TERMS STARTING WITH
status 1. "hardware" A description of how something is, similar to {state} but usually implying a simpler set of possibilities, e.g. {up} or {down}; set or clear; stopped, starting, started, stopping. In {CPU} hardware, the {status register} stores {bits} of information about the outcome of previous operations, e.g. zero, {overflow}. These status bits can be used to control {conditional execution}, e.g. "branch if zero". The same idea is common in other {hardware}, e.g. an input {peripheral} with a {status bit} to indicate {end of file}. 2. "operating system" Under the {Unix} {operating system}, a {process} terminates with an {exit status} - an integer value where zero indicates successful or normal completion and non-zero values indicate different error conditions. 3. "standard" Standards and other forms of {documentation} can have different statuses such as "proposal", {request for comments} or accepted by some official body. (2018-09-01)
status ::: a state of affairs; situation.
status in quo ::: --> Alt. of Status quo
status ::: n. --> State; condition; position of affairs.
status quo ::: --> The state in which anything is already. The phrase is also used retrospectively, as when, on a treaty of place, matters return to the status quo ante bellum, or are left in statu quo ante bellum, i.e., the state (or, in the state) before the war.
Statuses of transformation ::: First is the psychic transforation in which all is in contact with the Divine through the individua psyciiic consciousness.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Not proud or arrogant; modest. 2. Low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly.
"A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos; — this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
“A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos;—this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
abhidharmapitaka. (P. abhidhammapitaka; T. chos mngon pa'i sde snod; C. lunzang; J. ronzo; K. nonjang 論藏). The third of the three "baskets" (PItAKA) of the Buddhist canon (TRIPItAKA). The abhidharmapitaka derives from attempts in the early Buddhist community to elucidate the definitive significance of the teachings of the Buddha, as compiled in the SuTRAs. Since the Buddha was well known to have adapted his message to fit the predilections and needs of his audience (cf. UPAYAKAUsALYA), there inevitably appeared inconsistencies in his teachings that needed to be resolved. The attempts to ferret out the definitive meaning of the BUDDHADHARMA through scholastic interpretation and exegesis eventually led to a new body of texts that ultimately were granted canonical status in their own right. These are the texts of the abhidharmapitaka. The earliest of these texts, such as the PAli VIBHAnGA and PUGGALAPANNATTI and the SARVASTIVADA SAMGĪTIPARYAYA and DHARMASKANDHA, are structured as commentaries to specific sutras or portions of sutras. These materials typically organized the teachings around elaborate doctrinal taxonomies, which were used as mnemonic devices or catechisms. Later texts move beyond individual sutras to systematize a wide range of doctrinal material, offering ever more complex analytical categorizations and discursive elaborations of the DHARMA. Ultimately, abhidharma texts emerge as a new genre of Buddhist literature in their own right, employing sophisticated philosophical speculation and sometimes even involving polemical attacks on the positions of rival factions within the SAMGHA. ¶ At least seven schools of Indian Buddhism transmitted their own recensions of abhidharma texts, but only two of these canons are extant in their entirety. The PAli abhidhammapitaka of the THERAVADA school, the only recension that survives in an Indian language, includes seven texts (the order of which often differs): (1) DHAMMASAnGAnI ("Enumeration of Dharmas") examines factors of mentality and materiality (NAMARuPA), arranged according to ethical quality; (2) VIBHAnGA ("Analysis") analyzes the aggregates (SKANDHA), conditioned origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), and meditative development, each treatment culminating in a catechistic series of inquiries; (3) DHATUKATHA ("Discourse on Elements") categorizes all dharmas in terms of the skandhas and sense-fields (AYATANA); (4) PUGGALAPANNATTI ("Description of Human Types") analyzes different character types in terms of the three afflictions of greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA), and delusion (MOHA) and various related subcategories; (5) KATHAVATTHU ("Points of Controversy") scrutinizes the views of rival schools of mainstream Buddhism and how they differ from the TheravAda; (6) YAMAKA ("Pairs") provides specific denotations of problematic terms through paired comparisons; (7) PAttHANA ("Conditions") treats extensively the full implications of conditioned origination. ¶ The abhidharmapitaka of the SARVASTIVADA school is extant only in Chinese translation, the definitive versions of which were prepared by XUANZANG's translation team in the seventh century. It also includes seven texts: (1) SAMGĪTIPARYAYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Discourse on Pronouncements") attributed to either MAHAKAUstHILA or sARIPUTRA, a commentary on the SaMgītisutra (see SAnGĪTISUTTA), where sAriputra sets out a series of dharma lists (MATṚKA), ordered from ones to elevens, to organize the Buddha's teachings systematically; (2) DHARMASKANDHA[PADAsASTRA] ("Aggregation of Dharmas"), attributed to sAriputra or MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, discusses Buddhist soteriological practices, as well as the afflictions that hinder spiritual progress, drawn primarily from the AGAMAs; (3) PRAJNAPTIBHAsYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Treatise on Designations"), attributed to MaudgalyAyana, treats Buddhist cosmology (lokaprajNapti), causes (kArana), and action (KARMAN); (4) DHATUKAYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Collection on the Elements"), attributed to either PuRnA or VASUMITRA, discusses the mental concomitants (the meaning of DHATU in this treatise) and sets out specific sets of mental factors that are present in all moments of consciousness (viz., the ten MAHABHuMIKA) or all defiled states of mind (viz., the ten KLEsAMAHABHuMIKA); (5) VIJNANAKAYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Collection on Consciousness"), attributed to Devasarman, seeks to prove the veracity of the eponymous SarvAstivAda position that dharmas exist in all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future, and the falsity of notions of the person (PUDGALA); it also provides the first listing of the four types of conditions (PRATYAYA); (6) PRAKARAnA[PADAsASTRA] ("Exposition"), attributed to VASUMITRA, first introduces the categorization of dharmas according to the more developed SarvAstivAda rubric of RuPA, CITTA, CAITTA, CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA, and ASAMSKṚTA dharmas; it also adds a new listing of KUsALAMAHABHuMIKA, or factors always associated with wholesome states of mind; (7) JNANAPRASTHANA ("Foundations of Knowledge"), attributed to KATYAYANĪPUTRA, an exhaustive survey of SarvAstivAda dharma theory and the school's exposition of psychological states, which forms the basis of the massive encyclopedia of SarvAstivAda-VaibhAsika abhidharma, the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA. In the traditional organization of the seven canonical books of the SarvAstivAda abhidharmapitaka, the JNANAPRASTHANA is treated as the "body" (sARĪRA), or central treatise of the canon, with its six "feet" (pAda), or ancillary treatises (pAdasAstra), listed in the following order: (1) PrakaranapAda, (2) VijNAnakAya, (3) Dharmaskandha, (4) PrajNaptibhAsya, (5) DhAtukAya, and (6) SaMgītiparyAya. Abhidharma exegetes later turned their attention to these canonical abhidharma materials and subjected them to the kind of rigorous scholarly analysis previously directed to the sutras. These led to the writing of innovative syntheses and synopses of abhidharma doctrine, in such texts as BUDDHAGHOSA's VISUDDHIMAGGA and ANURUDDHA's ABHIDHAMMATTHASAnGAHA, VASUBANDHU's ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA, and SAMGHABHADRA's *NYAYANUSARA. In East Asia, this third "basket" was eventually expanded to include the burgeoning scholastic literature of the MAHAYANA, transforming it from a strictly abhidharmapitaka into a broader "treatise basket" or *sASTRAPItAKA (C. lunzang).
abhimAna. (T. mngon pa'i nga rgyal; C. man; J. man; K. man 慢). In Sanskrit and PAli, "conceit," "haughtiness," or "arrogance"; an intensification of mere "pride" (MANA). In the YOGACARABHuMIsASTRA and Tibetan sources, abhimAna is listed as one of seven types of conceit. This conceit can refer either to views that one holds arrogantly, haughtiness regarding the status into which one is born, or arrogance regarding the extent of one's wealth and/or knowledge.
A certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of the forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 321
adhama gati ::: the lowest status; [the lowest path]. ::: adhamam gatim [accusative] [Gita 16.20]
adhyaks.atva (adhyakshatwa) ::: the status of the Divine Being "as the adhyaksatva adhyaks.a, he who seated over all in the supreme ether over-sees things, views and controls them from above".
Adoption: The acquisition of a status or position.
Advanced RISC Machine "processor" (ARM, Originally {Acorn} RISC Machine). A series of low-cost, power-efficient 32-bit {RISC} {microprocessors} for embedded control, computing, {digital signal processing}, {games}, consumer {multimedia} and portable applications. It was the first commercial RISC microprocessor (or was the {MIPS R2000}?) and was licensed for production by {Asahi Kasei Microsystems}, {Cirrus Logic}, {GEC Plessey Semiconductors}, {Samsung}, {Sharp}, {Texas Instruments} and {VLSI Technology}. The ARM has a small and highly {orthogonal instruction set}, as do most RISC processors. Every instruction includes a four-bit code which specifies a condition (of the {processor status register}) which must be satisfied for the instruction to be executed. Unconditional execution is specified with a condition "true". Instructions are split into load and store which access memory and arithmetic and logic instructions which work on {registers} (two source and one destination). The ARM has 27 registers of which 16 are accessible in any particular processor mode. R15 combines the {program counter} and processor status byte, the other registers are general purpose except that R14 holds the {return address} after a {subroutine} call and R13 is conventionally used as a {stack pointer}. There are four processor modes: user, {interrupt} (with a private copy of R13 and R14), fast interrupt (private copies of R8 to R14) and {supervisor} (private copies of R13 and R14). The {ALU} includes a 32-bit {barrel-shifter} allowing, e.g., a single-{cycle} shift and add. The first ARM processor, the ARM1 was a prototype which was never released. The ARM2 was originally called the Acorn RISC Machine. It was designed by {Acorn Computers Ltd.} and used in the original {Archimedes}, their successor to the {BBC Micro} and {BBC Master} series which were based on the eight-bit {6502} {microprocessor}. It was clocked at 8 MHz giving an average performance of 4 - 4.7 {MIPS}. Development of the ARM family was then continued by a new company, {Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.} The {ARM3} added a {fully-associative} on-chip {cache} and some support for {multiprocessing}. This was followed by the {ARM600} chip which was an {ARM6} processor {core} with a 4-kilobyte 64-way {set-associative} {cache}, an {MMU} based on the MEMC2 chip, a {write buffer} (8 words?) and a {coprocessor} interface. The {ARM7} processor core uses half the power of the {ARM6} and takes around half the {die} size. In a full processor design ({ARM700} chip) it should provide 50% to 100% more performance. In July 1994 {VLSI Technology, Inc.} released the {ARM710} processor chip. {Thumb} is an implementation with reduced code size requirements, intended for {embedded} applications. An {ARM800} chip is also planned. {AT&T}, {IBM}, {Panasonic}, {Apple Coputer}, {Matsushita} and {Sanyo} either rely on, or manufacture, ARM 32-bit processor chips. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.arm}. (1997-08-05)
Advanced RISC Machine ::: (processor) (ARM, Originally Acorn RISC Machine). A series of low-cost, power-efficient 32-bit RISC microprocessors for embedded control, computing, licensed for production by Asahi Kasei Microsystems, Cirrus Logic, GEC Plessey Semiconductors, Samsung, Sharp, Texas Instruments and VLSI Technology.The ARM has a small and highly orthogonal instruction set, as do most RISC processors. Every instruction includes a four-bit code which specifies a instruction to be executed. Unconditional execution is specified with a condition true.Instructions are split into load and store which access memory and arithmetic and logic instructions which work on registers (two source and one destination).The ARM has 27 registers of which 16 are accessible in any particular processor mode. R15 combines the program counter and processor status byte, the other and R14). The ALU includes a 32-bit barrel-shifter allowing, e.g., a single-cycle shift and add.The first ARM processor, the ARM1 was a prototype which was never released. The ARM2 was originally called the Acorn RISC Machine. It was designed by Acorn MIPS. Development of the ARM family was then continued by a new company, Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.The ARM3 added a fully-associative on-chip cache and some support for multiprocessing. This was followed by the ARM600 chip which was an ARM6 processor core with a 4-kilobyte 64-way set-associative cache, an MMU based on the MEMC2 chip, a write buffer (8 words?) and a coprocessor interface.The ARM7 processor core uses half the power of the ARM6 and takes around half the die size. In a full processor design (ARM700 chip) it should provide 50% to 100% more performance.In July 1994 VLSI Technology, Inc. released the ARM710 processor chip.Thumb is an implementation with reduced code size requirements, intended for embedded applications.An ARM800 chip is also planned.AT&T, IBM, Panasonic, Apple Coputer, Matsushita and Sanyo either rely on, or manufacture, ARM 32-bit processor chips.Usenet newsgroup: comp.sys.arm. (1997-08-05)
(a) English New Realists: Less radical in that mind was given a status of its own character although a part of its objective environment. Among distinguished representatives were: G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, S. Alexander, T. P. Nunn, A. Wolf, G. F. Stout,
Aesthetics is now achieving a more independent status as the subject (whether it is or can be a "science" is a disputed issue) which studies (a) works of art, (b) the processes of producing and experiencing art, and (c) certain aspects of nature and human production outside the field of art -- especially those which can be considered as beautiful or ugly in regard to form and sensory qualities. (E.g., sunsets, flowers, human beings, machines.)
ajña ::: "the Lord of Wisdom", brahman in the last of the three states symbolised by the letters of AUM, manifest behind virat. and hiran.yagarbha "in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite"; the Self (atman) supporting the deep sleep state (sus.upti) or causal (karan.a) consciousness, "a luminous status of Sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence". pr praj ajña-hiran ña-hiranya-virat
akalpikavastu. (P. akappiyavatthu; T. rung ba ma yin pa'i dngos po; C. bujing wu; J. fujomotsu; K. pujong mul 不淨物). In Sanskrit, "inappropriate possessions" or "improper matters"; eight kinds of possessions or activities that monks and nuns are expected to avoid, since they may compromise their status as renunciants: (1) gold, (2) silver, (3) servants or slaves, (4) cattle, (5) sheep, (6) safe deposits or warehouses, (7) engaging in trade, and (8) engaging in farming. (An alternative version of this list does not include "sheep," but instead distinguishes between male and female servants or slaves). Another list has the following: (1) possessing land or property, (2) engaging in animal husbandry, (3) maintaining storage of grains or food and silk or other cloth, (4) having servants or slaves, (5) keeping animals (as either pets or livestock), (6) keeping money, (7) keeping cushions and pans, and (8) keeping furniture gilded with gold, ivory, or precious jewels.
aks.ara (akshara) ::: letter, syllable; immutable, unchanging; the imaksara mutable brahman, "the immobile omnipresent Soul of things"; "the immutable self-existence which is the highest self-expression of the Divine and on whose unalterable eternity all the rest, all that moves and evolves, is founded", the inactive status of the purus.ottama "in the freedom of his self-existence unaffected by the action of his own power in Nature, not impinged on by the urge of his own becoming, undisturbed by the play of his own qualities". aksara aks
alienism ::: n. --> The status or legal condition of an alien; alienage.
The study or treatment of diseases of the mind.
“A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” The Life Divine
"Along with purity and as a help to bring it about, concentration. Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being; purity is the condition in which concentration becomes entire, rightly effective, omnipotent; by concentration purity does its works and without it would only lead to a state of peaceful quiescence and eternal repose.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Along with purity and as a help to bring it about, concentration. Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being; purity is the condition in which concentration becomes entire, rightly effective, omnipotent; by concentration purity does its works and without it would only lead to a state of peaceful quiescence and eternal repose.” The Synthesis of Yoga
An Sich: (Ger. literally in or by self. Lat. in se) Anything taken in itself without relation to anything else, especially without relation to a knowing consciousness. In Hegel's philosophy whatever has disowned its relations is an sich. In this status it reveals its inner potentialities. Thus in Hegel's system an sich frequently refers to that which is latent, undeveloped, or in certain connections, that which is unconscious. Kant used an sich more loosely to describe any thing independent of consciousness or experience. Thus he contrasted the "Ding-an-sich" (thing-in-itself) with appearance (phenomenon), the latter being a function of consciousness, the former outside all consciousness. -- O.F.K.
anuttarayogatantra. (T. bla na med pa'i rnal 'byor rgyud). In Sanskrit, "unsurpassed yoga tantra." According to an Indian classification system, later adopted in Tibet, anuttarayogatantra is the highest category in the fourfold division of tantric texts, above YOGATANTRA, CARYATANTRA, and KRIYATANTRA. Texts classified as unsurpassed yoga tantras include such works as the GUHYASAMAJATANTRA, the HEVAJRATANTRA, and the CAKRASAMVARATANTRA. These tantras were further divided into mother tantras (MATṚTANTRA) and father tantras (PITṚTANTRA). The mother tantras, also known as dAKINĪ tantras, are traditionally said to emphasize wisdom (PRAJNA) over method (UPAYA), especially wisdom in the form of the mind of clear light (PRABHASVARACITTA). The father tantras are those that, between method (upAya) and wisdom (prajNA), place a particular emphasis on method, especially as it pertains to the achievement of the illusory body (MAYADEHA) on the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA). According to Tibetan exegetes, buddhahood can only be achieved through the practice of anuttarayogatantra; it cannot be achieved by the three "lower tantras" or by the practice of the PARAMITAYANA. The many practices set forth in the anuttarayogatantras are often divided into two larger categories, those of the stage of generation (utpattikrama) and those of the stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA). The latter typically includes the practice of sexual yoga. The status of the KALACAKRATANTRA, historically the latest of the unsurpassed yoga tantras (the text includes apparent references to Muslim invaders in the Indian subcontinent), was accorded special status by DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN; TSONG KHA PA in his SNGAGS RIM CHEN MO ("Great Exposition of the Stages of Tantra") gave it a separate place within a general anuttarayogatantra category, while others such as Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros said it was not a Buddhist tantra at all.
..a path of integral seeking of the Divine by which all that we are is in the end liberated out of the Ignorance and its undivine formations into a truth beyond the Mind, a truth not only of highest spiritual status but of a dynamic spiritual self-manifestation in the universe. ::: he object of this Yoga is not to liberate the soul from Nature, but to liberate both soul and nature by sublimation into the Divine Consciousness from whom they came.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 12, Page: 366-67
apavAda. (T. skur 'debs; C. sunjian; J. songen; K. son'gam 損減). In Sanskrit, "denigration" or "slander"; denying the presence of positive qualities and falsely ascribing negative qualities. Philosophically, the term is used to describe the underestimation or denigration of the status of phenomena, by claiming, for example, that phenomena do not exist conventionally. Wrong views (MITHYADṚstI) themselves are considered to be the "denigration" of that which really exists, such as the truth of suffering (DUḤKHA); other specific sorts of wrong views may also be the "erroneous affirmation" or "superimposition" (SAMAROPA) of things that actually do not exist in reality. Four types of apavAda are mentioned in the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA: denigration of (1) cause, which is countered by understanding the noble truth of origination; (2) effect, which is countered by the noble truth of suffering; (3) the path, which is countered by the noble truth of the path; and (4) cessation, which is countered by the noble truth of cessation.
"A philosophy of change?(1) But what is change? In ordinary parlance change means passage from one condition to another and that would seem to imply passage from one status to another status. The shoot changes into a tree, passes from the status of shoot to the status of tree and there it stops; man passes from the status of young man to the status of old man and the only farther change possible to him is death or dissolution of his status. So it would seem that change is not something isolated which is the sole original and eternal reality, but it is something dependent on status, and if status were non-existent, change also could not exist. For we have to ask, when you speak of change as alone real, change of what, from what, to what? Without this ‘what" change could not be. ::: —Change is evidently the change of some form or state of existence from one condition to another condition.” Essays Divine and Human
“A philosophy of change?(1) But what is change? In ordinary parlance change means passage from one condition to another and that would seem to imply passage from one status to another status. The shoot changes into a tree, passes from the status of shoot to the status of tree and there it stops; man passes from the status of young man to the status of old man and the only farther change possible to him is death or dissolution of his status. So it would seem that change is not something isolated which is the sole original and eternal reality, but it is something dependent on status, and if status were non-existent, change also could not exist. For we have to ask, when you speak of change as alone real, change of what, from what, to what? Without this ‘what’ change could not be.
Apsaras (Sanskrit) Apsaras [from ap water + saras flowing from the verbal root sṛ to flow, glide, blow (as of wind)] Moving in the waters; a class of feminine divinities known as celestial water nymphs, whose location is commonly placed in the sky between the clouds rather than in the waters of earth, although they are often described as visiting earth. These fairy-like wives of the gandharvas (celestial musicians) can change their shape at will, often appearing as aquatic birds. In Manu they are held to be the creations of the seven manus, but in the Puranas and the Ramayana their origin is attributed to the churning of the cosmic waters, and it is said that neither gods nor asuras would have them for wives. Since mythologically they were common to all, they are called Sumadatmajas (self-willed pleasurers) — 35 million of them, of whom Kama, god of love, is lord and king. One of their roles is to act as temptresses to those too ardent for divine status. Only the individual who can withstand the perfumed entreaties of the apsarasas is worthy of full enlightenment. In the Yajur-Veda the apsarasas are called sunbeams because of their connection with the gandharva who personifies the sun.
Arianism: A view named after Arius (256-336), energetic presbyter of Alexandria, condemned as a heretic by the ancient Catholic Church. Arius held that Jesus and God were not of the same substance (the orthodox position). He maintained that although the Son was subordinate to the Father he was of a similar nature. The controversy on the relation of Jesus to God involved the question of the divine status of Jesus. If he were not divine how could the church justify him as an object of worship, of trust, and adoration? If he is divine, how could such a belief square with the doctrine of one God (monotheism)? Arianism tended toward the doctrine of the subordination of Jesus to God, involving the extreme Arians who held Jesus to be unlike God and the moderate Arians who held that Jesus was of similar essence with God although not of the same substance. Some eighteen councils were convened to consider this burning question, parties in power condemning and placing each other under the ban. The Council of Nicea in 325 repudiated Arian tendencies but the issue was fought with uncertain outcome until the Council of Constantinople in 381 reaffirmed the orthodox view. -- V.F.
asaMvAsa. (T. gnas par mi bya; C. bugongzhu; J. fuguju; K. pulgongju 不共住). In Sanskrit and PAli, "not in communion"; the lifelong punishment enjoined in the VINAYA on monks (and nuns) who have transgressed one of the major offenses that bring "defeat" (PARAJIKA), such as the prohibition against engaging in sexual intercourse. The monk who is asaMvAsa is not permitted to participate in any of the official monastic proceedings or ecclesiastical acts (KARMAN); thus he is effectively ostracized from the formal activities of the monastery. Although this term has sometimes been interpreted as "expulsion," asaMvAsa does not necessarily mean that the monk is banished from the monastery but simply that he is "no longer in communion" with the work, rules, and training of the monastic community as a whole. Indeed, there is evidence from virtually all recensions of the vinaya (except the PAli recension of the THERAVADA school), that pArAjika monks continued to live in the monastery even after their transgressions, in the special status of pArAjika penitents (sIKsADATTAKA).
Ashta-siddhis (Sanskrit) Aṣṭa-siddhi-s [from aṣṭa eight + siddhi supernormal powers] The eight supernormal powers or faculties innate in man but at present generally latent or undeveloped, although attainable when a person reaches the status of a buddha. See also IDDHI; SIDDHI
Asrava. (P. ASAVA; T. zag pa; C. lou; J. ro; K. nu 漏). In Sanskrit, "contaminants," "outflows," or "fluxes"; mental contaminants that are eradicated upon attaining the status of a "worthy one" (ARHAT); also written as Asrava. They are (1) the contaminant of sensuality (kAmAsrava; KAMA); (2) the contaminant of continuing existence (bhavAsrava; BHAVA); and (3) the contaminant of ignorance (avidyAsrava; AVIDYA); to this list is often added (4) the contaminant of views (dṛstyAsrava; DṚstI). Since the Asravas bind or immerse one in the cycle of existence, they are also sometimes called the "floods" (OGHA) and the "yokes" (yoga). The term Asrava is used in both Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that it is one of the earliest such terms for the mental contaminants used within the tradition. (In the Buddhist interpretation, an Asrava is more of an "outflow," because the contaminants flow out from the mind and affect the ways in which one interacts with the external world; indeed, the Chinese translation of the term means literally to "leak." In the JAINA tradition, an Asrava is more of an "inflow," because the contaminants flow into the body, where they adhere to the ATMAN, thus defiling it.) The term is a synonym of the KLEsAs (afflictions, defilements), since objects (such as the five SKANDHAs) that can serve as objects of defilement are "contaminated" (sAsrava). The contaminants are permanently overcome through insight into such fundamental Buddhist truths as the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, conditioned origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), or the three marks of existence (TRILAKsAnA). Because the ARHAT has permanently uprooted the contaminants from the mind, he or she receives the epithet KsĪnASRAVA ("one whose contaminants are extinguished"). See also ASAVA, ANASRAVA, ASRAVAKsAYA.
As with so many cosmic powers and their symbols, these other gods have been relegated in Judaism and Christianity to the position of evil powers hostile to mankind, to be fled from instead of revered, or ruled as obedient helpers when inferior to the human status. The whole idea of the Adversary or Devil is enshrined in the word daemones. But fallen angels, represented as rebels against God, were merely performing their natural duty in evolution by forming the lower worlds. As personification of evil, the word can only be truthfully applied to those beings that man himself, by his evil thoughts and passions, has generated to hover in the lowest strata of the astral light or haunt kama-loka. However, the ancient Greeks and Romans themselves drew a sharp distinction between the daemones of more ethereal type, truly spiritual beings, and the lower earth-haunting daemones who were distinctly denizens of the lower astral and physical realms, and which the ancients dreaded — with reason — far more than modern Christians have ever done. See also AGATHODAEMON
attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
Attributed File System ::: (storage) (AtFS) The basis of the Shape_VC toolkit.Cooperative work within projects is supported by a status model controlling visibility of version objects, locking, and long transactions for information between individual tools. This mechanism is useful for building integrated environments from a set of unrelated tools.(2000-02-24)
Attributed File System "storage" (AtFS) The basis of the {Shape_VC} toolkit. Cooperative work within projects is supported by a status model controlling visibility of version objects, locking, and "long transactions" for synchronising concurrent updates. The concept of object attributes provides a basis for storing management information with versions and passing this information between individual tools. This mechanism is useful for building integrated environments from a set of unrelated tools. (2000-02-24)
Aufklärung: In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition "Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority, which is the incapacity of using one's understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is caused when its source lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of determination and courage to use it without the assistance of another" (Was ist Aufklärung? 1784). In its historical perspective, the Aufklärung refers to the cultural atmosphere and contrlbutions of the 18th century, especially in Germany, France and England [which affected also American thought with B. Franklin, T. Paine and the leaders of the Revolution]. It crystallized tendencies emphasized by the Renaissance, and quickened by modern scepticism and empiricism, and by the great scientific discoveries of the 17th century. This movement, which was represented by men of varying tendencies, gave an impetus to general learning, a more popular philosophy, empirical science, scriptural criticism, social and political thought. More especially, the word Aufklärung is applied to the German contributions to 18th century culture. In philosophy, its principal representatives are G. E. Lessing (1729-81) who believed in free speech and in a methodical criticism of religion, without being a free-thinker; H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) who expounded a naturalistic philosophy and denied the supernatural origin of Christianity; Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) who endeavoured to mitigate prejudices and developed a popular common-sense philosophy; Chr. Wolff (1679-1754), J. A. Eberhard (1739-1809) who followed the Leibnizian rationalism and criticized unsuccessfully Kant and Fichte; and J. G. Herder (1744-1803) who was best as an interpreter of others, but whose intuitional suggestions have borne fruit in the organic correlation of the sciences, and in questions of language in relation to human nature and to national character. The works of Kant and Goethe mark the culmination of the German Enlightenment. Cf. J. G. Hibben, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. --T.G. Augustinianism: The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty-fourth year. Returning to Africa, he established numerous monasteries, became a priest in 391, Bishop of Hippo in 395. Augustine wrote much: On Free Choice, Confessions, Literal Commentary on Genesis, On the Trinity, and City of God, are his most noted works. He died in 430. St. Augustine's characteristic method, an inward empiricism which has little in common with later variants, starts from things without, proceeds within to the self, and moves upwards to God. These three poles of the Augustinian dialectic are polarized by his doctrine of moderate illuminism. An ontological illumination is required to explain the metaphysical structure of things. The truth of judgment demands a noetic illumination. A moral illumination is necessary in the order of willing; and so, too, an lllumination of art in the aesthetic order. Other illuminations which transcend the natural order do not come within the scope of philosophy; they provide the wisdoms of theology and mysticism. Every being is illuminated ontologically by number, form, unity and its derivatives, and order. A thing is what it is, in so far as it is more or less flooded by the light of these ontological constituents. Sensation is necessary in order to know material substances. There is certainly an action of the external object on the body and a corresponding passion of the body, but, as the soul is superior to the body and can suffer nothing from its inferior, sensation must be an action, not a passion, of the soul. Sensation takes place only when the observing soul, dynamically on guard throughout the body, is vitally attentive to the changes suffered by the body. However, an adequate basis for the knowledge of intellectual truth is not found in sensation alone. In order to know, for example, that a body is multiple, the idea of unity must be present already, otherwise its multiplicity could not be recognized. If numbers are not drawn in by the bodily senses which perceive only the contingent and passing, is the mind the source of the unchanging and necessary truth of numbers? The mind of man is also contingent and mutable, and cannot give what it does not possess. As ideas are not innate, nor remembered from a previous existence of the soul, they can be accounted for only by an immutable source higher than the soul. In so far as man is endowed with an intellect, he is a being naturally illuminated by God, Who may be compared to an intelligible sun. The human intellect does not create the laws of thought; it finds them and submits to them. The immediate intuition of these normative rules does not carry any content, thus any trace of ontologism is avoided. Things have forms because they have numbers, and they have being in so far as they possess form. The sufficient explanation of all formable, and hence changeable, things is an immutable and eternal form which is unrestricted in time and space. The forms or ideas of all things actually existing in the world are in the things themselves (as rationes seminales) and in the Divine Mind (as rationes aeternae). Nothing could exist without unity, for to be is no other than to be one. There is a unity proper to each level of being, a unity of the material individual and species, of the soul, and of that union of souls in the love of the same good, which union constitutes the city. Order, also, is ontologically imbibed by all beings. To tend to being is to tend to order; order secures being, disorder leads to non-being. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal each to its own place and integrates an ensemble of parts in accordance with an end. Hence, peace is defined as the tranquillity of order. Just as things have their being from their forms, the order of parts, and their numerical relations, so too their beauty is not something superadded, but the shining out of all their intelligible co-ingredients. S. Aurelii Augustini, Opera Omnia, Migne, PL 32-47; (a critical edition of some works will be found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna). Gilson, E., Introd. a l'etude de s. Augustin, (Paris, 1931) contains very good bibliography up to 1927, pp. 309-331. Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo, (London, 1937). Chapman, E., St. Augustine's Philos. of Beauty, (N. Y., 1939). Figgis, J. N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine's "City of God", (London, 1921). --E.C. Authenticity: In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of "authentic feelings"). This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with regard to the interpretation of texts and doctrines. --T.G. Authoritarianism: That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, "Fixation of Belief," in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. --A.C.B. Autistic thinking: Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. --A.C.B. Automaton Theory: Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism. Automatism: (Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Treatise on Man). Pure automatism for man as well as animals is advocated by La Mettrie (Man, a Machine, 1748). During the Nineteenth century, automatism, combined with epiphenomenalism, was advanced by Hodgson, Huxley and Clifford. (Cf. W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V.) Behaviorism, of the extreme sort, is the most recent version of automatism (See Behaviorism). (b) In psychology: Psychological automatism is the performance of apparently purposeful actions, like automatic writing without the superintendence of the conscious mind. L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine, N. Y., 1941. --L.W. Automatism, Conscious: The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. --L.W. Autonomy: (Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, § 2.) --L.W. Autonomy of ethics: A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. --W.K.F. Autonomy of the will: (in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. --P.A.S. Autonymy: In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself --for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is different. --A.C. Autotelic: (from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent in itself of which the person following his art impulse (q.v.) or playing is unaware, thus approaching a heterotelic (q.v.) conception. --K.F.L. Avenarius, Richard: (1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics --the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting on the biologic and economic function of thought, he thought the true method of science is to cure speculative excesses by a return to pure experience devoid of all assumptions. Philosophy is the scientific effort to exclude from knowledge all ideas not included in the given. Its task is to expel all extraneous elements in the given. His uncritical use of the category of the given and the nominalistic view that logical relations are created rather than discovered by thought, leads him to banish not only animism but also all of the categories, substance, causality, etc., as inventions of the mind. Explaining the evolution and devolution of the problematization and deproblematization of numerous ideas, and aiming to give the natural history of problems, Avenarius sought to show physiologically, psychologically and historically under what conditions they emerge, are challenged and are solved. He hypothesized a System C, a bodily and central nervous system upon which consciousness depends. R-values are the stimuli received from the world of objects. E-values are the statements of experience. The brain changes that continually oscillate about an ideal point of balance are termed Vitalerhaltungsmaximum. The E-values are differentiated into elements, to which the sense-perceptions or the content of experience belong, and characters, to which belongs everything which psychology describes as feelings and attitudes. Avenarius describes in symbolic form a series of states from balance to balance, termed vital series, all describing a series of changes in System C. Inequalities in the vital balance give rise to vital differences. According to his theory there are two vital series. It assumes a series of brain changes because parallel series of conscious states can be observed. The independent vital series are physical, and the dependent vital series are psychological. The two together are practically covariants. In the case of a process as a dependent vital series three stages can be noted: first, the appearance of the problem, expressed as strain, restlessness, desire, fear, doubt, pain, repentance, delusion; the second, the continued effort and struggle to solve the problem; and finally, the appearance of the solution, characterized by abating anxiety, a feeling of triumph and enjoyment. Corresponding to these three stages of the dependent series are three stages of the independent series: the appearance of the vital difference and a departure from balance in the System C, the continuance with an approximate vital difference, and lastly, the reduction of the vital difference to zero, the return to stability. By making room for dependent and independent experiences, he showed that physics regards experience as independent of the experiencing indlvidual, and psychology views experience as dependent upon the individual. He greatly influenced Mach and James (q.v.). See Avenarius, Empirio-criticism, Experience, pure. Main works: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der menschliche Weltbegriff. --H.H. Averroes: (Mohammed ibn Roshd) Known to the Scholastics as The Commentator, and mentioned as the author of il gran commento by Dante (Inf. IV. 68) he was born 1126 at Cordova (Spain), studied theology, law, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy, became after having been judge in Sevilla and Cordova, physician to the khalifah Jaqub Jusuf, and charged with writing a commentary on the works of Aristotle. Al-mansur, Jusuf's successor, deprived him of his place because of accusations of unorthodoxy. He died 1198 in Morocco. Averroes is not so much an original philosopher as the author of a minute commentary on the whole works of Aristotle. His procedure was imitated later by Aquinas. In his interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics Averroes teaches the coeternity of a universe created ex nihilo. This doctrine formed together with the notion of a numerical unity of the active intellect became one of the controversial points in the discussions between the followers of Albert-Thomas and the Latin Averroists. Averroes assumed that man possesses only a disposition for receiving the intellect coming from without; he identifies this disposition with the possible intellect which thus is not truly intellectual by nature. The notion of one intellect common to all men does away with the doctrine of personal immortality. Another doctrine which probably was emphasized more by the Latin Averroists (and by the adversaries among Averroes' contemporaries) is the famous statement about "two-fold truth", viz. that a proposition may be theologically true and philosophically false and vice versa. Averroes taught that religion expresses the (higher) philosophical truth by means of religious imagery; the "two-truth notion" came apparently into the Latin text through a misinterpretation on the part of the translators. The works of Averroes were one of the main sources of medieval Aristotelianlsm, before and even after the original texts had been translated. The interpretation the Latin Averroists found in their texts of the "Commentator" spread in spite of opposition and condemnation. See Averroism, Latin. Averroes, Opera, Venetiis, 1553. M. Horten, Die Metaphysik des Averroes, 1912. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin, 2d ed., Louvain, 1911. --R.A. Averroism, Latin: The commentaries on Aristotle written by Averroes (Ibn Roshd) in the 12th century became known to the Western scholars in translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Many works of Aristotle were also known first by such translations from Arabian texts, though there existed translations from the Greek originals at the same time (Grabmann). The Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle was held to be the true one by many; but already Albert the Great pointed out several notions which he felt to be incompatible with the principles of Christian philosophy, although he relied for the rest on the "Commentator" and apparently hardly used any other text. Aquinas, basing his studies mostly on a translation from the Greek texts, procured for him by William of Moerbecke, criticized the Averroistic interpretation in many points. But the teachings of the Commentator became the foundation for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at Paris. The most prominent of these scholars was Siger of Brabant. The philosophy of these men was condemned on March 7th, 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, after a first condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1210 had gradually come to be neglected. The 219 theses condemned in 1277, however, contain also some of Aquinas which later were generally recognized an orthodox. The Averroistic propositions which aroused the criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities and which had been opposed with great energy by Albert and Thomas refer mostly to the following points: The co-eternity of the created word; the numerical identity of the intellect in all men, the so-called two-fold-truth theory stating that a proposition may be philosophically true although theologically false. Regarding the first point Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity or against it; creation is an article of faith. The unity of intellect was rejected as incompatible with the true notion of person and with personal immortality. It is doubtful whether Averroes himself held the two-truths theory; it was, however, taught by the Latin Averroists who, notwithstanding the opposition of the Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained a great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy. Thomas and his followers were convinced that they interpreted Aristotle correctly and that the Averroists were wrong; one has, however, to admit that certain passages in Aristotle allow for the Averroistic interpretation, especially in regard to the theory of intellect. Lit.: P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin au XIIIe Siecle, 2d. ed. Louvain, 1911; M. Grabmann, Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1916 (Beitr. z. Gesch. Phil. d. MA. Vol. 17, H. 5-6). --R.A. Avesta: See Zendavesta. Avicehron: (or Avencebrol, Salomon ibn Gabirol) The first Jewish philosopher in Spain, born in Malaga 1020, died about 1070, poet, philosopher, and moralist. His main work, Fons vitae, became influential and was much quoted by the Scholastics. It has been preserved only in the Latin translation by Gundissalinus. His doctrine of a spiritual substance individualizing also the pure spirits or separate forms was opposed by Aquinas already in his first treatise De ente, but found favor with the medieval Augustinians also later in the 13th century. He also teaches the necessity of a mediator between God and the created world; such a mediator he finds in the Divine Will proceeding from God and creating, conserving, and moving the world. His cosmogony shows a definitely Neo-Platonic shade and assumes a series of emanations. Cl. Baeumker, Avencebrolis Fons vitae. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1892-1895, Vol. I. Joh. Wittman, Die Stellung des hl. Thomas von Aquino zu Avencebrol, ibid. 1900. Vol. III. --R.A. Avicenna: (Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17th century. His philosophy is contained in 18 vols. of a comprehensive encyclopedia, following the tradition of Al Kindi and Al Farabi. Logic, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics form the parts of this work. His philosophy is Aristotelian with noticeable Neo-Platonic influences. His doctrine of the universal existing ante res in God, in rebus as the universal nature of the particulars, and post res in the human mind by way of abstraction became a fundamental thesis of medieval Aristotelianism. He sharply distinguished between the logical and the ontological universal, denying to the latter the true nature of form in the composite. The principle of individuation is matter, eternally existent. Latin translations attributed to Avicenna the notion that existence is an accident to essence (see e.g. Guilelmus Parisiensis, De Universo). The process adopted by Avicenna was one of paraphrasis of the Aristotelian texts with many original thoughts interspersed. His works were translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus (Gondisalvi) with the assistance of Avendeath ibn Daud. This translation started, when it became more generally known, the "revival of Aristotle" at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Albert the Great and Aquinas professed, notwithstanding their critical attitude, a great admiration for Avicenna whom the Arabs used to call the "third Aristotle". But in the Orient, Avicenna's influence declined soon, overcome by the opposition of the orthodox theologians. Avicenna, Opera, Venetiis, 1495; l508; 1546. M. Horten, Das Buch der Genesung der Seele, eine philosophische Enzyklopaedie Avicenna's; XIII. Teil: Die Metaphysik. Halle a. S. 1907-1909. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'Avicennisme Latin, Bibl. Thomiste XX, Paris, 1934. --R.A. Avidya: (Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. --K.F.L. Avyakta: (Skr.) "Unmanifest", descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or "his" aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). --K.F.L. Awareness: Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received its epistemological development by Meinong, Husserl, Moore, Laird and Broad. See Intentionalism. --L.W. Axiological: (Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). --D.C. Axiological ethics: Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleological ethics. --W.K.F. Axiologic Realism: In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. --J.K.F. Axiology: (Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lambda). Stoics and Epicureans investigated the summum bonum. Christian philosophy (St. Thomas) built on Aristotle's identification of highest value with final cause in God as "a living being, eternal, most good." In modern thought, apart from scholasticism and the system of Spinoza (Ethica, 1677), in which values are metaphysically grounded, the various values were investigated in separate sciences, until Kant's Critiques, in which the relations of knowledge to moral, aesthetic, and religious values were examined. In Hegel's idealism, morality, art, religion, and philosophy were made the capstone of his dialectic. R. H. Lotze "sought in that which should be the ground of that which is" (Metaphysik, 1879). Nineteenth century evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics subjected value experience to empirical analysis, and stress was again laid on the diversity and relativity of value phenomena rather than on their unity and metaphysical nature. F. Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) aroused new interest in the nature of value. F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889), identified value with love. In the twentieth century the term axiology was apparently first applied by Paul Lapie (Logique de la volonte, 1902) and E. von Hartmann (Grundriss der Axiologie, 1908). Stimulated by Ehrenfels (System der Werttheorie, 1897), Meinong (Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, 1894-1899), and Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes, 1900). W. M. Urban wrote the first systematic treatment of axiology in English (Valuation, 1909), phenomenological in method under J. M. Baldwin's influence. Meanwhile H. Münsterberg wrote a neo-Fichtean system of values (The Eternal Values, 1909). Among important recent contributions are: B. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912), a free reinterpretation of Hegelianism; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918, 1921), defending a metaphysical theism; S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), realistic and naturalistic; N. Hartmann, Ethik (1926), detailed analysis of types and laws of value; R. B. Perry's magnum opus, General Theory of Value (1926), "its meaning and basic principles construed in terms of interest"; and J. Laird, The Idea of Value (1929), noteworthy for historical exposition. A naturalistic theory has been developed by J. Dewey (Theory of Valuation, 1939), for which "not only is science itself a value . . . but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) expounds the view of logical positivism that value is "nonsense." J. Hessen, Wertphilosophie (1937), provides an account of recent German axiology from a neo-scholastic standpoint. The problems of axiology fall into four main groups, namely, those concerning (1) the nature of value, (2) the types of value, (3) the criterion of value, and (4) the metaphysical status of value. (1) The nature of value experience. Is valuation fulfillment of desire (voluntarism: Spinoza, Ehrenfels), pleasure (hedonism: Epicurus, Bentham, Meinong), interest (Perry), preference (Martineau), pure rational will (formalism: Stoics, Kant, Royce), apprehension of tertiary qualities (Santayana), synoptic experience of the unity of personality (personalism: T. H. Green, Bowne), any experience that contributes to enhanced life (evolutionism: Nietzsche), or "the relation of things as means to the end or consequence actually reached" (pragmatism, instrumentalism: Dewey). (2) The types of value. Most axiologists distinguish between intrinsic (consummatory) values (ends), prized for their own sake, and instrumental (contributory) values (means), which are causes (whether as economic goods or as natural events) of intrinsic values. Most intrinsic values are also instrumental to further value experience; some instrumental values are neutral or even disvaluable intrinsically. Commonly recognized as intrinsic values are the (morally) good, the true, the beautiful, and the holy. Values of play, of work, of association, and of bodily well-being are also acknowledged. Some (with Montague) question whether the true is properly to be regarded as a value, since some truth is disvaluable, some neutral; but love of truth, regardless of consequences, seems to establish the value of truth. There is disagreement about whether the holy (religious value) is a unique type (Schleiermacher, Otto), or an attitude toward other values (Kant, Höffding), or a combination of the two (Hocking). There is also disagreement about whether the variety of values is irreducible (pluralism) or whether all values are rationally related in a hierarchy or system (Plato, Hegel, Sorley), in which values interpenetrate or coalesce into a total experience. (3) The criterion of value. The standard for testing values is influenced by both psychological and logical theory. Hedonists find the standard in the quantity of pleasure derived by the individual (Aristippus) or society (Bentham). Intuitionists appeal to an ultimate insight into preference (Martineau, Brentano). Some idealists recognize an objective system of rational norms or ideals as criterion (Plato, Windelband), while others lay more stress on rational wholeness and coherence (Hegel, Bosanquet, Paton) or inclusiveness (T. H. Green). Naturalists find biological survival or adjustment (Dewey) to be the standard. Despite differences, there is much in common in the results of the application of these criteria. (4) The metaphysical status of value. What is the relation of values to the facts investigated by natural science (Koehler), of Sein to Sollen (Lotze, Rickert), of human experience of value to reality independent of man (Hegel, Pringle-Pattlson, Spaulding)? There are three main answers: subjectivism (value is entirely dependent on and relative to human experience of it: so most hedonists, naturalists, positivists); logical objectivism (values are logical essences or subsistences, independent of their being known, yet with no existential status or action in reality); metaphysical objectivism (values --or norms or ideals --are integral, objective, and active constituents of the metaphysically real: so theists, absolutists, and certain realists and naturalists like S. Alexander and Wieman). --E.S.B. Axiom: See Mathematics. Axiomatic method: That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. --C.A.B. Ayam atma brahma: (Skr.) "This self is brahman", famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. --K.F.L.
AUM. ::: Same as Om (showing the three syllables separately ::: a - the spirit of the gross and external, Virāt; u - the spirit of the subtle and internal, Taijasa; m - the spirit of the secret superconscient Omnipotence, Prājna ; am - the Absolute, Turīya).
The 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 activity.
authoritarian personality: personality style strongly associated with prejudicedattitudes, where the person is intolerant of ambiguity or uncertainty, submissive to those in authority and dismissive or arrogant towards those perceived to be of lower social status.
Automatic Number Identification "communications" (ANI) A service that tells the recipient of a telephone call the telephone number of the person making the call. This number can be passed to computer equipment to automatically retrieve associated information about the caller, i.e. account status, billing records, etc. See {CTI}. (1996-12-08)
Automatic Number Identification ::: (communications) (ANI) A service that tells the recipient of a telephone call the telephone number of the person making the call. This number can be passed to computer equipment to automatically retrieve associated information about the caller, i.e. account status, billing records, etc.See CTI. (1996-12-08)
avastha ::: status.
avatara (Avatar) ::: Incarnation; the descent into form; the revelation of the Godhead in humanity; the Divine manifest in a human appearance; the word avatara means a descent; it is the coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.
AVATARA ::: One in whom the Divine Consciousness has descended into human birth for a great world-work; the Incarnation; Spirit descending into man; Descent into form; the revelation of the Godhead in humanity; the Divine who has descended into the human consciousness; coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.
An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious of the presence and power of the Divine born in him or descended into him governing from within his will and life action; he feels identified inwardly with this divine power and presence.
He is a realiser, an establisher - not of outward things only, though he does realise something in the outward also, but of something essential and radical needed for the terrestrial evolution which is the evolution of the embodied spirit through successive stages towards the Divine.
There are two sides of the phenomenon of avatarhood, the Divine Consciousness and the instrumental personality in Nature under the conditions of Nature which it uses according to the rules of the game.
The Avatar takes upon himself the nature of humanity in his instrumental parts, though the consciousness acting behind is divine.
Avatar ::: Sri Aurobindo: “The word Avatar means a descent; it is a coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.” Essays on the Gita
avatars ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The word Avatar means a descent; it is a coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.” *Essays on the Gita
Avatar ::: “The word Avatar means a descent; it is a coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.” Essays on the Gita
Avesa. (T. 'bebs pa; C. aweishe; J. abisha; K. amisa 阿尾捨). In Sanskrit, "possession"; the possession of shamans and mediums by a spirit or divinity so they could serve as oracles. Specific rites are outlined in esoteric Buddhist materials to incite possession in young children of usually seven or eight years of age; once the children began to shake from their inhabitation by the possessing deity, they would be asked a series of questions regarding portents for the future. In China, the tantric master VAJRABODHI was said to have used two seven-year-old girls as oracles in the palace, who were claimed to have been possessed by two deceased princesses. In Tibet, some of the bodies (rten, sku rten) through which an oracle (lha) speaks attained considerable importance in the religious and even political affairs of the state; among them the GNAS CHUNG (Nechung) oracle, said to be the pre-Buddhist spirit PE HAR, who was tamed by PADMASAMBHAVA and tasked with protecting the Buddha's teaching, has the status of state oracle.
ayu1 ::: air, wind, gas; the gaseous condition of material being, one of the pañcabhūta: material Force "modifying its first ethereal status"(akasa) to assume "a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations".V Vayu
Baker Plan ::: A plan proposed during the First Intifada in 1989 by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker with the hopes of promoting dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians who still would not sit at the same bargaining table. The plan called for Israel to talk exclusively with the Palestinian representatives it approved of, and allowed for the selected Palestinian representatives to discuss a wider range of issues than initially proposed under the Shamir Plan. The plan fell apart as the PLO was not represented and controversy ensued as to the legal status of Jerusalem Arabs.
(b) American New Realists: More radical in that mind tended to lose its special status in the order of things. In psychology this school moved toward behaviorism. In philosophy they were extreme pan-objectivists. Distinguished representatives: F. J. E. Woodbridge, G. S. Fullerton, E. B. McGilvary and six platformists (so-called because of their collaboration in a volume The New Realism, published 1912): E. B. Holt, W. T. Marvin, W. P. Montague, R. B. Perry, W. B. Pitkin, E. G. Spaulding. The American New Realists agreed on a general platform but differed greatly among themselves as to theories of reality and particular questions. -- V.F.
Baptism: A rite of dedication and induction of an individual into a circle of social and religious privilege. The rite is usually of a ceremonious nature with pledges given (by proxy in the case of infants), prayers and accompanied by some visible sign (such as water, symbol of purification, or wine, honey, oil or blood) sealing the bond of fellowship. In its earliest form the rite probably symbolized not only an initiation but the magical removal of some tabu or demon possession (exorcism -- see Demonology), the legitimacy of birth, the inheritance of privilege, the assumption of a name and the expectancy of responsibility. In Christian circles the rite has assumed the status of a sacrament, the supernatural rebirth into the Divine Kingdom. Various forms include sprinkling with water, immersion, or the laying on of hands. In some Christian circles it is considered less a mystical rite and more a sign of a covenant of salvation and consecration to the higher life. -- V.F.
Bar-Mitzvah. &
::: B’chor ::: (Heb.) Firstborn status. ::: B’deken ::: The ritual unveiling of the bride by the bridegroom. This custom developed from the biblical story of Jacob, who married Leah by mistake, instead of Rachel, the woman he loved.
Before writing the Ideen, he had come to believe that, as the reflective observer of one's subjective processes, one can establish and maintain the attitude of a mere onlooker, who does not participate even in his own natural attitude of believing in a possible world and apprehending his consciousness as essentially possible in that world. If this attitude of self-restraint (epoche) is consistently maintained, one can discriminate a status of one's consciousness more fundamental than its actuality or its possibility in a world and one can see that this essential worldliness of consciousness is a reflexive consequence of its more fundamental character as consciousness of a world. One can then see, furthermore, that every intendable object is essentially, and most fundamentally, a noematic-intentional object (a phenomenon) and has its being and nature because consciousness -- regardless of the latter's secondary status as in the world -- is intrinsically an (actual or potential) intending of that object, in a certain manner, as having certain determinations. Such was Husserl's contention.
Berkeley, George: (1685-1753) Pluralistic idealist, reflecting upon the spatial attributes of distance, size, and situation, possessed, according to Locke, by external objects in themselves apart from our perception of them, concluded that the discrepancy between the visual and the tactual aspects of these attributes robbed them of all objective validity and reduced them to the status of secondary qualities existing only in and for consciousness. Moreover, the very term "matter," like all other "universals," is found upon analysis to mean and stand for nothing but complexes of experienced qualities. Indeed, "existence" except as presence to consciousness, is meaningless. Hence, nothing can be said to exist except minds (spirits) and mental content (ideas). Esse = percipi or percipere.
bhava ::: 1. status of being. ::: 2. a becoming. ::: 3. a subjective state, one of the secondary subjective becomings of Nature (states of mind, affections of desire, movements of passion, the reactions of the senses, the limited and dual play of the reason, the turns of the feeling and moral sense). ::: 4. the affective nature. ::: 5. general sensation. ::: 6. [one of the sadanga]: the emotion or aesthetic feeling expressed by the form. ::: 7. [in poetry: feeling, mood, sentiment]. ::: bhavah [plural]
bhavonyah ::: another status of existence. [Gita 8.20]
bhiksu. (P. bhikkhu; T. dge slong; C. biqiu; J. biku; K. pigu 比丘). In Sanskrit, lit. "beggar"; a male "religious mendicant" or, as commonly translated, "monk." The female counterparts of bhiksu are BHIKsUnĪ (nuns). The term is derived from the Sanskrit root √bhiks meaning, among other things, "to beg for alms." The Tibetan translation of the term literally means "virtuous beggar"; the Chinese instead uses a transcription. Buddhism was one of the principal early groups of wandering religious (sRAMAnA), which constituted a new religious movement in the fifth century BCE, and coined the term bhiksu to distinguish its wanderers from those of other sramana sects, such as the JAINA and AJĪVAKA. A bhiksu holds the higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) of his VINAYA lineage and is thus distinguished from a novice, or sRAMAnERA. Novitiate status is attained by undergoing the "going forth" (pravrajyA; see PRAVRAJITA) ceremony and accepting a set of ten (and, in some traditions, expanded to thirty-six) precepts (sĪLA). After a period of service in the order, one may undergo the upasaMpadA ceremony, by which one attains full ordination. At that point, the bhiksu is expected to adhere to all the rules found in the litany of monastic discipline, or PRATIMOKsA, e.g., 227 in the PAli vinaya used in Southeast Asia, 250 in the DHARMAGUPTAKA vinaya used in much of East Asia, 253 in the MuLASARVASTIVADA vinaya followed in Tibet, etc. By rule, although not necessarily in practice, a bhiksu is allowed to possess only a set of four or eight "requisites" (PARIsKARA, P. parikkhAra), which provide him with the minimal necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. The duties of a bhiksu vary widely across the Buddhist tradition. These duties include, but are not limited to, preserving the teaching by memorizing, copying and/or reciting the scriptures; instructing younger monks, novices, and lay adherents; conducting a variety of different kinds of ceremonies; maintaining the monastery grounds, etc. Bhiksus were customarily presumed to be dependent on lay followers for their material requirements and, in return, served as a field of merit (PUnYAKsETRA) for them by accepting their donations (DANA). Within any given monastery, bhiksus maintain hierarchical relationships. Depending on the monk's tradition, seniority may be determined by the number of years since full ordination (see VARsA; C. JIELA), one's performance in examinations, or other factors. Literary evidence suggests that the first Buddhist monks were itinerant ascetics who resided in communities only during the monsoon season. Later, as the tradition grew, these temporary residences evolved into permanent monasteries. In the Hindu tradition, the term bhiksu may sometimes also be used to signify the fourth stage (Asrama) of life, in which one renounces worldly attachments for the sake of study and reflection (although this stage is more commonly referred to as saMnyAsin); in this context, however, no formal renunciation through ordination is necessarily required. Throughout much of the history of Buddhism, there have been regions and historical periods in which Buddhist monks married but continued to maintain the appearance of a fully-ordained bhiksu, including wearing monastic robes and shaving their heads. In English, such religious might better be called "priests" rather than "monks." See also BHIKKHU.
Bhutesa or Bhutesvara (Sanskrit) Bhūteśa, Bhūteśvara [from bhūta living being + īśa, īśvara lord] Lord of beings, lord of manifested entities and things; a name applied to each member of the Hindu Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva). Siva in exoteric mythology and popular superstition is supposed to possess the special status of lord of the bhutas or kama-lokic spooks, and is the special patron of ascetics, students of occultism, and of those training themselves in mystical knowledge; so that this superstitious characterization of Siva is an entirely exoteric distortion of a profound esoteric fact. The real meaning is that Siva, often figurated as the supreme initiator, is the lord of those who “have been,” but who now are become regenerates through initiation — the mystical idea here being of the preservation of self-conscious effort through darkness into light, from ignorance to wisdom, and from selfishness into the divine compassion of the cosmic heart. In view of the karmic past of such progressed entities, their former selves in this cosmic time period are the bhutas (have-beens) of what now they are. Bhutesa is also applied to Krishna in this sense.
b) In Axiology: The doctrine that moral and aesthetic values represent the subjective feelings and reactions of individual minds and have no status independent of such reactions. Ethical subjectivism finds typical expression in Westermarck's doctrine that moral judgments have reference to our emotions of approval and disapproval. See The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas. Vol. 1, Ch. l. -- L.W.
Biyan lu. (J. Hekiganroku; K. Pyogam nok 碧巖録). In Chinese, "Emerald Grotto Record" or, as it is popularly known in the West, the "Blue Cliff Record"; compiled by CHAN master YUANWU KEQIN; also known by its full title of Foguo Yuanwu chanshi biyan lu ("Emerald Grotto Record of Chan Master Foguo Yuanwu"). The Biyan lu is one of the two most famous and widely used collection of Chan cases (GONG'AN), along with the WUMEN GUAN ("The Gateless Checkpoint"). The anthology is built around XUEDOU CHONGXIAN's Xuedou heshang baice songgu, an earlier independent collection of one hundred old Chan cases (GUCE) with verse commentary; Xuedou's text is embedded within the Biyan lu and Yuanwu's comments are interspersed throughout. Each of the one hundred cases, with a few exceptions, is introduced by a pointer (CHUISHI), a short introductory paragraph composed by Yuanwu. Following the pointer, the term "raised" (ju) is used to formally mark the actual case. Each case is followed by interlinear notes known as annotations or capping phrases (ZHUOYU; J. JAKUGO) and prose commentary (PINGCHANG), both composed by Yuanwu. The phrase "the verse says" (song yue) subsequently introduces Xuedou's verse, which is also accompanied by its own capping phrases and prose commentary, both added by Yuanwu. The cases, comments, and capping phrases found in the Biyan lu were widely used and read among both the clergy and laity in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam as an contemplative tool in Chan meditation practice and, in some contexts, as a token of social or institutional status. A famous (or perhaps infamous) story tells of the Chan master DAHUI ZONGGAO, the major disciple of Yuanwu, burning his teacher's Biyan lu for fear that his students would become attached to the words of Xuedou and Yuanwu. The Biyan lu shares many cases with the Wumen guan, and the two texts continue to function as the foundation of training in the Japanese RINZAI Zen school.
Blo sbyong tshig brgyad ma. (Lojong Tsikgyema). In Tibetan, "Eight Verses on Mind Training"; a text composed by the BKA' GDAMS scholar Glang ri thang pa (Langri Thangpa, 1054-1123), based upon the instructions for generating BODHICITTA transmitted to Tibet by the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA. The work became famous in Tibet for its penetrating advice for the practice of compassion (KARUnA). It formed the basis for future influential works, including the often-quoted BLO SBYONG DON BDUN MA ("Seven Points of Mind Training"), by the Bka' gdams scholar 'CHAD KA BA YE SHES RDO RJE, written several decades later. The first seven verses teach the practice of conventional (SAMVṚTI) bodhicitta, and the last verse ultimate (PARAMARTHA) bodhicitta. The first training is to view sentient beings as wish-granting gems because it is only by feeling compassion for beings that bodhisattvas reach enlightenment; the second is to cultivate an attitude similar to a person of low status whose natural place is serving others; and the third is to immediately confront and counteract afflictions (KLEsA) (here understood specifically as selfishness, attachment to one's own interests, and hatred for those who oppose them). The fourth training is to treat people who are actually cruel as extremely rare and precious because they present an opportunity to practice patience and compassion, without which enlightenment is impossible; the fifth is the famous advice to "give all victory to others; take all defeat for yourself;" the sixth is to treat ungrateful persons as special gurus, and the seventh is to practice GTONG LEN (giving and taking), a practice of breathing out love and compassion and breathing in the sufferings of others. The eighth training is in a mind free from all conceptions.
BodhnAth Stupa. (T. Bya rung kha shor). The popular Nepali name for a large STuPA situated on the northeast edge of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. Venerated by both Newar and Tibetan Buddhists, it has become one of Nepal's most important and active Buddhist pilgrimage sites. The base, arranged on three terraces in a multiangled shape called viMsatikona (lit. "twenty angles"), is more than 260 feet on each side with the upper dome standing some 130 feet high. At the structure's south entrance stands a shrine to the Newar goddess known as Ajima or HARĪTĪ. Together with SVAYAMBHu and NAMO BUDDHA, BodhnAth forms a triad of great stupas often depicted together in Tibetan literature. The stupa's origins are unclear and a variety of competing traditions account for its founding and subsequent development. Most Nepali sources agree that the mahAcaitya was founded through the activities of King MAnadeva I (reigned 464-505), who unwittingly murdered his father but later atoned for his patricide through a great act of contrition. Among Newars, the stupa is commonly known as the KhAsticaitya, literally "the dew-drop CAITYA." This name is said to refer to the period in which King MAnadeva founded the stupa, a time of great drought when cloth would be spread out at night from which the morning dew could be squeezed in order to supply water necessary for the construction. The site is also called KhAsacaitya, after one legend which states that MAnadeva was the reincarnation of a Tibetan teacher called KhAsA; another well-known tradition explains the name as stemming from the buddha KAsYAPA, whose relics are said to be enclosed therein. The major Tibetan account of the stupa's origin is found in a treasure text (GTER MA) said to have been hidden by the Indian sage PADMASAMBHAVA and his Tibetan consort YE SHES MTSHO RGYAL. According to this narrative, the monument was constructed by a widowed poultry keeper. The local nobility grew jealous that such a grand project was being undertaken by a woman of such low status. They petitioned the king, requesting that he bring the construction to a halt. The king, however, refused to intervene and instead granted permission for the work to be completed, from which its Tibetan name Bya rung kha shor (Jarung Kashor, literally "permission to do what is proper") is derived. The stupa was renovated under the guidance of Tibetan lamas on numerous occasions and it eventually came under the custodial care of a familial lineage known as the Chini Lamas. Once surrounded by a small village, since 1959 BodhnAth has become a thriving center for Tibetan refugee culture and the location for dozens of relocated Tibetan monasteries.
brahma-bhuyaya ::: [for] arriving at the Brahmic status. [Gita 18.53]
brahman ::: (in the Veda) "the soul or soul-consciousness emerging from the secret heart of things" or "the thought, inspired, creative, full of the secret truth, which emerges from that consciousness and becomes thought of the mind"; (in Vedanta) the divine Reality, "the One [eka1] besides whom there is nothing else existent", the Absolute who is "at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements". Its nature is saccidananda, infinite existence (sat), consciousness (cit) and bliss (ananda), whose second element can also be described as consciousness-force (cit-tapas), making four fundamental principles of the integral Reality; brahman seen in all things in terms of these principles is called in the Record of Yoga the fourfold brahman, whose aspects form the brahma catus.t.aya. The complete realisation of brahman included for Sri Aurobindo not only the unification of the experiences of the nirgun.a brahman (brahman without qualities) and sagun.a brahman (brahman with qualities), but the harmonisation of the impersonal brahman which is "the spiritual material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe" with the personal isvara in the consciousness of parabrahman, the brahman in its supreme status as "a transcendent Unthinkable too great for any manifestation", which "is at the same time the living supreme Soul of all things" (purus.ottama) and the supreme Lord (paramesvara) and supreme Self (paramatman), "and in all these equal aspects the same single and eternal Godhead". Brahman is represented in sound by the mystic syllable OM.
brtan [alt. bstan] ma bcu gnyis. (denma chunyi). A group of twelve pre-Buddhist Tibetan deities converted to Buddhism by PADMASAMBHAVA. The site of their subjugation is said to have been either Kha la brag (Kaladrak) or 'U yug, although individual members have variant legends. They are considered to be subordinate to the BKRA SHIS TSHE RING MCHED LNGA, "five long-life sisters," and, like that group of deities, frequently appear in the retinue of DPAL LDAN LHA MO. Their status in the world is ambiguous, considered by some to be enlightened, by others to be mundane. Rdo rje g.yu sgron ma (Dorje Yudronma) is generally considered to be their leader, though sometimes Rdo rje grags mo rgyal (Dorje Drakmo Gyel) is given that honor. All members are said to take possession of female mediums, some of whom were sponsored by the powerful DGE LUGS monasteries of SE RA and 'BRAS SPUNGS. The brtan ma are divided into three groups of four members each: the bdud mo (dumo) (female BDUD), gnod sbyin (nojin) (female YAKsA), and sman mo (menmo). Their names, without the epithet "Rdo rje" (i.e., "Vajra") are Kun grags ma, G.ya' ma skyong, Kun bzang mo, and Bgegs kyi gtso in the group of bdud mo; Spyan gcig ma, Dpal gyi yum, Drag mo rgyal, and Klu mo dkar in the group of gnod sbyin chen mo; and Bod khams skyong, Sman gcig ma, G.yar mo sil, and G.yu sgron ma in the group of sman mo. There are numerous variations in the names.
status 1. "hardware" A description of how something is, similar to {state} but usually implying a simpler set of possibilities, e.g. {up} or {down}; set or clear; stopped, starting, started, stopping. In {CPU} hardware, the {status register} stores {bits} of information about the outcome of previous operations, e.g. zero, {overflow}. These status bits can be used to control {conditional execution}, e.g. "branch if zero". The same idea is common in other {hardware}, e.g. an input {peripheral} with a {status bit} to indicate {end of file}. 2. "operating system" Under the {Unix} {operating system}, a {process} terminates with an {exit status} - an integer value where zero indicates successful or normal completion and non-zero values indicate different error conditions. 3. "standard" Standards and other forms of {documentation} can have different statuses such as "proposal", {request for comments} or accepted by some official body. (2018-09-01)
status ::: a state of affairs; situation.
status in quo ::: --> Alt. of Status quo
status ::: n. --> State; condition; position of affairs.
status quo ::: --> The state in which anything is already. The phrase is also used retrospectively, as when, on a treaty of place, matters return to the status quo ante bellum, or are left in statu quo ante bellum, i.e., the state (or, in the state) before the war.
(b) That which is asserted in an act of judgment, often called a belief or a proposition. That which is judged may merely be contemplated or considered instead of being affirmed or denied. Opinions differ as to the ontological status of propositions. Some regard them as mental, some as neutral, some as verbal. -- C.A.B.
b) The usual meaning of the term the doctrine of the Trinitarians who hold that the nature of God is one in substance and three in embodiment (Latin: persona). Upon the basis of Platonic realism (q.v.) which makes the universal fundamental and the particulars real in terms of the universal, the Christian Trinitarians made philosophically clear their doctrine of one Godhead and three embodiments, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three and yet one. The doctrine was formulated to make religiously valid the belief in the complete Deity of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit (referred to in the New and the Old Testaments) and to avoid the pitfalls of polytheism. Jesus had become the object of Christian worship and the revealer of God and thus it was felt necessary to establish (together with the H.S.) his real Deity along with monotheistic belief. A long controversy over the relationship of the three led to the formulation by the Council of Nicea in 325, and after further disputes, by the Council of Constantinople in 381 of the orthodox Trinitarian creed (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan). Roman and Greek Catholicism split on the doctrine of the status of the H.S. The Western church added the expression "filioque" (the H.S. proceeding "and from the Son") making more explicit the complete equality of the three; the Eastern church maintained the original text which speaks of the H.S. as "proceeding from thet Father." Orthodox Protestantism maintains the Trinitarian conception. -- V.F.
By 1770, the beginning of his "critical" period, Kant had an answer which he confidently expected would revolutionize philosophy. First dimly outlined in the Inaugural Dissertation (1770), and elaborated in great detail in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787), the answer consisted in the critical or transcendental method. The typical function of reason, on Kant's view, is relating or synthesizing the data of sense. In effecting any synthesis the mind relies on the validity of certain principles, such as causality, which, as Hume had shown, cannot be inductive generalizations from sense data, yet are indispensable in any account of "experience" viewed as a connected, significant whole. If the necessary, synthetic principles cannot be derived from sense data proper, then, Kant argued, they must be "a priori" -- logically prior to the materials which they relate. He also called these formal elements "transcendental", by which he meant that, while they are indubitably in experience viewed as a connected whole, they transcend or are distinct from the sensuous materials in source and status. In the Critique of Pure Reason -- his "theoretical philosophy" -- Kant undertakes a complete inventory and "deduction" of all synthetic, a priori, transcendental forms employed in the knowledge of Nature. The first part, the "Transcendental Aesthetic", exhibits the two forms or "intuitions" (Anschauungen) of the sensibility: space and time. Knowledge of Nature, however varied its sense content, is necessarily always of something in space and time; and just because these are necessary conditions of any experience of Nature, space and time cannot be objective properties of things-in-themselves, but must be formal demands of reason. Space and time are "empirically real", because they are present in actual experience; but they are "transcendentally ideal", since they are forms which the mind "imposes" on the data of sense.
Camp David Talks (2000) ::: Camp David meeting between U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in 2000 to try and negotiate the final status of the Oslo Accords. The proposal offered the Palestinians: a future state with East Jerusalem as its capital, 95% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and the return of a limited amount of refugees to Israel with reparations to be made to the remainder. Clinton and other parties present blamed the failure pf the talks on Arafat's refusal to compromise. The failure of the talks also played a large role in the outbreak of the Second Intifada a few months later. (See also "Clinton Plan").
canonical status. The practice preempted no one from begetting ex nihilo and ad infinitum his
cariama ::: n. --> A large, long-legged South American bird (Dicholophus cristatus) which preys upon snakes, etc. See Seriema.
catuḥsatyadharmacakra. (T. bden bzhi'i chos 'khor; C. sidi falun; J. shitai horin; K. saje pomnyun 四諦法輪). In Sanskrit, lit. "the dharma wheel of the four truths"; the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRA) delivered in ṚsIPATANA. In this first turning of the wheel of dharma, the Buddha set in motion a wheel with twelve aspects, by setting forth the four noble truths three separate times. He addressed the original group of five disciples (PANCAVARGIKA), telling them that they should not fall into extremes of asceticism or indulgence, and laid out for them the eightfold noble path (AstAnGIKAMARGA). He set forth the four truths the first time by saying that the five aggregates (SKANDHA) qualified by birth, aging, sickness, and death are the noble truth of suffering, craving is the noble truth of their origination, the elimination of that craving is the noble truth of their cessation, and that the eightfold noble path is the noble truth of the path leading to their cessation. He set forth the four truths a second time when, in the same extended discourse, he said, "I knew well that the truth of suffering was what I had to comprehend; I knew well that the truth of the origin was what I had to eliminate; I knew well that the truth of cessation was what I had to realize; and I knew well that the truth of the path was what I had to cultivate." He then set forth the four truths a third and final time when he said, "I comprehended the truth of suffering, I eliminated the true origin of suffering, I realized the true cessation of suffering, and I cultivated the true path." There are twelve aspects to this triple wheel because for each of the three stages there is (1) a vision that sees reality directly with the wisdom eye that is free from contaminants, (2) a knowledge that is free from doubt, (3) an understanding of the way things are, and (4) an intellectual comprehension of an idea never heard of before. ¶ The SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA calls the triple turning of the catuḥsatyadharmacakra with its twelve aspects the "first turning of the wheel." According to its commentaries, it is a demonstration that all dharmas, the skandhas, sense-fields (AYATANA), elements (DHATU), and so forth, exist. This teaching is provisional (NEYARTHA) because it must be interpreted in order to understand what the Buddha really means. A second "middle" dispensation, called "the dharma wheel of signlessness" (ALAKsAnADHARMACAKRA), is the teaching of the MahAyAna doctrine, as set forth in the PRAJNAPARAMITA SuTRAs, that all dharmas, even buddhahood and NIRVAnA, are without any intrinsic nature (NIḤSVABHAVA). The first turning of the wheel is directed toward the sRAVAKAs and PRATYEKABUDDHAs, who tremble at this doctrine of emptiness (suNYATA). The second turning is also not a final, definitive (NĪTARTHA) teaching. The ultimate teaching is the final turning of the wheel of dharma, called "the dharma wheel that makes a fine delineation" (*SUVIBHAKTADHARMACAKRA), i.e., the SaMdhinirmocanasutra itself. Here the Buddha, through his amanuensis ParamArthasamudgata, sets forth in clear and plain language what he means: that dharmas are endowed with three natures (TRISVABHAVA) and each of those is, in a distinctive way, free from intrinsic nature (niḥsvabhAva). The doctrine of the first, middle, and final wheels of dharma is not intended to be a historical presentation of the development of Buddhist doctrine, but the first turning does loosely equate to the early teachings of the Buddha, the second to early MahAyAna, and the third to the emergence of the later YOGACARA school of MahAyAna philosophy. In Tibet, there is no argument over this first turning of the wheel of dharma: it is always understood to refer to the basic teachings of the Buddha for those of a HĪNAYANA persuasion. There is, however, substantial argument over the status of the second and third turnings of the wheel.
Chandala (Sanskrit) Caṇḍāla A member of a mixed caste, or people without caste, an outcaste. Especially in ancient India the term applied to one of the lowest and most despised status (sometimes described as being born from a Sudra father and a Brahmin mother). Commonly applied now to anyone of mixed caste “but in antiquity it was applied to a certain class of men, who, having forfeited their right to any of the four castes — Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras — were expelled from cities and sought refuge in the forests. Then they became ‘bricklayers,’ until finally expelled they left the country, some 4,000 years before our era. Some see in them the ancestors of the earlier Jews, whose tribes began with A-brahm or ‘No-Brahm.’ To this day it is the class most despised by the Brahmins in India” (TG 323-4).
channel op "messaging" /chan'l op/ (Or "{op}", "chan op", "chop") Someone who is endowed with privileges on a particular {IRC} {channel}. These privileges include the right to {kick} users, to change various status bits and to make others into CHOPs. The full form, "channel operator", is almost never used. [{Jargon File}] (1998-01-08)
channel op ::: (messaging) /chan'l op/ (Or op, chan op, chop) Someone who is endowed with privileges on a particular IRC channel. These privileges include the right to kick users, to change various status bits and to make others into CHOPs.The full form, channel operator, is almost never used.[Jargon File] (1998-01-08)
Chonŭnsa. (泉隱寺). In Korean, "Monastery of the Hidden Fount"; one of the three major monasteries located on the Buddhist sacred mountain of CHIRISAN. The monastery is said to have been founded in 828 by an Indian monk named Togun (d.u.) and was originally named Kamnosa (either "Sweet Dew Monastery" or "Responsive Dew Monastery"), after a spring there that would clear the minds of people who drank its ambrosial waters. During the Koryo dynasty, Chonŭnsa was elevated to the status of first Son monastery of the South, during the rule of Ch'ŭngnyol wang (r. 1275-1308). Most of the monastery was destroyed during the Japanese Hideyoshi invasion (1592-1598). In 1679, a Son monk named Tanyu (d.u.) rebuilt the monastery, but changed the name to Chonŭn (Hidden Fount), because the spring had disappeared after a monk killed a snake that kept showing up around it. Subsequently, fires of unknown origin repeatedly occurred in the monastery, which stopped only after hanging up a board with the name of the monastery written in the "water" calligraphic style by Won'gyo Yi Kwangsa (1705-1777), one of the four preeminent calligraphers of the Choson dynasty.
citizenship ::: n. --> The state of being a citizen; the status of a citizen.
Clouding of consciousness is a global impairment in higher central nervous functioning. All aspects of cognitive functioning are affected. On mental status examination it is manifest by disorientation in time, place and person, memory difficulties caused by failure to register and recall, aphasia, dyspraxia, and agnosia. Impaired perception functioning leads to illusions and hallucinations often in the visual sensory modality. This then causes agitation and distress and secondary delusions. The term 'confusion state' is sometimes used to mean clouding of consciousness, but should be avoided if at all possible because it is ambiguous.
cockatoo ::: n. --> A bird of the Parrot family, of the subfamily Cacatuinae, having a short, strong, and much curved beak, and the head ornamented with a crest, which can be raised or depressed at will. There are several genera and many species; as the broad-crested (Plictolophus, / Cacatua, cristatus), the sulphur-crested (P. galeritus), etc. The palm or great black cockatoo of Australia is Microglossus aterrimus.
Common Command Set ::: (storage, standard) (CCS) Additional requirements and features for direct-access SCSI devices.In 1985 when the first SCSI standard was being finalised as an American National Standard, the X3T9.2 Task Group was approached by some manufacturers who wanted changes. Rather than delay the SCSI standard, X3T9.2 formed an ad hoc group to define CCS.[Spec? Status? direct-access?] (1997-03-23)
Common Command Set "storage, standard" (CCS) Additional requirements and features for direct-access {SCSI} devices. In 1985 when the first {SCSI} standard was being finalised as an {American National Standard}, the {X3T9.2} Task Group was approached by some manufacturers who wanted changes. Rather than delay the SCSI standard, X3T9.2 formed an ad hoc group to define CCS. [Spec? Status? "direct-access"?] (1997-03-23)
CONCENTRATION ::: Fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and in a single condition.
A gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point.
Concentration is necessary, first to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many-branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena; we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it.
Centre of Concentration: The two main places where one can centre the consciousness for yoga are in the head and in the heart - the mind-centre and the soul-centre.
Brain concentration is always a tapasyā and necessarily brings a strain. It is only if one is lifted out of the brain mind altogether that the strain of mental concentration disappears.
At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking.
In whatever centre the concentration takes place, the yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there.
Modes of Concentration: There is no harm in concentrating sometimes in the heart and sometimes above the head. But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention fixed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits.
If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses.
There is no method in this yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force to transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be.
Powers (three) of Concentration ::: By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself we can become whatever we choose ; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fears, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love ; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
Stages in Concentration (Rajayogic) ::: 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.
Concentration and Meditation ::: Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or one object and in a single condition Meditation can be diffusive,e.g. thinking about the Divine, receiving impressions and discriminating, watching what goes on in the nature and acting upon it etc. Meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.
vide Dhyāna.
Conceptualism: A solution of the problem of universals which seeks a compromise between extreme nominalism (generic concepts are signs which apply indifferently to a number of particulars) and extreme realism (generic concepts refer to subsistent universals). Conceptualism offers various interpretations of conceptual objectivity: the generic concept refers to a class of resembling particulars, the object of a concept is a universal essence pervading the particulars, but having; no reality apart from them, concepts refer to abstracta, that is to say, to ideal objects envisaged by the mind but having no metaphysical status. -- L.W.
Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range. There are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it uncons- cious, — supraroental or overmental and submental ranges.
By consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness exist cither in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state.
It is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest, developing them from above downward by a progressive coming down from spiri- tual levels towards involution in matter or formulating them In an upward working in the from what wc call evolution.
Contemporary ideas concerning the abstract nature of mathematics (q. v.) and the status of applied geometry have important historical roots in the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries. -- A.C.
Control and Status Register ::: (hardware) (CSR) A register in most CPUs which stores additional information about the results of machine instructions, e.g. comparisons. It The CSR is chiefly used to determine the outcome of conditional branch instructions or other forms of conditional execution. (1998-06-26)
Control and Status Register "hardware" (CSR) A special {register} in most {CPUs} that stores additional information about the results of {machine instructions}, e.g. {comparisons}. The CSR consists of several independent {flag bits} such as {carry}, {overflow} and zero. The CSR is chiefly used to determine the outcome of {conditional branch} instructions or other forms of {conditional execution}. (2018-01-29)
Council, 1st. The term translated as "council" is SAMGĪTI, literally "recitation," the word used to describe the communal chanting of the Buddha's teaching. The term suggests that the purpose of the meeting was to recite the TRIPItAKA in order to codify the canon and remove any discrepancies concerning what was and was not to be included. The first Buddhist council is said to have been held in a cave at RAJAGṚHA shortly after the Buddha's passage into PARINIRVAnA, although its historicity has been questioned by modern scholars. There are numerous accounts of the first council and much scholarship has been devoted to their analysis. What follows draws on a number of sources to provide a general description. The accounts agree that, in the SAMGHA, there was an elderly monk named SUBHADRA, a former barber who had entered the order late in life. He always carried a certain animus against the Buddha because when Subhadra was a layman, the Buddha supposedly refused to accept a meal that he had prepared for him. After the Buddha's death, Subhadra told the distraught monks that they should instead rejoice because they could now do as they pleased, without the Buddha telling them what they could and could not do. MAHAKAsYAPA overheard this remark and was so alarmed by it that he thought it prudent to convene a meeting of five hundred ARHATs to codify and recite the rules of discipline (VINAYA) and the discourses (SuTRA) of the Buddha before they became corrupted. With the patronage of King AJATAsATRU, a meeting was called. At least one arhat, GAVAMPATI, declined to participate, deciding instead to pass into nirvAna before the council began. This led to an agreement that no one else would pass into nirvAna until after the conclusion of the council. At the time that the council was announced, ANANDA, the Buddha's personal attendant and therefore the person who had heard the most discourses of the Buddha, was not yet an arhat and would have been prevented from participating. However, on the night before the council, he fortuitously finished his practice and attained the status of arhat. At the council, MahAkAsyapa presided. He interrogated UPALI about the rules of discipline (PRATIMOKsA) of both BHIKsUs and BHIKsUnĪs. He then questioned Ananda about each of the discourses the Buddha had delivered over the course of his life, asking in each case where and on whose account the discourse had been given. In this way, the VINAYAPItAKA and the SuTRAPItAKA were established. (In many accounts, the ABHIDHARMAPItAKA is not mentioned, but in others it is said the abhidharmapitaka was recited by MahAkAsyapa or by Ananda.) Because of his extraordinary powers of memory, Ananda was said to be able to repeat sixty thousand words of the Buddha without omitting a syllable and recite fifteen thousand of his stanzas. It was at the time of his recitation that Ananda informed the council that prior to his passing the Buddha told him that after his death, the saMgha could disregard the minor rules of conduct. Since he had neglected to ask the Buddha what the minor rules were, however, it was decided that all the rules would be maintained. Ananda was then chastised for (1) not asking what the minor rules were, (2) stepping on the Buddha's robe while he was sewing it, (3) allowing the tears of women to fall on the Buddha's corpse, (4) not asking the Buddha to live for an eon (KALPA) or until the end of the eon although the Buddha strongly hinted that he could do so (see CAPALACAITYA), and (5) urging the Buddha to allow women to enter the order. (There are several versions of this list, with some including among the infractions that Ananda allowed women to see the Buddha's naked body.) The entire vinayapitaka and sutrapitaka was then recited, which is said to have required seven months. According to several accounts, after the recitation had concluded, a group of five hundred monks returned from the south, led by a monk named PurAna. When he was asked to approve of the dharma and vinaya that had been codified by the council, he declined, saying that he preferred to remember and retain what he had heard directly from the mouth of the Buddha rather than what had been chanted by the elders. PurAna also disputed eight points of the vinaya concerning the proper storage and consumption of food. This incident, whether or not it has any historical basis, suggests that disagreements about the contents of the Buddha's teaching began to arise shortly after his death.
credentials ::: evidence of authority, status, rights, entitlement to privileges or the like, usually in written form.
CSG-tree "graphics" (Or "status tree"?) An approach used in {ray tracing} to evaluate {constructive solid geometry} structures. [Better explanation? "Evaluate"?] (1998-06-09)
CSG-tree ::: (graphics) (Or status tree?) An approach used in ray tracing to evaluate constructive solid geometry structures.[Better explanation? Evaluate?] (1998-06-09)
CSR {Control and Status Register}
CulasAropamasutta. In PAli, "Shorter Discourse on the Simile of the Heartwood"; thirtieth sutta in the MAJJHIMANIKAYA (a separate unidentified recension appears, without title, in the Chinese translation of the EKOTTARAGAMA), preached by the Buddha to the brAhmana Pingalakoccha at the JETAVANA Grove in the town of SAvatthi (S. sRAVASTĪ). Pingalakoccha asks whether the six mendicant teachers (P. samana ; sRAMAnA) who were the Buddha's rivals were, as they claimed, all buddhas themselves. The Buddha responds by explaining that, whereas the religious practices set forth by his rivals could lead to fame and profit and to the attainment of supranormal powers (P. abhiNNA; S. ABHIJNA), these were but like the leaves and twigs of a tree. Only the holy life (P. brahmacariya; S. BRAHMACARYA) set forth by the Buddha leads to the status of arahant (S ARHAT), which is like the heartwood of a tree.
Culture hero: A historical person whose teachings, doings or accomplishments live on, usually in an idealized version, in the myths, legends and traditions of his tribe, race or people. Culture heroes are usually raised by posterity to a divine or semi-divine status or regarded to have been incarnations of high-ranking gods.
Darms "language, music" A music language. ["The Darms Project: A Status Report", R.F. Erickson, Computers and the Humanities 9(6):291-298 (June 1975)]. (1995-05-12)
Darms ::: (language, music) A music language.[The Darms Project: A Status Report, R.F. Erickson, Computers and the Humanities 9(6):291-298 (June 1975)]. (1995-05-12)
Declaration of Principles (DOP) ::: Agreement signed September 13, 1993, by Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Mahmoud Abbas as part of the Oslo Accords. The document called for the PLO to renounce terror and violence, form an interim Palestinian Self-Governing Authority to rule the West Bank and Gaza Strip during a five-year transitional period before a permanent solution. The DOP delayed contentious issues, such as Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements, and security arrangements and set up a timeline for a series of interim agreements leading to a permanent status resolution. However, this timeline was not kept and deadlines were missed.
Desktop Management Interface ::: (standard, operating system) (DMI) A specification from the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) that establishes a standard framework for managing networked computers. DMI covers hardware and software, desktop systems and servers, and defines a model for filtering events and describing interfaces.DMI provides a common path for technical support, IT managers, and individual users to access information about all aspects of a computer - including describing products to aid vendors, systems integrators, and end users in enterprise desktop management.DMI is not tied to any specific hardware, operating system, or management protocols. It is easy for vendors to adopt, mappable to existing management protocols such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and can be used on non-network computers.DMI's four components are:Management Information Format (MIF) - a text file containing information about the hardware and software on a computer. Manufacturers can create their own MIFs specific to a component.Service layer - an OS add-on that connects the management interface and the component interface and allows management and component software to access MIF files. The service layer also includes a common interface called the local agent, which is used to manage individual components.Component interface (CI) - an application program interface (API) that sends status information to the appropriate MIF file via the service layer. Commands include Get, Set, and Event.Management interface (MI) - the management software's interface to the service layer. Commands are Get, Set, and List.CI, MI, and service layer drivers are available on the Internet. Intel's LANDesk Client Manager (LDCM) is based on DMI.Version: 2.0s (as of 2000-01-19). . .(2000-01-19)
Desktop Management Interface "standard, operating system" (DMI) A {specification} from the {Desktop Management Task Force} (DMTF) that establishes a standard {framework} for managing networked computers. DMI covers {hardware} and {software}, {desktop} systems and {servers}, and defines a model for filtering events and describing {interfaces}. DMI provides a common path for technical support, IT managers, and individual users to access information about all aspects of a computer - including {processor} type, installation date, attached {printers} and other {peripherals}, power sources, and maintenance history. It provides a common format for describing products to aid vendors, systems integrators, and end users in enterprise desktop management. DMI is not tied to any specific hardware, operating system, or management protocols. It is easy for vendors to adopt, mappable to existing management protocols such as {Simple Network Management Protocol} (SNMP), and can be used on non-network computers. DMI's four components are: Management Information Format (MIF) - a text file containing information about the hardware and software on a computer. Manufacturers can create their own MIFs specific to a component. Service layer - an OS add-on that connects the management interface and the component interface and allows management and component software to access MIF files. The service layer also includes a common interface called the local agent, which is used to manage individual components. Component interface (CI) - an {application program interface} (API) that sends status information to the appropriate MIF file via the service layer. Commands include Get, Set, and Event. Management interface (MI) - the management software's interface to the service layer. Commands are Get, Set, and List. CI, MI, and service layer drivers are available on the Internet. {Intel}'s {LANDesk Client Manager} (LDCM) is based on DMI. Version: 2.0s (as of 2000-01-19). {(http://dmtf.org/spec/dmis.html)}. {Sun overview (http://sun.com/solstice/products/ent.agents/presentations/sld014.html)}. (2000-01-19)
Development Towns ::: New towns established in Israel to provide for urban growth, but essentially to house immigrants since 1950's, succeeding the ma'abarah, transitional camp, which had been widely used since 1948. Its goal was to offer communities both homes and employment opportunities, although it often did not succeed in raising initial lower economic status; used primarily for immigrants of Sephardi and eastern origin.
dge bshes. (geshe). A Tibetan abbreviation for dge ba'i bshes gnyen, or "spiritual friend" (S. KALYĀnAMITRA). In early Tibetan Buddhism, the term was used in this sense, especially in the BKA' GDAMS tradition, where saintly figures like GLANG RI THANG PA are often called "geshe"; sometimes, however, it can have a slightly pejorative meaning, as in the biography of MI LA RAS PA, where it suggests a learned monk without real spiritual attainment. In the SA SKYA sect, the term came to take on a more formal meaning to refer to a monk who had completed a specific academic curriculum. The term is most famous in this regard among the DGE LUGS, where it refers to a degree and title received after successfully completing a long course of Buddhist study in the tradition of the three great Dge lugs monasteries in LHA SA: 'BRAS SPUNGS, DGA' LDAN, and SE RA. According to the traditional curriculum, after completing studies in elementary logic and epistemology (BSDUS GRWA), a monk would begin the study of "five texts" (GZHUNG LNGA), five Indian sĀSTRAs, in the following order: the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA of MAITREYANĀTHA, the MADHYAMAKĀVATĀRA of CANDRAKĪRTI, the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA of VASUBANDHU, and the VINAYASuTRA of GUnAPRABHA. Each year, there would also be a period set aside for the study of the PRAMĀnAVĀRTTIKA of DHARMAKĪRTI. The curriculum involved the memorization of these and other texts, the study of them based on monastic textbooks (yig cha), and formal debate on their content. Each year, monks in the scholastic curriculum (a small minority of the monastic population) were required to pass two examinations, one in memorization and the other in debate. Based upon the applicant's final examination, one of four grades of the dge bshes degree was awarded, which, in descending rank, are: (1) lha rams pa, (2) tshogs rams pa, (3) rdo rams pa; (4) gling bsre [alt. gling bseb], a degree awarded by a combination of monasteries; sometimes, the more scholarly or the religiously inclined would choose that degree to remove themselves from consideration for ecclesiastical posts so they could devote themselves to their studies and to meditation practice. The number of years needed to complete the entire curriculum depended on the degree, the status of the person, and the number of candidates for the exam. The coveted lha rams pa degree, the path to important offices within the Dge lugs religious hierarchy, was restricted to sixteen candidates each year. The important incarnations (SPRUL SKU) were first in line, and their studies would be completed within about twelve years; ordinary monks could take up to twenty years to complete their studies and take the examination. Those who went on to complete the course of study at the tantric colleges of RGYUD STOD and RYUD SMAD would be granted the degree of dge bshes sngags ram pa.
dgra lha. (dralha). In Tibetan, literally "enemy god"; a class of Tibetan deities that fights against the enemy of those who propitiate and worship them. Tibetans speak of both a personal dgra lha, which abides on one's right shoulder to protect one from enemies and promote one's social status, as well as various groupings of dgra lha invoked in both Buddhist and BON ritual. Dgra lha is also a common epithet of wrathful DHARMAPĀLAs who protect the dharma against its enemies, both internal and external.
dhama ::: placing, status, position, foundation; the placing of the law in a founded harmony which creates for us our plane of living and the character of our consciousness, action and thought. [Ved.] ::: dhamani [plural]
Dharmapāla, Anagārika. (1864-1933). An important figure in the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and the dissemination of Buddhism in the West. Born Don David Hēvāvirtarne in Sri Lanka, at that time the British colony of Ceylon, he was raised in the English-speaking middle class of Colombo and educated in Christian schools run by Anglican missionaries, where he is said to have memorized large portions of the Bible. His family was Buddhist, however, and in 1880, at the age of sixteen, he met HENRY STEEL OLCOTT and MADAME BLAVATSKY, founders of the Theosophical Society, during their visit to Sri Lanka in support of Buddhism. In 1881, he took the Buddhist name Dharmapāla, "Protector of the Dharma," and in 1884 was initiated into the Theosophical Society by Colonel Olcott, later accompanying Madame Blavatsky to the headquarters of the Society in Adyar, India. Under the initial patronage of Theosophists, he studied Pāli, choosing to adopt the lifestyle of a celibate lay religious. Prior to that time in Sri Lanka, the leadership in Buddhism had been provided exclusively by monks and kings. Dharmapāla established a new role for Buddhist laypeople, creating the category of the anagārika (meaning "homeless wanderer"), a layperson who studied texts and meditated, as did monks, but who remained socially active in the world, as did laypeople. Free from the restrictions incumbent on the Sinhalese monkhood, yet distinct from ordinary laity, he regarded this new lifestyle of the anagārika as the most suitable status for him to work for the restoration and propagation of Buddhism. A social reformer, rationalist, and religious nationalist, he promoted rural education and a reformist style of Buddhism, stripped of what he considered extraneous superstitions, as a means of uplifting Sinhalese society and gaining independence for his country as a Buddhist nation. While he was in India in 1891, he was shocked to see the state of decay of the great pilgrimage sites of India, all then under Hindu control, and most especially of BODHGAYĀ, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. In that same year, he joined a group of leading Sri Lankan Buddhists to found the MAHĀBODHI SOCIETY, which called on Buddhists from around the world to work for the return of important Indian Buddhist sites to Buddhist control, and one of whose aims was the restoration of the MAHĀBODHITEMPLE at Bodhgayā. This goal only came to fruition in 1949, well after his death, when the newly independent Indian government granted Buddhists a role in administering the site. His influential Buddhist journal, The Mahā-Bodhi, also established in 1891, continues to be published today. A gifted orator, in 1893 Anagārika Dharmapāla addressed the World's Parliament of Religions, held in conjunction with the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, drawing much acclaim. Although he was one of several Buddhist speakers, his excellent English and Anglican education made him an effective spokesperson for the dharma, demonstrating both its affinities with, and superiority to, Christianity. In 1925, he founded the British Mahā Bodhi Society in London and a year later established the first THERAVĀDA monastery in the West, the London Buddhist Vihāra. In 1931, he was ordained as a monk (bhikkhu; BHIKsU), taking the name Devamitta. He died in 1933 at SĀRNĀTH, site of the Buddha's first sermon.
disbar ::: v. t. --> To expel from the bar, or the legal profession; to deprive (an attorney, barrister, or counselor) of his status and privileges as such.
dischurch ::: v. t. --> To deprive of status as a church, or of membership in a church.
discrimination: unequal and unlawful treatment based upon race, colour, creed, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or sexual orientation.
disusered "jargon" ({Usenet}) Said of a person whose account on a computer has been removed to prevent access. Setting the DISUSER account status flag on {VMS} disables the account. "He got disusered when they found out he'd been {cracking} through the school's {Internet} access." [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-08)
disusered ::: (Usenet) Said of a person whose account on a computer has been removed, especially for cause rather than through normal attrition. He got disusered The verb disuser is less common. Both usages probably derive from the DISUSER account status flag on VMS; setting it disables the account.[Jargon File] (1994-12-08)
Divine Life ::: A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 1104
divine life ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” *The Life Divine ::: "The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man"s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” The Life Divine
dongle "hardware" /dong'gl/ (From "dangle" - because it dangles off the computer?) 1. "security" A security or {copy protection} device for commercial {microcomputer} programs that must be connected to an {I/O port} of the computer while the program is run. Programs that use a dongle query the port at start-up and at programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not respond with the expected validation code. One common form consisted of a serialised {EPROM} and some drivers in a {D-25} connector shell. Dongles attempt to combat {software theft} by ensuring that, while users can still make copies of the program (e.g. for {backup}), they must buy one dongle for each simultaneous use of the program. The idea was clever, but initially unpopular with users who disliked tying up a port this way. By 1993 almost all dongles passed data through transparently while monitoring for their particular {magic} codes (and combinations of status lines) with minimal if any interference with devices further down the line. This innovation was necessary to allow {daisy-chained} dongles for multiple pieces of software. In 1998, dongles and other copy protection systems are fairly uncommon for {Microsoft Windows} software but one engineer in a print and {CADD} bureau reports that their {Macintosh} computers typically run seven dongles: After Effects, Electric Image, two for Media 100, Ultimatte, Elastic Reality and CADD. These dongles are made for the Mac's daisy-chainable {ADB} port. The term is used, by extension, for any physical electronic key or transferable ID required for a program to function. Common variations on this theme have used the {parallel port} or even the {joystick} port or a {dongle-disk}. An early 1992 advertisment from Rainbow Technologies (a manufacturer of dongles) claimed that the word derived from "Don Gall", the alleged inventor of the device. The company's receptionist however said that the story was a myth invented for the ad. [{Jargon File}] (1998-12-13) 2. A small adaptor cable that connects, e.g. a {PCMCIA} {modem} to a telephone socket or a PCMCIA {network card} to an {RJ45} {network cable}. (2002-09-29)
D-type flip-flop "hardware" A digital logic device that stores the status of its "D" input whenever its clock input makes a certain transition (low to high or high to low). The output, "Q", shows the currently stored value. Compare {J-K flip-flop}. (1995-03-28)
D-type flip-flop ::: (hardware) A digital logic device that stores the status of its D input whenever its clock input makes a certain transition (low to high or high to low). The output, Q, shows the currently stored value.Compare J-K flip-flop. (1995-03-28)
duality ::: “The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operations of the self-manifestation of the being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature.” The Life Divine
earldom ::: n. --> The jurisdiction of an earl; the territorial possessions of an earl.
The status, title, or dignity of an earl.
electorship ::: n. --> The office or status of an elector.
Elements ::: The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 87-88
Emerging technologies - technologies that are perceived as capable of changing the status quo. These include a variety of technologies such as educational technology, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive science, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
Environmental Audit::: An independent assessment of the current status of a party's compliance with applicable environmental requirements or of a party's environmental compliance policies, practices, and controls.
Environmental Equity::: Equal protection from environmental hazards of individuals, groups or communities regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic status.
Epistemology. Theistic Platonism maintains that the archetypes of existent things are eternal ideas in the mind of God. Epistemological Idealism teaches that all entities other than egos or subjects of experience are exclusively noetic objects, i.e. have no existence or reality apart from the relation of being perceived or thought. Transcendental Idealism (Critical Idealism) is Kant's name for his doctrine that knowledge is a synthetic, relational product of the logical self (transcendental unity of apperception). Phenomenology is Husserl's name for the science that investigates the essences or natures of objects considered apart from their existential or metaphysical status.
Equanimity and peace in all conditions, in all parts of the being is the first foundation of the yogic status. Either Light
eternity ::: “The timeless Spirit is not necessarily a blank; it may hold all in itself, but in essence, without reference to time or form or relation or circumstance, perhaps in an eternal unity. Eternity is the common term between Time and the Timeless Spirit. What is in the Timeless unmanifested, implied, essential, appears in Time in movement, or at least in design and relation, in result and circumstance. These two then are the same Eternity or the same Eternal in a double status; they are a twofold status of being and consciousness, one an eternity of immobile status, the other an eternity of motion in status.” The Life Divine
Every conscious process intends its objects as in a context with others, some intended as presented, others intended as to become presented if intended future consciousness takes a particular course. In other words, consciousness is always an intentional predelineating of processes in which objects will be intended, as the same or different within an all inclusive objective context: the world. A pure phenomenology should therefore describe not only paiticular intended objects but also the intended world, as intended -- as part of the "noematic-objective" sense belonging to consciousness by virtue of the latter's intrinsic intentionality. To be sure, in such noematic-objective description the phenomenologist must still disregard the actual relations of the described subjective processes to other entities in the world. But, Husserl contended, when one disregards everything except the intrinsic nature of subjective processes, one still can see their intentionality; therefore all the entities and relations from which one has abstracted can -- and should -- reappear as noematic-intentional objects, within one's isolated field. In particular, the disregarded status of the observed stream of consciousness itself, its status as related to other entities in the world, reappears -- as a noematic-objective sense which the observed consciousness intends. Moreover, as purely eidetic, phenomenology finds that the intrinsic character of any actual consciousness, as intending a world and itself as in that world, is an essentially necessary determination of any possible consciousness.
Every round brings about a new evolutionary development on every one of the globes of the earth-chain, and a fundamental change in the physical, psychic, mental, intellectual, and spiritual constitution of man. The manas principle (the fifth or intellectual principle) will be fully developed at the end of the fifth round, and corresponding aspects of the human constitution will be evolved in minor degree during the sixth and seventh root-races of the fourth round. Although the vast majority of human beings in that future round will be far more evolved than is the present-day or fourth round mankind, nevertheless during the fifth round on this globe will occur what theosophical literature calls the moment of choice. At that time the monads which will continue to rise on the ascending arc must have reached a certain point in their unfolding evolution enabling them successfully to pursue their upward evolutionary journey towards spirit. Those monads who shall not have reached this evolutionary status, and who therefore are not able to continue the upward arc, must perforce wait for the future manvantara, a loss in evolutionary opportunity and in time of many hundreds of millions of years.
exalt ::: to raise in rank, character, or status; elevate. exalted.
exit 1. "programming" A {library function} in the {C} and {Unix} {run-time library} that causes the program to terminate and return control to the {shell}. The alternative to calling "exit" is simply to "fall off the end" of the program or its top-level, {main}, routine. Equivalent functions, possibly with different names, exist in pretty much every programming language, e.g. "exit" in {Microsoft DOS} or "END" in {BASIC}. On exit, the {run-time system} closes open files and releases other resources. An {exit status} code (a small integer, with zero meaning OK and other values typically indicating some kind of error) can be passed as the only argument to "exit"; this will be made available to the shell. Some languages allow the programmer to set up exit handler code which will be called before the standard system clean-up actions. 2. Any point in a piece of code where control is returned to the caller, possibly activating one or more user-provided exit handlers. This might be a {return} statement, exit call (in sense 1 above) or code that raises an error condition (either intentionally or unintentionally). If the exit is from the top-level routine then such a point would typically terminate the whole program, as in sense 1. (2008-05-15)
Exteroceptor: See Receptor. Extramental: (Lat. extra + mens, mind) Possessing a status external to and independent of the knowing mind. Extramental status is attributed to physical objects by physical realists and to universals by Platonic realists. -- I.W.
Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop ::: (hardware, standard) (FC-AL) A fast serial bus interface standard intended to replace SCSI on high-end servers.FC-AL has a number of advantages over SCSI. It offers higher speed: the base speed is 100 megabytes per second, with 200, 400, and 800 planned. Many devices and the maximum number of devices on a single port is 126. Finally, it provides software compatibility with SCSI.Despite all these features FC-AL is unlikely to appear on desktops anytime soon, partly because its price, partly because typical desktop computers would not take advantage of many of the advanced features. On these systems FireWire has more potential.[Current status? Reference?] (1999-09-12)
Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop "hardware, standard" (FC-AL) A fast serial bus interface standard intended to replace {SCSI} on high-end {servers}. FC-AL has a number of advantages over SCSI. It offers higher speed: the base speed is 100 {megabytes} per second, with 200, 400, and 800 planned. Many devices are dual ported, i.e., can be accessed through two independent ports, which doubles speed and increases fault tolerance. Cables can be as long as 30 m (coaxial) or 10 km (optical). FC-AL enables {self-configuring} and {hot swapping} and the maximum number of devices on a single port is 126. Finally, it provides software compatibility with SCSI. Despite all these features FC-AL is unlikely to appear on desktops anytime soon, partly because its price, partly because typical {desktop computers} would not take advantage of many of the advanced features. On these systems {FireWire} has more potential. [Current status? Reference?] (1999-09-12)
Financial position - The status or position of a firm's or other entity assets, liabilities, and owners equity position. This is shown by the financial statements of the entity.
Financial statement - Report containing financial information about an organisation. The required financial statements are balance sheet, income statement, and statement of changes in financial position. They may be combined with a supplementary statement to depict the financial status or performance of the organization.
first class module ::: (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status. .(2004-01-26)
first class module "programming" A {module} that is a {first class data object} of the {programming language}, e.g. a {record} containing {functions}. In a {functional language}, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status. {Claus Reinke's Virtual Bookshelf (http://informatik.uni-kiel.de/~cr/bib/bookshelf/Modules.html)}. (2004-01-26)
flag 1. "programming" A variable or quantity that can take on one of two values; a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done. "This flag controls whether to clear the screen before printing the message." "The program status word contains several flag bits." See also {hidden flag}, {mode bit}. 2. {command line option}. [{Jargon File}] (1998-05-02)
flag ::: 1. (programming) A variable or quantity that can take on one of two values; a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two outcomes or whether to clear the screen before printing the message. The program status word contains several flag bits. See also hidden flag, mode bit.2. command line option.[Jargon File] (1998-05-02)
"For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Fotudeng. [alt. Fotucheng] (J. Butsutocho/Buttocho; K. Pultojing 佛圖澄) (232-348). A monk and thaumaturge, perhaps from the Central Asian kingdom of KUCHA, who was a pioneer in the transmission of Buddhism to China. According to his hagiography in the GAOSENG ZHUAN, Fotudeng was a foreign monk, whose surname was BO, the ethnikon used for Kuchean monks; in some sources, his name is transcribed as BuddhasiMha. He was talented at memorizing and expounding scriptures, as well as in debate. Fotudeng is said to have received training in Kashmir (see KASHMIR-GANDHĀRA) and to have arrived in China in 310 intending to spread the DHARMA. Fotudeng is described as a skilled magician who could command spirits and predict the future. Despite his initial failure to establish a monastery in the Chinese capital of Luoyang, Fotudeng was able to convert the tyrannical ruler of the state of Later Zhao, Shi Le (r. 319-333), with a demonstration of his thaumaturgic skills. Fotudeng's continued assistance of Shi Le won him the title Daheshang (Great Monk). After Shi Le's general Shi Hu (r. 334-339) usurped the throne, Fotudeng was elevated to the highest status at the palace, and he continued to play the important role of political and spiritual advisor to the ruler. During his illustrious career as royal advisor, Fotudeng also taught many Buddhist disciples and is said to have established hundreds of monasteries. Among his disciples Zhu Faya (d.u.), DAO'AN, and Chu Fatai (320-387) are most famous.
four colour map theorem "mathematics, application" (Or "four colour theorem") The theorem stating that if the plane is divided into connected regions which are to be coloured so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour (as when colouring countries on a map of the world), it is never necessary to use more than four colours. The proof, due to Appel and Haken, attained notoriety by using a computer to check tens of thousands of cases and is thus not humanly checkable, even in principle. Some thought that this brought the philosophical status of the proof into doubt. There are now rumours of a simpler proof, not requiring the use of a computer. See also {chromatic number} (1995-03-25)
four colour map theorem ::: (mathematics, application) (Or four colour theorem) The theorem stating that if the plane is divided into connected regions which are to be coloured so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour (as when colouring countries on a map of the world), it is never necessary to use more than four colours.The proof, due to Appel and Haken, attained notoriety by using a computer to check tens of thousands of cases and is thus not humanly checkable, even in principle. Some thought that this brought the philosophical status of the proof into doubt.There are now rumours of a simpler proof, not requiring the use of a computer.See also chromatic number (1995-03-25)
FoxBASE+ "database" {Fox Software}'s {dBASE} III+-like product which later became {FoxPRO}. It used the {Xbase} programming language. [Features? Dates? Status?] (2004-09-01)
FoxBASE+ ::: (database) Fox Software's dBASE III+-like product which later became FoxPRO. It used the Xbase programming language.[Features? Dates? Status?](2004-09-01)
Free trade - The absence of any form of government intervention in international trade, which implies that imports and exports must not be subject to special taxes or restrictions levied merely because of their status as "imports" or "exports.
gati ::: goal; the movement to the goal, the way; journey; spiritual or supraterrestrial status gained by man's conduct or efforts upon earth.
gators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of action that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact wth the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective — or at_ least objectivised — between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysicaj status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a sahiie-scnse perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets, ft is the wore objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of expericoce.
Gnas chung oracle. (Nechung). The state oracle of Tibet, known as the Gnas chung chos rje, traditionally based at GNAS CHUNG monastery outside of LHA SA. During the time of the fifth DALAI LAMA, PE HAR rgyal po shifted residence from BSAM YAS to Gnas chung monastery. It is said that, at that time, the medium of Pe har, in a form known as Rdo rje grags ldan, saved the Tibetan people by uncovering a Nepalese plot to poison Tibetan wells. The oracle played an important role in contentious successions of the sixth and seventh Dalai Lamas, acting as a voice of the Tibetans against Chinese interests and predicting the birth of the seventh Dalai Lama in Li thang in Khams, and again assisting in the nineteenth century in the discovery of the thirteenth Dalai Lama. The oracle briefly lost favor due to erroneous predictions regarding the 1904 British invasion of Tibet, but regained his status by exposing a plot against the thirteenth Dalai Lama's life and then predicting his death in 1933. The oracle was consulted in the search for the current fourteenth Dalai Lama, and in matters relating to the 1950 Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet and subsequent events of the Chinese occupation, leading up to the Dalai Lama's escape into exile in 1959. In exile the Gnas chung chos rje has continued to play his traditional role of advising the Tibetan government.
GNUStep ::: (operating system) A GNU implementation of OpenStep. Work has started on an implementation using an existing library written in Objective-C. Much work remains to be done to bring this library close to the OpenStep specifications. Adam Fedor is head of the project. .[Current status? Newsgroup?] (1999-11-25)
GNUStep "operating system" A {GNU} implementation of {OpenStep}. Work has started on an implementation using an existing library written in {Objective-C}. Much work remains to be done to bring this library close to the OpenStep specifications. Adam Fedor is head of the project. {(http://gnustep.org/)}. [Current status? Newsgroup?] (1999-11-25)
goldcrest ::: n. --> The European golden-crested kinglet (Regulus cristatus, or R. regulus); -- called also golden-crested wren, and golden wren. The name is also sometimes applied to the American golden-crested kinglet. See Kinglet.
gozan. (五山). In Japanese, "five mountains"; a medieval Japanese ranking system for officially sponsored ZEN monasteries, which may derive from Chinese institutional precedents. Large and powerful public monasteries in China known as "monasteries of the ten directions" (SHIFANGCHA) came under the control of the Chinese state during the Song dynasty and were designated either as VINAYA or CHAN monasteries. Government administration of these monasteries eventually ceased, but it is widely believed that five major Chan monasteries in Zhejiang province (ranked in the order of WANSHOUSI, Lingyinsi, Jingdesi, Jingci Bao'en Guangxiaosi, and Guanglisi) were selected to be protected and governed by the state, largely through the efforts of the Chan master DAHUI ZONGGAO and his disciples. Whether this is indeed the beginning of a "five-mountain ranking system" is unclear, but by the Yuan dynasty the term was clearly in use in China. The implementation of this system in Japan began under the rule of the Kamakura shogun Hojo Sadatoki (1271-1311). Five illustrious RINZAISHu monasteries in Kamakura, including KENCHoJI and ENGAKUJI, were granted gozan status and given a specific rank. A reordering of the gozan ranks occurred when Emperor Godaigo (1288-1339) came to power in 1333. The powerful Zen monasteries in Kyoto, NANZENJI and DAITOKUJI, replaced Kenchoji and Engakuji as the top-ranking monasteries, and the monastery of ToFUKUJI was added to the gozan system. The gozan ranks were changed again several times by the Ashikaga shogunate. By the Muromachi period, some three hundred official monasteries (kanji) were ranked either gozan, jissatsu (ten temples), or shozan (many mountains). The term gozan also came to denote the prosperous lineages of MUSo SOSEKI and ENNI BEN'EN, who populated the gozan monasteries; monks in these lineages were particularly renowned for their artistic and literary talents in classical Chinese and brushstroke art. There seems also to have been a five-mountain convent system (amadera gozan or niji gozan) for Japanese nuns, which paralleled the five-mountain monastery system of the monks, but little is known about it.
gtor ma. (torma). The Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit term bali (offering, tribute), an offering of food to propitiate a deity. There are ritual texts (S. balividhi) for constructing and offering gtor ma, differing based on the purpose of the offering and the status of the recipient. In Tibet the gtor ma is always a distinctive conical shape, and became a canvas for extremely ornate butter sculpture. The spectacular gtor ma ritual culminated in the gtor bzlog (tordok) or gtor rgyag (torgyak) on the last day of the Tibetan year, during which the monastic assembly would march out with the gtor ma. All negativities and bad spirits of the departing year are drawn to the offering, which is then hurled into a blazing pyre accompanied by a cacophony of instruments and the loud bangs of firecrackers. On the last of the fifteen days of festivities celebrating lo gsar (new year) in LHA SA, the bco lnga mchod pa competition to judge the best gtor ma was held; it is reported that some gtor ma were so high that ladders had to be used to reach the top; they were decorated with extremely ornate butter sculptures, including figures manipulated like puppets with hidden strings. There are a variety of gtor mas in Tibet, usually made of barley flour with butter if they are expected to last and be eaten, or with water if they are to be thrown out; they may be painted red if the recipient protector or deity is wrathful, and clear or whitish in color if in a peaceful form.
guoshi. (J. kokushi; K. kuksa 國師). In Chinese, "state preceptor," a high ecclesiastical office in East Asian Buddhist religious institutions. The first record of a "state preceptor" in China occurs during the reign of Emperor Wenxian (r. 550-559) of the Northern Qi dynasty, who is said to have appointed the monk Fachang (d.u.) as a guoshi after listening to his disquisition at court on the MAHĀPARINIRVĀnASuTRA. During the Tang dynasty, many renowned monks were appointed as guoshi, including FAZANG (643-712) as the Kangzang guoshi, CHENGGUAN (738-839) as the Qingliang guoshi, and NANYANG HUIZHONG (d. 775) as the Nanyang guoshi. In Japan, the term kokushi was used during the Nara period to refer to the highest ecclesiastical office accredited to each province (koku) by the central government. In Korea, kuksa were appointed from the Silla through early Choson dynasties and the term referred to a senior monk who served as a symbolic religious teacher and adviser to the state. The kuksa system appears to have become firmly established in Korea during the Koryo dynasty, which treated Buddhism as a virtual state religion. The first king of the Koryo dynasty, Wang Kon (T'aejo, r. 918-943), established a system of "royal preceptors" (wangsa) for his own religious edification, in distinction to the "state preceptors" who ministered to the government more broadly. The institution of ecclesiastical examinations (SŬNGKWA) during the reign of the king Kwangjong (r. 949-975) further systematized the appointments of both kuksa and wangsa. The kuksa and wangsa were compared to the parents of sentient beings and were thus placed at a status higher than even the king himself in state ceremonies. A monk could be posthumously appointed as a kuksa, and it was common during the Koryo dynasty for the king to reverentially appoint his wangsa as a kuksa following his spiritual adviser's death. Because Confucian ideologues during the late Koryo criticized the political roles played by kuksa and wangsa as examples of the corruption of Buddhism, the offices were eventually abolished during the reign of the third king of the Confucian-oriented Choson dynasty, T'aejong (r. 1400-1418).
Haimavata. (P. Hemavataka; T. Gangs ri'i sde; C. Xueshanbu; J. Sessenbu; K. Solsanbu 雪山部). In Sanskrit, "Inhabitants of the Himālayas," one of the traditional eighteen schools of the mainstream Indian Buddhist tradition, alternatively associated with either the MAHĀSĀMGHIKA, SARVĀSTIVĀDA, or STHAVIRANIKĀYA traditions. The name of the school is generally regarded as deriving from school's location in the Himalayan region. There are various theories on the origin of this school. The Pāli DĪPAVAMSA states that the Haimavata arose during the second century after the Buddha's death, and lists it separately along with the schools of Rājagirīya, Siddhārthika, PuRVAsAILA, Aparasaila (the four of which were collectively designated as the ANDHAKĀ schools by BUDDHAGHOSA in the introduction to his commentary on the KATHĀVATTHU) and Apararājagirika, but without identifying their respective origins. According to northwest Indian tradition, a view represented in the Sarvāstivāda treatise SAMAYABHEDOPARACANACAKRA (C. Yibuzong lun lun) by VASUMITRA (c. first to second centuries, CE), the Haimavata is considered the first independent school to split off from the Sthaviranikāya line. KUIJI's commentary to the Samayabhedoparacanacakra explains the name pejoratively to refer to the desolation of the freezing breeze coming down from the Himālayas, in contrast to the prosperity that accompanies the Sarvāstivāda teachings. However, given that the Haimavata school does not seem to have been particularly influential (even if had been part of the original Sthaviranikāya line) and that, moreover, all the other Sthavira lineages are posited to derive from the Sarvāstivāda by this tradition, the account of the Samayabhedoparacanacakra is usually dismissed as reflecting Sarvāstivāda polemics more than historical fact. The Samayabhedoparacanacakra also attributes to the Haimavata school MAHĀDEVA's five propositions about the status of the ARHAT, the propositions that prompted, at the time of the second Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, SECOND), the schism in the SAMGHA between the STHAVIRA and the nascent MahāsāMghika order. These five propositions were: the arhats (1) are still subject to sexual desire (RĀGA); (2) may have a residue of ignorance (ajNāna); (3) retain certain types of doubt (kānksā); (4) gain knowledge through others' help; and finally, (5) have spiritual experience accompanied by an exclamation, such as "aho." It is probably because of this identification with Mahādeva's propositions that BHĀVAVIVEKA (c. 490-570) classified the Haimavata among the MahāsāMghika. Other doctrines that Vasumitra claimed were distinctive to the Haimavata were (1) a BODHISATTVA is an ordinary person (PṚTHAGJANA); (2) a bodhisattva does not experience any desire (KĀMA) when he enters the mother's womb; (3) non-Buddhists (TĪRTHIKA) cannot develop the five kinds of supernatural powers (ABHIJNĀ); and (4) the divinities (DEVA) cannot practice a religious life (BRAHMACARYA). Vasumitra asserts that these and other of its views were similar to those of the Sarvāstivāda, thus positing a close connection between the doctrines of the two schools.
Hanshan. (J. Kanzan; K. Hansan 寒山) (d.u.; fl. mid-eighth century). In Chinese, "Cold Mountain"; sobriquet of a legendary Tang dynasty poet and iconoclast of near-mythic status within Chinese Buddhism. The HANSHAN SHI, one of the best-loved collection of poems in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, is attributed to this obscure figure. Hanshan (Cold Mountain) is primarily known as a hermit who dwelled on Mt. Tiantai, in present-day Zhejiang province. References to Hanshan are scattered throughout the discourse records (YULU) of various Chan masters and biographies of eminent monks (GAOSENG ZHUAN). Hanshan also became a favored object in brushstroke art (BOKUSEKI), in which he is often depicted together with SHIDE and FENGGAN. Together, these three iconoclasts are known as the "three recluses of Guoqing [monastery]."
Hayagrīva. (T. Rta mgrin; C. Matou Guanyin; J. Bato Kannon; K. Madu Kwanŭm 馬頭觀音). In Sanskrit, "Horse-Necked One"; an early Buddhist deity who developed from a YAKsA attendant of AVALOKITEsVARA into a tantric wrathful deity important in the second diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet. The name "Hayagrīva" belonged to two different Vedic deities, one an enemy of VIsnU, another a horse-headed avatāra, or manifestation, of that deity. Eventually the two merged, whence he was absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon. In early Buddhist art, Hayagrīva frequently appears as a smallish yaksa figure attending Avalokitesvara, Khasarpana, AMOGHAPĀsA, and TĀRĀ; by the mid-seventh century, however, Hayagrīva had merged with Avalokitesvara to become a wrathful form of that bodhisattva. He appears in this new form, Hayagrīva-Avalokitesvara, in the Avalokitesvara sections of the DhāranīsaMgraha (where his DHĀRAnĪs are said to be effective in destroying mundane obstacles) and later Chinese translations of the Amoghapāsahṛdaya, as well as in the MAHĀVAIROCANASuTRA. While he does appear with a horse's head in Japan (where he is considered a protective deity of horses), Hayagrīva is customarily shown with a horse head emerging from his flaming hair. In the tantric pantheon, Hayagrīva initially occupied outer rings of the MAndALA, but eventually came to be considered a YI DAM in his own right, a transformation that would grant him the status of a fully enlightened being. In Mongolia he is worshipped as the god of horses. In Tibet he is primarily worshipped as a LOKOTTARA (supramundane) DHARMAPĀLA (dharma protector).
heritage ::: something inherited at birth, such as personal characteristics, status, and possessions.
High Performance Fortran ::: (language) (HPF) A data parallel language extension to Fortran 90 which provides a portable programming interface for a wide variety of target experience with this language. The Forum has continued to meet in order to address advanced topics. .[High Performance Fortran: Status Report, G.L. Steele Jr (1996-09-09)
High Performance Fortran "language" (HPF) A {data parallel} language extension to {Fortran 90} which provides a portable programming interface for a wide variety of target {platforms}. The original HPF language specification was produced by the High Performance Fortran Forum, a broad consortium of industry and academia, which met regularly throughout 1992 and early 1993. HPF {compilers} are now available on most commonly-used computing systems, and users are beginning to gain first hand experience with this language. The Forum has continued to meet in order to address advanced topics. {HPF+ at Vienna (http://par.univie.ac.at/hpf+/)}. ["High Performance Fortran: Status Report", G.L. Steele Jr "gls@think.com", SIGPLAN Notices 28(1):1-4 (Jan 1993)]. (1996-09-09)
hoazin ::: n. --> A remarkable South American bird (Opisthocomus cristatus); the crested touraco. By some zoologists it is made the type of a distinct order (Opisthocomi).
Holocaust ::: Madhav: “Holocaust—this profound sacrifice of the soul, the soul of the ‘burdened great’, those who sacrifice their celestial status and accept to undergo the yoke of Fate and Death. Their holocaust, chosen sacrifice, is not a sacrifice imposed by their karma for they have no karma, but a self-chosen sacrifice in furtherance of God’s work.” Sat-Sang Talk, 25/8/91
Huayan shiyi. (J. Kegon no jui; K. Hwaom sibi 華嚴十異). In Chinese, "Ten Distinctions of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA," ten reasons why HUAYAN exegetes consider the AvataMsakasutra to be superior to all other scriptures and thus the supreme teaching of the Buddha. (1) The "time of its exposition" was unique (shiyi): the sutra was supposedly the first scripture preached after the Buddha's enlightenment and thus offers the most unadulterated enunciation of his experience. (2) The "location of its exposition" was unique (chuyi): it is said that the BODHI TREE under which the sutra was preached was the center of the "oceans of world systems of the lotus womb world" (S. padmagarbhalokadhātu; C. lianhuazang shijie; cf. TAIZoKAI). (3) The "preacher" was unique (zhuyi): The sutra was supposedly preached by VAIROCANA Buddha, as opposed to other "emanation buddhas." (4) The "audience" was unique (zhongyi): only advanced BODHISATTVAs-along with divinities and demigods who were in actuality emanations of the Buddha-were present for its preaching; thus, there was no division between MAHĀYĀNA and HĪNAYĀNA. (5) The "basis" of the sutra was unique (suoyiyi): its teaching was based on the one vehicle (EKAYĀNA), not the other provisional vehicles created later within the tradition. (6) The "exposition" of the sutra was unique (shuoyi): the AvataMsakasutra preached in this world system is consistent with the sutra as preached in all other world systems; this is unlike other sutras, which were provisional adaptations to the particular needs of this world system only. (7) The "status" of the vehicles in the sutra were unique (weiyi): no provisional categorization of the three vehicles of Buddhism (TRIYĀNA) was made in this sutra. This is because, according to the sutra's fundamental theme of "unimpeded interpenetration," any one vehicle subsumes all other vehicles and teachings. (8) Its "practice" was unique (xingyi): the stages (BHuMI) of the BODHISATTVA path are simultaneously perfected in this sutra's teachings, as opposed to having to be gradually perfected step-by-step. (9) The enumeration of "dharma gates," or list of dharmas, was unique (famenyi): whereas other sutras systematize doctrinal formulas using different numerical schemes (e.g., FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, eightfold path, etc.), this sutra exclusively employs in all its lists the number "ten"-a mystical number that symbolizes the sutra's infinite scope and depth. (10) Its "instantiation" was unique (shiyi): even the most mundane phenomena described in the AvataMsakasutra (such as trees, water, mountains, etc.) are expressions of the deepest truth; this is unlike other sutras that resort primarily to abstract, philosophical concepts like "emptiness" (suNYATĀ) or "suchness" (TATHATĀ) in order to express their profoundest truths.
Hwaomsa. (華嚴寺). In Korean, "Flower Garland Monastery"; the nineteenth of the major district monasteries (PONSA) in the contemporary CHOGYE order and the largest monastery on the Buddhist sacred mountain of CHIRISAN. According to the Hwaomsa monastery history, the monastery was founded in 544 by the obscure monk Yon'gi (d.u.), an Indian monk who is claimed to have been the first figure to spread the teaching of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA in Korea. (Five works related to the AvataMsakasutra and the DASHENG QIXIN LUN are attributed to Yon'gi in Buddhist catalogues, but none are extant.) In 645, during the Silla dynasty, the VINAYA master CHAJANG constructed at the monastery a three-story stone STuPA with four lions at the base, in which to preserve the relics (sARĪRA) of the Buddha. The eminent scholiast WoNHYO (617-686) is said to have taught at the monastery the "flower boys" (hwarang) group of Silla elite young men. In 677, the important vaunt courier in the Korean Hwaom school, ŬISANG (625-702), constructed a main shrine hall, the Changyukchon, where a gold buddha image six-chang (sixty feet) high was installed, and had inscribed the eighty-roll recension of the AvataMsakasutra on the four stone walls of the hall; since his time, the monastery was known as one of the centers of the Hwaom school (HUAYAN ZONG) in Korea. In 1462, during the Choson dynasty, Hwaomsa was raised to the status of a main monastery in the Son school (CHAN ZONG) of Buddhism. The monastery burned down during the Japanese Hideyoshi invasion of (1592-1598) and was rebuilt several times afterward. In 1702, the Son monk Kyeba (d.u.) built a new main shrine hall, Kakhwangjon, to replace the ruined Changyukchon, and the monastery was elevated to a main monastery of both the Son and Kyo (Doctrine) schools. The monastery is the nineteenth of the major parish monasteries (PONSA) in the contemporary CHOGYE order.
Hyeyong. (惠永) (1228-1294). Korean monk of the Koryo dynasty. In 1238, Hyeyong was ordained by Ch'ungyon (d.u.) at the monastery of Nambaegwolsa. Hyeyong passed the Son (CHAN) examinations held at WANGNYUNSA in 1244 and was subsequently given a position at Hŭngdoksa. In 1259, he was given the title Samjung taesa, and four years later, he was elevated to the status of head seat (sujwa). In 1267, Hyeyong moved to the temple Songnisa. Hyeyong's reputation grew, and he was eventually elevated to the highest status of SAMGHA overseer (sŭngt'ong) in 1269. He also resided at such monasteries as PULGUKSA, T'ONGDOSA, and Chunghŭngsa. In 1290, he led a mission of one hundred monks who specialized in copying Buddhist scriptures to Yuan China and delivered a lecture in the capital. He also copied the Buddhist canon in gold. In 1292, he was given the title Poja Kukchon (National Worthy whose Compassion is Universal) and was also given the title of saMgha overseer of the five teachings (Ogyodo Sŭngtong). He resided at the monastery of Tonghwasa and remained there until his death in 1294. Hyeyong composed a treatise entitled the Paegŭihae.
If the term "experimental" is broadly understood as implying a general mode of inquiry based on observation and the tentative application of hypotheses to particular cases, it includes many studies in aesthetics which avoid quantitative measurement and laboratory procedure. The full application of scientific method is still commonly regarded as impossible or unfruitful in dealing with the more subtle and complex phenomena of art. But the progress of aesthetics toward scientific status is being slowly made, through increasing use of an objective and logical approach instead of a dogmatic or personal one, and through bringing the results of other sciences to bear on aesthetic problems. Recent years have seen a vast increase in the amount and variety of artistic data available for the aesthetician, as a result of anthropological and archeological research and excavation, diversified museum collections, improved reproductions, translations, and phonograph records. -- T.M.
"If we take this fourfold status as a figure of the Self passing from its superconscient state, where there is no subject or object, into a luminous trance in which superconscience becomes a massed consciousness out of which the subjective status of being and the objective come into emergence, then we get according to our view of things either a possible process of illusionary creation or a process of creative Self-knowledge and All-knowledge.” The Life Divine
“If we take this fourfold status as a figure of the Self passing from its superconscient state, where there is no subject or object, into a luminous trance in which superconscience becomes a massed consciousness out of which the subjective status of being and the objective come into emergence, then we get according to our view of things either a possible process of illusionary creation or a process of creative Self-knowledge and All-knowledge.” The Life Divine
In 1111, at the age of twenty, he received the throne of Sa skya monastery from Ba ri lo tsā ba and became the institution's third abbot, a position he held for the remainder of his life. Beginning in 1120, Sa chen received the seminal Sa skya instructions on lam 'bras from Zhang ston chos 'bar (Shangton Chobar, 1053?-1135?), a YOGIN who initially claimed not to know anything about the topic. However, he eventually provided instruction to Sa chen for eight years, after which he instructed him not to teach lam 'bras for the next eighteen years. Sa chen then spent those eighteen years in retreat, practicing these instructions. During this time, he had a vision of the Indian adept VIRuPA, founder of the lam 'bras lineage, who bestowed on him the lam 'bras teachings in their entirety. After completing his retreat, Sa chen put Virupa's instructions on lam 'bras, known as the RDO RJE TSHIG RKANG ("Vajra Verses"), into writing for the first time, eventually composing eleven commentaries on them. Later, Sa chen was poisoned and went into a coma. When he regained consciousness, he had suffered complete memory loss. He thus went to his former teachers to receive instructions again. However, there was no one to provide the lam 'bras teachings and Zhang ston chos 'bar had passed away. Sa chen went into retreat, during which Zhang ston chos 'bar appeared to him and repeated his previous teachings. Among Sa chen's four sons, two became prominent Sa skya leaders: BSOD NAMS RTSE MO and Grags pa rgyal mtshan (Drakpa Gyaltsen, 1147-1216). Another of his sons, Dpal che 'od po (Palche Öpo, 1150-1204), was the father of SA SKYA PAndITA KUN DGA' RGYAL MTSHAN, who would become one of Tibet's most influential religious figures. Kun dga' snying po and the most illustrious of his offspring over the next two generations (Grags pa rgyal mtshan, Bsod nams rtse mo, Kun dga' snying po, and 'PHAGS PA) are known as SA SKYA GONG MA LNGA (the five Sakya hierarchs) and as such have iconic status in Sa skya ritual.
inferior ::: 1. Lower in rank, position, importance or status; subordinate. 2. Low or lower in quality, value, or estimation.
initgame "games" /in-it'gaym/ [IRC] An {IRC} version of the venerable trivia game "20 questions", in which one user changes his {nick} to the initials of a famous person or other named entity, and the others on the channel ask yes or no questions, with the one to guess the person getting to be "it" next. As a courtesy, the one picking the initials starts by providing a 4-letter hint of the form sex, nationality, life-status, reality-status. For example, MAAR means "Male, American, Alive, Real" (as opposed to "fictional"). Initgame can be surprisingly addictive. See also {hing}. [{Jargon File}]
"In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
“In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
In regard to the beast kingdom, at the midway point in the manvantara, the “door” to the human kingdom automatically closed, for then began the ascending arc: i.e., all monads not reaching the evolutionary status where they were able to pursue their evolution by entering the human kingdom must thereafter remain in the lower kingdoms for the three and one-half rounds still to come. The mammalian beasts all appeared in this round, but the first mammal on this globe was man himself, as the mammalian beasts were very early off-throwings or specializations from offthrowings originating in the human stock.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
Internet-Draft (I-D) A draft working document of the {Internet Engineering Task Force}, its Areas, and its Working Groups. As the name implies, Internet-Drafts are purely discussion documents with no formal status. They are valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. Very often, an I-D is a precursor to a {Request For Comments}. (1994-12-08)
In the Ideen and in later works, Husserl applied the epithet "transcendental" to consciousness as it is aside from its (valid and necessary) self-apperception as in a world. At the same time, he restricted the term "psychic" to subjectivity (personal subjects, their streams of consciousness, etc.) in its status as worldly, animal, human subjectivity. The contrast between transcendental subjectivity and worldly being is fundamental to Husserl's mature concept of pure phenomenology and to his concept of a universal phenomenological philosophy. In the Ideen, this pure phenomenology, defined as the eidetic science of transcendental subjectivity, was contrasted with psychology, defined as the empirical science of actual subjectivity in the world. Two antitheses are involved, however eidetic versus factual, and transcendental versus psychic. Rightly, they yield a four-fold classification, which Husserl subsequently made explicit, in his Formale und Transzendentale Logik (1929), Nachwort zu meinen Ideen (1930), and Meditations Cartesiennes (1931). In these works, he spoke of psychology as including all knowledge of worldly subjectivity while, within this science, he distinguished an empirical or matter-of-fact pure psychology and an eidetic pure psychology. The former is "pure" only in the way phenomenology, as explicitly conceived in the first edition of the Logische Untersuchungen, is pure: actual psychic subjectivity is abstracted as its exclusive theme, objects intended in the investigated psychic processes are taken only as the latter's noematic-intentional objects. Such an abstractive and self-restraining attitude, Husserl believed, is necessary, if one is to isohte the psychic in its purity and yet preserve it in its full intentionality. The instituting and maintaining of such an attitude is called "psychological epoche"; its effect on the objects of psychic consciousness is called "psychological reduction." As empiricism, this pure psychology describes the experienced typical structures of psychic processes and of the typical noematic objects belonging inseparably to the latter by virtue of their intrinsic intentionality. Description of typical personalities and of their habitually intended worlds also lies within its province. Having acquired empirical knowledge of the purely psychic, one may relax one's psychological epoche and inquire into the extrapsychic circumstances under which, e.g., psychic processes of a particulai type actually occur in the world. Thus an empirical pure intentional psychology would become part of a concrete empirical science of actual psychophysical organisms.
In the theory of obligation we find on the question of the meaning and status of right and wrong the same variety of views as obtain in the theory of value: "right," e.g., has only an emotive meaning (Ayer); or it denotes an intuited indefinable objective quality or relation of an act (Price, Reid, Clarke, Sidgwick, Ross, possibly Kant); or it stands for the attitude of some mind or group of minds towards an act (the Sophists, Hume, Westermarck). But it is also often defined as meaning that the act is conducive to the welfare of some individual or group -- the agent himself, or his group, or society as a whole. Many of the teleological and utilitarian views mentioned below include such a definition.
In the theory of value the first question concerns the meaning of value-terms and the status of goodness. As to meaning the main point is whether goodness is definable or not, and if so, how. As to status the main point is whether goodness is subjective or objective, relative or absolute. Various positions are possible. Recent emotive meaning theories e.g. that of A. J. Ayer, hold that "good" and other value-terms have only an emotive meaning, Intuitionists and non-naturalists often hold that goodness is an indefinable intrinsic (and therefore objective or absolute) property, e.g., Plato, G. E. Moore, W. D. Ross, J. Laird, Meinong, N. Hartman. Metaphysical and naturalistic moralists usually hold that goodness can be defined in metaphysical or in psychological terms, generally interpreting "x is good" to mean that a certain attitude is taken toward x by some mind or group of minds. For some of them value is objective or absolute in the sense of having the same locus for everyone, e.g., Aristotle in his definition of the good as that at which all things aim, (Ethics, bk. I). For others the locus of value varies from individual to individual or from group to group, i.e. different things will be good for different individuals or groups, e.g., Hobbes, Westermarck, William James, R. B. Perry.
ip'ansŭng. (理判僧). In Korean, "practice monk," monks who engaged in meditation, scriptural study, and chanting; one of the two general types of Korean monastic vocations, along with SAP'ANSŬNG, administrative monks, who were responsible for the administrative and financial affairs of the monastery. Ip'ansŭng traditionally enjoyed higher standing within the monastery than the administrative monks, and the meditation monks had generally more status than doctrinal specialists. During the post-1945 "Purification Movement" (Chonghwa undong) within the Korean SAMGHA, the celibate monks called themselves ip'ansung, while pejoratively referring to married monks as sap'ansung.
It is the insinimentation of the Sachchidananda, — the Infinite consciousness higher than the mental being. It Is a Self- awareness of the Infinite and Eternal and a power of Self- determination Inherent in that Self-awareness. Supermind keeps always and in every status and condition the spiritual realisation of the unity of all. It is the Consciousness creatrix of the world, a W”!!! to light and vision and also a will to power of works. It
It is the intermediate nature, our human portion, which reincarnates: it is a ray of the spiritual part or upper duad, and by repeated incarnations, through unfolding of the latent spirituality within itself, it finally “ascends” to reach the status of its parent, the upper duad. Hence, the intermediate nature is often referred to as the human soul.
jabber ::: (networking) An event that occurs when a device on a network using the LAT protocol continues to broadcast its availability even though its availability status is known by the network. (1996-05-10)
Jingtu zhuan. (J. Jododen; K. Chongt'o chon 淨土傳). In Chinese, "biographies of PURE LAND [practitioners]," also called "biographies of those who have gone to rebirth in the pure land" (wangsheng Jingtu zhuan); several such compilations are extant. Most of these anthologies were made by selecting examples from the various biographies of eminent monks (GAOSENG ZHUAN) of persons who were reported, first, to have shown "auspicious signs" (ruixiang) at the time of their deaths and, second, were noted for their exceptional devotion to pure land practice. Visions of AMITĀBHA and his entourage, an inexplicable radiance filling the site, heavenly fragrances, and prescience and/or predictions of one's imminent death and rebirth into the pure land were taken to be such "auspicious signs" and are common themes in the hagiographical accounts recorded in these anthologies. One of the earliest extant examples of the genre is the Jingtu zhuan compiled in the eleventh century by Jiezhu (985-1077), but many other anthologies were compiled in later centuries and were widely circulated. The stories they contain became popular testimonials to the efficacy and verity of pure land practice. These pure land anthologies are notable for their inclusive nature, and they collect biographies not only of eminent monks, but also of nuns, laypeople, and even persons of ill repute and low social status.
Jotunheim (Icelandic, Scandinavian) [from jotunn giant + heimar home, land] In Norse mythology, the home of the giants, one of the nine worlds of the Eddas, described as beyond the ocean which surrounds Midgard, and separated from the home of the gods (Asgard) by Ifing — the river which never freezes over. Jotunheim stands for the material spheres of life visited by the gods who gain the “mead” of wisdom by embodying in worlds. Such a sphere is the earth and so also are the other planets and celestial bodies, though of varying evolutionary status.
Kalyānīsīmā. An ordination site established at the Mon capital of Pegu in 1476 by King DHAMMACETĪ (r. 1472-1492). The construction of the Kalyānīsīmā marked the beginning of the reformation of the Mon SAMGHA in accordance with orthodox Sinhalese standards. The reformation is recorded by Dhammacetī in the KALYĀnĪ INSCRIPTIONS that were erected at the site. Dhammacetī selected a delegation of twenty-two Mon monks to travel to Sri Lanka, where, at a site of the Kalyānīvihāra near modern Colombo, the monks were laicized and reordained into the MAHĀVIHĀRA tradition. Upon their return, the newly reordained monks consecrated the Kalyānīsīmā at Pegu. Under the leadership of an elder monk ordained in Sri Lanka some twenty-six years earlier, the king ordered all new monks in his realm to be ordained into the MAHĀVIHĀRA tradition at the Kalyānīsīmā. Simultaneously, the existing saMgha was purged of malefactors, and monks found to be worthy of continuing in the order were encouraged to return to lay status and be reordained at the Kalyānīsīmā. In this way, the Mon saMgha, which had been long divided into rival monastic lineages, was reunited into a single fraternity descended from the Mahāvihāra tradition in Sri Lanka. The procedures employed by Dhammacetī to effect his reforms of the Mon saMgha were taken as a blueprint for the later THUDHAMMA reformation of the Burmese saMgha carried out by King BODAWPAYA beginning in 1782.
kāsāya. (P. kāsāya; T. ngur smrig; C. jiasha; J. kesa; K. kasa 袈裟). In Sanskrit, "dyed" (lit. "turbid-colored") robes (CĪVARA), referring to the robes of an ordained monk or nun, which were traditionally required to be sewn from pieces of soiled cloth and "dyed" to a reddish- or brownish-yellow saffron color or ochre tone; also spelled kasāya. Although the color that eventually came to be used in different Buddhist traditions varied, the important feature was that it be a mixed or muddied hue-and thus impure-and not a pure primary color. This impurity would help monastics develop a sense of nonattachment even toward their own clothing. According to the VINAYA, the kāsāya robe is also supposed to be sewn from sullied cloth that ordinary laypeople would be loath to use for clothing, such as rag cloth or funerary shrouds. Even new cloth offered to the SAMGHA will typically be ritually defiled so that it fulfills this requirement. The final requirement for the kāsāya robe is that it be sewn from pieces of cloth, not single sheets of new cloth, which were thought to be too luxurious. Robes were sewn from an odd-numbered series of vertical panels, typically five, seven, or nine in number, with each panel also in segments and the whole construction surrounded by a cloth edging. The Buddha is said to have received his inspiration for this patchwork design of the kāsāya while he was looking over a field of rice paddies with their surrounding embankments. Robes were one of the four major requisites (S. NIsRAYA; P. nissaya) of the monks and nuns, along with such basics as a begging bowl (PĀTRA), and were the object of the KAtHINA ceremony, in which the monastics were offered cloth for making new sets of robes at the end of each rain's retreat (VARsĀ). Robes eventually became symbolic of sectarian affiliation and institutional status within the various Buddhist traditions and are made in an array of bright colors and luxurious fabrics; but even the fanciest of robes will still typically be sewn in the patchwork fashion of the original kāsāya. See also CĪVARA; TRICĪVARA.
Kim Iryop. (金一葉) (1896-1971). In Korean, Kim "single leaf," influential Korean Buddhist nun during the mid-twentieth century and part of the first generation of Korean women intellectuals, or "new women" (sin yosong), thanks to her preordination career as a leading feminist writer, essayist, and poet. Her secular name was Wonju, and her Buddhist names were Hayop and Paengnyon Toyop; Iryop is her pen name, which Yi Kwangsu (1892-1955?), a pioneer of modern Korean literature, gave her in memory of the influential Japanese feminist writer Higuchi Ichiyo (1872-1896) (J. Ichiyo = K. Iryop). Kim's early years were influenced by Christianity and her father even became a Protestant minister. Her mother died when Kim was very young and her father also passed away while she was still in her teens. Kim was educated at the Ihwa Haktang, a women's academy (later Ewha University), and later studied abroad in Japan. She and other Ihwa graduates participated in the first female-published magazine in Korea, "New Women" (Sinyoja), which began and ended in 1920. Kim was a feminist intellectual who sought self-liberation and the elevation of women's status through her writing. After her first marriage ended in divorce, she continued to pursue her search for her "self" and was involved in much-publicized relationships with men such as Oda Seijo and Im Nowol, a writer of "art-for-art's sake." But Kim's ideal of female liberation based on individual self-identity appears to have undergone a profound transformation, thanks to her associations with Paek Songuk (1897-1981), a Buddhist intellectual who worked to revitalize Korean Buddhism during the Japanese colonial period and eventually became a monk himself in 1929. Through her encounter with Buddhism, Iryop's pursuit of self-liberation seems to have shifted from an emphasis on a self-centered identity based on feminism to the release from the self (ANĀTMAN). After Paek Songuk entered into the Diamond Mountains (KŬMGANGSAN) to become a monk, she again married, seemingly in an attempt both to keep her self-identity as a female and to realize the Buddhist release of self, by combining secular life with Buddhist practice. But a few years later, in 1933, she ultimately decided to become a nun under the tutelage of the Son master MAN'GONG WoLMYoN (1871-1946) and became a long-time resident of SUDoKSA. There, she became an outspoken critic of secularized Japanese-style Buddhism and particularly of its sanction of married monks and eating meat. But most notable were her writings on the pursuit of self-liberation, which she expressed as "becoming one body" (ilch'ehwa) with all people and everything in the universe. Iryop is credited for her contributions to popularizing Buddhism through her accessible writings in the Korean vernacular, as well as for elevating the position of nuns in Korean Buddhism.
Kounsa. (孤雲寺). In Korean, "Solitary Cloud Monastery"; the sixteenth district monastery (PONSA) of the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located on Mount Tŭngun in North Kyongsang province. The monastery was founded in 681 by great Hwaom (C. HUAYAN) master ŬISANG (625-702), during the reign of the Silla king Sinmun (r. 681-692). The original Chinese characters for Kounsa meant "High Cloud Monastery," but during the Unified Silla period, the monastery adopted the homophonous name "Solitary Cloud," after the pen name of the famous literatus Ch'oe Ch'iwon (b. 857). During the reign of King Hon'gang (r. 875-886), a famous stone image of BHAIsAJYAGURU was enshrined at the monastery. During the Koryo dynasty, the monk Ch'onhae (fl. c. 1018) is said to have seen a Kwanŭm (AVALOKITEsVARA) statue in a dream; later, he found an identical image on Mount Taehŭng in Songdo and enshrined it in the Kŭngnak chon at Kounsa. The monastery was rebuilt and repaired several times during the Choson period. The large-scale rebuilding project that began in 1695 and continued through the eighteenth century helped raise the monastery's overall status within the ecclesia. Kounsa suffered severe damage from fires that broke out in 1803 and 1835, but the monastery was soon reconstructed. During the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), Kounsa became one of thirty-one head monasteries (ponsa) and managed fifty-four branch monasteries (MALSA).
ks.ara (kshara) ::: mutable, changing; brahman manifest in the mutable ksara world, "the spiritual principle of the mobile working of things"; "the cosmic spirit in Time", the active status of the purus.ottama "in his eternal multiplicity" as "the spirit in the mutability of cosmic phenomenon and becoming".
Kŭmgang sammaegyong non. (C. Jingang sanmei jing lun; J. Kongo sanmaikyoron 金剛三昧經論). In Korean, "Exposition of the KŬMGANG SAMMAE KYoNG" (*Vajrasamādhisutra); composed by the Korean monk WoNHYO (617-686). The circumstances of the commentary's composition are provided in Wonhyo's biography in ZANNING's SONG GAOSENG ZHUAN. According to that account, an unidentified Silla king sent an envoy on a voyage to China in search of medicine that would cure his queen. On his way to China, however, the envoy was waylaid and taken to the dragon king's palace in the sea, where he was told that the queen's illness was merely a pretext in order to reintroduce the Vajrasamādhi into the world. The dragon king informed the envoy that the scripture was to be collated by an otherwise unknown monk named Taean (d.u.) and interpreted by Wonhyo, the most eminent contemporary scholar of the Korean Buddhist tradition. The commentary that Wonhyo wrote later made its way into China, where it was elevated to the status of a sĀSTRA (lun; K. non), hence the title Kŭmgang sammaegyong non. Wonhyo's commentary is largely concerned with the issue of how to cultivate "original enlightenment" (BENJUE), that is, how it is that the original enlightenment motivates ordinary sentient beings to aspire to become enlightened buddhas. Wonhyo discerns in the Kŭmgang sammae kyong a map of six sequential types of meditative practice, which culminate in the "contemplation practice that has but a single taste" (ilmi kwanhaeng). In Wonhyo's account of this process, the ordinary sensory consciousnesses are transformed into an "immaculate consciousness" (AMALAVIJNĀNA), wherein both enlightenment and delusion are rendered ineluctable and all phenomena are perceived to have but the "single taste" of liberation. In Wonhyo's treatment, original enlightenment is thus transformed from an abstract soteriological concept into a practical tool of meditative training.
lapwing ::: n. --> A small European bird of the Plover family (Vanellus cristatus, or V. vanellus). It has long and broad wings, and is noted for its rapid, irregular fight, upwards, downwards, and in circles. Its back is coppery or greenish bronze. Its eggs are the "plover&
laukika. (P. lokiya; T. 'jig rten pa; C. shijian; J. seken; K. segan 世間). In Sanskrit, "mundane" or "worldly"; anything pertaining to the ordinary world or to the practices of unenlightened sentient beings (PṚTHAGJANA) in distinction from the noble ones (ĀRYA), who have directly perceived reality. The "worldly" embraces all the contaminated (SĀSRAVA) or conditioned (SAMSKṚTA) phenomena of the three realms of existence (LOKADHĀTU), since these are subject to impermanence (anityatā). In the context of the status of practitioners, laukika refers to ordinary sentient beings (pṛthagjana); more specifically, in the fifty-two-stage BODHISATTVA path, laukika usually indicates practitioners who are at the stage of the ten faiths (C. shixin), ten understandings (C. shijie), or ten practices (C. shixing), while "supramundane" (LOKOTTARA) refers to more enlightened practitioners, such as bodhisattvas who are on the ten stages (DAsABHuMI). But even seemingly transcendent dharmas can be considered mundane if they are changeable by nature, e.g., in the MADHYAMAKA (C. SAN LUN ZONG) exegete JIZANG's (549-623) Shengman baoku ("Treasure Store of the sRĪMĀLĀDEVĪSIMHANĀDASuTRA"); mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKĀYA) produced by bodhisattvas on the eighth through the tenth bodhisattva stages (see BODHISATTVABHuMI; DAsABHuMI) may still be designated "mundane" because they are subject to change. FAZANG's HUAYAN WUJIAO ZHANG ("Essay on the Five Teachings According to Huayan") parses these stages even more precisely: of the ten stages (dasabhumi) of the path leading to buddhahood, stages one through three belong to the mundane (laukika); the fourth to the seventh stages are supramundane (lokottara) from the standpoint of the three vehicles (TRIYĀNA) of sRĀVAKA, PRATYEKABUDDHA, and BODHISATTVA; and the eighth to the tenth stages transcend even the supramundane and belong to the one vehicle (EKAYĀNA). In Indian YOGĀCĀRA and MADHYAMAKA works, and commonly in the Tibetan commentarial tradition, laukika and lokottara are used to differentiate paths in the mindstreams of noble (ĀRYA) beings in any vehicle (YĀNA), who have directly witnessed the true reality (TATTVA) of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. The last instants before the lokottara stage are given the name LAUKIKĀGRADHARMA (highest worldly factors); this is the last stage of the PRAYOGAMĀRGA in the five path (PANCAMĀRGA) system. The ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA says that the first lokottaradharma, the first instant of the sixteen-instant path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA), happens in a single meditative sitting. Even after the supramundane awakening, all subsequent attainments (PṚstHALABDHA) are mundane, with the exception of the knowledge in equipoise (SAMĀHITAJNĀNA) when the initial vision is revisited in a process of habituation, leading to a union of subsequent states and equipoise in the final lokottara experience of full enlightenment.
limit comparison test: A method of determining the convergence or divergence of a sequence by comparing the ratio of the terms of a sequence under consideration, with the corresponding terms of a sequence of known status (of convergence/divergence).
Lions Book "publication" "Source Code and Commentary on Unix level 6", by John Lions. The two parts of this book contained the entire source listing of the {Unix} Version 6 {kernel}, and a commentary on the source discussing the {algorithms}. These were circulated internally at the {University of New South Wales} beginning 1976-77, and were, for years after, the *only* detailed kernel documentation available to anyone outside {Bell Labs}. Because {Western Electric} wished to maintain trade secret status on the kernel, the Lions book was never formally published and was only supposed to be distributed to affiliates of source licensees (it is still possible to get a Bell Labs reprint of the book by sending a copy of a V6 {source licence} to the right person at {Bellcore}, but *real* insiders have the UNSW edition). In spite of this, it soon spread by {samizdat} to a good many of the early Unix hackers. {(http://peer-to-peer.com/catalog/history/lions.html)}. In 1996 it was reprinted as a "classic": [John Lions, "Lions' Comentary on UNIX 6th Edition with Source Code", Computer Classics Revisited Series, Peer-to-Peer Communications, 1996, ISBN 1-57398-013-7]. [{Jargon File}] (1997-06-25)
lokottara. (P. lokuttara; T. 'jig rten las 'das pa; C. chushijian; J. shusseken; K. ch'ulsegan 出世間). In Sanskrit, lit. "beyond the world"; "supramundane," "transcendent"; viz., something that is related to attaining liberation (VIMOKsA) from SAMSĀRA or that leads to such liberation. The term also can indicate a certain level of spiritual maturity, such as when the practitioner is no longer subject to the contaminants (ĀSRAVA). In the context of the status of practitioners, mundane (LAUKIKA) refers to ordinary beings; more specifically, in the fifty-two stage bodhisattva path, laukika usually indicates practitioners who are at the stage of the ten faiths (C. shixin), ten understandings (C. shijie), or ten practices (C. shixing), while "supramundane" (lokottara) refers to more enlightened practitioners, such as BODHISATTVAs who are on the ten stages (DAsABHuMI). FAZANG's HUAYAN WUJIAO ZHANG ("Essay on the Five Teachings according to Huayan") parses these stages even more precisely: of the ten stages (dasabhumi) of the path leading to buddhahood, stages one through three belong to the mundane (laukika); the fourth to the seventh stages are supramundane from the standpoint of the three vehicles (TRIYĀNA) of sRĀVAKA, PRATYEKABUDDHA, and BODHISATTVA; and the eighth to the tenth stages transcend even the supramundane and belong to the one vehicle (EKAYĀNA). The LOKOTTARAVĀDA (Teaching of Transcendence), a subschool of the MAHĀSĀMGHIKA school of mainstream Buddhism, took its name from its advocacy of the supramundane qualities of the Buddha and the univocality of the BUDDHAVACANA. The school's emblematic text, the MAHĀVASTU, claims that all the seemingly mundane acts of the Buddha are in fact supramundane; hence, although the Buddha may appear to eat and sleep, walk and talk like ordinary people, he in fact remains constantly in a state of meditation because he is free from all needs.
lowness ::: humble in status or character; lowly; also unrefined, coarse.
luser "jargon, abuse" /loo'zr/ A {user}; especially one who is also a {loser}. ({luser} and {loser} are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at {MIT}. Under {ITS}, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's attention, it printed out some status information, including how many people were already using the computer; it might print "14 users", for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to patch the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to be called losers to their faces every time they used the computer. For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each changing the message behind the back of the others; any time you logged into the computer it was even money whether it would say "users" or "losers". Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and it stuck. Later one of the ITS machines supported "luser" as a request-for-help command. ITS died the death in mid-1990, except as a museum piece; the usage lives on, however, and the term "luser" is often seen in program comments. See: also {LART}. Compare: {tourist}, {weenie}. [{Jargon File}] (1998-07-01)
luser ::: (jargon, abuse) /loo'zr/ A user; especially one who is also a loser. (luser and loser are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at MIT.Under ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's attention, it printed out some status information, including was even money whether it would say users or losers. Finally, someone tried the compromise lusers, and it stuck.Later one of the ITS machines supported luser as a request-for-help command. ITS died the death in mid-1990, except as a museum piece; the usage lives on, however, and the term luser is often seen in program comments.See: also LART. Compare: tourist, weenie.[Jargon File] (1998-07-01)
mada. (T. rgyags pa; C. jiao; J. kyo; K. kyo 憍). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "conceit," "arrogance"; one of the forty-six mental factors (CAITTA) according to the VAIBHĀsIKA school of SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA and one of the fifty-one according to the YOGĀCĀRA school; it is listed among the twenty secondary afflictions (UPAKLEsA). Conceit is considered to be a derivative of "passion" (RĀGA), since it entails an arrogant, self-absorbed state of mind that produces an air of superiority, invulnerability, and self-adoration. Some of the conditions that lead to conceit include: (1) one's youth or virility; (2) one's family lineage or social status; (3) one's wealth; (4) one's seemingly autonomous freedom in action; (5) one's apparent longevity and invulnerability to disease; (6) one's intelligence or knowledge; (7) one's virtue or charitable activities; (8) one's physical appearance or personal adornments.
madbhava ::: My [i.e. Krsna's, the Divine's] nature and status of being. ::: madbhavam [accusative] ::: madbhavaya [dative] [Gita 13.19]
madhyama gatih ::: [the middle status].
mae chi. In Thai, "nun" (although not a novice sRĀMAnERIKĀ or fully ordained BHIKsUNĪ) or the "order of nuns" in Thailand; those who are ordained as mae chi observe the eight precepts (SIKsĀPADA; cf. AstĀnGASAMANVĀGATAM UPAVĀSAM, UPOsADHA), dress in white robes similar in style to the saffron robes of the monks, shave their heads every fortnight, and spend much of their time in religious observances. However, because mae chi have not received a monastic ordination and are thus technically still laywomen (UPĀSIKĀ), they are not afforded the special legal status of fully ordained monks, and typically receive far less financial support from both the government and the laity. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, the number of mae chi increased substantially, particularly among college-educated women. Moreover, there was also an increased emphasis on practicing and teaching VIPASSANĀ (S. VIPAsYANĀ) meditation, as well as on providing young women with opportunities for religious education, particularly those who were economically disadvantaged. The majority of women who ordain as nuns, however, continue to be middle aged and older, in sharp contrast to monks, most of whom ordain as either novices or as young men, and who often enter the monkhood for only a single rains retreat (Thai. pansa, P. vassa; S. VARsĀ). In the late 1990s, there were around ten thousand nuns in Thailand, compared with almost two hundred thousand monks.
Mahānāman. (P. Mahānāma; T. Ming chen; C. Mohenan; J. Makanan; K. Mahanam 摩訶男). The Sanskrit proper name of two significant disciples of the buddha. ¶ Mahānāman was one of the five ascetics (S. PANCAVARGIKA; P. paNcavaggiyā; alt. S. bhadravargīya) who was a companion of Prince SIDDHĀRTHA during his practice of austerities and hence one of the first disciples converted by the Buddha at the Deer Park (MṚGADĀVA) in ṚsIPATANA following his enlightenment. Together with his companions, Mahānāman heard the Buddha's first sermon, the "Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma" (S. DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA; P. DHAMMACAKKAPPAVATTANASUTTA), and he attained the state of a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA) three days later. He and the others became ARHATs while listening to the buddha preach the ANATTALAKKHAnASUTTA. Mahānāman later traveled to the town of Macchikāsanda, and, while he was out on alms rounds, the householder CITTA saw him. Citta was greatly impressed by Mahānāman's dignified deportment, and invited him to his house for an meal offering. Having served Mahānāman the morning meal and listened to his sermon, Citta was inspired to offer his pleasure garden Ambātakavana to Mahānāman as a gift to the SAMGHA, and built a monastery there. ¶ Another Mahānāman was also an eminent lay disciple, whom the Buddha declared to be foremost among laymen who offer choice alms food. According to the Pāli account, Mahānāman was Anuruddha's (S. ANIRUDDHA) elder brother and the Buddha's cousin. It was with Mahānāman's permission that Anuruddha joined the order with other Sākiyan (S. sĀKYA) kinsmen of the Buddha. Mahānāman was very generous in his support of the order. During a period of scarcity when the Buddha was dwelling at VeraNja, he supplied the monks with medicines for three periods of four months each. Mahānāman was keenly interested in the Buddha's doctrine and there are several accounts in the scriptures of his conversations with the Buddha. Once while the Buddha lay ill in the Nigrodhārāma, ĀNANDA took Mahānāman aside to answer his questions on whether concentration (SAMĀDHI) preceded or followed upon knowledge. Mahānāman attained the state of a once-returner (sakadāgāmi; S. SAKṚDĀGĀMIN), but his deception toward Pasenadi (S. PRASENAJIT), the king of Kosala (S. KOsALA), precipitated the eventual destruction of the Sākiya (S. sĀKYA) clan. Pasenadi had asked Mahānāman for the hand of a true Sākiyan daughter in marriage, but the latter, out of pride, instead sent Vāsabhakkhattiyā, a daughter born to him by a slave girl. To conceal the treachery, Mahānāman feigned to eat from the same dish as his daughter, thus convincing Pasenadi of her pure lineage. The ruse was not discovered until years later when Vidudabha, the son of Pasenadi and Vāsabhakkhattiyā, was insulted by his Sākiyan kinsmen who refused to treat him with dignity because of his mother's status as the offspring of a slave. Vidudabha vowed revenge and later marched against Kapilavatthu (S. KAPILAVASTU) and slaughtered all who claimed Sākiyan descent. ¶ Another Mahānāma was the c. fifth century author of the Pāli MAHĀVAMSA.
Mahāyāna. (T. theg pa chen po; C. dasheng; J. daijo; K. taesŭng 大乘). In Sanskrit, "great vehicle"; a term, originally of self-appellation, which is used historically to refer to a movement that began some four centuries after the Buddha's death, marked by the composition of texts that purported to be his words (BUDDHAVACANA). Although ranging widely in content, these texts generally set forth the bodhisattva path to buddhahood as the ideal to which all should aspire and described BODHISATTVAs and buddhas as objects of devotion. The key doctrines of the Mahāyāna include the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ), the skillful methods (UPĀYAKAUsALYA) of a buddha, the three bodies (TRIKĀYA) of a buddha, the inherency of buddha-nature (BUDDHADHĀTU; TATHĀGATAGARBHA), and PURE LANDs or buddha-fields (BUDDHAKsETRA). The term Mahāyāna is also appended to two of the leading schools of Indian Buddhism, the YOGĀCĀRA and the MADHYAMAKA, because they accepted the Mahāyāna sutras as the word of the Buddha. However, the tenets of these schools were not restricted to expositions of the philosophy and practice of the bodhisattva but sought to set forth the nature of wisdom and the constituents of the path for the ARHAT as well. The term Mahāyāna often appears in contrast to HĪNAYĀNA, the "lesser vehicle," a pejorative term used to refer to those who do not accept the Mahāyāna sutras as the word of the Buddha. Mahāyāna became the dominant form of Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia, and therefore is sometimes referred to as "Northern Buddhism," especially in nineteenth-century sources. Because of the predominance of the Mahāyāna in East Asia and Tibet, it is sometimes assumed that the Mahāyāna displaced earlier forms of Buddhism (sometimes referred to by scholars as "Nikāya Buddhism" or "MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS") in India, but the testimony of Chinese pilgrims, such as XUANZANG and YIJING, suggests that the Mahāyāna remained a minority movement in India. These pilgrims report that Mahāyāna and "hīnayāna" monks lived together in the same monasteries and followed the same VINAYA. The supremacy of the Mahāyāna is also sometimes assumed because of the large corpus of Mahāyāna literature in India. However, scholars have begun to speculate that the size of this corpus may not be a sign of the Mahāyāna's dominance but rather of its secondary status, with more and more works composed but few gaining adherents. Scholars find it significant that the first mention of the term "Mahāyāna" in a stone inscription does not appear in India until some five centuries after the first Mahāyāna sutras were presumably composed, perhaps reflecting its minority, or even marginal, status on the Indian subcontinent. The origins of the Mahāyāna remain the subject of scholarly debate. Earlier theories that saw the Mahāyāna as largely a lay movement against entrenched conservative monastics have given way to views of the Mahāyāna as beginning as disconnected cults (of monastic and sometimes lay members) centered around an individual sutra, in some instances proclaimed by charismatic teachers called DHARMABHĀnAKA. The teachings contained in these sutras varied widely, with some extolling a particular buddha or bodhisattva above all others, some saying that the text itself functioned as a STuPA. Each of these sutras sought to represent itself as the authentic word of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha, which was more or less independent from other sutras; hence, the trope in so many Mahāyāna sutras in which the Buddha proclaims the supremacy of that particular text and describes the benefits that will accrue to those who recite, copy, and worship it. The late appearance of these texts had to be accounted for, and various arguments were set forth, most making some appeal to UPĀYA, the Buddha's skillful methods whereby he teaches what is most appropriate for a given person or audience. Thus, in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), the Buddha famously proclaims that the three vehicles (TRIYĀNA) that he had previously set forth were in fact expedient stratagems to reach different audiences and that there is in fact only one vehicle (EKAYĀNA), revealed in the Saddharmapundarīkasutra, the BUDDHAYĀNA, which had been taught many times in the past by previous buddhas. These early Mahāyāna sutras seem to have been deemed complete unto themselves, each representing its own world. This relatively disconnected assemblage of various cults of the book would eventually become a self-conscious scholastic entity that thought of itself as the Mahāyāna; this exegetical endeavor devoted a good deal of energy to surveying what was by then a large corpus of such books and then attempting to craft the myriad doctrines contained therein into coherent philosophical and religious systems, such as Yogācāra and Madhyamaka. The authority of the Mahāyāna sutras as the word of the Buddha seems to have remained a sensitive issue throughout the history of the Mahāyāna in India, since many of the most important authors, from the second to the twelfth century, often offered a defense of these sutras' authenticity. Another influential strand of early Mahāyāna was that associated with the RĀstRAPĀLAPARIPṚCCHĀ, KĀsYAPAPARIVARTA, and UGRAPARIPṚCCHĀ, which viewed the large urban monasteries as being ill-suited to serious spiritual cultivation and instead advocated forest dwelling (see ARANNAVĀSI) away from the cities, following a rigorous asceticism (S. dhutaguna; P. DHUTAnGA) that was thought to characterize the early SAMGHA. This conscious estrangement from the monks of the city, where the great majority of monks would have resided, again suggests the Mahāyāna's minority status in India. Although one often reads in Western sources of the three vehicles of Buddhism-the hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and VAJRAYĀNA-the distinction of the Mahāyāna from the vajrayāna is less clear, at least polemically speaking, than the distinction between the Mahāyāna and the hīnayāna, with followers of the vajrayāna considering themselves as following the path to buddhahood set forth in the Mahāyāna sutras, although via a shorter route. Thus, in some expositions, the Mahāyāna is said to subsume two vehicles, the PĀRAMITĀYĀNA, that is, the path to buddhahood by following the six perfections (PĀRAMITĀ) as set forth in the Mahāyāna sutras, and the MANTRAYĀNA or vajrayāna, that is, the path to buddhahood set forth in the tantras.
Maintenance - Periodic expenditures undertaken to preserve or retain an asset's operational status for its originally intended use.
Ma ni bka' 'bum. In Tibetan, "One Hundred Thousand Pronouncements [Regarding] Mani"; a heterogenious compilation of texts traditionally attributed to the Tibetan king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO. This large collection of works, usually published in two massive volumes, is generally understood as a treasure text (GTER MA), said to have been revealed by three individuals during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the SIDDHA Gngos grub (Ngodrup), the famed treasure revealer (GTER STON) NYANG RAL NYI MA 'OD ZER, and Shākya 'Od-a disciple in the Nyang ral lineage sometimes known as Shākya bzang po (Shākya Sangpo). The texts are organized into three parts or cycles (skor): (1) "The cycle of SuTRAs" (mdo skor), containing many legendary accounts of the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEsVARA and Srong btsan sgam po; (2) "the cycle of sādhanas" (sgrub skor), containing various meditation manuals (SĀDHANA) based on different aspects of Avalokitesvara; and (3) "the cycle of precepts" (zhal gdams kyi skor), a miscellany of texts, many of which relate to the bodhisattva of great compassion. The remaining texts are sometimes referred to as "the cycle of the disclosure of the hidden" (gab pa mngon phyung gi skor). The title of the collection refers to the famed six-syllable MANTRA of Avalokitesvara, OM MAnI PADME HuM. The texts are an important early source for many of Tibet's key legends: the activities of Srong btsan sgam po, including the founding of the JO KHANG temple, and the status of Avalokitesvara as the special protector of Tibet and the Tibetan people, incarnated in the person of Srong btsan sgam po himself. The Ma ni bka' 'bum also includes an account of a set of four statues (three or five according to some sources) in a form of AVALOKITEsVARA (called the "Four Brother Statues of Avalokitesvara") said to have spontaneously arisen by miraculous means from the trunk of single sandalwood tree. According to the Tibetan text, the Tibetan king Srong bstan sgam po dispatched a monk named Akarasīla to southern Nepal, where he discovered the four images in the midst of a large sandalwood grove. Akarasīla then "invited" the statues to reside in various locations in order to dispel misery and strife and serve as the basis for religious practice. These statues are considered some of the most sacred Buddhist images in Nepal and Tibet. In their most common reckoning, the four brothers are: (1) the white MATSYENDRANĀTH in Jana Bāhāl, Kathmandu, Nepal; (2) the red Matsyendranāth in nearby Patan; (3) the Ārya Lokesvara in the PO TA LA Palace, LHA SA; (4) and the 'PHAGS PA WA TI in SKYID GRONG, southern Tibet (a part of which is now in possession of the Dalai Lama in exile). Sometimes a fifth image is included: the Minanāth in Patan.
Metaphysics. Pure Idealism or Immaterialism identifies ontological reality (substance, substantives, concrete individuality) exclusively with the ideal, ie., Mind, Spirit, Soul, Person, Archetypal Ideas, Thought. See Spiritualism, Mentalism, Monadism, Panpsychtsm, Idealistic Phenomenalism. With respect to the metaphysical status of self-consciousness and purposeful activity, Idealism is either impersonalistic or personalistic. See Personalism.
MIB Variable A managed object that is defined in a {Management Information Base} (MIB). The object is defined by a textual name and a corresponding object identifier, a {syntax}, an access mode, a status, and a description of the semantics of the managed object. The MIB Variable contains pertinent management information that is accessible as defined by the access mode. (1995-03-22)
mitrasya dhamabhih ::: by the foundations, statuses, placings of Mitra. [Ved.]
mode bit A {flag}, usually in hardware, that selects between two (usually quite different) modes of operation. The connotations are different from {flag} bit in that mode bits are mainly written during a boot or set-up phase, are seldom explicitly read, and seldom change over the lifetime of an ordinary program. The classic example was the EBCDIC-vs.-ASCII bit (
Muni (Sanskrit) Muni [from the verbal root man to think] An ascetic, monk, devotee, hermit (especially one who has taken a vow of silence); a person who has attained union with his inner divinity by means of aspiration, so that filled with inspiration as he is, and guided by the inner spiritual monitor, he is said to attain more or less fully the status of an incarnate divinity on earth. With the Sanskrit expression hridayeshu sthitah (abiding in the hearts), the phrase has direct reference to the Silent Watcher of our planetary chain, who is in a sense the spiritual and mystical parent of the higher part of the human constitution.
nastygram "networking" /nas'tee-gram/ 1. A {network} {packet} or {e-mail} message (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do untoward things. 2. Disapproving e-mail, especially from a {net.god}, pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission problem. Compare {shitogram}, {mailbomb}. 3. A status report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. "What did Corporate say in today's nastygram?" 4. [deprecated] An error reply by mail from a {daemon}; in particular, a {bounce message}. [{Jargon File}] (2004-02-17)
nastygram ::: (networking) /nas'tee-gram/ 1. A network packet or e-mail message (the latter is also called a letterbomb) that takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do untoward things.2. Disapproving e-mail, especially from a net.god, pursuant to a violation of netiquette or a complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission problem. Compare shitogram, mailbomb.3. A status report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. What did Corporate say in today's nastygram?4. [deprecated] An error reply by mail from a daemon; in particular, a bounce message.[Jargon File](2004-02-17)
netstat "networking" (Or "rstat") A {Unix} command to give statistics about the {network} including {socket} status, interfaces that have been auto-configured, memory statistics, {routing} tables. {Unix manual pages}: rstat(3), netstat(8). (1996-06-04)
netstat ::: (networking) (Or rstat) A Unix command to give statistics about the network including socket status, interfaces that have been auto-configured, memory statistics, routing tables.Unix manual pages: rstat(3), netstat(8). (1996-06-04)
newt ::: n. --> Any one of several species of small aquatic salamanders. The common British species are the crested newt (Triton cristatus) and the smooth newt (Lophinus punctatus). In America, Diemictylus viridescens is one of the most abundant species.
Nichiren. (日蓮) (1222-1282). Japanese founder of the NICHIRENSHu, one of the so-called new schools of Kamakura Buddhism. Nichiren is said to have been born into a commoner family in present-day Chiba prefecture. At the age of twelve he entered the priesthood and was ordained at the age of sixteen. In 1239, he left his rural temple and went first to Kamakura and then to the capital of Kyoto to study at the great monasteries there. Although he draws heavily on TENDAI and TAIMITSU teachings in his own writings, Nichiren seems to have been acquainted with other traditions of Buddhism as well. During this period, Nichiren began to question what he perceived as inconsistencies in the doctrines of the various schools he was studying. In particular, Nichiren disagreed with the JoDOSHu pure land tradition of HoNEN (1133-1212), and the practice of reciting the buddha's name (NENBUTSU; C. NIANFO). Nichiren eventually concluded that the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") contained the Buddha's ultimate teaching, relegating all other teachings to a provisional status. Armed with this new insight, Nichiren proclaimed in 1253 that people should place their faith in the Saddharmapundarīkasutra by reciting its "title" (J. DAIMOKU), viz., NAMU MYoHoRENGEKYo (Homage to the Saddharmapundarīkasutra), an act that he claimed was sufficient for gaining liberation in the time of the decline of the dharma, or mappo (C. MOFA). It was at this point that he adopted the name "Nichiren" ("Lotus of the Sun,": i.e., Japan) Although Nichiren was a controversial figure, he attracted a large number of followers in Kamakura. In 1260, he wrote the Rissho Ankokuron ("Treatise on Establishing the Right [Teaching] for Securing the Peace of Our Country"), a tract that encouraged the Kamakura military government (bakufu) to rely on the teachings of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra in order to avert political disaster and social upheaval and, in turn, to patronize Nichiren's school over other Buddhist sects. As a result of his lobbying, and his challenge to the pure land tradition, Nichiren was arrested and exiled to Shizuoka prefecture in 1261 but was pardoned two years later. In 1271, a failed assassination plot against Nichiren hardened his resolve. He was arrested again in 1272 and banished to the island of Sado, where he wrote many of his most important treatises, including Kaimokusho ("Opening the Eyes") and Kanjin no honzonsho ("The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind"). In 1274, he was once again pardoned and subsequently returned to Kamakura. Failing for a third time to convince the Kamakura bakufu to turn to the Saddharmapundarīkasutra for protection and salvation, he retired to Mt. Minobu in Yamanashi prefecture. There, he devoted his time to educating his disciples and writing essays, including Senjisho "(On the Selection of the Time") and Ho'onsho ("Repaying Indebtedness"). Nichiren died at the age of sixty in the year 1282, leaving behind hundreds of works and divisive infighting for control of his legacy.
niratisayapremaspadatvam anandatattvam ::: [the status of divine delight (ananda) is that in which is experienced the union of utter love].
nirvedhabhāgīya. (T. nges par 'byed pa'i cha dang mthun pa; C. shunjuezefen; J. junketchakubun; K. sun'gyolt'aekpum 順決擇分). In Sanskrit, "aids to penetration," the constituent stages developed during the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMĀRGA), the second segment of the five-path schema outlined in the VAIBHĀsIKA ABHIDHARMA system, which mark the transition from the mundane sphere of cultivation (LAUKIKA[BHĀVANĀ]MĀRGA) to the supramundane vision (DARsANA) of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni); also called the "virtuous faculties associated with penetration" (nirvedhabhāgīya-KUsALAMuLA) or the "four virtuous faculties" (CATUsKUsALAMuLA). The nirvedhabhāgīya are the third of the three types of virtuous faculties (KUsALAMuLA) recognized in the VAIBHĀsIKA school, along with the punyabhāgīya and MOKsABHĀGĪYA kusalamulas. In distinction to the moksabhāgīyas, however, which are the remote path of preparation, the nirvedhabhāgīyas constitute instead the proximate path of preparation and are associated specifically with the type of wisdom that is generated through one's own meditative experience (BHĀVANĀMĀYĪPRAJNĀ). The four aids to penetration are (1) heat (usMAN [alt. usmagata]), (2) summit (MuRDHAN), (3) acquiescence or receptivity (KSĀnTI), (4) and highest worldly dharmas (LAUKIKĀGRADHARMA). After accumulating the preliminary skills necessary for religious cultivation on the preceding path of accumulation (SAMBHĀRAMĀRGA), the practitioner continues on to develop the mindfulness of mental constituents (dharma-SMṚTYUPASTHĀNA) on the path of preparation. This path involves the four aids to penetration, which mark successive stages in understanding the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and are each subdivided into various categories, such as weak, medium, and strong experiences. While the first two of these NIRVEDHABHĀGĪYAs are subject to retrogression and thus belong to the worldly path of cultivation (laukikabhāvanāmārga), the latter two are nonretrogressive (AVAIVARTIKA) and lead inevitably to insight (DARsANA). Mastery of the four aids to penetration culminates in the "unimpeded concentration" (ĀNANTARYASAMĀDHI), in which the meditator acquires fully all the highest worldly dharmas; this distinctive concentration provides access to the third stage of the path, the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA), which marks the entrance into sanctity (ĀRYA) as a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA). Thus the nirvedhabhāgīyas are the pivotal point in the progression of an ordinary person (PṚTHAGJANA) to the status of a noble one (ĀRYA). According to the ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ, disciples (sRĀVAKA) and solitary buddhas (PRATYEKABUDDHA) may develop the nirvedhabhāgīyas either before or during any of the four stages of the meditative absorptions (DHYĀNA), while bodhisattvas develop all four in one sitting during their final lifetimes.
Nominalism: (Lat. nominalis, belonging to a name) In scholastic philosophy, the theory that abstract or general terms, or universals, represent no objective real existents, but are mere words or names, mere vocal utterances, "flatus vocis". Reality is admitted only to actual physical particulars. Universals exist only post res. Opposite of Realism (q.v.) which maintains that universals exist ante res. First suggested by Boethius in his 6th century Latin translation of the Introduction to the Categories (of Aristotle) by Porphyry (A.D. 233-304). Porphyry had raised the question of how Aristotle was to be interpreted on this score, and had decided the question in favor of what was later called nominalism. The doctrine did not receive any prominence until applied to the Sacrament of the Eucharist by Berengar in the 11th century. Berengar was the first scholastic to insist upon the evidence of his senses when examining the nature of the Eucharist. Shortly after, Roscellinus, who had broadened the doctrine to the denial of the reality of all universals and the assertion of the sole reality of physical particulars, was forced by the Council of Soissons to recant. Thereafter, despite Abelard's unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the doctrine with realism by finding a half-way position between the two, nominalism was not again explicitly held until William of Occam (1280-1349) revived it and attempted to defend it within the limits allowed by Church dogma. In the first frankly nominalistic system Occam distinguished between the real and the grammatical meanings of terms or universal. He assigned a real status to universals in the mind, and thus was the first to see that nominalism can have a subjective as well as an objective aspect. He maintained that to our intellects, however, everything real must be some particular individual thing. After Occam, nominalism as an explicitly held doctrine disappeared until recently, when it has been restated in certain branches of Logical Positivism. -- J.K.F.
Opportunity Management System "business" (OMS) A system that stores sales opportunities and related information. Each sales lead can be tracked with information such as source, type, worth, status, likelihood of closure etc. An OMS can perform other related tasks such as prioritising sales calls and generating analyses that assist the fine-tuning of marketing strategies. See also {Customer Relationship Management}. (1999-08-20)
Opportunity Management System ::: (business) (OMS) A system that stores sales opportunities and related information. Each sales lead can be tracked with information such as source, type, worth, status, likelihood of closure etc.An OMS can perform other related tasks such as prioritising sales calls and generating analyses that assist the fine-tuning of marketing strategies.See also Customer Relationship Management. (1999-08-20)
(or was, depending on his current status as a holy
overhead ::: 1. Resources (in computing usually processing time or storage space) consumed for purposes which are incidental to, but necessary to, the main one. Overheads are usually quantifiable costs of some kind.Examples: The overheads in running a business include the cost of heating the building. Keeping a program running all the time eliminates the overhead of inline code eliminates the call and return time overhead for each execution but introduces space overheads.2. (communications) information, such as control, routing, and error checking characters, that is transmitted along with the user data. It also includes information such as network status or operational instructions, network routing information, and retransmissions of user data received in error.3. Overhead transparencies or slides (usually 8-1/2 x 11) that are projected to an audience via an overhead (flatbed) projector. (1997-09-01)
overhead 1. Resources (in computing usually processing time or storage space) consumed for purposes which are incidental to, but necessary to, the main one. Overheads are usually quantifiable "costs" of some kind. Examples: The overheads in running a business include the cost of heating the building. Keeping a program running all the time eliminates the overhead of loading and initialising it for each transaction. Turning a {subroutine} into {inline} code eliminates the call and return time overhead for each execution but introduces space overheads. 2. "communications" information, such as control, routing, and error checking characters, that is transmitted along with the user data. It also includes information such as network status or operational instructions, network routing information, and retransmissions of user data received in error. 3. Overhead transparencies or "slides" (usually 8-1/2" x 11") that are projected to an audience via an overhead (flatbed) projector. (1997-09-01)
Padmasambhava. (T. Padma 'byung gnas) (fl. eighth century). Indian Buddhist master and tantric adept widely revered in Tibet under the appellation Guru rin po che, "Precious Guru"; considered to be the "second buddha" by members of the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who view him as a founder of their tradition. In Tibetan, he is also known as Padma 'byung gnas (Pemajungne), "the Lotus Born," which translates his Sanskrit name. It is difficult to assess the many legends surrounding his life and deeds, although the scholarly consensus is that he was a historical figure and did visit Tibet. The earliest reference to him is in the SBA BZHED (a work that purports to be from the eighth century, but is likely later), where he is mentioned as a water diviner and magician, suggesting that he may have been an expert in irrigation, which would have required the ability to subdue local spirits. Two texts in the Tibetan canon are attributed to him. The first is the Man ngag lta ba'i phreng ba, which is a commentary on the thirteenth chapter of the GUHYAGARBHATANTRA. The second is a commentary on the Upāyapāsapadmamālā, a MAHĀYOGA TANTRA. Regardless of his historical status and the duration of his stay in Tibet, the figure of Padmasambhava has played a key role in the narrative of Buddhism's arrival in Tibet, its establishment in Tibet, and its subsequent transmission to later generations. He is also venerated throughout the Himalayan regions of India, Bhutan, and Nepal and by the Newar Buddhists of the Kathmandu Valley. According to many of his traditional biographies, Padmasambhava was miraculously born in the center of a lotus blossom (PADMA) on Lake Danakosa in the land of OddIYĀNA, a region some scholars associate with the Swat Valley of modern Pakistan. Discovered and raised by King Indrabodhi, he abandoned his royal life to pursue various forms of Buddhist study and practice, culminating in his training as a tantric adept. He journeyed throughout the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal, meeting his first consort MANDĀRAVĀ at Mtsho padma in Himachal Pradesh, and later remaining in prolonged retreat in various locations around the Kathmandu Valley including MĀRATIKA, YANG LE SHOD and the ASURA CAVE. His reputation as an exorcist led to his invitation, at the behest of the Indian scholar sĀNTARAKsITA, to travel to Tibet in order to assist with the construction of BSAM YAS monastery. According to traditional accounts, Padmasambhava subdued and converted the indigenous deities inimical to the spread of Buddhism and, together with sāntaraksita and the Tibetan king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN, established the first Buddhist lineage and monastic center of Tibet. He remained in Tibet as a court priest, and, together with his Tibetan consort YE SHES MTSHO RGYAL, recorded and then concealed numerous teachings as hidden treasure texts (GTER MA), to be revealed by a later succession of masters spiritually linked to Padmasambhava. The Rnying ma sect preserves the corpus of instructions stemming from the master in two classes of materials: those revealed after his passing as treasure texts and those belonging to an unbroken oral tradition (BKA' MA). It is believed that Padmasambhava departed Tibet for his paradise known as the Glorious Copper-Colored Mountain (ZANGS MDOG DPAL RI), where he continues to reside. From the time of the later dissemination of the doctrine (PHYI DAR) in the eleventh century onwards, numerous biographies of the Indian master have been revealed as treasure texts, including the PADMA BKA' THANG YIG, BKA' THANG GSER 'PHRENG, and the BKA' THANG ZANGS GLING MA. Padmasambhava is the focus of many kinds of ritual activities, including the widely recited "Seven Line Prayer to Padmasambhava" (Tshig 'dun gsol 'debs). The tenth day of each lunar month is dedicated to Padmasambhava, a time when many monasteries, especially those in Bhutan, perform religious dances reverencing the Indian master in his eight manifestations. In iconography, Padmasambhava is depicted in eight forms, known as the guru mtshan brgyad, who represent his eight great deeds. They are Padma rgyal po, Nyi ma 'od zer, Blo ldan mchog sred, Padmasambhava, Shākya seng ge, Padmakara (also known as Sororuhavajra, T. Mtsho skyes rdo rje), Seng ge sgra sgrogs, and RDO RJE GRO LOD.
Paegyangsa. (白羊寺). In Korean, "White Ram Monastery"; the eighteenth district monastery (PONSA) of the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located on Paegam (White Cliff) Mountain in South Cholla province. The monastery was founded in 632 by the Paekche monk Yohwan (d.u.) and was originally called Paegamsa; it was renamed Chongt'osa after a reconstruction project during the Koryo dynasty in 1034. Its current name of Paegyangsa comes from a Koryo-era legend. Sometime during the reign of King Sonjo of the Choson dynasty (r. 1567-1607), a teacher now known as Hwanyang (d.u., lit. "Goat Caller") was said to have been leading a recitation assembly on the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), when a white ram came down out of the mountains to listen to the monks recite the SuTRA. Once the event was over, the ram appeared to Hwanyang in a dream and explained that he had been reborn as a ram for transgressions he had committed in heaven; after hearing the master's sermon, however, he was redeemed and was able to take rebirth once again as a divinity (DEVA). The next day the body of the ram was found on the monastery grounds, and Paegyangsa received the name by which it has been known ever since. Paegyangsa is guarded by the Gate of the Four Heavenly Kings (Sach'onwang mun). The main shrine hall (TAEUNG CHoN) is unusually located to the right of the gate, rather than centered in the compound, and an eight-story stone STuPA is located behind the main hall, rather than in front of it. The oldest extant building on the campus is the Kŭngnak pojon, or SUKHĀVATĪ hall, the construction of which was sponsored by the queen-consort of the Choson king Chungjong (r. 1506-1544). The main shrine hall, reconstructed in 1917 by the prominent Buddhist reformer MANAM CHONGHoN (1876-1957), is dedicated to sĀKYAMUNI Buddha, and enshrines an image of sākyamuni flanked by the bodhisattvas MANJUsRĪ and SAMANTABHADRA. Much of the monastery burned in 1950 during the Korean War, and reconstruction extended into the 1990s. In 1996, Paegyangsa was elevated to the status of an ecumenical monastery (CH'ONGNIM), and is one of the five such centers in the contemporary Chogye order, which are expected to provide training in the full range of practices that exemplify the major strands of the Korean Buddhist tradition; the monastery is thus also known as the Kobul Ch'ongnim.
Palestinian Refugees ::: About 600,000 Palestinian (other estimates range form 500,000 to 800,0000) fled Israel between 1947 and 1949, fundamentally because of the Arab states' rejection of the United Nation partition plan and invasion of Israel. The refugees fled out of fear of war and in response to Arab leaders' calls for Arabs to evacuate the areas allocated to the Jews until Israel had been eliminated. In a handful of cases, Palestinians were expelled. A majority of the refugees and their descendants now live in the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank. About 360,000 Palestinians fled eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights during and after Israel's defensive 1967 War. Palestinian who fled in 1967 are technically considered displaced persons and do not have official refugee status. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated that 175,000 of these 360,000 Palestinians were refugees from the 1948 War. The May 4, 1994, Gaza-Jericho Accord calls for Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan, and Egypt to form a Continuing Committee to discuss the 1967 displaced persons. The problem of the 1947-1949 refugees, on the other hand, is to be left for the “final status” negotiations under the terms of the Israeli-PLO Decl
parabhava ::: higher aspect; supreme status of being. parabhava parabrahmadarsana
para gatih ::: the supreme status (of the soul).
paramam sthanam adyam ::: a status original, sempiternal and supreme. [cf. Gita 8.28]
paramānu. (T. rdul phra rab; C. jiwei; J. gokumi; K. kŭngmi 極微). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "particle" or "atom"; the smallest unit of matter. Buddhist schools take a variety of positions on the ontological status of such atoms, especially as to whether or not they were divisible or indivisible. Both the SAUTRĀNTIKA and the SARVĀSTIVĀDA schools of mainstream Buddhism, for example, held that each paramānu was an indivisible unit of matter, but differed on the exact nature of the objects formed through the coalescence of these particles. By contrast, the MADHYAMAKA school of MAHĀYĀNA philosophy rejected any such notion of particles, since it did not accept that there was anything in the universe that possessed independent existence (NIḤSVABHĀVA), and thus the notion of such atoms was simply a convenient fiction. Numerous Mahāyāna SuTRAs, notably the AVATAMSAKASuTRA, extol the ability of a buddha to place entire world systems within a single particle without changing either's size. These Buddhist debates have parallels within both the JAINA and Hindu traditions. Modern Buddhists have also sought to suggest that apparent parallels between the notion of paramānu and modern atomic theory are evidence that Buddhism is consistent with science.
param dhama ::: the highest status (of the Divine). [Gita 10.12]
parihāni. (P. parihāni; T. yongs su nyams pa; C. tui; J. tai; K. t'oe 退). In Sanskrit, lit., "diminution," "retrogression," or "backsliding" from virtuous states that had previously been cultivated or mastered. Parihāni refers specifically to the diminution of mental states that had been directed toward liberation (VIMUKTI), which allows mental disturbances to reappear and thus causes regression to previous habitual tendencies involving unwholesome or mundane thoughts and activities. The term often appears in debates concerning the issue of whether the noble persons (ĀRYAPUDGALA) are subject to backsliding. Such MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS as the MAHĀSĀMGHIKA, SARVĀSTIVĀDA, and SAMMITĪYA argued, for example, that ARHATs were subject to backsliding because they were still prone to vestigial negative proclivities of mind (ANUsAYA), even if those only manifested themselves while the monks were sleeping, e.g., nocturnal emissions. The STHAVIRANIKĀYA argued that arhats were not subject to backsliding since they had perfected all the necessary stages of training and were free from such proclivities. Related to this issue are discussions concerning the status of once-returners (SAKṚDĀGĀMIN) and nonreturners (ANĀGĀMIN): the majority of schools posited that once-returners and nonreturners could regress to the status of the stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA), the first level of sanctity, but that the status of the stream-enterer was not subject to retrogression and was thus inviolate. In the PURE LAND tradition, backsliding is a core rationale justifying the pure land teachings, since, in the world of SAMSĀRA, backsliding is inevitable for all except the most resolute practitioners. According to the AMITĀBHASuTRA, for example, sentient beings have accumulated karmic burdens since time immemorial and are invariably subject to backsliding; thus, they will never be able to escape from the endless cycle of birth-and-death on their own. For this reason, the buddha AMITĀBHA encourages them to seek rebirth in the pure land, instead, where they will have no hindrances to their eventual attainment of liberation. In the MAHĀYĀNA tradition, reaching the stage where there no longer is any prospect of regression is a crucial threshold on the path to liberation. Different scriptures place this point of nonbacksliding at different stages along the path. One of the most common explanations about which stage is "irreversible" (AVAIVARTIKA) appears in the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA, which locates it on the eighth stage (BHuMI), the "immovable" (ACALĀ), where further progress is assured and where there is no possible of retrogressing to a preceding stage. However, HARIBHADRA in his commentary on the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA identifies two earlier points at which the bodhisattva becomes irreversible, one on the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMĀRGA) and one on the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA).
parivāsa. (T. spo ba; C. biezhu; J. betsuju; K. pyolchu 別住). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "probation," a disciplinary term used in the context of the VINAYA. In the monastic disciplinary rules (PRĀTIMOKsA), parivāsa refers to the temporary period of probation imposed on a monk for concealing a SAMGHĀVAsEsA (P. sanghadisesa) offense. When a monk commits a saMghāvasesa offense, he is required to confess it immediately to another monk. If he does so, he is then required to observe six nights of MĀNATVA (P. mānatta), or penance, only. If instead he conceals his offense, he is required to observe the parivāsa probation for as many days as he concealed his offense, after which he must observe six nights of mānatva punishment. Like mānatva, parivāsa entails the temporary loss of privileges normally accorded a monk. The guilty party is required to observe ninety-four restrictions, of which three are most important: (1) he may not dwell under the same roof with another monk, (2) he must announce to monks visiting his monastery that he is observing parivāsa, and (3) when visiting other monasteries, he must inform the monks living there that he is observing parivāsa. In addition, he is not allowed to accept the respect customarily due to a monk, and he may not be served by a novice. The monk observing parivāsa may not serve as an UPĀDHYĀYA or ĀCĀRYA and may not preach to nuns. He must occupy the lowest seat in the monastery and dwell in the worst accommodations. He must give up his seat when approached by another monk and take the lower seat. He may not walk on the same paths as other monks. He may not ask others to bring him his meals to hide his punishment. He may not live alone in the forest or observe ascetic practices (DHUTAnGA) as a means to hide his offense from others. If at any point in the observance of parivāsa, the guilty monk commits another saMghāvasesa offense, he must restart the observance from the beginning. After completing his parivāsa penance and his six nights of mānatva, the monk approaches the saMgha, which in this case means a quorum of monks consisting of at least twenty members, and requests to be "called back into communion" (abbhāna). If the saMgha agrees, the monk is declared free of the saMghāvasesa offense and is restored to his former status. ¶ The term parivāsa is also used for a four-month probationary period imposed on mendicants belonging to other religions who wish to join the Buddhist saMgha. To undertake this parivāsa, the mendicant must first shave his head and beard and don the saffron robes of a monk and approach the SAMGHA with his request. Having taken the three refuges (TRIsARAnA) three times, he declares that formerly he was the member of another sect but now wishes to receive higher ordination as a Buddhist monk. To prepare for ordination, the supplicant requests the saMgha to grant him parivāsa. The Buddha exempted JAINA ascetics from this requirement, as well as members of his own sĀKYA clan.
Past-Time: All the extent of time preceding a given event or experience, the term is occasionally confined to that extent of preceding time which is relevant to a given event or experience. Obviously enough, past-time is not a permanent condition unrelated to the succession of events: anything that is past has been present and also future before it became present The ontologlcal status of the past is uncertain, insofar as it has no existence at the moment when it is called past yet cannot be designated as unconditionally non-existent in the sense applicable to fiction or untruth. -- R.B.W.
patriarch-prophet who enjoys a status above an
Philosophy of Religion: An inquiry into the general subject of religion from the philosophical point of view, i.e., an inquiry employing the accepted tools of critical analysis and evaluation without a predisposition to defend or reject the claims of any particular religion. Among the specific questions considered are the nature, function and value of religion; the validity of the claims of religious knowledge; the relation of religion and ethics; the character of ideal religion; the nature of evil; the problem of theodicy; revealed versus natural religion; the problem of the human spirit (soul) and its destiny; the relation of the human to the divine as to the freedom and responsibility of the individual and the character (if any) of a divine purpose; evaluation of the claims of prophecy, mystic intuitions, special revelations, inspired utterances; the value of prayers of petition; the human hope of immortality; evaluation of institutional forms of expressions, rituals, creeds, ceremonies, rites, missionary propaganda; the meaning of human existence, the character of value, its status in the world of reality, the existence and character of deity; the nature of belief and faith, etc.
Pine ::: Program for Internet News & Email. A tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. It was designed specifically with novice computer users in Pine uses Internet message protocols (e.g. RFC 822, SMTP, MIME, IMAP, NNTP) and runs under Unix and MS-DOS.The guiding principles for Pine's user-interface were: careful limitation of features, one-character mnemonic commands, always-present command menus, from the University of Washington community and a growing number of Internet sites has been encouraging.Pine's message composition editor, Pico, is also available as a separate stand-alone program. Pico is a very simple and easy-to-use text editor offering paragraph justification, cut/paste, and a spelling checker.Pine features on-line help; a message index showing a message summary which includes the status, sender, size, date and subject of messages; commands to archives via the Interactive Mail Access Protocol as defined in RFC 1176; access to Usenet news via NNTP or IMAP.Pine, Pico and UW's IMAP server are copyrighted but freely available.Unix Pine runs on Ultrix, AIX, SunOS, SVR4 and PTX. PC-Pine is available for Packet Driver, Novell LWP, FTP PC/TCP and Sun PC/NFS. A Microsoft Windows/WinSock version is planned, as are extensions for off-line use.Pine was originally based on Elm but has evolved much since (Pine Is No-longer Elm). Pine is the work of Mike Seibel, Mark Crispin, Steve Hubert, Sheryl Erez, David Miller and Laurence Lundblade (now at Virginia Tech) at the University of Washington Office of Computing and Communications. . (login as pinedemo).E-mail: , , .(21 Sep 93)
Pine Program for Internet News & Email. A tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. It was designed specifically with novice computer users in mind, but can be tailored to accommodate the needs of "power users" as well. Pine uses {Internet} message {protocols} (e.g. {RFC 822}, {SMTP}, {MIME}, {IMAP}, {NNTP}) and runs under {Unix} and {MS-DOS}. The guiding principles for Pine's user-interface were: careful limitation of features, one-character mnemonic commands, always-present command menus, immediate user feedback, and high tolerance for user mistakes. It is intended that Pine can be learned by exploration rather than reading manuals. Feedback from the {University of Washington} community and a growing number of {Internet} sites has been encouraging. Pine's message composition editor, {Pico}, is also available as a separate stand-alone program. Pico is a very simple and easy-to-use {text editor} offering paragraph justification, cut/paste, and a spelling checker. Pine features on-line help; a message index showing a message summary which includes the status, sender, size, date and subject of messages; commands to view and process messages; a message composer with easy-to-use editor and spelling checker; an address book for saving long complex addresses and personal distribution lists under a nickname; message attachments via {Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions}; {folder} management commands for creating, deleting, listing, or renaming message folders; access to remote message folders and archives via the {Interactive Mail Access Protocol} as defined in {RFC 1176}; access to {Usenet} news via {NNTP} or {IMAP}. Pine, {Pico} and {UW}'s {IMAP} {server} are copyrighted but freely available. {Unix} Pine runs on {Ultrix}, {AIX}, {SunOS}, {SVR4} and {PTX}. PC-Pine is available for {Packet Driver}, {Novell LWP}, {FTP PC/TCP} and {Sun} {PC/NFS}. A {Microsoft Windows}/{WinSock} version is planned, as are extensions for off-line use. Pine was originally based on {Elm} but has evolved much since ("Pine Is No-longer Elm"). Pine is the work of Mike Seibel, Mark Crispin, Steve Hubert, Sheryl Erez, David Miller and Laurence Lundblade (now at Virginia Tech) at the University of Washington Office of Computing and Communications. {(ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/pine.tar.Z)}. {(telnet://demo.cac.washington.edu/)} (login as "pinedemo"). E-mail: "pine@cac.washington.edu", "pine-info-request@cac.washington.edu", "pine-announce-request@cac.washington.edu". (21 Sep 93)
PKZIP "tool" A file {compression} and archiver utility for {MS-DOS} and {Microsoft Windows} from {PKWARE, Inc.}. PKZIP uses a variation on the {sliding window} compression {algorithm}. It comes with {pkunzip} and {pklite} and is available as {shareware} from most {FTP archives} in a self-expanding {MS-DOS} executable. Current versions as of 1999-10-07: PKZIP 2.60 GUI for {Microsoft Windows 3.1}x, {Windows 9x}, {Windows NT}; PKZIP 2.50 Command Line for Windows 9x NT; PKZIP 2.04g for {MS-DOS}; PKZIP 2.51 for {Unix}, ({Linux}, {SPARC} {Solaris}, {Digital}, {HP-UX}, {IBM AIX} and {SCO} Unix); PKZIP 2.50 for {OS/2}; PKZIP for {Open VMS}/{VAX}. {WINZIP} is a version with a {GUI} for {Microsoft Windows}. A distribution in about 1995-06-22 claiming to be "PKZIP 3" was actually a {Trojan horse} which attempted to reformat the hard disk and delete all files on it. {(http://pkware.com/catalog/pkzip_win.html)}. [Status, history of WINZIP, PKLITE?] (1999-01-16)
PKZIP ::: (tool) A file compression and archiver utility for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows from PKWARE, Inc.. PKZIP uses a variation on the sliding window compression algorithm. It comes with pkunzip and pklite and is available as shareware from most FTP archives in a self-expanding MS-DOS executable.Current versions as of 1999-10-07: PKZIP 2.60 GUI for Microsoft Windows 3.1x, Windows 9x, Windows NT; PKZIP 2.50 Command Line for Windows 9x NT; PKZIP 2.04g for MS-DOS; PKZIP 2.51 for Unix, (Linux, SPARC Solaris, Digital, HP-UX, IBM AIX and SCO Unix); PKZIP 2.50 for OS/2; PKZIP for Open VMS/VAX.WINZIP is a version with a GUI for Microsoft Windows.A distribution in about 1995-06-22 claiming to be PKZIP 3 was actually a trojan horse which attempted to reformat the hard disk and delete all files on it. .[Status, history of WINZIP, PKLITE?] (1999-01-16)
Planetary spirits parallel the Buddhist dhyani-chohans or dhyanis; with the exception that the Buddhist phrase has far larger application as it includes not merely planetary spirits but likewise spiritual beings of various grades in a solar system. The higher planetaries are those presiding over an entire chain of globes, and their influence extends over all the seven, ten, or twelve globes of a chain. There are also planetaries belonging to the same general planetary hierarchy who preside over a single globe of a chain, and again lower planetaries such as those in more or less immediate touch with mankind. There are planetaries of high spiritual status, and planetaries of far lower status who at times even may be spoken of as dark planetaries. Thus it is that the work of the higher planetaries is beautiful, compassionate, and indeed sublime; whereas the lowest or dark planetaries are frequently the agents of matter as contrasted with spirit.
poll ::: To check the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered.Contrast interrupt.[Jargon File] (1995-01-31)
poll To check the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered. Contrast {interrupt}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-31)
PowerPC Platform ::: (architecture, standard) (PPCP, PReP - PowerPC Reference Platform, formerly CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform) An open system standard, built by different companies. The PReP standard specifies the PCI bus, but will also support ISA, MicroChannel and PCMCIA.PReP-compliant systems will be able to run the Macintosh OS, OS/2, WorkplaceOS, AIX, Solaris, Taligent and Windows NT. IBM systems will (of course) be PReP-compliant. Apple's first PowerPC Macintoshes will not be compliant, but future ones may be. . .[Current OS statuses?] (1997-03-23)
PowerPC Platform "architecture, standard" (PPCP, PReP - PowerPC Reference Platform, formerly CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform) An open system standard, designed by {IBM}, intended to ensure compatibility among {PowerPC}-based systems built by different companies. The PReP standard specifies the {PCI} bus, but will also support {ISA}, {MicroChannel} and {PCMCIA}. PReP-compliant systems will be able to run the {Macintosh} OS, {OS/2}, {WorkplaceOS}, {AIX}, {Solaris}, {Taligent} and {Windows NT}. IBM systems will (of course) be PReP-compliant. Apple's first {PowerPC} {Macintosh}es will not be compliant, but future ones may be. {IBM info (http://fnctsrv0.chips.ibm.com/products/ppc/L3ppcp.html)}. {(http://billboard.emedia.com.au/chipster/computers/CHRP/whatsCHRP.html)}. [Current OS statuses?] (1997-03-23)
prajNaptisat. (T. btags yod; C. jiaming you; J. kemyoyu; K. kamyongyu 假名有). In Sanskrit, "imputed existence," a term used by the Buddhist philosophical schools to describe the ontological status of those phenomena that exist as designations, imputations, or conventions. The term is often contrasted with DRAVYASAT, or "substantial existence," a quality of those phenomena that possess a more objective nature. The various school of Buddhist philosophy differ on the meaning and extension of the category of prajNaptisat. The VAIBHĀsIKA school of SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA held that the world is composed of indivisible particles of matter and indivisible moment of time, which are dravyasat, and that everything composed of an aggregation of those particles or moments is prajNaptisat. In MADHYAMAKA, all dharmas are prajNaptisat and no dharmas are dravyasat. See PRAJNAPTI; DRAVYASAT.
prakṛtisthagotra. (T. rang bzhin gnas rigs; C. benxing zhu zhongxing; J. honshojushusho; K. ponsong chu chongsong 本性住種性). In Sanskrit, "naturally endowed lineage" or "intrinsic lineage." In certain strands of YOGĀCĀRA thought, it is believed that there are two kinds of "seeds" (BĪJA) that lead to future KARMAN. The first is newly acquired karmic seeds (xinxun zhongzi), which are activated as suitable conditions arise and will expire once their karmic efficacy is spent. Second, there are also certain primordial seeds (benyou zhongzi), which remain indestructible and, in a sense, forever determine one's spiritual tendency and potential. One such example is the "naturally endowed lineage" (prakṛtisthagotra) that determines if a person will ultimately become an ARHAT (via either the sRĀVAKA or PRATYEKABUDDHA paths), a buddha, or forever remain as an unenlightened "incorrigible" (ICCHANTIKA). That is, whether one will attain enlightenment or not, and what spiritual status one will ultimately reach, is "predetermined" by such a predisposition. In this controversial tenet, a person lacking the "primordial seed" necessary to qualify one as belonging to a MAHĀYĀNA "lineage" (GOTRA), for example, is forever deprived of the potential to cultivate the path to buddhahood. Together, and in contrast to, the "lineage that is conditioned by habits" (see SAMUDĀNĪTAGOTRA), they are known as "the two lineages: intrinsic and acquired" (xingxi er[zhong]xing). For the two kinds of karmic seeds, see ERZHONG ZHONGZI.
Prime Computer "company" (Or "Pr1ME") A {minicomputer} manufacturer. [Dates? Status? Products? Addresses?] (1996-09-28)
Prime Computer ::: (company) (Or Pr1ME) A minicomputer manufacturer.[Dates? Status? Products? Addresses?] (1996-09-28)
print server "printer" A {server} device that is set up on a {network} to route print requests and status information between computers and {printers} connected by a network. A typical print server routes print requests for multiple computers and printers on a network. For example, a networked {workstation} user submits a print command that includes a {print file} and information about the printer to be used, usually a nearby printer for convenience. The print server sends the print file to the requested printer. The printer {spools} the print file and provides job status. The print server relays the status of the printer back to the workstation and makes this status information available to other devices on the network. (1999-02-18)
print server ::: (printer) A server device that is set up on a network to route print requests and status information between computers and printers connected by a network. A typical print server routes print requests for multiple computers and printers on a network.For example, a networked workstation user submits a print command that includes a print file and information about the printer to be used, usually a nearby server relays the status of the printer back to the workstation and makes this status information available to other devices on the network. (1999-02-18)
Privacy, Epistemic: (Lat. privatus, from privus, private) Status of data of knowledge, e.g. somatic sensations, hedonic and emotional states, and perhaps even sense data, in so far as they are directly accessible to a single knowing subject. See Publicity, Epistemic. -- L.W.
process table "operating system, process" A table containing all of the information that must be saved when the {CPU} switches from running one {process} to another in a {multitasking} system. The information in the process table allows the suspended process to be restarted at a later time as if it had never been stopped. Every process has an entry in the table. These entries are known as {process control blocks} and contain the following information: process state - information needed so that the process can be loaded into memory and run, such as the {program counter}, the {stack pointer}, and the values of {registers}. memory state - details of the memory allocation such as pointers to the various memory areas used by the program resource state - information regarding the status of files being used by the process such as {user ID}. Accounting and scheduling information. An example of a UNIX process table is shown below. SLOT ST PID PGRP UID PRI CPU EVENT NAME FLAGS 0 s 0 0 0 95 0 runout sched load sys 1 s 1 0 0 66 1 u init load 2 s 2 0 0 95 0 10bbdc vhand load sys SLOT is the entry number of the process. ST shows whether the process is paused or sleeping (s), ready to run (r), or running on a {CPU} (o). PID is the {process ID}. PGRP is the {process Group}. UID is the {user ID}. PRI is the priority of the process from 127 (highest) to 0 (lowest). EVENT is the {event} on which a process is paused or sleeping. NAME is the name of the process. FLAGS are the process {flags}. A process that has died but still has an entry in the process table is called a {zombie process}. (1998-04-24)
process table ::: (operating system, process) A table containing all of the information that must be saved when the CPU switches from running one process to another in a multitasking system.The information in the process table allows the suspended process to be restarted at a later time as if it had never been stopped. Every process has an entry in the table. These entries are known as process control blocks and contain the following information:process state - information needed so that the process can be loaded into memory and run, such as the program counter, the stack pointer, and the values of registers.memory state - details of the memory allocation such as pointers to the various memory areas used by the programresource state - information regarding the status of files being used by the process such as user ID.Accounting and scheduling information.An example of a UNIX process table is shown below. SLOT ST PID PGRP UID PRI CPU EVENT NAME FLAGS0 s 0 0 0 95 0 runout sched load sys SLOT is the entry number of the process.ST shows whether the process is paused or sleeping (s), ready to run (r), or running on a CPU (o).PID is the process ID.PGRP is the process Group.UID is the user ID.PRI is the priority of the process from 127 (highest) to 0 (lowest).EVENT is the event on which a process is paused or sleeping.NAME is the name of the process.FLAGS are the process flags.A process that has died but still has an entry in the process table is called a zombie process. (1998-04-24)
Promised Land Exoterically, the so-called Holy Land of Palestine, which was promised to the Hebrews as the goal of their wanderings. All peoples of the earth cherish the hope of reaching a Promised Land where peace, happiness, and prosperity will once again be the endowment of the human race. Esoterically it is nirvana or the pristine spiritual laya-state from which issued the eternal monad and to which it shall ultimately return. It also refers to the sublime consummation of human evolutionary destiny which will take place at the end of the seventh round on the last globe of our planetary chain; and to the reaching by the neophyte through self-devised efforts and initiation of the full status of mahatmaship or minor dhyan-chohanship even on this earth.
Psychology ::: Psychology is the science of consciousness and its status and operations in Nature and, if that can be glimpsed or experienced, its status and operations beyond what we know as Nature.Psychology is the knowledge of consciousness and its operations. A complete psychology must be a complex of the science of mind, its operations and its relations to life and body with intuitive and experimental knowledge of the nature of mind and its relations to supermind and spirit. A complete psychology cannot be a pure natural science, but must be a compound of science and metaphysical knowledge.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 12, 12 Page: 316-17, 305
public domain (PD) The total absence of {copyright} protection. If something is "in the public domain" then anyone can copy it or use it in any way they wish. The author has none of the exclusive rights which apply to a copyright work. The phrase "public domain" is often used incorrectly to refer to {freeware} or {shareware} (software which is copyrighted but is distributed without (advance) payment). Public domain means no copyright -- no exclusive rights. In fact the phrase "public domain" has no legal status at all in the UK. See also {archive site}, {careware}, {charityware}, {copyleft}, {crippleware}, {guiltware}, {postcardware} and {-ware}. Compare {payware}.
public domain ::: (PD) The total absence of copyright protection. If something is in the public domain then anyone can copy it or use it in any way they wish. The author has none of the exclusive rights which apply to a copyright work.The phrase public domain is often used incorrectly to refer to freeware or shareware (software which is copyrighted but is distributed without (advance) payment). Public domain means no copyright -- no exclusive rights. In fact the phrase public domain has no legal status at all in the UK.See also archive site, careware, charityware, copyleft, crippleware, guiltware, postcardware and -ware. Compare payware.
pudgala. (P. puggala; T. gang zag; C. ren/buteqieluo; J. nin/futogara; K. in/pot'ŭkkara 人/補特伽羅). In Sanskrit, "person." Although all Buddhist schools deny the existence of a perduring, autonomous self (ĀTMAN), some schools accepted the provisional existence of a person that is associated with one or more of the aggregates (SKANDHA). There is a wide range of opinion as to the precise status of the person. Most Buddhist schools hold that the person is a provisional designation (PRAJNAPTI), but differ as to which among the constituents of mind and body could be designated by the term "person," with some schools asserting that all five aggregates are designated as the person, while others that only the mental consciousness (MANOVIJNĀNA) is the person. The philosophical challenge faced by the Buddhist schools is to be able to uphold the continuity (SAMTĀNA) of the accumulation and experience of KARMAN over the course of a single lifetime as well as potentially infinite lifetimes in both past and future, while simultaneously upholding the fundamental impermanence of mind and matter and the absence of a permanent self (ANĀTMAN). The VĀTSĪPUTRĪYA and the SAMMITĪYA responded to the problem of accounting for personal continuity and rebirth when there is no perduring self by positing the existence of an "inexpressible" (S. avācya) "person" that is neither permanent nor impermanent and which is neither the same as nor different from the aggregates (skandha), but which is the agent of cognition and the bearer of action (KARMAN) from moment to moment and lifetime to lifetime. This position was criticized by other Buddhist schools, including in the ninth chapter of the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA, where VASUBANDHU condemns this view as the heretical assertion of a permanent self or soul (ĀTMAN). Pudgala is more generically also used in a salutary sense in connection with noble persons (ĀRYAPUDGALA) who have achieved one of the four stages of sanctity. See also sREnIKA HERESY.
Rabin Plan ::: Rabin’s peace plan released in January 1989 that called for election of Palestinian delegates who would negotiate with Israel over the status of the territories and the suspension of the Intifada for six months. However, the plan failed due to internal Israeli differences in the status of Jerusalem Palestinians’ right to vote.
RāmaNNa Nikāya. Pāli name of one of the three predominant monastic fraternities (P. NIKĀYA) within the Sinhalese THERAVĀDA SAMGHA, the others being the majority SIYAM NIKĀYA and the AMARAPURA NIKĀYA. The RāmaNNa Nikāya is the smallest of these three, their monastic population being a third that of the Siyam Nikāya and half that of the Amarapura Nikāya. The RāmaNNa Nikāya was one of several reform schools that appeared in Sri Lanka in the mid-nineteenth century. At that time, the dominant Siyam Nikāya only ordained members of the elite Goyigama caste. The Goyigama caste was concentrated in the interior highlands of Sri Lanka, which was governed by the Kandyan king. The lower castes-comprised of toddy tappers and cinnamon peelers (salāgama), who formed the majority population in the British-controlled coastal lowlands-were at most given lower ordination (P. pabbajjā; see S. PRAVRAJITA) as novices (P. sāmanera; S. sRĀMAnERA). This discrimination led to the formation of as many as thirty religious orders whose members came from lower or rising castes. Members of the cinnamon-peeler caste sponsored delegations of religious aspirants who traveled to Burma (Myanmar) in order to receive ordination in an established lineage, ordination they could not receive in Sri Lanka. One such aspirant from the salāgama caste was Ambagahawatte Saranankara, who was ordained on June 12, 1861, by Venerable Gneiyadharma Sangharāja of the Ratnapunna Vihāra in Burma. In 1864, Ambagahawatte Saranankara returned to Sri Lanka and established the RāmaNNa Nikāya order. (RāmaNNa is the Pāli name for the region of south-coastal Burma.) The RāmaNNa Nikāya was established not only in response to caste discrimination but also as an attempt to reform the practices of the Sri Lankan saMgha. Indeed, the RāmaNNa Nikāya's official status as an institution that makes no distinction between castes is portrayed as a return to the Buddha's acceptance of all strata of the Indian caste system. The RāmaNNa Nikāya is particularly strong in the southwestern coastal regions of Sri Lanka, where it was founded.
Rasha (&
Rdo rje grags ldan. (Dorje Drakden). A Tibetan DHARMAPĀLA associated with PE HAR RGYAL PO as his "minister" (T. blon po) who also takes possession of Pe har's medium, the GNAS CHUNG chos rje (Nechung Choje), the "state oracle" of Tibet. One version of the origin of the oracle is that Rdo rje grags ldan, wishing to rise above his present status, began to appear to the monks of Tshal gung thang. Rather than inviting the god to take up residence at the monastery, they trapped him in a box, which they threw into the river. This box made its way to Gnas chung, where he escaped. The monks there thought it appropriate to invite the chief deity of the emanation, and thus Pe har was brought to the monastery to serve as the oracle. Elsewhere, it is explained that because Pe har will soon attain enlightened status as a supramundane protector ('jig rten las 'das pa'i srung ma), he is increasingly reluctant to answer questions pertaining to mundane matters. For this reason, he occasionally sends Rdo rje grags ldan to speak for him through the Gnas chung cho rje.
Realism: Theory of the reality of abstract or general terms, or umversals, which are held to have an equal and sometimes a superior reality to actual physical particulars. Umversals exist before things, ante res. Opposed to nominalism (q.v.) according to which universals have a being only after things, post res. Realism means (a) in ontology that no derogation of the reality of universals is valid, the realm of essences, or possible umversals, being as real as, if not more real than, the realm of existence, or actuality; (b) in epistemology: that sense experience reports a true and uninterrupted, if limited, account of objects; that it is possible to have faithful and direct knowledge of the actual world. While realism was implicit in Egyptian religion, where truth was through deification distinguished from particular truths, and further suggested in certain aspects of Ionian philosophy, it was first explicitly set forth by Plato in his doctrine of the ideas and developed by Aristotle in his doctrine of the forms. According to Plato, the ideas have a status of possibility which makes them independent both of the mind by which they may be known and of the actual world of particulars in which they may take place. Aristotle amended this, so that his forms have a being only in things, in rebus. Realism in its Platonic version was the leading philosophy of the Christian Middle Ages until Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) officially adopted the Aristotelian version. It has been given a new impetus in recent times by Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) in America and by G. E. Moore (1873-) in England. Moore's realism has been responsible for many of his contemporaries in both English-speaking countries. Roughly speaking, the American realists, Montague, Perry, and others, in The New Realism (1912) have directed their attention to the epistemological side, while the English have constructed ontological systems. The most comprehensive realistic systems of the modern period are Process and Reality by A. N. Whitehead (1861-) and Space, Time and Deity by S. Alexander: (1859-1939). The German, Nicolai Hartmann, should also be mentioned, and there are others. -- J.K.F.
Realistic Idealism recognizes the reality of non-ideal types of being, but relegates them to a subordinate status with respect either to quantity of being or power. This view is either atheistic or theistic. Realistic theism admits the existence of one or more kinds of non-mental being considered as independently co-eternal with God, eternally dependent upon Deity, or as a divine creation. Platonic Idealism, as traditionally interpreted, identifies absolute being with timeless Ideas or disembodied essences. Thtse, organically united in the Good, are the archetypes and the dynamic causes of existent, material things. The Ideas are also archetypes of rational thought, and the goal of fine art and morality. Axiological Idealism, a modern development of Platonism and Kantianism, maintains that the category of Value is logically and metaphysically prior to that of Being.
Referring to the status of the human kingdom in the second round, man “is still gigantic and ethereal, but growing firmer and more condensed in body — a more physical man, yet still less intelligent than spiritual; for mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than the physical frame and the mind would not develop as rapidly as the body” (ML 87).
Reincarnating Ego ::: In the method of dividing the human principles into a trichotomy of an upper duad, an intermediate duad,and a lower triad -- or distributively spirit, soul, and body -- the second or intermediate duad,manas-kama, or the intermediate nature, is the ordinary seat of human consciousness, and itself iscomposed of two qualitative parts: an upper or aspiring part, which is commonly called the reincarnatingego or the higher manas, and a lower part attracted to material things, which is the focus of whatexpresses itself in the average man as the human ego, his everyday ordinary seat of consciousness.When death occurs, the mortal and material portions sink into oblivion; while the reincarnating egocarries the best and noblest parts of the spiritual memory of the man that was into the devachan or heavenworld of postmortem rest and recuperation, where the ego remains in the bosom of the monad or of themonadic essence in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, constantly reviewing andimproving upon in its own blissful imagination all the unfulfilled spiritual yearnings and longings of thelife just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the entity now in thedevachan.But the monad above spoken of passes from sphere to sphere on its peregrinations from earth, carryingwith it the reincarnating ego, or what we may for simplicity of expression call the earth-child, in itsbosom, where this reincarnating ego is in its state of perfect bliss and peace, until the time comes when,having passed through all the invisible realms connected by chains of causation with our own planet, itslowly "descends" again through these higher intermediate spheres earthwards. Coincidently does thereincarnating ego slowly begin to reawaken to self-conscious activity. Gradually it feels, at firstunconsciously to itself, the attraction earthwards, arising out of the karmic seeds of thought and emotionand impulse sown in the preceding life on earth and now beginning to awaken; and as these attractionsgrow stronger, in other words as the reincarnating ego awakens more fully, it finds itself under thedomination of a strong psychomagnetic attraction drawing it to the earth-sphere.The time finally comes when it is drawn strongly to the family on earth whose karmic attractions orkarmic status or condition are the nearest to its own characteristics; and it then enters, or attaches itselfto, by reason of the psychomagnetic attraction, the human seed which will grow into the body of thehuman being to be. Thus reincarnation takes place, and the reincarnating ego reawakens to life on earthin the body of a little child.
reliabilism ::: In epistemology, the claim that the status of a belief as knowledge should be judged by whether it was arrived upon through a reliable method. For instance, scientific experiment may be considered a more reliable method than intuition or guesswork.
Rites of passage: Ceremonies clustering about the great turning points of earthly life or the periods of transition from one status to another (birth, puberty, marriage, death, etc.).
Round, Seventh The final manifested round in the evolutionary life cycle of the life-waves coursing around a planetary chain. While little can be said regarding the condition of mankind in the seventh round, humans of the seventh round will have successfully become one with their sixth principle (buddhi); and as the seventh principle (atman) will be predominant in the seventh round, life on earth should then be glorious beyond present understanding. Only in the seventh root-race and in the seventh round will human beings truly and finally have become fully evolved septenary beings: then will they have attained the evolutionary status of dhyani-chohanship.
royalty ::: 1. Character or quality proper to or befitting a sovereign; nobility. 2. Royal status, dignity, or power; sovereignty.
ruptime ::: Unix Berkeley networking command to report the status of all hosts on the net. See also rwho. See ruptime(1N).
ruptime {Unix} {Berkeley networking} command to report the status of all hosts on the net. See also rwho. See ruptime(1N).
sainthood ("s) ::: the status, character or condition, of being a saint.
salokya ::: dwelling in the same status of being as the Divine. salokya
salokya ::: in one status and periphery of being with the Divine; dwelling of the soul in the Divine.
Samadhi ::: A certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of the forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 321
Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,1 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmarandhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 520-21
saMghabheda. (P. sanghabheda; T. dge 'dun gyi dbyen byed pa; C. poseng; J. haso; K. p'asŭng 破僧). In Sanskrit, "splitting the community"; the act of causing a schism in the community of Buddhist monks and nuns (SAMGHA). Technically, a schism occurs when nine or more fully ordained monks separate themselves from the order; a faction of less than nine monks constitutes a "dissension" (saMgharāji) rather than a schism. These schisms may occur over disagreements in the teachings (DHARMA) or details of monastic life (VINAYA). The ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ distinguishes two different types of saMghabheda, one in which there are two separate saMghas established within a single SĪMĀ boundary, the second in which a group attempts to establish a new dispensation with a different teacher. The first and most infamous example of this latter type of schism is the one caused by Buddha's cousin DEVADATTA, who declared that he, and not GAUTAMA, was the real master and that his five practices were the correct dispensation. After failing in his attempts to take Gautama's life, Devadatta convinced a group of monks in the city of VAIsĀLĪ that the asceticism advocated by Gautama and his followers was not rigorous enough; five hundred monks chose to enlist in Devadatta's new order. The act of causing or encouraging such a rift in the saMgha is presented as the worst of the five "uninterrupted deeds" (ĀNANTARYAKARMAN) and is so heinous that it guarantees the perpetrator a KALPA-long lifetime in AVĪCI-the worst of the various Buddhist hells. According to the Abhidharmamahāvibhāsā, the consequences of saMghabheda are so odious that if the malefactor's sentence in hell has not been completed by the time of the annihilation accompanying the end of the kalpa, he will be reborn into another world-system's hell to complete his term. The seriousness of the saMghabheda offense is also demonstrated by the fact that King AsOKA himself warns against it in one of his rock edicts. Therein, he states that any monk who causes schism should be cast from the monastery and returned to the status of a layman. Despite this censure, the Buddhist tradition is full of instances of such divisions in the monastic community. As Buddhism spread through India, a host of different schools (NIKĀYA) emerged, some based on significant doctrinal distinctions, others on regional variations in monastic and ritual observances. Texts that document the proceedings of the third Buddhist council (SAMGĪTI, see COUNCIL, THIRD), which occurred sometime around 250 BCE, list eighteen to twenty major schools.
saMghāvasesa. [alt. saMghātisesa] (P. sanghādisesa; T. dge 'dun lhag ma; C. sengcanzui/sengcanfa; J. sozanzai/sozanho; K. sŭngjanjoe/sŭngjanpop 僧殘罪/僧殘法). In Sanskrit, "probationary offense"; a category of offenses in the roster of monastic rules (PRĀTIMOKsA) that require penance and/or probation. The saMghāvasesa offenses are the second most serious category of offense in the VINAYA, second only to the "defeats" (PĀRĀJIKA), which render a monk or nun "not in communion" (ASAMVĀSA) with the community. A saMghāvasesa infraction requires either an open confession of the offense before a gathering of monks or else expulsion from the order (SAMGHA) if the offender refuses to confess. According to one paranomastic gloss, because the remedy for these offenses requires the intervention of the saMgha at both the beginning (ādi) and the end (sesa) of the expiation process, these offenses are known collectively as saMghādisesa. The probationary offender receives two different kinds of punishments: penance (MĀNATVA) and temporary probation (PARIVĀSA). The mānatva penance is imposed on a monk who commits a saMghāvasesa offense when that monk immediately confesses the infraction to another monk. In the Pāli vinaya, the penance imposed in this circumstance is called "penance for unconcealed offenses" (apaticchannamānatta), which entails the loss of the usual privileges of monkhood for a set period of six nights. If a monk instead conceals a saMghāvasesa offense for a period of time before confessing it, he must undergo a "probationary penance" called either parivāsa or, in Pāli, "penance for concealed offenses" (paticchannamānatta). This probationary penance likewise entails the loss of privileges, but in this case that probation must last for as long as the offense was concealed. After the parivāsa penance is completed, the monk must then undergo mānatta penance for six nights. These penances are similar in some vinaya traditions to those meted out to "pārājika penitents" (sIKsĀDATTAKA). During his probationary period, the offender is stripped of his seniority and expected to observe certain social constraints. For example, the VINAYAPItAKA states that such offenders may not leave the monastery grounds without being accompanied by at least four monks (BHIKsU) who are not themselves on probation. Also, every day of his probation, the offending monk must inform the other monks of the offense for which he is being punished. The exact number of precepts that fall under the category of saMghāvasesa varies somewhat among the different vinaya traditions; a typical list of thirteen rules for monks includes (1) willingly emitting semen, (2) engaging in lustful physical contact with a woman, (3) using sexually inappropriate language toward a woman, (4) praising sexual intercourse as a religious act, (5) acting as the liaison in the arrangement of a marriage, (6) building a personal hut that is larger than the prescribed dimensions, (7) building a monastery (VIHĀRA) for the community that does not meet the prescribed specifications, (8) falsely and maliciously accusing another monk of an infraction, (9) taking up an issue as a ploy to falsely accuse another monk of an infraction, (10) taking any action that may result in a schism within the community (SAMGHABHEDA), (11) siding with or following a monk who has created a schism in the order, (12) refusing to acknowledge and to heed the admonishments of training given by other monks, and finally (13) corrupting families. Nuns are typically subject to seventeen rules, including a few additional restrictions enumerated in the bhiksunīprātimoksa. After completing the parivāsa penance and his six nights of mānatva, the monk approaches the saMgha, which in this case means a quorum of monks consisting of at least twenty members, and requests to be "called back into community" (S. ABHYĀYANA, P. abbhāna). If the saMgha agrees, the monk is declared free of the saMghāvasesa offense and is restored to his former status.
Santi Asoke. A modern reform movement in Thailand that began under the leadership of Bodhirak (P. Bodhirakka), a monk who had a storied past as a television entertainer, spirit medium, and bhikkhu (S. BHIKsU). In 1975 he set up an independent sangha, ordaining monks and nuns himself, thereby ignoring the traditional requirement that a monk must have a minimum of ten years of seniority before ordaining others. For this reason, along with his violation of several other rules in the monastic code, Bodhirak was officially defrocked by the Supreme Sangha Council of Thailand. Santi Asoke emphasizes a semi-ascetic lifestyle for the laity and austerity for the monks, as opposed to what he criticized as the luxurious living conditions enjoyed by many popular monks around the country, some of whom live in modern buildings, travel in private cars, and have meals brought to their residences. Santi Asoke monks wear brown robes rather than the traditional saffron color commonly worn by many monks in Thailand, do not shave their eyebrows, and adhere to a strict vegetarian diet. Laypeople also observe vegetarianism and many observe the eight precepts (see sĪLA, AstĀnGASAMANVĀGATAM UPAVĀSAM) in their daily lives. The group criticizes lavish merit-making as lacking in moral virtue, which it feels can be attained by working hard, avoiding unnecessary consumption, and sharing one's surplus with the rest of society. In addition to avoiding traditional metaphysical beliefs and practices, the group is also opposed to meditation. It views the concept of right concentration (SAMYAKSAMĀDHI), the eighth step of the eightfold path (ĀRYĀstĀnGAMĀRGA), as the culmination of the other steps, not as a separate stage of practice. Santi Asoke also differs from more mainstream forms of Buddhism in that its temples do not have any images of the Buddha, explaining that only the dharma can represent the Buddha. Its adherents view themselves as followers of "authentic Buddhism," as opposed to: (1) occult Buddhism, whose followers believe in superstition, fortune-telling, and the power of amulets; (2) capitalistic Buddhism, which Santi Asoke contends is composed of business people who practice meditation in order to become more competitive; and (3) hermetic Buddhism, which encourages asceticism and which the Asoke group criticizes as selfish. Santi Asoke affords a somewhat higher status to its female renunciants than does the mainstream Thai sangha, granting female monastics status and title equivalent to that of novice monks, rather than the mainstream's wholly lay MAE CHI designation. Bodhirak and scores of his followers were arrested in 1989 at the behest of Thailand's Supreme Sangha Council for committing the criminal act of impersonating monks. All were convicted, but given suspended sentences. While opposed by the federal government and the sangha, Santi Asoke maintains its existence and influence through the efforts of a small number of politically connected lay followers, most notably a former governor of Bangkok.
sapajou ::: n. --> Any one of several species of South American monkeys of the genus Cebus, having long and prehensile tails. Some of the species are called also capuchins. The bonnet sapajou (C. subcristatus), the golden-handed sapajou (C. chrysopus), and the white-throated sapajou (C. hypoleucus) are well known species. See Capuchin.
sasvatam padam avyayam ::: the eternal and imperishable status. [Gita 18.56]
Scientist: Capitalized, refers to high-status Enlightened technomancers, especially within the Technocracy and Society of Ether.
screen saver "tool" A program which displays either a completely black image or a constantly changing image on a computer monitor to prevent a stationary image from "burning" into the phosphor of the screen. Screen savers usually start automatically after the computer has had no user input for a preset time. Some screen savers come with many different modules, each giving a different effect. Approximately pre-1990, many {cathode ray tubes}, in TVs, computer {monitors} or elsewhere, were prone to "burn-in"; that is, if the same pattern (e.g., the {WordPerfect} status line; the {Pong} score readout; or a TV channel-number display) were shown at the same position on the screen for very long periods of time, the phosphor on the screen would "fatigue" and that part of the screen would seem greyed out, even when the CRT was off. Eventually CRTs were developed which were resistant to burn-in (and which sometimes went into {sleep} mode after a period of inactivity); but in the meantime, solutions were developed: home video game systems of the era (e.g., Atari 2600s) would, when not being played, change the screen every few seconds, to avoid burn-in; and computer screen saver programs were developed. The first screen savers were simple screen blankers - they just set the screen to all black, but, in the best case of {creeping featurism} ever recorded, these tiny (often under 1K long) programs grew without regard to efficiency or even basic usefulness. At first, small, innocuous {display hacks} (generally on an almost-black screen) were added. Later, more complex effects appeared, including {animations} (often with sound effects!) of arbitrary length and complexity. Along the way, avoiding repetitive patterns and burn-in was completely forgotten and "screen savers" such as {Pointcast} were developed, which make no claim to save your monitor, but are simply bloated {browsers} for {push media} which self-start after the machine has been inactive for a few minutes. (1997-11-23)
Self-Deification ::: The process of becoming more "god"-like in awareness, attachments, and/or abilities. Many paradigms that are LHP-oriented focus on deifying the self and differ from RHP paradigms that seek to shed or shatter the illusion of a self (see Anatta) entirely. Self-deification — or at least the attributes we ascribe to self-deification — can arise in either path and is frequently a result of becoming more aware of the nature of reality and What is doing the observing, regardless of whether one is seeking deification of the self or not. But that attachment to deification and its status as a goal along the path is what primarily distinguishes LHP from RHP philosophies.
Shamen bujing wangzhe lun. (J. Shamon fukyoosharon; K. Samun pulgyong wangja non 沙門不敬王者論). In Chinese, "The sRAMAnA Does Not Pay Homage to the Ruler Treatise." In response to the anticlerical policy of the monarch Huanxuan (who reigned for less than three months as King of Chu in 404) LUSHAN HUIYUAN compiled this apologetical treatise in 404. It is preserved in the fifth roll of the HONGMING JI. The treatise is comprised of five sections. The first two sections, on householders and monks, detail the differences in their social status and way of life. The other three sections are concerned with more doctrinal and theoretical issues, which are presented in the form of a debate between imaginary opponents. In the third section, Huiyuan, as the "host," argues that monks, unlike householders including the worldly ruler, seek the "truth" and thus strive to free the "spirit" from the realm of worldly desires and emotions, or SAMSĀRA. In the fourth section, the opponent argues that there is no truth beyond that which has been revealed by the sages of the past. In the last section, Huiyuan replies that these sages are merely manifestations of the Buddha, or the immortal spirit. Although the immortal spirit "mutually resonates" (GANYING) with SAMSĀRA, it is not, Huiyuan explains, a worldly thing itself. The argument for the immortality of the spirit also appears in Zongbing's (375-443) Mingfo lun ("Treatise on Clarifying Buddhism)," the MOUZI LIHUO LUN, and various other treatises found in the Hongming ji.
Sharm al-Sheikh Memorandum ::: An agreement reached between Barak and Arafat on September 4, 1999 that resolved to institute the interim agreement in stages of Israeli redeployment from the West Bank and Gaza by dividing the territories into areas. It also called for permanent status negotiations.
Shotoku Taishi. (聖德太子) (572-622). Japanese statesman of the Asuka period (593-710) and second son of Emperor Yomei (r. 585-587), who is traditionally assumed to have played an important role in the early dissemination of Buddhism in Japan. He is also known as Umayado no Miko (Prince Stable Door), but by the eighth century, he became known as Shotoku Taishi (lit. Prince Sagacious Virtue). Given that the earliest significant writings on the life of Shotoku Taishi come from two early histories, the Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720), which are both written nearly a century after his death, little can be said definitively about his biography. According to the traditional accounts in these two texts, Suiko (554-628), the aunt of Prince Shotoku and the Japanese monarch, appointed her nephew regent in 593, giving him broad political powers. Thanks to his enlightened leadership, Prince Shotoku is credited with numerous historical achievements. These include the promotion of Buddhism within the court under an edict he issued in 594; promulgation of the Seventeen-Article Constitution in 604, which stresses the importance of the monarchy and lays out basic Buddhist and Confucian principles; sponsorship of trade missions to China; construction of the monasteries of HoRYuJI and SHITENNoJI; authorship of two chronological histories (Tennoko and Kokki); and composition of three of the earliest Buddhist commentaries in Japan, on the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, and sRĪMĀLĀDEVĪSIMHANĀDASuTRA ("Lion's Roar of Queen srīmālā"), which demonstrate his deep familiarity with Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine. The credibility of Prince Shotoku's achievements as described in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki is undermined by fact that both texts were commissioned by the newly empowered monarchy in an attempt to strengthen its political standing. Some scholars have thus argued that because the new royal family wanted to identify itself with the powerful instrument of the new religion, they selected the person of Prince Shotoku, who shared their lineage, to serve as the first political patron of Buddhism in Japan. This historical narrative focused on Prince Shotoku thus denigrated the importance of the defeated SOGA clan's extensive patronage of Buddhism. As early as the Nara period (710-794), Prince Shotoku began taking on legendary, even mythical status, and was eventually transformed into one of Japan's greatest historical figures, representing the quintessence of Buddhist religious virtue and benevolent political leadership. Priests often dedicated temples to him or transferred the merit of religious enterprises to Shotoku. Both SHINRAN (1173-1263) and NICHIREN (1222-82) dedicated written works to his name. Throughout the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods, what is now referred to as the cult of Shotoku Taishi was widely popular and members of the aristocracy regularly venerated him (a practice referred to as Taishi shinko, lit. devotion to the Prince).
Sign-Language: A system of signs established either traditionally (primitive tribes) or technically (deaf-mutes) for the purpose of communicating concepts or sentences, rather than letters or sounds or words as in signalling The question of the priority of vocal and gesture speech is much debated, but there is no doubt that primitive peoples used signs for communicating intentions and expressing their needs, especially when dealing with tribes with a different tongue. This is almost a psychological reflex, as it may be noted in the elementary improvised mimic of travellers among people they do not understand, and also in the vivid gestures accompanying the utterances of even civilized people like those of the Mediternnean shores. Sign-languages have a psychological, sociological and ethnological importance, as they may reveal the fundamental trains of thought, the sociological status, the race peculiarities, the geographical segregation, and even the beliefs and rituals of those who use them. Their study would also give material for various syntactical, semantical and logical problems.
siho. (C. shihao; J. shigo 諡號). In Korean, lit. "posthumous title," honorific title and/or name granted posthumously to an especially eminent Buddhist monk by the king. In ancient China, the shihao was originally a commendatory (or in some cases derogatory) title that was given to members of the royal clan and high government officials in accordance with their deeds. In Korea, the posthumous title came to be used in Confucian, secular, and Buddhist contexts, but virtually always in a commendatory denotation; it could signify both a name and/or an honorific title, presumably depending on the hierarchical status of the person. Siho became extremely popular in Korea, especially during the Choson period, when Choson kings received two-Sinograph-long siho from the Chinese emperor, which then became their posthumous names; officials also received siho, which were posthumous honorific titles bestowed by the king. Since the Koryo period, renowned Korean monks were given honorific titles such as "state preceptor" (KUKSA) and "royal preceptor" (wangsa), sometimes combined with posthumous names, as in the case of Chinul (1158-1210), who received both the posthumous title kuksa and the posthumous name Puril Pojo (Buddha Sun that Shines Universally; see POJO CHINUL). See also TANGHO.
siksādattaka. (T. bslab pa sbyin pa; C. yuxue; J. yogaku; K. yohak 與學). In Sanskrit, lit. "one who has been given [penance] training," viz., a "pārājika penitent"; a monk (or nun) who had transgressed one of the major precepts that bring "defeat" (PĀRĀJIKA) but continues to live in the monastery as a lifelong penitent. A pārājika monk or nun, such as one who engaged in sexual intercourse, would be given the lifelong punishment of being "not in communion" (ASAMVĀSA) with the monastic community. The monk who is asaMvāsa is not permitted to participate in any of the official monastic proceedings or ecclesiastical acts (KARMAN), thus effectively ostracizing him from the formal activities of the monastery. But in almost all extant recensions of the VINAYA (including those associated with the SARVĀSTIVĀDA, MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA, MAHĀSĀMGHIKA, DHARMAGUPTAKA, and MAHĪsĀSAKA schools), monks who have received the asaMvāsa punishment could continue to live in the monastery even after their transgressions in the special status of a siksādattaka (or siksādattā for a nun). (The Pāli vinaya of the THERAVĀDA school is apparently the only recension that does not recognize the status of a siksādattaka, although the term is known to the Pāli commentarial tradition.) The siksādattaka was superior in status to regular novices (sRĀMAnERA), the subordinate members of the SAMGHA, but inferior to the most junior of monks (BHIKsU). The siksādattaka was assigned such menial daily tasks as serving food to the senior monks or cleaning the toilets, and his actions were severely restricted: he was forbidden from teaching others, making extended trips outside the monastery, accepting the types of salutations and respect that monks normally would receive, or, in some traditions, listening to the PRĀTIMOKsA recitation. These penances are similar to those meted out to monks on temporary probation (PARIVĀSA and MĀNATVA) for committing the SAMGHĀVAsEsA offenses. The lifelong penance of the siksādattaka could be rescinded and the penitent restored to good standing if he subsequently became an ARHAT.
Since the middle of the fourth root-race, no monads from the animal kingdom could any longer enter the human kingdom because from that time the earth started on its ascending arc of evolution. Nevertheless, the monads imbodied in the anthropoids will enter the very lowest and least evolved branchlets of the human kingdom during the fifth round. The monads now in anthropoid bodies will disappear from incarnation during the present fifth root-race to enter their inter-round paranirvana, remaining as astral monads until the next (fifth) round. A relatively few individuals among the anthropoids, because of having attained the most advanced degree of evolution in the anthropoid stock, will reach quasi-human status, although still in anthropoid bodies, before the fifth root-race has reached its end. Even these exceptional anthropoids will probably have died out before the fifth root-race is ended or by the early sixth root-race — a period several million years from now.
snap dump "operating system" A {memory dump}, often partial, requested by a program to display its current status for debugging. Program execution often continues normally following a snap dump, as opposed to a {crash dump}. [Short for "snapshot"?] (2006-05-27)
snap dump ::: (operating system) A memory dump, often partial, requested by a program to display its current status for debugging. Program execution often continues normally following a snap dump, as opposed to a crash dump.[Short for snapshot?](2006-05-27)
SNMP agent "networking" A software process that responds to queries using the {Simple Network Management Protocol} to provide status and statistics about a network {node}. (1995-11-11)
SNMP agent ::: (networking) A software process that responds to queries using the Simple Network Management Protocol to provide status and statistics about a network node. (1995-11-11)
social Darwinism ::: A 19th-century political philosophy that attempted to explain differences in social status (particularly class and racial differences) on the basis of evolutionary fitness. Social Darwinism is generally considered unscientific by modern philosophers of science.
Soho Myocho. [alt. Shuho Myocho] (宗峰妙超) (1282-1337/8). Japanese ZEN master of the RINZAISHu; commonly known as DAITo KOKUSHI (State Preceptor Great Lamp). Daito was a native of Harima in present-day Hyogo prefecture. At the age of ten, he entered the nearby TENDAI monastery of Engyoji on Mt. Shosha and received Tendai training under a VINAYA master Kaishin (d.u.). Later, Daito visited the Zen master KoHo KENNICHI at the monastery of Manjuji in Kamakura and received the full monastic precepts. In 1304, Daito began his training under NANPO JoMYo at the temple of Tokoan in Kyoto. He followed Nanpo to Manjuji in Kyoto and again to KENCHoJI in Kamakura. At Kenchoji, Daito had his first awakening. According to legend, Daito is said to have been instructed by Nanpo to continue his post-SATORI (awakening) cultivation for another twenty years. During this period of training, Daito is said to have once lived as a beggar underneath the Gojo Bridge in Kyoto. Shortly after his teacher's death in 1308, Daito left for Kyoto where he did indeed live for twenty years in a hermitage known as Ungoan. Later, Daito moved to the Murasakino district in Kyoto and established the monastery of DAITOKUJI. In 1323, he was summoned by retired Emperor Hanazono (r. 1308-1318) and was given the title State Preceptor Master Daito. Daito also received the patronage of Emperor Godaigo (r. 1318-1339). They elevated the status of Daitokuji to that of NANZENJI, then the most powerful GOZAN monastery in Kyoto. Daito and Nanpo's lineage, now known as the otokan, came to dominate the Rinzai Zen tradition.
Sojiji. (總持寺). In Japanese, "DHĀRAnĪ Monastery"; one of the two main monasteries of the SoToSHu of ZEN Buddhism, located in Tsurumi, Yokohama. This monastery was originally established on the Noto peninsula (present-day Ishikawa prefecture) in 740 as Morookadera by the monk GYoGI (668-749), who also founded ToDAIJI. In 1321, KEIZAN JoKIN (1268-1325), the founding patriarch of the Soto Zen institution, came into possession of this local monastery, which he renamed Sojiji. In 1322, Sojiji were sanctioned as an official monastery by Emperor Godaigo (r. 1318-1339), an event that is traditionally considered to mark the official establishment of Soto as an independent Zen institution in Japan. Keizan later entrusted Sojiji to his disciple Gasan Joseki (1276-1366). Sojiji was an important government-sponsored monastery during the Muromachi and Edo periods and its status rivaled that of the other main Soto monastery, EIHEIJI; in its heyday, the monastery is said to have had more than seventy buildings within its precincts. After burning to the ground in 1898, the monastery was rebuilt in Yokohama in 1911, because Soto Zen leaders calculated that a location near Tokyo would have strategic value for the growth of the sect. Sojiji is entered through a gigantic copper-roofed gate (sanmon) that was built in 1969. The butsuden, or main buddha hall, was completed in 1915 and enshrines a statue of sĀKYAMUNI with his disciples MAHĀKĀsYAPA and ĀNANDA. There is a founders' hall (taisodo) for Keizan Jokin that displays statues of the major historical figures of the Soto Zen tradition and that also doubles as a lecture hall; in addition, there is a large SAMGHA hall (daisodo) for ordaining and training monks, which displays a statue of the BODHISATTVA MANJUsRĪ. Other buildings at the monastery include additional living quarters for the monks, a hall for Emperor Godaigo, and a homotsukan, or treasure house, full of important cultural properties held at the monastery, including a hanging tapestry from the Edo period that originally served as a cover for the chair of senior monks delivering sermons, and several precious buddha images.
Songgwangsa. (松廣寺). In Korean, "Piney Expanse Monastery"; the twenty-first district monastery (PONSA) of the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located on Mount Chogye in South Cholla province. Along with HAEINSA and T'ONGDOSA, Songgwangsa is one of the "three-jewel monasteries" (SAMBO SACH'AL), which represent one of the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) of Buddhism; Songgwangsa has traditionally been considered the "SAMGHA-jewel monastery" (sŭngbo sach'al), because of the succession of sixteen state preceptors (K. kuksa; C. GUOSHI) who resided at the monastery during the Koryo dynasty. According to legend, Songgwangsa began as a small monastery named Kilsangsa, which was founded by a certain Hyerim (d.u.). In 1197, that monastery was restored and expanded by the eminent Son master POJO CHINUL, who moved his SAMĀDHI and PRAJNĀ Community (CHoNGHYE KYoLSA) to the Kilsangsa site. To commemorate the establishment of the expanded monastery, King Hŭijong (r. 1204-1211) renamed it SUSoNSA, or Son Cultivation Community, in 1208. (Still today, the meditation hall at the monastery uses the name Susonsa.) Chinul's reliquary STuPA, the Kamno t'ap (Sweet Dew Reliquary), sits on a hill behind the meditation hall, overlooking the monastery he founded. During the Choson dynasty, Songgwang, the original name of the mountain on which Susonsa was built, became the name of the monastery itself, and the mountain came to be known instead as Mt. Chogye. One of the most famous buildings at the monastery is the Kuksa chon (State Preceptors Hall), built in 1369 and now listed as Korean National Treasure no. 56, which enshrined early Choson-period portraits (CHINYoNG) of Chinul and the sixteen state preceptors at Songgwangsa. (The portraits were themselves collectively listed as cultural treasure no. 1043.) The portraits were stolen in 1995 in a brazen late-night heist and only three have been recovered. In 1969, Songgwangsa was elevated to the status of an ecumenical monastery (CH'ONGNIM), and is one of the five such centers in the contemporary Chogye order, which are all expected to provide training in the full range of practices that exemplify the major strands of the Korean Buddhist tradition. Songgwangsa is thus also known as the Chogye Ch'ongnim.
SQL3 ::: (database, standard, language) A draft standard for another extension of SQL. The latest SQL3 Working Draft addresses the requirement for objects and object identifiers in SQL and also specifies supporting features such as encapsulation, subtypes, inheritance, and polymorphism.In the USA, SQL3 is being processed as both an ANSI Domestic (D) project and as an ISO project. It is expected to be complete in 1998. . .[ISO/IEC SQL Revision. ISO-ANSI Working Draft Database Language SQL (SQL3), Jim Melton - Editor, document ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21 N6931, ANSI, July 1992].[Current Status?](2002-04-21)
SQL3 "database, standard, language" A draft {standard} for another extension of {SQL}. The latest SQL3 Working Draft addresses the requirement for {objects} and "object identifiers" in SQL and also specifies supporting features such as {encapsulation}, {subtypes}, {inheritance}, and {polymorphism}. In the USA, SQL3 is being processed as both an {ANSI} Domestic ("D") project and as an {ISO} project. It is expected to be complete in 1998. {November 1992 paper (ftp://speckle.ncsl.nist.gov/isowg3/dbl/BASEdocs/sql3overview.txt)}. {Working draft (ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/standards/sql/)}. [ISO/IEC SQL Revision. ISO-ANSI Working Draft Database Language SQL (SQL3), Jim Melton - Editor, document ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21 N6931, {ANSI}, July 1992]. [Current Status?] (2002-04-21)
Sri Aurobindo: "A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operations of the self-manifestation of the being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The timeless Spirit is not necessarily a blank; it may hold all in itself, but in essence, without reference to time or form or relation or circumstance, perhaps in an eternal unity. Eternity is the common term between Time and the Timeless Spirit. What is in the Timeless unmanifested, implied, essential, appears in Time in movement, or at least in design and relation, in result and circumstance. These two then are the same Eternity or the same Eternal in a double status; they are a twofold status of being and consciousness, one an eternity of immobile status, the other an eternity of motion in status.” The Life Divine ::: "The spiritual fullness of the being is eternity; . . . ” The Life Divine
SShkya^mtikti ::: liberation by conscious existence in one world of being with the Divine ; liberation into dwelling in the same status of being as the Divine ; eternal ecstatic dwelling in the highest existence of the Supreme.
State: (Lat. status, Ital. stato; the term introduced by Machiavelli) A political organization based upon a common territory and exercising control over the inhabitants of that territory. Essential for a state is the existence of a government, and in the "legal state", a written or unwritten constitution. By the pure theory of law (Kelsen), the state is identified with law. By others (Duguit) considered a mere fiction, devised to conceal the matter of fact preponderance of particular persons or groups. The state is sometimes explained as the positive or actual organization of the legislative or judicial powers. (In America also: one of the commonwealths which form the United States of America, Brazil, Mexico). -- W.E.
Statement - 1. the summary statement documenting terms, conditions, or status of an account. An example is a statement of retail credit account status. Or 2. the formal document presenting the financial condition and operating performance of an enterprise. These include the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of changes in financial position. Also included may be documents for internal use such as performance appraisals, budgets, and so on. Or 3. verbal utterance or proposition.
Statement of account – Is the report indicating the account status of an agreement between creditor and debtor.
stat "programming, operating system" The {Unix} {system call} to get the properties of a file or directory. stat is called like this: struct stat s; if (stat("/path/to/file", &s)) { /* handle error */ } This will fill the {struct} with the following data: id of {device} containing file, {inode} number, permissions (mode), number of {hard links}, {user id} of owner, {group id} of owner, device id (if special file), total size in {bytes}, block size for file system I/O, number of 512B blocks allocated, time of last access, time of last modification, time of last status change. If {stat} is called on a {symbolic link}, it returns the properties of the link's target. Variant {lstat} returns the properties of the link itself. Variant {fstat} takes a {file descriptor} instead of a path. {Unix man page}: stat(2). (2018-09-04)
Statuses of transformation ::: First is the psychic transforation in which all is in contact with the Divine through the individua psyciiic consciousness.
sthanam sasvatam ::: to the eternal status. [Gita 18.62]
subtle body ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The terminology of Yoga recognises besides the status of our physical and vital being, termed the gross body and doubly composed of the food sheath and the vital vehicle, besides the status of our mental being, termed the subtle body and singly composed of the mind sheath or mental vehicle, a third, supreme and divine status of supra-mental being, termed the causal body and composed of a fourth and a fifth vehicle which are described as those of knowledge and bliss.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sudoksa. (修德寺). In Korean, "Cultivating Merit Monastery"; the seventh district monastery (PONSA) of the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located on the slopes of Toksung (Virtue Exalted) mountain in South Ch'ungch'ong province. According to Sudoksa's monastic records, the monastery was first constructed at the end of the Paekche dynasty by Sungje (d.u.). During the reign of the Paekche king Mu (r. 600-641) the monk Hyehyon (d.u.) is said to have lectured there on the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"). Alternate records state, however, that the monastery was founded by Chimyong (d.u.) during the reign of the Paekche king Pop (r. 599-600). The monastery was subsequently repaired by the renowned Koryo-dynasty Son monk NAONG HYEGŬN (1320-1376), and since that time Sudoksa has been one of the major centers of SoN (C. CHAN) practice in Korea. Sudoksa is best known for its TAEUNG CHoN, the main shrine hall. The taeung chon was rebuilt in 1308 and is presumed to be the oldest wooden building in Korea, having been spared the conflagrations that struck many Korean monasteries during the Japanese Hideyoshi invasions (1592-1598). It was constructed in the Chusimp'o style, so that its support pillars are wider in the middle than they are at the bottom or top. The Tap'o-style bracketing, imported from Fujian during the Southern Song dynasty, is similar to other Koryo-era monasteries, such as Pongjongsa and PUSoKSA. Inside the hall are images of three buddhas, sĀKYAMUNI, AMITĀBHA and BHAIsAJYAGURU, and two bodhisattvas, MANJUsRĪ and SAMANTABHADRA. Paintings depict KsITIGARBHA, the ten kings of hell (see SHIWANG; YAMA), and some indigenous Korean divinities. Many of the oldest original wall paintings were damaged during the Korean War and have now been removed to the safety of the monastery's museum. The courtyard holds two STuPAs, a three-story stone pagoda probably from the Koryo dynasty, and an older seven-story granite pagoda from the late Paekche dynasty, with typical upward curving corners. There is a thirty-three foot high statue of Maitreya a short walk up the mountain; the statue is unusual in that it is wearing Korean clothes, including a double cylindrical hat. It was erected by the Son master MAN'GONG WoLMYoN (1872-1946), one of the renowned Son teachers of the modern era who taught at Sudoksa; other famous masters associated with the monastery include KYoNGHo SoNGU (1849-1912), the nun KIM IRYoP (1869-1971), and Hyeam Hyonmun (1884-1985). Sudoksa recently opened a museum near its entrance to hold the large number of important historical artistic and written works the monastery owns, such as the exquisite wall paintings that formerly were located in the taeung chon. In 1996, Sudoksa was elevated to the status of an ecumenical monastery (CH'ONGNIM), and is one of the five such centers in the contemporary Chogye order, which are all expected to provide training in the full range of practices that exemplify the major strands of the Korean Buddhist tradition; the monastery is thus also known as the Toksung Ch'ongnim.
Sukhothai. The first Thai polity in mainland Southeast Asia. Located in the central Menam valley, it began as a frontier outpost of the Khmer empire. In 1278 two local princes raised a successful rebellion to create a new kingdom with the city of Sukhothai as its capital. Under King Ramkhamhaeng (r. 1279-1298), Sukhothai brought several neighboring states under its sway and by the early 1300s enjoyed suzerainty over entire the Menam river basin, and westward across the maritime provinces of Lower Burma. Ramkhamhaeng established diplomatic and commercial relations with China and its envoys twice visited the Chinese capital on tributary missions to the emperor. Having won independence, the kings of Sukhothai chose a new cultural orientation to buttress their rule. The former Khmer overlords were votaries of Hinduism and MAHĀYĀNA Buddhism and the earliest CAITYAs in the city display the architectural features of traditional Khmer tower pyramids. The Thai ruling house abandoned these traditions in favor of Sinhalese-style Pāli Buddhism. In the 1330s a charismatic monk named Si Satha introduced a Sinhalese ordination lineage into the kingdom along with a collection of buddha relics around which was organized a state cult. The shift in religious affiliation is reflected in the lotus-bud and bell-shaped caityas built during the period, which have their prototypes in Sri Lanka. Sukhothai is upheld as a golden age in Thai cultural history. Known for its innovations in architecture and iconography, the kingdom also gave definitive form to the modern Thai writing system which is based on Mon and Khmer antecedents. By the mid-fourteenth century, with the rise of the kingdom of AYUTHAYA to its south, Sukhothai entered a period of decline from which it never recovered. In 1378, Ayuthaya occupied Sukhothai's border provinces, reducing it to the status of a vassal state. After unsuccessful attempts to break free from her southern overlord, Sukhothai was finally absorbed as a province of the Ayuthaya kingdom in the fifteenth century.
sŭngkwa. (C. sengke; J. soka 僧科). In Korean, "ecclesiastical examinations," a clerical examination system used in Korea from the early Koryo through early Choson dynasties to exert state control over the ecclesiastical institution, by selecting monks who would hold official monastic positions. The examination system was established in 958 during the reign of the Koryo king Kwangjong (r. 949-975) and the examinations were originally administered every three years. There is no direct Chinese analogue for this kind of selective examination system conducted at the state level and it seems to have been a distinctively Korean creation. There were two separate examinations to select official monks: the Doctrinal (KYO, C. Jiao) school selection (KYOJONG SoN) and the Meditation (SoN, C. CHAN) school selection (SoNJONG SoN). The selection examination for the Doctrinal (Kyo) school was held at WANGNYUNSA, one of the ten major monasteries built in the Koryo capital of Kaesong by Wang Kon (T'aejo, r. 918-943), the first king of the Koryo dynasty; the Meditation (Son) exams were held at KWANGMYoNGSA, also located in the capital. Monks who passed the examination were qualified to hold official ecclesiastical status. Monks in both the Kyo and Son schools who passed the examinations were appointed, in ascending order, to the positions of taedok (great virtue), taesa (great master), ijungdaesa (second-grade great master), and samjungdaesa (third-grade great master). Beyond these positions common to both schools, there were two supreme positions exclusive to each school: sujwa (head seat) and SŬNGT'ONG for Kyo monks; and sonsa (Son master) and taesonsa (great Son master) for Son monks. State preceptors (KUKSA) and royal preceptors (WANGSA), the highest ecclesiastical offices during the Koryo dynasty and the symbolic religious teachers to the state and the king, were appointed from monks who held the positions of sŭngt'ong or taesonsa. The subject matter for the Kyo examination was derived from the AVATAMSAKASuTRA (Huayan jing) and the DAsABHuMIVYĀKHYĀNA (SHIDIJING LUN); for the Son examination, materials were taken from the JINGDE CHUANDENG LU and the SoNMUN YoMSONG CHIP. The examination system continued during the Choson dynasty despite the state suppression of Buddhism, but was abolished during the reign of King Chungjong (r. 1506-1544). The monastic examinations were subsequently revived in 1550 during the reign of King Myongjong (r. 1545-1567), but again abolished in 1565.
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)
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 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 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 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]. .[Current status?] (1994-12-15)
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition "application" (SCADA) Systems are used in industry to monitor and control plant status and provide logging facilities. SCADA systems are highly configurable, and usually interface to the plant via {PLCs}. (1997-02-11)
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition ::: (application) (SCADA) Systems are used in industry to monitor and control plant status and provide logging facilities. SCADA systems are highly configurable, and usually interface to the plant via PLCs. (1997-02-11)
Syntax-Case "language" A {macro} system for {Scheme} by R. Kent Dybvig "dyb@cs.indiana.edu". It is superior to the low-level system described in the Revised^4 Report ({R4RS}). Pattern variables are ordinary identifiers with essentially the same status as lexical variable names and {macro} {keywords}. The {syntax} is modified to recognise and handle references to pattern variables. Version 2.1 works with {Chez Scheme} and the {Macintosh} port runs under {MacGambit} 2.0 {(ftp://iuvax.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme/syntax-case.tar.Z)}. {Macintosh (ftp://maya.dei.unipd.it/pub/mac/gambit/)}. ["Syntactic Abstraction in Scheme", Robert Hieb, R. Kent Dybvig and Carl Bruggeman IUCS TR
System/360 ::: (computer) The generic name for the CPUs and architecture released by IBM on 1964-04-07. The 360 was marketed as a general purpose computer with 'all round' functionality - hence 360 (degrees).Models ranged from the 360/20 to the 360/65 and later the 360/95, with typical memory configurations from 16K to 1024K.Elements of the architecture, such as the basic instruction set are still in use on IBM mainframes today. Operating System/360 (OS/360) was developed for System/360. Other associated operating systems included DOS, OS/MFT and OS/MVT.The 360 architecture was based on an 8-bit byte, 16 general purpose registers, 24-bit addressing, and a PSW (Program Status Word) including a location counter.Gene Amdahl, then an IBM employee, is generally acknowledged as the 360's chief architect. He later went on to found Amdahl Corporaton, a manufacture of PCM mainframe equipment.The 360's predecessors were the smaller IBM 1401 and the large IBM 7090 series. If was followed by the IBM 370.See also ABEND, ALC, BAL, Big Red Switch, HCF, mode bit, PL360, PL/S.(2004-06-06)
System/360 "computer" The generic name for the {CPUs} and architecture released by {IBM} on 1964-04-07. The 360 was marketed as a general purpose computer with 'all round' functionality - hence 360 (degrees). Models ranged from the 360/20 to the 360/65 and later the 360/95, with typical memory configurations from 16K to 1024K. Elements of the architecture, such as the basic {instruction set} are still in use on IBM {mainframes} today. Operating System/360 ({OS/360}) was developed for System/360. Other associated {operating systems} included {DOS}, {OS/MFT} and {OS/MVT}. The 360 architecture was based on an 8-bit {byte}, 16 general purpose {registers}, 24-bit addressing, and a PSW (Program Status Word) including a location counter. {Gene Amdahl}, then an IBM employee, is generally acknowledged as the 360's chief architect. He later went on to found {Amdahl Corporaton}, a manufacture of {PCM} {mainframe} equipment. The 360's predecessors were the smaller {IBM 1401} and the large {IBM 7090} series. If was followed by the {IBM 370}. See also {ABEND}, {ALC}, {BAL}, {Big Red Switch}, {HCF}, {mode bit}, {PL360}, {PL/S}. (2004-06-06)
System Management Bus ::: (hardware, protocol) (SMBus, SMB) A simple two-wire bus used for communication with low-bandwidth devices on a motherboard, especially power related chips such as a laptop's rechargeable battery subsystem (see Smart Battery Data). Other devices might include temperature sensors and lid switches.A device can provide manufacturer information, indicate its model/part number, save its state for a suspend event, report different types of errors, accept control parameters, and return status. The SMB is generally not user configurable or accessible.The bus carries clock, data, and instructions and is based on Philip's I2C serial bus protocol. Support for SMBus devices is provided on Windows 2000. Windows 98 does not support such devices.The PIIX4 chipset provides SMBus functionality. Vendors using SMBus would be required to pay royalties. . . . (1999-08-08)
System Management Bus "hardware, protocol" (SMBus, SMB) A simple two-wire {bus} used for communication with low-bandwidth devices on a motherboard, especially power related chips such as a laptop's rechargeable battery subsystem (see {Smart Battery Data}). Other devices might include temperature sensors and lid switches. A device can provide manufacturer information, indicate its model/part number, save its state for a {suspend} event, report different types of errors, accept control parameters, and return status. The SMB is generally not user configurable or accessible. The bus carries clock, data, and instructions and is based on {Philip's} {I2C} serial bus protocol. Support for SMBus devices is provided on {Windows 2000}. {Windows 98} does not support such devices. The {PIIX4} {chipset} provides SMBus functionality. Vendors using SMBus would be required to pay royalties. {SMBus website (http://sbs-forum.org/smbus/)}. {Software to interrogate a SMB motherboard (http://online.de/home/podien/SMB.HTM)}. {SMB devices, Part 8 Kernel Mode Driver Design Guide, Win2000 DDK (http://microsoft.com/ddk/)}. (1999-08-08)
*Tattvasiddhi. (C. Chengshi lun; J. Jojitsuron; K. Songsil non 成實論). In Sanskrit, the "Proof of Reality"; an important ABHIDHARMA text by HARIVARMAN, probably composed between 250 and 350 CE. (The Sanskrit reconstruction *Tattvasiddhi is now generally preferred over the outmoded rendering *Satyasiddhi.) The text was translated into Chinese by KUMĀRAJĪVA and was studied widely in China during the fifth and sixth centuries. The text is valued for its presentation of the abhidharma of the BAHUsRUTĪYA school of Indian Buddhism and for its refutations of the positions of rival schools, which are organized in terms of ten points of controversy, including the person (PUDGALA), the status of past and present, and the existence of an intermediate state (ANTARĀBHAVA) between death and rebirth. See the extensive discussion in CHENGSHI LUN.
terminal junkie (UK) A {wannabee} or early {larval stage} hacker who spends most of his or her time wandering the directory tree and writing {noddy} programs just to get a fix of computer time. Variants include "terminal jockey", "console junkie", and {console jockey}. The term "console jockey" seems to imply more expertise than the other three (possibly because of the exalted status of the {console} relative to an ordinary terminal). See also {twink}, {read-only user}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-16)
terminal junkie ::: (UK) A wannabee or early larval stage hacker who spends most of his or her time wandering the directory tree and writing noddy programs just to get a fix of three (possibly because of the exalted status of the console relative to an ordinary terminal).See also twink, read-only user.[Jargon File] (1995-02-16)
"The Absolute neither creates nor is created, — in the current sense of making or being made; we can speak of creation only in the sense of the Being becoming in form and movement what it already is in substance and status.” *The Life Divine
“The Absolute neither creates nor is created,—in the current sense of making or being made; we can speak of creation only in the sense of the Being becoming in form and movement what it already is in substance and status.” The Life Divine
The asexual procreative methods of the early root-races had evolved to the hermaphroditic status in the early and middle third root-race. The present conditions of sex will also pass away in due course of time after ages of experience as man and woman shall have brought forth the innate masculine and feminine aspects of the human ego. The human race in the course of millions of years will become dual-sexed and finally sexless.
The cataleptic phenomena are sometimes induced in a profound hypnotic state, where the operator’s will manifests through the intermediate nature of his subject. This explains the public hypnotic exhibitions of an unconscious person, rigidly stretched out, with only head and feet supported, while the body sustains excessive weight placed upon it. It is also possible, at times, for a person who is naturally psychic, or who has dabbled in attempts to cultivate psychic phenomena, to become dissociated from his normal physical status and, in a trance-like condition, to manifest the cataleptic state of beclouded consciousness and the wax-like rigidity of body. In such cases there is always danger that the lower quaternary including the unconscious body may be invaded by some astral entity which thus becomes an insidious and injurious link with kama-loka and its denizens.
The concept of original evidence is accordingly relativized and broadened to include all kinds of consciousness in which the intended object is given in the most original manner possible for an object of its kind and status. Thus, e.g., clear direct remembering is original evidence of one's own retained past, qua past, and perceptive empathy is original evidence of another's consciousness. Evidence of every kind (and in each of the above-defined senses) has its parallel in phantasy (fictive consciousness). Fictive empirical evidence involves non-fictive evidence of the essential possibility of an individual having the fictively presented determinations. The evident incompatibility of fictively experienced determinations is evidence of the essential impossibility of any individual having such determinations. Apodictic evidence is evidence together with the further evidence that no conflicting evidence is essentially possible. Essential possibilities, impossibilities, and necessities, admit of apodictic evidence. The only actual individual object that can be an object of apodictic evidence is one's own subjectivity. Evidence is not to be confounded with certainty of positing (see Modality) nor conceived as restricted to apodictic evidence. Furthermore, it is evident that no evidence is a talisman against error. What is evident in one process may evidently conflict with what is evident in another, or, again, the range of evidence may be overestimated. Evidence is exemplified in valuing and willing as well as in believing. It is the source of all objective sense (see Apperception and Genesis) and the basis of all rationality (see Reason). -- D.C.
The diversity of concepts that Husserl himself expressed by the word "phenomenology" has been a source of diverse usages among thinkeis who came under his influence and are often referred to as "the phenomenological school." Husserl himself always meant by "phenomenology" a science of the subjective and its intended objects qua intentional; this core of sense pervades the development of his own concept of phenomenology as eidetic, transcendental, constitutive. Some thinkers, appropriating only the psychological version of this central concept, have developed a descriptive intentional psychology -- sometimes empirical, sometimes eidetic -- under the title "phenomenology." On the other hand, Husserl's broader concept of eidetic science based on seeing essences and essentially necessary relations -- especially his concept of material ontology -- has been not only adopted but made central by others, who define phenomenology accordingly. Not uncommonly, these groups reject Husserl's method of transcendental-phenomenological reduction and profess a realistic metaphysics. Finally, there are those who, emphasizing Husserl's cardinal principle that evidence -- seeing something that is itself presented -- is the only ultimate source of knowledge, conceive their phenomenology more broadly and etymologically, as explication of that which shows itself, whatever may be the latter 's nature and ontologicil status. -- D.C.
"The Divine is a Being and not an abstract existence or a status of pure timeless infinity; . . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The Divine is a Being and not an abstract existence or a status of pure timeless infinity; …” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.” The Life Divine*
“The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.” The Life Divine
The general principles of occult physiology underlie and coordinate the numerous details of chemical, microscopic, and biological research. The human organism illustrates the modern scientific view of the electronic nature of matter. In man, the positive and negative phases of the one Life unite to manifest in functional currents of vitality; all of which has a significant bearing on the prevailing medical recourse to organotherapy, the end results of which are not recognized, as such, since they operate on inner lines of force. Each animal body — human or beast — is a complex organism whose various parts are vibrating in consonance with the synthetic character of its own evolutionary status of vital matter and conscious force — its selfhood. Hence, the injection of the physiologic essence of any one creature’s organs into the life-currents of another, aiming to give a certain impetus to functional reaction, inevitably adds a subtly disturbing foreign element. The same physical matter composes all animal bodies, so that the human and beast life-atoms are interchangeable, but such interchange is governed or regulated by extremely occult causal relations which raise their action outside or above the plane of human interference. Organotherapy, as at present understood and practiced, is a divergence from nature’s normal processes, having no analog in nature which, in turn, provides resources of wholesome remedial matter. These artificial mixtures of both physical and superphysical forces, involve vital issues beyond the ken of research laboratories. The end results of unbalanced forces might be sought among the increase in cases of malignant, degenerative, and mental and nervous disorders, with their unequilibrated operation of functioning vitality and of consciousness.
Theravāda. (S. *Sthaviravāda/*Sthaviranikāya; T. Gnas brtan sde pa; C. Shangzuo bu; J. Jozabu; K. Sangjwa pu 上座部). In Pāli, "Way of the Elders" or "School of the Elders"; a designation traditionally used for monastic and textual lineages, and expanded in the modern period to refer to the dominant form of Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, which is associated with study of the Pāli Buddhist canon (P. tipitaka; S. TRIPItAKA). The denotation of the term Theravāda is fraught with controversy. Buddhaghosa's commentaries to the four Pāli NIKĀYAs typically refer to himself and his colleagues as MAHĀVIHĀRAVĀSIN (lit. "Dweller in the Great Monastery"), the name of the then dominant religious order and ordination lineage in Sri Lanka; in his fifth-century commentary to the Pāli VINAYA, the SAMANTAPĀSĀDIKĀ, Buddhaghosa uses the term Theravāda, but in reference not to a separate school but to a lineage of elders going back to the first Buddhist council (see SAMGĪTI; COUNCIL, FIRST). According to some accounts, the term Theravāda is equivalent to the Sanskrit term *STHAVIRAVĀDA ("School of the Elders"), which is claimed to have been transmitted to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE. However, the term Sthaviravāda is not attested in any Indian source; attested forms (both very rare) include sthāvira or sthāvarīya ("followers of the elders"). In addition, the Tibetan and Sinographic renderings of the term both translate the Sanskrit term *STHAVIRANIKĀYA, suggesting again that Sthaviravāda or Theravāda was not the traditional designation of this school. By the eleventh century CE, what is today designated as the Theravāda became the dominant form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, achieving a similar status in Burma in the same century, and in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As a term of self-designation for a major branch of Buddhism, Theravāda does not come into common use until the early twentieth century, with ĀNANDA METTEYYA playing a key role. In the nineteenth century, the Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia was typically referred to in the West as "Southern Buddhism," in distinction to the "Northern Buddhism" of Tibet and East Asia. (See, e.g., EUGÈNE BURNOUF and TAKAKUSU JUNJIRo, whose treatments of Pāli materials described them as belonging to the "Southern tradition.") With increased interest in Sanskrit MAHĀYĀNA texts and the rise of Japanese scholarship on Buddhism, the term "Southern Buddhism" began in some circles to be replaced by the term HĪNAYĀNA ("lesser vehicle"), despite that term's pejorative connotations. Perhaps in an effort to forestall this usage, Pāli scholars, including THOMAS W. RHYS DAVIDS (who often referred to Pāli Buddhism as "original Buddhism"), began referring to what had been known as "Southern Buddhism" as Theravāda. The term has since come to be adopted widely throughout Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. "Theravāda" had often been mistakenly regarded as a synonym of "hīnayāna," when the latter term is used to designate the many non-Mahāyāna schools of Indian Buddhism. In fact, to the extent that the Theravāda is a remnant of the Sthaviranikāya, it represents just one of the several independent traditions of what many scholars now call MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. In the 1950s, the WORLD FELLOWSHIP OF BUDDHISTS adopted a formal resolution replacing the pejorative term hīnayāna with the designation Theravāda in descriptions of the non-Mahāyāna tradition. This suggestion was reasonable as a referent for the present state of Buddhism, since the only mainstream Buddhist school that survives in the contemporary world is Theravāda, but it is not historically accurate. Despite the way in which scholars have portrayed the tradition, Theravāda is neither synonymous with early Buddhism, nor a more pristine form of the religion prior to the rise of the Mahāyāna. Such a claim suggests a state of sectarian statis or inertia that belies the diversity over time of doctrine and practice within what comes to be called the Theravāda tradition. In fact, the redaction of Pāli scriptures postdates in many cases the redaction of much of Mahāyāna literature. Even conceding this late coinage of the term Theravāda, it should still be acknowledged that many South and Southeast Asian Buddhists who self-identify as Theravāda do in fact regard the Pāli tipitaka (S. TRIPItAKA) as representing an earlier and more authentic presentation of the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) than that found in other contemporary Buddhist traditions, in much that same way that many North and Northeast Asian Mahāyāna Buddhists hold that certain sutras that most scholars identify as being of later date are authentically the teachings of the historical Buddha. Although Theravāda soteriological theory includes a path for the bodhisatta (S. BODHISATTVA), the bodhisattva is a much rarer sanctified figure here than in the Mahāyāna; the more common ideal being in Theravāda is instead the ARHAT. The difference between the Buddha and the arhat is also less pronounced in the Theravāda than in the Mahāyāna schools; in the Theravāda, the Buddha and the arhat achieve the same type of NIRVĀnA, the chief difference between them being that the Buddha finds the path to nirvāna independently, while the arhat achieves his or her enlightenment by following the path set forth by the Buddha. (For other distinctive beliefs of the Theravāda tradition, see STHAVIRANIKĀYA.)
There is yet a third kind of epohe that allegedly enables one to discriminate subjectivity qua transcendental -- by effecting yet another kind of reduction, which Husserl eventually called "transcendental-phenomenological." (In his Ideen he called it simply "phenomenological.") By refraining from participition in one's inveterate (and justifiable) natural attitude of presupposing the world and the status of one's subjectivity in the world, one can see the world (and whatever else one may intend) as fundamentally a noematic-intentional object for transcendental subjectivity -- for one's individual self, the subject whose life is one's own transcendental stream of consciousness, and for other transcendental subjects. As one can describe one's actual psychic subjectivity, so one can describe one's actual transcendental subjectivity and thus produce an empirical transcendental phenomenology. Again, as in the case of the purely psychic, so in the case of the purely transcendental, an eidetic reduction enables one to produce a purely eidetic science -- here an eidetic transcendental phenomenology, the theme of which is the absolutely universal domain of transcendental subjectivity in general, including the latter's noematic-objective sense: the entire world and all its possible variants. This eidetic transcendental phenomenology is what Husserl ordinarily meant when, in the Ideen or subsequent works, he spoke simply of "phenomenology. "
..the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functioning of the body must be among the ultimate results of a supramental change.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 330 ::: .Supraphysical Worlds ::: This organisation includes, as on our earth, the existence of beings who have or take forms, manifest themselves or are naturally manifested in an embodying substance, but a substance other than ours, a subtle substance tangible only to subtle sense, a supraphysical form-matter. These worlds and beings may have nothing to do with ourselves and our life, they may exercise no action upon us; but often also they enter into secret communication with earth-existence, obey or embody and are the intermediaries and instruments of the cosmic powers and influences of which we have a subjective experience, or themselves act by their own initiation upon the terrestrial world’s life and motives and happenings. It is possible to receive help or guidance or harm or misguidance from these beings; it is possible even to become subject to their influence, to be possessed by their invasion or domination, to be instrumentalised by them for their good or evil purpose. At times the progress of earthly life seems to be a vast field of battle between supraphysical Forces of either character, those that strive to uplift, encourage and illumine and those that strive to deflect, depress or prevent or even shatter our upward evolution or the soul’s self-expression in the material universe. Some of these Beings, Powers or Forces are such that we think of them as divine; they are luminous, benignant or powerfully helpful: there are others that are Titanic, gigantic or demoniac, inordinate Influences, instigators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of actions that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact with the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective—or at least objectivised— between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysical status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a subtle-sense perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets. It is the more objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross-objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar; for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of experience.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22 Page: 806-07
The structural mture of this ideal ordering reflects, of course, the Spinozistic view of the real. Ultimate reality, as Causa sui and as substance, is all-inclusive. Causality is immanent causality, and every determinative being lies within the one substantial being. Spinoza's doctiine of attributes, infinite and finite modes, serve to express both the all encompassing and systematic nature of the one ultimate reality and to distinguish and to determine the status of finite beings within this reality. In its immanentism as well as in its rational mysticism, the doctrine of Spinoza is not improperly regarded as a Plotinism re-directed by the influence of Descartes and invigorated by the enterprise of modern science. -- A.G.A.B.
The supermind is a Truth- Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 280
“The terminology of Yoga recognises besides the status of our physical and vital being, termed the gross body and doubly composed of the food sheath and the vital vehicle, besides the status of our mental being, termed the subtle body and singly composed of the mind sheath or mental vehicle, a third, supreme and divine status of supra-mental being, termed the causal body and composed of a fourth and a fifth vehicle which are described as those of knowledge and bliss.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"This integral knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of the Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme Self of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the Master and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all his soul"s love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and adoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the universe, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all lives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the cosmos, of Vasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic existence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge of the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form of whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from its silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self, supreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that highest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of all these existences.” Essays on the Gita*
“This integral knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of the Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme Self of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the Master and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all his soul’s love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and adoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the universe, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all lives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the cosmos, of Vasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic existence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge of the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form of whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from its silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self, supreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that highest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of all these existences.” Essays on the Gita
This process of nature is applied to humanity (SD 1:159): its peregrinations through the first three rounds is likened to a series of imbodiments through the caterpillar and chrysalis stages; only during the fourth round does mankind attain its first status of true humanity, more particularly during the latter part of the third root-race when human mind is enlightened by the manasaputras.
T'ongdosa. (通度寺). In Korean, "Breakthrough Monastery" (lit. "Penetrating Crossing-Over Monastery"); the fifteenth district monastery (PONSA) in the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located at the base of Yongch'uksan (S. GṚDHRAKutAPARVATA, or Vulture Peak) in Yangsan, South Kyongsang province. Along with HAEINSA and SONGGWANGSA, T'ongdosa is one of the "three-jewel monasteries" (SAMBO SACH'AL) that represent one of the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) of Buddhism; T'ONGDOSA is the buddha-jewel monastery (pulbo sach'al), because of its ordination platform and the relics (K. sari; S. sARĪRA) of the Buddha enshrined in back of its main shrine hall (TAEUNG CHoN). The oldest of the three-jewel monasteries, T'ongdosa has long been regarded as the center of Buddhist disciplinary studies (VINAYA) in Korea, and has been one of the major sites of ordination ceremonies since the Unified Silla period (668-935). Relics, reputed to be those of the Buddha himself, are enshrined at the monastery, and its taeung chon is famous for being one of four in Korea that does not enshrine an image of the Buddha; instead, a window at the back of the main hall, where the image ordinarily would be placed, looks out on the Diamond Ordination Platform (Kŭmgang kyedan), which includes a reliquary (STuPA) that enshrines the Buddha's relics. This focus on vinaya and the presence of these relics, both of which are reminders of the Buddha, have led the monastery to be designated the buddha-jewel monastery of Korea. T'ongdosa is said to have been established by the vinaya master CHAJANG (608-686) in 646 to enshrine a portion of the relics that he brought back with him from his sojourn into China. While on pilgrimage at WUTAISHAN, Chajang had an encounter with the bodhisattva MANJUsRĪ, who entrusted Chajang with a gold studded monk's robe (K. kasa; S. KAsĀYA) wrapped in purple silk gauze, one hundred pieces of relics of the Buddha's skull bone and his finger joint, beads, and sutras. One portion of the relics was enshrined together with the Buddha's robe in a bell-shaped stone stupa at the center of the Diamond Ordination Platform; another portion was enshrined in the nine-story pagoda at HWANGNYONGSA in the Silla capital of Kyongju. Under Chajang's leadership, the monastery grew into a major center of Silla Buddhism and the monastery continued to thrive throughout the Silla and Koryo dynasties, until the whole monastery except the taeung chon was destroyed by invading Japanese troops in the late sixteenth century. In 1641, the monk Uun (d.u.) rebuilt the monastery in its current configuration. The Diamond Ordination Platform was periodically damaged during the sporadic Japanese invasions that occurred during the Choson dynasty. In the fourth month of 1377, Japanese pirates invaded, seeking to plunder the sarīra; to keep them from falling into Japanese hands, the abbot went into hiding with the relics. Two years later, on the fifteenth day of the fifth month of 1379, the pirates came again, and the monks quickly whisked away the relics and hid them deep in the forest behind the monastery. The Japanese went in pursuit of the relics, but the abbot Wolsong (d.u.) took them to Seoul to keep them safe, returning with them once the danger had passed. During the Hideyoshi Invasions in the late sixteenth century, the relics were also removed in order to keep them safe. SAMYoNG YUJoNG, who was leading a monk's militia fighting the Japanese invaders, sent the relics to the Diamond Mountains (KŬMGANGSAN) in the north, where his teacher and the supreme commander, CH'oNGHo HYUJoNG, was staying. Hyujong decided that the relics were no safer there than back at their home monastery, so he returned them to T'ongdosa. Yujong covered the hiding place of the relics with weeds and thorn bushes and, once the Japanese threat was rebuffed, he restored the site to its former glory and the relics were reenshrined in 1603. The platform was repaired again in 1653 and on a grand scale in 1705. The Diamond Ordination Platform remains the site where BHIKsU and BHIKsUnĪ ordinations are held in Korea. In 1972, T'ongdosa was elevated to the status of an ecumenical monastery (CH'ONGNIM), and is one of the five such centers in the contemporary Chogye order, which are all expected to provide training in the full range of practices that exemplify the major strands of the Korean Buddhist tradition; the monastery is thus also known as the Yongch'uk Ch'ongnim.
Totagamuwa, srī Rāhula. (1408-1491). A Sinhalese monk of the fifteenth century and one of the most celebrated poets of Sri Lanka. His most famous works include Selalihini Sandesa ("The Bird Sela's Message") and Kaviyasekera ("The Crown of Poetry"). Despite his status as a monk, his verse includes many secular themes, such as the power of kings and the beauty of women. His erudition also secured him a reputation as a great debater. TOtAGAMUWA received much praise and support from the Sinhalese king PARĀKRAMABĀHU VI, who came to the throne in 1410.
Transmigration The belief that human souls after death pass into other bodies either human or animal, and mistakenly given as a synonym for reincarnation, metempsychosis, etc. Transmigration in general means the passing of an entity from one imbodiment to another, without regard to the status of the entity or the form of the imbodiments, so that it includes various specific meanings denoted by other terms. Actually the word refers to the transmigration of life-atoms, especially those of the human vehicles after dissolution. According to their own affinities and degree of development, these life-atoms which have composed the lower human principles transmigrate to other physical psychomental bodies, there to pursue each its own further specific evolution, unretarded by the temporary association with its former body. Eventually, when the proper cyclic time arrives, they are all again attracted back to the reincarnating human entity to which they formerly belonged. The teaching as to the transmigration of the life-atoms is very important in elucidation of the unity of all life, the interaction of all nature, and the working of karma.
trikāla. (P. tikāla; T. dus gsum; C. sanshi; J. sanze; K. samse 三世). In Sanskrit, the "three times," used to refer collectively to the three time periods of past, present, and future; often mistakenly translated from the Chinese as "three worlds" (the Chinese term shi in this compound means an "age" or "generation"). The term often occurs in such phrases as trikāla-buddha, "the buddhas of the past, present, and future." Trikāla is also used to refer to the three periods of one day-dawn, daylight, and dusk. There are a range of views on the ontological status of the three temporal dimensions of the past, present, and future. One of the more common arguments is that, while the past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist, the present exists as an endless series of instances or moments in which a host of mental and physical constituents arise and cease instantaneously (see KsAnIKAVĀDA). On the other hand, the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school argued that dharmas exist, and can thus exert specific types of causal efficacy, in all three time periods, requiring a special set of "dissociated forces" (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKĀRA) to account for the process of change (see CATURLAKsAnA; SAMSKṚTALAKsAnA), essentially moving a dharma from past mode, to present and future modes.
turiya ::: fourth; "the incommunicable Self or One-Existence . . . turiya which is the fourth state of the Self" (atman), symbolised by the syllable AUM as a whole, "the supreme or absolute self of being" of which the waking self, dream-self and sleep-self (virat., hiran.yagarbha and prajña) "are derivations for the enjoyment of relative experience in the world"; brahman in its "pure self-status" about which "neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed . . . ; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its selfexistence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of .. a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing". turiya turiya dasyabuddhi
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Ugraparipṛcchā. (T. Drag shul can gyis zhus pa; C. Yuqie zhangzhe hui; J. Ikuga chojae; K. Ukka changja hoe 郁伽長者會). In Sanskrit, "The Inquiry of Ugra," an influential MAHĀYĀNA SuTRA, dating perhaps from the first century BCE, making it one of the earliest Mahāyāna sutras. The text has not survived in any Indic-language version, but has been preserved in five translated versions: three in Chinese, one in Tibetan, and one in Mongolian. The sutra is structured as a dialogue, mainly between the Buddha and the lay BODHISATTVA UGRA, whose inquiry prompts the Buddha to launch into a protracted discourse on the bodhisattva path (MĀRGA). Ugra is labeled a GṚHAPATI, a term that literally means "lord of the house" but that comes to refer to men belonging to the upper stratum of what would later be labeled as the vaisya (often rendered as "merchant") caste. The sutra is divided into two parts, one directed toward the lay bodhisattva and the other toward renunciants. In the oldest version of the sutra, Ugra and his friends, after hearing the Buddha's discourse, ask for and receive ordination as monks; in later translations, this event takes place in the middle of the sutra. In all versions, however, the overall message is that, although a lay practitioner may be capable of performing at least preliminary parts of the bodhisattva path, to attain the final goal of buddhahood he must become a monk. The Buddha declares, "For no bodhisattva who lives at home has ever attained supreme perfect enlightenment." Accordingly, the sutra urges the lay bodhisattva to break the ties of affection that bind him to his family and, above all, to his wife; the condemnation of marriage and family life is striking. Moreover, he is urged to emulate the conduct of the monks in his local monastery even while he still lives at home-involving, among other things, complete celibacy. This sort of practice is congruent with what was required of the UPĀSAKA, the lay adherent who has taken the three refuges and the five or eight precepts and dresses in white as a sign of his semirenunciant status. The lay bodhisattva described in the Ugraparipṛcchā is repeatedly urged to seek ordination as soon as he possibly can. If the lay bodhisattva is portrayed as the best of all possible laymen, the renunciant bodhisattva is portrayed as the best of all possible monks. Not only does he follow the standard requirements of the monastic life, but he goes beyond them, spending large periods of time (ideally, his whole lifetime) performing strict ascetic practices in the wilderness. This is a reenactment of the biography of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha; it appears that aspiring bodhisattvas, both lay and monastic, took the stories of the Buddha's life-including his previous lives, described in the JĀTAKA stories-as prescriptive for those who wished to become buddhas themselves. The Ugraparipṛcchā never portrays any actual female practitioner, whether lay or monastic, as a bodhisattva. Apart from a formulaic reference to "sons and daughters of good lineage," which appears at the beginning and the end of the sutra (and may have been added long after its initial composition), there is no indication that the authors of the sutra believed that women were capable of embarking upon the bodhisattva path. The Ugraparipṛcchā was a highly influential sutra in both India and East Asia, where it was widely quoted and commented upon and is regarded by scholars as an important and influential work in the formative period of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Ullambana (Mongolian) [from Sanskrit ud up, completion + the verbal root labh to reach, attain] Attainment or recovery of spiritual status; the festival of all souls, “held in China on the seventh moon annually, when both ‘Buddhist and Tauist priests read masses, to release the souls of those who died on land or sea from purgatory, scatter rice to feed Pretas [thirty-six classes of demons ever hungry and thirsty], consecrate domestic ancestral shrines, . . . recite Tantras . . . accompanied by magic finger-play (mudra) to comfort the ancestral spirits of seven generations in Naraka’ (a kind of purgatory or Kama Loka)” (TG 351).
underflow ::: (programming) (or floating point underflow, floating underflow, after overflow) A condition that can occur when the result of a floating-point an eight-bit twos complement exponent can represent multipliers of 10^-128 to 10^127. A result less than 10^-128 would cause underflow.Depending on the processor, the programming language and the run-time system, underflow may set a status bit, raise an exception or generate a hardware ignored and zero substituted for the unrepresentable value, though this might lead to a later divide by zero error which cannot be so easily ignored. (1997-08-25)
underflow "programming" (or "floating point underflow", "floating underflow", after "{overflow}") A condition that can occur when the result of a {floating-point} operation would be smaller in magnitude (closer to zero, either positive or negative) than the smallest quantity representable. Underflow is actually (negative) {overflow} of the {exponent} of the {floating point} quantity. For example, an eight-bit {twos complement} exponent can represent multipliers of 2^-128 to 2^127. A result less than 2^-128 would cause underflow. Depending on the {processor}, the programming language and the {run-time system}, underflow may set a status bit, raise an {exception} or generate a {hardware} {interrupt} or some combination of these effects. Alternatively, it may just be ignored and zero substituted for the unrepresentable value, though this might lead to a later {divide by zero} error which cannot be so easily ignored. (2006-11-09)
Uniform Resource Citation "web" (URC) A set of attribute/value pairs describing an object. Some of the values may be {URIs} of various kinds. Others may include, for example, athorship, publisher, datatype, date, copyright status and shoe size. A URC is not normally considered as a string, but a set of fields and values with some defined free formatting. (1995-03-24)
Unitarianism: The mme for the theological view which emphasises the oneness of God in opposition to the Triitarian formula (q.v.). Although the term is modern, the idea underlying Unitarianism is old. In Christian theology any expression of the status of Jesus as being less than a metaphysical part of Deity is of the spirit of Unitarianism (e.g., Dynamistic Monarchianists, Adoptionists, Socinians, and many others). Unitarians hold only the highest regard for Jesus but refuse to bind that regard to a Trinitarian metaphysics. In general, their views of the religious life have been prophetic of liberal thought. Today there are numbers of liberal Christian ministers who are Unitarian in thought but not in name. The British and Foreign Unitarian Association dates formally to 1825. Manchester College, Oxford, was claimed Unitarian. Leading theologians were Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), James Martineau (1805-1900), James Drummond and J. E. Carpenter. American Unitarianism wis given expression in King's Chapel, Boston (1785), in a number of associations, in Meaddville Theological School (1844) and Harvard Divinity School (the chief seat of the movement prior to 1878). Channing (1780-1842) and Theodore Parker (1810-1860) directed the movement into wider liberal channels. -- V.F.
Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter ::: (communications, hardware) (UART) An integrated circuit used for serial communications, containing a transmitter (parallel-to-serial converter) and a receiver (serial-to-parallel converter), each clocked separately.The parallel side of a UART is usually connected to the bus of a computer. When the computer writes a byte to the UART's transmit data register (TDR), the UART previous one is read, the UART will signal an overrun error via another status bit.The UART may be set up to interrupt the computer when data is received or when ready to transmit more data.The UART's serial connections usually go via separate line driver and line receiver integrated circuits which provide the power and voltages required to drive the serial line and give some protection against noise on the line.Data on the serial line is formatted by the UART according to the setting of the UART's control register. This may also determine the transmit and receive baud incorrectly formated data is received the UART may signal a framing error or parity error.Often the clock will run at 16 times the baud rate (bits per second) to allow the receiver to do centre sampling - i.e. to read each bit in the middle of its allotted time period. This makes the UART more tolerant to variations in the clock rate (jitter) of the incoming data.An example of a late 1980s UART was the Intel 8450. In the 1990s, newer UARTs were developed with on-chip buffers. This allowed higher transmission speed computer. For example, the Intel 16550 has a 16 byte FIFO. Variants include the 16C550, 16C650, 16C750, and 16C850.The term Serial Communications Interface (SCI) was first used at Motorola around 1975 to refer to their start-stop asyncronous serial interface device, which others were calling a UART.See also bit bang.[Is this the same as an ACIA?](2003-07-13)
Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter "communications, hardware" (UART) An {integrated circuit} used for serial communications, containing a transmitter (parallel-to-serial converter) and a receiver (serial-to-parallel converter), each clocked separately. The parallel side of a UART is usually connected to the {bus} of a computer. When the computer writes a byte to the UART's transmit data register (TDR), the UART will start to transmit it on the serial line. The UART's status register contains a {flag} bit which the computer can read to see if the UART is ready to transmit another byte. Another status register bit says whether the UART has received a byte from the {serial line}, in which case the computer should read it from the receive data register (RDR). If another byte is received before the previous one is read, the UART will signal an "overrun" error via another status bit. The UART may be set up to {interrupt} the computer when data is received or when ready to transmit more data. The UART's serial connections usually go via separate {line driver} and {line receiver} {integrated circuits} which provide the power and voltages required to drive the serial line and give some protection against noise on the line. Data on the {serial line} is formatted by the {UART} according to the setting of the UART's control register. This may also determine the transmit and receive baud rates if the UART contains its own clock circuits or "{baud} rate generators". If incorrectly formated data is received the UART may signal a "{framing error}" or "{parity} error". Often the clock will run at 16 times the baud rate (bits per second) to allow the receiver to do {centre sampling} - i.e. to read each bit in the middle of its allotted time period. This makes the UART more tolerant to variations in the {clock rate} ("jitter") of the incoming data. An example of a late 1980s UART was the {Intel 8450}. In the 1990s, newer UARTs were developed with on-chip {buffers}. This allowed higher transmission speed without data loss and without requiring such frequent attention from the computer. For example, the {Intel} {16550} has a 16 byte {FIFO}. Variants include the {16C550}, {16C650}, {16C750}, and {16C850}. The term "Serial Communications Interface" (SCI) was first used at {Motorola} around 1975 to refer to their start-stop asyncronous serial interface device, which others were calling a UART. See also {bit bang}. [Is this the same as an {ACIA}?] (2003-07-13)
Upāli. (T. Nye bar 'khor; C. Youboli; J. Upari; K. Ubari 優波離). Sanskrit and Pāli proper name of an ARHAT who was foremost among the Buddha's disciples in his knowledge of the monastic code of discipline (VINAYA). According to Pāli accounts, Upāli was a barber from the city of Kapilavatthu (S. KAPILAVASTU) and was in the service of the Sākiya (S. sĀKYA) princes who ruled there. Upāli accompanied Anuruddha (S. ANIRUDDHA) and his cousins when they decided to renounce the world and take ordination from the Buddha in Anupiyā grove. They handed him all their clothes and ornaments in preparation, but Upāli refused the gift, asking instead to be allowed to take ordination with them. Anuruddha and the others requested the Buddha to confer ordination on Upāli first so that their barber would always be senior to them and thus quell their pride in their noble birth. The Buddha refused Upāli's request to be allowed to retire to the forest to practice meditation in solitude, realizing that, while Upāli had the qualities to attain arhatship through that course, he would as a consequence neglect the study of dharma. Following the Buddha's advice, Upāli practiced insight (P. VIPASSANĀ; S. VIPAsYANĀ) and became an arhat without retiring to the forest, thus allowing the Buddha to teach him the entire VINAYAPItAKA. Upāli was frequently sought out to render decisions on matters of discipline, and he is frequently shown discussing with the Buddha the legal details of cases brought before him. Even during the Buddha's lifetime, monks frequently sought training in monastic discipline under Upāli; he was also regarded as a sympathetic guardian to monks facing difficulties. After the Buddha's demise, MAHĀKĀsYAPA chose Upāli to recite the vinaya at the first Buddhist council (SAMGĪTI; see COUNCIL, FIRST); ĀNANDA was chosen to recite the Buddha's sermons (SuTRA). A succession of vinaya masters descended from Upāli, including MOGGALIPUTTATISSA, leader of the third Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, THIRD). Upāli's low status as a barber is often raised as evidence that the Buddha accepted disciples from all classes and castes in society and that all were capable of becoming arhats.
Ushnisha (Sanskrit) Uṣṇīṣa [from the verbal root uṣ to be warm, flaming; mystically warmth through inner light, intuition, vision] A turban, diadem, or crown; also a kind of “excrescence” on the head of a buddha. Like the long ears so often seen in figures of the buddhas, the meaning of the ushnisha is entirely occult, and was in no sense whatsoever intended to signify a tuft of hair, nor any fleshly excrescence on the skull, but was a way of suggesting the radiating power of the eye of Siva or organ of vision and of intuition, working at relatively full power within the skull of a great adept. The eye of Siva is the pineal gland; originally an external and active eye in the head of primitive mankind during this fourth round on earth, it gradually retreated within the skull, which grew to cover its place with bones, skin, and hair. As this presently so-called third eye retreated within the skull, its place was progressively taken by the two present organs of vision. At this period of our racial development it is buddhas, avataras, and other initiates of relatively high status who alone use the organ of spiritual vision, for in them the pineal gland has become active and is to some extent physiologically enlarged; although in everyone else it is more or less nonfunctional, yet to some degree functional.
Vajrakīlaya. (T. Rdo rje phur pa). In Sanskrit, "Vajra Dagger," a tantric buddha worshipped primarily by the RNYING MA and BKA' BRGYUD sects of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the deification of the KĪLA (see PHUR PA), the ritual dagger used in tantric ceremonies. In the rituals involving the use of the kīla, the tantric dagger is typically used to subdue a ritual site, to subjugate the local demon by pinning him or her to the ground; the MAndALA is thus planted and established on top of the offending demon. The dagger may be stabbed into a three-sided box, the triangle representing the violent tantric activity of liberation, or into an effigy. As a deity, Vajrakīlaya originally held the same duties as the ritual dagger: to protect the borders of ritual space and to pin down and destroy enemies, human or otherwise. This tradition may derive in part from the ancient Indian myth of Indrakīla, in which the serpent Vṛtra is pinned and stabilized by a mythic "peg" (kīla). Vajrakīlaya is found in the major early tantra systems as well as the GUHYASAMĀJATANTRA and the SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAMGRAHA, which contains his mantra and places him in the center of a MAndALA, although throughout his status is inferior to that of the buddhas and bodhisattvas. It is only in the Vajrakīlaya tantras that the deity attains the status of a buddha. These texts are reputed to be eighth-century translations from Indic languages, transmitted in Tibet by PADMASAMBHAVA. The tantras form a substantial section of the RNYING MA'I RGYUD 'BUM, but BU STON rejected the Indian origin of the tantras and left them out of the BKA' 'GYUR. Defenders of the tradition cite the fact that 'BROG MI SHĀKYA YE SHES wrote that he saw the eight-syllable Vajrakīla MANTRA at the BODHGAYĀ STuPA. In addition, SA SKYA PAndITA discovered a Sanskrit fragment of the Vajrakīlamulatantrakhanda at BSAM YAS, and sĀKYAsRĪBHADRA confirmed that the cycle had existed in India. Although no East Asian tradition of Vajrakīlaya exists, some scholars have suggested an identification with Vajrakumāra; tantras concerning this deity were brought to China in the eighth century by AMOGHAVAJRA, but this identification is disputed. Vajrakīlaya is wrathful, with three faces with three eyes each, and six or more hands holding various instruments in addition to the kīla. He is said to dispel obstacles to progress on the path to enlightenment and to the swift attainment of both mundane and supramundane goals.
Vedic Religion: Or the Religion of the Vedas (q.v.). It is thoroughly cosmological, inspirational and ritualistic, priest and sacrifice playing an important role. It started with belief in different gods, such as Indra, Agni, Surya, Vishnu, Ushas, the Maruts, usually interpreted as symbolizing the forces of nature, but with the development of Hinduism it deteriorated into a worship of thousands of gods corresponding to the diversification of function and status in the complex social organism. Accompanying there was a pronounced tendency toward magic even in Vedic times, while the more elevated thoughts which have found expression in magnificent praises of the one or the other deity finally became crystallized in the philosophic thought of the Upanishads (q.v.). There is a distinct break, however, between Vedic culture with its free and autochthonous religious consciousness and the rigidly caste and custom controlled religion as we know it in India today, as also the religion of bhakti (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
vijNapti. (T. rnam par rig byed; C. shi; J. shiki; K. sik 識). In Sanskrit, "representation," "designation," or "imputation"; a term especially important in the YOGĀCĀRA school, where it indicates the subjective nature of the objects of experience, emphasizing the role of consciousness (VIJNĀNA) in the identification, naming, and ontological status of the constituents of the external world. The term appears in the title of perhaps the most influential Indian Yogācāra treatise for East Asian Buddhism, the CHENG WEISHI LUN (*VIJNAPTIMĀTRATĀSIDDHI; "Demonstration of Representation-Only"), which presents the philosophical positions of the sixth-century Yogācāra master DHARMAPĀLA (530-561).
ViMsatikā. (T. Nyi shu pa; C. Weishi ershi lun; J. Yuishiki nijuron; K. Yusik isip non 唯識二十). The "Twenty," also known as ViMsatikāvijNaptimātratāsiddhikārikā, the "Twenty Stanzas Proving Representation-Only," one of the most influential independent (i.e., noncommentarial) works of the fourth-or fifth-century Indian master VASUBANDHU. A short work in twenty verses, it outlines the basic position of the YOGĀCĀRA regarding the status of external objects, arguing that such objects do not exist apart from the consciousness that perceives them. He argues, for example, that the fact that objects appear to exist in an external world is not proof of that existence, since an external world also appears to exist in dreams. Therefore, all external phenomena are merely projections of consciousness (VIJNĀNA) and thus are representation-only (VIJNAPTIMĀTRATĀ).
visible bell "communications" (Or "visual bell") A program option (whether in a terminal program, {termcap} setting, or as a {stand-alone} program) which outputs the {bell} {character code} as a visual signal (e.g., a flashing status bar or menu bar). Generally intended for deaf or hearing-disabled users who couldn't hear the normal auditory beep; also widely used by users who simply don't want their machines {feep}ing at them or disturbing other users. [Implementations?] (1997-04-07)
visible bell ::: (communications) (Or visual bell) A program option (whether in a terminal program, termcap setting, or as a stand-alone program) which outputs the bell character code as a visual signal (e.g., a flashing status bar or menu bar).Generally intended for deaf or hearing-disabled users who couldn't hear the normal auditory beep; also widely used by users who simply don't want their machines feeping at them or disturbing other users.[Implementations?] (1997-04-07)
water cock ::: --> A large gallinule (Gallicrex cristatus) native of Australia, India, and the East Indies. In the breeding season the male is black and has a fleshy red caruncle, or horn, on the top of its head. Called also kora.
whacker [University of Maryland: from {hacker}] 1. A person, similar to a {hacker}, who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities. Whereas a hacker tends to produce great hacks, a whacker only ends up whacking the system or program in question. Whackers are often quite egotistical and eager to claim {wizard} status, regardless of the views of their peers. 2. A person who is good at programming quickly, though rather poorly and ineptly.
Windows sockets "networking, standard" (Winsock) A specification for {Microsoft Windows} network software, describing how applications can access network services, especially {TCP/IP}. Winsock is intended to provide a single {API} to which application developers should program and to which multiple network software vendors should conform. For any particular version of {Microsoft Windows}, it defines a binary interface ({ABI}) such that an application written to the Windows Sockets API can work with a conformant {protocol} implementation from any network software vendor. Winsock was conceived at Fall Interop '91 during a {Birds of a Feather} session. Windows Sockets is supported by {Microsoft Windows}, {Windows for Workgroups}, {Win32s}, {Windows 95} and {Windows NT}. It will support protocols other than {TCP/IP}. Under {Windows NT}, {Microsoft} will provide Windows Sockets support over {TCP/IP} and {IPX}/{SPX}. {DEC} will be implementing {DECNet}. {Windows NT} will include mechanisms for multiple {protocol} support in Windows Sockets, both 32-bit and 16 bit. Mark Towfiq said, "The next rev. of Winsock will not be until toward the end of 1993. We need 1.1 of the {API} to become firmly settled and implemented first." {Windows Sockets API (ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock)}. or {(ftp://microdyne.com/pub/winsock)} or send a message "help" to either "ftpmail@SunSite.UNC.Edu" or "ftpmail@DECWRL.DEC.Com". {Windows Sockets specification (ftp://rhino.microsoft.com)}. Currently NetManage (NEWT), Distinct, FTP and Frontier are shipping Winsock {TCP/IP} stacks, as is {Microsoft} (Windows NT and {TCP/IP} for WFW), Beame & Whiteside Software (v1.1 compliant), and Sun PC-NFS. Windows 95 has "dial-up networking" which supports Winsock and TCP/IP. winsock.dll is available from some {TCP/IP} stack vendors. {Novell} has one in beta for their {Lan Workplace} for {DOS}. Peter Tattam "peter@psychnet.psychol.utas.edu.au" is alpha-testing a shareware Windows Sockets compliant {TCP/IP} stack {(ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/pc/trumpet/winsock/winsock.zip)}. and {(ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/pc/trumpet/winsock/winpkt.com)}. {The Consummate Winsock App List (http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~Neuroses/cwsapps.html)}. [Adapted from: Aboba, Bernard D., comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Frequently Asked Questions, 1993 {Usenet}: {news:news.answers}, {(ftp://netcom1.netcom.com/pub/mailcom/IBMTCP/)}]. [Current status?] (1996-06-20)
Windows sockets ::: (networking, standard) (Winsock) A specification for Microsoft Windows network software, describing how applications can access network services, Sockets API can work with a conformant protocol implementation from any network software vendor.Winsock was conceived at Fall Interop '91 during a Birds of a Feather session.Windows Sockets is supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows for Workgroups, Win32s, Windows 95 and Windows NT. It will support protocols other than TCP/IP. IPX/SPX. DEC will be implementing DECNet. Windows NT will include mechanisms for multiple protocol support in Windows Sockets, both 32-bit and 16 bit.Mark Towfiq said, The next rev. of Winsock will not be until toward the end of 1993. We need 1.1 of the API to become firmly settled and implemented first. or . .Currently NetManage (NEWT), Distinct, FTP and Frontier are shipping Winsock TCP/IP stacks, as is Microsoft (Windows NT and TCP/IP for WFW), Beame & Whiteside Software (v1.1 compliant), and Sun PC-NFS. Windows 95 has dial-up networking which supports Winsock and TCP/IP.winsock.dll is available from some TCP/IP stack vendors. Novell has one in beta for their Lan Workplace for DOS.Peter Tattam . .[Adapted from: Aboba, Bernard D., comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Frequently Asked Questions, 1993 Usenet: news.answers, ].[Current status?] (1996-06-20)
World-germs A metaphor for cosmic monads, fundamental elementary principles of all ancient religious and philosophical systems. Each monad is an eternal cosmic unity, albeit they appear, disappear, and reappear during the eternally revolving cosmic cycles. In themselves they are divine consciousness-centers, divine-spiritual particles, points of abstract, conscious, cosmic substance existing during manvantaras in a state of primeval differentiation. The world-germs, are scattered like spawn throughout space. Each one pursues its karmic destiny, descending from a state of pure spirit through various phases by emanating from itself a series of sheaths or veils until the karmic limit has been reached, when each has become the cosmic spirit of a universe, world, sun, planet, etc., as the case may be. The spiritual essence of any world-germ or cosmic monad at no time actually descends or leaves its own high plane or status, but in the words of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, each establishes a world, universe, or hierarchy with karmically destined portions of itself, and yet remains separate, transcendent.
World-Wide Web "web, networking, hypertext" (WWW, W3, the web) A {client-server} {hypertext} distributed information retrieval system, often referred to as "The Internet" though strictly speaking, the Internet is the network and the web is just one use of the network (others being {e-mail}, {DNS}, {SSH}). Basically, the web consists of documents or {web pages} in {HTML} format (a kind of {hypertext}), each of which has a unique {URL} or "web address". {Links} in a page are URLs of other pages which may be part of the same {website} or a page on another site on a different {web server} anywhere on the {Internet}. As well as HTML pages, a URL may refer to an image, some code ({JavaScript} or {Java}), {CSS}, a {video} stream or other kinds of object. URLs typically start with "http://", indicating that the page needs to be fetched using the {HTTP} {protocol} or or "https://" for the {HTTPS} protocol which {encrypts} the request and the resulting page for security. The URL "scheme" (the bit before the ":") indicates the protocol to use. These include {FTP}, the original protocol for transferring files over the Internet. {RTSP} is a {streaming protocol} that allow a continuous feed of {audio} or {video} from the server to the browser. {Gopher} was a predecessor of HTTP and {Telnet} starts an {interactive} {command-line} session with a remote server. The web is accessed using a {client} program known as a {web browser} that runs on the user's computer. The browser fetches and displays pages and allows the user to follow {links} by clicking on them (or similar action) and to input queries to the server. A variety of browsers are freely available, e.g. {Google Chrome}, {Microsoft} {Internet Explorer}, {Apple} {Safari} and {Mozilla} {Firefox}. Early browsers included {NCSA} {Mosaic} and {Netscape} {Navigator}. Queries can be entered into "forms" which allow the user to enter arbitrary text and select options from customisable menus and other controls. The server processes each request - either a simple URL or data from a form - and returns a response, typically a page of HTML. The World-Wide Web originated from the {CERN} High-Energy Physics laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland. In the early 1990s, the developers at CERN spread word of the Web's capabilities to scientific and academic audiences worldwide. By September 1993, the share of Web traffic traversing the {NSFNET} {Internet} {backbone} reached 75 {gigabytes} per month or one percent. By July 1994 it was one {terabyte} per month. The {World Wide Web Consortium} is the main standards body for the web. Following the widespread availability of web browsers and servers from about 1995, organisations started using the same software and protocols on their own private internal {TCP/IP} networks giving rise to the term "{intranet}". {This dictionary} is accessible via the Web at {(http://foldoc.org/)}. {An article by John December (http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1994/oct/webip.html)}. {W3 servers, clients and tools (http://w3.org/Status.html)}. (2017-11-01)
wu'ai xing. (J. mugegyo; K. muae haeng 無礙行). In Chinese, "unhindered action" or "unconstrained conduct"; one of the types of practice of a BODHISATTVA-MAHĀSATTVA, as expounded especially in the AVATAMSAKASuTRA, referring to a conduct that is not constrained by the restrictions of customary morality or mundane societal expectations. Other related terms that are described as unhindered include "unhindered physicality" (wu'ai shen), "unhindered SAMĀDHI" (wu'ai sanmei), "unhindered wisdom" (wu'ai zhi), "unhindered dharma" (wu'ai fa), "unhindered path" (wu'ai dao), etc. The actions of a bodhisattva-mahāsattva conform to those of the buddhas themselves and any merit forthcoming from them are freely transferred (huixiang) to other sentient beings to help them with their salvation; for this reason, their actions are free from any kinds of hindrances. The MAHĀYĀNASAMGRAHA (She Dasheng lun) also explains "unhindered action" as the merit of a buddha, which is obtained through the purest of wisdom. Unhindered action sometimes refers to a particular stage or practice of a bodhisattva-mahāsattva: the BODHISATTVABHuMI (Pusa shanjie jing) presents it as the tenth of the twelve conducts of a bodhisattva-mahāsattva, along with such advanced practices as the signless practice, untainted practice, practice-less practice, and contented practice. In this context, unhindered action refers to the stage where a bodhisattva cultivates the realm of reality (DHARMADHĀTU) that transcends all discrimination and teaches the true dharma (SADDHARMA) for the sake of innumerable sentient beings. This status is said to correspond specifically to the ninth of the ten bodhisattva stages (DAsABHuMI), and the bodhisattva on this stage is described as being endowed with four types of analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), which in Chinese were known as the four "unhindered knowledges" (C. si wu'ai jie): i.e., unhindered knowledge of (1) phenomena (DHARMA), viz., one makes no mistakes in one's teachings; (2) meaning (ARTHA), viz., to be unhindered with regard to the content and meaning of one's teachings; (3) etymology or language (NIRUKTI), viz., the ability to comprehend all languages; and (4) eloquence (PRATIBHĀNA), viz., ease in offering explanations. CHENGGUAN (738-839) states in his massive HUAYAN JING SHU ("Commentary to the AVATAMSAKASuTRA") that the bodhisattva is able to abide in unhindered action (lit. "unhindered abiding") because he no longer has any cognitive obstructions (JNEYĀVARAnA). The practice of unconstrained conduct has been a prominent, if controversial, feature of Korean Buddhism throughout its history. Several eminent Korean monks were known as practitioners of unconstrained conduct, including WoNHYO (617-686), Chinmuk (1562-1633), and KYoNGHo SoNGU (1849-1912), and they followed ways of life that disregarded the standards of conduct typically incumbent upon ordained monks.
wuzhe hui. (J. mushae; K. much'a hoe 無遮會). In Chinese, "unrestricted assembly"; an assembly hosted by the reigning monarch to make offerings to clergy and laity regardless of their status or station in life. The assembly was typically held every five years and is therefore also known as the "five-year great assembly" (C. wunian dahui; S. paNcavārsikaparisad). The first such assembly is attributed to King AsOKA. Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (LIANG WUDI) is known to have held a wuzhe dahui in 529 for an assembly said to have numbered fifty thousand. The famous pilgrim XUANZANG also witnessed an unrestricted assembly during his travels along the SILK ROAD. In 596, Empress Suiko (554-628) held the first reported unrestricted assembly in Japan. In 732, HEZE SHENHUI organized an unrestricted great assembly (wuzhe dahui) at the monastery of DAYUNSI in Henan prefecture, where he attacked SHENXIU and his followers.
Wye River Memorandum ::: Agreement signed on October 23, 1998 for the implementation of Oslo II agreement and to resume final status talks. The memorandum included giving the PA control over 13% of the West Bank, changing the PLO Charter, opening of the Gaza airport, reduction of the number of Palestinian Police and the release of Palestinian prisoners. The full extent of agreements were not carried out.
yato naiva nivartante tad dhama paramam mama ::: [...whence they revert not, that is My supreme status]. [cf. Gita 8.21; 15.6]
Yiches ::: Family status or prestige. ::: Yichud ::: A short time of seclusion immediately following the marriage ceremony that the bride and groom spend alone together.
Yujomsa. (楡岾寺). In Korean, "Elm Hillock Monastery"; one of the four major monasteries located in the Diamond Mountains (KŬMGANGSAN) in present-day North Korea, and best known traditionally for its fifty-three buddha images. Yujomsa claims to be one of the oldest monasteries on the Korean peninsula. According to its historical record, Kŭmgangsan Yujomsa sajokki, written in 1297 by the Koryo official and diplomat Min Chi (1248-1326), icons of fifty-three buddhas drifted to the Silla seashore in the year 4 CE through the intercession of an Indo-Scythian [alt. Yuezhi, Rouzhi] king from the northwestern region of India. These images were originally cast by MANJUsRĪ in the Indian city of sRĀVASTĪ and enshrined inside a large bell. After landing in Korea, the bell containing these fifty-three icons magically traveled inland and was eventually discovered in a branch of an elm tree by a Korean local official. To house these icons, the Silla king Namhae Ch'ach'aung (r. 4-24 CE) ordered the construction of this monastery, which he named after the elm tree in which the bell was discovered. Despite this legend of the monastery's origins, however, the main construction work at Yujomsa could not have begun before 1168. In the thirteenth century, during the late Koryo period, the monastery enjoyed the patronage of the Mongol-Korean court, which raised its political status and importance. The fifty-three buddhas of Yujomsa remained a popular destination for both literati tourists and Buddhist pilgrims to the Diamond Mountains throughout the Choson dynasty. When the site was surveyed in 1912 by the Japanese scholar Sekino Tadashi (1867-1935), only fifty small gilt bronze icons were displayed in the Nŭngin pojon on a unique screen altar that was ornamented with meandering tree branches. In contrast to Min Chi's description of the iconography, various other images, including bodhisattvas and monastic figures, were included along with the buddha icons. Stylistically, forty-three individual figures could be dated to the Unified Silla period, and the remaining seven were determined to be post-Koryo products. This incongruent mixture of styles is due to continuous devastations of the images by fire and theft and their subsequent restorations. Yujomsa burned to the ground during the Korean War (1950-1953) and the current whereabouts of the fifty-three icons are unknown.
zombie process "operating system" (Or "defunct process") A {Unix} {process} that has terminated (either because it has been killed by a {signal} or because it has called {exit}()) and whose {parent process} has not yet received notification of its termination by executing (some form of) the {wait}() {system call}. A zombie process exists solely as a {process table} entry and consumes no other resources. This entry is retained to hold the child's exit status until the parent process wants to retrieve it. The parent can also be notified asynchronously via a signal of the child's termination. Zombie processes can be seen in "ps" listings occasionally (with a status "Z" in some versions). Compare {orphan process}. (1997-10-08)
zombie process ::: (operating system) (Or defunct process) A Unix process that has terminated (either because it has been killed by a signal or because it has called exit()) and whose parent process has not yet received notification of its termination by executing (some form of) the wait() system call.A zombie process exists solely as a process table entry and consumes no other resources. This entry is retained to hold the child's exit status until the parent process wants to retrieve it. The parent can also be notified asynchronously via a signal of the child's termination.Zombie processes can be seen in ps listings occasionally (with a status Z in some versions).Compare orphan process. (1997-10-08)
KEYS (10k)
34 Sri Aurobindo
3 Saint Thomas Aquinas
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Meister Eckhart
1 SATM?
1 Robert Heinlein
1 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
1 Rabindranath Tagore
1 Padmasambhava
1 Novalis
1 Apple Inc.
1 Alfred Korzybski
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
29 Anonymous
23 Seth Godin
14 Sri Aurobindo
10 Israelmore Ayivor
8 Alain de Botton
7 Rush Limbaugh
7 Naomi Wolf
7 Mahatma Gandhi
7 David McRaney
7 Chuck Palahniuk
5 Walter Isaacson
5 Timothy J Keller
5 Stephen Jay Gould
5 Michelle Alexander
5 M F Moonzajer
5 Martin Luther King Jr
5 Karen Armstrong
5 Jordan Peterson
5 Jordan B Peterson
5 Johann Hari
1:Vision only opens, it does not embrace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
2:According to the status of the soul is the status of the Prakriti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Vijnana or Gnosis, #KEYS
3:We must not only see God and embrace Him, but become that Reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
4:Our ordinary intellectual notions are a stumbling-block in the way of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
5:Our whole being ought to demand God and not only our illumined eye of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
6:The element of the vital being is not earth but air; it has more movement, less status. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Triple Transformation, #KEYS
7:Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
8:The Divine is a Being and not an abstract existence or a status of pure timeless infinity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Mystery of Love, #KEYS
9:To play the part of a Guru is like a courtesan's life, selling oneself for such paltry things as gold, status and bodily enjoyments. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
10:The data of the senses can bring us, is not true knowledge; it is a science of appearances. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
11:Our past thinking has determined our present status, and our present thinking will determine our future status; for man is what man thinks. ~ Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of The Dead, #KEYS
12:Some boast of wealth, power, name, fame, high status -- all these things are for a few days only. None of them will follow one after death. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
13:God and God still remains unspoken." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher, acquired status as a great mystic, Wikipedia., #KEYS
14:The highest Truth is seen by all the blessed in various degrees ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.62.9). https://twitter.com/tylerwittman/status/1432744297154109440, #KEYS
15:A fruit is something that proceeds from a source as from a seed or root ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.70.3). https://twitter.com/lazyraran/status/1382480995321004034, #KEYS
16:Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being . ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, #KEYS
17:The inner life has a supreme spiritual importance and the outer has a value only in so far as it is expressive of the inner status. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
18:To Romanticize means to endow base matters with noble meaning, ordinary matters with a mysterious status, familiar matters with the dignity of the unknown, finite matter with the appearance of infinity. ~ Novalis, #KEYS
19:Anselm desired to dry up the marrow of his body through the fullness of his devotion ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (In Sent. 4.17.2.3). https://twitter.com/bubodeserti/status/1415263913852248067, #KEYS
20:Psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
21:Yogic knowledge seeks to enter into a secret consciousness beyond mind which is only occultly here, concealed at the basis of all existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
22:Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, #KEYS
23:Still, right thought only becomes effective when in the purified understanding it is followed by other operations, by vision, by experience, by realisation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
24:God dwells in the nothing-at-all that was prior to nothing." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher and mystic, tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII, acquired a status as a great mystic within contemporary popular spirituality, Wikipedia., #KEYS
25:In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
26:The supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 280,#KEYS
27:And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. ~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, #KEYS
28: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
29:Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. ~ Apple Inc., #KEYS
30:The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it.
~ Robert Heinlein, Notebooks Of Lazarus Long, from Time Enough for Love (1973).,#KEYS
31: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
32:They climb Indra like a ladder. As one mounts peak after peak, there becomes clear the much that has still to be done. Indra brings consciousness of That as the goal.
Like a hawk, a kite He settles on the Vessel and upbears it; in His stream of movement He discovers the Rays, for He goes bearing his weapons: He cleaves to the ocean surge of the waters; a great King, He declares the fourth status. Like a mortal purifying his body, like a war-horse galloping to the conquest of riches He pours calling through all the sheath and enters these vessels. Rig Veda.2 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.26,#KEYS
33:That status of knowledge is then the aim of this path and indeed of all paths when pursued to their end, to which intellectual discrimination and conception and all concentration and psychological self-knowledge and all seeking by the heart through love and by the senses through beauty and by the will through power and works and by the soul through peace and joy are only keys, avenues, first approaches and beginnings of the ascent which we have to use and to follow till the wide and infinite levels are attained and the divine doors swing open into the infinite Light.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
34:the individual is a self-expression of the universal and the transcendent,-it is not a contradiction or something quite other than it, it is the universal concentrated and selective, it is one with the Transcendent in its essence of being and its essence of nature. In the view of this unitarian comprehensive seeing there is nothing contradictory in a formless Essence of being that carries a multitude of forms, or in a status of the Infinite supporting a kinesis of the Infinite, or in an infinite Oneness expressing itself in a multiplicity of beings and aspects and powers and movements, for they are beings and aspects and powers and movements of the One.
~ SATM?,#KEYS
35:Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and identification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujya-mukti, by which it can become free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokya-mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
36:This Dog
Every morning this dog, very attached to me,
Quietly keeps sitting near my seat
Till touching its head
I recognize its company.
This recognition gives it so much joy
Pure delight ripples through its entire body.
Among all dumb creatures
It is the only living being
That has seen the whole man
Beyond what is good or bad in him
It has seen
For his love it can sacrifice its life
It can love him too for the sake of love alone
For it is he who shows the way
To the vast world pulsating with life.
When I see its deep devotion
The offer of its whole being
I fail to understand
By its sheer instinct
What truth it has discovered in man.
By its silent anxious piteous looks
It cannot communicate what it understands
But it has succeeded in conveying to me
Among the whole creation
What is the true status of man.
~ Rabindranath Tagore,#KEYS
37:An integral method and an integral result. First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures. Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujyamukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokyalmukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sadharmyamukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, p.47-8,#KEYS
38:The Self, the Divine, the Supreme Reality, the All, the Transcendent, - the One in all these aspects is then the object of Yogic knowledge. Ordinary objects, the external appearances of life and matter, the psychology of out thoughts and actions, the perception of the forces of the apparent world can be part of this knowledge, but only in so far as it is part of the manifestation of the One. It becomes at once evident that the knowledge for which Yoga strives must be different from what men ordinarily understand by the word. For we mean ordinarily by knowledge an intellectual appreciation of the facts of life, mind and matter and the laws that govern them. This is a knowledge founded upon our sense-perception and upon reasoning from our sense-perceptions and it is undertaken partly for the pure satisfaction of the intellect, partly for practical efficiency and the added power which knowledge gives in managing our lives and the lives of others, in utilising for human ends the overt or secret forces of Nature and in helping or hurting, in saving and ennobling or in oppressing and destroying our fellow-men. Yoga, indeed, is commensurate with all life and can include these subjects and objects.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
39:So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. All this which looks strange and abnormal or may seem fantastic to the surface reason acquainted only with our normal status of limited ignorance and its movements divided from our inner higher and total reality, becomes easily intelligible and admissible in the light of the larger reason and logic of the Infinite or by the admission of the greater illimitable powers of the Self, the Spirit in us which is of one essence with the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.2.02 #KEYS
40:the powers of concentration :::
By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself, we can become whatever we choose; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fear, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, [318],#KEYS
41:IN OUR scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit's own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real essence. All are powers of one Power of being and not other than that All-Existence, All-Consciousness, All-Will, All-Delight which is the true truth behind every appearance. And they are not only one in their reality, but also inseparable in the sevenfold variety of their action. They are the seven colours of the light of the divine consciousness, the seven rays of the Infinite, and by them the Spirit has filled in on the canvas of his self-existence conceptually extended, woven of the objective warp of Space and the subjective woof of Time, the myriad wonders of his self-creation great, simple, symmetrical in its primal laws and vast framings, infinitely curious and intricate in its variety of forms and actions and the complexities of relation and mutual effect of all upon each and each upon all. These are the seven Words of the ancient sages; by them have been created and in the light of their meaning are worked out and have to be interpreted the developed and developing harmonies of the world we know and the worlds behind of which we have only an indirect knowledge. The Light, the Sound is one; their action is sevenfold.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 7 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, 499,#KEYS
42:Shastra is the knowledge and teaching laid down by intuition, experience and wisdom, the science and art and ethic of life, the best standards available to the race. The half-awakened man who leaves the observance of its rule to follow the guidance of his instincts and desires, can get pleasure but not happiness; for the inner happiness can only come by right living. He cannot move to perfection, cannot acquire the highest spiritual status. The law of instinct and desire seems to come first in the animal world, but the manhood of man grows by the pursuit of truth and religion and knowledge and a right life. The Shastra, the recognised Right that he has set up to govern his lower members by his reason and intelligent will, must therefore first be observed and made the authority for conduct and works and for what should or should not be done, till the instinctive desire nature is schooled and abated and put down by the habit of self-control and man is ready first for a freer intelligent self-guidance and then for the highest supreme law and supreme liberty of the spiritual nature.
For the Shastra in its ordinary aspect is not that spiritual law, although at its loftiest point, when it becomes a science and art of spiritual living, Adhyatma-shastra, - the Gita itself describes its own teaching as the highest and most secret Shastra, - it formulates a rule of the self-transcendence of the sattwic nature and develops the discipline which leads to spiritual transmutation. Yet all Shastra is built on a number of preparatory conditions, dharmas; it is a means, not an end. The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit when abandoning all dharmas the soul turns to God for its sole law of action, acts straight from the divine will and lives in the freedom of the divine nature, not in the Law, but in the Spirit. This is the development of the teaching which is prepared by the next question of Arjuna. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays On The Gita,#KEYS
43:This is the real sense and drive of what we see as evolution: the multiplication and variation of forms is only the means of its process. Each gradation contains the possibility and the certainty of the grades beyond it: the emergence of more and more developed forms and powers points to more perfected forms and greater powers beyond them, and each emergence of consciousness and the conscious beings proper to it enables the rise to a greater consciousness beyond and the greater order of beings up to the ultimate godheads of which Nature is striving and is destined to show herself capable. Matter developed its organised forms until it became capable of embodying living organisms; then life rose from the subconscience of the plant into conscious animal formations and through them to the thinking life of man. Mind founded in life developed intellect, developed its types of knowledge and ignorance, truth and error till it reached the spiritual perception and illumination and now can see as in a glass dimly the possibility of supermind and a truthconscious existence. In this inevitable ascent the mind of Light is a gradation, an inevitable stage. As an evolving principle it will mark a stage in the human ascent and evolve a new type of human being; this development must carry in it an ascending gradation of its own powers and types of an ascending humanity which will embody more and more the turn towards spirituality, capacity for Light, a climb towards a divinised manhood and the divine life.
In the birth of the mind of Light and its ascension into its own recognisable self and its true status and right province there must be, in the very nature of things as they are and very nature of the evolutionary process as it is at present, two stages. In the first, we can see the mind of Light gathering itself out of the Ignorance, assembling its constituent elements, building up its shapes and types, however imperfect at first, and pushing them towards perfection till it can cross the border of the Ignorance and appear in the Light, in its own Light. In the second stage we can see it developing itself in that greater natural light, taking its higher shapes and forms till it joins the supermind and lives as its subordinate portion or its delegate.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, Mind of Light, 587,#KEYS
44:It is then by a transformation of life in its very principle, not by an external manipulation of its phenomena, that the integral Yoga proposes to change it from a troubled and ignorant into a luminous and harmonious movement of Nature. There are three conditions which are indispensable for the achievement of this central inner revolution and new formation; none of them is altogether sufficient in itself, but by their united threefold power the uplifting can be done, the conversion made and completely made. For, first, life as it is is a movement of desire and it has built in us as its centre a desire-soul which refers to itself all the motions of life and puts in them its own troubled hue and pain of an ignorant, half-lit, baffled endeavour: for a divine living, desire must be abolished and replaced by a purer and firmer motive-power, the tormented soul of desire dissolved and in its stead there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of a true vital being now concealed within us. Next, life as it is is driven or led partly by the impulse of the life-force, partly by a mind which is mostly a servant and abettor of the ignorant life-impulse, but in part also its uneasy and not too luminous or competent guide and mentor; for a divine life the mind and the life-impulse must cease to be anything but instruments and the inmost psychic being must take their place as the leader on the path and the indicator of a divine guidance. Last, life as it is is turned towards the satisfaction of the separative ego; ego must disappear and be replaced by the true spiritual person, the central being, and life itself must be turned towards the fulfilment of the Divine in terrestrial existence; it must feel a Divine Force awaking within it and become an obedient instrumentation of its purpose.
There is nothing that is not ancient and familiar in the first of these three transforming inner movements; for it has always been one of the principal objects of spiritual discipline. It has been best formulated in the already expressed doctrine of the Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire, - to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 176,#KEYS
45:root of the falsification and withdrawl of divine love :::
At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,#KEYS
46:The Absolute is in itself indefinable by reason, ineffable to the speech; it has to be approached through experience. It can be approached through an absolute negation of existence, as if it were itself a supreme Non-Existence, a mysterious infinite Nihil. It can be approached through an absolute affirmation of all the fundamentals of our own existence, through an absolute of Light and Knowledge, through an absolute of Love or Beauty, through an absolute of Force, through an absolute of peace or silence. It can be approached through an inexpressible absolute of being or of consciousness, or of power of being, or of delight of being, or through a supreme experience in which these things become inexpressibly one; for we can enter into such an ineffable state and, plunged into it as if into a luminous abyss of existence, we can reach a superconscience which may be described as the gate of the Absolute. It is supposed that it is only through a negation of individual and cosmos that we can enter into the Absolute. But in fact the individual need only deny his own small separate ego-existence; he can approach the Absolute through a sublimation of his spiritual individuality taking up the cosmos into himself and transcending it; or he may negate himself altogether, but even so it is still the individual who by self-exceeding enters into the Absolute. He may enter also by a sublimation of his being into a supreme existence or super-existence, by a sublimation of his consciousness into a supreme consciousness or superconscience, by a sublimation of his and all delight of being into a super-delight or supreme ecstasy. He can make the approach through an ascension in which he enters into cosmic consciousness, assumes it into himself and raises himself and it into a state of being in which oneness and multiplicity are in perfect harmony and unison in a supreme status of manifestation where all are in each and each in all and all in the one without any determining individuation - for the dynamic identity and mutuality have become complete; on the path of affirmation it is this status of the manifestation that is nearest to the Absolute. This paradox of an Absolute which can be realised through an absolute negation and through an absolute affirmation, in many ways, can only be accounted for to the reason if it is a supreme Existence which is so far above our notion and experience of existence that it can correspond to our negation of it, to our notion and experience of nonexistence; but also, since all that exists is That, whatever its degree of manifestation, it is itself the supreme of all things and can be approached through supreme affirmations as through supreme negations. The Absolute is the ineffable x overtopping and underlying and immanent and essential in all that we can call existence or non-existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.06 - Reality and the Cosmic Illusion, #KEYS
47:An integral Yoga includes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and ultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness and a larger divine existence. Our parts of will and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our emotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature must seek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with the Eternal. But mans present nature is limited, divided, unequal, -- it is easiest for him to concentrate in the strongest part of his being and follow a definite line of progress proper to his nature: only rare individuals have the strength to take a large immediate plunge straight into the sea of the Divine Infinity. Some therefore must choose as a starting-point a concentration in thought or contemplation or the minds one-pointedness to find the eternal reality of the Self in them; others can more easily withdraw into the heart to meet there the Divine, the Eternal: yet others are predominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre themselves in the will and enlarge their being through works. United with the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity, guided in their works by the secret Divinity within or surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status. But the path, whatever its point of starting, must debouch into a vaster dominion; it must proceed in the end through a totality of integrated knowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being and the entire nature. In the supramental consciousness, on the level of the supramental existence this integration becomes consummate; there knowledge, will, emotion, the perfection of the self and the dynamic nature rise each to its absolute of itself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each other, to a divine integrality, a divine perfection. For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite. An ascent into the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and essential consciousness to that height but brings about a descent of this Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of nature. All then becomes part of the Divine Truth, an element and means of the supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be therefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works [279-280],#KEYS
48:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
A third process is neither at first to concentrate in a strenuous meditation on the one subject nor in a strenuous contemplation of the one object of thought-vision, but first to still the mind altogether. This may be done by various ways; one is to stand back from the mental action altogether not participating in but simply watching it until, tired of its unsanctioned leaping and running, it falls into an increasing and finally an absolute quiet. Another is to reject the thought-suggestions, to cast them away from the mind whenever they come and firmly hold to the peace of the being which really and always exists behind the trouble and riot of the mind. When this secret peace is unveiled, a great calm settles on the being and there comes usually with it the perception and experience of the all-pervading silent Brahman, everything else at first seeming to be mere form and eidolon. On the basis of this calm everything else may be built up in the knowledge and experience no longer of the external phenomena of things but of the deeper truth of the divine manifestation.
Ordinarily, once this state is obtained, strenuous concentration will be found no longer necessary. A free concentration of will using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous preparation and purification of the members, they will be obliged with more or less struggle to obey the law of the will and its thought-suggestion, so that eventually the knowledge of the Divine takes possession of our consciousness on all its planes and the image of the Divine is formed in our human existence even as it was done by the old Vedic Sadhakas. For the integral Yoga this is the most direct and powerful discipline.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Concentration,#KEYS
49:What are these operations? They are not mere psychological self-analysis and self-observation. Such analysis, such observation are, like the process of right thought, of immense value and practically indispensable. They may even, if rightly pursued, lead to a right thought of considerable power and effectivity. Like intellectual discrimination by the process of meditative thought they will have an effect of purification; they will lead to self-knowledge of a certain kind and to the setting right of the disorders of the soul and the heart and even of the disorders of the understanding. Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance. A purified or tranquillised mind may reflect or a powerful concentration may discover God in the world, the Self in Nature even before it is realised in ourselves, but this is rare and difficult. (2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the process of the Self in its becoming and follow the process by which it draws back into self-being. Therefore the ancient counsel, know thyself, will always stand as the first word that directs us towards the knowledge. Still, psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being.
The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation", in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self and in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychical and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, dr.s.t.i, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it-to the soul and not merely to the intellect-as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaks.a, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroks.a, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes,-for no other sense is adequate,-we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of he Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration;3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
(2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the 2 In one respect, however, it is easier, because in external things we are not so much hampered by the sense of the limited ego as in ourselves; one obstacle to the realisation of God is therefore removed.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:It's uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 2:It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 3:The status quo is leaving the building, and quickly. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 4:Either you defend the status quo, or you invent the future. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 5:We do not need to teach students to embrace the status quo. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 6:Status quo, you know, is Latin for & 7:Silence isn’t neutrality; it is supporting the status-quo. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 8:If you're not upsetting anyone, you're not changing the status quo. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 9:The honest work of yesterday has lost its social status, its social esteem. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 10:The job isn't to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 11:Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 12:You don't have to settle for the status quo, for being good enough, for getting by, for working all night. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 13:All joy... emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 14:Activism that challenges the status quo, that attacks deeply rooted problems, is not for the faint of heart. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 15:Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity ... Make that elevates & 16:Success is a process that continues, not a status that you reach. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 17:Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 18:as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 19:If you don’t love something, you’re not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 20:To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain & 21:Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 22:Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 23:Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 24:An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 25:The status of & 26:A hero is not a champion of things become, but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 27:The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 28:The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 29:It is the duty of all to support and side with Dharma. All must fight and support Dharma regardless of their personality, background, status. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 30:No society can function as a society, unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 31:At least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 32:Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 33:I would say any behavior that is not the status quo is interpreted as insanity, when, in fact, it might actually be enlightenment. Insanity is sorta in the eye of the beholder. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 34:Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 35:The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 36:The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they've got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 37:Too often an institution serves to bless the majority opinion. Today when too many move to the rhythmic beat of the status quo, whoever would be a Christian must be a nonconformist. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 38:If we want to live a Wholehearted life, we have to become intentional about cultivating sleep and play, and about letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 39:Review Projects (and Larger Outcome) Lists: Evaluate the status of projects, goals, and outcomes one by one, ensuring that at least one current kick-start action for each is in your system. ~ david-allen, @wisdomtrove 40:Like the early Christians, we must move into a sometime hostile world armed with the revolutionary gospel of Jesus Christ. With this powerful gospel we shall boldly challenge the status quo. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 41:When you begin the process of unhooking from the outer world, you can find literally hundreds of places where you have given your power away and drained your life force while guaranteeing the status quo. ~ debbie-ford, @wisdomtrove 42:You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in, so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo, and keep saying that a new world is yet to come. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 43:The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 44:If God eliminated evil by programming us to perform only good acts, we would lose this distinguishing mark - the ability to make choices. We would no longer be free moral agents. We would be reduced to the status of robots. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 45:A generous heart is never lonesome. A generous heart has luck. The lonesomeness of contemporary life is partly due to the failure of generosity. Increasingly we complete with each other for the goods, for image, and status. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 46:nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity. ~ audrey-hepburn, @wisdomtrove 47:When you're doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 48:Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience. ~ erma-bombeck, @wisdomtrove 49:When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 50:For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward. ~ erma-bombeck, @wisdomtrove 51:These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 52:The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 53:The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 54:A kung fu man who was really good was not proud at all. Pride emphasizes the superiority of one's status. There has to be fear and insecurity in pride, because when you aim at being highly esteemed and achieve such status, you automatically start to worry about losing status. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 55:Truth is complete in itself. Truth has a strong foundation in itself. It is bold, it has no fears. It has no limit of space or time. It is a fearless, free bird in the sky. It does not care for status. It is wealth in itself. Truth stands even when there is no public support. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 56:Everything that these folks are saying that they're trying to move away from, like comparison, perfectionism, judgement, and exhaustion as a status symbol - that all describes my life. It was more like a medical researcher studying a disease and figuring out he or she has it. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 57:We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 58:Throughout my career, I have discovered and rediscovered a simple truth.It is this: the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status and happiness in life. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 59:Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 60:I would say first of all, anyone who wants to challenge the status quo always gets that response. Ninety percent of the time, that's just bull. That's just the way in which people choose to prop up their own privilege or their own particular position. So mostly I shrug it off. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 61:Every man builds his world in his own image; he has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence‚ by his own choice. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 62:Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 63:They have become strong enough to be independent of the good opinion of other people, or even of their affection. The honours, the status, the rewards, the popularity, the prestige, and the love they can bestow must have become less important than self- development and inner growth. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 64:Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can' afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 65:Expect the best; convert problems into opportunities; be dissatisfied with the status quo; focus on where you want to go, instead of where you're coming from; and most importantly, decide to be happy, knowing it's an attitude, a habit gained from daily practice, and not a result or payoff. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 66:Nothing captures the biological argument better than the famous New Age slogan: ‘Happiness begins within.’ Money, social status, plastic surgery, beautiful houses, powerful positions – none of these will bring you happiness. Lasting happiness comes only from serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 67:Our thoughts about the future go far toward creating it; our minds and hears are like filaments taht connect today to tomorrow, they are conduits for either the status quo or the emergence of different, hopefully more loving, possibilities. How we think and how we behave determine where we are going ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 68:Illegal immigrants in considerable numbers have become productive members of our society and are a basic part of our work force. Those who have established equities in the United States should be recognized and accorded legal status. At the same time, in so doing, we must not encourage illegal immigration. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 69:One who has drunk at the fountain of spiritual happiness says good-by of his own accord to the satisfactions that come from a higher professional status ... What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove 70:Those who are truly decrepit, living corpses, so to speak, are the middle-aged, middle-class men and woman who are stuck in their comfortable grooves and imagine that the status quo will least forever or else are so frightened it won't, that they have retreated into their mental bomb shelters to wait it out. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 71:Expulsion and genocide, though both are international offenses, must remain distinct; the former is an offense against fellow-nations, whereas the latter is an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a characteristic of the "human status" without which the very words "mankind" or "humanity" would be devoid of meaning. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 72:There is therefore no reason to put a limit to evolutionary possibility by taking our present organization or status of existence as final. The animal is a laboratory in which Nature has worked out man; man may very well be a laboratory in which she wills to work out superman, to disclose the soul as a divine being, to evolve a divine nature. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 73:By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought... . This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 74:Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 75:Art is frightening. Art isn't pretty. Art isn't painting. Art isn't something you hang on the wall. Art is what we do when we're truly alive. An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it (all of it, the work, the process, the feedback from those we seek to connect with) personally. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 76:World conditions challenge us to look beyond the status quo for responses to the pain of our times. We look to powers within as well as powers without. A new, spiritually based social activism is beginning to assert itself. It stems not from hating what is wrong and trying to fight it, but from loving what could be and making the commitment to bring it forth. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 77:It is extremely important that adequate provision be made for reasonable levels of income to them, for the care of the children which they must leave at home or in school, and for protection of the family unit. One of the prime objectives of the Commission on the Status of Women, which I appointed 18 months ago, is to develop a program to accomplish these purposes. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 78:The Republican nominee-to-be, of course, is also a young man. But his approach is as old as McKinley. His party is the party of the past. His speeches are generalities from Poor Richard's Almanac. Their platform, made up of left-over Democratic planks, has the courage of our old convictions. Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo-and today there can be no status quo. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 79:Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 80:Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 81:It is precisely because education is the road to equality and citizenship, that it has been made more elusive for Negroes than many other rights. The walling off of Negroes from equal education is part of the historical design to submerge him in second class status. Therefore, as Negroes have struggled to be free they have had to fight for the opportunity for a decent education. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 82:The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 83:Don’t judge centering prayer on the basis of how many thoughts come or how much peace you enjoy. The only way to judge this prayer is by its long-range fruits: whether in daily life you enjoy greater peace, humility and charity. Having come to deep interior silence, you begin to relate to others beyond the superficial aspects of social status, race, nationality, religion, and personal characteristics. ~ thomas-keating, @wisdomtrove 84:We also need the provisions in the tax bill that will permit working mothers to increase the deduction from income tax liability for costs incurred in providing care for their children while the mothers are working. In October the Commission on the Status of Women will report to me. This problem should have a high priority, and I think that whatever we leave undone this year we must move on this in January. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 85:I find that it's almost essential to fall in love with an idea to invest the time it takes to make it good and worth sharing. And then, the hard part: deleting that idea when it's just not what it could be. Too often, organizations are good at the first part, but struggle with the second. And so we defend expired business models, support the status quo and have a knee-jerk inclination to preserve what we've got. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 86:One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 87:Are you disappointed, discouraged and discontented with your present level of success? Are you secretly dissatisfied with your present status? Do you want to become a better and more beautiful person than you are today? Would you like to be able to really learn how to be proud of yourself and still not lose genuine humility? Then start dreaming! It's possible! You can become the person you have always wanted to be! ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 88:From the first days of my career as an entrepreneur, I have always used my own and my team's lack of experience to our advantage. In fact, at our first venture, Student magazine, we used our newcomer status to secure great interviews and generate publicity - people were excited about our new project and wanted to get involved. Our inexperience fed our restless enthusiasm for trying new things, which became part of our core mission. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 89:Our status as a free society and world power is not based on brute strength. When we've taken up arms, it has been for the defense of freedom for ourselves and for other peaceful nations who needed our help. But now, faced with the development of weapons with immense destructive power, we've no choice but to maintain ready defense forces that are second to none. Yes, the cost is high, but the price of neglect would be infinitely higher. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 90:We come humbly to say to the men in the forefront of our government that the civil rights issue is not an Ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo; it is rather an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our nation in the ideological struggle with communism. The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now, before it is too late. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 91:And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 92:I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance ... and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance ... to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth. Usually the resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, status, money... as a result of the change. Although they never advanced this as their reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their hearts. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 93:Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead. This scarcity makes leadership valuable... It's uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It's uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It's uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. It's uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle... If you're not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it's almost certain you're not reaching your potential as a leader. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 94:You are in the depths of despair because you locked in on something or someone that didn't belong to you. I've met many people who have lost everything, especially in these times. People who survive devastating loss have the ability to let go of what they were doing, how much they were earning, and what they feel they are entitled to right now. They may well return to their former status, but their immediate task is to assess their skills and show resilience moving forward. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 95:You are in the depths of despair because you locked in on something or someone that didn't belong to you. I've met many people who have lost everything, especially in these times. People who survive devastating loss have the ability to let go of what they were doing, how much they were earning, and what they feel they are entitled to right now. They may well return to their former status, but their immediate task is to assess their skills and show resilience moving forward. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 96:Show me a woman who can hold space for a man in real fear and vulnerability, and I’ll show you a woman who’s learned to embrace her own vulnerability and who doesn’t derive her power or status from that man. Show me a man who can sit with a woman in real fear and vulnerability and just hear her struggle without trying to fix it or give advice, and I’ll show you a man who’s comfortable with his own vulnerability and doesn’t derive his power from being Oz, the all-knowing and all-powerful. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 97:It is this idea & 98:People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 99:Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this terrorism), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this collateral damage). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 100:This society in which knowledge workers dominate is in danger of a new "class conflict" between the large minority of knowledge workers and the majority of workers who will make their livings through traditional ways, either by manual work... or by service work. The productivity of knowledge work - still abysmally low - will predictably become the economic challenge of the knowledge society. On it will depend the ability of the knowledge society to give decent incomes, and with them dignity and status, to non knowledge people. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 101:The main qualities that had earned him this universal respect in the service were, first, an extreme indulgence towards people, based on his awareness of his own shortcomings; second, a perfect liberalism, not the sort he read about in the newspapers, but the sort he had in his blood, which made him treat all people, whatever their rank or status, in a perfectly equal and identical way; and, third - most important - a perfect indifference to the business he was occupied with, owing to which he never got carried away and never made mistakes. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 102:The taboos that I have mentioned are extraordinarily harsh and numerous. They stand around nearly every subject that is genuinely important to man: they hedge in free opinion and experimentation on all sides. Consider, for example, the matter of religion. It is debated freely and furiously in almost every country in the world save the United States, but here the critic is silenced. The result is that all religions are equally safeguarded against criticism, and that all of them lose vitality. We protect the status quo, and so make steady war upon revision and improvement. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 103:Scientists, for their part, need to be far more engaged with current public debates. They should not be afraid of making their voice heard when the debate wanders into their field of expertise, be it medicine or history. Silence isn’t neuatrality; it is supporting the status quo. Of course, it is extremely important to go on doing academic research and to publish the results in scientific journals that only a few experts read. But it is equally important to communicate the latest scientific theories to the general public through popular-science books, and even through the skilful use of art and fiction. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 104:The external world of physics has … become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions. Later perhaps we may inquire whether in our zeal to cut out all that is unreal we may not have used the knife too ruthlessly. Perhaps, indeed, reality is a child which cannot survive without its nurse illusion. But if so, that is of little concern to the scientist, who has good and sufficient reasons for pursuing his investigations in the world of shadows and is content to leave to the philosopher the determination of its exact status in regard to reality. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 105:TEN GUIDEPOSTS FOR WHOLEHEARTED LIVING 1. Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think 2. Cultivating self-compassion: letting go of perfectionism 3. Cultivating a resilient spirit: letting go of numbing and powerlessness 4. Cultivating gratitude and joy: letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark 5. Cultivating intuition and trusting faith: letting go of the need for certainty 6. Cultivating creativity: letting go of comparison 7. Cultivating play and rest: letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth 8. Cultivating calm and stillness: letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle 9. Cultivating meaningful work: letting go of self-doubt and supposed to 10. Cultivating laughter, song, and dance: letting go of being cool and always in control ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The status quo sucks. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
2:The status quo cannot work. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
3:Unable to get snapshot. status=1 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
4:Your Mercy is my social status. ~ Guru Nanak, #NFDB
5:I believe in status symbols. ~ Brooks Stevens, #NFDB
6:Poverty is a social status. ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
7:Is there a status quo in the house? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
8:I like money, but I want status. ~ Lance Stephenson, #NFDB
9:subverting the status quo again. ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
10:The status quo is simply unacceptable. ~ Brad Henry, #NFDB
11:As fate would have it, Jay's status appears ~ Jay Z, #NFDB
12:I'm a harsh critic of the status quo. ~ Andrew Cuomo, #NFDB
13:Engineering, this is ops! Status report! ~ David Mack, #NFDB
14:Strength is for service, not status ~ Israel Houghton, #NFDB
15:I never kid about my warrior demigod status. ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
16:It's service, not status, that counts. ~ Neal A Maxwell, #NFDB
17:I add status to any tournament I attend. ~ Bobby Fischer, #NFDB
18:In love there is no status quo. ~ Natalie Clifford Barney, #NFDB
19:It's uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
20:Public school system status quo is indefensible. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
21:Those who practice Love have neither Religion or Status. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
22:He leapfrogged from the status of despised Galilean ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
23:is “the denial of humanity’s special status. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert, #NFDB
24:The Democratic Party is the party of the status quo. ~ Jack Kemp, #NFDB
25:A goal is a planned conflict with the status quo. ~ Hyrum W Smith, #NFDB
26:Celestial criteria measures service, not status. ~ Neal A Maxwell, #NFDB
27:On stuck status? Don't crush the groove, bust a move. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
28:The status quo is leaving the building, and quickly. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
29:I'm not a facebook status you don't have to like me. ~ Wiz Khalifa, #NFDB
30:Love doesn't begin and end with some online status. ~ Adam Silvera, #NFDB
31:Love the fun of clothes, not the status of fashion. ~ Ralph Lauren, #NFDB
32:That things are "status quo" is the catastrophe. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
33:Love doesn’t begin and end with some online status. I ~ Adam Silvera, #NFDB
34:A Life without criticism and status is not a worth living. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
35:A plaque and platinum status is whack if I'm not the baddest. ~ Eminem, #NFDB
36:Women challenge the status quo because we are never it. ~ Cindy Gallop, #NFDB
37:A leader who loves status quo soon becomes a follower. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
38:Challenge your own status quo - before someone else does. ~ Ron Kaufman, #NFDB
39:Competition for status is a zero sum game ~ Richard Layard Baron Layard, #NFDB
40:Happily, fantastic fiction is slowly gaining in status. ~ Karin Tidbeck, #NFDB
41:Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
42:The status quo is never news, only challenges to it. ~ Malorie Blackman, #NFDB
43:The status quo is the only solution that cannot be vetoed. ~ Clark Kerr, #NFDB
44:Either you defend the status quo, or you invent the future. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
45:We do not need to teach students to embrace the status quo. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
46:A ideia de mudar o status quo é sempre penosa. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
47:Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise. ~ Jay Samit, #NFDB
48:My social status in the last year has gone from zero to hero. ~ Nell Zink, #NFDB
49:Science is not about status quo. It's about revolution. ~ Leon M Lederman, #NFDB
50:Marriage is not only a package of benefits - it's a status. ~ Amy Davidson, #NFDB
51:We sell feelings, status, and connection, not tasks or stuff. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
52:It's wonderful to work with someone with mentor status. ~ Madeleine Peyroux, #NFDB
53:What use is status if you have no one to share it with, Dad? ~ Renita D Silva, #NFDB
54:There's one thing worse than change and that's the status quo. ~ John le Carre, #NFDB
55:as a society we are trained to not question the status quo. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
56:Discontent with the status quo is a great catalyst for vision. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
57:The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. ~ Warren G Bennis, #NFDB
58:The status quo helps liberals. We're going to change the country. ~ Howard Dean, #NFDB
59:I definitely don't want to achieve some kind of rock star status. ~ Ethan Suplee, #NFDB
60:If you're not upsetting anyone, you're not changing the status quo. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
61:Women were more than the status of their hymen or their dress size. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
62:You lose that sacred-cow status when you lose three straight years. ~ Joe Dumars, #NFDB
63:Rob Mullins is headed for status as an international celebrity. ~ Leonard Feather, #NFDB
64:Status, worry and comparison are ways to madness, not victory. ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
65:The list, for better or worse, did elevate her status at school. ~ Siobhan Vivian, #NFDB
66:The consumer status, the authors concluded "did not unite; it divided. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
67:At the age of eight, I still dreamed of being granted plant status. ~ Henri Michaux, #NFDB
68:Doubt is not a very agreeable status, but certainty is a ridiculous one. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
69:Racism doesn’t care about respectability, wealth, education, or status ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
70:We have to raise the status of girls and women in every country. ~ Gillian Anderson, #NFDB
71:Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies. ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
72:In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained. ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
73:Things are pretty much status quo with the sexual-tension friend. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
74:Men in general need to accept their diminished status in the world. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
75:Neutrality in a situation of oppression always supports the status quo. ~ Walter Wink, #NFDB
76:Status is always ripe for satire, status is always good for comedy. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
77:The keeping of an idle woman is a badge of superior social status. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
78:I have no nationality - the best possible status for an intellectual. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
79:Males have no status apart from their mothers or an equivalent female. ~ John Hargrove, #NFDB
80:A pregnant female in a pack of dogs commands tremendous respect and status. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
81:Money and status don’t mean shit. It’s character that means somethin’. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
82:Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo. ~ Harold Pinter, #NFDB
83:No” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo. ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
84:Religious organisations have an automatic tax-free charitable status. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
85:The status quo (of development) pre-ordains failure from the very beginning. ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
86:the truth gets buried deep beneath ego, greed, status, and stupidity. ~ Anthony William, #NFDB
87:I've always been politically minded, you know, and against the status quo. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
88:Misogyny or misandry is not a status or a belief; it is just a sickness. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
89:Rank and status do not represent power when surrounded by negativity. ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
90:The woman who knows and fulfils her duty realizes her dignified status. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
91:A man's mind is elevated to the status of the women he associates with. ~ Professor Griff, #NFDB
92:Being satisfied with the status quo means you are not making progress ~ Katsuaki Watanabe, #NFDB
93:My school spirit is at an all time low, I'm losing my status at the school. ~ Frank Zappa, #NFDB
94:To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist. ~ Uta Hagen, #NFDB
95:My relationship status was about as clear as a serial killer’s cellar window. ~ Staci Hart, #NFDB
96:Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise. ~ Ian Anderson, #NFDB
97:Status is about counting, numbering, ranking and ultimately about excluding. ~ Andy Crouch, #NFDB
98:Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn't stand it. ~ Bela Lugosi, #NFDB
99:How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
100:The honest work of yesterday has lost its social status, its social esteem. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
101:In football, the hero and legend status is given out far too easily for me. ~ Steven Gerrard, #NFDB
102:Whoever has an original thing to say, it is sort of a threat to the status quo. ~ Steve Lacy, #NFDB
103:A woman with knowledge is something that frightens the status quo quite a lot. ~ Helen Mirren, #NFDB
104:I have been elevated to such a high status that the fall will be very steep. ~ Hrithik Roshan, #NFDB
105:I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
106:Question the status quo at all times, especially when things are going well. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
107:Rebelling against the status quo was one of the definitions of conservatism. ~ Rick Perlstein, #NFDB
108:If you are a child of God, you don’t lose your status if you have a bad week. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
109:If you can't stop thinking about someone's update, that's called "status cling. ~ Jessica Park, #NFDB
110:I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
111:Liking your own status in social networks is similar to kissing your own dick. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
112:The defenders of the status quo often masquerade as the preservers of harmony. ~ Mark Sheppard, #NFDB
113:The job isn't to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
114:The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
115:I find celebrity status difficult to bear when I am in the company of my mother. ~ Phil Donahue, #NFDB
116:In social networks, you gain and bestow status through those you associate with. ~ Tim O Reilly, #NFDB
117:It did not last: the devil howling "Ho! Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. ~ J C Squire, #NFDB
118:Kindness is an extraordinary moment and status even if it has to be pretending. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
119:To be impartial... is indeed to have taken sides already... with the status quo. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
120:Faith is being idealistic, because we have made an idol out of the status quo. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
121:Isn't it amazing how celebrity status preempts even the most ingrained hatreds? ~ Camryn Manheim, #NFDB
122:People's perceptions of their status are just as important as their actual status. ~ Chip Berlet, #NFDB
123:Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
124:You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru, #NFDB
125:By being beautiful and kind you are given favored status and opportunity in life. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
126:How many people volunteer for an army and then claim conscientious objector status? ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
127:One more comment out of you and I’m changing your Facebook status to “I love penis.” ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
128:Status ought not to be measured by a woman's ability to attract and snare a man. ~ Germaine Greer, #NFDB
129:There's nothing more fundamentally disruptive to the status quo than a new reality. ~ Umair Haque, #NFDB
130:Our culture says Status is more important than Wealth, but we teach the opposite. ~ Orrin Woodward, #NFDB
131:[Sarah] Palin is solidifying her status as a bona fide American cultural heroine. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
132:The emblems of status may shift, but human nature generally delights in being first. ~ Jill Jonnes, #NFDB
133:About to be hanged is my status quo, not a condition that requires your repair. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
134:Her budget is blessedly free of those two core expenses, entertainment and status. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
135:I don't accept the status quo. I do accept Visa, MasterCard, or American Express. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
136:Meat is a status dish in which the sizzle counts for more than the nutritional worth. ~ Magnus Pyke, #NFDB
137:people have a strong tendency to go along with the status quo or default option. ~ Richard H Thaler, #NFDB
138:Threat is another word for change. Status quo ante is not preferable to all change. ~ Max Gladstone, #NFDB
139:It’s easier to accumulate wealth if you don’t live in a high-status neighborhood. ~ Thomas J Stanley, #NFDB
140:It's pitiful to have a life in which junk food is awarded the same high status as sex. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
141:Our feeling is that the status quo often gets a boost and this is the new status quo. ~ Nigel Farage, #NFDB
142:Real leadership is not about prestige, power, or status. It is about responsibility. ~ Robert L Joss, #NFDB
143:Successful people are inspired people; they are unwilling to accept the “status quo. ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
144:Swaraj means even under dominion status a capacity to declare independence at will. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
145:The American people - Republican voters especially - are fed up with the status quo. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
146:All love is socioeconomic. It’s the gradients in status that make arousal possible. ~ Gary Shteyngart, #NFDB
147:All men should be required to have their marital status tattooed on their foreheads. ~ Gemma Halliday, #NFDB
148:My true passion has always been to use my status as an author to make a positive impact. ~ Kailin Gow, #NFDB
149:Sometimes people think you’re smart if you question the status quo, if nothing else. ~ Craig Ferguson, #NFDB
150:The Collier Street clouds lowered, and How soon is now? resigned itself to B-side status. ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
151:If you are not going to divorce the status quo, you will give birth to mediocrity. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
152:In the town of Bethlehem many years ago, a man got religion and he changed the status quo. ~ Phil Ochs, #NFDB
153:The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy. ~ Jane McGonigal, #NFDB
154:The quality of a society and of its culture will depend on the status of its unemployed. ~ Ivan Illich, #NFDB
155:The white woman has never had the co-equal status that the African woman has had. ~ John Henrik Clarke, #NFDB
156:Depriving a parent of parental status is as devastating as a criminal conviction. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, #NFDB
157:Indifference—a worse status than being hated. Who would’ve guessed she’d miss being hated? ~ Jamie Beck, #NFDB
158:I want to reach the status of becoming a mogul. And the only way you get there is by work. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
159:Now would be a good time to reveal your princely status to my angst and hidden joy. ~ Penelope Fletcher, #NFDB
160:...[T]hat combination of inferior status and derogatory thought [is what] we call racism. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
161:widespread as to be ofequal status. Variant pronunciations may be indicated by respelling ~ Erin McKean, #NFDB
162:Grief is not productive. It simply represents an inefficiency in accepting change of status. ~ Greg Bear, #NFDB
163:Man's status in the natural world is determined, therefore, by the quality of his thinking. ~ Manly Hall, #NFDB
164:Middle class believes money is about status… World class believes money is about freedom ~ Steve Siebold, #NFDB
165:She's no longer afraid to die. What she's afraid of is living, accepting the status quo. ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
166:The derogation of feminine status in lesser males is a consistent patriarchal trait. Like ~ Kate Millett, #NFDB
167:The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. ~ Claude C Hopkins, #NFDB
168:Vision only opens, it does not embrace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
169:We reap what we sow. Gravel, blood, lie after lie. We sow chaos and reap the status quo. ~ Joakim Zander, #NFDB
170:Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status ~ Laurence J Peter, #NFDB
171:Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
172:I choose to exercise my status as an apex predator. And I laugh in the face of cholesterol. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
173:No matter how successful you are, change is always good. There can never be a status quo. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
174:The real being, with no status, is always going in and out through the doors of your face. ~ Linji Yixuan, #NFDB
175:If women cannot eat the same food as men, we cannot experience equal status in the community. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
176:It was a terrible thing for a girl to learn. That status is more important than feelings ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
177:Man's status in the natural world is determined, therefore, by the quality of his thinking. ~ Manly P Hall, #NFDB
178:Achieving gender equality is about disrupting the status quo - not negotiating it. ~ Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, #NFDB
179:Green is a process, not a status. We need to think of 'green' as a verb, not an adjective. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
180:If my cats were my facebook friends, our relationship status would be "It's complicated". ~ Yasmine Surovec, #NFDB
181:It was a terrible thing for a girl to learn. That status is more important than feelings. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
182:Julie Seagle If you can’t stop thinking about someone’s update, that’s called “status cling. ~ Jessica Park, #NFDB
183:Never underestimate the magnitude of the power of the forces that reinforce the status quo. ~ John P Kotter, #NFDB
184:One way to accomplish this was by casting Booth—despite his heroic status—as mentally unstable. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
185:Our culture is too obsessed with outward appearance, age and status. Love is what matters. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
186:Some people, it’s like they care more about their status updates than their actual lives. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
187:...status, as in any traditional, class-conscious society, declines more slowly than wealth. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
188:The most potent tool in maintaining the status quo is our belief that change is impossible. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
189:When I was hacking, it was more pushing the status quo and seeing how far you can go. ~ Michael Demon Calce, #NFDB
190:from natural selection’s point of view, status assistance is the main purpose of friendship. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
191:Government is like junior high. Your status depends upon whom you're able to persecute. ~ Jonathan Kellerman, #NFDB
192:Our culture is too obsessed with outward appearance, age, and status. Love is what matters. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
193:overconfident individuals achieved higher social status, respect, and influence in groups. ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer, #NFDB
194:tired of status quo politics and wanted real change in the world in which they were living. ~ Bernie Sanders, #NFDB
195:I don't see a point in advertising my marital status when men don't. Completely ridiculous. ~ Gene Weingarten, #NFDB
196:To become a mother, I feared, was to relinquish your status as the protagonist of your own life. ~ Ariel Levy, #NFDB
197:Christianity has done more to elevate the status of women than any other movement in history. ~ Stasi Eldredge, #NFDB
198:The true enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who defend an imploding status quo. ~ Mitch Daniels, #NFDB
199:your friends “liked” your status in a way that leaves no doubt that you were the one dumped. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
200:Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
201:The way you are with others every day, regardless of their status, is the true test of faith. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
202:The web: yet another total disorientation that becomes status quo without anyone realizing it. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
203:Art is by nature promotional, pushing beliefs, broadcasting status, aggrandizing personalities. ~ Holland Cotter, #NFDB
204:Calling one thing 'literature' and another 'fiction' is a way to create status where there is none. ~ Tucker Max, #NFDB
205:Discovering new feelings was one thing. Actually changing your Facebook status? That was real. To ~ Katy Regnery, #NFDB
206:Embrace change. Envision what could be, challenge the status quo, and drive creative destruction. ~ Charles Koch, #NFDB
207:If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali, #NFDB
208:Loss aversion is a powerful conservative force that favors minimal changes from the status quo ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
209:No matter what age, race, or economic status we hold, death touches us all at one time or another. ~ Gail McHugh, #NFDB
210:Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country. ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
211:... Our ability to reason has not given us special status, only a greater responsibility. ~ Joseph M Marshall III, #NFDB
212:Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray, #NFDB
213:He offered her power, money, status...
a giant prison, all in exchange
for only...her soul. ~ Coco J Ginger,#NFDB
214:I just am grateful for every opportunity to go to work. I don't really focus on celebrity status. ~ George Dzundza, #NFDB
215:In France, a first lady has no status, and therefore she isn't supposed to do anything else. ~ Valerie Trierweiler, #NFDB
216:It's harder to empathize with those who appear to possess more power, status, or resources. ~ Marshall B Rosenberg, #NFDB
217:Populism was a grassroots movement to disrupt the political status quo in favor of everyday people. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
218:Romantic love continues the status quo in which we both are victimized and victimize each other. ~ Dorothy Allison, #NFDB
219:A frame is the instrument you use to package your power, authority, strength, information, and status. ~ Oren Klaff, #NFDB
220:A key function of a publishing brand is the bestowal of status by who and what you pay attention to. ~ Tim O Reilly, #NFDB
221:As the rich consume more and more, they are clearly not going to want to downgrade their own status. ~ Susan George, #NFDB
222:Creativity is as important now in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status. ~ Ken Robinson, #NFDB
223:Never ask a girl whether she’s single or not. If her status is important, she’ll let you know on her own. ~ Roosh V, #NFDB
224:People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo. ~ Max Eastman, #NFDB
225:woman who takes cards in a man’s game holds the status of a man and is entitled to no more respect. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
226:Your attachments to objects, status, your culture, and even other people prevent you from being free ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
227:Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. ~ Ken Robinson, #NFDB
228:My job is to be an artist and thus I use different media to deal with the status of the body in our society. ~ Orlan, #NFDB
229:regardless of social status, we derive comfort from our stuff; the familiar warp and weft of our lives ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
230:Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
231:I believe email-based status reports are the clearest and best signs of managerial incompetence and laziness. ~ Rands, #NFDB
232:It meant more to him to take care of me as my man than it meant to me to retain my status of badass. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
233:Karma theory is a spiritual philosophy used to explain and maintain the economic status of Asia. ~ Stephen H Wolinsky, #NFDB
234:Sin needs to be demoted from its status as the dominant Christian metaphor for what’s wrong among us. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
235:The epic battle of our generation is between the status quo of mass and the never-ceasing tide of weird. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
236:Among the elite in Pyongyang, one of the most coveted signifiers of status is an electric rice cooker. ~ Blaine Harden, #NFDB
237:A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
238:Cooperation is for safety, security and companionship. Competition is for personal growth and status. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
239:Managers maintain an efficient status quo while leaders attack the status quo to create something new. ~ Orrin Woodward, #NFDB
240:You don't have to settle for the status quo, for being good enough, for getting by, for working all night. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
241:Getting along and being satisfied with the status quo often contribute to mediocrity and lack of innovation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
242:My conception of dominion status implies present ability to severe the British connection if I wish to. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
243:Cooperation is for safety, security and companionship. Competition is for personal growth and status. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
244:The mind is reluctant to embrace deep change, and will play devious games to maintain the status quo. ~ Kristin Linklater, #NFDB
245:Challenging the status quo takes commitment, courage, imagination, and, above all, dedication to learning. ~ Marshall Ganz, #NFDB
246:He was letting you break your icons one by one. he was letting you reduce him to the status of a human being. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
247:In America, your zip code or your socioeconomic status should never determine the quality of your education. ~ Arne Duncan, #NFDB
248:Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
249:Shame based on sexual status, whether it is because of lots of sexual activity or none at all, is wrong. ~ Dianna Anderson, #NFDB
250:The movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract. ~ Henry James Sumner Maine, #NFDB
251:These items were nothing but ones and zeros stored on the OASIS servers, but they were also status symbols. ~ Ernest Cline, #NFDB
252:To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
253:Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march. ~ Howard Schultz, #NFDB
254:A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she’s truly beautiful. ~ Doris Day, #NFDB
255:I'm going to let my friends in the other parties fight over the turf at the cutting edge of the status quo. ~ Elizabeth May, #NFDB
256:The old problems - love, money, security, status, health, etc. - are still here to plague us or please us. ~ Shelley Berman, #NFDB
257:The status quo approach, however, is to focus not on making the government more competent but on downsizing it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
258:“Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of Love.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi #SpiritChat (A1) twitter.com/AjmaniK/status…, #NFDB
259:Food was similarly regulated, with restrictions placed on how many courses one might eat, depending on status. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
260:Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don't embrace the status quo. ~ Howard Schultz, #NFDB
261:Hillary Clinton wants a better title, and I would, too, if I was already America's secretary of the status quo. ~ Mike Pence, #NFDB
262:I adore [photography's] uneasy mix of fact and fiction - its dubious claim to truth - its status as history. ~ Eleanor Antin, #NFDB
263:I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it? ~ Sheldon Adelson, #NFDB
264:Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it—and were often tainted by it. ~ Daniel Suarez, #NFDB
265:Wealth, status, pride, are their own ruin. To do good, work well, and lie low is the way of the blessing. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
266:According to the status of the soul is the status of the Prakriti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Vijnana or Gnosis, #NFDB
267:All joy... emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
268:If we don't do anything, if we go along with the status quo, we are going to have a mass surveillance world. ~ Edward Snowden, #NFDB
269:Leaders don’t fall in love with mediocrity. The status quo isn’t their desire to maintain but to improve. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
270:Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity ... Make that elevates 'fatal stupidity' to the status of religion. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
271:The rapid rise of the People's Republic of China as a military and economic power is challenging the status quo. ~ Dan Quayle, #NFDB
272:Why do people deserve a penny when they update their Facebook status? Because they'll spend some of it on you. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
273:You don't apologise,' (Deacon) said, pressing a kiss to my greasy head, unlocking best friend status. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
274:Being complicit only requires a muted response in the face of injustice or uncritical support of the status quo. ~ Jemar Tisby, #NFDB
275:If one can know how good a city is by its smell, one should know how good a society is by the women's status. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
276:I was alive and dead at the same time. I was un-dead. My current biological status was aggravatingly inconsistent. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
277:nobody reaches expert status without intense preparation. Excellence, then, is a matter of practice, not talent.6 ~ Jeff Goins, #NFDB
278:RT @AjmaniK:“Thou art That" and "That is ALL there Is" ~ #universality #oneness 🙏🏽☺️❤️ #SpiritChat twitter.com/AjmaniK/status…, #NFDB
279:Shame based on sexual status, whether it is because of lots of sexual activity or none at all, is wrong. All ~ Dianna Anderson, #NFDB
280:The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. ~ Ulysses S Grant, #NFDB
281:The unfairness of your current status is unimportant. What matters is, can you do what you need to do? If ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
282:Activism that challenges the status quo, that attacks deeply rooted problems, is not for the faint of heart. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
283:In America, evangelical churches have often been bastions of conservatism, providing support for the status quo. ~ Tony Campolo, #NFDB
284:is the fact that Jamie is a manic depressive. The weed is a special blend that helps him maintain the status quo. ~ Keri Arthur, #NFDB
285:[T]he status of women in a society is a pretty reliable index of the degree of civilization of that society. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
286:For the better part of my adult life, I proudly avoided nerd/nimrod/goober status. I was always just cool enough. ~ Steve Carell, #NFDB
287:Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked. ~ Deborah Tannen, #NFDB
288:the best ideas require significant change. They fly in the face of the status quo, and inertia is a powerful force. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
289:My mother inspired me to treat others as I would want to be treated regardless of age, race or financial status. ~ Tommy Hilfiger, #NFDB
290:rationality is subject to the single worst temptation--to raise what it knows now to the status of an absolute. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
291:the dissatisfaction that comes with social comparison can be fixed by teaching people to care less about status. ~ Barry Schwartz, #NFDB
292:The moment you move to protecting the status quo instead of disrupting the status quo, you put yourself at risk. ~ Jocelyn K Glei, #NFDB
293:As with early Judaism and early Christianity, early Islam would be rooted in opposition to a corrupt status quo. ~ Lesley Hazleton, #NFDB
294:Competing egos, status struggles, clashes of styles and personalities—this is the stuff conflict thrives upon. ~ William Bernhardt, #NFDB
295:I must not take joy from status or power, but from my accomplishments, and the way I chose to accomplish them. ~ Stephen J Cannell, #NFDB
296:I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo. ~ Kareem Abdul Jabbar, #NFDB
297:It's not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion. ~ David Ben Gurion, #NFDB
298:I've dated attractive people and I don't find a correlation between amorous enthusiasm and beauty and public figure status. ~ Moby, #NFDB
299:Silence is such a lost art. Not every bait requires a response, and not every situation requires a status update. ~ Andrena Sawyer, #NFDB
300:The constant pursuit of material possessions/money status or sexual relationships, and so on, can be problematic. ~ Paul B Gilbert, #NFDB
301:The modern essay has regained a good deal of its literary status in our time, much to the credit of Joseph Epstein. ~ Karl Shapiro, #NFDB
302:The notion that I should be fine with the status quo even if I am not wholly affected by the status quo is repulsive. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
303:To a man with an internet connection, every thought and every movement sounds like a tweet or status update. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
304:Whenever you write on a subject that questions the status quo, there are bound to be many who wrestle with the issues ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
305:A lot of guys go in immediately for status, as opposed to comfort and allowing their home to tell a story about them. ~ Nate Berkus, #NFDB
306:It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo. ~ Gerry Adams, #NFDB
307:Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness. ~ Chanakya, #NFDB
308:rationality is subject to the single worst temptation--to raise what it knows now to the status of an absolute. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
309:The Beijing Olympics represent China's grand entrance onto the world stage and confirmation of its new superpower status. ~ Ma Jian, #NFDB
310:The U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. The world will become multi-polar. ~ Peer Steinbruck, #NFDB
311:We must not only see God and embrace Him, but become that Reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
312:Funny how addiction was socially acceptable—even a status symbol—when it made people extroverts rather than introverts ~ Stacia Kane, #NFDB
313:The Luminatii aren’t a tool of law and order in the Itreyan capital, gentlefriend. They are a tool of the status quo. ~ Jay Kristoff, #NFDB
314:The status quo and the media is doing everything it can to fry children's brains and make them grow up maladjusted. ~ Julie Christie, #NFDB
315:Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
316:Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
317:Free competition exists inside shelters of law, custom, insurance, political approval, and carefully protected status. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
318:Funny how addiction was socially acceptable—even a status symbol—when it made people extroverts rather than introverts. ~ Stacia Kane, #NFDB
319:I love her (Lucifer), with all my heart. She said that she would give me greatness, status, placement above the others. ~ Lupe Fiasco, #NFDB
320:In America, there are some artists who are more of an image than music; if your star status goes down there, you're finished. ~ Sisqo, #NFDB
321:irritability in men is regarded as a sign of status. But when women lose their temper they’re seen as less competent. ~ Valerie Young, #NFDB
322:Live My Life provides a much needed shot of timely, thought-provoking, musically forward, irreverence to the status quo. ~ Nomi Prins, #NFDB
323:Paul Ryan I don't think wants to work. I think Paul Ryan wants the status quo, and I think Paul Ryan is a Never Trumper. ~ Scott Baio, #NFDB
324:To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain 'importance' - I can think of nothing more ridiculous. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
325:To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain 'importance' - I can think of nothing more ridiculous. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
326:What's your status?" she asked him.
"Healthy, wealthy, and wise. What's yours?"
"Ha. Mean, crafty, and rude. ~ J D Robb,#NFDB
327:Impure people oppress, and the pure-hearted not only forgive their oppressors, but elevate them in status and character. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
328:Knowing your HIV status is such an easy thing to do, but again, we've created this stigma around even going to get tested. ~ Jay Ellis, #NFDB
329:Once the new power has taken over they have to establish a new status quo just to keep the factories and trains running. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
330:The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
331:The Quran gave women rights of inheritance and divorce centuries before Western women were accorded such status. The ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
332:The value we give to "Mrs." means that marriage changes the social status of a woman bur not that of a man. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
333:We claim no respectability. There's no status I would not surrender for a joke. So we don't have to defend anything. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
334:A better everyday life means getting away from status and conventions -- being freer and more at ease as human beings. ~ Ingvar Kamprad, #NFDB
335:America has an immense amount of power, but it doesn't use it in any benevolent way. It uses it to maintain a status quo. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
336:as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
337:At the heart of Darwin’s theory, as one of his biographers has put it, is “the denial of humanity’s special status. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert, #NFDB
338:I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo. ~ Shirley Chisholm, #NFDB
339:silence is a strategy for the maintenance of the status quo, with its unbearable distribution of power and wealth. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
340:The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
341:Thuvia of Ptarth was having difficulty in determining the exact status of the Prince of Helium in her heart. She ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs, #NFDB
342:between 1195 and 1220, Wolfram composed his epic romance Parzival, he conferred on the Templars a most exalted status. ~ Michael Baigent, #NFDB
343:He had a Batman tramp stamp, for fuck’s sake. There was no quicker way of announcing one’s man-child status than that. ~ Kate Canterbary, #NFDB
344:I almost feel like it's an obligation to not further the status quo if you become somebody with influence and exposure. ~ Andrew Stanton, #NFDB
345:I always wanted my photographs to challenge the status quo, to contest the kinds of images that existed in popular culture. ~ Dawoud Bey, #NFDB
346:I think, and a lot of that has to do with where I grew up in California; [status] isn't something I think about that much. ~ Paul Beatty, #NFDB
347:I've been a reporter for 20 years, and I don't ever get things wrong. That's important in terms of my professional status. ~ Ron Suskind, #NFDB
348:refugees know that their subhuman status as the waste of nations is confirmed by having to live in their own waste). ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
349:Singletons should not have to explain themselves all the time but should have an accepted status — like geisha girls do ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
350:The notion that I should be fine with the status quo even if I am not wholly affected by the status quo is repulsive. These ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
351:We hold those who are on the tightest of schedules in reverence; the busier you are, the higher your status as a human being. ~ Ruby Wax, #NFDB
352:But a dog confers status on a man. It shows he is responsible and capable of love. It will probably even help him get laid. ~ Meghan Daum, #NFDB
353:Comfort zones are deadly zones because you lose your true potential of what you can be, you start going with the status quo. ~ Greg Plitt, #NFDB
354:debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
355:Die Gesellschaften unterschieden sich nur durch den Status ihrer Sklaven und durch den Namen, den sie ihnen geben. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
356:If the public doubts that objective journalism is possible, on what basis can journalists claim professional status? ~ Robert W McChesney, #NFDB
357:I just got my work visa to shoot American Horror Story, and my official status is "alien with extraordinary abilities." ~ Lizzie Brochere, #NFDB
358:Technically developed self-consciousness isolates the self to an individual who reduces others to the status of things. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
359:Worship is not something we are called to so that God can reinforce his status. It is his way of calling us near. ~ Erwin Raphael McManus, #NFDB
360:A lot of hip-hop artists wear fur, and they think it's a status symbol. That doesn't register for me; I just see dead animals. ~ Tommy Lee, #NFDB
361:Being a mother is a noble status, right? Right. So why does it change when you put 'unwed' or 'welfare' in front of it? ~ Florynce Kennedy, #NFDB
362:I'm aware that success can overwhelm you. The perception of you can be elevated to such a status that it's not you any more. ~ Chris Ofili, #NFDB
363:Mine was the Benjamin Button of careers; age and status had both gone backward. It definitely took some getting used to. ~ Allison Pearson, #NFDB
364:The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards. ~ Frantz Fanon, #NFDB
365:The likelihood that inborn differences are one contributor to social status does not mean that it is the only contributor. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
366:We spend so much time striving for status that we don’t realise it’s the people in our lives that bring us real happiness.” I ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
367:With every e-mail and video and blog post and tweet and status update, we add to the real-time documentary of our lives. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
368:It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction. ~ Karen Thompson Walker, #NFDB
369:It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There’s a certain boldness to inaction. ~ Karen Thompson Walker, #NFDB
370:Like the aristocracy, you can tell a reporter’s status by his clothes and manners. The worse they are, the higher up they are, ~ Iain Pears, #NFDB
371:Our hero status is not dependant on our human might or power or even our human spirit; it comes from the power of His spirit. ~ Lisa Bevere, #NFDB
372:Silence is an argument in favor of the status quo. A refusal to address an inequity is a strategy for maintaining that inequity. ~ PZ Myers, #NFDB
373:Singletons should not have to explain themselves all the time but should have an
accepted status — like geisha girls do ~ Helen Fielding,#NFDB
374:sometimes wondered if it would be better to let go of the pain of wanting and settle for the calm mediocrity of the status quo. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
375:The status quo doesn’t shift because you’re right. It shifts because the culture changes. And the engine of culture is status. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
376:Thinking is always dangerous to the status quo. [...] The moment you start thinking, you'll want to change something. ~ Margaret J Wheatley, #NFDB
377:An arrogance that has difficulty fitting into his clothes. Some people are simply too powerful to pretend a lower status. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
378:It's no wonder there is a mad scramble for victim status on many campuses today. It confers authority and prestige. ~ Christina Hoff Sommers, #NFDB
379:There can be no finer example of the inspiring powers of competition to shatter the status quo than Hungary's Judit Polgar. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
380:Trade and money, which go together in a stream of energy, inevitably wash away the enclosing walls of a society of status. ~ Isabel Paterson, #NFDB
381:Your little r changes the status of a single lady ‘Ms’ into a respectable lady ‘Mrs’. Man, you make the difference! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
382:Cuba was in some ways a de facto state of the United States before 1959, given its proximity and given its neocolonial status. ~ Gerald Horne, #NFDB
383:Egypt under Hosni Mubarak had deteriorated to the status of a failed state. We must wipe the slate clean and start again. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei, #NFDB
384:Geniuses are always marginalized to one degree or another. Someone wholly invested in the status quo is unlikely to disrupt it. ~ Eric Weiner, #NFDB
385:Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
386:I value humor, kindness, and the ability to tell a good story far more than money, status, or the kind of car someone drives. ~ Rebecca Wells, #NFDB
387:I wonder if – as I tumble towards the waves – I’ll have time to get the iPhone out, hit Facebook and change my status to ‘Dead’. ~ Iain Banks, #NFDB
388:Looking after children is a low-status occupation. It is isolating, frequently boring, relentlessly demanding and exhausting. 7 ~ Rachel Cusk, #NFDB
389:My people were fiercely protective of our freedom. To be a freeman or freewoman was to have status in the tribe. Respect. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
390:Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him. ~ C J Mahaney, #NFDB
391:As a leader, giving up status symbols is the most powerful message you can send that you care about what your teams have to say. ~ Laszlo Bock, #NFDB
392:It is the badge of inferiority—the felony record—that relegates people for their entire lives, to second-class status. As ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
393:monopolists downplay their monopoly status to avoid scrutiny, while competitive firms strategically exaggerate their uniqueness. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
394:updates from Coin about the nature of the bombs. Certainly, the war is still being waged, but as to its status, we’re in the ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
395:We don't hear much from revolutionary feminists who are white because they're not serving the bourgeois agenda of the status quo. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
396:Work did bestow dignity, status, meaning. Wasn't that why people dreaded unemployment, why some men found retirement so traumatic? ~ P D James, #NFDB
397:You can either stick to your goals, or you can just go through the motions and rest on your status. But it's all about work. ~ Kristine Lilly, #NFDB
398:Hitting is the most important part of the game. It is where the big money is, where much of the status is, and the fan interest. ~ Ted Williams, #NFDB
399:How can we manage production if we don’t know what the demand, priorities, status of work in process, and resource availability are? ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
400:Importantly, rather than promoting aggression, testosterone promotes whatever is needed to maintain status when challenged. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
401:Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
402:the good society would have a low rate of inheritance of social status and correspondingly low variations in income and wealth. ~ Gregory Clark, #NFDB
403:Until you fall in love with positive change, becoming passionate about improving the status quo, you won’t become a leader. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
404:We want people to be very low-status, but we don’t want to feel sympathy for them—slaves are always supposed to sing at their work. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
405:When things are seen in twos in dreams, there is the suggestion that they are achieving a conscious status for the first time. ~ Edward Edinger, #NFDB
406:idea the situation was so bad until I asked each committee member to present a status report at our meeting this morning. ~ Rachel Ren e Russell, #NFDB
407:In fact, people themselves are responsible for making the status quo so resistant to change. We are trapped by our own behavior. ~ Chris Argyris, #NFDB
408:The aged did not lose status and control so much as share it. Modernization did not demote the elderly. It demoted the family. It ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
409:The status quo always favors neutrality which in truth is never neutral at all but supports those who stand against change. ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
410:A geek is a person, male or female, with an abiding, obsessive, self-effacing, even self-destroying love for something besides status ~ D B Weiss, #NFDB
411:As a child you don't question your parents' choices. You accept them. They are justified by the godlike status of parenthood. ~ Bruce Springsteen, #NFDB
412:Do what? Come up with a clever pun referencing Jerome's demonic status? The truth is, I usually keep a stash of them on hand and— ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
413:It's a proven fact that when you raise the status of girls and women in a country, that country does much better economically. ~ Gillian Anderson, #NFDB
414:Our ordinary intellectual notions are a stumbling-block in the way of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
415:Our whole being ought to demand God and not only our illumined eye of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
416:There was a hiss of white noise before her tech’s radio communication came through. “Copy, unit 17C. An urgent status notation has ~ Addison Cain, #NFDB
417:Declaring human babies as being born with a 'non-good' status is a demonic judgement that were issued by the Jew, Dennis Prager. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
418:I condemned that mother who had not the courage to love her own daughter despite the pain or loss of status it might cause herself. ~ Jodi Daynard, #NFDB
419:If we do not provide education for every single American, we are consigning those without an education to second-class status. ~ Patrick J Kennedy, #NFDB
420:If you don't fit into this kind of like gossipy, trendy, Web-hit thingy, you're relegated to sort of second-class celebrity status. ~ Billy Corgan, #NFDB
421:I've never been one who enjoys maintaining the status quo. I'm always pushing for new ideas, whether it's in business or philanthropy. ~ Eli Broad, #NFDB
422:Status and personal appearance are things one is born with, after all, but surely the inner man can always be improved with effort. ~ Yoshida Kenk, #NFDB
423:The Qur’an was attempting to give women a legal status that most Western women would not enjoy until the nineteenth century. The ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
424:To be pressed for time has become a sign of prosperity, an indicator of social status, and one that most people are inclined to claim. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
425:Avoid getting wrapped up in things - especially status purchases - as these often come at the expense of people and relationships. ~ Wanda Urbanska, #NFDB
426:Even South Koreans themselves struggle mightily to fit into their own success-obsessed, status-conscious, education-crazed culture. ~ Blaine Harden, #NFDB
427:If you don’t love something, you’re not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. Mr. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
428:If you want to thrive in today's economy, you must challenge the status quo and get the financial education necessary to succeed. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
429:I’m writing my memoirs,” Obi announced. “And I’m going to update my online status from « It’s complicated » to « I’m still alive ». ~ Jack Campbell, #NFDB
430:It is difficult to find examples of societies in which shrinking ethnic majorities gave up their dominant status without a fight. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
431:No people, ancient or modern,” said Max Müller, “has given women so high a legal status as did the inhabitants of the Nile Valley.”97 ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
432:Running with the herd means we are quick to embrace the status quo, slow to change our minds, and happy to delegate our thinking. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
433:Strength of conviction for ones faith is celebrated by the church- except when that conviction runs contrary to the status quo. ~ Jamie Arpin Ricci, #NFDB
434:that this will be for the good of both nations,” he said, giving a royal imprimatur to America’s status as an independent nation. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
435:Your attitude to life is far more important in determining your happiness than your money, appearance, social status or talent. ~ Stephanie Dowrick, #NFDB
436:A remarkable thing about the Silicon Valley culture is that its status structure is so based on technical accomplishment and prowess. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
437:Every individual has the power to change his or her material or financial status by first changing the nature of his or her beliefs. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
438:I propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and, instead, only give legal status to civil unions. ~ Tony Campolo, #NFDB
439:Islamic cultures tend to establish people of high status as authorities, whereas the authority in Western culture is reason itself. ~ Nabeel Qureshi, #NFDB
440:Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
441:The element of the vital being is not earth but air; it has more movement, less status. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Triple Transformation, #NFDB
442:the reward of feeling useful, of being someone, of having status, the reward of increased income and a higher standard of living. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
443:The status of 'native' is a nervous condition introduced and maintained by the settler among colonized people with their consent. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
444:An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
445:Em outras palavras, mitologizar o talento nato nos livra de responsabilidade. Faz com que possamos relaxar e aceitar o status quo. ~ Angela Duckworth, #NFDB
446:I consider myself a pretty good conversationalist, but you wind up being downgraded to idiot status when you don't speak the language! ~ Alec Baldwin, #NFDB
447:Maybe this is what she had meant—that the status of all things in my life would have to first get messy in order for them to get better. ~ Liz Fenton, #NFDB
448:To be humble is to be so sure of one’s self and one’s mission that one can forego calling excessive attention to one’s self and status. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
449:And they came to be included in a culture and community that placed the computer science engineer at the highest level of social status. ~ Alec J Ross, #NFDB
450:There is no room in this philosophy for a middle ground, or a series of gradations, between the passive and aggressive status. Many, ~ Benjamin Graham, #NFDB
451:Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
452:Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
453:But running with the herd means we are quick to embrace the status quo, slow to change our minds, and happy to delegate our thinking. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
454:I've always liked politicians and lawyers. They keep the PR professional's status at least two from the bottom of the ethical food chain. ~ Shel Israel, #NFDB
455:No path to citizenship. People that want to gain legal status, you heard Donald Trump say again and again, will have to leave the country. ~ Mike Pence, #NFDB
456:People who minister worldwide to protect and conserve the environment are of no lower status than those who minister to plant churches. ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
457:Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
458:The Divine is a Being and not an abstract existence or a status of pure timeless infinity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Mystery of Love, #NFDB
459:The Internet kept the joke going. Abevigoda.com was devoted to updating the actor's status, as was @AbeVigodaUpdate, a Twitter account. ~ Audie Cornish, #NFDB
460:We've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
461:Why do we care about what other people earn or own? Because we tend to regard life as an ongoing competition for social status. When ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
462:I never think about any of my accomplishments and I always get butterflies in my stomach and I never get too comfortable with the status. ~ Romeo Santos, #NFDB
463:In one way, it was. After the ‘Objectives Resolution’ there was no turning back from Pakistan’s status as an Islamic ideological state. ~ Husain Haqqani, #NFDB
464:In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
465:Economics is like a church, and it fulfills the same function the church had fulfilled for centuries: the justification of the status quo. ~ Thomas Pogge, #NFDB
466:In my early teens, science fiction and fantasy had an almost-total hold over my imagination. Their outcast status was part of their appeal. ~ Hari Kunzru, #NFDB
467:Innovations often need to be explained in terms of the status quo, which is why automobiles are rated in horsepower and electric lights in ~ Scott Berkun, #NFDB
468:Pandangan monolitik media-media besar yang tampil secara konsisten harus dicurigai sebagai upaya untuk mempertahankan status quo yang ada. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
469:Per said reluctantly. Being the grandson of Frans Ringholm afforded him a special status within the group, and in a weak moment he had ~ Camilla L ckberg, #NFDB
470:Territory matters, and there is little difference between territorial rights and social status. It is often a matter of life and death. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
471:The journey to significance starts with the mere willingness to surrender the status quo and take the first step of faith into the adventure. ~ Neil Cole, #NFDB
472:The loftiest in status are those who do not know their own status, and the most virtuous of them are those who do not know their own virtue. ~ Al Shafi i, #NFDB
473:Americans like to make money; Canadians like to audit it. I know no other country where accountants have a higher social and moral status. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
474:If democratic elections continued, political scientist V. O. Key observed, it “would have been fatal to the status of black belt whites. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
475:My topics are timely. When an event is happening is when I want to be there... I think it is our duty to challenge the status quo. ~ Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, #NFDB
476:to recognize that automobiles are there to get you from point A to point B. They are utilitarian devices, not expressions of social status. ~ Randy Pausch, #NFDB
477:We live in a time of fear," Skulduggery said, "where we're too scared of upsetting the status quo to ask the questions we need to be asking. ~ Derek Landy, #NFDB
478:Any use of a human being in which less is demanded of him and less is attributed to him than his full status is a degradation and a waste. ~ Norbert Wiener, #NFDB
479:But at this point, with only minor victories for the rebels, a cease-fire could only result in a return to our previous status. Or worse. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
480:PEOPLE ARE DRIVEN TO SOCIAL COMPARISON LARGELY BECAUSE they care about status, and status, of course, has social comparison built into it. ~ Barry Schwartz, #NFDB
481:Straight white males: that's the predominant moviegoing category, and the persistence of that is a dismaying maintenance of the status quo. ~ Wesley Morris, #NFDB
482:Territory matters, and there is little difference between territorial rights and social status. It is often a matter of life and death. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
483:The actual Blue Rose murders, which lie at the core of the three novels, yield various incorrect solutions which assume the status of truth. ~ Peter Straub, #NFDB
484:The comedian Marc Maron once wrote that “every status update is a just a variation on a single request: ‘Would someone please acknowledge me? ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
485:What people think about God, Jesus Christ, and the Church cannot be separated from their own social and political status in a given society. ~ James H Cone, #NFDB
486:Health care is much the same - the status quo is, by all measures, failing far too many people - and we must not shrink from the challenge. ~ Michael Bennet, #NFDB
487:I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: your time has come - and gone. It's time for change in America. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
488:I'm running for president because I've had enough of the oil barons, the status-quo apologists, the special-interest lobbyists running amok. ~ Dick Gephardt, #NFDB
489:I tend to find comedy in dark places. I also tend to find comedy in taking on the status quo - which has always been something I find important. ~ Tom Green, #NFDB
490:re-examine everything you think will get you ahead in life—money, possessions, status, accomplishments—and see them as a source of suffering ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
491:The chivalrous man who holds a door open or signals a woman to go ahead of him when he's driving is negotiating both status and connection. ~ Deborah Tannen, #NFDB
492:The data of the senses can bring us, is not true knowledge; it is a science of appearances. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
493:To become a number is to be explicitly subservient to a system. A number is a public verification of reduced freedom, status, and personhood. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
494:True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire. ~ Cesar Chavez, #NFDB
495:Avoid pulpits, platforms, stages and pedestals. Keep to the hard ground. It is the only way you can judge your approximate status as a man. ~ Antonio Machado, #NFDB
496:I’m comfortable enough with my hetero status to say that if I did play for the other team? I wouldn’t just fuck Garrett Graham, I’d marry him. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
497:Our past thinking has determined our present status, and our present thinking will determine our future status; for man is what man thinks. ~ W Y Evans Wentz, #NFDB
498:The comedian Marc Maron28 once wrote that “every status update is a just a variation on a single request: ‘Would someone please acknowledge me? ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
499:The terms `Husband' and `Wife' are inappropriate. They are only companions ad partners. One does not slave for other. They both have equal status. ~ Periyar, #NFDB
500:Aan de klassenloze maatschappij was duidelijk de connotatie verbonden dat iedereen genivelleerd zou worden tot de status van fabrieksarbeider. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
501:A hero is not a champion of things become, but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
502:A status symbol is a book. A very easy book to read is The Catcher in the Rye. Walk around with that under your arm, kids. That is status. ~ Vivienne Westwood, #NFDB
503:Eating organic food has become a status symbol, having an unmedicated birth is a status symbol, and breastfeeding exclusively is a status symbol. ~ Amy Tuteur, #NFDB
504:If you want drama, settle for the one who will change your relationship status. If you want love, wait for the one who will change your life. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
505:Materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, had much higher levels of depression and anxiety. ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
506:Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s. ~ Jello Biafra, #NFDB
507:Status and class and social anxiety and perhaps social code are all released when you look at paintings of powerful individuals from the past. ~ Kehinde Wiley, #NFDB
508:The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
509:They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
510:Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on. ~ David Ogilvy, #NFDB
511:I don't see money or a particular status as an actor as a goal, but I want to do the best work I can in as interesting a range of roles as I can. ~ Dan Stevens, #NFDB
512:We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused. ~ Michael Ignatieff, #NFDB
513:a society of equal laws, governed by equality of status and of speech, and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
514:If only we were all better educated. If then, higher education would at last be a journey for skill and knowledge rather than for power and status. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
515:I really think it would be cowardly to pull back and not challenge the status quo, when the status quo may not be the right way for the field to go. ~ Mehmet Oz, #NFDB
516:It is presentation which lifts the card trick from the level of the commonplace puzzle to the status of an unforgettable and inexplicable mystery. ~ Jean Hugard, #NFDB
517:Nestor is the spokesman for the status quo, for the tradition-hallowed belief that institutional power equates with unquestioned authority. ~ Caroline Alexander, #NFDB
518:So every creative act strives to attain an absolute status; it longs to create a world of beauty to triumph over chaos and convert it to order. ~ Rowan Williams, #NFDB
519:The status of philosophy is such that it is not the case that you cannot be wrong in philosophy but that it is very difficult to be right. (p.12) ~ Peter Worley, #NFDB
520:They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status—but rarely for your wisdom. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
521:and I’m comfortable enough with my hetero status to say that if I did play for the other team? I wouldn’t just fuck Garrett Graham, I’d marry him. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
522:In 2008, the Obama yard sign/bumper sticker became a status symbol accessory like a Prius, solar panels on your house, or an adopted Malawian baby. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
523:It is the duty of all to support and side with Dharma. All must fight and support Dharma regardless of their personality, background, status. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
524:A lady should never feel anxious about her behavior. The status is bred in the bone. To show anxiety is to lower oneself. Anxiety is vulgar. ~ Eloisa James, #NFDB
525:All sudden and violent changes, whatever their causes or character, must tend to decrease the respect for status quo as a natural order of things. ~ Gunnar Myrdal, #NFDB
526:Health, wealth, reputation, and status are all mere ingredients of happiness. The key to true well-being is being able to manage them capably. ~ Kentetsu Takamori, #NFDB
527:Many in local government will ask why should only a few areas have the freedoms and benefits of Enterprise Zone status while the majority lose out? ~ Andy Sawford, #NFDB
528:The usefulness or otherwise of wealth, status and power to a possessor depends only on a single factor: the nature and strength of his reason. ~ Thiruman Archunan, #NFDB
529:It is typical for implicit status hierarchies of influence and esteem to emerge in interpersonal encounters, especially those that are goal oriented. ~ Susan Fiske, #NFDB
530:once it has achieved the status of paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its place. ~ Thomas S Kuhn, #NFDB
531:The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
532:A relentless barrage of 'why’s' is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often. ~ Shigeo Shingo, #NFDB
533:I'm not into fame. I'm not into making money, outside of financing my books. I'm not into status. My thing is basically about time - not wasting it. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
534:Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which was the order in which people optimally satisfied different types of desires (food-safety-love-status-enlightenment). ~ Max Barry, #NFDB
535:No one’s approval or disapproval will affect us unless we grant it credibility and status. Stop validating the opinions of people who don’t matter. ~ Danielle Allen, #NFDB
536:Smart technologies are not just disruptive; they can also preserve the status quo. Revolutionary in theory, they are often reactionary in practice. ~ Evgeny Morozov, #NFDB
537:The Woman's Party is made up of women of all races, creeds and nationalities who are united on the one program of working to raise the status of women. ~ Alice Paul, #NFDB
538:I don't think it's you that changes with success - it's the people around you who change. Because of your new status, they change in relation to you. ~ Johnny Carson, #NFDB
539:Ladies, it is not your education, status or personality that has brought you here but the elegance of God which was still and still working upon you. ~ Angela Merkel, #NFDB
540:pseudospeciation, the reduction of alien societies to the status of inferior species, not fully human, who can be degraded without conscience. Even ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
541:States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking. ~ Victor Davis Hanson, #NFDB
542:Terminus dahü: Hastanın ameliyat masasında ölme ihtimali. Status idem: Hastanın durumu değişmemiş aynı. Rezektabl: Ameliyatla çıkarılabilir. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, #NFDB
543:When the status and power of women is greater so also is the nation’s general quality of life; when they are lower, so is the quality of life for all. ~ Riane Eisler, #NFDB
544:With fifty years ahead of him, he thought, he could elevate tedium to the status of an art form. There would be no end to the things he wouldn’t do ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
545:I love to utilize my celebrity status in a responsible and constructive and substantive manner. I like to get my hands dirty rather than a photo op. ~ William Baldwin, #NFDB
546:I remember that I wanted to kill It,' Bill said, and for the first time (and ever after) he heard the pronoun gain proper-noun status in his own voice. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
547:Nothing makes my buttocks clench tighter and my teeth itch more than 'Full Time Mummy'. Full time mummy is not a job title. It is a biological status. ~ Katie Hopkins, #NFDB
548:Parenting, as an unpaid occupation outside the world of public power, entails lower status, less power, and less control of resources than paid work. ~ Nancy Chodorow, #NFDB
549:So," I said, "the only way for me to arrive at angel status is to appear in your screwed-up dreams."
"Take it any way you can get it, babe. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz,#NFDB
550:The few women who have been admitted to the study are usually given a second-class status in which they are taught only the basics of self-discovery. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
551:Their intent is often not to listen or learn, but to exert their power, to prove me wrong, to emotionally drain me, and to rebalance the status quo. ~ Reni Eddo Lodge, #NFDB
552:I didn't want to be discriminated against because of my gender and status. I promised myself I was never going to be treated as a second-class citizen. ~ Bianca Jagger, #NFDB
553:No. I believe that dreams fuel life. And it's when you're chasing them that you're most alive. There's no reward in settling for the safety of status quo. ~ Kim Holden, #NFDB
554:Sexual politics obtains consent through the “socialization” of both sexes to basic patriarchal polities with regard to temperament, role, and status. As ~ Kate Millett, #NFDB
555:Specific policy decisions would be absolutely necessary to promote the UK. It's not necessarily borrowing more or changing our current account status. ~ Andrea Leadsom, #NFDB
556:There is no permanent status quo in nature,” Muller later wrote. “All is a process of adjustment and readjustment, or else eventual failure.” By ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
557:The restoration of spinning to its central place in India's peaceful campaign for deliverance from the imperial yoke gives her women a special status. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
558:As a girl, she was a legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status. ~ Steig Larsson, #NFDB
559:As a girl, she was a legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status. ~ Stieg Larsson, #NFDB
560:Even though the place looked like Kansas, I didn´t need to tell Toto that my Facebook Places status wasnñt anywhere on the planet Earth, much less Kansas. ~ John Corwin, #NFDB
561:Necesito una pequeña buhardilla para dedicarme a escribir y soñar, no un coche impecable que me de prestigio y status entre los pendejos de clase media. ~ Enrique Serna, #NFDB
562:Sex generally makes them intae real relationships, or ends them. Ye go backwards or forwards after shagging, but maintaining the status quo is difficult. ~ Irvine Welsh, #NFDB
563:the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
564:Americans like to make money; Canadians like to audit it. I don't know of any other country where the accountant enjoys a higher social and moral status. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
565:If you allow your perceptions to be dominated by a status-quo perspective these thought forms create a network of status-quo mental habit patterns. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
566:In 15mins at 9amET, join guest host Elisa @womenandbiz as she steps up to host the weekly #SpiritChat ~ Topic: Essence of Self Love #SelfLove twitter.com/AjmaniK/status…, #NFDB
567:I think there is status to having a house full of pretty things, to buying expensive paintings of seashells from her arty friends and spoons from Tiffany’s. ~ E Lockhart, #NFDB
568:Many Christians don’t really care about God; they just want to use him to get what they truly want—status, a nice job, a car, forgiveness—you name it. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
569:...the feminine appetite for possession tends to emasculate every living contest, and can reduce a magnificient but inferior male to the status of a courtesan. ~ Colette, #NFDB
570:Feeling right” is about living the life that’s right for you—in occupation, location, marital status, and so on. It’s also about virtue: doing your duty, ~ Gretchen Rubin, #NFDB
571:I think my wife has always been aware, whatever country we have been in, of my dramatic leading man status; a little too dramatic she would probably say. ~ Andrew Lincoln, #NFDB
572:Ms. came into practice, to give a woman an alternative to being recognized by her marital status, and thereby known as herself. How do I want to be known. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
573:equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded as conferring on it any special status. ~ Thomas Nagel, #NFDB
574:Everyone may not be equal in power, status or wealth. But the day you realize that everyone is equal in the eyes of God… …The leader in you is born. ~ Radhakrishnan Pillai, #NFDB
575:No society can function as a society, unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
576:Prejudice exists and probably will continue to `but we have tried to make progress and we are making progress. We are not going to accept the status quo.' ~ Robert Kennedy, #NFDB
577:The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 that seemingly redeemed the military profession was also the event that vaulted Powell to the status of national hero. ~ Andrew J Bacevich, #NFDB
578:“When I am silent I fall into that place where everything is music.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi#poetry #mysticpoetry#silence #meditation#SpiritChat (A1) twitter.com/AjmaniK/status…, #NFDB
579:When you reach a certain status in Hollywood, you have to play a lot of games to stay in the limelight. It becomes more about being famous than being an actor. ~ Jason Lee, #NFDB
580: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
581:One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train. ~ Morihei Ueshiba, #NFDB
582:THE MISCONCEPTION: You choose to accept or refuse an offer based on logic. THE TRUTH: When it comes to making a deal, you base your decision on your status. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
583:There’s always a way out. You just have to pay the price, whether it’s money, status, the emotional hit, or all of that and more. Cheating’s cheap and it’s lazy. ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
584:Want to change the world? Upset the status quo? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to make people dream the same dream that you do. ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
585:When the Bible is viewed primarily as a collection of devotional thoughts, its status as the most devastating work of social criticism in history is forgotten. ~ David Dark, #NFDB
586:But Zeca already felt something the older executives had yet to learn—that status, power, and even money are sometimes not enough to make a job interesting. ~ Ricardo Semler, #NFDB
587:If we're 15 minutes into a lifeless, redundant, status-based 1:1 and I don't have anything sitting in my back pocket, I'm going to turn it into a performance review. ~ Rands, #NFDB
588:It was impossible for Catus to understand that, in Celtic society, women had status and could rule. In Rome, women had the same legal standing as children. ~ Alistair Moffat, #NFDB
589:Methods are the changing local applications of unchanging universal principles, and no method should be given the status that belongs only to a principle. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
590:Our message to the world will be this. You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. Can't do it. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
591:Readers have some peculiar notions about the status of writers, the most foolish of which is that writers are treated like royalty by their publishers. ~ Reed Farrel Coleman, #NFDB
592:Reincarnation offers a better justification of evil than anything monotheism can offer, but it does so by blaming the victim and sanctifying the status quo. ~ Patricia Crone, #NFDB
593:Revolutionary moments often seem to occur in history when large numbers of individuals have a change in consciousness, regarding themselves and their status ~ Robert Trivers, #NFDB
594:Their devotion had never been put to any serious test, and might not have withstood one; their love for God was based in their satisfaction with the status quo. ~ Ted Chiang, #NFDB
595:There are a lot of actors that are more talented than me at Second City who quit it before they even got to a paying status. Weird luck. I had no other option. ~ Bill Murray, #NFDB
596:They’re mocking us,” I said. “Nonsense. We just fucked so hard we broke your bed. They wish they were us. The natural order of sexual status has been restored. ~ Kylie Scott, #NFDB
597:Everyone wants to feel special - attain a special status among their pears- but not too special. Most kids want to be special the same way their friends are ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
598:I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
599:I would like to see the Iraqi government guarantee social insurance for the Yazidi women who were enslaved and to recognise their status as prisoners of war. ~ Yanar Mohammed, #NFDB
600:Liberals will not let you improve the schools or the educational opportunities for poor people, because they want to maintain their teachers union status quo. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
601:'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves. ~ Sandra Cisneros, #NFDB
602:If you want Jesus, you must be willing to accept the honor that goes with the relationship. Your royal status—ascribed to you, not achieved—has been unveiled. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
603:I'm not a gamer. But I am very aware of the escapism of drugs. In my mind those kind of do the same thing. They dull us to the aches and pains of our status quo. ~ Joshua Mohr, #NFDB
604:I think of myself as a musician and not a celebrity. Celebrity status is something you have to deliberately pursue - I couldn't imagine myself seeking that. ~ Natalie Merchant, #NFDB
605:No matter where you are from, no matter what your background is, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, every person can achieve his or her dreams. ~ Ileana Ros Lehtinen, #NFDB
606:Society or culture or whatever you might want to call it, has created us all solely and wholly for the purpose of maintaining its continuity and status quo. ~ U G Krishnamurti, #NFDB
607:Thus, physics and astronomy relegated our world to a corner of the cosmos, and biology shifted our status from a simulacrum of God to a naked, upright ape. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
608:A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
609:It's going to take from 40 to 118 years for the pay gap to close for women if we just go along with the status quo, so we need some serious, radical change. ~ Patricia Arquette, #NFDB
610:Our society is mature. Change is instability. That is why every institution we have resists change. To maintain the status quo is our sole objective in life. ~ Peter F Hamilton, #NFDB
611:When I gained the attention of both Val and Congressman Richards, I shook my head and sighed.“I have international superstar status and she goes fangirly over you. ~ Kelly Oram, #NFDB
612:Although he claimed not to understand matters of human conscience, it was precisely his own conscience that led him to question the status quo, and which would cost ~ Ruth Ozeki, #NFDB
613:Cooking was something women did to nourish and nurture their families, whereas for men it was largely something they did professionally to gain money and status. ~ Padma Lakshmi, #NFDB
614:I’m sure you know this, but power dynamics rooted in social status are a system designed to separate people instead of bringing them together for the greater good. ~ Alyssa Cole, #NFDB
615:Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being . ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, #NFDB
616:Then it’s hell to choose, but I will choose the future over the present. I will choose opportunity over status quo, and I will choose freedom over subjugation. ~ Michael Anderle, #NFDB
617:The six-pointed star and its associated doctrines of separation and victimhood, while clinging to the status of God’s chosen people, is another resilient egregore ~ Mark Stavish, #NFDB
618:Within this circle of ideas, c, h, and G attain an exalted status. They are the enablers of profound principles of physics that couldn't make sense without them. ~ Frank Wilczek, #NFDB
619:Bitcoin represents a significant threat to the currency domination of the USA, which is the only thing propping up the nation’s status as a worldwide superpower. ~ Rick Falkvinge, #NFDB
620:But Ky’s not your Match,” Xander says. “He can’t be, because—” “Because why?” I ask. Does Xander know about Ky’s status after all? How? “Because I am,” Xander says. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
621:Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare. ~ William Graham Sumner, #NFDB
622:I think it's important that there is a change, especially in fashion. I'm pleased to be part of a 'new breed' of models who perhaps don't exactly fit the status quo. ~ Devon Aoki, #NFDB
623:Sargon’s grandson, Naram-Sin, who became the first Mesopotamian ruler to assume divine status and proclaimed himself “king of the four corners of the world. ~ William J Bernstein, #NFDB
624:We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
625:Leadership is not about the power and status of one
but the empowerment and service of all. That is what it should be and that is how it should be measured. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru,#NFDB
626:More than anything else, the welfare states of the mid-20th century established the profound indecency of defining civic status as a function of economic good fortune. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
627:One thing is clear, everyone, no matter what their professional or material status, no matter what their influence on various state structures, must obey the law. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
628:That is what marriage really means; helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life. ~ Paul Tournier, #NFDB
629:The goal of equality seems to disproportionately burden women, since it's assumed that they have to assume more responsibility, while men can remain the status quo. ~ Amy Richards, #NFDB
630:There is only one superpower now and it doesn't know what to do with its status. As a result, we got Yugoslavia and Iraq, and the situation has only got worse. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev, #NFDB
631:We are not driven by unhappiness over our looks, or our status—we are not deflated by criticism as we were before. Our self-image rests in a love we can’t lose. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
632:Bury my head in the sand and go with the status quo or find myself in the rubble and move on. I’d chosen the latter and that had led me here to him. Heaven help me. ~ Jordan Silver, #NFDB
633:Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status. ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
634:Collaboration is vital to sustain what we call profound or really deep change, because without it, organizations are just overwhelmed by the forces of the status quo. ~ Peter Senge, #NFDB
635:India has progressed to a stage where a divorcee status hardly matters. What matters is that you raise a positive, independent, well-behaved and intelligent child. ~ Karisma Kapoor, #NFDB
636:Instead, we look for patterns in the facts, and some of these patterns we have come to call the laws of Nature, while others have achieved only the status of by-laws. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
637:Justification is the truly dramatic transition from the status of a condemned criminal awaiting a terrible sentence to that of an heir awaiting a fabulous inheritance. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
638:The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs. ~ David Guterson, #NFDB
639:What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway? ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
640:The "Donation" further alleged that Constantine, for the first time, had declared the bishop of Rome to be "Vicar of Christ" and offered him the status of emperor. ~ Michael Baigent, #NFDB
641:The well being of democracies regardless of their type and status is dependent on one small technical detail: The right to vote. Everything else is secondary. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset, #NFDB
642:Break away from the box confining you. Positive dreamers do not follow the status quo. They keep raising the standard of the bar higher and higher. Raise the bar. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
643:Collaboration is vital to sustain what we call profound or really deep change, because without it, organizations are just overwhelmed by the forces of the status quo. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
644:Girls learn to love and have sexual feelings in a position of low status, and the eroticization of powerlessness is a normal part of the construction of femininity. ~ Sheila Jeffreys, #NFDB
645:status competition and the opportunistic making and breaking of alliances that marks political strife. For this, we have to go to the males, also in the elephant. For ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
646:The inner life has a supreme spiritual importance and the outer has a value only in so far as it is expressive of the inner status. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #NFDB
647:The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy, evolve and change as they are challenged. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
648:I don't support an amnesty.(Cornyn) demands an ongoing focus on security and workplace enforcement before considering steps to grant legal status, let alone citizenship. ~ John Cornyn, #NFDB
649:Scientists have no more status than what other scientists award them through citations, talk invitations, and tenure. “Status” makes a misleadingly concrete-sounding ~ Geoffrey Miller, #NFDB
650:Social justice : a status in society where all people, regardless of their individual identities and social group memberships, have an equitable shot at achieving success. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
651:The crowd, in its uncritical political engagement, is not always discerning about new possibility that comes with risk and often votes in fear for the status quo. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
652:Their dark skin, their gender, their economic status--none of those were acceptable excuses for not giving the fullest rein to their imaginations and ambitions. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly, #NFDB
653:The people have already determined Chechnya's status at the referendum - it is a unit of the Russian Federation. Its political status is not to be discussed any more. ~ Akhmad Kadyrov, #NFDB
654:Things that are in "bad taste" are often renegade and rebellious. They go against the status quo, and the laws of decorum and modesty. And that can be really thrilling. ~ Margaret Cho, #NFDB
655:This isn’t a game. We don’t want mediocre employees who can keep the status quo. We want souls. We want to win. And you’ve spent most of your time here being mediocre. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
656:As women began to challenge their own internalized views of a woman's proper place, their desire and demand for equal status and free choice began to grow exponentially. ~ Susan Faludi, #NFDB
657:Being the provider of the first big “O” gives me some power. It elevates my status. I’m the White Knight in the land of Orgasmia, wielding my magical sword of awesome. ~ Helena Hunting, #NFDB
658:Explore the situation. Statements are expendable. Don't keep on looking in the rearview mirror and defending the status quo which is outmoded the moment it happened. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
659:My weakness for sympathizing with others has much to do with my status as a bastard, which is not to say that being a bastard naturally predisposes one to sympathy. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
660:I'd like to believe that the women who wear my clothes are not dressing for other people, that they're wearing what they like and what suits them. It's not a status thing. ~ Marc Jacobs, #NFDB
661:Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices. The status quo is not to be celebrated but instead must be challenged. If ~ Soong Chan Rah, #NFDB
662:Without my razor-sharp wit, I'm nothing."
"That's what you base your self-worth on?"
"Yes. That and the number of 'likes' my status updates gets on Facebook. ~ Tyler Dilts,#NFDB
663:A good part of the work of managing involves doing what specialists do, but in particular ways that make use of the manager’s special contacts, status, and information. ~ Henry Mintzberg, #NFDB
664:For him, conscious intent was a form of prediction, and prediction is only possible when the status quo has reason to assume it will meet no significant opposition. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
665:In Indian culture, the woman of the house — the embodiment of the family’s honor — treasures her gold jewelry both as her soundest asset and as the symbol of her status. ~ Shashi Tharoor, #NFDB
666:Our past thinking has determined our present status, and our present thinking will determine our future status; for man is what man thinks. ~ Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of The Dead, #NFDB
667:People who cannot temporarily let go of their role and status, or set aside their own expertise and opinions, will fail to develop empathy with others’ conflicting thoughts, ~ Jez Humble, #NFDB
668:Caricatured as navel-gazers, Millennials are said to live for their 'likes' and status updates. But the young people I know often leverage social media in selfless ways. ~ Chelsea Clinton, #NFDB
669:I am a bad refugee because I insist on seeing the historical reasons that create refugees and the historical reasons for denying refugee status to certain populations. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
670:In a way, the sense of quality has improved, the status symbol of the small things is gone, and it is acceptable to use stainless steel, even if the neighbour uses silver. ~ Arne Jacobsen, #NFDB
671:It’s a little frightening to realize that our deepest interactions and needs reduce to a phrase as simple as that ready-made Facebook relationship status, “It’s complicated. ~ Wendy Welch, #NFDB
672:I would say that if something has an aesthetic value and it is pleasing to watch or to wear, it may in fact have nothing to do with status symbol. You just like to wear it. ~ Emilio Pucci, #NFDB
673:Men and women of high professional standing were reduced to the status of vagrants, unable to find employment and forced to eat the bitter bread of public or private charity. ~ Elmer Rice, #NFDB
674:When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
675:You've been given status today, but never forget where you came from. You came from dirt and will return to dirt. You will be on that day as you began: just you and Him. ~ Yasmin Mogahed, #NFDB
676:At the heart of my argument is the view that religious faith, far from being inevitably on the side of the status quo, should on principle hold this world to higher standards. ~ E J Dionne, #NFDB
677:It is more satisfying to sacrifice oneself for the poor victim than to enable the other to overcome their victim status and perhaps become even more succesfull than ourselves ~ Slavoj i ek, #NFDB
678:I wasn’t usually one to toot my own horn, which could also explain the no-boyfriend-status of my life. If bright plumage was the key, I was closer to being a brown wren. ~ Rachel Hawthorne, #NFDB
679:Were they dating? Sort of. Exclusive? Not as far as she knew... Discovering new feelings was one thing. Actually changing your Facebook status? That was real.
-- Savannah ~ Katy Regnery,#NFDB
680:At least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
681:Curiosity about the world and questioning of the status quo to open minds to alternative visions of the future are essential leadership skills. And they can be learned. ~ Stewart D Friedman, #NFDB
682:It is more satisfying to sacrifice oneself for the poor victim than to enable the other to overcome their victim status and perhaps become even more succesfull than ourselves ~ Slavoj Zizek, #NFDB
683:Leaders are fascinated by the future. You are a leader if, and only if, you are restless for change, impatient for progress, and deeply dissatisfied with the status quo.” He ~ Carmine Gallo, #NFDB
684:My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader. ~ Mr T, #NFDB
685:When people measure themselves not by their behavior, but by the status symbols they’re able to collect, then not only are they shallow, but they’re probably assholes as well. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
686:A child's appetite for new toys appeal to the desire for ownership and appropriation: the appeal of toys comes to lie not in their use but in their status as possessions. ~ Christopher Lasch, #NFDB
687:Criticism is like politics: if you don't make your own you are by default accepting the status quo and are finally yourself responsible for whatever the status quo does to you. ~ Annie Finch, #NFDB
688:I don't think we've got the concept in the West that male desire degrades men. Or that if men become sexually active, they become debased in some way, or slutty. Or lose status. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
689:It is my first preference to do films with social significance. Art cinema has given me credibility and status as an actor, but commercial cinema has given me a comfortable living. ~ Om Puri, #NFDB
690:Leaders must challenge the process precisely because any system will unconsciously conspire to maintain the status quo and prevent change.”9 Organizations seek an equilibrium. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
691:People are really concerned about my relationship status. When I tell people I'm happy being single, they don't believe me. They say: 'You have to be miserable being alone'. ~ Kelly Clarkson, #NFDB
692:The growth of China over the last four decades had been tremendous, raising the country from a veritable third world status to the second largest superpower in the world. ~ Michael C Grumley, #NFDB
693:You're born single, you die single, but why not being in a relationship is some special 'single' status, I don't understand. Life is less stress being single, I have to admit. ~ Bipasha Basu, #NFDB
694:At the heart of my argument is the view that religious faith, far from being inevitably on the side of the status quo, should on principle hold this world to higher standards. ~ E J Dionne Jr, #NFDB
695:Comedy is to force us to observe ourselves in ways that are humorous and yet, at the end of the day, that cause us enough discomfort with the status quo to make a change. ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
696:If you're just saying, hey, I'm doing this. I'm working to make money. I'm working to increase my status. If that's all there is, I think you will find out that it's meaningless. ~ Tony Dungy, #NFDB
697:Is it any wonder that concerns about status and wants lead to poor financial thinking? Human desire is an unlimited and boundless ocean, a body of water that can never be filled. ~ Erik Wecks, #NFDB
698:Sometimes it's good to shake up the status quo. You just have to make sure that when you turn society on its ear, you don't end up on your coutoure-covered backside."--vivian ~ Donna Kauffman, #NFDB
699:The old and honorable American notion, that a person who works hard should be able to live in freedom and security, with dignity - seems to have taken on a secondary status. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
700:My recent retirement from full-time teaching to the status of research professor at University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) encouraged me to come out, so to speak. ~ Shirley Geok lin Lim, #NFDB
701:C. S. Lewis, who was once described by a friend as a man in love with the imagination, believed that a complacent acceptance of the status quo reflects more than a failure of nerve. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
702:The purpose of the story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet towards home. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
703:all team members as well as passers-by can see the latest information at a glance: count of automated tests, velocity, incident reports, continuous integration status, and so on. This ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
704:Average people tend to think about merely maintaining the status quo; unsuccessful people think about simply surviving. Innovators and explorers think about what might be possible. ~ Buzz Aldrin, #NFDB
705:End of the day, anything that made you discount objective reality and assign a premium to some kind of internal mental state was going to be both pro-survival and pro–status-quo. ~ Cory Doctorow, #NFDB
706:he hated the phony patriots, the goddamn goose-stepping flag-waving patriots, who really loved the status quo more than they loved the country and its promises unfulfilled. ~ John Oliver Killens, #NFDB
707:I would say any behavior that is not the status quo is interpreted as insanity, when, in fact, it might actually be enlightenment. Insanity is sorta in the eye of the beholder. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
708:The bicycle is a former child's toy that has now been elevated to icon status because, presumably, it can move the human form from pillar to post without damage to the environment. ~ Brock Yates, #NFDB
709:The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo. Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
710:If we refrain from questioning the status quo, it is – aside from the weather and the size of our cities – primarily because we associate what is popular with what is right. The ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
711:It is the omnipresence of Being that is responsible for hiding Being behind the scenes and giving It the status of the omniscient, omnipotent supreme lord of the universe. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
712:the true followers of Jesus imitated his kenosis. As the Christ Hymn had pointed out, Jesus had achieved his high status only by emptying himself and accepting death on a cross. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
713:Don’t be retarded; excellence is “status quo discarded”. Look ahead and don’t see the little things you do now as the final products to ever stand out of your personal actions! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
714:Glancing up at Jude, I found him looking at me, staring at me like he couldn't help it. Maybe that's because I could have updated my heritage status from Caucasian to Tomato Red. ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
715:Have you ever had that moment when you are updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: “Would someone please acknowledge me? ~ Marc Maron, #NFDB
716:In the beginning we are all floating downstream. At some point we become aware that the currents are dragging us down and that we are no longer satisfied with the status quo of human ~ Noah Levine, #NFDB
717:Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
718:Women’s status in society has become the standard by which humanity’s progress toward civility and peace can be measured.”-Architects of Peace: Visions of Hope in Words and Images ~ Mahnaz Afkhami, #NFDB
719:As a Christian I do not have to find my validity in my status, or by thinking myself above other men. My validity and my status are found in being before the God who is there. ~ Francis A Schaeffer, #NFDB
720:I wish to have no status as a man. I am equally content to be a worm or a rat, and am only glad that I am not becuase they have such a rough time without the pleasure of painting. ~ Stanley Spencer, #NFDB
721:Simple routine have a greater impact. It is not just to cut costs that we avoid luxury hotels. We do not need fancy cars, posh titles, tailor made uniforms or other status symbols. ~ Ingvar Kamprad, #NFDB
722:This Hitler movement was a revolt of the lower middle classes, whose savings had been wiped out by the inflation and who saw themselves being reduced to the status of proletarians. ~ Upton Sinclair, #NFDB
723:A fine remedy for our anxieties over our low status in society may be to travel—whether literally or figuratively, by viewing works of art—through the gigantic spaces of the world. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
724:Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
725:Calling you a racist and sexist, a bigot and a homophobe, gives them a sense of satisfaction with their status in the universe, even if they never help a single individual human being. ~ Ben Shapiro, #NFDB
726:Given that animals are nothing more than mere tools for the production of capital, the only way to abolish their exploitation is to challenge their status as properties and commodities. ~ Bob Torres, #NFDB
727:it seemed likely to slide them back into the traditional status of servants or slaves, into the older world where labor was merely a painful necessity and not a source of prosperity. ~ Gordon S Wood, #NFDB
728:Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the Taliban—to finally achieve status and power. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
729:Questioning the status quo can result in banishment, imprisonment, ridicule or being burned at the stake, depending on your era, your locale, and the sacred cows you wish to butcher. ~ Gene Spafford, #NFDB
730:She’s different—not after my money, not looking to gain status, not like all the other women who have walked in and out of my life—and I’m at a loss for what to do with that information. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
731:The influence of the Lutheran religion, which favored music as a source of religious edification, also gave musicians higher status and influence in Germany than they found elsewhere.5 ~ Tyler Cowen, #NFDB
732:The occasional woman philosopher such as Gargi, who is often quoted to prove the high status of women in ancient times, is actually the proverbial swallow and does not make a summer. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
733:The right to demand the best and refuse the worst and do so not by virtue of your wealth, but your equal status as citizen, thats precisely what the modern Labour Party should stand for ~ Tony Blair, #NFDB
734:Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles. ~ Paul Fussell, #NFDB
735:As life speeds by, nostalgia has a shorter pregnancy. Games still in progress are given the straight-to-sepia status of "Instant Classics" no matter how oxymoronic that phrase appears. ~ Steve Rushin, #NFDB
736:Delaware State has established itself as an institution of excellence in its own right and attracts a diversity of students from various races, socio-economic status and locations. ~ Michael N Castle, #NFDB
737:I'm just a true Irish boy at heart. I'm just myself, I stick by my guns and I treat people the way I think they should be treated, regardless of their status. And I just have a laugh. ~ Colin Farrell, #NFDB
738:Orozco's despair was not just in finding himself poor, but in discovering that effort, honest intentions, and gentlemanly status had nothing to do with sucess in a commercial economy. ~ Timothy Brook, #NFDB
739:Psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
740:Set your ambitions, even if you are uncertain about what they should be. The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
741:The easily ridiculed, so-so status quo often hides Herculean efforts by those whom we take for granted, and who, working in the shadows, guarantee civilization instead of chaos. ~ Victor Davis Hanson, #NFDB
742:After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question... ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
743:If you're wearing a Bluetooth thing and you've got that thing on your belt, you are working for somebody else. You are not the guy in charge. That's a really good social status indicator. ~ Drew Carey, #NFDB
744:I refuse to give readers an uplifting faux experience engineered to comfort them and perpetuate the sociopolitical and economic status quo."
"Who died and made you Bertolt Brecht? ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
745:It's really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It's really challenging. ~ Shirley Manson, #NFDB
746:It was annoying. More than that, it was demeaning. Surely Desiderata and Mrs Gogol could have achieved something better than this. You derived status by the strength of your enemies. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
747:John Wayne was never shy about that fervor, but because he was never overly zealous about his politics, and of course his status as a movie, he was embraced by both the right and the left. ~ Jay Roach, #NFDB
748:People are tired of the status quo. You see that in various movements in and out of our the Republicans party, but most candidates are offering hollow rhetoric, not specific solutions. ~ Carly Fiorina, #NFDB
749:So powerful are race- and status-based disgusts that explorers have starved to death rather than eat like the locals. British polar exploration suffered heavily for its mealtime snobbery. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
750:The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
751:I think what we journalists too often do is we assume the status quo is unchangeable. I think all sorts of issues of political reform, electoral reform need more discussion than they get. ~ Frank Bruni, #NFDB
752:It is easier for a political party to attain national ballot status in Russia today than it is for the Libertarian party or the Green party to get on the ballot in, say, Pennsylvania. ~ Justin Raimondo, #NFDB
753:People say there's no trace of an accent anymore, and there isn't because I worked very hard to lose it. And the reason I did that is a British accent in America is a real status symbol. ~ John Mahoney, #NFDB
754:Set your ambitions, even if you are uncertain about what they should be. The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
755:...there is still a need for those of us nestled deep within the Christian bubble to look beyond the status quo and critically assess the degree to which we are really living biblically. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
756:The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they've got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
757:The visa lottery system poses a national security threat. Under the program, each successful applicant is chosen at random and given the status of permanent resident based on pure luck. ~ Bob Goodlatte, #NFDB
758:If we want to live a Wholehearted life, we have to become intentional about cultivating sleep and play, and about letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
759:Innovation often originates outside existing organizations, in part because successful organizations acquire a commitment to the status quo and a resistance to ideas that might change it. ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
760:In the age of revolution you have to be able to imagine revolutionary alternatives to the status quo. If you can't, you'll be relegated to the swollen ranks of keyboard-pounding automatons. ~ Gary Hamel, #NFDB
761:More generally, I tend not to trust Facebook status updates, for reasons that I will discuss in the next chapter—namely, our propensity to lie about our lives on social media. ~ Seth Stephens Davidowitz, #NFDB
762:Texas has waited too long for a governor who knows that quid pro quo shouldn't be the status quo. It's time for a governor who believes that you don't have to buy a place in Texas' future. ~ Wendy Davis, #NFDB
763:There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
764:The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they’ve got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change. ~ Robert Moss, #NFDB
765:Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke . . . She will need her sisterhood. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
766:If there's some kind of rock star status, would I be irresponsible if I didn't somehow use it for a continued greater good? I'm always involved in some way with reaching the public. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
767:I hope that my new status will be an example of Israeli-Palestinian co-existence, I believe that the destinies of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked. ~ Daniel Barenboim, #NFDB
768:My dad taught me from my youngest childhood memories through these connections with Aboriginal and tribal people that you must always protect people's sacred status, regardless of the pest. ~ Steve Irwin, #NFDB
769:Only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the State. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
770:THAT'S PRETTY FUCKING BAD",and Tiny shouts back, "I GOT DUMPED BY STATUS UPDATE," and I answer, "YEAH, I NOTICED I MEAN,HE COULD HAVE AT LEAST TEXTED. OR EMAILED. OR SENT A PASSENGER PIGEON. ~ John Green, #NFDB
771:The history of prevailing status quos shows decay and decadence infecting the opulent materialism of the Haves. The spiritual life of the Haves is a ritualistic justification of their possessions. ~ Saul, #NFDB
772:The moment you become friends with your inner Self, you realize that the failures or hindrances that you met earlier were caused more by your disconnected status with your inner Being. ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
773:The violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace. But let’s be clear: the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
774:They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
775:Wann immer ich vom Leben den Status quo erwarte, taucht etwas ganz unerwartetes auf. Die Weltgeschichte ist aus dem gleichen Teig gemacht wie Semmeln. Hauptsache, sie sind frisch. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer, #NFDB
776:When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
777:Abraham Lincoln was on the side of the social scientists when he said, "God must have loved the people of lower and middle socioeconomic status, because he made such a multiplicity of them. ~ Edwin Newman, #NFDB
778:I am only one man with one heart...Call me a demon, call me a monster...but I can't be the strongest forever...!!! — Whitebeard's response to his status as the "Strongest Man in the World". ~ Eiichiro Oda, #NFDB
779:If your trashcan or wheelbarrow has dent in it, you don't buy a new one. Maybe that's because we don't use trashcans and wheelbarrows to communicate our social status or identity to others. ~ Randy Pausch, #NFDB
780:Louis XIV often appeared as a Roman emperor, adorned with other symbols...
The quality, number, value, and length of fabric, plumes, jewelry, and trains were all calibrated to status. ~ Jennifer Homans,#NFDB
781:Our thoughts, feelings and whereabouts: Food we dish up on plates called photographs and status updates; to feed Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.; beasts with insatiable appetites. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
782:The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value counts. On it centers the rationality of the status quo, and all alien rationality is bent to It. ~ Herbert Marcuse, #NFDB
783:When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn’t see it. He can’t. He’s average. And is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
784:You may say you're "anti-status," but if you filled a room with people who said that, they would soon form a status hierarchy based on how anti-status each person claims to be. ~ Loretta Graziano Breuning, #NFDB
785:All genuinely creative ideas are initially met with rejection, since they necessarily threaten the status quo. An enthusiastic reception for a new idea is a sure sign that it is not original. ~ Eric Weiner, #NFDB
786:Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders. ~ John P Kotter, #NFDB
787:How we got to a place where men in skinny jeans rank higher in achievement and status than men in military-issued camouflage is a mental journey beyond the limits of my simple, sodden brain. ~ Greg Gutfeld, #NFDB
788:Japan is the first nation in the world to accord 'comic books'--originally a 'humorous' form of entertainment mainly for young people--nearly the same social status as novels and films. ~ Frederik L Schodt, #NFDB
789:Pessimism doesn't grow your business or even maintain the status quo. The pessimists on your staff make the job harder for everyone around them. They make difficulties out of opportunities. ~ Harvey Mackay, #NFDB
790:The day the USA decided to exit its former status quo was the reversed day in numbers of that which terrorized it. With Farage being invited by Trump, this is definitely a Brexit measure. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
791:The overall strength of Chinese culture and its international influence is not commensurate with China's international status. The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak. ~ Hu Jintao, #NFDB
792:The United States is both a conservative power, defending the international status quo against those who would change it through violence, and a revolutionary power seeking to replace ~ Walter Russell Mead, #NFDB
793:To fulfill that mission, my teachers made sure they “knew” us. They knew our parents, our economic status, where we worshipped, what our homes were like, and how we were treated in the family. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
794:Too often an institution serves to bless the majority opinion. Today when too many move to the rhythmic beat of the status quo, whoever would be a Christian must be a nonconformist. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
795:True love shouldn’t be bound by status. Even if Osric weren’t a prince, I would love him anyway. Perhaps this is your chance to show the world that royalty does not equal snobbishness. ~ Konstanz Silverbow, #NFDB
796:Yogic knowledge seeks to enter into a secret consciousness beyond mind which is only occultly here, concealed at the basis of all existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #NFDB
797:Completely disoriented, I look around and realize that I’m at work and that I must have fallen asleep while waiting for the Phoenix status meeting to start. I sneak a peek at my watch. 11:04 a.m. ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
798:Denied the status of belligerents, the Volunteers knew that they fought in the likelihood of execution if captured under arms, or even without them, depending on whose hands they fell into. ~ Tim Pat Coogan, #NFDB
799:If you’re unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don’t blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens. ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
800:In science, dubious forecasts are more likely to be exposed—and the truth is more likely to prevail. In politics, a domain in which the truth enjoys no privileged status, it’s anybody’s guess. ~ Nate Silver, #NFDB
801:Like the early Christians, we must move into a sometime hostile world armed with the revolutionary gospel of Jesus Christ. With this powerful gospel we shall boldly challenge the status quo. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
802:The problem - at least in the United States - is not that people can't find jobs. The problem is that they're no longer finding jobs that provide them with dignity and decent social status. ~ Kenneth Rogoff, #NFDB
803:To reach superstar status, where you’re able to connect with a wide variety of women, you’ll need at least ten diverse pieces of big bait (bonus points if you can drop them in a foreign language). ~ Roosh V, #NFDB
804:A wise man should marry a virgin of a respectable family even if she is deformed. He should not marry one of a low-class family, through beauty. Marriage in a family of equal status is preferable. ~ Chanakya, #NFDB
805:I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level. ~ Muammar al Gaddafi, #NFDB
806:I am only one man with one heart...Call me a demon, call me a monster...but I can't be the strongest forever...!!!
— Whitebeard's response to his status as the "Strongest Man in the World". ~ Eiichiro Oda,#NFDB
807:In the beginning we are all floating downstream. At some point we become aware that the currents are dragging us down and that we are no longer satisfied with the status quo of human existence. ~ Noah Levine, #NFDB
808:Our religious institutions have far too often become handmaidens of the status quo, while the genuine religious experience is anything but that. True religion is by nature disruptive of ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
809:Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
810:The failure to establish a new Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq, and the election-driven timetable for withdrawal, surrendered our gains in that country and led directly to the rise of ISIS. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
811:The man of the house has very politely informed guests who have come to see the baby that I am unavailable, as I am ‘milking’, and thereby sealed my status from cool chick to mooing cow. 10. ~ Twinkle Khanna, #NFDB
812:This nation was founded by rebels and revolutionaries, and its flags were carried across the battlefields by people who were very, very against the status quo and who questioned and criticized. ~ Lupe Fiasco, #NFDB
813:We can no longer continue with a status quo energy policy. We must create sustainable clean energy jobs and leave the planet to our children and grandchildren in better shape than we found it. ~ Jeff Merkley, #NFDB
814:You cannot have a learning organization without shared vision. Without a pull toward some goal which people truly want to achieve, the forces in support of the status quo can be overwhelming. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
815:Great leaders understand that historical success tends to produce stable and inwardly focused organizations, and these outfits, in turn, reinforce a feeling of contentment with the status quo. ~ John P Kotter, #NFDB
816:Humility is the fruit of inner security and wise maturity. To be humble is to be so sure of one’s self and one’s mission that one can forego calling excessive attention to one’s self and status. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
817:There were patterns in the way people moved, the way they clustered around power. They thought they were drifting, milling aimlessly, but really they were being drawn towards people of status. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
818:This disturbing phenomenon of people cycling in and out of prison, trapped by their second-class status, has been described by Loïc Wacquant as a “closed circuit of perpetual marginality. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
819:With men, we blame the victim. We blame men because we have camouflaged men's victimization by teaching men to also be the victimizer. Men's victimizer status camouflages men's victim status. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
820:His view of millionaires is shared by most people who are not wealthy. They think millionaires own expensive clothes, watches, and other status artifacts. We have found this is not the case. ~ Thomas J Stanley, #NFDB
821:In a few short weeks, mock-marital status had ceased to be something to aspire to, and had become a cause for scorn. At seventeen, we were becoming as embittered and as unromantic as our parents. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
822:The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
823:The eating of beef was reserved for specific occasions, such as rituals or when welcoming a guest or a person of high status. This is a common practice in other cattle-keeping cultures as well. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
824:The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
825:The utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain. ~ Benjamin Graham, #NFDB
826:How often have the frustrations of second-class citizenship and humiliating status led us into blind outrage against each other and the real cause and course of our dilemma been ignored? ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
827:My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali, #NFDB
828:Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
829:So many people get caught up in being a pro athlete and think they are better. I don't feel like I've ever changed or acted any differently because of the situation I'm in or that status I have. ~ Carson Palmer, #NFDB
830:Surveys of many cultures around the world consistently show that, in looking for a long-term partner, women prefer men who have, or have the potential of, wealth, status, stability and durability. ~ Robin Baker, #NFDB
831:the arena of humiliation and suffering to enter into His glory. In one moment, He leapfrogged from the status of despised Galilean teacher to the cosmic King of the universe, jumping over the heads ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
832:THE MISCONCEPTION: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising. THE TRUTH: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
833:I came across awful characters when I got some kind of status and came to Hollywood. Then you have directors trying to sleep with you, assuming that you will do things because of the way you dress. ~ Stacey Dash, #NFDB
834:if we seek social status, we give other people power over us: We have to do things calculated to make them admire us, and we have to refrain from doing things that will trigger their disfavor. ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
835:It is not the food, nor the ornaments, nor the house, but a host's genuine warmth that puts guests at ease and opens the gateway to friendship, irrespective of the status, age, gender and language. ~ Sudha Murty, #NFDB
836:I am personally open - after all that has happened and after ten years in that probationary status where all they have is a permit, I personally am open to allowing people to apply for a green card. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
837:Most of us are not real eager to grow, myself included. We try to be happy by staying in the status quo. But if we're not willing to be honest with ourselves about what we feel, we don't evolve. ~ Olympia Dukakis, #NFDB
838:My books are about ordinary people placed in extraordinary situations who are able to draw upon their inner reserves to challenge the status-quo in life and navigate compelling human relationships. ~ Vikas Swarup, #NFDB
839:Single is no longer a lack of options – but a choice. A choice to refuse to let your life be defined by your relationship status but to live every day Happily and let your Ever After work itself out. ~ Mandy Hale, #NFDB
840:I have to think of my status as a resident in this country. But I do insist that in Paraguay there was order; the judiciary had the power of complete independence; justice was fully exercised. ~ Alfredo Stroessner, #NFDB
841:Personally, being somewhat envious of Richard's (Thompson) songwriting and guitar playing, it's somewhat satisfying he's not yet achieved household-name status. It serves him right for being so good. ~ David Byrne, #NFDB
842:Philanthropy is involved with basic innovations that transform society, not simply maintaining the status quo or filling basic social needs that were formerly the province of the public sector. ~ David Rockefeller, #NFDB
843:There's not any religion or any culture or any race or any generation that cannot get AIDS or HIV. We all have to take responsibility for ourselves and get tested to know our status, and spread the word. ~ Rihanna, #NFDB
844:Until it's understood to involve justice for those in poverty, a future for generations yet unborn, and a commitment to the rest of creation, it's unlikely we'll be able to overcome the status quo. ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
845:Although the trends are promising and reishi mushrooms exhibit a number of interesting medicinal properties, modern scientific techniques have yet to affirm its traditional 'panacea polypore' status. ~ Paul Stamets, #NFDB
846:And why do most of us want marriage? Crave it for status or for stability that is an illusion. Marriage can’t protect you from heartbreak or the random cruelties and unfairnesses life deals out. It’s ~ Delia Ephron, #NFDB
847:Money is precisely an object whose status depends on how we 'think' about it: if people no longer treat this piece of metal as money, if they no longer 'believe' in it as money, it no longer is money. ~ Slavoj i ek, #NFDB
848:There's a new Facebook app that will post a final status update for you after you die. That's ridiculous. I don't need someone to change my status when I die. I need them to water my Farmville crops. ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
849:When the gospel has been eclipsed (whether by repression, false religion secularism, humanistic philosophy, or spiritual decay within the church), the status of women has declined accordingly. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
850:If people aren't educated, they can't question. If they can't question, they can't change anything, which is great for the status quo and all the people who can question them at their own level. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
851:If the U.S. succeeds in destroying the revolution, my status will be like that of most Cubans: I'll be up a creek without a paddle. It will be devastating for people worldwide who believe in justice. ~ Assata Shakur, #NFDB
852:Infidelity hurts. But when we grant it a special status in the hierarchy of marital misdemeanors, we risk allowing it to overshadow the egregious behaviors that may have preceded it or even led to it. ~ Esther Perel, #NFDB
853:In spite of warnings, change rarely occurs until the status quo becomes more painful than change. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
854:It's not your status as an orogene that bothers them. It's that you haven't yet proven yourself.
(It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are.) ~ N K Jemisin,#NFDB
855:Theory and practice are not only interwoven with one’s culture but with the responsibility of shaping the environment, of breaking up social complacency, and challenging the power of the status quo. ~ Samuel Mockbee, #NFDB
856:The theater, when it is potent enough to deserve its ancestry, is always dangerous; that is why it is instinctively feared by people who do not want change, but only preservation of the status quo. ~ Hallie Flanagan, #NFDB
857:This is the status of the Bible in modern life: it is a sublime answer, but we do not know the question any more. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
858:To be a prisoner means to be defined as a member of a group for whom the rules of what can be done to you, of what is seen as abuse of you, are reduced as part of the definition of your status. ~ Catharine MacKinnon, #NFDB
859:Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one's imagination - perhaps more importantly - creativity is the power to act. ~ Ai Weiwei, #NFDB
860:Many of the obstacles for change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain the existing status. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
861:My house has always been like everyone's house. You walk in, you're a part of the family, no matter who you are, what celebrity status you are, everyone is treated the same - with love from my mom. ~ Vinny Guadagnino, #NFDB
862:Never be complacent about the current steps; don't agree and follow the status quo. Be determined that you are making an indelible impact with great change. Now, dress up and go to make it happen! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
863:Put money in it's place. Money can buy you cars, houses, trinkets, fleeting sex, shallow companionship, cheap attention, and unfulfilled status. However, it can't buy you peace, love, or happiness. ~ Ernie J Zelinski, #NFDB
864:See, at a certain point it becomes cool to be boy crazy. That happens in sixth grade, and it gives you so much social status, particularly in an all-girls school, if you can go up and talk to boys. ~ Rosalind Wiseman, #NFDB
865:It’s weird. You and me being here at the same time, around everyone we know, and acting like life is status quo when I’m secretly making out with you back home. Dreaming about it the rest of the day. ~ Melissa Brayden, #NFDB
866:So take a step toward calm, and relieve people from needing to broadcast their whereabouts and status. Everyone’s status should be implicit: I’m trying to do my job, please respect my time and attention. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
867:The only people benefiting from the status quo in immigration [in the USA] today are the people trafficking human beings across the border, and the people who are hiring illegal labor for cheap purposes. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
868:When you begin the process of unhooking from the outer world, you can find literally hundreds of places where you have given your power away and drained your life force while guaranteeing the status quo. ~ Debbie Ford, #NFDB
869:Killing an animal to make a coat is sin. It wasn't meant to be, and we have no right to do it. A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she's truly beautiful. ~ Doris Day, #NFDB
870:Protecting the status quo against our internal convictions is obviously a luxury of the privileged, because the underdogs and outliers and marginalized have no choice but to experience the daily wilderness ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
871:[ Vietnam War] brought the people together and made the '60s like they were. The youth were very unified against the status quo - against the old line and the new old line. It's the same exact thing today. ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
872:A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple. His existence is going to need a mammoth explanation in its own right. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
873:And consider this: the angel appeared to Mary first, not to her husband-to-be, Joseph. 'She had no status or honor apart from him,' yet Gabriel came to Mary—further proof of how much God values women. ~ Liz Curtis Higgs, #NFDB
874:One mark of originality that can win canonical status for a literary work is strangeness that we either never altogether assimilate, or that becomes such a given that we are blinded to its idiosyncrasies. ~ Harold Bloom, #NFDB
875:There is not one, but many cures for cancer available. But they are all systematically suppressed by the ACS, the NCI, and the major oncology centres. They have too much of an interest in the status quo. ~ Robert Atkins, #NFDB
876:There's nothing wrong with being an actor, if that's what a man wants. But there's everything wrong with achieving an exalted status simply because one photographs well and is able to handle dialogue". ~ Sterling Hayden, #NFDB
877:Wealth, status, and power have become in our culture all too powerful symbols of happiness. ... And we assume that if only we could acquire some of those same symbols, we would be nuch happier. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
878:Whether it's social class status or your economic status, it is very evident that the top, if they get their way, will survive and be strong. They will lead those who are helpless, in many ways, to suffer. ~ Edwin Hodge, #NFDB
879:You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in, so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo, and keep saying that a new world is yet to come. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
880:Obama was left with but a single task: Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world’s only democracy. He blew it. ~ Charles Krauthammer, #NFDB
881:The idea of justice - even just dreaming of justice - is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust - and then tries to make it more accountable. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
882:The term initiation in the most general sense denotes a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a decisive alteration in the religious and social status of the person to be initiated. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
883:And although his perspective was absolutist and unyielding, it presented a kinder, gentler alternative to Calvinism, which had been the ecclesiastical status quo in the early years of the American republic. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
884:Even if the writer himself was a good person, and even if his book really was insightful, all books were ultimately marketed as status symbols, and all writers participated to some degree in this marketing. ~ Sally Rooney, #NFDB
885:I have always questioned the status of the body in our society. I have always been working on social, political, cultural and religious pressures, which prints them in the flesh and in particular in women's flesh. ~ Orlan, #NFDB
886:Little brother,” Balekin says without waiting to be acknowledged. He wears the chained cuffs on his wrists as though they are bracelets, as though they add to his status instead of marking him as a prisoner. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
887:Our Facebook went off the charts and volunteers poured into our campaigns and actually helped us achieve the ballot access status that we have now on the ballot in just about 48 states and this has continued. ~ Jill Stein, #NFDB
888:The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold. Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
889:Whoever the Lord is, he'd give us a facility. He's given you hands, legs and might so you use that facility to rise above the lowly status. Failing that, he gave you two good legs, just run like hell. ~ John Henrik Clarke, #NFDB
890:Business is fun. Controlling your own destiny is fun. Creating an idea and turning it into a movie; finding an artist and guiding their career and bringing them to some type of status - there's joy in that. ~ Queen Latifah, #NFDB
891:If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out. Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge the status quo by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market. ~ Satoru Iwata, #NFDB
892:I have waited a very long time to be able to have inappropriately timed discussions about the status of our relationship with you. I don’t intend to let my own stupidity take this opportunity away from me. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
893:Selling Out THE MISCONCEPTION: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising. THE TRUTH: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
894: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
895:In an industrial society, psychological benefits such as security, fulfilment, status, solidarity and conviviality are all delivered primarily through the jobs that people have or the work that they do. ~ Ernst F Schumacher, #NFDB
896:Learning from failure has the status of a cliché. But it turns out that, for reasons both prosaic and profound, a failure to learn from mistakes has been one of the single greatest obstacles to human progress ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
897:Still, right thought only becomes effective when in the purified understanding it is followed by other operations, by vision, by experience, by realisation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#NFDB
898:The status quo is more tenacious than anyone would ever imagine. The human mind prefers continuity rather than change. So it really has to be committed to eliminating a bad habit to even start down that path. ~ Roger Martin, #NFDB
899:Among the more outspoken and intrepid travelers emerged the paradox of the antifeminist feminist: women who saw no need to change the legal status, as they had never met an obstacle they could not overcome. ~ Barbara Hodgson, #NFDB
900:An online profile of your best friend is not your best friend. A status update about a day in the park is not a day in the park. And the desire to tell the world about how happy you are, is not how happy you are. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
901:If you're wondering why we're so convinced they have weapons of mass destruction, it's because they got them from us. We reap what we sow. Gravel, blood, lie after lie, we sow chaos, then reap the status quo. ~ Joakim Zander, #NFDB
902:If you view yourself as having a value-conferring status in virtue of of your power of rational choice, you must view anyone who has the power of rational choice as having...a value conferring status. ~ Christine M Korsgaard, #NFDB
903:Make a change of your steps when necessary. “Status quo” is the court room where change is kept on trial for long, delaying the verdict. Make a change and achieve your dreams. Rule your case with victory. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
904:New forms of media - first movies, then television, talk radio and now the Internet - tend to challenge traditional codes of conduct. They flout convention, shake up the status quo and sometimes provoke outrage. ~ Willow Bay, #NFDB
905:the way of the world is evil. It does not become any less evil because we disguise it with harmless-sounding phrases like ‘status quo’ or ‘business as usual’—it merely makes the evil more palatable to us. ~ Stephen R Lawhead, #NFDB
906:When you are 'bad' in the art world they are very very scared! They want to control you... and they can't! Individuality and uniqueness are threats to the status quo. It is an artist's job to be an 'outlaw. ~ Laurence Gartel, #NFDB
907:After ensuring border security, I then would normalize the status of 11 million undocumented citizens so they can join the work force and pay taxes...I would normalize them at a rate of about two million per year. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
908:A man in Georgia was arrested for burglary after he left his Facebook account open on the victim's computer. But this is nice: He's only been in jail a few hours, and his status already says "In a Relationship! ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
909:before long, the existing reward may no longer suffice. It will quickly feel less like a bonus and more like the status quo—which then forces the principal to offer larger rewards to achieve the same effect.20 ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
910:People do more important jobs than acting in film that should be recognised, but for some reason it's big money, so people are elevated in status. If I was a bus driver, I'm sure you wouldn't be interviewing me. ~ Adam Garcia, #NFDB
911:Photography has saturated us as spectators from its inception amidst a mingling of laboratorial pursuits and magic acts to its current status as propagator of convention, cultural commodity, and global hobby. ~ Barbara Kruger, #NFDB
912:Whenever we see anyone in a high or low position, male or female, they differ only in appearance, dress, behavior, and status. In essence they are all equal--they all experience problems in their lives. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #NFDB
913:Actually, I’m extremely dissatisfied with being who I am. It’s nothing to do with my looks or abilities or status or any of that. It simply has to do with being me. The situation strikes me as grossly unfair. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
914:In a culture of hyper-consumption the advertising industry has brainwashed many people into believing they can raise their status just by driving a particular brand of whatever it is they are pushing at you. ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
915:I think the policies, for the most part, that [Hillary Clinton] will put in place are not going to make positive changes. There'll be more status quo. She'll certainly be good for some groups of people. Whatever. ~ David Cross, #NFDB
916:Kushner became the representative in the White House of the liberal status quo. He was something like what used to be called a Rockefeller Republican and now might more properly be a Goldman Sachs Democrat. He— ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
917:The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
918:The irony is that in our decades, the combination of rationalism, asceticism, and individualism (the so-called Protestant Ethic) has produced precisely the system of boondoggling, luxury-consumption, and status. ~ Paul Goodman, #NFDB
919:The media can be an instrument of change. It can maintain the status quo and reflect the views of the society or it can, hopefully, awaken people and change minds. I think it depends on who’s piloting the plane. ~ Katie Couric, #NFDB
920:The United States cannot feed every person, lift every person out of poverty, cure every disease, or stop every conflict. But our power and status have conferred upon us a tremendous responsibility to humanity. ~ Richard Lugar, #NFDB
921:We all knew whatever contract we had giving us ownership of the Weavers was bullshit. Nobody could own another. Only imbeciles believed such a thing. But I did believe in our power. Our wealth. Our status. The ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
922:If we want to change that status quo, we might have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make sure we don’t make any substantial change. ~ Tim DeChristopher, #NFDB
923:Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's social status was agony to bear. But humiliation of one's nation was the most excruciating of human miseries. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
924:Truth is harder to bear than ignorance, and so ignorance is valued more--also because the status quo depends on it; but love depends on self-knowledge and self-knowledge depends on being able to bear the truth. ~ Andrea Dworkin, #NFDB
925:A significant number of pages and sentences that the administration wants to keep in a classified status have already been released publicly, some of it by public statements of the leadership of the CIA and the FBI. ~ Bob Graham, #NFDB
926:Compassion for the other comes out of our ability to accept ourselves. Until we realize both our own weaknesses and our own privileges, we can never tolerate lack of status and depth of weakness in the other. ~ Joan D Chittister, #NFDB
927:I hate a Roman named Status Quo!’ he said to me. ‘Stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said, ‘live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
928:In order for women to progress, we must question all authority, be willing to challenge any rule aimed at controlling our sexual behavior, and avoid doing business as usual, thereby maintaining the status quo. ~ Tristan Taormino, #NFDB
929:It's a lot easier to make friends when you're younger, because kids are a lot less judgmental than adults. They're more like, "O.K., let's be friends." Not, "So, what's your job?" "What's your marriage status?" ~ Natalie Portman, #NFDB
930:The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold.
Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition. ~ Naomi Wolf,#NFDB
931:By leadership, I mean taking complete responsibility for an organization's well-being and growth, and changing it for the better. Real leadership is not about prestige, power or status. It is about responsibility. ~ Robert L Joss, #NFDB
932:Popularity was fickle and elusive, like trying to catch fireflies in a jar. You were either born with it or relegated to wallflower status according to your mysterious and unknowable workings of the universe. ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
933:Status, prestige, authority, degree, licence, credential, badge of office, reputation, manners — all of these marks of social approval mean nothing to the NTs when the issue is the utility of goal-directed action. ~ David Keirsey, #NFDB
934:Status reports usually show up because a distant executive feels out of touch with part of his or her organization, and they believe getting everyone to efficiently document their week is going to help. It doesn’t. ~ Michael Lopp, #NFDB
935:The most dangerous ideas are not those that challenge the status quo. The most dangerous ideas are those so embedded in the status quo, so wrapped in a cloud of inevitability, that we forget they are ideas at all. ~ Jacob M Appel, #NFDB
936:These items were nothing but ones and zeros stored on the OASIS servers, but they were also status symbols. Most items only cost a few credits, but since they cost nothing for GSS to manufacture, it was all profit. ~ Ernest Cline, #NFDB
937:When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me. ~ Aaron Copland, #NFDB
938:But as stuff got cheaper, it lost status. Robberies declined in rich countries, in part because it wasn’t worth risking prison for a $150 TV. Reality shows about hoarders made having lots of things even less appealing. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
939:Second, never imagine that because the master loves you, you can do anything you want. Entire books could be written about favorites who fell out of favor by taking their status for granted, for daring to outshine. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
940:The criminal justice system should have the authority to determine the immigration status of all criminals, regardless of race or ethnicity, and report illegal immigrants who commit crimes to federal authorities. ~ Susana Martinez, #NFDB
941:We should always remember that beyond a certain point, hygiene factors such as money, status, compensation, and job security are much more a by-product of being happy with a job rather than the cause of it. ~ Clayton M Christensen, #NFDB
942:I don't read my own press, so I don't know what's being reported on a daily basis - I only hear about things when they reach a sort of Def-Con status, and my publicist calls me because we have to do some damage control. ~ Megan Fox, #NFDB
943:I know the celestial criteria measure service, not status; the use of our talents, not the relative size of our talent inventories. I know that Church membership is not passive security but continuing opportunity. ~ Neal A Maxwell, #NFDB
944:In 1968, when an actress made it to star status, she automatically rejected all roles that called for nudity. But Fonda broke with convention; she was a major actress who sought out roles that required her to disrobe. ~ Danny Peary, #NFDB
945:Jesus freely placed your interest above his own. His desire was to elevate your status; in the process he lowered his own. He gave you the royal treatment: he works, you benefit. And you must accept this treatment. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
946:Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command. ~ Mary Douglas, #NFDB
947:Presented with the claims of nineteenth-century racist anthropology, a rational person will ask two sorts of questions: 'What is the scientific status of the claims?' 'What social or ideological needs do they serve?' ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
948:When the highest value in a community is loyalty to the greater cause, meaning the continuity of the status quo, all means to this end are imbued with religious significance, and are thereby justified. "Hasidic Noir ~ Pearl Abraham, #NFDB
949:Capitalism, it turns out, can achieve what charity and good intentions sometimes cannot. Microfinance has done more to bolster the status of women, and to protect them from abuse, than any laws could accomplish. ~ Nicholas D Kristof, #NFDB
950:The major heresy took place during the 18th Dynasty, and that also was when Bastet were assigned a [lesser role] indicating thereby that she was conquered and her [status were diminished] by the parallel authority. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
951:"Even if others, equal or inferior to me in status,Should, out of arrogance, disparage me,To honour them, as I would my teacher,By bowing down my head before them — this is the practice of all the bodhisattvas." ~ Gyelse Tokme Zangpo, #NFDB
952:Growing up in New York with artist parents - a very liberal environment, where we were always encouraged to challenge the status quo - I think for a long time I confused jingoism with patriotism. And that is a mistake. ~ Claire Danes, #NFDB
953:I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
954:It is difficult, sometimes even impossible, to value what cannot be named or described, and so the task of naming and describing is an essential one in any revolt against the status quo of capitalism and consumerism. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
955:Look, the hard-line Jewish position is based, to this day, on the idea that the Palestinian Arabs somehow or other will either accept third-class status, or they will pick up and go away. Now, this isn't happening. ~ Arthur Hertzberg, #NFDB
956:No more astounding relic of the subjection of women survives in western civilization than the status of the prostitute.... In connection with what other illegal vice is the seller alone penalized, and not the buyer? ~ Crystal Eastman, #NFDB
957:S-P-E-W!” said Hermione hotly. “I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status — but it wouldn’t fit. So that’s the heading of our manifesto. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
958:There's a certain status to suffering in Ireland, that the person who - if you're sitting around a table, the person with the greatest status is the person who had the most horrible thing happen to them most recently. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
959:But years and miles away from home could never attenuate the city's hold on my identity, and the more I explored places and people far from Hampton, the more my status as one of its daughters came to mean to me. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly, #NFDB
960:For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to contain it guarantees an explosion down the road; the more rigid the adherence to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be. ~ Henry A Kissinger, #NFDB
961:He rolled his eyes and then frowned at both me and Ian (Somerhalder). “That guy takes a shit, too, you know.”
I shook my head to disagree. “No, he doesn’t. He’s still in god status and we all know that gods don’t poop. ~ Tina Reber,#NFDB
962:I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
963:I used to think someone needed to be my best friend before I'd burden her with my problems or my tears. Now I think those interactions--the sobfest or therapy session--are the encounters that earn someone BFF status. ~ Rachel Bertsche, #NFDB
964:Status does not matter. It is what you are like as a player. It doesn't matter how much money you have come for. That doesn't matter to me. I will play a 17-year-old if he fights and he has quality. It is quite easy. ~ Brendan Rodgers, #NFDB
965:Type is one of the most eloquent means of expression in every epoch of style. Next to architecture, it gives the most characteristic portrait of a period and the most severe testimony of a nation's intellectual status. ~ Peter Behrens, #NFDB
966:And I had this creepy suspicion that he was “putting up” with my trans status because he could get a pretty girl on his arm. It was like I was some kind of discounted designer purse. Well, except he’d never carry a purse. ~ Rachel Gold, #NFDB
967:An unstated but crucial premise is that the "responsible men" achieve that exalted status by their service to authentic power, a fact of life that they will discover soon enough if they try to pursue an independent path. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
968:question the status quo; rebuke the existing rules, though it may be at the discomfort of the masses. They may however come to a later realization that it was really worth it and you may now have the status quo ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
969:The point is that getting married for lust or money or social status or even love is usually trouble. The point is that marriage is a maze into which we wander - a maze that is best got through with a great companion. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB
970:To represent the United States in international competition is special recognition that not many players receive and I am really looking forward to helping USA Basketball regain its status in international basketball. ~ Jermaine O Neal, #NFDB
971:When we are more energized by the practice of blaming than we are by efforts to create transformation, we not only cannot find relief from suffering, we are creating the conditions that help keep us stuck in the status quo ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
972:He wasn't good or evil or cruel or extreme in any way but one, which was that he had elevated grayness to the status of a fine art and cultivated a mind that was as bleak and pitiless and logical as the slopes of Hell. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
973:I don't mind doing the whole red carpet thing when I have to when it comes to publicizing a movie. But besides that, I don't like those kinds of things at all. Celebrity status is not really something that appeals to me. ~ Saoirse Ronan, #NFDB
974:I would think you’d have better things to do right now than look up the marital status of my ex-boyfriends on the Internet,” Mom had said to him, scathingly.
“I like to keep track of their mating habits,” Dad had smirked. ~ Meg Cabot,#NFDB
975:Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, #NFDB
976:Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
977:Ideally, earning full-on wealth, not just cash, will become more like what spending is like already. There will be a multitude of incremental wealth creation events instead of a few big game-changing leaps in one’s status. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
978:Contrary to self-fulfilling cliché, the status quo did not perpetuate itself; it was deliberately locked into place by the petty rites of status and rank that formed the panoply of those who were already at the top. ~ Panayotis Cacoyannis, #NFDB
979:Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they are in. It is a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
980:If God eliminated evil by programming us to perform only good acts, we would lose this distinguishing mark - the ability to make choices. We would no longer be free moral agents. We would be reduced to the status of robots. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
981:In the 1999 resolution regarding Taiwan's future passed by the Democratic Progressive Party, it is stated very clearly that any change to the status quo of Taiwan must be decided by the people of Taiwan through referenda. ~ Chen Shui bian, #NFDB
982:It may not be replicable: One of the hardest transition that a developing country can make is the transition to middle-class status. Governments have to let go, people start insisting on following their own lights, etc. ~ Charles R Morris, #NFDB
983:New York state grape scientists go so far as to say that 'the site characteristics of rain fall, soil nutrients, organic matter, high lime, soil texture and pH are minor compared with soil depth, temperature and replant status. ~ Jeff Cox, #NFDB
984:Tyler had seen village dogs trained in much the same way for the ring. When an animal was beaten hard enough, it would work just to not be beaten, and consider itself well rewarded. The status quo could shift at any time. ~ Erika Johansen, #NFDB
985:Finding things and losing things is what the Bible is all about. God even seemed to encourage it. He talked about losing your job, or even your life, if you want to find it. He talked about losing your status to find real power. ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
986:I'm the kingdom's Beastcatcher, so I have full emergency vehicle status. If you think a pair are about to conjoin, call 999 and yell 'Quarkbeast' in a panicked, half-strangled cry of terror. They's put you straight through. ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
987:I think the center ground have got to become the people of change again and not the guardians of the status quo. And that is the weakness it comes to in our campaign. You can see it in your politics, you can see it everywhere. ~ Tony Blair, #NFDB
988:nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity. ~ Audrey Hepburn, #NFDB
989:Often motivated by a desire to maintain the existing status quo, sloth almost cost the U.S. its auto industry, as it refused for decades to build fuel-efficient cars to compete with Japanese, Korean and European imports. ~ Simon Mainwaring, #NFDB
990:People embrace those who challenge the status quo. Those who win brand themselves against the tiresome mundane noise. They are the new leaders, a new form of brand that unites people and makes a difference. Let's make a ruckus. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
991:The boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status. ~ Fred Brooks, #NFDB
992:The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling or changing or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo, even when it is not working. It attaches to past and present, and fears the future. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
993:The truly wealthy don't often pursue status. They don't need to. They have already made it. The pursuit of Rolex watches and $100,000 vehicles is for wannabes like you and me. Why pursue status when you've already achieved it? ~ Erik Wecks, #NFDB
994:Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order. ~ Friedrich August von Hayek, #NFDB
995:If he could not restore her to the status of a respectable woman, then Sohrab would make her into something else entirely, something hitherto unknown in their entire extended family, an educated woman, a professional woman. ~ Jasmin Darznik, #NFDB
996:I'm sorry, there was an effort on the part of the president to have a status of forces agreement, and I concurred in that, and said that we should have some number of troops that stayed on. That was something I concurred with. ~ Mitt Romney, #NFDB
997:Maybe having schizophrenia is my big fuck-you to the status quo. Only, I guess at this point, being normal and well-adjusted would be, like, the biggest fuck-you of them all. So I guess I'll just try to shoot for that, if I can. ~ Nic Sheff, #NFDB
998:NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
999:Our status as a land of equal opportunity has made us a rich and powerful nation, but it has also transformed lives. It has given people like me the chance to grow up knowing that no dream was too big and no goal out of reach. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1000:The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film. ~ Rainer Werner Fassbinder, #NFDB
1001:The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo – even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1002:The label of tasteful or tasteless is so often used to silence people and to maintain the status quo. It's used to shame people for not following the commonly accepted routine, for not aligning themselves with the status quo. ~ Margaret Cho, #NFDB
1003:THE MISCONCEPTION: You are more concerned with the validity of information than the person delivering it. THE TRUTH: The status and credentials of an individual greatly influence your perception of that individual’s message. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
1004:first, use a minimum viable product to establish real data on where the company is right now. Without a clear-eyed picture of your current status—no matter how far from the goal you may be—you cannot begin to track your progress. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
1005:For daughters of the new American billionaires of the 19th century, it was the ultimate deal: marriage to a cash-strapped British Aristocrat in return for a title and social status. But money didn't always buy them happiness. ~ Daisy Goodwin, #NFDB
1006:In essence, [David Duke] mainstreamed the Klan, making it seem an acceptable and viable alternative for those looking for a means to express their displeasure with the status quo of their lives and government representatives ~ Ron Stallworth, #NFDB
1007:The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1008:The postmodernist critique of representation undermines the referential status of visual imagery, its claim to represent reality as it really is - either the appearance of things or some ideal order behind or beyond appearance. ~ Craig Owens, #NFDB
1009:Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be. ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
1010:Anything written for an audience of mostly women by a community of mostly women is subversive, reflective of the current sexual, emotional, and political status, and actively embraces and undermines that status simultaneously. ~ Sarah Wendell, #NFDB
1011:Every single industry that had been disrupted by the internet had claimed special status. Publishing was no different—first in dismissing the threat and then in demanding protection from the very threat it had once dismissed— ~ David Gaughran, #NFDB
1012:In general, the best clue to a nation's growth and development potential is the status and role of women. This is the greatest handicap of Muslim Middle Eastern societies today, the flaw that most bars them from modernity ~ Nicholas D Kristof, #NFDB
1013:It was dramatic to watch my grandmother decapitate a turkey with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with gourmet status. ~ Russell Baker, #NFDB
1014:Oliver North says he is very upset that John Walker could come back to this country and cash in on his celebrity status. He hates to see someone who did something wrong get rewarded by writing a book or getting a TV show out of it. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
1015:Of course, men don’t age any better physically. They age better only in terms of social status. We misperceive in this way since our eyes are trained to see time as a flaw on women’s faces where it is a mark of character on men’s. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
1016:The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1017:The stupid and dishonest accountants allowed the genie of totally inappropriate accounting to descend on derivatives books. And once this has happened - people get status, etc. - it's impossible to get it back into the bottle. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
1018:We can’t overcome workaholism if we love money and status too much. We can’t overcome bitterness or slander if we love our reputation too much. It is not just willpower but a reordering of our desires that will bring wisdom. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1019:When you're doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
1020:I had very deep concerns about my financial status because I found that up until "Let's Dance" I was virtually broke again. I had been so irresponsible in how I dealt with my financial affairs. I take full responsibility for that. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
1021:This should be a true peace, which leads to the end of occupation and aggression, to the return of refugees to their homes, to the destruction of the dividing wall, and the establishment of a political status for East Jerusalem. ~ Khaled Mashal, #NFDB
1022:I'm a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it. You know who else was kind of "divisive" in terms of challenging the status quo and the powers-that-be of his day? Jesus Christ. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
1023:Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post Gothic mode. ~ Brian Aldiss, #NFDB
1024:We had people of all backgrounds coming together - all races, all creeds, all colors, all status in life. And coming together there was a kind of quiet dignity and a kind of sense of caring and a feeling of joint responsibility. ~ Dorothy Height, #NFDB
1025:When the results came back and were all calculated out, Tim was struck by the results: materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, had much higher levels of depression and anxiety. ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
1026:You don’t have to be bound by the barriers of the past. God wants you to go further than your parents. I’m sure your parents were fine, hardworking people, but don’t fall into that trap of just sitting back and accepting the status ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
1027:Allport suggested that self-esteem can often be a goal in itself: “most people want to be higher on the status ladder than they are” (p. 371). However, self-enhancement can be based in avoidance as well as approach motives. Insecurity ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1028:I don’t think it’s stalking if I get an invitation, but yes, I’d love to accompany you to the store.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this huge jump in status,” I tease. “From stalker to chaperone in a day? You’ll think I’m easy. ~ Mia Sheridan,#NFDB
1029:late bloomer–small, plain, ignored. In some ways, her ugly duckling status had been like a force field, keeping the world at bay so she could grow, come into her own, and figure out that there was more to her than the way she looked. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
1030:No matter how successful you are, change is always good. There can never be a status quo. When you have no money you can’t afford long-term solutions, only short-term ones. You have to always be upgrading. Otherwise you’re fucked. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1031:The cameras in the Simpson courtroom not only encouraged lawyers to preen for the lens and prolong the life of every goddamned motion to increase their time on the air, it reduced a criminal trial to the status of a sporting event. ~ Marcia Clark, #NFDB
1032:The Captain’s hand went to his forehead. A dreadful loss of status in the world. In his world. Loss of reputation and the regard of our fellow persons is in any society, from Iceland to East Indies, a terrible blow to the spirit. ~ Paulette Jiles, #NFDB
1033:The concept of "girl-on-girl crime" is perplexing to me, and it happens in many ways. There are those, who refuse to identify with women as a group, preferring the shade of the mythologized men, who want to keep up the status quo. ~ Kate Zambreno, #NFDB
1034:When the results came back4 and were all calculated out, Tim was struck by the results: materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, had much higher levels of depression and anxiety. ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
1035:As this VP discovered, being a boss is much like being a high-status primate in any group: the creatures beneath you in the pecking order watch every move you make – and so they know a lot more about you than you know about them. ~ Robert I Sutton, #NFDB
1036:I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival. ~ Angela Davis, #NFDB
1037:Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
1038:the Bible—human in origin, sacred in status and function—is both metaphor and sacrament. As metaphor, it is a way of seeing—a way of seeing God and our life with God. As sacrament, it is a way that God speaks to us and comes to us. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
1039:the myth suggests to us that a “good job” will offer us ample money, a social life, status and work which we will find “rewarding.” It’s actually astonishing how little we pause to reflect on these terms when at school or college. ~ Tom Hodgkinson, #NFDB
1040:Equality,' said Steerpike,' is the thing. It is the only true and central premise from which constructive ideas can radiate freely and be operated without prejudice. Absolute equality of status. Equality of wealth. Equality of power. ~ Mervyn Peake, #NFDB
1041:It is time to put policy ahead of politics and success ahead of the status quo. It is time for a new strategy to produce what we need: a stable Iraq government that takes over for its own people so our troops can finish their job. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1042:Social media is changing the way we communicate and the way we are perceived, both positively and negatively. Every time you post a photo, or update your status, you are contributing to your own digital footprint and personal brand. ~ Amy Jo Martin, #NFDB
1043:These children spend so much time demanding the status of adulthood from you - even when it isn't in your power to bestow it - and then when the real shit hits the fan, when you need them to be adults, suddenly they're children again. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
1044:when you’re doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you’re not going to cheese out. If you don’t love something, you’re not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1045:Here’s the story of how Pluto lost its planetary status and was demoted to an ice ball in the outer solar system. It’s also about my role in this at the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1046:I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
1047:If you have money, power, and status today, it is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which you earned. In short, all your resources are in the end the gift of God. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1048:In a massive, long-term study of 17,000 civil servants, an almost unbelievable conclusion emerged: the status of a person's job was more likely to predict their likelihood of a heart attack than obesity, smoking or high blood pressure. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
1049:In ways so closely tied to an individual's sense of self that it may not be apparent, the set of assumptions, privileges, and benefits that accompany the status of being white can become a valuable asset that whites seek to protect. ~ Derrick A Bell, #NFDB
1050:I’ve always liked Saturn. But I also have some sympathy for Pluto because I heard it’s been downgraded from a planet, and I think it should remain a planet. Once you’ve given something planetary status it’s kind of mean to take it away. ~ Jared Leto, #NFDB
1051:My hands trembled at the revelation. He’d used me to gain his status. In less than eighteen months, he could throw me away. Bryce wouldn’t have the Montague name, but Alton would allow him every luxury resulting from his coup d’état. ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
1052:Never look down on someone because God himself does not do so. No matter what defines the status, nationality or gender of a person, once God's spirit is in him/her, he or she becomes a complete creature with complete potentials! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1053:Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don't always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1054:Passion is that drive, that self-confidence, that enthusiasm that makes one to resist every obstacle that attempts to stop him from attaining his ultimate status in life and guides him to keep trying till the harvest time is due. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1055:As a result of hormonal surges, boys and girls begin to react differently to stress. Girls react more to relationship stress, and boys, with ten times more testosterone pumping around in their bodies, react to assaults on their status. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1056:Everybody wants to make as much money as possible. Take care of your family. It's not about the money; it's about status. I want to be ranked amongst all the players. I don't want to just have all this money. I want to be that guy. ~ Lance Stephenson, #NFDB
1057:It is better for a woman to compete impersonally in society, as men do, than to compete for dominance in her own home with her husband, compete with her neighbors for empty status, and so smother her son that he cannot compete at all. ~ Betty Friedan, #NFDB
1058:It was not very easy for a woman to impose herself as a modern artist in Germany… Most of our male colleagues continued for a long time to look upon us as charming and gifted amateurs, denying us implicitly any real professional status. ~ Hannah Hoch, #NFDB
1059:The European policy is invariably the maintenance of the status quo, and you will do nothing for the subject races unless we, by taking initiative, make you realize that helping us against the Turks is the lesser of the evils. ~ Eleftherios Venizelos, #NFDB
1060:We women are taught to be possessed. We're told to value ourselves based on the status of what's between our legs. Virgins are worth something, whores are not. Men are judged by what they can make, women by how few men have known them. ~ Auryn Hadley, #NFDB
1061:Women are "hypergamous." This means they seek men of higher status than themselves. Even the most ardent heterosexual feminist only can love someone more powerful than she. Needless to say the higher she rises, the slimmer the pickings. ~ Henry Makow, #NFDB
1062:Across the globe, regardless of nationality or financial status, there is a common dream every mother has for her children - for them to live full, healthy and productive lives. As a mother, I share that dream for my children. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell, #NFDB
1063:For the media covering serial murder it is not the number of victims that counts anymore. But their celebrity status or credit rating. The trade off these days is one upscale SUV in the driveway for every 10 dead hookers in a dumpster. ~ Peter Vronsky, #NFDB
1064:If you have money, power, and status today, it is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which you earned. In short, all your resources are in the end the gift of God. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1065:On the traditional, heroic conception it is the normative statuses that matter, not the agent’s attitudes. Parricide and incest ought not be. One should not act so as to incur the normative status of father killer and mother fucker. ~ Robert B Brandom, #NFDB
1066:Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion - painting, writing, music. People seem less status-conscious. Even wealthy people buy second-hand clothes and look a little bit homeless. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1067:That Ted Turner is a genius...He has taken what used to be a carnival side show and turned it into a gold mine. Yes - wrestling has become prime time for the masses. He's making these giant men into millionares with movie star status. ~ Samantha Barks, #NFDB
1068:We are reminded that, in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame, but rather how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
1069:This idea fascinates me. The idea that a few seconds of watching a photographer in action can tell you his/her status in the medium. And it's true. If you watch a photographer of merit working an event he/she does not look like an amateur. ~ David Hurn, #NFDB
1070:What gets lost in bestowing of classical status on a work, is the book's original freshness, the element of surprise…of newness, of productive stimulus that is the hallmark of such works...the passionate quality of a great masterpiece. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
1071:I do not want my house to be rounded by walls and my windows to be closed to other cultures. I wish to become familiar with the culture of lands as much as possible but I will not permit them to affect me or shake me from my own status. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1072:Insistence on having a sexual orientation in sex is about defending the status quo, maintaining sex differences and the sexual hierarchy; whereas resistance to sexual orientation, regimentation is more about where we need to be going. ~ John Stoltenberg, #NFDB
1073:Planning lets you impose order on the chaotic process of making something new, but when it's taken too far you get locked into a status quo, and creative thinking is about breaking free from the status quo, even from one you made yourself. ~ Twyla Tharp, #NFDB
1074:Here in the United States, we're consumed by our love of money and status. We think bigger is better, and if we can just get that promotion, all will be well with our souls. There's one fatal flaw to this mindset: it's all smoke and mirrors. ~ Jen Lilley, #NFDB
1075:If I know I'm going to be in a little different system, I'm 39, I can plan for that; we can plan for that. Doing nothing, the status quo, is going to guarantee cuts for current seniors... reforming the system is the only way you shore it up. ~ Sean Duffy, #NFDB
1076:I saw the other loners the way everyone else did-as unappealing, as to be avoided at all costs. If I hung out with one of them, I thought, my unpopular status would get worse, not better, because it would be magnified by association. ~ Gail Carson Levine, #NFDB
1077:It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Learning from failure has the status of a cliché. But it turns out that, for reasons both prosaic and profound, a failure to learn from mistakes has been one of the single greatest obstacles to human progress. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
1078:Obviously, the only reason I'm where I am is because God has gifted me and He has seen fit to put me where I am. I have to honor that by using my influence and my status on the team and in the game of baseball for good and to His purpose. ~ Lance Berkman, #NFDB
1079:These men, often elevated to the status of local heroes, served as the most violently effective tool of a democracy aroused against Native Americans: citizen-soldiers engaged in acts of self-interest disguised as self-preservation. ~ Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, #NFDB
1080:You would notice that monopolists downplay their monopoly status to avoid scrutiny, while competitive firms strategically exaggerate their uniqueness. The differences between firms only seem small on the surface; in fact, they are enormous. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
1081:Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of “white trash” in the South, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
1082:Old stories often have illogical aspects as if to alert irrational parts of the psyche. Stories are like dreams in that respect; the rules differ from those of the waking world and the value and status of things can change all of a sudden. ~ Michael Meade, #NFDB
1083:The promise of revenge is one way human beings ensure fairness, and you are precisely tuned to expect it. Your perceived status is part of the unconscious equation you work out when accepting, refusing, and making offers with other people. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
1084:The second class status of marriage became one of the principal issues in the Reformation. Martin Luther, the Augustinian friar, had barely posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg when he took himself a wife. ~ Germaine Greer, #NFDB
1085:Could such a shift be accomplished without eventually converting to a no-growth economy and reducing the current global population? For individuals, this would mean a no less revolutionary delinking of social status from material consumption. ~ Vaclav Smil, #NFDB
1086:I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning. ~ Jurgen Habermas, #NFDB
1087:India has tens of thousands of NGOs, including local arms of global charities and homegrown groups, working on causes including the status of women, urban safety, human rights, environmental protection, healthcare, agriculture and clean energy. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1088:It is clear from all these data that the interests of teenagers are not focused around studies, and that scholastic achievement is at most of minor importance in giving status or prestige to an adolescent in the eyes of other adolescents. ~ James S Coleman, #NFDB
1089:It is our job to ruin the perfection of the empty page. It is our job to disrupt the status quo: because that’s what storytelling us. Taking a straight line and bending it, breaking it, shaping it into something far stranger and far greater. ~ Chuck Wendig, #NFDB
1090:The relevance of her single status was how it distinguished her from established expectations of femininity. Hill had no husband to vouch for her virtue, no children to affirm her worth, as women’s worth had been historically understood. ~ Rebecca Traister, #NFDB
1091:Name me any liquid — except our own blood — that flows more intimately and incessantly through the labyrinth of symbols we have conceived to mark our status as human beings, from the rudest peasant festival to the mystery of the Eucharist. ~ Clifton Fadiman, #NFDB
1092:Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patients renal and cardiopulmonary status. This spectacular success was a clear demonstration that organ transplantation could be life-saving. ~ Joseph Murray, #NFDB
1093:There is a clear difference between sexist parody and parody of sexism. Sexist parody encourages the players to mock and trivialize gender issues while parody of sexism disrupts the status quo and undermines regressive gender conventions. ~ Anita Sarkeesian, #NFDB
1094:A man who does not know how to wage a just battle, first with himself and then with others, has no values worth defending, no ideals worth aspiring to, no awareness of the disease of which he might be healed. And no mensch worships the status quo. ~ Sam Keen, #NFDB
1095:And ultimately, that’s what women want, a strong, independent, high status male — a “doesn’t take shit from anybody” bad boy — but they want this bad boy to have a depth and a sensitivity that they only open up and show when they’re around her. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
1096:Gender complementarity is the belief that the Bible’s teachings on gender and gender roles is to be understood in terms of the fact that men and women are equally made in God’s image (status) but different in terms of assignment (roles). ~ R Albert Mohler Jr, #NFDB
1097:I don't dislike rappers or hip-hop or people who like it. I went to the Def Jam tour in Manchester in the '80s when rap was inspirational. Public Enemy were awesome. But it's all about status and bling now, and it doesn't say anything to me. ~ Noel Gallagher, #NFDB
1098:If the outer mind hungers for status, money, and applause, the inner mind hungers for harmony and connection—those moments when self-consciousness fades away and a person is lost in a challenge, a cause, the love of another or the love of God. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1099:Loving this country requires more than singing its praises or avoiding uncomfortable truths,” he said. “It requires the occasional disruption, the willingness to speak out for what is right, to shake up the status quo. That’s America.” A ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
1100:Back in New York I took full advantage of my status as a native speaker. I ran my mouth to shop clerks and listened in on private conversations, realising I’d gone an entire month without hearing anyone complaint that they were “stressed out”. ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
1101:For those here illegally today, who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only. To return home and apply for reentry like everybody else, under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined above. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1102:I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels. ~ Rita Dove, #NFDB
1103:I have always loved kids. They are little adults with so much personality, and it is fun to work with that. Whether that means donating school supplies or medication, or using my celebrity status to get them a bone marrow transplant, I want to help. ~ Rihanna, #NFDB
1104:I learned that spying isn’t about strengths in human nature – ideological conviction, duty, loyalty to one’s country. Spying is about weaknesses – the lust for money, for status, for sex. This is the guilty secret of our secret trade.’ Tanya ~ Charles Cumming, #NFDB
1105:In 2014, of the 2,985 Ukrainian asylum applicants whose cases were processed in the European Union, only 150 were granted full refugee status; 2,335 were rejected; and the rest got other forms of protection — an acceptance rate of only 22 percent. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1106:It is the socially determined norms and traditions of gender roles, which must be challenged, and challenged with vigor. In nearly all countries, including America, the truth is that women have a low social status, and are considered inferior. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
1107:One weekend in the vacation, I was invited to meet her family. They lived in Kent, out on the Orpington line, in one of those suburbs which had stopped concreting over nature at the very last minute, and ever since smugly claimed rural status. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
1108:Simply put, the infancy narratives in the gospels are not historical accounts, nor were they meant to be read as such. They are theological affirmations of Jesus’s status as the anointed of God. The descendant of King David. The promised messiah. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
1109:We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status. It's written in the fabric of our DNA that life used to be beautiful and now it isn't, and if only this and only that, it would be beautiful again. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1110:I did not care about being a virgin and had long been looking forward to the day when I could rid myself of that status, but when I saw how much it mattered to him to be the first boy I had been with, I could not five him such a hold over me. ~ Jamaica Kincaid, #NFDB
1111:Like all dominant groups, men seek to promote an image of their subordinate's nature that contributes to the preservation of the status quo. For thousands of years, males have seen women not as women could be, but only as males want them to be. ~ Marvin Harris, #NFDB
1112:That is a terrible situation, isn't it? Where they can say we don't like the way you're speaking about Christianity, about God. We don't like what you just said and we're gonna take away your tax exempt status which you know how important it is. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1113:There are lots of things that you can go down the list and say, "Oh, these are cliches, we've seen this before, just hits every checkpoint." All of that takes a secondary status for me if I'm reading something and I just really like the characters. ~ Paul Rudd, #NFDB
1114:The status of George Washington is honored in the heart of London. His civic and military virtues play their part in the education of our youth, just in the same way as the eloquence of Burke and Chatham have influenced the American mind. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
1115:We have a society in which one of the greatest things you can do is a platform to see victim status, and one of the qualifications for that is that you have these exquisitely tender feelings about things and sensibilities which are easily offended. ~ Brit Hume, #NFDB
1116:They often chose the retention model: catch all you can. Often they were not leading by instinct but by tradition. They kept the peace and maintained the status quo but later became frustrated as the church suffered from their indecisive leadership. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
1117:When a woman reads a romance novel, she is putting her own pleasure first. That small act of rebellion is perceived as a threat to the status quo. It’s also why this eternally popular and profitable genre has been scorned, ridiculed and dismissed. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
1118:He really cares about you," ... "When you were hurt, he wouldn't leave your side."
"I know."
"No, I mean ...we hear about how he acted from your friend Roxy. He threw a fit when they wouldn't talk to him about your status because he wasn't family. ~ J Lynn,#NFDB
1119:If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger. ~ Hubert H Humphrey, #NFDB
1120:Male makeup is men's titles, status and paying for dates. Makeup is what both sexes use to bridge the gap between the power they have and the power they'd like to have. Both male and female makeup are compensations for feelings of powerlessness. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
1121:Many have built their careers buttressing the status quo, reinforcing what theyve already accomplished, and resisting the radical thinking that can topple their legacy - not exactly the attitude you want when trying to drive innovation forward. ~ Peter Diamandis, #NFDB
1122:One of the reasons so many singles are dissatisfied is that they're looking for a change in status to define their significance, rather than finding a purpose in life, granted by God, that gives them significance regardless of the status they're in. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
1123:Russia was allowed to inherit the Soviet Union’s seat on the UN Security Council when that organization, which had been designed to preserve the Cold War status quo, should instead have been reformed to reflect the new primacy of the free world. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
1124:She made him appreciate that a man with the birth and status of Oxtiern must be incapable of deceit. The innocent creature! She did not know that vices, supported by birth and wealth, and then emboldened by impunity, only become more dangerous. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
1125:tempting possibility that economic, sexual, political, and status gains may result from the deliberate (and even from unconscious) exploitation of minorities. To achieve these gains prejudice is propagated by those who stand to win the most advantage ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1126:The culture industry is not the art of the consumer but rather the projection of the will of those in control onto their victims. The automatic self-reproduction of the status quo in its established forms is itself an expression of domination. ~ Theodor W Adorno, #NFDB
1127:The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman's aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild, #NFDB
1128:What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up, and remake the world for the better. ~ David Bornstein, #NFDB
1129:An escort from the lounge took us to the plane for the fourteen-and-a-half-hour flight to Los Angeles. As a result of my special status, Rosie and I had two seats in a row of three. I am only placed next to other passengers when flights are full. ~ Graeme Simsion, #NFDB
1130:I am a National Football League player of American Samoan heritage. Because of my status as a professional athlete, I have been blessed to play a role in educating players and fans about the culture and history of America's southernmost territory. ~ Troy Polamalu, #NFDB
1131:If you really do want to increase women's status, you could focus on just that, but you'd probably better focus also on women's education. Access to artificial contraception, I would say, is also a very important determinant of women's status. ~ Martha C Nussbaum, #NFDB
1132:Merely presenting a driver's license or other document based on a birth certificate is not enough for an accurate verification. Biometric verification of identity must be made and then a data base of those persons who have legal status must be checked. ~ Bob Dole, #NFDB
1133:But while all fear is not laziness, much fear is exactly that. Much of our fear is fear of a change in the status quo, a fear that we might lose what we have if we venture forth from where we are now. In the section on discipline I spoke of the fact ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
1134:Hot. I’ve been upgraded to hot.No one has ever called me hot. Cute? Yes. Adorable? yes, often and it makes me want to punch them. I didn’t know short girls could even be hot. I thought I’d been permanently relegated to elfin-pixie-child status. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
1135:I tend to not discriminate when it comes to people I can learn from. Basically, if someone has built a meaningful business in software, technology or media, faced disruption and adversity, and overcame underdog status, I want to know how they did it. ~ Aaron Levie, #NFDB
1136:The reason for this was that the South African government wanted to establish good relations with the Japanese in order to import their fancy cars and electronics. So Japanese people were given honorary white status while Chinese people stayed black. ~ Trevor Noah, #NFDB
1137:After some abandoned experiments with static compilation, we looked around and saw how successfully JIT techniques are being applied in the JavaScript space: Chrome’s V8 engine, in particular, has greatly pushed the status quo of JavaScript performance. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1138:But the reality is that the police serve a certain function, to maintain a certain status quo, and that's one of the things that the movie is about, because it basically gives you three options for looking at the police, as symbolized by Dave Brown. ~ Oren Moverman, #NFDB
1139:I guess I felt straight when I was allowed to get married. Now I feel queerer because I'm not. It's the only thing that's changed. I wouldn't measure it in icon status or how much my demographic has changed, but in the rage I feel, and being not equal. ~ Sia Furler, #NFDB
1140:I've never been difficult to anybody or with anybody on a picture. Especially when you're in that nice status of hierarchy of actors and actresses who get to approve directors. Because once you make that choice, it's my belief that the director's boss. ~ James Caan, #NFDB
1141:I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas. ~ Johnny Cash, #NFDB
1142:Like all dominant groups, men seek to promote an image of their subordinate’s nature that contributes to the preservation of the status quo. For thousands of years, males have seen women not as women could be, but only as males want them to be.”11 ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
1143:Montaigne: “To practice death is to practice freedom.71 A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.” Being a slave to our job and our status in the world makes it much harder to put our day behind us and surrender to sleep. ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
1144:That is what has happened to the United States in the international economic scene. We have deteriorated into a debtor status so that we are now dependent upon the kindness of strangers. That is not where the world's leading power should find itself. ~ Paul Sarbanes, #NFDB
1145:The rationale that etiquette should be eschewed because it fosters inequality does not ring true in a society that openly admits to a feverish interest in the comparative status-conveying qualities of sneakers. Manners are available to all, for free. ~ Judith Martin, #NFDB
1146:There was, however, almost as much artifice to his surroundings as there was need, since Wotan enjoyed his status as the agency mystery. By remaining in the shadows, he appeared even more intimidating and powerful, which was precisely what he wanted. ~ Gregg Hurwitz, #NFDB
1147:If we do not have a vision before us of where we are headed, we will assume that the status quo is normal, and that we and our cultures and our societies are “only human,” without ever realizing that we have never seen normal humanity, in our lives. ~ Russell D Moore, #NFDB
1148:Martin Luther King would celebrate the symbolic status (of having a black president), but he would examine what the real substance was. And if he saw that poor and working people were not at the center of public policy, he would be deeply, deeply upset. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
1149:Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience. ~ Erma Bombeck, #NFDB
1150:The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key insight is the heart and soul of this book. This ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
1151:When the East Timor conflict broke out, when they gained independence, the militia killed a lot of East Timorese people. And their sacred totem is the crocodile. They believe that their island is actually a solidified crocodile, so it has sacred status. ~ Steve Irwin, #NFDB
1152:The dignity of a woman's life is infinite, her status immeasurable, her capacity unbounded, her role divine...In the fast changing world of today her vision penetrates into the reality of the far beyond, the reality which endures beyond change. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
1153: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
1154:This was the English passion, not for self-improvement or culture or wit, but for DIY, Do It Yourself, for bigger and better houses with more mod cons, the painstaking accumulation of comfort and, with it, status - the concrete display of earned cash. ~ Hanif Kureishi, #NFDB
1155:Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this complexity possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word. ~ George F R Ellis, #NFDB
1156:As the generalization goes about the art industry, people can be really challenging and thought-provoking in their thinking and questioning the status quo, and it's really important that the status quo can be questioned and that there are people doing that. ~ Lily Cole, #NFDB
1157:I am thirty-nine years old, tall, fit, and intelligent, with a relatively high status and above-average income as an associate professor. Logically, I should be attractive to a wide range of women. In the animal kingdom, I would succeed in reproducing. ~ Graeme Simsion, #NFDB
1158:many software companies now deploy the Scrum project management methodology, which replaces a lot of this ad hoc messaging with regular, highly structured, and ruthlessly efficient status meetings (often held standing up to minimize the urge to bloviate). ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
1159:Rich, famous, insider journalists do not want to subvert the status quo that so lavishly rewards them. Like all courtiers, they are eager to defend the system that vests them with their privileges and contemptuous of anyone who challenges that system. ~ Glenn Greenwald, #NFDB
1160:That's true but I think the contemporary problem that we are facing increasing numbers of black people and other people of color being thrown into a status that involves work in alternative economies and increasing numbers of people who are incarcerated. ~ Angela Davis, #NFDB
1161:The impact of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries. It will therefore exacerbate inequalities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water and other resources. ~ Rajendra K Pachauri, #NFDB
1162:We must continue to insist to our better off brothers and sisters that they are in the same racial boat as their less better off kin. Even elevated class status and superior financial standing cannot ward off the effects and consequences of racism. ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
1163:Education as the practice of freedom affirms healthy selfesteem in students as it promotes their capacity to be aware and live consciously. It teaches them to reflect and act in ways that further self-actualization, rather than conformity to the status quo. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
1164:Greatness is telling the truth & being courageous in pursuit of justice. The worst thing you could tell young people is to be successful but become well-adjusted to an unjust status quo as opposed to being great & being maladjusted to an unjust status quo. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
1165:The attackers are the people with bold, innovative ideas who are trying to disrupt the status quo and usher in a better way. The defenders are the incumbents who try to defend what they have. We need to bring an attacker mindset to whatever we choose to do. ~ Steve Case, #NFDB
1166:…the Genesis story is just one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1167:A genuine Left doesn't consider anyone's suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom.... Goodbye to all that. ~ Robin Morgan, #NFDB
1168:In the USA, it's harder for a black man with no criminal record to find a job than a white man with a criminal record, which is to say that race is actually a bigger factor than ex-felon status. But if you're both, it's almost impossible to find a job. ~ Benjamin Jealous, #NFDB
1169:The Logos is a voice heard, in the head. And the Logos was the hand on the rudder of human civilization for centuries, up until, in fact, the collapse of the ancient mystery religions and the ascendancy of Christianity to the status of a world religion. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1170:The politicians and the experts, who possess neither audacity nor imagination, reject every radical solution. They always prefer little solutions, tactical or rigged, compromises that please an electorate with cold feet, always respecting the status quo. ~ Guillaume Faye, #NFDB
1171: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
1172:I bought a brown-skinned glove puppet. He came with a little black briefcase and his hair was parted exactly down the middle. The precision of his parting made me uneasy; somehow it was too human at the exact same time as exposing his status as a nonhuman. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
1173:Joissakin yhteiskunnissa kysytään ensin, onko hän naimisissa ja onko hänellä lapsia; meidän yhteiskunnassamme ihmiseltä kysytään ensimmäiseksi ammattia. Länsimaisen ihmisen määrittää hänen paikkansa tuotantoketjussa, ei niinkään status suvunjatkajana. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
1174:Perfect is an illusion, one that was created to maintain the status quo. The Six Sigma charade is largely about hiding from change, because change is never perfect. Change means reinvention, and until something is reinvented, we have no idea what the spec is. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1175:. . . She was obsessed with clothes and status, how she never gave a thought to being responsible for her own actions, or even what she might do for anyone else-making her the ultimate example of all that was wrong and misguided about young women today. ~ Candace Bushnell, #NFDB
1176:South Carolina was unique in early America for its black majority. No other Southern colony or state had a white minority until 1855, when Mississippi also earned that particular status. In 1822, Charleston housed 24,780 people, only 10,653 of whom were white. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1177:I've always been politically minded and against the status quo. It's pretty basic when you're brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
1178:The key.. will be a new public awareness of how serious is the threat to the global environment. Those who have a vested interest in the status quo will probably continue to be able to stifle any meaningful change until enough citizens.. are willing to speak out. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
1179:The status quo is not your friend; in a competitive, down economy, the absence of change means death. Those who coast with current best practices may enjoy a period of time where it works. But if you don’t reinvent yourself, your competitors will do it for you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1180:We have to create the ability to police our own communities instead of leaving it in the hands of a system that has never understood us, tried to marginalize and politically assassinate all of our leaders whenever they came to challenge the status quo. ~ Immortal Technique, #NFDB
1181:...which is where I met my my husband. Not currently my husband. My ex. Though he wasn't that then. I never know how to say that."
"Allow my copydesk expertise to intervene: your then-pre-husband, later-to-be-post-husband in his prior-to-ex-husband status. ~ Tom Rachman,#NFDB
1182:Children of illegal immigrants. Steal a piece of Obama’s thunder by enacting a law that would grant resident status to kids whose parents brought them here when they were youngsters. These children shouldn’t be punished for the sins of their mothers and fathers. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1183:complaints from France that Washington was exploiting its reserve currency status in order to collect seigniorage from America’s foreign creditors by printing dollars, much as medieval monarchs had exploited their monopoly on minting to debase the currency. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1184:Everyone in the Chinese economic world knows that the country is not going to move out of cheap-workhouse status, toward the realm of 'real' rich-country corporate power and prosperity, unless (among other changes) it begins removing these price distortions. ~ James Fallows, #NFDB
1185:I don't regard myself as any kind of conservative, except conceivably neo, and that word, of course, is a ridiculous appellation, because it's used to describe a group that was ready to make war on the status quo, which is not a conservative position. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
1186:I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. How can we manage production if we don’t know what the demand, priorities, status of work in process, and resource availability are? Suddenly, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t ask these questions on my first day. ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
1187:It was in May 1934 that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR granted Birobidzhan the status of the Jewish Autonomous Region, a major step toward achieving the coveted status of a national republic, the apogee of Soviet-style autonomism. At ~ Masha Gessen, #NFDB
1188:The Party leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, wanted to show the world China's new status. And in winning the bid, the leaders could show the people how strong the government was. Plus, the leadership wanted to use the Olympics to strengthen nationalist sentiment. ~ Liu Xiaobo, #NFDB
1189:There are some forty thousand children in California, according to the red brief, that live with same-sex parents, and they want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of those children is important in this case, don't you think? ~ Anthony Kennedy, #NFDB
1190:We can possess all the fine goods that our civilisation has to offer us; we can have important jobs, and social status, and tone our bodies on all the latest machines – but without a sense of belonging to the world, we feel empty and our lives lack meaning. ~ Sharon Blackie, #NFDB
1191:We know—intellectually—that confronting an issue is the only way to resolve it. But any resolution will disrupt the status quo. Given the choice between conflict and change on the one hand, and inertia on the other, the ostrich position can seem very attractive. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1192:Fewer than 40 percent of the alternative therapies are discussed with one's physician, In my personal view, the current status quo which could easily be described as 'Don't ask and don't tell,' needs to be abandoned -- that is not in anyone's best interest. ~ David Eisenberg, #NFDB
1193:Some people, of course, can be happier with the cars, the fancy threads, the hilltop mansion, and the other status symbols of 'having made it', but I found that several of my most prized possessions were slipping away, despite all the fortune I had amassed. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
1194:The ontological status of evil in the world, both in the celestial and terrestrial aspects, may be compared to the status of the firstborn, preferred for its essential priority. Evil precedes good just as darkness precedes light and absence precedes existence. ~ Rachel Elior, #NFDB
1195:To take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged, to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing-including, when that is the interest, another person's pain or misfortune. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
1196:When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
1197:Although these early Christian authors subordinated science and the study of nature to the needs of religion, they often indicated an interest in nature, as did Basil, that transcended the mere ancillary status that the study of nature was customarily accorded. ~ Edward Grant, #NFDB
1198:Following the status quo and the word of the Lord was all I was ever allowed to do. Go to school. Go to church. Get a job. Meet a good man. Learn to bake apple pie. Quit said job and start having children. Join the church auxiliary. Bake more pie. Cherry, maybe. ~ Dina Silver, #NFDB
1199:Having a dissenting opinion on movies, music, or clothes, or owning clever or obscure possessions, is the way middle-class people fight one another for status. They can't out-consume one another because they can't afford it, but they can out-taste one another. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
1200:I would not find happiness in status or possessions. Every breath takes you one breath closer to your final destination. This body I cherished and adorned was just a temporary home for my spirit, which would one day fly away like a bird released from its cage. ~ Krista Bremer, #NFDB
1201:Oswaldo was flummoxed by the fact that his friend could be so quiet, almost embarrassed, about his academic acumen, yet so damn loud and proud of his status as a premier campus drug dealer.
"I've never met anyone so smart but so fucking dumb," he told Rob. ~ Jeff Hobbs,#NFDB
1202:She’d love to see those status updates. Got strapped to the roof of the car today for a trip to Starbucks. Would have loved to taste caramel mocha, but can’t move arms and so was forced to stare longingly at delicious, hot beverage. Will the taunting never end? ~ Jessica Park, #NFDB
1203:The framers of the Constitution, dealing with slavery as an incidental but troublesome circumstance, ended by extending it a kind of shamefaced recognition that included a measure of protection, but they contributed little to defining its national status. ~ Don E Fehrenbacher, #NFDB
1204:It was the Civil Rights Act, which Democratic president Lyndon Johnson embraced and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed, that would define the Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party of racial status quo. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
1205:Reducing the role conflict. The boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status. ~ Frederick P Brooks Jr, #NFDB
1206:Seven out of 10 Americans know the country's headed in the wrong direction, that in a very real sense that this is a clear choice between change in the status quo and I've always been telling crowds, the other side says if you like your status quo you can keep it. ~ Mike Pence, #NFDB
1207:The slaves of developed industrial Civilization are sublimated slaves, but they are slaves, for slavery is determined "neither by obedience nor by hardness of labour but by the status of being mere instrument, and the reduction of man to the state of a thing. ~ Herbert Marcuse, #NFDB
1208:Everybody who is on the Internet is subject to insult, trolling, hating and cruelty. Most of these online assaults are dominance plays. They are attempts by the insulter to assert his or her own superior status through displays of gratuitous cruelty toward a target. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1209:For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward. ~ Erma Bombeck, #NFDB
1210:Giving up all notions about country, caste, blemishless community,asrama (status as a bachelor, family man, ascetic or one who has renounced the world) and associated matters, hold on to and practise always meditation upon the Self, your own natural state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1211:Mexica warriors were predicated on birth and status. In a cyclical pattern of cause and effect, such greater innate advantages gave aristocrats predominance on the battlefield in taking captives, which in turn provided proof of their martial excellence—and ~ Victor Davis Hanson, #NFDB
1212:...motherhood is a huge shift in freedom and status. No one ever says, 'You're good at this, well done.' No one pays you. If you fuck up and drop the baby, then you'll get some attention, but if you keep your head down and do a 'good enough' job, you're ignored. ~ Viv Albertine, #NFDB
1213:...Singles, too, must see the penultimate status of marriage. If single Christians don't develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their DREAM of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1214:The camera has an uncanny ability to capture the world as it is, to seize events as they happen, and also to conjure visions of the future. But by the time the image reaches the eyes of the viewer, it belongs to the past, taking on the status of something retrieved. ~ A O Scott, #NFDB
1215:Their chattel status continues in their loss of name, their obligation to adopt the husband’s domicile, and the general legal assumption that marriage involves an exchange of the female’s domestic service and (sexual) consortium in return for financial support.31 ~ Kate Millett, #NFDB
1216:We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don't care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they've done wrong. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, #NFDB
1217:Any candid observer of American racial history must acknowledge that racism is highly adaptable. The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy, evolve and change as they are challenged. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
1218:a revolutionary in every bedroom cannot fail to shake up the status quo. And if it is your wife that is revolting, you can't just split to the suburbs. Feminism, when it truly achieves it's goals, will crack through the most basic structures of our society. ~ Shulamith Firestone, #NFDB
1219:It is a sad truth, but one acknowledged by any person who can bother to read the law, that the inferior legal status of a woman in Europa means she is best protected by having a powerful family or, lacking that, by finding the strongest protector and marrying him. ~ Kate Elliott, #NFDB
1220:Many men have deep rooted problems regarding the status of women, and during sex these problems come out. They consciously or unconsciously project anger and hate towards women they have sex with. This energy enters a woman's subtle physical body and damages it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1221:Not uncommonly, when a woman says something that impugns a man, particularly one at the heart of the status quo, especially if it has to do with sex, the response will question not just the facts of her assertion but her capacity to speak and her right to do so. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
1222:On 18th September 2014, between the hours of 7am and 10pm, absolute sovereign power will lie in the hands of the Scottish people. They have to decide whether to keep it, or give it away to where their minority status makes them permanently powerless and vulnerable. ~ Jim Sillars, #NFDB
1223:Government is an expression of power relationships, in which some people seek to dominate others by force. h ese dominators gather ‘insiders’ together so that they can take money, power and status away from other people, the ‘outsiders.’ h at is not how contracts work ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1224:If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community to challenge the status quo into making responsible changes, it will take the subversive leadership of academics and practitioners who keep reminding students of the profession’s responsibilities. ~ Samuel Mockbee, #NFDB
1225:Maybe one of the jobs of theory or philosophy is to elevate principles that seem impossible, or that have the status of the impossible, to stand by them and will them, even when it looks highly unlikely that they'll ever be realised. But that's ok, it's a service. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
1226:Men and women have formulated this perception of sacred space in different ways over the centuries, but in their discussion of the special status of a city such as Jerusalem certain themes tend to recur, indicating that they speak to some fundamental human need. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1227:...Singles, too, must see the penultimate status of marriage. If single Christians don't develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their DREAM of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1228:The gospel compels us in our culture to decry any and all forms of oppression, exploitation, bigotry, or harassment of immigrants, regardless of their legal status. These are men and women for whom Christ died, and their dignity is no greater or lesser than our own. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
1229:dreadful loss of status in the world. In his world. Loss of reputation and the regard of our fellow persons is in any society, from Iceland to East Indies, a terrible blow to the spirit. It is worse than being penniless and more cutting than the blades of enemies. ~ Paulette Jiles, #NFDB
1230:Professional opinion is skeptical about anything that doesn't fit in with the version of reality it has been programmed to believe in. The skepticism comes from a lack of understanding and the need to defend the status quo and not from actual knowledge of the subject. ~ David Icke, #NFDB
1231:Dr. Lister, who treated the wounded Pres. Garfield, had been so stung by the medical establishment's reaction to his embrace of African-American doctors that he, in response, refused to do part from the status quo enough to considering using antiseptic techniques. ~ Candice Millard, #NFDB
1232:Grass is the least rewarding of all status symbols... The grass does nothing but drink money, exhaust energies, crush spirits, destroy sleep, create tensions and interfere with the watching of baseball games, and sprout insolent signs ordering humans to keep off it. ~ Russell Baker, #NFDB
1233:I had written hundreds of memos during my 26 years at the company, and all had shared a common thread. They were about self-examination in the pursuit of excellence, and a willingness not to embrace the status quo. This is a cornerstone of my leadership philosophy. ~ Howard Schultz, #NFDB
1234:individuals who were more or less happy with themselves, secure in their own souls, usually opened themselves to new friendships. It was those whose ancestry and native status were their only hopes for distinction who tended to be critical and cold toward “new people. ~ Noah Gordon, #NFDB
1235:Love, to empaths, isn’t just a shallow experience based on looks, social status or great sex. Instead, love is something that comes from the very heart and soul of what an empath is. Love is intense passion, unconditional devotion, and absolute fierce vulnerability. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
1236:Rap comes from the humble beginnings of rebelling against the status quo. Now, rappers have become the status quo themselves. You can't rebel against the Queen and then become the Queen yourself. I attribute much of the blame to testosterone-male dominance and patriarchy. ~ Chuck D, #NFDB
1237:Since narcissism is fueled by a greater need to be admired than to be liked, psychologists might use that fact as a therapeutic lever - stressing to patients that being known as a narcissist will actually cause them to lose the respect and social status they crave. ~ Jeffrey Kluger, #NFDB
1238:Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. Luxury is the opposite of status. It is the ability to make a living by being oneself. It is the freedom to refuse to live by habit. Luxury is liberty. Luxury is elegance. ~ Karen Karbo, #NFDB
1239:The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That
things are "status quo" is the catastrophe. It is not an ever-present possibility but
what in each case is given... hell is not
something that awaits us, but this life here and now. ~ Walter Benjamin,#NFDB
1240:The more we give of ourselves to see others succeed, the greater our value to the group and the more respect they offer us. The more respect and recognition we receive, the higher our status in the group and the more incentive we have to continue to give to the group. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
1241:The team manager had sent Dad an information sheet with everything he needed to know about Jason--emergency numbers, health information, but nothing that was really important. I mean, it didn’t provide vital stats like eye color, hair color, or girlfriend status. ~ Rachel Hawthorne, #NFDB
1242:As a woman of color you have little more permission to go deeper and question things because your identity, in a way, is a shield. But if you come at it from a minority status, my person, who I am, softens the blow of whatever it is that I'm saying, because I am that. ~ Margaret Cho, #NFDB
1243:Making money, getting yourself status in this world is not everything at all. But it has become everything in America. That you really have to get going and keep up with the Jones'. Get a house and a car and other things. And pretty soon you're stymied. Things own you. ~ Frank Capra, #NFDB
1244:These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1245:At the core of many of his stories was a distinction between success and excellence. Success was “having”: money, awards, status. Excellence was “being”: living your values, having them guide your daily life. Pursue excellence, Coach would say, and success will follow. ~ Deena Kastor, #NFDB
1246:In business circles, this is known as the “status quo trap”:12 the preference for everything to stay the same. The gravitational pull of the status quo is strong—it feels easier and less risky, and it requires less mental and emotional energy, to “leave well enough alone. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1247:On some level, this makes sense: it is easier to fall in line with what your family and friends think than to find new family and friends! But running with the herd means we are quick to embrace the status quo, slow to change our minds, and happy to delegate our thinking. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1248:She lives with man on terms of equality, knows nothing of that relation of status which is the ancient basis of all distinctions of worth, honor, and repute, and she does not lend herself with facility to an invidious comparison between her owner and his neighbors. ~ Thorstein Veblen, #NFDB
1249:The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1250:We made the iPod for ourselves, and when you're doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1251:We would consider the nearly twelve-year-old a child. By the standards of Elizabeth’s day, twelve marked the beginning of the end of childhood for most females, but particularly for female slaves whose status as property made the designation “child” short-lived. ~ Annette Gordon Reed, #NFDB
1252:An event has occurred that pulls our gaze from the trance of comfort, whether crisis or opportunity, & sends us out from the village gates. The greater our investment in security and status, the more savage the underworld’s dogs can appear, the more baleful the moon. ~ Martin Shaw, #NFDB
1253:BENEFITS OF BREAKING THE RULES If we want to become artists, we are going to have to break some rules. We cannot do just what is expected of us. At some point, we must break away from the status quo and forge a new path. As it turns out, this is how creativity works best. ~ Jeff Goins, #NFDB
1254:Theodore Roosevelt, in a time of concentrated wealth the world had never seen amid desperate want, railed against the rich not for having money, but for abusing their fortunate status. He used government to rein in the worst impulses of the “malefactors of wealth. ~ David Cay Johnston, #NFDB
1255:The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1256:What troubles me about the "hostile workplace" category of sexual harassment policy is that women are being returned to their old status of delicate flowers who must be protected from assault by male lechers. It is anti-feminist to ask for special treatment for women. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
1257:When incumbents step down, voters rarely opt for a replica of what they have, even when that outgoing leader is popular. They almost always choose change over the status quo. They want successors whose strengths address the perceived weaknesses in the departing leader. ~ David Axelrod, #NFDB
1258:Come on, let's face it. Jeans are like a Volvo or a Saab, or Prius, it's a liberal status symbol. Jeans are liberal status symbols. I know everybody wears 'em now. It's another battle we've lost. We run around looking like a bunch of hippies, and I'm not going to do it. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1259:Embrace change as an opportunity to learn, to improve, to make a difference in others' lives as well as in your own. Have the courage to challenge the status quo. Remember that preparation and ambition in combination with opportunity equals success. And have fun! ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter, #NFDB
1260:I hate when a man feels I’m obligated to disclose my marital status to somebody I don’t even know. Even this bullshit about status itself as if married and spinster are the only two choices for defining myself. Or because I’m a woman I’m supposed to have a status at all. ~ Marlon James, #NFDB
1261:I hope that people will see that we don't have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative. ~ Gary Johnson, #NFDB
1262:Military intervention to maintain the global status quo will become a constant feature of international relations, whether this is justified in terms of fighting drugs, fighting terrorism, containing 'rogue states', opposing 'Islamic fundamentalism', or containing China. ~ Walden Bello, #NFDB
1263:Said by Maltcassion the Dragon:
"Humans," he scoffed. "Always so inquiring about stuff. Never satisfied with the status quo. It will be your downfall, but oddly enough, it´s also one of your more endearing features."
"Do we have any otheres?"
"Oy yes, plenty. ~ Jasper Fforde,#NFDB
1264:Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1265:Stand out: someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1266:Superior quality is a prerequisite to entering the game. By definition, an entrepreneur is undercapitalized relative to the status quo. Therefore, if you enter a product that is either at parity with the leaders, or not as good, you won't even get to the starting line. ~ Gary Hirshberg, #NFDB
1267:Unions are the result of profit seekers. Unions are the way the average guy gets even with evil corporateers. The unions are godsends. The unions have a special status, because they represent the rising up of the average man against the evil corporateers and profiteers. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1268:Why is being an unmarried woman something that we should be ashamed of, as if we’ve failed? Men don’t feel this way. When they haven’t married, they make it sound like they’ve gotten away with something. Their single status makes them even more appealing to the other sex. ~ Eileen Cook, #NFDB
1269:At the core, all successful businesses sell some combination of money, status, power, love, knowledge, protection, pleasure, and excitement. The more clearly you articulate how your product satisfies one or more of these drives, the more attractive your offer will become. ~ Josh Kaufman, #NFDB
1270:I think its very dangerous, the idea of celebrity - you have to be constantly controversial to maintain the status of celebrity. Reality TV is the death of entertainment - its just mindless TV but popular because of its voyeuristic nature, and people are very voyeuristic. ~ David Suchet, #NFDB
1271:Rwanda was considered a second-class operation because it was a small country, we had been able to maintain a kind of status quo. They were negotiating, they'd accepted the new peace project, so we were under the impression that everything would be solved easily. ~ Boutros Boutros Ghali, #NFDB
1272:The victim is always morally superior to the master; that is the victim's ambivalent triumph. That is why there have been so few notoriously wicked women in comparison to the number of notoriously wicked men; our victim status ensures that we rarely have the opportunity. ~ Angela Carter, #NFDB
1273:A kung fu man who was really good was not proud at all. Pride emphasizes the superiority of one's status. There has to be fear and insecurity in pride, because when you aim at being highly esteemed and achieve such status, you automatically start to worry about losing status. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
1274:A society person who is enthusiastic about modern painting or Truman Capote is already half a traitor to his class. It is middle-class people who, quite mistakenly, imagine that a lively pursuit of the latest in reading and painting will advance their status in the world. ~ Mary McCarthy, #NFDB
1275:I really believe that actually Ahmadinejad undermines Iran far more than he enhances Iran's status. And I think we have to go back to what FDR said, you know, speak softly and carry a big stick. I think Iran under Ahmadinejad, they speak loudly and carry a small stick. ~ Karim Sadjadpour, #NFDB
1276:I understand the temptation to sell short, but I also know that impulse is driven by your mind’s desire for comfort, and it’s not telling you the truth. It’s your identity trying to find sanctuary, not help you grow. It’s looking for status quo, not reaching for greatness ~ David Goggins, #NFDB
1277:She placed a hand on my cheek and softly kissed the other one, then whispered, “Remember this moment, then, Sage, when someone of my status offered a kindness to someone of yours. Because next time we meet, if Darius is dead, I will no longer be anyone of importance. ~ Jennifer A Nielsen, #NFDB
1278:The new ideology of marriage needed its mythology and
Shakespeare supplied it. Protestant moralists sought to redeem
marriage from the status of a remedy against fornication by underplaying
the sexual component and addressing the husband as the
wife’s friend. ~ Germaine Greer,#NFDB
1279:The Proverbs 30 prayer is different. It is to ask, “Lord, meet my material needs, and give me wealth, yes, but only as much as I can handle without it harming my ability to put you first in life. Because ultimately I don’t need status and comfort—I need you as my Lord. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1280:Truth is complete in itself. Truth has a strong foundation in itself. It is bold, it has no fears. It has no limit of space or time. It is a fearless, free bird in the sky. It does not care for status. It is wealth in itself. Truth stands even when there is no public support. ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
1281:Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it. ~ Fareed Zakaria, #NFDB
1282: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
1283:Illegal immigrants are beginning to comprise a black market class of workers in our society, jeopardizing the financial health of companies which play by the rules, while themselves vulnerable to the exploitation by those willing to take advantage of their illegal status. ~ Spencer Bachus, #NFDB
1284:It doesn’t matter how well you argue, the way your points are crafted, or how elegant your flow and logic. If you do not have high status, you will not command the attention necessary to make your pitch heard. You will not persuade, and you will not easily get a deal done. As ~ Oren Klaff, #NFDB
1285:No one ever asks "Why are you married?" even though the question is just as valid as "Why are you single?" After all, people marry for many reasons other than pure love--fear of being alone, a desire for biological children, economic security, social status, health insurance. ~ Sara Eckel, #NFDB
1286:President Obama's version of America is a divided one - pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender, and social status. His policies have failed! We are not better off than we were 4 years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker, or campaign ad can change that. ~ Mia Love, #NFDB
1287:The super-hero is something that I think people struggle to make intensely apolitical. But it cannot help but be political, because the classical role of the super-hero is constantly to return to the status quo. The super-hero cannot help but be a figure for conservatism. ~ Patrick Meaney, #NFDB
1288:Everything that these folks are saying that they're trying to move away from, like comparison, perfectionism, judgement, and exhaustion as a status symbol - that all describes my life. It was more like a medical researcher studying a disease and figuring out he or she has it. ~ Brene Brown, #NFDB
1289:Racism is a blight on the human conscience. The idea that any people can be inferior to another, to the point where those who consider themselves superior define and treat the rest as subhuman, denies the humanity even of those who elevate themselves to the status of gods. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
1290:Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1291:The Eucharist has been preempted and redefined in dualistic thinking that leaves the status quo of the world untouched, so congregations can take the meal without raising questions of violence; the outcome is a "colonized imagination" that is drained of dangerous hope. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
1292:The First Sphere is more about surviving than living, more about living your conditioning than living your authenticity. You live for the outside; defined by job, status, social agreements, and you follow what is expected by family and partner living in these patterns. ~ Padma Aon Prakasha, #NFDB
1293:To be cut down to size is good for all of us, but particularly so for those who forget how transient are our cultures and institutions, how pointless and cruel our divisions, how vain our claims to special status for our practices and beliefs above those of others. ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
1294:We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
1295:Certainly from the standpoint of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the hope is that desires for the “primitive” or fantasies about the Other can be continually exploited, and that such exploitation will occur in a manner that reinscribes and maintains the status quo. ~ Juliet B Schor, #NFDB
1296:If you see Allah, Mighty and Magnificent, holding back this world from you, frequently trying you with adversity and tribulation, know that you hold a great status with Him. Know that He is dealing with you as He does with His Awliya’ and chosen elite, and is watching over you. ~ Al-Ghazali, #NFDB
1297:I think the main figure that matters to all of us, including people in the media, is: How does GDP per capita grow? And those figures have been very good. There is a huge flux both up and down, so it isn't like we're all static in status. What's important is that pie grows. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
1298:That’s terrifying,” said Iko, who had acknowledged the truth of Cinder’s race much as she’d acknowledged Thorne’s convict status: with loyalty and acceptance, but without changing her opinion that Lunars and convicts remained untrustworthy and unredeemable as a general rule. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
1299:Although being economics editor sounds impressive, it does not mean I actually edit anything. It mainly reflects two decades of title-inflation at the BBC, which has given ever more status to senior reporters, presumably because it is cheaper to do that than to offer higher pay. ~ Evan Davis, #NFDB
1300:As an independent source of authority and knowledge, science has always had the capacity to challenge ruling powers’ ability to control people by controlling their beliefs. Indeed, it has the power to challenge anyone who wishes to preserve, protect, or defend the status quo. ~ Naomi Oreskes, #NFDB
1301:But as the Greeks teach us, there is only one remedy for that sort of hubris. They called it nemesis. We call it getting what you deserve, or a finger in the eye, or comeuppance for short. And it comes with an appropriate raise in pay, responsibilities, and professional status. ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
1302:But if you grow up in a society which is rotten to the core, where you can cheerfully ignore the rules if you have power and status, where your superiors will screw you over if they happen to need a scapegoat . . . you wind up with very little respect for those rules. ~ Christopher G Nuttall, #NFDB
1303:Have you ever noticed those people whom you see jogging day after day? They are the ones who seem not to need to jog. But that’s why they are fit. Those who are wealthy work at staying financially fit. But those who are not financially fit do little to change their status. ~ Thomas J Stanley, #NFDB
1304:Celebrities have a way of touching our lives. Perhaps we are influenced by their screen image, or perhaps by their acquired status. Here are some celebrity quotes about Christmas. You will find that just like everybody else, celebrities also enjoy the little pleasures of Christmas. ~ Bob Hope, #NFDB
1305:If there are broad distinctions to be made between the nature of same-sex female pairs versus heterosexual ones, it’s that the same-sex unions have not entailed one of their members being automatically accorded more power, status, or economic worth based entirely on gender. ~ Rebecca Traister, #NFDB
1306:Racism does not go both ways. There are unique forms of discrimination that are backed up by entitlement, assertion and, most importantly, supported by a structural power strong enough to scare you into complying with the demands of the status quo. We have to recognise this. ~ Reni Eddo Lodge, #NFDB
1307:The difference between both is that social entrepreneurship has a much more financial transparency. There is no financial viability and that is where a corporate sector makes a difference because we maintain a balance between both the financial status and the social service. ~ Ramon Magsaysay, #NFDB
1308:The ego is the product of imagination. It is how a human being sees himself or herself. It makes humans demand special status in nature and culture. Nature does not care for this self-image of human beings. Culture, which is a man-made creation, attempts to accommodate it. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1309:Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work. ~ Gary Johnson, #NFDB
1310:Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1311:In today's world where, more than ever, the ongoing concentration of money and power in the hands of a self-selected few, relies on political and public apathy, Live My Life provides a much needed shot of timely, thought-provoking, musically forward, irreverence to the status quo. ~ Nomi Prins, #NFDB
1312:It was also true that if the Lees were still in Laos, Lia would probably have died before she was out of infancy, from a prolonged bout of untreated status epilepticus. American medicine had both preserved her life and compromised it. I was unsure which had hurt her family more. ~ Anne Fadiman, #NFDB
1313:Study after study confirms that even when you control for variables like profession, education, hours worked, age, marital status, and children, men still are compensated substantially more - even in professions, like nursing, dominated by women. No wonder there's a gender gap. ~ Dee Dee Myers, #NFDB
1314:These names mean nothing to Perowne. But he understands how eminent poets, like senior consultants, live in a watchful, jealous world in which reputations are edgily tended and a man can be brought low by status anxiety. Poets, or at least this poet, are as earthbound as the rest. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
1315:The ten states where women’s status is highest (measured by economic security, leadership, and health) are strongly Democratic, with strong secular cultures (in order: Maryland, Hawaii, Vermont, California, Delaware, Connecticut, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, and Washington). ~ Katha Pollitt, #NFDB
1316:When I choose to love my body, to look at it with compassion and remember all the awesome things it can do, I am rebelling against a system that wants to keep me down. I am actively protesting the status quo that aims to keep me self-obsessed, self-critical, and self-oppressing. ~ Kelly Jensen, #NFDB
1317:Yes. The focus of Christianity is Man. Even though all the species were placed into Noah’s Ark, other species were never given the same status as humans. But Buddhism is focused on saving all life. That was why I came to the East. But … it’s obvious now that everywhere is the same. ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
1318:A lot of people do want to be victims. It's easy. It's an excuse for not doing anything and an excuse for failing. Being a victim means somebody else is responsible for everything going wrong in your life. So Democrats love plugging as many people as they can into victim status. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1319:Astronomy defined our home as a small planet tucked away in one corner of an average galaxy among million; biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God; geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1320:Ben West points out that even from a selfish perspective, earning to give allows you to have things that people believe make them happy, like money and a high-status job, while still getting the fulfillment that comes from knowing you are helping to make the world a better place. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
1321:Everyone had clearly spent far too long perfecting their appearance. I used to feel intimidated by people like this; now I see them as walking insecurity beacons, slaves to the perceived judgment of others, trapped within a self- perpetuating circle of crushing status anxiety. ~ Charlie Brooker, #NFDB
1322:Human desire is an unlimited and boundless ocean, a body of water which can never be filled. If we make our wants and our desires for status our financial mission, we are doomed to fail from the start, because just as we think we have made it, there is always another hill to climb. ~ Erik Wecks, #NFDB
1323:If I could seriously ponder ending my life, then I can do anything. I can change anything in my life. So instead of ending my life altogether, I’ll end my life as I’ve been living it and start a new kind of life. I can now see a third alternative to the status quo and suicide. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
1324:Suburban generic, right down to the coffee shop sharing the parking lot, so the yuppies could have their frothy caffeine fixes before they even left the property. Funny how addiction was socially acceptable-even a status symbol-when it made people extroverts rather than introverts ~ Stacia Kane, #NFDB
1325:the egalitarian lifestyles of hunter-gatherers exist because the individuals care a lot about status. Individuals in these societies end up roughly equal because everyone is struggling to ensure that nobody gets too much power over him or her. This is invisible-hand egalitarianism. ~ Paul Bloom, #NFDB
1326:As we just saw, some concepts such as symmetries retain their central status. In contrast, other concepts, such as initial conditions, complexity and randomness, get reinterpreted as mere illusions, existing only in the mind of the beholder and not in the external physical reality. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1327:Busyness has become such a social value that we will even create it, we will create that sense of breathlessness because we think that's how we show status and importance. That is a really interesting and troubling finding. We've taken this notion of hard work to a crazy degree. ~ Brigid Schulte, #NFDB
1328:If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1329:I would say first of all, anyone who wants to challenge the status quo always gets that response. Ninety percent of the time, that's just bull. That's just the way in which people choose to prop up their own privilege or their own particular position. So mostly I shrug it off. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1330:Spirituality means, among other things, taking ourselves seriously. It means going against the cultural stream in which we are incessantly trivialized to the menial status of producers and performers, constantly depersonalized behind the labels of our degrees or our salaries. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1331:Addiction is when natural biological imperatives, like the need for food, sex, relaxation or status, become prioritised to the point of destructiveness. It is exacerbated by a culture that understandably exploits this mechanic as it's a damn good way to sell Mars bars and Toyotas. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
1332:Every man builds his world in his own image; he has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
1333:If you're looking at distributing alternative energy in Nigeria, for instance, what gets in your way is not people's ability to pay, not people's desire for a clean solar lamps or biomass opportunities. But there is a strong status quo that really depends on selling diesel. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz, #NFDB
1334:It lies out of the realm of time, space, and causation, and out of the boundaries of the ever-changing phenomenal field of creation. It is, It was, It will be, in the status of Its absolute purity. It always has the status which knows no change, the status of eternal life. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
1335:It would be easier to accept that version of events, however, if we hadn’t just looked at hockey and soccer players. Theirs was supposed to be a pure meritocracy as well. Only it wasn’t. It was a story of how the outliers in a particular field reached their lofty status through ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1336:Presumably, these agents are still too primitive to have any moral status. But how confident can we really be that this is so? More importantly, how confident can we be that we will know to stop in time, before our programs become capable of experiencing morally relevant suffering? ~ Nick Bostrom, #NFDB
1337:They sort of see Hillary Clinton as the status quo, more of the same, which is why the market is expected to rally should she become president. Donald Trump is more of the unknown. We could see an initial sell-off. Longer-term or midterm, their economic plans are very different. ~ Maria Bartiromo, #NFDB
1338:What [Donald] Trump is essentially saying is what has always been the case: America is the solution to the problems of the world. But to [Barack] Obama and Hillary [Clinton] and many on the left, America's the problem. America and its superpower status is the problem in the world. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1339:Because the creative Word is the eternal contemporary of every moment of the world's existence, the kingdom is catholic in time as well as space. The Word who restores humanity to its status as a kingdom of priests is the same Word who made Adam a priestly king to begin with. ~ Robert Farrar Capon, #NFDB
1340:I'm just telling you in my universe, people that I know who voted for Donald Trump and want the Trump agenda or most of it, I don't know anybody who is content for nothing to happen, status quo while the Republicans and Trump bicker. I don't know anybody who wants any more of this. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1341:One of the most interesting results was part of a study my students and I conducted dealing with status in email correspondence. Basically, we discovered that in any interaction, the person with the higher status uses I-words less (yes, less) than people who are low in status. ~ James W Pennebaker, #NFDB
1342:Strength is given us for service, not to convey status (see Romans 15:2). I wonder how much trouble would be averted in the world at large if everyone knew and adhered to this principle. What if we knew that our strength was to serve the weak, fearful, or timid? It would all be good! ~ Lisa Bevere, #NFDB
1343:Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
1344:Nobody wants to know a colored woman's opinion about her own status of that of her group. When she dares express it, no matter how mild or tactful it may be, it is called 'propaganda,' or is labeled 'controversial.' Those two words have come to have a very ominous sound to me. ~ Mary Church Terrell, #NFDB
1345:On the one hand, our social nature is our greatest beauty - it means that we have natural empathy and sympathy. But our social nature also means that we may let ourselves be controlled by the judgments of others, precisely because we care so much about our status in community. ~ Frances Moore Lappe, #NFDB
1346:Rather, the collapsing between act and condition, "I am" with "I do," feels like authenticity, an authenticity of being. The muse rewarded me for a few months, after April of 2012, by giving me poems, almost a poem each day, that I can claim as coming from my writer's status. ~ Shirley Geok lin Lim, #NFDB
1347:This is classic Donald Trump. This is the movement, not the party. He has been agitating against the leadership, the Washington establishment, the status quo, people who have held power, people that didn`t take on President Barack Obama to the extent he wanted to or the base wants to. ~ Bob Ehrlich, #NFDB
1348:You want to believe that those who work hard and sacrifice get ahead and those who are lazy and cheat do not. This, of course, is not always true. Success is often greatly influenced by when you were born, where you grew up, the socioeconomic status of your family, and random chance ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
1349:Here's how I see obesity: as a symptom. The larger problem is over-consumption. In a society that identifies consumption with patriotism, valorizes 'growth' above all else and assigns status according to how much you consume, we compete with each other to see who can consume the most. ~ Emily Levine, #NFDB
1350:I never kid about my warrior demigod status.” “Oh. My. God.” I lower my voice, having forgotten to whisper. “You are nothing but a bird with an attitude. Okay, so you have a few muscles, I’ll grant you that. But you know, a bird is nothing but a barely evolved lizard. That’s what you are. ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
1351:In this age of omniconnectedness, words like 'network,' 'community' and even 'friends' no longer mean what they used to. Networks don't exist on LinkedIn. A community is not something that happens on a blog or on Twitter. And a friend is more than someone whose online status you check. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
1352:It took a strength of character far greater than the norm to stand up to the status quo. To insist you be given the right to be yourself. Your whole self. Acts of bravery aren't necessarily giant statements. Sometimes the most poignant ones came from those who live quietly but honestly. ~ Lane Hayes, #NFDB
1353:Look to the present. The great disease of 'I will be happy when ...' is sweeping the world. You know the symptoms. You start thinking: I'll be happy when I get that ... BMW ... promotion ... status ... money. The only way to cure the disease is to find happiness and meaning now. ~ Marshall Goldsmith, #NFDB
1354:The power to enforce the law, which carries with it the equally salient power not to enforce the law, is a president’s most imposing domestic weapon, rivaled in importance only by the awesome authority inherent in a president’s status as commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. ~ Andrew McCarthy, #NFDB
1355:When looking at the attributes associated with masculinity in the US, the same researchers identified the following; winning, emotional control, risk-taking, violence, dominance, playboy, self-reliance, primacy at work, power over women, disdain for homosexuality, and pursuit of status. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1356:Given the way universities work to reinforce and perpetuate the status quo, the way knowledge is offered as commodity, Women's Studies can easily become the place where revolutionary feminist thought and feminist activism are submerged or made secondary to the goals of academic careerism ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
1357:I hate a Roman named Status Quo!' he said to me. 'Stuff your eyes with wonder, ' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1358:It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle. When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1359:Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security. ~ Christopher Lasch, #NFDB
1360:Our truest, deepest self is completely free. It is not crippled or compromised by past actions or concerned with identity or status. It comprehends that it has no need to fear the earthly world, and therefore, it has no need to build itself up through fame or wealth or conquest. This ~ Eben Alexander, #NFDB
1361:The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action - an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign - even as the rest of the world wonders why you're not marching in step with the status quo. ~ Bill Taylor, #NFDB
1362:we have to reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent. A system that denies the poor the legal help they need, that makes wealth and status more important than culpability, must be changed. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
1363:While the secular world pushes woman to find her identity in herself as a sex object, the popular teachings in the Church, equally mistaken, encourage woman to find her identity in her roles as wife and mother rather than in her status as a person in Christ, a daughter complete in Him. ~ Leanne Payne, #NFDB
1364:Building cathedrals is a calling. In Italy they gave masons who died during the construction of a church the status of a martyr. Even though cathedral builders built for humanity there isn't a single cathedral in human history that was not founded on human bones and human blood. - Tom Waaler ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
1365:Given the way universities work to reinforce and perpetuate the status quo, the way knowledge is offered as commodity, Women's Studies can easily become the place where revolutionary feminist thought and feminist activism are submerged or made secondary to the goals of academic careerism. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
1366:I am concerned that many young people in the Hemisphere seem to envision the United States as a nation intoxicated by power, addicted to warfare, controlled by a military-industrial complex, and determined to preserve the status quo, that we are against rapid economic and social growth. ~ Luis A Ferre, #NFDB
1367:Life has a way of swallowing us up, and before we know it we’re far down a path that feels nothing like who we are or what we want for our lives. By the time we realize it, we have obligations and responsibilities that add yet another reason to stick with the status quo—even if we hate it. ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
1368:Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
1369:What we're talking about is the endless, gullible elevation of necessary levels of comfort and status and everything else at the complete expense of all around us. It's going to take us a long time to learn how to climb down a little bit from the heights on which we have put ourselves. ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
1370:Antiessentialist thinking forces us to view the world differently. We must accept shadings and continua as fundamental. We lose criteria for judgment by comparison to some ideal: short people, retarded people, people of other beliefs, colors, and religions are people of full status. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1371:Before you chase success, status, power, wealth fame or love; first fall in love with yourself - for the person you'll be if and when you get there is still the same. Success will be a painful path and an empty trophy without self acceptance, self worth or if littered with self hate. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, #NFDB
1372:Even the greatest idea can become meaningless in the rush to judgement. To gauge an idea as feasible we must cut our ties to the status quo and find the balance between constructive criticism and judgment. Within that balance we will uncover crucial input for making our ideas a reality. ~ Shigeo Shingo, #NFDB
1373:If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang. ~ Murray N Rothbard, #NFDB
1374:In short, from then on, we accepted our status as prisoners; we were reduced to our past alone and even if a few people were tempted to live in the future, they quickly gave it up, as far as possible, suffering the wounds that the imagination eventually inflicts on those who trust in it. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1375:Love is subversive, undermining the propaganda of narrow self-interest. Love emphasizes connection, responsibility and the joy we take in each other. Therefore love (as opposed to unthinking devotion) is a danger to the status quo and we have been taught to find it embarrassing. ~ Aurora Levins Morales, #NFDB
1376:Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wide social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks ~ Erving Goffman, #NFDB
1377:The eurozone status quo is neither tolerable nor stable. Mainstream economists would call it an inferior equilibrium; I call it a nightmare - one that is inflicting tremendous pain and suffering that could be easily avoided if the misconceptions and taboos that sustain it were dispelled. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
1378:9 Being quiet
Brim-fill the bowl,
it'll spill over.
Keep sharpening the blade,
you'll soon blunt it.
Nobody can protect a house full of gold and jade.
Wealth, status, pride,
are their own ruin.
To do good, work well, and lie low
is the way of the blessing ~ Lao Tzu,#NFDB
1379:Coffee is for winners, go-getters, tea-ignorers, lunch-cancellers, early-risers, guilt-ridden strivers, money obsessives and status-driven spiritually empty lunatics. It is an enervating force. We should resist it and embrace tea, the ancient drink of poets, philosophers and meditators. ~ Tom Hodgkinson, #NFDB
1380:If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage as if it were God. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1381:If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1382:I never kid about my warrior demigod status."
"Oh. My. God." I lower my voice, having forgotten to whisper. "You are nothing but a bird with an attitude. Okay, so you have a few muscles, I’ll grant you that. But you know, a bird is nothing but a barely evolved lizard. That’s what you are. ~ Susan Ee,#NFDB
1383:We don't differ with the government on the demands [on Iran], but we totally reject how Bibi is handling it. Bibi sacrificed good relations with the U.S. to keep the status quo on the Palestinians. He poked the [Obama] Administration in the eye on settlements just to appease right-wingers ~ John F Kerry, #NFDB
1384:But when considered from the unique perspective of eternity, fame and popularity aren't nearly as important as loving and being loved; status doesn't mean much when compared to service; and acquiring spiritual knowledge is infinitely more meaningful than acquiring an excess of wealth. ~ M Russell Ballard, #NFDB
1385:By the time kids are 15, they're drunks and they're drug addicts and they're getting chicks pregnant. The parents wonder, "What did I do wrong?" What you did wrong was, you were never there. You had the kid as a status symbol, that's what went wrong. And you're paying the price for it. ~ Andrew Dice Clay, #NFDB
1386:Germans Francis Grund, and Francis Lieber, and the Pole Adam G. de Gurowski all wrote about the striking social equality they found in America, the absence of differences in status. They all noted the American obsession with work and the restless quest for the “almighty dollar.”18 ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1387:In his 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” historian Richard Hofstadter described the phenomenon of “status anxiety,” which, he believed, is most likely to emerge when groups’ social status, identity, and sense of belonging are perceived to be under existential threat. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
1388:Like investigation, healthy doubt arises from the urge to know what is true--it challenges assumptions or the status quo in service of healing and freedom. In contrast, unhealthy doubt arises from fear or aversion, and it questions one's own basic potential or worth, or the value of another. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
1389:No longer regarded as the Federalist leader, he had acquired the uncomfortable status of a glorified has-been. He still had a law office in lower Manhattan—in 1803, he moved it from 69 Stone Street to 12 Garden Street—and maintained a pied-à-terre at 58 Partition Street (now Fulton Street), ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1390:No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and, instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1391:Throughout my career, I have discovered and rediscovered a simple
truth.It is this: the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your
most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the
key to great success, achievement, respect, status and happiness in
life. ~ Brian Tracy,#NFDB
1392:Yukio was angry because he was. Because he was an asshole male with delusions of status just like Dad, just like the rest of them, and I’d humiliated him in front of Plex and Tanaseda. Because he was an asshole male just like the rest of them, in fact, and rage was the default setting. ~ Richard K Morgan, #NFDB
1393:Getting tired of sitting, staring at my computer screen, day after day, where everyone is two-dimensional, reduced to an avatar photo, status updates, or maybe some carefully curated vacation photos. There's something exhausting about that after a while. I found myself wanting to hear voices. ~ Brad Listi, #NFDB
1394:Government cannot "restore competition," or "ensure" it. Government is monopoly; and all it can do is to impose restrictions which may issue in monopoly, when they go so far as to require permission for the individual to engage in production. This is the essence of the Society of Status. ~ Isabel Paterson, #NFDB
1395:It was simply this: silence is not a neutral position, whatever your intentions. Silence automatically supports the status quo. When you are a presence that lacks a voice, you create an empty space that another voice - a dominating voice that knows no boundaries - is only too happy to fill. ~ Justine Musk, #NFDB
1396:Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1397:No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor, and instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies, and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1398:On one side of the equation, there are the elements of work that, if not done right, will cause us to be dissatisfied. These are called hygiene factors. Hygiene factors are things like status, compensation, job security, work conditions, company policies, and supervisory practices. ~ Clayton M Christensen, #NFDB
1399:People had been shitting on me for having the wrong name/race/religion and socioeconomic status since as far back as I could remember, but my life had been so easy in comparison to my parents’ own upbringing that they genuinely couldn’t understand why I didn’t wake up singing every morning. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
1400:Reich’s attempt to turn the conservatives’ model citizens into conservative demons was doomed to failure, and it fell flat immediately. The reason is clear. The status of successful corporations and the ultrarich as model citizens has become conventionalized—fixed in the conservative mind. ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
1401:The saints show us that being a baptized Christian means living as a new creation, rejoicing in a life radically different from the status quo of the world. All the holy people, whose lives fill this book, show readers how to let the grace of God in the sacraments create their lives anew. ~ Stephen J Binz, #NFDB
1402:At least this is a nation, with a religion, a head, a status, a policy. Not a damned Noah's ark: a chicken here, a lamb there, a family of wolves in the next field. I suppose you are proud of your French Queen, playing dice with Scots knucklebones for the greater glory of her native land? ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
1403:Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be ... We inhabit a world of human differences and predilections, but the extrapolation of these facts to theories of rigid limits is ideology. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1404:One of the things I benefited from when I started this business was that I didn't know anything. I was just instinct with no preconceived notions. This enabled me to learn and change quickly without having to worry about maintaining any kind of status quo, like some of my bigger competitors. ~ Michael Dell, #NFDB
1405:This is a book about getting naked—not physically, but spiritually. It’s about stripping away the symbols and status of public religion—the Sunday-dress version people often call “organized religion.” And it’s about attending to the well-being of the soul clothed only in naked human skin. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
1406:Those reliable axioms about the taste and expectations of the mass movie audience are not so much laws of nature as artifacts of corporate strategy. And the lessons derived from them conveniently serve to strengthen a status quo that increasingly marginalizes risk, originality and intelligence. ~ A O Scott, #NFDB
1407:Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling.Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its people's sovereignty the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized. ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
1408:I didn’t say anything on social media, though relatives tried to tag me in supportive status updates, which I did my best to untag myself from. I didn’t want to be a part of their mourning. I didn’t want to be involved in someone else’s grief when I knew so little about how to deal with my own. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1409:if you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.” He ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1410:Im Nachhinein betrachtet habe ich denselben strategischen Fehler wie Charles Manson begangen. Ich hätte aufhören sollen, solange ich noch bloß eine stinknormale Tiersex- und Drogensüchtige war, aber nein, ich musste meinen Status zu einer potentiell messerschwingenden Psychopathin steigern ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1411:It's fortunate that I am a writer, because that has helped me understand the properties of words. They are what have made life complex. In the battle for status in the animal kingdom, power and aggressiveness have been all-important. But among humans, once they acquired speech, all that changed. ~ Tom Wolfe, #NFDB
1412:It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. You have to drive your CTO to exercise Extreme Ownership—to acknowledge mistakes, stop blaming others, and lead his team to success. If you allow the status quo to persist, you can’t expect to improve performance, and you can’t expect to win. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
1413:Neutrality in a situation of oppression always supports the status quo. Reduction of conflict by means of a phony “peace” is not a Christian goal. Justice is the goal, and that may require an acceleration of conflict as a necessary stage in forcing those in power to bring about genuine change. ~ Walter Wink, #NFDB
1414:Over a period of time, they [undocumented workers] can have a legalized status that allows them to live a life of dignity but not necessarily a path to citizenship, so as to not create incentives for future people that aspire to come to our country to do so illegally when they could come legally. ~ Jeb Bush, #NFDB
1415:This example highlights two aspects of choice that the standard model of indifference curves does not predict. First, tastes are not fixed; they vary with the reference point. Second, the disadvantages of a change loom larger than its advantages, inducing a bias that favors the status quo. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1416:Americans don't eat horses. They are not raised as food animals and they are treated with chemicals that render them unsafe for consumption. The regulations needed to change their status to "food animals" would cripple every aspect of the horse industry as we know it. Plus, it would be wrong. ~ Willie Nelson, #NFDB
1417:Backed by the hellish glare of flames, the doctor proclaimed, “Men in general need to accept their diminished status in the world.” Against a backdrop of smoke and shouting, she added, “The impending war, for example, will be an excellent opportunity for them to earn the acclaim they crave. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1418:My social status leaps after decades of disqualification on grounds of radiation. The doorbell rings and there stands Vanessa Redgrave. 'Marcie,' she begins, and then goes on about social injustice in Namibia, and how we must all build a raft by late afternoon — preferably out of coconut matting. ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
1419:The average Appalachian is not, then, a white, hypermasculine coal miner facing the inevitable loss of economic strength and social status, but the average Appalachian’s worldview may be impacted by individuals with cultural capital who are constantly assuming we are all made in that image. ~ Elizabeth Catte, #NFDB
1420:The Qur’an was attempting to give women a legal status that most Western women would not enjoy until the nineteenth century. The emancipation of women was a project dear to the Prophet’s heart, but it was resolutely opposed by many men in the ummah, including some of his closest companions. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1421:The tendencies are considerably weaker in the natural sciences, which, for the past several centuries, have survived and flourished through such constant challenge, and therefore, at best, seek to encourage it. Serving the status quo in political and socioeconomic realms is a different matter. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1422:The tone of his voice is like he expects a fight, like he’s challenging me to disagree, and I want to tell him that I don’t care one way or the other. That her blood-relative status makes no difference as long as she loves him. And she does. She wears it, beaming it around like a neon sign. ~ Brenna Yovanoff, #NFDB
1423:It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1424:There are times on Earth when extraordinary consciousness invades everyday life. There are times on Earth when unseen forces make a calamity of the status quo. There are times on Earth when it seems as though a divine arsonist has set fire to the world as we know it.
— We live in such times. ~ Jacob Nordby,#NFDB
1425:Why is sensitivity perceived as being dangerous? When we’re sensitive, we feel things we were taught not to feel. When we’re sensitive, we are completely open to attack. When we’re sensitive, we are awake and in touch with our hearts – and this can be very threatening to the status quo indeed. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
1426:Another reason these SJW ambushes are so often surprising is that as the repentant ex-SJW Ian Miles Cheong admitted in an interview with Nerdland, some of them have nothing to do with any animus for the target, but are launched in order for the SJW to obtain status within the social justice movement. ~ Vox Day, #NFDB
1427:For Muslims, the source of everything we do is based in the belief that there is one God, and this one God is revealing to us there is one humanity with equal dignity for each, beyond faith, color and social status. Whatever your status, color, background or religion, you have the same dignity. ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
1428:Many people question their religious identity today, not necessarily by thinking of converting to Judaism or to Islam: it's just that technologies seriously challenge the status of the human being. All technologies converge toward the same spot, they all lead to a Deus ex Machina, a machine-God. ~ Paul Virilio, #NFDB
1429:Mitch, if you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1430:the world’s most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
1431:this information has resurfaced in the past two decades, the fight against the status quo has been heating up again. A few rare doctors are proving that there is a better way to defeat heart disease. They are demonstrating revolutionary success, using the most simple of all treatments: food. ~ T Colin Campbell, #NFDB
1432:This is what is called "honor among thieves," for the really dangerous people are those who do not recognize that they are thieves— the unfortunates who play the role of the "good guys" with such blind zeal that they are unconscious of any indebtedness to the "bad guys" who support their status. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1433:Consciousness," according to current scientific thought, was something the higher mammals had evolved in order to help them reproduce, much the way a garden slug secretes slime. It had no special ontological status. The "self" was a genetically modulated and biologically useful illusion. ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB
1434:Even actresses that you really admire, like Reese Witherspoon, you think, 'Another romantic comedy?' You see her in something like 'Walk the Line' and think, 'God, you're so great!' And then you think, 'Why is she doing these stupid romantic comedies?' But of course, it's for money and status. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow, #NFDB
1435:[Her life with Tony Curtis in 1961:] We were beginning the climb to a higher plateau. Acceptance. Recognition. Status. Security. We only had to hold on and hope the thin air didn't make us dizzy and cause a tumble. We also needed to remember that the inside had to ascend together with the outside. ~ Janet Leigh, #NFDB
1436:Nothing captures the biological argument better than the famous New Age slogan: ‘Happiness begins within.’ Money, social status, plastic surgery, beautiful houses, powerful positions – none of these will bring you happiness. Lasting happiness comes only from serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. ~ Yuval Noah Harari, #NFDB
1437:The Sixties was a perfect storm of disaffection with political leaders trying to pass off the same old platitudes to maintain the status quo and an unexpected courageousness in the masses of youth. Nothing on this scale had ever happened before in U.S. history and it hasn't happened since. ~ Kareem Abdul Jabbar, #NFDB
1438:The status of women up to now has been compared to that of a slave; women have been tied to the home, and only socialism can save them from this. They will only be completely emancipated when we change from small-scale individual farming to collective farming and collective working of the land. ~ Vladimir Lenin, #NFDB
1439:After a lifetime of embodying difference, I have no desire to be equal. I want to deconstruct the structural power of a system that marked me out as different. I don't wish to be assimilated into the status quo. I want to be liberated from all negative assumptions that my characteristics bring. ~ Reni Eddo Lodge, #NFDB
1440:Human beings fear difference,” Lilith had told him once. “Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status. Oankali seek difference and collect it. They need it to keep themselves from stagnation and overspecialization ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
1441:Jeb`s Bush front-runner status was short lived, to say the least. But who could have predicted that the Republican front-runner would be someone that we were not even thinking about.Donald Trump was not even on anyone`s radar back then and Mike Pence was getting more attention than he was. ~ Melissa Harris Perry, #NFDB
1442:On Sunday, 16 June, when Reynaud presented the French cabinet with the plan drawn up by Monnet, Churchill and de Gaulle, he was laughed at. Pétain called the union with Great Britain ‘a marriage to a corpse’. Other members of the cabinet feared that France would assume the status of a British colony. ~ Geert Mak, #NFDB
1443:There are a lot of nice details that are exclusive to C. Wonder, which are the status C. Wonder gold buttons and the tassels. We want the customer and the loyal client to just really know that when they come to C. Wonder they're getting something that's super wearable but is also really luxurious. ~ Brad Goreski, #NFDB
1444:they redefined the word ‘Latin’ so that it was no longer an ethnic identity but a political status unrelated to race or geography. This set the stage for a model of citizenship and ‘belonging’ that had enormous significance for Roman ideas of government, political rights, ethnicity and ‘nationhood’. ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
1445:We Pashtuns love shoes but don't love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the Taliban—to finally achieve status and power. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
1446:Because the artist deals in future realities, he always seeks improvements or changes in the existing reality. This makes the artist, inevitably and invariably, a rebel against the status quo. The artist, day by day, by postulating the new realities of the future, accomplishes peaceful revolution. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
1447:It seemed they viewed her differently now. She had status. She mattered. All at once they were interested in what she had to say.
She hadn't fully understood that before this, she hadn't mattered, and she felt indignant but also, against all logic, gratified. And also fraudulent. It was confusing. ~ Anne Tyler,#NFDB
1448:one should follow the Vedic regulations and surrender unto the Supreme Lord because that is the ultimate goal of perfection in human life. One should live a life of piety, follow the religious rules and regulations, marry and live peacefully for elevation to the higher status of spiritual realization. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1449:American slavery the most cruel form of slavery in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1450:Dickens' hypocrites are the prime beneficiaries of his inventive genius. The heroes and heroines have no imagination. We could scrap all the solemn parts of his novels without impairing his status as a writer. But we could not remove Mrs. Gamp or Pecksniff or Bounderby without maiming him irreparably. ~ John Carey, #NFDB
1451:If Black people had simply accepted a status of economic and political inferiority, the mob murders would probably have subsided. But because vast numbers of ex-slaves refused to discard their dreams of progress, more than ten thousand lynchings occurred during the three decades following the war. ~ Angela Y Davis, #NFDB
1452:I wonder how many people have died driving while checking how many likes their Facebook status got. I wonder how much life has been lost in the bloody ditch of approval, how many skulls have swallowed windshields trying to see if they are worthy of applause, worthy of their own heart's hungry beat. ~ Andrea Gibson, #NFDB
1453:The reader is to be pulled in by the preponderance of the evidence that he or she has been sifting through. As you read, the details fall like snow that suddenly is ash. The character is clearly visible once he is coated, like a status in the town square after such a storm, with a film of detail. ~ Michael Martone, #NFDB
1454:From 1970 onwards, our culture told both sexes that individual expression was paramount. And for women, that was defined as the right to choose an interesting a career, a high-status mate, the desirable handbag or vacation, the perfect family size, and a definitionally fruitless quest for 'perfection.' ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
1455:In his first five years, Zuma had ripped like a tornado through the state's institutions and wreaked havoc across the land. But the worst was yet to come. In his second term, which has two years left as I write this, the windstorm has been upgraded to tsunami status and Zuma is ravaging the Republic. ~ Jacques Pauw, #NFDB
1456:Odio a un romano llamado Status Quo, me decía, llénate los ojos de asombro, vive como si fueras a morir en los próximos diez segundos. Observa el universo. Es más fantástico que cualquier sueño construido o pagado en una fábrica. No pidas garantías, ni pidas seguridad, nunca hubo un animal semejante. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1457:Our message to the world will be this. You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. That`s right. People will know that you can`t just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized. It`s not going to work that way. Those days are over. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1458:Paul's favorite description of himself was doulos, which means "slave"-one purchased for service. He said the same status applies to all believers, for we all have been "bought at a price" (1 Cor. 6:20). We belong to the one who has paid for us in order to redeem us, and now we are called to serve Him. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1459:We are all bounded with each other on the basis of our beliefs and values; when we question those values, we are certainly left alone, away from our families, friends and the dear one. And that is a cost benefit analysis we all make and we keep satisfying ourselves with the status quo of situations. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
1460:You cannot have a learning organization without shared vision. Without a pull toward some goal which people truly want to achieve, the forces in support of the status quo can be overwhelming. Vision establishes an overarching goal. The loftiness of the target compels new ways of thinking and acting. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
1461:And if this disenchanted vision were elevated to the status of being the only legitimate vision of the nature of the cosmos upheld by an entire civilization, what an incalculable loss, an impoverishment, a tragic deformation, a grief, would ultimately be suffered by both knower and known.
~ Richard Tarnas,#NFDB
1462:So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a taillight behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963, #NFDB
1463:The gods were gone, but imperial status remained unchanged –divinus remained a technical term meaning ‘imperial’. The emperor’s position was all the more central in that the Roman empire was regarded as, by definition, always victorious, a belief that survived even the disasters of the fifth century. ~ Chris Wickham, #NFDB
1464:Also, human groups are formed of highly flexible alliances, not just among family members but between families, genders, classes, and tribes. The bonding is based on cooperation among individuals or groups who know one another and are capable of distributing ownership and status on a personal basis. ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
1465:But the more I succeeded in the world’s eyes, the more I realized that that success itself was only another prison, fashioned by the values of this world. More wealth only demanded I maintain that wealth. More status only begged me to rise higher. And fame . . . What a cruel and jealous mistress fame is. ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
1466:Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.
Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling.
Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its "people's sovereignty" the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized. ~ Joseph Goebbels,#NFDB
1467:Many people measure their success by wealth, recognition, power and status. There's nothing wrong with those, but if that's all you're focused on, you're missing the boat...if you focus on significance -using your time and talent to serve others -that's when truly meaningful success can come your way. ~ Ken Blanchard, #NFDB
1468:He offered a crystal-clear notion of right and wrong, an unambiguous definition of good and evil. And although his perspective was absolutist and unyielding, it presented a kinder, gentler alternative to Calvinism, which had been the ecclesiastical status quo in the early years of the American republic. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
1469:I've always felt like an outsider across the board, since day one. The challenge has been to simply not pay attention to my outsider or insider status and just do the work and play the shows and connect with the people. And not even bother to play this game of keeping score, which is what destroys you. ~ Amanda Palmer, #NFDB
1470:The President of the United States has super star status. He's not a normal person, because he's protected like no other person in the world and if this man's life is in danger, the whole world is kind of in peril in a way, because the leader of the free world could fall into the hands of terrorists. ~ Roland Emmerich, #NFDB
1471:The tree can teach you forbearance and tolerance. It offers shade to all, irrespective of age, sex or religion, nationality or status. It helps with fruit and shade even to the foe who lays his axe on its trunk! The dog can teach you a lesson in Faith, Self-less service and the process of Dedication. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
1472:A car crash harnesses elements of eroticism, aggression, desire, speed, drama, kinesthetic factors, the stylizing of motion, consumer goods, status - all these in one event. I myself see the car crash as a tremendous sexual event really: a liberation of human and machine libido (if there is such a thing). ~ J G Ballard, #NFDB
1473:I mean, why am I considered an 'it girl?' Because I'm in a lot of movies right now or am on the covers of magazines? I just hope there is something solid behind that. Because here's the thing with 'it girl' status. It's great and amazing that anybody is saying that at all. But how long does that last? ~ Amanda Seyfried, #NFDB
1474:It is no accident that the man who famously observed that power is the greatest aphrodisiac was not, by a long shot, good looking. Often (in what we might call the Kissinger effect), the men with the greatest access to resources and status lack the genetic wealth signified by physical attractiveness. ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
1475:Penelope Eckert, who observed boys and girls in high school, points out that boys define their social status in a simple and straightforward way—their individual skill and achievement, especially at sports—but girls 'must define theirs in a far more complicated way, in terms of their overall character. ~ Deborah Tannen, #NFDB
1476:A car crash harnesses elements of eroticism, aggression, desire, speed, drama, kinesthetic factors, the stylizing of motion, consumer goods, status -- all these in one event. I myself see the car crash as a tremendous sexual event really: a liberation of human and machine libido (if there is such a thing). ~ J G Ballard, #NFDB
1477:A privilege to live in conflict with one’s times. At every moment one is aware one does not think like the others. This state of acute dissimilarity, however indigent or sterile it appears, nonetheless possesses a philosophical status which one would be at a loss to seek in cogitations attuned to events. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
1478:By the 1980s beauty had come to play in women’s status-seeking the same role as money plays in that of men: a defensive proof to aggressive competitors of womanhood or manhood. Since both value systems are reductive, neither reward is ever enough, and each quickly loses any relationship to real-life values. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
1479:I don’t know. He was hit hard. Bleeding out his mouth, bright red blood, so he probably took a hit to his lung. He was alive when they took him into the operating room . . .” Lucas gave him the details he had, then gave the phone to the highway patrolman, who knew Wood, and Wood confirmed Lucas’s status. ~ John Sandford, #NFDB
1480:If our research leads us to a result that reduces religion to the status of a neurosis of mankind and explains it's grandiose powers in the same way as we sould neurotic obsession in our individual patients, then we may be sure we shall incur in this country the greatest resentment of the powers that be. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1481:I'm not moping," I whisper back. "Of course you're not. A girl like you, spending time with a warrior demigod like me. What's to mope about? Leaving a wheelchair behind couldn't possibly show up on the radar compared to that."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I never kid about my warrior demigod status. ~ Susan Ee,#NFDB
1482:Julie swallowed. "Flat Finn is on Facebook?" She'd love to see those status updates. 'Got strapped to the roof of the car today for a trip to Starbucks. Would have loved to taste caramel mocha, but can't move arms and so was forced to stare longingly at delicious hot beverage. Will the taunting never end? ~ Jessica Park, #NFDB
1483:Marriage is a core component of the patriarchal system. According to Gerda Lerner's research on ancient societies, a woman could achieve at least some status, and with that, better treatment and privileges, through preserving her only capital – her virginity – and eventually offering it to just one man. ~ Jenny Nordberg, #NFDB
1484:possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1485:Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. “Are we officially boyfriend
and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship’?”
Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. “You have a book that’s also a face? ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
1486:The first great break-through—or, rather, breakdown—of society’s nudity/lewdity guilt-by-association was the now-famous Marilyn Monroe calendar. Marilyn’s respectability when she died was based principally upon her economic status, which is, in the final analysis, the only type our society really respects. ~ Lenny Bruce, #NFDB
1487:We can decide to remain in our isolated bunkers, becoming more and more obsessed with looking inward instead of outward, or we can decide to be great together. We can decide to stagnate, or we can decide to grow. We can decide to settle for the status quo, or we can decide to reach for the stars. “Choose. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
1488:when a man sells his independence of thought for money or status, without realizing it he also sells his capacity for independence of thought; and, like the worn-out columnists and commentators, he must play the same old record over and over, because he has no capacity for taking a fresh point of view. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
1489:When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. Though we are often taught to think of ourselves as inherently selfish, the longing to act meaningfully in our work seems just as stubborn a part of our make-up as our appetite for status or money. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1490:Every Samurai uses circumstances to his advantage, right? Don't play by the rules. Use your foreigner status to cheat your way out of trouble."
"One, we're not samurai. Two, don't samurai have an honor code or something?"
Tomo paused, scanning the buildings. "Oh yeah," he said. "I was thinking pirates. ~ Amanda Sun,#NFDB
1491:Facebook’s news feed is a classic multiuser feedback loop. Status updates from producers are served to consumers, whose likes and comments serve as feedback to the producers. The constant flow of value units stimulates still more activity, making the platform increasingly valuable to all participants. ~ Geoffrey G Parker, #NFDB
1492:In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1493:Nunca e em lugar algum do universo existe estabilidade e imobilidade. Mudança e transformação são características essenciais da vida. Cada estado de coisas é passageiro; cada época é uma época de transição. Na vida humana nunca há calma e repouso. A vida é um processo e não a permanência no status quo. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
1494:One who has drunk at the fountain of spiritual happiness says good-by of his own accord to the satisfactions that come from a higher professional status ... What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
1495:Our thoughts about the future go far toward creating it; our minds and hears are like filaments taht connect today to tomorrow, they are conduits for either the status quo or the emergence of different, hopefully more loving, possibilities. How we think and how we behave determine where we are going ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1496:People are hungry for success—that’s nothing new. What’s changed is the definition of that success. Increasingly, the quest for success is not the same as the quest for status and money. The definition has broadened to include contributing something to the world and living and working on one’s own terms. ~ Blake Mycoskie, #NFDB
1497:The span of a man is three score and 10, or thereabouts. As most Americans are not especially keen on availing themselves of the lessons contained in 6,000 years of recorded history, we have a tendency to believe that the current status quo is pretty much how the world has been and how it will always be. ~ Theodore Beale, #NFDB
1498:Those homes were like holding pens, where residents waited for death with little more status than corpses. Loneliness, confusion, pain, and the smell of urine and boiled food seemed to be their only companions as the light faded on their lives. Those places had made me shudder, and sometimes weep. Carpe ~ Gilly Macmillan, #NFDB
1499:I do feel like a fraud a lot of the time because I've never been interested in people who say 'I'm a writer', 'I'm an artist'. Too much is made of the role and not enough of the work. We are such a celebrity-driven age and a status-driven age, that the status becomes more important than the actual work. ~ Richard Flanagan, #NFDB
1500:If you'd like to keep CHRIST in Christmas this year, I'd humbly suggest that instead of just posting about it as a status on Facebook, that perhaps you try to find a family in your neighborhood who could use a little help or pehaps donate to a local food bank anonomously. That's keeping CHRIST in Christmas! ~ Jos N Harris, #NFDB
210 Integral Yoga
14 Yoga
14 Psychology
9 Philosophy
9 Occultism
9 Christianity
6 Fiction
3 Science
3 Poetry
2 Kabbalah
2 Buddhism
1 Mysticism
1 Integral Theory
188 Sri Aurobindo
150 Nolini Kanta Gupta
13 The Mother
12 Swami Krishnananda
11 Carl Jung
9 A B Purani
6 H P Lovecraft
5 Satprem
5 Jordan Peterson
5 George Van Vrekhem
4 Plotinus
4 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
2 Plato
2 Nirodbaran
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Bokar Rinpoche
2 Aleister Crowley
60 The Synthesis Of Yoga
39 The Life Divine
34 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
27 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
27 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
20 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
19 Essays On The Gita
14 Record of Yoga
14 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
12 The Study and Practice of Yoga
11 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
9 The Human Cycle
9 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
6 Lovecraft - Poems
6 Essays Divine And Human
5 The Secret Doctrine
5 Preparing for the Miraculous
5 Maps of Meaning
5 Letters On Yoga II
5 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
4 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
4 Mysterium Coniunctionis
3 The Practice of Psycho therapy
3 The Future of Man
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Integral Yoga
2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
2 Tara - The Feminine Divine
2 Questions And Answers 1956
2 Letters On Yoga I
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 General Principles of Kabbalah
2 Aion
2 Agenda Vol 02
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent.
Elsewhere the Upanishad describes more graphically this truth and the experience of it. It is said there that the sun has fivewe note the familiar fivemovements of rising and setting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to North, (iii) from West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from abovefrom the Zenithdownward. These are the five normal and apparent movements. But there is a sixth one; rather it is not a movement, but a status, where the sun neither rises nor sets, but is always visible fixed in the same position.
Some Western and Westernised scholars have tried to show that the phenomenon described here is an exclusively natural phenomenon, actually visible in the polar region where the sun never sets for six months and moves in a circle whose plane is parallel to the plane of the horizon on the summer solstice and is gradually inclined as the sun regresses towards the equinox (on which day just half the solar disc is visible above the horizon). The sun may be said there to move in the direction East-South-West-North and again East. Indeed the Upanishad mentions the positions of the sun in that order and gives a character to each successive station. The Ray from the East is red, symbolising the Rik, the Southern Ray is white, symbolising the Yajur, the Western Ray is black symbolising the Atharva. The natural phenomenon, however, might have been or might not have been before the mind's eye of the Rishi, but the symbolism, the esotericism of it is clear enough in the way the Rishi speaks of it. Also, apart from the first four movements (which it is already sufficiently difficult to identify completely with what is visible), the fifth movement, as a separate descending movement from above appears to be a foreign element in the context. And although, with regard to the sixth movement or status, the sun is visible as such exactly from the point of the North Pole for a while, the ring of the Rishi's utterance is unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but refer to a fact of inner consciousness that is at least what the physical fact conveys to the Rishi and what he seeks to convey and express primarily.
Now this is what is sought to be conveyed and expressed. The five movements of the sun here also are nothing but the five smas and they refer to the cycle of the Cosmic or Universal Brahman. The sixth status where all movements cease, where there is no rising and setting, no ebb and flow, no waxing and waning, where there is the immutable, the ever-same unity, is very evidently the Transcendental Brahman. It is That to which the Vedic Rishi refers when he prays for a constant and fixed vision of the eternal Sunjyok ca sryam drie.
It would be interesting to know what the five ranges or levels or movements of consciousness exactly are that make up the Universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in thingsmadhuvidy. The five ranges are the five fundamental principles of delightimmortalities, the Veda would say that form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They form a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the godsAgni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahmawith their emanations and instrumental personalities the Vasus, the Rudras, the Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest that these refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or nodi of consciousness or something very much like them. The Upanishad speaks elsewhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras of Tantric system lie in the same line. The first and the basic mode is the physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni and the Vasus are always intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras the navel centre). Indra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is more often considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the present passage, Indra is taken in his second aspect and instead of the Maruts with whom he is usually invoked has the Rudras as his agents and associates.
The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lightsperhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Marutsthis seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, neverna ca punarvartate na ca punarvartate.
VIII. How Many Gods?
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Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant conclusion that leads one to choose a path of religion or spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity the spiritual blood-relation as it were that determines the choice and adherence. And it is this that we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend such adherence and which go "by the "name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., a;e a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it must not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original is one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being that attains such a status is not bound or wholly limited to one particular formation: its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.
The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness that reveals itself.
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The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of that individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution that Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity for the aspiring mortalfor, it is said, the body is the first instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region that Death lords it over. That is the divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jtaveds, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmoshe goes abroad,sa paryagt: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.
The teaching of Yama in brief may be said to be the gospel of immortality and it consists of the knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher of immortality than Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The first immortality is that of the physical existence and consciousness, the preservation of the personal identity, the individual name and formthis being in itself as expression and embodiment and instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality enshrines the second immortality the eternity and continuity of the soul's life through its incarnations in time, the divine Agni lit for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and final immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time, beyond all relativities, the absolute and self-existent delight.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
it cannot be defined or figured in the terms of the phenomenal consciousness. In speaking of it, however, the Upanishads invariably and repeatedly refer to two attributes that characterise its fundamental nature. These two aspects have made such an impression upon the consciousness of the Upanishadic seer that his enthusiasm almost wholly plays about them and is centred on them. When he contemplates or communes with the Supreme Object, these seem to him to be the mark of its au thenticity, the seal of its high status and the reason of all the charm and magic it possesses. The first aspect or attri bute is that of light the brilliance, the solar effulgenceravituly-arpa the bright, clear, shadow less Light of lightsvirajam ubhram jyotim jyoti The second aspect is that of delight, the bliss, the immortality inherent in that wide effulgencenandarpam amtam yad vibhti.
And what else is the true character, the soul of beauty than light and delight? "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." And a thing of joy is a thing of light. Joy is the radiance rippling over a thing of beauty. Beauty is always radiant: the charm, the loveliness of an object is but the glow of light that it emanates. And it would not be a very incorrect mensuration to measure the degree of beauty by the degree of light radiated. The diamond is not only a thing of value, but a thing of beauty also, because of the concentrated and undimmed light that it enshrines within itself. A dark, dull and dismal thing, devoid of interest and attraction becomes aesthetically precious and significant as soon as the artist presents it in terms of the values of light. The entire art of painting is nothing but the expression of beauty, in and through the modalities of light.
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual Sadhana, he has shown us that practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a 'divine' status. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Matter, which, however the too ethereally spiritual may despise it, is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations, and the Life-Energy which is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities. She has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement which is at once sufficiently steady and durable and sufficiently pliable and mutable to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity. This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad which tells us that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when man was produced, cried out, "This indeed is perfectly made," and consented to enter in. She has effected also a working compromise between the inertia of matter and the active Life that lives in and feeds on it, by which not only is vital existence sustained, but the fullest developments of mentality are rendered possible. This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man and is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed
The Three Steps of Nature
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The only approximate terms in the English language have other associations and their use may lead to many and even serious inaccuracies. The terminology of Yoga recognises besides the status of our physical and vital being, termed the gross body and doubly composed of the food sheath and the vital vehicle, besides the status of our mental being, termed the subtle body and singly composed of the mind sheath or mental vehicle,5 a third, supreme and divine status of supra-mental being, termed the causal body and composed of a fourth and a fifth vehicle6 which are described as those of knowledge and bliss. But this knowledge is not a systematised result of mental questionings and reasonings, not a temporary arrangement of conclusions and opinions in the terms of the highest probability, but rather a pure self-existent and self-luminous Truth. And this bliss is not a supreme pleasure of the heart and sensations with the experience of pain and sorrow as its background, but a delight also selfexistent and independent of objects and particular experiences, a self-delight which is the very nature, the very stuff, as it were, of a transcendent and infinite existence.
antah.karan.a.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and identification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujya-mukti, by which it can become free2 even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokya-mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of
Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This process of a developing consciousness in Nature is precisely what is known as Evolution. It is the bringing out and fixing of a higher and higher principle of consciousness, hitherto involved and concealed behind the veil, in the earth consciousness as a dynamic factor in Nature's manifest working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man.
The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man and the next stage, Sri Aurobindo says, which Nature envisages and is labouring to bring out and establish is the life now superconscious to us, embodied in a still higher type of created being, that of the superman or god-man. The principle of consciousness which will determine the nature and build of this new, being is a spiritual principle beyond the mental principle which man now incarnates: it may be called the Supermind or Gnosis.
For, till now Mind has been the last term of the evolutionary consciousness Mind as developed in man is the highest instrument built up and organised by Nature through which the self-conscious being can express itself. That is why the Buddha said: Mind is the first of all principles, Mind is the highest of all principles: indeed Mind is the constituent of all principlesmana puvvangam dhamm1. The consciousness beyond mind has not yet been made a patent and dynamic element in the life upon earth; it has been glimpsed or entered into in varying degrees and modes by saints and seers; it has cast its derivative illuminations in the creative activities of poets and artists, in the finer and nobler urges of heroes and great men of action. But the utmost that has been achieved, the summit reached in that direction, as exampled in spiritual disciplines, involves a withdrawal from the evolutionary cycle, a merging and an absorption into the static status that is altogether beyond it, that lies, as it were, at the other extreme the Spirit in itself, Atman, Brahman, Sachchidananda, Nirvana, the One without a second, the Zero without a first.
The first contact that one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer communion is established through a plane which is just above the mind the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and destructionit is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.
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The Upanishads speak of a solar and a lunar Path in the spiritual consciousness. Perhaps they have some reference to these two linesone through the Mayic consciousness of the Overmind enters into the static Bliss, ecstatic Nihil, and the other mounts still farther to the solar status which is a mass, a sea, an infinity of that light and ecstasy but which can at the same time express and embody itself as the creative Truth-consciousness (srya svitr ).
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
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The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness in a word, its divinisation.
This then is the supreme secret, not the renunciation and annulment, but the transformation of the ordinary human nature : first of all, its psychicisation, that is to say, making it move and live and be in communion and identification with the light of the psychic being, and, secondly, through the soul and the ensouled mind and life and body, to open out into the supramental consciousness and let it come down here below and work and achieve.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his exclusively or predominantly vital nature into an increasing mental poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only subsequently that the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the background at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in man's creative activity.
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.
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Arrived so far, we now find, if we look back, a change in the whole perspective. Karma and even Karmayoga, which hitherto seemed to be the pivot of the Gita's teaching, retire somewhat into the background and present a diminished stature and value. The centre of gravity has shifted to the conception of the Divine Nature, to the Lord's own status, to the consciousness above the three Gunas, to absolute consecration of each limb of man's humanity to the Supreme Purusha for his descent and incarnation and play in and upon this human world.
The higher secret of the Gita lies really in the later chapters, the earlier chapters being a preparation and passage to it orpartial and practical application. This has to be pointed out, since there is a notion current which seeks to limit the Gita's effective teaching to the earlier part, neglecting or even discarding the later portion.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Reason is insufficient and unsatisfactory because, as Bergson explains, it does not and cannot embrace life as a whole, seize man and the world in an integral realisation. The greater part of the vast mystery of existence escapes its envergure. Reason is that faculty which is for analysing, defining, classifying and fixing things. It is a power that has grown in man in order that he may best manipulate the things of the world. It is utilitarian, practical in its nature and outlook. And as practical dealing requires that things should be stable and separate entities, therefore Reason cannot but see things in solid and in the fragments of a solid. It cuts up existence into distinct parts and diverse elements; and these again it seeks to relate and aggregate, in accordance with what it calls "laws". Such a process has been necessary for man in conducting life and action successfully. Originally a bye-product of active life, Reason gradually separated itself and came finally to have an independent status and function, became or sought to become the instrument of knowledge, of Truth.
But although Reason has been and is useful for the practical, we may say almost, the manual aspect of life, life itself it leaves unexplained and uncomprehended. For life is mobility, a continuous flow that has nowhere any gap or stop and things have in reality no isolated or separate existence, they merge and mingle into one another and form an indissoluble whole. Therefore the forms and categories that Reason imposes upon existence are more or less arbitrary; they are shackles that seek to bind up and limit life, but are often rent asunder in the very effort. So the civilisation that has its origin in Reason and progresses with discoveries and inventionsdevices for artfully manipulating naturehas been essentially and pre-eminently mechanical in its structure and outlook. It has become more and more efficient perhaps, but less and less soul-inspired, less and less-endowed with the free-flowing sap of organic growth and vitality.
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Certainly this does not go far enough into the motive of the change. The cosmic order does not mean mentalised vitalism which is also in its turn a section of the integral reality. It means the order of the spirit, it means the transfiguration of the physical, the vital and the intellectual into the supernal Substance, Power and Light of that Spirit. The real transcendence of humanity is not the transcendence of one or other of its levels but the total transcendence to an altogether different status and the transmutation of humanity in the mould of that statusnot a Nietzschean Titan nor a Bergsonian Dionysus but the tranquil vision and delight and dynamism of the Spirit the incarnation of a god-head.
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01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming that is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature, must seize God in his highest and sovereign status. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits must seek to impose its law. Thus, for example, in the matter of redeeming the senses by the influx of the higher light, our author seems to consider that the senses will remain more or less as they are, only they will be controlled, guided, used by the higher light. And he seems to think that even the sex relation (even the institution of marriage) may continue to remain, but sublimated, submitted to the laws of the Higher Order. This, according to us, is a dangerous compromise and is simply the imposition of the lower law upon the higher. Our view of the total transformation and divinisation of the Lower is altogether different. The Highest must come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest must give up altogether its own norms and lift itself into the substance and form too of the Highest.
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities that man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of that Supreme Will. That is the Hell that has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond-that shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
as a first step towards independence, Sir Stafford Cripps' proposal of Dominion status
for India. Sri Aurobindo held that this proposal conferred essential independence on
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A sage can smile and smile delightfully! The parable illustrates the well-known Biblical phrase, 'the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'. The monkey is symbolical of the ignorant, arrogant, fussy human mind. There is another Buddhistic story about the monkey quoted in the book and it is as delightful; but being somewhat long, we cannot reproduce it here. It tells how the mind-monkey is terribly agile, quick, clever, competent, moving lightning-fast, imagining that it can easily go to the end of the world, to Paradise itself, to Brahmic status. But alas! when he thought he was speeding straight like a rocket or an arrow and arrive right at the target, he found that he was spinning like a top at the same spot, and what he very likely took to be the very fragrance of the topmost supreme heaven was nothing but the aroma of his own urine.
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01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
Goe the carries the process of convergence and even harmony of the two powers a little further and shows that although they are contrary apparently, they are not contradictory principles in essence. For, Satan is, after all, God's servant, even a very obedient servant; he is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty to work out His purpose. The purpose is to help and lead man, although in a devious way, towards a greater understanding, a nearer approach to Himself.
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The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
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01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral that a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
All elemental personalities have something of the unconventional and irrational in them. And Roerich is one such in his own way. The truths and realities that he envisages and seeks to realise on earth are elemental and fundamental, although apparently simple and commonplace.
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was only afterwards, a long time after, that I began to see again. It was clearly something that was NOT WILLING. But when will it give in? I cant say. No victory has been won, far from it. And it has remained like this: status quo.
It will probably have to begin again, but in what manner?
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then after these two incidents, I received a visit one night from the King of Serpents. He was wearing a superb crown on his headsymbolic, of course, but anyway, he was the spirit of the species. He had the appearance of a cobra, and he was wonderful! A formidable beast, and wonderful! He said he had come to make a pact with me: I had demonstrated my power over his species, so he wanted to come to an understanding. All right, I said, what do you propose? I not only promise that serpents wont harm you, he replied, but that they will obey you. But you must promise me something in return: never to kill one of them. I thought it over and said, No, I cant make this promise, because if ever one of yours attacks one of mine (a being that depends upon me), my pact with you could not stop me from protecting him. I can assure you that I have no bad feelings and no intention of killingkilling is not on my program! But I cant commit myself, because it would restrict my freedom of decision. He left without replying, so it remains status quo.
I have had several experiences demonstrating my power over snakes (not so much as over catswith cats its extraordinary!). Long ago, I often used to take a drive and then stop somewhere for a walk. One day after my walk, as I was getting back into the car to drive away (the door was still open), a very large snake came out, right from the spot I had just left. He was furious and heading straight towards the open door, ready to strike (luckily I was alone, neither the driver nor Pavitra were there, otherwise). When the snake had come quite near, I looked at him closely and said, What do you want? Why have you come here? There was a pause. Then he fell down flat and off he went. I hadnt made a move, only asked him, What do you want? Why have you come here? You know, they have a way of suddenly falling back, going limp, and prrt! Gone!
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In April 1942, when England was struggling against the Nazis and Japan, which was threatening to invade Burma and India, Churchill sent an emissary, Sir Stafford Cripps, to New Delhi with a very generous proposal which he hoped would rally India's goodwill and cooperation in the fight against the worldwide threat. In this proposal, Great Britain offered India Dominion status, as a first step towards an independent government. Sri Aurobindo at once came out of retirement to wire his adhesion to Cripps; he wired all of India's leaders, and even sent a personal messenger to Gandhi and the Indian Congress to convince them to accept this unhoped for proposal without delay. One of Sri Aurobindo's telegrams to Rajagopalachari (the future President of India) spoke of the grave danger, which no one seemed to see, of rejecting Cripps' proposal: "... Some immediate solution urgent face grave peril. Appeal to you to save India formidable danger new foreign domination when old on way to self-elimination." No one understood: "Why is he meddling?" Had it accepted Dominion status, India would have avoided the partition of the country in two, the artificial creation of Pakistan, as well as the three wars that were to follow (and which we haven't heard the last of), and the blood bath that ravaged Bengal and the Punjab in 1947 at the time of the partition. (See in Addendum an extract from Sri Aurobindo's message on the occasion of India's Independence.)
There is another side to the story. When Nehru died, Mother said in a message of May 27, 1964: "Nehru leaves his body but his soul is ONE with the Soul of India, that lives for Eternity."
0 1965-07-17, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We speak of transformation, even of transfiguration, but there is the passage from the old movement to the new movement, from the old status to the new status, which is a break in equilibrium; and always, for what still belongs to the old creation, a dangerous break in equilibrium is what gives you the feeling that everything eludes you, that you have lost your foothold. And thats when you need unwavering faith. But a faith that isnt like mental faith, which is self-supporting: it is a faith in the sensation. And that (Mother shakes her head) is very difficult.
(silence)
02.01 - Metaphysical Thought and the Supreme Truth, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the East, especially in India, the metaphysical thinkers have tried, as in the West, to determine the nature of the highest Truth by the intellect. But, in the first place, they have not given mental thinking the supreme rank as an instrument in the discovery of Truth, but only a secondary status. The first rank has always been given to spiritual intuition and illumination and spiritual experience; an intellectual conclusion that contradicts this supreme authority is held invalid. Secondly, each philosophy has armed itself with a practical way of reaching to the supreme state of consciousness, so that even when one begins with Thought, the aim is to arrive at a consciousness beyond mental thinking. Each philosophical founder (as also those who continued his work or school) has been a metaphysical thinker doubled with a Yogi. Those who were only philosophic intellectuals were respected for their learning but never took rank as truth discoverers. And the philosophies that lacked a sufficiently powerful means of spiritual experience died out and became things of the past because they were not dynamic for spiritual discovery and realisation.
In the West it was just the opposite that came to pass.
02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This drive of evolution is a constant and permanent fact of Nature and she is in travail to bring about higher and higher stages of material transformation. It may not be easy to forecast from the present status what the future mode or modes of Matter would be like, even as it was surely impossible to forecast mentalised Matter or living Matter, but that does not make the thing less inevitable.
The inevitability arises from the very fact of this evolutionary urge that a stage will come when Matter will undergo another, more radical and crucial change; it will be taken up by a higher reality than mind and suffused with a light and power belonging to that reality: a spiritual consciousness will emerge and with it spiritualised Matter, even as a mental consciousness emerged and mentalised (however inadequately) Matter, and yet anterior to that a vital consciousness emerged and vitalised Matter. There cannot be a limit to the degree of spiritualisation also; for the degree of the Spirit that Nature manifests in an earthly body will also be the measure to which the body itself is spiritualised. A perfectly dynamic spiritual consciousness will have the power to perfectly spiritualise the body and life and mind. And this grade and power of the supreme Spirit Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When man was a dweller of the forest,a jungle man,akin to his forbear the ape, his character was wild and savage, his motives and impulsions crude, violent, egoistic, almost wholly imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the light of the higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today there is an uprush of similar forces to possess and throw man back to a similar condition. This new order asks only one thing of man, namely, to be strong and powerful, that is to say, fierce, ruthless, cruel and regimented. Regimentation can be said to be the very characteristic of the order, the regimentation of a pack of wild dogs or wolves. A particular country, nation or raceit is Germany in Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asiais to be the sovereign nation or master race (Herrenvolk); the rest of mankindo ther countries and peoplesshould be pushed back to the status of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the mediaeval ages, and what the subject peoples were under the worst forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind under the new overlordship, or something still worse. For whatever might have been the external conditions in those ages and systems, the upward aspirations of man were never doubted or questioned they were fully respected and honoured. The New Order has pulled all that down and cast them to the winds. Furthermore in the new regime, it is not merely the slaves that suffer in a degraded condition, the masters also, as individuals, fare no better. The individual here has no respect, no freedom or personal value. This society or community of the masters even will be like a bee-hive or an ant-hill; the individuals are merely functional units, they are but screws and bolts and nuts and wheels in a huge relentless machinery. The higher and inner realities, the spontaneous inspirations and self-creations of a free soulart, poetry, literaturesweetness and light the good and the beautifulare to be banished for ever; they are to be regarded as things of luxury which enervate the heart, diminish the life-force, distort Nature's own virility. Man perhaps would be the worshipper of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical mastery over material Nature, which serves to pile up tools and instruments, arms and armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.
Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing menaceeven though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstancesyet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that one has become sura, divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a definite pattern of qualities and activitiesgunakarma. Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence; by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated drive of all that we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out. It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras are bhogamaya purusha, beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admitsat times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if not wholly consciously that such is not the ideal way, that these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.
The outrages committed by Spain in America, the oppression of the Christians by Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment of Christians by Christians themselves (the inquisition, that is to say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were wrong and, in many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare with what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the world, we find that there is a difference between the two not only in degree, but in kind.One is an instance of the weakness of man, of his flesh being frail; the other illustrates the might of the Asura, his very spirit is unwilling. One is undivine; the other antidivine, positively hostile. They who cannot discern this difference are colour-blind: there are eyes to which all deeper shades of colour are black and all lighter shades white.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The absolute in its triple or triune status (not in its supreme being but as we see it prior to manifestation) is in essence and principle an infinity and unity. Indeed, it is the infinite unity, and its fundamental character is a supreme and utter equalitysamam brahma. It is then a status or statis, that is to say, a state of perfectly stable equilibrium in which there is no movement of difference or distinction, no ripple of high and low or ebb and flow, no mark of quantity or quality. It is a stilled sea of self-identity, a vast limitless or pure consciousness brooding in trance and immobility. And yet in the bosom of this ineffable and inviolable equality, in the very hush and lull there lies secreted an urge, a pressure, a possibility towards activity, variation and even an eventual inequality. For the presence and possibility of dynamism is posited by the very infinity of the Infinite, since without it, the Infinite would be incapable of motion, expression and fulfilment of its Force.
There is thus inherent in the vast inalienable equality of the absolute Reality, a Force which can bring out centres of pressure, nuclei of dynamism, nodes of modulation. It is precisely round these centres of precipitation that the original and basic unity crystallises itself and weaves a pattern of harmonious multiplicity. Consciousness, by self-pressure,tapas taptv turns its even and undifferentiated pristine equanimity into ripples and swirls, eddies and vortices of delight, matrices of creative activity. Thus the One becomes Many by a process of self-concentration and self-limitation.
--
We have, till now, spoken of the evolution of consciousness as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double process of sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one line of a yet another larger double process. For along with the visible movement of ascent, there is a hidden movement of descent. The ascent represents the pressure from below, the force of buoyancy exerted by the involved and secreted consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all by itself to bring out or establish the higher status. The higher status itself has to descend in order to be manifest. The urge from below is an aspiration, a yearning to move ever upward and forward; but the precise goal, the status to be arrived at is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge from below is canalised, if assumes a definite figure and shape, assumes a local habitation and a name when the higher descends at the crucial moment, takes the lower at its peak-tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said that all the levels of consciousness have been createdloosened outby a first Descent; but in the line of the first Descent the only level that stands in front at the outset is Matter all the other levels are created no doubt but remain invisible in the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each status stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its time when each will be summoned to concretise itself in Matter. Thus Life was already there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when mere Matter, dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material plane. When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so as to reach a certain tension and saturation, when it was raised to a certain degree of maturity, as it were, then Life appeared: Life appeared, not because that was the inevitable and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took Matter up in its embrace. The churning, the development in Matter was only the occasion, the condition precedent. For, however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of its elements, one can never produce Life by that alone. A new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely because it comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are imbedded, submerged, involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are involved in every other plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane is certainly prepared, made ready to the last the last but onedegree by the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still the actualisation, the bursting forth happens only when the thing that has to manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a certain level of growth and maturity, a certain tension and orientationa definite vector, so to say, in the mathematical languagewhen it has, for example, sufficiently organised itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then it buds forth into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it. As in the previous stage, here also Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop into Mind by any amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by any amount of permutation and combination or commutation and culture of its constituent elements, unless it is seized on by Mind itself. After the Mind, the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process, viz. first by an uplifting of the mental consciousnessa certain widening and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness and then by a descent, gradual or sudden, of the level or levels that lie above it.
This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First, there is an Involution, a gradual foreshorteninga disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete eclipse in the unconsciousness of the multiple and disintegrate Matter. Next, there is an Evolution, that is to say, embodiment in Matter of all these successive states, appearing one by one from the down most to the topmost; Matter incarnates, all other states contri bute to the incarnation and uphold it, the higher always transforming the lower in a new degree of consciousness.
--
We have so far spoken of two lines of descent. But in either case the descent was of a general and impersonal character. Consciousness was considered as a mere force, movement or quality. There is another aspect, however, in which the descent is of a particular and personal character and consciousness is not force or status only but conscious being or Person.
The various movements or forces of consciousness that play in the various fields or levels of creation are not merely states or degrees and magnitudes, currents and streams of consciousness: they are also personalities with definite forms and figuresnot physical indeed, yet very definite even when subtle and fluidic. Thus the supreme Reality, which is usually described as the perfect status of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, is not merely a principle but a personality. It is the Supreme Person with his triune nature (Purushottama). It is the Divine as the supreme Knower and Doer or Creator and Lover. The creation in or from that status of consciousness is not simply a play or result of the force of consciousness, it is even more truly the embodiment of a conscious Will; it is the will of the Divine Father executed by the Divine Mother.
Now, as the Reality along with its consciousness, in the downward involutionary course towards materialisation, has been gradually disintegrating itself, multiplying itself, becoming more and more obscure and dense in separated and isolated units, even so the Person too has been following a parallel course of disintegration and multiplication and obscuration and isolation. At the origin lies, as we have said, the Perfect Person, the Supreme Person, in his dual aspect of being and nature, appearing as the supreme purua and the supreme prakti, our Father and our Mother in the highest heaven.
--
The formulation or revelation of the Psyche marks another line of what we have been describing as the Descent of Consciousness. The phenomenon of individualisation has at its back the phenomenon of the growth of the Psyche. It is originally a spark or nucleus of consciousness thrown into Matter that starts growing and organising itself behind the veil, in and through the movements and activities of the apparent vehicle consisting of the triple nexus of Body (Matter) and Life and Mind. The extreme root of the psychic growth extends perhaps right into the body, consciousness of Matter, but its real physical basis and tenement is found only with the growth and formation of the physical heart. And yet the psychic individuality behind the animal organisation is very rudimentary. All that can be said is that it is there, in potentia, it exists, it is simple being: it has not started becoming. This is man's speciality: in him the psychic begins to be dynamic; to be organised and to organise, it is a psychic personality that he possesses. Now this flowering of the psychic personality is due to an especial Descent, the descent of a Person from another level of consciousness. That Person (or Superperson) is the jvatman, the Individual Self, the central being of each individual formation. The Jivas are centres of multiplicity thrown up in the bosom of the infinite Consciousness: it is the supreme Consciousness eddying in unit formations to serve as the basis for the play of manifestation. They are not within the frame of manifestation (as the typal formations in the Supermind are), they are above or beyond or beside it and stand there eternally and invariably in and as part and parcel of the one supreme RealitySachchidananda. But the Jivatman from its own status casts its projection, representation, delegated formulationemanation, in the phraseology of the neo-Platonistsinto the manifestation of the triple complex of mind, life and body, that is to say, into the human vehicle, and thus stands behind as the psychic personality or the soul. This soul, we have seen, is a developing, organising focus of consciousness growing from below and comes to its own in the human being: or we can put it the other way, that is to say, when it comes to its own, then the human being appears. And it has come to its own precisely by a descent of its own self from above, in the same manner as with the other descents already described. Now, this coming to its own means that it begins henceforth to exercise its royal power, its natural and inherent divine right, viz, of consciously and directly controlling and organising its terrestrial kingdom which is the body and life and mind. The exercise of conscious directive will, supported and illumined by a self-consciousness, I that occurs with the advent of the Mind is a function of the I Purusha, the self-conscious being, in the Mind; but this self-conscious being has been able to come up, manifest itself and be active, because of pressure of the underlying psychic personality that has formed here.
Thus we have three characteristics of the human personality accruing from the psychic consciousness that supports and inspires it:(1) self-consciousness: an animal acts, feels and even knows, but man knows that he acts, knows that he feels, knows even that he knows. This phenomenon of consciousness turning round upon itself is the hallmark of the human being; (2) a conscious will holding together and harmonising, fashioning and integrating the whole external nature evolved till now; (3) a purposive drive, a deliberate and voluntary orientation towards a higher and ever higher status of individualisation and personalisation,not only a horizontal movement seeking to embrace and organise the normal, the already attained level of consciousness, but also a vertical movement seeking to raise the level, attain altogether a new poise of higher organisation.
These characters, it is true, are not clear and pronounced, do not lie in front, at the beginning of the human personality. The normal human person has his psyche very much behind; but it is still there as antarymin, as the secret Inner Controller. And whatever the vagaries of the outer instruments or their slavery to the mode of Ignorance, in and through all that, it is this Inner Guide that holds the reins and drives upward in the end.
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We have spoken of four lines of Descent in the evolution and organisation of consciousness. There yet remains a fifth line. It is more occult. It is really the secret of secrets, the Supreme Secret. It is the descent of the Divine himself. The Divine, the supreme Person himself descends, not indirectly through emanations, projections, partial or lesser formulations, but directly in his own plenary self. He descends not as a disembodied force acting as a general movement, possessing, at the most, other objects and persons as its medium or instrument, but in an embodied form and in the fullness of his consciousness. The Indian word for Divine Incarnation, avatra, literally means he who has descended. The Divine comes down himself as a terrestrial being, on this material plane of ours, in order to raise the terrestrial and material Nature to a new status in her evolutionary courseeven so He incarnated as the Great Boar who, with his mighty tusk, lifted a solid mass of earth from out of the waters of the Deluge. It is his purpose to effect ascension of consciousness, a transmutation of being, to establish a truly New Order, a New Dharma, as it is termed dharmasamsthpanrthya. On the human level, he appears as a human person for two purposes. First of all, he shows, by example, how the ascension, the transmutation is to be effected, how a normal human being can rise from a lower status of consciousness to a higher one. The Divine is therefore known as the Lord of Yoga for Yoga is the means and method by which one consciously uplifts oneself, unites oneself with the Higher Reality. The embodied Divine is the ideal and pattern: he shows the path, himself walks the path and man can follow, if he chooses. The Biblical conception of the Son of GodGod made fleshas the intermediary between the human and the Divine, declaring, I am the Way and the Goal, expresses a very similar truth. The Divine takes a body for anotheroccultreason also. It is this: Matter or terrestrial life cannot be changedchanged radically, that is to say, transformed by the pure spiritual consciousness alone, lying above or within; also it is not sufficient to bring about only that much of change in terrestrial life which can be effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a general way. It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is meant by an ascension or emergence in the evolutionary gradient were possible only by a physical impact embodying and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical Nature to a new and higher status.
The occult seers declare that we are today on the earth at such a crisis of evolution. Earth and Man and man's earthly life need to be radically transfigured. The trouble and turbulence, the chaos and confusion that are now overwhelming this earth, indicate the acute tension before the release, the dtente of a NEW MANIFESTATION.
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is again a sphinx puzzle indeed. But what is the meaning? The universe, the creation has its fundamental truth in a Trinity: Agni (the Fire-god) upon earth, Vayu (the Wind-god) in the middle regions and in heaven the Sun. In other words, breaking up the symbolism we may say that the creation is a triple reality, three principles constitute its nature. Matter, Life and Consciousness or status, motion and Light. This triplicity however does not exhaust the whole of the mystery. For the ultimate mystery is imbedded within the heart of the third brother, for our rishis saw there the Universal Divine Being and his seven sons. In our familiar language we may say it is the Supreme Being, God himself (Purushottama) and his seven lines of self-manifestation. We have often heard of the seven worlds or levels of being and consciousness, the seven chords of the Divine Music. In more familiar terms we say that body and life and mind form the lower half of the cosmic reality and its upper half consists of Sat-Chit-Ananda (or Satya- Tap as-Jana). And the link, the nodus that joins the two spheres is the fourth principle (Turya), the Supermind, Vijnana. Such is the vision of Rishi Dirghatama, its fundamental truth in a nutshell. To know this mystery is the whole knowledge and knowing this, one need know nothing else.
A word is perhaps necessary to complete the sense of the commentary. Agni has been called old and ancient (Palita), but why? Agni is the first among the gods. He has come down upon earth, entered into matter with the very creation of the material existence. He is the secret energy hidden in the atom which is attracting, invoking all the other gods to manifest themselves. It is he who drives the material consciousness in its evolutionary re-course upward towards the radiant fullness in the solar Supra-Consciousness at the summit. He is however not only energy, he is also delight (vma). For he is the Soma, the nectarous flow, occult in the Earth's body. For Earth is the storehouse of the sap of Life, the source of the delightful growths of Life here below.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.
02.05 - Robert Graves, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Like the poet his idol also is of a lower rank or of a plebeian status. He keeps away from such high gods as Indra and Agni and Varuna and Mitra: great poets will sing their praises. He will take care of the lesser ones, those who are moving in the shadow of the great ones and are hardly noticed. Even in these modern days, goddess Shitala, the healing goddess of epidemics, lives side by side with Durga.
But really it does not matter if the deity is small. For, if the worship is sincere and the offering pure, they ultimately reach the Divine. Did not Sri Krishna say in the Gita that whom-soever you may worship and in whatever way, that in the end' reaches him? The importance and significance of worship do not depend upon their size and scale: a little water, a leaf, a flower may more than do.
02.06 - Boris Pasternak, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet pain is pain and evil evil. There are tears in mortal things that touch us to the core. In mankind the drive for evolution brings in revolution. Not only strife and suffering but uglier elements take birth; cruelty, inhumanity, yes, and also perversity, falsehood, all moral turpitudes, a general inner deterioration and bankruptcy of values. In the human scheme of things nothing can remain on a lofty status, there comes inevitably a general decline and degradation. As Zhivago says "A thing which has been conceived in a lofty ideal manner becomes coarse and material."
An element of the human tragedy the very central core perhapsis the calvary of the individual. Pasternak's third article of faith is human freedom, the freedom of the individual. Indeed if evolution is to mean progress and growth it must base itself upon that one needful thing. And here is the gist of the problem that faces Pasternak (as Zhivago) in his own inner consciousness and in his outer social life. The problemMan versus Society, the individual and the collective-the private and the public sector in modern jargonis not of today. It is as old as Sophocles, as old as Valmiki. Antigone upheld the honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual claims to the demand of his people, the collective godhead.
02.11 - New World-Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The geographical revolution has led inevitably to the economic revolution which is not less momentous, pregnant with prophecies of brave new things. We all know that the modern world was ushered in with the industrial revolution. As a result of this new dispensation, world and society gradually divided into two camps: on one side, the industrialists and on the other the agriculturists, or, in a general way, the possessors of raw materials. The Imperialists formed the first group, while the latter, dominated by these, belonged to the Colonies. The "backward" countries and people who could not take to industry, but continued the old system became a helpless prey to the industrial nations. Africa and Asia and the South American countries came under the domination of European nations, rather the West European Nations: they became the suppliers of raw materials and also the market for finished products. Also within the same country occupying the imperial status, there came a division, a class division, as it is called. A few industrial magnates or trusts (France had its famous Two-Hundred Families) monopolised all the wealth, became the top-dog, the "Haves", the others were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, serfs and slaves, the "Have-Nots". Exploitation was-the motto of the age. The "exploiters" and the "exploited", this trenchant duality was the whole truth of the social scheme and that summed up the entire malady of the collective life. Then came the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution which brought to a head the great crisis and initiated the change-over to new conditions. The French Revolution called up from the rear of social ranks and set in front the Third Estate and gradually formed and crystallised, with the aid of the Industrial Revolution, what is known as the Bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution went a step farther. It dislodged the bourgeoisie and installed the Fourth Estate, the proletariate, as the head and front of society, its centre of power and governmental authority. In the meantime there was developing in the bourgeois society, too, a kind of socialism which aimed at the uplift and remoulding of the working class into a total social power. But the process could not, go far enough. The Industrial League, no doubt, began to release some of its monopolies, delegate some of its power and authority to the Proletariate and sought an armistice and entente; but still it is they who wielded the real power and gave to society the tone and impress of their characteristic authority. The Russian experiment made a bold departure and attempted to build up a new society from the very bottom: the manual labourers, they who produce with the sweat of their brow and make a society living and prosperous must also be its rulers. Now whatever the success or failure in regard to the perfect ideal, the thing achieved is solid; certain forces have been released that are working inexorably in and through even contrary appearances, they have come to stay and cannot be negatived. The urge, for example, towards a more equitable distribution of wealth and wealth-producing implements; an even balancing of economic values has been growing and gathering strength: it has become an asset of the body social. Instead of an unfettered competition between rival agencies, the mad drive for a jealous and closely guarded appropriation (rather, mis-appropriation) by private cartels, there has arisen an inevitable need for a unitary or co-operative control under a common direction, whether it be that of the state or some other body equally representing the common interest. In other words, the principle of co-operation has now become a living reality, a thing of practical politics. All effort towards progress and amelioration, cure of social ills and regaining of health and strength must lie in that direction: anything going the contrary way shall perforce be out of tune with the Time-Spirit and can cause only confusion, bring in stagnation or even regression.
First of all, the colonies, which mean practically the Eastern hemisphere, can no longer be regarded, even by those who would very much wish to, as the field of exploitation, the granary of raw materials or the dumping ground of finished articles. Industrialism, the spirit and urge of it at least, has reached these places too: the exploiters themselves have been instrumental In bringing it about. The growing industrialism in countries so long held in subjection or tutelage, as safe preserves, need not necessarily mean a further spell of keen competition. If we look closely, we see things moving in a different direction. It is self-evident that all countries do not and cannot grow or manufacture all things with equal ease and facility. Countries are naturally complementary or supplementary to each other with regard to their raw produce or industrial manufacture. And an inevitable give and take, mutual understanding and help must follow such an alignment of economic forces.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The economic status is not the only or even the chief or real status of man in the society. This should be an obvious truth. To reform or rebuild the society it is not enough to find a new economic basis, however more equitable and efficient. A man's value does not depend upon his wages nor even upon his wage earning capacity. A man's worth is not the function of his labour. To equate the two has been the capital error of "Das Kapital". That is not the Copernican revolution that is needed in the social body today.
Money was always a power and those who had money were always powerful in all ages and countries. Poverty annuls the entire host of good qualities you may have, says the Sanskrit proverb. Only this money power has been shifted from class to class or section to section in a society. In the modern age the demand and tendency is that those who are the first and immediate agents in the chain of the production of wealth should be given all the profit and all the advantage (barring of course the State itself which has the prior and major claim so long as it exists). The rest are considered as mere parasites. Those who do not thus directly produce or help in producing wealth are a burden upon the society and they have no justifiable place there: either they should change their vocation, declass themselves and become labourers or they must go to the wall, subsist somewhere somehow till they finally pass out of existence.
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What is the thing in human society which makes it valuable, worthy of humanity, gives it a place of honour and the right to live and continue to live? It is its culture and civilisation, as everyone knows. Greece or Rome, China or India did not attain, at least according to modern conceptions, a high stage in economic evolution: the production and distribution of wealth, the classification and organization of producers and consumers, their relation and functions were, in many respects, what is called primitive. An American of today would laugh at their uncouth simplicity. And yet America has to bow down to those creators of other values that are truly valuable. And the values are the creations of the great poets, artists, philosophers, law-givers; sages and seers. It is they who made the glory that was Greece or Rome or China or India or Egypt. Indeed they are the builders of Culture, culture which is the inner life of a civilisation. The decline of culture and civilisation means precisely the displacement of the "cultured" man by the economic man. In the present age when economic values have been grossly exaggerated holding the entire social fabric in its stifling grip, the culture spirit has been pushed into the background and made subservient to economic and other cruder forces. That was what Julien Benda, the famous French critic and moralist, once stigmatised as "La Trahison des Clercs"; only, the "clercs" did not voluntarily betray, but circumstanced as they were they could do no better. The process reached its climaxperhaps one should say the very nadirin the Nazi experiment and something of it still continues in the Russian dispensation. There the intellectuals or the intelligentsia are totally harnessed to the political machine, their capacities are prostituted in the service of a socio-economic plan. Poets and artists and thinkers are made to be protagonists and propagandists of the new order. It is a significant sign of the times how almost the whole body of scientists the entire Brain Trust of mankind today, one might sayhave been mobilised for the fabrication of the Atom Bomb. Otherwise they cannot subsist, they lose all economic status.
In the older order, however, a kindlier treatment was meted out to this class, this class of the creators of values. They had patrons who looked after their physical well-being. They had the necessary freedom and leisure to follow their own bent and urge of creativity. Kings and princes, the court and the nobility, in spite of all the evils ascribed to them, and often very justly, have nevertheless been the nursery of art and culture, of all the art and culture of the ancient times. One remembers Shakespeare reading or enacting his drama before the Great Queen, or the poignant scene of Leonardo dying in the arms of Francis the First. Those were the truly great classical ages, and art or man's creative genius hardly ever rose to that height ever since. The downward curve started with the advent and growth of the bourgeoisie when the artist or the creative genius lost their supporters and had to earn their own living by the sweat of their brow. Indeed the greatest tragedies of frustration because of want and privation, occur, not as much among the "lowest" classes who are usually considered as the poorest and the most miserable in society, but in that section from where come the intellectuals, "men of light and leading," to use the epithet they are honoured with. For very few of this group are free to follow their inner trend and urge, but have either to coerce and suppress them or stultify them in the service of lesser alien duties, which mean "forced labour." The punishment for refusing to be drawn away and to falsify oneself is not unoften the withdrawal of the bare necessities of life, in certain cases sheer destitution. A Keats wasting his energies in a work that has no relation to his inner life and light, or a Madhusudan dying in a hospital as a pauper, are examples significant of the nature of the social structure man lives in.
It is one of the great illusionsor perhaps a show plank for propagandato think or say that the so-called poorer classes are the poorest and the most miserable. It is not so in fact. Really poor are those who have a standard of life commensurate with their inner nature and consciousnessof beauty and orderliness and material sufficiency and yet their actual status and function in society do not provide them with the necessary where-withals and resources. No amount of philanthropic sentimentalising can suppress or wipe off the fact that the poor do not feel the pinch of poverty so much as do those who are poor and yet are to live and move as not poor. It all depends upon one's standard. One is truly rich or poor not in proportion- to one's income, but" in accordance with one's needs and the means to meet them. And all do not have the same needs and requirements. This does not mean that the needs of the princes, the aristocrats, the magnates are greater than those of the mere commoner. No, it means that there are people, there is a section of humanity found more or less in all these classes, but mostly in less fortunate classes, whose needs are intrinsically greater and they require preferential treatment. There should be none poor or miserable in society, well and good. But this should not mean that all the economic resources of the society must be requisitioned only to enrichto pamper the poor. For there is a pampering possible in this matter. We know the nouveaux riches, the parvenus and the kind of life they lead with their fair share boldly seized. A levelling, a formal equalisation of the economic status, although it may mean uplift in certain cases, may involve gross injustice to others. The ideal is not equal distribution but rational distribution of wealth, and that distribution should not depend upon any material function, but upon psychological demands. Is this bourgeois economics? Even if it is so, the truth has to be faced and recognised. You can call truth by the name bourgeois and hang it, but it will revive all the same, like the Phoenix out of the ashes.
If it is said that the proletarian the manual laboureris given economic freedom not for the sake of that freedom merely, but for the sake of the cultural opportunity also that he will have in that way. None can demur to this noble and generous ideal, but- what must not be forgotten in that preoccupation is the fact that there exists already a culturally predisposed class in the present society who also require immediate care and nourishment so that they may grow and flourish as they should. In our eagerness to take up the enterprise and adventure of reclaiming deserts and heaths and moorlands, there is a chance of our losing sight of the precious fertile lands, rich in possibilities that we already possess. The economic status has to be improved for all who are adversely placed in the modern system, certainly; but for a real improvement based upon just and true needs, for an adjustment that will make for the highest good of the society, what is first required is to ascertain the psychological status which should alone, at least chiefly, determine the economic status.
In the old Indian social organisation there was at the basis such a psychological pattern and that must have been the reason why the structure lasted through millenniums. It was a hierarchical system but based upon living psychological forces. Each group or section or class in it had inevitably its appropriate function and an assured economic status. The Four Orders the Brahmin (those whose pursuit was knowledgeacquiring and giving knowledge), the Kshattriya (the fighters, whose business it was to give physical protection), the Vaishya (traders and farmers who were in charge of the wealth of the society, its production and distribution) and the Sudra (servants and mere labourers )are a natural division or stratification of the social body based upon the nature and function of its different members. In the original and essential pattern there is no sinister mark of inferiority branded upon what are usually termed as the lower orders, especially the lowest order. If some are considered higher and are honoured and respected as such, it meant simply that the functions and qualities they stand for constitute in some way higher values, it did not mean that the others have no value or are to be spurned or neglected. The brain must be given a higher place than the stomach, although all its support and nourishment come from there. Hierarchy means, in modern terms, that the essential services must pass first, should have certain priorities. And according to the older view-point, the Brahmin, being the emblem and repository of knowledge, was considered as the head of the social body. He is the fount and origin of a culture, the creator of a civilisation; the others protect, nourish and serve, although all are equally necessary for the common welfare.
Fundamentally all human society is built upon this pattern which is psychological and which seems to be Nature's own life-plan. There is always this fourfold stratification or classification of members in any collective human grouping: the Intellectual (taken in the broadest sense) or the Intelligentsia, the Military, the Trader and the Labourer. In the earlier civilisationswhen civilisation was being formedespecially in the East, it ,was the first class that took precedence over the rest and was especially honoured; for it is they who give the tone and temper and frame of life in the society. In later epochs, in the mediaeval age for example, the age of conquerors and conquistadors, and of Digvijaya, man as the warrior, the Kshattriya, the Samurai or the Chivalry was given the place of honour. Next came the age of traders and merchants, and the industrial age with the invention of machines. Today the labourer is rising in his turn to take the prime place.
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As already stated, the remedy is to be sought in the salvage of the individual. The present trend of social forces is towards movements in the mass. That was necessary perhaps; for larger, wider, indeed world-wide unities have to be found and established for the unification of the whole of humanity. But in the drive towards that-goal Nature seems to have overlooked for the moment the case of the individual, and naturally, man has been blind and one-sided in his attempts to reform and rebuild society and the world. This neglected thread has to be taken up again and put back into the web of social life. The value of the individual, the worth and speciality of each person has to be found and recognised; indeed it is round that centre that society can best be reformed and remade. And this can only be done by a spiritual outlook. For, the true individual is founded in the spirit, the spiritual consciousness; so long as man is limited to his body, life and mind, and his functions are solely determined by his earthly nature, so long he must needs be taken as a mere element in the mass, the cosmic mass. The true individual or person emerges only when something of man's spiritual being finds expression in these lower elements of his nature. And when man totally transcends his inferior sphere of existence and rises into his divine status where things are marshalled and organised through each individual truth-centre, then only there is the chance of a perfect social system descending upon earthly life.
Perhaps this is a far cry from the level of our normal humanity. But things have to be regarded and moulded from the highest heights; otherwise there will be no real solution, there can be only a temporary make-believe and a final frustration.
02.14 - Panacea of Isms, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Again, Nationalism is also not the summum bonum of collective living. The nation has emerged out of the family and the tribe as a greater unit of the human aggregate. But this does not mean that it is the last word on the subject, that larger units are not to be found or formed. In the present-day juncture it is nationalism that has become a stumbling-block to a fairer solution of human problems. For example, India, Egypt, Ireland, even Poland, whatever may be the justifying reasons, are almost exclusively, chauvinistically, nationalistic. They believe that the attainment of their free, unfettered, separate national existence first will automatically bring in its train all ideal results that have been postponed till now. They do not see, however, that in the actual circumstances an international solution has the greater chance of bringing about a happier solution for the nation too, and not the other way round. The more significant urge today is towards this greater aggregationPan-America, Pan-Russia, Pan-Arabia, a Western European Block and an Eastern European Block are movements that have been thrown up because of 'a greater necessity in human life and its evolution. Man's stupidity, his failure to grasp the situation, his incapacity to march with Nature, his tendency always to fall back, to return to the outdated past may delay or cause a turn or twist in this healthy movement, but it cannot be permanently thwarted or denied for long. Churchill's memorable call to France, on the eve of her debacle, to join and form with Britain a single national union, however sentimental or even ludicrous it may appear to some, is; as we see it, the cry of humanity itself to transcend the modern barriers of nationhood and rise to a higher status of solidarity and collective consciousness.
Internationalism
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And yet this is not the grand finale, the nec plus ultra. For, man does not stop with man; in the tremendous phrase carved by Nietzsche, "Man is a thing that shall be surpassed." Until and unless man surpasses himself, finds a focus and fulcrum outside and beyond his normal humantoo humanself, he cannot entirely and radically change his nature and rebuild his society on an altogether different pattern. Man has to reach his divine status, become the Divine, within and outside, body and soul; then only can the ills to which he is exposed totally vanish and then alone can he enjoy individually and collectively a perfect life on earth. Naturally man is not expected to accomplish this mighty work alone and unaided, he can rest assured and comforted, for Nature herself is moving inexorably towards that consummation.
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03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet there can be a status even beyond. For beyond the cosmic reality, lies the transcendent reality. It is the Absolute, neti, neti, into which individual and cosmos, all disappear and vanish. In compassion, the cosmic communion, there is a trace and an echo of humanismit is perhaps one of the reasons why Europeans generally are attracted to Buddhism and find it more congenial than Hinduism with its dizzy Vedantic heights; but in the status of the transcendent Selfhood humanism is totally transcended and transmuted, one dwells then in the Bliss that passeth all feeling.
The Upanishadic summit is not suffused with humanism or touched by it, because it is supra-human, not because there is a lack or want or deficiency in the human feeling, but because there is a heightening and a transcendence in the consciousness and being. To man, to human valuation, the Boddhisattwa may appear to be greater than the Buddha; even so to the sick a physician or a nurse may seem to be a diviner angel than any saint or sage or perhaps God Himself but that is an inferior viewpoint, that of particular or local interest.
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The fact of the matter is that here we enter a domain inwhich the notion of egoism or selfishness has no raison dtre. It is only when one has transcended not only selfishness but egoism and sense of individuality that one becomes ready to enter the glory and beatitude of the Self, or Brahman or Shunyam. One may actually and irrevocably pass beyond, or one may return from there (or from the brink of it) to work in and on the worldout of compassion or in obedience to a special call or a higher Will or because of some other thing; but this second course does not mean that one has attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane phraseology. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Realitysome choose (or are chosen by) the one and others choose (or are chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands and determines, but neither is intrinsically superior to the otheralthough, as I have already said, from an interested human standpoint, one may seem more immediately profitable or nearer than the other; but from that standpoint there may be other truths that are still more practically useful, still closer to the earthly texture of humanity.
The humanism, known to Europe generally, both in its profane and religious aspects, is all "humantoo human" as Nietzsche pronounced it; it was for this reason that the Promethean prophet conjured man to transcend his humanity anyhow, and rise to a superior status of culture and civilisation, of being and consciousness as we would say.
Indian spirituality precisely envisages such a transcendence. According to it, the liberated soul, one who lives in and with the Brahman or the Supreme Divine is he who 'has discarded the inferior human nature and has taken up the superior divine nature. He has conquered the evil of the lower nature, certainly; but also he has gone beyond the good of that nature. The liberated man is seated above the play of the three Gunas that constitute the apar prakti.Human intelligence, human feeling, human sentiment, human motive do not move him. Humanism generally has no meaning for him. He is no longer human, but supra-human; his being and becoming are the spontaneous expression of a universal and transcendent consciousness. He does not always live and move externally in the non-human way; but even when he appears human in his life and action, his motives are not humanistic, his consciousness lies anchored somewhere else, in the Divine Will that makes him be and do whatever it chooses, human or not.
03.02 - The Gradations of Consciousness The Gradation of Planes, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It will be evident that by consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness can exist either in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state; while in other states some other activities may manifest which in us are suppressed, unorganised or latent or else are less perfectly manifested, less intensive, extended and powerful than in those higher grades above our highest mental limit.
If we regard the gradation of worlds or planes as a whole, we see them as a great connected complex movement; the higher precipitate their influences on the lower, the lower react to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedience to a pressure from the supramental plane. In more detail, particular forces, movements, powers, beings of a higher world can throw themselves on the lower to establish appropriate and corresponding forms which will connect them with the material domain and, as it were, reproduce or project their action here. And each thing created here has, supporting it, subtler envelopes or forms of itself which make it subsist and connect it with forces acting from above. Man, for instance, has, besides his gross physical body, subtler sheaths or bodies by which he lives behind the veil in direct connection with supraphysical planes of consciousness and can be influenced by their powers, movements and beings. What takes place in life has always behind it preexistent movements and forms in the occult vital planes; what takes place in mind presupposes preexistent movements and forms in the occult mental planes. That is an aspect of things which becomes more and more evident, insistent and important, the more we progress in a dynamic Yoga.
03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Virtues are not indications of the fire of the inner soul, nor are vices irremediable obstacles to its growth. The inner soul, we have said, feeds upon allit is indeed fire, the omnivorous, sarvabhuk,virtues and vices and everything else and gather strength from everywhere. The mystery of miracles, of a sudden change or reversal or revolution in consciousness and way of life lies in the omnipotency of the psychic being. The psychic being has the power of making the apparently impossible, for this reason that it is a portion of the almighty Divine, it is the supreme Conscious-Power crystallised and canalised in a centre for the sake of manifestation. It is a particle from the Being, a spark of the Consciousness, a ripple from the Delight cast into the fastnesses of Matter and the, material body. Now, it is the irresistible urge of this particle, this spark, this ripple to grow and expand, to become in the end the Vast the Ocean and the Sun and the sphere of Infinityto become that not merely in an essential status but in a dynamic and apparent becoming also. The little soul, originally no bigger than a thumb, goes forward through one life after another enlarging and intensifying itself till it recovers and establishes its parent reality in this material body here below, till it unveils what is latent within itself, what is its own, what is itself,its integral self-fulfilment, the Divine integrality.
Here in his inner being, as part and parcel of the Divine, man is absolutely free, has infinite capacity and unbounded aptitude; for here he is master, not slave of Nature, and it is slavery to Nature, that limits and baulks and stultifies man. So does the Upanishad declare in a magnificent and supreme utterance:
03.03 - Arjuna or the Ideal Disciple, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What makes a true disciple? For it is not everyone that can claim or be worthy of or meet the demands of the title. Disciplehood, like all great qualities, that is to say, qualities taken at their source and origin, is a function of the soul. Indeed, it is the soul itself coming up and asking for it'! native divine status; it is the call of the immortal in the mortal, the voice of the inmost being rising above the clamours and lures of the world, above the hungers and ties of one's own nature. When that rings out clear and unmistakable, the Divine reveals Himself as the Guru, the Path is shown and the initiation given. Even such a cry was Arjuna's when he said: iyaste ham sdhi mm twam prapannamit is a most poignant utterance in which the whole being bursts forth as it were, and delivers itself of all that it needs and of all that it gives. It needs the Illumination: it can no longer bear the darkness and confusion of Ignorance in which it is entangled; and it gives itself whole and entire, absolutely and without reserve, throws itself simply at the mercy of the Divine. Arjuna fulfils, as very few can so completely, the fundamental conditions the sine qua nonof discipleship.
A certain modern critic, however, demurs. He asks why Arjuna was chosen in preference to Yudhisthira and doubts the wisdom and justice of the choice (made by Sri Krishna or the author of the Gita). Is not the eldest of the Pandavas also the best? He possesses in every way a superior dhra. He has knowledge and wisdom; he is free from passions, calm and self-controlled; he always acts according to the dictates of what is right and true. He is not swayed by the impulses of the moment or by considerations relating to his personal self; serene and unruffled he seeks to fashion his conduct by the highest possible standard available to him. That is why he is called dharmarja. If such a one is not to be considered as an ideal disciple, who else can be?
To say this is to miss the whole nature of discipleship, at least as it is conceived in the Gita. A disciple is not a bundle of qualifications and attainments, however high or considerable they may be. A disciple is first and foremost an aspiring soul. He may not have high qualities to his credit; on the contrary, he may have what one calls serious defects, but even that would not matter if he possessed the one thing needful, the unescapable urge of the soul, the undying fire in the secret heart. Yudhishthira may have attained a high status of sttvic nature; but the highest spiritual status, the Gita says, lies beyond the three Gunas. He is the fittest person for this spiritual life who has abandoned all dharmasprinciples of conduct, modes of living and taken refuge in the Lord alone, made the Lord's will the sole and sufficient law of life. Even though to outward regard such a person be full of sins, the Lord promises to deliver him from all that. It is the soul's love for the Divine given unconditionally and without reserve that can best purify the dross of the inferior nature and render one worthy of the Divine Grace.
Such was Arjuna's capacity; herein lay his strength, his spiritual superiority. It was because he could be so intimate with the Divine as to call him his friend and companion and playmate and speak to him in familiar and homely termseven though he felt contrition for having in this way perhaps slighted the Lord and not paid sufficient regard towards him. Yet this turn of his soul and nature points to the straightness and simplicity and candidness that were there and it was this that helped to call in the Divine and the Divine choice to fall upon him.
03.03 - Modernism - An Oriental Interpretation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
Not quite so, certainly. The consciousness (rather, the self-consciousness) that man has gained in place of the unconsciousness or semi-consciousness, characteristic of the general mass in the past, and the growing sense of individuality and personal worth, which is an expression of that consciousness, are his assets, the hall-mark of his present-day nature and outlook and activity. The consciousness may not have always been used wisely, but still it is a light that has illumined him, brought him an awareness of himself and of things, that is new and in a special way close and intimate and revealing. The light is perhaps not of the kind that comes direct from high altitudesit is, as it were, a transverse ray cutting aslant; nonetheless, through its grace a self-revelation and a self-valuation have been possible in spheres hitherto unsurveyed and lost in darkness, and on a scale equally unprecedented. Life has found a self-light. It is indeed as yet a glare, lurid and uncertain, but it has the capacity to develop into, and call in, the white and tranquil effulgence of the Soul-light and the Supreme Light of which it is the image and precursor.
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine means the All: whatever there is (manifest or beyond) is within Him and is Himself. Man too who is within that Divine is the Divine in a special way; for he is a replica or epitome of the Divine containing or embodying the threefold status and movement of the Divine the Transcendent, the Cosmic and the Individual. He is co-extensive with the Divine. Only, the Divine is conscious, supremely conscious, while Man is unconscious or at best half-conscious. God has made himself the world and its creatures, the transcendental has become the material cosmos, true; but God has made himself Man in a special sense and for a special purpose. Man is not a fabrication of the Lower Maya, a formation thrown up in the evolutionary course by a temporary idea in the Cosmic Mind and developed through the play of forces; on the other hand, it is a typal reality, a Real-Ideaa formation of the original truth-consciousness, the Divine's own transcendental existence. Man is the figure of the Divine Person. The Impersonal become or viewed as the Personal takes up the human aspect, the human, that is to say, as its original prototype in the superconscience.
The conception of a personal immortality the impersonal is naturally always immortal, there is no problem thereof a physical immortality even attains a significant value looked at from this standpoint. The urge for immortality is not merely a wish to continue indefinitely an earthly life, because of its pleasures or because of an unreasoning attachment; it means regaining and establishing the immortal body that one has or that one is essentially and potentially. The body seeks to be immortal, for it contains and secretly is its immortal Formal Cause (to make use of an Aristotelian term). The materialisation of an immortal being and figure of being that is the consummation demanded of human life on earth.
03.05 - Some Conceptions and Misconceptions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's view is different. It is something like this I am putting the thing as simply as possible, without entering into details or mysteries that merely confuse the brain. The Absolute Reality contains all, nothing can be outside it, pain and sin and all; true. But these do not exist as such in the supreme status, they are resolved each into its ultimate and fundamental force of consciousness. When we say I all things, whatever they are, exist in the Divine Consciousness, the Absolute, we have an idea that they exist there as they do here as objects or entities; it goes without saying, they do not. Naturally we have to make a distinction between things of Knowledge and things of Ignorance. Although there is a gradation between the twoKnowledge rolls or wraps itself gradually into Ignorance and Ignorance unrolls or unfolds itself slowly into Knowledgestill in the Divine Consciousness things of Knowledge alone exist, things of Ignorance cannot be said to exist there on the same title, because, as I have said, the original truths of things alone are therenot their derivations and deformations. One can say, indeed, that in the supreme Light darkness exists as a possibility; but this is only a figure of speech. Possibility does not mean that it is there like a seedor even a chromosome rodto sprout and grow. Possibility really means just a chance of the consciousness acting in a certain way, developing in a particular direction under certain conditions.
Matter exists in the absolute Consciousness, not as Matter but as its fundamental substratum, as that radical mode of being or consciousness which by the devolution of consciousness and the interaction of Knowledge and Ignorance in the end works itself out as Matter. So also with regard to Life and with regard to Mind. If things are to exist in the highest status of consciousness, the Divine Consciousness, exactly as they exist now, there would be no point or meaning in creation or manifestation. Manifestation or creation does not mean merely unveiling or unrolling in the sense of unpacking. It means a gradual shift in the stress of consciousness, giving it a particular mode of action.
The unrolling or Involution is the path traced by consciousness in its changing modes of concentration. The principle of concentration is inherent in consciousness. Sri Aurobindo speaks of four modes or degrees of this concentration: (I) the essential, (2) the integral, (3) the total or global and (4) the separative. The first is a sole in-dwelling or an entire absorption in the essence of its own being it is the superconscient Silence, at one end, and the Inconscience, at the other. The second is the total Sachchidananda, the supramental concentration; the third, multiple or totalising overmental awareness; the fourth is the concentration of Ignorance. All the four, however, form the integral play of one indivisible consciousness.
Here we come to the very heart of the mystery. As we have put it thus far, the process of Involution would appear as a series of stages in a descending order, a movement along a vertical line, as it were, one stage following another, more or less separate from each other, the lower being ever more ignorant, more separative, more exclusive. But this is not the whole picture. At each lower stage the higher is not merely high above, but also comes down and stands behind or becomes immanent in the lower. Along with the vertical movement there is also a horizontal movement. In other words, even when we are sunk in the lowest stratum of Ignorancein the domain of Matterwe have also there all the other strands behind, even the very highest, not merely as passive or neutral entities, but as dynamic agents exerting their living pressure to the full. Indeed the Ignorance is not mere Ignorance, but Knowledge itself, the very highest Knowledge, but in a particular mode of activity. What appears ignorant is full of a secret Knowledgeit is just the outer surface, the facet that appears as its opposite because of a particular manner of concentration, a total self-abandonment in the object of Knowledge. That Knowledge stands revealed if the mask is put away, that is to say, if we get behind, If we release the exclusiveness of the concentration. This release or getting behind does not mean necessarily the dissolution of the status itself for it is the pressure from behind, the concentration of the hidden consciousness that creates the status and its truth-forms; with the exclusiveness goes away only the twist, the aberration produced by it. When the consciousness withdraws from its mode and field of exclusive concentration, it need not concentrate again on the withdrawal only, it can be an inclusive concentration also embracing both the status the frontal and the behind. Both can be held together in one single movement of consciousness possessing the double function of projection and comprehensionprajna and vijna.
Such a synthetic poise is not a mere theoretical possibility: it is an actuality and is being demonstrated by the fact of evolution. The partial release of the absolutely exclusive concentration of consciousness in Matter has given rise to Life which is a double poise: Life plays in and through Matter and has not dissolved Matter. Likewise a further release of concentration has given birth to Mind which still bases itself upon and is woven into Life and Matter. The change-over from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness to super-consciousness is the movement of consciousness from a unilateral towards an ever widening multiple poise and functioning of concentration.
The exclusive concentration was the logical and inevitable final term of a movement of separativity and exteriorisation. It had its necessity and utility. Its special function was utilised by Nature for precision and perfection in details of execution in the most material order of reality. Indeed, what can be more exact and accurate than the laws of physics, the mathematical laws that govern the movements of the material particles? Furthermore, if we look at the scientist himself, do we not find in him an apt image of the same phenomenon? A scientist means a specialist the more specialised and restricted his view, the surer he is likely to be in his particular domain. And specialised knowledge means a withdrawal from other fields and viewpoints of knowledge, an ignorance of them. Likewise, a workman who moulds the head of a pin is all concentrated upon that single point of existencehe forgets the whole world and himself in that act whose perfect execution seems to depend upon the measure of his self-oblivion. But evidently this is not bound to be so. A one-pointed self-absorption that is Ignoranceis certainly an effective way of dealing with material objectsthings of Ignorance; but it is not the only way. It is a way or mechanism adopted by Nature in a certain status under certain conditions. One need not always forget oneself in the act in order to do the act perfectly. An unconscious instinctive act is not always best doneit can be done best consciously, intuitively. A wider knowledge, a greater acquaintance with objects and facts and truths of other domains too is being more and more insisted upon as a surer basis of specialisation. The pinpointed (one might almost say geometrically pointed) consciousness in Matter that resolves itself into unconsciousness acts perfectly but blindly; the vast consciousness also acts there with absolute perfection but consciouslyconscious in the highest degree.
As we have said, super-consciousness does not confine itself to the supreme status alone, to the domain of pure infinity, but it comes down and embraces the most inferior status too, the status of the finite. Precisely because it is infinity, it is not bound to its infinity but can express its infinity in and through infinite limits.
II
03.05 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the higher scheme of Nature, the next evolutionary status that is being forged,itis unity, harmony that is insisted upon, for that is the very basis of the new creation: whatever militates against that, whatever creates division and disruption must be banned and ruthlessly eschewed. In the reality of things, in the actual life that man lives, it will be found that on the whole, things that separate are less numerous and insistent than those which unite, man and man and nation and nation, if each one simply lives and lets live: on the contrary, it is the points of concordance and mutuality that abound. A certain knot or twist in the mind makes all the difference: it brings in the ignorance, selfishness, blind passiona possession by the dark forces of atavism that makes the mischief.
We ask for freedom, liberty of the individual, self-determinationwell and good. But that does not mean the licence to do as one pleases, impelled by one's irrational idiosyncrasies. The individual must be truly individual, not a fractional being, the self must be the real self, not a shadow or surface formulation in order to have the full right to unfettered movement. Liberty, yes; but that means liberty for all which means again the other two terms of the great trinity, equality and fraternity. Individuality, yes; that means every individuality, in other words, solidarity. The two sides of the equation must be given equal value and equal emphasis. If the stress upon one leads to Nazism, Fascism or Stalinism, steam-rollered uniformity or streamlined regimentation, the death of the individual, the other emphasis leads to disintegration and disruption, to the same end in a different way. But in the world of today, after the victory in the last war over the Nazi conception of humanity, it seems as though the spirit of disruption has gone abroad, human consciousness has been atom-bombed into flying fragments; so we have the spectacle of all manner of parochialism pullulating on the earth, regional and ideologicalimperial blocs, nations, groups, parties have chequered ad infinitum, have balkanised human commonalty.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet there can be a status even beyond. For, beyond the cosmic reality lies the transcendent reality. It is the Absolute, neti, neti, into which individual and cosmos, all disappear and vanish. In compassion, the cosmic communion, there is a trace and an echo of humanismit is perhaps one of the reasons why Europeans generally are attracted to Buddhism and find it more congenial than Hinduism with its dizzy Vedantic heights. But in the status of the transcendent Self-hood, humanism is totally transcended and transmuted; one dwells there in the Bliss that passeth all feeling.
The Upanishadic summit is not suffused with humanism or touched by it, because it is supra-human, not because there is a lack or deficiency in the human feeling, but because there is a heightening and a transcendence in the consciousness and being. To man, to human valuation, the Bodhisattva may appear to be greater than the Buddha; even so to the sick a physician or a nurse may seem to be a diviner angel than any saint or sage or perhaps God himself but that is an inferior view-point, that of particular or local interest.
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The fact of the matter is that here we enter a domain in which the notion of egoism or selfishness has no raison d'tre. It is only when one has transcended not only selfishness, but egoism and all sense of individuality that one becomes ready to step into the glory and beatitude of the Self or Brahman or unyam. One may actually and irrevocably pass beyond, or one may return from there (or from the brink of it) to work in and on the worldout of compassion, or in obedience to a special call or a higher Will, or because of some other thing; but this second course does not mean that one has attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane figure. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Realitysome choose (or are chosen by) one and others choose (or chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands and determines, but neither is intrinsically superior to the other.
The humanism with which Europe is familiar, both in its profane and religious aspects, would look, from an IndianVedanticstandpoint, all 'human, too human'; it was a European who declared it so. It was for this reason that the Promethean prophet conjured man to transcend his humanity anyhow and rise to a superior status of culture and civilisationof being and consciousness, as we would say.
Indian spirituality envisages precisely such a transcendence. According to it, the liberated soul, one who lives in and with the Brahman or the Supreme Divine, is he who has discarded the inferior human nature and has taken up the superior divine nature. He has conquered the evil of the lower nature, certainly; but also he has gone beyond the good of that nature. The liberated man is seated above the play of the three Gunas that constitute the inferior hemisphere of manifestation, apar prakti, Human intelligence, human feeling, human sentiment, human motive, even at their best and purest, do not move him. Humanism has naturally no meaning for him. He is no longer human, but supra-human; his being and becoming are the spontaneous expression of a universal and transcendent consciousness. He may not always live and move externally in the non-human way; but even when he appears human in his life and action, his motives are not humanistic, his consciousness lies anchored somewhere else, in the transcendent Will of the Divine that makes him be and do whatever it chooses, human or otherwise.
03.07 - Some Thoughts on the Unthinkable, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Undivine means the obscure separativeness of the Ignorance, the darkness of Inferior Nature. The Divine, from his superior status, has cast himself down and is scattered and concretised as the ignorant creation, he has consented to be degraded and imbedded into Matter, in order to quicken Matter gradually, to illumine and transform it and invest it with the Divine's own glory. The whole dynamics of creation consists in the interaction of these two forces, one apparent and pragmatic and patent, the other behind and involved and latent. The elements and forces of the Ignorance, while they appear to move in the cycles of their inexorable Law, are gradually led by the stress of the involved Spirit, to evolve and change, and finally express and incarnate that which it now negates, that which is the Spirit unveiled in its pristine au thenticity.
A day will come when it is the Divine that will reign upon earth, the Divine in his transcendent Delight and Knowledge and Power and Purity, and human life shall embody the Law of the Truth.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In this connection we can recall Plato's famous serial of social types from aristocracy to tyranny, the last coming out of democracy the type that precedes it, (almost exactly as we have experienced it in our own days). But the most interesting point to which we can look with profit is Plato's view that the types are as men are, that is to say, the character and nature of man in a given period determines the kind of government or social system he is going to have. There has been this cyclic rotation of types, because men themselves were rotating types, because, in other words, the individuals composing human society had not found their true reality, their abiding status. Plato's aristocracy was the ideal society, it was composed of and ruled by the best of men (aristas, srestha) the wisest. And the question was put by many and not answered by Plato himself, what brought about the decline in a perfect system. We have attempted to give our answer.
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03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The frontal view of reality lays its stress upon the display of the form of things, their contour, their aspect in mass and volume and dimension; and the art, inspired and dominated by it, is more or less a sublimated form of the art of photography. The side-view takes us behind the world of forms, into the world of movement, of rhythm. And behind or above the world of movement, again, there is a world of typal realities, essential form-movements, fundamental modes of consciousness in its universal and transcendent status. It is this that the Indian artist endeavours to envisage and express.
A Greek Apollo or Venus or a Madonna of Raphael is a human form idealized to perfection,moulded to meet the criterion of beauty which the physical eye demands. The purely sthetic appeal of such forms consists in the balance and symmetry, the proportion and adjustment, a certain roundedness and uniformity and regularity, which the physical eye especially finds beautiful. This beauty is akin to the beauty of diction in poetry.
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Character in the European sense means that part of nature which is dynamically expressed in conduct, in behaviour, in external movements. But there is another sense in which the term would refer to the inner mode of being, and not to any outer exemplification in activity, any reaction or set of reactions in the kinetic system, nor even to the mental state, the temperament, immediately inspiring it, but to a still deeper status of consciousness. A Raphael Madonna, for example, purposes to pour wholly into flesh and blood the beauty of motherhood. A Japanese Madonna (a Kwanon), on the other hand, would not present the "natural" features and expressions of motherhood; it would not copy faithfully the model, however idealized, of a woman viewed as mother. It would endeavour rather to bring out something of the subtler reactions in the "nervous" world, the world of pure movements that is behind the world of form; it would record the rhythms and reverberations attendant upon the conception and experience of motherhood somewhere on the other side of our wakeful consciousness. That world is made up not of forms, but of vibrations; and a picture of it, therefore, instead of being a representation in three-dimensional space, would be more like a scheme, a presentation in graph, something like the ideography of the language of the Japanese themselves, something carrying in it the beauty characteristic of the calligraphic art. 2
An Indian Madonna owes its conception to an experience at the very other end of consciousness. The Indian artist does not at all think of a human mother; he has not before his mind's eye an idealized mother, nor even a subtilized feeling of motherhood. He goes deep into the very origin of things, and, from there seeks to bring out that which belongs to the absolute I and the universal. He endeavours to grasp the sense that : motherhood bears in its ultimate truth and reality. Beyond the form, beyond even the rhythm, he enters into bhva, the: spiritual substance of things. An Indian Madonna (Ganesh-janani, for example) is not solely or even primarily a human I mother, but the mother, universal and transcendent, of sentientand insentient creatures and supersentient beings. She embodies not the human affection only, but also the parallel sentiment that finds play in the lower and in the higher creations as well. She expresses in her limbs not only the gladness of the mother animal tending its young, but also the exhilaration that a plant feels in the uprush of its sap while giving out new shoots, and, above all, the supreme nanda which has given birth to the creation itself. The lines that portray such motherhood must have the largeness, the sweep, the au thenticity of elemental forces, the magic and the mystery of things behind the veil.
03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Hinduism, one may even say, Indianism, has cast Buddhism out of India, the mother country, to the wonder of many. Buddhism came to rub out the dead deposits and accretions on the parent body and in doing so it often rubbed on the raw and against the grain. Hinduism had to accept the corrections; in the process it had to absorb, however, many elements contrary to its nature, even antipathic to its soul. Buddha was accepted as an Avatar; he was given a divine status in the Hindu Pantheon. Divested, apparently, of all heterodoxical and controversial appendages, he was anointed with the sole sufficing aspect of supreme kindness, universal compassion. Even so, in and through this Assumption, not a little of the peculiarly Buddhist inspiration entered the original organism. The most drastic and of far-reaching consequence was the inauguration and idolisation of monastic life, which has become since then in Indian conception, the summum bonum, the supreme goal of human existence. It was not without reason that India's older and truer tradition cried out against Shankara being a crypto-Buddhist (pracchanna bauddha), who was yet one of the most consistent and violent critics of Buddhism.
Life is an expression of the Divine Presence, earth is the field of labour for the godssuch was the original old-world Vedic view. It was the Buddhist dispensation that made life an inferior truth, a complex of unreality and decreed that the highest aim of man is to disappear from life after life's fitful fever to sleep well that seems to have been the motto given.
03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This disillusionment is the crisis at which the soul has arrivedthis tearing down of the painted arras that hid the naked horror of man's beastly nature and the ugly vanity and stagy show that the world is. The revelation was so sudden and stunning to the innocent and aspiring soul that it lost for the moment all its bearings, its natural strength and capacity and will, and fell from its high status into the slough of dark and despondent impotency.
Another personLaertesplaced in an analogous situation but not worried by the promptings of idealism and the sense of discrepancy between the ideal and the real, takes the world as it is, considers it all right and moves straight to his purpose; he is not a divided being, but in full and integral possession of himself and of his instruments of actioneven though this solid pragmatism does not avail him much in the end.
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We say then that it was a necessity: it was a necessity that the rational, logical, ratiocinative, analytic mentality should be brought out and given its play and place. It is perhaps an inferior power of the mind or consciousness, but it is a strong power and has its use and utility. It is the power that gives the form and pattern for the display of consciousness and intelligence in outward expression and external living; it is a firm weapon that gives control over these inferior ranges of consciousness. The leap from the sense-consciousness or the elements of consciousness, from a mental growth just adequate and not too specialised, straight into the supra-sensuous and the transcendent had been an inevitable necessity, so that the human consciousness might get the first taste of its supreme status and value: a similar necessity brought to the fore this element of the mind, the mind's own powerof judgement and willso that there might be a greater and wider integration of human nature and also that the higher realities may be captured in our normal consciousness. Even for the withdrawal of the mind from the outer objects to the inner sources, the mind itself can be used with much effect. And Buddha showed it magnificently. And of course, Shankara too who followed in his footsteps.
To abrogate the matter of fact, rational view of life in order to view it spiritually, to regard it wholly as an expression or embodiment or vibration of consciousness-delight was possible to the Vedic discipline which saw and adored the Immanent Godhead. It was not possible to Buddha and Buddhistic consciousness; for the Immanent Divine was ignored in the Buddhistic scheme. Philosophically, in regard to ultimate principles, Buddhism was another name for nihilism, creation being merely an assemblage of particles of consciousness that is desire; the particles scattered and dissolved, remains only the supreme incomparable Nirvana. But pragmatically Buddhism was supremely humanistic.
03.11 - The Language Problem and India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even then, even though French has been ousted from the market-place, it holds still a place of honour in the cultural world, among the lite and the intelligentsia. I have said French rules the continent of Europe. Indeed even now an intellectual on the ,continent feels more at ease in French and would prefer to have the French version of a theme or work rather than the English. Indeed we may say in fact that the two languages appeal to two types of mentality, each expressing a characteristically different version of the same original truth or fact or statement. If you wish to have your ideas on a subject clear, rational and unambiguous, you must go to French. French is the language par excellence of law and logic. Mental presentation, as neat and transparent as possibly can be is the special aid French language brings to you. But precisely because it is intellectually so clear, and neat, it has often to avoid or leave out certain shades and nuances or even themes which do not go easily into its logical frame. English is marvellous in this respect, that being an illogical language it is more supple and pliant and rich and through its structural ambiguities can catch and reflect or indicate ideas and realities, rhythms and tones that are supra-rational. French, as it has been pointed out by French writers themselves, is less rich in synonyms than English. There each word has a very definite and limited (or limiting) connotation, and words cannot be readily interchanged. English, on the other hand, has a richer, almost a luxuriant vocabulary, not only in respect of the number of words, but also in the matter of variation in the meaning a given word conveys. Of course, double entendre or suggestiveness is a quality or capacity that all languages that claim a status must possess; it is necessary to express something of the human consciousness. Still, in French that quality has a limited, if judicious and artistic application; in English it is a wild growth.
French expresses better human psychology, while meta-physical realities find a more congenial home in the English language. This is not to say that the English are born meta-physicians and that the French are in the same manner natural psychologists. This is merely to indicate a general trait or possible capacity of the respective languages. The English or the English language can hold no candle to the German race or the German language in the matter of metaphysical abstruseness. German is rigid, ponderous, if recondite. English is more flexible and has been used and can be used with great felicity by the mystic and the metaphysician. The insular English with regard to his language and letters have been more open to external influences; they have benefited by their wide contact with other peoples and races and cultures.
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French and English being given the place of honour, now the question is with regard to the vernacular of those who do not speak either of these languages. We have to distinguish two categories of languages: national and international. French and English being considered international languages par excellence, the others remain as national languages, but their importance need not be minimised thereby. First of all, along with the two major international languages, there may be a few others that can be called secondary or subsidiary international languages according as they grow and acquire a higher status. Thus Russian, or an Asiatic, even an Indian language may attain that position, because of wide extension or inherent value of popularity or for some other reason. Indeed, a national language cultivated and enriched by its nationals can force itself on the world's attention and fairly become a world language. Tagore was able to give that kind of world importance to the Bengali language.
It may be questioned whether too many languages are not imposed on us in this way and whether it will not mean in the end a Babel and inefficiency. It need not be so and it is not going to be so. We must remember the age we are in, its composite structure, its polyphonic nature. In the ancient and mediaeval ages, the ages of separatism and exclusiveness of clans and tribes and regions, even in the later age of the states and nations, the individual group-consciousness was strong and sedulously fostered. Languages and literature grew and developed more or less independently and with equal vigour, although always through some kind of give and take. But the modern world has been made so inextricably one, ease of communication and free interchange have obliterated the separating boundaries, not only geographical but psychological. The modern consciousness has so developed and is so circumstanced that one can very easily be bi-lingual or even trilingual: indeed one has to be so, speaking and writing with equal felicity not only one's mother tongue but one or more adopted tongues. Modern culture means that.
03.12 - TagorePoet and Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such a great name is Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali literature. We need not forget Bankim Chandra, nor even Madhusudan: still one can safely declare that if Bengali language and literature belonged to any single person as its supreme liberator and fosterer savitand pit is Rabindranath. It was he who lifted that language and literature from what had been after all a provincial and parochial status into the domain of the international and universal. Through him a thing of local value was metamorphosed definitively into a thing of world value.
The miracle that Tagore has done is this: he has brought out the very soul of the raceits soul of lyric fervour and grace, of intuitive luminosity and poignant sensibility, of beauty and harmony and delicacy. It is this that he has made living and vibrant, raised almost to the highest pitch and amplitude in various modes in the utterance of his nation. What he always expresses, in all his creations, is one aspect or another, a rhythm or a note of the soul movement. It is always a cry of the soul, a profound experience in the inner heart that wells out in the multifarious cadences of his poems. It is the same motif that finds a local habitation and a name in his short stories, perfect gems, masterpieces among world's masterpieces of art. In his dramas and novels it is the same element that has found a wider canvas for a more detailed and graphic notation of its play and movement. I would even include his essays (and certainly his memoirs) within the sweep of the same master-note. An essay by Rabindranath is as characteristic of the poet as any lyric poem of his. This is not to say that the essays are devoid of a solid intellectual content, a close-knit logical argument, an acute and penetrating thought movement, nor is it that his novels or dramas are mere lyrics drawn out arid thinned, lacking in the essential elements of a plot and action and character. What I mean is that over and above these factors which Tagores art possesses to a considerable degree, there is an imponderable element, a flavour, a breath from elsewhere that suffuses the entire creation, something that can be characterised only as the soul-element. It is this presence that makes whatever the poet touches not only living and graceful but instinct with something that belongs to the world of gods, something celestial and divine, something that meets and satisfies man's deepest longing and aspiration.
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The modernist does not ask: is it good? is it beautiful? He asks: is it effective? is it expressive? And by effectivity and expressiveness he means something nervous and physical. Expressiveness to him would mean the capacity to tear off the veil over what once was considered not worth the while or decent to uncover. A strange recklessness and shamelessness, an unhealthy and perverse curiosity, characteristic of the Asura and the Pisacha, of the beings of the underworld, mark the movement of the modernist. But I forget. The Modernist is not always an anarchist, for he too seeks to establish a New Order; indeed he arrogates to himself that mission and declares it to be his and his alone. Obviously it is not the order of the higher gods of Olympus: these have been ousted and dethroned. We are being led back to the mysteries of an earlier race, reverting to an infra-evolutionary status, into the arcana of Thor and Odin, godlings of an elemental Nature.
In such a world Tagore is a voice and a beacon from over the heights of the old world declaring and revealing the verities that are eternal and never die. They who seek to kill them do so at their peril. Tagore is a great poet: as such he is close to the heart of Bengal. He is a great Seer: as such humanity will claim him as its own.
03.13 - Dynamic Fatalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In a higher sense, from a transcendental standpoint, however, this too is only an appearance. In reality man neither helps nor hinders Prakriti. For in that sphere the two are not separate entities. What is viewed as the helping hand of man is really Nature helping herself: man is the conscious movement of Nature. In that transcendent status the past and the future are rolled together in the eternal present and all exist there as an accomplished fact: there is nothing there to be worked out and achieved. But lower down there is a play of forces, of conflicting possibilities and the resultant is a balance of these divergent lines. When one identifies oneself with the higher static consciousness one finds nothing to be done, all is realised the eternal play of the eternal child in the eternal garden.2 But when one lives in the Kurukshetra of forces, one cannot throwaway one's Gandiva and say, I will not fight.
Sri Aurobindo: The Mother
03.14 - Mater Dolorosa, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If, on the contrary, any part of us belongs to the Inferior Nature, even if the larger part dwells in some higher status of Nature, even then we are not immune to the attacks that come from the inferior Nature. Those whom we usually call pious or virtuous or honest have still a good part of them imbedded in the Lower Nature, in various degrees they are yet its vassals; they owe allegiance to the three gunas, be it even to sattwasattwa is also a movement in Inferior Nature; they are not free. Has not Sri Krishna said: Traigunyaviayved nistraigunyo bhavrjuna1? only thing we must remember is that freedom from the gunas does not necessarily mean an absolute cessation of the play of Prakriti. Being in the gunas we must know how to purify and change them, transmute them into the higher and divine potentials.
This is a counsel of perfection, one would say. But there is no other way out. If humanity is to be saved, if it is at all to progress, it can be only in this direction. Buddha's was no less a counsel of perfection. He saw the misery of man, the three great maladies inherent in life and his supreme compassion led him to the discovery of a remedy, a radical remedy,indeed it could remove the malady altogether, for it removed the patient also. What we propose is, in this sense, something less drastic. Ours is not a path of escape, although that too needs heroism, but of battle and conquest and lordship.
03.16 - The Tragic Spirit in Nature, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The tragedy can happen in either of two ways. The in-individual's own unconsciousness can reach and overthrow and spoil his higher poise, or the collective unconsciousness too can invade and overwhelm the individual in his high status, who is declared, not unoften, the highbrow, an enemy of the peoplealthough atonement is sometimes attempted at a late period (as in the case of the Christ or Jeanne d'Arc). A way, however, was discovered in India by which one could avoid this life's inevitable tragic denouement. It was very simple, viz, to rise up from the inert ignorant unconsciousness, rise sufficiently high and fly or shoot into the orbits of other suns from where there is no more downfall, being totally free from all earthly down-pull.
But this need not be the only solution. Matter (the basic unconsciousness) was the master in this material world because, it was not properly faced and negotiated. One sought to avoid and bypass it. It was there Sphinx-like and none stopped to answer its riddle. The mystery is this. Matter, material Nature that is dubbed unconsciousness is not really so. That is only an appearance. Matter is truly inconscient, that is to say, it has an inner core of consciousness which is its true reality. This hidden flame of consciousness should be brought out from its cave and made manifest, dynamic on the surface. Then it will easily and naturally agree to submit to the higher law of Immortality. This would mean a reconditioning, a transmutation of the very basis of mind and life. The material foundation, the body conditions thus changed will bring about that status of the wholeness of consciousness which holds and stabilises the Divine in the human frame, which never suffers from any scar or diminution even in its terrestrial embodiment.
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, Act III, Sc. II
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of European civilisationof the world culture reigning today, one can almost sayfound itself epitomised in the Periclean Age. The lightgrace, harmony, sweet reasonableness that was Greece, reached its highest and largest, its most characteristic growth in that period. Earlier, at the very beginning of her life cycle, there came indeed Homer and no later creation reached a higher or even as high a status of creative power: but it was a solitary peak, it was perhaps an announcement, not the realisation of the national glory. Pericles stood as the guardian, the representative, the emblem and nucleus of a nation-wide efflorescence. Not to speak of the great names associated with the age, even the common peoplemore than what was normally so characteristic of Greecefelt the tide that was moving high and shared in that elevated sweep of life, of thought and creative activity. Greece withdrew. The stage was made clear for Rome. Julius Caesar carried the Roman genius to its sublimest summit: but it remained for his great nephew to consolidate and give expression to that genius in its most characteristic manner and lent his name to a characteristic high-water mark of human civilisation.
Greece and Rome may be taken to represent two types of culture. And accordingly we can distinguish two types of elevation or crest-formation of human consciousness one of light, the other of power. In certain movements one feels the intrusion, the expression of light, that is to say, the play of intelligence, understanding, knowledge, a fresh outlook and consideration of the world and things, a revaluation in other terms and categories of a new consciousness. The greatest, at least, the most representative movement of this kind is that of the Renaissance. It was really a New Illumination: a flood of light poured upon the mind and intellect and understanding of the period. There was a brightness, a brilliance, a happy agility and keenness in the movements of the brain. A largeness of vision, a curious sensibility, a wide and alert consciousness: these are some of the fundamental characteristics of this remarkable New Birth. It is the birth of what has been known as the scientific outlook, in the- broadest sense: it is the threshold of the modern epoch of humanity. All the modern European languages leaped into maturity, as it were, each attaining its definitive form and full-blooded individuality. Art and literature flooded in their magnificent creativeness all nations and peoples of the whole continent. The Romantic Revival, starting somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century, is another outstanding example of a similar phenomenon, of the descent of light into human consciousness. The light that descended into human consciousness at the time of the Renaissance captured the higher mind and intelligence the Ray touched as it were the frontal lobe of the brain; the later descent touched the heart, the feelings and emotive sensibility, it evoked more vibrant, living and powerful perceptions, created varied and dynamic sense-complexes, new idealisms and aspirations. The manifestation of Power, the descent or inrush of forcemighty and terriblehas been well recognised and experienced in the great French Revolution. A violence came out from somewhere and seized man and society: man was thrown out of his gear, society broken to pieces. There came a change in the very character and even nature of man: and society had to be built upon other foundations. The past was gone. Divasa gatah. Something very similar has happened again more recently, in Russia. The French Revolution brought in the bourgeois culture, the Russian Revolution has rung in the Proletariate.
04.02 - A Chapter of Human Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Mind of Reason is a kind of steel-frame for other movements of consciousness pure ideas, imaginations or instinctive and sensory notions, or even secret intimations and visions of deeper truths and greater realitiesto take body, to find a local habitation and name and be firmly stabilised for experience or utilisation in physical life. There was indeed a hiatus in the human consciousness of the earlier period. Take, for example, the earliest human civilisation at its best, of which we have historical record, the Vedic culture of India: human consciousness is here at its optimum, its depth and height is a thing of wonder. But between that world, an almost occult world and this world of the physical senses there is a gap. That world was occult precisely because of this gap. The physical life and mind could translate and represent the supra-physical only in figures and symbols; the impact was direct, but it expressed itself in hieroglyphs. Life itself was more or less a life of rites and ceremonies, and mind a field of metaphors and legends and parables. The parable, the myth was an inevitability with this type of consciousness and in such a world. The language spoken was also one of images and figures, expressing ideas and perceptions not in the abstract but as concrete objects, represented through concrete objects. It is the Mind of Reason that brought in the age of philosophy, the age of pure and abstract ideas, of the analytic language. A significant point to note is that it was in the Greek language that the pre-position, the backbone almost of the analytical language, started to have an independent and autonomous status. With the Greeks dawned the spirit of Science.
In India we meet a characteristic movement. As I said the Vedas represented the Mythic Age, the age when knowledge was gained or life moulded and developed through Vision and Revelation (Sruti, direct Hearing). The Upanishadic Age followed next. Here we may say the descending light touched the higher reaches of the Mind, the mind of pure, fundamental, typical ideas. The consciousness divested itself of much of the mythic and parabolic apparel and, although supremely immediate and intuitive, yet was bathed with the light of the day, the clear sunshine of the normal wakeful state. The first burgeoning of the Rational Mind proper, the stress of intellect and intellectuality started towards the end of the Upanishadic Age with the Mahabharata, for example and the Brahmanas. It flowered in full vigour, however, in the earlier philosophical schools, the Sankhyas perhaps, and in the great Buddhist illuminationBuddha being, we note with interest, almost a contemporary of Socrates and also of the Chinese philosopher or moralist Confuciusa triumvirate almost of mighty mental intelligence ruling over the whole globe and moulding for an entire cycle human culture and destiny. The very name Buddha is significant. It means, no doubt, the Awakened, but awakened in and through the intelligence, the mental Reason, buddhi. The Buddhist tradition is that the Buddhist cycle, the cycle over which Buddha reigns is for two thousand and five hundred years since his withdrawal which takes us, it seems, to about 1956 A.D.
04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We characterise the change as a special degree or order of self-consciousness. Self-consciousness, we have seen, is the sine qua non of humanity. It is the faculty or power by and with which man appears on earth and maintains himself as such, as a distinct species. Thanks to this faculty man has become the tool-making animal, the artisanhomo faber. But on emerging from the original mythopoeic to the scientific status man has become doubly self-conscious. Self-consciousness means to be aware of oneself as standing separate from and against the environment and the world and acting upon it as a free agent, exercising one's deliberate will. Now the first degree of self-consciousness displayed itself in a creative activity by which consciousness remained no longer a suffering organon, but became a growing and directing, a reacting and new-creating agent. Man gained the power to shape the order of Nature according to the order of his inner will and consciousness. This creative activity, the activity of the artisan, developed along two lines: first, artisanship with regard to one's own self, one's inner nature and character, and secondly, with regard to the external nature, the not-self. The former gave rise to mysticism and Yoga and was especially cultivated in India, while the second has led us to Science, man's physical mastery, which is the especial field of European culture.
Now the second degree of self-consciousness to which we referred is the scientific consciousness par excellence. It can be described also as the spirit and power of experimentation, or more precisely, of scientific experimentation: it involves generically the process with which we are familiar in the domain of industry and is termed synthetic, that is to say, it means the skill and capacity to create the conditions under which a given phenomenon can be repeated at will. Hence it means a perfect knowledge of the process of thingswhich again is a dual knowledge: (1) the knowledge of the steps gradually leading to the result and (2) the knowledge that has the power to resolve the result into its antecedent conditions. Thus the knowledge of the mechanism, the detailed working of things, is scientific knowledge, and therefore scientific knowledge can be truly said to be mechanistic knowledge, in the best sense of the term. Now the knowledge of the ends and the knowledge of the means (to use a phrase of Aldous Huxley) and the conscious control over either have given humanity a new degree of self-consciousness.
04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus consciousness is not merely a status of being, but also a force of becoming. All that is to take form and be active, whether in the grossest, the material mode or in the most subtle, the ideative mode is originally a seed, a stress, a point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or is close to the Divine (slokya), he is not merely made in the image of the Divine (srpya), and again he is not merely unified and one with the Divine (syujya) but what is most marvellous, he has the same nature, that is to say, he has the same powers and capacities as the Divine (sdharmya).
The dynamic becoming, becoming a power and personality of the omnipotent Divine, is a secret well known to the Yogis and mystics. Only it has not been worked out in all its implications, not given the full value and importance rightfully due to it. The reason is that although the principle was discovered and admitted, the proper key had not been found that could release and manipulate the Energy at its highest potential and largest amplitude. Because the major tendency in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the path of nivtti than the path of pravtti, this latter path being more or less identified with the path of Ignorance. But there is a higher line of pravtti which means the manifestation of the Divine, not merely the expression of the inferior Nature.
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Man, we thus see, is an infinitely composite being. We have referred to the four or five major chords in him, but each one has again innumerable gradations of vibration. Man is a bundle or dynamo of energy and this energy is nothing but the force of consciousness. To different modes or potentials of this energy different names are given. And what makes the thing still more complex is that all these elements exist simultaneously and act simultaneously, although in various degrees and stresses. They act upon each other, and severally and collectively impress upon the nature and character of the individual being and mould and direct his physical status and pragmatic life. A man can, however, take consciously a definite position and status, identify himself with a particular form and force of consciousness and build his being and life in the truth and rhythm of that consciousness. Naturally the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on the physical plane in mundane affairsBuddha, it is said, for example, has not been able to rid the earth or age, disease and death (although it was not Buddha's intention to do so, his purpose was to show a way of escape, of bypassing the ills of life, and in that he wholly succeeded)it only means that the right mode or potential of spiritual energy has not been found; for that matter even the mightiest mundane forces are not sovereignly effective in mundane affairs, otherwise the Nazi-Force would have been ruling the world today.
Still it must be remembered that all these apparently diverse layers and degrees of being or consciousness or energy form essentially one indivisible unity and identity. What is called the highest and what is called the lowest are not in reality absolutely disparate and incommensurable entities: everywhere it is the highest that lies secreted and reigns supreme. The lowest is the highest itself seen from the reverse side, as it were: the norms and typal truths that obtain in the superconsciousness are also the very guiding formulas and principles in the secret heart of the Inconscience too, only they appear externally as deformations and caricatures of their true reality. But even here we can tap and release the full force of a superconscient energy. A particle of dead matter, we know today, is a mass of stilled energy, electrical and radiant in nature; even so an apparently inconscient entity is a packet of Superconsciousness in its highest potential of energy. The secret of releasing this atomic energy of the Spirit is found in the Science of Yoga.
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Spirit is not the static transcendent absolute entity only. It is dynamic Force, creative conscious Energy. The spiritual is not mere silence and status it is expression and movement also. Any silence and any status are not the silence and the status of the Spirit the silence and status of death, for example; so too any expression and movement are not of the Spirit either but this does not mean that the Spirit cannot have its own expression and movement. God too likewise is not a mere supracosmic beinga somewhat aggrandised human beingtreating and dominating man and the world as something foreign and essentially antagonistic to his nature. God himself has made himself all creatures and all worlds. He is That and He is This fundamentally and integrally. Again, at the other end, Matter is not mere dead mechanical matter. It is vibrant energy, but energy that conceals within it life and consciousness. Besides, the whirl and motion of energies is not all, something inherently static looms large behind: you call it ether, field, space or substratumit is being, one would like to say, infused with a secret consciousness and will.
We say then, symbolically at least, if not literally, that the West is looking to the East for this revelation towards which it is groping or moving in its own way: the secret spirit-consciousness that is alive in and through the material cosmos, that alone gives its total sense and significance. And the secret spirit must embody itself here below in material life, the status must be made supremely dynamic the transcendent consciousness, even while maintaining its transcendence, has to deploy its immanence in things of the earth and earthly existence. That is what the West brings to the East; that is what the Scientific and materialist look and labour offer to be integrated into the aspiration and realisation of the East.
So then we say that the East starts from the summit and surveys reality from above downwards, while the West starts from below and works upward. The two complementary movements can be described in several other graphic terms. Instead of a movement from the summit to the base and of another from the base to the apex, that is to say, a movement of ascent and of descent, we can speak of a movement from within outward and of that from outside inward, that is to say, from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre; we can speak also of a movement of contraction, withdrawal or concentration and a movement of expansion; and expression and diffusion. Again, we can refer to a vertical movement and a horizontal movement. All however express the same truth. We postulate one reality, take our stand upon that and work our way towards the other; the two together form the total reality and together can they give the integral life fulfilment.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such then is the destiny of man and mankindman to rise to higher heights of consciousness beyond mental reason that are not governed by the principle of division, separation, antithesis but by the principle of unity, identity, mutuality and totality. In other words, he will take his seat in the status of his soul, his inner and inmost being, his divine personality where he is one with all beings and with the world. This is a rare and difficult realisation for man as he is today, but tomorrow it will be his normal nature. The individual will live in his total being and therefore in and through other individuals; as a consequence the nature too in each will undergo a divine transmutation, a marvellous sea-change.
Humanity as a race will then present the figure of a homogeneous unitit will be a unity of many diversified elements, not simply, however, a composition of discrete individuals, but of varied aggregations of individualseven as the body is not merely composed of cells, but also these cells are collected in aggregates forming various limbs and systems, each again with its own identity and function. Indeed, the cosmic or global humanity is very likely to be pyramidal in structurenot a flat and level construction. There will be an overall harmony and integration containing a rich variety of gradationsgradations of consciousness, as even now there are: only the whole will be more luminous, that is to say, more conscious and more concordant; for at the top, on the higher levels, new lights will show themselves and men embodying those lights. They will radiate and spread out, infiltrate into the lower ranges something of their enlightenment and harmony and happiness which will bring about a global purification and a new dispensation; even the material world, the vegetable and mineral domains too may be taken up into this luminous consummation and earth become the Garden of Eden that it once was, suffused with a new glory.
04.04 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the I infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience of a cosmic and transcendental reality does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alterations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a typal domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or evolution.
Is it so in fact? For, if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an annamaya purua; then he raised himself and centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a prnamaya purua; next he climbed into the mental consciousness and became a maomaya purua; from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned according to the central character, the lawdharmaof that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pau bhva), the heroic (vra bhva) and the godly or divine (deva bhva). The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.
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As we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook, rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape from them into some thing beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that (neti): the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.
But once there is the possibility gained of a more normalised, familiar and wider reconnaissance of the Beyond, when the human being has been mentalised to a degree and in a manner that makes it inevitable for him to overpass to a higher status and live there habitually, then it becomes an urgent matter of concern to know and find out where one goes exactly, on which level and in what domain, once one is beyond. The question, it is true, engaged the attention of the ancients too; but it was more or less an interesting inquiry, a good part speculative and theoretical; it had not the reality and insistence of the need of the hour. We have today chalked out an almost exhaustive science of the inferior consciousness, of the lower hemisphereof course, so far as it is possible for such a science to be exhaustive moving in the light of the partial and inferior consciousness. In the same way we need at the present hour a complete and precise science of the Divine Consciousness. As there is a logic of the finite, there is also a logic of the infinite, not merely its magic, and that too has to be discovered and laid out.
Thus, the highest and most comprehensive description of the Divine is perhaps the formula Sat-chit-ananda. But even so, it is a very general and, after all, an inadequate description. It has to be filled in and supplemented by other categories as well, if one may say so. For Sat-chit-ananda presents to us the Sat Brahman. There is also the Asat Brahman. And again we must accept a reality which is neither Sat nor Asatnsadsnno sadst, says the Veda. And as for the filling up of the details in an otherwise almost blank and featureless infinity, Sri Aurobindo's charting of that vast unknownwith the categories of the Supermind and its various levels, of the Overmind and its levels too, all forming the Divine status and Consciousness is a new, almost a revolutionary revelation, just the required science which the present world needs and demands and for which it has been prepared through all the cycles of evolution.
This means to say that with the knowledge that is given us today, one can determine more or less definitely the altitudes to which the various spiritual realisations of the past rose and one can see also the degrees or graded stages of the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. A broad landmark can be noted here which concerns us at the present moment. The spiritual consciousness has been rising to higher and higher peaks and possessing them one after another. At the present moment we are at a crisis, at a crucial crossing. The spiritual consciousness attained till now and securely held in human possession (in man's inner nature) is confined to the highest level of the mind with some infiltration from the Overmind and through that, as a springing board, a leap into an indefinite, almost a blank Beyond. Now the time is come and the conditions are ready for the spiritual consciousness in humanity to arrive at the status above the Overmind to the Supermind, and make that a living reality and build in and through that its normal consciousness.
A progressive revelation of higher and higher and more integral states of the spiritual consciousness in and through the realisations of mystics and sages and seersdivine men of all ages, such is the process of evolution that marks the life of man upon earth. This spiritual evolution, however, may not be obviously visible in the external life and character of man: it has been a phenomenon more in his inner being and consciousness, an occult phenomenon. Hence there has intervened a veil, wall of separation between the two. The veil has not been rent precisely because the very highest spiritual potential has not been reached and brought into play. The call of the present age is just to do away with this veil, make of human nature a unified, a streamlined entity, a complete incarnation of the spiritual consciousness in the fullness of its own nature at its source and origin.
04.06 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one Reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience, of a cosmic and transcendental reality, does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alterations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a type domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or evolution.
Is it so in fact? For if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an annamaya purua; then he raised himself and was centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a pramaya purua ; next the climbed into the mental consciousness and became the manomaya purua; from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned' according to the central character, the lawdharmaof that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of grow and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pau bhva) the heroic (Vra bhva) and the godly or divine (deva bhva). The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.
--
As we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook, rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape, from them into something beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that (neti): the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.
But once there is the possibility gained of a more normalised, familiar and wider reconnaissance of the Beyond, when the human being has been mentalised to a degree and in a manner that makes it inevitable for him to overpass to a higher status and live there habitually, then it becomes an urgent matter of concern to know and find out where one goes exactly, on which level and in what domain, once one is beyond. The question, it is true, engaged the attention of the ancients too; but it was more or less an interesting enquiry, a good part speculative and theoretical; it had not the reality and insistence of the need of the hour. We have today chalked out an almost exhaustive science of the inferior consciousness, of the lower hemisphereof course, so far as it is possible for such a science to be exhaustive moving in the light of the partial and inferior consciousness. In the same way we need at the present hour a complete and precise science of the Divine Consciousness. As there is a logic of the finite, there is also a logic of the infinite, not merely its magic, and that too has to be discovered and laid out.
Thus, the highest and most comprehensive description of the Divine is perhaps the formula Sat-chit-ananda. But even so, it is a very general and, after all, an inadequate description. It has to be filled in and supplemented by other categories as well, if one may say so. For Sat-chit-ananda presents to us the Sat Brahman. There is also the Asat Brahman. And again we must accept a reality which is neither Sat nor Asatnsadsnno sadst, says the Veda. And as for the filling up of the details in an otherwise almost blank and featureless infinity, Sri Aurobindo's charting of that vast unknownwith the categories of the Supermind and its various levels, of the Overmind and its levels too, all forming the Divine status and Consciousness is a new, almost a revolutionary revelation, just the required science which the present world needs and demands and for which it has been prepared through all the cycles of evolution.
This means that with the knowledge that is given us today one can determine more or less definitely the altitudes to which the various spiritual realisations of the past rose and one can see also the degrees or graded stages of the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. A broad landmark can be noted here which concerns us at the present moment. The spiritual consciousness has been rising to higher and higher peaks and possessing them one after another. At the present moment we are at a crisis, at a crucial crossing. The spiritual consciousness attained till now and securely held in human possession (in man's inner nature) is confined to the highest level of the mind with some infiltration from the Overmind and through that, as a springing board, a leap into an indefinite, almost a blank Beyond. Now the time is come and the conditions are ready for the spiritual consciousness in humanity to arrive at the status above the Overmind, the Supermind, and make that a living reality and build in and through that its normal consciousness.
A progressive revelation of higher and higher and more integral states of the spiritual consciousness in and through the realisations of mystics and sages and seersdivine menof all ages, such is the process of evolution that marks the life of man upon earth. This spiritual evolution, however, may not be obviously visible in the external life and character of man: it has been a phenomenon more in his inner being and consciousness, an occult phenomenon. Hence there has intervened a veil, a wall of separation between the two. The veil has not been rent precisely because the very highest spiritual potential has not been reached and brought into play. The call of the present age is just to do away with this veil, make of human nature a unified, a streamlined entity, a complete incarnation of the spiritual consciousness in the fullness of its own nature at its source and origin.
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Once in this status of the divine consciousness, one passes beyond the three Gunas. That is to say, one bids good-bye to one's (the human sense of) freedom and option or choice. One can say no longer, I cannot do it, for it seems immoral, I have to do that, because that seems good. One goes beyond good and bad and awaits the divine command. One does what one is ordered to do from above, what is needed to fulfil the Cosmic Purpose. You do not act then, it is the Divine who acts in you.
It may be asked if even then there are not some types of activity and impulsion that are intrinsically evil, undivine they can under no circumstances be godly or God's instruments, they have to be rejected, cast aside in the very beginning, also in the middle and naturally in the end. But it must be remembered that the human mind cannot be the judge of what is divine or undivine, there are things the Divine may sanction which the mental being fights shy of. It must leave into the Divine to choose His instrument and His mode of activityit is sufficient if the mental being knows by whom it is impelled and where it falls as an arrow shot to its mark: keneitam patati preitam.6
04.07 - Readings in Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Savitri, the Divine Grace in human form, is upon earth. The Divine Consciousness has abandoned its own supreme transcendental status to enter into the human consciousness and partake of the earthly life: it has taken up a mortal frame, to live and dwell here below. Only thus she can transform the lower animal nature into the divine nature, raise man to godhead, make of earth heaven itself:
A prodigal of her rich divinity,
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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Value refers to the particular poise or status, the mode of being or function of a thing. In its ultimate formulation we can say it is the rhythm or force of consciousness that vibrates in an object, it is the becomingof the being:but becoming does not cancel being, it only activises, energises, formulates. The debate brings us back to the ancient quarrel between the Buddhists and the Vedantists, the latter posits sat, being or existence, while the former considers sat as only an assemblage of asat. The object and its function, the thing-in-itself and its attribute (the fire and its burning power, as the Indian logicians used to cite familiarly as an example) are not to be separated they are not separated in fact but given together as one unified entity; it is the logical mind that separates them artificially.
III
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The crucial problem however lies, in a sense, in the way that the goal is to be reached, in the modus operandi. How is the higher status, whatever it is, to be brought down, made effective, be established here on earth and in life. Ideals there have been always and many; evidently we do not know how to go about the business and actualise what is thought and dreamed. About the new ideal too, suggestions have been made with regard to the path to be followed to reach it and are being tried and tested. Some say a life of inner or ethical discipline, conscious effort on the part of each Individual for his own sake is needed: the higher reality must be reached first by a few individuals, it cannot be attained by 'mass action. Others declare that personal effort will not lead very far; if there is to be a great or fundamental change in human nature, it is the Divine Grace alone that can bring it about. The surpassing of man is a miracle and only the supreme magician as an Avatara can do it. Others, again, are not prone to believe in a physical Incarnationsomewhat difficult usually for a European mind but would accept subtler forces or even superior beings, other than the human category, as aids and agents in the working out of the great future.
It is India's great achievement and speciality that she has found the way the way to all truly high fulfilment. It is Yoga and the Yogic consciousness. Yoga is the science and art of discovering the higher truths, indeed, the highest reality and of living there, not a midway moral elevation only. In its integral view it combines all the three processes mentioned above. The Yogic consciousness seeks to lift the consciousness as high as possible, in fact, to the very highestit literally means union or identity (with the highest Reality, Spirit or God). Thus it has the true perception or vision of the forces that act in and upon the world and the powers that decide and is in union with them. The Yogic consciousness and power is also embodied in the Divine Incarnation for he is Yogeshwara: and in India it is accepted as a commonplace that God descends in a human shape, whenever there is a great crisis and man needs salvaging and salvation. God comes then with all his angels, with the divine host to battle for him and with him to establish the Dharma.
05.01 - At the Origin of Ignorance, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine Consciousness, basically and essentially one and unique, has inherent in it four cardinal attributesprinciples of its modulation, modes of its vibrationdeveloping into or appearing as four aspects and personalities. They are Light, Force, Delight and Knowledge. Originally and in the supreme status the four movements are one and indivisible and form one indissoluble identity with the Divine's pure essence and absolute unity. The differentiation or variability there in the Immutable is a play immanent in the integral self-nature of the Supreme. The one and the many form on that level a single entity, an undivided whole: the unity running in and through and holding the multiplicity and the multiplicity being the playfulness of the unity. Multiplicity, however, implies freedom of movement in the Unique. In other words, the very character of variability is the absolute freedom of the variables; the play consists precisely in the free choice and self-determination of the partners, the differentiated units. For a formation in the Divine Consciousness, an individualised formulation of its being must necessarily have the Divine's own freedom. Now, the result of this freedom is somewhat unexpected, to put it in the human way, that is to say, it was not explicit at that point, in that field of consciousness. For the freedom, in the normal course of its play, reached a degree or arrived at a mode which brought about I a shift and an impulsion meaning a rift and a clear separation: I the momentum of the free movement carried the individual formation beyond the range of its sense of unity and identity with all and the One. More and more it isolated itself, limiting itself to its own orbit and to its own fund of energy. This isolation, it must be noted, occurs at the origin without any sense of perversity or revolt or disobedience on the part of the free entity, as the legend formulated by the human mind imaged it. The movement of freedom and individual formation in its urge crosses, as it were, a borderline, passes from the safe zone within the Divine's own status into a different zone, creates it, as a matter of fact, by that overzealous and self-concentrated free movement. But, as I have said, there is no premeditation or arrire pense or bad will or spirit of contradiction there at the origin of the deviation. It is no original sin: it is a spontaneous, almost a logical consequence, an inevitable expression of the freedom that particulars enjoy as part and parcel of the Divine Universal.
And yet the result is strange and revolutionary. The game once begun develops its own scheme and pattern and modality. For that crucial step in the movement of freedom, that definite moving away, the assertion of complete independence and isolation immediately brought about a reversal of realities, a complete negation of the original attri butes. Thus Light became obscurity or Inconscience, Life became death, Delight became pain and suffering, Power became incapacity, Knowledge became Ignorance, and Truth became falsehood. In other words, Spirit became forthright Matter.
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Three courses are open to the perfected and completely developed soul. First, it may remain, contented with its fullness, self-gathered and self-sufficient, dwelling in its own domain the psychic world and enjoying the even, equal, undisturbed felicity and beatitude of union with the Divine. This status may perhaps not be chosen by many or for a long time. The second line that the Psyche can adopt is to come down or remain upon earth and take a share in the fulfilment of the Divine Purpose in the world. That purpose is the transformation of the physical, making the material an embodiment of the divine Light and Power and Bliss and Immortality. A third development also may take place; this is not strictly speaking normal, not the logical and inevitable happening in the course of things, nor does it depend wholly upon any personal choice of the psychic being, so to say. It occurs when the force of a higher destiny operates, for a special work and at a special time. It is when the psychic being is contacted with, made to identify itself with, a godhead under a higher dispensation, when, in a word, a divinity descends into a human soul.
The gods are especial powers and executive agents of the one Divine. They move and act in a special way with a special end in view. They are, we may say, highbrow entities: they carry things with a high hand. That is to say, what they have got to do, they seek to do without any consideration or computation of the means, without regard to the pauses and hindrances that naturally attend all terrestrial and human achievements. God said, let there be light, and there was light. That is also the way of the gods. There is here an imperial majesty and grandeur, a sweeping mastery and sovereign indifference,
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Man possesses characters that mark him as an entity sui generis and give him the value that is his. First, toil and suffering and more failures than success have given him the quality of endurance and patience, of humility and quietness. That is the quality of earth-natureearth is always spoken of by the poets and seers as all-bearing and all-forgiving. She never protests under any load put upon her, never rises in revolt, never in a hurry or in worry, she goes on with her appointed labour silently, steadily, calmly, unflinchingly. Human consciousness can take infinite pains, go through the infinite details of execution, through countless repetitions and mazes: patience and perseverance are the very badge and blazon of the tribe. Ribhus, the artisans of immortalitychildren of Mahasaraswatiwere originally men, men who have laboured into godhood. Human nature knows to wait, wait infinitely, as it has all the eternity before it and can afford and is prepared to continue and persist life after life. I do not say that all men can do it and are of this nature; but there is this essential capacity in human nature. The gods, who are usually described as the very embodiment of calmness and firmness, of a serene and concentrated will to achieve, nevertheless suffer ill any delay or hindrance to their work. Man has not perhaps the even tenor, the steadiness of their movement, even though intense and fast flowing; but what man possesses is persistence through ups and downshis path is rugged with rise and fall, as the poet says. The steadiness or the staying power of the gods contains something of the nature of indifference, something hard in its grain, not unlike a crystal or a diamond. But human patience, when it has formed and taken shape, possesses a mellowness, an understanding, a sweet reasonableness and a resilience all its own. And because of its intimacy with the tears of things, because of its long travail and calvary, human consciousness is suffused with a quality that is peculiarly human and humane that of sympathy, compassion, comprehension, the psychic feeling of closeness and oneness. The gods are, after all, egoistic; unless in their supreme supramental status where they are one and identical with the Divine himself; on the lower levels, in their own domains, they are separate, more or less immiscible entities, as it were; greater stress is laid here upon their individual functioning and fulfilment than upon their solidarity. Even if they have not the egoism of the Asuras that sets itself in revolt and antagonism to the Divine, still they have to the fullest extent the sense of a separate mission that each has to fulfil, which none else can fulfil and so each is bound rigidly to its own orbit of activity. There is no mixture in their workingsna me thate, as the Vedas say; the conflict of the later gods, the apple of discord that drove each to establish his hegemony over the rest, as narrated in the mythologies and popular legends, carry the difference to a degree natural to the human level and human modes and reactions. The egoism of the gods may have the gait of aristocracy about it, it has the aloofness and indifference and calm nonchalance that go often with nobility: it has a family likeness to the egoism of an ascetic, of a saintit is sttwic; still it is egoism. It may prove even more difficult to break and dissolve than the violent and ebullient rjasicpride of a vital being. Human failings in this respect are generally more complex and contain all shades and rhythms. And yet that is not the whole or dominant mystery of man's nature. His egoism is thwarted at every stepfrom outside, by, the force of circumstances, the force of counter-egoisms, and from inside, for there is there the thin little voice that always cuts across egoism's play and takes away from it something of its elemental blind momentum. The gods know not of this division in their nature, this schizophrenia, as the malady is termed nowadays, which is the source of the eternal strain of melancholy in human nature of which Matthew Arnold speaks, of the Shelleyan saddest thoughts: Nietzsche need not have gone elsewhere in his quest for the origin and birth of Tragedy. A Socrates discontented, the Christ as the Man of Sorrows, and Amitabha, the soul of pity and compassion are peculiarly human phenomena. They are not merely human weaknesses and failings that are to be brushed aside with a godlike disdain; but they contain and yield a deeper sap of life and out of them a richer fulfilment is being elaborated.
Human understanding, we know, is a tangled skein of light and shademore shade perhaps than lightof knowledge and ignorance, of ignorance straining towards knowledge. And yet this limited and earthly frame that mind is has something to give which even the overmind of the gods does not possess and needs. It is indeed a frame, even though perhaps a steel frame, to hold and fix the pattern of knowledge, that arranges, classifies, consolidates effective ideas, as they are translated into facts and events. It has not the initiative, the creative power of the vision of a god, but it is an indispensable aid, a precious instrument for the canalisation and expression of that vision, for the intimate application of the divine inspiration to physical life and external conduct. If nothing else, it is a sort of blue print which an engineer of life cannot forego if he has to execute his work of building a new life accurately and beautifully and perfectly.
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Divine Love is something aloof, apart, beyond. Even then it is there behind supporting, animating, helping all and everything. It is indeed the secret Delight in things. It is the sense of utter identity of Self and self. Its status is in the Transcendent where Love and Life and Light are fused together into one single absolute reality. When it expresses itself, that is to say, when it makes its presence felt as such in its supreme nature, it seems almost like indifference, so calm and tranquil and poised it is, wide and vast and far and away, unlike anything human. Indeed human consciousness would view it almost as heartlessness. It has the non-humanity of which A.E. speaks in those famous lines:
Like winds or waters were her ways:
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The gods are glorious beings; they are aspects and personalities of the Divine, presiding and ruling over the cosmic laws, each with his own truth and norm and dominion, although, in the higher status, all work together and harmoniously. Even then they do not possess a soul, a psychic core of being. They are forms and powers of consciousness organised round a divine truth, a typal Idea; but they do not have this exquisite presence secretly seated in the heart, which is the privilege of the terrestrial creature.
And the exquisiteness, the special quality of this inner Heart is mostly if not wholly derived from a particular factor of terrestrial evolution. For the journey here is a sacrifice, a passage through pain and suffering, even through frustration and death. The tears that accompany the mortal being in his calvary of an earthly life serve precisely as a holy unction of purification, give a sweet intensity to all his urges in the progressive march to Resurrection. This is the Immanent Divine who has to be worshipped and realised as much as the Transcendent Divine, if man is to fulfil himself wholly and earth justify its existence.
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As the human aspiration is to reach out towards divinity, the gods too at times are not satisfied with their closed divine status. They lean down to help humanity, to bring it up into their consciousness; but also they seek this contact and unification for their own sake, for a change and transformation in themselves; they may seek to rise further in a higher status of consciousness or they may wish to participate in the earthly travail, in the human endeavour. In either case the channel lies through the human consciousness. In the Vedas the gods always look to men, almost depend upon them for their own fulfilment and enrichment. Men ask the gods for wealth and plentymaterial as well as spiritual the gods too ask from men the sacrifice, the sacrifice that pours out the substance of the human reality upon which they feed and grow. The Gita speaks of the same covenant the interchange of gifts between the two, each increasing the other and both attaining the highest good.
Our dark destinies move under vast laws that nothing diverts, nothing softens. Thou canst not have sudden clemencies that disturb the world, O God, Spirit tranquil!Victor Hugo, A Villequier.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, it has been said, begins where other yogas end. Other yogas end by the attainment of the Brahman or some form or mode of it or something akin to it, which means the transcendent Reality, the supreme status of the Spirit beyond name and form, beyond all particular manifestation. It is the final realisation of the soul in its upward ascent, the nee plus ultra. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga takes that poise for granted and upon it bases its own development and structure. In other words, it works for the descent of the Spirit upon the level from which the Spirit worked up. The Mystery of the descent is the whole characteristic secret of this Yoga.
The general idea of a descent of the Spirit, that is to say, the Divine, the conception of avatra and avataraais, of course, not new. But here there is a difference. Avatara or Avatarana in the older disciplines was more or less an intervention of God as God, the working of a Force come specifically in the midst of the world circumstances, maintaining still its divine transcendental character, to work out a given problem, accomplish a special mission and then, when the work is done, retire to its own status. It is, as it were, a weapon of flame and light hurled into the earthly frayeven like the discus of Vishnu and having accomplished its mission, going back into the hand of the thrower, its fount and origin. The task of the Avatara was usually bhbhra-haraa, lightening earth's load: it means removing the sinful and preserving the virtuous, re-establishing the reign of Law. Esoterically, he also embodied the Way to spiritual fulfilment. There was no question of saving humanityit was more serving than savingby transfiguring it, giving it a new body and life and mind, nor was there any idea of raising the level of earth-consciousness.
The Divine acts in three different ways in his three well-known aspects. As the transcendent Reality he is above and beyond creation, he is the Unmanifest, although he may hold within either involved or dissolved the entire manifestation. Next, he is the manifestation, the cosmic or the universal; he is one with creation, immanent in it, still its master and lord. Finally, he has an individual aspect: he is a Person with whom human beings can enter into relations of love and service. The Divine incarnate as a human being, is a special manifestation of the Individual Divine. Even then, as an embodied earthly person, he may act in a way characteristic of any of the three aspects. The Divine descended upon earth, as viewed by Sri Aurobindo, does not come in his transscendental aspect, fundamentally aloof and away, in his absolute power and consciousness, working miracles here; for transcendence can do nothing but that in the midst of conditions left as they are. Nor does he manifest himself only as his cosmic power and consciousness, imbedded in the creation and all-pervading, exercising his influence through the pressure of Universal Law, perhaps in a concentrated form, still working gradually, step by step, as though through a logical process, for the maintenance of the natural order and harmony, lokasagraha. God can be more than that, individualised in a special, even a human sense. His individual being can and does hold within itself his cosmic and transcendental self covertly in a way but overtly too in a singular manner at the same time. The humanised personality of the Divine with his special role and function is at the very centre of Sri Aurobindo's solution of the world enigma. The little poem A God's Labour in its short compass outlines and explains beautifully the grand Mystery.
The usual idea of God (as the theists hold, for example) is that he is an infinite eternal impassible being, aloof from human toils and earthly turmoils, himself untouched by these and yet, in and through them, directing the world for an inscrutable purpose, unless it is for leaning towards it and stretching out the hand of Grace to those of the mortals who wish to come out of the nightmare of life, sever the coils of earthly existence. But the Divine in order to be and remain divine need not hold to his seat above and outside the creation, severely separated from his creatures. He can, on the contrary, become truly the ordinary man and labour as all others, yet maintaining his divinity and being conscious of it. After all, is not man, every human being, built in the same pattern, a composite of the earthly human element supported and infused by a secret divine element? However, God, the individual Divine, does become man, one of them and one with them. Only, his labour thereby increases manifold, hard and heavy, although for that very reason full of a bright rich multiple promise. The Divine's self-hurilanisation has for it a double purpose: (I) to show man by example how he can become what he truly is, how he can divinise himself: the Divine as man lives out the life of a sadhakawholly and completely; (2) to help concretely by his own force of consciousness the world and man in their endeavour for progress and evolution, to give the help wholly and completely from the innermost status of the self down to the most external physical body and the material field. This help again is a twofold function. The first is to make available, gather within easy reach, the high realisations, the spiritual treasures that are normally stored in a heaven somewhere else. The Divine Man brings down the divine attributes close to our earth, turns them from mere far possibilities into near probabilities, even imminent realities. They are made part and parcel, constituent elements of the earthly atmosphere, so that one has only to open one's mouth to brea the in, extend one's arms to seize and possess them: even to this opening and this gesture man is helped by the concrete touch and presence of the Divine. Further, the help and succour come in another way which is more intimate, more living and appealing to man.
A great mystery of existence, its central rub is the presence of Evil. All spiritual, generally all human endeavour has to face and answer this Sphinx. As he answers, so will be his fate. He cannot rise up even if he wishes, earth cannot progress even when there is the occasion, because of this besetting obstacle. It has many names and many forms. It is Sin or Satan in Christianity; Buddhism calls it Mara. In India it is generally known as Maya. Grief and sorrow, weakness and want, disease and death are its external and ubiquitous forms. It is a force of gravitation, as graphically named by a modern Christian mystic, that pulls man down, fixes him upon earth with its iron law of mortality, never allowing him to mount high and soar in the spiritual heavens. It has also been called the Wheel of Karma or the cycle of Ignorance. And the aim of all spiritual seekers has been to rise out of itsome-how, by force of tapasy, energy of concentrated will or divine Gracego through or by-pass and escape into the Beyond. This is the path of ascent I referred to at the outset. In this view it is taken for granted that this creation is transient and empty of happinessanityam asukham (Gita)it is anatta, empty of self or consciousness (Buddha) and it will be always so. The only way to deal with it, the way of the wise, is to discard it and pass over.
05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The soul in Nature grows along a definite line and the descent also of higher principles overarching that soul happens also in the same line connecting it with its archetype in the supreme status. This we may call the major line of development through various avataras one after another: but apart from this there may also be subsidiary formations that are its emanations or are added to it from elsewhere either temporarily or even permanently. The soul can put out derivative or ancillary emanations, parts of its being and consciousness, a mental or vital or even a subtle physical movement or formation which can take a body creating a temporary, a transient personality or enter into another's body and another personality in order to go through a necessary experience and gather an element needed for the growth of its being and consciousness. One can recall here the famous story of Shankaracharya Who entered into the body of a king (just dead, made him alive and lead the life of the king) in order to experience love and enjoyment, things of which, being a Sannyasi, he was innocent. Similarly one can take into one-self such parts and elements from others which he wishes to utilise for his growth and evolution. It is said that a man with low carnal instincts and impulses becomes an animal of that type in his next life. But perhaps it is truer to say that a part only the vital part of animal appetiteenters into or takes shape in an animal: the soul itself, the true or the whole being of the person, once become human, does not revert to animalhood. The animal portion in man that refuses to be taken up and integrated, sublimated into the higher human consciousness has to be satisfied and exhausted, as much as possible, in the animal way.
There is also the other question asked very often whether men and women always follow different lines of growth or whether there may be intermixture of the lines. Although the soul is sexless, still it may be said that on the whole there are these two lines, masculine and feminine; and generally a soul follows the same line in its incarnations. The soul difference is not in the sex as we know it; but there is a disposition and character that mark the difference and each type, masculine or feminine, is that because of some special role to fulfil, a particular kind of work to be done in a particular way. The difference is difficult to define exactly; but one may say, in the language of the mystics, that it "is the difference between the left hand and the right hand. The mystics refer to the two sides of consciousness, that of light and that of force (chit-tapas), that is to say, knowledge and power. It is not that the two are quite separate entities, they are together and grow together; but in actuality one aspect is more in front than the other. The masculine aspect is often termed as the right hand and the feminine as the left hand of the conscious being. And in a general way man represents the knowledge aspect the conceptual dynamism and woman represents the executive dynamism. This definition however should not be taken absolutely or rigidly. So it can be said that a woman generally remains a woman in all her births and man like-wise remains a man. Here too, although there may not be a central metamorphosis, there may be a partial change: that is to say a part of a mantoo womanish, so to saymay enter a woman and live and fulfil itself or exhaust there; and the masculine part of a woman also can identify itself with its type and pattern in a man. The difference, however, between Purusha and Prakriti, philosophically, seems to be very definite and clear; but in actuality, when they take form and embodiment, it is not easy to define the principles or qualities that mark out the two. At the source when the difference starts, it is a matter of stress and temper and not any so-called division of labour as human mind ordinarily understands it.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man too as a species has a generic personality, his prototype. Only, in opposition to the scientific view, that is an earlier phenomenon belonging to the very origin of things. Man in his essential form and reality is found at the source and beginning of creation. When the unmanifest Transcendent steps forward to manifest, when there is the first expression of typal variations in the infinite as the basis of physical creation, then and there appears Man in his essential and eternal divine form. He is there almost as a sentinel, guarding the passage from the formless to form. Indeed, he is the first original form of the formless. A certain poet says that man is the archetype of all living forms. A bird is a flying man, a fish a swimming man, a worm a crawling man, even a plant is but a rooted man. His form belongs to a region beyond even the first principles of creation. The first principles that bring out and shape and uphold the manifested universe are the trinity: Life, Light and Delightin other terms, Sachchidananda. The whole complex of the manifest universe is resolvable into that unity of triple status. But behind even this supernal, further on towards the final disappearance into the absolute Unmanifestsumming up, as it were, in him the whole manifestationstands this original primordial form, this first person, this archetypal Man.
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.
05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Religion is a worship of lesser gods; often, even, it is the worship of beings that are not gods at all but pose as gods, simulating their truth, usurping their status, acting arbitrarily in their divine name and aping their authority.
The pseudo-gods are not always evil, nor do they lead men only to perdition: their worship may often be useful, even salutary. But what these beings will not allow is to let man pass beyond a given frontier; they will not suffer him to rise in the scale of consciousness higher than a certain limit. Any attempt or turn towards a transcending of that limit they watch with jealous vigilance and suppress it with vehemence, even with violence. Within their domain, subject to their dharma, they accord to their worshippers prosperity and power, some-times perhaps even a certain elevation of consciousness.
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To go beyond all the dharmas of this threefold Lower Nature, attain to the Truth-Consciousness of the Fourth status, incarnate in all that we are, know, will, feel and do the Law or Dharma of the Spirit and of the Spirit alone, is what we mean by Spirituality.
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05.06 - The Birth of Maya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
For when the One Divine descended into the multiplicity of manifestation, when he cast out of himself an infinitely varied and graded existence, the undivine too became a possibility-an aspect, an appearance the farthest away from his original and highest status.
All possibilities are manifested in the Infinite and this line of descent too had to be followed to its uttermost, the entire range of its possibility to be exhausted, negated in its own realisation and brought back to the nature and substance of its Source.
05.07 - Man and Superman, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even so mankind, at the crucial parting of the ways, would very naturally look askance at the diminished value of many of its qualities and attri butes in the new status to come. First of all, as it has been pointed out, the intellect and reasoning power will have to surrender and abdicate. The very power by which man has attained his present high status and maintains it in the world has to be sacrificed for something else called intuition or revelation whose value and efficacy are unknown and have to be rigorously tested. Anyhow, is not the known devil by far and large preferable to the unknown entity? And then the zest of life, peculiar to man, that works through contradictionsdelight and suffering, victory and defeat, war and peace, doubt and knowledge, all the play of light and shade, the spirit of adventure, of combat and struggle and heroic effort, will have to go and give place to something, peaceful and harmonious perhaps but monotonous, insipid, unprogressive. The very character of human life is its passion to battle through, even if it is not always through. For it is often said that the end or goal does not matter, the goal is always something uncertain; it is the way, the means, the immediate action that is of supreme consequence: for it is that that tests man's manhood, gives him the value he may have. And above all man is asked to give up the very thing which he has laboured to build up through millenniums of his terrestrial life, his individuality, his personality, for the demand is that he must lose his ego in order to attain the superhuman status.
So, the probability is that a large part of humanity will remain wedded to the normal human life. But this does not lessen in any way the value, the tremendous importance of what happens to the other part, may be, not insignificant or inconsiderable. Along with those that doubt and deny, there will be those who believe and affirm, who will stand for divinisation, whatever dehumanisation it may imply.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In any case, at the end of all our peregrinations we seem to circle back to our original Cartesian-cum-Berkeleyean position; we discover that it is not easy to extricate the observed from the observer: the observer is so deep set in the observed, part and parcel of it that there are scientists who consider their whole scientific scheme of the world as only a mental set-up, we may replace it very soon by another scheme equally cogent, subjective all the same. The subject has entered into all objects and any definition of the object must necessarily depend upon the particular poise of the subject. That is the cosmic immanence of the Purusha spoken of in the Upanishads the one Purusha become many and installed in the heart of each and, every object. There is indeed a status of the Subject in which the subject and the object are gathered into or form one reality. The observer and the observed are the two ends, the polarisation of a single entity: and all are reals at that level. But the scientific observer is only the mental purusha and in his observation the absolute objectivisation is not possible. The Einsteinian equations that purport to rule out all local view-points can hardly be said to have transcended the co-ordinates of the subject. That is possible only to the consciousness of the cosmic Purusha.
II
05.08 - True Charity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
True charity consists in laying the healing balm upon the sore that lies hidden behind all external miseries which derive from that source and sustainer. And it is in the sole possession of him alone who has found the bliss of the Spirit and dwells in it always. Such a person does not require external accessories for his work of healing and comforting. He need do nothing apparently; he may even appear to be aloof and indifferent. But his presence itself is a healing power: the patient feels it and wonders at the ease and happiness that come into him as if from nowhere. Many physicians have this kind of healing power; indeed without that, a mere medical man, with his pharmacopoeia, is no physician. It may not be well known and recognised, but it is a fact that a good part of the efficacy of medicines lies in the subtle influence, the vital health, that the doctor puts into his medicine or even directly into the body of his patient. And in the case of a spiritual Bhishak, the power can be raised to the nth degree. The healer need not even be present at all physically near the patient; his influence can act very well from any distance. It is quite natural and inevitable that it should be so. For the healing power is in the spiritual consciousness, the inalienable bliss of one's status in the Spirit. One becomes identified with each and every objectperson or thingin one's own self, in the true being and substance; and the light and happiness that one possesses there inalienably go out in a spontaneous flow to others who are not really others but integral parts and portions of the same self.
This condition is attained, fully and sovereignly, when there is absolute egolessness, when there is no consciousness of a separate person, the dual consciousness of the helper and the helped, the reformer and the reformed, the doctor and the patient. The normal human sense of values is based upon such a division, upon egohood, mamatvam. A philanthropic man helps others through a sense of sympathy giving rise to a sense of duty and obligation. This feeling of pity, of commiseration is dangerous, for it puts you in a frame of mind that tends to make you look down upon, take a superior air towards your object of pity. You become self-conscious, with the consciousness of your inferior self, that you are helping others, doing good to the world, doing something that raises your value: this sense of personal merit is only another name for vanity. Vanity and ambition are the motive powers that lie behind the philanthropical spirit born of sympathy. To denote a shade of meaning different from what is usually conveyed by the word sympathy, modern psychology has I found another wordempathy. Sympathy may be said to be the relation or contact between two egos; it is a link or bridge between two separate and independent entities; empathy, on the other hand, means the entering into the I very being and consciousness of another, becoming that other one; it is identification and identity. This again is what I spiritual consciousness alone can do. Sympathy leads to! philanthropy, empathy is the origin of true charity, the spiritual I compassion of a Buddha or a Christ. Philanthropy is human, I charity (caritas) is divine.
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We may illustrate here a little. At the apex of the pyramid of existence is the Divine, the Supreme Person, the Purushottama. Even there as He begins to lean and look dawn, He expresses himself at the very outset as the dual personality of Ishwara and Shakti (the Divine Father and the Divine Mother)sa dvityam aicchat, as the Upanishad says. That is still the Divine in His highest transcendent status, partpara. Next, this dual or biune or divalent reality shows itself or throws itself further out in a fourfold valency of the dynamic truth consciousness, creating and leading the cosmic evolution. The Four Aspects of Ishwara, forming the male or purua line, are the great names: Mahavira, Balarama, Pradyumna and Aniruddha. And the corresponding four aspects of Ishwari form the other great quaternary: Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. They embody the four major attri butes of the Divine in his relation to the created universe: Knowledge, Power, Love and skill in work. They also represent thus a divine fourfold order. The first embodies the Brahmin quality of large wisdom, wide comprehension, a vast consciousness; the second has the Kshatriya quality of force, dynamism, concentration and drive of energy; the third possesses the Vaishya quality of harmony, beauty, mutuality and the fourth has the Shudra quality of perfect execution, thoroughness in detailed working, order and arrangement.
The higher Gods, like those, for example, envisaged in the Veda, may be considered each as an emanation of one or other of these Divine Aspects. They are dwellers of Swar or the Overmind. Varuna seems to be an emanation of Mahavira, a son of Maheshwari: for he is pre-eminently the god of the pure and vast consciousness who releases us from the triple bonds and shows us the winding way into the embrace of the infinite Mother. His associate, Mitra, is the lord of love and harmony, evidently an emanation of Pradyumna (or Mahalakshmi). Other gods of the same category are Bhaga and Soma. The Balarama or Mahakali aspect is manifested in Aryaman: Rudra being another form of the same. And Mahasaraswati (or Aniruddha) must have given birth to and inspired the Ribhus, who are artisans of divinity. The Puranic trinityBrahma, Vishnu and Shivawith lndra as the fourth member forms a parallel system embodying a similar conception.
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First then there are the supreme divinities, aspects or own personalities of the Divine in his supreme status, the Super-mind; next come the first emanations, the true or pure gods in the Overmind. Thence or simultaneously there is the line of deformation, that of the false gods and godheads, the Asuras and Titans. These too extend in a series of emanations down to the subtle physical; except when they themselves incarnate on the earth in an earthly body.
Man, the soul, we said, comes direct from the Divine and is thrown and almost stuck into the earth as a spark, as a point of luminous consciousness-force. This soul, as it develops, we find, belongs to one or other of the fundamental type of divine personality, it is a lineal descendant, as it were, of one of the quaternary and its growth means growing into the nature of that particular godhead and its fulfilment means identification with that.
05.15 - Sartrian Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"Freedom is not abeing: it is thebeing of man, that is to say, his not-being". A very cryptic mantra. Let us try to unveil the Shekinah. "Being" means "being" i.e. existing, something persisting, continuing in the same condition, something fixed, a status. Freedom is not a thingof that kind, it is movement: even so, it is not a continuous movement. According to Bergson, the true, the ultimate reality is a continuity of urge (lan vital); according to Sartre, however, in line with the trend of modern scientific knowledge, the reality is an assemblage of discrete units of energy, packets or quanta. So freedom is an urge, a spurt (jaillissement):it acts in a disconnected fashion and it is absolute and unconditional. It is veritably the wind that bloweth where it listeth. It has no purpose, no direction, no relation: for all those attributes or definitions would annul its absoluteness. It does not stop or halt or dwell upon, it bursts forth and passes. It does not exist, that is stay: therefore it is non-being. Man's being then consist of a conglomeration (ensemble)of such freedoms. And that is the whole reality ofman, his very essence. We have said that a heavy sense of responsibility hangs upon the .free Purusha: but it appears the Sartrian Purusha is a divided personality. In spite of the sense of responsibility (or because of it?) he acts irresponsibly; for, acting otherwise would not be freedom. So then this essence, the self-consciousness, self-existence, presence in oneself is not a status, a fixed standing entity: it is not a point, even if geometrical; it is, Sartre describes, the jet from one point to another, for, real point there is none: so it is the emptiness behind all concrete realities that is the true reality, asat brahman, unyamto Sartre that is freedom, freedom absolute and ultimate.
Practically this conception of freedom brings into high relief, makes almost all in all, only one aspect, one character or attri bute of freedom: the abolition of all ties and obligations and relations beyond oneself involving a hollow self-sufficiency. Naturally such an outlook requires against it a complementary one, even if it is not to correct and complete, at least to support and implement it. Sartre too cannot ignore the fact that the free being is not an isolated phenomenon in the world; it exists along with and in the company of others of the same nature and quality. Indeed human society is that in essence, an association of freedoms, although these movements of freedom are camouflaged in appearance and are not recognised by the free persons themselves. The interaction between the free persons, the reflection of oneself in others and the mutual dependence of egos is a constant theme in the novels and plays of Sartre.
05.19 - Lone to the Lone, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When one is a member of the crowd, he has no personality or individuality, he is an amorphous mass, moving helplessly in the current of life, driven by Nature-force as it pleases her: spiritual life begins by withdrawing oneself from this flow of Ignorance and building up or taking cognisance of one's true person and being. When one possesses oneself integrally, is settled in the armature of one's spirit self, he has most naturally turned away from the inferior personalities of his own being and the comradeship also of people in bondage and ignorance. But then one need not stop at this purely negative poise: one can move up and arrive at a positive status, a new revaluation and reaffirmation. For when the divine selfhood is attained, one is no longer sole or solitary. Indeed, the solitariness or loneliness that is attributed to the spiritual status is a human way of viewing the experience: that is the impression left on the normal mind consciousness when the Purusha soars out of it, upwards from the life of the world to the life of the Spirit. But the soul, the true spiritual being in the individual, is not and cannot be an isolated entity; the nature of the spiritual consciousness is first transcendence, no doubt, transcendence of the merely temporal and ephemeral, but it is also universalisation, that is to say, the cosmic realisation that has its classic expression in the famous mantra of the Gita, he who sees himself in other selves and other selves in his own self. In that status "own" and "other" are not distinct or contrary things, but aspects of the one and the same reality, different stresses in one rhythm.
The flight then represents the freedom, the movement in height of the soul; but there is also the other, the horizontal movement leading to expansiveness and comprehension. One is transcendental, the other global or cosmic. First we have to reject, reject the false formations one by one (sheath by sheath, as it is described in the Upanishads) and arrive at the purest core of truth and reality; but again we have to come back, take up a new, the true formation. What was renounced has to be reintegrated in the divine becoming. While we are in Ignorance, our relations with men and the world are false and, ignorant, but once we attain our true self, we find the same self in men and things and we have no more revulsion for themtato na vijigupsate.
05.26 - The Soul in Anguish, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It seems that the School of Anguish is on the borderl and between the second and the third stage, that is to say, the vital rising into the mental or the mental still carrying an impress of the vital consciousness. It is the emergence of the Purusha consciousness, the individual being in its heart of hearts, in its pure status: for it is that that truly evolves, progresses from level to level, deploying and marshalling according to its stress and scheme the play of its outward nature. Now the Purusha consciousness, as separate from the outward nature, has certain marked characteristics which have been fairly observed and comprehended by the exponents of the school we are dealing with. Sartre, for example, characterises this beingtre en soi, as distinguished from tre pour soi which is something like dynamic purusha or purusha identified or associated with prakrtias composed of the sense of absolute freedom, of full responsibility, of unhindered choice and initiation. Indeed, Purusha is freedom, for in its own status it means liberation from all obligations to Prakriti. But such freedom brings in its train, not necessarily always but under certain conditions, a terrible sense of being all alone, of infinite loneliness. One is oneself, naked and face to face with one's singleness and unbreakable, unsharable individual unity. The others come as a product or corollary to this original sui generisentity. Along with the sense of freedom and choice or responsibility and loneness, there is added and gets ingrained into it the sense of fear and anxiety the anguish (Angst). The burden that freedom and loneliness brings seems to be too great. The Purusha that has risen completely into the mental zone becomes wholly a witness, as the Sankhyans discovered, and all the movements of his nature appear outside, as if foreign: an absolute calm and unperturbed tranquillity or indifference is his character. But it is not so with regard to the being that has still one foot imbedded in the lower region of the vital consciousness; for that indeed is the proper region of anguish, of fear and apprehension, and it is there that the soul becoming conscious of itself and separate from others feels lone, lonely, companionless, without support, as it were. The mentalised vital Purusha suffers from this peculiar night of the soul. Sartre's outlook is shot through with very many experiences of this intermediary zone of consciousness.
The being immersed in Prakriti, as normally it is, in relation and communion with others, may entertain as a pleasure and luxury, the illusion of its separateness and freedom: it can do so at ease, because it feels it has the secret support of its environment, it is courageous because it feels itself in good company. But once it rises out of the environmental level and stands truly apart and outside itit is the mental being which can do so more or less successfully the first feeling is that of freedom, no doubt, but along with it there is also the uncanny sense of isolation, of heavy responsibility, also a certain impotence, a loss of bearings. The normal Cartesian Co-ordinates, as it were, are gone and the being does not know where to look for the higher multi-dimensional co-ordinates. That is the real meaning of the Anguish which suddenly invades a being at a certain stage of his ascending consciousness.
05.27 - The Nature of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How is the harmony to be brought about in the human system composed of so many different and discordant factors, forms and forces of consciousness? It is not possible if one tries to make them accommodate each other, tone down the individual acuities and angularities, blunt or cut out the extreme expressions and effect some sort of a compromise or a pact of goodwill. It is not the Greek ideal of the golden mean nor is it akin to the modern democratic ideal which lays down that each element is freeto grow and possessto the extent that it allows the same freedom to every other element. No, for true harmony one has to go behind and beyond the apparent divergences to a secret being or status of consciousness, the bed-rock of existence where all divergences are resolved and find their inherent and inalienable unity, their single origin and basis. If one gets there and takes one's stand upon that absolute oneness, then and then only the perfect harmony of all the diversities that naturally rise out of it as its self-expression becomes possible, not only possible but inevitable.
That bed-rock is one's inmost spiritual being, the divine consciousness which is at once an individual centre, a cosmic or universal field of existence and a transcendent truth and reality. With that as the nucleus and around it the whole system has to be arranged and organised: according to the demand of the will and vision composing that consciousness, life has to manifest itself and play out its appointed role. Its configuration or disposition will be wholly determined by the Divine Purpose working in and through it; its fullness will be the fullness of the Divine Presence and intention. The mind will be wholly illumined, the vital with it will become the pure energy of Consciousness and the physical body will be made out of the substance of the divine being: our humanity will be the home and sanctuary of the Divine.
05.29 - Vengeance is Mine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Do we then propose taking it all lying down, it may be asked? Is martyrdom then our ideal? Not so, for we do not believe that evil forces can be appeased or conquered or transformed by yielding to them, letting them free to have their own way. Otherwise Krishna would not have enjoined and inspired (almost incited) Arjuna to enter on a bloody battle. Still forces, whether good or bad, are conquered or quelled or transformed truly and permanently by forces that belong not to the same level of being or consciousness, but to a higher one. Instead of working in a parallelogram of forces, we must take recourse, as it were, to a pyramid of forces. We know of the ideal of soul-force standing against and seeking to persuade or peacefully subdue brute force. It is not an impossibility; only we must be able really to get to the true soul and not a semblance or substitute of it. The true soul is .man's spiritual or divine being the consciousness in which man is one in substance and nature with God. It is not a mere thought formation, a mental and moral ideal. The only force that can succeed against a lower or undivine force is God's own force and the success can be complete and absolute by the calling in or intervention of God's force in its highest status. Anything less than that will be no more than a temporary lull or adjustment.
The world is not changed in spite of many efforts, because man is always taking to human means, he is not allowing God to do God's work, but putting his own individual initiative in God's place, taking perhaps God's name on the lips with a secret, unconscious feeling that unless he himself does something nothing will be donekarthamiti manyate. Human means may achieve at its best a compromise, but no permanent solution: it is often the beginning of a worse situation, a greater disharmony and conflictpeace, it has been said, is only a preparation for war. That vicious circle can be and has to be cut by the razor-blade consciousness of the aspirant to life divine who by the clear and tranquil energy of his tapascan call down a divine interference in mortal affairs.
06.01 - The End of a Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now the same principle can be extended to the wider collective development. Civilisation has reached a status today when the next higher status can be and must be at-tempted. Man has risen to a considerable height in the mental sphere; the time and occasion are now here to step beyond into the supramental, the dynamically spiritual. Dangers are ahead, even around and close: all the forces of the infra-human, the submerged urges of animal atavism are pushing and pulling man down to a regression, to a reversion to type. The choice is indeed crucial. If the civilisation is to perish, it means mankind has to start over again its life course, begin, that is to say, at the baby stage, once more to go through the slow process of centuries to acquire the mastery that has been attained in the physical, the vital and the mental domains. Already there have been such lost periods in man's evolution now submerged in his consciousness and their gains are being with difficulty recovered. But a landslide at this critical hour will be a colossal catastrophehumanly speaking, something almost irremediable.
For here is the sense of the crisis. The mantra given for the new age is that man shall be transcended and in the process, man, as he is, shall go. Man shall go, but something of the vehicle that the present cycle has prepared will remain. For, that precisely has been the function of the passing civilisation, especially in its later stages, viz, to build up a terrestrial temple for the Lord. The aberration and deformation, rampant today, mean only an excess of stress upon this aspect, upon the external presentation which was ignored or not sufficiently considered in the earlier and higher curves of the present civilisation. The spiritual values have gone down, because the material values came to be regarded as valueless and this upset the economy or balance in Nature. It is true that we have gone far, too far in our revanche. And the problem that faces us today is this: whether mankind will be able to change sufficiently and grow into the higher being that shall inhabit the earth as its crown in the coming cycle or, being unable, will go totally, disappear altogether or be relegated to the backwater of earthly life, somewhat like the aboriginal tribes of today.
06.05 - The Story of Creation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The one indivisible Reality and its pure consciousness: that is the origin. This Supreme Consciousness chose to objectify himself, bring himself out of himself, witness himself in play the Upanishad says, the One wished to have a second, a companion to himself, sa dwityam aichhat. This power of self-objectification is a free-will given to the consciousness to move out of its original unified status and move abroad and away, as it liked. Thus the Supreme saw himself as his own power of self-manifestation, and that is the Mother Consciousness, Adya Shakti, Aditiconsciousness-power, who again in her forward creative urge expressed herself in the first four major Emanations (Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati). But this free urge, free to separate itself and proceed in an independent movement of self-expression and evolution precipitated itself immediately, almost as a logical consequence of its career of free choice, into the Denial, the Negation that is inconscience. So, against the Supreme, the Divine Consciousness, there stood out the utter unconsciousness: the Light disappeared into absolute Darkness. It was the result of a self-choice in the consciousness: but the end was the very opposite of consciousness.
It was a dead silence, more silent than Death and more dead than Silence itself. And it was utter helplessness and hopelessness. The Divine Consciousness Aditisaw the terrible line of destiny that freedom had taken and ended in: she could stand it no longer and a cry went out for succour, for help. And the answer came immediate, a ray shot down from the one Supreme Consciousness and entered into the womb of Inconscience. Lo, the miracle, Matter was born, the first creation, the first manifestation of the Supreme Grace. Matter holds in it the spark of consciousness that is to grow and unfold itself, shine more and more into the enveloping gloom of Inconscience, illumining it farther and farther, pushing its frontiers ever backward and away.
06.11 - The Steps of the Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The complexity arises not only in extension, but also in depth. Man does not live on a single plane but on many planes at the same time. There is a scale of gradation in human consciousness: the higher one rises in the scale the greater the number of elements or personalities that one possesses. Whether one lives mostly or mainly on the physical or vital or mental plane or on any particular section of these planes or on planes above and beyond, there will be accordingly differences in the constitution or psycho-physical make-up of the individual personality. The higher one stands the richer the personality, because it lives not only on its own normal level, but also on all that are below and which it has transcended. The complete or integral man, some occultists say, possesses 365 personalities; indeed it may be much more. (The Vedas speak of the three and thirty-three and thirty-three hundred and thirty-three thousand gods that may be housed in the human vehicle the basic three being evidently the triple status or world of Body, Life and Mind).
What is the meaning of this self-contradiction, this division in man? To understand that we must know and remember that each person represents a certain quality or capacity, a particular achievement to be embodied. How best can it be done? What is the way by which one can acquire a quality at its purest, and highest and most perfect? It is by setting an opposition to it. That is how a power is increased and streng thenedby fighting against and overcoming all that weakens and contradicts it. The deficiencies in respect of a particular quality show you where you are to mend and reinforce and in what way to improve in order to make it perfectly perfect. It is the hammer that beats the weak and soft iron to transform it into hard steel. The preliminary discord is useful and necessary to be utilised for a higher harmony. This is the secret of self-conflict in man. You are weakest precisely in that element which is destined to be your greatest asset.
06.14 - The Integral Realisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In other ways that lead to an escape, you reach a state where you are happy and satisfied, you feel you have attained the highest, the utmost worth attaining and you need not move further or look for anything else. The integral yogi is not so bound by one experience. He will find himself always getting away from the already attained status, however high it may be, and ranging beyond. Even if he tries to repeat an experience which he cherishes and considers worth repeating and so goes through the usual steps to recover it, he may find that instead of the experience wanted he is given quite a new experience.
The problem for him is not to reject or minimise any experience or stick to some only as valuable but embrace all and to put them together, make a synthesis out of them. This synthesis is the very character of the Integral Yoga. And it can be reached only by rising beyond the experiences given for synthesis. A higher poise of consciousness only can find the point of union among different elements and the function and role of each one in a composite harmony. The supramental status is the highest synthetic centre; here all experiences and realisations rise into their original and true reality and find their perfect expression.
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06.15 - Ever Green, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whenever you go inside and seek your poise, do not look for your old acquaintances, the familiar experiences, do not carry upon your back the load of the past, but go ahead, as if through a virgin tract, making quite new discoveries, and opening unexpected vistas at each step. You can make an experiment even on your physical body, i.e. take the physical consciousness too to share in your adventure of ever new discovery. Thus you may, for example, forget your habit of eating or even walking, truly forget and try to learn over again, even as you did for the first time as a child. You have to acquire consciously a capacity of the body that has become an almost unconscious reflex action. It is a wonderful and exhilarating experience. Naturally you cannot repeat too often or carry too far an experiment of this kind on the physical plane. But you can freely deal with your inner life and consciousness. You can make your mind and your vital a clean slate, as much as you like: not once in your life, but every moment of your life. And then see how the world impinges upon your consciousness, what fresh discoveries and awakenings come to you endlessly! You can always rid yourself of the accustomed vibrations on the normal levels of your existence, the physical, vital and mental; and even you can go beyond your psychic formation and be the wide, the vast, the limitless, the Infinite itself, void of all name and form. And then with that virgin consciousness drop straight into the world of material life and form, into your body and bodily reactions. The world will give itself up to you in its pristine purity, its original beauty and truth, always luminous and glorious. This experience has to be the normal mode of your living, not simply the culmination or acme of your being, a fixed and stagnant status, even if considered the highest, the summum bonum. That is how you can keep yourself and the world around you ever fresh and young and new.
The preacher who speaks of the truth and delivers it to his hearers is usually effective for the first time or for a first few occasions only, when he feels the truth of his truth and is sincere while delivering. But as time wears on, his truth too wears out, for it becomes stereotyped, a matter of mere habit. The experience is no longer lived, but mechanically doled out. You are sincere only when the experience is new and fresh and living, it should be made so every moment, otherwise it is dead letter, letter that killeth.
06.20 - Mind, Origin of Separative Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It need not be so however. Man is solidly one with the universe, true; but he has a faculty in him by which he can separate, isolate himself from the rest of the world. It is the mind's power of self-division and dissociation Through this actually man can put the world aside and outside himself (for a time, at least), cut away from it and concentrate upon his own being, his inner truth, in other words, make the progress in himself, as quickly as possible, independently, without waiting for others or the world to progress in any degree. And then when once he has made the progress himself, achieved a new higher status, he can turn back upon the world and bring to bear up on it the force of his progress and establish the progress more generally.
This power which in the inferior human consciousness appears as mind or mental discernment is the image or delegate here below of that very force of consciousness that originally separated the world from the Divine, created the ego and placed it as an objective reality against itself. It was a force of dividing consciousness, of exclusive concentration, that created the fission in the original unitary status of the Divine: it was that that precipitated the world of negation, of ignorance and inconscience out of the supreme Light and Reality.
It was a power of denial that severed the world from its pure source: the same power can now be utilised for the return back for the reintegration. The power that separated from the Divine is capable of separating from the world; the consciousness that moved away from the One Divine can move away also from the Multiple Ignorance. As the individualised element isolated itself from the unitary consciousness of the Divine, in the same way the individualised element in man can stand aloof from the unitary being of the world: as it came down the ladder of consciousness from the supreme light of the spirit into the lowest depth of unconscious dead matter, the same path it can take in the opposite way and from the unconsciousness rise into the fullness of the original light. The soul has freely chosen the bondage, he is free too to choose his freedom again. That is what the Upanishad meant when it said: avidyay mtuym tirtw, by the Ignorance he shall cross death.
06.21 - The Personal and the Impersonal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As you go up in your consciousness towards the origin of things you come finally at the end of things: you are beyond the names and forms that make up the universe, beyond even the subtle names and forms at the topmost. You arrive at something formless, impersonal,' unthinkable, unique, infinite and eternal. It is at best a vast force or a state of consciousness. When you come in contact with it, you lose your personal form, your separate individuality and become the featureless absolute. Many religions and philosophies consider this status to be the supreme, the highest and the origin of things. In reality, however, it is not the end of things nor the supreme status. You can rise further beyond. Your consciousness enters into the formless and impersonal and merges its separate existence there and then emerges again; it envisages a reality which is not formless but has a form, it is not impersonality but a Person, with which or with whom you can have a personal relation unlike the relation or lack of relation with the Impersonal. But this form beyond the formless is not like the forms of the inferior consciousness: it is the Form of forms. And it is not a person like a human being or even a divine being or god, but an essential Personality, the Person of persons. It has not the limitation or exclusiveness of ego-bounded individuality (even the gods are ego-bounded); it has a kind of fluid boundedness or outline which is recognizable as that of a definite Person, but it has not the fixity or rigidity of lower forms.
And yet to arrive at this supreme Person, to come in contact with Him, it is necessary to pass through and have the experience of the formless impersonal infinity. For that breaks the inferior moulds, the narrow egoistic formations which are only aberrations or obscure images of the true Person.
06.24 - When Imperfection is Greater Than Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A perfected consciousness is attained in the highest status of being, when it is full of light and delight, peace and purity, one with the Divine Consciousness. Such a Consciousness, when it comes down upon earth in its original unmixed clarity, lives as a foreign element and has no real contact with the world; it can have only a very indirect influence upon men and things. If the perfect, the Divine Consciousness has to be truly effective, has to change human and world nature, it must put on partially at least that nature; it must share in the imperfection of ignorance so that it can show how that imperfection can be dealt with and transformed. The Divine has to become human, even the ordinary human, in a sense, in the outward instrumental aspect, to a greater or lesser degree as needed, so that He may come in living contact with the obscure lower consciousness and put His light into it and gradually purify and illumine it. If, however, the consciousness retains its fullness of power and light makes its appearance as such, it may dazzle and overwhelm, as a meteor miracle, but leave nothing substantial behind. This is what has happened in the past of man's history. The saints and sages, the greatest and the most genuine among them, mostly dwelt apart from humanity in consciousness and even away from human contact; the earth could not profit wholly by their example.
Therefore the Mother says in her Prayers and Meditations that having gone beyond all desires still she had to live in the midst of desires; she had no choice of her own, no preference, no attachment, no need of anything, yet she was put in the conditions of very ordinary life, the normal human life; she had to deal with the common man, handle the small insignificant objects of material existence. In one part of her being she had to identify herself with ignorance and obscurity, so much so that even the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness the conscient and the inconscientwas for a time obliterated. Naturally, the inmost being in its inner self remained always calm, luminous, inviolable, but it put around itself this body of ordinary nature to meet its ordinary reactions and through them gradually to uplift and train it to manifest and incarnate the inmost divine.
06.35 - Second Sight, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The humanising of animals living with men, through its good and bad effects, has an evolutionary value: that is to say, some animals in that way attain almost to a human status in their soul. And occultists state that souls do pass in this manner from the animal to the human incarnation.
***
07.01 - Realisation, Past and Future, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole material and physical world, the whole earth I mention earth, because we are concerned directly and much more with it than other regionshas been till now governed by forces of consciousness that come from what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind. Even the thing man has named God is a force, a power in the Overmind. The entire universe has been, so to say, under the domination of this status of consciousness. Even then, you have to pass through many intermediary grades, or levels to arrive at the Overmind and when you reach there the first impression is that of a dazzling light that almost blinds you. But one can and has to press on and go beyond. Sri Aurobindo says, the rule of the Overmind is precisely coming to its end and the rule of the Supermind will replace it. All the past spiritual experiences were concerned with the Overmind: so it is a thing known to all who have found the Divine and are identified with Him. What Sri Aurobindo says is this that there is something more than the Overmind, something that lies a step higher and that it is now the turn of this higher status to come down and reign. We need not talk much of Overmind, because all the saints and seers, all religions and spiritual disciplines, scriptures and philosophies have spoken about it at length. All the gods known and familiar to men are there in its Pantheon. What we want, what is needed at present is a new revelation, a manifestation in a new manner of which very few were conscious in the past. We are not here merely to repeat the past.
But it is so difficult. It is difficult for people to come out of experiences they have had, of what they have heard and read about always and everywhere. It is difficult for them not to think of the Supermind in terms of the Overmind, not to confuse the Supermind with the Overmind. They are unable to conceive of anything beyond or different. Sri Aurobindo used to say always that his Yoga Began where all the past Yogas ended: in order to realise his Yoga one must have already arrived at the extreme limit of what the ancients realised. In other words, one must have had already the perception of the Divine, the union and identification with the Divine. This divinity, Sri Aurobindo says, is the Divine of the Overmind which is itself something quite unthinkable for the human consciousness, and even to reach there one has to rise through many planes of consciousness and, as I said, one gets dazzled and dazed even at this level.
07.03 - The Entry into the Inner Countries, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A deaf force calling to a status dumb,
A thousand voices in a muted Vast,
07.03 - This Expanding Universe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The universe is a manifestation, that is to say, the unfolding of infinite possibilities. The unfolding has not stopped, it is continuing and will continue, throwing out or bringing into physical expression all that lies behind and latent. The universe may be considered as a sphere or a globe, a totality or assemblage containing everything that exists here and is being manifested. Beyond and outside, as it were, this circle of creation lies the transcendent, the Supreme Divine, in his own status. The transcendent means the unmanifest. It does not mean, however, the void; for it contains all that is to be manifested, each and everything in its potentiality, its essence, in a seed form. All is there as a latent possibility, a fundamental truth of beingall is there not simply as a general idea, but in every detail, though as it were on a microscopic scale, something like the chromosomes in life plasm. The transcendent is beyond time and space. Manifestation or creation begins with the formulation of time and space, the frame in which what lay latent is gradually brought out and displayed. The transcendent is consciousness absorbed in itself, identified with itself; manifestation is consciousness waking and looking at itself as its object (La prise de conscience objective de soi).
Now, one can be seated or fixed exclusively in the status of the unmanifest; to such a one the infinite and eternal is an ever-present reality, there is nothing like past or future, every-thing is. One knows and is in the presence of a fixed actuality; whatever happened, whatever will happenas it seems to us all are there realised on the same plane and at the same moment (although the terms plane and moment do not quite apply there). It is the world or status of the absolutely determined. Free choice or indeterminacy, the unexpected and the unforeseen have no place here.
On the contrary, the sphere of manifestation is precisely the field of the sudden and the incalculable, that is to say, of free will. Things appear here that were not before, forces come into play that were not expected or even imagined. They all move along lines that shift and change continually. This is the status of becomingsambhuti, as designated by the Upanishad and described by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, in the words, panta reei, everything flows on. Here, often a certain disposition that seems quite stable or predictable is upset all of a sudden by the irruption of a new and novel factor from somewhere else.
But in between the two, on the borderland, as it were, there is a poise of consciousness which combines both in an integral perception, it is a single movement of both being and becoming. It is the Supermind. It is the point where what is or exists in the unmanifest just becomes in the manifest, the pure truth or reality above at standstill stirs and begins to come out or disengage itself through a play of possibles. It is like a cinema film that is rolled up and kept in a spool till it is put on the projector and rolled out gradually upon the screen of life and in life-size' presentation.
07.09 - The Symbolic Ignorance, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How can there be dark spots in the light of the full consciousness (the Mother's consciousness)? The darkness is only relative and depends upon the degree or status of conscious-ness. At the outset, on lower and narrower ranges, the light is dim and hedged in: it is surrounded by a much greater and denser area of darkness. As the consciousness grows, that is to say, manifests itself, as it rises and widens, the obscurity too recedes more and more and slowly fades away. This consciousness is not personal, but something impersonal. In other words, it holds within itself the universe including especially the earth. And earth is a dark object; it is made of ignorance and unconsciousness. The light envelops it and only gradually penetrates and transforms it. The Mother's consciousness is thus the representative consciousness; it represents all that is yet unconscious and striving secretly without knowing towards consciousness; it is also at the same time the light itself that acts and transforms. The divine consciousness embodied acting upon itself thus symbolises and embodies its action upon what would be viewed as others.
***
08.15 - Divine Living, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In other words, in the manifestation, in his Self-expression the Divine is progressive. Outside and beyond manifestation, He is something we cannot conceive of. But when He manifests Himself in this status of constant becoming, He manifests more and more of Himself, as if He had reserved for the final end the most beautiful things of His being.
As the world progresses what He expresses of Himself in the world becomes more and more the Divine.
10.01 - Cycles of Creation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
At the present time the human consciousness in general has been so prepared and its dwelling and playfield the earth consciousness made ready to such a degree that it has been possible for the still secreted higher perfection to enter into the arena. The evolution, the growth has been a gradual expression and revelation of the light, the consciousness in a higher and higher degree of purity and potency through an encasement hard and resistant at first but gradually yielding to the impact of the higher status and even transforming itself so as to become its instrument and embodiment. We speak of the present situation, we are concerned with man and what he is to grow into or bring out of himself. Here also there seem to be stages or cycles of creation leading to the final achievement. The whole burden of the present endeavour is how to transcend, transform or modify the animalhood which is the basis of humanity even now and in and through which man is growing and seeking to manifest and incarnate his superior potencies. Man's supramental destiny means that he totally outgrows the animal, outgrows even his manhood in so far as it is merely human; for he has to incorporate the principle of the supramental which wholly transcends the mental.
The first step in this momentous movement has been taken, the first act achieved, for the supramental is now here established in the earth's atmosphere and is already percolating into general human consciousness. It is no longer a far-off object residing away in its own home, its higher transcendent status, but a concrete reality as something like earth's own. It is at work in this material envelope, this animal encasing of humanity and is vigorously transforming, demolishing and building, preparing the new structure.
The embodiment of the supramental, the supramental consciousness in its supramental body is indeed even now rather a far-off event. But the beginning of a supramentalised humanity, a section of it as the spearhead is quite a possibility in a comparatively near future. A race of elite in whom the grosser elements of humanhood, its physical animality and mentality have been purified of their dross, refined into something of the pure luminous reflection of the higher consciousness that is the immediate end for which the new force seems to be labouring. And the consequence too of this achievement is expected to be also very considerable. The whole human race or even a majority of it is not likely to be transfigured into the elite, the race of the pioneers just referred to. The advent or the preparation of such a body will in its turn naturally influence the rest of mankind and act so effectively and largely that the human race in general will put on a different aspect, the aspect of a humanity not of the Kaliyuga but of the Satyayuga. That is what the general human mind has been aspiring for and calling "Ramarajya". A humanity with a radiant mind, a purified, generous, unegoistic, yet creative vital and a physical consciousness enjoying, revealing, building forms of true beauty seems to be a nearer and intermediary probability and animal-born humanity retaining its normal animal structure, still outgrowing its grosser movements and instincts, controlling and guiding, modifying and utilising them to higher purposes (Pashupati) may well be a happy stage towards the final appearance of the supramental race wholly transcending the frame of animality, born and existing in the purely supramental way.
1.001 - The Aim of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
What are problems? A problem is a situation that has arisen on account of the irreconcilability of one person, or one thing, with the status and condition of another person, or another thing. I cannot reconcile my position with your position; this is a problem. You cannot reconcile your position with mine; this is a problem. Why should there be such a condition? How is it that it is not possible for me to reconcile myself with you? It is not possible because there is no clear perception of my relationship with you. I have a misconceived idea of my relationship with you and, therefore, there is a misconceived adjustment of my personality with yours, and a misconception cannot solve a problem. The problem is nothing but this misconception nothing else. The irreconcilability of one thing with another arises on account of the basic difficulty I mentioned, that the person who wishes to bring about this reconciliation, or establish a proper relationship, misses the point of one's own vital connection underline the word 'vital' with the object or the person with which, or with whom, this reconciliation is to be effected. Inasmuch as this kind of knowledge is beyond the purview or capacity of the ordinary human intellect, the knowledge of the Veda is regarded as supernormal, superhuman: apaurusheya not created or manufactured by an individual. This is not knowledge that has come out of reading books. This is not ordinary educational knowledge. It is a knowledge which is vitally and organically related to the fact of life. I am as much connected with the fact of life as you are, and so in my observation and study and understanding of you, in my relationship with you, I cannot forget this fact. The moment I disconnect myself from this fact of life which is unanimously present in you as well as in me, I miss the point, and my effort becomes purposeless.
We are gradually led by this proclamation of the Veda into a tremendous vision of life which requires of us to have a superhuman power of will to grasp the interrelationship of things. This difficulty of grasping the meaning of the interrelationship of things is obviated systematically, stage by stage, gradually, by methods of practice. These methods are called yoga the practice of yoga. I have placed before you, perhaps, a very terrible picture of yoga; it is not as simple as one imagines. It is not a simple circus-master's feat, either of the body or the mind, but a superhuman demand of our total being. Mark this definition of mine: a superhuman demand which is made of our total being not an ordinary human demand of a part of our being, but of our total being. From that, a demand is made by the entire structure of life. The total structure of life requires of our total being to be united with it in a practical demonstration of thought, speech and action this is yoga. If this could be missed, and of course it can easily be missed as it is being done every day, then every effort, from the smallest to the biggest, becomes a failure. All our effort ends in no success, because it would be like decorating a corpse without a soul in it. The whole of life would look like a beautiful corpse with nicely dressed features, but it has no vitality, essence or living principle within it. Likewise, all our activities would look wonderful, beautiful, magnificent, but lifeless; and lifeless beauty is no beauty. There must be life in it only then has it a meaning. Life is not something dead; it is quite opposite of what is dead. We can bring vitality and life into our activity only by the introduction of the principle of yoga.
10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
First, then, the total and absolute dissolution of this creation of ignorance, the Creation which is ignorance, and attaining a status of nothingness, absolute annihilation, then in that blank void emerges the Residue, the One True Realitya silent, infinite eternal immobility, a pure Existence. In the beginning the Non-Existence (Asat), then there arises the Pure Existence (Sat). That pure Existence is gradually found to possess or be Delight also. As Being is not the being in creation even so the Consciousness is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life; they are all of quite another quality and category.
In other words Purusha is given the exclusive reality, while Prakriti is negated, being identified with unconsciousness and ignorance, is relegated to a status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as my, the illusory consciousness, the ignorance.
Purusha is the Brahman, the Conscious Being, the One Absolute Pure Reality.
1.008 - The Principle of Self-Affirmation, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The moment we wake up in the morning, we generally tune ourselves to external conditions rather than be ourself and to go deep into our own needs our weaknesses and our strengths. We are placed in this world under such conditions, fortunately or unfortunately, that we have not a moment's rest from the pressure exerted upon us by conditions outside external circumstances. We are always something in terms of something else; we are nothing by our own self. This is very unfortunate and is going to be a great obstacle before us. We are either a brother or a sister, a father or a mother, a friend or an enemy, an officer or a subordinate, this or that. All this is a false personality, because in our own selves we are neither brothers nor sisters, neither fathers nor mothers, neither bosses nor subordinates or servants, or any such thing; all these are only foisted relationships. But these are the things that make our life, and we are only that, and nothing but that. How happy a person feels when he has the opportunity to go on brooding, thinking and contemplating the social status that he holds. He would not like to think that he is a puny animal, bereft of these relationships, when he is divested of all these contacts.
The status that one occupies in human society is not the true nature of that person. The status need not necessarily be a social imposition it can be a psychological circumstance also, and it can even be biological. All these keep us in a state of subconscious tension. If very deeply studied, psychoanalytically, we will find that every human being is a patient not psychologically healthy, at least from a very profound point of view a patient in the sense that there is something external grown as an accretion upon one's true nature which has covered up and smothered one's own freedom of existence. All these various types of fungii that have grown around us in the form of the biological, psychological and social relationships, keep us in a fool's paradise a fool's paradise in the sense that we live in a world which is totally false, and which is not true or compatible with our real nature.
The practice of yoga is very cautious about all these internal structural devices, which have been manufactured by nature to keep the individual under subjugation by brainwashing him from birth until death and never allowing him to think of what these devices are. If we want to subordinate a person and keep that person under subjection always, we have to brainwash that person every day by telling him something contrary to what he is, repeating it every day every moment in every thought, every speech and every action so that there is a false personality grown around that person and he becomes our servant. This has happened to everyone, and this trick seems to be played by the vast diversified nature itself, so that everyone is a servant of nature rather than a master. This is the source of sorrow.
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp, and a complete lack of social status, education, and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy the world-wide interest in similar matters could never have been aroused. This interest is to the Law of Thelema what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity.
We are now in a position to say what happened to Mohammed. Somehow or another this phenomenon happened in his mind. More ignorant than Anna Kingsford, though, fortunately, more moral, he connected it with the story of the Annunciation, which he had undoubtedly heard in his boyhood, and said Gabriel appeared to me. But in spite of his ignorance, his total misconception of the truth, the power of the vision was such that he was enabled to persist through the usual persecution, and founded a religion to which even to-day one man in every eight belongs.
1.010 - Self-Control - The Alpha and Omega of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Previously we were touching upon the nature of perceptions of objects, and these were explained as the reasons behind our attachments and aversions, our love of individual physical life and dread of death, etc. It was also discovered that self-affirmation or egoism becomes a necessary link, an intermediary between the external acts of cognition, perception, attachment, aversion etc., and the ultimate cause of the appearance of this phenomenon, of which we have no knowledge. This phenomenon was explained also as having been caused by a vast multiple manifestation of the Ultimate Reality in the form of what we may call 'located individuals', as if one is not connected with the other, so that each individual which was originally an inseparable part of the Ultimate Truth or Reality, enjoying the status of pure selfhood or subjectivity got distorted into an object of the cognitive act and perceptive action of the senses, so that it is possible to regard any person and any object in this world either as a subject from its own point of view, or as an object from another's point of view. It is this peculiar double character, or dual role, of persons and things in this world that has made life difficult. Which is the correct attitude: to regard things as subjects, or regard them as objects? Well, the correct attitude would be to regard everything as it ought to be regarded from the point of view of what it really is.
Can we look upon anything, any person, any object for the matter of that, as something which is to be utilised as a kind of instrument in perception or cognition, or has it a status of its own? What we mean by a status of one's own is a capacity to exist by oneself, independent of external relations and dependence on others; this is the nature of subjectivity. Everyone, you and I included, has a status of one's own. It is this status that gets distorted later on into what they call egoism, pride, etc., what is called ijjat in Hindi a kind of stupid form which it has taken, though originally it was a spiritual status. Our status as pure subjects is incapable of objectification, and it is not intended to be used as a tool for another's activity or satisfaction. It is not in the nature of things to subject themselves into objects as vehicles of action and satisfaction for somebody else, because every individual, judged from its own real status, enjoys subjectivity. It is an end in itself, and not a means.
That is why everyone is egoistic, and everyone wants satisfaction for one's own self. When we analyse all our actions, we will find that there is no such thing as unselfish action, finally. Every action is selfish, if we very closely define the principle of selfishness. The element of self is present in every act, every perception, every cognition and every effort, because when the self is isolated, all things lose their meaning the whole world looks empty. What we call unselfishness is only the presence of a higher type of self as an element in our act of perception, cognition, etc. It does not mean that the Self is absolutely absent that is not possible. We only mean that a higher, more expansive kind of self is present rather than a lower self. What we call selfishness is nothing but the interference of the lower self in our actions, and what we call unselfishness is the presence in the same way of a higher form of self, but Self is there it cannot be absent. There is nothing in this world where the Self is absent. The whole universe is invaded by the Self. It is present in everything, and nothing can exist without it, because that is the only existence.
1.012 - Sublimation - A Way to Reshuffle Thought, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The point is that the difficulty in controlling an emotion arises on account of the vehemence with which it moves towards an object. The emotion is a tendency towards an object. The object may be physical, or it could even be psychological. Suppose we want to raise our social status. This is a psychological object that is in front of us, towards which we are working. Let us say that we want to become a chairman, or a minister, or some such thing. This object that is in front of us is psychological, not physical, because chairmanship is not a physical object, though it is as powerful an object as anything else; that is the end towards which the consciousness drives itself. It can also be a physical object towards which the consciousness rushes. Why does it rush towards an object, whether it be physical or psychological? It wants to fulfil a purpose.
Consciousness does not move in a direction without a purpose; and if the purpose is meaningful, at least from its own point of view, nobody can resist it. It sees a meaning in the way in which it moves towards the object, and when the meaning is there, then naturally nobody can control it. "I see significance in it. There is a purpose behind it and there is a reason a very good reason for my action in that direction," says consciousness. So the question of controlling the movement of consciousness does not arise. If the movement is meaningless, we may control it; but if it is meaningful, how can we control it? So, the resisting of the vehemence of consciousness in the direction of an object is possible only if the meaning that it reads into the object is sublimated.
10.16 - The Relative Best, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is the best that happens always for nothing else can happen but it is a relative best, relative to the situation that the consciousness according to its status creates around. As the consciousness advances the nature of the best is also transformed.
There is an absolute best but that can happen only when the consciousness has arrived at, attained union with the Supreme Consciousness. In fact there is then no longer any path to traverse, the path has lapsed or merged into the goal, the path and the goal have become one. This does not mean that dangers and difficulties and pitfalls have to be accepted and welcomed but that they have to be faced in the right spirit as aids and helps necessary and inevitable at certain points of the journey. One must grow into the consciousness that will be able to see them as such, find their use and turn them into the good that lies behind or ahead.
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
1 For the status quo of life as it exists: the "immobility" of the Christian, or of
the Stoic, may arouse fervor because it is a withdrawal, that is to say an individ-
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
present. (Construction of the goal therefore means establishment of a theory about the ideal relative status
of motivational states about the good.) This imagined future constitutes a vision of perfection, so to
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sankhya although it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha and Prakriti; nor is it Vaishnava Theism although it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatara of Vishnu according to the Puranas, as the supreme Deity and allows no essential difference nor any actual superiority of the status of the indefinable relationless Brahman over that of this Lord of beings who is the Master of the universe and the Friend of all creatures. Like the earlier spiritual synthesis of the Upanishads this later synthesis at once spiritual and intellectual avoids naturally every such rigid determination as would injure its universal
Our Demand and Need from the Gita
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
arrived in India where they obtained refugee status.
For twenty years, they heard nothing of the mother
10.22 - Short Notes - 5- Consciousness and Dimensions of View, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As we rise we find that the dimensions increase in number. Our consciousness, our being becomes more and more multiple. In the physical and material, our perception is limited to the four dimensions because of two factorsone, things are spaced out that is to say, they are separate and discrete from one another. We know the law of material space that two things cannot occupy the same space. Secondly, things or events are separated in time, that is to say, there is the law of succession. But in the higher regions, higher or subtler regions, this separation due to time and space loses much of its exclusive force. Things tend to coalesce, even to get identified with each other. The obstructions that time and space offer to intercommunication are minimised more and more as our consciousness or being soars up or dives down into deeper and deeper and higher and higher regions. The dimensions increase in number; that means we begin to apprehend things from many angles and sides at the same time, we have more and more a simultaneous view of the total or global reality of an object. So instead of a four-fold view of things we may have a fivefold, sixfold, tenfold, hundredfold view of things depending on our status of consciousness. In the highest status,we call it Sachchidananda, the infinite and eternal consciousness things attain infinite dimensions, all merged in the Ultimate's unitary consciousness.
***
1.02.3.2 - Knowledge and Ignorance, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
we ordinarily call birth, or from some status in another world
or even, it is possible, from beyond world. But birth in the body
10.23 - Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is the second status of the Mother's being, the first is the personal and individual, the second is this collective and universal being. But she is not merely the universe, she is the Mother of the universe. Hers is not merely earth's prayer, but the prayer of the Mother of the earth. It is not merely the prayer of the universe but the prayer of the Universal Mother to the Supreme Lord for the deliverance of the universe, for the re-creation of the earth Indeed, for the deliverance of herself for the re-creation of herself out of the present ignorant manifestation:
O Mre, douce Mre que je suis, Tu es la fois ce qui dtruit et ce qui rige.
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The triple status of the Mother, the individual, the collective and the transcendental (or, in other words, the personal, the universal and the supra-personal) has been condensed and epitomised in the magical note describing her first meeting with the Lord:
Peu importe qu'il y ait milliers d'tres plongs dans la plus paisse ignorance, Celui que nous avons vu hier est sur terre;.sa prsence suffit prouver qu'un jour viendra o, l'ombre sera trans-forme en lumire, et o, effectivement, Ton rgne sera instaur sur la terre.23
--
I have spoken of the triple status, the three levels of her ascending reality, these are in view of her manifestation of world-labour. There is however, yet another status beyondbeyond the beyond It is the relation between the Supreme Lord and the Divine Mother in itself apart from their work, their purpose in manifestation, it is their own 'Lila' between themselves, exclusively their own. The delight of this exclusively personal play behind and beyond the creation sheds a secret aroma in and through all this existence here and it is also the source of the hidden magic that these utterances of the Prayers and Meditations contain, it is to this status surpassing all wonder that Sri Aurobindo refers so wistfully and so sweetly in those famous opening lines, in "A God's Labour':25
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
10.24 - Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ashwapati now passes into the higher luminous regions. He enters regions of larger breath and wider movement the higher vital and then into the yet more luminous region of the higher mind. He reaches the heavens where immortal sages and the divinities and the gods themselves dwell. Even these Ashwapati finds to be only partial truths, various aspects, true but limited, of the One Reality beyond. Thus he leaves all behind and reaches into the single sole Reality, the transcendental Truth of things, the status vast and infinite and eternal, immutable existence and consciousness and bliss.
A Vastness brooded free from sense of Space,
--
Here seems to be the end of the quest, and one would fain stay there ever and ever in that status
. . occult, impenetrable,
--
The Divine has lost itself in pulverising itself, scattering itself abroad. Immortality is thus entombed here below in death. The task of the incarnate Supreme Consciousness is to revive the death-bound divinity, to free the human consciousness in its earthly life from the obscurity of the material unconsciousness, re-install it in its original radiant status of the Divine Consciousness.
Such is Savitri's mission. This mission has two sessions or periods. The first, that of preparation; the second, that of fulfilment. Savitri, the human embodiment was given only twelve months out of her earthly life and in that short space of time she had to do all the preparation. She knew her work from her very birth, she was conscious of her nature and the mission she was entrusted with. Now she is facing the crisis. Death is there standing in front. What is to be done, how is she to proceed? She was told she is to conquer Death, she is to establish immortal life upon mortal earth. The Divine Voice rings out:
--
Once more Savitri, even like Ashwapati, has to make a choice between two destinies, two soul-movementsalthough the choice is already made even before it is offered to her. Ashwapati had to abandon, we know, the silent immutable transcendent status of pure light in order to ba the in this lower earthly light. Savitri too as the prototype of human consciousness chose and turned to this light of the earth.
The Rishi of the Upanishad declared: they who worship only Ignorance enter into darkness, but they who worship knowledge alone enter into a still darker darkness. This world of absolute light which Savitri names 'everlasting day' is what the Upanishadic Rishi sees and describes as the golden lid upon the face of the Sun. The Sun is the complete integral light of the Truth in its fullness. The golden covering has to be removed if one is to see the Sun itselfto live the integral life, one has to possess the integral truth.
--
The basic status or foundation of Man, in fact of creation, is earth, the material organisation. After the body, next comes the life and Life-power. Here man attains a larger dynamic being of energy and creative activity. Here too, on this level, what man is or what he achieves is only a reflection, a shadow, but mostly a misshapen resemblance, an aberration of the divine reality that hides behind, and yet half-reveals itself. That Godhead is the Mother's form of Might, we name it variously, Kali and Durga and Lakshmi, for it is Her Grace that is ultimately expressed and fulfilled in this world of vital power. I t is because of this realising power of the Mother that
Slowly the Light grows greater in the East,
10.27 - Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But consciousness has two modes or status. First of all, when consciousness is the consciousness of things, when one is conscious of the existence of objects, this mode may be called objective consciousness, but consciousness may exist in itself without reference to any object of consciousness; the light is there, there is no object to illumine, it is self-luminous. This is consciousness in its essence, its own reality.
This essential consciousness is an unchanging reality existing everywhere in the universe but it expresses itself in different modes and apparent forms, its essential quality does not change but acquires a different colour and vibration in accordance with its degree and level of expression. For example, the body has a consciousness, life-force has a consciousness, mind has a consciousness, and the levels above the mind, each has a consciousness. All these types or modes or, as I have said, dimensions of consciousness are essentially the same consciousness. The vessels are different, their shape and colour differ but they all hold as it were the same transparent, clear water. We all know the different movements of light, seen and unseen; but however much they differ in their vibration, all have the same speed of light. And it is always the same composition, as scientists have taught us a light particle is a fusion of an electron and a positron; even so consciousness is also an invariable entity.
Mother said of love the same thing as I have been saying of consciousness. She says, there is only one love, the divine love and none other. There are various expressions of that love according to the conditions in which it manifests, to the degree or status of being but everywhere it is the same divine love behind in essence. Because of inadequate expression it becomes blurred or faint and muddy but the living fire is there below the ashes. You have simply to shake off the outer coating to allow the inner reality to shine forth in its own nature.
Love in the mind, love in the heart, love in the vital, love in the physical, love human and animal are not negations of the Divine love, it is not that you have to reject, cut off these so-called inferior formulations of love, these do not necessarily deny or reject the Divine love in their heart of hearts; even there in their true reality, glows the pure Divine love. To reach the Divine love, to enjoy its divine nanda, it is not necessary to make a bonfire of these earthly goods and go beyond into the transcendent. Even here in this earthly mould the Divine love in its full purity can be established for it is already there behind and needs only earnest evocation.
Consciousness essentially is always and everywhere the same. Its own quality is unvarying but in its expression there is growth and development, an increase in intensity and amplitude. The light that your candle gives and the light that comes from the sun are not different in quality but they differ in expression or manifestation, because of the receptacle, the seat or abode of the light. The Vedic fire was lighted on a sacred altar, that is the seat for the God from where to manifest himself. There was a regular ceremony for the preparation of the seat (Barhi) and the value and the success of the sacrifice depended largely on a proper preparation of the seat. The seat, the basic status also indicates that there is an ascending movement of the sacrifice. The sacrifice symbolises consciousness and radiant energy, mounting and travelling upward and forward; the progress or ascent of consciousness means bringing out its inherent potential strength that is behind and within and placing it in front as power of expression. As I have said, if consciousness in matter is like a light of single candle power, on the level of life it becomes a light of multiple candle power and in the mind this multiple power is again multiplied. In this way the consciousness finally attains its solar incandescence on the highest height of the being.
When we speak of the dimensions of consciousness, it means these different levels or status of ascending expression. They also form according to the mode of expression each one a world of its own. We may compare the mounting consciousness to a growing tree, it is the same sap-substance that appears at the outset as a seed, then as the seed opens out and develops it appears or throws up a stem or trunk and as it proceeds it throws up branches and higher up leaves and then flowers and fruit. Apparently however different and diverse these formulations, they are but expressions of the same sap-substance in the original seed. Even so an original seed-consciousness is the basis and essential reality of all the forms in the material universe.
It must now be apparent that consciousness is not merely consciousness, simple awareness, it is also power or energy. The Vedic word is cit-tapas, consciousness-energy. It is one indivisible, entity: consciousness is energy. It is not however in the sense as when we say knowledge is power: It does not mean consciousness has power or gives power, but consciousness is power. The nearer analogy would be with light-energy. Light, we know today, thanks to modern science, does not merely illumine, it energises, activises, moves things, that is to say, matter and material objects. The ray of light, we know now, acts even more effectively than the surgeon's knife. The inherent quality of light is energy. This energy has been discovered to be electro-magnetic energy, a photon (unit-light or light-unit) is, as we have said, an electro-magnetic quantum.
10.29 - Gods Debt, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The sacrifice going up to the gods as offered by man means the sadhana, the inner discipline that he follows by which he lifts up his being with its mental and vital and physical formulations to their higher and higher potencies upon earth. The dedication of the normal powers and faculties to the gods means purification and release from the bondages of ignorance and egoism. This serves to make the gods living to us, bring them near to our terrestrial life, to our normal consciousness. This is what is meant by increasing the godsman's duty or debt to the gods. In answer there is a corresponding gesture from the gods, with their immortalising reality they dwell in us and fill our being with their godlike qualities, their light, their energy, their delight, their very immortality. Man increases the gods and the gods increase man and by their mutual increasing they attain the supreme increment, the Divine status, so says the Gita.
Now, we go beyond the gods, to the very origin, God himself, the Supreme. What is the debt that God, the Supreme, the Divine, owes to us human beings? We owe to God everything, our life, our very existence, our soul and substance given to us by him, then how is he indebted to us? What kind of debt he has incurred which he has to pay to his creature, the human being? Primarily because he is the Divine Father, he has to take charge of his own creation, see to its growth and fruition and fulfilment. Indeed that is the role of the Divine in us (and above us and around us): that is his work, the Divine Work. Since he has put us out of his consciousness (for a special experience of growth and development), it is also his work (and duty) to bring us back to him: after a process of self-separation a process of self-integration. Man, so long as he is a separate consciousness has to dedicate, lift up and unify this separative conscious being to the whole being and consciousness. This is how he discharges his debt to the Divine, and the answering grace of the Divine is the clearing of the debt which He owes to His creatures.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
(threats) and cues for satisfaction (promises).81 This paradoxical a priori status is represented schematically
in Figure 5: The Ambivalent Nature of Novelty. Unpredictable things, which have a paradoxical character,
--
When we explore, we transform the indeterminate status and meaning of the unknown thing that we are
exploring into something determinate in the worst case, rendering it non-threatening, non-punishing; in
--
area). When necessary means depending on the status of our current operations. For example: you are in
the kitchen; you want to read a book in your study. An image of you reading a book in your favorite chair
--
as distinct, to the state where we see them as isomorphic elements, given distinct status only on a
provisional basis. Subdiagram (1) is familiar, and represents the normal story, composed of present state,
--
those things we consider as relevant variables (and their status as relevant, or not) have to be mutable.
We have to decide, yet retain the capacity to alter our decisions. Our prefrontal cortex critical to goaldirected action189 appears to allow us this freedom: it does so, by temporally sequencing events and
--
(for reasons of tradition my father was a doctor). For reasons of status. Because I could appease the
suffering of others, and be a good person. So hierarchical organization [this takes (or even is) thought]:
--
profession; (4) perhaps status is not as important as I thought (and might therefore be sacrificed, to
appease the angry gods, and restore order to the cosmos). I will become a medical technician; or maybe
--
possessed of great magical powers, as might be expected, given her status. She gathers up Osiris scattered
pieces, and makes herself pregnant, with the use of his dismembered phallus. This story makes a profound
--
every individual the status of son of god, and of our modern notion of the human right, which is our
metaphysically-predicated presumption that everyone, regardless of earthly status, has a value to which
all temporal authority must bow.
--
motivation), or have the same functional status (which is implication for behavior). Experiences that share
affective tone appear categorizable in single complexes, symbolic in nature (from the standpoint of abstract
--
quasi-objective transpersonal status like the Word manifestations of the unfamiliar, the other, the
unknown, and the unpredictable.
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riches. She is to be valued higher than status or material possessions, as the source of all things. With the
categorical inexactitude characteristic of metaphoric thought and its attendant richness of connotation
--
person) ontological status equivalent to the experienced self, however has been trained to use the
existence of that other as a guide to proper action and interpretation in the present. This means that for
--
to act as if the aggressive reaction motivated by his shift in status is less desirable, in total, than the
affiliative response. His as if stance may easily be bolstered by intelligent shift in interpretation: he may
1.02 - The Age of Individualism and Reason, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The individualistic age of Europe was in its beginning a revolt of reason, in its culmination a triumphal progress of physical Science. Such an evolution was historically inevitable. The dawn of individualism is always a questioning, a denial. The individual finds a religion imposed upon him which does not base its dogma and practice upon a living sense of ever verifiable spiritual Truth, but on the letter of an ancient book, the infallible dictum of a Pope, the tradition of a Church, the learned casuistry of schoolmen and Pundits, conclaves of ecclesiastics, heads of monastic orders, doctors of all sorts, all of them unquestionable tribunals whose sole function is to judge and pronounce, but none of whom seems to think it necessary or even allowable to search, test, prove, inquire, discover. He finds that, as is inevitable under such a regime, true science and knowledge are either banned, punished and persecuted or else rendered obsolete by the habit of blind reliance on fixed authorities; even what is true in old authorities is no longer of any value, because its words are learnedly or ignorantly repeated but its real sense is no longer lived except at most by a few. In politics he finds everywhere divine rights, established privileges, sanctified tyrannies which are evidently armed with an oppressive power and justify themselves by long prescription, but seem to have no real claim or title to exist. In the social order he finds an equally stereotyped reign of convention, fixed disabilities, fixed privileges, the self-regarding arrogance of the high, the blind prostration of the low, while the old functions which might have justified at one time such a distribution of status are either not performed at all or badly performed without any sense of obligation and merely as a part of caste pride. He has to rise in revolt; on every claim of authority he has to turn the eye of a resolute inquisition; when he is told that this is the sacred truth of things or the comm and of God or the immemorial order of human life, he has to reply, But is it really so? How shall I know that this is the truth of things and not superstition and falsehood? When did God comm and it, or how do I know that this was the sense of His comm and and not your error or invention, or that the book on which you found yourself is His word at all, or that He has ever spoken His will to mankind? This immemorial order of which you speak, is it really immemorial, really a law of Nature or an imperfect result of Time and at present a most false convention? And of all you say, still I must ask, does it agree with the facts of the world, with my sense of right, with my judgment of truth, with my experience of reality? And if it does not, the revolting individual flings off the yoke, declares the truth as he sees it and in doing so strikes inevitably at the root of the religious, the social, the political, momentarily perhaps even the moral order of the community as it stands, because it stands upon the authority he discredits and the convention he destroys and not upon a living truth which can be successfully opposed to his own. The champions of the old order may be right when they seek to suppress him as a destructive agency perilous to social security, political order or religious tradition; but he stands there and can no other, because to destroy is his mission, to destroy falsehood and lay bare a new foundation of truth.
But by what individual faculty or standard shall the innovator find out his new foundation or establish his new measures? Evidently, it will depend upon the available enlightenment of the time and the possible forms of knowledge to which he has access. At first it was in religion a personal illumination supported in the West by a theological, in the East by a philosophical reasoning. In society and politics it started with a crude primitive perception of natural right and justice which took its origin from the exasperation of suffering or from an awakened sense of general oppression, wrong, injustice and the indefensibility of the existing order when brought to any other test than that of privilege and established convention. The religious motive led at first; the social and political, moderating itself after the swift suppression of its first crude and vehement movements, took advantage of the upheaval of religious reformation, followed behind it as a useful ally and waited its time to assume the lead when the spiritual momentum had been spent and, perhaps by the very force of the secular influences it called to its aid, had missed its way. The movement of religious freedom in Europe took its stand first on a limited, then on an absolute right of the individual experience and illumined reason to determine the true sense of inspired Scripture and the true Christian ritual and order of the Church. The vehemence of its claim was measured by the vehemence of its revolt from the usurpations, pretensions and brutalities of the ecclesiastical power which claimed to withhold the Scripture from general knowledge and impose by moral authority and physical violence its own arbitrary interpretation of Sacred Writ, if not indeed another and substituted doctrine, on the recalcitrant individual conscience. In its more tepid and moderate forms the revolt engendered such compromises as the Episcopalian Churches, at a higher degree of fervour Calvinistic Puritanism, at white heat a riot of individual religious judgment and imagination in such sects as the Anabaptist, Independent, Socinian and countless others. In the East such a movement divorced from all political or any strongly iconoclastic social significance would have produced simply a series of religious reformers, illumined saints, new bodies of belief with their appropriate cultural and social practice; in the West atheism and secularism were its inevitable and predestined goal. At first questioning the conventional forms of religion, the mediation of the priesthood between God and the soul and the substitution of Papal authority for the authority of the Scripture, it could not fail to go forward and question the Scripture itself and then all supernaturalism, religious belief or suprarational truth no less than outward creed and institute.
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
up the scientists prevailing attitude to the status of life in
the universe. The human race is just a chemical scum on
10.32 - The Mystery of the Five Elements, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now furthermore, the Great Five need not be restricted to the domain of matter alone as being its divisions and levels and functions, but they may be extended to represent the whole existence, the cosmos as a whole. Indeed they are often taken to symbolise the stair of existence as a whole, the different levels of cosmic being and consciousness. Thus at the lowest rung of the ladder as always is the earth representing precisely matter and material existence; next, water represents life and the vital movement; then, fire represents the heart centre from where wells up all impulse and drive for progression. It holds the evolutionary urge: we call it the Divine Agni, the Flame of the Inner Heart, the radiant Energy of Aspiration. The fourth status or level of creation is mind or the mental world, represented by air, the Vedic Marut; finally, Vyom or space represents all that is beyond the mind, the Infinite Existence and Consciousness. The five then give the chart, as it were, of nature's constitution, they mark also the steps of her evolutionary journey through unfolding time.
Science, that is modem Science, will perhaps demur a little; for Science holds sound to be the exclusive property of air, it is the vibration of air that comes to the ear as sound, Where there is no air, there is no sound. But Science itself admits now that sound audible to the human ear is only a section of a whole gamut of vibrations of which the ear catches only a portion, vibrations of certain length and frequency. Those that are outside this limit, below or above, are not seized by the ear. So there is a sound that is unheard. The poets speak of unheard melodies. The vibrations the sound-vibrationsare in fact not merely in the air; but originally and fundamentally in a more subtle material medium, referred to by the ancients as vyom.. The air-vibrations are derivations or translations, in a more concrete and gross medium, of these subtler vibrations. These too are heard as sound by a subtle hearing. The very original seed-sound is, of course, Om, nda. That, however, is another matter.
10.33 - On Discipline, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Discipline then is the obedience of a learner to an ever-expanding and ever-ascending law of consciousness and being, until the law of the supreme status is realised which is the law of divine living: it is the utter submission or total obedience to the Divine Himself, when one is identified with the Divine in being and nature, where Law and Person are one and the same.
***
10.35 - The Moral and the Spiritual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When you have hatred or horror for a thing it means you are on the same plane with it, your consciousness is level with the consciousness of the opposite feelings. You have to rise above the status of the lower nature and this can be done only by a calm detachment, a quiet withdrawal. One need not entertain repulsion or hatred for animal life in order to rise superior to it, one automatically rises superior to it when one links oneself to the higher status, when one is imbued with the superior consciousness. The animal consciousness is not a wrong consciousness in itself, it is a life of the animal; the human consciousness may regard it as such and may still discover a superior consciousness looking at the movements of the lower world dispassionately, indifferently, or even appreciatively, for a thing of beauty is there even in the animal life, for the Divine is everywhere.
The moral impulse is towards a self-exceeding but this self-exceeding, I have said, is to be done in perfect equanimity, in absolute detachment and indifference. To rise in consciousness, from the physical and animal to the divine, means, of course, abandoning the inferior, reaching the higher: but 'inferior' does not mean something low, something to be despised and reviled, but simply something to be passed over, transcended. And the ideal would be not only to surpass but to find out a secret parallelism between the two, discover the seed of the higher embedded even in the lower. The Indian discipline, including the school that advocates total rejection of the lower and enjoins simple detachment and separation, does not approve of any feeling of contempt or disgust.
--
The world is a gradation of developing consciousness, of growing states or status of being. There is a higher and lower level in point of the measure of consciousness but that involves no moral judgement: the moral judgement is man's; it is man's, one might almost say, idiosyncrasy, that is to say, a notion that is a prop to help him mount the ladder. Though it might be necessary at a certain stage, in certain circumstances, it is not a universal or ineluctable law, not even in his personal domain. The growing consciousness is like the growing tree rising upward first into a trunk, then spreading out into branches, into twigs and tendrils, then in flowers and finally, in fruits. These are mounting grades of growth, but the growth above is not superior to the growth below. It is a one unified whole and each portion has its own absolute value, beauty and utility.
The modern mind has forgotten this lesson. It is terribly moral I say moral, not immoral Its immorality has found play, has almost been cultured so that its moral sense may remain intact. Its dislike and even abhorrence for things it chooses to call immoral is the ransom it pays for rescuing its sense of morality, and paradoxically this very abhorrence for unholy things has pushed it all the more into their grasp. This is the characteristic turn or twist of the modern consciousness, the perversity unknown to the ancient 'sinners'. Perversity means, you yield, not only yield, but take delight in the thing you dislike, detest or abhor even. In the vein of St. Augustine who said "I believe because it is impossible", 1 the modern consciousness says: I love because I hate.
--
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.
Credo quia impossibile is actually a phrase of Tertullian vide his De Carne Christi, Vthough often ascribed to St. Augustine
10.36 - Cling to Truth, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
For two things have happenedtwo mighty happenings in earth's history, in the course of nature's evolution here: two unseen events that have new-oriented the destiny of earth and mankind. First of all human consciousness in its essential achievement has risen to a new level of consciousness, although not in the mass, nor generally even in individuals, but there has come a common acquiescence in the being to a higher status of livingproletarianism at its best means nothing else. Human nature has shed something of its mediaeval crudeness and obscurantism, separatism and selfishness; human mind has been more sharpened and polished and widened so as to receive easily the message of the cosmic rays. There has dawned in the atmosphere the perception or sense, of a higher, purer, more luminous and enlightened status of existence. That is, one may say, Nature's gift, the outcome of the millennial, the aeonic working of an aspiration inherent in matter towards light and order. That is the first event. The second one is more occult but more mighty and even devastating. It is the descent, the manifestation, the intervention of a new force here below. They who have seen it know and there is no question. The Veda has declared long ago: The Unseeing have not the Knowledge, those who have eyes possess the Knowledge.
Today, more than ever, only a little of this pure consciousness will bring you victory, not merely safety from a great perdition. Against the vast, what appears as the all-swallowing gloom of the external space, the inner space is now luminous, doubly luminous and powerful.
10.37 - The Golden Bridge, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The recoil from the normal, the rich and lush physico-mental expression of human consciousness and experience has been so radical and complete that it has catapulted us into an opposite extreme of bareness and nudity, at the most into a world of pure signs and symbols of notches and blotches, the disjointed mimics and inarticulate groans of a deaf and dumb man. The process of abstraction has gone so far that it has now been reduced to an absurdity. It has its parallel in the movement that led man away from the world of Maya to the Transcendent featureless Brahman. In either case the reason is that the link that joins the two ends could not be founda living truth that is of the Transcendent, yet denying not, but affirming in a new manner the mayic existence. That is because man till now sought to create from a level of consciousness, by a force of consciousness that is not adequate to the task; for it belongs still to the mental region, to this inferior hemisphere although at present it seems to be the acme and topmost hemisphere in the scale. It is not an extension or intensification of the mind and its capacities that will solve the problem: a radical change in the very nature of the mind, a reversal of the mental consciousnessa turning of it inside out as it were, an opening out and up is needed to discover the true source of the Light. Therefore it has been said that man must transcend himself, find a new status in the other hemisphere. In fact there is a domain, a status of being and consciousness, a master-force which when revealed and made active will remould inevitably and spontaneously human creation and expression as a reality embodying the Highest. It is the world of Idea-Force which Sri Aurobindo has named Supermind: it is beyond the mind, even the highest mind: it is the typal concentration of the Supreme Consciousness. It is the fulcrum for the Supreme Consciousness to create and express a new formulation of the Truth in the world of matter. The mind, the highest mind, in its attempt to grasp the Supreme Reality is prone to reject, annul and efface the Cosmic Reality. The Supermind has no need to do that. It links the two ends in a supreme and miraculous synthesis negating neither, giving the full value to each, for the two are united, concentrated in its substance. Thus is found the golden bridge uniting earth and heaven.
The physical mind, with its satellite, the human speech, must indeed be rescued from the thraldom of the animal life, the life of the ordinary senses. They should be put under the regimen of the new consciousness, the status of the Idea-Force. The action of that consciousness will create its own norm and pattern adequate for expressing and embodying suprasensuous realities. It will not have to depend upon allegories and parables, symbols and signs seized from ordinary life. What exactly this will be is difficult to say at present. Evidently there is likely to be an intermediary creationa passage leading from the sensuous to the supra-sensuous, the higher not totally rejecting the lower or primitive formula, the lower not altogether englobing and swallowing the higher.
The mantra of Savitri wields a language and expresses a physical mind that already shows how the alchemy will be done or is being done: the transmutation of the ordinary experience into a supra-sensuous or the supra-sensuous embodying itself in the sensuous. The process is still in a state of transition, and as a sample of the process in action and a prefigure or for taste of the achievement, may be recognisable in the famous sonnet of Sri Aurobindo which I quote here in full and conclude.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
own identity and status as construction of an individual (a son), capable of transcending the restrictions
of the group.
1.03 - Meeting the Master - Meeting with others, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: What is all this trouble about? I have been staying here so long and I have my own status with the French Government. They have not only given me protection but treated me with great courtesy. If the visitors want to make a case it is their own look-out, but I do not want to make any case. Our business is with the officials and not with the policeman. If we have to say anything we must go and inform the officer and not talk to the policeman. It is absurd for me to think of going to the court. I am not only a non-cooperator, I am an enemy of the British Empire. If the visitors, who are non-cooperators, want to make a case it is their business.
Sri Aurobindo then instructed two disciples to go to the Police Commissioner and inquire about the matter and make the position of the Ashram clear by saying: "We do not invite visitors; so it is the affair of the Police to deal with them. But none of the inmates of the Ashram should be treated in the same manner."
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Now, in 2010, the status of the realization of those five
avataric tasks may be evaluated as follows.
1.03 - Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of The Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Emerging into its own proper nature of consciousness but not yet truly conscious, because there is still too great a domination of tamas in the nature, the embodied being becomes more and more subject to rajas, the principle, the power, the qualitative mode of action and passion impelled by desire and instinct. There is then formed and developed the animal nature, narrow in consciousness, rudimentary in intelligence, rajaso-tamasic in vital habit and impulse. Emerging yet farther from the great Inconscience towards a spiritual status the embodied being liberates sattwa, the mode of light, and acquires a relative freedom and mastery and knowledge and with it a qualified and conditioned sense of inner satisfaction and happiness. Man, the mental being in a physical body, should be but is not, except in a few among this multitude of ensouled bodies, of this nature. Ordinarily he has too much in him of the obscure earth-inertia and a troubled ignorant animal life-force to be a soul of light and bliss or even a mind of harmonious will and knowledge. There is here in man an incomplete and still hampered and baffled ascension towards the true character of the Purusha, free, master, knower and enjoyer.
For these are in human and earthly experience relative modes, none giving its single and absolute fruit; all are intermixed with each other and there is not the pure action of any one of them anywhere. It is their confused and inconstant interaction that determines the experiences of the egoistic human consciousness swinging in Nature's uncertain balance.
1.03 - The House Of The Lord, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Far be it from me to read his inner consciousness from his outer activities. Once I asked him to tell me the names of those who were enjoying the Brahmic consciousness so that I could have a practical knowledge of it! He replied, "How can you have a practical knowledge of it by knowing who has it? You might just as well expect to have a practical knowledge of high mathematics by knowing that Einstein is a great mathematician." His written works leave us in no doubt about the heights of consciousness to which he soared, the depths he has explored and his constant status of consciousness. But how they would influence, affect his daily human activities is a question of perennial interest. Did not Arjuna pose that question to Sri Krishna? The activities themselves may not shed any light on his inner divinity, especially to a superficial gaze. Still, the truly great touch everything they do and say with a sense of greatness. Hence, my attempt to make a selective sketch of Sri Aurobindo's outer life for the world-eye to have a glimpse of the riddle that he was throughout his earthly existence.
Many fantastic tales were abroad about his outer life, gaining ground and credit because of his living in seclusion. Some people believed that he neither ate nor slept, but remained absorbed in Samadhi. Others had heard that he could keep his body suspended in the air. Some there were who, like Arjuna, wanted genuinely to know how he spoke, how he sat and walked. The Mother had, at one time, discouraged us from dwelling upon these external aspects for fear that people's minds would be deflected from the Reality. After all it is not what a man appears to be which is most important. And we can affirm that all Sri Aurobindo's actions welled from the Divine Consciousness that he embodied: they were yukta karma. But how to demonstrate this? By having a practical knowledge of his day-to-day activity? Well, he who sees, sees!
1.03 - The Human Disciple, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To such a disciple the Teacher of the Gita gives his divine teaching. He seizes him at a moment of his psychological development by egoistic action when all the mental, moral, emotional values of the ordinary egoistic and social life of man have collapsed in a sudden bankruptcy, and he has to lift him up out of this lower life into a higher consciousness, out of ignorant attachment to action into that which transcends, yet originates and orders action, out of ego into Self, out of life in mind, vitality and body into that higher nature beyond mind which is the status of the Divine. He has at the same time to give him that for which he asks and for which he is inspired to seek by the guidance within him, a new Law of life and action high above the insufficient rule of the ordinary human existence with its endless conflicts and oppositions, perplexities and illusory certainties, a higher Law by which the soul shall be free from this bondage of works and yet powerful to act and conquer in the vast liberty of its divine being. For the action must be performed, the world must fulfil its cycles and the soul of the human being must not turn back in ignorance from the work it is here to do. The whole course of the teaching of the Gita is determined and directed, even in its widest wheelings, towards the fulfilment of these three objects.
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Doctrine , the interesting theory that within the apes are imprisoned the human souls of a solar-mercurial nature, souls almost of the status of Godhead, called Manasaputras,
" Mind-born sons of Brahma " ; which may explain why the Hindu gods of Mind and Intelligence are represented by so, apparently, an unintelligent beast as the anthropoid.
1.04 - Reality Omnipresent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
12:Thus, after reconciling Spirit and Matter in the cosmic consciousness, we perceive the reconciliation, in the transcendental consciousness, of the final assertion of all and its negation. We discover that all affirmations are assertions of status or activity in the Unknowable; all the corresponding negations are assertions of Its freedom both from and in that status or activity. The Unknowable is Something to us supreme, wonderful and ineffable which continually formulates Itself to our consciousness and continually escapes from the formulation It has made. This it does not as some malicious spirit or freakish magician leading us from falsehood to greater falsehood and so to a final negation of all things, but as even here the Wise beyond our wisdom guiding us from reality to ever profounder and vaster reality until we find the profoundest and vastest of which we are capable. An omnipresent reality is the Brahman, not an omnipresent cause of persistent illusions.
13:If we thus accept a positive basis for our harmony - and on what other can harmony be founded? - the various conceptual formulations of the Unknowable, each of them representing a truth beyond conception, must be understood as far as possible in their relation to each other and in their effect upon life, not separately, not exclusively, not so affirmed as to destroy or unduly diminish all other affirmations. The real Monism, the true Adwaita, is that which admits all things as the one Brahman and does not seek to bisect Its existence into two incompatible entities, an eternal Truth and an eternal Falsehood, Brahman and not-Brahman, Self and not-Self, a real Self and an unreal, yet perpetual Maya. If it be true that the Self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the Self. And if this Self, God or Brahman is no helpless state, no bounded power, no limited personality, but the self-conscient All, there must be some good and inherent reason in it for the manifestation, to discover which we must proceed on the hypothesis of some potency, some wisdom, some truth of being in all that is manifested. The discord and apparent evil of the world must in their sphere be admitted, but not accepted as our conquerors. The deepest instinct of humanity seeks always and seeks wisely wisdom as the last word of the universal manifestation, not an eternal mockery and illusion, - a secret and finally triumphant good, not an all-creative and invincible evil, - an ultimate victory and fulfilment, not the disappointed recoil of the soul from its great adventure.
1.04 - The Aims of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
but and raises him to the status of one who plays. As Schiller says, man is
completely human only when he is at play.
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
motivational significance or meaning. This is to say that all things that threatens the status quo, regardless
of their objective features, tends to be placed into the same natural category, as a consequence of their
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perhaps, from exposure to cultural artifacts (which are generally granted the status of mere tools, which
is to say, implements of the way) or from cues as subtle as voice or procedural melody.414
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threatening to those completely encapsulated by the status quo, and who are unable or unwilling to see
where the present state of adaptation is incomplete, and where residual danger lies. The archetypal
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also contaminates him with the forces that disrupt tradition and stability. The reigning status-quo stability
may be only apparent that is, the culture in its present form may already be doomed by as-of-yet not fully
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between desire and current status (between ideal future and present) does not disappear even in sleep. The
unknown brings wakefulness to the sleeping. Threat more generally, the appearance of the unknown
1.04 - The Core of the Teaching, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are in the world, in fact, two different laws of conduct each valid on its own plane, the rule principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience. The Gita does not teach us to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, it does not ask the awakened moral consciousness to slay itself on the altar of duty as a sacrifice and victim to the law of the social status. It calls us higher and not lower; from the conflict of the two planes it bids us ascend to a supreme poise above the mainly practical, above the purely ethical, to the Brahmic consciousness. It replaces the conception of social duty by a divine obligation. The subjection to external law gives place to a certain principle of inner self-determination of action proceeding by the soul's freedom from the tangled law of works. And this, as we shall see, - the Brahmic consciousness, the soul's freedom from works and the determination of works in the nature by the Lord within and above us, - is the kernel of the Gita's teaching with regard to action.
The Gita can only be understood, like any other great work of the kind, by studying it in its entirety and as a developing argument. But the modern interpreters, starting from the great writer Bankim Chandra Chatterji who first gave to the Gita this new sense of a Gospel of Duty, have laid an almost exclusive stress on the first three or four chapters and in those on the idea of equality, on the expression kartavyam karma, the work that is to be done, which they render by duty, and on the phrase "Thou hast a right to action, but none to the fruits of action" which is now popularly quoted as the great word, mahavakya, of the
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His grace thou shalt attain to the supreme peace and the eternal status. So have I expounded to thee a knowledge more secret than that which is hidden. Further hear the most secret, the supreme word that I shall speak to thee. Become my-minded, devoted to Me, to Me do sacrifice and adoration; infallibly, thou shalt come to Me, for dear to me art thou. Abandoning all laws of conduct seek refuge in Me alone. I will release thee from all sin; do not grieve."
The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law.
1.04 - The Discovery of the Nation-Soul, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The objective view of society has reigned throughout the historical period of humanity in the West; it has been sufficiently strong though not absolutely engrossing in the East. Rulers, people and thinkers alike have understood by their national existence a political status, the extent of their borders, their economic well-being and expansion, their laws, institutions and the working of these things. For this reason political and economic motives have everywhere predominated on the surface and history has been a record of their operations and influence. The one subjective and psychological force consciously admitted and with difficulty deniable has been that of the individual. This predominance is so great that most modern historians and some political thinkers have concluded that objective necessities are by law of Nature the only really determining forces, all else is result or superficial accidents of these forces. Scientific history has been conceived as if it must be a record and appreciation of the environmental motives of political action, of the play of economic forces and developments and the course of institutional evolution. The few who still valued the psychological element have kept their eye fixed on individuals and are not far from conceiving of history as a mass of biographies. The truer and more comprehensive science of the future will see that these conditions only apply to the imperfectly self-conscious period of national development. Even then there was always a greater subjective force working behind individuals, policies, economic movements and the change of institutions; but it worked for the most part subconsciously, more as a subliminal self than as a conscious mind. It is when this subconscious power of the group-soul comes to the surface that nations begin to enter into possession of their subjective selves; they set about getting, however vaguely or imperfectly, at their souls.
Certainly, there is always a vague sense of this subjective existence at work even on the surface of the communal mentality. But so far as this vague sense becomes at all definite, it concerns itself mostly with details and unessentials, national idiosyncrasies, habits, prejudices, marked mental tendencies. It is, so to speak, an objective sense of subjectivity. As man has been accustomed to look on himself as a body and a life, the physical animal with a certain moral or immoral temperament, and the things of the mind have been regarded as a fine flower and attainment of the physical life rather than themselves anything essential or the sign of something essential, so and much more has the community regarded that small part of its subjective self of which it becomes aware. It clings indeed always to its idiosyncrasies, habits, prejudices, but in a blind objective fashion, insisting on their most external aspect and not at all going behind them to that for which they stand, that which they try blindly to express.
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What is Mah or Mahas?The word means great, embracing, full, comprehensive. The Earth, also, because of its wideness & containing faculty is called mahi,just as it is called prithivi, dhara, medini, dharani, etc. In various forms, the root itself, mahi, mahitwam, maha, magha, etc, it recurs with remarkable profusion and persistence throughout the Veda. Evidently it expressed some leading thought of the Rishis, was some term of the highest importance in their system of psychology. Turning to the Purana we find the term mahat applied to some comprehensive principle which is supposed itself to be near to the unmanifest, avyaktam but to supply the material of all that is manifest and always to surround, embrace and uphold it. Mahat seems here to be an objective principle; but this need not trouble us; for in the old Hindu system all that is objective had something subjective corresponding to it and constituting its real nature. We find it explicitly declared in the Vishnu Purana that all things here are manifestations of vijnana, pure ideal knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitaniideal knowledge vibrating out into intensity of various phenomenal existences each with its subjective reason for existence and objective case & form of existence. Is ideal knowledge then the subjective principle of mahat? If so, vijnanam and the Vedic mahas are likely to be terms identical in their philosophical content and psychological significance. We turn to the Upanishads and find mention made more than once of a certain subjective state of the soul, which is called Mahan Atma, a state into which the mind and senses have to be drawn up as we rise by samadhi of the instruments of knowledge into the supreme state of Brahman and which is superior therefore to these instruments. The Mahan Atma is the state of the pure Brahman out of which the vijnana or ideal truth (sattwa or beness of things) emerges and it is higher than the vijnana but nearer us than the Unmanifest or Avyaktam (Katha: III.10, 11,13 & VI.7). If we understand by the Mahan Atma that status of soul existence (Purusha) which is the basis of the objective mahat or mahati prakriti and which develops the vijnanam or ideal knowledge as its subjective instrument, then we shall have farther light on the nature of Mahas in the ancient conceptions. We shall see that it is ideal knowledge, vijnanam, or is connected with ideal knowledge.
But we have first one more step in our evidence to notice,the final & conclusive link. In the Taittiriya Upanishad we are told that there are three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, but the Rishi Mahachamasya insisted on a fourth, Mahas. What is this fourth vyahriti? It is evidently some old Vedic idea and can hardly fail to be our maho arnas. I have already, in my introduction, outlined briefly the Vedic, Vedantic & Puranic system of the seven worlds and the five bodies. In this system the three vyahritis constitute the lower half of existence which is in bondage to Avidya. Bhurloka is the material world, our dwelling place, in which Annam predominates, in which everything is subject to or limited by the laws of matter & material consciousness. Bhuvar are the middle worlds, antariksha, between Swar & Bhur, vital worlds in which Prana, the vital principle predominates and everything is subject to or limited by the laws of vitality & vital consciousness. Swarloka is the supreme world of the triple system, the pure mental kingdom in which manasei ther in itself or, as one goes higher, uplifted & enlightened by buddhipredominates & by the laws of mind determines the life & movements of the existences which inhabit it. The three Puranic worlds Jana, Tapas, Satya,not unknown to the Vedaconstitute the Parardha; they are the higher ranges of existence in which Sat, Chit, Ananda, the three mighty elements of the divine nature predominate respectively, creative Ananda or divine bliss in Jana, the power of Chit (Chich-chhakti) or divine Energy in Tapas, the extension [of] Sat or divine being in Satya. But these worlds are hidden from us, avyaktalost for us in the sushupti to which only great Yogins easily attain & only with the Anandaloka have we by means of the anandakosha some difficult chance of direct access. We are too joyless to bear the surging waves of that divine bliss, too weak or limited to move in those higher ranges of divine strength & being. Between the upper hemisphere & the lower is Maharloka, the seat of ideal knowledge & pure Truth, which links the free spirits to the bound, the gods who deliver to the gods who are in chains, the wide & immutable realms to these petty provinces where all shifts, all passes, all changes. We see therefore that Mahas is still vijnanam and we can no longer hesitate to identify our subjective principle of mahas, source of truth & right thinking awakened by Saraswati through the perceptive intelligence, with the Vedantic principle of vijnana or pure buddhi, instrument of pure Truth & ideal knowledge.
1.04 - Wake-Up Sermon, #The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, #Bodhidharma, #Buddhism
his status. Free of sex and status, they shared the same basic
appearance. The goddess searched twelve years for her womanhood
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the status of the Earth to nothing but one planet among
others and the status of the human beings to nothing but
one kind of animals among others. Bertr and Russell, at
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Another item on this list is the status of planet Earth
and of life on it. Life has not yet been found anywhere ex-
1.053 - A Very Important Sadhana, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The idea that God is extra-cosmic and outside us, incapable of approach, and that we are likely not to receive any response from Him in spite of our efforts at prayer, etc. all these ideas are due to certain encrustations in the mind, the tamasic qualities which cover the mind and make it again subtly tend towards objects of sense. The desire for objects of sense, subtly present in a very latent form in the subconscious level, becomes responsible for the doubt in the mind that perhaps there is no response from God. This is because our love is not for God it is for objects of sense, and for status in society and enjoyments of various types in the world. And when, through austerity, or tapas, we have put the senses down with the force of our thumb, there is a temporary cessation of their activity.
But the subconscious desire for things does not cease, just as a person who is thrown out of his ministry may not cease from desiring to be a minister once again; he will stand for election another time, if possible. The subtle subconscious desire is there. He will be restless, without any peace in the mind, because the position has been uprooted. The senses are unable to move towards the objects because we have curbed them with force by going away to distant places like Gangotri where we will not get any physical or social satisfaction. But, there is a revulsion felt inside, and there is a feeling of inadequacy of every type. This will create various doubts if not consciously, at least subconsciously.
1.056 - Lack of Knowledge is the Cause of Suffering, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This ignorance or avidya is, really speaking, an oblivion in respect of the nature of things in their own status, and an insistence and an emphasis of their apparent characteristics, their forms, their names and their relationships, upon the basis of which the history of the world moves and the activity of people goes on. This ignorance is the root cause of all mental suffering, which of course is the cause of every other suffering. It may be any kind of suffering; it is based ultimately on this peculiar inward root of dislocation of personality where begins our study of abnormal psychology, if we would like to call it so.
If abnormal psychology is the study of disordered mental conditions, then we may say that every psychology is abnormal psychology, because there is no ordered mind anywhere in the world, in the sense that everything is set out of tune from reality. Psychoanalysts are fond of saying that when the mind is out of tune with reality, there is abnormality. This is a great dictum of Freud, Adler, Hume, and many others. But though the saying is well-defined and accepted by all psychologists, the crux of the matter is: what is reality with which the mind is supposed to be in tune? According to psychoanalysts, reality is the world that we see with our eyes and the society in which we are living.
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These conditions are mentioned in this sutra, prasupta tanu vicchinna udrm (II.4), which enumerates the four conditions of the tendency of the individual towards objects. Prasupta is sleeping, or dormant; tanu is attenuated, or thinned out and weakened; vicchinna is interrupted; udara is fully manifest, or expressed. These conditions represent the activity of the tendencies of the individual, which are born of avidya, or ignorance. Ignorance of the nature of things means a complete obscuration of the knowledge of the ultimate character of ones true being. It is impossible in this state to know what ones Self really is, just as in dream one forgets ones wakeful condition wakeful state and status. If we are a well-placed dignitary in the waking condition, in dream we may be a mosquito or a fly, or we may be a nothing. We completely forget our status in the waking state due to a total transformation of the mind in dream. This is an illustration to give an idea of what ignorance of ones true nature is. We may be an emperor; we may be a president of our vast country, or a prime minister what does it matter? When we are in dream, we are something quite different. We are different to such an extent that we cannot have the least trace of the memory that we are something else in the waking state.
Now, what happens in dream? This ignorance of what we really are does not simply keep quiet like that. We are not simply in a sleepy condition where we are completely oblivious of our true nature. There is a mischievous activity taking place simultaneously with this ignorance, and that is what is called the dream perceptions. Not only are we not allowed to know what we really are, but we are told that we are what we are not. This is a terrible type of brainwashing that is going on there, where we become stupid to the utmost, and become totally helpless. We become a tool of forces over which we can have absolutely no control. This is what happens to us in dream. We have forgotten what we really are, and are seeing something which is not there. Then we cling to it, run after it, believe in its reality and then cry for it, and get involved in it as if that is the only reality. So there is a tremendous vikshepa or projection, a violent rajasic activity taking place a tempestuous wind that blows in a wrong direction as a consequence of the dark clouds covering the light of knowledge. Thus avidya, or ignorance, which is the obscuration of the knowledge of our true nature, at the same time produces a counter-effect that is deleterious to the knowledge of our own being the perception of a wrong externality, as happens in dream.
1.057 - The Four Manifestations of Ignorance, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Simultaneously with this urge to affirm oneself as an individual isolated from others, there is a contrary feeling of the necessity to relate oneself to others. We create a tense form of living, which is our present-day social living, where internally we dislike one another but outwardly we feel a necessity to be brothers. There is a necessity felt both ways. I feel a necessity to maintain my individuality. I cannot merge myself in you then, I will lose my individuality. It is a loss of my very status, which I would not like. So I maintain and preserve vehemently my individuality but at the same time, I cannot exist in that condition because of my dependence upon other individuals.
Thus, an artificial life is created. The sorrow of life is the result of this peculiar artificial atmosphere compelled upon the individual on account of its double attitude of affirmation of individuality on the one side, and the feeling of necessity for relationship with others on the other side.
1.05 - Buddhism and Women, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
The status of women in buddhism often appears to
have been inferior to that of men. For example, in the
1.05 - The Destiny of the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:We will guard ourselves also against the excessive importance that the mind attaches to particular points of view at which it arrives in its more powerful expansions and transitions. The perception of the spiritualised mind that the universe is an unreal dream can have no more absolute a value to us than the perception of the materialised mind that God and the Beyond are an illusory idea. In the one case the mind, habituated only to the evidence of the senses and associating reality with corporeal fact, is either unaccustomed to use other means of knowledge or unable to extend the notion of reality to a supraphysical experience. In the other case the same mind, passing beyond to the overwhelming experience of an incorporeal reality, simply transfers the same inability and the same consequent sense of dream or hallucination to the experience of the senses. But we perceive also the truth that these two conceptions disfigure. It is true that for this world of form in which we are set for our selfrealisation, nothing is entirely valid until it has possessed itself of our physical consciousness and manifested on the lowest levels in harmony with its manifestation on the highest summits. It is equally true that form and matter asserting themselves as a selfexistent reality are an illusion of Ignorance. Form and matter can be valid only as shape and substance of manifestation for the incorporeal and immaterial. They are in their nature an act of divine consciousness, in their aim the representation of a status of the Spirit.
8:In other words, if Brahman has entered into form and represented Its being in material substance, it can only be to enjoy self-manifestation in the figures of relative and phenomenal consciousness. Brahman is in this world to represent Itself in the values of Life. Life exists in Brahman in order to discover Brahman in itself. Therefore man's importance in the world is that he gives to it that development of consciousness in which its transfiguration by a perfect self-discovery becomes possible. To fulfil God in life is man's manhood. He starts from the animal vitality and its activities, but a divine existence is his objective.
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
own strength, because true heroism, regardless of its source, has the capacity to upset the status quo.
Through such denial the absolutist hopes to find protection from his individual vulnerability. In truth,
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identified with his job, his social status, his view of the present, his hopes for the future. The initial
intrusion of fate into this self-deceptive security occurs at night. Arrest takes place without warning, in the
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previous social status. This complete destruction of social context, of social identity, heightens the newly
arrested individuals sense of self-consciousness, of nakedness and vulnerability. This leaves him
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and ideal future, with its means to its ends. Unjust incarceration meant loss of status, heightened fear of
morality; demonstrated as nothing else could the evidently pathological operations of the state, constructed
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corrupt, nature of previous status, to foster anxiety, depression, and desire, often realized, for dissolution
and death. How could such a threat be countered?
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status of good and status of evil, in accordance with their perceived utility, with regards to a particular goal.
282
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it has been classified in accordance with its currently evident motivational status: promise, threat,
satisfaction, punishment (or none of the above), as determined, situationally. This is evidently true with
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Renaissance period. But Newton had given forces an ontological status equivalent to that of matter and
motion. By so doing, and by quantifying the forces, he enabled the mechanical philosophies to rise
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significance regain their original status. That means that objects of experience are renovelized that the
affect they were capable of producing, prior to classification, re-emerges. From the alchemical perspective,
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have assimilated, but not accomodated to), has the same affective status as everything that exists merely as
potential. Every thought and impulse we avoid or suppress, because it threatens our self-conception or
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whether subjective or objective equal status, as aspects of experience. Redeeming any aspect of that
experience, then whether material or psychological; whether self or other is then regarded as the
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superior in status to her which was virtually everyone hunched over, with her eyes shaded by her hands,
both hands as if she could not tolerate the light emanating from her target.
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which specifically attri butes divine status to the individual. The modern individual is therefore in a unique
position: he no longer believes that the principles upon which all his behaviors are predicated are valid.
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therefore, is the a priori status of the conditioned stimulus, with regards to valence and how that status might be
altered or explored away.
1.05 - War And Politics, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: The fact is they don't believe that India will help them if she is given Dominion status. Otherwise they would have given it.
Rao: I don't think India will refuse to help.
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Along with the European war, India's political problem naturally played a prominent part in our discussion, Mahatma Gandhi's attitude, the Congress policy, the Hindu-Muslim problem, Jinnah's intransigence and the Viceroy's role as the peace-maker, all this complicated politics and our Himalayan blunders leading to the rejection of the famous Cripps' Proposals, were within our constant purview.... The upshot of the whole discussion till the arrival of the Cripps' Mission can be put in a few words; the Congress made a big mistake by resigning from the Ministry. The Government was ready to offer us Dominion status which we should have accepted, for it was virtually a step towards independence. We should have joined the war-effort. That would have created an opportunity to enter into all military departments and operations in air, on sea and land; hold positions, become efficient and thus enforce our natural right for freedom.
When Gandhi complained that the Viceroy did not say anything in reply to all his questions, Sri Aurobindo said to us in one of our talks on October 7th, 1940: "What will he say?It is very plain why he did not. First of all, the Government doesn't want to concede the demand for independence. What it is willing to give is Dominion status after the War, expecting that India will settle down into a common relationship with the Empire. But just now a national government will virtually mean Dominion status with the Viceroy only as a constitutional head. Nobody knows what the Congress will do after it gets power. It may be occupied only with India's defence and give such help as it can spare to England. And if things go wrong with the British, it may even make a separate peace leaving them in the lurch. There are Left Wingers, Socialists, Communists whom the Congress won't be able to bring to its side, neither will it dare to offend them and if their influence is sufficiently strong, the Congress may stand against the British. Thus it is quite natural for them not to part with power just now as it is also natural for us to make our claims. But since we haven't got enough strength to back us, we have to see if we have any common meeting ground with the Government. If there is, a compromise is the only practical step. There was such an opportunity, but the Congress spoiled it. Now you have to accept what you get or I don't know what is going to happen. Of course, if we had the strength and power to make a revolution and get what we want, it would be a different matter. Amery and others did offer Dominion status at one time. Now they have changed their position because they have come to know the spirit of our people. Our politicians have some fixed ideas and they always go by them. Politicians and statesmen have to take account of situations and act as demanded by them. They must have insight."
"But it is because of the British divide-and-rule policy that we can't unite," we parried.
1.060 - Tracing the Ultimate Cause of Any Experience, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This is the etiology, the diagnosis, or we may call it the pathological investigation of a psychological condition that has arisen. No event takes place by a single cause. Many causes come together to produce an effect, just as it is in anything that we see in life. Even a headache does not come due to a single reason. There is a susceptibility of the system the season or the climate that is pervading outside, the mental condition, the social status, the function or the work that one performs, and so on. These become various factors that are contri butory to a single phenomenon which is experienced.
To bring an effect back to its cause is a difficult thing because the cause cannot be easily discovered. If there is a single cause for a single effect, and they work in a mathematical fashion absolutely, we may be able to revert the effect into the cause at once, by turning on a switch. But, the cause and effect relationship is not as arithmetical as it may appear. They do not follow any logic in the way we understand it. Suddenly, a phenomenon can arise. Though it is a very logical consequence of certain causes, it will remain outside the purview of our understanding because the logical deductions that we make are linear in their fashion and not organic in their structure. But, the world is organic. Everything is organic in life, which means to say there is an interrelatedness of causes mutually determining one another, so that anything can be called a cause if it is pinpointed exclusively.
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
agines it possesses, but which belies its true status as up
right mammalian weeds. Earth is going to die ... the Sun
1.06 - Man in the Universe, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
5:The universe and the individual are the two essential appearances into which the Unknowable descends and through which it has to be approached; for other intermediate collectivities are born only of their interaction. This descent of the supreme Reality is in its nature a self-concealing; and in the descent there are successive levels, in the concealing successive veils. Necessarily, the revelation takes the form of an ascent; and necessarily also the ascent and the revelation are both progressive. For each successive level in the descent of the Divine is to man a stage in an ascension; each veil that hides the unknown God becomes for the God-lover and God-seeker an instrument of His unveiling. Out of the rhythmic slumber of material Nature unconscious of the Soul and the Idea that maintain the ordered activities of her energy even in her dumb and mighty material trance, the world struggles into the more quick, varied and disordered rhythm of Life labouring on the verges of self-consciousness. Out of Life it struggles upward into Mind in which the unit becomes awake to itself and its world, and in that awakening the universe gains the leverage it required for its supreme work, it gains self-conscious individuality. But Mind takes up the work to continue, not to complete it. It is a labourer of acute but limited intelligence who takes the confused materials offered by Life and, having improved, adapted, varied, classified according to its power, hands them over to the supreme Artist of our divine manhood. That Artist dwells in supermind; for supermind is superman. Therefore our world has yet to climb beyond Mind to a higher principle, a higher status, a higher dynamism in which universe and individual become aware of and possess that which they both are and therefore stand explained to each other, in harmony with each other, unified.
6:The disorders of life and mind cease by discerning the secret of a more perfect order than the physical. Matter below life and mind contains in itself the balance between a perfect poise of tranquillity and the action of an immeasurable energy, but does not possess that which it contains. Its peace wears the dull mask of an obscure inertia, a sleep of unconsciousness or rather of a drugged and imprisoned consciousness. Driven by a force which is its real self but whose sense it cannot yet seize nor share, it has not the awakened joy of its own harmonious energies.
1.06 - On Thought, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Since we want to learn to think better in order to live better, since we want to know how to think in order to recover our place and status in life as feminine counterparts and to become in fact the helpful, inspiring and balancing elements that we are potentially, it seems indispensable to me that we should first of all enquire into what thought is.
Thought. It is a very vast subject, the vastest of all, perhaps. Therefore I do not intend to tell you exactly and completely what it is. But by a process of analysis, we shall try to form as precise an idea of it as it is possible for us to do.
1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is here that the emergence of the secret psychic being in us as the leader of the sacrifice is of the utmost importance; for this inmost being alone can bring with it the full power of the spirit in the act, the soul in the symbol. It alone can assure, even while the spiritual consciousness is incomplete, the perennial freshness and sincerity and beauty of the symbol and prevent it from becoming a dead form or a corrupted and corrupting magic; it alone can preserve for the act its power with its significance. All the other members of our being, mind, life-force, physical or body consciousness, are too much under the control of the Ignorance to be a sure instrumentation and much less can they be a guide or the source of an unerring impulse. Always the greater part of the motive and action of these powers clings to the old law, the deceiving tablets, the cherished inferior movements of Nature and they meet with reluctance, alarm or revolt or obstructing inertia the voices and the forces that call and impel us to exceed and transform ourselves into a greater being and a wider Nature. In their major part the response is either a resistance or a qualified or temporising acquiescence; for even if they follow the call, they yet tend - when not consciously, then by automatic habit - to bring into the spiritual action their own natural disabilities and errors. At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Natureforces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure.
And yet even the leading of the inmost psychic being is not found sufficient until it has succeeded in raising itself out of this mass of inferior Nature to the highest spiritual levels and the divine spark and flame descended here have rejoined themselves to their original fiery Ether. For there is there no longer a spiritual consciousness still imperfect and half lost to itself in the thick sheaths of human mind, life and body, but the full spiritual consciousness in its purity, freedom and intense wideness. There, as it is the eternal Knower that becomes the Knower in us and mover and user of all knowledge, so it is the eternal All-Blissful who is the Adored attracting to himself the eternal divine portion of his being and joy that has gone out into the play of the universe, the infinite Lover pouring himself out in the multiplicity of his own manifested selves in a happy Oneness.
--
Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire, - to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit. It is not a mental quiet, aloofness, indifference, not an inert vital quiescence, not a passivity of the physical consciousness consenting to no movement or to any movement that is the condition aimed at, though these
178
1.06 - The Sign of the Fishes, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
mises in a psychologically correct manner that a new status-
or, as we would say, a new attitude- would appear first as a more
--
That is to say, just as Joachim supposed that the status of
the Holy Ghost had secretly begun with St. Benedict, so we
might hazard the conjecture that a new status was secretly
anticipated in Joachim himself. Consciously, of course, he
thought he was bringing the status of the Holy Ghost into
reality, just as it is certain that St. Benedict had nothing else in
1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The various forms of government can stay as they are; that is only of secondary importance. But whatever the social status of the men in power, they should receive their inspiration from those who have realised the Truth and have no other will than that of the Supreme.
17 September 1959
1.070 - The Seven Stages of Perfection, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This body is the house. This individuality is the vehicle that has been manufactured by these tendencies to object-perception, and they themselves form the substance of this body-mind complex. And, the presence of this vehicle is simultaneous with the attachment of consciousness to that vehicle; this is the bondage of the soul. Thus, it is hard for one to attain salvation, because it is the abolition of individuality itself a total extinction of personality that is known as nirvana, the complete vanishing from sight of the very possibility of objectivity. The blowing out of a lamp is what is actually meant by nirvana. The lamp of world-consciousness the light with which we see objects is blown out completely, and there is the return of the spirit to its own pristine purity and status.
This is the meaning in substance of these sutras: tad abhvt sayogbhva hna tadde kaivalyam (II.25); vivekakhyti aviplav hnopya (II.26); tasya saptadh prntabhmi praj (II.27). What is the way to this attainment? Discriminative knowledge is the way, which has to be attained by the practice of the limbs of yoga and there is no other alternative. Nanya panth vidyate ayanya (R.V. X.90.16), says the Rig Veda. We cannot have any other, simpler method here. There is only one method. This is a single-track approach, and everyone has to proceed along the same road which others have trodden from ancient times. This is the viveka khyati that is referred to here. The enlightenment that follows understanding of the true nature of things this is viveka khyati. This understanding should be perpetual; it should be second nature to us.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
reputation, approval, status, possessions, or nances. When we are principally concerned with our own well-being in the world, its difcult to be
good teachers for others. The more we are concerned about the happiness of
--
offerings, respect, status, or approval. To the extent that we are involved in
the eight worldly concerns, our motivation is corrupted, even when were
--
Please protect my possessions. Please protect my status. We request worldly
benet with a self-centered motivation, while the aim of these protectors is
1.07 - Bridge across the Afterlife, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
These words refer directly to the status of Mirra Alfassa,
the French woman whom we now call the Mother, there-
1.07 - Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
18:For, long after the individual has become partially free, a moral organism capable of conscious growth, aware of an inward life, eager for spiritual progress, society continues to be external in its methods, a material and economic organism, mechanical, more intent upon status and self-preservation than on growth and self-perfection. The greatest present triumph of the thinking and progressive individual over the instinctive and static society has been the power he has acquired by his thoughtwill to compel it to think also, to open itself to the idea of social justice and righteousness, communal sympathy and mutual compassion, to feel after the rule of reason rather than blind custom as the test of its institutions and to look on the mental and moral assent of its individuals as at least one essential element in the validity of its laws. Ideally at least, to consider light rather than force as its sanction, moral development and not vengeance or restraint as the object even of its penal action, is becoming just possible to the communal mind. The greatest future triumph of the thinker will come when he can persuade the individual integer and the collective whole to rest their life-relation and its union and stability upon a free and harmonious consent and selfadaptation, and shape and govern the external by the internal truth rather than to constrain the inner spirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.
19:But even this success that he has gained is rather a thing in potentiality than in actual accomplishment. There is always a disharmony and a discord between the moral law in the individual and the law of his needs and desires, between the moral law proposed to society and the physical and vital needs, desires, customs, prejudices, interests and passions of the caste, the clan, the religious community, the society, the nation. The moralist erects in vain his absolute ethical standard and calls upon all to be faithful to it without regard to consequences. To him the needs and desires of the individual are invalid if they are in conflict with the moral law, and the social law has no claims upon him if it is opposed to his sense of right and denied by his conscience. This is his absolute solution for the individual that he shall cherish no desires and claims that are not consistent with love, truth and justice. He demands from the community or nation that it shall hold all things cheap, even its safety and its most pressing interests, in comparison with truth, justice, humanity and the highest good of the peoples.
1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
Numerous psychologists (Bruner, Flavell, Arieti, Cowan, Kramer, Commons, Basseches, Arlin, etc.) have pointed out that there is much evidence for a stage beyond Piaget's formal operational. It has been called "dialectical," "integrative," "creative synthetic," "integral-aperspectival," "postformal," and so forth. I, of course, am using the terms vision-logic or network-logic. But the conclusions are all essentially the same: "Piaget's formal operational is considered to be a problem-solving stage. But beyond this stage are the truly creative scientists and thinkers who define important problems and ask important questions. While Piaget's formal model is adequate to describe the cognitive structures of adolescents and competent adults, it is not adequate to describe the towering intellect of Nobel laureates, great statesmen and stateswomen, poets, and so on."5 True enough. But I would like to give a different emphasis to this structure, for while very few people might actually gain the "towering status of a Nobel laureate," the space of vision-logic (its worldspace or worldview) is available for any who wish to continue their growth and development. In other words, to progress through the various stages of growth does not mean that one has to extraordinarily master each and every stage, and demonstrate a genius comprehension at that stage before one can progress beyond it. This would be like saying that no individuals can move beyond the oral stage until they become gourmet cooks.
It is not even necessary to be able to articulate the characteristics of a particular stage (children progress beyond preop without ever being able to define it). It is merely necessary to develop an adequate competence at that stage, in order for it to serve just fine as a platform for the transcendence to the next stage. In order to transcend the verbal, it is not necessary to first become Shakespeare.
1.07 - THE GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED - THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKIND, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
country, creed or social status of the person I approach, provided
the same flame of expectation burns in us both, there is a profound,
1.07 - The Prophecies of Nostradamus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
tionem et illud complementum dictarum 10 revolutionum erit status octavae
sphaerae circiter per annos 25 quod sic patet: quia status octavae sphaerae erit
98
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the status of a science. Even so highly specialized a technique as Freudian
psychoanalysis was unable, at the very outset, to avoid poaching on other, and sometimes exceedingly remote, scientific preserves. It is, in fact,
1.096 - Powers that Accrue in the Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The gross aspect is the first one, as the gross objects are visible to the senses. The way in which the senses grasp the elements is the character of the elements, which is called sthula. But the character, which is there from its own point of view, independent of the interpretation of it by the senses, is called svarupa. What is its status from its own point of view, independent of what we think or what we have been thinking about it that situation of the element is called svarupa. Or rather, what you are, independent of what I think you are, is your svarupa. Thus, the gross form is that interpretation given to the elements by the senses, and the svarupa is the nature of the elements as they stand in themselves. That is a higher stage of understanding, where we rise above our interpretation to the situation as it is.
Sukshma is the third aspect, which is the subtle rudimentary character of the elements, known as tanmatras. They are made up of five forces called shabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa and gandha. They are vibrations, ultimately; they are not simply solid objects. These vibrations, which are called tanmatras, are their third subtle aspect.
1.097 - Sublimation of Object-Consciousness, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There is a total disparity of character between the pure state of the purusha and the conditions of ordinary perception through the mind. In other words, there is a great difference between the status of consciousness in the state of the pure purusha and the condition of consciousness in ordinary world awareness. The present state of our mind is quite different and utterly opposed to the state of consciousness expected in the state of the purusha, or the Ultimate Subject. It is difficult to conceive the nature of the two types of awareness and, therefore, we cannot understand what the difference is. Even the best of minds can fumble here on account of a subtle desire to transpose the characters of world perception to spiritual consciousness.
Spiritual consciousness is different from world perception, but many people do not understand this. They are, again and again, brought to the wrong conviction by the habits of the mind that, somehow or other, the conditions of world experience will persist even in God-consciousness. This is exactly what is denied in this sutra. World experience is different in character from spiritual experience, and those conditions which are necessary to rouse a spiritual experience in oneself are to be acquired before a meditation in this direction can be attempted.
--
Patanjali mentions this to us once again, in the Vibhuti Pada, for the purpose of acquisition of the knowledge of the purusha. Sattva purua anyat khytimtrasya sarvabhva adhihttva sarvajttva ca (III.50). When there is an acquisition of this understanding and an establishment of oneself in this status of meditation, some extraordinary results follow, and they are mentioned as sarva bhava adhis thatritva and sarva jnatritva. One becomes the substratum of everything as a result of this meditation that is sarva bhava adhis thatritva. As the substratum of all things, there is no need for this consciousness to move towards objects, because it is the substratum of even the object. As the result of this, again, there is sarva jnatritva knowledge of everything. The substance of everything is also endowed with the knowledge of everything. It follows, because everything is a modification of the substance. One who has become the substance itself, as the substratum of all things, naturally gets endowed with this knowledge. This knowledge is called taraka that which takes one across the ocean of sorrow.
Traka sarvaviaya sarvathviaya akrama ca iti vivekajam jnam (III.55). This taraka knowledge is of such a nature that its object is everything, as different from the mental knowledge which is provided to us now, at present, which has only certain objects as its contents, and not all objects. A certain set of objects becomes the content of mental consciousness, empirically. But here, there is sarva visayatva anything that is existent is a constant and perpetual content of this consciousness. It is not merely sarva visaya, but is also sarvatha visaya it is aware of everything in every condition, not only in one condition. For example, we are aware of objects in one condition only, not in all conditions. In the earlier sutras we have been told that every object undergoes various conditions the parinamas mentioned. And we cannot be aware of all the parinamas, or all the transformations of the past, present and future at one stroke, because of the limited character of the mind in its capacity to know things. Only the present is known. The past is not known. The future is not known.
1.09 - Civilisation and Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in a civilised society there is still the distinction between the partially, crudely, conventionally civilised and the cultured. It would seem therefore that the mere participation in the ordinary benefits of civilisation is not enough to raise a man into the mental life proper; a farther development, a higher elevation is needed. The last generation drew emphatically the distinction between the cultured man and the Philistine and got a fairly clear idea of what was meant by it. Roughly, the Philistine was for them the man who lives outwardly the civilised life, possesses all its paraphernalia, has and mouths the current stock of opinions, prejudices, conventions, sentiments, but is impervious to ideas, exercises no free intelligence, is innocent of beauty and art, vulgarises everything that he touches, religion, ethics, literature, life. The Philistine is in fact the modern civilised barbarian; he is often the half-civilised physical and vital barbarian by his unintelligent attachment to the life of the body, the life of the vital needs and impulses and the ideal of the merely domestic and economic human animal; but essentially and commonly he is the mental barbarian, the average sensational man. That is to say, his mental life is that of the lower substratum of the mind, the life of the senses, the life of the sensations, the life of the emotions, the life of practical conduct the first status of the mental being. In all these he may be very active, very vigorous, but he does not govern them by a higher light or seek to uplift them to a freer and nobler eminence; rather he pulls the higher faculties down to the level of his senses, his sensations, his unenlightened and unchastened emotions, his gross utilitarian practicality. His aesthetic side is little developed; either he cares nothing for beauty or has the crudest aesthetic tastes which help to lower and vulgarise the general standard of aesthetic creation and the aesthetic sense. He is often strong about morals, far more particular usually about moral conduct than the man of culture, but his moral being is as crude and undeveloped as the rest of him; it is conventional, unchastened, unintelligent, a mass of likes and dislikes, prejudices and current opinions, attachment to social conventions and respectabilities and an obscure dislikerooted in the mind of sensations and not in the intelligenceof any open defiance or departure from the generally accepted standard of conduct. His ethical bent is a habit of the sensemind; it is the morality of the average sensational man. He has a reason and the appearance of an intelligent will, but they are not his own, they are part of the group-mind, received from his environment; or so far as they are his own, merely a practical, sensational, emotional reason and will, a mechanical repetition of habitual notions and rules of conduct, not a play of real thought and intelligent determination. His use of them no more makes him a developed mental being than the daily movement to and from his place of business makes the average Londoner a developed physical being or his quotidian contri butions to the economic life of the country make the bank-clerk a developed economic man. He is not mentally active, but mentally reactive,a very different matter.
The Philistine is not dead,quite the contrary, he abounds,but he no longer reigns. The sons of Culture have not exactly conquered, but they have got rid of the old Goliath and replaced him by a new giant. This is the sensational man who has got awakened to the necessity at least of some intelligent use of the higher faculties and is trying to be mentally active. He has been whipped and censured and educated into that activity and he lives besides in a maelstrom of new information, new intellectual fashions, new ideas and new movements to which he can no longer be obstinately impervious. He is open to new ideas, he can catch at them and hurl them about in a rather confused fashion; he can understand or misunderstand ideals, organise to get them carried out and even, it would appear, fight and die for them. He knows he has to think about ethical problems, social problems, problems of science and religion, to welcome new political developments, to look with as understanding an eye as he can attain to at all the new movements of thought and inquiry and action that chase each other across the modern field or clash upon it. He is a reader of poetry as well as a devourer of fiction and periodical literature,you will find in him perhaps a student of Tagore or an admirer of Whitman; he has perhaps no very clear ideas about beauty and aesthetics, but he has heard that Art is a not altogether unimportant part of life. The shadow of this new colossus is everywhere. He is the great reading public; the newspapers and weekly and monthly reviews are his; fiction and poetry and art are his mental caterers, the theatre and the cinema and the radio exist for him: Science hastens to bring her knowledge and discoveries to his doors and equip his life with endless machinery; politics are shaped in his image. It is he who opposed and then brought about the enfranchisement of women, who has been evolving syndicalism, anarchism, the war of classes, the uprising of labour, waging what we are told are wars of ideas or of cultures,a ferocious type of conflict made in the very image of this new barbarism,or bringing about in a few days Russian revolutions which the century-long efforts and sufferings of the intelligentsia failed to achieve. It is his coming which has been the precipitative agent for the reshaping of the modern world. If a Lenin, a Mussolini, a Hitler have achieved their rapid and almost stupefying success, it was because this driving force, this responsive quick-acting mass was there to carry them to victorya force lacking to their less fortunate predecessors.
1.09 - Equality and the Annihilation of Ego, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
5:And since all things are the one Self in its manifestation, we shall have equality of soul towards the ugly and the beautiful, the maimed and the perfect, the noble and the vulgar, the pleasant and the unpleasant, the good and the evil. Here also there will be no hatred, scorn and repulsion, but instead the equal eye that sees all things in their real character and their appointed place. For we shall know that all things express or disguise, develop or distort, as best they can or with whatever defect they must, under the circumstances intended for them, in the way possible to the immediate status or function or evolution of their nature, some truth or fact, some energy or potential of the Divine necessary by its presence in the progressive manifestation both to the whole of the present sum of things and for the perfection of the ultimate result. That truth is what we must seek and discover behind the transitory expression; undeterred by appearances, by the deficiencies or the disfigurements of the expression, we can then worship the Divine for ever unsullied, pure, beautiful and perfect behind his masks. All indeed has to be changed, not ugliness accepted but divine beauty, not imperfection taken as our resting-place but perfection striven after, the supreme good made the universal aim and not evil. But what we do has to be done with a spiritual understanding and knowledge, and it is a divine good, beauty, perfection, pleasure that has to be followed after, not the human standards of these things. If we have not equality, it is a sign that we are still pursued by the Ignorance, we shall truly understand nothing and it is more than likely that we shall destroy the old imperfection only to create another: for we are substituting the appreciations of our human mind and desire-soul for the divine values.
6:Equality does not mean a fresh ignorance or blindness; it does not call for and need not initiate a greyness of vision and a blotting out of all hues. Difference is there, variation of expression is there and this variation we shall appreciate, - far more justly than we could when the eye was clouded by a partial and erring love and hate, admiration and scorn, sympathy and antipathy, attraction and repulsion. But behind the variation we shall always see the Complete and Immutable who dwells within it and we shall feel, know or at least, if it is hidden from us, trust in the wise purpose and divine necessity of the particular manifestation, whether it appear to our human standards harmonious and perfect or crude and unfinished or even false and evil.
7:And so too we shall have the same equality of mind and soul towards all happenings, painful or pleasurable, defeat and success, honour and disgrace, good repute and ill-repute, good fortune and evil fortune. For in all happenings we shall see the will of the Master of all works and results and a step in the evolving expression of the Divine. He manifests himself, to those who have the inner eye that sees, in forces and their play and results as well as in things and in creatures. All things move towards a divine event; each experience, suffering and want no less than joy and satisfaction, is a necessary link in the carrying out of a universal movement which it is our business to understand and second. To revolt, to condemn, to cry out is the impulse of our unchastened and ignorant instincts. Revolt like everything else has its uses in the play and is even necessary, helpful, decreed for the divine development in its own time and stage; but the movement of an ignorant rebellion belongs to the stage of the soul's childhood or to its raw adolescence. The ripened soul does not condemn but seeks to understand and master, does not cry out but accepts or toils to improve and perfect, does not revolt inwardly but labours to obey and fulfil and transfigure. Therefore we shall receive all things with an equal soul from the hands of the Master. Failure we shall admit as a passage as calmly as success until the hour of the divine victory arrives. Our souls and minds and bodies will remain unshaken by acutest sorrow and suffering and pain if in the divine dispensation they come to us, unoverpowered by intensest joy and pleasure. Thus supremely balanced we shall continue steadily on our way meeting all things with an equal calm until we are ready for a more exalted status and can enter into the supreme and universal Ananda.
8:This equality cannot come except by a protracted ordeal and patient self-discipline; so long as desire is strong, equality cannot come at all except in periods of quiescence and the fatigue of desire, and it is then more likely to be an inert indifference or desire's recoil from itself than the true calm and the positive spiritual oneness. Moreover, this discipline or this growth into equality of spirit has its necessary epochs and stages. Ordinarily we have to begin with a period of endurance; for we must learn to confront, to suffer and to assimilate all contacts. Each fibre in us must be taught not to wince away from that which pains and repels and not to run eagerly towards that which pleases and attracts, but rather to accept, to face, to bear and to conquer. All touches we must be strong to bear, not only those that are proper and personal to us but those born of our sympathy or our conflict with the worlds around, above or below us and with their peoples. We shall endure tranquilly the action and impact on us of men and things and forces, the pressure of the Gods and the assaults of Titans; we shall face and engulf in the unstirred seas of our spirit all that can possibly come to us down the ways of the soul's infinite experience. This is the stoical period of the preparation of equality, its most elementary and yet its heroic age. But this steadfast endurance of the flesh and heart and mind must be reinforced by a sustained sense of spiritual submission to a divine Will: this living clay must yield not only with a stern or courageous acquiescence, but with knowledge or with resignation, even in suffering, to the touch of the divine Hand that is preparing its perfection. A sage, a devout or even a tender stoicism of the God-lover is possible, and these are better than the merely pagan self-reliant endurance which may lend itself to a too great hardening of the vessel of God: for this kind prepares the strength that is capable of wisdom and of love; its tranquillity is a deeply moved calm that passes easily into bliss. The gain of this period of resignation and endurance is the soul's strength equal to all shocks and contacts.
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10:If we can pass through these two stages of the inner change without being arrested or fixed in either, we are admitted to a greater divine equality which is capable of a spiritual ardour and tranquil passion of delight, a rapturous, all-understanding and all-possessing equality of the perfected soul, an intense and even wideness and fullness of its being embracing all things. This is the supreme period and the passage to it is through the joy of a total self-giving to the Divine and to the universal Mother For strength is then crowned by a happy mastery, peace deepens into bliss, the possession of the divine calm is uplifted and made the ground for the possession of the divine movement. But if this greater perfection is to arrive, the soul's impartial high-seatedness looking down from above on the flux of forms and personalities and movements and forces must be modified and change into a new sense of strong and calm submission and a powerful and intense surrender. This submission will be no longer a resigned acquiescence but a glad acceptance: for there will be no sense of suffering or of the bearing of a burden or cross; love and delight and the joy of self-giving will be its brilliant texture. And this surrender will be not only to a divine Will which we perceive and accept and obey, but to a divine Wisdom in the Will which we recognise and a divine Love in it which we feel and rapturously suffer, the wisdom and love of a supreme Spirit and Self of ourselves and all with which we can achieve a happy and perfect unity. A lonely power, peace and stillness is the last word of the philosophic equality of the sage; but the soul in its integral experience liberates itself from this self-created status and enters into the sea of a supreme and allembracing ecstasy of the beginningless and endless beatitude of the Eternal. Then we are at last capable of receiving all contacts with a blissful equality, because we feel in them the touch of the imperishable Love and Delight, the happiness absolute that hides ever in the heart of things. The gain of this culmination in a universal and equal rapture is the soul's delight and the opening gates of the Bliss that is infinite, the Joy that surpasses all understanding.
11:Before this labour for the annihilation of desire and the conquest of the soul's equality can come to its absolute perfection and fruition, that turn of the spiritual movement must have been completed which leads to the abolition of the sense of ego. But for the worker the renunciation of the egoism of action is the most important element in this change. For even when by giving up the fruits and the desire of the fruits to the Master of the Sacrifice we have parted with the egoism of rajasic desire, we may still have kept the egoism of the worker. Still we are subject to the sense that we are ourselves the doer of the act, ourselves its source and ourselves the giver of the sanction. It is still the "I" that chooses and determines, it is still the "I" that undertakes the responsibility and feels the demerit or the merit.
1.1.02 - Sachchidananda, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It will be evident that by consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness can exist either in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state; while in other states some other activities may manifest which in us are suppressed, unorganised or latent or else are less perfectly manifested, less intensive, extended and powerful than in those higher grades above our highest mental limit.
If your definition is correct, consciousness cannot be a selfexistent reality; it is a result, a phenomenon dependent on the reactions of something - you say a personality, but what is a personality apart from consciousness? - to the universal forces of Nature. We can take a purely external view and say that consciousness is the result of a mass of reactions to the impact of outward physical things on the brain and nerves of a physical being. In this case consciousness is a sort of effective hallucination - there is no real and permanent consciousness but only a subjective impression created by a constant activity of reactions.
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If you can grasp that, then it ought not to be difficult to see farther that it can subjectively formulate itself as a physical, a vital, a mental, a psychic consciousness - all these are present in man, but as they are all mixed up together in our external being and their real status is hidden behind in our inner secret nature one can only become fully aware of them by releasing the original limiting stress of the consciousness which makes us live in our external selves and becoming awake and centred within in the inner being. As the consciousness in us, by its external concentration or stress, has put all these things behind - behind a wall or veil - it has to break down the wall or veil and get back in its stress into these inner parts of existence - that is what we call living within; then our external being seems to us something small and superficial, we are or can become aware of
Sachchidananda
11.02 - The Golden Life-line, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is a way, an effective way, for dissolving life, but we seek, as we have said, not dissolution or disintegration but integration Integration into a higher integer, a greater reality. The lower chain dissolved, we have to find a new status beyond the dissolution. That is perhaps what the Upanishad indicated when it said: one has to traverse death through Ignorance (perception of ignorance) and then through Knowledge (perception of the Knowledge) to attain immortality. Buddha has led us across death, now we have to reach immortality. There is a higher line of Karma and a lower line running parallel, as I said, to each other the lower (the iron chain) leads from death to death, the higher (the golden one) leads from life to life and from light to light.
The transference from the lower chain to the higher is to be effected by the consciousness of nothingness (Shunyam) being filled or impregnated with the new consciousness of Immortality; for the units of the normal or ignorant consciousness are themselves not wholly or essentially ignorant and mortal. They have in them what Buddha did not see or recognise the immortal soul or selfas the Vedic Rishis said: that which is immortal in the mortal. What is mortal in the apparently mortal unit is the covering that hides the immortal nucleus. This covering is made of, as we know, the mental, the vital and the physical beings. These perish, that is to say, change; but that does not affect the immortal being within. Thus the consciousness is to be drawn away or detached from the covering and hitched on to the unchanging reality within. That forms the golden link of the chain of immortality of the Supreme Light. The transference from the lower chain is to be effected through the consciousness of the luminous immortal divine unit. It is the Divine in man, familiarly called 'antaryamin.'
11.03 - Cosmonautics, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus there is a twofold process for the new man to establish himself here. First, of course, there is the psychological or inner change and reorganisation: man's attempt to reach a new status of being and consciousness not in the category of the mere mental but a supramental status. Its nature and character and formation is being probed into by the new spiritual seekers and aspirants. That work is being done from within outward, and from above downward. This however is supplemented, supported, effectuated or materialised by the other attempt from below going upward and from outside going inward. That is the way of science, of the pragmatic man. The one we may say somewhat philosophically, is the Purusha, the conscious being coming down; the other, Prakriti, pushing up, Nature driving upward or inward.
It is true the process of acclimatisation that Nature follows is a slow one and gradual though somewhat crude, in spite of scientific refinements and subtleties; yet it is a help and has an accumulated effect. We may just record the progress achieved in the mere outward mechanisation from Lindberg's transatlantic crossing to Borman-company's journey to the moon.
11.04 - The Triple Cord, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
These threefold limitations are repeated in each of the statuses of being or consciousness. Thus the mind has a mental being, a vital being and a physical being. So the mind has mental limitations and vital limitations and also physical limitations. The mind's mental limitations are its notions and concepts, constructed ideas and fabricated comprehensions. The mind bound by its reasoning faculties, its deductive system, its syllogistic scheme, all that scaffolding has to go if the new light is to penetrate and illumine it with the new consciousness. The mind has also a vital element, when it moves according to its inspiration, as it is called sometimes, but it is only an ignorant inspiration, it is only another name for "mood," for fancy. True inspiration is not a blind mental rush but something clear and steady and yet forceful and self-poised. Again, the mind has its physical element too: the physical mind is the mind controlled by the senses, the impressions of the senses; its structure is patterned according to the impact of the physical and material objects. A clear, free physical mind embodies the pattern of the movements of the higher consciousness, not of the sense-dominated consciousness.
Even like the mind, the vital too has its threefold knots according to the three elements that constitute it. First, there is a mind in the vital, it is called mental-vital, there is a vital in the vital, it is the vital proper, and there is a physical vital. The mental-vital means the field of sentiment and feeling and emotion, the vital proper is the field of passion, the intensity and even ferocity of its urge, and finally, the physical vital, which is the field of outward impulsion and drive, the push towards physical act and execution. Last, the physical too has the same threefold knots, first in the mental physical, second in the vital physical and thirdly in the physical physical, that is, the physical proper. The mind in the physical is the purely brain operation, the primitive original percepts that brain-cells emanate. The vital in the physical means the record of the nerves, more or less that are sensations. Lastly, the physical physical means the most mechanical, the inertial reactions of matter.
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These gradations are the various statuses of consciousness which the human being assumes in its relation with the world reality. In other words, they are the instruments through which human consciousness comes in contact with the universe. They are as it were windows upon the world through which contact is made and relation established with the objects of experience. But usually in the normal consciousness these windows are made a casement with bars and nets or even blinds over it which narrow and blur and even block the view. They are made into cords, as the Upanishad says, that blind and bind and stifle the consciousness. The cords have to be cut away, thrown out. As windows they have to be thrown wide open, open not merely outward towards the external object or reality but also inwardly to the realities, the worlds that lie within and above and beyond
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1.107 - The Bestowal of a Divine Gift, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
We should not have a desire even for such enlightenments as all-knowingness. Let me be all-knowing, all-powerful even such desires should not be there. Only then, this dharma-megha comes. We are asked not to allow even the finest and subtlest form of the ego to work even in this high or lofty plane because the ego, when it starts working, can take a very fine ethereal shape. The desire to know all things has a subtle background of the presence of ones individuality, though it is a far, far advanced form of individuality. And the power which follows, which is called omnipotence, is also of a similar character. Of course, we do not know what actually happens when there is omniscience or omnipotence. We have to have it, and only then can we know what it is. But before it comes, it looks like a possession or an endowment which would exalt a person to a lofty degree of status in the universe; and all ideas of status must be shut down.
Even the enlightenment in respect of objects such as insight the siddhis mentioned in the Vibhuti Pada, the powers of different types, and the insights and intuitions which may flash forth in respect of the different things of the universe should not enchant the mind even in the least, even in the minimum, because as we go higher and higher, the delights are also subtler and subtler. The joys that we have in this world are gross and crude, but even they are enough to catch us and entangle us. But when we go higher, the joys are subtler. They can catch us more powerfully than the joys of this earth, which are crude and impeded by the physical tabernacle.
11.07 - The Labours of the Gods: The five Purifications, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Beyond is the fifth element, Vyom, the sphere overhead the Vast and the Infinite. That, of course, is the original source and status of the human being, where he gathers up all the elements in one indivisible perfect consciousness. That is the root of the Divine Tree of Existence which, as the Vedas say dwells up there, spreading downward all its branches, namely the other elements of the being.
Such then are the five operations of the divine alchemy with regard to the purification of the human vessel, somewhat in the manner of the ancients while treating the base metal; they are (I) burning, (2) washing, (3) brightening up or warming up or enlivening, (4) articulating i.e. giving an expression or a form of beauty and truth, and (5) setting the whole within or in reference to the frame of the Infinite and the Impersonal.
1.10 - Aesthetic and Ethical Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the range of the minds life itself, to live in its merely practical and dynamic activity or in the mentalised emotional or sensational current, a life of conventional conduct, average feelings, customary ideas, opinions and prejudices which are not ones own but those of the environment, to have no free and open play of mind, but to live grossly and unthinkingly by the unintelligent rule of the many, to live besides according to the senses and sensations controlled by certain conventions, but neither purified nor enlightened nor chastened by any law of beauty,all this too is contrary to the ideal of culture. A man may so live with all the appearance or all the pretensions of a civilised existence, enjoy successfully all the plethora of its appurtenances, but he is not in the real sense a developed human being. A society following such a rule of life may be anything else you will, vigorous, decent, well-ordered, successful, religious, moral, but it is a Philistine society; it is a prison which the human soul has to break. For so long as it dwells there, it dwells in an inferior, uninspired and unexpanding mental status; it vegetates infructuously in the lower stratum and is governed not by the higher faculties of man, but by the crudities of the unuplifted sense-mind. Nor is it enough for it to open windows in this prison by which it may get draughts of agreeable fresh air, something of the free light of the intellect, something of the fragrance of art and beauty, something of the large breath of wider interests and higher ideals. It has yet to break out of its prison altogether and live in that free light, in that fragrance and large breath; only then does it brea the the natural atmosphere of the developed mental being. Not to live principally in the activities of the sense-mind, but in the activities of knowledge and reason and a wide intellectual curiosity, the activities of the cultivated aesthetic being, the activities of the enlightened will which make for character and high ethical ideals and a large human action, not to be governed by our lower or our average mentality but by truth and beauty and the self-ruling will is the ideal of a true culture and the beginning of an accomplished humanity.
We get then by elimination to a positive idea and definition of culture. But still on this higher plane of the mental life we are apt to be pursued by old exclusivenesses and misunderstandings. We see that in the past there seems often to have been a quarrel between culture and conduct; yet according to our definition conduct also is a part of the cultured life and the ethical ideality one of the master impulses of the cultured being. The opposition which puts on one side the pursuit of ideas and knowledge and beauty and calls that culture and on the other the pursuit of character and conduct and exalts that as the moral life must start evidently from an imperfect view of human possibility and perfection. Yet that opposition has not only existed, but is a naturally strong tendency of the human mind and therefore must answer to some real and important divergence in the very composite elements of our being. It is the opposition which Arnold drew between Hebraism and Hellenism. The trend of the Jewish nation which gave us the severe ethical religion of the Old Testament,crude, conventional and barbarous enough in the Mosaic law, but rising to undeniable heights of moral exaltation when to the Law were added the Prophets, and finally exceeding itself and blossoming into a fine flower of spirituality in Judaic Christianity,1was dominated by the preoccupation of a terrestrial and ethical righteousness and the promised rewards of right worship and right doing, but innocent of science and philosophy, careless of knowledge, indifferent to beauty. The Hellenic mind was less exclusively but still largely dominated by a love of the play of reason for its own sake, but even more powerfully by a high sense of beauty, a clear aesthetic sensibility and a worship of the beautiful in every activity, in every creation, in thought, in art, in life, in religion. So strong was this sense that not only manners, but ethics were seen by it to a very remarkable extent in the light of its master idea of beauty; the good was to its instinct largely the becoming and the beautiful. In philosophy itself it succeeded in arriving at the conception of the Divine as Beauty, a truth which the metaphysician very readily misses and impoverishes his thought by missing it. But still, striking as is this great historical contrast and powerful as were its results on European culture, we have to go beyond its outward manifestation if we would understand in its source this psychological opposition.
1.10 - Conscious Force, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:Matter is the presentation of force which is most easily intelligible to our intelligence, moulded as it is by contacts in Matter to which a mind involved in material brain gives the response. The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.
3:All forms of Matter of which we are aware, all physical things even to the most subtle, are built up by the combination of these five elements. Upon them also depends all our sensible experience; for by reception of vibration comes the sense of sound; by contact of things in a world of vibrations of Force the sense of touch; by the action of light in the forms hatched, outlined, sustained by the force of light and fire and heat the sense of sight; by the fourth element the sense of taste; by the fifth the sense of smell. All is essentially response to vibratory contacts between force and force. In this way the ancient thinkers bridged the gulf between pure Force and its final modifications and satisfied the difficulty which prevents the ordinary human mind from understanding how all these forms which are to his senses so real, solid and durable can be in truth only temporary phenomena and a thing like pure energy, to the senses non-existent, intangible and almost incredible, can be the one permanent cosmic reality.
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10:The problem of the how thus eliminated, there presents itself the question of the why. Why should this possibility of a play of movement of Force translate itself at all? why should not Force of existence remain eternally concentrated in itself, infinite, free from all variation and formation? This question also does not arise if we assume Existence to be non-conscious and consciousness only a development of material energy which we wrongly suppose to be immaterial. For then we can say simply that this rhythm is the nature of Force in existence and there is absolutely no reason to seek for a why, a cause, an initial motive or a final purpose for that which is in its nature eternally self-existent. We cannot put that question to eternal self-existence and ask it either why it exists or how it came into existence; neither can we put it to self-force of existence and its inherent nature of impulsion to movement. All that we can then inquire into is its manner of self-manifestation, its principles of movement and formation, its process of evolution. Both Existence and Force being inert, - inert status and inert impulsion, - both of them unconscious and unintelligent, there cannot be any purpose or final goal in evolution or any original cause or intention.
11:But if we suppose or find Existence to be conscious Being, the problem arises. We may indeed suppose a conscious Being which is subject to its nature of Force, compelled by it and without option as to whether it shall manifest in the universe or remain unmanifest. Such is the cosmic God of the Tantriks and the Mayavadins who is subject to Shakti or Maya, Purusha involved in Maya or controlled by Shakti. But it is obvious that such a God is not the supreme infinite Existence with which we have started. Admittedly, it is only a formulation of Brahman in the cosmos by the Brahman which is itself logically anterior to Shakti or Maya and takes her back into its transcendental being when she ceases from her works. In a conscious existence which is absolute, independent of its formations, not determined by its works, we must suppose an inherent freedom to manifest or not to manifest the potentiality of movement. A Brahman compelled by Prakriti is not Brahman, but an inert Infinite with an active content in it more powerful than the continent, a conscious holder of Force of whom his Force is master. If we say that it is compelled by itself as Force, by its own nature, we do not get rid of the contradiction, the evasion of our first postulate. We have got back to an Existence which is really nothing but Force, Force at rest or in movement, absolute Force perhaps, but not absolute Being.
1.10 - The Three Modes of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Self-Power and Bliss other than our own personal being or its building of Nature. This is a state of freedom which can come in the Yoga of works through renunciation of ego and desire and personal initiation and the surrender of the being to the cosmic Self or to the universal Shakti; it can come in the Yoga of knowledge by the cessation of thought, the silence of the mind, the opening of the whole being to the cosmic Consciousness, to the cosmic Self, the cosmic Dynamis or to the supreme Reality; it can come in the Yoga of devotion by the surrender of the heart and the whole nature into the hands of the All-Blissful as the adored Master of our existence. But the culminating change intervenes by a more positive and dynamic transcendence: there is a transference or transmutation into a superior spiritual status, trigun.atta, in which we participate in a greater spiritual dynamisation; for the three lower unequal modes pass into an equal triune mode of eternal calm, light and force, the repose, kinesis, illumination of the divine Nature.
This supreme harmony cannot come except by the cessation of egoistic will and choice and act and the quiescence of our limited intelligence. The individual ego must cease to strive, the mind fall silent, the desire-will learn not to initiate. Our personality must join its source and all thought and initiation come from above. The secret Master of our activities will be slowly unveiled to us and from the security of the supreme Will and Knowledge give the sanction to the Divine Shakti who will do all works in us with a purified and exalted nature for her instrument; the individual centre of personality will be only the upholder of her works here, their recipient and channel, the reflector of her power and luminous participator in her light, joy and force. Acting it will not act and no reaction of the lower
1.10 - The Yoga of the Intelligent Will, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
"Yoga is skill in works." But all action directed towards life leads away from the universal aim of the Yogin which is by common consent to escape from bondage to this distressed and sorrowful human birth? Not so, either; the sages who do works without desire for fruits and in Yoga with the Divine are liberated from the bondage of birth and reach that other perfect status in which there are none of the maladies which afflict the mind and life of a suffering humanity.
The status he reaches is the Brahmic condition; he gets to firm standing in the Brahman, brahm sthiti. It is a reversal of the whole view, experience, knowledge, values, seeings of earthbound creatures. This life of the dualities which is to them their day, their waking, their consciousness, their bright condition of activity and knowledge, is to him a night, a troubled sleep and darkness of the soul; that higher being which is to them a night, a sleep in which all knowledge and will cease, is to the self-mastering sage his waking, his luminous day of true being, knowledge and power. They are troubled and muddy waters disturbed by every little inrush of desire; he is an ocean of wide being and consciousness which is ever being filled, yet ever motionless in its large poise of his soul; all the desires of the
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world enter into him as waters into the sea, yet he has no desire nor is troubled. For while they are filled with the troubling sense of ego and mine and thine, he is one with the one Self in all and has no "I" or "mine". He acts as others, but he has abandoned all desires and their longings. He attains to the great peace and is not bewildered by the shows of things; he has extinguished his individual ego in the One, lives in that unity and, fixed in that status at his end, can attain to extinction in the Brahman,
Nirvana, - not the negative self-annihilation of the Buddhists, but the great immergence of the separate personal self into the vast reality of the one infinite impersonal Existence.
11.11 - The Ideal Centre, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
Work is not meant to show or express one's capacity or skilfulness or cleverness, nor is it a mere mechanical execution of outward acts performing certain duties however conscientiously or meticulously. It is indeed a ritual of prayer and self-dedication, adhesion and surrender of the most dynamic and material parts of our being the most unresponsive and insensible elementsto the One Divine Will.
11.13 - In these Fateful Days, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the deluge of Doomsday the Lord himself appears and holds aloft safe the supreme Knowledge, the matrix of a new creation the divine Ark. Indeed those alone who have souls, who are made of the soul-consciousness, who are in effect, parts and points, centres of the divine Being, will survive and form the nucleus of the new humanity the rest if they cannot be corrected or converted will naturally be extirpated annihilated or else relegated to a status of barbarism worse than the animal life. But we expect a better fate for mankind.
Today we call it la manire Churchillour finest hour for it is the hour when we have at our disposal the greatest opportunity to find our souleven our God.
11.15 - Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, Sri Aurobindo says, evolution marches onward and will rise beyond mind to another status of consciousness which he calls Supermind. In the earthly scheme there will thus manifest a new type, a higher functioning of consciousness and a new race or species will appear on earth with this new consciousness as the ruling principle. Out of the rock and mineral came the plant, out of the plant the animal, out of the mere animal man has come and out of man the Superman will come inevitably.
Standing on the mental plane, immured within the dimensions of Reason and mental intelligence, it is not easy to contemplate the type of consciousness that will be; even as it was difficult for the ape to envisage the advent of his successor, man. But certain characteristic signs, rudimentary or fragmentary movements of the higher status are visible in the mental consciousness even as it is: the ape likewise was not without a glimmer of Reason and logic, even the faculty of ratiocination that seems to be the exclusive property of man. There is, for example, a movement we call Intuition, so different from Reason to which even Scientists and Mathematicians acknowledge their debt of gratitude for so many of their discoveries and inventions. There is also the other analogous movement called Inspiration that rules the poet and the artist disclosing to them a world of beauty and reality that is not available to the normal human consciousness. Again, there is yet another group of human beings at the top of the ladder of evolutionmystics and sageswho see the truth, possess the truth direct through a luminous immediacy of perception, called Revelation. Now, all these functionings of consciousness that happen frequently enough within the domain of normal humanity are still expressions of a higher mode of consciousness: they are not the product or play of Reason or logical intelligence which marks the character, the differentia of human consciousness.
But, as at present, these are mere glimmers and glimpses from elsewhere and man has no comm and or control over them. They are beyond the habitual conscious will, they come and go as they like, happy visitations from another world, they do not abide our question and are not at our beck and call. The Supermind, on the contrary, is in full possession of that consciousness of which these are faint beginnings and distant echoes. The Superman will be born when man has risen above his mind and emerged into the supramental consciousness.
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It may not be out of place here just to mention a few characters proper to this supramental over-border consciousness. First of all, it is the seat and organon of complete knowledge: knowledge here is not the result of the deductive and inductive process of reason, it does not balance pros and cons and out of uncertain possibilities strike out an average probability: it is direct, straight, immediate, certain and absolute. Knowledge here comes by identity the knower and the known are one and what is known is therefore self-knowledge, Secondly, the will too is not an effort or striving and struggling, but the spontaneous expression of the self-power of the consciousness; willing means achieving, one wills the inevitable truth for, knowledge and will too are one. Thirdly, it is the status of perfect delight, for one has passed beyond the vale of tears and entered the peace that passeth understanding, one has found that Joy is the source of creation and the truth of existence is held in Ecstasy.
It is in other words at bottom the Vedantic status of Sat-chit-ananda (perfect Being, Consciousness-energy and Beatitude), but individualised serving as the basic reality of the world-life and existence: it is this that seeks to manifest and embody itself in its own dharmasupreme lawin and through the physical forms and modes of that life and existence. Beyond this it is not possible here to enter into the further mysteries of the Arcanum.
Lastly, another point and we have done. It is that all human efforts in the past in any realm or domain towards a higher life has been contri butory to this supreme consummation that Sri Aurobindo envisages as coming or sure to come. It is very often asserted that human nature is irremediable and although we may try at a little amelioration of his instinctive life, especially as a social being, there can be no permanent or radical cure of the original sin of Ignorance and Inconscience with which his earthly nature is branded. Reformers, idealists, even saints and sages have seen and sought to counter the evilsome tried to get rid of it, others round it: but it is still there, as rampant as ever, apparently with no effect upon it. For one thing, evil was sought to be cured by its opposite, the good, but the good that belongs to the level of consciousness to which evil too belongs. In other words, we tried to deal with the world and treat it with the force of the Mind, even though in some cases, the mind was a high or even the highest spiritual mind. To touch the roots of the malady that extend into our deepest fibres, our most material being, dead inconscience, one must rise to the very source of consciousness, the creative truth-consciousness: the Supermind alone can transform the earth, transfigure the earthly life. In the second place, the past attempts did not all go in vain: they were preparations, the first ground-work, on various levels and in various domains of human life and consciousness where the light infiltrated, to whatever extent it may be and things, and forces were shaken and reshuffled to admit of other forces and inspirations; if nothing else, at least the possibility was created.
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Even the family, the first unit of collective formation in humanity that has attained a fulfilled status, is yet capable of a remodelling, a transmutation in the higher supramental consciousness. The family instead of being built upon blood-relationship may surely have a different foundation in soul-kinship, in affinity of consciousness, comradeship in life-work. It means a total revolution, a reversal of nature, the roots being above instead of being below, as already referred to.
Such far-reaching changes may well be called for and inevitable if mankind is to be radically cured of all the illnesses of which it is till now a natural prey The full health of a divine body in its individual as well as its collective and global functioning is assured only when the human being is lifted out of its mental sheath and established in the supramental status.
It is an adventure for the heroic soul, for the vanguards of humanity; but its fruition will spread abroad a benefit that even the common level shall share, even those that denied shall offer their accession and adhesion.
1.11 - Works and Sacrifice, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HE YOGA of the intelligent will and its culmination in the Brahmic status, which occupies all the close of the second chapter, contains the seed of much of the teaching of the Gita, - its doctrine of desireless works, of equality, of the rejection of outward renunciation, of devotion to the Divine; but as yet all this is slight and obscure. What is most strongly emphasised as yet is the withdrawal of the will from the ordinary motive of human activities, desire, from man's normal temperament of the sense-seeking thought and will with its passions and ignorance, and from its customary habit of troubled manybranching ideas and wishes to the desireless calm unity and passionless serenity of the Brahmic poise. So much Arjuna has understood. He is not unfamiliar with all this; it is the substance of the current teaching which points man to the path of knowledge and to the renunciation of life and works as his way of perfection. The intelligence withdrawing from sense and desire and human action and turning to the Highest, to the One, to the actionless Purusha, to the immobile, to the featureless Brahman, that surely is the eternal seed of knowledge. There is no room here for works, since works belong to the Ignorance; action is the very opposite of knowledge; its seed is desire and its fruit is bondage. That is the orthodox philosophical doctrine, and
Krishna seems quite to admit it when he says that works are far inferior to the Yoga of the intelligence. And yet works are insisted upon as part of the Yoga; so that there seems to be in this teaching a radical inconsistency. Not only so; for some kind of work no doubt may persist for a while, the minimum, the most inoffensive; but here is a work wholly inconsistent with knowledge, with serenity and with the motionless peace of the self-delighted soul, - a work terrible, even monstrous, a bloody strife, a ruthless battle, a giant massacre. Yet it is this that is
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enjoined, this that it is sought to justify by the teaching of inner peace and desireless equality and status in the Brahman! Here then is an unreconciled contradiction. Arjuna complains that he has been given a contradictory and confusing doctrine, not the clear, strenuously single road by which the human intelligence can move straight and trenchantly to the supreme good. It is in answer to this objection that the Gita begins at once to develop more clearly its positive and imperative doctrine of Works.
The Teacher first makes a distinction between the two means of salvation on which in this world men can concentrate separately, the Yoga of knowledge, the Yoga of works, the one implying, it is usually supposed, renunciation of works as an obstacle to salvation, the other accepting works as a means of salvation. He does not yet insist strongly on any fusion of them, on any reconciliation of the thought that divides them, but begins by showing that the renunciation of the Sankhyas, the physical renunciation, Sannyasa, is neither the only way, nor at all the better way. Nais.karmya, a calm voidness from works, is no doubt that to which the soul, the Purusha has to attain; for it is Prakriti which does the work and the soul has to rise above involution in the activities of the being and attain to a free serenity and poise watching over the operations of Prakriti, but not affected by them. That, and not cessation of the works of Prakriti, is what is really meant by the soul's nais.karmya.
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The Sankhya starts from the notion of the divine status as that of the immutable and inactive Purusha which each soul is in reality and makes an opposition between inactivity of Purusha and activity of Prakriti; so its logical culmination is cessation of all works. Yoga starts from the notion of the Divine as Ishwara, lord of the operations of Prakriti and therefore superior to them, and its logical culmination is not cessation of works but the soul's superiority to them and freedom even though doing all works.
In the opposition of Vedism and Vedantism works, karma, are restricted to Vedic works and sometimes even to Vedic sacrifice and ritualised works, all else being excluded as not useful to salvation. Vedism of the Mimansakas insisted on them as the means, Vedantism taking its stand on the Upanishads looked on them as only a preliminary belonging to the state of ignorance and in the end to be overpassed and rejected, an obstacle to the seeker of liberation. Vedism worshipped the Devas, the gods, with sacrifice and held them to be the powers who assist our salvation. Vedantism was inclined to regard them as powers of the mental and material world opposed to our salvation (men, says the Upanishad, are the cattle of the gods, who do not desire man to know and be free); it saw the Divine as the immutable
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
transition from the status of mind, life and senses proper
to man over to the status proper to the supreme Consciousness
which is master of mind, life and senses, another and prior question arises. The Upanishad does not state it explicitly, but implies
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we have to abandon this lesser status of the mere creature subject
to the movement of Nature in the cosmos; but after all this
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this mortal status, can press beyond and rise upward into a
world-transcending immortality.
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and status the Upanishad turns to the question of the means by
which that high-reaching aspiration can put itself into relation
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foundation and status will become their knowledge of the eternal
silence which is Brahman; the response of their functioning to
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eternal activity which is Brahman. Other status, other response
and activity they will not know. The mind will know nothing
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it ascends and takes foundation in the Self of all and in the status
of self-joyous infinity which is the supreme manifestation of the
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pass beyond the mortal status. It declares that Brahman is in its
nature "That Delight", Tadvanam. "Vana" is the Vedic word
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of the all-blissful existence; it is too the higher status, the light
of the Mind beyond the mind, the joy and eternal mastery of the
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false status of misrepresentation because it is a continual term
of apparent opposites and balancings where the truth of things
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The attainment of the Brahman is our escape from the mortal status into Immortality, by which we understand not the
survival of death, but the finding of our true self of eternal
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world or status of the Brahman-consciousness is held out as the
goal. And this would seem to imply a rejection of the life of the
1.12 - The Divine Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Divine is here in the world, - not only in status but in dynamis,
not only as a spiritual self and presence but as power, force,
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our social relations, our external status in life. They are of great
value in training the immature moral nature and setting up a
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perfection, a supreme status, purity, knowledge, strength, love,
capacity, is not that personally we may enjoy the divine Nature
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and dynamic self as much as in our spiritual status; a divine way
of works is the natural outcome of this union, a divine living in a
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.
1.13 - Reason and Religion, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The deepest heart, the inmost essence of religion, apart from its outward machinery of creed, cult, ceremony and symbol, is the search for God and the finding of God. Its aspiration is to discover the Infinite, the Absolute, the One, the Divine, who is all these things and yet no abstraction but a Being. Its work is a sincere living out of the true and intimate relations between man and God, relations of unity, relations of difference, relations of an illuminated knowledge, an ecstatic love and delight, an absolute surrender and service, a casting of every part of our existence out of its normal status into an uprush of man towards the Divine and a descent of the Divine into man. All this has nothing to do with the realm of reason or its normal activities; its aim, its sphere, its process is suprarational. The knowledge of God is not to be gained by weighing the feeble arguments of reason for or against his existence: it is to be gained only by a self-transcending and absolute consecration, aspiration and experience. Nor does that experience proceed by anything like rational scientific experiment or rational philosophic thinking. Even in those parts of religious discipline which seem most to resemble scientific experiment, the method is a verification of things which exceed the reason and its timid scope. Even in those parts of religious knowledge which seem most to resemble intellectual operations, the illuminating faculties are not imagination, logic and rational judgment, but revelations, inspirations, intuitions, intuitive discernments that leap down to us from a plane of suprarational light. The love of God is an infinite and absolute feeling which does not admit of any rational limitation and does not use a language of rational worship and adoration; the delight in God is that peace and bliss which passes all understanding. The surrender to God is the surrender of the whole being to a suprarational light, will, power and love and his service takes no account of the compromises with life which the practical reason of man uses as the best part of its method in the ordinary conduct of mundane existence. Wherever religion really finds itself, wherever it opens itself to its own spirit,there is plenty of that sort of religious practice which is halting, imperfect, half-sincere, only half-sure of itself and in which reason can get in a word,its way is absolute and its fruits are ineffable.
Reason has indeed a part to play in relation to this highest field of our religious being and experience, but that part is quite secondary and subordinate. It cannot lay down the law for the religious life, it cannot determine in its own right the system of divine knowledge; it cannot school and lesson the divine love and delight; it cannot set bounds to spiritual experience or lay its yoke upon the action of the spiritual man. Its sole legitimate sphere is to explain as best it can, in its own language and to the rational and intellectual parts of man, the truths, the experiences, the laws of our suprarational and spiritual existence. That has been the work of spiritual philosophy in the East andmuch more crudely and imperfectly doneof theology in the West, a work of great importance at moments like the present when the intellect of mankind after a long wandering is again turning towards the search for the Divine. Here there must inevitably enter a part of those operations proper to the intellect, logical reasoning, inferences from the data given by rational experience, analogies drawn from our knowledge of the apparent facts of existence, appeals even to the physical truths of science, all the apparatus of the intelligent mind in its ordinary workings. But this is the weakest part of spiritual philosophy. It convinces the rational mind only where the intellect is already predisposed to belief, and even if it convinces, it cannot give the true knowledge. Reason is safest when it is content to take the profound truths and experiences of the spiritual being and the spiritual life, just as they are given to it, and throw them into such form, order and language as will make them the most intelligible or the least unintelligible to the reasoning mind. Even then it is not quite safe, for it is apt to harden the order into an intellectual system and to present the form as if it were the essence. And, at best, it has to use a language which is not the very tongue of the suprarational truth but its inadequate translation and, since it is not the ordinary tongue either of the rational intelligence, it is open to non-understanding or misunderstanding by the ordinary reason of mankind. It is well-known to the experience of the spiritual seeker that even the highest philosophising cannot give a true inner knowledge, is not the spiritual light, does not open the gates of experience. All it can do is to address the consciousness of man through his intellect and, when it has done, to say, I have tried to give you the truth in a form and system which will make it intelligible and possible to you; if you are intellectually convinced or attracted, you can now seek the real knowledge, but you must seek it by other means which are beyond my province.
1.13 - The Supermind and the Yoga of Works, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status. But the path, whatever its point of starting, must debouch into a vaster dominion; it must proceed in the end through a totality of integrated knowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being and the entire nature. In the supramental consciousness, on the level of the supramental existence this integration becomes consummate;
280
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there knowledge, will, emotion, the perfection of the self and the dynamic nature rise each to its absolute of itself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each other, to a divine integrality, a divine perfection. For the supermind is a TruthConsciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the TruthConsciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite. An ascent into the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and essential consciousness to that height but brings about a descent of this Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of nature. All then becomes part of the Divine Truth, an element and means of the supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be therefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga.
A union with the Divine Reality of our being and all being is the one essential object of the Yoga. It is necessary to keep this in mind; we must remember that our Yoga is not undertaken for the sake of the acquisition of supermind itself but for the sake of the Divine; we seek the supermind not for its own joy and greatness but to make the union absolute and complete, to feel it, possess it, dynamise it in every possible way of our being, in its highest intensities and largest widenesses and in every range and turn and nook and recess of our nature. It is a mistake to think, as many are apt to think, that the object of a supramental
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For if it is some inferior state that we thus mistake for the supermind, it lays us open to all the dangers we have seen to attend a presumptuous egoistic haste in our demand for achievement. If it is one of the higher states that we presume to be the highest, we may, though we achieve much, yet fall short of the greater, more perfect goal of our being; for we shall remain content with an approximation and the supreme transformation will escape us. Even the achievement of a complete inner liberation and a high spiritual consciousness is not that supreme transformation; for we may have that achievement, a status perfect in itself, in essence, and still our dynamic parts may in their instrumentation belong to an enlightened spiritualised mind and may be in consequence, like all mind, defective even in its greater power and knowledge, still subject to a partial or local obscuration or a limitation by the original circumscribing nescience.
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1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nature. Reaching the inner actionlessness of the silent Purusha, nais.karmya, and leaving Prakriti to do her works, we can attain supremely beyond to the status of the divine Mastery which is
The Principle of Divine Works
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To exalt oneself out of the lower imperfect Prakriti, traigun.yamay maya, into unity with the divine being, consciousness and nature,1 madbhavam agatah., is the object of the Yoga. But when this object is fulfilled, when the man is in the Brahmic status and sees no longer with the false egoistic vision himself and the world, but sees all beings in the Self, in God, and the
Self in all beings, God in all beings, what shall be the action,
1.15 - The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Lord of all existences"; and we have to read in the light of these ideas this passage we find before us and its declaration that by the knowledge of his divine birth and divine works men come to the Divine and by becoming full of him and even as he and taking refuge in him they arrive at his nature and status of being, madbhavam. For then we shall understand the divine birth and its object, not as an isolated and miraculous phenomenon, but in its proper place in the whole scheme of the world-manifestation; without that we cannot arrive at its divine mystery, but shall either scout it altogether or accept it ignorantly and, it may be, superstitiously or fall into the petty and superficial ideas of the
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The word Avatara means a descent; it is a coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.
The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood
1.15 - The Supramental Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Not only does the supramental consciousness have a cosmic status,
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The individual is the key to the supramental power. The supramental being has not only a transcendent and cosmic status but also an individual one: the triple hiatus of experience that divided the monist, the pantheist, and the individualist is healed. His transcendent status does not abolish the world or the individual, no more than his cosmic status deprives him of the Transcendent or of his individuality,
or no more than his individual status severs him from the Transcendent or the universe. He has not kicked off the ladder to reach the top, but consciously traveled all the evolutionary rungs, from top to bottom there is no gap anywhere, no missing link; and because he has kept his individuality instead of exploding in a luminous no-man's-land, he can both ascend and descend the great Ladder of existence and use his individual being as a material bridge between the very top and the very bottom. His work on the earth is to establish a direct connection between the supreme Force and the individual, between the supreme Consciousness and Matter to join the two Ends, as the Mother says. He is a precipitator of the Real upon earth. This is why there is hope that all the blind determinisms that presently rule the world Death, Suffering, War can be transformed by that supreme Determinism and yield to a new, luminous evolution:
It is a spiritual revolution we foresee and the material revolution is only its shadow and reflex.290
1.15 - The Supreme Truth-Consciousness, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
18:We can speak of this new status of the all-pervading Supermind as a further departure from the unitarian truth of things and from the indivisible consciousness which constitutes inalienably the unity essential to the existence of the cosmos. We can see that pursued a little farther it may become truly Avidya, the great Ignorance which starts from multiplicity as the fundamental reality and in order to travel back to real unity has to commence with the false unity of the ego. We can see also that once the individual centre is accepted as the determining standpoint, as the knower, mental sensation, mental intelligence, mental action of will and all their consequences cannot fail to come into being. But also we have to see that so long as the soul acts in the Supermind, Ignorance has not yet begun; the field of knowledge and action is still the truth-consciousness, the basis is still the unity.
19:For the Self still regards itself as one in all and all things as becomings in itself and of itself; the Lord still knows his Force as himself in act and every being as himself in soul and himself in form; it is still his own being that the Enjoyer enjoys, even though in a multiplicity. The one real change has been an unequal concentration of consciousness and a multiple distribution of force. There is a practical distinction in consciousness, but there is no essential difference of consciousness or true division in its vision of itself. The Truth-consciousness has arrived at a position which prepares our mentality, but is not yet that of our mentality. And it is this that we must study in order to seize Mind at its origin, at the point where it makes its great lapse from the high and vast wideness of the Truth-consciousness into the division and the ignorance. Fortunately, this apprehending Truth-consciousness5 is much more facile to our grasp by its nearness to us, by its foreshadowing of our mental operations than the remoter realisation that we have hitherto been struggling to express in our inadequate language of the intellect. The barrier that has to be crossed is less formidable.
1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Presence and divine Consciousness, we should have the Avatar according to this intermediary idea of the incarnation. That easily recommends itself as possible to our human notions; for if the human being can elevate his nature so as to feel a unity with the being of the Divine and himself a mere channel of its consciousness, light, power, love, his own will and personality lost in that will and that being, - and this is a recognised spiritual status,
- then there is no inherent impossibility of the reflex action of that Will, Being, Power, Love, Light, Consciousness occupying the whole personality of the human Jiva. And this would not be merely an ascent of our humanity into the divine birth and the divine nature, but a descent of the divine Purusha into humanity, an Avatar.
1.16 - The Suprarational Ultimate of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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.
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Up to a certain point this recoil has its uses and may easily even, by tapasy, by the law of energy increasing through compression, develop for a time a new vigour in the life of the society, as happened in India in the early Buddhist centuries. But beyond a certain point it tends, not really to kill, for that is impossible, but to discourage along with the vital instincts the indispensable life-energy of which they are the play and renders them in the end inert, feeble, narrow, unelastic, incapable of energetic reaction to force and circumstance. That was the final result in India of the agelong pressure of Buddhism and its supplanter and successor, Illusionism. No society wholly or too persistently and pervadingly dominated by this denial of the life dynamism can flourish and put forth its possibilities of growth and perfection. For from dynamic it becomes static and from the static position it proceeds to stagnation and degeneration. Even the higher being of man, which finds its account in a vigorous life dynamism, both as a fund of force to be transmuted into its own loftier energies and as a potent channel of connection with the outer life, suffers in the end by this failure and contraction. The ancient Indian ideal recognised this truth and divided life into four essential and indispensable divisions, artha, kma, dharma, moka, vital interests, satisfaction of desires of all kinds, ethics and religion, and liberation or spirituality, and it insisted on the practice and development of all. Still it tended not only to put the last forward as the goal of all the rest, which it is, but to put it at the end of life and its habitat in another world of our being, rather than here in life as a supreme status and formative power on the physical plane. But this rules out the idea of the kingdom of God on earth, the perfectibility of society and of man in society, the evolution of a new and diviner race, and without one or other of these no universal ideal can be complete. It provides a temporary and occasional, but not an inherent justification for life; it holds out no illumining fulfilment either for its individual or its collective impulse.
Let us then look at this vital instinct and life dynamism in its own being and not merely as an occasion for ethical or religious development and see whether it is really rebellious in its very nature to the Divine. We can see at once that what we have described is the first stage of the vital being, the infrarational, the instinctive; this is the crude character of its first native development and persists even when it is trained by the growing application to it of the enlightening reason. Evidently it is in this natural form a thing of the earth, gross, earthy, full even of hideous uglinesses and brute blunders and jarring discords; but so also is the infrarational stage in ethics, in aesthetics, in religion. It is true too that it presents a much more enormous difficulty than these others, more fundamentally and obstinately resists elevation, because it is the very province of the infrarational, a first formulation of consciousness out of the Inconscient, nearest to it in the scale of being. But still it has too, properly looked at, its rich elements of power, beauty, nobility, good, sacrifice, worship, divinity; here too are highreaching gods, masked but still resplendent. Until recently, and even now, reason, in the garb no longer of philosophy, but of science, has increasingly proposed to take up all this physical and vital life and perfect it by the sole power of rationalism, by a knowledge of the laws of Nature, of sociology and physiology and biology and health, by collectivism, by State education, by a new psychological education and a number of other kindred means. All this is well in its own way and in its limits, but it is not enough and can never come to a truly satisfying success. The ancient attempt of reason in the form of a high idealistic, rational, aesthetic, ethical and religious culture achieved only an imperfect discipline of the vital man and his instincts, sometimes only a polishing, a gloss, a clothing and mannerising of the original uncouth savage. The modern attempt of reason in the form of a broad and thorough rational, utilitarian and efficient instruction and organisation of man and his life is not succeeding any better for all its insistent but always illusory promise of more perfect results in the future. These endeavours cannot indeed be truly successful if our theory of life is right and if this great mass of vital energism contains in itself the imprisoned suprarational, if it has, as it then must have, the instinctive reaching out for something divine, absolute and infinite which is concealed in its blind strivings. Here too reason must be overpassed or surpass itself and become a passage to the Divine.
1.16 - The Triple Status of Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:1.16 - The Triple status of Supermind
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2:We have started with the assertion of all existence as one Being whose essential nature is Consciousness, one Consciousness whose active nature is Force or Will; and this Being is Delight, this Consciousness is Delight, this Force or Will is Delight. Eternal and inalienable Bliss of Existence, Bliss of Consciousness, Bliss of Force or Will whether concentrated in itself and at rest or active and creative, this is God and this is ourselves in our essential, our non-phenomenal being. Concentrated in itself, it possesses or rather is the essential, eternal, inalienable Bliss; active and creative, it possesses or rather becomes the delight of the play of existence, the play of consciousness, the play of force and will. That play is the universe and that delight is the sole cause, motive and object of cosmic existence. The Divine Consciousness possesses that play and delight eternally and inalienably; our essential being, our real self which is concealed from us by the false self or mental ego, also enjoys that play and delight eternally and inalienably and cannot indeed do otherwise since it is one in being with the Divine Consciousness. If we aspire therefore to a divine life, we cannot attain to it by any other way than by unveiling this veiled self in us, by mounting from our present status in the false self or mental ego to a higher status in the true self, the Atman, by entering into that unity with the Divine Consciousness which something superconscient in us always enjoys, - otherwise we could not exist, - but which our conscious mentality has forfeited.
3:But when we thus assert this unity of Sachchidananda on the one hand and this divided mentality on the other, we posit two opposite entities one of which must be false if the other is to be held as true, one of which must be abolished if the other is to be enjoyed. Yet it is in the mind and its form of life and body that we exist on earth and, if we must abolish the consciousness of mind, life and body in order to reach the one Existence, Consciousness and Bliss, then a divine life here is impossible. We must abandon cosmic existence utterly as an illusion in order to enjoy or re-become the Transcendent. From this solution there is no escape unless there be an intermediate link between the two which can explain them to each other and establish between them such a relation as will make it possible for us to realise the one Existence, Consciousness, Delight in the mould of the mind, life and body.
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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 - Religion as the Law of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This revolt in its extreme form tried to destroy religion altogether, boasted indeed of having killed the religious instinct in man,a vain and ignorant boast, as we now see, for the religious instinct in man is most of all the one instinct in him that cannot be killed, it only changes its form. In its more moderate movements the revolt put religion aside into a corner of the soul by itself and banished its intermiscence in the intellectual, aesthetic, practical life and even in the ethical; and it did this on the ground that the intermiscence of religion in science, thought, politics, society, life in general had been and must be a force for retardation, superstition, oppressive ignorance. The religionist may say that this accusation was an error and an atheistic perversity, or he may say that a religious retardation, a pious ignorance, a contented static condition or even an orderly stagnation full of holy thoughts of the Beyond is much better than a continuous endeavour after greater knowledge, greater mastery, more happiness, joy, light upon this transient earth. But the catholic thinker cannot accept such a plea; he is obliged to see that so long as man has not realised the divine and the ideal in his life, and it may well be even when he has realised it, since the divine is the infinite,progress and not unmoving status is the necessary and desirable law of his life,not indeed any breathless rush after novelties, but a constant motion towards a greater and greater truth of the spirit, the thought and the life not only in the individual, but in the collectivity, in the communal endeavour, in the turn, ideals, temperament, make of the society, in its strivings towards perfection. And he is obliged too to see that the indictment against religion, not in its conclusion, but in its premiss had something, had even much to justify it,not that religion in itself must be, but that historically and as a matter of fact the accredited religions and their hierarchs and exponents have too often been a force for retardation, have too often thrown their weight on the side of darkness, oppression and ignorance, and that it has needed a denial, a revolt of the oppressed human mind and heart to correct these errors and set religion right. And why should this have been if religion is the true and sufficient guide and regulator of all human activities and the whole of human life?
We need not follow the rationalistic or atheistic mind through all its aggressive indictment of religion. We need not for instance lay a too excessive stress on the superstitions, aberrations, violences, crimes even, which Churches and cults and creeds have favoured, admitted, sanctioned, supported or exploited for their own benefit, the mere hostile enumeration of which might lead one to echo the cry of the atheistic Roman poet, To such a mass of ills could religion persuade mankind. As well might one cite the crimes and errors which have been committed in the name of liberty or of order as a sufficient condemnation of the ideal of liberty or the ideal of social order. But we have to note the fact that such a thing was possible and to find its explanation. We cannot ignore for instance the bloodstained and fiery track which formal external Christianity has left furrowed across the mediaeval history of Europe almost from the days of Constantine, its first hour of secular triumph, down to very recent times, or the sanguinary comment which such an institution as the Inquisition affords on the claim of religion to be the directing light and regulating power in ethics and society, or religious wars and wide-spread State persecutions on its claim to guide the political life of mankind. But we must observe the root of this evil, which is not in true religion itself, but in its infrarational parts, not in spiritual faith and aspiration, but in our ignorant human confusion of religion with a particular creed, sect, cult, religious society or Church. So strong is the human tendency to this error that even the old tolerant Paganism slew Socrates in the name of religion and morality, feebly persecuted non-national faiths like the cult of Isis or the cult of Mithra and more vigorously what it conceived to be the subversive and anti-social religion of the early Christians; and even in still more fundamentally tolerant Hinduism with all its spiritual broadness and enlightenment it led at one time to the milder mutual hatred and occasional though brief-lived persecution of Buddhist, Jain, Shaiva, Vaishnava.
1.17 - The Divine Soul, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4:Its consciousness would not be shut out from any part of the infinite truth, nor limited by any poise or status that it might assume in its relations with others, nor condemned to any loss of self-knowledge by its acceptance of a purely phenomenal individuality and the play of practical differentiation. It would in its self-experience live eternally in the presence of the Absolute. To us the Absolute is only an intellectual conception of indefinable existence. The intellect tells us simply that there is a Brahman higher than the highest,2 an Unknowable that knows itself in other fashion than that of our knowledge; but the intellect cannot bring us into its presence. The divine soul living in the Truth of things would, on the contrary, always have the conscious sense of itself as a manifestation of the Absolute. Its immutable existence it would be aware of as the original "self-form"3 of that Transcendent, - Sachchidananda; its play of conscious being it would be aware of as manifestation of That in forms of Sachchidananda. In its every state or act of knowledge it would be aware of the Unknowable cognising itself by a form of variable self-knowledge; in its every state or act of power, will or force aware of the Transcendence possessing itself by a form of conscious power of being and knowledge; in its every state or act of delight, joy or love aware of the Transcendence embracing itself by a form of conscious self-enjoyment. This presence of the Absolute would not be with it as an experience occasionally glimpsed or finally arrived at and held with difficulty or as an addition, acquisition or culmination superimposed on its ordinary state of being: it would be the very foundation of its being both in the unity and the differentiation; it would be present to it in all its knowing, willing, doing, enjoying; it would be absent neither from its timeless self nor from any moment of Time, neither from its spaceless being nor from any determination of its extended existence, neither from its unconditioned purity beyond all cause and circumstance nor from any relation of circumstance, condition and causality. This constant presence of the Absolute would be the basis of its infinite freedom and delight, ensure its security in the play and provide the root and sap and essence of its divine being.
5:Moreover such a divine soul would live simultaneously in the two terms of the eternal existence of Sachchidananda, the two inseparable poles of the self-unfolding of the Absolute which we call the One and the Many. All being does really so live; but to our divided self-awareness there is an incompatibility, a gulf between the two driving us towards a choice, to dwell either in the multiplicity exiled from the direct and entire consciousness of the One or in the unity repellent of the consciousness of the Many. But the divine soul would not be enslaved to this divorce and duality. It would be aware in itself at once of the infinite self-concentration and the infinite self-extension and diffusion. It would be aware simultaneously of the One in its unitarian consciousness holding the innumerable multiplicity in itself as if potential, unexpressed and therefore to our mental experience of that state non-existent, and of the One in its extended consciousness holding the multiplicity thrown out and active as the play of its own conscious being, will and delight. It would equally be aware of the Many ever drawing down to themselves the One that is the eternal source and reality of their existence and of the Many ever mounting up attracted to the One that is the eternal culmination and blissful justification of all their play of difference. This vast view of things is the mould of the Truth-Consciousness, the foundation of the large Truth and Right hymned by the Vedic seers; this unity of all these terms of opposition is the real Adwaita, the supreme comprehending word of the knowledge of the Unknowable.
1.18 - Mind and Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:In fact, we have striven to arrive at some conception of that supreme infinite being, conscious-force and self-delight of which our world is a creation and our mentality a perverse figure; we have tried to give ourselves an idea of what this divine Maya may be, this Truth-consciousness, this Real-Idea by which the conscious force of the transcendent and universal Existence conceives, forms and governs the universe, the order, the cosmos of its manifested delight of being. But we have not studied the connections of these four great and divine terms with the three others with which our human experience is alone familiar, - mind, life and body. We have not scrutinised this other and apparently undivine Maya which is the root of all our striving and suffering or seen how precisely it develops out of the divine reality or the divine Maya. And till we have done this, till we have woven the missing cords of connection, our world is still unexplained to us and the doubt of a possible unification between that higher existence and this lower life has still a basis. We know that our world has come forth from Sachchidananda and subsists in His being; we conceive that He dwells in it as the Enjoyer and Knower, Lord and Self; we have seen that our dual terms of sensation, mind, force, being can only be representations of His delight, His conscious force, His divine existence. But it would seem that they are actually so much the opposite of what He really and supernally is that we cannot while dwelling in the cause of these opposites, cannot while contained in the lower triple term of existence attain to the divine living. We must either exalt this lower being into that higher status or exchange body for that pure existence, life for that pure condition of conscious-force, sensation and mentality for that pure delight and knowledge which live in the truth of the spiritual reality. And must not this mean that we abandon all earthly or limited mental existence for something which is its opposite, - either for some pure state of the Spirit or else for some world of the Truth of things, if such exists, or other worlds, if such exist, of divine Bliss, divine Energy, divine Being? In that case the perfection of humanity is elsewhere than in humanity itself; the summit of its earthly evolution can only be a fine apex of dissolving mentality whence it takes the great leap either into formless being or into worlds beyond the reach of embodied Mind.
3:But in reality all that we call undivine can only be an action of the four divine principles themselves, such action of them as was necessary to create this universe of forms. Those forms have been created not outside but in the divine existence, consciousforce and bliss, not outside but in and as a part of the working of the divine Real-Idea. There is therefore no reason to suppose that there cannot be any real play of the higher divine consciousness in a world of forms or that forms and their immediate supports, mental consciousness, energy of vital force and formal substance, must necessarily distort that which they represent. It is possible, even probable that mind, body and life are to be found in their pure forms in the divine Truth itself, are there in fact as subordinate activities of its consciousness and part of the complete instrumentation by which the supreme Force always works. Mind, life and body must then be capable of divinity; their form and working in that short period out of possibly only one cycle of the terrestrial evolution which Science reveals to us, need not represent all the potential workings of these three principles in the living body. They work as they do because they are by some means separated in consciousness from the divine Truth from which they proceed. Were this separation once abrogated by the expanding energy of the Divine in humanity, their present functioning might well be converted, would indeed naturally be converted by a supreme evolution and progression into that purer working which they have in the Truth-consciousness.
1.19 - Equality, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Hence the immense importance attached by the Gita in its elements of Karmayoga to equality; it is the nodus of the free spirit's free relations with the world. Self-knowledge, desirelessness, impersonality, bliss, freedom from the modes of Nature, when withdrawn into themselves, self-absorbed, inactive, have no need of equality; for they take no cognisance of the things in which the opposition of equality and inequality arises. But the moment the spirit takes cognisance of and deals with the multiplicities, personalities, differences, inequalities of the action of Nature, it has to effectuate these other signs of its free status by this one manifesting sign of equality. Knowledge is the consciousness of unity with the One; and in relation with the many different beings and existences of the universe it must
Equality
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It is the spiritual nature of the equality enjoined, high and universal in its character and comprehension, which gives its distinctive note to the teaching of the Gita in this matter. For otherwise the mere teaching of equality in itself as the most desirable status of the mind, feelings and temperament in which we rise superior to human weakness, is by no means peculiar to the Gita. Equality has always been held up to admiration as the philosophic ideal and the characteristic temperament of the sages. The Gita takes up indeed this philosophic ideal, but carries it far beyond into a higher region where we find ourselves breathing a larger and purer air. The Stoic poise, the philosophic poise of the soul are only its first and second steps of ascension out of the whirl of the passions and the tossings of desire to a serenity and bliss, not of the Gods, but of the Divine himself in his supreme self-mastery. The Stoic equality, making character its pivot, founds itself upon self-mastery by austere endurance; the happier and serener philosophic equality prefers self-mastery by knowledge, by detachment, by a high intellectual indifference seated above the disturbances to which our nature is prone, udasnavad asnah., as the Gita expresses it; there is also the religious or Christian equality which is a perpetual kneeling or a prostrate resignation and submission to the will of God. These are the three steps and means towards divine peace, heroic endurance, sage indifference, pious resignation, titiks.a, udasnata, namas or nati. The Gita takes them all in its large synthetic manner and weaves them into its upward soul-movement, but it gives to each a profounder root, a larger outlook, a more universal and transcendent significance. For to each it gives the values of the spirit, its power of spiritual being beyond the strain of character, beyond the difficult poise of the understanding, beyond the stress of the emotions.
The ordinary human soul takes a pleasure in the customary disturbances of its nature-life; it is because it has this pleasure and because, having it, it gives a sanction to the troubled play of the lower nature that the play continues perpetually; for the
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To be freed from wrath and passion and fear and attraction is repeatedly stressed as a necessary condition of the liberated status, and for this we must learn to bear their shocks, which cannot be done without exposing ourselves to their causes. "He who can bear here in the body the velocity of wrath and desire, is the Yogin, the happy man." Titiks.a, the will and power to endure, is the means. "The material touches which cause heat and cold, happiness and pain, things transient which come and go, these learn to endure. For the man whom these do not trouble nor pain, the firm and wise who is equal in pleasure and suffering, makes himself apt for immortality." The equalsouled has to bear suffering and not hate, to receive pleasure and not rejoice. Even the physical affections are to be mastered by endurance and this too is part of the Stoic discipline. Age, death, suffering, pain are not fled from, but accepted and vanquished by a high indifference.1 Not to flee appalled from Nature in her
Dhras tatra na muhyati, says the Gita; the strong and wise soul is not perplexed, troubled or moved by them. But still they are accepted only to be conquered, jara-maran.a-moks.aya yatanti.
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- it must have above it the sattwic vision of knowledge, at its root the aim at self-realisation and in its steps the ascent to the divine Nature. A Stoic discipline which merely crushed down the common affections of our human nature, - although less dangerous than a tamasic weariness of life, unfruitful pessimism and sterile inertia, because it would at least increase the power and self-mastery of the soul, - would still be no unmixed good, since it might lead to insensibility and an inhuman isolation without giving the true spiritual release. The Stoic equality is justified as an element in the discipline of the Gita because it can be associated with and can help to the realisation of the free immutable Self in the mobile human being, param dr.s.t.va, and to status in that new self-consciousness, es.a brahm sthitih..
"Awakening by the understanding to the Highest which is beyond even the discerning mind, put force on the self by the self to make it firm and still, and slay this enemy who is so hard to assail, Desire." Both the tamasic recoil of escape and the rajasic movement of struggle and victory are only justified when they look beyond themselves through the sattwic principle to the self-knowledge which legitimises both the recoil and the struggle.
1.19 - Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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 - ON THE PROBABLE EXISTENCE AHEAD OF US OF AN ULTRA-HUMAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
hold the status of organisms (in the fullest sense) from the group-
ings, so strongly "psychogenic" in their nature, which are effected
1.19 - The Curve of the Rational Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Democracy and its panacea of education and freedom have certainly done something for the race. To begin with, the people are, for the first time in the historical period of history, erect, active and alive, and where there is life, there is always a hope of better things. Again, some kind of knowledge and with it some kind of active intelligence based on knowledge and streng thened by the habit of being called on to judge and decide between conflicting issues and opinions in all sorts of matters have been much more generalised than was formerly possible. Men are being progressively trained to use their minds, to apply intelligence to life, and that is a great gain. If they have not yet learned to think for themselves or to think soundly, clearly and rightly, they are at least more able now to choose with some kind of initial intelligence, however imperfect as yet it may be, the thought they shall accept and the rule they shall follow. Equal educational equipment and equal opportunity of life have by no means been acquired; but there is a much greater equalisation than was at all possible in former states of society. But here a new and enormous defect has revealed itself which is proving fatal to the social idea which engendered it. For given even perfect equality of educational and other opportunity, and that does not yet really exist and cannot in the individualistic state of society,to what purpose or in what manner is the opportunity likely to be used? Man, the half infrarational being, demands three things for his satisfaction, power, if he can have it, but at any rate the use and reward of his faculties and the enjoyment of his desires. In the old societies the possibility of these could be secured by him to a certain extent according to his birth, his fixed status and the use of his capacity within the limits of his hereditary status. That basis once removed and no proper substitute provided, the same ends can only be secured by success in a scramble for the one power left, the power of wealth. Accordingly, instead of a harmoniously ordered society there has been developed a huge organised competitive system, a frantically rapid and one-sided development of industrialism and, under the garb of democracy, an increasing plutocratic tendency that shocks by its ostentatious grossness and the magnitudes of its gulfs and distances. These have been the last results of the individualistic ideal and its democratic machinery, the initial bankruptcies of the rational age.
The first natural result has been the transition of the rational mind from democratic individualism to democratic socialism. Socialism, labouring under the disadvantageous accident of its birth in a revolt against capitalism, an uprising against the rule of the successful bourgeois and the plutocrat, has been compelled to work itself out by a war of classes. And, worse still, it has started from an industrialised social system and itself taken on at the beginning a purely industrial and economic appearance. These are accidents that disfigure its true nature. Its true nature, its real justification is the attempt of the human reason to carry on the rational ordering of society to its fulfilment, its will to get rid of this great parasitical excrescence of unbridled competition, this giant obstacle to any decent ideal or practice of human living. Socialism sets out to replace a system of organised economic battle by an organised order and peace. This can no longer be done on the old lines, an artificial or inherited inequality brought about by the denial of equal opportunity and justified by the affirmation of that injustice and its result as an eternal law of society and of Nature. That is a falsehood which the reason of man will no longer permit. Neither can it be done, it seems, on the basis of individual liberty; for that has broken down in the practice. Socialism therefore must do away with the democratic basis of individual liberty, even if it professes to respect it or to be marching towards a more rational freedom. It shifts at first the fundamental emphasis to other ideas and fruits of the democratic ideal, and it leads by this transference of stress to a radical change in the basic principle of a rational society. Equality, not a political only, but a perfect social equality, is to be the basis. There is to be equality of opportunity for all, but also equality of status for all, for without the last the first cannot be secured; even if it were established, it could not endure. This equality again is impossible if personal, or at least inherited right in property is to exist, and therefore socialism abolishesexcept at best on a small scale the right of personal property as it is now understood and makes war on the hereditary principle. Who then is to possess the property? It can only be the community as a whole. And who is to administer it? Again, the community as a whole. In order to justify this idea, the socialistic principle has practically to deny the existence of the individual or his right to exist except as a member of the society and for its sake. He belongs entirely to the society, not only his property, but himself, his labour, his capacities, the education it gives him and its results, his mind, his knowledge, his individual life, his family life, the life of his children. Moreover, since his individual reason cannot be trusted to work out naturally a right and rational adjustment of his life with the life of others, it is for the reason of the whole community to arrange that too for him. Not the reasoning minds and wills of the individuals, but the collective reasoning mind and will of the community has to govern. It is this which will determine not only the principles and all the details of the economic and political order, but the whole life of the community and of the individual as a working, thinking, feeling cell of this life, the development of his capacities, his actions, the use of the knowledge he has acquired, the whole ordering of his vital, his ethical, his intelligent being. For so only can the collective reason and intelligent will of the race overcome the egoism of individualistic life and bring about a perfect principle and rational order of society in a harmonious world.
It is true that this inevitable character of socialism is denied or minimised by the more democratic socialists; for the socialistic mind still bears the impress of the old democratic ideas and cherishes hopes that betray it often into strange illogicalities. It assures us that it will combine some kind of individual freedom, a limited but all the more true and rational freedom, with the rigours of the collectivist idea. But it is evidently these rigours to which things must tend if the collectivist idea is to prevail and not to stop short and falter in the middle of its course. If it proves itself thus wanting in logic and courage, it may very well be that it will speedily or in the end be destroyed by the foreign element it tolerates and perish without having sounded its own possibilities. It will pass perhaps, unless guided by a rational wisdom which the human mind in government has not yet shown, after exceeding even the competitive individualistic society in its cumbrous incompetence.1 But even at its best the collectivist idea contains several fallacies inconsistent with the real facts of human life and nature. And just as the idea of individualistic democracy found itself before long in difficulties on that account because of the disparity between lifes facts and the minds idea, difficulties that have led up to its discredit and approaching overthrow, the idea of collectivist democracy too may well find itself before long in difficulties that must lead to its discredit and eventual replacement by a third stage of the inevitable progression. Liberty protected by a State in which all are politically equal, was the idea that individualistic democracy attempted to elaborate. Equality, social and political equality enforced through a perfect and careful order by a State which is the organised will of the whole community, is the idea on which socialistic democracy stakes its future. If that too fails to make good, the rational and democratic Idea may fall back upon a third form of society founding an essential rather than formal liberty and equality upon fraternal comradeship in a free community, the ideal of intellectual as of spiritual Anarchism.2
In fact the claim to equality like the thirst for liberty is individualistic in its origin,it is not native or indispensable to the essence of the collectivist ideal. It is the individual who demands liberty for himself, a free movement for his mind, life, will, action; the collectivist trend and the State idea have rather the opposite tendency, they are self-compelled to take up more and more the compulsory management and control of the mind, life, will, action of the community and the individuals as part of ituntil personal liberty is pressed out of existence. But similarly it is the individual who demands for himself equality with all others; when a class demands, it is still the individual multiplied claiming for himself and all who are of his own grade, political or economic status an equal place, privilege or opportunity with those who have acquired or inherited a superiority of status. The social Reason conceded first the claim to liberty, but in practice (whatever might have been the theory) it admitted only so much equalityequality before the law, a helpful but not too effective political equality of the voteas was necessary to ensure a reasonable freedom for all. Afterwards when the injustices and irrationalities of an unequalised competitive freedom, the enormity of the gulfs it created, became apparent, the social Reason shifted its ground and tried to arrive at a more complete communal justice on the basis of a political, economic, educational and social equality as complete as might be; it has laboured to make a plain level on which all can stand together. Liberty in this change has had to undergo the former fate of equality; for only so much libertyperhaps or for a timecould survive as can be safely allowed without the competitive individual getting enough room for his self-assertive growth to upset or endanger the equalitarian basis. But in the end the discovery cannot fail to be made that an artificial equality has also its irrationalities, its contradictions of the collective good, its injustices even and its costly violations of the truth of Nature. Equality like individualistic liberty may turn out to be not a panacea but an obstacle in the way of the best management and control of life by the collective reason and will of the community.
But if both equality and liberty disappear from the human scene, there is left only one member of the democratic trinity, brotherhood or, as it is now called, comradeship, that has some chance of survival as part of the social basis. This is because it seems to square better with the spirit of collectivism; we see accordingly the idea of it if not the fact still insisted on in the new social systems, even those in which both liberty and equality are discarded as noxious democratic chimeras. But comradeship without liberty and equality can be nothing more than the like association of allindividuals, functional classes, guilds, syndicates, soviets or any other unitsin common service to the life of the nation under the absolute control of the collectivist State. The only liberty left at the end would be the freedom to serve the community under the rigorous direction of the State authority; the only equality would be an association of all alike in a Spartan or Roman spirit of civic service with perhaps a like status, theoretically equal at least for all functions; the only brotherhood would be the sense of comradeship in devoted dedication to the organised social Self, the State. In fact the democratic trinity, stripped of its godhead, would fade out of existence; the collectivist ideal can very well do without them, for none of them belong to its grain and very substance.
This is indeed already the spirit, the social reasonor rather the social gospelof the totalitarianism whose swelling tide threatens to engulf all Europe and more than Europe. Totalitarianism of some kind seems indeed to be the natural, almost inevitable destiny, at any rate the extreme and fullest outcome of Socialism or, more generally, of the collectivist idea and impulse. For the essence of Socialism, its justifying ideal, is the governance and strict organisation of the total life of the society as a whole and in detail by its own conscious reason and will for the best good and common interest of all, eliminating exploitation by individual or class, removing internal competition, haphazard confusion and waste, enforcing and perfecting coordination, assuring the best functioning and a sufficient life for all. If a democratic polity and machinery best assure such a working, as was thought at first, it is this that will be chosen and the result will be Social Democracy. That ideal still holds sway in northern Europe and it may there yet have a chance of proving that a successful collectivist rationalisation of society is quite possible. But if a non-democratic polity and machinery are found to serve the purpose better, then there is nothing inherently sacrosanct for the collectivist mind in the democratic ideal; it can be thrown on the rubbish-heap where so many other exploded sanctities have gone. Russian communism so discarded with contempt democratic liberty and attempted for a time to substitute for the democratic machine a new sovietic structure, but it has preserved the ideal of a proletarian equality for all in a classless society. Still its spirit is a rigorous totalitarianism on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariate, which amounts in fact to the dictatorship of the Communist party in the name or on behalf of the proletariate. Non-proletarian totalitarianism goes farther and discards democratic equality no less than democratic liberty; it preserves classes for a time only, it may be,but as a means of social functioning, not as a scale of superiority or a hierarchic order. Rationalisation is no longer the turn; its place is taken by a revolutionary mysticism which seems to be the present drive of the Time Spirit.
1.19 - The Victory of the Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Agni, Satya, Tapas and Jana of the Puranas, which correspond to these three infinities of the Deva and each fulfils in its own way the sevenfold principle of our existence: thus we get the series of thrice seven seats of Aditi manifested in all her glory by the opening out of the Dawn of Truth.3 Thus we see that the achievement of the Light and Truth by the human fathers is also an ascent to the Immortality of the supreme and divine status, to the first name of the all-creating infinite Mother, to her thrice seven supreme degrees of this ascending existence, to the highest levels of the eternal hill (sanu, adri).
This immortality is the beatitude enjoyed by the gods of which Vamadeva has already spoken as the thing which Agni has to accomplish by the sacrifice, the supreme bliss with its thrice seven ecstasies (I.20.7). For he proceeds; "Vanished the darkness, shaken in its foundation; Heaven shone out (rocata dyauh., implying the manifestation of the three luminous worlds of Swar, divo rocanani); upward rose the light of the divine Dawn; the
12.02 - The Stress of the Spirit, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There seems to be an entity lying at the other end away from Matter, it is the Spirit, the individual Conscious Being. If Matter is Bondage, Law, Determinism, Spirit is Freedom, Liberty, Self-choice. That is the well-known dualityPurusha and Prakriti, that divide existence between themselves. Purusha is the conscient Being, and Prakriti the inconscient becoming. These dual realities are however not irrevocably distinct and separate incommensurables. They are not unbridgeable units foreign to each other. The conscient being infuses itself into the inconscient becoming and initiates a conscious movement in the unconscious field. Thus where there was the absolute determinism of matter, sparks from the free consciousness intervene and modify the settled balance. That is the inner sense of the aberrations that one observes in the play even of physical laws. It is just the beginning of the stress of consciousness in unconscious matter. That stress increases in the march of time, in the process of evolution; and the natural freedom of the subject impinges on the rigid law of the object making it more and more pliable and plastic, more and more malleable and even reversible. In man a balance is struck between freedom and bondage although apparently bondage overweighs freedom. In the higher evolved status of being man arrives and can arrive at yet greater degrees of freedom and in the end eliminate altogether the element of bondage and transmute it into the self-expressed rhythm of the higher consciousness. The supreme Divine Consciousness or Being is that where Nature's determinism is dissolved in the self-law of the All Spirit, the Divine Will becoming the law of the being.
The whole process of creation, the final goal of the Divine Lila is the liberation of Nature, Prakriti. Prakriti is born in Bondage as inconscient Energy. Prakriti itself is a prison-house made of, wholly made of unconsciousness. The conscious Being is there involved, imprisoned and suffers and is miserable. For the gloom of unconsciousness covers it and almost swallows it up. That is the immanent Godhead in creation and is in man his soul, an emanation and representative of the Godhead. As it is commonly understood, liberation means the release of the Godhead out of the prison escaping into the Transcendent. The riddle of this creation is therefore to be solved by this process of escape of the Conscious Principle from out of the unconscious covering beyond into the pure Consciousness laya for the human being and pralaya for the creation. Actually the Upanishad gives graphically the direction to the human soul to pull himself out, out of the containing form: even as one draws the inner stem of a blade of grass out of its covering, for that which is Pure, Stainless is not here but out there.
12.03 - The Sorrows of God, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a consciousness above and a consciousness below: a consciousness above the ignorant nature and a consciousness within that nature. They are not, however, altogether distinct and incommensurable: it is the same consciousness with a double status as in the well-known figure of the two birds in in the Upanishad.
The Upanishadic standpoint declares that the being above is a silent witness, inactive, immobile, still. The one below is active and tastes of things both bitter and sweet, in other words, it takes part and is involved in the varied life-experiences. Certain lines of spiritual experience find that the being above is the reality, that the other is only an image, a reflection or illusion; and the image looks like a troubled image because it is, as it were, a reflection in the troubled waters of cosmic ignorance: dispel the ignorance, nothing remains but the transcendent Witness-Being, all alone. Such is the position of myvda or illusionism. But there are other lines of experience giving a different view and a different realisation. Both the transcendent and the immanent are form of the same Reality, with different functions, standing on different levels. Thus, as we say, the one below is not a vain image, or a mere reflection, but a descent here in the manifestation, of the reality above. This is also as real as that, the other, only it functions differently. The descent means two things, a double operation, first, the assumption of ignorance: what was light becomes obscurity, what was vast and infinite becomes small and finite, what was straight becomes crooked, what was delight becomes pain, what was one and united becomes many and disparate, what was whole becomes fragmentary. The descending being in one part or facet turns into the exact opposite of what it was originally, it is a denial of itself; secondly, in another aspect or part of itself, in its essence and profundity, it remains unaltered, intact as it were with no change whatsoever in its nature and character. That is the immanent Godhead, the emanation, the extension or projection of the transcendent into the external material appearance. This immanent Godhead has its own function, it is the initiation of the ascent after the descent, in the vast field of an apparent total ignorance it is as it were the catalytic element introducing a reverse movement upward.
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The higher or deeper the source of the descending or manifesting Consciousness for there are gradations or various statuses of it the wider and vaster and more radical is its effective power for redeeming and changing the ignorant common nature, and also strangely, perhaps inevitably, the more intimate and poignant its participation in the travail of that nature the participation extends not only to pain and suffering but to death also, for through death the path leads to resurrection and immortality. The Divine Himself in various forms comes down upon and into earth and pays by his pain and suffering for the sins and errors of humanity. That is the ransom he condescends to offer to the deity of ignorance, the reigning lord of the world for securing the freedom of man's soul. The divine emanations bear the burden of ignorance all the more so that the burden on others may be lightened, the pains less painful. Indeed, suffering humanity is also the suffering Godhead himself, suffering multifariously although ignorantly and unconsciously. There is an inner working of the secret godhead in order that the suffering may be gradually transmuted into something else, into the divine delight. The Godhead has taken up this task in order that the Divine may not remain Divine only in its essence and in the other, the transcendent status, but express itself also as the Divine in an earthly form, an earthly form cleared of all dross, made luminously beautiful.
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12.05 - The World Tragedy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A celebrated scientist elated with the wonderful discoveries of modern science and its more wonderful promises of the future seems to have said that if he could get a foothold just outside the earth, he meant perhaps outside its gravitational field, he could as it were, twirl the earth upon his finger, with a little push dislodge it from its orbit and its axis. Well, what he said is true and prophetic but the foothold outside has to be outside the gravitational field, not of his physical existence, (the astronauts are trying it today), but outside his physical or normal consciousness. He has to rise above the physical, material status of his being. There is the error that Hamlet committed in spite of his cultured and enlightened mind: not through the enlightened mind alone but through the enlightened heart, through the enlightened vital, even through an enlightened physical consciousness, the remedy of the earthly malady has to be sought, not to meet violence with violence, not to be resentful, not to retaliate that is what the Bible means when it says, "Resist not evil"but rise in one's consciousness, above the dualities as the eastern wisdom says, seek a higher source from where springs the infallible energy of a purer light. The higher the consciousness, the more effective its action.
Rise in your being and consciousness and by your aspiration and realisation and contagion make others too rise. Then the world will find naturally and spontaneously its lever to shift its old and unhappy basic stand to something higher, greaterdiviner.
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It is to be noted that death does not mean literally or exclusively the physical event, disintegration and disappearance of the body: it is rather the symbol of the corrosive consciousness of the ordinary ignorant life. There is the ignorant consciousness making up the lower half circle of the integral life and there is the luminous consciousness making up the higher half circle. In between there is, as I have said, a border range which partakes of the nature of both. In psychological terms, the lower is the predominantly vital and physical ranges with a modicum of the mental shading into the higher mental. Up till here it is more or less the region of ignorance. Then comes the higher mind with its aspiring will: this is the purificatory agent the purgatory the crucible where forces are generated to stir and change and renovate the inferior sphere of our life. Indeed it is the region of the j-cakra in Tantric terminology: in modern terms you may call it the control-room, or in most modern lunar vocabulary, the command-module. It is from here that the first changes towards a higher and purer functioning are initiated in our lower limbs, the body, the vital and even the lower mental. Beyond is the overhead and overmental and still higher ranges. The luminous consciousness, the touch of immortality begins with the overhead and the overmental. As we enter the overhead, we shake off the shadow of death upon us and our mortal nature. The Upanishad speaks of two kinds of knowledge that have to be known, two forms of consciousness that have to be acquired in order to become the full integral Divine being. First you have to know, to become aware of the existence of ignorance, the primal or primitive nature and through that awareness or knowledge probe into its character and movement and destiny. Ignorance, pure ignorance leads towards disintegration and death, but to be aware of the ignorance is already a step towards enlightening the ignorance and redeeming it into knowledge. By this knowledge of the ignorance you release it from the grip of death; when you have the full consciousness of the ignorance you transcend the region of death, and free from death, free from ignorance you have the knowledge of knowledge and with the knowledge of knowledge, that is to say, with the full revelation of it you are one with Truth that is Immortality. The delight of immortality is love; love's own status and home is Paradise.
The Paradise, the svargyam lokam of the Upanishads is not necessarily utterly afar and aloof, sundered from this world. The kingdom of heaven instead of being wholly within and absolutely beyond can be and has to be brought out and down upon and into earth, established here below in the fullness of its own glory. That is the material epiphany, the transformation of the physical nature, the ultimate and inevitable destiny of earth and mankind.
12.07 - The Double Trinity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We know the Divine himself has three such bodies or a triple status of his one existence. First, he is prajna, the being or consciousness that contains the fundamental or typal realities that form the very basis of creation. It is the nucleus or the seed enclosing all the starting points as in a tight knot, all future elaborations. These elaborations are made by the second status or person of the Trinity; it has the beautiful name Hiranyagarbha, the golden womb. Here are laid out all possibilities, all probabilities even, endless and infinite lines of development and progression of the forces of existence. Every possible thing is being brought forth and allowed to try its fate. Out of these multifarious possibilities only some are chosen to appear as physical or material realities. This choice is made by the third person of the Trinity, Virat. Each and every possibility in the Hiranyagarbha may have the chance to appear on the material plane but that means perhaps time and a particular creation, for evidently there are many creations or cycles of creations of different types, one following another after a pralaya as the ancients conceived the process.
The triple person, it may be noted, is psychologically co-related to the three well-known Upanishadic states of consciousness one, sushupti (perfect sleep), two swapna (dream) and three, jagrat (wakefulness).
12.08 - Notes on Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Freedom is a divine quality; it belongs to the Divine Consciousness. Nothing below that status is free or can be freeall are bound to the Cosmic Law, the inexorable law of Karma, the chain of global Causation. You are free when you are out of it and dwell with and in the Master of the causal ring.
God alone is free. You are free only when you are united with God and your will merges in His Will and His Will manifests in yours.
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Man becomes the bodily creature when he cuts himself off from his spiritual nature which is his true nature. In isolating himself from the Master of nature, man becomes a slave of nature, this ignorant external nature. To attain freedom is to rise out of this lower status into the domain of the higher status which is man's own true nature, the Divine nature.
The body can be remoulded and reconstituted by the soul and self; the inferior nature can be rebuilt into the mode' of the higher nature; when this is done there is the reign of Supreme Liberty. The body's domain then in its formation becomes a free expression of the soul, the Divine Himself.
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The outer freedom does not mean the power to do whatever one chooses to do. True outer freedom means to be able to choose the right thing to do. It means finding the Truth and following the rhythm of the Truth. When one is the Truth in one's being and infallibly expresses the Truth in becoming, when one is identified with Satyam and Ritam, there is founded the true freedom and its supreme status.
Freedom therefore is utter self-discipline; for it means following the rhythm of the Truth. To follow the rhythm of the Truth is to follow the Divine. In being obedient to the Divine Will one acts absolutely freely, for obedience here means complete identification with the Master.
The being one with the Divine Being, the consciousness one with the Divine Consciousness, the will one with the Divine Willsuch is the condition and status of the perfect, absolute Freedom.
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1.20 - The End of the Curve of Reason, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The exaggeration and inherent weakness of this exclusive idea are sufficiently evident. Man does not actually live as an isolated being, nor can he grow by an isolated freedom. He grows by his relations with others and his freedom must exercise itself in a progressive self-harmonising with the freedom of his fellow-beings. The social principle therefore, apart from the forms it has taken, would be perfectly justified, if by nothing else, then by the need of society as a field of relations which afford to the individual his occasion for growing towards a greater perfection. We have indeed the old dogma that man was originally innocent and perfect; the conception of the first ideal state of mankind as a harmonious felicity of free and natural living in which no social law or compulsion existed because none was needed, is as old as the Mahabharata. But even this theory has to recognise a downward lapse of man from his natural perfection. The fall was not brought about by the introduction of the social principle in the arrangement of his life, but rather the social principle and the governmental method of compulsion had to be introduced as a result of the fall. If, on the contrary, we regard the evolution of man not as a fall from perfection but a gradual ascent, a growth out of the infrarational status of his being, it is clear that only by a social compulsion on the vital and physical instincts of his infrarational egoism, a subjection to the needs and laws of the social life, could this growth have been brought about on a large scale. For in their first crudeness the infrarational instincts do not correct themselves quite voluntarily without the pressure of need and compulsion, but only by the erection of a law other than their own which teaches them finally to erect a yet greater law within for their own correction and purification. The principle of social compulsion may not have been always or perhaps ever used quite wisely,it is a law of mans imperfection, imperfect in itself, and must always be imperfect in its method and result: but in the earlier stages of his evolution it was clearly inevitable, and until man has grown out of the causes of its necessity, he cannot be really ready for the anarchistic principle of living.
But it is at the same time clear that the more the outer law is replaced by an inner law, the nearer man will draw to his true and natural perfection. And the perfect social state must be one in which governmental compulsion is abolished and man is able to live with his fellow-man by free agreement and cooperation. But by what means is he to be made ready for this great and difficult consummation? Intellectual anarchism relies on two powers in the human being of which the first is the enlightenment of his reason; the mind of man, enlightened, will claim freedom for itself, but will equally recognise the same right in others. A just equation will of itself emerge on the ground of a true, self-found and unperverted human nature. This might conceivably be sufficient, although hardly without a considerable change and progress in mans mental powers, if the life of the individual could be lived in a predominant isolation with only a small number of points of necessary contact with the lives of others. Actually, our existence is closely knit with the existences around us and there is a common life, a common work, a common effort and aspiration without which humanity cannot grow to its full height and wideness. To ensure coordination and prevent clash and conflict in this constant contact another power is needed than the enlightened intellect. Anarchistic thought finds this power in a natural human sympathy which, if it is given free play under the right conditions, can be relied upon to ensure natural cooperation: the appeal is to what the American poet calls the love of comrades, to the principle of fraternity, the third and most neglected term of the famous revolutionary formula. A free equality founded upon spontaneous cooperation, not on governmental force and social compulsion, is the highest anarchistic ideal.
12.10 - The Sunlit Path, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To understand a little closely we have to distinguish things. The mind has a higher status: the higher mind is naturally receptive to the light and sufficiently aloof from a lower region of the mind itself which is not only limited but subject to up rushes from a still lower region, the vital, the source of passions and prejudices. It is the lower mind, the physical mind as it is called, which is the one obstacle that shuts out the light of true consciousness. The source of all doubt is here. The physical mind has its own role, a truer role; for it is the instrumental consciousness that formulates things, gives a forma name and local habitation to things so that they possess a material existence but it transgresses its bounds when it chooses by itself the things to formulate, instead it should formulate only things presented to it, presented by a higher consciousness, presented, in other words, by faith.
The physical mind doubts, because it has not the criterion by which it can find and judge the reality, it must perforce seek the support of a higher faculty that can furnish or reveal the object to which it should give a form. By itself it moves bewildered in a tortuous never-ending my, leading nowhereif anywhere to regions still darker and dangerousandha tama pravianti..tato bhuya eva te.
1.21 - The Ascent of Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Lord of Delight conquers the third status; he maintains and governs according to the Soul of universality; like a hawk, a kite he settles on the vessel and uplifts it, a finder of the Light he manifests the fourth status and cleaves to the ocean that is the billowing of those waters.3
Thrice Vishnu paced and set his step uplifted out of the primal dust; three steps he has paced, the Guardian, the Invincible, and from beyond he upholds their laws. Scan the workings of Vishnu and see from whence he has manifested their laws. That is his highest pace which is seen ever by the seers like an eye extended in heaven; that the illumined, the awakened kindle into a blaze, even Vishnu's step supreme. . . .4 Rig Veda.
1:WE HAVE seen that as the divided mortal Mind, parent of limitation and ignorance and the dualities, is only a dark figure of the supermind, of the self-luminous divine Consciousness in its first dealings with the apparent negation of itself from which our cosmos commences, so also Life as it emerges in our material universe, an energy of the dividing Mind subconscious, submerged, imprisoned in Matter, Life as the parent of death, hunger and incapacity, is only a dark figure of the divine superconscient Force whose highest terms are immortality, satisfied delight and omnipotence. This relation fixes the nature of that great cosmic processus of which we are a part; it determines the first, the middle and the ultimate terms of our evolution. The first terms of Life are division, a forcedriven subconscient will, apparent not as will but as dumb urge of physical energy, and the impotence of an inert subjection to the mechanical forces that govern the interchange between the form and its environment. This inconscience and this blind but potent action of Energy are the type of the material universe as the physical scientist sees it and this his view of things extends and turns into the whole of basic existence; it is the consciousness of Matter and the accomplished type of material living. But there comes a new equipoise, there intervenes a new set of terms which increase in proportion as Life delivers itself out of this form and begins to evolve towards conscious Mind; for the middle terms of Life are death and mutual devouring, hunger and conscious desire, the sense of a limited room and capacity and the struggle to increase, to expand, to conquer and to possess. These three terms are the basis of that status of evolution which the Darwinian theory first made plain to human knowledge. For the phenomenon of death involves in itself a struggle to survive, since death is only the negative term in which Life hides from itself and tempts its own positive being to seek for immortality. The phenomenon of hunger and desire involves a struggle towards a status of satisfaction and security, since desire is only the stimulus by which Life tempts its own positive being to rise out of the negation of unfulfilled hunger towards the full possession of the delight of existence. The phenomenon of limited capacity involves a struggle towards expansion, mastery and possession, the possession of the self and the conquest of the environment, since limitation and defect are only the negation by which Life tempts its own positive being to seek for the perfection of which it is eternally capable. The struggle for life is not only a struggle to survive, it is also a struggle for possession and perfection, since only by taking hold of the environment whether more or less, whether by self-adaptation to it or by adapting it to oneself either by accepting and conciliating it or by conquering and changing it, can survival be secured, and equally is it true that only a greater and greater perfection can assure a continuous permanence, a lasting survival. It is this truth that Darwinism sought to express in the formula of the survival of the fittest.
2:But as the scientific mind sought to extend to Life the mechanical principle proper to the existence and concealed mechanical consciousness in Matter, not seeing that a new principle has entered whose very reason of being is to subject to itself the mechanical, so the Darwinian formula was used to extend too largely the aggressive principle of Life, the vital selfishness of the individual, the instinct and process of self-preservation, selfassertion and aggressive living. For these two first states of Life contain in themselves the seeds of a new principle and another state which must increase in proportion as Mind evolves out of matter through the vital formula into its own law. And still more must all things change when as Life evolves upward towards Mind, so Mind evolves upward towards Supermind and Spirit. Precisely because the struggle for survival, the impulse towards permanence is contradicted by the law of death, the individual life is compelled, and used, to secure permanence rather for its species than for itself; but this it cannot do without the co-operation of others; and the principle of co-operation and mutual help, the desire of others, the desire of the wife, the child, the friend and helper, the associated group, the practice of association, of conscious joining and interchange are the seeds out of which flowers the principle of love. Let us grant that at first love may only be an extended selfishness and that this aspect of extended selfishness may persist and dominate, as it does still persist and dominate, in higher stages of the evolution: still as mind evolves and more and more finds itself, it comes by the experience of life and love and mutual help to perceive that the natural individual is a minor term of being and exists by the universal. Once this is discovered, as it is inevitably discovered by man the mental being, his destiny is determined; for he has reached the point at which Mind can begin to open to the truth that there is something beyond itself; from that moment his evolution, however obscure and slow, towards that superior something, towards Spirit, towards supermind, towards supermanhood is inevitably predetermined.
3:Therefore Life is predestined by its own nature to a third status, a third set of terms of its self-expression. If we examine this ascent of Life we shall see that the last terms of its actual evolution, the terms of that which we have called its third status, must necessarily be in appearance the very contradiction and opposite but in fact the very fulfilment and transfiguration of its first conditions. Life starts with the extreme divisions and rigid forms of Matter, and of this rigid division the atom, which is the basis of all material form, is the very type. The atom stands apart from all others even in its union with them, rejects death and dissolution under any ordinary force and is the physical type of the separate ego defining its existence against the principle of fusion in Nature. But unity is as strong a principle in Nature as division; it is indeed the master principle of which division is only a subordinate term, and to the principle of unity every divided form must therefore subordinate itself in one fashion or another by mechanical necessity, by compulsion, by assent or inducement. Therefore, if Nature for her own ends, in order principally to have a firm basis for her combinations and a fixed seed of forms, allows the atom ordinarily to resist the process of fusion by dissolution, she compels it to subserve the process of fusion by aggregation; the atom, as it is the first aggregate, is also the first basis of aggregate unities.
4:When Life reaches its second status, that which we recognise as vitality, the contrary phenomenon takes the lead and the physical basis of the vital ego is obliged to consent to dissolution. Its constituents are broken up so that the elements of one life can be used to enter into the elemental formation of other lives. The extent to which this law reigns in Nature has not yet been fully recognised and indeed cannot be until we have a science of mental life and spiritual existence as sound as our present science of physical life and the existence of Matter. Still we can see broadly that not only the elements of our physical body, but those of our subtler vital being, our life-energy, our desireenergy, our powers, strivings, passions enter both during our life and after our death into the life-existence of others. An ancient occult knowledge tells us that we have a vital frame as well as a physical and this too is after death dissolved and lends itself to the constitution of other vital bodies; our life energies while we live are continually mixing with the energies of other beings. A similar law governs the mutual relations of our mental life with the mental life of other thinking creatures. There is a constant dissolution and dispersion and a reconstruction effected by the shock of mind upon mind with a constant interchange and fusion of elements. Interchange, intermixture and fusion of being with being, is the very process of life, a law of its existence.
5:We have then two principles in Life, the necessity or the will of the separate ego to survive in its distinctness and guard its identity and the compulsion imposed upon it by Nature to fuse itself with others. In the physical world she lays much stress on the former impulse; for she needs to create stable separate forms, since it is her first and really her most difficult problem to create and maintain any such thing as a separative survival of individuality and a stable form for it in the incessant flux and motion of Energy and in the unity of the infinite. In the atomic life therefore the individual form persists as the basis and secures by its aggregation with others the more or less prolonged existence of aggregate forms which shall be the basis of vital and mental individualisations. But as soon as Nature has secured a sufficient firmness in this respect for the safe conduct of her ulterior operations, she reverses the process; the individual form perishes and the aggregate life profits by the elements of the form that is thus dissolved. This, however, cannot be the last stage; that can only be reached when the two principles are harmonised, when the individual is able to persist in the consciousness of his individuality and yet fuse himself with others without disturbance of preservative equilibrium and interruption of survival.
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7:Association with love as its secret principle and its emergent summit is the type, the power of this new relation and therefore the governing principle of the development into the third status of life. The conscious preservation of individuality along with the consciously accepted necessity and desire of interchange, self-giving and fusion with other individuals, is necessary for the working of the principle of love; for if either is abolished, the working of love ceases, whatever may take its place. Fulfilment of love by entire self-immolation, even with an illusion of selfannihilation, is indeed an idea and an impulse in the mental being, but it points to a development beyond this third status of Life. This third status is a condition in which we rise progressively beyond the struggle for life by mutual devouring and the survival of the fittest by that struggle; for there is more and more a survival by mutual help and a self-perfectioning by mutual adaptation, interchange and fusion. Life is a self-affirmation of being, even a development and survival of ego, but of a being that has need of other beings, an ego that seeks to meet and include other egos and to be included in their life. The individuals and the aggregates who develop most the law of association and the law of love, of common help, kindliness, affection, comradeship, unity, who harmonise most successfully survival and mutual selfgiving, the aggregate increasing the individual and the individual the aggregate, as well as individual increasing individual and aggregate aggregate by mutual interchange, will be the fittest for survival in this tertiary status of the evolution.
8:This development is significant of the increasing predominance of Mind5 which progressively imposes its own law more and more upon the material existence. For Mind by its greater subtlety does not need to devour in order to assimilate, possess and grow; rather the more it gives, the more it receives and grows; and the more it fuses itself into others, the more it fuses others into itself and increases the scope of its being. Physical life exhausts itself by too much giving and ruins itself by too much devouring; but though Mind in proportion as it leans on the law of Matter suffers the same limitation, yet, on the other hand, in proportion as it grows into its own law it tends to overcome this limitation, and in proportion as it overcomes the material limitation giving and receiving become one. For in its upward ascent it grows towards the rule of conscious unity in differentiation which is the divine law of the manifest Sachchidananda.
9:The second term of the original status of life is subconscious will which in the secondary status becomes hunger and conscious desire, - hunger and desire, the first seed of conscious mind. The growth into the third status of life by the principle of association, the growth of love, does not abolish the law of desire, but rather transforms and fulfils it. Love is in its nature the desire to give oneself to others and to receive others in exchange; it is a commerce between being and being. Physical life does not desire to give itself, it desires only to receive. It is true that it is compelled to give itself, for the life which only receives and does not give must become barren, wither and perish, - if indeed such life in its entirety is possible at all here or in any world; but it is compelled, not willing, it obeys the subconscious impulse of Nature rather than consciously shares in it. Even when love intervenes, the self-giving at first still preserves to a large extent the mechanical character of the subconscious will in the atom. Love itself at first obeys the law of hunger and enjoys the receiving and the exacting from others rather than the giving and surrendering to others which it admits chiefly as a necessary price for the thing that it desires. But here it has not yet attained to its true nature; its true law is to establish an equal commerce in which the joy of giving is equal to the joy of receiving and tends in the end to become even greater; but that is when it is shooting beyond itself under the pressure of the psychic flame to attain to the fulfilment of utter unity and has therefore to realise that which seemed to it not-self as an even greater and dearer self than its own individuality. In its life-origin, the law of love is the impulse to realise and fulfil oneself in others and by others, to be enriched by enriching, to possess and be possessed because without being possessed one does not possess oneself utterly.
10:The inert incapacity of atomic existence to possess itself, the subjection of the material individual to the not-self, belongs to the first status of life. The consciousness of limitation and the struggle to possess, to master both self and the not-self is the type of the secondary status. Here, too, the development to the third status brings a transformation of the original terms into a fulfilment and a harmony which repeat the terms while seeming to contradict them. There comes about through association and through love a recognition of the not-self as a greater self and therefore a consciously accepted submission to its law and need which fulfils the increasing impulse of aggregate life to absorb the individual; and there is a possession again by the individual of the life of others as his own and of all that it has to give him as his own which fulfils the opposite impulse of individual possession. Nor can this relation of mutuality between the individual and the world he lives in be expressed or complete or secure unless the same relation is established between individual and individual and between aggregate and aggregate. All the difficult effort of man towards the harmonisation of self-affirmation and freedom, by which he possesses himself, with association and love, fraternity, comradeship, in which he gives himself to others, his ideals of harmonious equilibrium, justice, mutuality, equality by which he creates a balance of the two opposites, are really an attempt inevitably predetermined in its lines to solve the original problem of Nature, the very problem of Life itself, by the resolution of the conflict between the two opposites which present themselves in the very foundations of Life in Matter. The resolution is attempted by the higher principle of Mind which alone can find the road towards the harmony intended, even though the harmony itself can only be found in a Power still beyond us.
11:For, if the data with which we have started are correct, the end of the road, the goal itself can only be reached by Mind passing beyond itself into that which is beyond Mind, since of That the Mind is only an inferior term and an instrument first for descent into form and individuality and secondly for reascension into that reality which the form embodies and the individuality represents. Therefore the perfect solution of the problem of Life is not likely to be realised by association, interchange and accommodations of love alone or through the law of the mind and the heart alone. It must come by a fourth status of life in which the eternal unity of the many is realised through the spirit and the conscious foundation of all the operations of life is laid no longer in the divisions of body, nor in the passions and hungers of the vitality, nor in the groupings and the imperfect harmonies of the mind, nor in a combination of all these, but in the unity and freedom of the Spirit.
1.22 - The Problem of Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:From the data we have now before us we can see that the difficulties which arise from the imperfect poise of Consciousness and Force in man in his present status of mind and life are principally three. First, he is aware only of a small part of his own being: his surface mentality, his surface life, his surface physical being is all that he knows and he does not know even all of that; below is the occult surge of his subconscious and his subliminal mind, his subconscious and his subliminal life-impulses, his subconscious corporeality, all that large part of himself which he does not know and cannot govern, but which rather knows and governs him. For, existence and consciousness and force being one, we can only have some real power over so much of our existence as we are identified with by self-awareness; the rest must be governed by its own consciousness which is subliminal to our surface mind and life and body. And yet, the two being one movement and not two separate movements, the larger and more potent part of ourselves must govern and determine in the mass the smaller and less powerful; therefore we are governed by the subconscient and subliminal even in our conscious existence and in our very self-mastery and self-direction we are only instruments of what seems to us the Inconscient within us.
8:This is what the old wisdom meant when it said that man imagines himself to be the doer of the work by his free will, but in reality Nature determines all his works and even the wise are compelled to follow their own Nature. But since Nature is the creative force of consciousness of the Being within us who is masked by His own inverse movement and apparent denial of Himself, they called that inverse creative movement of His consciousness the Maya or Illusion-Power of the Lord and said that all existences are turned as upon a machine through His Maya by the Lord seated within the heart of all existences. It is evident then that only by man so far exceeding mind as to become one in self-awareness with the Lord can he become master of his own being. And since this is not possible in the inconscience or in the subconscient itself, since profit cannot come by plunging down into our depths back towards the Inconscient, it can only be by going inward where the Lord is seated and by ascending into that which is still superconscient to us, into the Supermind, that this unity can be wholly established. For there in the higher and divine Maya is the conscious knowledge, in its law and truth, of that which works in the subconscient by the lower Maya under the conditions of the Denial which seeks to become the Affirmation. For this lower Nature works out what is willed and known in that higher Nature. The Illusion-Power of the divine knowledge in the world which creates appearances is governed by the Truth-Power of the same knowledge which knows the truth behind the appearances and keeps ready for us the Affirmation towards which they are working. The partial and apparent Man here will find there the perfect and real Man capable of an entirely self-aware being by his full unity with that Self-existent who is the omniscient lord of His own cosmic evolution and procession.
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14:Unless therefore the race is to fall by the wayside and leave the victory to other and new creations of the eager travailing Mother it must aspire to this ascent, conducted indeed through love, mental illumination and the vital urge to possession and self-giving, but leading beyond to the supramental unity which transcends and fulfils them; in the founding of human life upon the supramental realisation of conscious unity with the One and with all in our being and in all its members humanity must seek its final good and salvation. And this is what we have described as the fourth status of Life in its ascent towards the Godhead.
1.23 - The Double Soul in Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:THE FIRST status of Life we found to be characterised by a dumb inconscient drive or urge, a force of some involved will in the material or atomic existence, not free and possessor of itself or its works or their results, but entirely possessed by the universal movement in which it arises as the obscure unformed seed of individuality. The root of the second status is desire, eager to possess but limited in capacity; the bud of the third is Love which seeks both to possess and be possessed, to receive and to give itself; the fine flower of the fourth, its sign of perfection, we conceive as the pure and full emergence of the original will, the illumined fulfilment of the intermediate desire, the high and deep satisfaction of the conscious interchange of Love by the unification of the state of the possessor and possessed in the divine unity of souls which is the foundation of the supramental existence. If we scrutinise these terms carefully we shall see that they are shapes and stages of the soul's seeking for the individual and universal delight of things; the ascent of Life is in its nature the ascent of the divine Delight in things from its dumb conception in Matter through vicissitudes and opposites to its luminous consummation in Spirit.
2:The world being what it is, it could not be otherwise. For the world is a masked form of Sachchidananda, and the nature of the consciousness of Sachchidananda and therefore the thing in which His force must always find and achieve itself is divine Bliss, an omnipresent self-delight. Since Life is an energy of His conscious-force, the secret of all its movements must be a hidden delight inherent in all things which is at once cause, motive and object of its activities; and if by reason of egoistic division that delight is missed, if it is held back behind a veil, if it is represented as its own opposite, even as being is masked in death, consciousness figures as the inconscient and force mocks itself with the guise of incapacity, then that which lives cannot be satisfied, cannot either rest from the movement or fulfil the movement except by laying hold on this universal delight which is at once the secret total delight of its own being and the original, all-encompassing, all-informing, all-upholding delight of the transcendent and immanent Sachchidananda. To seek for delight is therefore the fundamental impulse and sense of Life; to find and possess and fulfil it is its whole motive.
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10:The true soul secret in us - subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, - this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine. Not the unborn Self or Atman, for the Self even in presiding over the existence of the individual is aware always of its universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, caitya purus.a, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience. These other person-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in their true entity, but they put forward temporary personalities which compose our outer individuality and whose combined superficial action and appearance of status we call ourselves: this inmost entity also, taking form in us as the psychic Person, puts forward a psychic personality which changes, grows, develops from life to life; for this is the traveller between birth and death and between death and birth, our nature parts are only its manifold and changing vesture. The psychic being can at first exercise only a concealed and partial and indirect action through the mind, the life and the body, since it is these parts of Nature that have to be developed as its instruments of self-expression, and it is long confined by their evolution. Missioned to lead man in the Ignorance towards the light of the Divine Consciousness, it takes the essence of all experience in the Ignorance to form a nucleus of soul-growth in the nature; the rest it turns into material for the future growth of the instruments which it has to use until they are ready to be a luminous instrumentation of the Divine. It is this secret psychic entity which is the true original Conscience in us deeper than the constructed and conventional conscience of the moralist, for it is this which points always towards Truth and Right and Beauty, towards Love and Harmony and all that is a divine possibility in us, and persists till these things become the major need of our nature. It is the psychic personality in us that flowers as the saint, the sage, the seer; when it reaches its full strength, it turns the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the supreme Beauty, Love and Bliss, the divine heights and largenesses, and opens us to the touch of spiritual sympathy, universality, oneness. On the contrary, where the psychic personality is weak, crude or ill-developed, the finer parts and movements in us are lacking or poor in character and power, even though the mind may be forceful and brilliant, the heart of vital emotions hard and strong and masterful, the life-force dominant and successful, the bodily existence rich and fortunate and an apparent lord and victor. It is then the outer desire-soul, the pseudo-psychic entity, that reigns and we mistake its misinterpretations of psychic suggestion and aspiration, its ideas and ideals, its desires and yearnings for true soul-stuff and wealth of spiritual experience.7 If the secret psychic Person can come forward into the front and, replacing the desire-soul, govern overtly and entirely and not only partially and from behind the veil this outer nature of mind, life and body, then these can be cast into soul images of what is true, right and beautiful and in the end the whole nature can be turned towards the real aim of life, the supreme victory, the ascent into spiritual existence.
11:But it might seem then that by bringing this psychic entity, this true soul in us, into the front and giving it there the lead and rule we shall gain all the fulfilment of our natural being that we can seek for and open also the gates of the kingdom of the Spirit. And it might well be reasoned that there is no need for any intervention of a superior Truth-Consciousness or principle of Supermind to help us to attain to the divine status or the divine perfection. Yet, although the psychic transformation is one necessary condition of the total transformation of our existence, it is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual change. In the first place, since this is the individual soul in Nature, it can open to the hidden diviner ranges of our being and receive and reflect their light and power and experience, but another, a spiritual transformation from above is needed for us to possess our self in its universality and transcendence. By itself the psychic being at a certain stage might be content to create a formation of truth, good and beauty and make that its station; at a farther stage it might become passively subject to the worldself, a mirror of the universal existence, consciousness, power, delight, but not their full participant or possessor. Although more nearly and thrillingly united to the cosmic consciousness in knowledge, emotion and even appreciation through the senses, it might become purely recipient and passive, remote from mastery and action in the world; or, one with the static self behind the cosmos, but separate inwardly from the world-movement, losing its individuality in its Source, it might return to that Source and have neither the will nor the power any further for that which was its ultimate mission here, to lead the nature also towards its divine realisation. For the psychic being came into Nature from the Self, the Divine, and it can turn back from Nature to the silent Divine through the silence of the Self and a supreme spiritual immobility. Again, an eternal portion of the Divine,8 this part is by the law of the Infinite inseparable from its Divine Whole, this part is indeed itself that Whole, except in its frontal appearance, its frontal separative self-experience; it may awaken to that reality and plunge into it to the apparent extinction or at least the merging of the individual existence. A small nucleus here in the mass of our ignorant Nature, so that it is described in the Upanishad as no bigger than a man's thumb, it can by the spiritual influx enlarge itself and embrace the whole world with the heart and mind in an intimate communion or oneness. Or it may become aware of its eternal Companion and elect to live for ever in His presence, in an imperishable union and oneness as the eternal lover with the eternal Beloved, which of all spiritual experiences is the most intense in beauty and rapture. All these are great and splendid achievements of our spiritual self-finding, but they are not necessarily the last end and entire consummation; more is possible.
12:For these are achievements of the spiritual mind in man; they are movements of that mind passing beyond itself, but on its own plane, into the splendours of the Spirit. Mind, even at its highest stages far beyond our present mentality, acts yet in its nature by division; it takes the aspects of the Eternal and treats each aspect as if it were the whole truth of the Eternal Being and can find in each its own perfect fulfilment. Even it erects them into opposites and creates a whole range of these opposites, the Silence of the Divine and the divine Dynamis, the immobile Brahman aloof from existence, without qualities, and the active Brahman with qualities, Lord of existence, Being and Becoming, the Divine Person and an impersonal pure Existence; it can then cut itself away from the one and plunge itself into the other as the sole abiding Truth of existence. It can regard the Person as the sole Reality or the Impersonal as alone true; it can regard the Lover as only a means of expression of eternal Love or love as only the self-expression of the Lover; it can see beings as only personal powers of an impersonal Existence or impersonal existence as only a state of the one Being, the Infinite Person. Its spiritual achievement, its road of passage towards the supreme aim will follow these dividing lines. But beyond this movement of spiritual Mind is the higher experience of the supermind Truth-Consciousness; there these opposites disappear and these partialities are relinquished in the rich totality of a supreme and integral realisation of eternal Being. It is this that is the aim we have conceived, the consummation of our existence here by an ascent to the supramental Truth-Consciousness and its descent into our nature. The psychic transformation after rising into the spiritual change has then to be completed, integralised, exceeded and uplifted by a supramental transformation which lifts it to the summit of the ascending endeavour.
13:Even as between the other divided and opposed terms of manifested Being, so also a supramental consciousness-energy could alone establish a perfect harmony between these two terms - apparently opposite only because of the Ignorance - of spirit status and world dynamism in our embodied existence. In the Ignorance Nature centres the order of her psychological movements, not around the secret spiritual self, but around its substitute, the ego-principle: a certain ego-centrism is the basis on which we bind together our experiences and relations in the midst of the complex contacts, contradictions, dualities, incoherences of the world in which we live; this ego-centrism is our rock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defence. But in our spiritual change we have to forego this defence; ego has to vanish, the person finds itself dissolved into a vast impersonality, and in this impersonality there is at first no key to an ordered dynamism of action. A very usual result is that one is divided into two parts of being, the spiritual within, the natural without; in one there is the divine realisation seated in a perfect inner freedom, but the natural part goes on with the old action of Nature, continues by a mechanical movement of past energies her already transmitted impulse. Even, if there is an entire dissolution of the limited person and the old ego-centric order, the outer nature may become the field of an apparent incoherence, although all within is luminous with the Self. Thus we become outwardly inert and inactive, moved by circumstance or forces but not self-mobile,9 even though the consciousness is enlightened within, or as a child though within is a plenary self-knowledge,10 or as one inconsequent in thought and impulse though within is an utter calm and serenity,11 or as the wild and disordered soul though inwardly there is the purity and poise of the Spirit.12 Or if there is an ordered dynamism in the outward nature, it may be a continuation of superficial ego-action witnessed but not accepted by the inner being, or a mental dynamism that cannot be perfectly expressive of the inner spiritual realisation; for there is no equipollence between action of mind and status of spirit. Even at the best where there is an intuitive guidance of Light from within, the nature of its expression in dynamism of action must be marked with the imperfections of mind, life and body, a King with incapable ministers, a Knowledge expressed in the values of the Ignorance. Only the descent of the Supermind with its perfect unity of Truth-Knowledge and Truth-Will can establish in the outer as in the inner existence the harmony of the Spirit; for it alone can turn the values of the Ignorance entirely into the values of the Knowledge.
14:In the fulfilment of our psychic being as in the consummation of our parts of mind and life, it is the relating of it to its divine source, to its correspondent truth in the Supreme Reality, that is the indispensable movement; and, here too as there, it is by the power of the Supermind that it can be done with an integral completeness, an intimacy that becomes an au thentic identity; for it is the Supermind which links the higher and the lower hemispheres of the One Existence. In Supermind is the integrating Light, the consummating Force, the wide entry into the supreme Ananda: the psychic being uplifted by that Light and Force can unite itself with the original Delight of existence from which it came: overcoming the dualities of pain and pleasure, delivering from all fear and shrinking the mind, life and body, it can recast the contacts of existence in the world into terms of the Divine Ananda.
1.25 - The Knot of Matter, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
9:Especially and most fatally, the ignorance, inertia and division of Matter impose on the vital and mental existence emerging in it the law of pain and suffering and the unrest of dissatisfaction with its status of division, inertia and ignorance. Ignorance would indeed bring no pain of dissatisfaction if the mental consciousness were entirely ignorant, if it could halt satisfied in some shell of custom, unaware of its own ignorance or of the infinite ocean of consciousness and knowledge by which it lives surrounded; but precisely it is to this that the emerging consciousness in Matter awakes, first, to its ignorance of the world in which it lives and which it has to know and master in order to be happy, secondly, to the ultimate barrenness and limitation of this knowledge, to the meagreness and insecurity of the power and happiness it brings and to the awareness of an infinite consciousness, knowledge, true being in which alone is to be found a victorious and infinite happiness. Nor would the obstruction of inertia bring with it unrest and dissatisfaction if the vital sentience emerging in Matter were entirely inert, if it were kept satisfied with its own half-conscient limited existence, unaware of the infinite power and immortal existence in which it lives as part of and yet separated from it, or if it had nothing within driving it towards the effort really to participate in that infinity and immortality. But this is precisely what all life is driven to feel and seek from the first, its insecurity and the need and struggle for persistence, for self-preservation; it awakes in the end to the limitation of its existence and begins to feel the impulsion towards largeness and persistence, towards the infinite and the eternal.
10:And when in man life becomes wholly self-conscious, this unavoidable struggle and effort and aspiration reach their acme and the pain and discord of the world become finally too keenly sensible to be borne with contentment. Man may for a long time quiet himself by seeking to be satisfied with his limitations or by confining his struggle to such mastery as he can gain over this material world he inhabits, some mental and physical triumph of his progressive knowledge over its inconscient fixities, of his small, concentrated conscious will and power over its inertlydriven monstrous forces. But here, too, he finds the limitation, the poor inconclusiveness of the greatest results he can achieve and is obliged to look beyond. The finite cannot remain permanently satisfied so long as it is conscious either of a finite greater than itself or of an infinite beyond itself to which it can yet aspire. And if the finite could be so satisfied, yet the apparently finite being who feels himself to be really an infinite or feels merely the presence or the impulse and stirring of an infinite within, can never be satisfied till these two are reconciled, till That is possessed by him and he is possessed by it in whatever degree or manner. Man is such a finite-seeming infinity and cannot fail to arrive at a seeking after the Infinite. He is the first son of earth who becomes vaguely aware of God within him, of his immortality or of his need of immortality, and the knowledge is a whip that drives and a cross of crucifixion until he is able to turn it into a source of infinite light and joy and power.
1.26 - The Ascending Series of Substance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Like a hawk, a kite He settles on the Vessel and upbears it; in His stream of movement He discovers the Rays, for He goes bearing his weapons: He cleaves to the ocean surge of the waters; a great King, He declares the fourth status. Like a mortal purifying his body, like a war-horse galloping to the conquest of riches He pours calling through all the sheath and enters these vessels. Rig Veda.2
1:IF WE consider what it is that most represents to us the materiality of Matter, we shall see that it is its aspects of solidity, tangibility, increasing resistance, firm response to the touch of Sense. Substance seems more truly material and real in proportion as it presents to us a solid resistance and by virtue of that resistance a durability of sensible form on which our consciousness can dwell; in proportion as it is more subtle, less densely resistant and enduringly seizable by the sense, it appears to us less material. This attitude of our ordinary consciousness towards Matter is a symbol of the essential object for which Matter has been created. Substance passes into the material status in order that it may present to the consciousness which has to deal with it durable, firmly seizable images on which the mind can rest and base its operations and which the Life can handle with at least a relative surety of permanence in the form upon which it works. Therefore in the ancient Vedic formula Earth, type of the more solid states of substance, was accepted as the symbolic name of the material principle. Therefore, too, touch or contact is for us the essential basis of Sense; all other physical senses, taste, smell, hearing, sight are based upon a series of more and more subtle and indirect contacts between the percipient and the perceived. Equally, in the Sankhya classification of the five elemental states of Substance from ether to earth, we see that their characteristic is a constant progression from the more subtle to the less subtle so that at the summit we have the subtle vibrations of the ethereal and at the base the grosser density of the earthly or solid elemental condition. Matter therefore is the last stage known to us in the progress of pure substance towards a basis of cosmic relation in which the first word shall be not spirit but form, and form in its utmost possible development of concentration, resistance, durably gross image, mutual impenetrability, - the culminating point of distinction, separation and division. This is the intention and character of the material universe; it is the formula of accomplished divisibility.
2:And if there is, as there must be in the nature of things, an ascending series in the scale of substance from Matter to Spirit, it must be marked by a progressive diminution of these capacities most characteristic of the physical principle and a progressive increase of the opposite characteristics which will lead us to the formula of pure spiritual self-extension. This is to say that they must be marked by less and less bondage to the form, more and more subtlety and flexibility of substance and force, more and more interfusion, interpenetration, power of assimilation, power of interchange, power of variation, transmutation, unification. Drawing away from durability of form, we draw towards eternity of essence; drawing away from our poise in the persistent separation and resistance of physical Matter, we draw near to the highest divine poise in the infinity, unity and indivisibility of Spirit. Between gross substance and pure spirit substance this must be the fundamental antinomy. In Matter Chit or Conscious-Force masses itself more and more to resist and stand out against other masses of the same Conscious-Force; in substance of Spirit pure consciousness images itself freely in its sense of itself with an essential indivisibility and a constant unifying interchange as the basic formula even of the most diversifying play of its own Force. Between these two poles there is the possibility of an infinite gradation.
1.28 - Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:ONE POINT remains to be cleared which we have till now left in obscurity, the process of the lapse into the Ignorance; for we have seen that nothing in the original nature of Mind, Life or Matter necessitates a fall from Knowledge. It has been shown indeed that division of consciousness is the basis of the Ignorance, a division of individual consciousness from the cosmic and the transcendent of which yet it is an intimate part, in essence inseparable, a division of Mind from the supramental Truth of which it should be a subordinate action, of Life from the original Force of which it is one energism, of Matter from the original Existence of which it is one form of substance. But it has still to be made clear how this division came about in the Indivisible, by what peculiar self-diminishing or self-effacing action of Consciousness-Force in the Being: for since all is a movement of that Force, only by some such action obscuring its own plenary light and power can there have arisen the dynamic and effective phenomenon of the Ignorance. But this problem can be left over to be treated in a more close examination of the dual phenomenon of Knowledge-Ignorance which makes our consciousness a blend of light and darkness, a half-light between the full day of the supramental Truth and the night of the material Inconscience. All that is necessary to note at present is that it must be in its essential character an exclusive concentration on one movement and status of Conscious Being, which puts all the rest of consciousness and being behind and veils it from that one movement's now partial knowledge.
2:Still there is one aspect of this problem which must be immediately considered; it is the gulf created between Mind as we know it and the supramental Truth-Consciousness of which we have found Mind in its origin to be a subordinate process. For this gulf is considerable and, if there are no gradations between the two levels of consciousness, a transition from one to the other, either in the descending involution of Spirit into Matter or the corresponding evolution in Matter of the concealed grades leading back to the Spirit, seems in the highest degree improbable, if not impossible. For Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth, groping with difficulty to find it, reaching only mental constructions and representations of it in word and idea, in mind formations, sense formations, - as if bright or shadowy photographs or films of a distant Reality were all that it could achieve. Supermind, on the contrary, is in actual and natural possession of the Truth and its formations are forms of the Reality, not constructions, representations or indicative figures. No doubt, the evolving Mind in us is hampered by its encasement in the obscurity of this life and body, and the original Mind principle in the involutionary descent is a thing of greater power to which we have not fully reached, able to act with freedom in its own sphere or province, to build more revelatory constructions, more minutely inspired formations, more subtle and significant embodiments in which the light of Truth is present and palpable. But still that too is not likely to be essentially different in its characteristic action, for it too is a movement into the Ignorance, not a still unseparated portion of the Truth-Consciousness. There must be somewhere in the descending and ascending scale of Being an intermediate power and plane of consciousness, perhaps something more than that, something with an original creative force, through which the involutionary transition from Mind in the Knowledge to Mind in the Ignorance was effected and through which again the evolutionary reverse transition becomes intelligible and possible. For the involutionary transition this intervention is a logical imperative, for the evolutionary it is a practical necessity. For in the evolution there are indeed radical transitions, from indeterminate Energy to organised Matter, from inanimate Matter to Life, from a subconscious or submental to a perceptive and feeling and acting Life, from primitive animal mentality to conceptive reasoning Mind observing and governing Life and observing itself also, able to act as an independent entity and even to seek consciously for self-transcendence; but these leaps, even when considerable, are to some extent prepared by slow gradations which make them conceivable and feasible. There can be no such immense hiatus as seems to exist between supramental Truth-Consciousness and the Mind in the Ignorance.
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6:But once this entry into the inner being is accomplished, the inner Self is found to be capable of an opening, an ascent upwards into things beyond our present mental level; that is the second spiritual possibility in us. The first most ordinary result is a discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel to be our real or our basic existence, the foundation of all else that we are. There may be even an extinction, a Nirvana both of our active being and of the sense of self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible. But also we can realise that this self is not only our own spiritual being but the true self of all others; it presents itself then as the underlying truth of cosmic existence. It is possible to remain in a Nirvana of all individuality, to stop at a static realisation or, regarding the cosmic movement as a superficial play or illusion imposed on the silent Self, to pass into some supreme immobile and immutable status beyond the universe. But another less negative line of supernormal experience also offers itself; for there takes place a large dynamic descent of light, knowledge, power, bliss or other supernormal energies into our self of silence, and we can ascend too into higher regions of the Spirit where its immobile status is the foundation of those great and luminous energies. It is evident in either case that we have risen beyond the mind of Ignorance into a spiritual state; but, in the dynamic movement, the resultant greater action of Consciousness-Force may present itself either simply as a pure spiritual dynamis not otherwise determinate in its character or it may reveal a spiritual mind-range where mind is no longer ignorant of the Reality, - not yet a supermind level, but deriving from the supramental Truth-Consciousness and still luminous with something of its knowledge.
7:It is in the latter alternative that we find the secret we are seeking, the means of the transition, the needed step towards a supramental transformation; for we perceive a graduality of ascent, a communication with a more and more deep and immense light and power from above, a scale of intensities which can be regarded as so many stairs in the ascension of Mind or in a descent into Mind from That which is beyond it. We are aware of a sealike downpour of masses of a spontaneous knowledge which assumes the nature of Thought but has a different character from the process of thought to which we are accustomed; for there is nothing here of seeking, no trace of mental construction, no labour of speculation or difficult discovery; it is an automatic and spontaneous knowledge from a Higher Mind that seems to be in possession of Truth and not in search of hidden and withheld realities. One observes that this Thought is much more capable than the mind of including at once a mass of knowledge in a single view; it has a cosmic character, not the stamp of an individual thinking. Beyond this Truth-Thought we can distinguish a greater illumination instinct with an increased power and intensity and driving force, a luminosity of the nature of Truth-Sight with thought formulation as a minor and dependent activity. If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, - an image which in this experience becomes a reality, - we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truthaction, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, - not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance.
13.01 - A Centurys Salutation to Sri Aurobindo The Greatness of the Great, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The greatness of a person is the greatness of the Impersonal in him. He has little concern about himself. His thoughts, feelings and acts are in relation to a wider frame of reference. The wider the frame, the higher the status of the being; there is an ascending scale in the structure of human life and society. There are gradations that mount from narrower ranges, moving towards vaster and vaster ranges, taking the person into greater and purer degrees of impersonality. We start, for example, from the lowest and narrowest range, namely, the family, and extend ourselves more and more to the next range, the nation, then to mankind and then still farther to transcendent ranges.
Sri Aurobindo from his very birth was such an impersonal personalityand, in the very highest sense. He had never the consciousness of a particular individual person: all reference to a personal frame of his was deleted from the texture of his nature and character. There was some reference to the family frame in a very moderate way, almost casually: the stress was much more on the next higher frame, the national. In its time the national frame was very strong and played a great part; and yet even there it was not an end in itself, the frame of humanity always loomed large behind. In fact it was that that gave a greater and truer value and significance to the national frame. The national is but a ladder to humanity, it is a unit in the human collectivity. It serves as a channel for international and global welfare, but there is yet a still larger frame, the frame of the spirit, the transcendent consciousness. Indeed it was this that lay at the bottom of Sri Aurobindo's consciousness as the bedrock of his being which gave the whole tone and temper of his life, its meaning and purpose. Even when not overt and patent this noumenal personality was always there insistent from behind; it gave a peculiar rhythm and stress, newness and freshness and a profound element of purposefulness to the whole life, even to the activities of the earlier and narrower frames. For it was like viewing everything through the eyes of infinity and eternity, the eye wide extended in heaven as the Vedic Rishi says, the third eye.
In other words, the yogi, the Divine, the Impersonal man in Sri Aurobindo was the real person always there from the very birth. Thus we see him starting life exactly with the thing where every one ends. In his inner being he had not to pass through the gradations that lead an ordinary person gradually towards the widening ranges of consciousness and existence. In all the stations of his life, in every sphere and status Sri Aurobindo was doing his duties, that is, his workkartavyam karmaselflessly, which means with no sense of self, or perhaps we should say, with supreme Selfhoodness; for such is the character, the very nature of the born yogi, the Godman. The duties done for and within a frame of life tend always to overflow, as it were, the boundaries and do not always strictly follow the norm of the limited frame. For example, even while in the family life, in the midst of relatives and close friends he was never moved by mere attachment or worldly ties, he was impelled to do what he had to in the circumstances, unattached, free, under another command. Again, when he chose the larger field of national life, here too, he was not limited to that frame, his patriotism was not chauvinism or a return to the parochialism of the past; his patriotism was broad-based upon the sense of human solidarity and even the broad-based humanity was not broad enough for the consciousness in him; for humanity does not mean mere humanitarianism, charity, benevolence, or service to mankind. True humanity can be or is to be reached by pushing it still farther into the Divinity where men are not merely brothers or even portions of the Divine but one with Him, the self-same being and personality.
Thus, Sri Aurobindo was an ideal worker, the perfect workman doing the work appropriate to the field of work according to its norm, faultless in execution. As a family man, as a citizen, as a patriot, he carried out his appointed function not in any personal sense with the feeling or consciousness of any individual personality but a large impersonal personality free from ego-sense which is the hallmark of a luminous cosmic consciousness, based upon a still higher and transcendent standing.
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It was this secret ultimate truth that overshadowed, brooded over all these stages and steps and occupations he passed through: they only led up to that transcendent reality, but it was the sense, constant sense of that reality that lent a special character to all his karma. This urge towards the supreme reality, this transcendence, did not mean for him a rejection of the domains passed through: it is a subsuming, that is to say, uplifting the narrower, the lower status, integrating them into the higher: even as the soil at the root of the plant is subsumed and transmuted into the living sap that mounts high up the plant towards its very top, to the light and energy above.
In the scheme and pattern of human existence in the hierarchy that is collective life, Sri Aurobindo sought to express the play of the supreme Truth, express materially that which works always in secret and behind the veil. The Supreme Reality is not merely the supreme awareness and consciousness, but it is a power and a force; and it holds still a secret source that has not yet been touched,touched consciously by the human consciousness and utilised for world existence. Man's genius has contacted today in the material world material forces which are almost immaterial the extra-galactic radiation, the laser beams and other energies of that category which are powerful in an unbelievable unheard of 'degree. Even so in the consciousness, there is a mode of force which is not only a force that knows but creates, not only creates but transforms. That force at its intrinsic optimum can enter into dull matter and transforming it, transform into radiant matter, radiant not only with the physical, the solar light but the light of the supreme Spirit.
1.3.01 - Peace The Basis of the Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Equanimity and peace in all conditions in all parts of the being is the first foundation of the Yogic status. Either Light (bringing with it knowledge) or Force (bringing strength and dynamism of many kinds) or Ananda (bringing love and joy of existence) can come next according to the trend of the nature. But peace is the first condition without which nothing else can be stable.
The first thing that you have to bring down is a positive, complete and enduring peace from above - that is the only foundation on which the rest can be done, i.e. the development of the higher consciousness, force, knowledge, love, Ananda.
13.03 - A Programme for the Second Century of the Divine Manifestation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is Integration. I am using a much used, much abused word but it happens to be the word. We have reached a status of consciousness within as distinct units, individual or collective: our effort should now be to co-ordinate, to harmonise the different and differing units or separate elements into a well-knit single whole. That means, the ego-centres that are still left and active are to be exorcised, purified the separative knot has to be dissolved and the true centre of unity to be found the psychic divine centre.
First each element in the individual, each level of his being must find its centre, its soul or psychic base and then only a co-ordination of all would be possible. Next through the psychic level the general level of the being and consciousness, that is to say, its expression and its field of action should be lifted and raised to a higher potency of poise the higher the bettertowards the higher mind, towards the overmental and beyond.
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The first definitive and distinctive higher status is that of the Overmind. Its character is a global and entire being and consciousness, a cosmic and universal all-inclusive existence. Each being attains its self and each self lives in every other self and all selves together and at the same time live in each self. The diversities are not abolishedas in the unitary consciousness and being of the absolute Existence, Brahmanvariations are maintained as the multiple aspects or modalities of the same single infinite eternal power.
I am now speaking here of samrajya-siddhi, the realisation of the world-empire, the spiritual or Divine Empire. First of course there is, as the basis of the samrajya, the svarajya, the kingdom or reign of the individual's own self. In effect, the world-empire or the imperial reign of the Spirit has three gradations. At the outset each element, that is, each individual human being (we limit ourselves to the human collectivity at present) has to attain svarajya, self-rule, a perfectly homogeneous integral spiritual whole in himself: then all such individuals should achieve integrality with one another. Each lives in and through every other and all together live in everyone. The whole forms an indissoluble integral and unitary life. This collective integration means all individuals have one mind, one vital being, even one physical consciousness, not of course one material body but still a feeling of the kind. One mind or one vital or one physical consciousness does not mean everyone has the same identical formations and movements in these respective regions, but all possess substantially the same stuff belonging to a self-same unit. A comparison or analogy may explain and illustrate the point. For example, the different parts of a human body form one integrated texture: they are all bound up, united although not fused together, in an inextricable, "inexorable" unity. Action in one part creates a reaction, re-echoes or re-doubles in every other part: they all rise up like one man as it is popularly said, at a single touch. Different in form, different in function, they are identical in their substantial composition, in their fundamental stuff-the organic plasma; even so, the minds of all, their vital movements, their physical movements too, however different and diverse, contrary or contradictory, are in their own respective domains part and particles of the one and the same substance and all together contri bute to form, to create a symphony, a grand Beethovenesque orchestra.
13.05 - A Dream Of Surreal Science, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
They were terribly radical, iconoclasts. Cut away, they said, this world, this humanity, this nature. Go beyond into the transcendent. First enter and establish yourself there. That is the Supreme God, that is the own home of Truth. Cling to that unshakable status, thereafter only you can know of other things, then only you will know what to reject, what to accept, otherwise you will live in a glimmering mid-world of half-truths.
The Transcendental can be reached only in the transcendental way, not by pursuing the normal track, continuing the habitual line of gradual growth and development. The measures the tensor and vector, to use again a jargon, a mathematical oneof the mental consciousness do not apply there. There is a cut, a gap, a hiatus between Here and There; one has to take a leap to cross over. Nature herself has adopted that procedure. She has risen from stage to stage through successive leaps, per salturn. Man has to do the same but consciously. He has to jump over and land on the other side with the head foremost and down, in other words, there is to be a reversal of consciousness; you stand on your head: you do not move clock-wise but perhaps anti-clockwise. You see things with another eye, the third eyewide extended in heaven, as the Vedic Rishi says you look from above down. Things take a different shape and value. The world is constructed in another way.
1.3.5.02 - Man and the Supermind, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He is a narrowness that reaches towards ungrasped widenesses, a littleness straining towards grandeurs which are beyond him, a dwarf enamoured of the heights. His mind is a darkened ray in the splendours of the universal Mind. His life is a striving exulting and suffering wave, an eager passion-tossed and sorrow-stricken or a blindly and dully toiling petty moment of the universal Life. His body is a labouring perishable speck in the material universe. An immortal soul is somewhere hidden within him and gives out from time to time some sparks of its presence, and an eternal spirit is above and overshadows with its wings and upholds with its power this soul continuity in his nature. But that greater spirit is obstructed from descent by the hard lid of his constructed personality and this inner radiant soul is wrapped, stifled and oppressed in dense outer coatings. In all but a few it is seldom active, in many hardly perceptible. The soul and spirit in man seem rather to exist above and behind his formed nature than to be a part of its visible reality; subliminal in his inner being or superconscient above in some unreached status, they are in his outer consciousness possibilities rather than things realised and present. The spirit is in course of birth rather than born in Matter.
This imperfect being with his hampered, confused, illordered and mostly ineffective consciousness cannot be the end and highest height of the mysterious upward surge of Nature.
1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
must be leading towards that higher state of things. It is leading the individual, certainly, and the world, presumably, towards the higher state, but through the double terms of knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, death and life, pain and pleasure, happiness and suffering; none of the terms can be excluded until the higher status is reached and established. It is not and cannot be, ordinarily, a guidance which at once rejects the darker terms or still less a guidance which brings us solely and always nothing but happiness, success and good fortune. Its main concern is with the growth of our being and consciousness, the growth towards a higher self, towards the Divine, eventually towards a highest
Light, Truth and Bliss; the rest is secondary, sometimes a means, sometimes a result, not a primary purpose.
14.01 - To Read Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When I was reading with Sri Aurobindo, he didn't lay much stress upon the grammar or the language just the most elementary grammar that was necessary. He used to put me in contact with the life, the living personality of the poet what he was, what he represented in his consciousness. That was the central theme, because a truly great poet means a status of consciousness; in order to understand his consciousness you must become identified with his being.
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.
14.07 - A Review of Our Ashram Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The realisation aimed at demands a wholesale change, an integral transformation; it does not rest content with a partial success, an attainment on one level, on one portion of the being. There is therefore a global shake-up, nothing is allowed to remain in its old status unnoticed, all must come out and declare themselves to the Light. Hence the darkness of it all. All the impurities, imperfections and vilenesses show themselves the grass-roots as they say, that have to be extirpated and the ground ploughed and furrowedprepared for the new seed. It is a difficult time, the heroic soul must bear and stand, know what it is and move bravely on.
I spoke of the community-ideal that obtained among us at the outset of our life here, that broke to pieces. Individualism reared its gruesome head with all its inevitable consequence: egoism had uncontrolled sway, instead of submission and surrender and obedience, freedom attained complete freedom, liberty pushed to licence.
1.4 - Readings in the Taittiriya Upanishad, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
seal of a lower status. The highest consciousness is integrally
fulfilled in wideness and power of its existence, but also it is
1.52 - Family - Public Enemy No. 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It is an essential part of the Rosicrucian system that the Adept should "wear the costume of the country in which he is travelling." I take this in the widest sense. By that word "country" I understand this planet and this social status "to which it has pleased God to call me." The Brethren of the Rose and Cross depreciated monastic life or hermit life: perhaps they thought such expedients cowardly, or at least as a confes- sion of weakness.
I agree. One ought to be able to live the normal life of a member of one's class, to all external seeming; at least sufficiently so as not to appear unduly eccentric.
1.69 - Farewell to Nemi, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
In answer to various questions we have received on this:
17.02 - Hymn to the Sun, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Their movements are fixed according to the status: they move out in varied forms for the sake of him who upholds them. [15]
Women are they and they are also men, it is said. He who has eyes is able to see, one blind does not know.
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I ask you of the energy that the Horse rains down; I ask you of the supreme status of the world. [34]
This altar is the farthest end of the earth;this sacrifice is the nave of the world.
This Soma (the immortal drink) is the energy that the Horse rains down; and Brahman is the supreme status of the world. [35]
The seven half-embryos are the energising sap of the world. As the infinite Lord ordained, they became the varied laws.
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In the luminous world, in the supreme status where the Gods have taken their seat over the universe
He who does not know it, what can he do with the Word; but he who knows it sits in the company of the Gods. [39]
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The luminous one measures and gives form to the waters: she has a single status, a two-fold status and a four-fold status.
She has an eight-fold status, a nine-fold status and still becomes the thousand-fold letters in the supreme status. [41]
From Her the oceans flow out everywhere; by that the four directions live their life.
17.11 - A Prayer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
O Goddess, protect us by your spontaneous Grace, forgive all our offences, against the supreme Light of all lights. It is he who assumes a multitude of forms; he dwells in the lotus heart of the universe, he makes the laws that upbear the status and dynamism of the cosmos, he alone is able to awaken all to knowledge. O Goddess, remove all evil forthwith and for ever, be constantly present in us.
May the divine Master, Guru Bhaskara, protect us from every evil and danger. May he manifest himself to reveal the essential mystery of his path of worship and to spread the true tradition of Knowledge.
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"The Kundalini Power rises up with all her immortal sweetness and through various processes that consolidate the vehicle, by worshipping Shiva, the seed of the three status; may She, Shiva's consort, bring the supreme good.
She is Shiva's Consort. May she bestow on us an immeasurable splendour. She has the glow of a mass of vermillion and the crescent moon as her crest ornament, her face agleam with the triple eyes of bliss, bent with 'the weight of the full breasts, She is the supreme charm of Love.
--
"May the embodied form of Parvati grant us the abode and status of Shiva which is the crown of bliss and is constantly sought for by the highest scriptures, Shruti; that the crescent moon illuminates, that presides over all the worlds, that eliminates the sufferings of the devotees. May She constanly bestow on us all the blessed things.
"Let me take refuge in the Consort of Shiva (his left half), her anklets tinkle sweetly, and She is the origin of the Universe as also of all speech.
19.11 - Old Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Look at this decorated image, the body full of sores, a heaped mass, diseased, full of vagaries with no stable status.
[3]
1914 09 01p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O Mother Divine, with what fervour, what ardent love I came to Thee in Thy deepest consciousness, in Thy high status of sublime love and perfect felicity, and I nestled so close into Thy arms and loved Thee with so intense a love that I became altogether Thyself. Then in the silence of our mute ecstasy a voice from yet profounder depths arose and the voice said, Turn towards those who have need of thy love. All the grades of consciousness appeared, all the successive worlds. Some were splendid and luminous, well ordered and clear; there knowledge was resplendent, expression was harmonious and vast, will was potent and invincible. Then the worlds darkened in a multiplicity more and more chaotic, the Energy became violent and the material world obscure and sorrowful. And when in our infinite love we perceived in its entirety the hideous suffering of the world of misery and ignorance, when we saw our children locked in a sombre struggle, flung upon each other by energies that had deviated from their true aim, we willed ardently that the light of Divine Love should be made manifest, a transfiguring force at the centre of these distracted elements. Then, that the will might be yet more powerful and effective, we turned towards Thee, O unthinkable Supreme, and we implored Thy aid. And from the unsounded depths of the Unknown a reply came sublime and formidable and we knew that the earth was saved.
***
19.17 - On Anger, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The sages who are self-disciplined, who have control over their body go to that undecaying status where one grieves no more.
[6]
1956-06-06 - Sign or indication from books of revelation - Spiritualised mind - Stages of sadhana - Reversal of consciousness - Organisation around central Presence - Boredom, most common human malady, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But then, suddenlyperhaps because one is sufficiently prepared, perhaps simply because the time has come, and it has been so decreedsuddenly, when such an experience occurs, its result in the part of the being where it takes place is a complete reversal of consciousness. It is a very clear, very concrete phenomenon. The best way of describing it is this: a complete reversal. And then the relation of the consciousness with the other parts of the being and with the outer world is as if completely changed. Absolutely like an overturning. And that reversal no longer comes back to the same old place, the consciousness no longer returns to its former positionSri Aurobindo would say status. Once this has happened in any part of the being, this part of the being is stabilised.
And until that happens, it comes and goes, comes and goes, one advances and then has the impression of marking time, and one advances again and then marks time again, and sometimes one feels as though one were going backwards, and it is interminable and indeed it is interminable. It may last for years and years and years. But when this reversal of consciousness takes place, whether in the mind or a part of the mind, whether in the vital or a part of the vital, or even in the physical consciousness itself and in the body-consciousness, once this is established, it is over; you no longer go back, you do not ever return to what you were before. And this is the true indication that you have taken a step forward definitively. And before this, there are only preparations.
1956-08-15 - Protection, purification, fear - Atmosphere at the Ashram on Darshan days - Darshan messages - Significance of 15-08 - State of surrender - Divine Grace always all-powerful - Assumption of Virgin Mary - SA message of 1947-08-15, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is here that the emergence of the secret psychic being in us as the leader of the sacrifice is of the utmost importance; for this inmost being alone can bring with it the full power of the spirit in the act, the soul in the symbol. It alone can assure, even while the spiritual consciousness is incomplete, the perennial freshness and sincerity and beauty of the symbol and prevent it from being a dead form or a corrupted and corrupting magic; it alone can preserve for the act its power with its significance. All the other members of our being, mind, life-force, physical or body consciousness are too much under the control of the Ignorance to be a sure instrumentation and much less can they be a guide or the source of an unerring impulse. Always the greater part of the motive and action of these powers clings to the old law, the deceiving tablets, the cherished inferior movements of Nature and they meet with reluctance, alarm or revolt or obstructing inertia the voices and the forces that call and impel us to exceed and transform ourselves into a greater being and a wider Nature. In their major part the response is either a resistance or a qualified or temporising acquiescence; for even if they follow the call, they yet tendwhen not consciously, then by automatic habitto bring into the spiritual action their own natural disabilities and errors. At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that the Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the minds and the lifes falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the minds ardours and the blind enthusiasm of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 20, pp. 155-57
1957-12-04 - The method of The Life Divine - Problem of emergence of a new species, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact we see that the principles of creation are permanent and unchanging: each type of being remains itself and does not try nor has any need to become other than itself; granting that some types of existence disappear and others come into being, it is because the Consciousness-Force in the universe withdraws its life-delight from those that perish and turns to create others for its pleasure. But each type of life, while it lasts, has its own pattern and remains faithful with whatever minor variations to that pattern: it is bound to its own consciousness and cannot get away from it into other-consciousness; limited by its own nature, it cannot transgress these boundaries and pass into other-nature. If the Consciousness-Force of the Infinite has manifested Life after manifesting Matter and Mind after manifesting Life, it does not follow that it will proceed to manifest Supermind as the next terrestrial creation. For Mind and Supermind belong to quite different hemispheres, Mind to the lower status of the Ignorance, Supermind to the higher status of the Divine Knowledge. This world is a world of the Ignorance and intended to be that only; there need be no intention to bring down the powers of the higher hemisphere into the lower half of existence or to manifest their concealed presence there; for, if they are at all existent here, it is in an occult incommunicable immanence and only to maintain the creation, not to perfect it. Man is the summit of this ignorant creation; he has reached the utmost consciousness and knowledge of which he is capable: if he tries to go farther, he will only revolve in larger cycles of his own mentality. For that is the curve of his existence here, a finite circling which carries the Mind in its revolutions and returns always to the point from which it started; Mind cannot go outside its own cycle,all idea of a straight line of movement or of progress reaching infinitely upward or sidewise into the Infinite is a delusion. If the soul of man is to go beyond humanity, to reach either a supramental or a still higher status, it must pass out of this cosmic existence, either to a plane or world of Bliss and Knowledge or into the unmanifest Eternal and Infinite.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 827-28
1958-03-26 - Mental anxiety and trust in spiritual power, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is pertinently suggested that if such an evolutionary culmination is intended and man is to be its medium, it will only be a few especially evolved human beings who will form the new type and move towards the new life; that once done, the rest of humanity will sink back from a spiritual aspiration no longer necessary for Natures purpose and remain quiescent in its normal status. It can equally be reasoned that the human gradation must be preserved if there is really an ascent of the soul by reincarnation through the evolutionary degrees towards the spiritual summit; for otherwise the most necessary of all the intermediate steps will be lacking. It must be conceded at once that there is not the least probability or possibility of the whole human race rising in a block to the supramental level; what is suggested is nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental and emotional and sensational constitution and also to a great extent of the body-consciousness and the physical conditioning of our life and energies; but the change of consciousness will be the chief factor, the initial movement, the physical modification will be a subordinate factor, a consequence. This transmutation of the consciousness will always remain possible to the human being when the flame of the soul, the psychic kindling, becomes potent in heart and mind and the nature is ready. The spiritual aspiration is innate in man; for he is, unlike the animal, aware of imperfection and limitation and feels that there is something to be attained beyond what he now is: this urge towards self-exceeding is not likely ever to die out totally in the race. The human mental status will be always there, but it will be there not only as a degree in the scale of rebirth, but as an open step towards the spiritual and supramental status.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 842-43
1958-06-11 - Is there a spiritual being in everybody?, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When there is the decisive emergence, one sign of it is the status or action in us of an inherent, intrinsic, self-existent consciousness which knows itself by the mere fact of being, knows all that is in itself in the same way, by identity with it, begins even to see all that to our mind seems external in the same manner, by a movement of identity or by an intrinsic direct consciousness which envelops, penetrates, enters into its object, discovers itself in the object, is aware in it of something that is not mind or life or body. There is, then, evidently a spiritual consciousness which is other than the mental, and it testifies to the existence of a spiritual being in us which is other than our surface mental personality.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, p. 855
1958-11-12 - The aim of the Supreme - Trust in the Grace, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If it is the sole intention of Nature in the evolution of the spiritual man to awaken him to the supreme Reality and release him from herself, or from the Ignorance in which she as the Power of the Eternal has masked herself, by a departure into a higher status of being elsewhere, if this step in the evolution is a close and an exit, then in the essence her work has been already accomplished and there is nothing more to be done. The ways have been built, the capacity to follow them has been developed, the goal or last height of the creation is manifest; all that is left is for each soul to reach individually the right stage and turn of its development, enter into the spiritual ways and pass by its own chosen path out of this inferior existence. But we have supposed that there is a farther intention,not only a revelation of the Spirit, but a radical and integral transformation of Nature. There is a will in her to effectuate a true manifestation of the embodied life of the Spirit, to complete what she has begun by a passage from the Ignorance to the Knowledge, to throw off her mask and to reveal herself as the luminous Consciousness-Force carrying in her the eternal Existence and its universal Delight of being. It then becomes obvious that there is something not yet accomplished, there becomes clear to view the much that has still to be done, bhri aspaa kartvam; there is a height still to be reached, a wideness still to be covered by the eye of vision, the wing of the will, the self-affirmation of the Spirit in the material universe. What the evolutionary Power has done is to make a few individuals aware of their souls, conscious of their selves, aware of the eternal being that they are, to put them into communion with the Divinity or the Reality which is concealed by her appearances: a certain change of nature prepares, accompanies or follows upon this illumination, but it is not the complete and radical change which establishes a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thenceforward be the leader of that Nature.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 889-90
1f.lovecraft - Beyond the Wall of Sleep, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
general mental status is probably below that of any other section of
the native American people.
1f.lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
beard of dyed aspect whose status was evidently that of a colleague.
Neighbours vainly tried to engage these odd persons in conversation.
1f.lovecraft - The Electric Executioner, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the effect on my status with the company would make ready acquiescence
eminently worth while.
1f.lovecraft - The Mound, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
fountain of data, and as such had enjoyed a privileged status. Others,
deemed less necessary, might receive rather different treatment. He
--
One other thing which endangered Zamaconas status in Tsath was his
persistent curiosity regarding the ultimate abyss of Nkai, beneath
--
half-feudal and baronial in status, of an era preceding the severance
of surface-relations. Her own family had been so reduced at the time of
1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
time to the status of a mere dimension.
But the dreams and disturbed feelings gained on me, so that I had to
1f.lovecraft - The Trap, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
constituent details having an obviously different status from that of
an object drawn into the ancient mirror as Robert had been drawn. These
1.rb - Bishop Blougram's Apology, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
( status, entourage , worldly circumstance)
Quite to its valuevery much indeed:
1.rt - This Dog, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
What is the true status of man.
Transcreation of poem 14 from the collection Arogya by Rabindranath Tagore. During the closing years of his life every morning at Santiniketan the poet used to take his breakfast sitting on the verandah. At that time a stray dog used to sit very patiently at his feet. The breakfast consisted of a few slices of bread and a cup of tea. This dog shared it with the poet but the bread had got to be buttered, otherwise it wouldnt touch it. They the poet and the dog became great friends. Occasionally when it absented itself from this habitual meeting the poet made his attendants seek it out. Transcreation by Kumud Biswas.
20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Outcastebecause she is cast out of the normal human consciousness, which does not recognise the worth of such a status. Womanbecause it is Power, Shakti and Delight (ananda). Yoginisall the attendant powers that aid and vivify the game.
This poem or song is an outright cryptogram. It speaks of mysterious things in an even more mysterious way. First of all, we must note that the poet is a woman. She calls herself kukkuri. But why of all names a "bitch"? Well, she is in good company. One remembers the Vedic Sarama or Sarameya. The West too has its Hound of Heaven. Only the term here has been put in its vernacular form. Anyhow it is a yogini who embodies or represents the divine Being, nairatma devi, as the Buddhist commentator says.
2.01 - Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Overmind, then, gives us no final and positive solution; it is in a supramental cognition beyond it that we are left to seek for an answer. A Supramental Truth-consciousness is at once the self-awareness of the Infinite and Eternal and a power of self-determination inherent in that self-awareness; the first is its foundation and status, the second is its power of being, the dynamis of its self-existence. All that a timeless eternity of selfawareness sees in itself as truth of being, the conscious power of its being manifests in Time-eternity. To Supermind therefore the Supreme is not a rigid Indeterminable, an all-negating Absolute; an infinite of being complete to itself in its own immutable purity of existence, its sole power a pure consciousness able only to dwell on the being's changeless eternity, on the immobile delight of its sheer self-existence, is not the whole Reality. The Infinite of Being must also be an Infinite of Power; containing in itself an eternal repose and quiescence, it must also be capable of an eternal action and creation: but this too must be an action in itself, a creation out of its own self eternal and infinite, since there could be nothing else out of which it could create; any basis of creation seeming to be other than itself must be still really in itself and of itself and could not be something foreign to its existence. An infinite Power cannot be solely a Force resting in a pure inactive sameness, an immutable quiescence; it must have in it endless powers of its being and energy: an infinite Consciousness must hold within it endless truths of its own self-awareness. These in action would appear to our cognition as aspects of its being, to our spiritual sense as powers and movements of its dynamis, to our aesthesis as instruments and formulations of its delight of existence. Creation would then be a self-manifestation: it would be an ordered deploying of the infinite possibilities of the Infinite.
But every possibility implies a truth of being behind it, a reality in the Existent; for without that supporting truth there could not be any possibles. In manifestation a fundamental reality of the Existent would appear to our cognition as a fundamental spiritual aspect of the Divine Absolute; out of it would emerge all its possible manifestations, its innate dynamisms: these again must create or rather bring out of a non-manifest latency their own significant forms, expressive powers, native processes; their own being would develop their own becoming, svarupa, svabhava.
--
These and other primal powers and aspects assume their status among the fundamental spiritual self-determinations of the Infinite; all others are determinates of the fundamental spiritual determinates, significant relations, significant powers, significant forms of being, consciousness, force, delight, - energies, conditions, ways, lines of the truth-process of the Consciousness-Force of the Eternal, imperatives, possibilities, actualities of its manifestation. All this deploying of powers and possibilities and their inherent consequences is held together by supermind cognition in an intimate oneness; it keeps them founded consciously on the original Truth and maintained in the harmony of the truths they manifest and are in their nature. There is here no imposition of imaginations, no arbitrary creation, neither is there any division, fragmentation, irreconcilable contrariety or disparateness. But in Mind of Ignorance these phenomena appear; for there a limited consciousness sees and deals with everything as if all were separate objects of cognition or separate existences and it seeks so to know, possess and enjoy them and gets mastery over them or suffers their mastery: but, behind its ignorance, what the soul in it is seeking for is the Reality, the Truth, the Consciousness, the Power, the Delight by which they exist; the mind has to learn to awaken to this true seeking and true knowledge veiled within itself, to the Reality from which all things hold their truth, to the Consciousness of which all consciousnesses are entities, to the Power from which all get what force of being they have within them, to the Delight of which all delights are partial figures. This limitation of consciousness and this awakening to the integrality of consciousness are also a process of self-manifestation, are a self-determination of the Spirit; even when contrary to the Truth in their appearances, the things of the limited consciousness have in their deeper sense and reality a divine significance; they too bring out a truth or a possibility of the Infinite. Of some such nature, as far as it can be expressed in mental formulas, would be the supramental cognition of things which sees the one Truth everywhere and would so arrange its account to us of our existence, its report of the secret of creation and the significance of the universe.
At the same time indeterminability is also a necessary element in our conception of the Absolute and in our spiritual experience: this is the other side of the supramental regard on being and on things. The Absolute is not limitable or definable by any one determination or by any sum of determinations; on the other side, it is not bound down to an indeterminable vacancy of pure existence. On the contrary, it is the source of all determinations: its indeterminability is the natural, the necessary condition both of its infinity of being and its infinity of power of being; it can be infinitely all things because it is no thing in particular and exceeds any definable totality. It is this essential indeterminability of the Absolute that translates itself into our consciousness through the fundamental negating positives of our spiritual experience, the immobile immutable Self, the Nirguna Brahman, the Eternal without qualities, the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities, the Nonbeing, the Ineffable and the Unknowable. On the other side it is the essence and source of all determinations, and this dynamic essentiality manifests to us through the fundamental affirming positives in which the Absolute equally meets us; for it is the Self that becomes all things, the Saguna Brahman, the Eternal with infinite qualities, the One who is the Many, the infinite Person who is the source and foundation of all persons and personalities, the Lord of creation, the Word, the Master of all works and action; it is that which being known all is known: these affirmatives correspond to those negatives. For it is not possible in a supramental cognition to split asunder the two sides of the One Existence, - even to speak of them as sides is excessive, for they are in each other, their coexistence or oneexistence is eternal and their powers sustaining each other found the self-manifestation of the Infinite.
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.
All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite's power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit's potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being - an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, - but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, allknowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.
2.01 - The Object of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
next: 2.02 - The status of Knowledge
2.03 - The Purified Understanding
2.02 - Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Thus too, if we see only the aspect of self, we may concentrate on its static silence and miss the dynamic truth of the Infinite; if we see only the Ishwara, we may seize the dynamic truth but miss the eternal status and the infinite silence, become aware of only dynamic being, dynamic consciousness, dynamic delight of being, but miss the pure existence, pure consciousness, pure bliss of being. If we concentrate on Purusha-Prakriti alone, we may see only the dichotomy of Soul and Nature, Spirit and Matter, and miss their unity. In considering the action of the Infinite we have to avoid the error of the disciple who thought of himself as the Brahman, refused to obey the warning of the elephant-driver to budge from the narrow path and was taken up by the elephant's trunk and removed out of the way; "You are no doubt the Brahman," said the master to his bewildered disciple, "but why did you not obey the driver Brahman and get out of the path of the elephant Brahman?" We must not commit the mistake of emphasising one side of the Truth and concluding from it or acting upon it to the exclusion of all other sides and aspects of the Infinite. The realisation "I am That" is true, but we cannot safely proceed on it unless we realise also that all is That; our self-existence is a fact, but we must also be aware of other selves, of the same Self in other beings and of That which exceeds both own-self and other-self. The Infinite is one in a multiplicity and its action is only seizable by a supreme Reason which regards all and acts as a one-awareness that observes itself in difference and respects its own differences, so that each thing and each being has its form of essential being and its form of dynamic nature, svarupa, svadharma, and all are respected in the total working. The knowledge and action of the Infinite is one in an unbound variability: it would be from the point of view of the infinite Truth equally an error to insist either on a sameness of action in all circumstances or on a diversity of action without any unifying truth and harmony behind the diversity. In our own principle of conduct, if we sought to act in this greater Truth, it would be equally an error to insist on our self alone or to insist on other selves alone; it is the Self of all on which we have to found a unity of action and a total, infinitely plastic yet harmonious diversity of action; for that is the nature of the working of the Infinite.
If we look from this view-point of a larger more plastic reason, taking account of the logic of the Infinite, at the difficulties which meet our intelligence when it tries to conceive the absolute and omnipresent Reality, we shall see that the whole difficulty is verbal and conceptual and not real. Our intelligence looks at its concept of the Absolute and sees that it must be indeterminable and at the same time it sees a world of determinations which emanates from the Absolute and exists in it, - for it can emanate from nowhere else and can exist nowhere else; it is further baffled by the affirmation, also hardly disputable on the premisses, that all these determinates are nothing else than this very indeterminable Absolute. But the contradiction disappears when we understand that the indeterminability is not in its true sense negative, not an imposition of incapacity on the Infinite, but positive, a freedom within itself from limitation by its own determinations and necessarily a freedom from all external determination by anything not itself, since there is no real possibility of such a not-self coming into existence. The Infinite is illimitably free, free to determine itself infinitely, free from all restraining effect of its own creations. In fact the Infinite does not create, it manifests what is in itself, in its own essence of reality; it is itself that essence of all reality and all realities are powers of that one Reality. The Absolute neither creates nor is created, - in the current sense of making or being made; we can speak of creation only in the sense of the Being becoming in form and movement what it already is in substance and status. Yet we have to emphasise its indeterminability in that special and positive sense, not as a negation but as an indispensable condition of its free infinite self-determination, because without that the Reality would be a fixed eternal determinate or else an indeterminate fixed and bound to a sum of possibilities of determination inherent within it. Its freedom from all limitation, from any binding by its own creation cannot be itself turned into a limitation, an absolute incapacity, a denial of all freedom of self-determination; it is this that would be a contradiction, it would be an attempt to define and limit by negation the infinite and illimitable. Into the central fact of the two sides of the nature of the Absolute, the essential and the self-creative or dynamic, no real contradiction enters; it is only a pure infinite essence that can formulate itself in infinite ways. One statement is complementary to the other, there is no mutual cancellation, no incompatibility; it is only the dual statement of a single inescapable fact by human reason in human language.
The same conciliation occurs everywhere, when we look with a straight and accurate look on the truth of the Reality. In our experience of it we become aware of an Infinite essentially free from all limitation by qualities, properties, features; on the other hand, we are aware of an Infinite teeming with innumerable qualities, properties, features. Here again the statement of illimitable freedom is positive, not negative; it does not negate what we see, but on the contrary provides the indispensable condition for it, it makes possible a free and infinite self-expression in quality and feature. A quality is the character of a power of conscious being; or we may say that the consciousness of being expressing what is in it makes the power it brings out recognisable by a native stamp on it which we call quality or character. Courage as a quality is such a power of being, it is a certain character of my consciousness expressing a formulated force of my being, bringing out or creating a definite kind of force of my nature in action. So too the power of a drug to cure is its property, a special force of being native to the herb or mineral from which it is produced, and this speciality is determined by the Real-Idea concealed in the involved consciousness which dwells in the plant or mineral; the idea brings out in it what was there at the root of its manifestation and has now come out thus empowered as the force of its being. All qualities, properties, features are such powers of conscious being thus put forth from itself by the Absolute; It has everything within It, It has the free power to put all forth;6 yet we cannot define the Absolute as a quality of courage or a power of healing, we cannot even say that these are a characteristic feature of the Absolute, nor can we make up a sum of qualities and say "that is the Absolute". But neither can we speak of the Absolute as a pure blank incapable of manifesting these things; on the contrary, all capacity is there, the powers of all qualities and characters are there inherent within it. The mind is in a difficulty because it has to say, "The Absolute or Infinite is none of these things, these things are not the Absolute or Infinite" and at the same time it has to say, "The Absolute is all these things, they are not something else than That, for That is the sole existence and the all-existence." Here it is evident that it is an undue finiteness of thought conception and verbal expression which creates the difficulty, but there is in reality none; for it would be evidently absurd to say that the Absolute is courage or curing-power, or to say that courage and curing-power are the Absolute, but it would be equally absurd to deny the capacity of the Absolute to put forth courage or curingpower as self-expressions in its manifestation. When the logic of the finite fails us, we have to see with a direct and unbound vision what is behind in the logic of the Infinite. We can then realise that the Infinite is infinite in quality, feature, power, but that no sum of qualities, features, powers can describe the Infinite.
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Again, we see that there is an infinite pure status and immobile silence of the Spirit; we see too that there is a boundless movement of the Spirit, a power, a dynamic spiritual all-containing self-extension of the Infinite. Our conceptions foist upon this perception, in itself valid and accurate, an opposition between the silence and status and the dynamis and movement, but to the reason and the logic of the Infinite there can be no such opposition. A solely silent and static Infinite, an Infinite without an infinite power and dynamis and energy is inadmissible except as the perception of an aspect; a powerless Absolute, an impotent Spirit is unthinkable: an infinite energy must be the dynamis of the Infinite, an all-power must be the potency of the Absolute, an illimitable force must be the force of the Spirit. But the silence, the status are the basis of the movement, an eternal immobility is the necessary condition, field, essence even, of the infinite mobility, a stable being is the condition and foundation of the vast action of the Force of being. It is when we arrive at something of this silence, stability, immobility that we can base on it a force and energy which in our superficial restless state would be inconceivable. The opposition we make is mental and conceptual; in reality, the silence of the Spirit and the dynamis of the Spirit are complementary truths and inseparable. The immutable silent Spirit may hold its infinite energy silent and immobile within it, for it is not bound by its own forces, is not their subject or instrument, but it does possess them, does release them, is capable of an eternal and infinite action, does not weary or need to stop, and yet all the time its silent immobility inherent in its action and movement is not for a moment shaken or disturbed or altered by its action and movement; the witness silence of the Spirit is there in the very grain of all the voices and workings of Nature. These things may be difficult for us to understand because our own surface finite capacity in either direction is limited and our conceptions are based on our limitations; but it should be easy to see that these relative and finite conceptions do not apply to the Absolute and Infinite.
Our conception of the Infinite is formlessness, but everywhere we see form and forms surrounding us and it can be and is affirmed of the Divine Being that he is at once Form and the Formless. For here too the apparent contradiction does not correspond to a real opposition; the Formless is not a negation of the power of formation, but the condition for the Infinite's free formation: for otherwise there would be a single Form or only a fixity or sum of possible forms in a finite universe. The formlessness is the character of the spiritual essence, the spirit-substance of the Reality; all finite realities are powers, forms, self-shapings of that substance: the Divine is formless and nameless, but by that very reason capable of manifesting all possible names and shapes of being. Forms are manifestations, not arbitrary inventions out of nothing; for line and colour, mass and design which are the essentials of form carry always in them a significance, are, it might be said, secret values and significances of an unseen reality made visible; it is for that reason that figure, line, hue, mass, composition can embody what would be otherwise unseen, can convey what would be otherwise occult to the sense. Form may be said to be the innate body, the inevitable self-revelation of the formless, and this is true not only of external shapes, but of the unseen formations of mind and life which we seize only by our thought and those sensible forms of which only the subtle grasp of the inner consciousness can become aware. Name in its deeper sense is not the word by which we describe the object, but the total of power, quality, character of the reality which a form of things embodies and which we try to sum up by a designating sound, a knowable name, Nomen. Nomen in this sense, we might say, is Numen; the secret Names of the Gods are their power, quality, character of being caught up by the consciousness and made conceivable. The Infinite is nameless, but in that namelessness all possible names, Numens of the gods, the names and forms of all realities, are already envisaged and prefigured, because they are there latent and inherent in the All-Existence.
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This, then, is the logic of the way of universal being of Brahman and the basic working of the reason, the infinite intelligence of Maya. As with the being of Brahman, so with its consciousness, Maya: it is not bound to a finite restriction of itself or to one state or law of its action; it can be many things simultaneously, have many co-ordinated movements which to the finite reason may seem contradictory; it is one but innumerably manifold, infinitely plastic, inexhaustibly adaptable. Maya is the supreme and universal consciousness and force of the Eternal and Infinite and, being by its very nature unbound and illimitable, it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever. It is at once transcendental, universal and individual; it is the supreme supracosmic Being that is aware of itself as AllBeing, as the Cosmic Self, as the Consciousness-force of cosmic Nature, and at the same time experiences itself as the individual being and consciousness in all existences. The individual consciousness can see itself as limited and separate, but can also put off its limitations and know itself as universal and again as transcendent of the universe; this is because there is in all these states or positions or underlying them the same triune consciousness in a triple status. There is then no difficulty in the One thus seeing or experiencing itself triply, whether from above in the Transcendent Existence or from between in the Cosmic Self or from below in the individual conscious being. All that is necessary for this to be accepted as natural and logical is to admit that there can be different real statuses of consciousness of the One Being, and that cannot be impossible for an Existence which is free and infinite and cannot be tied to a single condition; a free power of self-variation must be natural to a consciousness that is infinite. If the possibility of a manifold status of consciousness is admitted, no limit can be put to the ways of its variation of status, provided the One is aware of itself simultaneously in all of them; for the One and Infinite must be thus universally conscious. The only difficulty, which a further consideration may solve, is to understand the connections between a status of limited or constructed consciousness like ours, a status of ignorance, and the infinite self-knowledge and all-knowledge.
A second possibility of the Infinite Consciousness that must be admitted is its power of self-limitation or secondary selfformation into a subordinate movement within the integral illimitable consciousness and knowledge; for that is a necessary consequence of the power of self-determination of the Infinite.
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But a third power or possibility of the Infinite Consciousness can be admitted, its power of self-absorption, of plunging into itself, into a state in which self-awareness exists but not as knowledge and not as all-knowledge; the all would then be involved in pure self-awareness, and knowledge and the inner consciousness itself would be lost in pure being. This is, luminously, the state which we call the Superconscience in an absolute sense, - although most of what we call superconscient is in reality not that but only a higher conscient, something that is conscious to itself and only superconscious to our own limited level of awareness. This self-absorption, this trance of infinity is again, no longer luminously but darkly, the state which we call the Inconscient; for the being of the Infinite is there though by its appearance of inconscience it seems to us rather to be an infinite non-being: a self-oblivious intrinsic consciousness and force are there in that apparent non-being, for by the energy of the Inconscient an ordered world is created; it is created in a trance of self-absorption, the force acting automatically and with an apparent blindness as in a trance, but still with the inevitability and power of truth of the Infinite. If we take a step further and admit that a special or a restricted and partial action of selfabsorption is possible to the Infinite, an action not always of its infinity concentrated limitlessly in itself, but confined to a special status or to an individual or cosmic self-determination, we have then the explanation of the concentrated condition or status by which it becomes aware separately of one aspect of its being.
There can then be a fundamental double status such as that of the Nirguna standing back from the Saguna and absorbed in its own purity and immobility, while the rest is held back behind a veil and not admitted within that special status. In the same way we could account for the status of consciousness aware of one field of being or one movement of it, while the awareness of all the rest would be held behind and veiled or, as it were, cut off by a waking trance of dynamic concentration from the specialised or limited awareness occupied only with its own field or movement. The totality of the infinite consciousness would be there, not abolished, recoverable, but not evidently active, active only by implication, by inherence or by the instrumentality of the limited awareness, not in its own manifest power and presence.
It will be evident that all these three powers can be accepted as possible to the dynamics of the Infinite Consciousness, and it is by considering the many ways in which they can work that we may get a clue to the operations of Maya.
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Yet it is now evident that to the Infinite Consciousness both the static and the dynamic are possible; these are two of its statuses and both can be present simultaneously in the universal awareness, the one witnessing the other and supporting it or not looking at it and yet automatically supporting it; or the silence and status may be there penetrating the activity or throwing it up like an ocean immobile below throwing up a mobility of waves on its surface. This is also the reason why it is possible for us in certain conditions of our being to be aware of several different states of consciousness at the same time. There is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we become a double consciousness, one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to quiet, enlarge, transform it. So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. All this which looks strange and abnormal or may seem fantastic to the surface reason acquainted only with our normal status of limited ignorance and its movements divided from our inner higher and total reality, becomes easily intelligible and admissible in the light of the larger reason and logic of the Infinite or by the admission of the greater illimitable powers of the Self, the Spirit in us which is of one essence with the Infinite.
Brahman the Reality is the self-existent Absolute and Maya is the Consciousness and Force of this self-existence; but with regard to the universe Brahman appears as the Self of all existence, Atman, the cosmic Self, but also as the Supreme Self transcendent of its own cosmicity and at the same time individual-universal in each being; Maya can then be seen as the self-power, Atma-Shakti, of the Atman. It is true that when we first become aware of this Aspect, it is usually in a silence of the whole being or at the least in a silence within which draws back or stands away from the surface action; this Self is then felt as a status in silence, an immobile immutable being, self-existent, pervading the whole universe, omnipresent in all, but not dynamic or active, aloof from the ever mobile energy of Maya. In the same way we can become aware of it as the Purusha, separate from Prakriti, the Conscious Being standing back from the activities of Nature. But this is an exclusive concentration which limits itself to a spiritual status and puts away from it all activity in order to realise the freedom of Brahman the self-existent Reality from all limitation by its own action and manifestation: it is an essential realisation, but not the total realisation. For we can see that the Conscious-Power, the Shakti that acts and creates, is not other than the Maya or all-knowledge of Brahman; it is the Power of the Self; Prakriti is the working of the Purusha, Conscious Being active by its own Nature: the duality then of Soul and WorldEnergy, silent Self and the creative Power of the Spirit, is not really something dual and separate, it is biune. As we cannot separate Fire and the power of Fire, it has been said, so we cannot separate the Divine Reality and its Consciousness-Force, Chit-Shakti. This first realisation of Self as something intensely silent and purely static is not the whole truth of it, there can also be a realisation of Self in its power, Self as the condition of world-activity and world-existence. However, the Self is a fundamental aspect of Brahman, but with a certain stress on its impersonality; therefore the Power of the Self has the appearance of a Force that acts automatically with the Self sustaining it, witness and support and originator and enjoyer of its activities but not involved in them for a moment. As soon as we become aware of the Self, we are conscious of it as eternal, unborn, unembodied, uninvolved in its workings: it can be felt within the form of being, but also as enveloping it, as above it, surveying its embodiment from above, adhyaks.a; it is omnipresent, the same in everything, infinite and pure and intangible for ever. This Self can be experienced as the Self of the individual, the Self of the thinker, doer, enjoyer, but even so it always has this greater character; its individuality is at the same time a vast universality or very readily passes into that, and the next step to that is a sheer transcendence or a complete and ineffable passing into the Absolute. The Self is that aspect of the Brahman in which it is intimately felt as at once individual, cosmic, transcendent of the universe. The realisation of the Self is the straight and swift way towards individual liberation, a static universality, a
Nature-transcendence. At the same time there is a realisation of Self in which it is felt not only sustaining and pervading and enveloping all things, but constituting everything and identified in a free identity with all its becomings in Nature. Even so, freedom and impersonality are always the character of the Self.
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Nature acts by three principles, modes or qualities of its stuff and its action, which in us become the fundamental modes of our psychological and physical substance and its workings, the principle of inertia, the principle of kinesis and the principle of balance, light and harmony: when these are in unequal motion, her action takes place; when they fall into equilibrium she passes into quiescence. Purusha, conscious being, is plural, not one and single, while Nature is one: it would seem to follow that whatever principle of oneness we find in existence belongs to Nature, but each soul is independent and unique, sole to itself and separate whether in its enjoyment of Nature or its liberation from Nature. All these positions of the Sankhya we find to be perfectly valid in experience when we come into direct inner contact with the realities of individual soul and universal Nature; but they are pragmatic truths and we are not bound to accept them as the whole or the fundamental truth either of self or of Nature. Prakriti presents itself as an inconscient Energy in the material world, but, as the scale of consciousness rises, she reveals herself more and more as a conscious force and we perceive that even her inconscience concealed a secret consciousness; so too conscious being is many in its individual souls, but in its self we can experience it as one in all and one in its own essential existence. Moreover, the experience of soul and Nature as dual is true, but the experience of their unity has also its validity. If Nature or Energy is able to impose its forms and workings on Being, it can only be because it is Nature or Energy of Being and so the Being can accept them as its own; if the Being can become lord of Nature, it must be because it is its own Nature which it had passively watched doing its work, but can control and master; even in its passivity its consent is necessary to the action of Prakriti and this relation shows sufficiently that the two are not alien to each other. The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operations of the self-manifestation of the being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature.
It is the Reality, the Self, that takes the position of the Conscious Being regarding and accepting or ruling the works of its own Nature. An apparent duality is created in order that there may be a free action of Nature working itself out with the support of the Spirit and again a free and masterful action of the Spirit controlling and working out Nature. This duality is also necessary that the Spirit may be at any time at liberty to draw back from any formation of its Nature and dissolve all formation or accept or enforce a new or a higher formation. These are very evident possibilities of the Spirit in its dealings with its own Force and they can be observed and verified in our own experience; they are logical results of the powers of the Infinite Consciousness, powers which we have seen to be native to its infinity. The Purusha aspect and the Prakriti aspect go always together and whatever status Nature or Consciousness-force in action assumes, manifests or develops, there is a corresponding status of the Spirit. In its supreme status the Spirit is the supreme Conscious Being, Purushottama, and the Consciousness-Force is his supreme Nature, Para-Prakriti. In each status of the gradations of Nature, the Spirit takes a poise of its being proper to that gradation; in Mind-Nature it becomes the mental being, in Life-Nature it becomes the vital being, in nature of Matter it becomes the physical being, in supermind it becomes the Being of Knowledge; in the supreme spiritual status it becomes the Being of Bliss and pure Existence. In us, in the embodied individual, it stands behind all as the psychic Entity, the inner
Self supporting the other formulations of our consciousness and spiritual existence. The Purusha, individual in us, is cosmic in the cosmos, transcendent in the transcendence: the identity with the Self is apparent, but it is the Self in its pure impersonalpersonal status of a Spirit in things and beings - impersonal because undifferentiated by personal quality, personal because it presides over the individualisations of self in each individual - which deals with the works of its Consciousness-force, its executive force of self-nature, in whatever poise is necessary for that purpose.
But it is evident that whatever the posture taken or relation formed in any individual nodus of Purusha-Prakriti, the Being is in a fundamental cosmic relation lord or ruler of its nature: for even when it allows Nature to have its own way with it, its consent is necessary to support her workings. This comes out in its fullest revelation in the third aspect of the Reality, the Divine Being who is the master and creator of the universe. Here the supreme Person, the Being in its transcendental and cosmic consciousness and force, comes to the front, omnipotent, omniscient, the controller of all energies, the Conscious in all that is conscient or inconscient, the Inhabitant of all souls and minds and hearts and bodies, the Ruler or Overruler of all works, the Enjoyer of all delight, the Creator who has built all things in his own being, the All-Person of whom all beings are personalities, the Power from whom are all powers, the Self, the Spirit in all, by his being the Father of all that is, in his Consciousness-Force the Divine Mother the Friend of all creatures, the All-blissful and All-beautiful of whom beauty and joy are the revelation, the All-Beloved and All-Lover. In a certain sense, so seen and understood, this becomes the most comprehensive of the aspects of the Reality, since here all are united in a single formulation; for the Ishwara is supracosmic as well as intracosmic; He is that which exceeds and inhabits and supports all individuality; He is the supreme and universal Brahman, the Absolute, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha.8 But, very clearly, this is not the personal God of popular religions, a being limited by his qualities, individual and separate from all others; for all such personal gods are only limited representations or names and divine personalities of the one Ishwara. Neither is this the Saguna Brahman active and possessed of qualities, for that is only one side of the being of the Ishwara; the Nirguna immobile and without qualities is another aspect of His existence. Ishwara is Brahman the Reality, Self, Spirit, revealed as possessor, enjoyer of his own self-existence, creator of the universe and one with it, Pantheos, and yet superior to it, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Divine Transcendence.
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If we place ourselves in a silent Self-existence immobile, static, inactive, it will appear that a conceptive Consciousness-Force, Maya, able to effectuate all its conceptions, a dynamic consort of the Self of silence, is doing everything; it takes its stand on the fixed unmoving eternal status and casts the spiritual substance of being into all manner of forms and movements to which its passivity consents or in which it takes its impartial pleasure, its immobile delight of creative and mobile existence. Whether this be a real or an illusory existence, that must be its substance and significance. Consciousness is at play with Being, Force of Nature does what it wills with Existence and makes it the stuff of her creations, but secretly the consent of the Being must be there at every step to make this possible. There is an evident truth in this perception of things; it is what we see happening everywhere in us and around us; it is a truth of the universe and must answer to a fundamental truth-aspect of the Absolute. But when we step back from the outer dynamic appearances of things, not into a witness Silence, but into an inner dynamic participating experience of the Spirit, we find that this Consciousness-Force, Maya, Shakti, is itself the power of the Being, the Self-Existent, the Ishwara. The Being is lord of her and of all things, we see him doing everything in his own sovereignty as the creator and ruler of his own manifestation; or, if he stands back and allows freedom of action to the forces of Nature and her creatures, his sovereignty is still innate in the permission, at every step his tacit sanction, "Let it be so", tathastu, is there implicit; for otherwise nothing could be done or happen. Being and its Consciousness-Force, Spirit and Nature cannot be fundamentally dual: what
Nature does, is really done by the Spirit. This too is a truth that becomes evident when we go behind the veil and feel the presence of a living Reality which is everything and determines everything, is the All-powerful and the All-ruler; this too is a fundamental truth-aspect of the Absolute.
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Nature, she reveals to us the supreme and omnipresent power of the Ishwara and ourselves as beings of his being, but that power is herself and we are that in her supernature. If we would realise a higher formation or status of being, then it is still through her, through the Divine Shakti, the Consciousness-Force of the Spirit that it has to be done; our surrender must be to the Divine Being through the Divine Mother for it is towards or into the supreme Nature that our ascension has to take place and it can only be done by the supramental Shakti taking up our mentality and transforming it into her supramentality. Thus we see that there is no contradiction or incompatibility between these three aspects of Existence, or between them in their eternal status and the three modes of its Dynamis working in the universe. One Being, one Reality as Self bases, supports, informs, as Purusha or Conscious Being experiences, as Ishwara wills, governs and possesses its world of manifestation created and kept in motion and action by its own Consciousness-Force or Self-Power, - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti.
A certain difficulty arises for our mind in reconciling these different faces or fronts of the One Self and Spirit, because we are obliged to use abstract conceptions and defining words and ideas for something that is not abstract, something that is spiritually living and intensely real. Our abstractions get fixed into differentiating concepts with sharp lines between them: but the Reality is not of that nature; its aspects are many but shade off into each other. Its truth could only be rendered by ideas and images metaphysical and yet living and concrete, - images which might be taken by the pure Reason as figures and symbols but are more than that and mean more to the intuitive vision and feeling, for they are realities of a dynamic spiritual experience. The impersonal truth of things can be rendered into the abstract formulas of the pure reason, but there is another side of truth which belongs to the spiritual or mystic vision and without that inner vision of realities the abstract formulation of them is insufficiently alive, incomplete. The mystery of things is the true truth of things; the intellectual presentation is only truth in representation, in abstract symbols, as if in a cubist art of thought-speech, in geometric figure. It is necessary in a philosophic inquiry to confine oneself mostly to this intellectual presentation, but it is as well to remember that this is only the abstraction of the Truth and to seize it completely or express it completely there is needed a concrete experience and a more living and full-bodied language.
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This raises the problem of the relation of Time to the timeless Spirit; for we have supposed on the contrary that what is in unmanifestation in the Timeless Eternal is manifested in TimeEternity. If that is so, if the temporal is an expression of the Eternal, then however different the conditions, however partial the expression, yet what is fundamental in the Time-expression must be in some way pre-existent in the Transcendence and drawn from the timeless Reality. For if not, these fundamentals must come into it direct from an Absolute which is other than Time or Timelessness, and the Timeless Spirit must be a supreme spiritual negation, an indeterminable basing the Absolute's freedom from limitation by what is formulated in Time, - it must be the negative to the Time positive, in the same relation to it as the Nirguna to the Saguna. But, in fact, what we mean by the Timeless is a spiritual status of existence not subject to the time movement or to the successive or the relative time-experience of a past, present and future. The timeless Spirit is not necessarily a blank; it may hold all in itself, but in essence, without reference to time or form or relation or circumstance, perhaps in an eternal unity. Eternity is the common term between Time and the Timeless Spirit. What is in the Timeless unmanifested, implied, essential, appears in Time in movement, or at least in design and relation, in result and circumstance. These two then are the same Eternity or the same Eternal in a double status; they are a twofold status of being and consciousness, one an eternity of immobile status, the other an eternity of motion in status.
The original status is that of the Reality timeless and spaceless; Space and Time would be the same Reality self-extended to contain the deployment of what was within it. The difference would be, as in all the other oppositions, the Spirit looking at itself in essence and principle of being and the same Spirit looking at itself in the dynamism of its essence and principle.
Space and Time are our names for this self-extension of the one Reality. We are apt to see Space as a static extension in which all things stand or move together in a fixed order; we see Time as a mobile extension which is measured by movement and event: Space then would be Brahman in self-extended status; Time would be Brahman in self-extended movement. But this may be only a first view and inaccurate: Space may be really a constant mobile, the constancy and the persistent time-relation of things in it creating the sense of stability of Space, the mobility creating the sense of time-movement in stable Space. Or, again, Space would be Brahman extended for the holding together of forms and objects; Time would be Brahman self-extended for the deployment of the movement of self-power carrying forms and objects; the two would then be a dual aspect of one and the same self-extension of the cosmic Eternal.
A purely physical Space might be regarded as in itself a property of Matter; but Matter is a creation of Energy in movement. Space therefore in the material world could be either a fundamental self-extension of material Energy or its self-formed existence-field, its representation of the Inconscient Infinity in which it is acting, a figure in which it accommodates the formulas and movements of its own action and self-creation.
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In any case, if Spirit is the fundamental reality, Time and Space must either be conceptive conditions under which the Spirit sees its own movement of energy or else they must be fundamental conditions of the Spirit itself which assume a different appearance or status according to the status of consciousness in which they manifest. In other words there is a different Time and Space for each status of our consciousness and even different movements of Time and Space within each status; but all would be renderings of a fundamental spiritual reality of Time-Space. In fact, when we go behind physical Space, we become aware of an extension on which all this movement is based and this extension is spiritual and not material; it is Self or Spirit containing all action of its own Energy. This origin or basic reality of Space begins to become apparent when we draw back from the physical: for then we become aware of a subjective Space-extension in which mind itself lives and moves and which is other than physical Space-Time, and yet there is an interpenetration; for our mind can move in its own space in such a way as to effectuate a movement also in space of
Matter or act upon something distant in space of Matter. In a still deeper condition of consciousness we are aware of a pure spiritual Space; in this awareness Time may no longer seem to exist, because all movement ceases, or, if there is a movement or happening, it can take place independent of any observable Time sequence.
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Each state of consciousness has its own Time and yet there can be relations of Time between them; and when we go behind the physical surface, we find several different Time statuses and Time movements coexistent in the same consciousness. This is evident in dream Time where a long sequence of happenings can occur in a period which corresponds to a second or a few seconds of physical Time. There is then a certain relation between different Time statuses but no ascertainable correspondence of measure. It would seem as if Time had no objective reality, but depends on whatever conditions may be established by action of consciousness in its relation to status and motion of being: Time would seem to be purely subjective. But, in fact, Space also would appear by the mutual relation of Mind-Space and MatterSpace to be subjective; in other words, both are the original spiritual extension, but it is rendered by mind in its purity into a subjective mind-field and by sense-mind into an objective field of sense-perception. Subjectivity and objectivity are only two sides of one consciousness, and the cardinal fact is that any given Time or Space or any given Time-Space as a whole is a status of being in which there is a movement of the consciousness and force of the being, a movement that creates or manifests events and happenings; it is the relation of the consciousness that sees and the force that formulates the happenings, a relation inherent in the status, which determines the sense of Time and creates our awareness of Time-movement, Time-relation, Time-measure. In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite.
The Being can have three different states of its consciousness with regard to its own eternity. The first is that in which there is the immobile status of the Self in its essential existence, self-absorbed or self-conscious, but in either case without development of consciousness in movement or happening; this is what we distinguish as its timeless eternity. The second is its whole-consciousness of the successive relations of all things belonging to a destined or an actually proceeding manifestation, in which what we call past, present and future stand together as if in a map or settled design or very much as an artist or painter or architect might hold all the detail of his work viewed as a whole, intended or reviewed in his mind or arranged in a plan for execution; this is the stable status or simultaneous integrality of Time. This seeing of Time is not at all part of our normal awareness of events as they happen, though our view of the past, because it is already known and can be regarded in the whole, may put on something of this character; but we know that this consciousness exists because it is possible in an exceptional state to enter into it and see things from the view-point of this simultaneity of Time-vision. The third status is that of a processive movement of Consciousness-Force and its successive working out of what has been seen by it in the static vision of the Eternal; this is the Time movement. But it is in one and the same Eternity that this triple status exists and the movement takes place; there are not really two eternities, one an eternity of status, another an eternity of movement, but there are different statuses or positions taken by Consciousness with regard to the one Eternity. For it can see the whole Time development from outside or from above the movement; it can take a stable position within the movement and see the before and the after in a fixed, determined or destined succession; or it can take instead a mobile position in the movement, itself move with it from moment to moment and see all that has happened receding back into the past and all that has to happen coming towards it from the future; or else it may concentrate on the moment it occupies and see nothing but what is in that moment and immediately around or behind it. All these positions can be taken by the being of the Infinite in a simultaneous vision or experience. It can see Time from above and inside Time, exceeding it and not within it; it can see the Timeless develop the Time-movement without ceasing to be timeless, it can embrace the whole movement in a static and a dynamic vision and put out at the same time something of itself into the moment-vision. This simultaneity may seem to the finite consciousness tied to the moment-vision a magic of the Infinite, a magic of Maya; to its own way of perception which needs to limit, to envisage one status only at a time in order to harmonise, it would give a sense of confused and inconsistent unreality. But to an infinite consciousness such an integral simultaneity of vision and experience would be perfectly logical and consistent; all could be elements of a whole-vision capable of being closely related together in a harmonious arrangement, a multiplicity of view bringing out the unity of the thing seen, a diverse presentation of concomitant aspects of the One Reality.
If there can be this simultaneous multiplicity of selfpresentation of one Reality, we see that there is no impossibility in the coexistence of a Timeless Eternal and a Time Eternity.
It would be the same Eternity viewed by a dual self-awareness and there could be no opposition between them; it would be a correlation of two powers of the self-awareness of the infinite and eternal Reality, - a power of status and non-manifestation, a power of self-effecting action and movement and manifestation. Their simultaneity, however contradictory and difficult to reconcile it might seem to our finite surface seeing, would be intrinsic and normal to the Maya or eternal self-knowledge and all-knowledge of Brahman, the eternal and infinite knowledge and wisdom-power of the Ishwara, the consciousness-force of the self-existent Sachchidananda.
2.02 - Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
If my sense of security lies in my reputation or in the things I have, my life will be in a constant state of threat and jeopardy that these possessions may be lost or stolen or devalued. If I'm in the presence of someone of greater net worth or fame or status, I feel inferior. If I'm in the presence of someone of lesser net worth or fame or status, I feel superior. My sense of self-worth constantly fluctuates. I don't have any sense of constancy or anchorage or persistent selfhood. I am constantly trying to protect and insure my assets, properties, securities, position, or reputation. We have all heard stories of people committing suicide after losing their fortunes in a significant stock decline or their fame in a political reversal.
Pleasure Centeredness. Another common center, closely allied with possessions, is that of fun and pleasure. We live in a world where instant gratification is available and encouraged. Television and movies are major influences in increasing people's expectations. They graphically portray what other people have and can do in living the life of ease and "fun."
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Your security is based on your reputation, your social status, or the tangible things you possess.
You tend to compare what you have to what others have.
2.02 - On Letters, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Souls like Vivekananda come down for a specific work in this world and after doing their work they again ascend to their high status. Is this true?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There is a plane of liberation from which beings can come down here and perhaps that is what Ramakrishna meant by saying that there are Nitya Mukta souls souls who are eternally liberated who can go up and down the ladder of existence.
2.02 - The Status of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:2.02 - The status of Knowledge
The Self, the Divine, the Supreme Reality, the All, the Transcendent, -- the One in all these aspects is then the object of Yogic knowledge. Ordinary objects, the external appearances of life and matter, the psychology of our thoughts and actions, the perception of the forces of the apparent world can be part of this knowledge, but only in so far as it is part of the manifestation of the One. It becomes at once evident that the knowledge for which Yoga strives must be different from what men ordinarily understand by the word. For we mean ordinarily by knowledge an intellectual appreciation of the facts of life, mind and matter arid the laws that govern them. This is a knowledge founded upon our sense-perception and upon reasoning from our sense-perceptions and it is undertaken partly for the pure satisfaction of the intellect, partly for practical efficiency and the added power which knowledge gives in managing our lives and the lives of others, in utilising for human ends the overt or secret forces of Nature and in helping or hurting, in saving and ennobling or in oppressing and destroying our fellow-men. Yoga, indeed, is commensurate with all life and can include all these subjects and objects. There is even a Yoga286 which can be used for self-indulgence as well as for self-conquest, for hurting others as well as for their salvation. But "all life" includes not only, not even mainly life as humanity now leads it. It envisages rather and regards as its one true object a higher truly conscious existence which our half-conscious humanity does not yet possess and can only arrive at by a self-exceeding spiritual ascension. It is this greater consciousness and higher existence which is the peculiar and appropriate object of Yogic discipline.
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The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation," in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self arid in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychological and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, drsti, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it -- to the soul and not merely to the intellect -- as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaksa, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroksa, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes, -- for no other sense is adequate, -- we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of the Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration291; but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
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That status of knowledge is then the aim of this path and indeed of all paths when pursued to their end, to which intellectual discrimination and conception and all concentration and psychological self-knowledge and all seeking by the heart through love and by the senses through beauty and by the will through power and works and by the soul through peace and joy are only keys, avenues, first approaches and beginnings of the ascent which we have to use and to follow till the wide and infinite levels are attained and the divine doors swing open into the infinite Light.
author class:Sri Aurobindo
2.03 - The Eternal and the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Or the one possible reason would be that in the power, the act of consciousness there is not real union and that only in the status of consciousness is there perfect undifferentiated unity.
Now in what we may call the waking union of the individual with the Divine, as opposed to a falling asleep or a concentration of the individual consciousness in an absorbed identity, there is certainly and must be a differentiation of experience. For in this active unity the individual Purusha enlarges its active experience also as well as its static consciousness into a way of union with this Self of his being and of the world-being, and yet individualisation remains and therefore differentiation. The Purusha is aware of all other individuals as selves of himself; he may by a dynamic union become aware of their mental and practical action as occurring in his universal consciousness, just as he is aware of his own mental and practical action; he may help to determine their action by subjective union with them: but still there is a practical difference. The action of the Divine in himself is that with which he is particularly and directly concerned; the action of the Divine in his other selves is that with which he is universally concerned, not directly, but through and by his union with them and with the Divine. The individual therefore exists though he exceeds the little separative ego; the universal exists and is embraced by him but it does not absorb and abolish all individual differentiation, even though by his universalising himself the limitation which we call the ego is overcome.
2.03 - The Purified Understanding, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The description of the status of knowledge to which we aspire, determines the means of knowledge which we shall use. That status of knowledge may be summed up as a supramental realisation which is prepared by mental representations through various mental principles in us and once attained again reflects itself more perfectly in all the members of the being. It is a re-seeing and therefore a remoulding of our whole existence in the light of the Divine and One and Eternal free from subjection to tile appearances of things and the externalities of our superficial being.
Such a passage from the human to the divine, from the divided and discordant to the One, from the phenomenon to the eternal Truth, such all entire rebirth or new birth of the soul must necessarily involve two stages, one of preparation in which the soul and its instruments must become fit arid another of actual illumination and realisation in the prepared soul through its fit instruments. There is indeed no rigid line of demarcation in sequence of Time between these two stages; rather they are necessary to each other and continue simultaneously. For in proportion as the soul becomes fit it increases in illumination and rises to higher and higher, completer and completer realisations, and in proportion as these illuminations and these realisations increase, becomes fit and its instruments more adequate to their task: there are soul-seasons of unillumined preparation and soul-seasons of illumined growth and culminating soulmoments more or less prolonged of illumined possession, moments that are transient like the flash of the lightning, yet change the whole spiritual future, moments also that extend over many human hours, days, weeks in a constant light or blaze of the Sun of Truth. And through all these the soul once turned Godwards grows towards the permanence and perfection of its new birth and real existence.
2.03 - The Supreme Divine, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Through an inner self-fulfilment, the opening of a new status, our birth into a new power, we return to the nature of the Spirit and re-become a portion of the Godhead from whom we have descended into this mortal figure of being.
There is here at once a departure from the general contemporary mind of Indian thought, a less negating attitude, a greater affirmation. In place of its obsessing idea of a self-annulment of
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Bhakti. Our first experience of what is beyond our normal status, concealed behind the egoistic being in which we live, is still for the Gita the calm of a vast impersonal immutable self in whose equality and oneness we lose our petty egoistic personality and cast off in its tranquil purity all our narrow motives of desire and passion. But our second completer vision reveals to us a living
Infinite, a divine immeasurable Being from whom all that we are proceeds and to which all that we are belongs, self and nature, world and spirit. When we are one with him in self and spirit, we do not lose ourselves, but rather recover our true selves in him poised in the supremacy of this Infinite. And this is done at one and the same time by three simultaneous movements, - an integral self-finding through works founded in his and our spiritual nature, an integral self-becoming through knowledge of the Divine Being in whom all exists and who is all, and - most sovereign and decisive movement of all - an integral selfgiving through love and devotion of our whole being to this All and this Supreme, attracted to the Master of our works, to the
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Krishna, come to know that Brahman and all the integrality of the spiritual nature and the entirety of Karma. And because they know Me and know at the same time the material and the divine nature of being and the truth of the Master of sacrifice, they keep knowledge of Me also in the critical moment of their departure from physical existence and have at that moment their whole consciousness in union with Me. Therefore they attain to Me. No longer bound to the mortal existence, they reach the very highest status of the Divine quite as effectively as those who lose their separate personality in the impersonal and immutable Brahman. Thus the Gita closes this important and decisive seventh chapter.
Here we have certain expressions which give us in their brief sum the chief essential truths of the manifestation of the supreme Divine in the cosmos. All the originative and effective aspects of it are there, all that concerns the soul in its return to integral self-knowledge. First there is that Brahman, tad brahma; adhyatma, second, the principle of the self in Nature; adhibhuta and adhidaiva next, the objective phenomenon and subjective phenomenon of being; adhiyajna last, the secret of the cosmic principle of works and sacrifice. I, the Purushottama (mam viduh.), says in effect Krishna, I who am above all these things, must yet be sought and known through all together and by means of their relations, - that is the only complete way for the human consciousness which is seeking its path back towards
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Purushottama. He is not only remote from us in some supreme status beyond, but he is here too in the body of every being, in the heart of man and in Nature. There he receives the works of
Nature as a sacrifice and awaits the conscious self-giving of the human soul: but always even in the human creature's ignorance and egoism he is the Lord of his swabhava and the Master of all his works, who presides over the law of Prakriti and Karma.
From him the soul came forth into the play of Nature's mutations; to him the soul returns through immutable self-existence to the highest status of the Divine, param dhama.
Man, born into the world, revolves between world and world in the action of Prakriti and Karma. Purusha in Prakriti is his formula: what the soul in him thinks, contemplates and acts, that always he becomes. All that he had been, determined his present birth; and all that he is, thinks, does in this life up to the moment of his death, determines what he will become in the worlds beyond and in lives yet to be. If birth is a becoming, death also is a becoming, not by any means a cessation. The body is abandoned, but the soul goes on its way, tyaktva kalevaram.
Much then depends on what he is at the critical moment of his departure. For whatever form of becoming his consciousness is fixed on at the time of death and has been full of that always in his mind and thought before death, to that form he must attain, since the Prakriti by Karma works out the soul's thoughts and energies and that is in real fact her whole business. Therefore, if the soul in the human being desires to attain to the status of the
Purushottama, there are two necessities, two conditions which must be satisfied before that can be possible. He must have
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"remembering me at his time of end, comes to my bhava," that of the Purushottama, my status of being. He is united with the original being of the Divine and that is the ultimate becoming of the soul, paro bhavah., the last result of Karma in its return upon itself and towards its source. The soul which has followed the play of cosmic evolution that veils here its essential spiritual nature, its original form of becoming, svabhava, and has passed through all these other ways of becoming of its consciousness which are only its phenomena, tam tam bhavam, returns to that essential nature and, finding through this return its true self and spirit, comes to the original status of being which is from the point of view of the return a highest becoming, mad-bhavam. In a certain sense we may say that it becomes God, since it unites itself with nature of the Divine in a last transformation of its own phenomenal nature and existence.
The Gita here lays a great stress on the thought and state of mind at the time of death, a stress which will with difficulty be understood if we do not recognise what may be called the selfcreative power of the consciousness. What the thought, the inner regard, the faith, sraddha, settles itself upon with a complete and definite insistence, into that our inner being tends to change. This tendency becomes a decisive force when we go to those higher spiritual and self-evolved experiences which are less dependent on external things than is our ordinary psychology, enslaved as that is to outward Nature. There we can see ourselves steadily becoming that on which we keep our minds fixed and to which we constantly aspire. Therefore there any lapse of the thought, any infidelity of the memory means always a retardation of the change or some fall in its process and a going back towards what we were before, - at least so long as we have not substantially and irrevocably fixed our new becoming. When we have done that, when we have made it normal to our experience, the memory of it remains self-existently because that now is the natural form of our consciousness. In the critical moment of passing
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knowers speak, and this is that into which the doers of askesis enter when they have passed beyond the affections of the mind of mortality and for the desire of which they practise the control of the bodily passions.2 That eternal reality is the highest step, place, foothold of being (padam); therefore is it the supreme goal of the soul's movement in Time, itself no movement but a status original, sempiternal and supreme, param sthanam adyam.
The Gita describes the last state of the mind of the Yogin in which he passes from life through death to this supreme divine existence. A motionless mind, a soul armed with the strength of
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self-existent Godhead who is the Master of works and the Friend of mankind and of all beings. To know him so and so to seek him does not bind to rebirth or to the chain of Karma; the soul can satisfy its desire to escape permanently from the transient and painful condition of our mortal being. And the Gita here, in order to make more precise to the mind this circling round of births and the escape from it, adopts the ancient theory of the cosmic cycles which became a fixed part of Indian cosmological notions. There is an eternal cycle of alternating periods of cosmic manifestation and non-manifestation, each period called respectively a day and a night of the creator Brahma, each of equal length in Time, the long aeon of his working which endures for a thousand ages, the long aeon of his sleep of another thousand silent ages. At the coming of the Day all manifestations are born into being out of the unmanifest, at the coming of the Night all vanish or are dissolved into it. Thus all these existences alternate helplessly in the cycle of becoming and non-becoming; they come into the becoming again and again, bhutva bhutva, and they go back constantly into the unmanifest. But this unmanifest is not the original divinity of the Being; there is another status of his existence, bhavo 'nyo, a supracosmic unmanifest beyond this cosmic non-manifestation, which is eternally self-seated, is not an opposite of this cosmic status of manifestation but far above and unlike it, changeless, eternal, not forced to perish with the perishing of all these existences. "He is called the unmanifest immutable, him they speak of as the supreme soul and status, and those who attain to him return not; that is my supreme place of being, paramam dhama." For the soul attaining to it has escaped out of the cycle of cosmic manifestation and non-manifestation.
Whether we entertain or we dismiss this cosmological notion, - which depends on the value we are inclined to assign to the knowledge of "the knowers of day and night," - the important thing is the turn the Gita gives to it. One might easily imagine that this eternally unmanifested Being whose status seems to have nothing to do with the manifestation or the non-manifestation, must be the ever undefined and indefinable
Absolute, and the proper way to reach him is to get rid of all
2.04 - Concentration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:Along with purity and as a help to bring it about, concentration. Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being; purity is the condition in which concentration becomes entire, rightly effective, omnipotent; by concentration purity does its works and without it would only lead to a state of peaceful quiescence and eternal repose. Their opposites are also closely connected; for we have seen that impurity is a confusion of Dharmas, a lax, mixed and mutually entangled action of the different parts of the being; and this confusion proceeds from an absence of right concentration of its knowledge on its energies in the embodied Soul. The fault of our nature is first an inert subjection to the impacts of things303 as they come in upon the mind pell-mell without order or control and then a haphazard imperfect concentration managed fitfully, irregularly with a more or less chance emphasis on this or on that object according as they happen to interest, not the higher soul or the judging and discerning intellect, but the restless, leaping, fickle, easily tired, easily distracted lower mind which is the chief enemy of our progress. In such a condition purity, the right working of the functions, the clear, unstained and luminous order of the being is an impossibility; the various workings, given over to the chances of the environment and external influences, must necessarily run into each other and clog, divert, distract, pervert. Equally, without purity the complete, equal, flexible concentration of the being in right thought, right will, right feeling or secure status of spiritual experience is not possible. Therefore the two must proceed together, each helping the victory of the other, until we arrive at that eternal calm from which may proceed some partial image in the human being of the eternal, omnipotent and omniscient activity.
2:But in the path of knowledge as it is practised in India concentration is used in a special and more limited sense. It means that removal of the thought from all distracting activities of the mind and that concentration of it on the idea of the One by which the soul rises out of the phenomenal into the one Reality. It is by the thought that we dissipate ourselves in the phenomenal; it is by the gathering back of the thought into itself that we must draw ourselves back into the real. Concentration has three powers by which this aim can be effected. By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, buttheone Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself, we can become whatever we choose; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fear, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
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.
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6:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind ale Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea Itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity arid infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi. Not merely a state withdrawn from Ill consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward into that which exists beyond both whether as seed of both or transcendent even of their seed-state; but a settled existence in the One and Infinite, united and identified with it, and this status to remain whether we abide in the waking condition in which we are conscious of tile forms of things or we withdraw into the inward activity which dwells in the play of the principles of things, the play of their names and typal forms or we soar to the condition of static inwardness where we arrive at the principles themselves and at the principle of all principles, the seed of name and form.307 For the soul that has arrived at the essential Samadhi and is settled in it (samadhistha) in the sense the Gita attaches to the word, has that which is fundamental to all experience and cannot fall from it by any experience however distracting to one who has not yet ascended the summit. It can embrace all in the scope of its being without being bound by any or deluded or limited.
7:When we arrive at this state, all our being and consciousness being concentrated, the necessity of concentration in the Idea ceases. For there in that supramental state the whole position of things is reversed. The mind is a thing that dwells in diffusion, in succession; it can only concentrate on one thing at a time and when not concentrated runs from one thing to another very much at random. Therefore it has to concentrate on a single idea, a single subject of meditation, a single object of contemplation, a single object of will in order to possess or master it, arid this it must do to at least the temporary exclusion of all others. But that which is beyond the mind and into which we seek to rise is superior to the running process of the thought, superior to the division of ideas. The Divine is centred in itself and when it throws out ideas and activities does not divide itself or imprison itself in them, but holds them and their movement in its infinity; undivided, its whole self is behind each Idea and each movement arid at the same time behind all of them together. Held by it, each spontaneously works itself out, not through a separate act of will, but by the general force of consciousness behind it; if to us there seems to be a concentration of divine Will and Knowledge in each, it is a multiple arid equal and not an exclusive concentration, and the reality of it is rather a free and spontaneous working in a self-gathered unity and infinity. The soul which has risen to the divine Samadhi participates in the measure of its attainment in this reversed condition of things, -the true condition, for that which is the reverse of our mentality is the truth. It is for this reason that, as is said in the ancient books, the man who has arrived at Self-possession attains spontaneously without the need of concentration in thought and effort the knowledge or the result which the Idea or the Will in him moves out to embrace.
8:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect309. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
9:This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
2.04 - Positive Aspects of the Mother-Complex, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
sequently attained a more dignified status in the Beyond, and
very important offerings are made to him. 2
2.04 - The Divine and the Undivine, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nature. In our human consciousness there is the image of an ideal truth of being, a divine nature, an incipient godhead: in relation to that higher truth our present state of imperfection can be relatively described as an undivine life and the conditions of the world from which we start as undivine conditions; the imperfections are the indication given to us that they are there as first disguises, not as the intended expression of the divine being and the divine nature. It is a Power within us, the concealed Divinity, that has lit the flame of aspiration, pictures the image of the ideal, keeps alive our discontent and pushes us to throw off the disguise and to reveal or, in the Vedic phrase, to form and disclose the Godhead in the manifest spirit, mind, life and body of this terrestrial creature. Our present nature can only be transitional, our imperfect status a starting-point and opportunity for the achievement of another higher, wider and greater that shall be divine and perfect not only by the secret spirit within it but in its manifest and most outward form of existence.
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.
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Reality must be constantly determining or at least sanctioning its phenomena and operations: for there can be no independent power, no Nature not derived from the original and eternal SelfExistence. If it does no more, it must still be originating or determining the universe through the mere fact of its conscious omnipresence. It is, no doubt, a truth of spiritual experience that there is a status of peace and silence in the Infinite behind the
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The strangeness of the play diminishes, the paradox loses its edge of sharpness if we discover that, although fixed grades exist each with its appropriate order of nature, they are only firm steps for a progressive ascent of the souls embodied in forms of matter, a progressive divine manifestation which rises from the inconscient to the superconscient or all-conscient status with the human consciousness as its decisive point of transition. Imperfection becomes then a necessary term of the manifestation: for, since all the divine nature is concealed but present in the
Inconscient, it must be gradually delivered out of it; this graduation necessitates a partial unfolding, and this partial character or incompleteness of the unfolding necessitates imperfection.
2.05 - On Poetry, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! But the Rishis are not jana sdhraa ordinary people; they lived apart and had reached a very high spiritual status. Is Kalelkar himself understood by the masses?
Disciple: I believe, formerly, Tagore had not got this idea of jana sdhraa.
2.05 - The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Dream is felt to be unreal, first, because it ceases and has no farther validity when we pass from one status of consciousness to another which is our normal status. But this is not by itself a sufficient reason: for it may well be that there are different states of consciousness each with its own realities; if the consciousness of one state of things fades back and its contents are lost or, even when caught in memory, seem to be illusory as soon as we pass into another state, that would be perfectly normal, but it would not prove the reality of the state in which we now are and the unreality of the other which we have left behind us. If earth circumstances begin to seem unreal to a soul passing into a different world or another plane of consciousness, that would not prove their unreality; similarly, the fact that world-existence seems unreal to us when we pass into the spiritual silence or into some Nirvana, does not of itself prove that the cosmos was all the time an illusion. The world is real to the consciousness dwelling in it, an unconditioned existence is real to the consciousness absorbed in Nirvana; that is all that is established.
But the second reason for refusing credit to our sleep experience
2.05 - The Divine Truth and Way, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
name of universe, all this immense sum of motion to which we can fix no limits and vainly seek in its forms and movements for any stable reality, any status, level and point of cosmic leverage, has been spun out, shaped, extended by this highest
Infinite, founded upon this ineffable supracosmic Mystery. It is founded upon a self-formulation which is itself unmanifest and unthinkable. All this mass of becomings always changing and in motion, all these creatures, existences, things, breathing and living forms cannot contain him either in their sum or in their separate existence. He is not in them; it is not in them or by them that he lives, moves or has his being, - God is not the Becoming. It is they that are in him, it is they that live and move in him and draw their truth from him; they are his becomings, he is their being.1 In the unthinkable timeless and spaceless infinity of his existence he has extended this minor phenomenon of a boundless universe in an endless space and time.
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Those who are great-souled, who are not shut up in their idea of ego, who open themselves to the indwelling Divinity, know that the secret spirit in man which appears here bounded by the limited human nature, is the same ineffable splendour which we worship beyond as the supreme Godhead. They become aware of the highest status of him in which he is master and lord of all existences and yet see that in each existence he is still the supreme Deity and the indwelling Godhead. All the rest is a selflimitation for the manifesting of the variations of Nature in the cosmos. They see too that as it is his Nature which has become all that is in the universe, everything here is in its inner fact nothing but one Divine, all is Vasudeva, and they worship him not only as the supreme Godhead beyond, but here in the world, in his oneness and in every separate being. They see this truth and in this truth they live and act; him they adore, live, serve both as the Transcendent of things and as God in the world and as the Godhead in all that is, serve him with works of sacrifice, seek him out by knowledge, see nothing else but him everywhere and lift their whole being to him both in its self and in all its inward and outward nature. This they know to be the large and perfect way; for it is the way of the whole truth of the one supreme and universal and individual Godhead.4
Gita, IX. 4-11, 13-15, 34.
2.06 - Reality and the Cosmic Illusion, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Existence in a world of Matter. This original Reality might be a cosmic spiritual Existence, a Pantheos, or it might have some other status; but in any case there would be, not a universal illusion or mere phenomenon, but a true universe.
In the classical theory of Illusionism a sole and supreme
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Maya-force, some power of Brahman's consciousness, - for it is only a consciousness that can see or create an illusion and there cannot be another original or originating consciousness than that of Brahman. But since Brahman is also self-aware for ever, there must be a double status of Brahman-Consciousness, one conscious of the sole Reality, the other conscious of the unrealities to which by its creative perception of them it gives some kind of apparent existence. These unrealities cannot be made of the substance of the Reality, for then they also must be real. In this view one cannot accept the assertion of the Upanishads that
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These solutions then must be put aside as untenable, unless we modify our first view of the Reality and concede to it a power of manifold status of consciousness or a power of manifold status of existence.
But, again, the dual consciousness, if we admit it, cannot be explained as a dual power of Knowledge-Ignorance valid
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Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos; - this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the
Reality and the Cosmic Illusion
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support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya. As a man in deep sleep passes into dreams in which he experiences self-constructed unstable structures of name, form, relation, happenings, and in the waking state externalises himself in the more apparently stable but yet transient structures of the physical consciousness, so the Self develops out of a state of massed consciousness its subjective and its objective cosmic experience. But the waking state is not a true waking from this original and causal sleep; it is only a full emergence into a gross external and objective sense of the positive reality of objects of consciousness as opposed to the subtle subjective dreamawareness of those objects: the true waking is a withdrawal from both objective and subjective consciousness and from the massed causal Intelligence into the superconscience superior to all consciousness; for all consciousness and all unconsciousness is Maya. Here, we may say, Maya is real because it is the self's experience of the Self, something of the Self enters into it, is affected by its happenings because it accepts them, believes in them, they are to it real experiences, creations out of its conscious being; but it is unreal because it is a sleep state, a dream state, an eventually transient waking state, not the true status of the superconscient Reality. Here there is no actual dichotomy of being itself, but there is a multiplicity of status of the one
Being; there is no original dual consciousness implying a Will in the Uncreated to create illusory things out of non-existence, but there is One Being in states of superconscience and consciousness each with its own nature of self-experience. But the lower states, although they have a reality, are yet qualified by a building and seeing of subjective self-constructions which are not the Real.
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It may be noted, however, that nowhere in the Upanishads is it actually laid down that the threefold status is a condition of illusion or the creation of an unreality; it is constantly affirmed that all this that is, - this universe we are now supposing to
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The Brahman becomes all these beings; all beings must be seen in the Self, the Reality, and the Reality must be seen in them, the Reality must be seen as being actually all these beings; for not only the Self is Brahman, but all is the Self, all this that is is the Brahman, the Reality. That emphatic asseveration leaves no room for an illusory Maya; but still the insistent denial that there is anything other than or separate from the experiencing self, certain phrases used and the description of two of the states of consciousness as sleep and dream may be taken as if they annulled the emphasis on the universal Reality; these passages open the gates to the illusionist idea and have been made the foundation for an uncompromising system of that nature. If we take this fourfold status as a figure of the Self passing from its superconscient state, where there is no subject or object, into a luminous trance in which superconscience becomes a massed consciousness out of which the subjective status of being and the objective come into emergence, then we get according to our view of things either a possible process of illusionary creation or a process of creative Self-knowledge and All-knowledge.
In fact, if we can judge from the description of the three lower states of Self as the all-wise Intelligence,5 the Seer of the subtle and the Seer of the gross material existence, this sleep state and this dream state seem to be figurative names for the superconscient and the subliminal which are behind and beyond our waking status; they are so named and figured because it is through dream and sleep - or trance which can be regarded
5 Prajna. Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states very positively that
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as a kind of dream or sleep - that the surface mental consciousness normally passes out of the perception of objective things into the inner subliminal and the superior supramental or overmental status. In that inner condition it sees the supraphysical realities in transcribing figures of dream or vision or, in the superior status, it loses itself in a massed consciousness of which it can receive no thought or image. It is through this subliminal and this superconscient condition that we can pass into the supreme superconscience of the highest state of selfbeing. If we make the transition, not through dream trance or sleep trance, but through a spiritual awakening into these higher states, we become aware in all of them of the one omnipresent
Reality; there need be no perception of an illusionary Maya, there is only an experience of the passage from Mind to what is beyond it so that our mental structure of the universe ceases to be valid and another reality of it is substituted for the ignorant mental knowledge. In this transition it is possible to be awake to all the states of being together in a harmonised and unified experience and to see the Reality everywhere. But if we plunge by a trance of exclusive concentration into a mystic sleep state or pass abruptly in waking Mind into a state belonging to the
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it has no such force of certitude or illuminating convincingness effectively curing the improbability that its acceptance would be obligatory on the intelligence. The theory of the cosmic Illusion gets rid of an original contradiction, a problem and mystery which may be otherwise soluble, by erecting another contradiction, a new problem and mystery which is irreconcilable in its terms and insoluble. For we start with the conception or experience of an absolute Reality which is in its nature eternally one, supracosmic, static, immobile, immutable, self-aware of its pure existence, and a phenomenon of cosmos, dynamism, motion, mutability, modifications of the original pure existence, differentiation, infinite multiplicity. This phenomenon is got rid of by declaring it to be a perpetual Illusion, Maya. But this brings in, in effect, a self-contradictory dual status of consciousness of the
One to annul a self-contradictory dual status of being of the One.
A phenomenal truth of multiplicity of the One is annulled by setting up a conceptual falsehood in the One creating an unreal multiplicity. The One for ever self-aware of its pure existence entertains a perpetual imagination or illusory construction of itself as an infinite multiplicity of ignorant and suffering beings unaware of self who have to wake one by one to awareness of self and cease individually to be.
In face of this solution of a perplexity by a new perplexity we begin to suspect that our original premiss must have been somewhere incomplete, - not an error, but only a first statement and indispensable foundation. We begin to envisage the Reality as an eternal oneness, status, immutable essence of pure existence supporting an eternal dynamis, motion, infinite multiplicity and diversity of itself. The immutable status of oneness brings out of itself the dynamis, motion and multiplicity, - the dynamis, motion and multiplicity not abrogating but bringing into relief the eternal and infinite oneness. If the consciousness of Brahman can be dual in status or action or even manifold, there seems to be no reason why Brahman should be incapable of a dual status or a manifold real self-experience of its being. The cosmic consciousness would then be, not a creative Illusion, but an experience of some truth of the Absolute. This explanation, if
Reality and the Cosmic Illusion
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It is difficult to see why, once any reality is conceded to ourselves and to the universe, it should not be a true reality within its limits. It may be admitted that the manifestation must be on its surface a more restricted reality than the Manifested; our universe is, we may say, one of the rhythms of Brahman and not, except in its essential being, the whole reality: but that is not a sufficient reason for it to be set aside as unreal. It is no doubt so felt by mind withdrawing from itself and its structures: but this is only because the mind is an instrument of Ignorance and, when it withdraws from its constructions, from its ignorant and imperfect picture of the universe, it is impelled to regard them as nothing more than its own fictions and formations, unfounded, unreal; the gulf between its ignorance and the supreme Truth and Knowledge disables it from discovering the true connections of the transcendent Reality and the cosmic Reality. In a higher status of consciousness the difficulty disappears, the connection
Reality and the Cosmic Illusion
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Absolute, the imposition of the stigma of unreal reality on the pragmatic truth of things because it is pragmatic, is difficult to accept; for the pragmatic truth is after all not something quite other, quite separate and unconnected with spiritual truth, it is a result of the energy or a motion of the dynamic activity of the Spirit. A distinction must, no doubt, be made between the two, but the idea of an entire opposition can rest only on the postulate that a silent and quiescent status is the Eternal's true and whole being; but in that case we must conclude that there is nothing dynamic in the Absolute and all dynamism is a contradiction of the supreme nature of the Divine and Eternal.
But if a temporal or cosmic reality of any kind exists, there must be a power, an inherent dynamic force of the Absolute which brought it into being, and there is no reason to suppose that the power of the Absolute can do nothing but create illusions.
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At the basis of the refusal to recognise the universe as real is the concept or experience of the Reality as immutable, featureless, non-active and realised through a consciousness that has itself fallen into a status of silence and is immobile. The universe is a result of dynamis in movement, it is force of being throwing itself out in action, energy at work, whether that energy be conceptive or mechanical or a spiritual, mental, vital or
Reality and the Cosmic Illusion
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Reality, therefore unreal. But as a concept this position of the thought has no inevitability; there is no reason why we should not conceive of the Reality as at once static and dynamic. It is perfectly rational to suppose that the eternal status of being of the Reality contains in it an eternal force of being, and this dynamis must necessarily carry in itself a power of action and movement, a kinesis; both status of being and movement of being can be real. There is no reason either why they should not be simultaneous; on the contrary, simultaneity is demanded, - for all energy, all kinetic action has to support itself on status or by status if it is to be effective or creative; otherwise there will be no solidity of anything created, only a constant whirl without any formation: status of being, form of being are necessary to kinesis of being. Even if energy be the primal reality, as it seems to be in the material world, still it has to create status of itself, lasting forms, duration of beings in order to have a support for its action: the status may be temporary, it may be only a balance or equilibrium of substance created and maintained by a constant kinesis, but while it endures it is real and, after it ceases, we still regard it as something that was real. The principle of a supporting status for action is a permanent principle, and its action is constant in Time-eternity. When we discover the stable
Reality underlying all this movement of energy and this creation of forms, we do indeed perceive that the status of created forms is only temporary; there is a stability of repetition of the kinesis in a same persistent action and figure of movement which maintains substance of being in stable form of itself: but this stability is created, and the one permanent and self-existent status is that of the eternal Being whose Energy erected the forms. But we need not therefore conclude that the temporary forms are unreal; for the energy of the being is real and the forms made by it are forms of the being. In any case the status of the being and the eternal dynamis of the being are both real, and they are simultaneous; the status admits of action of dynamis and the action does not abrogate the status. We must therefore conclude that eternal
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status and eternal dynamis are both true of the Reality which itself surpasses both status and dynamis; the immobile and the mobile Brahman are both the same Reality.
But in experience we find that for us it is, normally, a quiescence that brings in the stable realisation of the eternal and the infinite: it is in silence or quietude that we feel most firmly the
Something that is behind the world shown to us by our mind and senses. Our cognitive action of thought, our action of life and being seem to overlay the truth, the reality; they grasp the finite but not the infinite, they deal with the temporal and not the eternal Real. It is reasoned that this is so because all action, all creation, all determining perception limits; it does not embrace or grasp the Reality, and its constructions disappear when we enter into the indivisible and indeterminable consciousness of the Real: these constructions are unreal in eternity, however real they may seem or be in Time. Action leads to ignorance, to the created and finite; kinesis and creation are a contradiction of the immutable Reality, the pure uncreated Existence. But this reasoning is not wholly valid because it is looking at perception and action only as they are in our mental cognition of the world and its movement; but that is the experience of our surface being regarding things from its shifting motion in Time, a regard itself superficial, fragmentary and delimited, not total, not plunging into the inner sense of things. In fact we find that action need not bind or limit, if we get out of this moment-cognition into a status of cognition of the eternal proper to the true consciousness.
Action does not bind or limit the liberated man; action does not bind or limit the Eternal: but we can go farther and say that action does not bind or limit our own true being at all. Action has no such effect on the spiritual Person or Purusha or on the psychic entity within us, it binds or limits only the surface constructed personality. This personality is a temporary expression of our self-being, a changing form of it, empowered to exist by it, dependent on it for substance and endurance, - temporary, but not unreal. Our thought and action are means for this expression of ourselves and, as the expression is incomplete and evolutive, as it is a development of our natural being in Time, thought
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one with the Transcendent in its essence of being and its essence of nature. In the view of this unitarian comprehensive seeing there is nothing contradictory in a formless Essence of being that carries a multitude of forms, or in a status of the Infinite supporting a kinesis of the Infinite, or in an infinite Oneness expressing itself in a multiplicity of beings and aspects and powers and movements, for they are beings and aspects and powers and movements of the One. A world-creation on this basis is a perfectly natural and normal and inevitable movement which in itself raises no problem, since it is exactly what one must expect in an action of the Infinite. All the intellectual problem and difficulty is raised by the finite reason cutting, separating, opposing the power of the Infinite to its being, its kinesis to its status, its natural multiplicity to its essential oneness, segmenting self, opposing Spirit to Nature. To understand truly the world-process of the Infinite and the Time-process of the
Eternal, the consciousness must pass beyond this finite reason and the finite sense to a larger reason and spiritual sense in touch with the consciousness of the Infinite and responsive to the logic of the Infinite which is the very logic of being itself and arises inevitably from its self-operation of its own realities, a logic whose sequences are not the steps of thought but the steps of existence.
But what has been thus described, it may be said, is only a cosmic consciousness and there is the Absolute: the Absolute cannot be limited; since universe and individual limit and divide the Absolute, they must be unreal. It is self-evident indeed that the Absolute cannot be limited; it can be limited neither by formlessness nor by form, neither by unity nor by multiplicity, neither by immobile status nor by dynamic mobility. If it manifests form, form cannot limit it; if it manifests multiplicity, multiplicity cannot divide it; if it manifests motion and becoming, motion cannot perturb nor becoming change it: it cannot be limited any more than it can be exhausted by self-creation. Even material things have this superiority to their manifestation; earth is not limited by the vessels made from it, nor air by the winds that move in it, nor the sea by the waves that rise on its surface. This impression
Reality and the Cosmic Illusion
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Beauty, through an absolute of Force, through an absolute of peace or silence. It can be approached through an inexpressible absolute of being or of consciousness, or of power of being, or of delight of being, or through a supreme experience in which these things become inexpressibly one; for we can enter into such an ineffable state and, plunged into it as if into a luminous abyss of existence, we can reach a superconscience which may be described as the gate of the Absolute. It is supposed that it is only through a negation of individual and cosmos that we can enter into the Absolute. But in fact the individual need only deny his own small separate ego-existence; he can approach the Absolute through a sublimation of his spiritual individuality taking up the cosmos into himself and transcending it; or he may negate himself altogether, but even so it is still the individual who by self-exceeding enters into the Absolute. He may enter also by a sublimation of his being into a supreme existence or super-existence, by a sublimation of his consciousness into a supreme consciousness or superconscience, by a sublimation of his and all delight of being into a super-delight or supreme ecstasy. He can make the approach through an ascension in which he enters into cosmic consciousness, assumes it into himself and raises himself and it into a state of being in which oneness and multiplicity are in perfect harmony and unison in a supreme status of manifestation where all are in each and each in all
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and all in the one without any determining individuation - for the dynamic identity and mutuality have become complete; on the path of affirmation it is this status of the manifestation that is nearest to the Absolute. This paradox of an Absolute which can be realised through an absolute negation and through an absolute affirmation, in many ways, can only be accounted for to the reason if it is a supreme Existence which is so far above our notion and experience of existence that it can correspond to our negation of it, to our notion and experience of nonexistence; but also, since all that exists is That, whatever its degree of manifestation, it is itself the supreme of all things and can be approached through supreme affirmations as through supreme negations. The Absolute is the ineffable x overtopping and underlying and immanent and essential in all that we can call existence or non-existence.
It is our first premiss that the Absolute is the supreme reality; but the issue is whether all else that we experience is real or unreal. A distinction is sometimes made between being and existence, and it is supposed that being is real but existence or what manifests as such is unreal. But this can stand only if there is a rigid distinction, a cut and separation between the uncreated Eternal and created existences; the uncreated Being can then be taken as alone real. This conclusion does not follow if what exists is form of Being and substance of Being; it would be unreal only if it were a form of Non-Being, asat, created out of the Void, sunya. The states of existence through which we approach and enter into the Absolute must have their truth, for the untrue and unreal cannot lead into the Real: but also what issues from the Absolute, what the Eternal supports and informs and manifests in itself, must have a reality. There is the unmanifest and there is the manifestation, but a manifestation of the Real must itself be real; there is the Timeless and there is the process of things in Time, but nothing can appear in Time unless it has a basis in the timeless Reality. If my self and spirit are real, my thoughts, feelings, powers of all kinds, which are its expressions, cannot be unreal; my body, which is the form it puts out in itself and which at the same time it inhabits, cannot be a
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All manifestation depends upon being, but also upon consciousness and its power or degree; for as is the status of consciousness, so will be the status of being. Even the Inconscient is a status and power of involved consciousness in which being is plunged into another and opposite state of nonmanifestation resembling non-existence so that out of it all in the material universe may be manifested; so too the superconscient is consciousness taken up into an absolute of being. For there is a superconscient status in which consciousness seems to be luminously involved in being and as if unaware of itself; all consciousness of being, all knowledge, self-vision, force of being, seem to emerge from that involved state or to appear in it: this emergence, in our view of it, may appear to be an emergence into a lesser reality, but in fact both the superconscience and the consciousness are and regard the same Real. There is also a status of the Supreme in which no distinction can be made between being and consciousness, - for they are too much one there to be thus differentiated, - but this supreme status of being is also a supreme status of the power of being and therefore of the power of consciousness; for the force of being and the force of its consciousness are one there and cannot be separated: it is this unification of eternal Being with the eternal
Consciousness-Force that is the status of the supreme Ishwara, and its force of being is the dynamis of the Absolute. This status is not a negation of cosmos; it carries in itself the essence and power of all cosmic existence.
But still unreality is a fact of cosmic existence, and if all is the Brahman, the Reality, we have to account for this element of unreality in the Real. If the unreal is not a fact of being, it must be an act or a formation of consciousness, and is there not
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then a status or degree of consciousness in which its acts and formations are wholly or partly unreal? If this unreality cannot be attri buted to an original cosmic Illusion, to Maya, there is still in the universe itself a power of illusion of Ignorance. It is in the power of the Mind to conceive things that are not real, it is in its power even to create things that are not real or not wholly real; its very view of itself and universe is a construction that is not wholly real or wholly unreal. Where does this element of unreality begin and where does it stop, and what is its cause and what ensues on the removal of both the cause and the consequence? Even if all cosmic existence is not in itself unreal, cannot that description be applied to the world of Ignorance in which we live, this world of constant change and birth and death and frustration and suffering, and does not the removal of the Ignorance abolish for us the reality of the world which it creates, or is not a departure out of it the natural and only issue? This would be valid, if our ignorance were a pure ignorance without any element of truth or knowledge in it. But in fact our consciousness is a mixture of the true and the false; its acts and creations are not a pure invention, a baseless structure. The structure it builds, its form of things or form of the universe, is not a mixture of reality and the unreal so much as a half comprehension, a half expression of the real, and, since all consciousness is force and therefore potentially creative, our ignorance has the result of wrong creation, wrong manifestation, wrong action or misconceived and misdirected energy of the being. All world-existence is manifestation, but our ignorance is the agent of a partial, limited and ignorant manifestation, - in part an expression but in part also a disguise of the original being, consciousness and delight of existence. If this state of things is permanent and unalterable, if our world must always move in this circle, if some Ignorance is the cause of all things and all action here and not a condition and circumstance, then indeed the cessation of individual ignorance could only come by an escape of the individual from world-being, and a cessation of the cosmic ignorance would be the destruction of world-being.
But if this world has at its root an evolutionary principle, if
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Being and Consciousness, but out of a status of Inconscience and apparent Non-Existence; our ignorance itself is something that has appeared as if with difficulty and struggle out of the
Inconscience.
2.06 - Works Devotion and Knowledge, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Inhabitant in all to that supernal Person who in his supreme status is beyond all habitation. He looks up through the Lord manifested in the universe to the Supreme who exceeds and rules all his manifestation. Thus he arises through a limitless unfolding of knowledge and upward vision and aspiration to that to which he has turned with an all-compelling integrality, sarvabhavena.
This integral turning of the soul Godwards bases royally the Gita's synthesis of knowledge and works and devotion. To know God thus integrally is to know him as One in the self and in all manifestation and beyond all manifestation, - and all this unitedly and at once. And yet even so to know him is not enough unless it is accompanied by an intense uplifting of the heart and soul Godwards, unless it kindles a one-pointed and at the same time all-embracing love, adoration, aspiration. Indeed the knowledge which is not companioned by an aspiration and vivified by an uplifting is no true knowledge, for it can be only an intellectual seeing and a barren cognitive endeavour. The vision of God brings infallibly the adoration and passionate seeking of the Divine, - a passion for the Divine in his self-existent being, but also for the Divine in ourselves and for the Divine in all that is. To know with the intellect is simply to understand and may be an effective starting-point, - or, too, it may not be, and it will not be if there is no sincerity in the knowledge, no urge towards inner realisation in the will, no power upon the soul, no call in the spirit: for that would mean that the brain has
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God is the goal of his journey, a path in which there is no selflosing and a goal to which his wisely guided steps are surely arriving at every moment. He knows the Godhead as the master of his and all being, the upholder of his nature, the husb and of the nature-soul, its lover and cherisher, the inner witness of all his thoughts and actions. God is his house and country, the refuge of his seekings and desires, the wise and close and benignant friend of all beings. All birth and status and destruction of apparent existences is to his vision and experience the One who brings forward, maintains and withdraws his temporal selfmanifestation in its system of perpetual recurrences. He alone is the imperishable seed and origin of all that seem to be born and perish and their eternal resting-place in their non-manifestation.
It is he that burns in the heat of the sun and the flame; it is he who is the plenty of the rain and its withholding; he is all this physical Nature and her workings. Death is his mask and immortality is his self-revelation. All that we call existent is he and all that we look upon as non-existent still is there secret in the Infinite and is part of the mysterious being of the Ineffable.6
2.07 - On Congress and Politics, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: If you want to work in the village, you must take to a natural profession, go and settle down among the village people and be one of them. When they see that you are a practical man they will begin to trust you. If you go there and work hard for ten or fifteen years you will gain your status and you will be able to do something because they will be prepared to listen to you.
The parliamentary form would be hardly suitable for our people. Of course, it is not necessary that you should have today the same old forms. But you can take the line of evolution and follow the bent of the genius of the race.
2.07 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
N OUR scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit's own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real essence. All are powers of one Power of being and not other
1 IV. 2. 11.
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Ignorance. The status of becoming is inferior to the status of
Being, but still it is the Being that becomes all that is in the universe.
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This is the plenitude of the supreme divine self-knowledge; it is also the plenitude of the divine all-knowledge. Next, at the other pole of things, we see this consciousness dwelling upon apparent oppositions in itself, and the most extreme antinomy of all reaches its acme in what seems to us to be a complete nescience of itself, an effective, dynamic, creative Inconscience, though we know that this is merely a surface appearance and that the divine Knowledge works with a sovereign security and sureness within the operations of the Inconscient. Between these two oppositions and as a mediary term we see Consciousness working with a partial, limited self-awareness which is equally superficial, for behind it and acting through it is the divine AllKnowledge. Here in its intermediate status, it seems to be a standing compromise between the two opposites, between the supreme Consciousness and the Nescience, but may prove rather in a larger view of our data to be an incomplete emergence of the Knowledge to the surface. This compromise or imperfect emergence we call the Ignorance, from our own point of view, because ignorance is our own characteristic way of the soul's self-withholding of complete self-knowledge. The origin of these three poises of the power of consciousness and their exact relation is what we have, if possible, to discover.
If we discovered that Ignorance and Knowledge were two independent powers of Consciousness, it might then be that we would have to pursue their difference up to the highest point
2.08 - God in Power of Becoming, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yogin, self-creations of this marvellous self-Creator. He is the unborn and the all-pervading Master of his own innumerable becomings in the universe, ajo vibhuh.; all things are his powers and effectuations in his self-Nature, vibhutis. He is the origin of all they are, their beginning; he is their support in their everchanging status, their middle; he is their end too, the culmination or the disintegration of each created thing in its cessation or its disappearance. He brings them out from his consciousness and is hidden in them, he withdraws them into his consciousness and they are hidden in him for a time or for ever. What is apparent to us is only a power of becoming of the One: what disappears from our sense and vision is effect of that power of becoming of the One. All classes, genera, species, individuals are such vibhutis. But since it is through power in his becoming that he is apparent to us, he is especially apparent in whatever is of a pre-eminent value or seems to act with a powerful and pre-eminent force. And therefore in each kind of being we can see him most in those in whom the power of nature of that kind reaches its highest, its leading, its most effectively selfrevealing manifestation. These are in a special sense Vibhutis.
Yet the highest power and manifestation is only a very partial revelation of the Infinite; even the whole universe is informed by only one degree of his greatness, illumined by one ray of his splendour, glorious with a faint hint of his delight and beauty.
2.08 - Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
N ANY survey of the dual character of our consciousness we have first to look at the Ignorance, - for Ignorance trying to turn into Knowledge is our normal status. To begin with, it is necessary to consider some of the essential movements of this partial awareness of self and things which works in us as a mediator between the complete self-knowledge and all-knowledge and the complete Inconscience, and, from that starting-point, find its relation to the greater Consciousness below our surface.
There is a line of thought in which great stress is laid upon the action of memory: it has even been said that Memory is the
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But, in truth, our sharp distinctions made between the without and the within, the present and the past self-consciousness are tricks of the limited unstable action of mind. Behind the mind and using it as its own surface activity there is a stable consciousness in which there is no binding conceptual division between itself in the present and itself in the past and future; and yet it knows itself in Time, in the present, past and future, but at once, with an undivided view which embraces all the mobile experiences of the Time-self and holds them on the foundation of the immobile timeless self. This consciousness we can become aware of when we draw back from the mind and its activities or when these fall silent. But we see first its immobile status, and if we regard only the immobility of the self, we may say of it that it is not only timeless, but actionless, without movement of idea, thought, imagination, memory, will, self-sufficient, selfabsorbed and therefore void of all action of the universe. That then becomes alone real to us and the rest a vain symbolising in non-existent forms - or forms corresponding to nothing truly existent - and therefore a dream. But this self-absorption is only
Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance
2.08 - On Non-Violence, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: The status of political prisoners, better food, ventilation, clothing.
Sri Aurobindo: That is the difficulty. This kind of passive resistance fails to bring pressure upon the other party after some time. At the most it may make your opponent morally uncomfortable, that too if he has a certain kind of temperament.
2.1.01 - God The One Reality, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Alpha and X and Omega of things or if not absolutely It at any rate its status and its dynamis, the law of its being and the law of its nature quite as deeply and more deeply than Science can show us the law and process of the physical universe.
For the moment let us affirm only this result that this spiritual search and knowledge leads us beyond the phenomenon which apparently contradicts it to that which beyond the phenomenon brings us to the Divine Eternal and Infinite.
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There is no incompatibility between the Eternal and existence in Time. Time and the Timeless are the same Eternity in a self-contained status and a self-developing movement. The
Timeless is eternal and knows itself in an everlasting present;
21.01 - The Mother The Nature of Her Work, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As I said, she spent the first part of her life .in France. But why France? There is a meaning in the choice. We know now the meaning, the fundamental meaning of her life, her mission and her work. She came to bring a new light. She wanted a new world, not the old world with its old nature and old culture, but a new world, a new human race. She brought with her the new light that is to re-create, re-shape man and the world. What was the relation between the new man and France? For the new light to come and manifest, you have first to receive it in your mind, that is to say you must see and recognise that it is a new light and ask for it. And mind is the first or the topmost receptacle in man. You may remember here the opening line of Dhammapadacontaining the epitome of Buddha's teaching: "Manopubbangama dhamma"- mind is the foremost of all human functions. Mind surpasses all, embraces all. Now, the light as it comes down and enters you, the first thing it touches is your head, that is, your mind: you see it, you are conscious of it. France represents today just this mind of humanity at its best, the flowering of its culture and civilisation. She was born there so that the highest mind of the human race may receive that light through her. She passed her life there in the company of the elite, the most cultured people of the time, scientists, artists, poets, all of the highest and most refined status. She was there so that through her contact and association she could bring into them the new light. With this end in view she started a society, rather a group, and the name given to it was "Le cosmique".Cosmic means the whole world; in other words, what she was doing, what she was giving, was for the whole world, for all men, for East and West, for everybody. Also it means a cosmic or world-embracing consciousness. She was creating a new type of the mental world, through the highest mental development, to reach a still wider mind - beyond the individual egoistic mind. As I have said, the mind, the head, being the highest part in man, it is easy for man to receive the new light through his head first of all. You may remember here, in this connection, Sri Aurobindo's poem "The Golden Light": how it comes from above and first enters into the head, the brain. It illumines your thoughts, develops your understanding, widens it, deepens it and sharpens it. But understanding is not sufficient, you must love it, then only you begin to possess it. So the golden light enters your heart. Then it proceeds farther down towards a more concrete and active expression, it enters into the vital region as we call it. Lastly the golden light enters your feet, that is, possesses your physical limbs, it becomes concrete materially and present, as though solidified, in your very body: it builds the body beautiful.
The Mother thus brings the golden light into the head of humanity, the top rung of his consciousness, and that work of initiation, diksha,into the Life Divine she started in France. From France she went to Japan for the next stage of her work. In Japan she came to the Far East. She spent five years, five long years in that country. Japan is the land of the Zen system of meditation, that is to say, a special way of entering into an inner consciousness, not a rational mental consciousness but a gaze inward into an occult and more sensitive region. The Japanese as a nation represent indeed a very sensitive vitality, an artistic vitality that seeks order and beauty in life, in the mode of living. For the golden light to manifest and have its play in the physical world and possess its body as it were, a vitality of this kind is necessary to acquire it and hold it. The Japanese wrestlers are well-known for their vital strength, self-controlled strength; usually they possess, almost all of them, you must have noticed, in pictures at least, a big tummy, and it is, they believe, the store-house of vital strength. This does not mean that r advise you to develop a big paunch, on the contrary. However, even in physical activities, more than the mere physical strength, the vital strength is necessary. Yes, the Japanese have a vital, strong, controlled, ordered, sensitive. You may remember one or two Prayers of the Mother in her Prires et
21.02 - Gods and Men, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But from now on the procedure is different for we enter into another dimension or quality of reality. Here begins the world of the gods. The gods are, we may say, types of perfection. They have a consciousness quite different from that of the mind, it is not limited, it is global, each embodying a divine quality or qualities. Each is a special Power. On the human level the progress is that of a gradual movement forward and. upward, an ascension step by step. It is a movement of achievement or realisation by addition, accretion as it were. But you do not attain godhead or godhood in that way, in the same way as you seize and capture and possess a desired object: here you do not possess the gods, but they come and possess you, they descend and come into you. The Upanishad says: "He himself comes forward and unveils his own body." They are of such a different quality - different not only in degree but in kind, that you cannot by developing, increasing or amplifying the present attain that nature. That nature itself, as I said, is to descend and enter into you and make you its own mode of existence. Now, this is a new fulfilment for the human being to attain to the status of a god, to evolve oneself, to attune oneself so as to call by this affinity a divine being, a god, and to become a god. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the divine life, the Life Divine, the life of a god, it means that you become a god, not only realise the utmost human perfection possible as man but surpass man's humanity and call in and embody divinity. You may remember Ramakrishna making a distinction between two kinds of perfect human beings - one he calls Jivakoti, that is to say, human creatures who have the capacity to attain the final liberation. Usually, these humans are sufficient unto themselves, they do their own sadhana and attain siddhi and pass out. They do not come back. But the other category of beings who are called Ishwarakoti, that is to say, those who embody the divine nature, not only can save themselves but others also, they can bear the burden of imperfect human beings, they can go up and come down, pass from life to life even after liberation with ease, in order to continue the work of earth's global Freedom.
I have said, a god comes down and seizes you, you do not go up and take possession of a god. But perhaps it is only a mode of describing the same phenomenon. The god that you call upon to come into you is your presiding deity and it is there always over your head guiding you, helping you, befriending you throughout your cycles of spiritual evolution. This archetype of divinity that you are to become or that is to engulf you and be identified with you has been with you from the very beginning, coming closer and closer to you as you go on developing upward. Indeed the light-speck that you were originally, of which I spoke to you at the outset, is nothing but a spark of the same Divine Entity or Person come down into the material world.
2.1.02 - Nature The World-Manifestation, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A philosophy of change?1 But what is change? In ordinary parlance change means passage from one condition to another and that would seem to imply passage from one status to another status. The shoot changes into a tree, passes from the status of
These notes were written apropos of Bergson's "philosophy of change"; "you" below would refer to a proponent of this philosophy.
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shoot to the status of tree and there it stops; man passes from the status of young man to the status of old man and the only farther change possible to him is death or dissolution of his status. So it would seem that change is not something isolated which is the sole original and eternal reality, but it is something dependent on status, and if status were non-existent, change also could not exist. For we have to ask, when you speak of change as alone real, change of what, from what, to what? Without this "what" change could not be.
Change is evidently the change of some form or state of existence from one condition to another condition. Otherwise, what is it? Is it itself fundamental and absolute, not explicable or definable by any other term than itself, perceivable and intelligible as the sole reality by a naked intuition which feels and cries out "Change = reality" and then falls dumb and can say no more?
An object changes, a person changes, a condition of things changes. But can it be said that the object is no real object but only a continuity of change, or that a person is not a person but a continuity of change, a condition of things is not a condition and there are no things but there is only a continuity of change? This seems to be an illustration of the besetting sin of metaphysics - to exalt a word into a reality or an idea into a reality - without fathoming what is the reality which it tries to indicate. For to label with a word or name is not to fathom and to define, to erect a concept is not to fathom. Fathom for us then what is change before you ask us to accept it as the only reality. You may say I have fathomed it, I have seen it to be the one constant real, but do not ask me to define what it is; "listen rather in silence to the silence of Nature and you too will fathom". But what if, so listening, I fathom other realities than change - let us say, immutable being as well as mutable force, status as well as change? To prevent that you plunge into speech and not silence, into dialectics of the intellect instead of the undebatable certitudes of intuition, and so abandon your own methodology. If intuition alone is to be used, then you must give a place to my intuition as well as yours and all, however
Nature: The World-Manifestation
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In the world of our experience contradictories [are] often complements and necessary to each other's existence. Change is possible only if there is a status from which to change; but status again exists only as a step that pauses, a step in the continuous passage of change or a step on which change pauses before it passes on to another step in its creative passage. And behind this relation is a duality of eternal status and eternal motion and behind this duality is something that is neither status nor change but contains both as its aspects - and That is likely to be the true Reality.
Existence, Consciousness-Force, Bliss
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The essential mark of the descent of the consciousness from its highest grade in the supreme spirit is the constant diminution of the power of Sachchidananda, the intensity of its force, force of being, force of consciousness, force of bliss. The intensity of all these three in the supreme status is ineffable;
Nature: The World-Manifestation
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In experience even on the spiritual plane so long as we do not transcend the spirit in mind, there is a difference between peace and Ananda. Peace is the Divine static, Ananda the Divine dynamic. Peace is a negative-positive; it is positive of itself, of status, of eternity, of the essential, of the abstract-concrete, of force in rest. It is or tends to be negative of all that is less than itself, contradictory to itself or more than itself, of the dynamic, of action, of creation, of time and happening, of the substantial concrete, of force in motion. Or when it allows these things or even feels or supports them, it is with a certain disinterested separateness. It has essentially the character of the Witness Spirit or at the most of the disinterested Witness-Creator. Ananda is in its every fibre a positive of positives. It affirms and rejoices in all that is native to peace, but it affirms too and rejoices in all that peace negates or regards with a sovereign separateness. Ananda is an all embracing and creative force. There can be in the world's tangle of conflicting forces an Ananda of pain and suffering and in the full manifestation pain and suffering no longer remain themselves but are transformed into
Ananda. But these opposing differences prove in the end to be part of the separative mental creation, the disjunctive Maya in which we live. In supermind experience peace is always full
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For there status and dynamis are inseparable, rest and action affirm each other, essence and expression are one indivisible whole.
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2.1.03 - Man and Superman, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
At each capital step of Nature's ascent there is a reversal of consciousness in the evolving spirit. As when a climber turns on a summit to which he has laboured and looks down with an exalted and wider power of vision on all that was once above or on a level with him but is now below his feet, the evolutionary being not only transcends his past self, his former now exceeded status, but commands from a higher grade of self-experience and vision, with a new apprehending feeling or a new comprehending sight and effectuating power, in a greater system of values, all that was once his own consciousness but is now below his tops and belongs to an inferior creation. This reversal is the sign of a decisive victory and the seal of a radical progress in Nature.
The new consciousness attained in the spiritual evolution is always higher in grade and power, always larger, more comprehensive, wider in sight and feeling, richer and finer in faculties, more complex, organic, dominating than the consciousness that was once our own but is now left behind us. There are greater breadths and spaces, heights before impossible, unexpected depths and intimacies. There is a luminous expansion
21.03 - The Double Ladder, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is no question here of any human intervention - of the infusion of man's will and thought-formation. That is another subject altogether. Here I am speaking of the inherent intrinsic spiritual status or even divinity of a material body - Its dravya-guna- that which a lingam or a Kaaba possesses.
So we see in the system of creation two lines of growth or development or expression - a double ladder, one mounting up from below and the other coming down from above. They are more like, they have been described as, genealogical trees, the upward rising tree is the tree of evolution starting from matter, the root substance, growing gradually into the trunk, its multiple branches and sub-branches spreading up and abroad, each new shoot branching out is represented by the advent of a new form of being or species or creature. We all know the gradations from the unformed, ill-formed types to better and better formed types till we reach man. On the other hand, the other tree is the Vedic Ashwattha tree that has its roots up in the supreme Space and sends down gradually its branches below. The unity at the origin gradually fissuring, dividing and subdividing and multiplying itself, at the same time the multiplied products becoming more and more distinct and definite, even rigid and limited, although more and more concrete and firm in form and function. In this line of devolution, the forms or the formations and emanations that have appeared and manifested, I have named in a generic way, gods. Their function is to infuse themselves wherever needed into the formations that have been prepared by the upward surge of the evolutionary movement from below and thus help fulfil that urge. Each type of divinity at the appropriate stage and occasion comes forward, embodies itself so to say, in the external creative movement. We know this process, although somewhat symbolically described, in the famous song of Jayadeva describing the Avataras.
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The gods are approaching to change humanity but perhaps humanity also will bring about a new change in the status of the gods themselves. They may lose something of their typal stability or fixity and attain a new human flexibility. The Gitaspeaks, of course in its own way, of man increasing the gods and the gods also increasing man. Perhaps the divinity that man attains will increase the value of the Divinity itself. We remember the line from Savitri:
The godhead greater by a human fate. ||2.17||
2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In its essence the inner being's knowledge has the same elements as the outer mind's surface knowledge, but there is between them the difference between a half blindness and a greater clarity of consciousness and vision due to a more direct and powerful instrumentation and a better arrangement of the elements of knowledge. Knowledge by identity, on the surface a vague inherent sense of our self-existence and a partial identification with our inner movements, can here deepen and enlarge itself from that indistinct essential perception and limited sensation to a clear and direct intrinsic awareness of the whole entity within: we can enter into possession of our whole conscious mental being and life being and arrive at a close intimacy of direct penetrating and enveloping contact with the total movements of our mental and vital energy; we meet clearly and closely and are - but more freely and understandingly - all the becomings of ourself, the whole self-expression of the Purusha on the present levels of our nature. But also there is or can be along with this intimacy of knowledge a detached observation of the actions of the nature by the Purusha and a great possibility, through this double status of knowledge, of a complete control and understanding. All the movements of the surface being can be seen with a complete detachment, but also with a direct sight in the consciousness by which the self-delusions and mistakes of self of the outer consciousness can be dispelled; there is a keener mental vision, a clearer and more accurate mental feeling of our subjective becoming, a vision which at once knows, commands and controls the whole nature. If the psychic and mental parts in us are strong, the vital comes under mastery and direction to an extent hardly possible to the surface mentality; even the body and the physical energies can be taken up by the inner mind and will and turned into a more plastic instrumentation of the soul, the psychic being. On the other hand, if the mental and
Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge
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seems to be dreamless sleep or a blind trance or an annulment of awareness or an absence. In the supreme timeless status where consciousness is one with being and immobile, it is not a separate reality, but simply and purely the self-awareness inherent in existence. There is no need of knowledge nor is there any operation of knowledge. Being is self-evident to itself: it does not need to look at itself in order to know itself or learn that it is. But if this is evidently true of pure existence, it is also true of the primal
All-Existence; for just as spiritual Self-existence is intrinsically aware of its self, so it is intrinsically aware of all that is in its being: this is not by an act of knowledge formulated in a selfregard, a self-observation, but by the same inherent awareness; it is intrinsically all-conscious of all that is by the very fact that all is itself. Thus conscious of its timeless self-existence, the Spirit, the Being is aware in the same way - intrinsically, absolutely, totally, without any need of a look or act of knowledge, because it is all, - of Time-Existence and of all that is in Time. This is the essential awareness by identity; if applied to cosmic existence, it would mean an essential self-evident automatic consciousness of universe by the Spirit because it is everything and everything is its being.
But there is another status of spiritual awareness which seems to us to be a development from this state and power of pure self-consciousness, perhaps even a first departure, but is in fact normal and intimate to it; for the awareness by identity is always the very stuff of all the Spirit's self-knowledge, but it admits within itself, without changing or modifying its own eternal nature, a subordinate and simultaneous awareness by inclusion and by indwelling. The Being, the Self-existent sees all existences in its one existence; it contains them all and knows them as being of its being, consciousness of its consciousness, power of its power, bliss of its bliss; it is at the same time, necessarily, the Self in them and knows all in them by its pervadingly indwelling selfness: but still all this awareness exists intrinsically, self-evidently, automatically, without the need of any act, regard or operation of knowledge; for knowledge here is not an act, but a state pure, perpetual and inherent. At the
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"He in whom the Self has become all existences", - inclusion, indwelling and identity: but in the fundamental consciousness this seeing is a spiritual self-sense, a seeing that is self-light of being, not a separative regard or a regard upon self turning that self into object. But in this fundamental self-experience a regard of consciousness can manifest which, though inherently possible, an inevitably self-contained power of spirit, is not a first active element of the absorbed intrinsic self-luminousness and self-evidence of the supreme consciousness. This regard belongs to or brings in another status of the supreme spiritual consciousness, a status in which knowledge as we know it begins; there is a state of consciousness and in it, intimate to it there is an act of knowing: the Spirit regards itself, it becomes the knower and the known, in a way the subject and object - or rather the subject-object in one - of its own self-knowledge.
But this regard, this knowledge is still intrinsic, still self-evident, an act of identity; there is no beginning of what we experience as separative knowledge.
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.
2.11 - The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
will and knowledge, has ascended out of the Inconscient and dwells in the inner being constituting and directing its subliminal existence by the same will and knowledge, has cast up out of the subliminal our surface existence and dwells secretly in it overseeing with the same supreme light and mastery its stumbling and groping movements. If the subliminal and subconscient may be compared to a sea which throws up the waves of our surface mental existence, the superconscience may be compared to an ether which constitutes, contains, overroofs, inhabits and determines the movements of the sea and its waves. It is there in this higher ether that we are inherently and intrinsically conscious of our self and spirit, not as here below by a reflection in silent mind or by acquisition of the knowledge of a hidden Being within us; it is through it, through that ether of superconscience, that we can pass to a supreme status, knowledge, experience. Of this superconscient existence through which we can arrive at the highest status of our real, our supreme Self, we are normally even more ignorant than of the rest of our being; yet is it into the knowledge of it that our being emerging out of the involution in Inconscience is struggling to evolve. This limitation to our surface existence, this unconsciousness of our highest as of our inmost self, is our first, our capital ignorance.
We exist superficially by a becoming in Time; but here again out of that becoming in Time the surface mind, which we call ourselves, is ignorant of all the long past and the long future, aware only of the little life which it remembers and not of all even of that; for much of it is lost to its observation, much to its memory. We readily believe, - for the simple and compelling but insufficient reason that we do not remember, have not perceived, are not informed of anything else, - that we came into existence first by our physical birth into this life and shall cease to exist by the death of this body and the cessation of this brief physical activity. But while this is true of our physical mentality and physical vitality, our corporeal sheath, for they have been constituted at our birth and are dissolved by death, it is not true of our real becoming in Time. For our real self in the cosmos is the Superconscient which becomes the subliminal
2.11 - The Shattering And Fall of The Primordial Kings, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
ferior status, man is subject to great corruption; for had
Adam been created in his perfect state, that evil which
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when those Sefirot lost their superior status and con
tinued to remain merely at the levels of Creation, Form
2.11 - The Vision of the World-Spirit - The Double Aspect, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
How should they not do thee homage, O great Spirit? For thou art the original Creator and Doer of works and greater even than creative Brahma. O thou Infinite, O thou Lord of the gods, O thou abode of the universe, thou art the Immutable and thou art what is and is not and thou art that which is the Supreme. Thou art the ancient Soul and the first and original Godhead and the supreme resting-place of this All; thou art the knower and that which is to be known and the highest status; O infinite in form, by thee was extended the universe. Thou art Yama and Vayu and
Agni and Soma and Varuna and Prajapati, father of creatures, and the great-grandsire. Salutation to thee a thousand times over and again and yet again salutation, in front and behind and from every side, for thou art each and all that is. Infinite in might and immeasurable in strength of action thou pervadest all and art every one."
2.12 - The Origin of the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Existence and in Nature as well as an activity, immobile status as well as kinesis, what is the place and role of this Force, this power and its concentration in regard to a status where there is no play of energy, where all is immobile. In ourselves we habitually associate our Tapas, our conscious force, with active consciousness, with energy in play and in internal or external act and motion. That which is passive in us produces no action or only an involuntary or mechanical action, and we do not associate it with our will or conscious force; still, since there too there is the possibility of action or the emergence of an automatic activity, it must have at least a passively responsive or automatic conscious force in it; or there is in it either a secretly positive or a negative and inverse Tapas. It may also be that there is a larger conscious force, power or will in our being unknown to us which is behind this involuntary action, - if not a will, at least a force of some kind which itself initiates action or else responds to the contacts, suggestions, stimulations of the universal Energy. In Nature also we know that things stable, inert or passive are yet maintained in their energy by a secret and unceasing motion, an energy in action upholding the apparent immobility. Here too, then, all is due to the presence of Shakti, to the action of its power in concentration, its Tapas. But beyond this, beyond this relative aspect of status and kinesis, we find that we have the power to arrive at what seems to us an absolute passivity or immobility of our consciousness in which we cease from all mental and physical activity. There seem, then, to be an active consciousness in which consciousness works as an energy throwing up knowledge and activity out of itself and of which therefore Tapas is the character, and a passive consciousness in which consciousness does not act as an energy, but only exists as a status and of which therefore absence of Tapas or force in action is the character. Is the apparent absence of Tapas in this state
The Origin of the Ignorance
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It is affirmed that there is: the dual status of Brahman, quiescent and creative, is indeed one of the most important and fruitful distinctions in Indian philosophy; it is besides a fact of spiritual experience.
Here let us observe, first, that by this passivity in ourselves we arrive from particular and broken knowledge at a greater, a one and a unifying knowledge; secondly, that if, in the state of passivity, we open ourselves entirely to what is beyond, we can become aware of a Power acting upon us which we feel to be not our own in the limited egoistic sense, but universal or transcendental, and that this Power works through us for a greater play of knowledge, a greater play of energy, action and result, which also we feel to be not our own, but that of the
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The result happens in both cases because our individual consciousness rests from an ignorant limited action and opens itself to the supreme status or to the supreme action. In the latter, the more dynamic opening, there is power and play of knowledge and action, and that is Tapas; but in the former also, in the static consciousness, there is evidently a power for knowledge and a concentration of knowledge or at least a concentration of consciousness in immobility and a self-realisation, and that too is Tapas. Therefore it would seem that Tapas, concentration of power of consciousness, is the character of both the passive and the active consciousness of Brahman, and that our own passivity also has a certain character of an unseen supporting or instrumentalising Tapas. It is a concentration of energy of consciousness that sustains, while it lasts, all creation, all action and kinesis; but it is also a concentration of power of consciousness that supports inwardly or informs all status, even the most immobile passivity, even an infinite stillness or an eternal silence.
But still, it may be said, these are in the end two different things, and this is shown by their difference of opposite results; for a resort to the passivity of Brahman leads to the cessation of this existence and a resort to the active Brahman leads to its continuance. But here too, let us observe that this distinction
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Moreover, if it is by energy of Tapas that the dispensing of force of being in the world-action is accomplished, it is equally by the energy of Tapas that the drawing back of that force of being is accomplished. The passive consciousness of Brahman and its active consciousness are not two different, conflicting and incompatible things; they are the same consciousness, the same energy, at one end in a state of self-reservation, at the other cast into a motion of self-giving and self-deploying, like the stillness of a reservoir and the coursing of the channels which flow from it. In fact, behind every activity there is and must be a passive power of being from which it arises, by which it is supported, which even, we see in the end, governs it from behind without being totally identified with it - in the sense at least of being itself all poured out into the action and indistinguishable from it. Such a self-exhausting identification is impossible; for no action, however vast, exhausts the original power from which it proceeds, leaving nothing behind it in reserve. When we get back into our own conscious being, when we stand back from our own action and see how it is done, we discover that it is our whole being which stands behind any particular act or sum of activities, passive in the rest of its integrality, active in its limited dispensation of energy; but that passivity is not an incapable inertia, it is a poise of self-reserved energy. A similar truth must apply still more completely to the conscious being of the Infinite, whose power, in silence of status as in creation, must also be infinite.
It is immaterial for the moment to inquire whether the passivity out of which all emerges is absolute or only relative to the observable action from which it holds back. It is enough to note that, though we make the distinction for the convenience of our minds, there is not a passive Brahman and an active Brahman, but one Brahman, an Existence which reserves Its Tapas in what
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into the passivity, nivr.tti, it is supposed that in the action the individual soul becomes ignorant, nescient of its passive which is supposed to be its true being, and in the passivity it becomes finally nescient of its active which is supposed to be its false or only apparent being. But this is because these two movements take place alternately for us, as in our sleep and waking; we pass in waking into nescience of our sleeping condition, in sleep into nescience of our waking being. But this happens because only part of our being performs this alternative movement and we falsely think of ourselves as only that partial existence: but we can discover by a deeper psychological experience that the larger being in us is perfectly aware of all that happens even in what is to our partial and superficial being a state of unconsciousness; it is limited neither by sleep nor by waking. So it is in our relations with Brahman who is our real and integral being. In the ignorance we identify ourselves with only a partial consciousness, mental or spiritual-mental in its nature, which becomes nescient of its self of status by movement; in this part of us, when we lose the movement, we lose at the same time our hold on our self of action by entering into passivity. By an entire passivity the mind falls asleep or enters into trance or else is liberated into a spiritual silence; but though it is a liberation from the ignorance of the partial being in its flux of action, it is earned by putting on a luminous nescience of the dynamic Reality or a luminous separation from it: the spiritual-mental being remains self-absorbed in a silent essential status of existence and becomes either incapable of active consciousness or repugnant to all activity; this release of silence is a status through which the soul passes in its journey towards the Absolute. But there is a greater fulfilment of our true and integral being in which both the static and the dynamic sides of the self are liberated and fulfilled in That which upholds both and is limited neither by action nor by silence.
For Brahman does not pass alternately from passivity to activity and back to passivity by cessation of Its dynamic force of being. If that were really true of the integral Reality, then, while the universe continued, there would be no passive Brahman
2.12 - The Way and the Bhakta, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Godhead with whom the soul of man has to enter into this closest oneness, is indeed in his supreme status a transcendent
Unthinkable too great for any manifestation, Parabrahman; but he is at the same time the living supreme Soul of all things. He is the supreme Lord, the Master of works and universal nature.
2.13 - The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But what under these circumstances is the human mind which seeks the divine to do with its waking moments? For if these are subject to all the disabilities of mortal mentality, if they are open to the attacks of grief, fear, anger, passion, hunger, greed, desire, it is irrational to suppose that by the mere concentration of the mental being in the Yogic trance at the moment of putting off the body, the soul call pass away without return into the supreme existence. For man's normal consciousness is still subject to what the Buddbists call the chain or the stream of Karma; it is still creating energies which must continue and have their effect in a continued life of the mental being which is creating them. Or, to take another point of view, consciousness being the determining fact and not the bodily existence which is only a result, the man still belongs normally to the status of human, or at least mental activity and this cannot be abrogated by the fact of passing out of the physical body; to get rid of mortal body is not to get rid of mortal mind. Nor is it sufficient to have a dominant disgust of the world or an anti-vital indifference or aversion to the material existence; for this too belongs to the lower mental status and activity. The highest teaching is that even the desire for liberation with all its mental concomitants must be surpassed before the soul can be entirely free. Therefore not only must the mind be able to rise in abnormal states out of itself into a higher consciousness, but its waking mentality also must be entirely spiritualised.
This brings into the field the second possibility open to the mental being; for if its first possibility is to rise out of itself into a divine supramental plane of being, the other is to call down the divine into itself so that its mentality shall be changed into an image of the divine, shall be divinised or spiritualised. This may be done and primarily must be done by the mind's power of refleeting that which it knows, relates to its own consciousness, contemplates. For the mind is really a reflector and a medium and none of its activities originate in themselves, none exist per se. Ordinarily, the mind reflects the status of mortal nature and the activities of the Force which works under the conditions of the material universe. But if it becomes clear, passive, pure, by the renunciation of these activities and of the characteristic ideas and outlook of mental nature, then as in a clear mirror or like the sky in clear water which is without ripple and unruffled by winds, the divine is reflected. The mind still does not entirely possess the divine or become divine, but is possessed by it or by a luminous reflection of it so long as it remains in this pure passivity. If it becomes active, it falls back into the disturbance of the mortal nature and reflects that and no longer the divine. For this reason an absolute quietism and a cessation first of all outer action and then of all inner movement is the ideal ordinarily proposed; here too, for the follower of the path of knowledge, there must be a sort of waking Samadhi. Whatever action is unavoidable, must be a purely superficial working of the organs of perception and motor action in which the quiescent mind takes eventually no part and from which it seeks no result or profit.
But this is insufficient for the integral Yoga. There must be a positive transformation and not merely a negative quiescence of the waking mentality. The transformation is possible because, although the divine planes are above the mental consciousness and to enter actually into them we have ordinarily to lose the mental in Samadhi, yet there are in the mental being divine planes superior to our normal mentality which reproduce the conditions of the divine plane proper, although modified by the conditions, dominant here, of mentality. All that belongs to the experience of the divine plane can there be seized, but in the mental way and m a mental form. To these planes of divine mentality it is possible for the developed human being to arise in the waking state; or it is possible for him to derive from them a stream of influences and experiences which shall eventually open to them and transform into their nature his whole waking existence. These higher mental states are the immediate sources, the large actual instruments, the inner stations382 of his perfection.
But in arriving to these planes or deriving from them the limitations of our mentality pursue us. In the first place the mind is an inveterate divider of the indivisible and its whole nature is to dwell on one thing at a time to the exclusion of others or to stress it to the subordination of others. Thus in approaching Sachchidananda it will dwell on its aspect of the pure existence, Sat, and consciousness and bliss are compelled then to lose themselves or remain quiescent in the experience of pure, infinite being which leads to the realisation of the quietistic Monist. Or it will dwell on the aspect of consciousness, Chit, and existence and bliss become then dependent on the experience of an infinite transcendent Power and Conscious-Force, which leads to the realisation of the Tantric worshipper of Energy. Or it will dwell on the aspect of delight, Ananda, and existence and consciousness then seem to disappear into a bliss without basis of self-possessing awareness or constituent being, which leads to. the realisation of the Buddhistic seeker of Nirvana. Or it will dwell on some aspect of Sachchidananda which comes to the mind from the supramental Knowledge, Will or Love, and then the infinite impersonal aspect of Sachchidananda is almost or quite lost in the experience of the Deity which leads to the realisations of the various religions and to the possession of some supernal world or divine status of the human soul in relation to God. And for those whose object is to depart anywhi ther from cosmic existence, this is enough, since they are able by the mind's immergence into or seizure upon any one of these principles or aspects to effect through status in the divine planes of their mentality or the possession by them of their waking state this desired transit.
But the Sadhaka of the integral Yoga has to harmonise all so that they may become a plenary and equal unity of the full realisation of Sachchidananda. Here the last difficulty of mind meets him, its inability to hold at once the unity and the multiplicity. It is not altogether difficult to arrive at and dwell in a pure infinite or even, at the same time, a perfect global experience of the Existence which is Consciousness which is Delight. The mind may even extend its experience of this Unity to the multiplicity so as to perceive it immanent in the universe and in each object, force, movement in the universe or at the same time to be aware of this Existence-Consciousness-Bliss containing the universe and enveloping all its objects and originating all its movements. It is difficult indeed for it to unite and harmonise rightly all these experiences; but still it can possess Sachchidananda at once in himself and immanent in all and the continent of all. But with this to unite the final experience of all this as Sachchidananda and possess objects, movements, forces, forms as no other than He, is the great difficulty for mind. Separately any of these things may be done; the mind may go from one to the other, rejecting one as it arrives at another and calling this the lower or that the higher existence. But to unify without losing, to integralise without rejecting is its supreme difficulty.
2.14 - The Passive and the Active Brahman, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The basis of this status of consciousness is the mind's exclusive realisation of pure self-existence in which consciousness is at rest, inactive, widely concentrated ill pure self-awareness of being, not active and originative of any kind of becoming. Its aspect of knowledge is at rest in the awareness of undifferentiated identity; its aspect of force and will is at rest in the awareness of unmodifiable immutability. And yet it is aware of names and forms, it is aware of movement; but this movement does not seem to proceed from the Self, but to go on by some inherent power of its own and only to be reflected in the Self. In other words, the mental being has put away from himself by exclusive concentration the dynamic aspect of consciousness, has taken refuge in the static and built a wall of non-communication between the two; between the passive and the active Brahman a gulf has been created and they stand on either side of it, the one visible to the other but with no contact, no touch of sympathy, no sense of unity between them. Therefore to the passive Self all conscious being seems to be passive in its nature, all activity seems to be non-conscious in itself and mechanical (jada) in its movement. The realisation of this status is the basis of the ancient Sankhya philosophy which taught that the Purusha or Conscious-Soul is a passive, inactive, immutable entity, prakriti or the Nature-Soul including even the mind and the understanding active, mutable, mechanical, but reflected in the Purusha which identifies itself with what is reflected in it and lends to it its own light of consciousness. When the Purusha learns not to identify himself, then prakriti begins to fall away from its impulse of movement and returns towards equilibrium and rest. The Vedantic view of the same status led to the philosophy of the inactive Self or Brahman as the one reality and of all the rest as name and form imposed on it by a false activity of mental illusion which has to be removed by right knowledge of the immutable Self and refusal of the imposition387a. The two views really differ only in their language and their viewpoint; substantially, they are the same intellectual generalisation from the same spiritual experience.
If we rest here, there are only two possible attitudes toward the world. Either we must remain as mere inactive witnesses of the world-play or act in it mechanically without any participation of the conscious self and by mere play of the organs of sense and motor-action387b. In the former choice what we do is to approach as completely as possible to the inactivity of the passive and silent Brahman. We have stilled our mind and silenced the activity of the thought and the disturbances of the heart, we have arrived at an entire inner peace and indifference; we attempt now to still the mechanical action of the life and body, to reduce it to the most meagre minimum possible so that It may eventually cease entirely and for ever. This, the final aim of the ascetic Yoga which refuses life, is evidently not our aim. By the alternative choice we can have an activity perfect enough in outward appearance along with an entire inner passivity, peace, mental silence, indifference and cessation of the emotions, absence of choice in the will.
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Certainly, behind all intelligent action there must be an intelligent will, but it need not be the intelligence or the will of the conscious mind in the actor. In the psychological phenomena of which I have spoken, it is obviously in some of them the will and intelligence of other human beings that uses the organs, in others it is doubtful whether it is an influence or actuation by other beings or the emergence of a subconscious, subliminal mind or a mixed combination of both these agencies. But in this Yogic status of action by the mere organs, kevalair lhdriyaih, it is the universal intelligence and will of Nature itself working from centres superconscious and subconscious as it acts in the mechanically purposeful energies of plant-life or of the inanimate material form, but here with a living instrument who is the conscious witness of the action and instrumentation. It is a remarkable fact that the speech, writing and intelligent actions of such a state may convey a perfect force of thought, luminous, faultless, logical, inspired, perfectly adapting means to ends, far beyond what the man himself could have done in his old normal poise of mind and will and capacity, yet all the time he himself perceives but does not conceive the thought that comes to him, observes in its works but does not appropriate or use the will that acts through him, witnesses but does not claim as his own the powers which play upon the world through him as through a passive channel. But this phenomenon is not really abnormal or contrary to the general law of things. For do we not see a perfect working of the secret universal Will and Intelligence in the apparently brute (jada) action of material Nature? And it is precisely this universal Will and Intelligence which thus acts through the calm, indifferent and inwardly silent Yogin who offers no obstacle of limited and ignorant personal will and intelligence to its operations. He dwells in the silent Self; he allows the active Brahman to work through his natural instruments, accepting impartially, without participation, the formations of its universal force and knowledge.
This status of an inner passivity and an outer action independent of each other is a state of entire spiritual freedom. The Yogin, as the Gita says, even in acting does no actions, for it is not he, but universal Nature directed by the Lord of Nature which is at work. He is not bound by his works, nor do they leave any after-effects or consequences in his mind, nor cling to or leave any mark on his soul389a; they vanish and are dissolved389b by their very execution and leave the immutable self unaffected and the soul unmodified. Therefore this would seem to be the poise the uplifted soul ought to take, if it has still to preserve any relations with human action in the world-existence, an unalterable silence, tranquillity, passivity within, an action without, regulated by the universal Will and Wisdom which works, as the Gita says, without being involved in, bound by or ignorantly attached to its works. And certainly this poise of a perfect activity founded upon a perfect inner passivity is that which the Yogin has to possess, as we have seen in the Yoga of Works. But here m this status of self-knowledge at which we have arrived, there is an evident absence of integrality; for there is still a gulf, an unrealised unity or a cleft of consciousness between the passive and the active Brahman. We have still to possess consciously the active Brahman without losing the possession of the silent Self. We have to preserve the inner silence, tranquillity, passivity as a foundation; but in place of an aloof indifference to the works of the active Brahman we have to arrive at an equal and impartial delight in them; in place of a refusal to participate lest our freedom and peace be lost we have to arrive at a conscious possession of the active Brahman whose joy of existence does not abrogate His peace, nor His lordship of all workings impair His calm freedom in the midst of His works.
The difficulty is created by the exclusive concentration of the mental being on its plane of pure existence in which consciousness is at rest in passivity and delight of existence at rest in peace of existence. It has to embrace also its plane of conscious force of existence in which consciousness is active as power and will and delight is active as joy of existence. Here the difficulty is that mind is likely to precipitate itself into the consciousness of Force instead of possessing it. The extreme mental state of precipitation into Nature is that of the ordinary man who takes his bodily and vital activity and the mind-movements dependent on them for his whole real existence and regards all passivity of the soul as a departure from existence and an approach towards nullity. He lives in the superficies of the active Brahman and while to the silent soul exclusively concentrated in the passive self all activities are mere name and form, to him they are the only reality and it is the Self that is merely a name. In one the passive Brahman stands aloof from the active and does riot share in its consciousness; in the other the active Brahman stands aloof from the passive and does not share in its consciousness nor wholly possess its own. Each is to the other in these exclusivenesses an inertia of status or an inertia of mechanically active non-possession of self if not altogether an unreality. But the Sadhaka who has once seen firmly the essence of things and tasted thoroughly the peace of the silent Self, is not likely to be content with any state which involves loss of self-knowledge or a sacrifice of the peace of the soul. He will not precipitate himself back into the mere individual movement of mind and life and body with all its ignorance and straining and disturbance. Whatever new status he may acquire, will only satisfy him if it is founded upon and includes that which he has already found to be indispensable to real self-knowledge, self-delight and self-possession.
Still there is the likelihood of a partial, superficial and temporary relapse into the old mental movement when he attempts again to ally himself to the activity of the world. To prevent this relapse or to cure it when it arrives, he has to hold fast to the truth of Sachchidananda and extend his realisation of the infinite One into the movement of the infinite multiplicity. He has to concentrate on and realise the one Brahman in all things as conscious force of being as well as pure awareness of conscious being. The Self as the All, not only in the unique essence of things, but in the manifold form of things, not only as containing all in a transcendent consciousness, but as becoming all by a constituting consciousness, this is the next step towards his true possession of existence. In proportion as this realisation is accomplished, the status of consciousness as well as the mental view proper to it will change. Instead of an immutable Self containing name and form, containing without sharing in them the mutations of Nature, there will be the consciousness of the Self immutable in essence, unalterable in its fundamental poise but constituting and becoming in its experience all these existences which the mind distinguishes as name and form. All formations of mind and body will be not merely figures reflected in the Purusha, but real forms of which Brahman, Self, conscious Being is the substance and, as it were, the material of their formation. The name attaching to the form will be not a mere conception of the mind answering to no real existence bearing the name, but there will be behind it a true power of conscious being, a true self-experience of the Brahman answering to something that it contained potential but unmanifest in its silence. And yet in all its mutations it will be realised as one, free and above them. The realisation of a sole Reality suffering the imposition of names and forms will give place to that of eternal Being throwing itself out into infinite becoming. All existences will be to the consciousness of the Yogin soul-forms and not merely idea-forms of the Self, of himself, one with him, contained in his universal existence. All the soul-life, mental, vital, bodily existence of all that exists will be to him one indivisible movement and activity of the Being who is the same forever. The Self will be realised as the all in its double aspect of immutable status and mutable activity and it is this that will be seen as the comprehensive truth of our existence.
author class:Sri Aurobindo
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Why does the Supreme take up the impersonal status or attitude?
Sri Aurobindo: Because it is necessary for creation, as a support for the universal nature, to maintain all the play of the universal forces. He supports all equally as the akara.
2.15 - Reality and the Integral Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An integral knowledge presupposes an integral Reality; for it is the power of a Truth-consciousness which is itself the consciousness of the Reality. But our idea and sense of Reality vary with our status and movement of consciousness, its sight, its stress, its intake of things; that sight or stress can be intensive and exclusive or extensive, inclusive and comprehensive. It is quite possible - and it is in its own field a valid movement for our thought and for a very high line of spiritual achievement - to affirm the existence of the ineffable Absolute, to emphasise its sole Reality and to negate and abolish for our self, to expunge from our idea and sense of reality, the individual being and the cosmic creation. The reality of the individual is Brahman the Absolute; the reality of the cosmos is Brahman the Absolute: the individual is a phenomenon, a temporal appearance in the cosmos; the cosmos itself is a phenomenon, a larger and more complex temporal appearance. The two terms, Knowledge and Ignorance, belong only to this appearance; in order to reach an absolute superconsciousness both have to be transcended: egoconsciousness and cosmic consciousness are extinguished in that supreme transcendence and there remains only the Absolute.
For the absolute Brahman exists only in its own identity and is beyond all other-knowledge; there the very idea of the knower and the known and therefore of the knowledge in which they meet and become one, disappears, is transcended and loses its validity, so that to mind and speech the absolute Brahman must remain always unattainable. In opposition to the view we have put forward or in completion of it, - the view of the Ignorance itself as only either a limited or an involved action of the divine Knowledge, limited in the partly conscient, involved in the inconscient, - we might say from this other end of the scale of things that Knowledge itself is only a higher Ignorance, since it stops short of the absolute Reality which is self-evident to Itself but to mind unknowable. This absolutism corresponds to a truth of thought and to a truth of supreme experience in the spiritual consciousness; but by itself it is not the whole of spiritual thought complete and comprehensive and it does not exhaust the possibilities of the supreme spiritual experience.
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The Isha Upanishad insists on the unity and reality of all the manifestations of the Absolute; it refuses to confine truth to any one aspect. Brahman is the stable and the mobile, the internal and the external, all that is near and all that is far whether spiritually or in the extension of Time and Space; it is the Being and all becomings, the Pure and Silent who is without feature or action and the Seer and Thinker who organises the world and its objects; it is the One who becomes all that we are sensible of in the universe, the Immanent and that in which he takes up his dwelling. The Upanishad affirms the perfect and the liberating knowledge to be that which excludes neither the Self nor its creations: the liberated spirit sees all these as becomings of the Self-existent in an internal vision and by a consciousness which perceives the universe within itself instead of looking out on it, like the limited and egoistic mind, as a thing other than itself. To live in the cosmic Ignorance is a blindness, but to confine oneself in an exclusive absolutism of Knowledge is also a blindness: to know Brahman as at once and together the Knowledge and the Ignorance, to attain to the supreme status at once by the Becoming and the Non-Becoming, to relate together realisation of the transcendent and the cosmic self, to achieve foundation in the supramundane and a self-aware manifestation in the mundane, is the integral knowledge; that is the possession of Immortality. It is this whole consciousness with its complete knowledge that builds the foundation of the Life Divine and makes its attainment possible. It follows that the absolute reality of the Absolute must be, not a rigid indeterminable oneness, not an infinity vacant of all that is not a pure self-existence attainable only by the exclusion of the many and the finite, but something which is beyond these definitions, beyond indeed any description either positive or negative. All affirmations and negations are expressive of its aspects, and it is through both a supreme affirmation and a supreme negation that we can arrive at the Absolute.
On the one side, then, presented to us as the Reality, we have an absolute Self-Existence, an eternal sole self-being, and through the experience of the silent and inactive Self or the detached immobile Purusha we can move towards this featureless and relationless Absolute, negate the actions of the creative Power, whether that be an illusory Maya or a formative Prakriti, pass from all circling in cosmic error into the eternal Peace and Silence, get rid of our personal existence and find or lose ourselves in that sole true Existence. On the other side, we have a Becoming which is a true movement of Being, and both the Being and the Becoming are truths of one absolute Reality.
2.16 - Oneness, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The complete realisation of unity is therefore the essence of the integral knowledge and of the integral Yoga. To know Sachchidananda one in Himself and one in all His manifestation is the basis of knowledge; to make that vision of oneness real to the consciousness in its status and in its action, and to become that by merging the sense of separate individuality in the sense of unity with the Being and with all beings is its effectuation in Yoga of knowledge; to live, think, feel, will and act in that sense of unity is its effectuation in the individual being and the individual life. This realisation of oneness and this practice of oneness in difference is the whole of the Yoga.
Sachchidananda is one in Himself in whatever status or whatever plane of existence. We have therefore to make that the basis of all effectuation whether of consciousness or force or being, whether of knowledge or will or delight. We have, as we have seen, to live in the consciousness of the Absolute transcendent and of the Absolute manifested in all relations, impersonal and manifest as all personalities, beyond all qualities and rich in infinite quality, a silence out of which the eternal Word creates, a divine calm and peace possessing itself in infinite joy and activity. We have to find Him knowing all, sanctioning all, governing all, containing, upholding and informing all as the Purusha and at the same time executing all knowledge, will and formation as prakriti. We have to see Him as one Existence, Being gathered in itself and Being displayed in all existences; as one Consciousness concentrated in the unity of its existence, extended in universal nature and many-centred in innumerable beings; one Force static in its repose of self-gathered consciousness and dynamic in its activity of extended consciousness; one Delight blissfully aware of its featureless infinity and blissfully aware of all feature and force and forms as itself; one creative knowledge and governing Will, supramental, originative and determinative of all minds, lives and bodies; one Mind containing all mental beings and constituting all their mental activities; one Life active in all living beings and generative of their vital activities; one substance constituting all forms and objects as the visible and sensible mould in which mind and life manifest and act just as one pure existence is that ether in which all Conscious-Force arid Delight exist unified and find themselves variously. For these are the seven principles of the manifest being of Sachchidananda.
The integral Yoga of knowledge has to recognise the double nature of this manifestation, -- for there is the higher nature of Sachchidananda in which He is found and the lower nature of mind, life and body in which He is veiled, -and to reconcile and unite the two in the oneness of the illumined realisation. We have not to leave them separate so that we live a sort of double life, spiritual within or above, mental and material in our active and earthly living; we have to re-view and remould the lower living in the light, force and joy of the higher reality. We have to realise Matter as a sense-created mould of Spirit, a vehicle for all manifestation of the light, force and joy of Sachchidananda in the highest conditions of terrestrial being and activity. We have to see Life as a channel for the infinite Force divine and break the barrier of a sense-created and mind-created farness and division from it so that that divine Power may take possession of and direct and change all our life-activities until our vitality transfigured ceases in the end to be the limited life-force which now supports mind and body and becomes a figure of the all-blissful conscious-force of Sachchidananda. We have similarly to change our sensational and emotional mentality into a play of the divine Love and universal Delight; and we have to surcharge the intellect which seeks to know and will in us with the light of the divine Knowledge-Will until it is transformed into a figure of that higher and sublime activity.
2.16 - The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Therefore we accept the truth on which the philosophies of the supracosmic Absolute take their stand; Illusionism itself, even if we contest its ultimate conclusions, can still be accepted as the way in which the soul in mind, the mental being, has to see things in a spiritual-pragmatic experience when it cuts itself off from the Becoming in order to approach and enter into the Absolute. But also, since the Becoming is real and is inevitable in the very self-power of the Infinite and Eternal, this too is not a complete philosophy of existence. It is possible for the soul in the Becoming to know itself as the Being and possess the Becoming, to know itself as Infinite in essence but also as the Infinite self-expressed in the finite, the timeless Eternal regarding itself and its works in the founding status and the developing motion of Time-eternity. This realisation is the culmination of the Becoming; it is the fulfilment of the Being in its dynamic reality. This too then must be part of the total truth of things, for it alone gives a full spiritual significance to the universe and justifies the soul in manifestation; an explanation of things that deprives cosmic and individual existence of all significance cannot be the whole explanation or the solution it proposes the sole true issue.
The next affirmation which we put forward is that the fundamental reality of the Absolute is to our spiritual perception a Divine Existence, Consciousness and Delight of Being which is a supracosmic Reality, self-existent, but also the secret truth underlying the whole manifestation; for the fundamental truth of Being must necessarily be the fundamental truth of Becoming.
2.17 - The Progress to Knowledge - God, Man and Nature, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I am He. Cosmic energy is not other than the conscious force of that Self-existent: by that energy It takes through universal nature innumerable forms of itself; through its divine nature It can, embracing the universal but transcendent of it, arrive in them at the individual possession of its complete existence, when its presence and power are felt in one, in all and in the relations of one with all; - this is the truth of being to which man's entire knowledge of himself in God and in Nature rises and widens. A triune knowledge, the complete knowledge of God, the complete knowledge of himself, the complete knowledge of Nature, gives him his high goal; it assigns a vast and full sense to the labour and effort of humanity. The conscious unity of the three, God, soul and Nature, in his own consciousness is the sure foundation of his perfection and his realisation of all harmonies: this will be his highest and widest state, his status of a divine consciousness and a divine life and its initiation the starting-point for his entire evolution of his self-knowledge, world-knowledge, God-knowledge.
2.17 - The Soul and Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The hope of a complete escape from our present strife with and subjection to our lower and troubled nature and existence arises when we perceive what religion and philosophy affirm, but modern thought has tried to deny, that there are two poises of our soul-existence, a lower, troubled and subjected, a higher, supreme, untroubled and sovereign, one vibrant in Mind, the other tranquil in Spirit. The hope not only of an escape, but of a completely satisfying and victorious solution comes when we perceive what some religions and philosophies affirm, but others seem to deny, that there is also in the dual unity of soul and nature a lower, an ordinary human status and a higher, a divine in which the conditions of the duality are reversed and the soul becomes that which now it only struggles and aspires to be, master of its nature, free and by union with the Divine possessor also of the world-nature. According to our idea of these possibilities will be the solution we shall attempt to realise.
Involved in mind, possessed by the ordinary phenomenon of mental thought, sensation, emotion, reception of the vital and physical impacts of the world and mechanical reaction to them, the soul is subject to Nature. Even its will and intelligence are determined by its mental nature, determined even more largely by the mental nature of its environment which acts upon, subtly as well as overtly, and overcomes the individual mentality; thus its attempt to regulate, to control, to determine its own experience and action is pursued by an element of illusion, since when it thinks it is acting, it is really Nature that is acting and determining all it thinks, wills and does. If there were not this constant knowledge in it that it is, that it exists in itself, is not the body or life but something other which at least receives and accepts the cosmic experience if it does not determine it, it would be compelled in the end to suppose that Nature is all and the soul an illusion. This is the conclusion modern Materialism affirms and to that nihilistic Buddhism arrived; the Sankhyas, perceiving the dilemma, solved it by saying that the soul in fact only mirrors Nature's determinations and itself determines nothing, is not the lord, but can by refusing to mirror them fall back into eternal immobility and peace. There are too the other solutions which arrive at the same practical conclusion, but from the other end, the spiritual, affirming Nature as an illusion or both the soul and Nature as impermanent and pointing us to a state beyond in which their duality has no existence, either by the extinction of both in something permanent and ineffable or at least by the exclusion of the active principle altogether. Though they do not satisfy humanity's larger hope and deep-seated impulse and aspiration, these are valid solutions so far as they go; for they arrive at an Absolute in itself or at the separate absolute of the soul, even if they reject the many rapturous infinites of the Absolute which the true possession of Nature by the soul in its divine existence offers to the eternal seeker in man.
2.18 - The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Here the evolution takes place in a material universe; the foundation, the original substance, the first established allconditioning status of things is Matter. Mind and Life are evolved in Matter, but they are limited and modified in their action by the obligation to use its substance for their instrumentation and by their subjection to the law of material Nature even while they modify what they undergo and use. For they do transform its substance, first into living substance and then into conscious substance; they succeed in changing its inertia, immobility and inconscience into a movement of consciousness, feeling and life. But they do not succeed in transforming it altogether; they cannot make it altogether alive or altogether conscious: life-nature evolving is bound to death; mind evolving is materialised as well as vitalised; it finds itself rooted in inconscience, limited by ignorance; it is moved by uncontrolled life-forces which drive and use it, it is mechanised by the physical forces on which it has to depend for its own self-expression.
This is a sign that neither Mind nor Life is the original creative Power; they, like Matter, are intermediaries, successive and seried instruments of the evolutionary process. If a material energy is not that original Power, then we must seek for it in something above Mind or Life; there must be a deeper occult Reality which has yet to disclose itself in Nature.
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This movement of evolution, of a progressive self-manifestation of the Spirit in a material universe, has to make its account at every step with the fact of the involution of consciousness and force in the form and activity of material substance. For it proceeds by an awakening of the involved consciousness and force and its ascent from principle to principle, from grade to grade, from power to power of the secret Spirit, but this is not a free transference to a higher status. The law of action, the force of action of each grade or power in its emergence is determined, not by its own free, full and pure law of nature or vim of energy, but partly by the material organisation provided for it and partly by its own status, achieved degree, accomplished fact of consciousness which it has been able to impose upon Matter.
Its effectivity is in some sort made up of a balance between the actual extent of this evolutionary emergence and the countervailing extent to which the emergent power is still enveloped, penetrated, diminished by the domination and continuing grip of the Inconscience. Mind as we see it is not mind pure and free, but mind clouded and diminished by an enveloping nescience, mind labouring and struggling to deliver knowledge out of that nescience. All depends upon the more or less involved or more or less evolved condition of consciousness, - quite involved in inconscient matter, hesitating on the verge between involution and conscious evolution in the first or non-animal forms of life in matter, consciously evolving but greatly limited and hampered in mind housed in a living body, destined to be fully evolved by the awakening of the supermind in the embodied mental being and nature.
To each grade in this series achieved by the evolving Consciousness belongs its appropriate class of existences, - one by one there appear material forms and forces, vegetable life, animals and half-animal man, developed human beings, imperfectly evolved or more evolved spiritual beings: but because of the continuity of the evolutionary process there is no rigid separation between them; each new advance or formation takes up what was before. The animal takes up into himself living and inanimate Matter; man takes up both along with the animal existence. There are furrows left by the transitional process or separating demarcations settled by the fixed habit of Nature: but these distinguish one series from another, serve perhaps to prevent a fall back of what has been evolved, they do not cancel or cut the continuity of the evolution. The evolving Consciousness passes from one grade to another or from one series of steps to another either by an imperceptible process or by some bound or crisis or, perhaps, by an intervention from above, - some descent or ensouling or influence from higher planes of Nature. But, by whatever means, the Consciousness secretly indwelling in matter, the occult Inhabitant, is able thus to make its way upward from the lower to the higher gradations, taking up what it was into what it is and preparing to take up both into what it will be. Thus, having first laid down a basis of material being, material forms, forces, existences in which it seems to be lying inconscient, though in reality, as we know now, always subconsciently at work, it is able to manifest life and living beings, to manifest mind and mental beings in a material world, and must therefore be able to manifest there supermind also and supramental beings. Thus has come about the present status of the evolution of which man is the now apparent culmination but not the real ultimate summit; for he is himself a transitional being and stands at the turning-point of the whole movement. Evolution, being thus continuous, must have at any given moment a past with its fundamental results still in evidence, a present in which the results it is labouring over are in process of becoming, a future in which still unevolved powers and forms of being must appear till there is the full and perfect manifestation. The past has been the history of a slow and difficult subconscious working with effects on the surface, - it has been an unconscious evolution; the present is a middle stage, an uncertain spiral in which the human intelligence is used by the secret evolutionary Force of being and participates in its action without being fully taken into confidence, - it is an evolution slowly becoming conscious of itself; the future must be a more and more conscious evolution of the spiritual being until it is fully delivered into a self-aware action by the emergent gnostic principle.
The first foundation in this emergence, the creation of forms of Matter, first of inconscient and inanimate, then of living and thinking Matter, the appearance of more and more organised bodies adapted to express a greater power of consciousness, has been studied from the physical side, the side of form-building, by Science; but very little light has been shed on the inner side, the side of consciousness, and what little has been observed is rather of its physical basis and instrumentation than of the progressive operations of Consciousness in its own nature. In the evolution, as it has been observed so far, although a continuity is there, - for Life takes up Matter and Mind takes up submental Life, the Mind of intelligence takes up the mind of life and sensation, - the leap from one grade of consciousness in the series to another grade seems to our eyes immense, the crossing of the gulf whether by bridge or by leap impossible; we fail to discover any concrete and satisfactory evidence of its accomplishment in the past or of the manner in which it was accomplished. Even in the outward evolution, even in the development of physical forms where the data are clearly in evidence, there are missing links that remain always missing; but in the evolution of consciousness the passage is still more difficult to account for, for it seems more like a transformation than a passage. It may be, however, that, by our incapacity to penetrate the subconscious, to sound the submental or to understand sufficiently a lower mentality different from ours, we are unable to observe the minute gradations, not only in each degree of the series, but on the borders between grade and grade: the scientist who does observe minutely the physical data, has been driven to believe in the continuity of evolution in spite of the gaps and missing links; if we could observe similarly the inner evolution, we could, no doubt, discover the possibility and the mode of these formidable transitions. But still there is a real, a radical difference between grade and grade, so much so that the passage from one to another seems a new creation, a miracle of metamorphosis rather than a natural predictable development or quiet passing from one state of being to another with its well-marked steps arranged in an easy sequence.
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But it must be observed that this ascent, this successive fixing in higher and higher principles, does not carry with it the abandonment of the lower grades, any more than a status of existence in the lower grades means the entire absence of the higher principles. This heals the objection against the evolutionary theory created by these sharp lines of difference; for if the rudiments of the higher are present in the lower creation and the lower characters are taken up into the higher evolved being, that of itself constitutes an indubitable evolutionary process. What is necessary is a working that brings the lower gradation of being to a point at which the higher can manifest in it; at that point a pressure from some superior plane where the new power is dominant may assist towards a more or less rapid and decisive transition by a bound or a series of bounds, - a slow, creeping, imperceptible or even occult action is followed by a run and an evolutionary saltus across the border. It is in some such way that the transition from the lower to higher grades of consciousness seems to have been made in Nature.
In fact, life, mind, supermind are present in the atom, are at work there, but invisible, occult, latent in a subconscious or apparently unconscious action of the Energy; there is an informing Spirit, but the outer force and figure of being, what we might call the formal or form existence as distinguished from the immanent or secretly governing consciousness, is lost in the physical action, is so absorbed into it as to be fixed in a stereotyped self-oblivion unaware of what it is and what it is doing.
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But where is the limit of effectuation in the evolutionary being's self-becoming by self-exceeding? In mind itself there are grades of the series and each grade again is a series in itself; there are successive elevations which we may conveniently call planes and sub-planes of the mental consciousness and the mental being. The development of our mental self is largely an ascent of this stair; we can take our stand on any one of them, while yet maintaining a dependence on the lower stages and a power of occasional ascension to higher levels or of a response to influences from our being's superior strata. At present we still normally take our first secure stand on the lowest sub-plane of the intelligence, which we may call the physical-mental, because it depends for its evidence of fact and sense of reality on the physical brain, the physical sense-mind, the physical sense-organs; there we are the physical man who attaches most importance to objective things and to his outer life, has little intensity of the subjective or inner existence and subordinates whatever he has of it to the greater claims of exterior reality. The physical man has a vital part, but it is mainly made up of the smaller instinctive and impulsive formations of life-consciousness emerging from the subconscient, along with a customary crowd or round of sensations, desires, hopes, feelings, satisfactions which are dependent on external things and external contacts and concerned with the practical, the immediately realisable and possible, the habitual, the common and average. He has a mental part, but this too is customary, traditional, practical, objective, and respects what belongs to the domain of mind mostly for its utility for the support, comfort, use, satisfaction and entertainment of his physical and sensational existence. For the physical mind takes its stand on matter and the material world, on the body and the bodily life, on sense-experience and on a normal practical mentality and its experience. All that is not of this order, the physical mind builds up as a restricted superstructure dependent upon the external sense-mentality. Even so, it regards these higher contents of life as either helpful adjuncts or a superfluous but pleasant luxury of imaginations, feelings and thought-abstractions, not as inner realities; or, even if it receives them as realities, it does not feel them concretely and substantially in their own proper substance, subtler than the physical substance and its grosser concreteness, - it treats them as a subjective, less substantial extension from physical realities. It is inevitable that the human being should thus take his first stand on Matter and give the external fact and external existence its due importance; for this is Nature's first provision for our existence, on which she insists greatly: the physical man is emphasised in us and is multiplied abundantly in the world by her as her force for conservation of the secure, if somewhat inert, material basis on which she can maintain herself while she attempts her higher human developments; but in this mental formation there is no power for progress or only for a material progress. It is our first mental status, but the mental being cannot remain always at this lowest rung of the human evolutionary ladder.
Above physical mind and deeper within than physical sensation, there is what we may call an intelligence of the life-mind, dynamic, vital, nervous, more open, though still obscurely, to the psychic, capable of a first soul-formation, though only of an obscurer life-soul, - not the psychic being, but a frontal formation of the vital Purusha. This life-soul concretely senses and contacts the things of the life-world, and tries to realise them here; it attaches immense importance to the satisfaction and fulfilment of the life-being, the life-force, the vital nature: it looks on physical existence as a field for the life-impulses' selffulfilment, for the play of ambition, power, strong character, love, passion, adventure, for the individual, the collective, the general human seeking and hazard and venture, for all kinds of life-experiment and new life-experience, and but for this saving element, this greater power, interest, significance, the physical existence would have for it no value. This life mentality is supported by our secret subliminal vital being and is in veiled contact with a life-world to which it can easily open and so feel the unseen dynamic forces and realities behind the material universe. There is an inner life-mind which does not need for its perceptions the evidence of the physical senses, is not limited by them; for on this level our inner life and the inner life of the world become real to us independent of the body and of the symbols of the physical world which alone we call natural phenomena, as if Nature had no greater phenomena and no greater realities than those of gross Matter. The vital man, moulded consciously or unconsciously by these influences, is the man of desire and sensation, the man of force and action, the man of passion and emotion, the kinetic individual: he may and does lay great stress on the material existence, but he gives it, even when most preoccupied with its present actualities, a push for life-experience, for force of realisation, for life-extension, for life-power, for lifeaffirmation and life-expansion which is Nature's first impetus towards enlargement of the being; at a highest intensity of this life impetus, he becomes the breaker of bonds, the seeker of new horizons, the disturber of the past and present in the interest of the future. He has a mental life which is often enslaved to the vital force and its desires and passions, and it is these he seeks to satisfy through the mind: but when he interests himself strongly in mental things, he can become the mental adventurer, the opener of the way to new mind-formations or the fighter for an idea, the sensitive type of artist, the dynamic poet of life or the prophet or champion of a cause. The vital mind is kinetic and therefore a great force in the working of evolutionary Nature.
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The spiritual man is the sign of this new evolution, this new and higher endeavour of Nature. But this evolution differs from the past process of the evolutionary Energy in two respects: it is conducted by a conscious effort of the human mind, and it is not confined to a conscious progression of the surface nature, but is accompanied by an attempt to break the walls of the Ignorance and extend ourselves inward into the secret principle of our present being and outward into cosmic being as well as upward towards a higher principle. Up till now what Nature had achieved was an enlarging of the bounds of our surface Knowledge-Ignorance; what is attempted in the spiritual endeavour is to abolish the Ignorance, to go inwards and discover the soul and to become united in consciousness with God and with all existence. This is the final aim of the mental stage of evolutionary Nature in man; it is the initial step towards a radical transmutation of the Ignorance into the Knowledge. The spiritual change begins by an influence of the inner being and the higher spiritual mind, an action felt and accepted on the surface; but this by itself can lead only to an illumined mental idealism or to the growth of a religious mind, a religious temperament and some devotion in the heart and piety in the conduct; it is a first approach of mind to spirit, but it cannot make a radical change: more has to be done, we have to live deeper within, we have to exceed our present consciousness and surpass our present status of Nature.
It is evident that if we can live thus deeper within and put out steadily the inner forces into the outer instrumentation or raise ourselves to dwell on higher and wider levels and bring their powers to bear on physical existence, not merely receive influences descending from them, which is all we can now do, there could begin a heightening of our force of conscious being so as to create a new principle of consciousness, a new range of activities, new values for all things, a widening of our consciousness and life, a taking up and transformation of the lower grades of our existence, - in brief, the whole evolutionary process by which the Spirit in Nature creates a higher type of being. Each step could mean a pace, however distant from the goal, or a close approach leading to a larger and more divine being, a larger and more divine force and consciousness, knowledge and will, sense of existence and delight in existence; there could be an initial unfolding towards the divine life. All religion, all occult knowledge, all supernormal (as opposed to abnormal) psychological experience, all Yoga, all psychic experience and discipline are sign-posts and directions pointing us upon that road of progress of the occult self-unfolding spirit.
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The first foundation is Matter; the ascent is that of Nature; the integration is an at first unconscious or half-conscious automatic change of Nature by Nature. But as soon as a more completely conscious participation of the being has begun in these workings of Nature, a change in the functioning of the process is inevitable. The physical foundation of Matter remains, but Matter can no longer be the foundation of the consciousness; consciousness itself will be no longer in its origin a welling up from the Inconscient or a concealed flow from an occult inner subliminal force under the pressure of contacts from the universe. The foundation of the developing existence will be the new spiritual status above or the unveiled soul status within us; it is a flow of light and knowledge and will from above and a reception from within that will determine the reactions of the being to cosmic experience. The whole concentration of the being will be shifted from below upwards and from without inwards; our higher and inner being now unknown to us will become ourselves, and the outer or surface being which we now take for ourselves will be only an open front or an annexe through which the true being meets the universe. The outer world itself will become inward to the spiritual awareness, a part of itself, intimately embraced in a knowledge and feeling of unity and identity, penetrated by an intuitive regard of the mind, responded to by the direct contact of consciousness with consciousness, taken into an achieved integrality. The old inconscient foundation itself will be made conscious in us by the inflow of light and awareness from above and its depths annexed to the heights of the spirit. An integral consciousness will become the basis of an entire harmonisation of life through the total transformation, unification, integration of the being and the nature.
2.19 - Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Into that we have to heighten our force of consciousness, to widen by that still more largely, even universally and infinitely, our range of being and our field of action, to take up by that our lower life and use it for greater ends and on a larger plan, in the light of the spiritual truth of existence. Our labour of mind and struggle of life cannot come to any solution until we have gone beyond the obsessing lead of an inferior Nature, integralised our natural being in the being and consciousness, learned to utilise our natural instruments by the force and for the joy of the Spirit. Then only can the constitutional ignorance, the ignorance of the real build of our existence from which we suffer, change into a true and effective knowledge of our being and becoming. For what we are is spirit, - at present using mind predominantly, life and body subordinately, with matter for our original field but not our only field of experience; but this is only at present. Our imperfect mental instrumentation is not the last word of our possibilities; for there are in us, dormant or invisibly and imperfectly active, other principles beyond mind and closer to the spiritual nature, there are more direct powers and luminous instruments, there is a higher status, there are greater ranges of dynamic action than those that belong to our present physical, vital and mental existence. These can become our own status, part of our being, they can be principles, powers and instruments of our own enlarged nature. But for that it is not enough to be satisfied with a vague or an ecstatic ascent into spirit or a formless exaltation through the touch of its infinities; their principle has to evolve, as life has evolved, as mind has evolved, and organise its own instrumentation, its own satisfaction. Then we shall possess the true constitution of our being and we shall have conquered the Ignorance.
The conquest of our constitutional ignorance cannot be complete, cannot become integrally dynamic, if we have not conquered our psychological ignorance; for the two are bound up together. Our psychological ignorance consists in a limitation of our self-knowledge to that little wave or superficial stream of our being which is the conscient waking self. This part of our being is an original flux of formless or only halfformulated movements carried on in an automatic continuity, supported and held together by an active surface memory and a passive underlying consciousness in its flow from moment to moment of time, organised and interpreted by our reason and our witnessing and participating intelligence. Behind it is an occult existence and energy of our secret being without which the superficial consciousness and activity could not have existed or acted. In Matter only an activity is manifest, - inconscient in the outside of things which is all we know; for the indwelling Consciousness in Matter is secret, subliminal, not manifested in the inconscient form and the involved energy: but in us consciousness has become partly manifest, partly awake. But this consciousness is hedged and imperfect; it is bound by its habitual self-limitation and moves in a restricted circle, - except when there are flashes, intimations or upsurgings from the secrecy within us which break the limits of the formation or flow beyond them or widen the circle. But these occasional visitations cannot enlarge us far beyond our present capacities, are not enough to revolutionise our status. That can only be done if we can bring into it the higher undeveloped lights and powers potential in our being and get them consciously and normally into play; for this we must be able to draw freely from those ranges of our being to which they are native but which are at present subconscient or rather secretly intraconscient and circumconscient or else superconscient to us. Or, - the yet more that is also possible, - we must enter into these inner and higher parts of ourselves by an inward plunge or disciplined penetration and bring back with us to the surface their secrets. Or, achieving a still more radical change of our consciousness, we must learn to live within and no longer on the surface and be and act from the inner depths and from a soul that has become sovereign over the nature.
That part of us which we can strictly call subconscient because it is below the level of mind and conscious life, inferior and obscure, covers the purely physical and vital elements of our constitution of bodily being, unmentalised, unobserved by the mind, uncontrolled by it in their action. It can be held to include the dumb occult consciousness, dynamic but not sensed by us, which operates in the cells and nerves and all the corporeal stuff and adjusts their life process and automatic responses. It covers also those lowest functionings of submerged sense-mind which are more operative in the animal and in plant life; in our evolution we have overpassed the need of any large organised action of this element, but it remains submerged and obscurely at work below our conscious nature. This obscure activity extends to a hidden and hooded mental substratum into which past impressions and all that is rejected from the surface mind sink and remain there dormant and can surge up in sleep or in any absence of the mind, taking dream forms, forms of mechanical mind action or suggestion, forms of automatic vital reaction or impulse, forms of physical abnormality or nervous perturbance, forms of morbidity, disease, unbalance. Out of the subconscious we bring ordinarily so much to the surface as our waking sensemind and intelligence need for their purpose; in so bringing them up we are not aware of their nature, origin, operation and do not apprehend them in their own values but by a translation into the values of our waking human sense and intelligence. But the risings of the subconscious, its effects upon the mind and body, are mostly automatic, uncalled for and involuntary; for we have no knowledge and therefore no control of the subconscient. It is only by an experience abnormal to us, most commonly in illness or some disturbance of balance, that we can become directly aware of something in the dumb world, dumb but very active, of our bodily being and vitality or grow conscious of the secret movements of the mechanical subhuman physical and vital mind which underlies our surface, - a consciousness which is ours but seems not ours because it is not part of our known mentality.
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But though large parts of it can be thus known by a penetration and looking within or a freer communication, it is only by going inward behind the veil of superficial mind and living within, in an inner mind, an inner life, an inmost soul of our being that we can be fully self-aware, - by this and by rising to a higher plane of mind than that which our waking consciousness inhabits. An enlargement and completion of our present evolutionary status, now still so hampered and truncated, would be the result of such an inward living; but an evolution beyond it can come only by our becoming conscious in what is now superconscient to us, by an ascension to the native heights of the Spirit.
In the superconscience beyond our present level of awareness are included the higher planes of mental being as well as the native heights of supramental and pure spiritual being. The first indispensable step in an upward evolution would be to elevate our force of consciousness into those higher parts of Mind from which we already receive, but without knowing the source, much of our larger mental movements, those, especially, that come with a greater power and light, the revelatory, the inspirational, the intuitive. On these mental heights, in these largenesses, if the consciousness could succeed in reaching them or maintain and centre itself there, something of the direct presence and power of the spirit, something even - however secondary or indirect - of the supermind could receive a first expression, could make itself initially manifest, could intervene in the government of our lower being and help to remould it. Afterwards, by the force of that remoulded consciousness, the course of our evolution could rise by a sublimer ascent and get beyond the mental into the supramental and the supreme spiritual nature. It is possible without an actual ascent into these at present superconscient mental planes or without a constant or permanent living in them, by openness to them, by reception of their knowledge and influences, to get rid to a certain extent of our constitutional and psychological ignorance; it is possible to be aware of ourselves as spiritual beings and to spiritualise, though imperfectly, our normal human life and consciousness. There could be a conscious communication and guidance from this greater more luminous mentality and a reception of its enlightening and transforming forces. That is within the reach of the highly developed or the spiritually awakened human being; but it would not be more than a preliminary stage. To reach an integral self-knowledge, an entire consciousness and power of being, there is necessary an ascent beyond the plane of our normal mind. Such an ascent is at present possible in an absorbed superconscience; but that could lead only to an entry into the higher levels in a state of immobile or ecstatic trance. If the control of that highest spiritual being is to be brought into our waking life, there must be a conscious heightening and widening into immense ranges of new being, new consciousness, new potentialities of action, a taking up - as integral as possible - of our present being, consciousness, activities and a transmutation of them into divine values which would effect a transfiguration of our human existence. For wherever a radical transition has to be made, there is always this triple movement - ascent, widening of field and base, integration - in Nature's method of self-transcendence.
2.2.03 - The Psychic Being, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The bindu of which you speak is not the psychic being, but the soul or spark of the Divine which supports each existence; the psychic being is usually seen in form as a Purusha. The psychic being is the soul or spark of the Divine developing a form of itself in the evolution which travels from life to life. The Jivatma and the soul are the same, but in two different statuses. The Jivatma is the Ansha of the Divine standing above the consciousness as the individual self and unchanged by the evolution - the soul is the same descended into the evolution and developing its consciousness from life to life until in the opening of knowledge the psychic being realises its oneness with the self above.
The ego is quite different - it is a creation of Prakriti and part of Prakriti, which centralises the thoughts, desires, passions etc. of the nature and is involved in them entirely. The ego is not a real and eternal existence, but only a formation of Nature. It has to disappear by the coming of knowledge and be replaced by the true psychic and spiritual self.
2.2.03 - The Science of Consciousness, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Spirit is found to have three tones of its being. Triune, it makes each successively a power of its energy, a status of spiritual experience and form of its action. Triune, they are inseparable, but one or other can be so stressed as to appear a leading principle.
But we have to note three essential facts about spirit: -
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European psychology in the status of a pseudo-science; and, even now when real observation has begun & experimentation of an elementary kind is being attempted, the vices of the perishing sciolism mar and hamper this infant knowledge. It has not rid itself of all its old scholastic swaddling clothes; therefore it still walks on all fours and cannot yet learn to stand up erect and walk.
108
Psychology is the science of consciousness and its status and operations in Nature and, if that can be glimpsed or experienced,
The Science of Consciousness
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its status and operations beyond what we know as Nature.
It is not enough to observe and know the movements of our surface nature and the superficial nature of other living creatures just as it [is] not enough for Science to observe and know as electricity only the movements of lightning in the clouds or for the astronomer to observe and know only those movements and properties of the stars that are visible to the unaided eye. Here as there a whole world of occult phenomena have to be laid bare and brought under control before the psychologist can hope to be master of his province.
2.20 - The Infancy and Maturity of ZO, Father and Mother, Israel The Ancient and Understanding, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
the Light directly can he arrive at their status.
This is intimated in the word Binah, whose letters
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: The new order would be that the British declare Dominion status for India and pass some parts to Germany.
Disciple: Anderson in England has invented an efficient air-raid shelter which is about the size of a sentry's cabin. It is supposed to be proof against any explosion.
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The English have a constitutional mind. Once they give their word, they don't go back upon it. They don't want anyone else to walk into India when they walk out of it. They are afraid of that happening if they leave India now. It would certainly mean civil war and any other power could walk into India. They have announced that they would grant Dominion status, which amounts to Independence except in one or two matters like defence and foreign affairs.
They don't care for world opinion about India because the opinion they consider important is American opinion. But as all are afraid of Hitler, no one will speak against England for her Indian policy at present. And also they are not quite wrong when they say that the Indians must settle their own differences.
2.21 - The Order of the Worlds, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
As contact with the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective - or at least objectivised - between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysical status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a subtle-sense perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets. It is the more objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross-objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar; for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of experience.
This has always been, put into its most generalised terms, the normal range and character of other-worldly belief and experience in all periods of the past of the race; names and forms differ, but the general features have been strikingly similar in all countries and ages. What exact value are we to put upon these persistent beliefs or upon this mass of supernormal experience?
2.21 - Towards the Supreme Secret, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
THE TEACHER has completed all else that he needed to say, he has worked out all the central principles and the supporting suggestions and implications of his message and elucidated the principal doubts and questions that might rise around it, and now all that rests for him to do is to put into decisive phrase and penetrating formula the one last word, the heart itself of the message, the very core of his gospel. And we find that this decisive, last and crowning word is not merely the essence of what has been already said on the matter, not merely a concentrated description of the needed self-discipline, the Sadhana, and of that greater spiritual consciousness which is to be the result of all its effort and askesis; it sweeps out, as it were, yet farther, breaks down every limit and rule, canon and formula and opens into a wide and illimitable spiritual truth with an infinite potentiality of significance. And that is a sign of the profundity, the wide reach, the greatness of spirit of the Gita's teaching. An ordinary religious teaching or philosophical doctrine is well enough satisfied to seize on certain great and vital aspects of truth and turn them into utilisable dogma and instruction, method and practice for the guidance of man in his inner life and the law and form of his action; it does not go farther, it does not open doors out of the circle of its own system, does not lead us out into some widest freedom and unimprisoned largeness. This limitation is useful and indeed for a time indispensable. Man bounded by his mind and will has need of a law and rule, a fixed system, a definite practice selective of his thought and action; he asks for the single unmistakable hewn path hedged, fixed and secure to the tread, for the limited horizons, for the enclosed resting-places. It is only the strong and few who can move through freedom to freedom. And yet in the end the free soul ought to have an issue out of the forms and systems in which the mind finds its account and takes its limited pleasure. To exceed our ladder of ascent, not to stop short even on the topmost stair but move untrammelled and at large in the wideness of the spirit is a release important for our perfection; the spirit's absolute liberty is our perfect status. And this is how the Gita leads us: it lays down a firm and sure but very large way of ascent, a great Dharma, and then it takes us out beyond all that is laid down, beyond all dharmas, into infinitely open spaces, divulges to us the hope, lets us into the secret of an absolute perfection founded in an absolute spiritual liberty, and that secret, guhyatamam, is the substance of what it calls its supreme word, that the hidden thing, the inmost knowledge.
Gita, XVIII. 49-56.
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All Nature becomes the power of the one Divine and all action his action through the individual as channel and instrument. In place of the ego there comes forward conscious and manifest the true spiritual individual in the freedom of his real nature, in the power of his supernal status, in the majesty and splendour of his eternal kinship to the Divine, an imperishable portion of the supreme Godhead, an indestructible power of the supreme Prakriti, mamaivamsah. sanatanah., para prakr.tir jva-bhuta. The soul of man then feels itself to be one in a supreme spiritual impersonality with the Purushottama and in its universalised personality a manifest power of the Godhead. Its knowledge is a light of his knowledge; its will is a force of his will; its unity with all in the universe is a play of his eternal oneness. It is in this double realisation, it is in this union of two sides of an ineffable Truth of existence by either and both of which man can approach and enter into his own infinite being, that the liberated man has to live and act and feel and determine or rather have determined for him by a greatest power of his supreme self his relations with all and the inner and outer workings of his spirit. And in that unifying realisation adoration, love and devotion are not only still possible, but are a large, an inevitable and a crowning portion of the highest experience. The One who eternally becomes the Many, the Many who in their apparent division are still eternally one, the Highest who displays in us this secret and mystery of existence, not dispersed by his multiplicity, not limited by his oneness, - this is the integral knowledge, this is the reconciling experience which makes one capable of liberated action, muktasya karma.
This knowledge comes, says the Gita, by a highest bhakti.
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"He comes to know Me," says the Gita, "who and how much I am and in all the reality and principles of my being, yavan yas casmi tattvatah.." This integral knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of the Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme Self of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the Master and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all his soul's love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and adoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the universe, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all lives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the cosmos, of Vasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic existence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge of the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form of whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from its silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self, supreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that highest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of all these existences. The soul of the liberated man thus enters by a reconciling knowledge, penetrates by a perfect simultaneous delight of the transcendent Divine, of the Divine in the individual and of the Divine in the universe into the Purushottama, mam visate tadanantaram. He becomes one with him in his self-knowledge and self-experience, one with him in his being and consciousness and will and worldknowledge and world-impulse, one with him in the universe and in his unity with all creatures in the universe and one with him beyond world and individual in the transcendence of the eternal Infinite, sasvatam padam avyayam. This is the culmination of the supreme bhakti that is at the core of the supreme knowledge.
And it then becomes evident how action continual and unceasing and of all kinds without diminution or abandonment of any part of the activities of life can be not only quite consistent with a supreme spiritual experience, but as forceful a means of reaching this highest spiritual condition as bhakti or knowledge.
Nothing can be more positive than the Gita's statement in this matter. "And by doing also all actions always lodged in Me he attains by my grace the eternal and imperishable status." This liberating action is of the character of works done in a profound union of the will and all the dynamic parts of our nature with the Divine in ourself and the cosmos. It is done first as a sacrifice with the idea still of our self as the doer. It is done next without that idea and with a perception of the Prakriti as the sole doer. It is done last with the knowledge of that Prakriti as the supreme power of the Divine and a renunciation, a surrender of all our actions to him with the individual as a channel only and an instrument. Our works then proceed straight from the Self and Divine within us, are a part of the indivisible universal action, are initiated and performed not by us but by a vast transcendent Shakti. All that we do is done for the sake of the Lord seated in the heart of all, for the Godhead in the individual and for the fulfilment of his will in us, for the sake of the Divine in the world, for the good of all beings, for the fulfilment of the world action and the world purpose, or in one word for the sake of the Purushottama and done really by him through his universal Shakti. These divine works, whatever their form or outward character, cannot bind, but are rather a potent means for rising out of this lower Prakriti of the three gunas to the perfection of the supreme, divine and spiritual nature. Disengaged from these mixed and limited dharmas we escape into the immortal Dharma which comes upon us when we make ourselves one in all our consciousness and action with the Purushottama. That oneness here brings with it the power to rise there into the immortality beyond Time. There we shall exist in his eternal transcendence.
Thus these eight verses carefully read in the light of the knowledge already given by the Teacher are a brief, but still a comprehensive indication of the whole essential idea, the entire central method, all the kernel of the complete Yoga of the Gita.
2.22 - 1941-1943, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The distinction between the Ishwara Consciousness and Brahmic Consciousness is not clear to many people, and also some of the Monists consider Ishwara to be a lower status than Brahman because it is dissolved in the Pralaya.
Krishna took sides openly in the Mahabharata and Rama also in the Ramayana. But Rama, some people do not consider an Avatar: they say he was not Self-conscious because he was weeping. Why? An Avatar cannot weep?
2.22 - Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the popular ideas which derive from the religions that admit reincarnation, there is an inconsistency which, after the manner of popular beliefs, they have been at no pains to reconcile. On the one hand, there is the belief, vague enough but fairly general, that death is followed immediately or with something like immediateness by the assumption of another body. On the other hand, there is the old religious dogma of a life after death in hells and heavens or, it may be, in other worlds or degrees of being, which the soul has acquired or incurred by its merits or demerits in this physical existence; the return to earth intervenes only when that merit and demerit are exhausted and the being is ready for another terrestrial life. This inconsistency would disappear if we admit a variable movement dependent on the stage of evolution which the soul has reached in its manifestation in Nature; all would then turn on the degree of its capacity for entering a higher status than the earthly life. But in the ordinary notion of reincarnation the idea of a spiritual evolution is not explicit, it is only implied in the fact that the soul has to reach the point at which it becomes capable of transcending the necessity of rebirth and returning to its eternal source; but if there is no gradual and graded evolution, this point can be as well reached by a chaotic zigzag movement of which the law is not easily determinable. The definitive solution of the question depends on psychic inquiry and experience; here we can only consider whether there is in the nature of things or in the logic of the evolutionary process any apparent or inherent necessity for either movement, for the immediate transition from body to body or for the retardation or interval before a new reincarnation of the self-embodying psychic principle.
A sort of half necessity for the life in other worlds, a dynamic and practical rather than an essential necessity, arises from the very fact that the different world-principles are interwoven with each other and in a way interdependent and the effect that this fact must have upon the process of our spiritual evolution. But this might be counteracted for a time by the greater pull or attraction of the earth or the preponderant physicality of the evolving nature. Our belief in the birth of an ascending soul into the human form and its repeated rebirth in that form, without which it cannot complete its human evolution, rests, from the point of view of the reasoning intelligence, on the basis that the progressive transit of the soul into higher and higher grades of the earthly existence and, once it has reached the human level, its repeated human birth compose a sequence necessary for the growth of the nature; one brief human life upon earth is evidently insufficient for the evolutionary purpose. In the early stages of a series of human reincarnations, during a period of rudimentary humanity, there is a certain possibility at first sight of an often repeated immediate transmigration, - the repeated assumption of a new human form in a fresh birth immediately the previous body has been dissolved by a cessation or expulsion of the organised life-energy and the consequent physical disintegration which we call death. But what necessity of the evolutionary process would compel such a series of immediate rebirths? Evidently, it could only be imperative so long as the psychic individuality - not the secret soul-entity itself but the soul-formation in the natural being - is little evolved, insufficiently developed, so insufficiently formed that it could not abide except by dependence upon the uninterrupted continuance of this life's mental, vital and physical individuality: unable as yet to persist in itself, discard its past mind-formation and life-formation and build after a useful interval new formations, it would be obliged to transfer at once its rudimentary crude personality for preservation to a new body. It is doubtful whether we should be justified in attri buting any such entirely insufficient development to a being so strongly individualised that it has got as far as the human consciousness.
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For the principle will be the same; the mental being in us seeking for success by a misuse of force which Nature admits but reacts in the end against it, receives the adverse return in the guise of defeat and suffering and failure. But the promotion of this minor line of causes and results to the status of an invariable absolute Law or the whole cosmic rule of action of a supreme Being is not valid; they belong to a middle region between the inmost or supreme Truth of things and the impartiality of material Nature.
In any case the reactions of Nature are not in essence meant as reward or punishment; that is not their fundamental value, which is rather an inherent value of natural relations and, in so far as it affects the spiritual evolution, a value of the lessons of experience in the soul's cosmic training. If we touch fire, it burns, but there is no principle of punishment in this relation of cause and effect, it is a lesson of relation and a lesson of experience; so in all Nature's dealings with us there is a relation of things and there is a corresponding lesson of experience. The action of the cosmic Energy is complex and the same Forces may act in different ways according to circumstances, to the need of the being, to the intention of the Cosmic Power in its action; our life is affected not only by its own energies but by the energies of others and by universal Forces, and all this vast interplay cannot be determined in its results solely by the one factor of an all-governing moral law and its exclusive attention to the merits and demerits, the sins and virtues of individual human beings. Nor can good fortune and evil fortune, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery and suffering be taken as if they existed merely as incentives and deterrents to the natural being in its choice of good and evil. It is for experience, for growth of the individual being that the soul enters into rebirth; joy and grief, pain and suffering, fortune and misfortune are parts of that experience, means of that growth: even, the soul may of itself accept or choose poverty, misfortune and suffering as helpful to its growth, stimulants of a rapid development, and reject riches and prosperity and success as dangerous and conducive to a relaxation of its spiritual effort. Happiness and success bringing happiness are, no doubt, a legitimate demand of humanity; it is an attempt of life and matter to catch a pale reflection or a gross image of felicity: but a superficial happiness and material success, however desirable to our vital nature, are not the main object of our existence; if that had been the intention, life would have been otherwise arranged in the cosmic ordinance of things.
2.22 - The Supreme Secret, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HE ESSENCE of the teaching and the Yoga has thus been given to the disciple on the field of his work and battle and the divine Teacher now proceeds to apply it to his action, but in a way that makes it applicable to all action. Attached to a crucial example, spoken to the protagonist of Kurukshetra, the words bear a much wider significance and are a universal rule for all who are ready to ascend above the ordinary mentality and to live and act in the highest spiritual consciousness. To break out of ego and personal mind and see everything in the wideness of the self and spirit, to know God and adore him in his integral truth and in all his aspects, to surrender all oneself to the transcendent Soul of nature and existence, to possess and be possessed by the divine consciousness, to be one with the One in universality of love and delight and will and knowledge, one in him with all beings, to do works as an adoration and a sacrifice on the divine foundation of a world in which all is God and in the divine status of a liberated spirit, is the sense of the Gita's
Yoga. It is a transition from the apparent to the supreme spiritual and real truth of our being, and one enters into it by putting off the many limitations of the separative consciousness and the mind's attachment to the passion and unrest and ignorance, the lesser light and knowledge, the sin and virtue, the dual law and standard of the lower nature. Therefore, says the Teacher,
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in thy egoism thou thinkest, saying 'I will not fight'; thy nature shall appoint thee to thy work. What from delusion thou desirest not to do, that helplessly thou shalt do bound by thy own work born of thy swabhava. The Lord is stationed in the heart of all existences, O Arjuna, and turns them all round and round mounted on a machine by his Maya. In him take refuge in every way of thy being and by his grace thou shalt come to the supreme peace and the eternal status."
These are lines that carry in them the innermost heart of this Yoga and lead to its crowning experience and we must understand them in their innermost spirit and the whole vastness of that high summit of experience. The words express the most complete, intimate and living relation possible between God and man; they are instinct with the concentrated force of religious feeling that springs from the human being's absolute adoration, his upward surrender of his whole existence, his unreserved and perfect self-giving to the transcendent and universal Divinity from whom he comes and in whom he lives. This stress of feeling is in entire consonance with the high and enduring place that the
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Thus it is not by a nirvana, an exclusion and negating extinction of all that we are here, but by a nirvana, an exclusion and negating extinction of ignorance and ego and a consequent ineffable fulfilment of our knowledge and will and heart's aspiration, an uplifted and limitless living of them in the Divine, in the Eternal, nivasis.yasi mayyeva, a transfigurement and transference of all our consciousness to a greater inner status that there comes this supreme perfection and release in the spirit.
The crux of the spiritual problem, the character of this transition of which it is so difficult for the normal mind of man to get a true apprehension, turns altogether upon the capital distinction between the ignorant life of the ego in the lower nature and the large and luminous existence of the liberated
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Prakriti, an eternal conscious ray of the divine existence and as everlasting as that supernal Prakriti. One side of the highest perfection and status of our liberated consciousness must then be to assume the true place of the Jiva in a supreme spiritual
Nature, there to dwell in the glory of the supreme Purusha and there to have the joy of the eternal spiritual oneness.
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Love and Power takes hold of us, fills both self and instruments and leads us safe through all the doubts and difficulties and perplexities and perils that beset our soul and our life, leads us to a supreme peace and the spiritual freedom of our immortal and eternal status, param santim, sthanam sasvatam.
For after giving out all the laws, the dharmas, and the deepest essence of its Yoga, after saying that beyond all the first secrets revealed to the mind of man by the transforming light of spiritual knowledge, guhyat, this is a still deeper more secret truth, guhyataram, the Gita suddenly declares that there is yet a supreme word that it has to speak, paramam vacah., and a most secret truth of all, sarva-guhyatamam. This secret of secrets the
2.22 - Vijnana or Gnosis, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In our perfect self-transcendence we pass out and up from the ignorance or half-enlightenment of our mental conscious-being into a greater wisdom-self and truth-power above it, there to dwell in the unwalled light of a divine knowledge. The mental man that we are is changed into the gnostic soul, the truth-conscious godhead, the vijnanamaya purusa. Seated on that level of the hill of our ascension we are in a quite different plane from this material, this vital, this mental poise of the universal spirit, and with this change changes too all our view and experience of our soul-life and of the world around us. We are born into a new soul- status and put on a new nature; for according to the status of the soul is the status of the prakriti. At each transition of the world-ascent, from matter to life, from life to mind, from mind bound to free intelligence, as the latent, half-manifested or already manifest soul rises to a higher and higher level of being, the nature also is elevated into a superior working, a wider consciousness, a vaster force and an intenser or larger range and joy of existence. But the transition from the mind-self to the knowledge-self is the great and the decisive transition in the Yoga. It is the shaking off of the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance and our firm foundation in the Truth of things, in a consciousness infinite and eternal and inviolable by obscurity, falsehood, suffering or error.
This is the first summit which enters into the divine perfection, sadharmaya, sadrsya; for all the rest only look up to it or catch some rays of its significance. The highest heights of mind or of overmind come still within the belt of a mitigated ignorance; they can refract a divine Light but not pass it on in undiminished power to our lower members. For so long as we are within the triple stratum of mind, life and body, our active nature continues to work in the force of the ignorance even when the soul in Mind possesses something of the knowledge. And even if the soul were to reflect or to represent all the largeness of the knowledge in its mental consciousness, it would be unable to mobilise it rightly in force of action. The truth in its action might greatly increase, but it would still be pursued by a limitation, still condemned to a divisibility which would prevent it from working integrally in the power of the infinite. The power of a divinely illumined mind may be immense compared with ordinary powers, but it will still be subject to incapacity and there can be no perfect correspondence between the force of the effective will and the light of the idea which inspires it. The infinite Presence may be there in status, but dynamis of the operations of nature still belongs to the lower prakriti, must follow its triple modes of working and cannot give any adequate form to the greatness within it. This is the tragedy of ineffectivity, of the hiatus between ideal and effective will, of our constant incapacity to work out in living form and action the truth we feel in our inner consciousness that pursues all the aspiration of mind and life towards the divinity behind them. But the vijnana or gnosis is not only truth but truth-power, it is the very working of the infinite and divine nature; it is the divine knowledge one with the divine will in the force and delight of a spontaneous and luminous and inevitable self-fulfilment. By the gnosis, then, we change our human into a divine nature.
What then is this gnosis and how can we describe it? Two opposite errors have to be avoided, two misconceptions that disfigure opposite sides of the truth of gnosis. One error of intellect-bounded thinkers takes vijnana as synonymous with the other Indian term buddhi and the buddhi as synonymous with the reason, the discerning intellect, the logical intelligence. The systems that accept this significance, pass at once from a plane of pure intellect to a plane of pure spirit. No intermediate power is recognised, no diviner action of knowledge than the pure reason, is admitted; the limited human means for facing truth is taken for the highest possible dynamics of consciousness, its topmost force and original movement. An opposite error, a misconception of the mystics identifies vijnana with the consciousness of the Infinite free from all ideation or else ideation packed into one essence of thought, lost to other dynamic action in the single and invariable idea of the One. This is the caitanyaghana of the Upanishad and is one movement or rather one thread of the many-aspected movement of the gnosis. The gnosis, the Vijnana is not only this concentrated consciousness of the infinite Essence, it is also and at the same time an infinite knowledge of the myriad play of the Infinite. It contains all ideation (not mental but supramental), but it is not limited by ideation, for it far exceeds all ideative movement. Nor is the gnostic ideation in its character an intellectual thinking; it is not what we call the reason, not a concentrated intelligence. For the reason is mental in its methods, mental in its acquisitions, mental in its basis, but the ideative method of the gnosis is self-luminous, supramental, its yield of thought-light spontaneous, not proceeding by acquisition, its thought-basis a rendering of conscious identities, not a translation of the impressions born of indirect contacts. There is a relation and even a sort of broken identity between the two forms of thought; for one proceeds covertly from other. Mind is born from that which is beyond mind. But they act on different planes and reverse each other's process.
2.23 - Man and the Evolution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In fact we see that the principles of creation are permanent and unchanging: each type of being remains itself and does not try nor has any need to become other than itself; granting that some types of existence disappear and others come into being, it is because the Consciousness-Force in the universe withdraws its life-delight from those that perish and turns to create others for its pleasure. But each type of life, while it lasts, has its own pattern and remains faithful with whatever minor variations to that pattern: it is bound to its own consciousness and cannot get away from it into other-consciousness; limited by its own nature, it cannot transgress these boundaries and pass into othernature. If the Consciousness-Force of the Infinite has manifested Life after manifesting Matter and Mind after manifesting Life, it does not follow that it will proceed to manifest Supermind as the next terrestrial creation. For Mind and Supermind belong to quite different hemispheres, Mind to the lower status of the Ignorance, Supermind to the higher status of the Divine Knowledge.
This world is a world of the Ignorance and intended to be that only; there need be no intention to bring down the powers of the higher hemisphere into the lower half of existence or to manifest their concealed presence there; for, if they are at all existent here, it is in an occult incommunicable immanence and only to maintain the creation, not to perfect it. Man is the summit of this ignorant creation; he has reached the utmost consciousness and knowledge of which it is capable: if he tries to go farther, he will only revolve in larger cycles of his own mentality. For that is the curve of his existence here, a finite circling which carries the mind in its revolutions and returns always to the point from which it started; mind cannot go outside its own cycle, - all idea of a straight line of movement or of progress reaching infinitely upward or sidewise into the Infinite is a delusion. If the soul of man is to go beyond humanity, to reach either a supramental or a still higher status, it must pass out of this cosmic existence, either to a plane or world of bliss and knowledge or into the unmanifest Eternal and Infinite.
It is true that Science now affirms an evolutionary terrestrial existence: but if the facts with which Science deals are reliable, the generalisations it hazards are short-lived; it holds them for some decades or some centuries, then passes to another generalisation, another theory of things. This happens even in physical Science where the facts are solidly ascertainable and verifiable by experiment: in psychology, - which is relevant here, for the evolution of consciousness comes into the picture, - its instability is still greater; it passes there from one theory to another before the first is well-founded; indeed, several conflicting theories hold the field together. No firm metaphysical building can be erected upon these shifting quicksands. Heredity upon which Science builds its concept of life evolution, is certainly a power, a machinery for keeping type or species in unchanged being: the demonstration that it is also an instrument for persistent and progressive variation is very questionable; its tendency is conservative rather than evolutionary, - it seems to accept with difficulty the new character that the Life-Force attempts to force upon it. All the facts show that a type can vary within its own specification of nature, but there is nothing to show that it can go beyond it. It has not yet been really established that ape-kind developed into man; for it would rather seem that a type resembling the ape, but always characteristic of itself and not of apehood, developed within its own tendencies of nature and became what we know as man, the present human being. It is not even established that inferior races of man developed out of themselves the superior races; those of an inferior organisation and capacity perished, but it has not been shown that they left behind the human races of today as their descendants: but still such a development within the type is imaginable. The progress of Nature from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind, may be conceded: but there is no proof yet that Matter developed into Life or Life-energy into Mindenergy; all that can be conceded is that Life has manifested in Matter, Mind in living Matter. For there is no sufficient proof that any vegetable species developed into an animal existence or that any organisation of inanimate matter developed into a living organism. Even if it be discovered hereafter that under certain chemical or other conditions life makes its appearance, all that will be established by this coincidence is that in certain physical circumstances life manifests, not that certain chemical conditions are constituents of life, are its elements or are the evolutionary cause of a transformation of inanimate into animate matter. Here as elsewhere each grade of being exists in itself and by itself, is manifested according to its own character by its own proper energy, and the gradations above or below it are not origins and resultant sequences but only degrees in the continuous scale of earth-nature.
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In fact, the idea of the priority of the lower forms of life is not altogether absent in ancient thinking. Apart from mythical accounts of creation, we find already in ancient and mediaeval thought in India utterances that favour the priority of the animal over man in the time succession in a sense that agrees with the modern evolutionary conception. An Upanishad declares that the Self or Spirit after deciding on life creation first formed animal kinds like the cow and horse, but the gods, - who are in the thought of the Upanishads powers of Consciousness and powers of Nature, - found them to be insufficient vehicles, and the Spirit finally created the form of man which the gods saw to be excellently made and sufficient and they entered into it for their cosmic functions. This is a clear parable of the creation of more and more developed forms till one was found that was capable of housing a developed consciousness. In the Puranas it is stated that the tamasic animal creation was the first in time. Tamas is the Indian word for the principle of inertia of consciousness and force: a consciousness dull and sluggish and incompetent in its play is said to be tamasic; a force, a life-energy that is indolent and limited in its capacity, bound to a narrow range of instinctive impulses, not developing, not seeking farther, not urged to a greater kinetic action or a more luminously conscious action, would be assigned to the same category. The animal, in whom there is this less developed force of consciousness, is prior in creation; the more developed human consciousness, in which there is a greater force of kinetic mindenergy and light of perception, is a later creation. The Tantra speaks of a soul fallen from its status passing through many lacs of births in plant and animal forms before it can reach the human level and be ready for salvation. Here, again, there is implied the conception of vegetable and animal life-forms as the lower steps of a ladder, humanity as the last or culminating development of the conscious being, the form which the soul has to inhabit in order to be capable of the spiritual motive and a spiritual issue out of mentality, life and physicality. This is indeed the normal conception, and it recommends itself so strongly both to reason and intuition that it hardly needs debate, - the conclusion is almost unescapable.
It is against this background of a developing evolutionary process that we have to look at man, his origin and first appearance, his status in the manifestation. There are here two possibilities; either there was the sudden appearance of a human body and consciousness in the earth nature, an abrupt creation or independent automatic manifestation of reasoning mentality in the material world intervening upon a previous similar manifestation of subconscious life-forms and of living conscious bodies in Matter, or else there was an evolution of humanity out of animal being, slow perhaps in its preparation and in its stages of development, but with strong leaps of change at the decisive points of the transition. The latter theory offers no difficulty: for it is certain that changes of characteristics in the type, though not of the fundamental type itself, can be brought about in species or genus, - indeed this has already been done by man himself and its possibilities are being strikingly worked out on a small scale by experimental Science, - and it may fairly be assumed that the secretly conscious Energy in Nature could effect largescale operations of the kind and bring about considerable and decisive developments by means of its own creative conventions.
The necessary condition for the change from the normal animal to the human character of existence would be a development of the physical organisation which would capacitate a rapid progression, a reversal or turnover of the consciousness, a reaching to a new height and a looking down from it at the lower stages, a heightening and widening of capacity which would enable the being to take up the old animal faculties with a larger and more plastic, a human intelligence, and at the same time or later to develop greater and subtler powers proper to the new type of being, powers of reason, reflection, complex observation, organised invention, thought and discovery. If there is an emergent Consciousness-Force, there would be no difficulty in the transition, the instrument being provided, except the difficulty of the obstruction and resistance of the material Inconscience.
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It is pertinently suggested that if such an evolutionary culmination is intended and man is to be its medium, it will only be a few especially evolved human beings who will form the new type and move towards the new life; that once done, the rest of humanity will sink back from a spiritual aspiration no longer necessary for Nature's purpose and remain quiescent in its normal status. It can equally be reasoned that the human gradation must be preserved if there is really an ascent of the soul by reincarnation through the evolutionary degrees towards the spiritual summit; for otherwise the most necessary of all the intermediate steps will be lacking. It must be conceded at once that there is not the least probability or possibility of the whole human race rising in a block to the supramental level; what is suggested is nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental and emotional and sensational constitution and also to a great extent of the body-consciousness and the physical conditioning of our life and energies; but the change of consciousness will be the chief factor, the initial movement, the physical modification will be a subordinate factor, a consequence. This transmutation of the consciousness will always remain possible to the human being when the flame of the soul, the psychic kindling, becomes potent in heart and mind and the nature is ready. The spiritual aspiration is innate in man; for he is, unlike the animal, aware of imperfection and limitation and feels that there is something to be attained beyond what he now is: this urge towards selfexceeding is not likely ever to die out totally in the race. The human mental status will be always there, but it will be there not only as a degree in the scale of rebirth, but as an open step towards the spiritual and supramental status.
It must be observed that the appearance of human mind and body on the earth marks a crucial step, a decisive change in the course and process of the evolution; it is not merely a continuation of the old lines. Up till this advent of a developed thinking mind in Matter evolution had been effected, not by the self-aware aspiration, intention, will or seeking of the living being, but subconsciously or subliminally by the automatic operation of Nature. This was so because the evolution began from the Inconscience and the secret Consciousness had not emerged sufficiently from it to operate through the self-aware participating individual will of its living creature. But in man the necessary change has been made, - the being has become awake and aware of himself; there has been made manifest in Mind its will to develop, to grow in knowledge, to deepen the inner and widen the outer existence, to increase the capacities of the nature. Man has seen that there can be a higher status of consciousness than his own; the evolutionary oestrus is there in his parts of mind and life, the aspiration to exceed himself is delivered and articulate within him: he has become conscious of a soul, discovered the self and spirit. In him, then, the substitution of a conscious for a subconscious evolution has become conceivable and practicable, and it may well be concluded that the aspiration, the urge, the persistent endeavour in him is a sure sign of Nature's will for a higher way of fulfilment, the emergence of a greater status.
In the previous stages of the evolution Nature's first care and effort had to be directed towards a change in the physical organisation, for only so could there be a change of consciousness; this was a necessity imposed by the insufficiency of the force of consciousness already in formation to effect a change in the body. But in man a reversal is possible, indeed inevitable; for it is through his consciousness, through its transmutation and no longer through a new bodily organism as a first instrumentation that the evolution can and must be effected. In the inner reality of things a change of consciousness was always the major fact, the evolution has always had a spiritual significance and the physical change was only instrumental; but this relation was concealed by the first abnormal balance of the two factors, the body of the external Inconscience outweighing and obscuring in importance the spiritual element, the conscious being. But once the balance has been righted, it is no longer the change of body that must precede the change of consciousness; the consciousness itself by its mutation will necessitate and operate whatever mutation is needed for the body. It has to be noted that the human mind has already shown a capacity to aid Nature in the evolution of new types of plant and animal; it has created new forms of its environment, developed by knowledge and discipline considerable changes in its own mentality. It is not an impossibility that man should aid Nature consciously also in his own spiritual and physical evolution and transformation.
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There is no conclusive validity in the reasoning that because this is a world of Ignorance, such a transformation can only be achieved by a passage to a heaven beyond or cannot be achieved at all and the demand of the psychic entity is itself ignorant and must be replaced by a merger of the soul in the Absolute. This conclusion could only be solely valid if Ignorance were the whole meaning, substance and power of the world-manifestation or if there were no element in worldNature itself through which there could be an exceeding of the ignorant mentality that still burdens our present status of being.
But the Ignorance is only a portion of this world-Nature; it is not the whole of it, not the original power or creator: it is in its higher origin a self-limiting Knowledge and even in its lower origin, its emergence out of the sheer material Inconscience, it is a suppressed Consciousness labouring to find, to recover itself, to manifest Knowledge, which is its true character, as the foundation of existence. In universal Mind itself there are ranges above our mentality which are instruments of the cosmic truth-cognition, and into these the mental being can surely rise; for already it rises towards them in supernormal conditions or receives from them without yet knowing or possessing them intuitions, spiritual intimations, large influxes of illumination or spiritual capacity. All these ranges are conscious of what is beyond them, and the highest of them is directly open to the Supermind, aware of the Truth-consciousness which exceeds it.
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Man's urge towards spirituality is the inner driving of the spirit within him towards emergence, the insistence of the Consciousness-Force of the being towards the next step of its manifestation. It is true that the spiritual urge has been largely other-worldly or turned at its extreme towards a spiritual negation and self-annihilation of the mental individual; but this is only one side of its tendency maintained and made dominant by the necessity of passing out of the kingdom of the fundamental Inconscience, overcoming the obstacle of the body, casting away the obscure vital, getting rid of the ignorant mentality, the necessity to attain first and foremost, by a rejection of all these impediments to spiritual being, to a spiritual status. The other, the dynamic side of the spiritual urge has not been absent, - the aspiration to a spiritual mastery and mutation of Nature, to a spiritual perfection of the being, a divinisation of the mind, the heart and the very body: there has even been the dream or a psychic prevision of a fulfilment exceeding the individual transformation, a new earth and heaven, a city of God, a divine descent upon earth, a reign of the spiritually perfect, a kingdom of God not only within us but outside, in a collective human life. However obscure may have been some of the forms taken by this aspiration, the indication they contain of the urge of the occult spiritual being within to emergence in earth-nature is unmistakable.
If a spiritual unfolding on earth is the hidden truth of our birth into Matter, if it is fundamentally an evolution of consciousness that has been taking place in Nature, then man as he is cannot be the last term of that evolution: he is too imperfect an expression of the spirit, mind itself a too limited form and instrumentation; mind is only a middle term of consciousness, the mental being can only be a transitional being. If, then, man is incapable of exceeding mentality, he must be surpassed and supermind and superman must manifest and take the lead of the creation. But if his mind is capable of opening to what exceeds it, then there is no reason why man himself should not arrive at supermind and supermanhood or at least lend his mentality, life and body to an evolution of that greater term of the Spirit manifesting in Nature.
2.23 - The Core of the Gita.s Meaning, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Gita in the development of its idea raises many issues, such as the determinism of Nature, the significance of the universal manifestation and the ultimate status of the liberated soul, questions that have been the subject of unending and inconclusive debate. It is not necessary in this series of essays of which the object is a scrutiny and positive affirmation of the substance of the Gita and a disengaging of its contri bution to the abiding spiritual thought of humanity and its kernel of living practice, to enter far into these discussions or to consider where we may differ from its standpoint or conclusions, make any reserves in our assent or even, strong in later experience, go beyond its metaphysical teaching or its Yoga. It will be sufficient to close with a formulation of the living message it still brings for man the eternal seeker and discoverer to guide him through the present circuits and the possible steeper ascent of his life up to the luminous heights of his spirit.
2.24 - Gnosis and Ananda, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ascent to the gnosis, the possession of something of the gnostic consciousness must elevate the soul of man and sublimate his life in the world into a glory of light and power and bliss and infinity that can seem in comparison with the lame action and limited realisations of our present mental and physical existence the very status and dynamis of a perfection final and absolute. And it is a true perfection, such as nothing before it has yet been in the ascension of the spirit. For even the highest spiritual realisation on the plane of mentality has in it something top-heavy, one-sided and exclusive; even the widest mental spirituality is not wide enough and it is marred too by its imperfect power of self-expression in life. And yet in comparison with what is beyond it, this too, this first gnostic splendour is only a bright passage to a more perfect perfection. It is the secure and shining step from which we can happily mount still upwards into the absolute infinities which ale the origin and the goal of the incarnating spirit. In this farther ascension the gnosis does not disappear, but reaches rather its own supreme Light out of which it has descended to mediate between mind and the supreme Infinite.
The Upanishad tells us that after the knowledge-self above the mental is possessed and all the lower selves have been drawn up into it, there is another and the last step of all still left to us -- though one might ask, is it eternally the last or only the last practically conceivable or at all necessary for us now? -- to take up our gnostic existence into the Bliss-Self and there complete the spiritual self-discovery of the divine Infinite. Ananda, a supreme Bliss eternal, far other and higher in its character than the highest human joy or pleasure is the essential and original nature of the spirit. In Ananda our spirit will find its true self, in Ananda its essential consciousness, in Ananda the absolute power of its existence. The embodied soul's entry into the highest absolute, unlimited, unconditional bliss of the spirit is the infinite liberation and the infinite perfection. It is true that something of this bliss can be enjoyed by reflection, by a qualified descent even on the lower planes where the Purusha plays with his modified and qualified Nature. There can be the experience of a spiritual and boundless Ananda on the plane of matter, on the plane of life, on the plane of mind as well as on the gnostic truth-plane of knowledge and above it. And the Yogin who enters into these lesser realisations, may find them so complete and compelling that he will imagine there is nothing greater, nothing beyond it. For each of the divine principles contains in itself the whole potentiality of all the other six notes of our being; each plane of Nature can have its own perfection of these notes under its own conditions. But the integral perfection can come only by a mounting ascent of the lowest into the highest and an incessant descent of the highest into the lowest till all becomes one at once solid block and plastic sea-stuff of the Truth infinite and eternal.
The very physical consciousness in man, the annamaya purusa, can without this supreme ascent and integral descent yet reflect and enter into the self of Sachchidananda. It can do it either by a reflection of the Soul in physical Nature, its bliss, power and infinity secret but still present here, or by losing its separate sense of substance and existence in the Self within or without it. The result is a glorified sleep of the physical mind in which the physical being forgets itself in a kind of conscious Nirvana or else moves about like a thing inert in the hands of Nature jadavat, like a leaf in the wind, or otherwise a state of pure happy and free irresponsibility of action, balavat, a divine childhood. But this comes without the higher glories of knowledge and delight which belong to the same status upon a more exalted level. It is an inert realisation of Sachchidananda in which there is neither any mastery of the prakriti by the Purusha nor any sublimation of Nature into her own supreme power, the infinite glories of the Para shakti. Yet these two, this mastery and this sublimation, are the two gates of perfection, the splendid doors into the supreme Eternal.
The life-soul and life-consciousness in man, pranamaya purusa, can in the same way directly reflect and enter into the self of Sachchidananda by a large and splendid and blissful reflection of the Soul in universal Life or by losing its separate sense of life and existence in the vast Self within or without it. The result is either a profound state of sheer self-oblivion or else an action driven irresponsibly by the life nature, an exalted enthusiasm of self-abandonment to the great world-energy in its vitalistic dance. The outer being lives in a God-possessed frenzy careless of itself and the world, inmattavat, or with an entire disregard whether of the conventions and proprieties of fitting human action or of the harmony and rhythms of a greater Truth. It acts as the unbound vital being, pisacavat, the divine maniac or else the divine demoniac. Here too there is no mastery or supreme sublimation of nature. There is only a joyful static possession by the Self within us and an unregulated dynamic possession by the physical and the vital Nature without us.
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And what will be the bliss nature when it manifests in a new supramental race? The fully evolved soul will be one with all beings in the status and dynamic effects of experience of a bliss-consciousness intense and illimitable. And since love is the effective power and soul-symbol of bliss-oneness he will approach and enter into this oneness by the gate of universal love, the sublimation of human love at first, a divine love afterwards, at its summits a thing of beauty, sweetness and splendour now to us inconceivable. He will be one in bliss-consciousness with all the world-play and its powers and happenings and there will be banished for ever the sorrow and fear, the hunger and pain of our poor and darkened mental and vital and physical existence. He will get that power of the bliss-freedom in which all the conflicting principles of our being shall be unified in their absolute values. All evil shall perforce change itself into good; the universal beauty of the All-beautiful will take possession of its fallen kingdoms; every darkness will be converted into a pregnant glory of light and the discords which the mind creates between Truth and Good and Beauty, Power and Love and Knowledge will disappear on the eternal summit, in the infinite extensions where they are always one.
The Purusha in mind, life and body is divided from Nature and in conflict with her. He labours to control and coerce what he can embody of her by his masculine force and is yet subject to her afflicting dualities and in fact her plaything from top to bottom, beginning to end. In the gnosis he is biune with her, finds as master of his own nature their reconciliation and harmony by their essential oneness even while he accepts an infinite blissful subjection, the condition of his mastery and his liberties, to the Supreme in his sovereign divine Nature. In the tops of the gnosis and in the Ananda he is one with the prakriti and no longer solely biune with her. There is no longer the baffling play of Nature with the soul in the Ignorance; all is the conscious play of the soul with itself and all its selves and the Supreme and the divine shakti in its own and the infinite bliss nature. This is the supreme mystery, the highest secret, simple to our experience, however difficult and complex to our mental conceptions and the effort of our limited intelligence to understand what is beyond it. In the free infinity of the self-delight of Sachchidananda there is a play of the divine Child, a rasa lila of the infinite Lover, and its mystic soul-symbols repeat themselves in characters of beauty and movements and harmonies of delight in a timeless forever.
2.24 - The Evolution of the Spiritual Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He strives by these means and has the knowledge: in him this spirit enters into its supreme status. . . . Satisfied in knowledge, having built up their spiritual being, the Wise, in union with the spiritual self, reach the Omnipresent everywhere and enter into the All. Mundaka Upanishad.7
IN THE earliest stages of evolutionary Nature we are met by the dumb secrecy of her inconscience; there is no revelation of any significance or purpose in her works, no hint of any other principles of being than that first formulation which is her immediate preoccupation and seems to be for ever her only business: for in her primal works Matter alone appears, the sole dumb and stark cosmic reality. A Witness of creation, if there had been one conscious but uninstructed, would only have seen appearing out of a vast abyss of an apparent non-existence an Energy busy with the creation of Matter, a material world and material objects, organising the infinity of the Inconscient into the scheme of a boundless universe or a system of countless universes that stretched around him into Space without any certain end or limit, a tireless creation of nebulae and star-clusters and suns and planets, existing only for itself, without a sense in it, empty of cause or purpose. It might have seemed to him a stupendous machinery without a use, a mighty meaningless movement, an aeonic spectacle without a witness, a cosmic edifice without an inhabitant; for he would have seen no sign of an indwelling Spirit, no being for whose delight it was made. A creation of this kind could only be the outcome of an inconscient Energy or an illusion-cinema, a shadow play or puppet play of forms reflected on a superconscient indifferent Absolute. He would have seen no evidence of a soul and no hint of mind or life in this immeasurable and interminable display of Matter. It would not have seemed to him possible or imaginable that there could at all be in this desert universe for ever inanimate and insensible an outbreak of teeming life, a first vibration of something occult and incalculable, alive and conscious, a secret spiritual entity feeling its way towards the surface.
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It is only through these decisive movements that the true character of the evolution becomes evident; for till then there are only preparatory movements, a pressure of the psychic Entity on the mind, life and body to develop a true soul action, a pressure of the spirit or self for liberation from the ego, from the surface ignorance, a turning of the mind and life towards some occult Reality, - preliminary experiences, partial formulations of a spiritualised mind, a spiritualised life, but no complete change, no probability of an entire unveiling of the soul or self or a radical transformation of the nature. When there is the decisive emergence, one sign of it is the status or action in us of an inherent, intrinsic, self-existent consciousness which knows itself by the mere fact of being, knows all that is in itself in the same way, by identity with it, begins even to see all that to our mind seems external in the same manner, by a movement of identity or by an intrinsic direct consciousness which envelops, penetrates, enters into its object, discovers itself in the object, is aware in it of something that is not mind or life or body.
There is, then, evidently a spiritual consciousness which is other than the mental, and it testifies to the existence of a spiritual being in us which is other than our surface mental personality.
But at first this consciousness may confine itself to a status of being separate from the action of our ignorant surface nature, observing it, limiting itself to knowledge, to a seeing of things with a spiritual sense and vision of existence. For action it may still depend upon the mental, vital, bodily instruments, or it may allow them to act according to their own nature and itself remain satisfied with self-experience and self-knowledge, with an inner liberation, an eventual freedom: but it may also and usually does exercise a certain authority, governance, influence on thought, life movement, physical action, a purifying uplifting control compelling them to move in a higher and purer truth of themselves, to obey or be an instrumentation of an influx of some diviner Power or a luminous direction which is not mental but spiritual and can be recognised as having a certain divine character, - the inspiration of a greater Self or the comm and of the Ruler of all being, the Ishwara. Or the nature may obey the psychic entity's intimations, move in an inner light, follow an inner guidance. This is already a considerable evolution and amounts to a beginning at least of a psychic and spiritual transformation. But it is possible to go farther; for the spiritual being, once inwardly liberated, can develop in mind the higher states of being that are its own natural atmosphere and bring down a supramental energy and action which are proper to the Truth-consciousness; the ordinary mental instrumentation, lifeinstrumentation, physical instrumentation even, could then be entirely transformed and become parts no longer of an ignorance however much illumined, but of a supramental creation which would be the true action of a spiritual truth-consciousness and knowledge.
At first this truth of the spirit and of spirituality is not selfevident to the mind; man becomes mentally aware of his soul as something other than his body, superior to his normal mind and life, but he has no clear sense of it, only a feeling of some of its effects on his nature. As these effects take a mental form or a life form, the difference is not firmly and trenchantly drawn, the soul perception does not acquire a distinct and assured independence.
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This, however, imposes a difficult and slow spiritual advance: for, first, the spiritual emergence has to wait at each step for the instruments to be ready; next, as the spiritual formation emerges, it is mixed inextricably with the powers, motives, impulses of an imperfect mind, life and body, - there is a pull on it to accept and serve these powers, motives and impulses, a downward gravitation and perilous mixture, a constant temptation to fall or deviation, at least a fettering, a weight, a retardation; there is a necessity to return upon a step gained in order to bring up something of the nature which hangs back and prevents a farther step; finally, there is, by the very character of mind in which it has to work, a limitation of the emerging spiritual light and power and a compulsion on it to move by segments, to follow one line or another and leave altogether or leave till later on the achievement of its own totality. This hampering, this obstacle of the mind, life and body, - the heavy inertia and persistence of the body, the turbid passions of the life-part, the obscurity and doubting incertitudes, denials, other-formulations of the mind, - is an impediment so great and intolerable that the spiritual urge becomes impatient and tries rigorously to quell these opponents, to reject the life, to mortify the body, to silence the mind and achieve its own separate salvation, spirit departing into pure spirit and rejecting from it altogether an undivine and obscure Nature. Apart from the supreme call, the natural push of the spiritual part in us to return to its own highest element and status, this aspect of vital and physical Nature as an impediment to pure spirituality is a compelling reason for asceticism, for illusionism, for the tendency to other-worldliness, the urge towards withdrawal from life, the passion for a pure and unmixed Absolute. A pure spiritual absolutism is a movement of the self towards its own supreme selfhood, but it is also indispensable for Nature's own purpose; for without it the mixture, the downward gravitation would make the spiritual emergence impossible. The extremist of this absolutism, the solitary, the ascetic, is the standard-bearer of the spirit, his ochre robe is its flag, the sign of a refusal of all compromise, - as indeed the struggle of emergence cannot end by a compromise, but only by an entire spiritual victory and the complete surrender of the lower nature. If that is impossible here, then indeed it must be achieved elsewhere; if Nature refuses submission to the emerging spirit, then the soul must withdraw from her. There is thus a dual tendency in the spiritual emergence, on one side a drive towards the establishment at all cost of the spiritual consciousness in the being, even to the rejection of Nature, on the other side a push towards the extension of spirituality to our parts of nature. But until the first is fully achieved, the second can only be imperfect and halting.
It is the foundation of the pure spiritual consciousness that is the first object in the evolution of the spiritual man, and it is this and the urge of that consciousness towards contact with the Reality, the Self or the Divine Being that must be the first and foremost or even, till it is perfectly accomplished, the sole preoccupation of the spiritual seeker. It is the one thing needful that has to be done by each on whatever line is possible to him, by each according to the spiritual capacity developed in his nature.
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Out of this second stage there emerged a third which tried to liberate the secret spiritual experience and knowledge and put it at the disposal of all as a truth that could have a common appeal and must be made universally available. A tendency prevailed, not only to make the spiritual element the very kernel of the religion, but to render it attainable to all the worshippers by an exoteric teaching; as each esoteric school had had its system of knowledge and discipline, so now each religion was to have its system of knowledge, its creed and its spiritual discipline. Here, in these two forms of the spiritual evolution, the esoteric and the exoteric, the way of the mystic and the way of the religious man, we see a double principle of evolutionary Nature, the principle of intensive and concentrated evolution in a small space and the principle of expansion and extension so that the new creation may be generalised in as large a field as possible. The first is the concentrated dynamic and effective movement; the second tends towards diffusion and status. As a result of this new development, the spiritual aspiration at first carefully treasured by a few became more generalised in mankind, but it lost in purity, height and intensity. The mystics founded their endeavour on a power of suprarational knowledge, intuitive, inspired, revelatory and on the force of the inner being to enter into occult truth and experience: but these powers are not possessed by men in the mass or possessed only in a crude, undeveloped and fragmentary initial form on which nothing could be safely founded; so for them in this new development the spiritual truth had to be clothed in intellectual forms of creed and doctrine, in emotional forms of worship and in a simple but significant ritual. At the same time the strong spiritual nucleus became mixed, diluted, alloyed; it tended to be invaded and aped by the lower elements of mind and life and physical nature. It was this mixture and alloy and invasion of the spurious, this profanation of the mysteries and the loss of their truth and significance, as well as the misuse of the occult power that comes by communication with invisible forces, that was most dreaded by the early mystics and prevented by secrecy, by strict discipline, by restriction to the few fit initiates.
Another untoward result or peril of the diffusive movement and the consequent invasion has been the intellectual formalisation of spiritual knowledge into dogma and the materialisation of living practice into a dead mass of cult and ceremony and ritual, a mechanisation by which the spirit was bound to depart in course of time from the body of the religion. But this risk had to be taken, for the expansive movement was an inherent necessity of the spiritual urge in evolutionary Nature.
2.24 - The Message of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Godhead of which it is a portion; then it is one with all beings in the self and spirit, one with them both in God and in Nature; then it is not only free but complete, plunged in the supreme felicity, ready for its ultimate perfection. He still sees the self as an eternal and changeless Spirit silently supporting all things; but he sees also Nature no longer as a mere mechanical force that works out things according to the mechanism of the gunas, but as a power of the Spirit and the force of God in manifestation. He sees that the lower Nature is not the inmost truth of the spirit's action; he becomes aware of a highest spiritual nature of the Divine in which is contained the source and the yet to be realised greater truth of all that is imperfectly figured now in mind, life and body. Arisen from the lower mental to this supreme spiritual nature, he is delivered there from all ego. He knows himself as a spiritual being, in his essence one with all existences and in his active nature a power of the one Godhead and an eternal soul of the transcendent Infinite. He sees all in God and God in all; he sees all things as Vasudeva. He is delivered from the dualities of joy and grief, from the pleasant and the unpleasant, from desire and disappointment, from sin and virtue. All henceforth is to his conscious sight and sense the will and working of the Divine. He lives and acts as a soul and portion of the universal consciousness and power; he is filled with the transcendent divine delight, a spiritual Ananda. His action becomes the divine action and his status the highest spiritual status.
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Maya. This perfection, this unity can be enjoyed in its own native status, aloof in a supreme supracosmic existence: but here also you may and should realise it, here in the human body and
The Message of the Gita
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"This will be your perfection in the world and the body, and beyond these worlds of temporal birth the supreme eternal superconsciousness will be yours and you will dwell for ever in the highest status of the Supreme Spirit. The cycles of incarnation and the fear of mortality will not distress you; for here in life
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2.25 - The Triple Transformation, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
IF IT is the sole intention of Nature in the evolution of the spiritual man to awaken him to the supreme Reality and release him from herself, or from the Ignorance in which she as the Power of the Eternal has masked herself, by a departure into a higher status of being elsewhere, if this step in the evolution is a close and an exit, then in the essence her work has been already accomplished and there is nothing more to be done. The ways have been built, the capacity to follow them has been developed, the goal or last height of the creation is manifest; all that is left is for each soul to reach individually the right stage and turn of its development, enter into the spiritual ways and pass by its own chosen path out of this inferior existence. But we have supposed that there is a farther intention, - not only a revelation of the Spirit, but a radical and integral transformation of Nature.
There is a will in her to effectuate a true manifestation of the embodied life of the Spirit, to complete what she has begun by a passage from the Ignorance to the Knowledge, to throw off her mask and to reveal herself as the luminous Consciousness-Force carrying in her the eternal Existence and its universal Delight of being. It then becomes obvious that there is something not yet accomplished, there becomes clear to view the much that has still to be done, bhuri aspas.t.a kartvam; there is a height still to be reached, a wideness still to be covered by the eye of vision, the wing of the will, the self-affirmation of the spirit in the material universe. What the evolutionary Power has done is to make a few individuals aware of their souls, conscious of their selves, aware of the eternal being that they are, to put them into communion with the Divinity or the Reality which is concealed by her appearances: a certain change of nature prepares, accompanies or follows upon this illumination, but it is not the complete and radical change which establishes a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thenceforward be the leader of that Nature.
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This rule of different selves in us is at the root of the stages of the development of human personality which we have already had occasion to differentiate, and we can reconsider them now from the point of view of the government of the nature by the inner principle. In some human beings it is the physical Purusha, the being of body, who dominates the mind, will and action; there is then created the physical man mainly occupied with his corporeal life and habitual needs, impulses, life habits, mind habits, body habits, looking very little or not at all beyond that, subordinating and restricting all his other tendencies and possibilities to that narrow formation. But even in the physical man there are other elements and he cannot live altogether as the human animal concerned with birth and death and procreation and the satisfaction of common impulses and desires and the maintenance of the life and the body: this is his normal type of personality, but it is crossed, however feebly, with influences by which he can proceed, if they are developed, to a higher human evolution. If the inner subtle-physical Purusha insists, he can arrive at the idea of a finer, more beautiful and perfect physical life and hope or attempt to realise it in his own or in the collective or group existence. In others it is the vital self, the being of life, who dominates and rules the mind, the will, the action; then is created the vital man, concerned with self-affirmation, selfaggrandisement, life-enlargement, satisfaction of ambition and passion and impulse and desire, the claims of his ego, domination, power, excitement, battle and struggle, inner and outer adventure: all else is incidental or subordinated to this movement and building and expression of the vital ego. But still in the vital man too there are or can be other elements of a growing mental or spiritual character, even if these happen to be less developed than his life-personality and life-power. The nature of the vital man is more active, stronger and more mobile, more turbulent and chaotic, often to the point of being quite unregulated, than that of the physical man who holds on to the soil and has a certain material poise and balance, but it is more kinetic and creative: for the element of the vital being is not earth but air; it has more movement, less status. A vigorous vital mind and will can grasp and govern the kinetic vital energies, but it is more by a forceful compulsion and constraint than by a harmonisation of the being. If, however, a strong vital personality, mind and will can get the reasoning intelligence to give it a firm support and be its minister, then a certain kind of forceful formation can be made, more or less balanced but always powerful, successful and effective, which can impose itself on the nature and environment and arrive at a strong self-affirmation in life and action. This is the second step of harmonised formulation possible in the ascent of the nature.
At a higher stage of the evolution of personality the being of mind may rule; there is then created the mental man who lives predominantly in the mind as the others live in the vital or the physical nature. The mental man tends to subordinate to his mental self-expression, mental aims, mental interests or to a mental idea or ideal the rest of his being: because of the difficulty of this subordination and its potent effect when achieved, it is at once more difficult for him and easier to arrive at a harmony of his nature. It is easier because the mental will once in control can convince by the power of the reasoning intelligence and at the same time dominate, compress or suppress the life and the body and their demands, arrange and harmonise them, force them to be its instruments, even reduce them to a minimum so that they shall not disturb the mental life or pull it down from its ideative or idealising movement. It is more difficult because life and body are the first powers and, if they are in the least strong, can impose themselves with an almost irresistible insistence on the mental ruler. Man is a mental being and the mind is the leader of his life and body; but this is a leader who is much led by his followers and has sometimes no other will than what they impose on him. Mind in spite of its power is often impotent before the inconscient and subconscient which obscure its clarity and carry it away on the tide of instinct or impulse; in spite of its clarity it is fooled by vital and emotional suggestions into giving sanction to ignorance and error, to wrong thought and to wrong action, or it is obliged to look on while the nature follows what it knows to be wrong, dangerous or evil. Even when it is strong and clear and dominant, Mind, though it imposes a certain, a considerable mentalised harmony, cannot integrate the whole being and nature. These harmonisations by an inferior control are, besides, inconclusive, because it is one part of the nature which dominates and fulfils itself while the others are coerced and denied their fullness. They can be steps on the way, but not final; therefore in most men there is no such sole dominance and effected partial harmony, but only a predominance and for the rest an unstable equilibrium of a personality half formed, half in formation, sometimes a disequilibrium or unbalance due to the lack of a central government or the disturbance of a formerly achieved partial poise. All must be transitional until a first, though not a final, true harmonisation is achieved by finding our real centre. For the true central being is the soul, but this being stands back and in most human natures is only the secret witness or, one might say, a constitutional ruler who allows his ministers to rule for him, delegates to them his empire, silently assents to their decisions and only now and then puts in a word which they can at any moment override and act otherwise. But this is so long as the soul personality put forward by the psychic entity is not yet sufficiently developed; when this is strong enough for the inner entity to impose itself through it, then the soul can come forward and control the nature. It is by the coming forward of this true monarch and his taking up of the reins of government that there can take place a real harmonisation of our being and our life.
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At its highest the thinking mind is drawn always towards the impersonal; in its search it becomes conscious of a spiritual essence, an impersonal Reality which expresses itself in all these outward signs and characters but is more than any formation or manifesting figure. It feels something of which it becomes intimately and invisibly aware, - a supreme Truth, a supreme Good, a supreme Beauty, a supreme Purity, a supreme Bliss; it bears the increasing touch, less and less impalpable and abstract, more and more spiritually real and concrete, the touch and pressure of an Eternity and Infinity which is all this that is and more. There is a pressure from this Impersonality that seeks to mould the whole mind into a form of itself; at the same time the impersonal secret and law of things becomes more and more visible. The mind develops into the mind of the sage, at first the high mental thinker, then the spiritual sage who has gone beyond the abstractions of thought to the beginnings of a direct experience. As a result the mind becomes pure, large, tranquil, impersonal; there is a similar tranquillising influence on the parts of life: but otherwise the result may remain incomplete; for the mental change leads more naturally towards an inner status and an outer quietude, but, poised in this purifying quietism, not drawn like the vital parts towards a discovery of new life-energies, does not press for a full dynamic effect on the nature.
A higher endeavour through the mind does not change this balance; for the tendency of the spiritualised mind is to go on upwards and, since above itself the mind loses its hold on forms, it is into a vast formless and featureless impersonality that it enters.
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Even before the tranquillising purification of the outer nature has been effected or before it is sufficient, one can still break down the wall screening our inner being from our outer awareness by a strong force of call and aspiration, a vehement will or violent effort or an effective discipline or process; but this may be a premature movement and is not without its serious dangers. In entering within one may find oneself amidst a chaos of unfamiliar and supernormal experiences to which one has not the key or a press of subliminal or cosmic forces, subconscient, mental, vital, subtle-physical, which may unduly sway or chaotically drive the being, encircle it in a cave of darkness, or keep it wandering in a wilderness of glamour, allurement, deception, or push it into an obscure battlefield full of secret and treacherous and misleading or open and violent oppositions; beings and voices and influences may appear to the inner sense and vision and hearing claiming to be the Divine Being or His messengers or Powers and Godheads of the Light or guides of the path to realisation, while in truth they are of a very different character. If there is too much egoism in the nature of the seeker or a strong passion or an excessive ambition, vanity or other dominating weakness, or an obscurity of the mind or a vacillating will or a weakness of the life-force or an unsteadiness in it or want of balance, he is likely to be seized on through these deficiencies and to be frustrated or to deviate, misled from the true way of the inner life and seeking into false paths, or to be left wandering about in an intermediate chaos of experiences and fail to find his way out into the true realisation. These perils were well-known to a past spiritual experience and have been met by imposing the necessity of initiation, of discipline, of methods of purification and testing by ordeal, of an entire submission to the directions of the path-finder or path-leader, one who has realised the Truth and himself possesses and is able to communicate the light, the experience, a guide who is strong to take by the hand and carry over difficult passages as well as to instruct and point out the way. But even so the dangers will be there and can only be surmounted if there is or there grows up a complete sincerity, a will for purity, a readiness for obedience to the Truth, for surrender to the Highest, a readiness to lose or to subject to a divine yoke the limiting and self-affirming ego. These things are the sign that the true will for realisation, for conversion of the consciousness, for transformation is there, the necessary stage of the evolution has been reached: in that condition the defects of nature which belong to the human being cannot be a permanent obstacle to the change from the mental to the spiritual status; the process may never be entirely easy, but the way will have been made open and practicable.
One effective way often used to facilitate this entry into the inner self is the separation of the Purusha, the conscious being, from the Prakriti, the formulated nature. If one stands back from the mind and its activities so that they fall silent at will or go on as a surface movement of which one is the detached and disinterested witness, it becomes possible eventually to realise oneself as the inner Self of mind, the true and pure mental being, the Purusha; by similarly standing back from the life activities, it is possible to realise oneself as the inner Self of life, the true and pure vital being, the Purusha; there is even a Self of body of which, by standing back from the body and its demands and activities and entering into a silence of the physical consciousness watching the action of its energy, it is possible to become aware, a true and pure physical being, the Purusha. So too, by standing back from all these activities of nature successively or together, it becomes possible to realise one's inner being as the silent impersonal self, the witness Purusha. This will lead to a spiritual realisation and liberation, but will not necessarily bring about a transformation; for the Purusha, satisfied to be free and himself, may leave the Nature, the Prakriti, to exhaust its accumulated impetus by an unsupported action, a mechanical continuance not renewed and reinforced or vivified and prolonged by his consent, and use this rejection as a means of withdrawing from all nature. The Purusha has to become not only the witness but the knower and source, the master of all the thought and action, and this can only be partially done so long as one remains on the mental level or has still to use the ordinary instrumentation of mind, life and body. A certain mastery can indeed be achieved, but mastery is not transformation; the change made by it cannot be sufficient to be integral: for that it is essential to get back, beyond mind-being, life-being, body-being, still more deeply inward to the psychic entity inmost and profoundest within us - or else to open to the superconscient highest domains. For this penetration into the luminous crypt of the soul one has to get through all the intervening vital stuff to the psychic centre within us, however long, tedious or difficult may be the process. The method of detachment from the insistence of all mental and vital and physical claims and calls and impulsions, a concentration in the heart, austerity, self-purification and rejection of the old mind movements and life movements, rejection of the ego of desire, rejection of false needs and false habits, are all useful aids to this difficult passage: but the strongest, most central way is to found all such or other methods on a self-offering and surrender of ourselves and of our parts of nature to the Divine Being, the Ishwara. A strict obedience to the wise and intuitive leading of a Guide is also normal and necessary for all but a few specially gifted seekers.
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But all this change and all this experience, though psychic and spiritual in essence and character, would still be, in its parts of life-effectuation, on the mental, vital and physical level; its dynamic spiritual outcome6 would be a flowering of the soul in mind and life and body, but in act and form it would be circumscribed within the limitations - however enlarged, uplifted and rarefied - of an inferior instrumentation. It would be a reflected and modified manifestation of things whose full reality, intensity, largeness, oneness and diversity of truth and power and delight are above us, above mind and therefore above any perfection, within mind's own formula, of the foundations or superstructure of our present nature. A highest spiritual transformation must intervene on the psychic or psycho-spiritual change; the psychic movement inward to the inner being, the Self or Divinity within us, must be completed by an opening upward to a supreme spiritual status or a higher existence. This can be done by our opening into what is above us, by an ascent of consciousness into the ranges of overmind and supramental nature in which the sense of self and spirit is ever unveiled and permanent and in which the self-luminous instrumentation of the self and spirit is not restricted or divided as in our mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature. This also the psychic change makes possible; for lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature. as it opens us to the cosmic consciousness now hidden from us by many walls of limiting individuality, so also it opens us to what is now superconscient to our normality because it is hidden from us by the strong, hard and bright lid of mind, - mind constricting, dividing and separative. The lid thins, is slit, breaks asunder or opens and disappears under the pressure of the psycho-spiritual change and the natural urge of the new spiritualised consciousness towards that of which it is an expression here. This effectuation of an aperture and its consequences may not at all take place if there is only a partial psychic emergence satisfied with the experience of the Divine Reality in the normal degrees of the spiritualised mind: but if there is any awakening to the existence of these higher supernormal levels, then an aspiration towards them may break the lid or operate a rift in it. This may happen long before the psycho-spiritual change is complete or even before it has well begun or proceeded far, because the psychic personality has become aware and has an eager concentration towards the superconscience. An early illumination from above or a rending of the upper velamen can come as an outcome of aspiration or some inner readiness, or it may even come uncalled-for or not called for by any conscious part of the mind, - perhaps by a secret subliminal necessity or by an action or pressure from the higher levels, by something which is felt as the touch of the Divine Being, the touch of the Spirit, - and its results can be exceedingly powerful. But if it is brought about by a premature pressure from below, it can be attended with difficulties and dangers which are absent when the full psychic emergence precedes this first admission to the superior ranges of our spiritual evolution. The choice, however, does not always rest with our will, for the operations of the spiritual evolution in us are very various, and according to the line it has followed will be the turn taken at any critical phase by the action of the Consciousness-Force in its urge towards a higher self-manifestation and formation of our existence.
If the rift in the lid of mind is made, what happens is an opening of vision to something above us or a rising up towards it or a descent of its powers into our being. What we see by the opening of vision is an Infinity above us, an eternal Presence or an infinite Existence, an infinity of consciousness, an infinity of bliss, - a boundless Self, a boundless Light, a boundless Power, a boundless Ecstasy. It may be that for a long time all that is obtained is the occasional or frequent or constant vision of it and a longing and aspiration, but without anything further, because, although something in the mind, heart or other part of the being has opened to this experience, the lower nature as a whole is too heavy and obscure as yet for more. But there may be, instead of this first wide awareness from below or subsequently to it, an ascension of the mind to heights above: the nature of these heights we may not know or clearly discern, but some consequence of the ascent is felt; there is often too an awareness of infinite ascension and return but no record or translation of that higher state. This is because it has been superconscient to mind and therefore mind, when it rises into it, is unable at first to retain there its power of conscious discernment and defining experience. But when this power begins to awake and act, when mind becomes by degrees conscious in what was to it superconscient, then there begins a knowledge and experience of superior planes of existence. The experience is in accord with that which is brought to us by the first opening of vision: the mind rises into a higher plane of pure self, silent, tranquil, illimitable; or it rises into regions of light or of felicity, or into planes where it feels an infinite Power or a divine Presence or experiences the contact of a divine Love or Beauty or the atmosphere of a wider and greater and luminous Knowledge. In the return the spiritual impression abides; but the mental record is often blurred and remains as a vague or a fragmentary memory; the lower consciousness from which the ascent took place falls back to what it was, with only the addition of an unkept or a remembered but no longer dynamic experience. In time the ascent comes to be made at will and the consciousness brings back and retains some effect or some gain of its temporary sojourn in these higher countries of the spirit. These ascents take place for many in trance, but are perfectly possible in a concentration of the waking consciousness or, where that consciousness has become sufficiently psychic, at any unconcentrated moment by an upward attraction or affinity.
--
If the spirit could from the first dwell securely on the superior heights and deal with a blank and virgin stuff of mind and matter, a complete spiritual transformation might be rapid, even facile: but the actual process of Nature is more difficult, the logic of her movement more manifold, contorted, winding, comprehensive; she recognises all the data of the task she has set to herself and is not satisfied with a summary triumph over her own complexities. Every part of our being has to be taken in its own nature and character, with all the moulds and writings of the past still there in it: each minutest portion and movement must either be destroyed and replaced if it is unfit, or, if it is capable, transmuted into the truth of the higher being. If the psychic change is complete, this can be done by a painless process, though still the programme must be long and scrupulous and the progress deliberate; but otherwise one has to be satisfied with a partial result or, if one's own scrupulousness of perfection or hunger of the spirit is insatiable, consent to a difficult, often painful and seemingly interminable action. For ordinarily the consciousness does not rise to the summits except in the highest moments; it remains on the mental level and receives descents from above, sometimes a single descent of some spiritual power that stays and moulds the being into something predominatingly spiritual, or a succession of descents bringing into it more and more of the spiritual status and dynamis: but unless one can live on the highest height reached, there cannot be the complete or more integral change. If the psychic mutation has not taken place, if there has been a premature pulling down of the higher Forces, their contact may be too strong for the flawed and impure material of Nature and its immediate fate may be that of the unbaked jar of the Veda which could not hold the divine Soma Wine; or the descending influence may withdraw or be spilt because the nature cannot contain or keep it. Again, if it is Power that descends, the egoistic mind or vital may try to seize on it for its own use and a magnified ego or a hunting after powers and self-aggrandising masteries may be the untoward result. The Ananda descending cannot be held if there is too much sexual impurity creating an intoxicant or degrading mixture; the Power recedes, if there is ambition, vanity or other aggressive form of lower self, the Light if there is an attachment to obscurity or to any form of the Ignorance, the Presence if the chamber of the heart has not been made pure. Or some undivine Force may try to seize hold, not of the Power itself, for that withdraws, but of the result of force it leaves behind in the instrument and use it for the purposes of the Adversary. Even if none of these more disastrous faults or errors should take place, still the numerous mistakes of reception or the imperfections of the vessel may impede the transformation. The Power has to come at intervals and work meanwhile behind the veil or hold itself back through long periods of obscure assimilation or preparation of the recalcitrant parts of Nature; the Light has to work in darkness or semi-darkness on the regions in us that are still in the Night. At any moment the work may be stayed, personally for this life, because the nature is able to receive or assimilate no more, - for it has reached the present limits of its capacity, - or because the mind may be ready but the vital, when faced with a choice between the old life and the new, refuses, or if the vital accepts, the body may prove too weak, unfit or flawed for the necessary change of its consciousness and its dynamic transformation.
Moreover, the necessity of working out the change separately in each part of the being in its own nature and character compels the consciousness to descend into each in turn and act there according to its state and its possibility. If the work were done from above, from some spiritual height, there might be a sublimation or uplifting or the creation of a new structure compelled by the sheer force of the influence from above: but this change might not be accepted as native to itself by the lower being; it would not be a total growth, an integral evolution, but a partial and imposed formation, affecting or liberating some parts of the being, suppressing others or leaving them as they were; a creation from outside the normal nature, by imposition upon it, it could be durable in its entirety only as long as there was a maintenance of the creating influence. A descent of consciousness into the lower levels is therefore necessary, but in this way also it is difficult to work out the full power of the higher principle; there is a modification, dilution, diminution which keeps up an imperfection and limitation in the results: the light of a greater knowledge comes down but gets blurred and modified, its significance misinterpreted or its truth mixed with mental and vital error, or the force, the power to fulfil itself is not commensurate with its light. A light and power of the overmind working in its own full right and in its own sphere is one thing, the same light working in the obscurity of the physical consciousness and under its conditions is something quite different and, owing to dilution and mixture, far inferior in its knowledge and force and results. A mutilated power, a partial effect or hampered movement is the consequence.
2.26 - Samadhi, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters Into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance ill which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,500 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmaradhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
In the dream-state itself there are an infinite series of depths, from the lighter recall is easy and the world of the physical senses is at the doors, though for the moment shut out; in the deeper it becomes remote and less able to break in upon the inner absorption, the mind has entered into secure depths of trance. There is a complete difference between Samadhi and normal sleep, between the dream-state of Yoga and the physical state of dream. The latter belongs to the physical mind; in the former the mind proper and subtle is at work liberated from the immixture of the physical mentality. The dreams of the physical mind are an incoherent jumble made up partly of responses to vague touches from the physical world round which the lower mind-faculties disconnected from the will and reason, the buddhi, weave a web of wandering phantasy, partly of disordered associations from the brain-memory, partly of reflections from the soul travelling on the mental plane, reflections which are, ordinarily, received without intelligence or coordination, wildly distorted in the reception and mixed up confusedly with the other dream elements, with brain-memories and fantastic responses to any sensory touch from the physical world. In the Yogic dream-state, on the other hand, the mind is in clear possession of itself, though not of the physical world, works coherently and is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelligence of the more exalted planes of mind. It withdraws from experience of the outer world, it puts its seals upon the physical senses and their doors of communication with material things; but everything that is proper to itself, thought, reasoning, reflection, vision, it can continue to execute with an increased purity and power of sovereign concentration free from the distractions and unsteadiness of the waking mind. It can use too its will and produce upon itself or upon its environment mental, moral and even physical effects which may continue and have their after-consequences on the waking state subsequent to the cessation of the trance.
--
For the integral Yoga this method of Samadhi may seem to have the disadvantage that when it ceases, the thread is broken and the soul returns into the distraction and imperfection of the outward life, with only such an elevating effect upon that outer life as the general memory of these deeper experiences may produce. But this gulf, this break is not inevitable. In the first place, it is only in the untrained psychic being that the experiences of the trance are a blank to the waking mind; as it becomes the master of its Samadhi, it is able to pass without any gulf of oblivion from the inner to the outer waking. Secondly, when this has been once done, what is attained in the inner state, becomes easier to acquire by the waking consciousness and to turn into the normal experience, powers, mental status of the waking life. The subtle mind which is normally eclipsed by the insistence of the physical being, becomes powerful even in the waking state, until even there the enlarging man is able to live in his several subtle bodies as well as in his physical body, to be aware of them and in them, to use their senses, faculties, powers, to dwell in possession .of supra-physical truth, consciousness and experience.
The sleep-state ascends to a higher power of being, beyond thought into pure consciousness, beyond emotion into pure bliss, beyond will into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born. But here we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of symbolic language. The use of the words dream and sleep for these higher states is nothing but an image drawn from the experience of the normal physical mind with regard to planes in which it is not at home. It is not the truth that the Self in the third status called perfect sleep, susupti, is in a state of slumber. The sleep self is on the contrary described as Prajna, the Master of Wisdom and Knowledge, Self of the Gnosis, and as Ishwara, the Lord of being. To the physical mind a sleep, it is to our wider and subtler consciousness a greater waking. To the normal mind all that exceeds its normal experience but still comes into its scope, seems a dream; but at the point where it borders on things quite beyond its scope, it can no longer see truth even as in a dream, but passes into the blank incomprehension and non-reception of slumber. This border-line varies with the power of the individual consciousness, with the degree and height of its enlightenment and awakening. The line may be pushed up higher and higher until it may pass even beyond the mind. Normally indeed the human mind cannot be awake even with the inner waking of trance, on the supramental levels; but this disability can be overcome. Awake on these levels the soul becomes master of the ranges of gnostic thought, gnostic will, gnostic delight, and if it can do this in Samadhi, it may carry its memory of experience and its power of experience over into the waking state. Even on the yet higher level open to us, that of the Ananda, the awakened soul may become similarly possessed of the Bliss-Self both in its concentration and in its cosmic comprehension. But still there may be ranges above from which it can bring back no memory except that which says, "somehow, indescribably, I was in bliss," the bliss of an unconditioned existence beyond all potentiality of expression by thought or description by image or feature. Even the sense of being may disappear in an experience in which the world-existence loses its sense and the Buddhistic symbol of Nirvana seems alone and sovereignly justified. However high the power of awakening goes, there seems to be a beyond in which the image of sleep, of susupti, will still find its application.
Such is the principle of the Yogic trance, Samadhi, -- into its complex phenomena we need not now enter. It is sufficient to note its double utility in the integral Yoga. It is true that up to a point difficult to define or delimit almost all that Samadhi can give, can be acquired without recourse to Samadhi. But still there are certain heights of spiritual and psychic experience of which the direct as opposed to a reflecting experience can only be acquired deeply and in its fullness by means of the Yogic trance. And even for that which can be otherwise acquired, it offers a ready means, a facility which becomes more helpful, if not indispensable, the higher and more difficult of access become the planes on which the heightened spiritual experience is sought. Once attained there, it has to be brought as much as possible into the waking consciousness. For in a Yoga which embraces all life completely and without reserve, the full use of Samadhi comes only when its gains can be made the normal possession and experience for an integral waking of the embodied soul in the human being.
--- Overview of noun status
The noun status has 2 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (20) status, position ::: (the relative position or standing of things or especially persons in a society; "he had the status of a minor"; "the novel attained the status of a classic"; "atheists do not enjoy a favorable position in American life")
2. (1) condition, status ::: (a state at a particular time; "a condition (or state) of disrepair"; "the current status of the arms negotiations")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun status
2 senses of status
Sense 1
status, position
=> state
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
condition, status
=> state
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun status
2 senses of status
Sense 1
status, position
=> face
=> election
=> equality, equivalence, equation, par
=> social station, social status, social rank, rank
=> standing
=> high status
=> high ground
=> high profile
=> Holy Order, Order
=> low status, lowness, lowliness
=> legal status
=> bastardy, illegitimacy, bar sinister
=> left-handedness
=> command
=> nationality
=> footing, terms
=> retirement
=> rank
=> caste
=> dignity
=> nobility, noblesse
=> ordination
=> pedestal
=> leadership
=> slot
=> toehold
Sense 2
condition, status
=> diversity
=> anchorage
=> health
=> mode
=> niche, ecological niche
=> noise conditions
=> participation, involvement
=> prepossession
=> regularization, regularisation
=> saturation
=> silence
=> situation, position
=> ski conditions
=> nomination
=> standardization, standardisation
=> stigmatism
=> astigmatism, astigmia
=> way
=> circumstance
=> homelessness
=> reinstatement
=> place
=> celibacy
=> virginity
=> innocence
=> purity, pureness, sinlessness, innocence, whiteness
=> guilt, guiltiness
=> encapsulation
=> polarization, polarisation
=> physical condition, physiological state, physiological condition
=> hyalinization, hyalinisation
=> vacuolization, vacuolisation, vacuolation
=> protuberance
=> curvature
=> psychological state, psychological condition, mental state, mental condition
=> difficulty
=> improvement, melioration
=> decline, declination
=> ennoblement
=> dominance, ascendance, ascendence, ascendancy, ascendency, control
=> comfort, comfortableness
=> discomfort, uncomfortableness
=> need, demand
=> fullness
=> emptiness
=> nakedness, nudity, nudeness
=> hairlessness, depilation
=> dishabille, deshabille
=> hopefulness
=> despair, desperation
=> purity, pureness
=> impurity, impureness
=> financial condition
=> economic condition
=> sanitary condition
=> tilth
=> orderliness, order
=> disorderliness, disorder
=> normality, normalcy
=> lactosuria
=> environmental condition
=> climate, mood
=> atmosphere, ambiance, ambience
=> unsusceptibility, immunity
=> immunity, resistance
=> subservience
=> susceptibility, susceptibleness
=> wetness
=> dryness, waterlessness, xerotes
=> safety
=> danger
=> tension, tensity, tenseness, tautness
=> atonicity, atony, atonia, amyotonia
=> laxness, laxity
=> repair
=> soundness
=> mutism, muteness
=> eye condition
=> unsoundness
=> impropriety
=> iniquity, wickedness, darkness, dark
=> light, illumination
=> malady
=> serration
=> absolution
=> automation
=> brutalization, brutalisation
=> condemnation
=> deification
=> diversification
=> exoneration
=> facilitation
=> frizz
=> fruition
=> hospitalization
=> identification
=> impaction
=> ionization, ionisation
=> irradiation
=> leakiness
=> lubrication
=> mechanization, mechanisation
=> motivation
=> mummification
=> preservation
=> prognathism
=> rustication
=> rustiness
=> scandalization, scandalisation
=> submission
=> urbanization, urbanisation
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun status
2 senses of status
Sense 1
status, position
=> state
Sense 2
condition, status
=> state
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun status
2 senses of status
Sense 1
status, position
-> state
=> feeling
=> skillfulness
=> cleavage
=> medium
=> ornamentation
=> condition
=> condition, status
=> conditionality
=> ground state
=> nationhood
=> situation, state of affairs
=> relationship
=> relationship
=> tribalism
=> utopia
=> dystopia
=> wild, natural state, state of nature
=> isomerism
=> degree, level, stage, point
=> office, power
=> status, position
=> being, beingness, existence
=> nonbeing
=> death
=> employment, employ
=> unemployment
=> order
=> disorder
=> hostility, enmity, antagonism
=> conflict
=> illumination
=> freedom
=> representation, delegacy, agency
=> dependence, dependance, dependency
=> motion
=> motionlessness, stillness, lifelessness
=> dead letter, non-issue
=> action, activity, activeness
=> inaction, inactivity, inactiveness
=> temporary state
=> imminence, imminency, imminentness, impendence, impendency, forthcomingness
=> readiness, preparedness, preparation
=> flux, state of flux
=> kalemia
=> enlargement
=> separation
=> union, unification
=> maturity, matureness
=> immaturity, immatureness
=> grace, saving grace, state of grace
=> damnation, eternal damnation
=> omniscience
=> omnipotence
=> perfection, flawlessness, ne plus ultra
=> integrity, unity, wholeness
=> imperfection, imperfectness
=> receivership
=> ownership
=> obligation
=> end, destruction, death
=> revocation, annulment
=> merchantability
=> turgor
=> homozygosity
=> heterozygosity
=> neotony
=> plurality
=> polyvalence, polyvalency
=> polyvalence, polyvalency, multivalence, multivalency
=> paternity
=> utilization
Sense 2
condition, status
-> state
=> feeling
=> skillfulness
=> cleavage
=> medium
=> ornamentation
=> condition
=> condition, status
=> conditionality
=> ground state
=> nationhood
=> situation, state of affairs
=> relationship
=> relationship
=> tribalism
=> utopia
=> dystopia
=> wild, natural state, state of nature
=> isomerism
=> degree, level, stage, point
=> office, power
=> status, position
=> being, beingness, existence
=> nonbeing
=> death
=> employment, employ
=> unemployment
=> order
=> disorder
=> hostility, enmity, antagonism
=> conflict
=> illumination
=> freedom
=> representation, delegacy, agency
=> dependence, dependance, dependency
=> motion
=> motionlessness, stillness, lifelessness
=> dead letter, non-issue
=> action, activity, activeness
=> inaction, inactivity, inactiveness
=> temporary state
=> imminence, imminency, imminentness, impendence, impendency, forthcomingness
=> readiness, preparedness, preparation
=> flux, state of flux
=> kalemia
=> enlargement
=> separation
=> union, unification
=> maturity, matureness
=> immaturity, immatureness
=> grace, saving grace, state of grace
=> damnation, eternal damnation
=> omniscience
=> omnipotence
=> perfection, flawlessness, ne plus ultra
=> integrity, unity, wholeness
=> imperfection, imperfectness
=> receivership
=> ownership
=> obligation
=> end, destruction, death
=> revocation, annulment
=> merchantability
=> turgor
=> homozygosity
=> heterozygosity
=> neotony
=> plurality
=> polyvalence, polyvalency
=> polyvalence, polyvalency, multivalence, multivalency
=> paternity
=> utilization
--- Grep of noun status
amblyrhynchus cristatus
arilus cristatus
commission on the status of women
high status
higher status
junior status
legal status
low status
lower status
marital status
pavo cristatus
phyllostomus hastatus
podiceps cristatus
senior status
social status
status
status asthmaticus
status epilepticus
status quo
status seeking
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Wikipedia - Beautiful Madonna of Torun -- Gothic statue of Mary with baby Jesus
Wikipedia - Beosi -- Short-statured hunter-gatherers of the central highlands of Madagascar
Wikipedia - Bills in U.S. Congress regarding the political status of Puerto Rico -- Major bills regarding the political status of Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Bioindicator -- Indicator species that can be used to reveal the qualitative status of an environment
Wikipedia - Bold name -- public media scorecarding and status recognition
Wikipedia - Borough status in the United Kingdom -- Honorary status granted by royal charter to local government districts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Wikipedia - British National (Overseas) passport -- British passport for persons with British National (Overseas) status, first issued in 1987 after the Hong Kong Act 1985, from which this new class of British nationality was created
Wikipedia - Brno -- Statutory city in Moravia, Czech Republic
Wikipedia - Buddha For You -- Antique Buddhist statuary store and gift shop
Wikipedia - Buddharupa -- Statues of beings who have obtained Buddhahood
Wikipedia - Buddhas of Bamiyan -- Destroyed Buddha statues in Bamyan
Wikipedia - Bulbophyllum aristatum -- Species of orchid
Wikipedia - Bulul -- Ritual ancestor statue
Wikipedia - Burnside Fountain -- Drinking fountain with statue in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States
Wikipedia - Bus Services Industry Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Bust of Leopold II of Belgium, Ghent -- Statue
Wikipedia - Cadaver Tomb of Rene of Chalon -- Life sized funerary statue and memento mori
Wikipedia - California Assembly Bill 5 (2019) -- California labor statute
Wikipedia - Cannabis in Malaysia -- Status of cannabis in Malaysia
Wikipedia - Cannabis in Saint Pierre and Miquelon -- Status of cannabis in Saint Pierre and Miquelon, France
Wikipedia - Caste -- Formal and informal social stratification and classification which confers status
Wikipedia - Castlereagh (borough) -- Local government district with borough status in Northern Ireland
Wikipedia - Category:CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown
Wikipedia - Category:Drugs with non-standard legal status
Wikipedia - Category:People by status
Wikipedia - Category:Social status
Wikipedia - Catholic Church in Thailand -- History and status of the Catholic Church in Thailand
Wikipedia - Causing death by dangerous driving -- Statutory offence in the UK
Wikipedia - Cecil John Rhodes Statue -- Monument in Cape Town, South Africa
Wikipedia - Central Adoption Resource Authority -- Statutory body of Ministry of Women & Child Development, India
Wikipedia - Cephalotes cristatus -- Species of ant
Wikipedia - Chapter 7, Title 11, United States Code -- Section of United States federal statute
Wikipedia - Charities Act 1994 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Chief Kno-Tah -- Statue by Peter Wolf Toth
Wikipedia - Chief of Naval Operations -- Statutory office held by a admiral in the United States Navy
Wikipedia - Christ of the Abyss -- A submerged bronze statue of Jesus Christ in the Mediterranean Sea
Wikipedia - Christ the Redeemer (statue) -- Statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Wikipedia - Christus (statue) -- Statue by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1838)
Wikipedia - CIE -- Statutory transport organisation of Ireland
Wikipedia - City status
Wikipedia - City with special status -- Type of first-level administrative division of Ukraine
Wikipedia - Civil time -- Statutory local time in some given area
Wikipedia - Colonial Naval Defence Act 1865 -- Statute of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Wikipedia - Colossi of Memnon -- Two Ancient Egyptian statues near Luxor
Wikipedia - Companies Act 2006 -- British statute
Wikipedia - Companion statues: Kashyapa and Ananda -- Pair of Tang Dynasty sculptures, depicting Buddhist figures
Wikipedia - Composition of Yards and Perches -- A medieval English statute
Wikipedia - Concentrated disadvantage -- Sociological term based on socioeconomic status of neighborhoods
Wikipedia - Congressional charter -- United States federal statute that establishes a corporation
Wikipedia - Conservation designation -- Name and/or acronym which explains the status of an area of land in terms of conservation or protection
Wikipedia - Conservation-restoration of the Statue of Liberty -- Overview of the conservation-restoration of the Statue of Liberty
Wikipedia - Conservation status -- Indication of the chance of a species' extinction, regardless of authority used
Wikipedia - Constitutionality of sex offender registries in the United States -- Legal status in the United States
Wikipedia - Constitutionality -- Status of law as permitted by the Constitution of the State
Wikipedia - Contingency (philosophy) -- Status of propositions that are neither always true nor always false
Wikipedia - Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees -- United Nations multilateral treaty
Wikipedia - Copyright status of work by the U. S. government
Wikipedia - Copyright status of work by U.S. subnational governments
Wikipedia - Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States -- Aspect of copyright law
Wikipedia - Council of Ireland -- Former all-Ireland statutory body (1921-1925)
Wikipedia - Coverture -- Status of wife's legal personality subsumed into husband's
Wikipedia - CRA-W: Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research
Wikipedia - Creation and evolution in public education -- Status of creation and evolution in public education
Wikipedia - Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Criticality (status)
Wikipedia - David (Donatello) -- Bronze statue by Donatello
Wikipedia - David (Michelangelo) -- Statue by Michelangelo
Wikipedia - Deception (criminal law) -- Legal term of art used in the definition of statutory offences in England and Wales and Northern Ireland
Wikipedia - Decompression status -- The theoretical level of inert gas content of the body tissues
Wikipedia - Dediticii -- Personal legal status in ancient Rome
Wikipedia - Degree of endangerment -- Conservation status of a language
Wikipedia - Delaware General Corporation Law -- Statute governing corporate law in the U.S. state of Delaware, in which over half of all US public companies are domiciled
Wikipedia - Delhi Medical Council -- Indian medical council and statutory body
Wikipedia - Demigod -- A minor deity, the offspring of a god and a human, or a figure who has attained divine status after death
Wikipedia - Democritus meditating on the seat of the soul -- Statue by Delhomme (1868)
Wikipedia - Dhimmitude -- Permanent status of subjection in which Jews and Christians have been held under Islamic rule
Wikipedia - Dhyana Buddha statue -- Buddha statue in Amaravathi, India
Wikipedia - Dichanthium aristatum -- Species of plant
Wikipedia - Diplomatic recognition -- Unilateral political act whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government
Wikipedia - District Factor Group -- Indicator of socioeconomic status of citizens in school districts of New Jersey
Wikipedia - Divina Pastora (Barquisimeto) -- Venezuelan religious statue
Wikipedia - Divine command theory -- Theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God
Wikipedia - Domicile (law) -- In law, the status or attribution of being a permanent resident in a particular jurisdiction
Wikipedia - Domingo Cruz (Cocolia) (statue) -- Statue in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo song) -- 1972 song by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca -- Ancient Roman statue from the 3rd century AD
Wikipedia - Draft:Hommes illustres (Louvre) -- Series of statues on the Louvre in Paris, France
Wikipedia - Draft:Junipero Serra Statue (San Fernando) -- Statue in Mission Hills, California
Wikipedia - Dr. Samuel Mitchel Smith and Sons Memorial Fountain -- Statue and memorial in Columbus, Ohio
Wikipedia - Dump Trump (statue) -- Statue of U.S. President Donald Trump
Wikipedia - Dvija -- Twice-born status of Hindu male after Upanayana
Wikipedia - Ecce Homo (statue) -- Statue of the Christian figure, Jesus of Nazareth, during his trial
Wikipedia - Echthistatus -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Edict of Thessalonica -- Statute
Wikipedia - Effect of Brexit on Gibraltar -- Status of Gibraltar after withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union
Wikipedia - Elaeocarpus costatus -- Species of flowering plant in the family Elaeocarpaceae
Wikipedia - El Hombre Redimido -- Statue that commemorates the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Elite -- Group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual, social or economic status
Wikipedia - Emerald Buddha -- Statue considered the Palladium of Thailand
Wikipedia - End Credits -- 2009 single by Plan B and Chase & Status
Wikipedia - Equal Opportunities Commission (Hong Kong) -- Hong Kong statutory body
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Charles I, Charing Cross -- Statue in Charing Cross, London, England
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Edward Horner -- Memorial to Edward Horner, who died of wounds in the First World War
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Francisco Franco -- Removed instance of public art
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Frederick William IV -- 19th-century sculpture of King Frederick William IV of Prussia
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of George I, Birmingham -- Bronze statue in Birmingham, England
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (New York City) -- Statue by Anna Hyatt Huntington in New York City
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (Portland, Oregon)
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (Washington, D.C.)
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of Joseph Hooker -- Statue in Boston, Massachusetts
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue of William III, London -- Statue in St James's Square, London
Wikipedia - Equestrian statuette of Charlemagne -- Bronze depiction at the Louvre Museum
Wikipedia - Equestrian statue -- Statue of a rider mounted on a horse
Wikipedia - Erikae -- Ceremony for apprentice geisha graduating to full geisha status
Wikipedia - European Statutory Instruments Committee -- Select committee in the UK Parliament
Wikipedia - Exit status
Wikipedia - Fairs Act 1204 -- Irish statute
Wikipedia - Farnese Atlas -- Ancient Roman statue of Greek Deity
Wikipedia - Father Damien Statue
Wikipedia - Father Serra statue -- 1936 Federal Art Project in Ventura, California of Junipero Serra
Wikipedia - Fearless Girl -- Bronze statue facing the Wall St. Charging Bull
Wikipedia - Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status Indians -- Canadian cabinet position
Wikipedia - Fediverse -- Group of social networking websites using some federation protocol, like OStatus
Wikipedia - Finger protocol -- Simple network protocols for the exchange of human-oriented status and user information
Wikipedia - First Step Act -- United States federal statute
Wikipedia - FLAGS register -- Status register of x86 architecture
Wikipedia - Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers -- Statue in Scarborough, England
Wikipedia - Freedom of Information Act (United States) -- US statute regarding access to information held by the US government
Wikipedia - Gadfly (philosophy and social science) -- A person who interferes with the status quo of a society or community
Wikipedia - Galium aristatum -- Species of plant
Wikipedia - Garden gnome -- Statue of a dwarf-like creature intended as a garden ornament
Wikipedia - Gayer-Anderson cat -- Ancient Egyptian statue of a cat
Wikipedia - Getty kouros -- Greek kouros statue, possible forgery, at the Getty Museum
Wikipedia - Glenn McGrath (statue) -- 2009 statue by Brett Garling
Wikipedia - Goddess of Democracy -- Statue created during the Tiananmen Square protests
Wikipedia - Golden Madonna of Essen -- Gold-covered statue of the Virgin and Child in Essen Cathedral, Germany
Wikipedia - Golden rule (law) -- Traditional rule of statutory interpretation in English law
Wikipedia - Gompholobium ecostatum -- Species of plant
Wikipedia - Goodwill ambassador -- Occupation (position) and/or honorific title of a person who advocates for a specific cause or global issue on the basis of their notability or social status as a public figure or delegated representative
Wikipedia - Grand Buddha at Ling Shan -- Statue in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
Wikipedia - Great Buddha of Thailand -- Tallest statue in Thailand
Wikipedia - GreatFire -- Organization monitoring status of websites censored in China
Wikipedia - Greenfield status -- Term used after a decommissioned site is restored to its original condition prior to any development
Wikipedia - Guennol Lioness -- 5000-year-old Proto-Elamite statue
Wikipedia - Hannibal Hamlin (Tefft) -- Bronze sculpture depicting the American attorney and politician of the same name by Charles Tefft, installed at the US Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in Washington, DC
Wikipedia - Hawaii Admission Act -- Statute which established the State of Hawaii
Wikipedia - Hayashiechthistatus inexpectus -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Head of Household -- Filing status for individual United States taxpayers
Wikipedia - Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2020 -- Bill 30 is an omnibus health bill in Alberta, Canada
Wikipedia - Hector Lavoe (statue) -- Statue of salsa singer in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Heidelberg Bridge Monkey -- 15th-century stone statue in Heidelberg
Wikipedia - Hellinsia costatus -- Species of plume moth
Wikipedia - Hellinsia ochricostatus -- Species of plume moth
Wikipedia - Heritage Property Act (Nova Scotia) -- Canadian provincial statute
Wikipedia - Heritage Property Act (Saskatchewan) -- Canadian provincial statute
Wikipedia - High-speed rail in India -- Current status and future plans for high speed rail in India
Wikipedia - Historic Resources Act (Newfoundland and Labrador) -- Canadian provincial statute
Wikipedia - Home education in the United Kingdom -- Overview of the status of home education in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Wikipedia - Homeschooling and alternative education in India -- Overview of the status of homeschooling and alternative education in India
Wikipedia - Home Team Science and Technology Agency -- Statutory board in Singapore
Wikipedia - Homo sacer -- Status in Roman law
Wikipedia - Honorary male -- A woman who is accorded the status of a man without disrupting the patriarchal status quo
Wikipedia - Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners -- Statutory organization in West Bengal, India
Wikipedia - Horses of Saint Mark -- Ancient bronze horse statues in Venice
Wikipedia - HTTP 301 -- HTTP response status code
Wikipedia - HTTP 302 -- HTTP Status Code
Wikipedia - HTTP 403 -- HTTP status code indicating that access is forbidden to a resource
Wikipedia - HTTP 404 -- HTTP status code indicating that the resource was not found
Wikipedia - Hurdy Gurdy Man (The Spectres song) -- 1966 single by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Hypergamy -- Practice of a person marrying a spouse of higher caste or social status than theirs
Wikipedia - Hypselomus cristatus -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Imperial immediacy -- Constitutional status in the Holy Roman Empire
Wikipedia - Implications of Puerto Rico's current political status -- Overview of the implications of Puerto Rico's current political status
Wikipedia - Income Tax Act 1947 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Industrial loan company -- FDIC-insured financial institutions with unique regulatory status
Wikipedia - Infocomm Media Development Authority -- Statutory board of the Singapore government
Wikipedia - Insular Cases -- U.S. Supreme Court cases about the status of U.S. territories acquired in the Spanish-American War
Wikipedia - Intelligentsia -- Status class of educated people
Wikipedia - Internal Security Act (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Irish Statute Book -- Irish legal website/database
Wikipedia - ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute -- Singaporean statutory board and research institution
Wikipedia - Islam in the Philippines -- Overview of the status of the Islam in the Philippines
Wikipedia - IUCN Red List -- Inventory of the global conservation status of biological species
Wikipedia - Jade Buddha for Universal Peace -- Jade statue of the Gautama Buddha
Wikipedia - Jalesveva Jayamahe Monument -- Public statue
Wikipedia - Jam Side Down -- 2002 single by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Jealousy -- Emotion referring to the thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and envy over relative lack of possessions, status or something of great personal value
Wikipedia - Jesus Buntu Burake -- Statue in South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Wikipedia - Juan Morel Campos (statue) -- Statue of Puerto Rican composer
Wikipedia - Kaliningrad question -- Political controversy concerning the status of the Kaliningrad Oblast as an exclave of Russia
Wikipedia - Kidnapping Act (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - King Leopold II statue (Ostend) -- Statue to King Leopold II in Belgium
Wikipedia - Krems an der Donau -- Statutory city in Lower Austria, Austria
Wikipedia - Languages with official status in India -- The Constitution of India designates 2 official and 22 scheduled languages for the Government of India
Wikipedia - Las Animas, Colorado -- Statutory City in State of Colorado, United States
Wikipedia - La statue retrouvM-CM-)e -- short composition for trumpet and organ by Erik Satie for the ballet "Parade" (premiered 1923)
Wikipedia - Law of the Republic of Ireland -- Constitutional, statute and common laws of Ireland
Wikipedia - Least of the Great Powers -- Label used to conceptualize Italy's international status
Wikipedia - Lee Valley Regional Park Authority -- Statutory body that is responsible for managing and developing the Lee Valley Regional Park
Wikipedia - Legal abstentionism -- Policy of avoiding statutory regulation
Wikipedia - Legal immunity -- Legal status wherein an individual or entity cannot be held liable for a violation of the law
Wikipedia - Legal status of ayahuasca by country -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - Legal status of cocaine
Wikipedia - Legal status of Hawaii
Wikipedia - Legal status of ibogaine by country -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - Legal status of methamphetamine -- Methamphetamine is restricted or illegal in many jurisdictions.
Wikipedia - Legal status of psilocybin mushrooms
Wikipedia - Legal status of Salvia divinorum
Wikipedia - Legal status of Texas -- Standing of Texas as a political entity
Wikipedia - Legal status of the Holy See
Wikipedia - Legislation.gov.uk -- Official web-accessible database of the statute law of the United Kingdom
Wikipedia - Lenormant Athena -- Greek statuette of the goddess Athena..
Wikipedia - Lex Malacitana -- Latin local statutes
Wikipedia - Lincoln Monument (Philadelphia) -- Statue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Wikipedia - Lioptilodes parafuscicostatus -- Species of plume moth
Wikipedia - List of breast cancer patients by survival status -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Brown University statues -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Chromista by conservation status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of English statutes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of equestrian statues -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of European cheeses with protected geographical status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of fungi by conservation status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of HTTP status codes -- Response codes of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
Wikipedia - List of languages without official status
Wikipedia - List of largest languages without official status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of organizations with consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of people with non-domiciled status in the UK -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Portuguese food and drink products with protected status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of public statues of individuals linked to the Atlantic slave trade -- List of statues
Wikipedia - List of Republic of Ireland food and drink products with protected status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statues by height
Wikipedia - List of statues of English and British royalty in London -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statues of presidents of the United States -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Status Quo members -- List of members in the English rock band Status Quo
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1840-90) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1891-1912) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1912-28) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1928-31) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1931-35) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1935-49) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1949-57) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1957-60) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1960-72) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1972-75) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1975-84) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1984-90) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1990-99) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (1999-2008) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (2008-2017) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of statutes of New Zealand (2017-present) -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1976 -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 2020 -- List article
Wikipedia - List of Statutory Instruments of the Welsh Assembly -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of tallest statues in the Philippines -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of tallest statues -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of taxa with candidatus status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of the tallest statues in India -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of the tallest statues in the United States -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of women's international rugby union matches without test status -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Lists of statutes of New Zealand -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - Loss of clerical state (Catholic Church) -- Removal of a Catholic bishop, priest, or deacon from clergy status
Wikipedia - Luis MuM-CM-1oz Rivera (Ponce statue) -- Statue in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Maria Konopnicka Monument, WrzeM-EM-^[nia -- Statue in WrzeM-EM-^[nia, Poland
Wikipedia - Maria Lionza (statue) -- Monumental sculpture in Caracas
Wikipedia - Marine Living Resources Act, 18 of 1998 -- A South African statutory law to provide for the conservation of the marine ecosystem
Wikipedia - Maritime pilot -- Mariner who manoeuvres ships through dangerous or congested waters that are subject to statutory pilotage by virtue of a legal requirement of that territory.
Wikipedia - Marriage in Israel -- Legal status of marriages and divorces in the state of Israel.
Wikipedia - Marshal of the United States Supreme Court -- Statutory head of the United States Supreme Court Police
Wikipedia - Mary Kay Letourneau -- American teacher convicted of statutory rape
Wikipedia - Mashgiach -- A Jew who supervises the kashrut status of a kosher establishment
Wikipedia - Massasoit (statue) -- Statue in Plymouth, Massachusetts, U.S.
Wikipedia - Matthew Perry Monument (Newport, Rhode Island) -- Statue
Wikipedia - Media Development Authority -- Statutory board in Singapore
Wikipedia - Medical (Therapy, Education and Research) Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - M-EM-^Aaski's Statute -- Codification of law published in the Kingdom of Poland
Wikipedia - Meniskos -- Bronze disk mounted above ancient Greek statues
Wikipedia - Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Mental status examination -- Way of observing and describing a patient's current state of mind
Wikipedia - Mental status
Wikipedia - MeroM-CM-+ Head -- 27-25 BC bronze statue of Roman Emperor Augustus
Wikipedia - Mesechthistatus -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Metric Conversion Act -- U.S. federal statute of 1975
Wikipedia - Midget -- Term for a person of unusually short stature
Wikipedia - Mimechthistatus yamahoi -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Mina Kia -- Narrative feature film about girls' status in Sao TomM-CM-) and Principe
Wikipedia - Minnesota Statutes -- Set of laws
Wikipedia - Minor Counties of English and Welsh cricket -- Counties in English or Welsh cricket without first-class status
Wikipedia - Mischief rule -- Traditional rule of statutory interpretation in English law
Wikipedia - Missing person -- Person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed
Wikipedia - Mission specialist -- Status from NASA's certain astronauts on space shuttle's missions
Wikipedia - Monumento a la Mujer -- Statue commemorating the contributions of Puerto Rican women
Wikipedia - Monument to Galdos (Madrid) -- Statue by Victorio Macho in Buen Retiro park, Madrid, Spain
Wikipedia - Monument to Josif PanM-DM-^Mic -- 1897 statue by M-DM-^PorM-DM-^Qe Jovanovic
Wikipedia - Monument to Nicholas I -- Equestrian statue in Saint Petersburg
Wikipedia - Monument to Pope John Paul II -- Statue in Mexico City
Wikipedia - Monument to Vojvoda Vuk -- 1922 statue by M-DM-^PorM-DM-^Qe Jovanovic
Wikipedia - Monument to Vuk KaradM-EM->ic -- 1937 statue by M-DM-^PorM-DM-^Qe Jovanovic
Wikipedia - Mootness -- Legal term on the status of a matter
Wikipedia - Moral responsibility -- Status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission, in accordance with one's moral obligations
Wikipedia - Moral status of animals in the ancient world
Wikipedia - Mother Albania (statue)
Wikipedia - Motya Charioteer -- Marble statue from the Classical Period
Wikipedia - Municipality -- Administrative division having corporate status and usually some powers of self-government or jurisdiction
Wikipedia - Muri statuette group -- Gallo-Roman bronze figurines
Wikipedia - Murti -- A statue, idol, symbol or icon
Wikipedia - Napoleon complex -- Theorized inferiority complex normally attributed to people of short stature
Wikipedia - Natalie Zahle Memorial -- Statue of Anders Sandoe M-CM-^Xrsted in Copenhagen, Denmark
Wikipedia - Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue -- Infamously unappealing statue of Confederate General and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest
Wikipedia - National Environmental Management Act, 1998 -- South African statutory law for environmental management
Wikipedia - National Heritage Board (Singapore) -- Statutory board of the Singapore government
Wikipedia - Nationalities and regions of Spain -- Constitutional status of the Spanish regions with devolved powers
Wikipedia - National monument (United States) -- Monuments assigned protected status by Presidents of the US
Wikipedia - National Statuary Hall Collection -- Collection of statues in the US Capitol of notable individuals from each state
Wikipedia - NatureServe conservation status -- Conservation status assigned by the NatureServe
Wikipedia - Nehru Report -- 28-30 August 1928 was a memorandum outlining a proposed new dominion status constitution for India
Wikipedia - Nelson's Pillar -- Former column and statue in Dublin, Ireland
Wikipedia - Nevada corporation -- Corporation incorporated under Chapter 78 of the Nevada Revised Statutes of the U.S. state of Nevada
Wikipedia - New Orleans in the American Civil War -- Historical status during the Civil War
Wikipedia - New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 -- Statute of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Wikipedia - New Zealand Racing Board -- Statutory monopoly for New Zealand sports betting
Wikipedia - NH RSA Title LXIII -- New Hampshire statute
Wikipedia - Niddah -- Woman with status of ritual uncleanness during and after menstruation in Jewish law
Wikipedia - North Eastern Council -- Statutory advisory body for Northeast India
Wikipedia - Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service -- Statutory fire and rescue service for Northern Ireland
Wikipedia - Nuclear power in Italy -- history and status of electricity production from nuclear power in Italy
Wikipedia - Oakland Buddha -- Buddha statue in Oakland, California
Wikipedia - Observer status -- Privilege granted by an organization to non-members to participate in the organization's activities
Wikipedia - Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993 -- A South African statutory law administered by the Department of Labour
Wikipedia - Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 -- A repealed statute of New South Wales, Australia
Wikipedia - Occupation statute -- Treaty defining the relationship between West Germany and the Allied High Commission
Wikipedia - Official bilingualism in Canada -- Policy that the English and French languages have equal status and usage in Canadian government
Wikipedia - Official language -- Language given special status in some polity
Wikipedia - Ofo in Igboland -- Ofo (or Ofor) is the staff carried by Igbo leaders - it is the symbol of their power and status.
Wikipedia - Ondertrouw -- Statutory requirement in the Netherlands and Belgium to formally register the intention to marry
Wikipedia - One Riot, One Ranger -- Bronze statue of a Texas Ranger
Wikipedia - Online Certificate Status Protocol -- Communications protocol
Wikipedia - Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2019 -- Statutory instrument intended to regulate access to pornographic websites in the UK
Wikipedia - Opava -- Statutory city in Czech Republic
Wikipedia - Oral Torah -- Laws, statutes, and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Written Torah
Wikipedia - Ordinance of Villers-CotterM-CM-*ts -- Statute that mandated the use of French for all legal actions
Wikipedia - Organised Crime Act 2015 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture -- Collection of three statues in Dublin
Wikipedia - OStatus -- Open microblogging protocol
Wikipedia - Ostrava -- Statutory City in Czech Republic
Wikipedia - Our Lady of PeM-CM-1afrancia -- Philippine statue of Mary
Wikipedia - Out of print -- Status of a book title at a publishing house
Wikipedia - Paper Plane (song) -- 1972 song by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Parechthistatus -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet -- Three 1997 treaties between Russia and Ukraine
Wikipedia - Pasquino -- Statue in Rome
Wikipedia - Patna Sahib railway station -- Railway status in Bihar, India
Wikipedia - Patung Pemuda Membangun -- Statue in Jakarta, Indonesia
Wikipedia - Pawnbrokers Act 2015 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Payment Services Act 2019 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Pedro Albizu Campos (statue) -- Statue of Pedro Albizu Campos in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Peer group -- A primary group of people with similar interests, age, background, or social status
Wikipedia - Pelican Pete -- American concrete statue
Wikipedia - Penal Servitude Act -- British statute
Wikipedia - Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart -- Leading English case on statutory interpretation
Wikipedia - Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Peter Pan statue
Wikipedia - Piledriver (album) -- 1972 album by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Plain meaning rule -- Traditional rule of statutory interpretation in English law
Wikipedia - PlzeM-EM-^H -- Statutory city in Czech Republic
Wikipedia - Political status of Crimea -- Political status of Crimea including Sevastopol post 2014
Wikipedia - Political status of Puerto Rico
Wikipedia - Political status of Taiwan -- sovereignty debate
Wikipedia - Pompeii Lakshmi -- Ivory statuette from Pompeii resembling an Indian fertility goddess
Wikipedia - Ponce Honra a su Maestra: Lolita Tizol -- Marble statue of Lolita Tizol
Wikipedia - Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act -- United States federal statute
Wikipedia - Precordial concordance -- Electrocardiogram status and indicator of heart health
Wikipedia - President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status -- To provide options for PR's future political status and relationship with the US
Wikipedia - Primitive (phylogenetics) -- Status of a feature inherited from the common ancestor of a clade and that has undergone little change since
Wikipedia - Program status word
Wikipedia - Prostitution Act -- Federal law in Germany regulating the legal status of prostitution
Wikipedia - Prostitution Prevention Law -- Statute of Japan
Wikipedia - Prostitution Reform Act 2003 -- New Zealand statute
Wikipedia - Protection from Harassment Act (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Pseudoechthistatus -- Genus of beetles
Wikipedia - Psychological resilience -- Ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly
Wikipedia - Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 -- Statute in US law
Wikipedia - Public Prosecutor v Taw Cheng Kong -- 1998 legal judgement on constitutionality of a statutory provision
Wikipedia - Public Transport Corporation -- Former statutory authority of the government of Victoria, Australia
Wikipedia - Public Transport Victoria -- Statutory authority for public transport in Victoria, Australia
Wikipedia - Puerto Rico political status plebiscites -- Three main alternatives are generally presented to Puerto Rican voters in status plebiscites
Wikipedia - Punjab State Human Rights Commission -- Statutory public body to protect human rights
Wikipedia - Purposive approach -- Rule of statutory interpretation
Wikipedia - Putative marriage -- Legal status
Wikipedia - Queen Victoria Pavilion -- Oldest statue in is located in Visakhapatnam, India
Wikipedia - Quia Emptores -- English statute of 1290
Wikipedia - Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 -- A statute passed by the Victorian Parliament during the premiership of Steve Bracks
Wikipedia - Rape in English law -- Statutory offence in England and Wales
Wikipedia - Recognition (sociology) -- Public acknowledgement of person's status or merits
Wikipedia - Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel -- UNESCO instrument
Wikipedia - Refugee roulette -- Randomness in the determination of refugee status
Wikipedia - Rehabilitation psychology -- Specialty area of psychology aimed at maximizing the independence, functional status, health, and social participation of individuals with disabilities and chronic health conditions
Wikipedia - Rephaite -- Group of greater-than-average height and stature (possibly giants) or dead ancestors
Wikipedia - Replicas of the Statue of Liberty
Wikipedia - Revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir -- 2019 Indian political incident
Wikipedia - Rhodes Must Fall -- Anti-apartheid protest movement regarding statues at the University of Cape Town in South Africa
Wikipedia - Right of abode in the United Kingdom -- British immigration status
Wikipedia - RM-CM-$llinge statuette -- Viking era ithyphallic figure
Wikipedia - Robert Emmet (Connor) -- Bronze statue by Jerome Connor
Wikipedia - Robinow syndrome -- Syndrome characterized by mild to moderate short stature due to growth delays after birth, distinctive craniofacial abnormalities, skeletal malformations and genital abnormalities
Wikipedia - Rockin' All Over the World (album) -- 1977 album by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Role -- Set of behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms expected from an individual that has a certain social status
Wikipedia - Roll Over Lay Down -- 1975 single by Status Quo
Wikipedia - Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Wikipedia - Rumors of War -- statue
Wikipedia - Rural Cemetery Act -- New York cemetery statute
Wikipedia - Samadhi Statue -- Loard Buddha's statue in Sri Lanka
Wikipedia - Sam Davis Statue -- Statue of Confederate soldier Sam Davis in Nashville, Tennessee
Wikipedia - Same-sex marriage in Costa Rica -- Outline of the history and status of same-sex marriage in Costa Rica
Wikipedia - Same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland -- Legal status
Wikipedia - Sanchi Yakshi Figure -- Sandstone statue of the Shalabhanjika Yakshi
Wikipedia - Santo (art) -- Wooden or ivory statues that depict saints, angels
Wikipedia - Scarr-Rowe effect -- Hypothesized effect of socioeconomic status on heritability of IQ
Wikipedia - Schulpflicht -- Statutory regulation in Germany
Wikipedia - Science Foundation Ireland -- Statutory research funding body
Wikipedia - Sculptures of the National Statuary Hall Collection -- Wikipedia list article of sculptures in the National Statuary Hall
Wikipedia - Seaman's Manslaughter Statute -- Legal term for homicide resulting from misconduct or negligence on waters that fall under the jurisdiction of the United States
Wikipedia - Secondary education in the United States -- Last seven years of statutory formal education before higher level education
Wikipedia - Secretor status -- Secretion of blood group antigens
Wikipedia - Securities and Futures Commission -- Hong Kong statutory body
Wikipedia - Security clearance -- Status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information or to restricted areas
Wikipedia - Sentencing Reform Act -- U.S. federal statute
Wikipedia - Sequoyah (Ream) -- Statue in Washington, D.C.
Wikipedia - Serfdom -- Status of peasants under feudalism
Wikipedia - Serodiscordant -- Mixed status, where one partner is infected by HIV and the other is not
Wikipedia - Sherwood Academy, Gedling -- Defunct secondary school with academy status in Gedling, Nottinghamshire, England
Wikipedia - Short stature -- Height of a human which is below typical
Wikipedia - Silent Sam -- Bronze statue of a Confederate soldier on the University of North Carolina campus from 1913 to 2018
Wikipedia - Silver Support Scheme Act 2015 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Simla Convention -- Treaty concerning the status of Tibet
Wikipedia - Singapore Food Agency -- Statutory board in Singapore
Wikipedia - Singapore Land Authority -- Statutory board in Singapore
Wikipedia - Smiling Angel -- Statue of an angel in Reims, France
Wikipedia - Social class in the United States -- Idea of grouping Americans by some measure of social status
Wikipedia - Social equality -- State of affairs in which all people in a society have the same status in certain respects
Wikipedia - Social security in Germany -- Includes all statutory insurance in Germany
Wikipedia - Social status -- Position within social structure
Wikipedia - Socioeconomic decile -- Key measure of socioeconomic status
Wikipedia - Socioeconomic status
Wikipedia - Sociometric status
Wikipedia - South African Qualifications Authority -- Statutory body to oversee the national qualifications framework
Wikipedia - Special Status for Andhra Pradesh Protests -- 2017 political protests in India
Wikipedia - Spharagemon cristatum -- Species of grasshopper
Wikipedia - Sport Ireland -- Statutory body overseeing and part-funding sport development in Ireland
Wikipedia - Spring Temple Buddha -- Statue of Vairocana Buddha in Zhaocun township, Lushan County, Henan, China
Wikipedia - State Government Insurance Office (Queensland) -- Statutory authority in Queensland, Australia
Wikipedia - Statelessness -- Status of a person who is not a citizen/national of any country except for any state that is referenced below.
Wikipedia - State of calamity (Philippines) -- Status declared in the Philippines in response to natural disaster
Wikipedia - Statuary
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Wikipedia - Statue menhir
Wikipedia - Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial) -- Statue at the Lincoln Memorial
Wikipedia - Statue of Abraham Lincoln (San Francisco) -- Statue in San Francisco, California
Wikipedia - Statue of Adalbert of Prague, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Ahimsa -- Jain idol
Wikipedia - Statue of Albert Sidney Johnston (Texas State Cemetery) -- Sculpture of Johnston by Elisabet Ney
Wikipedia - Statue of a Liberated Woman -- Sculpture by Fuad Abdurahmanov in Baku, Azerbaijan
Wikipedia - Statue of Anders Sandoe M-CM-^Xrsted -- Statue of Anders Sandoe M-CM-^Xrsted in Copenhagen, Denmark
Wikipedia - Statue of Baphomet -- Sculpture commissioned by The Satanic Temple
Wikipedia - Statue of Benjamin Franklin (College Hall, Philadelphia) -- Statue outside College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Wikipedia - Statue of Benjamin Franklin (Columbus, Ohio) -- Statue in Columbus, Ohio
Wikipedia - Statue of Bill Bowerman -- Outdoor 2000 sculpture by Diana Lee Jackson
Wikipedia - Statue of Bruce Lee (Los Angeles) -- Public art
Wikipedia - Statue of Calvin Griffith -- Statue taken down during George Floyd protests
Wikipedia - Statue of Captain James Cook, The Mall -- Statue in The Mall, London, England
Wikipedia - Statue of Cervantes (Madrid) -- Monument in plaza de las Cortes, Madrid
Wikipedia - Statue of Charles Linn -- Statue in Birmingham, Alabama
Wikipedia - Statue of Chen Yi -- Statue on the Bund, Shanghai
Wikipedia - Statue of Christopher Columbus (Houston) -- Bronze sculpture in Houston's Bell Park
Wikipedia - Statue of Christopher Columbus (North End, Boston) -- Statue in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Wikipedia - Statue of Constantine the Great, York
Wikipedia - Statue of Dan Moody -- Sculpure in Georgetwown, Texas
Wikipedia - Statue of Edward Colston -- Statue in Bristol, England, toppled 2020
Wikipedia - Statue of Edward Douglass White -- Bronze sculpture depicting the American politician and jurist of the same name by Arthur C. Morgan, installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center, in Washington, D.C
Wikipedia - Statue of Equality -- Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial, Mumbai
Wikipedia - Statue of Eugene Skinner -- Outdoor bronze sculpture in Eugene, Oregon,
Wikipedia - Statue of Federico Martin Bahamontes -- Sculpture in Toledo, Spain
Wikipedia - Statue of Francisco Franco, Melilla -- Last remaining statue of Francisco Franco in Spain
Wikipedia - Statue of Francis Xavier, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Frank Rizzo -- Statue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Wikipedia - Statue of Franz Kafka -- Sculpture
Wikipedia - Statue of Frederick Douglass (Rochester, New York) -- Memorial in Rochester, New York
Wikipedia - Statue of Frederick VI -- Statue in Copenhagen
Wikipedia - Statue of George Grey -- Statue of Sir George Grey in Cape Town
Wikipedia - Statue of George III, Somerset House -- Sculpture at Somerset House, London
Wikipedia - Statue of George M. Cohan -- Statue in Times Square, New York City
Wikipedia - Statue of George Washington, Mexico City (1916) -- Statue in Mexico City, erected 1916
Wikipedia - Statue of Georg ZoM-CM-+ga -- Statue of Georg ZoM-CM-+ga in Copenhagen, Denmark
Wikipedia - Statue of Giordano Bruno
Wikipedia - Statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi (New York City) -- Bronze sculpture of Giuseppe Garibaldi in New York City
Wikipedia - Statue of Hans Christian Heg -- Statue of former Union soldier and abolitionist Hans Christian Heg
Wikipedia - Statue of Harvey W. Scott -- Sculpture of Oregon newspaper publisher Harvey W. Scott, by Gutzon Borglum
Wikipedia - Statue of Henry Campbell-Bannerman -- Monument in Stirling, Scotland, UK
Wikipedia - Statue of Heydar Aliyev, Mexico City -- Statue formerly displayed in Mexico City
Wikipedia - Statue of Ivo of Kermartin, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Jack Swigert -- Bronze sculpture installed in Washington, D.C.
Wikipedia - Statue of James Paul Clarke -- Marble sculpture in the US Capitol
Wikipedia - Statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr -- Sculpture of the South African journalist and politician in Cape Town
Wikipedia - Statue of Jan Smuts, Parliament Square
Wikipedia - Statue of Jerry Richardson -- Statue removed during George Floyd protests
Wikipedia - Statue of John Brown Gordon -- Statue in Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Wikipedia - Statue of John Cass -- Sculpture by Louis-Francois Roubiliac
Wikipedia - Statue of John Harvard -- Statue in Cambridge, Massachusetts of Harvard University founder
Wikipedia - Statue of John the Baptist, Charles Bridge -- Sculpture in Prague
Wikipedia - Statue of Josiah Quincy III -- Statue by Thomas Ball, Boston
Wikipedia - Statue of Junipero Serra (Carmel-by-the-Sea, California) -- Statue in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Wikipedia - Statue of Junipero Serra (Los Angeles) -- Statue in Los Angeles, California
Wikipedia - Statue of Junipero Serra (San Francisco) -- Formerly installed in Golden Gate Park
Wikipedia - Statue of Junipero Serra (U.S. Capitol) -- Bronze sculpture depicting the Roman Catholic Spanish priest Junipero Serra
Wikipedia - Statue of Lazaro Cardenas (Madrid) -- Statue in Spain
Wikipedia - Statue of Lenin at Finland Station -- Statue in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Wikipedia - Statue of Lenin (Seattle) -- Statue in Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Wikipedia - Statue of Leopold II of Belgium, Ekeren -- Statue in Belgium
Wikipedia - Statue of Liberty National Monument -- United States national monument
Wikipedia - Statue of Liberty -- Colossal neoclassical sculpture in New York Harbor
Wikipedia - Statue of Luke Kelly, Dublin -- Statue of Luke Kelly in Dublin, Ireland
Wikipedia - Statue of Lutgardis, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Houston) -- Sculpture in Hermann Park, Houston
Wikipedia - Statue of Mahatma Gandhi, Parliament Square -- Statue in Parliament Square, London
Wikipedia - Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (San Francisco) -- Bronze sculpture in San Francisco
Wikipedia - Statue of Maria van Riebeeck -- Statue in Cape Town
Wikipedia - Statue of Mary Seacole -- Artwork at St Thomas' Hospital, London
Wikipedia - Statue of Nelson Mandela, Cape Town City Hall -- Statue in Cape Town, South Africa
Wikipedia - Statue of Oliver Cromwell, St Ives -- Statue in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, England
Wikipedia - Statue of Peace -- memorial statue in Seoul, South Korea
Wikipedia - Statue of Philip Benizi de Damiani, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Philip Sheridan (New York City) -- Outdoor bronze sculpture in New York
Wikipedia - Statue of Queen Victoria, Karachi -- Statue in Frere Hall, Karachi
Wikipedia - Statue of Queen Victoria, Valletta -- Statue in Valletta, Malta
Wikipedia - Statue of Queen Victoria (Victoria, British Columbia) -- Outdoor sculpture in Houston, TX depicting a Confederate officer
Wikipedia - Statue of Raphael Semmes -- Statue formerly displayed in Mobile, Alabama
Wikipedia - Statue of Richard W. Dowling -- Outdoor sculpture in Houston, TX depicting a Confederate officer
Wikipedia - Statue of Robert E. Lee (U.S. Capitol) -- Sculpture by Edward Valentine
Wikipedia - Statue of Robert Milligan -- Sculpture by Richard Westmacott
Wikipedia - Statue of Roger Sherman -- Sculpture
Wikipedia - Statue of Rosa Parks (Eugene, Oregon) -- Outdoor 2009 bronze sculpture depicting Rosa Parks
Wikipedia - Statue of Saint Christopher, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Saint George, Prague Castle
Wikipedia - Statue of Saint Ludmila, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statue of Saint Volodymyr, London
Wikipedia - Statue of Saint Wenceslas, Wenceslas Square
Wikipedia - Statue of Sam Davis (Montgomery Bell Academy) -- Statue of Confederate soldier at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee
Wikipedia - Statue of Sherlock Holmes, London
Wikipedia - Statue of Sigmund Freud, Hampstead
Wikipedia - Statue of Soren Kierkegaard -- Statue in Copenhagen, Denmark
Wikipedia - Statue of St. John of Nepomuk in Divina
Wikipedia - Statue of Tara -- Statue of Bodhisattva Tara
Wikipedia - Statue of The Republic -- 1918 sculpture by Daniel Chester French
Wikipedia - Statue of Unity -- Monument to Vallabhbhai Patel in the Narmada valley, Gujarat, India
Wikipedia - Statue of Velazquez (Madrid) -- Monument in Madrid
Wikipedia - Statue of William King -- Marble sculpture depicting Maine's first governor of the same name by Franklin Simmons, installed in the US Capitol, in Washington, DC
Wikipedia - Statue of Williams Carter Wickham -- Monument to Confederate general in Richmond, Virginia
Wikipedia - Statue of William Shakespeare, Leicester Square
Wikipedia - Statue of William Shakespeare (New York City) -- bronze statue by John Quincy Adams Ward in Central Park
Wikipedia - Statue of William Shakespeare (Roubiliac)
Wikipedia - Statue of Yuri Gagarin, Greenwich -- Monument in London
Wikipedia - Statue of Yuriy Dolgorukiy, Moscow -- Equestrian statue in Moscow, Russia
Wikipedia - Statues of John of Matha, Felix of Valois and Saint Ivan, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statues of Madonna, Saint Dominic and Thomas Aquinas, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statues of Saints Barbara, Margaret and Elizabeth, Charles Bridge -- Outdoor sculptures in Prague by Jan Barkoff and sons
Wikipedia - Statues of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statues of Saints Norbert, Wenceslaus and Sigismund
Wikipedia - Statues of Saints Vincent Ferrer and Procopius, Charles Bridge
Wikipedia - Statues of the National Statuary Hall Collection
Wikipedia - Statuette
Wikipedia - Statue -- Sculpture primarily concerned as a representational figure
Wikipedia - Status bar -- Graphical control element
Wikipedia - Status dynamic psychotherapy
Wikipedia - Status effect
Wikipedia - Status in Roman legal system
Wikipedia - Status Labs -- Reputation management company
Wikipedia - Status line
Wikipedia - Status message
Wikipedia - Status of Jerusalem -- Legal and diplomatic status
Wikipedia - Status of the Golan Heights
Wikipedia - Status quo ante bellum -- Latin phrase meaning "the state existing before the war"
Wikipedia - Status Quo (band) -- English rock band
Wikipedia - Status quo bias
Wikipedia - Status Quo (Jerusalem and Bethlehem) -- Understanding among religious communities
Wikipedia - status-quo
Wikipedia - Status quo -- Latin term meaning the existing state of affairs
Wikipedia - Status register -- Register containing flags giving additional information concerning a result in a processor
Wikipedia - Statute forbidding Bearing of Armour -- English statute of 1313
Wikipedia - Statute mile
Wikipedia - Statute of Anne -- 1710 legislation in Great Britain regulating copyright
Wikipedia - Statute of Artificers 1562 -- English act of parliament
Wikipedia - Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 -- Spanish legislation (2006)
Wikipedia - Statute of frauds -- Type of statute specifying that certain contracts must be in writing
Wikipedia - Statute of Kalisz
Wikipedia - Statute of limitations -- Law which sets a maximum time for the initiation of legal proceedings
Wikipedia - Statute of Marlborough -- English statute of 1267
Wikipedia - Statute of Merton -- English statute
Wikipedia - Statute of Provisors
Wikipedia - Statute of Uses -- Repealed legislation of the Parliament of England
Wikipedia - Statute of Westminster 1275 -- English statute
Wikipedia - Statute -- Formal written document that creates law
Wikipedia - Statutory law -- Written lawM-BM- set down by a legislature or by a legislator
Wikipedia - Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest
Wikipedia - Statutory Maternity Pay -- Form of parental leave in the United Kingdom
Wikipedia - Statutory rape -- Sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior
Wikipedia - Statutum in favorem principum
Wikipedia - Stenocactus multicostatus -- species of plant in the family Cactaceae
Wikipedia - Stop and identify statutes -- US state laws allowing police to require identification of those suspected of a crime
Wikipedia - St. Vincent Ferrer Statue
Wikipedia - Superintendent registrar -- vital registration service statutory officer
Wikipedia - Supply Act (Singapore) -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Swami Vivekananda statue
Wikipedia - Table of the Statuary of the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral
Wikipedia - Tagging system -- System of recording and displaying the status of a machine or equipment
Wikipedia - Talking statues of Rome -- Method of anonymous political expression in Rome
Wikipedia - Tax protester 861 argument -- Statutory argument used by tax protesters in the United States
Wikipedia - Tax status of Scientology in the United States -- Taxation of Scientology reliogion
Wikipedia - Temporary protected status
Wikipedia - Temporary residency in Canada -- Canadian legal status
Wikipedia - Terracotta Army -- Collection of ancient Chinese military statues
Wikipedia - Terrorist Asset-Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Act 2010 -- British statute
Wikipedia - Texas Medal of Honor Memorial -- Statue commemorating recipients of the Medal of Honor from the state of Texas
Wikipedia - The Awakening (sculpture) -- Statue in Prince George's County, Maryland, US
Wikipedia - The Bowman and The Spearman -- Set of two equestrian statues in Chicago
Wikipedia - The Closing Era -- Statue in Denver, Colorado
Wikipedia - The Drinker (Banksy) -- 2004 statue in London
Wikipedia - The Fish Statue, Epe -- Sculpture of two giant fish in Lagos, Nigeria
Wikipedia - The Hand of God (Carl Milles) -- Statue by Swedish artist Carl Milles
Wikipedia - The Little Mermaid (statue) -- Sculpture by Edvard Eriksen
Wikipedia - The New Colossus -- Sonnet by Emma Lazarus, inscribed at the Statue of Liberty
Wikipedia - The Pioneer (Eugene, Oregon) -- Statue which was displayed in Eugene, Oregon, United States
Wikipedia - The Sockman -- Bronze statue in Loughborough, England
Wikipedia - The Statue (1971 film) -- 1971 film by Rod Amateau
Wikipedia - Third-Party Taxi Booking Service Providers Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Town Police Clauses Act 1847 -- British statute
Wikipedia - Transboundary Haze Pollution Act 2014 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Transport Act 1985 -- 1985 statute of the UK parliament
Wikipedia - Twelve Tables -- Roman statute forming the law
Wikipedia - Uli figure -- Wooden statue from New Ireland in Papua New Guinea
Wikipedia - Undesirable Publications Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - United States Code -- Official compilation of US federal statutes
Wikipedia - United States federal judge -- US judge resolving matters authorized by the US constitution or federal statutes
Wikipedia - United States party politics and the political status of Puerto Rico -- Political status of Puerto Rico within the U.S.
Wikipedia - United States Secretary of the Navy -- Statutory office and the head of the U.S. Department of the Navy
Wikipedia - United States Statutes at Large -- An official record of Acts of Congress and concurrent resolutions
Wikipedia - University college -- College institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status
Wikipedia - Untouchability -- Status of certain social groups confined to menial group and despised jobs
Wikipedia - U.S.-South Korea Status of Forces Agreement -- Agreement under Article 4 of the Mutual Defence Treaty between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America, Regarding Facilities and Areas and the Status of United States Armed Forces in the Republic of Korea
Wikipedia - Vandalism Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Venus de Milo -- Ancient Greek marble statue of a woman
Wikipedia - Venus figurines -- Prehistoric statuettes depicting women
Wikipedia - Very important person -- Person with privileges due to their status
Wikipedia - Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army -- Statutory office held by a four-star general in the US Army
Wikipedia - Viklau Madonna -- 12th-century wooden statuette
Wikipedia - Vital signs -- Group of the 4-6 important medical signs that indicate the status of the bodyM-bM-^@M-^Ys vital functions
Wikipedia - Volume 2: Status: Ships Commander Butchered -- album by The Desert Sessions
Wikipedia - Volunteers Act 1782 -- British statute
Wikipedia - Volusia Cornelia -- Roman woman of Patrician status who lived in the late 1st century AD
Wikipedia - Voting rights in Singapore -- Status of the right to vote in Singapore
Wikipedia - Weeping statue
Wikipedia - Welcome to Lagos -- Statue of three Lagos white-cap chiefs in Lagos, Nigeria.
Wikipedia - Winged Victory of Samothrace -- Statue from Samothrace, Greece in the Louvre, Paris, France
Wikipedia - Wireless Ship Act of 1910 -- American statute
Wikipedia - Withdrawal from the Council of Europe -- Legal process of Article 7 of the Statute of the Council of Europe
Wikipedia - Women in Bulgaria -- Status of women in the Republic of Bulgaria
Wikipedia - Women in Lesotho -- Status of women and girls in the Kingdom of Lesotho
Wikipedia - Women in North Korea -- The status of women in North Korea
Wikipedia - Women in World War II -- Statutes, conditions and activities of women during the war
Wikipedia - Women's Charter -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Working language -- Language given a unique legal status in a supranational society
Wikipedia - Workplace Safety and Health Act -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - WorkSafeBC -- Statutory agency in British Columbia, Canada
Wikipedia - Young Statues -- American emo band
Wikipedia - Youth Criminal Justice Act -- Statute
Wikipedia - Zoilo Cajigas Sotomayor -- Puerto Rican santero, a folk artist who makes religious statuettes
Wikipedia - Zonta International -- International organization with the mission of advancing the status of women
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Integral World - PSI RESEARCH STATUS, Elliot Benjamin
Integral World - The Salmon of Belief: Comments on the Status of Psi Research, Geoffrey Falk
selforum - anita desais book reduces stature of
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Desert Punk (2004 - 2005) - In the future, Japan is a wasteland. In the Great Kantou Desert, scattered humans seek out a living in the hot sand. Among them, a short-statured man they call "Sunabouzu" makes a living as a bounty hunter. Like a demon of the sand, he seems unbeatable. Yet, like all men, he has a particular weaknes...
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie(2000) - The Rugrats take their act to Europe in this sequel to the animated feature The Rugrats Movie. Chuckie Finster (voice of Christine Cavanaugh) has been fretting over his father Chas (voice of Michael Bell) and his status as a single father, as he wants to have a mommy like all of his friends. Chas an...
Mars Attacks!(1996) - The Martians decide to attack our planet and devastate everything. Why? Because it's fun!!! They enjoy killing people and destroy buildings; they even play bowling with the statues at Easter Isles and pose for photos in front of temples as they are blowing up. Will somebody find a way to stop them o...
Night of the Creeps(1986) - Virtually unnoticed during its brief theatrical run, this wildly entertaining horror-comedy achieved healthy cult status following its home-video and cable TV releases. The directorial debut of Fred Dekker (writer of the successful horror parody House), this low-budget effort throws alien monsters,...
Mannequin Two: On the Move(1991) - Once upon a time, the prince of kingdom Hauptman-Koenig was deeply in love with the farmer's daughter Jessie. But his mother didn't approve this and cursed her to stiffen to a statue for 1000 years. Now, almost 1000 years later, she's brought to a department store for an exhibition. Unknowingly trai...
A Very Brady Sequel(1996) - A man claiming to be Carol Brady's long-lost first husband, Roy Martin, shows up at the suburban Brady residence one evening. An impostor, the man is actually determined to steal the Bradys' familiar horse statue, a $20-million ancient Asian artifact. Meanwhile, things are heating up between Greg an...
Monty Python's Life of Brian(1979) - A brilliant parody from the British comedy group Monty Python about the history of (not Jesus but the boy born right next door to The Manger, Brian). A Terry Jones directed film from 1979 that has since gained cult status. What many fans don't know is that this movie might never have happened if no...
Twins(1988) - Julius and Vincent Benedict are the results of an experiment that would allow for the perfect child. Julius was planned and grows to athletic proportions. Vincent is an accident and is somewhat smaller in stature. Vincent is placed in an orphanage while Julius is taken to a south seas island and rai...
American Kickboxer(1991) - After spending his time in jail for manslaughter, a formal world-champion kick boxer B.J. Quinn (John Barrett) is released after doing time and sets out to regain his former stature as a top-notch fighter. Unfortunately he begins his comeback at a drunken party (he's drunk) and he tangles with the c...
Leprechaun 3(1995) - We've all heard of the luck of the Irish, but no one feels very lucky in Las Vegas when the Leprechaun visits Sin City in this, the third feature in the Leprechaun franchise. A Las Vegas pawnbroker buys a statue of a leprechaun from a hobo, but then makes the mistake of taking the gold medal hanging...
Betrayed By Innocence(1986) - Nick DeLeon (Barry Bostwick) has been accused of statutory rape with a young woman named Marisa Vogel (Cristen Kauffman). This movie is about the affair and the trial.
Don't Look Now(1973) - Nicolas Roeg's third film--after the brash PERFORMANCE (1970) and meditative WALKABOUT (1971)--is a haunting thriller that confirmed the director's status as a true visionary. Based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier, DON'T LOOK NOW follows a grieving English couple to Venice, where the past continues...
My Chauffeur(1986) - A free-spirited young woman upsets the status quo at a stuffy Brentwood limousine service. Classic Debora
Allegro Non Troppo(1977) - Allegro non troppo is a Bruno Bozzetto animated film released in 1977. The film is a parody of Disney's Fantasia, though possibly more of a challenge to Fantasia than parody status would imply. In music, an instruction of "allegro ma non troppo" means to play "fast, but not overly so". In the contex...
Brenda Starr(1989) - Fearless reporter Brenda Starr (Brooke Shields) needs a big scoop if she wishes to retain her lofty status within the world of journalism. She ventures deep into the Amazon to investigate a story involving a mad scientist's plot to blow the planet to smithereens. Her investigation pits her against a...
How to Steal a Million(1966) - A thief(Peter O'Toole)must help the daughter(Audrey Hepburn) of an art forger steal a fake statue from a Paris Musuem.
The Maltese Falcon(1941) - A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
Golden Ninja Warrior(1986) - Two ninjas, Michael and Sherri are on two separate missions but always team up to find the same Ninja attacking them. Sherri is out to find her father's murderer and Michael must protect the Golden Ninja Warrior statue for a ceremony in China.
Ninja Terminator(1985) - Three martial-arts students search for the Golden Ninja Warrior, a statue reputed to have magic powers.
The Fog (2005)(2005) - The inhabitants of Antonio Island, off the coast of Oregon, are about to unveil a statue honoring the four men (Castle, Wayne, Williams and Malone) who founded their town in 1871. Nick Castle is one of the descendants of the men, and owns a fishing charter company, using his vessel, the Seagrass, fo...
A Bucket Of Blood(1959) - A frustrated and talentless artist finds acclaim for a plaster covered dead cat that is mistaken as a skillful statuette. Soon the desire for more praise leads to an increasingly deadly series of works.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mytery(1997) - In 1967, British spy Austin Powers attempts to assassinate his nemesis, Dr. Evil, in his own nightclub (the Electric Psychedelic Pussycat Swingers Club). Dr. Evil escapes by launching himself in a space rocket disguised as a Bob's Big Boy statue, and cryogenically freezing himself. Austin volunteers...
Armed Response(1986) - One of Tanaka's underlings has stolen a rare statuette that he had planned to use as a peace offering between the local Yakusa and Chinese Tong. He hires two private investigators to exchange ransom money to recover the statuette, but the trade goes down bad and Clay Roth is killed. This angers Roth...
Pompeii(2014) - In 79 A.D., Pompeii, a bustling port city, stands in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Milo (Kit Harington), a former slave, is a gladiator who has caught the eye of Cassia (Emily Browning), a wealthy merchant's daughter. However, their difference in social status is not the only obstacle to their love;...
https://myanimelist.net/manga/115066/Ansatsusha_de_Aru_Ore_no_Status_ga_Yuusha_yori_mo_Akiraka_ni_Tsuyoi_no_da_ga
https://myanimelist.net/manga/115067/Ansatsusha_de_Aru_Ore_no_Status_ga_Yuusha_yori_mo_Akiraka_ni_Tsuyoi_no_da_ga
A Bucket of Blood (1959) ::: 6.7/10 -- Approved | 1h 6min | Comedy, Crime, Horror | 21 October 1959 (USA) -- A dim-witted busboy finds acclaim as an artist for a plaster-covered dead cat that is mistaken as a skillful statuette. The desire for more praise soon leads to an increasingly deadly series of works. Director: Roger Corman Writer:
Atlanta ::: TV-MA | 30min | Comedy, Drama, Music | TV Series (2016 ) -- Based in Atlanta, Earn and his cousin Alfred try to make their way in the world through the rap scene. Along the way they come face to face with social and economic issues touching on race, relationships, poverty, status, and parenthood. Creator:
Brad's Status (2017) ::: 6.5/10 -- R | 1h 42min | Comedy, Drama, Music | 15 September 2017 (USA) -- A father takes his son to tour colleges on the East Coast and meets up with an old friend who makes him feel inferior about his life's choices. Director: Mike White Writer:
Casino Royale (2006) ::: 8.0/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 24min | Action, Adventure, Thriller | 17 November 2006 (USA) -- After earning 00 status and a licence to kill, Secret Agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro. Director: Martin Campbell Writers:
Faking It ::: TV-14 | 21min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | TV Series (20142016) -- After numerous attempts of trying to be popular two best friends decide to come out as lesbians, which launches them to instant celebrity status. Seduced by their newfound fame, Karma and Amy decide to keep up their romantic ruse. Creators:
Luce (2019) ::: 6.7/10 -- R | 1h 49min | Drama, Mystery | 23 August 2019 (USA) -- A married couple is forced to reckon with their idealized image of their son, adopted from war-torn Eritrea, after an alarming discovery by a devoted high school teacher threatens his status as an all-star student. Director: Julius Onah Writers:
Made in Britain (1982) ::: 7.3/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 16min | Crime, Drama | TV Movie 25 February 1982 -- After being sent to a detention center, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers, who want to conform him to the status quo. Director: Alan Clarke Writer: David Leland Stars:
Moxie (2021) ::: 6.8/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 51min | Comedy, Drama, Music | 3 March 2021 (USA) -- Fed up with the sexist and toxic status quo at her high school, a shy 16-year-old finds inspiration from her mother's rebellious past and anonymously publishes a zine that sparks a school-wide, coming-of-rage revolution. Director: Amy Poehler Writers:
Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003) ::: 7.2/10 -- Ong-bak (original title) -- Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior Poster -- When the head of a statue sacred to a village is stolen, a young martial artist goes to the big city and finds himself taking on the underworld to retrieve it. Director: Prachya Pinkaew Writers:
Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) ::: 6.4/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 55min | Comedy, Music | 15 May 2015 (USA) -- After a humiliating command performance at The Kennedy Center, the Barden Bellas enter an international competition that no American group has ever won in order to regain their status and right to perform. Director: Elizabeth Banks Writers:
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) ::: 6.7/10 -- R | 1h 27min | Comedy, Music | 3 June 2016 (USA) -- When it becomes clear that his solo album is a failure, a former boy band member does everything in his power to maintain his celebrity status. Directors: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone Writers:
Selena (1997) ::: 6.8/10 -- PG | 2h 7min | Biography, Drama, Music | 21 March 1997 (USA) -- The true story of Selena, a Texas-born Tejano singer who rose from cult status to performing at the Astrodome, as well as having chart topping albums on the Latin music charts. Director: Gregory Nava Writer:
Serious Men (2020) ::: 6.8/10 -- 1h 54min | Comedy, Drama | 2 October 2020 (USA) -- Tormented with his 'under-privileged' societal status, a father capitalizes on his son's newfound fame as a boy-genius. Little does he realize that the secret he harbors will destroy the very thing he loves the most. Director: Sudhir Mishra Writers:
The Cat Returns (2002) ::: 7.2/10 -- Neko no ongaeshi (original title) -- The Cat Returns Poster -- After helping a cat, a seventeen-year-old girl finds herself involuntarily engaged to a cat Prince in a magical world where her only hope of freedom lies with a dapper cat statuette come to life. Director: Hiroyuki Morita Writers:
The Favourite (2018) ::: 7.5/10 -- R | 1h 59min | Biography, Comedy, Drama | 21 December 2018 (USA) -- In early 18th-century England, the status quo at the court is upset when a new servant arrives and endears herself to a frail Queen Anne. Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Writers: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
The Maltese Falcon (1941) ::: 8.0/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 40min | Film-Noir, Mystery | 18 October 1941 (USA) -- A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette. Director: John Huston Writers:
The Proposal (2009) ::: 6.7/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 48min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 19 June 2009 (USA) -- A pushy boss forces her young assistant to marry her in order to keep her visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada. Director: Anne Fletcher Writer: Peter Chiarelli
Up for Love (2016) ::: 6.3/10 -- Un homme la hauteur (original title) -- Up for Love Poster -- A lawyer dating a dashing, wealthy architect four and a half feet tall gets ribbed by her family, employees and jealous ex about his stature. Director: Laurent Tirard Writers:
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3-gatsu no Lion -- -- Shaft -- 22 eps -- Manga -- Drama Game Seinen Slice of Life -- 3-gatsu no Lion 3-gatsu no Lion -- Having reached professional status in middle school, Rei Kiriyama is one of the few elite in the world of shogi. Due to this, he faces an enormous amount of pressure, both from the shogi community and his adoptive family. Seeking independence from his tense home life, he moves into an apartment in Tokyo. As a 17-year-old living on his own, Rei tends to take poor care of himself, and his reclusive personality ostracizes him from his peers in school and at the shogi hall. -- -- However, not long after his arrival in Tokyo, Rei meets Akari, Hinata, and Momo Kawamoto, a trio of sisters living with their grandfather who owns a traditional wagashi shop. Akari, the oldest of the three girls, is determined to combat Rei's loneliness and poorly sustained lifestyle with motherly hospitality. The Kawamoto sisters, coping with past tragedies, also share with Rei a unique familial bond that he has lacked for most of his life. As he struggles to maintain himself physically and mentally through his shogi career, Rei must learn how to interact with others and understand his own complex emotions. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 492,391 8.42
Aggressive Retsuko (ONA) 2nd Season -- -- Fanworks -- 10 eps -- Other -- Comedy Slice of Life -- Aggressive Retsuko (ONA) 2nd Season Aggressive Retsuko (ONA) 2nd Season -- Red panda Retsuko continues to work at her cyclic office job, with the occasional stress-venting via death metal karaoke on the side. With the company of her newfound friends Gori and Washimi, life is more enjoyable than ever before. But some new shake-ups to her status quo threaten to add more stress to her life. At the office, new employee Anai seems like a fine addition to the company. Yet when Retsuko is placed in charge of his training, she finds that beneath his steadfast dedication, he may pose a threat to the stability of the workplace. Meanwhile, at home, Retsuko's mother pays an abrupt visit, fully intent on having her daughter finally settle down and find a man. With this in mind, she sets Retsuko up for various marriage appointments, much to her chagrin. -- -- Now, Retsuko finds all the more reasons to head to the karaoke bar and unleash her furious diatribes. However, knowing that this will not truly solve her problems, she decides to make a more spontaneous choice to avoid her issues. And so, Retsuko finds herself set upon another self-reflecting journey, coming to learn more about herself and love, with the ever cathartic support of death metal karaoke. -- -- ONA - Jun 14, 2019 -- 73,221 7.78
Ahiru no Sora -- -- Diomedéa -- 50 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports Drama School Shounen -- Ahiru no Sora Ahiru no Sora -- Lacking what is considered the most important asset in basketball, Sora Kurumatani has struggled with his short height since the inception of his love for the game. Despite missing this beneficial aspect, Sora's unwavering drive never allowed his small stature to dictate his ability to play, believing strongly in trying his hardest and persistently practicing to prove his capability. -- -- In hopes of satisfying his mother's wishes, Sora enters Kuzuryuu High School to become a member of the basketball club and compete wholeheartedly in tournaments. However, Sora is disappointed to find out that the boy's basketball team is nothing but a retreat for punks who have no interest in the sport. Sora also comes to learn that brothers Chiaki and Momoharu Hanazono—whom he becomes acquainted with—have also lost their once spirited motivation to play. -- -- Determined to revive the basketball team, Sora challenges the boys to a match against him, where his quick feet and swift movements overwhelm the group. Gradually affected by Sora's impressive skills, sheer effort, and tireless devotion to basketball, the boys unexpectedly find their burnt-out passion for the game rekindling once again. -- -- 139,580 7.33
Ahiru no Sora -- -- Diomedéa -- 50 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports Drama School Shounen -- Ahiru no Sora Ahiru no Sora -- Lacking what is considered the most important asset in basketball, Sora Kurumatani has struggled with his short height since the inception of his love for the game. Despite missing this beneficial aspect, Sora's unwavering drive never allowed his small stature to dictate his ability to play, believing strongly in trying his hardest and persistently practicing to prove his capability. -- -- In hopes of satisfying his mother's wishes, Sora enters Kuzuryuu High School to become a member of the basketball club and compete wholeheartedly in tournaments. However, Sora is disappointed to find out that the boy's basketball team is nothing but a retreat for punks who have no interest in the sport. Sora also comes to learn that brothers Chiaki and Momoharu Hanazono—whom he becomes acquainted with—have also lost their once spirited motivation to play. -- -- Determined to revive the basketball team, Sora challenges the boys to a match against him, where his quick feet and swift movements overwhelm the group. Gradually affected by Sora's impressive skills, sheer effort, and tireless devotion to basketball, the boys unexpectedly find their burnt-out passion for the game rekindling once again. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 139,580 7.33
Ai no Kusabi -- -- AIC -- 2 eps -- Light novel -- Drama Romance Sci-Fi Yaoi -- Ai no Kusabi Ai no Kusabi -- On the planet Amoi, a person's status is primarily dictated by the color of their hair. This society is run by the AI supercomputer known as Jupiter and its governing board of perfect blondes, referred to as Blondies, living in the capital city of Tanagura. However, the darker-haired humans live out their lives in the golden "pleasure city" of Midas and its outlying slum Ceres. They are known as "mongrels," and most cannot progress out of the slums. -- -- Three years ago, a boy named Riki disappeared from the slums of Ceres. Once the revered leader of the gang Bison, a sudden encounter with an elite Blondie, Iason Mink, forced Riki to abandon everything he had cultivated. The boy was snatched from his home and forced to become Iason's pet. Riki has spent the past three years enduring numerous blows to his pride, his time in Tanagura nothing but a form of torture. -- -- Now that Riki has returned, Bison once again rallies behind him. The risk he finds himself in, however, is much greater than ever before—there is always someone ready to sell him out. -- -- OVA - Aug 1, 1992 -- 32,431 7.12
Arakawa Under the Bridge -- -- Shaft -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance Seinen -- Arakawa Under the Bridge Arakawa Under the Bridge -- Kou Ichinomiya is the son of a wealthy businessman who holds a firm belief in his elite status. As such, he is determined to avoid becoming indebted to anyone; but one day, after a run-in with some mischievous kids on Arakawa Bridge, he ends up falling into the river running underneath. Luckily for him, a passerby is there to save him—but now, he owes his life to this stranger! -- -- Angered by this, Kou insists on paying her back, but this may just be the worst deal the arrogant businessman has ever made. The stranger—a stoic, tracksuit-wearing homeless girl known only as Nino—lives in a cardboard box under the bridge and wants only one thing: to fall in love. Asking Kou to be her boyfriend, he has no choice but to accept, forcing him to move out of his comfortable home and start a new life under the bridge! -- -- 297,135 7.59
Armitage III: Dual-Matrix -- -- AIC -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Mecha -- Armitage III: Dual-Matrix Armitage III: Dual-Matrix -- A few years after they first met, Naomi Armitage and Ross Syllabus have started a family. Despite their normal lives, they must keep their identities a secret because many people believe that Robots do not deserve equal status with humans. Ross has an opportunity to abolish these ideas on Earth through a vote, but organizations in the shadows are working so that it doesn't happen. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation, Geneon Entertainment USA -- Movie - Jun 25, 2002 -- 15,704 6.86
Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- -- Diomedéa -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Fantasy Harem Magic Romance -- Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- Some people suddenly find religion, but for 16-year-old Kusanagi Godou, it's that REALLY old time religion that's found him! As the result of defeating the God of War in mortal combat, Godou's stuck with the unwanted position of Campione!, or God Slayer, whose duty is to fight Heretical Gods whenever they try to muscle in on the local turf. Not only is this likely to make Godou roadkill on the Highway to Heaven, it's also a job that comes with a lot of other problems. Like how to deal with the fact that his "enhanced status" is attracting a bevy of overly-worshippy female followers. After all, they're just there to aid him in his demi-godly duties, right? So why is it that their leader, the demonically manipulative sword-mistress Erica Blandelli, seems to have such a devilish interest in encouraging some VERY unorthodox activities? Get ready for immortal affairs, heavenly harems and lots of dueling deities taking pious in the face as the ultimate smash, bash and thrash of the Titans rocks both Heaven and Earth. -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Jul 6, 2012 -- 314,959 7.02
Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- -- Diomedéa -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Fantasy Harem Magic Romance -- Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- Some people suddenly find religion, but for 16-year-old Kusanagi Godou, it's that REALLY old time religion that's found him! As the result of defeating the God of War in mortal combat, Godou's stuck with the unwanted position of Campione!, or God Slayer, whose duty is to fight Heretical Gods whenever they try to muscle in on the local turf. Not only is this likely to make Godou roadkill on the Highway to Heaven, it's also a job that comes with a lot of other problems. Like how to deal with the fact that his "enhanced status" is attracting a bevy of overly-worshippy female followers. After all, they're just there to aid him in his demi-godly duties, right? So why is it that their leader, the demonically manipulative sword-mistress Erica Blandelli, seems to have such a devilish interest in encouraging some VERY unorthodox activities? Get ready for immortal affairs, heavenly harems and lots of dueling deities taking pious in the face as the ultimate smash, bash and thrash of the Titans rocks both Heaven and Earth. -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- TV - Jul 6, 2012 -- 314,959 7.02
Deca-Dence -- -- Nut -- 12 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure -- Deca-Dence Deca-Dence -- Far in the future, the lifeforms known as Gadoll suddenly arose as a threat to humanity. The last surviving humans on Earth confine themselves to the Tank, a lower district in the giant mobile fortress Deca-Dence. While the Gears who live on the upper floors are warriors who go out to fight as part of the Power, most Tankers are content to provide support from the backlines, butchering Gadoll meat and reinforcing defenses. Natsume is among those who would rather go to the front lines; undeterred by her prosthetic right arm, she seeks to join the small number of Tanker soldiers who join the Gears in combat. -- -- But despite her peers at the orphanage each receiving their work assignments, Natsume’s enlistment to the Power remains unapproved. In the meantime, she begins a job as a cleaner in an armor repair team led by the hard-nosed and apathetic Kaburagi, who seems to be more than he lets on. Though initially cold to his idealistic subordinate, he soon recognizes in her the potential to upset the status quo of the world. As Natsume’s new mentor, Kaburagi prepares her for the special and unique role as a game-changing bug in the system. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 215,494 7.45
Detective Conan Movie 07: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Adventure Mystery Comedy Police Shounen -- Detective Conan Movie 07: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital Detective Conan Movie 07: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital -- Under the cover of darkness, a masked samurai murders six men across the metropolis of Japan: three in Tokyo, one in Osaka, and the last in Kyoto. In their investigation, the police learn that each man was a member of the Genjibotaru—a thieves gang centered on the theft of Buddhist statues and artifacts and who go by the names of Minomoto no Yoshitune's servants. -- -- Without a clear motive or clues to the other members' identities, the case runs dry until a Kyoto temple calls for the famous Kogorou Mouri. Having received an anonymous letter containing a peculiar puzzle, the temple monks ask for his assistance in solving it to recover their long lost statue. Meanwhile, Conan Edogawa and high school detective Heiji Hattori team up in order to solve the cryptic puzzle and find the murderer, as Hattori searches for his childhood love. -- -- With Hattori's knowledge of Kyoto, the two scour the streets and gradually discover the truth, but not before the murderer strikes again—killing another Genjibotaru member and, after repeated attempts on Hattori's life, eventually kidnapping Hattori's childhood sweetheart. It is only by working together to bring buried clues to light can Conan and Hattori hope to end the rogue samurai's bloodshed and save Hattori's love. -- -- Movie - Apr 19, 2003 -- 40,896 7.83
Doraemon -- -- - -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Fantasy Kids Shounen -- Doraemon Doraemon -- Nobita Nobi is so hapless that his 22nd century decendants are still impoverished as a result of his 20th century bumbling. In a bid to raise their social status, their servant, a robotic cat named Doraemon, decides to travel back in time and guide Nobita on the proper path to fortune. Unfortunately Doraemon, a dysfunctional robot that the familly acquired by accident (but chose to keep nonetheless), isn't much better off than Nobita. The robot leads Nobita on many adventures, and while Nobita's life certainly is more exciting with the robot cat from the future, it is questionable if it is in fact better in the way that Doraemon planned. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Note: The series has been poorly preserved, and never released on any format, nor has it ever been re-aired. -- -- Nearly all the footage within the series (except for the opening and closing credits) was destroyed in an accidental fire sometime after the series was cancelled. -- -- Surviving reels from the show are occasionally shown at Doraemon fan conventions in Japan. In addition, the audio of several episodes still survives. Still images from episodes 1 and 24 exists. -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- 16,840 7.37
Dr. Stone -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Shounen -- Dr. Stone Dr. Stone -- After five years of harboring unspoken feelings, high-schooler Taiju Ooki is finally ready to confess his love to Yuzuriha Ogawa. Just when Taiju begins his confession however, a blinding green light strikes the Earth and petrifies mankind around the world—turning every single human into stone. -- -- Several millennia later, Taiju awakens to find the modern world completely nonexistent, as nature has flourished in the years humanity stood still. Among a stone world of statues, Taiju encounters one other living human: his science-loving friend Senkuu, who has been active for a few months. Taiju learns that Senkuu has developed a grand scheme—to launch the complete revival of civilization with science. Taiju's brawn and Senkuu's brains combine to forge a formidable partnership, and they soon uncover a method to revive those petrified. -- -- However, Senkuu's master plan is threatened when his ideologies are challenged by those who awaken. All the while, the reason for mankind's petrification remains unknown. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Funimation -- 1,059,749 8.32
Dr. Stone: Stone Wars -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 11 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Shounen -- Dr. Stone: Stone Wars Dr. Stone: Stone Wars -- Senkuu has made it his goal to bring back two million years of human achievement and revive the entirety of those turned to statues. However, one man stands in his way: Tsukasa Shishiou, who believes that only the fittest of those petrified should be revived. -- -- As the snow melts and spring approaches, Senkuu and his allies in Ishigami Village finish the preparations for their attack on the Tsukasa Empire. With a reinvented cell phone model now at their disposal, the Kingdom of Science is ready to launch its newest scheme to recruit the sizable numbers of Tsukasa's army to their side. However, it is a race against time; for every day the Kingdom of Science spends perfecting their inventions, the empire rapidly grows in number. -- -- Reuniting with old friends and gaining new allies, Senkuu and the Kingdom of Science must stop Tsukasa's forces in order to fulfill their goal of restoring humanity and all its creations. With the two sides each in pursuit of their ideal world, the Stone Wars have now begun! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 535,602 8.22
Gendai Kibunroku Kaii Monogatari -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- - -- Horror -- Gendai Kibunroku Kaii Monogatari Gendai Kibunroku Kaii Monogatari -- The horrid stories that remain in many conversations, the chilling urban legends come to life thanks to the Ga-nime. -- -- The terrible anecdote of an old fridge thrown by a dried up river bed in “Refrigerator”. -- The grotesque encounter with an out of place sculpture standing on top of a building in “The Dharma Statue”. -- The ghost encounter experience by a boy on a long bridge at night in “The Night Bridge” -- A purchase at the flea market that brings a man to an ironic end in “US Army Surplus” -- The enigma of continuous deadly accidents near a railroad in “The Railroad Crossing” -- The mysterious experience of a boy on summer vacation in a peaceful countryside in “I Want Friends”. -- -- 6 pieces of horror put on 1 film. The Japanese urban legends, put on screen in the characteristic drawing of KIMURA Toshiyuki, whose fame reaches outside the borders of Japan, call for a scream, with the talented collaboration for the ending theme of an artist produced by SUDOH Akira, Leilani. -- -- (Source: Toei-anim.co.jp) -- OVA - Aug 1, 2006 -- 1,097 N/A -- -- Mirai Choujuu Fobia -- -- - -- 2 eps -- - -- Hentai Horror -- Mirai Choujuu Fobia Mirai Choujuu Fobia -- Iijima is no ordinary coed. She's a tempestuous time traveler from a future ruled by hideous replinoid monsters. She has come to this past to find a hero, a man strong enough to wield her futuristic sword and save the women of Earth from a grisly doom! -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- OVA - Oct 27, 1995 -- 1,065 4.88
Grappler Baki: Saidai Tournament-hen -- -- Group TAC -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Martial Arts Shounen Sports -- Grappler Baki: Saidai Tournament-hen Grappler Baki: Saidai Tournament-hen -- Mitsunari Tokugawa, the organizer of the historic Tokugawa underground fighting ring, has created a tournament featuring 38 of the world's best fighters, many of whom are grandmasters in their respective form of martial arts. With the exception of weapons, anything goes in Tokugawa's ring so that each fighter is able to showcase their true power and strongest secret moves. -- -- Baki Hanma earned a place in the tournament due to his status as the reigning champion of Tokugawa's fighting ring. Will he be able to come out on top? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul 24, 2001 -- 47,068 7.45
Grappler Baki: Saidai Tournament-hen -- -- Group TAC -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Martial Arts Shounen Sports -- Grappler Baki: Saidai Tournament-hen Grappler Baki: Saidai Tournament-hen -- Mitsunari Tokugawa, the organizer of the historic Tokugawa underground fighting ring, has created a tournament featuring 38 of the world's best fighters, many of whom are grandmasters in their respective form of martial arts. With the exception of weapons, anything goes in Tokugawa's ring so that each fighter is able to showcase their true power and strongest secret moves. -- -- Baki Hanma earned a place in the tournament due to his status as the reigning champion of Tokugawa's fighting ring. Will he be able to come out on top? -- -- TV - Jul 24, 2001 -- 47,068 7.45
Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou! -- -- Shin-Ei Animation, SynergySP -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Fantasy -- Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou! Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou! -- Waking up in a new world, 25-year-old Shingo Ichinomiya realizes that he is in the body of a six-year-old. Retaining memories of his stressful life working at a firm company, Shingo learns that the person he is occupying is Wendelin Von Benno Baumeister, the eighth son of a poor noble family living in the countryside. Awoken to his bizarre situation, Wendelin strives to change his financial and social status for the better. His newly discovered great magical aptitude may prove to be just what he needs to achieve that goal. -- -- 140,239 6.19
Haikyuu!! -- -- Production I.G -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports Drama School Shounen -- Haikyuu!! Haikyuu!! -- Inspired after watching a volleyball ace nicknamed "Little Giant" in action, small-statured Shouyou Hinata revives the volleyball club at his middle school. The newly-formed team even makes it to a tournament; however, their first match turns out to be their last when they are brutally squashed by the "King of the Court," Tobio Kageyama. Hinata vows to surpass Kageyama, and so after graduating from middle school, he joins Karasuno High School's volleyball team—only to find that his sworn rival, Kageyama, is now his teammate. -- -- Thanks to his short height, Hinata struggles to find his role on the team, even with his superior jumping power. Surprisingly, Kageyama has his own problems that only Hinata can help with, and learning to work together appears to be the only way for the team to be successful. Based on Haruichi Furudate's popular shounen manga of the same name, Haikyuu!! is an exhilarating and emotional sports comedy following two determined athletes as they attempt to patch a heated rivalry in order to make their high school volleyball team the best in Japan. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 1,301,807 8.50
Haitai Nanafa -- -- Passione -- 13 eps -- Original -- Comedy Supernatural -- Haitai Nanafa Haitai Nanafa -- Nanafa Kyan lives in Okinawa with her grandmother who runs the "Kame Soba" soba shop, her beautiful older sister Nao who is in high school, and her younger sister Kokona, who is in elementary school and has a strong ability to sense the supernatural. -- -- One day, Nanafa witnesses a seal fall off of a Chinese banyan tree, and three spirits who live in that tree are unleashed. These spirits include Niina and Raana, who are "jimunaa" spirits. The third spirit is Iina, who is an incarnation of an Okinawan lion statue. As spirits start appearing one after another, the peaceful life of Nanafa and her family begins to change. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Oct 6, 2012 -- 9,387 5.97
Hand Shakers -- -- GoHands -- 12 eps -- Original -- Action -- Hand Shakers Hand Shakers -- Those who receive the Revelation of Babel must overcome many battles and trials. By grasping the hand of their special partner, these "Hand Shakers" transport themselves to the realm of Ziggurat, an alternate dimension where time no longer exists. Each pair of Hand Shakers must battle it out for the right to meet with God, who will reward them by granting them a single wish. -- -- Tazuna Takatsuki, a high school student with a penchant for fixing things, is one of these Hand Shakers. After receiving a request for repairs from Professor Makihara of a nearby university, Tazuna stumbles upon Koyori Akutagawa, a bedridden girl that reminds him of his deceased sister Musubu. Remembering her dying wish to never let go of her hand, Tazuna grasps Koyori's hand and awakens his power as a Hand Shaker. However, Koyori's life is directly tied to her status as a Hand Shaker, meaning if Tazuna was to ever let go of her hand she would die. With meeting God being their only hope for saving her, the duo must find a way to make their unique powers mesh together, overcome the opposing Hand Shakers, and make their wish come true. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Funimation -- 89,580 5.32
Happiness Charge Precure! -- -- Toei Animation -- 49 eps -- Original -- Action Magic Fantasy Shoujo -- Happiness Charge Precure! Happiness Charge Precure! -- Some time ago, the opening of a box known as the "Axia" set loose the previously sealed members of the Phantom Empire into the world. Rising to protect humanity from these spiteful villains are warriors known as the Precure, whose heroic feats have garnered them celebrity status on television screens across the globe. -- -- Hime Shirayuki, princess of the kingdom where the Axia was originally held, is one such warrior who transforms into "Cure Princess" to battle monsters summoned by the Empire. However, Hime's timid personality often hampers her success in fending off the enemy. Frustrated with her hard luck and determined to find a Precure partner, Hime befriends Megumi Aino, a happy-go-lucky teenager. When a general of the Phantom Empire appears, Hime fails to do much in the face of his attacks. Intent on protecting her new friend, Megumi ignites her hidden potential—transforming into "Cure Lovely." -- -- With their sights set on protecting the world, Megumi and Hime form a new Precure team known as the "Happiness Charge Precure" whilst embarking on a journey to discover true love. -- -- TV - Feb 2, 2014 -- 9,181 6.77
HaruChika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun suru -- -- P.A. Works -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Music Slice of Life Mystery Romance School -- HaruChika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun suru HaruChika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun suru -- Chika Homura begins her high school career with a goal: to develop a "cute girl" persona. After quitting the volleyball team despite her all-star status, Chika decides to join her school's underrated Wind Instrument Club and play the flute, believing it to be the most delicate and feminine instrument. For the first time in nine years, Chika reunites with her childhood friend and total opposite, Haruta Kamijou. Unfortunately for Chika, Haruta is not fooled by her efforts to become more endearing. But this does not deter Chika, and she develops a crush on the band instructor, Shinjirou Kusakabe—but so does Haruta! -- -- However, Chika's high school life just won't go according to plan, as mysteries begin appearing around her and her friends. The club members must work together to solve the mysteries plaguing the school, all while trying to find more members to compete in musical competitions. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 78,403 6.35
Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko. -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Comedy Supernatural Romance School -- Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko. Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko. -- Youto Yokodera wants to be seen in a way different from most men: as a pervert. However, his lewd actions are often misinterpreted as good intentions, and people cannot see his true nature. Upon hearing rumors of a cat statue that can banish an unwanted trait, he searches for it and prays for his façade to be removed. But each wish comes at a price: those unwelcomed traits are transferred to someone else who desires them! -- -- After realizing that vocalizing his dirty thoughts is not the best thing, Youto decides to regain his lost traits by seeking out the person who received them. Unfortunately, he was not alone in praying to the cat statue, and now he must not only fix his life, but the lives of others as well. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 380,300 7.23
Inu x Boku SS -- -- David Production -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Inu x Boku SS Inu x Boku SS -- Ririchiyo Shirakiin is the sheltered daughter of a renowned family. With her petite build and wealthy status, Ririchiyo has been a protected and dependent girl her entire life, but now she has decided to change all that. However, there is just one problem—the young girl has a sharp tongue she can't control, and terrible communication skills. -- -- With some help from a childhood friend, Ririchiyo takes up residence in Maison de Ayakashi, a secluded high-security apartment complex that, as the unsociable 15-year-old soon discovers, is home to a host of bizarre individuals. Furthermore, their quirky personalities are not the strangest things about them: each inhabitant of the Maison de Ayakashi, including Ririchiyo, is actually half-human, half-youkai. -- -- But Ririchiyo's troubles have only just begun. As a requirement of staying in her new home, she must be accompanied by a Secret Service agent. Ririchiyo's new partner, Soushi Miketsukami, is handsome, quiet... but ridiculously clingy and creepily submissive. With Soushi, her new supernatural neighbors, and the beginning of high school, Ririchiyo definitely seems to have a difficult path ahead of her. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Jan 13, 2012 -- 416,781 7.45
Inu x Boku SS -- -- David Production -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Inu x Boku SS Inu x Boku SS -- Ririchiyo Shirakiin is the sheltered daughter of a renowned family. With her petite build and wealthy status, Ririchiyo has been a protected and dependent girl her entire life, but now she has decided to change all that. However, there is just one problem—the young girl has a sharp tongue she can't control, and terrible communication skills. -- -- With some help from a childhood friend, Ririchiyo takes up residence in Maison de Ayakashi, a secluded high-security apartment complex that, as the unsociable 15-year-old soon discovers, is home to a host of bizarre individuals. Furthermore, their quirky personalities are not the strangest things about them: each inhabitant of the Maison de Ayakashi, including Ririchiyo, is actually half-human, half-youkai. -- -- But Ririchiyo's troubles have only just begun. As a requirement of staying in her new home, she must be accompanied by a Secret Service agent. Ririchiyo's new partner, Soushi Miketsukami, is handsome, quiet... but ridiculously clingy and creepily submissive. With Soushi, her new supernatural neighbors, and the beginning of high school, Ririchiyo definitely seems to have a difficult path ahead of her. -- -- TV - Jan 13, 2012 -- 416,781 7.45
Kakushigoto Movie -- -- Ajia-Do -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Shounen -- Kakushigoto Movie Kakushigoto Movie -- Compilation movie of the TV series which includes new scenes that were not adapted in the television anime, and different perspectives. -- -- Kakushi Gotou is a somewhat popular manga artist whose works are known for inappropriate content. Because of this raunchiness, when his daughter Hime was born, he vowed to keep his profession hidden from her, believing that she will be disillusioned if she finds out. -- -- This paranoia-induced belief leads Kakushi into hectic situations. Despite being a single father, he does his best and often resorts to extreme ends just to protect his secret, such as guising as a salaryman every day or holding emergency drills in case Hime somehow finds her way to his workplace. -- -- Kakushigoto tells the story of a father and daughter living side by side, maintaining their peaceful existence as the father attempts to preserve the status quo. However, there is a saying: "there are no secrets that time cannot reveal." In time, Hime must learn the reality behind the things she took for granted as she grew up. -- -- Movie - Jul 9, 2021 -- 14,440 N/A -- -- Sola Specials -- -- Nomad -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance Slice of Life Supernatural -- Sola Specials Sola Specials -- DVD-exclusive specials. The first takes place between episode 4 and 5 of the main series and and the second is a prologue to the series leading up to the events on the last day before the beginning of episode 1. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment -- Special - Sep 25, 2007 -- 14,440 6.95
Kakushigoto Movie -- -- Ajia-Do -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Shounen -- Kakushigoto Movie Kakushigoto Movie -- Compilation movie of the TV series which includes new scenes that were not adapted in the television anime, and different perspectives. -- -- Kakushi Gotou is a somewhat popular manga artist whose works are known for inappropriate content. Because of this raunchiness, when his daughter Hime was born, he vowed to keep his profession hidden from her, believing that she will be disillusioned if she finds out. -- -- This paranoia-induced belief leads Kakushi into hectic situations. Despite being a single father, he does his best and often resorts to extreme ends just to protect his secret, such as guising as a salaryman every day or holding emergency drills in case Hime somehow finds her way to his workplace. -- -- Kakushigoto tells the story of a father and daughter living side by side, maintaining their peaceful existence as the father attempts to preserve the status quo. However, there is a saying: "there are no secrets that time cannot reveal." In time, Hime must learn the reality behind the things she took for granted as she grew up. -- -- Movie - Jul 9, 2021 -- 14,440 N/A -- -- Teekyuu 6 -- -- Millepensee -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Shounen Sports -- Teekyuu 6 Teekyuu 6 -- Sixth season of the Teekyuu series. -- 14,439 6.62
Kakushigoto (TV) -- -- Ajia-Do -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Shounen -- Kakushigoto (TV) Kakushigoto (TV) -- Kakushi Gotou is a somewhat popular manga artist whose works are known for inappropriate content. Because of this raunchiness, when his daughter Hime was born, he vowed to keep his profession hidden from her, believing that she will be disillusioned if she finds out. -- -- This paranoia-induced belief leads Kakushi into hectic situations. Despite being a single father, he does his best and often resorts to extreme ends just to protect his secret, such as guising as a salaryman every day or holding emergency drills in case Hime somehow finds her way to his workplace. -- -- Kakushigoto tells the story of a father and daughter living side by side, maintaining their peaceful existence as the father attempts to preserve the status quo. However, there is a saying: "there are no secrets that time cannot reveal." In time, Hime must learn the reality behind the things she took for granted as she grew up. -- -- 214,676 8.01
Kakushigoto (TV) -- -- Ajia-Do -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Shounen -- Kakushigoto (TV) Kakushigoto (TV) -- Kakushi Gotou is a somewhat popular manga artist whose works are known for inappropriate content. Because of this raunchiness, when his daughter Hime was born, he vowed to keep his profession hidden from her, believing that she will be disillusioned if she finds out. -- -- This paranoia-induced belief leads Kakushi into hectic situations. Despite being a single father, he does his best and often resorts to extreme ends just to protect his secret, such as guising as a salaryman every day or holding emergency drills in case Hime somehow finds her way to his workplace. -- -- Kakushigoto tells the story of a father and daughter living side by side, maintaining their peaceful existence as the father attempts to preserve the status quo. However, there is a saying: "there are no secrets that time cannot reveal." In time, Hime must learn the reality behind the things she took for granted as she grew up. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 214,676 8.01
Kannagi -- -- A-1 Pictures, Ordet -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy School Shounen Supernatural -- Kannagi Kannagi -- Based on a shounen manga by Takenashi Eri, serialised in Comic REX. -- -- Our unlucky protagonist, Jin, uses the trunk of a sacred tree to carve a statue for a school project. When he takes it outside, to his surprise it begins absorbing the surrounding earth and transforms into, hold your breath on this one, a girl! So like all similar setups this guardian deity is pretty pissed that her tree was cut down and lives with Jin while she takes out her anger on squashing bugs....er, cleaning the "Impurities." -- 140,179 7.32
Kannagi -- -- A-1 Pictures, Ordet -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy School Shounen Supernatural -- Kannagi Kannagi -- Based on a shounen manga by Takenashi Eri, serialised in Comic REX. -- -- Our unlucky protagonist, Jin, uses the trunk of a sacred tree to carve a statue for a school project. When he takes it outside, to his surprise it begins absorbing the surrounding earth and transforms into, hold your breath on this one, a girl! So like all similar setups this guardian deity is pretty pissed that her tree was cut down and lives with Jin while she takes out her anger on squashing bugs....er, cleaning the "Impurities." -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment -- 140,179 7.32
Kanokon: Manatsu no Dai Shanikusai -- -- Xebec -- 2 eps -- Light novel -- Ecchi Romance Slice of Life -- Kanokon: Manatsu no Dai Shanikusai Kanokon: Manatsu no Dai Shanikusai -- With the arrival of summer and the school break, Chizuru, Kota, and the rest of their friends are lazily enjoying the warm weather. Chizuru flirts with Kota, Kota gets embarrassed, and Nozomu gets in the way. Tayura pines after Akane, Akane rebuffs Tayura, and a sexy good time ensues. The status quo isn't quite the same since the fox snared her prey, but the timeless boy-meets-girl tale lingers on. -- -- (Source: Media Blasters) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- OVA - Oct 4, 2009 -- 38,759 6.57
Kingdom 2nd Season -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 39 eps -- Manga -- Action Military Historical Seinen -- Kingdom 2nd Season Kingdom 2nd Season -- A year after the devastating battle against the formidable Zhao, the State of Qin has returned its focus to pursuing King Ying Zheng's ambition of conquering the other six states and unifying China. Their next target is Wei, a smaller state which stands as a geographic stepping stone for the sake of conquest. -- -- Li Xin, now a three hundred man commander of the swiftly rising Fei Xin Unit, continues to seek out lofty achievements in order to garner recognition for himself and his soldiers, motivated by those previously lost in battle. In the preliminary battles ahead of Qin's invasion of Wei, Xin finds competition in other young commanders who are of a higher social status than him. Back in Qin, the royal palace faces turmoil as opposing factions begin to make their move against Ying Zheng's regime. -- -- With their hands full both abroad and at home, Zheng and Xin must lead the way in this era of unending war, resolved to etch their names in history by creating a unified China. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 82,402 8.38
Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note -- -- TROYCA -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Fantasy Mystery Supernatural -- Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note -- Ten years after facing defeat in the Fourth Holy Grail War, Waver Velvet, now Lord El Melloi II, teaches classes at the Clock Tower—the center of education for mages. However, his new status as "Lord" comes with a caveat: obey the orders of Reines, the younger sister of the deceased Kayneth El Melloi, until she is old enough to rule the House of El Melloi. -- -- Waver, along with his mysterious apprentice Gray, takes on a series of cases assigned by Reines and the Mages Association. With each case proving to be more complex than the last, could there be more to the Clock Tower than meets the eye, and what secrets does Reines hide? -- -- 112,244 7.36
Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note -- -- TROYCA -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Fantasy Mystery Supernatural -- Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note -- Ten years after facing defeat in the Fourth Holy Grail War, Waver Velvet, now Lord El Melloi II, teaches classes at the Clock Tower—the center of education for mages. However, his new status as "Lord" comes with a caveat: obey the orders of Reines, the younger sister of the deceased Kayneth El Melloi, until she is old enough to rule the House of El Melloi. -- -- Waver, along with his mysterious apprentice Gray, takes on a series of cases assigned by Reines and the Mages Association. With each case proving to be more complex than the last, could there be more to the Clock Tower than meets the eye, and what secrets does Reines hide? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 112,244 7.36
Machikado Mazoku -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Magic -- Machikado Mazoku Machikado Mazoku -- After a strange dream of a mysterious ancestor, high school student Yuuko Yoshida wakes to see that she has grown demonic horns and a tail. Dazed and confused, her mother reveals to her a dark family secret: her family is descended from a Dark Clan that was banished to live powerless and destitute by their mortal enemies, the magical girls of the Light Clan. The only way to lift their ancestry's curse is for Yuuko to find a magical girl, murder her, and splatter her blood all over her ancestor's Demon God statue. -- -- Fortunately for "Shadow Mistress Yuuko," a magical girl saves her from being run over by an oncoming truck. Unfortunately, Momo Chiyoda happens to be Yuuko's classmate at Sakuragaoka High and is much stronger than her in both strength and endurance. Taking pity on her wimpy assailant, the magical girl agrees to train Yuuko and help her unlock her dormant powers. Now, Yuuko must rise up and defeat her generous frenemy to save her family from the terrible grip of poverty. -- -- 98,599 7.67
Machikado Mazoku -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Magic -- Machikado Mazoku Machikado Mazoku -- After a strange dream of a mysterious ancestor, high school student Yuuko Yoshida wakes to see that she has grown demonic horns and a tail. Dazed and confused, her mother reveals to her a dark family secret: her family is descended from a Dark Clan that was banished to live powerless and destitute by their mortal enemies, the magical girls of the Light Clan. The only way to lift their ancestry's curse is for Yuuko to find a magical girl, murder her, and splatter her blood all over her ancestor's Demon God statue. -- -- Fortunately for "Shadow Mistress Yuuko," a magical girl saves her from being run over by an oncoming truck. Unfortunately, Momo Chiyoda happens to be Yuuko's classmate at Sakuragaoka High and is much stronger than her in both strength and endurance. Taking pity on her wimpy assailant, the magical girl agrees to train Yuuko and help her unlock her dormant powers. Now, Yuuko must rise up and defeat her generous frenemy to save her family from the terrible grip of poverty. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 98,599 7.67
Macross: Do You Remember Love? -- -- Artland, Tatsunoko Production -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Mecha Military Music Romance Sci-Fi Space -- Macross: Do You Remember Love? Macross: Do You Remember Love? -- After warping light-years away from Earth, the spacecraft Macross carries a city of civilians and soldiers back home. They continuously fight off the threat of the Zentradi and Meltrandi, giant alien races with whom humanity wages war. -- -- During a battle, the Macross transforms into a mecha operated by fighter pilot Hikaru Ichijou. Thrust into a number of hardships, Hikaru grows close to the city's idol Minmay Lynn. As their relationship develops, however, it is viewed unfavorably by others due to Minmay's status and popularity. -- -- With war raging on and the state of Earth unknown, Hikaru and his fellow soldiers fight on against their mysterious enemies. Throughout the bloodshed, Hikaru and Minmay attempt to keep hold of their feelings for one another. Minmay pours her heart into her music, which may just turn out to be the key to finding peace. -- -- Movie - Jul 7, 1984 -- 37,245 7.96
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei -- -- Madhouse -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Romance School Sci-Fi Supernatural -- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei -- In the dawn of the 21st century, magic, long thought to be folklore and fairy tales, has become a systematized technology and is taught as a technical skill. In First High School, the institution for magicians, students are segregated into two groups based on their entrance exam scores: "Blooms," those who receive high scores, are assigned to the First Course, while "Weeds" are reserve students assigned to the Second Course. -- -- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei follows the siblings, Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba, who are enrolled in First High School. Upon taking the exam, the prodigious Miyuki is placed in the First Course, while Tatsuya is relegated to the Second Course. Though his practical test scores and status as a "Weed" show him to be magically inept, he possesses extraordinary technical knowledge, physical combat capabilities, and unique magic techniques—making Tatsuya the irregular at a magical high school. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 798,705 7.50
Manyuu Hikenchou -- -- Hoods Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Historical Ecchi Samurai Seinen -- Manyuu Hikenchou Manyuu Hikenchou -- The Edo period of Japan gave rise to a clan of warriors with a very specialized, magical skill. The clan was known as the Manyuu, and the skill was the ability to administer a sword strike that could shrink the size of a woman's breasts. This might not seem like an ability that could exert power over a land, but in Manyuu Hikenchou, large breasts denote status, wealth, fame, and influence. -- -- Grave concern has arisen in the Manyuu clan due to the actions of their chosen successor, Chifusa. Disgusted with the breast obsessed society that the Manyuu have created and perpetuated, Chifusa has not only deserted the clan, but also stolen the sacred scroll that details their techniques to growing and severing breasts. -- -- Fortunately, Chifusa is not completely alone. Her fellow warrior Kaede is sympathetic to her cause; a sympathy that could place her in considerable danger. Now wanted by the very clan that raised her, Chifusa must defend her life and Kaede's while seeking to undo the damage their brethren have done to the land. Along the way, Chifusa will discover that she harbors a power that goes far beyond the scope of her training, one that could help shape and change the land that she seeks to bring equality to. -- 61,109 6.22
Mimi wo Sumaseba -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Shoujo -- Mimi wo Sumaseba Mimi wo Sumaseba -- Shizuku Tsukishima is an energetic 14-year-old girl who enjoys reading and writing poetry in her free time. Glancing at the checkout cards of her books one evening, she notices that her library books are frequently checked out by a boy named Seiji Amasawa. Curiosity strikes Shizuku, and she decides to search for the boy who shares her love for literature. -- -- Meeting a peculiar cat on the train, Shizuku follows the animal and is eventually led to a quaint antique shop, where she learns about a cat statuette known as "The Baron." Taking an interest in the shop, she surprisingly finds Seiji, and the two quickly befriend one another. Shizuku learns while acquainting herself with Seiji that he has a dream that he would like to fulfill, causing her dismay as she remains uncertain of her future and has yet to recognize her talents. -- -- However, as her relationship with Seiji grows, Shizuku becomes determined to work toward a goal. Guided by the whispers of her heart and inspiration from The Baron, she resolves to carve out her own potential and dreams. -- -- -- Licensor: -- GKIDS, Walt Disney Studios -- Movie - Jul 15, 1995 -- 238,719 8.23
Mimi wo Sumaseba -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Shoujo -- Mimi wo Sumaseba Mimi wo Sumaseba -- Shizuku Tsukishima is an energetic 14-year-old girl who enjoys reading and writing poetry in her free time. Glancing at the checkout cards of her books one evening, she notices that her library books are frequently checked out by a boy named Seiji Amasawa. Curiosity strikes Shizuku, and she decides to search for the boy who shares her love for literature. -- -- Meeting a peculiar cat on the train, Shizuku follows the animal and is eventually led to a quaint antique shop, where she learns about a cat statuette known as "The Baron." Taking an interest in the shop, she surprisingly finds Seiji, and the two quickly befriend one another. Shizuku learns while acquainting herself with Seiji that he has a dream that he would like to fulfill, causing her dismay as she remains uncertain of her future and has yet to recognize her talents. -- -- However, as her relationship with Seiji grows, Shizuku becomes determined to work toward a goal. Guided by the whispers of her heart and inspiration from The Baron, she resolves to carve out her own potential and dreams. -- -- Movie - Jul 15, 1995 -- 238,719 8.23
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- - -- Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- In the year 123 of the Universal Century, skirmishes between the Federation government and the rebel group Crossbones Vanguard echo across Earth's space colonies. One of these small battles breaks in the hometown of young Seabook Arno, forcing him and his friends to flee and ensnaring them in the political turmoil that is quickly evolving into an all-out war. -- -- Seabook meets Cecily Fairchild, granddaughter of the aristocrat Meitzer Ronah, who seeks to create a new political power called "Cosmo Babylonia." Using the Crossbone Vanguard as its muscle, the Ronah family schemes to restore aristocratic rule and establish an economic system that will benefit the nobility, thus devastating the quality of life for the common people of the Earth Sphere. -- -- Seabook is tasked with piloting the Gundam F91, a mobile suit created by his mother, and must choose between protecting the status Federation's status quo or cooperating with Cecily to find a better way of life for all. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Nozomi Entertainment -- Movie - Mar 16, 1991 -- 23,747 6.67
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- - -- Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- In the year 123 of the Universal Century, skirmishes between the Federation government and the rebel group Crossbones Vanguard echo across Earth's space colonies. One of these small battles breaks in the hometown of young Seabook Arno, forcing him and his friends to flee and ensnaring them in the political turmoil that is quickly evolving into an all-out war. -- -- Seabook meets Cecily Fairchild, granddaughter of the aristocrat Meitzer Ronah, who seeks to create a new political power called "Cosmo Babylonia." Using the Crossbone Vanguard as its muscle, the Ronah family schemes to restore aristocratic rule and establish an economic system that will benefit the nobility, thus devastating the quality of life for the common people of the Earth Sphere. -- -- Seabook is tasked with piloting the Gundam F91, a mobile suit created by his mother, and must choose between protecting the status Federation's status quo or cooperating with Cecily to find a better way of life for all. -- -- Movie - Mar 16, 1991 -- 23,747 6.67
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Urðr Hunt -- -- Sunrise Beyond -- ? eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Space Drama Mecha -- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Urðr Hunt Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Urðr Hunt -- Year P.D. 323. Gjallarhorn's political intervention into the Arbrau central parliament escalated into an armed conflict using mobile suits. The incident was brought to an end by Tekkadan, a group of boys who came from Mars. -- -- News of Tekkadan's exploits has also reached the ears of Wistario Afam, a youth born and raised at the Radonitsa Colony near Venus. Venus, which lost to Mars in the contest for development, is a remote frontier planet in which the four great economic blocs show little interest. It is now used only as a penal colony for criminals, whose inhabitants don't even have IDs. -- -- Then Wistario, who hopes to change the status quo of this homeland, encounters a girl who claims to be the guide to the Urdr-Hunt. -- -- (Source: Gundam Global Portal) -- -- ONA - ??? ??, ???? -- 7,528 N/AFinal Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn - Prologue -- -- Satelight -- 1 ep -- Game -- Action -- Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn - Prologue Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn - Prologue -- In an age when gods walk alongside mankind, the world of Eos finds itself falling into darkness. Calamity befalls the human race when malevolent creatures known as "daemons" scourge the land and obliterate armies with seemingly unstoppable brute force. In these dire times, nobles of House Caelum rise to prominence. Owing to their god-given healing powers, which allow them to purge the plague spread by the monsters, they earn the people's trust and allegiance. -- -- With no leader to rule the first human kingdom and guide the masses, the gods fervently seek to fill this vacancy—a man of the Caelum bloodline seems to be a desirable choice. The ambitious and charismatic pragmatist, Somnus Lucis Caelum, is pit against his humble and altruistic brother, Ardyn Lucis Caelum, in competition for the throne. As tensions rise between the rivals and anticipations surge, the fate of the world rests upon one of the two's decisive victory. -- -- ONA - Feb 17, 2019 -- 7,489 6.60
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Urðr Hunt -- -- Sunrise Beyond -- ? eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Space Drama Mecha -- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Urðr Hunt Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans - Urðr Hunt -- Year P.D. 323. Gjallarhorn's political intervention into the Arbrau central parliament escalated into an armed conflict using mobile suits. The incident was brought to an end by Tekkadan, a group of boys who came from Mars. -- -- News of Tekkadan's exploits has also reached the ears of Wistario Afam, a youth born and raised at the Radonitsa Colony near Venus. Venus, which lost to Mars in the contest for development, is a remote frontier planet in which the four great economic blocs show little interest. It is now used only as a penal colony for criminals, whose inhabitants don't even have IDs. -- -- Then Wistario, who hopes to change the status quo of this homeland, encounters a girl who claims to be the guide to the Urdr-Hunt. -- -- (Source: Gundam Global Portal) -- -- ONA - ??? ??, ???? -- 7,528 N/ASayonara Ginga Tetsudou 999: Andromeda Shuuchakueki -- -- Studio World, Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Space Drama -- Sayonara Ginga Tetsudou 999: Andromeda Shuuchakueki Sayonara Ginga Tetsudou 999: Andromeda Shuuchakueki -- Despite the destruction of the mechanization home world Andromeda, the machine empire is still swept across the galaxy and Earth has become a battleground. Having returned from his journey aboard the train Galaxy Express 999, Tetsurou Hoshino joins the resistance and fights alongside others who have retained their humanity. -- -- When the 999 returns to Earth, Tetsurou receives an enigmatic recorded message from his former traveling companion Maetel, telling him to board the train once more. Fighting his way to Megalopolis station, he makes it onto the train just as it departs. This time, however, Tetsurou is met with several mysteries: Maetel is nowhere to be seen, an ominous "Ghost Train" has appeared, and the ultimate destination of the 999 is unknown. Amid all this, Tetsurou finds himself confronted by the mysterious black knight Faust and soon discovers the machine empire's darkest secret. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- Movie - Jan 8, 1981 -- 7,501 7.29
Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? -- -- Diomedéa -- 10 eps -- Light novel -- Action Comedy Fantasy Supernatural -- Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? -- Izayoi Sakamaki, Asuka Kudou, and You Kasukabe are extraordinary teenagers who are blessed with psychic powers but completely fed up with their disproportionately mundane lives—until, unexpectedly, each of them receives a strange envelope containing an invitation to a mysterious place known as Little Garden. -- -- Inexplicably dropped into a vast new world, the trio is greeted by Kurousagi, who explains that they have been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in special high-stakes games using their abilities. In order to take part, however, they must first join a community. Learning that Kurousagi's community "No Names" has lost its official status and bountiful land due to their defeat at the hands of a demon lord, the group sets off to help reclaim their new home's dignity, eager to protect its residents and explore the excitement that Little Garden has to offer. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 476,569 7.54
NHK ni Youkoso! -- -- Gonzo -- 24 eps -- Novel -- Comedy Psychological Drama Romance -- NHK ni Youkoso! NHK ni Youkoso! -- Twenty-two-year-old college dropout Tatsuhiro Satou has been a hikikomori for almost four years now. In his isolation, he has come to believe in many obscure conspiracy theories, but there is one in particular which he holds unshakable faith in: the theory that the evil conspirator behind his shut-in NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) status is the Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai (NHK)—an evil and secret organization dedicated to fostering the spread of hikikomori culture. -- -- NHK ni Youkoso! is a psychological dramedy that follows Tatsuhiro as he strives to escape from the NHK's wicked machinations and the disease of self-wrought isolation, while struggling to even just leave his apartment and find a job. His unexpected encounter with the mysterious Misaki Nakahara might signal a reversal of fortune for Tatsuhiro, but with this meeting comes the inevitable cost of having to face his greatest fear—society. -- -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Funimation -- TV - Jul 10, 2006 -- 566,802 8.33
No.6 -- -- Bones -- 11 eps -- Novel -- Action Sci-Fi Mystery Drama -- No.6 No.6 -- Many years ago, after the end of a bloody world war, mankind took shelter in six city-states that were peaceful and perfect... at least on the surface. However, Shion—an elite resident of the city-state No. 6—gained a new perspective on the world he lives in, thanks to a chance encounter with a mysterious boy, Nezumi. Nezumi turned out to be just one of many who lived in the desolate wasteland beyond the walls of the supposed utopia. But despite knowing that the other boy was a fugitive, Shion decided to take him in for the night and protect him, which resulted in drastic consequences: because of his actions, Shion and his mother lost their status as elites and were relocated elsewhere, and the darker side of the city began to make itself known. -- -- Now, a long time after their life-altering first meeting, Shion and Nezumi are finally brought together once again—the former elite and the boy on the run are about to embark on an adventure that will, in time, reveal the shattering secrets of No. 6. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 342,870 7.57
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu -- -- Diomedéa -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Romance -- Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu -- Haruka Nogizaka is the most popular student in the prestigious Hakujo Academy, possessing unparalleled beauty, talent, and influence. Unbeknownst to her fellow students, however, she keeps an embarrassing secret of being an otaku—something that can potentially destroy her elegant reputation. -- -- Unfortunately for Haruka, an encounter with the timid Yuuto Ayase in the school library spells the end of her well-kept secret. However, the two reach a mutual agreement with Yuuto promising to keep Haruka's secret, sparking an unexpected friendship between them. Nonetheless, with Haruka's status as the school celebrity and her friendly relationship with Yuuta, both of them are bound to be the subject of gossip everywhere they go! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- TV - Jul 3, 2008 -- 118,929 7.23
Nyan Koi! -- -- AIC -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Harem Comedy Romance -- Nyan Koi! Nyan Koi! -- Junpei Kousaka is a second-year high school student who has an allergy for cats—a predicament that has made him hate cats and everything related to them. Unfortunately for him, though, he is surrounded by cat lovers: his family, his estranged childhood friend, and even his crush Kaede Mizuno. -- -- One day, while returning home from school, Junpei nonchalantly attempts to kick an empty can into the trash, but miserably misses. Instead of making it to the garbage, the can ends up breaking off the head of a cat deity statue. That fateful day, he is cursed with the ability to understand cat speech. However, he must keep his curse a secret from everyone else, because anyone who finds out will become more accident-prone and share the same fate as him. -- -- With the guidance of his cat Nyamsus and with no other choice left, Junpei now has to do a hundred good deeds for cats to lift the curse. If he is unable to complete this task, he will turn into a cat, and considering his allergy, that would be a death sentence for him! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 2, 2009 -- 228,166 7.18
Ore Monogatari!! -- -- Madhouse -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance Shoujo -- Ore Monogatari!! Ore Monogatari!! -- With his muscular build and tall stature, Takeo Gouda is not exactly your average high school freshman. However, behind his intimidating appearance hides a heart of gold, and he is considered a hero by the boys for his courage and chivalry. Unfortunately, these traits do not help much with his love life. As if his looks are not enough to scare the opposite sex away, Takeo's cool and handsome best friend and constant companion Makoto Sunakawa easily steals the hearts of the female students—including every girl Takeo has ever liked. -- -- When Takeo gallantly saves cute and angelic Rinko Yamato from being molested, he falls in love with her instantly, but suspects that she might be interested in Sunakawa. With his own love for Yamato continuing to bloom, Takeo unselfishly decides to act as her cupid, even as he yearns for his own love story. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 502,304 7.94
Ouran Koukou Host Club -- -- Bones -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Harem Romance School Shoujo -- Ouran Koukou Host Club Ouran Koukou Host Club -- Haruhi Fujioka is a bright scholarship candidate with no rank or title to speak of—a rare species at Ouran Academy, an elite school for students of high pedigree. When she opens the door to Music Room #3 hoping to find a quiet place to study, Haruhi unexpectedly stumbles upon the Host Club. Led by the princely Tamaki Suou, the club—whose other members include the "Shadow King" Kyouya Ootori; the mischievous Hitachiin twins, Kaoru and Hikaru; the childlike Mitsukuni Haninozuka, also known as "Honey"; and his strong protector Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka—is where handsome boys with too much time on their hands entertain the girls in the academy. -- -- In a frantic attempt to remove herself from the hosts, Haruhi ends up breaking a vase worth eight million yen and is forced into becoming the eccentric group's general errand boy to repay her enormous debt. However, thanks to her convincingly masculine appearance, her naturally genial disposition toward girls, and fascinating commoner status, she is soon promoted to full-time male host. And before long, Haruhi is plunged into a glitzy whirlwind of elaborate cosplays, rich food, and exciting shenanigans that only the immensely wealthy Host Club can pull off. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 867,552 8.19
Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine -- -- Bridge -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Historical Shounen -- Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine -- Equally charming and stern, Heine Wittgenstein is a brilliant man who commands respect, despite his short, childlike stature. Thus, the king of Grannzreich has called upon Heine to undertake a daunting task that has driven away many before him—become the new royal tutor to four princes who are in line for the throne. -- -- The four heirs each have very distinct and troublesome personalities: Licht, the flirtatious youngest prince; his immature older brother Leonhard; Bruno the studious third prince; and Kai, the oldest of the four and the most reserved. Hilarity ensues as Heine attempts to connect with each of the princes in order to groom them for the throne. However, Heine's mysterious past and dark undercurrents in the present may threaten the harmony within the kingdom. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 107,415 7.47
Plunderer -- -- GEEK TOYS -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Ecchi Fantasy Shounen -- Plunderer Plunderer -- Alcia is a world governed by "Count": numbers engraved on a person's body, representing any number related to their life. These Counts determine a person's social status and power in Alcia. If a Count reaches zero, the person is sent to the Abyss, a place rumored to be worse than death. -- -- Hina, a traveler whose Count is based on the distance she traveled, witnessed her mother get dragged down into the Abyss. Determined to fulfill her mother's last wishes, she sets off on a journey in search of the legendary Aces—heroes of the war that happened three hundred years ago, bearing a white star next to their Count. -- -- While wandering around, Hina encounters Licht Bach, a mysterious masked man with negative Count, and Nana, the owner of a tavern. In the midst of having a good time, Hina is tricked into a battle with a military soldier. However, despite his negative count, Licht rescues Hina and reveals that he has another count, one with a white star, one of a legendary Ace. -- -- Plunderer follows the journey of Hina and other inhabitants of Alcia as they discover the truth about their world, the Abyss, and the legendary Aces. -- -- 240,541 6.51
Plunderer -- -- GEEK TOYS -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Ecchi Fantasy Shounen -- Plunderer Plunderer -- Alcia is a world governed by "Count": numbers engraved on a person's body, representing any number related to their life. These Counts determine a person's social status and power in Alcia. If a Count reaches zero, the person is sent to the Abyss, a place rumored to be worse than death. -- -- Hina, a traveler whose Count is based on the distance she traveled, witnessed her mother get dragged down into the Abyss. Determined to fulfill her mother's last wishes, she sets off on a journey in search of the legendary Aces—heroes of the war that happened three hundred years ago, bearing a white star next to their Count. -- -- While wandering around, Hina encounters Licht Bach, a mysterious masked man with negative Count, and Nana, the owner of a tavern. In the midst of having a good time, Hina is tricked into a battle with a military soldier. However, despite his negative count, Licht rescues Hina and reveals that he has another count, one with a white star, one of a legendary Ace. -- -- Plunderer follows the journey of Hina and other inhabitants of Alcia as they discover the truth about their world, the Abyss, and the legendary Aces. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 240,541 6.51
Pokemon XY&Z Specials -- -- OLM -- 2 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Comedy Kids Fantasy -- Pokemon XY&Z Specials Pokemon XY&Z Specials -- Professor Sycamore and Alexa explore some ruins, where they discover a stone statue of a woman named Aila, and a legend emerges. A collection of Kalos records reveals that Aila's true love, Jan, attempted to vanquish the Destruction Pokémon Yveltal. When he failed, the land was drained of all life as Yveltal became a cocoon and turned Aila to stone. -- -- Jan continued his quest, seeking out the Life Pokémon Xerneas to replenish the barren land—although it couldn't save Aila. When Kalos seemed hopelessly out of balance, the Order Pokémon Zygarde appeared to restore it, and Jan remained at Aila’s side as the cycle of life and destruction continued. -- -- (Source: Builbapedia) -- -- Licensor: -- The Pokemon Company International -- Special - Nov 3, 2016 -- 7,664 7.02
Princess Lover! -- -- GoHands -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Harem Comedy Ecchi School -- Princess Lover! Princess Lover! -- Following an automobile accident that claims the life of his parents, Teppei Arima is taken in by his grandfather and introduced to the world of the rich and the elite. Compared to his humble upbringing, Isshin Arima's lavish lifestyle surprises and stuns the young teenager. In return for the gracious hospitality, Teppei is expected to continue the family business by replacing his grandfather as the head of Arima Financial Combine, and to prepare him for these responsibilities, he is enrolled into an esteemed high school. Along with his recently acquired celebrity status and affluence, Teppei is informed of an arranged marriage with the equally prosperous Sylvia van Hossen, thus, beginning the thrilling escapades of his new life! -- -- TV - Jul 6, 2009 -- 181,060 6.77
Saikyou Ginga Ultimate Zero: Battle Spirits -- -- Sunrise -- 49 eps -- Card game -- Game Adventure Space -- Saikyou Ginga Ultimate Zero: Battle Spirits Saikyou Ginga Ultimate Zero: Battle Spirits -- In the new, whimsical era of Battle Spirits, cards have become scattered across a colorful galaxy, enticing all "card questers" to duke it out in search of the strongest cards. Rei is a flamboyant wanderer who is obsessed with being on top. Accompanied by a small dragon named Mugen and a talking robot named Salt, the self-proclaimed "Number One Star" regularly engages in card-gaming mischief through flashy battles. -- -- One day, Rei meets Raira and Rikuto April, both of whom seem to have clues on the whereabouts of the "ultimate" Battle Spirits card. Together, they embark on a quest to search for the card, clashing with many vibrant personalities along the way. Soon, their adventure catches the attention of the Guild, wily villains who are also set on obtaining the Ultimate Battle Spirits. In contending against the Guild, Rei's status as number one is put to the test—an endeavor that will slowly unveil secrets regarding the fate of the universe. -- -- TV - Sep 22, 2013 -- 1,462 6.50
Sakasama no Patema -- -- Purple Cow Studio Japan, Studio Rikka -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Sci-Fi -- Sakasama no Patema Sakasama no Patema -- Patema is a plucky young girl from an underground civilization boasting an incredible network of tunnels. Inspired by a friend that mysteriously went missing, she is often reprimanded due to her constant excursions of these tunnels due to her royal status. After she enters what is known as the "forbidden zone," she accidentally falls into a giant bottomless pit after being startled by a strange creature. -- -- Finding herself on the surface, a world literally turned upside down, she begins falling towards the sky only to be saved by Age, a discontented student of the totalitarian nation known as Aiga. The people of Aiga are taught to believe that "Inverts," like Patema, are sinners that will be "swallowed by the sky," but Age has resisted this propaganda and decides to protect his new friend. A chance meeting between two curious teenagers leads to an exploration of two unique worlds as they begin working together to unveil the secrets of their origins in Sakasama no Patema, a heart-warming film about overcoming differences in order to coexist. -- -- -- The film was first premiered at France's Annecy, the world's largest animation festival, on June 13, 2013. Screening in Japanese theaters began on November 9, 2013. -- -- Licensor: -- GKIDS, NYAV Post -- Movie - Nov 9, 2013 -- 225,667 8.03
Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle -- -- Project No.9 -- 12 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy -- Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle -- The world is divided into two kingdoms: the Kingdom of White, which floats in the heavens and is ruled by their queen Iris, and the Kingdom of Black, which stands upon desolate land below and houses the King of Darkness as its ruler. As of late, forces of evil have amassed great power, posing a threat to the entire world. Being the main representative of the Light, it is Iris' duty to maintain the balance of the world and fight off the darkness in her kingdom. -- -- Meanwhile in the Kingdom of Black, rampaging monsters annihilate a certain boy's village, leaving him the sole survivor. As he grieves in hopelessness, an armored man named Skeer notices the child and comforts him. Soon after, Skeer recognizes the boy's potential to change the kingdom's status quo and makes him his heir before passing away. The boy then vows to become the Prince of Darkness—the one who will replace the King—to bring the world back to its rightful path. -- -- As Iris and Prince of Darkness each challenge the impending doom the world faces in their own respective ways, their destinies will converge with each other, and perhaps, their bond will decide the fate of the world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 63,136 5.29
Shoukoujo Sara -- -- Nippon Animation -- 46 eps -- Novel -- Slice of Life Historical Drama Shoujo -- Shoukoujo Sara Shoukoujo Sara -- Sent to an all-girls boarding school due to her father's overseas job, Sarah Crewe is a promising young girl who excels both academically and socially in her new life in London. However, her world is turned upside down when she is called into the headmistress' office and informed of news that no child wants to hear: her father has passed away. -- -- Now an orphan, Sarah is stripped of her status as a student and is forced to work in the boarding school as a maid in order to support herself. To make matters worse, her once friendly peers suddenly turn against her upon hearing about her fall from wealth. Coming to terms with the unfortunate situation she faces, Sarah must learn to persevere and form new friendships in order to regain her dignity as well as her identity. -- -- 15,825 7.68
Tenshi no Tamago -- -- Studio Deen -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia Drama Fantasy -- Tenshi no Tamago Tenshi no Tamago -- The surrealist world of Tenshi no Tamago is desolate and devoid of the bustle of traditional everyday life. Instead, the world is filled with ominous phenomena, including floating orbs populated with statues of goddesses, gargantuan army tanks that seem to move unmanned, armies of fishermen who chase after the shadows of nonexistent fish, and caverns solely decorated with glass vessels of water. -- -- In this run-down world, a young girl takes care of a large egg and scavenges for food and drink. She encounters a mysterious man with a cross over his shoulder, who soon becomes curious about who she is and what her egg contains. They decide to explore the lost and broken landscape together, questioning each other about the nature of faith, the purpose of the world, and the origins of their lives. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Anchor Bay Films -- OVA - Dec 22, 1985 -- 95,684 7.69
Tenshi no Tamago -- -- Studio Deen -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia Drama Fantasy -- Tenshi no Tamago Tenshi no Tamago -- The surrealist world of Tenshi no Tamago is desolate and devoid of the bustle of traditional everyday life. Instead, the world is filled with ominous phenomena, including floating orbs populated with statues of goddesses, gargantuan army tanks that seem to move unmanned, armies of fishermen who chase after the shadows of nonexistent fish, and caverns solely decorated with glass vessels of water. -- -- In this run-down world, a young girl takes care of a large egg and scavenges for food and drink. She encounters a mysterious man with a cross over his shoulder, who soon becomes curious about who she is and what her egg contains. They decide to explore the lost and broken landscape together, questioning each other about the nature of faith, the purpose of the world, and the origins of their lives. -- -- OVA - Dec 22, 1985 -- 95,684 7.69
Tezuka Osamu no Don Dracula -- -- - -- 8 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Horror Supernatural Vampire -- Tezuka Osamu no Don Dracula Tezuka Osamu no Don Dracula -- After living in Transylvania for several years, "Earl Dracula" (as Osamu Tezuka's official website calls him in English) has moved to Japan. In the Nerima Ward of Tokyo, he and his daughter, Chocola, and faithful servant Igor have taken up residence in an old-Western style house. -- -- While Chocola attends Junior High School, Earl Dracula is desperate to drink the blood of beautiful virgin women; an appropriate meal for a vampire of his stature. However, each night that Earl Dracula goes out on the prowl he finds himself getting involved in some kind of disturbance which leads to him causing various trouble for the local residents. With nobody in Japan believing in vampires, his very presence causes trouble amongst the people in town. -- TV - Apr 5, 1982 -- 1,934 6.08
Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou -- -- AIC Spirits, BeSTACK -- 14 eps -- Game -- Action Horror Supernatural Drama Martial Arts Fantasy School -- Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou -- Something evil is stirring in the shadows of Tokyo... -- -- During the spring of his senior year in high school, quiet Tatsuma Hiyuu transfers to Magami Academy in Shinjuku. The mysterious boy's "outsider" status and his profound skills in martial arts quickly earn him the friendship of class delinquent Kyouichi Houraiji. Through an uncanny connection and a happenstance challenge, he also meets Yuuya Daigo of the wrestling club, the captain of the girls' archery club, Komaki Sakurai, and Aoi Misato, the Student Council President. -- -- During their encounter, there is a sudden, harsh disruption of the Ryumyaku (literally Dragon Pulse, otherwise known as Dragon Vein or Dragon Stream), the flow of arcane energy. The surge awakens within the five teenagers a latent power, giving them each a supernatural ability. Enlightened to their newly acquired gifts by Hisui, the young heir of the Kisaragi Clan who maintains his family's antiques shop - as well as their duty to protect Tokyo from Oni (demons) - the Magami students decide to use their power to protect the city from the onslaught of dark forces. -- -- Battling the demons alongside Hisui Kisaragi, the five unlikely friends discover that they may have to face a greater threat to Tokyo other than destroying a few malevolent, random monsters. The Ryumyaku had been disrupted by force, from someone invoking the Dark Arts - and that person has a wicked desire to unleash a long-dead evil. -- -- Can the teenagers overcome their own fears and flaws to fight against the Dark Arts? And soon they will also have to face their own destinies as they discover their Stars of Fate. -- -- This anime is based on a manga, which was based on the Nintendo role-playing video game originally released in 1998. -- 69,395 7.14
Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou -- -- AIC Spirits, BeSTACK -- 14 eps -- Game -- Action Horror Supernatural Drama Martial Arts Fantasy School -- Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou -- Something evil is stirring in the shadows of Tokyo... -- -- During the spring of his senior year in high school, quiet Tatsuma Hiyuu transfers to Magami Academy in Shinjuku. The mysterious boy's "outsider" status and his profound skills in martial arts quickly earn him the friendship of class delinquent Kyouichi Houraiji. Through an uncanny connection and a happenstance challenge, he also meets Yuuya Daigo of the wrestling club, the captain of the girls' archery club, Komaki Sakurai, and Aoi Misato, the Student Council President. -- -- During their encounter, there is a sudden, harsh disruption of the Ryumyaku (literally Dragon Pulse, otherwise known as Dragon Vein or Dragon Stream), the flow of arcane energy. The surge awakens within the five teenagers a latent power, giving them each a supernatural ability. Enlightened to their newly acquired gifts by Hisui, the young heir of the Kisaragi Clan who maintains his family's antiques shop - as well as their duty to protect Tokyo from Oni (demons) - the Magami students decide to use their power to protect the city from the onslaught of dark forces. -- -- Battling the demons alongside Hisui Kisaragi, the five unlikely friends discover that they may have to face a greater threat to Tokyo other than destroying a few malevolent, random monsters. The Ryumyaku had been disrupted by force, from someone invoking the Dark Arts - and that person has a wicked desire to unleash a long-dead evil. -- -- Can the teenagers overcome their own fears and flaws to fight against the Dark Arts? And soon they will also have to face their own destinies as they discover their Stars of Fate. -- -- This anime is based on a manga, which was based on the Nintendo role-playing video game originally released in 1998. -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Funimation -- 69,395 7.14
Turn A Gundam -- -- Nakamura Production, Sunrise -- 50 eps -- Original -- Action Military Sci-Fi Adventure Space Drama Romance Mecha -- Turn A Gundam Turn A Gundam -- It is the Correct Century, two millennia after a devastating conflict which left the world broken. Earth is now mostly uninhabitable, and thus a remnant of humanity has resided on the Moon while the Earth and its few survivors recover. For years, the "Moonrace," the people of the Moon, have continued to check if Earth is fit for resettlement. -- -- A boy named Rolan Cehack and two others are sent down to Earth for a reconnaissance mission. Rolan ends up spending a year on the planet working for the Heim Family, aristocrats living in a Victorian-like society. This family, like others of similar wealthy status, celebrates one's coming of age with a ceremony involving a giant stone statue known as the "White Doll." -- -- To Rolan's surprise, the Moonrace suddenly touches down on Earth with the intent of taking it by force. During the attack, the White Doll is broken apart, revealing a mobile suit called the "Turn A Gundam" inside. With Rolan in its cockpit, the Turn A causes a standoff between the forces of Earth and Moon. The young pilot, along with the people of both sides, must keep the peace and avoid another all-out, catastrophic war. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Nozomi Entertainment -- 36,606 7.70
Vampire in the Garden -- -- Wit Studio -- ? eps -- Original -- Vampire -- Vampire in the Garden Vampire in the Garden -- Once, vampires and humans lived in harmony. Now, a young girl and a vampire queen will search for that Paradise once again. In the divided world of the future, two girls want to do the forbidden: the human wants to play the violin, and the vampire wants to see a wider world. -- -- (Source: Netflix, edited) -- ONA - ??? ??, 2021 -- 2,514 N/AKyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu -- -- Madhouse -- ? eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Vampire Shounen -- Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu -- Vampires are said to have many weaknesses such as garlic, crosses, and sunlight. Game-loving vampire lord Draluc just so happens to be weak to... everything. He dies, turning into a pile of ash, at the slightest shock. -- -- After Vampire Hunter Ronaldo learned of a castle inhabited by a vampire rumoured to have kidnapped a kid, he went there intending to take the devil down. However, the vampire turned out to be Draluc, a wimp who keeps turning into ash at the smallest things. Moreover, the kid wasn't being held captive—he was just using the "haunted house" as his personal playground! -- -- When his castle is destroyed, Draluc moves into Ronaldo's office, much to the other's chagrin. Despite their differences, they must try to work together to defend themselves from rogue vampires, Ronaldo's murderous editor, investigators, and more—with Draluc dying continuously along the way. -- -- (Source: MU, amended) -- TV - Oct ??, 2021 -- 2,018 N/A -- -- Tezuka Osamu no Don Dracula -- -- - -- 8 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Horror Supernatural Vampire -- Tezuka Osamu no Don Dracula Tezuka Osamu no Don Dracula -- After living in Transylvania for several years, "Earl Dracula" (as Osamu Tezuka's official website calls him in English) has moved to Japan. In the Nerima Ward of Tokyo, he and his daughter, Chocola, and faithful servant Igor have taken up residence in an old-Western style house. -- -- While Chocola attends Junior High School, Earl Dracula is desperate to drink the blood of beautiful virgin women; an appropriate meal for a vampire of his stature. However, each night that Earl Dracula goes out on the prowl he finds himself getting involved in some kind of disturbance which leads to him causing various trouble for the local residents. With nobody in Japan believing in vampires, his very presence causes trouble amongst the people in town. -- TV - Apr 5, 1982 -- 1,934 6.08
Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki -- -- Creators in Pack, Saetta -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy School Shounen -- Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki -- After growing up in Tokyo, high school student Jin Kaito moves to Nagoya where he meets Yatogame Monaka, a fellow student who puts her Nagoya dialect on full display. With her cat-like appearance and unvarnished Nagoya dialect, Yatogame won't open up to him at all. This popular local comedy is increasing the status of Nagoya through observation of the adorable Yatogame-chan! -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- 24,004 6.22
Yuukoku no Moriarty -- -- Production I.G -- 11 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Historical Psychological Thriller Shounen -- Yuukoku no Moriarty Yuukoku no Moriarty -- During the late 19th century, Great Britain has become the greatest empire the world has ever known. Hidden within its success, the nation's rigid economic hierarchy dictates the value of one's life solely on status and wealth. To no surprise, the system favors the aristocracy at the top and renders it impossible for the working class to ascend the ranks. -- -- William James Moriarty, the second son of the Moriarty household, lives as a regular noble while also being a consultant for the common folk to give them a hand and solve their problems. However, deep inside him lies a desire to destroy the current structure that dominates British society and those who benefit from it. -- -- Alongside his brothers Albert and Louis, the trio will do anything it takes to change the filthy world they live in—even if blood must be spilled. -- -- 175,367 8.02
Yuukoku no Moriarty -- -- Production I.G -- 11 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Historical Psychological Thriller Shounen -- Yuukoku no Moriarty Yuukoku no Moriarty -- During the late 19th century, Great Britain has become the greatest empire the world has ever known. Hidden within its success, the nation's rigid economic hierarchy dictates the value of one's life solely on status and wealth. To no surprise, the system favors the aristocracy at the top and renders it impossible for the working class to ascend the ranks. -- -- William James Moriarty, the second son of the Moriarty household, lives as a regular noble while also being a consultant for the common folk to give them a hand and solve their problems. However, deep inside him lies a desire to destroy the current structure that dominates British society and those who benefit from it. -- -- Alongside his brothers Albert and Louis, the trio will do anything it takes to change the filthy world they live in—even if blood must be spilled. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 175,367 8.02
Yuuwaku Countdown -- -- AIC -- 6 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Fantasy Hentai Horror Mecha Romance Supernatural -- Yuuwaku Countdown Yuuwaku Countdown -- From famed adult comic artist Hiroyuki Utatane come six of the most erotic, the most exotic, the most unusual and just downright odd stories ever animated. -- -- In Alimony Hunter we see Jun in an extremely unusual three-for-all in which not everyone is what he (or she!) seems. She also makes an appearance as a teacher in Cherry Lips (under an alias). It all comes to conclusion in Virgin Road, there perhaps too-willing bride is having a last minute fling with her in the back room of the chapel; the groom is also not a stranger to Jun... -- -- Then there's a manly knight who discovers the joys of bondage at the hands of a fair maiden; and a Samurai policewoman forced to tackle a giant walking statue, controlled by a sex-crazed megalomaniac, before it destroys Tokyo. -- Crimson is a bloody story of a man and his blind love slave. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters, Nozomi Entertainment -- OVA - Jun 15, 1995 -- 2,453 5.81
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'Ain Ghazal Statues
1868 Danish West Indies status referendum
1877 Saint Barthlemy status referendum
1916 Danish West Indies status referendum
landic status referendum
1931 Catalan Statute of Autonomy referendum
1933 Basque Statute of Autonomy referendum
1935 Saar status referendum
1936 Galician Statute of Autonomy referendum
1955 Saar Statute referendum
1956 British Togoland status plebiscite
1959 Wallis and Futuna status referendum
1961 Northern Mariana Islands status referendum
1967 Puerto Rican status referendum
1969 Northern Mariana Islands status referendum
1975 Northern Mariana Islands status referendum
1975 Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands status referendum
1976 Guamanian status referendum
1976 Mahoran status referendum
1976 Palauan status negotiations referendum
1977 Marshallese status referendum
1979 Basque Statute of Autonomy referendum
1979 Catalan Statute of Autonomy referendum
1980 Galician Statute of Autonomy referendum
1984 Cocos (Keeling) Islands status referendum
1986 Falkland Islands status referendum
1993 Curaao status referendum
1993 Puerto Rican status referendum
1994 Bonaire status referendum
1994 Saban status referendum
1994 Sint Eustatius status referendum
1994 Sint Maarten status referendum
1998 Puerto Rican status referendum
2000 Mahoran status referendum
2000 Sint Maarten status referendum
2004 Bonaire status referendum
2004 Saban status referendum
2005 Curaao status referendum
2005 Sint Eustatius status referendum
2006 Catalan Statute of Autonomy referendum
2007 Andalusian Statute of Autonomy referendum
2009 Curaao status referendum
2009 Mahoran status referendum
2009 Status Athens Open Doubles
2009 Status Athens Open Singles
2010 French Guianan status referendum
2010 Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement referendum
2010 Martiniquean status referendum
2010 Status Athens Open Doubles
2010 Status Athens Open Singles
2011 Status Athens Open Doubles
2011 Status Athens Open Singles
2012 Puerto Rican status referendum
2012 Status Athens Open Doubles
2012 Status Athens Open Singles
2014 Crimean status referendum
2014 Donbass status referendums
2014 Sint Eustatius status referendum
2015 Bonaire status referendum
2015 La Manga del Cura status referendum
2016 Darfurian status referendum
2017 Puerto Rican status referendum
2020 Puerto Rican status referendum
Aboriginal title statutes in the Thirteen Colonies
Abyei status referendum
Achieved status
Aconodes costatus
Actinoschoenus quadricostatus
Adiyogi Shiva statue
Adjustment of status
Ad Statuas
Advisory Committee on Statute Law
Against All Odds (Chase & Status song)
Agropyron cristatum
Ageyban El Bravo (statue)
Alberta Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women
Alexander I Statue in Taganrog
Alien Tort Statute
Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act, 2003
Amateur status in first-class cricket
Amazon statue types
Amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Amitermes hastatus
An Act to eliminate the 2013 statutory pay adjustment for Federal employees
Android lawn statues
Anthoxanthum aristatum
Apotistatus
Appomattox (statue)
Arizona Revised Statutes
Art Statuto
ASA physical status classification system
Ascribed status
Aspidoscelis costatus
A Statue for Father
Astatula, Florida
Astragalus bicristatus
Astralium semicostatum
Astronaut Status
Atlas (statue)
At Ready (statue)
Attacking Cavalryman Statue
Avukana Buddha statue
Backbone (Status Quo album)
Bashaw (statue)
Basic Statute of Oman
Bassetki Statue
Bayonne Statute
Beacon Status
Belonger status
Black Hawk Statue
Block statue
Blood Music (Dead Celebrity Status album)
Book:Status Quo (band)
Borough status in the United Kingdom
Borrowing statute
British nature conservation statuses
Buddha Dordenma statue
Buffalo Bill - The Scout (statue)
Burning Bridges (Status Quo song)
Burns Statue Square drill hall, Ayr
California Statutes
Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women
Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women
Capitoline Wolf Statue, Cluj-Napoca
Captain Nathan Hale (statue)
Catasetum cristatum
Category:Buddha statues
Category:Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status
Catuna angustatum
Cecil John Rhodes Statue
Chartered status
Chase & Status
Chase & Status discography
C. hastatus
Chiang Kai-shek statues
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules
Chollima Statue
Christ the King Statue, wiebodzin
Christ the Redeemer (statue)
Christus (statue)
Chronological Table of the Statutes
Cinema Statuto fire
City status
City status in Belgium
City status in Indonesia
City status in Ireland
City status in the United Kingdom
City Statute
City with special status
Civil status mobile registration unit (Oman)
Clinus brevicristatus
Coal Miner (statue)
Coatlicue statue
Code of Personal Status in Tunisia
Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty
Colorado Revised Statutes
Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Combatant Status Review Tribunal transcripts
Comfort Woman Statue
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada
Commodity status of animals
Complex partial status epilepticus
Connecticut General Statutes
Conservation-restoration of the Statue of Liberty
Conservation status
Constitutional status of Cornwall
Constitutional status of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles
Consultative status
Content Protection Status Report
Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute
Control/Status Register
Convention and Statute on the International Rgime of Maritime Ports
Convention on the Issue of Multilingual Extracts from Civil Status Records
Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
Copyright status of works by the government of Florida
Coryphophylax subcristatus
Count On Me (Chase & Status song)
Creature of statute
Criminal Statutes Repeal Act 1827
Criminal Statutes Repeal Act 1861
Cristatusaurus
Cristo Rey (Mexican statue)
Current Law Statutes Annotated
Cynosurus cristatus
Dead Celebrity Status
Dead Man's Statute
Declaration concerning status of Catholics becoming Freemasons
Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language
Dhyana Buddha statue
Dignity (statue)
Diplacus angustatus
Disappeared statues in Tehran, 2010
Disputed status of the isthmus between Gibraltar and Spain
Divine Mercy Statue (Bulacan)
Duke Activity Status Index
Early Years Professional Status
Ecce Homo (statue)
Echthistatus hawksi
Echthistatus spinulosus
Ecoregion conservation status
Edward F. Sorin (statue)
Epidendrum cristatum
Episynlestes cristatus
Eppes Statue
Equality Rights Statute Amendment Act
Equestrian statue
Equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson (Washington, D.C.)
Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni
Equestrian statue of Bernardo de Glvez
Equestrian statue of Caesar Rodney
Equestrian statue of Carol I
Equestrian statue of Casimir Pulaski
Equestrian statue of Charles I, Charing Cross
Equestrian statue of Charles IV of Spain
Equestrian statue of Christian IX, Copenhagen
Equestrian statue of Christian IX, Esbjerg
Equestrian statue of Edward Horner
Equestrian statue of Ferdinand Foch, London
Equestrian statue of Francisco Franco
Equestrian statue of Francisco I. Madero
Equestrian statue of Frederick V
Equestrian statue of Frederick VII
Equestrian statue of Gattamelata
Equestrian statue of Genghis Khan
Equestrian statue of George B. McClellan
Equestrian statue of George Henry Thomas
Equestrian statue of George I, Birmingham
Equestrian statue of George IV, Trafalgar Square
Equestrian statue of George Washington (New York City)
Equestrian statue of George Washington (Washington Circle)
Equestrian statue of Henry IV
Equestrian statue of Ignacio Zaragoza
Equestrian statue of James B. McPherson
Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (New York City)
Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (Portland, Oregon)
Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (Washington, D.C.)
Equestrian statue of John A. Logan
Equestrian statue of Juan de Oate
Equestrian statue of King Chulalongkorn
Equestrian statue of Louis XIV (Bernini)
Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius
Equestrian statue of Marshal Mannerheim
Equestrian statue of Nathanael Greene
Equestrian statue of Paul Revere
Equestrian statue of Philip Sheridan
Equestrian statue of Simn Bolvar (Washington, D.C.)
Equestrian statue of Tadeusz Kociuszko (Milwaukee)
Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, Aldershot
Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, City of London
Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, Glasgow
Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt (New York City)
Equestrian statue of Thomas Munro
Equestrian statue of Viscount Combermere
Equestrian statue of William Henry Harrison (Cincinnati)
Equestrian statue of William III, Bristol
Equestrian statue of Winfield Scott
Equestrian statue of Winfield Scott Hancock
Equestrian statuette of Charlemagne
Evelina Saenko-Statuleviien
Exit status
Expanded Disability Status Scale
Extra-statutory concession
Eyrarland Statue
Falkland Islands status
Father Serra statue
Favourable conservation status of wolves in Europe
Federal Interlocutor for Mtis and Non-Status Indians
Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute
Filing status
Firdos Square statue destruction
First Statute of Repeal
Fisheries (Statute Law Revision) Act 1949
Fisheries (Statute Law Revision) Act 1956
Fistulobalanus albicostatus
Flashing Lights (Chase & Status and Sub Focus song)
Florida Statutes
Fundamental Statute of the Kingdom of Albania (1928)
Galium aristatum
General Beauregard Equestrian Statue
General Directorate of Civil Status (Albania)
General Statutes
German Statutory Accident Insurance
Glenn McGrath (statue)
Golden Buddha (statue)
Gommateshwara statue
Gompholobium ecostatum
Greenfield status
Guest statute
Halsbury's Statutes
Hastatus
Hatsuiku Status: Gokiritsu Japon
Hayashiechthistatus inexpectus
Health status of Asian Americans
Hellinsia costatus
Hellinsia ochricostatus
Hemicoelus costatus
Hero of Israel (statue)
H. hastatus
Hibiscus hastatus
Histiogamphelus cristatus
Holy Trinity Statue, imleu Silvaniei
Homalopoma paucicostatum
Horaiclavus multicostatus
Hydnellum cristatum
Hypselomus cristatus
Idiopathic short stature
Idiostatus californicus
Idiostatus middlekauffi
Illinois Compiled Statutes
Incilius macrocristatus
Independent Mori Statutory Board
Indiana (statue)
Indian Statue
Inquisitor nodicostatus
International Association of Gendarmeries and Police Forces with Military Status
International Commission on Civil Status
International status and usage of the euro
Intravascular volume status
Irish Statute Book
Iron Man (Buddhist statue)
Jamb statue
James Cardinal Gibbons Memorial Statue
January 1982 Guamanian status referendum
Jowo (statue)
Kamehameha Statue (Honolulu cast)
Kamehameha statue (original cast)
Kamehameha statues
Kaupus costatus
Kentucky Revised Statutes
King's Statue
King Kong statue
King Leopold II statue (Ostend)
King Neptune (statue)
King of Kings (statue)
Kirkuk status referendum
L'amant statue
Lady on the Rock (statue)
La estatua de la libertad
Languages with official status in India
aski's Statute
La statue
La statue de la Rsistance
La statue retrouve
Law on the Status of the Descendants of the Petrovi Njego Dynasty
Legal status and local government of Kyiv
Legal status of Alaska
Legal status of ayahuasca by country
Legal status of fictional pornography depicting minors
Legal status of Hawaii
Legal status of homosexuality in Brazil
Legal status of ibogaine by country
Legal status of Internet pornography
Legal status of Jainism as a distinct religion in India
Legal status of methamphetamine
Legal status of psilocybin mushrooms
Legal status of psychoactive Amanita mushrooms
Legal status of psychoactive cactus by country
Legal status of Salvia divinorum
Legal status of same-sex marriage
Legal status of striptease
Legal status of tattooing in European countries
Leonard Statuette
Liberty Statue (Budapest)
Lies (Status Quo song)
List of breast cancer patients by survival status
List of Capitoline Wolf statues
List of Chromista by conservation status
List of equestrian statues
List of equestrian statues in the United Kingdom
List of European cheeses with protected geographical status
List of former towns or villages gained city status alone in Japan
List of fungi by conservation status
List of housing statutes
List of HTTP status codes
List of Israeli settlements with city status in the West Bank
List of largest languages without official status
List of people with non-domiciled status in the UK
List of Portuguese food and drink products with protected status
List of songs recorded by Status Quo
List of statues of English and British royalty in London
List of statues of George V
List of statues of Jesus
List of statues of Joseph Stalin
List of statues of Queen Victoria
List of statues of Vladimir Lenin
List of statues on Paseo de la Reforma
List of statutes of China
List of statutes of New Zealand (184090)
List of statutes of New Zealand (18911912)
List of statutes of New Zealand (191228)
List of statutes of New Zealand (192831)
List of statutes of New Zealand (193135)
List of statutes of New Zealand (193549)
List of statutes of New Zealand (194957)
List of statutes of New Zealand (195760)
List of statutes of New Zealand (196072)
List of statutes of New Zealand (197275)
List of statutes of New Zealand (197584)
List of statutes of New Zealand (198490)
List of statutes of New Zealand (199099)
List of statutes of New Zealand (19992008)
List of statutes of New Zealand (20082017)
List of statutes of New Zealand (2017present)
List of Statutory Instruments of Scotland
List of statutory instruments of the United Kingdom
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1947
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1987
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1988
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1989
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1990
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1991
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1992
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1993
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1994
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1995
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1996
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1997
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 2012
List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 2013
List of Statutory Rules and Orders of Northern Ireland
List of statutory rules of Northern Ireland
List of tallest statues
List of taxa with candidatus status
List of the tallest statues in India
List of United Kingdom food and drink products with protected status
Lists of statutes of New Zealand
Little Princess statue
Live! (Status Quo album)
Living statue
Lixus angustatus
Lobatus costatus
Lux Mundi (statue)
Luxor statue cache
Mactan Hindu Ganesha Statue
Maiestas hastatus
Marital status
Massachusetts Peace Statue
Mental status examination
Mesechthistatus binodosus
Mesechthistatus furciferus
Mesechthistatus taniguchii
Mimechthistatus yamahoi
Minister responsible for the Status of Women
Minister responsible for the Status of Women (Manitoba)
Minnesota Statutes
Mississippian stone statuary
Monetria Statului
Mongolian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Status
Monoceratuncus cristatus
Moral status of animals in the ancient world
Mother Albania (statue)
Moving statues
Myxodes cristatus
Names inscribed on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great
Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue
National Action Committee on the Status of Women
National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians
National Commission on the Status of Women
National Organization of Short Statured Adults
National Registry of Identification and Civil Status
National Statuary Hall
National Statuary Hall Collection
NatureServe conservation status
Neil Statue Satyagraha
Nevada Revised Statutes
Never Too Late (Status Quo album)
New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated
NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York
Nightwalker statute
Nile God Statue, Naples
Non-status Indian
Northampton Sekhemka statue
Norwegian Lady Statues
Nuragic bronze statuettes
Oblation (statue)
Observer status
Occupation statute
Official party status
Official status of Romanian language in Vojvodina
Omorgus costatus
Oncidium hastatum
Online Certificate Status Protocol
Open Letter on the Position and Status of Serbs in Croatia
Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910)
Ordinarily resident status
Oregon Revised Statutes
Organic Statute of Macau
Organic Statute of the Kingdom of Poland
Orthochilus ecristatus
Orthosiphon aristatus
Osmodes costatus
Pacifica (statue)
Pakistan's response to the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir
Parasenecio hastatus
Parechthistatus gibber
Partners (statue)
Pauper statues
Pecten sulcicostatus
Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes
Performance status
Peter Pan statue
Peter the Great Statue
P. hastatus
Philip II Statue
PhilippinesAustralia Status of Visiting Forces Agreement
Phlegmariurus hastatus
Physica Status Solidi
Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo
Pieces (Chase & Status song)
Platydoras costatus
Political status of Crimea
Political status of Kosovo
Political status of Nagorno-Karabakh
Political status of Puerto Rico
Political status of Taiwan
Political status of the Azores
Political status of the Cook Islands and Niue
Political status of Transnistria
Political status of Western Sahara
Polyphlebium angustatum
Portal:India/SC Summary/SP Statue of the Sakyamuni Buddha
Portal:Law/Selected statutes
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/1
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/10
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/17
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/18
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/19
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/2
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/20
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/21
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/22
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/23
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/24
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/25
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/26
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/27
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/28
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/29
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/3
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/30
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/4
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/5
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/6
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/7
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/8
Portal:Law/Selected statutes/9
Portal:Law/Statute/Week 30 2006
Portal:Law/Statute/Week 36 2006
Portlandia (statue)
Potamogeton cristatus
Poynings' Law (confirmation of English statutes)
Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
Private Express Statutes
Procambarus angustatus
Program status word
Proposed political status for Puerto Rico
Prosipho crassicostatus
Prosoplus costatus
Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees
Pseudoechthistatus
Pseudoechthistatus birmanicus
Pseudoechthistatus granulatus
Pseudoechthistatus obliquefasciatus
Psychosocial short stature
Ptilimnium costatum
Puerto Rico political status plebiscites
Purdon's Pennsylvania Statutes
Pygmalion, ou La Statue de Chypre
Queen Isabel II Statue
Quo (Status Quo album)
Rllinge statuette
Receiver (statue)
Reception statute
Recurring status
Redwood statue of Elizabeth Taylor
Reference Re Alberta Statutes
Refugee Status Appeals Authority
Repeal of Obsolete Statutes Act 1856
Replicas of the Statue of Liberty
Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Revised edition of the statutes
Revised statute 2477
Revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Royal Commission on the Status of Women
Rumex hastatulus
Runway status lights
Saar statute
Samadhi Statue
Sargocentron hastatum
Sarvajna and Tiruvalluvar statues installation
Scientology status by country
Scottish statutory instrument
SCSI Status Code
Sculptures of the National Statuary Hall Collection
Seaman's Manslaughter Statute
Second Statute of Repeal
Secretor status
Sekhmet statues
Select Committee on Statutory Instruments
Senior status
September 1982 Guamanian status referendum
Serostatus
Shami statue
Shia Personal Status Law
Short stature
Short-stature homeobox gene
Social status
Socioeconomic status
Socioeconomic status and memory
Socioeconomic status and mental health
Special Category Status
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status
Special Status for Andhra Pradesh Protests
Statua della Libert
Statuary of the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral
Statue
Statue (disambiguation)
Statue menhir
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Ashland, Oregon)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Cincinnati)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (District of Columbia City Hall)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Hodgenville, Kentucky)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Jefferson, Iowa)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Milwaukee)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (New York City)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Portland, Oregon)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (San Francisco)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Stanville, Kentucky)
Statue of Abraham Lincoln (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin
Statue of Adolf Dassler
Statue of Ahimsa
Statue of Alan Turing
Statue of Albert Gallatin
Statue of Albert Sidney Johnston (University of Texas at Austin)
Statue of Alexander Hamilton (Central Park)
Statue of Alexander Hamilton (Columbia University)
Statue of Alexander Hamilton (New York City)
Statue of Alexander Hamilton (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Alexander Hamilton (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Alexander Pushkin, Riga
Statue of Alexander Pushkin (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Alexander Robey Shepherd
Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Blser)
Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Stanford University)
Statue of Alfred the Great
Statue of Alfred the Great, Wantage
Statue of a Liberated Woman
Statue of Alice Hawkins
Statue of Almanzor, Algeciras
Statue of Alonzo Horton
Statue of Amy Winehouse
Statue of Andr Bessette
Statue of Andrew Jackson (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Artemas Ward
Statue of Ashurbanipal (San Francisco)
Statue of Atatrk (Sheridan Circle)
Statue of Atatrk (Turkish Embassy, Washington)
Statue of Augustine of Hippo, Charles Bridge
Statue of Avetik Isahakyan
Statue of Baphomet
Statue of Barbara Jordan (AustinBergstrom International Airport)
Statue of Barbara Jordan (University of Texas at Austin)
Statue of Barry Goldwater
Statue of Benito Jurez (New Orleans)
Statue of Benito Jurez (New York City)
Statue of Benito Jurez (San Diego)
Statue of Benito Jurez (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Benjamin Franklin
Statue of Benjamin Franklin (College Hall, Philadelphia)
Statue of Benjamin Franklin (Portland, Oregon)
Statue of Benjamin Franklin (San Francisco)
Statue of Benjamin Franklin (Stanford University)
Statue of Benjamin Franklin (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Benjamin Welch Owens
Statue of Bill Bowerman
Statue of Bobby Moore, Wembley
Statue of Brigham Young (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Bruce Lee (Hong Kong)
Statue of Bruce Lee (Los Angeles)
Statue of Bruce Lee (Mostar)
Statue of Captain James Cook, The Mall
Statue of Casimir Pulaski (Milwaukee)
Statue of Charles II, Soho Square
Statue of Charles Marion Russell
Statue of Charles Rolls, Monmouth
Statue of Chester A. Arthur
Statue of Chief Seattle
Statue of Chris Cornell
Statue of Christopher Columbus
Statue of Christopher Columbus (Astoria, Queens)
Statue of Christopher Columbus (Central Park)
Statue of Christopher Columbus (Chicago)
Statue of Christopher Columbus (Columbus City Hall)
Statue of Christopher Columbus (Houston)
Statue of Christopher Columbus (Providence, Rhode Island)
Statue of Confucius (Houston)
Statue of Cosimo I
Statue of Crawford Long
Statue of Daniel Webster (New York City)
Statue of Dan Moody
Statue of David
Statue of David Farragut (New York City)
Statue of David Farragut (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Dennis Chvez
Statue of Diogenes
Statue of Douglas MacArthur (Milwaukee)
Statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Ebih-Il
Statue of Edmund Kirby Smith
Statue of Edward Colston
Statue of Edward Cornwallis
Statue of Edward Dickinson Baker
Statue of Edward Douglass White
Statue of Edward VII, Bangalore
Statue of Edward VII, Bootle
Statue of Eleftherios Venizelos
Statue of milie Gamelin
Statue of Emmeline Pankhurst
Statue of Ephraim McDowell
Statue of Equality
Statue of Ernest Gruening
Statue of Ernest W. Hahn
Statue of Esther Hobart Morris
Statue of Eugene Skinner
Statue of Father Ccero
Statue of Fiorello H. La Guardia
Statue of Fitz-Greene Halleck
Statue of Florence R. Sabin
Statue of Frances Willard
Statue of Francisco Franco, Melilla
Statue of Francis Harrison Pierpont
Statue of Francis P. Duffy
Statue of Frederick Douglass (College Park, Maryland)
Statue of Frederick Douglass (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Freedom
Statue of Friedrich Schiller (Columbus, Ohio)
Statue of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben
Statue of Fuzl (Baku)
Statue of Ganymede
Statue of General Gordon
Statue of George H. Hermann
Statue of George III, Somerset House
Statue of George L. Shoup
Statue of George M. Cohan
Statue of George Orwell
Statue of George Vancouver (Vancouver)
Statue of George Vancouver (Vancouver, Washington)
Statue of George V, Westminster
Statue of George Washington (Austin, Texas)
Statue of George Washington Glick
Statue of George Washington (Indianapolis)
Statue of George Washington, Mexico City (1916)
Statue of George Washington (Portland, Oregon)
Statue of George Washington (Seattle)
Statue of George Washington (Wall Street)
Statue of Gertrude Stein
Statue of Gilgamesh, University of Sydney
Statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi (New York City)
Statue of Graf Vorontsov, Odessa
Statue of Guan Yu (Jingzhou)
Statue of Guy Lafleur
Statue of Hachik
Statue of Harriet Tubman (DeDecker)
Statue of Harry Jerome
Statue of Harvey W. Scott
Statue of Henry Bergh
Statue of Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Statue of Henry Mower Rice
Statue of Henry W. Grady
Statue of Hercules in Behistun
Statue of Heydar Aliyev, Mexico City
Statue of Horace Greeley (City Hall Park)
Statue of Horace Greeley (Herald Square)
Statue of Horatio Nelson, Birmingham
Statue of Howie Morenz
Statue of Humanity
Statue of Iddi-Ilum
Statue of Irv Kupcinet
Statue of Isabella I of Castile
Statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Victoria Embankment
Statue of Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry
Statue of Jack Swigert
Statue of Jacob Collamer
Statue of Jacques Marquette
Statue of James Cook, Christchurch
Statue of James Harlan
Statue of James II, Trafalgar Square
Statue of James Madison
Statue of James Paul Clarke
Statue of James Shields (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr
Statue of Janko Kr
Statue of Jason Lee
Statue of Jean Bliveau
Statue of Jean Drapeau
Statue of Jeannette Rankin
Statue of Jean Vauquelin
Statue of Jefferson Davis (Austin, Texas)
Statue of Jefferson Davis (Montgomery, Alabama)
Statue of Jefferson Davis (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Jim Hogg
Statue of Jim Rhodes
Statue of Joe Paterno
Statue of Johannes Gutenberg (Stanford University)
Statue of John Aaron Rawlins
Statue of John Barry
Statue of John Bridge
Statue of John Brown Gordon
Statue of John Bunyan, Bedford
Statue of John Carroll
Statue of John E. Kenna
Statue of John Gorrie
Statue of John Harvard
Statue of John Henninger Reagan
Statue of John James Ingalls
Statue of John McGraw
Statue of John M. Clayton
Statue of John McLoughlin
Statue of John Plankinton
Statue of John Robert Godley
Statue of John Sevier
Statue of John Watts
Statue of John Witherspoon
Statue of Jonathan Trumbull
Statue of Jos Bonifcio de Andrada
Statue of Jos de San Martn, London
Statue of Jos Gervasio Artigas (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Joseph Stalin, Berlin
Statue of Joseph Ward
Statue of Joseph Wheeler
Statue of Josh Gibson
Statue of Julius Sterling Morton
Statue of Junpero Serra (Carmel-by-the-Sea, California)
Statue of Junpero Serra (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Jupiter (Hermitage)
Statue of King of the Forest
Statue of Lenin in Berdychiv
Statue of Lenin in Kharkiv
Statue of Lenin (Seattle)
Statue of Lewis Cass
Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty commemorative coins
Statue of Liberty (disambiguation)
Statue of Liberty Forever stamp
Statue of Liberty in popular culture
Statue of Liberty (Mytilene)
Statue of Liberty National Monument
Statue of Liberty (Oklahoma City)
Statue of Liberty play
Statue of Liberty (song)
Statue of Lord Cornwallis
Statue of Louis Agassiz
Statue of Lucille Ball
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi Maidan
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Houston)
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (New York City)
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (San Francisco)
Statue of Mao Zedong, Chengdu
Statue of Mao Zedong, Fuzhou
Statue of Marcus Whitman
Statue of Marduk
Statue of Margaret Thatcher
Statue of Margaret Thatcher (London Guildhall)
Statue of Margaret Thatcher (Palace of Westminster)
Statue of Maria Sanford
Statue of Maria van Riebeeck
Statue of Marie-Victorin Kirouac
Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Austin, Texas)
Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Houston)
Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Milwaukee)
Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado)
Statue of Massasoit (Salt Lake City)
Statue of Maurice Richard
Statue of Medea
Statue of Metallurgist Anosov, Zlatoust
Statue of Michael Jackson
Statue of Michael Jordan
Statue of Mihai Eminescu
Statue of Mikul Karlach
Statue of Nathanael Greene (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Nelson Mandela, Cape Town City Hall
Statue of Nelson Mandela (Washington, D.C.)
Statue of Norman Borlaug
Statue of Oliver Cromwell, Westminster
Statue of Olive Risley Seward
Statue of Oliver P. Morton
Statue of Pat McCarran
Statue of Paul Bunyan (Portland, Oregon)
Statue of Paul Kruger, Church Square
Statue of Peace
Statue of Penelope
Statue of Peter Muhlenberg (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Pete Wilson
Statue of Philip Schuyler
Statue of Pope Clement X
Statue of Pemysl Otakar II
Statue of Queen Victoria, Bristol
Statue of Queen Victoria, Kensington Palace
Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney
Statue of Queen Victoria, Weymouth
Statue of Queen Victoria (Winnipeg)
Statue of Rachel Carson
Statue of Rama
Statue of Ramesses II
Statue of Richard Stockton
Statue of Richard W. Dowling
Statue of Robert Baden-Powell
Statue of Robert Baden-Powell, London
Statue of Robert Baden-Powell, Poole
Statue of Robert Burns (Milwaukee)
Statue of Robert E. Lee (Austin, Texas)
Statue of Robert E. Lee (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Robert Falcon Scott, Christchurch
Statue of Robert McAlpin Williamson
Statue of Robert M. La Follette
Statue of Robert R. Livingston
Statue of Roger Sherman
Statue of Roger Williams (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Ronald Reagan (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Rosa Parks (Eugene, Oregon)
Statue of Rosa Parks (U.S. Capitol)
Statue of Roscoe Conkling
Statue of Sabrina
Statue of Saint Sebastian (Vyehrad)
Statue of Saint Wenceslas, Prague
Statue of Saint Wenceslas, Wenceslas Square
Statue of Sam Davis (Montgomery Bell Academy)
Statue of Samora Machel
Statue of Samuel J. Kirkwood
Statue of Sarah Winnemucca
Statue of Simn Bolvar (Houston)
Statue of Simn Bolvar, London
Statue of Soh Jaipil
Statue of St Christopher, Norton Priory
Statue of St. John of Nepomuk in Divina
Statue of Sun Yat-sen (New York City)
Statue of Sun Yat-sen (San Francisco)
Statue of Tadeusz Kociuszko (Washington, D.C.)
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