TERMS STARTING WITH
the story in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Another
The story is in one sense but another version of that of manas between kama and buddhi. Zeus represents the host of primeval progenitors, pitris (fathers) who formed man without mind; and Prometheus symbolizes the host of spiritual creators who “fell” into matter — humanity — to enlighten the latter. The drama of Prometheus is thus still enacted through the ages — but man can rebecome the unfallen titan. Geographical allusions to the locations of the great root-races are seen in the mention of Mt. Caucasus, a name for the far north where the Aryan race, as an instance, was first developed.
The story of Cupid and Psyche — where Psyche represents the human soul as such, apart from special connection with buddhi or kama — depicts the search for happiness, or the course of human love. Psyche is of mortal birth, but so beautiful that Venus herself becomes jealous and sends Cupid to inspire Psyche with love for an unworthy object. But Cupid himself becomes enamored of Psyche. The love between Cupid and Psyche cannot be realized in the atmosphere of earthly passion and delusion, and is fulfilled only when Psyche, reconciled with Venus, is taken to the Olympian heights. The emblem of Psyche was the butterfly, which in winged joy comes forth into the sunlight from its prison of caterpillar and chrysalis.
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer "programming, person" A 1983 article by Ed Nather about {hacker} {Mel Kaye}. The full text follows. A recent article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, "Real Programmers write in FORTRAN". Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of {drums} and {vacuum tubes}, Real Programmers wrote in {machine code} - not {Fortran}, not {RATFOR}, not even {assembly language} - {Machine Code}, raw, unadorned, inscrutable {hexadecimal} numbers, directly. Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name. I first met Mel when I went to work for {Royal McBee Computer Corporation}, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the {LGP-30}, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) {drum}-memory computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a much-improved, bigger, better, faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.) I had been hired to write a {Fortran} compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers. "If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?" Mel had written, in {hexadecimal}, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the {LGP-30} and played blackjack with potential customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed. Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the {RPC-4000}. ({Port}? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the {operation code} and the address of the needed {operand}, had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a {GO TO}! Put *that* in {Pascal}'s pipe and smoke it. Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing assembler", but Mel refused to use it. "You never know where its going to put things", he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants". It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify. I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the "{top-down}" method of program design hadn't been invented yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way. Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky {Flexowriter} required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just *past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most pessimum". After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, ("Even the initialiser is optimised", he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimised) {random number generator} to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win. Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backward, and, when the sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it. After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure. I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius. Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out. The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an {index register}. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it. Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this additional execution time was taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it. The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me. He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way. I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised. When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer." [Posted to {Usenet} by its author, Ed Nather "utastro!nather", on 1983-05-21]. {Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html)}. [{On the trail of a Real Programmer (http://www.jamtronix.com/blog/2011/03/25/on-the-trail-of-a-real-programmer/)}, 2011-03-25 blog post by "jonno" at Jamtronix] [When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?] (2003-09-12)
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer ::: (programming, person) An article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, Real Programmers write in Fortran. language - Machine Code. Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers, directly.Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name.I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corporation, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.)I had been hired to write a Fortran compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers.If a program can't rewrite its own code, he asked, what good is it?Mel had written, in hexadecimal, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the LGP-30 and played blackjack with potential customers at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed.Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the RPC-4000. (Port? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a GO TO! Put *that* in Pascal's pipe and smoke it.Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be was a program to do that job, an optimizing assembler, but Mel refused to use it.You never know where its going to put things, he explained, so you'd have to use separate constants.It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every pick up an earlier add instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify.I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way.Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky Flexowriter required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located practice to make it relative: not quite optimum or less optimum or not very optimum. Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the most pessimum.After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, (Even the initialiser is optimised, he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win.Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it.After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure.I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out.The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it.Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it.The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me.He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way.I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised.When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer.[Posted to USENET by its author, Ed Nather utastro!nather>, on 1983-05-21]. .[When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?](2003-09-12)
The story of Mel {The story of Mel, a Real Programmer}
The story relates that when Ymir, the frost giant, was killed (transformed) by the creative trinity of gods, and made into the worlds, all the evil frost giants were drowned in his blood, save Bergelmir. He is saved on a boat-keel and ground on the mill to become the substance for a new creation.
TERMS ANYWHERE
A :::hanging_man ::: is a candlestick shape that often appears at the end of an uptrend. It has a short real body, little or no upper wick and a long lower wick. A hanging man represents a large sell-off early in the trading day, which sends the price plunging, before buyers push the price back to somewhere near the opening price. Investors often read a hanging man as a sign that the bulls are beginning to lose control and that the asset may soon enter a downtrend. A hanging man also be part of a continuation of the bullish trend. In that case, the hanging man tells the story of a large number of bears dumping their stock too early and short-sellers picking the wrong time to short. Intraday charts, popular among day traders, show more hanging men than daily charts do. Day traders pay more attention to hanging men than other investors do.
Abhiniskramanasutra. (T. Mngon par 'byung ba'i mdo; C.Fo benxing ji jing; J. Butsuhongyojukkyo; K. Pul ponhaeng chip kyong 佛本行集經). In Sanskrit, "Sutra of the Great Renunciation"; this scripture relates the story of Prince SIDDHARTHA's "going forth" (abhiniskramana; P. abhinikkhamana) from his father's palace to pursue the life of a mendicant wanderer (sRAMAnA) in search of enlightenment. There are no extant Sanskrit versions of the SuTRA, but the work survives in Tibetan and in several distinct recensions available in Chinese translation, one dating to as early as the first century CE. The best-known Chinese translation is the Fo benxing ji jing, made by JNANAGUPTA around 587 CE, during the Sui dynasty. The text claims to be a DHARMAGUPTAKA recension of the JATAKA, or past lives of the Buddha. (Franklin Edgerton has suggested that this text may instead be a translation of the MAHAVASTU, "The Great Account," of the LOKOTTARAVADA offshoot of the MAHASAMGHIKA school.) JNAnagupta's recension has sixty chapters, in five major parts. The first part is an introduction to the work as a whole, which relates how rare it is for a buddha to appear in the world and why people should take advantage of this opportunity. Reference is made to the various meritorious roots (KUsALAMuLA) that sAKYAMUNI acquired throughout his many lifetimes of training, in order to prepare for this final life when he would finally attain enlightenment. The second part enumerates the entire lineage of the buddhas of antiquity, a lineage that sAkyamuni would soon join, and the third part follows with a genealogy of the sAKYA clan. The fourth part describes the decisive stages in sAkyamuni's life, from birth, through his awakening, to the first "turning of the wheel of the DHARMA" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA). The last part gives extended biographies (going even into their past lives) of his prominent disciples, of which the stories involving his longtime attendant, ANANDA, are particularly extensive. In 1876, SAMUEL BEAL translated this Chinese recension of the sutra into English as The Romantic Legend of sAkya Buddha.
according to the story in Schwab, Vocabulaire de
A classical instance of the avesa is the story told of Sankaracharya who, to gain in that imbodiment the human experiences of a life of another character, entered the body of a raja who had just died, requickened it, and for a time pursued his activities in the body of the former king.
Admat Kodesh ::: (Heb. Holy Land) Phrase which appears but once in the Five Books of Moses (Exodus 3.5), in reference to the ground which Moses stood upon during the story of the burning bush. ("And he (God) said: 'do not come closer, remove your sandals from upon your feet, for the place you stand is holy ground").
Adytum (Latin) [from Greek adytos from a not + duo to enter] plural adyta. Not to be entered; the innermost shrine of a temple. The holy of holies or sanctum sanctorum was common in the architectural plan of the temples of all ancient nations. It frequently contained a sarcophagus and the image of the god to whom the temple was dedicated. A symbol of regeneration, resurrection, and initiation. The Jews, when they become exclusive and wholly exoteric in their religious beliefs and practices, made the adytum the symbol of their national monotheism, exoterically; and esoterically a symbol of mere generation rather than regeneration. Yet the true meaning can be read in the story of David dancing before the ark, for the dance was essentially a Bacchic rite, whose meaning was unfolded only in the Mysteries; and the ark is the symbol of that vehicle in which are preserved the germs of all living things destined to repeople the earth in a new cycle.
Again, “the story of Noah is but another version in its hidden meaning of the story of Adam and his three sons, . . . Adam is the prototype of Noah. Adam falls because he eats of the forbidden fruit of celestial knowledge; Noah, because he tastes of the terrestrial fruit: the juice of the grape representing the abuse of knowledge in an unbalanced mind. . . . But the descendants of both are shown as the wisest of races on earth; and they are called on this account ‘snakes,’ and the ‘sons of snakes,’ meaning the sons of wisdom” (IU 2:449). See also XISUTHRUS
AggaNNasutta. (C. Xiaoyuan jing; J. Shoengyo; K. Soyon kyong 小經). In PAli, "Discourse on Origins" or "Sermon on Things Primeval"; the twenty-seventh sutta of the DĪGHANIKAYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the fifth SuTRA in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHAGAMA); the sutra provides a Buddhist account of the origins of the world and of human society. The Buddha preached the sermon at SAvatthi (sRAVASTĪ) to two ordinands, VAsettha and BhAradvAja, to disabuse them of the belief that the priestly brAhmana caste was superior to the Buddha's khattiya (KsATRIYA), or warrior, caste. The Buddha describes the fourfold caste system of traditional Indian society as a by-product of the devolution of sentient beings. In the beginning of the eon (KALPA), beings possess spiritual bodies that are luminous, able to travel through the air, and feed on joy. But out of greed for sensual gratification, they degenerate into physical beings with ever grosser propensities: e.g., the coarser the food they eat (first a cream on the surface of water, then creepers, then eventually rice), the coarser their bodies become, until the beings develop sex organs, begin to have intercourse, and in turn build dwellings in order to conceal their debauchery. As their bodies become ever more physical, their life spans in turn also decrease. Immorality, strife, and violence ensue until people finally realize they need a leader to save them from anarchy. They elect the first human king, named MahAsammata, who was also the first ksatriya. It was out of the ksatriya lineage deriving from this first king that the other three classes-brAhmana, vaisya, and sudra-also evolved. This account challenges the mainstream Indian belief that the brAhmana caste is congenitally superior (descending, it claims, from the mouth of the god BrahmA himself) and posits that the effort of moral and spiritual perfection, not the accident of birth, is the true standard of human superiority. Although the Buddhist tradition presumes that this sermon offers a distinctively Buddhistic account of the origin and development of both the universe and society, many of the topoi adopted in the story derive from Brahmanical cosmogonies, perhaps employed here as a satire of Brahmanical pretensions in Indian society. The scripture has also been treated by modern interpreters as offering an incipient Buddhist "environmentalism," wherein human actions, motivated by greed and lust, cause deleterious effects on the physical world, turning, for example, naturally growing rice into a rice that must be cultivated.
AjAtasatru. (P. AjAtasattu; T. Ma skyes dgra; C. Asheshi wang; J. Ajase o; K. Asase wang 阿闍世王). In Sanskrit, "Enemy While Still Unborn," the son of King BIMBISARA of Magadha and his successor as king. According to the PAli account, when BimbisAra's queen VAIDEHĪ (P. Videhī) was pregnant, she developed an overwhelming urge to drink blood from the king's right knee, a craving that the king's astrologers interpreted to mean that the son would eventually commit patricide and seize the throne. Despite several attempts to abort the fetus, the child was born and was given the name AjAtasatru. While a prince, AjAtasatru became devoted to the monk DEVADATTA, the Buddha's cousin and rival, because of Devadatta's mastery of yogic powers (ṚDDHI). Devadatta plotted to take revenge on the Buddha through manipulating AjAtasatru, whom he convinced to murder his father BimbisAra, a close lay disciple and patron of the Buddha, and seize the throne. AjAtasatru subsequently assisted Devadatta in several attempts on the Buddha's life. AjAtasatru is said to have later grown remorseful over his evil deeds and, on the advice of the physician JĪVAKA, sought the Buddha's forgiveness. The Buddha preached to him on the benefits of renunciation from the SAMANNAPHALASUTTA, and AjAtasatru became a lay disciple. Because he had committed patricide, one of the five most heinous of evil deeds that are said to bring immediate retribution (ANANTARYAKARMAN), AjAtasatru was precluded from attaining any degree of enlightenment during this lifetime and was destined for rebirth in the lohakumbhiya hell. Nevertheless, Sakka (S. sAKRA), the king of the gods, described AjAtasatru as the chief in piety among the Buddha's unenlightened disciples. When the Buddha passed away, AjAtasatru was overcome with grief and, along with other kings, was given a portion of the Buddha's relics (sARĪRA) for veneration. According to the PAli commentaries, AjAtasatru provided the material support for convening the first Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIRST) following the Buddha's death. The same sources state that, despite his piety, he will remain in hell for sixty thousand years but later will attain liberation as a solitary buddha (P. paccekabuddha; S. PRATYEKABUDDHA) named Viditavisesa. ¶ MahAyAna scriptures, such as the MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA and the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING ("Contemplation Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life"), give a slightly different account of AjAtasatru's story. BimbisAra was concerned that his queen, Vaidehī, had yet to bear him an heir. He consulted a soothsayer, who told him that an aging forest ascetic would eventually be reborn as BimbisAra's son. The king then decided to speed the process along and had the ascetic killed so he would take rebirth in Vaidehī's womb. After the queen had already conceived, however, the soothsayer prophesized that the child she would bear would become the king's enemy. After his birth, the king dropped him from a tall tower, but the child survived the fall, suffering only a broken finger. (In other versions of the story, Vaidehī is so mortified to learn that her unborn son will murder her husband the king that she tried to abort the fetus, but to no avail.) Devadatta later told AjAtasatru the story of his conception and the son then imprisoned his father, intending to starve him to death. But Vaidehī kept the king alive by smuggling food to him, smearing her body with flour-paste and hiding grape juice inside her jewelry. When AjAtasatru learned of her treachery, he drew his sword to murder her, but his vassals dissuaded him. The prince's subsequent guilt about his intended matricide caused his skin break out in oozing abscesses that emitted such a foul odor that no one except his mother was able to approach him and care for him. Despite her loving care, AjAtasatru did not improve and Vaidehī sought the Buddha's counsel. The Buddha was able to cure the prince by teaching him the "NirvAna Sutra," and the prince ultimately became one of the preeminent Buddhist monarchs of India. This version of the story of AjAtasatru was used by Kosawa Heisaku (1897-1968), one of the founding figures of Japanese psychoanalysis, and his successors to posit an "Ajase (AjAtasatru) Complex" that distinguished Eastern cultures from the "Oedipal Complex" described by Sigmund Freud in Western psychoanalysis. As Kosawa interpreted this story, Vaidehī's ambivalence or active antagonism toward her son and AjAtasatru's rancor toward his mother were examples of the pathological relationship that pertains between mother and son in Eastern cultures, in distinction to the competition between father and son that Freud posited in his Oedipal Complex. This pathological relationship can be healed only through the mother's love and forgiveness, which redeem the child and thus reunite them.
allude ::: v. i. --> To refer to something indirectly or by suggestion; to have reference to a subject not specifically and plainly mentioned; -- followed by to; as, the story alludes to a recent transaction. ::: v. t. --> To compare allusively; to refer (something) as applicable.
Angel of Annihilation—in the story relating
AngulimAla. (S. alt. AngulimAlīya; T. Sor mo phreng ba; C. Yangjuemoluo; J. okutsumara; K. Anggulmara 央掘摩羅). In Sanskrit and PAli, literally, "Garland of Fingers"; nickname given to AhiMsaka, a notorious murderer and highwayman who was converted by the Buddha and later became an ARHAT; the Sanskrit is also seen written as AngulimAlya and AngulimAlīya. AhiMsaka was born under the thieves' constellation as the son of a brAhmana priest who served the king of KOsALA. His given name means "Harmless," because even though his birth was attended by many marvels, no one was injured. The boy was intelligent and became a favorite of his teacher. His classmates, out of jealousy, poisoned his teacher's mind against him, who thenceforth sought AhiMsaka's destruction. His teacher instructed AhiMsaka that he must collect one thousand fingers as a gift. (In an alternate version of the story, the brAhmana teacher's wife, driven by lust, attempted to seduce the handsome student, but when he rebuffed her, the resentful wife informed her husband that it was instead he who had attempted to seduce her. Knowing that he could not defeat his disciple by force, the vengeful brAhmana teacher told his student that he must kill a thousand people and string together a finger from each victim into a garland as the final stage of his training.) Following his teacher's instructions, he began to murder travelers, cutting off a single finger from each victim. These he made into a garland that he wore around his neck, hence his nickname AngulimAla, or "Garland of Fingers." With one finger left to complete his collection, AngulimAla resolved to murder his own mother, who was then entering the forest where he dwelled. It was at this time that the Buddha decided to intervene. Recognizing that the thief was capable of attaining arhatship in this life but would lose that chance if he killed one more person, the Buddha taunted AngulimAla and converted him through a miracle: although the Buddha continued to walk sedately in front of the brigand, AngulimAla could not catch him no matter how fast he ran. Intrigued at this feat, AngulimAla called out to the Buddha to stop, but the Buddha famously responded, "I have stopped, AngulimAla; may you stop as well." AngulimAla thereupon became a disciple of the Buddha and spent his time practicing the thirteen austere practices (see DHUTAnGA), eventually becoming an ARHAT. Because of his former misdeeds, even after he was ordained as a monk and became an arhat, he still had to endure the hatred of the society he used to terrorize, sometimes suffering frightful beatings. The Buddha explained that the physical pain he suffered was a consequence of his violent past and that he should endure it with equanimity. His fate illustrates an important point in the theory of KARMAN: viz., even a noble one who has overcome all prospect of future rebirth and who is certain to enter NIRVAnA at death can still experience physical (but not mental) pain in his last lifetime as a result of past heinous deeds. AngulimAla also became the "patron saint" of pregnant women in Buddhist cultures. Once, while out on his alms round, AngulimAla was profoundly moved by the suffering of a mother and her newborn child. The Buddha recommended that AngulimAla cure them by an "asseveration of truth" (SATYAVACANA). The Buddha first instructed him to say, "Sister, since I was born, I do not recall that I have ever intentionally deprived a living being of life. By this truth, may you be well and may your infant be well." When AngulimAla politely pointed out that this was not entirely accurate, the Buddha amended the statement to begin, "since I was born with noble birth." The phrase "noble birth" can be interpreted in a number of ways, but here it seems to mean "since I became a monk." When AngulimAla spoke these words to the mother and her child, they were cured. His statement has been repeated by monks to pregnant women over the centuries in the hope of assuring successful childbirth. See also AnGULIMALĪYASuTRA.
AngulimAlīyasutra. (T. Sor mo'i phreng ba la phan pa'i mdo; C. Yangjuemoluo jing; J. okutsumarakyo; K. Anggulmara kyong 央掘摩羅經). In Sanskrit, "The Discourse on AnGULIMALA"; a TATHAGATAGARBHA sutra that tells the story of AngulimAla. AngulimAla's story (see previous entry) also serves here as a frame for several sermons concerning the EKAYANA and tathAgatagarbha doctrine. When asked by the Buddha about the meaning of "one learning," for example, AngulimAla replies that the path to awakening consists of a single vehicle (ekayAna), a single act of taking refuge, and a single truth. In reply to the BODHISATTVA MANJUsRĪ's questions about the meaning of tathAgatagarbha, the Buddha teaches that every sentient being possesses the tathAgatagarbha, which remains concealed (S. saMdhi/abhisaMdhi, C. yinfu) and covered by afflictions (KLEsA); this is one of the two major interpretations of the concept. The Buddha proclaims the tathAgatagarbha to be the only true foundation of the bodhisattva path.
animation ::: n. --> The act of animating, or giving life or spirit; the state of being animate or alive.
The state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and vigor; vivacity; spiritedness; as, he recited the story with great animation.
AsokAvadAna. (T. Ku nA la'i rtogs pa brjod pa; C. Ayu wang zhuan; J. Aiku o den; K. Ayuk wang chon 阿育王傳). In Sanskrit, "The Story of Asoka," a text belonging to the category of "edifying tales" (AVADANA), which narrates the major events in the life of King AsOKA of the Indian Mauryan dynasty. The work focuses primarily on Asoka's conversion to Buddhism, his subsequent support of the DHARMA and monastic community (SAMGHA), his visits to the major sites of the Buddha's life (MAHASTHANA), and his construction of STuPAs. It also records the transmission of the Buddhist teachings by five early teachers: MAHAKAsYAPA, ANANDA, MADHYANTIKA, sAnAKAVASIN, and UPAGUPTA. The AsokAvadAna relates that, in a previous life, Asoka (then a small boy named Jaya) placed a handful of dirt in the Buddha's begging bowl (PATRA). The Buddha predicted that one hundred years after his passage into nirvAna, the child would become a DHARMARAJA and CAKRAVARTIN named Asoka. As emperor, Asoka becomes a devout Buddhist and righteous king, renowned for collecting the relics (sARĪRA) of the Buddha from eight (or in one version, seven of eight) stupas and redistributing them in 84,000 stupas across his realm. Parts of the Sanskrit text have been preserved in the DIVYAVADANA, and the entire work is extant in Chinese. Only the KunAla chapter of the AsokAvadAna was rendered into Tibetan, in the eleventh century, by PadmAkaravarman and RIN CHEN BZANG PO.
A symbolic crucifixion takes place in every incarnating divinity when it takes up terrestrial life. The myth of crucifixion symbolically has therefore become by custom significant of world saviors in general, as signifying those who lay down the personal life in order to arise a regenerated and impersonal savior. While the crucifixion mythos has become the central emblem of Christianity, the general idea of crucifixion as a symbol of regeneration is connected with many religious systems. Certainly Paul uses the word in the mystic and symbolic sense, as taking place interiorly in the individual, rather than referring to the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. See also CROSS.
Azazel (Hebrew) ‘Azā’zēl [from ‘azāz to be firm, strong, powerful (or from ‘ēz goat) + ‘ēl divinity, god] Also Azaziel, Azazyel. God of victory; equivalent of Greek Prometheus, he was chief of the ’ishin (Chaldean) or ’ishim (Hebrew), men-spirits who, according to the Zohar, mixed themselves with mortal men, having come to earth to do so (Genesis 6:2-4). The ’ishin are chained on a mountain in the desert, which means that they undergo descent into material life and confinement in incarnation. Azazel and the six other ’ishin teach humankind to make weapons and utensils, and impart the knowledge of various other arts. These seven were the first instructors of the fourth root-race. The story is a form of the universal myth which represents the descent of the manasaputras and, as usual, the god of might or victory has been turned into a god of evil, his benefits into seductions, and his chivalrous sacrifice into a rebellion. He was, like Baphomet, turned into a goat — the scapegoat of the Old Testament, whose name in the Hebrew is Azazel. The goat in ancient animal symbology signified regeneration and reproductive power, hence strength, might.
banana problem ::: (From the story of the little girl who said I know how to spell banana, but I don't know when to stop). Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a describes a banana problem in a Dissociated Press implementation. Also, see one-banana problem for a superficially similar but unrelated usage. (1995-01-31)
banana problem "programming, humour" From the story of the little girl who said "I know how to spell "banana", but I don't know when to stop". Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare {fencepost error}). One may say "there is a banana problem" of an {algorithm} with poorly defined or incorrect termination conditions, or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing to {featuritis} (see also {creeping elegance}, {creeping featuritis}). {HAKMEM} item 176 describes a banana problem in a {Dissociated Press} implementation. Also, see {one-banana problem} for a superficially similar but unrelated usage. (2010-03-20)
bare metal 1. New computer hardware, unadorned with such snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or even {assembler}. Commonly used in the phrase "programming on the bare metal", which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing} needed to create these basic tools for a new computer. Real bare-metal programming involves things like building {boot PROMs} and {BIOS} chips, implementing basic {monitors} used to test {device drivers}, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the compiler back ends that will give the new computer a real development environment. 2. "Programming on the bare metal" is also used to describe a style of {hand-hacking} that relies on bit-level peculiarities of a particular hardware design, especially tricks for speed and space optimisation that rely on crocks such as overlapping instructions (or, as in the famous case described in {The Story of Mel}, interleaving of opcodes on a magnetic drum to minimise fetch delays due to the device's rotational latency). This sort of thing has become less common as the relative costs of programming time and computer resources have changed, but is still found in heavily constrained environments such as industrial embedded systems, and in the code of hackers who just can't let go of that low-level control. See {Real Programmer}. In the world of personal computing, bare metal programming is often considered a {Good Thing}, or at least a necessary evil (because these computers have often been sufficiently slow and poorly designed to make it necessary; see {ill-behaved}). There, the term usually refers to bypassing the BIOS or OS interface and writing the application to directly access device registers and computer addresses. "To get 19.2 kilobaud on the serial port, you need to get down to the bare metal." People who can do this sort of thing well are held in high regard. [{Jargon File}]
Barlaam and Josaphat. A Christian saint's tale that contains substantial elements drawn from the life of the Buddha. The story tells the tale of the Christian monk Barlaam's conversion of an Indian prince, Josaphat. (Josaphat is a corrupted transcription of the Sanskrit term BODHISATTVA, referring to GAUTAMA Buddha prior to his enlightenment.) The prince then undertakes the second Christian conversion of India, which, following the initial mission of the apostle Thomas, had reverted to paganism. For their efforts, both Barlaam and Josaphat were eventually listed by the Roman Catholic Church among the roster of saints (their festival day is November 27). There are obvious borrowings from Buddhist materials in the story of Josaphat's life. After the infant Josaphat's birth, for example, astrologers predict he either will become a powerful king or will embrace the Christian religion. To keep his son on the path to royalty, his pagan father has him ensconced in a fabulous palace so that he will not be exposed to Christianity. Josaphat grows dissatisfied with his virtual imprisonment, however, and the king eventually accedes to his son's request to leave the palace, where he comes across a sick man, a blind man, and an old man. He eventually meets the monk Barlaam, who instructs him using parables. Doctrines that exhibit possible parallels between Buddhism and Christianity, such as the emphasis on impermanence and the need to avoid worldly temptations, are a particular focus of Barlaam's teachings, and the account of the way of life followed by Barlaam and his colleagues has certain affinities with that of wandering Indian mendicants (sRAMAnA). By the late nineteenth century, the story of Barlaam and Josaphat was recognized to be a Christianized version of the life of the Buddha. The Greek version of the tale is attributed to "John the Monk," whom the Christian scholastic tradition assumed to be St. John of Damascus (c. 676-749). The tale was, however, first rendered into Greek from Georgian in the eleventh century, perhaps by Euthymius (d. 1028). The Georgian version, called the Balavariani, appears to be based on an Arabic version, KitAb Bilawhar wa BudhAsaf. The source of the Arabic version has not been identified, nor has the precise Buddhist text from which the Buddhist elements were drawn. After the Greek text was translated into Latin, the story was translated into many of the vernaculars of Europe, becoming one of the most popular saint's tales of the Middle Ages.
B. Croce, Estetica, 1902; Logica, 1905-1909; Filosofia della prattica (1909) ; Teoria e storia della storiografia, 1917; What is Living and What is Dead of Hegel (tr. 1915); Historical Materialism and Econ. of K. Marx (tr. 1922); History as the Story of Liberty (tr. 1941).
Bodhidharma. (C. Putidamo; J. Bodaidaruma; K. Poridalma 菩提達磨) (c. late-fourth to early-fifth centuries). Indian monk who is the putative "founder" of the school of CHAN (K. SoN, J. ZEN, V. THIỀN). The story of a little-known Indian (or perhaps Central Asian) emigré monk grew over the centuries into an elaborate legend of Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of the Chan school. The earliest accounts of a person known as Bodhidharma appear in the Luoyang qielan ji and XU GAOSENG ZHUAN, but the more familiar and developed image of this figure can be found in such later sources as the BAOLIN ZHUAN, LENGQIE SHIZI JI, LIDAI FABAO JI, ZUTANG JI, JINGDE CHUANDENG LU, and other "transmission of the lamplight" (CHUANDENG LU) histories. According to these sources, Bodhidharma was born as the third prince of a South Indian kingdom. Little is known about his youth, but he is believed to have arrived in China sometime during the late fourth or early fifth century, taking the southern maritime route according to some sources, the northern overland route according to others. In an episode appearing in the Lidai fabao ji and BIYAN LU, after arriving in southern China, Bodhidharma is said to have engaged in an enigmatic exchange with the devout Buddhist emperor Wu (464-549, r. 502-549) of the Liang dynasty (502-557) on the subject of the Buddha's teachings and merit-making. To the emperor's questions about what dharma Bodhidharma was transmitting and how much merit (PUnYA) he, Wudi, had made by his munificent donations to construct monasteries and ordain monks, Bodhidharma replied that the Buddha's teachings were empty (hence there was nothing to transmit) and that the emperor's generous donations had brought him no merit at all. The emperor seems not to have been impressed with these answers, and Bodhidharma, perhaps disgruntled by the emperor's failure to understand the profundity of his teachings, left for northern China, taking the Yangtze river crossing (riding a reed across the river, in a scene frequently depicted in East Asian painting). Bodhidharma's journey north eventually brought him to a cave at the monastery of SHAOLINSI on SONGSHAN, where he sat in meditation for nine years while facing a wall (MIANBI), in so-called "wall contemplation" (BIGUAN). During his stay on Songshan, the Chinese monk HUIKE is said to have become Bodhidharma's disciple, allegedly after cutting off his left arm to show his dedication. This legend of Bodhidharma's arrival in China is eventually condensed into the famous Chan case (GONG'AN), "Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?" (see XILAI YI). Bodhidharma's place within the lineage of Indian patriarchs vary according to text and tradition (some list him as the twenty-eighth patriarch), but he is considered the first patriarch of Chan in China. Bodhidharma's name therefore soon became synonymous with Chan and subsequently with Son, Zen, and Thièn. Bodhidharma, however, has often been confused with other figures such as BODHIRUCI, the translator of the LAnKAVATARASuTRA, and the Kashmiri monk DHARMATRATA, to whom the DHYANA manual DAMODUOLUO CHAN JING is attributed. The Lidai fabao ji, for instance, simply fused the names of Bodhidharma and DharmatrAta and spoke of a BodhidharmatrAta whose legend traveled with the Lidai fabao ji to Tibet. Bodhidharma was even identified as the apostle Saint Thomas by Jesuit missionaries to China, such as Matteo Ricci. Several texts, a number of which were uncovered in the DUNHUANG manuscript cache in Central Asia, have been attributed to Bodhidharma, but their authorship remains uncertain. The ERRU SIXING LUN seems to be the only of these texts that can be traced with some certainty back to Bodhidharma or his immediate disciples. The legend of Bodhidharma in the Lengqie shizi ji also associates him with the transmission of the LankAvatArasutra in China. In Japan, Bodhidharma is often depicted in the form of a round-shaped, slightly grotesque-looking doll, known as the "Daruma doll." Like much of the rest of the legends surrounding Bodhidharma, there is finally no credible evidence connecting Bodhidharma to the Chinese martial arts traditions (see SHAOLINSI).
Bodhi tree. (S. bodhidruma [alt. bodhivṛksa; bodhiyasti; bodhivata]; P. bodhirukkha; T. byang chub shing; C. puti shu; J. bodaiju; K. pori su 菩提樹). The name for the sacred tree under which each buddha achieves enlightenment (BODHI), according to the standard hagiographies; sometimes abbreviated as the "bo tree" in English. The Bodhi tree is one of the elements in all stories of a buddha's enlightenment and each buddha has a specific type of tree associated with him. In the case of the current buddha, GAUTAMA or sAKYAMUNI, the tree under which he sat when he attained enlightenment is a pipal, or fig, tree (Ficus religiosa). The original Bodhi tree was located at the "seat of enlightenment" (BODHIMAndA, VAJRASANA) in BODHGAYA, in northern India, but cuttings from it have throughout history been replanted at Buddhist sites around Asia, and now the world. It is said that the Buddha authorized a seed from the tree to be planted in JETAVANA. Its veneration and protection are a common theme in Buddhist literature, figuring prominently, for example, in the story of AsOKA. The tree was cut, burned, and uprooted by various Hindu kings, including SasAnka of Bengal in the seventh century. It was subsequently replaced by a seedling derived from a cutting that had been taken to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE. The PAli MAHABODHIVAMSA (c. tenth-eleventh century CE) tells the history of the Bodhi tree, the arrival of a cutting from it in Sri Lanka, and the beginnings of the Sinhalese worship of the tree as a Buddhist relic. The large seeds of the Bodhi tree are commonly used to make Buddhist rosaries (JAPAMALA).
breadcrumbs (After the story "Hansel and Gretel" by the Brothers Grimm). 1. "web" {Links} displayed across the top of a {web page} listing the most recently visited pages so the reader can quickly jump back to one. Since this function is provided by the {web browser}, breadcrumbs are a waste of space. A better use of the space is to display links to the page's logical parent pages in the information hierarchy. 2. "programming" Information output by statements inserted into a program for {debugging by printf}. [{Jargon File}] (2007-03-07)
Brisingamen (Icelandic) [from brising fire + men jewel] In Norse myths the fire jewel represents the fire of enlightened intelligence in the human race, pictured as a gem which the goddess Freya wears on her bosom. She is the spiritual power imbodied in the planet Venus and the protectress of evolving, aspiring humanity. Her gem has on more than one occasion been stolen by Loki — the mischievous lower mind — which brought grief to the gods, who have the well-being of humanity at heart. Once the precious gem was in grave danger: the matter-giant Trym (our physical globe earth) stole Thor’s hammer of creation and destruction and hid it deep beneath the ground, and for its return he demanded that Freya become his wife. The story relates that she snorted with such fierce outrage that the gem was shattered.
Buridan's Ass: The story of the ass, which died of hunger and thirst because incapable of deciding between water and food placed at equal distances from him, is employed to support the free-will doctrine. A man, it is argued, if confronted by a similar situation, would by the exercise of his free-will, be able to resolve the equilibrium of opposing motives. The story of the ass is attributed to John Buridan, a 14th century nominalist who discussed the freedom of the will in his Quaestiones in decem libros ethicorum Aristotelis, 1489, Bk. Ill, quest. I, but is not, in fact, to be found in his writings. (Cf. A.G. Langley, translation of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, p. 116 n.) Dante relates the story in Paradiso, IV. -- L.W.
CakkavattisīhanAdasutta. (C. Zhuanlun shengwang xiuxing jing; J. Tenrinjoo shugyokyo; K. Chollyun songwang suhaeng kyong 轉輪聖王修行經). In PAli, "Discourse on the Lion's Roar of the Wheel-Turning Emperor"; the twenty-sixth sutta of the DĪGHANIKAYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the sixth SuTRA in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHAGAMA and a separate SarvAstivAda recension as the seventieth sutra in the Chinese translation of the MADHYAMAGAMA); the scripture is known especially for being the only sutta in the PAli canon that mentions the name of the Buddha's successor, Metteya (MAITREYA). Before a gathering of monks at the town of MAtulA in MAGADHA, the Buddha tells the story of a universal or wheel-turning monarch (cakkavattin; S. CAKRAVARTIN) named Dalhanemi, wherein he explains that righteousness and order are maintained in the world so long as kings observe their royal duties. Dalhanemi's successors, unfortunately, gradually abandoned their responsibilities, leading to immorality, strife, and the shortening of life spans from eighty thousand years to a mere ten; the sutta thus attributes the origins of evil in the world to the neglect of royal duty. Upon reaching this nadir, people finally recognize the error of their ways and begin anew to practice morality. The observance of morality leads to improved conditions, until eventually a universal monarch named Sankha appears, who will prepare the way for the advent of the future-Buddha Metteya (Maitreya).
Candragomin. (T. Btsun pa zla ba). Fifth-century CE Indian lay poet and grammarian, who made substantial contributions to Sanskrit grammar, founding what was known as the CAndra school. A junior contemporary of the great KAlidAsa, Candragomin was one of the most accomplished poets in the history of Indian Buddhism. His play LokAnanda, which tells the story of the BODHISATTVA king Manicuda, is the oldest extant Buddhist play and was widely performed in the centuries after its composition. He was a devotee of TARA and composed several works in her praise. Tibetan works describe him as a proponent of VIJNANAVADA who engaged in debate with CANDRAKĪRTI, but there is little philosophical content in his works that can be confidently ascribed to him. Among those works are the "Letter to a Disciple" (sisyalekha), the "Confessional Praise" (DesanAstava), and perhaps the "Twenty Verses on the Bodhisattva Precepts" (BodhisattvasaMvaraviMsaka).
Ceridwen (Welsh) Presumably cognate with the Roman goddess Ceres; in Hanes Taliesin (The Story of Taliesin) the wife of Tegid Foel. The goddess of nature, her function was to do battle with her favorite sons, to oppose and persecute them until they had grown stronger to endure than she was to afflict: then she turns and becomes their devoted servant.
Chandaka. (P. Channa; T. 'Dun pa; C. Cheni; J. Shanoku; K. Ch'anik 車匿). The charioteer and groom of SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA, who accompanied the BODHISATTVA prince on two momentous occasions. First, Chandaka drove the prince's chariot when he ventured outside the palace, where he was confronted with the four portents (CATURNIMITTA), encountering on separate occasions an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a mendicant. Having been confronted with these realities, the prince resolved to go forth in search of liberation from birth and death. According to the story, during his youth, the prince had never seen an old person, a sick person, or a corpse before and so asked Chandaka what each was. Chandaka's explanation that old age, sickness, and death were the ultimate fate of all humans led the prince to decide to renounce his royal inheritance and go out in search of a state beyond aging, sickness, and death. Second, Chandaka accompanied the prince on his ride into renunciation as a mendicant (see PRAVRAJITA). When Gautama left his father's palace in KAPILAVASTU to lead the homeless life, Chandaka departed with him, together with Gautama's noble steed, KAntHAKA. Once outside the city, after cutting off his topknot, the prince removed his jewelry and handed it over to Chandaka, exchanged clothes with him, and then ordered his groom to return to the palace with his horse and inform his father that he would not return to the city until his quest for enlightenment was fulfilled. Kanthaka was so grief-stricken at his master's departure that he died on the spot, and Chandaka, crushed at both losses, asked for permission to join the prince in mendicancy but was refused. (Some accounts state instead that Chandaka feared for his life if he returned alone with all the prince's possessions, and so left the worldly life that very night.) Chandaka was eventually ordained by the Buddha. Because he was so swollen with pride at his close relationship with his former charge Gautama, it is said that he was arrogant in accepting discipline from his colleagues and was ostracized from the order more than once, in one case for siding with nuns in a dispute with monks, in another for repeatedly reviling sARIPUTRA and MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA. In the account of the Buddha's final days in the MAHAPARINIBBANASUTTANTA, the Buddha's last disciplinary act before he died was to pass the penalty of brahmadanda (lit. the "holy rod") on Chandaka, which required that he be ostracized by his fellow monks. When the Buddha's attendant ANANDA went to Chandaka to announce the penalty, it is said that Chandaka finally was contrite and became an ARHAT on the spot.
Considered as history, the Bible is a patchwork of documents put together at different times, sometimes mere allegory, as in the creation story, or partly allegorical and partly literal, as in the story of the Flood, adapted to serve the purpose of embalming the sacred teachings. It is remarkable that Christians continue to preserve books like Ezekiel — so obviously an esoteric work and so incomprehensible on ordinary doctrinal lines — the Psalms of David, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Job.
course refused to divulge. For the story, see Enoch
crock [American scatologism "crock of shit"] 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, Unix "make(1)", which returns code 139 for a process that dies due to {segfault}). 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least. For example, a too-clever programmer might write an assembler which mapped {instruction mnemonics} to numeric {opcodes} {algorithm}ically, a trick which depends far too intimately on the particular bit patterns of the opcodes. (For another example of programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see {The Story of Mel}.) Many crocks have a tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure. See {kluge}, {brittle}. The adjectives "crockish" and "crocky", and the nouns "crockishness" and "crockitude", are also used. [{Jargon File}]
Cudapanthaka. (P. Culapanthaka/Cullapantha; T. Lam phran bstan; C. Zhutubantuojia; J. Chudahantaka; K. Chudobant'akka 注荼半托迦). An eminent ARHAT declared in PAli sources as foremost among the Buddha's disciples in his ability to create mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA) and to manipulate mind (cittavivatta). Cudapanthaka was the younger of two brothers born to a merchant's daughter from RAJAGṚHA who had eloped with a slave. Each time she became pregnant, she wanted to return home to give birth to her children, but both were born during her journey home. For this reason, the brothers were named "Greater" Roadside (MahApanthaka; see PANTHAKA) and "Lesser" Roadside. The boys were eventually taken to RAjagṛha and raised by their grandparents, who were devoted to the Buddha. The elder brother Panthaka often accompanied his grandfather to listen to the Buddha's sermons and was inspired to be ordained. He proved to be an able monk, skilled in doctrine, and eventually attained arhatship. He later ordained his younger brother Cudapanthaka but was gravely disappointed in his brother's inability to memorize even a single verse of the dharma. Panthaka was so disappointed that he advised his brother to leave the order, much to the latter's distress. Once, the Buddha's physician JĪVAKA invited the Buddha and his monks to a morning meal. Panthaka gathered the monks together on the appointed day to attend the meal but intentionally omitted Cudapanthaka. So hurt was Cudapanthaka by his brother's contempt that he decided to return to lay life. The Buddha, knowing his mental state, comforted the young monk and taught him a simple exercise: he instructed him to sit facing east and, while repeating the phrase "rajoharanaM" ("cleaning off the dirt"), continue to wipe his face with a clean cloth. As Cudapanthaka noticed the cloth getting dirty from wiping off his sweat, he gained insight into the reality of impermanence (ANITYA) and immediately attained arhatship and was equipped with the four analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), including knowledge of the entire canon (TRIPItAKA). (According to other versions of the story, he came to a similar realization through sweeping.) Thereafter Cudapanthaka became renowned for his vast learning, as well as for his supranormal powers. He was a master of meditative concentration (SAMADHI) and of the subtle-materiality absorptions (RuPAVACARADHYANA). He could simultaneously create a thousand unique mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA), while other meditative specialists in the order could at best produce only two or three. ¶ Cudapanthaka is also traditionally listed as the last of the sixteen arhat elders (sOdAsASTHAVIRA), who were charged by the Buddha with protecting his dispensation until the advent of the next buddha, MAITREYA. In CHANYUE GUANXIU's standard Chinese depiction, Cudapanthaka sits among withered trees, his left hand raised with fingers slightly bent, and his right hand resting on his right thigh, holding a fan.
Đạo Hạnh. (道行) (died 1117). Vietnamese monk, popularly known as Từ Đạo Hạnh; CHAN master and thaumaturge, whose miraculous exploits have captured the imagination of Vietnamese Buddhists for centuries. His personal name was Từ Lộ. The Thièn Uyẻn Tập Anh relates that as a young man he was a free spirit who harbored great aspirations. He befriended people of various social backgrounds and was a serious student, passing the royal examination for tăng quan (monk officers). After his father was killed by a sorcerer, Đạo Hạnh went to Mount Từ Sơn to live in seclusion and devoted himself to chanting the "Great Compassion" DHARAnĪ (see DABEI ZHOU) daily. After chanting it 108,000 times, he gained magical powers and avenged his father's death. He later began to wander to various Buddhist monasteries in search of enlightenment; eventually, under the guidance of Sùng Phạm (1004-1087), he gained realization. He is said to have tamed mountain snakes and wild beasts, burned his finger to pray for rain, and blessed water with mantras to cure disease. It is believed that Đạo Hạnh used his magical powers to reincarnate himself as the son of King Lý Nhan Tông (r. 1072-1127) and was eventually enthroned as King Lý Thàn Tông (r. 1128-1138). In northern Vietnam, the story of Đạo Hạnh is still reenacted during festivals.
DāthāvaMsa. In Pāli, "History of the Tooth Relic"; a Pāli chronicle in verse, attributed to Dhammakitti, that records the history of the Buddha's TOOTH RELIC before its c. fourth century CE arrival in Sri Lanka; also known as the DantadhātuvaMsa. The work begins with an account of the previous buddha Dīpankara (S. DĪPAMKARA), followed by the story of Gotama (S. GAUTAMA) Buddha, his visit to Sri Lanka, his decease (P. parinibbāna; S. PARINIRVĀnA), and the distribution of his relics (P. sarīra; S. sARĪRA). The history of the Tooth Relic at the city of Dantapura in the Indian kingdom of Kalinga follows. Finally, there is a detailed accounting of the circumstances that culminated in the relic's arrival at Sri Lanka during the reign of Sirimeghavanna in the fourth century CE and the building of a shrine to house it.
declare ::: v. t. --> To make clear; to free from obscurity.
To make known by language; to communicate or manifest explicitly and plainly in any way; to exhibit; to publish; to proclaim; to announce.
To make declaration of; to assert; to affirm; to set forth; to avow; as, he declares the story to be false.
To make full statement of, as goods, etc., for the purpose of paying taxes, duties, etc.
discredit ::: n. --> The act of discrediting or disbelieving, or the state of being discredited or disbelieved; as, later accounts have brought the story into discredit.
Hence, some degree of dishonor or disesteem; ill repute; reproach; -- applied to persons or things. ::: v. t.
Divyāvadāna. In Sanskrit, "Divine Exploits"; a collection of thirty-eight "heroic tales" or "narratives" (AVADĀNA). Avadānas are the tenth of the twelvefold (DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA]) categorization of the traditional genres of Buddhist literature and relate the past and present deeds of a person, either lay or ordained, who in some specific fashion exemplifies Buddhist ethics and practice. The present characters in the stories in the Divyāvadāna are often identified as persons whom the Buddha encountered in a former life. Thus, its tales have a narrative structure similar to JĀTAKA stories, in which an event in the present offers an opportunity to recount a story from the past, which in turn illuminates details regarding present circumstances. Themes that run throughout the Divyāvadāna include the realization of positive or negative consequences of action (KARMAN), the importance of moral discipline, and the great merit (PUnYA) that can be accrued through service or reverence offered to the buddhas or to sites related to the buddhas, such as a STuPA. The Divyāvadāna includes thirty-six avadānas and two SuTRAs. Famous stories found in the Divyāvadāna collection include the Purnāvadāna, the story of the monk PuRnA, and the AsOKĀVADĀNA, which recounts the birth, life, and reign of King AsOKA, the monarch whom the Buddhist tradition considers the great protector of the religion. Although the style and language of the works vary tremendously, more than half of the tales also appear in the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA. Given their debt to vinaya literature, it is not surprising that many of the tales in the Divyāvadāna often make reference to points of monastic discipline (VINAYA). This association with the Mulasarvāstivāda vinaya suggests that these stories could date as far back as the beginning of the Common Era. However, the oldest extant manuscript of the Divyāvadāna dates only to the seventeenth century, and there is no reference to a text by that title in a Buddhist source prior to that date. There also is no Tibetan or Chinese translation of the text, although many of its stories are found in the Tibetan and Chinese canons. (For example, twenty-one of the thirty-eight stories of the collection are found in the vinaya section of the Tibetan canon.) This has led some scholars to conclude that, although the stories themselves are quite old, the particular compilation as the Divyāvadāna may be rather late. A number of stories from the Divyāvadāna were translated by EUGÈNE BURNOUF in his 1844 Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien. The first Sanskrit edition of the entire text was undertaken in 1866 by Edward B. Cowell and Robert A. Neil. The Divyāvadāna legends had a significant influence on Buddhist art and were often the subject of Buddhist sculptures and paintings. For instance, in the "Sahasodgata" chapter of this collection, the Buddha describes the "wheel of existence" (BHAVACAKRA), which became a popular subject of painting in many of the Buddhist traditions.
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 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 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 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)
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)
dral (late 12th century). From E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art. New York: Oxford University
drum ::: Ancient slow, cylindrical magnetic media that were once state-of-the-art storage devices. Under BSD Unix the disk partition used for swapping is still called /dev/drum; this has led to considerable humour and not a few straight-faced but utterly bogus explanations getting foisted on newbies.See also The Story of Mel. (1994-12-22)
drum Ancient slow, cylindrical magnetic media that were once state-of-the-art storage devices. Under {BSD} {Unix} the disk partition used for swapping is still called "/dev/drum"; this has led to considerable humour and not a few straight-faced but utterly bogus "explanations" getting foisted on {newbies}. See also "{The Story of Mel}". (1994-12-22)
Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy. New York:
Dutthagāmanī. [alt. Sinhalese: Dutugümunu] (r. 101-77 BCE). Sinhalese king best known for restoring Sinhalese suzerainty over the entire island of Sri Lanka after his first century BCE defeat of King Elāra of the predominantly Hindu Damilas (Tamil). According to the MAHĀVAMSA, Dutthagāmanī had been a monk in his previous life, when he vowed to be reborn as a CAKRAVARTIN. As king, he went to war against the enemies of the dharma, carrying a spear with a relic of the Buddha attached to it. The battle ended when he killed the enemy king, the pious but non-Buddhist Elāra. After his victory, he planted his spear in the earth. When he attempted to extract it, he failed, and so decided to have a STuPA built around it, making the instrument of his victory a site for merit-making. Like AsOKA, Dutthagāmanī was troubled by the carnage he had caused, specifically the death of sixty thousand of his enemies. But a delegation of ARHATs assured him that, because his victims were not Buddhists, he had only accrued the negative KARMAN of having killed just one and a half persons. As a result of meritorious deeds, Dutthagāmanī is said to have been reborn in the TUsITA heaven, awaiting rebirth as a disciple of MAITREYA. The story of Dutthagāmanī continues to be told in Sri Lanka, and was deployed during the late-twentieth century to defend the violence of Sinhalese Buddhists against non-Buddhist Tamils. After his victory over Elāra at his capital of ANURĀDHAPURA, the king began a series of construction projects in support of Buddhism, culminating in the MAHĀTHuPA, the great stupa [alt. Ruwanwelisaya], at the site where the Buddha is thought to have made his third visit to the island of Sri Lanka. Dutthagāmanī fell ill before this massive project was completed, but according to legend his brother Saddhātissa draped the site in white cloth so that the king could visualize it in all its glory prior to his death.
electronic mail "messaging" (e-mail) Messages automatically passed from one computer user to another, often through computer {networks} and/or via {modems} over telephone lines. A message, especially one following the common {RFC 822} {standard}, begins with several lines of {headers}, followed by a blank line, and the body of the message. Most e-mail systems now support the {MIME} {standard} which allows the message body to contain "{attachments}" of different kinds rather than just one block of plain {ASCII} text. It is conventional for the body to end with a {signature}. Headers give the name and {electronic mail address} of the sender and recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many other headers which may get added by different {message handling systems} during delivery. The message is "composed" by the sender, usually using a special program - a "{Mail User Agent}" (MUA). It is then passed to some kind of "{Message Transfer Agent}" (MTA) - a program which is responsible for either delivering the message locally or passing it to another MTA, often on another {host}. MTAs on different hosts on a network often communicate using {SMTP}. The message is eventually delivered to the recipient's {mailbox} - normally a file on his computer - from where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the same {MUA} as used by the sender). Contrast {snail-mail}, {paper-net}, {voice-net}. The form "email" is also common, but is less suggestive of the correct pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail". The word is used as a noun for the concept ("Isn't e-mail great?", "Are you on e-mail?"), a collection of (unread) messages ("I spent all night reading my e-mail"), and as a verb meaning "to send (something in) an e-mail message" ("I'll e-mail you (my report)"). The use of "an e-mail" as a count noun for an e-mail message, and plural "e-mails", is now (2000) also well established despite the fact that "mail" is definitely a mass noun. Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleure", network. Also, "email" is German for enamel. {The story of the first e-mail message (http://pretext.com/mar98/features/story2.htm)}. {How data travels around the world (http://www.akita.co.uk/movement-of-data)} (2014-10-07)
ers, and here the story is that they fell because they
fabliau (plural, fabliaux): A humorous or "dirty" narrative popular with Frenchpoets, who traditionally wrote the story in couplets. Fabliaux often revolve around trickery, practical jokes, sexual mishaps, mistaken identity, and bodily humor.Chaucer included several fabliaux in The Canterbury Tales (the Shipman, the Friar, the Miller, the Reeve, and the Cook).
fabrication ::: n. --> The act of fabricating, framing, or constructing; construction; manufacture; as, the fabrication of a bridge, a church, or a government.
That which is fabricated; a falsehood; as, the story is doubtless a fabrication.
Fahai. (J. Hokai; K. Pophae 法海) (d.u.). In Chinese, "Sea of Dharma": a disciple of HUINENG, the sixth patriarch (LIUZU) of the CHAN ZONG. Fahai is said to have been the head monk of the monastery of Tafansi in Shaozhou Prefecture, where Huineng is presumed to have delivered a sermon on the "sudden" teachings (DUNJIAO) of the Southern school (NAN ZONG) of Chan. Fahai is dubiously credited with compiling the written record of this sermon, the LIUZU TAN JING ("Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch"). A rather late "brief preface" (luexu) to the Liuzu tan jing is also retrospectively attributed to Fahai. The story of this figure may have been based on a monk by the same name who was affiliated with the NIUTOU ZONG of Chan.
Fallen Angels Those cosmic entities or dhyanis of various classes who in the course of their evolution descended into matter in order to form and inform the lower worlds. In doing so they rebelled in a purely mystical sense against spirit or heaven, asserting individual free will and divine love. Their act is in part one of compassion and self-sacrifice, and they are eventually saved, while they carry the cycle of evolution along the ascending arc. Christian theology has interpreted this into the legend of the fallen angles, whose rebellion against God is a crime, who are the eternal enemies of God and mankind, and who are in consequence doomed to final destruction. The myth in its original form has many variants, as in the story of Prometheus, Bahak-Zivo, the Dragon of Revelation, the kumaras, etc.
Flood. A story found in various forms in every cosmology. The Chaldean and Sumerian versions antedate the Hebrew; India, China, and other Asiatic countries furnish their own versions. It occurs in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quichés of Central American, as well as among many ancient American tribes; the story is found among the ancient Scandinavians, the Polynesian peoples, and among African tribes, such as the Masai of East Africa.
Gombojab. (T. Mgon po skyabs). (fl. eighteenth century). An important Mongolian scholar and translator, renowned for his knowledge of the four languages of the Qing dynasty: Chinese, Tibetan, Manchu, and Mongol. He was appointed by Emperor Yongzheng as director of the School of the Tibetan Language (Xi fan xue zong guan) and provided translations from Tibetan into Chinese for the Chinese canon (including a work by the fifth DALAI LAMA on the seven medicine buddhas) as well as a work on the correct proportions of Buddha images. He translated from Chinese into Tibetan XUANZANG's account of his journey to the West, the DA TANG XIYU JI. His most influential work was the "History of Buddhism in China" (Rgya nag chos 'byung), which remained a major Tibetan source on Chinese history and Buddhism. It had three parts: a general geographical and historical description of China, a history of Buddhism in China based on "Lives of Eminent Monks" (GAO SENG ZHUAN), and a Tibetan translation of the catalogue (C. JINGLU) of the Chinese Buddhist canon (C. DAZANGJING). The work also contained historical information on Buddhism in Mongolia. Other works include a book on WUTAISHAN in Tibetan; the story of the sandalwood Buddha, also in Tibetan; a Tibetan-Mongolian dictionary; and a work in Mongolian on the proper pronunciation of Sanskrit. Lesser works include a Tibetan-Chinese glossary of medicines for Mongolian visitors to Chinese pharmacies.
Green's Theorem "humour" (TMRC) For any story, in any group of people there will be at least one person who has not heard the story. A refinement of the theorem states that there will be *exactly* one person (if there were more than one, it wouldn't be as bad to re-tell the story). The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in calculus. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-16)
Green's Theorem ::: (humour) (TMRC) For any story, in any group of people there will be at least one person who has not heard the story. A refinement of the theorem states wouldn't be as bad to re-tell the story). The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in calculus.[Jargon File] (1994-12-16)
Guangxiaosi. (光孝寺). In Chinese, "Radiant Filiality Monastery"; located in Guangzhou, it was formerly the residence of Prince Zhao Jiande of the Western Han dynasty. In 401 CE, during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420), the GANDHĀRA monk, Dharmayasas (Tanmoyeshe), is said to have converted the residence into a monastery. When BODHIDHARMA (c. early fifth century), the legendary founder of the CHAN school, traveled to China, he is said to have arrived in Guangzhou and visited the monastery before proceeding north. But the monk most closely associated with Guangxiaosi was a native of the region, HUINENG (638-713 CE), the putative sixth patriarch (LIUZU) of Chan Buddhism. Chan doxographies state that Huineng initially arrived at the monastery, which was then called Faxingsi, as a novice during the 660s. Huineng's arrival coincided with an ongoing debate among some resident monks: when the breeze blew a banner located nearby, was it the breeze or the banner that moved? Huineng famously replied that it was actually the minds of the two monks that moved. The story is commemorated in a hall constructed at the monastery named Banner Hall. Huineng is said to have accepted his monastic vows under a BODHI TREE located at the monastery, thus fulfilling a prophecy made over a century earlier, and later became its abbot. Huineng's monastery was renamed Guangxiaosi during the Song dynasty; by the Yuan dynasty, it had achieved fame for being the former residence of Zhao Jiande, as well as for housing the aforementioned bodhi tree and Banner Hall. During the Ming dynasty, the monastery was favored by poets seeking refuge from the summer heat. Three of the Pearl River delta's most celebrated poets, Ou Daren, Li Minbiao, and Liang Youyu, founded a poetry society while residing at the monastery. Guangxiaosi was rebuilt during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911 CE) in its present form. The monastery is also famous for housing the first iron STuPAs in China, which still exist. The west courtyard houses the square West Iron Pagoda, which was cast in 963 CE, during the Five Dynasties period. Only three of the original seven stories still exist. The East Iron Pagoda, cast in 967 CE, was also seven stories high and is preserved on the monastery grounds.
Guan Wuliangshou jing. (S. *Amitāyurdhyānasutra; J. Kan Muryojukyo; K. Kwan Muryangsu kyong 觀無量壽經). In Chinese, "Sutra on the Visualization of [the Buddha of] Immeasurable Life"; often called simply the Guan jing, or "Visualization Scripture." Along with the AMITĀBHASuTRA and SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA, the Guan Wuliangshou jing has been considered one of the three central scriptures of the PURE LAND tradition(s) (JINGTU SANBU JING). The Guan jing was extremely influential in East Asian Buddhism for advocating specific types of visualizations or contemplations (guan) on the person of the buddha AMITĀBHA (C. Wuliangshou; S. Amitāyu), and for encouraging oral recitation of Amitābha's name (chengming; see NIANFO). Early commentaries on the scripture were written by SHANDAO (613-681), an important Chinese exponent of pure land practice, as well as by TIANTAI ZHIYI (538-597), and JINGYING HUIYUAN (523-592), all attesting to the text's centrality to the East Asian Buddhist tradition. Although the Guan Wuliangshou jing purports to be a translation by the monk KĀLAYAsAS (fl. c. 383-442), no Sanskrit or Tibetan recension is known to have ever existed; Uighur versions of the Guan Wuliangshou jing are extant, but they are translations of the Chinese version. The scripture also contains specific Chinese influences, such as references to earlier Chinese translations of pure land materials and other contemplation sutras (guan jing), which has suggested to some scholars that the text might be a Chinese indigenous composition (see APOCRYPHA). It is now generally accepted that the scripture outlines a visualization exercise that was practiced in Central Asia, perhaps specifically in the TURFAN region, but includes substantial Chinese admixtures. ¶ The Guan Wuliangshou jing tells the story of prince AJĀTAsATRU who, at the urging of DEVADATTA, imprisons his father, king BIMBISĀRA, and usurps the throne. After Ajātasatru learns that his mother, queen VAIDEHĪ, has been surreptitiously keeping her husband alive by sneaking food in to him, he puts her under house arrest as well. The distraught queen prays to the Buddha for release from her suffering and he immediately appears in her chambers. Vaidehī asks him to show her a land free from sorrow and he displays to her the numerous buddha fields (BUDDHAKsETRA) throughout the ten directions (DAsADIs) of the universe. Queen Vaidehī, however, chooses to be reborn in the buddha AMITĀBHA's pure land of SUKHĀVATĪ, so the Buddha instructs her in sixteen visualizations that ensure the meditator will take rebirth there, including visualizations on the setting sun, the lotus throne of Amitābha, Amitābha himself, as well as the bodhisattvas AVALOKITEsVARA and MAHĀSTHĀMAPRĀPTA. The visualizations largely focus on the details of sukhāvatī's beauty, such as its beryl ground, jeweled trees, and pure water. In the last three visualizations, the Buddha expounds the nine grades of rebirth (JIUPIN) in that land, which became a favorite topic among exegetes in China, Korea, and Japan. The Guan Wuliangshou jing has also exerted much influence in the realm of art. A number of exquisite mural representations of sukhāvatī and the sixteen contemplations adorn the walls of the DUNHUANG cave complex, for example.
guru. (T. bla ma; C. shi; J. shi; K. sa 師). In Sanskrit, lit. "heavy," hence "venerable" and thus "religious guide or teacher." In mainstream Buddhism, the UPĀDHYĀYA (novice monk's preceptor) takes the role of the guru; the preceptor and disciple are said to be like father and son; the preceptor teaches the disciple and gives him his robes and alms bowl. In MAHĀYĀNA SuTRA literature, the increased importance of the guru is evident in the story of SADĀPRARUDITA and his teacher DHARMODGATA, from whom he seeks to learn the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ, and in the GAndAVYuHA section of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA, which recounts SUDHANA's spiritual journey in search of enlightenment through a series of fifty-three spiritual mentors (KALYĀnAMITRA, a word often synonymous with guru). In tantric Buddhism, the guru is of greatest importance: the first of the SAMAYAs (tantric vows) is not to despise one's guru, who is considered to be the equal of all the TATHĀGATAs. The GURUPANCĀsIKĀ ("Fifty Verses on the Guru") explains the proper conduct students should observe in the presence of a tantric guru. In Tibetan Buddhism, the ritual worship of a guru is crucially important, supported by the doctrine that it is only through one's guru that one hears the Buddha's teaching; for only when the buddhas take the form of a personal guru can they convey the salvific doctrine to students. The ritual worship of the guru (see GAnACAKRA) in the form of the entire Buddhist pantheon (TSHOGS ZHING) is common to all Tibetan sects.
gynous). The story in The Apocalypse of Moses is
Haggadah (&
Haman ::: The villain in the story of Purim.
Hmannan Mahayazawin-daw-gyi. In Burmese, "The Great Glass Palace Chronicle"; the best-known Burmese YAZAWIN, or royal chronicle, of the Konbaung dynasty (1752-1885). It was written by a committee of scholars headed by the royal minister and former sangharājā, Mahadhamma thin gyan, at Amarapura in 1831. It copies verbatim U Kala's MAHAYAZAWIN GYI, making occasional alterations to the narrative and adding criticisms and learned observations. An interesting feature of this text is its criticism of the legend of SHIN UPAGOT (UPAGUPTA), a key element in the story of King Asoka (S. AsOKA) found in the Mahayazawin gyi, as being inauthentic, because it is not attested in Pāli sources. The portion of the Hmannan Mahayazawin-daw-gyi that relates the ancient history of Burma from the founding of Tagaung to the fall of PAGAN to Chinese forces in 1284 CE has been translated by Pe Maung Tin and Gordon Luce as The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma.
hypernarrative: Archetypal figures, tropes, or other elements that reoccur in human lore and media; deep-rooted pieces of humanity’s subconscious that can be used to convince or seduce a person or society. Also refers to a sense of interacting with the hypernarrative, allowing a person to live the story. (See Mythic Threads.)
“I can only say that there is a strange mystery involved in the story of these two: Balsamo and Cagliostro. How strange is the statement, if true, that both had the name Pellegrini, which means Pilgrims! How strange is it that Giuseppe Balsamo is the Italian form of the name Joseph Balm, suggesting a healing influence; and that ‘Balsamo,’ whether rightly or wrongly, can be traced to a compound Semitic word which means ‘Lord of the Sun’ — ‘Son of the Sun’; while the Hebrew name Joseph signifies ‘increase’ or ‘multiplication.’ . . . How strange it is that Cagliostro was called an ‘orphan,’ the ‘unhappy child of Nature’! Every initiate . . . is an ‘orphan’ without father, without mother, because mystically speaking every initiate is self-born. How strange it is that other names under which Cagliostro is stated to have lived at various times have in each instance a singular esoteric signification! . . .
index register "processor" A {register} found in some {CPUs}, whose contents can be added to the address {operand} to give the {effective address}. Incrementing the index register then allows the program to access the next location in memory and so on, making it very useful for working with {arrays} or blocks of memory. Index registers first appeared around April 1949 in the {Manchester Mark I}. The Mark I's index register's contents were simply added to the entire instruction, thus potentially changing the {opcode} (see {The story of Mel})! (2006-09-20)
index register ::: (processor) A register found in some CPUs, whose contents can be added to the address operand to give the effective address. Incrementing the index register then allows the program to access the next location in memory and so on, making it very useful for working with arrays or blocks of memory.Index registers first appeared around April 1949 in the Manchester Mark I. The Mark I's index register's contents were simply added to the entire instruction, thus potentially changing the opcode (see The story of Mel)!(2006-09-20)
in media res: When a text begins in the middle of the story, and later covers the early events of the narrative.
interactive novel: A type of fiction in digital form where the use of hyperlinks can create different aspects of the story.
In the Bible Magi is translated “wise men.” The term has also become familiar through the story of the three wise men who came to the infant Jesus bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
In the field of the philosophy of religion, Platonism becomes obscure. There is little doubt that Plato paid only lip-service to the anthropomorphic polytheism of Athenian religion. Many of the attributes of the Idea of the Good are those of an eternal God. The Republic (Book II) pictures the Supreme Being as perfect, unchangeable and the author of truth. Similar rationalizations are found throughout the Laws. Another current of religious thought is to be found m the Timaeus, Politicus and Sophist. The story of the making of the universe and man by the Demiurgus is mythic and yet it is in many points a logical development of his theory of Ideas. The World-Maker does not create things from nothing, he fashions the world out of a pre-existing chaos of matter by introducing patterns taken from the sphere of Forms. This process of formation is also explained, in the Timaeus (54 ff), in terms of various mathematical figures. In an early period of the universe, God (Chronos) exercised a sort of Providential care over things in this world (Politicus, 269-275), but eventually man was left to his own devices. The tale of Er, at the end of the Republic, describes a judgment of souls after death, their separation into the good and the bad, and the assignment of various rewards and punishments. H. Stephanus et J. Serranus (ed.), Platonis Opera (Paris, 1578), has provided the standard pagination, now used in referring to the text of Plato, it is not a critical edition. J. Burnet (ed.), Platonis Opera, 5 vol. (Oxford, 1899-1907). Platon, Oeuvres completes, texte et trad., Collect. G. Bude (Paris, 1920 ff.). The Dialogues of Plato, transl. B. Jowett, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1920). W. Pater, Plato and Platonism (London, 1909). A. E. Taylor, Plato, the Man and his Work (N. Y., 1927). P. Shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago, 1933). A. Dies, Autour de Platon, 2 vol. (Paris, 1927). U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Platon, 2 vol. (Berlin, 1919). John Burnet, Platonism (Berkeley, 1928). Paul Elmer More, Platonism (Oxford, 1931). Constantm Ritter, Essence of Plato's Philosophy (London, 1933). Leon Robin, Platon (Paris, 1935). Paul Shorey, Platonism, Ancient and Modern (Berkeley, 1938). A. E. Taylor, Platontsm and Its Influence (London, 1924). F. J. E. Woodbridge, The Son of Apollo (Boston, 1929). C. Bigg, The Christian Platomsts of Alexandria (Oxford, 1913). T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge, 1918, 2nd ed ). John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Angle-Saxon Philosophy (New York, 1931). F. J. Powicke, The Cambridge Platonists (Boston, 1927). -- V.J.B.
“it is upon the document issued from the Vatican containing the story of the so-called trial and condemnation of Cagliostro that most later students and historians of the checkered and wonderful career of that remarkable man assume that Cagliostro and Guiseppe Balsamo were one individual.
Jātakamālā. (T. Skyes pa'i rabs kyi rgyud; C. Pusa benshengman lun; J. Bosatsu honjomanron; K. Posal ponsaengman non 菩薩本生鬘論). In Sanskrit, "Garland of Birth Stories," by the poet sura [alt. Āryasura; c. second-century CE], a collection of thirty-four JĀTAKA tales related in an elegant and elliptical literary style. Each story includes sura's introduction relating the specific point of morality illustrated in the story. This narrative is in mixed prose and verse (a style that comes to be termed campu), with a variety of different meters employed. The beauty of sura's literary renderings was so renowned that the Jātakamālā often came to be even more widely read than the Jātaka collections themselves. In Tibet it is a custom for a senior monk to give an explanation of one of the tales from the Jātakamālā on the opening day of the SMON LAM CHEN MO (Great Prayer Festival). ¶ The story surrounding the Chinese "translation" of the Jātakamālā, the Pusa benshengman lun ("Treatise on the Bodhisattva's Garland of Birth Stories"), may be one of the strangest tales in the annals of the translation of Buddhist texts. As modern scholarship has shown, the Chinese "translators" had so much difficulty in construing sura's elaborate style that they managed to produce an "apocryphal" scripture while having the Sanskrit text right in front of them. Working without dictionary or grammar, or the luxury of an Indian pandita to help them construe the text, and apparently faced with an impossible deadline, the translators simply resorted to forgery: where they found a few random words of sura's that they could construe, they lifted wholesale from other texts stories that happened to contain the same words. Except for the titles of some of the stories, there is almost nothing in the Chinese translation that corresponds to sura's Sanskrit.
jātaka. (T. skyes rabs; C. bensheng jing; J. honshokyo; K. ponsaeng kyong 本生經). In Sanskrit and Pāli, literally, "birth," or "nativity"; a term used in Buddhism to refer by extension to narrative accounts of previous births or lives, especially of a buddha. The jātaka constitute one of the nine (NAVAnGA[PĀVACANA]) (Pāli) or twelve (DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA]) (Sanskrit) categories (AnGA) of Buddhist scripture that are delineated according to their structure or literary style. There are hundreds of such stories (547 in the Pāli collection alone) and together they form one of the most popular genres of Buddhist literature. In a typical tale, GAUTAMA Buddha will recount a story from one of his past lives as a human or an animal, demonstrating a particular virtue, or perfection (PĀRAMITĀ), after which he will identify the other characters in the story as the past incarnations of members of his present audience. A jātaka story usually has five components: (1) an introduction, in which the Buddha recounts the circumstances leading up to the story to be recounted; (2) a prose narrative, in which the story from one of the Buddha's past lives is related; (3) stanzas of poetry, which often contain the moral of the story; (4) a prose commentary on the stanzas; and (5) a conclusion that connects the past with the present, in which the Buddha identifies members of his current audience as incarnations in the present of the characters in the story from the past. ¶ The Pāli Jātaka is the tenth book of the KHUDDAKANIKĀYA of the SUTTAPItAKA. The collection is comprised of 547 stories of former lives of Gotama Buddha while he was a bodhisatta (S. BODHISATTVA). The Jātaka itself is made up entirely of short verses, but these are accompanied by prose commentary called the JĀTAKAttHAKATHĀ, which recounts the relevant stories. Some of the Jātakas have been included in another collection contained in the KHUDDAKANIKĀYA, the CARIYĀPItAKA. In Sanskrit, the most famous jātaka collection is the JĀTAKAMĀLĀ by sura. Over the course of the history of Buddhism and throughout the Buddhist world, jātakas have been one of the most popular forms of Buddhist literature, especially among the laity, due both to their entertaining plots and their edifying moral lessons. Scenes from various jātaka stories are widely depicted in Buddhist art and occur among some of the earliest Buddhist stone carvings in India. Scholarship has demonstrated that the plots of many of the jātakas derive from Indian folklore, with the same story occurring in Hindu, JAINA, and Buddhist works. In the Buddhist versions, the plot has been adapted by adding a prologue and epilogue that identifies the protagonist as the bodhisattva and the other characters as members of the Buddha's circle in a former life; the hero's antagonist in the story is often identified as DEVADATTA in a former life. In addition to their general popularity, individual jātakas have had great influence, such as the VESSANTARA JĀTAKA in Southeast Asia.
Jātakatthakathā. [alt. Jātakatthavannanā]. In Pāli, "Commentary on the JĀTAKA," is a prose exegesis of the verses included in the Jātaka collection. Authorship is traditionally attributed to BUDDHAGHOSA, although the prose is a Pāli translation of a commentary written originally in Sinhalese. The commentary on each jātaka tale includes an introduction relating how the story came to be told and an epilogue correlating the major characters in the tale with the Buddha's current contemporaries. The commentary is preceded by a lengthy introduction, the NIDĀNAKATHĀ, which recounts the buddha's previous birth as SUMEDHA and his last life as Siddhattha (S. SIDDHĀRTHA) from the time of his birth, through his enlightenment and early teaching, ending with the donation of JETAVANA by Anāthapindika (S. ANĀTHAPIndADA). The Jātakatthakathā appears in the Pali Text Society's English translation series as Stories of the Buddha's Former Births; the Nidānakathā appears separately as The Story of Gotama Buddha.
Jerahmeel. Here the story goes that whereas neither
jewels.” The story is found also in Ginzberg,
Job (Hebrew) ’Iyyōb Persecuted, tried; one of the books in the Bible, depicting the story of Job, regarded by Blavatsky as far older than the Pentateuch. She points out that there is no reference to any of the Hebrew patriarchs, that Jehovah is not mentioned in the poem itself, that there is no mention of the Sabbatical institution, and that there is a direct discussion on the worship of the heavenly bodies (prevailing in those days in Arabia). “The Book of Job is a complete representation of ancient initiation and the trials which generally precede this grandest of all ceremonies. The neophyte perceives himself deprived of everything he valued, and afflicted with foul disease. His wife appeals to him to adore God and die; there was no more hope for him” (IU 2:494-5). Elihu the hierophant teaches Job, now ready to learn the meaning of his experience, and Job is able to contact his own higher self or inner god.
Jo khang. In Tibetan, "House of the Lord"; the earliest Tibetan temple and monastery, located in the capital of LHA SA. The central image is a statue of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha as a youth, said to have been sculpted in India during the Buddha's lifetime. This statue, the most sacred in Tibet, is known simply as the JO BO ("Lord") SHĀKYAMUNI or Jo bo Rin po che ("Precious Lord"). The temple takes its name from this image housed within it. Indeed, the name Lha sa ("Place of the Gods") may have referred originally to the Jo khang, only later becoming by extension to be the name of the city that surrounds it. The Jo khang stands at the heart of the old city, and is the central point for three circumambulation routes. The most famous of these is the BAR BSKOR, or middle circuit, which passes around the outer walls and surrounding structures of the Jo khang. The Jo khang and bar bskor together have long been Lha sa's primary religious space, with pilgrims circling it in a clockwise direction each day. The central market of Lha sa is also located along the bar bskor. Despite its well-known name, Tibetans tend to refer to the Jo khang simply as the Gtsug lag khang (Tsuklakang), the Tibetan term for VIHĀRA, meaning "monastery"; the original structure was likely laid out by Newari artisans following the plan of an Indian Buddhist vihāra. Western sources have rather misleadingly dubbed the Jo khang the "Cathedral of Lhasa." According to traditional Tibetan sources (most importantly, the MAnI BKA' 'BUM) the original structure was established by the Tibetan king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO and his two queens (one Chinese and one Nepalese), around 640 CE. The statue of sākyamuni, said to have been crafted during the Buddha's lifetime, eventually made its way to China. It is said to have been brought to Tibet from China by the king's Chinese bride, Princess WENCHENG. The many difficulties she encountered en route from China convinced her that the landscape of Tibet was in fact a supine demoness (SRIN MO), who was inimical to the introduction of Buddhism. On her advice, the king (who had recently converted to Buddhism), the Chinese princess, and the king's other wife, the Nepalese princess BHṚKUTĪ, built the Jo khang directly over the heart of the demoness; according to Tibetan legends, the king himself built much of the first-floor structure. Other temples were subsequently built across Tibet, corresponding to other parts of the demoness's vast body, in order essentially to nail her to the earth and prevent her further obstruction of the dharma (see MTHA' 'DUL GTSUG LAG KHANG). When the Jo khang was completed, a different statue than the more famous Jo bo Shākyamuni or Jo bo rin bo che, was the central image; it was a statue of the buddha called JO BO MI BSKYOD RDO RJE brought to Tibet by Bhṛkutī. The statue brought by Wencheng (known as Jo bo rin bo che) was housed in the nearby RA MO CHE temple, founded by Wencheng. After the king's death, the two statues were switched, moving the Jo bo Shākyamuni statue to the Jo khang and the Jo bo mi bskyod rdo rje statue to Ra mo che, where they would remain over the subsequent centuries. Modern scholarship has raised questions about many details of this tale, including the degree of Srong btsan sgam po's devotion to Buddhism and the existence of his Nepalese queen. However, the story of the Jo khang's founding, depicted on murals inside the temple itself, is widely known, and the Jo khang remains central to the sacred geography of the Tibetan Buddhist world. The Jo khang has been the site of many important moments of Tibetan history, including the establishment of the SMON LAM CHEN MO festival in 1409, when TSONG KHA PA offered a crown to the Jo bo statue, giving it the aspect of a SAMBHOGAKĀYA. Over the course of its long history, the Jo khang has been enlarged and renovated many times (although elements of the original structure, such as juniper beams, are still visible) to become a complex of chapels, courtyards, residential quarters (including those for the DALAI LAMA and PAn CHEN LAMA), monastic dormitories, government offices, and storerooms. The temple suffered during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when parts of the complex and much of its original statuary and murals were damaged or destroyed, including the central image. During this period, the complex was occupied by Red Guards and People's Liberation Army troops, and the temple was used as a pigsty. The temple has since been restored, beginning in 1972 and again during the early 1990s. In 2000, it was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
just-named pseudepigraphon (1,27 et seq.) the story
Kālacakratantra. (T. Dus kyi 'khor lo rgyud). A late ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA that was highly influential in Tibet. Although the title of the tantra is often translated as "Wheel of Time," this translation is not attested in the text itself. Kālacakra is the name of the central buddha of the tantra, and the tantra deals extensively with time (kāla) as well as various macrocosmic and microcosmic cycles or wheels (CAKRA). According to legend, King SUCANDRA came to India from his kingdom of sAMBHALA and asked that the Buddha set forth a teaching that would allow him to practice the dharma without renouncing the world. In response, the Buddha, while remaining at Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKutAPARVATA) in RĀJAGṚHA in the guise of a monk, set forth the Kālacakratantra at Dhānyakataka in southern India (near present-day Amarāvatī) in the guise of the buddha Kālacakra. The king returned to sambhala, where he transcribed the tantra in twelve thousand verses. This text is referred to as the root tantra (mulatantra) and is no longer extant. He also wrote a commentary in sixty thousand verses, also lost. He built a three-dimensional Kālacakra MAndALA at the center of the country, which was transformed into an ideal realm for Buddhist practice, with 960 million villages. The eighth king of sambhala, MaNjusrīkīrti, condensed the original version of the tantra into the abridged version (the Laghukālacakra). A later king of sambhala, Pundarīka, composed the VIMALAPRABHĀ commentary, considered crucial for understanding the tantra. These two texts were eventually transported from sambhala to India. Internal evidence in the text makes it possible to date the composition of the tantra rather precisely to between the dates 1025 and 1040 CE. This was the period of Muslim invasions of northern India under Mahmud of Ghazni, during which great destruction of Buddhist institutions occurred. The tantra, drawing on Hindu mythology, describes a coming apocalyptic war in which Buddhist armies will sweep out of sambhala, defeat the barbarians (mleccha), described as being followers of Madhumati (i.e., Muhammad), and restore the dharma in India. After its composition in northern India, the tantra was promulgated by such figures as Pindo and his disciple ATIsA, as well as NĀROPA. From India, it spread to Nepal and Tibet. The millennial quality of the tantra has manifested itself at particular moments in Tibetan history. Prior to World War II, the PAn CHEN LAMA bestowed the Kālacakra initiation in China in an effort to repel the Japanese invaders. The fourteenth DALAI LAMA has given the initiation many times around the world to promote world peace. ¶ The tantra is an anuttarayogatantra dedicated to the buddha Kālacakra and his consort Visvamātā. However, it differs from other tantras of this class in several ways, including its emphasis on the attainment of a body of "empty form" (sunyatābimba) and on its six-branched yoga (sadangayoga). The tantra itself, that is, the Laghukālacakra or "Abridged Kālacakra," has five chapters, which in the Tibetan commentarial tradition is divided into three sections: outer, inner, and other or alternative. The outer, corresponding to the first chapter, deals with the cosmos and treats such topics as cosmology, astrology, chronology, and eschatology (the story of the apocalyptic war against the barbarians is told there). For example, this section describes the days of the year; each of the days is represented in the full Kālacakra mandala as 360 golden (day/male) and dark (night/female) deities in union, with a single central Kālacakra and consort (YAB YUM) in the center. The universe is described as a four-tiered mandala, whose various parts are homologous to the cosmic body of a buddha. This section was highly influential in Tibetan astrology and calendrics. The new calendar of the Tibetans, used to this day, starts in the year 1027 and is based on the Kālacakra system. The inner Kālacakra, corresponding to the second chapter, deals with human embryology, tantric physiology, medicine, yoga, and alchemy. The human body is described as a microcosm of the universe. The other or alternative Kālacakra, corresponding to the third, fourth, and fifth chapters, sets forth the practice of Kālacakra, including initiation (ABHIsEKA), SĀDHANA, and knowledge (JNĀNA). Here, in the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA), the initiate imagines oneself experiencing conception, gestation, and birth as the child of Kālacakra and Vismamātā. In the stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA), one practices the six-branched yoga, which consists of retraction (pratyāhāra), concentration (DHYĀNA), breath control (PRĀnĀYĀMA), retention (dhāranā), recollection (ANUSMṚTI), and SAMĀDHI. In the last of these six branches, 21,600 moments of immutable bliss are created, which course through the system of channels and CAKRAS to eliminate the material aspects of the body, resulting in a body of "empty form" and the achievement of buddhahood as Kālacakra. The Sekoddesatīkā of Nadapāda (or Nāropa) sets forth this distinctive six-branched yoga, unique to the Kālacakra system. ¶ BU STON, the principal redactor of the canon in Tibetan translation, was a strong proponent of the tantra and wrote extensively about it. DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN, a fourteenth-century JO NANG PA writer, championed the Kālacakra over all other Buddhist writings, assigning its composition to a golden age (kṛtayuga). Red mda' ba gzhon nu blo gros, an important scholar associated with SA SKYA sect, regarded the tantra as spurious. TSONG KHA PA, who was influenced by all of these writers, accepted the Kālacakratantra as an authentic ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA but put it in a category by itself.
Kaniska. (T. Ka ni ska; C. Jianisejia wang; J. Kanishika o; K. Kanisaekka wang 迦膩色迦王) (c. 127-151 CE). Third king of the KUSHAN kingdom in the northwest of India and legendary patron of Buddhism, rivaled, according to the tradition, only by AsOKA, some four centuries later. The story of his conversion to Buddhism is widely found in the literature, but it seems to belong to the realm of legend, not history. Kaniska is said to have convened the fourth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FOURTH), which led to the compilation of the ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ ("Great Exegesis of Abhidharma").Thanks to Kaniska's putative support, the Kushan kingdom has traditionally been assumed to have been an important conduit for the introduction of Buddhist materials into China via the SILK ROAD of Central Asia. Recent evidence of the decline in western Central Asian trade during the Kushan period, however, may suggest instead that the Kushans were more of an obstacle than a help to this dissemination. Hence, it may not have been the Kushans who facilitated the transmission of Buddhism but their Indo-Scythian predecessors in the region, the Saka (S. saka) tribe. The emerging scholarly consensus is that Kaniska's reign began in 127 CE; if accepted, this date will allow much more precise dating of the cultural products of the KASHMIR-GANDHĀRA region.
Karunāpundarīka. (T. Snying rje pad ma dkar po; C. Beihua jing; J. Hikekyo; K. Pihwa kyong 悲華經). In Sanskrit, "Lotus of Compassion"; a MAHĀYĀNA SuTRA important in the developing cult surrounding worship of the buddha AMITĀBHA. The sutra was translated into Chinese in ten rolls by DHARMAKsEMA and seems to have been compiled from various shorter texts. The sutra tells the story of how a king and his thousand sons aroused the aspiration for enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPĀDA) and received a prediction that they would each be reborn in the PURE LAND. The sutra is important in the pure land schools for its listing of fifty-one vows of the buddha AMITĀBHA, indicating that it was closely aligned with the teachings of the SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA.
Kiratarjuniya (Sanskrit) Kirātārjunīya A poem by Bharavi describing the combat of Arjuna with the God Siva in the form of the wild mountaineer Kirata; the story is derived from the Mahabharata.
Kisā Gotamī. (S. *Kṛsā Gautamī). In Pāli, "Gotamī the emaciated"; an eminent arahant (S. ARHAT) therī, who was declared by the Buddha to be foremost among his nun disciples in the wearing of coarse robes (lukhacīvara). The story of Kisā Gotamī is found in several places in the Pāli canon and commentaries and is one of the most beloved narratives in the THERAVĀDA world for its poignancy. Born to a poor family in the city of Sāvatthi (S. sRĀVASTĪ), her personal name was Gotamī, and she received the epithet Kisā ("lean," or "emaciated") because she was so thin. She was fortunate to marry into a wealthy family, although she was not treated with respect until she bore a son. Her happiness was short lived, however, for her son died just as he became old enough to run around and play. Driven mad with grief, Kisā Gotamī wandered about carrying her son's body at her hip, seeking everywhere for medicine to restore him to life. She was mocked and driven away by everyone she approached, until a kind man finally took pity on her and directed her to the Buddha. In response to her pleas to revive her son, the Buddha told her he would do so if she would bring him a mustard seed from a household in which no one had died. Searching frantically from house to house and ultimately finding none that had not experienced the death of loved ones, she came to realize the inevitability of death and so was able finally to lay her child's body to rest in the charnel ground. Returning to the Buddha, she sought admission into the nun's order and was ordained. She promptly became a stream-enterer (sotāpanna; S. SROTAĀPANNA) and, soon afterward, an arahant (S. ARHAT). In a previous existence, she had witnessed Padumuttara Buddha declare one of his nuns foremost among those who wear coarse robes, and it was then that she vowed to one day earn that same title.
Ksāntivādin. (P. Khantivādī; T. Bzod pa smra ba; C. Renru xianren/Chanti xianren; J. Ninniku sennin/Sandai sennin; K. Inyok sonin/Sanje sonin 忍辱仙人/羼提仙人). Lit. "Teacher of Patience"; one of the more famous previous lives of the Buddha as recounted in the Sanskrit and Pāli JĀTAKA collections. Over the course of millions of lifetimes, the BODHISATTVA is said to accrue vast stores of merit (PUnYA) through the practice of the six or ten perfections (PĀRAMITĀ). The story of Ksāntivādin is the most famous story about the bodhisattva's practice of patience (KsĀNTI). In the story, the bodhisattva is a brāhmana who renounces the world and lives in a forest near Benaras. One day, the king comes into the forest accompanied by his female attendants, who entertain him. Exhausted by his indulgence in pleasure and drink, the king falls asleep. The women wander off, eventually coming upon Ksāntivādin seated beneath a tree. They gather around him and he preaches to them. The king awakes to find the women gone and becomes enraged. When he finally locates them, he presumes that Ksāntivādin has stolen them away. When he asks the ascetic what he teaches, Ksāntivādin replies "patience." Seeking to test the ascetic's ability to remain free from anger when injured and abused, he tortures him, cutting off his limbs, his nose, and his ears in turn, at each point asking the ascetic whether he still teaches patience; the various versions differ as to the order in which the limbs are severed and whether they are severed by the king himself or by his executioner. Leaving the ascetic to die of his wounds, the king walks away, only to be swallowed by the earth and transported to the AVĪCI hell. It is said that the king was DEVADATTA in a former life and that his fate prefigured Devadatta's own demise.
Kushana. (S. Kusāna). A northwest Indian kingdom (late first to third centuries CE) located adjacent to the GANDHĀRA region of the Indian subcontinent. The story of the Kushan king KANIsKA's conversion to Buddhism is widely found in the literature, but it seems to belong to the realm of legend, not history. Thanks to Kaniska's putative support, the Kushan kingdom has traditionally been assumed to have been an important conduit for the introduction of Buddhist materials into China via the Silk Roads of Central Asia. Recent evidence of the decline in west Central Asian trade during the Kushan period, however, may suggest instead that the Kushans were more of an obstacle than a help. Hence, it may not have been the Kushans who facilitated the transmission of Buddhism but their Indo-Scythian predecessors in the region, the Saka (S. saka) tribe. The Chinese tradition identifies several important early translators of Buddhist materials as hailing from the Kushan kingdom, including *LOKAKsEMA, who was active in the last quarter of the second century. Monks who hailed from this region were given the ethnikon ZHI by the Chinese.
languages of choice {C} and {Lisp}. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities. There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as {Real Programmers}, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "{The Story of Mel}"). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but {HLL} implementation, {glue}, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. Most hackers tend to frown on languages like {Pascal} and {Ada}, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see {bondage-and-discipline language}), and to regard everything even remotely connected with {COBOL} or other traditional {card walloper} languages as a total and unmitigated {loss}. [{Jargon File}]
Mahāmeghasutra. (T. Sprin chen po'i mdo; C. Dafangdeng wuxiang jing/Dayun jing; J. Daihodo musokyo/Daiungyo; K. Taebangdŭng musang kyong/Taeun kyong 大方等無想經/大雲經). In Sanskrit, the "Great Cloud Sutra"; it is also known in China as the Dafangdeng wuxiang jing. The Mahāmeghasutra contains the teachings given by the Buddha to the bodhisattva "Great Cloud Secret Storehouse" (C. Dayunmizang) on the inconceivable means of attaining liberation, SAMĀDHI, and the power of DHĀRAnĪs. The Buddha also declares that TATHĀGATAS remain forever present in the dharma and the SAMGHA despite having entered PARINIRVĀnA and that they are always endowed with the four qualities of NIRVĀnA mentioned in the MAHĀPARINIRVĀnASuTRA, namely, permanence, bliss, purity, and selfhood (see GUnAPĀRAMITĀ). The Mahāparinirvānasutra's influence on the Mahāmeghasutra can also be witnessed in the story of the goddess "Pure Light" (C. Jingguang). Having heard the Mahāparinirvānasutra in her past life, the goddess is told by the Buddha that she will be reborn as a universal monarch (CAKRAVARTIN). The sutra is often cited for its prophecy of the advent of NĀGĀRJUNA, as well as for its injunctions against meat-eating. It was also recited in order to induce rain. In China, commentators on the Mahāmeghasutra identified the newly enthroned Empress WU ZETIAN as the reincarnation of the goddess, seeking thereby to legitimize her rule. As Emperor Gaozong (r. 649-683) of the Tang dynasty suffered from increasingly ill health, his ambitious and pious wife Empress Wu took over the imperial administration. After her husband's death she exiled the legitimate heir Zhongzong (r. 683-684, 705-710) and usurped the throne. One of the many measures she took to gain the support of the people was the publication and circulation of the Mahāmeghasutra. Two translations by ZHU FONIAN and DHARMAKsEMA were available at the time. Wu Zetian also ordered the establishment of monasteries called DAYUNSI ("Great Cloud Monastery") in every prefecture of the empire.
Mahinda. (S. Mahendra; T. Dbang chen; C. Moshentuo; J. Mashinda; K. Masinda 摩哂陀). Pāli proper name of the son of Asoka (S. AsOKA), who converted the Sinhalese king, DEVĀNAMPIYATISSA, to Buddhism in the third century BCE, thus inaugurating the Buddhist religion in Sri Lanka. The story of Mahinda is first recorded in the DĪPAVAMSA (c. fourth century CE) and is elaborated in the MAHĀVAMSA (c. fifth century CE) and BUDDHAGHOSA's VINAYA commentary, SAMANTAPĀSĀDIKĀ. In each of these works, Mahinda's story is preceded by a narrative that begins with the legend of Asoka's conversion to Buddhism, through the convention of the third Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, THIRD) under the direction of MOGGALIPUTTATISSA, to the dispatch of Buddhist missions to nine adjacent lands (paccantadesa). Mahinda was chosen to lead the mission sent to Sri Lanka. Mahinda, together with his sister SAnGHAMITTĀ, was ordained at the age of twenty at the request of his father, Asoka. He attained arahantship immediately upon his ordination. Mahinda was swift in learning the doctrine, and was placed in charge of Moggaliputtatissa's one thousand disciples when the latter retired to Ahoganga due to a dispute within the SAMGHA. Mahinda had been a monk for twelve years when the third Buddhist council was convened to celebrate the resolution of the dispute. Shortly thereafter, he was sent along with four other monks, a novice, and a layman to Sri Lanka for the purpose of converting its king. Mahinda preached the CulAHATTHIPADOPAMASUTTA to DevānaMpiyatissa, whereupon the king requested to be accepted as a lay disciple. The next day, he preached to the king's sister-in-law, Anulā, and five hundred women of the court, all of whom became stream-enterers. Preaching to them a second time, they became once-returners. When they asked be ordained, he said that monks could not ordain women, and suggested that his sister, the nun Sanghamittā, be invited, which was done. She came to Sri Lanka, bringing with her a branch of the BODHI TREE. The king offered to Mahinda the MAHĀMEGHAVANA, a royal pleasure garden that was to be the future site of the MAHĀTHuPA. In the garden, which was on the outskirts of the Sinhalese capital, ANURĀDHAPURA, Mahinda established the SĪMĀ boundary for the MAHĀVIHĀRA monastery, which thenceforth became the headquarters of the Theravāda fraternity on the island. At Mahinda's prompting, relics of the Buddha were received from Asoka and Sakka (S. sAKRA), king of the gods, which were interred in the Cetiyagiri and Thupārāma. Under Mahinda's direction, a council was held where MAHĀRIttHA, a native son of Sri Lanka, recited the vinaya. According to the Samantapāsādikā, this recital marked the firm establishment of the religion on the island. The Saddhammasangaha reckons the recitation of the vinaya by Mahārittha as the fourth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FOURTH). Mahinda died at the age of sixty and was cremated and his ashes interred in a shrine near the Mahāthupa.
Malang fu. (J. Merofu; K. Marang pu 馬郎婦). In Chinese, "Mr. Ma's Wife"; also known as YULAN GUANYIN (Fish Basket Guanyin); a famous manifestation of the BODHISATTVA GUANYIN (AVALOKITEsVARA). The story of Mrs. Ma is found in various Chinese miracle-tale collections. The basic outline of the story begins with a beautiful young woman who comes to a small town to sell fish. Many young men propose to her, but she insists that she will only marry a man who can memorize the "Universal Gateway" chapter of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") in one night. Twenty men succeed, so she then asks them to memorize the VAJRACCHEDIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA in one night. The ten men who succeed at that task are then asked to memorize the entire Saddharmapundarīkasutra. One young man whose surname was Ma succeeds and he marries the beautiful fish seller. Unfortunately, she became ill on their wedding day and died the very same day. Later, a foreign monk visits the town to pay respects and informed Ma and the townsmen that this young fish seller was none other than the bodhisattva Guanyin in disguise.
Manifest Content ::: According to Freud, the story-like superficial content of a dream, often representing only the daily activities and little underlying unconscious material.
Mel Kaye "person" The hero of {The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer}. The preface to the manuals for the {Royal McBee} {LGP-30} ACT 1 ({Algebraic Compiler and Translator}) {compiler} (dated 1959) contain the following attribution from Clay S. Boswell, Jr. (apparently ACT 1's designer): I wish to acknowledge my appreciation to the many people who offered suggestions and criticisms of the ACT 1 System. In particular, Mel Kaye of Royal McBee who did the bulk of the programming. (2008-08-04)
Mel {The story of Mel}
mezzanine ::: n. --> Same as Entresol.
A partial story which is not on the same level with the story of the main part of the edifice, as of a back building, where the floors are on a level with landings of the staircase of the main house.
microtape "hardware, storage" /mi:'kroh-tayp/ Occasionally used to mean a {DECtape}, as opposed to a {macrotape}. Apparently the term "microtape" was actually the official term used within DEC for these tapes until someone coined the word "DECtape", which, of course, sounded sexier to the {marketroids}. Another version of the story holds that someone discovered a conflict with another company's "microtape" trademark. [{Jargon File}] (1995-03-16)
microtape ::: (hardware, storage) /mi:'kroh-tayp/ Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, as opposed to a macrotape.Apparently the term microtape was actually the official term used within DEC for these tapes until someone coined the word DECtape, which, of course, sounded sexier to the marketroids. Another version of the story holds that someone discovered a conflict with another company's microtape trademark.[Jargon File] (1995-03-16)
Minos (Greek) King and legislator of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, afterwards one of the judges of the shades in Hades or the Underworld. Also, a grandson of this Minos, also king of Crete figuring in the story of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur.
Mordecai ::: One of the heroes of the story of Purim.
Mṛgadāva. [alt. Mṛgadāya] (P. Migadāya; T. Ri dwags kyi gnas; C. Luyeyuan; J. Rokuyaon; K. Nogyawon 鹿野苑). In Sanskrit, the "Deer Park" in the modern town of SĀRNĀTH, some four miles (six kms.) north of Vārānasī, where the Buddha preached his first sermon, the "Turning the Wheel of the Dharma" (S. DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA; P. DHAMMACAKKAPPAVATTANASUTTA), following his enlightenment; the site was also known as ṚsIPATANA. It was there that the Buddha encountered the "group of five" (S. PANCAVARGIKA; P. paNcavaggiyā), the five ascetics who had previously repudiated him for abandoning the practice of austerities, and it was to this group that the Buddha taught the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni) and the eightfold path (ĀRYĀstĀnGAMĀRGA). A number of other important discourses were also delivered there. The Deer Park later became the site of a large monastery. According to the Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG, the place derived its name from the Nigrodhamṛgajātaka, which tells the story of when the bodhisattva was reborn as Nigrodha, king of the deer. When he offered himself in sacrifice, the king of Vārānasī was so moved that he established a sanctuary where deer could live unmolested by hunters.
Mucilinda. [alt. Mahāmucilinda] (P. Mucalinda; T. Btang bzung; C. Muzhenlintuo; J. Mokushinrinda; K. Mokchillinda 目眞隣陀). In Sanskrit, the name of a snake divinity (NĀGA) who is said to have sheltered GAUTAMA Buddha while he was meditating following his enlightenment. According to the Pāli account, Mucalinda (S. Mucilinda) was the eponymous name of the nāga king of the Mucalinda tree, which was located in URUVILVĀ, along the bank of the NERANJARĀ river near the BODHI TREE in BODHGAYĀ, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. In the third week following his enlightenment, the Buddha was meditating there, experiencing the bliss of enlightenment, when a severe thunderstorm broke out. Seeing that the Buddha was in danger, the nāga king of the tree (whom the commentaries say lived in a pond next to the tree), coiled himself around the Buddha seven times and then spread his hood over him like an umbrella to protect him from the storm. In other accounts, the nāga king resides in the Mucilinda lake, which is located just south of the present-day site of the MAHĀBODHI TEMPLE at Bodhgayā, and the event occurs in the sixth week following the enlightenment. In some versions of the story, once the storm had passed, the nāga transformed himself into a youth who then paid his respects before the buddha. The scene is a frequent subject of Buddhist art, where Mucilinda is often depicted in multiheaded form (often with seven heads). The story of Mucilinda is also exuberantly told in the LALITAVISTARA as well as in various MAHĀYĀNA sources.
Mystically, there is likewise another convergence of ancient esoteric symbolic ideas, as Jonah means “dove,” which has always been an emblem of the spirit or cosmically of the Second Logos; thus a dove or initiated human being entered for three days into a big fish, and upon the expiration of this term was again cast forth. Like all such mystery-tales, several different deductions may be drawn. Thus W. Q. Judge interprets the story as an astronomical cycle (Ocean 122).
Mystic Death An experience at a certain stage of initiation, where the candidate undergoes the experiences of virtual death, differing from actual death in that his body is prevented from dissolution so that he may resume it when the trial has been passed. Through its symbolic representation in the exoteric Mystery dramas, it has passed into the substance of religious creeds where it has been adapted to those formulas, as in the story or mythos of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is, among other things, a description of some of the experiences undergone by such a candidate.
nāga. (T. klu; C. long; J. ryu; K. yong 龍). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "serpent" or "dragon" (as in the Chinese), autochthonous beings said to inhabit bodies of water and the roots of great trees, often guarding treasures hidden there. They are depicted iconographically with human heads and torsos but with the tail and hood of a cobra. They inhabit an underwater kingdom filled with magnificent palaces, and they possess a range of magical powers, including the ability to masquerade as humans. Nāgas appear frequently in Buddhist literature in both benevolent and malevolent forms. They are said to be under the command of VIRuPĀKsA, the god of the west, and are guards of the TRĀYASTRIMsA heaven. They sometimes appear in the audience of Buddha, most famously in the twelfth chapter of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), where an eight-year-old nāga princess offers a gem to the Buddha. She instantaneously transforms into a male, traverses the ten bodhisattva stages (BHuMI), and achieves buddhahood. This scene is sometimes cited as evidence that women have the capacity to achieve buddhahood. In the story of the Buddha's enlightenment, the Buddha is protected during a rainstorm by the nāga MUCILINDA. The Buddha is said to have entrusted the sATASĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ ("Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Lines") to the safekeeping of the nāgas at the bottom of the sea, from whom NĀGĀRJUNA recovered it. Digging the earth is said to displease nāgas, who must therefore be propitiated prior to the construction of a building.
Namo Buddha. (T. Stag mo lus sbyin). Together with SVAYAMBHu and BODHNĀTH, one of the three major STuPAs of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. Located twenty-five miles (forty kilometers) southeast of Kathmandu, it is built at the putative site where a prince named Mahāsattva, a bodhisattva who was a previous rebirth of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha, sacrificed his life to feed a starving tigress. In some versions of the story, the prince came across a starving tigress and her hungry cubs and, in order to save their lives, jumped off a cliff, committing suicide so they could eat his flesh. In another version, commemorated on a rock carving near the stupa, the prince cut off pieces of his flesh and fed them to the tigress until he finally died. The stupa is said to be built over his bones, and the tigress's cave is nearby. The Tibetan name of the stupa means, "Offering the Body to the Tigress." The Nepali name is said to derive from the fact that there were once many tigers in the area; the residents would therefore repeat "namo Buddha" ("homage to the Buddha") for protection.
Nanda. (T. Dga' bo; C. Nantuo; J. Nanda; K. Nanda 難陀). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "Joyful"; an ARHAT declared by the Buddha to be foremost among his monk disciples in self-control. Nanda was the son of sUDDHODANA and MAHĀPRĀJĀPATĪ and half brother of the Buddha. He was a few days younger than the Buddha, and Mahāprajāpatī handed him over to a wet nurse so that she could raise the bodhisattva as her own son when the latter's mother, MAHĀMĀYĀ, died. Nanda was extremely handsome (he is also known as Sundara Nanda, or "Handsome Nanda") and was said to have been vain about his looks. During the Buddha's sojourn at the sĀKYA capital of KAPILAVASTU after his enlightenment, he visited Nanda on the day his half-brother was to be married to a beautiful maiden named JANAPADAKALYĀnĪ NANDĀ (also called Sundarī Nandā). Having wished his half brother well, the Buddha handed him his alms bowl (PĀTRA) to carry back to the monastery; the scene of Nanda holding the bowl, standing between the departing Buddha and his beckoning bride-to-be, is often depicted in Buddhist art. Once Nanda arrived at the monastery with the alms bowl, the Buddha asked Nanda to join the order, and only reluctantly, and out of deference to the Buddha, did he agree. But he longed for his fiancée and soon fell ill from his loneliness and depression, drawing pictures of her on rocks. Knowing Nanda's mind, the Buddha then flew with him to the TRĀYASTRIMsA heaven. Enroute, he pointed out an injured female monkey and asked Nanda whether Janapadakalyānī Nandā was more beautiful than the monkey; Nanda replied that she was. When they arrived in the heaven, the Buddha showed Nanda the celestial maidens attending the gods. Nanda was entranced with their loveliness, which far exceeded the beauty of Janapadakalyānī, saying that, compared to the celestial maidens, the beauty of his bride-to-be was like that of the monkey. The Buddha promised him one of these maidens as his consort in his next lifetime if he would only practice the religious life earnestly. Nanda enthusiastically agreed. Upon returning to the human world at JETAVANA grove, Nanda was criticized by ĀNANDA for his base motivation for remaining a monk. Feeling great shame at his lust, he resolved to overcome this weakness, practiced assiduously, and in due course became an ARHAT. In another version of the story, Nanda only overcomes his lust after a second journey: after going to heaven, the Buddha takes Nanda on a journey to hell, where he shows him the empty cauldron that awaits him after his lifetime in heaven. After his enlightenment, Nanda came to the Buddha to inform him of his achievement and to release the Buddha from his promise of celestial maidens. It was because of his great will to control his passions that Nanda was deemed foremost in self-control. Due to his previous attachment to women, however, it is said that even after he became an arhat, Nanda would stare at the beautiful women who attended the Buddha's discourses. The story of Nanda appears in a number of versions, including the poem SAUNDARANANDA by AsVAGHOsA.
Nanquan Puyuan. (J. Nansen Fugan; K. Namch'on Powon 南泉普願) (748-834). Chinese CHAN master in the HONGZHOU ZONG; a native of Xinzheng in present-day Henan province. In 777, Nanquan received the full monastic precepts from a certain VINAYA master Hao (d.u.) at the nearby monastery of Huishansi in Songyue. Along with studying such important MAHĀYĀNA scriptures as the LAnKĀVATĀRASuTRA and AVATAMSAKASuTRA, Nanquan also explored the major texts of the SAN LUN ZONG, the Chinese counterpart of the MADHYAMAKA school of Buddhist philosophy. He later became the disciple of the eminent Chan master MAZU DAOYI (709-788) and eventually one of his dharma successors. In 795, he began his long-time residence on Mt. Nanquan in Chiyang (present-day Anhui province), whence he acquired his toponym. He remained on the mountain for thirty years, where he devoted himself to teaching his students. Among his immediate disciples, ZHAOZHOU CONGSHEN (778-897) is most famous. Nanquan is renowned for his enigmatic sayings and antinomian behavior. Many of his noteworthy conversations with other masters are quoted in public case collections, such as the BIYAN LU and CONGRONG LU. Nanquan's teaching style is perhaps best captured in the (in)famous public case (GONG'AN) "Nanquan cuts the cat in two" (case no. 63 of the Biyan lu, case no. 14 in the WUMENGUAN). Monks from the eastern and western wings of the monastery were arguing over possession of a cat. Nanquan grabbed the cat and told the monks, "If anyone can say something to the point, you will save this cat's life; if not, I will kill it." No one replied, so Nanquan cut the cat in two. In the following gong'an in the Biyan lu (case no. 64), his disciple Zhaozhou Congshen returned to the monastery and heard the story. He immediately took off his straw sandals, placed them on his head, and walked away. Nanquan remarked, "If you had been here a moment ago, you could have saved that cat's life."
Necronomicon ::: In the fictional Cthulu Mythos it is a grimoire of dark magic and evocations that drives the story. It also refers to the Simon Necronomicon, which actually exists, and which is an anonymous grimoire inspired by elements of the Cthulu Mythos and Middle Eastern mythology.
Neichi Toin. (1557-1629). Important Mongolian teacher who helped to spread Buddhism in Inner Mongolia; his traditional biography appears in a work entitled Cindamani-yin erike. Neichi Toin was the son of a Torghud noble. In order to comply with his father's wishes, he married and fathered a child, but left the family home in his late twenties and traveled to Tibet. He spent several years at BKRA SHIS LHUN PO monastery, where he studied with the first PAn CHEN LAMA, BLO BZANG CHOS KYI RGYAL MTSHAN, receiving tantric initiation from him. He excelled particularly in practices associated with YAMĀNTAKA. In the 1590s, he returned to Mongolia, first to the Khalka region and then to Hohhot, where he spent the next thirty years living as a yogin with a group of disciples. His biography, which seems to take the story of MI LA RAS PA as its model, describes his habitation in mountain caves, his practice of GTUM MO, his unconventional behavior, and his performance of various miracles. He is said to have worn blue and green robes and to have taken money intended for monasteries and given it to the poor. Around 1629, he went to Eastern Mongolia, where he sought to spread Buddhism, bringing him into conflict with local shamans. He secured the support of powerful nobles, leading to the founding of four monasteries in the region. Although a devotee of the DGE LUGS PA, he ran afoul of the fifth DALAI LAMA (NGAG DBANG BLO BZANG RGYA MTSHO), who criticized him for giving the YAMĀNTAKA initiation to those without the proper qualification and for claiming to be the incarnation of TSONG KHA PA. On a more political level, it appears that the Dalai Lama was concerned that a Mongol was developing a strong following outside the bounds of the Dge lugs hierarchy controlled from LHA SA. When a formal complaint was brought against Neichi Toin, the Manchu emperor deferred to the Dalai Lama, who declared that Neichi Toin did not have the necessary qualifications to be a high lama. He was therefore purged and his followers disbanded.
nianhua weixiao. (J. nenge misho; K. yomhwa miso 拈花微笑) In Chinese, lit. "holding up a flower and smiling subtly"; a famous CHAN transmission story in which sĀKYAMUNI Buddha instructs the congregation nonverbally by simply holding up a flower. Only MAHĀKĀsYAPA understands the Buddha's intent and he smiles back in recognition, making him the first recipient of the Buddha's "mind-to-mind transmission" (YIXIN CHUANXIN). Mahākāsyapa is thus considered the first patriarch (ZUSHI) of the Chan school. This story, also called the "World-Honored One holding up a flower" (Shizun nianhua), first appears in the 1036 imperially ratified Chan genealogical record, Tiansheng Guangdeng lu. There, the story also portrays the Buddha giving his disciple his robe as a token of transmission, but this event does not appear in the later versions of the story, such as in the 1093 Zongmen tongyao ji and the 1183 Liandeng huiyao. The same story is recorded also in the apocryphal Chinese sutra Da fantianwang wenfo jueyi jing ("Mahābrahmā Questions the Buddha and Resolves His Doubts"), compiled sometime between the mid-twelfth and the late fourteenth centuries, probably in order to defend the historicity of the story, the authenticity of which was questioned even in Chan circles. The story became famous among not only Buddhist clerics but also literati. The tale eventually became a meditative topic within the Chan school and is recorded as the sixth case (GONG'AN) in the 1228 WUMEN GUAN ("Gateless Checkpoint"); there, it concludes by giving the Buddha's verbal confirmation that the transmission is complete: "I have this repository of the true dharma eye (ZHENGFAYANZANG), the sublime mind of NIRVĀnA, the authentic quality (C. shixiang; S. TATTVA) that is free from all qualities, the subtle and sublime dharma gate that does not rely on words or letters (BULI WENZI) but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures (JIAOWAI BIECHUAN). This I entrust to Mahākāsyapa." In Western literature, this story has been dubbed the "Flower Sermon," but this designation is never used in Chan literature.
Oedipus (Greek) Oidipous. Swollen-footed; Theban hero, son of Laius, named by the shepherd who found him with his feet swollen from the holes bored in them when he was exposed by his father, as it was predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother — which he subsequently did. In many cosmogonies there are characters who slay their fathers or who are represented as both husband and son of the same goddess. This symbolism, being interpreted literally in Oedipus’ case, has made a fine story of horror for the tragedians. Oedipus is also famous for having solved the riddle of the Theban Sphinx. Oedipus’ romantic and tragic history formed the theme of three plays by Sophocles and by Aeschylus. The essential significance of the story is the inescapable consequences following upon karmic causes, from which there is no escape once these causes have been set in motion by man.
Of especial interest is the account of the hero’s journey to the regions of the dead (Tuonela), thence to bring back with him the black swan. He is sent thither with but one arrow and his bow; but he is unsuccessful in returning to the upper regions, owing to the fact that he does not know the magic words enabling him to counteract the bite of an adder from the Stream of the Dead. Similar to the Egyptian account in the story of Osiris, there is the plaint of the bereaved mother, the search for her son, and finally the recovery of the body of Lemminkainen, which had been severed into five pieces and cast into the river of death. The mother is unable to restore her son to life, however, even though with divine aid she was able to make the body whole and heal the wounds with balsam obtained by a honeybee (Mehilainen). Finally she instructs the bee how to fly to the greatest deity, Ukko, on the seventh heaven: by way of the moon and the Great Bear. The honeybee makes the flight successfully, returning with the life-giving essence (the balm of the Creator), and the mother brings her son back to life once more.
of Yahweh appears in connection with the story
omniscient narrator: This is a narrator who is ‘all knowing’. The omniscient narrator, often found in third person narratives, has a detailed and full knowledge of the story's events and characters, from every perspective.
Orpheus (Greek) An early religious teacher and reformer in Greece about whom clustered so many legends that in course of time his historic existence came to be disputed. He was, however, an actual historic character, probably born in Thrace about the 13th century BC, lived and taught at Pimpleia on Mount Olympus, revived the ancient wisdom-religion, reformed the then degraded popular religion, and was killed — according to the story — because of it. He gathered pupils or disciples about him, and founded a famous Mystery school from which in time emanated a vast literature, now perished with the exception of the Orphic Hymns, the Lithica (a poem on the nature of precious stones), the Argonautica (which recites the connection of Orpheus with the Argonautic expedition), and some other fugitive fragments — and in our time these are supposed to be apocryphal or of a far later date than Orpheus himself, although certainly containing Orphic elements.
overhead ::: adv. --> Aloft; above; in or attached to the ceiling or roof; in the story or upon the floor above; in the zenith.
Pandora (Greek) All-gifted; in Greek mythology, after Prometheus enlightened man by bringing him the celestial fire, the enraged Zeus revenges himself by seducing man, for which purpose he has Hephaestos create a woman, Pandora, endowed with gifts from the great gods. She is brought to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus (“after-thought,” the brother of “fore-thought”), bringing with her a locked box containing all human ills, which she opens from curiosity, and the ills spread over the earth. Hesiod calls her the first woman, sent as a punishment to man for his theft of the divine fire. It evidently means that as soon as he quits his passive irresponsible state and acquires active will and intellect, man subjects himself to temptations from the lower world. Pandora is an earthly aspect of all-bounteous nature; a later interpretation of the story of the box makes it the container of blessings, which however fly away when it is opened, leaving behind only hope.
Pātikasutta. (C. Anouyi jing; J. Anuikyo; K. Anui kyong 阿夷經). In Pāli, "Discourse on the [Ascetic] Pātika[putta]," the twenty-fourth sutta of the DĪGHANIKĀYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the fifteenth sutra in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHĀGAMA); a discourse by the Buddha on the display of supernatural powers addressed to the mendicant Bhaggavagotta. The Buddha relates how his former disciple, Sunakkhatta, lost faith in the Buddha because the latter refused to display magical powers or speculate on such questions as the origin of the universe as other teachers of the time were wont to do. The Buddha explains that such displays of magic are trivial, and speculation on such matters does not lead to liberation. He does, however, relate the story of his defeat of the JAINA naked ascetic Pātikaputta, who challenges the Buddha to a miracle-working contest, but when the Buddha answers the challenge, he is unable to rise from his seat.
picturing various incidents in the story.] In
ping "networking, tool" (ping, originally contrived to match submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse) A program written in 1983 by Mike Muuss (who also wrote {TTCP}) used to test reachability of destinations by sending them one, or repeated, {ICMP} echo requests and waiting for replies. Since ping works at the {IP} level its server-side is often implemented entirely within the {operating system} {kernel} and is thus the lowest level test of whether a remote host is alive. Ping will often respond even when higher level, {TCP}-based services cannot. Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in a road accident on 2000-11-20. The term is also used as a verb: "Ping host X to see if it is up." The {Unix} command "ping" can be used to do this and to measure round-trip delays. The funniest use of "ping" was described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the {Usenet} group comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a {TCP/IP} {Ethernet} hooked up to a {NeXT} machine. Using the sound recording feature on the NeXT, he wrote a {script} that repeatedly invoked ping, listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned {packet}. This caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time. Ping did not stand for "Packet InterNet Groper", Dave Mills offered this {backronym} expansion some time later. See also {ACK}, {ENQ}, {traceroute}, {spray}. {The Story of the Ping Program (http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html)}. {Unix manual page}: ping(8). (2005-06-22)
popularly ::: adv. --> In a popular manner; so as to be generally favored or accepted by the people; commonly; currently; as, the story was popularity reported.
Prāgbodhi(giri). (C. Qianzhengjueshan/Boluojiputishan; J. Zenshogakusen/Haragobodaisen; K. Chonjonggaksan/Pallagŭpporisan 前正覺山/鉢羅笈菩提山). Literally, "Before Enlightenment," or "Before Enlightenment Mountain," a mountain near BODHGAYĀ that sĀKYAMUNI is said to have ascended shortly before his enlightenment. In the account of his travels in India, XUANZANG recounts a story that does not seem to appear in Indian versions of the life of the Buddha. After accepting the meal of milk porridge from SUJĀTĀ, the BODHISATTVA climbed a nearby mountain, wishing to gain enlightenment there. However, when he reached the summit, the mountain began to quake. The mountain god informed the bodhisattva that the mountain was unable to bear the force of his SAMĀDHI, and if he practiced meditation there the mountain would collapse. As the bodhisattva descended the mountain he came upon a cave; he sat down there to meditate, but the earth began to tremble again. Deities then informed him that the mountain was not the appropriate place for him to achieve enlightenment and directed him to a pipal tree fourteen or fifteen leagues (li; approximately three miles) to the southwest. However, the dragon that lived in the cave implored him to stay and achieve enlightenment there. The bodhisattva departed, but left his shadow on the wall of the cave for the dragon; among the souvenirs that Xuanzang took back to China was a replica of this shadow. Based on Xuanzang's account, the story of the Buddha's ascent and descent of Prāgbodhi became popular in East Asia, and is the apparent source for the theme in poetry and painting of "sĀKYAMUNI Descending the Mountain."
Prometheus (Greek) [from pro fore + metis counsel] The foreknower, he who knows beforehand, in contrast with his brother Epimetheus (the one who knows after, or when it is too late). Like other symbols, it has its seven keys of interpretation, which not merely reconciles but renders necessary the various versions of the story. Son of the titan Iapetos, Prometheus stole fire from heaven in a hollow tube (narthex) and brought it to mankind, who thereby was enlightened; for this Prometheus was chained by Zeus to a rock on Mt. Caucasus, where an eagle devours his liver by day, the liver being restored by night; until finally he is released by Hercules or Dionysos.
pṛthivī. [alt. pṛthivīdhātu] (P. pathavī; T. sa; C. dida; J. jidai; K. chidae 地大). In Sanskrit, lit. "earth" or "ground," viz., the property of "solidity"; one of the four "great elements" (MAHĀBHuTA) or "major elementary qualities" of which the physical world comprised of materiality (RuPA) is composed, along with wind (viz. motion, movement, VĀYU, P. vāyu/vāyo), water (viz. cohesion, ĀPAS, P. āpo), and fire (viz. temperature, warmth, TEJAS, P. tejo). "Earth" is characterized by hardness and firmness, and can refer to anything that exhibits solidity. Because earth has temperature (viz. fire) and tangibility (viz. water), and is capable of motion (viz. wind), the existence of the other three elements may also be inferred even in that single element. In the physical body, this element is associated with hair, bones, teeth, organs, and so on. ¶ Pṛthivī, "Earth," is also the proper name of the goddess of the earth, also known as STHĀVARĀ, or "Immovable," who played a crucial role in the story of GAUTAMA Buddha's enlightenment. When the BODHISATTVA's right to occupy the sacred spot beneath the BODHI TREE was challenged by MĀRA, Gautama touched the earth (BHuMISPARsAMUDRĀ) with his right hand, calling on the goddess of the earth to testify to his boundless meritorious deeds over his past lives. She responded by causing a mild earthquake or, in other versions of the story, emerging from the earth to bear witness. See also THORANI.
Purna. (P. Punna; T. Gang po; C. Fulouna; J. Furuna; K. Puruna 富樓那). In Sanskrit, "Fulfilled," a famous ARHAT and disciple of the Buddha, often known as Purna the Great (MAHĀPuRnA). There are various stories of his origins and encounter with Buddha, leading some scholars to believe that there were two important monks with this name. In some cases, he is referred to as Purna Maitrāyanīputra (P. Punna Mantānīputta) and appears in lists of the Buddha's ten chief disciples, renowned for his skill in preaching the DHARMA. In the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), Purna is listed among the SRĀVAKAs who understand the parable in the seventh chapter on the conjured city; in the eighth chapter of that sutra, the Buddha predicts Purna's eventual attainment of buddhahood. According to Pāli accounts, where he is known as Punna, he was a brāhmana from Kapilavatthu (S. KAPILAVASTU), the son of Mantānī, who was herself the sister of ANNā KondaNNa (ĀJNĀTAKAUndINYA), the first of five ascetics (P. paNcavaggiyā; S. PANCAVARGIKA) converted and ordained by the Buddha at the Isipatana (S. ṚsIPATANA) deer park (MṚGADĀVA) after his enlightenment. After preaching to the five ascetics, the Buddha traveled to Rājagaha (S. Rājagṛha); ANNā KondaNNa instead went to Kapilavatthu, where he proceeded to ordain his nephew Punna. ANNā KondaNNa retired to the forest while Punna remained in Kapilavatthu, devoting himself to the study of scripture and the practice of meditation, soon becoming an arahant (S. ARHAT). He gathered around him five hundred disciples, all of whom became monks, and taught them the ten bases of discourse he had learned. All of them became arahants. At Sāvatthi (sRĀVASTĪ), the Buddha taught the dhamma to Punna in his private chambers, a special honor. While Punna was dwelling at the Andhavana grove, Sāriputta (S. sĀRIPUTRA) visited him to question him on points of doctrine. Punna was able to answer all of Sāriputta's queries. It was while listening to Punna's explication of causality that Ānanda became a stream-enterer (P. sotāpanna; S. SROTAĀPANNA). ¶ Other stories, most famously the Purnāvadāna of the DIVYĀVADĀNA, tell of a different Purna, known as Punna Suppāraka in Pāli sources. His father was a wealthy merchant in the seaport of Surpāraka in western India. The merchant became ill and was cured by a slave girl, who eventually bore him a son, named Purna, who became in turn a skilled merchant. During a sea voyage with some merchants from sRĀVASTĪ, he heard his colleagues reciting prayers to the Buddha. Overcome with feelings of faith, he went to see the Buddha and was ordained. After receiving brief instructions from the Buddha, he asked permission to spread the dharma among the uncivilized people of sronāparāntaka, where he converted many and became an arhat in his own right. He later returned to his home city of Surpāraka, where he built a palace of sandalwood and invited the Buddha and his monks for a meal. Events from the story of Purna are depicted in cave paintings at AJAntĀ in India and KIZIL in Central Asia along the SILK ROAD. A similar story of Purna's life as a merchant from a border region is recounted in still other Pāli accounts. After the Buddha preached the Punnovādasutta to him, he is said to have joined the saMgha and became an arahant. Punna won many disciples in his native land, who then wished to build a sandalwood monastery for the Buddha. The Buddha flew in celestial palanquins to Sunāparanta in the company of Punna and five hundred arahants in order to accept the gift. Along the way, the Buddha converted a hermit dwelling atop Mount Saccabandha and left a footprint (BUDDHAPĀDA) in the nearby Narmada River so that the NĀGA spirits might worship it. Sunāparanta of the Pāli legend is located in India, but the Burmese identify it with their homeland, which stretches from Middle to Upper Burma. They locate Mount Saccabandha near the ancient Pyu capital of Sirīkhettarā (Prome). The adoption of Punna as an ancient native son allowed Burmese chroniclers to claim that their Buddhism was established in Burma during the lifetime of the Buddha himself and therefore was older than that of their fellow Buddhists in Sri Lanka, who did not convert to Buddhism until the time of Asoka (S. AsOKA) two and half centuries later.
Python (Greek) The serpent slain by Apollo, who was therefore also called Pythius. At one time the world was covered with temples to the sun and dragon: the Ophites adopted it from Egypt, whither it had come from India. It is seen in the story of Bel and the Dragon, of St. George or St. Michael and the Dragon, of Osiris and Typhon, Krishna and Kaliya, and the Lord God and the Serpent of Eden. The cosmic dragon represents the shadow side of the logos, and the opposition between these two is the so-called war in heaven. The dual nature of the serpent is seen in Rahu and Ketu, the Dragon’s head and tail; and Typhon or Apophis, slain by Horus is also called Set, who is in one of his permutations Hermes, god of wisdom, and whose name likewise is that of the Biblical Seth and Satan. In initiations the inner enlightened individual had to confront his lower passions, now personified into a veritable astral monster, and to be either its victor or its victim; when victorious he became the spiritual serpent in its other sense of the dragon of wisdom. This double meaning has its correspondence in the fact that snakes shed their skin and reemerge purified, just as the neophyte through training and initiation sheds the Old Person and reemerges from the tests as the New Person.
question ::: n. --> The act of asking; interrogation; inquiry; as, to examine by question and answer.
Discussion; debate; hence, objection; dispute; doubt; as, the story is true beyond question; he obeyed without question.
Examination with reference to a decisive result; investigation; specifically, a judicial or official investigation; also, examination under torture.
That which is asked; inquiry; interrogatory; query.
Rāhula. (T. Sgra gcan 'dzin; C. Luohouluo; J. Ragora; K. Rahura 羅睺羅). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "Fetter"; proper name of the ARHAT who was the Buddha's only child, born on the day his father renounced the world. According to the Pāli account, as soon as Prince SIDDHARTHA learned of the birth of his son, he immediately chose to become a mendicant, for he saw his son as a "fetter" binding him ever more tightly to the household life. In a famous scene, the prince looks at his sleeping wife and infant son before departing from the palace to seek enlightenment. He wishes to hold his son one last time but fears that he will awaken his wife and lose his resolve. In the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA version of the story, Rāhula was conceived on the night of his father's departure from the palace and remained in gestation for a full six years, being born on the night that his father achieved buddhahood. After his enlightenment, when the Buddha accepted an invitation to visit his father's palace, Rāhula's mother (RĀHULAMĀTĀ) YAsODHARĀ sent her son to her former husband to ask for his inheritance, whereupon the Buddha ordered sĀRIPUTRA to ordain the boy. Rāhula thus became the first novice (sRĀMAnERA) to enter the order. Knowing Yasodharā's grief at the loss of her son, the Buddha's father, King sUDDHODANA, requested that in the future no child should be ordained without the consent of his parents; the Buddha accepted his request and a question about parental consent was incorporated into the ordination procedure. Rāhula is described as dutiful and always in search of instruction. In one sermon to the young boy, the Buddha warns him never to lie, even in jest. Rāhula often accompanied the Buddha or sāriputra on their alms rounds (PIndAPĀTA). The meditation topic the Buddha assigned to Rāhula was intended to counter the novice's strong carnal nature. When his mind was ready, the Buddha taught him the Cula-Rāhulovādasutta, at the end of which Rāhula attained arhatship. Rāhula was meticulous in his observation of the monastic regulations, and the Buddha declared him foremost among his disciples in his eagerness for training. According to Chinese sources, Rāhula was also renowned for his patience. One day in sRĀVASTĪ, he was harshly beaten and was bleeding badly from a head wound, but he bore his injury with composure and equanimity, which led the Buddha to praise him. Rāhula was also foremost in "practicing with discretion" (C. mixing diyi), meaning that he applied himself at all times in religious practice but without making a display of it. Rāhula passed away before both sāriputra and the Buddha during a sojourn in TRĀYASTRIMsA heaven. In previous lives, Rāhula had many times been the son of the bodhisattva. He was called "lucky Rāhula" by his friends and Rāhula himself acknowledged his good fortune both for being the Buddha's son and for attaining arhatship. In the MAHĀYĀNA, Rāhula appears in a number of sutras, such as the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA, where his father predicts that he will become a buddha. Rāhula is also traditionally listed as eleventh of the sixteen ARHAT elders (sOdAsASTHAVIRA), who were charged by the Buddha with protecting his dispensation until the advent of the next buddha, MAITREYA. He is said to reside in Biliyangqu zhou (a Sanskrit transcription that supposedly means "land of chestnuts and grains") with 1,100 disciples. In CHANYUE GUANXIU's standard Chinese depiction, Rāhula is portrayed sitting on a rock in wide-eyed meditation, with his right finger held above his chest, pointing outward, and his left hand resting on his left knee.
Ratnameghasutra. (T. Dkon mchog sprin gyi mdo; C. Baoyun jing; J. Houngyo; K. Poun kyong 寶雲經). The "Cloud of Jewels," an important Mahāyāna sutra, perhaps dating from the third or fourth century CE. It opens with the Buddha residing on the peak of Mt. Gayāsīrsa when the BODHISATTVA SARVANĪVARAnAVIsKAMBHĪ approaches the Buddha and asks him more than one hundred questions ranging from the practice of giving (DĀNA) and the six perfections (PĀRAMITĀ) to the means of swiftly attaining ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI. The Buddha's answers to these questions are widely quoted in later sĀSTRAS. In China, during the Ming dynasty, there were charges that interpolations were made in the sutra during the reign of the Empress WU ZETIAN in order to legitimize her usurpation of the throne. These interpolations included the story of Prince Moonlight (Yueguang tongzi), who received a prediction from the Buddha that he would later become a great queen in China.
Real Programmer "job, humour" (From the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche") A variety of hacker possessed of a flippant attitude toward complexity that is arrogant even when justified by experience. The archetypal "Real Programmer" likes to program on the {bare metal} and is very good at it, remembers the binary {op codes} for every machine he has ever programmed, thinks that {high-level languages} are sissy, and uses a {debugger} to edit his code because full-screen editors are for wimps. Real Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been {bum}med into a state of {tense}ness just short of rupture. Real Programmers never use {comments} or write {documentation}: "If it was hard to write", says the Real Programmer, "it should be hard to understand." Real Programmers can make machines do things that were never in their spec sheets; in fact, they are seldom really happy unless doing so. A Real Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appals. Real Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers - because someday, somebody else might have to try to understand their code in order to change it. Their successors generally consider it a {Good Thing} that there aren't many Real Programmers around any more. For a famous (and somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see "{The Story of Mel}". The term itself was popularised by a 1983 Datamation article "{Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal}" by Ed Post, still circulating on {Usenet} and Internet in on-line form. [{Jargon File}] (1997-08-29)
Real Programmer ::: (job, humour) (From the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche) A variety of hacker possessed of a flippant attitude toward complexity that is arrogant even wimps. Real Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been bummed into a state of tenseness just short of rupture.Real Programmers never use comments or write documentation: If it was hard to write, says the Real Programmer, it should be hard to understand. Real fact, they are seldom really happy unless doing so. A Real Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appals.Real Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers - because someday, somebody successors generally consider it a Good Thing that there aren't many Real Programmers around any more.For a famous (and somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see The Story of Mel. The term itself was popularised by a 1983 Datamation article Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal by Ed Post, still circulating on Usenet and Internet in on-line form.[Jargon File] (1997-08-29)
Reproduced from E. H. Gombrich, The Story of
[Rf. Jewish Encyclopedia I, 588] the story is that
Sadāprarudita. (T. Rtag tu ngu; C. Changti [pusa]; J. Jotai [bosatsu]; K. Sangje [posal] 常啼[菩薩]). In Sanskrit, "Ever Weeping," the name of a BODHISATTVA whose story appears in the AstASĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ. He sets out in search of a teacher who will teach him the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ) but, unable to find one, is constantly crying. He eventually learns that the bodhisattva DHARMODGATA is teaching in a faraway city. He has nothing to offer his teacher and thus announces that he is willing to sell his body. sAKRA, the king of the gods, decides to test his commitment and takes the form of an old man who agrees to buy some of Sadāprarudita's flesh. He cuts off a piece of his thigh and gives it to the man. The man then asks for some bone marrow. Sadāprarudita is about to break his leg to extract the marrow when a wealthy merchant's daughter, impressed by his dedication, offers to provide the necessary gifts for Dharmodgata. sakra then reveals his true form and heals Sadāprarudita's body. Sadāprarudita, the merchant's daughter, and her five hundred attendants then proceed to the city where Dharmodgata is residing and receive his teachings. The story is a famous example of DEHADĀNA, the "gift of the body" that bodhisattvas make out of their dedication to the welfare of others. It is also an important example of devotion to the teacher.
Saint George Patron saint of England; the universal allegory of the dragonslayer reappears in Christian ecclesiasticism as the archangel Michael who slays the red dragon, and again as St. George. It is a historical mystery both how this apocryphal legend came to be attached to the name of George of Cappadocia, the ecclesiastic put to death by Diocletian for opposing him in the persecution of the Christians; and that the Roman Catholic Church should have canonized so rabid an Arian. His is another form of the story of Bel and the dragon, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon, etc., which denote the fallen angels or kumaras who, by bringing intellectual life to earth, thereby truly conquer death.
sakra. (P. Sakka; T. Brgya byin; C. Di-Shi; J. Taishaku; K. Che-Sok 帝釋). Sanskrit name of a divinity who is often identified with the Vedic god INDRA (with whom he shares many epithets), although it is perhaps more accurate to describe him as a Buddhist (and less bellicose) version of Indra. Typically described in Buddhist texts by his full name and title as "sakra, the king of the gods" (sAKRO DEVĀNĀM INDRAḤ), he is the divinity (DEVA) who appears most regularly in Buddhist texts. sakra is chief of the gods of the heaven of the thirty-three (TRĀYASTRIMsA), located on the summit of Mount SUMERU. As such, he is a god of great power and long life, but is also subject to death and rebirth; the Buddha details in various discourses the specific virtues that result in rebirth as sakra. In both the Pāli canon and the MAHĀYĀNA sutras, sakra is depicted as the most devoted of the divine followers of the Buddha, descending from his heaven to listen to the Buddha's teachings and to ask him questions (and according to some accounts, eventually achieving the state of stream-enterer), and rendering all manner of assistance to the Buddha and his followers. In the case of the Buddha, this assistance was extended prior to his achievement of buddhahood, both in his previous lives (as in the story of Vessantara in the VESSANTARA JĀTAKA) and in his last lifetime as Prince SIDDHĀRTHA; when the prince cuts off his royal locks and throws them into the sky, proclaiming that he will achieve buddhahood if his locks remain there, it is sakra who catches them and installs them in a shrine in the heaven of the thirty-three. When the Buddha later visited the heaven of the thirty-three to teach the ABHIDHARMA to his mother MĀYĀ (who had been reborn there), sakra provided the magnificent ladder for his celebrated descent to JAMBUDVĪPA that took place at SĀMKĀsYA. When the Buddha was sick with dysentery near the end of his life, sakra carried his chamber pot. sakra often descends to earth disguised as a brāhmana in order to test the virtue of the Buddha's disciples, both monastic and lay, offering all manner of miraculous boons to those who pass the test. In the Pāli canon, a section of the SAMYUTTANIKĀYA consists of twenty-five short suttas devoted to him.
Sankaracharya was also the founder of the Advaita-vedanta school of philosophy. The story of his life is very remarkable. He was born according to tradition in the 6th century BC, probably about 510. He lived, to be only 32 years old, but owing to his extraordinary capacities he accomplished many great and spiritual works for humanity. Probably most of the marvelous episodes recorded about his life are allegories of certain of his spiritual experiences and conquests, written in this form — as was the custom of students of the Mystery schools — in order to veil the deep mysteries of his life.
second-person point of view: This refers to the narrative perspective of a text. The story is told to another character, using the word 'you'.
Shin Upagot. A semi-immortal ARHAT who, according to Burmese (Myanmar) and Thai popular tradition, dwells in a gilded palace beneath the southern ocean. Shin Upagot (P. Upagutta, S. UPAGUPTA) is endowed with extraordinarily long life and is destined to survive until the coming of the future buddha, MAITREYA. According to Burmese legend, Shin Upagot was ordered by the Buddha not to pass into PARINIRVĀnA until Maitreya had appeared so that he might protect the Buddha's religion during times of crisis. Shin Upagot is renowned for assisting King AsOKA to construct eighty-four thousand STuPAs, and for vanquishing MĀRA and converting him to Buddhism. The earliest known record of the legend of Shin Upagot as it is known in Southeast Asia is found in the LokapaNNatti, a Pāli cosmological text said to have been written at Thaton in the twelfth century. That recension of the legend, in turn, is based on Sanskrit Buddhist antecedents found in such works as the AsOKĀVADĀNA, all of which recount the exploits of the Upagupta. The legend of Shin Upagot is celebrated in the Burmese royal chronicles (yazawin), Mahayazawin-gyi (c. 1730) and Hmannan Mahayazawin-daw-gyi (1829), while the story is omitted from all Burmese ecclesiastical chronicles (thathanawin), presumably because it is not attested in Pāli sources. Shin Upagot is regarded as a protector of sailors, and because of his powers to control the weather, he is propitiated to prevent rainfall at inopportune times. He is depicted iconographically as a monk seated cross-legged, looking skyward, with his right hand reaching into his alms bowl.
shuilu hui. (J. suirikue; K. suryuk hoe 水陸會). In Chinese, "water and land assembly," a Buddhist ritual intended for universal salvation, although it was also sometimes directed only to deceased next of kin; the ceremony was also performed for a variety of this-worldly purposes, such as state protection (see HUGUO FOJIAO) and rain-making. The name "water and land" derives from its intent to save living creatures who inhabit the most painful domains of SAMSĀRA, whether in water or on land. The ceremony, which typically took seven days to complete, was held at two different sites, the inner altar and the outer altar. The main performance was held at the inner altar, which was divided into an upper hall and a lower hall. The enlightened beings-buddhas, BODHISATTVAs, ARHATs, and guardian deities of the three jewels (RATNATRAYA)-were invited and feted with offerings at the upper hall; the unenlightened beings, specifically beings subject to the six rebirth destinies (GATI), were invited and feted at the lower hall. Once summoned to the lower hall at the inner altar, the unenlightened assembly was divested of its afflictions (KLEsA), asked to pay homage to the enlightened assembly, and received offerings of both food and the dharma, which sent them on their way to the PURE LAND. According to the earliest extant records of the ceremony, none of which predate the Song period, the shuilu hui was first performed in 505 by the monk BAOZHI (418-514) at the behest of Emperor Wu (r. 502-549) of the Liang dynasty, with the VINAYA master and scriptural cataloguer SENGYOU (445-518) serving as chief celebrant. The same Song-period sources claim that the ceremony was revived by a monk during the Xianheng era (670-674), after its sudden disappearance following the collapse of the Liang dynasty. It was not until the tenth century, however, that there is independent confirmation in non-Buddhist sources of actual performances of the ceremony and it was not until the eleventh century that it seems to have achieved widespread popularity. According to the monk Zunshi (964-1032), the larger monasteries in the southeast of China maintained separate halls, called either shuilu tang or shuilu yuan, which were devoted entirely to the performance of the ceremony. In the Southern Song period, many of the largest monasteries throughout the realm had a "water and land hall" on their grounds. In Korea, the suryuk hoe was first performed in 971 and became popular during the early Choson dynasty, with the royal family being its main supporter. There are several Chinese and Korean manuals that provide directions for performing the ritual, including the Shuilu yiwen ("Ritual Text for the Water and Land Ceremony") in three rolls, written by a Song-dynasty layman in 1071. The canonical locus classicus for the practice is the story of Jalavāhana in the SUVARnAPRABHĀSOTTAMASuTRA.
Shwedagon. In Burmese, "Golden Dagon"; monumental golden pagoda (B. JEDI; S. STuPA; P. thupa) that dominates the skyline of Rangoon (Yangon), capital of Burma (Myanmar); named after Dagon, the ancient name of Rangoon. According to Burmese and Mon legend, the pagoda was built during the Buddha's lifetime to house eight hair relics given to TRAPUsA and BHALLIKA, two merchants from Ukkala who are said to have been the first disciples of the Buddha. The original account, which appears in the Pāli canon, places Ukkala in what is most likely modern-day ĀNDHRA, on the eastern coast of India. Mon-Burmese recensions of the story locate Ukkala at Dagon, acknowledgement of which is retained in the names Myauk Okkala-pa (North Ukkala) and Daung Okkala-pa (South Ukkala) given to Rangoon's suburbs. The Shwedagon is situated atop a two hundred-foot high hill, whose summit was leveled to create the four-acre plaza or platform that now surrounds the base of the shrine. The pagoda platform is approached by four covered stairways facing the cardinal directions, at the base of which are ornate entrances flanked by colossal Chinthe lions. The pagoda itself was repeatedly expanded and embellished over the centuries, reaching its current height of 326 feet in the fifteenth century. Constructed of brickwork, it is in the classical Burmese pagoda form of an inverted bell rising from an octagonal pyramidal base. These elements support a graceful spire crowned with a hti, or finial umbrella, that is encrusted with diamonds, rubies, pearls, and other gems of inestimable value. The hti also has many wind chimes, which gently tinkle in the constant breeze. The base of the pagoda is more than a quarter-mile in circumference and the entire structure is covered in gold, the accumulated munificence of generations of royal donors. Sixty-four smaller pagodas surround the main structure at its base, and at the four cardinal directions are shrines containing colossal statues of the four buddhas who have appeared in the world during the present fortunate eon (P. bhaddakappa; S. BHADRAKALPA). (See SAPTATATHĀGATA.) At one corner of the platform is a miniature replica of the main shrine, no more than a hundred feet tall. The smaller pagoda is affectionately known as the Shwedagon's older brother, as it was the model upon which the current main pagoda was based. At each corner of the Shwedagon's octagonal base is an alabaster statue of the Buddha dedicated to one of the eight days of the Burmese week (Wednesday being counted as two days), where it is believed to be especially auspicious for people born on those days to pray. A broad circumambulatory walkway paved in white marble rings the Shwedagon, which in turn is flanked with hundreds of lesser shrines dating mostly from the colonial period. Many types of religious piety are performed individually and in groups on the platform of the pagoda, such as the giving of DĀNA, freeing captured animals, processing candidates for the novitiate (B. shin-pyu), sweeping the plaza, lustrating images, reciting PARITTA texts, taking precepts, silent prayer, and meditation (B. taya a-to; P. BHĀVANĀ).
sibi. (P. Sivi; T. Shi bi; C. Shipi; J. Shibi; K. Sibi 尸毘). A king who is the protagonist of a famous JĀTAKA tale. There are two different stories associated with him. In the first, versions of which also appear in the Hindu epics, sibi is a king renowned for his generosity. Seeking to test the limits of his charity, the divinities (DEVA) sAKRA and AGNI take the form of a hawk and a dove. Pursued by the hawk, the dove seeks shelter in the king's lap. The hawk agrees to spare the dove if the king will offer in exchange flesh equal to the weight of the dove. A scale is produced and the king cuts off a piece of his own flesh. However, the gods manipulate the scale so that no matter how much of his flesh the king cuts off and places on the scale, it never equals the weight of the dove. Eventually, the king is reduced to a skeleton, at which point the gods reveal their true identity and make the king whole again. In the second version of the story, which appears in the JĀTAKAMĀLĀ and other sources, sakra, the king of the gods, hears of the king's generosity and seeks to test it. He takes the form of a blind brāhmana, who goes to King sibi and asks that the king give him his eyes. The king agrees and has his eyes removed and given to the blind man, restoring his sight. Again, the god reveals his true identity and returns the king's eyes. Both versions are famous examples of the BODHISATTVA's "gift of the body" (DEHADĀNA), which he makes as part of his practice of the perfection of giving (DĀNAPĀRAMITĀ). See also SHE SHEN.
Sibylline Books The story of the origin of the Sibylline Books of the Romans tells how a mysterious old woman appeared to Tarquinius Superbus, the last of Rome’s seven kings, and offered him nine prophetic books at a certain price; how, when he refused to buy them, she destroyed three and offered him the remaining six at the same price; how he again refused and was offered the last three at the same price; and how he then bought these three, and entrusted them to a college of guardians. From that time on they were consulted by the senate on critical occasions until they were destroyed in the burning of the temple of Jupiter; but they were replaced by other sibylline books collected at different times and from various places.
Sitatārā. (T. Sgrol dkar). In Sanskrit, "White Tārā," one of the two most significant forms of the goddess TĀRĀ, one of the most important female deities of late Indian Mahāyāna and an object of particular devotion in Tibet. Her other famous form is "Dark Tārā" or "Green Tārā" (sYĀMATĀRĀ). Sitatārā is white in color and is depicted seated in the lotus posture (PADMĀSANA). Her right hand makes the boon-granting gesture (VARADAMUDRĀ) and her left hand make the gesture of protection (ABHAYAMUDRĀ). She has seven eyes: her two eyes, a third eye in her forehead, and eyes in the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. She has a somewhat more peaceful mien than Green Tārā, and is propitiated especially for health and long life. In the story of King SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO and his two wives, one Chinese and one Nepalese, the Chinese wife, Princess WENCHENG, is said to have been an incarnation of Sitatārā.
skandhaka. (T. phung po; P. khandhaka; C. jiandu; J. kendo; K. kondo 犍度). In Sanskrit, "chapter," or "division," especially referring to a major section of the VINAYA. Whereas the PRĀTIMOKsA largely deals with the conduct of individual monk or nuns, the skandhaka primarily deals with the conduct of monks and nuns in their capacity as collective members of the SAMGHA. In the extant Sanskrit vinayas, this section is sometimes called the VINAYAVASTU. The Pāli vinaya has twenty-two sections (khandhaka). Most of the Sanskrit vinayas have twenty skandhaka, as follows. (1) pravrajyāvastu: this section deals with matters related to admission into the order as a novice (pravrajyā; see PRAVRAJITA), ordination as a fully ordained monk (UPASAMPADĀ), admission of novices (sRĀMAnERA), regulations for the interactions with the preceptor (UPĀDHYĀYA) or teacher (ĀCĀRYA), and circumstances that disqualify one from being admitted to the monastic order; (2) posadhavastu: this section deals with the UPOsADHA, or confession ceremony, including a history of its origin and the rules for its performance. (3) varsāvastu: this section deals with the annual rains retreat (VARsĀ) and the rules to be observed during that period, including what kinds of dwelling are permitted. (4) pravāranāvastu: this section deals with the ceremony that marks the end of the annual rains retreat (PRAVĀRAnĀ) and elimination of any disharmony that may have arisen during the retreat. (5) carmavastu: this section deals with leather and especially the usage of shoes. (6) bhaisajyavastu: this section deals with both medicine and food, setting forth which medicines are permitted and when they may be used; the rules concerning food set forth which foods may be accepted, how invitations from the laity should be treated; how food is to be prepared, and how the monastery storeroom should be utilized. (7) cīvaravastu: this section deals with robes (CĪVARA), including how may robes a monk may possess, how robes are to be received from the laity, how robes are to worn, and how robes are to sewn; (8) kathinavastu: this section deals specifically with the cloth (KAtHINA) that monks receive from the laity at the end of the rains retreat; (9) kosambakavastu: this section deals with the dispute that occurred between the Kausāmbī monks and how it was resolved by the Buddha, who allowed an expelled monk to be reinstated upon confession. (10) karmavastu: this section deals with ecclesiastical acts (SAMGHAKARMAN) taken by the community in various assemblies. (11) pāndulohitavastu: this section deals with disciplinary measures that are taken when violations of the monastic code occur. (12) pudgalavastu: this section deals with SAMGHĀVAsEsA infractions, the types of probationary periods (e.g., MĀNATVA; PARIVĀSA), and the procedure for reinstatement after probation. (13) pārivāsikavastu: this section describes the proper conduct of a monk during the probationary period. (14) posadhasthāpanavastu: this section sets forth the circumstances under which a monk may be excluded from the UPOsADHA ceremony. (15) samathavastu: this section deals with legal cases (ADHIKARAnA) and their resolution. (16) saMghabhedavastu: this section deals with the schisms in the saMgha (SAMGHABHEDA), including the schism caused by DEVADATTA. (17) sayanāsanavastu: this section deals with the various dwelling places of members of the saMgha. (18) ācāravastu: this section deals with conduct, especially in interactions with others, including laity, visiting monks, and forest-dwelling monks. (19) ksudrakavastu: this section deals with miscellaneous minor rules. (20) bhiksunīvastu: this section deals with the rules specific to nuns. The skandhaka begins with a biography of the Buddha that includes his genealogy, his birth, and his life up to the conversion of sĀRIPUTRA and MAHĀMAUDGALYĀYANA. It concludes with the story of the Buddha's death and goes on to describe the first Buddhist council (SAMGĪTI, see COUNCIL, FIRST) at RĀJAGṚHA and the second council (COUNCIL, SECOND) at VAIsĀLĪ. In the Tibetan BKA' 'GYUR, the vinaya section includes the above materials in the following sections: 'dul ba'i gzhi (vinayavastu), so sor thar pa (prātimoksa), 'dul ba rnam par 'byed pa (vinayavibhanga), dge slong ma'i so sor thar pa'i mdo (bhiksunī prātimoksasutra), dge slong ma'i 'dul ba rnam par 'byed pa (bhiksunī vinayavibhanga), 'dul ba phran tshegs (vinayaksudraka), 'dul ba gzhung bla ma/dam pa (vinayottaragrantha).
sodasasthavira. (T. gnas brtan bcu drug; C. shiliu zunzhe; J. jurokusonja; K. simnyuk chonja 十六尊者). In Sanskrit, "the sixteen elders" (most commonly known in the East Asian tradition as the "sixteen ARHATs"); a group of sixteen venerated arhat (C. LUOHAN) disciples of the Buddha whom the Buddha orders to forgo NIRVĀnA and to continue to dwell in this world in order to preserve the Buddhist teachings until the coming of the future buddha, MAITREYA. Each of these arhats is assigned an (often mythical) residence and a retinue of disciples. With Maitreya's advent, they will gather the relics of the current buddha sĀKYAMUNI and erect one last STuPA to hold them, after which they will finally pass into PARINIRVĀnA. The sāriputraparipṛcchā ("Sutra on sāriputra's Questions"), which was translated at least by the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420 CE) but may date closer to the beginning of the millennium, mentions four great monks (mahā-BHIKsU) to whom the Buddha entrusted the propagation of the teachings after his death: MAHĀKĀsYAPA, PIndOLA, Kundovahan (C. Juntoupohan, "Holder of the Mongoose," apparently identical to BAKKULA), and RĀHULA. The MILE XIASHENG JING ("Sutra on the Advent of Maitreya"), translated in 303 CE by DHARMARAKsA, states instead that the Buddha instructed these same four monks to wait until after the buddhadharma of the current dispensation was completely extinct before entering PARINIRVĀnA. The sāriputraparipṛcchā's account is also found in the FAHUA WENJU by TIANTAI ZHIYI (538-597) of the Sui dynasty. The Mahāyānāvatāra (C. Ru dasheng lun; "Entry into the Mahāyāna"), a treatise written by Sāramati (C. Jianyi) and translated into Chinese c. 400 CE by Daotai of the Northern Liang dynasty (397-439) first mentions "sixteen" great disciples (mahā-sRĀVAKA) who disperse throughout the world to preserve the Buddha's teachings after his death, but does not name them. Indeed, it is not until the Tang dynasty that the full list of sixteen disciples who preserve the buddhadharma is first introduced into the Chinese tradition. This complete list first appears in the Nandimitrāvadāna (Da aluohan Nantimiduo luo suoshuo fazhu ji, abbr. Fazhu ji, "Record of the Duration of the Dharma Spoken by the Great Arhat NANDIMITRA"), which was translated by XUANZANG in 654 CE. (Nandimitra [C. Qingyou zunzhe] was born in the second century CE in Sri Lanka.) This text tells the story of the Buddha's special charge to this group of elders and offers each of their names, residences, and numbers of disciples. JINGQI ZHANRAN's (711-782) Fahua wenju ji, a commentary to TIANTAI ZHIYI's (538-597) FAHUA WENJU, also cites an account from the apocryphal Ratnameghasutra (Bao yun jing) that the Buddha charged sixteen "worthy ones" (S. arhat; C. luohan) with preserving the BUDDHADHARMA until the advent of Maitreya, after which they could then enter parinirvāna. Zhanran's citation of this sutra gives the names of each of the sixteen arhats, along with their residence and the number of their followers; but while Pindola's and Rāhula's names are included in the sixteen, Mahākāsyapa is not mentioned. According to the Xuanhe huapu ("The Xuanhe Chronology of Painting"), the earliest Chinese iconography showing a group of sixteen disciples probably dates to the Liang dynasty (502-557), when ZHANG SENGYAO (d.u.; fl c. 502-549) first painted a rendering of the sodasasthavira. After the Nandimitrāvadāna was translated into Chinese in the middle of the seventh century, the group of sixteen elders became so universally revered within China that many verses, paintings, and sculptures were dedicated to them. As a group, they appear frequently in East Asian monastic art, each arhat specifically identified by his unique (and often wildly exaggerated) physical characteristics. The most renowned such painting was made at the end of the ninth century by the monk CHANYUE GUANXIU (832-912); his work became the standard presentation of the sixteen. His vivid portrayal of the arhats offers an extreme, stylized rendition of how the Chinese envisioned "Indians" (fan) or "Westerners" (hu). He gives each of his subjects a distinctive bearing and deportment and unique phrenological features and physical characteristics; these features are subsequently repeated routinely in the Chinese artistic tradition. The standard roster of arhats now recognized in the East Asian tradition, in their typical order, are (1) PIndOLA BHĀRADVĀJA; (2) KANAKAVATSA; (3) KANAKA BHĀRADVĀJA; (4) SUBINDA [alt. Suvinda]; (5) BAKKULA [alt. Bākula, Nakula]; (6) BHADRA; (7) KĀLIKA [alt. Karīka]; (8) VAJRAPUTRA; (9) JĪVAKA; (10) PANTHAKA; (11) RĀHULA; (12) NĀGASENA; (13) AnGAJA; (14) VANAVĀSIN; (15) AJITA; (16) CudAPANTHAKA. Sometime before the Song dynasty, the Chinese occasionally added two extra arhats to the roster, possibly in response to Daoist configurations of teachers, giving a total of eighteen. The most common of these additional members were Nandimitra (the putative subject of the text in which the protectors are first mentioned by name) and Pindola Bhāradvāja (another transcription of the arhat who already appears on the list), although Mahākāsyapa also frequently appears. The Tibetan tradition adds still other figures. In a standard form of the Tibetan ritual, the sixteen elders are listed as Angaja, Ajita, Vanavāsin, Kālika, Vajraputra, Bhadra, Kanakavatsa, Kanaka Bhāradvāja, Bakkula, Rāhula, Cudapanthaka, Pindola Bhāradvāja, Panthaka, Nāgasena, GOPAKA (Sbed byed), and Abheda (Mi phyed pa). They are visualized together with sākyamuni Buddha whose teaching they have been entrusted to protect, their benefactor the layman (UPĀSAKA) Dharmatāla [alt. Dharmatāra, Dharmatrāta], and the four great kings (CATURMAHĀRĀJA) VAIsRAVAnA [alt. Kubera], DHṚTARĀstRA, VIRudHAKA, and VIRuPĀKsA. Each of the elders is described as having a particular scroll, begging bowl, staff, and so on, and in a particular posture with a set number of arhats. They come miraculously from their different sacred abodes, assemble, are praised, and worshipped with the recitation of the bodhisattva SAMANTABHADRA's ten vows in the BHADRACARĪPRAnIDHĀNA. Then, with solemn requests to protect the dispensation by watching over the lives of the gurus, they are requested to return to their respective homelands. In other rituals, one finds BUDAI heshang (Cloth-Bag Monk, viz., AnGAJA), the Buddha's mother, Queen MĀYĀ, and his successor, Maitreya; or the two ancient Indian Buddhist sages "Subduer of Dragons" (C. Xianglong) and "Subduer of Lions" (C. Fuhu). See also LUOHAN; and individual entries on each of the sixteen arhats/sthaviras.
Solomonic lore the story is that Azza was the
Sonmun pojang nok. (禪門寶藏). In Korean, "Record of the Treasure Trove of the Son Tradition"; an anthology, in three rolls, of stories excerpted from various Chinese CHAN and Korean SoN texts. Although the preface of the Sonmun pojangnok was written in 1293 by the Koryo CH'oNTAE (Ch. TIANTAI) monk CH'oNCH'AEK (1206-?) to whom it is attributed, the exact authorship of the anthology is still a matter of some debate. The epilogue to the text was written in 1294 by the Koryo lay Buddhist literatus Yi Hon (1252-1312). The first roll, "The Gate That Compares Son and Kyo" (Son'gyo taebyon mun) advocates that Son is distinct from, and surpasses, KYO (Doctrinal Teachings) because, unlike Kyo, Son directly reveals Buddhist truth without relying on verbal explanation. The second roll, "The Gate through which all Kyo Lecturers Return and Yield" (Chegang kwibok mun) illustrates this superiority of Son over Kyo by citing several examples in which Kyo monks were embarrassed, or guided to an authentic awakening, by Chan or Son monks. The third roll, "The Gate Revered and Trusted by Kings and Vassals" (Kunsin sungsin mun) includes stories of kings and government officials respecting and honoring Chan and Son monks. One of the most interesting stories collected in the Sonmun pojang nok relates to the otherwise-unknown Patriarch Chin'gwi (Chin'gwi chosa). The story is recited twice in the first roll and once in the third, excerpted respectively from the Talma millok ("Secret Record of Bodhidharma"), the Haedong ch'iltae nok ("Record of the Seven Generations of the Patriarchs of Haedong [Korea]"), and the Wimyongje somun chegyong p'yon ("Section on the Emperor Ming of Wei Inquires about the Sutras"), none of which are extant. The story is extremely controversial, because it states that because sĀKYAMUNI Buddha's awakening under the BODHI TREE was still imperfect, he continued to wander looking for guidance, until he met a Chan patriarch in the Snowy Mountains (Himālaya) who was finally able to lead him to true awakening. Later, the renowned Choson monk SoNSAN HYUJoNG also included the same story in his Son'gyo sok ("Exposition of Son and Kyo"), but cited it instead from the Pomil kuksa chip ("Collected Works of the State Preceptor Pomil"), which is also not extant. However, since neither the story itself nor even the titles of any of the three texts cited in the Sonmun pojang nok are found in any Chinese Buddhist sources, it is presumed that the story itself was fabricated in Korea sometime between the times of PoMIL (810-889) and Ch'onch'aek. The Sonmun pojang nok is now embedded in the SoNMUN CH'WARYO and is also published in volume six of the Han'guk Pulgyo chonso ("Collected Works of Korean Buddhism").
sraddhā. (P. saddhā; T. dad pa; C. xin; J. shin; K. sin 信). In Sanskrit, "faith" or "confidence," a term that encompasses also the sense of "belief." Faith has a wide range of meanings in Buddhism, ranging from a kind of mental clarity and positive disposition toward the Buddha (which is often attributed to an encounter with a buddha or with the bodhisattva in a former life), to a sense of conviction about the efficacy of the Buddhist path (MĀRGA), to a commitment to follow that path. In addition to its cognitive dimensions, which will be described more fully below, faith also has important conative and affective dimensions that are frequently recounted in Buddhist literature. The conative is suggested in the compulsion towards alms-giving (DĀNA), as described for example in encounters with previous buddhas in the Pāli APADĀNA, or in the pilgrim's encounter with an object of devotion. The affective can be seen, perhaps most famously, in Ānanda's affection-driven attachment to the Buddha, which is described as a result of his deep devotion to, and faith in, the person of the Buddha. These multiple aspects of faith find arguably their fullest expression in the various accounts of the story of the Buddha's ARHAT disciple VAKKALI, who is said to have been completely enraptured with the Buddha and is described as foremost among his monk disciples in implicit faith. In the ABHIDHARMA, faith is listed as the first of the ten major omnipresent wholesome factors (KUsALAMAHĀBHuMIKA) in the seventy-five dharmas list of the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school and as a virtuous (KUsALA) mental factor (CAITTA) in the hundred-dharmas roster (BAIFA) of the YOGĀCĀRA school and in the Pāli abhidhamma. Faith is one of the foundational prerequisites of attainment, and its cognitive dimensions are described as a clarity of mind required for realization, as conviction that arises from the study of the dharma, and as a source of aspiration that encourages one to continue to develop the qualities of enlightenment. Faith is listed as the first of the five spiritual faculties (INDRIYA), together with diligence (VĪRYA), mindfulness (SMṚTI), concentration (SAMĀDHI), and wisdom (PRAJNĀ). The faculty of faith is usually considered to be the direct counteragent (PRATIPAKsA) of ill-will (DVEsA), not of doubt (VICIKITSĀ), demonstrating its affective dimension. Faith generates bliss (PRĪTI), by which brings about serenity of mind and thought; in addition, faith also produces self-confidence, engendering the conative characteristic of diligence (vīrya). Faith and wisdom (prajNā) were to be kept constantly counterpoised by the faculty of mindfulness (smṛti). By being balanced via mindfulness, faith would guard against excessive wisdom, which could lead to skepticism, while wisdom would protect against excessive faith, which could lead to blind, uncritical acceptance. Thus faith, in the context of the spiritual faculties, is a tacit acceptance of the soteriological value of specific beliefs, until such time as those beliefs are verified through practice and understood through one's own insight. There are four main soteriological objects of faith: (1) the efficacy of moral cause and effect (viz., KARMAN) and the prospect of continued rebirth (PUNARJANMAN) based on one's actions; (2) the core teachings about the conditioned nature of the world, such as dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA) and the three marks of existence (TRILAKsAnA), viz., impermanence (ANIYATA), suffering (DUḤKHA), nonself (ANĀTMAN); (3) the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) of the Buddha, DHARMA, and SAMGHA; and (4) the general soteriological outline of the path (MĀRGA) and the prospect of release from affliction through the experience of NIRVĀnA.
Sthāvarā. (T. Sa'i lha mo; C. Anzhu dishen; J. Anjujijin; K. Anju chisin 安住地神). In Sanskrit, "Immovable," the goddess of the earth, also known as PṚTHIVĪ. She plays an important role in the story of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha's enlightenment. After MĀRA and his armies were unable to unseat the BODHISATTVA, Māra challenged his right to occupy the space beneath the BODHI TREE, claiming that he, Māra, had a greater right since, as a god, he had greater merit; his army boisterously attested to Māra's claim. The bodhisattva responded that his merit was greater because he had practiced the ten perfections (PĀRAMITĀ) for many lifetimes. When Māra asked who would attest to the Bodhisattva's claim, he touched the earth with his right hand in the famous "earth-touching gesture" (BHuMISPARsAMUDRĀ), calling on the goddess of the earth to attest to the truth of his statement. She responded by causing a tremor; in some versions, she emerges from the earth to bear witness. In the GAndAVYuHA (the final chapter of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA), the bodhisattva SUDHANA sets out in search of a teacher, encountering fifty-two beings (twenty of whom are female), including the Buddha's mother MAHĀMĀYĀ, the future buddha MAITREYA, as well as AVALOKITEsVARA and MANJUsRĪ. The thirtieth being he encounters is Sthāvarā, whom he meets at BODHGAYĀ. She also bears witness to his practice of virtue and predicts that he will achieve buddhahood. See also THORANI.
Story of Mel {The story of Mel}
Sudhana. (T. Nor bzang; C. Shancai; J. Zenzai; K. Sonjae 善財). A youth who is the major protagonist of the GAndAVYuHA, the final section of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA. The story of Sudhana's search is related in the AvataMsakasutra's massive final chapter, the "Entrance into the Dharmadhātu" (C. Ru fajie pin), which also circulated independently as the GAndAVYuHA. On the instructions of the BODHISATTVA MANJUsRĪ, Sudhana sets out to the south in search of a spiritual mentor (KALYĀnAMITRA), ultimately encountering fifty-two beings (sometimes counted as fifty-three, because MaNjusrī is repeated) including the future buddha MAITREYA, as well as the bodhisattvas AVALOKITEsVARA and MaNjusrī; twenty of his teachers are female, including the Buddha's mother MAHĀMĀYĀ. His final teacher is the bodhisattva SAMANTABHADRA, who sets forth in the famous BHADRACARĪPRAnIDHĀNA the ten vows he took to realize and access the DHARMADHĀTU, which thereby enable him to benefit sentient beings. After this encounter, Sudhana attains enlightenment and roams freely himself in the dharmadhātu. Sudhana's pilgrimage has been the inspiration for much East Asian Buddhist art and his statue often appears at the side of Buddhist altars as a boy bowing to the Buddha.
Suvarnaprabhāsottamasutra. (T. Gser 'od dam pa'i mdo; C. Jinguangming zuishengwang jing; J. Konkomyo saishookyo; K. Kŭmgwangmyong ch'oesŭngwang kyong 金光明最勝王經). In Sanskrit, "Sutra of Supreme Golden Light," an influential MAHĀYĀNA sutra, especially in East Asia. Scholars speculate that the text originated in India in the fourth century and was gradually augmented. It was translated into Chinese by YIJING in 703. The sutra contains many DHĀRAnĪ and is considered by some to be a proto-tantric text; in some editions of the Tibetan canon it is classified as a TANTRA. It is important in East Asian Buddhism for two main reasons. First was the role the sutra played in conceptualizing state-protection Buddhism (HUGUO FOJIAO). The sutra declares that deities will protect the lands of rulers who worship and uphold the sutra, bringing peace and prosperity, but will abandon the lands of rulers who do not, such that all manner of catastrophe will befall their kingdoms. The sutra was thus central to "state protection" practices in East Asia, together with the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA and the RENWANG JING. Second, the sutra provides the locus classicus for the "water and land ceremony" (SHUILU HUI), a ritual intended for universal salvation, but especially of living creatures who inhabit the most painful domains of SAMSĀRA; the ceremony was also performed for a variety of this-worldly purposes, including state protection and rain-making. According to the sutra, in a previous life, the Buddha was a merchant's son named Jalavāhana, who one day encountered a dried-up pond in the forest, filled with thousands of dying fish. Summoning twenty elephants, he carried bags of water from a river into the forest and replenished the pond, saving the fish. He then sent for food with which to feed them. Finally, recalling that anyone who hears the name of the buddha Ratnasikhin will be reborn in the heavens, he waded into the pond and pronounced the Buddha's name, followed by an exposition of dependent origination. When the fish died, they were reborn in the TRĀYASTRIMsA heaven. Recalling the reason for their happy fate, they visited the world of humans, where each offered a pearl necklace to Jalavāhana's head, foot, right side, and left side. The sutra also tells the story of Prince Mahāsattva who sees a starving tigress and her cubs. He throws himself off a cliff to commit suicide so that the tiger might eat his body (see NAMO BUDDHA). This is one of the most famous cases of DEHADĀNA, or gift of the body.
symbolism: The use of characters, diction, places, or objects that mean something beyond their literal level meaning. Often the symbol is indefinite in meaning. When many objects or characters each appear to have a specific symbolic meaning, the story is usually an allegory.
Synoptic Gospels ::: Name given to the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) in the Christian “New Testament,” which view the story of Jesus from the same general perspective.
Tehmi: “This is a reference to the story of Hercules who married Deianeira, the daughter of King Oeneus. One day he and his wife had to cross a stream swollen by rains. As his wife could not swim Hercules asked the centaur boatman to ferry her across. Midway across the centaur began to molest Deianeira. Hercules then shot him with a poison arrow that had been dipped in the Hydra’s blood. As the centaur was dying he told the naïve Deianeira to dip a shirt in his blood and whenever she felt Hercules was betraying her to send him the shirt and he would remain faithful to her. Long afterward Hercules went on a journey and Deianeira suspected him of being unfaithful and sent him the blood-glued shirt. Hercules put on the shirt which burned his flesh to the bone, killing him.”**
“That the story is an allegory is seen upon its very face: the 60,000 Sons, brutal, vicious, and impious, are the personification of the human passions that a ‘mere glance of the sage’ — the self who represents the highest state of purity that can be reached on earth — reduces to ashes. But it has also other significations — cyclic and chronological meanings, — a method of marking the periods when certain sages flourished, found also in other Puranas” (SD 2:571).
The “death” of the sun god at the winter solstice marks the nadir of the cycle of the year before the rejuvenation of spring. One meaning of the story in the Edda is the inevitable withdrawal of the guiding gods from association with the early races of mankind, to enable humanity to become independent and to seek and find its own way back to its divine source.
The exoteric literature of Orphism is scanty, while the esoteric teachings were never committed to writing. Outside of the Orphic Tablets and Orphic Hymns, no original material has been discovered to date. Scholars judging from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, have held that the Eleusinian Mystery-drama was based solely on the story of Persephone; but later researches indicate that, under the influence of Epimenides and Onomakritos, both deep students of Orphism, the Orphic Mystery tale of Zagreus-Dionysos was incorporated in the Eleusian ritual, the divine son Iacchos becoming thus identified with the Orphic god-man, Zagreus-Dionysos.
“The first three chapters are transcribed from the allegorical narratives of the beginnings common to all nations. Chapters four and five are a new allegorical adaptation of the same narration in the secret Book of Numbers; chapter six is an astronomical narrative of the Solar year and the seven cosmocratores from the Egyptian original of the Pymander and the symbolical visions of a series of Enoichioi (Seers) — from whom came also the Book of Enoch. The beginning of Exodus, and the story of Moses is that of the Babylonian Sargon, who having flourished . . . 3750 b.c. preceded the Jewish lawgiver by almost 2300 years. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II., pp. 691 et seq.) Nevertheless, Genesis is an undeniably esoteric work. It has not borrowed, nor has it disfigured the universal symbols and teachings on the lines of which it was written, but simply adapted the eternal truths to its own national spirit and clothed them in cunning allegories comprehensible only to its Kabbalists and Initiates” (TG 127).
the Jews. In the story relating to Ahasuerus and
The Mother: ‘There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical body – they have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount. . . the Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I don"t know what has become of him. As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted but he found it disgusting!
The Mother: ‘There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical body—they have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount. . . the Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I don’t know what has become of him. As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted but he found it disgusting!
The older Hebrews had no such devil; the word Satan is nearly always used in the ordinary sense of adversary. In Job, Satan is an emissary of God, one of his sons, charged with a mission to test Job. The original Hebrew God is supreme, author of both good and evil. But with the later Hebrews the idea underwent modification, and the notion of an evil deity arose, possibly from an adoption of Persian dualism acquired during the captivity. At the time the Gospels were written it is evident that the idea of a prince of darkness was very real and ever-present, though the story of the temptation of Jesus is evidently a picture of the triumph of an initiate over the forces of terrestrial nature.
There appears to have been no question in antiquity as to the actual historical existence of a godlike man who founded the Orphic religion or Mysteries, and whose work was continued by others in direct line, some of whom took his name, for no less than six different teachers by the name of Orpheus were known. When we add to the historic account the story of Orpheus as the Magician-Bard, and the legends of his divinity, his marriage with Eurydice (esoteric wisdom), his teaching, his agony and passion, and finally his martyr’s death — legends almost identical with some of those attached to world-saviors such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Mithra — it is clear that he was not only a great teacher in himself, but an important link in the Hermetic Chain of esoteric succession.
The receipt, so the story goes, is on deposit “to
These stories refer in part to an actual great deluge in the world’s history, mainly to the sinking of the great and smaller islands of the Atlantean continental stretches. In many if not all the versions, we find that a race had become so corrupt that nature or the gods would no longer tolerate it, and destroyed it and brought forth a new race. There is usually a type-figure, like the Hebrew Noah, who builds an ark or other vessel of salvation, thus saving from the waters the righteous few to be the seeds of the new race. In many versions are traditions of the destruction of the preceding root-race, Atlantis, by water, and of the saving of various groups of human remnants to found new civilizations on lands, then or shortly later geologically speaking, emerging from the ocean. But besides the particular application to this latest cataclysm in the earth’s history, the story refers to cataclysms in general, to the death of old races and the birth of new ones. The evolution of the earth goes on pari passu with that of the beings upon it. These stories are evidently allegorical as well, with reference to cosmological facts. See also ARK
the story in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Another
The story is in one sense but another version of that of manas between kama and buddhi. Zeus represents the host of primeval progenitors, pitris (fathers) who formed man without mind; and Prometheus symbolizes the host of spiritual creators who “fell” into matter — humanity — to enlighten the latter. The drama of Prometheus is thus still enacted through the ages — but man can rebecome the unfallen titan. Geographical allusions to the locations of the great root-races are seen in the mention of Mt. Caucasus, a name for the far north where the Aryan race, as an instance, was first developed.
The story of Cupid and Psyche — where Psyche represents the human soul as such, apart from special connection with buddhi or kama — depicts the search for happiness, or the course of human love. Psyche is of mortal birth, but so beautiful that Venus herself becomes jealous and sends Cupid to inspire Psyche with love for an unworthy object. But Cupid himself becomes enamored of Psyche. The love between Cupid and Psyche cannot be realized in the atmosphere of earthly passion and delusion, and is fulfilled only when Psyche, reconciled with Venus, is taken to the Olympian heights. The emblem of Psyche was the butterfly, which in winged joy comes forth into the sunlight from its prison of caterpillar and chrysalis.
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer "programming, person" A 1983 article by Ed Nather about {hacker} {Mel Kaye}. The full text follows. A recent article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, "Real Programmers write in FORTRAN". Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of {drums} and {vacuum tubes}, Real Programmers wrote in {machine code} - not {Fortran}, not {RATFOR}, not even {assembly language} - {Machine Code}, raw, unadorned, inscrutable {hexadecimal} numbers, directly. Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name. I first met Mel when I went to work for {Royal McBee Computer Corporation}, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the {LGP-30}, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) {drum}-memory computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a much-improved, bigger, better, faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.) I had been hired to write a {Fortran} compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers. "If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?" Mel had written, in {hexadecimal}, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the {LGP-30} and played blackjack with potential customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed. Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the {RPC-4000}. ({Port}? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the {operation code} and the address of the needed {operand}, had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a {GO TO}! Put *that* in {Pascal}'s pipe and smoke it. Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing assembler", but Mel refused to use it. "You never know where its going to put things", he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants". It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify. I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the "{top-down}" method of program design hadn't been invented yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way. Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky {Flexowriter} required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just *past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most pessimum". After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, ("Even the initialiser is optimised", he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimised) {random number generator} to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win. Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backward, and, when the sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it. After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure. I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius. Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out. The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an {index register}. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it. Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this additional execution time was taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it. The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me. He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way. I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised. When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer." [Posted to {Usenet} by its author, Ed Nather "utastro!nather", on 1983-05-21]. {Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html)}. [{On the trail of a Real Programmer (http://www.jamtronix.com/blog/2011/03/25/on-the-trail-of-a-real-programmer/)}, 2011-03-25 blog post by "jonno" at Jamtronix] [When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?] (2003-09-12)
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer ::: (programming, person) An article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, Real Programmers write in Fortran. language - Machine Code. Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers, directly.Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name.I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corporation, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.)I had been hired to write a Fortran compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers.If a program can't rewrite its own code, he asked, what good is it?Mel had written, in hexadecimal, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the LGP-30 and played blackjack with potential customers at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed.Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the RPC-4000. (Port? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a GO TO! Put *that* in Pascal's pipe and smoke it.Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be was a program to do that job, an optimizing assembler, but Mel refused to use it.You never know where its going to put things, he explained, so you'd have to use separate constants.It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every pick up an earlier add instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify.I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way.Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky Flexowriter required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located practice to make it relative: not quite optimum or less optimum or not very optimum. Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the most pessimum.After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, (Even the initialiser is optimised, he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win.Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it.After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure.I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out.The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it.Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it.The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me.He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way.I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised.When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer.[Posted to USENET by its author, Ed Nather utastro!nather>, on 1983-05-21]. .[When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?](2003-09-12)
The story of Mel {The story of Mel, a Real Programmer}
The story relates that when Ymir, the frost giant, was killed (transformed) by the creative trinity of gods, and made into the worlds, all the evil frost giants were drowned in his blood, save Bergelmir. He is saved on a boat-keel and ground on the mill to become the substance for a new creation.
The Vendidad (Pahlavi) or Vidaeva-data (Avestan) [from vi against + daeva evil + data law] has 22 fargards (chapters) of which the first two deal with the story of creation and the origin of civilization. The rest is the code of priesthood. The 21 Yashts are the epic of Yazatas or Izads (gods), composed in prose form. Their legends are often comparable with those of Shah-Nameh. Some hymns and prayers from other parts of the Avesta are found in shorter Yashts. There seems to be more profundity and originality of style in the longer Yashts. The Khorde Avesta (Avestan) or Khordak-Appestak (Pahlavi), meaning bits and pieces of Avesta, consists of different prayers taken from the other four parts of the Avesta, put together by Azarabad, the son of Mehrispand, during the reign of Shahpour II (310-379).
Thorani. In Thailand and Laos, Phra Mae (Mother) Thorani or Nang (Lady) Thorani; a female deity depicted in mural depictions of the life of the Buddha. The name Thorani is the Thai and Lao pronunciation of the Sanskrit term DHĀRAnĪ, which, in addition to its common Buddhist denotation of "code" or "spell," also means "the earth," "soil," or "ground." In a variation of the story of STHĀVARĀ, as the future Buddha sat in meditation about to attain enlightenment, he was attacked by MĀRA and his minions. Māra taunted him, saying that the bodhisattva had no one to attest to his worthiness of becoming a buddha, whereas his vast retinue was present to attest that he, Māra, should be acknowledged as the awakened one. The Buddha then touched the earth with his right hand and summoned the earth to bear witness to his meritorious acts (see BHuMISPARsAMUDRĀ), particularly acts of giving (DĀNA), that he had performed in past existences. Lady Thorani then appeared from out of the earth in the form of a beautiful woman with long wet hair. As she wrung out her hair, all the water that had accumulated on the earth each time the Buddha offered donative libations during his myriad past lives became such a torrential deluge that it swept away Māra and all his minions. (Pouring a ceremonial libation of water is a common way to conclude many ceremonies and offering rituals in Southeast Asian Buddhism.) In paintings, Lady Thorani stands beneath the VAJRĀSANA of the Buddha while Māra and his retinue are off to either side, caught in the floodwaters. Central city shrines to Lady Thorani can be found in both Laos and northeastern Thailand, and in the past, it was common for households in northeastern Thailand to have a small shrine dedicated to Lady Thorani in their household compounds.
Tiwei [Boli] jing. (提謂[波利]經). In Chinese, "Book of Trapusa [and Bhallika]"; an indigenous Chinese SuTRA (see APOCRYPHA), written c. 460-464 during the Northern Wei dynasty, which praises the value of lay practice. The scripture is a retelling of the story of the encounter between the merchants TRAPUsA and (in some versions) his brother BHALLIKA, who offered the Buddha his first meal after his enlightenment. Following the meal, the Buddha is said to have taught the brothers and transmitted to them the first two of the three refuges (see TRIsARAnA) (the SAMGHA not yet existing at the incipiency of the religion), rendering them the first lay disciples (UPĀSAKA) of the Buddha. The Chinese text offers an extended account of what the Buddha taught during that first informal discussion of his experience. The Buddha's account of the dharma discusses the Buddhist value of keeping the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA) and the lay practice of giving (DĀNA), but all set within a philosophical framework that draws heavily on indigenous Chinese concepts of the five phases or elements, the five viscera, etc., as well as the importance of karmic cause and effect.
TWENEX ::: (operating system) /twe'neks/ The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC - the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 - preferred by most PDP-10 hackers over krans meant funeral wreath in Swedish (though some Swedish speakers have since said it means simply wreath; this part of the story may be apocryphal).Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed. The hacker community, mindful of its origins, convert to VMS, but instead, by the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20 hackers had migrated to Unix.[Jargon File] (1995-04-01)
TWENEX "operating system" /twe'neks/ The TOPS-20 {operating system} by {DEC} - the second proprietary OS for the {PDP-10} - preferred by most PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not {ITS} or {WAITS} partisans). TOPS-20 began in 1969 as {Bolt, Beranek & Newman}'s {TENEX} operating system using special paging hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the {ARPANET} ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own. The first in-house code name for the operating system was VIROS (VIRtual memory Operating System); when customers started asking questions, the name was changed to SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project called VIROS. When the name SNARK became known, the name was briefly reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when someone objected that "krans" meant "funeral wreath" in Swedish (though some Swedish speakers have since said it means simply "wreath"; this part of the story may be apocryphal). Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed. The hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed it TWENEX (a contraction of "twenty TENEX"), even though by this point very little of the original TENEX code remained (analogously to the differences between AT&T V6 Unix and BSD). DEC people cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but the term caught on nevertheless (the written abbreviation "20x" was also used). TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact, there was a period in the early 1980s when it commanded as fervent a culture of partisans as Unix or ITS - but DEC's decision to scrap all the internal rivals to the VAX architecture and its relatively stodgy VMS OS killed the DEC-20 and put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in the sun. DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20 users to convert to {VMS}, but instead, by the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20 hackers had migrated to Unix. [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-01)
Udāyana Buddha. (C. Youtian wang Shijia xiang; J. Uten'o Shakazo; K. Ujon wang Sokka sang 優塡王釋迦像). An Indian sandalwood image of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha that is purported to be the world's first Buddha image; supposedly commissioned by the VATSĀ king Udāyana (also called Rudrāyana in some versions) and hence named after him. While ancient Indian sources only mention a buddha image made for king PRASENAJIT, the story of this supposedly earlier image made for King Udāyana first appears in the 397 CE Chinese translation of the EKOTTARĀGAMA. XUANZANG later reports a legend about the image's production. According to this legend, when sĀKYAMUNI Buddha ascended to the TRĀYASTRIMsA (heaven of the thirty-three) to preach the DHARMA to his mother MĀYĀ, King Udāyana so missed his teacher that he asked MAHĀMAUDGALYĀYANA to transport an artist to the heaven to observe the Buddha's thirty-two bodily marks (MAHĀPURUsALAKsAnA) and carve a sandalwood image of the master. Subsequent Indian rulers were unable to dislodge the miraculously powerful statue from its spot and therefore made copies of it for their own realms. FAXIAN and Xuanzang remark in their travel records that they saw a sandalwood image at the JETAVANA VIHĀRA in sRĀVASTĪ, which had been commissioned by King Prasenajit on the model of the Udāyana image. In addition, Xuanzang saw a Udāyana Buddha image enshrined in a large vihāra at Kausāmbī, and mentions a third one, which was reputedly the original statue, that had flown north over the mountains to the Central Asian oasis kingdom of KHOTAN. Both KUMĀRAJĪVA and Xuanzang are claimed to have brought the Udāyana Buddha image to the Chinese capital of Chang'an. The Japanese pilgrim Chonen (938-1016), during his sojourn in China, saw a replica of the allegedly original Indian statue at Qishenyuan in Kaifeng. He hired the artisans Zhang Yanjiao and Zhang Yanxi to make an exact copy of this replica. According to the legend, the original statue spoke to Chonen in a dream, expressing its wish to go to Japan. Chonen thus darkened the copy with smoke and took the original to Japan in 986. The tenth-century Chinese wooden sculpture is commonly known as the Seiryoji Shaka, since it was enshrined in 1022 in the monastery of Seiryoji. In February 1954, a group of Japanese scholars, including the renowned Buddhologist and Seiryoji abbot, Tsukamoto Zenryu (1898-1980), opened the cavity in the back of the image and discovered that it contained silk and brocade textiles, coins, mirrors, glass fragments, a small brass bell, textile intestines, wood-block prints of texts such as the VAJRACCHEDIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA ("Diamond Sutra"), a Japanese manuscript of the SUVARnAPRABHĀSOTTAMASuTRA ("Sutra of Golden Light") dated 804, as well as other handwritten documents, such as a vow written by Chonen and Gizo dated 972, which they witnessed with the imprint of their hands in their own blood. The veneration of the Udāyana Buddha image reached its peak in thirteenth-century Japan, when further copies of the Seiryoji Shaka were made, for example, at SAIDAIJI (dated 1249) and ToSHoDAIJI (dated 1258) in Nara and at Gokurakuji (second half of the thirteenth century) in Kamakura.
Ugra. (P. Ugga; T. Drag shul can; C. Yuqie; J. Ikuga/Ikuka; K. Ukka 郁伽). An eminent lay disciple of the Buddha whom he declared to be foremost among laymen who give pleasant gifts. According to the Pāli accounts, where he is known as Ugga, he was a householder who lived in Vesāli (S. VAIsĀLĪ). He became a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA) when he saw the Buddha the first time and later became a nonreturner (ANĀGĀMIN). He vowed to give to the Buddha and his followers whatever they found most agreeable. The Buddha, reading his mind, appeared before him, whereupon he provided them with a sumptuous meal and communicated his intentions to the Buddha. The list of favorite things included rice cakes in the shape of sāla flowers, pork, and Kāsī cloth. He was possessed of six special qualities: steadfast confidence in the Buddha, his teachings, and the order, noble conduct, insight, and liberation. Ugga declared that there were eight wonderful things that happened to him and that he did in this life. The list is similar to what is found in the story of UDGATA and concludes with the freedom he achieved from the five lower fetters (SAMYOJANA) that bind living beings to the cycle of existence: belief in the existence of the body as a real person (P. sakkāyaditthi; S. SATKĀYADṚstI), doubt about the efficacy of the path (P. vicikicchā; S. VICIKITSĀ), clinging to the rules and rituals (P. sīlabbataparāmāsa; S. sĪLAVRATAPARĀMARsA), sensuous craving (KĀMARĀGA), and ill will (VYĀPĀDA). When Ugga died, he was reborn in the realm of subtle materiality (RuPALOKA) among the divinities who project mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKĀYA). He visited the Buddha and informed him that he had attained arhatship in that existence.
Ulysses (Latin) Odysseus (Greek) Homeric hero who, because of his shrewdness and canny actions, has become a stock literary figure typifying cunning. His ten-year journey home from the Trojan War to Ithaca is told in the Odyssey. The story of his putting out the eye of the Cyclops is an esoteric allegory of the triumph of the oncoming fourth root-race, whose greater brain-mind cunning caused the atrophy of the third eye of the third root-race as typified by Polyphemus.
untrue ::: a. --> Not true; false; contrary to the fact; as, the story is untrue.
Not faithful; inconstant; false; disloyal. ::: adv. --> Untruly.
vālmīki ::: Writer of the sacred Rāmāyana of India, a 24,000 verse epic written in Sanskrit around 300 BC, which tells the story of Rāma and his wife Sītā who was abducted by the demon Rāvana. It is said that Vālmīki had been a highway robber who, under the guidance of Maharshi Nārada, became a holy-man.
Vendidad (Pahlavi) [from vi-daevo-datem the anti-demonic law] The principal book of the Avesta, consisting of 22 sections or fargards. The major part of the book is concerned with detailed instructions and teachings on how to avoid sin and defilement by moral and physical purification, “each of which teachings is based on Occult laws” (TG 363). The first fargard tells the story of the creation, and the legend of Yima and the Golden Age. Another tells of the formation of our earth and its six companion karshvares or globes.
Vessantara. (S. Visvantara/VisvaMtara; T. Thams cad sgrol; C. Xudana; J. Shudainu/Shudaina; K. Sudaena 須大拏). Pāli name of a prince who is the subject of the most famous of all JĀTAKA tales; he was the BODHISATTVA's final existence before he took rebirth in TUsITA heaven, where he awaited the moment when he would descend into Queen MĀYĀ's womb to be born as Prince SIDDHĀRTHA and eventually become GAUTAMA Buddha. During his lifetime as Prince Vessantara, the bodhisattva (P. bodhisatta) fulfilled the perfection (P. pāramī; S. PĀRAMITĀ) of generosity (DĀNA; see also DĀNAPĀRAMITĀ). The story is found in Sanskrit in Āryasura's JĀTAKAMĀLĀ and Ksemendra's Avadānakalpalatā, with the same main features as in the Pāli version. The story enjoys its greatest popularity in Southeast Asia, so the Pāli version is described here. ¶ The bodhisattva was born as the crown prince of Sivirattha, the son of King SaNjaya and Queen Phusatī of the kingdom of Jetuttara. On the day of his birth, a white elephant named Paccaya was also born, who had the power to make rain. When Vessantara was sixteen, he married a maiden named Maddī, with whom he had a son and a daughter, Jāli and Kanhajinā. Once, when Kalinga was suffering a severe drought, brāhmanas from that kingdom requested that Vessantara give them his white elephant to alleviate their plight. Vessantara complied, handing over to them his elephant along with its accessories. The citizens of Jetuttara were outraged that he should deprive his own kingdom of such a treasure and demanded his banishment to the distant mountain of Vankagiri. His father, King SaNjaya, consented and ordered Vessantara to leave via the road frequented by highwaymen. Before his departure, Vessantara held a great almsgiving, in which he distributed seven hundred of every type of thing. Maddī insisted that she and her children accompany the prince, and they were transported out of the city on a grand carriage pulled by four horses. Four brāhmanas begged for his horses, which he gave. Gods then pulled his carriage until a brāhmana begged for his carriage. Thereafter, they traveled on foot. Along the way crowds gathered, some even offering their kingdoms for him to rule, so famous was he for his generosity. At Vankagiri, they lived in two hermitages, one for Vessantara and the other for his wife and children. These had been constructed for them by Vissakamma, architect of the gods. There, they passed four months until one day an old brāhmana named Jujaka arrived and asked for Jāli and Kanhajinā as slaves. Vessantara expected this to occur, so he sent his wife on an errand so that she would not be distressed at the sight of him giving their children away. Jujaka was cruel, and the children ran away to their father, only to be returned so that Vessantara's generosity could be perfected. When Maddī returned, she fainted at the news. Then, Sakka (sAKRA), king of the gods, assumed the form of a brāhmana and asked for Maddī; Vessantara gave his wife to the brāhmana. The earth quaked at the gift. Sakka immediately revealed his identity and returned Maddī, granting Vessantara eight boons. In the meantime, Jujaka, the cruel brāhmana, traveled to Jetuttara, where King SaNjaya bought the children for a great amount of treasure, including a seven-storied palace. Jujaka, however, died of overeating and left no heirs, so the treasure was returned to the king. Meanwhile, the white elephant was returned because the kingdom of Kalinga could not maintain him. A grand entourage was sent to Vankagiri to fetch Vessantara and Maddī, and when they returned amid great celebration they were crowned king and queen of Sivirattha. In order that Vessantara would be able to satisfy all who came for gifts, Sakka rained down jewels waist deep on the palace. When Vessantara died, he was born as a god in tusita heaven, where he awaited his last rebirth as Siddhattha Gotama, when he would become a buddha. ¶ As a depiction of the virtue of dāna, the story of Vessantara is one of the most important Buddhist tales in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia and is depicted on murals throughout the region. Thai retellings of the Vessantara-Jātaka, known also as the Mahāchat, or "Great Jātaka," are found in the many Thai dialects and consist of thirteen chapters. The story is popular in Thailand's north and especially in the northeast, where virtually every monastery (excluding forest monasteries) holds a festival known as the Bun Phra Wet, usually in February or March, at which the entire story is recited in one day and one night. Laypeople assist in decorating their local monastery with trunks and branches of banana trees to represent the forest to which Vessantara was banished after giving away his kingdom's auspicious elephant. They also present offerings of flowers, hanging decorations, balls of glutinous rice, and money. The festival includes, among other things, a procession to the monastery that includes local women carrying long horizontal cloth banners on which the Vessantara story is painted. The merit earned by participating in the festival is linked to two beliefs: (1) that the participant will be reborn at the time of the future buddha, MAITREYA, known in Thai as Phra Si Ariya Mettrai (P. Ariya Metteyya), and (2) that the community, which remains primarily agricultural, will be blessed with sufficient rainfall.
vihāra. (T. gtsug lag khang/dgon pa; C. zhu/jingshe; J. ju/shoja; K. chu/chongsa 住/精舎). In Sanskrit and Pāli, lit. "abode"; the term commonly used for a dwelling place for monks and nuns, and thus typically translated as "monastery." In the story of the life of the Buddha, in the early days of the saMgha the monks had no fixed abode but wandered throughout the year. Eventually, the Buddha instructed monks to cease their peregrinations during the torrential monsoon period in order to prevent the killing of insects and worms while walking on muddy roads. The residences established for use during the rains retreat (VARsĀ) are called varsāvāsa or "rains abode," and the institution of the rains retreat (and the consequent need for more permanent shelter) probably led to the development of formal monasteries. According to the VINAYA, a vihāra must be donated to the SAMGHA and, once accepted, it may never be given back, but remains in perpetuity the property of the order. There are various rules and recommendations concerning the layout of a vihāra. According to the Pāli VINAYA, a vihāra may be plastered and decorated, but never using figures of human beings. It may have three kinds of rooms, upper, large, and small. These rooms are typically arrayed around a central courtyard that often enshrined a sapling of a BODHI TREE or a STuPA. The vihāra should have a refectory and a place for storing water, and it may be surrounded by a wall. It should be neither too near nor too far from a town or village and be suitable for gathering alms but secluded enough to be conducive to study and contemplation. A vihāra may be constructed for the use of the entire congregation of monks or nuns or for personal use. If a proposed vihāra for an individual monk is large or grand, permission for its construction must first be granted by the saMgha. The Indian state of Bihar takes its name from the many Buddhist vihāras that were once scattered throughout the region. See also entries on specific monasteries.
Votan A legislator and deified hero of ancient America, regarded as the traditional founder of culture in Central America. The traditions of the people as recorded by Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg tell that he came across the waters in large ships, he and his companions wearing long flowing garments and speaking a language akin to the Nahuatl — which is similar to the story told about Quetzalcoatl. He found the people of Central America, from Darien to California, in a barbarous condition, living in rude huts or caverns, using skins of beasts for clothing. Votan instructed the people in the sciences and arts, such as in the use of agriculture and the art of weaving; established forms of government; and taught them the truth about the gods and their supreme head called the god of truth, who was at first worshiped without temples and without altars. According to legend he founded the city of Palenque, said to be the oldest city in Central America.
waldo /wol'doh/ [Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"] 1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb. When these were developed for the nuclear industry in the mid-1940s they were named after the invention described by Heinlein in the story, which he wrote in 1942. Now known by the more generic term "telefactoring", this technology is of intense interest to NASA for tasks like space station maintenance. 2. At Harvard (particularly by Tom Cheatham and students), this is used instead of {foobar} as a {metasyntactic variable} and general nonsense word. [{Jargon File}] (2015-03-22)
When a sravaka from theory goes into the actual practice of self-control in all its senses, he becomes a sramana, a practicer of the esoteric instructions. Mere asceticism, however, apart from strict spiritual aspiration and intellectual training, is of little value, and too often distracts the attention of the student merely to care for the body and its appetites. The story of the Buddha himself well illustrates this, for the time came when he abandoned ascetic mortification of the body and turned his entire attention to the far greater and more difficult spiritual and intellectual discipline and evolution.
Yasenkanna. [alt. Yasenkanwa] (夜船閑話). In Japanese, "Idle Talk on a Night Boat"; a short meditative text composed by the ZEN master HAKUIN EKAKU in the RINZAISHu, and his most popular piece. The Yasenkanna was first published in 1757 and has remained in print ever since. The title seems to be an allusion to the popular saying, "night boat on the Shirakawa River" (Shirakawa yasen), which refers to the story of a man from the countryside and the lies he tells about his trip to Kyoto. Hakuin wrote the Yasenkanna to offer beginners of meditation an expedient technique for overcoming "Zen illness" (zenbyo) and fatigue. The Yasenkanna details Hakuin's own bout with this illness and his miraculous recovery with the help of a secret technique known as inner discernment or visualization (naikan), which he purports to have learned from the obscure hermit Hakuyu. Different versions of this story also appear in Hakuin's other writings, such as the Kanzanshi sendai kimon, Orategama, and Itsumadegusa.
Yasodharā. (P. Yasodharā; T. Grags 'dzin ma; C. Yeshutuoluo; J. Yashudara; K. Yasudara 耶輸陀羅). The Sanskrit proper name of wife of the prince and BODHISATTVA, SIDDHĀRTHA GAUTAMA, and mother of his son, RĀHULA (she is often known in Pāli sources as Rāhulamātā, Rāhula's Mother); she eventually became an ARHAT, who was declared by the Buddha to be foremost among nuns possessing the six superknowledges (ABHIJNĀ; P. abhiNNā). According to Pāli accounts, she was born on the same day as Prince Gautama and had skin the color of gold, hence another of her epithets, Bhaddā Kaccānā. She is also referred to in Pāli commentaries as Bimbā. Yasodharā married the prince when she was sixteen, after he had proved his superior skill in archery and other manly arts. She was chief consort in a harem of forty thousand women. On the day her son, Rāhula, was born, the prince renounced the world and abandoned his wife, child, and palace to become a mendicant. According to another version of the story, Rāhula was conceived on the night of the prince's departure and was not born until the night of the prince's enlightenment, six years later. Yasodharā was so heartbroken at her husband's departure that she took up his ascetic lifestyle, eating only one meal per day and wearing the yellow robes of a mendicant. When the Buddha returned to his former palace in KAPILAVASTU after his enlightenment, Yasodharā was allowed the honor of worshipping him in the manner she saw fit. After seven days, as the Buddha was about to depart, Yasodharā instructed her son Rāhula to ask for his inheritance. In response, the Buddha instructed sĀRIPUTRA to ordain his son. As Rāhula was the first child to be admitted to the order, he became the first Buddhist novice (sRĀMAnERA). Yasodharā and Rāhula's grandfather sUDDHODANA were greatly saddened at losing the child and heir to the order; hence, at suddhodana's request, the Buddha passed a rule that, thenceforth, no child should be ordained without the consent of its parents. When later the Buddha allowed women to enter the order, Yasodharā became a nun (BHIKsUnĪ) under MAHĀPRAJĀPATĪ, who was chief of the nuns' order and the Buddha's stepmother. Yasodharā cultivated insight and became an arhat with extraordinary supranormal powers. She could recall her past lives stretching back an immeasurable age and one hundred thousand eons without effort. The JĀTAKA records numerous occasions when Yasodharā had been the wife of the bodhisattva in earlier existences. Also mentioned as the wife of the Buddha is Gopā, although it is unclear whether this refers to another wife or is another name for Yasodharā.
ye dharmā. In Sanskrit, lit. "those phenomena..."; the opening words of perhaps the most famous synopsis of the teachings of Buddhism; the full declaration in Sanskrit is "ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuM tesāM tathāgato hy avadat tesāM ca yo nirodha, evaM vādī mahāsramanaḥ": "Of those phenomena produced through causes, the TATHĀGATA has proclaimed their causes (HETU) and also their cessation (NIRODHA). Thus has spoken the great renunciant (sRAMAnA)." This statement plays a central role in the story of sĀRIPUTRA's conversion. sāriputra, who was a disciple of the agnostic teacher SANJAYA VAIRĀtĪPUTRA, encountered one of the Buddha's five original disciples (PANCAVARGIKA), AsVAJIT. Noticing Asvajit's serene countenance, sāriputra asked him who his teacher might be, to which Asvajit replied that his teacher was the Buddha. When sāriputra asked what it was that the Buddha taught, Asvajit demurred, explaining that he had only recently renounced the life of a householder and was unable to present the teaching in full. sāriputra asked Asvajit to give him the gist of the Buddha's teaching. Asvajit replied with this famous ye dharmā line. Immediately upon hearing these words, sāriputra is said to have gained the rank of stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA), the first stage of sanctity (ĀRYAMĀRGA). He then asked the whereabouts of the Buddha and was ordained, going on to become the disciple most renowned for his wisdom. Asvajit's précis points to the central importance of causality in the Buddha's teachings and provides a kind of summary of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. The Buddha has identified the causes (such as KARMAN and KLEsA) of those things that have causes (such as suffering, S. DUḤKHA), and he has also identified their cessation in the experience of NIRVĀnA. What may therefore have begun as a simple statement to mollify an eager questioner eventually became a slogan and ultimately a MANTRA, the very recitation of which was said to produce apotropaic powers. Like a mantra, the words of the ye dharmā slogan were often transcribed phonetically, rather than translated, into various languages across Asia. These words were also often written on strips of paper and enshrined in STuPAs; they thus became a dharmaverse relic (sARĪRA), serving as a substitute for a bodily relic of the Buddha.
Ye shes 'od. (Yeshe Ö) (947-1024). A Tibetan king of the western region of GU GE credited with inspiring a revival of Buddhism that initiated the latter dissemination (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. He decried the state of Tibetan Buddhist practice, especially the practice of TANTRA, in a famous ordinance (bka' shog), complaining that people were engaging in murder and illicit sex under the guise of the tantric practices of "liberation" (grol) and "union" (sbyor). According to a famous story, Ye shes 'od was captured by a Gar log Turk chieftain while seeking to raise the capital necessary to invite ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA to Tibet. He then sacrificed his own life by commanding his grandnephew BYANG CHUB 'OD to use whatever gold had been accumulated not as a ransom for his own release, but rather as an offering to the Indian scholar. Atisa was so moved by the king's act of selflessness that, despite his previous declinations, he agreed to make the journey north. Traditional accounts also suggest that Ye shes 'od sponsored a group of twenty-two young scholars to study Indian languages and tantric literature in Kashmir (see KASHMIR-GANDHĀRA), of whom only two survived: the translators RIN CHEN BZANG PO and RNGOG LEGS PA'I SHES RAB. Both the story of his noble death for the sake of Atisa's invitation and the story of his sponsorship of Rin chen bzang po present difficulties in chronology, suggesting that they are embellishments. He is also credited with inspiring the establishment of numerous religious institutions, including THO LING, NYAR MA, and TA PHO. He is also known as Lha bla ma (Lha Lama).
Yiddish, the eavesdropper being the storyteller Isaac Bashevis Singer. Furthermore, we have it
Zipporah is similar to the City Sippara — situated on the Euphrates River north of Babylon — where the casting of the infant Sargon occurred, which is practically identical with the story of Moses, only said to have happened about 1100 years earlier. Blavatsky concludes that Ezra applied this story to that of the prophet Moses when he compiled his history in Exodus.
KEYS (10k)
8 The Mother
4 Manly P Hall
1 Waking Life
1 Tom Butler-Bowdon
1 Stanley Kubrick
1 Sogyal Rinpoche
1 Oriah Mountain Dreamer
1 Manly P Hall?
1 Lewis Carroll
1 Jeff Foster
1 James K Bowers
1 Haruki Murakami
1 Douglas Adams
1 Matsuo Basho
1 Adi Sankara
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
17 Stephen King
17 Anonymous
11 Haruki Murakami
11 Donald Miller
9 Neil Gaiman
6 Manly P Hall
6 Jack Kerouac
5 Ursula K Le Guin
5 Sarah Dessen
5 Salman Rushdie
5 Rumi
5 Kate DiCamillo
5 Karl Lagerfeld
5 Flannery O Connor
5 Elie Wiesel
5 Douglas Adams
4 William Shakespeare
4 Terry Pratchett
4 Seanan McGuire
4 Rick Riordan
1:Sometimes the title IS the story, and the rest is just an explanation. ~ James K Bowers, [T5], #KEYS
2:When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.
~ Haruki Murakami,#KEYS
3:If the individual cannot dream of a better future, he cannot live well today. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #KEYS
4:All suffering is for an apparent 'I', all suffering is in the story of 'me', all suffering is essentially a fight against this moment. ~ Jeff Foster, #KEYS
5:Critics have found fault with all the world's scriptures, but as yet they have discovered no useful substitutes. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #KEYS
6:a sad moon
while telling the story
of a soldier's wife
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
7:Considered mystically, the story of the Flood is the wise man's mastery of adversity. It is the philosopher surviving the onslaughts of ignorance. It is ... ~ Manly P Hall?, Understand your Bible?, #KEYS
8:He [Francis Bacon] was a devoutly religious man and was convinced that he would rather believe all the fables of antiquity than deny that the vast fabric of creation is without a mind. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #KEYS
9:The story of Christ, as it has been told, is the concrete and dramatic enactment of the divine sacrifice: the Supreme Lord, who is All-Light, All-Knowledge, All-Power, All-Beauty, All-Love, All-Bliss, accepting to assume human ignorance and suffering in matter, in order to help men to emerge from the falsehood in which they live and because of which they die.
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, 16 June 1960,#KEYS
10:47. A jnani who is a perfectly Self-realized yogi, sees by the eye of wisdom all objective phenomena to be in and of the Self and thus the Self to be the sole being.1
The allusion is to the story of a lady wearing a precious necklace, who suddenly forgot where it was, grew anxious, looked for it everywhere and even asked others to help, until a kind friend pointed out that it was round the seeker's own neck. ~ Adi Sankara, Atma Bodha, trans. Sri Ramana Maharshi, Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi,#KEYS
11:Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit. "Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well. "From the great ocean," he replied. "How big is your ocean?" "It's gigantic." "You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?" "Bigger." "Bigger? You mean half as big?" "No, even bigger." "Is it . . . as big as this well?" "There's no comparison." "That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself." They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, #KEYS
12:Noah harkened to the voice of the Lord that is he lived according to the Law, perfecting his soul and enriching his consciousness with the many experiences which result from the mystery of living. As a consequence the "Lord" protects the life of Noah, and brings the Ark at the end to a safe testing place upon the Mount of the illumination, Ararat. Part of the thirty-third degree of Freemasonry includes an interpretation of the symbolism of Noah and his Ark. Considered mystically, the story of the Flood is the wise man's mastery of adversity. It is the philosopher surviving the onslaughts of ignorance. It is the illumined mystic floating safely over the chaos.
~ Manly P Hall, How To Understand Your Bible,#KEYS
13:
Sweet Mother, is the physical mind the same as the mechanical mind?
Almost. You see, there is just a little difference, but not much. The mechanical mind is still more stupid than the physical mind. The physical mind is what we spoke about one day, that which is never sure of anything.
I told you the story of the closed door, you remember. Well, that is the nature of the physical mind. The mechanical mind is at a lower level still, because it doesn't even listen to the possibility of a convincing reason, and this happens to everyone.
Usually we don't let it function, but it comes along repeating the same things, absolutely mechanically, without rhyme or reason, just like that. When some craze or other takes hold of it, it goes... For example, you see, if it fancies counting: "One, two, three, four", then it will go on: "One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four." And you may think of all kinds of things, but it goes on: "One, two, three, four", like that... (Mother laughs.) Or it catches hold of three words, four words and repeats them and goes on repeating them; and unless one turns away with a certain violence and punches it soundly, telling it, "Keep quiet!", it continues in this way, indefinitely. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
14:About the only law that I think relates to the genre is that you should not try to explain, to find neat explanations for what happens, and that the object of the thing is to produce a sense of the uncanny. Freud in his essay on the uncanny wrote that the sense of the uncanny is the only emotion which is more powerfully expressed in art than in life, which I found very illuminating; it didn't help writing the screen-play, but I think it's an interesting insight into the genre. And I read an essay by the great master H.P. Lovecraft where he said that you should never attempt to explain what happens, as long as what happens stimulates people's imagination, their sense of the uncanny, their sense of anxiety and fear. And as long as it doesn't, within itself, have any obvious inner contradictions, it is just a matter of, as it were, building on the imagination (imaginary ideas, surprises, etc.), working in this area of feeling. I think also that the ingeniousness of a story like this is something which the audience ultimately enjoys; they obviously wonder as the story goes on what's going to happen, and there's a great satisfaction when it's all over not having been able to have anticipated the major development of the story, and yet at the end not to feel that you have been fooled or swindled. ~ Stanley Kubrick, #KEYS
15:It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, never published on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or heard of by any Earthman.
Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.
in fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor - of which no Earthman had ever heard either.
Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
~ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,#KEYS
16:38 - Strange! The Germans have disproved the existence of Christ; yet his crucifixion remains still a greater historic fact than the death of Caesar. - Sri Aurobindo.
To what plane of consciousness did Christ belong?
In the Essays on the Gita Sri Aurobindo mentions the names of three Avatars, and Christ is one of them. An Avatar is an emanation of the Supreme Lord who assumes a human body on earth.
I heard Sri Aurobindo himself say that Christ was an emanation of the Lord's aspect of love.
The death of Caesar marked a decisive change in the history of Rome and the countries dependent on her. It was therefore an important event in the history of Europe.
But the death of Christ was the starting-point of a new stage in the evolution of human civilisation. This is why Sri Aurobindo tells us that the death of Christ was of greater historical significance, that is to say, it has had greater historical consequences than the death of Caesar. The story of Christ, as it has been told, is the concrete and dramatic enactment of the divine sacrifice: the Supreme Lord, who is All-Light, All-Knowledge, All-Power, All-Beauty, All-Love, All-Bliss, accepting to assume human ignorance and suffering in matter, in order to help men to emerge from the falsehood in which they live and because of which they die.
16 June 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.61-62),#KEYS
17:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo
Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?
The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.
So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.
Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960
(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),#KEYS
18:It doesnt interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing. It doesnt interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesnt interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by lifes betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesnt interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when its not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, Yes! It doesnt interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesnt interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesnt interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer,#KEYS
19:reading :::
50 Spiritual Classics: List of Books Covered:
Muhammad Asad - The Road To Mecca (1954)
St Augustine - Confessions (400)
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Black Elk Black - Elk Speaks (1932)
Richard Maurice Bucke - Cosmic Consciousness (1901)
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics (1976)
Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan (1972)
GK Chesterton - St Francis of Assisi (1922)
Pema Chodron - The Places That Scare You (2001)
Chuang Tzu - The Book of Chuang Tzu (4th century BCE)
Ram Dass - Be Here Now (1971)
Epictetus - Enchiridion (1st century)
Mohandas Gandhi - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1927)
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness (1097)
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet (1923)
GI Gurdjieff - Meetings With Remarkable Men (1960)
Dag Hammarskjold - Markings (1963)
Abraham Joshua Heschel - The Sabbath (1951)
Hermann Hesse - Siddartha (1922)
Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception (1954)
William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Carl Gustav Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1955)
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe (1436)
J Krishnamurti - Think On These Things (1964)
CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964)
Daniel C Matt - The Essential Kabbalah (1994)
Dan Millman - The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (1989)
W Somerset Maugham - The Razor's Edge (1944)
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)
Michael Newton - Journey of Souls (1994)
John O'Donohue - Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1998)
Robert M Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
James Redfield - The Celestine Prophecy (1994)
Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements (1997)
Helen Schucman & William Thetford - A Course in Miracles (1976)
Idries Shah - The Way of the Sufi (1968)
Starhawk - The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979)
Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970)
Emanuel Swedenborg - Heaven and Hell (1758)
Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle (1570)
Mother Teresa - A Simple Path (1994)
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (1998)
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973)
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations With God (1998)
Rick Warren - The Purpose-Driven Life (2002)
Simone Weil - Waiting For God (1979)
Ken Wilber - A Theory of Everything (2000)
Paramahansa Yogananda - Autobiography of a Yogi (1974)
Gary Zukav - The Seat of the Soul (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Spirital Classics (2017 Edition),#KEYS
20:The true Mantra must come from within OR it must be given by a Guru
Nobody can give you the true mantra. It's not something that is given; it's something that wells up from within. It must spring from within all of a sudden, spontaneously, like a profound, intense need of your being - then it has power, because it's not something that comes from outside, it's your very own cry.
I saw, in my case, that my mantra has the power of immortality; whatever happens, if it is uttered, it's the Supreme that has the upper hand, it's no longer the lower law. And the words are irrelevant, they may not have any meaning - to someone else, my mantra is meaningless, but to me it's full, packed with meaning. And effective, because it's my cry, the intense aspiration of my whole being.
A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didn't even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced "yoga" for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light.... I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, "Well!" Then I didn't give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration - there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.
It's the same with my mantra. When I wanted to translate the end of my mantra, "Glory to You, O Lord," into Sanskrit, I asked for Nolini's help. He brought his Sanskrit translation, and when he read it to me, I immediately saw that the power was there - not because Nolini put his power into it (!), God knows he had no intention of "giving" me a mantra! But the power was there because my experience was there. We made a few adjustments and modifications, and that's the japa I do now - I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.[[Mother later clarified: "'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't MY mantra, it's something I ADDED to it - my mantra is something else altogether, that's not it. When I say that my mantra has the power of immortality, I mean the other, the one I don't speak of! I have never given the words.... You see, at the end of my walk, a kind of enthusiasm rises, and with that enthusiasm, the 'Glory to You' came to me, but it's part of the prayer I had written in Prayers and Meditations: 'Glory to You, O Lord, all-triumphant Supreme' etc. (it's a long prayer). It came back suddenly, and as it came back spontaneously, I kept it. Moreover, when Sri Aurobindo read this prayer in Prayers and Meditations, he told me it was very strong. So I added this phrase as a kind of tail to my japa. But 'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't my spontaneous mantra - it came spontaneously, but it was something written very long ago. The two things are different."
And that's how a mantra has life: when it wells up all the time, spontaneously, like the cry of your being - there is no need of effort or concentration: it's your natural cry. Then it has full power, it is alive. It must well up from within.... No guru can give you that. ~ The Mother, Agenda, May 11 1963,#KEYS
21:
In the lower planes can't one say what will happen at a particular moment?
That depends. On certain planes there are consciousnesses that form, that make formations and try to send them down to earth and manifest them. These are planes where the great forces are at play, forces struggling with each other to organise things in one way or another. On these planes all the possibilities are there, all the possibilities that present themselves but have not yet come to a decision as to which will come down.... Suppose a plane full of the imaginations of people who want certain things to be realised upon earth - they invent a novel, narrate stories, produce all kinds of phenomena; it amuses them very much. It is a plane of form-makers and they are there imagining all kinds of circumstances and events; they play with the forces; they are like the authors of a drama and they prepare everything there and see what is going to happen. All these formations are facing each other; and it is those which are the strongest, the most successful or the most persistent or those that have the advantage of a favourable set of circumstances which dominate. They meet and out of the conflict yet another thing results: you lose one thing and take up another, you make a new combination; and then all of a sudden, you find, pluff! it is coming down. Now, if it comes down with a sufficient force, it sets moving the earth atmosphere and things combine; as for instance, when with your fist you thump the saw-dust, you know surely what happens, don't you? You lift your hand, give a formidable blow: all the dust gets organised around your fist. Well, it is like that. These formations come down into matter with that force, and everything organises itself automatically, mechanically as around the striking fist. And there's your wished object about to be realised, sometimes with small deformations because of the resistance, but it will be realised finally, even as the person narrating the story up above wanted it more or less to be realised. If then you are for some reason or other in the secret of the person who has constructed the story and if you follow the way in which he creates his path to reach down to the earth and if you see how a blow with the fist acts on earthly matter, then you are able to tell what is going to happen, because you have seen it in the world above, and as it takes some time to make the whole journey, you see in advance. And the higher you rise, the more you foresee in advance what is going to happen. And if you pass far beyond, go still farther, then everything is possible.
It is an unfolding that follows a wide road which is for you unknowable; for all will be unfolded in the universe, but in what order and in what way? There are decisions that are taken up there which escape our ordinary consciousness, and so it is very difficult to foresee. But there also, if you enter consciously and if you can be present up there... How shall I explain that to you? All is there, absolute, static, eternal: but all that will be unfolded in the material world, naturally more or less one thing after another; for in the static existence all can be there, but in the becoming all becomes in time, that is, one thing after another. Well, what path will the unfolding follow? Up there is the domain of absolute freedom.... Who says that a sufficiently sincere aspiration, a sufficiently intense prayer is not capable of changing the path of the unfolding?
This means that all is possible.
Now, one must have a sufficient aspiration and a prayer that's sufficiently intense. But that has been given to human nature. It is one of the marvellous gifts of grace given to human nature; only, one does not know how to make use of it. This comes to saying that in spite of the most absolute determinisms in the horizontal line, if one knows how to cross all these horizontal lines and reach the highest Point of consciousness, one is able to make things change, things apparently absolutely determined. So you may call it by any name you like, but it is a kind of combination of an absolute determinism with an absolute freedom. You may pull yourself out of it in any way you like, but it is like that.
I forgot to say in that book (perhaps I did not forget but just felt that it was useless to say it) that all these theories are only theories, that is, mental conceptions which are merely more or less imaged representations of the reality; but it is not the reality at all. When you say "determinism" and when you say "freedom", you say only words and all that is only a very incomplete, very approximate and very weak description of what is in reality within you, around you and everywhere; and to be able to begin to understand what the universe is, you must come out of your mental formulas, otherwise you will never understand anything.
To tell the truth, if you live only a moment, just a tiny moment, of this absolutely sincere aspiration or this sufficiently intense prayer, you will know more things than by meditating for hours.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
22:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#KEYS
23:Chapter 18 - Trapped in a Dream
(A guy is playing a pinball machine, seemingly the same guy who rode with him in the back of the boat car. This part is played by Richard Linklater, aka, the director.)
Hey, man.
Hey.
Weren't you in a boat car? You know, the guy, the guy with the hat? He gave me a ride in his car, or boat thing, and you were in the back seat with me?
I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.
No, you see, you guys let me off at this really specific spot that you gave him directions to let me off at, I get out, and end up getting hit by a car, but then, I just woke up because I was dreaming, and later than that, I found out that I was still dreaming, dreaming that I'd woken up.
Oh yeah, those are called false awakenings. I used to have those all the time.
Yeah, but I'm still in it now. I, I can't get out of it. It's been going on forever, I keep waking up, but, but I'm just waking up into another dream. I'm starting to get creeped out, too. Like I'm talking to dead people. This woman on TV's telling me about how death is this dreamtime that exists outside of life. I mean, (desperate sigh) I'm starting to think that I'm dead.
I'm gonna tell you about a dream I once had. I know that's, when someone says that, then usually you're in for a very boring next few minutes, and you might be, but it sounds like, you know, what else are you going to do, right? Anyway, I read this essay by Philip K. Dick.
What, you read it in your dream?
No, no. I read it before the dream. It was the preamble to the dream. It was about that book, um Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. You know that one?
Uh, yeah yeah, he won an award for that one.
Right, right. That's the one he wrote really fast. It just like flowed right out of him. He felt he was sort of channeling it, or something. But anyway, about four years after it was published, he was at this party, and he met this woman who had the same name as the woman character in the book. And she had a boyfriend with the same name as the boyfriend character in the book, and she was having an affair with this guy, the chief of police, and he had the same name as the chief of police in his book. So she's telling him all of this stuff from her life, and everything she's saying is right out of his book. So that's totally freaking him out, but, what can he do?
And then shortly after that, he was going to mail a letter, and he saw this kind of, um, you know, dangerous, shady looking guy standing by his car, but instead of avoiding him, which he says he would have usually done, he just walked right up to him and said, "Can I help you?" And the guy said, "Yeah. I, I ran out of gas." So he pulls out his wallet, and he hands him some money, which he says he never would have done, and then he gets home and thinks, wait a second, this guy, you know, he can't get to a gas station, he's out of gas. So he gets back in his car, he goes and finds the guy, takes him to the gas station, and as he's pulling up at the gas station, he realizes, "Hey, this is in my book too. This exact station, this exact guy. Everything."
So this whole episode is kind of creepy, right? And he's telling his priest about it, you know, describing how he wrote this book, and then four years later all these things happened to him. And as he's telling it to him, the priest says, "That's the Book of Acts. You're describing the Book of Acts." And he's like, "I've never read the Book of Acts." So he, you know, goes home and reads the Book of Acts, and it's like uncanny. Even the characters' names are the same as in the Bible. And the Book of Acts takes place in 50 A.D., when it was written, supposedly. So Philip K. Dick had this theory that time was an illusion and that we were all actually in 50 A.D., and the reason he had written this book was that he had somehow momentarily punctured through this illusion, this veil of time, and what he had seen there was what was going on in the Book of Acts.
And he was really into Gnosticism, and this idea that this demiurge, or demon, had created this illusion of time to make us forget that Christ was about to return, and the kingdom of God was about to arrive. And that we're all in 50 A.D., and there's someone trying to make us forget that God is imminent. And that's what time is. That's what all of history is. It's just this kind of continuous, you know, daydream, or distraction.
And so I read that, and I was like, well that's weird. And than that night I had a dream and there was this guy in the dream who was supposed to be a psychic. But I was skeptical. I was like, you know, he's not really a psychic, you know I'm thinking to myself. And then suddenly I start floating, like levitating, up to the ceiling. And as I almost go through the roof, I'm like, "Okay, Mr. Psychic. I believe you. You're a psychic. Put me down please." And I float down, and as my feet touch the ground, the psychic turns into this woman in a green dress. And this woman is Lady Gregory.
Now Lady Gregory was Yeats' patron, this, you know, Irish person. And though I'd never seen her image, I was just sure that this was the face of Lady Gregory. So we're walking along, and Lady Gregory turns to me and says, "Let me explain to you the nature of the universe. Now Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you want to, you know, be one with eternity? Do you want to be in heaven?' And we're all saying, 'No thank you. Not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's two thousand and one. And there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in."
And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone's life. That, you know, behind the phenomenal difference, there is but one story, and that's the story of moving from the "no" to the "yes." All of life is like, "No thank you. No thank you. No thank you." then ultimately it's, "Yes, I give in. Yes, I accept. Yes, I embrace." I mean, that's the journey. I mean, everyone gets to the "yes" in the end, right?
Right.
So we continue walking, and my dog runs over to me. And so I'm petting him, really happy to see him, you know, he's been dead for years. So I'm petting him and I realize there's this kind of gross oozing stuff coming out of his stomach. And I look over at Lady Gregory, and she sort of coughs. She's like [cough] [cough] "Oh, excuse me." And there's vomit, like dribbling down her chin, and it smells really bad. And I think, "Well, wait a second, that's not just the smell of vomit," which is, doesn't smell very good, "that's the smell of like dead person vomit." You know, so it's like doubly foul. And then I realize I'm actually in the land of the dead, and everyone around me is dead. My dog had been dead for over ten years, Lady Gregory had been dead a lot longer than that. When I finally woke up, I was like, whoa, that wasn't a dream, that was a visitation to this real place, the land of the dead.
So what happened? I mean how did you finally get out of it?
Oh man. It was just like one of those like life altering experiences. I mean I could never really look at the world the same way again, after that.
Yeah, but I mean like how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that's my problem. I'm like trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I'm waking up, but I'm still in a dream. It seems like it's going on forever. I can't get out of it, and I want to wake up for real. How do you really wake up?
I don't know, I don't know. I'm not very good at that anymore. But, um, if that's what you're thinking, I mean you, you probably should. I mean, you know if you can wake up, you should, because you know someday, you know, you won't be able to. So just, um ... But it's easy. You know. Just, just wake up. ~ Waking Life,#KEYS
24:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
25:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:My friends have made the story of my life. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 2:If we own the story then we can write the ending. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 3:There's only one story, the story of your life. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 4:Change but the name, and you are the subject of the story. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 5:The story is not in the plot but in the telling. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 6:Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 7:The most powerful person in the world is the story teller. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 8:I believe in the story [ of Adam and Eve]. For me, it's a story. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 9:Courage - To tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 10:There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 11:Those who remember the past tend to get the story really screwed up. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 12:Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 13:That's the story of my life; I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 14:Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 15:Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 16:Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 17:If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 18:The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 19:The story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac are nowhere in any other tradition. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 20:Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 21:The story, from beginning to end, I found again in a heart of a friend. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 22:The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 23:The story [of the Sacrifice of Isaac ] is much more a part of theology than of history. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 24:When you can tell the story and it doesn't bring up any pain, you know it is healed. ~ lyania-vanzant, @wisdomtrove 25:Pay and the story rolls. Steal and the story folds. No stealing from the blind newsboy. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 26:I wrote the story myself. It's all about a girl who lost her reputation but never missed it. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 27:A happy ending is always possible if you are willing to keep the story moving to get there. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 28:When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 29:Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 30:The story itself should force its moral upon you. You find out what the moral is by writing the story. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 31:Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 32:Start telling the story of your amazing life, and the law of attraction must make sure you receive it! ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 33:When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 34:The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation - This story begins and ends in joy. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 35:History is little more than the story of man's sin, and the daily newspaper a running commentary on it. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 36:Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 37:Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble. Interrogation 101. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 38:Sometimes you know the story. Sometimes you make it up as you go along and have no idea how it will come out. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 39:The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 40:[On being told party guests were ducking for apples:] There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 41:My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 42:If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 43:The Bible is the story of two gardens. Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 44:The story goes that I first had the idea for The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 45:I don’t want to be liberated from the story of Tim. I want to be liberated into the story of Tim, so I can really enjoy the ride. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 46:The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 47:Your positions on EVERYTHING are based on the story you tell yourself and not some universal fact from the universal fact database. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 48:The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. ~ jules-renard, @wisdomtrove 49:No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 50:If we pay attention to the timeless moment, however, our state of consciousness changes because we come out of the story into the mystery. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 51:You have to begin to tell the story of your life as you now want it to be and discontinue the tales of how it has been or of how it is. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 52:In the dreaming state and the waking state I appear to be a character in a story, but my deeper identity is awareness witnessing the story. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 53:All characters come from people I know, but after the initial inspiration, I tend to modify the characters so they fit with the story. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 54:Marley was dead, to begin with ... This must be distintly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 55:In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 56:I want us to know that we are one, and feel empowered to express our unique individuality by passionately playing our part in the story of life. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 57:The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-& 58:The story of practically every great fortune starts with the day when a creator of ideas and a seller of ideas got together and worked in harmony. ~ napoleon-hill, @wisdomtrove 59:She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 60:The oneness of unconscious awareness dreamed the story of life and progressively became more conscious through the evolving forms it imagined itself to be. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 61:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story, he said. ‚When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 62:Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over and the Days of the Rings were passed and an end was come of the story and song of those times. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 63:You don't start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it's the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 64:But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 65:Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 66:I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 67:Acceptance means accepting the conditions of the moment (e.g. there is pain), rather than the story or concept you create around it (e.g. I have a serious illness.) ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 68:I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 69:The truth is that the whole system of beliefs which comes in with the story of the fall of man ... is gently falling out of enlightened human intelligence. ~ oliver-wendell-holmes-sr, @wisdomtrove 70:I love it when a movie captivates my attention; however, I don’t want to completely identify with the hero, since when the story becomes harrowing, I find it too disturbing. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 71:In my books, I never portray violence as a reasonable solution to a problem. If the lead characters in the story are driven to it, it's at the extreme end of their experience. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 72:It doesn't matter to me whether I write in a man's voice or a woman's, or first or third person for that matter. Those choices come down to the story and I just go with it. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 73:The way you live each day is a sentence in the story of your life. Every day, you make the choice whether the sentence ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 74:People will tell you most of the story¶ and I've learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they're afraid. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 75:I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 76:I try to write every day until the book is done, but the exact process depends on the story and its structure. Sometimes, if the story is more linear, I write it from beginning to end. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 77:My mission is to tell the story of the birth of ourselves as a universal humanity, awakening all of us to our unique opportunity to participate through our own conscious evolution. ~ barbara-marx-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 78:Do you recall the story of the young Yogi in the Mah√¢bh√¢rata who prided himself on his psychic powers by burning the bodies of a crow and crane by his intense will, produced by anger? ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 79:For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to live. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 80:When we try to describe the truth with words, we distort it and it's no longer truth& 81:The story does what no theorem can quite do. It may not be "like real life" in the superficial sense: but it sets before us an image of what reality may well be like at some more central region. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 82:To finish is sadness to a writer ‚î a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 83:The wisdom in the story of the most educated and powerful person is often not greater than the wisdom in the story of a child, and the life of a child can teach us as much as the life of a sage. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 84:It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 85:His [Jesus'] historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 86:With me, a story usually begins with a single idea or mental picture. The writing of the story is simply a matter of working up to that moment, to explain why it happened or what caused it to follow. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 87:But you speak of Master Gandalf, as if he was in a story that had come to an end.' & 88:The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 89:In order to find Jesus, every one of us needs direction. God gives it. The story of the wise men shows us how. The star sign was enough to lead the magi to Jerusalem. But it took Scripture to lead them to Jesus. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 90:The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous; but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 91:And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, "The rest next time& 92:Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 93:If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 94:When I am in the process of conceiving a story, I make sure it can be told with words and pictures. The story has to be creative, original and interesting in both areas. Many stories get rejected because they feel derivative. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 95:He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the [bathrooms] instead& 96:If I look at my own experience, Tim is clearly the hero of the story. He’s the star of the show. Other people come and go, but Tim is in every scene. His wife Debbie plays romantic love interest. His best mate Pete plays comic sidekick. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 97:Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language - it's from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart" - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 98:I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt- and there is the story of mankind. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 99:The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 100:All those - or most of those - who went through the experience during the Second World War - they want to remember more - more and more. It's never enough because we feel that we have to tell the story. And no one can tell the story fully. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 101:I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 102:If it is true ... that no one has a life worth thinking about whose life story cannot be told, does it not then follow that life could be, even ought to be, lived as a story, that what one has to do in life is to make the story come true? ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 103:It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 104:The moral of the story is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 105:We have all heard the story of the man who preached so well and lived so badly, that when he was in the pulpit everybody said he ought never to come out again, and when he was out of it they all declared he never ought to enter it again. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 106:And the people listened, and their faces were quiet with listening. The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners became great through them. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 107:Well, the moral of the story, The moral of this song, Is simply that one should never be Where one does not belong. So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin', Help him with his load, And don't go mistaking Paradise For that home across the road. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 108:Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 109:The implication of the story is that Brahman and the Primal Energy at first appear to be two. But after attaining the knowledge of Brahman, one does not see the two. Then there is no differentiation; it is One, without a second, Advaita-non-duality. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 110:As you move to the top, remember the story of the pump. If you start pumping casually or half -heartedly, you will pump forever before anything happens. Pump hard to begin with and keep it up until you get that water flowing. Then a great deal will happen. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 111:I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 112:When you understand, that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 113:Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 114:I can't imagine how American readers will react to a novel, but if the story is appealing it doesn't matter much if you don't catch all the detail. I'm not too familiar with the geography of nineteenth century London, for instance, but I still enjoy reading Dickens. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 115:There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 116:I sometimes think that I want everything to go well for Tim. But I actually want the dramas of existence, because without them the story is bland and uninspiring. Who wants to watch a movie in which things start well, everything works out, and it all ends happily ever after? ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 117:Death and resurrection are what the story is about and had we but eyes to see it, this has been hinted on every page, met us, in some disguise, at every turn, and even been muttered in conversations between such minor characters (if they are minor characters) as the vegetables. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 118:I became conscious that I was both a detached observer in the cinema and also a participant in the unfolding drama. I was safely outside of the story, but I was drawn into it by my fascination with the hero’s dilemmas. This is a great analogy for what happens when I live lucidly. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 119:In a sense, the story, or poem or verse or whatever it is you're writing, you can kind of think of it as a kind of projectile. Imagine it is a kind of projectile which has been specially shaped to be aerodynamic, and that your target is the soft grey putty of the reader's brain. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 120:Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right ‚ as right as you can, anyway ‚ it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 121:As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday's dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 122:The demonizing of the mind makes it harder to awaken. If we believe that to awaken we must try to stop thinking, we become forever engrossed with battling the mind. And this prevents us seeing how easy it is to wake up, by simply becoming conscious of the deep mystery as well as the story. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 123:How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside and forgotten. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 124:I’m not particularly keen on writing which exhaustively describes the physical characteristics of the people in the story and what they’re wearing.¶ I can always get a J. Crew catalogue. So spare me, if you please, the hero’s sharply intelligent blue eyes’ and outthrust determined chin’. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 125:No one person can take credit for the success of a motion picture. It's strictly a team effort. From the time the story is written to the time the final release print comes off the printer, hundreds of people are involved - each one doing a job - each job contributing to the final product. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 126:I wanted to come back to Sighet to tell you the story of my death. So that you could prepare yourselves while there was still time. To live? I don't attach any importance to my life any more. I'm alone. No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 127:Once you start recognizing the truth of your story, finish the story. It happened but you're still here, you're still capable, powerful, you're not your circumstance. It happened and you made it through. You're still fully equipped with every single tool you need to fulfill your purpose. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 128:I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 129:You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 130:Some things definitely work better on film than in books. Introspection is great in books but it doesn't work on film. Anything with high intensity, whether it's a love scene, a car chase, a fight scene - those things work so well on film and oftentimes they can tell a much broader part of the story. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 131:I write 3-4 days a week, 4-5 hours at a time (with lots of breaks). My goal is 2000 words when I sit down to write and usually, I hit that, though it can take anywhere from 3-7 hours to get there. I usually know the basics of where the story is going, but the specifics just sort of come to me as I write. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 132:Our easiest approach to a definition of any aspect of fiction is always by considering the sort of demand it makes on the reader. Curiosity for the story, human feelings and a sense of value for the characters, intelligence and memory for the plot. What does fantasy ask of us? It asks us to pay something extra. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 133:We're experiencing this moment through a filter of concepts. We're living in our ideas. We're telling ourselves a story about who we are and what life is, and we're confusing this story with reality. But the story is not reality. Reality is the mystery of existence that exists before all of our ideas about reality. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 134:The paradoxity of life means that every one of us as an individual self is the hero of the story of life. Looked at from one perspective we appear to be irrelevant specks of dust in a vast universe, who are here for a moment and then gone. But from another perspective each one of us is the very centre of the universe. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 135:If I'm lost in the story of Tim, I become fearful, selfish, and agitated. So I need to step out of the story and become conscious of my deeper identity, which is free, spacious, and at peace. But the process doesn't stop there. Now I'm ready to really engage with the story because I know that fundamentally all is well. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 136:Once you understand that Goliath is much weaker than you think he is, and David has superior technology, then you say: why do we tell the story the way we do? It becomes, actually, a far more meaningful and important story in its retelling than in the kind of unsophisticated way we've done it for, I think, too long. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 137:The universe may be made up of atoms bouncing around like billiard balls, or quantum particles coming in and out of existence, or superstrings weaving some vast web of appearances. But above all, surely, life is a story. The story of you. The story of me. The story of nature. The story of endlessly unfolding possibilities. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 138:I'm entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they're thinking and who they are and who's hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what's the story, really? ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 139:When I deep know my essential nature I feel liberated from the confines of the story of Tim and conscious of the oneness of being. But the deep love I feel in the deep awake state impels me back into the story to compassionately engage with life … to care for others … to make the world a better place for future generations. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 140:It took time to learn that the hard thing about writing is to let the story write itself, while one sits at the typewriter and does as little thinking as possible. It happened over and over again, and the beginner learned - when you start puzzling over an idea, and slowing down on the keys, the writing gets worse and worse. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 141:The ideal set-up would be the story man, the director, and the layout man, as well as musician, operating as a sort of story unit. They all should be keenly interested in the picture. No one in person should donate to an extent where he would keep the others from entering into the production and freely expressing themselves. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 142:As a culture, we believe that if we kill something, we've killed the issue. That's why so many books end with death, why so many plays end with death, because it's full resolution. I'm always curious to know what happens after Romeo and Juliet die. In a way, that's the beginning of the story. Maybe beyond the story is even better. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 143:The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 144:If you read Exodus 15 carefully, it describes a storm at sea. This is the old Yahwistic source. In the retelling of the story in the later Priestly source, it is more miraculous: The water stands up on either side like a wall. There are walls of water standing up. As you move back in time, oddly enough, the story becomes more historical. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 145:The story of the Fall always fascinates me as a play ground, but I cannot find any profound meaning in it, because of my & 146:The paradoxity of life means that as a conscious individual each one of us is the hero of the story of life. Looked at from one perspective we appear to be irrelevant specks of dust in a vast universe, who are here for a moment and then gone. But from another perspective everyone is the centre around which the universe revolves. How wonderful! ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 147:There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words& 148:How interesting it would be to write the story of the experiences in this life of a man who killed himself in his previous life; how he stumbles against the very demands which had offered themselves before, until he arrives at the realization that he must fulfill those demands. The deeds of the preceding life give direction to the present life. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 149:Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost. Life would split asunder without them. & 150:When I was writing Dune there was no room in my mind for concerns about the book's success or failure. I was concerned only with the writing. Six years of research had preceded the day I sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had never before experienced. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 151:My love is my business; it has nothing to do with you. You love me, and that isn't personal. You tell the story that I am this, or I am that, and you fall in love with your story. What do I have to do with it? I am here for your perception, as if I had a choice. I am your story, no more and no less. You have never met me. No one has ever met anyone. ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 152:What is the story with the airport sinks, that they will not give us a twist-on twist-off human faucet. "Is it that too risky for the human population? We have to do the one-handed pain-in-the-ass Alcatraz-style faucets. "What is it they think we will do? Turn 'em all on full, run out into the parking lot, laughing, pushing each other into the bushes? ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 153:We cannot indefinitely avoid depressing subject matter, particularly it it is true, and in the subsequent quarter century the world has had to hear a story it would have preferred not to hear - the story of how a cultured people turned to genocide, and how the rest of the world, also composed of cultured people, remained silent in the face of genocide. (v) ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 154:I've made the decision to adhere to three general truths when it comes to my novels: There will be a love-story element to the story, the novel will be set in eastern North Carolina, and the characters will be likeable. Then, I make each novel unique through differences in voice, perspective, age and personalities of the characters, and of course, plot. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 155:So the angels visit this good man and offer him first the gift of healing by hands, then the gift of conversion of souls, and lastly the gift of virtue. He refuses them all. They insist that he choose a gift or they will choose one for him. "Very well," he replies. "I ask that I may do a great deal of good without ever knowing it." The story ends this way: ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 156:There either is or is not, that‚Äôs the way things are. The colour of the day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it‚Äôs red. But what colour it may be in memory, depends on the day. I‚Äôm not going to tell you the story the way it happened. I‚Äôm going to tell it the way I remember it. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 157:The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like & 158:Storytelling is how we survive, when there's no feed, the story feeds something, it feeds the spirit, the imagination. I can't imagine life without stories, stories from my parents, my culture. Stories from other people's parents, their culture. That's how we learn from each other, it's the best way. That's why literature is so important, it connects us heart to heart. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 159:Writers remember everything... especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 160:Take the story of Cain and Abel. Why were we given that story? Scientifically, you may have an explanation for it, but I'm not approaching it from the scientific point of view. I'm saying: Why do we need that? It's a sordid story, a depressing story, a dark story. Why should I believe that I'm a descendant of either Cain or Abel? Thank God there is a third son! [Genesis 4:25] ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 161:The Bible is the story of two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. In the first, God sought Adam. In the second, Jesus sought God. In Eden, Adam hid from God. In Gethsemane, Jesus emerged from the tomb. In Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death. From Gethsemane, Jesus went to a tree that led to our life. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 162:Too many dogs continue to be abused and abandond - one is too many - and people continue to kill people for money and envy and no reason at all. Bad people succeed and good people fail, but that's not the end of the story. Miracles happen that nobody sees, and among us walk heroes who are never recognised, and people live in loneliness because they cannot believe they are loved ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 163:I heard the story of a man, a blasphemer... an atheist, who was converted singularly by a sinful action of his. He had written on a piece of paper, "God is nowhere," and ordered his child to read it, for he would make him an atheist too. The child spelled it, "God is n-o-w h-e-r-e. God is now here." It was a truth instead of a lie, and the arrow pierced the man's own heart. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 164:In this way they went on, and on, and on-in the language of the story-books-until at last the village lights appeared before them, and the church spire cast a long reflection on the graveyard grass; as if it were a dial (alas, the truest in the world!) marking, whatever light shone out of Heaven, the flight of days and weeks and years, by some new shadow on that solemn ground. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 165:All I dreamed about Dr. Jekyll was that one man was being pressed into a cabinet, when he swallowed a drug and changed into another being. I awoke and said at once that I had found the missing link for which I had been looking so long, and before I went again to sleep almost every detail of the story, as it stands, was clear to me. Of course, writing it was another thing. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 166:Listen to this, Nimit. Follow Coleman Hawkins' improvised lines very carefully. He is using them to tell us something. Pay very close attention. He is telling us the story of the free spirit that is doing everything it can to escape from within him. That same kind of spirit is inside me, inside you. There-you can hear it, I'm sure: the hot breath, the shivering heart. (Thailand) ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 167:So often with beginning writers, the story that they want to start with is the most important story of their life - my molestation, my this, my horrible drug addiction - they want to tell that most important story, and they don't have the skills to tell it yet, so it ends up becoming a comedy. A powerful story told poorly becomes funny, it just makes people laugh behind their hands. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 168:My name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 169:Waking up to oneness isn’t a cold and colourless realization. It’s an experience of profound communion with all that is, which transforms how it feels to appear as a person in the story of life. It’s an experience of deep love that spontaneously arises when we get the great paradoxity that we’re both separate and not-separate from one another. Love is the wonderful dance of being two and one. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 170:Your only guidepost is your own instinct and judicious editing. In my stand-up act I learned that in the first 10 minutes I could say anything and it would get a laugh. Then I'd better deliver. In the movie it's the same thing. You get a lot of laughs when people first sit down and then the story better kick in. Many years in front of an audience, I would hope, give me a sense of what works. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 171:A movie is only enjoyable when I enter into the illusion, because then it moves and thrills me. Likewise, life only moves and thrills me when I enter into the illusion of separateness. Yet I don’t want to be completely lost in the story of life any more than I want to be lost in a movie, as that would be hell. I want to both enter into the drama and have the tacit knowledge of being a detached observer. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 172:I myself, as I'm writing, don't know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don't know the conclusion at all and I don't know what's going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don't know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there's no purpose to writing the story. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 173:Only in the context of the great encounter with Jesus can a real authentic struggle take place. The encounter with Christ does not take place before, after, or beyond the struggle with our false self and its demons. No, it is precisely in the midst of this struggle that our Lord comes to us and says, as he said to the old man in the story: As soon as you turned to me again, you see I was beside you.’ ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 174:If God is an author and the universe is the biggest novel ever written, I may feel as if I'm the lead character in the story, but like every man and woman on Earth, I am a suporting player in one of billions of subplots. You know what happens to supporting players. Too often they are killed off in chapter 3, or in chapter 10, or in chapter 35. A supporting player always has to be looking over his shoulder. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 175:Paradoxically, I've found that the more I step out of the story of Tim, the more I'm able to really enjoy his adventures. When I'm lost in separateness, it's so frightening that I wear a psychological suit of armour to protect myself, which deadens me to life. I become scared and take refuge in numb insensitivity. Only when I know I'm truly safe can I risk diving into the whirling currents of the life-stream. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 176:As I sit here bathing in the warm night air, I feel washed by the ebb and flow of the polarities of existence. I'm immersed in the mystery and I'm contemplating my story. I have a timeless perspective on a temporary world. I'm the presence of awareness appreciating the show. I'm insignificant and vulnerable, yet magnificent and secure. I'm a transitory speck of cosmic dust, but I'm the star of the story of Tim. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 177:Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night... shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 178:As for & 179:Do remember, though, that unless you're a playwright, the result [dialogue] isn't what you want; it's only an element of what you want. Actors embody and re-create the words of drama. In fiction, a tremendous amount of story and character may be given through the dialogue, but the story-world and its people have to be created by the storyteller. If there's nothing in it but disembodied voices, too much is missing. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 180:As a child, if a movie scared me I would pinch myself so that I’d remember I was in a cinema. For me, spiritual practices are a bit like pinching myself. When I’ve become so identified with the hero in the story of Tim that it has become terrifyingly real, I need to remember that everything is in fact okay. But when I know it’s okay, I don’t want to remain in a state of detached indifference. I want to get into the story again. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 181:The choice, as Wells once said, is the Universe-or nothing. . . . The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close. Humanity will have turned its back upon the still untrodden heights and will be descending again the long slope that stretches, across a thousand million years of time, down to the shores of the primeval sea. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 182:When I used to fight my unconsciousness, it turned the adventure of awakening into a perpetual struggle. I've come to accept that sometimes I'm very awake and sometimes I'm not. Even getting lost in the story of Tim is okay because this is the way I experience things that will ultimately make me more conscious. In my experience, I just need to be authentic with whatever is happening for me. There's no need to fight the flow of my life. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 183:The paradoxity of life means that every one of us as an individual self is the hero of the story of life. Looked at from one perspective we appear to be irrelevant specks of dust in a vast universe, who are here for a moment and then gone. But from another perspective each one of us is the very centre of the universe. When I understand that I am both an irrelevant speck and the star of the show, it makes me feel both humble and empowered. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 184:Too many writers think that all you need to do is write well-but that's only part of what a good book is. Above all, a good book tells a good story. Focus on the story first. Ask yourself, & 185:A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 186:The story man must see clearly in his own mind how every piece of business will be put over. He should feel every expression, every reaction. He get far enough from his story to take a second look at it... to see whether there is any dead phase... to see whether the personalities are going to be interesting and appealing to the audience. He should also try to see that the things that his characters are doing are of an interesting nature. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 187:But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 188:Well, we think that time "passes," flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see. The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 189:The young woman who brought me acquainted with Captain Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of my terrors, and used to begin, I remember - as a sort of introductory overture - by clawing the air with both hands, and uttering a long low hollow groan. So acutely did I suffer from this ceremony in combination with this infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to plead I thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough to hear the story again just yet. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 190:But because of his telling, many who did not believe have come to believe, and some who did not care have come to care. He tells the story, out of infinite pain, partly to honor the dead, but also to warn the living - to warn the living that it could happen again and that it must never happen again. Better than one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all. (vi) ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 191:Freedom is as frightening now as it was thousands of years ago. It will always require a willingness to sacrifice what is most familiar for what is most true. To be free we may need to act from integrity, on trust, sometimes for a very long time. Few of us will reach our promised land in a day. But perhaps the most important part of the story is that God does not delegate this task. Whenever anyone moves toward freedom, God Himself is there. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 192:How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 193:Many people protest when we explain to them the power of telling the story of their finances as they want it to be rather than as it is, because they believe that they should be factual about what is happening. But if you continue to look at lackful what-is and speak of what-is, you will not find the improvement that you desire. If you want to effect substantial change in your life experience, you must think thoughts that feel different as you think them. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 194:There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft - I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 195:He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 196:A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 197:The paradoxity of life means that as a conscious individual each one of us is the hero of the story of life. Looked at from one perspective we appear to be irrelevant specks of dust in a vast universe, who are here for a moment and then gone. But from another perspective everyone is the centre around which the universe revolves. How wonderful! When I understand that I am both an irrelevant speck and the star of the show, it makes me feel both humble and empowered. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 198:You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of the truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to help him organize it." ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 199:This is a call to arms. A call to be gentle, to be forgiving, to be generous with yourself. The next time you look into the mirror, try to let go of the story line that says you’re too fat or too sallow, too ashy or too old, your eyes are too small or your nose too big; just look into the mirror and see your face. When the criticism drops away, what you will see then is just you, without judgment, and that is the first step toward transforming your experience of the world. ~ oprah-winfrey, @wisdomtrove 200:What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful & 201:Each and every component that makes up your life experience is drawn to you by the powerful Law of Attraction's response to the thoughts you think and the story you tell about your life. Your money and financial assets; your body's state of wellness, clarity, flexibility, size, and shape; your work environment, how you are treated, work satisfaction, and rewards—indeed, the very happiness of your life experience in general—is all happening because of the story that you tell. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 202:Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God‚Äôs myth where the others are men‚Äôs myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call & 203:You have to begin telling a new story. You have to begin telling it the way you want it to be before the story of your life will actualize around the story the way you want it to be. Everything that [anyone is] living is in response to the story they are telling. Period. The way they think, the way they feel, their mood and attitude... If you want something to shift in the way it manifests, you've got to start telling the story in a way that shifts your emotion as you tell it. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 204:The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 205:In my experience the more I become conscious of the deep self, which is not in time, the more I can enter into the story of Tim in time. When I’m only superficially awake I hold back from life because it’s so scary. I want to commit to my life and choose to really live, but I nervously put it off until tomorrow. But in the deep awake state of safe vulnerability I’m able to take the risk and go for my life. I can dare to passionately engage with the scary business of living. I can love being human. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 206:It seems to me that this demonizing of the mind is a profound mistake. It’s absolutely true, of course, that when we get lost in our habitual thoughts it makes it harder to awaken. This is a valuable insight, but it’s only half the story. I take a paralogical approach. To me the mind is a wonderful tool with which to create and criticize my story of life. But I don’t want to be only conscious of the mind and the story it weaves for me. To become deep awake I also need to be conscious of the deep mystery. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 207:I may be a descendant of Seth. I say to myself, What does [the story of Cain and Abel] teach me? So I go back to all the interpretations in the Talmud, which to me are a source of pleasure and joy. Then I say, maybe this story is not for then; maybe it's for now! It's possible for brothers to kill one another in civil wars. But most important, whoever kills, kills his brother. That's a moral conclusion that may not be there; but that must be my conclusion. Otherwise, why read it? Whoever kills, kills his brother. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 208:I love it when a movie captivates my attention; however, I don’t want to completely identify with the hero, since when the story becomes harrowing, I find it too disturbing. This rarely happens because I know that I am basically safe in the cinema. In the same way, waking up to my essential identity gives me a detached serenity from the trials and tribulations of the story of Tim. But just being detached would be like watching a movie and merely seeing coloured patches projected on a screen. Where’s the fun in that? ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 209:If man had written the Gospels - say Shakespeare or Eugene O'Neill - the story of the gospel would have been drastically different. They would have placed the prince in halls and palaces and had him walking among the great. They would have had him surrounded by the important and significant of the time. Potentates and kings would have been His companions. But how sweetly common was the real God-man; though He had inhabited all eternity, He had come down and was subject to the rising and the setting of the sun. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 210:Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is & 211:One of the remarkable qualities of the story is that it creates space. We can dwell in a story, walk around, find our own place. The story confronts but does not oppress; the story inspires but does not manipulate. The story invites us to an encounter, a dialogue, a mutual sharing. As long as we have stories to tell to each other there is hope. As long as we can remind each other of the lives of men and women in whom the love of God becomes manifest, there is reason to move forward to new land in which new stories are hidden. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 212:Our unique evolutionary background has made us wonderfully cooperative, empathic, and loving. So why is our history so full of selfishness, cruelty, and violence? Economic and cultural factors certainly play a role. Nonetheless, across different kinds of societies—hunter-gatherer, agrarian, and industrial; communist and capitalist; Eastern and Western—in most cases the story is basically the same: loyalty and protection toward us, and fear and aggression toward them. We’ve already seen how that stance toward us is deep in our nature. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 213:The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 214:Bodies don't think, care, or have any problem with themselves. They never beat themselves up or shame themselves. They simply try to keep themselves balanced and healthy. They're entirely efficient, intelligent, kind, and resourceful. Where there's no thought, there's no problem. It's the story we believe-prior to doing inquiry- that leaves us confused. I tell the story of my body, and because I haven't inquired, I believe that my body is the problem and that if only this or that changed, I'd be happy. But my suffering can't be my body's fault. ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 215:Because everybody lies. It's part of living in society. Don't get me wrong-I think it's necessary. The last thing anyone wants is to live in a society where total honesty prevails. Can you imagine the conversations? You're short and fat, one person might say, and the other might answer, I know. But you smell bad. It just wouldn't work. So people lie by omission all the time. People will tell you most of the story... and I've learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they're afraid." -Jo ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 216:It's the story of my life. You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. Now, as you look through this document you'll see that I've underlined all the major decisions I ever made to make the stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take decisions that are exactly opposite to the sort of decisions that I've taken, then maybe you won't finish up at the end of your life" -she paused, and filled her lungs for a good should& 217:In the age of Facebook and Instagram you can observe this myth-making process more clearly than ever before, because some of it has been outsourced from the mind to the computer. It is fascinating and terrifying to behold people who spend countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect self online, becoming attached to their own creation, and mistaking it for the truth about themselves. That’s how a family holiday fraught with traffic jams, petty squabbles and tense silences becomes a collection of beautiful panoramas, perfect dinners and smiling faces; 99 per cent of what we experience never becomes part of the story of the self. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 218:The desires of the flesh, the ideas of the mind, and the luminosities of the soul — all are perfect expressions of the radiant Spirit that alone inhabits the universe, sublime gestures of that Great Perfection that alone outshines the world. There is only One Taste in the entire Kosmos, and that taste is Divine, whether it appears in the flesh, in the mind, in the soul. Resting in that One Taste, transported beyond the mundane, the world arises in the purest Freedom and radiant Release, happy to infinity, lost in all eternity, and hopeless in the original face of the unrelenting mystery. From One Taste all things issue, to One Taste all things return — and in between, which is the story of this moment, there is only the dream, and sometimes the nightmare, from which we would do well to awaken. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The Story of a Lie.” … ~ Nancy Horan, #NFDB
2:others, the story losing ~ Ian W Toll, #NFDB
3:The story is told of yourself. ~ Horace, #NFDB
4:Let the story tell itself. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
5:The Story Is Not the Event ~ Russ Harris, #NFDB
6:The divine art is the story. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
7:He changed the story.” *** ~ Penelope Ward, #NFDB
8:Tell the story behind your art. ~ Paul Jarvis, #NFDB
9:The story flared, then faded. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
10:I think the story is my form. ~ Joseph Epstein, #NFDB
11:So the story goes, so I'm told ~ Dave Matthews, #NFDB
12:the story of an unlikely hero ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
13:All we have is the story we tell. ~ Jess Walter, #NFDB
14:It's the story that counts. ~ Vincente Minnelli, #NFDB
15:Quit drawing out the story ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
16:Our first invention was the story. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
17:Tell the truth and write the story. ~ Betty Smith, #NFDB
18:Underground, the story continued. ~ Richard Adams, #NFDB
19:Changing the story until you believe it. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
20:here to read the rest of the story! ~ Linda Barrett, #NFDB
21:a military base, to check out the story. ~ Greg Iles, #NFDB
22:Feel the feelings and drop the story. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
23:I think tone gives birth to the story. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
24:Embrace the story that you want to write ~ Kim Chance, #NFDB
25:Goddess of song, teach me the story of a hero. ~ Homer, #NFDB
26:Murder Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate, ~ T J English, #NFDB
27:A sunset is the story of the world's day. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
28:Must I tell the story of my life again? ~ John Garfield, #NFDB
29:"My life is the story of self-realization." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
30:You're the storyteller and the story told. ~ John Green, #NFDB
31:and releasing the story from your deepest ~ Janet Conner, #NFDB
32:I read for the language, not the story. ~ Laura Moriarty, #NFDB
33:I really love the story in 'Twilight. ~ Isabelle Fuhrman, #NFDB
34:My friends have made the story of my life ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
35:The story can be told without many words. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
36:Behind these doors, the story begins ~ Brittainy C Cherry, #NFDB
37:Goddess of song, teach me the story
of a hero. ~ Homer,#NFDB
38:It reminded me of the story of Achilles, ~ Vaughn Heppner, #NFDB
39:My friends have made the story of my life. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
40:The hero is never the star of the story. ~ Marilyn Manson, #NFDB
41:The story of the human race is War. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
42:The truth of the story lies in the details. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
43:And the moral of the story is I'm Thom Yorke. ~ Thom Yorke, #NFDB
44:It's all about letting the story take over. ~ Robert Stone, #NFDB
45:The meaning of the story is the story. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
46:The story is the way the story is told. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
47:This is the story of how I disappeared. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh, #NFDB
48:Depending on where you began the story, ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
49:The metaphor is the story, not the character. ~ Kurt Busiek, #NFDB
50:The story that I love you, it has no end. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
51:The story was no longer important to tell. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
52:Good and bad - this is the story of my life. ~ Martha Reeves, #NFDB
53:I can change the story. I am the story. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
54:It's always the story that interests me. ~ Vincente Minnelli, #NFDB
55:My lips on your body trace the story of my love. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
56:Now is when the point of the story changes. ~ Galway Kinnell, #NFDB
57:One Thousand Miles The story of Miles and Sean ~ David James, #NFDB
58:The story of her death was written in bone. ~ Jefferson Bass, #NFDB
59:And now the story begins for the last time. ~ Daniel H Wilson, #NFDB
60:Give yourself permission to make the story bigger. ~ Jay Baer, #NFDB
61:I think we — well, I — messed up the story. ~ Sarah Mlynowski, #NFDB
62:sense the story like an approaching storm, ~ Elin Hilderbrand, #NFDB
63:Separate the story - your story - from facts. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
64:The story's what matters; spelling's overrated. ~ Adam Langer, #NFDB
65:What is truer than truth? Answer: the story. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
66:You can't rely on the acting to tell the story. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
67:Your home should tell the story of who you are. ~ Nate Berkus, #NFDB
68:Only half the story is true. The rest is necessary. ~ John Yau, #NFDB
69:There's only one story, the story of your life. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
70:The story begins only when the book closes. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
71:The story of each stone leads back to a mountain. ~ W S Merwin, #NFDB
72:The story was the price you paid for the rhythm. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
73:The story we are told of women is not this one. ~ Lauren Groff, #NFDB
74:Who does it hurt? That's who the story is about. ~ James Blish, #NFDB
75:If we own the story then we can write the ending. ~ Brene Brown, #NFDB
76:I have nobody left to whom I can tell the story. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
77:Perhaps the story now goes on beyond the book. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
78:The story sometimes writes you into a corner. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
79:The story you think you know is never the real one. ~ Lily King, #NFDB
80:This," she says, "is the story of us. ~ Guadalupe Garcia McCall, #NFDB
81:What is truth? It is the story that is told. ~ Juliet Blackwell, #NFDB
82:Be unswervingly and eternally loyal to the story. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
83:Never trust the storyteller. Only trust the story. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
84:Nobody is going to move. Here is the story folks. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
85:People are the story they tell themselves. ~ Diamond Dallas Page, #NFDB
86:Photography must be integrated with the story. ~ James Wong Howe, #NFDB
87:The story of my life—keeping the inevitable at bay ~ C J Roberts, #NFDB
88:In the country of the story the writer is king. ~ Shirley Jackson, #NFDB
89:It is the story that matters not just the ending. ~ Paul Lockhart, #NFDB
90:Scars are the maps to the story of where we’ve been. ~ Vi Keeland, #NFDB
91:The bigger the dream, the better the story. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
92:The story is the way the story is told. Adam’s ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
93:what's real within the story is real within the story ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
94:You can insist on a different end to the story. ~ Monica Lewinsky, #NFDB
95:Besides, he needed to get to the story out of the rut. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
96:History depends on who is telling the story. ~ James O Shaughnessy, #NFDB
97:How do we change the world? Change the story. ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
98:My autobiography was simply the story of my life. ~ Sidney Poitier, #NFDB
99:The story is not in the words; it's in the struggle. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
100:The story is the first thing and the last thing. ~ Norman Rockwell, #NFDB
101:We’re the villains you root for in the story. ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
102:As a journalist, the details always tell the story. ~ James McBride, #NFDB
103:Change but the name, and you are the subject of the story. ~ Horace, #NFDB
104:Folks believe the side of the story that suits 'em. ~ Rick Remender, #NFDB
105:If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure. ~ Richard Ford, #NFDB
106:My story has been the story of my generation. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
107:The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell. ~ Joyce Maynard, #NFDB
108:The story is not in the plot but in the telling. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
109:The wrong word is like a lie jammed inside the story. ~ Grace Paley, #NFDB
110:Don’t keep interrupting or I’ll never finish the story. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
111:He brought imagination to the story of the Creation. ~ Harvey Keitel, #NFDB
112:It's time to begin righting the story of your life. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
113:Let the story move you before you try to move the story. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
114:the lyrics aren't literature. they're just part of the story. ~ Bono, #NFDB
115:The story is more important to me than the part. ~ Catherine Deneuve, #NFDB
116:The story of my family. . .changes with the teller. ~ Jennifer Haigh, #NFDB
117:For at least twenty minutes, she handed out the story. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
118:History is the story of events, with praise or blame. ~ Cotton Mather, #NFDB
119:I think the story only really comes alive on the set. ~ Mora Stephens, #NFDB
120:Love is the story and the prayer that matters the most. ~ Brian Doyle, #NFDB
121:Why do you laugh? Change the name and the story is about you ~ Horace, #NFDB
122:Every episode has a purpose to move the story forward. ~ Busy Philipps, #NFDB
123:I wanted them to love the story so they would love me. ~ Stephen Glass, #NFDB
124:The story of your life is not your life; it's your story. ~ John Barth, #NFDB
125:The story that meant the end arrived late one night. ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
126:Well, a lead is the most important thing about the story. ~ Kurt Loder, #NFDB
127:We're looking for the story that will save our lives. ~ Jillian Lauren, #NFDB
128:A book cover is a distillation. It is a haiku of the story. ~ Chip Kidd, #NFDB
129:A man's legacy is determined by how the story ends. ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, #NFDB
130:Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
131:I don’t even know where to start with the story. Leo says, ~ Wendy Mass, #NFDB
132:I write a story in my head. I see the story like a movie. ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
133:Perserverance. . .that's been the story of my family. ~ Barry Goldwater, #NFDB
134:Sometimes endings came long before the story was told. ~ Chris Whitaker, #NFDB
135:The easiest story to sell is the story we want to buy. ~ Scott Van Pelt, #NFDB
136:The story of Love is the story of Love of Self. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
137:The story of one person is the story of all of humanity. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
138:the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
139:What about me? Where’s the story for people like me? ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
140:changes in the story were the result of normal editing. ~ Bryan Burrough, #NFDB
141:I could not remember the story with sufficient clarity. ~ Anthony Powell, #NFDB
142:I didn't act like I was there. I just got into the story. ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
143:I never use soundtrack; it is always part of the story. ~ Michael Haneke, #NFDB
144:It was always about the story rather than the character. ~ Jean Dujardin, #NFDB
145:She's a reader, she's always searching out the story ~ Kathleen MacMahon, #NFDB
146:The moral of the story? Don’t fuck with the magical order. ~ Chloe Neill, #NFDB
147:The most powerful person in the world is the story teller. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
148:there is a French version of the story, and a true one. ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
149:You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
150:And the story of love is a long sad tale ending in graves. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
151:Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
152:The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
153:The story of Jesus changes our lives because it is true. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
154:The story, too, tends to illustrate the end of the century. ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
155:Whenever I think I know the story, you turn the page on me. ~ Lucy Parker, #NFDB
156:Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
157:Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
158:God is the story nature tells to those who are listening. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
159:It's the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story. ~ Tom Spanbauer, #NFDB
160:So the moral of the story
is that God hates vegetarians. ~ Cory O Brien,#NFDB
161:The story is always better than your ability to write it. ~ Robin McKinley, #NFDB
162:To tell the story, Madenn reasoned, was to harness its power. ~ Julia Fine, #NFDB
163:A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
164:Because the story of your life never starts at the beginning. ~ Monica Wood, #NFDB
165:Cure for writer's block: blow something up(in the story) ~ Scott Westerfeld, #NFDB
166:history is the story of liberty becoming conscious of itself. ~ Clive James, #NFDB
167:Is the story developing an attitude or victimized by it. ~ Leonard Michaels, #NFDB
168:It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
169:It is not the voice that commands the story; it is the ear. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
170:Now Leroux, what think you
Of this twist to the story? ~ E A Bucchianeri,#NFDB
171:There’s always hope, Charlotte, that’s the point of the story. ~ Tanya Huff, #NFDB
172:This is the story of how my recklessness became my salvation. ~ Aspen Matis, #NFDB
173:When you feel moved by the story, you want to tell that story. ~ James Wolk, #NFDB
174:
If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.
~ Richard Ford,#NFDB
175:
If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.
~ Richard Ford,#NFDB
176:Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you. ~ Jeffrey Cranor, #NFDB
177:Good ideas stay with you until you eventually write the story. ~ Brian Keene, #NFDB
178:Happy sadness, sad happiness, the story of my life and loves ~ John Banville, #NFDB
179:I'm first and foremost interested in the story, the characters. ~ David Lean, #NFDB
180:My life story is the story of everyone I've ever met. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
181:Upstaged by a schizophrenic, Dallas said. The story of my life. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
182:A shot is only as every as good as how well it tells the story. ~ Simon Baker, #NFDB
183:From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad. ~ Andrew Sean Greer, #NFDB
184:Jende barely listened because he was praying the story was fake ~ Imbolo Mbue, #NFDB
185:The story is a piece of work. The novel is a way of life. ~ Toni Cade Bambara, #NFDB
186:The story of love is hello and goodbye... until we meet again. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB
187:You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing. ~ Alice Munro, #NFDB
188:A page in the story of my life that I never could've anticipated. ~ Emma Mills, #NFDB
189:countered. “I suspect the story was made up by a woman who had a ~ Jean M Auel, #NFDB
190:I always believed that the picture itself should tell the story. ~ Brian Froud, #NFDB
191:I believe in the story [ of Adam and Eve]. For me, it's a story. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
192:If there’s a magic pony in the story, chances are I’ll read it. ~ Chris Adrian, #NFDB
193:Learn to listen, listen with your bones, let the story fill you. ~ Emily Henry, #NFDB
194:My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
195:My wife is the fact-checker, I'm in the story telling business. ~ Baz Luhrmann, #NFDB
196:The story I'm writing finds its own voice while I'm writing it. ~ Holly Lisle, #NFDB
197:The story of mankind began in a garden and ended in revelations. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
198:we want to introduce game mechanics one by one alongside the story ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
199:When I knocked a guy down, there was no second part to the story. ~ Bob Gibson, #NFDB
200:Your best authorial self is always one about to ruin the story. ~ Chuck Wendig, #NFDB
201:Courage - To tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. ~ Brene Brown, #NFDB
202:For me, the shaping of the story is more important than accuracy. ~ Pam Houston, #NFDB
203:I always try to make the setting fit the story I have in mind. ~ Tony Hillerman, #NFDB
204:The story of his great-grandfather . . . was his own story, too. ~ Kelly Cherry, #NFDB
205:The truth is only slightly less interesting than the story. ~ Kristopher Jansma, #NFDB
206:Try to make the time frame the minimum the story will permit. ~ Ring Lardner Jr, #NFDB
207:Unfortunately, the story wasn’t a novel, and it wasn’t fiction. ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
208:Whatever the drama of the story is, you have to be true to it. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
209:why is it
that when the story ends
we begin to feel all of it ~ Rupi Kaur,#NFDB
210:Always remember: In the end, the surviver gets to tell the story. ~ Nancy Werlin, #NFDB
211:Authors do not choose a story to write, the story chooses us. ~ Richard P Denney, #NFDB
212:Easy to see the solution when you're not in the story, isn't it. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
213:Human history was the story of increasingly disoriented hunger. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
214:I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story. ~ Nikki Giovanni, #NFDB
215:Once we have accepted the story we cannot escape the story's fate. ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
216:Perhaps the only happily ever after is to survive to tell the story ~ Kat Howard, #NFDB
217:Readers need to see themselves between the lines of the story. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
218:The story you choose to tell isn't always the story you believe. ~ Nova Ren Suma, #NFDB
219:Wait till it’s my turn to tell the story! They’ll be like ‘Bear who? ~ T J Klune, #NFDB
220:You break the story first, and then you go into the specifics. ~ Seth MacFarlane, #NFDB
221:And you’re disappointed in the story. I know you wanted a love story. ~ Paul Park, #NFDB
222:For me, the filmmaking should serve the story, first and foremost. ~ Rupert Wyatt, #NFDB
223:People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
224:the dark heart of the story that is all the reason for its telling? ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
225:assume we know how the story ends. Certainty is the enemy of growth. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
226:Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.” This ~ Jay Michaelson, #NFDB
227:I never regret anything... I just lie about it or change the story. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
228:I worked in the story department for years, on Cars and Toy Story 3. ~ Dan Scanlon, #NFDB
229:Politics isn’t about truth. It’s making people believe the story. ~ Tony Bertauski, #NFDB
230:The story of the Internet is this incredibly strong, exciting change. ~ James Daly, #NFDB
231:…what your life means depends on how you tell the story. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover, #NFDB
232:As the story unfolded, the cast of characters changed to match it. ~ Warren Spector, #NFDB
233:History is entirely created by the person who tells the story. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda, #NFDB
234:If I were to write the story of my life, I would shock the world. ~ Caterina Sforza, #NFDB
235:That MySpace is the story of the year. Everyone but my mother is on it. ~ Dane Cook, #NFDB
236:The war is now the story of our lives, and there’s no denying it ~ Mary Ann Shaffer, #NFDB
237:took up the story. “Cherry Pickens was fooling around with him behind ~ Lauren Carr, #NFDB
238:With photography, I like to leave a lot of the story, even to myself. ~ Alex Prager, #NFDB
239:A director shouldn't get in the way of the movie, the story should. ~ Frank Darabont, #NFDB
240:Claire jumped right into the story. “There was a Thunderbolt cable ~ Karin Slaughter, #NFDB
241:How can life end in the middle of the story? Because life always does. ~ Linda Grant, #NFDB
242:Show me the story. I just want to tell a story that pulls me forward. ~ Debra Winger, #NFDB
243:The flashbacks are a great way to give answers to the story. ~ Sarah Michelle Gellar, #NFDB
244:There is no sale without the story; no knockout without the setup. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
245:There will be other words some other day; that is the story of my life. ~ Billy Joel, #NFDB
246:The story of evolution unfolds with increasing levels of abstraction. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
247:Today was a pause before the page was turned and the story continued. ~ Hazel Gaynor, #NFDB
248:When writing, don't try to lead the story; let the story lead you. ~ Giuseppe Bianco, #NFDB
249:Depending on where you began the story, it was about Noah Czerny. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
250:I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
251:I shall tell the story of Morozko, of his kindness and his cruelty. ~ Katherine Arden, #NFDB
252:Producing is easier, I can just be at the set overseeing the story. ~ Morris Chestnut, #NFDB
253:Sometimes we don't get to choose what we write. The story chooses us. ~ Sandra Bunino, #NFDB
254:'That is the story. Do you think there is any way of making them believe it?' ~ Plato, #NFDB
255:The only purpose of the visuals, in any film, is to serve the story. ~ Don Hertzfeldt, #NFDB
256:The prose as such has to be singing the song the story is telling. ~ Leonard Michaels, #NFDB
257:There was obviously more to the story, more that I needed to know. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
258:The story of a mother's life: Trapped between a scream and a hug. ~ Cathy Guisewite, #NFDB
259:The story she had told me was possible, but it was not believable. ~ Giacomo Casanova, #NFDB
260:We reshape the story even when we believe we are simply repeating it. ~ Chang rae Lee, #NFDB
261:A person is no more & no less than the story of passions & deeds. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB
262:Don't overact the story of your name. Overact the story of your work. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
263:Don’t overact the story of your name. Overact the story of your work. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
264:Good is only half the truth, and truth is only half the story. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
265:I have followed my penis into hell
and returned with the story. ~ Christopher Moore,#NFDB
266:It’s true that while ambition creates fear, it also creates the story. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
267:The only person who needs to be concerned about the story of you is you. ~ Miguel Ruiz, #NFDB
268:There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
269:There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
270:the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all ~ Frederick Buechner, #NFDB
271:The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen. ~ Aravind Adiga, #NFDB
272:The story of a poor man’s life is written on his body, in a sharp pen. ~ Aravind Adiga, #NFDB
273:Those who remember the past tend to get the story really screwed up. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
274:thus the story of Eden was made to reinforce the patriarchal structure ~ Elaine Pagels, #NFDB
275:Upon examination of a people’s history, beware the story teller’s motives. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
276:Write the kind of story you like best—write the story you want to read. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
277:And if you have five seconds to spare, I'll tell you the story of my life". ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
278:And then they lived happily, and we who hear the story are happier still. ~ Andrew Lang, #NFDB
279:Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
280:Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life. ~ Dorothy Parker, #NFDB
281:if i can only recount the story of my life right out of my body flames will grow ~ Rumi, #NFDB
282:Pretty much always. We need to tell the story of our life to someone. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
283:Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom. ~ Gao Xingjian, #NFDB
284:That's the story of my life rich or poor and mostly poor and truly poor. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
285:He, too, wanted to tell the story of our adventure in his own way. Praise ~ Laila Lalami, #NFDB
286:history is the story of mankind, of what it has done, suffered or enjoyed. ~ J M Roberts, #NFDB
287:It's not always to the benefit of the story to have it so preordained. ~ Daniel Woodrell, #NFDB
288:People are less focused on the story, and more on how the story is told. ~ Lynne Tillman, #NFDB
289:Some people just see the glory and they don't want to know about the story. ~ Matt Damon, #NFDB
290:The story is everything, which means it's our job to tell better stories. ~ Kevin Spacey, #NFDB
291:The story I tell is so incomplete, five kids in the house and no food to eat. ~ Too hort, #NFDB
292:When I approach a story or movie, the story is the most important thing. ~ Alexandre Aja, #NFDB
293:a person is no more & no less than the story of his passions & deeds ~ Doug Dorst, #NFDB
294:At the centre of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
295:How is a woman to tell the story of her life and not stumble upon men? ~ Slavenka Drakuli, #NFDB
296:If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
297:I sing as an actress. Whatever I'm singing about, I just become the story. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
298:Of course, everything depends on who is telling the story. It always does. ~ Graham Joyce, #NFDB
299:That's more along what the story is, as opposed to me being onstage singing. ~ Toby Keith, #NFDB
300:That's the story of my life; I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. ~ Marilyn Monroe, #NFDB
301:The story of Trump was the story of how he tried to make himself a story. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
302:The zombies are here, and they’re not going away, but they’re not the story. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
303:A person is no more & no less than the Story of his Passions & Deeds. ~ Doug Dorst, #NFDB
304:at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power. ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
305:But she was aware that the story you think you know is never the real one. She ~ Lily King, #NFDB
306:I didn’t tell the story to ask for help because I knew there was no help. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
307:I have often tried to tell the story of a place through people there. ~ Nicholas D Kristof, #NFDB
308:To risk sounding melodramatic, the story of Oakland is the story of America. ~ Eliot Peper, #NFDB
309:A happy ending is just the place where you choose to stop telling the story. ~ Leah Stewart, #NFDB
310:Practically speaking, your religion is the story you tell about your life. ~ Andrew Greeley, #NFDB
311:Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
312:Sometimes I can't get out of the character because the story is very intense. ~ Diana Krall, #NFDB
313:The picture alone, without the written word, leaves half the story untold. ~ James Lafferty, #NFDB
314:The story of humans is the story of ideas that shine light into dark corners. ~ Jill Tarter, #NFDB
315:This is where the story should end, but life is not as kind as literature. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
316:We don't know the Devil's side of the story, because God wrote all the books. ~ J A Konrath, #NFDB
317:We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
318:Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
319:You let the story cool off and then, instead of rewriting it, you relive it. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
320:A story matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
321:At the heart of Christian faith is the story of Jesus death and resurrection. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
322:... but is it crime or an act of war?" Depends on who's telling the story ... ~ Lavie Tidhar, #NFDB
323:Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own. ~ Hannah Kent, #NFDB
324:Home was the story of what happened there, not the story of where it happened. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
325:I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means. ~ Dorothy Allison, #NFDB
326:Imagine the story you would most want to read, and then shamelessly write it. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
327:I'm alone inside the world of the story, my favorite feeling in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
328:My work is not about my life history. It's not about the story of my neurosis ~ Anish Kapoor, #NFDB
329:Usually writer's block arises when something is wrong internally with the story. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
330:We’re professional liars, aren’t we? It’s our job to keep the story interesting. ~ Wendy Wax, #NFDB
331:You have one chance to write the story of your life. Make it a bestseller. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
332:Anyone at any age is able to tell the story of his or her life with authority. ~ E L Doctorow, #NFDB
333:Because that’s what the story’s really about: getting out of paying your debts. ~ Naomi Novik, #NFDB
334:History books are filled with lies. Whoever wins the war tells the story. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
335:If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit. ~ Robert McKee, #NFDB
336:I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
337:I'm at the beginning of it. I'm Elektra's last job before the story kicks off. ~ Jason Isaacs, #NFDB
338:In their eyes, Eve saw the wolf gleam. The story was the prey, ratings the trophy. ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
339:In the story, I think as an actor you're just trying to fit into the world. ~ Charlize Theron, #NFDB
340:is Will Crutchfield’s “The Story of a Voice,” The New Yorker , November 13, 1995. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
341:I was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
342:Once you become the story off-screen, you are less likely to be the onscreen one. ~ Max Irons, #NFDB
343:The more acute the stress, the more active the leakers, the bigger the story. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
344:There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
345:the story of a queen named Cassiopeia who lived forever on a throne in the sky. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
346:Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals? ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
347:You have to be really open to your acting partners and believe in the story. ~ Rachel McAdams, #NFDB
348:All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
349:All photographers have to do, is find and catch the story-telling moment. ~ Alfred Eisenstaedt, #NFDB
350:Facts are the soil from which the story grows. Imagination is a last resort. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
351:God writes the story of our lives with the pen strokes of our own free choices. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
352:I certainly did my best to bring the story [Anthem] to life in another medium. ~ Jeff Britting, #NFDB
353:I do not know if the story repeats itself: I only know that people change little ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
354:If somebody has a chance to put my food in their mouth, that tells the story. ~ Emeril Lagasse, #NFDB
355:If you were given a book with the story of your life, would you read the end? ~ Natasha Friend, #NFDB
356:I’m alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
357:I’m the story of Sheresa. I write a little bit of the fiction of me every day. ~ Samantha Hunt, #NFDB
358:I was not a natural. . . . This is the story of becoming . . . the Hard Way. ~ Cressida Cowell, #NFDB
359:I went to film school to make films just because you're in control of the story. ~ Julie Delpy, #NFDB
360:Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
361:Sometimes the title IS the story, and the rest is just an explanation. ~ James K Bowers, [T5], #NFDB
362:The story of the global workforce is a sad tale of wasted talent and energy. ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
363:Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present. ~ Edmond de Goncourt, #NFDB
364:I am writing graffiti on your body. I am drawing the story of how hard we tried. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
365:I long To hear the story of your life, which must Take the ear strangely. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
366:The story fails but your faith in the importance of doing the story doesn't fail. ~ Alice Munro, #NFDB
367:This is the story of a boy who used to be a wolf, and a girl who became one ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
368:Unless the story line carries the scenes, the scenes don't really mean anything. ~ George Cukor, #NFDB
369:When you're making a film you're thinking about how to tell the story visually. ~ Sofia Coppola, #NFDB
370:You can't tell the story of the women's movement through the story of one woman. ~ Dyllan McGee, #NFDB
371:An autobiography is the story of how a man thinks he lived. ~ Herbert Samuel 1st Viscount Samuel, #NFDB
372:A story matters only, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
373:If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
374:I love the opportunity to tell the story about the characters through the music. ~ Alex Kurtzman, #NFDB
375:I'm very connected to the story, the history, and the trauma people experience. ~ Chath Piersath, #NFDB
376:I think it is vanity to want to put into a story anything but the story itself. ~ Julio Cortazar, #NFDB
377:I think it is vanity to want to put into a story anything but the story itself. ~ Julio Cort zar, #NFDB
378:La Bella Principessa: The Story of the New Masterpiece by Leonardo Da Vinci.31 ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
379:Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography entitled The Story of My Experiments with Truth. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
380:The board reveals all: Upon its acetate is writ the story of past and present. Who ~ David Simon, #NFDB
381:The story of the subconscious mind can be told in three words: there is none. ~ Hugo Munsterberg, #NFDB
382:The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
383:The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost. ~ Arthur Miller, #NFDB
384:You couldn’t omit your own child from the story of your life, like it was no big deal. ~ Lisa Ko, #NFDB
385:Action alone doesnt work in Germany - you need an emotional element to the story. ~ Til Schweiger, #NFDB
386:analysis of the story will sometimes undercut our antepredicative grasp of it). ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
387:A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
388:But that's a comfort, isn't it? That's enough. The story's still here. We go on. ~ Seth Dickinson, #NFDB
389:Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
390:I'm finding now more and more that nudity is so rarely serves the story in any film. ~ Judy Greer, #NFDB
391:I never work from an outline, and often I dont know how the story will end. ~ Patricia MacLachlan, #NFDB
392:Reality is always the story of a past, and what I love about the past is—it's over. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
393:The history of the United States is the story of people of many backgrounds. ~ William Loren Katz, #NFDB
394:The story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac are nowhere in any other tradition. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
395:The story of your life is really the story of the relations between yourself and God. ~ Emmet Fox, #NFDB
396:The world before us is a postcard, and I imagine the story we are writing on it. ~ Mary E Pearson, #NFDB
397:We create the story, and at the same time, the story is what sets us in motion. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
398:Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
399:Who knows if [maybe] destiny is just how you tell yourself the story of your life? ~ Jandy Nelson, #NFDB
400:Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself ~ Anderson Cooper, #NFDB
401:But those words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
402:Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line. ~ Neil Jordan, #NFDB
403:Hey, as long as you’re not moving the story forward at all, why not have a pod race? ~ Wil Wheaton, #NFDB
404:If people knew the story of their lives, how many would then elect to live them? ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
405:"Let go of the story – and return to the only place of power: the present moment." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
406:This is the Mark of Cain. You know the story of Cain and Abel? From the Bible?" I ~ Karpov Kinrade, #NFDB
407:Have a strong vision about the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it. ~ Robert Redford, #NFDB
408:I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB
409:if i can only recount
the story of my life
right out of my body
flames will grow ~ Rumi,#NFDB
410:If I wake up during a dream I can usually go back to sleep and finish the story. ~ Marion Cotillard, #NFDB
411:I'm a slave to the beats of the story, not to the words we use to tell the story. ~ Steve Dildarian, #NFDB
412:I try to be honest; I really do try not to exaggerate the story. I try to be accurate. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
413:I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it. ~ Mae West, #NFDB
414:Rather as an epitaph tells the story of a whole life in the hyphen between two dates. ~ Manu Joseph, #NFDB
415:She also knew that the story you made up in your mind was rarely the real story. ~ Ann Howard Creel, #NFDB
416:The story [of Allied] stayed with me, like a stray dog outside the office, waiting. ~ Steven Knight, #NFDB
417:The story of how I left Huckleberry begins -- as do all worthy stories -- with a goat ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
418:The story you walk into, he has learned, is always more complex than it first appears. ~ Doug Dorst, #NFDB
419:Trust me, I'm telling you stories. ... I can change the story. I am the story. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
420:We always know how the story ends. What we don't know is what happens along the way. ~ Ahdaf Soueif, #NFDB
421:When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story. ~ Charles Baxter, #NFDB
422:Where does the story end? That's what it's all about. It's what we all want to know. ~ Sarah Dalton, #NFDB
423:You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life. ~ Jane Hirshfield, #NFDB
424:Your future is your own again. And I consider that to be a happy ending to the story. ~ Lisa Mangum, #NFDB
425:Besides, there’s a reason we don’t know how the story ends.” “Why?” “Because it doesn’t. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
426:Breakthrough depends on your state, the story you tell yourself, and your strategies. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
427:By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained. ~ Michael Hastings, #NFDB
428:Don’t you understand?” he would say, “You imagine the story better than I remember it. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
429:For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story. ~ Damian Lewis, #NFDB
430:For you, and and all the other readers who have followed the story to its conclusion ~ Brian Ruckley, #NFDB
431:I like telling the story in a visual way. I don't like explaining a lot in dialogue. ~ Sofia Coppola, #NFDB
432:I long to hear the story of your life, which must captivate the ear strangely. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
433:I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, #NFDB
434:It’s impossible to know which moments are crucial to your narrative until the story is over. ~ Dessa, #NFDB
435:I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters. ~ Robert Harris, #NFDB
436:Not that the story need to be long, but it will take a long time to shorten it ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
437:Once I have the story in my head, I write it down. The illustrations usually come last. ~ Dav Pilkey, #NFDB
438:She unfolds the piece of paper in her hands and she reads again the story written on it. ~ Ali Smith, #NFDB
439:the hüzün the boy has carried with him since birth will lead the story into melodrama. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
440:The princess rescues the villain,” he whispered. “It’s a nice variation on the story. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
441:The story, from beginning to end, I found again in a heart of a friend. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
442:The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short. ~ Abraham Maslow, #NFDB
443:This is the story of a girl gone mad while trying to find a little bit of love. ~ Charlotte Eriksson, #NFDB
444:We contained our own stories. A thousand tiny parts of the story would die with us. ~ Alwyn Hamilton, #NFDB
445:What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
446:Whenever I look at it, it makes me happy. That’s the moral of the story. That’s it. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
447:When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children. ~ Maurice Sendak, #NFDB
448:A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing. ~ Christopher Nolan, #NFDB
449:A lot of period pieces we see are adaptations of novels - we always know the story. ~ Joanne Froggatt, #NFDB
450:Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together and they add up to the story of life. ~ Rob Sheffield, #NFDB
451:Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version. ~ Carolyn See, #NFDB
452:If two or more organs of the body are not squirting fluids, the story's no good! ~ Christopher Vogler, #NFDB
453:Never let the details take over the story; let the story dictate what details to use. ~ Krista D Ball, #NFDB
454:Our story is great. Maybe not all the other shit, but the story of us is perfect, Em. ~ Renee Carlino, #NFDB
455:The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story. ~ Jean M Auel, #NFDB
456:The story [of the Sacrifice of Isaac ] is much more a part of theology than of history. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
457:When you can tell the story and it doesn't bring up any pain, you know it is healed. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
458:Change the story and you change perception; change perception and you change the world. ~ Jean Houston, #NFDB
459:Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of life. ~ Rob Sheffield, #NFDB
460:If music is
the story
of our lives,
what song
did they
sing
for me? ~ Lisa Schroeder,#NFDB
461:Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
462:Pay and the story rolls. Steal and the story folds. No stealing from the blind newsboy. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
463:So I need the story, Jenna. I need the truth.
Right, like the two are the same thing. ~ Ilsa J Bick,#NFDB
464:These are hard memories, and I will save the rest of the story for another time. ~ Ellen Emerson White, #NFDB
465:This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
466:This is the story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
467:You can't be a serious writer of fiction unless you believe the story you are telling. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
468:Identifying our customers’ problems deepens their interest in the story we are telling. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
469:I disliked singing in English and neither liked the story nor the character of Cressida. ~ Walter Legge, #NFDB
470:Isn't that the story for many of us in America? Christianity is our default setting. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
471:The story is what happened;it is what is. The value is in what the story is telling you. ~ Janet Conner, #NFDB
472:The Vedas, as they are called, tell the story of the migration of the Rigvedic tribes. ~ Hourly History, #NFDB
473:Was the story of his life written on her heart? Was the story of her life written on his? ~ Dana Marton, #NFDB
474:Even knowing the ending was sad, I wouldn't have deprived myself the beauty of the story. ~ Sandra Brown, #NFDB
475:Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of a life. ~ Rob Sheffield, #NFDB
476:For me, the greater purpose of the story is just to illuminate some pattern of human truth. ~ Will Smith, #NFDB
477:I'm a warrior, I went into jail for the drama. I'm the story of the terrorist cell of Osama ~ Vinnie Paz, #NFDB
478:So the moral of the story is that the primary ingredient for a successful nation is guns. ~ Cory O Brien, #NFDB
479:The idea that the story is true is more important than being able to prove that it's true. ~ Ben Mezrich, #NFDB
480:The moral of the story was that if you can talk, it's better not to tell the truth. ~ Louis de Berni res, #NFDB
481:To me, White Boy Shuffle is sort of like Catcher in the Rye, the story is so universal. ~ Ryan Phillippe, #NFDB
482:Whenever you think that your needs are not being met, you’re telling the story of a future ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
483:I don't think I can write the story of my life, but I can write the story of my hair. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
484:If the hero does not match the story, it is the hero, not the story, who must be rewritten. ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
485:I need the story to escape from one disaster into another, neither of which I can imagine. ~ Joanna Walsh, #NFDB
486:It's good filmmaking when you don't have to say anything and you can still tell the story. ~ Shia LaBeouf, #NFDB
487:No Tyson, the guy in the story did not attract the attention of a moose. Tyson is sad now. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
488:Reporters may believe they control the story, but the story always controls the reporters. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
489:That's the most important thing for me in TV, telling the story to as many people as we can. ~ Nick Faldo, #NFDB
490:The Bible looks the way it does because “God lets his children tell the story,” so to speak. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
491:The bones of the story of 'War Horse' is a love story. That's what makes it universal. ~ Steven Spielberg, #NFDB
492:The history of the music industry is inevitably also the story of the development of ~ Edgar Bronfman Jr, #NFDB
493:The more outrageous the story line, the more of it had to come from reality. ~ Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, #NFDB
494:There is always the rest of the story, right? Even if you don’t know right now what it is. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
495:The story did not end at the tree. For you and your people, that is where the story begins. ~ Chuck Black, #NFDB
496:The story may have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
497:The story was never the story, and it surprised you, how much another person could carry. ~ Justin Cronin, #NFDB
498:We are reading the story of our lives as though we were in it, as though we had written it. ~ Mark Strand, #NFDB
499:When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
500:When we leave the pen in His hands we will never be disappointed with the story of our lives. ~ Eric Ludy, #NFDB
501:As a war correspondent, you have to weigh the risk you run against the story you can get. ~ Asne Seierstad, #NFDB
502:But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story ~ Laura Hillenbrand, #NFDB
503:I am all the moments between the lines of the story you already think you have memorized. ~ Jennae Cecelia, #NFDB
504:I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true [...]. ~ Richard Wright, #NFDB
505:In the story of the prince and the frog, there’s always a frog. This story ... it has no frog. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
506:My memories will be erased and then I'll be force-fed the story from the society pages? ~ Julianna Baggott, #NFDB
507:Natalie S. Bober. A Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert Frost. Henry Holt: New York, 1998, ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
508:Sometimes I'll put a lie for philosophical reasons, and sometimes to make the story shorter. ~ Todd Snider, #NFDB
509:The paramedics told me the story.” He checked the clock, then signed a clipboard attached ~ Faye Kellerman, #NFDB
510:The story as told in The Odyssey doesn't hold water. There are too many inconsistencies. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
511:the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
512:The story of life is quicker then the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB
513:You can just say the word "hair" to a woman, and she tells you the story of her life. ~ Elizabeth Benedict, #NFDB
514:Your words sounded like the worst kind of secret, the story that I wished wasn’t true. ~ Kate Karyus Quinn, #NFDB
515:Begin as if you will finish. Let the story be told that you had the courage to begin. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher, #NFDB
516:Everything before Jesus is preface. Everything after Jesus is appendix. Jesus is the story. ~ Kevin DeYoung, #NFDB
517:IT WOULD BE tempting to read the story of Fordlandia and Belterra as a parable of arrogance, ~ Greg Grandin, #NFDB
518:Let the cut tell the story. Otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you've got narration. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
519:The four elements of shame resilience: Name it. Talk about it. Own your story. Tell the story. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
520:...whenever something doesn't make sense it means some part of the story is missing. ~ Patti Callahan Henry, #NFDB
521:When you write the story of two happy lovers, let the story be set on the banks of Lake Como. ~ Franz Liszt, #NFDB
522:White. Like a clean piece of paper, like uncarved ivory, all is white when the story begins. ~ Daniel Mason, #NFDB
523:After a bit, though (and this part of the story is still unwritten, but definitely coming) ~ Johnny B Truant, #NFDB
524:I'm going to tell you the story about the geese which fly 5,000 miles from Canada to France. ~ Alex Ferguson, #NFDB
525:In some way there is no real life. It's always the story of your life that you're living. ~ Aleksandar Hemon, #NFDB
526:I really like Septimus Heap. he is my favorite guy in the story. I should make you all read it. ~ Angie Sage, #NFDB
527:Our deepest problem is that we seek to find our identity outside the story of redemption. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
528:What if God, in giving us life, invites us to collaborate in writing the story of our lives? ~ Adam Hamilton, #NFDB
529:What’s really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn’t support the story. ~ Wally Pfister, #NFDB
530:When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.
~ Haruki Murakami,#NFDB
531:When the story is good enough, people can watch something three times the length of an opera. ~ Kevin Spacey, #NFDB
532:Whiskey is many things to many people, but at the very root of its popularity lies the story. ~ Kate Hopkins, #NFDB
533:With a mini series you can give the story a proper sense of pacing, a proper sense of closure. ~ Garth Ennis, #NFDB
534:If the story's interesting and it's a compelling script, I'd be thrilled to be a part of it. ~ Andre Braugher, #NFDB
535:It's purely and simply the unfair media.They want the story to stay alive as long as possible. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
536:I will tell you the story of it. Another story of Lightwoods and Herondales and Fairchilds. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
537:listen beyond the details of the story for the core identity and needs of the person speaking. ~ Janet Conner, #NFDB
538:Stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
539:The choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
540:The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible. ~ Beverly Cleary, #NFDB
541:There are so many versions of every story because every storyteller tells the story differently. ~ Tomm Moore, #NFDB
542:The story of my billion-dollar business starts like this. I borrowed $1,000 from a friend. ~ Barbara Corcoran, #NFDB
543:The story was never the the story, and it surprised you, how much another person could carry. ~ Justin Cronin, #NFDB
544:This is not what I had planned; but perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
545:We are reading the story of our lives
As though we were in it
As though we had written it ~ Mark Strand,#NFDB
546:You can tell how good a filmmaker is if you can turn the sound down but you can still feel the story. ~ Q Tip, #NFDB
547:Believe in the reader and they can connect the dots, if you succeed breathe life into the story ~ Esther Freud, #NFDB
548:Here’s the story of my life. Hoping they would care about me or wishing they wouldn’t care so much ~ Lang Leav, #NFDB
549:How terrible to die without finishing a book, she thought. Never to know the end of the story. ~ Heather Young, #NFDB
550:I read somewhere that every life is the story of a single mistake, and then what happens after. ~ Andrew Gross, #NFDB
551:Love is not only the story of butterflies or birds; it is also the story of jackals and hounds ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
552:• • • Military history is the story of the terrible murder of beautiful plans by ugly facts. ~ Gregory Benford, #NFDB
553:Mummy, I woke today and there was a Lincoln Log in me sock drawer! ... That's the story of Jesus. ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
554:No one likes to find out that the story he always believed about his own identity is false. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
555:Only when we feel the story in each of its moments or places are we able to tell it properly. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
556:Radical historians now the tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
557:Tell me the story about how the sun loved the moon so much, he died every night to let her breath. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
558:the story, and the conviction it carries, are part of the teller’s way of organizing his own life. ~ Tim Parks, #NFDB
559:This is the story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do. So what ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
560:We are reading the story of our lives
As though we were in it
As though we had written it. ~ Mark Strand,#NFDB
561:You're in the story with the rest of us now, and you must go with it, whether you will or no. ~ Peter S Beagle, #NFDB
562:A story can be new and yet tell about olden times. The past comes into existence with the story. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
563:Epics are narrative poems that recount the story of a hero who represents a particular culture. ~ DK Publishing, #NFDB
564:Every book it's the hardest part-finding the way in, finding the voice to tell the story. H ~ Andrew Sean Greer, #NFDB
565:Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
566:For me a film is at its best when you can start filling in the story with your own life experience. ~ Brad Pitt, #NFDB
567:How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all. ~ Alan Dean Foster, #NFDB
568:I believe that the truth of any subject only comes when all sides of the story are put together. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
569:I fell in love with the possibilities of telling the story in the future, and married that quickly. ~ J H Wyman, #NFDB
570:If the story drives the sex, it’s contemporary romance. If sex drives the story, it’s erotica. ~ Scott Hildreth, #NFDB
571:I like to watch many things, especially strange films and something recent, not just the story. ~ Dario Argento, #NFDB
572:In most good stories it is the character's personalty that creates the action of the story. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
573:The joy of the story is not in whether the good guys will win, but in finding out how they got there. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
574:To let the player play the story, tell his own story, and have that story be deep and meaningful? ~ Tom Bissell, #NFDB
575:We are reading the story of our lives
As though we were in it,
As though we had written it. ~ Rachel Cohn,#NFDB
576:When I was four I read the story of horton hears a who and I cried. I wanted to eat that elephant. ~ Thom Yorke, #NFDB
577:Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty. —ELIE WIESEL ~ Ben Sherwood, #NFDB
578:win. The story of Jason isn’t a heroic quest; it’s a warning about the dangers of ruthless women. ~ C A Higgins, #NFDB
579:Books Futebol Nation: The Story of Brazil Through Soccer by David Goldblatt (Nation Books, May 2014) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
580:Commenting on a date in progress is like writing the story of a relationship that doesn’t exist yet. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
581:Every time I change the way I explain myself to myself, I have to rearrange the story of my life. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
582:I believe that the story is the most important element of any medium whether it's theater, film, TV. ~ Chad Lowe, #NFDB
583:I don't want anyone reading my writing to think about style. I just want them to be in the story. ~ Willa Cather, #NFDB
584:In fact, I don't even know myself. That is the big secret of the story. That there is no story. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
585:I read my books out loud to myself because of the demands of the story and demands of language. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
586:It was like a comedy by Shakespeare. All the ends of the story were being bound up in a good way. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
587:My songs always tend to have a good element to the story. That is who I am - an optimistic person. ~ Rayvon Owen, #NFDB
588:Reincarnation is a story we tell; then in the end it's the story itself that is the reincarnation. ~ Kim Stanley, #NFDB
589:There are so many films now where you know the story is a supporting role to the visual effects. ~ Ricky Gervais, #NFDB
590:The story of my life. Everyone always thinks they know what’s best for me. When do I get to decide? ~ Terri Reed, #NFDB
591:The story of the Kelly system is a story of secrets - or if you prefer, a story of entropy. ~ William Poundstone, #NFDB
592:When you read a book, you don't give up on it. You might soon feel like your part of the story. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
593:You have to remain open to the situation that you're filming otherwise you might miss the story. ~ Joe Berlinger, #NFDB
594:Your only responsibility as a writer is to be true to the story that has chosen you as its writer. ~ Jean Little, #NFDB
595:A life may be told about with words, but is the deeds themselves that make the story worth telling. ~ J T Cope IV, #NFDB
596:as always, the story was the compelling thing, worth all of its suffering to find out the ending ~ Erika Johansen, #NFDB
597:Every life is a love story, but few of us know what love is until the story is nearly over. ~ Karen Maezen Miller, #NFDB
598:I believe it is my obligation to tell the story of the civil rights movement to the next generation. ~ John Lewis, #NFDB
599:If you are too much interested in the story of others, then your own story will be orphaned! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
600:In God, the life of the flesh became the story of the spirit. I loved that story, no matter what. ~ Andrew Klavan, #NFDB
601:Narrative identity takes part in the story's movement, in the dialectic between order and disorder ~ Paul Ricoeur, #NFDB
602:One of the greatest promises to a child of God is that this life is not the end of the story. ~ Margaret Feinberg, #NFDB
603:The story I have told throughout my work life I could not have told as well without Clarence. ~ Bruce Springsteen, #NFDB
604:The thread of the story fell to the ground, so I went down on my hands and knees to hunt for it." – ~ Iman Mersal, #NFDB
605:The whole thing of doing a TV series, I find it very daunting not knowing where the story's going. ~ Danny Huston, #NFDB
606:Yes … we must find her to give her back her bag … that will complete the story,’ Modiano mused. ~ Antoine Laurain, #NFDB
607:Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
608:I could never have a mistress, because I couldn't bear to tell the story of my life all over again. ~ Oscar Levant, #NFDB
609:It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. ~ Elmore Leonard, #NFDB
610:I've heard the story about the woman who opened the box and let havoc grab a choke hold on the world. ~ Alex Adams, #NFDB
611:My responsibility is to get the story right. I can't predict or be concerned with the consequences. ~ Tom Verducci, #NFDB
612:Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
613:Tell the story of your village. If you tell it well, you will have told the story of the world. ~ Andrea Camilleri, #NFDB
614:That was what the story of Goldilocks and the three bears was all about: breach of trust. ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
615:The moral of the story is, when the resistance is gone, so are the demons. ~ Pema Chodron, The Pocket Pema Chodron, #NFDB
616:The story itself should force its moral upon you. You find out what the moral is by writing the story. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
617:The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real. ~ Todd Strasser, #NFDB
618:This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve. ~ Wilkie Collins, #NFDB
619:Writing is an act of discovery in which you peel back the layers of the story as you write it down. ~ Matt Forbeck, #NFDB
620:You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
621:You want the story to end when it's supposed to and not be squeezed for somebody's financial gain. ~ Lauren Graham, #NFDB
622:A book series is never truly over. The story lives on, even when the final page has been turned. ~ Richard P Denney, #NFDB
623:A happy ending isn't really the end. It's just the place where you choose to stop telling the story. ~ Leah Stewart, #NFDB
624:By not speaking you don't get rid of the story, you just open up a silence, which can be just as loud. ~ Matt Smith, #NFDB
625:Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
626:I first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland. ~ Hannah Kent, #NFDB
627:I hate travelling and explorers. Yet here I am proposing to tell the story of my expeditions. ~ Claude L vi Strauss, #NFDB
628:I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
629:It’s about the terror of an ordinary life” or “It’s the story of a man shipwrecked in his own mind.” But ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
630:…just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't me you stop telling the story. ~ Miriam Toews, #NFDB
631:Other religions are stories of man's search for God. The Bible is the story of God's search for man. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
632:Tell me the story about how the sun loved the moon so much that he died every night to let her breathe. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
633:The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
634:The story line, the comparisons to this show and the Bible Ends after the names of the characters. ~ George Jackson, #NFDB
635:the story of how these three disparate men—cardinal telekinetic, assassin, priest—had come together, ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
636:You can be writing every day. When you go on a road trip, the trip itself becomes part of the story. ~ Steve Rushin, #NFDB
637:You cannot base a whole movie on just the imagery alone. It has to be the story and the characters. ~ John Lasseter, #NFDB
638:Because the story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don’t they teach you anything in school? ~ Monica Wood, #NFDB
639:I associate times with certain music. It still is that for me. It's telling the story of our lives. ~ James Hetfield, #NFDB
640:I never made a daring rescue, which is the story people want to hear. I did go to my share of fires. ~ Steve Buscemi, #NFDB
641:It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
642:I was a tree in a story about a forest, the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
643:(One does not simply walk into Mordor--except that was exactly what everyone in the story did anyway.) ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
644:Sometimes the story we’re telling the world isn’t half as endearing as the one that lives inside us. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
645:So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
646:The breath is the first tool for opening the space between the story you tell yourself about love. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
647:The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles. ~ Harrison Birtwistle, #NFDB
648:There are movies that I did and I know what I did and I know the story, and I don't want to see that. ~ Kim Basinger, #NFDB
649:There was an ending - there always is - but the story went on past the ending - it always does. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
650:This is not what I had planned; but perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin. (Once, ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
651:Until I can visualise what the lyrics are about and see the story or whatever, I can't hear the melody. ~ Elton John, #NFDB
652:What lasts, what endures, as Shakespeare knew, is this:
the story of a life. No more, no less. ~ Campbell McGrath,#NFDB
653:You had a huge impact on Ethan. No doubt, in the story of his life, you’ve left your mark everywhere. ~ Leisa Rayven, #NFDB
654:After a while, the story becomes the truth because no one actually remembers how things really happened. ~ Jane Yolen, #NFDB
655:I just kind of do my thing with sort of tunnel vision for the story and my role and how it fits together. ~ Lin Shaye, #NFDB
656:I write the story that nobody reads. Someday, I'm going to write it in German to see if anyone notices. ~ Rick Reilly, #NFDB
657:…just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story. ~ Miriam Toews, #NFDB
658:Now, I take full blame for all that came next. For I continued the story...but departed the text. ~ Berkeley Breathed, #NFDB
659:One of the gentleman guests chuckled. "Do you think the mother made up the story out of whole cloth? ~ Sharyn McCrumb, #NFDB
660:setting the frame, telling the story, revealing the intrigue, offering the prize, nailing the hookpoint, ~ Oren Klaff, #NFDB
661:Start telling the story of your amazing life, and the law of attraction must make sure you receive it! ~ Rhonda Byrne, #NFDB
662:The calculus is the story this [the Western] world first told itself as it became the modern world. ~ David Berlinski, #NFDB
663:The Garretts were my bedtime story, long before I ever thought I’d be part of the story myself. ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
664:The story of one person is the story of everyone, and one man’s quest is the quest of all of humanity, ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
665:When the story of his life is spun, we will simply be the early threads. We will not be the color. ~ Sarah Pinborough, #NFDB
666:You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
667:Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. ~ Joe Abercrombie, #NFDB
668:For me, clothing is nothing without the story behind it. Everything I own evokes some kind of memory. ~ Rachael Taylor, #NFDB
669:I can think of no better way to meet a girl than to see her through the eyes of the story she loves best. ~ Beth Revis, #NFDB
670:In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters. ~ Sidney Lumet, #NFDB
671:In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth. ~ Theresa Breslin, #NFDB
672:I write to find out what the story means to me, that is what I try to do especially with the first draft. ~ Wally Lamb, #NFDB
673:Life has so many pages to turn, & this page doesn't mean the story is over. The story is never over. ~ Kris Radish, #NFDB
674:LISTEN SOCRATES, TO THE STORY; AS EXTRAORDINARY AS IT IS, IT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.” Plato Timaeus 355 BC ~ Jos Arg elles, #NFDB
675:The halo effect adds the final touches, lending an aura of invincibility to the heroes of the story. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
676:God as Master Weaver, Master Builder. He redeemed the story of Joseph. Can't he redeem your story as well? ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
677:He'll be dead soon. He can't live', said the father.
But reader, he did live.
This is the story. ~ Kate DiCamillo,#NFDB
678:I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it means to be a tree in that story. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
679:I like the woman you became better than the girl you were. I like the story you’ve written on your face ~ Joanna Bourne, #NFDB
680:It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can. ~ John le Carre, #NFDB
681:Let me enjoy my fan-wanking.
Your what?
Let me arrange the story to meet my own personal needs. ~ Amanda Stevens,#NFDB
682:Often, the stories are very much like trust falls. You fall, and you hope the story's going to catch you. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
683:Real journalists pride themselves on getting it first and right; they get to the bottom of the story, ~ Jeannette Walls, #NFDB
684:Tell the story that's in your heart, and don't hold back. Write a book the reader will want to melt into. ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
685:That is not just the story of Israel. It's the story of humanity. It's the story of my life and your life. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
686:The story with anorexic girls - nobody works with anorexic girls. That has nothing to do with fashion. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
687:What just happened?” asked Jeff. “Sloane just yelled at the story until it went away,” I said blankly. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
688:You can have the joy of reading the stories of incredible happenings, or you can be part of the story ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
689:A lot of the time in animation is spent getting the story right - that's something you can't rush. ~ Jennifer Yuh Nelson, #NFDB
690:Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any purpose, I had endeavoured to say in it. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
691:For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled, Where God might write anew the story of the World. ~ Edward Everett Hale, #NFDB
692:Fundamentally, Eva is just my life copied out onto film. I'm [still] alive, so the story hasn't finished. ~ Hideaki Anno, #NFDB
693:Henry V—the story of a willful and immature prince who becomes a passionate but sensitive, callous but ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
694:Music was a diversion; books were an absorption, displacing all other thoughts except the story unfolding. ~ Marti Green, #NFDB
695:The Bible is the story of a love drama that looked as if it would end in tragedy—but then Jesus came. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
696:(The Other side of the Story)"The best anyone can do is breathe in, breathe out and wait for it to pass". ~ Marian Keyes, #NFDB
697:The story goes like this: he falls in love with Specter first, then he falls in love with Jenny Hill. L ~ Daniel Wallace, #NFDB
698:The story goes that every Jedi constructs his own lightsaber, and every penmonkey constructs his own pen. ~ Chuck Wendig, #NFDB
699:the story of a quest for wealth, given enough time, will always seem like the vain pursuit of a mirage. ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
700:The story of life repeatedly assures you that if you will use what you have, you will be given more to use. ~ Zig Ziglar, #NFDB
701:The story you are holding was first published in 1969, which was, as you may know, a very interesting year. ~ Mario Puzo, #NFDB
702:The things we remember are what we hold on to. And what we hold on to becomes the story of our lives. ~ Katherine Center, #NFDB
703:we need to learn to tell the story that makes sense of Jesus. Not a story that we ask Jesus to fit into. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
704:When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
705:You can have the joy of reading the stories of incredible happenings, or you can be part of the story. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
706:You don't always have to have the most amazing story. It's learning to share the story you have that counts. ~ Amy Purdy, #NFDB
707:You know I’m a writer. I can’t tell you everything in the beginning. Then there’s no point to the story. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
708:All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love. ~ Spike Lee, #NFDB
709:A lot of the time you just have to follow your creative muse and do what you think is best for the story. ~ Rick Remender, #NFDB
710:But the mind must have the story and, missing the truth, will piece together a fiction from ragged scraps. ~ Jodi Daynard, #NFDB
711:But the story stays the same: some of us
would rather die than change. We love
what will destroy us ~ Tony Hoagland,#NFDB
712:For me, the more I understand the story of others, the greater I am able to learn and help other people. ~ Chath Piersath, #NFDB
713:Given my inability to explain this mess, I decided to let other voices tell the story this time. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
714:Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
715:I like to approach comedy from character, to have the stakes for the individuals in the story be very high. ~ Seth Gordon, #NFDB
716:I think one of the dangers of humor is becoming seduced by it and sacrificing the story for a few laughs. ~ Matthew Healy, #NFDB
717:My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly. ~ Anita Desai, #NFDB
718:One of the great things about TV is the story to tell can be very internal and really character-based. ~ Mitchell Hurwitz, #NFDB
719:Parents are always precious. But when you have only one, they become crucial.
The Rest of the Story ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
720:Reincarnation is a story we tell; then in the end it's the story itself that is the reincarnation. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
721:...sound Bible study transforms the heart by training the mind and it places God at the center of the story. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
722:The moral to the story being: Mr. Binks was a cheating dickweasel, but, you know, marriage is compromise. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
723:The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with. ~ Golda Meir, #NFDB
724:The story of Little Blue Riding Hood is true. Only the color has been changed to prevent an investigation. ~ Stan Freberg, #NFDB
725:Writing a screenplay is like writing a big puzzle, and so the hardest part, I think, is getting the story. ~ Grant Heslov, #NFDB
726:You are the poem I never knew how to write and this life is the story I have always wanted to tell. ~ Tyler Knott Gregson, #NFDB
727:And the moral of the story is that you don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. ~ John Green, #NFDB
728:And though I don't know how today's story will end, I remember: faith thanks God in the middle of the story. ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
729:Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
730:Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts. ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
731:... if we can work the story around the idea of punishment and redemption, that could be *very* appealing. ~ Jennifer Egan, #NFDB
732:The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation - This story begins and ends in joy. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
733:The sad ending is only because the author stops telling the story. But it still goes on. It's just untold. ~ Mark Polish, #NFDB
734:The story begins like so much else,' she says slowly, 'With hope. Hope and dreams and daring... ~ Margaret Peterson Haddix, #NFDB
735:The story in that book of yours comes down to a sudden slipup caused by two great vices: women and laziness. ~ Kamel Daoud, #NFDB
736:The story of any one man's real experience finds its startling parallel in that of every one of us. ~ James Russell Lowell, #NFDB
737:This was the story of her life. Men explained things to her that she not only knew, but knew far more about. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
738:What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race? ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
739:I am a tremendous 'Star Wars' fan; I know the story means an enormous love to me. I love the characters. ~ Richard Marquand, #NFDB
740:I feel like it's hard to get into historical novels where you know what the story is far too well. ~ Matthew Tobin Anderson, #NFDB
741:I found you.No one can keep us apart now,and our love will now be the story told to define how sacred love is ~ Jamie Magee, #NFDB
742:If we just told the story simply and easily, then even a television executive would be able to understand it. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
743:It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo. ~ Alan Rickman, #NFDB
744:It’s a question of wanting to know how the story turns out. And one can only know that about one story, ever. ~ Caleb Crain, #NFDB
745:JUSTINE: Is the story supposed to be jumping around like that, from Mary’s head, to Diana’s, to Beatrice’s? ~ Theodora Goss, #NFDB
746:Keep in mind that the only person to write for is yourself.Tell the story you most desperately want to read. ~ Susan Isaacs, #NFDB
747:Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
748:One of the things I loved about the musical was that you listened to the soundtrack and it told you the story. ~ Tim Burton, #NFDB
749:She had lived with the story as you live with a favourite book, which changes with you as you change and grow ~ Jude Morgan, #NFDB
750:The story is a testament to the consolations that get me through and give meaning to every area of my life. ~ Michael J Fox, #NFDB
751:The story told about him at Count Rostov’s was true. Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
752:The tragedy—and the entire point—of being a parent was the moment when the story stopped being about you. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
753:Do you see? The story I have to tell is so small, of the people who stayed when everyone else fled. ~ Brian Francis Slattery, #NFDB
754:If certain aspect needs to be inconsistent, it must better be consistently inconsistent throughout the story. ~ Pawan Mishra, #NFDB
755:If the individual cannot dream of a better future, he cannot live well today. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
756:In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth. ~ Rachel Carson, #NFDB
757:In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that. ~ John Mellencamp, #NFDB
758:It's great that the story [Allied] is set in the '40s because the '40s feel to it is completely appropriate. ~ Steven Knight, #NFDB
759:I was learning that happily-ever-after was the beginning of the next chapter, not the end of the story. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
760:I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
761:Jed then realized that he was standing in a book, and wondered if this book told the story of his life. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
762:Maybe the next three Star Wars movies will tell the story of how the last three Star Wars movies got so shitty. ~ Dana Gould, #NFDB
763:One doesn’t just chuck away the story of one’s life, however much one wishes it had read differently. ~ Eloise Jarvis McGraw, #NFDB
764:Unless we identify something our customer wants, they will never feel invited into the story we are telling. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
765:When you are writing a novel, you aren't making it up. The story is already there. You just have to find it. ~ Thomas Harris, #NFDB
766:Before I start writing, before I have an idea of where and when the story happens, I research it thoroughly. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
767:For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand. ~ Nic Pizzolatto, #NFDB
768:If the individual cannot dream of a better future, he cannot live well today. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
769:If you don't care about the main character in a novel, then you probably won't care about the story either. ~ Giuseppe Bianco, #NFDB
770:I see the whole thing popping and parenthesizing in every direction, the story of that house and that kitchen. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
771:I think it's possible to be free in a big production. It's the eye of the director and the actor and the story. ~ Adam Driver, #NFDB
772:I think you have to be very careful with effects that they don't overpower the story with the visual element. ~ Harrison Ford, #NFDB
773:I was 21, when I heard the story that inspired this [thriller Allied], and I wasn't even a screenwriter then. ~ Steven Knight, #NFDB
774:I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character. ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
775:I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn’t so much about plot. It was much more about character. ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
776:Let the story settle inside you. Let it move and twist around until you see what it has to say to you. ~ Patti Callahan Henry, #NFDB
777:Life does pack a punch. But it’s the scars that make us who we are, that tell the story of the life we lived. ~ Adriana Locke, #NFDB
778:My favorite roles usually have to do with the story, if it's a good story I usually enjoy doing the character. ~ Beau Bridges, #NFDB
779:The most fun part for an actor is the writing and the story and the character. That's very fulfilling. ~ Dominique McElligott, #NFDB
780:The story tells us that living the life of an artist is not as useful as living our lives as a work of art. ~ Martin Prechtel, #NFDB
781:This is not her story. But it is the story of that terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
782:When
our villains
win,
do not fret,
just
rewrite
the story.
- mother knows best II ~ Amanda Lovelace,#NFDB
783:You need those people to also have power and authority, and in a way that has been the story of my career. ~ Alden Ehrenreich, #NFDB
784:All he had was the story of his life, which was as good as any other man’s, and in the end it is all we have. ~ Paulette Jiles, #NFDB
785:Arjuna, who is the fearless waririor in the story is a very wordly indvidual, we assume with high past lives. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
786:But what if the story should quit while it’s ahead?” “How do you know unless you give the story another chance? ~ Adam Silvera, #NFDB
787:For any marginalized group to change the story that society tells about them takes courage and perseverance. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
788:I feel like people, when it comes to music, whatever genre, they relate to the story more than just the song. ~ Chamillionaire, #NFDB
789:If future generations ask us what we are fighting for [in World War Two], we shall tell them the story of Lidice. ~ Frank Knox, #NFDB
790:It is an ancient need to be told in stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo. ~ Alan Rickman, #NFDB
791:I've never liked watching real-life couples play couples onscreen or onstage. It takes me out of the story. ~ Antonio Banderas, #NFDB
792:Moral of the story: try to get things right, figure out what's going wrong with the scenario, and don't give up. ~ Cody Lundin, #NFDB
793:One of the things I've always tried to do in filmmaking is that you don't tell the story, you try to show it. ~ Rick Heinrichs, #NFDB
794:Scars are badges of strength and courage. They tell the story of what we have endured. Only survivors wear them. ~ Kaki Warner, #NFDB
795:Sure, the story kicks off with the deaths of thousands of people, but god forbid there be cussing in it, right? ~ Amie Kaufman, #NFDB
796:The history needs to serve the story, not the story the history. But at the same time you can't stray too far. ~ Joseph Boyden, #NFDB
797:There's always more to the story, Catriona," She replied. "That's the wonderful thing about stories. ~ Heather Vogel Frederick, #NFDB
798:there’s still no journal where I can tell the story of how my science is done with both the heart and the hands. ~ Hope Jahren, #NFDB
799:You can't skip to the end of the story just because you're tired of being in the middle. You'd never survive. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
800:Your scars tell who you are. Your skin is the page, and your scars are the ink, telling the story of your life. ~ Jay Kristoff, #NFDB
801:If I don't tell it all now, the story in the history books will always be imperfect and that would be wrong. ~ Christine Keeler, #NFDB
802:If [the characters] grow a lot, they begin to influence the course of the story instead of the other way around. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
803:I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story. ~ Alan Garner, #NFDB
804:I'm usually trying to react to what the actors are coming up with. And then the environment, and then the story. ~ Gus Van Sant, #NFDB
805:I still have that drawing. Whenever I look at it, it makes me happy. That's the moral of the story. That's it. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
806:Just that maybe … maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds. ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
807:Once you know the end of the story, every part of the story contains that end, and is only a way of reaching it. ~ Leah Stewart, #NFDB
808:Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story ~ Chuck Wendig, #NFDB
809:There's nothing wrong with technology. It's when technology is the story and not the artist, that's the problem. ~ Billy Corgan, #NFDB
810:To follow the analogy, as a Reader, you're not part of the story, you just insert yourself into it for a while. ~ Django Wexler, #NFDB
811:When the story gets sad and terrible, when there are too many mistakes to count, hang on for the beautiful parts. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
812:While telling her I realised that the story of her is much more to do with how she is ended than how she began. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
813:All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life. ~ Jodie Foster, #NFDB
814:Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble. Interrogation 101. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
815:A man's religion should be more in his life than on his lips. ~ Joseph Arch, The Story of his Life Told by Himself (1898), p. 48, #NFDB
816:Compelling characters are not cogs in the machine of your plot; they are human beings to whom the story happens. ~ David Corbett, #NFDB
817:For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are getting the story right. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
818:For every culture-hero living out his myth, there must be a witness willing to pass the story on. Then ~ Michael Muhammad Knight, #NFDB
819:I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go. ~ Brad Paisley, #NFDB
820:I think that, in Hebrew, it's like the language creates a more unique and specific universe even before the story. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
821:I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
822:M. K. Gandhi. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Dover Publications: Mineola, New York, 1983, ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
823:Sometimes you know the story. Sometimes you make it up as you go along and have no idea how it will come out. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
824:Telling the story, acknowledging what has happened and how you feel, is often a necessary part of forgiveness. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
825:The Coen brothers, who in 2009 made the movie A Serious Man, a retelling of the story of Job in modern dress, ~ Harold S Kushner, #NFDB
826:The half-life between story of the century and not even the story of the day is quicker than you would ever guess. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
827:The moral of the story is this: sometimes, to do nothing, to do nothing at all, is the sorriest thing ever. ~ Binnie Kirshenbaum, #NFDB
828:The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story. ~ Robert Redford, #NFDB
829:The way we make things better is by caring enough about those we serve to imagine the story that they need to hear. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
830:This is the story of a woman who had done it all wrong. She couldn't do it over, but she could do it differently. ~ Dahlia Adler, #NFDB
831:This is the story of my life, I suppose: always in the right place at the right time, and then I don’t do anything. ~ Hugh Howey, #NFDB
832:You have to know the story that you're telling, and you have to know the tone in which the story is being told. ~ Tyler Hoechlin, #NFDB
833:All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had barely begun. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
834:And I'm dying to know, is it killing you like it's killing me? And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now. ~ Taylor Swift, #NFDB
835:As my father once quipped, the early history of this country is the story of James Madison talking to himself. ~ Danielle S Allen, #NFDB
836:Behind the story I tell is the one I don't...Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you hear. ~ Dorothy Allison, #NFDB
837:Bones tell me the story of a person's life - how old they were, what their gender was, their ancestral background. ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
838:Boots and guns had replaced banners and horses, but the story was the same. Men with black hearts. With black souls. ~ Kate Mosse, #NFDB
839:[FBI] philosophy is "Go ahead and make the story you want to make, and hopefully we'll love it." So that's that. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
840:Gett is the story of a divorce. In Israel, marriage is not a civil affair and it is governed by the religious courts. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
841:I am a passionate, not an intellectual writer, which means my characters must plunge ahead of me to live the story ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
842:I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself. ~ James Herbert, #NFDB
843:I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject. ~ Leslie Cockburn, #NFDB
844:It was the story of her life and probably how she had survived this long: with a little talent and a lot of flair. ~ Fannie Flagg, #NFDB
845:No, I only like whether I like the story or not, essentially see something in it that isn't completely there. ~ Vincente Minnelli, #NFDB
846:Our history may not be as simple as the story of a dominant group that was immediately successful wherever it went. ~ David Reich, #NFDB
847:Sometimes the story takes you to places that you want to go and sometimes it takes you places you don't want to go. ~ Peter Gould, #NFDB
848:Tears are like lies. The more you use them, the less they’re worth. The moral of the story is: STOP FUCKING CRYING. ~ The Betches, #NFDB
849:The story it told was unremarkable: a tale of love found and lost- the oldest story in the world. The only story. ~ Anita Diament, #NFDB
850:The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye, the story of love is hello and goodbye...until we meet again ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB
851:They don't engrave memories on markers, for only we who are left behind can truly tell the story of a life ~ Paisley Swan Stewart, #NFDB
852:This was the power of the story weaver, Nell realized. An ability to conjure color so that all else seemed to fade. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
853:We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we're all gonna die before it ends. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
854:We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we’re all gonna die before it ends. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
855:Well if you already know how the story goes, why do you need me to read it to you?"
" 'Cause I wanna hear it! ~ Ted Chiang,#NFDB
856:And so he was reading the story as if it were a spell and the words of it, spoken aloud, could make magic happen. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
857:Every paragraph should accomplish two goals: advance the story, and develop your characters as complex human beings. ~ Nancy Kress, #NFDB
858:Facts are important, but the story matters. Poorly presented facts can even get in the way of the story’s impact. ~ Blake Mycoskie, #NFDB
859:For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are getting the story right. I ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
860:in spite of how we know the story unfolded, God included mankind in His conclusion that all He created was good. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
861:I seldom get into the mood of the story. It's acting. I go in, I act, I quit. I don't take anything away from it. ~ Morgan Freeman, #NFDB
862:let the story go, and still clutched F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise in my arms as if to let it go would ~ Karen White, #NFDB
863:mean to set the story straight, because a lot of things have been said about me or by me that are not exactly true. ~ Felix Gilman, #NFDB
864:The hardest goodbyes are the ones that were never said and never explained, the ones where the story wasn't over. ~ Virginia Brown, #NFDB
865:The moral of the story is that a NoSQL system may find itself accidentally reinventing SQL, albeit in disguise. ~ Martin Kleppmann, #NFDB
866:The story of her life. God gave you everything just to take it away. Just so you knew exactly what you were missing. ~ Janet Fitch, #NFDB
867:The story the data tells us is often the one we’d like to hear, and we usually make sure that it has a happy ending. ~ Nate Silver, #NFDB
868:This beautiful city is so vast it holds the story of every soul who's ever walked along the banks of the Thames. ~ Susannah Conway, #NFDB
869:We all come into the story half way through, we all catch up as best we can, and we're all gonna die before it ends. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
870:We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? ~ Marie Colvin, #NFDB
871:your subjective experience consists largely of the story that your System 2 tells itself about what is going on. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
872:A book is a story, even if it's non-fiction, and once I've read it, I have the story with me inside my head always. ~ Sara Sheridan, #NFDB
873:At some point I had stopped being in love with him and had fallen in love with the story of him and me instead. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
874:Every time I reread a favorite book, I’d find something new in it. Not because the story changed, but because I did. ~ Ellery Adams, #NFDB
875:How useful are documentary photographs if there is no follow up, no way of knowing what happened next in the story? ~ Martha Rosler, #NFDB
876:I began to know my story then. Like everybody's, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
877:I just take credit for being smart enough to find a guy as smart as Benett [Miller] to tell the story [of "Moneyball"]. ~ Brad Pitt, #NFDB
878:In the worst moments of my life, I have told myself that story, the story about a girl who stood up to a monster. ~ Dorothy Allison, #NFDB
879:I want to see the story. More than anything, I am frustrated by the fact that I’ll never know how things turn out. ~ Louise Erdrich, #NFDB
880:One of my favourite messages about The Pirate Fairy is that the story is about appreciating your own talents. ~ Christina Hendricks, #NFDB
881:Perfume should tell a story – the story of who you are, who you might be, perhaps even of who you fear becoming… ~ Kathleen Tessaro, #NFDB
882:Setting the frame Telling the story Revealing the intrigue Offering the prize Nailing the hookpoint Getting a decision ~ Oren Klaff, #NFDB
883:The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
884:Their three approaches fail but somehow the story itself succeeds, despite its narrator’s and even author’s failures! ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
885:The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
886:The Story of Solomon is the only way I know how to explain.
And then, in smaller letters:
Forgive me. ~ Lauren Oliver,#NFDB
887:The story of the Amazon is a story that has been told by Europeans, you know, by Germans, by Canadians, by Americans. ~ Ciro Guerra, #NFDB
888:The story of the fifth century was one of the exploitation of imperial weakness. Thus the Western Empire died. ~ Adrian Goldsworthy, #NFDB
889:This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings ~ Paddy Chayefsky, #NFDB
890:You always have a choice — So what now,? — Well, just picture where you want to be... and read the story until the end ~ F bio Moon, #NFDB
891:Your home should tell the story of who you are, and be a collection of what you love brought together under one roof. ~ Nate Berkus, #NFDB
892:As a fiction writer, of course, you need to take some leeway with certain aspects of history to make the story work. ~ Joseph Boyden, #NFDB
893:He pats Damaya’s hands on the saddle-pommel, and she doesn’t squirm anymore, no longer liking the story quite as much. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
894:I always choose my projects for the script or what the director want to tell with that story. And if I like the story. ~ Elena Anaya, #NFDB
895:I always thought the story [Anthem] would work in three dimensions - and studying that cut material was very useful. ~ Jeff Britting, #NFDB
896:I carry the landscape inside me like an ache. The story of who I am cannot be severed from the story of the flatwoods. ~ Janisse Ray, #NFDB
897:If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables? ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
898:If you think that the intifada in France is about housing, go and try covering the story wearing a yarmulka . ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
899:It was strange, telling the story from the beginning instead of catching someone up on only the latest awful chapter. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
900:Please, just tell me the story about how the sun loved the moon so much that he died every night just to let her breath. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
901:The first thing I learned that day was this: what you think you know about a person is only a fraction of the story. ~ Gavin Extence, #NFDB
902:The greatest directors are the greatest users. They use people's talents to tell the story that they want to tell. ~ Janusz Kaminski, #NFDB
903:There are two conversations going on at the same time: the story and a conversation about how the story is being told. ~ David Byrne, #NFDB
904:The whole of salvation history is the story of God looking for us: he offers us love and welcomes us with tenderness. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
905:This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings. ~ Paddy Chayefsky, #NFDB
906:Trust the story ... the storyteller may dissemble and deceive, the story can't: the story can only ever be itself. ~ James Robertson, #NFDB
907:What we call history is nothing but the story of the same emotions, the same joys, reproduced across bodies and time ~ douard Louis, #NFDB
908:will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin the story. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
909:Anything you write, even if you have to start over, is valuable. I let the story write itself through the characters. ~ Steve Buscemi, #NFDB
910:But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
911:Documentarian Laura Poitras has crafted a first-rate Hitchcockian-type thriller telling the story of Edward Snowden. ~ Leonard Maltin, #NFDB
912:I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story. ~ Jesse Eisenberg, #NFDB
913:I simply want to tell the story of my experiments with truth...as my life consists of nothing but those experiments. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
914:It’s more than just saying lines and turning the light on. You have to drive the story - there’s a technical aspect. ~ Angela Bassett, #NFDB
915:My grandfather used to say the placement of a birthmark was the story of how a person lost the battle in their past. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
916:[On being told party guests were ducking for apples:] There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life. ~ Dorothy Parker, #NFDB
917:Sex is one of the few honest places inside us; it doesn't know how to lie, even if we change the story for the public. ~ Susie Bright, #NFDB
918:The Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has just published the story of her life. I confess that it is not in my reading table. ~ Mick Jagger, #NFDB
919:The story of a girl who hunted dragons to soothe the hurt in her heart. The story of the dragon who changed her. ~ Kristen Ciccarelli, #NFDB
920:The story of the king is the story of the people, and unfortunately, to this day, no king has learned that lesson. ~ Rabih Alameddine, #NFDB
921:What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies— ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
922:What is important is to maintain integrity of the story, of the character, of the movie, even if it's a big production. ~ Adam Driver, #NFDB
923:You think you want the blue skies, the open road, but really you want the tunnel, you want to know how the story ends. ~ Jenny Offill, #NFDB
924:America is the story of everyday people who did extraordinary things. A story woven deep into the fabric of our society. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
925:Her direct stare probed, as if the story of my life were written in my eyes in a few succinct lines that she could read. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
926:In most novels, the landscape, or the place, in which the story takes part is simply a backdrop to the human action. ~ Paul Kingsnorth, #NFDB
927:I see myself as a storyteller, I don't mind if the story is fact or fiction, if it's a good story I'd like to tell it. ~ Leanne Pooley, #NFDB
928:I will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin the story. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
929:Once you know what the story is and get it right—as right as you can, anyway—it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
930:So that's the story of how I committed statutory rape less than twenty-four hours out of prison--on my birthday no less ~ Joanna Wylde, #NFDB
931:That may not be the version of the story you’re familiar with. But I assure you, it’s the one you need to know. ~ Carmen Maria Machado, #NFDB
932:That's the story of my life. Someone's behavior strikesme as a bit odd and the next thing I know all hell breaks loose. ~ Elaine Dundy, #NFDB
933:There is enormous pressure on you to take a place in the story your culture is enacting in the world— any place at all. ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
934:thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by U.S. Copyright Law. For information, address The Story Plant. ~ Tanya Anne Crosby, #NFDB
935:This is the story of my life: standing on the edges of things and worrying, when I'm supposed to just walk through them. ~ Alexis Hall, #NFDB
936:Violet, the Dowager Countess: “I mean, one way or another, everyone goes down the aisle with half the story hidden. ~ Jessica Fellowes, #NFDB
937:Write like you are the last person on earth; like no one will ever read your story. Tell the story YOU want to read! ~ Giuseppe Bianco, #NFDB
938:Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
939:He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
940:He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin. ~ Ian Mcewan, #NFDB
941:If there’s no one else to tell another side - the only story that can be told is the story that becomes true. (p. 173) ~ Heidi W Durrow, #NFDB
942:It is important for me to discover the ideal title, for without this title the story or novel isn't quite in focus. ~ Joyce Carol Oates, #NFDB
943:My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
944:Notice that the whole story of Eden is the story of the struggle over a woman's relationship to a psychoactive plant. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
945:Pascal told only half the story. He said man was a thinking reed. What man is, is a thinking reed and a walking genital. ~ Walker Percy, #NFDB
946:Somehow is a super-weasel, a word that betrays that the author didn’t want to bother thinking out the story—“Somehow ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
947:A setting, a narrative, characters who live and breathe—he was able to make the story come to life in someone else’s mind. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
948:But just because no-one sang the story, no-one wrote the book, no-one filmed it, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. ~ Christos Tsiolkas, #NFDB
949:Few persons can relate the story of their childhood without idealizing, or distorting, or overdramatizing the facts. ~ Katharine Anthony, #NFDB
950:If you get into a game of talking to the media, you keep the story alive. Information is oxygen. Without it they die. ~ Michael Connelly, #NFDB
951:I make such big efforts to forget things and I can't tell the story of my life because, thank God, I'm still living it. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
952:In fiction the story lives the more everyone comes to life, the more each character seems to exist in his or her own right. ~ Brian Boyd, #NFDB
953:I see myself as anybody, as everybody; I'm not just telling the story of my life to give the reader a picture of who I am. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
954:I set out to write this book only because I thought it would be better to tell the story than to go on living the story. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
955:It’s also important to remember it’s not about the setting, anyway—it’s about the story, and it’s always about the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
956:Monsters were in the eye of the beholder. And no one wanted to discover their hero was the true villain of the story. ~ Kerri Maniscalco, #NFDB
957:My name is Magnus Chase. I’m sixteen years old. This is the story of how my life went downhill after I got myself killed. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
958:Suddenly, details seemed extremely important. Details were something to grab on to, a way to insert myself into the story. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
959:Tell a story! Don't try to impress your reader with style or vocabulary or neatly turned phrases. Tell the story first! ~ Anne McCaffrey, #NFDB
960:The beauty in the story is at one with suffering. That is also part of our upbringing - we don't think there could be beauty ~ Joan Chen, #NFDB
961:The most interesting part of filming is what the actors do. That's the primary link between the story and the audience. ~ Richard Ayoade, #NFDB
962:The story line of my novel [The Kite Runner] is largely fictional. The characters were invented and the plot imagined. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
963:The story might sound like common gossip when told by another person, but in the mouth of a storyteller, gossip was art. ~ Barbara Neely, #NFDB
964:The story of a man's soul, however trivial, can be more interesting and instructive than the story of a whole nation ~ Mikhail Lermontov, #NFDB
965:the story of Isaac and Rebekah is an account of what was, but not necessarily of what should be for all of God’s people. ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
966:We might know how it ends, but like all good stories it bears repetition. So here it is again, the story of a battle. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
967:Whenever there's a camera around, a video or film camera, it's a great deal harder for those in power to bury the story. ~ Peter Gabriel, #NFDB
968:When you sit down with a book, you are separating yourself out of your world for a few hours and getting lost in the story. ~ John Boyne, #NFDB
969:As more people use social media to tell the story of the future, the wants and needs of more people will be reflected. ~ Simon Mainwaring, #NFDB
970:Fiercely competitive TV channels covered the story of the breaking city as “Breaking News.” Nobody pointed out the irony. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
971:How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won’t grant us death,’ replied Platon, and at once resumed the story he had begun. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
972:I am a Christian,” I concluded, “because the story of Jesus is still the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
973:If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public. ~ O Henry, #NFDB
974:I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character story; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
975:I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character study; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
976:In order to pass the time I told him the story of the German who ate the other German whom he’d met on the internet. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
977:It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story. ~ Richard Flanagan, #NFDB
978:There are so many projects that you go into hoping the story works, and here comes a new third act and that kind of thing. ~ Jeff Daniels, #NFDB
979:The story-tellers and spinners of erotic tales are hardly more than butchers who hang up meat attractive to flies. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar, #NFDB
980:This ain’t what we are, homes,” Lalo says. “This is not us. This is the story they tell about us, but it’s not true. ~ Luis Alberto Urrea, #NFDB
981:We cannot leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people ~ Nikki Giovanni, #NFDB
982:You know, when I did 'American Idol' the three times, I tried to tell these kids you have to tell the story of the lyric. ~ Barry Manilow, #NFDB
983:You'll work hard to create characters that are compelling and unforgettable. But in the end, it's the story that matters. ~ James Dashner, #NFDB
984:Behind every myth lies a truth; beyond every legend is reality, as radiant (sometimes as chilling) as the story itself. ~ Phyllis McGinley, #NFDB
985:But in art class, all you had to do was try. I was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
986:But that's getting too far ahead of the story, almost to the end, although the end is in the beginning and lies far ahead. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
987:Do not be contented with this unspeakable blessing for yourself alone—but publish abroad the story of the cross. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
988:He tried to reconstruct the story in his mind, but it kept getting confused, bleeding into itself like watercolors. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
989:If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him. ~ Horace, #NFDB
990:If this book is a thriller, it’s also a requiem, the story of the last days of a great figure and the end of his movement. ~ Hampton Sides, #NFDB
991:I guess the biggest challenge to doing any kind of animation voice work is that you only have your voice to tell the story. ~ Kevin Conroy, #NFDB
992:I'm not interested in breaking news. I'm interested in telling the story of what's going on and then trying to figure it out. ~ Glenn Beck, #NFDB
993:It's the story of an ancient dragon that is misplaced in time, and wakes up underneath the city of Boston in modern day. ~ Chris Philbrook, #NFDB
994:I wish to remember the millions of Allied servicemen and prisoners of war who lived the story of the Second World War. ~ Laura Hillenbrand, #NFDB
995:Jesus always interpreted hardship in light of the end of the story, and at the end of the story we will be without shame. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
996:My experience is that lots of people go to church, sing the songs, tell the story, etc but have profound ambivalence about God. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
997:On acting to daughter Isabella Rossellini: Keep it simple. Make a blank face and the music and the story will fill it in. ~ Ingrid Bergman, #NFDB
998:The first book I fell in love with was 'Little Toot,' the story of an adorable tugboat operating out of New York Harbor. ~ Edward St Aubyn, #NFDB
999:The moral of the story isn't don't ever be afraid. Or even don't screw up. It's that screwing up isn't the end of the world. ~ Lauren Dane, #NFDB
1000:There are the things that we do. There are the things that we care about. And then there is the story we tell about it. ~ Nilofer Merchant, #NFDB
1001:The story of my life is wanting, hungering, for what I cannot have or, perhaps, wanting what I dare not allow myself to have. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1002:The whole truth?” Miss Bart laughed. “What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it’s the story that’s easiest to believe. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1003:This is as true a story as has ever been told: the story of my love for Mattie, and, I suppose, her love for me in return. ~ Laila Ibrahim, #NFDB
1004:Villains often more the story along while the heros react to the villains, so the villain becomes the engine of the story. ~ Michael Scott, #NFDB
1005:Anyone can have a once-upon-a-time or a happily-ever-after, but it's the journey between that makes the story worth telling. ~ Chris Colfer, #NFDB
1006:Darwinism is the story of humanity's liberation from the delusion that its destiny is controlled by a power higher than itself. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1007:Despereaux was reading the story out loud to himself. He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end... ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
1008:I don't think action for action's sake is so fun, but when it helps tell the story, I love doing a good fight scene. ~ Joseph Gordon Levitt, #NFDB
1009:If I like the story and it's well written, and it's a character I want to play and they'll pay me, then I decide to do it. ~ William H Macy, #NFDB
1010:Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1011:The Bible is the story of two gardens. Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1012:... there is ... a big aspect of play in writing novels, and making the story more and more elaborate is just more and more fun. ~ Gish Jen, #NFDB
1013:The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye. The story of love is Hello and Goodbye.
Until we meet again....... ~ Jimi Hendrix,#NFDB
1014:The story of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, however, is a very important one, and fertile ground for fiction. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
1015:Truth can arrive within the story and ride latent - a bit incognito - within a story, and people are more prone to receive it. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1016:We can't live in a state of perpetual doubt, so we make up the best story possible and we live as if the story were true. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1017:When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
1018:William Finch, Hawkins’s assistant, who is the source for the story of Akbar’s concubine Anarkali, ‘Pomegranate Blossom’; ~ Alex Rutherford, #NFDB
1019:America is a nation of prayer. It's impossible to tell the story of our nation without telling the story of people who pray. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1020:I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
1021:I try to tell the story about the song with the believability that I've lived it myself and I understand what it's all about. ~ Tony Bennett, #NFDB
1022:MELLICK, ANDREW D., JR. The Story of an Old Farm, or Life in New Jersey in the Eighteenth Century. Somerville, New Jersey: 1889. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1023:Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. ~ Red Smith, #NFDB
1024:There are more important things than what we want. Sometimes it isn't about us. Sometimes we aren't the center of the story. ~ Laurel Snyder, #NFDB
1025:The story goes that I first had the idea for The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1026:The story of sacred texts has always been the story of their readers: of shifting and often clashing interpretations. ~ Kwame Anthony Appiah, #NFDB
1027:The story of the prodigal son is the story of a God who goes searching for me and who doesn’t rest until he has found me. ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
1028:And someone said, —Nothing queer about Carruthers . . . to conclude, once for all, the story of that subaltern and his mare. ~ William Gaddis, #NFDB
1029:An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1030:Body of earth, don't talk of earth Tell the story of pure mirrors The Creator has given you this splendor-- Why talk of anything else? ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1031:but by not reaching out to him because I was scared of rejection I wasn’t giving either one of us a chance to change the story. ~ Bobby Bones, #NFDB
1032:Change your story, change your life. Divorce the story of limitation, and marry the story of the truth and everything changes. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
1033:(Ezra 7.7-16), and the story of Ezras reading of the Law before the congregation some fourteen years later (444 B.C.E., Neh. 8-10 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1034:I always give money to a sidewalk con if the story is a good one, even if I don't believe a word of it. Art deserves to get paid. ~ Luc Sante, #NFDB
1035:I say, “Talk to me. Tell me who you are, what you want, what you’ve never had, the story you’ve always been afraid to tell. ~ Dorothy Allison, #NFDB
1036:I sometimes wonder if our memories are a myth. We think we remember, but we are remembering the story and not the actual event? ~ Peter Orner, #NFDB
1037:Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.” ― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl ~ Penny ReidJethro~ Penny Reid ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
1038:That was the challenge. How can you tell the story here and make sure it goes the same way on the other side of the world? ~ Gabriel Iglesias, #NFDB
1039:The story of the Bible isn’t primarily about the desire of people to be with God; it’s the desire of God to be with people. ~ John Ortberg Jr, #NFDB
1040:When the reader hears strong echoes of his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is apt to become more invested in the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1041:Again, the only way to know that we’ve seen into the true nature of something is that the story we’re telling ourselves releases. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
1042:Depending on the story that you're telling, you can be relatable to everybody or nobody. I try and tell everybody's story. ~ Chance the Rapper, #NFDB
1043:He is asking us if we can truly bear hearing the story. Losing our ignorance can be dangerous because our ignorance is a shield. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1044:I always liked the story of Noah's Ark and the idea of starting anew by rescuing the things you like and leaving the rest behind. ~ Zach Braff, #NFDB
1045:I am still trying to find out things. And I inevitably tell myself the story in different ways every time I think about it. ~ Alejandro Zambra, #NFDB
1046:If you don't have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it's like getting in a car and not having any gas. ~ Gus Van Sant, #NFDB
1047:I had believed, foolishly, that if I just told the truth, I would be believed, but nobody cared about the story of a criminal. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
1048:I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1049:In a nutshell, the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1050:I think the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' in a way is a reminder that life is frightening, it can shift on you at any moment. ~ Michael Sheen, #NFDB
1051:Our ancestors came over to this continent to find freedom of worship, not freedom from worship. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1052:The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law? ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
1053:The story of El Centro’s creation and flourishing reminds us that civic power may not require a plan—but it does require a purpose. ~ Eric Liu, #NFDB
1054:We are confident when the story we tell ourselves comes easily to mind, with no contradiction and no competing scenario. But ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1055:Whitney, My Love is the story of Clayton Westmoreland, the Ninth Duke of Claymore. Until You features Stephen Westmoreland’s ~ Judith McNaught, #NFDB
1056:All the stars will tell the story, of our love and all its glory. Let us make this night of magic, and make it a night of love. ~ Elvis Presley, #NFDB
1057:As one gets older, the story of Hansel and Gretel becomes more interesting only when told from the point of view of the witch. ~ Charles Baxter, #NFDB
1058:But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it. ~ Diana Gabaldon, #NFDB
1059:Don’t go yet. Please. Tell me a story, one about us. Tell what it meant. How on earth did it happen? The story, Pat—tell it to me. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
1060:For Daredevil I think Sam Wortington could be very great and intense for this character. For the vilain it's depênd of the story. ~ Xavier Gens, #NFDB
1061:He snorted. “Did they tell you that your vagina got you the story?” She smiled sweetly. “My vagina is my most tireless advocate. ~ Chelsea Cain, #NFDB
1062:If the length of your life is much shorter than the story of your life, this means that you have lived your life so fully! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1063:I’m not saying I’m against evolution. It’s okay. Here’s the story on reptiles, however. Think this over. They come up on ~ William Peter Blatty, #NFDB
1064:I try every time for a project to have a natural ending. As much as I can, I try to follow the story and to give it its own end. ~ Sophie Calle, #NFDB
1065:I was a little resentful that when a woman writes, her personal story becomes part of the story, even though the novel is fiction. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1066:One of the things you learn very early in writing for television, especially, is that compressing the story is always a good idea. ~ Alex Gansa, #NFDB
1067:There's something very special about knowing what you want to do and knowing the story you want to tell, but finding it together. ~ John Ridley, #NFDB
1068:The story of my life is wanting, hungering, for what I cannot have or, perhaps, wanting what I dare not allow myself to have. Many ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1069:Whether a project is large or small, it doesn't matter much to me as long as I feel I can serve the story as best as possible. ~ James Ponsoldt, #NFDB
1070:Change your story, change your life. Divorce the story of limitation and marry the story of the truth, and everything changes. ~ Anthony Robbins, #NFDB
1071:Even if you got rid of paper, you would still have story-tellers. In fact, you had the story-tellers before you had the paper. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
1072:Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn't eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower! ~ Jim Carrey, #NFDB
1073:History isn't something we study; it's the story people collectively tell about themselves, both by their words and by their actions. ~ Tom Head, #NFDB
1074:If you start to see more successful businesses that are playing on a global level, the story of Africa will begin to change ~ Tara Fela Durotoye, #NFDB
1075:I had a naïve idea that if I could tell the story, people would be outraged and do something about conditions in the jails. ~ Patricia McConnell, #NFDB
1076:I have an inability to consider a thing without imagining the story behind it as a needful force, a great petitioning weight. ~ Leah Hager Cohen, #NFDB
1077:The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
1078:The stone is called the Rose of Lucifer, or Lucifer’s Bane,” the senator explained with a smile. “Have you heard the story? ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
1079:The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft. ~ Marisa Silver, #NFDB
1080:"The Word that speaks Truth into Chaos at the beginning of time, to generate habitable order that is Good – that's the story." ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1081:The writer and the dreamer have so much in common: They can't control the plot, they are always part of the story or the dream. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
1082:You have to find your tone and work within that to make it as real so the audience can really engage in the story you're telling. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
1083:Your positions on EVERYTHING are based on the story you tell yourself and not some universal fact from the universal fact database. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1084:Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physically positioned in the story world. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
1085:Characterization requires a constant back-and-forth between the exterior events of the story and the inner life of the character. ~ David Corbett, #NFDB
1086:Every day is different, every day I'm on an adventure. If I get bored, you can bet that in the story I'm writing, bullets will fly. ~ Jodi Thomas, #NFDB
1087:If you're gonna let the character be the story, you better set a tone that allows the actors to do the best work they can do. ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, #NFDB
1088:Part of the story of Ghosts of Ascalon is how they got to that tentative truce where you can find humans and charr working together. ~ Jeff Grubb, #NFDB
1089:Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
1090:The best part of a writer's biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style. [Vogue, interview, 1969] ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1091:There were two girls in a room. They were reading a book… Look again, and the room is empty. The end of the story will have to wait. ~ Kelly Link, #NFDB
1092:The story was heavy in her hands, the book spread open like legs, the letters very small i spite of describing such a big moment ~ Natalia Jaster, #NFDB
1093:To laugh often and much ... this is to have succeeded. Probably not from Emerson: here's the full quotation and the story. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1094:when you meet God in the story of Jesus. You get swept up into a story of such cosmic drama and beauty that you are forever changed. ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
1095:You
are the poem
I never knew
how to write
and this life
is the story
I have always
wanted
to tell. ~ Tyler Knott Gregson,#NFDB
1096:You go around and you do things and you don't know why you do them," she said. "And that's the story of your gender writ large. ~ Gary Shteyngart, #NFDB
1097:A philosophy may explain difficult things, but has no power to change them. The gospel, the story of Jesus' life, promises change. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1098:But here must end the story of my life,
And happy were I in my timely death
Could all my travels warrant me they live. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1099:Even though the story [Fences] is set during the 1950s, some contemporary women might have trouble understanding her decision. ~ Denzel Washington, #NFDB
1100:History, call it 15,000 or 25,000 years of duration, is the story of an animal, some kind of complex animal, becoming conscious. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1101:... I feel as though I am shelved. That I have been given the words to the story of my life, but that I have remained largely unread... ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
1102:If you want to write books to get famous, the books will suck.Write books to tell the story you want to tell and for no other reason. ~ Lori Lesko, #NFDB
1103:My grandfather used to say the placement of a birthmark was the story of how a person lost the battle in their past life. I guess ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
1104:Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it. ~ Garth Nix, #NFDB
1105:One of my favorite things in watching an actor is feeling, The story is safe in your hands. I can lean back and trust you with this. ~ Alison Pill, #NFDB
1106:So be it. God created profoundly fallible creatures on this earth, and human history is mostly the story of error and accident. ~ Michael A Ledeen, #NFDB
1107:Some paint comes across directly onto the nervous system and other paint tells you the story in a long diatribe through the brain. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1108:The art of the deletion: streamlining your prose, keeping it focused and true to the story's narrative pace without denuding it. ~ Mark Rubinstein, #NFDB
1109:The essence of Christian faith has come to us in story form, the story of a God who will go to any lengths to get his family back. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1110:The fact that 'Astro Boy' appealed to me as a boy in America was proof that the story and character transcend cultural stereotypes. ~ Nicolas Cage, #NFDB
1111:The moral of the story is: never argue with the market. Your health and peace of mind are always more important than any stock. ~ William J O Neil, #NFDB
1112:The story that I wanna tell is pretty much about the way I grew up. Being bi-racial, growing up in a big city and being an artist. ~ Lenny Kravitz, #NFDB
1113:The story was that Steve wanted a device that he could use to read email while on the toilet. That was the extent of the product spec, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1114:"The Word that speaks Truth into Chaos at the beginning of time, to generate habitable order that is Good – that's the story." ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1115:We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people ~ Nikki Giovanni, #NFDB
1116:We have more control than most of us realize. Each day is filled with thousands of opportunities to change the story of our lives. ~ Michael Hyatt, #NFDB
1117:When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1118:William Gibson told only half the story: like the future, the past is also here in the present, and just as unevenly distributed. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
1119:Writing a short story is a little like walking into a dark room, finding a light and turning it on. The light is the end of the story. ~ Dan Chaon, #NFDB
1120:A great book is the one you dive in and swim until there is no air left, but you keep swimming, forgetting air, breathing the story. ~ Ksenia Anske, #NFDB
1121:All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am. ~ Brandi Carlile, #NFDB
1122:But sometimes the pieces fall together the way they want to, and you can't change the story; all you can do is try to ride it out. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
1123:could try to tell you the story, but it would be like describing a cathedral by saying it’s a pile of stones ending in a spire. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1124:Find the most salient, the most revelatory features of the story and expand them to the utmost, wring the last drop of juice from them. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
1125:In independent film you tend to have stories that involve more of a community, and the smaller characters are important to the story. ~ David Morse, #NFDB
1126:I've seen many films and read lots of thrillers - and I'm always disappointed that I can guess the story before the other viewers. ~ Claude Lelouch, #NFDB
1127:I write about the trials and triumphs of contemporary life - and often the readers see themselves between the lines of the story. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
1128:—No. He is asking us if we can truly bear hearing the story. Losing our ignorance can be dangerous because our ignorance is a shield. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1129:[Oh, yes, now you try to explain yourself, Carter. I thought you didn’t remember this bit! Just be quiet and let me tell the story.] ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1130:Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end ~ Homer,#NFDB
1131:The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. ~ Jules Renard, #NFDB
1132:The story of the Prince does that to men. It breaks them down, removes the rubble, and builds a castle where there was once a prison. ~ Chuck Black, #NFDB
1133:this guy had the story on Petar Matic. “Don’t you love the name, Rook? Sounds like a product a mohel would sell on an infomercial. ~ Richard Castle, #NFDB
1134:At some point, if you're lucky, you realize you're not the story you're part of the story. The story is much bigger than you. ~ Maynard James Keenan, #NFDB
1135:[Georges] Simenon could be very brave like that. You never quite know what you're going to get or how the story's going to be told. ~ Rowan Atkinson, #NFDB
1136:[History is] the story of the magnificent rear-guard action fought during several thousand years by dogma against curiosity. ~ Robert Staughton Lynd, #NFDB
1137:I know that my only chance at any kind of depth or profundity is to linger within the story, trying to make it distinguish itself. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
1138:Ms. Binny says, "Those are your words. You're writing, Mason! Come do it every day. This can be your journal. It's the story of you. ~ Leslie Connor, #NFDB
1139:No story ever looks as bad as the story you've just bought; no story ever looks as good as the story the other fellow just bought. ~ Irving Thalberg, #NFDB
1140:That is, until we find the story that leads us to the gospel claim that Jesus is the Messiah, we don’t have the Bible’s story right. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
1141:The Bible—from back to front—is the story of God told from the limited point of view of real people living at a certain place and time. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1142:The story thread suddenly dropped in a hopeless snarl, just as he was about to get it through the needle's eye of the first line. ~ Cornell Woolrich, #NFDB
1143:Twitter provides a great amount of timely information, but we still need those people to fill out the rest of the story and the context. ~ Biz Stone, #NFDB
1144:You do get certain publications in the States where, if things don't go according to plan, they flip the story and it becomes very negative. ~ Drake, #NFDB
1145:As filmmakers, we're constantly always looking for something to bring the audience deeper into the reality of the story we're telling. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
1146:At some point, if you're lucky, you realize you're not the story. You're part of the story. The story is much bigger than you. ~ Maynard James Keenan, #NFDB
1147:But it’s hard to say where experience ends and imagination begins. The story is by no means a true story. But the feelings in it are. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
1148:Humankind cannot bear very much reality. That is why we invent stories, I said. And what if we are the story we invent? He said. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1149:I care more about making sure the story is correct and the characters are behaving in character than I do about the individual jokes. ~ Michael Schur, #NFDB
1150:I know this hasn't been a seamless narrative. I've had to shatter the story and string its fragments out along a death lasting decades. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
1151:I love fantasy. I love thrillers. I love action. I'm all over the place. As long as the story and characters are good, I'll love it. ~ Julianne Hough, #NFDB
1152:I read a lot of summaries about the story [ based on the Cyrano de Bergerac. ]. I also watched Roxanne, the movie starring Steve Martin. ~ Coco Jones, #NFDB
1153:I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
1154:I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story. ~ Karen Blixen, #NFDB
1155:Marketing is the name we use to describe the promise a company makes, the story it tells, the authentic way it delivers on that promise. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1156:No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
1157:the chance to leave your old self behind. To take all your mistakes and regrets and erase them from the story. Who wouldn’t want that? ~ Tom Perrotta, #NFDB
1158:The moral of the story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it...some stories just don't have a happy ending. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1159:The story knows itself better than the writer does at some point, knows what's being said before the writer figures out how to say it. ~ Joy Williams, #NFDB
1160:The story of a woman who was scared of the dark and a man who was scared of love, who’d come together to overcome all their fears… ~ Julie Ann Walker, #NFDB
1161:The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
1162:To me, the moral of the story was that there will always be hurdles in life, but if you want to achieve a goal, you must continue. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
1163:Whenever an actor was going to die, I tried to help them understand not to take it personally. It wasn't about them. It's the story. ~ Wendell Pierce, #NFDB
1164:Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand. This is the secret every phenomenally successful business understands. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1165:Your lives are wonders, my girls. They will be wonders from start to finish. Do you not remember the story of how you came to me? ~ Carrie Anne Noble, #NFDB
1166:You wouldn't believe the things that go missing in these labs. Remind me to tell you the story about the radioactive spider sometime. ~ Deborah Blake, #NFDB
1167:Body of earth, don't talk of earth
Tell the story of pure mirrors
The Creator has given you this splendor--
Why talk of anything else? ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1168:Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. What is my story now, I wonder? ~ Joe Abercrombie, #NFDB
1169:Every new medium transforms the nature of human thought. In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1170:Go ahead and break the rules, flip expectations, twist the story world around backwards—as long as it’s in the service of your readers. ~ Steven James, #NFDB
1171:I don't even exist. How can something that doesn't exist get in trouble? It's been the story of my life. One day here. One day there. ~ Hannah Pittard, #NFDB
1172:If a movie has more characters than an audience can keep track of, the audience will get confused and lose interest in the story. ~ Seth Grahame Smith, #NFDB
1173:If the journal is the jumble of raw material—blood, bones, sinews—and a poem is the cell, the impulse, the story is the entire animal. ~ Deena Metzger, #NFDB
1174:I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story. ~ Willem Dafoe, #NFDB
1175:Slowly, like a film fade-out, the real world evaporates. I’m alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1176:Slowly like a movie fade out, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1177:Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1178:Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I’m alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1179:the job of fiction is to find the truth inside the story’s web of lies, not to commit intellectual dishonesty in the hunt for the buck. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1180:The reason I met my husband was because I remembered a friend's birthday. The moral of the story is: Remember people's birthdays. ~ Julianna Margulies, #NFDB
1181:The story of America is necessarily one of progress because if it's not than it's a stale story where we have not risen above Klansmen. ~ Ben Dreyfuss, #NFDB
1182:The story of Apple’s move into digital music is the tale of a man, and a team, learning how to adapt over and over again on the fly. ~ Brent Schlender, #NFDB
1183:The story was a sleeping girl in a narrow bed Dark hair thick and wild and twisted like seaweed across the pillow... Bella's Lullaby ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
1184:Well, at least this time I get to be a person in the story. The last time you told one of your Russian parables I was a bag of chickens. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
1185:Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life - written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author? ~ Jean Webster, #NFDB
1186:I don't want to insert myself into the story. I just want to give a useful analysis of it to help people come to their own conclusions. ~ Rachel Maddow, #NFDB
1187:If I like it, if I think the character is going to be fun, if I think the story is good and if it appeals to me, then I want to do it. ~ Dwayne Johnson, #NFDB
1188:I never start a section of the story without knowing how it will end. I also consciously try to shape the story as though it were a movie. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1189:In the original novel [ Anthem], the story unfolds in the mind of a single character. Maybe that's why Ayn Rand called the work a poem. ~ Jeff Britting, #NFDB
1190:It has been said that if you don't see God in the profane and the profound, you're missing half the story. That is a great Truth. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
1191:It has been said that if you don’t see God in the profane and the profound, you’re missing half the story. That is a great Truth. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
1192:It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1193:I was too lazy to start a whole new story, so I just stuck a princess into the story I was working on... and The Princess Diaries was born! ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
1194:Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations. ~ Vijay Seshadri, #NFDB
1195:the space between the breath with which a narrator exhales the final word of the story and his next in which there is no story; the ~ John Joseph Adams, #NFDB
1196:A definition of loneliness surfaced in his mind: when you suddenly understand that the story of your life isn’t what you thought it was. ~ Rachel Kadish, #NFDB
1197:All characters come from people I know, but after the initial inspiration, I tend to modify the characters so they fit with the story. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
1198:A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
1199:God ordained the days of your life, just like it says in Psalm 139. The story you so desperately wanted to hear was written by Him. ~ Mindy Starns Clark, #NFDB
1200:I just wanted to tell the story of a bunch of musicians who had never had their story told before. There's no preaching or theorizing. ~ Michael Azerrad, #NFDB
1201:Marley was dead, to begin with ... This must be distintly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1202:Mina, trust me, it's better if we don't discuss this anymore. Words have power and it makes it that much easier for the Story to find you. ~ Chanda Hahn, #NFDB
1203:She tries to turn the story on its head. This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
1204:The camera kind of finds things that the naked eye can't even see. By moving in a certain way, you're already telling part of the story. ~ Thea Sharrock, #NFDB
1205:The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film. ~ Harrison Ford, #NFDB
1206:We must cherish our inheritance. We must preserve our nationality for the youth of our future. The story should be written down to pass on. ~ Louis Riel, #NFDB
1207:We need to find out what fiction is, what it means, to us, an experience that is going to be unlike anyone else’s experience of the story. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1208:Can I possibly be a good writer if I'm not healed form the story I'm telling? Will I be able to go deep enough if people find out the truth? ~ Lori Lesko, #NFDB
1209:For me, what makes great actors, always is how truthful they are to the character and the story and the emotion that they're trying to tell. ~ Billy Boyd, #NFDB
1210:From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me. ~ Jean M Auel, #NFDB
1211:I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
1212:I have the "thing" worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1213:In commercial fiction especially, everything in the story usually contributes directly to the plot The shorter the story, the truer this is ~ Nancy Kress, #NFDB
1214:People talked. Let them talk. Nothing I could do to stop them. They knew the thousand words, but they didn't know the rest of the story. ~ Jennifer Brown, #NFDB
1215:This book is the story of the birth, growth, and future of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
1216:To my earlier self I would like to say, “Relax. The story will come in due time. Trust your characters. Let them tell you what happens next. ~ Anne Tyler, #NFDB
1217:When foreigners cook our food, they want to infuse their identity into the dish, they have a need to be part of the story and take it over. ~ Eddie Huang, #NFDB
1218:When the news wants to tell you something is important, they put dramatic theme music behind it. They scare you into watching the story. ~ Aaron McGruder, #NFDB
1219:When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined. ~ Edward de Bono, #NFDB
1220:A big part of the story is American imperialism, and the flip side of that is the building up of the national security state here at home. ~ Peter Kuznick, #NFDB
1221:A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment. ~ Jack Vance, #NFDB
1222:As we die from one life into the next... we may also die and be reborn in a single lifetime... and the story, the journey, goes on and on... ~ Dan Millman, #NFDB
1223:Comedy, drama, Westerns, sci-fi... it's all fine if the story's compelling and the character is interesting to me. I do like action a lot. ~ Jensen Ackles, #NFDB
1224:Gravity”: “It’s the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die then spend one more minute with a woman his own age. ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
1225:Homer truly doesn’t take sides, and so he permits the story to be tragic. By tragedy, mind and soul are grieved, enlarged, and exalted. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1226:humans are born in truth, but we grow up believing in lies. one of the biggest lies in the story of humanity is the lie of our imperfection. ~ Miguel Ruiz, #NFDB
1227:I don't know what this feather means, the story of it, but I know it means he was thinking of me. For all these years. He remembered me. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
1228:I dont see myself only as a Somali character. I think of myself as an actor, and if the job fits me and I like the story, I will go for it. ~ Barkhad Abdi, #NFDB
1229:If you watch 'E.T.' and say that there are holes in the story because this alien lands, then don't go to the movie! It drives me insane. ~ John C McGinley, #NFDB
1230:In the society of illusion, reality must manifest itself. The story songs of Joel Rafael are that manifestation... the essence of minstrel. ~ John Trudell, #NFDB
1231:Nothing stayed, nothing ever changed. But love, only love, that was the true part of the story, no matter what the beginning, middle or end. ~ Selena Kitt, #NFDB
1232:The moral of the story was not to wear a red shirt. Or go on away missions when you’re the only one whose name isn’t on the opening credits. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
1233:The story and the poem are obviously changed by being placed in the novel, so in a sense they're no longer the works that preceded the novel. ~ Ben Lerner, #NFDB
1234:the story was that Orpheus was sent to Hell and never arrived, but later I checked the Archives. The Archives were silent on that point. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
1235:Whatever's happening today, remember it is only ONE SCENE in a long movie. Don't treat it like it's the whole story. Keep writing the story. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
1236:After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end. ~ Sarah Addison Allen, #NFDB
1237:And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in. ~ Morgan Freeman, #NFDB
1238:As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately. ~ Julianna Baggott, #NFDB
1239:As for biblical or religious theory, I don’t ever want to fight about the details of the story, I want to live the reality of the message. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
1240:Declan paused then, sighing, as if the weight of the story was a tangible thing, and he needed to take a moment to regain his strength. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
1241:Eventually, it came to this place like, "I'd like to direct, but I need to find the story to tell." Man of Tai Chi became the story to tell. ~ Keanu Reeves, #NFDB
1242:For me, the main inspiration to write a story or novel is the voice of its central character, or the narrative voice of the story itself. ~ Scott Bradfield, #NFDB
1243:I learned another thing, which is that just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story. ~ Miriam Toews, #NFDB
1244:I love Black Beauty, but it's just a story, of course. What matters is. . . I don't know. . . what you do once the story is inside you. ~ Deborah Hopkinson, #NFDB
1245:I think the brutality is important to convey as part of the story, to see how brutal it is to have these kids in battle with one another. ~ Josh Hutcherson, #NFDB
1246:It is the untold story of this war and it is the story of every war ever fought. Greedy men seeing someone weaker with something they want. ~ C C Humphreys, #NFDB
1247:I've wanted to direct for a long time, but it had to be a story I wanted to tell. The writer's job is to find the story that he should tell. ~ Peter Hedges, #NFDB
1248:I would have written this next part into the story if anybody would have believed it. But who would have? I was there and I didn't believe it. ~ Amy Hempel, #NFDB
1249:"Lost in Translation" by Sofia Coppola. It's a masterpiece. I laughed a lot but was also overwhelmed by the story - a rare combination. ~ Emmanuelle Bercot, #NFDB
1250:Luke had a theological reason for this, for in his view the story he was telling shall not come to an end before the end of all history. ~ Justo L Gonz lez, #NFDB
1251:Theme is not imposed on the story but evoked from within it- initially an intuitive but finally an intellectual act on the part of a writer. ~ John Gardner, #NFDB
1252:There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1253:They go round and round cause the story is a little biddy thing that needs a lot of fluff to make it big enough to be told in the first place. ~ Leah Weiss, #NFDB
1254:This is the story of a boy and a girl fighting storms and trying to find peace in the most unexpected place. They try and find it in each other. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
1255:Where this story stops, they look into a mirror reflecting a mirror where the story begins and reflects a mirror where the story continues. ~ Frances Mayes, #NFDB
1256:You have to forgive everyone for everything. You can’t cling on to any blame that you may be using to make sense of the story of your life. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
1257:Action movies live and die by the story that you're trying to tell. It's hard. It's very difficult to do an action movie that stays engaging. ~ Daniel Craig, #NFDB
1258:Book Buzzed: When you stay up until midnight to finish a book, but then can't fall asleep until 1 a.m. because the story was so amazing. ~ Jennifer Bardsley, #NFDB
1259:First, I write down all I know about the story, at length and in detail. Then I sink the iceberg and let some of it float up just a little. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
1260:In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story. ~ Kareem Abdul Jabbar, #NFDB
1261:In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1262:In real life, things don't all end at the nice same place. To keep the story real, there has to be kind of a ragged edge at the end of a novel. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
1263:I rather fancy the story of Laurelyn the Moondreamer and how she built a castle of silver moonbeams, don’t you? Silver-mind it was called. ~ Kristen Britain, #NFDB
1264:Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1265:There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They're totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point. ~ Peter David, #NFDB
1266:The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-"The sky is falling," cried Henny-Penny, "and a piece of it fell on my tail. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1267:The story of 'Lasers' is my story. I didn't have to look too far to get subject matter for this record; it was stuff that was happening to me. ~ Lupe Fiasco, #NFDB
1268:We don’t bring up the negative stakes enough and so the story we’re telling falls flat. Remember, if there are no stakes, there is no story. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1269:When you have a steady and lifelong group of girlfriends, chances are the person you're telling the story to is actually part of the story. ~ Sloane Crosley, #NFDB
1270:When you write a story you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite your main job is taking out all the things that are NOT the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1271:While we rest in silence, pages are being written between us. Telling the story of a crazy, sad girl and a fucking dangerous, lonely guy. I ~ Krista Ritchie, #NFDB
1272:All those stories need different endings——which is possible because it's my life and I do have the privelege of being able to write the story. ~ Laura Fraser, #NFDB
1273:But this is not the story of a life. It is the story of lives, knit together, overlapping in succession, rising again from grave after grave. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1274:Do not start a story unless you have an ending in mind. You can change the story's ending if you wish, but you should always have a destination. ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
1275:He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
1276:I do feel like there`s this Republican Party establishment is in disarray. That`s the story that the Donald Trump surge seems to tell. ~ Melissa Harris Perry, #NFDB
1277:I'm hoping that The Story of Reality will fill in more details for the Christian believer and will create a crisis of faith for the nonbeliever. ~ Greg Koukl, #NFDB
1278:It's like my ear attunes to the weird language and I'm sucked fully into the story, the same way I am when I watch a movie, so that I feel it. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
1279:Many of the early Christian Fathers declared that, in the story of the Creation and Fall of Man, there was but an allegorical fiction. ~ Thomas William Doane, #NFDB
1280:That's the difference between love and hunger," she says. "Hunger is a story you gt stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new. ~ Kai Cheng Thom, #NFDB
1281:The story of two dreams is a coincidence, a line drawn by chance, like the shapes of lions or horses that are sometimes formed by clouds. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
1282:The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1283:This is the story of these pioneers, hackers, inventors, and entrepreneurs—who they were, how their minds worked, and what made them so creative. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1284:Thus the story describes a full circle... a vicious circle as all circles are, despite their posing as apples, or planets, or human faces. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1285:Well, I did see The Crown Conspiracy while in Colnora. I found the sets pathetic and the orchestration horrible, but the story was good. ~ Michael J Sullivan, #NFDB
1286:We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good. ~ Julie Taymor, #NFDB
1287:You can be intuitive when you've got a more expansive role. You can get into the poetry of telling the story rather than just pushing buttons. ~ Willem Dafoe, #NFDB
1288:You can't always see both sides of the story. Eventually, you have to pick a side and stick with it. No more equivocating. You have to commit. ~ John Mulaney, #NFDB
1289:You write the story of you every day with your thoughts, words and deeds. You create yourself. You get to decide your story. No one else. You. ~ Rachel Burge, #NFDB
1290:@AjmaniK Listen to the story told by the reed,of being separated.Since I was cut from the reedbed,I have made this crying sound. ~ Rumi#SpiritChat #Homecoming, #NFDB
1291:All too many journalists seem to mistake scandal mongering for tenacious investigation, and far too many aspire to make themselves the story. ~ Laurie Garrett, #NFDB
1292:Asked to describe the Holy One, Jesus told the story of the father whose bond with his son, no matter the son’s unworthiness, was unbreakable. ~ James Carroll, #NFDB
1293:Both costume and fashion are about telling a story, except that in a ballet the story has already been written by the composer or the librettist. ~ Raf Simons, #NFDB
1294:But there are no happy endings unless we cut the story short, and as far as I know, there are no rules of etiquette to a miracle, either. ~ Binnie Kirshenbaum, #NFDB
1295:For me, as an actress, one of the most essential things that I need to know is what do I want for and from the people around me in the story. ~ Mary McDonnell, #NFDB
1296:...he had learned that was the way with most people. The story was never the story, and it surprised you, how much another person could carry. ~ Justin Cronin, #NFDB
1297:I guess that is my favorite thing - to make people laugh and also to maybe engage them emotionally and touch them somehow in telling the story. ~ Lesley Nicol, #NFDB
1298:She touched the pages and remembered each shell and the story of finding it, where it lay on the beach, the season, the sunrise. A family album. ~ Delia Owens, #NFDB
1299:Some of those things might hurt. Life does pack a punch. But it’s the scars that make us who we are, that tell the story of the life we lived. ~ Adriana Locke, #NFDB
1300:The juxtaposition of words - the color, feeling, and sound of the words together - has as much to do with the story as the narrative itself does. ~ Chad Smith, #NFDB
1301:The more people we can find to agree with our side of the story, the more justified we will feel in believing that side of the story. ~ The Arbinger Institute, #NFDB
1302:There’s one thing the Brothers Grimm got very, very wrong: There’s no such thing as “ever after.” That would require that the story ever end. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
1303:There was also the myth of the western films. But my films are borrowed not from the story of the West in America but from the story of cinema. ~ Sergio Leone, #NFDB
1304:The significance - and ultimately the quality - of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1305:This is the story of the end of the world, the rise and fall of human civilization, the creation of the Partials and the death of everything else. ~ Dan Wells, #NFDB
1306:We enter the world of the story, delighted to go through that reliable and recognizable portal of promise, the magical words “Once upon a time. ~ Paula Munier, #NFDB
1307:When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1308:Without the story - in which everyone living, unborn and dead, participates - men are no more than bits of paper blown on the cold wind. ~ George Mackay Brown, #NFDB
1309:Yahweh would have preferred that man had not emerged from “nature.” This is the meaning of the story told in the first chapters of Genesis. ~ Alain de Benoist, #NFDB
1310:Can you tell the story of redemption in one sentence? Sin has driven us out of the garden, but grace drives us right into the Father’s arms. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
1311:Critics have found fault with all the world's scriptures, but as yet they have discovered no useful substitutes. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1312:Each experience of love nudges us toward the Story of Interbeing, because it only fits into that story and defies the logic of Separation. ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
1313:I go where the story leads. And, sometimes, it is a little bit outrageous. And I relish that. I sort of want to be as much on the edge as I can. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1314:I know we play a part in the story of progressive music, but for us those influences are the real fathers, the ones that we were interested in. ~ John Petrucci, #NFDB
1315:In America, immigration is the story of hope and achievement, of youth, of freedom, of creation. But all entrances on one stage are exits elsewhere. ~ A A Gill, #NFDB
1316:Let's face it: people don't have respect for other people. That's the story here. When everyone is respected, then we can all live within magic. ~ Tommy Wiseau, #NFDB
1317:"Suffragette" is an intense drama that tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement as they fight for the right to vote. ~ Sarah Gavron, #NFDB
1318:The name of Jesus is sufficient to name us. The story of Jesus is sufficient to be our story. His name liberates us from preoccupation with self. ~ Scott Sauls, #NFDB
1319:The story of the creation and similar things in it did not impress me very much, but on the contrary made me incline somewhat towards atheism. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1320:The worst thing you can try to do is to steer the story once it gets going. You just kind of follow along and see where it goes. That's the fun. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1321:Whatever the story is behind your name, it’s an essential part of your identity. It feels so good when people use your name and remember it. ~ Travis Bradberry, #NFDB
1322:When we identify something our customer wants and communicate it simply, the story we are inviting them into is given definition and direction. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1323:You have to go where the story is to report on it. As a journalist, you're essentially running to things that other people are running away from. ~ Lester Holt, #NFDB
1324:A lot of superhero stuff now looks great but it's so difficult to read if you don't know how to read comics. I deliberately focus on the story. ~ Jamie McKelvie, #NFDB
1325:Although I spend so much of my time in the kitchen, putting food on the table, providing food is not part of the story I tell myself of my life. ~ Anne Youngson, #NFDB
1326:A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, #NFDB
1327:Critics have found fault with all the world's scriptures, but as yet they have discovered no useful substitutes. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1328:humans are born in truth, but we grow up believing in lies. one of the biggest lies in the story of humanity is the lie of our imperfection. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz, #NFDB
1329:I speak and speak, [...] but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. [...] It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear. ~ Marco Polo, #NFDB
1330:I wanted to seem completely invisible but whenever you're saying someone else's words and relaying the story of someone else's life, it's not you. ~ Uma Thurman, #NFDB
1331:I was also the romantic lead in The Boston Strangler - I was the only one that lived to tell the story - so I called myself the romantic lead. ~ Sally Kellerman, #NFDB
1332:My biggest lesson ... was to try and create narrators that were believable. ...so the listener becomes really invested in the story or the song. ~ Kristian Bush, #NFDB
1333:My words were remindin’ even myself of the wolf in the story about the red-hooded lass, but I was no’ about to be deterred by that comparison. ~ Victoria Danann, #NFDB
1334:There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. That ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1335:They talked about Noah and the ark because the story had animals in it. They failed to mention that this was when God massacred all of humanity. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1336:V—the story of a willful and immature prince who becomes a passionate but sensitive, callous but sentimental, inspiring but flawed king—begins ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1337:Could one possibly accuse him of nostalgia or idleness, of wasting his time simply because he had read the story two or three times before? Sitting ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
1338:Geoffrey C. Ward. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony—An Illustrated History. Knopf: New York, 1999. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
1339:I don't plan my books. I don't know what's going to happen. That's why I could pick up any one of my 30 books and I could continue the story on. ~ Jackie Collins, #NFDB
1340:If your stories are all about your products and services, that's not storytelling. It's a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger. ~ Jay Baer, #NFDB
1341:I'm so grateful that I had the luxury of transitioning in private. Because when you transition in the public eye, the transition becomes the story. ~ Laverne Cox, #NFDB
1342:Like all bitter men, Flint knew less than half the story and was more interested in unloading his own peppery feelings than in learning the truth. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
1343:the first two years of a movie’s development should be a time of solidifying the story beats by relentlessly testing them—much like you temper steel. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1344:The gospel is the story of God covering his naked enemies, bringing them to the wedding feast, and then marrying them rather than crushing them. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
1345:The story about race that was embedded into America at the founding of our nation was a lie; it is time to change that story and discover a new one. ~ Jim Wallis, #NFDB
1346:The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
1347:What I love about film scoring is that all the answers are in the story. You just need to get in tune with the story and realize it musically. ~ Joseph Trapanese, #NFDB
1348:You always fear, when you're making a movie that has a moral to the story, that people are going to reject the idea of being taught a lesson... ~ Christina Ricci, #NFDB
1349:But certain others, they move in and make themselves at home and start flapping their arms in the story you make of your life. They have a wingspan. ~ Monica Wood, #NFDB
1350:I am the center of the story now, Jule said to herself. I don’t have to weigh very little, wear very little, or have my teeth fixed. I am the center. ~ E Lockhart, #NFDB
1351:I could open up the novel at any page and immediately know where I was in the story, could almost visualize the next sentence before I reached it. ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
1352:If you remain unsettled by a piece of writing, it means you are not watching the story from the outside; you've already taken a step toward it. ~ Daniel Day Lewis, #NFDB
1353:If you tell the story emotionally in a truthful way, then you start naturally looking at the landscape and thinking "Wow, we have to watch out." ~ Viggo Mortensen, #NFDB
1354:If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling yourself the story of how it doesn’t. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
1355:I know from experience that I make the best decisions when I'm into the story and inspired by the story, not when I'm sitting there trying to plot. ~ Pamela Clare, #NFDB
1356:I listened, while the scents found their hiding places in the cracks in the floorboards, and the words of the story, and the rest of my life. ~ Erica Bauermeister, #NFDB
1357:In one of the paradoxes of storytelling, readers want to predict how the story will end (or how it will get to the end), but they want to be wrong. ~ Steven James, #NFDB
1358:I really like comedy. There's always a choice, when you're writing: you can either go for the joke or you can go for the story, the important stuff. ~ David Chase, #NFDB
1359:I thought that for a long while, but you chose me, and then you chose him, and choosing is hard - one choice is never the end of the story. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
1360:It’s all in the details—what you put in, what you don’t. I mean, you leave out the weather and what people are wearing, you can skip half the story. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1361:It’s funny how when it’s somebody else telling the story it’s easy to see that He can’t take a joke is just another way of saying I’m a jackass. ~ Melissa DeCarlo, #NFDB
1362:She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1363:So much history can be lost if no one tells the story -- so that's what I do. I tell the stories. This is my way of fighting for social change. ~ Alanis Obomsawin, #NFDB
1364:The best advice is not to write what you know, it’s to write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best—write the story you want to read. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
1365:There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story. ~ Linda Hogan, #NFDB
1366:The saddest part of the story to me is that no one talked about the duplicity. The missing bread was never mentioned. The people were silent. ——— ~ Brother Andrew, #NFDB
1367:The story of Adam and Eve has less to do with evil than the cosmic human sadness that relationships are never straightforward, never pure enough. ~ Darcey Steinke, #NFDB
1368:The story of practically every great fortune starts with the day when a creator of ideas and a seller of ideas got together and worked in harmony. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
1369:Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1370:A book lets you choose how much of the blood you want to see. A book gives you the permission to see the story as you want, as your mind directs. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
1371:Folk take a battering but, they do; they get born and they get brought up and they get fuckt. That's the story; the cot to the fucking funeral pyre. ~ James Kelman, #NFDB
1372:He was breathing the air of its world, adapting to its gravity. The story’s essence had permeated every part of him, to the walls of his viscera. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1373:How marvelous to be able to read someone’s skin, to explore the story of his life across his chest, his arms, the softness at the back of his neck. ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
1374:I'm a filmmaker who is known for these ambiguous portraits that tell multiple sides of the story without really telling the audience what to think. ~ Joe Berlinger, #NFDB
1375:Richards and Maureen Sherbondy, also contributed their ideas at various points in the story, as did my sister, Joann Scanlon, and my assistant, ~ Diane Chamberlain, #NFDB
1376:She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1377:The best advice is not to write what you know, it's to write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best- write the story you want to read. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
1378:The characters are telling you the story. I'm not telling you the story, they're going to do it. If I do it right, you will get the whole story. ~ George V Higgins, #NFDB
1379:The excitement seems to be finished for now, so I take out my book. Two paragraphs in, the buzzer sounds, drawing my attention away from the story ~ Helena Hunting, #NFDB
1380:The lightbulb was the kind of innovation that comes together over decades, in pieces. There was no lightbulb moment in the story of the lightbulb. ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
1381:Then Hannah said, 'Look, either you're going to talk or I'm going to have to finish the story about the guy who chopped off his penis. Your call. ~ Brigid Kemmerer, #NFDB
1382:The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. ~ Douglas Adams,#NFDB
1383:When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
1384:You should be writing for the love of the story, and when it comes time to return to the manuscript, everything else belongs behind a closed door. ~ Michael Koryta, #NFDB
1385:But we cannot unbraid the story of another person’s life and take out all the parts that don’t suit our purposes and put forth only the ones that do. ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
1386:I think that sense of unreality inspired me to write the story within the book that [August] Brill tells himself, one of the stories he tells himself. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1387:Never gonna forget a single day, baby. Good and bad, they all add up to the story of us. I'm gonna take everyone one and cherish it, come what may. ~ J T Geissinger, #NFDB
1388:Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”
[Letter to Harrison Blake; November 16, 1857] ~ Henry David Thoreau,#NFDB
1389:Once there was a girl named Riley, the story began. Her heart was a secret garden, its stone walls cracked and weathered. And it was hungry. p160 ~ Scott Westerfeld, #NFDB
1390:Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought life would be like and learn to find joy in the story you are actually living. ~ Rachel Marie Martin, #NFDB
1391:The eyes were of a color which he could never decide on, afterwards when he told the story he used to say they were the color of everything in Spring. ~ John Buchan, #NFDB
1392:The story goes that one day Socrates stood gazing at a stall that sold all
kinds of wares. Finally he said, “What a lot of things I don’t need! ~ Jostein Gaarder,#NFDB
1393:The story of a regeneration of convictions - can any story in the entire field of literature be more filled with thrilling and all-absorbing interest? ~ Lev Shestov, #NFDB
1394:The story of the progress of human morals is almost entirely populated by people who did not live to see the world that they loved in their minds. ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
1395:The story was about a guy making a girl come. Forgive me for thinking about making you come. It’s only my favorite thing in the entire world to do. ~ Lauren Blakely, #NFDB
1396:The story was a sleeping girl
in a narrow bed
Dark hair thick and wild and twisted
like seaweed across the pillow...
Bella's Lullaby ~ Stephenie Meyer,#NFDB
1397:Those are the facts. It's easy to believe in facts, my dear. To believe in the story you need faith. Tell me the story as you experienced it. ~ Patti Callahan Henry, #NFDB
1398:To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short. ~ Carl Sandburg,#NFDB
1399:unprocessed sense fragments of trauma, like sounds and smells and physical sensations, are also registered separately from the story itself. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
1400:We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. ~ Gene Roddenberry, #NFDB
1401:We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story. ~ David Foster Wallace, #NFDB
1402:Bah! you wish to hear a man tell of his worst actions, and you expect the story to come out goody-goody! One's worst actions always are mean. We ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1403:Bringing Mid-World to a new readership felt like a big responsibility, but I'm so glad that readers have enjoyed the story. That is a reward in itself. ~ Robin Furth, #NFDB
1404:But the smoking is very frustrating. Who knows where it will go; where the story will go; where the character will go? There's still lots of options. ~ Neil Marshall, #NFDB
1405:Christians today and for many centuries have assumed that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3 is the source of the belief in original sin. Adam ~ Diogenes Allen, #NFDB
1406:I may not live to see our glory
But I will gladly join the fight
And when our children tell our story
They'll tell the story of tonight ~ Lin Manuel Miranda,#NFDB
1407:In France, I have lots of opportunities. Maybe now I'll be offered films in America. It's the encounter, with the director and the story that counts. ~ Jean Dujardin, #NFDB
1408:In most respects, the Bible is a very simple book, and many parts of it can be read to children and will benefit them. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1409:I think my love is storytelling. No matter what it is, it's storytelling. And so whatever the medium is, what's right for the story, I enjoy doing it. ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
1410:My hope with this book is to spread the good news of the Jesus of history with the same fervor that I once applied to spreading the story of the Christ. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
1411:Our peaceful hearts change the situation, disrupting the story in which hate comes naturally and offering an experience that suggests a new one. ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
1412:The difference between reading a story and studying a story is the difference between living the story and killing the story and looking at its guts. ~ Cory Doctorow, #NFDB
1413:We all know the story. We heard it not long after the Night of Fire and Wind. You were the low born library girl turned sorceress who rode with princes. ~ Elise Kova, #NFDB
1414:And what it depends on, of course, is whether the story itself is worth the ethical compromise it requires and whether the competition is onto the story. ~ Roger Mudd, #NFDB
1415:But embedded in the structure of both literature and life was the reality that for women, adulthood—and with it, the end of the story—was marriage. ~ Rebecca Traister, #NFDB
1416:But the story of the golden calf also reminds us that without rules we quickly become slaves to our passions—and there’s nothing freeing about that. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1417:Frankly, the story makes Sarah look more like a potential cast member for The Real Housewives of Canaan County than a dutiful and submissive wife. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1418:He had been committed, absorbed and unthinking. Intentionally, because the story was so good. So good he felt like he’d been damaged by it, permanently. ~ Adam Nevill, #NFDB
1419:Hope needs to be combined with action for the story to progress. A call needs to be answered. Adventure can start anytime, anywhere, but it has to start. ~ Steve Kamb, #NFDB
1420:If a scene doesn't work on three levels - it's not advancing the story, the characters, and telling me something new - then put it in the trash. ~ Catherine Hardwicke, #NFDB
1421:I love the ordered mind of history because it takes us out of the chaos, momentarily, and says, "Ah, so this is the story we are engaged in." ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1422:I'm still interested in perfecting whatever talents I have and continuing to grow as an actor and continuing to be useful to the telling of the story. ~ Harrison Ford, #NFDB
1423:I really like narrative songs, but I wonder if that's a thing for some people. Once they've heard the story, do they really need to hear the story again? ~ Craig Finn, #NFDB
1424:I write fiction for lots of reasons. One is power. I'm in charge when I write. So are you. You create the world of the story. You make the rules. ~ Gail Carson Levine, #NFDB
1425:Right when you find yourself not thinking about her at all, there she’ll be, right at the end of the story to fuck with your head one last time.” She ~ Matthew Norman, #NFDB
1426:So many die without our caring, decline to silence in rooms beyond hearing. We honor the dead and abhor the dying.
- from the story "De Composition ~ David Benioff,#NFDB
1427:Somehow this garden put her at ease and helped her be patient for the unraveling of the story she was somehow a part of, even if only in a small way. They ~ S D Smith, #NFDB
1428:Special Agent Jack Randall already felt the headache coming on. The call from his office had arrived about the same time as the story had aired on CNN. ~ Randall Wood, #NFDB
1429:Steve and I saw eye to eye on the story and I got the part, but I think in the beginning it was due to my brother's instigation. So I owe him for that. ~ Beau Bridges, #NFDB
1430:There are very few certainties in this world, Mr Gilbert, but I will tell you something I know: the truth depends on who it is that’s telling the story. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
1431:To Europe she was America. To America she was the gateway to the earth. But to tell the story of New York would be to write a social history of the world. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1432:When I see a shipwreck, I like to know what caused the disaster...I learned nothing but the glow that wrapped her face when the soup came. That's the story. ~ O Henry, #NFDB
1433:You can't please everyone with your stories but remember if one person likes the story then you have a fan for life!! And you have made someone's day. ~ Laurie Bowler, #NFDB
1434:Every fictional thing I wrote gave me strength to write another and another. By the end I wasn't remaining true to anything but the story I wanted to tell. ~ Lily King, #NFDB
1435:If you want to change the story that justifies current structures of power and privilege, you must have such a combination of bold goals and specific steps. ~ Eric Liu, #NFDB
1436:Many have been with the show for years, and they have sources in the business, so we do know things, but until it is verified, we don't run with the story. ~ Mary Hart, #NFDB
1437:...most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, where the situation feels hopeless. But that's when hope is needed most. ~ Stephanie Garber, #NFDB
1438:The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most new products are not successful. Yet the story of perseverance, creative genius, and hard work persists. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
1439:There are very few certainties in this world, Mr. Gilbert, but I will tell you something I know: the truth depends on who it is that’s telling the story. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
1440:The story of civilization is, in a sense, the story of engineering-that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good. ~ L Sprague de Camp, #NFDB
1441:The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secret elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won't bother me. ~ Greta Garbo, #NFDB
1442:... the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney. ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
1443:They were better, even angry Honorata. Roza could have been any of them, every one of them. The story hadn’t changed. Only the costumes. Only the players. ~ Laura Ruby, #NFDB
1444:We wait until Pandora's box is opened before we say, "Wow, maybe we should understand what's in that box." This is the story of humans on every problem. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
1445:Your first love is important. It’s part of your story. The story you’ll tell yourself, the one you’ll tell about yourself, for the rest of your life. ~ Jennifer Weiner, #NFDB
1446:But the story of the golden calf also reminds us that without rules we quickly become slaves to our passions—and there’s nothing freeing about that. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1447:Crafty writers...don't allow Exposition to form Lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1448:In this part of the story I am the one who dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
1449:I think great filmmakers will always talk in terms of storytelling. These guys were always about the story. That is how I love to talk about a film. ~ Michael Giacchino, #NFDB
1450:I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as a handprint in the snow. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
1451:Maybe the story came from some part of me that wished I knew more, or at least had actual memories instead of feelings that may have only been inventions. ~ Nina LaCour, #NFDB
1452:Silver interrupted him, “Tell me what it’s about without telling me the story. I’m not interested in the plot. I want to know what the play is about. ~ Alexander Maksik, #NFDB
1453:Studying psychology is fun because you're always looking for the same things I think a writer should be looking for, which is the story behind the story. ~ Chris Cleave, #NFDB
1454:The good news is that we have more control than most of us realize. Each day is filled with thousands of opportunities to change the story of our lives. ~ Michael Hyatt, #NFDB
1455:What I'm hoping to do though is to ground my extrapolations in specificity, and to make sure that the story I tell is deliberately and honestly told. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
1456:When I read Andrew Motion's biography, I wept. It's something about the purity of the story and how fresh it was because of the love letters Keats wrote. ~ Jane Campion, #NFDB
1457:When you're drawing comics, you get very involved in how the story is going to develop and you spend more time daydreaming on that particular subject. ~ Sergio Aragones, #NFDB
1458:Anyone who can look me in the eye and say they prefer the story of Moses or Jesus or Mohammed to the life of Socrates is intellectually defective. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
1459:Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms. ~ Alfred Hitchcock, #NFDB
1460:In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc. ~ Lukas Haas, #NFDB
1461:In real life, people are constantly saying one thing and doing another, but if you write your characters that way, the story becomes too hard to follow. ~ Jessica Cutler, #NFDB
1462:So take seriously the story that God has given you to live. It’s time to read your own life, because your story is the one that could set us all ablaze. ~ Dan B Allender, #NFDB
1463:The mastery of the turn is the story of how aviation became practical as a means of transportation. It is the story of how the world became small. ~ William Langewiesche, #NFDB
1464:The poet or the story-teller who cannot give the reader a little ghostly pleasure at times never can be either a really great writer or a great thinker. ~ Lafcadio Hearn, #NFDB
1465:The true story of every person in this worldis not the story you see, the external story.The true story of each personis the journey of his or her heart. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
1466:Today the story is no less attitude-adjusting. It is about the defining cultural, social and political issue of our age. It is about human transformation. ~ Joel Garreau, #NFDB
1467:When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story,' he said. 'When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1468:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,’ he said. ‘When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1469:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1470:Actors, we like stories, we like storytelling, we love being a part of the story, and if you give us a story that's interesting then we'll want to do it. ~ Aaron Stanford, #NFDB
1471:declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1472:Do you remember the story in the Bible known as the Judgment of Solomon?” Soren asked. “Why can’t we have phone sex like normal perverts?” Kingsley asked. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
1473:...each have their own journeys. It's hard to except, but people leave us along the way. People don't always stay with us until the end of the story... ~ Yasmine Galenorn, #NFDB
1474:Happiness has no history and the story tellers of all lands have understood this so well that the words "they are happy" are the end pf every love tale. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1475:How far is it useful to see Roman history in terms of imperial biographies or to divide the story of the empire into emperor-sized (or dynasty-sized) chunks? ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
1476:I'm aware of 'Twilight,' but I've never seen the movies or read any of the books. Frankly, the story leaves me cold - why do a vampire story about abstinence? ~ Alan Ball, #NFDB
1477:Like everything else in my past he was part of the story that had led us to each other; it’s a way of being in love, I think, to see the past like that. ~ Garth Greenwell, #NFDB
1478:One of the things you have to do when you edit your work is make sure that when you use the first person, it's about more than you. We need the story of us. ~ Barry Lopez, #NFDB
1479:So endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1480:That was one of the key things - when you asked the story about the writing of the story - one of the things we wanted to make sure was that it grew out of. ~ Matt Reeves, #NFDB
1481:The fact that somebody's telling you a story about people who didn't exist doesn't make the experience of the story any less real in your heart and mind. ~ John Darnielle, #NFDB
1482:The moral of the story is, whenever possible, do print/text interviews via email. A paper trail will give you evidence and recourse if people misbehave. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1483:The story of Hosea and Gomer is the second most powerful picture of God's love in the Bible. Other than Christ's death, there is no greater picture of love. ~ Jud Wilhite, #NFDB
1484:The story of my very first sale is the fact that I dreamed up a foolproof paper to cheat an insurance company out of several hundred thousand dollars. ~ Theodore Sturgeon, #NFDB
1485:The story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas gave a moral and religious rationale to anti-Jewish sentiment, and that's what made it persistent and vicious. ~ Elaine Pagels, #NFDB
1486:The story of the eighties will be the story of the Reagan administration and the many men and women who served in it, some of whom are already out on parole. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1487:They each have their own journeys. It's hard to accept, but people leave us along the way. People don't always stay with us until the end of the story. ~ Yasmine Galenorn, #NFDB
1488:To everyone, Jesus issues an invitation to abandon the story they will lose themselves in, and instead, to enter the story they will find themselves in. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
1489:What I'm trying to do [in Winter Journal] is to tell the story of a man's life from birth, but there are different versions of him, four different versions. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1490:When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1491:When you talk to an author or an artist, you’re only ever getting half the story. We are crafting narratives for you. We are leaving the messy details out. ~ Phoebe North, #NFDB
1492:Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in His great campaign of sabotage. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1493:Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school. ~ Chris Crutcher, #NFDB
1494:Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story. ~ Philip Roth, #NFDB
1495:Fanscination is what keeps a writer going. To be able to write, a writer has to be fascinated about a particular something that becomes the idea of the story ~ Ika Natassa, #NFDB
1496:His life story was the story of Patricia and him, after all, for better or worse, and if she ended his life might go on, but his story would be over. ~ Charlie Jane Anders, #NFDB
1497:I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri, #NFDB
1498:I heard the story of a Pittsburgh actor who was asked to say “tire iron” in a play. He found the line so difficult the director changed it to “crowbar. ~ Edward McClelland, #NFDB
1499:It is completely raw, the sort of thing I feel free to do with the door shut—it’s the story undressed, standing up in nothing but its socks and undershorts. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1500:Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn't afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story. ~ Bob Newhart, #NFDB
259 Integral Yoga
54 Poetry
42 Occultism
29 Yoga
18 Fiction
17 Philosophy
14 Psychology
10 Islam
10 Christianity
8 Mysticism
8 Hinduism
5 Integral Theory
4 Mythology
2 Sufism
2 Buddhism
2 Baha i Faith
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
164 The Mother
125 Satprem
68 Nolini Kanta Gupta
26 Sri Ramakrishna
26 Sri Aurobindo
20 James George Frazer
18 Aleister Crowley
15 H P Lovecraft
11 Robert Browning
10 Muhammad
10 Carl Jung
8 William Wordsworth
8 Vyasa
8 A B Purani
7 Nirodbaran
7 Jorge Luis Borges
7 John Keats
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
5 Saint John of Climacus
5 Saint Augustine of Hippo
5 Plato
5 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
5 Jordan Peterson
5 George Van Vrekhem
5 Aristotle
4 William Butler Yeats
3 Percy Bysshe Shelley
3 Ovid
3 Lucretius
3 Jalaluddin Rumi
3 Friedrich Nietzsche
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Rabindranath Tagore
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Kabir
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Italo Calvino
2 Bokar Rinpoche
2 Baha u llah
25 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
20 The Golden Bough
19 Agenda Vol 03
18 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
15 Lovecraft - Poems
14 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
13 Agenda Vol 08
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
12 Agenda Vol 04
11 Browning - Poems
11 Agenda Vol 05
10 Quran
10 Questions And Answers 1953
10 Magick Without Tears
9 Words Of Long Ago
9 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
9 Agenda Vol 10
9 Agenda Vol 07
9 Agenda Vol 06
9 Agenda Vol 02
9 Agenda Vol 01
8 Wordsworth - Poems
8 Vishnu Purana
8 Talks
8 Labyrinths
8 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
8 Agenda Vol 09
7 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
7 Liber ABA
7 Keats - Poems
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
7 Agenda Vol 12
6 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
5 The Secret Doctrine
5 The Phenomenon of Man
5 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
5 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
5 Preparing for the Miraculous
5 Poetics
5 Maps of Meaning
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
4 Yeats - Poems
4 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
4 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
4 Questions And Answers 1956
4 City of God
4 Agenda Vol 11
3 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
3 The Practice of Psycho therapy
3 Shelley - Poems
3 Questions And Answers 1955
3 Questions And Answers 1954
3 Of The Nature Of Things
3 Metamorphoses
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
2 The Synthesis Of Yoga
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 The Life Divine
2 The Castle of Crossed Destinies
2 The Book of Certitude
2 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
2 Tara - The Feminine Divine
2 Tagore - Poems
2 Symposium
2 Songs of Kabir
2 Selected Fictions
2 Rumi - Poems
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Essays On The Gita
2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 Aion
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
'Something else' is ominous, perilous, disrupting - it is quite unbearable for all those who resemble the old beast. the Story of the Pondicherry 'Ashram' is the Story of an old clan ferociously clinging to its 'spiritual' privileges, as others clung to the muscles that had made them kings among the great apes. It is armed with all the piousness and all the reasonableness that had made logical man so 'infallible' among his less cerebral brothers. The spiritual brain is probably the worst obstacle to the new species, as were the muscles of the old orangutan for this fragile stranger who no longer climbed so well in the trees and sat, pensive, at the center of a little, uncertain clearing.
There is nothing more pious than the old species. There is nothing more legal. Mother was searching for the path of the new species as much against all the virtues of the old as against all its vices or laws. For, in truth, 'Something Else' ... is something else.
--
Mother is the Story of the free Earth. Free from its spiritual and scientific parrots. Free from its little ashrams as well - for there is nothing more persistent than those particular parrots.
Day after day, for seventeen years, She sat with us to tell us of her impossible odyssey. Ah, how well we now understand why She needed such an 'outlaw' and an incorrigible heretic like us to comprehend a little bit of her impossible odyssey into 'nothing.' And how well we now understand her infinite patience with us, despite all our revolts, which ultimately were only the revolts of the old species against itself. The final revolt. 'It is not a revolt against the British government which any one can easily do. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature!' Sri Aurobindo had proclaimed fifty years earlier. She listened to our grievances, we went away and we returned. We wanted no more of it and we wanted still more. It was infernal and sublime, impossible and the sole possibility in this old, asphyxiating world. It was the only place one could go to in this barbedwired, mechanized world, where Cincinnati is just as crowded and polluted as Hong Kong. The new species is the last free place in the general Prison. It is the last hope for the earth. How we listened to her little faltering voice that seemed to return from afar, afar, after having crossed spaces and seas of the mind to let its little drops of pure, crystalline words fall upon us, words that make you see. We listened to the future, we touched the other thing. It was incomprehensible and yet filled with another comprehension. It eluded us on all sides, and yet it was dazzlingly obvious. The 'other species' was really radically other, and yet it was vibrating within, absolutely recognizable, as if it were THAT we had been seeking from age to age, THAT we had been invoking through all our illuminations, one after another, in Thebes as in Eleusis as everywhere we have toiled and grieved in the skin of a man. It was for THAT we were here, for that supreme Possible in the skin of a man at last. And then her voice grew more and more frail, her breath began gasping as though She had to traverse greater and greater distances to meet us. She was so alone to beat against the walls of the old prison. Many claws were out all around. Oh, we would so quickly have cut ourself free from all this fiasco to fly away with Her into the world's future. She was so tiny, stooped over, as if crushed beneath the 'spiritual' burden that all the old surrounding species kept heaping upon her. They didn't believe, no. For them, She was ninety-five years old + so many days. Can someone become a new species all alone? They even grumbled at Her: they had had enough of this unbearable Ray that was bringing their sordid affairs into the daylight. The Ashram was slowly closing over Her. The old world wanted to make a new, golden little Church, nice and quiet. No, no one wanted TO
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, as regards the interpretation of the Story cited, should not a suspicion arise naturally at the very outset that the dog of the Story is not a dog but represents something else? First, a significant epithet is given to itwhite; secondly, although it asks for food, it says that Om is its food and Om is its drink. In the Vedas we have some references to dogs. Yama has twin dogs that "guard the path and have powerful vision." They are his messengers, "they move widely and delight in power and possess the vast strength." The Vedic Rishis pray to them for Power and Bliss and for the vision of the Sun1. There is also the Hound of Heaven, Sarama, who comes down and discovers the luminous cows stolen and hidden by the Panis in their dark caves; she is the path-finder for Indra, the deliverer.
My suggestion is that the dog is a symbol of the keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for Knowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding, an Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of the same species in its train. They were all linked together organically that is the significance of the circle, and formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth (Om). It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn to chant, the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the consciousness to truths that come from above and beyond.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
She spent about two months in uninterrupted communion with God, the Baby Gopala never leaving her for a moment. Then the intensity of her vision was lessened; had it not been, her body would have perished. The Master spoke highly of her exalted spiritual condition and said that such vision of God was a rare thing for ordinary mortals. The fun-loving Master one day confronted the critical Narendranath with this simple-minded woman. No two could have presented a more striking contrast. The Master knew of Narendra's lofty contempt for all visions, and he asked the old lady to narrate her experiences to Narendra. With great hesitation she told him her story. Now and then she interrupted her maternal chatter to ask Narendra: "My son, I am a poor ignorant woman. I don't understand anything. You are so learned. Now tell me if these visions of Gopala are true." As Narendra listened to the Story he was profoundly moved. He said, "Yes, mother, they are quite true." Behind his cynicism Narendra, too, possessed a heart full of love and tenderness.
--- THE MARCH OF EVENTS
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
the Story of the Gospel, and that of Parsifal, will
occur to the mind.
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
In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says about the Avatar: "He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the Story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the spiritual rebirth."[5]
"He comes as the divine power and love which calls men to itself, so that they may take refuge in that and no longer in the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their human fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all this unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine."[6]
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the Story You wrote, "The Virtues", You describe
several virtues. Which is the most necessary?
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormous edifice, there was a room reservedas it seemed in the Story for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organization. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was well, a bit more than a roomit was a kind of apartment which, above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things just as they were, with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down that to build still another, thus giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. Most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organization: a kind of super-organization that would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures. But this is where something rather peculiar began happening.
She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearanceas I said, a very familiar and very common appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotels administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, Could you show me the way to my room?But of course! Easily! Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, How can you say that? However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key the key to the daughters roomsaying, I shall take you there. And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughters room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress (let us call her the manageress), both the manageress and her key vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that at the same time, everything vanished!
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
the Story narrated in the film went like this: Narada, as usual, was having fun. (Narada is a demigod with a divine position that is, he can communicate with man and with the gods as he pleases, and he serves as an intermediary, but then he likes to have fun!) So he was quarrelling with one of the goddesses, I no longer recall which one, and he told her (Ah, yes! The quarrel was with Saraswati.) Saraswati was telling him that knowledge is much greater than love (much greater in that it is much more powerful than love), and he replied to her, You dont know what youre talking about! (Mother laughs) Love is much more powerful than knowledge. So she challenged him, saying, Well then, prove it to me.I shall prove it to you, he replied. And the whole story starts there. He began creating a whole imbroglio on earth just to prove his point.
It was only a film story, but anyway, the goddesses, the three wives of the Trimurti that is, the consort of Brahma, the consort of Vishnu and the consort of Shivajoined forces (!) and tried all kinds of things to foil Narada. I no longer recall the details of the Story Oh yes, the Story begins like this: one of the three I believe it was Shivas consort, Parvati (she was the worst one, by the way!)was doing her puja. Shiva was in meditation, and she began doing her puja in front of him; she was using an oil lamp for the puja, and the lamp fell down and burned her foot. She cried out because she had burned her foot. So Shiva at once came out of his meditation and said to her, What is it, Devi? (laughter) She answered, I burned my foot! Then Narada said, Arent you ashamed of what you have done?to make Shiva come out of his meditation simply because you have a little burn on your foot, which cannot even hurt you since you are immortal! She became furious and snapped at him, Show me that it can be otherwise! Narada replied, I am going to show you what it is to really love ones husbandyou dont know anything about it!
Then comes the Story of Anusuya and her husb and (who is truly a husb and a very good man, but well, not a god, after all!), who was sleeping with his head resting upon Anusuyas knees. They had finished their puja (both of them were worshippers of Shiva), and after their puja he was resting, sleeping, with his head on Anusuyas knees. Meanwhile, the gods had descended upon earth, particularly this Parvati, and they saw Anusuya like that. Then Parvati exclaimed, This is a good occasion! Not very far away a cooking fire was burning. With her power, she sent the fire rolling down onto Anusuyas feetwhich startled her because it hurt. It began to burn; not one cry, not one movement, nothing because she didnt want to awaken her husband. But she began invoking Shiva (Shiva was there). And because she invoked Shiva (it is lovely in the Story), because she invoked Shiva, Shivas foot began burning! (Mother laughs) Then Narada showed Shiva to Parvati: Look what you are doing; you are burning your husbands foot! So Parvati made the opposite gesture and the fire was put out.
Thats how it went.
--
Oh, the Story was very lovely all along. There was one thing after another, one thing after another, and always the power of Anusuya was greater than the power of the gods. I liked that story very much.
It ended in a (Oh, the Story was very long; it lasted three hours!) But really, it was lovely throughout. Lovely in the way it showed that the sincerity of love is much more powerful than anything else.
If I were to narrate the whole thing to you, there would be no end to it, but anyway, you get the idea.
--
There is the whole Chaldean tradition, and there is also the Vedic tradition, and there was very certainly a tradition anterior to both that split into two branches. Well, all these occult experiences have been the same. Only the description differs depending upon the country and the language. the Story of creation is not told from a metaphysical or psychological point of view, but from an objective point of view, and this story is as real as our stories of historical periods. Of course, its not the only way of seeing, but it is just as legitimate a way as the others, and in any event, it recognizes the concrete reality of all these divine beings. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists exhibit great similarities. The only difference is in the way they are expressed, but the manipulation of the forces is the same.
I learned all this through Theon. Probably, he was I dont know if he was Russian or Polish (a Russian or Polish Jew), he never said who he really was or where he was born, nor his age nor anything.
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is like the Story X told me of his guru2 who could comm and the coming of Kali (something which seems quite natural to me when one is sufficiently developed); well, not only could he commend the coming of Kali, but Kali with I dont know how many crores of her warriors! For me, Kali was Kali, after all, and she did her work; but in the universal organization, her action, the innumerable multiplicity of her action, is expressed by an innumerable multitude of conscious entities at work. It is this individualization, as it were, that gives to these forces a consciousness and a certain play of freedom, and this is what makes all the difference in action. It is in this respect that the occult system is an absolutely indispensable complement to spiritual action.
The spiritual action is direct, but it may not be immediate (anyway, thats my experience). Sri Aurobindo said that with the supramental presence, it becomes immediate and I have experienced this. But this would then mean that the supramental Power automatically commands all these intermediaries, whereas if its not present, even the highest spiritual power would need a specialized knowledge to act in this realm, a knowledge equivalent to an occult or initiatory knowledge of all these realms. This is why I told X, Well, you taught me many things while you were here. There is always something to learn.
0 1959-03-26 - Lord of Death, Lord of Falsehood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The power of this Titan comes from an Asura. There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical bodythey have been intimately associated with my life. the Story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount The Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I dont know what has become of him.1 As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted, but he found it disgusting!
At times he calls himself the Lord of Nations. It is he who sets all wars in motion, and only by thwarting his plans could the last war be won This one does not want to be converted, not at all. He wants neither the physical transformation nor the supramental world, for that would spell his end. Besides, he knows We talk to each other; beyond all this, we have our relationship. For after all, you see (laughing), I am his mother! One day he told me, I know you will destroy me, but meanwhile, I will create all the havoc possible.
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
X told me the Story of my last three existences (rather grim), but I will write you about that in another letter.
3) X has not yet begun his work with me nor for you, as he has been unwell until today. One evening, he made a very beautiful reflection concerning you and your mantra, but it is inexpressible in words, it was above all the tone in which he said, Who, who, is there a single person in the world who can repeat like that TRIOMPHE TOI MAHIMA MAHIMA? etc. And three or four times he repeated your mantra with such an expression
0 1959-06-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had said nothing to X about these various dreams before he told me the Story of my last three existences: three times I committed suicide the first by fire, the second by hanging, and the third by throwing myself into the void. During the first of these last three existences, I was married to a very good woman, but for some reason I abandoned my wife and I was wandering here and there in search of something. Then I met a sannyasi who wanted to make me his disciple, but I could not make up my mind, I was neither this side nor that side, whereupon my wife came to me and pleaded with me to take her back. Apparently I rejected herso she threw herself into the fire. Horror-stricken, I followed her, throwing myself into the fire in turn. That was when I created a connection with certain beings [of the other worlds] and I fell under their power. For two other lives, under the influence of these beings, the same drama was repeated with a few variations.
During the second of these last three existences, I was married to the same woman whom I again abandoned under the influence of the same monk, and I again remained between two worlds wandering here and there. Again my wife came to plead with me and again I pushed her away. She hung herself, and I hung myself in turn.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It wasnt Ki but Chi, for he was the founder of China!those things were fantastic! the Story was almost childish, but there was a whole world of knowledge in it. Madame Theon was an extraordinary occultist. That woman had incredible faculties, incredible.
She was a small woman, fat, almost flabbyshe gave you the feeling that if you leaned against her, it would melt! Once, I remember I was there in Tlemcen with Andres father, who had come to join usa painter, an artist. Theon was wearing a dark purple robe. Theon said to him, This robe is purple. No, its not purple, the other answered, its violet. Theon went rigid: When I say purple, its purple! And they started arguing over this foolishness. Suddenly there flashed from my head, No, this is too ridiculous!I didnt say a word, but it went out from my head (I even saw the flash), and then Madame Theon got up and came over to me, stood behind me (neither of us uttered a word the other two were staring at each other like two angry cocks), then she laid my head against her breastabsolutely the feeling of sinking into eiderdown!
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A few days later, this nephew had to go somewhere, I dont know where; he went down to the railway station and didnt return. Impossible to find out what had happened to him, he was nowhere to be found. Several days had passed when the family decided to send me his photograph and to tell me the Story, adding that it was surely a sequel to the previous occurrence (there must be some people doing hypnotism), and then they asked me where he was and what had become of him.
All this happened just on the day X1 was leaving. So I told S to take the photograph and letter to X and tell him the Story. X consulted some book, did a very short japa for a few seconds and said, Oh, hell come back before September 26, BUT inform Mother so that She may see to ft. therefore, I concentrated a little.
About two weeks later (in other words, ten days or so before September 26), some more news the boys older brother, who lives in Ahmedabad (not Bombay), came to visit his mother, father and grandmo ther (theres also a grandmo ther), and he asked about his brother. He had come with a friend. Your brother has disappeared, they explained, we dont know what has happened to him. So the two of them decided to search for him: Well find him .
--
Then the police got involved. They wanted to take him back to the countryside around Poona (naturally I suppose they nursed him in the meantime), but not much came out of it. Seems that wherever he remembered seeing these people, when he said he had seen them, he fainted. Finally, I was told the Story, and the poor family wrote to me saying, Who are these demons with such a great power that even it withstands Mothers force as well as that of Xand who are holding our son? So X was again informed and, knowing the Story of the elder brothers friend, he said, Ah, now I know where the other one is, and I hope it wont take too long. But then September 26 passedgeneral despair in the family. They wrote to me, and I concentrated.
It was just before Durga Puja,3 or just after I cant remember (dates and I dont go together)no, it was after Durga Puja. So I went into a deep concentration and, as a matter of fact, I saw that a very powerful and dangerous rakshasic4 power was involved. And then, when I started walking for my japa upstairs in my room (I had given some thought to this story and tried asking for something to be done), I suddenly saw Durga before me raising high a lance of white light the lance of light that destroys the hostile forcesand She struck into a black swarming mass of men.
--
(Here we introduce, parenthetically, the details of the Story as Mother told them two months later)
I found out the details: this boy had to go to the station, but on his way, he went into a shoe store just next to the station to buy a pair of sandals. As he entered, he saw a man there choosing a pair of womens shoes for himself! This seemed strange to him: Whats this man doing buying and he WATCHEDsuddenly, nothing more. He lost consciousness and no longer knew what happened to him. And thats how the Story begana man selecting womens shoes in a shop! He must do strange thingsprobably intentionallyto attract peoples attention. Naturally, out of curiosity, the boy started watching, and that was thatall of a sudden, blank, nothing more! And long afterwards he found himself far away in a train with this man. Hes here now with his mother they came to thank me. Its he who gave me the details. Hes a nice boy, but all this has left him with some anxiety, especially when he speaks of it. Hes trying to forget. He told me hed like to join the army and asked my permission. The boy feels a need for force and he has the idea that to be part of such a force would be good for him. (Of course, he didnt tell me all this, hes not that conscious. But thats what he feels the need to be supported by an organization of force.) So I encouraged him. I told him it was a good idea. His mother wasnt very happy! She feared he was leaping from the frying pan into the fire!
Another curious detail is that after having taken away all his appetite and having put him in the caf as a waiter, they told him, Now you must eat, so he tried to eat, and for four days he vomited up everything he put init was completely black! After that, he was able to start eating a little. Its a fantastic story!
--
I had X informed. But I didnt tell him my difficulty (this mantra they threw on me to kill me), I didnt speak of that at all. For he had insisted, from the beginning he had said, Mother must see to it, only Mothers grace can save them. And I understood their attack came just at the time of Durga Puja, so I understood that Durga had to intervene. So thats the Story.
Things are not going so well for X either; everywhere its grating. It was probably very important I am hopeful that it can bring some change.
0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have had hundreds of such examples Its not always the same scene. The scenes are different, but the Story is always the same the thing, in its truth, is absolutely luminous, pleasant, charming; then as soon as men get involved, it becomes an abominable complication. And once you say, No! Ive had enough of all thisits NOT TRUE! it goes away.
There have been similar stories in dreams with X. I saw him when he was very young (his education, the ideas he had, how he was trained). And the same thing happened. I was with him but Ill tell you that another time6 And then at the end, Id had enough and I said, Oh, no! Its too ridiculous! and with that I left the house. At the door was a little squirrel sitting on his haunches making friendly little gestures towards me. Oh! I said, heres someone who understands better!
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the equations of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, quantities as 'immutable' as the mass of a body, the frequency of a vibration, or the time separating two events, are linked to the speed of the system where the physical event takes place. Recent experiments in outer space have allowed the validity of Einstein's equations to be verified. Thus a clock on a satellite in constant rotation around the Earth will measure sixty seconds between two audio signals, while an identical clock on Earth measures sixty-one seconds between the same two signals: time 'slows down' as speed increases. It is like the Story of the space traveler returning to Earth less aged than his twin: you pass into another 'frame of reference.'
It is striking that Mother's body-experiences very often parallel recent theories of modern physics, as if mathematical equations were the means of formulating in human language certain complex phenomena, remote from our day to day reality, which Mother was living spontaneously in her bodyperhaps 'at the speed of light.'
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One could almost say that of all animals, the serpent is the most sensitive to hypnotic or magnetic power. If you have it (magnetic power comes from the most material vital), you can easily gain a mastery over snakes; all the people who like snakes have it and use it to make snakes obey them. Thats how I got out of my encounter with the cobra at Tlemcen7do you know the Story? Theon had told me about this power and I was aware of it in myself, so I was able to make the cobra obey and he left. Afterwards (Ive told this story, too), I was visited by the King of Serpents I mean the spirit of the species. He came to me in Tlemcen after this and another incident when I helped a cat overpower a little asp (there are asps over there like Cleopatras, very dangerous)a big russet angora cat. At first it started to play with the asp, but then naturally grew furious. The asp struck at the cat, but the cat leapt aside with such swiftness that the asp missed it (I watched this going on for more than ten minutes, it was extraordinary). Just as the snake darted by, the cat would swat at it with all his claws outand the asp got scratched each time, so that little by little it ran out of energy, and at the end. I stopped the cat from eating it that part was disgusting!
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.
--
How many, many experiences there were during those days at Tlemcen! Surely youve heard them. Were you there when I told the Story about the big toad? A huge toad, covered with warts. No? The sitting room was upstairs in Theons house (the house was built on a hillside) and it was connected by large open doors to a small terrace that sat almost on top of the hill. I played the piano in this room every day. And one day, what did I see hopping in through the open bay windows but an enormous black toadenormous! He sat down on his backside right in the entrance and puffed up his throat: poff! poff! And for the whole time I played, he stayed there going Poff! poff!, as though in a state of delight! When I finished, I turned around and he gave me one last Poff! and hopped away. It was comical!
Theon also taught me how to turn aside lightning.
--
the Story doesn't seem to end here, but perhaps Mother did not wish to say anything further.
***
0 1961-04-08, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But still, the Story of the journey is interesting!
Until something is realized, its nothing at all.
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the curious thing is that these vital beings are aware of what is happening. I knew nothing about any of it, neither the Story, nor the being, nor the head sticking out of the ground and she wanted me to get her out of it. They feel the atmosphere. They are awarethey may not be conscious on higher planes, but they are conscious on vital planes, aware of vital power and the vital force it represents. Its like this asura from M.: when I came in he suddenly seemed to tremble on his pedestal; then he left his idol and came to seek my alliance.
But its strange.
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you know the Story of the two simultaneous operations of E. and of T.? T. is that vice-admiral who came here and became quite enthusiastiche had a kind of inner revelation here. The two of them were operated on for a similar complaint, a dangerous ulcer in the digestive system. He was in one town and she was in another, and they were operated on a day apartboth serious operations. And in each case, after a few days had gone by, the surgeon who did the operation said, I congratulate you. Practically the same phrase in both cases. And they both protested: Why are you congratulating me? (Each one wrote me about this separately; they were living far from one another and only met afterwards.) Why? You did the operationyou should be congratulated for my quick recovery. And in both cases the doctor replied, No, no; we only operate, the body does the healing; you have healed yourself in a way which can qualify as miraculous, and I genuinely congratulate you. And then the two of them had the same reaction they wrote to me saying, We know where the miracle comes from. And they had both called me. Moreover, E. had written me a remarkable letter a few days before her operation, where she quoted the Gita as if it were quite natural for her, and told me, I know that the operation is ALREADY done, that the Lord has already done it, and so I am calm.
Things like that, everywhere and PRECISE! Something quite precise. Of course, to say that I work consciously is almost silly, its commonplace. But in many cases one may work consciously for long years without getting that precision in the result the action enters a hazy atmosphere and makes a kind of stir, and out of it comes the best that can, but no more than that. But now its exact, preciseits becoming interesting.
0 1961-07-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once this had occurred, the divine Consciousness turned towards the Supreme and said (Mother laughs): Well, heres what has happened. Whats to be done? Then from the Divine came an emanation of Love (in the first emanation it wasnt Love, it was Ananda, Bliss, the Delight of being which became Suffering), and from the Supreme came Love; and Love descended into this domain of Inconscience, the result of the creation of the first emanation, Consciousness Consciousness and Light had become Inconscience and Darkness. Love descended straight from the Supreme into this Inconscience; the Supreme, that is, created a new emanation, which didnt pass through the intermediate worlds (because, according to the Story, the universal Mother first created all the gods who, when they descended, remained in contact with the Supreme and created all the intermediate worlds to counterbalance this fallits the old story of the Fall, this fall into the Inconscient. But that wasnt enough). Simultaneously with the creation of the gods, then, came this direct Descent of Love into Matter, without passing through all the intermediate worlds. Thats the Story of the first Descent. But youre speaking of the descent heralded by Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental Descent, arent you?
Not only that. For example, Sri Aurobindo says that when Life appeared there was a pressure from below, from evolution, to make Life emerge from Matter, and simultaneously a descent of Life from its own plane. Then, when Mind emerged out of Life, the same thing from above happened again. Why this intervention from above each time? Why dont things emerge normally, one after another, without needing a descent?
--
Thats the Story.
So if people ask why, we can tell them, I dont know, but thats how it is. Why? (Mother shrugs her shoulders) How can a small human brain understand why! When you live it, you know! Theres no problem, its clear; its like that because its like that. It had to be that way thats how it is.
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats the Story.
At that moment he could have had a spiritual realization: he had the right stuff.
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the Story began with an entirely concrete and material incident something very amusing; this is not the first time it has happened, but it was so concrete and so precise that it became interesting. Someone was complaining of being ill, quite a serious, psychological illness: periodic possession by a spirit of falsehood, recurring regularly every month, of more or less long duration. This person comes to see me, and the moment shes here theres an upwelling of that profound Compassion of Love, with a considerable, concentrated Power to drive away the possession; and all of this accompanied, even outwardly, by quite an affectionate gesture. This person leaves and within half an hour I receive a letter: Now I know: you hate me, you want me to be ill and you want me to die because I disgust you.
It was interesting because it was so concrete. I was conscious of my movement of compassion and love and of what it had become in the other persons consciousness!
--
And thats the Story of these last two days.
***
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I feel it will be told one day. But first of all, this (Mother touches her body) must be sufficiently changed. Then the Story will take on its full value.
You understand, none of my certitudesnone, without exceptionhave EVER come through the mind. The intellectual comprehension of each of these experiences came much later. Little by little, little by little, came the higher understanding of the intellectual consciousness, long after the experience (I dont mean philosophical knowledge thats nothing but scholarly mumbo-jumbo and leaves me cold). Since my earliest childhood, experiences have come like that: something massive takes hold of you and you dont need to believe or disbelieve, know or not knowbam! Theres nothing to say; you are facing a fact.
--
A book like that (sufficiently veiled, of course), written in the simplest way possible (like I wrote The Science of Living, I believe)and its fine, you speak to people in their own language. Above all, no philosophy! None! You simply tell some extraordinary stories in the same way you would tell an ordinary story. But the Story is there, thats the most important thing.
It started in my infancy the Story was already there.
But it never passed through my head first, never, never, never! Experiences came in my childhood that I didnt understand until Sri Aurobindo told me certain things; then I said, Ah, so thats what it was! But I never had that kind of curiosity, I never cared to understand with the head, I wasnt interested. I was interested in the result, in the inner change: how my attitude towards the world changed, my position relative to the creation that interested me from my infancy; how what seemed to be quite ordinary incidents could so completely change my relationship with that whole little world of children. And it was always the same thing: instead of feeling burdened, with a weight on your head, and just plodding on like a donkey, something would lift (gesture) and you would be on top of ityou could smile and begin to change. See that thing thats out of place? Why not set it right! Like arranging things in a drawer.
0 1962-01-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told the Story of the Chinese revolution, and how this being left me, saying. It was just five years before the Chinese revolution. Ive told the Story.
I know Ive told it but it was never noted down.
--
He stopped at the subtle physicalhe refused to go any farther. It was Satan, the Asura1 of Light who, in cutting himself off from the Supreme, fell into Unconsciousness and Darkness (Ive told the Story many times). But anyway, when I was with Thon, I summoned that being and asked him if he wanted to enter into contact with the earth. Its worth mentioning that Thon himself was an incarnation of the Lord of Death Ive had good company in my life! And the other one [Richard] was an incarnation of the Lord of Falsehood but it was only partial. With Thon too it was partial. But with Satan it was the central being; of course, he had millions of emanations in the world, but this was the central being in person. The others lets keep that for another time.
He agreed to take on a body. Theon wanted to keep him there: Dont let him go, he told me. I didnt answer. This being told me he didnt want to be more material than that, it was sufficientyou could feel him move the way you feel a draft, it was that concrete.
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So She made her first four emanations. The first was Consciousness and Light (arising from Sachchidananda); the second was Ananda and Love; the third was Life; and Truth was the fourth. Then, so the Story goes, conscious of their infinite power, instead of keeping their connection with the supreme Mother and, through Her, with the Supreme, instead of receiving indications for action from Him and doing things in proper order, they were conscious of their own power and each one took off independently to do as he pleased they had power and they used it. They forgot their Origin. And because of this initial oblivion, Consciousness became unconsciousness, and Light became darkness; Ananda became suffering, Love became hate; Life became Death; and Truth became Falsehood. And they were instantly thrown headlong into what became Matter. According to Theon, the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation.
But the Story is easy to understand, and quite evocative. On the surface, for intellectuals, its very childish; but once you have the experience you understand it very well I understood and felt the thing immediately.
And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees (laughing) the result of her first four emanations and She turns towards the Supreme in a great entreaty: Now that this world is in such a dreadful state, it has to be saved! We cant just leave it this way, can we? It has to be saved, the divine consciousness must be given back to it. What to do? And the Supreme says, Thrust yourself into a new emanation, an emanation of the ESSENCE of Love, down into the most material Matter. That meant plunging into the earth (the earth had become a symbol and a representation of the whole drama). Plunge into Matter. So She plunged into Matter, and that became the primordial source of the Divine within material substance. And from there (as is so well described in Savitri), She begins to act as a leaven in Matter, raising it up from within.
--
Considering it to be of no interest, Satprem unfortunately did not keep a record of his answer. The P. in question died insane, in a so-called "Japanese hospital," and one night (this is most likely the Story he was telling Mother here) Satprem found him being held prisoner in a kind of hell. His body was covered with wounds which Satprem treated with balm. He then told P., "But go on, say Mother's mantra!" And the moment Satprem began to recite the mantra, the whole place explodedblown to smithereens. An instantaneous deliverance. A few months later (or it may have been a few years), P. came to see Satprem at night with a bouquet of flowers and a smile, as if to announce that he was taking on a new body.
***
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did you ever hear the Story of the philosopher who lived in the South of France? I dont recall his name, a very well-known man.
He was a professor at Montpellier University and lived nearby. And there were several roads leading to his house. This man would leave the university and come to the crossing where all those roads branched out, all eventually leading to his house, one this way, one that way, one from this side. So he himself used to explain how every day he would stop there at the crossroads and deliberate, Which one shall I take? Each had its advantages and disadvantages. So all this would go through his head, the advantages and disadvantages and this and that, and he would waste half an hour choosing which road to take home!
0 1962-02-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Perhaps the problem is the opposition (if it is an opposition) between two attitudes, both of which should express our relationship with the Supreme. One is the acceptancenot only voluntary but perfectly contentof everything, even the worst calamities (what are conventionally called the worst calamities). I wont use this story as an example because its self-explanatory, but if Andromeda were a yogi (with ifs you can build castles in the air, but I am trying to explain what I mean), she would accept the idea of death readily, easily. Well, its precisely this conflict between an attitude quite ready to accept death (I am not talking about what happens in the Story itself, but merely giving a case in point to make myself clear) because it is the divine Will, for this reason aloneits the divine Will, so its quite all right; since thats how it is, its quite all rightand at the same time, the love of Life. This love of Life.3 Following the Story, you would say: she lived because she had to live and everything is explained. But thats not what I mean. I am looking at this outside the context of the Story.
Because things like that happen in the consciousness of. It always bothers me to get into big ideas and big words, but to truly explain myself, I should say: the Universal Mother.
--
In Sri Aurobindo's play, Andromeda, daughter of the King of Syria, is condemned by her own people to be devoured by Poseidon, the Sea-god, for some impiety she had committed against him. the Story is actually about the passage of a half-primitive tribe, living in terror of the old dark and cruel gods, to a more evolved and sunlit stage. Perseus, son of Diana and Zeus, and protected by Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom and intelligence, comes to deliver Andromeda from the rock she is chained to (the rock symbolizes the Inconscient for the Rishis), and founds the religion of Athene, "... the Omnipotent / Made from His being to lead and discipline / The immortal spirit of man, till it attain / To order and magnificent mastery / Of all his outward world" (in the words of Sri Aurobindo). It is the force of progress pitted against the old priests of the old religions, symbolized by the cruel and ambitious Polydaon. Here Mother is scrutinizing an old problem"Always the same problem"that she must have encountered in many existences (Egypt included) and would encounter again eleven years later: the acceptance of the death she is forced into as the Supreme's Will, and then this "love of Life" she twice mentions here.
***
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres one very interesting example I always give. The man involved told me about it himself. A long time ago (you must have been a baby), every day the newspaper Le Matin published a small cartoon of a boy dressed like a lift attendant (he told me the Story in English), or a sort of bellboy, pointing with his finger to the date or whatever. This man was traveling and staying at a big hotel in some city (I dont remember which), a big city. And he told me that one night or early one morning he had a dream: he saw this bellboy showing him a hearse (you know, what they use in Europe for taking people to the cemetery) and inviting him to step inside! He saw that. And when he got ready that morning and left his room (which was on the top floor) there on the landing was the same boy, identically dressed, inviting him to go down in the elevator. It gave him a shock. He refused: No, thanks! The elevator fell to the ground. It was smashed to pieces, and the people inside were all killed.
After this, he said, he believed in dreams!
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other day, didnt I tell you the Story of those entities working for me? (It wasnt you? Id had a vision.) In fact, I very often see entities like Nature spirits when I enter the subtle physical and work there (usually for people here and the Ashram, and for the world at large), I very, very often have them with me, or else I meet them in the course of my work. They are forces, generally feminine in appearance, that do some work and have a great deal of power. They are usually the ones that respond to Tantric invocations (I dont mean the Tantrics who call on Kali or Durga, thats something else altogether, those belong to a totally different world). Most of the time these Nature forces are very willing to helpat any rate, they are wonderfully obliging with me! But they are limited beings, with their own ideas and laws, their own volition, and when vexed they can do unpleasant things. Yet they are not hostile beings, nor are they vital beings: they are personified forces of physical Nature, in the subtle physical.
A world of things could be said.
0 1962-03-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, I dont like the Story of Christ.
Yes, thats.
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, for a long time after you left the other day, for more than an hour, I kept on telling that story. I saw myself standing in the midst of a big crowd of children. Something was coming down to me (not that I was pulling at it or thinking about it I wasnt thinking about it at all); I was just standing there telling the Story, talking on and on and on, and it kept on comingit was delightful!
I passed it on to you but (laughing) I am not sure you received it.
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Unexpectedly, this conversation led into the subject of Satprem's break with X, who had been his guru for the past few years. Here then, briefly, is the Story behind the rupture: No sooner had Satprem brought X to the Ashram than a swarm of disciples threw themselves at him. Conspicuous among these were the moneymen, the same wheelerdealers who, eleven years later, after Mother's departure, were to reveal their ambitions in Auroville as well as Pondicherry. Satprem's somewhat straightforward manner soon got in the way of their schemes. He had a deep affection for X and when he repeatedly saw that these peoplespiritual scoundrels is the only word for themwere, in the hope of sowing confusion (for they always prosper best in confusion), bringing false reports to Mother of things X had supposedly said, he tried in all innocence to put X on his guard against the false reports and dishonest people who were wronging him. But instead of listening to Satprem and understanding that he spoke out of love, Xwith all his Tantric power behindflew into a violent rage against him, as if he had been casting a slur on X's prestige. Satprem then broke with X, but not without sorrow.)
Anything new?
0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, mon petit, I said one day that in the history of earth, wherever there was a possibility for the Consciousness to manifest, I was there1; this is a fact. Its like the Story of Savitri: always there, always there, always there, in this one, that oneat certain times there were four emanations simultaneously! At the time of the Italian and French Renaissance. And again at the time of Christ, then too. Oh, you know, I have remembered so many, many things! It would take volumes to tell it all. And then, more often than not (not always, but more often than not), what took part in this or that life was a particular yogic formation of the vital beingin other words something immortal.2 And when I came this time, as soon as I took up the yoga, they came back again from all sides, they were waiting. Some were simply waiting, others were working (they led their own independent lives) and they all gathered together again. Thats how I got those memories. One after the other, those vital beings camea deluge! I had barely enough time to assimilate one, to see, situate and integrate it, and another would come. They are quite independent, of course, they do their own work, but they are very centralized all the same. And there are all kindsall kinds, anything you can imagine! Some of them have even been in men: they are not exclusively feminine.
At first, I used to think they were fantasies.
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Then Satprem reads a passage relating to the subtle physical and exteriorization; among other things, he cites the experience of D., who, when he exteriorized for the first time, was unable to get back into his body because he tried to reenter through the legs! Here is the Story:)
I was lying on my chaise longue in concentration when all at once I found myself in my friend Zs house. He and several others were playing music. I could see everything very clearly, even more clearly than in the physical, and I moved around very quickly, unimpeded. I stayed there watching for a while, and even tried to attract their attention, but they were unaware of me. Then suddenly something pulled me, a sort of instinct: I must go back. I felt pain in my throat. I remember that to get out of their room, which was all closed except for one small opening high up, my form seemed to vaporize (because I still had a form, though unlike our material onemore luminous, less opaque), and I went out like smoke through the open window. Then I found myself back in my room, next to my body, and I saw that my head was twisted and rigid against the cushion, and I was having trouble breathing. I wanted to get into my body: impossible. So I became afraid. I entered through the legs, and when I reached the knees I seemed to bounce back out; two, three times like that: the consciousness rose and then bounced back out like a spring. If I could only tip over this stool, I thought (there was a small stool under my feet), the noise would wake me up! But nothing doing. And I was breathing more and more heavily. I was terribly afraid. Suddenly I remembered Mother and cried out, Mother! Mother! and found myself back in my body, awake, with a stiff neck.
--
Stubbornly. You have to be stubbornstubborn, stubborn, stubborn. Youre up against all the resistance of unconsciousness and ignorance, up against all the power of unconsciousness and ignorance something obstinate and unyielding. But its like the Story of the drop of water on the rock: a matter of time. The water will eventually wear its way through the rock. It takes ages, but it will succeed, for it falls persistently, drop after drop. First it runs off, eventually it makes a hole, and you have a wide river flowing below. Nature gives us this wonderful example to follow. Thats it: we must be like the water dripping on the rock.
Water is vital energy. The rock is unconsciousness.
0 1962-09-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, do you remember the Story of that man who has been living at the source of the Ganges for twenty-five years? Here he is (Mother shows his photo). He was in his cave and V. said to him, Id like to take your picture. All right, he answered, and came out and sat down in the snowstark naked.
(Mother looks at the photo) There is something in his forehead, eyes and nose (why the nose?) thats very similar in all who have experienced the inner contact.
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am unfamiliar with the purely Hindu traditions, but the gods are the beings the Vedas and people of Vedic times were in touch wi that least I think so. I learned what I know about the gods before coming here, through the other tradition, the Chaldean. But Thon used to say that this tradition and the Vedic (which he knew well) were outgrowths of a more ancient tradition common to both. the Story goes, according to him, that the first Emanations, who were perfectly independent, separated themselves from the Supreme in their action, creating all the disorder thats what caused the creations disorder. Afterwards the gods were emanated, to repair the evil that had been wrought and to organize the world according to the supreme Will. Of course, this is a childlike way of putting it, but its comprehensible. So all these gods work in harmony and order. Thats what the ancient tradition says.
As far as Ive understood, the Indian tradition has embraced everything that came from the first Emanations, since all the gods of destruction, of unconsciousness and of suffering are included in its pantheon.
0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This may be what the Story of the earthly paradise is all about. People in that paradise had a spontaneous knowledge: they lived with the same sort of consciousness animals have, just enough of it to get a little joy out of life, to feel the joy of life. But then they started wanting to know the why and the how and where they were going and what they were supposed to do and so forth and so all their worries began they got tired of being peacefully happy.
(silence)
0 1962-11-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, you must ask to remember to call me when the situation gets unpleasant (Mother laughs); that has rescued people so many, many times, right in the midst of their nightly activitynot at the moment they woke up, no: right in their nighttime consciousness they have seen the results within and around them. Take the Story of D., who couldnt get back into his body and called me; it really does have an effect, especially on that sort of beings. Thank God (laughing) theyre afraid of me I have an effect on them.
Ah, its interesting. We have to endure, thats all.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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."
All the same, Satprem did keep this conversation, being unable to censor Mother's words or to delete them from History for where is the borderline between censorship and falsehood?
0 1962-11-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was very funny. I told the Story to Sri Aurobindo, and he had a good laugh.
700 million in 1981.
0 1962-12-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the Story of the earthly paradise?
No, Theon always said that the Serpent had nothing to do with Satan, it was the symbol of evolution (Theon was entirely pro-evolution), the spiral path of evolution, and that the earthly paradise, on the contrary, was under the domination of Jehovah, the great Asura who claimed to be unique, who wanted to be the only God. For Theon, there is no such thing as a one and only God: there is the Unthinkable. Its not a God.
--
Anyway, thats the Story. I found this again, and it amused me.
Im going to read it.
0 1962-12-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is the beginning of a phenomenon that will become quite acute over the years, as if an increasingly inexorable force were trying to swallow up Mother's conversations with Satprem the Story of the transformation, in other wordsin favor of small parochial doings.
***
0 1963-03-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was the same thing when I made that overmental formation (we were heading for miracles!). One day Sri Aurobindo told me I had brought down into Amrita6 a force of the creative Brahma (its the creative Word, the Word that realizes itself automatically). And I dont know what happened something, I cant recall what, that showed me it was working very well. Then a sort of idea occurred to me: Why, we could try this power on mosquitoes: let mosquitoes cease to exist! What would happen? (We were pestered by mosquitoes at the time.) Before doing it (the meditation was over, it would have been for the next time), I said to Sri Aurobindo, Well, what if we tried with that force which responds; if we said, Let mosquitoes cease to exist, we could at least get rid of them within a certain field of action, a certain field of influence, couldnt we? So he looked at me (with a smile), kept silent, and, after a moment, turned to me and said, You are in full Overmind. That is not the Truth we want to manifest. I told you the Story. It was on that occasion.
We could have done things of that sort.
0 1963-04-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told the Story to our Japanese friend in whose house we were living, I told him, Well, thats what this illness isa remnant of the war; and heres the way it happens. And that being was repaid for his attempt! Naturally, the fact that I repelled his influence by turning around and fighting [dissolved the formation]. But what power it takes to do that! Extraordinary.
He told the Story to some friends, who in turn told it to some friends, so in the end the Story became known. There was even a sort of collective thanks from the city for my intervention. But the whole thing stemmed from that: What Is this illness? Youre able to find out, arent you? (Laughter) Go and catch it!
But that feeling of being absolutely paralyzed, a prey to somethingabsolutely paralyzed, you cant You are no longer in your body, you understand, you cant act on it any more. And a sense of liberation when you are able to turn around.
0 1963-05-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didnt even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced yoga for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light. I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, Well! Then I didnt give it any more thought, I forgot about the Story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.
Its the same with my mantra. When I wanted to translate the end of my mantra, Glory to You, O Lord, into Sanskrit, I asked for Nolinis help. He brought his Sanskrit translation, and when he read it to me, I immediately saw that the power was therenot because Nolini put his power into it (!), God knows he had no intention of giving me a mantra! But the power was there because my experience was there. We made a few adjustments and modifications, and thats the japa I do now I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.1 And thats how a mantra has life: when it wells up all the time, spontaneously, like the cry of your beingthere is no need of effort or concentration: its your natural cry. Then it has full power, it is alive. It must well up from within. No guru can give you that.
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because do you know the Story of that Romanian who was tortured by the Communists and had visions of Sri Aurobindo2 (he didnt see him as he is, in fact, he saw him according to his own conception: thin and ascetic), and finally the apparition told him, I am your soul, and so on? But he had never read Sri Aurobindos name, he only heard it, and he wrote it in a very odd way [Aurobin Dogos]. It SEEMS to be something of Sri Aurobindo. Anyhow it gave him the strength to go through all those torturesappalling tortures, unimaginable. And he was able to escape, somebody helped him escape (now he is safe in England). But before that, he suffered so much that he thought of letting himself die, and that voice, that apparition which came and spoke to him for hours, was what gave him courage and told him that the soul NEVER gets discouraged, it has something to do, and you must endure. He endured thanks to that voice.
Well, similar things may have happened elsewhere and some people may have received inspirationswe cannot say.
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I never concerned myself with that domain. Even when I saw the Pope, the one before the last one [Pius XII], who came to offer me the Keys (I told you the Story, didnt I?), even with him, who had a SPIRITUAL rapport with the universal Mother, I never concerned myself. I never did anything for him, I never concerned myself with him. This time, for whatever reason, there is something that keeps pulling and pulling me in that direction.
I dont know, maybe something decisive is going to be achieved? I dont know.
0 1963-07-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But some of the faces I saw had come with the intention of making certain suggestions I saw that (I dont know what their suggestions were, it didnt interest me and I kept sweeping it all away, so it went away). I didnt attach any importance to it, except that I kept answering in the same way (the feather duster), and I thought, This must be putting order somewhere! But today, N. read me a letter and told me the Story of a boy who was herea very nice boy who worked well and who suddenly was overcome by disquiet and fear and got so ill at ease that finally he said, My family is calling me, they want me, I must go. Then (I dont know when it happened, it was a while ago), he wrote that some time after he came back home (I dont recall the details), he came to know that a magician was regularly doing black magic against him (he was seeing ugly faces, incense burning, all kinds of odd little gestureshe tells the whole story in his letter and it affected him very much), and that the magician (who I believe was more or less connected with the family!) was doing that regularly to make him leave the Ashram. Then he went to see the magician, or rather someone went to see the magician and told him, The boy is back now, you need not continue, he is here, so there is no more reason to And from that moment on, everything immediately disappeared: his feeling of disquiet and all his visions. Anyway, it was clear proof that the magicians work had put him in that state, and that as soon as the magician stopped his work, everything ceased.
Well, I have lived many years, and we know those things to exist, but I didnt attach any importance to them because to me they seemed powerless. Indeed, they have never affected me (a few Tantrics did do some magic and succeeded in making me ill, but that had quite another character; this boys story is in the lowest, most material vital domain, you see), and only lately did I notice those little games. They didnt affect me in the leastit was like images shown on a cinema screen, unsightly images, and I just thought, Whats the point? Still, I did my cleanup, out of habit. But then, when I heard that story, I thought, Well, I must be teaching a good lesson or two to all those people who do dirty magic!
0 1963-07-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the time being, the Chinese are quite clearly those who represent in the world the aggressive attitude; theyve even quarreled with the Russians because of thata serious quarrel. You know the Story, I suppose.
(silence)
0 1963-07-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you the Story of the other one who came to be operated on and died2 (that makes two in a row, among our best workers). The other one had an important government position and did us some incredible services (he was a very intelligent man and had been chief justice for a very long time), he was very helpful and full of faith and devotion. This one [M.] had even promised to lend some money, but he died just beforea few days before he was due to give it!3 But the first one was a conscious, highly mentalized being, with a very well-formed mental being; he knew a lot and he told me, I am very conscious and now I know that I am fully alive and fully conscious, so I dont want an impotent body that constantly requires someone to nurse it or move it around. I prefer to change. He asked me to find him a good one (!) This one didnt ask to take a new body, but the last thing he said (afterwards, he was paralyzed) was: I must live, because I want to give ten lakhs of rupees to the Mother. And he left with thatso an appropriate body has to be found.
But this one [M.] knew very little, he wasnt an intellectual, he was a man of action, very psychicvery much so! Lovely, oh, lovely! He was like a little child, naked, of course, a baby this big, with small arms, small legsdancing about, he was glad, laughing and laughing, he was happy. And all luminous. I immediately told his son (he did a pranam and rose with his eyes full of tears), I told him, Dont weep, he is now where he wants to be and perfectly at rest. I didnt tell him the Storyhe wouldnt have understood a thing!
(Then Mother reads two letters by Sri Aurobindo which will appear in a future Bulletin:)
0 1963-08-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the best part of the Story is that theyve never had that type of influenza since.
The Japanese are receptive people.
0 1963-08-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
During all that period of concentration and meditation on what happens in a body after death (I am speaking of the bodys experience after what is now called death), well, several times the same kind of vision came to me. I had been told (shown and told) of certain saints whose bodies did not decompose (theres one here, there was one in Goafantastic stories). Naturally, people always romanticize those things, but there remains the material fact of a saint who died in Goa, left his body in Goa, but whose body didnt decompose.5 I dont know the Story in all its details, but the body was removed from India, taken away to China and remained buried there, in Hong-Kong, I believe (or somewhere in that region) for a time; then it was taken out, brought back here, buried again. For ten or twelve years it stayed buried in those two places: it didnt decompose. It dried out, became mummified (dried out, that is, dehydrated), but it remained preserved. Well, this fact was presented to me several times as ONE of the possibilities.
Which means, to tell the truth, that everything is possible.
--
When the man told me the Story and how he found it quite natural to think, I am dreaming, I cant find words to tell my indignation at that moment, when I saw that you know, its such a crass, such an inert stupidity! It didnt even occur to him how he would have felt if the thing had happened to HIM. It didnt even occur to him!
There was another case of a man who had been brought to the cremation ground, but a torrential rain startedno question of burning him. They left him there and said, Well burn him tomorrow. But the next morning when they came, he wasnt there any more! (Laughing) He was gone. But thats not all: thirty years later, he returned (he was a Raja): he had been picked up by sannyasins, taken into solitude, and had become a sannyasin, until, thirty years later, for God knows what reason, he thought it best to go and claim his possessions, so he returned with proofs that he was indeed the same man.6
--
It is the Story of the Raja of Bhaowal, which created a sensation in the Indian press around 1930.
Can we ever overemphasize the fact that what happened to Mother ten years later, in 1973, is an unspeakable betrayal ... of which she had a presentiment?
0 1963-09-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes because in the Story, theres even a moment when Christ says, What do I have to do with that woman!
But then, the Assumption?
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
X has left. I saw him twice (yesterday for the second time), and I wanted to wait till I had seen him the second time before telling you the Story.
Here is what happened: I do my usual bath of the Lord and it is arranged that, after a time, Champaklal opens the doorwhich signals to me the end of the visit. So I looked at X, just to see (I had looked at him several times before, but there was nothing particular), I looked at him and saw in front of him a sort of mass of substance, not material but responsive to a mental formation, which means that mental thought and will can make this substance take different shapes I know it (Mother makes a gesture of fingering the substance), its very like the sort of substance mediums use for their apparitions (less material, more mental, but anyway the same kind). There was a sort of mass in front of him, which was hiding him; it wasnt luminous, not black either, but dark enough. So I looked at it, STARED at it to see what it was, and as I was staring, I saw that there was a will or an effort to give that mass of substance a shape. It was exactly in front of Xs head and shoulders. And there was a will to give it a shape (gesture of molding). As I stared very carefully, it took the shape of Sri Aurobindos head as it appears in newspapers and magazines (what I call the popular Sri Aurobindo, as he is shown in books), the substance took that form. Immediately I thought (ironic tone), Oh, its the popular form, that doesnt resemble him! And instantly, the substance rearranged itself and took the form of Cartier-Bressons Sri Aurobindo1 (the three-quarter face photo, where he is seated in his armchair). That was better! (Mother holds back a chuckle) It wasnt yet quite good, but anyway it was better (although, mind you, it had neither light nor life: it was mattera subtle matter, of courseput into shape by a mental will). So I began to wonder: Whatever is this?! Does he want me to believe that Sri Aurobindo is in him, or what? Because Xs head and shoulders had completely disappeared, there was nothing left but that. And I thought (not a strong thought, just a reflection): No, its not very good, really not very lifelike! (Mother laughs) Then there was a last attempt and it became very like the photo that was taken when he left his body (that photo which we stood on end and called Meditation), it was very like the photo, (in an ironic tone) a very good likeness. And it stayed. So I thought, Oh yes! This is the photo.
0 1964-01-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the Illustrated Weekly they have published photographs of the Popes visit to Palestine, and there is one in which he is prostrating himself: he is kissing the ground on the Mount of Olives, where Christ, as the Story goes, was informed that he would be crucified.
It put me again in contact with that man.
0 1964-03-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you know the Story?
Its a story told by the Muslims, I think (but I am not sure). Jesus is said to have raised people from the dead, made the dumb speak, restored sight to the blind until he was brought an idiot to be made intelligentand Jesus ran away!
--
It was Thon who told me the Story.
***
0 1964-07-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive just received a long letter from Dr. S. You know that one side was operated on and that To make it interesting, I should tell you the Story from the beginning.
Before his departure for America, when he spoke to me about the operation, I immediately saw not only that it was dangerous (that was obvious, he himself knew it), but that it couldnt be conclusive, and that at any rate one operation wasnt enough. When he spoke to me with the enthusiasm of someone who at last sees his salvation, I asked him, Are you really sure it will be conclusive? That one operation is enough and the disease wont come again? He almost got angry! He thought I was (laughing) an atheist of medical science!
0 1964-07-31, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Things like that happen. Probably little beings having fun. Do you know the Story of Sri Aurobindo and the clocks?
Before he broke his leg, Sri Aurobindo used to walk from the street over there up to the garden here, straight through the rooms for a precise length of time. And to make sure he didnt walk for too long or too short a time, he had four wall clocks placed at a certain distance from each other, all synchronized; the last one was here and the first one was in his room, near him. One day, as he was walking as usual, he looked at the first clock: stopped; he looks at the second clock (he used to wind them himself): stopped, at the same time; looks at the third clock: stopped, at the same time; the fourth clock: stopped, at the same time. I was meditating at the time, and I heard him exclaim, Oh, that is a bad joke! And they all started up again one after the other.
0 1964-08-08, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You ask for the Story of their death but some deaths have no story. It is the tranquil transition from one state of consciousness to another, peacefully entering a silent wait for another period of activity.
There are some things, like this one, that I wrote but never sent. I remember, there were people who had bombarded me with letters; I wrote this immediately, and then it stayed.
0 1964-08-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Soon afterwards, Mother asks what the next aphorism will be for her to comment on. Satprem answers that it is the Story of Narada and of Janaka who practiced yoga while leading the ordinary human life.1)
Thats odd! Very recently, a few days ago, after you came last time, again while I was walking for my japa, this whole story of Narada came to me! Sri Aurobindo said that Narada himself was deceived and didnt recognize in Janaka a true spiritual manit all came back to me suddenly. I wondered, Well, well! Why am I thinking of this?
--
Again! Thats amusing. Not only the memory of the time when I was occupied with that, but an entire detailed knowledge of the different methods and the vision of what should be done and howall that has been coming back to me these last few days! It came in the same way as the Story of Janaka (Mother indicates a sort of film being projected): it comes, so I am a spectator, I watch I watch all sorts of thingsuntil the work appears to be over, then it stops, and then it goes away just as it came I have absolutely no part to play in it.
Its odd.
--
But whats interesting is the agreement: the Story of Janaka and the other that come at the exact time. Its very interesting.
Narada was a demigod, immortal like the gods, who had the power to appear on earth whenever he wished. Janaka, Mithila's king at the time of the Upanishads was famed for his spiritual knowledge and divine realization, even though he led a worldly life. This is how Sri Aurobindo refers to him: 106"Sannyasa [renunciation of worldly life] has a formal garb and outer tokens; therefore men think they can easily recognise it; but the freedom of a Janaka does not proclaim itself and it wears the garb of the world; to its presence even Narada was blinded."
0 1964-09-12, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(From the same Talk from the past, Satprem reads a passage in which Mother tells the Story of Queen Elizabeth, who, dying, received a delegation from the people in spite of her physicians protests: We shall die afterwards.)
Is it recent?
0 1964-10-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They have again made a mess at the School, they are seized with such terrible whims of independence! Do you know the Story? They put together a big display board on sleep for the childrens education (thats their affair), but then they put at the bottom, without asking for my permission, a quotation of mine, which I am supposed to have written in 1952 and in which I am supposed to have said that children should be in bed by 9. Now, they show films till 9:30 or 10. So I received a shower of letters, from kids asking me, What should we do? As for me, I dont understand a thing, and I ask what that quotation is. Then I learn that not only did they stick it at the bottom of their display board, but they also circulated a note of mine in which I say, Children should go to bed at 9. I said, What! I never had that circulated! Maybe I said it years ago, but I said it just like that, like a remark that it would be better. It caused quite a to-do, Ive been assailed with protests. So when Z came, I asked him to explain this affair. He told me what they had done; it seems that the teachers, seeing that poster with my quotation (probably the teachers who dont like films or who are against this one or that one and found this was a good opportunity to kick up a row), said and VOTED among themselves that it should be made into a circular! They simply forgot to ask my permission.
I told Z, Well, really, thats going a bit too far! And he was probably upset, because suddenly something came through him: it was like black little darts (they didnt come from him directlymaybe they came from the teachers!), little black darts that rushed at my throat. I felt it: it went ztt! I said, Oh, whats that? And I struggled; but I struggled against a sore throat, and indeed it didnt happenit turned into a cold!
--
Theres also the Story of that poor T. He gathered up from Sri Aurobindos books all the passages in which he says that mind is indispensable to man (Mother laughs), that mind is the means of progress, that without mind life would be incomplete, etc.there are many such passages, of course! And he forgot all the others. So as I am full of mischief, I gathered up (laughing) all the other passages and bombarded him with them!
He took it as a personal offense!
--
It is a rather obscure labor thats going on at the moment. I remember the day when Sri Aurobindo told me (we were still in the other house), he told me, Yes, you are doing an overmental work, a creation of the Overmind, you will work heaps of miracles and the whole world will admire you! But that is not the Truth we want. I told you the Story. Well, this memory very often comes to my aid. I said, Thats right, we dont care for the fanfare of popular victory!
Its without glory. But it doesnt need any glory at all! I said to him, I dont need glory and I dont care a whit for public admiration! (Laughing) That has no place in my consciousness.
0 1964-10-17, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, it is said that Shiva lived on earth, that Krishna lived on earth. As for Buddha and Christ, we know they lived on earthit raised enough rumpus! People even made more fuss about Christs death than about his life. As for Buddha, he professed himself in favor of going away for good (although he didnt actually). But the others? They have of course told the Story of Krishnas death but they have told many stories.
Its too old.
0 1964-10-24a, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What triggered the whole experience (I forgot to tell you this), when I asked the Lord, Why? Why couldnt I do something for these people who are really nice? is that that story of the past came back, when Sri Aurobindo told me, You are doing a work of the Overmind, you will work miracles that will fill the world with admiration and so on, I told you the Story. It came back massively, exactly the same thing: That is not the truth we want. And thats also why I stopped all those pujas of the Mother in October-November, because they all used to come with the idea of getting something: miracles, miracles, miraclesnever for the True Thing. And thats what they expect of God, of course, miracles or favors, illogical and unreasonable things, instead of wanting the Divines progressive advance.
Obviously, thats more difficult.
0 1964-11-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And for him, its only one small part of himself; because its with him (I told you the Story the other day) that I had that experience of going out of humanity, going out of the material world: it was with him, in his company, if I may say so!
I like it when its with him because it gives me a sort of certainty that it isnt an experience of my subjectivityits impersonal, entirely impersonal. Even if my subjectivity is worldwide, I dont want my experience to be subjective: I want every consciousness, whatever it may be, human or nonhuman, every consciousness awakening in that field, to have an identical experience, if it is truly objective. So when its with him, I am quite sure.
0 1965-01-12, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I knew that being very well (for other reasons the Story would be too long to tell), and once, I knew he was going to visit Hitler I went before he did: I took his appearance, it was very easy. Then I said to Hitler, Go and attack Russia. I dont exactly remember the words or the details, but the fact was that I told him, Go In order to have the supreme victory, go and attack Russia. That was the end of Hitler. He believed it and did ittwo days later, we got the news of the attack.1 And then, the next day, that is, when I came back from Hitler, I met that being and told him, Ive done your job! Naturally enough, he was furious!
But all the same, in that consciousness, there is with that being (the Lord of Falsehood, one of the first four Emanations), there is despite everything a very deep relationship, of course. He said to me, I know, I know I will be defeated eventually, but before my end comes I will wreak as much destruction on earth as I can.
0 1965-04-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And strangely, the Story of Paradise would seem to be a mental distortion of what really happened. Of course, it all became ridiculous, and also with a tendency it gives you the feeling that a hostile will or an Asuric being tried to use that to make it the basis for a religion and to keep man under his thumb. But thats another matter.
But that spontaneous, natural, harmonious lifevery harmonious, extremely beautiful and luminous and easy! A harmonious rhythm in Nature. A luminous animality, in fact.
0 1965-06-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remember having read a story, at the time when I used to receive I think it was Le Matin, the newspaper Le Matin. There were novels in it and I used to read the novels to see the state of mind of people. And there was an extraordinary novel in which the main character was a woman who was immortal (she had been condemned to immortality by God knows which deity), and she tried her best to die, without success! It was stupid, the whole thing was stupid, but the standpoint was reversed: she was compelled to be immortal and she said, Oh! When will I be allowed to die?, with the ordinary idea that death is the end, that everything is over and one rests. And she had been told, You will be able to die only when you meet true love. Everything was topsy-turvy. But when I read that, it set me thinking a lot sometimes its the most stupid things that set you thinking the most. And to complete the Story you see, she had been someone, then someone else, a priestess in Egypt, anyway all kinds of things, and finally (I dont remember), it was in modern times: she met a young married couple; the husb and was a remarkable man, intelligent (I think he was an inventor); his wife, whom he loved passionately, was a stupid and wicked fool who spoilt all his work, who ruined his whole life and he went on loving her. And thats what (laughing) they gave as example of perfect love!
I read that maybe more than fifty years ago, and I still remember it! Because it set me thinking for a long time. I read that and I said to myself, Heres how people understand things!
0 1965-06-18 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw him once, rather long ago: I told you the Story of his boat, made also of clay.
Of pink clay.5
0 1965-07-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But did I tell you the Story of I. who was with Dilip? Before meeting Dilip, she had been with a guru, a sannyasin or whatever, and he was absolutely furious at her leaving him, so he cursed her. His curse gave her a sort of thrombosis (you know, when the blood stops flowing and coagulates), anyway it was here, in the neck, near the right arm, I think, and it was very painfulit was even dangerous. She told me about it. I in turn told Sri Aurobindo about it and Sri Aurobindo told me to protect her. I sent my light to the gentleman. That man, frightful things happened to him! He died of a horrible disease. I. went and saw him at that time, a little before he died, and the man (who was conscious) told her, Here is what your Mother has done with me. He had been conscious. Then I saw that my affair was perfectly objective, because I had never said a word about it to anyone, nothing. And above all, that light had gone through Sri Aurobindo. I quite simply did that, I put the light, and the gentleman left for the curse to stop. And as he wasnt too pure, it resulted in a horrible disease.
Now, my children, good-bye.
0 1965-07-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, the Italians worship the Virgin a lot, its a lot in their makeup, and through that they would understand (those who are intelligent and see the symbol behind the Story). There was a Pope (not the present one or the previous one, but the one before1) who did remarkable things because he was in touch with the Virgin; he was a worshipper of the Virgin and that really put him on the right path. So I think that if they want a small book (it is a small book, you can even put it in your pocketpeople are afraid of big books, they dont have time), there are lots of things in that small book, The Mother, lots of things. But the part on the four aspects of the Mother can really be felt only by Indians; those who have a Christian education (laughing) must find it very frightening (!) But we could omit that chapter. You see, the book was made from letters, so each piece is a whole; it wasnt at all composed as one piece: we arranged it as it is following the instructions Sri Aurobindo gave. But that last chapter (the biggest, besides) is mostly for India. It can be omitted.
So you can say this to N.: a biographical note in dictionary style to announce the publication of your book.
0 1965-09-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He said, Savitri, a Legend and a Symbol; its he who made it a symbol. Its the Story of the encounter of Savitri, the principle of Love, with Death; and its over Death that she won the victory, not in life. She could not win the victory in life without winning the victory over Death.
I didnt know it was put so clearly here. I had read it, but only once.
0 1965-09-15a, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And when I got out of it (it was 3 in the morning), I said to myself, All right, let me look after something else now, and I made a special concentration to get out of it. And I found myself in a place I know very well, which is like a replicaa mental replicaof what I might call certain Ashram rooms (its not exactly that, but it corresponds). And there was a gentleman there I knew very well, a Frenchman, who had come to see me. He had a big desk, he was sitting at the desk, waiting for you: you were expected (thats why I am telling you the Story). But I myself wanted to see him before he saw you. There was something I wanted to tell him. Then, instead of going through the usual door, I went by another way and arrived before you. I saw him (we didnt speak to each other I never speak to people), but he was very warm, very enthusiastic, very friendly and full of a sort of rather pleasant fervorignorant, but pleasant. A rather tall man, I think, dressed in an ordinary European suit. I cant describe him very well; if I saw him, I could say, Yes, thats him. And he said two words to me that were like that didnt mean anything at all, but that were like the expression of his feeling. I dont exactly recall the word, but it was nothing, it was Oh! something. So I put my message into his head and left, and as I was leaving (Mother laughs), I almost bumped into youyou were rushing in! And I told you, Dont worry, dont worry, everything is fine! And I left.
Maybe its one of the publishers, or maybe the man to whom you sent your article.1
0 1965-11-03, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is an inner, perfectly harmonious rhythm, and when I can live according to that rhythm everything is quite fine, marvelously fine, even, like the Story of my comet; that is, you feel you just have to say, Oh, I would like that, and instantly things are like that; and at the same time, you live in a totality of things that have their usefulness, their necessity, and that dont even clash with the deep Principle, but that outwardly impose their rhythm on this Rhythm. So at times its difficult.
Today, for instance, my intention was to have finished by ten clock and to see you quietly, then to go to the music room; I even expressed my intention, but nothing doing! Its not bad will, its a sort of coalition of circumstances.
0 1966-02-23, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the Talk of April 14, 1951, in which Mother tells the Story of two young men who met with accidents and used a cat as a vital support to inform Mother of their death.)
Charles de F.! Thats it, I remember, he was the son of an ambassador of France (to Austria, I think). He was sublieutenant. With his company he went out to attack a trench, and they all died. It was a massacre.
But there is a sequel to the Story. He came afterwards. Once he was formed again, he came; he stayed near me and told me, I have come because it was my desire and intention to go to India with you, and I want to accomplish it. And he came with me; when I left for India (the second time), he came with me. And long after my returnlong after, when Pavitra came hereone night, I suddenly saw F. and Pavitra embracing each other! Just like that. Then F. entered him. And the interesting thing is that Pavitra had no liking for poetry and very little interest in art, and after that boy united with him, he began having a very special understanding of poetry and showing interest in art! He really felt a change in him (I hadnt told him what had happened).
I have seen several such cases, but that one was so clear! So clear, so precise. And without the collaboration of active thought I wasnt thinking about it at all: one night I saw them like that, Pavitra having come out of his body, and the other leaving (he was always in repose in my aura), he left my aura, they embraced, and then one entered the other.1
0 1966-02-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
According to the Story (if it can be called a story) that Thon told, it was Falsehood that created Death. But according to what weve just read, Death would be what created Falsehood. Obviously it must be neither this way nor that! It must be something else, which we should find.
(silence)
--
Its perfectly obvious that those are only manners of speaking. There are indeed entities, they do exist, but its only a way of telling the Story; in one way or another, its the same thing. Metaphysics is also one way of telling the Story. And one isnt truer than the other.
(silence)
0 1966-04-27, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And is that the Story you tell in the book?
Thats what I started telling.
--
Once again, these past few days, the memory of things I had written came back to mewhat I had imagined at some time and written at the beginning of the century (before you were born!), in Paris. I wondered, Strange, why am I thinking of this? And there was, in that thing I wrote, this: The love of beauty had saved her. It was the Story of a woman who had had a heartbreak of so-called love, as human beings conceive it, but who had felt a need to manifest love, a marvelously beautiful love; and with that force and that ideal she had overcome her personal sorrow. I wrote a little book like that I dont know where it is, by the way, but that doesnt matter. But the memory of it suddenly came back and I wondered, Strange, why am I remembering this? And then I remembered the whole curve of the consciousness. At that time, I clearly understood that personal things had to be overcome by the will to realize something more essential and universal. And I followed the curve of my own consciousness, how it began like that, and how from there I went on to other things. I was eighteen. That was my first attempt to emerge from the exclusively personal viewpoint and pass on to a broader viewpoint, and to show that the broader, more universal viewpoint makes you overcome the personal things. But I wondered, Why am I remembering this? Now I understand! Its there in what you have written, its the same thing. Well, of course, now I wouldnt be able to write what I wrote, it would make me laugh!
I can write, I can always
0 1966-06-25, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sometimes, depending on the activities one has had, the kind of life one has lived, there are intermediary parts (Mother draws a narrow strip) that remain undeveloped, so they act as a sort of padding: the consciousness doesnt go through. I also had one like that; but as soon as I met Thon, he told me. He told me, Your (Mother tries to remember) nervous subdegree (I think), between the vital and the physical, isnt developed. Theres a padding, the consciousness doesnt go through. So for six or ten months I worked carefully to develop itno result. Then I left (perhaps Ive already told you the Story), I left for the countryside. One day, I stretched out on the grass, and all of a sudden, prrt! it came from everywhere, the consciousness had awakened. And indeed the way was blocked: there were lots of things that I never received because of that. But its a long work.
What could I do for that?
0 1966-09-28, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All this is like microscopic studies of the phenomena of consciousness independent of mental intervention. The need to use words to express ourselves brings in that mental intervention, but in the experience it doesnt exist. And its very interesting because the pure experience holds a content of truth, of reality, which disappears as soon as the mind intervenes. There is a flavor of true reality which totally eludes expression for that reason. Its the same difference as between an individual and his portrait, between a fact and the Story told about it. Thats how it is. But its far more subtle.
So then, to return to the letter, when you are conscious of this Forcethis Force, this Compassion in its essential reality and see how it can be exerted through a conscious individual, you have the key to the problem.
0 1966-10-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did I tell you the Story of Durga?
Recently?
0 1966-11-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A proof what they want is a scientifically demonstrated proof. But in the first place, are they really referring to the soul? You understand, they are all in a terrible confusion: for them, the soul is just anything. Do they want to prove the existence of the soul, which is eternal, immortal, or the existence of an afterlife? The two things are different. Afterlife has been scientifically proved by cases: there have been quite a few cases of people who in their present life carried on with their previous life. There was the Story of that father who died, and the child of a neighboring family gave extraordinary details, things that the dead father alone knew. He alone knew them, and as soon as the child was able to move independently, that is, at the age of five or six, he started trying to lead his former life again; he would say, My children are waiting for me in that house, I must go and look after them! He was a child, yet he said, My children are waiting for me over there. And that house was where he had died. There were quite precise details that the dead father alone knew: he would say, But I put that here, why did it go? All kinds of things like that. This is a fairly recent case. There have been at least four or five recorded cases, therefore there is an afterlife. But what is it that lives after? Of course, in the case of that child, its not the soul, it has nothing to do with the soul: its beings of the Vital1 (the mentalized vital) that remained intact and, because of some special circumstance, reincarnated immediately. So their previous life was still quite fresh. The case of that child seems to me scientifically indisputable because they cant say, He is mad, or Its a hallucinationhe is a child and he speaks of his children. There have been other cases as convincing as this one (I dont remember them). But is this what they want to know? Or do they want to know whether there is a soul and whether it is immortal and In reality, they dont know anything. Its a question put by ignorant people. They should be told in the first place, Excuse me! Before asking questions, you should study the problem.
There was the Story of Ford, who had sent word to Sri Aurobindo and me that he was coming here to ask us the question that tormented him: What happens after death? And he said he was ready to give his fortune to whoever could answer him. Someone had told him, Yes, Sri Aurobindo can answer you. So Ford had sent word that he was preparing to come and ask us his question. And then he died!
No, those are questions asked by ignorant people. They should first learn the matter and know what theyre talking about.
--
Its generally fragmentsfragments of life that were individualized, and when in the present life you follow a normal development with the [various beings] gathering around the central consciousness, all those elements come back to gather together. They come back, each with its own memories. For instance, I had a memory like that (I tell you, Ive had hundreds of them) when I was very young (I must have been twenty or so). It wasnt at night, but I was lying down, resting: suddenly I felt myself riding a horse, with tremendous warlike power and the sense a will for victory and the POWER of victory. And I felt as if I was riding a horse: I saw a white horse, I saw my legs, with riding breeches, you understand, and a red velvet costume. And there I was, at a gallop. I couldnt tell what the head was like or anything, naturally! And also, the crowd, the armies, and the rising sun. It was so strong, the sense that it was the sense of the will for victory and the POWER of victory. It came just like that. Then, sometime later, I read somewhere the Story of Murat (I forget I think his victory was Magenta3 I no longer remember all that), and I immediately understood that my vision was at the moment of launching the battle: he had an inner call to a Power, so there was an identification [with Mothers power], and thats what I remembered and what came back. If I said (as the Theosophists tell you), I was Murat, it would be stupid. But it was a consciousness coming back. It was so strong! The impression lasted long enough, with the sense of the battle but above all the sense of that POWER making you invincible. It was interesting, because at the time (it was just in the beginning, I was beginning to take interest in these things and I had just come across the Cosmic teaching), I was convinced that a womans psychic being was always reincarnated in a woman and a mans psychic being was always reincarnated in a man (many schools teach that; Thon too believed so, he insisted on it). So it came as a surprise, because it wasnt in conformity with what I thought (!). Afterwards (long afterwards), I realized that naturally all those dogmas were nonsense, but
It fits with what I told you last time: the STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS are what reincarnate, evolving, developing, growing more perfect. Thats rather how it was, thats how that memory came. Its like that with many memories. And I know that to say states of consciousness are what reincarnate, to adopt that as the sole explanation would be incorrectits absolutely incorrect but its one way of looking at the question beyond the sense of the little personality. It broadens the consciousness: one has in oneself things far more universal and far less limited than personal experiences. Just as in life some people have an exceptional life, in the same way they also have exceptional moments in their life, when they no longer are one single little person: they are a force in action. Thats how it is.
0 1966-11-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But, you know, I am desperately struggling against all those who conceive of spiritual life as brrt! you go off. Thats just the beginning. As for me, I always answer with the Story of Buddha: as he was about to enter Nirvana, he suddenly realized that the earth had to be changed and stayed on.
I remember, once, it was with Madame David-Neel. Its very interesting. She came to give a lecture (I wasnt acquainted with her, thats where I met her for the first time), I think it was at the Theosophical Society (I forget). I went to the lecture, and while she was speaking, I saw Buddha I saw him clearly: not above her head, a little to the side. He was present. So after the lecture, I was introduced to her (I didnt know the kind of woman she was!), and I said to her, Oh, Madam, during your speech I saw Buddha present. She answered me (in a furious tone), Impossible! Buddha is in Nirvana! (Mother laughs) Oho! Better keep quiet! I thought.
0 1966-11-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Has one of the new pieces of Ashram gossip reached you two? I am supposed to have said that Maheshwari1 has manifested in a golden light, that Sri Aurobindo has come (where from, I dont know!) and said that the world wasnt ready and that was why there are catastrophes and cycloneshavent you heard the Story? Anyway, I denied it. First, I said, Where could Sri Aurobindo come from? He is always here, so he doesnt need to come!
the Story is unimportant, except that some people were distraught: they were expecting the end of the world! Sri Aurobindo saying the world isnt ready means its coming to an end!
Anyway, yesterday (I think its in answer to this story of Maheshwari and Sri Aurobindo saying the world isnt ready), I wrote something in French, but it was under the pressure of Sri Aurobindos consciousness. He said (Mother takes a note and reads):
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I dont want the Story of S. to be published; I dont want to seem to be boasting of having saved his life, you understand! It might have quite unfortunate consequences for himself. I only told Pavitra because I was still under the impact of the experience, I had just seen the man: when he walked in I hardly recognized him! That is, he struck me as a thoroughly new man. And, interestingly, he felt it, he said, Oh, but its as if the old man had died, I am a new man. That is to say, I found in him the energy he used to have twenty or thirty years ago.
"Earth-life is one self-chosen habitation of a great Divinity and his aeonic will is to change it from a blind prison into his splendid mansion and high heaven-reaching temple."
0 1967-06-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Z has done experiments like that. He told me the Story of a girl at the School who had no imagination: when she was asked a question she could only answer what she had learned, and when she was given a problem she could never solve it. She was like that, blocked above. And he taught her to try and make contact precisely with that intuitive zone, by keeping quiet, falling silent and listening. And it seems that after some time, she had extraordinary results in that way, by falling silent and listeninganswers which were really remarkable and certainly came from the region of intuition. And thats a practical fact, he did it at the School.
Well, thats what should be done, its much more important.
0 1967-06-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, the Story of the soul leaving the body, is childishness! Because I had that experience too, of leaving (not the soul! Its entirely independent, always and in everyone), of leaving the psychic being, the individual psychic being. When I left here in 1915, I left my psychic being here deliberately. I left it here, I didnt take it with me. Consequently, the body can live without the psychic being (it was rather sick, by the way, but that wasnt the reasonits again the taste for drama! Oh, always the taste for drama!).
There we are.
0 1967-07-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In a magazine (I think its Life, an American magazine), they published the Story of a man (who is in fact one of the editors or administrators of the magazine), a man who was given an injection of penicillin and who was allergic to penicillin. And lo and behold, suddenly all his cells begin to dissolve, while he, entirely conscious and as if concentrated in his brain, watches the dissolution. When it reached up to the heart, the doctors declared him dead. The impression it had on him was that the cells had a kind of expanding movement, then burst and dissolved one after another: feet, legs, abdomen, everything. And when it reached the heart, the doctor said, Hes dead. But he had taken refuge in his brain and thought, I must hold out; if I can hold out here, concentrate and resist here, all will be well. And thats what he did. Then he felt all at once a power, he says, something so luminous, so beautiful, so gentle, so so much more full of love than anything else in the world, such a marvellous sensation that he let himself melt into it, and after some time, everything was put in order and he came back to life! He describes that. He describes it (with sentences: its in a magazine, so he makes sentences), but his experience is really interesting. You see, because of that will to concentrate in what he conceived to be the essential part of his being, the centre of his life, he suddenly found himself in the presence of that power. He said he tried to recapture it afterwards, but I forget what it was, I no longer remember, except for the sensation, that sensation more marvellous than anything one can conceive.2
I found that interesting.
0 1967-07-29, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And seen from above, what was the Story like?
You see, Sri Aurobindo says, Man loves suffering, therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem, then I said, Christianity (I mean the universal, or anyway terrestrial, origin of what expressed itself on earth as the Christian religion), the action of this religion on earth has been to deify suffering because it was NECESSARY for men to understandnot only to understand but to feel and adhere to the raison dtre (the universal raison dtre) of suffering on earth as a means of evolution. Basically, we could say that they sanctified suffering so it may be recognized as a means indispensable to the evolution of the earth.
0 1967-09-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They tell me, Your look purifies me. I dont want to go into such considerations and do not answer anything, but there is only the Presence and the Action. I dont even try to know, neither what happens nor how nor what He does nor what takes placenothing. The only thing that comes into me (into this consciousness) is the state of the person who is there: thats very clearly recorded. (Laughing) The other day, there was a very amusing experience. A girl here has taken a fancy to a gentlemannei ther of them is very young, that is, they are neither children nor young people: they are both over thirty, or between twenty-five and thirty. So she writes him letters, long letters, sends him sweets, sends him flowers, and he passes it all on to me. (There is nothing more than that.) It was her birthday, and she must have had a rather guilty conscience, I supposeas for me, I had completely forgotten the Story. She came for her birthday, I received her as I always do, in the same wayand suddenly, gnawing pains, cramps, sharp pains in the stomach. I wondered, Whats going on in her? What is all this? And it went on for quite a while, I had to make a little concentration to make it go. Then in the afternoon, the gentleman (I dont think they meet) sends me a letter and a box of sweets she had sent him. Ah! (Laughing) I said, So there! She was afraid I would scold her and had gnawing pains in the stomach! There you are. Thats how it is, you understand, its a kind of work in a general unification. And peoples reactions are felt in my body, thats how I become aware of it, conscious of it. (Laughing) At times its bliss, at other times stomach cramps!
Its amusing.
0 1967-09-16, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To come back to her Catholic preoccupation, there have been some really interesting things. You know that the Pope, when he came here to Bombay, said things that I had told him like this (gesture of inner communication) when we had that conversation2 (he certainly does not know with whom he had that conversation, but I think he is conscious enough to know he had one). A conversation We had three conversations like that, but one was long, important, precise; he himself was taken, like that, and when the time came to leave each other for him to go back to his body and for me to go back to my workhe said to me, And what will you say to people about our meeting? I told you the Story. And, well, the things he said when he came here to India were exactly what I had told him; the resolutions he passed there were exactly what I had told him which proves it has had some effect.
Have you heard about the latest decision? In the church, the priest always used to turn his back to the faithful while officiating: he would face the deity and turn his back to the faithful (the original idea was certainly that he represented the faithfuls aspiration and prayer: he addressed himself to the Divine). Now the Pope has said, Turn your altars around, face the public and represent the Divine. Its interesting. They are doing it here now, and the comical part is that theyve asked U. to do the work of turning the altars around. Thats how I know it, its U. who told me; they have asked him to go to all the churches here and turn the altars around. Its a big job because they are embedded.
0 1967-09-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, yesterday I saw the photo of a man, a German who speaks German, but its not clear whether he was born in Germany or in America. He must be around forty or forty-five, and for many years the Story goes like this: his parents, both father and mother, were thorough non-believers, and when he was born (or anyway the day after his birth), there was a horizontal column of light on his head, visible to the naked eye. Naturally, the parents were troubled. But the interesting thing is that its going on. That man (I saw the photos) held a meeting in America of four thousand people (I saw the photo, four thousand people!) and while he was talking there was that column of light, it could be seen in the photograph. It was about as thick as an arm and this long (about twenty centimetres). And he feels he is spoken to, that something like the supreme Divinity speaks to him, and that he has been told to proclaim the coming of the second Christ! Well He proclaims and gives people a kind of baptism. I saw his photo and its very strange, he has a strong, powerful face, but a nasty mouth (blade-like gesture), tight-lipped, pinched.
And recently I saw two photos of the heads of the Rosicrucian movement in Holland (or Belgium, I forget), the Rosicrucian movement in Europeexactly the same nasty, hard, inexorable mouth. Odd.
0 1967-10-04, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Power to heal? I saw in Plante the Story of a man born in 1905, who for thirty-five years has been healing people by the laying on of hands!1 His father was Italian, his mother Spanish, and he was born in France, he is French. For thirty-five years he has been practicing the laying on of hands; he has treated five million peoplefive million. Out of them two-thirds were cured, and he has been taken to court countless times by doctors, naturally: he had no right to heal people because he wasnt under oath! At one of the hearings (Ill tell you the beginning of the Story after the beginning at the end!), maybe one of the last hearings, suddenly his lawyer arrived very ill, with an attack of sciatica that prevented him from moving one leg, he was in acute pain. The judge, thinking himself very clever, told him, Well, why dont you cure your lawyer to begin with? The man got up, laid his hands on his lawyer, and five minutes later the lawyer was cured: Oh, but I am cured! (Mother laughs) He was convicted just the same. Wonderful. Anyhow, when he was quite small, that is, five or six, he had stolen a fish from his father who had gone fishing, and the fish couldnt be found. Fifteen days later, his parents found the fish among his things, with his toys absolutely dry and perfectly intact! Then the father tried an experiment to see: they had a fishbowl with goldfish; he took out two goldfish and gave one to his son, putting it in the hollow of his sons hand the fish started drying up. As for the second fish, a few hours later it was rotten. Then they mentioned it to doctors (they were living in Toulouse, that was a little later, when he was twelve or thirteen). One doctor had in his hospital a patient whose wound he had been trying to heal for weeks and weeks in vain: it was horrible, purulent. The doctor called the child, who laid on his handstwenty four hours later, the wound was healed.
And this man (I saw his photo, he has a magnificent head) says, I live in Gods presence. Thats what he says, and I dont think he makes any fussbesides he doesnt have the time because he goes to bed after midnight and gets up at five every day, starts work at five-thirty and spends the whole day working, that is, seeing people and people and more people (when that was read out to me, I thought, And I complain!). Its admirable. He did some studies, but he isnt a philosopher, he doesnt have any theories: he seems to have been born like that, with healing hands. He probably gets rid of infections by dehydrating them, so he cures all the diseases of that nature. And they did (poor man, they must have made his life impossible!), they did encephalograms, cardiograms and so on, and they noticed that just when he lays his hands (for a few seconds, two or three minutes at the most), at that moment his heartbeats suddenly go up from sixty to eighty, then fall back to normal. And he doesnt seem to be making any fuss, unlike that German I told you aboutnothing at all, very simple, very nice.
--
Its a collective suggestion, mon petit, and so strong, so strong! I told you the Story: some people, when they are awake, resist and fight; intellectually, they understand; then, when they are half conscious or in sleep, it seizes them and they are terrorized. Its over the WHOLE earth, the whole earth (there are Christians everywhere), its an atmosphere that I see like a huge spider over the whole earth.
(silence)
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning I had a visit from Durga. She pays me a visit every year, but this morning it was interesting because she explained to me her point of view, how she feels existence, and at the same time. You know that she came last year, I told you the Story. (Previously, when I used to go downstairs to give darshan, she would not only come but stay there for the whole time.) But when she came last year I told her, Very good, its very good, you fulfil your universal function very well, but you are missing something. And I explained to her what it means to be in conscious and attentive contact with the Supreme Will and she understood. She understood and adhered, she said yes. And during the year she must have tried, because when she returned this morning, there was really a difference, especially a difference in the understanding, and she explained it to me. Then I spoke to her about the physical human nature and its infirmity, and she told me, There is in this body something weall of us up abovedo not have and cannot have: the possibility of a constant Presence and of a constant contact with the Divine. She had never thought of it before! It is since last year And she said it with such intensitysuch intensity and understanding and meaning. It was as though all human miseries immediately disappeared in front of this EXTRAORDINARY thing that one could feel the divine Presence in each cell.
It was really interesting. The morning was really interesting.
0 1967-10-25, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I have wondered whether the Tower of Babel, insofar as the Story is true, wasnt a similar attempt, an attempt to harmonize men? Its presented to us the other way round, but I have wondered if it wasnt that.
Well see.
0 1967-11-29, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But then how is it that one fairly often reads in newspapers the Story of little children who remember their past life?
Thats not a psychic memory. They always confuse things so dreadfully!
--
How is it that newspapers tell fairly enough the Story of little children who remember their past life, and that details were confirmed? Since the study of such occurrences is what leads parapsychologists to note the existence of reincarnation, they are therefore not on a wholly wrong track, are they? And how can one give another kind of scientific proof of reincarnation?
How arrogant the mind is! Instead of simply saying, There is something here that I dont understand and asking for an explanation, oh, instantly it rears its head.
0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know that I always keep a Transformation flower here (Mother points to her buttonhole); I keep it the whole morning, and when I take off my dress in the afternoon for a bath, the flower is naturally in a pitiful conditionso I used to throw it away. But one day, S. had sent me roses in a glass of water, and it was on my dressing table; I took the Transformation flower and put it in the water, and when I came back from my bath it was magnificent, far fresher and stronger than when I had received it! I kept it the whole night, kept it the next day, it was unchanged! It remained just as fresh. Then the next day, I sent him the flower back in his glass, and when he came to see me in the afternoon, I told him the Story. I said, Did you get the Transformation flower? This is what happened. The next day, he wrote me this:
Does the transformation not demand a very high degree of aspiration, surrender and receptivity?
0 1968-02-07, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the best part of the Story is that I kept the rose and gave it away! (Laughing) It got what it wanted!
There is someone to whom I send flowers and who sends me flowers every day, someone who does the yoga in earnest. He wrote to me (he sends me some of these golden hibiscuses, Supramental Beauty), he wrote to me that he told one of these flowers, You are going to see Mother, and the flower smiled. It opened out, it was happy, and it smiled. It smiled at me, he said.
0 1968-02-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, its the Story of little R. whom they educate with music and caresses. Its the same story. But still, the city of love, damn! Auroville should be something that impels you towards other concepts than these petty things. I went there one day, and, you know, that place is moving
Oh, its beautiful.
0 1968-02-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the nerves remember You know that after living with Sri Aurobindo for a year, when I left at the time of the [first world] war, because of the war, all the nerves fell ill: they were in a state of irritated tension (I think they call it neuritis, when all, but all the nerves are ill). Its particularly painful, and everything is disorganized all over: the circulation was disorganized, the digestion was disorganized, everything was disorganized (it was in France, in southern France). The nerves remember that, and I dont know why, once when things here were very difficult, they remembered. Sri Aurobindo was there and I told him (I think Ive already told you the Story): I absolutely had the sense of a hand coming and taking the whole pain away like thatin one second it was gone. And it had never returned. Now, from time to time, when people are ill-disposed or their thoughts are bad, and when in addition theres no rest, no eating, no sleeping, then from time to time, here or there, the nerves get strained. Its a sharp pain at its height. In France, I had it for weeks. Sometimes it comes, and then I have to keep still and melt in the Divine Presence then its over, it goes away without a trace.
But when they feel ill at ease, they remember. They ask, I dont know what should be done to erase this memory. I take them to task, I tell them theyre stupid, but Then they keep still.
0 1968-06-18, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other day (I think it was yesterday), the memory suddenly came back to me (I know why things come now: its always when someone calls or when there is a work to be done), and for some reason I remembered that story about Christ, an old saying: Christ was healing the sick and so on, even bringing a dead man back to life, when he was brought an idiot and asked to give him intelligence. Then, the Story goes, Christ ran away! (Mother laughs) Later he was asked, Why did you run away?Its the only thing I cant do!
But why did it come? (Because it just comes like that, all of a sudden.) So I looked, and then I said, But no! Why did he run away? He just had to do this (Mother slightly rotates her hand, shaping something), and the child would have become intelligent.
0 1968-07-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Finally, a letter from P.L. telling the Story: I somewhat restrained myself from writing to you and telling you about my new situation, which might have been precipitated at any moment. On my return, the Vatican adopted a dual policy: threats on one hand, and on the other, promotions and offers of fine situations. I had been absent from Rome since December 9: what strange illness could last such a long time? There was talk of subjecting me to a medical examination by three physicians, demanding the names of the clinics2 visited, and so forth. I consulted His Eminence and Msgr. R. Being expelled by the application of the rule suited no one neither my family, nor the Cardinal himself. So the solution was to take up my new post, assuring them that I had fully recovered: thus the investigations stopped; I was no longer prosecuted, my case was shelved. No doubt, curiosity and suspicion havent been allayed, but my life has gone back to routine, and after some time everyone will forget. I will see the Pope next month, and I may accompany him in his journey to Colombia at the end of August I will keep you informed. There is still the difficulty of his health which may prevent the journey. All that I have just told you is quite external to myself and I hardly participate in it; Id rather write about my consciousness: it hasnt changedit has remained fastened to Mothers influence. I feel her protection; everything is easy, for she is with me; she gives me the suitable answer. Like a mantra, I repeat, Oh, Mother, with your help is anything impossible? More than that, the joy she has put in my heart remains unshakable. My thought flies away towards her, full of gratitude. Msgr. R. told His Eminence I had been at the Ashram: the Cardinal is delighted. R. has finished reading your book: in his mass he has preached Aurobindos ideas. He told me he has come into contact with Mother: he is going to write to her, and later will go and see her. He has accepted Aurobindos message as a solution for the world. I must still tell you the joy the telegram gave me: to Mother all my gratitude.
(Mother goes into a long contemplation)
0 1968-10-09, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A disciple who died six years earlier, in December 1962. See the Story of his death in Agenda 4, January 12, 1963.
***
0 1968-10-26, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In a letter (see Cent. Ed., vol. 26, p. 352-353), Sri Aurobindo told the Story of a yogi who could prolong his life at will (and lived for more than 200 years), but who kept the same toothache till the end, without ever being able to cure it. He was Swami Brahmananda, who, one day in the 1900s, told a disciple of his (Sardar Mazumdar), "As for the tooth, I have suffered from it since the days of Bhao Girdi," that is, since 1761.
***
0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So there are bishops, nuns, and once they came into her room to try and convert her. She tells the Story with such humor: I am not afraid of death, I know we are born more than once! So the others have nothing left to say.
Yes, she sent me a message through M.: I am not afraid of dying because I know we do not die. Its good.
--
Do you know the Story of that evangelist (I think), a pastor who used to live in the house where H. now lives? Naturally he had contacts with the Ashram, and I dont know how, he came across a few messages [given by Mother], and thought I was claiming to be a goddeclaring I was a god. And that would make him hopping mad! He would shout, Aah! Aah! Our god at least died on the cross, he suffered for us. Like that. But look at her living comfortably.
Its frightful.
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This mornings experience was very curious. All of a sudden, it awakened the memory of something that took place in my childhood when I was about eight or ten (which I had completely forgotten). On Sundays (I suppose so, or anyway on holidays), I used to go and play with my first cousins, the children of a brother of my father. I would go and play with them. I remember their house, I can still see it. We would usually spend our time playing scenes or enacting a story in tableaux. And today, it showed me something I had really forgotten. Theres a story of Bluebeard, isnt there? (Bluebeard I forget, I only know what I remembered this morning.) One day, we did a tableau vivant, in several tableaux, with the Story of Bluebeard who cut off his wives heads. (To Satprem:) Thats how the Story went, isnt it? (Laughter) I only remember this morning, I dont recall the Story. Now, we played in a big room, a sort of enclosed verandahin Paris, a big long room. We had stood (our playmates were little boys and girls), we had stood a certain number of girls against the wall: we had stuck them to the wall, with their hair strung above their heads (Mother laughs), and we had put a sheet in front to cover the rest of their bodies the sheet reached down to the floor so that we couldnt see their bodies, only their heads! I am saying that because I saw it this morning, otherwise I didnt remember in the least. I saw this scene, I saw the memory of that room and how it was all arranged. And at the same time there came You see, we found it quite natural, just a story we had read; I remembered my impression at the time: there was no sense of horror! We didnt find it monstrous (laughing), we were having great fun! So the experience came, and it remained for OVER AN HOUR to make me understand very deeply where this memory came from, how it acted and why we were in that state. And all of it not at all from a personal standpoint, not at all: from the general standpoint of the earth and humanity in general. It was exceedingly interesting! And then, at the same time, a vision showing how, with what swift movement, the universal consciousness moves (arrowlike gesture) in a progression towards the Divine the TRUE Divine, I mean, not religions, of coursetowards the TRUE Divine through all that. And with the consciousness of the WHOLEthe whole and nuances (Sade and all that line), from the highest to the lowest. For one hour I saw a whole stage of humanitya stage towards the late 1800s, the second half of the 1800sand how it moved on and progressed (gesture like a great curve). And thats I have no words or capacity to describe it, but its extraordinarily interesting. The vision of the human collectivity on earth, with all its stages, gradations, nuances, and how it all followed a movement (same arrowlike gesture). And this story (story this VISION, rather, because it wasnt a story: I didnt see what we said or anything, only the vision of what we did), this story came as the illustration of a certain state of mind of those times, and how children were given stories of that kind to readwe found it quite natural! (Mother laughs) And those things are so dreadful.
As soon as I am not busy talking or listening to people or doing a work, it goes on and on: certain samples, as it were, of this bodys life are taken up again, and through those samples, the whole is shown. A wonderful education! Never, never does any human education as its conceived resemble this, because its a vision of the whole, in which everything hangs together; youre shown everything together.
0 1969-03-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But we mustnt tell the Story, that would instantly look like boasting, its disgusting! It can go to the Agenda, but
If only people had trust
0 1969-05-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Politics, yes, it has shoved me right into it! I have been asked to choose the President [of India] who will replace the one who has just died!1 And the best part of the Story is that this Consciousness immediately suggests what needs to be done. Well see.
But regarding money, it doesnt tell me what it replaces it with. You see, it wants money to be a circulating force. Thats perfectly true, but
0 1969-07-19, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Also in 1967, about the Story of a diplomat's son killed during the war who had merged with Pavitra, Mother said, "It's a knowledge of the CELLS' consciousness." See Agenda VIII of March 7, 1967.
Could it be the transition from the physical, material consciousness as we know it to the cellular consciousness in which there are not two "sides"one of "life" and one of "death"but something else?
0 1969-09-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The same thing could be said of those who are today claiming to be the "proprietors" of Sri Aurobindo, Mother and Auroville. it is an eternal story repeating itself, at Pondicherry or in Rome but this time, perhaps, the Story's ending will be different. [Note of 1981.]
This is not always the case, as Satprem learned afterwards. Thus in the thirteenth century, Celestine V was chosen from among mendicant monks, but five months later he abdicated, probably in disgust. He was jailed by his successor (and later canonized!). In fact, although no rule demands that the cardinals should elect the Pope from among themselves, it is always the case in practice.
0 1969-10-11, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then they brought cards to me (theyre preparing a new movement), cards with big photosthose little ones, if you knew how sweet they are! And intelligent! Theyre first-rate. And I saw the photo before knowing anything of the Story; I looked and said, Oh, what a lovely little one! I instantly saw: receptive, admirable, an admirable kid! So there are photos of those little ones, theres a portrait of the crook who arranges the whole thing, a portrait of the reporter, and cards with the portrait of one of those little ones, with at the top, in French and in English, Let baby seals live. Like that. And a place for ones name and signature. And at the back, a place to add something if one wants to. They asked me if I wanted to sign. I said yes. There was one card addressed to Norways fisheries minister, one to Canadas fisheries minister, and one to Canadas prime minister. So I put my stamp: The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I didnt add anything, I left the sentence and signed. And well send them.
But when I was told that Why, why? And those women who wear that all those animals suffering, all those animals horror, their terror they wear all that on their backs. And it doesnt give them nightmares! Unbelievable.
--
Its in Switzerl and that they started the movement (the reporter was Swiss), and its Z who told me the Story. Z told the reporter she was returning to India, and he gave her the whole bundle of cards, saying, Oh, if India protested, it would lend weight.
(Satprem has Tibet in mind, but remains silent)
--
She said that once when we were preparing a play to be staged here7 (I dont know if you were there). There was the chief of the mountains and the chief of the valley, and then an incarnation of the Divine. The two chiefs were quarreling; the incarnation of the Divine came, and when he tried to stop the fight, they killed him. When they killed him, all of a sudden they woke up to the awareness of the horror of what they had done, owing to the fact of the killing. You see, night fell when they began fighting, and the Incarnation came between them to stop them, but they didnt see him and killed him. the Story was like that, we staged it. We gave out the roles and so onwe had got the play through Bharatidi. So she was there, and she told me, But the Divine is the greatest culprit! Its quite natural that he should suffer, since Hes the one who allowed humans to be like that! (Mother laughs)
Ah!
0 1969-10-18, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did I tell you the Story of that child who came here? That child came, holding this (Mother points to a small yellow bird on her table); he thought it was a swan: its a goose, of course, but he thought it was a swan, and he gave it to me very nicely, saying, Its You. I saw in his thought that he was convinced it was a swan, that is to say, the soul. But then, I saw with my own eyes that it was a goose (Mother laughs), and I said, Yes, its true! (Laughter) and that was precisely Oh, Im keeping it, its precisely thata goose (Mother laughs).
So there.
0 1969-10-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its because of this (Mother points to the little goose on her table), I told you the Story. The mind doesnt work, so I dont get tired!
I have a lot of work to do with my head, nonetheless.
0 1969-11-05, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, if I had something to say, I would say it. See, Ive told you the Story of Sunil I would say it. No, what I have to say isnt Theres a curve, and at the moment, there are some very, very contradictory things present and active: an increase of trust and a decrease of trustboth at the same time.
I get some very impertinent letters from people asking me why I did this or why I did that (Im absolutely indifferent to it: when I read that, I laughits all the same to me), but I see, I see the atmosphere: theres a progression of trust and dependence, a very rapid and great progression. And there is at the same time all the little egos which rebel and are furious! But its very good because it comes from the Pressure of the Consciousness that wants things to be open.
0 1970-02-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That atmosphere is full of an anguish that so much calls for a response, and so it comes, and after (sometimes it takes a long time, hours) but it penetrates, it spreads. But I dont always have the time. In the morning especially, I always see lots of people (Wednesdays and Saturdays3 are the two days when Ive done away with it, but even then Ill see some twenty people before you!), and that causes a dissipation of forces. So thats the form it takes (Mother points to her throat): increased disorder. Otherwise, when I am alone, that is at night (its only at night), when I am like that, lying on my bed, then then its all right. But its the anguish of the world! Now I understand (I am not aware of what goes on), but it was so dreadful! I felt, I said to myself, What is it? Whats going on that can cause this? People themselves are so unconscious. Did I tell you the Story of those poor little seals?4
Such unconsciousness! If they could only feel a little the suffering they inflict on others, it might make them stop (?)
0 1970-05-02, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was two or three days ago, it came imperatively like that, in connection with some business. They have gatherings in Auroville, at Aspiration; I think its meditations, or something of the sort, I dont know. One of them came and put my photo; so another rushed to his room and came back with a cross! And he said, Well, if you put a photo of Mother, Ill put my cross. They told me that story. They told me, because the one who put the cross had come to see me with the others (they come once a week, a few of them, four or five), but I didnt know. He came and sat in front of me. I found him a rather inquisitorial air (I didnt know anything, you understand), and after they left I asked who he was. Then they told me he is a Catholic, and they told me the Story.1
Afterwards there came a whole series of things. But I must say theres literally an invasion there (at different places in Auroville) because its not watched over, some plots of land are free, and at the center especially, some people have settled there, and there are constantly people who come and settle without asking for permission. So there was a thought to have a badge for those who are really Aurovilians (Mother shows a specimen of badge). For a few days already theyve been thinking of organizing that: during the first year they will have a sort of identity card, and afterwards, if things are fine at the end of the year, youre given the badge.
--
A few months later (October 21), Mother gave Satprem this note written to a French disciple, which seems to fit well with the Story she has just recounted: "I am told that you intend to distribute a reproduction of the portrait you did of me. It would be better not to introduce in this gathering anything personal that might suggest the atmosphere of a nascent religion."
The next time, Mother omitted the words "forms of" and simply left "all religions."
0 1970-09-23, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you the Story.1 Thats fine.
(silence)
0 1970-11-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have just seen a rather strange thing. There was the daughter of a man who owns a big movie theateranyway a rich man. I dont know what happened, she was all right, then she gave birth in hospital and she died. No one ever knew why. I had forgotten that, it was a year ago. The child is a year old (its a boy), and they brought him to me. But I didnt remember the Story of the mothers death and so on. I didnt know. When he came, my impression was that of a girl. I looked. Then they told me, No, its the child whose mother died when he was born. And in the child, there was his mothers vita], but then perfectly clear, precise, as if preserved. It was there and responded through the childs bodyhis mothers vital with full consciousness. Its strange. And I learned the mothers story only afterwards. I saw that, I saw a feminine vital, very conscious: What on earth is this? Then they told me, He is the child whose mother died while giving him birth. Then I understood. The vital remained there, in the child who came out.
Its odd.
0 1971-02-24, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, its like following the Story of someone else with an interest which not even with great interest, not even curiosity. I cant say theres a sense of duty, I dont know what it isits a need and thats all.
The body has once and for all taken the attitude of not thinking of itself because it would be deeply disgusted.
0 1971-04-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The book cover took the forefront in the affair. What seems to have been conveniently forgotten is the sales methods of that Press: someone had dared to put his finger on the vast network of financial manipulations in foreign currencies. This is far from being the end of the Story.
***
0 1971-04-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Sannyasin is the Story of Supermanhood.
But thats why, mon petit! Thats just it! I think men like the easier things.
0 1971-05-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have sent many messages (Mother looks for some papers). A government minister came,1 who has 400,000 workers on strike; they wrote me to ask him to have pity on the poor people (God knows what the Story is!), but the gentleman came, gave me flowers, took my flower, and then ran off! I didnt have a chance to do anything.
I wanted to tell him this:
0 1971-07-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, something I would have told you already is that now the body the consciousness of the bodyknows in advance whats going to happen, it knows in advance what people are going to say. It doesnt know it (how shall I put it?) exactly as it happens in reality, but rather the SPIRIT in which its done constantly. Its perfectly strange. I am here immobile, trying to belong only to the Divine, and things comethey come like this (gesture as though on a screen in front of Mother), they come like this, things, events, people talking. At first I thought it was my material consciousness, which did not know how to keep quiet, but then I realized it was coming to me from outside and was taking shape materially. Which means that now, if I were to mentalize those things, I could foresee events, tell what is going to happen, whats going to come. the Story about America and China, and all sorts of similar things came in that way. In ordinary men, the mind takes advantage of it to make prophecies but fortunately there isnt any mind here, its quiet, its absent. Only, when I am told things, when I am informed of things, nothing surprises this body anymore, it seems to know. Its strange.
A kind of universalization.
0 1971-10-13, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you know the Story of the new moon? Theyve discovered a new moon.1
Oh, yes, a very small one. Does it mean something?
0 1971-10-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you the Story. There were some astonishing things. I told you I saw him deflect lightning!
Yes, I remember.
0 1973-04-14, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A particular fact has haunted me for the past seven years, a particular passage in Pranabs speech which he delivered a few days after Mothers departure. (Once again, I am not accusing anyone: I am chronicling History; I would like to report the facts, the words, the characters as accurately as I can I am Mothers scribe, that is all and I love her, because its lovely to love.) Now, in that speech, we find a small remark, the kind of remark one makes in passing, as the most natural thing in the world. Pranab is describing the last days. You call them the last days AFTERWARDS, when the Story is overin the meantime, its just life as usual:
(original English)
02.01 - A Vedic Story, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One interesting point in the Story is the choice of the gods who formed the search party. They were Mitra, Varuna and Yama. Varuna is the god of the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving unionhis is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and material consciousness, where precisely Agni has taken refuge. Agni is within the jurisdiction of this trinity and it devolves upon them to tackle the truant god.
There is another point which requires clarification. As a reason for his nervousness and flight he alleges that greater people who preceded him had attempted the work, but evidently failed in the attempt; so how can he, a younger novice, dare to go the same way? Putting the imagery back to its psychological bearing, one play explain that the predecessors refer to the deities of the physical, vital and mental consciousness who ruled the earth before the emergence of the psychic or soul consciousness. It is precisely because of the failure or insufficiency of these anteriorin the evolutionary movementand inferior gods that Agni's service is being requisitioned. Mythologically also a parallelism is found in the Greek legends where it is said that the Olympian godsZeus and his companywere a younger generation that replaced, after of course a bloody warfare, their ancestors, the more ancient race of Kronos, the Titans. Titans were the Asuras and Rakshasas who reigned upon earth before the advent of the mentalsattwichuman being, Manu, as referred here.
02.05 - Robert Graves, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The birth of Shilindhra resembles the birth of Dionysus. When King Zeus took the form of thunder and lightning and entered the womb of Semele, Dionysus was born. Similar is the Story of the appearance of the toadstool, in the midst of rain and thunder and lightning and on the lap of mother earth. We have already said that there are two categories of gods or two types of themone belongs to heaven and the other to earth. The Vedic Rishis announced that heaven was our father and earth themotherdaurme pit mt pthvimahyam. The Vedantins usually and mainly worship the father, and Tantriks, the mother. Svarga, Dyaus, is the world of light, and earth or bhu is that of delight and enjoyment. We have already said that high above, up there, dwell Apollo and Zeus and Juno, and below here on earth, Dionysus and Bacchus and Semele and Aphrodite.
However the poet says that as the toadstool is born in the midst of thunder and lightning, his strength and capacity are of the nature of thunderenduring and hard and powerful. Born thus it spreads everywhere and lasts through all time. From the beginning of creation this god has sprouted up everywhere, as giver of pleasure and ecstasy and intoxication. To worship him is to worship earth, to worship Dionysus himself. But one needs to worship this god in the right way, to give oneself away wholly to him. Once upon a time the demons for some selfish interest wanted to capture and imprison him. The result was disastroushe thought of depriving them of their power of movement and drowning them into the ocean. On the contrary, to the devoted which world does he reveal, which delight bring? Let us listen to the poet:
02.07 - India One and Indivisable, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is no use laying stress on distinctions and differences: we must, on the contrary, put all emphasis upon the fundamental unity, upon the demand and necessity for a dynamic unity. Naturally there are diverse and even contradictory elements in the make-up of a modern nation. France, for example, was not one, but many to start with and for long. We know of the mortal feud between the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs and the struggle among the Barons generally, some even siding with foreigners against their own countrymen (an Indian parallel we have in the Story of Prithwiraj and Jayachand), poor Jeanne d'Arc lamenting over the 'much pity' that was in sweet France. There were several rival languagesBreton, Gascon, Provenal, besides the French of Isle de France. Apart from these provincial or regional rivalries there were schisms on religious groundsHuguenots and Catholics, Jansenists and Arians were flying at each other's throat and made of France a veritable bedlam of confusion and chaos. Well, all that was beaten down and smoothed under the steam-roller of a strong centralised invincible spirit of France, one and indivisible and inexorable, that worked itself out through Jeanne d'Arc and Francis the First and Henry the Great and Richelieu and Napoleon. But all nations have the same story. And it is too late now in the day to start explaining the nature and origin of nationhood; it was done long ago by Mazzini and by Renan and once for all.
Indeed, what we see rampant in India today is the mediaeval spirit. This reversion to an olderan extinct, we ought to have been able to saytype of mentality is certainly a fall, a lowering of the collective consciousness. It bas got to be remedied and set right. Whatever the motive forces that lie at the back of the movement, motives of fear or despair or class interest or parochial loyalty, motives of idealism, misguided and obscurantist, they have to be taken by the horns and dominated and eliminated. A breath of modernism, some pure air of clear perception and knowledge and wider consciousness must blow through the congested hectic atmosphere of the Indian body politic.
03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In a general way we may perhaps say, without gross error, that every man has the right to become a poet, a scientist or a politician. But when the question rises in respect of a particular person, then it has to be seen whether that person has a natural ability, an inherent tendency or aptitude for the special training so necessary for the end in view. One cannot, at will, develop into a poet by sheer effort or culture. He alone can be a poet who is to the manner born. The same is true also of the spiritual life. But in this case, there is something more to take into account. If you enter the spiritual path, often, whether you will or not, you come in touch with hidden powers, supra-sensible forces, beings of other worlds and you do not know how to deal with them. You raise ghosts and spirits, demons and godsFrankenstein monsters that are easily called up but not so easily laid. You break down under their impact, unless your adhr has already been prepared, purified and streng thened. Now, in secular matters, when, for example, you have the ambition to be a poet, you can try and fail, fail with impunity. But if you undertake the spiritual life and fail, then you lose both here and hereafter. That is why the Vedic Rishis used to say that the ear then vessel meant to hold the Soma must be properly baked and made perfectly sound. It was for this reason again that among the ancients, in all climes and in all disciplines, definite rules and regulations were laid down to test the aptitude or fitness of an aspirant. These tests were of different kinds, varying according to the age, the country and the Path followedfrom the capacity for gross physical labour to that for subtle perception. A familiar instance of such a test is found in the Story of the aspirant who was asked again and again, for years together, by his Teacher to go and graze cows. A modern mind stares at the irrelevancy of the procedure; for what on earth, he would question, has spiritual sadhana to do with cow-grazing? In defence we need not go into any esoteric significance, but simply suggest that this was perhaps a test for obedience and endurance. These two are fundamental and indispensable conditions in sadhana; without them there is no spiritual practice, one cannot advance a step. It is absolutely necessary that one should carry out the directions of the Guru without question or complaint, with full happiness and alacrity: even if there comes no immediate gain one must continue with the same zeal, not giving way to impatience or depression. In ancient Egypt among certain religious orders there was another kind of test. The aspirant was kept confined in a solitary room, sitting in front of a design or diagram, a mystic symbol (cakra) drawn on the wall. He had to concentrate and meditate on that figure hour after hour, day after day till he could discover its meaning. If he failed he was declared unfit.
Needless to say that these tests and ordeals are mere externals; at any rate, they have no place in our sadhana. Such or similar virtues many people possess or may possess, but that is no indication that they have an opening to the true spiritual life, to the life divine that we seek. Just as accomplishments on the mental plane,keen intellect, wide studies, profound scholarship even in the scriptures do not entitle a man to the possession of the spirit, even so capacities on the vital plane,mere self-control, patience and forbearance or endurance and perseverance do not create a claim to spiritual realisation, let alone physical austerities. In conformity with the Upanishadic standard, one may not be an unworthy son or an unworthy disciple, one may be strong, courageous, patient, calm, self-possessed, one may even be a consummate master of the senses and be endowed with other great virtues. Yet all this is no assurance of one's success in spiritual sadhana. Even one may be, after Shankara, a mumuksu, that is to say, have an ardent yearning for liberation. Still it is doubtful if that alone can give him liberation into the divine life.
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
the Story runs (Aitareya Upanishad) that once the gods wished to come down and inhabit an earthly frame. Several animal forms (the cow, the horse) were presented to them one after another, but they were not satisfied, none was considered adequate for their habitation. At last the human frame (with its conscious personality) was offered to them and immediately they declared that that was indeed the perfect form they neededsuktam bateti and they entered into it.
The human frame is the abode of the gods; it is a temple of God, as we all know. But the most significant thing about it is that the gods alone do not dwell there: all being, all creatures crowd there, even the ungodly and the undivine. The Pashu (the animal), the Pishacha (the demon), the Asura (the Titan), and the Deva (the god), all find comfortable lodging in itthere are many chambers indeed in this mansion of the Lord. Man was made after the image of God and yet Lucifer had access into that tabernacle and all his entire host with him. This duality of the divine and the undivine, the characteristic mark of human nature as it is, presents a field and a labour through which man's progress has to be worked out. The soul, the divine flame, has, been placed in Ignorance, that is to say, what is apparent Ignorance, the frame of Matter, just because this Matter in Ignorance is to be smelted, purified, given its original and intrinsic substance, shape and character. The human person in its actual form is not obviously something absolutely perfect and divine. The type, the norm it represents is divine, but it has been overlaid with all obscure and base elementsit has to be washed and cleaned thoroughly, smelted and reconditioned. The dark ungodly elements mar and vitiate; they must be removed on the one hand, but on the other, they point out and test the salvaging work that has to be done and is being done. Man is always at the crossroads. This is his especial difficulty and this is also his unique opportunity. His consciousness has a double valency, in contradistinction to the animal's which is, it can be said, monovalent, in that it is amoral, has not the sense of divided loyalty and hence the merit of choice. The movements of the animal follow a fixed stereotyped pattern; it has not got to deviate from the beaten track of its instincts. But man with his sense of the moral, of the good, of the progressive is at every step of his life faced with a dilemma, has to pause at a parting of the ways, always looks before and after and is puzzled at a cas de conscience. That, we have said, has been made for him the condition of growth, of a conscious and willed change with an ever-increasing tempo towards perfect perfection. That furnishes the occasion and circumstance by which he rises to divinity itself, becomes the Divine. He becomes the Divine thus not merely in the own home of the Divine, but on all the levels of the manifestation: all the planes of consciousness with all the hierarchy of beingspowers and personalitiesfind a new play of harmony, a supreme and global fulfilment in the transfigured human vehicle. The frame itself that encases the human consciousness acts as a living condenser: the very contour in its definiteness seems to exert a pressure towards an ever larger and higher synthesis, it may be compared to a kind of field office (Einsteinian, for example) that controls, regulates, moves and configurates all elements within its range. The human frame even as a frame possesses a magic virtue.
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In this connection the history of Ireland's destiny affords an instructive study, since it is symbolic also of Europe's life-course. It was the natural idealism, the inborn spiritual outlook which Ireland possessed of yore the Druidic Mysteries were more ancient than the Greek culture and formed perhaps the basis of the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysterieswhich impelled her foremost to embrace the new revelation brought on by Christianity. As she was among the pioneers to champion the cause of the Christ, she became also the fortress where the new cult found a safe refuge when the old world was being overwhelmed and battered to pieces by the onrush of peoples of a dense and rough-hewn nature. When continental Europe lay a desert waste under the heels of the barbarians that almost wiped away the last vestiges of the Classical Culture, it was Ireland who nursed and reared the New Child in her bosom and when the time came sent Him out again to reconquer and revivify Europe. Once more when the tide of Modernism began to rise and swell and carry everything before it, Ireland stood firm and threw up an impregnable barrier. the Story of Ireland's struggle against Anglo-Saxon domination is at bottom the Story of the struggle between Europe's soul power and body power. Ireland was almost slain in the combat, physically, but would not lose her soul. And now she rises victorious at long last, her ancient spirit shines resplendent, the voice of the Irish Renaissance that speaks through Yeats and Russell1 heralds a new dawn for her and who knows if not for Europe and the whole West?
Is it meant that "Mediaeval obscurantism" was Europe's supreme ideal and that the cry should be: "Back to the Dark Age, into the gloom of Mystic superstitions and Churchian dogmas?" Now, one cannot deny that there was much of obscurantism and darkness in that period of Europe's evolution. And the revolt launched against it by the heralds of the Modern Age was inevitable and justified to some extent; but to say that unadulterated superstition was what constituted the very substance of Middle Age Culture and that the whole thing was more or less a nightmare, is only to land into another sort of superstition and obscurantism. The best when corrupt does become the worst. The truth of the matter is that in its decline the Middle Age clung to and elaborated only the formal aspect of its culture, leaving aside its inner realisation, its living inspiration. The Renaissance was a movement of reaction and correction against the lifeless formalism, the dry scholasticism of a decadent Middle Age; it sought to infuse a new vitality, by giving a new outlook and intuition to Europe's moribund soul. But, in fact, it has gone a little too far in its career of correction. In its violent enthusiasm to pull down the worn-out edifice of the past and to build anew for the future, it has almost gone to the length of digging up the solid foundation and erasing the fundamental ground-plan upon which Europe's real life and culture reposed and can still safely repose.
03.17 - The Souls Odyssey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The deep spiritual truth we are referring to is the Odyssey of the human soul. And it is also an occult phenomenon happening in the world of the inner reality. The Soul's own home is in God, is God; for it is part and parcel of the divine consciousness, it is essentially one in being and nature with the supreme Reality. It is a nucleus, a centre of individuation, a projection in a particular name and form of the infinite and eternal Being and Consciousness and Bliss on this side of manifestation or evolutionary Nature. Being in and with the Divine, merged within it, the Soul has, at the same time, its own proper domain, exclusively its own, and its own inalienable identity. It is the domain where the Soul enjoys its swarjya, its absolute freedom, dwelling in its native light and happiness and glory. But the Story changes, the curve of its destiny takes a sudden new direction when it comes down upon earth, when it inhabits a mortal body. Within the body, it no longer occupies its patent frontal position, but withdraws behind a veil, as it were: it takes its stand behind or within the depth of the heart, as spiritual practice experiences it. It hides there, as in a cavern, closed in now by the shades of the prison-house which its own body and life and mind build round it. Yet it is not wholly shut out or completely cut off; for from its secret home it exerts its influence which gradually, slowly, very slowly indeed, filters throughba thes, clarifies, illumines the encasement, makes it transparent and docile in the end. For that is the Soul's ultimate function and fulfilment.
In the meanwhile, however, our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. A physical incarnation clouds the soul-consciousness and involves loss of memory, amnesia. The soul's travail therefore in a physical body is precisely to regain the memory of what has been forgotten. Spiritual discipline means at bottom this remembering, and all culture too means nothing more than that that is also what Plato thought when he said that all knowledge, all true knowledge consists in reminiscence.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We say then that the fraternity and unity of mankind has been a constant dream and aspiration, a settled ideal. And in the circumstances of today it is becoming more and mace evident that the idea is a secret fact of existence and that there is an overwhelming urge in Nature to bring it out and establish it as a manifest and concrete reality. If we review the history of mankind once again, not measuring it by its centuries but by its millenniums, not by its apparent habits and outward forms but by inner forces and attitudes, we shall discover that it is the Story of the unfoldment of a collective fulfilment, of an ascension in grades of consciousness towards an ever higher and vaster truth and reality.
Viewed as a progressive growth of consciousness and transformation of nature, man's advance has been marked out in a few very definite stages. The first was the purely animal manPasuwhen man lived merely as a physical being, concerned solely about his body. Then came the Pisacha, the man of vital urges in their crudest form, the man of ignorant passions and dark instincts who has been imaged in the popular mind as the ghoul. At the next stage, with a further release of the consciousness, when the larger vital impulses come into play man becomes the Rakshasa, the demon. Egoistic hunger for possession, enjoyment, enlarged and increased appetite are his characteristics. Next came the Asura, the Titan, the egoistic mental man in his earlier avatar seeking to emerge out of the purely vital nature. Ambition and pride are his guiding spirit. Prometheus is his prototype. There are still two higher types which have been established in the human consciousness and in the world atmosphere as dynamic ideals, if not as common concrete facts of the material world. The first is the ethical man, who seeks to govern his life according to some principles of light and purity, such, for example, as unselfishness, altruism, chivalry, self-abnegation, rectitude, truthfulness etc. He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is also a still higher category, where consciousness endeavours to go beyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we have the spiritual man, the saint and the sage. Beyond lie the supra-mental domains formed of the consciousness of the gods.
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And that was how Paradise was lost. But the Story of Paradise Regained is yet more marvellous. When the Divine Mother, the creative infinite Consciousness found herself parcelled out and scattered (even like the body of Sati borne about by Shiva, in the well-known Indian legend) and lost in unconsciousness, something shot down from the Highest into the lowest, something in response to an appeal, a cry, as it were, from the depth of the utter hopelessness in the heart of Matter and the Inconscient. A dumb last-minute S O S from belowa De profundis clamaviwent forth and the Grace descended: the Supreme himself came down and entered into the scuttled dead particles of earth's dust as a secret core of light and flame, just a spark out of his own conscious substance. The Earth received the Grace and held it in her bosom. Thus she had her soul born in her the psychic being that is to grow and evolve and bring about her redemption, her transmutation into the divine substance.
This is the special privilege accorded to earth, viz., she has a soul, a spark consciousness imbedded in her unconscious substance that came from the highest summit, from the supreme Divine himself. And thus earth became the representative, the personified form of the material universe; she became the mouthpiece of the extended universe, the head and front of creation, so that in and through her the supreme manifestation, the incarnation of the Divine may take place.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Science was born the day when the observer cut himself aloof from the observed. Not only so, not only he is to stand aside, outside the field of observation and be a bare recorder, but that he must let the observed record itself, that is, be its own observer. Modern Science means not so much the observer narrating the Story of the observed but the observed telling its own story. The first step is well exemplified in the Story of Galileo. When hot discussion was going on and people insisted on sayingas Aristotle decided and common sense declared that heavier bodies most naturally fall quicker from a height, it was this prince of experimenters who straightaway took two different weights, went up the tower of Pisa and let them drop and astounded the people by showing that both travel with equal speed and fall to the ground at the same time.
Science also declared that it is not the observation of one person, however qualified, that determines the truth or otherwise of a fact, but the observation of many persons and the possibility of observations of all persons converging, coinciding, corroborating. It is only when observation has thus been tested and checked that one can be sure that the personal element has been eliminated. Indeed the ideal condition would be if the observer, the scientist himself, could act as part of the machine for observation: at the most he should be a mere assembler of the parts of the machine that would record itself, impersonally, automatically. The rocket instruments that are sent high up in the sky to record the temperature, pressure or other weather condition in the stratosphere or the deep-sea recording machines are ingenious inventions in that line. The wizard Jagadish Chandra Bose showed his genius precisely in the way he made the plant itself declare its life-story: it is not what the scientist thinks or feels about the plant, but what the plant has to say of its own accord, as it wereits own tale of growth and decay, of suffering, spasm, swoon, suffocation or death under given conditions. This is the second step that Science took in the direction of impersonal and objective inquiry.
05.32 - Yoga as Pragmatic Power, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fundamental truth to be noted is that the Spirit is power, not merely consciousness: indeed the very definition of the spirit is that it is consciousness-energy. And it is this consciousness-energy that is at the source of all cosmic activities. Man's action too springs from this original source, although apparently it seems to be caused by other secondary and derivative energies. As a matter of fact what these energies that seem to be actually in play do is not the origination but rather the deviation and diversion, a diminution and adulteration of the supreme energy, a lowering of the quality, the tone and temper of the dynamism. In other words, as we have already said, a thought force, a vital force, a nervous or physical force, all these are only lower, even minima values, more or less distant and deformed echoes of a true and absolute Power behind and above them all. These forces become powerful in proportion as they are instruments and functions of that one mother energy. The truth is most beautifully illustrated in the Story of Brahma a and the gods in the Kena Upanishad. The gods conquered and were proud of their conquest; each thought that it was due to his own personal prowess that he conquered. But they were utterly discomfited and shamed when the Divine Power appeared and proved to them that but for this Power they would not be able even to tackle a blade of grassFire would not burn it, Water would not drench it, Wind would not move it.
The Life Divine, by Sri Aurobindo
06.04 - The Conscious Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Types of Meditation the Story of Creation
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part SixThe Conscious Being
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Types of Meditation the Story of Creation
06.05 - The Story of Creation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:06.05 - the Story of Creation
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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the Story of Creation
Consciousness is the source and basis of creation. Even the most material object, apparently unconscious, the stone, for example, has inherent in it a vibration of consciousness. Where there is absolutely no consciousness, it is the Inconscient. If you ever descend into the Inconscient, that is to say, further down the scale from the inanimate stone, you will know the difference. The gulf between the stone and the Inconscient is very much, very much indeed, greater than that between the stone and man. For it is a secret consciousness that links man to the stone, but beyond there is a hiatus, something unbridgeable. The Inconscient is the Void, the absolute zero (Inane, Sri Aurobindo names it in Savitri): it is hot sub-stance, it is pure negation. Consciousness is at the back of the material universe: without that consciousness there would not be the marvellous organisation that is found within the material particle of atom. The Inconscient is pre-existent to the material creation.
06.06 - Earth a Symbol, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
the Story of Creation Total Transformation Demands Total Rejection
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part SixEarth a Symbol
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the Story of Creation Total Transformation Demands Total Rejection
06.12 - The Expanding Body-Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The trains were smashed and all the passengers killed or mortally wounded. But, curious to say, the young woman, the fiance, was found, living and almost unscathed, in the midst of the debris, within a sort of cover made by a fallen beam that lay across over her. She was pulled out with only a few bruises upon her body. Here is, however, the young man's version of the Story. He said that as he was working at the table, suddenly he heard the voice of his fiance calling loudly for help and he saw in a flash, as it were, the situation she was in, he rushed out, not physically indeed, and ran and threw himself over the body of his fiance to protect her; that is the only thing he could do. As a result he did in fact protect her. True, he did not rush out in his body, for that matter, if he had done, it would have been of no use. What rushed out of him was his vital body, a formation of that life energy which is most close to the body and almost as concrete as physical energy but much more powerful and effective. This vital power concentrated and projected out of him acted as a veritable shield over the woman. The young man himself, curious to say, bore marks of bruises upon his head as if a huge load had fallen upon it. A strong impact upon the vital can and does leave scars upon the material body: it is not an uncommon phenomenon. Many of the Christian saints (Saint Francis of Assisi, for example) are reported to have borne on their body the marks the stigmataof crucifixion of Christ's body; Ramakrishna, too, it is said, once showed marks of scourging on his back when a boy was whipped in his presence.
All this means that the physical body is not man's sole means of action in the physical world. The physical extends and expands into more and more subtle modes of activity and all the more, not less, effective for that very reason. Behind the physical lies the subtle physical, behind which again is the vital physical and then the various grades of the vital. Indeed the vital or life energy as a whole is the real dynamism of all our physical activities and if it usually acts through its bodily instruments, it can act independently of them too; normally, too, it often acts in this way, only we are not conscious or observant enough to notice. A conscious concentration of the vital energy directed upon a material object can handle it with the effectivity of material energy. When it needs physical conditions it creates them, as the protective vital energy of the young man created the physical disposition of objects that formed a covert for the girl.
In the present case, the phenomenon happened automatically without any premeditation on the part of the persons concerned; because the sympathy between the two was so strong, other considerations did not weigh in the balance against it. Needless to say, if one wishes to obtain conscious mastery of this occult power, one will have to go through a long and arduous discipline. But, if difficult, the thing is not impossible. In the matter of physical feats, for example, a particular development may seem for the moment beyond your reach; but with practice and perseverance, stubborn will and wise guidance, you can not only arrive at your immediate end but do much more. the Story of many who have broken Olympic records is revealing in this respect. In the same way, one can master the subtle forces, if one goes about the thing earnestly and in the right way. It is more difficultmuch more perhaps but the way is there provided the will is there.
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07.21 - On Occultism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There was a very well-known scientist in Paris. He has written the Story in a book of his. He wanted to know to what extent man's reason can affect or influence his reflex movements, how far one can control one's instinctive or subconscious impulsions by the force of conscious intelligence. So one day he went to the Zoo. Among the animals there were huge snakes, one was particularly notorious for its vicious character, that is to say, it could be easily excited and enraged. It was a very big animal, black but beautiful. The serpents were of course kept within glass cases, the glass being sufficiently thick to prevent any possibility of accident. He came before meal-time, when it was hungry; for after food they go to sleep. He stood before the glass-pane, quite near, and began teasing and and exciting the animal. I do not remember exactly what he did to rouse the animal, but there it was wild with anger; it shot out like a spring and darted at the face of the gentleman who was just on the other side of the glass almost touching it.
He knew very well that nothing could happen to him, the barrier was sound and secure and yet each time the snake darted at him, he leaped back to avoid the blow as it were. The thing repeated itself continually and however much he repeated to himself all the reasons of his safety and security, the reflex gesture could not be controlled.
07.32 - The Yogic Centres, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the Story does not end here. Man can, if he chooses, alter the situation, turn the tables. He has in him the source of freedomwhat he vaguely feels in his outer consciousness; there is a centre from where he is capable of reacting and reasserting. It is the centre where lies his dharma, the law of his being. It is his soul. If he once comes in contact with that, makes that the base of his life, from that moment he is free. He holds his head erect. He is no longer bent down. The burden of inexorable circumstances weighs no more on him. He has transcended the circumstances, he stands over them, looks over them. He is now the master and they obey him, he has not to obey them.
This consummation is supremely effected when there is the double breaking of the barrier I was speaking about. The first is the piercing of the veil above, when the consciousness rises into the superconscient, takes the human being into the divine being; the second is the rending of the lower veil and the descent of the divine consciousness into the most material, the subconscient and the inconscient, realising the divine life on earth.
07.37 - The Psychic Being, Some Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I did not say it quite like that. The psychic being is not stupid. What happens may be described in this way: for example, suppose the psychic being has had the experience of the life of a writer. The function of the writer is to express himself, his perceptions and observations and judgements in words; he has a certain field, a certain range of associations and circumstances in which to live and move. But there are other fields and ranges beyond and outside of which he has no experience. So he may say to himself: I have lived with my head, I know something of the intellectual reactions to life: now let me live with my heart and experience the reactions of feeling and passion. Indeed, sometimes an overactivity of the intellect impoverishes the capacities of the heart. So the psychic being, in order to have this new kind of experience, abandons his intellectual heights, so to say, and comes down to the vital plane. He is no longer a creative genius, but an ordinary man, but with a heart enriched or enriching itself with its intense or generous movements. (One can remember in this connection the Story of Shankaracharya who being a Sannyasi from boyhood has had no experience of love: he entered the body of a king in order to gather this experience.) It is not rare to see psychic beings that have reached the maximum of their growth in certain directions, take up a very modest and ordinary life in some other new direction or for some other purpose. One who was a king, for example, as I already narrated once, who has had the experiences of power and authority and domination, the imperial heights, may choose to descend to ordinary life, to work as an obscure person without being troubled by the pomps of high position; he may choose very bourgeois surroundings, very humdrum conditions among humdrum men and things, to procure, so to say, a kind of incognito so that he may work in peace and quite. Can you say it is a decline and a fall? It is only facing life, meeting its problems from another angle, another point of view. You must know that for consciousness, the true consciousness the consciousness of the psychicglory and obscurity are the same, success and failure are the same. What is important is the growth of consciousness. Certain conditions which to your human eye appear favourable, may in reality be quiet unfavourable for the growth of consciousness. With your ordinary thoughts and your ordinary reactions you judge everything according to success and failure. But that is the very last way of judging, for it is the most artificial, most superficial and absolutely contrary to truth. In human life, as it is organised at present, it is perhaps only once in a million cases, or even less than that, that truth is given the first place; always there is an element of show mixed up. When a man has success, much success, you may be sure there is mixed up with it as much show.
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07.38 - Past Lives and the Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Most people are not at all conscious of what is happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of mental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a few, very few indeed, who are consciousconscious of what is beyond the three, viz, their psychic being. For it is only that element which endures, persists through successive lives. Certain people have known or learnt some rudiments of the matterwho believe in rebirth, but conceive it in the most childish manner. Their idea is as if the person changed his body like a robe. There are persons even who have written books describing seriously all the lives they had passed through since the time they were monkeys! As I have said, it is the psychic element alone that persists after death, all the rest gets dissolved. And in 999 cases out of 1,000, the psychic is a very small formation lying behind and taking little part in the actual life of the person. I speak of the average man, not of the Yogi, that is to say, one who has a developed psychic being to the extent that it is capable of controlling and guiding the outer life. How often does an ordinary man get in contact with his psychic being? Years and years pass for many or most to have just a passing taste of this movement. It is this moment that abides and is carried over to the next life, all other things are simply effaced. At a given point of our life, there comes a special circumstance, there is a call within, an absolute inner necessity that brings forward the psychic and the contact is made perhaps for an instant. That experience is preserved in the psychic memory. More than the outer circumstances and the physical events, however, what is cherished in the consciousness is the intimate emotion, the vibration that accompanied the perception at the time. At the most, a word said, a phrase heard, just a passing scene is all that is stored, net and clear, engraved as it were. But above all it is the soul's state that is the most important thing. I t is these scattered elements that serve as stepping-stones or sign-posts on the soul's forward journey. They are the constants that build up the personality of a man. On rare occasions there is a larger clearing, the circumstances preserved are sufficiently definite to point to a date and a historical person. Usually, however, one cannot say, I was such a person, I lived in such a country or did such things. These psychic flashes, more in some cases, less in others, are the only genuine and au thentic records of the Story of a person's lives.
It is a being who is completely identified with his psychic, who has organised his whole person, in all its parts, around this centre, in fact, a being of one piece, entirely and solely turned to the Divine that can alone remember or hold in his consciousness something like a totality of his personal history. For in his case even when the body drops, the other parts being integrated and taken up into the soul substance maintain their individual existence; the personality formed around the psychic continues to exist with its memory intact: even it can pass from one life to another without losing the consciousness.
07.40 - Service Human and Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Has it, I ask? You have tried to help a few people here and there. But what does it amount to compared to what needs to be done? The proverbial drop in the ocean or less than that even. You remember the Story of St. Vincent de Paul? He began giving alms to the poor. On the first day there were ten, on the second some twenty, on the third more than fifty and the number went on swelling in more than geometrical progression. And then? Colbert, the King's Minister, remarked seeing the plight of the saint: Our brother seems to be giving birth endlessly to his poor people.
I do not think that the spirit of charity has in any way improved human conditions. I do not see that men have become either more or less subject to disease and indigence than before. Charity was always there and misery has coexisted with it ever. I do not think the ratio between the two has diminished in any way. You remember the ironical but pertinent remark of someone who said in view of science's attempts to cure and remove misery: Poor philanthropists would be in a sad plight, their occupation will go! The true reason why one wishes to do charity is elsewhere, it is to please oneself, it is for self-satisfaction. It amuses you to do the thing: it gives you the sense that you are doing something, that you are a valuable member of humanity, not like the others, that you are somebody. What else all that is except that you are vain, full of self-importance, full of yourself? That is what I meant when I said that it is ambition or egoism that makes you humanitarian. Of course, if it pleases you to do the work, if you feel happy in doing it, you are at perfect liberty to do the work and continue. But do not imagine that you are doing any real or effective service to humanity; particularly do not imagine that by that you are serving God, leading a spiritual life or doing Yoga.
08.09 - Spirits in Trees, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but that was in the Story. It was a Christian legend and put in that way to illustrate a lesson. It was to show that if you are wicked you suffer even after death, that it is a virtuous life that saves you from misery. In reality, however, there is no question here of sin and punishment, it is not that spirits get attached to trees in order to be punished. When a person dies, his vital being leaves the body and goes out; but it finds itself in unfamiliar and inhospitable surroundings, especially if there is no one, none among his friends and relatives upon earth, to help him in the proper way, to guide or protect him in the new country where there are hostile beings to harm. In such a situation a tree is often a very ready shelter, a big old tree with friendly branches spread out, possessing a strong vitality. It is the sap, the elements of water coursing in the substance of the tree, that is to say, the support of its life-power, to which the vital being of the dead man is drawn as its physical support and shelter. There is no question of forced imprisonment and a desire to be freed.
Are they not harmful, these spirits?
08.25 - Meat-Eating, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I will tell you then a story. I knew a young woman, Swedish, who was doing Sadhana. Normally she was a vegetarian, by habit as well as by inclination. One day she was invited to a dinner. She was given fowl to eat. She did not like to make a fuss and quietly ate her fowl. Now at night she found herself, in dream of course, in a basket and her head in between two bits of sticks and being shaken to and fro. She felt very unhappy, very miserable. And then she saw herself head down and legs up in the air and being shaken, shaken continually. She was thoroughly miserable. All on a sudden she felt she was being skinned, flayed and how painful it all was! And then someone came with a knife and cut off her head. She woke up at that. She told me the Story and said she had never had such a frightful nightmare in her life. She had thought nothing of this kind before going to bed; it must have been simply the consciousness of the poor chicken that entered into her and she experienced in dream all the agonies of this creature when it was being carried to the market, her feathers pulled out and in the end the head severed. That is what happens. In other words, along with the meal that you take, you absorb also, in a large or small measure, the consciousness of the animal whose flesh you swallow. Of course it is nothing serious, but it is not always pleasant. Yet obviously it does not help you to be more on the side of man than on that of the animal kind. Primitive men, we know, were much nearer the animal level and used to take raw meat: that gave them evidently more strength and energy than cooked meat. They used to kill an animal, tear it to pieces and bite into the flesh. That is how they were robust and strong. Also it was for this reason perhaps that there was in their intestines an organ called appendix of a much bigger size than it is now: for it had to digest raw meat. As men however started cooking their food and found it more palatable that way the organ too gradually diminished in size and fell into atrophy; now it does not serve any purpose, it is an encumbrance and often a source of illness. This means that it is time to change the diet and take to something less bestial. It depends, however, on the state of the consciousness of each person. An ordinary man, who leads an ordinary life, has ordinary aspirations, thinks of nothing else than earning his livelihood, keeping good health and rearing a family, need not pick and choose, except on purely hygienic grounds. He may eat meat or anything else that he considers helpful and useful, doing good to him.
But if you wish to move from the ordinary life to a higher life, the problem acquires an interest. And again, for a higher life if you wish to move up still farther and prepare yourself for transformation, then the problem becomes very important. For there are certain foods that help the body to become more refined and others that keep it down to the level of animalhood. But it is only then that the question acquires an importance, not before. Before you come to that point, you have a lot of other things to do. It is certainly better to purify your mind, purify your vital before you think of purifying your body. For even if you take all possible precautions and live physically with every care to eat only the things that help to refine the body, but the mind and the vital remain full of desire and inconscience and obscurity and all the rest, your care will serve no purpose. Your body will become perhaps weak, disharmonious with your inner life and drop off one day.
09.03 - The Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a story in the Bible which I always liked. Two brothers were there, Esau and Jacob. Esau returns home hungry and tells his brother Jacob that he is very hungry. He was so hungry that he proposed to his brother, "Listen, if you give me your dish of pottage (Jacob had prepared a dish of pottage) I will give over to you my birthright." One can understand the Story in quite a superficial way. But it has a deeper meaning. The birthright is the right of being the son of God. And the man was ready to give up his divine right in order to eat because he was hungry. It is a very old story, but it is eternally true.
At its origin, the psychic begins by a kind of a divine spark within oneself, a spark of the divine consciousness. Out of this spark will slowly emerge an independent conscious being which will have its own action and its own will.
09.04 - The Divine Grace, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Psychic Being the Story of Love
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part NineThe Divine Grace
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The Psychic Being the Story of Love
09.05 - The Story of Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:09.05 - the Story of Love
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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the Story of Love
Love, in its essence, is the joy of identity. It finds its final expression in the felicity of union. Between the two there are all the phases that make up the universal manifestation.
09.06 - How Can Time Be a Friend?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
the Story of Love How to Become Indifferent to Criticism?
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part NineHow Can Time Be a Friend?
--
She was a militant personality and a great Buddhist luminary. When she came to India she wanted to see some of the great Indian sages, Gurus, that is to say, and she went to one of them I do not give you his namewho looked at her and asked her, as the talk was about Yoga and personal effort and all that, whether she was indifferent to criticism. She answered him in the classical expression: "Does one mind the barking of a dog?" She added, when she was narrating to me the Story, with much humour: "Happily, he did not ask me whether I was indifferent to praise for that is much more difficult!"
So then, you should not consider yourself superior to others and I shall tell you why; you must know that in a being, human or other, it is the consciousness that matters and you are either conscious or unconscious: you can consider yourself superior only when you are unconscious; the very moment you are conscious, truly conscious, you lose the sense of superiority or inferiority. In either case you must not feel superior, for it is smallness, pettiness; but you must be full of goodwill and sympathy and care little about what one says or does not say; however, be always polite, for it is always better to be polite than to be impolite. In that way you put yourself in relation with forces that are more harmonious and you can fight better against the forces of destruction and ugliness. But in reality you must rise above all that and feel yourself interested only in the Divine, in what He expects of you and in what to do for Him, for that is the only thing that counts. The rest has no importance.
--
the Story of Love How to Become Indifferent to Criticism?
1.007 - The Elevations, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
175. And relate to them the Story of him to whom We delivered Our signs, but he detached himself from them, so Satan went after him, and he became one of the perverts.
176. Had We willed, We could have elevated him through them; but he clung to the ground, and followed his desires. His metaphor is that of a dog: if you chase it, it pants; and if you leave it alone, it pants. Such is the metaphor of the people who deny Our signs. So tell the tale, so that they may ponder.
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
No, I will NOT recommend a book. It should not hurt you too much to browse on condensed hay (or thistles) such as articles in Encyclopedias. Take Roget's Thesaurus or Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary (and the like) to read yourself to sleep on. But don't stultify yourself by taking up such study too seriously. You only make yourself ridiculous by trying to do at 50 what you ought to have done at 15. As you didn't tant pis! You can't possibly get the spirit; if you could, it would mean merely mental indigestion. We have all read how Cato started to learn Greek at 90: but the Story stops there. We have never been told what good it did to himself or anyone else.
5. God-forms. See Magick pp. 378-9. Quite clear: quite adequate: no use at all without continual practice. No one can join with you --- off you go again! No, no, a thousand times no: this is the practice par excellence where you have to do it all yourself. The Vibration of God-names: that perhaps, I can at least test you in. But don't you dare come up for a test until you've been at it and hard for at least 100 exercises.
1.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
therefore, how the integral yoga leads to a supramental yoga, or yoga of terrestrial transformation, which we will try to outline only, because the Story is still in the making; it is quite new and difficult, and we do not quite know yet where it will take us, or even whether it will succeed.
That, in fact, depends a little upon us all.
1.00 - PREFACE - DESCENSUS AD INFERNOS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
swallow what I was being taught. I asked the minister, at one point, how he reconciled the Story of Genesis
with the creation theories of modern science. He had not undertaken such a reconciliation; furthermore, he
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
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.
The history of Christianity shows precisely the same remarkable fact. Jesus Christ was brought up on the fables to the Old Testament, and so was compelled to ascribe his experiences to Jehovah, although his gentle spirit could have had nothing in common with the monster who was always commanding the rape of virgins and the murder of little children, and whose rites were then, and still are, celebrated by human sacrifice.1
1.010 - Jonah, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
71. And relate to them the Story of Noah, when he said to his people, “O my people, if my presence among you and my reminding you of God’s signs is too much for you, then in God I have put my trust. So come to a decision, you and your partners, and do not let the matter perplex you; then carry out your decision on me, and do not hold back.”
72. “But if you turn away, I have not asked you for any wage. My wage falls only on God, and I was commanded to be of those who submit.”
10.12 - The Divine Grace and Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But instead of giving any boon, any treasure physical or material or even spiritual, however precious, instead of giving anything the Divine may give Himself to one who approaches Him; then it becomes something more than the Grace, it is Love, the Divine's LoveHis own Self. It is His own substance, His own delight of being that He gives, not anything external or extraneous. One remembers the Story of Arjuna and Duryodhana. Duryodhana approached Krishna and thought the utmost, the best that he could secure from Krishna was Krishna's battalions, for that seemed to him the most precious gift of all, for that is the thing he would need most in the coming battle. Arjuna asked for nothing else but Krishna Himself.
Grace is of Maheshwari, that is to say, it is the special attribute, a particular emanation of her own self, it is a form of herself in an attitude that belongs particularly to her. Love is of Mahalaxmi it is her own special form and gesture. Or, varying the image we may say Grace is Shiva, the benign white radiance on the supreme heights enveloping the creation in its calm immutable compassion; while Krishna is Love, the immortal delight dwelling in the heart of mortality.
1.014 - Abraham, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
9. Has not the Story reached you, of those before you, the people of Noah, and Aad, and Thamood—and those after them? None knows them except God. Their messengers came to them with the clear proofs, but they tried to silence them, and said, “We reject what you are sent with, and we are in serious doubt regarding what you are calling us to.”
10. Their messengers said, “Is there any doubt about God, Maker of the heavens and the earth? He calls you to forgive you your sins, and to defer you until a stated term.” They said, “You are only humans like us; you want to turn us away from what our ancestors worshiped; so bring us a clear proof.”
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
We remember that the Mother said that the Story about
what she usually called the accident, the fall into the4
--
meaning beneath the Story as told to children. Because of
the ill-begotten creation by the Demiurge, the divine mani-
1.01 - Maitreya inquires of his teacher (Parashara), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[12]: Sacrifice of Parāśara. the Story of Parāśara's birth is narrated in detail in the Mahābhārata (Ādi Parva, s. 176). King Kalmāṣapāda meeting with Sakti, the son of Vaśiṣṭha, in a narrow path in a thicket, desired him to stand out of his way. The sage refused: on which the Rāja beat him with his whip, and Sakti cursed him to become a Rākṣas, a man-devouring spirit. The Rāja in this transformation killed and ate its author, or Sakti, together with all the other sons of Vaśiṣṭha. Sakti left his wife Adriśyantī pregnant, and she gave birth to Parāśara, who was brought up by p. 5 his grandfather. When he grew up, and was informed of his father's death, he instituted a sacrifice for the destruction of all the Rākṣasas; but was dissuaded from its completion by Vaśiṣṭha and other sages or Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha, and Kratu. The Mahābhārata adds, that when he desisted from the rite, he scattered the remaining sacrificial fire upon the northern face of the Himālaya mountain, where it still blazes forth at the phases of the moon, consuming Rākṣasas, forests, and mountains. The legend alludes possibly to some transhimalayan volcano. The transformation of Kalmāṣapāda is ascribed in other places to a different cause; but he is every where regarded as the devourer of Sakti or Saktri, as the name also occurs. the Story is told in the Li
ga Purāṇa (Pūrvārddha, s. 64) in the same manner, with the addition, conformably to the Saiva tendency of that work, that Parāśara begins his sacrifice by propitiating Mahādeva. Vaśiṣṭha's dissuasion, and Pulastya's appearance, are given in the very words of our text; and the Story concludes, 'thus through the favour of Pulastya and of the wise Vaśiṣṭha, Parāśara composed the Vaiṣṇava (Viṣṇu) Purāṇa, containing ten thousand stanzas, and being the third of the Purāṇa compilations' (Purāṇasanhitā). The Bhāgavata (b. III. s. 8) also alludes, though obscurely, to this legend. In recapitulating the succession of the narrators of part of the Bhāgavata, Maitreya states that this first Purāṇa was communicated to him by his Guru Parāśara, as he had been desired by Pulastya: i. e. according to the commentator, agreeably to the boon given by Pulastya to Parāśara, saying, You shall be a narrator of Purāṇas;. The Mahābhārata makes no mention of the communication of this faculty to Parāśara by Pulastya; and as the Bhāgavata could not derive this particular from that source, it here most probably refers unavowedly, as the Li
ga does avowedly, to the Viṣṇu Purāṇa.
1.01 - The King of the Wood, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
express purpose of ensuring good crops. In the Story of the tragic
death of the youthful Hippolytus we may discern an analogy with
1.01 - THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
and a ' chemistry ' of the heavens inevitably extend the Story of
the atoms ?
1.01 - The Unexpected, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
When Dr. Manilal arrived after his breakfast, he asked Sri Aurobindo how he felt. There was no complaint and the answer was brief. Soon after, Dr. Rao arrived. On hearing the Story of the fall he proposed that an orthopaedic surgeon from Madras be called for consultation. He had a friend Dr. Narasimha Ayer, well known for his efficiency. The Mother approved and he left for Madras.
We now had nothing else to do except wait. The day rolled on. We were counting hours and minutes for Dr. Rao's return. Any sound of a car horn would make us run to the window. Pondicherry in 1938 was, by the way, far from what it is today. The number of cars could almost be counted and they drove by at long intervals, So we could easily be deceived by the sound of a horn, particularly in our anxious anticipation. Dr. Manilal would give us fatherly admonition not to be so restless, both his age and experience must have taught him some samat and an objective outlook on things. Meanwhile, Sri Aurobindo, the divine patient, was lying quietly in his spacious bed, apparently quite at ease. To Dr. Manilal's occasional enquiries he gave monosyllabic answers, and the rest of us were perhaps nothing more than shadowy forms moving about, having no names and awaking no interest. Only when the Mother came from time to time and asked with a sweet smile, "Is it paining you?" we saw some difference on an otherwise impassive face! At last after many deceptions, we were informed that the doctors had arrived. It was evening. They explained that they were delayed because they wanted an expert radiologist friend to accompany them, and when he was hunted down in the labyrinthine Madras metropolis, the radiologist agreed to follow soon.
--
Another thing that required medical attention was the proper functioning of the bowels. Their habit was deranged, and a constant flat position added to the difficulty. Various medical remedies were proposed, all of which were vetoed. Here Sri Aurobindo was more positive. He explained that he had not been accustomed to taking any medical accessories for years and years, all his ailments he had cured by the application of spiritual Force. We argued that trifal, for instance, could hardly be called a medicine, it was a compound made of three fruits. Since the argument did not work, we asked, "Why not apply the Force then?" "Well," he replied, "not that I am not doing it, but the body is not accustomed to receive the Force in this position." He added with a smile, "It is a tamasic position, and I feel too lazy to apply the Force." We all laughed to hear this candid admission. Soon however the body did learn to respond, and there was no further trouble on that score. Of course, there were fluctuations and he used to remark, "It is like the Story of helping too much or too little." When we failed to grasp the allusion, he explained it at length. the Story goes like this: During the Boer War two soldiers were running away on horseback. One of them was somewhat short and plump. He fell down from the horse. Finding it difficult to mount up, and the enemies hotly pursuing, he made a prayer: "Oh God, help me to my saddle!" and gave a big jump. He fell not on the saddle, but on the other side, and was caught. He exclaimed: "Thou hast helped me too much!" Since then the joke has become proverbial among us.
One minor trouble that worried us was the early appearance of bedsores. They took some time to heal and it needed rubber cushions to protect the back from further damage. Sri Aurobindo enquired daily about the condition. From then on, he started taking an active interest in his health in every detail.
1.01 - To Watanabe Sukefusa, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
There is also the Story of a priest who was passing an old shrine late one night and saw crowds of tall, strange-looking people within the precincts. Their heads were wrapped in yellow silk and they were sweeping and cleaning the approaches to the shrine with sacred branches of the sakaki tree.
They kept working through the night, muttering words like, "Ahh! How disgusting," and "Oh! How unclean." Approaching them, the priest said, "Why are you cleaning and purifying this place with such great care?"
--
In contrast to these terrible tales of retri bution, there are also accounts of children who thanks to heaven's miraculous intervention were enabled to carry out acts of great filial devotion: the Story of a rare medicinal stone suddenly appearing in the garden of a son who needed it to cure an ailing father; of midwinter ice breaking up and fresh carp leaping into the arms of a son whose stepmo ther had a craving for minced fish; of a poor man whose shovel struck a cauldron filled with gold as he was about to bury his child alive to ensure his mother would be adequately fed; of bamboo shoots emerging in midwinter for a son anxious to feed them to his mother; of a carp-filled fountain gushing up in the garden of a son who wanted to satisfy his mother's yearning for fine water and minced fish.
But even if you don't perform acts of filial devotion like these, of a caliber that elicits heavenly intervention, I devoutly hope you do not commit acts of an unfilial nature that will bring punishment down upon you. A person who ignores or refuses to acknowledge what takes place right under his nose and insists on merely doing as he pleases must be either a stupid man or an evil one.
1.01 - What is Magick?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
At least I need not waste any time on telling you what Magick is not; or to go into the Story of how the word came to be misapplied to conjuring tricks, and to sham miracles such as are to this day foisted by charlatan swindlers, either within or without the Roman Communion, upon a gaping crew of pious imbeciles.
First let me go all Euclidean, and rub your nose in the Definition, Postulate and Theorems given in my comprehensive (but, alas! too advanced and too technical) Treatise on the subject.[1] Here we are!
1.020 - Ta-Ha, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
9. Has the Story of Moses reached you?
10. When he saw a fire, he said to his family, “Stay; I have noticed a fire; Perhaps I can bring you a torch therefrom, or find some guidance by the fire.”
1.026 - The Poets, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
69. And relate to them the Story of Abraham.
70. When he said to his father and his people, “What do you worship?”
1.028 - Bringing About Whole-Souled Dedication, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The other point is that this practice will not bring results in only a few days. Sa tu drghakla nairantarya satkra sevita dhabhmi (I.14), says Patanjali. In many cases the result will not follow at all, due to obstructing prarabdhas. There were great seekers, sadhakas, who used to perform japa purascharana, the chanting of a mantra, for years and years together, with the hope of having the vision of the deity. But they had no vision of the deity. We hear of the Story of the purascharanas performed by Sage Vidyaranya of yore, Yogi Sri Madhusudana Saraswati and others, but they had no vision. The reason mentioned is that they had obstructing prarabdhas.
We have three kinds of prarabdha the tamasica, the rajasica and the sattvica. The tamasica and rajasica prarabdhas will not allow even the rise of aspiration for God. The tamasica prarabdha will always bring the most intense form of obstacles, including a mood of lethargy, indolence, sleepiness, and even doubt of the possibility of gaining any such realisation at all, as yoga promises. Atheism, materialism and lack of faith are due to the working of tamasica prarabdhas. As long as these types of prarabdha function, as long as the tamasica prarabdhas are active, there is no question of the practice of yoga we can do nothing.
1.028 - History, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
25. Then, one of the two women approached him, walking bashfully. She said, “My father is calling you, to reward you for drawing water for us.” And when he came to him, and told him the Story, he said, “Do not fear, you have escaped from the wrongdoing people.”
26. One of the two women said, “Father, hire him; the best employee for you is the strong and trustworthy.”
1.02 - BOOK THE SECOND, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
And, if the Story may deserve belief,
The space of one whole day is said to run,
--
Was once a maid (by Heav'n the Story's true)
A blooming maid, and a king's daughter too.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
regarded as axiomatic, for the purposes of the current operation), has been violated. the Story go
downstairs to eat only retained its function in an environment characterized by valid means of betweenfloor transportation. The existence of these means constituted a given I had used the elevator or the stairs
--
evidence for the incomplete nature of the Story currently guiding such behavior comprises evidence for
error at the level of working description of current state, representation of desired future state, or
--
greatest possible degree). the Story appears generated, in its initial stages, by the capacity for imagery and
pattern recognition characteristic of the right hemisphere, which is integrally involved in narrative
--
linguistic systems finish the Story: adding logic, proper temporal order, internal consistency, verbal
representation, and possibility for rapid abstract explicit communication. In this way, our explicit
--
fantasy for the Story. It is the left hemisphere that gives these patterns structure and communicability (as
it does, for example, when it interprets a painting, a novel, a drama, a conversation or a dream). The
--
of the Story or, more fundamentally, the myth. Myths describing the known, explored territory, constitute
what we know about our knowing how, before we can state, explicitly, what it is that we know how. Myth
--
impersonal worlds of experience. We learn the Story, which we do not understand (which is to say, cannot
make explicit), by watching. We represent the action patterns we encounter in action that is, in ritual
--
(which means, to ritually identify with or unconsciously adopt the Story of another). (This means the
ability to adopt someone elses goal, as if it were yours.175) The capacity to act as if expresses itself in
--
it could be said that the words of the Story merely act as a retrieval cue for information already in the
mnestic system (of the listener), although perhaps not yet transformed into a form capable either of explicit
--
imagination of the audience constitutes analysis of the moral of the Story. Transmission of that moral
that rule for behavior, or representation is the purpose of narrative, just as fascination, involuntary seizure
of interest, is its (biologically-predetermined) means. With development of the Story, mere description of
critically important (and therefore compelling) behavioral/representational patterns becomes able to
--
literature are always polysemic, in this manner: the characters within the Story stand in the same
relationship to one another as things of more general significance stand to one another, in the broader
--
form of the Story, which describes the valence of present occurrences, the form of the desired future, and
the means that might serve usefully to transform the former into the latter. Any territories our stories serve
--
to devour their children. This is a common mythological occurrence; one echoed later in the Story of
Yahweh, Noah and the Flood. The gods give birth to the cosmos, but ceaselessly attempt to destroy it.
--
house he brings his bride, Damkina, who soon gives birth to Marduk, the hero of the Story, the wisest of
the wise, the wisest of the gods,232 filled with awe-inspiring majesty.233 When Ea saw his son:
--
giving him the tablet of destinies236 to signify his ascension and dominion. the Story continues:
After Tiamat had made strong preparations,
--
sun. 245 Marduk is clearly part of the pantheon who eternally vanquish the dragon of the night. the Story
continues:
--
all represent different ways of telling the same story the Story which describes a life-threatening
imbalance in the powers of the constituent elements of experience. Eliade continues, describing the
--
in the central myth of Osiris, which served as an alternate basis for Egyptian theology. the Story of
Osiris, and his son Horus, is much more complex, in some ways, than the Mesopotamian creation myth, or
--
eye in the process. Seth is overcome, nonetheless; Horus recovers his eye. the Story could quit there,
narrative integrity intact, with the now-whole and victorious Horus well-deserved ascension to the throne.
--
In the Story of Osiris, the senescence/death of the father (presented as a consequence of the treachery of
Seth) is overcome by the mythic son, the hero who (temporarily) defeats the power of evil, and who
--
ignored the Story, however with predictable results.
Cock-a-doodle-doo
--
behavior characteristic of the hero that eventually comes to approximate the Story of the savior. Behind
every particular (that is, historical) adventurer, explorer, creator, revolutionary and peacemaker lurks the
--
hero of the Story, is a simple tailor. He courageously aids a wounded gypsy that is, acts humanely towards
an outsider, a stranger, a personified emissary of chaos. In return, the gypsy provides him with
--
This fairy-tale constitutes a specific example of a more general type of story: that is, the Story of the
god who binds.345 The god who binds might be Marduk, who encloses Tiamat in a net given to him by
--
elder brothers, will inevitably encounter trouble). the Story continues:
The Prince thanked him, took the rod and the loaves, and set off. When he reached the castle all was
--
negative forces. The loaf is magical, in the same manner as the loaves and fishes in the Story of Christs
miraculous provendor:
--
Back to the Story: the dwarf tells the Prince where his brothers can be found warning him that they
have bad hearts, and should be left to their fate. The young Prince seeks them out, nevertheless, rescues
--
One is the Story of Naboth who, because he refused to turn over his family vineyard to King Ahab, was
framed on false charges of blasphemy and subversion and then stoned; as blasphemy was a capital
--
the Story carries revolutionary significance for human history, for it is the Story of how someone
without official position took the side of a wronged man and denounced a king to his face on grounds of
1.02 - On detachment, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
3 I.e. the Story of the rich young man.
4 St. Matthew v, 312.
1.02 - The 7 Habits An Overview, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
This fable is the Story of a poor farmer who one day discovers in the nest of his pet goose a glittering golden egg. At first, he thinks it must be some kind of trick. But as he starts to throw the egg aside, he has second thoughts and takes it in to be appraised instead.
The egg is pure gold! The farmer can't believe his good fortune. He becomes even more incredulous the following day when the experience is repeated. Day after day, he awakens to rush to the nest and find another golden egg. He becomes fabulously wealthy; it all seems too good to be true.
--
But as the Story shows, true effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose).
If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won't have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose.
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
18 Cf. Georges Van Vrekhem: Beyond Man and The Mother - the Story
of Her Life.42
1.02 - The Divine Teacher, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Kurukshetra may be something more than a dramatic fiction. In the Mahabharata Krishna is represented both as the historical character and the Avatar; his worship and Avatarhood must therefore have been well established by the time - apparently from the fifth to the first centuries B.C. - when the old story and poem or epic tradition of the Bharatas took its present form. There is a hint also in the poem of the Story or legend of the Avatar's early life in Vrindavan which, as developed by the Puranas into an intense and powerful spiritual symbol, has exercised so profound an influence on the religious mind of
India. We have also in the Harivansha an account of the life of
1.02 - The Necessity of Magick for All, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
But this is only part of the Story. As things are, we have all adventured into an Universe of immeasurable, of incalculable, possibilities, of situations never contemplated by the trend of Evolution. Man is a marine monster; when he decided that it would be better for him somehow to live on land, he had to grow lungs instead of gills. When we want to travel over soft snow, we have to invent ski; when we wish to exchange thoughts, we must arrange a conventional code of sounds, of knots in string, of carved or written characters in a word embark upon the boundless ocean of hieroglyphics or symbols of one sort or another. (Presently I shall have to explain the supreme importance of such systems; in fact, the Universe itself is not, and cannot be, anything but an arrangement of symbolic characters!)
Here we are, then, caught in a net of circumstances; if we are to do anything at all beyond automatic vegetative living, we must consciously apply ourselves to Magick, "the Science and Art" (let me remind you!) "of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will." Observe that the least slackness or error means that things happen which do not thus conform; when this is so despite our efforts, we are (temporarily) baffled; when it is our own ignorance of what we ought to will, or lack of skill in adapting our means to the right end, then we set up a conflict in our own Nature: our act is suicidal. Such interior struggle is at the base of nearly all neuroses, as Freud recently "discovered" as if this had not been taught, and taught without his massed errors, by the great teachers of the past! The Taoist doctrine, in particular, is most precise and most emphatic on this point; indeed, it may seem to some of us to overshoot the mark; for nothing is permissible in that scheme but frictionless adjustment and adaptation to circumstance. "Benevolence and righteousness" are actually deprecated! That any such ideas should ever have existed (says Lao-tse) is merely evidence of the universal disorder.
1.02 - The Refusal of the Call, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
"He would have said more," the Story goes, "but the maiden pursued her frightened way and left him with words unfinished, even in her desertion seeming fair. The winds bared her limbs, the opposing breezes set her garments aflutter as she ran, and a light air flung her locks streaming behind her. Her beauty was en hanced by flight. But the chase drew to an end, for the youthful god would not longer waste his time in coaxing words, and, urged on by love, he pursued at utmost speed. Just as when a Gallic hound has seen a hare in an open plain, and seeks his prey on fly ing feet, but the hare, safety; he, just about to fasten on her, now, even now thinks he has her, and grazes her very heels with his out stretched muzzle; but she knows not whether or not she be already caught, and barely escapes from those sharp fangs and leaves be hind the jaws just closing on her: so ran the god and maid, he sped by hope and she by fear. But he ran the more swiftly, borne on the wings of love, gave her no time to rest, hung over her fleeing shoulders and breathed on the hair that streamed over her neck.
Now was her strength all gone, and, pale with fear and utterly overcome by the toil of her swift flight, seeing the waters of her fa ther's river near, she cried: 'O father, help! If your waters hold di vinity, change and destroy this beauty by which I pleased o'er well.' Scarce had she thus prayed when a down-dragging numb ness seized her limbs, and her soft sides were begirt with thin bark. Her hair was changed to leaves, her arms to branches. Her feet, but now so swift, grew fast in sluggish roots, and her head was now but a tree's top. Her gleaming beauty alone remained."
1.02 - THE WITHIN OF THINGS, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
In sum, all the rest of this essay wiLl be nothing but the Story
of the struggle in the universe between the unified multiple and
10.37 - The Golden Bridge, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, that is the hiatus, the inadequacy that still cripples and stultifies the mind, the physical mind in its attempt to seize other realities beyond. It is the mind which gives the formal structure, the pattern of expression in the material frame. The mind being bound to the life of the ignorant and outgoing senses is constitutionally incapable of receiving or holding or expressing facts of the higher life, the life beyondwhat we name as the spiritual or the divine. Not only so, the mind in trying to express the higher or supraterrestrial truths inevitably diminishes, dilutes, devalues, even negates and annuls them. The attempt through parables and allegories is the Story of the difficulty the impossibility of expressing through the mind truths beyond the mind. We land into the weird and confused worlds of myths and mythologies,myths and mythologies for example about popular Radha and Krishna, and Kali or Shiva. We are compelled to reduce to our human measures, to accentuate our human failings in order to present graphically to us the inexpressible intensities or extensions of the high experiences above. The Vaishnava lyrics or the songs of Solomon become to us high spiritual documents.
Man started his life on earth as an animal and is still continuing to be so in a large measure: his mental equipment also was almost wholly conditioned by the necessities of such a situation: his language, his culture even built upon an outward view of things, upon the mode and manner of his physical reactions to impacts of the gross outward world, the brute objects of physical life.
1.038 - Saad, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
21. Has the Story of the two disputants reached you? When they scaled the sanctuary?
22. When they entered upon David, and he was startled by them. They said, “Do not fear. Two disputants; one of us has wronged the other; so judge between us fairly, and do not be biased, and guide us to the straight way.”
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
We are all familiar with the Story of benevolent nature, threatened by the rapacious forces of the corrupt
individual and the society of the machine. The plot is solid, the characters believable but Mother Nature
is also malarial mosquitoes, parasitical worms, cancer and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. the Story of
peaceful and orderly tradition, undermined by the incautious and decadent (with the ever-present threat of
--
We have all heard and identified with the Story of the brave pioneer, additionally plough in hand,
determined to wrest the good life and the stable state from the intransigent forces of nature although we
--
We all know, finally, the Story of the benevolent individual, genuine and innocent, denied access to the
nourishing forces of the true and natural world, corrupted by the unreasonable strictures of society. This
--
characters of the Story, and to deny their association with the negative. Ideologies are also powerful, and
dangerous. Their power stems from their incomplete but effective appropriation of mythological ideas.
--
part of the Story and they tell that part as if it were complete. This means that they do not take into
account vast stretches of the world. It is incautious to act in the world, as if only a set of its constituent
1.03 - Invocation of Tara, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
Tara's tentor was, for example, mentioned in the Story of
Mr. Lhawang's mother. What is its use?
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
14 In The Mother - the Story of Her Life, Georges Van Vrekhem has the
following footnote on p. 466: It would indeed be easy to concoct a sec-
1.03 - The House Of The Lord, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
One thing that we noticed was that unless the Mother served him in this way, he would lose all distinction between different preparations and would not know which to take first and in which order. Very probably he would have gone half-fed. On one occasion we saw him eating a whole cooked green chilly before we could cry halt! Of course, what was one chilly for him who is said in the old days to have taken a lump of opium with impunity! We have also seen him finishing his meal somehow, if for some reason the Mother could not be present and Champaklal had to serve instead. the Story goes that once Mridu's dish went back without being touched by Sri Aurobindo, and she raised a storm. Sri Aurobindo had to quiet her with the plea that the Mother being absent he did not know what he had taken or what he had not. On another occasion Sri Aurobindo's meal being over earlier than usual, Mridu's dish arrived late and was left untouched. As soon as she heard about it she began to wail "like a new-born babe" as if she would bring down the whole Ashram by her lamentations. Dr. Manilal reported the fact to Sri Aurobindo and he asked, "How did she know about it?" I replied apologetically, "I told her." He said softly, "These things should not be said;" then he added with a smile, "but it is I who ought to lament for having missed her fine dish." We all had a good laugh.
One regular interlude during his meal was the arrival of our rampageous _luchi-_maker, Mridu. I do not know how she obtained this exceptional privilege. She would come like an innocent lamb with incense and flowers, kneel down in front of the door and wait with folded hands for her "father's blessings". On our drawing Sri Aurobindo's attention to her presence, he would stop eating and cast a quiet glance at her. Her boisterous, unruly nature, would become humble for a while before Sri Aurobindo! Whenever it was reported that she had manifested her violent temper, which was not infrequent, she was threatened with the loss of this darshan! (I may add here the name of another recipient of Sri Aurobindo's special favour Bansidhar, Champaklal's brother. He used to bring, for Sri Aurobindo's sponge-bath, two buckets of hot water at a fixed time. While going, he would do pranam to him from a distance and Sri Aurobindo would stop whatever work he was doing and bless him with a glance.)
--
Sri Aurobindo, we were told, used to take his bath about midnight with very hot water, all the year round mixing very little cold water, even for the head. the Story is quite believable, for we were asked to pour extremely hot water on the fractured leg to cure the occasional itching he had. "A very drastic, but effective method," he pronounced with a smile, "but not many could bear such heat." Sometimes while returning from the bath, he was seen moving his lips as though murmuring something. It prompted Champaklal to suggest to him that if he wanted to dictate some lines of poetry, I would be willing to take them down. His intuition was correct. For a few days Sri Aurobindo did dictate verses and then stopped. Perhaps he felt that I must be given rest before I resumed my next round of duty.
There was another tiny operation he allowed us to do, the cutting of his nails. Satyendra used to clean them daily, but we cut them only every month or two after they had grown sufficiently long and could be preserved intact. It was a very delicate operation, for the knife or scissors would sometimes graze the skin, specially when the operator's eyesight was affected. When this did happen which was fortunately very rare he would give a quick shake to the leg! When a small bit of nail fell on the carpet and got lost, a search would start for the quarry in which Sri Aurobindo himself smilingly participated, asking, "Have you got it?" All these nails, like the hair, were the legitimate property of our custodian Champaklal.
1.03 - THE ORPHAN, THE WIDOW, AND THE MOON, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[17] In Christian tradition the widow signifies the Church; in St. Gregory108 the analogy is the Story of the widows cruse of oil (II Kings 4). St. Augustine says: The whole Church is one widow, desolate in this world.109 She lacketh a husband, lacketh a man, for her bridegroom has not yet come. So too the soul is destitute in the world. But, Augustine continues, thou art not an orphan, thou art not reckoned as a widow . . . Thou hast a friend . . . Thou art Gods orphan, Gods widow.110
[18] Another tradition to be considered in regard to the widow is the Cabala. There the abandoned Malchuth is the widow, as Knorr von Rosenroth says: [Almanah] Widow. This is Malchuth, when Tifereth is not with her.111 Tifereth112 is the son113 and is interpreted by Reuchlin as the Microcosm. Malchuth114 is Domina, the Mistress.115 She is also called Shekinah,116 the indwelling (of God), and virago.117 The Sefira Tifereth is the King, and in the usual arrangement of the Sefiroth he occupies the second place:
1.03 - The Tale of the Alchemist Who Sold His Soul, #The Castle of Crossed Destinies, #Italo Calvino, #Fiction
But when would the established price be collected by the Cloven Contracting Party? the Story's two final cards were already on the table, placed there by the first narrator: the Two of Swords and Temperance. At the gates of the City of Gold armed guards blocked the way to anyone who wished to enter, to prevent access to the Cloven-hooved Collector, no matter in what guise he might turn up. And even if a simple maiden, like the one in the last card, were to approach, the guards made her halt.
"You lock your gates in vain"-this was the answer that could be expected from the water-bearer. "I take care not to enter a City where all is of solid metal. We who live in what is fluid visit only elements that flow and mingle."
1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Oh. I am thrilled to hear the Story!"
DEVOTEE: "The brahmin said: 'I am in a hurry. It will take you some time to get out of the boat. Good-bye. Remember this path and come after me.
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
the context of the Story, which is description of episodic representation of events and behaviors has this
deceptively simple, yet infinitely meaningful triggering property:
--
It is not merely the Story which is saturated with meaning; it is imagination, behavior and the practical
consequences of imagination and behavior, as well. The individual ideas, particular fantasies and personal
--
The myth of the Buddha is the Story of individual development, considered in the ideal. the Story opens
with Gautamas father, shielding his child from the dangers of the world much as any child in a healthy
--
(Voluntary) Descent of the Buddha. the Story of Gautamas maturation details the consequential
contamination of existence with unbearable anxiety; describes the association, in potential, even of beauty
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The Mother now began to identify herself more and more with this new generation. In the evening when Sri Aurobindo was enjoying his solitude, the Mother, after her tennis, busied herself in the Playground meeting the children, watching their games and exercises, taking classes, etc. and through all these means, establishing an intimate contact with them. The exercises were done in cumbersome pyjamas which consequently checked free movement. One evening when I went to visit the Playground, I found the gate closed. The gate-keeper told me that the Mother did not want anyone except the group-members to enter the Playground. When it was thrown open we found, to our surprise, that the girls were doing exercises in shorts! How did this revolutionary change come about? Here, in brief, is the Story from one who played an active part in it. One day, one of the girls, doing her exercises in pyjamas in the Playground, fell down and got hurt owing to the impractical dress. When the Mother was told about it, she listened quietly. After a couple of days, she called Bratati, one of the sadhikas of her intimate circle (she had such small intimate groups of young boys, girls and adults) and said, "I have solved the problem of the uniform. The girls will put on white shorts, a white shirt and a kitty-cap on the head for their hair. Prepare them and try them on yourself. Pyjamas are unwieldy. When you are ready, let me know about it." When everything was ready, she informed the Mother and a day was fixed for the rehearsal in strict privacy. The Mother was pleased with the design. Calling the girls together she gave a short impressive talk on the new experiment and the necessity for trying it. They at once fell in with the proposal and adopted the new uniform. But what was the reaction to this drastic step? Some, particularly old people, were shocked to see their daughters scantily dressed and doing exercises jointly with boys; a few conservative guardians were planning to take their wards away from such a modernised Ashram. I, personally, admired, on the one hand, the revolutionary step taken by the Mother far in advance of the time in Eastern countries, in anticipation of the modern movement in dress; on the other hand, my cautious mind, or as Sri Aurobindo would say, my coward-mind, could not but feel the risk involved in this forward venture. At the same time I knew that the Mother's very nature is to face danger, if necessary. And whenever we had tried to argue with her that we were doing things which were not done outside, she replied sharply, "Why should we follow the others? They have no ideas, we have ideas. I have come to break down old conventions and superstitions." Besides, whatever measures she adopts are not done for the sake of novelty or from mental reasons. "Mother is guided by her intuition," Sri Aurobindo reminded us very often. Also, I believe, she prepares the ground in the occult planes and manipulates the forces to her advantage before she takes any hazardous step. That is why we hear her say, "Wait, wait!" for the opportune moment, I suppose. We can realise now the wisdom of her vision in taking that revolutionary step. Further, I think it was one of the most effective means to eliminate sex-consciousness between the male and the female. We are in this respect much better than before now that shorts have become almost our normal dress.
To cut short the Story, thanks to her long and sustained labour, these two institutions have gained today their well-deserved recognition abroad; particularly the physical culture. On the occasion of the April Darshan in 1949, the members of this organisation called J.S.A.S.A.[^7] were given the privilege of a march past in their group uniforms before the Master and the Mother. Sri Aurobindo seemed to have been much impressed by the smartness of the young boys' group.
The Mother became so preoccupied with the various activities in the Playground that she would return at about 8 or 9 p.m. with a garland around her neck (put by Pranab) and she would offer it at Sri Aurobindo's feet. Her intensive concentration at the Playground made people remark that the Supermind would descend there first. When Sri Aurobindo was told about it, he commented, "I won't get the Supermind, then?" It is of interest to note that the Supramental Manifestation did take place during a meditation in the Playground on February 29, 1956.
1.04 - The Praise, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
These two lines also make allusion to the Story in
which Tara would have appeared from a tear drop of
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
The Transition We are thus in search of another country; but, we must admit, between the one we leave behind and the one we have not yet reached, there is a rather uncomfortable no-man's-land. It is a period of trial, whose length depends upon our own determination; but, as we know, from time immemorial, from the Eastern, Egyptian, or Orphic initiations to the quest for the Holy Grail, the Story of man's ascent has always been attended by trials. In the past they were mainly romantic. What was so earthshaking, after all, about getting oneself sealed in a sarcophagus while the fifes were playing, or celebrating one's own funeral rites around a pyre? Today the sarcophagi have become public, and some human lives are a kind of burial. It is therefore worthwhile to make 33
The Synthesis of Yoga, 20:86
1.051 - The Spreaders, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
24. Has the Story of Abraham’s honorable guests reached you?
25. When they entered upon him, they said, “Peace.” He said, “Peace, strangers.”
1.05 - On painstaking and true repentance which constitute the life of the holy convicts; and about the prison., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
Gather together and come near, all you who have angered God; come and listen to what I expound to you; assemble and see what He has revealed to my soul for your edification. Let us give first place and first honour to the Story of the dishonoured yet honoured workers. Let all of us who have suffered an unexpected and inglorious fall listen, watch and act. Rise and be seated, you who through your falls are lying prostrate. Attend, my brothers, attend to my word. Incline your ears, you who wish to be reconciled afresh with God by a true conversion.
Weak as I am, I heard that there was a certain powerful and strange way of life and humility for those living in a separate monastic establishment called The Prison which was under the authority of the above-mentioned man, that light of lights. So when I was still staying there I asked the good man to allow me to visit it. And the great man, never wishing to grieve a soul in any way, agreed to my request.
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
terrifying Jesuit sermon on the wages of sin). All I knew was the outline of the Story codified by Milton:
Satan, the highest angel in Gods heavenly hierarchy, desired to become like the Most High, and fostered a
--
tell the Story to every chance newcomer we met and to the whole cell as if it were an anecdote.
Heres the sort of people they were. Olga Sliozbergs husb and had already been arrested, and they
--
represented in ethical behavior, portrayed in ritual, and described in narrative. the Story of the hero is
symbolic depiction of the man who chooses the third way, when confronted by facts whose significance
--
volunteered for the Peoples Volunteer Corps in 1941 and the rest of the Story is a familiar one. Taken
prisoner near Vyazma, he spent his whole captivity in a German camp. And the subsequent story is also
--
to speak, of the Story the interregnum of pain and confusion that precedes the re-establishment or
improvement of stability can only tolerated by those fed on spiritual bread; can only be tolerated by those
--
mythologized cultural hero, whose actions are identified by the Story with heavenly attri butes, to signify
the import (and intrapsychic locale and source546) of the revolutionary occurrence. Nietzsche states:
--
immoral and as corrupt, as ruled by demonic, unknown forces. the Story of Genesis serpent and Eve
conspiring to bring about the descent of mankind into the profane and fallen (material) world in part
--
with the Story:
... the death of the Kings son is naturally a delicate and dangerous matter. By descending into the
--
The purpose of the Story, in describing this descent, is demonstration that only in the region of danger
(watery abyss, cavern, forest, island, castle, etc.) can one find the treasure hard to attain (jewel, virgin,
--
This procedure operated on the assumption that matter was originally corrupted like man, in the Story of
Genesis. The study of the transformations of corruption and limitation activated a mythological sequence in
--
nature.... [Eliade, M. (1978b). p. 100, footnote 41]. the Story of Osiris is in part a parable about the dangers of the
incapacity to recognize evil.
--
though not essentially changed, in the Story of the founding of the monarchy, where the first chosen king, Saul, is
rejected and his line passed over in favor of David, who is practically his adopted son (I Samuel 18:2). In later
--
of Genesis and gets them back at the end of Revelation. In between, the Story of Israel is told as a series of declines
into the power of hea then kingdoms, Egypt, Philistia, Syria, Rome, each followed by a rise into a brief moment of
--
Passing over the Story of Noah, which adds the sea to the images of disaster, the first rise is that of Abraham, called
out of the city of Ur in Mesopotamia to a Promised Land in the west. This introduces the pastoral era of the
--
ritual element in the Story of his death. The writers of the Gospels found that in telling the Story of Jesus they
needed the imagery of the executed kings and Absalom quite as much as that of the figures of glory and triumph.
1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
buried them to a man. the Story may well have been told by one who
watched them disappearing, in battle array, with drums and cymbals
1.06 - BOOK THE SIXTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The famous nymph, now found the Story true;
Yet, unreclaim'd by poor Arachne's fate,
--
This famous lake of which the Story's told.
My father then, worn out by length of days,
1.06 - On remembrance of death., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
And I cannot be silent about the Story of Hesychius the Horebite. He passed his life in complete negligence, without paying the least attention to his soul. Then he became extremely ill, and for an hour he left his body. And when he came to himself he begged us all to leave him immediately. And he built up the door of his cell, and he stayed in it for twelve years without ever uttering a word to anyone, and without eating anything but bread and water. And, always remaining motionless, he was so wrapt in spirit in what he had seen in his ecstasy that he never changed his place but was always as if out of his mind, and silently shed hot tears. But when he was about to die, we broke open the door and went in, and after many questions this alone was all we heard from him: Forgive me! No one who has acquired the remembrance of death will ever be able to sin. We were amazed to see that one who had before been so negligent was so suddenly transfigured by this blessed change and transformation. We reverently buried him in the cemetery near the fort1 and after some days we looked for his holy relics, but did not find them. So by his true and praiseworthy repentance the Lord showed us that even after long negligence He accepts those who desire to amend.
Just as some declare that the abyss is infinite, for they call it a bottomless place, so the thought of death brings chastity and activity to a state of incorruption. The above-mentioned saint confirms the truth of what has been said. For such men, unceasingly adding fear to fear, do not stop until the very strength of their bones is spent.
1.079 - The Snatchers, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
15. Has the Story of Moses reached you?
16. When His Lord called out to him in the sacred valley of Tuwa.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
I love the Story of the Buddha asking a stingy person to give a carrot from
one hand to the other. Sometimes we can practice giving from the right hand
1.07 - Bridge across the Afterlife, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
All that Jazz tells the Story of a choreographer and
movie director, Joe Gideon, who has led the life many well-
--
13 See Georges Van Vrekhem: The Mother the Story of Her Life, chap-
ter 14.br idge ac r oss the afterlife
1.07 - Medicine and Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
was only half the Story, and that the real point is the treatment of the whole
psychic human being.
1.07 - Savitri, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Each version of Book I runs approximately to one exercise book of 40-80 pages, though the stage of the Story differs from exercise book to exercise book when their end is reached.
The tenth version of Book I, made sometime before 1936, is the one on which the later Savitri is based. Even here there is no climbing of planes by Aswapathy. It is Only in the version of 1936, sent in instalments privately to Amal, that we find for the first time, brief descriptions of the planes, starting with the plane of subtle matter.
--
Such is the Story of Savitri as we found it in November 1938, the time of Sri Aurobindo's accident. The work on it had to be stopped as a result of this unfortunate event and could not be taken up before the middle of 1940. For though he recovered from the accident sufficiently to take up intellectual work, his first preoccupation was with The Life Divine. After its publication in 1940, he resumed his work on Savitri. By that time he had started sitting in a chair in the morning hours, but in the afternoon he continued for sometime doing the work seated on the bed.
I had no access to the work or to any of his other writings till that year. Though all the works must have been lying on the table or in the drawers, I had to curb my strong impulse to have a peep into the legend of Savitri. For we were in his room for a different purpose and it would have been a breach of trust on our part to lay hands on his sacred private property. The chance came in 1940, first only to place the requisite manuscripts before him, then gradually to work as a scribe. I still distinctly remember the day when, sitting on the bed with the table in front of him, he remarked: "You will find in the drawers long exercise books with coloured covers. Bring them." I think I went wrong in the first attempt, the second one met with his smiling approval. What he actually did with them, I cannot say, for he was working all alone, and we were sitting behind. I guess that he must have been giving a first reading to all the versions, for there were quite a number. He had already written to us before his accident that he had recast the first Book about ten times. Perhaps he was going through these and making a selection of the lines and passages for the final version. Then a few months after and at this time he was sitting in the morning in a chair he told me that he needed some exercise books. Without informing the Mother about it, I at once ran to the market and bought two or three exercise books from Manikachetty. He accepted them with a smile and I was happy to find that he used them for copying Savitri. At the end of one of the books he has written: "Last draft of Savitri, Sep.6, 1942." In another exercise book, containing matter up to the end of The Book of the Divine Mother, only at the end of Canto V of Book I, the date written is: April 24, 1944. (This, as you see, was the morning of the Darshan day). From these two dates we can surmise that from 1940, the year in which we presume he took up the work on Savitri, to 1944, he continued working on the first three Books. Now, how much new material did he add to them? We know from his letter to Amal that Book II at any rate, The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds, was just a small passage. Here now we find the fully lengthened and developed Book running into 15 Cantos. The third Book, The Book of the Divine Mother, was also written probably for the first time, for he wrote to Amal in 1946: "...there is also a third sufficiently long Book, The Book of the Divine Mother."
--
This is roughly the Story of the grand epic Savitri traced from the earliest conception to its final consummation. Undoubtedly the first three Books were of a much higher level of inspiration and nearer perfection than the rest, for with ample leisure, and working by himself he could devote more time and care to that end, which unfortunately could not be said about the rest of the Books. Apart from the different versions I have mentioned, there is a huge mass of manuscripts which we have left unclassified since they are in fragments[4] all of which testifies to the immense labour of a god that has gone into the building of the magnificent epic. For a future research scholar, when Savitri earns as wide a recognition as, for instance, Dante's or Homer's epic, if not more, a very interesting work remains to be done; going into the minutest detail, he would show where new lines or passages have been added, or where one line slightly changed becomes an overhead line, or how another line after various changes comes back to its original version, etc., etc. I was chosen as a scribe probably because I didn't have all these gifts, so that I could, like a passive instrument, jot down faithfully whatever was dictated while Amal would have raised doubts, argued with him or been lost in sheer admiration of the beauty and the grandeur! Dilip would have started quoting line after line in rapturous ecstasy before the poem had come out! I submit no apology, nor am I conscience-stricken for my failures, for he knew what was the worth of his instrument. I am only grateful to him for being able to serve him with the very faculty which he had evolved and developed in me.
We can at last see how from among scattered seeds a single huge banyan tree has grown and spread itself to the transcendent and the cosmic infinite and excites our perpetual wonder. I wish I could provide a more faithful and vivid picture of its daily growth, a branch here, an offshoot there, trimming the old twigs, reviving the dying ones, discarding the outworn crowding branches till there soared up into the sky a majestic vision under whose perennial shade the world can repose awhile, in its long journey to the Eternal. To show how he expanded the poem I may quote one long new passage which he appended to the end of Book II, Canto VI, The Kingdoms and the Godheads of the Greater Life:
1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Sun's journey through the heavens, or rather to be some- what more accurate, the cycle of their lives attached itself to the greater cycle of the Sun. The Nativity occurring at the winter solstice, the Crucifixion at the equinox of spring, all suggest the birth Of the year and the elevation of the Sun above the equator. There are numerous varia- tions upon this theme, but the symbols are nearly always equivalent. The subject of the picture or the Story is ever the same ; it is that eternal miracle of abounding life, ever self-restored, triumphant over death- the return of the Sun.
Six, then, may imply carbon and the idea of the physical elements necessary for the manifestation of life, but to the
1.07 - THE MASTER AND VIJAY GOSWAMI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"There is the Story of the twelve hundred nedas and thirteen hundred nedis. Virabhadra, the son of Nityananda Goswami, had thirteen hundred 'shaven-headed' disciples. They attained great spiritual powers. That alarmed their teacher. 'My disciples have acquired great spiritual powers', thought Virabhadra. 'Whatever they say to people will come to pass. Wherever they go they may create alarming situations; for people offending them unwittingly will come to grief.' Thinking thus, Virabhadra one day called them to him and said, 'See me after performing your daily devotions on the bank of the Ganges.' These disciples had such a high spiritual nature that, while meditating, they would go into samdhi and be unaware of the river water flowing over their heads during the flood-tide. Then the ebb-tide would come and still they would remain absorbed in meditation.
"Now, one hundred of these disciples had anticipated what their teacher would ask of them. Lest they should have to disobey his injunctions, they had quickly disappeared from the place before he summoned them. So they did not go to Virabhadra with the others. The remaining twelve hundred disciples went to the teacher after finishing their meditation. Virabhadra said to them: 'These thirteen hundred nuns will serve you. I ask you to marry them.' 'As you please, revered sir', they said. 'But one hundred of us have gone away.' Thenceforth each of these twelve hundred disciples had a wife.
--
"As the weaver said in the Story: 'The robbery was committed by the will of Rama, I was arrested by the police by the will of Rama, and again, by the will of Rama, I was set free.'
"Hanuman once said to Rama: 'O Rama, I have taken refuge in Thee. Bless me that I may have pure devotion to Thy Lotus Feet and that I may not be caught in the spell of Thy world-bewitching maya.'
1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
which means we've lost it. All the pain of adolescence is but the Story of a slow imprisonment of the psychic being. We speak of "growing pains," but perhaps there are only choking pains, maturity being achieved when suffocation has become a natural state. All the seeker's difficulties, then, are the mental and vital admixtures. But, as we will see, it is not really a reversal; one never goes backward, and the psychic child one uncovers at the end of the journey (an end that is always a beginning) is not a momentary caprice but a conscious royalty. The psychic is a being; it grows. It is the miracle of eternal childhood in an ever vaster kingdom. It is "within as a child to be born," says the Rig Veda (IX.83.3).
The Psychic Birth The first signs of psychic opening are love and joy a joy that may be extremely intense and powerful, but without any exaltation and without object, as calm and deep as the sea. Psychic joy does not need anything in order to be; it just is; even in a prison it cannot help being,
1.080 - Pratyahara - The Return of Energy, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There is a story in which it is told that Robert Bruce saw a spider falling down many times climbing up and falling down and climbing up. Robert Bruce was defeated in a war. He was sitting in a cave somewhere, crying. He did not know what to do. Then he saw a spider climbing up the wall and falling down again it went up and again it fell down. A hundred times it fell, and finally it got up and caught the point to which it wanted to rise. Then he said, This is what I have to do now. I should not keep crying here. So, he went up with the regiment that he had and the forces available, and launched a frontal attack once again, and won victory in the war. The moral of the Story is that we should not be melancholy, dispirited or lost in our conscious efforts, because the so-called defeatist feeling that we have in our practice is due to the operation of certain obstructing karmas. Otherwise, what can be the explanation for our defeat in spite of our effort to the best of our ability?
We have been struggling for days and nights, for months and years and we are getting nothing. How is it possible? The reason is that there is some very strong impediment, like a thick wall standing in front of us, on account of some tamasic or rajasic karma of the past lives. All our time is spent in breaking through this wall. The achievement is something quite different that will come later on. So why should we weep that we have achieved nothing? We have achieved; we have pierced through the wall. It is like Bharatpur Fort which the British wanted to break and could not, due to the thickness of the wall. Somehow or other, after tremendous effort, they made a hole and went in. We can imagine what indefatigable effort and what kind of persistence was required in breaking through the fort. Otherwise, one would give up and go back. It was impossible to break in because the wall was too thick fifty feet thick and made of mud. One could not break it by any kind of bullet such was Bharatpur Fort. They did not succeed, but they were very persistent. Somehow or other they made a hole and went in, and the fort was captured.
1.085 - The Constellations, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
17. Has there come to you the Story of the legions?
18. Of Pharaoh and Thamood?
1.08 - Attendants, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
I may as well narrate how I was made the recipient of a favour. Champaklal and I used to attend on Sri Aurobindo when he washed his face and mouth. Once in the course of doing it, he made a gesture of giving me something as I was holding the bowl for gargling. I immediately stretched out my left hand and he softly deposited something without any look or comment. I felt a sudden thrill and drew back into the light to see if it could be a tooth. Yes, it was indeed a whole side-tooth. I showed it to Champaklal who was busy doing some work. His eyes rolled in astonishment. Then he extracted from me the Story of how I received the extraordinary present! Of course I handed it over to him for safe custody. Later several times he commented on my unusual luck! Or perhaps how he had missed it! Truly speaking, these things belonged to his domain, but the Divine sometimes oversteps our human rules and rights. Many such instances come to our notice but since they are more a question of inner perception, no rational proof can be adduced as to their truth. Only the person involved knows that his inner aspiration has found an answer. I will give an illustration. I have stated that when Sri Aurobindo resumed walking, instead of using crutches he leaned on Purani and Champaklal. After a few months Champaklal alone was retained. He stood on the left side while Sri Aurobindo used a stick on the right. Champaklal would of course never miss his chance as well as his duty. He would not be Champaklal if he did! Now, a desire was growing within me to hold, like him, Sri Aurobindo's arm on my shoulder, at least once. But being by nature a bit shy and fearing that my unsubstantial body would be too weak to bear the divine weight and substance, I stifled my desire before it raised its head. It so happened that one day the Mother came for Sri Aurobindo's walk long before the appointed time and Champaklal was not present; only I was there. What to do? To my excited surprise the Mother said, "You can give the support!" Very cautiously and almost palpitatingly I sat by his left side on the couch and put my right hand around his waist; he put his left arm over my shoulder and stood up. We had hardly taken a round or two when Champaklal arrived running. I could guess what must have been his feeling at that momentous sight! Then I withdrew and he took his place and the Master must have felt an immense relief! But a minute's soft velvety touch is unforgettable. If such was my experience, I don't know what Purani and Champaklal, who had supported the Lord for months, must have felt! Somebody rightly appreciated the value of the touch when he said that Champaklal's shoulders should be wrapped in gold! Each one of us had his chance, as we called it; whatever we had inwardly aspired for had its proper response and he who received it could alone testify to the truth of the phenomenon, ye yatha mam prapadyante.[1] This is the divine play between the devotee and the Lord!
I shall quote another instance at the risk of being mocked at by the rationalists and being dubbed an apostate, for was I not once a materialist myself? As I have said, Sri Aurobindo used to take a peppermint pastille while he was dictating Savitri and Champaklal's role was to offer it, when wanted. He would wait and wait even if not called at the due hour, he would sometimes hurry his meal so as not to miss the occasion. I thought, "Why should I not get one chance, at least?" But my friend would hear the call even if it was whispered and would run from wherever he might be in the room. Here again, Sri Aurobindo consciously or unconsciously responded to my silent wish by asking one day for the pastille much earlier than the usual time, when Champaklal was not present. He came up and waited for the call. I put on a very innocent face though now and again a mischievous smile tried to betray it. Then at last, very much piqued, Champaklal asked me, "What's the matter? He is not asking for the pastille?" I could not help breaking into laughter. He understood but enquired exactly when he had asked, who had given it, etc., etc. All these incidents were our little pranks played among ourselves and between us and the Master. I shall not protest if anyone calls me too credulous and finds these as nothing but sentimental outpourings of bhaktas. These instances do illustrate why I call Champaklal a real bhakta and have looked upon his service as having the true spirit. No wonder that the Lord, during his last hours, amply recompensed him by repeatedly embracing him, to our great bewildered delight.
1.08 - Origin of Rudra: his becoming eight Rudras, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[5]: See the Story of Dakṣa's sacrifice at the end of the chapter.
[6]: the Story of Umā's birth and marriage occurs in the Śiva P. and in the Kāśī Khanda of the Skanda P.: it is noticed briefly, and with some variation from the Purāṇas, in the Rāmāyaṇa, first book: it is also given in detail in the Kumāra Sambhava of Kālidāsa.
[7]: The family of Bhrigu is more particularly described in the tenth chapter: it is here mentioned merely to introduce the Story of the birth of the goddess of prosperity, Śrī.
Sacrifice of Dakṣa (From the Vāyu Purāṇa)
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[1]: The sacrifice of Dakṣa is a legend of some interest, from its historical and archeological relations. It is obviously intended to intimate a struggle between the worshippers of Śiva and of Viṣṇu, in which at first the latter, but finally the former, acquired the ascendancy. It is also a favourite subject of Hindu sculpture, at least with the Hindus of the Śaiva division, and makes a conspicuous figure both at Elephanta and Ellora. A representation of the dispersion and mutilation of the gods and sages by Vīrabhadra, at the former, is published in the Archæologia, VII. 326, where it is described as the Judgment of Solomon! a figure of Vīrabhadra is given by Niebuhr, vol. II. tab. 10: and the entire group in the Bombay Transactions, vol. I. p. 220. It is described, p. 229; but Mr. Erskine has not verified the subject, although it cannot admit of doubt. The groupe described, p. 224, probably represents the introductory details given in our text. Of the Ellora sculptures, a striking one occurs in what Sir C. Malet calls the Doomar Leyna cave, where is "Veer Budder, with eight hands. In one is suspended the slain Rajah Dutz." A. R. VI. 396. And there is also a representation of 'Ehr Budr,' in one of the colonades of Kailas; being, in fact, the same figure as that at Elephanta. Bombay Tr. III. 287. The legend of Dakṣa therefore was popular when those cavern temples were excavated. the Story is told in much more detail in several other Purāṇas, and with some variations, which will be noticed: but the above has been selected as a specimen of the style of the Vāyu Purāṇa, and as being a narration which, from its inartificial, obscure, tautological, and uncircumstantial construction, is probably of an ancient date. The same legend, in the same words, is given in the Brāhma P.
[2]: Or this may he understood to imply, that the original story is in the Vedas; the term being, as usual in such a reference, ###. Ga
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[8]: As he prays to Śiva presently, it could not well be meant here that Dakṣa was decapitated, although that is the Story in other places. The Li
ga and Bhāgavata both state that Vīrabhadra cut off Dakṣa's head, and threw it into the fire. After the fray therefore, when Śiva restored the dead to life, and the mutilated to their limbs, Dakṣa's head was not forthcoming: it was therefore replaced by the head of a goat, or, according to the Kāsī Khanda, that of a ram. No notice is taken in our text of the conflict elsewhere described between Vīrabhadra and Viṣṇu. In the Li
1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
For Ramana and Eckhart (and not them alone), the causal is a type of ultimate omega point (but it is not, as we will see, the end of the Story). As the Source of all manifestation, it the Goal of all development. Ramana: "This is SelfRealization; and thereby is cut asunder the Knot of the Heart [the separate-self sense]; this is the limitless bliss of liberation, beyond doubt and duality. To realize this state of freedom from duality is the summum bonum of life: and he alone that has won it is a jivanmukta (the liberated one while yet alive), and not he who has merely a theoretical understanding of the Self or the desired end and aim of all human behavior. The disciple is then enjoined to remain in the beatitude of Aham-Brahman-'I-I' is the Absolute."57
THE NONDUAL
1.08 - The Historical Significance of the Fish, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
"healing fish" in the Story of Tobit: the angel Raphael helps
Tobit to catch the fish that is about to eat him, and shows him
1.08 - The Plot must be a Unity., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the Unity of the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents in one man's life which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of one man out of which we cannot make one action. Hence, the error, as it appears, of all poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other poems of the kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the Story of Heracles must also be a unity. But Homer, as in all else he is of surpassing merit, here too--whether from art or natural genius--seems to have happily discerned the truth. In composing the Odyssey he did not include all the adventures of Odysseus--such as his wound on Parnassus, or his feigned madness at the mustering of the host--incidents between which there was no necessary or probable connection: but he made the
Odyssey, and likewise the Iliad, to centre round an action that in our sense of the word is one. As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference, is not an organic part of the whole.
1.08 - The Supreme Discovery, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Hear the Story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of spaceso that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
1.09 - Legend of Lakshmi, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga, and Kūrma Purāṇas. The Vāyu and Padma have much the same narrative as that of our text; and so have the Agni and Bhāgavata, except that they refer only briefly to the anger of Durvāsas, without narrating the circumstances; indicating their being posterior, therefore, to the original tale. The part, however, assigned to Durvāsas appears to be an embellishment added to the original, for no mention of him occurs in the Matsya P. nor even in the Hari Vaṃśa, neither does it occur in what may be considered the oldest extant versions of the Story, those of the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata: both these ascribe the occurrence to the desire of the gods and Daityas to become immortal. The Matsya assigns a similar motive to the gods, instigated by observing that the Daityas slain by them in battle were restored to life by Śukra with the Sañjīvinī, or herb of immortality, which he had discovered. The account in the Hari Vaṃśa is brief and obscure, and is explained by the commentator as an allegory, in which the churning of the ocean typifies ascetic penance, and the ambrosia is final liberation: but this is mere mystification. The legend of the Rāmāyana is translated, vol. I. p. 410. of the Serampore edition; and that of the Mahābhārata by Sir C. Wilkins, in the notes to his translation of the Bhāgavata Gītā. See also the original text, Cal. ed. p. 40. It has been presented to general readers in a more attractive form by my friend H. M. Parker, in his Draught of Immortality, printed with other poems, Lond. 1827. The Matsya P. has many of the stanzas of the Mahābhārata interspersed with others. There is some variety in the order and number of articles produced from the ocean. As I have observed elsewhere (Hindu Theatre, I. 59. Lond. ed.), the popular enumeration is fourteen; but the Rāmāyana specifies but nine; the Mahābhārata, nine; the Bhāgavata, ten; the Padma, nine; the Vāyu, twelve; the p. 78 Matsya, perhaps, gives the whole number. Those in which most agree, are, 1. the Hālāhala or Kālakūta poison, swallowed by Śiva: 2. Vārunī or Surā, the goddess of wine, who being taken by the gods, and rejected by the Daityas, the former were termed Suras, and the latter Asuras: 3. the horse Uccaiśśravas, taken by Indra: 4. Kaustubha, the jewel worn by Viṣṇu: 5. the moon: 6. Dhanwantari, with the Amrita in his Kamaṇḍalu, or vase; and these two articles are in the Vāyu considered as distinct products: 7. the goddess Padmā or Śrī: 8. the Apsarasas, or nymphs of heaven: 9. Surabhi, or the cow of plenty: 10. the Pārijāta tree, or tree of heaven: 11. Airāvata, the elephant taken by Indra. The Matsya adds, 12. the umbrella taken by Varuna: 13. the earrings taken by Indra, and given to Aditī: and apparently another horse, the white horse of the sun: or the number may be completed by counting the Amrita separately from Dhanwantari. The number is made up in the popular lists by adding the bow and the conch of Viṣṇu; but there does not seem to be any good authority for this, and the addition is a sectarial one: so is that of the Tulaśī tree, a plant sacred to Kṛṣṇa, which is one of the twelve specified by the Vāyu P. The Uttara Khanda of the Padma P. has a peculiar enumeration, or, Poison; Jyeṣṭhā or Alakṣmī, the goddess of misfortune, the elder born to fortune; the goddess of wine; Nidrā, or sloth; the Apsarasas; the elephant of Indra; Lakṣmī; the moon; and the Tulaśī plant. The reference to Mohinī, the female form assumed by Viṣṇu, is very brief in our text; and no notice is taken of the Story told in the Mahābhārata and some of the Purāṇas, of the Daitya Rāhu's insinuating himself amongst the gods, and obtaining a portion of the Amrita: being beheaded for this by Viṣṇu, the head became immortal, in consequence of the Amrita having reached the throat, and was transferred as a constellation to the skies; and as the sun and moon detected his presence amongst the gods, Rāhu pursues them with implacable hatred, and his efforts to seize them are the causes of eclipses; Rāhu typifying the ascending and descending nodes. This seems to be the simplest and oldest form of the legend. The equal immortality of the body, under the name Ketu, and his being the cause of meteorical phenomena, seems to have been an after-thought. In the Padma and Bhāgavata, Rāhu and Ketu are the sons of Sinhikā, the wife of the Dānava Viprachitti.
[9]: The four Vidyās, or branches of knowledge, are said to be, Yajña vidyā, knowledge or performance of religious rites; Mahā vidyā, great knowledge, the worship of the female principle, or Tāntrika worship; Guhya vidyā, knowledge of mantras, mystical prayers, and incantations; and Ātma vidyā, knowledge of soul, true wisdom.
1.09 - Talks, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
"Then we shall talk, Mother." The ready answer was followed by a burst of laughter. Rarely did she participate in our talks. Once she asked, "What are you laughing about?" Sri Aurobindo replied with a smile, "I am telling them the Story of my poet-brother Mono Mohan." It was one of the most interesting talks we had!
In the beginning, as I said, Dr. Manilal was the spearhead of the attack. What we did not dare to ask because of our youth, our shyness or even our sophistication, he, our elderly doctor, babbled away like a simple child, bluntly and sweetly, and we were greatly rewarded. We were so much charmed by the novelty of the talks that none of us thought of keeping any record. I would make some mental notes and when I visited Dilip's place for tea pour them out and make everybody roar with laughter. He would regale me with a sumptuous breakfast, in return for the divine ambrosia. After about a fortnight of squandering the precious talks which, had they been noted and published, would have made another volume, I realised my mistake and thought, "Why not keep a record?" But I would debate, "What's the use since they will never be published?" Thus in two minds, I started noting them down in the middle of the night after the work was over or at other odd hours. Quite often my colleagues would help me in rescuing some of the points I had lost, or correcting and adding others. Still almost one third of the talks were not recorded for want of time or sheer laziness. Meanwhile the news had gone abroad that Sri Aurobindo was having talks with us. So people began to waylay or hunt us out for some nectar and our stock went up. Groups were formed, according to the law of sympathy and attraction for hearing the "Divine news". Some approached Dr. Manilal, some Purani some Satyendra and others came to me. Many advised us to keep a diary and others must have suspected that we were doing so already. Sri Aurobindo did not know, at least physically, about it and there was even a fear that if he did, he might stop talking altogether. Now I feel that some Hand must have pushed me over my reluctance and turned out a fairly good record, after all.
1.09 - The Chosen Ideal, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
Bhakti-Yoga, therefore, lays on us the imperative comm and not to hate or deny any one of the various paths that lead to salvation. Yet the growing plant must be hedged round to protect it until it has grown into a tree. The tender plant of spirituality will die if exposed too early to the action of a constant change of ideas and ideals. Many people, in the name of what may be called religious liberalism, may be seen feeding their idle curiosity with a continuous succession of different ideals. With them, hearing new things grows into a kind of disease, a sort of religious drink-mania. They want to hear new things just by way of getting a temporary nervous excitement, and when one such exciting influence has had its effect on them, they are ready for another. Religion is with these people a sort of intellectual opiumeating, and there it ends. "There is another sort of man", says Bhagavan Ramakrishna, "who is like the pearl-oyster of the Story. The pearl-oyster leaves its bed at the bottom of the sea, and comes up to the surface to catch the rain-water when the star Svti is in the ascendant. It floats about on the surface of the sea with its shell wide open, until it has succeeded in catching a drop of the rain-water, and then it dives deep down to its sea-bed, and there rests until it has succeeded in fashioning a beautiful pearl out of that rain-drop."
This is indeed the most poetical and forcible way in which the theory of Ishta-Nishtha has ever been put. This Eka-Nishtha or devotion to one ideal is absolutely necessary for the beginner in the practice of religious devotion. He must say with Hanuman in the Rmyana, "Though I know that the Lord of Shri and the Lord of Jnaki are both manifestations of the same Supreme Being, yet my all in all is the lotus-eyed Rma." Or, as was said by the sage Tulasidsa, he must say, "Take the sweetness of all, sit with all, take the name of all, say yea, yea, but keep your seat firm." Then, if the devotional aspirant is sincere, out of this little seed will come a gigantic tree like the Indian banyan, sending out branch after branch and root after root to all sides, till it covers the entire field of religion. Thus will the true devotee realise that He who was his own ideal in life is worshipped in all ideals by all sects, under all names, and through all forms.
1.09 - The Worship of Trees, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
that attend child-bearing. the Story that Leto clasped a palm-tree
and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees, when she was about to give
1.10 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Ram had arranged a special festival to celebrate the Master's visit. The small courtyard was nicely decorated. A kathak, seated on a raised platform, was reciting from the Bhagavata when the Master arrived. Ram greeted him respectfully and seated him near the reader. The disciple was extremely happy. The kathak was in the midst of the Story of King Harischandra.
Story of Harishchandra
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The Master listened to the Story from the Bhagavata with great attention and said at last, "Yes, the gopis were right."
Then he sang:
1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
fact. It was like in the Story of Savitri: always there, always
there, always there, in this man, in that woman. At certain
1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The magician moved that one finger rapidly and said, 'Behold, O King! Behold.' The implication of the Story is that Brahman and the Primal Energy at first appear to be two.
But after attaining the Knowledge of Brahman one does not see the two. Then there is no differentiation; it is One, without a second -Advaita-non-duality."
1.12 - BOOK THE TWELFTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Priam, to whom the Story was unknown,
As dead, deplor'd his metamorphos'd son:
--
Its author to the Story gave belief:
For us, our courage was increas'd by grief:
1.12 - Dhruva commences a course of religious austerities, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[8]: The station or sphere is that of the north pole, or of the polar star. In the former case, the star is considered to be Sunīti, the mother of Dhruva. The legend, although as it is related in our text it differs in its circumstances from the Story told by Ovid of Callisto and her son Areas, whom Jove
[9]: The Vaimānika devas, the deities who travel in Vimānas, 'heavenly cars,' or rather 'moving spheres.'
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[11]: The legend of Dhruva is narrated in the Bhāgavata, Padma (Swerga Khaṇḍa), Agni, and Nāradīya, much to the same purport, and partly in the same words, as our text. The Brāhma and its double the Hari Vaṃśa, the Matsya, and Vāyu merely allude to Dhruva's having been transferred by Brahmā to the skies, in reward of his austerities. the Story of his religious penance, and adoration of Viṣṇu, seems to be an embellishment interpolated by the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas, Dhruva being adopted as a saint by their sect. The allusion to Sūnritā in our text coñcurs with the form of the Story as it appears elsewhere, to indicate the priority of the more simple legend.
1.12 - God Departs, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
We could not say then that this change of mood had any connection with the disease. Not only with us, but with the Mother too, he became very reticent. However, with regard to his work, there was no flagging. Even when a little time was at our disposal and I was reluctant to bring out the numerous files containing the Savitri manuscript, just for half an hour, he would say, "We shall work a little." This provoked my other colleagues, particularly Champaklal, to an impish mirth, for they loved work and I did not, at least I did not then. And almost till his withdrawal the miscellaneous literary works and the labour on Savitri were carried on in full swing in spite of the discomfort caused by the gradual increase of the symptoms. In addition to these, when at this stage an importunate call came from an outside sadhika in Northern India to save her life from a dreaded and strange illness, he took great pains to cure her, especially as she was an intimate friend of an old sadhak who had made a desperate appeal to Sri Aurobindo's compassion. the Story is rather long but intriguing. The doctors, as usual, differed about the diagnosis. Cancer, ulcer, T. B., none was found to be the case. One prominent symptom was profuse bleeding through the mouth but without any definite lesion of any organ. All kinds of tests and treatment failed. At last the patient gave up all treatment and said that she would depend entirely on Sri Aurobindo, even if she were to die. Sri Aurobindo then took up the responsibility at the supplication of the sadhak-bhakta, I believe, but on one condition that regular news must be supplied to him. The bhakta himself went from Pondicherry to the patient's place with a view to fulfil the condition. News began to stream in by letters, wires about her daily progress. Suddenly it stopped. Sri Aurobindo became anxious and enquired again and again if any news had come. I tried to plead on their behalf and give the usual excuses for the delay. At last he remarked, "How am I to save her if I have no news?" After two or three days, information began to flow in and very soon the patient recovered completely and came to settle in the Ashram. Her illness turned out to be a case of black magic. That is why the symptoms were erratic and there was no definite lesion in spite of their gravity. That was what probably made Sri Aurobindo so anxious about the case. We modern people may scoff at such unscientific superstition, but in this case, there was very solid ground in favour of such a belief. Though Sri Aurobindo took charge of the case, at each fresh arrival of news, he would ask me to keep the Mother informed. "Have you informed the Mother?" he would repeat. I did not understand why he was so insistent on the point; it was not his nature. Did he suspect that I might not, and I really felt no necessity, such was my human stupidity, trying to be wiser than the Guru! The reason for it became clear when he left the body. He had already taken the decision and wanted the Mother to know all about the case in anticipation of possible future developments.
The revision of Savitri was going on apace with regular unabated vigour. Book after Book was getting done and fascicules of them released for publication. Some 400-500 lines of The Book of Everlasting Day were dictated on successive days, since we could not spare more than an hour a day for the monumental work and that too had often to be cut short to meet other demands. We were, nevertheless, progressing quite steadily. I marvelled at the smooth spontaneous flow of verse after verse of remarkable beauty. Once I had complained to him in my correspondence why, having all the planes of inspiration at his command, should he still labour like us mortals at his Savitri.Why should not the inspiration burst out like the "champagne bottle"? Now I witnessed that miracle and imagined that it also must have been the way Valmiki composed his Ramayana. At this rate, I thought, Savitri would not take long to finish. On everyone's lips was the eager query, "How far are you with Savitri?"
--
He was consulted. He confirmed Dr. Sanyal's previous diagnosis and said that the gland had enlarged. Sri Aurobindo remarked that he too had the same feeling. "But what is the remedy?" he asked. Surgical intervention was the only radical cure, but Dr. Sen knew that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo would not approve of it. Not to speak of an operation, the mere use of a catheter was not favoured. One night the urine flow stopped altogether. I ran in a panic to call Sen, as there were signs of some distress. In my absence, the urine had started flowing. He seemed to have asked for me and on learning that I had gone to fetch the doctor, he remarked, "Why? Has he lost his head?" I was so happy to learn of the release of the obstruction that even my "loss of head" did not matter. Then he said to me, "Why have you unnecessarily troubled this poor fellow? You see, I had a dream in which I was freely passing water, but when I woke up, I found this obstruction. Nothing more. Do you understand?" His tone was very sweet. Then I understood that it was his look of surprise and concern that had given me the impression of distress. But obstruction was obstruction and one had to relieve it. Nevertheless all of us were happy. Next day when the Mother learnt the Story, she too made a remark to the same effect. She said, "Having passed so many years with Sri Aurobindo, you still get frightened?" "What to do, Mother?" I replied humbly. "We are dealing with no other person than Sri Aurobindo." "That is exactly why you should never be afraid. Don't you know that his mighty Force is always with you and helping you? No, fear has no place at all, especially among you who are serving him." I felt ashamed but uplifted as well.
The Darshan was now upon us. A letter had arrived from an astrologer stating that Sri Aurobindo would be subject to a grave malady which might even threaten his life. We simply pooh-poohed the idea, but Sri Aurobindo did not pass it off so lightly. He asked, "Will you enquire what exactly he has written? I feel that he has caught some truth." Sometime previously Dr. Manilal was also told by an astrologer that Sri Aurobindo was going to leave his body and if Dr. Manilal wanted to see his Guru, he had better rush to Pondicherry. When he reported this prediction to Sri Aurobindo, he simply smiled. There were quite a number of predictions about this time to the same effect. Surendra Mohan Ghose has narrated a similar one published in Mother India which I have already described at some length in the previous chapter. Still, I was not a little surprised to find Sri Aurobindo giving credence to such seemingly wild forecasts. For his view with regard to astrology was that its predictions were often uncertain, more especially about the Yogis, since they can change their own and others' destiny. The predictions of Narayan Jyotishi, a famous astrologer of Calcutta, about him had all come true, except the one about a serious illness at the age of 63. But that too, it was said, would be overcome by his yogic force, and he would live up to a ripe old age. Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri,
1.12 - On lying., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
When the demons see that in the very beginning we intend to keep aloof from the witty lecture of a coarse leader, as from an infectious disease, then they try to catch us by two thoughts, suggesting to us: Do not offend the Story-teller, or: Do not appear to love God more than they do. Be off! Do not dally, otherwise at the time of your prayer the jokes will recur to your mind. And not only run, but even piously disconcert the bad company by offering for their general attention the thought of death and judgment. For perhaps it is better for you to be sprinkled with a few drops of vainglory, if only you can become a channel of profit for many.
Hypocrisy is the mother of lying and often its purpose. For some define hypocrisy as no other than meditation on falsehood, and an inventor of falsehood which has a reprehensible oath twisted up with it.
1.12 - The Sacred Marriage, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
great pyre. the Story told to explain the festivals suggests that
they celebrated the marriage of Zeus to Hera, represented by the
--
Scandinavia, and Scotl and in the West. the Story varies in details
from people to people, but as commonly told it runs thus. A certain
--
inventions of the Story-teller. Rather we may suppose that they
reflect a real custom of sacrificing girls or women to be the wives
1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
The whole story of the ascent of consciousness is the Story of a widening of the aperture, the passage from a linear and contradictory consciousness to a global one.
But Sri Aurobindo does say "global," does say higher hemi-sphere of consciousness when speaking of the Supramental, because the higher truth does not exclude the earth; it is not whole without its lower half. What is above does not annul what is below, but fulfills it; timelessness is not the opposite of time, any more than two embracing arms are the opposite of the person embraced. The secret, precisely, is to find timelessness amidst time, the infinite in the finite, and the encompassing wholeness of things in the lowliest fraction. Otherwise no one is embraced and no one embraces anything.
1.13 - (Plot continued.) What constitutes Tragic Action., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
A well constructed plot should, therefore, be single in its issue, rather than double as some maintain. The change of fortune should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad. It should come about as the result not of vice, but of some great error or frailty, in a character either such as we have described, or better rather than worse. The practice of the stage bears out our view. At first the poets recounted any legend that came in their way. Now, the best tragedies are founded on the Story of a few houses, on the fortunes of Alcmaeon,
Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and those others who have done or suffered something terrible. A tragedy, then, to be perfect according to the rules of art should be of this construction. Hence they are in error who censure Euripides just because he follows this principle in his plays, many of which end unhappily. It is, as we have said, the right ending. The best proof is that on the stage and in dramatic competition, such plays, if well worked out, are the most tragic in effect; and Euripides, faulty though he may be in the general management of his subject, yet is felt to be the most tragic of the poets.
1.13 - The Kings of Rome and Alba, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
is expressly said to have been an oak-nymph, the Story of their
union in the sacred grove raises a presumption that at Rome in the
1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER (to Ishan): "Please tell us the Story of the boy who posted the letter."
ISHAN (with a smile): "A boy once heard that God is our Creator. So he wrote a letter to God, setting forth his prayers, and posted it. The address he put on the envelope was 'Heaven'."
1.14 - Bibliography, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Harmondsworth, 1955. Also: the Story of Odysseus. Translated
by W. H. D. Rouse. London and New York, 1937.
1.14 - (Plot continued.) The tragic emotions of pity and fear should spring out of the Plot itself., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place. This is the impression we should receive from hearing the Story of the Oedipus. But to produce this effect by the mere spectacle is a less artistic method, and dependent on extraneous aids. Those who employ spectacular means to create a sense not of the terrible but only of the monstrous, are strangers to the purpose of Tragedy; for we must not demand of Tragedy any and every kind of pleasure, but only that which is proper to it. And since the pleasure which the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through imitation, it is evident that this quality must be impressed upon the incidents.
Let us then determine what are the circumstances which strike us as terrible or pitiful.
1.15 - On incorruptible purity and chastity to which the corruptible attain by toil and sweat., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
2 This refers to the Story of Moses (Exodus ii, 11) and the burning bush (Exodus iii).
3 1 Corinthians vi, 18.
1.15 - The Supramental Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
inseparable. This whole wide world is only he and she.276 Evolution is the Story of Her rediscovering Him and striving to materialize Him everywhere. We cannot dismiss one for the other without Him we are prisoners of a blind Force, without Her we are prisoners of a dazzling Void we must integrate both within a fulfilled world. "Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone," says the Isha Upanishad (9).
The Supramental is, above all, a power a stupendous power. It is the direct power of the Spirit in Matter. All consciousness is power,
1.15 - The world overrun with trees; they are destroyed by the Pracetasas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[4]: This part of the legend is peculiar to our text, and the whole story of Māṛṣā's birth is nowhere else so fully detailed. The penance of the Pracetasas, and its consequences, are related in the Agni, Bhāgavata, Matsya, Padma, Vāyu, and Brāhma Purāṇas, and allusion is briefly made to Māṛṣā's birth. Her origin from Kaṇḍu and Pramlocā is narrated in a different place in the Brāhma Purāṇa, where the austerities of Kaṇḍu, and the necessity for their interruption, are described. the Story, from that authority, was translated by the late Professor Chezy, and is published in the first number of the Journal Asiatique.
[5]: The second birth of Dakṣa, and his share in the peopling of the earth, is narrated in most of the Purāṇas in a similar manner. It is perhaps the original legend, for Dakṣa seems to be an irregular adjunct to the Prajāpatis, or mind-born sons of Brahmā (see p. 49. n. 2); and the allegorical nature of his posterity in that character (p. 54) intimates a more recent origin. Nor does that series of descendants apparently occur in the Mahābhārata, although the existence of two Dakṣas is especially remarked there (Mokṣa Dh.). In the Ādi Parva, which seems to be the freest from subsequent improvements, the Dakṣa noticed is the son of the Pracetasas. The incompatibility of the two accounts is reconciled by referring the two Dakṣas to different Manvantaras. The Dakṣa who proceeded from Brahmā as a Prajāpati being born in the first, or Svāyambhuva, and the son of the Pracetasas in the Cākṣuṣa Manvantara. The latter however, as descended from Uttānapāda, should belong to the first period also. It is evident that great confusion has been made by the Purāṇas in Dakṣa's history.
--
ga, Padma, Agni, and Bhāgavata Purāṇas tell the Story much as in the text, and not unfrequently in the same words. In general they merely refer to the imprecation denounced upon Nārada, as above. The Bhāgavata specifies the imprecation to be perpetual peripateticism. Dakṣa says to him, 'There shall not be a resting-place for thee in all these regions.' The Kūrma repeats the imprecation merely to the effect that Nārada shall perish, and gives no legend. In the Brahma Vaivartta, Nārada is cursed by Brahmā, on a similar occasion, to become the chief of the Gandharvas, whence his musical propensities: but the Bhāgavata, VI. 7, has the reverse of this legend, and makes him first a Gandharva, then a Śūdra, then the son of Brahmā. The Brāhma P., and after it the Hari Vaṃśa and the Vāyu P., have a different and not very intelligible story. Dakṣa, being about to pronounce an imprecation upon Nārada, was appeased by Brahmā and the Ṛṣis, and it was agreed between them that Nārada should be again born, as the son of Kaśyapa, by one of Dakṣa's daughters. This seems to be the gist of the legend, but it is very confusedly told. The version of the Brāhma P., which is the same as that of Hari Vaṃśa, may be thus rendered: "The smooth-speaking Nārada addressed the sons of Dakṣa for their destruction and his own; for the Muni Kaśyapa begot him as a son, who was the son of Brahmā, on the daughter of Dakṣa, through fear of the latter's imprecation. He was formerly the son of Parameṣṭhī (Brahmā), and the excellent sage Kaśyapa next begot him, as if he were his father, on Asiknī, the daughter of Vīraṇa. Whilst he was engaged in beguiling the sons of the patriarch, Dakṣa, of resistless power, determined on his destruction; but he was solicited by Brahmā, in the presence of the great sages, and it was agreed between them that Nārada, the son of Brahmā, should be born of a daughter of Dakṣa. Consequently Dakṣa gave his daughter to Parameṣṭhī, and by her was Nārada born." Now several difficulties occur here. Asiknī is the wife, not the daughter, of Dakṣa; but this may be a blunder of the compiler, for in the parallel passage of the Vāyu no name occurs. In the next place, who is this daughter? for, as we shall see, the progeny of all Dakṣa's daughters are fully detailed, and in no p. 119 authority consulted is Nārada mentioned as the son of either of them, or as the son of Kaśyapa. Dakṣa, too, gives his daughter, not to Kaśyapa, but to Parameṣṭhī, or Brahmā. The commentator on the Hari Vaṃśa solves this by saying he gives her to Brahmā for Kaśyapa. The same bargain is noticed in the Vāyu, but Nārada is also said there to be adopted by Kaśyapa. Again, however, it gives Dakṣa's imprecation in the same words as the Hari Vaṃśa; a passage, by the way, omitted in the Brāhma: 'Nārada, perish (in your present form), and take up your abode in the womb.' Whatever may be the original of this legend, it is evidently imperfectly given by the authorities here cited. The French translation of the passage in the Hari Vaṃśa can scarcely be admitted as correct: assuredly is not 'le Devarchi Dakcha, epoux d''Asiknī, fille de Virāna, fut l'aïeul de cet illustri mouni ainsi régénéré.' ### is more consistently said by the commentator to mean Kaśyapa. The Vāyu P. in another part, a description of the different orders of Ṛṣis, states that the Devarṣis Parvata and Nāreda were sons of Kaśyapa: In the account of Kārttavīrya, in the Brāhma P. and Hari Vaṃśa, Nārada is introduced as a Gandharva, the son of Varidāsa; being the same, according to the commentator on the latter, as the Gandharva elsewhere called Upavarhana.
[11]: The prior specification (p. 115) was fifty. The Mahābhārata, Adi P. 113, and, again, Mokṣa Dharma, has the same number. The Bhāgavata, Kūrma, Padma, Li
1.16 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Let me tell you the Story of a boy named Jatila. He used to walk to school through the woods, and the journey frightened him; One day he told his mother of his fear. She replied: 'Why should you be afraid? Call Madhusudana.' 'Mother,' asked the boy, 'who is Madhusudana?' The mother said, 'He is your Elder Brother.' One day after this, when the boy again felt afraid in the woods, he cried out, 'O Brother Madhusudana!' But there was no response. He began to weep aloud: 'Where are You, Brother Madhusudana? Come to me. I am afraid.' Then God could no longer stay away. He appeared before the boy and said: 'Here I am. Why are you frightened?' And so, saying He took the boy out of the woods and showed him the way to school. When He took leave of the boy, God said: 'I will come whenever you call Me. Do not be afraid.' One must have this faith of a child, this yearning.
"A brahmin used to worship his Family Deity daily with food offerings. One day he had to go away on business. As he was about to leave the house, he said to his young son: 'Give the offering to the Deity today. See that God is fed.' The boy offered food in the shrine, but the image remained silent on the altar. It would neither talk nor eat. The boy waited a long time, but still the image did not move. But the boy firmly believed that God would come down from His throne, sit on the floor, and partake of the food.
--
M. had been staying at Dakshineswar with Sri Ramakrishna. The Master was sitting in his room, listening to the life of Prahlada, which Ramlal was reading from the Bhaktamala. M. was sitting on the floor. Rkhl, Ltu, and Harish were also in the room, and Hazra was on the verandah. While listening to the Story of Prahlada's love for God, Sri Ramakrishna went into an ecstatic mood.
Hiranyakasipu, the king of the demons and father of Prahlada, had put his son to endless torture to divert the boy's mind from the love of God. But through divine grace all the king's attempts to kill Prahlada were ineffective. At last God appeared, assuming the form of Nrisimha, the Manlion, and killed Hiranyakasipu. The gods were frightened at the rage and roaring of the Manlion and thought that the destruction of the world was imminent.
1.17 - Legend of Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Listen, Maitreya, to the Story of the wise and magnanimous Prahlāda, whose adventures are ever interesting and instructive. Hiraṇyakaśipu, the son of Diti, had formerly brought the three worlds under his authority, confiding in a boon bestowed upon him by Brahmā[1]. He had usurped the sovereignty of Indra, and exercised of himself the functions of the sun, of air, of the lord of waters, of fire, and of the moon. He himself was the god of riches; he was the judge of the dead; and he appropriated to himself, without reserve, all that was offered in sacrifice to the gods. The deities therefore, flying from their seats in heaven, wandered, through fear of the Daitya, upon the earth, disguised in mortal shapes. Having conquered the three worlds, he was inflated with pride, and, eulogized by the Gandharvas, enjoyed whatever he desired. The Gandharvas, the Siddhas, and the snake-gods all attended upon the mighty Hiraṇyakaśipu, as he sat at the banquet. The Siddhas delighted stood before him, some playing on musical instruments, some singing songs in his praise, and others shouting cries of victory; whilst the nymphs of heaven danced gracefully in the crystal palace, where the Asura with pleasure quaffed the inebriating cup.
The illustrious son of the Daitya king, Prahlāda, being yet a boy, resided in the dwelling of his preceptor, where he read such writings as are studied in early years. On one occasion he came, accompanied by his teacher, to the court of his father, and bowed before his feet as he was drinking. Hiraṇyakaśipu desired his prostrate son to rise, and said to him, "Repeat, boy, in substance, and agreeably, what during the period of your studies you have acquired." "Hear, sire," replied Prahlāda, "what in obedience to your commands I will repeat, the substance of all I have learned: listen attentively to that which wholly occupies my thoughts. I have learned to adore him who is without beginning, middle, or end, increase or diminution; the imperishable lord of the world, the universal cause of causes." On hearing these words, the sovereign of the Daityas, his eyes red with wrath, and lip swollen with indignation, turned to the preceptor of his son, and said, "Vile Brahman, what is this preposterous commendation of my foe, that, in disrespect to me, you have taught this boy to utter?" "King of the Daityas," replied the Guru, "it is not worthy of you to give way to passion: that which your son has uttered, he has not been taught by me." "By whom then," said Hiraṇyakaśipu to the lad, "by whom has this lesson, boy, been taught you? your teacher denies that it proceeds from him." "Viṣṇu, father," answered Prahlāda, "is the instructor of the whole world: what else should any one teach or learn, save him the supreme spirit?" "Blockhead," exclaimed the king, "who is this Viṣṇu, whose name you thus reiterate so impertinently before me, who am the sovereign of the three worlds?" "The glory of Viṣṇu," replied Prahlāda, "is to be meditated upon by the devout; it cannot be described: he is the supreme lord, who is all things, and from whom all things proceed." To this the king rejoined, "Are you desirous of death, fool, that you give the title of supreme lord to any one whilst I survive?" "Viṣṇu, who is Brahma," said Prahlāda, "is the creator and protector, not of me alone, but of all human beings, and even, father, of you: he is the supreme lord of all. Why should you, sire, be offended?" Hiraṇyakaśipu then exclaimed, "What evil spirit has entered into the breast of this silly boy, that thus, like one possessed, he utters such profanity?" "Not into my heart alone," said Prahlāda, "has Viṣṇu entered, but he pervades all the regions of the universe, and by his omnipresence influences the conduct of all beings, mine, fattier, and thine[2]." "Away with the wretch!" cried the king; "take him to his preceptor's mansion. By whom could he have been instigated to repeat the lying praises of my foe?"
1.17 - M. AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M: "There are various opinions. What if there are? You have told us the Story of Bhishmadeva's weeping, on his bed of arrows, because he could not understand anything of God's ways.
"Again, you have told us that Hanuman used to say: 'I don't know any thing about the day of the week, the position of the stars, and so forth. I only meditate on Rma.'
--
"Nangta told the Story of the tigress and the herd of goats. Once a tigress attacked a herd of goats. A hunter saw her from a distance and killed her. The tigress was pregnant and gave birth to a cub as she expired. The cub began to grow in the company of the goats. At first it was nursed by the she-goats, and later on, as it grew bigger, it began to eat grass and bleat like the goats. Gradually the cub became a big tiger; but still it ate grass and bleated. When atached by other animals, it would run away, like the goats. One day a fierce-looking tiger attacked the herd. It was amazed to see a tiger in the herd eating grass and running away with the goats at its approach.
It lef the goats and caught hold of the grass-eating tiger, which began to bleat and tried to run away. But the fierce tiger dragged it to the water and said: 'Now look at your face in the water. You see, you have the pot-face of a tiger; it is exactly like mine.'
1.17 - Practical rules for the Tragic Poet., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
As for the Story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail. The general plan may be illustrated by the Iphigenia. A young girl is sacrificed; she disappears mysteriously from the eyes of those who sacrificed her; She is transported to another country, where the custom is to offer up all strangers to the goddess. To this ministry she is appointed. Some time later her own brother chances to arrive. The fact that the oracle for some reason ordered him to go there, is outside the general plan of the play. The purpose, again, of his coming is outside the action proper.
However, he comes, he is seized, and, when on the point of being sacrificed, reveals who he is. The mode of recognition may be either that of Euripides or of Polyidus, in whose play he exclaims very naturally:--'So it was not my sister only, but I too, who was doomed to be sacrificed'; and by that remark he is saved.
--
Thus the Story of the Odyssey can be stated briefly. A certain man is absent from home for many years; he is jealously watched by Poseidon, and left desolate. Meanwhile his home is in a wretched plight--suitors are wasting his substance and plotting against his son. At length, tempest-tost, he himself arrives; he makes certain persons acquainted with him; he attacks the suitors with his own hand, and is himself preserved while he destroys them. This is the essence of the plot; the rest is episode.
author class:Aristotle
1.17 - The Divine Birth and Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Avatar may descend as a great spiritual teacher and saviour, the Christ, the Buddha, but always his work leads, after he has finished his earthly manifestation, to a profound and powerful change not only in the ethical, but in the social and outward life and ideals of the race. He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of the divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the Story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the spiritual rebirth. It is indeed curious to note that the
The Divine Birth and Divine Works
1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The Master was sitting on the couch, listening to the Story of Mahimacharan's pilgrimage. Mahima had visited several holy places twelve years before.
MAHlMA: "I found a brahmachari in a garden at Sicrole in Benares. He said he had been living there for twenty years but did not know its owner. He asked me if I worked in an office. On my answering in the negative, he said, 'Then are you a wandering holy man?'
1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Maharshi cited the stories of (1) Svakanthabharanam katha - the Story of the necklace, on the neck itself, not being detected; (2) Dasama
- of the ten fools who counted only nine, each of them omitting to count himself; (3) the lions cub, brought up in a herd of goats; (4)
--
There will be no pain if the physical outlook is given up and if the person exists as the Self. Mourning is not the index of true love. It betrays love of the object, of its shape only. That is not love. True love is shown by the certainty that the object of love is in the Self and that it can never become non-existent. (Maharshi cited the Story of Ahalya and Indra from Yoga Vasishta in this connection.)
Still it is true, pain on such occasions can only be assuaged by association with the wise.
1.201 - Socrates, #Symposium, #Plato, #Philosophy
Diotima appears to follow the Story that Aphrodite was the normally-born child of Zeus and
Dione; see 180d and footnote 53. The rest of the narrative seems to be Platos own invention.
12.01 - This Great Earth Our Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such is the Story of the evolution in the inner core of things. Along with this inner growth there is or there is to be a growth in the outer material level also. The growth of the psychic being or the soul radiates its influence into the mind and life and body forming its outer instrument for expression. These too must partake of the luminous nature of the soul, be intimate and identified with it for the integral fulfilment.
III
12.04 - Love and Death, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Perseus the Deliverer is obviously the Story of the deliverance of human soul from the siege of the emissaries of Death, the lower consciousness. It is also the legend of the destruction of a darker age of civilisation and the advent of a new age of greater light. The reign of Poseidon represents man in his half animal stage worshipping the dark vital gods. Pitted against that rose later, as the scholars say, the Aryan civilisation represented in Europe by the Greeksworshippers of the solar gods, Gods of Light and Love. The force that transforms darkness into light, passion into pure energy, gloom into happiness, is the touch of Love. Even the human agencies of this divine element acting in the human way express as Sri Aurobindo has shown, something of the magic and beauty and the sense of elevation here below, something from love's higher native state.
In Eric, Love's appeal is to the heroic soul. Love as commonly understood in its human form seems to be nothing else but loose sentiment and feeling, a play of mere emotion. As such it is usually made out to be as sweet as possible and as weak as possible, even in its external violence. Weakness, frailty is promoted as a woman's character and also her charm and beauty. On the other hand, heroism, force and vigour form the masculine character. But that is evidently a superficial and a limited and decadent view. A heroic soul to be genuinely heroic and complete must be a loving soul and in the same way love in a woman must carry in it a strong heroic element. The marriage of love and heroism is the Story of Eric, how heroism adds force and strength and nobility to love and how love lends grace and beauty and an other-worldly charm to force and strength. In Eric Love attains a stronger, a larger, a royal fulfilment in its human mould, on this earth.
A different, almost a contrary denouement attends Love in Rodogune. Love here passes through the normal tragic trials and tribulations, even through the final trial, even death. But for love it is not the end nor defeat, rather a higher fulfilment. Real gold brightens up, shines gloriously when passed through fire. The end of the body is not the end of love, it exists even while in the body apart from the body and maintains its autonomous existence undimmed by external barriers and difficulties even by the disappearance of the body. The legend of loves frustrated in this life but reunited in another world is not pure fiction but a truth obvious to the seeing eye. In fact Love is an immortal being and human persons are its receptacles and formations for a special play upon this earth. Earthly fate only serves to increase the delight that forms the true body of love.
12.06 - The Hero and the Nymph, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
the Story of Kalidasa's "The Hero and the Nymph" is the eternal legend of the marriage of heaven and earth upon earth. The Heavenly Beauty can descend upon earth and be united to a human soul only, as it appears, under a malediction; for heaven and earth are normally understood to be opposites and contradictories. The malediction means that the union can happen under certain limitations. First of all, there is the limitation of time, that is to say, the union does not last long, it can be only for a more or less short duration: even the span of human life is too long for it. It is not in the nature of supreme love to linger long on our murky earth:
"Only a little the God-light can stay:"||1.39||
12.08 - Notes on Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Double Trinity the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part TwelveNotes on Freedom
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The Double Trinity the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
12.09 - The Story of Dr. Faustus Retold, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:12.09 - the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
--
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part Twelve the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
Dr. Faust, as you know, you must have seen him on our school stage, was a very learned man. His ambition was to acquire all knowledge, knowledge of all subjects, of all arts and sciences. But he wanted not only to be a doctor of theories but of practice also, not only a learned man but a man of power in additionnot only to know but to control. Universal nature was his field and he sought not only to measure and survey the outside but to probe into her deeper secret mysteries. In those days there was a line of inquiry pursued by savants that was called occultism. The occultist sought to discover the secret and subtle forces of nature through which one could influence and control outer and material things and happenings. In this field there were the alchemists whose attempt was to transform lead into gold, that is to say, manipulate forces and elements in nature in such a way that mere lead would be turned into pure gold. So, our Dr. Faust, in tune with these magicians as they were commonly known, ventured into this region to possess the power over the forces of nature. This control over nature could go to the extent of producing what we know as miracles, for example, you ask for a thing, anything whatsoever, and it is there before you; you want to go some place, you will the thing and you are there like a flash of lightning. You can even make people do what you want to be done.
--
But man, the human soul, has to go through hell, that is to say, through trials and tribulations and ordeals in order to reach heaven. We know there are innumerable legends to illustrate the point. You must have read, all of you, stories of saints, how they were tempted and obstructed by hostile forces, the armies of the undivine. The great Buddha before his illumination as he sat under the Bo-tree firmly resolved on pursuing in his inner consciousness the path of realisation till the very end, was surroundedwe should say today, 'gheraoed'by all the varieties of dark forces, forces of ambition, of passion, of attachment, of enjoyment: they pleaded, they threatened, tried to draw him away by violence and trickery and temptation, but his was a great heroic soul, he refused all invitations and threats, unmoved he held fast to his resolution and in the end came out into the vast illumination. To the Christ too, the same thing happened. Satan came to him, showed to him all the luxury and grandeur and majesty that lay at his disposal if he would only consent to follow him. Christ only told him "Get thee behind, Satan" (Apage Satana) and he was free. In the Upanishads also, we know of the Story of the boy Nachiketas who wanted to possess the truth, the Immortality, and Yama came to him or rather he came to Yam a and asked for these things. Yama, the King of Immortality, said in effect, a young boy like him need not strive for such abstract things that confuse the mind even of gods, "I will give you better things these beautiful chariots and horses, the resounding musical instruments or these abounding riches and even these beautiful women that take and be happy." You all know Nachiketas, the boy's answer: "Dear Sir, all these good things keep for your good self, let me have the one thing that I need, the Divine Knowledge." I am sure many of our children here will be bold enough to say as Nachiketas did.
In our Puranas too we see whenever and wherever the Rishis assemble and start doing tapasya, the hostiles they are called rakshasasrush in, try to break their tapasya, even kill them. The akshasas are the embodiments of the dark forces, agents and armies of the Devil himself. The Rishis had to seek refuge in the help of the gods, that is to say, take refuge in the strength and sincerity of their souls, that is the only way to safety and security, to the achievement of their goal.
1.20 - Visnu appears to Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[2]: Here is another instance of that brief reference to popular and prior legends, which is frequent in this Purāṇa. The man-lion Avatāra is referred to in several of the Purāṇas, but I have met with the Story in detail only in the Bhāgavata. It is there said that Hiraṇyakaśipu asks his son, why, if Viṣṇu is every where, he is not visible in a pillar in the hall, where they are assembled. He then rises, and strikes the column with his fist; on which Viṣṇu, in a form which is neither wholly a lion nor a man, issues from it, and a conflict ensues, which ends in Hiraṇyakaśipu's being torn to pieces. Even this account, therefore, is not in all particulars the same as the popular version of the Story.
[3]: The days of full and new moon are sacred with all sects of Hindus: the eighth and twelfth days of the lunar half month were considered holy by the Vaiṣṇavas, as appears from the text. The eighth maintains its character in a great degree from the eighth of Bhādra being the birthday of Kṛṣṇa; but the eleventh, in more recent Vaiṣṇava works, as the Brahma Vaivartta P., has taken the place of the twelfth, and is even more sacred than the eighth.
12.10 - The Sunlit Path, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part Twelve The Sunlit Path
--
the Story of Dr. Faustus Retold
1.21 - Families of the Daityas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[12]: The Bhāgavata says the Paulomas were killed by Arjuna, who therefore, the commentator observes, were the same as the Nivāta Kavacas: but the Mahābhārata describes the destruction of the Nivāta Kavacas and of the Paulomas and Kālakeyas as the successive exploits of Arjuna. Vana P. 8. I. 633. the Story is narrated in detail only in the Mahābhārata, which is consequently prior to all the Purāṇas in which the allusion occurs. According to that work, the Nivāta Kavacas were Dānavas, to the number of thirty millions, residing in the depths of the sea; and the Paulomas and Kālakañjas were the children of two Daitya dames, Pulomā and Kālakā, inhabiting Hiranyapura, the golden city, floating in the air.
[13]: All the copies read ### which should be, 'Śūkī bore parrots; and Ulūkī, the several sorts of owls? but Ulūkī is nowhere named as one of the daughters of Tāmrā; and the reading may be, 'Owls p. 149 and birds opposed to owls, i. e. crows. The authorities generally coñcur with our text; but the Vāyu has a somewhat different account; or, Śukī, married to Garuḍa, the mother of parrots: Śyenī, married to Aruṇa, mother of Sampāti and Jaṭāyu: Bhāsī, the mother of jays, owls, crows, peacocks, pigeons, and fowls: Kraunchi, the parent of curlews, herons, cranes: and Dhritarāṣtrī, the mother of geese, ducks, teal, and other water-fowl. The three last are also called the wives of Garuḍa.
--
ga, Agni, Padma, and Vāyu Purāṇas agree generally with our text in the description of Kaśyapa's wives and progeny. The Vāyu enters most into details, and contains very long catalogues of the names of the different characters descended from the sage. The Padma and Matsya and the Hari Vaṃśa repeat the Story, but admit several variations, some of which have been adverted to in the preceding notes.
[23]: We have a considerable variation here in the commentary, and it may be doubted if the allusion in the text is accurately explained by either of the versions. In one it is said that 'Brahmā, the grandsire of p. 151 the Gandharvas, &c., appointed the seven Ṛṣis, who were born in a former Manvantara, to be his sons, or to be the intermediate agents in creation: he created no other beings himself, being engrossed by the sacrificial ceremony.' Instead of "putratwe," 'in the state of sons,' the reading is sometimes "pitratwe," 'in the character of fathers;' that is, to all other beings. Thus the gods and the rest, who in a former Manvantara originated from Kaśyapa, were created in the present period as the offspring of the seven Ṛṣis. The other explanation agrees with the preceding in ascribing the birth of all creatures to the intermediate agency of the seven Ṛṣis, but calls them the actual sons of Brahmā, begotten at the sacrifice of Vanilla, in the sacrificial fire. The authority for the Story is not given, beyond its being in other Purāṇas, it has the air of a modern mystification. The latter member of the passage is separated altogether from the foregoing, and carried on to what follows: thus; "In the war of the Gandharvas, serpents, gods, and demons, Diti having lost her children," &c.; the word 'virodha' being understood, it is said, This is defended by the authority of the Hari Vaṃśa, where the passage occurs word for word, except in the last half stanza, which, instead of ### occurs ###. The parallel passages are thus rendered by M. Langlois: 'Le Mouni Swarotchicha avoit cessé de régner quand cette création eut lieu: c'était sous l'empire du Menou Vevaswata le sacrifice de Varouna avait commencé. La première création fut celle de Brahmā, quand il jugea qu'il était temps de procéder à son sacrifice, et que, souverain aïeul du monde, il forma lui-meme dans sa pensée et enfanta les sept Brahmarchis.'
[24]: This legend occurs in all those Purāṇas in which the account of Kaśyapa's family is related.
1.22 - ADVICE TO AN ACTOR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Narendra told the Story of two yogis in Bhutan who used to drink daily a pound of the bitter juice of neem-leaves. He had also visited the hermitage of a holy man on the bank of the Narmada. At the sight of the Bengali Babu dressed in European clothes, the sdhu had remarked, "He has a knife hidden under his clothes, next to his belly."
Keeping the pictures of holy persons
1.22 - ON THE GIFT-GIVING VIRTUE, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
at narrative are is at least debatable. Here the Story
distracts from his statement of his anti-political attitude.
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Again the Master pointed to the Story of Punya and Papa in Yoga
Vasishta, V. Ch. 20, where Punya consoles Papa on the death of their parents and turns him to realising the Self. Further, creation is to be considered in its two aspects, Isvara srishti (God's creation) and jiva srishti (individual's creation). Of these two, the universe is the former, and its relation to the individual is the latter. It is the latter which gives rise to pain and pleasure, irrespective of the former. A story was mentioned from Panchadasi. There were two young men in a village in South India. They went on a pilgrimage to North India. One of them died. The survivor, who was earning something, decided to return only after some months. In the meantime he came across a wandering pilgrim whom he asked to convey the information regarding himself and his dead companion to the village in South India. The wandering pilgrim did so, but by mistake changed the names. The result was that the dead man's parents rejoiced in his safety and the living one's parents were in grief. Thus, you see, pain or pleasure has no reference to facts but
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Again the Master pointed to the Story of Punya and Papa in Yoga
Vasishta, V. Ch. 20, where Punya consoles Papa on the death of their parents and turns him to realising the Self. Further, creation is to be considered in its two aspects, Isvara srishti (Gods creation) and jiva srishti (individuals creation). Of these two, the universe is the former, and its relation to the individual is the latter. It is the latter which gives rise to pain and pleasure, irrespective of the former. A story was mentioned from Panchadasi. There were two young men in a village in South India. They went on a pilgrimage to North India. One of them died. The survivor, who was earning something, decided to return only after some months. In the meantime he came across a wandering pilgrim whom he asked to convey the information regarding himself and his dead companion to the village in South India. The wandering pilgrim did so, but by mistake changed the names. The result was that the dead mans parents rejoiced in his safety and the living ones parents were in grief. Thus, you see, pain or pleasure has no reference to facts but
--
M.: Physical pain only follows body-consciousness; it cannot be in the absence of body-consciousness. Mind, being unaware of the body, cannot be aware of its pains or pleasures. Read the Story of Indra and Ahalya in
Yoga Vasishta; there death itself is said to be an act of mind.
--
This is the meaning conveyed by the Story of Ashtavakra and Janaka.
The anecdotes differ in different books. We are not concerned with the names and the embellishments. The tatva, i.e., the moral, must not be lost sight of. The disciple surrenders himself to the master. That means there is no vestige of individuality retained by the disciple. If the surrender is complete all sense of individuality is lost and there is thus no cause for misery. The eternal being is only happiness. That is revealed.
--
The moral of the Story is clear. Visions of God have their place below the plane of Self-Realisation.
Talk 390.
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M.: The example of Chintamani is found in Yoga Vasishta. Chintamani signifies the Real nature of the Self. the Story is as follows:A man was making tapasya for gaining Chintamani. A gem mysteriously fell into his hands. He thought that it could not be
Chintamani because his efforts had been too short and too little to gain the gem. He discarded it and continued the tapas. Later a sadhu placed before him a brilliant pebble with facets cut. The man was taken in by its appearance but found that it could not fulfil his desires as he originally supposed. Similarly, the Self, being inherent, should not be sought for elsewhere.
--
Sri Bhagavan also related the Story of God Isvara begging food as an old man, taking food as a youth and saving the devotee woman as a babe, all at once.
He again pointed out like babe, lunatic, spirit (Balonmattapisachavat) describing the states of jnanis. There babe (bala) is given precedence over others.
1.24 - (Epic Poetry continued.) Further points of agreement with Tragedy., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
Epic poetry has, however, a great--a special--capacity for enlarging its dimensions, and we can see the reason. In Tragedy we cannot imitate several lines of actions carried on at one and the same time; we must confine ourselves to the action on the stage and the part taken by the players. But in Epic poetry, owing to the narrative form, many events simultaneously transacted can be presented; and these, if relevant to the subject, add mass and dignity to the poem. The Epic has here an advantage, and one that conduces to grandeur of effect, to diverting the mind of the hearer, and relieving the Story with varying episodes. For sameness of incident soon produces satiety, and makes tragedies fail on the stage.
As for the metre, the heroic measure has proved its fitness by the test of experience. If a narrative poem in any other metre or in many metres were now composed, it would be found incongruous. For of all measures the heroic is the stateliest and the most massive; and hence it most readily admits rare words and metaphors, which is another point in which the narrative form of imitation stands alone. On the other hand, the iambic and the trochaic tetrameter are stirring measures, the latter being akin to dancing, the former expressive of action. Still more absurd would it be to mix together different metres, as was done by Chaeremon. Hence no one has ever composed a poem on a great scale in any other than heroic verse. Nature herself, as we have said, teaches the choice of the proper measure.
1.24 - Necromancy and Spiritism, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
No! Let us first congratulate ourselves that this subject of Necromancy is so admirably documented. As to the real Art, we have not only Eliphas Lvi, but the sublimely simple account in the Old Testament of the Witch of Endor, her conjuring up of the apparition of Samuel to King Saul. A third classic must not be neglected: I have heard or read the Story elsewhere for the moment I cannot place it. But it is so brilliantly told in I Write as I Please by Walter Duranty that nothing could be happier than to quote him verbatim.
It was the Story of a Bolshevik who conversed with a corpse. He told it to me himself, and undoubtedly believed it, although he was an average tough Bolshevik who naturally disbelieved in Heaven and Hell and a Life beyond the Grave. This man was doing 'underground' revolutionary work in St. Petersburg when the War broke out; but he was caught by the police and exiled to the far north of Siberia. In the second winter of the War he escaped from his prison camp and reached an Eskimo village where they gave him shelter until the spring. They lived, he said, in beastly conditions, and the only one whom he could talk to was the Shaman, or medicine man, who knew a little Russian. The Shaman once boasted that he could foretell the future, which my Bolshevik friend ridiculed. The next day the Shaman took him to a cave in the side of a hill in which there was a big transparent block of ice enclosing the naked body of a man a white man, not a native apparently about thirty years of age with no sign of a wound anywhere. The man's head, which was clean-shaven, was outside the block of ice; the eyes were closed and the features were European. The shaman then lit a fire and burnt some leaves, threw powder on them muttering incantations, and there was a heavy aromatic smoke. He said in Russian to the bolshevik, 'Ask what you want to know.' The Bolshevik spoke in German; he was sure that the Shaman knew no German, but he was equally sure he saw the lips move and heard it answer, clearly, in German.
He asked what would happen to Russia, and what would happen to him. From the moving lips of the corpse came the reply that Russia would be defeated in war and that there would be a revolution; the Tzar would be captured by his enemies and killed on the eve of rescue; he, the Bolshevik, would fight in the Revolution but would suffer no harm; later, he would be wounded fighting a foreign enemy, but would recover and live long.
1.24 - PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"A high government official from Barisal once said to me, 'Sir, if you begin the work of preaching, I too shall gird my loins.' I told him the Story of people's dirtying the bank of the Haldrpukur and of its being stopped only when a constable, armed with authority from the government, put up a notice prohibiting it.
"So I say, a worthless man may talk his head off preaching, and yet he will produce no effect. But people will listen to him if he is armed with a badge of authority from God.
--
PUNDIT: "You are right, sir. The scripture says the same thing. There is in the Mahabharata the Story of the 'pious hunter' and the 'chaste woman'. Once a hermit was disturbed in his meditation by a crow. When he cast an angry glance at the bird, it was reduced to ashes. The hermit said to himself: 'I have destroyed the crow by a mere glance. I must have made great progress in spiritual life.' One day he went to a woman's house to beg his food. She was devoted to her husb and and served him day and night; she provided him with water to wash his feet and even dried them with her hair. When the hermit knocked at her door for alms, she was serving her husb and and could not open the door at once. The hermit, in a fit of anger, began to curse her. The chaste woman answered from the inner apartments: 'I am not your crow. Wait a few minutes, sir. After finishing my service to my husb and I shall give you my attention.' The hermit was very much surprised to find that this simple woman was aware of his having burnt the crow to ashes. He wanted her to give him spiritual instruction. At her bidding he went to the 'pious hunter' at Benares. This hunter sold meat, but he also served his parents day and night as embodiments of God. The hermit said to himself in utter amazement: 'Why, he is a butcher and a worldly man! How can he give me the Knowledge of Brahman?' But the hunter was a knower of Brahman and had acquired divine knowledge through the performance of his worldly duties. The hermit was illumined by the instruction of the 'pious hunter'."
The Master was about to take his leave. He was standing at the door of the next house, where Ishan's father-in-law lived. Ishan and the other devotees stood by the Master.
1.25 - Fascinations, Invisibility, Levitation, Transmutations, Kinks in Time, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This is notably an affair of the subconscious; it often masters open dislike and distaste; it never yields to reason. It destroys all sense of values. Its origin is usually obscure. The least irrational base of it is the sense of smell. It was, if I remember rightly, the Comte de St. Germain who advised Loise de la Vallire to fix her exquisitely broidered kerchief in such wise that it protected her from contact with her saddle, and then, after a morning's hard gallop, to find an excuse for using it to wipe the brows of the perspiring king. It took him years to recover! the Story is well known, and the plan widely adopted with remarkably unvarying success. But be careful not to overdo it; for if the source of the perfume is recognized the consciousness takes charge, and the result is antipathy.
Many years ago I composed a scent based on similar principles, which I intended to market under the title "Potted Sex Appeal." We tried it out with the assistance of a certain noble Marquess, whose consequent misadventures won't he laugh when he reads this!
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Talking of kinks in Time, I shall now maintain my aforesaid evil notoriety the Story is totally asynartete from fascinations of whatever variety by recounting what is by far the most inexplicable set of facts that ever came my way.
In the summer of 1910 e.v. I was living at 125 Victoria Street, in a studio converted into a Temple by means of a Circle, an Altar and the rest. West of the Altar was a big fireplace with a fender settee; the East wall was covered with bookshelves. Enter the late Theodor Reuss, O.H.O. and Frater Superior of the O.T.O. He wanted me to join that Order. I recommended him, in politer language to repeat the Novocastrian Experiment. Undeterred, he insisted: "But you must."
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: Physical pain only follows body-consciousness; it cannot be in the absence of body-consciousness. Mind, being unaware of the body, cannot be aware of its pains or pleasures. Read the Story of Indra and Ahalya in
Yoga Vasishta; there death itself is said to be an act of mind.
--
This is the meaning conveyed by the Story of Ashtavakra and Janaka.
The anecdotes differ in different books. We are not concerned with the names and the embellishments. The tatva, i.e., the moral, must not be lost sight of. The disciple surrenders himself to the master. That means there is no vestige of individuality retained by the disciple. If the surrender is complete all sense of individuality is lost and there is thus no cause for misery. The eternal being is only happiness. That is revealed.
--
The moral of the Story is clear. Visions of God have their place below the plane of Self-Realisation.
Talk 390.
1.31 - Adonis in Cyprus, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
her devotees. At all events the Story indicates that the princesses
of Paphos had to conform to the custom as well as women of humble
--
the divine nature as well as the human dignity of Adonis. the Story
of Pygmalion points to a ceremony of a sacred marriage in which the
1.32 - The Ritual of Adonis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
who was no other than Astarte. Again, the Story that Adonis spent
half, or according to others a third, of the year in the lower world
1.34 - The Myth and Ritual of Attis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
to explain certain customs observed by the worshippers. the Story of
the self-mutilation of Attis is clearly an attempt to account for
--
themselves on entering the service of the goddess. the Story of his
death by the boar may have been told to explain why his worshippers,
--
were in bloom among the pines. Indeed the Story that Attis unmanned
himself under a pine-tree was clearly devised to explain why his
1.3.5.04 - The Evolution of Consciousness, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This slow preparation of Nature covered immense aeons of time and infinities of space in which they appeared to be her only business; the real business strikes on our view at least when we look with the outward eye of reason as if it came only as a fortuitous accident, in or near the end, for a span of time and in a speck and hardly noticeable corner of one of the smallest provinces of a possibly minor universe among these many boundless finites, these countless universes. If it were so, we could still reply that time and space matter not to the Infinite and Eternal; it is not a waste of labour for That - as it would be for our brief death-driven existences - to work for trillions of years in order to flower only for a moment. But that paradox too is only an appearance - for the history of this single earth is not all the Story of evolution - other earths there are even now elsewhere, and even here many earth-cycles came before us, and many are those that will come hereafter.
Nature laboured for innumerable millions of years to create a material universe of flaming suns and systems; for a lesser but still interminable series of millions she stooped to make this earth a habitable planet. For all that incalculable time she was or seemed busy only with the evolution of Matter; life and mind were kept secret in an apparent non-existence. But the time came when life could manifest, a vibration in the metal, a growing and seeking, a drawing in and a feeling outward in the plant, an instinctive force and sense, a nexus of joy and pain and hunger and emotion and fear and struggle in the animal, - a first organised consciousness, the beginning of the long-planned miracle. Thenceforward she was busy no more exclusively with matter for its own sake, but most with palpitant plasmic matter useful for the expression of life; the evolution of life was now her one intent purpose. And slowly too mind manifested in life, an intensely feeling, a crude thinking and planning vital mind in the animal, but in man the full organisation and apparatus, the developing if yet imperfect mental being, the Manu, the thinking, devising, aspiring, already self-conscient creature. And from
1.35 - Attis as a God of Vegetation, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
ritual, and his monuments. the Story that he was a human being
transformed into a pine-tree is only one of those transparent
--
the "reaped green (or yellow) ear of corn"; and the Story of his
sufferings, death, and resurrection was interpreted as the ripe
1.400 - 1.450 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: The example of Chintamani is found in Yoga Vasishta. Chintamani signifies the Real nature of the Self. the Story is as follows:A man was making tapasya for gaining Chintamani. A gem mysteriously fell into his hands. He thought that it could not be
394
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Sri Bhagavan also related the Story of God Isvara begging food as an old man, taking food as a youth and saving the devotee woman as a babe, all at once.
He again pointed out 'like babe, lunatic, spirit' (Balonmattapisachavat) describing the states of jnanis. There babe (bala) is given precedence over others.
--
Sri Bhagavan now warned the hearers against the mistake of disparaging a Jnani for his apparent conduct and again cited the Story of Parikshit.
He was a still-born child. The ladies cried and appealed to Sri Krishna to save the child. The sages round about wondered how Krishna was going to save the child from the effects of the arrows (apandavastra)
14.02 - Occult Experiences, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It seems my predecessors were telling you stories stories of their own lives; their experiences, so I thought I should follow in their footsteps. But I am not going to tell you about my own experiences, I am going to tell a story, rather a history, that happened in the life of another person. It will be interesting and also instructive. So I will begin the Story, I am the narrator:
I was a traveller, going about from place to place, seeing all things of interest especially those of pilgrimage and I happened to be in Madras. I was waiting there to take a bus to the railway-station which was a few miles off. I saw that there were also many other travellers waiting to board a bus. A busman was inviting people, so I approached his bus. Suddenly a lady came out of the crowd and said, "Please don't go there!" She was an elderly Tamil lady. I was surprised and asked, "Why, why?" She said, "Well, wait; you'll see," and I stopped. Then there were three buses that started I was in one, the lady was in another and the third was the one I had wanted to board.
The lady's bus came last and the other two were running very fast competing as to which should go first. Well, what happened is quite natural; the bus in which I was to go dashed against a wayside tree and was damaged, and the passengers were mostly killed or seriously injured. We reached our destination and naturally I was very eager to see the lady who had stopped me from boarding the bus. I asked her, "How did you know it? How did you guess?" "I'll tell you later on." So we started again, and went to a holy place on a hillside. It was a sort of jungle and woodland, full of bushes. The lady and I were walking quietly together. Then I stepped aside. I wanted to see what was to my left. Suddenly the lady said, "Please, please don't go to that side!" Naturally I was surprised and asked her the reason. Then I saw that behind the bushes was a 200 ft. deep precipice. If i had taken one step more I would have gone down! Then I pleaded with the lady: "Please tell me what it is; how did you see it?" She said, "All right, I'll tell you the Story, let us sit down." Then she narrated the Story. She said, "When I was young I lived with my grand father, and we loved each other exceedingly, we were very much attached to each other. He used to tell me stories and pleased me in all ways, so I was with him almost all the time. Then one day he fell rather seriously ill. Doctors were called and they couldn't do anything. Then my grandfa ther called me and said, 'My child, go and pray to Shiva'-Shiva was the household deity. So I went and knelt down before the image of Shiva and prayed, 'O Shiva, my grandfa ther is ill, please cure him.' One or two days I did that. But he continued to be ill, he became rather worse! Then one day the doctors gave up all hope. I was weeping standing a little away from him. Suddenly I saw a girl by the side of my grandfa ther, and I was astonished, she looked exactly like myself. Then I asked someone near me if he could see anyone by my grandfa ther 'No, I don't see anybody'. Then I went to the bedside, and the image and I stood together. Gradually my grandfa ther was cured. From that time on, wherever there is any danger, any difficulty, this image of myself comes, and helps me. So when you wanted to go in that bus I saw the same figure coming to me and telling me, 'Beware'. I don't know who she is."
So this is the Story. I have brought these books because some of the poets have had such an experience.
Alfred de Musset says that from his childhood he had a comrade who was always with him he was like a brother to him; he accompanied him in life's joys and sorrows, in dangers and happiness-he was always with him. I shall read out some stanzas:
14.04 - More of Yajnavalkya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Last time I told you the Story of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. But that was about the later Yajnavalkya when he had become a full-fledged rishi, a guru with an Ashram and disciples. Today I will tell you something of the earlier Yajnavalkya, the beginning of his rishihood, the start of his spiritual life. You know the structure of the old Indian society, it consisted of four castes, varnas, and four stages, ramas. I shall speak of the ramas now. Each individual person had to follow a definite course of life through developing stages. First of all, naturally, when you are a baby, in your early childhood, you belong to the family and remain with your parents. As soon as you grow up and the time for your education arrives, you are initiated into a stage called brahmacarya; you may generally call it as the stage of self-discipline, you go to a guru and pursue your studies through a disciplined life, something like the life of the children who are here like you. In those days a student's life did not mean merely studies, that is to say, reading and writing, book knowledge, but as here a very active life. The physical education in the old time ramas in certain ways was even more complete than what is given here, for it included the art of warfare also, combatives like serious archery and many other items of physical training. When you have terminated this discipline or brahmacarya, when you have become an accomplished young man you are allowed to return to the world, and take to the worldly life, enrich yourself with all experiences of that life, that is to say, you marry and become a family man. It is the second stage called grhashtya. Next when you have fully enjoyed or fulfilled the duty of the worldly life, you pass on to the next stage that is called the vnaprastha . That is the hermit life, the beginning of the true spiritual life. Finally at the end of the vnaprastha, you pass still beyond and adopt the life of the sannyasi, abandoning everything, concentrating wholly on the Supreme Truth and merging into it.
Now our Yajnavalkya in the normal course of things has passed through the stage of brahmacarya, he has also pursued the stage of domestic life and is now at the end of it. He thinks the time has now come to him to take to spiritual life and enter into vnaprastha. He had married and had two wives. So one day he called the first wife, Katyayani, and said to her: "Katyayani, I am now leaving this life and entering the spiritual life. You have given me comfort and happiness. I am thankful to you for that. Whatever I have, my possessions, movable and immovable, I have divided into two. This is your portion." Katyayani accepted the decision without a murmur. She answered: "Since you are my lord and husband, as you ask me so I shall do." Then Yajnavalkya went to his second wife, Maitreyee; to Maitreyee too he said the same thing as he had said to Katyayani: "Maitreyee, I am leaving this life, I am taking to the spiritual life. I have given to Katyayani her share of my possessions. This is your share." But Maitreyee answered: "Wherever you go, I will follow you, I will also give up the world and its life." Yajnavalkya said: "No Maitreyee, it is a very hard, very difficult life, particularly for a woman. Follow the life to which you have been accustomed. Enjoy freely the possessions I leave you." Then Maitreyee uttered those famous words which you must have heard and which have been ringing through the centuries down to us also, even today: "All these possessions, will they give me immortality?" Yajnavalkya answered: "No, Maitreyee, that they will not give you, it is quite another matter." Maitreyee answered uttering a mantra as it were "What am I to do with that which does not give me immortality?" So Yajnavalkya had to accept her and allow her to accompany him. Now Yajnavalkya gives his first lesson of spiritual life to Maitreyee: "Maitreyee, you love me, so you are coming with me. But do you know the real truth of the matter? The real truth is that you do not love me, but you love the soul that is in you, which is also in me: you love your own self in me. Therefore you love me. And I love you, I love you not for your sake but for the sake of the self in you which is the self in me. All love is like that. A husb and loves his wife, the wife loves her husband, the brother loves his brother or sister, a sister loves her sister or brother, it is not for the sake of the person or the relation but for the sake of the self-one's own self which is in everybody. That is the first lesson which you have to learn. Forget the outer person, your own person or another's person, find the self that is in you and everybody else. That is the basis of the spiritual life."
14.07 - A Review of Our Ashram Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But arrived at one point, Sri Aurobindo happened to make an observation which meant halt! The Mother narrates to us the Story in an amusing way. One day Sri Aurobindo was telling the Mother: What you are doing is very fine and very grand. It will bring you name and fame, you will become a world-figure and your work a marvel. It will be a "grand succs." Well, that was sufficient. The whole thing dropped from Mother's hands. The new creation vanished in a moment, as it were: there was a pralaya.
The Gods withdrew, we came down with a thud upon earthdown to earth, earth to earth. We are still there, crawling, forward I hope, as best as we can.
14.08 - A Parable of Sea-Gulls, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here ends my story. It is the Story, rather a vision and aspiration in a beautiful symbol of a pilot, 1 a real pilot who was flying real aeroplanes. When he flew with his hard mechanical rigid mechanical wings into other regions free from earth's gravitational control, he imagined or aspired to fly with other wings, golden wings, into other regions, golden regions of another kind of consciousness, supra-human consciousness.
The symbol used here is very appropriate and meaningful. The sea-gull has normally a very beautiful appearance: Its snow-white body, out-spread wings, all spotless white and its gracefulness in flight is indeed a delightful spectacle for the eyes to contemplate. Even so man also, even this earthly creature has within him a beautiful being snow-white in its purity and exceedingly graceful in gait and movement; that being has to be brought out and displayed even as the sea-gull transformed itselftransformed its very nature and substance into a vibrating mass of light with its diamond sheen, its material body itself a packet of intense and yet controlled radiating energy.
A re-creation of the Story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, published by Turnstone Press Ltd, London, 1972.
***
1.40 - Coincidence, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
A friend of mine, A, rang up a friend of hers, B, at her flat in Holland Park, some 3 or 4 miles west, and a p'int to the Nor'rard, of Piccadilly Circus. After the usual series of "they don't answer", "line's engaged", "unobtainable", "line's out of order", "line's temporarily disconnected at the subscriber's request", an appeal to "Supervisor" got her connected instantly. Yet another girl friend, C, appears in, and vanishes from, the Story; she said "Oh, what a pity, you've just missed her; she went out five minutes ago. I think she'll be back in an hour's time, try then."
A waited impatiently, and rang up once more. Again the series of nonsense-difficulties about getting the connection. At last the answer came. This time yet one more girl friend D. "Oh, what a pity! You've just missed her; she left the box not five minutes ago." "Box," screamed A, "what box? Have I got mixed up in a Trunk Murder?" "Why, this box," replied D, calmly. "What box?" shouted A. "Isn't that her flat?" "Her flat! are you crazy? This is a call-box in Shaftesbury Avenue." Collapse of A's confidence in the sanity of Nature.
1.40 - The Nature of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the corn-god himself. Further, the Story that his mangled remains
were scattered up and down the land and buried in different places
--
personated him. the Story that the Thracian Orpheus was similarly
torn limb from limb by the Bacchanals seems to indicate that he too
1.42 - Osiris and the Sun, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the identification of Osiris with the sun is that the Story of his
death fits better with the solar phenomena than with any other in
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Sri Bhagavan now warned the hearers against the mistake of disparaging a Jnani for his apparent conduct and again cited the Story of Parikshit.
He was a still-born child. The ladies cried and appealed to Sri Krishna to save the child. The sages round about wondered how Krishna was going to save the child from the effects of the arrows (apandavastra)
--
A passage from Arunachala Mahatmya (the Glory of Arunachala) was read out. It related to Pangunni (a lame sage) who had his legs made whole by the grace of Sri Arunachala. Sri Bhagavan then related the Story of a man whom Sri Maharshi had seen when He was in Gurumurtham. The man was one Kuppu Iyer. His legs were useless and he could not walk.
He was once on his way to Vettavalam, moving on his buttocks. An old man suddenly appeared before him and said Get up and walk. Why do you move on your buttocks? Kuppu Iyer was excited and beside himself. Involuntarily he rose up and walked freely. After going a short distance, he looked behind to see the stranger who made him walk. But he could not find anyone. He narrated the incident to all those who were surprised to see him walk. Any old man in the town can bear witness to
--
In the course of conversation Sri Bhagavan said that Thirujnanasambandar had sung in praise of Sri Arunachala. He also mentioned the Story briefly as follows:
Jnanasambandar was born in an orthodox family about 1,500 years ago. When he was three years old his father took him to the temple in
--
The moral of the Story is that even though the man was seen in flesh and blood, yet the wrong notion that he was a ghost prevented right values being taken. So it is with a forced realisation of the Self.
22nd October, 1938
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round the earth. The other treats the Story with contempt.
The lady protested that dream and sleep do not make any appeal to
1.44 - Demeter and Persephone, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
When we compare this part of the Story with the statement of a
Christian writer of the second century, Hippolytus, that the very
1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A passage from Arunachala Mahatmya (the Glory of Arunachala) was read out. It related to Pangunni (a lame sage) who had his legs made whole by the grace of Sri Arunachala. Sri Bhagavan then related the Story of a man whom Sri Maharshi had seen when He was in Gurumurtham. The man was one Kuppu Iyer. His legs were useless and he could not walk.
He was once on his way to Vettavalam, moving on his buttocks. An old man suddenly appeared before him and said "Get up and walk. Why do you move on your buttocks?" Kuppu Iyer was excited and beside himself. Involuntarily he rose up and walked freely. After going a short distance, he looked behind to see the stranger who made him walk. But he could not find anyone. He narrated the incident to all those who were surprised to see him walk. Any old man in the town can bear witness to
1.47 - Lityerses, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
According to another version of the Story, Lityerses, a son of
Midas, was wont to challenge people to a reaping match with him, and
--
In comparing the Story with the harvest customs of Europe, three
points deserve special attention, namely: I. the reaping match and
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the king's stead. Of the custom thus modified the Story of Lityerses
would be, in one version at least, a reminiscence.
1.48 - Morals of AL - Hard to Accept, and Why nevertheless we Must Concur, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Had Hitler been a less abnormal character, no great "Mischief," or at least a very different kind of "mischief," might have come of it. I think you have read Hitler speaks if not, do so his private conversation abounds in what sound almost like actual quotations from the Book of the Law. But he public man's private conversation can be repeated on the platform only at the risk of his political life; and he served up to the people only such concoctions as would tickle their gross palates. Worse still, he was the slave of his prophetic frenzy; he had not undertaken the balancing regimen of the Curriculum of AA; and, worst of all, he was very far indeed from being a full initiate, even in the loosest sense of the term. His Weltanschauung was accordingly a mass of personal and political prejudice; he had no true cosmic comprehension, no true appreciation of First Principles; and he was tossed about in every direction by the varied conflicting forces that naturally concentrated their energies ever more strenuously upon him as his personal position became more and more the dominating factor, first in domestic and then in European politics. I warned our S.H. Soror repeatedly that she ought to correct these tendencies; but she already saw the success of her plans within her grasp, and refused to believe that this success itself would alarm the world into combining to destroy him. "But we have the Book," she confidently retorted, failing to see that the other powers in extremity would be compelled to adopt those identical principles. Of course, as you know, it has happened as I foresaw; only a remnant of piety-purefied Prelates and sloppy sentimentalists still hold out against the Book of the Law, sabotage the victory, and will turn the Peace into a shambles of surrender if we are fools enough to give ear to their caterwauling as in the Story of the highly-esteemed tomcat, when at last one of his fans obtained an interview; "all he could do was to talk about his operation."
Has this digression seemed too long? Ah, but it isn't a digression. Rightly considered, it strikes at the heart of your "difficulties."
1.49 - Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
along with her. the Story is obviously a forced and awkward attempt
to bridge over the gulf between the old conception of the
--
secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the Story,
Eubuleus himself received, jointly with his brother Triptolemus, the
--
explained by the Story that he had been killed by the animal.
According to another story, a boar rent with his tusk the bark of
--
Demeter make it probable that the Story of the hostility of the
animal to the god was only a late misapprehension of the old view of
--
Ra having declared the beast abominable. Again, the Story that
Typhon was hunting a boar when he discovered and mangled the body of
1.50 - Eating the God, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
sacrifices may perhaps be traced in the Story that the effigies
dedicated to Mania at the Compitalia were substitutes for human
victims. the Story itself, however, is probably devoid of
foundation, since the practice of putting up dummies to divert the
1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
The moral of the Story is that even though the man was seen in flesh and blood, yet the wrong notion that he was a ghost prevented right values being taken. So it is with a forced realisation of the Self.
539
1.57 - Beings I have Seen with my Physical Eye, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This incident is the key to the puzzle of my character. But, as a child, what did I see? I cannot think of any one person who subsequently devoted his life to Magick who has not at least one early experience of seeing angels, or fairies, or something of the sort. But A.C.? Nary a one. I was brought up on the Bible, a literalist, fundamentalist all that a Plymouth Brother could wish. It never occurred to me to doubt a word of what I was told. Perhaps the Wolf's Tail of an healthy scepticism gleamed pale at the age of 10, when I asked my form master how it was that Christ managed to be dead for three days and three nights between Friday night and Sunday morning. He said that he did not know, and (to a further question) that no one had ever explained it. This merely filled me with ambition to be the great exegetist who had explained it. I never thought of doubting the Story.
Well, all this time, and then through puberty, despite my romantic bent, my absorption in the gramarye of Sir Walter Scott, my imaginative life as one of his heroes, and the rest of it. I never had even a moment's illusion that anything of the sort had ever happened to me. I went through all the motions; I haunted all the places where such things are reputed likely to happen, but nothing did happen.
1.60 - Between Heaven and Earth, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
could scarcely credit the Story when I heard it; the whole thing
seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief, and told him
1.60 - Knack, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It reminds me of the Story of the Psychologist who wanted to judge the difference in temperament between an Englishman, as Scotsman and an Irishman, in judging the amount of Whisky in a bottle in the next room. They had to go in, report, and come back, and tell him what they thought about it. He filled it 50% with great accuracy.
The Irishman came back fairly cheerful; he rubbed his hands; "Well, there's half a bottle left, your honour."
1.61 - The Myth of Balder, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
wisest, mildest, best beloved of all the immortals. the Story of his
death, as it is told in the younger or prose _Edda,_ runs thus. Once
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mythical husk in the legend of Balder, the details of the Story
suggest that it belongs to that class of myths which have been
1.65 - Balder and the Mistletoe, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
from human life, but that it was at the same time the Story which
people told to explain why they annually burned a human
--
ceremony. If I am right, the Story of Balder's tragic end formed, so
to say, the text of the sacred drama which was acted year by year as
1.66 - The External Soul in Folk-Tales, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
In the first place, the Story of the external soul is told, in
various forms, by all Aryan peoples from Hindoostan to the Hebrides.
--
In the Story of Seyf el-Mulook in the _Arabian Nights_ the jinnee
tells the captive daughter of the King of India, "When I was born,
1.67 - The External Soul in Folk-Custom, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Thus it appears that the Story of "The giant who had no heart in his
body" may perhaps furnish the key to the relation which is supposed
--
of the Story demand that the giant should at last reveal his secret,
no such obligation is laid on the savage; and no inducement that can
1.72 - Education, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I like the Story it is a true tale of the old Jew millionaire who bought up the annual waste of the Pennsylvania Railroad a matter of Three Million Dollars. He called with his cheque very neatly made out and signed it by making his mark! The Railroad Man was naturally flabbergasted, and could not help exclaiming, "Yet you made all those millions of yours what would you have been if only you had been able to read and write?" "Doorkeeper at the Synagogue" was the prompt reply. His illiteracy had disqualified him when he applied for the job after landing.
the Story is not only true, but "of all Truth;" see my previous letter on "Certainty."
1951-01-08 - True vision and understanding of the world. Progress, equilibrium. Inner reality - the psychic. Animals and the psychic., #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. Generally it is believed that things always end badly in Nature. Everyone knows the Story of those who have met a lamentable end after having enjoyed great success in their life; of those who had extraordinary capacities and who finally lost them; of a nation which for a long period was the model of a marvellous civilisation the civilisation vanishes and the nation is changed into something so deplorable that one can no longer recollect what it was. It seems that the Story of the earth is a story of victories followed by defeats and not of defeats followed by victories.
But in fact, whenever it is a question of universal and divine things, what is needed is the universal vision and divine understanding of things in order to know how the truth expresses itself. There is a kind of general pessimism which says that even if things begin well they end badly, that it is weakness, hypocrisy, falsehood and wickedness which always seem to have the upper hand. That is why those who see the world in their own personal dimension have said that the world is bad and that we have only to finish with it and get out of it as soon as possible. Teachers have taught this but their teaching only proves that their vision is too narrow and in the dimension of their human individuality.
1951-02-08 - Unifying the being - ideas of good and bad - Miracles - determinism - Supreme Will - Distinguishing the voice of the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is a temptation that every teacher meets at each step, for the very simple reason that ordinary humanity, in a general way, not being in personal contact with the divine powers, understands nothing of what an illumined consciousness may be and asks for material proofs. It is on this demand that most religions are established and, for reasons which I may very frankly call political, they have put at the origin of their religion a more or less considerable number of miracles as having been performed by the founders, and they have thus more or less crudely encouraged among ignorant people the taste, the necessity for seeing what they call miracles in order to believe in the divine power of a person. This is an extraordinary ignorance, because it is not at all necessary to have a divine power or consciousness to perform miracles. It is infinitely more easy to perform miracles with the help of small entities of the vital world who are material enough to be in touch with the physical world and act upon it, than to live in the consciousness of the higher regions and to work upon Nature only through the intermediary of all the other domains. It has been repeated over and over again to all human intellects that the proof of a beings divinity is that he can raise the dead, cure maladies, and do many other things of the same kind (except making a fool wise).1 Well, I guarantee that this is not a proof; it proves only one thing, that these Masters are in contact with the powers of the vital world and that with the help of those beings they can perform these miracles, thats all. If one relies upon that to recognise the superiority of a man, one would make a glaring mistake. Naturally, there are other religions which are established on revelations made to their founders. These revelations are more or less happy mental transcriptions of the knowledge they received. This is already of a higher order but it is not yet a proof. And I would finally say, the human demand for proofs is not at all favourable to ones development. Because the true divine power has organised the world according to a certain plan and in this plan there was no question of things happening in an illogical way; otherwise from the very beginning the world would have been illogical and it is not so. Men imagine for the most part one of two things, either that there is a material world to which they belong, that all comes from there, all returns there and all ends therethese are the unbelieversor, the believers, most of them, that there is something which they call God and then the physical world, and that this physical world is the creation of that God who knows what he is doing or does what he wants; and the confusion lies in saying that everything happens by a kind of arbitrariness, natural or supernatural. There are very few people who know that there exists in the universe an infinite number of gradations and that each one of these gradations has its own reality, its own life, its own law, its own determinism, and that the creation did not come about like that, by an arbitrary will, in an arbitrary way but is a deploying of consciousness and each thing has evolved as a logical result of the preceding one. I am telling you all this as simply as I can, you see, it is a very incomplete expression, but if I wanted to tell you the Story exactly as it is, it would be a little difficult to make you understand. Only I would like you to know my conclusion (I have already spoken about it several times, more or less in detail), it is this: each one of these numberless regions has its own very logical determinismeverything proceeds from cause to effect; but these worlds, although differentiated, are not separate from each other and, by numerous processes which we may study, the inner or higher worlds are in constant contact with the lower or external worlds and act upon these, so that the determinism of one changes the determinism of the other. If you take the purely material domain, for instance, and if you notice that the material laws, the purely material laws are altered by something all of a sudden, you ought to say that it was a miracle, because there is a rupture of the determinism of one plane through the intervention of another, but usually we do not call this a miracle. For example, when the human will intervenes and changes something, that seems to you quite natural, because you have been accustomed to it from your childhood; you remember, dont you, the example I gave you the other day: a stone falls according to the law of its own determinism, but you wish to interrupt its fall and you stretch out your hand and catch it; well you ought to call this a miracle, but you dont because you are used to it (but a rat or a dog would perhaps call it a miracle if they could speak). And note that it is the same for what people call a miracle; they speak of a miracle because they are absolutely ignorant, unaware of the gradations between the will which wants to express itself and the plane on which it expresses itself. When they have a mental or a vital will, the thing seems quite natural to them, but when it is a question of the will of a higher world the world of the gods or of a higher entitywhich all of a sudden upsets all your little organisation, that seems to you a miracle. But it is a miracle simply because you are unable to follow the gradations by which the phenomenon took place. Therefore, the Supreme Will, that which comes from the very highest region, if you saw it in its logical action, if you were aware of it continually, it would seem to you altogether natural. You can express this in two ways: either say, It is quite natural, it is like this that things must happen, it is only an expression of the divine Will, or, each time you see on the material plane an intervention coming from another plane, you ought to say, It is miraculous! So I may say with certainty that people who want to see miracles are people who cherish their ignorance! You understand my logic, dont you? These people love their ignorance, they insist upon seeing miracles and being astounded! And that is why people who have done yoga seriously consider it altogether fatal to encourage this tendency; hence it is forbidden.
There is a miracle because you do not give people time to see the procedure by which you do things, you do not show them the stages. Thus, some men have reached higher mental regions and do not need to follow step by step all the gradations of thought; they can jump from one idea to a far distant inference without the intermediary links; this is usually called intuition (it is not altogether an intuition; it is that the idea, to begin with, is at a great height and from there these people can see while descending the whole totality of things and consequences without passing through all the gradations as ordinary human thought is obliged to do). It is an experience I have had; when I used to speak with Sri Aurobindo, we never had the need to go through intermediary ideas; he said one thing and I saw the far off result; we used to talk always like that, and if a person had happened to be present at our conversations he would have said, What are they talking about! But for us, you know, it was as clear as a continuous sentence. You could call that a mental miracleit was not a miracle, it was simply that Sri Aurobindo had the vision of the totality of mental phenomena and hence we had no need to waste a good deal of time in going through all the gradations. For any person capable of following the line, the thing would have been quite natural and logical; for ignorant people it was a miracle.
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I know the Story of a man who had a few small powers and indulged in all kinds of so-called spiritualist practices, and through repeated exercises he had succeeded in coming into conscious contact with what he called a spirit. This man was doing business; he was a financier and was even a speculator. His relations with his spirit were of a very practical kind! This spirit used to tell him when the stocks and shares would go up and when they would come down; it told him, Sell this, Buy thatit gave him very precise financial particulars. For years he had been listening to his spirit and had followed it, and was fantastically successful; he became tremendously rich and naturally boasted a lot about the spirit which guided him. He used to tell everybody, You see, it is really worth while learning how to put oneself in contact with these spirits. But one day he met a man who was a little wiser, who told him, Take care. He did not listen to him, he was swollen with his power and ambition. And it was then that his spirit gave him a last advice, Now you can become the richest man in the world. Your ambition will be fulfilled. You have only to follow my direction. Do this: put all that you have into this transaction and you will become the richest man in the world. The stupid fool did not even realise the trap laid for him: for years he had followed his guide and succeeded, so he followed the last direction; and he lost everything, to the last penny.
So you see, these are small entities who make fun of you, and to make sure of you they work these little miracles to encourage you, and when they feel that you are well trapped, they play a fine trick upon you and it is all over with you.
1951-02-10 - Liberty and license - surrender makes you free - Men in authority as representatives of the divine Truth - Work as offering - total surrender needs time - Effort and inspiration - will and patience, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Most people confuse liberty with licence. For the ordinary mind, to be free is to have the chance of committing every stupidity that one likes, without anybody intervening. I say one must be absolutely free, but it is a very dangerous advice unless one understands the meaning of the words. Free from what?free from attachments, evidently. It is exactly that. It is the Story of the Buddha1 who answers the young man expert in all the arts, I am an expert in the art of self-control. If men congratulate me or praise me, it leaves me tranquil and indifferent. If they blame me, that leaves me equally tranquil and indifferent.
Try then to question yourself to see to what extent you are above all blame and praise. Not that you must feel so superior to others that what they say seems to you of no importance, it is not that. It is that you have become aware of the general state of ignorance, including yours, and when others believe that something is good, you know It is not so good as that, and when they believe it is bad you can say, It is not so bad as that. Everything is completely mixed up and finally nobody can judge anybody. Therefore you are completely indifferent to all praise and all blame. And the conclusion would be: so long as the divine consciousness in me or in one whom I have chosen as my Guru does not tell me This is to be done, This is not to be done, I am indifferent to what others may tell me. For I think that the divine presence in the one in whom I have put my trust is capable of knowing what is good and what is bad, what is to be done and what is not to be done.
1951-02-15 - Dreams, symbolic - true repose - False visions - Earth-memory and history, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ask yourself rather whether you have a mind which keeps quiet, which is wholly sincere and objective, which says exactly what it has seen or whether you have one of those minds bubbling with activity which, as soon as it has seen something, adds to it its grain of salt, automatically, and makes out of it a big story; and so you are quite convinced that you have seen all that, but in fact you have not seen it at all. It is in this that one can say that visions are not sincere. But that is not the fault of the vision! What you have seen, you have seen; it is the fault of the interpretation or simply of the narration which was embellished. I have had admirable examples!of people who had seen truly revealing things, but who understood nothing about them. On the spur of the moment they recounted spontaneously what they had seenin half an hour the Story had become a little different, all the holes were filled up and finally the Story stood well on its legs! the Story was idiotic, it made no sense, whilst the few points they had seen were magnificent revelations.
(Silence)
1951-02-24 - Psychic being and entity - dimensions - in the atom - Death - exteriorisation - unconsciousness - Past lives - progress upon earth - choice of birth - Consecration to divine Work - psychic memories - Individualisation - progress, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But in ordinary livesand by that I mean the life of a certain lite of sufficiently well-developed people the contact between the external being and the psychic is quite intermittent; it is the result of certain experiences or certain inner needs. At that moment the psychic being is in front, as Sri Aurobindo says, that is, it comes to the surface of the consciousness, it is in direct contact with material circumstances, with forms and words and sounds, etc., for a very short time; so it records all that like a photograph or a cinema, but it is just a minute, a few moments in a lifetime. These moments may repeat themselves several times, but they do not last; and it is this the psychic being remembers; and when you have real psychic memories, sincere, spontaneous, not fabricated by the mind or the vital, that is, purely psychic, exact, your memory is intermittent. And it is often very difficult to locate your past lives, to say: I was this or that. It is only when the psychic experience has taken place at a very important moment of your life and a whole set of circumstances gives you, so to say, the key to the Story (dresses, spoken words, customs or an environment giving you the key) that you can say: Oh! That life, I have lived it. But if someone comes and narrates to you all his previous lives from the monkey onwards, with a mass of details, you may be sure that he is a humbug!
You spoke of the chance of a psychic being meeting what will be its physical being.
1951-03-14 - Plasticity - Conditions for knowing the Divine Will - Illness - microbes - Fear - body-reflexes - The best possible happens - Theories of Creation - True knowledge - a work to do - the Ashram, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know the Story of the irritable elephant, his mahout, and the man who would not make way for the elephant. Standing in the middle of the road, the man said to the mahout, The divine Will is in me and the divine Will wants me not to move. The driver, a man of some wit, answered, But the divine Will in the elephant wants you to move!
Mother passes on to another question: illnesses. During the talk in 1929 someone asked whether illnesses were not due to microbes rather than to adverse forces or to fluctuations of yoga. Mother answered:
1951-04-09 - Modern Art - Trend of art in Europe in the twentieth century - Effect of the Wars - descent of vital worlds - Formation of character - If there is another war, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the Story began with the man who used to do still-life and whose plates were never round Czanne! It was he who began it; he said that if plates were painted round that would not be living; that when one looks at things spontaneously, never does one see plates round: one sees them like this (gesture). I dont know why, but he said that it is only the mind that makes us see plates as round, because one knows they are round, otherwise one does not see them round. It is he who began. He painted a still-life which was truly a very beautiful thing, note that; a very beautiful thing, with an impression of colour and form truly surprising (I could show you reproductions one day, I must be having them, but they are not colour reproductions unfortunately; the beauty is really in the colour). But, of course, his plate was not round. He had friends who told him just this, But after all, why dont you make your plate round? He replied, My dear fellow, you are altogether mental, you are not an artist; it is because you think that you make your plates round: if you only see, you will do it like this (gesture). It is in accordance with the impression that the plate ought to be painted; it gives you an impact, you translate the impact, and it is this which is truly artistic. It is like this that modern art began. And note that he was right. His plates were not round, but he was right in principle.
What has made art what it is (do you want me to tell you this, psychologically?) is photography. Photographers did not know their job and gave you hideous things, frightfully ugly; it was mechanical, it had no soul, it had no art, it was horrible. All the first attempts of photography until not very long ago, were like that. It is about fifty years ago that it became tolerable, and now with gradual improvement it has become something good; but it must be said that the process is absolutely different. In those days, when your portrait was taken, you sat in a comfortable chair, you had to sit leaning nicely and facing an enormous thing with a black cloth, which opened like this towards you. And the man ordered, Dont move! Steady! That, of course, was the end of the old painting. When the painter made something lifelike, a lifelike portrait, his friends said, Why now, this is photography!
1951-04-12 - Japan, its art, landscapes, life, etc - Fairy-lore of Japan - Culture- its spiral movement - Indian and European- the spiritual life - Art and Truth, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, I ought to say, to complete my picture, that the four years I was there I found a dearth of spirituality as entire as could be. These people have a wonderful morality, live according to quite strict moral rules, they have a mental construction even in the least detail of life: one must eat in a certain way and not another, one must bow in a certain way and not another, one must say certain words but not all; when addressing certain people one must express oneself in a certain way; when speaking with others, one must express oneself in another. If you go to buy something in a shop, you must say a particular sentence; if you dont say it, you are not served: they look at you quizzically and do not move! But if you say the word, they wait upon you with full attention and bring, if necessary, a cushion for you to sit upon and a cup of tea to drink. And everything is like that. However, not once do you have the feeling that you are in contact with something other than a marvellously organised mental-physical domain. And what energy they have! Their whole vital being is turned into energy. They have an extraordinary endurance but no direct aspiration: one must obey the rule, one is obliged. If one does not submit oneself to rules there, one may live as Europeans do, who are considered barbarians and looked upon altogether as intruders, but if you want to live a Japanese life among the Japanese you must do as they do, otherwise you make them so unhappy that you cant even have any relation with them. In their house you must live in a particular way, when you meet them you must greet them in a particular way. I think I have already told you the Story of that Japanese who was an intimate friend of ours, and whom I helped to come into contact with his soul and who ran away. He was in the countryside with us and I had put him in touch with his psychic being; he had the experience, a revelation, the contact, the dazzling inner contact. And the next morning, he was no longer there, he had taken flight! Later, when I saw him again in town after the holidays, I asked him, But what happened to you, why did you go away?Oh! You understand, I discovered my soul and saw that my soul was more powerful than my faith in the country and the Mikado; I would have had to obey my soul and I would no longer have been a faithful subject of my emperor. I had to go away. There you are! All this is au thentically true.
Why are great artists born at the same time in the same country?
1951-04-28 - Personal effort - tamas, laziness - Static and dynamic power - Stupidity - psychic and intelligence - Philosophies- different languages - Theories of Creation - Surrender of ones being and ones work, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a Muslim legend like that about Christ. You know the Story: Christ healed the sick, made the lame walk, the blind see and even raised the dead. Seeing all these miracles, someone went up to Christ and said, Oh! I have a very interesting case to put before you. Yes, I have a son who is stupid. Christ opened his eyes wide and ran away! It seems that was the only thing he could not do! This is a joke, of course, and the thing is difficult, but it is possible.
The Divine is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya.5
1953-05-06, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remember. But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: Ah, there! it was like that. Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several timesonce, twiceuntil it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventureit is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, Well, well. It takes a form, it becomesclear and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the Story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.