wounds, snakebite, trampling by cattle, or blows in the head with blunt instruments, it is generally accepted that in each case the primary cause of death was orchid fever. ~ Eric Hansen, #NFDB
1415:People used to say, "Oh, I like SNL show, it's funny." And this 2017 season, people were saying, "Oh, I love the show, I needed it, thank you." It started towards the end of last year, when the Primary started to heat up. I remember in the summertime people were excited for it, talking about SNL in July and August. ~ Michael Che, #NFDB
1416:The proclamation of the Gospel remains the primary service that the Church owes to humanity, to offer the salvation of Christ to the man of our time, who is in many ways humiliated and oppressed, and to orientate in a Christian way cultural, social, and ethical transformations that are unfolding in the world. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1417:When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. Its a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. Its a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
1418:As a result of these broad trends, contemporary Christian ethicists appear in public as figures struggling with the paradoxical task of articulating the insights emerging from their primary language to an audience they (perhaps mistakenly) believe either does not recognize the language, denies the validity of this ~ Kelly M Kapic, #NFDB
1419:I have been dwelling upon downtowns. This is not because mixtures of primary uses are unneeded elsewhere in cities. On the contrary they are needed, and the success of mixtures downtown (on in the most intensive portions of cities, whatever they are called) is related to the mixture possible in other part of cities. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
1420:I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper adult. I had been very grown-up in primary school. But as I continued through secondary school, I in fact became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time. ~ Hiromi Kawakami, #NFDB
1421:Jon Stone was more Joe’s friend than mine, though ‘friend’ probably wasn’t the right word. Jon was a private military contractor, which meant he was a mercenary. He was also a Princeton graduate and a former Delta Force operator. His primary client was the Department of Defense. Same boss, different pay grade. Pike ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
1422:Rocketing up the growth curve, humankind every year takes ever more of the earth’s richness. An often quoted estimate by a team of Stanford biologists is that humans grab “about 40% of the present net primary production in terrestrial ecosystems”—40 percent of the entire world’s output of land plants and animals. ~ Charles C Mann, #NFDB
1423:the guns seemed honest. The guns seemed to address this country, which invented the streets that secured them with despotic police, in its primary language—violence. And I compared the Panthers to the heroes given to me by the schools, men and women who struck me as ridiculous and contrary to everything I knew. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
1424:The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that's at least 10 times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
1425:we are driven to get fat by “primary metabolic or enzymatic defects,” as Hilde Bruch phrased it, and this fattening process induces the compensatory responses of overeating and/or physical inactivity. We eat more, move less, and have less energy to expend because we are metabolically or hormonally driven to get fat. ~ Gary Taubes, #NFDB
1426:We’ve elevated the secondary impulses over the primary ones: national defense, self-reliance, family, and, most basic of all, reproductive activity. If you don’t “go forth and multiply” you can’t afford all those secondary-impulse programs, like lifelong welfare, whose costs are multiplying a lot faster than you are. ~ Mark Steyn, #NFDB
1427:I actually happened to be in Haiti right before the earthquake in 2010. I was there already with the organization I work with now, Artists for Peace and Justice, visiting the primary school that I had adopted, the Academy for Peace and Justice in Port-au-Prince. I came back, and within days, the earthquake happened. ~ Olivia Wilde, #NFDB
1428:If my primary purpose here at Indiana is to go out and win ballgames, I can probably do that as well as anybody can. I would just cheat, get some money from a lot of people around Indianapolis who want to run the operation that way, and just go out and get the best basketball players I can. Then we'd beat everybody. ~ Bobby Knight, #NFDB
1429:The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least ten times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
1430:Cultural institutions by and large share one primary objective: herd control. Even when ostensibly benign, their propensity for manipulation, compartmentalization, standardization and suppression of potentially disruptive behavior or ideas, has served to freeze the evolution of consciousness practically in its tracks. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1431:I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1432:True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best. ~ Sinclair B Ferguson, #NFDB
1433:Fiction stymies me with its possibility. I can't see the bottom and I freeze, cling to the side, or just choke. In nonfiction, particularly that which takes personal narrative for its primary topic, I have a finite space and a finite amount of material. I can't fabricate material, I can only shape and burrow into it. ~ Melissa Febos, #NFDB
1434:In reviewing a business model, the key question executives should ask is this: Do the choices we have made about the company’s structure reflect our choice of primary customer? If the answer is no, competitors whose business models are consistent with their chosen primary customer will almost certainly be outplaying you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1435:Secretary of state, now they're saying it's between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, which has a lot of our viewers saying, how could Mitt Romney even be in the running given how loyal Rudy Giuliani was to Mr. Trump. And even if you might like Mitt Romney, he was not loyal and in fact he savaged Trump during the primary. ~ Megyn Kelly, #NFDB
1436:The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1437:The primary metaphor for the Easter season is the church as the resurrected people living a resurrected spirituality. Because of Easter we are in union with Christ and are called to live in our baptismal identity in his resurrection. This essential theme of Easter cannot be communicated in a day. It takes a season. ~ Robert E Webber, #NFDB
1438:The Scriptures, read and prayed, are our primary and normative access to God as He reveals Himself to us. The Scriptures are our listening post for learning the language of the soul, the ways God speaks to us; they also provide the vocabulary and grammar that are appropriate for us as we in our turn speak to God. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1439:A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger... The original motive is not pleasure in destruction... I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live. ~ Wilhelm Reich, #NFDB
1440:Now that virtually every career is an option for ambitious girls, it can no longer be considered regressive or reactionary to reintroduce discussion of marriage and motherhood to primary education. We certainly do not want to return to the simplistic duality of home economics classes for girls and wood shop for boys. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
1441:The Left would like to believe that racism—not the breakdown of marriage and family, the absence of religious norms, a degraded popular culture, and other issues that all concern values—is the primary impediment to black progress in America. Therefore the Left declares racism the greatest impediment to black progress. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1442:What I'm talking about is actually is the Mystery of Being as existential fact. That there is something that haunts this world that can take apart and reduce every single one of us to a mixture of terror and ecstasy, fear and trembling. It is not an idea, that's the primary thing to bear in mind. It's an experience. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1443:I didn't always want to act. My passion was writing, and it still is one of my primary passions to this day, but it wasn't until high school when I started acting in plays that it became a thought of something I might want to do. And when I applied to colleges, at NYU, I was able to study both writing and acting. ~ Bryce Dallas Howard, #NFDB
1444:My primary object is to defend and advance a principle in which I see the only possible relief from much that enthralls and degrades and distorts, turning light to darkness and good to evil, rather than to gage a philosopher or weigh a philosophy. Yet the examination I propose must lead to a decisive judgment upon both. ~ Henry George, #NFDB
1445:Our great civilizations are nothing more than social machines to create the ideal female setting, where a woman can count on stability; our legal and moral codes that try to abolish violence and promote permanence of ownership and enforce contracts—those represent the primary female strategy, the taming of the male. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
1446:The primary fantasy of connection leads to a posture of pseudo-independence in the developing child—“I don’t need anyone, I can take care of myself”—yet the irony is that the more the person relies on fantasy, the more helpless he or she becomes in the real world and the more he or she demands to be taken care of. ~ Robert W Firestone, #NFDB
1447:The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least ten times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter. The ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
1448:Our great civilizations are nothing more than social machines to create the ideal female setting, where a woman can count on stability; our legal and moral codes that try to abolish violence and promote permanence of ownership and enforce contracts--those represent the primary female strategy, the taming of the male. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
1449:Veganism has given me a higher level of awareness and spirituality, primary because the energy associated with eating has shifted to other areas. If you’re violent to yourself by putting [harmful] things into your body that violate its spirit, it will be difficult not to perpetuate that [violence] onto someone else. ~ Dexter Scott King, #NFDB
1450:We are having the 100th anniversary of 2015 year of the first in the nation primary in New Hampshire. And these voters take their responsibility very seriously. They like to kick the tires. They get the most up close and personal look in the entire arc of the campaign at the candidates. And debates are time consuming. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1451:What do warriors do? They are in competition with everyone else. They measure their success and their value on the basis of who they are better than, how much they get, and so on. So, this is the time in your adult life when your primary emphasis is on goal setting, on getting someplace else, and on defeating other people. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1452:Madonna remains the most visible performer on the planet, as well as one of the wealthiest, but would anyone seriously say that artistic self-development is her primary motivating principle? She is too busy with Kabbalah, fashion merchandising, adoption melodramas, the gym, and ill-starred horseback riding to study art. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
1453:Victor Faust did much more than help me escape a life of abuse and servitude. He changed me.
He changed the landscape of my dreams, the dreams I had every day about living ordinarily and free
and on my own. He changed the colors on the palette from primary to rainbow—as dark as the colors
of that rainbow may be. ~ J A Redmerski,#NFDB
1454:We are not blank slates, as some behaviorists once imagined. We are organisms whose more egregious tendencies can be greatly, if arduously, subdued. And a primary reason for this tenuous optimism is the abject flexibility with which status is sought. We will do almost anything for respect, including not act like animals. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
1455:England shouldn't have the real freedom of vote and we shouldn't either. Because as [James Madison] put it, one of the primary goals of government was to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, to make sure the opulent maintain their rights. The constitutional system was structured to ensure that outcome. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1456:The bluebird enjoys the preeminence of being the first bit of color that cheers our northern landscape. The other birds that arrive about the same time--the sparrow, the robin, the phoebe-bird--are clad in neutral tints, gray, brown, or russet; but the bluebird brings one of the primary hues and the divinest of them all. ~ John Burroughs, #NFDB
1457:Violence or the threat of violence [must] never be permitted to influence the actions or judgments of the university community. Once it does, the community, almost by definition, ceases to be a university. It is for this reason that from time immemorial expulsion has been the primary instrument of university discipline. ~ Richard M Nixon, #NFDB
1458:What I do in writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart, and skin of a human being who is not myself. Whether this happens to be a man or a woman, old or young, with skin black or white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer’s imagination that I set most high. ~ Eudora Welty, #NFDB
1459:You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, as surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look. ~ W H Auden,#NFDB
1460:8. Santa Claus is concerned about the problem of Arctic ice. The ice is the spouse of the elves, and she is sick. She is the primary source of their magic, as the elves cannot be separated from the place where they live. For many years now, this is all they have asked for for Christmas: that the ice should come back ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
1461:And how can we ever again succeed in educating children to become moral men and women if, in America's public schools, we consciously deny them all religious instruction, and deny them access to that primary source of morality, God's own word. The Bible is the one book from which they are expressly not allowed to be taught. ~ Pat Buchanan, #NFDB
1462:Practise any one of the human values. Prema (love) is the basis for all the values. Action with love is right conduct. Speak with love and it becomes truth. Thinking with love results in peace. Understanding with love leads to non-violence. For everything love is primary. Where there is love there is no place for hatred. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
1463:A poem or story consciously written to address a problem or bring about a specific result, no matter how powerful or beneficent, has abdicated its first duty and privilege, its responsibility to itself. Its primary job is simply to find the words that give it its right, true shape. That shape is its beauty and its truth. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1464:In America, the political system just is paralyzed for whatever reason. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, in that it's just become this giant blob bureaucracy, the primary objective is self-preservation, and the definition of self-preservation is don't do anything because then you continue to illustrate where you're needed. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1465:Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens. ~ Derrick Jensen, #NFDB
1466:A primary loyalty is a form of ancient moral connection that transcends loyalty to the nation-state. These include connections to family, clan, tribe, gang, religion, and ethnicity. These loyalties are reciprocated through the delivery of political goods (economic aid, safety, and more) that the state cannot or will not deliver. ~ John Robb, #NFDB
1467:If you are a czar or a king or a president or someone that wants to control those below them you do not want people to have a consciousness of life, of their needs. Because people do not make good slaves when they're connected to life... That's why in the public schools the primary objective is obedience to authority. ~ Marshall B Rosenberg, #NFDB
1468:If you understand it from an ecological or sustainability perspective, agriculture is the primary way we meet most of our needs, and it's the greatest form of human intervention on our environment. It has intimately shaped our culture as powerfully as industrial modernity, but for ten thousand years rather than two hundred. ~ David Holmgren, #NFDB
1469:Irony keeps reality at a distance. It has become our primary method for combatting the external world’s incompatibility with our own desires. Today’s irony uses increasingly desperate efforts to hold everything in between welcome embrace and sneering mockery. Irony is the great affliction of our age, worthy of its own disorder. ~ Ian Bogost, #NFDB
1470:I've seen people severely messed up by their own knowledge of biases. They have more ammunition with which to argue against anything they don't like. And that problem—too much ready ammunition—is one of the primary ways that people with high mental agility end up stupid, in Stanovich's "dysrationalia" sense of stupidity. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
1471:I was literally 3 years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life, through primary school, secondary school, all my life. I always, always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of twelve. I followed designer's careers. I knew Giorgio Armani was a window-dresser, Emanuel Ungaro was a tailor. ~ Alexander McQueen, #NFDB
1472:Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself. ~ Oswald Spengler, #NFDB
1473:The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts. Indeed, ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1474:All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
1475:But when someone’s gone and you’re the primary keeper of his memory—letting go would be a kind of murder, wouldn’t it? I had so much love for him, even if it was a complicated love, and where is all that love supposed to go? He was gone, so it couldn’t change, it couldn’t turn to indifference. I was stuck with all that love. ~ Rebecca Makkai, #NFDB
1476:Consider another core teaching of Jesus. It was he who said that all those who followed him would be known by their radical ability to show kindness to those who were cruel to them2 and to love without holding record of wrong. In fact he said that this kind of love would be the primary evidence of those who know and follow him.3 ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
1477:For we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles, and have carried our analysis as far as its simplest elements. Plainly therefore in the science of Nature, (15) as in other branches of study, our first task will be to try to determine what relates to its principles. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1478:So my primary guideline would be don't even consider microservices unless you have a system that's too complex to manage as a monolith. The majority of software systems should be built as a single monolithic application. Do pay attention to good modularity within that monolith, but don't try to separate it into separate services. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1479:U.S. international and security policy . . . has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call "the Fifth Freedom," understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1480:What actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that which interests them is permanent and the same also. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
1481:Capitalism is an organized system to guarantee that greed becomes the primary force of our economic system and allows the few at the top to get very wealthy and has the rest of us riding around thinking we can be that way, too - if we just work hard enough, sell enough Tupperware and Amway products, we can get a pink Cadillac. ~ Michael Moore, #NFDB
1482:Fresh drinking water is an issue of primary importance, since it is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Sources of fresh water are necessary for health care, agriculture and industry. Water supplies used to be relatively constant, but now in many places demand exceeds the sustainable ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1483:Irony keeps reality at a distance. It has become our primary method for combatting the external world’s incompatibility with our own desires. Today’s irony uses increasingly desperate efforts to hold everything in between welcome embrace and sneering mockery. Irony is the great affliction of our age, worthy of its own disorder. I ~ Ian Bogost, #NFDB
1484:It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Such communication has always been... one of the primary sources of progress. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
1485:The behaviorist view was that babies—monkey or human—loved their mothers for the milk that they provided, since this satisfied a primary need. But what Harlow had seen with the cloth pads made him wonder whether babies might love their mothers not for their milk only, but because they provided warmth and affection. Perhaps ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
1486:Meditation is the primary way in which we guard against the fragmentation of our Scripture reading into isolated oracles. Meditation enters into the coherent universe of God's revelation. Meditation is the prayerful employ of imagination in order to become friends with the text. It must not be confused with fancy or fantasy. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1487:Religion, according to Alfred North Whitehead, is a phenomenon that begins in wonder and ends in wonder. Feelings of awe, reverence, and gratitude are primary, and these can never be learned from books. We gain them from sitting high on a cliff side, gazing at the sea, lost in reverie and listening to the laughter of children. ~ Gary A Kowalski, #NFDB
1488:By the twentieth century, when the individual had replaced the family as the primary economic unit, the tie between sexuality and reproduction weakened further. Influenced by psychology as well as by the growing power of the media, both men and women began to adopt personal happiness as a primary goal of sexual relations. Various ~ John D Emilio, #NFDB
1489:Hence the vogue for double majors. It isn’t enough anymore to take a bunch of electives in addition to your primary focus, to roam freely across the academic fields, making serendipitous connections and discoveries, the way that American higher education was designed (uniquely, among the world’s systems) to allow you to do. ~ William Deresiewicz, #NFDB
1490:Of course, weakness is strong. It’s the primary impulse. You’d probably prefer to sit in your little room and cry. Live in your finite collection of memories, carefully polishing each one. Half a life set behind glass and pinned to cardboard like a collection of exotic insects. You’d like to live behind that glass, wouldn’t you? ~ Jonathan Nolan, #NFDB
1491:Take politics in a place like the United States. To run for president in 2008 will require that candidates raise in excess of $100 million each in order to be truly competitive. That means that before there was one primary election among voters, there was a “money primary” in 2007 that selected which candidates voters would see. ~ David Rothkopf, #NFDB
1492:That's very indicative to me of one of the things that really creates an aversion for me about having a child - this idea that every decision you make in your life has to be dictated by the child. And yet, I believe that if you choose to have a child you have an absolute primary responsibility to create a safe, loving environment. ~ Piper Kerman, #NFDB
1493:The fear of losing money is real. Everyone has it. Even the rich. But it’s not having fear that is the problem. It’s how you handle fear. It’s how you handle losing. It’s how you handle failure that makes the difference in one’s life. The primary difference between a rich person and a poor person is how they manage that fear. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
1494:With astonishing consistency, the people of Kültepe and Duttepe all saw the same figures in their dreams at regular intervals: Boys: the female primary-school teacher Girls: Atatürk Men: the Holy Prophet Muhammad Women: a tall, anonymous Western film star Old men: an angel drinking milk Old women: a young postman bringing good news ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
1495:Anger is rooted in our lack of understanding of ourselves and of the causes, deep-seated as well as immediate, that brought about this unpleasant state of affairs. Anger is also rooted in desire, pride, agitation, and suspicion. The primary roots of our anger are in ourselves. Our environment and other people are only secondary. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1496:Veteran political observers were astonished and shaken by the powerful emotions that Kennedy aroused. Kennedy capped his exciting run with a close but decisive victory over McCarthy in the key California primary in early June. In his moment of triumph, however, he was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a deranged Arab nationalist, ~ James T Patterson, #NFDB
1497:From above, the world looks orderly. That is one of the primary benefits of having wings. Being high shapes everything below into peaceful patterns. And even though you know there is chaos below, messiness everywhere, it is reassuring to sometimes think that it all eventually sorts itself out into something that looks elegant. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson, #NFDB
1498:The advertisement challenges potential candidates: “Think you can get HubSpot on the cover of Time magazine or featured on 60 Minutes?” Take it from someone who worked at Time’s primary competitor—the only way a company like HubSpot will ever merit that kind of coverage is if an employee brings in a bag of guns and shoots the place up. ~ Dan Lyons, #NFDB
1499:The primary function of art is not to imitate or represent or interpret, but to create a living thing; it is the reduction of all life to a perfectly composed and dynamic miniature - a microcosm where there is perfect balance of emotion and intellect, stress and strain resolving itself, form rhythmically poised in three dimensions. ~ Lawren Harris, #NFDB
1500:To look at the church as an organization where the labor and ministry are done only by the ministers is to miss the entire point. The ministers’ primary task is to equip the saints—the rank-and-file, the people in the pews. The ministry of the church belongs to the people of God who have been gifted by the Holy Spirit to carry it out. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
170 Integral Yoga
42 Philosophy
41 Christianity
18 Psychology
18 Occultism
9 Fiction
5 Yoga
5 Hinduism
2 Science
2 Education
1 Theosophy
1 Sufism
1 Poetry
1 Mythology
1 Kabbalah
1 Integral Theory
1 Baha i Faith
1 Alchemy
204 Sri Aurobindo
35 Nolini Kanta Gupta
31 Plotinus
17 The Mother
13 Satprem
12 Carl Jung
9 H P Lovecraft
9 Aldous Huxley
8 Paul Richard
6 Jordan Peterson
5 James George Frazer
4 Vyasa
4 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
4 Aleister Crowley
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 A B Purani
2 Swami Vivekananda
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Plato
2 Ken Wilber
2 George Van Vrekhem
85 Record of Yoga
37 The Synthesis Of Yoga
24 The Life Divine
9 The Perennial Philosophy
9 Lovecraft - Poems
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
8 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
7 Vedic and Philological Studies
7 The Human Cycle
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Essays On The Gita
5 The Golden Bough
5 Essays Divine And Human
4 Vishnu Purana
4 The Practice of Psycho therapy
4 The Bible
4 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
4 Mysterium Coniunctionis
4 Letters On Yoga IV
4 Letters On Yoga II
4 Letters On Yoga I
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
4 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
3 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
3 Talks
3 Magick Without Tears
3 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
2 Words Of Long Ago
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 Questions And Answers 1955
2 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 On Education
2 Isha Upanishad
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 Agenda Vol 12
2 Agenda Vol 08
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
First of all, he has the Sun; it is the primary light by which he lives and moves. When the Sun sets, the Moon rises to replace it. When both the Sun and the Moon set, he has recourse to the Fire. And when the Fire, too, is extinguished, there comes the Word. In the end, when the Fire is quieted and the Word silenced, man is lighted by the Light of the Atman. This Atman is All-Knowledge; it is secreted within the life, within the heart: it is selfluminous Vijnamaya preu rdyantar jyoti..
The progression indicated by the order of succession points to a gradual withdrawal from the outer to the inner light, from the surface to the deep, from the obvious to the secret, from the actual and derivative to the real and original. We begin by the senses and move towards the Spirit.
--
Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
Now, each one of them in its turn has its own emanations the eleven Rudriyas are familiar. These are secondary and there are tertiary and other graded emanations the last ones touch the earth and embody physico-vital forces. The lowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one or other of the primaries and their nature and function partake of or are an echo of their first ancestor.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
displayed, if not constantly, then occasionally or with some regularity of recurrence, in primary formations or in others more developed and, it may well be, even in some, however rare, that are near to the highest possible realisation of our present humanity. For the march of Nature is not drilled to a regular and mechanical forward stepping. She reaches constantly beyond herself even at the cost of subsequent deplorable retreats.
She has rushes; she has splendid and mighty outbursts; she has immense realisations. She storms sometimes passionately forward hoping to take the kingdom of heaven by violence.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world. For the ancient system of
Rajayoga aimed not only at Swarajya, self-rule or subjective empire, the entire control by the subjective consciousness of all the states and activities proper to its own domain, but included
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As to the extent of realisation, we say again that that is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the substance that counts. Even if it were a small nucleus it would be sufficient, at least for the beginning, provided it is the real, the genuine thing
Swalpamapyasya dharmasya tryate mahato bhayt1
01.02 - The Object of the Integral Yoga, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To come to this Yoga merely with the idea of being a superman would be an act of vital egoism which would defeat its own object. Those who put this object in the front of their preoccupations invariably come to grief, spiritually and otherwise. The aim of this Yoga is, first, to enter into the divine consciousness by merging into it the separative ego (incidentally, in doing so one finds one's true individual self which is not the limited, vain and selfish human ego but a portion of the Divine) and, secondly, to bring down the supramental consciousness on earth to transform mind, life and body. All else can be only a result of these two aims, not the primary object of the Yoga.
The only creation for which there is any place here is the supramental, the bringing of the divine Truth down on the earth, not only into the mind and vital but into the body and into
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all that to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, the individual is not and cannot be such an isolated thing as our egoistic sense would like to have it. The sharp angularities of the individual are being, at every moment, chastened by the very primary conditions of life; and to fail to recognise this is the blindest form of ignorance. It is no easy task to draw exactly the line of distinction between our individual being and our social or communal being. In actual life they are so blended together that in trying to extricate them from each other, we but tear and lacerate them both. The highest wisdom is to take the two together as they are, and by a gradual purifying processboth internal and external, internal in thought and knowledge and will, external in life and actionrestore them to their respective truth and lawSatyam and Ritam.
The individual who leads a severely individual life from the very beginning, whose outlook of the world has been fashioned by that conception, can hardly, if at all, enter at the end the communal life. He must perforce be either a vagabond or a recluse: But the recluse is not an integral man, nor the vagabond an ideal personality. The individual need not be too chaste and shy to associate with others and to give and take as freely and fully as he can. Individuality is not necessarily curtailed or mutilated in this process, but there is this other greater possibility of its getting enlarged and enhanced. Rather it is when you shut yourself up in your own self, that you stick to only one line of your personality, to a single phase of your self and thus limit and diminish yourself; the breadth and height and depth of your self, the cubic completeness of your personality you can attain only through a multiple and variegated stress by which you come in contact with the world and things.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are some primary desires that seek satisfaction in man. They are the vital urges of life, the most prominent among them being the instinct of self-preservation and that of self-reproduction or the desire to preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities that are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order that he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most fundamental elements that enter into his structure and composition.
It would have been an easy matter if these vital urges could flow on unhindered in their way. There would have been no problem at all, if they met satisfaction easily and smoothly, without having to look to other factors and forces. As a matter of fact, man does not and cannot gratify his instincts whenever and wherever he chooses and in an open and direct manner. Even in his most primitive and barbarous condition, he has often to check himself and throw a veil, in so many ways, over his sheer animality. In the civilised society the check is manifold and is frankly recognised. We do not go straight as our sexual impulsion leads, but seek to hide and camouflage it under the institution of marriage; we do not pounce upon the food directly we happen to meet it and snatch and appropriate whatever portion we get but we secure it through an elaborate process, which is known as the economic system. The machinery of the state, the cult of the kshatriya are roundabout ways to meet our fighting instincts.
What is the reason of this elaboration, this check and constraint upon the natural and direct outflow of the animal instincts in man? It has been said that the social life of man, the fact that he has to live and move as member of a group or aggregate has imposed upon him these restrictions. The free and unbridled indulgence of one's bare aboriginal impulses may be possible to creatures that live a separate, solitary and individual life but is disruptive of all bonds necessary for a corporate and group life. It is even a biological necessity again which has evolved in man a third and collateral primary instinct that of the herd. And it is this herd-instinct which naturally and spontaneously restrains, diverts and even metamorphoses the other instincts of the mere animal life. However, leaving aside for the moment the question whether man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a mere dissimulation of his animal instincts or whether they correspond to certain actual realities apart from and co-existent with these latter, we will recognise the simple fact of control and try to have a glimpse into its mechanism.
There are three lines, as the Psycho-analysts point out along which this control or censuring of the primary instincts acts. First, there is the line of Defence Reaction. That is to say, the mind automatically takes up an attitude directly contrary to the impulse, tries to shut it out and deny altogether its existence and the measure of the insistence of the impulse is also the measure of the vehemence of the denial. It is the case of the lady protesting too much. So it happens that where subconsciously there is a strong current of a particular impulse, consciously the mind is obliged to take up a counteracting opposite impulse. Thus in presence of a strong sexual craving the mind as if to guard and save itself engenders by a reflex movement an ascetic and puritanic mood. Similarly a strong unthinking physical attraction translates itself on the conscious plane as an equally strong repulsion.
Secondly, there is the line of Substitution. Here the mind does not stand in an antagonistic and protestant mood to combat and repress the impulse, but seeks to divert it into other channels, use it to other purposes which do not demand equal sacrifice, may even, on the other hand, be considered by the conscious mind as worthy of human pursuit. Thus the energy that normally would seek sexual gratification might find its outlet in the cultivation of art and literature. It is a common thing in novels to find the heroine disappointed in love taking finally to works of charity and beneficence and thus forgetting her disappointment. Another variety of this is what is known as "drowning one's sorrow in drinking."
--
This is the real meaning and sense of the moral struggle in man, the continuous endeavour towards a transvaluation of the primary and aboriginal instincts and impulses. Looked at from one end, from below up the ascending line, man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a dissimulation and sublimation of the animal impulsions. But this is becauseas we see, if we look from the other end, from above down the descending lineman is not all instinct, he is not a mere blind instrument in the hands of Nature forces. He has in him another source, an opposite pole of being from which other impulsions flow and continually modify the structure of the lower levels. If the animal is the foundation of his nature, the divine is its summit. If the bodily demands form his manifest reality, the demands of the spirit enshrine his higher reality. And if as regards the former he is a slave, as regards the latter he is the Master. It is by the interaction of these double forces that his whole nature has been and is being fashioned. Man does not and cannot give carte blanche to his vital, inclinations, since there is a pressure upon them of higher forces coming down from his mental and spiritual levels. It is these latter which have deviated him from the direct line of the pure animal life.
Thus then we may distinguish three types of control on three levels. First, the natural control, secondly the conscious, i.e. to say the mental the ethical and religious control, and thirdly the spiritual or divine control. Now the spirit is the ultimate truth and reality, behind the forces that act in the mind and in the body, so that the natural control and the ethical control are mere attempts to establish and realise the spiritual control. The animal impulses feel the hidden stress of the divine urges that are their real essence and thus there rises first an unconscious conflict in the natural life and then a conscious conflict in the higher ethical life. But when both of these are transcended and the conflict is carried on to a still higher level, then do we find their real significance and arrive at the consummation to which they move. Yoga is the ultimate transvaluation of physical (and of moral) values, it is the trans-substantiation of life-power into its spiritual substance.
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is a primary stage. As long as you havent gone beyond this condition, you are unfit for yoga. Because truly, no one in such a rudimentary state is ready for yoga.
***
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It depends. Each thing has its method. But the primary method is to want it, to make a decision. Then you are given a description of all these senses and how they function thats a lengthy process. You choose one sense (or several), perhaps the one for which you have the greatest initial aptitude, and you decide. Then you follow the discipline. Its similar to doing exercises for developing muscles. You can even manage to create willpower in yourself.
For the subtler senses, the method is to create an exact image of what you want, make contact with the corresponding vibration and then concentrate and practice. For instance, you practice seeing through an object, or hearing through a sound2 or seeing at a distance. As an example, I was once bedridden for several months, which I found quite boring I wanted to see. I was staying in one room and beyond that room was another little room and after that a sort of bridge; in the middle of the garden the bridge changed into a stairway going down into a very spacious and beautiful studio built in the middle of the garden.3 I wanted to go see what was happening in the studio I was bored stiff in my room! So I stayed very still, shut my eyes and gradually, gradually sent out my consciousness. I did the exercise regularly, day after day, at a set hour. You begin with your imagination, and then it becomes a fact. After a while, I distinctly sensed my vision physically moving: I followed it and saw things going on downstairs I knew absolutely nothing about. I would verify it in the evening, asking, Did it happen like this? Was that how it was?
0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These new thoughts and new experiences, this new logic and new mathematics, are now taught in higher studies, but all the primary and secondary studies have remained in the old formula, so I have been very seriously thinking of opening primary and secondary schools in Auroville, based on the new systemas a trial.
But how is it done? Its a problem that interests me very much: how do you catch this new expression?
0 1967-05-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. My feeling (because Ive studied your problem a good deal I seem as if I couldnt care less, but thats not true! Ive studied your problem a great deal), my feeling is that in your higher mind, the faculty of expression is developedhighly developedso that as soon as the Light touches, it is transformed into ideas, words, concepts, like that. It DOESNT HAVE THE TIME to be visualized. Its not outwardly, but right up above that it is (how can I put it?) particularly and exceptionally active and expressive (something quite rare, because generally, in everyone, its nebulous up above). And because it has developed in that way (which is a higher condition), you are lacking the primary condition which is the vision, the shock of the Light.
So there is only one solution. To me, there is a solution: its the sudden contact with a HIGHER light in the Supermind. Sri Aurobindo said (thats obvious, its always like that) that there are several layers (its not quite like layers, but never mind), several layers of supramental light. The first (the one that has manifested), that one you immediately transformed into conceptions, ideas and words. That is, something a large number of intellectuals are praying and imploring to haveyou had it spontaneously, lets say. So the first contact, the dazzling contact of the Light, that you havent had. But when a HIGHER light comes, you will have it.
0 1969-12-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a French woman who was a primary school teacher (I was told shes nice, I havent seen her), and then an Indian woman (whom I saw) who wants to teach in Auroville, and shes fine, I mean her mental attitude is good. So the two of them will start (laughing): there are five children!
Some interesting people have come to Auroville, people who are really seeking something . So I leave them to stew there and well see what comes out of it!
0 1970-10-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, at that time Sri Aurobindo used the phrase psychic prana, but its not at all the psychic, the soul; I think its the primary vital substance. He asks also:
Is there some relationship between this psychic prana and the constitution of the Psyche of Western psychologists?
0 1971-05-12, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats for someone rather primary, but anyway.
(some more papers)
0 1971-06-26, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have the feeling that things are held like this (gesture of being immobilized under pressure): it is willed that Sri Aurobindos Centenary takes placeif there were a war, it would be difficult. In Delhi, they were thinking the war would break out within a weekthey had said that, again yesterday they told me its imminent. And at the same time there is something which goes like this (same gesture of immobilizing pressure) to keep things in this uncertain state so that Sri Aurobindos Centenary may have its full developmentso I see that mixture of things. The feeling is that the Centenary is the major event, while at the same time the outer consciousness says that if there is war, it will be the end of the Centenary. There you are, thats how it is. So I dont see anything precise because things are like that, all intertwined. If I see something clearly, naturally Ill say so, but now I dont. Its mixed up, all mixed upcompletely mixed up. And there is an insistence on us, a pressure on us to be primarily concerned with the Centenary, for that to be our primary preoccupation; not to take current events too much into account, you know. Thats what I seenot so interesting! (Mother laughs)
(Sujata:) But Mother, shouldnt the problem of India and Pakistan in fact be settled for the Centenary?
02.04 - The Right of Absolute Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A nation cannot claim the right, even in the name of freedom, to do as it pleases. An individual has not that right, the nation too has not. A nation is a member of humanity, there are other members and there is the common welfare of all. A nation by choosing a particular line of action, in asserting its absolute freedom, may go against other nations, or against the general good. Such freedom has to be curbed and controlled. Collective lifeif one does not propose to live the life of the solitary the animal or the saintis nothing if not such a system of controls. "The whole of politics is an interference with personal liberty. Law is such an interference; protection is such an interference; the rule which makes the will of the majority prevail is such an interference. The right to prevent such use of personal liberty as will injure the interests of the race is the fundamental law of society. From this point of view the nation is only using its primary rights when it restrains the individual from buying or selling foreign goods." Thus spoke a great Nationalist leader in the days of Boycott and Swadeshi. What is said here of the individual can be said of the nation too in relation to the greater good of humanity. The ideal of a nation or state supreme all by itself, with rights that none can challenge, inevitably leads to the cult of the Super-state, the Master-race. If such a monster is not to be tolerated, the only way left is to limit the absolute value of nationhood, to view a nation only as a member in a comity of nations forming the humanity at large.
A nation not free, still in bondage, cannot likewise justify its claim to absolute freedom by all or any means, at all times, in all circumstances. There are times and circumstances when even an enslaved nation has to bide its time. Man, in order to assert his freedom and individuality, cannot sign a pact with Mephistopheles; if he does so he must be prepared for the consequences. The same truth holds with regard to the nation. A greater danger may attend a nation than the loss of freedom the life and soul of humanity itself may be in imminent peril. Such a cataclysmic danger mankind has just passed through or is still passing through. All nations, however circumstanced in the old world, who have stood and fought on the side of humanity, by that very gesture, have acquired the rightand the might too,to gain freedom and greatness and all good things which would not be possible otherwise.
03.02 - Aspects of Modernism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness has two primary movements. In one it penetrates, enters straight into the heart of things; in the other it spreads out, goes about and round the object. The combination of the two powers is a rarity; ordinarily man follows the one to the exclusion of the other. The modern age in its wide curiosity has neglected the penetrative and intensive movement and is therefore marred by superficiality. It is eager to go over the entire panorama of creation at one glance, if that is possible, to have a telescopic view of things; but it has been able to take in only the surface, the skin, the crust. Even the entrance into the world of atoms and cellsof protons and electrons, of chromosomes and genesis not really a penetrative or intensive movement. It is only another form of the movement of pervasion or extension: it is still a going abroad, only on another line, in a different direction, but always fundamentally on the same horizontal plane. The microscope is only an inverted telescope. Our instruments are the external mind and senses and these move laterally and have not the power to leap on to a different level of vision. The earlier ages of mankind, narrow and circumscribed in many respects, possessed nevertheless that intensive and in-gathering movement, which is a kind of movement in the fourth dimension; it was a sixth sense leading into the Behind or Beyond of things.
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03.03 - A Stainless Steel Frame, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The government of a country is, as we know, the steel frame that holds together the life of its people: it is that that gives the primary stability and security, scope and free play to all its activities. In India it was the pride of the British that they built up such a frame; and although that frame sometimes seemed almost to throttle the nation in its firm and rigid grip, still today we are constrained to recognise that it was indeed a great achievement: Pax Britannica was in fact a very efficient reality. The withdrawal of the power that was behind us has left the frame very shaky; and our national government is trying hard to set it up again, streng thening, reinforcing, riveting wherever and however necessary. But the misfortune is that the steel has got rusted and worn out from inside.
In other words, a diminution of public morality and collective honesty has set in, an ebbing of the individual consciousness too that made for rectitude and justice and equity and fair dealing. Men who are limbs of that frame, who by their position ensure the strength of that frame the bolts and nuts, screws and hingehave, on a large scale, allowed themselves to be uncertain and loose in their moral make-up. Along with the outer check, the inner check too has given way: hence the colossal disintegration, the general debacle in the life of the body politic and the body social.
03.03 - Modernism - An Oriental Interpretation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Today, however, in pursuit of the mystery of life we have entered into darker and more obscure regionsof cells and genes, of colloid actions and neuron reactions: the elementary instincts, the primary reflexes, the tangle of short and brief vibrations, and half-articulate pulsations of the most physical and material consciousness are the stuff of the life we seek to live and to capture and mirror. The creative and active force in life as well as in art is now invested in the nervous dynamism and sensational perception. The old morals and sthetics and the sentiments and notions around them are considered today merely conventional and bourgeois; they have given place to a freer life-movement, the expression and embodiment of an unrestrained and au thentic life, life in its natural, original; unspoilt (and crude and coarse) verity. We are probing into the mystery of the crust.
It appears then that we have come down perilously near the level of the sheer animal; by a curious loop in the cycle of evolution, the most civilised and enlightened type of mankind seems to be retroverting to the status of his original ancestor.
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, Right, Duty and Dharma are three terms that represent the three stages of an ascending consciousness in its play of forces. At the base and beginning the original and primary state of consciousness is dominated by the mode of inertia (tamas); in that state things are an inchoate mass and are simply jumbled together; they are moved and acted upon helplessly by forces that are outside them. A rise in the scale of growth and evolution occurs when things begin to be organised, that is to say, differentiated and coordinated. And this means at the outset the self-assertion of each and every unit, the claim and the right of the individual to be itself first and foremost. It is a necessary development, for it signifies the growth of self-conscious units out of a general unconsciousness. It is the appearance of rajas, the mode of life and activity. Right belongs to this field and level: it is the lever that serves to bring out the individual nuclei from a general formlessness, it is the force that crystallises and organises the separative centres for separate fulfilment in life. And naturally it is the field also of competition and conflict. This is a stage and has to be transcended, from the domain of differentiation and contrariety one has to rise to the domain of co-ordination and co-operation. Here comes in the concept of duty which seeks to remedy the ills of the modus of rights in two ways, first, by replacing the movement of taking by that of giving, orienting the consciousness from the sense of self-sufficiency and self-importance towards that of submission and humbleness; secondly, by the recognition of the just rights of others also against one's own. Duty represents the mode of sattwa in action.
But the conception of duty too has its limitations. Even apart from the misuses of the ideal to which we have already referred, the ideal itself, is of the mental plane; it is more or less an act of mental will that seeks to impose a rule of co-operation upon the mutually excluding and conflicting entities. The result is bound to be imperfect and precarious. For mind force, although it can exercise some kind of control over the life forces, cannot altogether master them, and eradicate even the very seeds of conflict that breed naturally in that field. The sense of duty raises the consciousness to the mode of sattwa; sattwa holds rajas in check, but is unable to eliminate wholly the propensities and impulses of aberration ingrained in rajas, cannot radically purify or transfigure it.
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
These are the two primarytruthsrya saryawhichBuddha's illumination meant and for which he has become one of the great divine leaders of humanity. First, he has discovered man's rationality, and second, he has discovered man's humanity. Since his advent two thousand and five hundred years ago till the present day, in this what may pertinently be called the Buddhist age of humanity, the entire growth, development and preoccupation of mankind was centred upon the twofold truth. Science and religion today are the highest expressions of that achievement.
They speak of the coming of a new Buddha (Maitreya) with the close of the cycle now, ushering another cycle of new growth and achievement. It is said also that humanity has reached its apex, a great change-over is inevitable: seers and savants have declared that man will have to surpass himself and become superman in order to fulfil what was expected of him since his advent upon earth. If we say that the preparation for such a consummation was taken up at the last stage by the Buddha and Buddhism, and the Buddhistic inspiration, we will not be wrong. It was a cycle of ascending tapasya for the human vehicle: it was a seeking for the pure spirit which meant a clearance of the many ignorances that shrouded it. It was also an urge of the spirit to encompass in its fold a larger and larger circle of humanity: it meant that the spiritual consciousness is no more an aristocratic or hermetic virtue, but a need in which the people, the large mass, have also their share, maybe in varying degrees.
03.12 - Communism: What does it Mean?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism, in India at least, has come to mean things which it was not the original or the main purpose of the word to imply. Communism meant "holding in common", that is to say, there is no private property, one can claim nothing as exclusively one's ownthings are distributed, work as well as necessities, and one receives them, each in his turn, according to his need and desert, as determined by general planning. Let alone property, there are types of communism that speak of holding in common women and children even. In any case whatever one is given one possesses and enjoys only for the moment, there is nothing like permanent possession. All have equal right to all things. This is an ideal which I do not think many would care to adopt and follow. In India it appears the word "communism" has been taken in the sense of the rgime of the common man. Not that there is any harm in this deviation of the meaning. If it is a convenient label or a battle-cry for the common man's right to exist, to have his just lebensraum, well, none can object and all should sympathise and help towards that end. But the mischief is that the common man adopted by communism has a restrictive denotation, it takes in only a section of the common man: it is used mostly, if not exclusively in connection with wage-earners and that too only of the category of peasants and workmen. A large section of the common mass, even of wage earners in a sense, is left out in the communistic scheme, at least not given the same importance as the other. School teachers, especially primary school teachers, small office-clerks, for example, are not less "common" or less unfortunate or worthy of succour. These form a genuine proletariat: only they have not yet been called upon to take part in the Dictatorship.
Apart from this restrictive denotation, communism, in practice, has been given a restrictive connotation too which is more ominous and unhelpful. The communistic movement has become dynamic in so far as it is a movement for redressing grievances (although the methods employed at times it is alleged, are not as they should be, worthy of the civilised human being) in other words, it has been more or less negative in its work and outlook. The whole stress has been laid upon two items: (1) less hours of work, and (2) more wages I do not mention better housing, medical aid, pension etc., which are auxiliary items. When workers were considered as no more than slaves under the yoke of the blind and brutal exploiter, these demands had a meaning: but they have lost much of their point in the changed circumstances of today.
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Be that as it may, if one demands a fair share of the riches of the commonwealth, one must lend one's hand honestly and whole-heartedly to its production. That is the line of true communism. Above all, one must cultivate the civic sense, the very primary thing one must have for a harmoniously prosperous collective life, we have to learn again the first lesson of civilised living in these days when the brute and the vampire are seated in human hearts. We must not always clamour for selfish gains, gains for oneself, for one's class or community, or even for one's country. We must have a global view of the human society which is a complex and multifoliate organism. Many interests have to be served, many lines of growth have to be encouraged, liberty for contraries all in the framework of a wider harmony. The ancient Rishis invoked the aid of the gods Mitra and Varuna for the establishment of that wide harmony, the builders of the new age too can do no better.
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03.14 - From the Known to the Unknown?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the spiritual field the unknown is a fact of primary importance and has to be given the first place, the foremost consideration. For the call is towards the Beyond and no amount of trafficking with the actual the near and the knowncan lead you out of it. There must be a sudden leap at one time or another. That is what is meant by saying that the deep calls unto the deep. For man has the power, the privilege to contact directly the thing that is unknown and beyond. There is an opening in him, a kind of backdoor, as it were, through which he can pass straight into another dimension.
That is why it is said constantly by the ancient sages that the truth cannot be found by much inquiry and much study, the truth is found only when it condescends to reveal itself to the inquirer. The true truth is not at our beck and call, you cannot get it as and when you like, it does not wait comfortably just at the terminus of your investigations and argumentations. This does not mean, however, that we remain helpless and hopeless until the manna falls from heaven. No, something lies in our power, a spontaneous and natural faculty, to create at least favourable conditions for the light to descend and appear. A quiet awaiting in the being, calm concentration and aspiration, a sincere opening are some of the conditions under which it is easier for the unknownxto reveal its identity.
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This view finds its justification because of a particular outlook on spirituality and non-spirituality. If the Spirit and things spiritual are taken to mean something transcending and rejecting the world and the things of the world, something exclusive of life and its fulfilment here on earth, if on the other hand, the world and its life are given only their face value emptying them of their deeper and transcendent contentsin the manner of the great Laplace who could find no place for God in his map of the world which seemed to be quite complete in itself, if this trenchant division is made in the very definition of the terms, in our primary axioms and postulates, then, of course, we cannot avoid a scission and an eternal struggle. If you consider the Spirit as only pure spirit, an absolute without any relation, as, an ever-fixed and static entity and if we view Matter as purely material and the law of mechanics as supreme and inviolable, then there cannot be a reconciliation or even a meeting between the two. There are some who have a great goodwill, who wish to avoid clash and quarrel and are for concord and harmony. They have tried the reconciliation, but failed. The two positions being fundamentally exclusive of each other can, at best, be juxtaposed, but not unified or fused together.
And yet mankind has always sought for an integral, an all comprehending fulfilment, a truth and a realisation that would go round his entire existence. Man has always aspired, in the midst of the transience and imperfection that the world is, for something stable and perfect, in the heart of disharmony for some core of perfect harmony. He termed it God, Atman, Summum Bonum and he sought it sometimes, as he thought necessary, even at the cost of the world and the life, if it is to be found elsewhere. Man aspired also always to find this habitation of his made somewhat better. Dissatisfied with his present state, he sought to mould it, remake it, put into it something which his aspiration and inspiration called the True, the Beautiful, the Good. There was always this double aspiration in man, one of ascent and the other of descent, one vertical and the other horizontal, one leading up and beyondtotally beyond, in its extreme urge the other probing into the mystery locked up there below, releasing the power to reform or recreate the world, although he was not always sure whether it was a power of mind or of matter.
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"A moral problem, un cas de conscience (a case of conscience), as they say in French. To defend yourself against your attacker and kill him who comes to kill you or stand disarmed and let yourself be killedwhich is better, which has the greater moral value? To fight your enemy is normal, is human. To preserve yourself, that is to say, your body, is the very first injunction of Nature. That is Nature's primary and fundamental demand. And to preserve one's life one has to take others' life. That is also Nature. But then, it is said, man is meant to rise above Nature, live (even if it means to die) according to a higher lawnot the biological law, the law of tooth and claw. The higher law is for the preservation of life indeed, but others' life, not one's own, if it comes to that; it is not self-centred, but wholly other-regarding, it is for harmony, for peace and amity, not violence and battle. If one demurs and points out that it requires two to be friends and at peace, the answer is that one side must begin, and the merit goes to him who begins. One need not worry about the other side, which may be left to follow its own law of life, which, however, can be gained over only in this way and not by compulsion or coercion or violence. Na hi vairea vairai smyantha kadcana. Never by enmity is enmity appeased, says the Dhammapada.1
This is a way of cutting the Gordian knot. But the problem is not so simple as the moralist would have it. Resist not evil: if it is made an absolute rule, would not the whole world be filled with evil? Evil grows much faster than good. By not resisting evil one risks to perpetuate the very thing that one fears; it deprives the good of its chance to approach or get a foothold. That is why the Divine Teacher declares in the Gita that God comes down upon earth, assuming a human body,2to protect the good and slay the wicked,3 slay not metaphorically but actually and materially, as he did on the field of the Kurus.
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The problem in the final analysis is as ancient as man's first utterance. Which comes first, which is more importantSpirit or Matter, Body or Soul? Naturally, there have been always two answers, according to one's outlook. Some have declared Annam comes first, Annam is of primary importance, Annam is to be increased, Annam is to be worshipped: or again, earth is the firm status, be founded upon eartharram dyam. On the other hand, it has also been declared that the Spirit comes first, the Spirit is the true foundation, the roots of creation are up there, not here below: if that is known, then only all this is known; it is by that Light all that shines here shines. And if I miss that, what is the use of all this world of things?
In fact, however, the reality is a polarised entity: and both ends are equally necessary, for each is involved in the other. It is an unreal distinction, due to mind's prejudice and preference, that says one is first and the other next or last, one is more important and the other less. The true truth is that Spirit and Matter are one: for Matter is Spirit involved and Spirit is Matter evolved. The position can be stated in this form also: without Spirit, Matter does not exist; without Matter, Spirit does not manifest.
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It may be that for most men the physical life is of first and primary importance and they look upon the spiritual life, 'if ever they do, as a secondary pursuit; even as children consider food and play as the one thing needful, study or mental exercise quite a secondary or tertiary affair occupying a small side corner. This is because the taste for the higher life belongs to a more developed consciousness, not because it is something really dependent and derivative. Indeed, we do in fact see peopleindividually or collectively (like the early Christians, for example)suddenly becoming conscious of the burning reality of the Spirit, in the midst of and in spite of the most adverse and all-engrossing outer physical conditions, and follow it caring nothing. So the Christ directs: Follow Me, let the dead bury their dead; and the Indian Shastra enjoins: Yadahareva virajet tadahareva pravrajet the day you feel unattached, that very day go out of the world and away.
To the spiritual seeker the higher values are the first things that come first: to the ordinary man it is otherwise, lower values come first and claim topmost priority. To the experience of the spiritual seeker one should give greater value, for he has the experience of both the values, while the ordinary man knows only of one variety. Naturally, as we have said, there is synthesis, a fusion of the two values; but that is elsewhere for the present, not actually here and now.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The essential appearance of Man is, as we have said, the prototype of the actual man. That is to say, the actual man is a projection, even though a somewhat disfigured projection, of the original form; yet there is an essential similarity of pattern, a commensurability between the two. The winged angels, the cherubs and seraphs are reputed to be ideal figures of beauty, but they are nothing akin to the Prototype, they belong to a different line of emanation, other than that of the human being. We may have some idea of what it is like by taking recourse to the distinction that Greek philosophers used to make between the formal and the material cause of things. The prototype is the formal reality hidden and imbedded in the material reality of an object. The essential form is made of the original configuration of primary vibrations that later on consolidate and become a compact mass, arriving finally at its end physico-chemical composition. A subtle yet perfect harmony of vibrations forming a living whole is what the prototype essentially is. An artist perhaps is in a better position to understand what we have been labouring to describe. The artist's eye is not confined to the gross physical form of an object, even the most realistic artist does not hold up the mirror to Nature in that sense: he goes behind and sees the inner contour, the subtle figuration that underlies the external volume and mass. It is that that is beautiful and harmonious and significant, and it is that which the artist endeavours to bring out and fix in a system or body of lines and colours. That inner form is not the outer visible form and still it is that form fundamentally, essentially. It is that and it is not that. We may add another analogy to illustrate the point. Pythagoras, for example, spoke of numbers being realities, the real realities of all sensible objects. He was evidently referring to the basic truth in each individual and this truth appeared to him as a number, the substance and relation that remain of an object when everything concrete and superficial is extractedor abstractedout of it. A number to him is a quality, a vibration, a quantum of wave-particles, in the modern scientific terminology, a norm. The human prototype can be conceived as something of the category of the Pythagorean number.
The conception of the Purusha at the origin of things, as the very source of things, so familiar to the Indian tradition, gives this high primacy to the human figure. We know also of the cosmic godhead cast in man's mouldalthough with multiple heads and feetvisioned and hymned by sages and seers. The gods themselves seem to possess a human frame. The Upanishads say that once upon a time the gods looked about for a proper body to dwell in, they were disappointed with all others; it is only when the human form was presented that they exclaimed, This is indeed a perfect form, a perfect form indeed. All that indicates the feeling and perception that there is something eternal and transcendent in the human body-frame.
08.13 - Thought and Imagination, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You can make use of imagination for a high purpose. With its help you can recreate your inner and outer life. You can wholly build your life if you know how to use it and have the power. As a matter of fact, it is the most ordinary and primary way of creating and forming things in the world. I had always the impression that if one had not the capacity of imagination, one would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you would like to become that comes first, the prevision, and then you follow it up; you continue to imagine and realise, realise and imagine. Imagination opens the way to realisation." It is very difficult to move unimaginative people. They see only what is just in front of their nose, they feel only what is there at a given moment. They cannot advance, they are blocked by the immediate present. It is imagination that makes the whole difference.
Men of science also have and should have a great power of imagination; otherwise they would discover nothing. Imagination, is in reality, the capacity to project oneself out of realised things towards things realisable and pull them in by the very power of projection. It is true there is a progressive and there is a regressive imagination. There are people who always imagine all possible catastrophes and have the power even to make them come. However, imagination has its good use. It sends out, as it were, antennae into a world that is not yet realised, and they catch hold of something there and draw it here. Naturally, it means an addition to earth's atmosphere, addition of things that tend towards manifestation. Imagination then is an instrument that one can train and discipline and use at will. It is one of the principal faculties that should be developed and made serviceable.
08.17 - Psychological Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have left out one very important factorSurrender. Now Sri Aurobindo says that surrender is the first and absolute condition for doing Yoga. Without it there is no Yoga. So we can say that it is not one of the qualities required, but that it is the primary indispensable attitude for one to be able to begin Yoga. If you have not decided to surrender you cannot start on the path. But to make this surrender total and complete all the Five that we have enumerated are needed. This is then what I propose. We put Surrender on the top, at the head; for to do the integral Yoga, one must first of all take the resolution to surrender entirely to the Divine, there is no other way that is the one way. Afterwards, one must have the five psychological perfections.
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100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
about by synergy.109.02 In chrome-nickel-steel, the primary constituents are iron, chromium, and
nickel. There are minor constituents of carbon, manganese, and others. It is a very
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involved. There are scientifically discoverable nuclear aggregates of primary
design integrity as well as complex symmetrical reassociabilities of the nuclear
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will always be fundamental to the design laws, both primary and corollary.
172.00 Biological designs a priori to human alteration contriving are directly
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humans from dominance by their primary proclivities to dominance by their
secondary proclivities is an irreparable condition of life on Earth. Though Humans
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Certain facts are known in connection with the fire spirits (if so they may be termed). The fundamental fact that should here be emphasised is that AGNI, the Lord of Fire, rules over all the fire elementals and devas on the three planes of human evolution, the physical, the astral, and the mental, and rules over them not only on this planet, called the Earth, but on the three planes in all parts of the system. He is one of the seven Brothers (to use an expression familiar to students of the Secret Doctrine) Who each embody one of the seven principles, or Who are in Themselves the seven centres in the body of the cosmic Lord of Fire, called by H. P. B. "Fohat." He is that active fiery Intelligence, Who is the basis of the internal fires of the solar system. On each plane one of these Brothers holds sway, and the three elder Brothers (for always the three will be seen, and later the seven, who eventually merge into the primary three) rule on the first, third and the fifth planes, or on the plane of adi, of atma [xxii]22 and of manas. It is urgent that we here remember that They are fire viewed [66] in its third aspect, the fire of matter. In Their totality these seven Lords form the essence of the cosmic Lord, called in the occult books, Fohat. [xxiii]23
This is so in the same sense as the seven Chohans, [xxiv]24 with Their affiliated groups of pupils, form the essence or centres in the body of one of the Heavenly Men, one of the planetary Logoi. These seven again in Their turn form the essence of the Logos.
1.00 - PREFACE - DESCENSUS AD INFERNOS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
His primary job was the psychological care of convicts. The prison was full of murderers, rapists, and
armed robbers. I ended up in the gym, near the weight room, on my first reconnaissance. I was wearing a
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Baal Shem Tov in the first half of the eighteenth century is sufficiently important to warrant some mention here. For although Chassidism, as that movement was called, derives its enthusiasm from contact with nature and the great out-doors of the Carpathians, it has its primary literary origin and significant inspiration in the books which consti- tute the Qabalah. Chassidism gave the doctrines of the
Aohar to the " Am ha-aretz " in a way in which no previous set of Rabbis had succeeded in doing, and it would, more- over, appear that the Practical Qabalah received a con- siderable impetus at the same time. For we find that
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction
between him and other animals), may be by his curse alone he will attain his object - that is, convince
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The lower gate is that preferred by strictly practical teachersmen who, like Gautama Buddha, have no use for speculation and whose primary concern is to put out in mens hearts the hideous fires of greed, resentment and infatuation. Through the upper gate go those whose vocation it is to think and speculate the born philosophers and theologians. The middle gate gives entrance to the exponents of what has been called spiritual religion the devout contemplatives of India, the Sufis of Islam, the Catholic mystics of the later Middle Ages, and, in the Protestant tradition, such men as Denk and Franck and Castellio, as Everard and John Smith and the first Quakers and William Law.
It is through this central door, and just because it is central, that we shall make our entry into the subject matter of this book. The psychology of the Perennial Philosophy has its source in metaphysics and issues logically in a characteristic way of life and system of ethics. Starting from this midpoint of doctrine, it is easy for the mind to move in either direction.
1.01 - The Cycle of Society, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
From this symbolic attitude came the tendency to make everything in society a sacrament, religious and sacrosanct, but as yet with a large and vigorous freedom in all its forms,a freedom which we do not find in the rigidity of savage communities because these have already passed out of the symbolic into the conventional stage though on a curve of degeneration instead of a curve of growth. The spiritual idea governs all; the symbolic religious forms which support it are fixed in principle; the social forms are lax, free and capable of infinite development. One thing, however, begins to progress towards a firm fixity and this is the psychological type. Thus we have first the symbolic idea of the four orders, expressingto employ an abstractly figurative language which the Vedic thinkers would not have used nor perhaps understood, but which helps best our modern understanding the Divine as knowledge in man, the Divine as power, the Divine as production, enjoyment and mutuality, the Divine as service, obedience and work. These divisions answer to four cosmic principles, the Wisdom that conceives the order and principle of things, the Power that sanctions, upholds and enforces it, the Harmony that creates the arrangement of its parts, the Work that carries out what the rest direct. Next, out of this idea there developed a firm but not yet rigid social order based primarily upon temperament and psychic type2 with a corresponding ethical discipline and secondarily upon the social and economic function.3 But the function was determined by its suitability to the type and its helpfulness to the discipline; it was not the primary or sole factor. The first, the symbolic stage of this evolution is predominantly religious and spiritual; the other elements, psychological, ethical, economic, physical are there but subordinated to the spiritual and religious idea. The second stage, which we may call the typal, is predominantly psychological and ethical; all else, even the spiritual and religious, is subordinate to the psychological idea and to the ethical ideal which expresses it. Religion becomes then a mystic sanction for the ethical motive and discipline, Dharma; that becomes its chief social utility, and for the rest it takes a more and more other-worldly turn. The idea of the direct expression of the divine Being or cosmic Principle in man ceases to dominate or to be the leader and in the forefront; it recedes, stands in the background and finally disappears from the practice and in the end even from the theory of life.
This typal stage creates the great social ideals which remain impressed upon the human mind even when the stage itself is passed. The principal active contri bution it leaves behind when it is dead is the idea of social honour; the honour of the Brahmin which resides in purity, in piety, in a high reverence for the things of the mind and spirit and a disinterested possession and exclusive pursuit of learning and knowledge; the honour of the Kshatriya which lives in courage, chivalry, strength, a certain proud self-restraint and self-mastery, nobility of character and the obligations of that nobility; the honour of the Vaishya which maintains itself by rectitude of dealing, mercantile fidelity, sound production, order, liberality and philanthropy; the honour of the Shudra which gives itself in obedience, subordination, faithful service, a disinterested attachment. But these more and more cease to have a living root in the clear psychological idea or to spring naturally out of the inner life of the man; they become a convention, though the most noble of conventions. In the end they remain more as a tradition in the thought and on the lips than a reality of the life.
1.01 - The Science of Living, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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
1.01 - Who is Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
benet all beings most effectively. The primary reason a bodhisattva works so
hard to purify and cultivate her mind is to benet all beings. After becoming
10.26 - A True Professor, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is the first and primary necessity. When the teacher approaches the pupil, he must know how to do it in and through that inner intimate consciousness. It means a fundamental attitude, a mode of being of the whole nature rather than a scientific procedure: all the manuals of education will not be able to procure you this treasure. It is an acquisition that develops or manifests spontaneously through an earnest desire, that is to say, aspiration for it. It is this that establishes a strange contact with the pupil, radiates or infuses the knowledge, even the learning that the teacher possesses, infallibly and naturally into the mind and brain of the pupil.
Books and programmes are of secondary importance, they are only a scaffolding, the building within is made of a different kind of bricks. A happy luminous consciousness within is the teacher's asset, with that he achieves all; without it he fails always.
1.02 - In the Beginning, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
If, restoring to the Hebrew characters their numerical value and hidden sense, we analyse the text, then we must thus read the first word of Genesis, The primary duality was in the beginning. For the sign B which corresponds to the second figure in our numerical system, represents a double original principle which the succeeding letter Resh characterises as the very head and supreme Cause of formation. And by a remarkable, though fortuitous coincidence, we find that the sacred book of Islam, like the sacred book of Judaism commences, in the initial of its first word, with the sign of duality. The first word B-Sem-Lillah (Bismillah) placed at the head of the Koran can, when its elements are decomposed, be interpreted, Two is the name of Allah.
And this name, Allah, itself contains the symbol of that union between the two complementary poles of being out of which the Universe is generated. Formed of twin syllables of which the first has for its initial letter Alif, the characteristic sign of the Masculine, and the second for its final letter He, the constant symbol of the Feminine, it seems to be merely the inversion in combination of one and the same essential article and can be mystically translated, as indeed it is translated by some of the Sufis,by the two pronouns He and She.
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It is true that these human complements, however dissimilar in their functions, are identical in their deeper essence. But the identity is of a purely spiritual character and represents the identity of the two principles which form the world, two in their work, one in their unknowable origin. It brings us back to the primary unity of the Indiscernable, beyond all differentiation, outside the manifested world.
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1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
response to potential satisfaction is often as basic or primary as our response to satisfaction itself.
Promises (cues of satisfaction) have been regarded, technically, as incentive rewards, because they induce
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even to those things as primary or fundamental as food and family. We remain indeterminately
constrained, however, by the fact of our biological limits.
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The brain may be usefully regarded as composed of three primary units motor, sensory, and affective
or as constituting a matched pair of hemispheres, right and left. Each manner of conceptual subdivision has
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Sensory Area: primary Zone
Sensory Area: Secondary Zone
Auditory Area: primary Zone
Auditory Area: Secondary Zone
Visual Area: primary Zone
Visual Area: Secondary Zone
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that compose the more fundamental or primary components of the brain). These desire-driven fantasies
might be regarded as motivated hypotheses about the relatively likelihood of events produced in the course
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and matter (or soul and body, or mind and body) because the body is, in a primary sense, the environment
to which the brain has adapted.
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two forms, motor and sensory the former associated with the primary zone of the motor unit; the latter
associated with the primary zone of the sensory area of the sensory unit. It is the motor form represented
schematically in Figure 10: The Motor Homunculus which is of most interest to us, because our
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world. Consideration of the structure and function of the brain must take this primary fact into account. A
dolphin or whale has a large, complex brain a highly developed nervous system but it cannot shape its
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10,000 times in the primary visual area, and is additionally represented, interhemispherically, at several
higher-order cortical sites,143 was of vital importance to development of visual language, and enabled close
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the unknown might be regarded as the primary hallmark of human consciousness indeed, of human being.
Our engagement in this process literally allows us to carve the world out of the undifferentiated mass of
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of which categorical knowledge is composed, before being that knowledge; it is the primary element of
the world, which is decomposed into cosmos, surrounding chaos, and the exploratory process which
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existence of language, in the culture. Her parents serve as primary intermediaries of culture: they embody
language in their behavior, and transmit it to her, during their day-to-day activities. Nonetheless, they
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occupied by Tiamat, and the (previously unidentified) primary/matriarchal subdeities that (apparently)
accompany her there. This new intrusion troubles her beyond tolerance, upset as she was already is at the
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central problem of morality and the primary problem facing human individuals and social organizations.
The Sumerian solution to this problem was the elevation of Marduk the sun-god who voluntarily faces
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order to interpersonal interactions (which, after all, is its primary function). Babylon was therefore
conceptualized as the kingdom of god on earth that is, as a profane imitation of heaven. The emperor
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Timaeus, described the primary source as the round, there at the beginning.278 In the Orient, the world and
its meanings springs from the encircled interplay and union of the light, spiritual, masculine yang, and the
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symbolic understanding). Understanding can be reached, at the most inclusive, yet primary level, through
ritual and mimesis. An unknown phenomenon, gripping but incomprehensible, can yet be represented
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is useful to regard the Great Mother as the primary agent of the serpent of chaos as the serpents
representative, so to speak, in the profane domain. The serpent of chaos can be seen lurking behind the
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approach mechanisms, evolved to suit the space surrounding the primary deity, embodiment of the
unknown. The ubiquitous drama of human sacrifice, (proto)typical of primordial religious practice, enacted
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awe-inspired imitation of the actions of that primary personage, modified by time and abstracted
representation, retains primary force (retains potent force, even in revolutionary cultures such as our own).
The action of the pre-experimental man consists of ritual duplication, and simultaneous observation of
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behavior, imposed by that culture, towards objects and situations. The push towards uniformity is a primary
characteristic of the patriarchal state (as everyone who acts in the same situation-specific manner has
1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
khya this incongruity does not occur; for there Pradhāna is independent, and coordinate with primary spirit. The Purāṇas give rise to the inconsistency by a lax use of both philosophical and pantheistical expressions. The most incongruous epithets in our text are however explained away in the comment. Thus nitya, 'eternal,' is said to mean 'uniform, not liable to increase or diminution:' Sadasadātmaka, 'comprehending what is and what is not,' means 'having the power of both cause and effect', as proceeding from Viṣṇu, and as giving origin to material things. Anādi, 'without beginning,' means 'without birth', not being engendered by any created thing, but proceeding immediately from the first cause. 'The mother,' or literally the womb of the world', means the passive agent in creation,' operated on or influenced by the active will of the Creator. The first part of the passage in the text is a favourite one with several of. the Purāṇas, but they modify it and apply it after their own fashion. In the Viṣṇu the original is ###, rendered as above. The Vāyu, Brahmānda, and p. 11 Kūrmma Purāṇas have 'The indiscrete cause, which is uniform, and both cause and effect, and whom those who are acquainted with first principles call Pradhāna and Prakriti-is the uncognizable Brahma, who was before all.' But the application of two synonymes of Prakriti to Brahma seems unnecessary at least. The Brahmā P. corrects the reading apparently: the first line is as before; the second is, ###. The passage is placed absolutely; 'There was an indiscrete cause eternal, and cause and effect, which was both matter and spirit (Pradhāna and Puruṣa), from which this world was made. Instead of 'such' or this,' some copies read 'from which Īśvara or god (the active deity or Brahmā) made the world.' The Hari Vaṃśa has the same reading, except in the last term, which it makes ### that is, according to the commentator, the world, which is Īśvara, was made.' The same authority explains this indiscrete cause, avyakta kārana, to denote Brahmā, the creator an identification very unusual, if not inaccurate, and possibly founded on misapprehension of what is stated by the Bhaviṣya P.: 'That male or spirit which is endowed with that which is the indiscrete cause, &c. is known in the world as Brahmā: he being in the egg, &c.' The passage is precisely the same in Manu, I, 11; except that we have 'visṛṣta' instead of 'viśiṣṭha:' the latter is a questionable reading, and is probably wrong: the sense of the latter is, detached; and the whole means very consistently, 'embodied spirit detached from the indiscrete cause of the world is known as Brahmā.' The Padma P. inserts the first line, ### &c., but has 'Which creates undoubtedly Mahat and the other qualities' assigning the first epithets, therefore, as the Viṣṇu does, to Prakriti only. The Li
ga also refers the expression to Prakriti alone, but makes it a secondary cause: 'An indiscrete cause, which those acquainted with first principles call Pradhāna and Prakriti, proceeded from that Īśvara (Śiva).' This passage is one of very many instances in which expressions are common to several Purāṇas that seem to be borrowed from one another, or from some common source older than any of them, especially in this instance, as the same text occurs in Manu.
1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, - and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, - this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, - this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, - this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya.
For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The extract which follows next is of great historical significance, since it was mainly through the Mystical Theology and the Divine Names of the fifth-century author who wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite that mediaeval Christendom established contact with Neoplatonism and thus, at several removes, with the metaphysical thought and discipline of India. In the ninth century Scotus Erigena translated the two books into Latin and from that time forth their influence upon the philosophical speculations and the religious life of the West was wide, deep and beneficent. It was to the authority of the Areopagite that the Christian exponents of the Perennial Philosophy appealed, whenever they were menaced (and they were always being menaced) by those whose primary interest was in ritual, legalism and ecclesiastical organization. And because Dionysius was mistakenly identified with St. Pauls first Athenian convert, his authority was regarded as all but apostolic; therefore, according to the rules of the Catholic game, the appeal to it could not lightly be dismissed, even by those to whom the books meant less than nothing. In spite of their maddening eccentricity, the men and women who followed the Dionysian path had to be tolerated. And once left free to produce the fruits of the spirit, a number of them arrived at such a conspicuous degree of sanctity that it became impossible even for the heads of the Spanish Inquisition to condemn the tree from which such fruits had sprung.
The simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of divine Truth are hidden in the super-luminous darkness of that silence which revealeth in secret. For this darkness, though of deepest obscurity, is yet radiantly clear; and, though beyond touch and sight, it more than fills our unseeing minds with splendours of transcendent beauty. We long exceedingly to dwell in this translucent darkness and, through not seeing and not knowing, to see Him who is beyond both vision and knowledgeby the very fact of neither seeing Him nor knowing Him. For this is truly to see and to know and, through the abandonment of all things, to praise Him who is beyond and above all things. For this is not unlike the art of those who carve a life-like image from stone; removing from around it all that impedes clear vision of the latent form, revealing its hidden beauty solely by taking away. For it is, as I believe, more fitting to praise Him by taking away than by ascription; for we ascribe attri butes to Him, when we start from universals and come down through the intermediate to the particulars. But here we take away all things from Him going up from particulars to universals, that we may know openly the unknowable, which is hidden in and under all things that may be known. And we behold that darkness beyond being, concealed under all natural light.
1.02 - The Pit, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Formal academic philosophy glorifies the intellect and thus makes research into what are, after all, incidentalsif we consider philosophy as the supreme means of investigating the problems of life and the universe. The Qabalah makes the primary claim that the intellect contains within itself a principle of self-contradiction, and that, therefore, it is an unreliable instrument to use in the great Quest for
Truth. Numerous academic philosophers have likewise arrived at a similar conclusion. Some of the greater of these have despaired of ever devising a suitable method of transcending this limitation, and became sceptics. Others, seeing simply the solution, have seized upon intuition, or to be more accurate, the intellectual concept of intuition, leaving us, however, with no methods of checking and verifying that intuition, which in consequence is so liable to degenerate into mere guesswork, coloured by personal inclination and abetted by gross wish-phantasm.
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(Magick). By Yoga is meant that rigorous system of mental and self discipline which has as its primary aim the absolute and complete control of the thinking principle, the
Ruach; the ultimate object being to obtain the faculty with which to still the stream of thought at will, so that
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The quiescence of the mental turbulence is the primary essential. With this faculty at command, the student is taught to exalt the mind by the various technical methods of Magick until it overrides the normal limitations and barriers of its nature, ascending in a tremendous unquenchable column of fire-like ecstasy to the Universal Consciousness, with which it becomes united. Once having become at one with transcendental Existence, it intuitively partakes of universal knowledge, which is considered to be a more reliable source of information than the rational introspection of the intellect or the experimental scientific investigation of matter can give. It is the tapping of the source of Life itself, the fons et origo of existence, rather than a blind groping in the dark after confused symbols which alone appear on the so-called practical or rational plane of thought.
Secular science or Positivism has busied itself with the investigation of matter and the visible universe as perceived through the five senses. It affirms that by a study of phenomena we are able to approach to the world as it really is, to the things-in-themselves. It is that system which affirms that apprehension is only a name for a certain series of biological and chemical changes occurring in certain of the contents of our material skulls, and that by an investigation of things as they appear to be we can come to an understanding of their causes, what they really are.
1.02 - THE WITHIN OF THINGS, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
gressive ' centration ' by its primary arrangements, it is plain that
its achievement will be conditioned up to the highest stages by a
1.02 - To Zen Monks Kin and Koku, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
been much improvement in living conditions for some time afterward. Hakuin's primary focus in the first decade of his incumbency was his own post-satori practice, although the records mention a small number of students, mostly villagers from Hara, who were coming to him for instruction at this time.
Hakuin's teaching career did not really begin, however, until an autumn night in 1726, a little over two years prior to this letter. While reading the Lotus Sutra, he suddenly achieved the decisive enlightenment that brought his religious quest to an end, and with it the knowledge, "beyond any doubt," that he was "ready to teach others with the perfect, untrammeled freedom of the
10.31 - The Mystery of The Five Senses, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed we say habitually, when speaking of spiritual realisation, that one sees the truth, one has to see the truth: to know the truth, to know the reality is taken to mean to see the truth, to see the reality, and what does this signify? It signifies what one sees is the light, the light that emanates from truth, the form that the Truth takes, the radiant substance that is the Truth. This then is the special character or gift of this organ, the organ of sight, the eye. One sees the physical light, of course, but one sees also the supraphysical light. It is, as the Upanishad says, the eye of the eye, the third eye in the language of the occultists. What we say about the eye may be equally said in respect of the other sense-organs. Take hearing, for example. By the ear we hear the noises of the world, its deafening cries and no doubt at times also some earthly music. But when the ear is turned inward, we listen to unearthly things Indeed we know how stone-deaf Beethoven heard some of those harmonies of supreme beauty that are now the cherished possessions of humanity. This inner ear is able to take you by a process of regression to the very source of all sound and utterance, from where springs the anhata vk, the undictated voice, the nda-brahman, the original sound-seed, the primary vibration. So the ear gives that hearing which reveals to you a special aspect of the Divine: the vibratory rhythm of the being, that matrix of all utterance, of all speech that mark the material expression of consciousness. Next we come to the third sense, that of smell, Well, the nose is not a despicable organ, in any way; it is as important as any other more aristocratic sense-organ, as the eye or the ear. It is the gate to the perfumed atmosphere of the reality. Even like a flower, as a lotus for example, the truth is colourful, beautiful, shapely, radiant to the eye; to the nostrils it is exhilarating perfume, it distils all around a divine scent that sanctifies, elevates the whole being. After the third sense we come to the fourth, the tongue. The mouth gives you the taste of the truth and you find that the Truth is sweetness, the delicious nectar of the gods: for the truth is also soma, the surpreme rasa, amta, immortality itself. Here is Aswapathy's experience of the thing in Savitri:
In the nostrils quivered celestial fragrances,
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Finally we come to the sense of touch. It is the last. But in another way, it is the first and the foremostpsychologically and chronologically It is the most primary and primitive among the senses, as the eye comes last as the final stage in the course of the sensory evolution. The eye is the manifestation of a developed consciousness; perfectly developed eyes as in man represent a perfectly developed consciousness. But touch is the organ with which an organism starts its life-course. It is the only organ a living cell is given when it begins its forward journey. Plants are endowed with that organ and faculty and that only. It is the most generalised, the least specific, and the most sensitive of the organs. Touch gives a closer, more intimate, even more direct perception of the object, it is contact, it means identification, it means becoming and being. And it is through the touch, the sublimated and most intense physical contact, that you have the direct contact with the substance of the Supreme, his very body. For what is Sat up there is Annam here, both are the same identical thing in a dual aspect.
Continuing farther, if we go beyond the five senses, we have still another sense, it is mind, the sixth sense; it is in and through the mind that the other five senses distil their perceptions allowing a coordinated picture of the sense-experiences. Now, to attain, to realise, to possess the Truth means, first of all, to know the Truth: for, knowing as we know, is the function of the mind. It is said, however, that the mind knows only the outward form of things, its knowledge is the knowledge of an outside world, elements of which are supplied by the senses. It is a Knowledge of or in Ignorance. The true knowledge is not attained by the mind or through the mind. For the true knowledge, it is declared, the mind is to be expunged altogether or silenced at least. One must get away, one must withdraw from that play of activity and be far from it. True knowledge comes through revelations. It descends from above, it does not enter by a level side-door and it comes only when the mind is not there. But this also, as in the other cases, as in respect of the other senses, is an extreme view. Like the other senses the mind too can be turned inward or upward, made a receptive organ or instrument. When turned round, when it is the Mind of the mind, then there begins to appear the true knowledge. Then even this physical mind remains no more ignorant or obscure, it becomes transparent and luminous: it is able to bring its own gift, it can serve with its own contri bution to the real knowledge; for it is the mind that gives a form and shape, a local habitation and a name to the higher truth, to the real light, to the true knowledge. It is the surpa (beautiful and perfect form) chanted by the Vedic Rishis that the purified mind models for the Gods to inhabitit is what the poets and prophets always aspire for in their creative consciousness.
10.32 - The Mystery of the Five Elements, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The material world, as the ancient sages viewed it, is composed of five elements. They are, as we know, (I) earth (kiti), (2) water (ap), (3) fire (tej), (4) air (marut), and (5) space or ether (vyom), mounting from the grossest to those that are more and more subtle. The subtlest, the topmost in the scale is space or ether. As we descend in the scale, each succeeding element becomes more and more concrete than the preceding one. Thus air is denser than space, fire is denser than air, water is denser than fire and earth is the densest of allsolidity belongs to earth alone. Water is liquid, fire gaseous, air is fluid, and ether is the most tenuous. Now this hierarchy can be considered also as a pyramid of qualities, qualities of matter and the material world tapering upward. The first one, the topmost, space, possesses the quality of sound or vibration; it is the field giving out waves that originate sound.1 The next element is air, its special quality as found in the ancient knowledge is the quality of touch: it gives the sensation of touch, you can touch it, it touches you and you recognise its existence in that way. Touch however is its own, its primary quality but it takes up also the quality of the previous, the subtler element, in order to become more and more evolved, more and more concrete, that is to say, in the material way. Air has thus a double quality, sound and touch It is tactile, and it is sonorous. The third one, fire, has the quality of possessing a form; it has visibility in addition to the two qualities of the two previous elements, which it takes up: thus fire is visible, it can be touchedyes, it may burn also and it gives out sound. The fourth element, water, adds a fourth quality which is its own, namely, taste. Water has taste, very delightful taste to mortals. A Greek poet2 says water has the best taste, hudor men ariston. So you can taste water, you can see its form, you can touch it, you can hear it gurgle. Coming to the last, earth has all these, qualities: in addition, what it has is, curious to say, smell. So you can hear earth's vibrations, you can touch it, see it, taste it for some earth has a very savoury taste but its own special quality is smell: it is odorous, it is sweet-scented. Kalidasa speaks with ecstasy of the strange scent that the earth emits when the fresh rains fall upon it.
So, the five senses open out to the five elements, each sense linked to its own element, each sense presenting a particular aspect of the material universe. Thus ether, the subtlest element, is present to the ear, the organ of hearing, air to the skin (twak) the organ of touch, the fire-element (radiant energy) to the eye, the liquid to the organ of taste, and earth is given over to smell. Earth is linked with smell, perhaps because it is the perfume of creation, the dense aroma of God's material energy. Also earth is the summation of all the elements and all the qualities of matter. It is the epitome of the material creation. The physical beauty of earth is well-known, the landscape and seascape, its rich variegated coloration, we all admire standing upon its bosom, but up in the air, in the wide open spaces earth appears with even a more magical beauty to which cosmonauts have given glowing tri bute. But even this visible beauty pales, I suppose, before the perfume it emits which is its celestial quality, that can only be described indeed as the sweet-scented body of the Divine Substance.
10.35 - The Moral and the Spiritual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indian artists and poets were steeped in that tradition, wholly inspired by that spirit. Orthodox morality often wonders, is even shocked at the frankness, the daring nonchalance in Indian art creations ,a familiar prudery would call it shamelessness and even vulgarity, but to the Indian view, 'the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant' are of equal value and merit. The movement conventional morality calls 'libidinous' has a nobler name in Indian tradition: it is dirasa, the first or primary delight of existence. As I have said, the modern consciousness finds it a horror and is therefore all the more fascinated by it and dives into it head foremost.
To cure the modern malady we have to go back again to something of the ancient mentality. We have to cultivate a consciousness, now forgotten and alienated but once natural to the human mind, the consciousness and status of a transcendence built with the sense of absolute calm, an equality, all serene and all englobing, that is God's consciousness.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
introduction reaches its culmination with initiation, the primary ritual signifying cultural transmission the
event which destroys the unconscious union between child and biological mother.
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The conservative worships his culture, appropriately, as the creation of that which deserves primary
allegiance, remembrance and respect. This creation is the concrete solution to the problem of adaptation:
1.03 - On Knowledge of the World., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
As man's primary necessities in the world are three, viz : clothing, food and shelter, so the arts of the world are three, viz: weaving, planting and building. The rest of the arts serve either for the purpose of perfecting the others, or for repairing injuries. Thus the spinner aids the work [69] of weaving, the tailor carries out that work to perfection, while the cloth-dresser adds beauty to the work. In the arts, there is need of iron, skins and wood, and for these many instruments are necessary. No person is able to work at all kinds of trades, but by the will of God, upon one is devolved one art and upon another two, and the whole community is made dependent, one member upon the other. When avarice, ambition and covetousness hold sway in the hearts of men, because some are not pleased to see others obtain honors, and because they do not endeavor to quell their wants, envy and hatred arise among them. Each one, dissatisfied with his own rights, plots against the property and honor of his fellows. On this account there was a necessity for three farther distinctions, viz: sovereignty, judicial authority, and jurisprudence, which contains the digest of the law. But alas ! poor and wretched man coming under the influence of all these causes, motives and instruments, spends his life in collecting wealth and lays up for himself sources of regret. And just as the pilgrim, who on his way to the Kaaba of Mecca, was engaged day and night in taking care of his camel, got separated from the caravan, and perished in the desert, so those who know not the real nature of the world and its worthlessness, and do not understand that it is the place where seed is sown for eternity, but spend all their thoughts upon it, are certainly fascinated and deceived; as the apostle of God declares. "The world is more enchanting than Harout and Marout: let men beware of it."1
After you have learned that the world is delusive, enchanting and treacherous, you need to know in what way its delusions and enchantment operate. I will, therefore, mention some things which are illustrative of the world. The world, beloved, is like an enchanter, who exhibits himself [70] to you as though he would dwell with you and would forever be at your side; while in truth this world is always upon the point of being snatched away from you, notwithstanding you are tranquilly unconscious of it. The world is like a shadow, which, while you look at it, seems fixed, although in reality, it is in motion. Life is like a running water, which is always advancing, yet yon think that it is still and permanent, and you wish to fix your abode by it. The world again is like an enchanter who performs for you acts of friendship and manifests love for yon, for the sake of winning your affections to him : but as soon as he has secured your love, he turns away his face from you and plots to destroy you....
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The word personality is derived from the Latin, and its upper partials are in the highest degree respectable. For some odd philological reason, the Saxon equivalent of personality is hardly ever used. Which is a pity. For if it were usedused as currently as belch is used for eructationwould people make such a reverential fuss about the thing connoted as certain English-speaking philosophers, moralists and theologians have recently done? Personality, we are constantly being assured, is the highest form of reality, with which we are acquainted. But surely people would think twice about making or accepting this affirmation if, instead of personality, the word employed had been its Teutonic synonym, selfness. For selfness, though it means precisely the same, carries none of the high-class overtones that go with personality. On the contrary, its primary meaning comes to us embedded, as it were, in discords, like the note of a cracked bell. For, as all exponents of the Perennial Philosophy have constantly insisted, mans obsessive consciousness of, and insistence on being, a separate self is the final and most formidable obstacle to the unitive knowledge of God. To be a self is, for them, the original sin, and to the to self, in feeling, will and intellect, is the final and all-inclusive virtue. It is the memory of these utterances that calls up the unfavourable overtones with which the word selfness is associated. The all too favourable overtones of personality are evoked in part by its intrinsically solemn Latinity, but also by reminiscences of what has been said about the persons of the Trinity. But the persons of the Trinity have nothing in common with the flesh-and-blood persons of our everyday acquaintancenothing, that is to say, except that indwelling Spirit, with which we ought and are intended to identify ourselves, but which most of us prefer to ignore in favour of our separate selfness. That this God-eclipsing and anti-spiritual selfness, should have been given the same name as is applied to the God who is a Spirit, is, to say the least of it, unfortunate. Like all such mistakes it is probably, in some obscure and subconscious way, voluntary and purposeful. We love our selfness; we want to be justified in our love; therefore we christen it with the same name as is applied by theologians to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
But now thou askest me how thou mayest destroy this naked knowing and feeling of thine own being. For per-adventure thou thinkest that if it were destroyed, all other hindrances were destroyed; and if thou thinkest thus, thou thinkest right truly. But to this I answer thee and I say, that without a full special grace full freely given by God, and also a full according ableness on thy part to receive this grace, this naked knowing and feeling of thy being may in nowise be destroyed. And this ableness is nought else but a strong and a deep ghostly sorrow. All men have matter of sorrow; but most specially he feeleth matter of sorrow that knoweth and feeleth that he is. All other sorrows in comparison to this be but as it were game to earnest. For he may make sorrow earnestly that knoweth and feeleth not only what he is, but that he is. And whoso felt never this sorrow, let him make sorrow; for he hath never yet felt perfect sorrow. This sorrow, when it is had, cleanseth the soul, not only of sin, but also of pain that it hath deserved for sin; and also it maketh a soul able to receive that joy, the which reaveth from a man all knowing and feeling of his being.
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
in the making, to leave out the individuality of the way and the primary
necessity of the realization of the soul, and to extract a mythos from their
1.03 - The Psychic Prana, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
This Sushumna is in ordinary persons closed up at the lower extremity; no action comes through it. The Yogi proposes a practice by which it can be opened, and the nerve currents made to travel through. When a sensation is carried to a centre, the centre reacts. This reaction, in the case of automatic centres, is followed by motion; in the case of conscious centres it is followed first by perception, and secondly by motion. All perception is the reaction to action from outside. How, then, do perceptions in dreams arise? There is then no action from outside. The sensory motions, therefore, are coiled up somewhere. For instance, I see a city; the perception of that city is from the reaction to the sensations brought from outside objects comprising that city. That is to say, a certain motion in the brain molecules has been set up by the motion in the incarrying nerves, which again are set in motion by external objects in the city. Now, even after a long time I can remember the city. This memory is exactly the same phenomenon, only it is in a milder form. But whence is the action that sets up even the milder form of similar vibrations in the brain? Not certainly from the primary sensations. Therefore it must be that the sensations are coiled up somewhere, and they, by their acting, bring out the mild reaction which we call dream perception.
Now the centre where all these residual sensations are, as it were, stored up, is called the Muladhara, the root receptacle, and the coiled-up energy of action is Kundalini, "the coiled up". It is very probable that the residual motor energy is also stored up in the same centre, as, after deep study or meditation on external objects, the part of the body where the Muladhara centre is situated (probably the sacral plexus) gets heated. Now, if this coiled-up energy be roused and made active, and then consciously made to travel up the Sushumna canal, as it acts upon centre after centre, a tremendous reaction will set in. When a minute portion of energy travels along a nerve fibre and causes reaction from centres, the perception is either dream or imagination. But when by the power of long internal meditation the vast mass of energy stored up travels along the Sushumna, and strikes the centres, the reaction is tremendous, immensely superior to the reaction of dream or imagination, immensely more intense than the reaction of sense-perception. It is super-sensuous perception. And when it reaches the metropolis of all sensations, the brain, the whole brain, as it were, reacts, and the result is the full blaze of illumination, the perception of the Self. As this Kundalini force travels from centre to centre, layer after layer of the mind, as it were, opens up, and this universe is perceived by the Yogi in its fine, or causal form. Then alone the causes of this universe, both as sensation and reaction, are known as they are, and hence comes all knowledge. The causes being known, the knowledge of the effects is sure to follow.
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
" It is of primary importance that the details of the Plan be Memorized. This is possibly the chief reason why in the early times the Qabalah was transmitted from mouth to ear and not in writing, for it only bears Fruit, insofar as it is first rooted in our minds. We may read of it, study it to some extent, juggle with it on paper, and so on, but Not
Until the mind itself takes on the Image of the Tree and we are able to go mentally from Branch to Branch, Cor- respondence to Correspondence, visualizing the process and thus making it a Living Tree, do we find that the Light of
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I he passage then goes on to explain that the source or primary Cause of all things is Keser, the first Sephirah ; the current issuing therefrom, the primeval mercurial intel- ligence, is Chokmah, the second ; and the sea itself is the
Great Mother, Binah, the third ; the seven canals referred to being the seven lower Sephiros, or Inferiors as they are called. The Qabalists postulated ten Sephiros because to
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Triad beyond the Abyss. The three primary or elementary colours are attri buted to the Sephiros of this second trinity ; blue to Chesed, red to Geburah, and Yellow to
Tipharas.
1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
"When you consider it, present-day Zen teachers act in much the same way in guiding their students. I've seen and heard how they take young people of exceptional talent-those destined to become the very pillars and ridgepoles of our school-and with their extremely ill-advised and inopportune methods, end up turning them into something half-baked and unachieved. This is the primary reason for the decline of our Zen school, why the Zen groves are withering away.
"Now and again, you come across superior seekers of genuine ability who are devoting themselves to hidden application and secret practice. As they continue steadily forward, accumulating merit until their efforts achieve a purity that infuses them with strength, their emotions gradually cease to arise altogether. They find themselves at an impasse, unable to move forward despite the most strenuous application. It is as though they are trapped inside an invincible enclosure of diamond-like strength, or are sitting in a bottle of purest crystal-unable to move forward, unable to retreat, they become dunces, utter blockheads.
1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Now you see that the mind cannot be fixed, all of a sudden, on the formless aspect of God. It is wise to think of God with form during the primary stages."
M: "Do you mean to suggest that one should meditate on clay images?"
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Every individual being, from the atom up to the most highly organized of living bodies and the most exalted of finite minds may be thought of, in Ren Gunons phrase, as a point where a ray of the primordial Godhead meets one of the differentiated, creaturely emanations of that same Godheads creative energy. The creature, as creature, may be very far from God, in the sense that it lacks the intelligence to discover the nature of the divine Ground of its being. But the creature in its eternal essenceas the meeting place of creatureliness and primordial Godheadis one of the infinite number of points where divine Reality is wholly and eternally present. Because of this, rational beings can come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, non-rational and inanimate beings may reveal to rational beings the fulness of Gods presence within their material forms. The poets or the painters vision of the divine in nature, the worshippers awareness of a holy presence in the sacrament, symbol or imagethese are not entirely subjective. True, such perceptions cannot be had by all perceivers, for knowledge is a function of being; but the thing known is independent of the mode and nature of the knower. What the poet and painter see, and try to record for us, is actually there, waiting to be apprehended by anyone who has the right kind of faculties. Similarly, in the image or the sacramental object the divine Ground is wholly present. Faith and devotion prepare the worshippers mind for perceiving the ray of Godhead at its point of intersection with the particular fragment of matter before him. Incidentally, by being worshipped, such symbols become the centres of a field of force. The longings, emotions and imaginations of those who kneel and, for generations, have knelt before the shrine create, as it were, an enduring vortex in the psychic medium, so that the image lives with a secondary, inferior divine life projected on to it by its worshippers, as well as with the primary divine life which, in common with all other animate and inanimate beings, it possesses in virtue of its relation to the divine Ground. The religious experience of sacramentalists and image worshippers may be perfectly genuine and objective; but it is not always or necessarily an experience of God or the Godhead. It may be, and perhaps in most cases it actually is, an experience of the field of force generated by the minds of past and present worshippers and projected on to the sacramental object where it sticks, so to speak, in a condition of what may be called second-hand objectivity, waiting to be perceived by minds suitably attuned to it. How desirable this kind of experience really is will have to be discussed in another section. All that need be said here is that the iconoclasts contempt for sacraments and symbols, as being nothing but mummery with stocks and stones is quite unjustified.
The workmen still in doubt what course to take,
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Looking backwards across the carnage and the devastation, we can see that Vigny was perfectly right. None of those gay travellers, of whom Victor Hugo was the most vociferously eloquent, had the faintest notion where that first, funny little Puffing Billy was taking them. Or rather they had a very clear notion, but it happened to be entirely false. For they were convinced that Puffing Billy was hauling them at full speed towards universal peace and the brotherhood of man; while the newspapers which they were so proud of being able to read, as the train rumbled along towards its Utopian destination not more than fifty years or so away, were the guarantee that liberty and reason would soon be everywhere triumphant. Puffing Billy has now turned into a four-motored bomber loaded with white phosphorus and high explosives, and the free press is everywhere the servant of its advertisers, of a pressure group, or of the government. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, the travellers (now far from gay) still hold fast to the religion of Inevitable Progresswhich is, in the last analysis, the hope and faith (in the teeth of all human experience) that one can get something for nothing. How much saner and more realistic is the Greek view that every victory has to be paid for, and that, for some victories, the price exacted is so high Uiat it outweighs any advantage that may be obtained! Modern man no longer regards Nature as being in any sense divine and feels perfectly free to behave towards her as an overweening conqueror and tyrant. The spoils of recent technological imperialism have been enormous; but meanwhile nemesis has seen to it that we get our kicks as well as halfpence. For example, has the ability to travel in twelve hours from New York to Los Angeles given more pleasure to the human race than the dropping of bombs and fire has given pain? There is no known method of computing the amount of felicity or goodness in the world at large. What is obvious, however, is that the advantages accruing from recent technological advancesor, in Greek phraseology, from recent acts of hubris directed against Natureare generally accompanied by corresponding disadvantages, that gains in one direction entail losses in other directions, and that we never get something except for something. Whether the net result of these elaborate credit and debit operations is a genuine Progress in virtue, happiness, charity and intelligence is something we can never definitely determine. It is because the reality of Progress can never be determined that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have had to treat it as an article of religious faith. To the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy, the question whether Progress is inevitable or even real is not a matter of primary importance. For them, the important thing is that individual men and women should come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, and what interests them in regard to the social environment is not its progressiveness or non-progressiveness (whatever those terms may mean), but the degree to which it helps or hinders individuals in their advance towards mans final end.
next chapter: 1.05 - CHARITY
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
abundance of hope, and bountiful provision of primary reward the peaceful land of milk and honey, in
mythical language. This is merely to say that knowledge serves the ends of life, rather than existing in and
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I should distinguish primary and secondary concern, even though there is no real boundary line
between them. Secondary concerns arise from the social contract, and include patriotic and other
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in the sense of what is proper to ones own life); liberty of movement. The general object of primary
concern is expressed in the Biblical phrase life more abundantly. In origin, primary concerns are not
individual or social in reference so much as generic, anterior to the conflicting claims of the singular and
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to express primary concerns can develop only in societies where the sense of individuality has also
developed. The axioms of primary concerns are the simplest and baldest platitudes it is possible to
formulate: that life is better than death, happiness better than misery; health better than sickness,
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clearly their links with primary concern stand out.... This rooting of poetic myth in primary concern
accounts for the fact that mythical themes, as distinct from individual myths or stories, are limited in
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The present essays are merely intended to raise the subject, not to exhaust it, to offer suggestions, not to establish them. The theory of Vedic religion which I shall suggest in these pages, can only be substantiated if it is supported by a clear, full, simple, natural and harmonious rendering of the Veda standing on a sound philological basis, perfectly consistent in itself and proved in hymn after hymn without any hiatus or fatal objection. Such a substantiation I shall one day place before the public. The problem of Vedic interpretation depends, in my view, on three different tests, philological, historic and psychological. If the results of these three coincide, then only can we be sure that we have understood the Veda. But to erect this Delphic tripod of interpretation is no facile undertaking. It is easy to misuse philology. I hold no philology to be sound & valid which has only discovered one or two byelaws of sound modification and for the rest depends upon imagination & licentious conjecture,identifies for instance ethos with swadha, derives uloka from urvaloka or prachetasa from prachi and on the other [hand] ignores the numerous but definitely ascertainable caprices of Pracritic detrition between the European & Sanscrit tongues or considers a number of word-identities sufficient to justify inclusion in a single group of languages. By a scientific philology I mean a science which can trace the origins, growth & structure of the Sanscrit language, discover its primary, secondary & tertiary forms & the laws by which they develop from each other, trace intelligently the descent of every meaning of a word in Sanscrit from its original root sense, account for all similarities & identities of sense, discover the reason of unexpected divergences, trace the deviations which separated Greek & Latin from the Indian dialect, discover & define the connection of all three with the Dravidian forms of speech. Such a system of comparative philology could alone deserve to stand as a science side by side with the physical sciences and claim to speak with authority on the significance of doubtful words in the Vedic vocabulary. The development of such a science must always be a work of time & gigantic labour.
But even such a science, when completed, could not, owing to the paucity of our records be, by itself, a perfect guide. It would be necessary to discover, fix & take always into account the actual ideas, experiences and thought-atmosphere of the Vedic Rishis; for it is these things that give colour to the words of men and determine their use. The European translations represent the Vedic Rishis as cheerful semi-savages full of material ideas & longings, ceremonialists, naturalistic Pagans, poets endowed with an often gorgeous but always incoherent imagination, a rambling style and an inability either to think in connected fashion or to link their verses by that natural logic which all except children and the most rudimentary intellects observe. In the light of this conception they interpret Vedic words & evolve a meaning out of the verses. Sayana and the Indian scholars perceive in the Vedic Rishis ceremonialists & Puranists like themselves with an occasional scholastic & Vedantic bent; they interpret Vedic words and Vedic mantras accordingly. Wherever they can get words to mean priest, prayer, sacrifice, speech, rice, butter, milk, etc, they do so redundantly and decisively. It would be at least interesting to test the results of another hypothesis,that the Vedic thinkers were clear-thinking men with at least as clear an expression as ordinary poets have and at least as high ideas and as connected and logical a way of expressing themselvesallowing for the succinctness of poetical formsas is found in other religious poetry, say the Psalms or the Book of Job or St Pauls Epistles. But there is a better psychological test than any mere hypothesis. If it be found, as I hold it will be found, that a scientific & rational philological dealing with the text reveals to us poems not of mere ritual or Nature worship, but hymns full of psychological & philosophical religion expressed in relation to fixed practices & symbolic ceremonies, if we find that the common & persistent words of Veda, words such as vaja, vani, tuvi, ritam, radhas, rati, raya, rayi, uti, vahni etc,an almost endless list,are used so persistently because they expressed shades of meaning & fine psychological distinctions of great practical importance to the Vedic religion, that the Vedic gods were intelligently worshipped & the hymns intelligently constructed to express not incoherent poetical ideas but well-connected spiritual experiences,then the interpreter of Veda may test his rendering by repeating the Vedic experiences through Yoga & by testing & confirming them as a scientist tests and confirms the results of his predecessors. He may discover whether there are the same shades & distinctions, the same connections in his own psychological & spiritual experiences. If there are, he will have the psychological confirmation of his philological results.
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
And while on this subject of phallicism, one is obliged to refer to C. J. Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious, accord- ing to which there is a gross misunderstanding of the term sexuality. By the latter, Freud understands " love " and includes therein all those tender feelings and emotions which have had their origin in a primitive erotic source, even if now their primary aim is entirely lost and another substituted for it. And it must also be borne in mind that the psycho-analysts themselves strictly emphasize the psychic side of sexuality and its importance besides its somatic expression.
The Sepher Yetsirah states :
1.04 - The Qabalah The Best Training for Memory, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Every idea soever can be, and should be, attributed to one or more of these primary symbols; thus green, in different shades, is a quality or function of Venus, the Earth, the Sea, Libra, and others. So also abstract ideas; dishonesty means "an afflicted Mercury," generosity a good, though not always strong, Jupiter; and so on.
The Tree of Life has got to be learnt by heart; you must know it backwards, forwards, sideways, and upside down; it must become the automatic background of all your thinking. You must keep on hanging everything that comes your way upon its proper bough.
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But, most often, the sacrifice is done unconsciously, egoistically and without knowledge or acceptance of the true meaning of the great world-rite. It is so that the vast majority of earth-creatures do it; and, when it is so done, the individual derives only a mechanical minimum of natural inevitable profit, achieves by it only a slow painful progress limited and tortured by the smallness and suffering of the ego. Only when the heart, the will and the mind of knowledge associate themselves with the law and gladly follow it, can there come the deep joy and the happy fruitfulness of divine sacrifice. The minds knowledge of the law and the hearts gladness in it culminate in the perception that it is to our own Self and Spirit and the one Self and Spirit of all that we give. And this is true even when our self-offering is still to our fellow-creatures or to lesser Powers and Principles and not yet to the Supreme. Not for the sake of the wife, says Yajnavalkya in the Upanishad, but for the sake of the Self is the wife dear to us. This in the lower sense of the individual self is the hard fact behind the coloured and passionate professions of egoistic love; but in a higher sense it is the inner significance of that love too which is not egoistic but divine. All true love and all sacrifice are in their essence Natures contradiction of the primary egoism and its separative error; it is her attempt to turn from a necessary first fragmentation towards a recovered oneness. All unity between creatures is in its essence a self-finding, a fusion with that from which we have separated, a discovery of ones self in others.
But it is only a divine love and unity that can possess in the light what the human forms of these things seek for in the darkness. For the true unity is not merely an association and agglomeration like that of physical cells joined by a life of common interests; it is not even an emotional understanding, sympathy, solidarity or close drawing together. Only then are we really unified with those separated from us by the divisions of Nature, when we annul the division and find ourselves in that which seemed to us not ourselves. Association is a vital and physical unity; its sacrifice is that of mutual aid and concessions. Nearness, sympathy, solidarity create a mental, moral and emotional unity; theirs is a sacrifice of mutual support and mutual gratifications. But the true unity is spiritual; its sacrifice is a mutual self-giving, an interfusion of our inner substance. The law of sacrifice travels in Nature towards its culmination in this complete and unreserved self-giving; it awakens the consciousness of one common self in the giver and the object of the sacrifice. This culmination of sacrifice is the height even of human love and devotion when it tries to become divine; for there too the highest peak of love points into a heaven of complete mutual self-giving, its summit is the rapturous fusing of two souls into one.
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
complex mass of mental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations. 30 By the age of eighteen we are set, one might say, with our major vibrations established. Then the deposits of the same perpetual thing with a thousand different faces we call culture or "our" self will ceaselessly settle around this primary structure in ever thicker layers, increasingly refined and polished. We are in fact shut in a construction, which may be like lead, without even a small opening, or as graceful as a minaret;
but whether in a granite skin or a glass statue, we are nonetheless confined, forever buzzing and repetitive. The first task of yoga is to brea the freely, to shatter that mental screen, which allows only one type of vibration to get through, in order to discover the multicolored infinity of vibrations; that is, the world and people as they really are,
1.04 - Wherefore of World?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Still, the mind is justified in translating its first data into its own language in preference to another. And, even, this preference is forced upon it. For what has more than anything else hampered its attempt to discover the cause of the world, is the search for it in a domain alien to the minds own activities. The problem of the initial movement will always remain insoluble to it, if the data are not first translated into psychological terms. It is in its own fundamental dynamism that it must discover the primary energy, in its own secret that it must seek for the secret of the universe.
But there is another thing which prevents it from resolving the riddle of the world, and that is the arbitrary reduction of the whole formula of being into the terms of mental knowledge. For the domain of mind, intelligence, thought, is only one domain of the universal; its reality represents only one of the forms, one of the aspects of existence. The fact of existence is not exhausted by the idea; therefore its principle cannot be defined from the sole point of view of Mind.
1.04 - Yoga and Human Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The animal is distinguished from man by its enslavement to the body and the vital impulses. Aany mtyu, Hunger who is Death, evolved the material world from of old, and it is the physical hunger and desire and the vital sensations and primary emotions connected with the pra that seek to feed upon the world in the beast and in the savage man who approximates to the condition of the beast. Out of this animal state, according to European Science, man rises working out the tiger and the ape by intellectual and moral development in the social condition. If the beast has to be worked out, it is obvious that the body and the pra must be conquered, and as that conquest is more or less complete, the man is more or less evolved. The progress of mankind has been placed by many predominatingly in the development of the human intellect, and intellectual development is no doubt essential to self-conquest. The animal and the savage are bound by the body because the ideas of the animal or the ideas of the savage are mostly limited to those sensations and associations which are connected with the body. The development of intellect enables a man to find the deeper self within and partially replace what our philosophy calls the dehtmaka-buddhi, the sum of ideas and sensations which make us think of the body as ourself, by another set of ideas which reach beyond the body, and, existing for their own delight and substituting intellectual and moral satisfaction as the chief objects of life, master, if they cannot entirely silence, the clamour of the lower sensual desires. That animal ignorance which is engrossed with the cares and the pleasures of the body and the vital impulses, emotions and sensations is tamasic, the result of the predominance of the third principle of nature which leads to ignorance and inertia. That is the state of the animal and the lower forms of humanity which are called in the Purana the first or tamasic creation. This animal ignorance the development of the intellect tends to dispel and it assumes therefore an all-important place in human evolution.
But it is not only through the intellect that man rises. If the clarified intellect is not supported by purified emotions, the intellect tends to be dominated once more by the body and to put itself at its service and the lordship of the body over the whole man becomes more dangerous than in the natural state because the innocence of the natural state is lost. The power of knowledge is placed at the disposal of the senses, sattva serves tamas, the god in us becomes the slave of the brute. The disservice which scientific Materialism is unintentionally doing the world is to encourage a return to this condition; the suddenly awakened masses of men, unaccustomed to deal intellectually with ideas, able to grasp the broad attractive innovations of free thought but unable to appreciate its delicate reservations, verge towards that reeling back into the beast, that relapse into barbarism which was the condition of the Roman Empire at a high stage of material civilisation and intellectual culture and which a distinguished British statesman declared the other day to be the condition to which all Europe approached. The development of the emotions is therefore the first condition of a sound human evolution. Unless the feelings tend away from the body and the love of others takes increasingly the place of the brute love of self, there can be no progress upward. The organisation of human society tends to develop the altruistic element in man which makes for life and battles with and conquers aany mtyu. It is therefore not the struggle for life, or at least not the struggle for our own life, but the struggle for the life of others which is the most important term in evolution,for our children, for our family, for our class, for our community, for our race and nation, for humanity. An ever-enlarging self takes the place of the old narrow self which is confined to our individual mind and body, and it is this moral growth which society helps and organises.
1.052 - Yoga Practice - A Series of Positive Steps, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This externalised self is a peculiar self, known in Vedanta and Yogaas gaunatman an atman which is gauna, which is not primary, but secondary. The son is a gaunatman for the father; the daughter is a gaunatman, etc. Anything that is outside us which we like, love and get attached to, which we cannot live without, with which we identify ourselves, whose welfare or woe becomes the welfare and woe of ones own self that is the gaunatman or the externalised self. It has to be subjugated, which is a part of our austerity. How do we subjugate this self? We do so by understanding the structure the pattern of the creation of this self, because the definition of Selfhood does not really apply to this peculiar condition called the externalised form of selfhood.
The Self, or the atman as we call it, is a principle of identity, indivisibility and non-externality or objectivity. It is that state of consciousness or awareness which is incapable of becoming other than what it is, and incapable of being lost under any circumstance. It cannot be loved and it cannot be hated, because it is what we are. This is what is called the Self. There is no such thing as loving the Self or hating the Self. No one loves ones Self or hates ones Self, because love and hatred are psychological functions, and every psychological function is a movement of the mind in space and time. Such a thing is impossible in respect of the Self, which is Self-identity. Thus the definition of the Self as Self-identity will not apply to this false self which is the circumstantial self, the family self, the nation self, the world self, etc., as we are accustomed to.
1.05 - Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
During the primary stages of evolution, the consciousness of the atom,
for example, is absorbed in its whirling, as the consciousness of a potter is absorbed in the pot he is making, oblivious to everything else,
1.05 - Hsueh Feng's Grain of Rice, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
the provisional and the real. Letting go of the primary, he sets
up the gate of the secondary meaning; if he were to cut off all
1.05 - Ritam, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If we suppose evil in this rik to connote or include moral evil we find Dakshina to have a share, the active energy of the viveka to take its part in the function of protection from sin which is one of the principal attributes of Varuna. It is part of the ideas of Vedanta that sin is in reality a form of ignorance and is purified out of the system by the illumination of divine knowledge. We begin to find by this sin-effacing attri bute of Varuna, prachet, uruchakshas, ptadaksha, ritasya jyotishas pati, by this sin-repelling attri bute of Dakshina, the energy of ideal discrimination, the same profound idea already anticipated in the Rigveda. The Veda abounds with confirmatory passages, of which I will quote at present one only from the hymn of Kanwa to Agni, the thirty-sixth of thisMandala. High-uplifted protect us from evil by the perception, burn utterly every devourer, phi anhaso ni ketun a. All evil is a deviation from the right & truth, from the ritam, a deviation from the self-existent truth & right of the divine or immortal nature; the lords of knowledge dwelling in the human consciousness as the prachetasah, informing its acts of consciousness which include in the ancient psychology action & feeling no less than thought & attuning them to follow spontaneously the just rhythm of the divine right & truth, deliver effectually this human & mortal nature from evil & sin. The place of Daksha & Dakshina in that action is evident; it is primary & indispensable; for the mortal nature being full of wrong perceptions, warped impulses, evil & mixed & confused states of feeling, it is the business of the viveka to sort out the confusion & accustom the mind & heart of man to a juster, truer & purer working. The action of the other faculties of the Truth may be said to come after that of Daksha, of the viveka. In these hymns of Sunahshepa the clear physiognomy of Varuna begins to dawn upon us. He is evidently the master of right knowledge, wide, self-luminous & all-containing in the world-consciousness & in human consciousness. His physical connection with the all-containing ether,for Varuna is Uranus, the Greek Akasha, & wideness is constantly associated with him in the Veda,leads us to surmise that he may also be the master in the ideal faculty, ritam brihat, where he dwells, urukshaya, of pure infinite conscious-being out of which knowledge manifests & with which it is, ultimately, one entity
The hymns of Kanwa follow the hymns of Sunahshepa and Hiranyastupa in the order of the first Mandala. In the hymns of Kanwa we find three or four times the mention, more or less extended in sense, of the Ritam. In his first reference to it he connects it not with Varuna, Mitra or Daksha, but with Agni. That Agni whom Kanwa Medhyatithi has kindled from the truth above (or it may equally mean upon the truth as a basis or in the field of the truth) and again Thee, O Agni, the Manu has set as a light for the eternal birth; thou hast shone forth in Kanwa born from the Truth. This passage is of great importance in fixing the character & psychological functions of Agni; for our present purpose it will be sufficient to notice the expression jyotir janya shashwate which may well have an intimate connection with the ritam jyotih of an earlier hymn, & the description in connection with this puissant phrase of Agni as born from the Truth, and again [of the Truth] as a sort of field in which or from which Kanwa has drawn the light of Agni.
1.05 - The Creative Principle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
But it is not this ultimate sense which is generally given to the word, creation. Those who employ it, stop usually half way in their search after the primary fact. They furnish the creator with a propitious chaos all ready to be put in the form he chooses and from the concourse of these two they conceive the rise of the worlds of existence.
To create, then, means in their view to make something out of something else. And if the word keeps its value, it is because that other thing, in fact, could not give birth to aught without the power which sets it at work. It is in this sense that the word is applied to the production of the artist whose mastery has alone to be reckoned, since the only importance his material has for him is the obstacle it represents. Chaos can only discharge this negative role. But it is sufficient that it should be and that the creator should utilise it for the original act to appear as an act of formation or rather of transformation antilogous to those which voluntarily or involuntarily every being is at each moment accomplishing.
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But if we must attribute this form of relative affirmation to some power of primary activity and of creation, we may at least discover a preliminary and fundamental antecedent in the affirmation, also creative, of the Absolute itself in which all is included.
If this Absolute escapes our thought, it is because all our contradictories become indistinguishable in its identity. It is indivisible and indiscernable unity. And nevertheless it discerns in this very unity the infinite multiplicity. It is the non-manifest which manifests itself to itself. And in its eternal objectivisation at once conscient and substantial is contained the foundation of the principle of distinction, determination, differentiation, without which things and the idea of things could not be.
1.05 - The Destiny of the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
17:The liberation of the individual soul is therefore the keynote of the definitive divine action; it is the primary divine necessity and the pivot on which all else turns. It is the point of Light at which the intended complete self-manifestation in the Many begins to emerge. But the liberated soul extends its perception of unity horizontally as well as vertically. Its unity with the transcendent One is incomplete without its unity with the cosmic Many. And that lateral unity translates itself by a multiplication, a reproduction of its own liberated state at other points in the Multiplicity. The divine soul reproduces itself in similar liberated souls as the animal reproduces itself in similar bodies. Therefore, whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is a tendency to an extension and even to an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity and, - who knows? - perhaps even beyond the terrestrial consciousness. Where shall we fix the limit of that extension? Is it altogether a legend which says of the Buddha that as he stood on the threshold of Nirvana, of the Non-Being, his soul turned back and took the vow never to make the irrevocable crossing so long as there was a single being upon earth undelivered from the knot of the suffering, from the bondage of the ego?
18:But we can attain to the highest without blotting ourselves out from the cosmic extension. Brahman preserves always Its two terms of liberty within and of formation without, of expression and of freedom from the expression. We also, being That, can attain to the same divine self-possession. The harmony of the two tendencies is the condition of all life that aims at being really divine. Liberty pursued by exclusion of the thing exceeded leads along the path of negation to the refusal of that which God has accepted. Activity pursued by absorption in the act and the energy leads to an inferior affirmation and the denial of the Highest. But what God combines and synthetises, wherefore should man insist on divorcing? To be perfect as He is perfect is the condition of His integral attainment.
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
separation from the good mother, and sacrifice of the primary dependent relationship. Culture moulds the
maturing personality, offering knowledge but limitation at the same time, as the social world mangles
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from ones primary community and attaches him to another. When John the Baptist says Bring forth
fruits worthy of metanoia (Matthew 3:8) he is addressing Jews, and goes on to say that their primary
social identity (descent from Abraham) is of no spiritual importance....
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therefore necessarily structured according to the myth of the way, the primary archetypal manifestation of
imaginative fantasy. The alchemist worked alone, concentrating on his procedure for months and years at a
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This is one of the most potent attractions of such rejection, and constitutes primary motivation for the lie.
The lie, above all else, threatens the individual and the interpersonal. The lie is predicated upon the
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Ervin, F. & Smith, M. (1986). Neurophysiological bases of the primary emotions. In R. Plutchik & H.
Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research, and experience: Vol. 3. Biological foundations of emotion
1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
I have thus explained to you, excellent Muni, six[8] creations. The first creation was that of Mahat or Intellect, which is also called the creation of Brahmā[9]. The second was that of the rudimental principles (Tanmātras), thence termed the elemental creation (Bhūta serga). The third was the modified form of egotism, termed the organic creation, or creation of the senses (Aindrīyaka). These three were the Prākrita creations, the developements of indiscrete nature, preceded by the indiscrete principle[10]. The fourth or fundamental creation (of perceptible things) was that of inanimate bodies. The fifth, the Tairyag yonya creation, was that of animals. The sixth was the Ūrddhasrotas creation, or that of the divinities. The creation of the Arvāksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man. There is an eighth creation, termed Anugraha, which possesses both the qualities of goodness and darkness[11]. Of these creations, five are secondary, and three are primary[12]. But there is a ninth, the Kaumāra creation, which is both primary and secondary[13]. These are the nine creations of the great progenitor of all, and, both as primary and secondary, are the radical causes of the world, proceeding from the sovereign creator. What else dost thou desire to hear?
MAITREYA. Thou hast briefly related to me, Muni, the creation of the gods and other beings: I am desirous, chief of sages, to hear from thee a more ample account of their creation.
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kṣipya is not 'repandant,' but 'restraining;' and Tiṣṭhatah being in the dual number, relates of course to only two of the series. The correct rendering is, 'These seven (Prajāpatis) created progeny, and so did Rudra; but Skanda and Sanatkumāra, restraining their power, abstained (from creation).' So the commentator: ###. These sages, however, live as long as Brahmā, and they are only created by him in the first Kalpa, although their generation is very commonly, but inconsistently, introduced in the Vārāha or Pādma Kalpas. This creation, says the text, is both primary (Prākrita) and secondary (Vaikrita). It is the latter, according to the commentator, as regards the origin of these saints from Brahmā: it is the former as affects Rudra, who, though proceeding from Brahmā, in a certain form was in essence equally an immediate production of the first principle. These notions, the birth of Rudra and the saints, seem to have been borrowed from the Saivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaiṣṇava system. Sanatkumāra and his brethren are always described in the Saiva Purāṇas as Yogis: as the Kūrma, after enumerating them, adds, 'These five, oh Brahmans, were Yogis, p. 39 who acquired entire exemption from passion:' and the Hari Vaṃśa, although rather Vaiṣṇava than Saiva, observes, that the Yogis celebrate these six, along with Kapila, in Yoga works. The idea seems to have been amplified also in the Saiva works; for the Li
ga P. describes the repeated birth of Śiva, or Vāmadeva, as a Kumāra, or boy, from Brahmā, in each Kalpa, who again becomes four. Thus in the twenty-ninth Kalpa Swetalohita is the Kumāra, and he becomes Sananda, Nandana, Viswananda, Upanandana; all of a white complexion: in the thirtieth the Kumāra becomes Virajas, Vivāhu, Visoka, Vīswabhāvana; all of a red colour: in the thirty-first he becomes four youths of a yellow colour: and in the thirty-second the four Kumāras were black. All these are, no doubt, comparatively recent additions to the original notion of the birth of Rudra and the Kumāras; itself obviously a sectarial innovation upon the primitive doctrine of the birth of the Prajāpatis, or will-born sons of Brahmā.
1.06 - Agni and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(the Greek kratos) effective of action. Psychologically this power effective of action is the will. The word may also mean mind or intellect and Sayana admits thought or knowledge as a possible sense for kratu. Sravas means literally hearing and from this primary significance is derived its secondary sense, "fame". But, psychologically, the idea of hearing leads up in Sanskrit to another sense which we find in sravan.a, sruti, sruta, - revealed knowledge, the knowledge which comes by inspiration. Dr.s.t.i and sruti, sight and hearing, revelation and inspiration are the two chief powers of that supra-mental faculty which belongs to the old Vedic idea of the Truth, the Ritam. The word sravas is not recognised by the lexicographers in this sense, but it is accepted in the sense of a hymn, - the inspired word of the
Veda. This indicates clearly that at one time it conveyed the idea of inspiration or of something inspired, whether word or knowledge. This significance, then, we are entitled to give it, provisionally at least, in the present passage; for the other sense of fame is entirely incoherent and meaningless in the context.
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
4. Science can only work with the primary qualities of
things: extension, motion, and mass. Secondary qualities, like
colour, scent or taste, are effects of the primary qualities.
This principle illustrates clearly how the scientific meth
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
What follows is an account of the intellectual mortifications which must be practised by those whose primary concern is with the knowledge of the Godhead in the interior heights of the soul.
Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances. For by such means only, he operates inwardly, with his naked, pure, simple intellect and affections, about the most pure and simple object, God. Therefore see that thy whole exercise about God within thee may depend wholly and only on that naked intellect, affection and will. For indeed, this exercise cannot be discharged by any bodily organ, or by the external senses, but only by that which constitutes the essence of manunderstanding and love. If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms, thou mayest always stand fast in the Lord within thee, to that degree as if thy soul had already entered the always present now of eternity that is, the state of the deity. To mount to God is to enter into oneself. For he who so mounts and enters and goes above and beyond himself, he truly mounts up to God. The mind must then raise itself above itself and say, He who above all I need is above all I know. And so carried into the darkness of the mind, gathering itself into that all-sufficient good, it learns to stay at home and with its whole affection it cleaves and becomes habitually fixed in the supreme good within. Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at that true life which is God Himself, perpetually, without any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity.
1.06 - The Desire to be, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
If the secret of the being is concealed at once in his absolute conditionment and in his relative affirmation, it is in the latter first that he must seek for it. It is by scrutinising its primary data that we shall succeed, perhaps, in perceiving through and behind them the final reason of his existence, the cause of his cause. It is by reaching down to his roots that we shall discover the profundities of that antecedent, not previous in time but permanent, to which Knowledge gives the name of Unknowable.
For the secret of the being is within him.
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Desire is more than force, for it is force directed towards an end, it is the unconscious will that no reason governs, the primary, spontaneous, formidable affirmation of that which wills to be. It dwells in all that lives and its power is already active in all that seems not to be alive.
From the obscurest affinity to the supreme aspiration of the spirit, in the apparent inertia of bodies as in the irresistible impulsion of the thoughts, desire is the principle, the hidden spring, the essence of all that is and even of all that is not yet but will be.
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And in relation to each other individual beings resemble in their principle obscure and blind tendencies, primary forces which are ignorant of all that is not their own direction and have no cause of existence except their own impulsion, no consciousness except that of their rectilinear movement.
For the consciousness of the universal to awaken in them, the slow progress of objective sensibility is needed, effected by the opposing violence of their brutal affirmations, by the incessant shock of their mutual action and reaction.
1.07 - Production of the mind-born sons of Brahma, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Madhusūdana, whose essence is incomprehensible, in the forms of these (patriarchs and Manus), is the author of the uninterrupted vicissitudes of creation, preservation, and destruction. The dissolution of all things is of four kinds; Naimittika, 'occasional;' Prākritika, 'elemental;' Atyantika, 'absolute;' Nitya, 'perpetual[15]: The first, also termed the Brāhma dissolution, occurs when the sovereign of the world reclines in sleep. In the second, the mundane egg resolves into the primary element, from whence it was derived. Absolute non-existence of the world is the absorption of the sage, through knowledge, into supreme spirit. Perpetual destruction is the constant disappearance, day and night, of all that are born. The productions of Prakriti form the creation that is termed the elemental (Prākrita). That which ensues after a (minor) dissolution is called ephemeral creation: and the daily generation of living things is termed, by those who are versed in the Purāṇas, constant creation. In this manner the mighty Viṣṇu, whose essence is the elements, abides in all bodies, and brings about production, existence, and dissolution. The faculties of Viṣṇu to create, to preserve, and to destroy, operate successively, Maitreya, in all corporeal beings and at all seasons; and he who frees himself from the influence of these three faculties, which are essentially composed of the three qualities (goodness, foulness, and darkness), goes to the supreme sphere, from whence he never again returns. ootnotes and references:
[1]: It is not clear which of the previous narratives is here referred to, but it seems most probable that the account in p. 35, 36. is intended.
1.07 - Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11:In itself this seemingly larger and overriding law is no more than an extension of the vital and animal principle that governs the individual elementary man; it is the law of the pack or herd. The individual identifies partially his life with the life of a certain number of other individuals with whom he is associated by birth, choice or circumstance. And since the existence of the group is necessary for his own existence and satisfaction, in time, if not from the first, its preservation, the fulfilment of its needs and the satisfaction of its collective notions, desires, habits of living, without which it would not hold together, must come to take a primary place. The satisfaction of personal idea and feeling, need and desire, propensity and habit has to be constantly subordinated, by the necessity of the situation and not from any moral or altruistic motive, to the satisfaction of the ideas and feelings, needs and desires, propensities and habits, not of this or that other individual or number of individuals, but of the society as a whole. This social need is the obscure matrix of morality and of man's ethical impulse.
12:It is not actually known that in any primitive times man lived to himself or with only his mate as do some of the animals. All record of him shows him to us as a social animal, not an isolated body and spirit. The law of the pack has always overridden his individual law of self-development; he seems always to have been born, to have lived, to have been formed as a unit in a mass. But logically and naturally from the psychological viewpoint the law of personal need and desire is primary, the social law comes in as a secondary and usurping power. Man has in him two distinct master impulses, the individualistic and the communal, a personal life and a social life, a personal motive of conduct and a social motive of conduct. The possibility of their opposition and the attempt to find their equation lie at the very roots of human civilisation and persist in other figures when he has passed beyond the vital animal into a highly individualised mental and spiritual progress.
13:The existence of a social law external to the individual is at different times a considerable advantage and a heavy disadvantage to the development of the divine in man. It is an advantage at first when man is crude and incapable of selfcontrol and self-finding, because it erects a power other than that of his personal egoism through which that egoism may be induced or compelled to moderate its savage demands, to discipline its irrational and often violent movements and even to lose itself sometimes in a larger and less personal egoism. It is a disadvantage to the adult spirit ready to transcend the human formula because it is an external standard which seeks to impose itself on him from outside, and the condition of his perfection is that he shall grow from within and in an increasing freedom, not by the suppression but by the transcendence of his perfected individuality, not any longer by a law imposed on him that trains and disciplines his members but by the soul from within breaking through all previous forms to possess with its light and transmute his members.
14:In the conflict of the claims of society with the claims of the individual two ideal and absolute solutions confront one another. There is the demand of the group that the individual should subordinate himself more or less completely or even lose his independent existence in the community, - the smaller must be immolated or self-offered to the larger unit. He must accept the need of the society as his own need, the desire of the society as his own desire; he must live not for himself but for the tribe, clan, commune or nation of which he is a member. The ideal and absolute solution from the individual's standpoint would be a society that existed not for itself, for its all-overriding collective purpose, but for the good of the individual and his fulfilment, for the greater and more perfect life of all its members. Representing as far as possible his best self and helping him to realise it, it would respect the freedom of each of its members and maintain itself not by law and force but by the free and spontaneous consent of its constituent persons. An ideal society of either kind does not exist anywhere and would be most difficult to create, more difficult still to keep in precarious existence so long as individual man clings to his egoism as the primary motive of existence. A general but not complete domination of the society over the individual is the easier way and it is the system that Nature from the first instinctively adopts and keeps in equilibrium by rigorous law, compelling custom and a careful indoctrination of the still subservient and ill-developed intelligence of the human creature.
15:In primitive societies the individual life is submitted to rigid and immobile communal custom and rule; this is the ancient and would-be eternal law of the human pack that tries always to masquerade as the everlasting decree of the Imperishable, es.a dharmah. sanatanah.. And the ideal is not dead in the human mind; the most recent trend of human progress is to establish an enlarged and sumptuous edition of this ancient turn of collective living towards the enslavement of the human spirit. There is here a serious danger to the integral development of a greater truth upon earth and a greater life. For the desires and free seekings of the individual, however egoistic, however false or perverted they may be in their immediate form, contain in their obscure shell the seed of a development necessary to the whole; his searchings and stumblings have behind them a force that has to be kept and transmuted into the image of the divine ideal. That force needs to be enlightened and trained but must not be suppressed or harnessed exclusively to society's heavy cartwheels. Individualism is as necessary to the final perfection as the power behind the group-spirit; the stifling of the individual may well be the stifling of the god in man. And in the present balance of humanity there is seldom any real danger of exaggerated individualism breaking up the social integer. There is continually a danger that the exaggerated pressure of the social mass by its heavy unenlightened mechanical weight may suppress or unduly discourage the free development of the individual spirit. For man in the individual can be more easily enlightened, conscious, open to clear influences; man in the mass is still obscure, halfconscious, ruled by universal forces that escape its mastery and its knowledge.
1.07 - The Ideal Law of Social Development, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
True, his life and growth are for the sake of the world, but he can help the world by his life and growth only in proportion as he can be more and more freely and widely his own real self. True, he has to use the ideals, disciplines, systems of cooperation which he finds upon his path; but he can only use them well, in their right way and to their right purpose if they are to his life means towards something beyond them and not burdens to be borne by him for their own sake or despotic controls to be obeyed by him as their slave or subject; for though laws and disciplines strive to be the tyrants of the human soul, their only purpose is to be its instruments and servants and when their use is over they have to be rejected and broken. True it is, too, that he has to gather in his material from the minds and lives of his fellow-men around him and to make the most of the experience of humanitys past ages and not confine himself in a narrow mentality; but this he can only do successfully by making all this his own through assimilation of it to the principle of his own nature and through its subservience to the forward call of his enlarging future. The liberty claimed by the struggling human mind for the individual is no mere egoistic challenge and revolt, however egoistically or with one-sided exaggeration and misapplication it may sometimes be advanced; it is the divine instinct within him, the law of the Self, its claim to have room and the one primary condition for its natural self-unfolding.
Individual man belongs not only to humanity in general, his nature is not only a variation of human nature in general, but he belongs also to his race-type, his class-type, his mental, vital, physical, spiritual type in which he resembles some, differs from others. According to these affinities he tends to group himself in Churches, sects, communities, classes, coteries, associations whose life he helps, and by them he enriches the life of the large economic, social and political group or society to which he belongs. In modern times this society is the nation. By his enrichment of the national life, though not in that way only, he helps the total life of humanity. But it must be noted that he is not limited and cannot be limited by any of these groupings; he is not merely the noble, merchant, warrior, priest, scholar, artist, cultivator or artisan, not merely the religionist or the worldling or the politician. Nor can he be limited by his nationality; he is not merely the Englishman or the Frenchman, the Japanese or the Indian; if by a part of himself he belongs to the nation, by another he exceeds it and belongs to humanity. And even there is a part of him, the greatest, which is not limited by humanity; he belongs by it to God and to the world of all beings and to the godheads of the future. He has indeed the tendency of self-limitation and subjection to his environment and group, but he has also the equally necessary tendency of expansion and transcendence of environment and groupings. The individual animal is dominated entirely by his type, subordinated to his group when he does group himself; individual man has already begun to share something of the infinity, complexity, free variation of the Self we see manifested in the world. Or at least he has it in possibility even if there be as yet no sign of it in his organised surface nature. There is here no principle of a mere shapeless fluidity; it is the tendency to enrich himself with the largest possible material constantly brought in, constantly assimilated and changed by the law of his individual nature into stuff of his growth and divine expansion.
1.07 - The Primary Data of Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
object:1.07 - The primary Data of Being
class:The Wherefore of the Worlds
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The primary Data of Being
15th February 1915
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Black School of Magick, which must by no means be confused with the School of Black Magick or Sorcery, which latter is a perversion of the White tradition, is distinguished fundamentally from the Yellow School in that it considers the Universe not as neutral, but as definitely a curse. Its primary theorem is the "First Noble Truth" of the Buddha "Everything is Sorrow." In the primitive classics of this School the idea of sorrow is confused with that of sin. (This idea of universal lamentation is presumably responsible for the choice of black as its symbolic colour. And yet? Is not white the Chinese hue of mourning?)
The analysis of the philosophers of this School refers every phenomenon to the category of sorrow. It is quite useless to point out to them that certain events are accompanied with joy: they continue their ruthless calculations, and prove to your satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, that the more apparently pleasant an event is, the more malignantly deceptive is its fascination. There is only one way of escape even conceivable, and this way is quite simple, annihilation. (Shallow critics of Buddhism have wasted a great deal of stupid ingenuity on trying to make out that Nirvana or Nibbana means something different from what etymology, tradition and the evidence of the Classics combine to define it. The word means, quite simply, cessation: and it stands to reason that, if everything is sorrow, the only thing which is not sorrow is nothing, and that therefore to escape from sorrow is the attainment of nothingness.)
1.08 - Civilisation and Barbarism, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The time is passing away, permanentlylet us hope for this cycle of civilisation, when the entire identification of the self with the body and the physical life was possible for the general consciousness of the race. That is the primary characteristic of complete barbarism. To take the body and the physical life as the one thing important, to judge manhood by the physical strength, development and prowess, to be at the mercy of the instincts which rise out of the physical inconscient, to despise knowledge as a weakness and inferiority or look on it as a peculiarity and no necessary part of the conception of manhood, this is the mentality of the barbarian. It tends to reappear in the human being in the atavistic period of boyhood,when, be it noted, the development of the body is of the greatest importance,but to the adult man in civilised humanity it is ceasing to be possible. For, in the first place, by the stress of modern life even the vital attitude of the race is changing. Man is ceasing to be so much of a physical and becoming much more of a vital and economic animal. Not that he excludes or is intended to exclude the body and its development or the right maintenance of and respect for the animal being and its excellences from his idea of life; the excellence of the body, its health, its soundness, its vigour and harmonious development are necessary to a perfect manhood and are occupying attention in a better and more intelligent way than before. But the first rank in importance can no longer be given to the body, much less that entire predominance assigned to it in the mentality of the barbarian.
Moreover, although man has not yet really heard and understood the message of the sages,know thyself, he has accepted the message of the thinker, educate thyself, and, what is more, he has understood that the possession of education imposes on him the duty of imparting his knowledge to others. The idea of the necessity of general education means the recognition by the race that the mind and not the life and the body are the man and that without the development of the mind he does not possess his true manhood. The idea of education is still primarily that of intelligence and mental capacity and knowledge of the world and things, but secondarily also of moral training and, though as yet very imperfectly, of the development of the aesthetic faculties. The intelligent thinking being, moralised, controlling his instincts and emotions by his will and his reason, acquainted with all that he should know of the world and his past, capable of organising intelligently by that knowledge his social and economic life, ordering rightly his bodily habits and physical being, this is the conception that now governs civilised humanity. It is, in essence, a return to and a larger development of the old Hellenic ideal, with a greater stress on capacity and utility and a very diminished stress on beauty and refinement. We may suppose, however, that this is only a passing phase; the lost elements are bound to recover their importance as soon as the commercial period of modern progress has been overpassed, and with that recovery, not yet in sight but inevitable, we shall have all the proper elements for the development of man as a mental being.
1.08 - Independence from the Physical, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
independent of illnesses, and, to a large extent, independent of food and sleep, once it has discovered the inexhaustible reservoir of the great Force of Life; it can even be independent of the body. When the current of consciousness-force in us is sufficiently individualized, we find that we can detach it not only from the senses and the objects of the senses, but also from the body. First in our meditations, which are the primary training ground prior to natural mastery, we observe that 93
Letters on Yoga, 22:314
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
secondary thing has been made the primary thing. Then the individual is
cheated of his rightful destiny and two thousand years of Christian
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
With cerebrotonia, the temperament that is correlated with ectomorphic physique, we leave the genial world of Pickwick, the strenuously competitive world of Hotspur, and pass into an entirely different and somewhat disquieting kind of universe that of Hamlet and Ivan Karamazov. The extreme cerebrotonic is the over-alert, over-sensitive introvert, who is more concerned with what goes on behind his eyeswith the constructions of thought and imagination, with the variations of feeling and consciousness than with that external world, to which, in their different ways, the viscerotonic and the somatotonic pay their primary attention and allegiance. Cerebrotonics have little or no desire to dominate, nor do they feel the viscerotonics indiscriminate liking for people as people; on the contrary they want to live and let live, and their passion for privacy is intense. Solitary confinement, the most terrible punishment that can be inflicted on the soft, round, genial person, is, for the cerebrotonic, no punishment at all. For him the ultimate horror is the boarding school and the barracks. In company cerebrotonics are nervous and shy, tensely inhibited and unpredictably moody. (It is a significant fact that no extreme cerebrotonic has ever been a good actor or actress.) Cerebrotonics hate to slam doors or raise their voices, and suffer acutely from the unrestrained bellowing and trampling of the somatotonic. Their manner is restrained, and when it comes to expressing their feelings they are extremely reserved. The emotional gush of the viscerotonic strikes them as offensively shallow and even insincere, nor have they any patience with viscerotonic ceremoniousness and love of luxury and magnificence. They do not easily form habits and find it hard to adapt their lives to the routines, which come so naturally to somatotonics. Owing to their over-sensitiveness, cerebrotonics are often extremely, almost insanely sexual; but they are hardly ever tempted to take to drink for alcohol, which heightens the natural aggressiveness of the somatotonic and increases the relaxed amiability of the viscerotonic, merely makes them feel ill and depressed. Each in his own way, the viscerotonic and the somatotonic are well adapted to the world they live in; but the introverted cerebrotonic is in some sort incommensurable with the things and people and institutions that surround him. Consequently a remarkably high proportion of extreme cerebrotonics fail to make good as normal citizens and average pillars of society. But if many fail, many also become abnormal on the higher side of the average. In universities, monasteries and research laboratorieswherever sheltered conditions are provided for those whose small guts and feeble muscles do not permit them to eat or fight their way through the ordinary rough and tumble the percentage of outstandingly gifted and accomplished cerebrotonics will almost always be very high. Realizing the importance of this extreme, over-evolved and scarcely viable type of human being, all civilizations have provided in one way or another for its protection.
In the light of these descriptions we can understand more clearly the Bhagavad Gitas classification of paths to salvation. The path of devotion is the path naturally followed by the person in whom the viscerotonic component is high. His inborn tendency to externalize the emotions he spontaneously feels in regard to persons can be disciplined and canalized, so that a merely animal gregariousness and a merely human kindliness become transformed into charitydevotion to the personal God and universal good will and compassion towards all sentient beings.
1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
:::Persons are supplementary to the primary teaching of the soul. In youth we are mad for persons. Childhood and youth see all the world in them. But the larger experience of man discovers the identical nature [the same self or soul] appearing through them all. In all conversation between two persons tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is not social; it is impersonal; is God.1
The soul is without persons, and the soul is grounded in God. "Impersonal," however, is not quite right, because it tends to imply a complete negation of the personal, whereas in higher development the personal is negated and preserved, or transcended and included: hence, "transpersonal." So I think it's very important, in all subsequent discussion, for us to remember that transpersonal means "personal plus," not "personal minus."
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This omega point of rationality can therefore be seen permeating the theories of virtually all developmentalists in the wake of modernity. We see it in Freud: magical and mythic primary-process cognition gives way, after much reluctance and turmoil, to the secondary (mature) process of rationality. We see it in Marx: rationality, as a worldcentric mode of cognition, will, with its economic developments, overcome egocentric and ethnocentric class divisions and usher in a true communion of equally free subjects. We see it in Piaget: preop to conop to formop, with each previous stage suffering the limitations of its own incapacities. Kohlberg and Gilligan: egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric reason. Hegel: Self-positing Spirit returns to itself in the form of global Reason, the culmination of
History itself. And Habermas: mutual understanding in unrestrained communicative action unfolded by rationality is the omega point of individual and social evolution itself.
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The decision of these questions will determine our whole view of Vedic religions and decide the claim of the Veda to be a living Scripture of Hinduism. It is of primary importance to know what in their nature and functions were the gods of the Veda. I have therefore made this fundamental question form the sole subject matter of the present volume. I make no attempt here to present a complete or even a sufficient justification of the conclusions which I have been led to. Nor do I present my readers with a complete enquiry into the nature & functions of the Vedic pantheon. Such a justification, such an enquiry can only be effected by a careful philological analysis & rendering of the Vedic hymns and an exhaustive study of the origins of the Sanscrit language. That is a labour of very serious proportions & burdened with numerous difficulties which I have begun and hope one day to complete myself or to leave to others ready for completion. But in the present volume I can only attempt to establish a prima facie [case] for a reconsideration of the whole question. I offer the suggestion that the Vedic creed & thought were not a simple, but a complex, not a barbarous but a subtle & advanced, not a naturalistic but a mystic & Vedantic system.
It is necessary, in order that the reader may follow my arguments with a better understanding, to sketch briefly the important lines of that system as it reveals itself in the ten mandalas of the Rigveda. Its fundamental conception was the unity in complexity of the apparent universe. The Vedic mind, looking out on the great movement of material forces around it, aware of their regularity, law, universality, saw in them symbols and expressions of a diviner life behind. Everywhere they felt the presence of intelligence, of life, of a soul. But they did not make the common distinction between soul and matter. Matter was to them itself a term and expression of the life and soul they had discovered. It was this peculiarity of thought which constituted the essential characteristic of the Vedic outlook and has stood at the root and basis of all Indian thought and religion then & subsequently.
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When we look carefully at the passage before us, we find an expression which strikes one as a very extraordinary phrase in reference to a god of lightning and rain. Indryhi, says Madhuchchhanda, dhiyeshito viprajtah. On any ordinary acceptance of the meaning of words, we have to render this line, Come, O Indra, impelled by the understanding, driven by the Wise One. Sayana thinks that vipra means Brahmin and the idea is that Indra is moved to come by the intelligent sacrificing priests and he explains dhiyeshito, moved to come by our understanding, that is to say, by our devotion. But understanding does not mean devotion and the artificiality of the interpretation is apparent.We will, as usual, put aside the ritualistic & naturalistic traditions and see to what the natural sense of the words themselves leads us. I question the traditional acceptance of viprajta as a compound of vipra & jta; it seems tome clearly to be vi prajtah, driven forward variously or in various directions. I am content to accept the primary sense of impelled for ishita, although, whether we read dhiy ishito with the Padapatha, or dhiy shito, it may equally well mean, controlled by the understanding; but of themselves the expressions impelled & driven forward in various paths imply a perfect control.We have then, Come, O Indra, impelled (or controlled, governed) by the understanding and driven forward in various paths. What is so driven forward? Obviously not the storm, not the lightning, not any force of material Nature, but a subjective force, and, as one can see at a glance, a force of mind. Now Indra is the king of Swar and Swar in the symbolical interpretation of the Vedic terms current in after times is the mental heaven corresponding to the principle of Manas, mind. His name means the Strong. In the Puranas he is that which the Rishis have to conquer in order to attain their goal, that which sends the Apsaras, the lower delights & temptations of the senses to bewilder the sage and the hero; and, as is well known, in the Indian system of Yoga it is the Mind with its snares, sensuous temptations & intellectual delusions which is the enemy that has to be overcome & the strong kingdom that has to be conquered. In this passage Indra is not thought of in his human form, but as embodied in the principle of light or tejas; he is harivas, substance of brightness; he is chitrabhnu, of a rich & various effulgence, epithets not easily applicable to a face or figure, but precisely applicable to the principle of mind which has always been supposed in India to be in its material element made of tejas or pure light.We may conclude, therefore, that in Indra, master of Swarga, we have the divine lord of mental force & power. It is as this mental power that he comes sutvatah upa brahmni vghatah, to the soul-movements of the chanter of the sacred song, of the holder of the nectar-wine. He is asked to come, impelled or controlled by the understanding and driven forward by it in the various paths of sumati & snrit, right thinking & truth. We remember the image in the Kathopanishad in which the mind & senses are compared to reins & horses and the understanding to the driver. We look back & see at once the connection with the function demanded of the Aswins in the preceding verses; we look forward & see easily the connection with the activity of Saraswati in the closing riks. The thought of the whole Sukta begins to outline itself, a strong, coherent and luminous progression of psychological images begins to emerge.
Brahmni, says Sayana, means the hymnal chants; vghatah is the ritwik, the sacrificial priest. These ritual senses belong to the words but we must always inquire how they came to bear them. As to vghat, we have little clue or evidence, but on the system I have developed in another work (the Origins of Aryan Speech), it may be safely concluded that the lost roots vagh & vgh, must have conveyed the sense of motion evident in the Latin vagus & vagari, wandering & to wander & the sense of crying out, calling apparent in the Latin vagire, to cry, & the Sanscrit vangh, to abuse, censure. Vghat may mean the sacrificial priest because he is the one who calls to the deity in the chant of the brahma, the sacred hymn. It may also mean one who increases in being, in his brahma, his soul, who is getting vja or substance.
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The precise meaning of the words has first to be settled. Charshani is taken in the Veda to be, like krishti, a word equivalent to manushya, men. The entire correctness of the rendering may well be doubted. The gods, no doubt, can be described as upholders of men, but there are passages & uses in which the application of this significance becomes difficult. For Indra, like Agni, is called vivacharshani. Can this expression mean the Universal Man? Is Indra, like Agni, Vaivnara, in the sense of being present in all human beings? If so, the subjective capacity of Indra is indeed proved by a single epithet. But Vaivnara really means the Universal Existence or Force, from a sense of the root an which we have in anila, anala, Latin anima or else, if the combination be viv-nara, then from the Vedic sense of nara, strong, swift or bright. And what canwemake of such an expression as charshanipr?We must therefore follow our usual course & ask how charshani came to mean a human being. The root charsh or chrish is formed from the primary root char or chri (a lost form whose original presence is, however, necessary in the history of Sanscrit speech), as krish from kri. Now kri means to do, char means to do, work, practise or perform. The form krish was evidently used in the sense of action which required a prolonged or laborious effort; in the same way as the root Ar it came to mean to plough; it came to mean also to overcome or to drag or pull. From this sense of action or labour alone can krishti have been extended in significance to the idea, man; originally it must have been used like kru or keru to mean a doer, worker, and, from its form, have been capable also of meaning action. I suggest that charshani had really the same meaning & something of the same development. The other sense given to the word, swift, moving, cannot easily have led to the idea of man; strength, doing, thinking are the characteristics behind the human idea in the older languages. Charshani-dhrit applied to the Visvadevas or dhartr charshannm to Mitra & Varuna will mean the upholders of actions or activities; vivacharshani, applied to Indra or Agni, will mean the lord of all actions; charshanipr will mean filling the actions. That Indra in this sense is vivacharshani can be at once determined from two passages occurring early in the Veda,I.9.2 in Madhuchchhandas hymn to Indra, mandim Indrya mandine chakrim vivni chakraye, delight-giving for Indra the enjoyer, effective of action for the doer of all actions, where vivni chakri is a perfect equivalent to vivacharshani, and I.11.4 in another hymn to Indra, Indro vivasya karmano dhart, Indra the upholder of every action, where we have the exact idea of charshandhrit, vivacharshani & dhartr charshannm. The Visvadevas are the upholders of all our activities.
In the eighth rik, usr iva swasarni offers us an almost insoluble difficulty. Usr means, ordinarily, either rays or cows or mornings; swasaram is a Vedic word of unfixed significance. Sayana renders, hastening like sunbeams to the days, a rendering which has neither sense nor appropriateness; emending it slightly we get hastening like dawns or mornings to the days, a beautiful & picturesque, though difficult image but one, unhappily, which has no appropriateness to the context. If we can suppose the lost root swas to have meant, to lie, sleep, rest, like the simpler form sas (cf sanj to cling & swanj to embrace), we may translate, hastening like kine to their stalls; but this also is not appropriate to the Visvadevas hastening to the Soma offering not for rest, but for enjoyment & action. I believe the real meaning to be, hastening like lovers to their paramours; but the philological reasoning by which I arrive at these meanings for usra & swasaram is so remote & conjectural, that I cannot lay any stress on the suggestion. Aptur is a less difficult word. If it is a compound, ap+tur, it must mean swift or forceful in effecting or producing; but it may also be formed by the addition of a suffix tur in an adjectival sense to the root ap, to do, bring about, effect, produce or obtain.
1.08 - The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
9:But always mental experience and the concepts of the reason have been held by it to be even at their highest a reflection in mental identifications and not the supreme self-existent identity. We have to go beyond the mind and the reason. The reason active in our waking consciousness is only a mediator between the subconscient All that we come from in our evolution upwards and the superconscient All towards which we are impelled by that evolution. The subconscient and the superconscient are two different formulations of the same All. The master-word of the subconscient is Life, the master-word of the superconscient is Light. In the subconscient knowledge or consciousness is involved in action, for action is the essence of Life. In the superconscient action re-enters into Light and no longer contains involved knowledge but is itself contained in a supreme consciousness. Intuitional knowledge is that which is common between them and the foundation of intuitional knowledge is conscious or effective identity between that which knows and that which is known; it is that state of common self-existence in which the knower and the known are one through knowledge. But in the subconscient the intuition manifests itself in the action, in effectivity, and the knowledge or conscious identity is either entirely or more or less concealed in the action. In the superconscient, on the contrary, Light being the law and the principle, the intuition manifests itself in its true nature as knowledge emerging out of conscious identity, and effectivity of action is rather the accompaniment or necessary consequent and no longer masks as the primary fact. Between these two states reason and mind act as intermediaries which enable the being to liberate knowledge out of its imprisonment in the act and prepare it to resume its essential primacy. When the selfawareness in the mind applied both to continent and content, to own-self and other-self, exalts itself into the luminous selfmanifest identity, the reason also converts itself into the form of the self-luminous intuitional3 knowledge. This is the highest possible state of our knowledge when mind fulfils itself in the supramental.
10:Such is the scheme of the human understanding upon which the conclusions of the most ancient Vedanta were built. To develop the results arrived at on this foundation by the ancient sages is not my object, but it is necessary to pass briefly in review some of their principal conclusions so far as they affect the problem of the divine Life with which alone we are at present concerned. For it is in those ideas that we shall find the best previous foundation of that which we seek now to rebuild and although, as with all knowledge, old expression has to be replaced to a certain extent by new expression suited to a later mentality and old light has to merge itself into new light as dawn succeeds dawn, yet it is with the old treasure as our initial capital or so much of it as we can recover that we shall most advantageously proceed to accumulate the largest gains in our new commerce with the ever-changeless and ever-changing Infinite.
1.08 - The Synthesis of Movement, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
If in the relative world movement, a function at once of Time and Space, shares in the nature of these two primary categories, we may recognise in it the symbol of that state of pure identity in which the complementary principles reunite and pass into each other.
In this state relative movement, which is only an imperfect synthesis of the categories of Time and Space, would transform itself into a total absorption of both in a sort of absolute movement which for us is indistinguishable from the absolute repose of eternity.
1.08 - Worship of Substitutes and Images, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
But where Brahman Himself is the object of worship, and the Pratika stands only as a substitute or a suggestion thereof, that is to say, where, through the Pratika the omnipresent Brahman is worshipped the Pratika itself being idealised into the cause of all, Brahman the worship is positively beneficial; nay, it is absolutely necessary for all mankind until they have all got beyond the primary or preparatory state of the mind in regard to worship. When, therefore, any gods or other beings are worshipped in and for themselves, such worship is only a ritualistic Karma; and as a Vidy (science) it gives us only the fruit belonging to that particular Vidya; but when the Devas or any other beings are looked upon as Brahman and worshipped, the result obtained is the same as by the worshipping of Ishvara. This explains how, in many cases, both in the Shrutis and the Smritis, a god, or a sage, or some other extraordinary being is taken up and lifted, as it were, out of his own nature and idealised into Brahman, and is then worshipped. Says the Advaitin, "Is not everything Brahman when the name and the form have been removed from it?" "Is not He, the Lord, the innermost Self of every one?" says the Vishishtdvaitin.
"The fruition of even the worship of Adityas etc. Brahman Himself bestows, because He is the Ruler of all." Says Shankara in his Brahma-Sutra-Bhsya
1.097 - Sublimation of Object-Consciousness, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The sutra which I stated just now is a precise statement of the conditions of spiritual meditation. What the sutra literally means is: sattva and the purusha namely, the mind and the ultimate consciousness, purusha are opposed to each other in their characters. In what way are they opposed? That is not mentioned here. We have to understand what this difference is by studying the meaning of the implications provided in other sutras. The purusha is infinite, whereas the mind is externalised. This is the primary distinction. The mind cannot have infinite awareness. It is always projected outwardly through the senses, whereas the purusha is eternally aware of an infinitude of being. This is a great difference indeed.
Further, in certain other sutras we will be told as to what the differences are between purusha-consciousness and mind-consciousness, or object-consciousness, or world-consciousness, as we may call them. Externality and eternity cannot go together; they are different intrinsically. Eternity is not externality. Though linguistically we are able to understand what this difference is, the mind cannot comprehend the meaning of this. The externality that is the character of mind perception, or any kind of world perception, is involved in a time process, which is what is called duration a passage or a movement of time whereas there is no such passage or duration in eternity. It is an eternal now, a word with which we are familiar but which meaning is not clear to us.
1.09 - Legend of Lakshmi, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[5]: The first effect of primary cause is nature, or Prakriti: the effect of the effect, or of Prakriti, is Mahat: effect in the third degree is Aha
kāra: in the fourth, or the effect of the effect (Aha
1.09 - Sleep and Death, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
which return to their respective realms, since they no longer have a center. And when the center is asleep, everything is more or less asleep, since the nonphysical mental and vital elements exist only in relation to, and to serve, the bodily life. In this primary state,
whenever the consciousness falls asleep, it slips back into the subconscient (we use the word subconscient as Sri Aurobindo used it,
1.09 - The Absolute Manifestation, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
These two states are equally unthinkable in the terms of our mentality, but from two different points of view. If the second seems at first sight less rebellious to all rational definition, it is because we introduce into it the primary notions of relativity which constitute manifestation in Time and Space.
But it is outside Time that we must place the movement, at once eternal and instantaneous, of the absolute activity, and it is outside Space that we must place its deployment, its expansion of the infinite, its objectivisation of the numberless in the One.
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There can be no alternatives in the Absolute, and it is an unprofitable attempt for the understanding when it seeks under cover of this subterfuge to transgress its proper limit by fastening its own primary data on That which escapes its thought.
If then we wish to conceive the Absolute in its two opposite aspects, we must postulate them, not successively, but simultaneously. It is at one and the same time absolute repose and absolute movement, integral extinction and integral plenitude, being and non-being.
1.1.02 - The Aim of the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To come to this Yoga merely with the idea of being a superman would be an act of vital egoism which would defeat its own object. Those who put this object in the front of their preoccupations invariably come to grief, spiritually and otherwise. The aim of this Yoga is, first, to enter into the divine consciousness by merging into it the separative ego (incidentally, in doing so one finds one's true individual self which is not the limited, vain and selfish human ego but a portion of the Divine) and, secondly, to bring down the supramental consciousness on earth to transform mind, life and body. All else can be only a result of these two aims, not the primary object of the Yoga.
The extreme difficulty of these two aims has never been concealed from the sadhakas; on the contrary, difficulties and dangers have been overemphasised, rather than minimised. If still they choose and persist in this path, it is supposed that they are ready to risk everything, sacrifice everything, surrender everything in order to achieve this end or help towards its achievement.
11.09 - Towards the Immortal Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even this is just the beginning, the very first step, the indispensable primary condition, Every part and element of the whole being, down to the material cells of the body itself must be filled with the soul's consciousness, a field suffused with the consciousness of the soul. Next there wil1 come the question of changing the very substance of the constituents. That is the final and crucial discipline. For a pervading soul-consciousness may, by its pressure and influence, bring about the prolongation of life, even indefinitely, but immortality is assured only when the very substance of the material body is changed into its immortal essence.
Naturally however, the Supreme Grace is always there and if it chooses it can suspend or even cancel all laws and do things as it chooses, but that is a different matter.
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
comes into operation, a primary attribute of Reflection concerning
which we have hitherto said nothing the will to survive. In reflecting
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Among such branches of research which can even now be used in spite of new & hostile conclusions as a sort of side support to the modern theory of the Veda stand in a curious twilit corner of their own the researches of the ethnologists. There is no more glaring instance of the conjectural and unsubstantial nature of these pseudo-Sciences than the results of Ethnology which yet claims to deduce its results from fixed and certain physical tests and data. We find the philological discovery of the Aryan invasion supported by the conclusions of ethnologists like Sir Herbert Risley, who make an ethnological map of India coloured in with all shades of mixed raciality, Dravidian,Scytho-Dravidian, Mongolo-Dravidian, Scytho-Aryan. More modern schools of ethnology assert positively on the strength of [the] same laws & the same tests that there is but one homogeneous Indo-Afghan race inhabiting the whole peninsula from theHimalayas to Cape Comorin. What are we to think of a science of which the tests are so pliant and the primary results so irreconcilable? Or how, if the more modern theory is correct, if a distinct homogeneous race inhabits India, can we fail to doubt strongly as a philological myth the whole story of the Aryan invasion & colonisation of Northern India, which has been so long one of the most successful & loudly proclaimed results of the new philology? As a result perhaps of these later conclusions we find a tendency even in philological scholarship towards the rise of new theories which dispute the whole legend of an Aryan invasion, assert an indigenous or even a southern origin for the peoples of the Vedic times and suppose Aryanism to have been a cult and not a racial distinction. These new theories destroy all fixed confidence in the old without themselves revealing any surer foundations for their own guesses; both start from conjectural philology & end in an imaginatively conjectural nation-building or culture-building. It is exceedingly doubtful whether the Vedic terms Aryan & unAryan at all refer to racial or cultural differences; they may have an entirely different and wholly religious & spiritual significance & refer to the good and evil powers & mortals influenced by them. If this prove to be the truth, and the close contiguity & probable historical connection between the Vedic Indians & the Zoroastrian Persians gives it a great likelihood, then the whole elaborate edifice built up by the scholars of an Aryan invasion and an Aryan culture begins to totter & seek the ground, there to lie in the dust amid the wrecks of other once confident beliefs and triumphant errors.
The substance of modern philological discovery about the Vedas consists, first, in the picture of an Aryan civilisation introduced by northern invaders and, secondly, in the interpretation of the Vedic religion as a worship of Nature-powers & Vedic myths as allegorical legends of sun & moon & star & the visible phenomena of Nature. The latter generalisation rests partly on new philological renderings of Vedic words, partly on the Science of Comparative Mythology. The method of this Science can be judged from one or two examples. The Greek story of the demigod Heracles is supposed to be an evident sun myth. The two scientific proofs offered for this discovery are first that Hercules performed twelve labours and the solar year is divided into twelve months and, secondly, that Hercules burnt himself on a pyre on Mount Oeta and the sun also sets in a glory of flame behind the mountains. Such proofs seem hardly substantial enough for so strong a conclusion. By the same reasoning one could prove the emperor Napoleon a sun myth, because he was beaten & shorn of his glory by the forces of winter and because his brilliant career set in the western ocean and he passed there a long night of captivity. With the same light confidence the siege of Troy is turned by the scholars into a sun myth because the name of the Greek Helena, sister of the two Greek Aswins, Castor & Pollux, is philologically identical with the Vedic Sarama and that of her abductor Paris is not so very different from the Vedic Pani. It may be noted that in the Vedic story Sarama is not the sister of the Aswins and is not abducted by the Panis and that there is no other resemblance between the Vedic legend & the Greek tradition. So by more recent speculation even Yudhishthira and his brothers and the famous dog of theMahabharat are raised into the skies & vanish in a starry apotheosis,one knows not well upon what grounds except that sometimes the Dog Star rages in heaven. It is evident that these combinations are merely an ingenious play of fancy & prove absolutely nothing. Hercules may be the Sun but it is not proved. Helen & Paris may be Sarama & one of the Panis, but itis not proved. Yudhishthira & his brothers may be an astronomical myth, but it is not proved. For the rest, the unsubstantiality & rash presumption of the Sun myth theory has not failed to give rise in Europe to a hostile school of Comparative Mythologists who adopt other methods & seek the origins of early religious legend & tradition in a more careful and flexible study of the mentality, customs, traditions & symbolisms of primitive races. The theory of Vedic Nature-worship is better founded than these astronomical fancies. Agni is plainly the God of Fire, Surya of the Sun, Usha of the Dawn, Vayu of the Wind; Indra for Sayana is obviously the god of rain; Varuna seems to be the sky, the Greek Ouranos,et cetera. But when we have accepted these identities, the question of Vedic interpretation & the sense of Vedic worship is not settled. In the Greek religion Apollo was the god of the sun, but he was also the god of poetry & prophecy; Athene is identified with Ahana, a Vedic name of the Dawn, but for the Greeks she is the goddess of purity & wisdom; Artemis is the divinity of the moon, but also the goddess of free life & of chastity. It is therefore evident that in early Greek religion, previous to the historic or even the literary period, at an epoch therefore that might conceivably correspond with the Vedic period, many of the deities of the Greek heavens had a double character, the aspect of physical Nature-powers and the aspect of moral Nature-powers. The indications, therefore,for they are not proofs,even of Comparative Mythology would justify us in inquiring whether a similar double character did not attach to the Vedic gods in the Vedic hymns.
1.10 - The Yoga of the Intelligent Will, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
out of these the power which seizes the discriminations of objects, sense-mind or Manas, - we must record the Indian names because the corresponding English words are not real equivalents. As a tertiary evolution out of sense-mind we have the specialising organic senses, ten in number, five of perception, five of action; next the powers of each sense of perception, sound, form, scent, etc., which give their value to objects for the mind and make things what they are to our subjectivity, - and, as the substantial basis of these, the primary conditions of the objects of sense, the five elements of ancient philosophy or rather elementary conditions of Nature, panca bhuta, which constitute objects by their various combination.
Reflected in the pure consciousness of Purusha these degrees and powers of Nature-force become the material of our impure subjectivity, impure because its action is dependent on the perceptions of the objective world and on their subjective reactions.
11.11 - The Ideal Centre, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is the goal towards which a dedicated centre, that is to say, a spiritually aspiring group should move and labour. And that also is the primary work, the first and foremost for which the centre stands as the field. And this work can be done and has to be achieved through the discipline enunciated in just the previous, our third mantra the fundamental attitude with which the work has to be done. It is said there that the work, consecrated work or service is the prayer of the body. Mind's prayer is expressed in words, body's prayer in-works. Work is the prayer in its dynamic and concrete form, it is the utterance of the physical, the language it knows in order to ask for and seek the union with the Divine. It is the holy ritual expressing and embodying in the physical, material life, one's adoration, one's adhesion to the ideal, to the deity one worships.
Work or service expressing harmonisation needs to be based, as I have said, upon a higher and higher consciousness. Work done as prayer is the best means of effecting an ascent in consciousness. This is the lesson that each individual of a centre must learn from the very outset and ever afterwards., He must always try to rise in consciousness, reach an ever higher status of being and from there let the work flow, as it were, from a spontaneous spring. As one rises in consciousness and being) naturally and inevitably this consciousness widens and one feels naturally and spontaneously kinship and union with all others. Work or service is then only a dynamic means of achieving and realising the sense of perfect unity of oneself with all other selves.
1.11 - Delight of Existence - The Problem, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:This primary, ultimate and eternal Existence, as seen by the Vedantins, is not merely bare existence, or a conscious existence whose consciousness is crude force or power; it is a conscious existence the very term of whose being, the very term of whose consciousness is bliss. As in absolute existence there can be no nothingness, no night of inconscience, no deficiency, that is to say, no failure of Force, - for if there were any of these things, it would not be absolute, - so also there can be no suffering, no negation of delight. Absoluteness of conscious existence is illimitable bliss of conscious existence; the two are only different phrases for the same thing. All illimitableness, all infinity, all absoluteness is pure delight. Even our relative humanity has this experience that all dissatisfaction means a limit, an obstacle, - satisfaction comes by realisation of something withheld, by the surpassing of the limit, the overcoming of the obstacle. This is because our original being is the absolute in full possession of its infinite and illimitable self-consciousness and self-power; a self-possession whose other name is self-delight. And in proportion as the relative touches upon that self-possession, it moves towards satisfaction, touches delight.
3:The self-delight of Brahman is not limited, however, by the still and motionless possession of its absolute self-being. Just as its force of consciousness is capable of throwing itself into forms infinitely and with an endless variation, so also its self-delight is capable of movement, of variation, of revelling in that infinite flux and mutability of itself represented by numberless teeming universes. To loose forth and enjoy this infinite movement and variation of its self-delight is the object of its extensive or creative play of Force.
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11:This recoil or dislike is the primary origin of ethics, but is not itself ethical. The fear of the deer for the tiger, the rage of the strong creature against its assailant is a vital recoil of the individual delight of existence from that which threatens it. In the progress of the mentality it refines itself into repugnance, dislike, disapproval. Disapproval of that which threatens and hurts us, approval of that which flatters and satisfies refine into the conception of good and evil to oneself, to the community, to others than ourselves, to other communities than ours, and finally into the general approval of good, the general disapproval of evil. But, throughout, the fundamental nature of the thing remains the same. Man desires self-expression, self-development, in other words, the progressing play in himself of the consciousforce of existence; that is his fundamental delight. Whatever hurts that self-expression, self-development, satisfaction of his progressing self, is for him evil; whatever helps, confirms, raises, aggrandises, ennobles it is his good. Only, his conception of the self-development changes, becomes higher and wider, begins to exceed his limited personality, to embrace others, to embrace all in its scope.
12:In other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to all stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards selfexpression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical in the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical for it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove when done to ourselves. In this respect man even now is only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so there may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive, which is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and attitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by which it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience and broken up by Life into individual discords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient oneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal, this means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the qualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally dissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.
1.11 - The Influence of the Sexes on Vegetation, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
propagation of the species, the former instinct, as the primary and
more fundamental, is capable of overmastering the latter. In short,
1.11 - The Second Genesis, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Certainly, it is from a central standpoint that we discover the primary reason of existence to have been an original fact of desire. But this point of view can only be central if it succeeds in grouping around itself others that complete it. If it were exclusive of other standpoints, it would no longer be true. Truth is a mutual relation of things which at once becomes falsified if even one of them misunderstands the rest.
The desire to be, to exist distinct and separate from all that is not oneself, is evidently the essential cause of the world of forms and distinctions. If it is asked, What was the cause of the universe? we must reply, Itself. Who was the creator of the being? Itself: itself is its own object, itself alone its reason for existence.
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How could this love which in its primary forms is only a more passionate egoistic desire and in its origin appears no other than the need of a prey, change one day into the supreme gift, into self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness, if the desire to be had alone formed the being and alone reigned over his becoming?
If desire had been the sole creator, it could only have created a chaos. And from this chaos how could anything better than itself have issued? From the disorder of blind forces how, without the intervention of another principle, could there have ever arisen the harmony of a world? How could light have been barn out of the darkness and out of egoism love?
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
he is the greatest deity. Especially he is the primary impeller of
speech of which Vayu is the medium and Indra the lord. This
1.12 - The Office and Limitations of the Reason, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Meanwhile, the intellect performs its function; it leads man to the gates of a greater self-consciousness and places him with unbandaged eyes on that wide threshold where a more luminous Angel has to take him by the hand. It takes first the lower powers of his existence, each absorbed in its own urge, each striving with a blind self-sufficiency towards the fulfilment of its own instincts and primary impulses; it teaches them to understand themselves and to look through the reflecting eyes of the intelligence on the laws of their own action. It enables them to discern intelligently the high in themselves from the low, the pure from the impure and out of a crude confusion to arrive at more and more luminous formulas of their possibilities. It gives them self-knowledge and is a guide, teacher, purifier, liberator. For it enables them also to look beyond themselves and at each other and to draw upon each other for fresh motives and a richer working. It streng thens and purifies the hedonistic and the aesthetic activities and softens their quarrel with the ethical mind and instinct; it gives them solidity and seriousness, brings them to the support of the practical and dynamic powers and allies them more closely to the strong actualities of life. It sweetens the ethical will by infusing into it psychic, hedonistic and aesthetic elements and ennobles by all these separately or together the practical, dynamic and utilitarian temperament of the human being. At the same time it plays the part of a judge and legislator, seeks to fix rules, provide systems and regularised combinations which shall enable the powers of the human soul to walk by a settled path and act according to a sure law, an ascertained measure and in a balanced rhythm. Here it finds after a time that its legislative action becomes a force for limitation and turns into a bondage and that the regularised system which it has imposed in the interests of order and conservation becomes a cause of petrifaction and the sealing up of the fountains of life. It has to bring in its own saving faculty of doubt. Under the impulse of the intelligence warned by the obscure revolt of the oppressed springs of life, ethics, aesthetics, the social, political, economic rule begin to question themselves and, if this at first brings in again some confusion, disorder and uncertainty, yet it awakens new movements of imagination, insight, self-knowledge and self-realisation by which old systems and formulas are transformed or disappear, new experiments are made and in the end larger potentialities and combinations are brought into play. By this double action of the intelligence, affirming and imposing what it has seen and again in due season questioning what has been accomplished in order to make a new affirmation, fixing a rule and order and liberating from rule and order, the progress of the race is assured, however uncertain may seem its steps and stages.
But the action of the intelligence is not only turned downward and outward upon our subjective and external life to understand it and determine the law and order of its present movement and its future potentialities. It has also an upward and inward eye and a more luminous functioning by which it accepts divinations from the hidden eternities. It is opened in this power of vision to a Truth above it from which it derives, however imperfectly and as from behind a veil, an indirect knowledge of the universal principles of our existence and its possibilities; it receives and turns what it can seize of them into intellectual forms and these provide us with large governing ideas by which our efforts can be shaped and around which they can be concentrated or massed; it defines the ideals which we seek to accomplish. It provides us with the great ideas that are forces (ides forces), ideas which in their own strength impose themselves upon our life and compel it into their moulds. Only the forms we give these ideas are intellectual; they themselves descend from a plane of truth of being where knowledge and force are one, the idea and the power of self-fulfilment in the idea are inseparable. Unfortunately, when translated into the forms of our intelligence which acts only by a separating and combining analysis and synthesis and into the effort of our life which advances by a sort of experimental and empirical seeking, these powers become disparate and conflicting ideals which we have all the difficulty in the world to bring into any kind of satisfactory harmony. Such are the primary principles of liberty and order, good, beauty and truth, the ideal of power and the ideal of love, individualism and collectivism, self-denial and self-fulfilment and a hundred others. In each sphere of human life, in each part of our being and our action the intellect presents us with the opposition of a number of such master ideas and such conflicting principles. It finds each to be a truth to which something essential in our being responds,in our higher nature a law, in our lower nature an instinct. It seeks to fulfil each in turn, builds a system of action round it and goes from one to the other and back again to what it has left. Or it tries to combine them but is contented with none of the combinations it has made because none brings about their perfect reconciliation or their satisfied oneness. That indeed belongs to a larger and higher consciousness, not yet attained by mankind, where these opposites are ever harmonised and even unified because in their origin they are eternally one. But still every enlarged attempt of the intelligence thus dealing with our inner and outer life increases the width and wealth of our nature, opens it to larger possibilities of self-knowledge and self-realisation and brings us nearer to our awakening into that greater consciousness.
The individual and social progress of man has been thus a double movement of self-illumination and self-harmonising with the intelligence and the intelligent will as the intermediaries between his soul and its works. He has had to bring out numberless possibilities of self-understanding, self-mastery, self-formation out of his first crude life of instincts and impulses; he has been constantly impelled to convert that lower animal or half-animal existence with its imperfect self-conscience into the stuff of intelligent being, instincts into ideas, impulses into ordered movements of an intelligent will. But as he has to proceed out of ignorance into knowledge by a slow labour of self-recognition and mastery of his surroundings and his material and as his intelligence is incapable of seizing comprehensively the whole of himself in knowledge, unable to work out comprehensively the mass of his possibilities in action, he has had to proceed piecemeal, by partial experiments, by creation of different types, by a constant swinging backward and forward between the various possibilities before him and the different elements he has to harmonise.
1.12 - The Sociology of Superman, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But the very conditions of the uprooting of the old order may for a long time falsify the quest for the new order. And at first, this new order does not exist; it has to be made. A whole world has to be invented. And the aspiring superman or let us simply say the aspirant to something else must confront a primary reality: the law of freedom is a very demanding one, infinitely more demanding than all the laws imposed by the Machine. It is not a coasting into just anything, but a methodical uprooting from thousands of little slaveries; it does not mean abandoning everything, but, on the contrary, taking charge of everything, since we no longer want to depend on anybody or anything. It is a supreme apprenticeship of responsibility that of being oneself, which in the end is being all. It is not an escape, but a conquest; not a vacation from the Machine, but a great Adventure into man's unknown. And anything that may hamper this supreme freedom, at whatever level or under whatever appearance, must be fought as fiercely as the police or lawmakers of the old world. We are not leaving the slavery of the old order to fall into the worse slavery of ourselves the slavery of drugs, of a party, of one religion or another, one sect or another, a golden bubble or a white one. We want the one freedom of smiling at everything and being light everywhere, identical in destitution and pomp, in prison and palace, in emptiness and fullness and everything is full because we burn with the one little flame that possesses everything forever.
What will they do, these wanderers, these transhumans of a new country that does not yet exist? In the first place, they will perhaps not move at all. They will perhaps have understood that the change has to be wrought inside and that, if nothing changes inside, nothing will ever change outside for centuries and centuries. They will perhaps stay right where they are, in this little street, this gray country, in a humble disguise, an old routine, but it will no longer be a routine because they will do everything with another look, in another way, with another attitude an inner way that changes all ways. And if they persevere, they will notice that this one little drop of true light they carry within themselves has the power to change everything about them surreptitiously. In their unpretentious little circle, they will have worked for the new world and precipitated a little more truth upon earth. But no circle is little when it has that center, since it is the center of everything. Or else, one day, perhaps they will feel impelled to join with their peers of the new world and with them build some living testimony of their common aspiration, as others built pyramids or cathedrals perhaps a city of the new world. And this is the beginning of a great enterprise, and a great danger.
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There are ten or twenty, perhaps fifty, here or there, in one latitude or another, who yearn to till a truer plot of land, a small patch of man to grow a truer being within themselves, perhaps create together a laboratory of the superman, lay the first stone of the City of Truth on earth. They do not know, they do not know anything, except that they need something else and that there exists a Law of Harmony, a marvelous something of the Future seeking to be incarnated. They want to find the conditions of that incarnation, to lend themselves to the trial, to offer their substance for that living experiment. They know nothing except that everything must be different: in hearts, in gestures, in matter and the handling of matter. They are not seeking to create a new civilization, but another man; not a supercity among the millions of buildings of the world, but a listening post for the forces of the future, a supreme yantra of Truth, a conduit, a channel to try to capture and inscribe in matter a first note of the great Harmony, a first tangible sign of the new world. They do not pose as the champions of anything; they do not defend any liberty or attack any ism. They simply try together. They are the champions of their own pure little note, which is unlike the next person's and yet is everyone's note. They are no longer from a country, a family, a religion or a party; they belong to their own party, which is no one else's and yet is the party of the world, because what becomes true at one point becomes true for the whole world and brings the whole world together. They are from a family to be invented, from a country yet to be born. They do not try to correct others or anybody, to pour self-glorifying charities over the world, to cure the poor and the lepers; they try to cure the great poverty of smallness in themselves, the gray elf of the inner misery, to reclaim one single parcel of truth from themselves, one single ray of harmony. For if that Disease is cured in our own heart or a few hearts, the world will be that much lighter, and, through our clarity, the Law of Truth will better penetrate matter and radiate all around spontaneously. What liberation, what relief can a man who suffers in his own heart bring to the world? They do not work for themselves, though they are the primary ground of the experience, but as an offering, pure and simple, to that which they do not really know, but which shimmers at the edge of the world like the dawn of a new age. They are the prospectors of the new cycle. They have given themselves to the future, body and soul, the way one jumps into the fire, without a look back. They are the servants of the infinite in the finite, of the totality in the infinitesimal, of eternity in each second and each gesture. They create their heaven with each step and carve the new world out of the banality of the day. And they are not afraid of failure, for they have left behind the failures and success of the prison they live in the sole infallibility of a right little note.
But these builders of the new world will have to be careful not to erect a new prison, be it an ideal and enlightened one. In fact, they will understand, and quickly that this City of Truth will not and cannot see the light of day until they themselves live totally in the Truth, and that that building site is first and foremost the site of their own transmutation. One does not deceive Truth.
1.12 - TIME AND ETERNITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
This Marxian account of the matter is somewhat oversimplified. It is not quite true to say that all theologies and philosophies whose primary concern is with time, rather than eternity, are necessarily revolutionary. The aim of all revolutions is to make the future radically different from and better than the past. But some time-obsessed philosophies are primarily concerned with the past, not the future, and their politics are entirely a matter of preserving or restoring the status quo and getting back to the good old days. But the retrospective time-worshippers have one thing in common with the revolutionary devotees of the bigger and better future; they are prepared to use unlimited violence to achieve their ends. It is here that we discover the essential difference between the politics of eternity-philosophers and the politics of time-philosophers. For the latter, the ultimate good is to be found in the temporal worldin a future, where everyone will be happy because all are doing and thinking something either entirely new and unprecedented or, alternatively, something old, traditional and hallowed. And because the ultimate good lies in time, they feel justified in making use of any temporal means for achieving it. The Inquisition burns and tortures in order to perpetuate a creed, a ritual and an ecclesiastico-politico-financial organization regarded as necessary to mens eternal salvation. Bible-worshipping Protestants fight long and savage wars, in order to make the world safe for what they fondly imagine to be the genuinely antique Christianity of apostolic times. Jacobins and Bolsheviks are ready to sacrifice millions of human lives for the sake of a political and economic future gorgeously unlike the present. And now all Europe and most of Asia has had to be sacrificed to a crystal-gazers vision of perpetual Co-Prosperity and the Thousand-Year Reich. From the records of history it seems to be abundantly clear that most of the religions and philosophies which take time too seriously are correlated with political theories that inculcate and justify the use of large-scale violence. The only exceptions are those simple Epicurean faiths, in which the reaction to an all too real time is Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. This is not a very noble, nor even a very realistic kind of morality. But it seems to make a good deal more sense than the revolutionary ethic: Die (and kill), for tomorrow someone else will eat, drink and be merry. In practice, of course, the prospect even of somebody elses future merriment is extremely precarious. For the process of wholesale dying and killing creates material, social and psychological conditions that practically guarantee the revolution against the achievement of its beneficent ends.
For those whose philosophy does not compel them to take time with an excessive seriousness the ultimate good is to be sought neither in the revolutionarys progressive social apocalypse, nor in the reactionarys revived and perpetuated past, but in an eternal divine now which those who sufficiently desire this good can realize as a fact of immediate experience. The mere act of dying is not in itself a passport to eternity; nor can wholesale killing do anything to bring deliverance either to the slayers or the slain or their posterity. The peace that passes all understanding is the fruit of liberation into eternity; but in its ordinary everyday form peace is also the root of liberation. For where there are violent passions and compelling distractions, this ultimate good can never be realized. That is one of the reasons why the policy correlated with eternity-philosophies is tolerant and non-violent. The other reason is that the eternity, whose realization is the ultimate good, is a kingdom of heaven within. Thou art That; and though That is immortal and impassible, the killing and torturing of individual thous is a matter of cosmic significance, inasmuch as it interferes with the normal and natural relationship between individual souls and the divine eternal Ground of all being. Every violence is, over and above everything else, a sacrilegious rebellion against the divine order.
1.14 - IMMORTALITY AND SURVIVAL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
More precisely, good men spiritualize their mind-bodies; bad men incarnate and mentalize their spirits. The completely spiritualized mind-body is a Tathagata, who doesnt go anywhere when he dies, for the good reason that he is already, actually and consciously, where everyone has always potentially been without knowing. The person who has not, in this life, gone into Thusness, into the eternal principle of all states of being, goes at death into some particular state, either purgatorial or paradisal. In the Hindu scriptures and their commentaries several different kinds of posthumous salvation are distinguished. The thus-gone soul is completely delivered into complete union with the divine Ground; but it is also possible to achieve other kinds of mukti, or liberation, even while retaining a form of purified I-consciousness. The nature of any individuals deliverance after death depends upon three factors: the degree of holiness achieved by him while in the body, the particular aspect of the divine Reality to which he gave his primary allegiance, and the particular path he chose to follow. Similarly, in the Divine Comedy, Paradise has its various circles; but whereas in the oriental eschatologies the saved soul can go out of even sublimated individuality, out of survival even in some kind of celestial time, to a complete deliverance into the eternal, Dantes souls remain for ever where (after passing through the unmeritorious sufferings of purgatory) they find themselves as the result of their single incarnation in a body. Orthodox Christian doctrine does not admit the possibility, either in the posthumous state or in some other embodiment, of any further growth towards the ultimate perfection of a total union with the Godhead. But in the Hindu and Buddhist versions of the Perennial Philosophy the divine mercy is matched by the divine patience: both are infinite. For oriental theologians there is no eternal damnation; there are only purgatories and then an indefinite series of second chances to go forward towards not only mans, but the whole creations final endtotal reunion with the Ground of all being.
Preoccupation with posthumous deliverance is not one of the means to such deliverance, and may easily, indeed, become an obstacle in the way of advance towards it. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that ardent spiritualists are more likely to be saved than those who have never attended a sance or familiarized themselves with the literature, speculative or evidential. My intention here is not to add to that literature, but rather to give the baldest summary of what has been written about the subject of survival within the various religious traditions.
1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But let us clearly understand that they must not be interpreted, as the modern pragmatic tendency concerned much more with the present affairs of the world than with any high and far-off spiritual possibility seeks to interpret them, as no more than a philosophical and religious justification of social service, patriotic, cosmopolitan and humanitarian effort and attachment to the hundred eager social schemes and dreams which attract the modern intellect. It is not the rule of a large moral and intellectual altruism which is here announced, but that of a spiritual unity with God and with this world of beings who dwell in him and in whom he dwells. It is not an injunction to subordinate the individual to society and humanity or immolate egoism on the altar of the human collectivity, but to fulfil the individual in God and to sacrifice the ego on the one true altar of the allembracing Divinity. The Gita moves on a plane of ideas and experiences higher than those of the modern mind which is at the stage indeed of a struggle to shake off the coils of egoism, but is still mundane in its outlook and intellectual and moral rather than spiritual in its temperament. Patriotism, cosmopolitanism, service of society, collectivism, humanitarianism, the ideal or religion of humanity are admirable aids towards our escape from our primary condition of individual, family, social, national egoism into a secondary stage in which the individual realises, as far as it can be done on the intellectual, moral and emotional level, - on that level he cannot do it entirely in the right and perfect way, the way of the integral truth of his being, - the oneness of his existence with the existence of other beings. But
The Principle of Divine Works
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
schema is a primary one characterizing the psychology of love
relationships and also of the transference, it will, like all char-
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the prima materia, the arcanum, the primary substance, which
in Paracelsus and his followers is called the increatum and is
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This primary substance is round (massa globosa, rotundum,
aroixdov oTpoyyvXov), like the world and the world-soul; it is in
1.14 - The Supermind as Creator, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
6:There are subordinate, but important details. The Vedic seers seem to speak of two primary faculties of the "truthconscious" soul; they are Sight and Hearing, by which is intended direct operations of an inherent Knowledge describable as truth-vision and truth-audition and reflected from far-off in our human mentality by the faculties of revelation and inspiration. Besides, a distinction seems to be made in the operations of the Supermind between knowledge by a comprehending and pervading consciousness which is very near to subjective knowledge by identity and knowledge by a projecting, confronting, apprehending consciousness which is the beginning of objective cognition. These are the Vedic clues. And we may accept from this ancient experience the subsidiary term "truthconsciousness" to delimit the connotation of the more elastic phrase, Supermind.
7:We see at once that such a consciousness, described by such characteristics, must be an intermediate formulation which refers back to a term above it and forward to another below it; we see at the same time that it is evidently the link and means by which the inferior develops out of the superior and should equally be the link and means by which it may develop back again towards its source. The term above is the unitarian or indivisible consciousness of pure Sachchidananda in which there are no separating distinctions; the term below is the analytic or dividing consciousness of Mind which can only know by separation and distinction and has at the most a vague and secondary apprehension of unity and infinity, - for, though it can synthetise its divisions, it cannot arrive at a true totality. Between them is this comprehensive and creative consciousness, by its power of pervading and intimately comprehending knowledge the child of that self-awareness by identity which is the poise of the Brahman and by its power of projecting, confronting, apprehending knowledge parent of that awareness by distinction which is the process of the Mind.
1.16 - The Suprarational Ultimate of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The reason is that here we get to another power of our being which is different from the ethical, aesthetic, rational and religious,one which, even if we recognise it as lower in the scale, still insists on its own reality and has not only the right to exist but the right to satisfy itself and be fulfilled. It is indeed the primary power, it is the base of our existence upon earth, it is that which the others take as their starting-point and their foundation. This is the life-power in us, the vitalistic, the dynamic nature. Its whole principle and aim is to be, to assert its existence, to increase, to expand, to possess and to enjoy: its native terms are growth of being, pleasure and power. Life itself here is Being at labour in Matter to express itself in terms of conscious force; human life is the human being at labour to impress himself on the material world with the greatest possible force and intensity and extension. His primary insistent aim must be to live and make for himself a place in the world, for himself and his species, secondly, having made it to possess, produce and enjoy with an ever-widening scope, and finally to spread himself over all the earth-life and dominate it; this is and must be his first practical business. That is what the Darwinians have tried to express by their notion of the struggle for life. But the struggle is not merely to last and live, but to increase, enjoy and possess: its method includes and uses not only a principle and instinct of egoism, but a concomitant principle and instinct of association. Human life is moved by two equally powerful impulses, one of individualistic self-assertion, the other of collective self-assertion; it works by strife, but also by mutual assistance and united effort: it uses two diverse convergent forms of action, two motives which seem to be contradictory but are in fact always coexistent, competitive endeavour and cooperative endeavour. It is from this character of the dynamism of life that the whole structure of human society has come into being, and it is upon the sustained and vigorous action of this dynamism that the continuance, energy and growth of all human societies depends. If this life-force in them fails and these motive-powers lose in vigour, then all begins to languish, stagnate and finally move towards disintegration.
The modern European idea of society is founded upon the primary and predominant part played by this vital dynamism in the formation and maintenance of society; for the European, ever since the Teutonic mind and temperament took possession of western Europe, has been fundamentally the practical, dynamic and kinetic man, vitalistic in the very marrow of his thought and being. All else has been the fine flower of his life and culture, this has been its root and stalk, and in modern times this truth of his temperament, always there, has come aggressively to the surface and triumphed over the traditions of Christian piety and Latinistic culture. This triumphant emergence and lead of the vital man and his motives has been the whole significance of the great economic and political civilisation of the nineteenth century. Life in society consists, for the practical human instincts, in three activities, the domestic and social life of man,social in the sense of his customary relations with others in the community both as an individual and as a member of one family among many,his economic activities as a producer, wealth-getter and consumer and his political status and action. Society is the organisation of these three things and, fundamentally, it is for the practical human being nothing more. Learning and science, culture, ethics, aesthetics, religion are assigned their place as aids to life, for its guidance and betterment, for its embellishment, for the consolation of its labours, difficulties and sorrows, but they are no part of its very substance, do not figure among its essential objects. Life itself is the only object of living.
The ancients held a different, indeed a diametrically opposite view. Although they recognised the immense importance of the primary activities, in Asia the social most, in Europe the political,as every society must which at all means to live and flourish,yet these were not to them primary in the higher sense of the word; they were mans first business, but not his chief business. The ancients regarded this life as an occasion for the development of the rational, the ethical, the aesthetic, the spiritual being. Greece and Rome laid stress on the three first alone, Asia went farther, made these also subordinate and looked upon them as stepping-stones to a spiritual consummation. Greece and Rome were proudest of their art, poetry and philosophy and cherished these things as much as or even more than their political liberty or greatness. Asia too exalted these three powers and valued inordinately her social organisation, but valued much more highly, exalted with a much greater intensity of worship her saints, her religious founders and thinkers, her spiritual heroes. The modern world has been proudest of its economic organisation, its political liberty, order and progress, the mechanism, comfort and ease of its social and domestic life, its science, but science most in its application to practical life, most for its instruments and conveniences, its railways, telegraphs, steamships and its other thousand and one discoveries, countless inventions and engines which help man to master the physical world. That marks the whole difference in the attitude.
On this a great deal hangs; for if the practical and vitalistic view of life and society is the right one, if society merely or principally exists for the maintenance, comfort, vital happiness and political and economic efficiency of the species, then our idea that life is a seeking for God and for the highest self and that society too must one day make that its principle cannot stand. Modern society, at any rate in its self-conscious aim, is far enough from any such endeavour; whatever may be the splendour of its achievement, it acknowledges only two gods, life and practical reason organised under the name of science. Therefore on this great primary thing, this life-power and its manifestations, we must look with especial care to see what it is in its reality as well as what it is in its appearance. Its appearance is familiar enough; for of that is made the very stuff and present form of our everyday life. Its main ideals are the physical good and vitalistic well-being of the individual and the community, the entire satisfaction of the desire for bodily health, long life, comfort, luxury, wealth, amusement, recreation, a constant and tireless expenditure of the mind and the dynamic life-force in remunerative work and production and, as the higher flame-spires of this restless and devouring energy, creations and conquests of various kinds, wars, invasions, colonisation, discovery, commercial victory, travel, adventure, the full possession and utilisation of the earth. All this life still takes as its cadre the old existing forms, the family, the society, the nation and it has two impulses, individualistic and collective.
The primary impulse of life is individualistic and makes family, social and national life a means for the greater satisfaction of the vital individual. In the family the individual seeks for the satisfaction of his vital instinct of possession, as well as for the joy of companionship, and for the fulfilment of his other vital instinct of self-reproduction. His gains are the possession of wife, servants, house, wealth, estates, the reproduction of much of himself in the body and mind of his progeny and the prolongation of his activities, gains and possessions in the life of his children; incidentally he enjoys the vital and physical pleasures and the more mental pleasures of emotion and affection to which the domestic life gives scope. In society he finds a less intimate but a larger expansion of himself and his instincts. A wider field of companionship, interchange, associated effort and production, errant or gregarious pleasure, satisfied emotion, stirred sensation and regular amusement are the advantages which attach him to social existence. In the nation and its constituent parts he finds a means for the play of a remoter but still larger sense of power and expansion. If he has the force, he finds there fame, pre-eminence, leadership or at a lower pitch the sense of an effective action on a small or a large scale, in a reduced or a magnified field of public action; if he cannot have this, still he can feel a share of some kind, a true portion or fictitious image of participation, in the pride, power and splendour of a great collective activity and vital expansion. In all this there is primarily at work the individualist principle of the vital instinct in which the competitive side of that movement of our nature associates with the cooperative but predominates over it. Carried to an excess this predominance creates the ideal of the arriviste, to whom family, society and nation are not so much a sympathetic field as a ladder to be climbed, a prey to be devoured, a thing to be conquered and dominated. In extreme cases the individualist turn isolates itself from the companion motive, reverts to a primitive anti-social feeling and creates the nomad, the adventurer, the ranger of wilds, or the pure solitary,solitary not from any intellectual or spiritual impulse, but because society, once an instrument, has become a prison and a burden, an oppressive cramping of his expansion, a denial of breathing-space and elbow-room. But these cases grow rarer, now that the ubiquitous tentacles of modern society take hold everywhere; soon there will be no place of refuge left for either the nomad or the solitary, not even perhaps Saharan deserts or the secure remotenesses of the Himalayas. Even, it may be, the refuge of an inner seclusion may be taken from us by a collectivist society intent to make its pragmatic, economic, dynamic most of every individual cell of the organism.
For this growing collectivist or cooperative tendency embodies the second instinct of the vital or practical being in man. It shows itself first in the family ideal by which the individual subordinates himself and finds his vital satisfaction and practical account, not in his own predominant individuality, but in the life of a larger vital ego. This ideal played a great part in the old aristocratic views of life; it was there in the ancient Indian idea of the kula and the kuladharma, and in later India it was at the root of the joint-family system which made the strong economic base of mediaeval Hinduism. It has taken its grossest Vaishya form in the ideal of the British domestic Philistine, the idea of the human individual born here to follow a trade or profession, to marry and procreate a family, to earn his living, to succeed reasonably if not to amass an efficient or ostentatious wealth, to enjoy for a space and then die, thus having done the whole business for which he came into the body and performed all his essential duty in life,for this apparently was the end unto which man with all his divine possibilities was born! But whatever form it may take, however this grossness may be refined or toned down, whatever ethical or religious conceptions may be superadded, always the family is an essentially practical, vitalistic and economic creation. It is simply a larger vital ego, a more complex vital organism that takes up the individual and englobes him in a more effective competitive and cooperative life unit. The family like the individual accepts and uses society for its field and means of continuance, of vital satisfaction and well-being, of aggrandisement and enjoyment. But this life unit also, this multiple ego can be induced by the cooperative instinct in life to subordinate its egoism to the claims of the society and trained even to sacrifice itself at need on the communal altar. For the society is only a still larger vital competitive and cooperative ego that takes up both the individual and the family into a more complex organism and uses them for the collective satisfaction of its vital needs, claims, interests, aggrandisement, well-being, enjoyment. The individual and family consent to this exploitation for the same reason that induced the individual to take on himself the yoke of the family, because they find their account in this wider vital life and have the instinct in it of their own larger growth, security and satisfaction. The society, still more than the family, is essentially economic in its aims and in its very nature. That accounts for the predominantly economic and materialistic character of modern ideas of Socialism; for these ideas are the full rationalistic flowering of this instinct of collective life. But since the society is one competitive unit among many of its kind, and since its first relations with the others are always potentially hostile, even at the best competitive and not cooperative, and have to be organised in that view, a political character is necessarily added to the social life, even predominates for a time over the economic and we have the nation or State. If we give their due value to these fundamental characteristics and motives of collective existence, it will seem natural enough that the development of the collective and cooperative idea of society should have culminated in a huge, often a monstrous overgrowth of the vitalistic, economic and political ideal of life, society and civilisation.
1.16 - The Triple Status of Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8:We have seen what is the nature of this first and primary poise of the Supermind which founds the inalienable unity of things. It is not the pure unitarian consciousness; for that is a timeless and spaceless concentration of Sachchidananda in itself, in which Conscious Force does not cast itself out into any kind of extension and, if it contains the universe at all, contains it in eternal potentiality and not in temporal actuality. This, on the contrary, is an equal self-extension of Sachchidananda all-comprehending, all-possessing, all-constituting. But this all is one, not many; there is no individualisation. It is when the reflection of this Supermind falls upon our stilled and purified self that we lose all sense of individuality; for there is no concentration of consciousness there to support an individual development. All is developed in unity and as one; all is held by this Divine Consciousness as forms of its existence, not as in any degree separate existences. Somewhat as the thoughts and images that occur in our mind are not separate existences to us, but forms taken by our consciousness, so are all names and forms to this primary Supermind. It is the pure divine ideation and formation in the Infinite, - only an ideation and formation that is organised not as an unreal play of mental thought, but as a real play of conscious being. The divine soul in this poise would make no difference between Conscious-Soul and ForceSoul, for all force would be action of consciousness, nor between Matter and Spirit since all mould would be simply form of Spirit.
9:In the second poise of the Supermind the Divine Consciousness stands back in the idea from the movement which it contains, realising it by a sort of apprehending consciousness, following it, occupying and inhabiting its works, seeming to distribute itself in its forms. In each name and form it would realise itself as the stable Conscious-Self, the same in all; but also it would realise itself as a concentration of ConsciousSelf following and supporting the individual play of movement and upholding its differentiation from other play of movement, - the same everywhere in soul-essence, but varying in soulform. This concentration supporting the soul-form would be the individual Divine or Jivatman as distinguished from the universal Divine or one all-constituting self. There would be no essential difference, but only a practical differentiation for the play which would not abrogate the real unity. The universal Divine would know all soul-forms as itself and yet establish a different relation with each separately and in each with all the others. The individual Divine would envisage its existence as a soul-form and soul-movement of the One and, while by the comprehending action of consciousness it would enjoy its unity with the One and with all soul-forms, it would also by a forward or frontal apprehending action support and enjoy its individual movement and its relations of a free difference in unity both with the One and with all its forms. If our purified mind were to reflect this secondary poise of Supermind, our soul could support and occupy its individual existence and yet even there realise itself as the One that has become all, inhabits all, contains all, enjoying even in its particular modification its unity with God and its fellows. In no other circumstance of the supramental existence would there be any characteristic change; the only change would be this play of the One that has manifested its multiplicity and of the Many that are still one, with all that is necessary to maintain and conduct the play.
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12:Obviously, these three poises would be only different ways of dealing with the same Truth; the Truth of existence enjoyed would be the same, the way of enjoying it or rather the poise of the soul in enjoying it would be different. The delight, the Ananda would vary, but would abide always within the status of the Truth-consciousness and involve no lapse into the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For the secondary and tertiary Supermind would only develop and apply in the terms of the divine multiplicity what the primary Supermind had held in the terms of the divine unity. We cannot stamp any of these three poises with the stigma of falsehood and illusion. The language of the Upanishads, the supreme ancient authority for these truths of a higher experience, when they speak of the Divine existence which is manifesting itself, implies the validity of all these experiences. We can only assert the priority of the oneness to the multiplicity, a priority not in time but in relation of consciousness, and no statement of supreme spiritual experience, no Vedantic philosophy denies this priority or the eternal dependence of the Many on the One. It is because in Time the Many seem not to be eternal but to manifest out of the One and return into it as their essence that their reality is denied; but it might equally be reasoned that the eternal persistence or, if you will, the eternal recurrence of the manifestation in Time is a proof that the divine multiplicity is an eternal fact of the Supreme beyond Time no less than the divine unity; otherwise it could not have this characteristic of inevitable eternal recurrence in Time.
13:It is indeed only when our human mentality lays an exclusive emphasis on one side of spiritual experience, affirms that to be the sole eternal truth and states it in the terms of our all-dividing mental logic that the necessity for mutually destructive schools of philosophy arises. Thus, emphasising the sole truth of the unitarian consciousness, we observe the play of the divine unity, erroneously rendered by our mentality into the terms of real difference, but, not satisfied with correcting this error of the mind by the truth of a higher principle, we assert that the play itself is an illusion. Or, emphasising the play of the One in the Many, we declare a qualified unity and regard the individual soul as a soul-form of the Supreme, but would assert the eternity of this qualified existence and deny altogether the experience of a pure consciousness in an unqualified oneness. Or, again, emphasising the play of difference, we assert that the Supreme and the human soul are eternally different and reject the validity of an experience which exceeds and seems to abolish that difference. But the position that we have now firmly taken absolves us from the necessity of these negations and exclusions: we see that there is a truth behind all these affirmations, but at the same time an excess which leads to an ill-founded negation. Affirming, as we have done, the absolute absoluteness of That, not limited by our ideas of unity, not limited by our ideas of multiplicity, affirming the unity as a basis for the manifestation of the multiplicity and the multiplicity as the basis for the return to oneness and the enjoyment of unity in the divine manifestation, we need not burden our present statement with these discussions or undertake the vain labour of enslaving to our mental distinctions and definitions the absolute freedom of the Divine Infinite.
1.17 - SUFFERING, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The urge-to-separateness, or craving for independent and individualized existence, can manifest itself on all the levels of life, from the merely cellular and physiological, through the instinctive, to the fully conscious. It can be the craving of a whole organism for an intensification of its separateness from the environment and the divine Ground. Or it can be the urge of a part within an organism for an intensification of its own partial life as distinct from (and consequently at the expense of) the life of the organism as a whole. In the first case we speak of impulse, passion, desire, self-will, sin; in the second, we describe what is happening as illness, injury, functional or organic disorder. In both cases the craving for separateness results in suffering, not only for the craver, but also for the cravers sentient environmento ther organisms in the external world, or other organs within the same organism. In one way suffering is entirely private; in another, fatally contagious. No living creature is able to experience the suffering of another creature. But the craving for separateness which, sooner or later, directly or indirectly, results in some form of private and unshareable suffering for the craver, also results, sooner or later, directly or indirectly, in suffering (equally private and unshareable) for others. Suffering and moral evil have the same sourcea craving for the intensification of the separateness which is the primary datum of all creatureliness.
It will be as well to illustrate these generalizations by a few examples. Let us consider first the suffering inflicted by living organisms on themselves and on other living organisms in the mere process of keeping alive. The cause of such suffering is the craving for individual existence, expressing itself specifically in the form of hunger. Hunger is entirely naturala part of every creatures dharma. The suffering it causes alike to the hungry and to those who satisfy their hunger is inseparable from the existence of sentient creatures. The existence of sentient creatures has a goal and purpose which is ultimately the supreme good of every one of them. But meanwhile the suffering of creatures remains a fact and is a necessary part of creatureliness. In so far as this is the case, creation is the beginning of the Fall. The consummation of the Fall takes place when creatures seek to intensify their separateness beyond the limits prescribed by the law of their being. On the biological level the Fall would seem to have been consummated very frequently during the course of evolutionary history.
1.17 - The Divine Birth and Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
principle working itself out in forms and laws of action, forms of the inner and the outer life, orderings of relations of every kind in the world. Dharma1 is both that which we hold to and that which holds together our inner and outer activities. In its primary sense it means a fundamental law of our nature which secretly conditions all our activities, and in this sense each being, type, species, individual, group has its own dharma. Secondly, there is the divine nature which has to develop and manifest in us, and in this sense dharma is the law of the inner workings by which that grows in our being. Thirdly, there is the law by which we govern our outgoing thought and action and our relations with each other so as to help best both our own growth and that of the human race towards the divine ideal.
Dharma is generally spoken of as something eternal and unchanging, and so it is in the fundamental principle, in the ideal, but in its forms it is continually changing and evolving, because man does not already possess the ideal or live in it, but aspires more or less perfectly towards it, is growing towards its knowledge and practice. And in this growth dharma is all that helps us to grow into the divine purity, largeness, light, freedom, power, strength, joy, love, good, unity, beauty, and against it stands its shadow and denial, all that resists its growth and has not undergone its law, all that has not yielded up and does not will to yield up its secret of divine values, but presents a front of perversion and contradiction, of impurity, narrowness, bondage, darkness, weakness, vileness, discord and suffering and division, and the hideous and the crude, all that man has to leave behind in his progress. This is the adharma, notdharma, which strives with and seeks to overcome the dharma, to draw backward and downward, the reactionary force which makes for evil, ignorance and darkness. Between the two there is perpetual battle and struggle, oscillation of victory and defeat in which sometimes the upward and sometimes the downward forces prevail. This has been typified in the Vedic image of the struggle between the divine and the Titanic powers, the sons
1.18 - The Infrarational Age of the Cycle, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Thus an infrarational period of human and social development need not be without its elements, its strong elements of reason and of spirituality. Even the savage, whether he be primitive or degenerate man, has some coherent idea of this world and the beyond, a theory of life and a religion. To us with our more advanced rationality his theory of life may seem incoherent, because we have lost its point of view and its principle of mental associations. But it is still an act of reason, and within its limits he is capable of a sufficient play of thought both ideative and practical, as well as a clear ethical idea and motive, some aesthetic notions and an understood order of society poor and barbarous to our view, but well enough contrived and put together to serve the simplicity of its objects. Or again we may not realise the element of reason in a primitive theory of life or of spirituality in a barbaric religion, because it appears to us to be made up of symbols and forms to which a superstitious value is attached by these undeveloped minds. But this is because the reason at this stage has an imperfect and limited action and the element of spirituality is crude or undeveloped and not yet self-conscious; in order to hold firmly their workings and make them real and concrete to his mind and spirit primitive man has to give them shape in symbols and forms to which he clings with a barbaric awe and reverence, because they alone can embody for him his method of self-guidance in life. For the dominant thing in him is his infrarational life of instinct, vital intuition and impulse, mechanical custom and tradition, and it is that to which the rest of him has to give some kind of primary order and first glimmerings of light. The unrefined reason and unenlightened spirit in him cannot work for their own ends; they are bond-slaves of his infrarational nature.
At a higher stage of development or of a return towards a fuller evolution,for the actual savage in humanity is perhaps not the original primitive man, but a relapse and reversion towards primitiveness,the infrarational stage of society may arrive at a very lofty order of civilisation. It may have great intuitions of the meaning or general intention of life, admirable ideas of the arrangement of life, a harmonious, well-adapted, durable and serviceable social system, an imposing religion which will not be without its profundities, but in which symbol and ceremonial will form the largest portion and for the mass of man will be almost the whole of religion. In this stage pure reason and pure spirituality will not govern the society or move large bodies of men, but will be represented, if at all, by individuals at first few, but growing in number as these two powers increase in their purity and vigour and attract more and more votaries.
1.19 - Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
17:It is becoming possible now to conceive that in the very atom there is something that becomes in us a will and a desire, there is an attraction and repulsion which, though phenomenally other, are essentially the same thing as liking and disliking in ourselves, but are, as we say, inconscient or subconscient. This essence of will and desire are evident everywhere in Nature and, though this is not yet sufficiently envisaged, they are associated with and indeed the expression of a subconscient or, if you will, inconscient or quite involved sense and intelligence which are equally pervasive. Present in every atom of Matter all this is necessarily present in every thing which is formed by the aggregation of those atoms; and they are present in the atom because they are present in the Force which builds up and constitutes the atom. That Force is fundamentally the Chit-Tapas or Chit-Shakti of the Vedanta, consciousness-force, inherent conscious force of conscious-being, which manifests itself as nervous energy full of submental sensation in the plant, as desire-sense and desire-will in the primary animal forms, as self-conscious sense and force in the developing animal, as mental will and knowledge topping all the rest in man. Life is a scale of the universal Energy in which the transition from inconscience to consciousness is managed; it is an intermediary power of it latent or submerged in Matter, delivered by its own force into submental being, delivered finally by the emergence of Mind into the full possibility of its dynamis.
18:Apart from all other considerations, this conclusion imposes itself as a logical necessity if we observe even the surface process of the emergence in the light of the evolutionary theme. It is self-evident that Life in the plant, even if otherwise organised than in the animal, is yet the same power, marked by birth and growth and death, propagation by the seed, death by decay or malady or violence, maintenance by indrawing of nourishing elements from without, dependence on light and heat, productiveness and sterility, even states of sleep and waking, energy and depression of life-dynamism, passage from infancy to maturity and age; the plant contains, moreover, the essences of the force of life and is therefore the natural food of animal existences. If it is conceded that it has a nervous system and reactions to stimuli, a beginning or undercurrent of submental or purely vital sensations, the identity becomes closer; but still it remains evidently a stage of life evolution intermediate between animal existence and "inanimate" Matter. This is precisely what must be expected if Life is a force evolving out of Matter and culminating in Mind, and, if it is that, then we are bound to suppose that it is already there in Matter itself submerged or latent in the material subconsciousness or inconscience. For from where else can it emerge? Evolution of Life in matter supposes a previous involution of it there, unless we suppose it to be a new creation magically and unaccountably introduced into Nature. If it is that, it must either be a creation out of nothing or a result of material operations which is not accounted for by anything in the operations themselves or by any element in them which is of a kindred nature; or, conceivably, it may be a descent from above, from some supraphysical plane above the material universe. The two first suppositions can be dismissed as arbitrary conceptions; the last explanation is possible and it is quite conceivable and in the occult view of things true that a pressure from some plane of Life above the material universe has assisted the emergence of life here. But this does not exclude the origin of life from Matter itself as a primary and necessary movement; for the existence of a Life-world or Life-plane above the material does not of itself lead to the emergence of Life in matter unless that Life-plane exists as a formative stage in a descent of Being through several grades or powers of itself into the Inconscience with the result of an involution of itself with all these powers in Matter for a later evolution and emergence. Whether signs of this submerged life are discoverable, unorganised yet or rudimentary, in material things or there are no such signs, because this involved Life is in a full sleep, is not a question of capital importance. The material Energy that aggregates, forms and disaggregates4 is the same Power in another grade of itself as that Life-Energy which expresses itself in birth, growth and death, just as by its doing of the works of Intelligence in a somnambulist subconscience it betrays itself as the same Power that in yet another grade attains the status of Mind; its very character shows that it contains in itself, though not yet in their characteristic organisation or process, the yet undelivered powers of Mind and Life.
19:Life then reveals itself as essentially the same everywhere from the atom to man, the atom containing the subconscious stuff and movement of being which are released into consciousness in the animal, with plant life as a midway stage in the evolution. Life is really a universal operation of Conscious-Force acting subconsciously on and in Matter; it is the operation that creates, maintains, destroys and re-creates forms or bodies and attempts by play of nerve-force, that is to say, by currents of interchange of stimulating energy to awake conscious sensation in those bodies. In this operation there are three stages; the lowest is that in which the vibration is still in the sleep of Matter, entirely subconscious so as to seem wholly mechanical; the middle stage is that in which it becomes capable of a response still submental but on the verge of what we know as consciousness; the highest is that in which life develops conscious mentality in the form of a mentally perceptible sensation which in this transition becomes the basis for the development of sense-mind and intelligence. It is in the middle stage that we catch the idea of Life as distinguished from Matter and Mind, but in reality it is the same in all the stages and always a middle term between Mind and Matter, constituent of the latter and instinct with the former. It is an operation of Conscious-Force which is neither the mere formation of substance nor the operation of mind with substance and form as its object of apprehension; it is rather an energising of conscious being which is a cause and support of the formation of substance and an intermediate source and support of conscious mental apprehension. Life, as this intermediate energising of conscious being, liberates into sensitive action and reaction a form of the creative force of existence which was working subconsciently or inconsciently, absorbed in its own substance; it supports and liberates into action the apprehensive consciousness of existence called mind and gives it a dynamic instrumentation so that it can work not only on its own forms but on forms of life and matter; it connects, too, and supports, as a middle term between them, the mutual commerce of the two, mind and matter. This means of commerce Life provides in the continual currents of her pulsating nerve-energy which carry force of the form as a sensation to modify Mind and bring back force of Mind as will to modify Matter. It is therefore this nerve-energy which we usually mean when we talk of Life; it is the Prana or Life-force of the Indian system. But nerve-energy is only the form it takes in the animal being; the same Pranic energy is present in all forms down to the atom, since everywhere it is the same in essence and everywhere it is the same operation of Conscious-Force, - Force supporting and modifying the substantial existence of its own forms, Force with sense and mind secretly active but at first involved in the form and preparing to emerge, then finally emerging from their involution. This is the whole significance of the omnipresent Life that has manifested and inhabits the material universe.
1.19 - The Curve of the Rational Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This reason which is to be universally applied, cannot be the reason of a ruling class; for in the present imperfection of the human race that always means in practice the fettering and misapplication of reason degraded into a servant of power to maintain the privileges of the ruling class and justify the existing order. It cannot be the reason of a few pre-eminent thinkers; for, if the mass is infrarational, the application of their ideas becomes in practice disfigured, ineffective, incomplete, speedily altered into mere form and convention. It must be the reason of each and all seeking for a basis of agreement. Hence arises the principle of individualistic democracy, that the reason and will of every individual in the society must be allowed to count equally with the reason and will of every other in determining its government, in selecting the essential basis and in arranging the detailed ordering of the common life. This must be, not because the reason of one man is as good as the reason of any other, but because otherwise we get back inevitably to the rule of a predominant class which, however modified by being obliged to consider to some extent the opinion of the ruled, must exhibit always the irrational vice of reason subordinated to the purposes of power and not flexibly used for its own proper and ideal ends. Secondly, each individual must be allowed to govern his life according to the dictates of his own reason and will so far as that can be done without impinging on the same right in others. This is a necessary corollary of the primary principle on which the age of reason founds its initial movement. It is sufficient for the first purposes of the rational age that each man should be supposed to have sufficient intelligence to understand views which are presented and explained to him, to consider the opinions of his fellows and to form in consultation with them his own judgment. His individual judgment so formed and by one device or another made effective is the share he contri butes to the building of the total common judgment by which society must be ruled, his little brick in appearance insignificant and yet indispensable to the imposing whole. And it is sufficient also for the first ideal of the rational age that this common judgment should be effectively organised only for the indispensable common ends of the society, while in all else men must be left free to govern their own life according to their own reason and will and find freely its best possible natural adjustment with the lives of others. In this way by the practice of the free use of reason men can grow into rational beings and learn to live by common agreement a liberal, a vigorous, a natural and yet rationalised existence.
In practice it is found that these ideas will not hold for a long time. For the ordinary man is not yet a rational being; emerging from a long infrarational past, he is not naturally able to form a reasonable judgment, but thinks either according to his own interests, impulses and prejudices or else according to the ideas of others more active in intelligence or swift in action who are able by some means to establish an influence over his mind. Secondly, he does not yet use his reason in order to come to an agreement with his fellows, but rather to enforce his own opinions by struggle and conflict with the opinions of others. Exceptionally he may utilise his reason for the pursuit of truth, but normally it serves for the justification of his impulses, prejudices and interests, and it is these that determine or at least quite discolour and disfigure his ideals, even when he has learned at all to have ideals. Finally, he does not use his freedom to arrive at a rational adjustment of his life with the life of others; his natural tendency is to enforce the aims of his life even at the expense of or, as it is euphemistically put, in competition with the life of others. There comes thus to be a wide gulf between the ideal and the first results of its practice. There is here a disparity between fact and idea that must lead to inevitable disillusionment and failure.
1.22 - Tabooed Words, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
surname or nickname. As distinguished from the real or primary
names, these secondary names are apparently held to be no part of
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: Whose is the body? You were without it in your deep sleep. After the I-thought arose the body arose. The first birth is that of Ithought. The body has its birth subsequent to I-thought. So its birth is secondary. Get rid of the primary cause and the secondary one will disappear by itself.
D.: How is that I-thought to be checked from rising?
--
Hence is Self-Realisation the primary and sole duty of man.
D.: How to quell the I-thought?
1.28 - Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
10:Since the Consciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in that world. Equally, for each individual being, his seeing or representation to himself of the world he lives in will depend on the poise or make which that Consciousness has assumed in him. Our human mental consciousness sees the world in sections cut by the reason and sense and put together in a formation which is also sectional; the house it builds is planned to accommodate one or another generalised formulation of Truth, but excludes the rest or admits some only as guests or dependents in the house. Overmind Consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision. Thus the mental reason sees Person and the Impersonal as opposites: it conceives an impersonal Existence in which person and personality are fictions of the Ignorance or temporary constructions; or, on the contrary, it can see Person as the primary reality and the impersonal as a mental abstraction or only stuff or means of manifestation. To the Overmind intelligence these are separable Powers of the one Existence which can pursue their independent self-affirmation and can also unite together their different modes of action, creating both in their independence and in their union different states of consciousness and being which can be all of them valid and all capable of coexistence. A purely impersonal existence and consciousness is true and possible, but also an entirely personal consciousness and existence; the Impersonal Divine, Nirguna Brahman, and the Personal Divine, Saguna Brahman, are here equal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal. Impersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a mode of expression; but, equally, Person can be the reality with impersonality as a mode of its nature: both aspects of manifestation face each other in the infinite variety of conscious Existence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are to the Overmind intelligence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the universal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world is a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or again it sees the world and all things as born of, existing by and going back to the Real Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an idealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of these ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each way excludes the others. Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual worldformula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers. The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit, each of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its selfexpression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation. In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence, each affirming its separate reality but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a complex universe.
11:In this simultaneous development of multitudinous independent or combined Powers or Potentials there is yet - or there is as yet - no chaos, no conflict, no fall from Truth or Knowledge. The Overmind is a creator of truths, not of illusions or falsehoods: what is worked out in any given overmental energism or movement is the truth of the Aspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight which is liberated into independent action, the truth of the consequences of its reality in that independence. There is no exclusiveness asserting each as the sole truth of being or the others as inferior truths: each God knows all the Gods and their place in existence; each Idea admits all other ideas and their right to be; each Force concedes a place to all other forces and their truth and consequences; no delight of separate fulfilled existence or separate experience denies or condemns the delight of other existence or other experience. The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort of inferior Supermind, - although it is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values, although, too, its comprehension of things is more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global wholes or constituted by separate independent realities uniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is grasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate and ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the overt constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and nature.
1.29 - The Myth of Adonis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
to beget children, these were the primary wants of men in the past,
and they will be the primary wants of men in the future so long as
the world lasts. Other things may be added to enrich and beautify
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: Whose is the body? You were without it in your deep sleep. After the 'I-thought' arose the body arose. The first birth is that of 'Ithought'. The body has its birth subsequent to 'I-thought'. So its birth is secondary. Get rid of the primary cause and the secondary one will disappear by itself.
316
--
Hence is Self-Realisation the primary and sole duty of man.
D.: How to quell the 'I-thought'?
1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Light, Truth and Bliss; the rest is secondary, sometimes a means, sometimes a result, not a primary purpose.
The true sense of the guidance becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations of the Will behind them. The surface mind can get only an imperfect glimpse. When we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with an inner knowledge and vision, we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in a new light and can observe how they all tended without our knowing it towards the growth of our being and consciousness, towards the work we had to do, towards some development that had to be made, - not only what seemed good, fortunate or successful but the struggles, failures, difficulties, upheavals.
14.01 - To Read Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Amrita also used to say the same thing, because he was learning the Gita from Sri Aurobindo. He could feel the spirit of Krishna and the spirit of Arjuna throughout their relations and the atmosphere they created. It is not the mere lesson, the teaching, that is important that is secondary. The person is the primary thing. And the person in the book or outside, you can approach only through your soul, through love. The soul alone can love.
I think I told you that once somebody asked me: "You speak of the soul but where is it?"
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
(silence). They are therefore secondary. Mowna is the primary form.
If the Guru is silent the seekers mind gets purified by itself.
15.04 - The Mother Abides, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed it was your soul that she salvaged out of the inconscience and established in you as a living reality. That was her first and primary task and She has fulfilled it. It was there always, true; but it was a far-off, very distant and almost inactive point of light, an unknown and an uncharted star not yet come into the ken of human measure and potency. She has brought it nearer home and established in our living and dynamic consciousness. She has buoyed it up from the unconscious depths, or brought it down from vague, ethereal, nebulous regions, gradually developed it and nourished it and given it a firm dwelling in our inner regions. She moulded it into a personality with a name and a form. If we do not recognise it often or always, it is because the outer shell of the senses has not yet been fully opened to it. But it is still there as our inner ruler and guide in spite of and through all obscurities and aberrations.
Exactly the next step, the second part of her work was to build around this soul, the inner being, a body, a material vehicle to express it. To give a concrete divine shape to this sole reality was her labour at this point. The soul was there, but a god has to come and inhabit it; this godhead, that is to say, a Power, a form of the Mother's own personality has to be brought down and the soul integrated into it. Apparently it was left off at that point and not completed.
1.63 - The Interpretation of the Fire-Festivals, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
imitation of sunshine in these ceremonies was primary and original,
the purification attri buted to them was secondary and derivative.
--
mind in all ages, we may suspect that the primary intention of all
these fire-festivals was simply to destroy or at all events get rid
1.68 - The Golden Bough, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
regard the fiery aspect of the fern-seed as primary, and its golden
aspect as secondary and derivative. Fern-seed, in fact, would seem
1.78 - Sore Spots, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
For us, Sex is the first unconscious manifestation of Chiah, the Creative Energy; and although (like everything else) it is shown both on the spiritual and the physical planes, its most important forth-showing is on the "Magical" plane, because it actually produces phenomena which partake of all these. It is the True Will on the creative plane: "By Wisdom formed He the worlds." So soon as its thaumaturgy is accomplished, it is, through Binah, understood as the Logos. Thus in Sex we find every one of the primary Correspondences of Chokmah. Being thus ineffable and sacrosanct, it is (plainly enough) peculiarly liable to profanation. Being profaned, it is naturally more unspeakably nasty than any other of the "Mysteries." You will find a good deal on this subject implied in Artemis Iota, attached to another of my letters to you.
Before tackling "Sore Spots" seriously, there is after all, one point which should be made clear as to this Trinitarian simplification.
1929-06-23 - Knowledge of the Yogi - Knowledge and the Supermind - Methods of changing the condition of the body - Meditation, aspiration, sincerity, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are many varying conditions in which you may meditate and all have their effect upon the forces brought in or brought down and on their working. If you sit alone, it is your own inner and outer condition that matters. If you sit with others, the general condition is of primary importance. But in either case the conditions will always vary and the forces that answer will never be twice the same. A united concentration rightly done can be a great force. There is an old saying that if twelve sincere persons unite their will and their aspiration and call the Divine, the Divine is bound to manifest. But the will must be one-pointed, the aspiration sincere. For those who make the attempt can be united in inertia or even in mistaken or perverse desire, and the result is then likely to be disastrous.
In your meditation the first imperative need is a state of perfect and absolute sincerity in all the consciousness. It is indispensable that you should not deceive yourself or deceive or be deceived by others. Often people have a wish, a mental preference or vital desire; they want the experience to happen in a particular way or to take a turn that satisfies their ideas or desires or preferences; they do not keep themselves blank and unprejudiced and simply and sincerely observe what happens. Then if you do not like what happens, it is easy to deceive yourself; you will see one thing, but give it a little twist and make it something else, or you will distort something simple and straightforward or magnify it into an extraordinary experience. When you sit in meditation you must be as candid and simple as a child, not interfering by your external mind, expecting nothing, insisting on nothing. Once this condition is there, all the rest depends upon the aspiration deep within you. If you ask from within for peace, it will come; if for strength, for power, for knowledge, they too will come, but all in the measure of your capacity to receive it. And if you call upon the Divine, then tooalways admitting that the Divine is open to your call, and that means your call is pure enough and strong enough to reach him,you will have the answer.
1955-06-29 - The true vital and true physical - Time and Space - The psychics memory of former lives - The psychic organises ones life - The psychics knowledge and direction, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the other case, if you have made it a habit to study and observe, you have before you all the little things of life which recur constantly. You dont want to live mechanically by a kind of habit, you want to live consciously, making use of your will. Well, at every minute you are facing a problem which you cant solve, I mean purely physically. Take a certain difficulty you have in your bodywhat we call a disorderwhich is expressed by an uneasiness or an indisposition; it is not an illness, it is an indisposition, it is an uneasiness, there is something thats not working very well. Then if you dont have the psychic knowledge which makes you directly do the thing which ought to be done and without any argument, if you want to refer the thing to your mind and to what you consider to be the knowledge you have, then Take a case which lies in the field of medicine, that is, Should I do this or that, take this medicine or that, change the diet, take this food or that? Then you look. If you have never known more than a certain number of very primary principles, your choice is very easy, but if by chance you have studied a little and know if it be only the different medical systems of treatment there are the systems of different countries, the different systems of medicines, there are, you know, allopathy, homeopathy, this one and that; so one tells you one thing, another tells you another. You know people who have told you, Dont do this, do that, others who say, Above all dont do this, do that, and so on, and so you find yourself facing the problem and ask yourself, Well, with all that, what do I know myself, what am I going to decide? I know nothing.
There is only one thing which knows in you, thats your psychic; it makes no mistake, it will immediately, instantaneously tell you, if you obey it without a word and without your ideas and arguments, it will make you do the right thing. But all the rest you are lost. And for everything: what are you going to study, what are you not going to study, what work are you going to do, what path are you going to take? But then there are all the possibilities which come in, all that you have either studied or met in life, all the suggestions you have received from all sides, which are there, like that, dancing around you. And with what will you decide? I am speaking of people who are absolutely sincere and have no preconceived ideas, prejudices, established rules which they follow in a mechanical routine, without endeavouring to know the truth at all, and for whom their mental construction is the truth. Then it is so simple, one goes straight on his path, bumps his nose against the wall but doesnt notice it until the nose is smashed. But otherwise it is terribly difficult.
1955-10-05 - Science and Ignorance - Knowledge, science and the Buddha - Knowing by identification - Discipline in science and in Buddhism - Progress in the mental field and beyond it, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For me, he says, ignorance was the primary if not the only evil
Isnt it truly so?
1957-07-17 - Power of conscious will over matter, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The basis of all these methods is the power exercised by the conscious will over matter. Usually it is a method which someone has used fairly successfully and set up as a principle of action, which he has taught to others who in turn have continued and perfected it until it has taken a somewhat fixed form of one kind of discipline or another. But the whole basis is the action of the conscious will on the body. The exact form of the method is not of primary importance. In various countries, at various times, one method or another has been used, but always behind it there is a canalised mental power which acts methodically. Of course, some methods try to use a higher power which would in its turn transmit its capacity to the mental power: if a power of a higher order is infused into the mental method, this method naturally becomes more effective and powerful. But essentially all these disciplines depend above all on the person who practises them and the way he uses them. One can, even in the most material, ordinary processes, make use of this altogether external basis to infuse into them powers of a higher order. And all methods, whatever they may be, depend almost exclusively on the person who uses them, on what he puts into them.
You see, if the matter is considered in its most modern, most external form, how is it that the movements we make almost constantly in our everyday life, or which we have to make in our work if it is a physical work, do not help or help very little, almost negligibly, to develop the muscles and to create harmony in the body? These same movements, on the other hand, if they are made consciously, deliberately, with a definite aim, suddenly start helping you to form your muscles and build up your body. There are jobs, for instance, where people have to carry extremely heavy loads, like bags of cement or sacks of corn or coal, and they make a considerable effort; to a certain extent they do it with an acquired facility, but that doesnt give them harmony of the body, because they dont do it with the idea of developing their muscles, they do it just like that. And someone who follows a method, either one he has learnt or one he has worked out for himself, and who makes these very movements with the will to develop this muscle or that, to create a general harmony in his bodyhe succeeds. Therefore, in the conscious will, there is something which adds considerably to the movement itself. Those who really want to practise physical culture as it is conceived now, everything they do, they do consciously. They walk downstairs consciously, they make the movements of ordinary life consciously, not mechanically. An attentive eye will perhaps notice a little difference but the greatest difference lies in the will they put into it, the consciousness they put into it. Walking to go somewhere and walking as an exercise is not the same thing. It is the conscious will in all these things which is important, it is that which brings about the progress and obtains the result. Therefore, what I mean is that the method one uses has only a relative importance in itself; it is the will to obtain a certain result that is important.
1958-01-29 - The plan of the universe - Self-awareness, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is the very small beginning of the emergence from the primary state of unconsciousness.
***
1958 11 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Physical culture is the process of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body. One may or may not know it, but it is a fact. When we concentrate to make our muscles move according to our will, when we endeavour to make our limbs more supple, to give them an agility, or a force, or a resistance, or a plasticity which they do not naturally possess, we infuse into the cells of the body a consciousness which was not there before, thus turning it into an increasingly homogeneous and receptive instrument, which progresses in and by its activities. This is the primary importance of physical culture. Of course, that is not the only thing that brings consciousness into the body, but it is something which acts in an overall way, and this is rare. I have already told you several times that the artist infuses a very great consciousness into his hands, as the intellectual does into his brain. But these are, as it were, local phenomena, whereas the action of physical culture is more general. And when one sees the absolutely marvellous results of this culture, when one observes the extent to which the body is capable of perfecting itself, one understands how useful this can be to the action of the psychic being which has entered into this material substance. For naturally, when it is in possession of an organised and harmonised instrument which is full of strength and suppleness and possibilities, its task is greatly facilitated.
I do not say that people who practise physical culture necessarily do it for this purpose, because very few are aware of this result. But whether they are aware of it or not, this is the result. Moreover, if you are at all sensitive, when you observe the moving body of a person who has practised physical culture in a methodical and rational way, you see a light, a consciousness, a life, which is not there in others.
1f.lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
primary nucleus and centre of some archaic and unbelievable chapter of
earths history whose outward ramifications, recalled only dimly in the
1f.lovecraft - The Colour out of Space, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
underlying primary tone without a place among the known tints of earth.
The Dutchmans breeches became a thing of sinister menace, and the
1f.lovecraft - The Horror at Red Hook, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
pedestal or throne so often mentioned by Malone as of primary occult
importance was never brought to light, though at one place under the
1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
sympathetic knowledge of my whole caseshall be the primary judge of
what I have to tell.
1f.lovecraft - The Shadow over Innsmouth, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the primary impression.
We met no one on the road, but presently began to pass deserted farms
1f.lovecraft - The Shunned House, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
extirpation forms a primary duty with every man not an enemy to the
worlds life, health, and sanity.
1f.lovecraft - The Trap, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Stamford, where I procured a heavy glass-cutting tool; for my primary
idea was to remove the ancient and magically potent mirror from its
1f.lovecraft - The Whisperer in Darkness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
considerableas their primary interpreter on earth. Much was told me
last nightfacts of the most stupendous and vista-opening natureand
1f.lovecraft - Through the Gates of the Silver Key, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
polarity and induced gate as this, it could not fail in its primary
function. Certainly, he would rest that night in the lost boyhood for
1.poe - Eureka - A Prose Poem, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Now, distinctness -intelligibility, at all points, is a primary feature in my general design. On important topics it is better to be a good deal prolix than even a very little obscure. But abstruseness is a quality appertaining to no subject per se. All are alike, in facility of comprehension, to him who approaches them by properly graduated steps. It is merely because a stepping-stone, here and there, is heedlessly left unsupplied in our road to the Differential Calculus, that this latter is not altogether as simple a thing as a sonnet by Mr. Solomon Seesaw.
By way of admitting, then, no chance for misapprehension, I think it advisable to proceed as if even the more obvious facts of Astronomy were unknown to the reader. In combining the two modes of discussion to which I have referred, I propose to avail myself of the advantages peculiar to each -and very especially of the iteration in detail which will be unavoidable as a consequence of the plan. Commencing with a descent, I shall reserve for the return upwards those indispensable considerations of quantity to which allusion has already been made.
--
This will be found the sole absolute assumption of my Discourse. I use the word "assumption" in its ordinary sense; yet I maintain that even this my primary proposition, is very, very far indeed, from being really a mere assumption. Nothing was ever more certainly -no human conclusion was ever, in fact, more regularly -more rigorously de duced: -but, alas! the processes lie out of the human analysis -at all events are beyond the utterance of the human tongue.
Let us now endeavor to conceive what Matter must be, when, or if, in its absolute extreme of Simplicity. Here the Reason flies at once to Imparticularity -to a particle -to one particle -a particle of one kind -of one character -of one nature -of one size -of one form a particle, therefore, "without form and void" -a particle positively a particle at all points -a particle absolutely unique, individual, undivided, and not indivisible only because He who created it, by dint of his Will, can by an infinitely less energetic exercise of the same Will, as a matter of course, divide it.
--
"In the beginning" we can admit -indeed we can comprehend -but one First Cause -the truly ultimate Principle -the Volition of God. The primary act -that of Irradiation from Unity -must have been independent of all that which the world now calls "principle" -because all that we so designate is but a consequence of the reaction of that primary act: -I say " primary" act; for the creation of the absolute material particle is more properly to be regarded as a Conception than as an "act" in the ordinary meaning of the term. Thus, we must regard the primary act as an act for the establishment of what we now call "principles". But this primary act itself is to be considered as Continuous Volition. The Thought of God is to be understood as originating the Diffusion -as proceeding with it -as regulating it -and, finally, as being withdrawn from it upon its completion. Then commences Reaction, and through Reaction, "Principle," as we employ the word. It will be advisable, however, to limit the application of this word to the two immediate results of the discontinuance of the Divine Volition -that is, to the two agents, Attraction and Repulsion. Every other Natural agent depends, either more or less immediately, upon these two, and therefore would be more conveniently designated as sub -principle.
It may be objected, thirdly, that, in general, the peculiar mode of distribution which I have suggested for the atoms, is "an hypothesis and nothing more."
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If now, in fancy, we select any one of the agglomerations considered as in their primary stages throughout the Universal sphere, and suppose this incipient agglomeration to be taking place at that point where the centre of our Sun exists -or rather where it did exist originally; for the Sun is perpetually shifting his position -we shall find ourselves met, and borne onward for a time at least, by the most magnificent of theories -by the Nebular Cosmogony of Laplace: although "Cosmogony" is far too comprehensive a term for what he really discusses -which is the constitution of our solar system alone of one among the myriad of similar systems which make up the Universe Proper -that Universal sphere -that all-inclusive and absolute Kosmos which forms the subject of my present Discourse.
Confining himself to an obviously limited region -that of our solar system with its comparatively immediate vicinity -and merely assuming -that is to say, assuming without any basis whatever, either deductive or inductive -much of what I have been just endeavoring to place upon a more stable basis than assumption; assuming, for example, matter as diffused (without pretending to account for the diffusion) throughout, and somewhat beyond, the space occupied by our system -diffused in a state of heterogeneous nebulosity and obedient to that omniprevalent law of Gravity at whose principle he ventured to make no guess; -assuming all this (which is quite true, although he had no logical right to its assumption) Laplace has shown, dynamically and mathematically, that the results in such case necessarily ensuing, are those and those alone which we find manifested in the actually existing condition of the system itself.
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Now, admitting the ring to have possessed, by some seemingly accidental arrangement of its heterogeneous materials, a constitution nearly uniform, then this ring, as such, would never have ceased revolving about its primary; but, as might have been anticipated, there appears to have been enough irregularity in the disposition of the materials, to make them cluster about centres of superior solidity; and thus the annular form was destroyed. No doubt, the band was soon broken up into several portions, and one of these portions, predominating in mass, absorbed the others into itself; the whole settling, spherically, into a planet. That this latter, as a planet, continued the revolutionary movement which characterized it while a ring, is sufficiently clear; and that it took upon itself, also, an additional movement in its new condition of sphere, is readily explained. The ring being understood as yet unbroken, we see that its exterior, while the whole revolves about the parent body, moves more rapidly than its interior. When the rupture occurred, then, some portion in each fragment must have been moving with greater velocity than the others. The superior movement prevailing, must have whirled each fragment round -that is to say, have caused it to rotate; and the direction of the rotation must, of course, have been the direction of the revolution whence it arose. the fragments having become subject to the rotation described, must, in coalescing, have imparted it to the one planet constituted by their coalescence. -This planet was Neptune. Its material continuing to undergo condensation, and the centrifugal force generated in its rotation getting, at length, the better of the centripetal, as before in the case of the parent orb, a ring was whirled also from the equatorial surface of this planet: this ring, having been ununiform in its constitution, was broken up, and its several fragments, being absorbed by the most massive, were collectively spherified into a moon. Subsequently, the operation was repeated, and a second moon was the result. We thus account for the planet Neptune, with the two satellites which accompany him.
Laplace assumed his nebulosity heterogeneous, merely that he might be thus enabled to account for the breaking up of the rings; for had the nebulosity been homogeneous, they would not have broken. I reach the same result -heterogeneity of the secondary masses immediately resulting from the atoms -purely from an a priori consideration of their general design -Relation.
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After referring, however, the centripetal force to the omniprevalent law of Gravity, it has been the fashion with astronomical treatises, to seek beyond the limits of mere Nature -that is to say, of Secondary Cause -a solution of the phaenomenon of tangential velocity. This latter they attribute directly to a First Cause -to God. The force which carries a stellar body around its primary they assert to have originated in an impulse given immediately by the finger -this is the childish phraseology employed -by the finger of Deity itself. In this view, the planets, fully formed, are conceived to have been hurled from the Divine hand, to a position in the vicinity of the suns, with an impetus mathematically adapted to the masses, or attractive capacities, of the suns themselves. An idea so grossly unphilosophical, although so supinely adopted, could have arisen only from the difficulty of otherwise accounting for the absolutely accurate adaptation, each to each, of two forces so seemingly independent, one of the other, as are the gravitating and tangential. But it should be remembered that, for a long time, the coincidence between the moon's rotation and her sidereal revolution two matters seemingly far more independent than those now considered -was looked upon as positively miraculous; and there was a strong disposition, even among astronomers, to attribute the marvel to the direct and continual agency of God -who, in this case, it was said, had found it necessary to interpose, specially, among his general laws, a set of subsidiary regulations, for the purpose of forever concealing from mortal eyes the glories, or perhaps the horrors, of the other side of the Moon -of that mysterious hemisphere which has always avoided, and must perpetually avoid, the telescopic scrutiny of mankind. The advance of Science, however, soon demonstrated -what to the philosophical instinct needed no demonstration -that the one movement is but a portion -something more, even, than a consequence -of the other.
For my part, I have no patience with fantasies at once so timorous, so idle, and so awkward. They belong to the veriest Cowardice of thought. That Nature and the God of Nature are distinct, no thinking being can long doubt. By the former we imply merely the laws of the latter. But with the very idea of God, omnipotent, omniscient, we entertain, also, the idea of the infallibility of his laws. With Him there being neither Past nor Future -with Him all being Now -do we not insult him in supposing his laws so contrived as not to provide for every possible contingency? -or, rather, what idea can we have of any possible contingency, except that it is at once a result and a manifestation of his laws? He who, divesting himself of prejudice, shall have the rare courage to think absolutely for himself, cannot fail to arrive, in the end, at the condensation of LA0 into LA0 -cannot fail of reaching the conclusion that each law of Nature is dependent at all points upon all other laws, and that all are but consequences of one primary exercise of the Divine Volition. Such is the principle of the Cosmogony which, with all necessary deference, I here venture to suggest and to maintain.
In this view, it will be seen that, dismissing as frivolous, and even impious, the fancy of the tangential force having been imparted to the planets immediately, by "the finger of God," I consider this force as originating in the rotation of the stars: -this rotation as brought about by the in-rushing of the primary atoms, towards their respective centres of aggregation: -this in-rushing as the consequence of the law of Gravity: -this law as but the mode in which is necessarily manifested the tendency of the atoms to return into imparticularity: -this tendency to return as but the inevitable reaction of the first and most sublime of Acts -that act by which a God, self-existing and alone existing, became all things at once, through dint of his volition, while all things were thus constituted a portion of God.
The radical assumptions of this Discourse suggest to me, and in fact imply, certain important modifications of the Nebular Theory as given by Laplace. The efforts of the repulsive power I have considered as made for the purpose of preventing contact among the atoms, and thus as made in the ratio of the approach to contact -that is to say, in the ratio of condensation. In other words, Electricity, with its involute phaenomena, heat, light and magnetism, is to be understood as proceeding as condensation proceeds, and, of course, inversely as density proceeds, or the cessation to condense. Thus the Sun, in the process of its aggregation, must soon, in developing repulsion, have become excessively heated -perhaps incandescent: and we can perceive how the operation of discarding its rings must have been materially assisted by the slight incrustation of its surface consequent on cooling. Any common experiment shows us how readily a crust of the character suggested, is separated, through heterogeneity, from the interior mass. But, on every successive rejection of the crust, the new surface would appear incandescent as before; and the period at which it would again become so far encrusted as to be readily loosened and discharged, may well be imagined as exactly coincident with that at which a new effort would be needed, by the whole mass, to restore the equilibrium of its two forces, disarranged through condensation. In other words: -by the time the electric influence (Repulsion) has prepared the surface for rejection, we are to understand that the gravitating influence (Attraction) is precisely ready to reject it. Here, then, as everywhere, the Body and the Soul walk hand in hand.
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Let me explain: -The Newtonian Law of Gravity we may, of course, assume as demonstrated. This law, it will be remembered, I have referred to the reaction of the first Divine Act -to the reaction of an exercise of the Divine Volition temporarily overcoming a difficulty. This difficulty is that of forcing the normal into the abnormal -of impelling that whose originality, and therefore whose rightful condition, was One, to take upon itself the wrongful condition of Many. It is only by conceiving this difficulty as temporarily overcome, that we can comprehend a reaction. There could have been no reaction had the act been infinitely continued. So long as the act LA0 no reaction, of course, could commence; in other words, no gravitation could take place -for we have considered the one as but the manifestation of the other. But gravitation has taken place; therefore the act of Creation has ceased: and gravitation has long ago taken place; therefore the act of Creation has long ago ceased. We can no more expect, then, to observe the primary processes of Creation; and to these primary processes the condition of nebulosity has already been explained to belong.
Through what we know of the propagation of light, we have direct proof that the more remote of the stars have existed, under the forms in which we now see them, for an inconceivable number of years. So far back at least, then, as the period when these stars underwent condensation, must have been the epoch at which the mass-constitutive processes began. That we may conceive these processes, then, as still going on in the case of certain "nebulae," while in all other cases we find them thoroughly at an end, we are forced into assumptions for which we have really no basis whatever -we have to thrust in, again, upon the revolting Reason, the blasphemous idea of special interposition -we have to suppose that, in the particular instances of these "nebulae," an unerring God found it necessary to introduce certain supplementary regulations certain improvements of the general law -certain retouchings and emendations, in a word, which had the effect of deferring the completion of these individual stars for centuries of centuries beyond the aera during which all the other stellar bodies had time, not only to be fully constituted, but to grow hoary with an unspeakable old age.
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The "clusters" of which this Universal "cluster of clusters" consists, are merely what we have been in the practice of designating "nebulae" -and, of these "nebulae," one is of paramount interest to mankind. I allude to the Galaxy, or Milky Way. This interests us, first and most obviously, on account of its great superiority in apparent size, not only to any one other cluster in the firmament, but to all the other clusters taken together. The largest of these latter occupies a mere point, comparatively, and is distinctly seen only with the aid of a telescope. The Galaxy sweeps throughout the Heaven and is brilliantly visible to the naked eye. But it interests man chiefly, although less immediately, on account of its being his home; the home of the Earth on which he exists; the home of the Sun about which this Earth revolves; the home of that "system" of orbs of which the Sun is the centre and primary -the Earth one of sixteen secondaries, or planets -the Moon one of seventeen tertiaries, or satellites. The Galaxy, let me repeat, is but one of the clusters which I have been describing -but one of the mis-called "nebulae" revealed to us -by the telescope alone, sometimes -as faint hazy spots in various quarters of the sky. We have no reason to suppose the Milky Way really more extensive than the least of these "nebulae". Its vast superiority in size is but an apparent superiority arising from our position in regard to it -that is to say, from our position in its midst. However strange the assertion may at first appear to those unversed in Astronomy, still the astronomer himself has no hesitation in asserting that we are in the midst of that inconceivable host of stars -of suns -of systems -which constitute the Galaxy. Moreover, not only have we -not only has our Sun a right to claim the Galaxy as its own especial cluster, but, with slight reservation, it may be said that all the distinctly visible stars of the firmament -all the stars visible to the naked eye -have equally a right to claim it as their own.
There has been a great deal of misconception in respect to the shape of the Galaxy; which, in nearly all our astronomical treatises, is said to resemble that of a capital Y. The cluster in question has, in reality, a certain general -very general resemblance to the planet Saturn, with its encompassing triple ring. Instead of the solid orb of that planet, however, we must picture to ourselves a lenticular star-island, or collection of stars; our Sun lying excentrically -near the shore of the island -on that side of it which is nearest the constellation of the Cross and farthest from that of Cassiopeia. The surrounding ring, where it approaches our position, has in it a longitudinal gash, which does in fact, cause the ring, in our vicinity, to assume, loosely, the appearance of a capital Y.
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With the idea of material ether, seems, thus, to have departed altogether the thought of that universal agglomeration so long predetermined by the poetical fancy of mankind: -an agglomeration in which a sound Philosophy might have been warranted in putting faith, at least to a certain extent, if for no other reason than that by this poetical fancy it had been so predetermined. But so far as Astronomy -so far as mere Physics have yet spoken, the cycles of the Universe are perpetual -the Universe has no conceivable end. Had an end been demonstrated, however, from so purely collateral a cause as an ether, Man's instinct of the Divine capacity to adapt, would have rebelled against the demonstration. We should have been forced to regard the Universe with some such sense of dissatisfaction as we experience in contemplating an unnecessarily complex work of human art. Creation would have affected us as an imperfect PL0, in a romance, where the denoument is awkwardly brought about by interposed incidents external and foreign to the main subject; instead of springing out of the bosom of the thesis -out of the heart of the ruling idea -instead of arising as a result of the primary proposition -as inseparable and inevitable part and parcel of the fundamental conception of the book.
What I mean by the symmetry of mere surface -will now be more clearly understood. It is simply by the blandishment of this symmetry that we have been beguiled into the general idea of which Madler's hypothesis is but a part -the idea of the vorticial indrawing of the orbs. Dismissing this nakedly physical conception, the symmetry of principle sees the end of all things metaphysically involved in the thought of a beginning; seeks and finds in this origin of all things the rudiment of this end; and perceives the impiety of supposing this end likely to be brought about less simply -less directly -less obviously -less artistically -than through the reaction of the originating Act.
2.01 - Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But neither is the separate cognition of them entirely an illusion or a complete error of the Ignorance; this too has its validity for spiritual experience. For these primary aspects of the Absolute are fundamental spiritual determinates or indeterminates answering at this spiritual end or beginning to the general determinates or generic indeterminates of the material end or inconscient beginning of the descending and ascending Manifestation. Those that seem to us negative carry in them the freedom of the Infinite from limitation by its own determinations; their realisation disengages the spirit within, liberates us and enables us to participate in this supremacy: thus, when once we pass into or through the experience of immutable self, we are no longer bound and limited in the inner status of our being by the determinations and creations of Nature. On the other, the dynamic side, this original freedom enables the Consciousness to create a world of determinations without being bound by it: it enables it also to withdraw from what it has created and re-create in a higher truth-formula. It is on this freedom that is based the spirit's power of infinite variation of the truthpossibilities of existence and also its capacity to create, without tying itself to its workings, any and every form of Necessity or system of order: the individual being too by experience of these negating absolutes can participate in that dynamic liberty, can pass from one order of self-formulation to a higher order.
At the stage when from the mental it has to move towards its supramental status, one most liberatingly helpful, if not indispensable experience that may intervene is the entry into a total Nirvana of mentality and mental ego, a passage into the silence of the Spirit. In any case, a realisation of the pure Self must always precede the transition to that mediating eminence of the consciousness from which a clear vision of the ascending and descending stairs of manifested existence is commanded and the possession of the free power of ascent and descent becomes a spiritual prerogative. An independent completeness of identity with each of the primal aspects and powers - not narrowing as in the mind into a sole engrossing experience seeming to be final and integral, for that would be incompatible with the realisation of the unity of all aspects and powers of existence is a capacity inherent in consciousness in the Infinite; that indeed is the base and justification of the overmind cognition and its will to carry each aspect, each power, each possibility to its independent fullness. But the Supermind keeps always and in every status or condition the spiritual realisation of the Unity of all; the intimate presence of that unity is there even within the completest grasp of each thing, each state given its whole delight of itself, power and value: there is thus no losing sight of the affirmative aspects even when there is the full acceptance of the truth of the negative. The Overmind keeps still the sense of this underlying Unity; that is for it the secure base of the independent experience. In Mind the knowledge of the unity of all aspects is lost on the surface, the consciousness is plunged into engrossing, exclusive separate affirmations; but there too, even in the Mind's ignorance, the total reality still remains behind the exclusive absorption and can be recovered in the form of a profound mental intuition or else in the idea or sentiment of an underlying truth of integral oneness; in the spiritual mind this can develop into an ever-present experience.
2.01 - The Two Natures, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HE FIRST six chapters of the Gita have been treated as a single block of teachings, its primary basis of practice and knowledge; the remaining twelve may be similarly treated as two closely connected blocks which develop the rest of the doctrine from this primary basis. The seventh to the twelfth chapters lay down a large metaphysical statement of the nature of the Divine Being and on that foundation closely relate and synthetise knowledge and devotion, just as the first part of the
Gita related and synthetised works and knowledge. The vision of the World-Purusha intervenes in the eleventh chapter, gives a dynamic turn to this stage of the synthesis and relates it vividly to works and life. Thus again all is brought powerfully back to the original question of Arjuna round which the whole exposition revolves and completes its cycle. Afterwards the Gita proceeds by the differentiation of the Purusha and Prakriti to work out its ideas of the action of the gunas, of the ascension beyond the gunas and of the culmination of desireless works with knowledge where that coalesces with Bhakti, - knowledge, works and love made one, - and it rises thence to its great finale, the supreme secret of self-surrender to the Master of Existence.
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The Sankhya stops there, and because it stops there, it has to set up an unbridgeable division between the soul and Nature; it has to posit them as two quite distinct primary entities. The Gita also, if it stopped there, would have to make the same incurable antinomy between the Self and cosmic Nature which would then be only the Maya of the three gunas and all this cosmic existence would be simply the result of this Maya; it could be nothing else.
But there is something else, there is a higher principle, a nature of spirit, para prakr.tir me. There is a supreme nature of the Divine which is the real source of cosmic existence and its fundamental creative force and effective energy and of which the other lower and ignorant Nature is only a derivation and a dark shadow.
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This supreme Prakriti is not merely a presence of the power of spiritual being immanent in cosmic activities. For then it might be only the inactive presence of the all-pervading Self, immanent in all things or containing them, compelling in a way the world action but not itself active. Nor is this highest Prakriti the avyakta of the Sankhyas, the primary unmanifest seed-state of the manifest active eightfold nature of things, the one productive original force of Prakriti out of which her many instrumental and executive powers evolve. Nor is it sufficient to interpret that idea of avyakta in the Vedantic sense and say that this supreme
Nature is the power involved and inherent in unmanifest Spirit or Self out of which cosmos comes and into which it returns. It is that, but it is much more; for that is only one of its spiritual states. It is the integral conscious-power of the supreme Being,
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The workings of the gunas are only the superficial unstable becomings of reason, mind, sense, ego, life and matter, sattvika bhava rajasas tamasas ca; but this is rather the essential stable original intimate power of the becoming, svabhava. It is that which determines the primary law of all becoming and of each
Jiva; it constitutes the essence and develops the movement of the nature. It is a principle in each creature that derives from and is immediately related to a transcendent divine Becoming, that of the Ishwara, madbhavah.. In this relation of the divine bhava to the svabhava and of the svabhava to the superficial bhavah., of the divine Nature to the individual self-nature and of the self-nature in its pure and original quality to the phenomenal nature in all its mixed and confused play of qualities, we find the link between that supreme and this lower existence. The degraded powers and values of the inferior Prakriti derive from
2.02 - On Letters, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
But if the difficulty is only intellectual then it need not be solved now. In this Yoga intellect is not the chief instrument, experience is primary. Of course, there is the intellectual side of Yoga which the mind of the sadhak must grasp as it would be helpful to him. But it is the experience which is the most important thing.
12 OCTOBER 1925
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
unformed Prakriti which the Sankhya calls Pradhana or primary
idea, substance, plasm or what you will, of matter, one aspect
2.02 - The Status of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All this knowledge and experience are primary means of arriving at and of possessing identity. It is our self that we see and experience and therefore vision and experience are incomplete unless they culminate in identity, unless we are able to live in all our being the supreme Vedantic knowledge. He am I. We must not only see God and embrace Him, but become that Reality. We must become one with the Self in its transcendence of all form and manifestation by the resolution, the sublimation, the escape from itself of ego and all its belongings into That from which they proceed, as well as become the Self in all its manifested existences and becomings, one with it in the infinite existence, consciousness, peace, delight by which it reveals itself in us and one with it in the action, formation, play of self-conception with which it garbs itself in the world.
It is difficult for the modern mind to understand how we can do more than conceive intellectually of the Self or of God; but it may borrow some shadow of this vision, experience and becoming from that inner awakening to Nature which a great English poet has made a reality to the European imagination. If we read the poems in which Wordsworth expressed his realisation of Nature, we may acquire some distant idea of what realisation is. For, first, we see that he had the vision of something in the world which is the very Self of all things that it contains, a conscious force and presence other than its forms, yet cause of its forms and manifested in them. We perceive that he had not only the vision of this and the joy and peace and universality which its presence brings, but the very sense of it, mental, aesthetic, vital, physical; not only this sense and vision of it in its own being but in the nearest flower and simplest man and the immobile rock; and, finally, that he even occasionally attained to that unity, that becoming the object of his dedication, one phase of which is powerfully and profoundly expressed in the poem "A slumber did my spirit seal," where he describes himself as become one in his being with earth, "rolled round in its diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees." Exalt this realisation to a profounder Self than physical Nature and we have the elements of the Yogic knowledge. But all this experience is only the vestibule to that suprasensuous, supramental realisation of the Transcendent who is beyond all His aspects, and the final summit of knowledge can only be attained by entering into the superconscient and there merging all other experience into a supernal unity with the Ineffable. That is the culmination of all divine knowing; that also is the source of all divine delight and divine living.
2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
they found, the primary substance out of which all this visible
Universe is evolved and beyond ether they were unable to go
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and primary simplicity of substance. Seeking for a physical substance gaseous in nature, sensible by sound and contact, but
without form and characterized chiefly by varied motion and
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the primary object of the various asans or rigidly set positions
of the body assumed by the Yogin as a necessary preliminary
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is held together and exists by the presence of Prana in its primary
state, the only connection of Will with the physical frame being
2.03 - The Eternal and the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But we see farther that in the end this Purusha, this cause and self of our individuality, comes to embrace the whole world and all other beings in a sort of conscious extension of itself and to perceive itself as one with the world-being. In its conscious extension of itself it exceeds the primary experience and abolishes the barriers of its active self-limitation and individualisation; by its perception of its own infinite universality it goes beyond all consciousness of separative individuality or limited soul-being. By that very fact the individual ceases to be the selflimiting ego; in other words, our false consciousness of existing only by self-limitation, by rigid distinction of ourselves from the rest of being and becoming is transcended; our identification of ourselves with our personal and temporal individualisation in a particular mind and body is abolished. But is all truth of individuality and individualisation abolished? does the Purusha cease to exist or does he become the world-Purusha and live intimately in innumerable minds and bodies? We do not find it to be so.
He still individualises and it is still he who exists and embraces this wider consciousness while he individualises: but the mind no longer thinks of a limited temporary individualisation as all ourselves but only as a wave of becoming thrown up from the sea of its being or else as a form or centre of universality. The soul still makes the world-becoming the material for individual experience, but instead of regarding it as something outside and larger than itself on which it has to draw, by which it is affected, with which it has to make accommodations, it is aware of it subjectively as within itself; it embraces both its world-material and its individualised experience of spatial and temporal activities in a free and enlarged consciousness. In this new consciousness the spiritual individual perceives its true self to be one in being with the Transcendence and seated and dwelling within it, and no longer takes its constructed individuality as anything more than a formation for world-experience.
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Further I am one with God in my being and yet I can have relations with Him in my experience. I, the liberated individual, can enjoy the Divine in His transcendence, unified with Him, and enjoy at the same time the Divine in other individuals and in His cosmic being. Evidently we have arrived at certain primary relations of the Absolute and they can only be intelligible to the mind if we see that the Transcendent, the individual, the cosmic being are the eternal powers of consciousness - we fall again, this time without remedy, into a wholly abstract language, - of an absolute existence, a unity yet more than a unity, which so expresses itself to its own consciousness in us, but which we cannot adequately speak of in human language and must not hope to describe either by negative or positive terms to our reason, but can only hope to indicate it to the utmost power of our language.
But the normal mind, which has no experience of these things that are so powerfully real to the liberated consciousness, may well revolt against what may seem to it nothing more than a mass of intellectual contradictions. It may say, "I know very well what the Absolute is; it is that in which there are no relations.
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The cosmic being can only know and possess the transcendent unity by ceasing to be cosmic; the individual can only know and possess the cosmic or the transcendental unity by ceasing from all individuality and individualisation. Or if unity is the one eternal fact, then cosmos and individual are non-existent; they are illusions imposed on itself by the Eternal. That may well involve a contradiction or an unreconciled paradox; but I am willing to admit a contradiction in the Eternal which I am not compelled to think out, rather than a contradiction here of my primary conceptions which I am compelled to think out logically and to practical ends. I am on this supposition able either to take the world as practically real and think and act in it or to reject it as an unreality and cease to think and act; I am not compelled to reconcile contradictions, not called on to be conscious of and conscious in something beyond myself and world and yet deal from that basis, as God does, with a world of contradictions. The attempt to be as God while I am still an individual or to be three things at a time seems to me to involve a logical confusion and a practical impossibility." Such might well be the attitude of the normal reason, and it is clear, lucid, positive in its distinctions; it involves no extraordinary gymnastics of the reason trying to exceed itself and losing itself in shadows and half-lights or any kind of mysticism, or at least there is only one original and comparatively simple mysticism free from all other difficult complexities. Therefore it is the reasoning which is the most satisfactory to the simply rational mind. Yet is there here a triple error, the error of making an unbridgeable gulf between the Absolute and the relative, the error of making too simple and rigid and extending too far the law of contradictions and the error of conceiving in terms of Time the genesis of things which have their origin and first habitat in the Eternal.
We mean by the Absolute something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are conscious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence. Indian thought calls it Brahman, European thought the Absolute because it is a self-existent which is absolved of all bondage to relativities. For all relatives can only exist by something which is the truth of them all and the source and continent of their powers and properties and yet exceeds them all; it is something of which not only each relativity itself, but also any sum we can make of all relatives that we know, can only be - in all that we know of them - a partial, inferior or practical expression.
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The positives of the Absolute are its various statements of itself to our consciousness; its negatives bring in the rest of its absolute positivity by which its limitation to these first statements is denied. We have, to begin with, its large primary relations such as the infinite and the finite, the conditioned and unconditioned, the qualitied and unqualitied; in each pair the negative conceals the whole power of the corresponding positive which is contained in it and emerges from it: there is no real opposition.
We have, in a less subtle order of truths, the transcendent and the cosmic, the universal and the individual; here we have seen that each member of these pairs is contained in its apparent opposite. The universal particularises itself in the individual; the individual contains in himself all the generalities of the universal. The universal consciousness finds all itself by the variations of numberless individuals, not by suppressing variations; the individual consciousness fulfils all itself when it is universalised into sympathy and identity with the cosmic, not by limiting itself in the ego. So too the cosmic contains in all itself and in each thing in it the complete immanence of the transcendent; it maintains itself as the world-being by the consciousness of its own transcendent reality, it finds itself in each individual being by the realisation of the divine and transcendent in that being and in all existences. The transcendent contains, manifests, constitutes the cosmos and by manifesting it manifests or discovers, as we may say in the old poetic sense of that word, its own infinite harmonic varieties. But even in the lower orders of the relative we find this play of negative and positive, and through the divine reconciliation of its terms, not by excising them or carrying their opposition to the bitter end, we have to arrive at the Absolute. For there in the Absolute all this relativity, all this varying rhythmic self-statement of the Absolute, finds, not its complete denial, but its reason for existence and its justification, not its conviction as a lie, but the source and principle of its truth.
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We cannot, either, effect a reconciliation or explanation of the original contradictions of existence by taking refuge in our concept of Time. Time, as we know or conceive it, is only our means of realising things in succession, it is a condition and cause of conditions, varies on different planes of existence, varies even for beings on one and the same plane: that is to say, it is not an Absolute and cannot explain the primary relations of the
Absolute. They work themselves out in detail by Time and seem to our mental and vital being to be determined by it; but that seeming does not carry us back to their sources and principles.
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But if we look at existence as a whole, we see that infinite and finite coexist and exist in and by each other. Even if our universe were to disappear and reappear rhythmically in Time, as was the old belief, that too would be only a large detail and would not show that at a particular time all condition ceases in the whole range of infinite existence and all Being becomes the unconditioned, at another it again takes on the reality or the appearance of conditions. The first source and the primary relations lie beyond our mental divisions of Time, in the divine timelessness or else in the indivisible or eternal Time of which our divisions and successions are only figures in a mental experience.
There we see that all meets and all principles, all persistent realities of existence, - for the finite as a principle of being is as persistent as the infinite, - stand in a primary relation to each other in a free, not an exclusive unity of the Absolute, and that the way they present themselves to us in a material or a mental world is only a working out of them in secondary, tertiary or yet lower relativities. The Absolute has not become the contrary of itself and assumed at a certain date real or unreal relativities of which it was originally incapable, nor has the One become by a miracle the Many, nor the unconditioned deviated into the conditioned, nor the unqualitied sprouted out into qualities. These oppositions are only the conveniences of our mental consciousness, our divisions of the indivisible.
The things they represent are not fictions, they are realities, but they are not rightly known if they are set in irreconcilable opposition to or separation from each other; for there is no such irreconcilable opposition or separation of them in the all-view of the Absolute. This is the weakness not only of our scientific divisions and metaphysical distinctions, but of our exclusive spiritual realisations which are only exclusive because to arrive at them we have to start from our limiting and dividing mental consciousness. We have to make the metaphysical distinctions in order to help our intelligence towards a truth which exceeds it, because it is only so that it can escape from the confusions of our first undistinguishing mental view of things; but if we bind ourselves by them to the end, we make chains of what should only have been first helps. We have to make use too of distinct spiritual realisations which may at first seem contrary to each other, because as mental beings it is difficult or impossible for us to seize at once largely and completely what is beyond our mentality; but we err if we intellectualise them into sole truths, - as when we assert that the Impersonal must be the one ultimate realisation and the rest creation of Maya or declare the Saguna, the Divine in its qualities, to be that and thrust away the impersonality from our spiritual experience. We have to see that both these realisations of the great spiritual seekers are equally valid in themselves, equally invalid against each other; they are one and the same Reality experienced on two sides which are both necessary for the full knowledge and experience of each other and of that which they both are. So is it with the One and the Many, the finite and the infinite, the transcendent and the cosmic, the individual and the universal; each is the other as well as itself and neither can be entirely known without the other and without exceeding their appearance of contrary oppositions.
2.04 - Concentration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3:This use of concentration implies like every other a previous purification; it implies also in the end a renunciation, a cessation and lastly an ascent into the absolute and transcendent state of Samadhi from which if it culminates, if it endures, there is, except perhaps for one soul out of many thousands, no return. For by that we go to the "supreme state of the Eternal whence souls revert not" into the cyclic action of Nature305a; and it is into this Samadhi that the Yogin who aims at release from the world seeks to pass away at the time of leaving his body. We see this succession in the discipline of the Rajayoga. For first the Rajayogin must arrive at a certain moral and spiritual purity; he must get rid of the lower or downward activities of his mind, but afterwards he must stop all its activities and concentrate himself in the one idea that leads from activity to the quiescence of status. The Rajayogic concentration has several stages, that in which the object is seized, that in which it is held, that in which the mind is lost in the status which the object represents or to which the concentration leads, and only the last is termed Samadhi in the Rajayoga although the word is capable, as in the Gita, of a much wider sense. But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, -- that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable. Ill all Yoga there are indeed many preparatory objects of thought-concentration, forms, verbal formulas of thought, significant names, all of which are supports305b to the mind ill this movement, all of which have to be used and transcended; the highest support according to the Upanishads is the mystic syllable AUM, whose three letters represent the Brahman or Supreme Self in its three degrees of status, the Waking Soul, the Dream Soul and the Sleep Soul, and the whole potent sound rises towards that which is beyond status as beyond activity305c. For of all Yoga of knowledge the final goal is the Transcendent.
4:We have, however, conceived as the aim of an integral Yoga something more complex and less exclusive-less exclusively positive of the highest condition of the soul, less exclusively negative of its divine radiations. We must aim indeed at the Highest, the Source of all, the Transcendent but not to the exclusion of that which it transcends, rather as the source of an established experience and supreme state of the soul which shall transform all other states and remould our consciousness of the world into the form of its secret Truth. We do not seek to excise from our being all consciousness of the universe, but to realise God, Truth and Self in the universe as well as transcendent of it. We shall seek therefore not only the Ineffable, but also His manifestation as infinite being, consciousness and bliss embracing the universe and at play in it. For that triune infinity is His supreme manifestation and that we shall aspire to know, to share in and to become; and since we seek to realise this Trinity not only in itself but in its cosmic play, we shall aspire also to knowledge of and participation in the universal divine Truth, Knowledge, Will, Love which are His secondary manifestation. His divine becoming. With this too we shall aspire to identify ourselves, towards this too we shall strive to rise and, when the period of effort is passed, allow it by our renunciation of all egoism to draw us up into itself in our being and to descend into us and embrace us in all our becoming. This not only as a means of approach and passage to His supreme transcendence, but as the condition, even when we possess and are possessed by the Transcendent, of a divine life in the manifestation of the cosmos.
2.04 - The Divine and the Undivine, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But these conclusions are only first reasonings or primary intuitions founded on our inner self-experience and the apparent facts of universal existence. They cannot be entirely validated unless we know the real cause of ignorance, imperfection and suffering and their place in the cosmic purpose or cosmic order.
There are three propositions about God and the world, - if we admit the Divine Existence, - to which the general reason and consciousness of mankind bear witness; but, one of the three,
2.04 - The Secret of Secrets, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Teacher has had in view all along and therefore insisted on the sacrifice of works, the recognition of the Supreme as the master of our works and the doctrine of the Avatar and the divine birth, has yet been at first kept subordinate to the primary necessity of a quietistic liberation. Only the truths which lead to spiritual calm, detachment, equality and oneness, in a word, to the perception and becoming of the immutable self, have been fully developed and given their largest amplitude of power and significance. The other great and necessary truth, its complement, has been left in a certain obscurity of a lesser or relative light; it has been hinted at constantly, but not as yet developed. Now in these successive chapters it is being rapidly released into expression.
Throughout Krishna, the Avatar, the Teacher, the charioteer of the human soul in the world-action, has been preparing the revelation of the secret of himself, Nature's deepest secret. He has kept one note always sounding across his preparatory strain and insistently coming in as a warning and prelude of the larger ultimate harmony of his integral Truth. That note was the idea of a supreme Godhead which dwells within man and Nature,
2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
the primary word still is peace-peace to all beings.
The following Tibetan verses, for example, from two hymns
2.05 - Habit 3 Put First Things First, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
The practical thread running through all five of these advances is a primary focus on relationships and results and a secondary focus on time.
Delegation:
2.05 - The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If this is a true account of dream experience, dreams can no longer be classed as a mere unreal figure of unreal things temporarily imposed upon our half-unconsciousness as a reality; the analogy therefore fails even as an illustrative support for the theory of the cosmic Illusion. It may be said, however, that our dreams are not themselves realities but only a transcript of reality, a system of symbol-images, and our waking experience of the universe is similarly not a reality but only a transcript of reality, a series or collection of symbol-images. It is quite true that primarily we see the physical universe only through a system of images impressed or imposed on our senses and so far the contention is justified; it may also be admitted that in a certain sense and from one view-point our experiences and activities can be considered as symbols of a truth which our lives are trying to express but at present only with a partial success and an imperfect coherence. If that were all, life might be described as a dream-experience of self and things in the consciousness of the Infinite. But although our primary evidence of the objects of the universe consists of a structure of sense images, these are completed, validated, set in order by an automatic intuition in the consciousness which immediately relates the image with the thing imaged and gets the tangible experience of the object, so that we are not merely regarding or reading a translation or sense-transcript of the reality but looking through the senseimage to the reality. This adequacy is amplified too by the action
The Cosmic Illusion
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This at once raises the question of the nature of Mind, the parent of these illusions, and its relation to the original Existence. Is mind the child and instrument of an original Illusion, or is it itself a primal miscreating Force or Consciousness? or is the mental ignorance a misprision of the truths of Existence, a deviation from an original Truth-Consciousness which is the real world-builder? Our own mind, at any rate, is not an original and primary creative power of Consciousness; it is, and all mind of the same character must be, derivative, an instrumental demiurge, an intermediary creator. It is likely then that analogies from the errors of mind, which are the outcome of an intermediate Ignorance, may not truly illustrate the nature or action of an original creative Illusion, an all-inventing and all-constructing Maya. Our mind stands between a superconscience and an inconscience and receives from both these opposite powers: it stands between an occult subliminal existence and an outward cosmic phenomenon; it receives inspirations, intuitions, imaginations, impulsions to knowledge and action, figures of subjective realities or possibilities from the unknown inner source; it receives the figures of realised actualities and their suggestions of further possibility from the observed cosmic phenomenon. What it receives are truths essential, possible or actual; it starts from the realised actualities of the physical universe and it brings out from them in its subjective action the unrealised possibilities which they contain or suggest or to which it can arrive by proceeding from them as a starting-point: it selects some out of these possibilities for a subjective action and plays with imagined or inwardly constructed forms of them; it chooses others for objectivisation and attempts to realise them.
But it receives inspirations also from above and within, from invisible sources and not only from the impacts of the visible cosmic phenomenon; it sees truths other than those suggested by the actual physicality around it, and here too it plays subjectively with transmitted or constructed forms of these truths or it selects for objectivisation, attempts to realise.
2.06 - On Beauty, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
And a work of art is not great unless the artist is able to express the infinite through the limitations, unless the lines and forms are not overpassed, so to say. There must be beauty of line and form but that is only the primary basis, the earth on which you stand, but it must go beyond and express something from within. That is what we mean when we say that a particular work of art is 'cold', though you can see that the beauty of line and form the technique is perfect. The work may not be sufficiently 'inspired'. Take Greek art: it was their aim to put as much of inner beauty as they could in a limited form and line which had set standards. In India we had quite another standard.
Disciple: What is it in beauty that gives us delight?
2.06 - The Synthesis of the Disciplines of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Self is an eternal utter Being and pure existence of which all these things are becomings. From this knowledge we have to proceed; this knowledge we have to realise and make it the foundation of the inner and the outer life of the individual. The Yoga of Knowledge, starting from this primary truth, has conceived a negative and positive method of discipline by which we shall get rid of these false identifications and recoil back from them into true self-knowledge. The negative method is to say always "I am not the body" so as to contradict and root out the false idea "I am the body," to concentrate on this knowledge and by renunciation of the attachment of the soul to the physical, get rid of the body-sense. We say again "I am not the life" and by concentration on this knowledge and renunciation of attachment to the vital movements and desires, get rid of the life-sense. We say, finally, "I am not the mind, the motion, the sense, the thought" and by concentration on this knowledge and renunciation of the mental activities, get rid of the mind-sense. When we thus constantly create a gulf between ourselves and the things with which we identified ourselves, their veils progressively fall away from us and the Self begins to be visible to our experience. Of that then we say "I am That, the pure, the eternal, the self-blissful" and by concentrating our thought and being upon it we become That and are able finally to renounce the individual existence and the Cosmos. Another positive method belonging rather to the Rajayoga is to concentrate on the thought of the Brahman and shut out from us all other ideas, so that this dynamo of mind shall cease to work upon our external or varied internal existence; by mental cessation the vital and physical play also shall fall to rest in an eternal Samadhi, some inexpressible deepest trance of the being in which we shall pass into the absolute Existence.
This discipline is evidently a self-centred and exclusive inner movement which gets rid of the world by denying it in thought and shutting the eyes of the soul to it in vision. But the universe is there as a truth in God even though the individual soul may have shut its eyes to it and the Self is there in the universe really and not falsely, supporting all that we have rejected, truly immanent in all things, really embracing the individual in the universal as well as embracing the universe in that which exceeds and transcends it. What shall we do with this eternal Self in this persistent universe which we see encompassing us every time we come out of the trance of inner meditation ? The ascetic Path of Knowledge has its solution and its discipline for the soul that looks out on the universe. It is to regard the immanent and all-encompassing and all-constituting Self in the image of the ether in which all forms are, which is in all forms, of which all forms are made. In that ether cosmic Life and Mind move as the Breath of things, an atmospheric sea in the ethereal, and constitute from it all these forms; but what they constitute are merely name and form and not realities; the form of the pot we see is a form of earth only and goes back into the earth, earth a form resolvable into the cosmic Life, the cosmic Life a movement that falls to rest in that silent immutable Ether. Concentrating on this knowledge, rejecting all phenomenon and appearance, we come to see the whole as an illusion of name and form in the ether that is Brahman; it becomes unreal to us; and the universe becoming unreal the immanence becomes unreal and there is only the Self upon which our mind has falsely imposed the name and form of the universe. Thus are we justified in the withdrawal of the individual self into the Absolute.
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We must recognise that our primary aim in knowledge must be to realise our own supreme Self more than that Self in others or as the Lord of Nature or as the All; for that is the pressing need of the individual, to arrive at the highest truth of his own being, to set right its disorders, confusions, false identifications, to arrive at its right concentration and purity and to know and mount to its source. But we do this not in order to disappear into its source, but so that our whole existence and all the members of this inner kingdom may find their right basis, may live in our highest self, live for our highest self only and obey no other law than that which proceeds from our highest self and is given to our purified being without any falsification in the transmitting mentality. And if we do this rightly we shall discover that in finding this supreme Self we have found the one Self in all, the one Lord of our nature and of all Nature, the All of ourselves who is the All of the universe. For this that we see in ourselves we must necessarily see everywhere, since that is the truth of His unity. By discovering and using rightly the Truth of our being the barrier between our individuality and the universe will necessarily be forced open and cast away and the Truth that we realise in our own being cannot fail to realise itself to us in the universality which will then be our self. Realising in ourselves the "I am He" of the Vedanta, we cannot but realise in looking upon all around us the identical knowledge on its other side, "Thou art That." We have only to see how practically the discipline must be conducted in order that we may arrive successfully at this great unification.
author class:Sri Aurobindo
2.07 - The Supreme Word of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Multitudinous, universal, the gods weave out of the primary principles of being and its thousand complexities the whole web
The Supreme Word of the Gita
2.08 - ALICE IN WONDERLAND, #God Exists, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
It pinpoints, pressurises into a movement, a force. And space-time becomes motion, manifesting itself into the primary qualities of length, breadth and height. Remember length, breadth and height do not mean length, breadth and height of a substance. They have never come into being. These are difficult things to understand. Only a purely impersonal thinker or mathematician will be able to appreciate or understand. How can there be a conception of length, breadth and height unless objects are there?
But space-time is itself without dimensions. It has no dimensions. It is a four dimensional somethingnot a three dimensional substance. And we do not know what this four dimensional thing is. It is only an idea, a meaningless thing for us. It becomes primary qualities like length, breadth and height, etc. Geometrical partners are called primary qualities which manifest themselves as secondary qualities of colour, sound, taste, smell, etc. The world has not come into being yet. They are only Tanmatras (subtle undifferentiated root elements of matter)Shabda (sound), Sparsa (touch), Rupa (form), Rasa (taste), Gandha (smell), says the Vedanta philosophy.
These Tanmatras are not substances, but principles behind the objects which produce these sensations. They are not hard substances like earth, water, fire, air and ether; they are comparable to the secondary qualities of Aristotle and Plato and modern scientists.
Oh, what a wonder! We seem to be living in a dreaml and like Alice in Wonderland. We are not living in a world as it appears. The primary qualities condensing themselves into secondary qualities of sensations, solidify themselves as it were into hard realities like heaviness that you feel when you get an electrical shock.
So, under these conclusions, it appears that the solidity and the substantiality of this physical world is comparable to the solidity and substantiality of the mountain that you felt weighing heavily in your hand when you had a heavy voltage shock. Does the world exist? No one knows.
2.08 - Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
So far we arrive by considering mind and memory mainly in regard to the primary phenomenon of mental self-consciousness in Time. But if we consider them with regard to self-experience as well as self-consciousness and other-experience as well as self-experience, we shall find that we arrive at the same result with richer contents and a still clearer light on the nature of the
Ignorance. At present, let us thus express what we have seen,
2.09 - Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Memory. For a primary condition of our mentality is division by the moments of Time; there is an inability to get its experience or to hold its experiences together except under the conditions of this self-division by the moments of Time. In the immediate mental experience of a wave of becoming, a conscious movement of being, there is no action or need of memory. I become angry,
- it is an act of sensation, not of memory; I observe that I am angry, - it is an act of perception, not of memory. Memory only comes in when I begin to relate my experience to the successions of Time, when I divide my becoming into past, present and future, when I say, "I was angry a moment ago", or "I have become angry and am still in anger", or "I was angry once and will be again if there is the same occasion." Memory may indeed come immediately and directly into the becoming, if the occasion of the movement of consciousness is itself wholly or partly a thing of the past, - for example, if there is a recurrence of emotion, such as grief or anger, caused by memory of past wrong or suffering and not by any immediate occasion in the present or else caused by an immediate occasion reviving the memory of a past occasion. Because we cannot keep the past in us on the surface of the consciousness, - though it is always there behind, within, subliminally present and often even active,
2.1.01 - God The One Reality, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Even to Time and Space our mind cannot fix or conceive a beginning or an end; it cannot conceive a first bound or a last, a primary or ultimate moment without at once looking beyond it. If we see the imperfection of things, the very idea implies a potentiality of a perfection by comparison with which they are imperfect, and this potentiality points to a beyond Mind and beyond Sense which is the integrally and permanently perfect.
Every relative supposes an absolute.
2.1.02 - Combining Work, Meditation and Bhakti, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The including of the outer consciousness in the transformation is of supreme importance in this Yogameditation cannot do it. Meditation can deal only with the inner being. So work is of primary importanceonly it must be done with the right attitude and in the right consciousness, then it is as fruitful as any meditation can be.
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21.02 - Gods and Men, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Long, long, long ago, in the earliest stage of creation, there were materially only dust particles, tiny dust particles or what looked like mere dust, everywhere (the Vedas say tucchyena abhvapihitam- covered all around with infinitesimals). There was no formation, no shape or various bodies as we see now: it was a vague cloud or mist, innumerable particles whirling about. That was how creation started. Then slowly, gradually, those particles began combining, coalescing; they began to condense, to have forms or shapes small or big, of various types. There was the first appearance of the sky with its starry battalions and then the earth emerged bearing a special character and destiny. I have spoken of the primeval or primary dust particles scattered about. But along with them, within each one, in another dimension, there were, strange to say, particles of light. We have come to know of the atomic and sub-atomic material particles, but of these light particles there has arisen just a suspicion only recently. This light, however, is not merely the material light, but the glow of consciousness. And the most momentous thing that happened was the growth and development of this light-particle along with the development of the material body of the dust. The material mass through many changes shaped into the body of sentient growths, living beings, animals and finally into the human body. Even so the original light particle, at the beginning no more than a flicker in the midst of surrounding darkness, hardly noticeable and distinguishable, slowly but irresistibly grew in clearness, in volume and in strength. It took many long years, many millions of years to develop into a clear shape. That was the centre, this light-particle was the heart of things, the heart of living beings and in man it underwent a strange transmutation. The light-particle, as I said, originally had no form, it was just a hazy speck. As it grew big, at a certain stage it began to take the shape of a flame. You have seen a candle flame which often has the form of a cone: a cone is a well-developed clear form. But as I said, when the human body appeared, this flame too changed into something like the human form, a tiny human form, a luminous embryo, as it were. You remember the famous Upanishadic line: angusthamatrah puruso' antaratma- a purusha, a being or person of the size of the thumb. That was the first formation of the human soul, the original light particle became a person or a psychic being. In man, I said, there has been a miraculous transmutation - the light, the growing consciousness has learnt to look back upon itself, it has become self-conscious, has taken the first leap that would carry it into another region of growth and development. The personification, rather personalisation, of the light of consciousness, its farther and continuous growth, the greatening of the psychic being involves the whole inner story of human destiny. How does the light grow and develop? What are the forces, what are the agents that initiate and help in the growth and development of the spark into the being, and the being into higher beings? Life is the agent, life-forces are the artisans that do this work. Life means a series of experiences, impacts of the surrounding world upon yourself, your mind and body and sensation. These are like fuel that you pour into the flame, that feed and increase that flame. Life after life you have to gather these experiences that fortify and greaten the contents of your being and then there comes a time when this flame, this conscious being is so developed, so mature, so well-formed, that you begin to think of the life spiritual. When one is not content, not wholly content with ordinary life, yearns after something else, something greater, it means that the flame in you has reached a crucial stage and has to take a leap or bound into another dimension of life.
The aspiration for the spiritual life means that you have now a glimpse of the true person that you are within, the beautiful person within you of whom I have spoken so often to you. Through the spiritual life you develop that beautiful personality more and more and still more, until you become a being perfectly formed and fully grown. When a man
2.1.02 - Nature The World-Manifestation, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Being is one; division is a device or a secondary condition of consciousness; but the primary truth of consciousness also is a truth of oneness and identity. One consciousness organised in many self-divided unities of consciousness is the subjective nature of existence.
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The objective side of consciousness is force, because consciousness is a power of being. The eternal primary action of this force is to make for its own consciousness forms or figures of its being.
All force is inherently conscious force. Inhabiting and supporting every individual or universal form of being there is and must be some conscious power of being. But conscious force has the faculty of absorbing itself in its works and forms; there is in consciousness the power of self-oblivion. This self-oblivion is the primary phenomenon of material existence. But as [in] the sleeping or unconscious or self-oblivious man there is a subliminal self which neither sleeps nor forgets itself nor is unconscious, so in what appears to [be] inconscient form worked by an inconscient force or power of being there is, discoverable by extending knowledge, such a conscious power and that must be part of the conscious force of being of the one existence.
The nature of being aware of itself, in possession of all its consciousness and force is the inherent delight of its own existence. For experience shows that all complete possession of self is delight, only imperfection of possession creates imperfection or apparent absence of delight. But the one existence takes an equal delight in all the universal forms and figures of its own being, and this delight is the cause and support of universal and individual existence. For this reason all creation also and all action of force has secretly or overtly delight or a seeking for delight or [?some] attraction as its first motive cause, although the apparent object or aim of the action may seem to be of a different character.
--
consciousness and being, itself in its nature modification of consciousness or of being or of both. It cannot be a modification of nothing, it must be a modification of something. If consciousness and being are the first fact, real, eternal, is it not a modification of conscious being, of this real, this eternal something, and itself therefore real? Is it not itself eternal, an eternal continuity of modification, uninterrupted continual or else interrupted and recurringly continual? Must we not then suppose two states of the Brahman, a primary state of eternal unmodified being, a secondary state of eternal continuity of modifications of being, becomings of the Brahman? Does not the Vedantic statement that all comes from the Brahman, exists by it, returns to it, imply that all is eternally contained in it and all are modifications of it?
In that case, we cannot say that the Eternal Being is absolutely unmodifiable. No, says the Illusionist, the supreme eternal self is not only unmodified, but unmodifiable and nothing else but the eternal unmodifiable self exists really: all else is seeming. How then do all these modifications come about? What is the clue to this mystery, the cause of this magic of illusion?
2.1.03 - Man and Superman, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
cosmic purpose. We shall understand nothing of existence if we confine our vision to the particular view of things our primary consciousness and its instruments which are physical impose upon us; for this consciousness is only a surface phenomenon of ourselves and our total being is far deeper, higher and vaster than that, our possibilities extend infinitely beyond their present limit, and the world also is far more complex than the first crude inexplicable mystery of Matter would lead us to imagine.
The immense material world in which we live is not the sole reality but only one of innumerable potential and existent universes; all of them need not have either Matter as we know it or the Inconscient for their base. Indeed this world of matter is itself dependent on many planes of consciousness and existence which are not material; for these have not this gross substance as their foundation or as the medium of their instrumentation of energy and consciousness or their primary condition of existence.
All the powers that are involved here in the inconscient
Infinite and that we see rising out of it, - mind, life and what is beyond mind no less than matter itself - have their previous existence and are not merely evolutionary results of Nature in this universe. They have not only a preexistence but also their separate planes of manifestation in which each in turn is, as matter is here, the foundation, the medium of instrumentation, the primary condition of existence.
58
2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Presence in it, the one Conscious in unconscious things, that determines the operation of its indwelling energies. If, as has been affirmed, a material object receives and retains the impression of the contacts of things around it and energies emanate from it, so that an occult knowledge can become aware of its past, can make us conscious of these emanating influences, the intrinsic unorganised Awareness pervading the form but not yet enlightening it must be the cause of this receptivity and these capacities. What we see from outside is that material objects like plants and minerals have their powers, properties and inherent influences, but as there is no faculty or means of communication, it is only by being brought into contact with person or object or by a conscious utilisation by living beings that their influences can become active, - such a utilisation is the practical side of more than one human science. But still these powers and influences are attributes of Being, not of mere indeterminate substance, they are forces of the Spirit emerging by Energy from its self-absorbed Inconscience. This first crude mechanical action of an inherent absorbed conscious energy opens in the primary forms of life into submental life-vibrations that imply an involved sensation; there is a seeking for growth, light, air, life-room, a blind feeling out, which is still internal and confined within the immobile being, unable to formulate its instincts, to communicate, to externalise itself. An immobility not organised to establish living relations, it endures and absorbs contacts, involuntarily inflicts but cannot voluntarily impose them; the inconscience is still dominant, still works out everything by the secret involved knowledge by identity, it has not yet developed the surface contactual means of a conscious knowledge. This further development begins with overtly conscious life; what we see in it is the imprisoned consciousness struggling out to the surface: it is under the compulsion of this struggle that the separated living being strives, however blindly at first and within narrow limits, to enter into conscious relations with the rest of the world-being outside it. It is by the growing amount of contacts that it can receive and respond to and by the growing amount of contacts that it can put out from itself or impose in
572
2.10 - The Primordial Kings Their Shattering, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
like the complicated mechanism of a watch. His primary
purpose in all this was to effect complete goodness and
2.10 - The Realisation of the Cosmic Self, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Our first imperative aim when we draw back from mind, life, body and all else that is not our eternal being, is to get rid of the false idea of self by which we identify ourselves with the lower existence and can realise only our apparent being as perishable or mutable creatures in a perishable or ever mutable world. We have to know ourselves as the self, the spirit, the eternal; we have to exist consciously in our true being. Therefore this must be our primary, if not our first one and all absorbing idea and effort in the path of knowledge. But when we have realised the eternal self that we are, when we have become that inalienably, we have still a secondary aim, to establish the true relation between this eternal self that we are and the mutable existence and mutable world which till now we had falsely taken for our real being and our sole possible status.
In order that there should be any real relation, it must be a relation between two realities. Formerly we had thought the eternal self to be a remote concept far from our mundane existence if not an illusion and an unreality, because in the nature of things we could not conceive of ourselves as anything except this mind, life, body, changing and moving in the succession of Time. When we have once got rid of our confinement to this lower status, we are apt to seize on the other side of the same erroneous relation between self and world; we tend to regard this eternity which we increasingly are in which we live as the sole reality and begin to look down from it upon the world and man as a remote illusion and unreality, because that is a status quite opposite to our new foundation in which we no longer place our roots of consciousness, from which we have been lifted up and transfigured and with which we seem to have no longer any binding link. Especially is this likely to happen if we have made the finding of the eternal Self not only our primary, but our one and absorbing objective in the withdrawal from the lower triplicity; for then we are likely to shoot at once from pure mind to pure spirit without treading the stairs between this middle and that summit and we tend to fix on our consciousness the profound sense of a gulf which we cannot bridge and can no longer cross over again except by a painful fall.
But the self and the world are in an eternal close relation and there is a connection between them, not a gulf that has to be overleaped. Spirit and material existence are highest and lowest rung of an orderly and progressive series. Therefore between the two there must be a real relation and principle of connection by which the eternal Brahman is able to be at once pure Spirit and Self and yet hold in himself the universe of himself; and it must be possible for the soul that is one with or in union with the Eternal to adopt the same poise of divine relation in place of our present ignorant immersion in the world. This principle of connection is the eternal unity between the Self and all existences; of that eternal unity the liberated soul must be capable, just as the ever free and unbound Divine is capable of it, and that we should realise equally with the pure self-existence at which we have first to aim. For integral self-possession we must be one not only with the Self, with God, but with all existences. We must take back in the right relation and in the poise of an eternal Truth the world of our manifested existence peopled by our fellow-beings from which we had drawn back because we were bound to them in a wrong relation and in the poise of a falsehood created in Time by the principle of divided consciousness with all its oppositions, discords and dualities. We have to take back all things and beings into our new consciousness but as one with all, not divided from them by an egoistic individuality.
2.13 - The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If it were easily possible to elevate ourselves to the supramental plane and, dwelling securely there, realise world and being, consciousness and action, outgoing and incoming of conscious experience by the power and in the manner of the divine supramental faculties, this realisation would offer no essential difficulties. But man is a mental and not yet a supramental being. It is by the mind therefore that he has to aim at knowledge and realise his being, with whatever help he can get from the supramental planes. This character of our actually realised being and therefore of our Yoga imposes on us certain limitations and primary difficulties which can only be overcome by divine help or an arduous practice, and in reality only by the combination of both these aids. These difficulties in the way of the integral knowledge, the integral realisation, the integral becoming we have to state succinctly before we can proceed farther.
Realised mental being and realised spiritual being are really two different planes in the arrangement of our existence, the one superior and divine, the other inferior and human. To the former belong infinite being, infinite consciousness and will, infinite bliss and the infinite comprehensive and self-effective knowledge of supermind, four divine principles; to the latter belong mental being, vital being, physical being, three human principles. In their apparent nature the two are opposed; each is the reverse of the other. The divine is infinite and immortal being; the human is life limited in time and scope and form, life that is death attempting to become life that is immortality. The divine is infinite consciousness transcending and embracing all that it manifests within it; the human is consciousness rescued from a sleep of inconscience, subjected to the means it uses, limited by body and ego and attempting to find its relation to other consciousnesses, bodies, egos positively by various means of uniting contact and sympathy, negatively by various means of hostile contact and antipathy. The divine is inalienable self-bliss and inviolable all-bliss; the human is sensation of mind and body seeking for delight, but finding only pleasure, indifference and pain. The divine is supramental knowledge comprehending all and supramental will effecting all; the human is ignorance reaching out to knowledge by the comprehension of things in parts and parcels which it has to join clumsily together, and it is incapacity attempting to acquire force and will through a gradual extension of power corresponding to its gradual extension of knowledge; and this extension it can only bring about by a partial arid parcelled exercise of will corresponding to the partial and parcelled method of its knowledge. The divine founds itself upon unity and is master of the transcendences and totalities of things; the human founds itself on separated multiplicity and is the subject even when the master of their division and fragmentations and their difficult solderings and unifyings. Between the two there are for the human being a veil and a lid which prevent the human not only from attaining but even from knowing the divine.
2.1.4.2 - Teaching, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is not quite like that. In all the sections, primary, Secondary and Higher Course, the children will follow yogic methods in their education and prepare and try to bring down new knowledge. So all the students can be said to be doing Yoga.
A distinction must be made, however, between those doing Yoga and the disciples. To be a disciple one has to surrender and the decision to do so must be full and spontaneous. Such decisions have to be taken individuallywhen the call comesand it cannot be imposed or even suggested.1
2.14 - The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
individual being. It is evident that these contrary phenomena have no direct root in the supreme Reality itself, there is nothing there that has this character; they are creations of the Ignorance and Inconscience, not fundamental or primary aspects of the
Being, not native to the Transcendence or to the infinite power of the Cosmic Spirit. It is sometimes reasoned that as Truth and Good have their absolutes, so Falsehood and Evil must also have their absolutes, or, if it is not so, then both must belong to the relativity only; Knowledge and Ignorance, Truth and Falsehood, Good and Evil exist only in relation to each other and beyond the dualities here they have no existence. But this is not the fundamental truth of the relation of these opposites; for, in the first place, Falsehood and Evil are, unlike Truth and
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Here the second of the primary conditions of the evolution, the law of a separate life-being affirming itself in a world which is not-self to it, comes into prominence and assumes an immense importance. It is here that the surface vital personality or life-self asserts its dominance, and this dominance of the ignorant vital being is a principal active source of discord and disharmony, a cause of inner and outer perturbations of the life, a mainspring of wrong-doing and evil. The natural vital element in us, in so far as it is unchecked or untrained or retains its primitive character, is not concerned with truth or right consciousness or right action; it is concerned with self-affirmation, with life-growth, with possession, with satisfaction of impulse, with all satisfactions of desire. This main need and demand of the life-self seems allimportant to it; it would readily carry it out without any regard to truth or right or good or any other consideration: but because mind is there and has these conceptions, because the soul is there and has these soul-perceptions, it tries to dominate mind and get from it by dictation a sanction and order of execution for its own will of self-affirmation, a verdict of truth and right and good for its own vital assertions, impulses, desires; it is concerned with self-justification in order that it may have room for full selfaffirmation. But if it can get the assent of mind, it is quite ready to ignore all these standards and set up only one standard, the satisfaction, growth, strength, greatness of the vital ego. The life-individual needs place, expansion, possession of its world, dominance and control of things and beings; it needs life-room, a space in the sun, self-assertion, survival. It needs these things for itself and for those with whom it associates itself, for its own
The Origin of Falsehood and Evil
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
As we saw, Gaia's primary problems and threats are not pollution, industrialization, overcultivation, soil despoliation, overpopulation, ozone depletion, or whatnot. Gaia's major problem is lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere.
The problem is not how to demonstrate, in monological terms and with scientific proofs, that Gaia is in desperate trouble. The general evidence of this serious trouble is already and simply and absolutely overwhelming. Anybody can grasp the data. But most just don't care.
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Hence, the only "transformation" most ecophilosophers talk about is having everybody change their objective and monological views of reality and accept a "web-of-life" conception, as if that would effect a genuine interior transformation. But not only is the web-of-life ontology regressive (its end limit is always biocentric feeling in divine egoism), but, more tellingly-and this is the only point I would like to emphasize-even if the web-of-life ontology were absolutely true, nonetheless change in objective belief is not the primary driving force of interior development.
(For example: all ecological forecasts are forms of as-if and what-if scientific projections, often computerized.
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As I said, I believe in many cases the original intuition is true and good, namely, all holons have equal Groundvalue (I believe that is the primary intuition behind the noble attempts to deanthropocentrize ethics). But in unpacking this noble intuition merely in terms of a flatl and holism (the Right-Hand path, which always embodies a qualitative distinction that denies all qualitative distinctions: in this case, "bioequality"), we end up instrumentalizing everything: precisely the fundamental Enlightenment paradigm most responsible for despoiling
Gaia is still claiming, in its new guise, to save that which it is inexorably destroying.15
2.16 - The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All these three lower powers of being build upon the Inconscient and seem to be originated and supported by it: the black dragon of the Inconscience sustains with its vast wings and its back of darkness the whole structure of the material universe; its energies unroll the flux of things, its obscure intimations seem to be the starting-point of consciousness itself and the source of all life-impulse. The Inconscient, in consequence of this origination and predominance, is taken now by a certain line of enquiry as the real origin and creator. It has indeed to be accepted that an inconscient force, an inconscient substance are the starting-point of the evolution, but it is a conscious Spirit and not an inconscient Being that is emerging in the evolution. The Inconscient and its primary works are penetrated by a succession of higher and higher powers of being and are made subject to Consciousness so that its obstructions to the evolution, its circles of restriction, are slowly broken, the Python coils of its obscurity shot through by the arrows of the Sun-God; so are the limitations of our material substance diminished until they can be transcended and mind, life and body can be transformed through a possession of them by the greater law of divine Consciousness, Energy and Spirit. The integral knowledge admits the valid truths of all views of existence, valid in their own field, but it seeks to get rid of their limitations and negations and to harmonise and reconcile these partial truths in a larger truth which fulfils all the many sides of our being in the one omnipresent Existence.
At this point we must take a step farther and begin to regard the metaphysical truth we have so stated as a determinant not only of our thought and inner movements but of our life direction, a guide to a dynamic solution of our self-experience and world-experience. Our metaphysical knowledge, our view of the fundamental truth of the universe and the meaning of existence, should naturally be the determinant of our whole conception of life and attitude to it; the aim of life, as we conceive it, must be structured on that basis. Metaphysical philosophy is an attempt to fix the fundamental realities and principles of being as distinct from its processes and the phenomena which result from those processes. But it is on the fundamental realities that the processes depend: our own process of life, its aim and method, should be in accordance with the truth of being that we see; otherwise our metaphysical truth can be only a play of the intellect without any dynamic importance. It is true that the intellect must seek after truth for its own sake without any illegitimate interference of a preconceived idea of life-utility. But still the truth, once discovered, must be realisable in our inner being and our outer activities: if it is not, it may have an intellectual but not an integral importance; a truth for the intellect, for our life it would be no more than the solution of a thought puzzle or an abstract unreality or a dead letter. Truth of being must govern truth of life; it cannot be that the two have no relation or interdependence.
2.1.7.08 - Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The double epithets are indispensable here and in the ex act order in which they are arranged by me. You say the rich burdened movement can be secured by other means, but a rich burdened movement of any kind is not my primary object, it is desirable only because it is needed to express the spirit of the action here; and the double epithets are wanted because they are the best, not only one way of securing it. The gesture must be slow miraculousif it is merely miraculous or merely slow that does not create a picture of the thing as it is, but of something quite abstract and ordinary or concrete but ordinaryit is the combination that renders the exact nature of the mystic movement, with the dimly came supporting it, so that gesture is not here a metaphor, but a thing actually done. Equally a pale light or an enchanted light may be very pretty, but it is only the combination that renders the luminosity which is that of the hand acting tentatively in the darkness. That darkness itself is described as a quietude, which gives it a subjective spiritual character and brings out the thing symbolised, but the double epithet inert black gives it the needed concreteness so that the quietude ceases to be something abstract and becomes something concrete, objective, but still spiritually subjective. I might go on, but that is enough. Every word must be the right word, with the right atmosphere, the right relation to all the other words, just as every sound in its place and the whole sound together must bring out the imponderable significance which is beyond verbal expression. One cant chop and change about on the principle that it is sufficient if the same mental sense or part of it is given with some poetical beauty or power. One can only change if the change brings out more perfectly the thing behind that is seeking for expressionbrings out in full objectivity and also in the full mystic sense. If I can do that, well, other considerations have to take a back seat or seek their satisfaction elsewhere.
31 October 1936
2.17 - The Progress to Knowledge - God, Man and Nature, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness, Delight of Existence, not at first in its essence or totality but in evolutionary forms that express or disguise it. Out of the Inconscient, Existence appears in a first evolutionary form as substance of Matter created by an inconscient Energy. Consciousness, involved and non-apparent in Matter, first emerges in the disguise of vital vibrations, animate but subconscient; then, in imperfect formulations of a conscient life, it strives towards self-finding through successive forms of that material substance, forms more and more adapted to its own completer expression. Consciousness in life, throwing off the primal insensibility of a material inanimation and nescience, labours to find itself more and more entirely in the Ignorance which is its first inevitable formulation; but it achieves at first only a primary mental perception and a vital awareness of self and things, a life perception which in its first forms depends on an internal sensation responsive to the contacts of other life and of Matter. Consciousness labours to manifest as best it can through the inadequacy of sensation its own inherent delight of being; but it can only formulate a partial pain and pleasure. In man the energising Consciousness appears as Mind more clearly aware of itself and things; this is still a partial and limited, not an integral power of itself, but a first conceptive potentiality and promise of integral emergence is visible. That integral emergence is the goal of evolving Nature.
Man is there to affirm himself in the universe, that is his first business, but also to evolve and finally to exceed himself: he has to enlarge his partial being into a complete being, his partial consciousness into an integral consciousness; he has to achieve mastery of his environment but also world-union and world-harmony; he has to realise his individuality but also to enlarge it into a cosmic self and a universal and spiritual delight of existence. A transformation, a chastening and correction of all that is obscure, erroneous and ignorant in his mentality, an ultimate arrival at a free and wide harmony and luminousness of knowledge and will and feeling and action and character, is the evident intention of his nature; it is the ideal which the creative Energy has imposed on his intelligence, a need implanted by her in his mental and vital substance. But this can only be accomplished by his growing into a larger being and a larger consciousness: self-enlargement, self-fulfilment, self-evolution from what he partially and temporarily is in his actual and apparent nature to what he completely is in his secret self and spirit and therefore can become even in his manifest existence, is the object of his creation. This hope is the justification of his life upon earth amidst the phenomena of the cosmos. The outer apparent man, an ephemeral being subject to the constraints of his material embodiment and imprisoned in a limited mentality, has to become the inner real Man, master of himself and his environment and universal in his being. In a more vivid and less metaphysical language, the natural man has to evolve himself into the divine Man; the sons of Death have to know themselves as the children of Immortality. It is on this account that the human birth can be described as the turning-point in the evolution, the critical stage in earth-nature.
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God or the gods are treated as if they existed for man, as supreme instruments for the satisfaction of his desires, his helpers in his task of getting the world in which he lives to satisfy his needs and wants and ambitions. This primary egoistic development with all its sins and violences and crudities is by no means to be regarded, in its proper place, as an evil or an error of Nature; it is necessary for man's first work, the finding of his own individuality and its perfect disengagement from the lower subconscient in which the individual is overpowered by the mass consciousness of the world and entirely subject to the mechanical workings of Nature.
Man the individual has to affirm, to distinguish his personality against Nature, to be powerfully himself, to evolve all his human capacities of force and knowledge and enjoyment so that he may turn them upon her and upon the world with more and more mastery and force; his self-discriminating egoism is given him as a means for this primary purpose. Until he has thus developed his individuality, his personality, his separate capacity, he cannot be fit for the greater work before him or successfully turn his faculties to higher, larger and more divine ends. He has to affirm himself in the Ignorance before he can perfect himself in the Knowledge.
For the initiation of the evolutionary emergence from the Inconscient works out by two forces, a secret cosmic consciousness and an individual consciousness manifest on the surface.
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Still, to find his egoistic individuality is not to know himself; the true spiritual individual is not the mind ego, the life ego, the body ego: predominantly, this first movement is a work of will, of power, of egoistic self-effectuation and only secondarily of knowledge. Therefore a time must come when man has to look below the obscure surface of his egoistic being and attempt to know himself; he must set out to find the real man: without that he would be stopping short at Nature's primary education and never go on to her deeper and larger teachings; however great his practical knowledge and efficiency, he would be only a little higher than the animals. First, he has to turn his eyes upon his own psychology and distinguish its natural elements, - ego, mind and its instruments, life, body, - until he discovers that his whole existence stands in need of an explanation other than the working of the natural elements and of a goal for its activities other than an egoistic self-affirmation and satisfaction. He may seek it in Nature and mankind and thus start on his way to the discovery of his unity with the rest of his world: he may seek it in supernature, in God, and thus start on his way to the discovery of his unity with the Divine. Practically, he attempts both paths and, continually wavering, continually seeks to fix himself in the successive solutions that may be best in accordance with the various partial discoveries he has made on his double line of search and finding.
But through it all what he is in this stage still insistently seeking to discover, to know, to fulfil is himself; his knowledge of Nature, his knowledge of God are only helps towards selfknowledge, towards the perfection of his being, towards the attainment of the supreme object of his individual self-existence.
2.18 - The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But the community of the phenomenon of life between plant and animal, however different their organisation, narrows the gulf, even though it does not fill in its profundity. Between the highest animal and the lowest man there is a still deeper though narrower gulf to be crossed, the gulf between sense-mind and the intellect: for however we may insist on the primitive nature of the savage, we cannot alter the fact that the most primitive human being has above and beyond the sense-mind, emotional vitality and primary practical intelligence which we share with the animals, a human intellect and is capable - in whatever limits - of reflection, ideas, conscious invention, religious and ethical thought and feeling, everything fundamental of which man as a race is capable; he has the same kind of intelligence, it differs only in its past instruction and formative training and the degree of its developed capacity, intensity and activity. Still, in spite of these dividing furrows, we can no longer suppose that God or some Demiurge has manufactured each genus and species ready-made in body and in consciousness and left the matter there, having looked upon his work and seen that it was good. It has become evident that a secretly conscious or an inconscient Energy of creation has effected the transition by swift or slow degrees, by whatever means, devices, biological, physical or psychological machinery, - perhaps, having made it, did not care to preserve as distinct forms what were only stepping-stones and had no longer any function nor served any purpose in evolutionary Nature. But this explanation of the gaps is little more than a hypothesis which as yet we cannot sufficiently substantiate. It is probable at any rate that the reason for these radical differences is to be found in the working of the inner Force and not in the outer process of the evolutionary transition; if we look at it more deeply from that inner side, the difficulty of understanding ceases and these transitions become intelligible and indeed inevitable by the very nature of the evolutionary process and its principle.
For if we look, not at the scientific or physical aspects, but at the psychological side of the question and inquire in what precisely the difference lies, we shall see that it consists in the rise of consciousness to another principle of being. The metal is fixed in the inconscient and inanimate principle of matter; even if we can suppose that it has some reactions suggestive of life in it or at least of rudimentary vibrations that in the plant developed into life, still it is not at all characteristically a form of life; it is characteristically a form of matter. The plant is fixed in a subconscient action of the principle of life, - not that it is not subject to matter or devoid of reactions that find their full meaning only in mind, for it seems to have submental reactions that in us are the foundation of pleasure and pain or of attraction and repulsion; but still it is a form of life, not of mere matter, nor is it, so far as we know, at all a mind-conscious being. Man and the animal are both mentally conscious beings: but the animal is fixed in vital mind and mind-sense and cannot exceed its limitations, while man has received into his sensemind the light of another principle, the intellect, which is really at once a reflection and a degradation of the supermind, a ray of gnosis seized by the sense-mentality and transformed by it into something other than its source: for it is agnostic like the sensemind in which and for which it works, not gnostic; it seeks to lay hold on knowledge, because it does not possess it, it does not like supermind hold knowledge in itself as its natural prerogative. In other words, in each of these forms of existence the universal being has fixed its action of consciousness in a different principle or, as between man and animal, in the modification of a lower by a higher though still not a highest-grade principle. It is this stride from one principle of being to another quite different principle of being that creates the transitions, the furrows, the sharp lines of distance, and makes, not all the difference, but still a radical characteristic difference between being and being in their nature.
2.19 - The Planes of Our Existence, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4:But first we must understand what we mean by planes of consciousness, planes of existence. We mean a general-settled poise or world of relations between Purusha and prakriti, between the Soul and Nature. For anything that we can call world is and can be nothing else than the working out of a general relation which an universal existence has created or established between itself, or let us say its eternal fact or potentiality and the powers of its becoming. That existence in its relations with and its experience of the becoming is what we call soul or Purusha, individual soul in the individual, universal soul in the cosmos; the principle and the powers of the becoming are what we call Nature or prakriti. But since being, conscious-force and delight of being are always the three constituent terms of existence, the nature of a world is really determined by the way in which prakriti is set to deal with these three primary things and the forms which it is allowed to give to them. For existence itself is and must always be the stuff of its own becoming; it must be shaped into the substance with which Force has to deal. Force again must be the power which works out that substance and works with it to whatever ends; Force is that which we ordinarily call Nature. Again the end, the object with which the worlds are created must be worked out by the consciousness inherent in all existence and all force and all their workings, and the object must be the possession of itself and of its delight of existence in the world. To that all the circumstances and aims of any world-existence must reduce themselves; it is existence developing its terms of being, its power of being, its conscious delight of being; if these are involved, their evolution; if they are veiled, their self-revelation.
5:Here the soul lives in a material universe; of that alone it is immediately conscious; the realisation of its potentialities in that is the problem with which it is concerned. But Matter means the involution of the conscious delight of existence in self-oblivious force and in self-dividing, infinitesimally disaggregated form of substance. Therefore the whole principle and effort of a material world must be the evolution of what is involved and the development of what is undeveloped. Here everything is shut up from the first in the violently working inconscient sleep of material force; therefore the whole aim of any material becoming must be the waking of consciousness out of the inconscient; the whole consummation of a material becoming must be the removal of the veil of Matter and the luminous revelation of the entirely self-conscient Being to its own imprisoned soul in the becoming. Since Man is such an imprisoned soul, this luminous liberation and coming to self-knowledge must be his highest object and the condition of his perfection.
6:But the limitations of a material universe seem to be hostile to the proper accomplishment of this object which is yet so inevitably the highest aim of a mental being born into a physical body. First existence has formed itself here, fundamentally, as Matter; it has been objectivised, made sensible and concrete to its own self-experiencing conscious-force in the form of self-dividing material substance, and by the aggregation of this Matter there has been built up for man a physical body separate, divided from others and subject to the fixed habits of process or, as we call them, the laws of inconscient material Nature. His force of being too is nature or Force working in Matter, which has waked slowly out of inconscience to life and is always limited by form, always dependent on the body, always separated by it from the rest of Life and from other living beings, always hampered in its development, persistence, self-perfectioning by the laws of the Inconscience and the limitations of bodily living. Equally, his consciousness is a mentality emerging in a body and in a sharply individualised life; it is therefore limited in its workings and capacities and dependent on bodily organs of no great competence and on a very restricted vital force; it is separated from the rest of cosmic mind and shut out from the thoughts of other mental beings whose inner workings are a sealed book to man's physical mind except in so far as he can read them by the analogy of his own mentality and by their insufficient bodily signs and self-expressions. His consciousness is always falling back towards the inconscience in which a large part of it is always involved, his life towards death, his physical being towards disaggregation. His delight of being depends on the relations of this imperfect consciousness with its environment based upon physical sensations and the sense-mind, in other words on a limited mind trying to lay hold on a world external and foreign to it by means of a limited body, limited vital force, limited organs. Therefore its power for possession is limited, its force for delight is limited, and every touch of the world which exceeds its force, which that force cannot bear, cannot seize on, cannot assimilate and possess must turn to something else than delight, to pain, discomfort or grief. Or else it must be met by non-reception, insensibility, or, if received, put away by indifference. Moreover, such delight of being as it possesses, is not possessed naturally and eternally like the self-delight of Sachchidananda, but by experience and acquisition in Time, and can therefore only be maintained and prolonged by repetition of experience and is in its nature precarious and transient. All this means that the natural relations of Purusha to prakriti in the material universe are the complete absorption of conscious being in the force of its workings, therefore the complete self-oblivion and self-ignorance of the Purusha, the complete domination of prakriti and subjection of the soul to Nature. The soul does not know itself, it only knows, if anything, the workings of prakriti. The emergence of the individual self-conscious soul in Man does not of itself abrogate these primary relations of ignorance and subjection. For this soul is living on a material plane of existence, a poise of prakriti in which matter is still the chief determinant of its relations to Nature, and its consciousness being limited by Matter cannot be an entirely self-possessing consciousness. Even the universal soul, if limited by the material formula, could not be in entire possession of itself; much less can the individual soul to which the rest of existence becomes by bodily, vital and mental limitation and separation something external to it, on which it is yet dependent for its life and its delight and its knowledge. These limitations of his power, knowledge, life, delight of existence are the whole cause of man's dissatisfaction with himself and the universe. And if the material universe were all and the material plane the only plane of his being, then man the individual Purusha could never arrive at perfection and self-fulfilment or indeed to any other life than that of the animals. There must be either worlds in which he is liberated from these incomplete and unsatisfactory relations of Purusha with prakriti, or planes of his own being by ascending to which he can transcend them, or at the very least planes, worlds and higher beings from which he can receive or be helped to knowledge, powers, joys, a growth of his being otherwise impossible. All these things, the ancient knowledge asserts, exist, -- other worlds, higher planes, the possibility of communication, of ascension, of growth by contact with and influence from that which is above him in the present scale of his realised being.
7:As there is a poise of the relations of Purusha with prakriti in which Matter is the first determinant, a world of material existence, so there is another just above it in which Matter is not supreme, but rather Life-force takes its place as the first determinant. In this world forms do not determine the conditions of the life, but it is life which determines the form, and therefore forms are there much more free, fluid, largely and to our conceptions strangely variable than in the material world. This life-force is not inconscient material force, not even, except in its lowest movements, an elemental subconscient energy, but a conscious force of being which makes for formation, but much more essentially for enjoyment, possession, satisfaction of its own dynamic impulse. Desire and the satisfaction of impulse are therefore the first law of this world of sheer vital existence, this poise of relations between the soul and its nature in which the life-power plays with so much greater a freedom and capacity than in our physical living; it may be called the desire-world, for that is its principal characteristic. Moreover, it is not fixed in one hardly variable formula as physical life seems to be, but is capable of many variations of its poise, admits many sub-planes ranging from those which touch material existence and, as it were, melt into that, to those which touch at the height of the life-power the planes of pure mental and psychic existence and melt into them. For in Nature in the infinite scale of being there are no wide gulfs, no abrupt chasms to be overleaped, but a melting of one thing into another, a subtle continuity; out of that her power of distinctive experience creates the orderings, the definite ranges, the distinct gradations by which the soul variously knows and possesses its possibilities of world-existence. Again, enjoyment of one kind or another being the whole object of desire, that must be the trend of the desire-world; but since wherever the soul is not free, -- and it cannot be free when subject to desire, -- there must be the negative as well as the positive of all its experience, this world contains not only the possibility of large or intense or continuous enjoyments almost inconceivable to the limited physical mind, but also the possibility of equally enormous sufferings. It is here therefore that there are situated the lowest heavens and all the hells with the tradition and imagination of which the human mind has lured and terrified itself since the earliest ages. All human imaginations indeed correspond to some reality or real possibility, though they may in themselves be a quite inaccurate representation or couched in too physical images and therefore inapt to express the truth of supraphysical realities.
2.2.01 - Work and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
By intensive sadhana I meant the endeavour to arrive at one of the great positive realisations which would be a firm base for the whole movement. I observe that he speaks of sometimes getting a glimpse of some wide calm when he feels the leading of Vyasa. A descent of this wide calm permanently into the consciousness is one of the realisations of which I was thinking. That he feels it at such times seems to indicate that he may have the capacity of receiving and retaining it. If that happened or if the Prakriti-Purusha realisation came, the whole sadhana would proceed on a strong permanent base with a new and entirely Yogic consciousness instead of the purely mental endeavour which is always difficult and slow. I do not however want to press these things upon him; they come in their own time and to press towards them prematurely does not always hasten their coming. Let him continue with his primary task of self-purification and self-preparation; I shall always be ready to give him what silent help I can.
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2.2.03 - The Science of Consciousness, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
life, mind, supermind, bliss self, self of conscious energy, self of primary conscious existence.
But the experience we get as we ascend in the scale leads us to the discovery that what in evolution appears subsequent is prior in reality. Life evolves in matter, but was preexistent to matter, latent, omnipresent, waiting for matter to be ready to be manifest - which it does when the movement of energy reaches a certain intensity.
2.20 - The Philosophy of Rebirth, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Adwaita of the Mayavada, like Buddhism, started with the already accepted belief - part of the received stock of an antique knowledge - of supraphysical planes and worlds and a commerce between them and ours which determined a passage from earth and, though this seems to have been a less primitive discovery, a return to earth of the human personality. At any rate their thought had behind it an ancient perception and even experience, or at least an age-long tradition, of a before and after for the personality which was not confined to the experience of the physical universe; for they based themselves on a view of self and world which already regarded a supraphysical consciousness as the primary phenomenon and physical being as only a secondary and dependent phenomenon. It was around these data that they had to determine the nature of the eternal Reality and the origin of the phenomenal becoming. Therefore they admitted the passage of the personality from this to other worlds and its return into form of life upon earth; but the rebirth thus admitted was not in the Buddhistic view a real rebirth of a real spiritual Person into the forms of material existence. In the later Adwaita view the spiritual reality was there, but its apparent individuality and therefore its birth and rebirth were part of a cosmic illusion, a deceptive but effective construction of universal Maya.
In Buddhistic thought the existence of the Self was denied, and rebirth could only mean a continuity of the ideas, sensations and actions which constituted a fictitious individual moving between different worlds, - let us say, between differently organised planes of idea and sensation; for, in fact, it is only the conscious continuity of the flux that creates a phenomenon of self and a phenomenon of personality. In the Adwaitic Mayavada there was the admission of a Jivatman, an individual self, and even of a real self of the individual;5 but this concession to our normal language and ideas ends by being only apparent. For it turns out that there is no real and eternal individual, no "I" or "you", and therefore there can be no real self of the individual, even no true universal self, but only a Self apart from the universe, ever unborn, ever unmodified, ever unaffected by the mutations of phenomena. Birth, life, death, the whole mass of individual and cosmic experience, become in the last resort no more than an illusion or a temporary phenomenon; even bondage and release can be only such an illusion, a part of temporal phenomena: they amount only to the conscious continuity of the illusory experiences of the ego, itself a creation of the great Illusion, and the cessation of the continuity and the consciousness into the superconsciousness of That which alone was, is and ever will be, or rather which has nothing to do with Time, is for ever unborn, timeless and ineffable. be any true individual, only at most a one Self omnipresent and animating each mind and body with the idea of an "I".
2.21 - The Order of the Worlds, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Accordingly, this world-creating or participating Individual and its desire or assent to the Ignorance must have been awake before the world at all existed; it must have been there as an element in some supracosmic Superconscient from which it comes and to which it returns out of the life of the ego: we must suppose an original immanence of the Many in the One. It becomes then conceivable that a will or an impetus or a spiritual necessity may have stirred, in some transmundane Infinite, in some of the Many which precipitated them downward and compelled the creation of this world of the Ignorance. But since the One is the premier fact of existence, since the Many depend upon the One, are souls of the One, beings of the Being, this truth must determine also the fundamental principle of the cosmic existence. There we see that the universal precedes the individual, gives it its field, is that in which it exists cosmically even though its origin is in the Transcendence. The individual soul lives here by the All-Soul and depends upon it; the All-Soul very evidently does not exist by the individual or depend upon it: it is not a sum of individual beings, a pluralistic totality created by the conscious life of individuals; if an All-Soul exists, it must be the one Cosmic Spirit supporting the one cosmic Force in its works, and it repeats here, modified in the terms of cosmic existence, the primary relation of the dependence of the Many on the One. It is inconceivable that the Many should have independently or by a departure from the One Will desired cosmic existence and forced by their desire the supreme Sachchidananda to descend unwillingly or tolerantly into the Nescience; that would be to reverse altogether the true dependence of things. If the world was directly originated by the will or the spiritual impetus of the Many, which is possible and even probable in a certain sense, there must still have been first a Will in Sachchidananda to that end; otherwise the impetus - translating here the All-Will into desire, for what becomes desire in the ego is Will in the Spirit, - could not have arisen anywhere.
The One, the All-Soul, by whom alone the consciousness of the Individual is determined, must first accept the veil of inconscient Nature before the Individual too can put on the veil of the Ignorance in the material universe.
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This veil exists because the soul in the body has put behind it these greater possibilities in order that it might concentrate exclusively its consciousness and force upon its primary work in this physical world of being; but that primary work can have a sequel only by the veil being at least partially lifted or else made penetrable so that the higher planes of mind, life and spirit may pour their significances into human existence.
It is possible to suppose that these higher planes and worlds have been created subsequently to the manifestation of the material cosmos, to aid the evolution or in some sense as a result of it. This is a notion which the physical mind, starting in all its ideas from the material universe as the one thing which it knows, has analysed and can deal with in a beginning of mastery, might easily tend to accept, if obliged to admit a supraphysical existence; it could then keep the material, the Inconscience, as the starting-point and support of all being, as it is undoubtedly the starting-point for us of the evolutionary movement of which the material world is the scene. Our mind could still keep matter and material force as the first existence, - so accepted and cherished by it because it is the first thing that it knows, the one thing that is always securely present and knowable, - and maintain the spiritual and the supraphysical in a dependence upon the assured foundation in Matter.4 But how then were these (the material principle) is spoken of as the foundation of all the worlds or the seven worlds are described as the seven planes of Earth. other worlds created, by what force, by what instrumentality?
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If in this or some other way the higher worlds were developed subsequently to the creation of the material world, the primary creation, by a larger secret evolution out of the Inconscient, it must have been done by some All-Soul in its emergence, by a process of which we can have no knowledge and for the purpose of the evolution here, as adjuncts to it or as its larger consequences, so that life and mind and spirit might be able to move in fields of a freer scope with a repercussion of these greater powers and experiences on the material self-expression.
But against this hypothesis there stands the fact that we find these higher worlds in our vision and experience of them to be in no way based upon the material universe, in no way its results, but rather greater terms of being, larger and freer ranges of consciousness, and all the action of the material plane looks more like the result and not the origin of these greater terms, derivatory from them, even partly dependent on them in its evolutionary endeavour. Immense ranges of powers, influences, phenomena descend covertly upon us from the overmind and the higher mental and vital ranges, but of these only a part, a selection, as it were, or restricted number can stage and realise themselves in the order of the physical world; the rest await their time and proper circumstance for revelation in physical term and form, for their part in the terrestrial5 evolution which is at the same time an evolution of all the powers of the spirit.
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The existence and influence of other worlds are a fact of primary importance for the possibilities and for the scope of our evolution in terrestrial Nature. For if the physical universe were the only field of manifestation of the infinite Reality and at the same time the field of its whole manifestation, we should have to suppose that, since all the principles of its being from Matter to Spirit are entirely involved in the apparently inconscient Force which is the basis of the first workings of this universe, they are being evolved by it here completely and here solely, without any other aid or pressure except that of the secret Superconscience within it. There would then be a system of things in which the principle of Matter must always remain the first principle, the essential and original determining condition of manifested existence. Spirit might indeed in the end arrive to a limited extent at its natural domination; it might make its basis of physical matter a more elastic instrument not altogether prohibitive of the action of its own highest law and nature or opposed to that action, as it now is in its inelastic resistance. But Spirit would always be dependent upon Matter for its field and its manifestation; it could have no other field: it could not get outside it to another kind of manifestation; and within it also it could not very well liberate any other principle of its being into sovereignty over the material foundation; Matter would remain the one persistent determinant of its manifestation. Life could not become dominant and determinative, Mind could not become the master and creator; their boundaries of capacity would be fixed by the capacities of Matter, which they might enlarge or modify but would not be able to transform radically or liberate. There would be no place for any free and full manifestation of any power of the being, all would be limited for ever by the conditions of an obscuring material formation.
Spirit, Mind, Life would have no native field or complete scope of their own characteristic power and principle. It is not easy to believe in the inevitability of this self-limitation if Spirit is the creator and these principles have an independent existence and are not products, results or phenomena of the energy of Matter.
2.22 - Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In Indian astrology which considers all life circumstances to be Karma, mostly predetermined or indicated in the graph of the stars, there is still provision made for the energy and force of the being which can change or cancel part or much of what is so written or even all but the most imperative and powerful bindings of Karma. This is a reasonable account of the balance: but there is also to be added to the computation the fact that destiny is not simple but complex; the destiny which binds our physical being, binds it so long or in so far as a greater law does not intervene. Action belongs to the physical part of us, it is the physical outcome of our being; but behind our surface is a freer life power, a freer mind power which has another energy and can create another destiny and bring it in to modify the primary plan, and when the soul and self emerges, when we become consciously spiritual beings, that change can cancel or wholly remodel the graph of our physical fate. Karma, then, - or at least any mechanical law of Karma, - cannot be accepted as the sole determinant of circumstances and the whole machinery of rebirth and of our future evolution.
But this is not all; for the statement of the Law errs by an over-simplification and the arbitrary selection of a limited principle. Action is a resultant of the energy of the being, but this energy is not of one sole kind; the consciousness-force of the spirit manifests itself in many kinds of energies: there are inner activities of mind, activities of life, of desire, passion, impulse, character, activities of the senses and the body, a pursuit of truth and knowledge, a pursuit of beauty, a pursuit of ethical good or evil, a pursuit of power, love, joy, happiness, fortune, success, pleasure, life satisfactions of all kinds, life enlargement, a pursuit of individual or collective objects, a pursuit of the health, strength, capacity, satisfaction of the body. All this makes an exceedingly complex sum of the manifold experience and manysided action of the spirit in life, and its variety cannot be set aside in favour of a single principle, neither can it be hammered into so many sections of the single duality of ethical good and evil; ethics, the maintenance of human standards of morality, cannot, therefore, be the sole preoccupation of the cosmic Law or the sole principle of determination of the working of Karma.
2.23 - Man and the Evolution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If it be asked, how then did all these various gradations and types of being come into existence, it can be answered that, fundamentally, they were manifested in Matter by the Consciousness-Force in it, by the power of the Real-Idea building its own significant forms and types for the indwelling Spirit's cosmic existence: the practical or physical method might vary considerably in different grades or stages, although a basic similarity of line may be visible; the creative Power might use not one but many processes or set many forces to act together. In Matter the process is a creation of infinitesimals charged with an immense energy, their association by design and number, the manifestation of larger infinitesimals on that primary basis, the grouping and association of these together to found the appearance of sensible objects, earth, water, minerals, metals, the whole material kingdom. In life also the Consciousness-Force begins with infinitesimal forms of vegetable life and infinitesimal animalcules; it creates an original plasm and multiplies it, creates the living cell as a unit, creates other kinds of minute biological apparatus like the seed or the gene, uses always the same method of grouping and association so as to build by a various operation various living organisms. A constant creation of types is visible, but that is no indubitable proof of evolution. The types are sometimes distant from each other, sometimes closely similar, sometimes identical in basis but different in detail; all are patterns, and such a variation in patterns with an identical rudimentary basis for all is the sign of a conscious Force playing with its own Idea and developing by it all kinds of possibilities of creation. Animal species in coming into birth may begin with a like rudimentary embryonic or fundamental pattern for all, it may follow out up to a stage certain similarities of development on some or all of its lines; there may too be species that are twy-natured, amphibious, intermediate between one type and another: but all this need not mean that the types developed one from another in an evolutionary series. Other forces than hereditary variation have been at work in bringing about the appearance of new characteristics; there are physical forces such as food, light-rays and others that we are only beginning to know, there are surely others which we do not yet know; there are at work invisible life forces and obscure psychological forces.
For these subtler powers have to be admitted even in the physical evolutionary theory to account for natural selection; if the occult or subconscious energy in some types answers to the need of the environment, in others remains unresponsive and unable to survive, this is clearly the sign of a varying life-energy and psychology, of a consciousness and a force other than the physical at work making for variation in Nature. The problem of the method of operation is still too full of obscure and unknown factors for any at present possible structure of theory to be definitive.
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A theory of spiritual evolution is not identical with a scientific theory of form-evolution and physical life-evolution; it must stand on its own inherent justification: it may accept the scientific account of physical evolution as a support or an element, but the support is not indispensable. The scientific theory is concerned only with the outward and visible machinery and process, with the detail of Nature's execution, with the physical development of things in Matter and the law of development of life and mind in Matter; its account of the process may have to be considerably changed or may be dropped altogether in the light of new discovery, but that will not affect the self-evident fact of a spiritual evolution, an evolution of Consciousness, a progression of the soul's manifestation in material existence. In its outward aspects this is what the theory of evolution comes to, - there is in the scale of terrestrial existence a development of forms, of bodies, a progressively complex and competent organisation of matter, of life in matter, of consciousness in living matter; in this scale, the better organised the form, the more it is capable of housing a better organised, a more complex and capable, a more developed or evolved life and consciousness. Once the evolutionary hypothesis is put forward and the facts supporting it are marshalled, this aspect of the terrestrial existence becomes so striking as to appear indisputable. The precise machinery by which this is done or the exact genealogy or chronological succession of types of being is a secondary, though in itself an interesting and important question; the development of one form of life out of a precedent less evolved form, natural selection, the struggle for life, the survival of acquired characteristics may or may not be accepted, but the fact of a successive creation with a developing plan in it is the one conclusion which is of primary consequence. Another self-evident conclusion is that there is a graduated necessary succession in the evolution, first the evolution of Matter, next the evolution of Life in Matter, then the evolution of Mind in living Matter, and in this last stage an animal evolution followed by a human evolution.
The first three terms of the succession are too evident to be disputable. It may be debated whether there was a succession of man to animal or a simultaneous initial development, man outstripping the animal in mind evolution; a theory has even been put forward that man was not the last, but the first and eldest of the animal species. This priority of man is an ancient conception, but it was not universal; it is born of the sense of the clear supremacy of man among earthly creatures, the dignity of this supremacy seeming to demand a priority of birth: but in evolutionary fact the superior is not prior but posterior in appearance, the less developed precedes the more developed and prepares it.
2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
| 09-10-25 | Yoga: incompatible with rajasic action; experience primary |
| 12-10-25 | Yoga: energy, tamas, Arya, silence, reason, instinct, intelligence in animals |
2.25 - The Triple Transformation, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A first condition of the soul's complete emergence is a direct contact in the surface being with the spiritual Reality. Because it comes from that, the psychic element in us turns always towards whatever in phenomenal Nature seems to belong to a higher Reality and can be accepted as its sign and character. At first, it seeks this Reality through the good, the true, the beautiful, through all that is pure and fine and high and noble: but although this touch through outer signs and characters can modify and prepare the nature, it cannot entirely or most inwardly and profoundly change it. For such an inmost change the direct contact with the Reality itself is indispensable since nothing else can so deeply touch the foundations of our being and stir it or cast the nature by its stir into a ferment of transmutation. Mental representations, emotional and dynamic figures have their use and value; Truth, Good and Beauty are in themselves primary and potent figures of the Reality, and even in their forms as seen by the mind, as felt by the heart, as realised in the life can be lines of an ascent: but it is in a spiritual substance and being of them and of itself that That which they represent has to come into our experience.
The soul may attempt to achieve this contact mainly through the thinking mind as intermediary and instrument; it puts a psychic impression on the intellect and the larger mind of insight and intuitional intelligence and turns them in that direction.
2.28 - The Divine Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11: Here the gnostic change assumes a primary importance; all that precedes can be considered as an upbuilding and a preparation for this transmuting reversal of the whole nature. For it is a gnostic way of dynamic living that must be the fulfilled divine life on earth, a way of living that develops higher instruments of world-knowledge and world-action for the dynamisation of consciousness in the physical existence and takes up and transforms the values of a world of material Nature.
12: But always the whole foundation of the gnostic life must be by its very nature inward and not outward. In the life of the spirit it is the spirit, the inner Reality, that has built up and uses the mind, vital being and body as its instrumentation; thought, feeling and action do not exist for themselves, they are not an object, but the means; they serve to express the manifested divine Reality within us: otherwise, without this inwardness, this spiritual origination, in a too externalised consciousness or by only external means, no greater or divine life is possible. In our present life of Nature, in our externalised surface existence, it is the world that seems to create us; but in the turn to the spiritual life it is we who must create ourselves and our world.
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68: As he moves towards spiritual freedom, he moves also towards spiritual oneness. The spiritually realised, the liberated man is preoccupied, says the Gita, with the good of all beings; Buddha discovering the way of Nirvana must turn back to open that way to those who are still under the delusion of their constructive instead of their real being - or non-being; Vivekananda, drawn by the Absolute, feels also the call of the disguised Godhead in humanity and most the call of the fallen and the suffering, the call of the self to the self in the obscure body of the universe. For the awakened individual the realisation of his truth of being and his inner liberation and perfection must be his primary seeking, - first, because that is the call of the Spirit within him, but also because it is only by liberation and perfection and realisation of the truth of being that man can arrive at truth of living. A perfected community also can exist only by the perfection of its individuals, and perfection can come only by the discovery and affirmation in life by each of his own spiritual being and the discovery by all of their spiritual unity and a resultant life unity. There can be no real perfection for us except by our inner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all truth of the instrumental existence into itself and giving to it oneness, integration, harmony. As our only real freedom is the discovery and disengagement of the spiritual Reality within us, so our only means of true perfection is the sovereignty and self-effectuation of the spiritual Reality in all the elements of our nature.
69: Our nature is complex and we have to find a key to some perfect unity and fullness of its complexity. Its first evolutionary basis is the material life: Nature began with that and man also has to begin with it; he has first to affirm his material and vital existence. But if he stops there, there can be for him no evolution; his next and greater preoccupation must be to find himself as a mental being in a material life - both individual and social - as perfected as possible. This was the direction which the Hellenic idea gave to European civilisation, and the Roman reinforced - or weakened - it with the ideal of organised power: the cult of reason, the interpretation of life by an intellectual thought critical, utilitarian, organising and constructive, the government of life by Science are the last outcome of this inspiration. But in ancient times the higher creative and dynamic element was the pursuit of an ideal truth, good and beauty and the moulding of mind, life and body into perfection and harmony by this ideal. Beyond and above this preoccupation, as soon as mind is sufficiently developed, there awakes in man the spiritual preoccupation, the discovery of a self and inmost truth of being and the release of man's mind and life into the truth of the Spirit, its perfection by the power of the Spirit, the solidarity, unity, mutuality of all beings in the Spirit. This was the Eastern ideal carried by Buddhism and other ancient disciplines to the coasts of Asia and Egypt and from there poured by Christianity into Europe.
2.3.06 - The Mind, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
things in which it is formed or trained to obey it, but the relation of the body to the mind is not in all things that of an automatic perfect instrument. The body also has a consciousness of its own and, though it is a submental instrument or servant consciousness, it can disobey or fail to obey as well. In many things, in matters of health and illness for instance, in all automatic functionings, the body acts on its own and is not a servant of the mind. If it is fatigued, it can offer a passive resistance to the mind's will. It can cloud the mind with tamas, inertia, dullness, fumes of the subconscient so that the mind cannot act. The arm lifts itself no doubt when it gets the suggestion, but at first the legs do not obey when they are asked to walk; they have to learn how to leave the crawling attitude and movement and take up the erect and ambulatory habit. When you first ask the hand to draw a straight line or to play music, it can't do it and won't do it. It has to be schooled, trained, taught, and afterwards it does automatically what is required of it. All this proves that there is a body consciousness different from the mind consciousness which can do things at the mind's order but has to be awakened, trained, made a good and conscious instrument. It can even be so trained that a mental will or suggestion can cure the illnesses of the body. But all these things, these relations of mind and body, stand on the same footing in essence as the relation of mind to vital and it is not so easy or primary a matter as Augustine would have it.
This puts the problem on another footing with the causes more clear and, if we are prepared to go far enough, it suggests the way out, the way of Yoga.
2.3.07 - The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I make the distinction [between emotions and lower vital movements] by noting where these things rise from. Anger, fear, jealousy touch the heart no doubt just as they touch the mind but they rise from the navel region and entrails (i.e. the lower or at highest the middle vital). Stevenson has a striking passage in Kidnapped where the hero notes that his fear is felt primarily not in the heart but the stomach. Love, hope have their primary seat in the heart, so with pity etc.
The Central Vital or Vital Proper
2.3.1 - Ego and Its Forms, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I do not see why you make such a big difference between the quarrels and jealousy over other women and quarrels and jealousy over other attractions not of a sexual character. They both spring from the same primary impulse, the possessive instinct which is at the base of ordinary vital love. In the latter case, as often sexual jealousy is not possible, the mind supports itself on other motives which seem to it quite reasonable and justifiableit may not be conscious that it is being pushed by the vital, but the quarrels and the vivacity of the disagreement are there all the same. Whether you had or had not both forms of it, is not very material and does not make things better or worse. It is the getting rid of the instinct itself that matters, whether from the psychological point of view or from that of a spiritual change.
The one thing that is of any importance is the fact that the old personality which you were throwing out has reasserted itself for the moment, as you yourself see. It has confused your mind, otherwise you would not ask the question whether it is there still and how that agrees with my description of your aspiration and glimpse of turning entirely to the Mother as true and real. Of course, they were true and real and sincere and they are still there even if for a moment clouded over. You know well enough by this time that the whole being is not one block so that if one part changes, all changes miraculously at the same time. Something of the old things may be there submerged and rise up again if the pressure and fixed resolution to get rid of them slackens. I do not know to what you refer when you speak of the statement that Light and Darkness, truth and falsehood cannot dwell together, but certainly it can only mean that in the spiritual endeavour one cannot allow them to dwell together,the Light, the Truth must be kept, the Darkness, the falsehood or error pushed out altogether. It certainly did not mean that in the human being there can be either only all light or only all darkness and whoever has any weakness in him has no light and no sincere aspiration and no truth in his nature. If that were so, Yoga would be impossible. All the sadhaks in this Asram would be convicted of insincerity and of having no true sadhana for who is there in whom there is no obscurity and no movement of ignorance?
2.4.1 - Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is not helpful to make so much of the past and give it such a primary value. Whatever may be the glamour of a vital love, once it falls away and one gets to a higher level, it should be seen to have been not the great thing one imagined. To keep the exaggerated estimate of it is to hold the consciousness back from the full essor towards the greater thing with which that cannot for a moment compare. If one keeps a fervour like that for an inferior past, it must make it more difficult to develop the entire person for a higher future. It is indeed not the Mothers wish that X or you either should look back in a spirit of enthusiastic appreciation to the old vital love. It was indeed so little in any true estimate of things. It is not at all a question of comparison or of exalting the vital passion of one at the expense of that of the other. It is the whole thing that must dwindle in its proportions and recede into the shadowy constructions of the past which have no longer any importance.
***
30.09 - Lines of Tantra (Charyapada), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But there is also another point to note. If we look at the question, not merely from the point of view of man's inner and outer make-up, but also take into account the lines of its historic evolution or development, we may plausibly come to the conclusion that the Tantric discipline represents a continuation or perhaps the remnant of a much older practice. Man did not come to live by his intellect from the very beginning, he at first lived by his vital instincts; he did not start on his march on earth with an assured knowledge and a refined mind, he had to begin his journey with his body and vital being as the main props. Therefore his first problem was to solve the riddle of his body and life. He did not at first seek for the Self or Supreme Being, first he had to discover his inner self, the indwelling lord of his body and life. I have spoken of Shiva in the form of Jiva within man, it would perhaps be more correct to speak of Shakti or Nature assuming the form of Jiva. In fact, it is when Earth-Nature with matter and life as its base and primary instrument assumes a conscious form in man that we have the human soul. The awakening of this inner soul has been the driving force behind man's progress and development, his earthly evolution and inner unfolding. The secret Man dwelling within man, this Jiva in the form of Conscious Being, is what the follower of the Sahajiya Path have called the Beautiful Man, the Choicest Man, the Natural Man. With what affection and respect and in how many diverse ways have these followers of the Sahajiya Path, the Siddhacharyas, lifted the veil off this mysterious Entity! Herein lies the central principle and the keynote of their life and spiritual discipline.
It is said that the Way of Knowledge follows the Way of Works, Vedanta comes after Veda. This is as true from the outward, historical point of view as it is true of the lines of inner change. As I have already explained, man begins his career as a vital-physical being, becomes a mental being at a later stage. But the trouble is that when he goes beyond his vital being into the mental, he tends to pass beyond mind into the gnosis and forgets his life and body; this is what is known as Nihilism or the Vedantic Illusionism. But as a social being, man has remained what he was, a being of the physical and vital planes, and these cannot be ignored, nor is it proper to do so. It is here that Tantra steps in. That is why I have said that Tantricism has found a ready acceptance among those who are concerned particularly with the physical life, the "natural men". These men have been derided and despised by orthodox Vedantists and by men at the top of the social hierarchy. That is why the Tantrics have had to form esoteric groups and often remain for ages hidden like an underground stream; they have been submerged in the lower reaches of society. They have taken as their chosen deity, not Durga or Lakshmi, nor Brahma or Vishnu, but Kali and Karali, Chandi and Baguli. In the words of one of these poets: .
3.02 - King and Queen, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
unconscious personified as anima. The primary splitting of the psyche into
conscious and unconscious seems to be the cause of the division within the
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is after all a sphere in which the primary desire may be satisfied, namely
the divine sphere of the gods together with that of their semi-divine
3.02 - On Thought - Introduction, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Since you have been good enough to come and listen to me today, I conclude that you are among those who, knowing the primary importance of thought, its master-role in life, strive to build up for themselves an ever stronger and more conscious thought.
So I hope you will excuse me if, while showing you what this primary importance of thought is, I venture to give you - to give us - some advice on learning how to think well.
In this, I shall act only as an interpreter for you on behalf of the great instructors, the great initiates who have come from age to age to bring to men their words of wisdom and peace.
3.02 - SOL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[127] In the course of our inquiry we have often seen that, despite the complete absence of any psychology, the alchemical projections sketch a picture of certain fundamental psychological facts and, as it were, reflect them in matter. One of these fundamental facts is the primary pair of opposites, consciousness and unconsciousness, whose symbols are Sol and Luna.
[128] We know well enough that the unconscious appears personified: mostly it is the anima62 who in singular or plural form represents the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is personified by the shadow.63 More rarely, the collective unconscious is personified as a Wise Old Man.64 (I am speaking here only of masculine psychology, which alone can be compared with that of the alchemists.) It is still rarer for Luna to represent the nocturnal side of the psyche in dreams. But in the products of active imagination the symbol of the moon appears much more often, as also does the sun, which represents the luminous realm of the psyche and our diurnal consciousness. The modern unconscious has little use for sun and moon as dream-symbols.65 Illumination (a light dawns, it is becoming clear, etc.) can be expressed just as well or even better in modern dreams by switching on the electric light.
3.02 - The Great Secret, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Unlike some of you, I did not set out in life with any intention of improving the condition of my fellow-men. In my case, knowledge rather than action was the main attraction - knowledge in its modern guise: Science. I felt that nothing could be more wonderful than to lift a corner of the veil that screens from us the secrets of Nature, to understand a little more of her hidden springs. I assumed, perhaps unconsciously, the postulate that any increase of knowledge must necessarily result in an increase of power, and that any new mastery over Nature must sooner or later bring about an improvement in man's condition, his moral as well as his material well-being. For me, as for all other thinkers who have their roots in the last century, the century of the foundations of science, ignorance was the primary if not the only evil. It was this that held back mankind in its drive towards perfection. We admitted, without any discussion, the endless perfectibility of the human race. Progress might be rapid or slow, but it was nonetheless sure. Having come so far, we knew that we could go further. For us, to know more was automatically to understand more, to become wiser, more just - in short, to become better.
There is another postulate that we also accepted implicitly: that it is possible for us to know the Universe as it really is, to grasp its laws objectively. This seemed so obvious that it was never questioned. The Universe and I - we both exist, the function of the one being to understand the other. Undoubtedly, I am part of the Universe, but in the process of knowing it, I stand apart from it and view it objectively. I admit that what I call the laws of Nature exist independently of me, of my mind; they exist in themselves and they will be the same for any other mind capable of perceiving them.
3.02 - The Practice Use of Dream-Analysis, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
vital subsidiary meanings. The underlying, primary psychic reality is so
inconceivably complex that it can be grasped only at the farthest reach of
3.03 - The Consummation of Mysticism, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
me under your primary influence. In a true sense the arms
and the heart which you open to me are nothing less than
3.03 - The Four Foundational Practices, #The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, #Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, #Buddhism
There are four main foundational practices in dream yoga. Although they are traditionally called the Four Preparations, this does not mean that they are of lesser importance and are to followed by the "real" practice. They are preparatory in the sense that they are the foundations upon which success in the primary practice depends.
Dream yoga is rooted in the way the mind is used during waking life, and it is this that the foundational practices address. How the mind is used determines the kinds of dreams that arise in sleep as well as the quality of waking life. Change the way you relate to the objects and people of waking life and you change the experience of dream. After all, the "you" that lives the dream of waking life is the same "you" that lives the dream of sleeping life. If you spend the day spaced out and caught up in the elaborations of the conceptual mind, you are likely to do the same in dream.
3.04 - On Thought - III, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To realise the primary importance of thought, we must know it as it is, that is, as a living being; and so that you may be convinced of the autonomous existence of thought, I shall ask you only to ascertain this for yourselves, which is an easy thing to do.
A little observation will enable us to realise that very often, for example, we receive thoughts which come to us from outside, although we have not been brought into contact with them either by speech or reading.
3.04 - The Way of Devotion, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into itself the essential elements of the Yoga of works and the Yoga of knowledge, but in its own manner and with its own peculiar spirit. It is a sacrifice of life and works to the Divine, but a sacrifice of love more than a tuning of the will to the divine Will. The bhakta offers up his life and all that he is and all that he has and all that he does to the Divine. This surrender may take the ascetic form, as when he leaves the ordinary life of men and devotes his days solely to prayer and praise and worship or to ecstatic meditation, gives up his personal possessions and becomes the monk or the mendicant whose one only possession is the Divine, gives up all actions in life except those only which help or belong to the communion with the Divine and communion with other devotees, or at most keeps the doing{|50c-} from the secure fortress of the ascetic life of those services to men which seem peculiarly the outflowing of the divine nature of love, compassion and good. But there is the wider self-consecration, proper to any integral Yoga, which, accepting the fullness of life and the world in its entirety as the play of the Divine, offers up the whole being into his possession; it is a holding of all one is and has as belonging to him only and not to ourselves and a doing of all works as an offering to him. By this comes the complete active consecration of both the inner and the outer life, the unmutilated self-giving. There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration,--for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world,--so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all one's inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
This is the ordinary movement by which what may be at first a vague adoration of some idea of the Divine takes on the hue and character and then, once entered into the path of Yoga, the inner reality and intense experience of divine love. But there is the more intimate Yoga which from the first consists in this love and attains only by the intensity of its longing without other process or method. All the rest comes, but it comes out of this, as leaf and flower out of the seed; other things are not the means of developing and fulfilling love, but the radiations of love already growing in the soul. This is the way that the soul follows when, while occupied perhaps with the normal human life, it has heard the flute of the Godhead behind the near screen of secret woodlands and no longer possesses itself, can have no satisfaction or rest till it has pursued and seized and possessed the divine fluteplayer. This is in essence the power of love itself in the heart and soul turning from earthly objects to the spiritual source of all beauty and delight. There live in this seeking all the sentiment and passion, all the moods and experiences of love concentrated on a supreme object of desire and intensified a hundredfold beyond the highest acme of intensity possible to a human love. There is the disturbance of the whole life, the illumination by an unseized vision, the unsatisfied yearning for a single object of the heart's desire, the intense impatience of all that distracts from the one preoccupation, the intense pain of the obstacles that stand in the way of possession, the perfect vision of all beauty and delight in a single form. And there are all the many moods of love, the joy of musing and absorption, the delight of the meeting and fulfilment and embrace, the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight of reunion. The heart is the scene of this supreme idyll of the inner consciousness, but a heart which undergoes increasingly an intense spiritual change and becomes the radiantly unfolding lotus of the spirit. And as the intensity of its seeking is beyond the highest power of the normal human emotions, so also the delight and the final ecstasy are beyond the reach of the imagination and beyond expression by speech. For this is the delight of the Godhead that passes human understanding. Indian bhakti has given to this divine love powerful forms, poetic symbols which are not in reality so much symbols as intimate expressions of truth which can find no other expression. It uses human relations and sees a divine person, not as mere figures, but because there are divine relations of supreme Delight and Beauty with the human soul of which human relations are the imperfect but still the real type, and because that Delight and Beauty are not abstractions or qualities of a quite impalpable metaphysical entity, but the very body and form of the supreme Being. It is a living Soul to which the soul of the bhakta yearns; for the source of all life is not an idea or a conception or a state of existence, but a real Being. Therefore in the possession of the divine Beloved all the life of the soul is satisfied and all the relations by which it finds and in which it expresses itself, are wholly fulfilled; therefore, too, by any and all of them can the Beloved be sought, though those which admit the greatest intensity, are always those by which he can be most intensely pursued and possessed with the profoundest ecstasy. He is sought within in the heart and therefore apart from all by an inward-gathered concentration of the being in the soul itself; but he is also seen and loved everywhere where he manifests his being. All the beauty and joy of existence is seen as his joy and beauty; he is embraced by the spirit in all beings; the ecstasy of love enjoyed pours itself out in a universal love; all existence becomes a radiation of its delight and even in its very appearances is transformed into something other than its outward appearance. The world itself is experienced as a play of the divine Delight, a Lila, and that in which the world loses itself is the heaven of beatitude of the eternal union.
3.05 - The Divine Personality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
On the other hand, the way of devotion is impossible if the personality of the Divine cannot be taken as a reality, a real reality and not a hypostasis of the illusion. There can be no love without a lover and beloved. If our personality is an illusion and the Personality to whom our adoration rises only a primary aspect of the illusion, and if we believe that, then love and adoration must at once be killed, or can only survive in the illogical passion of the heart denying by its strong beats of life the clear and dry truths of the reason. To love and adore a shadow of our minds or a bright cosmic phenomenon which vanishes from the eye of Truth, may be possible, but the way of salvation cannot be built upon a foundation of wilful self-deception. The bhakta indeed does not allow these doubts of the intellect to come in his way; he has the divinations of his heart, and these are to him sufficient. But the sadhaka of the integral Yoga has to know the eternal and ultimate Truth and not to persist to the end in the delight of a Shadow. If the impersonal is the sole enduring truth, then a firm synthesis is impossible. He can at most take the divine personality as a symbol, a powerful and effective fiction, but he will have in the end to overpass it and to abandon devotion for the sole pursuit of the ultimate knowledge. He will have to empty being of all its symbols, values, contents in order to arrive at the featureless Reality.
We have said, however, that personality and impersonality, as our minds understand them, are only aspects of the Divine and both are contained in his being; they are one thing which we see from two opposite sides and into which we enter by two gates. We have to see this more clearly in order to rid ourselves of any doubts with which the intellect may seek to afflict us as we follow the impulse of devotion and the intuition of love or to pursue us into the joy of the divine union. They fall away indeed from that joy, but if we are too heavily weighted with the philosophical mind, they may follow us almost up to its threshold. It is well therefore to discharge ourselves of them as early as may be by perceiving the limits of the intellect, the rational philosophic mind, in its peculiar way of approaching the truth and the limits even of the spiritual experience which sets out from the approach through the intellect, to see that it need not be the whole integrality of the highest and widest spiritual experience. Spiritual intuition is always a more luminous guide than the discriminating reason, and spiritual intuition addresses itself to us not only through the reason, but through the rest of our being as well, through the heart and the life also. The integral knowledge will then be that which takes account of all and unifies their diverse truths. The intellect itself will be more deeply satisfied if it does not confine itself to its own data, but accepts truth of the heart and the life also and gives to them their absolute spiritual value.
3.09 - The Return of the Soul, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
In its primary unconscious form the animus is a compound of
spontaneous, unpremeditated opinions which exercise a powerful influence
31.09 - The Cause of Indias Decline, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are three primary causes that have led to the diminution of India's life-energy. Let us study them one after another.
Firstly, in order of time and importance, the root-cause is the institution of Sannyasa, ascetic renunciation, and the influence of the theory of illusion. What does the ideal of Sannyasa teach us? The world is an illusion. The highest good consists in escape from life and withdrawal from action. The play of the natural instincts and propensities which comprise the ordinary social life of man is considered the lower nature. If man wants to attain to his highest nature, his true Self, then he will have to control his outgoing tendencies, stop them totally and finally turn them inward. The summum bonumof life is the absorption in the static Brahman.1
3.2.01 - On Ideals, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection. Reflections themselves of the Real, they again are reflected in the more concrete workings of our existence. The human intellect in proportion as it limits itself by the phenomena of self-realising Force fails to catch the creative
Idea until after we have seen the external fact it has created; but this order of our sense-enslaved consciousness is not the real order of the universe. God pre-exists before the world can come
--
into being, but to our experience in which the senses act first and only then the finer workings of consciousness, the world seems to come first and God to emerge out of it, so much so that it costs us an effort to rise out of the mechanical, pluralistic and pantheistic conceptions of Him to a truer and higher idea of the Divine Reality. That which to us is the ultimate, is in truth the primary reality. So too the Idea which seems to us to rise out of the fact, really precedes it and out of it the fact has arisen. Our vulgar contrast of the ideal and the real is therefore a sensuous error, for that which we call real is only a phenomenon of force working out something that stands behind the phenomenon and that is pre-existent and greater than it.
The Real, the Idea, the phenomenon, this is the true order of the creative Divinity.
33.11 - Pondicherry II, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo has taught me a number of languages. Here again his method has often evoked surprise. I should therefore like to say something on this point. He never asked me to begin the study of a new language with primary readers or children's books. He started at once with one of the classics, that is, a standard work in the language. He used to say that the education of children must begin with books written for children, but for adults, for those, that is, who had already had some education, the reading material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone. I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the state. Whether I did complete the translation I cannot now recollect. I began my Latin with Virgil's Aeneid, and Italian with Dante. I have already told you about my French, there I started with Molire.
I should tell you what one gains by this method, at least what has been my personal experience. One feels as if one took a plunge into the inmost core of the language, into that secret heart where it is vibrant with life, with the quintessence of beauty, the fullness of strength. Perhaps it was this that has prompted me to write prose-poems and verse in French, for one feels as if identified with the very genius of the language. This is the method which Western critics describe as being in medias res, getting right into the heart of things. One may begin a story in two ways. One way is to begin at the beginning, from the adikada and Genesis, and then develop the theme gradually, as is done in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bible. The other method is to start suddenly, from the middle of the story, a method largely preferred by Western artists, like Homer and Shakespeare for instance.
33.16 - Soviet Gymnasts, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"No, sir," I replied. "For one thing, we never ask, much less forceanyone to come here, we offer no ,rewards or temptations. On the contrary, we make it quite clear that the Path chosen here, the training and the education are indeed hard. Sharp as the razor's edge, our sages have called it. So, one should choose carefully. And out of those who still insist on joining us, only a feware permitted. Of course the children know little or nothing, but the parents who bring them here do. At least they have been told. It is, .however, true that there are some children who are conscious and know fairly well what they are doing and why they are here. After staying here and seeing things forthemselves many of them make up their minds to stay on, they refuse to go else where. Also, ours is not a mediaeval monastery, a life-long entombment, so that once you get in you can never get out. Here anyone can leave any time. One has full freedom in the matter. In other words, the very first principle of foundation of our life and teaching in the Ashram is freedom and individuality. No one is cajoled or persuaded to follow the spiritual aim or spiritual path. If one wants to know any thing, one knows it freely, of oneself; if one wants to under stand anything, one does it in freedom. Every moment you are free, you can step in any direction you like, provided you are prepared for the consequence. In fact, we have few or no compulsory codes or taboos here, except such as are absolutely necessary to keep group-life together for any length of time. 'Discover your own rule or law of being for yourself,' that is our primary instruction. Where is compulsion in all this? As for the atmosphere, the 'climate of opinion', wherever men live, in whatever age, society or. country - even in your Soviet state - one has to 'belong'. The common man, or citizen, cannot help breathing in the atmosphere of his age or milieu. But here, and only here, we warn everyone, we tell them, well ahead, to be conscious of all that's happening around and within, we tell them to watch, understand and scrutinise what it is that they are taking in. This is not indoctrination but its exact opposite.
"In all this where does spiritual discipline come in? What is at all its necessity? First and foremost comes the care of the body, then only other considerations. That is what one may naturally think. But it is wrong to think that for spirituality outward comfort and affluence are a sine qua non.Those who want bodily comfort are apt to remain content with that, all their efforts are confined to finding the means of such enjoyment or euphoria. But the spiritual seeker even in the midst of suffering and discomfort will move towards the spirit. In fact, he uses his very adversity for spiritual ends. The true seeker longs for the spirit in the midst of comfort and discomfort alike, while those who do not want the higher life, do not want that, quite apart from being comfortable or otherwise. In spite of what many think, material factors do not determine these things. The Mother once said something to this effect. In order to relieve the disciples from all thoughts of earning their livelihood she had planned an external order of untroubled living, so that the aspirants might find the time and the opportunity to dedicate themselves completely to spiritual living and realisation. In practice she, however, found that this does not always work."
3.4.03 - Materialism, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All this wealth of accusation may have and much of it has its truth. But most things that the human mind thus alternately trumpets and bans, are a double skein. They come to us with opposite faces, their good side and their bad, a dark aspect of error and a bright of truth; and it is as we look upon one or the other visage that we swing to our extremes of opinion or else oscillate between them. Materialism may not be quite as dead as most would declare it to be; still held by a considerable number of scientific workers, perhaps a majority, and scientific opinion is always a force both by its power of well-ascertained truth and its continued service to humanity,it constitutes even now the larger part of the real temper of action and life even where it is rejected as a set opinion. The strong impressions of the past are not so easily erased out of our human mentality. But it is a fast receding force; other ideas and standpoints are crowding in and thrust it out from its remaining points of vantage. It will be useful before we say farewell to it, and can now be done with safety, to see what it was that gave to it its strength, what it has left permanently behind it, and to adjust our new viewpoints to whatever stuff of truth may have lain within it and lent it its force of applicability. Even we can look at it with an impartial sympathy, though only as a primary but lesser truth of our actual being,for it is all that, but no more than that, and try to admit and fix its just claims and values. We can now see too how it was bound to escape from itself by the widening of the very frame of knowledge it has itself constructed.
Admit,for it is true,that this age of which materialism was the portentous offspring and in which it had figured first as petulant rebel and aggressive thinker, then as a grave and strenuous preceptor of mankind, has been by no means a period of mere error, calamity and degeneration, but rather a most powerful creative epoch of humanity. Examine impartially its results. Not only has it immensely widened and filled in the knowledge of the race and accustomed it to a great patience of research, scrupulosity, accuracy,if it has done that only in one large sphere of inquiry, it has still prepared for the extension of the same curiosity, intellectual rectitude, power for knowledge to other and higher fields,not only has it with an unexampled force and richness of invention brought and put into our hands, for much evil, but also for much good, discoveries, instruments, practical powers, conquests, conveniences which, however we may declare their insufficiency for our highest interests, yet few of us would care to relinquish, but it has also, paradoxical as that might at first seem, streng thened mans idealism. On the whole, it has given him a kindlier hope and humanised his nature. Tolerance is greater, liberty has increased, charity is more a matter of course, peace, if not yet practicable, is growing at least imaginable. Latterly the thought of the eighteenth century which promulgated secularism has been much scouted and belittled, that of the nineteenth which developed it, riddled with adverse criticism and overpassed. Still they worshipped no mean godheads. Reason, science, progress, freedom, humanity were their ideals, and which of these idols, if idols they are, would we like or ought we, if we are wise, to cast down into the mire or leave as poor unworshipped relics on the wayside? If there are other and yet greater godheads or if the visible forms adored were only clay or stone images or the rites void of the inmost knowledge, yet has their cult been for us a preliminary initiation and the long material sacrifice has prepared us for a greater religion.
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Materialistic science had the courage to look at this universal truth with level eyes, to accept it calmly as a starting-point and to inquire whether it was not after all the whole formula of universal being. Physical science must necessarily to its own first view be materialistic, because so long as it deals with the physical, it has for its own truths sake to be physical both in its standpoint and method; it must interpret the material universe first in the language and tokens of the material Brahman, because these are its primary and its general terms and all others come second, subsequently, are a special syllabary. To follow a self-indulgent course from the beginning would lead at once towards fancies and falsities. Initially, science is justified in resenting any call on it to indulge in another kind of imagination and intuition. Anything that draws it out of the circle of the phenomena of objects, as they are represented to the senses and their instrumental prolongations, and away from the dealings of the reason with them by a rigorous testing of experience and experimentation, must distract it from its task and is inadmissible. It cannot allow the bringing in of the human view of things; it has to interpret man in the terms of the cosmos, not the cosmos in the terms of man. The too facile conclusion of the idealist that since things only exist as known to consciousness, they can exist only by consciousness and must be creations of the mind, has no meaning for it; it first has to inquire what consciousness is, whether it is not a result rather than a cause of Matter, coming into being, as it seems to do, only in the frame of a material inconscient universe and apparently able to exist only on the condition that that has been previously established. Starting from Matter, science has to be at least hypothetically materialistic.
When the action of the material principle, the first to organise itself, has been to some extent well understood, then can this science go on to consider what claim to be quite other terms of our being,life and mind. But first it is forced to ask itself whether both mind and life are not, as they seem to be, special consequences of the material evolution, themselves powers and movements of Matter. After and if this explanation has failed to cover and to elucidate the facts, it can be more freely investigated whether they are not quite other principles of being. Many philosophical questions arise, as, whether they have entered into Matter and whence or were always in it, and if so, whether they are for ever less and subordinate in action or are in their essential power greater, whether they are contained in it only or really contain it, whether they are subsequent and dependent on its previous appearance or only that in their apparent organisation here but in real being and power anterior to it and Matter itself dependent on the essential pre-existence of life and mind. A greater question comes, whether mind itself is the last term or there is something beyond, whether soul is only an apparent result and phenomenon of the interaction of mind, life and body or we have here an independent term of our being and of all being, greater, anterior, ultimate, all matter containing and contained in a secret spiritual consciousness, spirit the first, last and eternal, the Alpha and the Omega, the OM. For experiential philosophy either Matter, Mind, Life or Spirit may be the Being, but none of these higher principles can be made securely the basis of our thought against all intellectual questioning until the materialistic hypothesis has first been given a chance and tested. That may in the end turn out to have been the use of the materialistic investigation of the universe and its inquiry the greatest possible service to the finality of the spiritual explanation of existence. In any case materialistic science and philosophy have been after all a great and austere attempt to know dispassionately and to see impersonally. They have denied much that is being reaffirmed, but the denial was the condition of a severer effort of knowledge and it may be said of them, as the Upanishad says of Bhrigu the son of Varuna, sa tapas taptv anna brahmeti vyajnt. He having practised austerity discovered that Matter was the Brahman.
3.5.03 - Reason and Society, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A pragmatic mentalism would not be in its essential principle other than the attempt already made by the race to make the intellectual Reason the governor of life, but this has been done hitherto by a reason preoccupied with the external fact and subjected to it; mind has attempted to read the law of life and its possibilities and organise life anew within those limits by invention, device, regulation, mechanisms of many kinds, or it has attempted to govern life by mental ideals of an abstract order, such as democracy or socialism, and devise an appropriate machinery materialising that mental abstraction so as to make the dominance of the idea practical and viable. A subjectivist pragmatic mentalism would try to act more subtly and plastically on life; it would seek for "truth of being", some idea or ideal of its perfection or practice or efficiency, right way of being or living, and attempt to let that grow in the individual and govern his nature, grow in the collective life and govern its formations. Or it would place the development and organisation of the mental life of man as the primary consideration and life and society as a convenience for this true aim of human existence. A new civilisation no longer vitalistic or mainly political and economic, but intellectual, cultural, idealistic, taking up the ancient ideal of man, the perfected mental being in an ennobled life and sound body, a great expansion of human mind and intellect, a mankind more mentally alive, even a human race grown capable of culture and not only of a greater external civilisation, thus fulfilling on a large human and universal scale the tendencies which in the past appeared only in a few favoured countries and epochs and even then imperfectly and mostly in a cultured class, might be the consequence of this change. That prospect has its attractions, and for the humanist and the intellectual it is in one form or another their utopia of the future. But this would not really
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3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
And what is this catastrophe? "In the effort to understand the malady of democratic government," Lippmann replies some forty pages later on, "I have dwelt upon the underlying duality of functions: governing, that is, the administration of the laws [which cyberneticians call control] and representing the living persons who are governed, who must pay, who must work and, it may be, die for the acts of the government (which we call feedback to the controller from the output of the work component]. I attribute the democratic disaster of the twentieth century to the derangement of these primary (cybernetic] functions.
"The power of the executive [the controller) has been enfeebled, often to the verge of impotence, by the pressures of the representative assembly and of mass opinions [the work component). This derangement of the governing power has forced the democratic states to commit disastrous and, it could be, fatal mistakes. It has also transformed the assemblies in most, perhaps not in all, democratic states from defenders of local and personal rights (of the two components) into boss-ridden oligarchies [lower level, predatory controllers], threatening the security, the solvency, and the liberties of the state [the social system as a whole]."19 pp. 54-55.
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Sonnemann then characterizes the rest of the departments shown and implied in Figures IV-9 and 10 as follows: "To the extent, then, to which it [the whole system] drops out of sight, to the extent to which his [the specialist's] preconceived procedure interferes with the self articulation of any subject under his attack, phenomenal structure will escape, first his eye, ultimately his theories."50 These people's departments deal with sections of systems. And, as Sonnemann points out, "Implicit in all sectional science, the arbitrariness of primary determination of subj ect matters which of their own natures are universes [systems] does not, apparently, make a science any more analytical; the typical specialistic approach . . . is characterized at least as much by his blindness for relevant detail as for wholes."
He then sums up as follows: "The loss of the criterion of intrinsic truth [namely, the systems criterion] is inextricably linked with the sectional character of the [non-systematic] sciences themselves..."50
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Jensen, A. R., "A theory of primary and secondary mental retardation." In Ellis, N. R. (Ed.), International Review of Research in Mental Ratardation, IV, New York: Academic Press, 1970.
Jensen, A. R., "Hierarchical theories of mental ability." In B. Dockrell (Ed.), Theories of Intelligence, London: Methuen, in press.
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The book you are reading and its waiting line of sequels display this change of attitude, together with the concepts and metalanguage necessary for transmitting it. Their successful introduction into the multiversity will transform it in the manner foreseen and predicted in Figure IV-11, the New University. This revolutionized institution's alumni--organized specialists and generalists, Figure IV-12-will spread this New-Copernican attitude from kindergarten through primary, secondary, and tertiary schools, to graduate schools.
Correct and successful examination, diagnosis, prescription and prognosis are essential. But while the Club of Rome, our multiversities and the Scientific Community tend to stop there, the leadership procedure-sequence goes on, inexorably: after prognosis must come execution of the prescription. And this can be done only by the system's work component, the Majority, which Communists call the masses, and Swiss Social Capitalists call the general public. The Club of Rome wants to instruct the public. But to execute its prescriptions the public must be led! And finally, after each action, must come the feedback operation, retrospection: careful comparison of the execution's outcome with the prognosis, so as to correct and improve the system's later performances. Only retrospection closes the system's circuit and guarantees morally oriented development.
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Certainly, as Mr. Ranade says, mere aphorism is not mysticism; aphorism and epigram are often enough, perhaps usually a condensed or a pregnant effort of the intellect. But Heraclitus' style, as Mr. Ranade himself describes it, is not only aphoristic and epigrammatic but cryptic, and this cryptic character is not merely the self-willed obscurity of an intellectual thinker affecting an excessive condensation of his thought or a too closely-packed burden of suggestiveness. It is enigmatic in the style of the mystics, enigmatic in the manner of their thought which sought to express the riddle of existence in the very language of the riddle. What for instance is the "ever-living Fire" in which he finds the primary and imperishable substance of the universe and identifies it in succession with Zeus and with eternity? or what should we understand by "the thunderbolt which steers all things"? To interpret this fire as merely a material force of heat and flame or simply a metaphor for being which is eternal becoming is, it seems to me, to miss the character of Heraclitus' utterances. It includes both these ideas and everything that connects them. But then we get back at once to the Vedic language and turn of thought; we are reminded of the Vedic Fire which is hymned as the upbuilder of the worlds, the secret Immortal in men and things, the periphery of the gods, Agni who "becomes" all around the other immortals, himself becomes and contains all the gods; we are reminded of the Vedic thunderbolt, that electric Fire, of the Sun who is the true Light, the Eye, the wonderful weapon of the divine pathfinders Mitra and Varuna. It is the same cryptic form of language, the same brief and abundant method of thought even; though the conceptions are not identical, there is a clear kinship.
The mystical language has always this disadvantage that it readily becomes obscure, meaningless or even misleading to those who have not the secret and to posterity a riddle. Mr. Ranade tells us that it is impossible to make out what Heraclitus meant when he said, "The gods are mortals, men immortals." But is it quite impossible if we do not cut off this thinker from the earlier thought of the mystics? The Vedic Rishi also invokes the Dawn, "O goddess and human"; the gods in the Veda are constantly addressed as "men", the same words are traditionally applied to indicate men and immortals. The immanence of the immortal principle in man, the descent of the gods into the workings of mortality was almost the fundamental idea of the mystics. Heraclitus, likewise, seems to recognise the inextricable unity of the eternal and the transitory, that which is for ever and yet seems to exist only in this strife and change which is a continual dying. The gods manifest themselves as things that continually change and perish; man is in principle an eternal being. Heraclitus does not really deal in barren antitheses; his method is a statement of antinomies and an adumbrating of their reconciliation in the very terms of opposition. Thus when he says that the name of the bow (biós) is life (bíos), but its work is death, obviously he intends no mere barren play upon words; he speaks of that principle of war, father of all and king of all, which makes cosmic existence an apparent process of life, but an actual process of death. The Upanishads seized hold of the same truth when they declared life to be the dominion of King Death, described it as the opposite of immortality and even related that all life and existence here were first created by Death for his food.
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In the Veda, in the early language of the Mystics generally, the names of the elements or primary principles of Substance were used with a clearly symbolic significance. The symbol of water is thus used constantly in the Rig Veda. It is said that in the beginning was the inconscient Ocean out of which the One was born by the vastness of His energy; but it is clear from the language of the hymn that no physical ocean is meant, but rather the unformed chaos of inconscient being in which the Divine, the Godhead lay concealed in a darkness enveloped by greater darkness. The seven active principles of existence are similarly spoken of as rivers or waters; we hear of the seven rivers, the great water, the four superior rivers, in a context which shows their symbolic significance. We see this image fixed in the Puranic mythus of Vishnu sleeping on the serpent Infinite in the milky ocean. But even as early as the Rig Veda, ether is the highest symbol of the Infinite, the apeiron of the Greeks; water is that of the same Infinite in its aspect as the original substance; fire is the creative power, the active energy of the Infinite; air, the life-principle, is spoken of as that which brings down fire out of the ethereal heavens into the earth. Yet these were not merely symbols. The Vedic Mystics held, it is clear, a close connection and effective parallelism to exist between psychical and physical activities, between the action of Light, for instance, and the phenomena of mental illumination; fire was to them at once the luminous divine energy, the Seer-Will of the universal Godhead active and creative of all things, and the physical principle creative of the substantial forms of the universe, burning secretly in all life.
It is doubtful how far the earlier Greek philosophic thinkers preserved any of these complex conceptions in their generalisations about the original principle. But Heraclitus has clearly an idea of something more than a physical substance or energy in his concept of the ever-living Fire. Fire is to him the physical aspect, as it were, of a great burning creative, formative and destructive force, the sum of all whose processes is a constant and unceasing change. The idea of the One which is eternally becoming Many and the Many which is eternally becoming One and of that One therefore not so much as stable substance or essence as active Force, a sort of substantial Will-to-become, is the foundation of Heraclitus' philosophy.
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But the Greeks failed to go forward to that final discrimination which India attributed to Kapila, the supreme analytical thinker,-the discrimination between Prakriti and her cosmic principles, her twenty-four tattwas forming the subjective and objective aspects of Nature, and between Prakriti and Purusha, Conscious-Soul and Nature-Energy. Therefore while in the Sankhya ether, fire and the rest are only principles of the objective evolution of Prakriti, evolutionary aspects of the original phusis, the early Greeks could not get back beyond these aspects of Nature to the idea of a pure energy, nor could they at all account for her subjective side. The Fire of Heraclitus has to do duty at once for the original substance of all Matter and for God and Eternity. This preoccupation with Nature-Energy and the failure to fathom its relations with Soul has persisted in modern scientific thought, and we find there too the same attempt to identify some primary principle of Nature, ether or electricity, with the original Force.
However that may be, the theory of the creation of the world by some kind of evolutionary change out of the original substance or energy, by pariṇāma, is common to the early Greek and the Indian systems, however they may differ about the nature of the original phusis. The distinction of Heraclitus among the early Greek sages is his conception of the upward and downward road, one and the same in the descent and the return. It corresponds to the Indian idea of nivṛtti and pravṛtti, the double movement of the Soul and Nature,-pravṛtti, the moving out and forward, nivṛtti, the moving back and in. The Indian thinkers were preoccupied with this double principle so far as it touches the action of the individual soul entering into the procession of Nature and drawing back from it; but still they saw a similar, a periodic movement forward and back of Nature itself which leads to an ever-repeated cycle of creation and dissolution; they held the idea of a periodic pralaya. Heraclitus' theory would seem to demand a similar conclusion. Otherwise we must suppose that the downward tendency, once in action, has always the upper hand over the upward or that cosmos is eternally proceeding out of the original substance and eternally returning to it, but never actually returns. The Many are then eternal not only in power of manifestation, but in actual fact of manifestation.
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Heraclitus is the first and the most consistent teacher of the law of relativity; it is the logical result of his primary philosophical concepts. Since all is one in its being and many in its becoming, it follows that everything must be one in its essence. Night and day, life and death, good and evil can only be different aspects of the same absolute reality. Life and death are in fact one, and we may say from different points of view that all death is only a process and change of life or that all life is only an activity of death. Really both are one energy whose activity presents to us a duality of aspects. From one point of view we are not, for our existence is only a constant mutation of energy; from another we are, because the being in us is always the same and sustains our secret identity. So too, we can only speak of a thing as good or evil, just or unjust, beautiful or ugly from a purely relative point of view, because we adopt a particular standpoint or have in view some practical end or temporarily valid relation. He gives the example of "the sea, water purest and impurest", their fine element to the fish, abominable and undrinkable to man. And does not this apply to all things?-they are the same always in reality and assume their qualities and properties because of our standing-point in the universe of becoming, the nature of our seeing and the texture of our minds. All things circle back to the eternal unity and in their beginning and end are the same; it is only in the arc of becoming that they vary in themselves and from each other, and there they have no absoluteness to each other. Night and day are the same; it is only the nature of our vision and our standing-point on the earth and our relations of earth and sun that create the difference. What is day to us, is to others night.
Because of this insistence on the relativity of good and evil, Heraclitus is thought to have enunciated some kind of supermoralism; but it is well to see carefully to what this supermoralism of Heraclitus really amounts. Heraclitus does not deny the existence of an absolute; but for him the absolute is to be found in the One, in the Divine,-not the gods, but the one supreme Divinity, the Fire. It has been objected that he attributes relativity to God, because he says that the first principle is willing and yet not willing to be called by the name of Zeus. But surely this is to misunderstand him altogether. The name Zeus expresses only the relative human idea of the Godhead; therefore while God accepts the name, He is not bound or limited by it. All our concepts of Him are partial and relative; "He is named according to the pleasure of each." This is nothing more nor less than the truth proclaimed by the Vedas, "One existent the sages call by many names." Brahman is willing to be called Vishnu, and yet he is not willing, because he is also Brahma and Maheshwara and all the gods and the world and all principles and all that is, and yet not any of these things, neti neti. As men approach him, so he accepts them. But the One to Heraclitus as to the Vedantin is absolute.
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Heraclitus was regarded in ancient times as a pessimistic thinker and we have one or two sayings of his from which we can, if we like, deduce the old vain gospel of the vanity of things. Time, he says, is playing draughts like a child, amusing itself with counters, building castles on the sea-shore only to throw them down again. If that is the last word, then all human effort and aspiration are vain. But on what primary philosophical conception does this discouraging sentence depend? Everything turns on that; for in itself this is no more than an assertion of a self-evident fact, the mutability of things and the recurrent transiency of forms. But if the principles which express themselves in forms are eternal or if there is a Spirit in things which finds its account in the mutations and evolutions of Time and if that Spirit dwells in the human being as the immortal and infinite power of his soul, then no conclusion of the vanity of the world or the vanity of human existence arises. If indeed the original and eternal principle of Fire is a purely physical substance or force, then, truly, since all the great play and effort of consciousness in us must sink and dissolve into that, there can be no permanent spiritual value in our being, much less in our works. But we have seen that Heraclitus' Fire cannot be a purely physical or inconscient principle. Does he then mean that all our existence is merely a continual changeable Becoming, a play or Lila with no purpose in it except the playing and no end except the conviction of the vanity of all cosmic activity by its relapse into the indistinguishable unity of the original principle or substance? For even if that principle, the One to which the many return, be not merely physical or not really physical at all, but spiritual, we may still, like the Mayavadins, affirm the vanity of the world and of our human existence, precisely because the one is not eternal and the other has no eventual aim except its own self-abolition after the conviction of the vanity and unreality of all its temporal interests and purposes. Is the conviction of the world by the one absolute Fire such a conviction of the vanity of all the temporal and relative values of the Many?
That is one sense in which we can understand the thought of Heraclitus. His idea of all things as born of war and existing by strife might, if it stood by itself, lead us to adopt, even if he himself did not clearly arrive at, that conclusion. For if all is a continual struggle of forces, its best aspect only a violent justice and the highest harmony only a tension of opposites without any hope of a divine reconciliation, its end a conviction and destruction by eternal Fire, all our ideal hopes and aspirations are out of place; they have no foundation in the truth of things. But there is another side to the thought of Heraclitus. He says indeed that all things come into being "according to strife", by the clash of forces, are governed by the determining justice of war. He says farther that all is utterly determined, fated. But what then determines? The justice of a clash of forces is not fate; forces in conflict determine indeed, but from moment to moment, according to a constantly changing balance always modifiable by the arising of new forces. If there is predetermination, an inevitable fate in things, then there must be some power behind the conflict which determines them, fixes their measures. What is that power? Heraclitus tells us; all indeed comes into being according to strife, but also all things come into being according to Reason, kat' erin but also kata ton logon. What is this Logos? It is not an inconscient reason in things, for his Fire is not merely an inconscient force, it is Zeus and eternity. Fire, Zeus is Force, but it is also an Intelligence; let us say then that it is an intelligent Force which is the origin and master of things. Nor can this Logos be identical in its nature with the human reason; for that is an individual and therefore relative and partial judgment and intelligence which can only seize on relative truth, not on the true truth of things, but the Logos is one and universal, an absolute reason therefore combining and managing all the relativities of the many. Was not then Philo justified in deducing from this idea of an intelligent Force originating and governing the world, Zeus and Fire, his interpretation of the Logos as "the divine dynamic, the energy and the self-revelation of God"? Heraclitus might not so have phrased it, might not have seen all that his thought contained, but it does contain this sense when his different sayings are fathomed and put together in their consequences.
36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
Indians, who have received modern education, have been trying to synthesise the commentaries of the Western and Eastern scholars on the Veda. Their object is to portray the picture of a society not quite primitive but somewhat primary, by uniting the interpretations based on natural phenomena and sacrificial rites.
If this view was considered as giving the real nature of the Veda, the question would arise: how could the Veda be regarded as the foundation of the Aryan genius and the fount of the civilisation and culture of Hindu India? If the Veda were nothing save nursery rhymes and the like, then how could it exert a lasting influence on our minds and life through centuries? The Bible and the Koran contain some eternal truths beneficial to the life and conduct of men for all time. But according to the naturalistic interpretation of the Western scholars and the sacrificial explanation offered by our orthodox scholars, there is no such elevating or lasting truth in the Veda. Are we then to suppose that our reverence for the Veda owes its origin merely to a blind acceptance of a tradition down the sweep of centuries? Our present culture and civilisation differs widely from that of our forefa thers. How is it that we have still a profound admiration for the Veda? Is it precisely because the Veda serves as the root of our cultural tree adorned with a myriad branches, with foliage, flowers and fruits? No, the supreme authority of the Veda has not been recognised out of mere courtesy. The Shruti has been the sheet-anchor of our guidance at every step and in every activity of our day-to-day life.
37.07 - Ushasti Chakrayana (Chhandogya Upanishad), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
Let me here draw your attention to another - a rather interesting - aspect of this story; it is both amusing and instructive. Ushasti is the example of a man who, though a Rishi with a true knowledge of the Reality and a powerful realisation, is in other respects, in normal life, a perfectly incapable and helpless man; his capacity for an inner life seems to be matched by his incapacity in the outer. He had to bring himself down to the level of an abject beggar in his ordinary life; at every step he had to depend on his wife's assistance, without her co-operation he found it an unmanageable affair to procure even a grain of rice for the maintenance of life. It would not of course be logical or proper to conclude from this that the Rishis had need of their wives for this as the sole or primary purpose: the word "life partner" used for the spouse does imply a help-mate or means for the sustenance of life, but it carries no derogatory sense.
In those days there was in many cases an indifference towards the things of worldly life. This led to a certain weakness and poverty in this respect. Perhaps it was due to the necessity of an exclusive preoccupation with and concentration on the inner life. Only one or two Rishis like Yajnavalkya for instance had demanded an equal fullness and power. in the outer as in the inner life. Yajnavalkya's great dictum that he had need for both, ubhayam eva, was indeed uttered in no uncertain terms and without hesitation in the presence of all. The first and foremost aim of the Rishis was to acquire an inner mastery, what they called the realisation of self-rule, svaraya-siddhi. But a certain fullness of the outer life as well was not entirely beyond their ken; this they called the realisation of outer empire, samrajya siddhi. These two, the rule over self and the domination of the outer life, svarajya and samrajya, would constitute the integral realisation of the integral man.
3.7.1.12 - Karma and Justice, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The relation of our consciousness and will to Karma is the thing upon which all the subtler lines of action and consequence must depend; that connexus must be the hinge of the whole significance. The dependence of the pursuit of ethical values on a sanction by the inferior hedonistic values, material, vital and lower mental pleasure, pain and suffering, appeals strongly to our normal consciousness and will; but it ceases to have more than a subordinate force and finally loses all force as we grow towards greater heights of our being. That dependence cannot then be the whole or the final power or guiding norm of Karma. The relation of will to action and consequence must be cast on more subtle and liberal lines. The universal Spirit in the law of Karma must deal with man in the lower scale of values only as a part of the transaction and as a concession to mans own present motives. Man himself puts these values, makes that demand for pleasure and prosperity and dreads their opposites, desires heaven more than he loves virtue, fears hell more than he abhors sin, and while he does so, the world-dispensation wears to him that meaning and colour. But the spirit of existence is not merely a legislator and judge concerned to maintain a standard of legal justice, to dole out deterrents and sanctions, rewards and penalties, ferocious pains of hell, indulgent joys of paradise. He is the Divine in the world, the Master of a spiritual evolution and the growing godhead in humanity. That godhead grows however slowly beyond the dependence on the sanctions of pleasure and pain. Pain and pleasure govern our primary being and in that primary scale pain is Natures advertisement of things we should avoid, pleasure her lure to things she would tempt us to pursue. These devices are first empirical tests for limited objects; but as I grow, I pass beyond their narrower uses. I have continually to disregard Natures original warnings and lures in order to get to a higher nature. I have to develop a nobler spiritual law of Karma.
This will be evident if we consider our own greater motives of action. The pursuit of Truth may entail on me penalties and sufferings; the service of my country or the world may demand from me loss of my outward happiness and good fortune or the destruction of my body; the increase of my strength of will and greatness of spirit may be only possible by the ardours of suffering and the firm renunciation of joys and pleasures. I must still follow after Truth, I must do the service to my race my soul demands from me; I must increase my strength and inner greatness and must not ask for a quite irrelevant reward, shun penalty or make a bargain for the exact fruits of my labour. And that which is true of my action in the present life, must be equally true of my connected action and self-development through many births. Happiness and sorrow, good fortune and ill-fortune are not my main concern whether in this birth or in future lives, but my perfection and the higher good of mankind purchased by whatever suffering and tribulation. Spinozas dictum that joy is a passage to a greater perfection and sorrow a passage to a lesser perfection is a much too summary epigram. Delight will be indeed the atmosphere of perfection and attends too even the anguish of our labour towards it, but first a higher delight which has often much trouble for its price, and afterwards a highest spiritual Ananda which has no dependence on outward circumstances, but rather is powerful to new-shape their meanings and transform their reactions. These things may be above the first formulation of the world energy here, may be influences from superior planes of the universal existence, but they are still a part of the economy of Karma here, a process of the spiritual evolution in the body. And they bring in a higher soul nature and will and action and consequence, a higher rule of Karma.
3.7.2.03 - Mind Nature and Law of Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Three movements of the mental energy of man projecting itself along the lines of life, successive movements that yet overlap and enter into each other, have created a triple strand of the law of his Karma. The first is that, primary, obvious, universal, predominant in his beginnings, in which his mind subjects and assimilates itself to the law of life in matter in order to make the most of the terrestrial existence for its own pleasure and profit, artha, kma, without any other modification or correction of its pre-existing lines than is involved in the very impact of the human intelligence, will, emotion, aesthesis. These indeed are forces that lift up and greatly enlarge and infinitely rarefy and subtilise by a consciously regulated and more and more skilful and curious use the first crude, narrow and essentially animal aims and movements common to all living creatures. And this element of the mentalised vital existence, these lines of its movement making the main grey solid stuff of the life of the average economic, political, social, domestic man may take on a great amplitude and an imposing brilliance, but they remain always in their distinctive, their original and still persistent character the lines of movement, the way of Karma of the thinking, willing, feeling, refining human animal,not to be despised or excluded from our total way of being when we climb to a higher plane of conception and action, but still only a small part of human possibility and, if regarded as the main preoccupation or most imperative law of the human being, then limiting and degrading it; for, empowered up to a certain point to enlarge and dynamise and enrich, but not raise to a self-exceeding, they are useful for ascension only when themselves uplifted and transformed by a greater law and a nobler motive. The momentum of this energy may be a very powerful mental action, may involve much output of intelligence and will power and aesthetic perception and expenditure of emotional force, but the return it seeks is vital success and enjoyment and possession and satisfaction. The mind no doubt feeds its powers on the effort and its fullness on the prize, but it is tethered to its pasture. It is a mixed movement, mental in its means, predominantly vital in its returns; its standard of the values of the return are measured by an outward success and failure, an externalised or externally caused pleasure and suffering, good fortune and evil fortune, the fate of the life and the body. It is this powerful vital preoccupation which has given us one element of the current notion of law of Karma, its idea of an award of vital happiness and suffering as the measure of cosmic justice.
The second movement of mind running on the lines of life comes into prominent action when man evolves out of his experience the idea of a mental rule, standard, ideal, a concretised abstraction which is suggested at first by life experience, but goes beyond, transcends the actual needs and demands of the vital energy and returns upon it to impose some ideal mental rule, some canon embodying a generalised conception of Right on the law of life. For its essence is the discovery or belief of the mind that in all things there is a right rule, a right standard, a right way of thought, will, feeling, perception, action other than that of the intuition of vital nature, other than that of the first dealings of mind seeking only to profit by the vital nature with a mainly vital motive,for it has discovered a way of the reason, a rule of the self-governing intelligence. This brings into the seeking of vital pleasure and profit, artha, kma, the power of the conception of a mental truth, justice, right, the conception of Dharma. The greater practical part of the Dharma is ethical, it is the idea of the moral law. The first mind movement is non-moral or not at all characteristically moral, has only, if at all, the conception of a standard of action justified by custom, the received rule of life and therefore right, or a morality indistinguishable from expediency, accepted and enforced because it was found necessary or helpful to efficiency, power, success, to victory, honour, approval, good fortune. The idea of Dharma is on the contrary predominantly moral in its essence. Dharma on its heights holds up the moral law in its own right and for its own sake to human acceptance and observance. The larger idea of Dharma is indeed a conception of the true law of all energies and includes a conscience, a rectitude in all things, a right law of thought and knowledge, of aesthesis, of all other human activities and not only of our ethical action. But yet in the notion of Dharma the ethical element has tended always to predominate and even to monopolise the concept of Right which man creates,because ethics is concerned with action of life and his dealing with his vital being and with his fellow-men and that is always his first preoccupation and his most tangible difficulty, and because here first and most pressingly the desires, interests, instincts of the vital being find themselves cast into a sharp and very successful conflict with the ideal of Right and the demand of the higher law. Right ethical action comes therefore to seem to man at this stage the one thing binding upon him among the many standards raised by the mind, the moral claim the one categorical imperative, the moral law the whole of his Dharma.
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
modification of sound the form IX^. It is a primary derivative
of the original root i, implying motion towards. The addition
--
as explained under aE`n. yj^ is a primary derivative from the
initial root y which had a sense of control, restraint, persistence,
--
language had certain primary meanings which arose out of this
essential shakti or force and were the basis of other derivative
--
a number of primary roots, out of which secondary roots were
developed by the addition of other consonants. All words were
--
Sanscrit tongue as the primary language that prepares first for a
true understanding of human language and, secondly, for a fresh
--
formation and contact. The primary roots are y, Ey and y;, with
their leng thened forms yA, yF and y$, - the original devabhasha
--
or mixed vowels. The primary root of yj^ is y, which means
Mandala One
--
have the root rt^ as a derivative from the primary root r. The
three roots r, Er, z are themselves variations of the elemental
--
from the primary root i, Greek fi, fjimoc, c (na), id, Ir^ to
utter, force out, etc. The adverb used is especially appropriate to
--
others. Every Aryan primary root was capable of being used
either transitively or intransitively, and in its transitive sense a
--
the primary y.
488
--
The root ag^ is a secondary formation from the primary old
Aryan root a which means essentially to be or, transitively, to
--
The root Il^ is a secondary formation from the primary
root i, I which means essentially to be in relation to some thing,
--
also the primary senses of motion, to go, move, cast, strike; and
by a development from the sense of clinging or persistence in a
--
to the primary h^ roots; afterwards the sense of striking predominated, the other being preferably expressed by DA and other
roots. Gr. qw (O.S. hyA), I pour, hmi (O.S. EhyAEm), I throw,
--
yj^ is a derivative from the primary root y which has the
essential significances of motion to or from, yearning, contact
--
Evj^ is a derivative root from the important primary root Ev,
which has essentially the significance of coming into existence, so
--
contact, movement, application of force. Their primary meanings are to strike, dash, hit, destroy, slay; then, to cast, throw,
hurl, fling; then, to hurl forth the voice, shout, call. The sense of
--
The root vh^ is derivative from the primary root v in its sense
of "be in space & substance, hold matter, contain, bear". It also
--
secondary as^ (aE-m, aE-t) and the primary a; but the latter
alone has survived.
--
yQC^ and ym^ from the primary root y. g means originally to
move softly or steadily, or continuously. It is the characteristic
--
of i, -, yA, and conveys here the same sense of primary cosmic
motion as in jgt^, jgtF, gA (the world or earth).
--
last is the primary meaning of the roots in s, but the addition
of u, gives as often an idea of violence, pressure etc, from which
--
first a primary and then a unique importance and for the mass of
men stood for all action and all Yajna. But the Lord is the master
--
inhabitants of the Swarloka where tejah is the primary element
528
--
other meanings, eg to discriminate, decide, judge. The primary Ev
means to appear, burst out, be divulged, to split open, separate,
--
desiring, asking is never a primary sense of any root, but derived
figuratively from the physical sense "to go, seek, approach". We
--
the two primary constituents [................................................]
& temperament sometimes called manyu or more widely mati,
4.02 - The Psychology of the Child Archetype, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
for an equally vehement confrontation with the primary truth.
275 In view of the fact that men have not yet ceased to make
4.04 - In the Total Christ, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
universe, thanks to that primary influence, ebbs and
flows over me. In a true sense the arms and the
4.04 - The Perfection of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is the first difficulty the Purusha has to deal with, a mixed and confused action of Nature, -- an action without clear self-knowledge, distinct motive, firm instrumentation, only an attempt at these things and a general relative success of effectuality, -- a surprising effect of adaptation in some directions, but also much distress of inadequacy. That mixed and confused action has to be mended; purification is an essential means towards self-perfection. All these impurities and inadequacies result in various kinds of limitation and bondage: but there are two or three primary knots of the bondage, -- ego is the principal knot, -- from which the others derive. These bonds must be got rid of; purification is not complete till it brings about liberation. Besides, after a certain purification and liberation has been effected, there is still the conversion of the purified instruments to the law of a higher object and utility, a large, real and perfect order of action. By the conversion man can arrive at a certain perfection of fullness of being, calm, power and knowledge, even a greater vital action and more perfect physical existence. One result of this perfection is a large and perfected delight of being, Ananda. Thus purification, liberation, perfection, delight of being are four constituent elements of the Yoga, -- suddhi, mukti, siddhi, bhakti.
But this perfection cannot be attained or cannot be secure and entire in its largeness if the Purusha lays stress on individuality. To abandon identification with the physical, vital and mental ego, is not enough; he must arrive in soul also at a true, universalised, not separative individuality. In the lower nature man is an ego making a clean cut in conception between himself and all other existence; the ego is to him self, but all the rest not-self, external to his being. His whole action starts from and is founded upon this self-conception and world-conception. But the conception is in fact an error. However sharply he individualises himself in mental idea and mental or other action, he is inseparable from the universal being, his body from universal force and matter, his life from the universal life, his mind from universal mind, his soul and spirit from universal soul and spirit. The universal acts on him, invades him, overcomes him, shapes itself in him at every moment; he in his reaction acts on the universal, invades, tries to impose himself on it, shape it, overcome its attack, rule and use its instrumentation.
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[378] Nowhere in this material, however, do we find the very specific motif of Gods senescence, and the source Ripley could have used remains obscure. Even so, there is always the possibility of an autochthonous revival of the mythologem from the collective unconscious. Nelken has published a case of this kind. His patient was a primary-school teacher who suffered from paranoia. He developed a theory about a Father-God with immense procreative powers. Originally he had 550 membra virilia, but in the course of time they were reduced to three. He also possessed two scrota with three testicles each. His colossal sperm production weakened him in the end, and finally he shrank to a five-ton lump and was found chained up in a ravine. This psychologem contains the motif of ageing and loss of procreative power. The patient was the rejuvenated Father-God or his avatar.86 The embellishment of the archetypal theme is in this case completely original, so that we can safely take it as an autochthonous product.
[379] In Ripleys case there is the more immediate possibility that he modified for his own purpose the conception of the Ancient of Days and his youthful son the Logos, who in the visions of Valentinus the Gnostic and of Meister Eckhart was a small boy. These concepts are closely related to those of Dionysus, youngest of the gods, and of the Horus-child, Harpocrates, Aion, etc. All naturally imply the renewal of the ageing god. The step from the world of Christian ideas back into paganism is not a long one,87 and the naturalistic conclusion that the father dwindles when the son appears, or that he is rejuvenated in the son, is implicit in all these age-old conceptions, whose effect is all the stronger the more they are consciously denied. Such a combination of ideas is almost to be expected in a cleric like Ripley, even though, like all alchemists, he may not have been conscious of their full import.
4.05 - The Instruments of the Spirit, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In other words, purification must not be understood in any limited sense of a selection of certain outward kinetic movements, their regulation, the inhibition of other action or a liberation of certain forms of character or particular mental and moral capacities. These things are secondary signs of our derivative being, not essential powers and first forces. We have to take a wider psychological view of the primary forces of our nature. We have to distinguish the formed parts of our being, find out their basic defect of impurity or wrong action and correct that, sure that the rest will then come right naturally. We have not to doctor symptoms of impurity, or that only secondarily, as a minor help, -- but to strike at its roots after a deeper diagnosis. We then find that there are two forms of impurity which are at the root of the whole confusion. One is a defect born of the nature of our past evolution, which has been a nature of separative ignorance; this defect is a radically wrong and ignorant form given to the proper action of each part of our instrumental being. The other impurity is born of the successive process of an evolution, where life emerges in and depends on body, mind emerges in and depends on life in the body, supermind emerges in and lends itself to instead of governing mind, soul itself is apparent only as a circumstance of the bodily life of the mental being and veils up the spirit in the lower imperfections. This second defect of our nature is caused by this dependence of the higher on the lower parts; it is all immixture of functions by which the impure working of the lower instrument gets into the characteristic action of the higher function and gives to it an added imperfection of embarrassment, wrong direction and confusion.
Thus the proper function of the life, the vital force, is enjoyment and possession, both of them perfectly legitimate, because the Spirit created the world for Ananda, enjoyment and possession of the many by the One, of the One by the many and of the many too by the many; but, -- this is an instance of the first kind of defect, -- the separative ignorance gives to it the wrong form of desire and craving which vitiates the whole enjoyment and possession and imposes on it its opposites, want and suffering. Again, because mind is entangled in life from which it evolves, this desire and craving get into the action of the mental will and knowledge; that makes the will a will of craving, a force of desire instead of a rational will and a discerning force of intelligent effectuation, and it distorts the judgment and reason so that we judge and reason according to our desires and prepossessions and not with the disinterested impartiality of a pure judgment and the rectitude of a reason which seeks only to distinguish truth and understand rightly the objects of its workings. That is an example of immixture. These two kinds of defect, wrong form of action and illegitimate mixture of action, are not limited to these signal instances, but belong to each instrument and to each combination of their functionings. They pervade the whole economy of our nature. They are fundamental defects of our lower instrumental nature, and if we can set them right, we shall get our instrumental being into a state of purity, enjoy the clarity of a pure will, a pure heart of emotion, a pure enjoyment of our vitality, a pure body. That will be a preliminary, a human perfection, but it can be made the basis and open out in its effort of self-attainment into the greater, the divine perfection.
--
Chitta, the basic consciousness, is largely subconscient; it has, open and hidden, two kinds of action, one passive or receptive, the other active or reactive and formative. As a passive power it receives all impacts, even those of which the mind is unaware or to which it is inattentive, and it stores them in an immense reserve of passive subconscient memory on which the mind as an active memory can draw. But ordinarily the mind draws only what it had observed and understood at the time, -- more easily what it had observed well and understood carefully, less easily what it had observed carelessly or ill understood; at the same time there is a power in consciousness to send up to the active mind for use what that mind had not at all observed or attended to or even consciously experienced. This power only acts observably in abnormal conditions, when some part of the subconscious Chitta comes as it were to the surface or when the subliminal being in us appears on the threshold and for a time plays some part in the outer chamber of mentality where the direct intercourse and commerce with the external world takes place and our inner dealings with ourselves develop on the surface. This action of memory is so fundamental to the entire mental action that it is sometimes said, memory is the man. Even in the submental action of the body and life, which is full of this subconscient Chitta, though not under the control of the conscious mind, there is a vital and physical memory. The vital and physical habits are largely formed by this submental memory. For this reason they can be changed to an indefinite extent by a more powerful action of conscious mind and will, when that can be developed and can find means to communicate to the subconscient Chitta the will of the spirit for a new law of vital and physical action. Even, the whole constitution of our life and body may be described as a bundle of habits formed by the past evolution in Nature and held together by the persistent memory of this secret consciousness. For Chitta, the primary stuff of consciousness, is like Prana and body universal in Nature, but is subconscient and mechanical in nature of Matter.
But in fact all action of the mind or inner instrument arises out of this Chitta or basic consciousness, partly conscient, partly subconscient or subliminal to our active mentality. When it is struck by the world's impacts from outside or urged by the reflective powers of the subjective inner being, it throws up certain habitual activities, the mould of which has been determined by our evolution. One of these forms of activity is the emotional mind, -- the heart, as we may call it for the sake of a convenient brevity. Our emotions are the waves of reaction and response which rise up from the basic consciousness, cittavrtti. Their action too is largely regulated by habit and an emotive memory. They are not imperative, not laws of Necessity; there is no really binding law of our emotional being to which we must submit without remedy; we are not obliged to give responses of grief to certain impacts upon the mind, responses of anger to others, to yet others responses of hatred or dislike, to others responses of liking or love. All these things are only habits of our affective mentality; they can be changed by the conscious will of the spirit; they can be inhibited; we may even rise entirely above all subjection to grief, anger, hatred, the duality of liking and disliking. We are subject to these things only so long as we persist in subjection to the mechanical action of the Chitta in the emotive mentality, a thing difficult to get rid of because of the power of past habit and especially the importunate insistence of the vital part of mentality, the nervous life-mind or psychic Prana. This nature of the emotive mind as a reaction of Chitta with a certain close dependence upon the nervous life-sensations and responses of the psychic Prana is so characteristic that in some languages it is called Chitta and Prana, the heart, the life soul; it is indeed the most directly agitating and powerfully insistent action of the desire-soul which the immixture of vital desire and responsive consciousness has created in us. And yet the true emotive soul, the real psyche in us, is not a desire-soul, but a soul of pure love and delight; but that, like the rest of our true being, can only emerge when the deformation created by the life of desire is removed from the surface and is no longer the characteristic action of our being. To get that done is a necessary part of our purification, liberation, perfection.
4.06 - Purification-the Lower Mentality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Since we are the spirit enveloped in mind, a soul evolved here as a mental being in a living physical body, it must naturally be in the mind, the antahkarana, that we must look for this desideratum. And in the mind it is evidently by the Buddhi, the intelligence and the will of the intelligence that the human being is intended to do whatever work is not done for him by the physical or nervous nature as in the plant and the animal. Pending the evolution of any higher supramental power the intelligent will must be our main force for effectuation and to purify It becomes a very primary necessity. Once our intelligence and will are well purified of all that limits them and gives them a wrong action or wrong direction, they can easily be perfected, can be made to respond to the suggestions of Truth, understand themselves and the rest of the being, see clearly and with a fine and scrupulous accuracy what they are doing and follow out the right way to do it without any hesitating or eager error or stumbling deviation. Eventually their response can be opened up to the perfect discernings, intuitions, inspirations, revelations of the supermind and proceed by a more and more luminous and even infallible action. But this purification cannot be effected without a preliminary clearing of its natural obstacles in the other lower parts of the antahkarana, and the chief natural obstacle running through the whole action of the ahtahkarana, through the sense, the mental sensation, emotion, dynamic impulse, intelligence, will, is the intermiscence and the compelling claim of the psychic Prana. This then must be dealt with, its dominating intermiscence ruled out, its claim denied, itself quieted and prepared for purification.
Each instrument has, it has been said, a proper and legitimate action and also a deformation or wrong principle of its proper action. The proper action of the psychic Prana is, pure possession and enjoyment, bhoga. To enjoy thought, will, action, dynamic impulse, result of action, emotion, sense, sensation, to enjoy too by their means objects, persons, life, the world, is the activity for which this Prana gives us a psycho-physical basis. A really perfect enjoyment of existence can only come when what we enjoy is not the world in itself or for itself, but God in the world, when it is not things, but the Ananda of the spirit in things that forms the real, essential object of our enjoying and things only as form and symbol of the spirit, waves of the ocean of Ananda. But this Ananda can only come at all when we can get at and reflect in our members the hidden spiritual being, and its fullness can only be had when we climb to the supramental ranges. Meanwhile there is a just and permissible, a quite legitimate human enjoyment of these things, which is, to speak in the language of Indian psychology, predominantly sattwic in its nature. It is an enlightened enjoyment principally by the perceptive, aesthetic and emotive mind, secondarily only by the sensational nervous and physical being, but all subject to the clear government of the Buddhi, to a right reason, a right will, a right reception of the life impacts, a right order, a right feeling of the truth, law, ideal sense, beauty, use of things. The mind gets the pure taste of enjoyment of them, rasa, and rejects whatever is perturbed, troubled and perverse. Into this acceptance of the clear and limpid rasa, the psychic Prana has to bring in the full sense of life and the occupying enjoyment by the whole being, bhoga, without which the acceptance and possession by the mind, rasagrahana, would not be concrete enough, would be too tenuous to satisfy altogether the embodied soul. This contri bution is its proper function.
4.08 - THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE KINGS RENEWAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[515] Experience shows that the union of antagonistic elements is an irrational occurrence which can fairly be described as mystical, provided that one means by this an occurrence that cannot be reduced to anything else or regarded as in some way unau thentic. The decisive criterion here is not rationalistic opinions or regard for accepted theories, but simply and solely the value for the patient of the solution he has found and experienced. In this respect the doctor, whose primary concern is the preservation of life, is in an advantageous position, since he is by training an empiricist and has always had to employ medicines whose healing power he knew even though he did not understand how it worked. Equally, he finds all too often that the scientifically explained and attested healing power of his medicines does not work in practice.
[516] If, now, the alchemists meant by their old king that he was God himself, this also applies to his son. They themselves must have shrunk from thinking out the logical consequences of their symbolism, otherwise they would have had to assert that God grows old and must be renewed through the art. Such a thought would have been possible at most in the Alexandrian epoch, when gods sprang up like mushrooms. But for medieval man it was barely conceivable.398 He was far more likely to consider that the art would change something in himself, for which reason he regarded its product as a kind of
4.1.1 - The Difficulties of Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The headache if it comes is only a result of the body not being accustomed to the pressure or else to some resistance there. The difficulties of course rise up, but it is not always in the beginning. Sometimes the first effect is such that one feels as if there were no difficulties,they rise afterwards when the exultation wanes and the normal consciousness has a chance to assert itself against the flood of power or light from above. There is a resistance that has to be fought out or worked outfought out if the nature is unsteady or resists violently, worked out if the will is steady and the nature moderate in its reactions. On the other hand if there has been a long preparation and the resistances of the nature have been already largely dealt with by the psychic or by the enlightened mental will, then there are no primary or later aggravations but a steady and quiet pulsing of the change, the remaining difficulties falling away of themselves as the new consciousness develops, or else there may be no difficulties at all, only a necessary readjustment and change.
***
4.19 - The Nature of the supermind, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The object of Yoga is to raise the human being from the consciousness of the ordinary mind subject to the control of vital and material Nature and limited wholly by birth and death and Time and the needs and desires of the mind, life and body to the consciousness of the spirit free in its self and using the circumstances of mind, life and body as admitted or self-chosen and self-figuring determinations of the spirit, using them in a free self-knowledge, a free will and power of being, a free delight of being. This is the essential difference between the ordinary mortal mind in which we live and the spiritual consciousness of our divine and immortal being which is the highest result of Yoga. It is a radical conversion as great as and greater than the change which we suppose evolutionary Nature to have made in its transition from the vital animal to the fully mentalised human consciousness. The animal has the conscious vital mind, but whatever beginnings there are in it of anything higher are only a primary glimpse, a crude hint of the intelligence which in man becomes the splendour of the mental understanding, will, emotion, aesthesis and reason. Man elevated in the heights and deepened by the intensities of the mind becomes aware of something great and divine in himself towards which all this tends, something he is in possibility but which he has not yet become, and he turns the powers of his mind, his power of knowledge, his power of will, his power of emotion and aesthesis to seek out this, to seize and comprehend all that it may be, to become it and to exist wholly in its greater consciousness, delight, being and power of highest becoming. But what he gets of this higher state in his normal mind is only an intimation, a primary glimpse, a crude hint of the splendour, the light, the glory and divinity of the spirit within him. A complete conversion of all the parts of his being into moulds and instruments of the spiritual consciousness is demanded of him before he can make quite real, constant, present to himself this greater thing that he can be and entirely live in what is now to him at the best a luminous aspiration. He must seek to develop and grow altogether into a greater divine consciousness by an integral Yoga.
The Yoga of perfection necessary to this change has, so far as we have been considering it, consisted in a preparatory purification of the mental, vital and physical nature, a liberation from the knots of the lower prakriti, a consequent replacement of the egoistic state always subject to the ignorant and troubled action of the desire-soul by a large and luminous static equality which quiets the reason, the emotional mind, the life mind and the physical nature and brings into us the peace and freedom of the spirit, and a dynamical substitution of the action of the supreme and universal divine shakti under the control of the Ishwara for that of the lower prakriti, --an action whose complete operation must be preceded by the perfection of the natural instruments. And all these things together, though not as yet the whole Yoga, constitute already a much greater than the present normal consciousness, spiritual in its basis and moved by a greater light, power and bliss, and it might be easy to rest satisfied with so much accomplished and think that all has been done that was needed for the divine conversion.
4.20 - The Intuitive Mind, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The first result will not be the creation of the true supermind, but the organisation of a predominantly or even a completely intuitive mentality sufficiently developed to take the place of the ordinary mentality and of the logical reasoning intellect of the developed human being. The most prominent change will be the transmutation of the thought heightened and filled by that substance of concentrated light, concentrated power, concentrated joy of the light and the power and that direct accuracy which are the marks of a true intuitive thinking. It is not only primary suggestions or rapid conclusions that this mind will give, but it will conduct too with the same light, power, joy of sureness and direct spontaneous seeing of the truth the connecting and developing operations now conducted by the intellectual reason. The will also will be changed into this intuitive character, proceed directly with light and power to the thing to be done, kartavyam karma, and dispose with a rapid sight of possibilities and actualities the combinations necessary to its action and its purpose. The feelings also will be intuitive, seizing upon right relations, acting with a new light and power and a glad sureness, retaining only right and spontaneous desires and emotions, so long as these things endure, and, when they pass away, replacing them by a luminous and spontaneous love and an Ananda that knows and seizes at once on the right rasa of its objects. All the other mental movements will be similarly enlightened and even too the pranic and sense movements and the consciousness of the body. And usually there will be some development also of the psychic faculties, powers and perceptions of the inner mind and its senses not dependent on the outer sense and the reason. The intuitive mentality will be not only a stronger and a more luminous thing, but usually capable of a much more extensive operation than the ordinary mind of the same man before this development of the Yoga.
This intuitive mentality, if it could be made perfect in its nature, unmixed with any inferior element and yet unconscious of its own limitations and of the greatness of the thing beyond it, might form another definite status and halting place like the instinctive mind of the animal or the reasoning mind of man. But the intuitive mentality cannot be made abidingly perfect and self-sufficient except by the opening power of the supermind above it and that at once reveals its limitations and makes of it a secondary action transitional between the intellectual mind and the true supramental nature. The intuitive mentality is still mind and notgnosis. It is indeed a light from the supermind, but modified and diminished by the stuff of mind in which it works, and stuff of mind means always a basis of ignorance. The intuitive mind is not yet the wide sunlight of truth, but a constant play of flashes of it keeping lighted up a basic state of ignorance or of half-knowledge and indirect knowledge. As long as it is imperfect, it is invaded by a mixture of ignorant mentality which crosses its truth with a strain of error. After it has acquired a larger native action more free from this intermixture, even then so long as the stuff of mind in which it works is capable of the old intellectual or lower mental habit, it is subject to accretion of error, to clouding, to many kinds of relapse. Moreover, the individual mind does not live alone and to itself but in the general mind and all that it has rejected is discharged into the general mind atmosphere around it and tends to return upon and invade it with the old suggestions and many promptings of the old mental character. The intuitive mind, growing or grown, has therefore to be constantly on guard against invasion and accretion, on the watch to reject and eliminate immixtures, busy intuitivising more and still more the whole stuff of mind, and this can only end by itself being enlightened, transformed, lifted up into the full light of the supramental being.
4.2.2 - Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
You should not be so dependent on outward things; it is this attitude that makes you give so excessive an importance to circumstances. I do not say that circumstances cannot help or hinder but they are circumstances, not the fundamental thing which is in ourselves, and their help or their hindrance ought not to be of primary importance. In Yoga, as in every great or serious human effort, there is always bound to be an abundance of adverse interventions and unfavourable circumstances which have to be overcome. To give them too great an importance increases their importance and their power to multiply themselves, gives them, as it were, confidence in themselves and the habit of coming. To face them with equanimityif one cannot manage a cheerful persistence against them of confident and resolute willdiminishes on the contrary their importance and effect and in the end, though not at once, gets rid of their persistence and recurrence. It is therefore a principle in Yoga to recognise the determining power of what is within us for that is the deeper truthto set that right and establish the inward strength as against the power of outward circumstances. The strength is thereeven in the weakest; one has to find it, to unveil it and to keep it in front throughout the journey and the battle.
***
4.23 - The supramental Instruments -- Thought-process, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The reason, however, tends in the intellectual man to ignore the limitations of its power and function and attempts to be not an instrument and agent but a substitute for the self and spirit. Made confident by success and predominance, by the comparative greatness of its own light, it regards itself as a thing primary and absolute, assures itself of its own entire truth and sufficiency and endeavours to become the absolute ruler of mind and life. This it cannot do successfully, because it depends on the lower life intuition and on the covert supermind and its intuitive messages for its own real substance and existence. It can only appear to itself to succeed because it reduces all its experience to rational formulas and blinds itself to half the real nature of the thought and action that is behind it and to the infinite deal that breaks out of its formulas. The excess of the reason only makes life artificial and rationally mechanical, deprives it of its spontaneity and vitality and prevents the freedom and expansion of the spirit. The limited and limiting mental reason must make itself plastic and flexible, open itself to its source, receive the light from above, exceed itself and pass by an euthanasia of transformation into the body of the supramental reason. Meanwhile it is given power and leading for an organisation of thought and action on the characteristically human scale intermediate between the subconscient power of the spirit organising the life of the animal and the superconscient power of the spirit which becoming conscient can organise the existence and life of a spiritual supermanhood.
The characteristic power of the reason in its fullness is a logical movement assuring itself first of all available materials and data by observation and arrangement, then acting upon them for a resultant knowledge gained, assured and enlarged by a first use of the reflective powers, and lastly assuring itself of the correctness of its results by a more careful and formal action, more vigilant, deliberate, severely logical which tests, rejects or confirms them according to certain secure standards and processes developed by reflection and experience. The first business of the logical reason is therefore a right, careful and complete observation of its available material and data. The first and easiest field of data open to our knowledge is the world of Nature, of the physical objects made external to it by the separative action of mind, things not ourself and therefore only indirectly knowable by an interpreting of our sense perceptions, by observation, accumulated experience, inference and reflective thinking. Another field is our own internal being and its movements which one knows naturally by an internally acting mental sense, by intuitive perception and constant experience and by reflective thought on the evidences of our nature. The reason with regard even to these inner movements acts best and knows the most correctly by detaching itself and regarding them quite impersonally and objectively, a movement which in the Yoga of knowledge ends in viewing our own active being too as not self, a mechanism of Nature like the rest of the world-existence. The knowledge of other thinking and conscious beings stands between these two fields, but is gained, too, indirectly by observation, by experience, by various means of communication and, acting on these, by reflection and inference largely founded on analogy from our knowledge of our own nature. Another field of data which the reason has to observe is its own action and the action of the whole human intelligence, for without that study it cannot be assured of the correctness of its knowledge or of right method and process. Finally, there are other fields of knowledge for which the data are not so easily available and which need the development of abnormal faculties, -- the discovery of things and ranges of existence behind the appearances of the physical world and the discovery of the secret self or principle of being of man and of Nature. The first the logical reason can attempt to deal with, accepting subject to its scrutiny whatever data become available, in the same way as it deals with the physical world, but ordinarily it is little disposed to deal with them, finding it more easy to question and deny, and its action here is seldom assured or effective. The second it usually attempts to discover by a constructive metaphysical logic founded on its analytic and synthetic observation of the phenomena of life, mind and matter.
4.24 - The supramental Sense, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When the consciousness of the being is withdrawn wholly into itself, it is aware only of itself, of its own being, its own consciousness, its own delight of existence, its own concentrated force of being, and of these things not in their forms but in their essence. When it comes out of this self-immersion, it becomes aware of or it releases or develops out of its self-immersion its activities and forms of being, of consciousness, of delight and force. Then too, on the supramental plane, its primary awareness still remains of a kind native to and entirely characteristic of the self-awareness of the spirit, the self-knowledge of the one and infinite; it is a knowledge that knows all its objects, forms and activities comprehensively by being aware of them in its own infinite self, intimately by being aware in them as their self, absolutely by being aware of them as one in self with its own being. All its other ways of knowledge are projected from this knowledge by identity, are parts or movements of it, or at the lowest depend on it for their truth and light, are touched and supported by it even in their own separate way of action and refer back to it overtly or implicitly as their authority and origin.
The activity which is nearest to this essential knowledge by identity is the large embracing consciousness, especially characteristic of the supramental energy, which takes into itself all truth and idea and object of knowledge and sees them at once in their essence, totality and parts or aspects, -- vijnana. Its movement is a total seeing and seizing; it is a comprehension and possession in the self of knowledge; and it holds the object of consciousness as a part of the self or one with it, the unity being spontaneously and directly realised in the act of knowledge. Another supramental activity puts the knowledge by identity more into the background and stresses more the objectivity of the thing known. Its characteristic movement, descending into the mind, becomes the source of the peculiar nature of our mental knowledge, intelligence, prajnana. In the mind the action of intelligence involves, at the outset, separation and otherness between the knower, knowledge and the known; but in the supermind its movement still takes place in the infinite identity or at least in the cosmic oneness. Only, the self of knowledge indulges the delight of putting the object of consciousness away from the more immediate nearness of the original and eternal unity, but always in itself, and of knowing it again in another way so as to establish with it a variety of relations of interaction which are so many minor chords in the harmony of the play of the consciousness. The movement of this supramental intelligence, prajnana, becomes a subordinate, a tertiary action of the supramental for the fullness of which thought and word are needed. The primary action, because it is of the nature of knowledge by identity or of a comprehensive seizing in the consciousness, is complete in itself and has no need of these means of formulation. The supramental intelligence is of the nature of a truth-seeing, truth-hearing and truth-remembering and, though capable of being sufficient to itself ill a certain way, still feels itself more richly fulfilled by the thought and word that give it a body of expression.
Finally, a fourth action of the supramental consciousness completes the various possibilities of the supramental knowledge. This still farther accentuates the objectivity of the thing known, puts it away from the station of experiencing consciousness and again brings it to nearness by a uniting contact effected either in a direct nearness, touch, union or less closely across the bridge or through the connecting stream of consciousness of which there has already been mention. It is a contacting of existence, presences, things, forms, forces, activities, but a contacting of them in the stuff of the supramental being and energy, not in the divisions of matter and through the physical instruments, that creates the supramental sense, samjnana.
4.25 - Towards the supramental Time Vision, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The intuitive mind dealing with the triple time movement has to see rightly in thought sense and vision three things: actualities, possibles and imperatives. There is first a primary intuitive action developed which sees principally the stream of successive actualities in time, even as the ordinary mind, but with an immediate directness of truth and spontaneous accuracy of which the ordinary mind is not capable. It sees them first by a perception, a thought action, a thought sense, a thought vision, which at once detects the forces at work on persons and things, the thoughts, intentions, impulsions, energies, influences in and around them, those already formulated in them and those in process of formation, those too that are coming or about to come into or upon them from the environment or from secret sources invisible to the normal mind, distinguishes by a rapid intuitive analysis free from seeking or labour or by a synthetic total view the complex of these forces, discerns the effective from the ineffective or partly effective and sees too the result that is to emerge. This is the integral process of the intuitive vision of actualities, but there are others that are less complete in their character. For there may be developed a power of seeing the result without any previous or simultaneous perception of the forces at work or the latter may be seen only afterwards and the result alone leap at once and first into the knowledge. On the other hand, there may be a partial or complete perception of the complex of forces, but an incertitude of the definitive result or only a slowly arriving or relative certitude. These are stages in the development of the capacity for a total and unified vision of actualities.
This kind of intuitive knowledge is not an entirely perfect instrument of time knowledge. It moves normally in the stream of the present and sees rightly from moment to moment only the present, the immediate past and the immediate future. It may, it is true, project itself backward and reconstruct correctly by the same power and process a past action or project itself forward and reconstruct correctly something in the more distant future. But this is for the normal power of the thought vision a more rare and difficult effort and usually it needs for a freer use of this self-projection the aid and support of the psychical seeing. Moreover, it can see only what will arrive in the undisturbed process of the actualities and its vision no longer applies if some unforeseen rush of forces or intervening power comes down from regions of a larger potentiality altering the complex of conditions, and this is a thing that constantly happens in the action of forces in the time movement. It may help itself by the reception of inspirations that illumine to it these potentialities and of imperative revelations that indicate what is decisive in them and its sequences and by these two powers correct the limitations of the intuitive mind of actuality. But the capacity of this first intuitive action to deal with these greater sources of vision is never quite perfect, as must always be the case with an inferior power in its treatment of the materials given to it from a greater consciousness. A considerable limitation of vision by its stress on the stream of immediate actualities must be always its character.
5.02 - Perfection of the Body, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
an institution having that for its aim and purpose cannot be or cannot remain something outside or entirely shut away from the life of ordinary men in the world or unconcerned with the mundane existence; it has to do the work of the Divine in the world and not a work outside or separate from it. The life of the ancient Rishis in their Ashramas had such a connection; they were creators, educators, guides of men and the life of the Indian people in ancient times was largely developed and directed by their shaping influence. The life and activities involved in the new endeavour are not identical but they too must be an action upon the world and a new creation in it. It must have contacts and connections with it and activities which take their place in the general life and whose initial or primary objects may not seem to differ from those of the same activities in the outside world.
In our Ashram here we have found it necessary to establish a school for the education of the children of the resident sadhaks, teaching upon familiar lines though with certain modifications and taking as part and an important part of their development an intensive physical training which has given form to the sports and athletics practised by the Jeunesse Sportive of the
5.05 - Supermind and Humanity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This might extend itself from a first beginning in the new creation and produce increasing effects in the order which is now wholly an evolution in the ignorance, and indeed starts from the complete nescience of the Inconscient and proceeds towards what can be regarded even in its highest attainment of knowledge as a lesser ignorance, since it is more a representation than a direct and complete possession of knowledge. If man began to develop the powers and means of a higher knowledge in something like fullness, if the developing animal opened the door of his mentality to beginnings of conscious thought and even a rudimentary reason, - at his highest he is not so irrevocably far from that even now, - if the plant developed its first subconscient reactions and attained to some kind of primary nervous sensitiveness, if Matter, which is a blind form of the Spirit, were
Supermind and Humanity
5.05 - THE OLD ADAM, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[603] The primary connection between image and instinct explains the interdependence of instinct and religion in the most general sense. These two spheres are in mutually compensatory relationship, and by instinct we must understand not merely Eros but everything that goes by the name of instinct.209 Religion on the primitive level means the psychic regulatory system that is coordinated with the dynamism of instinct. On a higher level this primary interdependence is sometimes lost, and then religion can easily become an antidote to instinct, whereupon the originally compensatory relationship degenerates into conflict, religion petrifies into formalism, and instinct is vitiated. A split of this kind is not due to a mere accident, nor is it a meaningless catastrophe. It lies rather in the nature of the evolutionary process itself, in the increasing extension and differentiation of consciousness. For just as there is no energy without the tension of opposites, so there can be no consciousness without the perception of differences. But any stronger emphasis of differences leads to polarity and finally to a conflict which maintains the necessary tension of opposites. This tension is needed on the one hand for increased energy production and on the other for the further differentiation of differences, both of which are indispensable requisites for the development of consciousness. But although this conflict is unquestionably useful it also has very evident disadvantages, which sometimes prove injurious. Then a counter-movement sets in, in the attempt to reconcile the conflicting parties. As this process has repeated itself countless times in the course of the many thousand years of conscious development, corresponding customs and rites have grown up for the purpose of bringing the opposites together. These reconciling procedures are rites performed by man, but their content is an act of help or reconciliation emanating from the divine sphere, whether in the present or in the past. Generally the rites are linked up with the original state of man and with events that took place in the age of the heroes or ancestors. This is as a rule a defective state, or a situation of distress, which is helped by divine intervention, and the intervention is repeated in the rite. To take a simple example: When the rice will not grow, a member of the rice-totem clan builds himself a hut in the rice-field and tells the rice how it originally grew from the rice-ancestor. The rice then remembers its origin and starts growing again. The ritual anamnesis of the ancestor has the same effect as his intervention.
[604] The prime situation of distress consists either in a withdrawal of the favourable gods and the emergence of harmful ones, or in the alienation of the gods by mans negligence, folly, or sacrilege, or else (as in the Taoist view) in the separation210 of heaven and earth for unfathomable reasons, so that they can now come together again only if the wise man re-establishes Tao in himself by ritual meditation. In this way he brings his own heaven and earth into harmony.211
5.1.02 - The Gods, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are no planes of manifestation without forms - for without form creation or manifestation cannot be complete. But the supraphysical planes are not bound to the forms like the physical. The forms there are expressive, not determinative. What is important on the vital plane is the force or feeling and the form expresses it. A vital being has a characteristic form but he can vary it or mask his true form under others. What is primary on the mental plane is the perception, the idea, the mental significance and the form expresses that and these mental forms too can vary - there can be many forms expressing an idea in different ways or on different sides of the idea. Form exists but it is more plastic and variable than in physical nature.
As to the Gods, man can build forms which they will accept; but these forms too are inspired into man's mind from the planes to which the God belongs. All creation has the two sides, the formed and the formless; the Gods too are formless and yet have forms, but a Godhead can take many forms, here
5.3.04 - Roots in M, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But these do not exhaust the uses of the sound which we find in the primary roots of this family. From a study of Vedic Sanskrit and of Tamil it appears that the idea of limitation must have been modified to cover the idea of the extreme limit, the highest finality and hence the significance of extreme, supreme, a general supremacy or excellence. This general idea came to be specified in application to particular forms of extreme being and to cover the idea of flourishing vigour, vigorous life or action, strength, swiftness, brilliance, swift motion etc. Thus it comes about that the same root which means to die or wither (, etc) means also to flourish, grow, bloom; the same peculiarity of opposite meanings which we shall afterwards find in many roots of this and other classes. The idea of a goal, strong in the sound, seems also to have suggested movement towards a goal. So also we find etc. The word , a mortal, seems to have meant in the Veda, strong, like which also came to mean man; even later means a lover, a horse, stallion etc. We have the Hindi in the sense of man, masculine; the Tamil mara, strong, maravar, Kshatriyas, the strong men or fighters. & in the sense of god, and the respectful address appear to have the same origin. We have too for Indra orHanuman, where must mean strong. From the idea of swift or darting motion or merely motion we get , fish, , to go, move; , , the dancing peacock; , urine (flowing discharge); , the moving earth (cf , , & many other synonyms, all with the sense of motion); , , , , the material of earth, clay, dust; , earth; , wind, air, breeze, breath; in the sense of horse; , horse or camel. , , , where there is the sense of water, ocean, have this origin.We know the root to have had the sense of motion from the Latin movere, motus etc. The sense of flourishing, blooming, soft, growing, we get from the Tamil maram, a tree, S. , a granary, , juice of flowers, , soft, unctuous, bland, , a kind of plant, , , , , a pomegranate grove, collection of pomegranate trees. From the sense of shining, glittering, white, bright, we have , tawny or brilliantly coloured gleaming red-brown, , the sun, , flamingo, swan, duck, horse, , a ray of light, light, Krishna (cf meaning also a horse, lion, etc), , mirage. Cf the Latin marmor, Greek . , pepper, is obviously from the kindred sense of applied to the taste & smell. We may also note the words , a high-browed woman and , repeatedly rubbing, where & seem to have the sense of high or persistent from this general sense of excellence or extreme quality.
We have gathered therefore from the meanings of the simple M roots and their direct derivatives, even in the limits of classical Sanscrit, a number of fundamental meanings persistent & recurrent in all such roots & derivatives without regard to the variations of the assistant vowel. We need not suppose that all the original basic significances of the M sound are to be found in this limited area; a number may, indeed must have perished in the long course of Sanscritic development from the original Aryan tongue to the Vedic vocabulary & forms & from that again to the classical. We have now to examine the secondary roots of this family and their derivatives & inquire, first, whether the results already gained are confirmed, secondly, whether they supply us with fresh significances of which the primary roots had lost hold.
I take first the guttural roots of the M class, , , , , pure or nasalised ( etc), , , , , , , , & , , , and the nasal forms of those three groups. We must not expect to find all these roots still extant or recoverable by their traces in the comparatively modern language of the epic & later writers, but we may fairly assume that they all at one time existed. Here the first significance which strikes us by its frequency is the sense of motion and the kindred idea of swiftness.We find & , to go, move, creep, to go, move, & in the same sense, go, move, speed, start or set out. We find signifying immediately, quickly, a boat, a fly or bee, a goat, from the sense of leaping in , in the same sense, a way, path, from an original to move, go, to go after an end, go to a goal, walk, travel, seek, leading to the modern sense of to hunt, pursue etc; , an animal, from to move, especially the swiftest of all animals or perhaps the most hunted, the deer; and all the numerous derivatives of this root; , the vital breath or an ape, from to move, flow or to leap, be active; a spider, ape or crane; in the same sense, but also applied to some kind of fish, possibly from its darting or leaping motion. Finally we have to wish or long for, which, from the analogy of & other verbs of wishing must have started from the sense of motion towards, going after, pursuing which we find in .
5.3.05 - The Root Mal in Greek, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The root mal I take as a secondary root from the primary ma, to contain, measure, embrace, possess, complete, end, cease, perfect, mature, thrive, approach, reach, move forward, etc with other derivative meanings. The letter l adds an idea of softness, diminutiveness, youth, or beauty to these ideas. Hence the root means primarily, to bloom, thrive, flourish; then, to be plump, strong, abundant; to be soft, sweet, gentle, tender, beautiful; to faint, languish, decline, wither, be stained, tarnished, soiled, dirty.
Let us see whether we find these significances in Greek. I have said that the consonants m and l do not change; on the other hand, the vowel a is subject to several modifications in Greek, indeed to almost all possible modifications. It appears sometimes as a, sometimes as o, sometimes as e, and each of these vowels may be leng thened by a common tendency in Greek to the corresponding diphthong ,o, . We must remember also that the root mal would form some of its derivative words by the leng thening of the a, eg ml, mlya etc which would reappear in Greek either as long or . These modifications I now take for granted, but I shall prove each of them by numerous examples when I come to deal with the phenomena of phonetic change in the development of the Greek Prakrits.
5.4.01 - Notes on Root-Sounds, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
N. etc which may originally have derived from the primary root by gunation, are nevertheless included for convenience under the root
Significances of the primary form . Roundness, inclusion, comprehension
The Gunated Form.
--
radical, original; primary, principal; living on roots.
ascetic.
5.4.02 - Occult Powers or Siddhis, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The spiritual realisation is of primary importance and indispensable. I would consider it best to have the spiritual and psychic development first and have it with the same fullness before entering the occult regions. Those who enter the latter first may find their spiritual realisation much delayed - others fall into the mazy traps of the occult and do not come out in this life. Some no doubt can carry on both together, the occult and the spiritual, and make them help each other; but the process I suggest is the safer.
The governing factors for us must be the spirit and the psychic being united with the Divine - the occult laws and
5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
426 Between the three and the four there exists the primary op-
position of male and female, but whereas fourness is a symbol
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
lead. These two metals were often used as the primary material.
130 Statistically, at least, green is correlated with the sensation function.
APPENDIX I - Curriculum of A. A., #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
No. I.: This volume contains an immense number of articles of primary importance to every student of magick.
The rituals of The Book of Lies and the Goetia are also to be studied. The "preliminary invocation" of the Goetia is in particular recommended for daily use and work.
Blazing P1 - Preconventional consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
separation from the primary caretaker(s) (the initial form of separation anxiety). It is merely
coincidence that these two independently researched phenomena should prove to take place
--
experience of mutuality with the one(s) providing primary love and care. The danger or
deficiency in the stage is a failure of mutuality in either of two directions. Either there may
Blazing P2 - Map the Stages of Conventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Qualities: primary elements of adult conscience are present, including long-term goals,
ability for self-criticism, and a deeper sense of responsibility. Future-oriented and proactive;
--
and the requirement of critical reflection; self-fulfillment or self-actualization as a primary
concern versus service to and being for others; the question of being committed to the
Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
actualization of the universalizing apprehensions. Heedless of the threats to self, to primary
groups, and to the institutional arrangements of the present order that are involved, Stage 6
--
On the affective side, residual positive effects from altered states become primary traits
during intervals of ordinary consciousness; they include feelings of gratitude, generosity,
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
since they were the fashioners of the first differentiations of the primary Cosmic substance for the
creation of the phenomenal Universe. Therefore Jehovah was called by the Gnostics the Creator of,
--
settled, has been able to play the part of a primary race in fresh crossings," says de Quatrefages.
"Mankind, in its present state, has thus been formed, certainly, for the greatest part, by the successive
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
microscopical globe. The primary reasons were without doubt: (1) Astronomical ignorance on the part
of the early Christians, coupled with an exaggerated appreciation of man's own importance -- a crude
--
stating that, roughly speaking, the Primordial rocks are 70,000 ft., the primary 42,000 ft., the
Secondary 15,000 ft., the Tertiary 5,000 ft., and the Quaternary some 500 ft. in thickness: -"Dividing into an hundred parts the time, whatever its actual length, that has passed since the dawn of
--
half of the whole duration, say 53.5; to the primary 32.2; to the
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 710 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] primary-Age Man. The parallelism of Races and
geological periods here adopted, is, so far as the origin of 1st and 2nd are concerned, purely tentative,
--
through the primary, and condensing in it, and reaching its full physical life in the Secondary.
***** Geologists tell us that "in the secondary epoch, the only mammals which have been (hitherto)
--
Tertiary. Shall we then accept only 15 million years for both the primary and the Primordial? No
wonder Darwin rejected the calculation.
--
generate, and then give the primary IMPULSE to the law of evolution and gradual slow
development.
--
(3) The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia -- a continent subject to violent
earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus be handed down the ages.
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
that are ever increasing in materiality. The primary Breath informs the higher Hierarchies; the
secondary -- the lower, on the constantly descending planes.
--
was not the accident of the language, but was its very essence, and of its primary organic
construction; therefore, neither the language, nor the mathematical system attaching to it, could be of
--
As well remarked by C. W. King: -- "Whatever the primary meaning (of the gem with the solar lion
and vowels) it was probably imported in its present shape from INDIA, that true fountain head of
--
the primary causes, before they can hope to fathom the nature and acquaint themselves with the
potentialities of the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the four, or
--
Bohme's books finds much in them concerning these Seven Fountain Spirits and primary powers,
treated as seven properties of nature in the alchemistic and astrological phase of the mediaeval
--
for, and we can, it is natural that we should judge it by the primary significations rather
than the latest pretensions.***** It is useless for us to read our
--
seven parts. The primary Heaven was seven-fold." So it was with the Aryans. One has but read the
Puranas about the beginnings of Brahma, and his "Egg" to see it. Have the Aryans taken the idea from
--
why the primary, old, classification was adopted by the Theosophists, of which classifications there
are many.
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable" -(abstract space, granted); "and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognisable. And this
incognisability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But,
--
farther back, without gaining additional light as to primary causation." (p. 5.)
This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic Creator, an extracosmic,
--
androgynous god. Thus Shoo is the god of creation and Osiris is, in his original primary form, the "god
whose name is unknown." (See Mariette's Abydos II., p. 63, and Vol. III., pp. 413, 414, No. 1122.)
--
Universe evolves, when its primary substance is transformed from the state of fire into that of air, then
into water, etc. Heracleitus of Ephesus maintained that the one principle that underlies all phenomena
--
noumenon of irresolvable nebulae) by aggregation and accumulation of the primary differentiations of
the eternal matter, according to the beautiful expression in the Commentary, "Thus the Sons of Light
--
Brahma," during which eternal matter relapses periodically into its primary undifferentiated state. The
most attenuated gases can give no idea of its nature to the modern physicist. Centres of Forces at first,
--
that is the realm of noumena in its primary manifestation: the threshold to the World of Truth, or SAT,
through which the direct energy that radiates from the ONE REALITY -- the Nameless Deity -reaches us. Here again, the untranslateable term SAT (Be-ness) is likely to lead into an erroneous
--
dissociation of all substances, merged after a life-cycle into the latency of their primary conditions. It is
the luminous but bodiless shadow of the matter that was, the realm of negativeness -- wherein lie latent
--
imperceptible, secondary Causes and in themselves the effects of primary Causes behind the Veil of all
terrestrial phenomena. Electricity, light, heat, etc., have been aptly termed the "Ghost or Shadow of
--
remembered that Fire, Water, and Air, or the "Elements of primary Creation" so-called, are not the
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processes going on within the limits of a single Round. The succession of primary aspects of Nature
with which the succession of Rounds is concerned, has to do, as already indicated, with the
--
the Vedantic Mulaprakriti. "Prakriti in its primary state is Akasa," says a Vedantin scholar (see "Five
Years of Theosophy," p. 169). It is almost abstract Nature.
--
of serpents.* Thus, having discovered the effects, Science has to find their primary CAUSES; and
this it can never do without the help of the old sciences, of alchemy, occult botany and physics. We are
--
sure in this: The knowledge of these primary causes and of the ultimate essence of every element, of its
lives, their functions, properties, and conditions of change -- constitutes the basis of MAGIC.
--
individuality of its own, during one special Manvantara. Its primary, the Spirit (Atman) is one, of
course, with Paramatma (the one Universal Spirit), but the vehicle (Vahan) it is enshrined in, the
--
(xxix.) "The first is the . . . . 'Mother' (prima MATERIA). Separating itself into its primary seven
states, it proceeds down cyclically; when** having consolidated itself in its LAST principle as
--
The sign . . . is the 6th Rasi or division, and indicates that there are six primary forces in Nature
(synthesized by the Seventh)" . . . These Sakti stand as follows: (1.) PARASAKTI. Literally the great or Supreme Force or power. It means and includes the powers of
--
the six Hierarchies of Dhyan Chohans synthesized by their primary, the seventh, who personify the
Fifth Principle of Cosmic Nature, or of the "Mother" in its Mystical Sense. The enumeration alone of
--
with its primary, the cause of sound, only a physical and spiritual, not a material cause by any means.
The relations [[fn continued]]
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
consideration of real and primary physical causes. In one of the passages of his "Principia" (Defin. 8,
B. I. Prop. 69, "Scholium"), he tells us plainly that, physically considered, attractions are rather
--
speculation which supposes the photosphere to be the primary seat of vital power, and
to regard with a poetic pleasure that hypothesis which refers the Solar energies to Life."
--
proceed from the primary of Ether -- Akasa, as dual-natured Akasa proceeds from undifferentiated
Chaos, so-called, the latter being the primary aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root-matter and the first
abstract Idea one can form of Parabrahmam. Modern Science may divide its hypothetically conceived
--
perturbation or explains the primary causes of it. The "principle of Life" may kill when too exuberant,
as also when there is too little of it. But this principle on the manifested (or our) plane is but the effect
--
transformed at the confines of the universe into the primary -- the essential -- motions of
chemical atoms, which, the instant they are formed, gravitate inwards, and thus restore
--
that matter and force are the phenomenal differentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated
Cosmic Substance?
--
parlance, the seven primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal, and hence grossest effects
are alone cognizable by physicists on the cosmic and especially on the terrestrial plane. These include,
--
Earth and Moon? Seven, and no more: Seven primary or principal planets, the rest planetoids rather
than planets.
--
the bodies subject to him in his system. Of these bodies the poor little number of primary and
secondary planets known to astronomy, looks wretched enough, in truth.* Therefore, it stands to
--
* Mr. Crookes' "Protyle" must not be regarded as the primary stuff, out of which the Dhyan Chohans,
in accordance with the immutable laws of nature, wove our solar system. This protyle cannot even be
--
vis or energia naturae,** but still playing a most important, if not a primary part in the
production of the phenomena resulting from the action of the energeia upon visible
--
For the Greek Monas signifies "Unity" in its primary sense. Those unable to seize the difference
between the monad -- the Universal Unit -- and the Monads or the manifested Unity, as also between
--
which will generate "Divine Essences" whose "principles"* are the primary elements, the subelements, the physical energies and subjective and objective matter; or, as these are epitomised -GODS, MONADS, and ATOMS. If leaving for one moment the metaphysical or transcendental side of
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truth to be thus deluded and baulked? The very idea of an element, as something absolutely primary
and ultimate, seems to be growing less and less distinct. . ." (p. 16).
--
purposes it is desirable to look upon force, not as a primary quantity, but as a quantity derived from
some other value."
But, luckily for truth -"Leibnitz was a philosopher; and as such he had certain primary principles, which biassed him in
favour of certain conclusions, and his discovery that external things were substances endowed with
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
as Wisdom (Sophia) built hers with seven pillars. . . The primary Kronotypes were
seven, and thus the beginning of time in heaven is based on the number and the name of
--
multiplied by four, and the twenty-eight signs took the place of the primary seven
constellations, the lunar zodiac of twenty-eight days being the registered result.** . . . In
--
the seventh over the six primary gods issued from Father-Mother, Nou and Nout (the sky), who can
Osiris be, but the chief Prajapati, the chief Sephiroth, the chief Amshaspend-Ormazd! That this latter
--
The same division has to be applied to the primary, secondary and tertiary evolution of gods in every
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which is the secondary meaning of the allegory: its primary meaning being the beginning of the Fourth
Round, or the new Creation.
--
This is the order given in the exoteric texts. According to esoteric teaching there are seven primary,
and seven secondary "creations;" the former being the Forces self-evolving from the one causeless
--
to primary 'Creation':" but calls all such forces "the aspects of the Causeless Force." In the Bible
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
** The text says: "And the fourth creation is here the primary, for things immovable are emphatically
known as primary." (See Fitzedward Hall's Corrections.)
*** How can "divinities" have been created after the animals? The esoteric meaning of the expression
--
four elements, fire, water, earth and air, were produced after the image of the primary tetrad above,
and that then if we add their operations, namely, heat, cold, dryness and moisture, an exact likeness of
--
begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma." (Ibid. b. I, v. 2).
This "first begotten Ogdoad" was (a) in theogony the second Logos (the manifested) because he was
--
"Man and woman on the side of the FATHER" (Spirit) refers to primary Creation; and on the side of
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(IV.) The Mukhya, the primary as it begins the series of four. Neither the word "inanimate" bodies nor
yet immovable things, as translated by Wilson, gives a correct idea of the Sanskrit terms used. Esoteric
--
Prakritic creations during the primary period of Brahma's activity. As in that period, in the words of
"Vishnu Purana": "The first creation was that of Mahat (Intellect), the second, of Tanmatras
--
on Earth, to the dumb animal creation. That which is meant by "animals," in primary Creation, is the
germ of awakening consciousness or of apperception, that which is faintly traceable in some sensitive
--
both the primary and Secondary periods, one as the Spiritual and Cosmic, the other as the material
and terrestrial. It is Archibiosis, or life-origination -- "origination," so far, of course, as the
--
Chohan of the third group or hierarchy of Being in primary Creation, before those "gods" can become
rupa (embodied in their first ethereal form), so animal creation has to precede,
--
"creation," says the text, is both primary (Prakrita) and secondary (Vaikrita). It is the latter, as regards
the origin of the gods from Brahma (the personal anthropomorphic creator of our material universe);
--
secondary of that which was a "Creation" in the primary (Prakrita) Creation.** The Eighth, then,
called Anugraha (the Pratyayasarga or the intellectual creation of the Sankhyas, explained in Karika,
--
in our manvantara (the Vaivasvata). "There is a ninth, the Kumara Creation, which is both primary
and secondary," says Vishnu Purana, the oldest of such texts.*** "The Kumaras," explains an esoteric
Book of Proverbs, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The primary purpose of the book is to teach wisdom, not only to the young and inexperienced but also to the learned. Proverbs personifies wisdom as an idealistic woman.
The Book of Proverbs provides profound insights and exceptional wisdom on how to live a happy and peaceful life, by honoring and respecting God as all-good and all-powerful. The guiding principles of the Book are to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart" (Proverbs 3:5), and that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (1:7, 9:10).
Book of Psalms, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
Placing our trust in God is found throughout the Scriptures, especially the Psalms. The Hebrew verb to trust - - baa - or its conjugates are recorded over 40 times in the Psalms alone, and to Trust in God is the primary theme of such Psalms as 4, 27, 56, and 62. Trusting in God means both to believe in God and to place our hope in Him. Thus in Greek one sees the word trust translated both with the verbs for faith - - I believe, have faith in, trust; and hope - - I hope, trust. Another Greek verb that conveys the meaning of trust is - I depend on, trust.
The Psalms have had a profound influence on both Eastern and Western culture. The most famous Psalm is King David's Psalm 23. Christ repeats verse five of Psalm 31 on the Cross, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit." Psalm 91 offers evidence of Guardian Angels. Psalm 95 (verse 1) contains the words Laus Deo, the Latin for Praise be to God, which is inscribed on top of the Washington Monument. Psalm 103 supports that Angels carry out the will of God. Psalm 104 (verse 19) confirms the Hebrew lunar calendar, for the moon - - yare - marks the appointed times and sacred seasons. Psalm 118 (verse 24) was the inspiration for the World War I liberation song of Jerusalem, the world-famous Hava Nagila. Psalm 119 is an alphabetical psalm that expresses love for the Word of God, each eight-verse stanza beginning with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 139 speaks of life in the womb!
BOOK XIX. - A review of the philosophical opinions regarding the Supreme Good, and a comparison of these opinions with the Christian belief regarding happiness, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
To illustrate briefly what he means, I must begin with his own introductory statement in the above-mentioned book, that there are four things which men desire, as it were by nature without a master, without the help of any instruction, without industry or the art of living which is called virtue, and which is certainly learned:[620] either pleasure, which is an agreeable stirring of the bodily sense; or repose, which excludes every bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus calls by the one name, pleasure; or the primary objects of nature,[621] which comprehend the things already named and other things, either bodily, such as health, and safety, and integrity of the members, or spiritual, such as the greater and less mental gifts that are found in men. Now these four thingspleasure, repose, the two combined, and the primary objects of natureexist in us in such sort that we must either desire virtue on their account, or them for the sake of virtue, or both for their own sake; and consequently there arise from this distinction twelve sects, for each is by this consideration tripled. I will illustrate this in one instance, and, having done so, it will not be difficult to understand the others. According, then, as bodily pleasure is subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, there are three sects. It is subjected to virtue when it is chosen as subservient to virtue. Thus it is[Pg 295] a duty of virtue to live for one's country, and for its sake to beget children, neither of which can be done without bodily pleasure. For there is pleasure in eating and drinking, pleasure also in sexual intercourse. But when it is preferred to virtue, it is desired for its own sake, and virtue is chosen only for its sake, and to effect nothing else than the attainment or preservation of bodily pleasure. And this, indeed, is to make life hideous; for where virtue is the slave of pleasure it no longer deserves the name of virtue. Yet even this disgraceful distortion has found some philosophers to patronize and defend it. Then virtue is united to pleasure when neither is desired for the other's sake, but both for their own. And therefore, as pleasure, according as it is subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, makes three sects, so also do repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the prime natural blessings, make their three sects each. For as men's opinions vary, and these four things are sometimes subjected, sometimes preferred, and sometimes united to virtue, there are produced twelve sects. But this number again is doubled by the addition of one difference, viz. the social life; for whoever attaches himself to any of these sects does so either for his own sake alone, or for the sake of a companion, for whom he ought to wish what he desires for himself. And thus there will be twelve of those who think some one of these opinions should be held for their own sakes, and other twelve who decide that they ought to follow this or that philosophy not for their own sakes only, but also for the sake of others whose good they desire as their own. These twenty-four sects again are doubled, and become forty-eight by adding a difference taken from the New Academy. For each of these four and twenty sects can hold and defend their opinion as certain, as the Stoics defended the position that the supreme good of man consisted solely in virtue; or they can be held as probable, but not certain, as the New Academics did. There are, therefore, twenty-four who hold their philosophy as certainly true, other twenty-four who hold their opinions as probable, but not certain. Again, as each person who attaches himself to any of these sects may adopt the mode of life either of the Cynics or of the other philosophers, this distinction will double the number,[Pg 296] and so make ninety-six sects. Then, lastly, as each of these sects may be adhered to either by men who love a life of ease, as those who have through choice or necessity addicted themselves to study, or by men who love a busy life, as those who, while philosophizing, have been much occupied with state affairs and public business, or by men who choose a mixed life, in imitation of those who have apportioned their time partly to erudite leisure, partly to necessary business: by these differences the number of the sects is tripled, and becomes 288.
I have thus, as briefly and lucidly as I could, given in my own words the opinions which Varro expresses in his book. But how he refutes all the rest of these sects, and chooses one, the Old Academy, instituted by Plato, and continuing to Polemo, the fourth teacher of that school of philosophy which held that their system was certain; and how on this ground he distinguishes it from the New Academy,[622] which began with Polemo's successor Arcesilaus, and held that all things are uncertain; and how he seeks to establish that the Old Academy was as free from error as from doubt,all this, I say, were too long to enter upon in detail, and yet I must not altogether pass it by in silence. Varro then rejects, as a first step, all those differences which have multiplied the number of sects; and the ground on which he does so is that they are not differences about the supreme good. He maintains that in philosophy a sect is created only by its having an opinion of its own different from other schools on the point of the ends-in-chief. For man has no other reason for philosophizing than that he may be happy; but that which makes him happy is itself the supreme good. In other words, the supreme good is the reason of philosophizing; and therefore that cannot be called a sect of philosophy which pursues no way of its own towards the supreme good. Thus, when it is asked whether a wise man will adopt the social life, and desire and be interested in the supreme good of his friend as in his own, or will, on the contrary, do all that he does merely for his own sake, there is no question here about the supreme good, but only about the propriety of associating or not associating a friend in its participation: whether the wise man will do this[Pg 297] not for his own sake, but for the sake of his friend in whose good he delights as in his own. So, too, when it is asked whether all things about which philosophy is concerned are to be considered uncertain, as by the New Academy, or certain, as the other philosophers maintain, the question here is not what end should be pursued, but whether or not we are to believe in the substantial existence of that end; or, to put it more plainly, whether he who pursues the supreme good must maintain that it is a true good, or only that it appears to him to be true, though possibly it may be delusive,both pursuing one and the same good. The distinction, too, which is founded on the dress and manners of the Cynics, does not touch the question of the chief good, but only the question whether he who pursues that good which seems to himself true should live as do the Cynics. There were, in fact, men who, though they pursued different things as the supreme good, some choosing pleasure, others virtue, yet adopted that mode of life which gave the Cynics their name. Thus, whatever it is which distinguishes the Cynics from other philosophers, this has no bearing on the choice and pursuit of that good which constitutes happiness. For if it had any such bearing, then the same habits of life would necessitate the pursuit of the same chief good, and diverse habits would necessitate the pursuit of different ends.
--
The same may be said of those three kinds of life, the life of studious leisure and search after truth, the life of easy engagement in affairs, and the life in which both these are mingled. When it is asked, which of these should be adopted, this involves no controversy about the end of good, but inquires which of these three puts a man in the best position for finding and retaining the supreme good. For this good, as soon as a man finds it, makes him happy; but lettered leisure, or public business, or the alternation of these, do not necessarily constitute happiness. Many, in fact, find it possible to adopt one or other of these modes of life, and yet to miss what makes a man happy. The question, therefore, regarding the supreme[Pg 298] good and the supreme evil, and which distinguishes sects of philosophy, is one; and these questions concerning the social life, the doubt of the Academy, the dress and food of the Cynics, the three modes of life the active, the contemplative, and the mixedthese are different questions, into none of which the question of the chief good enters. And therefore, as Marcus Varro multiplied the sects to the number of 288 (or whatever larger number he chose) by introducing these four differences derived from the social life, the New Academy, the Cynics, and the threefold form of life, so, by removing these differences as having no bearing on the supreme good, and as therefore not constituting what can properly be called sects, he returns to those twelve schools which concern themselves with inquiring what that good is which makes man happy, and he shows that one of these is true, the rest false. In other words, he dismisses the distinction founded on the threefold mode of life, and so decreases the whole number by two-thirds, reducing the sects to ninety-six. Then, putting aside the Cynic peculiarities, the number decreases by a half, to forty-eight. Taking away next the distinction occasioned by the hesitancy of the New Academy, the number is again halved, and reduced to twenty-four. Treating in a similar way the diversity introduced by the consideration of the social life, there are left but twelve, which this difference had doubled to twenty-four. Regarding these twelve, no reason can be assigned why they should not be called sects. For in them the sole inquiry is regarding the supreme good and the ultimate evil,that is to say, regarding the supreme good, for this being found, the opposite evil is thereby found. Now, to make these twelve sects, he multiplies by three these four thingspleasure, repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the primary objects of nature which Varro calls primigenia. For as these four things are sometimes subordinated to virtue, so that they seem to be desired not for their own sake, but for virtue's sake; sometimes preferred to it, so that virtue seems to be necessary not on its own account, but in order to attain these things; sometimes joined with it, so that both they and virtue are desired for their own sakes,we must multiply the four by three, and thus we get twelve sects. But from those[Pg 299] four things Varro eliminates threepleasure, repose, pleasure and repose combinednot because he thinks these are not worthy of the place assigned them, but because they are included in the primary objects of nature. And what need is there, at any rate, to make a threefold division out of these two ends, pleasure and repose, taking them first severally and then conjunctly, since both they, and many other things besides, are comprehended in the primary objects of nature? Which of the three remaining sects must be chosen? This is the question that Varro dwells upon. For whether one of these three or some other be chosen, reason forbids that more than one be true. This we shall afterwards see; but meanwhile let us explain as briefly and distinctly as we can how Varro makes his selection from these three, that is, from the sects which severally hold that the primary objects of nature are to be desired for virtue's sake, that virtue is to be desired for their sake, and that virtue and these objects are to be desired each for their own sake.
3. Which of the three leading opinions regarding the chief good should be preferred, according to Varro, who follows Antiochus and the Old Academy.
Which of these three is true and to be adopted he attempts to show in the following manner. As it is the supreme good, not of a tree, or of a beast, or of a god, but of man, that philosophy is in quest of, he thinks that, first of all, we must define man. He is of opinion that there are two parts in human nature, body and soul, and makes no doubt that of these two the soul is the better and by far the more worthy part. But whether the soul alone is the man, so that the body holds the same relation to it as a horse to the horseman, this he thinks has to be ascertained. The horseman is not a horse and a man, but only a man, yet he is called a horseman, because he is in some relation to the horse. Again, is the body alone the man, having a relation to the soul such as the cup has to the drink? For it is not the cup and the drink it contains which are called the cup, but the cup alone; yet it is so called because it is made to hold the drink. Or, lastly, is it neither the soul alone nor the body alone, but both together, which are man, the body and the soul being each a part, but the whole man being both together, as[Pg 300] we call two horses yoked together a pair, of which pair the near and the off horse is each a part, but we do not call either of them, no matter how connected with the other, a pair, but only both together? Of these three alternatives, then, Varro chooses the third, that man is neither the body alone, nor the soul alone, but both together. And therefore the highest good, in which lies the happiness of man, is composed of goods of both kinds, both bodily and spiritual. And consequently he thinks that the primary objects of nature are to be sought for their own sake, and that virtue, which is the art of living, and can be communicated by instruction, is the most excellent of spiritual goods. This virtue, then, or art of regulating life, when it has received these primary objects of nature which existed independently of it, and prior to any instruction, seeks them all, and itself also, for its own sake; and it uses them, as it also uses itself, that from them all it may derive profit and enjoyment, greater or less, according as they are themselves greater or less; and while it takes pleasure in all of them, it despises the less that it may obtain or retain the greater when occasion demands. Now, of all goods, spiritual or bodily, there is none at all to compare with virtue. For virtue makes a good use both of itself and of all other goods in which lies man's happiness; and where it is absent, no matter how many good things a man has, they are not for his good, and consequently should not be called good things while they belong to one who makes them useless by using them badly. The life of man, then, is called happy when it enjoys virtue and these other spiritual and bodily good things without which virtue is impossible. It is called happier if it enjoys some or many other good things which are not essential to virtue; and happiest of all, if it lacks not one of the good things which pertain to the body and the soul. For life is not the same thing as virtue, since not every life, but a wisely regulated life, is virtue; and yet, while there can be life of some kind without virtue, there cannot be virtue without life. This I might apply to memory and reason, and such mental faculties; for these exist prior to instruction, and without them there cannot be any instruction, and consequently no virtue, since virtue is learned. But bodily advantages, such as swiftness[Pg 301] of foot, beauty, or strength, are not essential to virtue, neither is virtue essential to them, and yet they are good things; and, according to our philosophers, even these advantages are desired by virtue for its own sake, and are used and enjoyed by it in a becoming manner.
They say that this happy life is also social, and loves the advantages of its friends as its own, and for their sake wishes for them what it desires for itself, whether these friends live in the same family, as a wife, children, domestics; or in the locality where one's home is, as the citizens of the same town; or in the world at large, as the nations bound in common human brotherhood; or in the universe itself, comprehended in the heavens and the earth, as those whom they call gods, and provide as friends for the wise man, and whom we more familiarly call angels. Moreover, they say that, regarding the supreme good and evil, there is no room for doubt, and that they therefore differ from the New Academy in this respect, and they are not concerned whether a philosopher pursues those ends which they think true in the Cynic dress and manner of life or in some other. And, lastly, in regard to the three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the composite, they declare in favour of the third. That these were the opinions and doctrines of the Old Academy, Varro asserts on the authority of Antiochus, Cicero's master and his own, though Cicero makes him out to have been more frequently in accordance with the Stoics than with the Old Academy. But of what importance is this to us, who ought to judge the matter on its own merits, rather than to understand accurately what different men have thought about it?
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If, then, we be asked what the city of God has to say upon these points, and, in the first place, what its opinion regarding the supreme good and evil is, it will reply that life eternal is the supreme good, death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly. And thus it is written, "The just lives by faith,"[623] for[Pg 302] we do not as yet see our good, and must therefore live by faith; neither have we in ourselves power to live rightly, but can do so only if He who has given us faith to believe in His help do help us when we believe and pray. As for those who have supposed that the sovereign good and evil are to be found in this life, and have placed it either in the soul or the body, or in both, or, to speak more explicitly, either in pleasure or in virtue, or in both; in repose or in virtue, or in both; in pleasure and repose, or in virtue, or in all combined; in the primary objects of nature, or in virtue, or in both,all these have, with a marvellous shallowness, sought to find their blessedness in this life and in themselves. Contempt has been poured upon such ideas by the Truth, saying by the prophet, "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men" (or, as the Apostle Paul cites the passage, "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise") "that they are vain."[624]
For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? Cicero, in the Consolation on the death of his daughter, has spent all his ability in lamentation; but how inadequate was even his ability here? For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of the wise man exempt from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may banish repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigour, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity, and which of these is it that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes and movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if some sickness makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers from curvature of the spine to such an extent that his hands reach the ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does not this destroy all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in motion? What shall I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the perception, and the other for the comprehension of truth?[Pg 303] But what kind of sense is it that remains when a man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? We can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of or see the actions and words of such frantic persons, and consider how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment and ordinary conduct their present demeanour is. And what shall I say of those who suffer from demoniacal possession? Where is their own intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant spirit is using their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception of truth, what can we hope for even in this way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, "The corruptible body weigheth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle presseth down the mind that museth upon many things?"[625] And eagerness, or desire of action, if this is the right meaning to put upon the Greek , is also reckoned among the primary advantages of nature; and yet is it not this which produces those pitiable movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see, when sense is deceived and reason deranged?
In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of nature, but succeeds to them as the result of learning, though it holds the highest place among human good things, what is its occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices,not those that are outside of us, but within; not other men's, but our own,a war which is waged especially by that virtue which the Greeks call , and we temperance,[626] and which bridles carnal lusts, and prevents them from winning the consent of the spirit to wicked deeds? For we must not fancy that there is no vice in us, when, as the apostle says, "The flesh lusteth against the spirit;"[627] for to this vice there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says, "The spirit lusteth against the flesh." "For these two," he says, "are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which you would." But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the supreme good, unless that the flesh should cease to lust against the spirit, and that there be no vice in us[Pg 304] against which the spirit may lust? And as we cannot attain to this in the present life, however ardently we desire it, let us by God's help accomplish at least this, to preserve the soul from succumbing and yielding to the flesh that lusts against it, and to refuse our consent to the perpetration of sin. Far be it from us, then, to fancy that while we are still engaged in this intestine war, we have already found the happiness which we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so wise that he has no conflict at all to maintain against his vices?
What shall I say of that virtue which is called prudence? Is not all its vigilance spent in the discernment of good from evil things, so that no mistake may be admitted about what we should desire and what avoid? And thus it is itself a proof that we are in the midst of evils, or that evils are in us; for it teaches us that it is an evil to consent to sin, and a good to refuse this consent. And yet this evil, to which prudence teaches and temperance enables us not to consent, is removed from this life neither by prudence nor by temperance. And justice, whose office it is to render to every man his due, whereby there is in man himself a certain just order of nature, so that the soul is subjected to God, and the flesh to the soul, and consequently both soul and flesh to God,does not this virtue demonstrate that it is as yet rather labouring towards its end than resting in its finished work? For the soul is so much the less subjected to God as it is less occupied with the thought of God; and the flesh is so much the less subjected to the spirit as it lusts more vehemently against the spirit. So long, therefore, as we are beset by this weakness, this plague, this disease, how shall we dare to say that we are safe? and if not safe, then how can we be already enjoying our final beatitude? Then that virtue which goes by the name of fortitude is the plainest proof of the ills of life, for it is these ills which it is compelled to bear patiently. And this holds good, no matter though the ripest wisdom co-exists with it. And I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers can presume to say that these are no ills, though at the same time they allow the wise man to commit suicide and pass out of this life if they become so grievous that he[Pg 305] cannot or ought not to endure them. But such is the stupid pride of these men who fancy that the supreme good can be found in this life, and that they can become happy by their own resources, that their wise man, or at least the man whom they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even though he become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with himself; and they are not ashamed to call the life that is beset with these evils happy. O happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end it! If it is happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills drive him out of it, in what sense is it happy? Or how can they say that these are not evils which conquer the virtue of fortitude, and force it not only to yield, but so to rave that it in one breath calls life happy and recommends it to be given up? For who is so blind as not to see that if it were happy it would not be fled from? And if they say we should flee from it on account of the infirmities that beset it, why then do they not lower their pride and acknowledge that it is miserable? Was it, I would ask, fortitude or weakness which prompted Cato to kill himself? for he would not have done so had he not been too weak to endure Csar's victory. Where, then, is his fortitude? It has yielded, it has succumbed, it has been so thoroughly overcome as to abandon, forsake, flee this happy life. Or was it no longer happy? Then it was miserable. How, then, were these not evils which made life miserable, and a thing to be escaped from?
COSA - BOOK XIII, #The Confessions of Saint Augustine, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
heaven, whether that primary body of the world, between the spiritual
upper waters and the inferior corporeal waters, or (since this also
Cratylus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
last reached a primary element, which need not be resolved any
further.
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turn out to be primary elements, must not their truth or law be
examined according to some new method?
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some absurdity in stating the principle of primary names.
Her. Let me hear, and I will do my best to assist you.
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is applicable to all names, primary as well as secondary- when they
are regarded simply as names, there is no difference in them.
--
Soc. And that this is true of the primary quite as much as of the
secondary names, is implied in their being names.
--
from the primary.
Her. That is evident.
Soc. Very good; but then how do the primary names which precede
analysis show the natures of things, as far as they can be shown;
--
Soc. But are these the only primary names, or are there others?
Her. There must be others.
--
and we must see whether the primary, and also whether the secondary
elements are rightly given or not, for if they are not, the
--
only be explained by the primary. Clearly then the professor of
languages should be able to give a very lucid explanation of first
Diamond Sutra 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Turned his awareness to what was before him: Elsewhere in the Maha Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Buddha begins his discourses after entering what is called the King of Samadhis, or Deepest of Trances. Here, in keeping with the tenor of this more down-to-earth discourse, the Buddha simply practices mindfulness. Normally four subjects of mindfulness are distinguished as an essential part of meditation. The first of these is kaya-smirti-upasthana (mindfulness of the body). The others are mindfulness regarding vedana (sensations), citta (thoughts), and dharma (dharmas). All of these are dealt with in the chapters that follow, but here the text specifies pratimukhim-smirtim-upasthapya, where pratimukhi simply refers to whatever is present, whatever one is facing. Since the primary subject of this sutra is the nature of the buddhas body, this can be viewed as the beginning of a meditation on the body of reality, which is the Buddhas true body, his dharma body. Kumarajiva alone among translators omits any mention of the Buddhas practice of mindfulness here.
Taken together, the Buddhas actions in this first chapter represent the Six Paramitas, or
DM 2 - How to Meditate, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
One of the primary characteristics of the natural morality which emerges from within us as part of our rising inner silence is the quality of love. So, while we are becoming more resilient, creative and strong, we are also becoming more caring and compassionate. Our ability to give expands, because we have more available within ourselves.
All of these qualities rise naturally by engaging in daily deep meditation, which purifies our nervous system so our latent divine nature can begin to express through us.
DS3, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Te-ching says, The primary method taught by the Buddha to liberate beings is to realize that there
is no self. Once there is a self, the other concepts follow. In liberating beings, a bodhisattva should
DS4, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
renderings hardly do skandha justice. The primary meaning of skandha is not a pile but a body
minus its appendages. The word is derived from the root skand, meaning to ejaculate (semen), and
ENNEAD 01.02 - Concerning Virtue., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
We may therefore unhesitatingly state that the resemblance to the divinity lies in such regulation, in remaining261 impassible while thinking intelligible things; for what is pure is divine and the nature of the divine action is such that whatever imitates it thereby possesses wisdom. But it is not the divinity that possesses such a disposition, for dispositions are the property of souls only. Besides, the soul does not think intelligible objects in the same manner as the divinity; what is contained in the divinity is contained within us in a manner entirely different, or even perhaps is not at all contained. For instance, the divinity's thought is not at all identical with ours; the divinity's thought is a primary principle from which our thought is derived and differs. As the vocal word is only the image of the interior reason341 of the soul, so also is the word of the soul only the image of the Word of a superior principle; and as the exterior word, when compared to the interior reason of the soul, seems discrete, or divided, so the reason of the soul, which is no more than the interpreter of the intelligible word, is discrete, in comparison with the latter. Thus does virtue belong to the soul without belonging either to absolute Intelligence, nor to the Principle superior to Intelligence.
PURIFICATION PRODUCES CONVERSION; AND VIRTUE MAKES USE OF THIS.
ENNEAD 01.04 - Whether Animals May Be Termed Happy., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Our own definition of the Good, interested as we are not in its cause, but in its essence, is that the perfect life, that is genuine and real, consists in intelligence. The other kinds of life are imperfect. They offer no more than the image of life. They are not Life in its fulness and purity. As we have often said they are not life, rather than its contrary. In one word, since all living beings are derived from one and the same Principle, and since they do not possess an equal degree of life, this principle must necessarily be the primary Life, and perfectness.
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ENNEAD 01.08 - Of the Nature and Origin of Evils., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
A. primary AND SECONDARY EVIL.
A DEFINITION OF EVIL BY CONTRAST WITH THE GOOD.
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All these beautiful things exist as far as He does; but He is the one Principle that possesses supreme beauty, a principle that is superior to the things that are best. He reigns royally,162 in the intelligible world, being Intelligence itself, very differently from what we call human intelligences. The latter indeed are all occupied with propositions, discussions about the meanings of words, reasonings, examinations of the validity of conclusions, observing the concatenation of causes, being incapable of possessing truth "a priori," and though they be intelligences, being devoid of all ideas before having been instructed by experience; though they, nevertheless, were intelligences. Such is not the primary Intelligence. On the contrary, it possesses all things. Though remaining within itself, it is all things; it possesses all things, without possessing them (in the usual acceptation of that term); the things that subsist in it not differing from it, and not being separated from each other. Each one of them is all the others,163 is everything and everywhere, although not confounded with other things, and remaining distinct therefrom.
1144
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THE primary EVIL IS EVIL IN ITSELF.
Reason, therefore, forces us to recognize as the primary evil, Evil in itself.169 (This is matter which is) the subject of figure, form, determination, and limitation; which owes its ornaments to others, which has nothing good in itself, which is but a vain image by comparison with the real beingsin other word, the essence of evil, if such an essence can exist.
MATTER AS THE SECONDARY EVIL.
4. So far as the nature of bodies participates in matter, it is an evil; yet it could not be the primary Evil, for it has a certain form. Nevertheless, this form possesses no reality, and is, besides, deprived of life (?); for bodies corrupt each other mutually. Being agitated by an unregulated movement, they hinder the1147 soul from carrying out her proper movement. They are in a perpetual flux, contrary to the immutable nature of essences; therefore, they constitute the secondary evil.
THE SOUL IS NOT EVIL BY HERSELF, BUT MAY DEGENERATE BY LOOKING AT DARKNESS.
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5. Since the lack of good is the cause that the soul looks at darkness, and mingles therewith, the lack of good and darkness is primary Evil for the soul. The secondary evil will be the darkness, and the nature of evil, considered not in matter, but before matter. Evil consists not in the lack of any particular thing, but of everything in general. Nothing is evil merely because it lacks a little of being good; its nature might still be perfect. But what, like matter, lacks good entirely, is essentially evil, and possesses nothing good? Nature, indeed, does not possess essence, or it would participate in the good; only by verbal similarity can we say that matter "is," while we can truly say that matter "is" absolute "nonentity." A mere lack (of good) therefore, may be characterized as not being good; but complete lack is evil; while a lack of medium intensity consists in the possibility of falling into evil, and is already an evil. Evil, therefore, is not any particular evil, as injustice, or any special vice; evil is that which is not yet anything of that, being nothing definite. Injustice and the other vices must be considered as kinds of evil, distinguished from each other by mere accidents;1149 as for instance, what occurs by malice. Besides, the different kinds of evil differ among each other either by the matter in which evil resides, or by the parts of the soul to which it refers, as sight, desire, and passion.
RELATION BETWEEN EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL EVIL.
--
DEFINITION OF primary AND SECONDARY EVIL.
In short, the primary Evil is that which by itself lacks measure. The secondary evil is that which accidentally becomes formless, either by assimilation or participation. In the front rank is the darkness; in the second that which has become obscured. Thus vice, being in the soul the result of ignorance and formlessness, is of secondary rank. It is not absolute Evil, because, on its side, virtue is not absolute Good; it is good only by its assimilation and participation with the Good.
B. BY WHAT PART OF OUR NATURE WE COME TO KNOW EVIL.
ENNEAD 02.03 - Whether Astrology is of any Value., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
6. Is it not unreasonable to assert that Mars, or Venus, in a certain position, should produce adulteries? Such a statement attri butes to them incontinence such as occurs only among man, and human passion to satisfy unworthy impulses. Or again, how could we believe that the aspects of planets is favorable when they regard each other in a certain manner? How can we avoid believing that their nature is determinate? What sort of an existence would be led by the planets if they occupied themselves with each single one of the innumerable ever-arising and passing beings, giving them each glory, wealth, poverty, or incontinence, and impelling all their actions? How could the single planets effect so many simultaneous results? Nor is it any more rational to suppose that the planets' actions await the ascensions of the signs, nor to say that the ascension of a sign contains as many years as there are degrees of ascension in it. Absurd also is the theory that the planets calculate, as it were on1172 their fingers, the period of time when they are to accomplish something, which before was forbidden. Besides, it is an error not to trace to a single principle the government of the universe, attri buting everything to the stars, as if there were not a single Chief from which depends the universe, and who distributes to every being a part and functions suitable to its nature. To fail to recognize Him, is to destroy the order of which we form a part, it is to ignore the nature of the world, which presupposes a primary cause, a principle by whose activity everything is interpenetrated.211
THE STARS ARE CHANGING SIGNS BETRAYING THE UNIVERSAL CONSPIRACY OF PURPOSE.
ENNEAD 02.04a - Of Matter., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
The difference that is in the intelligible world ever produces matter; for, in that world, it is the difference that is the principle of matter, as well as of primary motion. That is why the latter is also called difference, because difference and primary motion were born simultaneously.286
The movement and difference, that proceed from the First (the Good), are indeterminate, and need it, to be determinate. Now they determine each other when they turn towards it. Formerly, matter was as indeterminate as difference; it was not good because it was not yet illuminated by the radiance of the First. Since the First is the source of all light, the object that receives light from the First does not203 always possess light; this object differs from light, and possesses light as something alien, because it derives light from some other source. That is the nature of matter as contained in intelligible (entities). Perhaps this treatment of the subject is longer than necessary.
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6. Now let us speak of bodies. The mutual transformation of elements demonstrates that they must have a substrate. Their transformation is not a complete destruction; otherwise (a general) "being"287 would perish in nonentity. Whereas, what is begotten would have passed from absolute nonentity to essence; and all change is no more than the passing of one form into another (as thought Aristotle).288 It presupposes the existence of permanent (subject) which would receive the form of begotten things only after having lost the earlier form. This is demonstrated by destruction, which affects only something composite; therefore every dissolved object must have been a composite. Dissolution proves it also. For instance, where a vase is dissolved, the result is gold; on being dissolved, gold leaves water; and so analogy would suggest that the dissolution of water would result in something else, that is analogous to its nature. Finally, elements necessarily are either form, or primary matter, or the composites of form and matter. However, they cannot be form, because, without matter, they could not possess either mass nor magnitude. Nor can they be primary matter, because they are subject to destruction. They must therefore be composites of form and matter; form constituting their shape and quality, and matter a substrate that is indeterminate, because it is not a form.
204
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(Our answer to the above objection is this:) To begin with, not every residence is necessarily a mass, unless it have already received extension. The soul, which possesses all things, contains them all simultaneously. If it possessed extension, it would possess all things in extension. Consequently matter receives all it contains in extension, because it is capable thereof. Likewise in animals and plants there is a correspondence between the growth and diminution of their magnitude, with that of their quality. It would be wrong to claim that magnitude is necessary to matter because, in sense-objects, there exists a previous magnitude, on which is exerted the action of the forming principle; for the matter of these objects is not pure matter, but individual matter (as said Aristotle).302 Matter pure and simple must receive its extension from some other principle. Therefore the residence of form could not be a mass; for in receiving extension, it would also receive the other qualities. Matter therefore, is the image of extension, because as it is primary matter, it possesses the ability to become extended. People often imagine matter as empty extension; consequently several philosophers have claimed that matter is identical with emptiness. I repeat: matter is the image of extension because the soul, when considering matter, is unable to determine anything, spreads into indetermination, without being able to circumscribe or mark anything; otherwise, matter would determine something. This substrate could not properly be called big or little; it is simultaneously big and little (as said Aristotle).303 It is simultaneously extended and non-extended, because it is the matter of extension. If it were enlarged or made smaller, it would somehow move in extension. Its indetermination is an extension which consists in being the very residence of extension,211 but really in being only imaginary extension, as has been explained above. Other beings, that have no extension, but which are forms, are each of them determinate, and consequently imply no other idea of extension. On the contrary, matter, being indeterminate, and incapable of remaining within itself, being moved to receive all forms everywhere, ever being docile, by this very docility, and by the generation (to which it adapts itself), becomes manifold. It is in this way its nature seems to be extension.
POLEMIC AGAINST MODERATUS OF GADES, FORMS DEMAND A RESIDENCE, VASE, or LOCATION.
ENNEAD 02.09 - Against the Gnostics; or, That the Creator and the World are Not Evil., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
1. We have already seen276 that the nature of the Good is simple and primary, for nothing that is not primary could be simple. We have also demonstrated that the nature of the Good contains nothing in itself, but is something unitary, the very nature of the One; for in itself the One is not some thing to which unity could be added, any more than the Good in itself is some thing to which goodness could be added. Consequently, as both the One and the Good are simplicity itself, when we speak of the One and the Good, these two words express but one and the same nature; they affirm nothing, and only represent it to us so far as possible. This nature is called the First, because it is very simple, and not composite; it is the absolute as self-sufficient, because it is not composite; otherwise it would depend on the things of which it was composed. Neither is it predicable of anything (as an attribute in a subject) for all that is in another thing comes from something else. If then this nature be not in anything else, nor is derived from anything else, if it contain nothing composite, it must not have anything above it.
600
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6. We hardly know what to say of the other new conceptions they have injected into the universe, such as exiles,308 antitypes,309 and repentances.310 If by609 "repentances" and "exiles" they mean certain states of the Soul (in the normal meaning of the word, where a soul) yields to repentance; and if by "antitypes" they mean the images of the intelligible beings that the Soul contemplates before contemplating the intelligible beings themselves, they are using meaningless words, invented merely as catchwords and terms for their individual sect; for they imagine such fictions merely because they have failed clearly to understand the ancient wisdom of the Greeks. Before them the Greeks, clearly and simply, had spoken of "ascensions" of souls that issued from the "cavern," and which insensibly rise to a truer contemplation. The doctrines of these (Gnostics) are partly stolen from Plato, while the remainder, which were invented merely to form their own individual system, are innovations contrary to truth. It is from Plato that they borrowed their judgments, the rivers of Hades.311 They do speak of several intelligible principles, such as essence, intelligence, the second demiurgic creator or universal Soul; but all that comes from Plato's Timaeus,312 which says, "Likewise as the ideas contained in the existing Organism were seen by Intelligence, so he [the creator of this universe313] thought that the latter should contain similar and equally numerous (natures)." But, not clearly understanding Plato, the Gnostics here imagined (three principles), an intelligence at rest, which contains all (beings), a second intelligence that contemplates them (as they occur) in the first intelligence, and a third intelligence that thinks them discursively. They often consider this discursive intelligence as the creative soul, and they consider this to be the demiurgic creator mentioned by Plato, because they were entirely ignorant of the true nature of this demiurgic creator. In general, they alter entirely the idea of creation, as well as many other doctrines of Plato, and they give out an entirely610 erroneous interpretation thereof. They imagine that they alone have rightly conceived of intelligible nature, while Plato and many other divine intellects never attained thereto. By speaking of a multitude of intelligible principles, they think that they seem to possess an exact knowledge thereof, while really they degrade them, assimilating them to lower, and sensual beings, by increasing their number.314 The principles that exist on high must be reduced to the smallest number feasible; we must recognize that the principle below the First contains all (the essences), and so deny the existence of any intelligible (entities) outside of it, inasmuch as it contains all beings, by virtue of its being primary "Being," of primary Intelligence, and of all that is beautiful beneath the First Himself. The Soul must be assigned to the third rank. The differences obtaining between souls must further be explained by the difference of their conditions or nature.315
THE GNOSTICS MAY WELL BORROW FROM THE GREEKS, BUT SHOULD NOT DEPRECIATE THEM.
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The differences between the universal Soul and our (human) souls are very important. To begin with, the universal Soul does not govern the world in the same manner (as our soul governs the body); for she governs the world without being bound thereto. Besides many other differences elsewhere noted,324 we were bound to the body after the formation of a primary bond.325 In the universal Soul the nature that is bound to the body (of the world) binds all that it embraces; but the universal Soul herself is not bound by the things she binds. As she dominates them, she is impassible in respect to them, while we ourselves do not dominate exterior objects. Besides, that part of the universal Soul which rises to the intelligible world remains pure and independent; even that326 which communicates life to the body (of the world) receives nothing therefrom. In general what is in another being necessarily participates in the state of that being; but a principle which has its own individual life would not receive anything from any other source.327 That is why, when one thing is located within another, it feels the experiences of the latter, but does not any the less retain its individual life in the event of the destruction of the latter. For instance, if the fire within yourself be extinguished, that would not extinguish the universal fire; even if the latter were extinguished, the universal Soul would not feel it, and only the constitution of the body (of the world) would be affected thereby. If a world exclusively composed613 of the remaining three elements were a possibility, that would be of no importance to the universal Soul, because the world does not have a constitution similar that of each of the contained organisms. On high, the universal Soul soars above the world, and thereby imposes on it a sort of permanence; here below, the parts, which as it were flow off, are maintained in their place by a second bond.328 As celestial entities have no place (outside of the world), into which they might ooze out,329 there is no need of containing them from the interior, nor of compressing them from without to force them back within; they subsist in the location where the universal Soul placed them from the beginning. Those which naturally move modify the beings which possess no natural motion.330 They carry out well arranged revolutions because they are parts of the universe. Here below there are beings which perish because they cannot conform to the universal order. For instance, if a tortoise happened to be caught in the midst of a choric ballet that was dancing in perfect order, it would be trodden under foot because it could not withdraw from the effects of the order that regulated the feet of the dancers; on the contrary, if it conformed to that order, it would suffer no harm.
GNOSTIC DEMANDS FOR REASON OF WORLD'S CREATION ARE IDLE, AND INVOLVE STILL LARGER QUESTIONS.
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9. No one would complain of poverty and the unequal distribution of wealth if one realized that the sage does not seek equality in such things, because he does not consider that the rich man has any advantage over the poor man, the prince over the subject.344 The sage leaves such opinions to commonplace people, for he knows that there are two kinds of life; that of the virtuous who achieve the supreme degree (of perfection) and the intelligible world, and that of common earthly men. Even the latter life is double; for though at times they do think of virtue, and participate somewhat in the good, at other times they form only a vile crowd, and are only machines, destined to satisfy the primary needs of virtuous people.345 There is no reason to be surprised at a man committing a murder, or, through weakness, yielding to his passions, when souls, that behave like young, inexperienced persons, not indeed like intelligences, daily behave thus. It has been said346 that this life is a struggle in which one is either victor or vanquished. But is not this very condition a proof of good arrangement? What does it matter if you are wronged, so long as you are immortal? If you be killed, you achieve the fate that you desired. If you have reason to complain of how you are treated in some particular city, you can leave it.347 Besides, even here below, there evidently are rewards and punishments. Why then complain of a society within which distributive justice is exercised, where virtue is honored, and where vice meets its deserved punishment348?
MOREOVER THIS WORLD CONTAINS TRADITIONS OF DIVINITY.
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Indeed, if we examine attentively that in which this illumination of the darkness consists, the (Gnostics) may be led to a recognition of the true principles of the world. Why was the production of this illumination of the darkness necessary, if its existence was not absolutely unavoidable? This necessity (of an illumination of the darkness) was either in conformity with, or in opposition to nature. If it conformed thereto, it must have been so from all time; if it were625 contrary thereto, something contrary to nature would have happened to the divine powers, and evil would be prior to the world. Then it would no longer be the world that was the cause of evil (as the Gnostics claim), but the divine powers. The world is not the principle of evil for the soul, but it is the soul that is the principle of evil for the world. Ascending from cause to cause, reason will relate this world to the primary principles.
EVEN THE EXISTENCE OF THE DARKNESS MUST BE RELATED TO THE SOUL.
ENNEAD 03.01 - Concerning Fate., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
2. To stop, on arriving at these causes, and to refuse further analysis, is to exhibit superficiality. This is against the advice of the sages, who advise ascending to the primary causes, to the supreme principles. For example, why, during the full moon, should the one man steal, and the other one not steal? Or, why, under the same influence of the heavens, has the one, and not the other, been sick? Why, by use of the same means, has the one become rich, and the other poor? The difference of dispositions, characters, and fortunes force us to seek ulterior causes, as indeed the sages have always done.
MATERIALISTS SUPPORT DETERMINISM.
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4. But might (Heraclitus) suppose that a single Soul interpenetrating the universe produces everything, and by supplying the universe with motion supplies it simultaneously to all its constituent beings, so that from this primary cause, would necessarily flow all secondary causes, whose sequence and connection would constitute Fate? Similarly, in a plant, for instance, the plant's fate might be constituted by the ("governing") principle which, from the root, administers its other parts, and which organizes into a single system their "actions" and "reactions."104
THIS WOULD INTERFERE WITH SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND RESPONSIBILITY.
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9. All things therefore, which result either from a choice by the soul, or from exterior circumstances, are98 "necessary," or determined by a cause. Could anything, indeed, be found outside of these causes? If we gather into one glance all the causes we admit, we find the principles that produce everything, provided we count, amidst external causes, the influence exercised by the course of the stars. When a soul makes a decision, and carries it out because she is impelled thereto by external things, and yields to a blind impulse, we should not consider her determination and action to be free. The soul is not free when, perverting herself, she does not make decisions which direct her in the straight path. On the contrary, when she follows her own guide, pure and impassible reason, her determination is really voluntary, free and independent, and the deed she performs is really her own work, and not the consequence of an exterior impulse; she derives it from her inner power, her pure being, from the primary and sovereign principle which directs her, being deceived by no ignorance, nor vanquished by the power of appetites; for when the appetites invade the soul, and subdue her, they drag her with them by their violence, and she is rather "passive" than "active" in what she does.
THE SOUL OBEYS FATE ONLY WHEN EVIL.
ENNEAD 03.05 - Of Love, or Eros., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
3. We are therefore forced to acknowledge that Love is a hypostasis and is "being," which no doubt is inferior to the Being from which it (emanates, that is, from celestial Venus, or the celestial Soul), but which, nevertheless, still possesses "being." In fact, that celestial Soul is a being born of the activity which is superior to her (the primary Being), a living Being, emanating from the primary Being, and attached to the contemplation thereof. In it she discovers the first object of her contemplation, she fixes her glance on it, as her good; and finds in this view a source of joy. The seen object attracts her attention so that, by the joy she feels, by the ardent attention characterizing1128 her contemplation of its object, she herself begets something worthy of her and of the spectacle she enjoys. Thus is Love born from the attention with which the soul applies herself to the contemplation of its object, and from the very emanation of this object; and so Love is an eye full of the object it contemplates, a vision united to the image which it forms. Thus Love (Eros) seems to owe its name to its deriving its existence from vision.127 Even when considered as passion does Love owe its name to the same fact, for Love-that-is-a-being is anterior to Love-that-is-not-a-being. However much we may explain passion as love, it is, nevertheless, ever the love of some object, and is not love in an absolute sense.
CELESTIAL LOVE MUST ABIDE IN THE INTELLIGIBLE WITH THE CELESTIAL SOUL.
ENNEAD 03.06 - Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Entities (Soul and and Matter)., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
4. Let us now pass to that part of the soul that is called the "passional" (or, affective). We have already mentioned it,42 when treating of all the "passions" (that is, affections), which were related to the irascible-part and appetitive part of the soul; but we are going to return to a study of this part, and explain its name, the "passional" (or, affective) part. It is so called because it seems to be the part affected by the "passions;"43 that is, experiences accompanied by pleasure or pain.44 Amidst these affections, some are born of opinion; thus, we feel fear or joy, according as we expect to die, or as we hope to attain some good; then the "opinion" is in the soul, and the "affection" in the body. On the contrary, other passions, occurring in an unforeseen way, give rise to opinion in that part of the soul to which this function belongs, but do not cause any alteration within her, as we have already explained. Nevertheless, if, on examining unexpected fear, we follow it up higher, we discover that it still357 contains opinion as its origin, implying some apprehension in that part of the soul that experiences fear, as a result of which occur the trouble and stupor which accompany the expectation of evil. Now it is to the soul that belongs imagination, both the primary imagination that we call opinion, and the (secondary) imagination that proceeds from the former; for the latter is no longer genuine opinion, but an inferior power, an obscure opinion, a confused imagination which resembles the action characteristic of nature, and by which this power produces each thing, as we say, unimaginatively.45 Its resulting sense-agitation occurs within the body. To it relate trembling, palpitation, paleness, and inability to speak. Such modifications, indeed, could not be referred to any part of the soul; otherwise, such part of the soul would be physical. Further, if such part of the soul underwent such affections these modifications would not reach the body; for that affected part of the soul would no longer be able to exercise its functions, being dominated by passion, and thus incapacitated.
THE SOUL'S AFFECTIVE PART MAY BE THE CAUSE OF AFFECTIONS; BUT IS INCORPOREAL.
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IF MATTER WERE A primary PRINCIPLE, IT WOULD BE THE FORM OF THE UNIVERSE, SUCH AS SOUL IS.
As the soul possesses the forms of beings, and as she herself is a form, she possesses all things simultaneously.89383 Containing all the forms, and besides seeing the forms of sense-objects turning towards her, and approaching her, she is not willing to accept them, along with their manifoldness. She considers them only after making abstractions of their mass; for the soul could not become other than she is.90 But as matter does not have the strength to resist, possessing as it does no special characteristic activity, and being no more than an adumbration, matter yields to everything that active power proposes to inflict on it. Besides, that which proceeds from intelligible (nature) possesses already a trace of what is to be produced in matter. That is how discursive reason which moves within the sphere of representative imagination, or the movement produced by reason, implies division; for if reason remained within unity and identity, it would not move, but remain at rest. Besides, not as the soul does, can matter receive all forms simultaneously; otherwise it would be a form. As it must contain all things, without however containing them in an indivisible manner, it is necessary that, serving as it does as location for all things, it should extend towards all of them, everywhere offering itself to all of them, avoiding no part of space, because it is not restricted within any boundary of space, and because it is always ready to receive what is to be. How then does it happen that one thing, on entering into matter, does not hinder the entrance of other things, which, however, cannot co-exist with the former thing? The reason is that matter is not a first principle. Otherwise, it would be the very form of the universe. Such a form, indeed, would be both all things simultaneously, and each thing in particular. Indeed the matter of the living being is divided as are the very parts of the living being; otherwise nothing but reason91 would exist.
ENNEAD 03.06 - Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Things., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
10. (7) According to the ancient (sages) such are the properties of matter. "Matter is incorporeal because it differs from bodies. Matter is not lifeless, because it is neither intelligence, nor soul, nor anything that lives by itself. It is formless, variable, infinite, impotent; consequently, matter cannot be existence, but nonentity. Of course it is not nonentity in the same way that movement is nonentity; matter is nonentity really. It is an image and a phantom of extension, because it is the primary substrate of extension. It is impotence, and the desire for existence.1224 The only reason that it persists is not rest (but change); it always seems to contain contraries, the great and small, the less and more, lack and excess. It is always "becoming," without ever persisting in its condition, or being able to come out of it. Matter is the lack of all existence; and, consequently, what matter seems to be is a deception. If, for instance, matter seems to be large, it really is small; like a mere phantom, it escapes and evanesces into nonentity, not by any change of place, but by its lack of reality. Consequently, the substrate of the images in matter consists of a lower image. That in which objects present appearances that differ according to their positions is a mirror, a mirror that seems crowded, though it possesses nothing, and which yet seems to be everything."
OF THE PASSIBILITY OF THE BODY (819).
ENNEAD 03.07 - Of Time and Eternity., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
THE primary MOVEMENT OF INTELLIGENCE THE INFORMING POWER OF TIME.
(Some objector might ask) why we reduce the movement of the universe to the movement of the containing Soul, and admit that she is within time, while we exclude from time the (universal) Soul's movement, which subsists within her, and perpetually passes from one actualization to another? The reason is that above the activity of the Soul there exists nothing but eternity, which shares neither her movement nor her extension. Thus the primary movement (of Intelligence) finds its goal in time, begets it, and by its activity informs its duration.
WHY TIME IS PRESENT EVERYWHERE; POLEMIC AGAINST ANTIPHANES AND CRITOLAUS.
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THE MOVEMENT OF THE SOUL IS ATTRIBUTED TO THE primary MOVEMENT.
To what shall the movement of the (universal) Soul be attri buted? To whatever we may choose to attri bute it. This will always be some indivisible principle, such as primary Motion, which within its duration contains all the others, and is contained by none other;466 for it cannot be contained by anything; it is therefore genuinely primary. The same obtains with the universal Soul.
APPROVAL OF ARISTOTLE: TIME IS ALSO WITHIN US.
ENNEAD 03.08b - Of Nature, Contemplation and Unity., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
But what is this Principle, and how are we to conceive it? It must be either intelligent or not intelligent. If it be intelligent, it will also be Intelligence. If it be not intelligent, it will be unconscious of itself, and will not be in any way venerable. Though true, it would not be clear or perspicuous to say that it is the Good itself, since we do not yet have an object on which we could fasten our thought when we speak of it. Besides, since the knowledge of the other objects in all beings who can know something intelligent, occurs through Intelligence and lies in Intelligence, by what rapid intellection (or intuition) could we grasp this Principle that is superior to Intelligence? We may answer, by that part of us which resembles it; for there is in us something of it; or rather, it is in all things that participate in Him. Everywhere you approach the Good, that which in you can participate receives something of it. Take the illustration of a voice in a desert, and the human ears that may be located there. Wherever you listen to this voice, you will grasp it entirely in one sense, and not entirely in another sense. How then would we grasp something by approximating our intelligence (to the Good)? To see up there the Principle it seeks, Intelligence must, so to speak, return backwards, and, forming a duality, it must somehow exceed itself; that means, it would have to cease being the Intelligence of all intelligible things. Indeed, intelligence is primary life, and penetration of all things, not (as the soul does) by a still actualizing movement,194 but by a movement which is ever already accomplished and past.195 Therefore, if Intelligence be life, which is the penetration of all things, if it possess all things distinctly, without confusion for otherwise546 it would possess them in an imperfect and incomplete mannerit must necessarily proceed from a superior Principle which, instead of being in motion, is the principle of motion (by which Intelligence runs through all things), of life, of intelligence, and of all things. The Principle of all things could not be all things, it is only their origin. Itself is neither all things, nor any particular thing, because it begets everything; neither is it a multitude, for it is the principle of multitude. Indeed that which begets is always simpler than that which is begotten. Therefore if this principle beget Intelligence, it necessarily is simpler than Intelligence. On the theory that it is both one and all, we have an alternative, that it is all things because it is all things at once, or that it is everything individually. On the one hand, if it be all things at once, it will be posterior to all things; if on the contrary it be prior to all things, it will be different from all things. For if the One co-existed with all things, the One would not be a principle; but the One must be a principle, and must exist anteriorly to all things, if all things are to originate from it. On the other hand, if we say that the One is each particular thing, it will thereby be identical with every particular thing; later it will be all things at once, without being able to discern anything. Thus the One is none of these particular things, being prior to all things.
THE SUPREME IS THE POTENTIALITY OF ALL THINGS, ABOVE ALL ACTUALIZATION.
10. (9). This Principle then is the potentiality of all.196 Without it, nothing would exist, not even Intelligence, which is the primary and universal life. Indeed what is above life is the cause of life. The actualization of life, being all things, is not the first Principle; it flows from this Principle as (water) from a spring.
547
ENNEAD 04.02 - How the Soul Mediates Between Indivisible and Divisible Essence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Thus the absolutely divisible (essence) does not exist alone; there is another one located immediately beneath it, and derived from it. On one hand, this inferior (essence) participates in the indivisibility of its principle; on the other, it descends towards another nature by its procession. Thereby it occupies a position intermediary between indivisible and primary (essence), (that is, intelligence), and the divisible (essence) which is in the bodies. Besides it is not in the same condition of existence as color and the other qualities; for though the latter be the same in all corporeal masses, nevertheless the quality in one body is completely separate from that in another, just as physical masses themselves are separate from each other. Although (by its essence) the magnitude of these bodies be one, nevertheless that which thus is identical in each part does not exert that community of affection which constitutes sympathy,355 because to identity is added difference. This is the case because identity is only a simple modification of bodies, and not a "being." On the contrary, the nature that approaches the absolutely indivisible "Being" is a genuine "being" (such as is the soul). It is true that she unites with the bodies and consequently divides with them; but that happens to her only when she communicates herself to the bodies. On the other hand, when she unites with the bodies, even with the greatest and most279 extended of all (the world), she does not cease to be one, although she yield herself up to it entirely.
DIVISION AS THE PROPERTY OF BODIES, BUT NOT THE CHARACTERISTIC OF SOUL.
ENNEAD 04.06a - Of Sensation and Memory., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
In general the sensation of sight consists of perception of the visible object, and by sight we attain it in830 the place where the object is placed before our eyes, as if the perception operated in that very place, and as if the soul saw outside of herself. This occurs, I think, without any image being produced nor producing itself outside of the soul, without the soul receiving any impression similar to that imparted by the seal to the wax. Indeed, if the soul already in herself possessed the image of the visible object, the mere possession of this image (or type) would free her from the necessity of looking outside of herself. The calculation of the distance of the object's location, and visibility proves that the soul does not within herself contain the image of the object. In this case, as the object would not be distant from her, the soul would not see it as located at a distance. Besides, from the image she would receive from within herself, the soul could not judge of the size of the object, or even determine whether it possessed any magnitude at all. For instance, taking as an example the sky, the image which the soul would develop of it would not be so great (as it is, when the soul is surprised at the sky's extent). Besides, there is a further objection, which is the most important of all. If we perceive only the images of the objects we see, instead of seeing the objects themselves, we would see only their appearances or adumbrations. Then the realities would differ from the things that we see. The true observation that we cannot discern an object placed upon the pupil, though we can see it at some little distance, applies with greater cogency to the soul. If the image of the visible object be located within her, she will not see the object that yields her this image. We have to distinguish two things, the object seen, and the seeing subject; consequently, the subject that sees the visible object must be distinct from it, and see it as located elsewhere than within itself. The primary condition of the act of vision therefore is, not that the831 image of the object be located in the soul, but that it be located outside of the soul.
SENSATIONS ARE NOT EXPERIENCES, BUT RELATIVE ACTUALIZATIONS.
ENNEAD 04.07 - Of the Immortality of the Soul: Polemic Against Materialism., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
The proof that bodies are activated only by incorporeal faculties may be proved as follows: Quantity and quality are two different things. Every body has a quantity, but not always a quality, as in the case of71 matter, (according to the Stoic definition, that it was a body without quality, but possessing magnitude63). Granting this, (you Stoic) will also be forced to admit that as quality is something different from quantity, it must consequently be different from the body. Since then every body has a quantity, how could quality, which is no quantity, be a body? Besides, as we said above,64 every body and mass is altered by division; nevertheless, when a body is cut into pieces, every part preserves the entire quality without undergoing alteration. For instance, every molecule of honey, possesses the quality of sweetness as much as all the molecules taken together; consequently that sweetness cannot be corporeal; and other qualities must be in a similar case. Moreover, if the active powers were corporeal, they would have to have a material mass proportional to their strength or weakness. Now there are great masses that have little force, and small ones that have great force; demonstrating that power does not depend on extension, and should be attri buted to some (substance) without extension. Finally, you may say that matter is identical with body, and produces different beings only by receiving different qualities (the Stoics considering that even the divinity was no more than modified matter, their two principles being matter and quality;65 the latter, however, was also considered as body). How do you (Stoics) not see that qualities thus added to matter are reasons, that are primary and immaterial? Do not object that when the spirit (breath) and blood abandon animals, they cease to live; for if these things are necessary to life, there are for our life many other necessities, even during the presence of the soul (as thought Nemesius).66 Besides, neither spirit nor blood are distributed to every part of the body.
72
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(11). (If, as Stoics claim, man first was a certain nature called habit,70 then a soul, and last an intelligence, the perfect would have arisen from the imperfect, which is impossible). To say that the first nature of the soul is to be a spirit, and that this spirit became soul only after having been exposed to cold, and as it were became soaked by its contact, because the cold subtilized it;71 this is an absurd hypothesis. Many animals are born in warm places, and do not have their soul exposed to action of cold. Under this hypothesis, the primary nature of the soul would have been made dependent on the concourse of exterior circumstances. The Stoics, therefore, posit as principle that which is less perfect (the soul), and trace it to a still less perfect earlier thing called habit (or form of inorganic things).72 Intelligence, therefore, is posited in the last rank since it is alleged to be born of the soul, while, on the contrary, the first rank should be assigned to intelligence, the second to the soul, the third to nature, and, following natural order, consider that which is less perfect as the posterior element. In this system the divinity, by the mere fact of his possessing intelligence, is posterior and begotten, possessing only an incidental intelligence. The result would, therefore, be that there was neither soul, nor intelligence, nor divinity; for never can that which is potential pass to the condition of actualization, without the prior existence of some actualized principle. If what is potential were to transform itself into actualizationwhich is absurdits passage into actualization will have to involve at the74 very least a contemplation of something which is not merely potential, but actualized. Nevertheless, on the hypothesis that what is potential can permanently remain identical, it will of itself pass into actualization, and will be superior to the being which is potential only because it will be the object of the aspiration of such a being. We must, therefore, assign the first rank to the being that has a perfect and incorporeal nature, which is always in actualization. Thus intelligence and soul are prior to nature; the soul, therefore, is not a spirit, and consequently no body. Other reasons for the incorporeality of the soul have been advanced; but the above suffices (as thought Aristotle).73
II. THE SOUL IS NEITHER THE HARMONY NOR ENTELECHY OF THE BODYTHE SOUL IS THE HARMONY OF THE BODY; AGAINST THE PYTHAGOREANS.
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9. (14). It is absolutely necessary to postulate the existence of a nature different from bodies, by itself fully possessing genuine existence, which can neither be born nor perish. Otherwise, all other things would hopelessly disappear, as a result of the destruction of the existence which preserves both the individuals and the universe, as their beauty and salvation. The soul, indeed, is the principle of movement (as Plato thought, in the Phaedrus); it is the soul that imparts movement to everything else; the soul moves herself. She imparts life to the body she animates; but alone she possesses life, without ever being subject to losing it, because she possesses it by herself. All beings, indeed,79 live only by a borrowed life; otherwise, we would have to proceed from cause to cause unto infinity. There must, therefore, exist a nature that is primarily alive, necessarily incorruptible and immortal because it is the principle of life for everything else. It is thereon that must be founded all that is divine and blessed, that lives and exists by itself, that lives and exists supremely, which is immutable in its essence, and which can neither be born nor perish. How indeed could existence be born or perish? If the name of "existence" really suited it, it must exist forever, just as whiteness is not alternately black and white. If whiteness were existence itself, it would, with its "being" (or nature) (which is, to be whiteness), possess an eternal existence; but, in reality, it is no more than whiteness. Therefore, the principle that possesses existence in itself and in a supreme degree will always exist. Now this primary and eternal existence can not be anything dead like a stone, or a piece of wood. It must live, and live with a pure life, as long as it exists within itself. If something of it mingles with what is inferior, this part meets obstacles in its aspiration to the good; but it does not lose its nature, and resumes its former condition on returning to a suitable condition (as thought Plato, in his Phaedo81).
THE SOUL IS INCORPOREAL BECAUSE OF HER KINSHIP WITH THE DIVINE.
ENNEAD 05.01 - The Three Principal Hypostases, or Forms of Existence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
1. How does it happen that souls forget their paternal divinity? Having a divine nature, and having originated from the divinity, how could they ever misconceive the divinity or themselves? The origin of their evil is "audacity,"216 generation, the primary diversity, and the desire to belong to none but themselves.217 As soon as they have enjoyed the pleasure of an independent life, and by largely making use of their power of self-direction, they advanced on the road that led them astray from their principle, and now they have arrived at such an "apostasy" (distance) from the Divinity, that they are even ignorant that they derive their life from Him. Like children that were separated from their family since birth, and that were long educated away from home finally lose knowledge of their parents and of themselves, so our souls, no longer seeing either the divinity or themselves, have become degraded by forgetfulness of their origin, have attached themselves to other objects, have admired anything rather than themselves, have like prodigals scattered their esteem and love on exterior objects, and have, by breaking the bond that united them to the divinities, disdainfully wandered away from it. Their ignorance of the divinity is therefore caused by excessive valuation of external objects, and their scorn174 of themselves. The mere admiration and quest after what is foreign implies, on the soul's part, an acknowledgment of self-depreciation. As soon as a soul thinks that she is worth less than that which is born and which perishes, and considers herself as more despicable and perishable than the object she admires, she could no longer even conceive of the nature and power of the divinity.
CONVERSION IS EFFECTED BY DEPRECIATION OF EXTERNALITIES, AND APPRECIATION OF THE SOUL HERSELF.
ENNEAD 05.03 - The Self-Consciousnesses, and What is Above Them., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
On one hand, therefore, intelligence, and on the other the intelligible and existence form but one and the same thing, namely, the primary existence and primary Intelligence, which possesses realities, or rather, which is identical with them. But if the thought-object and the thought together form but a single entity, how will the thinking object thus be able to think itself? Evidently thought will embrace the intelligible, or will be identical therewith; but we still do not see how intelligence is to think itself. Here we are: thought and the intelligible fuse into one because the intelligible is an actualization and not a1098 simple power; because life is neither alien nor incidental to it; because thought is not an accident for it, as it would be for a brute body, as for instance, for a stone; and, finally, because the intelligible is primary "being." Now, if the intelligible be an actualization, it is the primary actualization, the most perfect thought, or, "substantial thought." Now, as this thought is supremely true, as it is primary Thought, as it possesses existence in the highest degree, it is primary Intelligence. It is not, therefore, mere potential intelligence; there is no need to distinguish within it the potentiality from the actualization of thought; otherwise, its substantiality would be merely potential. Now since intelligence is an actualization, and as its "being" also is an actualization, it must fuse with its actualization. But existence and the intelligible also fuse with their actualization. Therefore105 intelligence, the intelligible, and thought will form but one and the same entity. Since the thought of the intelligible is the intelligible, and as the intelligible is intelligence, intelligence will thus think itself. Intelligence will think, by the actualization of the thought to which it is identical, the intelligible to which it also is identical. It will think itself, so far as it is thought; and in so far as it is the intelligible which it thinks by the thought to which it is identical.106
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS MORE PERFECT IN INTELLIGENCE THAN IN THE SOUL.
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We must, therefore, teach our soul how Intelligence contemplates itself. This has to be taught to that part of our soul which, because of its intellectual character, we call reason, or discursive intelligence, to indicate that it is a kind of intelligence, that it possesses its power by intelligence, and that it derives it from intelligence. This part of the soul must, therefore, know that it knows what it sees, that it knows what it expresses, and that, if it were identical with what it describes, it would thereby know itself. But since intelligible entities come to it from the same principle from which it itself comes, since it is a reason, and as it receives from intelligence entities that are kindred, by comparing them with the traces of intelligence it contains,1100 it must know itself. This image it contains must, therefore, be raised to true Intelligence, which is identical with the true intelligible entities, that is, to the primary and really true Beings; for it is impossible that this intelligence should originate from itself. If then intelligence remain in itself and with itself, if it be what it is (in its nature) to be, that is, intelligence for intelligence can never be unintelligentit must contain within it the knowledge of itself, since it does not issue from itself, and since its function and its "being" (or, true nature) consist in being no more than intelligence.106 It is not an intelligence that devotes itself to practical action, obliged to consider what is external to it, and to issue from itself to become cognizant of exterior things; for it is not necessary that an intelligence which devotes itself to action should know itself. As it does not give itself to actionfor, being pure, it has nothing to desireit operates a conversion towards itself, by virtue of which it is not only probable, but even necessary for it to know itself. Otherwise, what would its life consist of, inasmuch as it does not devote itself to action, and as it remains within itself?
WHATEVER INTELLIGENCE MAY BE THOUGHT TO DO, IT MUST KNOW ITSELF.
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8. What qualities does Intelligence display in the intelligible world? What qualities does it discover in itself by contemplation? To begin with, we must not form of Intelligence a conception showing a figure, or colors, like bodies. Intelligence existed before bodies. The "seminal reasons" which produce figure and color are not identical with them; for "seminal reasons" are invisible. So much the more are intelligible entities invisible; their nature is identical with that of the principles in which they reside, just as "seminal reasons" are identical with the soul that contains them. But the soul does not see the entities she contains, because she has not begotten them; even she herself, just like the "reasons," is no more than an image (of Intelligence). The principle from which she comes possesses an evident existence, that is genuine, and primary; consequently, that principle exists of and in itself. But this image (which is in the soul) is not even permanent unless it belong to something else, and reside therein. Indeed, the characteristic of an image is that it resides in something else, since it belongs to something else, unless it remain attached to its principle. Consequently, this image does not contemplate, because it does not possess a light that is sufficient; and even if it should contemplate, as it finds its perfection in something else, it would be contemplating something else, instead of contemplating itself. The same case does not obtain in Intelligence; there the contemplated entity and contemplation co-1103exist, and are identical. Who is it, therefore, that declares the nature of the intelligible? The power that contemplates it, namely, Intelligence itself. Here below our eyes see the light because our vision itself is light, or rather because it is united to light; for it is the colors that our vision beholds. On the contrary, Intelligence does not see through something else, but through itself, because what it sees is not outside of itself. It sees a light with another light, and not by another light; it, is therefore, a light that sees another; and, consequently, it sees itself. This light, on shining in the soul, illuminates her; that is, intellectualizes her; assimilates her to the superior light (namely, in Intelligence). If, by the ray with which this light enlightens the soul, we judge of the nature of this light and conceive of it as still greater, more beautiful, and more brilliant, we will indeed be approaching Intelligence and the intelligible world; for, by enlightening the soul, Intelligence imparts to her a clearer life. This life is not generative, because Intelligence converts the soul towards Intelligence; and, instead of allowing the soul to divide, causes the soul to love the splendor with which she is shining. Neither is this life one of the senses, for though the senses apply themselves to what is exterior, they do not, on that account, learn anything beyond (themselves). He who sees that superior light of the verities sees much better things that are visible, though in a different manner. It remains, therefore, that the Intelligence imparts to the soul the intellectual life, which is a trace of her own life; for Intelligence possesses the realities. It is in the life and the actualization which are characteristic of Intelligence that here consists the primary Light, which from the beginning,108 illumines itself, which reflects on itself, because it is simultaneously enlightener and enlightened; it is also the true intelligible entity, because it is also at the same time thinker and thought.1104 It sees itself by itself, without having need of anything else; it sees itself in an absolute manner, because, within it, the known is identical with the knower. It is not otherwise in us; it is by Intelligence that we know intelligence. Otherwise, how could we speak of it? How could we say that it was capable of clearly grasping itself, and that, by it, we understand ourselves? How could we, by these reasonings, to Intelligence reduce our soul which recognizes that it is the image of Intelligence, which considers its life a faithful imitation of the life of Intelligence, which thinks that, when it thinks, it assumes an intellectual and divine form? Should one wish to know which is this Intelligence that is perfect, universal and primary, which knows itself essentially, the soul has to be reduced to Intelligence; or, at least, the soul has to recognize that the actualization by which the soul conceives the entities of which the soul has the reminiscence is derived from Intelligence. Only by placing herself in that condition, does the soul become able to demonstrate that inasmuch as she is the image of Intelligence she, the soul, can by herself, see it; that is, by those of her powers which most exactly resemble Intelligence (namely, by pure thought); which resembles Intelligence in the degree that a part of the soul can be assimilated to it.
WE CAN REACH A CONCEPTION OF INTELLIGENCE BY STRIPPING THE SOUL OF EVERY FACULTY EXCEPT HER INTELLECTUAL PART.
9. We must, therefore, contemplate the soul and her divinest part in order to discover the nature of Intelligence. This is how we may accomplish it: From man, that is from yourself, strip off the body; then that power of the soul that fashions the body; then sensation, appetite, and anger, and all the lower passions1105 that incline you towards the earth. What then remains of the soul is what we call the "image of intelligence," an image that radiates from Intelligence, as from the immense globe of the sun radiates the surrounding luminary sphere. Of course, we would not say that all the light that radiates from the sun remains within itself around the sun; only a part of this light remains around the sun from which it emanates; another part, spreading by relays, descends to us on the earth. But we consider light, even that which surrounds the sun, as located in something else, so as not to be forced to consider the whole space between the sun and us as empty of all bodies. On the contrary, the soul is a light which remains attached to Intelligence, and she is not located in any space because Intelligence itself is not spatially located. While the light of the sun is in the air, on the contrary the soul, in the state in which we consider her here, is so pure that she can be seen in herself by herself, and by any other soul that is in the same condition. The soul needs to reason, in order to conceive of the nature of Intelligence according to her own nature; but Intelligence conceives of itself without reasoning because it is always present to itself. We, on the contrary, are present both to ourselves and to Intelligence when we turn towards it, because our life is divided into several lives. On the contrary, Intelligence has no need of any other life, nor of anything else; what Intelligence gives is not given to itself, but to other things; neither does Intelligence have any need of what is inferior to it; nor could Intelligence give itself anything inferior, since Intelligence possesses all things; instead of possessing in itself the primary images of things (as in the case of the soul), Intelligence is these things themselves.
1106
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If one should find himself unable to rise immediately to pure thought, which is the highest, or first, part of the soul, he may begin by opinion, and from it rise to Intelligence. If even opinion be out of the reach of his ability, he may begin with sensation, which already represents general forms; for sensation which contains the forms potentially may possess them even in actualization. If, on the contrary, the best he can do is to descend, let him descend to the generative power, and to the things it produces; then, from the last forms, one may rise again to the higher forms, and so on to the primary forms.
THE TRANSCENDENT FIRST PRINCIPLE HAS NO NEED OF SEEING ITSELF.
10. But enough of this. If the (forms) contained by Intelligence are not created formso therwise the forms contained in us would no longer, as they should, occupy the lowest rankif these forms in intelligence really be creative and primary, then either these creative forms and the creative principle fuse into one single entity, or intelligence needs some other principle. But does the transcendent Principle, that is superior to Intelligence (the One), itself also need some other further principle? No, because it is only Intelligence that stands in need of such an one. Does the Principle superior to Intelligence (the transcendent One) not see Himself? No. He does not need to see Himself. This we shall study elsewhere.
THE CONTEMPLATION OF INTELLIGENCE DEMANDS A HIGHER TRANSCENDING UNITY.
ENNEAD 05.05 - That Intelligible Entities Are Not External to the Intelligence of the Good., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
On the other hand, the intelligible entities are either deprived of feeling, life and intelligence, or they are577 intelligent. If they be intelligent, they, like truth, fuse with intelligence into the primary Intelligence. In this case we shall have to inquire into the mutual relations of intelligence, intelligible entity, and truth. Do these constitute but one single entity, or two? What in the world could intelligible entities be, if they be without life or intelligence? They are surely neither propositions, axioms, nor words, because in this case they would be enunciating things different from themselves, and would not be things themselves; thus, when you say that the good is beautiful, it would be understood that these two notions are foreign to each other. Nor can we think that the intelligibles for instance, beauty and justiceare entities that are simple, but completely separate from each other; because the intelligible entity would have lost its unity, and would no longer dwell within a unitary subject. It would be dispersed into a crowd of particular entities, and we would be forced to consider into what localities these divers elements of the intelligible were scattered. Besides, how could intelligence embrace these elements and follow them in their vicissitudes? How could intelligence remain permanent? How could it fix itself on identical objects? What will be the forms or figures of the intelligibles? Will they be like statues of gold, or like images and effigies made of some other material? In this case, the intelligence that would contemplate them would not differ from sensation. What would be the differentiating cause that would make of one justice, and of the other something else? Last, and most important, an assertion that the intelligible entities are external to Intelligence would imply that in thus contemplating objects exterior to itself Intelligence will not gain a genuine knowledge of them, having only a false intuition of them. Since, under this hypothesis, true realities will remain exterior to Intelligence, the latter, while contemplating578 them, will not possess them; and in knowing them will grasp only their images. Thus reduced to perceiving only images of truth, instead of possessing truth itself, it will grasp only deceptions, and will not reach realities. In this case (intelligence will be in the dilemma) of either acknowledging that it grasps only deceptions, and thus does not possess truth; or intelligence will be ignorant of this, being persuaded it possesses truth, when it really lacks it. By thus doubly deceiving itself, intelligence will by that very fact be still further from the truth. That is, in my opinion, the reason why sensation cannot attain the truth. Sensation is reduced to opinion248 because it is a receptive249 poweras indeed is expressed by the word "opinion"250;and because sensation receives something foreign, since the object, from which sensation receives what it possesses remains external to sensation. Therefore, to seek truth outside of intelligence is to deprive intelligence of truth or verity of intelligence. It would amount to annihilating Intelligence, and the truth (which was to dwell within it) will no longer subsist anywhere.
THE NOTION OF INTELLIGENCE IMPLIES ITS POSSESSION OF ALL INTELLIGIBLES.
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Rising therefore to the One, we must add nothing to Him; we must rest in Him, and take care not to withdraw from Him, and fall into the manifold. Without this precaution there will be an occurrence of duality,256 which cannot offer us unity, because duality is posterior to Unity. The One cannot be enumerated along with anything, not even with uniqueness (the monad), nor with anything else. He cannot be enumerated in any way; for He is measure, without Himself being measured; He is not in the same rank with other things, and cannot be added to other things (being incommensurable). Otherwise, He would have something in common with the beings along with which He would be enumerated; consequently, He would be582 inferior to this common element, while on the contrary He must have nothing above Him (if He is to be the one first Being). Neither essential (that is, intelligible) Number, nor the lower number which refers to quantity, can be predicated of the unique; I repeat, neither the essential intelligible Number, whose essence is identical with thought, nor the quantative number, which, because all number is quantity, constitutes quantity concurrently with, or independently of other genera.257 Besides, quantative number, by imitating the former (essential intelligible) Numbers in their relation to the Unique, which is their principle, finds its existence in its relation to real Unity, which it neither shares nor divides. Even when the dyad (or "pair") is born, (it does not alter) the priority of the Monad (or Uniqueness). Nor is this Uniqueness either of the unities that constitute the pair, nor either of them alone; for why should it be one of them rather than the other? If then the Monad or Uniqueness be neither of the two unities which constitute the pair, it must be superior to them, and though abiding within itself, does not do so. In what then do these unities differ from the Uniqueness (or Monad)? What is the unity of the "pair"? Is the unity formed by the "pair" the same as that which is contained in each of the two unities constituting the "pair"? The unities (which constitute the "pair") participate in the primary Unity, but differ from it. So far as it is one, the "pair" also participates in unity, but in different ways; for there is no similarity between the unity of a house and the unity of an army. In its relation to continuity, therefore, the "pair" is not the same so far as it is one, and so far as it is a single quantity. Are the unities contained in a group of five in a relation to unity different from that of the unities contained in a group of ten? (To answer this we must distinguish two kinds of unity.) The unity which obtains between583 a small and a great ship, and between one town and another, and between one army and another, obtains also between these two groups of five and of ten. A unity which would be denied as between these various objects would also have to be denied as obtaining between these two groups. (Enough of this here); further considerations will be studied later.
PUNS ABOUT VESTA, TAKEN FROM THE CRATYLUS OF PLATO.
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13. Being the Good Himself, and not simply something good, the Divinity cannot possess anything, not even the quality of being good. If He possessed anything, this thing would either be good, or not good; now in the principle which is good in Himself and in the highest degree, there cannot be anything which is not good. On the other hand, the statement that the Good possesses the quality of being good is impossible. Since therefore (the Good) can possess neither the quality of being good, or of not being good, the result is that He cannot possess anything; that He is unique, and isolated from everything else. As all596 other things either are good without being the Good, or are not good, and as the Good has neither the quality of being good, or of not being good, He has nothing, and this is the very thing that constitutes His goodness. To attri bute to Him anything, such as being, intelligence, or beauty, would be to deprive Him of the privilege of being the Good. Therefore when we deprive Him of all attri butes, when we affirm nothing about Him, when one does not commit the error of supposing anything within Him, He is left as simple essence, without attri bution of things He does not possess. Let us not imitate those ignorant panegyrists who lower the glory of those they praise by attri buting to them qualities inferior to their dignity, because they do not know how to speak properly of the persons they are trying to praise. Likewise, we should not attri bute to the Divinity any of the things beneath and after Him; we should recognize Him as their eminent cause, but without being any of them. The nature of the Good consists not in being all things in general, nor in being any of them in particular. In this case, indeed, the Good would form no more than one with all beings; consequently, He would differ from them only by His own character; that is, by some difference, or by the addition of some quality. Instead of being one, He would be two things, of which the onenamely, what in Him was common with the other beingswould not be the Good, while the other would be the Good (and would leave all beings evil). Under this hypothesis, He would be a mixture of good and of not good; he would no longer be the pure and primary Good. The primary Good would be that in which the other thing would particularly participate, a participation by virtue of which it would become the good. This thing would be the good only by participation, whilst that in which it would participate would be nothing in particular; which would597 demonstrate that the good was nothing in particular. But if, in the principle under discussion, the good be such that is, if there be a difference whose presence gives the character of goodness to the compositethis good must derive from some other principle which must be the Good uniquely and simply. Such a composite, therefore, depends on the pure and simple Good. Thus the First, the absolute Good, dominates all beings, is uniquely the Good, possesses nothing within Himself, is mingled with nothing, is superior to all things, and is the cause of all things. The beautiful and that which is "being" could not derive from evil, or from indifferent principles; for the cause being more perfect, is always better than its effects.
599
ENNEAD 05.06 - The Superessential Principle Does Not Think - Which is the First Thinking Principle, and Which is the Second?, #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
This may be seen still more clearly by considering how this double nature shows itself in all that thinks in a clearer manner. We assert that all essences, as such, that all things that are by themselves, and that possess true existence, are located in the intelligible world. This happens not only because they always remain the same, while sense-objects are in a perpetual flow and change13although, indeed, there are sense-objects (such as the stars14), that remain the same but rather because they, by themselves, possess the perfection of their existence. The so-called primary "being" must possess an existence which is more than an adumbration of existence, and which is complete existence. Now existence is complete when its form is thought and life. primary "being," therefore, will simultaneously contain thought, existence and life. Thus the existence of essence will imply that of intelligence; and that of intelligence, that of essence; so that thought is inseparable from existence, and is manifold instead of being one. That which is not manifold (the One), cannot, therefore, think. In the340 intelligible world, we find Man, and the thought of man, Horse and the thought of horse, the Just Man and the thought of the just man; everything in it is duality; even the unity within it is duality, and in it duality passes into unity. The First is neither all things that imply duality, nor any of them; it contains no duality whatever.
THE FIRST, THEREFORE, BEING SUPRA-COGITATIVE, DOES NOT KNOW ITSELF.
ENNEAD 05.08 - Concerning Intelligible Beauty., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Whence came the beauty of that Helena about whom so many battles were fought? Whence comes the beauty of so many women comparable to Venus? Whence came the beauty of Venus herself? Whence comes the beauty of a perfect man, or that of one of those divinities who reveal themselves to our eyes, or who, without showing themselves, nevertheless possess a visible beauty? Does it not everywhere originate from the creating principle that passes into the creature, just as, in the art considered above, the beauty passes from the artist into the work? It would be unreasonable to assert that the creatures and the ("seminal) reason" united to matter are beautiful, while denying beauty to the "reason" which is not united to matter while still residing in the creator in a primary and incorporeal condition; and to assert that in order to become beautiful this reason must become united to matter. For if mass, as such, was beautiful, then the creative reason would be beautiful only in so far as it was mass. If form, whether in a large or small object, equally touches and moves the soul of the beholder, evidently beauty does not depend on the size of the mass. Still another proof of this is554 that so long as the form of the object remains exterior to the soul, and as we do not perceive it, it leaves us insensible; but as soon as it penetrates into the soul, it moves us. Now form alone can penetrate into the soul by the eyes; for great objects could not enter by so narrow a space. In this respect, the size of the object contrasts, because that which is great is not mass, but form.205
RECOGNITION OF BEAUTY DEPENDS ON PRELIMINARY INTERIOR BEAUTY.
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BEAUTY IS THE CREATING PRINCIPLE OF THE primary REASON.
3. The reason of the beauty in nature is the archetype of the beauty of the (bodily) organism. Nature herself, however (is the image of the) more beautiful archetypal "reason" which resides in the (universal) Soul, from which it is derived.210 This latter shines more brilliantly in the virtuous soul, whenever it develops therein. It adorns the soul, and imparts to her a light itself derived from a still higher Light, that is, primary Beauty. The universal Soul's beauty thus inhering in the individual soul, explains the reason of the Beauty superior to it, a reason which is not adventitious, and which is not posited in any thing other than itself, but which dwells within itself. Consequently it is not a "reason," but really the creating principle of the primary Reason, that is, the beauty of the soul, which in respect to the soul plays the part of matter.211 It is, in the last analysis, Intelligence, which is eternal and immutable because it is not adventitious.
OUR IMAGE OF INTELLIGENCE IS ONLY A SAMPLE THAT MUST BE PURIFIED.
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In order to conceive this better, we should imagine that this visible sky is a pure light which begets all the stars. Here below, doubtless, no one part could be begotten by any other, for each part has its own individual existence. On the contrary, in the intelligible world every part is born from the whole, and is simultaneously the whole and a part; wherever is a part, the whole reveals itself. The fabled Lynceus, whose glance penetrated the very bowels of the earth, is only the symbol of the celestial life. There the eye contemplates without fatigue, and the desire of contemplating is insatiable, because it does not imply a void that needs filling, or a need whose satisfaction might bring on disgust. In the intelligible world, the beings do not, among each other, differ so as that what is proper to the one would not be proper to the other. Besides, they are all indestructible. Their insatiability (in contemplation) is to be understood in the sense that satiety does not make them scorn what satiates them. The more that each sees, the better he sees; each one follows its nature in seeing as infinite both itself and the objects that present themselves to its view. On high, life, being pure, is not laborious. How indeed could the best life imply fatigue? This life is wisdom which, being perfectly complete, demands no research. It is primary wisdom, which is not derived from any other, which is being, and which is not an adventitious quality of intelligence; consequently there is none superior to it. In the intelligible world absolute knowledge accompanies intelligence, because the former accompanies the latter, as Justice is enthroned by the side of Jupiter.217 All the essences (or, beings) in the intelligible Being resemble so many statues which are visible by themselves, and the vision of which imparts an unspeakable happiness to the spectators. The559 greatness and power of wisdom is revealed in its containing all beings, and in its having produced them. It is their origin; it is identical with them; it fuses with them; for wisdom is very being. This we do not easily understand because by sciences218 we mean groups of demonstrations and propositions, which is not true even of our sciences. However, if this point be contested, let us drop this comparison with our sciences, and return to knowledge itself, of which Plato219 says that "it does not show itself different in different objects." How can that be? Plato left that to be explained by us, that we might show if we deserve to be called his interpreters.220 We shall undertake this interpretation by the following observation.
DEMONSTRATION THAT WISDOM IS VERITABLE BEING, AND THE CONVERSE.
5. All the productions of nature or art are the works of a certain wisdom which ever presides over their creation. Art is made possible only by the existence of this wisdom. The talent of the artist is derived from the wisdom of nature which presides over the production of every work. This wisdom is not a sequence of demonstrations, as the whole of it forms a unity; it is not a plurality reduced to unity, but a unity which is resolved into a plurality. If we admit that this wisdom is primary Wisdom, there is nothing to be sought beyond it, since in this case it is independent of every principle, and is located within itself. If, on the contrary, we say that nature possesses the ("seminal) reason," and is its principle, we shall have to ask whence nature derives it.221 If it be called a superior principle, we still have to ask the derivation of this principle; if it be derived from nothing, we need not go beyond it (but return to the above demonstration). If, on the contrary, it be derived from Intelligence, we shall have to examine whether Intelligence produced560 wisdom. The first objection here will be, how could it have done so? For if Intelligence itself produced it, Intelligence could not have produced it without itself being Wisdom. True Wisdom is therefore "being" and, on the other hand, "being" is wisdom, and derives its dignity from Wisdom; that is why "being" is veritable "Being." Consequently, the being (essences) which do not possess wisdom are such beings only because they were created by a certain wisdom; but they are not true beings (essences), because they do not in themselves possess Wisdom. It would, therefore, be absurd to state that the divinities, or the blessed dwellers in the intelligible world, in that world are engaged in studying demonstrations. The entities that exist there are beautiful forms,222 such as are conceived of as existing within the soul of the wise man; I do not mean painted forms, but existing (substantial) forms. That is why the ancients223 said that ideas are essences and beings.
BY A PUN, EGYPTIAN WISDOM IS ADDUCED AS A SYMBOL.
ENNEAD 05.09 - Of Intelligence, Ideas and Essence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
7. The scientific notions that the soul forms of sense-objects, by discursive reason, and which should rather be called opinions,132 are posterior to the objects (they deal with); and consequently, are no more than images of them. But true scientific notions received from intelligence by discursive reasons do not contain any sense-conceptions. So far as they are scientific notions, they are the very things of which they are the conceptions; they reveal the intimate union of intelligence and thought. Interior Intelligence, which consists of the primary (natures) possesses itself intimately, resides within itself since all eternity, and is an actualization. It does not direct its glances outside of itself, because it possesses everything within itself; it does not acquire, and does not reason to discover things that may not be present to them. Those are operations characteristic of the soul. Intelligence, remaining fixed within itself, is all things simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is not thought which makes each of them subsist; it is only because intelligence thought the divinity or movement, for instance, that the divinity or movement exists.133 When we say that111 thoughts are forms, we are mistaken if thereby we mean that the intelligible exists only because Intelligence thinks it. On the contrary, it is only because the intelligible exists, that Intelligence can think. Otherwise, how would Intelligence come to think the intelligible? It cannot meet the intelligible by chance, nor waste itself in fruitless efforts.
THOUGHT IS THE FORM, SHAPE THE ACTUALIZATION OF THE BEING.
ENNEAD 06.01 - Of the Ten Aristotelian and Four Stoic Categories., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Let us begin by asking these philosophers whether the ten kinds apply equally to sense-(essences), and intelligible (essences), or whether they all apply to the sense-(essences), and some only to the intelligible (essences); for here there are no longer mutual relations. We must therefore inquire which of those ten kinds apply to intelligible essences, and see whether intelligible essences can be reduced to one single kind, that would also apply to sense-essences; and whether the word "being"238 can be applied simultaneously to intelligible and sense-entities, as a "homonymous" label. For if "being" be a homonym,239 there are several different kinds. If, however, it be a synonym (or, name of common qualities) it would be absurd that this word should bear the same meaning in the essences which possess the highest degree of existence, and in those which possess its lower degree; for the things among which it is possible to distinguish both primary and lower degrees could not belong to a common kind. But these (Aristotelian) philosophers do not, in their division, regard the (Platonic) intelligible entities. They therefore did not mean to classify all beings; they passed by those that possess the highest degree of existence.839295
1. Being.240
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In the first place, what common element is there in matter, form, and the concretion of matter and form? The (Aristotelians) give the name of "being" alike to these three entities, though recognizing that they are not "being" in the same degree. They say that form is more being than is matter,242 and they are right; they would not insist (as do the Stoics) that matter is being in the greater degree. Further, what element is common to the primary and secondary beings, since the secondary owe their characteristic title of "being" to the primary ones?
WHAT IS "BEING" IN GENERAL?
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Might it then be said that the other things are affections (or, modifications),232 and that the beings are (hierarchically) subordinated to each other in a different manner? In this case, however, we could not stop at (the conception of) "being," and determine its fundamental property so as to deduce from it other beings. Beings would thus be of the same kind, but then would possess something which would be outside of the other beings.244 Thus the secondary substance would be attributed to something else, and leave no meaning to "whatness" (quiddity or quality), "determinate form" (thatness), "being a subject," "not being a subject," "being in no subject," and "being attri buted to nothing else,"245 (as, when one says, whiteness is a quality of the body, quantity is something of substance, time is something of movement, and movement is something of mobility), since the secondary "being" is attri buted to something else.246 Another objection would be, that the secondary being is attri buted to the primary Being, in another sense (than841 quality is to being), as "a kind," as "constituting a part," as "being thus the essence of the subject," while whiteness would be attri buted to something else in this sense that it is in a subject.247 Our answer would be that these things have properties which distinguish them from the others; they will consequently be gathered into a unity, and be called beings. Nevertheless, no kind could be made up out of them, nor thus arrive at a definition of the notion and nature of being. Enough about this; let us pass to quantity.
2. QUANTITY.
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MATTER CANNOT BE THE primary PRINCIPLE.
26. What is most shocking in the Stoic doctrine, is that they assign the first rank to what is only a potentiality,880 matter, instead of placing actualization before potentiality.285 It is impossible for the potential to pass to actualization if the potential occupy the first rank among beings. Indeed, the potential could never improve itself; and it implies the necessary anteriority of actualization; in which case potentiality is no longer a principle. Or, if it be insisted that actualization and potentiality must be simultaneous, both principles will be found depending on chance. Besides, even if actualization be contemporaneous with potentiality, why should not the first rank be assigned to actualization? Why should this (matter) be an essence, rather than those (forms)? Whoever asserts that form is posterior bears the burden of proof; for matter does not beget form, and quality could not arise from what has no quality; nor actualization from what is potential; otherwise, actualization would have existed anteriorly, even in the system of the Stoics. According to them, even God is no longer simple: He is posterior to matter; for He is a body constituted by form and matter.286 Whence then does He derive His form? If the divinity exist without matter, He is incorporeal, by virtue of His being principle and reason, and the active principle would thus be incorporeal. If, even without having matter, the divinity be composite in essence, by virtue of His body, the Stoics will have to postulate some other kind of matter which may better suit the divinity.
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Moreover, whence is derived the unification of matter? Matter is not unity, but it participates in unity. They would have had to realize that the material mass is not anterior to everything, and that the first rank pertains to what is not one mass, to Unity itself. Then they would have to descend from Unity to multiplicity, from what is size-less to actual sizes; since, if size be one, it is not because it is Unity itself, but only because it participates in unity. We must therefore recognize that what possesses primary and absolute existence is anterior to what exists contingently. But how does contingency itself exist? What is its mode of existence? If the Stoics had examined this point, they would have finally hit upon (the absolute Unity) which is not unity merely contingently. By this expression is here meant what is not one by itself, but by others.
THE STOIC GOD IS ONLY MODIFIED MATTER.
ENNEAD 06.02 - The Categories of Plotinos., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
7. What and how much can be seen in the soul? Since we have found in the soul both being and life, and as both being and life are what is common in every soul, and as life resides in intelligence, recognizing that there is (besides the soul and her being) intelligence and its life, we shall posit as a genus what is common in all life; namely, movement; consequently, being and movement, which constitute primary life, will be our first two categories. Although (in reality) they fuse, they are distinguished by thought, which is incapable of approaching unity exclusively; and whose exercise compels this distinction. Besides, it is possible, you can, in other objects, clearly see essence, as distinct from movement or life, although their essence be not real, and only shadowy or figurative.306 Just as the image of a man lacks several things, and, among others, the most important, life; likewise, the essence of sense-objects is only an adumbration of the veritable essence, lacking as it does the highest degree of essence, namely, vitality, which appears in its archetype. So you see it is quite easy to distinguish, on one hand, essence from life, and, on the other, life from essence. Essence is a genus, and contains several species; now movement must not be subsumed under essence, nor be posited within essence, but should be903 equated with essence. When we locate movement within essence, it is not that we consider life is the subject of movement, but because movement is life's actualization; only in thought can either exist separately. These two natures, therefore, form but a single one; for essence exists not in potentiality, but in actualization; and if we conceive of these two genera as separated from each other it will still be seen that movement is within essence, and essence within movement. In the unity of essence, the two elements, when considered separately, imply each other reciprocally; but thought affirms their duality, and shows that each of the two series is a double unity.
ANOTHER GENUS IS STABILITY, WHICH IS ONLY ANOTHER KIND OF MOVEMENT.
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THESE FIVE GENERA ARE primary BECAUSE NOTHING CAN BE AFFIRMED OF THEM.
These five genera that we thus recognize are primary, because nothing can be predicated of them in the category of existence (being). No doubt, because they are essences, essence might be predicated of them; but essence would not be predicated of them because "being" is not a particular essence. Neither is essence to be predicated of movement or stability, for these are species of essence. Neither does essence participate in these four genera as if they were superior907 genera under which essence itself would be subsumed; for stability, movement, identity and difference do not protrude beyond the sphere of essence, and are not anterior thereto.
WHY NOT ADD OTHERS SUCH AS UNITY, QUANTITY, QUALITY, OR RELATION?
9. These and similar (Platonic) arguments demonstrate that those are genuinely primary genera; but how are we to prove they are exclusive? Why, for example, should not unity, quantity, quality, relation, and further (Aristotelian) categories, be added thereto?
NEITHER ABSOLUTE NOR RELATIVE UNITY CAN BE A CATEGORY.
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It may be objected that the unity which is in essence, in movement, and the remainder of the genera, is common to all of them, and that one might therefore identify unity with essence.309 It must then be answered that, just as essence was not made a genus of other things because they were not what was essence, but that they were called essences in another sense, here likewise unity could not be a common attri bute of other things, because there must be a primary Unity, and a unity taken in a secondary sense. If, on the other hand, it be said that unity should not be made a genus of all things, but something which exists in itself like the others, if afterwards unity be identified with essence, then, as essence has already been listed as one of the genera, we would be merely uselessly introducing a superfluous name.310 Distinguishing between unity and essence is an avowal that each has its separate nature; the addition of "something" to "one" makes a "certain one"; addition of nothing, on the other hand, allows unity to remain absolute, which cannot be predicated of anything. But why could this unity not be the First Unity, ignoring the absolute Unity? For we use "first Unity" as a designation of the essence which is beneath the "absolute Unity." Because the Principle anterior to the first Essence (that is, the first and absolute Unity) is not essence; otherwise, the essence below Him would no longer be the first Essence; here, on the contrary, the unity which is above this unity is the absolute Unity. Besides, this unity which would be separated from essence only in thought, would not admit of any differences.
Besides, there are three alternatives. Either this unity alleged to inhere in essence will be, just like all other909 essences, a consequence of the existence of essence; and consequently, would be posterior to it. Or, it will be contemporaneous with essence and the other (categories); but a genus cannot be contemporaneous with the things of which it is the genus. The third possibility is that it may be anterior to essence; in which case its relation to Essence will be that of a principle, and no longer a genus containing it. If then unity be not a genus in respect to essence, neither can it be a genus in respect of other things; otherwise, we would have to say of essence also that it was a genus embracing everything else.
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10. In what sense, therefore, could each of the elements of essence be called "one"? In that it is something unitary, without being unity itself; for what is a "certain one" is already manifold. No species is "one" except figuratively306; for in itself it is manifold. It is in the same sense that, in this sense-world, we say that an army, or a choric ballet, constitute a unity. Not in such things is absolute unity; and therefore it may not be said that unity is something common. Neither does unity reside in essence itself, nor in the910 individual essences; therefore, it is not a genus. When a genus is predicated of something, it is impossible to predicate of the same thing contrary properties; but of each of the elements of universal essence it is possible to assert both unity and its opposite. Consequently (if we have called unity a genus), after having predicated of some essence unity as a genus, we would have affirmed, of the same essence, that unity was not a genus. Unity, therefore, could not be considered one of the primary genera; for essence is no more one than it is manifold. As to the other genera, none of them is one without being manifold; much less could unity be predicated of the secondary genera of which each is quite manifold. Besides, no genus, considered in its totality, is unitary; so that if unity were a genus, it would merely thereby cease being unity; for unity is not a number, and nevertheless it would become a number in becoming a genus. Of course, numbers include an alleged unity, as soon as we try to erect it into a genus, it is no longer a unity, in a strict sense. Among numbers unity is not applied to them as would have been a genus; of such unity it is merely said that it is among numbers, not that it is a genus; likewise, if unity were among the essences, it would not be there as genus of essence, nor of anything else, nor of all things. Again, just as the simple is the principle of the composite without being considered a genus in respect to it then it would be simultaneously simple and compositeso, if one were considered to be a principle, it could not be a genus in respect to things subsumed under it; and therefore will be a genus neither for essence, nor for other (categories or things).
VARIOUS ARGUMENTS AGAINST UNITY AS A CATEGORY.
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13. Now why should we not posit quantity among the primary genera? And why not also quality? Quantity is not one of the primary genera like those we have posited, because the primary genera coexist with essence (which is not the case with quantity). Indeed, movement is inseparable from essence; being its actualization and life. Stability is implied in being; while identity and difference are still more inseparable from essence; so that all these (categories) appear to us simultaneously. As to number (which is discrete quantity), it is something posterior. As to (mathematical) numbers, far more are they posterior both to these genera, and themselves; for the numbers follow916 each other; the second depends on the first, and so forth; the last are contained within the first. Number, therefore, cannot be posited among the primary genera. Indeed, it is permissible to doubt whether quantity may be posited as any kind of a genus. More even than number, extension (which is continuous quantity), shows the characteristics of compositeness, and of posteriority. Along with number, the line enters into the idea of extension. This would make two elements. Then comes surface, which makes three. If then it be from number that continuous dimension derives its quantitativeness, how could this dimension be a genus, when number is not? On the other hand, anteriority and posteriority exist in dimension as well as in numbers. But if both kinds of quantities have in common this, that they are quantities, it will be necessary to discover the nature of quantity. When this will have been found, we shall be able to make of it a secondary genus; but it could not rank with the primary genera. If, then, quantity be a genus without being a primary one, it will still remain for us to discover to which higher genus, whether primary or secondary, it should be subsumed.
NUMBER AND DIMENSION DIFFER SO MUCH AS TO SUGGEST DIFFERENT CLASSIFICATION.
It is evident that quantity informs us of the amount of a thing, and permits us to measure this; therefore itself must be an amount. This then is the element common to number (the discrete quantity), and to continuous dimension. But number is anterior, and continuous dimension proceeds therefrom; number consists in a certain blending of movement and stability; continuous dimension is a certain movement or proceeds from some movement; movement produces it in its progress towards infinity, but stability917 arrests it in its progress, limits it, and creates unity. Besides, we shall in the following explain the generation of number and dimension; and, what is more, their mode of existence, and how to conceive of it rightly. It is possible that we might find that number should be posited among the primary genera, but that, because of its composite nature, continuous dimension should be posited among the posterior or later genera; that number is to be posited among stable things, while dimension belongs among those in movement. But, as said above, all this will be treated of later.
QUALITY IS NOT A primary GENUS BECAUSE IT IS POSTERIOR TO BEING.
14. Let us now pass on to quality. Why does quality also fail to appear among the primary genera? Because quality also is posterior to them; it does indeed follow after being. The first Being must have these (quantity and quality) as consequences, though being is neither constituted nor completed thereby; otherwise, being would be posterior to them. Of course, as to the composite beings, formed of several elements, in which are both numbers and qualities, they indeed are differentiated by those different elements which then constitute qualities, though they simultaneously contain common (elements). As to the primary genera, however, the distinction to be established does not proceed from simpleness or compositeness, but of simpleness and what completes being. Notice, I am not saying, "of what completes 'some one' being"; for if we were dealing with some one being, there would be nothing unreasonable in asserting that such a being was completed by a quality, since this being would have been in existence already before having the quality, and would receive from the exterior only the property of being such or such. On918 the contrary, absolute Being must essentially possess all that constitutes it.
COMPLEMENT OF BEING IS CALLED QUALITY ONLY BY COURTESY.
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15. However, how do four of these genera complete being, without nevertheless constituting the suchness (or, quality) of being? for they do not form a "certain being." The primary Essence has already been mentioned; and it has been shown that neither movement, difference, nor identity are anything else. Movement, evidently, does not introduce any quality in essence; nevertheless it will be wise to study the question a little more definitely. If movement be the actualization of being, if essence, and in general all that is in the front rank be essentially an actualization, movement cannot be considered as an accident. As919 it is, however, the actualization of the essence which is in actualization, it can no longer be called a simple complement of "being," for it is "being" itself. Neither must it be ranked amidst things posterior to "being," nor amidst the qualities; it is contemporaneous with "being," for you must not suppose that essence existed first, and then moved itself (these being contemporaneous events). It is likewise with stability; for one cannot say that essence existed first, and then later became stable. Neither are identity or difference any more posterior to essence; essence was not first unitary, and then later manifold; but by its essence it is one manifold. So far as it is manifold, it implies difference; while so far as it is a manifold unity, it implies identity. These categories, therefore, suffice to constitute "being." When one descends from the intelligible world to inferior things, he meets other elements which indeed no longer constitute absolute "being," but only a "certain being," that possesses some particular quantity or quality; these are indeed genera, but genera inferior to the primary genera.
RELATION IS AN APPENDAGE EXISTING ONLY AMONG DEFINITE OBJECTS.
16. As to relation, which, so to speak, is only an offshoot or appendage,317 it could certainly not be posited amidst the primary genera. Relation can exist only between one thing and another; it is nothing which exists by itself; every relation presupposes something foreign.
NEITHER CAN PLACE OR TIME FIGURE AMONG THEM.318
The categories of place and time are just as unable to figure among the primary genera. To be in a place, is to be in something foreign; which implies two920 consequences:319 a genus must be single, and admits of no compositeness. Place, therefore, is no primary genus. For here we are dealing only with veritable essences.
As to time, does it possess a veritable characteristic? Evidently not. If time be a measure, and not a measure pure and simple, but the measure of movement,320 it also is something double, and consequently composite. (This, as with place, would debar it from being ranked among the primary genera, which are simple). Besides, it is something posterior to movement; so that it could not even be ranked along with movement.
ACTION, EXPERIENCE, POSSESSION AND LOCATION ARE SIMILARLY UNSATISFACTORY.
Action and experience equally depend on movement. Now, as each of them is something double, each of them, consequently, is something composite. Possession also is double. Location, which consists in something's being in some definite way in something else, actually comprises three elements. (Therefore possession and location, because composite, are not simple primary genera).
NEITHER ARE GOOD, BEAUTY, VIRTUE, SCIENCE, OR INTELLIGENCE.
17. But why should not the Good, beauty, virtues, science, or intelligence be considered primary genera? If by "good" we understand the First, whom we call the Good itself, of whom indeed we could not affirm anything, but whom we call by this name, because we have none better to express our meaning, He is not a genus; for He cannot be affirmed of anything else. If indeed there were things of which He could be predicated, each of them would be the Good Himself.921 Besides, the Good does not consist in "being," and therefore is above it. But if by "good" we mean only the quality (of goodness), then it is evident that quality cannot be ranked with primary genera. Does this imply that Essence is not good? No; it is good, but not in the same manner as the First, who is good, not by a quality, but by Himself.
It may however be objected that, as we saw above, essence contains other genera, and that each of these is a genus because it has something in common, and because it is found in several things. If then the Good be found in each part of "being" or essence, or at least, in the greater number of them, why would not also the Good be a genus, and one of the first genera? Because the Good is not the same in all parts of Essence, existing within it in the primary or secondary degree; and because all these different goods are all subordinate to each other, the last depending on the first, and all depending from a single Unity, which is the supreme Good; for if all participate in the Good, it is only in a manner that varies according to the nature of each.
IF THE GOOD BE A GENUS, IT MUST BE ONE OF THE POSTERIOR ONES.
If you insist that the Good must be genus, we will grant it, as a posterior genus; for it will be posterior to being. Now the existence of (the Aristotelian) "essence,"321 although it be always united to Essence, is the Good itself; while the primary genera belong to Essence for its own sake, and form "being." Hence we start to rise up to the absolute Good, which is superior to Essence; for it is impossible for essence and "being" not to be manifold; essence necessarily includes the above-enumerated primary genera; it is the manifold unity.
922
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But if by Good we here mean the unity which lies in Essence, we would not hesitate to acknowledge that the actualization by which Essence aspires to Unity is its true good, and that that is the means by which it receives the form of Good. Then the good of Essence is the actualization by which it aspires to the Good; that act constitutes its life; now this actualization is a movement, and we have already ranked movement among the primary genera. (It is therefore useless to make a new genus of "Good conceived as unity").
BEAUTY IS TREATED SIMILARLY TO THE GOOD.
18. As to the beautiful, if that be taken to mean the primary and supreme Beauty, we would answer as about the Good, or at least, we would make an analogous answer. If however we mean only the splendor with which the Idea shines, it may be answered that that splendor is not the same everywhere; and that, besides, it is something posterior.322 If the beautiful be considered as absolute Being, it is then already comprised with the "Being" already considered (and consequently does not form a separate genus323). If it be considered in respect to us human beings, who are spectators, and if it be explained as producing in us a certain emotion, such an actualization is a movement; but if, on the contrary, it be explained as that tendency which draws us to the beautiful, this still is a movement.
923
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Knowledge is pre-eminently movement; for it is the intuition of essence; it is an actualization, and not a simple habit. It should, therefore, also be reduced to movement.299 It may also be reduced to stability (if considered as a durable actualization); or rather, it belongs to both genera. But if it belong to two different genera, it is something of a blend; but anything blended is necessarily posterior (to the elements which enter into the blend, and it cannot therefore either be a primary genus).
INTELLIGENCE, JUSTICE, VIRTUES AND TEMPERANCE ARE NO GENERA.
Intelligence is thinking essence, a composite of all genera, and not a single genus. Veritable Intelligence is indeed essence connected with all things; consequently it is all essence. As to essence considered alone, it constitutes a genus, and is an element of Intelligence. Last, justice, temperance, and in general all the virtues are so many actualizations of Intelligence. They could not, therefore, rank amidst the primary genera. They are posterior to a genus, and constitute species.
ESSENCE DERIVES ITS DIFFERENCES FROM THE OTHER CO-ORDINATE CATEGORIES.
19. Since these four categories (which complete essence, namely, movement, stability, identity and difference) (with Essence as a fifth) constitute the primary genera, it remains to be examined whether each of them, by itself, can beget species; for instance,924 whether Essence, entirely by itself, could admit divisions in which the other categories would have no share whatever. No: for, in order to beget species, the genus would have to admit differences derived from outside; these differences would have to be properties belonging to Essence as such, without however being Essence. But from where then would Essence have derived them? Impossibly from what does not exist. If then they were necessarily derived from that which exists, as only three other genera of essences remain,324 evidently, Essence must have derived its differences from these genera, which associate themselves with Essence, while yet enjoying a simultaneous existence. But from this very fact that these genera enjoy an existence simultaneous (with Essence), they serve to constitute it, as it is composed of the gathering of these elements. How then could they be different from the whole that they constitute? How do these genera make species out of all (these beings)? How, for instance, could pure movement produce species of movement? The same question arises in connection with the other genera. Besides, we must avoid (two dangers:) losing each genus in its species, and, on the other hand, reducing it to the state of a simple predicate, by considering it only in its species. The genus must exist both in its species and in itself. While blending (with the species), it must in itself remain pure and unblended; for, if it should contri bute to "being" otherwise (by blending with its species), it would annihilate itself. Such are the questions that must be examined.
INTELLIGENCE AS A COMPOSITE IS POSTERIOR TO THE CATEGORIES.
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Thus intellectual Life, which is the perfect actualization, embraces all the things that our mind now conceives,928 and all intellectual operations. In its potentiality it contains all things as essences, in the same manner as Intelligence does. Now Intelligence possesses them by thought, a thought which is not discursive (but intuitive). The intellectual life therefore possesses all the things of which there are "reasons" (that is, ideas); itself is a single Reason, great, perfect, which contains all reasons,327 which examines them in an orderly fashion, beginning with the first, or rather, which has ever examined them, so that one could never really tell that it was examining them.328 For all things that we grasp by ratiocination, in whatever part soever of the universe they may be located, are found as intuitively possessed by Intelligence. It would seem as if it was Essence itself which, (being identical with Intelligence), had made Intelligence reason thus (by producing its conceptions),329 as appears to happen in the ("seminal) reasons" which produce the animals.330 In the (ideas, that is in the "seminal) reasons" which are anterior to ratiocination, all things are found to possess a constitution such that the most penetrating intelligence would have considered best, by reasoning.331 We should therefore expect (great and wonderful things) of these Ideas, superior and anterior to Nature and ("seminal) reasons." There Intelligence fuses with "Being;"329 neither in essence nor intelligence is there anything adventitious. There everything is smoothly perfect, since everything there is conformable to intelligence. All Essence is what Intelligence demands; it is consequently veritable primary Essence; for if it proceeded from some other (source), this also would be Intelligence.
FROM ESSENCE ARE BORN ALL LIVING ORGANISMS.
ENNEAD 06.03 - Plotinos Own Sense-Categories., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
As to the distinction drawn between primary and secondary being,376 it must be admitted that some particular fire, and the universal Fire differ from each other in this, that the one is individual, and the other universal; but the difference between them does not seem to be essential. Indeed, does the genus of quality contain both White, and a particular white; or Grammar, and some particular grammatical science? How far does Grammatical science then have less reality than some particular grammatical science, and Science, than some particular science? Grammatical science is not posterior to some particular grammatical science; Grammatical science must already have existed before the existence of the grammatical science in you, since the latter is some grammatical science because it is found in you; it is besides identical with universal Grammatical science. Likewise, it is not Socrates that caused him who was not a man to become a man; it is rather the universal Man who enabled Socrates to be a man; for the individual man is man by participation in the universal Man. What then is Socrates, if not some man? In what does such a man contri bute to render "being" more "being"? If the answer be that he contri butes thereto by the fact that the universal Man is only a form, while a particular man is a form in matter, the result will only be that a particular man will be less of a man; for reason (that is, essence) is weaker when it is in matter. If the universal Man consist not only in form itself, but is also in matter, in what will he be inferior to the form of the man who is in matter, since it will be the reason of the man which is950 in matter? By its nature the universal is anterior, and consequently the form is anterior to the individual. Now that which by its nature is anterior is an absolute anterior. How then would the universal be less in being? Doubtless the individual, being better known to us, is anterior for us; but no difference in the things themselves results.377 Besides, if we were to admit the distinction between primary and secondary beings, the definition of "being" would no longer be one; for that which is first and that which is second are not comprised under one single definition, and do not form a single and same genus.
BODIES MAY BE CLASSIFIED NOT ONLY BY FORMS; BUT BY QUALITIES; ETC.
ENNEAD 06.04 - The One Identical Essence is Everywhere Entirely Present., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
9. If this unity (of the universal Soul) divided itself in a multitude of parts such that each would resemble the total unity, there would be a multitude of primary (beings); for each one of these (beings) would be primary. How then could one distinguish from each other all these primary (beings), so that they might not all in confusion blend into a single one? They would not be separated by their bodies, for primary (beings) could not be forms of bodies; as299 they would be similar to the primary (Being) which is their principle. On the other hand, if the things named parts were potentialities of the universal (Being), (there would be two results). First, each thing would no longer be the total unity. Then, one might wonder how these potentialities separated from the universal (Being), and abandoned it; for if they abandoned it, it could evidently only be to go somewhere else. There might also be reason to ask oneself if the potentialities which are in the sense-world are still or no longer in the universal (Being). If they be no longer in it, it is absurd to suppose it diminished or became impotent, by being deprived of the powers it possessed before. It is equally absurd to suppose that the potentialities would be separated from the beings to which they belong. On the contrary, if the potentialities exist simultaneously in the universal (Being) and elsewhere, they will, here below, be either wholes or parts; if they be parts, that part of them that will remain on high will also form parts; if they be wholes, they are here below the same as above; they are not divided here below in any way, and thus the universal (Being) is still the same without any division. Or again, the potentialities are the particularized universal (Being), which has become the multitude of the things of which each is the total unity; and these potentialities are mutually similar. In this way, with each being there will be but a single potentiality, united to Being, and the other things will be no more than mere potentialities. But it is not easier to conceive of a being without potentiality, than a potentiality without a being; for above (among the ideas) the potentiality consists of hypostatic existence and being; or rather, it is something greater than being. Here below there are other potentialities, less energetic or lively; they emanate from the universal (Being) as from a brilliant light would emanate another less brilliant light; but the300 beings inhere in these potentialities, as there could be no potentiality without being.
THE UNIVERSAL SOUL IS EVERYWHERE ENTIRE, INCLUDING SOULS SPLIT INFINITELY.
ENNEAD 06.05 - The One and Identical Being is Everywhere Present In Its Entirety.345, #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
The first treatment of matter occurs in the first Ennead, and it may be described as thoroughly Numenian, being treated in conjunction with the subject1273 of evil. First, we have the expression of the Supreme hovering over Being.372 Then we have the soul double,373 reminding us of Numenius's view of the double Second Divinity374 and the double soul.375 Then we have positive evil occurring in the absence of good.376 Plotinos377 opposes the Stoic denial of evil, for he says, "if this were all," there were no evil. We find a threefold division of the universe without the Stoic term hypostasis, which occurs in the treatment of the same topic elsewhere.378 Similar to Numenius is the King of all,379 the blissful life of the divinities around him,380 and the division of the universe into three.381 Plotinos382 acknowledges evil things in the world, something denied by the Stoics,383 but taught by Numenius, as is also original, primary existence of evil, in itself. Evil is here said to be a hypostasis in itself, and imparts evil qualities to other things. It is an image of being, and a genuine nature of evil. Plotinos describes384 matter as flowing eternally, which reminds us unmistakably of Numenius's image385 of matter as a swiftly flowing stream, unlimited and infinite in depth, breadth, and length. Evil inheres in the material part of the body,386 and is seen as actual, positive, darkness, which is Numenian, as far as it means a definite principle.387 Plotinos also388 insists on the ineradicability of evil, in almost the same terms as Numenius,389 who calls on Heraclitus and Homer as supporters. Plotinos390 as reason for this assigns the fact that the world is a mixture, which is the very proof advanced by Numenius in 12. Plotinos, moreover,391 defines matter as that which remains after all qualities are abstracted; this is thoroughly Numenian.392
In the fourth book of the Second Ennead the treatment of matter is original, and is based on comparative studies. Evil has disappeared from the horizon; and the long treatment of the controversy with the Gnostics393 is devoted to explaining away evil as misunderstood1274 good. Although he begins by finding fault with Stoic materialism,394 he asserts two matters, the intelligible and the physical. Intelligible matter395 is eternal, and possesses essence. Plotinos goes on396 to argue for the necessity of an intelligible, as well as a physical substrate (hypokeimenon). In the next paragraph397 Plotinos seems to undertake a historical polemic, against three traditional teachers (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) under whose names he was surely finding fault with their disciples: the Stoics, Numenius, and possibly such thinkers as Lucretius. Empedocles is held responsible for the view that elements are material, evidently a Stoical view. Anaxagoras is held responsible for three views, which are distinctly Numenian: that the world is a mixture,398 that it is all in all,399 and that it is infinite.400 We might, in passing, notice another Plotinian contradiction in here condemning the world as mixture, approved in the former passage.401 As to the atomism of Democritus, it is not clear with which contemporaries he was finding fault. Intelligible matter reappears402 where we also find again the idea of doubleness of everything. As to the terms used by the way, we find the Stoic categories of Otherness or Variety403 and Motion; the conceptual seminal logoi, and the "Koin ousia" of matter; but in his psychology he uses "logos" and "nosis," instead of "nous" and "phronesis," which are found in the Escorial section, and which are more Stoical. We also find the Aristotelian category of energy, or potentiality.
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In Plotinos's third, or Eustochian period, the same evasions occur. For instance478 he limits Being to goodness. Then he acknowledges the existence of evil things, and derives their evil quality from a primary evil, the "image of essence," the Being of evil. That he is conscious of having strained a point is evident from the fact that he adds the clause, "if there can be a Being of evil." Likewise,479 while discussing evil, which is generally recognized because in our daily lives there is positive pain, and sensations of pain, he defines evil as lack of qualities. To say that evil is not such as to form, but as to nature is opposite to form is nonsense, inasmuch as life is full of positive evils, as Numenius brought out in 16, and Plotinos acknowledged even in spite of his polemic against the Gnostics.
Finally Plotinos takes refuge in a miracle480 as explanation of "unparticipating participation." This is commentary enough; it shows he realized the futility of any arguments. But Plotinos was not alone in despairing of establishing an ironclad system; before him Numenius had, just as pathetically, despaired of a logical dualism, and he acknowledged in fragment 16 that Pythagoras's arguments, however true, were "wonderful and opposed to the belief of a majority of humanity."
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This intellectual dishonesty must not however be foisted on Aristotle485 or Plutarch. The latter, for instance,486 adopted this term only to denote the primary and original characteristics (or distinctions within) existing things, from a comparative study of Aristotle's "de Anima," and Plato's "Phaedo."487 These five hypostases were the divinity, mind, soul, forms immanent in inorganic nature, "hexis," in Stoic dialect, and to matter, as apart from these forms.
So important to Neoplatonism did this term seem to Proclus, that he did not hesitate to say that Plutarch, by the use thereof, became "our first forefa ther." He therefore develops it further. Among the hidden and1302 intelligible gods are three hypostases. The first is characterized by the Good; it thinks the Good itself, and dwells with the paternal Monad. The second is characterized by knowledge, and resides in the first thought; while the third is characterized by beauty, and dwells with the most beautiful of the intelligible. They are the causes from which proceed three monads which are self-existent but under the form of a unity, and as in a germ, in their cause. Where they manifest, they take a distinct form: faith, truth, and love (Cousin's title: "Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien"). This trinity pervades all the divine worlds.
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Beauty is creating principle of primary reason, v. 8.3 (31-555).
Beauty is immortal, iii. 5.1 (50-1124).
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Beauty primary, chiefly revealed in virtuous soul, v. 8.3 (31-555).
Beauty, shining, highest appearance of vision of intelligible wisdom, v. 8.10 (31-568).
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Being primary and secondary, divided by no substantial differences, vi. 3.9 (44-949).
Being supra lunar, is deity, in intelligible, iii. 5.6 (50-1132).
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Evil in itself is the primary evil, i. 8.3 (51-1146).
Evil in the soul, explained by virtue as a harmony, iii. 6.2 (26-352).
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Evil primary and secondary defined, i. 8.8 (51-1155).
Evil, primary and secondary, of soul, i. 8.5 (51-1148).
xx Evil primary, is evil in itself, i. 8.3 (51-1146).
Evil primary is lack of measure, (darkness), i. 8.8 (51-1154).
Evil secondary, is accidental formlessness (something obscured), i. 8.8 (51-1155).
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Existence, primary, will contain thought, existence and life, ii. 4.6 (12-203); v. 6.6 (24-339).
Existence real possessed by right thoughts, iii. 5.7 (50-1136).
--
Existence thought and life contained in primary existence, v. 6.6 (24-338).
Existing animal of Plato differs from intelligence, iii. 9.1 (13-220).
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Form of universe, as soul is, would be matter, if a primary principle, iii. 6.18 (26-382).
Form only in the sense-world, proceeds from intelligence, v. 9.10 (5-113).
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Genera, Plotinic five, are primary because nothing can be affirmed of them, vi. 2.9 (43-906).
General, simile of Providence, iii. 3.2 (48-1078).
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Good is intelligence and primary life, vi. 7.21 (38-737).
Good, is it a common label or a common quality? vi. 7.18 (38-733).
--
Intelligence primary knows itself, v. 3.6 (49-1099).
xxxii Intelligence proof of its existence and nature, v. 9.3 (5-104).
--
Life, thought and existence, contained in primary existence, ii. 4.6 (12-203); v. 6.6 (24-339).
Life's ascent, witness to, is disappearance of contingency, vi. 8.15 (39-801).
--
Matter cannot be the primary principle, vi. 1.26 (42-881).
Matter contained in the soul from her looking at darkness, i. 8.4 (51-1147).
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Matter, if primary, would be form of the universe, iii. 6.18 (26-382).
Matter, impassible, because of different senses of participation, iii. 6.9 (26-366).
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Movement of the soul is attri buted to the primary movement, iii. 7.12 (45-985).
Movement, persistent, and its interval, are not time, but are within it, iii. 7.7 (45-999).
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Numbers must exist in the primary essence, vi. 6.8 (34-654).
Numbers participated in by objects, vi. 6.14 (34-667).
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Perfect is primary nature (Plotinic); not goal of evolution (Stoic), iv. 7.8 (2-73).
Perfect life consists in intelligence, i. 4.3 (46-1024).
--
Principle, primary, matter cannot be, vi. 1.26 (42-879.)
Principle, simultaneous, above intelligence and existence, iii. 7.2 (45-989).
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Quality not a primary genus, because posterior to being, vi. 2.14 (43-917).
Quality not in matter is an accident, i. 8.10 (51-1157).
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Soul must be stripped of form to shine in primary nature, vi. 9.7 (9-161).
Soul must first be dissected from body to examine her, vi. 3.1 (44-934).
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Soul's primary and secondary evil, iii. 8.5 (30-538).
Souls prognosticate but do not cause event, ii. 3.6 (52-1171).
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Thought, life and existence, contained in primary existence, v. 6.6 (24-339).
Thought made impossible only by the first principle being one exclusively, v. 6.3 (24-335).
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ENNEAD 06.05 - The One Identical Essence is Everywhere Entirely Present., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
11. How can the intelligible, which has no extension, penetrate into the whole body of the universe, which has no such extension? How does it remain single and identical, and how does it not split up? This question has been raised several times, and we sought to answer it, so as to leave no uncertainty. We have often demonstrated that the things are thus; nevertheless, it will be well to give some further convincing proofs, although we have already given the strongest demonstration, and the most evident one, by teaching the quality of the nature of the intelligible, explaining that it is not a vast mass, some enormous stone which, located in space, might be said to occupy an extension determined by its own magnitude, and would be incapable of going beyond its limits; for its329 mass and its power would be measured by its own nature, which is that of a stone. (The intelligible Essence, on the contrary,) being the primary nature, has no extension that is limited or measured, because it itself is the measure of the sense-nature; and because it is the universal power without any determinate magnitude. Nor is it within time, because the time is continually divided into intervals, while eternity dwells in its own identity, dominating and surpassing time by its perpetual power, though this seemed to have an unlimited course. Time may be compared to a line which, while extending indefinitely, ever depends from a point, and turns around it; so, that, into whatever place it advances, it always reveals the immovable point around which it moves in a circle. If, by nature, time be in the same relation (as is this line with its centre), and if the identical Essence be infinite by its power as well as by its eternity, by virtue of its infinite power it will have to produce a nature which would in some way be parallel to this infinite power, which rises with it, and depends from it, and which finally, by the movable course of time, tries to equal this power which remains movable in itself.6 But then even this power of the intelligible Essence remains superior to the universe, because the former determines the extension of the latter.
HOW THE INFERIOR NATURE CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE INTELLIGIBLE.
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Why then is the material triangle not everywhere, like the immaterial triangle? Because matter does not entirely participate in the immaterial triangle, as it also receives other forms, and since it does not apply itself entirely to every intelligible entity. Indeed, the primary Nature does not give itself as an entirety to every thing; but it communicates itself first to the primary genera (of essences;) then, through these, it communicates itself to the other essences; besides, it is not any the less from the very beginning present to the entire universe.
LIFE INTERPENETRATES ALL; AND KNOWS NO LIMITS.
ENNEAD 06.06 - Of Numbers., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
4. Let us now examine how the numbers form part of the intelligible world. Are they inherent in the other forms? Or are they, since all eternity, the648 consequences of the existence of these forms? In the latter case, as the very essence possessed primary existence, we would first conceive the monad; then, as movement and stability emanated from it, we would have the triad; and each one of the remaining intelligible entities would lead to the conception of some of the other numbers. If it were not so, if a unity were inherent in each intelligible entity, the unity inherent in the first Essence would be the monad; the unity inherent in what followed it, if there be an order in the intelligible entities, would be the "pair"; last, the unity inhering in some other intelligible entity, such as, for instance, in ten, would be the decad. Nevertheless this could not yet be so, each number being conceived as existing in itself. In this case, will we be compelled to admit that number is anterior to the other intelligible entities, or posterior thereto? On this subject Plato9 says that men have arrived to the notion of number by the succession of days and nights, and he thus refers the conception of number to the diversity of (objective) things. He therefore seems to teach that it is first the numbered objects that by their diversity produce numbers, that number results from movement of the soul, which passes from one object to another, and that it is thus begotten when the soul enumerates; that is, when she says to herself, Here is one object, and there is another; while, so long as she thinks of one and the same object, she affirms nothing but unity. But when Plato says that being is in the veritable number, and that the number is in the being,10 he intends to teach that by itself number possesses a hypostatic substantial existence, that it is not begotten in the soul which enumerates, but that the variety of sense-objects merely recalls to the soul the notion of number.
649
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8. Since then the (universal) Organism possesses primary existence, since it is simultaneously organism, intelligence, and veritable "Being"; and as we state that it contains all organisms, numbers, justice, beauty, and the other similar beings for we mean something different by the Man himself, and Number itself, and Justice itselfwe have to determine, so far as it is possible in such things, what is the condition and nature of each intelligible entity.
NUMBER MUST EXIST IN THE primary ESSENCE.
(To solve this problem) let us begin by setting aside sensation, and let us contemplate Intelligence by our intelligence exclusively. Above all, let us clearly understand that, as in us life and intelligence do not consist of a corporeal mass, but in a power without mass, likewise veritable "Being" is deprived of all corporeal extension, and constitutes a power founded on itself. It does not indeed consist in something without force, but in a power sovereignly vital and intellectual, which possesses life in the highest degree, intelligence, and being. Consequently, whatever touches this power participates in the same characteristics according to the manner of its touch; in a higher655 degree, if the touch be close; in a lower degree, if the touch be distant. If existence be desirable, the completest existence (or, essence) is more desirable still. Likewise, if intelligence deserve to be desired, perfect Intelligence deserves to be desired above everything; and the same state of affairs prevails in respect to life. If then we must grant that the Essence is the first, and if we must assign the first rank to Essence, the second to Intelligence, and the third to the Organism,18 as the latter seems already to contain all things, and Intelligence justly occupies the second rank, because it is the actualization of "Being"then number could not enter into the Organism, for before the organism already existed one and two ("Being" and Intelligence). Nor could number exist in Intelligence, for before Intelligence was "Being," which is both one and manifold. (Number therefore must exist, or originate, in the primary Being.)
NUMBER FOLLOWS AND PROCEEDS FROM ESSENCE.
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11. It may be objected that the decad is nothing else than ten unities. If the existence of the One be660 granted, why should we not also grant the existence of ten unities? Since the supreme Unity (the unity of the first Essence), possesses hypostatic existence, why should the case not be the same with the other unities (the complex unities contained within each of the essences)? It must not be supposed that the supreme Unity is bound up with a single essence; for in this case each of the other (beings) would no longer be one. If each of the other (beings) must be one, then unity is common to all the (beings); that is that single nature which may be predicated of the multiple (beings), and which must, as we have explained it, subsist in itself (in the primary essence) before the unity which resides in the multiple (beings).
THE SUPREME UNITY ADJUSTS ALL LOWER GROUP UNITIES.
As unity is seen in some one (being), and then in some other, if the second unity possess hypostatic existence also, then the supreme Unity (of the first Essence) will not alone possess hypostatic existence, and there will be thus a multitude of unities (as there is a multitude of beings). If the hypostatic existence of the first Unity be alone acknowledged, this will exist either in the Essence in itself, or in the One in itself. If it exist in the Essence in itself, the other unities (which exist in the other beings) will then be such merely by figure of speech, and will no longer be subordinated to the primary unity; or number will be composed of dissimilar unities, and the unities will differ from each other in so far as they are unities. If the primary unity exist already in the Unity in itself, what need would that Unity in itself have of that unity to be one? If all that be impossible, we shall have to recognize the existence of the One which is purely and simply one, which, by its "being" is entirely independent of all the other beings, which is named the chief661 Unity, and is conceived of as such. If unity exist on high (in the intelligible world) without any object that may be called one, why might not another One (the one of the first Being) subsist on high also? Why would not all the (beings), each being a separate unity, not constitute a multitude of unities, which might be the "multiple unity"? As the nature (of the first Being) begets, or rather, as it has begotten (from all eternity); or at least, as it has not limited itself to one of the things it has begotten, thus rendering the unity (of the first Being) somewhat continuous; if it circumscribe (what it produces) and promptly ceases in its procession, it begets small numbers; if it advance further, moving alone not in foreign matters, but in itself, it begets large numbers. It thus harmonizes every plurality and every being with every number, knowing well that, if each of the (beings) were not in harmony with some number, either they would not exist, or they would bear neither proportion, measure, nor reason.
ONE AND UNITY ARE WITHIN US; INDEPENDENTLY OF THE ONE OUTSIDE.
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The first and veritable Number is therefore the source and principle21 of hypostatic existence for beings. That is the reason that even here below, the classified both discrete and continuous quantity38 and, with a different number, it is some other thing that is begotten, or nothing more can be begotten. Such are the primary Numbers, so far as they can be numbered. The numbers that subsist in other things play two parts. So far as they proceed from the First, they can be numbered; so far as they are below them, they measure other things, they serve to enumerate both numbers and things which can be enumerated. How indeed could you even say "ten" without the aid of numbers within yourself?
671
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16. The first objection might be, Where do you locate, or how do you classify these primary and veritable Numbers? All the philosophers (who follow Aristotle) classify numbers in the genus of quantity. It seems that we have above treated of quantity, and classified both discrete and continuous quantity38 among other "beings." Here however we seem to say that these Numbers form part of the primary Essences, and add that there are, in addition, numbers that serve for enumerations. We are now asked how we make these statements agree, for they seem to give rise to several questions. Is the unity which is found among sense-beings a quantity? Or is unity a quantity when repeated, while, when considered alone and in itself, it is the principle of quantity, but not a quantity itself? Besides, if unity be the principle of quantity, does it share the nature of quantity, or has it a different nature? Here are a number of points we ought to expound. We shall answer these questions, and here is what we consider our starting-point.
UNITY CONTAINED IN SENSE-OBJECTS IS NOT UNITY IN ITSELF.
--
What then is the intelligible line, and where does it exist? It is posterior to number43; for unity appears in the line, since this starts from the unity (of the point), and because it has but one dimension (length); now the measure of dimension is not a quantative (entity). Where then does the intelligible Line exist?675 It exists only in the intelligence that defines it; or, if it be a thing, it is but something intellectual. In the intelligible world, in fact, everything is intellectual, and such as the thing itself is. It is in this same world, likewise, where is made the decision where and how the plane, the solid, and all other figures are to be disposed. For it is not we who create the figures by conceiving them. This is so because the figure of the world is anterior to us, and because the natural figures which are suitable to the productions of nature, are necessarily anterior to the bodies, and in the intelligible world exist in the state of primary figures, without determining limits, for these forms exist in no other subjects; they subsist by themselves, and have no need of extension, because the extension is the attri bute of a subject.
THE INTELLIGIBLE SPHERICAL FIGURE THE PRIMITIVE ONE.
--
Nevertheless, the intelligible Number might be called infinite in the sense that it is unmeasured. By what,677 indeed, could it be measured? The Number that exists on high is universal, simultaneous one and manifold, constituting a whole circumscribed by no limit (a whole that is infinite); it is what it is by itself. None of the intelligible beings, indeed, is circumscribed by any limit. What is really limited and measured is what is hindered from losing itself in the infinite, and demands measure. But all of the intelligible (beings) are measures; whence it results that they are all beautiful. So far as it is a living organism, the living Organism in itself is beautiful, possessing an excellent life, and lacking no kind of life; it does not have a life mingled with death, it contains nothing mortal nor perishable. The life of the living Organism in itself has no fault; it is the first Life, full of vigor and energy, a primary Light whose rays vivify both the souls that dwell on high, and those that descend here below. This Life knows why it lives; it knows its principle and its goal; for its principle is simultaneously its goal. Besides, universal Wisdom, the universal Intelligence, which is intimately united to the living Organism, which subsists in it and with it, still improves it; heightening its hues as it were by the splendor of its wisdom, and rendering its beauty more venerable. Even here below, a life full of wisdom is that which is most venerable and beautiful, though we can hardly catch a glimpse of such a life. On high, however, the vision of life is perfectly clear; the (favored initiate) receives from Life both capacity to behold and increased vitality; so that, thanks to a more energetic life, the beholder receives a clearer vision, and he becomes what he sees. Here below, our glance often rests on inanimate things, and even when it turns towards living beings, it first notices in them that which lacks life. Besides, the life which is hidden in them is already mingled with other things. On high, on the contrary, all the (beings) are alive, entirely678 alive, and their life is pure. If at the first aspect you should look on something as deprived of life, soon the life within it would burst out before your eyes.
ESSENCE ALONE POSSESSES SELF-EXISTENCE.
ENNEAD 06.07 - How Ideas Multiplied, and the Good., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
But why should these Animals (devoid of reason) exist in the divine Intelligence? We might understand that animals endowed with reason might be found within it; but does this multitude of irrational animals seem at all admirable? Does it not rather seem something unworthy of the divine Intelligence? Evidently the essence which is one must be also manifold, since it is posterior to the Unity which is absolutely simple; otherwise, instead of being inferior to it, it would fuse with it. Being posterior to that Unity, it could not be more simple, and must therefore be less so. Now as the unity was the One who is excellent, essence had to be less unitary, since multiplicity is the characteristic of inferiority. But why should essence not be merely the "pair" (instead of the manifold)? Neither of the elements of the Pair could any longer be absolutely one, and each would itself become a further pair; and we might point out the same thing of each of the new elements (in which each element of the primary Pair would have split up). Besides, the first Pair contains both movement and stability; it is also intelligence and perfect life. The character of Intelligence is not to be one, but to be universal; it therefore contains all the particular intelligences; it is all the intelligences, and714 at the same time it is something greater than all. It possesses life not as a single soul, but as a universal Soul, having the superior power of producing individual souls. It is besides the universal living Organism (or, Animal); consequently, it should not contain man alone (but also all the other kinds of animals); otherwise, man alone would exist upon the earth.
MANY ANIMALS ARE NOT SO IRRATIONAL AS DIFFERENT.
--
(In reply, it might be asked) why are not all animals equally rational? And why are not all men also equally rational? Let us reflect: all these lives,715 which represent as many movements; all these intelligences, which form a plurality; could not be identical. Therefore they had to differ among each other, and their difference had to consist in manifesting more or less clearly life and intelligence; those that occupy the first rank are distinguished by primary differences; those that occupy the second rank, by secondary differences; and so forth. Thus, amidst intelligences, some constitute the divinities, others the beings placed in the second rank, and gifted with reason; further, other beings that we here call deprived of reason and intelligence really were reason and intelligence in the intelligible world. Indeed, he who thinks the intelligible Horse, for instance, is Intelligence, just as is the very thought of the horse. If nothing but thought existed, there would be nothing absurd in that this thought, while being intellectual, might, as object, have a being devoid of intelligence. But since thought and the object thought fuse, how could thought be intellectual unless the object thought were so likewise? To effect this, Intelligence would, so to speak, have to render itself unintelligent. But it is not so. The thing thought is a determinate intelligence, just as it is a determinate life. Now, just as no life, whatever it be, can be deprived of vitality, so no determinate intelligence can be deprived of intellectuality. The very intelligence which is proper to an animal, such as, for instance, man, does not cease being intelligence of all things; whichever of its parts you choose to consider, it is all things, only in a different manner; while it is a single thing in actualization, it is all things in potentiality. However, in any one particular thing, we grasp only what it is in actualization. Now what is in actualization (that is, a particular thing), occupies the last rank. Such, in Intelligence, for instance, is the idea of the Horse. In its procession, Intelligence continues towards a less perfect life, and at a certain716 degree constitutes a horse, and at some inferior degree, constitutes some animal still inferior; for the greater the development of the powers of Intelligence, the more imperfect these become. At each degree in their procession they lose something; and as it is a lower degree of essence that constitutes some particular animal, its inferiority is redeemed by something new. Thus, in the measure that life is less complete in the animal, appear nails, claws, or horns, or teeth. Everywhere that Intelligence diminishes on one side, it rises on another side by the fulness of its nature, and it finds in itself the resources by which to compensate for whatever it may lack.
APPARENT IMPERFECTIONS ARE ONLY LOWER FORMS OF PERFECTION.
--
First it can be demonstrated that plants contain nothing opposed to reason; since, even here below, a718 plant contains a "reason" which constitutes its life.91 But if the essential "reason" of the plant, which constitutes it, is a life of a particular kind, and a kind of soul, and if this "reason" itself be a unity, is it the primary Plant? No: the primary Plant, from which the particular plant is derived, is above that "reason." The primary Plant is unity; the other is multiple, and necessarily derives from this unity. If so, the primary Plant must possess life in a still higher degree, and be the Plant itself from which the plants here below proceed, which occupy the second or third rank, and which derive from the primary Plant the traces of the life they reveal.
HOW THE EARTH EXISTS IN THE INTELLIGIBLE.
But how does the earth exist in the intelligible world? What is its essence? How can the earth in the intelligible world be alive there? Let us first examine our earth, that is, inquire what is its essence? It must be some sort of a shape, and a reason; for the reason of the plant is alive, even here below. Is there then a living ("seminal) reason" in the earth also? To discover the nature of the earth, let us take essentially terrestrial objects, which are begotten or fashioned by it. The birth of the stones, and their increase, the interior formation of mountains, could not exist unless an animated reason produced them by an intimate and secret work. This reason is the "form of the earth,"92 a form that is analogous to what is called nature in trees. The earth might be compared to the trunk of a tree, and the stone that can be detached therefrom to the branch that can be separated from the trunk. Consideration of the stone which is not yet dug out of the earth, and which is united to it as the uncut branch is united to the tree, shows that the earth's nature, which is a productive force, constitutes719 a life endowed with reason; and it must be evident that the intelligible earth must possess life at a still higher degree, that the rational life of the earth is the Earth-in-itself, the primary Earth, from which proceeds the earth here below.
THE FIRE AS IT IS IN THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
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15. Who then will be able to contemplate this multiple and universal Life, primary and one, without being charmed therewith, and without scorning every other kind of life? For our lives here below, that are so weak, impotent, incomplete, whose impurity soils other lives, can be considered as nothing but tenebrous. As soon as you consider these lives, you no longer see the others, you no longer live with these other lives in which everything is living; which are relieved of all impurity, and of all contact with evil. Indeed, evil reigns here below only164; here where we have but a trace of Intelligence and of the intelligible life. On the contrary, in the intelligible world exists "that archetype which is beneficent (which possesses the form of Good"), as says Plato,101 because it possesses good by the forms (that is, by the ideas). Indeed, the absolute Good is something different from the Intelligence which is good only because its life is passed in contemplating the Good. The objects contemplated by Intelligence are the essences which have the form of Good, and which it possesses from the moment it contemplates the Good. Intelligence receives the Good, not such as the Good is in itself, but such as Intelligence is capable of receiving it. The Good is indeed the supreme principle. From the Good therefore,727 Intelligence derives its perfection; to the Good Intelligence owes its begetting of all the intelligible entities; on the one hand, Intelligence could not consider the Good without thinking it; on the other, it must not have seen in the Good the intelligible entities, otherwise, Intelligence itself could not have begotten them. Thus Intelligence has, from the Good, received the power to beget, and to fill itself with that which it has begotten.102 The Good does not Himself possess the things which He thus donates; for He is absolutely one, and that which has been given to Intelligence is manifold. Incapable in its plenitude to embrace, and in its unity to possess the power it was receiving, Intelligence split it up, thus rendering it manifold, so as to possess it at least in fragments. Thus everything begotten by Intelligence proceeds from the power derived from the Good, and bears its form; as intelligence itself is good, and as it is composed of things that bear the form of Good, it is a varied good. The reader may be assisted in forming a conception of it by imagining a variegated living sphere, or a composite of animated and brilliant faces. Or again, imagine pure souls, pure and complete (in their essence), all united by their highest (faculties), and then universal Intelligence seated on this summit, and illuminating the whole intelligible region. In this simile, the reader who imagines it considers it as something outside of himself; but (to contemplate Intelligence) one has to become Intelligence, and then give oneself a panorama of oneself.
INTELLIGENCE CONTAINS ALL THINGS THAT ARE CONFORMED TO THE GOOD.
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In which of these things does the form of the Good inhere in the highest degree? The solution of this problem depends on the following one. Is life a good merely as such, even if it were life pure and simple? Should we not rather limit that word "life" to the life which derives from the Good, so that mere proceeding from the Good be a sufficient characterization of life? What is the nature of this life? Is it the life of the Good? No: life does not belong to the Good; it only proceeds therefrom. If the characteristic of life be proceeding from the Good, and if it be real life, evidently733 the result would be that nothing that proceeds from the Good would deserve scorn, that life as life should be considered good, that the same condition of affairs obtains with the primary and veritable Intelligence, and that finally each form is good and bears the form of Good. In this case, each of these (life, intelligence and idea) possess a good which is either common, or different, or which is of a different degree. Since we have admitted that each of the above-mentioned things contains a good in its being, then it is good chiefly because of this good. Thus life is a good, not in so far as it is merely life, but in so far as it is real life and proceeds from the Good. Intelligence likewise is a good so far as it essentially is intelligence; there is therefore some common element in life and intelligence. Indeed, when one and the same attri bute is predicated of different beings, although it form an integral part of their being, it may be abstracted therefrom by thought; thus from "man" and "horse" may be abstracted "animal"; from "water" and "fire," "heat"; but what is common in these beings is a genus, while what is common in intelligence and life, is one and the same thing which inheres in one in the first degree, and in the other in the second.
IS THE WORD GOOD A COMMON LABEL OR A COMMON QUALITY?
Is it by a mere play on words that life, intelligence and ideas are called good? Does the good constitute their being, or is each good taken in its totality? Good could not constitute the being of each of them. Are they then parts of the Good? The Good, however, is indivisible. The things that are beneath it are good for different reasons. The primary actualization (that proceeds from the Good) is good; likewise, the determination it receives is good, and the totality of both734 things is good. The actualization is good because it proceeds from the Good; the determination, because it is a perfection that has emanated from the Good; and the combination of actualization and determination because it is their totality. All these things thus are derived from one and the same principle, but nevertheless they are different. Thus (in a choric ballet) the voice and the step proceed from one and the same person, in that they are all perfectly regulated. Now they are well regulated because they contain order and rhythm. What then is the content in the above-mentioned things that would make them good? But perhaps it may be objected that if the voice and step are well regulated, each one of them entirely owes it to some external principle, since the order is here applied to the things that differ from each other. On the contrary, the things of which we speak are each of them good in itself. And why are they good? It does not suffice to say that they are good because they proceed from the Good. Doubtless we shall have to grant that they are precious from the moment that they proceed from the Good, but reason demands that we shall determine that of which their goodness consists.
GOOD CANNOT BE A DESIRE OF THE SOUL.
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THE GOOD IS INTELLIGENCE AND primary LIFE.
21. What then is the one and only cause to whose presence is due the goodness (of life, intelligence and idea)? Let us not hesitate to say: Intelligence and primary Life bear the form of Good; it is on this account alone that they are desirable; they bear the form of Good in this respect, that the primary Life is the actualization of the Good, or rather the actualization that proceeds from the Good, and that intelligence is determination of this actualization. (Intelligence and primary Life) are fascinating, and the soul seeks them because they proceed from the Good; nevertheless the soul aspires to them (only) because they fit her, and not because they are good in themselves. On the other hand, the soul could not disdain them because they bear the form of good; though112 we can disdain something even though it be suitable to us, if it be not a good besides.112 It is true that we permit ourselves to be allured by distant and inferior objects, and may even feel for them a passionate love; but that occurs only when they have something more than their natural condition, and when some perfection descends on them from on high. Just as the bodies, while containing a light mingled with their (substance), nevertheless need illumination by some other light to bring out their colors,113 so the intelligible entities, in spite of the light that they contain, need to receive some other more powerful light, so as to become visible, both for themselves, and for others.
GOOD CONSISTS IN ILLUMINATION BY THE EXTREME.
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The good must then be desirable; but it is good not because it is desirable, but it is desirable because it is good.121 Thus in the order of beings, rising from the last to the First, it will be found that the good of each of them is in the one immediately preceding, so long as this ascending scale remain proportionate and increasing. Then we will stop at Him who occupies the supreme rank, beyond which there is nothing more to seek. That is the First, the veritable, the sovereign Good, the author of all goodness in other beings. The good of matter is form; for if matter became capable of sensation it would receive it with pleasure. The good of the body is the soul; for without her it could neither743 exist nor last. The good of the soul is virtue; and then higher (waits), Intelligence. Last, the good of Intelligence is the principle called the primary nature. Each of these goods produces something within the object whose good it is. It confers order and beauty (as form does on matter); or life (as the soul does on the body); or wisdom and happiness (as intelligence does on soul). Last, the Good communicates to Intelligence its influx, and actualization emanating from the Good, and shedding on Intelligence what has been called the light of the Good. The nature of this we shall study later.
THE TRUE GOOD IMPLIES A COUNTERFEIT GOOD.
--
But, in order that this truth may appear in its full light, we shall first have to clear away all the other opinions, and especially have to refute the teaching opposite to ours. This is the question asked of us: "What will be the fruit gathered by him who has the intelligence necessary to acquire one of these goods (such as existence and life), if on hearing them named, he be not impressed thereby, because he does not understand them, either because they seem to him no more than words, or because his conception of each of these things should differ (from our view of them), or because in his search for the Good he seeks some sense-object, such as wealth, or the like?" The person who thus scorns these things (existence and life), thereby implicitly recognizes that there is within him a certain good, but that, without knowing in what it consists, he nevertheless values these things according to his own notion of the Good; for it is impossible to say, "that is not the good," without having some sort of knowledge of the good,128 or acquaintance therewith. The above speaker seems to betray a suspicion that the Good in itself is above Intelligence. Besides, if in considering the Good in itself, or the good which most approaches it, he do not discern it, he will nevertheless succeed in getting a conception of it by its contraries; otherwise, he would not even know that the lack of intelligence is an evil, though every man desire to be intelligent, and glory in being such, as is seen by the sensations which aspire to become notions. If intelligence, and especially primary Intelligence, be beautiful and venerable, what admiration might not then be felt by him who could contemplate the generating principle, the Father of Intelligence?129 Consequently, he who affects to scorn existence and life749 receives a refutation from himself and from all the affections he feels. They who are disgusted of life are those who consider not the true life, but the life which is mingled with death.
TWO INTERPRETATIONS OF PLATO'S OPINION ABOUT THE GOOD.
--
We still have to study the proper conception of Him who is superior to the Intelligence that is so universally beautiful and varied, but who Himself is not varied. To Him the soul aspires without knowing why she wishes to possess Him; but reason tells us He is essential beauty, since the nature of Him who is excellent755 and sovereignly lovable cannot absolutely have any form. That is why the soul, whatever object you may show her in your process of reducing an object to a form, ever seeks beyond the shaping principle. Now reason tells us in respect to anything that has a shape, that as a shape or form is something measured (or limited), (anything shaped) cannot be genuinely universal, absolute, and beautiful in itself, and that its beauty is a mixture. Therefore though the intelligible entities be beautiful (they are limited); while He who is essential beauty, or rather the super-beautiful, must be unlimited, and consequently have no shape or form. He who then is beauty in the first degree, and primary Beauty, is superior to form, and the splendor of the intelligible (world) is only a reflection of the nature of the Good.
THUS LOVE BEGINS PHYSICALLY BUT BECOMES SPIRITUAL.
This is proved by what happens to lovers; so far as their eyes remain fixed on a sense-object, they do not yet love genuinely. Love is born only when they rise above the sense-object, and arrive at representing in their indivisible soul an image which has nothing more of sensation. To calm the ardor that devours them they do indeed still desire to contemplate the beloved object; but as soon as they come to understand that they have to rise to something beyond the form, they desire the latter; for since the very beginning they felt within themselves the love for a great light inspired by a feeble glow. The Shape indeed is the trace of the shapeless. Without himself having any shape, He begets shape whenever matter approaches Him. Now matter must necessarily be very distant from Him, because matter does not possess forms of even the last degree. Since form inherent in matter is derived from the soul, not even mere form-fashioned756 matter is lovable in itself, as matter; and as the soul herself is a still higher form, but yet is inferior to and less lovable than intelligence, there is no escape from the conclusion that the primary nature of the Beautiful is superior to form.
THE FORMLESSNESS OF THE SUPREME IS PROVED BY THE FACT THAT THE SOUL WHEN APPROACHING HIM SPONTANEOUSLY RIDS HERSELF OF FORMS.
--
41. It would seem that thought was only a help granted to natures which, though divine, nevertheless do not occupy the first rank; it is like an eye given to the blind.159 But what need would the eye have to see essence, if itself were light? To seek light is the characteristic of him who needs it, because he finds in himself nothing but darkness.159 Since thought seeks light, while the light does not seek the light, the primary Nature, not seeking the light (since it is light itself), could not any more seek thought (since it is thought that seeks light); thinking could not suit it, therefore. What utility or advantage would thought bring him, inasmuch as thought itself needs aid to think? The Good therefore has not self-consciousness, not having need thereof; it is not doubleness; or rather, it is not double as is thought which implies (besides769 intelligence) a third term, namely, the intelligible (world). If thought, the thinking subject (the thinker) and the thought object (the thought) be absolutely identical, they form but one, and are absolutely indistinguishable; if they be distinct, they differ, and can no more be the Good. Thus we must put everything aside when we think of this "best Nature," which stands in need of no assistance. Whatever you may attri bute to this Nature, you diminish it by that amount, since it stands in need of nothing. For us, on the contrary, thought is a beautiful thing, because our soul has need of intelligence. It is similarly a beautiful thing for intelligence, because thought is identical with essence, and it is thought that gave existence to intelligence.
THE GOOD IS NOT GOOD FOR ITSELF, BUT ONLY FOR THE NATURES BELOW IT.
Intelligence must therefore fuse with thought, and must always be conscious of itself, knowing that each of the two elements that constitute it is identical with the other, and that both form but a single one. If it were only unity, it would be self-sufficient, and would have no further need of receiving anything. The precept "know thyself" applies only to natures which, because of their multiplicity, need to give an account of themselves, to know the number and the quality of their component elements, because they either do not know them entirely, or even not at all; not knowing what power in them occupies the first rank, and constitutes their being.160 But if there be a Principle which is one by itself, it is too great to know itself, to think itself, to be self-conscious, because it is nothing determinate for itself. It receives nothing within itself, sufficing itself. It is therefore the Good not for itself, but for other natures; these indeed need the Good,770 but the Good has no need of itself; it would be ridiculous, and would fail to stand up to itself. Nor does it view itself; for, from this look something would arise, or exist for Him. All such things He left to the inferior natures, and nothing that exists in them is found in Him; thus (the Good) is not even "being." Nor does (the Good) possess thought, since thought is united to being, and as primary and supreme thought coexisted with essence. Therefore, one can not (as says Plato150), express (the divinity) by speech, nor have perception nor science of Him, since no attri bute can be predicated of Him.
THE BEAUTIFUL THE SUPREME OF THREE RANKS OF EXISTENCE.
ENNEAD 06.08 - Of the Will of the One., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Liberty therefore belongs to the immaterial principle, and to this should be traced our free will. This principle is the volition which rules itself, and which remains within itself; even when by necessity compelled to take some resolution affecting external affairs. All that proceeds from (the immaterial principle) and exists by it, depends on us, and is free; what is outside of it, and with it; what it itself wills and carries out unhindered, also constitutes what primarily depends on us. The contemplative and primary Intelligence therefore possesses independence, because in the accomplishment of its function it depends on no other being, because fulfilling (its function, Intelligence) remains entirely turned towards itself, exclusively engaged with itself, resting in the Good, living according to its will, satisfied, and without needs. Besides, will is nothing more than thought; but it was called "will" because it was conformed to intelligence; for will imitates what conforms to intelligence. On the one hand, will desires the Good; on the other, for Intelligence to think truly, is to abide within the Good. Intelligence therefore possesses what the will desires, and, in attaining these its desires, will becomes thought. Since, therefore, we define liberty as the will's achievement of the Good, why should not liberty also be predicated of the Intelligence which is founded on (the Good) that is the object of the desire783 of our will? If, however, there should still be objection to ascribing liberty to intelligence, this could be the case only by ascribing it to something still higher (namely, super-Intelligence).
THE SOUL IS FREE BY INTELLIGENCE, WHICH IS FREE BY ITSELF.
--
Let us also remember that each of the beings which exist genuinely, as we have said, and which have received their form of hypostatic existence from the799 Good, likewise owe it to Him that they are individual, as are the similarly situated sense-beings. By such individual beings is here meant having in one's own being the cause of his hypostatic existence. Consequently, He who then contemplates things can give an account of each of their details, to give the cause of the individuality of eyes or feet, to show that the cause of the generation of each part is found in its relations with the other parts, and that they have all been made for each other. Why are the feet of a particular length? Because some other organ is "such"; for instance, the face being such, the feet themselves must be such. In one word, the universal harmony190 is the cause on account of which all things were made for each other.191 Why is the individual such a thing? Because of the Man-essence. Therefore the essence and the cause coincide. They issued from the same source, from the Principle which, without having need of reasoning, produced together the essence and the cause. Thus the source of the essence and the cause produces them both simultaneously. Such then are begotten things, such is their principle, but in a much superior and truer manner; for in respect of excellence, it possesses an immense superiority over them. Now since it is not fortuitously, neither by chance, nor contingently, that the things which bear their cause in themselves, are what they are; since, on the other hand, (the Divinity) possesses all the entities of which He is the principle, evidently, being the Father of reason, of cause, and of causal beingall of them entities entirely free from contingencehe is the Principle and type of all things that are not contingent, the Principle which is really and in the highest degree independent of chance, of fortune, and of contingency; He is the cause of Himself, He is He by virtue of Himself; for He is Self in a primary and transcendent manner.
800
--
(As illustration), consider the radiance shed afar by some luminous source that remains within itself; the radiation would represent the image, while the source from which it issues would be the genuine light.196 Nevertheless, the radiation, which represents the intelligence, is not an image that has a form foreign (to its principle), for it does not exist by chance, being reason and cause in each of its parts. Unity then is the cause of the cause; He is, in the truest sense, supreme causality, simultaneously containing all the intellectual causes He is to produce; this, His offspring, is begotten not as a result of chance, but according to His own volition. His volition, however, was not irrational, fortuitous, nor accidental; and as nothing is fortuitous in Him, His will was exactly suitable. Therefore Plato197 called it the "suitable," and the "timely," to express as clearly as possible that the (Divinity) is foreign to all chance, and that He is that which is exactly suitable. Now if He be exactly suitable, He is so not irrationally. If He be timely, He must (by a Greek pun), also be "supremely sovereign" over the (beings) beneath Him. So much the more will He be timely for Himself. Not by chance therefore is He what He is, for He willed to be what He is; He wills suitable things, and in Him that which is suitable, and the actualization thereof, coincide. He is the suitable, not as a subject, but as primary actualization807 manifesting Him such as it was suitable for Him to be. That is the best description we can give of Him, in our impotence to express ourselves about Him as we should like.198
NO PERSON WHO HAS SEEN THE SUPREME COULD POSSIBLY CALL HIM CHANCE.
--
20. It will be objected that the above implies the existence (of the Divinity) before He existed; for, if He made Himself, on the one hand, He did not yet exist, if it was Himself that He made; and on the other, so far as it was He who made, He already existed before Himself, since what has been made was Himself. However, (the Divinity) should be considered not so much as "being made" but as "making," and we should realize that the actualization by which He created Himself is absolute; for His actualization does not result in the production of any other "being." He produces nothing but Himself, He is entirely Himself; we are not dealing here with two things, but with a single entity. Neither need we hesitate to admit that the primary actualization has no "being"; but that actualization should be considered as constituting His hypostatic form of existence. If within Him these two were to be distinguished, the superlatively perfect Principle would be incomplete and imperfect. To add actualization to Him would be to destroy His unity. Thus, since the actualization is more perfect than His being, and since that which is primary is the most perfect, that which is primary must necessarily be actualization. He is what He is as soon as He actualizes. He cannot be said to have existed before He made Himself; for before He made Himself He did not exist; but (from the first actualization) He already existed in entirety. He therefore is an actualization which does not depend on being, (an actualization) that is809 clearly free; and thus He (originates) from Himself. If, as to His essence, He were preserved by some other principle, He himself would not be the first proceeding from Himself. He is said to contain Himself because He produces (and parades) Himself; since it is from the very beginning that He caused the existence of what He naturally contains. Strictly, we might indeed say, that He made Himself, if there existed a time when He himself began to exist. But since He was what He is before all times, the statement that He made Himself means merely that "having made" and "himself" are inseparable; for His essence coincides with His creative act, and, if I may be permitted to speak thus, with his "eternal generation."
HOW THE SUPREME MAY BE SAID TO COMMAND HIMSELF.
ENNEAD 06.09 - Of the Good and the One., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
1. All beings, both primary, as well as those who are so called on any pretext soever, are beings only because of their unity. What, indeed would they be without it? Deprived of their unity, they would cease to be what they are said to be. No army can exist unless it be one. So with a choric ballet or a flock. Neither a house nor a ship can exist without unity; by losing it they would cease to be what they are.187 So also with continuous quantities which would not exist without unity. On being divided by losing their unity, they simultaneously lose their nature. Consider farther the bodies of plants and animals, of which each is a unity. On losing their unity by being broken up into several parts, they simultaneously lose their nature. They are no more what they were, they have become new beings, which themselves exist only so long as they are one. What effects health in us, is that the parts of our bodies are co-ordinated in unity. Beauty is formed by the unity of our members. Virtue is our soul's tendency to unity, and becoming one through the harmony of her faculties.
THE SOUL MAY IMPART UNITY, BUT IS NOT UNITY.
--
Besides, Unity in itself is the first of all; but intelligence, forms and essence are not primary. Every form is manifold and composite, and consequently must be something posterior; for parts are prior to the composite they constitute. Nor is intelligence primary, as appears from the following considerations. For intelligence existence is necessarily thought and the best intelligence which does not contemplate exterior objects, must think what is above it; for, on turning towards itself, it turns towards its principle. On the one hand, if intelligence be both thinker and thought, it implies duality, and is not simple or unitary. On the other hand, if intelligence contemplate some object other than itself, this might be nothing more than some object better than itself, placed above it. Even if intelligence contemplate itself simultaneously with what is better than it, even so intelligence is only of secondary rank. We may indeed admit that the intelligence which has such a nature enjoys the presence of the Good, of the First, and that intelligence contemplates the First; but nevertheless at the151 same time intelligence is present to itself, and thinks itself as being all things. Containing such a diversity, intelligence is far from unity.
UNITY AS ABOVE ALL THINGS, INTELLIGENCE AND ESSENCE.
--
Nevertheless a philosophical study of unity will follow the following course. Since it is Unity that we seek, since it is the principle of all things, the Good, the First that we consider, those who will wish to reach it must not withdraw from that which is of primary rank to decline to what occupies the last, but they must withdraw their souls from sense-objects, which occupy the last degree in the scale of existence, to those entities that occupy the first rank. Such a man will have to free himself from all evil, since he aspires to rise to the Good. He will rise to the principle that he possesses within himself. From the manifold that he was he will again become one. Only under these conditions will he contemplate the supreme principle, Unity. Thus having become intelligence, having trusted his soul to intelligence, educating and establishing her therein, so that with vigilant attention she may grasp all that intelligence sees, he will, by intelligence, contemplate unity, without the use of any senses, without mingling any of their perceptions with the flashes of intelligence. He will contemplate the purest Principle, through the highest degree of the purest Intelligence. So when a man applies himself to the contemplation of such a principle and represents it to himself as a magnitude, or a figure, or even a form, it is not his intelligence that guides him in this contemplation for intelligence is not destined to see such things; it is sensation, or opinion, the associate of sensation, which is active in him. Intelligence is only capable of informing us about things within its sphere.
UNITY AS THE UNIFORM IN ITSELF AND FORMLESS SUPERFORM.
--
BEING A primary CAUSE, UNITY IS NOTHING CONTINGENT.
Nor let anybody object that something contingent is attributed to Unity when we call it the primary cause. It is to ourselves that we are then attri buting contingency, since it is we who are receiving something from Unity, while Unity remains within itself.
154
--
THE SOUL MUST BE STRIPPED OF FORM TO BE ILLUMINATED BY primary NATURE.
7. Your mind remains in uncertainty because the divinity is none of these things (that you know). Apply it first to these things, and later fix it on the divinity. While doing so, do not let yourself be distracted by anything exterior for the divinity is not in any definite place, depriving the remainder of its presence, but it is present wherever there is any person who is capable of entering into contact therewith. It is absent only for those who cannot succeed therein. Just as, for other objects, one could not discover what one seeks by thinking of something else, and as one162 should not add any alien thing to the object that is thought if one wishes to identify oneself therewith; likewise here one must be thoroughly convinced that it is impossible for any one whose soul contains any alien image to conceive of the divinity so long as such an image distracts the soul's attention. It is equally impossible that the soul, at the moment that she is attentive, and attached to other things, should assume the form of what is contrary to them. Just as it is said of matter that it must be absolutely deprived of all qualities to be susceptible of receiving all forms; likewise, and for a stronger reason, the soul must be stripped of all form, if she desire to be filled with and illuminated by the primary nature without any interior hindrance. Thus, having liberated herself from all exterior things, the soul will entirely turn to what is most intimate in her; she will not allow herself to be turned away by any of the surrounding objects and she will put aside all things, first by the very effect of the state in which she will find herself, and later by the absence of any conception of form. She will not even know that she is applying herself to the contemplation of the One, or that she is united thereto. Then, after having sufficiently dwelt with it, she will, if she can, come to reveal to others this heavenly communion. Doubtless it was enjoyment of this communion that was the basis of the traditional conversation of Minos with Jupiter.197 Inspired with the memories of this interview, he made laws which represented it, because, while he was drawing them up, he was still under the influence of his union with the divinity. Perhaps even, in this state, the soul may look down on civil virtues as hardly worthy of her,198 inasmuch as she desires to dwell on high; and this does indeed happen to such as have long contemplated the divinity.
163
--
Is the centre of the soul then the principle that we are seeking? Or must we conceive some other principle164 towards which all centres radiate? To begin with, it is only by analogy that the words "centre" and "circle" are used. By saying that the soul is a circle, we do not mean that she is a geometrical figure, but that in her and around her subsists primordial nature.202 (By saying that she has a centre, we mean that) the soul is suspended from the primary Principle (by the highest part of her being), especially when she is entirely separated (from the body). Now, however, as we have a part of our being contained in the the body, we resemble a man whose feet are plunged in water, with the rest of his body remaining above it. Raising ourselves above the body by the whole part which is not immerged, we are by our own centre reattaching ourselves to the Centre common to all beings, just in the same way as we make the centres of the great circles coincide with that of the sphere that surrounds them. If the circles of the soul were corporeal, the common centre would have to occupy a certain place for them to coincide with it, and for them to turn around it. But since the souls are of the order of intelligible (essences), and as the One is still above Intelligence, we shall have to assert that the intercourse of the soul with the One operates by means different from those by which Intelligence unites with the intelligible. This union, indeed, is much closer than that which is realized between Intelligence and the intelligible by resemblance or identity; it takes place by the intimate relationship that unites the soul with unity, without anything to separate them. Bodies cannot unite mutually;203 but they could not hinder the mutual union of incorporeal (essences) because that which separates them from each other is not a local distance, but their distinction and difference. When there is no difference between them, they are present in each other.
165
For a Breath I Tarry, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
"Solcom has taken primary comm and of those machines," said Frost.
"Then it is in the hands of the Great Ones now," said Mordel, "and our arguments are as nothing. So let us be about this thing. How may I assist you?"
Liber 111 - The Book of Wisdom - LIBER ALEPH VEL CXI, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
primary enemies to the individual, or the common Weal, may, nay, we
must, if we would attain the Summit for our race, devote all spare
--- Overview of noun primary
The noun primary has 4 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (3) primary, primary election ::: (a preliminary election where delegates or nominees are chosen)
2. (1) primary, primary feather, primary quill ::: (one of the main flight feathers projecting along the outer edge of a bird's wing)
3. primary ::: ((astronomy) a celestial body (especially a star) relative to other objects in orbit around it)
4. primary coil, primary winding, primary ::: (coil forming the part of an electrical circuit such that changing current in it induces a current in a neighboring circuit; "current through the primary coil induces current in the secondary coil")
--- Overview of adj primary
The adj primary has 5 senses (first 3 from tagged texts)
1. (16) primary ::: (of first rank or importance or value; direct and immediate rather than secondary; "primary goals"; "a primary effect"; "primary sources"; "a primary interest")
2. (8) primary ::: (not derived from or reducible to something else; basic; "a primary instinct")
3. (7) chief, main, primary, principal, master ::: (most important element; "the chief aim of living"; "the main doors were of solid glass"; "the principal rivers of America"; "the principal example"; "policemen were primary targets"; "the master bedroom"; "a master switch")
4. elementary, elemental, primary ::: (of or being the essential or basic part; "an elementary need for love and nurturing")
5. basal, primary ::: (of primary importance)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun primary
4 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary, primary election
=> election
=> vote
=> group action
=> act, deed, human action, human activity
=> event
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
=> event
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
primary, primary feather, primary quill
=> flight feather, pinion, quill, quill feather
=> feather, plume, plumage
=> body covering
=> covering, natural covering, cover
=> natural object
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> animal material
=> material, stuff
=> substance
=> matter
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> part, portion, component part, component, constituent
=> relation
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
primary
=> celestial body, heavenly body
=> natural object
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
Sense 4
primary coil, primary winding, primary
=> coil
=> reactor
=> electrical device
=> device
=> instrumentality, instrumentation
=> artifact, artefact
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun primary
1 of 4 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary, primary election
=> direct primary
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun primary
4 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary, primary election
=> election
Sense 2
primary, primary feather, primary quill
=> flight feather, pinion, quill, quill feather
Sense 3
primary
=> celestial body, heavenly body
Sense 4
primary coil, primary winding, primary
=> coil
--- Similarity of adj primary
5 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary (vs. secondary)
=> capital
=> direct
=> firsthand
=> first-string
=> original
=> particular, special
Also See-> essential#2; first#1; original#3
Sense 2
primary
=> underived (vs. derived)
Sense 3
chief(prenominal), main(prenominal), primary(prenominal), principal(prenominal), master(prenominal)
=> important (vs. unimportant), of import
Sense 4
elementary, elemental, primary
=> basic (vs. incidental)
Sense 5
basal, primary
=> essential (vs. inessential)
--- Antonyms of adj primary
5 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary (vs. secondary)
secondary (vs. primary)
=> alternate, alternative, substitute
=> auxiliary, subsidiary, supplemental, supplementary
=> collateral
=> indirect
=> secondhand
=> second-string
=> standby
=> thirdhand
=> tributary
=> utility(prenominal), substitute(prenominal)
=> vicarious
Sense 2
primary
INDIRECT (VIA underived) -> derived
Sense 3
chief(prenominal), main(prenominal), primary(prenominal), principal(prenominal), master(prenominal)
INDIRECT (VIA important) -> unimportant
Sense 4
elementary, elemental, primary
INDIRECT (VIA basic) -> incidental, incident
Sense 5
basal, primary
INDIRECT (VIA essential) -> inessential, unessential
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun primary
4 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary, primary election
-> election
=> reelection
=> general election
=> primary, primary election
=> by-election, bye-election
=> runoff
Sense 2
primary, primary feather, primary quill
-> flight feather, pinion, quill, quill feather
=> primary, primary feather, primary quill
=> tail feather
Sense 3
primary
-> celestial body, heavenly body
=> minor planet, planetoid
=> planet, major planet
=> planet
=> planetesimal
=> primary
=> quasar, quasi-stellar radio source
=> satellite
=> star
=> star
Sense 4
primary coil, primary winding, primary
-> coil
=> armature
=> astatic coils
=> choke, choke coil, choking coil
=> field coil, field winding
=> induction coil
=> primary coil, primary winding, primary
=> read/write head, head
=> secondary coil, secondary winding, secondary
=> solenoid
=> tickler coil
--- Pertainyms of adj primary
5 senses of primary
Sense 1
primary (vs. secondary)
Sense 2
primary
Sense 3
chief(prenominal), main(prenominal), primary(prenominal), principal(prenominal), master(prenominal)
Sense 4
elementary, elemental, primary
Sense 5
basal, primary
--- Derived Forms of adj primary
--- Grep of noun primary
closed primary
direct primary
open primary
primary
primary amenorrhea
primary atypical pneumonia
primary care
primary care physician
primary care provider
primary cell
primary censorship
primary coil
primary color
primary color for light
primary color for pigments
primary colour
primary colour for light
primary colour for pigments
primary dentition
primary dysmenorrhea
primary election
primary feather
primary health care
primary quill
primary school
primary sex character
primary sex characteristic
primary sexual characteristic
primary solid solution
primary subtractive color for light
primary subtractive colour for light
primary syphilis
primary tooth
primary winding
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