TERMS STARTING WITH
undampned ::: a. --> Uncondemned.
undam ::: v. t. --> To free from a dam, mound, or other obstruction.
undated ::: a. --> Rising and falling in waves toward the margin, as a leaf; waved.
Not dated; having no date; of unknown age; as, an undated letter.
undauntable ::: a. --> Incapable of being daunted; intrepid; fearless; indomitable.
undaunted ::: a. --> Not daunted; not subdued or depressed by fear.
undaunted ::: undismayed; not discouraged; not forced to abandon purpose or effort.
undeadly ::: a. --> Not subject to death; immortal.
undeaf ::: v. t. --> To free from deafness; to cause to hear.
unde ::: a. --> Waving or wavy; -- applied to ordinaries, or division lines.
undecagon ::: n. --> A figure having eleven angles and eleven sides.
undecane ::: n. --> A liquid hydrocarbon, C11H24, of the methane series, found in petroleum; -- so called from its containing eleven carbon atoms in the molecule.
undeceive ::: v. t. --> To cause to be no longer deceived; to free from deception, fraud, fallacy, or mistake.
undecency ::: n. --> Indecency.
undecennary ::: a. --> Occurring once in every period of eleven years; undecennial.
undecennial ::: a. --> Occurring or observed every eleventh year; belonging to, or continuing, a period of eleven years; undecennary; as, an undecennial festival.
undecent ::: a. --> Indecent.
undecide ::: v. t. --> To reverse or recant, as a previous decision.
undecisive ::: a. --> Indecisive.
undecked ::: a. --> Not decked; unadorned.
Not having a deck; as, an undecked vessel.
undeck ::: v. t. --> To divest of ornaments.
undecolic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or designating, an acid, C11H18O2, of the propiolic acid series, obtained indirectly from undecylenic acid as a white crystalline substance.
undecreed ::: a. --> Not decreed.
Reversed or nullified by decree, as something previously decreed.
undecylenic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or designating, an acid C11H20O2, homologous with acrylic acid, and obtained as a white crystalline substance by the distillation of castor oil.
undecylic ::: a. --> Related to, derived from, or containing, undecyl; specifically, designating that member of the fatty acids which corresponds to undecane, and is obtained as a white crystalline substance, C11H22O2.
undecyl ::: n. --> The radical regarded as characteristic of undecylic acid.
undeeded ::: a. --> Not deeded or transferred by deed; as, undeeded land.
Not made famous by any great action.
undefaced ::: not defaced or disfigured.
undefatigable ::: a. --> Indefatigable.
undefeasible ::: a. --> Indefeasible.
undefended ::: not defended or guarded; unprotected.
undefined external reference [Unix] A message from {Unix}'s linker, {ld}. Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling references in an argument or discussion. [{Jargon File}]
undefined "programming" The value of a {variable} that has not been set or a function that does not return anything. In some programming languages, e.g. {Perl}, {JavaScript}, undefined is a named constant that can be used to explicitly set a variable or return undefined or can be passed as an {actual argument}. Other languages, e.g. {Java}, call it "{null}", but note that the null in relational database programming is subtly different. Many languages provide a {built-in function} to test whether an expression is undefined, e.g. Perl's defined() function. Attempting to operate on an undefined value, e.g. add it to a number or append it to a string, may either raise an error or result in the undefined value being converted ({cast}) to some appropriate value, e.g. {false}, zero or {empty string}, according to the {type} of expression. This definition is an example of a {paradox}. (2012-12-02)
undefine ::: v. t. --> To make indefinite; to obliterate or confuse the definition or limitations of.
undeify ::: v. t. --> To degrade from the state of deity; to deprive of the character or qualities of a god; to deprive of the reverence due to a god.
undeniable ::: a. --> Not deniable; incapable of denial; palpably true; indisputable; obvious; as, undeniable evidence.
Unobjectionable; unquestionably excellent; as, a person of undeniable connections.
undeniably ::: adv. --> In an undeniable manner.
undepartable ::: a. --> Incapable of being parted; inseparable.
underaction ::: n. --> Subordinate action; a minor action incidental or subsidiary to the main story; an episode.
underactor ::: n. --> A subordinate actor.
underact ::: v. t. --> To perform inefficiently, as a play; to act feebly.
under-age ::: a. --> Not having arrived at adult age, or at years of discretion; hence, raw; green; immature; boyish; childish.
underagent ::: n. --> A subordinate agent.
underaid ::: v. t. --> To aid clandestinely.
under-arm ::: a. --> Done (as bowling) with the arm not raised above the elbow, that is, not swung far out from the body; underhand. Cf. Over-arm and Round-Arm.
underback ::: n. --> A vessel which receives the wort as it flows from the mashing tub.
underbearer ::: n. --> One who supports or sustains; especially, at a funeral, one of those who bear the copse, as distinguished from a bearer, or pallbearer, who helps to hold up the pall.
underbear ::: v. t. --> To support; to endure.
To line; to guard; to face; as, cloth of gold underborne with blue tinsel.
underbid ::: v. t. --> To bid less than, as when a contract or service is offered to the lowest bidder; to offer to contract, sell, or do for a less price than.
underbind ::: v. t. --> To bind beneath.
underboard ::: adv. --> Under the board, or table; hence, secretly; unfairly; underhand. See the Note under Aboveboard.
underbrace ::: v. t. --> To brace, fasten, or bind underneath or below.
underbranch ::: n. --> A lower branch.
A twig or branchlet.
underbred ::: a. --> Not thoroughly bred; ill-bred; as, an underbred fellow.
underbrush ::: n. --> Shrubs, small trees, and the like, in a wood or forest, growing beneath large trees; undergrowth.
underbuilder ::: n. --> A subordinate or assistant builder.
underbuilding ::: n. --> Same as Substruction.
underbuy ::: v. t. --> To buy at less than the real value or worth; to buy cheaper than.
undercast ::: v. t. --> To cast under or beneath.
underchamberlain ::: n. --> A deputy chamberlain of the exchequer.
underchanter ::: n. --> Same as Subchanter.
underchaps ::: n. pl. --> The lower chaps or jaw.
undercharge ::: v. t. --> To charge below or under; to charge less than is usual or suitable fro; as, to undercharge goods or services.
To put too small a charge into; as, to undercharge a gun. ::: n. --> A charge that is less than is usual or suitable.
underclay ::: n. --> A stratum of clay lying beneath a coal bed, often containing the roots of coal plants, especially the Stigmaria.
undercliff ::: n. --> A subordinate cliff on a shore, consisting of material that has fallen from the higher cliff above.
underclothes ::: n. pl. --> Clothes worn under others, especially those worn next the skin for warmth.
underclothing ::: n. --> Same as Underclothes.
undercoat ::: n. --> A coat worn under another; a light coat, as distinguished from an overcoat, or a greatcoat.
A growth of short hair or fur partially concealed by a longer growth; as, a dog&
underconduct ::: n. --> A lower conduit; a subterranean conduit.
underconsumption ::: n. --> Consumption of less than is produced; consumption of less than the usual amount.
undercraft ::: n. --> A sly trick or device; as, an undercraft of authors.
undercreep ::: v. i. --> To creep secretly or privily.
undercrest ::: v. t. --> To support as a crest; to bear.
undercroft ::: n. --> A subterranean room of any kind; esp., one under a church (see Crypt), or one used as a chapel or for any sacred purpose.
undercry ::: v. i. --> To cry aloud.
undercurrent ::: n. --> A current below the surface of water, sometimes flowing in a contrary direction to that on the surface.
Hence, figuratively, a tendency of feeling, opinion, or the like, in a direction contrary to what is publicly shown; an unseen influence or tendency; as, a strong undercurrent of sentiment in favor of a prisoner. ::: a.
undercut ::: n. --> The lower or under side of a sirloin of beef; the fillet. ::: v. t. --> To cut away, as the side of an object, so as to leave an overhanging portion.
underdealing ::: n. --> Crafty, unfair, or underhand dealing; unfair practice; trickery.
underdelve ::: v. t. --> To delve under.
underdig ::: v. t. --> To dig under or beneath; to undermine.
underditch ::: v. t. --> To dig an underground ditches in, so as to drain the surface; to underdrain; as, to underditch a field or a farm.
underdoer ::: n. --> One who underdoes; a shirk.
underdolven ::: --> p. p. of Underdelve.
underdose ::: n. --> A dose which is less than required; a small or insufficient dose. ::: v. t. & i. --> To give an underdose or underdoses to; to practice giving insufficient doses.
underdo ::: v. i. --> To do less than is requisite or proper; -- opposed to overdo. ::: v. t. --> To do less thoroughly than is requisite; specifically, to cook insufficiently; as, to underdo the meat; -- opposed to overdo.
underdrain ::: n. --> An underground drain or trench with openings through which the water may percolate from the soil or ground above. ::: v. t. --> To drain by forming an underdrain or underdrains in; as, to underdrain land.
underdressed ::: a. --> Not dresses enough.
underestimate ::: v. t. --> To set to/ low a value on; to estimate below the truth. ::: n. --> The act of underestimating; too low an estimate.
underfaction ::: n. --> A subordinate party or faction.
underfaculty ::: n. --> An inferior or subordinate faculty.
underfarmer ::: n. --> An assistant farmer.
underfeed ::: v. t. --> To feed with too little food; to supply with an insufficient quantity of food.
underfellow ::: n. --> An underling // mean, low fellow.
underfilling ::: n. --> The filling below or beneath; the under part of a building.
underflow "programming" (or "floating point underflow", "floating underflow", after "{overflow}") A condition that can occur when the result of a {floating-point} operation would be smaller in magnitude (closer to zero, either positive or negative) than the smallest quantity representable. Underflow is actually (negative) {overflow} of the {exponent} of the {floating point} quantity. For example, an eight-bit {twos complement} exponent can represent multipliers of 2^-128 to 2^127. A result less than 2^-128 would cause underflow. Depending on the {processor}, the programming language and the {run-time system}, underflow may set a status bit, raise an {exception} or generate a {hardware} {interrupt} or some combination of these effects. Alternatively, it may just be ignored and zero substituted for the unrepresentable value, though this might lead to a later {divide by zero} error which cannot be so easily ignored. (2006-11-09)
underfollow ::: v. t. --> To follow closely or immediately after.
underfong ::: v. t. --> To undertake; to take in hand; to receive.
To insnare; to circumvent.
To sustain; to support; to guard.
underfoot ::: adv. --> Under the feet; underneath; below. See Under foot, under Foot, n. ::: a. --> Low; base; abject; trodden down.
underfringe ::: n. --> A lower fringe; a fringe underneath something.
underfurnish ::: v. t. --> To supply with less than enough; to furnish insufficiently.
underfurrow ::: v. t. --> To cover as under a furrow; to plow in; as, to underfurrow seed or manure.
under-garment ::: n. --> A garment worn below another.
underget ::: v. t. --> To get under or beneath; also, to understand.
undergird ::: v. t. --> To blind below; to gird round the bottom.
underglaze ::: a. --> Applied under the glaze, that is, before the glaze, that is, before the glaze is put on; fitted to be so applied; -- said of colors in porcelain painting.
undergod ::: n. --> A lower or inferio/ god; a subordinate deity; a demigod.
undergoing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Undergo
undergone ::: p. p. --> of Undergo
undergore ::: v. t. --> To gore underneath.
undergo ::: v. t. --> To go or move below or under.
To be subjected to; to bear up against; to pass through; to endure; to suffer; to sustain; as, to undergo toil and fatigue; to undergo pain, grief, or anxiety; to undergothe operation of amputation; food in the stomach undergoes the process of digestion.
To be the bearer of; to possess.
To undertake; to engage in; to hazard.
To be subject or amenable to; to underlie.
undergown ::: n. --> A gown worn under another, or under some other article of dress.
undergraduate ::: n. --> A member of a university or a college who has not taken his first degree; a student in any school who has not completed his course. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to an undergraduate, or the body of undergraduates.
undergraduateship ::: n. --> The position or condition of an undergraduate.
undergroan ::: v. t. --> To groan beneath.
underground ::: a region beneath the surface (of the earth, etc.).
underground ::: n. --> The place or space beneath the surface of the ground; subterranean space. ::: a. --> Being below the surface of the ground; as, an underground story or apartment.
Done or occurring out of sight; secret.
undergrove ::: n. --> A grove of shrubs or low trees under taller ones.
undergrown ::: a. --> Of small stature; not grown to a full height or size.
undergrowth ::: n. --> That which grows under trees; specifically, shrubs or small trees growing among large trees.
undergrow ::: v. i. --> To grow to an inferior, or less than the usual, size or height. ::: a. --> Undergrown.
undergrub ::: v. t. --> To undermine.
underhand ::: a. --> Secret; clandestine; hence, mean; unfair; fraudulent.
Done, as pitching, with the hand lower than the shoulder, or, as bowling, with the hand lower than elbow. ::: adv. --> By secret means; in a clandestine manner; hence, by fraud; unfairly.
underhanded ::: a. --> Underhand; clandestine.
Insufficiently provided with hands or workers; short-handed; sparsely populated.
underhandedly ::: adv. --> In an underhand manner.
underhangman ::: n. --> An assistant or deputy hangman.
underhang ::: v. t. & i. --> To hang under or down; to suspend.
underhead ::: n. --> A blockhead, or stupid person; a dunderhead.
underheave ::: v. i. --> To heave or lift from below.
underhew ::: v. t. --> To hew less than is usual or proper; specifically, to hew, as a piece of timber which should be square, in such a manner that it appears to contain a greater number of cubic feet than it really does contain.
underhonest ::: a. --> Not entirely honest.
underhung ::: a. --> Resting on a track at the bottom, instead of being suspended; -- said of a sliding door.
Having the lower jaw projecting.
underjaw ::: n. --> The lower jaw.
underjoin ::: v. t. --> To join below or beneath; to subjoin.
underkeeper ::: n. --> A subordinate keeper or guardian.
underkeep ::: v. t. --> To keep under, or in subjection; to suppress.
underkind ::: n. --> An inferior kind.
underkingdom ::: n. --> A subordinate or dependent kingdom.
underlaborer ::: n. --> An assistant or subordinate laborer.
underlaid ::: a. --> Laid or placed underneath; also, having something laid or lying underneath.
underlayer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, underlays or is underlaid; a lower layer.
A perpendicular shaft sunk to cut the lode at any required depth.
underlay ::: v. t. --> To lay beneath; to put under.
To raise or support by something laid under; as, to underlay a cut, plate, or the like, for printing. See Underlay, n., 2. ::: n. --> To put a tap on (a shoe).
The inclination of a vein, fault, or lode from the
underleaf ::: n. --> A prolific sort of apple, good for cider.
underlease ::: n. --> A lease granted by a tenant or lessee; especially, a lease granted by one who is himself a lessee for years, for any fewer or less number of years than he himself holds; a sublease.
underletter ::: n. --> A tenant or lessee who grants a lease to another.
underlet ::: v. t. --> To let below the value.
To let or lease at second hand; to sublet.
underlie ::: v. t. --> To lie under; to rest beneath; to be situated under; as, a stratum of clay underlies the surface gravel.
To be at the basis of; to form the foundation of; to support; as, a doctrine underlying a theory.
To be subject or amenable to. ::: v. i.
underline ::: v. t. --> To mark a line below, as words; to underscore.
To influence secretly.
underling ::: n. --> An inferior person or agent; a subordinate; hence, a mean, sorry fellow.
underlip ::: n. --> The lower lip.
underlocker ::: n. --> A person who inspects a mine daily; -- called also underviewer.
underlock ::: n. --> A lock of wool hanging under the belly of a sheep.
underlying ::: 1. Being at the basis of; forming the foundation of. 2. Implicit; discoverable only by close scrutiny or analysis. 3. Fundamental; basic.
underlying ::: a. --> Lying under or beneath; hence, fundamental; as, the underlying strata of a locality; underlying principles.
undermanned ::: a. --> Insufficiently furnished with men; short-handed.
undermasted ::: a. --> Having masts smaller than the usual dimension; -- said of vessels.
undermaster ::: n. --> A master subordinate to the principal master; an assistant master.
undermatch ::: n. --> One who is not a match for another.
undermeal ::: n. --> The inferior, or after, part of the day; the afternoon.
Hence, something occurring or done in the afternoon; esp., an afternoon meal; supper; also, an afternoon nap; a siesta.
underminer ::: n. --> One who undermines.
undermine ::: v. t. --> To excavate the earth beneath, or the part of, especially for the purpose of causing to fall or be overthrown; to form a mine under; to sap; as, to undermine a wall.
Fig.: To remove the foundation or support of by clandestine means; to ruin in an underhand way; as, to undermine reputation; to undermine the constitution of the state.
underminister ::: v. t. --> To serve, or minister to, in a subordinate relation.
underministry ::: n. --> A subordinate or inferior ministry.
undermirth ::: n. --> Suppressed or concealed mirth.
undermoneyed ::: a. --> Bribed.
undermost ::: a. --> Lowest, as in place, rank, or condition.
underneath ::: adv. --> Beneath; below; in a lower place; under; as, a channel underneath the soil. ::: prep. --> Under; beneath; below.
underniceness ::: n. --> A want of niceness; indelicacy; impropriety.
undernime ::: v. t. --> To receive; to perceive.
To reprove; to reprehend.
undern ::: n. --> The time between; the time between sunrise and noon; specifically, the third hour of the day, or nine o&
undernom ::: imp. --> of Undernime
underofficer ::: n. --> A subordinate officer.
underpart ::: n. --> A subordinate part.
underpay ::: v. t. --> To pay inadequately.
underpeep ::: v. t. --> To peep under.
underpeer ::: v. t. --> To peer under.
underpeopled ::: a. --> Not fully peopled.
underpight ::: --> imp. of Underpitch. ::: imp. --> of Underpitch
underpinned ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Underpin
underpinning ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Underpin ::: n. --> The act of one who underpins; the act of supporting by stones, masonry, or the like.
That by which a building is underpinned; the material and construction used for support, introduced beneath a wall already
underpin ::: v. t. --> To lay stones, masonry, etc., under, as the sills of a building, on which it is to rest.
To support by some solid foundation; to place something underneath for support.
underpitch ::: v. t. --> To fill underneath; to stuff.
underplay ::: v. i. --> To play in a subordinate, or in an inferior manner; to underact a part.
To play a low card when holding a high one, in the hope of a future advantage. ::: n. --> The act of underplaying.
underplot ::: n. --> A series of events in a play, proceeding collaterally with the main story, and subservient to it.
A clandestine scheme; a trick.
underpoise ::: v. t. --> To weigh, estimate, or rate below desert; to undervalue.
underpossessor ::: n. --> One who possesses or holds anything subject to the superior of another.
underpraise ::: v. t. --> To praise below desert.
under ::: prep. --> Below or lower, in place or position, with the idea of being covered; lower than; beneath; -- opposed to over; as, he stood under a tree; the carriage is under cover; a cellar extends under the whole house.
Denoting relation to some thing or person that is superior, weighs upon, oppresses, bows down, governs, directs, influences powerfully, or the like, in a relation of subjection, subordination, obligation, liability, or the like; as, to travel under
underprize ::: v. t. --> To undervalue; to underestimate.
underproduction ::: n. --> The production of less than is demanded or of less than the usual supply.
underproof ::: a. --> Containing less alcohol than proof spirit. See Proof spirit, under Spirit.
underproper ::: n. --> One who, or that which, underprops or supports.
underproportioned ::: a. --> Of inadequate or inferior proportions; small; poor.
underprop ::: v. t. --> To prop from beneath; to put a prop under; to support; to uphold.
underpuller ::: n. --> One who underpulls.
underpull ::: v. i. --> To exert one&
underput ::: v. t. --> To put or send under.
underrate ::: v. t. --> To rate too low; to rate below the value; to undervalue. ::: n. --> A price less than the value; as, to sell a thing at an underrate.
underreckon ::: v. t. --> To reckon below what is right or proper; to underrate.
underrun ::: v. t. --> To run or pass under; especially (Naut.), to pass along and under, as a cable, for the purpose of taking it in, or of examining it.
undersailed ::: a. --> Inadequately equipped with sails.
undersail ::: v. i. --> To sail alongshore.
undersaturated ::: a. --> Not fully saturated; imperfectly saturated.
undersay ::: v. t. --> To say by way of derogation or contradiction.
underscore "character" _, {ASCII} 95. Common names: {ITU-T}: underline; underscore; underbar; under. Rare: score; backarrow; skid; {INTERCAL}: flatworm. See also {left arrow}. (1995-03-06)
underscore ::: v. t. --> To draw a mark or line under; to underline.
undersecretary ::: n. --> A secretary who is subordinate to the chief secretary; an assistant secretary; as, an undersecretary of the Treasury.
undersell ::: v. t. --> To sell the same articles at a lower price than; to sell cheaper than.
underservant ::: n. --> An inferior servant.
undersetter ::: n. --> One who, or that which, undersets or supports; a prop; a support; a pedestal.
undersetting ::: n. --> Something set or built under as a support; a pedestal.
underset ::: v. t. --> To prop or support. ::: n. --> Undercurrent.
undershapen ::: a. --> Under the usual shape or size; small; dwarfish.
undersheriff ::: n. --> A sheriff&
undersheriffry ::: n. --> Undershrievalty.
undershirt ::: n. --> A shirt worn next the skin, under another shirt; -- called also undervest.
undershoot ::: v. t. --> To shoot short of (a mark).
undershot ::: a. --> Having the lower incisor teeth projecting beyond the upper ones, as in the bulldog.
Moved by water passing beneath; -- said of a water wheel, and opposed to overshot; as, an undershot wheel.
undershrievalty ::: n. --> The office or position of an undersheriff.
undershrieve ::: n. --> A low shrub; a woody plant of low stature.
undershrub ::: a. --> Partly shrublike.
undershut ::: a. --> Closed from beneath.
underside ::: n. --> The lower or lowest side of anything.
undersign ::: v. t. --> To write one&
undersized ::: a. --> Of a size less than is common.
underskinker ::: n. --> Undertapster.
underskirt ::: n. --> A petticoat; the foundation skirt of a draped dress.
undersky ::: n. --> The lower region of the sky.
undersleeve ::: n. --> A sleeve of an under-garment; a sleeve worn under another,
undersoil ::: n. --> The soil beneath the surface; understratum; subsoil.
undersold ::: --> p. p. of Undersell.
undersong ::: n. --> The burden of a song; the chorus; the refrain.
Accompanying strain; subordinate and underlying meaning; accompaniment; undertone.
undersparred ::: a. --> Having spars smaller than the usual dimension; -- said of vessels.
underspend ::: v. t. --> To spend less than.
undersphere ::: n. --> A sphere which is smaller than, and in its movements subject to, another; a satellite.
An inferior sphere, or field of action.
underspore ::: v. t. --> To raise with a spar, or piece of wood, used as a lever.
understair ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the kitchen, or the servants&
understairs ::: n. --> The basement or cellar.
understandable ::: a. --> Capable of being understood; intelligible.
understanded ::: --> of Understand
understander ::: n. --> One who understands, or knows by experience.
understanding ::: “By the understanding we mean that which at once perceives, judges and discriminates, the true reason of the human being not subservient to the senses, to desire or to the blind force of habit, but working in its own right for mastery, for knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga
understandingly ::: adv. --> In an understanding manner; intelligibly; with full knowledge or comprehension; intelligently; as, to vote upon a question understandingly; to act or judge understandingly.
understanding ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Understand ::: a. --> Knowing; intelligent; skillful; as, he is an understanding man. ::: n.
understanding ::: Sri Aurobindo: "By the understanding we mean that which at once perceives, judges and discriminates, the true reason of the human being not subservient to the senses, to desire or to the blind force of habit, but working in its own right for mastery, for knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
understand ::: v. t. --> To have just and adequate ideas of; to apprehended the meaning or intention of; to have knowledge of; to comprehend; to know; as, to understand a problem in Euclid; to understand a proposition or a declaration; the court understands the advocate or his argument; to understand the sacred oracles; to understand a nod or a wink.
To be apprised, or have information, of; to learn; to be informed of; to hear; as, I understand that Congress has passed
understatement ::: n. --> The act of understating, or the condition of being understated; that which is understated; a statement below the truth.
understate ::: v. t. --> To state or represent less strongly than may be done truthfully.
understock ::: v. t. --> To supply insufficiently with stock.
understood ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Understand ::: --> imp. & p. p. of Understand.
understrapper ::: n. --> A petty fellow; an inferior agent; an underling.
understrapping ::: a. --> Becoming an understrapper; subservient.
understrata ::: pl. --> of Understratum
understratum ::: n. --> The layer, or stratum, of earth on which the mold, or soil, rests; subsoil.
understratums ::: pl. --> of Understratum
understroke ::: v. t. --> To underline or underscore.
understudy ::: v. t. & i. --> To study, as another actor&
undersuit ::: n. --> A suit worn under another suit; a suit of underclothes.
undertakable ::: a. --> Capable of being undertaken; practicable.
undertaken ::: p. p. --> of Undertake
undertaker ::: n. --> One who undertakes; one who engages in any project or business.
One who stipulates or covenants to perform any work for another; a contractor.
Specifically, one who takes the charge and management of funerals.
undertake ::: v. t. --> To take upon one&
undertaking ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Undertake ::: n. --> The act of one who undertakes, or engages in, any project or business.
That which is undertaken; any business, work, or project which a person engages in, or attempts to perform; an
undertapster ::: n. --> Assistant to a tapster.
undertaxed ::: a. --> Taxed too little, or at a lower rate than others.
undertenancy ::: n. --> Tenancy or tenure under a tenant or lessee; the tenure of an undertenant.
undertenant ::: n. --> The tenant of a tenant; one who holds lands or tenements of a tenant or lessee.
under the hood [hot-rodder talk] 1. The underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enable the listener to {grok} it. "Let's now look under the hood to see how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much simpler than the appearance would indicate: "Under the hood, we are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside a chassis, as in "Under the hood, this baby has a 40MHz 68030!" [{Jargon File}]
underthing ::: n. --> Something that is inferior and of little worth.
undertide ::: n. --> Alt. of Undertime
undertime ::: n. --> The under or after part of the day; undermeal; evening.
undertone ::: 1. A low or subdued tone. 2. An underlying tone (of feeling, etc.); a subordinate or unobtrusive quality or element; an undercurrent. undertones.
undertone ::: n. --> A low or subdued tone or utterance; a tone less loud than usual.
undertook ::: imp. --> of Undertake ::: --> imp. of Undertake.
undertow ::: n. --> The current that sets seaward near the bottom when waves are breaking upon the shore.
undertreasurer ::: n. --> An assistant treasurer.
underturn ::: v. t. --> To turn upside down; to subvert; to upset.
undervaluation ::: n. --> The act of undervaluing; a rate or value not equal to the real worth.
undervaluer ::: n. --> One who undervalues.
undervalue ::: v. t. --> To value, rate, or estimate below the real worth; to depreciate.
To esteem lightly; to treat as of little worth; to hold in mean estimation; to despise. ::: n. --> A low rate or price; a price less than the real worth;
underverse ::: n. --> The lower or second verse.
undervest ::: n. --> An undershirt.
underviewer ::: n. --> See Underlooker.
underwear ::: n. --> That which is worn under the outside clothing; underclothes.
underween ::: v. t. --> To undervalue.
underwent ::: imp. --> of Undergo ::: --> imp. of Undergo.
underwent :::
underwing ::: n. --> One of the posterior wings of an insect.
Any one of numerous species of noctuid moths belonging to Catocala and allied genera, in which the hind wings are banded with red and black or other conspicuous colors. Many of the species are called red underwing.
underwitted ::: a. --> Weak in intellect; half-witted; silly.
underwood ::: n. --> Small trees and bushes that grow among large trees; coppice; underbrush; -- formerly used in the plural.
underworked ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Underwork
underworker ::: n. --> One who underworks.
An inferior or subordinate workman.
underworking ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Underwork
underwork ::: v. t. --> To injure by working secretly; to destroy or overthrow by clandestine measure; to undermine.
To expend too little work upon; as, to underwork a painting.
To do like work at a less price than; as, one mason may underwork another. ::: v. i.
underworld ::: n. --> The lower of inferior world; the world which is under the heavens; the earth.
The mythological place of departed souls; Hades.
The portion of the world which is below the horizon; the opposite side of the world; the antipodes.
The inferior part of mankind.
underwriter ::: n. --> One who underwrites his name to the conditions of an insurance policy, especially of a marine policy; an insurer.
underwrite ::: v. t. --> To write under something else; to subscribe.
To subscribe one&
underwriting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Underwrite ::: n. --> The business of an underwriter,
underwrit ::: --> of Underwrite
of Underwrite
underwritten ::: p. p. --> of Underwrite
underwrote ::: imp. --> of Underwrite
underwrought ::: --> of Underwork
underyoke ::: v. t. --> To subject to the yoke; to make subject.
undeserver ::: n. --> One of no merit; one who is nor deserving or worthy.
undeserve ::: v. t. --> To fail to deserve.
undesigning ::: a. --> Having no artful, ulterior, or fraudulent purpose; sincere; artless; simple.
undestroyable ::: a. --> Indestructible.
undeterminable ::: a. --> Not determinable; indeterminable.
undeterminate ::: a. --> Nor determinate; not settled or certain; indeterminate.
undetermination ::: n. --> Indetermination.
undetermined :::
undevil ::: v. t. --> To free from possession by a devil or evil spirit; to exorcise.
undevotion ::: n. --> Absence or want of devotion.
undid ::: --> imp. of Undo.
undid or loosened from or as if from a coiled condition.
undifferentiated ::: a. --> Not differentiated; specifically (Biol.), homogenous, or nearly so; -- said especially of young or embryonic tissues which have not yet undergone differentiation (see Differentiation, 3), that is, which show no visible separation into their different structural parts.
undigenous ::: a. --> Generated by water.
undigestible ::: a. --> Indigestible.
undight ::: v. t. --> To put off; to lay aside, as a garment.
undigne ::: a. --> Unworthy.
undine ::: n. --> One of a class of fabled female water spirits who might receive a human soul by intermarrying with a mortal.
undiocesed ::: a. --> Unprovided with a diocese; having no diocese.
undirected ::: a. --> Not directed; not guided; left without direction.
Not addressed; not superscribed, as a letter.
Misdirected; misled; led astray.
undirectly ::: adv. --> Indirectly.
undirect ::: v. t. --> To misdirect; to mislead. ::: a. --> Indirect.
undiscerning ::: n. --> Want of discernment.
undisclosed :::
undisclose ::: v. t. --> To keep close or secret.
undiscoverable :::
undiscovered :::
undiscreet ::: a. --> Indiscreet.
undispensable ::: a. --> Indispensable.
Unavoidable; inevitable.
Not to be freed by dispensation.
undispensed ::: a. --> Not dispensed.
Not freed by dispensation.
undisposedness ::: n. --> Indisposition; disinclination.
undisputable ::: a. --> Indisputable.
undistinctive ::: a. --> Making no distinctions; not discriminating; impartial.
undistinctly ::: adv. --> Indistinctly.
undistributed middle;
undisturbed :::
undivided ::: a. --> Not divided; not separated or disunited; unbroken; whole; continuous; as, plains undivided by rivers or mountains.
Not set off, as a share in a firm; not made actually separate by division; as, a partner, owning one half in a firm, is said to own an undivided half so long as the business continues and his share is not set off to him.
Not directed or given to more than one object; as, undivided attention or affection.
undivided :::
undividual ::: a. --> Indivisible.
undivine :::
undivine ::: “The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” Letters on Yoga
undivisible ::: a. --> Indivisible.
undock ::: v. t. --> To take out of dock; as, to undock a ship.
undocumented feature {feature}
undoer ::: n. --> One who undoes anything; especially, one who ruins another.
undoing ::: n. --> The reversal of what has been done.
Ruin.
undomesticate ::: v. t. --> To make wild or roving.
undone ::: --> p. p. of Undo. ::: a. --> Not done or performed; neglected.
undone :::
undo :::
undouble ::: v. t. --> To unfold, or render single.
undoubtable ::: a. --> Indubitable.
undoubted ::: a. --> Not doubted; not called in question; indubitable; indisputable; as, undoubted proof; undoubted hero.
undo ::: v. t. --> To reverse, as what has been done; to annul; to bring to naught.
To loose; to open; to take to piece; to unfasten; to untie; hence, to unravel; to solve; as, to undo a knot; to undo a puzzling question; to undo a riddle.
To bring to poverty; to impoverish; to ruin, as in reputation, morals, hopes, or the like; as, many are undone by unavoidable losses, but more undo themselves by vices and dissipation,
undrape ::: v. t. --> To strip of drapery; to uncover or unveil.
undraw ::: v. t. --> To draw aside or open; to draw back.
undreamed ::: a. --> Alt. of Undreamt
undreamed :::
undreamt ::: a. --> Not dreamed, or dreamed of; not th/ught of; not imagined; -- often followed by of.
undress ::: v. t. --> To divest of clothes; to strip.
To divest of ornaments to disrobe.
To take the dressing, or covering, from; as, to undress a wound. ::: n. --> A loose, negligent dress; ordinary dress, as distinguished
undriven :::
undubitable ::: a. --> Indubitable; as, an undubitable principle.
undue ::: a. --> Not due; not yet owing; as, an undue debt, note, or bond.
Not right; not lawful or legal; improper; as, an undue proceeding.
Not agreeable to a rule or standard, or to duty; disproportioned; excessive; immoderate; inordinate; as, an undue attachment to forms; an undue rigor in the execution of law.
undueness ::: n. --> The quality of being undue.
unduke ::: v. t. --> To deprive of dukedom.
undulant ::: a. --> Undulating.
undulary ::: a. --> Moving like waves; undulatory.
undulate ::: a. --> Same as Undulated. ::: v. t. --> To cause to move backward and forward, or up and down, in undulations or waves; to cause to vibrate. ::: v. i.
undulated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Undulate ::: a. --> Resembling, or in the nature of, waves; having a wavy surface; undulatory.
Waved obtusely up and down, near the margin, as a leaf or corolla; wavy.
undulating ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Undulate ::: a. --> Rising and falling like waves; resembling wave form or motion; undulatory; rolling; wavy; as, an undulating medium; undulating ground.
undulationist ::: n. --> One who advocates the undulatory theory of light.
undulation ::: n. --> The act of undulating; a waving motion or vibration; as, the undulations of a fluid, of water, or of air; the undulations of sound.
A wavy appearance or outline; waviness.
The tremulous tone produced by a peculiar pressure of the finger on a string, as of a violin.
The pulsation caused by the vibrating together of two tones not quite in unison; -- called also beat.
undulative ::: a. --> Consisting in, or accompanied by, undulations; undulatory.
undulatory ::: a. --> Moving in the manner of undulations, or waves; resembling the motion of waves, which successively rise or swell rise or swell and fall; pertaining to a propagated alternating motion, similar to that of waves.
undull ::: v. t. --> To remove the dullness of; to clear.
undulous ::: a. --> Undulating; undulatory.
unduly ::: adv. --> In an undue manner.
undumpish ::: v. t. --> To relieve from the dumps.
undust ::: v. t. --> To free from dust.
undwellable ::: a. --> Uninhabitable.
undwelt ::: a. --> Not lived (in); -- with in.
undying ::: a. --> Not dying; imperishable; unending; immortal; as, the undying souls of men.
undying :::
Under Kierkegaard's influence, he pursues an "existential" analysis of human existence in order to discuss the original philosophical question of being in a new way. He explores many hitherto unexplored phenomena which ontology disregarded. Sorge (concern), being par excellence the structure of consciousness, is elevated to the ultimate. Concern has a wholly special horizon of being. Dread (Angst), the feeling of being on the verge of nothing, represents an eminently transcendental instrument of knowledge. Heidegger gives dread a content directed upon the objective world. He unfolds the essence of dread to be Sorge (concern). As concern tends to become obscured to itself by the distracted losing of one's selfhood in the cares of daily life, its remedy is in the consideration of such experiences as conscience, forboding of death and the existential consciousness of time. By elevating Sorge to the basis of all being, he raised something universally human to the fundamental principle of the world. It is only after an elementary analysis of the basic constitution of human existence that Heidegger approaches his ultimate problem of Being and Time, in which more complicated structures such as the existential significance of death, conscience, and the power of resolute choice explain the phenomena of man's position in daily life and history.
Undernet "networking" An {Internet Relay Chat} network dating from the 1990s, when it broke away from the main (still larger) IRC network, {EFNet}. {(http://undernet.org/)}. {The History of the Undernet (http://www2.undernet.org:8080/~cs93jtl/unet_history.txt)}. (1995-11-09)
Understanding ::: By the understanding we mean that which at once perceives, judges and discriminates, the true reason of the human being not subservient to the senses, to desire or to the blind force of habit, but working in its own right for mastery, for knowledge.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 310
Understanding: (Kant. Ger. Verstand) The faculty of thinking the object of sensuous intuition; or the faculty of concepts, judgments and principles. The understanding is the source of concepts, categories and principles by means of which the manifold of sense is brought into the unity of apperception. Kant suggests that understanding has a common root with sensibility. See Kantianism. -- O.F.K.
Undistributed middle: In the categorical syllogism (logic, formal, § 5), the middle term must appear in at least one of the two premisses (major and minor) is dtstributed -- i.e., as denoting the subject of a proposition A or E, or the predicate of a proposition E or O. Violation of this rule is the fallacy of undistributed middle. A.C. Uniformity of Nature: Principle that what happens once in nature will, under a sufficient degree of similarity of circumstances, happen again and as often as the same circumstances recur. -- A.C.B.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Activity or motion that is often unduly hurried; haste, often due to agitation, pressure or eagerness to accomplish something. 2. Commotion or agitation; disturbance, tumult; bustle. hurries, hurried, hurrying.
1. A dog. 2. A domestic dog of any of various breeds commonly used for hunting, characteristically having drooping ears, a short coat, and a deep resonant voice. 3. In literary use the image of the hound is of something that pursues or chases relentlessly.
1. A gradation or variety of a colour; tint. 2. Colour. 3. Form or appearance. 4. The complexion, appearance or aspect of a person. hues, hued, hueless, hue-robed, hue-winged, hundred-hued, many-hued.
1. A story not founded on fact. 2. A deliberately false or improbable account; a fictitious story. fables.
1. Containing, full of, or sweetened with honey. 2. Pleasing to the ear; sweet-sounding. deep-honied.
1. Extremely large; huge; vast. 2. Immeasurable; boundless. Immense, immensely.
1. Imagination or fantasy, esp. as exercised in a capricious manner. 2. A mental image or conception. 3. An idea or opinion with little foundation; illusion. 4. A caprice; whim. 5. A sudden or irrational liking for a person or thing. fancy"s, Fancy"s, fancies.
1. The state or quality of being immense; vastness; enormity; boundlessness. 2. Something immense or infinite. 3. Enormous expanse, distance, or volume. Immensity, immensities.
1. To be inadequate or insufficient; fall short. 2. To fall short of success or achievement in something expected, attempted, desired, or approved. 3. To dwindle, pass, or die away. 4. To decline, as in strength or effectiveness; fig. of the heart. 5. Of some expected or usual resource: To prove of no use or help to. 6. Of a material thing: To break down under strain or pressure. fails, failed, failed.
1. To demonstrate or prove to be just, right, or valid. 2. To defend or uphold as warranted or well-grounded. justifies, justified, justifying.
1. Unsatisfactorily; poorly. 2. Evil. 3. Harm or injury. ill-armed, ill-fitting, ill-heard, ill-lighted, ill-lit, ill-poised, ill-served, ill-shaped, ill-trained, ill-understood.
abounds ::: present in overflowing measure; plentiful; prevails widely.
absolute reality ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I would myself say that bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities; . . . .” Letters on Yoga
abstruse ::: 1. Concealed, hidden, secret. 2. Hard to understand; difficult, recondite.
abyss ::: 1. The great deep, the primal chaos; the ‘bowels of the earth", the supposed cavity of the lower world; the ‘infernal pit". 2. A bottomless gulf; any unfathomable or apparently unfathomable cavity or void space; a profound gulf, chasm, or void extending beneath. Abyss, abyss"s, abysses.
accent ::: 1. The way in which anything is said; pronunciation, tone, voice; sound, modulation or modification of the voice expressing feeling. 2. A mark indicating stress or some other distinction in pronunciation or value. accents.
accept ::: 1. To take or receive (a thing offered) willingly, or with consenting mind; to receive (a thing or person) with favour or approval. 2. To take formally (what is offered) with contemplation of its consequences and obligations; to take upon oneself, to undertake as a responsibility. 3. To agree or consent to. 4. To regard as true or sound; believe. accepts, accepted, accepting.
acclaimed ::: laid claim to, claimed; demanded as one"s own or one"s due; sought or asked for on the ground of right.
accord ::: agreement or harmonious correspondence of things or their properties, as of colours or tints. Of sounds: Agreement in pitch and tone; harmony.
accursed ::: lying under a curse or anathema; ill fated; doomed to perdition or misery.
"A divine Force is at work and will choose at each moment what has to be done or has not to be done, what has to be momentarily or permanently taken up, momentarily or permanently abandoned. For provided we do not substitute for that our desire or our ego, and to that end the soul must be always awake, always on guard, alive to the divine guidance, resistant to the undivine misleading from within or without us, that Force is sufficient and alone competent and she will lead us to the fulfilment along ways and by means too large, too inward, too complex for the mind to follow, much less to dictate. It is an arduous and difficult and dangerous way, but there is none other.” The Synthesis of Yoga
adventure ::: n. 1. Any novel or unexpected event in which one shares; an exciting or remarkable incident befalling any one. 2. The encountering of risks or participation in novel and exciting events; bold or daring activity, enterprise. adventure"s, world-adventure, world-adventure"s. *v. 3. To take the chance of; to commit to fortune; to undertake a thing of doubtful issue; to try, to chance, to venture into or upon. 4. To risk or hazard; stake. *adventuring.
a game in which a blindfolded player tries to catch and identify one of the other players. The game has been around for at least 2000 years and probably longer. It is known to have been played in Greece about the time of the Roman Conquest.
ageless ::: lasting forever; eternal; undying.
*[Agni]. Sri Aurobindo: "Agni is the leader of the sacrifice and protects it in the great journey against the powers of darkness. The knowledge and purpose of this divine Puissance can be entirely trusted; he is the friend and lover of the soul and will not betray it to evil gods. Even for the man sitting far off in the night, enveloped by the darkness of the human ignorance, this flame[Agni] is a light which, when it is perfectly kindled and in proportion as it mounts higher and higher, enlarges itself into the vast light of the Truth. Flaming upward to heaven to meet the divine Dawn, it rises through the vital or nervous mid-world and through our mental skies and enters at last the Paradise of Light, its own supreme home above where joyous for ever in the eternal Truth that is the foundation of the sempiternal Bliss the shining Immortals sit in their celestial sessions and drink the wine of the infinite beatitude.” *The Secret of the Veda
alarm ::: n. 1. A warning sound of any kind to give notice of danger, or to arouse or attract attention; esp. a loud and hurried peal rung out by a tocsin or alarm bell. v. 2. To arouse to a sense of danger, to excite the attention or suspicion of, to put on the alert; warn. 3. To strike with fear or apprehension of danger; to agitate or excite with sudden fear. alarmed, alarming.
". . . all error is a disfiguration of some misunderstood fragments of truth. . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"All the limitlessly wise immortals desired and found the Child within us who is everywhere around us.” The Secret of the Veda
altar ::: 1. A block, pile, table, stand, mound, platform, or other elevated structure on which to place or sacrifice offerings to a deity. 2. With reference to the uses, customs, dedication, or peculiar sanctity of the altar. 3. A place consecrated to devotional observances. altar"s, altars, altar-burnings, mountain-altars.
amazed ::: greatly surprised; astounded; suddenly filled with wonder; astonished. amazing, amazement.
ambience ::: 1. The mood, character, quality, tone, atmosphere, etc., particularly of an environment or milieu. 2. That which surrounds or encompasses.
A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and feelings of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a place or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself, till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another. This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attending or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many other similar phenomena.
amid ::: in the middle of or centre of; surrounded by; among.
amidst ::: in the middle of; surrounded by; among; amidst is often used of things scattered about, or in the midst of others.
". . . an Avatar is not at all bound to be a spiritual prophet — he is never in fact merely a prophet, he is a realiser, an establisher — not of outward things only, though he does realise something in the outward also, but, as I have said, of something essential and radical needed for the terrestrial evolution which is the evolution of the embodied spirit through successive stages towards the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
::: "And this bliss is not a supreme pleasure of the heart and sensations with the experience of pain and sorrow as its background, but a delight also self-existent and independent of objects and particular experiences, a self-delight which is the very nature, the very stuff, as it were, of a transcendent and infinite existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
::: "An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. Our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed.” The Synthesis of Yoga —**cosmic forces.**
anklet ::: an ornamental circlet worn around the ankle; an ankle-ring. anklet-bells.
apparent ::: readily seen; exposed to sight; open to view. 2. Capable of being easily perceived or understood; plain or clear; obvious; visible.
appear ::: 1. To come into sight; become visible; come into view, as from a place or state of concealment, or from a distance; esp. of angels, spirits, visions. 2. To come into existence; be created. 3. To be clear to the understanding. 4. To seem or look to be. appears, appeared, appearing.
apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
a punctuation mark ( - ) used between the parts of a compound word or name or between the syllables of a word, especially when divided at the end of a line of text or the parts of a word divided for any purpose. Hence, fig. A joining or connecting link.
arabesques ::: 1. Any ornaments or ornamental objects such as rugs or mosaics, in which flowers, foliage, fruits, vases, animals, and figures are represented in a fancifully combined pattern. 2. *Fine Arts.* A sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine line or linear motif.
arcanes ::: of things known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric. (Employed by Sri Aurobindo as a noun.)
arenas ::: central stages, rings, areas, or the like, used for sports or other forms of entertainment, surrounded by seats for spectators.
arise ::: 1. To get up from sleep or rest; to awaken; wake up. 2. To go up, come up, ascend on high, mount. Now only poet. **3. To come into being, action, or notice; originate; appear; spring up. 4. Of circumstances viewed as results: To spring, originate, or result from. 5. To rise from inaction, from the peaceful, quiet, or ordinary course of life. 6. To rise in violence or agitation, as the sea, the wind; to boil up as a fermenting fluid, the blood; so of the heart, wrath, etc. Now poet. 7. Of sounds: To come up aloud, or so as to be audible, to be heard aloud. arises, arising, arose, arisen. *(Sri Aurobindo also employs arisen as an adj.*)
a rod, esp. a forked stick supposed to be useful in locating underground water, metal deposits, etc.
"A spiritual knowledge, moved to arrive at the true Self in us, must reject, as the traditional way of knowledge rejects, all misleading appearances. It must discover that the body is not our self, our foundation of existence; it is a sensible form of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"At every turn it is the divine Reality which we can discover behind that which we are yet compelled by the nature of the superficial consciousness in which we dwell to call undivine and in a sense are right in using that apellation; for these appearances are a veil over the Divine Perfection, a veil necessary for the present, but not at all the true and complete figure.” The Life Divine
atmosphere ::: 1. A surrounding or pervading mood, environment, or influence. 2. The air.
atom ::: 1. A unit of matter, the smallest unit of an element, having all the characteristics of that element and consisting of a dense, central, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a system of electrons. 2. The smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element. 3. An extremely small part, quantity, or amount. The smallest conceivable unit of an element or of anything. atom"s, atoms, atomic.
attached ::: joined; connected; bound.
attempt ::: n. 1. An effort made to accomplish something. 2. The thing attempted, object aimed at, aim. attempts, half-attempts. v. 3. To make an effort at; try; undertake; seek. attempted, attempting.
aureole ::: the radiant circle of light depicted around the head; a glorifying halo.
avid ::: having an ardent desire or unbounded craving; desirous of.
"Awake, God"s ray and witness in my breast, ::: In the undying substance of my soul
awful ::: 1. Inspiring fear; terrible, dreadful, appalling, awe-inspiring. 2. Extremely impressive. 3. Profoundly inspired by a feeling of fearful wonderment or reverence.
babble ::: 1. v. To utter sounds or words imperfectly, indistinctly, or without meaning. 2.* **n. *A murmuring sound or a confusion of sounds.
babbling ::: making a continuous, murmuring sound.
babel ::: "The reference is to the mythological story of the construction of the Tower of Babel, which appears to be an attempt to explain the diversity of human languages. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and tower ‘with its top in the heavens". God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another. The tower was never completed and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works Sri Aurobindo: "The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse, a gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless exaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the expression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a stumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it existed in the past, is hardly a possibility of the future. The tendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times diversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and sympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy and tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a fruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of the necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of strongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These disadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other"s thought and spirit and personality, they have diminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no reason why in the end they should not become inoperative.” The Human Cycle
background ::: n.** 1. The general scene or surface against which designs, patterns, or figures are represented or viewed. 2. Fig. The complex of physical, cultural, and psychological factors that serves as the environment of an event or experience; the set of conditions against which an occurrence is perceived. backgrounds. adj. 3.** Of, pertaining to, or serving as a background.
baffled ::: 1. Confused, bewildered, or perplexed. 2. Frustrated or confounded; thwarted. baffles, baffling.
balance ::: n. **1. A state of equilibrium or equipoise; mental, psychological or emotional. 2. A weighing device, especially one consisting of a rigid beam horizontally suspended by a low-friction support at its center, with identical weighing pans hung at either end, one of which holds an unknown weight while the effective weight in the other is increased by known amounts until the beam is level and motionless. 3. An undecided or uncertain state in which issues are unresolved. v. 4. To have an equality or equivalence in weight, parts, etc.; be in equilibrium. adj. 5. Being in harmonious or proper arrangement or adjustment, proportion. 6. Mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behaviour, judgement. balanced, balancing.**
balcony ::: a platform that projects from the wall of a building and is surrounded by a railing, balustrade, or parapet.
bales ::: large bundles of hay or goods (often compressed) bound by ropes or wires for storage or transportation.
bare ::: v. 1. To make bare; uncover or reveal. 2. Fig. To expose. bared, baring. adj. 3. Lacking clothing or covering; naked 4. Fig. Exposed to view; undisguised. 5. Just sufficient; mere. 6. Lacking embellishment or ornamentation; unembellished; simple; plain. 7. Unprotected; without defence. 8. Devoid of covering, a leafless trees. 9. Sheer, as bare cliffs. heaven-bare, bareness.
barrels ::: large cylindrical containers, usually made of staves bound together with hoops, with a flat top and bottom of equal diameter.
barrier ::: 1. Anything built or serving to bar passage. 2. Anything that restrains or obstructs progress, access. 3. A limit or boundary of any kind. barriers, barrier-breakers.
based ::: 1. Formed or established as a base. 2. Supported as a base. 3. Conceived as the fundamental principle or underlying concept.
basement ::: the substructure or foundation of a building usually below ground level.
base ::: n. 1. The fundamental principle or underlying concept of a system or theory; a basis, foundation. 2. A fundamental ingredient; a chief constituent. adj. 3. Having or showing a contemptible, mean-spirited, or selfish lack of human decency; morally low. base"s. baser.
battlefield ::: 1. The field or ground on which a battle is fought. 2. An area of contention, conflict, or hostile opposition. battlefields.
baying ::: 1. Uttering a deep and prolonged bark as a dog in pursuit. 2. The chorus of barking raised by hounds in immediate conflict with a hunted animal. bayings
bundles ::: a group of objects held together, as by tying or wrapping; packages.
beat ::: n. 1. A stroke or blow. 2. A regular sound or stroke. 3. The rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart. 4. A pulsating sound. 5. A forceful flapping of wings. beats, nerve-beat, hammer-beats, heart-beats, heart-beats", moment-beats, rhyme-beats. v. 6. To strike or pound with repeated blows. 7. To shape or break by repeated blows, as metal. 8. To sound in pulsations. 9. To throb rhythmically; pulsate, as the heart. 10. To flap, especially wings. 11. To strike with or as if with a series of violent blows, dash or pound repeatedly against, as waves, wind, etc. beats, beaten, beating. *adj. *sun-beat.
beauty ::: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, colour, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else, (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). Beauty, beauty"s, Beauty"s, beauty-drenched, earth-beauty"s.
bed ::: 1. A piece or part forming a foundation or base; a stratum. 2. The grave. 3. A sleeping-place generally; any extemporized resting place. 4. A piece or area of ground in a garden or lawn in which plants are grown. beds.
bee-croon ::: the soft, soothing, low murmuring sound produced by bees.
behaviour ::: 1. Manner of behaving or conducting oneself. 2. The aggregate of the responses or reactions or movements made by an organism in any situation, or the manner in which a thing acts under such circumstances. behaviour"s.
being ::: 1. The state or quality of having existence. 2. The totality of all things that exist. 3. One"s basic or essential nature; self. 4. All the qualities constituting one that exists; the essence. 5. A person; human being. 6. The Divine, the Supreme; God. Being, being"s, Being"s, beings, Beings, beings", earth-being"s, earth-beings, fragment-being, non-being, non-being"s, Non-Being, Non-Being"s, world-being"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence.” *The Life Divine :::
"The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.” *The Life Divine
"What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming.” Letters on Yoga
"Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness.” The Upanishads :::
"Our whole apparent life has only a symbolic value & is good & necessary as a becoming; but all becoming has being for its goal & fulfilment & God is the only being.” *Essays Divine and Human
"Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
belief ::: 1. Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof. 2. Trust or confidence, faith. 3. Something believed; an opinion or conviction. beliefs.
Question: "Sweet Mother, l don"t understand very clearly the difference between faith, belief and confidence.”
Mother: "But Sri Aurobindo has given the full explanation here. If you don"t understand, then. . . He has written ‘Faith is a feeling in the whole being." The whole being, yes. Faith, that"s the whole being at once. He says that belief is something that occurs in the head, that is purely mental; and confidence is quite different. Confidence, one can have confidence in life, trust in the Divine, trust in others, trust in one"s own destiny, that is, one has the feeling that everything is going to help him, to do what he wants to do. Faith is a certitude without any proof. Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 6.
beset ::: 1. Attacked from all sides. 2. Hemmed in; surrounded.
besiege ::: 1. To surround with hostile forces. 2. To crowd around; hem in; crowd in upon; surround. besieged.
beyond ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The language of the Upanishad makes it strikingly clear that it is no metaphysical abstraction, no void Silence, no indeterminate Absolute which is offered to the soul that aspires, but rather the absolute of all that is possessed by it here in the relative world of its sojourning. All here in the mental is a growing light, consciousness and life; all there in the supramental is an infinite life, light and consciousness. That which is here shadowed, is there found; the incomplete here is there the fulfilled. The Beyond is not an annullation, but a transfiguration of all that we are here in our world of forms; it is sovran Mind of this mind, secret Life of this life, the absolute Sense which supports and justifies our limited senses.” The Upanishads *
bind ::: 1. To restrain or confine with or as if with ties. 2. To place (someone) under obligation; oblige. 3. To fasten together. Also fig. **binds, bound, binding.**
binding ::: n. **1. The covering within which the pages of a book are abound. adj. 2.* Fig.* Commanding adherence to a commitment, obligatory.
binding posts ::: stakes, stout poles, columns, or the like, that are set upright in or on the ground; (with prefixed word indicating special purpose).
biting ::: wounding or lacerating with the teeth.
blamed ::: found fault with; censured; held responsible.
blundered ::: moved or acted blindly, stupidly, or without direction or steady guidance.
blind ::: adj. 1. Unable to see; lacking the sense of sight; sightless. Also fig. 2. Unwilling or unable to perceive or understand. 3. Lacking all consciousness or awareness. 4. Not having or based on reason or intelligence; absolute and unquestioning. 5. Not characterized or determined by reason or control. 6. Purposeless; fortuitous, random. 7. Undiscriminating; heedless; reckless. 8. Enveloped in darkness; dark, dim, obscure. 9. Dense enough to form a screen. 10. Covered or concealed from sight; hidden from immediate view. 11. Having no openings or passages for light; (a window or door) walled up. blindest, half-blind. v. 12. To deprive of sight permanently or temporarily. 13. To make sightless momentarily; dazzle. blinded.* n. 14. A blind person, esp. as pl., those who are blind. 15. Fig.* Any thing or action intended to conceal one"s real intention; a pretence, a pretext; subterfuge.
blinded ::: 1. Sightless; deprived of sight or withheld the light from. 2. Fig. Unable or unwilling to perceive or understand, lacking in perception or foresight; deprived or destitute of spiritual light or guidance. thought-blinded.
blindly ::: 1. Without seeing or looking or without preparation or reflection. 2. Without understanding, reservation, or objection; unthinkingly.
blockade ::: 1. The isolating, closing off, or surrounding of a place. 2. Any obstruction of passage or progress.
blow ::: to produce a sound or cause to sound as by expelling a current of air.
bound and –bound ::: 1. Pp. and pt. of bind. *adj. 2. Being under a legal or moral obligation. 3. Circumscribed; kept within bounds. * close-bound, death-bound, earth-bound, fate-bound, form-bound, heart-bound, self-bound, sleep-bound, steel-bound, stone-bound, time-bound, trance-bound.
boundary ::: something that indicates a border or limit, or the border or limit so indicated. boundary"s, boundaries.
bounded ::: having the limits or boundaries established. Also fig.
bound ::: going or intending to go towards; on the way to. heaven-bound.
boundless ::: n. 1. That which is without bounds; illimitable. 2. *adj. *Being without bounds or limits; infinite.
bound ::: n. 1. A boundary; a limit. bounds, earth-bounds. *v. *2. To constitute the limit of; contain; enclose. bounds.
bound ::: n. **1. A leap; a jump. v. 2.** To spring; leap; to advance with leaps or springs: said both of inanimate and animate objects.
body ::: 1. The entire material or physical structure of an organism, especially of a human or animal as differentiated from the soul. 2. The entire physical structure of a human being. 3. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 4. Substance. 5. An agent or entity. 6. The mass of a thing. 7. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 8. The largest or main part of anything; the foundation; central part. body"s, bodies.
bog ::: wet, spongy ground consisting of decomposing vegetation.
bond ::: 1. Something, such as a fetter, cord, or band, that binds, ties, or fastens things together. Also fig. 2. A duty, promise, or other obligation by which one is bound. 3. Something that binds one to a certain circumstance or line of behaviour. 4. A uniting force or tie; a link. 5. A binding agreement; a covenant. bonds.
bondage ::: 1. The state of one who is bound as a slave or serf. 2. A state of subjection to a force, power, or influence.
border ::: n. 1. A part that forms the outer edge of something. 2. The line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a boundary. 3. A strip of ground, as that at the edge of a garden or walk, an edging. borders. v. 4. To form the boundary of; be contiguous to. fig. To confine. 5. To lie adjacent to another. bordered.
boulder ::: a detached and rounded or worn stone, esp. a large one.
bounteous ::: 1. Giving or inclined to give generously. 2. Plentiful; abundant.
bourne ::: 1. A boundary; a limit. 2. A destination; a goal. Also fig. and poetic.
bow-twang (‘s) ::: the resonant sound produced when a tense string is sharply plucked or suddenly released.
breathe ::: 1. To be alive; live. 2. To take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire. Also fig. 3. To control the outgoing breath in producing voice and speech sounds. 4. To utter, especially quietly. 5. To make apparent or manifest; express; suggest. 6. To exhale (something); emit. 7. To impart as if by breathing; instil. 8. To move gently or blow lightly, as air. breathes, breathed, breathing. ::: To breathe upon fig. To taint; corrupt.
bruised ::: hurt, especially psychologically, beaten; pounded; crushed.
bubbling ::: rising to or as if to the surface; emerging forth as with a gurgling sound.
bud ::: 1. A rudimentary inflorescence, i.e. flower bud. 2. *Fig. Something in an undeveloped or immature condition. *buds, honey-buds, lotus-bud.
build ::: 1. To construct; erect; lit. and fig. (sometimes with up). 2. To mould, form, create. 3. To found, form or construct (a plan, system, etc.) on a basis. 4. To develop or give form to according to a plant or process; create; construct (something immaterial). builds, built, building.
bulge ::: a rounded projection, bend or protruding part; protuberance; hump.
buried ::: v. 1. Deposited or hid under ground; covered up with earth or other material. Also fig. **2. Plunged or sunk deep in, so as to be covered from view; put out of sight. adj. 3. Put in the ground or in a tomb; interred. 4. Consigned to a position of obscurity, inaccessibility, or inaction. 5.* Fig.* Consigned to oblivion, put out of the way, abandoned and forgotten.
"But always the whole foundation of the gnostic life must be by its very nature inward and not outward. In the life of the Spirit it is the Spirit, the inner Reality, that has built up and uses the mind, vital being and body as its instrumentation; thought, feeling and action do not exist for themselves, they are not an object, but the means; they serve to express the manifested divine Reality within us: otherwise, without this inwardness, this spiritual origination, in a too externalised consciousness or by only external means, no greater or divine life is possible.” The Life Divine
". . . by knowledge we mean in yoga not thought or ideas about spiritual things but psychic understanding from within and spiritual illumination from above.” Letters on Yoga
call ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
calm ::: n. 1. Serenity; tranquillity; peace. 2. Nearly or completely motionless as a condition of no wind. Calm, Calm"s, calms, calmness. adj. 3. Not excited or agitated; composed; tranquil; 4. Without rough motion; still or nearly still. calmer, calm-lipped, stone-calm. *adv. calmly.
Sri Aurobindo: "Calm is a still unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect — it is a less negative condition than quiet.” Letters on Yoga*
"Calm is a positive tranquillity which can exist in spite of superficial disturbances.” *Letters on Yoga
"Calm is a strong and positive quietude, firm and solid — ordinary quietude is mere negation, simply the absence of disturbance.” *Letters on Yoga
"But more powerful still is the giving up of the fruit of one"s works, because that immediately destroys all causes of disturbance and brings and preserves automatically an inner calm and peace, and calm and peace are the foundation on which all else becomes perfect and secure in possession by the tranquil spirit.” Essays on the Gita
The Mother: "Calm is self-possessed strength, quiet and conscious energy, mastery of the impulses, control over the unconscious reflexes.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 14*.
calyx ::: the outermost group of floral parts enclosing the bud and surrounding the base of a flower; the sepals.
canvas ::: 1. A piece of such fabric on which a painting, especially an oil painting, is executed. 2. A painting executed on such fabric, esp. an oil painting. 3. The background against which events unfold. canvases, canvas-strips.
captive ::: n. 1. One, such as a prisoner of war, who is forcibly confined, subjugated, or enslaved. captives. v. 2. Those taken and held as a prisoners. captived. adj. 3. Kept under restraint or control; confined. 4. Enraptured, as by beauty; captivated.
castle ::: lit. A large fortified building or group of buildings with thick walls, usually dominating the surrounding country. Fig. A stronghold, fortress.
cast ::: v. 1. To throw with force; hurl. 2. To form (liquid metal, for example) into a particular shape by pouring into a mould. Also fig. 3. To cause to fall upon something or in a certain direction; send forth. 4. To throw on the ground, as in wrestling. 5. To put or place, esp. hastily or forcibly. 6. To direct (the eye, a glance, etc.) 7. To throw (something) forth or off. 8. To bestow; confer. casts, casting.
cause ::: 1. A person or thing that acts, happens, or exists in such a way that some specific thing happens as a result; the producer of an effect. 2. A basis for an action or response; a reason. 3. Grounds for action; motive; justification. 4. Good or sufficient reason. 5. The principle, ideal, goal, or movement to which a person or group is dedicated. Cause.
cave ::: 1. A hollow or natural passage under or into the earth, especially one with an opening to the surface. 2. A hollow in the side of a hill or cliff, or underground of any kind; a cavity. Cave, caves, death-cave, deep-caved, cave-heart.
cavern ::: a large underground chamber, as in a cave. caverns, cavern-passages.
cellar ::: an underground shelter, as from storms. cellars.
cell ::: biology: The smallest structural unit of an organism that is capable of independent functioning, consisting of one or more nuclei, cytoplasm, and various organelles, all surrounded by a semipermeable cell membrane. cells.
cemented ::: bound with or as if with cement.
chance ::: n. 1. The absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled: often personified or treated as a positive agency. 2. The happening of events; the way in which things happen; fortune. 3. An opportune or favourable time; opportunity. 4. Fortune; luck; fate. Chance, chances. *adj.* 5. Not planned or expected; accidental. v. 6. To happen by chance; be the case by chance.** chanced.
change ::: v. 1. To make the form, nature, content, future course, etc. of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone. 2. To become different or undergo alteration. changes, changed, changing, ever-changing.* n. 3. The act or fact of changing; transformation or modification of anything. Change, changes, soul-change.
chase ::: v. **1. To follow rapidly in order to catch or overtake; pursue. 2. To follow or devote one"s attention to with the hope of attracting, winning, gaining, etc. 3. To put to flight; drive out. ::: —chases, chased.* *n. 3. The act of pursuing in an effort to overtake or capture thunder-chase.**
chill ::: adj. 1. Cold, often unpleasantly so; numbing. 2. Discouraging; dispiriting. 3. Unduly formal; unfriendly; unfeeling. v. 4. To lower in temperature; cool; make cold. 5. Fig. To depress (enthusiasm, etc.); discourage. chilled, chilling.
choired ::: resounded, as music sung by a choir.
chords ::: 1. A combination of three or more pitches sounded simultaneously. 2. Emotional responses, feelings. 3. Harmony.
chrysolites ::: brown or yellow-green olivine found in igneous and metamorphic rocks and used as gemstones such as topaz, etc.
circling ::: 1. Making or forming a circle around; enclosing. 2. Encircling. 3. Moving in a circle. ever-circling, far-circling.
circuit ::: 1. The act of following a curved or circular route or one that lies around an object. 2. A complete route or course, esp. one that is curved or circular and begins and ends at the point of departure. 3. The boundary line encompassing an area or object. 4. A regular or accustomed course from place to place. circuits.
circumambient ::: encompassing on all sides; surrounding.
circumference ::: the boundary line of a circle; perimeter; figure, area, or object or the area within the boundary.
clairaudience ::: the power to hear sounds said to exist beyond the reach of ordinary experiences or capacity.
clang ::: 1. A loud resounding noise, as a large bell or metal when struck. 2. v. To make or cause to make, or produce a loud ringing, resonant sound as of a large bell.
clangour ::: 1. A loud resonant, often harsh sound. 2. A loud resonant often-repeated noise.
clarity ::: 1. Clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity. 2. The state or quality of being clear or transparent to the eye; pellucidity; brightness, splendour.
clavichord ::: an early keyboard instrument producing a soft sound by means of metal blades attached to the inner ends of the keys gently striking the strings.
clear ::: 1. Not obscured or darkened; bright. 2. Free from darkness, obscurity, or cloudiness; transparent. 3. Serene; calm; untroubled. 4. Free from doubt or confusion; certain. 5. Easily perceptible to the eye or ear; distinct. 6. Easily understood; without ambiguity. 7. Free from impediment, obstruction, or hindrance; open. clearer, sun-clear, surface-clear.
coïl ::: a large bird belonging to the cuckoo family, native to India, with a characteristic call reminiscent of the sound of its name. coïl"s
colonist ::: a person who settles in a new colony or moves into and helps found a colony or new country.
comet ::: a celestial body that travels around the sun, usually in a highly elliptical orbit: thought to consist of a solid frozen nucleus part of which vaporizes on approaching the sun to form a gaseous luminous coma and a long luminous tail.
commonness ::: the quality of being commonplace and ordinary; undistinguished.
compound debt ::: a debt that has increased with the addition of interest compounded through the years.
compound ::: to combine so as to form a whole; mix; mix (elements). mix with.
composed ::: to be made up, formed, compounded of (a material, or constituent elements); to be constituted; to consist of.
concealed ::: kept from being seen, found, observed, or discovered; hidden. conceals, concealing, all-concealing, deep-concealed.
conceive ::: 1. To form or hold an idea. 2. To begin, originate, or found (something) in a particular way (usually used in the passive). 3. To apprehend mentally; understand. 4. To be created or formed in the womb; to be engendered; begotten. conceives, conceived, self-conceived.
confine ::: 1. To enclose within bounds, limit, restrict. 2. To shut or keep in; prevent from leaving a place because of imprisonment, illness, discipline, etc. confined.
confines ::: 1. The limits of a space or area; the borders. 2. A bounded scope. 3. Restraining elements.
confused ::: 1. Lacking logical order or sense. 2. *adj. Disordered and difficult to understand or make sense of. *3. Chaotic; jumbled.
::: "Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound — for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious, — supramental or overmental and submental ranges.” *Letters on Yoga
consonant ::: a speech sound produced by a partial or complete obstruction of the air stream by any of various constrictions of the speech organs, such as (p), (f), (r), (w), and (h).
constraints ::: limitations or restrictions; bounds.
context ::: 1. The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning. 2. The set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.
contours ::: outlines of figures or bodies, edges or lines that define or bound shapes, objects or forms.
corner ::: 1. The position at which two lines, surfaces, or edges meet and form an angle. 2. The area enclosed or bounded by an angle formed in this manner. 3. A region, part, quarter. 4. A remote, secluded, or secret place. corners, corner-Mind.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
court ::: 1. An extent of open ground partially or completely enclosed by walls or buildings; a courtyard. 2. The place of residence of a sovereign or dignitary; a royal mansion or palace. courts, courtyard, courtyard"s.
crabbed ::: 1. Difficult to understand; complicated; obscure. 2. Difficult to read; cramped; as crabbed handwriting.
crack ::: 1. To break without complete separation of parts; fissure. 2. To break with a sharp snapping sound. doom-crack.
craftily ::: done skillfully in underhand or evil schemes; cunningly; deceitfully; slyly.
crawl ::: n. 1. The action of moving slowly on the hands or knees or dragging the body along the ground. 2. A very slow movement or progress. v. 3. To move slowly, either by dragging the body along the ground or on the hands and knees. 4. To advance slowly, feebly, laboriously, or with frequent stops. crawls, crawled, crawling.
creaks ::: makes or causes to make a harsh squeaking or grating sound.
creep ::: 1. To move with the body close to the ground, as on hands and knees. 2. To go or approach stealthily or furtively. 3. To move slowly, quietly, or cautiously. creeps, crept.
crescendo ::: music. A gradual increase, especially in the volume or intensity of sound in a passage.
cricket ::: any of several jumping insects with long antennae, known for their squeaking and chirping sounds. crickets".
crookedness ::: fig. The quality of being deceitful and underhanded.
crooning ::: a soft, soothing, low murmuring sound. bee-croon.
crouch ::: 1. To stoop, especially with the knees bent esp. in fear, humility or submission. 2. (of animals) to lie close to the ground, in fear, readiness for action etc. crouches, crouched, crouching.
crown ::: n. **1. An ornament worn on the head by kings and those having sovereign power, often made of precious metal and ornamented with gems. 2. A wreath or garland for the head, awarded as a sign of victory, success, honour, etc. 3. The distinction that comes from a great achievement; reward, honour. 4. The top or summit of something, esp. of a rounded object. etc. 5. The highest or more nearly perfect state of anything. 6. An exalting or chief attribute. 7. The acme or supreme source of honour, excellence, beauty, etc. v. 8. To put a crown on the head of, symbolically vesting with royal title, powers, etc. 9. To place something on or over the head or top of. crowns, crowned.**
crude ::: 1. In a raw or unprepared state; unrefined or natural; unfinished, coarse. 2. Lacking in intellectual subtlety, perceptivity, etc.; rudimentary; undeveloped. 3. Rough or primitive. 4. Lacking culture, refinement, tact. crudely.
cry ::: 1. To entreat loudly; supplicate. 2. To call loudly; shout. 3. To sob or shed tears because of grief, sorrow, or pain; weep. 4. To utter or shout (words of appeal, exclamation, fear, etc.) 5. To utter a characteristic sound or call. Used of an animal. cries, cried, criedst, criest, crying.
crypt ::: 1. An underground vault or chamber, especially one beneath a church that is used as a burial place. 2. A cellar, vault or tunnel. 3. A location for secret meetings, etc. crypts.
cult ::: 1. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing. 2. A specific system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and deity. 3. A group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal. cults.
cyclopean ::: pertaining to one of a race of giants having a single eye in the middle of the forehead or any of three one-eyed Titans who forged thunderbolts for Zeus.
dark ::: adj. 1. Lacking or having very little light. 2. Concealed or secret; mysterious. 3. Difficult to understand; obscure. 4. Characterized by gloom; dismal. 5. Fig. Sinister; evil; absent moral or spiritual values. 6. (used of color) Having a dark hue; almost black. 7. Showing a brooding ill humor. 8. Having a complexion that is not fair; swarthy. darker, darkest, dark-browed, dark-robed.* n. 9. Absence of light; dark state or condition; darkness, esp. that of night. 10. A dark place: a place of darkness. 11. The condition of being hidden from view, obscure, or unknown; obscurity. *in the dark: in concealment or secrecy.
dateless ::: 1. Endless, limitless. 2. So old as to be undatable.
deathbound ::: also **death-bound. ::: **"A deathbound littleness is not all we are:”
::: "Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. If there were no siege of death, the creature would be bound for ever in the form of an imperfect living. Pursued by death he awakes to the idea of perfect life and seeks out its means and its possibility.” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
**death"s, deathbound, death-bound, death-claimed, death-closed, death-hunted.**
deeply bound or linked to the heart.
deep ::: n. 1. A vast extent, as of space or time; an abyss. 2. Fig. Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge; as an unfathomable thought, idea, esp. poetic. Deep, deep"s, deeps. adj. 3. Extending far downward below a surface. 4. Having great spatial extension or penetration downward or inward from an outer surface or backward or laterally or outward from a center; sometimes used in combination. 5. Coming from or penetrating to a great depth. 6. Situated far down, in, or back. 7. Lying below the surface; not superficial; profound. 8. Of great intensity; as extreme deep happiness, deep trouble. 9. Absorbing; engrossing. 10. Grave or serious. 11. Profoundly or intensely. 12. Mysterious; obscure; difficult to penetrate or understand. 13. Low in pitch or tone. 14. Profoundly cunning, crafty or artful. 15. The central and most intense or profound part; "in the deep of night”; "in the deep of winter”. deeper, deepest, deep-browed, deep-caved, deep-concealed, deep-etched, deep-fraught, deep-guarded, deep-hid, deep-honied, deep-pooled, deep-thoughted. *adv. *16. to a great depth psychologically or profoundly.
deluge ::: a great flood of water, an inundation.
depth ::: 1. The quality of a state of consciousness. 2. Beyond one"s knowledge or capability. 3. Emotional intensity, profundity. 4. The quality of being deep; deepness. 5. Complexity or profundity. 6. The extent, measurement, or distance downwards, backwards, or inwards. depths, depths", spirit-depths, wave-depths.
detailed ::: bounding in details; minute; particular; complex.
developing ::: undergoing the process of growth; evolving; unfolding.
devious ::: 1. Deviating from the straight or direct course; roundabout. 2. Without definite course; vagrant. 3. Not straightforward; shifty or crooked.
diapason ::: 1. A full, rich outpouring of melodious and harmonious sound. 2. The entire range of an instrument or voice.
difficult ::: 1. Hard to do or accomplish; demanding considerable effort or skill; arduous. 2. Not easily or readily done; requiring much labour, skill, or planning to be performed successfully. 3. Hard to understand or solve; perplexing, puzzling, obscure.
difficulty ::: 1. The condition or quality of being difficult; 2. Something that is hard to do, understand or surmount; an impediment or obstacle.
dimness ::: the quality of being dim; lacking sharpness or clarity of understanding or perception.
din ::: a jumble of loud, usually discordant sounds.
discernment ::: **The act or process of exhibiting keen insight and keen perception; acuteness of judgement, discrimination and understanding. discernment"s.**
discolouring ::: changing or causing to change in colour; fading or staining, often in an undesired manner.
discord ::: 1. An inharmonious combination of musical tones sounded together. 2. Lack of concord or harmony between persons or things. discords.
disguise ::: n. 1. A mask, costume, or manner that conceals the identity of. 2. Something that serves or is intended for concealment of identity, character, or quality; a deceptive covering, condition, manner, etc. 3. The state of being disguised; masquerade. disguises, self-disguise. v. 4. To hide under a false appearance. disguised.
disharmonising ::: causing to sound harsh and unpleasant; making discordant or disharmonious.
disjoined ::: have the connection undone.
disk ::: any surface that appears to the eye as flat and round.
disparate ::: fundamentally distinct or different in kind; entirely dissimilar.
dissonant ::: harsh and inharmonious in sound; discordant; jarring.
dogged ::: followed or tracked like a dog, especially with hostile intent; hounded. dogs, dogging.
dome ::: anything having a rounded vault such as that forming the roof of a building with a circular, elliptical, or polygonal base, as the concave vault of the sky, a vaulted canopy, a canopy of trees, etc. domed.
dot ::: n. 1. A small round mark made with or as with a pen, etc.; spot; speck; point. 2. Anything relatively small or specklike. dots. *v.* 3. To scatter or intersperse (with dots or something resembling dots). 4. To stud or diversify with or as if with dots, as trees dotting the landscape. dotted, dotting.
doubt ::: n. 1. Lack of belief in or conviction about something. v. 2. To be undecided or skeptical about: tend to disbelieve or distrust. doubts, doubting, doubtful, doubtfully, doubtfulness.
drag ::: n. 1. A slow, laborious motion or movement against resistance. v. 2. To pull along with difficulty or effort; haul. 3. To trail along the ground. 4. To be drawn or hauled along. 5. To introduce; inject; insert. drags, dragged, dragging.
dragon of the dark foundation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother, Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, Master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, — Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.” The Secret of the Veda
dread ::: n. **1. Profound fear; terror. 2. An object of fear, awe, or reverence. v. 3. To be in fear or terror of. 4. To anticipate with alarm, distaste, or reluctance. adj. 5. Fearful terrible; causing terror. 6. Held in awe or reverential fear. Dread, dreads, dreaded.**
drone ::: a continuous low humming or buzzing sound.
drown ::: fig. To overwhelm or smother; to immerse, inundate, flood. drowned.
drug ::: n. **1. A habit-forming medicinal or illicit substance, esp. a narcotic. adj. 2. Stupefied as if under the influence of a drug. drugged.**
dubious ::: 1. Marked by or causing doubt; vague; ambiguous. 2. Not certain in outcome. 3. Fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided.
dull ::: adj. **1. Causing boredom; tedious; uninteresting. 2. Not brisk or rapid; sluggish. 3. Lacking responsiveness or alertness; insensitive. 4. Not clear and resonant; sounding as if striking with or against something relatively soft. 5. (of color) Very low in saturation; highly diluted; 6. Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity. duller, dull-eyed, dull-hued, dull-visioned. v. 7. To make numb or insensitive. 8. To make or become dull or sluggish. 9. To make less lively or vigorous. dulls, dulled.**
dumb ::: 1. Lacking the power of speech. 2. Producing no sound; silent; mute. dumbness.
dungeon ::: a dark, often underground chamber or cell used to confine prisoners. (Sri Aurobindo employs the word as an adjective.)
"Each person follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions — the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be understood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary mind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey, — the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the transition which will carry it beyond these things to a higher consciousness and higher life.” Letters on Yoga*
earth ::: 1. The realm of mortal existence; the temporal world. 2. The softer, friable part of land; soil, especially productive soil. **Earth, earth"s, earth-beauty"s, earth-being"s, earth-beings, earth-bounds, earth-bride, earth-fact, earth-force, Earth-Goddess, earth-hearts, earth-habit"s, earth-heart, earth-instruments, earth-kind, earth-life, earth-light, earth-made, earth-matter"s, earth-mind, earth-mind"s, earth-myth, earth-nature, earth-nature"s, Earth-Nature"s, earth-nursed, earth-pain, Earth-plasm, earth-poise, earth-scene, earth-scene"s, earth-seat, earth-shapes, earth-stage, earth-stuff, earth-time, earth-time"s, earth-use, earth-vision, earth-ways, summer-earth.
earth-bound ::: limited to the earth or its surface.
echo ::: n. **1. A repetition of sound produced by the reflexion of sound waves from a wall, mountain, or other obstructing surface. 2. A sound heard again near its source after being reflected. 3. A lingering trace or effect. echoes. v. 4. To resound with or as if with an echo; reverberate. echoes, echoing, re-echoed.**
eldorado(s) ::: 1. A legendary treasure city of South America believed to contain an abundance of gold, sought by the early Spanish Conquistadors. 2. Any place offering great wealth.
elevation ::: a drawing of a building or other object made in projection on a vertical plane, as distinguished from a ground plan.
elude ::: 1. To avoid or escape by speed, cleverness, trickery, etc.; evade. 2. To escape the understanding, perception, or appreciation of. eludes.
embedded ::: surrounded tightly or firmly; enveloped or enclosed.
embrace ::: n. 1. The act of clasping another person in the arms. Also fig. **embraces. v. 2. To take or clasp in the arms; press to the bosom. 3. To take or receive gladly or eagerly; accept willingly. 4. To include or contain. 5. To surround; enclose; entwine. 6. To take up willingly or eagerly. embraced, embracing, all-embracing.**
enceladus ::: in classical mythology, a giant with a hundred arms buried under Mt. Etna, in Sicily, by the Olympian Gods.
enchanted ::: 1. Possessing a magical influence or quality. 2. Under a spell; bewitched; magical. 3. Utterly delighted or captivated; fascinated; charmed. enchantment, enchantment"s, enchantments.
encirclement ::: the act of forming a circle around; enclosing within a circle; surrounding.
encircle ::: to form a circle around; surround. encircles, encircled, encircling.
enclosed ::: 1. That is surrounded (with walls, fences, or other barriers) so as to prevent free ingress or egress. 2. That is shut up or hemmed in; secluded, imprisoned.
encompassing ::: forming a circle about, encircling, surrounding.
encounters ::: meetings, face to face, esp. undesignedly or casually.
endure ::: 1. To undergo (hardship, strain, privation, etc.) without yielding; bear. 2. To bear without resistance or with patience; tolerate. 3. To admit of; allow; bear. 4. To continue to exist; last. endures, endured.
endured; undergone; suffered through.
enigma ::: 1. A puzzling or mystifying saying, in which some known thing is concealed under obscure language; an obscure question; a riddle. 2. Something seemingly having no explanation; a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation. enigma"s, Enigma, Enigma"s, enigmaed.
ensnare ::: 1. To catch or trap in a snare. 2. To trap or gain power over someone by dishonest or underhand means.
entwined ::: clasped as a twining plant; wrapped around; enfolded, embraced. Also fig.
enveloped ::: 1. Wrapped up in or as in a covering. 2. Surrounded entirely. enveloping, envelopment.
envelope ::: something that covers or surrounds.
environed ::: encircled; encompassed; surrounded. environing.
environment ::: the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings; milieu. **environments.
environs ::: a surrounding area, especially of a city.
equal ::: adj. 1. As great as; the same as (often followed by to or with). 2. Having the same quantity, value, or measure as another. 3. Evenly proportioned or balanced. 4. Tranquil; equable; undisturbed. 5. Impartial; just; equitable. n. 6. One who is equal to another in any specified quality. v. **7. To become equal or level with. equalled.**
"Equality is the chief support of the true spiritual consciousness and it is this from which a sadhak deviates when he allows a vital movement to carry him away in feeling or speech or action. Equality is not the same thing as forbearance, — though undoubtedly a settled equality immensely extends, even illimitably, a man"s power of endurance and forbearance. Letters on Yoga
". . . equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
::: Equality means a quiet and unmoved mind and vital, it means not to be touched or disturbed by things that happen or things said or done to you, but to look at them with a straight look, free from the distortions created by personal feeling, and to try to understand what is behind them, why they happen, what is to be learnt from them, what is it in oneself which they are cast against and what inner profit or progress one can make out of them; it means self-mastery over the vital movements, — anger and sensitiveness and pride as well as desire and the rest, — not to let them get hold of the emotional being and disturb the inner peace, not to speak and act in the rush and impulsion of these things, always to act and speak out of a calm inner poise of the spirit.” *Letters on Yoga
equipped ::: furnished or provided with whatever is needed or for any undertaking; prepared.
err ::: 1. To go astray in thought or belief; to make mistakes, blunder. 2. To stray from the right course or accepted standards; sin. erring.
::: "Even Science believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound. There is no reason why the supramental Force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last.” Letters on Yoga
evolve ::: 1. To develop gradually. 2. To come forth gradually into being; develop; undergo evolution. evolving.
exceed ::: 1. To go beyond or be greater in quantity, degree, rate, etc. 2. To go beyond the bounds or limits of. 3. To surpass; be superior to; excel. exceeds, exceeded, exceeding.
excess ::: 1. The amount or degree by which one thing exceeds another. 2. Superabundance.
exorbitant ::: exceeding the bounds of custom, propriety, or reason, esp. in amount or extent; highly excessive.
expenditure ::: the act of expending something, especially funds; disbursement; consumption.
experience ::: 1. Knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone. 2. Philos. The totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered. **world-experience.
::: "Experiences are of all kinds and take all forms in the consciousness. When the consciousness undergoes, sees or feels anything spiritual or psychic or even occult, that is an experience — in the technical yogic sense, for there are of course all sorts of experiences that are not of that character.” Letters on Yoga
explained ::: 1. Made plain or comprehensible. 2. Defined; interpreted; expounded. 3. Make known in detail. explains.
exude ::: to project or display conspicuously or abundantly; radiate.
fate ::: 1. That which is inevitably predetermined or preordained; destiny. 2. Something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot. **fate"s, fates, fated, fate-bound, fate-driven, fate-hedged, fate-led, fate-turned, world-fate.
father ::: n. 1. A male parent. father"s. v. 2. Fig. Create, found, originate, etc. fathers, fathering.
fathomless ::: 1. Impossible to measure the depth of; bottomless. 2. Impossible to understand; incomprehensible. fathomlessness.
fathom ::: to penetrate to the truth of; comprehend; understand.
::: **"Fear and anxiety are perverse forms of will. What thou fearest & ponderest over, striking that note repeatedly in thy mind, thou helpest to bring about; for, if thy will above the surface of waking repels it, it is yet what thy mind underneath is all along willing, & the subconscious mind is mightier, wider, better equipped to fulfil than thy waking force & intellect. But the spirit is stronger than both together; from fear and hope take refuge in the grandiose calm and careless mastery of the spirit.” Essays Divine and Human
fettered ::: bound with chains or ropes, etc. around the legs, as an animal, to restrict the movement of. Hence, fig. imposed restraint upon; confined, impeded, restrained.
fibre ::: 1. A filamentous substance; a web of thread-like tissue such as composes living tissue generally. 2. That which fundamentally constitutes the strength of a thing; sinew; stuff; character. fibres, fibred.
field ::: 1. A wide unbroken expanse, as of ice. 2. An area or sphere of activity. 3. A broad, level, open expanse of land; a stretch of open land, esp. one used for pasture or tillage; a plain. 4. The surface on which something is portrayed or enacted. An area of human activity or interest. 5. A piece of ground devoted to sports or contests; playing field. 6. A region of space characterized by a physical property, such as gravitational or electromagnetic force or fluid pressure. fields, field-paths, star-field, time-field, play-fields, race-fields.
finite ::: 1. Having bounds; limited. 2. Subject to limitations or conditions, as of space, time, circumstances, or the laws of nature. finite"s, finiteness.
flame ::: n. 1. Burning gas or vapor, as from wood or coal, that is undergoing combustion; a portion of ignited gas or vapor. 2. Fig. A brilliant light; fiery glow. 3. Fig. Intense ardour, zeal, passion, vitality. 4. Spiritual fire. 5. Inner fire. 6. Bright colouring; a streak or patch of color. Flame, flames, flame-ascensions, flame-born, flame-bright, flame-child, flame-discovery, flame-edge, flame-eyed, flame-foot, flame-hills, flame-pure, flame-signs, flame-stabs, flame-throw, flame-white, flame-wrapped, moon-flame. v. 8. To burn with a flame or flames; burst into flames; blaze. 7. To burn or glow as if with fire; become red or fiery 8. To burn or burst forth with strong emotion. flames, flamed. ::: flames out. Bursts out in or as if in flames.
flash-images ::: photographic images produced by the bright artificial light thrown briefly upon a subject by a flashbulb. ::: thunder-flash. A thunderbolt.
flasque ::: Sri Aurobindo: "‘Flasque" is a French word meaning ‘slack", ‘loose", ‘flaccid" etc. I have more than once tried to thrust in a French word like this, for instance, ‘A harlot empress in a bouge" – somewhat after the manner of Eliot and Ezra Pound.” Letters on Savitri.
flight ::: 1. The act or process of flying through the air with or without wings. 2. Fig. A passing above and beyond ordinary bounds. 3. A swift movement, transition, or progression. 4. A series of steps, terraces, etc., ascending without change of direction. flights.
fluting ::: n. Playing on or as if on a flute. flutings. ::: high-fluting. Producing high-pitched, flute-like sounds.
found ::: 1. To set up or establish on a firm basis or for enduring existence; to originate, create, initiate. 2. To establish or set up, especially with provision for continuing existence. Also fig. (All other references are to the word as the pp. or pt. of find. **half-found*.*) founds, founded.**
foundation ::: 1. The natural or prepared ground or base on which some structure is erected or rests. 2. Fig. That on which something is founded; basis. **foundations.
foundered ::: 1. Fell or sunk down, collapsed. 2. Failed utterly.
founding, instituting, building, or bringing into being on a firm or stable basis.
foundling ::: a deserted or abandoned child of unknown parentage.
folly ::: 1. Lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight. 2. An act or instance of foolishness. follies.
footfall ::: 1. A footstep. 2. The sound of footsteps. footfalls.
forced marches ::: marches that are longer than troops are accustomed to and maintained at a faster pace than usual, generally undertaken for a particular objective under emergency conditions.
::: "For in reality, no man works, but Nature works through him for the self-expression of a Power within that proceeds from the Infinite. To know that and live in the presence and in the being of the Master of Nature, free from desire and the illusion of personal impulsion, is the one thing needful. That and not the bodily cessation of action is the true release; for the bondage of works at once ceases. A man might sit still and motionless for ever and yet be as much bound to the Ignorance as the animal or the insect. But if he can make this greater consciousness dynamic within him, then all the work of all the worlds could pass through him and yet he would remain at rest, absolute in calm and peace, free from all bondage.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For the main business of the heart, its true function is love. It is our destined instrument of complete union and oneness; for to see oneness in the world by the understanding is not enough unless we also feel it with the heart and in the psychic being, and this means a delight in the One and in all existences in the world in him, a love of God and all beings. The heart"s faith and will in good are founded on a perception of the one Divine immanent in all things and leading the world.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "For what we understand by law is a single immutably habitual movement or recurrence in Nature fruitful of a determined sequence of things and that sequence must be clear, precise, limited to its formula, invariable.” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
frank ::: direct; ingenuous, open, sincere; undisguised; straightforward. frankness.
free from moral blemish or impurity; pure; undefiled.
frontiers ::: 1. Boundaries, borders. 2. An outer limit in a field of endeavour.
frozen ::: made into, covered with, or surrounded by ice. Also fig.
fruitful ::: 1. Producing good results; beneficial. 2. Producing an abundant growth, as of fruit.
fumbling ::: fig. Proceeding awkwardly and uncertainly; blundering.
furrow ::: a long, narrow, shallow trench made in the ground by a plough. Also fig. furrows.
gallop ::: 1. A natural three-beat gait of a horse, faster than a canter, in which all four feet are off the ground at the same time during each stride. 2. A ride taken at the pace of a gallop. galloping.
gamble ::: an act or undertaking of uncertain outcome; a risk.
gather ::: v. 1. To accumulate something (things or people) gradually; amass. 2. To summon up; muster. 3. To come together around a single point; collect, assemble. 4. To accumulate; increase. 5. To draw and bring closer. 6. To draw around or close. gathers, gathered, gathering, fast-gathering.
ghoul ::: an evil spirit or demon in Muslim folklore believed to plunder graves and feed on corpses.
gird ::: 1. To encircle; surround. 2. To provide, equip, or invest, as with power or strength. girt.
girdle ::: n. **1. A belt or sash worn around the waist. 2. Something that encircles like a belt. v. 3. To surround as with a girdle. girdling.**
glimmer ::: n. 1. A dim or intermittent flicker or flash of light. 2. A slight suggestion or vague understanding. v. 3. To shine faintly; twinkle, shimmer, or flicker. glimmers, glimmered, glimmering, glimmerings, glimmer-realms, many-glimmered.
gnome ::: one of a fabled race of dwarflike creatures who live underground and guard treasure hoards. gnomes.
"God is one but he is not bounded by his unity.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"God speaks to the heart when the brain cannot understand him.” *Essays Divine and Human
graphic characters or figures that indicate the meaning of a thing without indicating the sounds used to express it.
grasp ::: v. 1. To seize and hold firmly; lit. and fig. 2. To take hold of intellectually; comprehend. grasps, grasped, grasping.* n. 3. A hold or grip. 4. Fig. Total rule, possession or control. 5. Capacity or power to understand or comprehend. 6. One"s power of seizing and holding; reach. 7. The act of grasping or gripping, as with the hands or arms. 8. One"s arms or hands, in embracing or gripping. ::: to grasp at: To try to seize someone or something. Also fig.*
groaned ::: made a deep grating or creaking sound due to a sudden or continued overburdening, as with a great weight.
ground ::: 1. Base; foundation. 2. Earth or soil. 3. Any material surface, lit. and fig. 4. Background. 5. An area of land designated for a particular purpose, lit. and fig. **6. The foundation for an argument, a belief, or an action; a basis. soul-ground.**
grounding ::: preparing or laying a ‘ground"; establishing a base or foundation.
groundless ::: having no ground or foundation. Also fig.
groping ::: showing or reflecting a desire to understand, especially something that proves puzzling.
grove ::: a small wood or stand of trees lacking dense undergrowth. grove"s, groves, groves".
growl ::: 1. (of animals, esp. when hostile) to utter (sounds) in a low inarticulate manner. 2. To make a deep rough sound, as of thunder. growls, growled.
gurgling ::: flowing in a broken, irregular, noisy current; emitting a sound as of bubbling liquid.
gutter ("s) ::: 1. A trough fixed under or along the eaves for draining rainwater from a roof. 2. A channel at the edge of a street or road for carrying off surface water.
halo ::: a geometric shape, usually in the form of a disk, circle, ring or rayed structure, traditionally representing a radiant light around or above the head of a divine or sacred personage. haloed.
hang ::: 1. To fasten or attach (pictures, etc.) to a wall. 2. To suspend (something) around or in front of anything. 3.* Fig. To remain unresolved or uncertain. 4. To make (an idea, form, etc.) dependent on the situation, structure, concept, or the like, usually derived from another source. 5. To fasten or be fastened from above, esp. by a cord, chain, etc.; suspend. 6. To be suspended or poised; hover. 7. To bend forward or downward; to lean over. *hangs, hung, hanging, flower-hung, shadow-hung. ::: hung on: Remained clinging, usually implying expectation or unwillingness to sever one"s connection.
harmony ::: 1. A pleasing combination of elements in a whole. 2. Agreement in feeling or opinion; accord. 3. Combination of sounds considered pleasing to the ear. 4. A simultaneous combination of tones, esp. when blended into chords pleasing to the ear; chordal structure, as distinguished from melody and rhythm. harmony"s, harmonies, harmonious, harmoniously.
harnessed ::: brought under conditions for effective use; gained control over for a particular end.
harping ::: making a musical sound like that of a harp.
harrow ::: a farm implement consisting of a heavy frame with sharp teeth or upright disks, used to break up and even off ploughed ground.
hundred
heal ::: 1. To restore to health or soundness; cure. 2.* Fig. To restore (a person) to spiritual wholeness. 3. To become whole and sound; return to health. 4. To bring to an end or conclusion, as conflicts between people or groups, usually with a strong implication of restoring former amity; settle; reconcile. *heals, healed, healing.
heart-bound
heaven ::: 1. Any of the places in or beyond the sky conceived of as domains of divine beings in various religions. 2. The sky or universe as seen from the earth; the firmament. 3.* Fig. A condition or place of great happiness, delight, or pleasure. *Heaven, heaven"s, Heaven"s, heavens, heaven-air, heaven-bare, heaven-bliss, heaven-born, heaven-bound, heaven-fire, heaven-hints, heaven-leap, Heaven-light, heaven-lights, Heaven-nature"s, heaven-nymphs, heaven-pillaring, heaven-pleased, heaven-rapture"s, heaven-sent, heaven-sentience, heaven-surrounded, heaven-truth, heaven-use, heaven-worlds.
heavy ::: 1. Having relatively great weight. lit. and fig. 2. Weighed down; burdened. 3. Marked by or exhibiting weariness. 4. Without vivacity or interest; ponderous; dull. 5. Not easily borne; oppressive; burdensome; harsh. 6. Hard to cope with; trying; difficult. 7. Weighed down with sorrow or grief; sorrowful, sad, grieved, despondent. 8. Deep, profound, intense. 9. Of great import or seriousness; grave. 10. Sober, serious, sombre or tragic. 11. With great force, intensity, turbulence, etc. 12. Having considerable thickness or substance. 13. Lacking vitality; deficient in vivacity or grace. 14. Emotionally weighed down; despondent. heavier.
hedge ::: n.** 1. A row of closely planted shrubs or low-growing trees forming a fence or boundary. 2. Any barrier or boundary. hedges. v. 3. To hem in, hinder, or restrict with or as if with a hedge. hedged, fate-hedged. **
heel ::: the rounded posterior portion of the human foot under and behind the ankle. Also fig.
hell-hound
hemmed ::: confined or bound by an environment of any kind; enclosed, shut in, limited, restrained, imprisoned; often followed by in.
herbs ::: a flowering plant whose stem above ground does not become woody.
hound
ignorance ::: the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information. Ignorance, ignorance"s, Ignorance"s, ignorance", world-ignorance, World-Ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: "Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"Ignorance is the consciousness of being in the successions of Time, divided in its knowledge by dwelling in the moment, divided in its conception of self-being by dwelling in the divisions of Space and the relations of circumstance, self-prisoned in the multiple working of the unity. It is called the Ignorance because it has put behind it the knowledge of unity and by that very fact is unable to know truly or completely either itself or the world, either the transcendent or the universal reality.” The Life Divine
"Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, — truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. . . . All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.” The Mother
". . . all ignorance is a penumbra which environs an orb of knowledge . . . .”The Life Divine
"This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood maze of becomings: . . . .” The Life Divine*
"I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the ‘doubt" whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an honest truth-seeker. This is a lesson I have learnt from the experience both of my own mind and of the minds of others; the only way to get rid of doubt is to take discrimination as one"s detector of truth and falsehood and under its guard to open the door freely and courageously to experience.” Letters on Yoga
::: ". . . immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spirit"s timeless existence is the true immortality.” *The Life Divine
impostor ::: a person who practices deception under an assumed character, identity, or name.
incomprehensible ::: impossible to know; fathom or understand.
inconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscience is an inverse reproduction of the supreme superconscience: it has the same absoluteness of being and automatic action, but in a vast involved trance; it is being lost in itself, plunged in its own abyss of infinity.” *The Life Divine
"All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite"s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit"s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being, — an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, — but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” *The Life Divine
"Once consciousnesses separated from the one consciousness, they fell inevitably into Ignorance and the last result of Ignorance was Inconscience.” Letters on Yoga
*inconscience.
inconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscient and the Ignorance may be mere empty abstractions and can be dismissed as irrelevant jargon if one has not come in collision with them or plunged into their dark and bottomless reality. But to me they are realities, concrete powers whose resistance is present everywhere and at all times in its tremendous and boundless mass.” *Letters on Savitri
". . . in its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in Itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities, something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. It is this that we see at the basis of the material world and speak of nowadays as the Inconscient — the Inconscient Ocean of the Rigveda in which the One was hidden and arose in the form of this universe — or, as it is sometimes called, the non-being, Asat.” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it — ‘an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force".” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient is the last resort of the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
"The body, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga :::
"The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of strivings without ultimate issue or the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the superconscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal.” The Life Divine
"Men have not learnt yet to recognise the Inconscient on which the whole material world they see is built, or the Ignorance of which their whole nature including their knowledge is built; they think that these words are only abstract metaphysical jargon flung about by the philosophers in their clouds or laboured out in long and wearisome books like The Life Divine. Letters on Savitri :::
"Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone" but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone". One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don"t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
**inconscient, Inconscient"s.**
indecipherable ::: 1. Not decipherable; illegible. 2. Not understandable; incomprehensible. Indecipherable.
inextricable ::: intricately involved; incapable of being disentangled, loosed, or undone. inextricably.
infinite ::: n. 1. That which has no limit. infinite"s. adj. 2. Immeasurably great or large; boundless; without limit. 3. Existing beyond or being greater than any arbitrarily large value or measurement.
infinitude ::: 1. The state or quality of being infinite; boundless. 2. An immeasurably large quantity, number, or extent. infinitudes, Infinitude, Infinitudes.
"Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"In Greek mythology, a giant with a hundred arms, a son of Uranus and Ge, who fought against the gods. He was hurled down by Athene and imprisoned beneath Mt. Aetna in Sicily. When he stirs, the mountain shakes; when he breathes, there is an eruption. (M.I.; Web.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
inhuman ::: lacking humane feelings, such as sympathy, understanding, etc.; cruel; brutal. Also fig.
"In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
innerness ::: more profound or obscure; less apparent; relating to the soul, mind, spirit, consciousness, etc.
"In our errors is the substance of a truth which labours to reveal its meaning to our groping intelligence. The human intellect cuts out the error and the truth with it and replaces it by another half-truth half-error; but the Divine Wisdom suffers our mistakes to continue until we are able to arrive at the truth hidden and protected under every false cover.” The Synthesis of Yoga
inscrutable ::: 1. Difficult or nearly impossible to fathom or understand; impenetrable. 2. Incapable of being seen through physically; physically impenetrable.
insight ::: penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into the inner character or underlying truth of things.
institutions ::: organizations, establishments, foundations, societies, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program.
intact ::: not altered, broken, or impaired; remaining uninjured, sound, or whole; untouched; unblemished.
intellect ::: the power or faculty of the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills; the understanding; the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge. intellect"s.
intelligence ::: 1. A capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc. 2. Superior understanding. 3. An intelligent being, esp. one that is not embodied. Intelligence, Arch-Intelligence.
intelligible ::: capable of being understood; comprehensible.
intricate ::: 1. Having many interrelated parts or facets; entangled or involved. 2. Complex; complicated; hard to understand, work, or make. intricacy.
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
inviolate ::: unable to be violated or profaned; undisturbed; intact.
invulnerable ::: 1. Immune to attack; impregnable. 2. Impossible to damage, injure, or wound.
irrevocable ::: impossible to retract or be revoked, changed, undone or annulled.
"It is because of our experience won at a tremendous price that we can urge upon you and others, ``Take the psychic attitude; follow the straight sunlit path, with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing you — if secretly, he will yet show himself in good time, — do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey."" Letters on Yoga
"It is not possible for the individual mind, so long as it remains shut up in its personality, to understand the workings of the Cosmic Will, for the standards made by the personal consciousness are not applicable to them. A cell in the body, if conscious, might also think that the human being and its actions are only the resultant of the relations and workings of a number of cells like itself and not the action of a unified self. It is only if one enters into the Cosmic Consciousness that one begins to see the forces at work and the lines on which they work and get a glimpse of the Cosmic Self and the Cosmic Mind and Will.” Letters on Yoga
::: **"It is therefore necessary from the beginning to understand and accept the arduous difficulty of the path and to feel the need of a faith which to the intellect may seem blind, but yet is wiser than our reasoning intelligence. For this faith is a support from above; it is the brilliant shadow thrown by a secret light that exceeds the intellect and its data; it is the heart of a hidden knowledge that is not at the mercy of immediate appearances.” The Synthesis of Yoga
jar ::: 1. A harsh, grating sound. 2. A sudden unpleasant effect upon the mind or feelings; shock. 3. A quarrel or disagreement, especially a minor one. jars, jarring.
judgment ::: 1. The capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and to draw sound conclusions. 2. An opinion or estimate formed after consideration or deliberation, especially a formal or authoritative decision. judgments.
::: "Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence — it cannot be, for when the soul first entered this existence, it had no Karma.” *Letters on Yoga
ken ::: range of knowledge or perception; understanding; cognizance.
knobbed ::: furnished with or having rounded protuberances at the extremity or on the surface of something.
knock*.* ::: n. **1. The sound of a sharp tap on a hard surface; a rap. knocks. v. 2. To rap with the knuckles or an instrument. 3. To strike the breast. knocked.**
knowing ::: possessing knowledge, information, or understanding; comprehending. ::: knowings.
::: "Knowledge is a child with its achievements; for when it has found out something, it runs about the streets whooping and shouting; Wisdom conceals hers for a long time in a thoughtful and mighty silence.” *Essays Divine and Human
laden ::: 1. Filled or covered abundantly. 2. Burdened; loaded down.
land-locked ::: entirely or almost entirely surrounded by land.
language ::: any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc. God-language.
lapped ::: 1. Enveloped in something. 2. Wrapped or wound around (something); encircled.
latent ::: hidden or undeveloped, but capable of being developed; not as yet manifested; concealed.
lavish ::: 1. To expend or give in great amounts or without limit. 2. Expending or bestowing without stint or measure; unboundedly liberal or profuse; prodigal. lavishing, lavishly.
lead ::: v. 1. To go in advance; act as a guide; show the way. 2. To guide in direction, course, action, opinion, etc. 3. Of a way, road, etc.: To serve as a passage for, conduct (a person) to or into a place; hence, to have a specified goal or direction. 4. To pass or go through; live. 5. To result in; tend toward (often followed by to). 6. To indicate, as a clue, guide or indication of a route way, course. leads, leading, leadst.* n. 7. Anything or anyone who guides or directs by leading; going in front. ::: (Note: See also *sounding leads.)
leap ::: n. 1. An abrupt transition. leaps. v. 2. To spring or bound suddenly upward from or as if from the ground; jump. Also fig. 3. Trans. To spring over; to pass from one side to the other by leaping. Also in phr. to leap bounds (lit. and fig.). 4*.* Fig. To move or pass quickly or abruptly from one condition or subject to another. 5. To beat rapidly as the heart. leaps, leaped, leapt, leaping, arrow-leaps, foam-leap, heaven-leap, lightning-leaps.**
lens ::: a ground or moulded piece of glass, plastic, or other transparent material with opposite surfaces either or both of which are curved, by means of which light rays are refracted so that they converge or diverge to form an image as for magnification, or in correcting defects of vision.
"Life is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify, even to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with mutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character.” The Life Divine
limitless ::: having no limit or limits; unrestricted; boundless.
limit ::: n. 1. A boundary or frontier, as of a country, area, etc. 2. The final, utmost, or furthest boundary or point as to extent, amount, continuance, procedure, etc.; the point, edge, or line beyond which something cannot or may not proceed. limits. v. 2. To restrict or confine, as to area, extent, time, etc. limits, limited.
line ::: 1. *Gen.* Text consisting of a row of words written across a page. 2. A chronological or ancestral series, esp. of people. 3. A course of progress or movement; a route. 4. A manner or course of procedure determined by a specified factor. 5. A sequence of related things that leads to a certain ending. 6. A border or boundary. 7. A narrow continuous mark, as one made by a pencil, pen, or brush across a surface.
lisping ::: the sound produced by pronouncing s or z like, or nearly like, the th sounds of thin and this.
lotus (as chakra) ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This arrangement of the psychic body is reproduced in the physical with the spinal column as a rod and the ganglionic centres as the chakras which rise up from the bottom of the column, where the lowest is attached, to the brain and find their summit in the brahmarandhra at the top of the skull. These chakras or lotuses, however, are in physical man closed or only partly open, with the consequence that only such powers and only so much of them are active in him as are sufficient for his ordinary physical life, and so much mind and soul only is at play as will accord with its need. This is the real reason, looked at from the mechanical point of view, why the embodied soul seems so dependent on the bodily and nervous life, — though the dependence is neither so complete nor so real as it seems. The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, — therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti, — in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
". . . love is the crown of knowledge; for love is the delight of union, and unity must be conscious of joy of union to find all the riches of its own delight. Perfect knowledge indeed leads to perfect love, integral knowledge to a rounded and multitudinous richness of love.” The Synthesis of Yoga
low-built ::: comb. Forming with ppl. adjs. used attrib. numerous quasi-compounds, usually hyphened, such as low-built; built, constructed, in a low or inferior way.
lowings ::: the deep, low sounds characteristic of cattle.
luxuriantly ::: in a richly abundant, profuse or superabundant manner; copiously.
luxuriating ::: growing fully or abundantly; thriving.
luxurious ::: present or occurring in great abundance, rich profusion, etc.; opulent.
lyre ::: a musical instrument of ancient Greece consisting of a sound box made typically from a turtle shell, with two curved arms connected by a yoke from which strings are stretched to the body, used especially to accompany singing and recitation. lyres.
magnificence ::: 1. The quality or state of being magnificent; splendour, grandeur; sublimity, majesty. 2. Greatness or lavishness of surroundings; splendor; luxuriousness, opulence.
mantra ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” *The Future Poetry
march ::: n. 1. The steady forward movement of a body of troops. 2. Steady forward movement or progression. Also fig. marches, marchings, sun-march. v. 3. To walk steadily and rhythmically forward in step with others, as soldiers on parade; advance in step in an organized body. 4. To proceed directly and purposefully; to go forward; advance; proceed. 5. To progress steadily onward; advance. Also fig. marches, marched, marching. ::: forced marches. Marches that are longer than troops are accustomed to and maintained at a faster pace than usual, generally undertaken for a particular objective under emergency conditions.
march ::: the border or boundary of a country or an area of land; a frontier. marches".
massacre ::: the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.
master-spring ::: 1. A compound word denoting the mainspring or principal spring in a piece of equipment. 2. Fig. The prevailing power or motive to use or control something.
material world ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our material world is the result of all the others, for the other principles have all descended into Matter to create the physical universe, and every particle of what we call Matter contains all of them implicit in itself; their secret action, as we have seen, is involved in every moment of its existence and every movement of its activity. And as Matter is the last word of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent; as the powers of all these planes, worlds, grades, degrees are involved in the material existence, so are they all capable of evolution out of it. It is for this reason that material being does not begin and end with gases and chemical compounds and physical forces and movements, with nebulae and suns and earths, but evolves life, evolves mind, must evolve eventually Supermind and the higher degrees of the spiritual existence.” The Life Divine
matter ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Matter is by no means fundamentally real; it is a structure of Energy.” *The Life Divine
::: "Maya is the supreme and universal consciousness and force of the Eternal and Infinite and, being by its very nature unbound and illimitable, it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever. It is at once transcendental, universal and individual; it is the supreme supracosmic Being that is aware of itself as All-Being, as the Cosmic Self, as the Consciousness-Force of cosmic Nature, and at the same time experiences itself as the individual being and consciousness in all existences.” The Life Divine
measureless ::: too large or great to be measured; unlimited; immeasurable; boundless.
measure ::: n. 1. A unit of standard of measurement. 2. The extent, quantity, dimensions, etc. of (something), ascertained esp. by comparison with a standard. 3. Bounds or limits. 4. A definite or known quality or quantity measured out. 5. A short rhythmical movement or arrangement, as in poetry or music. measures. *v. 6. To determine the size, amount, etc. 7. To estimate the relative amount, value, etc., of, by comparison with some standard. 8. To travel or move over as if measuring. *measured, measuring.
melodious ::: of, relating to, or containing a pleasing succession of sounds; tuneful. melodiously.
melody ::: 1. Musical sounds in agreeable succession or arrangement. 2. The succession of single tones in musical compositions, as distinguished from harmony and rhythm. melodies, far-melodied.
mesh ::: 1. Any of the open spaces in a net or network; an interstice. 2. The cords, threads, or wires surrounding these spaces. Often used in the plural. meshes, black-meshed.
meute ::: fr. A pack (of hounds); a mob (of people), etc.
midst ::: the position of anything surrounded by other things or parts, or occurring in the middle of a period of time, course of action, etc.
mind, spiritual ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The spiritual mind is a mind which, in its fullness, is aware of the Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature of the Self and its relations with the manifestation, living in that or in contact with it, calm, wide and awake to higher knowledge, not perturbed by the play of the forces. When it gets its full liberated movement, its central station is very usually felt above the head, though its influence can extend downward through all the being and outward through space.” Letters on Yoga
miracle-monger ::: a compound word denoting a person promoting something undesirable or discreditable, in this instance, miracles.
miraculous ::: of the nature of a miracle; preternatural. 2. So astounding as to suggest a miracle; phenomenal. **miraculously.
mire ::: 1. Deep slimy soil or mud. 2. An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog.
mirror ::: n. 1. A surface capable of reflecting sufficient undiffused light to form an image of an object placed in front of it. 2. Something that faithfully reflects or gives a true picture of something else. Also fig. mirrors. v. 3. To reflect in or as if in a mirror. mirrors, mirrored, mirroring, mirror-air, fragment-mirrorings.
moan ::: n. 1. A low, sustained, mournful cry, usually indicative of sorrow or pain. 2. A grumble or complaint. moaning. v. 3. To utter sounds in a low mournful manner. 4. To grumble or complain. moaned, moaning.
monitors ::: those who observe, supervise, or keep under review; esp. for the purpose of regulation or control.
monotone ::: 1. Of or having a single colour or tone. 2. Sameness or dull repetition in sound, style, manner, or color.
monotonous ::: 1. Tediously repetitious or lacking in variety. 2. Sounded or spoken in an unvarying tone. monotonously.
morass ::: an area of low-lying, soggy ground; hence fig., any confusing or troublesome situation, esp. one from which it is difficult to free oneself.
morse ::: morse code. Either of two systems of clicks and pauses, short and long sounds, or flashes of light, used to represent the letter of the alphabet, numerals, etc.
mortar ::: a vessel in which substances are crushed or ground with a pestle.
movement ::: 1. The act or an instance of moving; a change in place or position. A particular manner of moving. 2. Usually, movements, actions or activities, as of a person or a body of persons. ::: movement"s, movements, many-movemented.
Sri Aurobindo: "When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm." *The Life Divine
". . . the purest, freest form of insight into existence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former objective, the latter subjective.” The Life Divine
"The world is a cyclic movement (samsâra ) of the Divine Consciousness in Space and Time. Its law and, in a sense, its object is progression; it exists by movement and would be dissolved by cessation of movement. But the basis of this movement is not material; it is the energy of active consciousness which, by its motion and multiplication in different principles (different in appearance, the same in essence), creates oppositions of unity and multiplicity, divisions of Time and Space, relations and groupings of circumstance and Causality. All these things are real in consciousness, but only symbolic of the Being, somewhat as the imaginations of a creative Mind are true representations of itself, yet not quite real in comparison with itself, or real with a different kind of reality.” The Upanishads*
moving picture ::: a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement. moving pictures.
murmur ::: n. 1. A low, continuous sound, as of a brook, the wind or trees, or of low, indistinct voices. 2. An indistinct, whispered, or confidential complaint; a mutter. 3. A mumbled or subdued expression of discontent. murmurs, murmurs", murmurings. *v. 4. To make a low, continuous, indistinct sound or succession of sounds. 5. To say in a low indistinct voice; utter indistinctly. 6. To complain in low mumbling tones; grumble. murmurs, murmured, murmuring, many-murmured. adj. *murmurous.
mute ::: 1. Not emitting or having sound of any kind. 2. Silent; refraining from speech or utterance. 3. Unable to speak. muteness.
mutter ::: n. 1. A low grumble or indistinct utterance. 2. A low rumbling sound. muttering, mutterings. *v. muttered. 3. Made a low continuous murmuring sound. 4. Complained murmuringly; grumbled. adj. *5. Uttered something in a low and indistinct tone.
mystery ::: 1. A spiritual truth that is incomprehensible to reason and knowable only through divine revelation. 2. Something that is not fully understood or that baffles or eludes the understanding; an enigma. 3. A mysterious character or quality. 4. The skills, lore, practices and secret rites that are peculiar to a particular activity or group and are regarded as the special province of initiates. Mystery, mystery"s, Mystery"s, mysteries, mystery-altar"s. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
mystic ::: n. **1. One who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension and who has had spiritual experiences. mystic"s. adj. 2. Of occult character, power, or significance. 3. Of the nature of or pertaining to mysteries known only to the initiated; esoteric. 4.** Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.
mystique ::: an aura of mystery or mystical power surrounding a person, object, concept or pursuit.
n. 1. A humming sound. 2. A low continuous murmuring sound as of distant voices or noises. welcome-hum. v. 3. To emit the continuous droning sound of a bee on the wing; buzz. humming.
n. **1. A rigid structure formed of relatively slender pieces, joined as to surround sizeable empty spaces. 2. Form, constitution, or structure in general; system; order. 3. Applied to the heaven, earth, etc. regarded as a structure. 4. A body, esp. the human body; physique. 5. A border or case for enclosing a picture, mirror, etc. ::: frames, world-frame. v. 6. To contrive, devise, or compose, as a plan, law, or poem. 7. To fashion or shape. 8. To shape or adapt to a particular purpose. framed, framing, self-framed.**
n. 1. A sharp sibilant sound similar to a sustained ‘s". v. 2. To make a hissing sound. hissed, hissing.
n. 1. The body or outward appearance of a person or an animal considered separately from the face or head; figure. 2. An object, person, or part of the human body or the appearance of any of these, esp. as seen in nature. 3. The mode in which a thing exists, acts, or manifests itself; kind. 4. The structure, pattern, organization or essential nature of anything. Form, form"s, forms, Forms, form-bound, form-discoveries, form-maker, form-smitten, thought-forms. v. 5. To give form to; shape. 6.* *To take or assume form; to be formed or produced. forms, formed, many-formed, sense-formed. ::: re-form.** To form a second time, form over again.
name ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Name in its deeper sense is not the word by which we describe the object, but the total of power, quality, character of the reality which a form of things embodies and which we try to sum up by a designating sound, a knowable name, Nomen. Nomen in this sense, we might say, is Numen; the secret Names of the Gods are their power, quality, character of being caught up by the consciousness and made conceivable. The Infinite is nameless, but in that namelessness all possible names, Numens of the gods, the names and forms of all realities, are already envisaged and prefigured, because they are there latent and inherent in the All-Existence.” The Life Divine
nation ::: a relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country. nation"s, nations.
not limitable; limitless; boundless. Illimitable, illimitably.
"Ordinarily we mean by it [consciousness] our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being during the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order of the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness, though it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there is a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no man has yet measured or fathomed.” Letters on Yoga
"Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine
". . . spiritual freedom is not the egoistic assertion of our separate mind and life but obedience to the Divine Truth in ourself and our members and in all around us.” The Human Cycle
Sri Aurobindo: "As there are Powers of Knowledge or Forces of the Light, so there are Powers of Ignorance and tenebrous Forces of the Darkness whose work is to prolong the reign of Ignorance and Inconscience. As there are Forces of Truth, so there are Forces that live by the Falsehood and support it and work for its victory; as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil. It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man; — this was the significance of the contest between the Vedic Gods and their opponents, sons of Darkness and Division, figured in a later tradition as Titan and Giant and Demon, Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha; the same tradition is found in the Zoroastrian Double Principle and the later Semitic opposition of God and his Angels on the one side and Satan and his hosts on the other, — invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "As there is an inner sight other than the physical, so there is an inner hearing other than that of the external ear, and it can listen to voices and sounds and words of other worlds, other times and places, or those which come from supraphysical beings.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit"s delight of existence, Ananda.” *Letters on Savitri
Sri Aurobindo: "Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence — it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it — not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Ego is only a faculty put forward by the discriminative mind to centralise round itself the experiences of the sense-mind and to serve as a sort of lynch-pin in the wheel which keeps together the movement. It is no more than an instrument, although it is true that so long as we are limited by our normal mentality, we are compelled by the nature of that mentality and the purpose of the instrument to mistake our ego-function for our very self.” The Upanishads
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . every weakness and failure is a first sounding of gulfs of power and potentiality. . . .” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Fifty, hundred, a thousand are numbers symbolic of completeness.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Hell and heaven are often imaginary states of the soul or rather of the vital which it constructs about it after its passing. What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit. There are, of course, also worlds of mind and vital worlds which are penetrated with joyful or dark experiences. One may pass through these as the result of things formed in the nature which create the necessary affinities, but the idea of reward or retribution is a crude and vulgar conception which is a mere popular error.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "History teaches us nothing; it is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels of Time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena, facile generalisations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and autocracy, collectivism and individualism, imperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour; we advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively announced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and ardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then forsake them for others, perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble to destroy. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood; the century that enjoys without having fought for it turns away as from a puerile illusion and is ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical; it does not seek for, it does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. The moral is not the vanity of human life, of its ardours and enthusiasms and of the ideals it pursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its true law and aim.” *The Human Cycle etc.
*Sri Aurobindo: "If thou think defeat is the end of thee, then go not forth to fight, even though thou be the stronger. For Fate is not purchased by any man nor is Power bound over to her possessors. But defeat is not the end, it is only a gate or a beginning.” Essays Human and Divine*
Sri Aurobindo: "Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand, a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book-knowledge by itself is not the real thing, it has to be used as a help to the intelligence but it is often only a help to stupidity or ignorance — ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance.” Letters on Yoga
"Sri Aurobindo: "It has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the Spirit; there is an exaltation, exultation, excitement, a highest intensity of the joy of the heart and the pure inner soul-sensation that can be a splendid passage or an uplifting force but is not the ultimate permanent foundation. But in the highest ascents of the spiritual bliss there is not this vehement exaltation and excitement; there is instead an illimitable intensity of participation in an eternal ecstasy which is founded on the eternal Existence and therefore on a beatific tranquillity of eternal peace. Peace and ecstasy cease to be different and become one. The Supermind, reconciling and fusing all differences as well as all contradictions, brings out this unity; a wide calm and a deep delight of all-existence are among its first steps of self-realisation, but this calm and this delight rise together, as one state, into an increasing intensity and culminate in the eternal ecstasy, the bliss that is the Infinite.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "It is true that when Matter first emerges it becomes the dominant principle; it seems to be and is within its own field the basis of all things, the constituent of all things, the end of all things: but Matter itself is found to be a result of something that is not Matter, of Energy, and this Energy cannot be something self-existent and acting in the Void, but can turn out and, when deeply scrutinised, seems likely to turn out to be the action of a secret Consciousness and Being: when the spiritual knowledge and experience emerge, this becomes a certitude, — it is seen that the creative Energy in Matter is a movement of the power of the Spirit.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . our mind has the faculty of imagination; it can create and take as true and real its own mental structures: . . . . Our mental imagination is an instrument of Ignorance; it is the resort or device or refuge of a limited capacity of knowledge, a limited capacity of effective action. Mind supplements these deficiencies by its power of imagination: it uses it to extract from things obvious and visible the things that are not obvious and visible; it undertakes to create its own figures of the possible and the impossible; it erects illusory actuals or draws figures of a conjectured or constructed truth of things that are not true to outer experience. That is at least the appearance of its operation; but, in reality, it is the mind"s way or one of its ways of summoning out of Being its infinite possibilities, even of discovering or capturing the unknown possibilities of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "Pleasure, joy and delight, as man uses the words, are limited and occasional movements which depend on certain habitual causes and emerge, like their opposites pain and grief which are equally limited and occasional movements, from a background other than themselves. Delight of being is universal, illimitable and self-existent, not dependent on particular causes, the background of all backgrounds, from which pleasure, pain and other more neutral experiences emerge. When delight of being seeks to realise itself as delight of becoming, it moves in the movement of force and itself takes different forms of movement of which pleasure and pain are positive and negative currents.” The Life Divine*
Sri Aurobindo: "The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operations of the self-manifestation of the being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again, our will and action can often annul or modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called utkata karma, that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created, the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Master and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The motion of the world works under the government of a perpetual stability. Change represents the constant shifting of apparent relations in an eternal Immutability.” The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no necessity in the essential nature of mind, sense, life that they should be so limited: for the physical sense-organs are not the creators of sense-perceptions, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic sense; the nervous system and vital organs are not the creators of life"s action and reaction, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Life-force; the brain is not the creator of thought, but itself the creation, the instrument and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Mind. The necessity then is not absolute, but teleological; it is the result of a divine cosmic Will in the material universe which intends to posit here a physical relation between sense and its object, establishes here a material formula and law of Conscious-Force and creates by it physical images of Conscious-Being to serve as the initial, dominating and determining fact of the world in which we live. It is not a fundamental law of being, but a constructive principle necessitated by the intention of the Spirit to evolve in a world of Matter.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.” Letters on Yoga*
Sri Aurobindo: "To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and intelligent will and not according to one"s own fancy, vital impulses and desires. In yoga obedience to the Guru or to the Divine and the law of the Truth as declared by the Guru is the foundation of discipline.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Universal love is the spiritual founded on the sense of the One and the Divine everywhere and the change of the personal into a wide universal consciousness, free from attachment and ignorance.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit.” *Letters on Yoga
"Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous.” The Life Divine
sweet-sounding, dulcet, mellifluous.
"The centre of vision is between the eyebrows in the centre of the forehead. When it opens one gets the inner vision, sees the inner forms and images of things and people and begins to understand things and people from within and not only from outside, develops a power of will which also acts in the inner (yogic) way on things and people etc. Its opening is often the beginning of the yogic as opposed to the ordinary mental consciousness.” Letters on Yoga
"The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top: — (1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga, — (1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error — the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga*
"The Divine Grace is something not calculable, not bound by anything the intellect can fix as a condition, — though ordinarily some call, aspiration, intensity of the psychic being can awaken it, yet it acts sometimes without any apparent cause even of that kind.” Letters on Yoga*
". . . the ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. The necessity of centralisation around the ego continues until there is no longer need of any such device or contrivance because there has emerged the true self, the spiritual being, which is at once wheel and motion and that which holds all together, the centre and the circumference.” The Life Divine
"The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.” The Life Divine*
"The Gods are the great undying Powers and immortal Personalities who consciously inform, constitute, preside over the subjective and objective forces of the cosmos.” Essays on the Gita
"The greatest motion of poetry comes when the mind is still and the ideal principle works above and outside the brain, above even the hundred petalled lotus of the ideal mind, in its proper empire; for then it is Veda that is revealed, the perfect substance and expression of eternal truth.” Essays Divine and Human*
The Ineffable: *Sri Aurobindo: "It is this essential indeterminability of the Absolute that translates itself into our consciousness through the fundamental negating positives of our spiritual experience, the immobile immutable Self, the Nirguna Brahman, the Eternal without qualities, the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities, the Non-being, the Ineffable and the Unknowable. On the other side it is the essence and source of all determinations, and this dynamic essentiality manifests to us through the fundamental affirming positives in which the Absolute equally meets us; for it is the Self that becomes all things, the Saguna Brahman, the Eternal with infinite qualities, the One who is the Many, the infinite Person who is the source and foundation of all persons and personalities, the Lord of creation, the Word, the Master of all works and action; it is that which being known all is known: these affirmatives correspond to those negatives. For it is not possible in a supramental cognition to split asunder the two sides of the One Existence, — even to speak of them as sides is excessive, for they are in each other, their co-existence or one-existence is eternal and their powers sustaining each other found the self-manifestation of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
::: "The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” *Letters on Yoga
"The mantra is one of these psycho-spiritual means, at once a symbol, an instrument and a sound body for the divine manifestation, . . . .” The Life Divine
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 one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
"The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.” *The Life Divine
::: "The physical mind is that which is fixed on physical objects and happenings, sees and understands these only, and deals with them according to their own nature, but can with difficulty respond to the higher forces.” *Letters on Yoga
"There is always the personal and the impersonal side of the Divine and the Truth and it is a mistake to think the impersonal alone to be true or important, for that leads to a void incompleteness in part of the being, while only one side is given satisfaction. Impersonality belongs to the intellectual mind and the static self, personality to the soul and heart and dynamic being. Those who disregard the personal Divine ignore something which is profound and essential.” Letters on Yoga ::: Impersonal"s.
the sound produced by or as if by bits of metal striking together.
the strings on an apron, used for securing it around one"s person.tie to someone"s apron strings. To make or be dependent on or dominated by someone.
::: "The third step is to know the Divine Being who is at once our supreme transcendent Self, the Cosmic Being, foundation of our universality, and the Divinity within of which our psychic being, the true evolving individual in our nature, is a portion, a spark, a flame growing into the eternal Fire from which it was lit and of which it is the witness ever living within us and the conscious instrument of its light and power and joy and beauty.” *The Life Divine
"This Divine may lead us often through darkness, because the darkness is there in us and around us, but it is to the Light he is leading and not to anything else.” Letters on Yoga*
"This universal aesthesis of beauty and delight does not ignore or fail to understand the differences and oppositions, the gradations, the harmony and disharmony obvious to the ordinary consciousness; but, first of all, it draws a Rasa from them and with that comes the enjoyment, Bhoga. and the touch or the mass of the Ananda. It sees that all things have their meaning, their value, their deeper or total significance which the mind does not see, for the mind is only concerned with a surface vision, surface contacts and its own surface reactions. When something expresses perfectly what it was meant to express, the completeness brings with it a sense of harmony, a sense of artistic perfection; it gives even to what is discordant a place in a system of cosmic concordances and the discords become part of a vast harmony, and wherever there is harmony, there is a sense of beauty. ” Letters on Savitri*
"To live and act under control or according to a standard of what is right — not to allow the vital or the physical to do whatever they like and not to let the mind run about according to its fancy without truth or order. Also to obey those who ought to be obeyed.” Letters on Yoga
"To me, for instance, consciousness is the very stuff of existence and I can feel it everywhere enveloping and penetrating the stone as much as man or the animal. A movement, a flow of consciousness is not to me an image but a fact. If I wrote "His anger climbed against me in a stream", it would be to the general reader a mere image, not something that was felt by me in a sensible experience; yet I would only be describing in exact terms what actually happened once, a stream of anger, a sensible and violent current of it rising up from downstairs and rushing upon me as I sat in the veranda of the Guest-House, the truth of it being confirmed afterwards by the confession of the person who had the movement. This is only one instance, but all that is spiritual or psychological in Savitri is of that character. What is to be done under these circumstances? The mystical poet can only describe what he has felt, seen in himself or others or in the world just as he has felt or seen it or experienced through exact vision, close contact or identity and leave it to the general reader to understand or not understand or misunderstand according to his capacity. A new kind of poetry demands a new mentality in the recipient as well as in the writer.” Letters on Savitri
". . . what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical constitution of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature — this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised, — a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.” The Life Divine
"When we see with the inner vision and sense and not with the physical eye a tree or other object, what we become aware of is an infinite one Reality constituting the tree or object, pervading its every atom and molecule, forming them out of itself, building the whole nature, process of becoming, operation of indwelling energy; all of these are itself, are this infinite, this Reality: we see it extending indivisibly and uniting all objects so that none is really separate from it or quite separate from other objects. ‘It stands," says the Gita, ‘undivided in beings and yet as if divided." Thus each object is that Infinite and one in essential being with all other objects that are also forms and names, — powers, numens, — of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
"Yet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness which compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of interdependence, of concording of discords, of a difficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the Reality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for can be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations.” The Life Divine*
KEYS (10k)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
37 Anonymous
31 Ezra Pound
30 Sigmund Freud
24 Edmund Burke
18 George Saunders
17 Arundhati Roy
16 Milan Kundera
11 Rumi
11 Anton Wildgans
10 Rosamunde Pilcher
9 Laozi
9 Adam Oehlenschläger
8 Edmund Morris
7 Ovid
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6 William Shakespeare
6 Rick Riordan
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5 John Green
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Wer nicht liebt Wein,Weib und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang. Who loves not woman, wine and song Remains a fool his whole life long. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 2:Then Aragorn was abashed, for he saw the elven-light in her eyes and the wisdom of many days; yet from that hour he loved Arwen Und√≥miel daughter of Elrond. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 3:You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.' —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Od' und leer das Meer. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Leben und leben lassen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
2:Herbst Und Ende
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
3:Leben Und Liebe
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
4:Und Ihre Kinder
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
5:Zwischen Immer und Nie. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
6:Lampe Und Delphin
~ Christine Busta,#NFDB
7:(Erschoepfung und Niederlage). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
8:Hals und Beinbruch, Saukerl. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
9:Und Dann War Es Sommer
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
10:Coop—für mich und dich. ~ Jill Alexander Essbaum, #NFDB
11:Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
12:Die Mädchen Und Der Unbekannte
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
13:Wage Du zu irren und zu träumen! ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
14:Für Gott, Vaterland und Apfelkuchen! ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
15:Ich heiße Gin, und ich töte Menschen. ~ Jennifer Estep, #NFDB
16:inside out, with all the Sturm und ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
17:They lived und laughed ant loved end left. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
18:Gott schläft, und wir leben weiter. ~ Wolfgang Borchert, #NFDB
19:Und Wenn Du Mir Die Sehnsucht Gabst
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
20:Ich bin ein Clown und sammle Augenblicke. ~ Heinrich B ll, #NFDB
21:Ich Wehrt Und Sträubte Mich Lange...
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
22:Und dann und wann ein Weiser Elephant ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
23:Widmung In Und Hättet Der Liebe Nicht
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
24:Ich bin ein alter Witz, und schlafe ein. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
25:6000 Fuß jenseits von Mensch und Zeit. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
26:Das Leben ist zu kurz und Proust zu lang... ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
27:Er versuchte, fröhlich und asexuell zu klingen. ~ Tabitha King, #NFDB
28:Tiere sind gute Menschen und Menschen böse Tiere ~ Akif Pirin ci, #NFDB
29:es sei nicht immer Tag und auch nicht Nacht. ~ Friedrich H lderlin, #NFDB
30:Bleib' nüchtern und vergiss' nicht, skeptisch zu sein! ~ David Hume, #NFDB
31:Entscheidend ist: Ich bin klein und untröstlich. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
32:Und Hältst Du Nichts Dereinst Von Mir In Händen
~ Anton Wildgans,#NFDB
33:In einem freien Staat müssen Zunge und Meinung frei sein. ~ Suetonius, #NFDB
34:Zwei Augen hat man nur und mit hundert soll man sehen ~ Theodor Storm, #NFDB
35:Edle Herren, seid so freundlich und verpisst Euch. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
36:IOKASTE. So ging das Gerücht und ist noch nicht verstummt. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
37:...und der lebt nicht recht, der nicht verzweifeln kann. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
38:Wir sind alles füreinander. Und ich verrate sie. Erneut. ~ Sabaa Tahir, #NFDB
39:So fühlt man Absicht und man ist verstimmt. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
40:Tu dein Bestes und dein Schlimmstes, wie die Manni sagen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
41:Freiheit und Frechheit : ein Buchstabe Unterschied. ~ Arno Schmidt, #NFDB
42:Im Bewußtsein seiner Verantwortung vor Gott und den Menschen, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
43:Und, dass es Glück war wird man erst aus der Distanz sehen. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
44:WELCHE TEUFELEI WIRKT IN DEINEM KOPF UND IN DEINEM HERZEN? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
45:Glockenklang erfüllt die Luft, Und der Pöbel Vivat! ruft. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
46:King lächelte schwach und machte einen sanften Huiiiii-Laut ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
47:Sein Gang war sexy und ließ erkennen, wie gut er im Bett war. ~ Sylvia Day, #NFDB
48:Spring - und lass dir auf dem Weg nach unten Flügel wachsen ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
49:und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der Panther ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
50:Das ganze Leben ist ein Trick, und Liebe nichts als Glammer. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
51:Nur wer erwachsen wird und ein Kind bleibt, ist ein Mensch. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
52:Der Sommer hat angefangen und schon neigt er sich dem Ende zu. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
53:so lagen sie vereint, und so waren sie dem Verderben geweiht. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
54:Versuche dein Bestes - und scheitere. Das ist die Realität. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
55:Mit Kummer, und doch auch mit Lachen, gedachte er jener Zeit. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
56:Und wenn du aufwachst, wirst du Teil einer neuen Welt sein. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
57:Meinst du das? Gott nicht tot, aber schwachsinnig und bösartig? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
58:Beide waren im Innersten Halunken und kamen gut miteinander aus. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
59:Die Belohnung für Langeweile sind Sicherheit und Geborgenheit. ~ Hanif Kureishi, #NFDB
60:[...] jedes einzelne war hässlich, und alles zusammen war Glück. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
61:Man liebt zuletzt seine Begierde, und nicht das Begehrte. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
62:sie fühlte sich wehrlos seinem Spiel gegenüber, und so unsäglich ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
63:unsäglich arm, weil sie nichts geben konnte und nur empfing, mit ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
64:Und wer die Zeit der Menschen besitzt, der hat unbegrenzte Macht! ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
65:Ach, vergiss es. Das ist ein Running Gag zwischen mir und mir. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
66:Der Westen ist bunt und spannend. Er riecht nach Kaffee und Kaugummi. ~ Maxim Leo, #NFDB
67:Die Schatten waren eben Körper geworden und warfen eigene Schatten. ~ Joseph Roth, #NFDB
68:Ich blickte den Revolver an, und der Revolver blickte mich an. ~ Raymond Chandler, #NFDB
69:Nichts ist so nützlich und vielseitig wie ein kaltes Brathühnchen. ~ Nigel Slater, #NFDB
70:Nimm einem Menschen seine Lebenslüge und du raubst ihm sein Glück. ~ Henrik Ibsen, #NFDB
71:Und welche Währung die sicherste ist und welche Aktien er kaufen soll ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
72:Du wirst nicht sterben. Du bist ein Engel, und Engel sterben nicht. ~ Anna Gavalda, #NFDB
73:Die Noten wurden in ihrem Atem geboren und starben auf ihren Lippen. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
74:Er war ein wandelnder Toter, und solche Männer müssen nicht bluffen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
75:Es gibt zuviel Welt", dachte er. Und suchte nach einer Lösung. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
76:Jedes Buch ist ein Ort an den man wieder und wieder zurück kehren kann. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
77:Offensichtlich existiert jetzt Etwas, und Etwas entstand nie aus Nichts. ~ Epicurus, #NFDB
78:... und in der schwärzesten Nacht meines Lebens sah ich Sterne. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
79:Der Mensch braucht wenig, und an Leben reich
Ist die Natur. ~ Friedrich Schiller,#NFDB
80:Sieh an', sagte er und lächelte. 'Ein Zimmermädchen in einem Schrank. ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
81:16Diese sechs Stücke haßt der HERR, und am siebenten hat er einen Greuel: ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
82:Abrakadabra, und alles verwandelt sich in einen großen Haufen Scheiße. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
83:Du fehlst mir, und doch bin ich glücklich. Ist das nicht merkwürdig? ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
84:Armee, Ehe, Kirche und Bankwesen: die vier apokalyptischen Reiter. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
85:Eros und Ananke sind auch die Eltern der menschlichen Kultur geworden. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
86:Intelligenz ist wie Beine: zuviel davon, und man gerät ins Stolpern. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
87:Lernen und nicht denken ist nichtig, denken und nicht lernen ist ermüdend. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
88:Nichts überrascht und erschreckt mehr als das, was man schon weiß. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
89:Er wollte sagen: Wie könnt ihr so nett und gleichzeitig so dumm sein? ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
90:Es war ekelerregend, es war sauberste Arbeit, und es verwirrte zutiefst. ~ Clive Barker, #NFDB
91:Fast jeder kommt als Genie auf die Welt und wird als Idiot begraben. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
92:Unter gewissen Umständen schließen Sicherheit und Wahrheit einander aus. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
93:An dieser Stelle gingen Billy Halleck und die Wahrheit getrennte Wege. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
94:Nichts einte ein Volk schneller und besser als ein ordentlicher Krieg. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
95:Treue gegen sich selbst und Gütigkeit gegen Andere: Darin ist alles befasst. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
96:Ähnlichseherei und Gleichmacherei sind das Merkmal schwacher Augen. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
97:Es gibt viele Dinge, die er nicht kann, und dazu gehört auch das Reiten ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
98:Der Wind rauscht mit Ihren Stimmen, und die Erde grollt durch Ihren Geist. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
99:Die Tiere empfinden wie der Mensch Freude und Schmerz, Glück und Unglück. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
100:Er war entsetzt … und der Höhlenmensch in ihm sprang herum und freute sich. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
101:Ich könnte dir sagen, dass Sterben eine Kunst ist
Und ich schnell lerne. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
102:Ich war mein eigener Anwalt und hatte wahrhaftig einen Narren als Klienten. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
103:Wenn wir träumen, betreten wir eine Welt, die ganz und gar uns gehört. <3 ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
104:Wo nicht Einfachheit, Güte und Wahrhaftigkeit ist, gibt es auch keine Größe. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
105:Such dir einen einfachen und gut bezahlten Beruf. Werde Schriftstellerin. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
106:Daß einer lächeln kann und immer lächeln
Und doch ein Schurke sein. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
107:Echte, berufene, geborene Lehrer sind fast so selten wie Helden und Heilige. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
108:Er war zu spät in meine Leben getreten, und jetzt verließ er es zu früh. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
109:Ich schau dich mit all dem Licht und Dunkel an, das ich habe "
G.Seferis ~ George Seferis,#NFDB
110:Also Ruhe, Geduld, Mannszucht, messen, essen, liegen, abwarten und Tee trinken. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
111:Durch sein Auge lief Licht und Schatten, durch sein Herz lief Stern und Mond. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
112:Ich bin meine Gattung, bin ohne Norm, ohne Gesetz, ohne Muster und dergleichen. ~ Max Stirner, #NFDB
113:Lebe, als würdest Du morgen sterben und lerne, als ob Du ewig leben würdest. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
114:und setzt ihr nicht das Leben ein, nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
115:Das Gesicht eines Gründungsvaters und die Mentalität eines syphilitischen Esels ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
116:Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor,
und bin so klug als wie zuvor. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
117:Durch die Eisenbahn wird Raum getötet, und es bleibt nur noch die Zeit übrig. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
118:Du und ich: Wir sind eins. Ich kann dir nicht wehtun, ohne mich zu verletzen. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
119:Es sind die Phantasten, die die Welt verändern, und nicht die Erbsenzähler. ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
120:Es wurde Herbst und Winter. Es wurde Sommer. Es wurde dunkel, und es wurde hell. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
121:Ganz war mein Herz an deiner Seite
Und jeder Atemzug für dich. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
122:Hör mal, du gehst jetzt da raus und funkelst sie alle in Grund und Boden, okay? ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
123:Zwischen Immer und Nie. Zwischen Immer und Nie. Between always and never. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
124:Tobe, Welt, und springe; ich steh' hier und singe in gar sichrer Ruh'. ~ Johann Sebastian Bach, #NFDB
125:Zwischen Immer und Nie. Zwischen Immer und Nie. Between always and never. Celan. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
126:Der Mensch lebt und stirbt in dem, was er sieht, aber er sieht nur was er träumt. ~ Paul Val ry, #NFDB
127:Er war jetzt ein Wesen der Wände und Zimmer, ein Sklave des Essens [...]. ~ T Coraghessan Boyle, #NFDB
128:Für jedes komplexe Problem gibt es eine einfache Lösung, und die ist die falsche. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
129:Man kann dem Schrecken gegenübertreten, bis er nachgibt und sich zurückzieht. ~ Daniel Kehlmann, #NFDB
130:Merkwürdige Rasse, die Menschheit. Flog zum Mond und schändete kleine Kinder. ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
131:Sein Ausgehgesicht hing im Schrank bei seinem Regenschirm und seinem Schlapphut. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
132:Wie friedlich ist eine Welt, wo jeder Anstoß erregt und niemand Anstoß nimmt. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
133:Zwei Parallelen begegnen sich in der Unendlichkeit und sie glauben daran. ~ Stanis aw Jerzy Lec, #NFDB
134:„Nicht Weisheit und Erfahrung sprachen aus ihm, sondern Alter und Müdigkeit. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
135:Da wo wir lieben, ist Vaterland; wo wit geniessen, ist Hof und Haus. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
136:Des Elends voll ist dieses Leben und ungewiß ist die Stunde des Todes. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
137:ein hübsches mädchen sollte sich damit befassen zu ficken und niemals zu zeugen ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
138:Ich kenne die Natur überhaupt nicht und ich hasse sie, denn sie bringt mich um. ~ Thomas Bernhard, #NFDB
139:Und zuletzt, des Lichts begierig,
Bist du Schmetterling verbrannt ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
140:Zwischen Immer und Nie, for you in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
141:ach! wüßtet ihr wie schwer es ist,
wenn man gehängt ist und nicht sterben kann!! ~ Klaus Kinski,#NFDB
142:Lernen Sie ernst nehmen, was des Ernstnehmens wert ist, und lachen über das andre! ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
143:Mit Singen, Weinen, Lachen und Brummen lobe ich den Gott, der mein Gott ist. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
144:Unsere Zeit ist eine Zeit der Erfüllung, und Erfüllungen sind immer Enttäuschungen. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
145:Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie und grün des Lebens goldner Baum ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
146:Lesen, lesen, immer nur lesen und darüber die eigene erbärmliche Existenz vergessen! ~ Walter Moers, #NFDB
147:Manche Dinge brauchen ihre Zeit – und Zeit war ja das Einzige, woran Momo reich war. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
148:Torheit, du regierst die Welt, und dein Sitz ist ein schöner weiblicher Mund! ~ Heinrich von Kleist, #NFDB
149:Zu denken wie unsere Zeitgenossen ist das Rezept für Wohlstand und Dummheit. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
150:Einen Augenblick lang fixierte er ihn, als schwanke er zwischen Mord und Kniefall. ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
151:Grausam und erbarmungslos rollen sie dahin, die Stahlgürtelreifen des Schicksals ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
152:Und jetzt sink auf die Knie, wenn du nicht auf andere Weise kleiner werden willst. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
153:Der Tod kam beim Nacht und er kam nicht allein. Ein kleines Mädchen lief an seiner Seite. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
154:Erziehen heißt nicht Rezepte vermitteln, sondern Widerwillen und Begeisterung. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
155:Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung. ~ Richard Strauss, #NFDB
156:Und dann setzte sich die Vernunft des Körpers gegen die Dummheit des Gehirns durch. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
157:Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne, der uns beschützt und der uns hilft zu leben. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
158:sie ist zu alt, sich noch zu ändern, und du wirst allmählich alt genug, das einzusehen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
159:Wir sind die Generation ohne Bindung und ohne Tiefe. Unsere Tiefe ist der Abgrund. ~ Wolfgang Borchert, #NFDB
160:Wir stolpern dahin, tragen ein wenig Geräusch in die Stille und wirken in anderen fort. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
161:Das Glück besteht darin, zu leben wie alle Welt und doch wie kein anderer zu sein. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
162:[Der Zoll] ist ein Gesellschaftsspiel und eine Religion, die Religion der Vaterländer. ~ Kurt Tucholsky, #NFDB
163:Die Menschen sind undankbar, unbeständig, heuchlerisch, furchtsam und eigennützig. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
164:ich kreise jahrtausendelang; und ich weiß noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
165:Schale geworfen. Bei ihr hieß das: Ein kurzes Kleid in Metallic, schwarze Strümpfe und hohe ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
166:Wahrnehmung ist unsere Sicht auf die Welt und uns durch die Brille unserer Überzeugungen. ~ Mike Dooley, #NFDB
167:Wegen meiner Pflicht bin ich verdammt. Und weshalb sollten sich die Verdammten abwenden? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
168:Es jibt sone und solche, und dann jibt es noch janz andre, aba dit sind die Schlimmstn. ~ Marc Uwe Kling, #NFDB
169:Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen // Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
170:Gelobt sei, was hart macht! Ich lobe das Land nicht, wo Butter und Honig – fliesst! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
171:Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
172:Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
173:Nie glücklich ist, wer ewig dem nachjagt, was er nicht hat und was er hat, vergisst. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
174:Schöpft des Dichters reine Hand,. Wasser wird sich ballen. Lied und Gebilde ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
175:Unsere Trennung war ein chirurgischer Eingriff, und er wurde ohne Betäubung vorgenommen. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
176:Antipathie ihm gegenüber kam Tritten nach kleinen, niedlichen und wehrlosen Hunden gleich ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
177:Der Ring macht Ehen,
und Ringe sind's, die eine Kette machen.
II, 2. (Elisabeth) ~ Friedrich Schiller,#NFDB
178:Dies ist Donnerschlag, wo die Uhren rückwärts laufen und die Friedhöfe ihre Toten erbrechen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
179:Geduld ist die Mutter der Wissenschaft", entgegnete sie. "Und die Patin des Wahnsinns". ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
180:Nun war er also endgültig in einer Welt der Magie und des finsteren Zaubers gestrandet. ~ Wolfgang Hohlbein, #NFDB
181:Sagen Sie mir ein Wort und trösten mich über meine lange Entfernung von Ihnen… ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
182:Trotzdem war es hier gemütlich; es doch nach warmen, gehaltvollen Wörtern und Tiefen Gedanken ~ Jenny Nimmo, #NFDB
183:[...] Und ich weiß heute noch, wie der Kuss schmeckte, nämlich nach Wein und nach Honig. ~ Christian Kracht, #NFDB
184:Das sind Heilige, und die Tauben landen auf ihren Schultern und scheißen ihnen das Hemd voll. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
185:Die grossen Gedanken entspringen im Herzen, und scheitern an der Welt. GESAMT WERKE. Band 17. ~ Ernst J nger, #NFDB
186:Ein tiefer Graben unweltlicher Herkunft schien sie und ihn in ein Nirgendland einzuschließen. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
187:Mein Leben durchgestürmt; erst gross und mächtig, Nun aber geht es weise, geht bedächtig. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
188:Nie betrieben die Menschen das Böse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiöser Überzeugung. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
189:Wir Juden haben die Völker mit einem ewigen Gott belastet, und darum hassen sie uns. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer, #NFDB
190:Die reise der sonne und des mondes ist vorhersehbar, aber ihre reise ist Ihre ultimative kunst. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
191:Die Wolkendecke besteht zu gleichen Teilen aus Methan, Ammoniak, Staub und fliegender Scheiße. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
192:Ein Wissender weiß, dass nichts wahr ist und die ganze Wahrheit erst am Ende aller Tage liegt. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
193:Kultiviert ist der Mensch, für den nichts ohne Interesse ist und fast alles unwichtig. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
194:Sie verachteten die Welt, als hätten sie Zugang zu anderen und vorzüglicheren Daseinssphären. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
195:...und der ganze Erdball würde durch eine Fackel aus Ekstase und Freiheit in Flammen gesetzt. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
196:Und er ging auf die Suche nach dem Wahnsinnigen, der seinen Namen in Großbuchstaben schrieb. ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
197:Vorsicht ist die erste Sorge jener, die gelegentliche Scharlatanerie und Betrug gewöhnt sind. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
198:Warum ich die Welt und Menschen nicht verfluche? - Weil ich den Menschen spüre, den ich suche! ~ Erich M hsam, #NFDB
199:Er wußte nur, daß er jetzt allein war, und das war keineswegs dasselbe wie selbständig zu sein. ~ Hans Bemmann, #NFDB
200:Ich will mich nicht mehr töten und zerstücken, um hinter den Trümmern ein Geheimnis zu finden. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
201:Und doch, welch Glück, geliebt zu werden,
Und lieben, Götter, welch ein Glück! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
202:Denn das Herz hat seine eigene Weisheit und versteht das, was das Gehirn nicht erfassen kann. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
203:Die Welt hatte Zähne, und sie konnte damit zubeißen, wann immer sie wollte. Das wußte sie jetzt. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
204:Man lacht, und dann ist man versucht, über die Schulter zu sehen, was einen gehört haben könnte. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
205:Tief in seinem Inneren war nur Larry und sah heraus. Er duldete nur sich selbst in seinem Herzen ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
206:Und wenn du lange genug in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
207:Więc powstań narodzie, i niech rozpęta się burza!(Nun, Volk, steh auf, und Sturm, brich los!) ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
208:Bist du zu feige, /
Derselbe Mann zu sein in Tat und Mut, /
Der du in Wünschen bist? ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
209:Die derzeitigen und früheren Bewohner von Nulle wussten, wie abgründige Trauer den Geist zerfrisst. ~ Kate Mosse, #NFDB
210:Eine weise Politik ist die Kunst, die Gesellschaft zu stärken und den Staat zu schwächen. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
211:Er hatte nichts zu tun, abgesehen von allem anderen, und es gefiel ihm nicht, untätig zu sein. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
212:Es tat gut, die Freude über ein Haustier mit anderen teilen zu können. Und es war so einfach. ~ Karen McQuestion, #NFDB
213:im Reinen und in Rechten / will ich menschlichen Geschlechten / In des Ursprungs Tiefe dringen». ~ Edward W Said, #NFDB
214:In ihrem Stolz würde sie mir meine Liebe nie verzeihen, und wir würden beide zugrundegehen! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
215:Nichts war grausamer als ein Herz aus Fleisch und Blut, weil es wusste, was Schmerzen bereitet. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
216:...und bekanntlich sind wir Männer das verlorene Glied zwischen dem Piraten und dem Schwein. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
217:Das Leben ist verrückt! Und ich finde das wunderbar. Wer das nicht merkt, verschläft das Schönste. ~ Hans Bemmann, #NFDB
218:Die Kluft zwischen Ignoranz und Wissen ist viel kleiner als die Kluft zwischen Wissen und Tun. ~ Chris Guillebeau, #NFDB
219:Er hat geliebt und dabei sich selbst gefunden. Die meisten aber lieben um sich dabei zu verlieren ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
220:Er ist das Schönste, was ich jemals erblickt habe. Und ich wünschte, ich hätte es niemals gesehen. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
221:Ich hasse es immer noch, auf Partys zu gehen. Und ich kann nicht verstehen, was Leute daran mögen. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
222:Ich legte mich auf den Boden und hörte die Welt ihre Runden drehn im Gleichschritt der Verwesung. ~ Heiner M ller, #NFDB
223:Ich war dumm, und niemand sieht es gern, wenn ein Dummer schlau wird. Das ist die ganze Geschichte ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
224:Je edler und vollkommener eine Sache ist, desto später und langsamer gelangt sie zur Reife. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
225:Mit der Not ist es wie mit dem Erfolg. Beides verschafft dir falsche Freunde und echte Feinde, ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
226:Und wirklich, je mehr er sich zu erniedrigen schien, desto mehr schien er erhöht zu werden. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
227:Wer weit genug wandert und mit ausreichend Leuten spricht, findet früher oder später Antworten. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
228:Wie es so schoen bei Shakespeare heisst: “Jeder spielt seine Rolle, und meine ist eine traurige. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
229:Das, meine Damen und Herren, nennt man Verdrängung. Ist sie nicht wahrlich ein gemeines Biest? ~ Michelle Leighton, #NFDB
230:Er übte keine Schreckensherrschaft aus, gab sich dann und wann mit einer Prise Furcht zufrieden. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
231:Jeder Augenblick geschieht zweifach: innen und außen, und es sind zwei unterschiedliche Geschichten. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
232:Schuldgefühle, ... sind die fundamentalen Kräfte, die Großzügigkeit und Altruismus zugrundeliegen. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
233:Und wenn Er alle Wege und Pässe vor dir schließt,
Zeigt einen Weg, geheim, Er, den niemand noch gekannt! ~ Rumi,#NFDB
234:Wir haben Proviant, und warme Pelzkleidung erwartet uns, die zwar vorläufig noch auf Hufen wandelt. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
235:Birds of a feather flock together.'' Und die Moral1 davon ist: Gleich und Gleich gesellt sich gern. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
236:Einsam bist du sehr alleine - und am schlimmsten ist die Einsamkeit zu zweit.
(in: Kleines Solo) ~ Erich K stner,#NFDB
237:Nah ist
Und schwer zu fassen der Gott.
Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst
Das Rettende auch. ~ Friedrich H lderlin,#NFDB
238:Ohne Gedankenfreiheit gibt es keine Weisheit. Und ohne Redefreiheit keine öffentliche Freiheit. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
239:...und was lediglich eine saisonale Wampe gewesen war, war jetzt sein dauerhafter Ganzjahresbauch. ~ Bentley Little, #NFDB
240:Das Leben schwingt, gleich einem Pendel, hin und her, zwischen dem Schmerz und der Langeweile. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
241:Er hält sich die besten Leute und bezahlt sie entsprechend: das amerikanische Geschäftsprinzip. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
242:Es gibt fünf Phasen der Trauer: Verleugnung, Wut, Verhandeln, Depression und schließlich Akzeptanz. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
243:Halte dir jeden Tag dreißig Minuten für deine Sorgen frei und mache in dieser Zeit ein Nickerchen. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
244:[Ich bin] ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
245:Kent Nagano, der überaus gewandte und einfühlsame Dirigent, hielt die Musik ganz wunderbar zusammen. ~ Edward W Said, #NFDB
246:Mein Unterbewusstsein verdreht die Augen und wendet sich wieder der zerlesenen Ausgabe von Jane Eyre zu. ~ E L James, #NFDB
247:Nichts auf der Welt ist so weich und nachgiebig wie das Wasser. Und doch bezwingt es das Harte und Starke. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
248:..und die halbe Wahrheit, die vorgibt, die ganze zu sein, ist schlimmer als die schlimmste Lüge. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
249:Und ich dachte, ich will einzigartig sein! Ich will nicht einzigartig sein, das ist doch jeder. ~ Fr d ric Beigbeder, #NFDB
250:Und was passiert, wenn du nicht mehr da bist, um [...] mich immer daran zu erinnern, wie ein Zuhause ist? ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
251:Wir laufen davon, und der Berg Sinai läuft hinter uns her. Diese Jagd hat uns krank gemacht. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer, #NFDB
252:Alles ist Mist. Aber dann möchte man sich manchmal auf die Erde setzen und sich vor Freude ins Hemd weinen. ~ Janosch, #NFDB
253:Darauf kann ich mich ausstrecken und die Albträume haben, die ich brauche, um bei Verstand zu bleiben. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
254:Dein Plan und das Zeug, das aus meinem Arschloch kommt, haben eine verdächtige Ähnlichkeit miteinander ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
255:Denn man kann sich nicht ändern und noch den Gefühlen der Person unterstehen, die man nicht mehr ist. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
256:jedenfalls hörte ich Donnerschläge und andere Geräusche, welche die Natur nur im Zorne von sich gibt. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
257:Marv glaubt an so etwas, und ich weiss, dass ich das nicht geringschaetzen sollte. Es ist, wie es ist. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
258:Zuerst ignorieren sie dich, dann lachen sie über dich, dann bekämpfen sie dich und dann gewinnst du. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
259:Alles besteht aus Elementen, klar? Erde, Wasser, Luft, Feuer und … Dingsbums. Ist allgemein bekannt. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
260:Bedaure nicht die Toten, Harry. Bedaure die Lebenden, und vor allem diejenigen, die ohne Liebe leben ... ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
261:Blindheit zieht man sich nicht zu, Den Tod zieht man sich auch nicht zu, und trotzdem sterben wir alle. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
262:Der Physiker, allein gelassen, erhebt die eigene Existenz zum Zweifelsfall und ermittelt gegen sich selbst. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
263:„»Doch will ich euer Alter und die allgemeine Hirnlosigkeit zum Zeitpunkt der Tat berücksichtigen. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
264:Ich bin, was Ka und der König und der Turm aus mir gemacht haben. Das sind wir alle. Wir sind gefangen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
265:»Machen wir doch ein bisschen Licht«, sagte die Stimme des Mannes in Schwarz lässig, und es ward Licht. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
266:Was macht heroisch? – Zugleich seinem höchsten Leide und seiner höchsten Hoffnung entgegengehen. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
267:„Wie auch immer, wir haben nicht gegeizt – wir haben das Paradies und die Hölle zugleich zerstört. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
268:Bombentrichter und Gräben haben einen engen Horizont. Er reicht nicht weiter als einen Handgranatenwurf. ~ Ernst J nger, #NFDB
269:Die Wahrheit war das, was er sagte und schrieb. Ehrlichkeit hatte nicht unbedingt etwas damit zu tun. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
270:Ich weiss weder dass Tag noch dass Nacht ist, und die ganze Welt verliert sich um mich her ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
271:ÖDIPUS. Wie packt mich, da ich eben dich gehört hab, Frau, der Seele Irrlauf und Erschütterung des Geistes! ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
272:The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink. Chinese proverb, Die Weisse und die Schwarze Kunst ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
273:Und dann er selbst: eine dürre unrasierte Ansammlung schlechter Angewohnheiten, in Alkohol mariniert. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
274:Und der kleine Prinz fügte hinzu: Aber die Augen sind blind. Man muss mit dem Herzen suchen. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
275:Was ich besitze, seh ich wie im Weiten,
Und was verschwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
276:Abschied war es, Herbst war es, Schicksal war es, wonach die Sommerrose so reif und voll geduftet hatte. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
277:Am Tisch saß ein Mann mittleren Alters, mittlerer Statur, mittlerer Glatze und mittlerer Mittelkeit. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
278:Das Schlimme an dieser Welt ist, dass die Dummen todsicher und die Intelligenten voller Zweifel sind. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
279:Der Mensch ist taub und blind gegen die Welt, aber er spürt es wie Rheuma, wenn ihn etwas am Schicksal reißt. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
280:Mias Lächeln machte sich über das Grinsen des Schankwirts her und erdrosselte es ganz gemächlich. (S. 54) ~ Jay Kristoff, #NFDB
281:Nein, Paul, es war ein verdammt gutes Buch, und es war ein verdammt guter Fuß. Machen wir uns nichts vor. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
282:Nur wenige Diskussionen sind mehr als nur Debatten zwischen einer Trivialität und einer Dummheit. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
283:Und der kleine Prinz fügte hinzu: "Aber die Augen sind blind. Man muss mit dem Herzen suchen. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
284:Und ich werde nie einer von diesen Erwachsenen sein, die einen Schirm benutzen, wenn es schneit - niemals. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
285:...und sein Weltbild mochte in etwa so komplex sein wie das eines Entenkükens mit Gehirnerschütterung. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
286:Alicia bedachte ihn mit einem dieser Lächeln, die Türen öffneten und Vorsätze zum Schmelzen brachten. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
287:Ein Mann mit guten Zähnen und direktem Zugang zur Leistengegend kann ein sehr unangenehmer Gegner sein. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
288:~ Wenn du die Dinge aus deiner Seele tustfühlst du einen Fluss in dir fließen und große Freude erfüllt dein Wesen 😀💛🎊rumi, #NFDB
289:Die Menschen tun das Böse nie so vollständig und begeistert, wie wenn sie es aus religiöser Überzeugung tun. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
290:Die reinste Form des Wahnsinns ist es, alles beim alten zu lassen und zu hoffen, dass sich etwas ändert. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
291:Dinge kommen und gehen, das habe ich lange nicht akzeptieren können, jetzt fällt es mir plötzlich leicht. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
292:Humor und Geduld sind die beiden Kamele, mit denen man jede Wüste durchqueren kann. (Arabisches Sprichwort) ~ Rafik Schami, #NFDB
293:Immer wenn er daran dachte - und das war ziemlich oft -, sank sein Herz an einen lichtlosen, kalten Ort. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
294:Jetzt auf See. Und dann so ein richtiges schaukelndes Schiff. Und dann eine Tasse warmes Maschinenöl... . ~ Kurt Tucholsky, #NFDB
295:Lass dir Alles geschehn: Schönheit und Schrecken.
Man muss nur gehn: Kein Gefühl ist das fernste. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
296:Mag der Tag noch so trübe sein, lass Sonnenschein in dein Herz, indem du geduldig, dankbar und liebevoll bist. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
297:Sie hat drei Schichten Beton und eine Schicht Schnellbinder auf ihre Ansichten gekleistert und fand es gut. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
298:Was man sich einhandelte, das gehörte einem, und was einem gehörte, kam früher oder später zu einem zurück. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
299:Ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.
-Goethe- ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
300:Es gab einen, der ein halbes Leben an einem Gedanken saß - und die andere Hälfte für diesen Gedanken. ~ Stanis aw Jerzy Lec, #NFDB
301:Laß uns faul in allen Sachen, nur nicht faul zu Lieb und Wein, nur nicht faul zur Faulheit sein. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
302:Leiden und Schmerz sind für eine umfassende Erkenntnis und für ein tiefes Herz seit jeher unerläßlich. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
303:Tag für Tag, Monat für Monat verstreicht so, und das Dasein vergeht ungenutzt, weil wir es nicht verstanden. ~ Yoshida Kenk, #NFDB
304:Und voll grimmigen Triumphes, laut, rein und schön, in die Nacht hinein sprach er: "Thanatos, Thanatos. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
305:Dieses herzlose Lied des Sturmes spottet Gott und dem Licht — es kündet von schwarzem Winter und dunklem Eis. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
306:Die Welle der Hoffnung, die ich im Tempel spürte, ist an der Küste der Erschöpfung und des Verlusts gebrochen. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
307:Ich kenne vielleicht fünf Leute, die so viel schlafen, wie sie gern würden, und drei davon sind Babys. ~ Margarete Stokowski, #NFDB
308:Ich werde stehen und warten.
Ich werde müde werden.
Ich werde nicht einschlafen.
Ich werde sterben. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
309:›Liebet eure Feinde, tut denen Gutes, die euch hassen‹, hat er gesagt. Und: ›Segnet die, die euch verfluchen, ~ Rebecca Gabl, #NFDB
310:Befragt die Geringeren, auf daß nicht die Größeren Euch antworten und mehr heraufbeschwören, als Ihr vermöget ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
311:Bücher liegen in der Luft. Der Schriftsteller ist nur die Brücke zwischen dem Stoff und der Niederschrift. ~ Marguerite Duras, #NFDB
312:Ich verstehe, was die Welt antreibt. Der Treibstoff ist ein Teil Superbenzin und neun Teile reinster Bockmist. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
313:Wer für Menschenrechte und Empathie eine Speichelprobe braucht, bei dem läuft etwas grundlegend falsch. ~ Margarete Stokowski, #NFDB
314:Anderthalb Millionen, und dazu noch Fürst, und überdies noch, wie es heißt, ein Idiot: was will man mehr? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
315:Das Leben ist kurz, und der Schmerz ist lang, und wir sind alle auf diese Welt gekommen, um einander zu helfen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
316:Die beste und sicherste Tarnung ist immer noch die blanke und nackte Wahrheit. Komischerweise die glaubt niemand. ~ Max Frisch, #NFDB
317:Die Sprache ist konservativ, schleppt stets ihr eigenes Archiv mit sich herum und verabscheut Aktualisierungen. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
318:Es mache ihn glücklich, sagte er, mit eigenen Händen aus Papier und Leder ein Buch für die Ewigkeit zu erschaffen. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
319:Frank verbuchte diese Information in der Kategorie »Unnötiges Wissen« und versuchte dann, in Ohnmacht zu fallen. ~ J A Konrath, #NFDB
320:Putin, so das Zwischenfazit, konnte den Westen spalten, weil er schon gespalten war – zwischen den USA und der EU. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
321:Und keine Frau lässt sich gern vom Mittelpunkt der Bühne verdrängen, schon gar nicht durch einen Tintenfisch. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
322:Alles, was ich wollte und was Neal wollte und was alle wollten, war, irgendwie ins Herz der Dinge vorzudringen,… ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
323:Die besten und schönsten Dinge auf dieser Welt kann man weder sehen noch berühren, sondern nur im Herzen spüren. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
324:Die Gewohnheit ist ein Seil. Wir weben jeden Tag einen Faden, und schließlich können wir es nicht mehr zerreißen. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
325:Du und alle Erben des Wohlstands, die glauben, das Leben sei eine Frage perfektionierter Gefühle. Ihr irrt euch. ~ Adam Haslett, #NFDB
326:Ein magischer Ort in den Wolken. Eine Heldin, die ein bisschen zu neugierig ist. Und das Abente.uer ihres Lebens ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
327:Es gibt so Momente, in denen ich alles genau verstehe, [...] und dann plötzlich entgleitet mir wieder alles. ~ Christian Kracht, #NFDB
328:Es lebt ein Gott zu strafen und zu rächen. ~ There is a God to punish and avenge. ~ Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, IV. 3. 37, #NFDB
329:Gute Erziehung besteht darin, dass man verbirgt, wieviel man von sich selber hält und wie wenig von den anderen. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
330:Ich bin wie alle Menschen: Ich sehe die Welt so, wie ich sie gerne hätte, und nicht so, wie sie tatsächlich ist. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
331:Ohne Gott und Sonnen schein Holen Wir Die Ernte ein Without God and without sun We will get the harvest done I ~ Brother Andrew, #NFDB
332:und seine Gattin schätzte er so hoch und fürchtete sich vor ihr manchmal so sehr, daß er sie sogar liebte. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
333:Wir teilen einen Augenblick der Zeit. Wie beim Universum gibt es keinen Anfang und kein Ende. Wir sind einfach. ~ Lucinda Riley, #NFDB
334:Der Unterschied zwischen der leichten und schwierigen Methode besteht darin, dass die schwierige funktioniert. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
335:Es ist nicht bewiesen, aber es ist wahrscheinlich und wenn es wahrscheinlich ist, dann war es wahrscheinlich so. ~ Cody McFadyen, #NFDB
336:Evolutionäre Wahrheit: Die Kranken und Schwachen Sterben
Menschliche Wahrheit: Alle haben ein Recht zu Leben ~ Clemens J Setz,#NFDB
337:Jedes Baby war bei der Geburt ein perfektes Wunder, und das Leben im Grunde nur ein fortlaufender Zerstoerungsprozess. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
338:Manchmal scheitern wir in der Tat, und ich glaube fast, dieses prinzipielle Scheitern ist unser letztes Ziel. ~ Elfriede Jelinek, #NFDB
339:Und dann sehe ich doch auch gleich, dass Sie anders sind als andere, dafür haben wir Frauen ein scharfes Auge. ~ Theodor Fontane, #NFDB
340:Ach nichts weiter. Und Sie und ich, wir haben vielleicht auch mancherlei an dem Buben versäumt, meinen Sie nicht? ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
341:An dieser Stelle gibt die normale Sprache auf, besucht die nächste Kneipe und gießt sich einen hinter die Binde ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
342:Denn es sind immer die Unterlegenen, die Gleichheit und Recht suchen, während die Mächtigen sich darum nicht scheren. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
343:Die Insassen waren auf dem Rücksitz gefunden worden. Und auf den Vordersitzen, im Kofferraum und im Handschuhfach. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
344:Nun, wenn du siehst, wie etwas aus dem Meer kriecht und zu atmen versucht… Sag ihm, es sei die Mühe nicht wert. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
345:Wir könnten nicht ohne einander existieren ... sehen Sie es als symbiotische und völlig platonische Beziehung. ~ Katie MacAlister, #NFDB
346:Alte Wahrheiten sind und klingen nicht originell, doch es sind und bleiben Wahrheiten, und das ist die Hauptsache. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
347:Die ganze Welt verwechselt mich mit einem Idioten, der eine Elfe vögelt und mit Engeln spricht. Wie erwachsen ist das? ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
348:[...]; die Welt war die Suppe und das Denken meistens eine Gabel: zu einer sättigenden Mahlzeit führte das selten. ~ Harry Mulisch, #NFDB
349:Es ist ein großer Unterschied, ob ich lese zum Genuss und Belebung oder zur Erkenntnis und Belehrung. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
350:Schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf, Denn zum wiirdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
351:Wenn man sein Ziel erreicht hat, muss man neu anfangen und dabei immer das nutzen, was man auf dem Weg gelernt hat. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
352:Zeit wird langsamer, wenn es einem schlecht geht, und schneller, wenn es gut ist. Absolut undurchdachte Regelung. ~ Rocko Schamoni, #NFDB
353:Ein Freund ist ein Mensch, der die Melodie deines Herzen kennt und sie dir vorspielt, wenn du sie vergessen hast. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
354:Gegner glauben uns zu wiederlegen, wenn sie ihre meinung wiederholen und auf die unsrige nicht achten. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
355:Lord Hong kochte. Wer ihn kannte, wußte die Zeichen zu deuten: Er sprach langsamer als sonst und lächelte dauernd ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
356:Sie knurren wütend und schnappen nach einem Stück vom Fleisch, denn Fleisch ist sie jetzt; Mensch ist sie nicht mehr. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
357:Aber trotz alledem, glasierte Hundescheiße ist kein Hochzeitskuchen; und dies war ganz einfach glasierte Hundescheiße ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
358:Ach mein Freund, heiraten Sie nicht, haben Sie keine Kinder. Man gibt ihnen das Leben und sie geben einem den Tod. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
359:Der gegenwärtige Mensch lebt nicht im Raum und in der Zeit.
Sondern in der Geometrie und den Chronometern. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila,#NFDB
360:Ich bin voller Zuversicht und Entschlossenheit und verfüge über einen freien Willen – zumindest nehme ich das an … ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
361:Ich war allein in der Wüste, über mir flogen die Geier, und alle Wetten standen gegen mich. Ich war der Totgesagte. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
362:Übermaß des Schmerzes und Übermaß der Freude dauern nur kurze Zeit. Alle Extreme widerstreben dem menschlichen Herzen. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
363:Und bleibt uns auch nur eine einzige gute Erinnerung im Herzen, so kann uns auch das einmal zur Rettung dienen. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
364:Und der Verstand ist eine Illusion (...) Nichts weiter als ein Kostüm, in das der Mensch die Summe seiner Gefühle steckt. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
365:Wer ist der glücklichere Künstler? Der, der es nie probiert hat? Oder der, der er versucht hat und gescheitert ist? ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
366:Wir sollten lernen, einem Mann unsere Freundschaft zu zeigen, solange er lebt, und nicht erst, wenn er tot ist. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
367:Ein Mädchen, das um Mitternacht für gewöhnlich wie eine Königin aussah und wie ein Gnom um zehn Uhr am nächsten Morgen ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
368:Es war eine schöne Zeit, aber wie wir wissen – aus Geschichten und aus dem Leben –, dauern schöne Zeiten nie lange an. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
369:Kapitän van Toch schüttelte den Kopf. „Mensch, Teufel gibt's keine. Und wenn, dann müßten sie wie Europäer aussehen. ... ~ Karel apek, #NFDB
370:Nichtsdestotrotz habet Ihr starke Hände, ein Messer und eine Pistole, und es ist nicht schwer, ein Grab zu schaufeln. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
371:Ohnehin waren die wenigsten Romanfiguren so detailliert beschrieben, dass Leser und Autor dasselbe Bild vor Augen hatten. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
372:Rate Kind: wer bin ich wohl? Vorne bin ich breit und hohl, Hinten bin ich lang und schmal. Fütt’re dich beim Mittagsmahl. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
373:Sind Götter! Wundersam eigen,
Die sich immerfort selbst erzeugen,
Und niemals wissen was sie sind. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
374:Wenn du weißt, behaupte, dass du es weißt. Und wenn du etwas nicht weißt, gib zu, dass du es nicht weißt. Das ist Wissen. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
375:Zurück geht kein Weg", sagte er ernst und freundlich, "man muß immer vorwärtsgehen, wenn man die Welt ergründen will. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
376:Aber sie tun es doch, sie sprechen von der Ohnmacht und praktizieren Macht, sie bekennen Demut und demütigen andere! ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
377:Ich konnte nicht ohne dich leben, als du noch am Leben warst, und jetzt kann ich nicht ohne dich leben, wo du tot bist. ~ T R Richmond, #NFDB
378:In einem sind pornographische Bücher wie alle andern: darin nämlich, daß sie auf Schrift und Sprache gegründet sind. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
379:Man gab uns einen Funken Idiotie, und im Verlauf vieler hunderttausend Jahre entfachten wir ein großes Feuer daraus. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
380:O Stunden in der Kindheit,
da hinter den Figuren mehr als nur
Vergangnes war und vor uns nicht die Zukunft. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
381:about1 four inches2 deep3 and reaching half4 down the hall5. ungefähr1 vier Zoll2 tief3 und den halben4 Korridor5 lang. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
382:[D]ie Leute [lesen] nichts, was sie nicht interessiert, und wenn sie etwas interessier[t], [sind] sie auch reif dafür. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
383:Edel sei der Mensch, hilfreich und gut! Denn das allein unterscheidet ihn von allen Wesen, die wir kennen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
384:[Erkenntnis] ist nur möglich, wenn ich mein eigenes Interesse transzendiere und den anderen so sehe, wie er wirklich ist. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
385:Ich bedauere dreißig Jahre der Kontaktarmut und glaube fast, dass man sich öfter berühren sollte, es gäbe weniger Elend. ~ Sibylle Berg, #NFDB
386:Ich will wie ein Kind im Krankenzimmer
Einsam, mit heimlichem Lächeln, leise,
Leise – Tage und Träume bauen. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
387:Ein Haus ohne Bücher ist arm, auch wenn schöne Teppiche seine Böden, und kostbare Tapeten und Bilder die Wände bedecken. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
388:Ein Haus ohne Bücher ist arm, auch wenn schöne Teppiche seinen Boden und kostbare Tapeten und Bilder die Wände bedecken. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
389:»Kühne Poesie und gedankliche Präzision – eine neue, unverwechselbare Stimme spricht aus den Erzählungen von Lorenz Just.« ~ Lutz Seiler, #NFDB
390:Man schließt zu zweit einen Bund gegen die Welt und hält dann diesen égoisme à deux irrtümlich für Liebe und Vertrautheit. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
391:Zoja sagte, dass Angst ein Phönix ist. Man kann ihm zusehen, wie er tausendmal verbrennt, und doch wird er zurückkehren. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
392:Zweiblum war Tourist – der erste auf der Scheibenwelt. Und ›Tourist‹, so wußte Rincewind inzwischen, bedeutete ›Idiot‹ ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
393:Ah", sagte er und spürte dabei, wie sich ein vertrautes und fast willkommenes Gefühl in ihm regte – hilfloses Entsetzen ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
394:Der Mensch spielt nur, wo er in voller Bedeutung des Wortes Mensch ist, und er ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
395:Die Gesellschaften unterschieden sich nur durch den Status ihrer Sklaven und durch den Namen, den sie ihnen geben. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
396:Die Kraft haben, das zu wählen, was einem am wichtigsten ist, und dabei zu bleiben. Andernfalls ist es besser, man stirbt. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
397:„Er sah den Menschen nun als eine komplexe Maschine zur Vernichtung von Lebensmitteln und zur Produktion von Scheiße. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
398:Manche Bücher müssen gekostet werden,
manche verschlingt man,
nur einige wenige kaut man
und verdaut sie ganz. ~ Cornelia Funke,#NFDB
399:Wie lange dauert es, bis man den Geruch desjenigen Vergißt, der einen geliebt hat? Und wann hört man selbst auf zu lieben? ~ Anna Gavalda, #NFDB
400:Wir bauen an dir mit zitternden Händen,
und wir türmen Atom auf Atom.
Aber wer kann dich vollenden,
du Dom. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
401:Zugleich die Lust auf Provokation und Rückzug haben, instinktmäßig ein Störenfried und aus Überzeugung ein Leichnam sein! ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
402:Abenteuer kann man doch nicht planen wie Ballett oder so was. Die warten um die Ecke und - zack! - plötzlich sind sie da! ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
403:Auch die Galaxis lockt mich nicht mehr und das Reisen hat auch keinen Reiz, wenn man nicht weiß wohin man heimkehren kann. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
404:[D]ie Freiheit zu opfern, um jegliche Gefahr zu vermeiden, ist ein Vorbote der Diktatur und immer ein schlechter Tausch. ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
405:Wirklich zuhören können nur ganz wenige Menschen. Und so wie Momo sich aufs Zuhören verstand, war es ganz und gar einmalig. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
406:Alles, was unserer körperlichen Ernährung und Pflege dient, lassen wir uns mehr kosten als unsere geistige Ernährung. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
407:Auf diesem Basar herumzugondolieren und auf die Frosch- und Spinnenjagd mit großer Freundlichkeit auszuziehen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
408:Das Firmament blaut ewig und die Erde
Wird lange fest stehen und aufblühn im Lenz.
Du aber, Mensch, wie lange lebst denn du? ~ Li Bai,#NFDB
409:Die Sinnlichkeit übereilt oft das Wachsthum der Liebe, so dass die Wurzel schwach bleibt und leicht auszureissen ist. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
410:Die Wissenschaft muss mit glatten Wangen begonnen werden und nicht erst mit runzeligen, wenn man in ihr etwas erreichen will. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
411:Draußen schneite es aus meteorologischer Langeweile und klimatischer Resignation lustlose fünf Schneeflocken pro Minute. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
412:Ein Mensch stirbt. Und? Nichts weiter. Der Wind weht weiter. Die Elbe quasselt weiter. Die Straßenbahn klingelt weiter. ~ Wolfgang Borchert, #NFDB
413:Es gibt Gebiete des Denkens, die man nicht ungestraft betritt. Kopfschmerzen und ein schlechter Charakter sind der Mindestpreis. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
414:So sehr er sich auch dagegen sträubte: Immer wieder setzten sich bei ihm gesunder Menschenverstand und Intelligenz durch. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
415:Spaghetti, Fleischsauce im Glas, vierzehn Fertiggerichte, ein Dutzend Eier und ein Netz Navelorangen zum Schutz vor Skorbut. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
416:Weil der Verstand, gab man ihm ein Messer und eine Hand, es zu halten, sich schließlich unweigerlich selbst verzehren würde. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
417:Wer die Wahrheit nicht weiß, der ist bloß ein Dummkopf. Aber wer sie weiß und sie eine Lüge nennt, der ist ein Verbrecher. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
418:Alles, was uns Freude machen soll, ist an Zeit und Umstände gebunden, und was uns heute noch beglückt, ist morgen wertlos. ~ Theodor Fontane, #NFDB
419:Du bist verrückt, glaube ich. Und ich bin noch viel verrückter als du. Aber ich bin lieber verrückt als normal, du doch auch? ~ Tabitha King, #NFDB
420:Einer von denen, die nach Hause kommen und die dann doch nicht nach Hause kommen, weil für sie kein Zuhause mehr da ist. ~ Wolfgang Borchert, #NFDB
421:Er war ein Vetter dritten Grades, begeisterungsfähig, eingebildet und auf eine anerkennenswert aristokratische Weise dumm. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
422:Es sind die Träume von Mr. Munshun, Burnys engstem Freund und liebendem Herrn, einem Geschöpf endloser und perverser Freuden. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
423:Es war eine kleine Stadt an einem kleinen Fluß und einem kleinen See in einem kleinen Teil eines Staates im mittleren Westen. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
424:Habe keine Angst vor dem Leben. Glaube daran, dass das Leben lebenswert ist und dein Glaube wird helfen Tatsachen zu schaffen. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
425:Ich bin kein Held, Herr."
"Und warum nicht, wenn ich fragen darf?"
"Ich glaube, ich habe eine zu lebhafte Phantasie. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
426:Ich fliehe, und deshalb bin ich. Besser gesagt: Ich fliehe, und daher werde ich, mit ein wenig Glück, auch weiterhin sein. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
427:Ich liebe die großen Verachtenden, weil sie die großen Verehrenden sind und Pfeile der Sehnsucht nach dem andern Ufer. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
428:In allem Streben und Forschen suche ich hinter dem Geheimnis des Lichtstrahls ehrfürchtig das Geheimnis des göttlichen Geistes. ~ Max Planck, #NFDB
429:Ja, Herr. Ich habe gründlich darüber nachgedacht und bin zu folgendem Schluß gekommen: Es sind allesamt Arschlöcher, Herr. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
430:Manche Menschen sind wie Nullen, sie brauchen eine Zahl, die vor ihnen steht, und ihr Nichts erlangt dann zehnfachen Wert. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
431:Manchmal blubbert es, und du denkst, gleich machst du dir in den Schlüpper, doch dann ist es nur Aftersausen?“ - Gerlinde ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
432:Mögen Romantiker über die Existenz der Liebe debattieren, Pragmatiker wissen, daß es sie gibt und nutzen sie für ihre Zwecke. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
433:Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Thinking for Oneself,” Parerga und Paralipomena, Vol. 2, § 260, #NFDB
434:und dass es in Nordamerika kaum zweieiige Zwillinge gab (ganz anders beispielsweise in Nigeria, wo Zwillinge die Norm waren). ~ Taiye Selasi, #NFDB
435:Und ich weiß, dass die Liebe nur ein Schrei im Nichts und das Vergessen unvermeidlich ist, doch ich habe mich in dich verliebt. ~ John Green, #NFDB
436:Von den Küsten Afrikas aus, wo ich geboren wurde, sieht man das Gesicht Europas besser. Und man weiß, dass es nicht schön ist ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
437:»Wann bist du geboren?«
Momo überlegte und sagte schließlich: »Soweit ich mich erinnern kann, war ich immer schon da.« ~ Michael Ende,#NFDB
438:Alles prüfe der Mensch,
dass er Danken für alles lernt
und verstehe die Freiheit,
aufzubrechen, wohin er will. ~ Friedrich H lderlin,#NFDB
439:Die Einsamkeit macht uns härter gegen uns und sehnsüchtiger gegen die Menschen, in beiden verbessert sie den Charakter. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
440:Die Frauen reden Männern, die sie zu Schafen gemacht haben, immer ein, sie seien Löwen und hätten einen eisernen Charakter. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
441:Es gibt einen Ort in uns, wo es praktisch die ganze Zeit regnet, die Schatten immer lang und der Wald voller Ungeheuer ist. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
442:Ich rutsche. Tiefer und tiefer. In die Dunkelheit. Ich darf nicht schlafen. Ich darf nicht schlafen. Ich. Darf. Nicht. Schlafen. ~ S J Watson, #NFDB
443:Klischees werden deshalb zu Klischees, weil sie die Hämmer und Schraubenzieher in der Werkzeugkiste der Kommunikation sind. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
444:Reden kann zu Denken führen, und Denken ist gefährlich für Jungs wie euch. Als würde man sich mit Patronen in der Nase bohren. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
445:Sehr intelligente Menschen sollten sich eine primitive und dumme Frau nehmen. In meiner freien Zeit will ich meine Ruhe haben. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
446:Anfangs habe ich sie geliebt. Aber genug davon ... Es gibt eben Frauen, die nur zu Geliebten taugen und zu weiter nichts. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
447:Das gute Schwesterchen nahm ein Messer, schnitt sich ein kleines Fingerchen ab, steckte es in das Thor und schloß glücklich auf. ~ Jacob Grimm, #NFDB
448:Das widerlichste und groteskeste der Schauspiele ist das der Überlegenheit des lebenden Professors über das tote Genie. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
449:Er passte nicht in ihre Küche oder in ihre Stadt, doch er passte perfekt in ihre Arme und ausgesprochen perfekt in ihren Körper. ~ Cait London, #NFDB
450:Es gibt ein spanisches Sprichwort", sagte er, "das mich immer fasziniert hat. 'Nimm, was du willst, und bezahl dafür, sagt Gott. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
451:Es gibt nichts Verfehlteres als die unsinnige Voreingenommenheit der Menschen und nichts Dümmeres als gleisnerische Sittenstrenge. ~ Petronius, #NFDB
452:gemacht und wohl auch überrascht. Diese blauen, blauen Augen, dieses eisige Blau in deinem Blick, der mich traf, als könnte ~ Lucy Christopher, #NFDB
453:Gib einem Mann Feuer, und er hat es einen Tag lang warm. Steck ihn in Brand, und er hat es warm für den Rest seines Lebens.‹ ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
454:Sein Verstand ist vielleicht nicht für immer futsch, aber momentan zumindest mit Kind und Kegel nach Disney World aufgebrochen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
455:Vergeben und vergessen. Langsam verstand sie, was das hieß. Man konnte nicht vergessen, bevor nicht jemand anderes einem vergab. ~ Mark Haddon, #NFDB
456:Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt,
hat auch Religion;
wer jene beiden nicht besitzt,
der habe Religion. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
457:Wie ein Käfer, auf den man tritt, so quillst du aus dir hinaus, und dein bißchen obere Härte und Anpassung ist ohne Sinn. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
458:Das ist das Leben. Wir wissen nicht, was passieren wird. Und deswegen müssen wir unsere Chancen wahrnehmen, solange wir es können. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
459:der Mann war groß und dünn, hatte Wangenknochen, mit denen man Tomaten hätte schneiden können comma und perfekt frisierte Haare. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
460:Die Nähe des Todes schafft eine Atmosphäre die das Außergewöhnliche begünstigt (und über die conditio humana hinauswachsen lässt) ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
461:Er hatte sich dann an seine Lebensaufgabe gemacht, die darin bestand, so langsam und angenehm wie möglich Selbstmord zu begehen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
462:Keiner der Informatiker im Team spricht Arabisch, doch sie beherrschen statistische Verfahren und maschinelle Lernalgorithmen. ~ Stuart Russell, #NFDB
463:Man kann Worte schenken, aber nicht wegnehmen. Und wenn Worte geschenkt und empfangen werden, dann sind sie etwas Gemeinsames. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
464:Und der Selige war imstande, nicht nur um zehntausend, sondern schon um zehn Rubel willen einen in jene Welt zu spedieren. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
465:Wenn Fiktion und Politik austauschbar wären, würde ich mich umbringen. Die Politik ändert sich laufend, Geschichte hingegen nie. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
466:Abschied und Wiedersehen
hat jedes doch sein Glück:
Geh tausendmal - und komm dann
zehntausendmal zurück! ~ Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib,#NFDB
467:Alles nach dem ist Ernüchterung, Abschattung nach diesem Rausch von Farben und Formen, nach der göttlichen Vielfalt dieser Stadt. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
468:Bürgertum ist jeder Gruppe von Individuen, die unzufrieden sind mit dem, was sie haben und zufrieden damit, was sie sind. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
469:Der gesamte Bereich der Echtheit entzieht sich der technischen – und natürlich nicht nur der technischen – Reproduzierbarkeit. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
470:Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint! Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht, ist wert, dass es zugrunde geht. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
471:Ich bin ein Nichts; aber Sie haben gelitten und sind aus einer solchen Hölle rein hervorgegangen, und das ist etwas Großes. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
472:Ich kenne keinen Absatz, keine Veränderung. Ich bin immer nur ein; ein ununterbrochenes Sehnen und Fassen, eine Glut, ein Strom. ~ Georg B chner, #NFDB
473:Und so fielen wir ineinander wie das entzweite Haus, das allein nicht stehen konnte, glorreiche, verdammte Liebende, die wir waren. ~ John Green, #NFDB
474:Und was nützt viel Geld, wenn man sich davon nur Spielzeug kaufen kann? Sie saugt einem das ganze Leben aus, die Zivilisation. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
475:Zwei Dinge sind unendlich, das Universum und die menschliche Dummheit, aber beim Universum bin ich mir noch nicht ganz sicher. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
476:Das Feuer breitet sich aus!", schreie ich jetzt, damit Snow auch ja kein Wort verpasst. "Und wenn wir brennen, brennen Sie mit! ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
477:Denn so ist die Liebe beschaffen, daß sie allein recht zu haben glaubt und alle anderen Rechte vor ihr verschwinden. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
478:Dies Wasser lief und lief, immerzu lief es, und war doch immer da, war immer und allezeit dasselbe und doch jeden Augenblick neu! ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
479:Ein paar Leute schwnkten kleine Amerikafahnen, und ich erinnere mich, dass ich mich wunderte, woher in aller Welt sie diese hatten. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
480:„Ja, Leute, in Das letzte Gefecht hatte ich die Möglichkeit, die gesamte menschliche Rasse auszulöschen, und das hat Spaß gemacht! ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
481:Wenn Sie sich entschlossen, zu mir zu kommen, so geschah das aus Furcht. Und wen man fürchtet, den schätzt man nicht gering. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
482:[W]ieder stieg ein unbestimmtes Gefühl von Frustration und Sehnsucht in mir auf bei dem Gedanken, dass ich das falsche Leben führte. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
483:Dein Denken beeinflusst, wie du andere Menschen wahrnimmst, wie du dich in Beziehungen verhältst, was du fühlst und wie du handelst. ~ Veit Lindau, #NFDB
484:Die Rippen sangen die Melodie des Schmerzes, aber Knie, Ellenbogen und Kopf fügten Triller und Arpeggios hinzu."
(Klonk!) ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
485:Es gibt Situationen, da sind Wörter nutzlos, ich wollte, ich könnte auch weinen, alles mit Tränen sagen, und müsste nicht sprechen. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
486:Hier gab es nur das Korps. Und das Korps. Und gelegentlich, wenn wieder ein Exempel statuiert werden musste, eine oder zwei Leichen ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
487:Ich bin clever genug, um zu wissen, wie sinnlos es ist, clever zu sein, wie wenig es bedeutet und dass es ein Problem ist. ~ Malin Persson Giolito, #NFDB
488:Randy war ein guter Schüler und Deke ein guter Footballspieler, aber keiner war einen Furz bei Sturm wert, wenn es um Haushalt ging ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
489:So künde, o Muse, dein Klagen
Von Trauer, Krieg und Tücke,
Von verlogener Liebesmüh’ und
Liederlichstem Rumgeficke … ~ Christopher Moore,#NFDB
490:Der Satiriker ist ein gekränkter Idealist: er will die Welt gut haben, sie ist schlecht, und nun rennt er gegen das Schlechte hin. ~ Kurt Tucholsky, #NFDB
491:Eine Närrin mit gutem Herzen und ohne Verstand ist eine ebenso unglückliche Närrin wie eine Närrin mit Verstand und ohne Herz. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
492:Es gibt weder Glück noch Unglück auf dieser Welt, es gibt nur eine Vergleichung eines Zustandes mit einem anderen und mehr nicht. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
493:Gib dich dem Leben hin. Erlaube dem Leben, dich zu führen, und versuche nicht, das Leben zu führen. Lass das Leben Besitz von dir ergreifen. ~ Osho, #NFDB
494:Jene, die tun, was getan werden muß, ernten selten Lohn. Dafür gibt es viele Beispiele, und leider läßt sich nichts daran ändern. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
495:Mit der Zeit verwarf ich die Idee des Briefes und nahm an wenn schon sei es praktischer gleich mit dem Meisterwerk zu beginnen. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
496:Nun, das Leben verläuft nicht so, wie du es dir vorstellst. Es geht seinen Weg. Und du deinen. Und das ist nicht derselbe Weg. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
497:Der Kaiser stand nicht nur vor der Tür des Todes, sondern bereits im Flur, bewunderte den Teppich und kommentierte den Hutständer. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
498:Der Tag, an dem wir beginnen, uns Gedanken über die Zukunft zu machen, ist der Tag, an dem wir unsere Kindheit hinter und lassen. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
499:Ich habe so viel, und die Empfindung an ihr verschlingt alles; ich habe so viel, und ohne sie wird mir alles zu Nichts. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
500:[N]icht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschiedenen [...] sondern durch Eisen und Blut. ~ Otto von Bismarck, #NFDB
501:Staatsautorität als Selbstzweck kann es nicht geben, da in diesem Fall jede Tyrannei auf dieser Erde unangreifbar und geheiligt wäre. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
502:Werdet glücklich miteinander, ihr Treulosen! Ihr Mörder! Ihr Betrüger! Ihr Lügner! Ihr Ehebrecher! Ihr Verlorenen und Hoffnungslosen! ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
503:Aber das ist das Problem mit dem Alter: Man hat ein Gefühl, aber kein Datum. Und wenn man das Datum ausgräbt, verliert man das Gefühl. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
504:Die Lebewohle, die wir sagen, und die Lebewohle, die wir hören, sind die Lebewohle, die uns beweisen, dass wir trotz allem noch leben. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
505:Garraty betrachtete die Szene apathisch und dachte, dass sich sogar das Entsetzen abnutzte. Sogar vom Tod konnte es ein Übermaß geben. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
506:Nicht die haben Bücher recht lieb, welche sie unberührt in den Schränken aufheben, sondern die, die sie Tag und Nacht in den Händen halten. ~ Erasmus, #NFDB
507:Nun, sich um anderer Leute Angelegenheit zu kümmern, ist eine Sache, etwas Bedürftiges zu sehen und einfach wegzuschauen, eine andere. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
508:Und das Licht hat geschworen, nicht aufzugeben, aber es weiß, das es keine Rettung gibt, es wird sich nicht ergeben, es erlischt. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
509:Und die liebende Frau, o, die liebende Frau! - die vergöttert sogar die Laster und die größten Schandtaten des geliebten Mannes. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
510:Unsere Entschlüsse sind in viel höherem Maß von der Anpassung an Stand und Umgebung abhängig, als wir geneigt sind, uns einzugestehen. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
511:Also zahle ich dem Taxifahrer seinen Fahrpreis und gebe ihm noch ein dickes Trinkgeld, damit er in Zukunft weiß, wer der Feind ist. ~ Christian Kracht, #NFDB
512:Doch am Ende sind Bücher kein Luxus, sondern eine Notwendigkeit, und Lesen ist eine Sucht, von der er keinesfalls geheilt werden möchte. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
513:Ich wünscht', ich wäre ein Vöglein
Und zöge über das Meer,
Wohl über das Meer und weiter,
Bis daß ich im Himmel wär! ~ Joseph von Eichendorff,#NFDB
514:[O]b wenig oder viel, niemand konnte mehr als sein Leben wagen. Jeder nach seinen Kräften und Anlagen – die Hauptsache: man widerstand. ~ Hans Fallada, #NFDB
515:Schalftrunken, farbentrunken, freiheitstrunken - ich weiß nicht, wo ich bin und wo wir fahren. Ich habe vergessen, wo ich herkomme. ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
516:Aufmunternd sprach ich: »Ihr lieben Leut', Ihr müßt nicht jammern und flennen; Troja war eine bessere Stadt Und mußte doch verbrennen. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
517:Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die anderen sind im Licht.
Und man sieht nur die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht. ~ Bertolt Brecht,#NFDB
518:Denn wenn man niemanden hat, den man ab und an aus der Stadt verjagen kann, wie soll man dann wissen, dass man selbst dorthin gehört? ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
519:Die zerstörerischte Waffe ist das Wort, das ein Leben zunichte macht, ohne Blutspuren zu hinterlassen, und dessen Wunden niemals heilen. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
520:Geschichte treiben heißt Brücken zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart schlagen und beide Ufer beobachten und an beiden tätig werden. ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
521:Himmel und Hölle sind zwei große Symbole und bezeichnen die beiden einzigen Punkte, um die sich unser Dasein dreht: Lust und Schmerz. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
522:Seit wir den Glauben und damit die Wahrheit verloren haben, liegt zwischen Heuchelei und Ehrlichkeit der letzte Unterschied, der uns bleibt. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
523:[Sie zogen sich an] und stießen sich ab, wie es sein soll, wenn die Liebe nicht als Kitschbild oder als Romanze ohne Worte enden soll. ~ Julio Cort zar, #NFDB
524:Wenn Sie schon Blut, Schweiß und Tränen in den Rest des Menüs investiert haben, dann holen Sie einen leckeren Kuchen aus der Konditorei. ~ Nigel Slater, #NFDB
525:Eine zivilisierte Gesellschaft ist die, in der körperlicher Schmerz und körperliches Vergnügen nicht die einzigen Argumente sind. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
526:Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
527:Gut gesprochen, gut gelernt, eilfertig herausgespien aus dem Fundus Eures Unverstands und unter konsequenter Umgehung des Nachdenkens. ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
528:Ich will damit bloß sagen, dass ich versuche, rationale Erklärungen für irrationale Gefühle zu finden, und das ist nie ein gutes Zeichen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
529:Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags und morgens wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken ~ Paul Celan,#NFDB
530:Seit damals benutze ich das Lesen als Mittel, die Zeit zum Verschwinden zu bringen, und das Schreiben als Mittel, sie festzuhalten. ~ Fr d ric Beigbeder, #NFDB
531:Susannah lernt schießen … Eddie lernt schnitzen … und der Revolvermann lernt, wie es ist, wenn man Stück für Stück den Verstand verliert. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
532:Wenn wir einen Menschen glücklicher und heiterer machen können, so sollten wir es in jedem Fall tun, mag er uns darum bitten oder nicht. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
533:Doch wie ich mich auch in mich selber neige: Mein Gott ist dunkel und wie ein Gewebe von hundert Wurzeln, welche schweigsam trinken. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
534:Habt nur den Mut, destruktiv zu sein, und ihr werdet bald sehen, welch' herrliche Blume der Eintracht aus der fruchtbaren Asche aufschießt. ~ Max Stirner, #NFDB
535:Ich las das langweilige Buch, schlief darüber ein, im Schlafe träumte
ich, weiter zu lesen, erwachte vor Langeweile, und das dreimal. ~ Heinrich Heine,#NFDB
536:Plötzlich hob er seinen Blick und spürte in der Luft dieses unheimliche Etwas kurz vor Morgengrauen, das den Menschen ein Gruseln einflößt. ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
537:...und als Ausgleich für seine recht nüchterne und langweilige Tätigkeit gab ihm das Schicksal die Fähigkeit zu verbaler Interpunktion. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
538:Wir ähneln denen, die wir hassen, mehr als wir denken. Und deshalb glauben wir, dass wir denen, die wir lieben, nie ganz nah sind. ~ Albert S nchez Pi ol, #NFDB
539:Aha. Und deine Klamotten konnten das liebeskranke Gezicke nicht mehr hören und sind deshalb von deinem Körper gehüpft und weggerannt? ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
540:Denn man hört nie auf erziehungsbedürftig zu sein; ich gehe noch jetzt in die Schule und lerne von Leuten, die meine Enkel sein könnten. ~ Theodor Fontane, #NFDB
541:Die wirklich schönen Erinnerungen bleiben lebendig und haben einen unauslöschlichen Glanz. Sie pulsieren schmerzlich im Fluss der Zeit. ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
542:Ein Mann, dessen romantischer Kern in einen brutalen, einfachen Behälter eingeschlossen war, welcher aus Instinkt und Pragmatismus bestand. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
543:Ich liebe dich ja… wie heißt es doch, wenn man einen Zweig abbricht und die Blätter abreißt? Von Herzen, mit Schmerzen, über alle Maßen. ~ Theodor Fontane, #NFDB
544:Lebe in der Gegenwart und hab keine Angst vor der Zukunft, denn sie existiert nicht und wird es auch nie tun. Es gibt nur das Jetzt. ~ Christopher Paolini, #NFDB
545:Und man hat niemand und nichts und faehrt in der Welt herum mit einem Koffer und mit einer Bücherkiste und eigentlich ohne Neugierde. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
546:Weil der Pöbel noch sein Gefühlt hat, das bei Vornehmern durch tausend unnatürliche Vorstellungen verderbt und geschwächt wird. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
547:Wir sind hier, und dann sind wir wieder weg, und es geht nich darum, wie viel Zeit wir hier haben, sondern darum, wie wir diese Zeit nutzen. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
548:Der Mensch ist Etwas, das überwunden werden muss: und darum sollst du deine Tugenden liebe, - denn du wirst an ihnen zu Grunde gehen. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
549:Du tust mir leid, Linah. Du bist dazu verflucht, ein wahrer Mann zu sein. Diese Welt ist für Kämpfer gemacht. Und das hast du nie gelernt. ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
550:Ein neuer, eigenartiger Gedanke war, wie es schien, in seinem Gehirn aufgeflammt und leuchtete nun ungeduldig aus seinen Augen hervor. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
551:Gerade jetzt behauptete die Seiko, dass es zweiundsechzig Minuten nach vierzig am Mittwoch, Donnerstag und Samstag im Dezember und März war. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
552:In all diesen Momenten konnte ich beinahe zusehen, wie sich unsere Vergangenheit wieder zart mit unserer Gegenwart und Zukunft verknüpfte. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
553:Stattdessen war sie hierher gezogen, fest entschlossen, die grauhaarige Phase ihres Lebens zu überspringen und gleich zur zahnlosen überzugehen. ~ Ali Shaw, #NFDB
554:Dieses Lächeln hatte sozusagen einen Sprung bekommen, und Parfen war trotz aller Bemühungen nicht imstande, es wieder zusammenzukleben. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
555:Es gibt nur zwei verbale Tendenzen: die mathematischen Lehrsätze und das Wort als Kunst. Alles andere ist Geschäftssprache, Bierbestellung. ~ Gottfried Benn, #NFDB
556:Früher hatte der Mensch nur einen Körper und eine Seele. Heute braucht er noch einen Pass dazu, sonst wird er nicht wie ein Mensch behandelt. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
557:In seinem Schlösschen, wo er ab 1920 mit seiner Frau und deren zwei Töchtern aus erster Ehe lebt, entstehen Novellen, Dramen und Erzählungen. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
558:Wenn wir die wirklich großen Schätze vor uns haben, erkennen wir es nie. Und weißt du auch warum? Weil die Menschen nicht an Schätze glauben. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
559:Anderswo, morgen, das sind für Sie immer noch magische Worte. Aber sie werden entdecken: anderswo, das ist hier, und morgen haben wir bereits. ~ Julien Green, #NFDB
560:Das Volk hat das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt.Wäre es da nicht doch einfacher,die Regierung löste das Volk auf und wählte ein anderes? ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
561:Die hohe Kraft Der Wissenschaft, Der ganzen Welt verborgen! Und wer nicht denkt, Dem wird sie geschenkt, Er hat sie ohne Sorgen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
562:Die Monate haben es eilig. Die Jahre haben es eiliger. Und die Jahrzehnte haben es am eiligsten. Nur die Erinnerungen habben Geduld mit uns. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
563:Ihre Schuhe - ihre Tanzschuhe - lagen unter dem Tisch, und ihre Haare wirkten feucht - vielleicht von Tanzen, vielleicht aber auch vom Leben. ~ Joyce Maynard, #NFDB
564:Im Wald gab es Töten ohne Hass, Fortpflanzung ohne Liebe, Kooperation ohne Gesetze, Ernährung ohne Wissenschaft und Lebensfreude ohne Philosophie. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
565:sie stand vor einem hohen, schäbigen Bauwerk mit vielen Fenstern, das wie eine Irrenanstalt aussah und deshalb vermutlich die High School war. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
566:Sie war unruhig, und doch schienen wir - ohne mehr voneinander zu wissen als unsere Namen - über Nacht vertrauter miteinander geworden zu sein. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
567:So, wie man einen Edelstein schleift und poliert, können auch wir immer weiter an uns arbeiten und unsere Grenzen durch große Träume sprengen. ~ Nick Vujicic, #NFDB
568:Vom Schatten eines Hauchs geboren
Wir wandeln in Verlassenheit
Und sind im Ewigen verloren,
Gleich Opfern unwissend, wozu sie geweiht. ~ Georg Trakl,#NFDB
569:Wo die Liebe herrscht, da gibt es keinen machtwillen, und wo die macht den vorrang hat, da fehlt die Liebe. Das eine ist der Schatten des andern. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
570:Aufruf an alle Industrielle und Politiker in aller Welt: Bitte hinterlassen Sie die Welt so, wie Sie sie beim Betreten vorgefunden haben. ~ Fr d ric Beigbeder, #NFDB
571:... denn Applaus hat nur einen Wert, wenn er im gerechten Moment eintrifft. Als welke Spätblume ist er nichts als Beleidigung und Schimpf. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
572:„Entweder man lernte, die Krankheit zu akzeptieren – oder man endete in einer kleinen Kammer und schrieb mit Wachsmalstiften Briefe nach Hause. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
573:Es gehört viel Demut und Selbstüberwindung dazu, die Größe seines Geistes so zu verhüllen, daß kein Unschuldiger durch sie niedergeschmettert wird. ~ Karl May, #NFDB
574:Ich will genau wissen, was an jenen Orten geschehen ist. Und ich will wissen, worin mehr Wahrheit liegt – im Text oder in den Anzeigen daneben. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
575:Mit den Wochen und Monaten wurde das Nachdenken weniger, und sie lernte, einfach nur da zu sein, in einem Zustand aufmerksamer Gleichgültigkeit. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
576:Sich von sich selbst verabschieden müssen. Alle Gedanken, Hoffnungen und Erinnerungen ausgelöscht. Ein schwarzer Bildschirm für die Ewigkeit. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
577:Sie war wie ein ausgesetztes Katzenjunges, das in der Gosse schwimmt und erbärmlich schreit - diese dämonische, archaische Überlebenskraft. ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
578:Süchte binden uns an das, woran es uns mangelt, und das macht sie so tragisch. Es handelt sich um eine Freundschaft mit den eigenen Defiziten. ~ Connie Palmen, #NFDB
579:Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.) ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
580:Wir haben, wo wir uns lieben, ja nur dies: einander lassen; denn daß wir uns halten, das fällt uns leicht und ist nicht erst zu erlernen. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
581:Aus unerklärlichen Gründen war Arnie plötzlich auf etwas gestoßen, was er wirklich begehrte. Und gnade Gott allen, die ihm dabei im Weg standen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
582:Das Land zwischen Hamburg und Sylt bestand aus lauter Striemen. Waagerecht: das waren die Äcker, Feldraine und Mistbahnen. Senkrecht: der Regen! ~ Sten Nadolny, #NFDB
583:Denn ich weiß, dass es falsch ist, sich so in sich selbst zurückzuziehen. Ich möchte dort sein, wo du auch bist, und das ist die Wirklichkeit. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
584:Denn mit jeder Minute, die man mit jemand anderem verbringt, schenkt man ihm einen Teil des eigenen Lebens und nimmt dafür einen Teil von seinem. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
585:Der Tyrannei eines Individuums ist dem Despotismus des Gesetzes vorzuziehen, denn der Tyrann ist verwundbar und das Gesetz unkörperlich. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
586:Die meisten Menschen sehen das Problem der Liebe in erster Linie als das Problem, selbst geliebt zu werden, statt zu lieben und lieben zu können. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
587:Einen Moment erfüllt mich blinde, glühende Wut. Wir wollten die Freiheit, zu lieben und stattdessen hat man uns zu Kämpfern, zu Tieren gemacht. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
588:Es gab Dinge, die ich nicht sagen, sondern nur schreiben konnte. Denn wenn ich redete, dann dachte ich, und wenn ich schrieb, dann fühlte ich. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
589:Ich hatte nicht viel Ahnung von [der christlichen] Religion. Es gab kaum Götter, und sie galt als gewalttätig. Allerdings hatte sie gute Schulen. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
590:Menschen spalteten das Atom und erfanden Fernsehen, Nylon und löslichen Kaffee, bevor sie das Alter ihres eigenen Planeten herausgefunden hatten. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
591:Morgens fühlte er sich immer besonders nackt, denn dann war die Trennwand zwischen dem, was er war, und dem, was er sein könnte, besonders dünn. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
592:Tim hatte seinen Vater einmal gefragt, was zivilisiert bedeute.
»Steuern«, hatte er gesagt und gelacht – aber nicht wie über etwas Komisches. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
593:Der Acker im Herzen eines Mannes ist steiniger, Louis«, flüsterte der Sterbende. »Ein Mann bestellt ihn … und lässt darauf wachsen, was er kann.« ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
594:Dieser gottverdammte Barkovitch, der auf einer hohen Oktanzahl von Hass läuft. Er läuft immer weiter und sieht so frisch aus wie eine Butterblume ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
595:Die Welt ist voller Torheit, Dumpfheit, Inkonsequenz und Ungerechtigkeit. Es gehört viel Mut dazu, diesen nicht das Feld zu räumen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
596:Er wünschte sich einen Drink und wußte genau, warum das nicht in Frage kam: Der eine Drink kam mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit in zwölf Gläsern. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
597:Innen tat noch leise etwas weh, aber es war ein verheißender Schmerz, glühend und doch so wie Wunden brennen, ehe sie für immer vernarben wollen. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
598:Nun aber weiter, mein Gast", sagte sie [Dido], "berichte uns ganz von Anfang die Listen der Danaer, den Untergang der Deinen und deine Irrfahrten [...] ~ Virgil, #NFDB
599:Sie wird mich ihr ganzes Leben lang für einen Gauner halten (und darin hat sie ja auch vielleicht recht) und mich doch auf ihre Art lieben. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
600:Weil’s ein schlechter Ort war«, wirft Sonny ein. »Solche Orte kenne ich. Sie wollen nicht, dass man sie betritt, und lassen es einen auch wissen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
601:Wenn ein Idealist versucht, Gutes zu tun und dann scheitert, bekommt er einen Orden. Wenn ein Pragmatiker Erfolg hat, wünscht man ihn zum Teufel. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
602:Wenn kein Charakter mehr geduldet wird, sondern nur der Gehorsam, geht die Wahrheit und die Lüge kommt.
Die Lüge, die Mutter aller Sünden. ~ d n von Horv th,#NFDB
603:Ältere Bekanntschaften und Freundschaften haben vor neuen hauptsächlich das voraus, dass man sich einander schon viel verziehen hat. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
604:Das Gewissen ist ein Spiegel, vor dem ein Affe sich quält; jeder putzt sich, wie er kann, und geht auf seine eigne Art auf seinen Spaß dabei aus. ~ Georg B chner, #NFDB
605:Der ganze Unterschied liegt zwischen Wollen und Haben, und das glaube ich aus tiefster Seele. Ich glaube, es ist besser tief zu pflügen als breit. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
606:Die Anzahl der Lebensmittel sagte etwas aus über die verschwommene Grenze zwischen dem Unabhängigen Staat Realität und der Volksrepublik Paranoia. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
607:Du kannst mich nicht vertreiben, nicht verbrennen und nicht ertränken. Dein Hass reicht nicht aus, mich zu besiegen, er macht mich nur stärker. ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
608:Vor dem Sieg kommt die Versuchung. Und je größer der Sieg ist, den es zu erringen gilt, desto größer ist die Versuchung, der man widerstehen muss. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
609:Wenn er mit irgendeiner Gefahr konfrontiert wurde, reagierte er mit solcher Gelassenheit, daß die Gefahr den Mut verlor, aufgab und verschwand. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
610:Wer nicht liebt Wein,Weib und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang. Who loves not woman, wine and song Remains a fool his whole life long. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
611:Allzulange war im Weibe ein Sclave und ein Tyrann versteckt. Deshalb ist das Weib noch nicht der Freundschaft fähig: es kennt nur die Liebe. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
612:Bald wirst du eine Frau haben. Und dann Ableger. Alimente. Du weißt schon. Frauen führen immer zu Alimenten. Autos sind besser. Halt dich an Autos. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
613:Das Gefängnis betritt man gewöhnlich nicht freiwillig und bleibt auch selten freiwillig darin, sondern hegt das egoistische Verlangen nach Freiheit. ~ Max Stirner, #NFDB
614:Denn der Mensch liebt und ehrt den Menschen , solange er ihn nicht zu beurteilen vermag, und die Sehnsucht ist ein Erzeunis mangelhafter Erkenntnis. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
615:Es gibt viele Arten von Einsamkeit, aber Momo erlebte eine, die wohl nur wenige Menschen kennengelernt haben, und die wenigsten mit solcher Gewalt. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
616:Ich dachte, Zwerge glauben nicht an Teufel und Dämonen und so.«
»Stimmt. Aber wir sind nicht sicher, ob… sie davon wissen.«
»Oh. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
617:Jesus fühlte rein und dachte
Nur den Einen Gott im stillen;
Wer ihn selbst zum Gotte machte,
Kränkte seinen heiligen Willen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
618:Nur die Lyrik ist nicht verseucht. Nur die Lyrik ist frei von Kommerz… Nur die Lyrik, und auch nicht jede, ist gesunde Nahrung und keine Scheiße. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
619:Und der einzige wirklich beschwingte Glücksmoment, den ich der Schule zu danken habe, wurde der Tag, da ich ihre Tür für immer hinter mir zuschlug. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
620:Was bedeutet Kultur anderes, als der groben Materie des Lebens ihr Feinstes, ihr Zartestes, ihr Subtilstes durch Kunst und Liebe zu entschmeicheln? ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
621:An einem Ort, der Alchimie versprach und stattdessen mehr Parfüm als wirksame Mittel anbot, war es da ein Wunder, dass die Wunder ausgegangen waren? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
622:Diejenigen, die wir lieben, verlassen uns nie wirklich, Harry. Es gibt Dinge, die kann der Tod nicht zerstören. Farbe … und Erinnerungen … und Liebe. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
623:Fürchte diejenigen, die sich schwach fühlen. Denn es kann sein, dass sie sich eines Tages stark fühlen wollen und du dich nie wieder davon erholst. ~ Alina Bronsky, #NFDB
624:Nach manchen Gesprächen mit Menschen hat man den Wunsch, einen Hund zu streicheln, einem Affen zuzulächeln und vor einem Elefanten den Hut zu ziehen! ~ Maxim Gorky, #NFDB
625:Sie machten beide so bitter ernste und grimmige Gesichter, dass sie aussahen wie Dideldum und Dideldei, wenn Franz Kafka über sie geschrieben hätte. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
626:Und als ich Sie schreien hörte, da wusste ich, dass Sie überleben würden. Sterbende schreien selten. Sie haben nicht die Energie dazu. Das weiß ich. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
627:Wie weise von der Regierung, dass sie den Geschichtsunterricht schon vor fünfzehn Jahren abgeschafft und durch den Zukunftsunterricht ersetzt hat. ~ Marc Uwe Kling, #NFDB
628:Wofür wir uns halten und wie wir wirklich sind, das hat selten viel miteinander gemein, glaube ich, aber ja – ich halte mich für unvoreingenommener. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
629:Beim Übersetzen muss man bis ans Unübersetzbare herangehen; alsdann wird man aber erst die fremde Nation und die fremde Sprache gewahr. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
630:Einzig das Unmeßbare, das Unfaßbare erschreckt uns, alles Begrenzte dagegen, alles Bestimmte fordert zur Probe heraus und wird zum Maß unserer Kraft. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
631:Komm herüber, Travelling Jack, und dann erzähle ich dir, was ich kann – was weniger ist, als ich weiß. Gott verhüte, dass du je alles erfahren musst. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
632:Wann wollen Sie das gesehen habe?'
'Als Sie ihn unten im Café hypnotisiert haben. Sie beide sahen aus wie eine Königskobra und ein Kaninchen. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n,#NFDB
633:Was versprochen wurde, kann rückgängig gemacht werden, und was geschehen ist, kann ungeschehen gemacht werden. Nichts ist sicher, nur … Ich will sie. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
634:Das Mehrparteiensystem ist eine elegante Sache. Wie eine Hydra. Such dir einen Kopf nach deinem Geschmack aus, und kämpfe mit den anderen Köpfen. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
635:Die Liebe ist nicht nur ein Gefühl; sie ist eine Kunst. Und wie bei jeder Kunst reicht nicht allein die Inspiration, es ist auch viel Arbeit vonnöten. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
636:Er entschied, noch einmal die Wahrheit zu sagen. Es war eine völlig neue Taktik für ihn, und vielleicht lohnte sie das eine oder andere Experiment. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
637:Es gibt nämlich keine endgültige Goldmedaille. Es gibt den Nullpunkt und die Ewigkeit, und es gibt die Sterblichkeit, aber es gibt nichts Endgültiges. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
638:Gelegentlich schickten sie Mörder und Attentäter, die sich als geschickt genug erwiesen, Lord Hongs Interesse zu stimulieren und ihn zu unterhalten ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
639:In der sinnlichen wie in der höhern Ordnung ist das Gesetz dasselbe und so alt wie das Übel: Das Heilmittel gegen alle Unordnung ist der Schmerz. ~ Joseph de Maistre, #NFDB
640:Je mehr du gibst, um so mehr wächst du. Es muß aber einer da sein, der empfangen kann. Und es ist kein Geben, wenn man dabei nur verliert. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
641:Nachts ist alles anders. Die Dinge verändern sich, wenn die Welt schwarz ist. Ungewissheiten und Verletzungen, Sorgen und Ängste bekommen nachts Zähne. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
642:Wie alle erfahrenen Bibliomanten hatte er schon vor langer Zeit seinen Körpergeruch verloren. Stattdessen dufteten seine Haut und sein Haar nach Büchern. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
643:Die Vergangenheit war wie jene altmodischen, mit Kräutern und Blumen gefüllten Duftkissen, deren Aroma die Kleider durchdringt und an ihnen haften bleibt. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
644:Er hoffte also in paradoxaler Weise, nämlich auf die Vergangenheit gerichtet statt auf die Zukunft. Und das tun wir, nebenbei bemerkt, meistens. ~ Heimito von Doderer, #NFDB
645:Er nahm Liebe eher wie eine Tatsache, nicht wie eine zarte Pflanze, und das machte ihre freundliche Geringschätzung, was sie beide betraf, wirkungslos. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
646:Es wird nicht mehr die Idee sein, die Wert und Macht einem Individuum gibt, sondern das Individuum, das Wert, Macht und Rechtfertigung einer Idee gibt. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
647:Gezinkte Karten. Und alle Verarschten machen irgendwelche anderen Verarschten verantwortlich, statt sich zu überlegen, ob das Spiel überhaupt fair ist. ~ Dietmar Dath, #NFDB
648:Ich fühle, wie ich langsam zu einem Mörder werde. Mein Glaube an die Humanität ist machtlos. Und weil ich es weiß, bin ich ein Säufer geworden. ~ Friedrich D rrenmatt, #NFDB
649:Ich reise seit über 50 Jahren um die Welt. Nirgendwo habe ich bisher so viel Menschlichkeit und Nächstenliebe erlebt wie in der muslimischen Welt. ~ J rgen Todenh fer, #NFDB
650:Mir fehlt etwas, wenn ich keine Musik höre, und wenn ich Musik höre, fehlt mir erst recht etwas. Dies ist das Beste, was ich über Musik zu sagen weiß. ~ Robert Walser, #NFDB
651:Wer einmal sich selbst gefunden, kann nichts auf dieser Welt mehr verlieren. Und wer einmal den Menschen in sich begriffen, der begreift alle Menschen. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
652:Der größte Feind von Kompetenz ist Selbstbewusstsein. Gute Unternehmer sind bescheiden und wissen, was sie nicht wissen. Sie hören nie auf zu lernen. ~ Christoph Keese, #NFDB
653:Der Wanderer hat das Beste und das Zarteste von allen Genüssen, weil er neben dem Schmecken auch noch das Wissen von der Flüchtigkeit aller Freude hat. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
654:Edward d’Eath wurde älter, und seine Besessenheit verwandelte sich in einen lebensfremden, auf Bücher, Ärmelschoner und Pantoffel fixierten Wahnsinn. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
655:Es sagt viel über die Welt aus, mein Kind,
sagte der Vater zu dem Knaben,
dass die Dummen glücklich sind
und die Schlauen Depressionen haben. ~ Marc Uwe Kling,#NFDB
656:Es war mir unmöglich, die wahre Bedeutung dieser Melancholie zu begreifen, die seine Persönlichkeit prägte und deren Schattenspiel mich faszinierte. ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
657:In dich verliebt zu sein, ist besser als das erste Mal. Es fühlt sich an wie das erste Mal und das letzte Mal und das einzige Mal und das alles zusammen. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
658:Nur…gibt es da die heimliche Angst, alles könnte sich von einem Augenblick zum anderen ändern und die Veränderung mich vollkommen unvorbereitet treffen. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
659:Wirtschaftsgeschehen schnell erlahmen. Sollte es – egal aus welchem Grund – plötzlich zu einem Lieferstopp von Gas und Öl kommen, könnten diese Mengen kaum ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
660:Zwischen der Anarchie der Instinkte und der Tyrannei der Gesetze erstreckt sich das flüchtige und reine Territorium der menschlichen Vollendung. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
661:...aber wenn wir uns die Mühe machen und uns umsehen, können wir nicht leugnen, dass wir mit unseren täglichen Entscheidungen die Welt gestalten. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
662:Bahn dir deinen eigenen Weg im Leben. Triff eigene Entscheidungen und mach eigene Fehler. Nur auf diese Art findest du dein maßgeschneidertes Glück. ~ Michelle Leighton, #NFDB
663:Das ist die Sehnsucht: wohnen im Gewoge und keine Heimat haben in der Zeit. Und das sind Wünsche: leise Dialoge täglicher Stunden mit der Ewigkeit. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
664:Everlynne. Die würde noch dem Teufel ins Gesicht spucken. Und nähme er sie mit sich hinunter nach Nis, würde sie binnen kurzer Zeit den Laden übernehmen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
665:Ich habe es dir gesagt. So weit bringt dich Romantik – zu einer Schlinge um den Hals und einer verrückten Frau mit zwei Schusswaffen irgendwo hinter dir. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
666:Jedes Geschöpf der Welt ist uns gleichsam ein Buch und Gemälde und Spiegel. (Every creature of the world is to us at once a book and painting and mirror.) ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
667:Könnte ich es sagen und lehren, so wäre ich ein Weiser. So aber bin ich nur ein Fährmann und meine Aufgabe ist es, Menschen über diesen Fluss zu setzen. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
668:Liebe ist eben genauso ungerecht verteilt auf dieser Welt wie Regen. Die einen kriegen entschieden zu viel davon ab und die anderen zu wenig." - Frieda ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
669:Unterschwellig wächst die Angst, irgendwann zu verstehen und nie wieder vergessen zu können, nicht mehr in der Lage zu sein, ins eigene Leben zurückzukehren. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
670:„»Was wollen Sie mir denn tun? Mich foltern? Töten? Bitte, tun Sie mir den Gefallen, ich bin ohnehin alt, und unserem Glauben fehlt es an Märtyrern. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
671:[...] wie ein Taucher sogar, der schon ahnt, dass das Seil nach der Außenwelt abgerissen ist und er nie zurückgeholt werden wird aus der lautlosen Tiefe. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
672:Aber, sprach sie noch immer lächelnd, dieser Verdienst kann dir nicht Nahrung und Kleider schaffen, wer wird denn dem kleinen Fräulein die Kleider kaufen? ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
673:Du nimmst dein Leben selbst in die Hand, und was passiert? Etwas Furchbares: Du hast niemanden mehr, dem du die Schuld zuschieben kannst. (Erica Jong) ~ Chris Guillebeau, #NFDB
674:Ich las damals unendlich viel und zwar gründlich. In wenigen Jahren schuf ich mir damit die Grundlagen eines Wissens, von denen ich auch heute noch zehre. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
675:Man konnte die Zeit nicht zurückdrehen, das war reines Wunschdenken, aber man konnte dem Jetzt auf andere Weise entkommen, und zwar indem man vorwärtsging. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
676:Wer Großes will, muß sich zusammenraffen;
In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister,
Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
677:Wie ich höre, zeigt auch der Himmel eine Leidenschaft für das Neue. Ein Stern wird müde, ein Stern zu sein, und er explodiert und wird eine Nova. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer, #NFDB
678:Aber glaubt mir, dass man Glück und Zuversicht selbst in Zeiten der Dunkelheit zu finden vermag. Man darf bloß nicht vergessen ein Licht leuchten zu lassen. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
679:[D]amit das Kind den Weg durch Intrigen auch findet, schlägt sie an jeder Ecke Wegweiser in den Boden und Erika gleich mit, wenn diese nicht üben will. ~ Elfriede Jelinek, #NFDB
680:Ein Mensch zu sein, bedeutet nicht, irgendwo hineinzupassen oder so anzusehen wie der Rest von uns. Es geht darum, er man ist und was man bereit ist zu opfern. ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
681:Es gibt kein plötzliches und völlig unerwartetes Glück. Es gibt auch keine magischen Lösungen. Die Guten gewinnen nicht, weil sie klein und tapfer sind! ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
682:Ich hatte den Tod ohnehin noch nicht verdient, ich konnte ihn doch gar nicht bezahlen, denn er kostete das Leben, und davon hatte ich noch viel zu wenig. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
683:Ich meine, die Bibel hat doch alle Ingredienzien eines Dan-Brown-Bestsellers. Völkermord, Inzest, Vergewaltigung und irgendwas Abgefahrenes mit Religion. ~ Marc Uwe Kling, #NFDB
684:Jemand schlug ihn. Auf eine höfliche Art.Er sank erst auf die Füße, dann aufs Kinn und fragte sich dabei, was aus dem guten alten »He, du!« geworden war ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
685:Jetzt hör mir mal gut zu", sagte Nijel und klang so geduldig wie jemand, der mit dem Gedanken spielt, seinem Gesprächspartner den Schädel einzuschlagen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
686:Nun, Ma, ich habe da einen Freund , der mir beigebracht hat, wie das Leben läuft - Arschlöcher laufen in Rudeln herum, und diesmal waren sie hinter mir her ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
687:Sie geht mit mir zum Traualtar und denkt dabei an mich mit keinem Gedanken; sie hat dabei keine andere Empfindung, als wenn sie die Schuhe wechselte. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
688:Sie litten alle unter der Angst, keine Zeit für alles zu haben, und wussten nicht, dass Zeit haben nichts anderes heißt, als keine Zeit für alles zu haben. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
689:So was kommt vor. Eben noch muss jeder Soldat im Blut deines Opferstiers baden, und im nächsten Moment erinnert sich schon keiner mehr an deinen Geburtstag. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
690:Statt Bündel mit ihren wenigen Habseligkeiten trugen die Menschen jetzt Pappbecher mit Starbucks-Kaffee in der einen und Aktenzeichen in der anderen Hand. ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB
691:»Und du hast keinen würdigen Empfang für uns vorbereitet, mit Musik, Wein und halbnackten Sklavinnen, die uns zu Diensten sind?« fragte Bjorn tadelnd. ~ Wolfgang Hohlbein, #NFDB
692:Wenn Gut und Böse, Hässlichkeit und Schönheit nicht Substanz der Dinge sind, beschränkt sich die Wissenschaft auf eine kurze Aussage: was ist, ist. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
693:Wenn man einem Mann zeigt, wie nichtig seine Hoffnung und sein Hoffen war, tötet man den hellen bejahenden Teil in ihm, der geliebt werden möchte. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
694:Wohl bin ich ein Wald und eine Nacht dunkler Bäume: doch wer sich vor meinem Dunkel nicht scheut, der findet auch Rosenhänge unter meinen Zypressen. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
695:Da er allein in einer Welt voller Dummköpfe war, hatte er Schmerzen wie ein geprügelter Hund und Heimweh wie ein auf einer einsamen Insel gestrandeter Mann. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
696:Das, wonach sie sich sehnen, wirst du ihnen nicht zurückgeben können. Und sie wollen dorthin auch gar nicht zurück, sie wollen sich nur daran erinnern. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
697:Die Seele alles Hasses, ist Liebe, und im heftigsten Zorn zeigt sich nur die im innersten Zentrum angegriffene und aufgereizte Stille. ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, #NFDB
698:Er sagte zu den Leuten: Ihr seid frei. Und sie riefen hurra. Dann zeigte er ihnen, was die Freiheit kostet, und daraufhin nannten sie ihn einen Tyrannen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
699:Er sah wieder weg und dachte daran, wie sie gesagt hatte, er solle sich keine Hoffnungen machen und sich nicht in sie verlieben. Und wie sollte das gehen? ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
700:Jedes einzelne Buch hat eine Seele. Die Seele dessen, der es geschrieben hat und die Seele derer, die es gelesen und erlebt und von ihm geträumt haben. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
701:Menschen sterben an gebrochenem Herzen. Sie bekommen Herzinfarkte. Und es ist das Herz, das am meisten wehtut, wenn etwas schief geht und auseinander fällt. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
702:Sie haben mir nicht einmal die Ehre erwiesen, mich für einen richtigen Schuft zu halten, und ich hätte Sie vorhin dafür totschlagen mögen, wissen Sie! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
703:Besser vielleicht, du wärest in der Dunkelheit geblieben und dein unabgegrenztes Herz hätte versucht, all des Ununterscheidbaren schweres Herz zu sein. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
704:Das Halten eines Schwerts, so fand der Oberste Größte Meister, stand in einem direkten – und oft recht blutigen – Zusammenhang mit dynastischer Chirurgie. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
705:Die Hegelliteratur stellt Hegel gern als jemanden dar, der ganz eigene Ideen und Meinungen hat. Das ist nicht nur falsch; Hegel hätte es peinlich gefunden. ~ Sebastian R dl, #NFDB
706:Früher wollte ich immer eine Romanfigur werden. Unsterblich sein und für immer in einem Buch leben, während mich jeder von außen lesen und beobachten kann. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
707:Hat dich jemand reinkommen sehen?"
"Ja, das FBI, die CIA, die NSA, die DEA und das MI6. Ach ja, und die GPB."
"Die GPB?"
"Gesamte Polizeibelegschaft. ~ Eoin Colfer,#NFDB
708:Höflichkeit ist oft Angst, Liebenswürdigkeit ist immer Mut. Aber es ist das Mitgefühl, das dich menschlich macht. Hab mehr Mitgefühl, und du wirst menschlicher. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
709:Jetzt, scheint es, verlieren Sie Ihre Kaltblütigkeit und fangen an, sich zu wundern? Ich freue mich sehr, daß Sie einem Menschen ähnlich werden wollen. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
710:Liebe ist schwer. Liebhaben von Mensch zu Mensch: das ist vielleicht das Schwerste, was uns aufgegeben ist, das Äußerste, die letzte Probe und Prüfung. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
711:Seine Seele brannte,
und er versengte jeden,
der ihm zu nahe kam.
Sie trat näher,
ohne Angst vor der Asche,
zu der sie werden würde. ~ Brittainy C Cherry,#NFDB
712:Truhe hatte eine ganz einfache Strategie, um mit Dingen fertig zu werden, die sich zwischen ihr und dem Ziel befanden: Sie schenkte ihnen keine Beachtung. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
713:Verrücktheiten können ganz normal sein, solange man sie selbst tut; beobachtet man einen anderen dabei, rümpft man die Nase, dreht sich rasch um und geht davon. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
714:Was hätte es schließlich genützt, die „ultimative Waffe“ abzuwerfen und dann nicht einmal den Anruf des kapitulierenden Feindes entgegennehmen zu können? ~ Joseph P Farrell, #NFDB
715:Was heisst denn auch "unerträglich", wenn's doch ertragen werden muss und gar nichts anderes übrigbleibt, als es zu tragen, solange der Mensch bei Sinnen ist? ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
716:Wenn man Zynismus und allgemeine Lebensmüdigkeit als Maßstab nahm – die Kohlenstoffdatierung der Persönlichkeit –, so war er etwa siebentausend Jahre alt. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
717:Wo Licht ist muss es auch Schatten geben, und wo Schatten ist, gibt es Licht. Es gibt keinen Schatten ohne Licht und kein Licht ohne Schatten. (C.G. Jung) ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
718:Aus Jakes Nase, Ohren, Augen und Rektum läuft Blut. Seine Genitalien wurden zerquetscht. Er überlegt verärgert, wie schlimm seine Knie wohl aufgeschürft sind. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
719:Dein Leben sind Bernhard und die Kinder. Schneide es nicht ab . Wer nur in Abschnitten lebt, dem fehlt die Spannweite, die Tragweite, der Sinn des Ganzen. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
720:die Geschichte mit dem Automat hatte tief in ihrer Seele Wurzel gefaßt und es schlich sich in der Tat abscheuliches Mißtrauen gegen menschliche Figuren ein. ~ E T A Hoffmann, #NFDB
721:Die Wandlung der Gesellschaft ist nicht so wichtig; sie wird sich natürlich und zwangsläufig ergeben, wenn der Mensch die innere Wandlung vollzogen hat. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
722:Ein gutes Buch ist der kostbare Lebenssaft eines meisterlichen Geistes, einbalsamiert und aufbewahrt zum Zweck eines Lebens über das Leben hinaus (...) ~ Penelope Fitzgerald, #NFDB
723:Kein Mensch, der in Furcht oder Sorge oder Chaos lebt, ist frei, aber wer sich von Sorgen, Furcht und Chaos befreit, wird dadurch auch aus der Sklaverei befreit. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
724:Manche Touristen halten Amsterdam für die Stadt der Sünde, aber in Wirklichkeit ist es die Stadt der Freiheit. Und in der Freiheit finden viele Leute die Sünde. ~ John Green, #NFDB
725:Rincewind war nicht daran gewöhnt, daß sich Leute darüber freuten, ihn zu sehen. Es handelte sich um eine ganz neue Erfahrung für ihn, und er ahnte Unheil. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
726:...und dort begegneten sie der Ewigkeit mit der Einstellung von Leuten, die nicht einmal wissen, was sie mit einem regnerischen Nachmittag anfangen sollen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
727:Was aber der Mensch nicht kritisieren, korrigieren und in der Phantasie vollenden darf, dem kann er sich auch nicht nähern, weder in Gedanken noch mit dem Gefühl. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
728:Was, wenn es die Zeit nicht gibt? Wenn alles, was man erlebt, ewig ist und wenn nicht die Zeit an einem vorübergeht, sondern nur man selbst an dem Erlebten? ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
729:Wenn wir die Chance in der Gegenwart nicht ergreifen, werden wir in Zukunft auf unsere Vergangenheit zurückblicken und bedauern, nichts daran geändert zu haben. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
730:Bücher sollten dort sein, wo sie am meisten gewürdigt werden, und nicht ungelesen in irgendeinem Regal stehen und Staub ansetzen, findest du nicht auch? ~ Christopher Paolini, #NFDB
731:Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht,
Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht,
Ich kann nicht mehr die Augen schließen,
Und meine heißen Tränen fließen. ~ Heinrich Heine,#NFDB
732:Die Hochzeitsfeierlichkeiten begannen. Der Tote ist vergessen, der Lebende hat sein Land und seine Ehre in Besitz genommen. Das war bei ihm gut aufgehoben. ~ Hartmann von Aue, #NFDB
733:Es sollte anders kommen als wir dachten, aber was kann man da schon machen? Man muss das Leben nehmen, wie es kommt, und sehen, dass man das Beste daraus macht. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
734:Freundschaften lassen sich in zwei Kategorien einteilen, die einen sind deine Freunde, die dich gern anders hätten, und die anderen wollen dich immer gleich. ~ Paolo Giordano, #NFDB
735:Ich halte dich für jemanden, der durch eine Tonne Scheiße kriechen würde, nur um einen Groschen zu finden, und ich frage mich, was der Grund dafür sein mag. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
736:Närrisch, dass jeder in seinem Falle
Seine besondere Meinung preist!
Wenn Islam Gott ergeben heißt,
Im Islam leben und sterben wir alle! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
737:Sie wissen, dass sich dort draußen kein Mensch für Literatur interessiert und sie die letzten Hüter einer glorreichen, in die Krise geratenen Tradition sind. ~ Ricardo Piglia, #NFDB
738:Tod öffnete die Kiste und nahm das Kätzchen heraus. Es starrte ihn mit der für kleine Katzen in allen Welten typischen Mischung aus Wahnsinn und Neugier an. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
739:wären besetzt bis auf ein einziges großes; darin aber die Nacht zuzubringen wolle er ihm selbst nicht anraten, weil es nicht geheuer und Geister darin ihr Wesen ~ Jacob Grimm, #NFDB
740:Warum sind wir zu gewissen Tugenden bei einem gesunden und seine Kräfte fühlenden Körper weniger, als bei einem siechen und abgematteten aufgelegt? ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
741:Wer aber soll hausen in jenen Welten, wenn sie bewohnt sein sollten? ... Sind wir oder sie die Herren des Alls? ... Und ist dies alles dem Menschen gemacht? ~ Johannes Kepler, #NFDB
742:Am meisten ärgert mich an diesen Morgenmenschen diese entsetzliche gute Laune, als wären sie bereits drei Stunden wach und hätten da schon Frankreich überrannt. ~ Timur Vermes, #NFDB
743:Bradford hat die Rolle seines Lebens darin gefunden, jeden anderen Ort auf diesem Planeten im Vergleich besser abschneiden zu lassen, und es spielt sie sehr gut. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
744:Das Glück hat keine Geschichte, und die Erzähler aller Länder haben das so gut begriffen, dass der Satz "Sie wurden glücklich" alle Liebesabenteuer schließt. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
745:Der Mensch ist mit Vernunft und Schöpferkraft begabt, um zu vermehren, was ihm geschenkt worden ist, aber bis heute hat er nichts geschaffen, sondern zerstört. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
746:Er wusste in der Tat Besseres mit seiner Zeit anzufangen, als zu beten. Gebete machten die ganze Sache nur noch komplizierter. Und sie verärgerten die Götter. ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
747:Hinüber wall ich,
Und jede Pein
Wird einst ein Satchel
Der Wollust sein.
Noch wenig Zeiten,
So bin ich los,
Und liege trunken
Der Lieb' im Schoß ~ Novalis,#NFDB
748:Ja, ohne Zweifel würde auch dieser Schmerz, auch diese bittere Not alt und müde werden, auch sie würde er vergessen. Nichts hatte Bestand, auch nicht das Leid. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
749:Noch bei der höchstvollendeten Reproduktion fällt eines aus: das Hier und Jetzt des Kunstwerks – sein einmaliges Dasein an dem Orte, an dem es sich befindet. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
750:Aber das ist es nun mal, was wir tun: wir träumen weiter gegen den Strom und unsere Träume entschlüpfen uns fast so lebendig, wie wir sie heraufbeschwören können. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
751:Das ist es, was ich mit Violet machen will: Ich will ihr das Gute geben und das Schlechte von ihr fernhalten, damit wir nur von Schönheit umgeben sind. (Finch) ~ Jennifer Niven, #NFDB
752:Der große Unterschied zwischen meinen Eltern und mir: In ihrer Jugend wurden die Freiheiten immer größer, in meiner wurden sie Jahr für Jahr immer kleiner. ~ Fr d ric Beigbeder, #NFDB
753:Die Erinnerung an ein bestimmtes Bild ist wehmutsvolles Gedenken an einen bestimmten Augenblick; und Häuser, Straßen, Avenuen sind flüchtig, ach! Wie die Jahre. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
754:Er: Und der Punkt ist, wenn du einmal jemanden verlierst, wird dir klar, dass du alle am Ende verlierst.
Ich: Stimmt. Und wenn du das weißt, vergisst du es nie. ~ John Green,#NFDB
755:Ich fühlte mich auf einmal wie betäubt. Alles wich zurück, bis in mir nur noch Schmerz übrigblieb und sonst nichts. Schmerz. Auf einen einzigen Punkt konzentriert. ~ S J Watson, #NFDB
756:Im allgemeinen schadet das Böse der Welt nicht, und im einzelnen Falle schadet es nur dem, dem es vergönnt ist, sich frei davon zu machen, sobald er nur will. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
757:kurt lag unter seinem sessel und schlief. sie nahmen ihn an den beinen und trugen ihn unter den weihnachtsbaum. dort schlief er weiter. das wirkte feierlich. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
758:Wenn tatsächlich einmal irgendein Erfolg in greifbare Nähe rückte, unterlief ihm regelmäßig der Fehler, seine Meinung zu sagen – und es war immer die falsche. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
759:Die Bücher, die wir lieben, erwidern unsere Liebe. Und so, wie wir unsere Spuren auf ihren Seiten hinterlassen, hinterlassen auch sie ihre Spuren in uns. (S. 398) ~ Jay Kristoff, #NFDB
760:Draußen verwässert erstes Morgenlicht das satte Nachtschwarz des Himmels. Es ist der Moment, in dem Gestern zu Morgen wird und es für eine kurze Zeit kein Heute gibt. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
761:Oh, Familiengeschichte«, sagte er. »Nein, da muß ich passen. Wenn man das braucht, um die eigenen Leute mit Inkompetenz und Unfähigkeit in den Tod zu schicken… ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
762:Wir sind das Volk und wir wollen, dass kein Gesetz sei; ergo ist dieser Wille das Gesetz, ergo im Namen des Gesetzes gibt's kein Gesetz mehr, ergo totgeschlagen! ~ Georg B chner, #NFDB
763:Wir wissen eben nicht, was einer tun sollte, wir haben nicht mehr wir früher Antworten parat; wir wursteln uns bloß weiter durch und versuchen, nicht nachzudenken. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
764:with a pair1 of white kid gloves2 in one hand and a large fan3 in the other4: mit einem Paar1 weißen Handschuhen2 in einer Hand und einem Fächer3 in der andern4. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
765:Ach Harry, wir müssen durch so viel Dreck und Unsinn tappen, um nach Hause zu kommen! Und wir haben niemand, der uns führt, unser einziger Führer ist das Heimweh. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
766:Dein Glaube versagt, und du ersetzt ihn durch rationales Denken. Aber es gibt keine Liebe in Gedanken, nichts Bleibendes in Herleitungen, nur Tod im Rationalismus. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
767:Der Barbar macht sich entweder gänzlich lustig, oder er verehrt gänzlich.
Die Zivilisation ist ein Lächeln, das zurückhaltend Ironie und Respekt mischt. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila,#NFDB
768:Ein Junge, der bereit war, neue Menschen kennenzulernen. Ein Junge, der neue Abenteuer erleben wollte. Und vor allem: ein Junge der stolz darauf war, anders zu sein. ~ John Boyne, #NFDB
769:Ich war ein Suchender und bin es noch, aber ich suche nicht mehr auf den Sternen und in den Büchern, ich beginne die Lehren zu hören, die mein Blut in mir rauscht ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
770:In meinem Innern ahnte ich, dass ich vom Weg abgekommen war. Das Problem war nur, dass ich nicht wusste, wann und wo. Ich wusste nicht mal mehr, von welchem Weg. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
771:So stark ist der Zauber der Musik und, immer mächtiger werdend, musste er jede Fessel einer andern Kunst zerreißen."
(Beethovens Instrumentalmusik) ~ E T A Hoffmann,#NFDB
772:There’ll never be a friendship, I thought, this is nothing, just a minute of grace. Zwischen Immer und Nie. Zwischen Immer und Nie. Between always and never. Celan. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
773:Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang
(He who loves not Wine, Women and Song
Remains a fool his whole life long) ~ Martin Luther,#NFDB
774:Wieso den nich! Wieso den nich! O Gott, bist du dämlich - halt du mal n nackten Arsch an ne Kreissäge und sag dann, welcher Zacken dich geschnitten hat! ~ Lothar G nther Buchheim, #NFDB
775:Die Freiheit existiert, und auch der Wille existiert; aber die Willensfreiheit existiert nicht, denn ein Wille, der sich auf seine Freiheit richtet, stößt ins Leere. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
776:Die offizielle Version muss wie eine Lüge klingen, selbst wenn sie die Wahrheit ist, und je lauter man die Wahrheit sagt, desto eher suchen die Leute sie woanders. ~ Tom Rob Smith, #NFDB
777:Farbigkeit und dieselbe Anziehungskraft herrschen kann wie in einem Bericht von Schandtaten. Wenn diese Annahme einigen Grund haben soll, so muß mir auch verstattet ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
778:Fast unmittelbar darauf sandte der Dschungel seine schlanken grünen Finger auf die Fläche die Gato velassen hatte, und tastete nach neuen Stellen, wo er wachsen konnte. ~ Mal Peet, #NFDB
779:Rincewind starrte den Jungen an, blickte dann auf die vielen Königreiche der Welt. Bin ich in seinem Alter ebenso gewesen? dachte er. Und: Wie habe ich überlebt? ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
780:Wenn jemand »völlig klar« sagte, so gab es einen breiten Riss in seinen Argumenten, und der Betreffende wusste ganz genau, dass keineswegs alles völlig klar war. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
781:Das gute alte England existiert nur in der Vorstellung - ein Land, das aus Wörtern, Holzschnitten, Filmen, Gemälden und pittoresken Stichen zusammengezimmert ist. ~ Helen Macdonald, #NFDB
782:Die Wahrheit ist allezeit nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden zwischen die beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als paradox und als trivial gering geschätzt wird ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
783:Ich langte in meine Tasche nach einem Milky Way - was sonst für einen Astronomen - und machte es mir bequem, um den Hacker auf meinem grünen Monitor zu beobachten. ~ Clifford Stoll, #NFDB
784:Ja, man muß seinen Traum finden, dann wird der Weg leicht. Aber es gibt keinen immerwährenden Traum, jeden löst ein neuer ab, und keinen darf man festhalten wollen. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
785:O meine Seele, ich gab dir neue Namen und bunte Spielwerke, ich hieß dich "Schicksal" und "Umfang der Umfange" und "Nabelschnur der Zeit" und "azurne Glocke". ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
786:...und jene, die so gut hassen gelernt haben, daß sich der Haß in ihren Gesichtern zeigt wie Hasenscharten und die nirgends willkommen sind, außer bei ihresgleichen, ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
787:Und natürlich hatte all das nichts mit dem zu tun, was später geschah, doch seit dieser Nacht wusste ich die unbeschwerten Momente noch ein wenig mehr zu schätzen. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
788:Verlaß mich, Bruder. Ich will schlafen, hingestreckt am Busen der Tiefe. Denn die kalte Welle mag mir Frieden bringen und das Feuer der Leidenschaft bitten zu verlöschen. ~ Valmiki, #NFDB
789:»Ach du mein hoher herrlicher Liebesstern, bist du mir denn nur aufgegangen, um gleich wieder zu verschwinden, und mich zu lassen in finstrer hoffnungsloser Nacht?« ~ E T A Hoffmann, #NFDB
790:Das Dao liebt nicht Geschäftigkeit. Geschäftigkeit führt zu Überlastung; Überlastung führt zu Unruhe; Unruhe führt zu Sorgen, und mit Sorgen ist man rettungslos verloren. ~ Zhuangzi, #NFDB
791:EINMAL,
da hörte ich ihn
da wusch er de Welt,
ungesehn, nactlang,
wirklich.
Eins und Unendlich,
Vernichtet,
Ichten.
Licht war. Rettung. ~ Paul Celan,#NFDB
792:Ist nicht eigentliches Ziel von Roman und Museum, unsere Erinnerungen so aufrichtig wie möglich zu erzählen und dadurch unser Glück in das Glück anderer zu verwandeln? ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
793:Kein Wunder, daß dieser Mann zum Diplomaten geworden war. Man konnte ihm nicht einen Zentimeter weit trauen. Er dachte in Schleifen und wirkte trotzdem sympathisch ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
794:Lebendige Bewegungen gehen nicht von Komitees aus und große Ideen werden nicht durch einen Briefwechsel ausgearbeitet, selbst wenn das Porto noch so günstig ist. ~ John Henry Newman, #NFDB
795:Seine Lippen sind weicher als alles, was ich jemals gespürt habe, weich wie erste Schneeflocken, Zuckerwatte, wie Schmelzen und Treiben und gewichtlos sein im Wasser. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
796:So süß klingt allen Menschen das Wort Freiheit, dass selbst Keckheit und Frechheit überall Anklang finden, weil sie mit der Freiheit einige Ähnlichkeiten haben. ~ Francesco Petrarca, #NFDB
797:Und bei diesem strammen kleinen Porträt ist es nicht schwer, das Menschliche in dem Finken zu sehen. Würdevoll, verwundbar. Ein Gefangener, der einen anderen anschaut. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
798:...und ich küsse sie dann nur mit einem Lächeln, damit sie weiter glaubt, daß sie eine Großmutter wie aus alten Zeiten hat, eine Art unbewegliche, tragbare Weihnacht. ~ In s Pedrosa, #NFDB
799:Wo immer ein Thron ist, findet man in reicher Auswahl jede Torheit und jede Bosheit, deren der Mensch fähig ist, poliert mit guten Manieren und vergoldet mit Heuchelei. ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
800:Aber Geographie ist nichts weiter als verlangsamte Physik mit ein paar Bäumen drauf, und die Meteorologie steckt voll von aufregend modischem Chaos und Komplexität. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
801:Die Schlucht war zwanzig Meter entfernt, und jenseits von ihr kletterte der Wald den westlichen Berghang hinauf, gleichförmige Nadelbäume wie eine Überdosis Weihnachten. ~ Saul Black, #NFDB
802:Es gab Mord, es gab Vergewaltigung, es gab unaussprechliche Praktiken, und sie alle dienten dem Guten, dem verdammten Guten, dem verdammten Mythos, dem Gral, dem Turm. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
803:Es war einmal einer namens Harry, genannt der Steppenwolf. Er ging auf zwei Beinen, trug Kleider und war ein Mensch, aber eigentlich war er doch eben ein Steppenwolf. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
804:Ich habe noch nie einen Schriftsteller kennengelernt, der nicht eitel und nicht egozentrisch gewesen wäre – es sei denn, es war ein besonders schlechter Autor. ~ Marcel Reich Ranicki, #NFDB
805:Ich trage stilles Gepäck. Ich habe mich so tief und so lang ins Schweigen gepackt, ich kann mich in Worten nie auspacken. Ich packe mich nur anders ein, wenn ich rede. ~ Herta M ller, #NFDB
806:In der Bitterkeit und Qual meines Herzens habe ich gelacht über den Gegensatz zwischen dem, was ich scheine, und dem, was ich bin! Und auch Satan lacht darüber! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
807:Tu jeden Tag etwas, das dir Angst macht."(...) Geh Risiken ein und schau, wohin es dich bringt, denn genau das sind die Dinge, die das Leben lebenswert machen. ~ Lori Nelson Spielman, #NFDB
808:Und ich hasse die Mittelschichts-Blödmänner, die so viel zu sagen haben, aber nie einen einzigen verdammten Tag mit dem Versuch verbracht haben, am Leben zu bleiben. ~ Andrea Dworkin, #NFDB
809:wackeres Stapfen durch die verregnete Oxford Street. Und mit einer Tonschale kann man nichts verkehrt machen, oder? Es gab da auf dem Markt auch Herrenbrieftaschen. ~ Sophie Kinsella, #NFDB
810:Als das Ergebnis vorlag, machte sich ein mentaler Kurier auf den Weg, klopfte dem Kleinhirn auf die Schulter, drückte ihm einen Zettel in die Hand und hastete davon. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
811:„Jeder, der Licht braucht, muss es selbst mitbringen. Und genauso verhält es sich mit der Zeit: Wer Zeit braucht, weil er das Chaos fürchtet, bringt seine Zeit mit ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
812:Man bezahlt für das, was man bekommt, und man besitzt nur das richtig, wofür man bezahlt hat... und früher oder später wird einem unweigerlich die Rechnung präsentiert. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
813:Seine Kleider, die den Zweck hatten, Kälte und Hitze von ihm abzuhalten, schienen zu flüstern: Er zog uns an, während er mit seinen Gedanken ganz wo anders war. ~ Carl Sandburg, #NFDB
814:Wenn die Menschen wüssten, was der Tod ist, dann hätten sie keine Angst mehr vor ihm. Und wenn sie keine Angst mehr hätten, könnte keiner ihnen ihre Lebenszeit stehlen. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
815:Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
816:Wie ein schüchternes Mädchen blieb er sitzen und wartet, ob einer käme ihn zu holen, ein Stärkerer und Mutigerer als er, der ihn mitrisse und zum Glücklichsein zwänge. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
817:Denn kein Mensch kann für längere Zeit sich selbst das eine und der Menge ein anderes Gesicht zeigen, ohne am Ende in Verwirrung zu geraten, welches das echt ist. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
818:Gold schenkt die Eitelkeit, der rauhe Stolz, Die Freundschaft und die Liebe schenken Blumen. Gold is the gift of vanityand pride, Friendship and love offer flowers. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
819:Nein, man spürt nichts. Es fehlt einem eben nur etwas. Und jeden Tag fehlt einem mehr, wenn man davon einmal befallen ist. Bald werden wir gar nicht mehr vorhanden sein. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
820:Seine Gedanken oder plötzlichen Wünsche flogen wie die Laune des Meeres über das Wasser, mal hierhin, mal dorthin, und er lebte ununterbrochen in einer stillen Spannung. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
821:Und das tat er oder glaubte es zun tun, oder glaubte es auch selber nicht recht, oder, noch bedenklicher, es fing an, ihm gleichgültig zu werden, ob er es tat oder nicht. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
822:Und wir: Zuschauer, immer, überall,
dem allen zugewandt und nie hinaus!
Uns überfüllts. Wir ordnens. Es zerfällt.
Wir ordnens wieder und zerfallen selbst. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
823:Wenn du Angst hast, hast du Angst. Und wenn du Angst hast, sieht alles Furcht einflößender aus, als es normalerweise der Fall wäre - selbst Sachen, die ganz harmlos sind. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
824:Als ich mir einige der Gesichter ansah, die sehr real und lebensecht wirkten, lief mir ein Schauer über den Rücken. Die Winterkönigin hat einen echt gruseligen Geschmack. ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
825:Dann sag ihm, dass die Angst vor dem Leiden schlimmer ist als das eigentliche Leid. Und dass noch kein Herz gelitten hat, als es sich aufmachte, seine Träume zu erfüllen. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
826:Das Kind zog an der Hand seines Vaters, und er konnte erkennen, wie die Lippen jene zwei Silben formten, die wie der Refrain einer grausigen Ballade klagen: "Papa, Papa. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
827:Dreitausend Jahre? Das ist ein bißchen kurz, oder? Alles wiederholt sich? Sterne und Meere – und intelligentes Leben entwickelt sich aus Kunststudenten? So in der Art? ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
828:Einige Läden verkauften ausschließlich Bücher, die der Kunde als Kind gelesen hatte, und boten eine Geld-zurück-Garantie, wenn sie ihm nicht mehr so gut gefielen wie damals. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
829:Negative Gedanken sind wie Bakterien", hatte John ihr einmal erklärt. "Haben sie sich einmal in dir festgesetzt, vermehren sie sich und töten jeden Lebensmut in dir". ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
830:Walter fährt wie nach einem Schlag zurück. Ich habe mich einer Blasphemie schuldig gemacht, denkt Callahan. Und bei diesem Kerl ist das bestimmt keine schlechte Leistung. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
831:Wer die Gewalt hat, der hat – Recht; habt Ihr jene nicht, so habt Ihr auch dieses nicht. Ist diese Weisheit so schwer zu erlangen? Seht doch die Gewaltigen und ihr Tun an! ~ Max Stirner, #NFDB
832:Als guter Affe ist der Mensch ein soziales Wesen, und als wesentliche Norm ethischen Verhaltens zeichnen ihn Vetternwirtschaft, Nepotismus, Schwindel und Klatsch aus. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
833:Die Leute halten nichts von Dingen wie Geographie und Meteorologie, und zwar nicht nur deshalb, weil sie auf dem einen stehen, während sie vom anderen durchnäßt werden. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
834:Es heißt auch immer, dass der Verstand in Augenblicken höchster Gefahr am besten arbeitet und einem glasklare Einfälle schenkt. Aber das war bei mir ebenso wenig der Fall. ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
835:„Es ist wichtig, dass Träume nicht aufhören zu existieren, wenn sie Realität geworden sind“, sagte er, und ich verlor jegliche Lust, mich weiter mit ihm zu unterhalten. ~ Ronja von R nne, #NFDB
836:Gelehrte sind Menschen, die sich von normalen Sterblichen durch die anerworbene Fähigkeit unterscheiden, sich an weitschweifigen und komplizierten Irrtümern zu ergötzen. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
837:Ich bin drei Jahre älter, und der Ältere ist immer weiser als der Jüngere. Da ich mich nicht für Weise halte, könnt Ihr ungefähr ermessen, wo Ihr steht. Und jetzt Ruhe! ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
838:(...) stämmig wie der Baum, der sein Alter in Äonen zählt, und beständig wie der Stern, der den wahren Norden markiert und in den dunkelsten Nächten am hellsten strahlt. ~ Nicholas Eames, #NFDB
839:Vielleicht ist es mehr so, wie d vorher gesagt hast, dass wir Risse bekommen. Am Anfang sind wir alle wasserdicht, aber dann passieren Dinge [...].Und so bekommen wir Risse. ~ John Green, #NFDB
840:Wenn ich jemanden in ein Folterbecken werfe, so soll er zerfleischt werden und keine Gelegenheit haben, sein inneres Selbst zu finden und mit dem Kosmos eins zu werden. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
841:Wer sich selbst belügt und seine eigenen Lügen anhört, kommt schließlich soweit, dass er keine Wahrheit mehr, weder in sich noch außer sich, zu erkennen vermag [...] ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
842:An den Verheißungen der Utopie scheint alles bewundernswert und ist alles falsch; an den Feststellungen der Reaktionäre ist alles verabscheuenswert und scheint alles wahr. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
843:Jeder intelligente Narr kann Dinge größer und komplexer machen. Es braucht ein Stück Genialität – und jede Menge Mut -, sich in die entgegengesetzte Richtung zu bewegen. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
844:Lebendige Bewegungen gehen nicht von Komitees aus und große Ideen werden nicht durch einen Briefwechsel ausgearbeitet, selbst wenn das Porto noch so günstig ist. ~ Saint John Henry Newman, #NFDB
845:Wer könnte die schreckliche Dunkelheit begreifen, die dort wirbelt, den Stolz, der einem Bollwerk gleicht, die titanische Blasphemie, die unheilige Wonne? Und den Wahnsinn! ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
846:Wir haben es eilig, eine telegrafische Verbindung zwischen Maine und Texas herzustellen: aber Maine und Texas haben sich vielleicht gar nichts Wichtiges mitzuteilen? ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
847:Ziri spürt Hoffnung. Eine Hoffnung, die er gut kennt und die er verachtet: die hässliche, schwarze Hoffnung, man könnte dadurch, dass man andere tötet, selbst länger leben. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
848:Er legte mir den Arm um den Hals, was für Männer die einzige Möglichkeit ist, Zuneigung zu zeigen – weil die Welt sie ja nur Frauen küssen lässt –, und lachte und stand auf. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
849:Kennt ihr Deutschland?
Im Süden die Berge
Im Norden das Meer
Und dazwischen:
Teer.
Aber wirklich nur Teer?
Es gibt doch noch mehr!
Ja, genau.
Stau. ~ Marc Uwe Kling,#NFDB
850:Man handelte in diesem Land - und mitunter bis zu den höchsten Graden der Leidenschaft und ihren Folgen - immer anders, als man dachte, oder dachte anders, als man handelte. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
851:Wie falsch und trügerisch die Welt ist! Zuerst lockt sie bunt und glitzert vor Schönheit, dann tut Mama den Mund auf, und alles verwandelt sich in Bazillen und Gelatine. ~ Marlen Haushofer, #NFDB
852:Aber jeder Schatten ist im letzen doch auch Kind des Lichts, und nur wer Helles und Dunkles, Krieg und Frieden, Aufstieg und Niedergang erfahren, nur der hat wahrhaft gelebt. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
853:Er kam daher, den Kopf in den Wolken, ein Lächeln um die Lippen und mit der heiteren Miene derer, die es sich leisten können, nicht zu wissen, wie die Welt funktioniert. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
854:Es bereitete ihm Freude, zu lesen und zu schreiben. Worte gefielen ihm. Worte schrien nicht und verursachten auch keine anderen lauten Geräusche, wie der Rest der Familie. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
855:Es bleibt zwischen Menschen, sie seien noch so eng verbunden, immer ein Abgrund offen, den nur die Liebe, und auch nur mit einem Notsteg, überbrücken kann. (Hermann Hesse) ~ Guillaume Musso, #NFDB
856:Im Garten sind tausend Entzückende fein
Und Rosen und Veilchen mit Düften so rein
Und rinnendes, plätscherndes Wasser im Fluß –
Dies alles ist Vorwand: Er ist alles allein. ~ Rumi,#NFDB
857:Ja, Erinnerung ist viel, ist alles. Und die hab ich nun und bleibt mir und kann mir nicht mehr genommen werden. Und ich fühle ordentlich, wie mir dabei leicht zumute wird. ~ Theodor Fontane, #NFDB
858:Mein Vater war plötzlich gestorben, aber gleichzeitig starb er über einen Zeitraum von Jahren. Irgendwie starb er immer noch - und das hieß wohl auch, dass er immer noch lebte. ~ John Green, #NFDB
859:She must, I see now, have come in here for a break from the Sturm und Drang going on in the apartment. Funny how you realise that only after you become a parent yourself. ~ Maggie O Farrell, #NFDB
860:Sie pflegten mir Angst zu machen, und sie machen mir immer noch Angst, aber jetzt langweilen Sie mich auch noch, und ich habe mich entschlossen, das nicht mehr hinzunehmen ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
861:Sie sagten, dass einem niemand das Zuhause nehmen kann, wenn man in sich selbst zu Hause ist. Und dass man alles in sich trägt, was man braucht, um überall glücklich zu sein. ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
862:Und sage mir um alles in der Welt, warum stirbt er nicht? Er hat sich doch verpflichtet, in drei Wochen zu sterben, und nun hat er hier noch angefangen, dick zu werden! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
863:Da uns die Leiter bisher jedesmal gehalten hatte, glaubten wir, sie müßte uns immer halten, eine Philosophie, die Menschen und Nationen immer wieder in Schwierigkeiten bringt. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
864:Es ist weit verbreitet, Frauen als Menschen mit Geschlecht zu betrachten und Männer als Menschen: Chefinnen haben einen «weiblichen Führungsstil», Männer einen eigenen. ~ Margarete Stokowski, #NFDB
865:Ja, ich liebe; jedenfalls habe ich geliebt oder zumindest versucht zu lieben, aber die Erinnerungen sind so weit und so tief, und ich kann nicht auf die andere Seite gelangen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
866:Neue Phaenomena zu erklären, dieses macht meine Sorgen aus, und wie froh ist der Forscher, wenn er das so fleissig Gesuche findet, eine Ergötzung wobei das Herz lacht. ~ Carl Wilhelm Scheele, #NFDB
867:Soweit ich weiß, hat er von Mick Jagger eine eidesstattliche Erklärung, daß er bei der Session von 'Sympathy for the Devil' anwesend war und im Uhh-uhh-Chor mitgeuhhuhht hat. ~ Akif Pirin ci, #NFDB
868:Wahrscheinlich beschäftigen sich zu viele intelligente Menschen mit Internetzeug, Finanzen und Recht. Das ist einer der Gründe, warum es nicht mehr so viele Innovationen gibt. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
869:[D]ie Worte der Menschen sind wie Schatten, und die Schatten könnten das Licht nie erklären, zwischen sie und das Licht stellt sich der undurchsichtige Körper, der sie gebiert. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
870:Hör auf, ständig zu glauben, dass du jemandem störst! Wenn die Leute sich gestört fühlen, werden sie es schon sagen! Und wenn sie nicht den Mut dazu haben, ist das ihr Problem! ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
871:Ich glaube, daß es geistig ungesunde Orte oder Gebäude gibt, wo die Milch des Kosmos sauer und ranzig geworden ist. Diese Kirche ist ein solcher Ort, darauf könnte ich schwören ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
872:Ich glaube, dass keiner mich für grausam halten wird, weil ich nun eines der alten Richtschwerter in beide Hände nahm und die Katze in zwei Teile spaltete, während sie so dasaß. ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
873:Ich hasste Sport. Ich hasste Sport, und ich hasste Sportler, und ich hasste Leute, die sich Sport ansahen, und ich hasste Leute, die Leute, die sich Sport ansahen, nicht hassten. ~ John Green, #NFDB
874:Man kann immerzu beleidigend sein, ohne etwas Gerechtes zu sagen; aber man kann nicht immer über jemanden lachen, ohne ab und zu doch einmal über etwas Geistreiches zu stolpern. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
875:[O]b dies das eigentliche Ende des Gefangenendilemmas sei: wenn Richter und Angeklagte sich in die Arme fielen, um gemeinsam über einen Repräsentanten der alten Ordnung zu spotten. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
876:Und sobald jemand Gefühle für sie entwickelte, hatte sie ihn schnell wieder verstoßen. Als wäre etwas in ihr zu Scherben zerfallen, die jeden verletzten, der ihr zu nahe kam. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
877:Als er den letzten Schluck getrunken hatte, ging er in sein Kabinett zurück und ließ sich von dem Diener die Schildkröte nachtragen, die sich partout nicht bewegen wollte ~ Joris Karl Huysmans, #NFDB
878:Es gibt keine Fremden am Hauptbahnhof, weil der eben für Fremde da ist, und darum sind dort alle Einheimische, und die Fremden sind sogar einheimischer als die Einheimischen. ~ S awomir Mro ek, #NFDB
879:Es sah aus, als gehörte es in irgendein Anti-Disneyland, in dem Donald Duck seine Neffen Tick, Trick und Track erwürgt und Micky Maus seine Minnie mit Heroin voll gepumpt hatte. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
880:Ich spüre den Gurt ihrer Kamera, die selbst jetzt bei der Party und in diesem Kleid über ihrer Schulter hängt. Das liebe ich an Cecily. Allzeit bereit, Schönheit festzuhalten. ~ Josh Sundquist, #NFDB
881:Manche von uns haben Lieblingsbücher, die sie nie gelesen haben. Manche sogar welche, die nie geschrieben wurden. Dieses hier ist eines von meinen, und deshalb schreibe ich es auf. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
882:Manchmal denke ich, das Erwachsenwerden ist nur dazu da: die Verluste und Schäden der Anfänge zu reparieren. Und die Versprechen des Kindes zu halten, das wir gewesen sind. ~ Delphine de Vigan, #NFDB
883:Sie hockte bei einbrechender Dunkelheit hier draußen im regennassen Wald, hatte sich verlaufen und war allein, aber sie konnte dreißigtausend Menschen hören. Das war ein Wunder. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
884:Statt irgendetwas zu sagen, stand er auf und suchte aus eng zusammengekniffenen Augen den Himmel ab. Er wusste nicht, warum er das tat, aber er spürte, dass es wichtig war. ~ Wolfgang Hohlbein, #NFDB
885:Wenn etwas geschehen soll, wirst du es mit keiner Macht verhindern können; und wenn etwas nicht geschehen soll, wirst du es mit keiner Macht zuwege bringen. (Ramana Maharshi) ~ Guillaume Musso, #NFDB
886:Wie jeder Mensch hat auch ein Buchstabe eine Seele und einen Körper. Seine Seele ist das, was er sagt, und sein Körper ist das, woraus er gemacht ist: aus Tinte oder aus Stein. ~ Harry Mulisch, #NFDB
887:Alles kommt aus dem Nil, und alles verschwindet im Nil. Der Gott der Sonne zieht am Mittagshimmel entlang, reist abends durch die Unterwelt und kehrt am Morgen wieder zurück. ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
888:Das ganze Zeitalter betet das Geld, die Ordnung, das Wissen, Rechnen, Messen und Wägen, alles in allem also den Geist des Geldes und seiner Verwandten an und beklagt es zugleich. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
889:Er ist gutmütig. Ich hingegen bin müde, verärgert und gemein. Und du bist intelligent und hattest Zeit zum Nachdenken. Bitte beantworte mir eine Frage: Was führt dich hierher? ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
890:Lest soviel ihr könnt! Lest Straßenschilder und Speisekarten, lest die Anschläge im Bürgermeisteramt, lest von mir aus Schundliteratur - aber lest! Lest! Sonst seid ihr verloren! ~ Walter Moers, #NFDB
891:Man sollte meinen, in eine Million Stücke zerhackt und in den finstersten Teil der Unterwelt geworfen zu werden, wäre eine klare Andeutung, dass er anderswo nicht willkommen war. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
892:Ruhe gibt es nicht, bis zum Schluss. Und dann? Auch am Schluss steht noch ein Fragezeichen.
(There is no peace until the end and even then there would still be a question mark.) ~ Klaus Mann,#NFDB
893:Sturm und Drang?”
“Ah…I see that I’ll have to introduce you to the finer points of German literature. It means passionate turmoil—literally translated, ‘storm and stress.’ ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
894:Und manchmal passiert einem das Leben einfach, und man kann ihm nicht ausweichen Es kracht voll in einen rein, weil es sehen will, aus was für einem Holz man geschnitzt ist. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
895:Verstehst du, im Grunde sind doch die Mitarbeiter das Problem. Du zahlst, wenn du sie einstellst, du zahlst, wenn du sie rausschmeißt, und dazwischen muss du sie auch noch bezahlen. ~ Max Barry, #NFDB
896:Wir leben auf einer friedlichen Insel der Ahnungslosigkeit inmitten schwarzer Meere der Unendlichkeit, und es war nicht vorgesehen, dass wir diese Gewässer weit befahren sollen. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
897:wir wären die Dichter unseres eigenen Lebens, wenn wir erst in den Zeitungen schrieben, was uns geschehen wird, und dann staunend die schönen Dinge erleben, die wir verfasst haben ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
898:Der moralische Einfluß nimmt da seinen Anfang, wo die Demütigung beginnt, ja er ist nichts anderes, als diese Demütigung selbst, die Brechung und Beugung des Mutes zur Demut herab. ~ Max Stirner, #NFDB
899:Ich meine, wird diese Gegend irgendwann vergessen, was man ihr angetan hat? In hundert, zweihundert Jahren? Werden hier Menschen leben und glücklich und sorglos sein? Wie früher? ~ Alina Bronsky, #NFDB
900:„Jene seltsamen, missgestalteten und gefährlichen Geschöpfe, von denen jedes einzelne Darwin zur Verzweiflung gebracht hätte, so wenig entsprach es den Gesetzen der Evolution ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
901:Man soll bauen als wollt man ewig leben, und also leben als sollt man morgen sterben.
One should build as if one would live forever, and live as though one would die tomorrow. ~ Martin Luther,#NFDB
902:Wir verschwenden unsere Zeit", rief der Karierte.
"Wir bündeln unsere Kräfte", sagte Gerhard. "Ich bitte um Ruhe und Geschlossenheit."
"Schnauze jetzt!", schrie Kron. "Abmarsch! ~ Juli Zeh,#NFDB
903:Die grosse, runde Bahnhofsuhr, die ueber dem Bahnstein haengt, ihr unerschuetterliches Gesicht und ihre unermuedlichen Zeiger erinnern daran, dass Zeit und Zug auf niemanden warten. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
904:Die Zeit ist unaufhaltsam und fließt immer weiter. Das tut sie nicht nur, damit man ihr nachtrauert, sondern damit man einen schönen Augenblick nach dem anderen erhaschen kann. ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
905:Er hatte immer gewusst, dass die Götter hart waren, und hatte diese Tatsache akzeptiert; aber er verspürte nicht den Wunsch, in einer Welt zu leben, wo die Götter wahnsinnig waren. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
906:Geschichten in Geschichten in Geschichten. Man weiß nie, wo eine endet und eine andere beginnt! In Wahrheit fließen alle ineinander. Nur in Büchern sind sie säuberlich getrennt. ~ Daniel Kehlmann, #NFDB
907:Ich begann zu begreifen, dass es eine Welt in meinem Kopf gab und eine andere draussen und dass diese beiden Welten nur sehr selten auf die glücklich Idee kamen zusammenzufallen. ~ Susanna Tamaro, #NFDB
908:Ich bin der Einzige am Tisch, der still ist, der einfach nur die Augen schließt und lauscht: Ich liebe diese Geräusche. Die Einsamkeit in uns können wir nur gemeinsam überwinden. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
909:Sie würden ihm helfen, ihn heilen. Arzneien und Ärzte. Eine Änderung der Einstellung.
Dann Frieden.
Seine Streitsüchtigkeit würde wie Unkraut aus ihm herausgejätet werden. ~ Richard Bachman,#NFDB
910:Das Problem mit dem Leben bestand darin, daß es einem ständig an Erfahrungen mangelte: Man lernte aus der Vergangenheit, ja, aber die Zukunft hielt Neues und Unerwartetes bereit. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
911:Die meisten Schwierigkeiten, mit denen wir konfrontiert werden, sind zugleich Möglichkeiten. An ihnen können wir entdecken, wer wir sind. Wer wir sein wollen. Und was in uns steckt. ~ Nick Vujicic, #NFDB
912:Eine Witzfigur und ein Parasit im Kampf gegen einen Trottel und Versager mit der Intelligenz einer Kuh. Und zwischen ihnen eine Schlange, die sich mit grünem Bananenlikör betrank. ~ Jonas Jonasson, #NFDB
913:Gib einem Mann ein Fisch, und du ernährst ihn einen Tag, bringe ihm bei, wie man Fische fängt, und du ernährst ihn sein ganzes Leben. Das Leben ist dazu da, das Fischen zu lernen. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
914:Ich habe erzählt, wie ich mit Timanris die Nacht in meinem Malzimmer verbrachte. Möchtest du wissen, was wir alles getan haben - außer zu malen. Und wie oft, alter Alb?" - Sinthoras ~ Markus Heitz, #NFDB
915:In Begleitung von erlesenen Schmerzen.« Rincewind zögerte. Er war ziemlich sicher, die Bedeutung des Wortes ›erlesen‹ zu kennen, und es gehörte nicht in die Nähe von ›Schmerzen‹. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
916:Medien zu verstehen, ist eine Unmöglichkeit, weil gerade umgekehrt die jeweils herrschenden Nachrichtentechniken alles Verstehen fernsteuern und seine Illusionen hervorrufen. ~ Friedrich A Kittler, #NFDB
917:Netter Ausdruck«, hört er Lennie undeutlich aus dem verrückten Universum sagen, in dem Gott offensichtlich gestorben ist und verwesend auf dem Boden eines geplünderten Himmels liegt ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
918:Dass man, wenn man sehr müde ist, sagt, man sei todmüde, fiel mir ein, und dass man, wenn man todmüde ist, doch voller Leben ist, und wenn man lebensmüde ist, schon dem Tod nahe. ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
919:Dem Geiste, der nach langem Mühen die Welt los geworden ist, dem weltlosen Geiste, bleibt nach dem Verluste der Welt und des Weltlichen nichts übrig, als - der Geist und das Geistige. ~ Max Stirner, #NFDB
920:Die Nacht, die Stimmung auf dem Schiff und wieder dieses völlige Losgelöstsein von der gewöhnlichen Welt hatten mir jenes rauschhafte Freiheitsgefühl erweckt, das meine Droge ist. ~ Tiziano Terzani, #NFDB
921:Erzählen, das bedeutet einen Bogen spannen, wo zunächst keiner ist, den Entwicklungen Struktur und Folgerichtigkeit gerade dort verleihen, wo die Wirklichkeit nichts davon bietet. ~ Daniel Kehlmann, #NFDB
922:Es gibt eine sichere Regel, die Bücher wie die Menschen zu beurteilen, selbst ohne sie zu kennen: es ist genug, wenn man weiß, von wem sie geliebt und von wem sie gehaßt werden. ~ Joseph de Maistre, #NFDB
923:Es war kein Weinen, es war ein Bluten. Aber mit siebzehn weinte man leichter. Man blutete auch leichter. Wenn man siebzehn war, wusste man, dass man noch oft bluten und weinen würde. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
924:„»Ja, ja. Ein Referendum. Wenn das Volk ›ja‹ sagt, ist alles klar. Sagt es aber ›nein‹, hat es nur schlecht nachgedacht. Und soll sich die Sache bitte schön noch mal überlegen.« ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
925:Man geht an einem Hundehaufen vorbei und wird, beinahe zwanghaft, von der an die eigene Sinnesfantasie gestellten Frage überfallen, wie es wohl wäre, ihn mit der Zunge zu berühren. ~ Clemens J Setz, #NFDB
926:Zum zweiten faszinierte euch das Denken, das so quälend nahe, weil in der Introspektion gegeben ist, und so rätselhaft, weil es sich eurem Zugriff wirksamer entzieht als die Sterne. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
927:Aber ich weiss auch, dass es Gutes gibt. Ich weiss, dass zwischen zwei Abgruenden eine schoene Blume waechst und dass aus dieser Blume bald eine lebensfrohe Hummel auffliegen wird. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
928:Das Glück halten wir oft für etwas, das wir uns nehmen können. Doch normalerweise empfinden wir dann Glück, wenn wir zufrieden sind mit dem, was wir haben, und uns selbst akzeptieren. ~ Cynthia Hand, #NFDB
929:Denn die Menschen sind so einfältig und so gewöhnt, den herrschenden Verhältnissen nachzugeben, dass der, welcher betrügen will, immer Leute findet, welche sich betrügen lassen. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
930:Ein Rezensent kommt mir manchmal vor wie der Mann, der eine Wolke beobachtet und ihr übelnimmt, daß sie nicht die Gestalt des Kamels angenommen hat, das er jeden Tag im Spiegel sieht. ~ Arno Schmidt, #NFDB
931:Es binden Sklavenfesseln nur die H a« nde, Der Sinn, er macht den Freien und den Knecht. The chains of slavery can only bind the hands. The mind makes us either free or enslaved. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
932:Für mich ist die Liebe so wie Bücher in einer Bibliothek. Sie gehören uns nicht, und wir müssen sorgsam mit ihnen umgehen. Wenn wir das nicht tun, zahlen wir eine hohe Gebühr. ~ Lori Nelson Spielman, #NFDB
933:Ich wusste nicht so recht, wann Autos erfunden worden waren, aber ich tippte auf prähistorische Zeiten - damals, als die Leute noch Schwarzweißfernseher hatten und Dinosaurier jagten. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
934:Könnten wir doch nur die endlose Kette der Folgen erkennen, die von unseren kleinsten Taten herrührt. Aber wir können nicht wissen, was passiert, und wenn wir es wissen, ist es zu spät. ~ John Green, #NFDB
935:Wenn die Intelligenten einen schlechten Charakter haben, so zeigt sich das, und wenn sie keinen schlechten Charakter haben, dann sind sie so leicht auszurechnen wie Quadratwurzeln. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
936:Wenn die Vision der Leuchtturm am Horizont ist und eure Taten der Weg sind, dann ist der Sinn die tiefe Kraft, die eure Beziehung in Krisen wachsen lässt, anstatt auseinanderzubrechen. ~ Veit Lindau, #NFDB
937:Hielten viel von Menschenopfern und Kakao, die Tezumaner. Eine seltsame Kombination, finde ich. Fünfzigtausend Menschen töten und sich anschließend mit einer Tasse Kakao entspannen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
938:Ich muss Sie darauf hinweisen, dass Sie im Augenblick bis zur Hüfte in der Scheiße stecken und dass die Scheiße immer tiefer wird. Und ich nehme nicht an, dass Sie schwimmen können. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
939:Jedenfalls fiel der Stein mit einem ekelerregendem Geräusch - wir konnten das deutlich vernehmen - direkt auf dem Kopf des Kätzchens und verspritzte dessen Gehirn nach allen Richtungen. ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
940:Lebe in der Gegenwart; lass die Vergangenheit sich in ihrem Grab ausstrecken; halt den Kopf hoch und mach einen Bogen um die Schlammpfützen; erwarte von deinen Freunden keine Therapie. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
941:Soldaten sind Männer – und seit einer Weile auch Frauen –, die bereit sind, ihr Leben im Namen eines übergeordneten Werts aufs Spiel zu setzen – und bereit sind, in diesem Namen zu töten. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
942:Wir sind alle Anthologien. Wir sind Tausende von Seiten lang, voller Märchen und Poesie, Geheimnisse und Tragödien und vergessener Geschichten ganz am Ende, die nie jemand lesen wird. ~ Marisha Pessl, #NFDB
943:Die richtige Funktionsweise des Universums, so behaupteten sie, basiere auf dem Gleichgewicht von vier Elementarkräften: Zauber, Überzeugungskraft, Ungewißheit und Verdammte Sturheit ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
944:Du kannst werden, was immer du willst. Was du dir auch in den Kopf setzt. Folge einfach deinem Herzen und lebe deine Träume." - Die guten alten Plattitüden einer ausgestorbenen Spezies. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
945:Er erkundigte sich nach Agnes. Sie sei weggegangen, sagte ich, und er lächelte anzüglich. "Sie gehen alle irgendwann", sagte er, "mach dir nichts draus, die Welt ist voll schöner Frauen. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
946:Es gefiel ihm nicht, daß ER zurück und auch noch zornig war. Wenn irgend etwas, das Großbuchstaben verdiente, in Rincewinds Nähe wütend wurde, so bezog sich die Wut meistens auf ihn. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
947:Francis und seine Mom waren dagegen in Claymont gelandet. In einer laut Prospekt »unterschätzten und aufstrebenden Stadt im Herzen New Jerseys«, oder anders gesagt: am Arsch der Welt. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
948:Lezten Endes bleibt von diesem Tage das, was vom gestrigen blieb und vom morgigen bleiben wird: die unersättliche und nicht zählbare Begierde, immer derselbe und ein anderer zu sein. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
949:Menschen sind nicht grausam. [...] Aber sie haben einen starken Selbsterhaltungstrieb und mischen sich, solange sie nicht direkt betroffen sind lieber nicht ein, wenn es Probleme gibt. ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB
950:O glücklich, wer noch hoffen kann,
aus diesem Meer des Irrtums aufzutauchen!
Was man nicht weiß, das eben brauchte man,
und was man weiß, kann man nicht brauchen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
951:Wir versuchen, uns an den Wochenenden zu vergnügen, weil alle Welt das so macht, und da wir keine Lust haben, aus dem Haus zu gehen, finden wir, dass etwas mit uns nicht in Ordnung ist. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
952:Aber seien wir doch ehrlich, es ist ein seltsamer Beruf. Ein wenig lächerlich für einen erwachsenen Menschen. Sie sitzen daheim und denken sich Geschichten aus, die nie passiert sind. ~ Daniel Kehlmann, #NFDB
953:Aber vielleicht war es das alles zugleich, unter Vernachlässigung des Gesetzes des ausgeschlossenen Dritten und zur ewigen Beschämung derjenigen, die glaubten, etwas davon zu verstehen. ~ Harry Mulisch, #NFDB
954:Denn gerade so haut dich das Leben übers Ohr. Es packt dich, wenn deine Seele noch schläft und gibt dir ein Bild ein oder einen Geruch oder einen Klang, die du nicht mehr loswirst. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
955:Eine von vager Besorgnis geprägte Stille senkte sich auf den Tisch herab – das Geräusch von Gehirnen, die versuchten, konzentriert nachzudenken und herauszufinden, was sie beunruhigte ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
956:Erkenntnis ist eine Frage der richtigen Entfernung und steht deshalb nur Gott und den Quantenphysikern offen, während gewöhnliche Menschen blind in mittlerer Distanz zu den Dingen verharren. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
957:Es heißt, Hitze und Fliegen an diesem Ort könnten einen um den Verstand bringen. Aber das braucht niemand zu glauben, nicht einmal der malvenfarbene Elefant, der gerade vorbeiradelte. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
958:Lacht und fürchtet euch nicht, ihr Geschöpfe. Jetzt, da ihr nicht mehr stumm und geistlos seid, müsst ihr nicht mehr immer ernst sein. Denn wo Sprache ist, da sind Witze ebenso wie Wahrheit ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
959:Weil Glück nur stimmt, wenn es ewig hält? Weil schmerzlich nur enden kann, was schmerzlich gewesen ist, unbewusst und unerkannt? Aber was ist ein unbewusster und unerkannter Schmerz? ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
960:Das Leben hat a priori keinen Sinn. Ehe Sie leben, ist das Leben nichts; es liegt bei Ihnen, ihm einen Sinn zu verleihen, und der Wert ist nichts anderes als der Sinn, den Sie wählen. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
961:„Er hatte für jeden Anlass ein Bibelzitat, dieser Norton, und wann immer man einen solchen Mann trifft, sollte man, das ist mein Rat, nur grinsen und sich beide Hände vor die Eier halten. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
962:Es dauerte einen Moment, bis er ihr antwortete:
Nein, ich spreche von... von eurer Freiheit, glaube ich. Von dem Glück, das ihr habt, für euch zu leben und auf alles andere zu pfeifen. ~ Anna Gavalda,#NFDB
963:Glück macht keine guten Geschichten. Glück lässt sich nicht beschreiben. Es ist wie Nebel, wie Rauch, durchsichtig und flüchtig. Hast du jemals einen Maler gesehen, der Rauch malen konnte? ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
964:Irgendwann ist der Spaß vorbei, und wenn man die Finsternis auf sich zukriechen sieht, hält man sich an allem fest, was hell und glücklich und gut war, als würde das Leben davon abhängen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
965:Seine Augen waren blau vor Sehnsucht und wurden vor Schmerz und Auflehnung wieder schwarz. Er war ein Gewirr verschlungener Nerven, die ohne einen Kern der Ruhe nach allen Seiten vibrierten. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
966:Unsere Träume, Unsere Sehnsüchte, und bunten Hoffnungen wollen ernst und wichtig genommen werden.
Wer sie verdrängt, unterdrückt das Beste in sich und wird ein leerer Mensch. ~ Friedrich Schiller,#NFDB
967:Vielleicht stimmt es ja, dass die Natur den Menschen manchmal Zeichen schickte. Und dieses Zeichen hieß: Man darf nicht vergessen, dass auf Verzweiflung wieder Freude und Glück folgen. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
968:Wenn man plötzlich die Uhr ticken hört, dann hört man nichts anderes mehr. Und ich habe Angst davor, eines Tages nichts mehr zu sein. Ich habe ngst davor, zu Asche und Staub zu werden... ~ Rowan Coleman, #NFDB
969:Wie lange sollen die Fußstapfen der Freiheit Gräber sein? - Ihr wollt Brot, und sie werfen euch Köpfe hin! Ihr durstet, und sie machen euch das Blut von den Stufen der Guillotine lecken! ~ Georg B chner, #NFDB
970:Als jemand ihm vorwarf, reich zu sein, definierte er es besser als jeder andere: "Nein, nicht reich", sagte er, "ich bin ein armer Schlucker mit Geld, und das ist nicht dasselbe. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
971:Ash hob die Kamera vom Schoß und machte ein Foto von ihren Knien, dann von einem ihrer Schuhe. Beide Bilder verschwanden im Rucksack.
"Kunst?"
"Sie schüttelte den Kopf. "Nur mein Leben. ~ Kai Meyer,#NFDB
972:Daß ich nichts von mir weiß, daß Siddhartha mir so fremd und unerkannt geblieben ist, das kommt aus einer Ursache, einer einzigen: ich hatte Angst vor mir, ich war auf der Flucht vor mir! ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
973:Das Universum hilft uns immer im Kampf um unsere Träume, so verrückt sie auch sein mögen. Denn es sind unsere Träume, und nur wir selbst wissen, wieviel Mühe es uns kostet, sie zu träumen. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
974:[D]ie amtlichen Gottesmänner, [welche] als Kinder eines vernünftigen Zeitalters eine recht menschliche Angst davor haben, von exaltierten und hysterischen Anhängern bloßgestellt zu werden. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
975:Ich habe schon früher Wörterschmiede kennen gelernt, Jake, und sie sind alle mehr oder weniger aus demselben Holz geschnitzt. Sie erzählen Geschichten, weil sie sich vor dem Leben fürchten ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
976:Ich weiß nicht, wo ich die Überzeugung herhole, aber ich habe sie, und sie ist sehr groß: Ich weiß, dass dort mein Mann steht. Mehr kann ich mir noch nicht darunter vorstellen. (Seite 13) ~ Connie Palmen, #NFDB
977:Nicht alles, was hell ist, ist gut. Und nicht alles, was dunkel ist, ist schlecht. Die Dunkelheit und das Böse sind nicht immer gleichzusetzen, ebenso wie das Licht nicht immer Gutes verheißt. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
978:Und das tat er oder glaubte es zun tun, oder glaubte es auch selber nicht recht, oder, noch bedenklicher, es fing an, ihm gleichgültiger zu werden, ob er es tat oder nicht. (Der Zauberberg) ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
979:...und ich glaube, dass früher oder später jeder einmal diese Dunkelheit herausfordern will. Trotz des zerbrechlichen Körpers, in den irgendein Witzbold von Gott uns Menschen gesteckt hat. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
980:Wie hab ich das gefühlt was Abschied heißt.
Wie weiß ichs noch: ein dunkles unverwundnes
grausames etwas, das ein Schönverbundnes
noch einmal zeigt und hinhält und zerreißt. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
981:Denn das ist ja das Wunderbare an Eigenbrötlern: Sie sind Enthusiasten. Wer selbst kein Leben hat, kann irgendwas leidenschaftlich lieben, und kein Mensch macht einem deshalb Vorhaltungen. ~ John Burnside, #NFDB
982:Endlich blickte sie ihrer Gegnerin fest und gerade in die Augen und las sogleich klar alles, was in deren nichts Gutes verheißendem Blick funkelte. Das Weib hatte das Weib verstanden; ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
983:Er nahm das als gegeben hin, aber trotzdem beobachtete er sie mit dem Ressentiment eines Außenseiters und in dem Wissen, dass er sie verletzen und daraus grimmige Befriedigung ziehen würde. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
984:Okay, dieser Typ war unglaublich hübsch. Und er roch gut. Und es war wirklich lustig, sich mit ihm zu unterhalten. Das war aber auch schon alles. Kein Grund, sich so merkwürdig zu benehmen. ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
985:Alles, was wir als Erwachsene werden, geht darauf zurück, wer wir als Kinder waren, wie wir behandelt wurden und was unsere Ideen und Werte geprägt hat. Wir sind, wer wir waren - nur größer. ~ Joy Fielding, #NFDB
986:Bücher liebten jeden, der sie aufschlug, schenkten Geborgenheit und Freundschaft und verlangten nichts dafür, gingen nie fort, niemals, selbst dann nicht, wenn man sie schlecht behandelte. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
987:das flüchtet... und sein Bangen ist groß,
daß ihr es selber / wie schlank es entschwindet/
nach vielem Traurigsein erst wiederfindet,
noch immer schreckhaft, warm und atemlos. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
988:Das Leben ist hart, Baby. Wenn du nicht fest zusammengeschraubt bist, fängst du schon an zu rasseln und zu klappern und auseinanderzufalten, bevor du das dreißigste Lebensjahr erreicht hast. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
989:Die Wirkung eines großen und ganzen Mannes ist wie die der Schönheit: sie verträgt so wenig eine Leugnung, wie man einen Ballon anbohren darf oder einer Statue einen Hut auf den Kopf setzen. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
990:Enorme Risiken begleiten fast alles, was Musk tut. Doch wenn es nach ihm geht, wird er bis ganz zum Ende mit diesen Risiken leben und auf vieles verzichten, was anderen Menschen wichtig ist. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
991:Kennst du das Gefühl, wenn man plötzlich feststellt, dass es völlig hirnrissig ist, etwas für andere Menschen zu tun, weil man selbst ein Mensch ist und deshalb weiß, wie wenig sie es verdienen? ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
992:Sonjuschka, Liebste, seien Sie trotz alledem ruhig und heiter. So ist das Leben, und so muß man es nehmen, tapfer, unverzagt und lächelnd – trotz alledem."
(Letters to Sonja Liebknecht) ~ Rosa Luxemburg,#NFDB
993:Wir schaffen unsere eigene Welt – und was wir erfahren ist nicht Zufall. Dinge werden zu uns durch unsere Veranlagung hervorgebracht, - die Welt ist so wie wir sind.” STRAHLUNGEN (1949). 47. ~ Ernst J nger, #NFDB
994:John Renshaw war ein Bussard in Menschengestalt, den sowohl seine Veranlagung als auch sein soziales Umfeld zu zwei Dingen mehr als zu allem anderen befähigt hatten: zu töten und zu überleben ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
995:Komisch, ich muß an einen Jäger denken.
An einen Jäger, der kühl zielt und erst dann schießt, wenn er sicher trifft.
Der keine Lust dabei empfindet.
Aber warum jagt er denn dann? ~ d n von Horv th,#NFDB
996:Mut heißt: von vornherein wissen, dass man geschlagen ist, und trotzdem den Kampf - ganz gleich, um was es geht - aufnehmen und ihn durchstehen.
Man gewinnt selten, aber zuweilen gelingt es. ~ Harper Lee,#NFDB
997:Regina konnte sich nichts Schlimmeres vorstellen, und dass es ihrem Sohn offensichtlich vollkommen gleich war, ob sich jemand über ihn totlachte oder nicht, brachte sie nur noch mehr in Rage. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
998:Warum es den Menschen so schwer fällt, glücklich zu sein? Weil sie die Vergangenheit besser sehen als sie war, die Gegenwart schlechter als sie ist und die Zukunft rosiger als sie sein wird. ~ Marcel Pagnol, #NFDB
999:„Wir begeben uns in die Dunkelheit eines Kinos, und hoffen darauf, schlecht zu träumen – weil die Welt in unserem normalen Leben stets so viel besser aussieht, wenn der schlechte Traum endet. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1000:Er hat gesagt, dass Sie nicht glauben, dass jemand Sie lieben kann, weil Sie sich selbst nicht lieben und glauben, dass niemand sie geliebt hat. Und dass Sie das der Welt nicht verziehen. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1001:Ich habe keine Meinung«, sagte Cuthbert strahlend. »Nein, überhaupt keine. Meinung ist Politik, und Politik ist ein Übel, durch das mancher Mann gehängt wurde, als er noch jung und hübsch war. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1002:Manches, was man als Kind erlebt hat, erhält seinen Sinn erst nach vielen Jahren. Und vieles, was uns später geschieht, bliebe ohne die Erinnerung an unsre Kindheit so gut wie unverständlich. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
1003:... So bewies mir das Wagnis, dass es nicht zerstörerisch ist, wenn wir unser Innerstes aufs Spiel setzen, wenn wir unseren verborgenen und echten Kern anbieten. Wie können nicht zerstört werden. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
1004:Aller Widersinn, mit dem die Welt dich kränkt, tritt dich an, damit du den Sinn in ihm entdeckst, und aller Widerspruch, der in dir selbst dich peinigt, wartet auf deinen Spruch, ihn zu bannen. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
1005:Behauptet das nicht jeder von sich, der Bomben zündet und Leute umbringt? Dass es gute Gründe dafür gibt? Dass es nur die Schuldigen trifft? Was soll das überhaupt heißen, schuldig und unschuldig? ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
1006:Bei einem Volk von der Art des unsrigen”, trug ich vor, “ist das Seelische immer das Primäre und eigentlich Motivierende; die politische Aktion ist zweiter Ordnung, Reflex, Ausdruck, Instrument. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1007:Die Vollkommenheit ist unerreichbar. Gewiß ist die Vollkommenheit unerreichbar. Sie hat nur den Sinn, deinen Weg wie ein Stern zu leiten. Sie ist Richtung und Streben auf etwas hin. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
1008:Irgendwie drängt sich auch dem ganz einfachen Gemüt die Ahnung auf, daß sein Leben in einen ewigen Kreislauf geschaltet, und daß der Tod des einzelnen gar kein so bedeutungsvolles Ereignis ist. ~ Ernst J nger, #NFDB
1009:Man eilt und lärmt und pocht und hastet, wie man sagt, um die Menschheit glücklich zu machen! Es wird gar zu geräuschvoll und industriös in der Menschheit; es gibt zu wenig geistige Ruhe. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1010:„Mit anderen Worten, wenn die Scheiße zu tief wird, dann beabsichtige ich, das Gebiet zu verlassen, statt mich in üblicher Englischlehrerweise zu verhalten und hüfthohe Gummistiefel anzuziehen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1011:Wenn man sie ein bisschen zusammengedrückt hätte, hätte man die ganze Bande mit einer Schrotpatrone erledigen können, und ich kam bald zur Überzeugung, dass das nicht die schlechteste Idee war. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1012:Wer nicht in anderen Städten und bei fremden Meistern gearbeitet hatte, durfte selber nicht Meister werden. Man mußte in der Fremde Geselle gewesen sein, wenn man daheim Meister werden wollte. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
1013:Der erste Schritt zum Überleben ist ein offenes Auge dafür, was zur Hand ist und was als Nächstes getan werden muss. Wer in müßiger Hoffnung auf Hilfe wartet, der vertut sein Leben mit Träumerei. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
1014:Er wollte noch weiter über Gott sprechen, aber ich bin auf ihn zugetreten und habe versucht, ihm ein letztes Mal zu erklären, dass mir wenig Zeit bliebe. Ich wollte sie nicht mit Gott verlieren. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1015:Es ist keineswegs so, daß wir nicht kämpfen wollen, teilte ihre Körpersprache mit. Doch zufälligerweise haben wir derzeit Besseres zu tun, und wir gehen jetzt, um herauszufinden, was dies ist ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1016:Es war Sonntagvormittag. Draußen regnete es Peitschenhiebe. Die Bürger des Landes wurden wieder einmal klimatisch dafür bestraft, dass sie im Wohlstand lebten und trotzdem unzufrieden waren. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
1017:Halbwüchsige [...], die sich in der Welt schon abgehärtet haben, aber noch keine Verantwortung tragen, auch für ihre Körper nicht. Sie vertragen es, wenn Unten einmal Oben ist und umgekehrt. ~ Elfriede Jelinek, #NFDB
1018:Ich war durch meine fürchterliche Situation gezwungen, diese Spaltung in ein Ich Schwarz und ein Ich Weiß zumindest zu versuchen, um nicht erdrückt zu werden von dem grauenhaften Nichts um mich. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1019:Nach dem Verlust meiner Mutter und meiner Schwester glaubte ich, dass ich nichts mehr zu verlieren hätte, doch ich habe mich geirrt. Man hat immer etwas zu verlieren. Solange man lebt jedenfalls. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
1020:„Schließlich ist der Romancier Gottes Lügner, und wenn er seine Arbeit gut macht, wenn er den Kopf und den Mut nicht verliert, kann er manchmal die Wahrheit finden, die im Zentrum der Lüge lebt. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1021:Solange du dir für den Ernstfall ein Schlupfloch lässt und die Verantwortung für das, was du erfährst, doch wieder an den anderen abgibst, solange wirst du nicht herausfinden wie mächtig du bist. ~ Veit Lindau, #NFDB
1022:Was mich wirklich zum Reisen drängt, ist die Aussicht, all das zu verlassen, was ich kenne, und all das zu betreten, was ich nicht kenne. Und möglicherweise niemals verstehen werde. Pico Iyer ~ Andreas Altmann, #NFDB
1023:Wie Manche, die am Hals des Freundes hängt,
Sagt wohl das Wort: sie lieb' ihn, o so sehr,
Daß sie vor Liebe gleich ihn essen könnte;
Und hinterher, das Wort beprüft, die Närrinn! ~ Heinrich von Kleist,#NFDB
1024:Wissen kann man mitteilen, Weisheit aber nicht. Man kann sie finden, man kann sie leben, man kann von ihr getragen werden, man kann mit ihr Wunder tun, aber sagen und lehren kann man sie nicht. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1025:and when she had tired1 herself out with trying, the poor2 little3 thing4 sat down and cried5. und als sie sich ganz müde1 gearbeitet hatte, setzte sich das arme2, kleine3 Ding4 hin und weinte5. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
1026:Die Liebe weckt in dir den Wunsch, ein bessere Mensch zu werden - gut und schön. Aber vielleicht gibt dir die Liebe, die wahre Liebe, auch die Erlaubnis, einfach der Mensch zu sein, der du bist. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
1027:Ich habe viele Brüder in Sutanen im Süden, wo in Klöstern Lorbeer steht. Ich weiß, wie menschlich sie Madonnen planen, und träume oft von jungen Tizianen, durch die der Gott in Gluten geht. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1028:Inzwischen hätten sie Bürokratie und Steuern erfinden können, um die Bürger mit wahrem Kummer zu geißeln. Statt dessen haben wir nur einen Haufen zweitklassiger Axtmörder. Welche Verschwendung ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1029:Man fühlte Kummer und ein eigentümliches Mitleid, das einen schließlich vermuten ließ, es sei eine gute Idee, die ganze Menschheit auszulöschen und mit Amöben noch einmal von vorn zu beginnen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1030:Niemand erinnert sich an irgendwas. Ein Volk von Eintagsfliegen. Als hätte es nie ein gestern gegeben. Und an den morgigen Tag will niemand denken. Das Einzige, was existiert, ist das Jetzt. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
1031:Wie kann man lachen, richtig lachen, in solcher Welt mit sanierten Wirtschaftsführern, die tausend Fehler gemacht haben, und kleinen, entwürdigten, zertretenen Leuten, die stets ihr Bestes taten? ~ Hans Fallada, #NFDB
1032:Er legte sich zurück, bedeckte die Augen mit einem Arm und versuchte, sich an seine Wut zu klammern, denn mit dieser Wut fühlte er sich tapfer. Ein tapferer Mann konnte denken. Ein Feigling nicht. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1033:Jede Anekdote endete allerdings mit der Feststellung, warum es sich trotzdem lohnte, eine Rossfrau zu lieben: Ihr Hintern blieb bis ins hohe Alter straff, sie wollte keine Kinder und ging nicht fremd. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1034:Man sollte alle Tage wenigstens ein kleines Lied hören, ein gutes Gedicht lesen, ein treffliches Gemälde sehen und, wenn es möglich zu machen wäre, einige vernünftige Worte sprechen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1035:Nähe ist nicht die Unterbrechung von Distanz, sondern ihre Überwindung. Spannung ist nicht der Mangel an Vollkommenem, sondern das stete Zusteuern darauf, und das wiederholte Festhalten daran. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
1036:"Und seid versichert, diese Frau hatte tatsächlich ein Herz, und zwar ein größeres, als die meisten Leute vermutet hätten. Da war eine Menge drin, aufgestapelt, meterhoch auf verborgenen Regalen. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
1037:Alles Urdenken geschieht in Bildern: darum ist die Phantasie ein so nothwendiges Werkzeug desselben, und werden phantasielose Köpfe nie etwas Großes leisten, - es sei denn in der Mathematik. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1038:Blind tastete ich auf dem Nachttisch herum, und meine Finger schoben sich zwischen Romane, die ich nicht mehr las, weil man einfach nicht zurück konnte, wenn man erst mal mit E-Books angefangen hatte. ~ Max Barry, #NFDB
1039:Dass ich meine Jugend in einem Heim verbracht hatte, überraschte sie kaum: „Als ich dich das erste Mal essen und alles wie verrückt in dich reinschlingen sah, dachte ich nur: Knast oder Internat. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1040:Die Schichten unseres Lebens ruhen so dicht aufeinander auf, daß uns um Späteren immer Früheres begegnet, nicht als Abgetanes und Erledigtes, sondern gegenwärtig und lebendig. Ich verstehe das. ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
1041:Du suchst dir die Enden aus und die Anfänge. Du kannst den Rahmen wählen, verstehst du? Du entscheidest vielleicht nicht, was auf dem Bild ist, aber wenigstens kannst du dir den Ausschnitt aussuchen. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1042:Gott hat euren Seelen Flügel verliehen, auf dass sie sich damit in den Himmel der Freiheit und Liebe erheben. Warum schneidet Ihr sie ab und kriecht wie Insekten auf der Erdoberfläche? Khalil Gibran ~ Veit Lindau, #NFDB
1043:ich aufrichtender Mensch und noch nicht ausdeterminierte reale Möglichkeit, das sind für die Entwicklung unseres Lebens, unserer Literatur, Philosophie, Praxis sicher die unabdingbarsten Kategorien. ~ Ernst Bloch, #NFDB
1044:Ich bin ein Jude, und wenn es etwas gibt, was Juden in ein bissel mehr als sechstausend Jahren gelernt haben, dann ist es, dass man Kompromisse eingehen muss, um es bis siebentausend zu schaffen. ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
1045:Nichts auf der Welt verabscheue ich mehr als kollektive Aktivität, diese öffentliche Badeanstalt, wo sich die Behaarten und die Glitschigen zu einer Multiplizierung der Mittelmäßigkeit treffen. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1046:Und es sollte mir einmal mehr beweisen, dass eine Gelegenheit geradewegs zu einer anderen führt, genauso wie ein Risiko ein weiteres nach sich zieht, ein Leben ein anderes und ein Tod den nächsten. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
1047:Wahrscheinlich werde ich jede Nacht von dir träumen", sagte er. "Und wenn ich aufwache, weiß ich, dass der beste Teil des Tages schon vorbei ist."
"Das hast du irgendwo gelesen."
"Hab ich nicht. ~ Kai Meyer,#NFDB
1048:Das Leben ist wie ein Spiegel, auf den du zugehst. Je weiter du läufst, desto näher kommst du dir. Und mit jedem Jahr, das du hinter dir lässt, erkennst du ein wenig mehr von dem, was du wirklich bist. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1049:Du bist gleichzeitig das Feuer und das Wasser, das es löscht. Du bist der Erzähler, der Held und die Nebenfigur. Du bist der Autor und die Geschichte. Du bist jemandes Irgendwas, aber du bist auch du. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1050:Ich finde, wenn Kinder geboren werden, die man nicht haben will, dann sollten sie gleich tot gemacht werden, ehe sie Seelen kriegen, und man sollte sie gar nicht groß werden und herum laufen lassen! ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
1051:In Deutschland wartet der Staatsanwalt, weil man nicht in ausländischen Terrortruppen tätig sein darf. Das ist strafbar. Und die Strafen sind hoch. Das ist ja auch nicht gerade einladend, oder? ~ J rgen Todenh fer, #NFDB
1052:In Sachen Apokalypse ist er genau der richtige Mann für den Job – einer, der weiß, wie man zum Gebet niederkniet, und mit dem Herrn der himmlischen Heerscharen reden kann wie mit einem alten Freund. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1053:Weit hinten, jenseits des Tashmore-Sees, schimmerten die Tannen graugrün in der Sonne. Dumme Bäume, hatte Großvater einmal gesagt, sie kennen nicht einmal den Unterschied zwischen Sommer und Winter. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1054:Das Ganze der Erfahrung gleicht einer Geheimschrift und die Philosophie der Entzifferung derselben. The whole of experience is like a cryptograph, and philosophy is like the deciphering of it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1055:Es waren die Sterne von Hassenden, und weil das so war, fühlte Harold sich berufen, heute nacht etwas auf sie zu wünschen. Sternenglanz, Sternenschein, laß den Wunsch erfüllet sein. Fallt alle tot um ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1056:habt Ihr nicht selbst ein Weib? Die holde Emilia?«
»Deshalb weiß ich ja, wovon ich spreche. Lug und Trug in hübscher Hülle, das sind sie alle. Wehe dem Mann, der anders denkt und ihnen traut. ~ Christopher Moore,#NFDB
1057:Mußt du als Mensch unbedingt etwas anziehen?«
»Ja.«
»Warum? Ich dachte, eine nackte Frau wäre überall und in jeder Gesellschaft zu Hause. Damit möchte ich niemandem zu nahe treten. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
1058:Wahre Liebe ist langweilig, wie jede andere starke und süchtig machende Droge – sobald die Geschichte von Begegnung und Entdeckung erzählt ist, werden Küsse schnell schal und Zärtlichkeiten ermüdend. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1059:das Personal sei »streng angewiesen, jeden Gast zufriedenzustellen« und fragte sich, ob die Beschäftigten zu »Apparaten umgebaut« worden seien, die auf Anweisung in beste Stimmung versetzt werden können. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1060:Das Wesentliche an der Existenz des Menschen ist ja, dass er sich über das Tierreich und seine instiktive Anpassung erhoben hat, dass er die Natur transzendiert hat, wenn er sie auch nie ganz verlässt. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1061:Die meisten verarbeiten den größten Teil der Zeit, um zu leben, und das bißchen, das ihnen von Freiheit übrig bleibt, ängstigt sie so, daß sie alle Mittel aufsuchen, um es loszuwerden... ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1062:„Doch Gebote, die von göttlichen Lippen verkündet werden, überdauern Jahrhunderte. Es braucht gar nicht viel. Man muss nur einen Gott schaffen und ihm beibringen, die richtigen Worte zu sprechen. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
1063:Farrens Grinsen wurde breiter, und der große Mann wich vor seiner gefährlichen Kraft zurück. "Versuch dein Glück, wenn du willst. Dich in Stücke zu hauen wäre das erste Vergnügen, das ich heute hätte. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1064:In den Ländern mit den höchsten Werten von Omega-3-Fettsäuren in der Muttermilch schnitten die Jugendlichen in den Pisa-Tests am besten ab. Diese Fettsäuren sind vor allem in Fischen und Algen enthalten. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1065:Ja! Ich weiß, woher ich stamme!
Ungesättigt gleich der Flamme
Glühe und verzehr' ich mich.
Licht wird alles, was ich fasse,
Kohle alles, was ich lasse:
Flamme bin ich sicherlich. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
1066:Jeder ist immer erreichbar. Die ganze Welt beschleunigt sich, alles ist dringend, und wo alles dringend ist, ist nichts mehr dringend, und damit schlittern wir in eine Bedeutungslosigkeit hinein. ~ Joseph Weizenbaum, #NFDB
1067:Mädchen, Dichter sind, die von euch lernen
das zu sagen, was ihr einsam seid;
und sie lernen leben an euch Fernen,
wie die Abende an großen Sternen
sich gewöhnen an die Ewigkeit. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
1068:Seiner größten Hingabe an die Wissenschaft war es niemals gelungen, ihn vergessen zu machen, daß die Schönheit und Güte der Menschen von dem kommen, was sie glauben, und nicht von dem, was sie wissen. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1069:Bitte nehmen sie zur Kenntnis, dass es für Niedergeschlagenheit in diesem Haus keinen Platz gibt und die Möglichkeit eines Scheiterns nicht in Betracht gezogen wird. Wir leugnen die Existenz von beidem. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
1070:Das war die Frau mit ihren plötzlichen Ängsten, ihren grundlosen Launen, ihren unwillkürlichen Verwirrungen, ihren unmotivierten Kühnheiten, ihren Wagnissen und ihrer reizenden Zartheit der Gefühle. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1071:Dies ist eine Todesstätte," dachte er, "und nicht nur hier. Alle diese Räume. Jedes Stockwerk."
"Ja, Revolvermann, flüsterte die Stimme des Turms. Aber nur, weil dein Leben sie dazu gemacht hat. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1072:Dies ist nicht Ankh. Das erkenne ich an Einzelheiten wie zum Beispiel den zitternden roten Schatten und Schreien in der Ferne." Rincewind seufzte. "In Ankh-Morpork erklingen die Schreie in der Nähe. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1073:Ihr seid beide so nachgiebig, daß ihr nie zu einem Entschluß kommen werdet, so gutgläubig, daß euch alle Dienstboten übers Ohr hauen, und so freigebig, daß ihr ständig eure Einkünfte übersteigen werdet. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1074:Ja, vergiß nur, daß es Menschen gibt, darbendes, angefochtenes, tausendfach geärgertes Herz! und kehre wieder dahin, wo du ausgingst, in die Arme der Natur, der wandellosen, stillen und schönen. ~ Friedrich H lderlin, #NFDB
1075:This author has nothing but imagination…there are people who claim that imagination has clearer and keener eyes than a wise, old mind.”
Translated from: Und Friede auf Erden, (1904) (And Peace on Earth) ~ Karl May,#NFDB
1076:Vielleicht war das Bild, das die eigene Familie von einem hatte, zu sehr mit ihren Hoffnungen und Ängsten vermischt, als dass sie einen jemals wirklich als die Person sehen konnten, die man war. ~ J Courtney Sullivan, #NFDB
1077:Wenn du in's Fettnäpfchen getreten bist und jemand dir freundlicherweise die Hand hinstreckt, um dich da rauszuholen, dann solltest du die Hilfe vielleicht annehmen, anstatt dich auch noch darin zu wälzen. ~ Ali Shaw, #NFDB
1078:Wenn wir uns unser Äußeres und inneres Wesen vertauscht denken - also uns das Wesen als das Äußere vorstellen und umgekehrt - dann wird doch der Sinn unseres Daseins besser verständlich, nicht wahr? ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1079:Wir haben unser Leben nicht in der Hand. Manche Dinge geschehen ohne unser Zutun und manche können wir nicht aufhalten. Eins bleibt uns aber immer erhalten: die Wahl zwischen Aufgeben und Weitermachen. ~ Nick Vujicic, #NFDB
1080:Wir sind eben bloß zeitliche, endliche, vergängliche, traumartige, wie Schatten vorüberfliegende Wesen." Und was sollte denen ein "Intellekt, der unendliche, ewige, absolute Verhältnisse fasste? ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1081:Das Gedächtnis ist ein geduldiger Gärtner, und der winzige Samen, den ich an jenem Abend im Internat in meinem Kopf angelegt habe, ist im Laufe der Jahre zu einer prächtigen Erinnerung herangewachsen. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1082:Ich weiß nicht, ob die verdummte Unterhaltung nach und nach dem kollektiven Intellekt unserer Nation geschadet hat oder ob die geistige Faulheit des Publikums zuerst da war und wir sie nur bedient haben. ~ Joey Goebel, #NFDB
1083:Und was das Ende des Universums betrifft … lasst es kommen, wie es will, sage ich, in Eis, Feuer oder Nacht. Was hat das Universum jemals für mich getan, dass ich mich um sein Wohlergehen sorgen sollte? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1084:Aber im Gegensatz zum Familienzimmer war dies ein Ort, den er als sein eigen betrachtete – ein Ort, wo er die Fremde, die er geheiratet und den Fremden, den sie zur Welt gebracht hatte, aussperren konnte ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1085:Als hätte er gerade etwas entdeckt, was er längst hätte wissen müssen, murmelte er darauf traurig, Aus diesem Material sind wir gemacht, zur Hälfte aus Gleichgültigkeit und zur Hälfte aus Schlechtigkeit. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
1086:[D]as Denken an sich gilt nicht mehr als Tugend, sondern als Zeitverschwendung. Es wird von spezialisierten Experten erledigt, und seit das so ist, erkennen wir die Philosophie in ihrer ganzen Nutzlosigkeit. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1087:Endlich in eine Falle der Sehnsucht gegangen, dachte er wirr, dass, hätte er sie geheiratet, er dann ein Mann ohne Krieg und Ruhm geworden wäre, ein namenloser Handwerker, ein glückliches Tier. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
1088:»Es war ein Blackout«, sagte der Redakteur. »Das erste richtig erstklassige Blackout meines Lebens – aber die signalisieren immer das Ende, und man hat nie sehr viele. So oder so, man hat nie sehr viele. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1089:Ich schwieg und dachte daran, was für ein Aschenputteldasein sieh geführt hatte, bis Mr. Wopsles Großtante endlich die schlechte Gewohnheit aufgab zu leben, die manche Menschen besser ablegen sollten. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1090:In der Nacht waren sie der Gegenstand seiner Träume, und während des Tages trieb ihn der Eifer, seinem Vorbild ähnlich zu werden, hinaus und stachelte ihn zu dem Vorsatz an, die gleichen Taten zu verrichten. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
1091:Merkwürdig, wie wir die andern beurteilen und nicht merken, wie elend unsere Geringschätzung ist - bis sie uns fehlen, bis man sie uns wegnimmt. Man nimmt sie uns weg, weil sie uns nie gehört haben. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1092:Und ich dachte, dass die Zeit ein Dieb ist. Sie stiehlt uns alles. Zuerst gibt sie uns alles, aber dann müssen wir alles abliefern. Menschen, Begegnungen, Momente. So einfach ist das. So grausam ist das. ~ H kan Nesser, #NFDB
1093:Eine immer schnellere Montage aus unzusammenhängenden Bildern, und plötzlich sehe ich doch wieder vor mir, was vor meinem Motorradunfall geschehen ist. Der Abgrund blickt mich an. Und ich blicke zurück. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1094:(Er) hat in unbegreiflicher Verblendung übersehen, daß ein Mensch auch ohne selbstständige Ideen und ohne Persönlichkeit in dem Augenblick Wesen und Inhalt annimt, in dem man Macht auf ihn überträgt. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
1095:Ich könnte so etwas nie. Mir fehlen die Reserven, um Verantwortung für andere Menschen zu übernehmen. Die Last meines eigenen Lebens und meiner Einsamkeit zu tragen kostet mich schon meine ganze Kraft. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1096:Rast. Gast sein einmal. Nicht immer selbst seine Wünsche bewirten mit kärglicher Kost. Nicht immer feindlich nach allem fassen, einmal sich alles geschehen lassen und wissen: was geschieht, ist gut. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1097:Rincewind spähte an dem Arm entlang und entdeckte an seinem Ende ein großes, zorniges Gesicht, das ihm mitteilte: Viel Bier sehnte sich nach einem Streit, und der Rest des Körpers teilte diesen Wunsch. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1098:Sie erinnern mich an Mr. Piazzis Hund. Sie knurren zwar noch nicht, aber wenn jemand Sie streicheln will, verdrehen Sie die Augen. Und Sie haben schon vor langer Zeit aufgehört, mit dem Schwanz zu wedeln. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1099:„So ist es,“ sagte die Herzogin, „und die Moral davon ist – Mit Liebe und Gesange hält man die Welt im Gange!“
„Wer sagte denn,“ flüsterte Alice, „es geschehe dadurch, daß Jeder vor seiner Thüre fege. ~ Lewis Carroll,#NFDB
1100:Despoten neigten dazu, ihre Versprechen einfach zu vergessen, und Spatzen in der Hand hatten die ärgerliche Angewohnheit, einem in die Finger zu picken, in die Handfläche zu scheißen und dann wegzufliegen. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1101:Ganz beglückte Zeiten brauchten den Gelehrten nicht und kannten ihn nicht, ganz erkrankte und verdrossene Zeiten schätzten ihn als den höchsten und würdigsten Menschen und gaben ihm den ersten Rang. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1102:Ich wage kaum die Hände auszustrecken, wie in einem engen Spiegelzimmer, aus Furcht überall anzustoßen, daß die schönen Figuren in Scherben auf dem Boden lägen und ich vor der kahlen, nackten Wand stünde. ~ Georg B chner, #NFDB
1103:Ich will begreifen, was Liebe ist, aber bislang leide ich nur. Diejenigen, die meine Seele berühren, können meinen Körper nicht erwecken. Und die, denen ich mich hingebe, können meine Seele nicht berühren. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1104:Indem Sie herkommen und gute Bücher lesen, die, die Ihnen gefallen, nicht die, von denen ich oder sonst jemand sagt, Sie sollen sie lesen - ich mag zwar affektiert sein, aber ein Pedant bin ich nicht. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1105:Mit Worten über Worte sprechen zu wollen, das ist, als würde man versuchen, mit einem Bleistift eben diesen Bleistift zu zeichnen, und zwar auf dem Bleistift sebst. Unmöglich. Verwirrend. Frustrierend. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1106:Und weil die Soldaten durchaus einsahen, dass ein Bauer ohne Hof nicht überlebensfähig war, hängten sie ihn der Ordnung halber an den nächsten Baum und zogen weiter. Niemand regte sich groß darüber auf. ~ Frank Sch tzing, #NFDB
1107:Einen einzigen Gedanken hatte er, eine einzige Liebe, eine einzige Leidenschaft: die Bücher! Und diese Liebe, diese Leidenschaft verbrannten sein Inneres, verdarben sein Leben, verschlangen sein Dasein. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
1108:Er lächelte wie ein vielbeschäftigter Mann, der am Ende eines arbeitsreichen Tages folgenden Eintrag in seinem Terminkalender findet: 19.00 Uhr bis 19.05 Uhr: fröhlich, entspannt und allgemein nett sein. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1109:Hölle. Wer nicht glauben kann und sich doch danach sehnt, wer weiß, wie erbärmlich der Aufkläricht ist und ihn doch nicht loswird, der weiß auch, was Hölle ist. Wissend in den Unglauben verbannt zu sein. ~ Oswald Spengler, #NFDB
1110:Hundert Meter entfernt tauchte der größte Tintenfisch auf, den Rincewind jemals gesehen hatte, schlug wild mit den Tentakeln und versank wieder in den reißenden Fluten ... Das Ende der Welt rückte näher. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1111:In allen Schichten war er bekannt, bis tief hinein in das Herz der Gesellschaft, aber die wirklich wichtigen Reaktionen wurden hoch oben und tief unten ausgelöst. Bei den Gewinnern und bei den Verlierern. ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
1112:Jeder erzählt in seinem eigenen Kopf eine Geschichte über sich. Ununterbrochen. Die ganze Zeit. Und diese Geschichte macht einen zu dem, der man ist. Wir gründen unser ganzes Leben auf diese Geschichte. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1113:Liebst du?
Ich höre ihre Stimme, die das sagt – manchmal höre ich sie noch. In meinen Träumen.
Liebst du?
Ja, antworte ich. Ja – und wahre Liebe wird niemals enden.
Dann wache ich schreiend auf. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1114:Manchmal braucht man im Leben etwas, in dem man sich verlieren kann, sodass man keinen Schmerz, kein Leid, nichts anderes mehr spürt. Etwas, das alles betäubt, und wenn es nur für eine kurze Weile ist. ~ Michelle Leighton, #NFDB
1115:Mein Vater, sagte Georg, hat das Fahrrad zum Bahnhof mitgenommen, damit er auf dem Hinweg nicht so nahe neben mir gehen muss und auf dem Rückweg nicht an seinen Händen spürt, dass er allein nach Hause geht. ~ Herta M ller, #NFDB
1116:Sein Problem besteht darin, daß er den Unterschied zwischen Postulaten und den Metaphern der menschlichen Existenz nicht kennt. Es fällt ihm sogar schwer, Axiome von einem Loch im Boden zu unterscheiden. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1117:Wenn du ins Fettnäpfchen getreten bist und dir jemand freundlicherweise die Hand hinstreckt, um dich da wieder rauszuholen, dann solltest du die Hilfe vielleicht annehmen, anstatt dich auch noch drin zu wälzen. ~ Ali Shaw, #NFDB
1118:Wir Männer sind imstande, Frauen allein schon durch einen veränderten Tonfall oder mit einem drohenden und kaltschnäuzigen Satz Angst zu machen, unsere Hände sind starker und drücken seit Jahrhunderten zu. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
1119:Wir sind voller Begegnungen, Begegnungen ohne Dauer und ohne Abschied, wie die Sterne. Sie nähern sich, stehen Lichtsekunden nebeneinander entfernen sich wieder: ohne Spur, ohne Bindung, ohne Abschied. ~ Wolfgang Borchert, #NFDB
1120:[D]as Meer war unzerstörbar. Tausend Flotten hinterließen auf ihm keine Spur. Das Meer sah jeden Tag anders aus und blieb sich darin bis in Ewigkeit gleich. Solange es das Meer gab, war die Welt nicht elend. ~ Sten Nadolny, #NFDB
1121:Es gibt Dinge die wir wissen (bekannte Tatsachen), es gibt Dinge, die wir nicht wissen (bekannte Unbekannte), und es gibt Dinge, von denen wir nicht wissen, dass wir sie nicht wissen (unbekannte Unbekannte). ~ Rolf Dobelli, #NFDB
1122:Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,
Juristerei und Medizin,
Und leider auch Theologie
Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn.
Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor!
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor; ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
1123:Jeder Mensch hat dieses kleine schwache Etwas, das zitternd am Boden seines Herzens liegt, und bisweilen ist es sicher besser, es hochzunehmen, sich darum zu kümmern und den Tränen freien Lauf zu lassen. ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
1124:Wackford tat nur wenige Dinge schnell, und sprechen gehörte nicht dazu. Er war fleißig, bemüht und stark wie ein junger Dockarbeiter, aber Geschwindigkeit war für ihn ein Fremdwort wie Frontispiz und Faksimile. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
1125:Was das ist, ein wirklich lebender Mensch, das weiss man heute allerdings weniger als jemals, und man schiesst denn auch Menschen, deren jeder ein kostbarer, einmaliger Versuch der Natur ist, zu Mengen tot. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1126:Willst du gewinnen, so greif an und kämpfe, ganz egal, wie groß das Risiko dabei ist. Es ist immer besser, etwas zu bereuen, was man getan hat, als etwas, was man nicht getan hat. Also, nun bist du am Zug. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1127:„Er betrachtete die halbe Portion Rührei, die noch auf seinem Teller lag, und grübelte. Nun ja, es war nicht das Rührei das grübelte, sondern Arne. Genauer gesagt Arne Albin Hektor Murberg aus K. in Schweden. ~ H kan Nesser, #NFDB
1128:Toto wusste, dass Tiere über die gleiche Intelligenz verfügen wie Menschen und allein durch eine Verkettung unglücklicher evolutionärer Umstände in Körper ohne Stimme und ohne praktische Hände geboren werden. ~ Sibylle Berg, #NFDB
1129:Und dasTotsein ist mu« hsam und voller Nachholn, dass man allm a« hlich ein wenig Ewigkeit spu« rt. And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1130:Wenn ich ihn unterschätze, dachte Roland, werde ich mir wahrscheinlich eine blutige Pfote holen. Und wenn ich ihn im Stich lasse oder etwas tue, was ihm wie Verrat vorkommt, wird er mich wahrscheinlich töten. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1131:Das Recht ist kein Kreißsaal für die Gerechtigkeit und hat niemals behauptet, einer zu sein. Das Recht besteht aus Gesetzen, Gesetze bestehen aus Wörtern, und Wörter können manches sein, sicher aber nicht gerecht. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1132:Der Mensch behauptet, viel zu wissen;
Doch seht nur, wie sie überschießen,
Die Künste und die Wissenschaften,
Die tausend Errungenschaften;
Der Wind, der weht,
Ist alles, was er versteht. ~ Henry David Thoreau,#NFDB
1133:Die Natürlichkeit, diese Direktheit der Israelis im Umgang miteinander, sagte Inbar, das ist unsere größte Errungenschaft, das ist mehr wert als das Trockenlegen der Sümpfe und unsere ganze High-Tech-Industrie. ~ Eshkol Nevo, #NFDB
1134:Man vertraue niemals einem Herrscher, der sich auf geheime Tunnel, Schlupfwinkel und Fluchtwege verläßt. In einem solchen Fall spricht vieles dafür, daß er seine Regierungspflichten nicht ernst genug nimmt. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1135:Sie hatten Angst vor dem Abschied, und zugleich versetzte sein Bevorstehen sie in eigentümliche Leichtigkeit. Sie waren nicht mehr im gemeinsamen und noch nicht im eigenen Leben, sie waren im Niemandsland. ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
1136:Aber er hatte lange genug gelebt, um zu wissen, dass alle Zeichen trügen und dass wir in unsrer Eifersucht, trotz ihrer hundert Augen, oft noch mehr in die Irre gehen, als in der Blindheit unsres Vertrauens. ~ Theodor Fontane, #NFDB
1137:Die Gaste liessen ihre Fingergelenke knacken und schauten uns mordlustern an. Ich fragte mich wirklich woher sie wohl kamen. Irgendwoher, wo Kinder mit rohem Fleisch gefuttert und mit Stocken geschlagen wurden. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1138:Einsamkeit ist bereits so lange Jack Sawyers engste Vertraute, dass er sie schon für selbstverständlich hält. Und was sich nicht ändern lässt, wird irgendwann zu einem nicht mehr wahrgenommenen Hintergrundbild. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1139:Es gibt nichts Frühlingshafteres als rostbraunschwarze Bahnhofsanlagen vor knospenden Bäumen, beschienen von praller Sonne. Die Menschen sind noch hellgesichtig, weißhalsig und bleicharmig und gleißen im Licht. ~ Sten Nadolny, #NFDB
1140:Nadejdzie dzień, gdy kłamstwa zawalą się pod własnym ciężarem, a prawda ponownie zatriumfuje (Eines Tages werden die Lügen unter ihrer eigenen Last zusammenbrechen, und die Wahrheit wird wieder triumphieren) ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
1141:„Wenn auch der menschliche Geist durch vielfache Erfindungen mit verschiedenen Instrumenten auf dasselbe Ziel zugeht, nie wird er eine Erfindung machen, die schöner, leichter und kürzer wäre als die Natur. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
1142:Beten heißt Gott nahekommen und nahe bleiben wollen, weil er uns nahegekommen ist. Beten können wir nur, weil Christus da ist, in ihm hat unser Gebet seinen Grund, denn durch ihn haben wir Gott zum Vater. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1143:Dennoch gibt es etwas, was einige von uns in Augenblicken, die ihnen selbst as verbrecherisch erscheinen, andere aber frank und permanent, mehr fürchten als die deutsche Niederlage, und das ist der deutsche Sieg. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1144:Die menschliche Vernunft ist zur Führerin der Menschen offenbar zu unvermögend; denn nur wenige sind im Stande gut zu urteilen und keiner vermag über alles gut zu urteilen; so daß es im allgemeinen gut ist. ~ Joseph de Maistre, #NFDB
1145:Es wäre ihnen ein Leichtes, die Erde zu erobern, sie haben es aber bislang nicht versucht, weil dazu keine Notwendigkeit bestand. Sie lassen die Dinge lieber so, wie sie sind, und ersparen sich die Scherereien. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
1146:Ich liebe Lippen. Um ihrer Farbe, ihrer Form und ihrer Weichheit willen. Ich liebe sie, weil sie sich nicht berühren, wenn sie sagen: "Ich hasse dich", und weil sie sich berühren, wenn sie sagen: "Ich liebe dich". ~ Fabio Volo, #NFDB
1147:Kalte Zugluft macht den Hals starr und das Blickfeld klein. Man sieht nur geradeaus zum vermeintlichen Ziel und nicht zur Seite, wo die Augenblicke stattfinden, für die es sich lohnt, die Fahrt zu bestreiten ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
1148:Möcht' ich ein Komet seyn? Ich glaube. Denn sie haben die Schnelligkeit der Vögel; sie blühen an Feuer, und sind wie Kinder in Reinheit. Größeres zu wünschen, kann nicht des Menschen Natur sich vermessen. ~ Friedrich H lderlin, #NFDB
1149:Oft lese ich ganze Seiten und weiß gar nicht, was ich gelesen habe. Ich fange dann noch einmal von vorn an und entdecke, daß das schön ist, was ich gelesen habe. Es handelt von Menschen, die unglücklich sind. ~ Thomas Bernhard, #NFDB
1150:Oh mein Sohn, es wird auch berichtet, dass Luqman (der Weise) seinem Sohn riet: "Oh Sohn, du möchtest doch nicht, dass der Hahn gescheiter ist als du. Er kräht zur Morgendämmerung und du schläfst weiter. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
1151:Rechtzeitig hatte der Junge damals schon vermutet, dass das Leben ein entsetzlicher Tumult war und man grundsätzlich gut daran tat, ihm im Zustand absoluter und radikaler Ahnungslosigkeit entgegenzutreten. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
1152:Wir sollten uns um die kümmern, die uns wichtig sind und die einen guten Kern haben.
Das muss eine der Maximen im Leben sein, und der Teufel tritt die in den Allerwertesten, die nicht danach handeln. ~ J n Kalman Stef nsson,#NFDB
1153:Aber warum Trübsal blasen, wenn das ganze goldene Land vor einem liegt und alle möglichen ungeahnten Ereignisse auf einen warten, einen überraschen und glücklich machen wollen, weil man lebt und sie erleben kann. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1154:Individuen haben nicht etwa automatisch eine Mitgliedskarte für die Menschheit – das trifft nur in biologischer Hinsicht zu. Sie müssen von der Brownschen Bewegung der Gesellschaft hin und her gestoßen werden. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1155:Lasse ab von "wie". Klope weiter an Türen und drehe Steine um, aber beharre nicht darauf, hinter welcher Tür oder unter welchem Stein du das Gesuchte findest. Konzentriere dich ausschliesslich auf das Endergebnis. ~ Mike Dooley, #NFDB
1156:Man hat es leichter, wenn man selber weg muß, die Angst wegträgt, und das Glück da läßt, und vom anderen erwartet wird. Zu Hause sitzen und warten dehnt die Zeit zum Zerreißen und treibt die Angst auf die Spitze. ~ Herta M ller, #NFDB
1157:Polòtain kann mir alles nehmen, aber nicht sie. NICHT SIE! Städte hätte ich nach ihr benannt und Tempel für sie errichtet. Nun verstößt sie mich, ohne dass ich weiß, warum! Ohne dass sie es mir sagte! - Sinthoras ~ Markus Heitz, #NFDB
1158:Walczyć mogę tylko o coś, co miłuję, miłuję tylko to, co szanuję, szanuję tylko to, co rozumiem (Und kämpfen kann ich nur für etwas, das ich liebe, lieben nur, was ich achte, und achten, was ich mindestens kenne) ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
1159:Die Dämonen der Scheibenwelt haben mindestens ebensolange existiert wie die Götter, denen sie in vielerlei Hinsicht ähneln. Der Unterschied ist mit dem zwischen Terroristen und Freiheitskämpfern zu vergleichen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1160:Ich lebe so glückliche Tage, wie sie Gott seinen Heiligen aufspart; und mit mir mag werden was will, so darf ich nicht sagen, daß ich die Freuden, die reinsten Freuden des Lebens nicht genossen habe. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1161:Wenn wir ein Lebewesen damit beauftragen wollten, sich in der Einsamkeit des Kosmos um Lebendiges zu kümmern, zu überwachen, was daraus wird und wohin es geht, sollte man für diese Aufgabe keine Menschen auswählen. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1162:Wir werden die vier Feinde in dieser Reihenfolge behandeln, weil auch der Weg der Befreiung durch die Überwindung von Ärger, Angst und Selbstbezogenheit im Allgemeinen diesen Verlauf von außen nach innen nimmt. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
1163:die Augen waren grün und neugierig wie die Augen eines Katers, der alt genug war, weise zu sein, aber noch nicht so alt, dass er den feinen Sinn für Grausamkeit verloren hätte, der in Katzenkreisen als spaßig galt. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1164:Er blätterte in den dicken, alten Alben mit Lichtbildern seiner Familie, [...], und je näher er den Anfängen dieser neuen Bildkunst zu blätterte, desto stolzer, kam ihm vor, hatten sich die Menschen ihr dargeboten. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1165:Aber man weiß ja, was man von unseren Zeitungen zu halten hat. Da notiert der Schwerhörige, was ihm der Blinde berichtet, der Dorftrottel korrigiert es, und die Kollegen in den anderen Pressehäusern schreiben es ab. ~ Timur Vermes, #NFDB
1166:Die ersten Autos kamen angefahren und hupten, während ich noch mitten auf der Straße war. Nicht, dass ich es darauf anlegte, dass ich überfahren wurde, aber ich ließ es ein bisschen mehr als sonst darauf ankommen. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1167:Er hat keine Ahnung, wovon er redet. Er weiß nicht, dass er mit einer Person spricht, die noch nie mit jemandem reden konnte. Einer Person, die nur zwei Leute wirklich kannten. Und diese beiden Leute sind jetzt fort. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
1168:Glück malt man mit Punkten, Unglück mit Strichen", sagte sie. "Du musst, wenn du unser Glück beschreiben willst, ganz viele kleine Punkte machen wie Seurat. Und dass es Glück war, wird man erst aus der Distanz sehen. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
1169:Hundert teppichklopfende Weiber können einen Himmel erstürmen, können jungen Schwalben die Flügelspitzen stumpf machen und brachten Oskars in die Aprilluft getrommeltes Tempelchen mit weningen Schlägen zum Einsturz. ~ G nter Grass, #NFDB
1170:Natürlich, es ist das Ende, und wir sterben. Aber das heißt nicht, dass wir nicht noch lange da sein, andere Menschen finden, spazierengehen, nachts träumen und alles erledigen können, was eine Marionette so tut. ~ Daniel Kehlmann, #NFDB
1171:Nur die eigenen Eltern freuen sich aufrichtig, wenn man mit irgendwas Erfolg hat, mit allen anderen versteht man sich am besten, wenn man ab und zu seufzt, ein bisschen jammert und zwischendurch euphorisch nickt. ~ Ronja von R nne, #NFDB
1172:So vertraulich, so heimlich hab' ich nicht leicht ein Plätzchen gefunden, und dahin lass' ich mein Tischchen aus dem Wirtshause bringen und meinen Stuhl, trinke meinen Kaffee da und lesen meinen Homer. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1173:Über besorgte Bürger wusste er Bescheid. Wo auch immer sie sich aufhielten: Sie sprachen immer die gleiche private Sprache, in der »traditionelle Werte« und ähnliche Ausdrücke auf »jemanden lynchen« hinausliefen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1174:Wenn ich rechne und sehe ein winziges Insekt das auf meine Papier geflogen ist dann fühle ich etwas wie Allah ist Gross (Allahu Akbar) und wir sind armseliges Tröpfe mit unseren ganzen Wissenschaften Herrlichkeit ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1175:Wenn sie zusammen waren, liebten sie sich wie Katzen oder Frettchen, wanden sich und zischten und krallten; bissen einander und verfluchten einander, und bis jetzt hatten sie beide noch nicht einmal annähernd genug. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1176:Wir kommen aus einer Welt, in der wir unglaubliche Maßstäbe der Vollkommenheit gekannt haben, und erinnern uns deutlich der Schönheiten, die wir nie festzuhalten vermochten, und kehren wieder in jene Welt zurück. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
1177:Der Freiheit Inhalt, intellektuell gesehen, ist Wahrheit, und die Wahrheit macht den Menschen frei. Eben darum aber ist die Wahrheit ein Werk der Freiheit dergestalt, dass sie fort und fort die Wahrheit erzeugt. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1178:Jetzt begriff Rincewind, warum die Langeweile einen so großen Reiz auf ihn ausübte. Mit ihr ging die Überzeugung einher, daß woanders aufregende und gefährliche Dinge geschahen, die einen zum Glück nicht betrafen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1179:Morgens schlief Dewey neben einer Kiste voller Karteikarten und hatte nur eine Pfote hineingestellt. Vielleicht hatte es Stunden gedauert, bis er widerwillig eingesehen hatte,dass mehr von ihm keinen Platz darin fand. ~ Vicki Myron, #NFDB
1180:Während die Deutschen die Wegnahme eines Geniestreichs fürchten, lebt Kalifornien in der permanenten Angst, vom intellektuellen Austausch abgeschnitten zu sein und nicht jeden Impuls aufzunehmen, der sich anbieten. ~ Christoph Keese, #NFDB
1181:Zwei Dinge erfüllen das Gemüt mit immer neuer und zunehmender Bewunderung und Ehrfurcht, je öfter und anhaltender sich das Nachdenken damit beschäftigt: der gestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
1182:Das Problem bei Söldnern besteht darin, daß sie bezahlt werden müssen, damit sie kämpfen«, sagte der Patrizier. »Und wenn man nicht sehr viel Glück hat, muß man ihnen noch mehr Geld geben, damit sie wieder aufhören. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1183:Deutsch ist die Sprache der Erklärungen und Klarstellungen (aber es ist dennoch auch eine kalte Sprache; wenn viele Menschen Deutsch sprechen, dann hört sich das an, als würden in einer großen Fabrik Maschinen laufen). ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1184:Er wirkte wie ein Mann, dem man beide Beine abgeschnitten hat und der jetzt jedem vormacht, wie sehr er sich auf seine neuen Plastikbeine freut, weil die keine blauen Flecke mehr kriegen, wenn er sich irgendwo anstößt. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1185:So etwas wie eine systematische, kritische Auseinandersetzung, die zu Konsens und Fortschritt führen könnte – in anderen Disziplinen eine Selbstverständlichkeit – hat es bis heute in der Managementlehre kaum gegeben. ~ Fredmund Malik, #NFDB
1186:Vergiss nie", hatte sie immer wieder und allzu oft betont, "dass nur einhundertachtunddreißig Personen sterben müssen, damit dein Vater König wird! Und das bedeutet, dass du eines Tages vielleicht eine Königin bist! ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1187:Was wäre, wenn wir die Annahme explizit machten und konkretisieren müssten, dass alle ernst zu nehmende Kunst und Literatur, und nicht nur die Musik, auf die Nietzsche diesen Begriff anwendet, ein opus metaphysicum ist? ~ Botho Strau, #NFDB
1188:Wer auch immer für die Erschaffung der Menschheit verantwortlich war, ihm war ein gravierender Fehler in der Grundkonstruktion unterlaufen: die menschliche Tendenz, sich tief zu verbeugen und auf die Knie zu sinken. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1189:Ein Mal
jedes, nur ein Mal. Ein Mal und nicht mehr. Und wir auch
ein Mal. Nie wieder. Aber dieses
ein Mal gewesen zu sein, wenn auch nur ein Mal:
irdisch gewesen zu sein, scheint nicht widerrufbar. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
1190:Nach Hause zu kommen. Und nun ist da nur diese Dunkelheit und Leere. Ich hätte es wissen müssen, dass man niemals zurückkehren kann. Ich bin nicht mehr, der ich war, darum ist nichts mehr, wie es war. Jetzt weiß ich es. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
1191:Nein, Will Henry, unser Feind ist die Furcht. Blindmachende, verstandtötende Furcht. Furcht zerstört die Wahrheit und vergiftet jede Klarheit, womit sie uns zu falschen Annahmen und irrationalen Schlussfolgerungen führt. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
1192:„Wer mein Haus betreten will, der trete ein. Wem es hier gefällt, der bleibe. Ich weigere mich, etwas zu planen. Und wenn man mich fragt, was ich aus meinem Haus mitnehmen würde, wenn es brennt, antworte ich: das Feuer. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
1193:Denn wir suchten ja das menschliche Gute und die menschliche Glückseligkeit. Als menschliche Tugend bezeichnen wir nun nicht die des Körpers, sondern die der Seele. Und die Glückseligkeit nennen wir die Tätigkeit der Seele. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1194:Was bin ich unter diese
Unendlichkeit gelegt,
duftend wie eine Wiese,
hin und her bewegt,
rufend zugleich und bange,
daß einer den Ruf vernimmt,
und zum Untergange
in einem Andern bestimmt. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
1195:Wie man weiß, gibt es ja nichts auf der ganzen Welt, das langweiliger ist, als Sport zu machen, und wenn etwas noch langweiliger ist, dann natürlich Sportlern bei der Ausübung ihrer langweiligen Sportarten zuzusehen. ~ Christian Kracht, #NFDB
1196:Wir machen dem Zirkus ein Ende."
"Verstehe. Und das da sind die Clowns?"
Foaly steckte seinen Kopf durch die Tür. "Entschuldigen Sie, wenn ich Ihre kunstvolle Zirkusmetapher unterbreche, aber was zum Teufel ist das? ~ Eoin Colfer,#NFDB
1197:Alles in der Welt läuft doch auf eine Lumperey hinaus, und ein Kerl, der um anderer willen, ohne daß es seine eigene Leidenschaft ist, sich um Geld, oder Ehre, oder sonst was, abarbeitet, ist immer ein Thor. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1198:Astfgl hatte in der Hölle eine spezielle, hochprozentige Langeweile geschaffen. Eine solche Langeweile erhält man, wenn sie a) Geld kostet und wenn man sie b) ertragen muß, während man sich eigentlich vergnügen wollte. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1199:Er wußte, daß er die Reibfläche von Menschen brauchte, um seine Talente, die Wärme und den Übermut seines Herzens aufflammen zu lassen, und er allein frostig und sich selber nutzlos war, wie ein Zündholz in der Schachtel. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1200:Es war, wie Alina mir einmal erklärt hatte: Es sind nicht die Augen, mit denen wir die Welt erkennen. Es sind unsere Gefühle, die uns sehen lassen. Und meine Gefühle spürten in diesem Moment die Anwesenheit des Todes. ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
1201:Ich bin wie ein Drachen im Wind, wenn jemand die Schnur losläßt, pfff, fliege ich davon. Und du, das ist witzig, ich denke oft, dass du stark genug bist, um mich zu halten, und intelligent genug, um mich ziehen zu lassen. ~ Anna Gavalda, #NFDB
1202:Ich sehe, du denkst mehr, als du einem sagen kannst. Wenn das nun so ist, dann weisst du aber auch, dass du nie ganz das gelebt hast, was du dachtest, und das ist nicht gut. Nur das Denken, das wir leben, hat einen Wert. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1203:Meine Einsamkeit ist mein Palast. Dort habe ich meinen Stuhl, meinen Tisch, mein Bett, meinen Wind und meine Sonne. Wenn ich anderswo sitze als in meiner Einsamkeit, sitze ich im Exil, sitze ich in trügerischen Landen. ~ R jean Ducharme, #NFDB
1204:Sie hatte eine helle Haut und große, lachende, funkelnde, dunkle kaukasische Augen unter langen, zarten Wimpern. Nur die Georgierin hat solche Augen voll milder Fröhlichkeit. Niemand sonst. Keine Europäerin. Keine Asiatin. ~ Kurban Said, #NFDB
1205:Am einen Tag feiern sie den Sturz des grausamen Tyrannen, und am nächsten sitzen sie herum und beklagen sich darüber, daß seit dem Sturz des Tyrannen niemand mehr den Müll fortbringt. Der Grund: Die Bösen können planen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1206:Die Menschheit hat ihre Würde verloren, aber die Kunst hat sie gerettet und aufbewahrt in bedeutenden Steinen; die Wahrheit lebt in der Täuschung fort, und aus dem Nachbilde wird das Urbild wieder hergestellt werden. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
1207:Einsamkeit ist Unabhängigkeit, ich hatte sie mir gewünscht und mir erworben in langen Jahren. Sie war kalt, o ja, sie war aber auch still, wunderbar still und groß wie der kalte stille Raum, in dem die Sterne sich drehen. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1208:Erwartungen verändern die Biochemie des Gehirns und damit des ganzen Körpers. Darum kommen Alzheimer-Patienten nicht in den Genuss des Placeboeffekts, da die Hirnregion, wo sich Erwartungen bilden, nicht mehr funktioniert. ~ Rolf Dobelli, #NFDB
1209:Es gibt nur Epikureer, und zwar grobe und feine, Christus war der feinste; das ist der einzige Unterschied, den ich zwischen den Menschen herausbringen kann. Jeder handelt seiner Natur gemäß, d.h. er tut, was ihm wohltut. ~ Georg B chner, #NFDB
1210:Hätte ich beim Schreiben nur nicht so viel gesoffen! Andererseits war es ein großes Werk, da konnte es schon mal vorkommen, dass ein paar Szenen noch mal überarbeitet werden mussten. Und Hemingway hatte ja auch gesoffen. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1211:Ich bin Mitglied einer ministeriellen Konferenz. Bei einer Konferenz bringt jeder vor, was er haben möchte und für das Richtige hält, und zum Schluß ergibt sich etwas daraus, das keiner ganz gewollt hat: eben das Ergebnis. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1212:Schein geht vor Sein [...]. Ja, die Realität ist wahrscheinlich einer der schlimmsten Irrtümer überhaupt. Lüge geht demnach vor Wahrheit [...]. Das Irreale kommt vor dem Realen. Und die Kunst gewinnt dabei an Qualität. ~ Elfriede Jelinek, #NFDB
1213:»Schschscht«, machte Gideon. »Alles ist gut, Gwenny. Ich bin bei dir.«
»Ja, du bist bei mir«, sagte ich und wiederholte gleich noch einmal, wie ein beruhigendes Mantra. »Du bist bei mir du bist bei mir du bist bei mir.« ~ Kerstin Gier,#NFDB
1214:»Aber, aber, Jungs«, sagte McVries. Er hatte sich erholt und war wieder der alte Ironiker. »Warum erledigt ihr die Sache nicht wie Gentlemen? Der Erste, der den Kopf abgeschossen kriegt, muss dem anderen ein Bier ausgeben.« ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1215:Da sagten die Doktoren: »Wie es heißt von Moses, unserem Lehrer: ›Und niemand hat sein Grab erkundet bis auf diesen heutigen Tag.‹« Und alle erkannten, daß dem Josef als Denkmal sein Werk bestimmt war und kein anderes. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
1216:Es gibt einen warmherzigen und sanften Spott, der auf engster Vertrautheit beruht, einer, die man nicht einzugestehen hat - einen Spott, der aus nichts anderem besteht als dem Bedürfnis, ein Übermaß an Sympathie aufzulösen. ~ Julien Gracq, #NFDB
1217:Im tezumanischen Königreich hatte man schon vor einer ganzen Weile gemerkt, daß alles immer schlimmer wurde, und daraufhin schuf man ein kompliziertes Meßsystem, um festzustellen, um wieviel schlimmer jeder neue Tag war. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1218:Simon." Ihre holte ihn in die Wirklichkeit zurück. "Simon, hörst du mir überhaupt zu?"
"Hm? Ja. Ja, klar." Er lehnte sich gegen die Spüle und versuchte den Eindruck zu erwecken, dass er konzentriert bei der Sache war. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
1219:Und gesetzt, euer Imperativ "gemäss der Natur
leben" bedeute im Grunde soviel als "gemäss dem Leben leben" - wie
könntet ihr's denn nicht? Wozu ein Princip aus dem machen, was ihr
selbst seid und sein müsst? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
1220:Wahrhaftig, der Umgang mit schlechten Büchern ist oft gefährlicher als mit schlechten Menschen. - Truly, associating with bad books is often more dangerous than associating with bad people. ~ Wilhelm Hauff, Das Buch und die Leserwelt., #NFDB
1221:Wie oft wohl muss einer das, was er weiß, noch einmal lernen, wieder und wieder entdecken, wie viele Verkleidungen abreißen, bis er Dinge wirklich versteht bis auf die Knochen? Reicht überhaupt eine Lebenszeit dafür aus? ~ Jenny Erpenbeck, #NFDB
1222:Damals auf dem Rückweg in mein Tal war ich mir noch nicht klar darüber, dass mein früheres Leben ein jähes Ende gefunden hatte, das heißt, ich wußte es wohl schon, aber nur mit dem Kopf, und also glaubte ich nicht daran. ~ Marlen Haushofer, #NFDB
1223:Du bist doch’n netter kleiner Gentleman, oder nich? Und wenn sie dem beigebracht habn, dass man’ne Zahnpasta nich frisst und auch nich einfach in die Ecken pisst, da lernen die’nen Gentleman doch als Erstes lesen, oder nich? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1224:„»Du sagst, es sind Menschen? Nein, mein Freund, es sind Tiere. Ein Rudel Schakale. Sie wollten uns zerreißen. Und hätten es auch getan. Aber eines haben sie nicht bedacht: Sie mögen Schakale sein, ich aber bin ein Wolf ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
1225:Er hatte in Vietnam gekämpft und war mehrfach ausgezeichnet worden; er hatte erfolgreich längere Beziehungen zu einigen energischen Frauen vermieden; und jetzt sah er sich von seinem elfjährigen Neffen in die Enge getrieben. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1226:Ich versuche mich an alles zu erinnern, was ich getan habe, Oskar. Und alles, was ich nicht getan habe. Die Fehler, die ich begangen habe, sind mir egal. Aber was ich nie getan habe, kann ich auch nicht zurücknehmen. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
1227:Niemand kümmert sich mehr um die Wirklichkeit; alle setzen ihr Wesen in den Schein. Als Sklaven und Narren ihrer Eigenliebe leben sie dahin, nicht um zu leben, sondern um andere glauben zu machen, sie hätten gelebt. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
1228:Sie zog sich um und nahm auch ihre Piercings raus. Francis fand, dass sie besser aussah als je zuvor. Wie ein liebes, unglaublich hübsches Mäd¬chen von nebenan. Die Sorte Mädchen, die normalerweise eben nie nebenan wohnen. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1229:Und ich habe wieder bei diesem kleinen Geschäft gefunden, daß Mißverständnisse und Trägheit vielleicht mehr Irrungen in der Welt machen als List und Bosheit. Wenigstens sind die beiden letzteren gewiß seltener. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1230:Wenn ihr kämpft, fordern wir die Kredite zurück. Übrigens ist das meine Pike, die du auf mich richtest. Außerdem habe ich deinen Schild bezahlt. Und nimm meinen Helm ab, wenn ich mit dir rede, du mieser kleiner Schuldner. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1231:Wenn meine Eltern sich Gott überhaupt einmal vorstellten, dann als himmelhohen berggroßen Schwulenrechtler, der mit geflügelten Delfinen anstelle von Cherubim das Ozonloch repariert. Und Regenbögen, jede Menge Regenbögen. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1232:Aber jede noch so kleine Verbesserung meines Zustandes entfernte mich weiter von George, und in Wahrheit war seine Gesellschaft die einzige, nach der mich verlangte. Ich empfand es als Verrat, dass ich lernte ohne ihn zu leben. ~ Kate Mosse, #NFDB
1233:Aber wie es nun einmal ist: Im selben Maß, wie die Erwachsenen Schöpfer sein können und bei Fleiß, Ehrgeiz und einigem Glück auch sind, werden sie gleich nach der Schöpfung Geschöpfe ihrer eigenen epochemachenden Erfindungen. ~ G nter Grass, #NFDB
1234:Das Vorrecht, das ich für mein Geschlecht beanspruche und das durchaus nicht so beneidenswert ist, dass Sie danach trachten müssten, besteht nur darin, dass unsere Liebe nimmer aufhört, auch wenn Leben und Hoffnung dahin sind. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1235:Er war direkt, ehrlich, gutmütig und in jeder Hinsicht ehrenhaft. In Ankh-Morpork hieß so etwas normalerweise »Dummheit«, und unter gewöhnlichen Umständen hätte er damit die Überlebenschance einer Qualle in einem Hochofen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1236:Ich fürchte ebenfalls, dass am Ende gar nichts zu Ende sein wird. Die Dinge gehen einfach weiter, solange die Erinnerung das Sagen hat und immer eine weiche Stelle in deinen Gedanken findet, um an die Oberfläche zu schlüpfen. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
1237:Und darüber bewegten sich seine Augen ruhelos von einer Straßenseite zur anderen, blickten misstrauisch hinaus in eine Welt, die beherrscht wurde von unfähigen Autofahrern, blödsinnigen Fußgängern und allgemeinem Schwachsinn. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1238:Vergiss es einfach«, sagte er noch mal.
Kurze Zeit später fuhren ein liebeskranker Lehrer, ein manisch-depressiver drogensüchtiger Deutschafrikaner und ein litauisches Wunderkind mit einem gelben VW die Autobahn entlang. ~ Benedict Wells,#NFDB
1239:Wir waren nicht für diese Welt bestimmt. Ich bin in meine Stadt zurückgekehrt, in mein zerbrochenes Leben und mein kaputtes Zuhause, in meine Einsamkeit, und versuchte zu vergessen, wie süß das Leben auf der Erde war. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
1240:Du erinnerst dich doch bestimmt, dass ich gesagt habe, ein Ersatzkonvoi sei unterwegs zum Stützpunkt, nicht wahr? Also hättest du mich nicht von der Latrine holen und mir einen besonders guten Schiss verderben sollen. - Macro ~ Simon Scarrow, #NFDB
1241:Hexen altern innerlich. Man tat, was getan werden musste, auch wenn es einem den Magen umdrehte. Man sah was niemand je sehen sollte. Und was man tat, weil es getan werden musste, tat man meistens allein und oft im Dunkeln. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1242:Kreb blättert in seinem Kalender und antwortet, nein, zu schade, zu seinem großen Bedauern könne er bei dem Fest nicht dabei sein, habe er doch vor, ausgerechnet an diesem Abend allein zu Hause zu bleiben und sich anzuöden. ~ ric Chevillard, #NFDB
1243:Vor ihm erhob sich die Feldherrnhalle, eine Nachbildung der Florentiner Loggia dei Lanzi, errichtet den beiden größten bayrischen Feldherrn, Tilly und Wrede, von denen der eine kein Bayer und der andere kein Feldherr war. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
1244:„Gib auf, Homo sapiens! Du bist nicht mehr der Herrscher über die Natur! Nein, du musst nicht gleich verrecken, wir wollen nicht so sein. Kriech noch ein wenig herum in deinem Todeskampf und ersticke an deinen Exkrementen. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
1245:In der Wissenschaft kommt es alle paar Jahre vor, daß etwas, das bis dahin als Fehler galt, plötzlich alle Anschauungen umkehrt oder daß ein unscheinbarer und verachteter Gedanke zum Herrscher über ein neues Gedankenreich wird. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1246:Wer Kritik als Beruf ausübt, weiß genau, was für ihn unentwegt auf dem Spiel steht – sein Renommee und damit die Basis seiner Existenz als Schriftsteller. Er kann es sich deshalb nicht leisten, leichtfertig zu urteilen. ~ Marcel Reich Ranicki, #NFDB
1247:Doch von diesem Augenblick an war Hermione Granger ihre Freundin. Es gibt Dinge, die man nicht gemeinsam erleben kann, ohne dass man Freundschaft schließt, und einen fast vier Meter großen Bergtroll zu erlegen gehört gewiss dazu. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1248:Ich gebe Jesus das Oben-Unten-Zeichen und trete näher, weil er sich ja hauptsächlich zeigen will. Sein Körper ist nicht schlecht. Dünn, aber mit Muskeln. Man könnte sich vorstellen, dass er regelmäßig Joggen oder Schwimmen war. ~ Victor Lodato, #NFDB
1249:Selbst nach der Geburt unterscheidet sich das Kind kaum von dem, was es vor der Geburt war; es kann noch keinen Gegenstand erkennen, es ist sich seiner selbst und der Welt als etwas außerhalb von ihm Liegendes noch nicht bewusst. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1250:Vielleicht sollte ich gleich dazusagen, das ich mir ständig über alle möglichen Sachen den Kopf zerbreche und mir Dinge vorstelle, die mich traurig machen. Ich schlafe gern und ich blogge gern. Und eines Tages werde ich sterben. ~ Alice Oseman, #NFDB
1251:„Wenn nun aber die Natur einmal korrupt ist, was soll man tun?“
„Erstens es wissen, als ein Verhängnis und ohne etwas Positives daraus machen zu wollen. Zweitens ihr trotzdem folgen. Ergreifen, wovon man ergriffen ist. ~ Heimito von Doderer,#NFDB
1252:Wir werden Forderungen stellen, die wir zuvor nie gewagt hätten zu stellen, und wir werden dabei nicht "bitte" sagen, denn man sagt gar nicht "bitte" bei Revolutionen. Man sagt nur "danke" zu denen, die mitgekämpft haben. ~ Margarete Stokowski, #NFDB
1253:Aber mehr denn je bin ich überzeugt, dass nichts von vornherein auszuschliessen ist; dass sich immer Wertvolles - Menschen der Dinge - gerade an den unerwartetsten Orten und in den unvorhergesehensten Situationen finden lässt. ~ Tiziano Terzani, #NFDB
1254:Alles ging so schnell vorbei, nie wusste man sein Glück zu schätzen, immer erst hinterher. Altbekanntes Zeug. Das Leben war nicht besonders einfallsreich. Es brachte immer den gleichen Trick, und trotzdem fiel jeder drauf rein. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1255:Auch das Schöne und Schönste ist vergänglich, sobald es Geschichte und Erscheinung auf Erden geworden ist. Wir wissen es und können darüber Wehmut empfinden, aber nicht im Ernst es zu ändern versuchen; denn es ist unabänderlich. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1256:dann wirst du an dem Ort, an den ich dich schicke, ein Leben in ländlicher Heiterkeit leben, und dort wirst du auch sterben: voller Jahre und wahrscheinlich mit einem falschen, aber zweifellos erfreulichen Gefühl, erlöst zu sein. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1257:Man begegnet den Leuten, und sie sind anständig. Sie verfügen über ein einigermaßen funktionierendes Gehirn. Und dann kommen solche Leute in größerer Zahl zusammen, und plötzlich hört man die Stimme des Volkes. Und sie knurrt. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1258:Soviel ich weiß, enden viele Abstiege tödlich, weil die Aufsteiger vergessen, daß der Weg zurück ins Vertraute manchmal größere Leidensfähigkeit und die Aufbietung größerer Kräfte verlangt als die Route hinauf in den Traum. ~ Christoph Ransmayr, #NFDB
1259:Und während ich dich so anschaute, entdeckte ich all die wunderbaren Unvollkommenheiten an dir, deren unzählbare Menge die Menschen insgesamt und dich im besonderen ebenso liebebedürftig wie liebenswert und so einzigartig machen. ~ Hans Bemmann, #NFDB
1260:Wir werden alt und grau. Wir werden eines Tages verschlissen sein und aus der Welt verschwinden. Mit unseren Träumen ist das anders. Sie können in anderen Menschen weiterleben, wenn es uns schon längst, längst nicht mehr gibt. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
1261:Er treibt meinen Kreislauf an, er dirigiert meinen Puls, er bestimmt das Tempo meiner Herzschläge. Und im Kopf, da entfaltet er seine berauschende Wirkung wie eine Droge, erweitert mein Bewusstsein, verschiebt meinen Horizont. ~ Daniel Glattauer, #NFDB
1262:Ja, vielleicht hat Annies Mama recht. Die Männer sind verrückt geworden, und die nicht verrückt geworden sind, denen fehlt der Mut, die tobenden Irrsinnigen in die Zwangsjacken zu stecken. Ja, sie hat recht. Auch ich bin feig. ~ d n von Horv th, #NFDB
1263:Nie zuvor hatte ich so tiefschwarzes Haar gesehen. Dicht und glänzend reichte es ihm bis zum Kragen - eine sexy Länge, die dem erfolgreichen Geschäftsmann das Aussehen eines "Bad Boy" verlieh, wie Schlagsahne auf einem Schokobecher. ~ Sylvia Day, #NFDB
1264:Und dann war da die Frau, der ein Löwe den Sari auszog. Sie drehte sich wie ein Jojo, denn dem tödlichen Ende zog sie die tödliche Schande dann doch vor. [...] Verletzt wurde sie nicht; zahlreiche Männer eilten begeistert zu Hilfe. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
1265:Denn das Glück, sagte er sich, ist nicht, geliebt zu werden; das ist mit Ekel gemischte Genugtuung für die Eitelkeit. Das Glück ist, zu lieben und vielleicht kleine, trügerische Annäherungen an den geliebten Gegenstand zu erhaschen. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1266:Der Autor muß eine Fülle von Varitionen über das ausgewählte Thema bieten, die Entscheidungsmöglichkeiten des Lesers vervielfachen und den Stil mit dem Stil selbst hintergehen, indem er das Genre und die Distanz ständig wechselt. ~ Carlos Fuentes, #NFDB
1267:Ein guter Freund hat einmal zu mir gesagt, die Probleme seien wie Kakerlaken." Immer wenn er ernst sein sollte, verfiel er in einen scherzhaften Ton. "Wenn man sie ans Licht holt, erschrecken sie und machen sich auf und davon. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1268:Je bescheidener meine Wohnung war, um so eleganter wirkte alle Eleganz auf mich, um so künstlerischer erschienen mir Schöpfungen aus dem Gebiet der Kunst, und Freunde und Liebe kamen mir um so freundlicher und liebenswürdiger vor. ~ Robert Walser, #NFDB
1269:Um alles, was das Leben lebenswert macht, zu erreichen, brauchen Sie die Hilfe und Unterstützung von zahlreichen Menschen. Daher sind Ihre zwischenmenschlichen Fähigkeiten besonders wichtig und mehr wert als alles andere. Vielleicht ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
1270:Wenn du der Träumer bist,
Bin ich dein traum.
Doch wenn du wachen willst,
Bin ich dein Wille.
Und werde mächtig aller Herrlichkeit
Und ründe mich wie eine sternenstille
Über der wunderlichen Stadt der Zeit ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
1271:Beten heißt ja nicht einfach das Herz ausschütten, sondern es heißt, mit seinem erfüllten oder auch leeren Herzen den Weg zu Gott finden und mit ihm zu reden. Das kann kein Mensch von sich aus, dazu braucht er Jesus Christus. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1272:Ehe. Das Geheimnis ist, dass man sich ja doch liebt. Ich würde nicht ohne sie sein wollen - selbst ihr Schauspielerlachen würde mir fehlen. Und sie nicht ohne mich. Wenn man einander nur nicht unterdessen so auf die Nerven fiele. ~ Daniel Kehlmann, #NFDB
1273:Mit der Reife wird man immer jünger. Es geht auch mir so, obwohl das wenig sagen will, da ich das Lebensgefühl meiner Knabenjahre im Grund stets beibehalten habe und mein Erwachsensein und Altern immer als eine Art Komödie empfand. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1274:Soll der Direktor ruhig in seinem Jugendstil-Haus wohnen, ihm schadet das nichts - ihm nicht. Er ist ein moderner Mensch und immun; seine tiefste Sehnsucht wird dadurch befriedigt, daß er auf Knöpfe drücken und an Hähnen drehen darf. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
1275:Das Buch wird anfangen, deine Erinnerungen zu sammeln. Du wirst es spaeter nur aufschlagen muessen und schon wirst du wieder dort sein, wo du zuerst darin gelesen hast. An nichts haften Erinnerungen so gut wie an bedruckten Seiten. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
1276:Das Individuum musste immer darum kämpfen, nicht von der Horde überwältigt zu werden. Wer es versucht, wird sehr oft einsam sein und manchmal voller Furcht. Doch kein Preis ist zu hoch für das Privileg, sich selbst zu gehören. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1277:Es wird Abend, aber die Luft ist noch lau. Dies ist einer jener ergreifender Augenblicke, in denen Erde und Menschen so vollkommen miteinander harmonieren, dass es unmöglich scheint, jemanden zu finden, der nicht glücklich ist. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
1278:Halte immer den Kopf hoch und lass die Fäuste unten. Ganz gleich, was man dir sagt, lass dich nicht in Wut bringen. Versuche zur Abwechslung einmal mit dem Kopf zu kämpfen... er ist ganz gut beieinander, auch wenn er nicht lernen will. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
1279:Man sollte auch hinter den Ofen gehen und sich den Zahn nach rückwärts über den Kopf werfen mit den Worten: „Maus, gib mir deinen eisernen Zahn. Ich werde dir meinen Knochenzahn geben.“ Danach bleiben die übrigen Zähne gesund. ~ James George Frazer, #NFDB
1280:Schwindel ist etwas anderes als Angst vor dem Fall. Schwindel bedeutet, dass uns die Tiefe anzieht und lockt, sie weckt in uns die Sehnsucht nach dem Fall, eine Sehnsucht, gegen die wir uns dann erschrocken wehren. (Milan Kundera) ~ Guillaume Musso, #NFDB
1281:Wer leben will, muss bereit sein, sich nach Neuem auszustrecken. Wer gut leben will, muss außerdem bereit sein, das Für und Wider seiner nächsten Schritte zu kalkulieren. Alles hat man natürlich nicht in der Hand. Aber einiges schon. ~ Nick Vujicic, #NFDB
1282:Das Böse ist immer nur extrem, aber niemals radikal, es hat keine Tiefe, auch keine Dämonie. Es kann die ganze Welt verwüsten, gerade weil es wie ein Pilz an der Oberfläche weiterwuchert. Tief aber und radikal ist immer nur das Gute. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
1283:denn dann sei die Menschheit wie die Großen Alten geworden; frei und ungezähmt und jenseits von Gut und Böse, und jedes Gesetz und jede Moral sei zur Seite gefegt, und alle Menschen würden schreien und töten und sich in Lust ergehen. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
1284:Mari hörte nicht so genau zu, ein abenteuerlicher Gedanke begann Form anzunehmen: die Möglichkeit eines ganz eigenen Alleinseins in Frieden und Erwartung, fast eine Art Jux, den man sich erlauben kann, wenn man mit Liebe gesegnet ist. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
1285:Marlen Zyla:
Unterschreiben Sie einfach auf der gepunkteten Linie, Madam, und lassen Sie sich bitte durch diesen Hauch von Pech und Schwefel nicht stören; mir will es einfach nicht gelingen, den Geruch aus den Kleidern zu bekommen. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1286:Menschen konnten nichts anderes sein als Menschen. Sie zogen sich Roben an oder Handschellen und taten, was von ihnen erwartet wurde. In diesem Haus bestand ihre Aufgabe darin, den Phantomschmerz einer amputierten Weltordnung zu erzeugen. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1287:Sie hielten sich an den Händen. Ein letzter, durchnässter Abschied, dann drehten sie sich um und verließen den Friedhof, wobei sie mehrmals zurückschauten. Ich dagegen blieb noch ein Weilchen länger. Ich winkte. Niemand winkte zurück. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
1288:Was war eigentlich Besonderes mit dem nächtlichen Himmel? Dass, wie von einer sonst verschlossenen Truhe, der blaue Deckel des Tages hochgeklappt worden war und der Mensch nun gleichsam einen Blick werfen konnte in die Ewigkeit? ~ Colleen McCullough, #NFDB
1289:Aber die alten Zeiten haben mich zum alten Mann gemacht, mein Freund, und wenn ein alter Mann Angst hat, dann geht er nicht einfach so auf eine Sache los, wie er’s getan hat, als er gerade dabei war, zu lernen, wie man sich rasiert. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
1290:[...] Das allerdings ist ein absurder Gedanke. Andererseits sind, wie ich im Laufe meines Lebens jetzt schon mit Entschiedenheit weiß, gerade die absurden Gedanken die klarsten Gedanken und die absurdesten die wichtigsten überhaupt. ~ Thomas Bernhard, #NFDB
1291:Denn", so der trollische Philosoph Plateau, "wenn du verstehen willst einen Feind, du musst gehen eine Meile in seinen Schuhen. Wenn er dann ist noch immer dein Feind, du bist entfernt wenigstens eine Meile, und er keine Schuhe hat, ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1292:Der Pharao nickte. »Und wie verhalten sich die Priester?« fragte er.
»Sie werfen sich gegenseitig in den Fluß, Herr.«
Teppicymon nickte erneut: »Klingt gut«, sagte er. »Offenbar sind sie endlich vernünftig geworden.« ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
1293:[D]ie Urenkel der Nihilisten [...] Was, wenn ihnen Bibel, Grundgesetz und Strafrecht nie mehr gegolten hätten als Anleitung und Regelbuch zu einem Gesellschafsspiel? [...] Wenn wir ihre Gründe nicht mehr verstünden, weil es keine gibt?
~ Juli Zeh,#NFDB
1294:Es ist ein einförmig Ding um das Menschengeschlecht. Die meisten verarbeiten ihre Zeit, um zu leben, und das bißchen, das ihnen von Freiheit übrig bleibt, ängstigt sie so, dass sie alle Mittel aufsuchen, um es los zu sein ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1295:Man sieht, daß sich in allen Schichten der Gesellschaft die Bräuche gleichen und nur in der Art, dem Äußerlichen und der Nuance verschieden sind. Auch die große Gesellschaft hat ihr Rotwelsch; aber dieses Rotwelsch heißt ›der Stil‹. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1296:Seule, ô abondante fleur,
tu crées ton propre espace;
tu te mires dans und glace
d'odeur.
Ton parfum entoure comme d'autres pétales
ton innombrable calice.
Je te retiens, tu t'étales,
prodigieuse actrice. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
1297:Das ging ihr häufig so mit alten Fotos; sie war schließlich die Tochter ihrer Mutter, und die lächelnden Gesichter von Menschen, die nich nichts davon ahnten, was das Schicksal für sie bereithielt, hatten etwas schrecklich Ernüchterndes. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
1298:Das Problem bei Happy Ends ist, dass sie entweder nicht richtig glücklich sind, oder sie sind kein richtiges Ende, verstehst du? Im richtigen Leben werden manche Dinge besser, und manche Dinge werden schlechter. Und irgendwann stirbst du. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1299:Den Wert von vieren kennen aber nur vier: Den Wert des Lebens kennen nur die Toten; den Wert des Gesunden nur die Kranken; den Wert der Jugendkraft kennen nur die Altersschwachen; und den Wert des Reichtums kennen nur die Armen. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
1300:[E]r sprach von einer Rasse von Fulltime-Lesern, von Bibliotheken, wimmelnd von Blaustrümpfen, die der Sonne und der Liebe untreu waren, von Häusern, wo der Geruch von Druckerschwärze der Fröhlichkeit des Knoblauchs den Garaus machte. ~ Julio Cort zar, #NFDB
1301:Ja, wir wollen wohl ein bißchen viel: kluge Gespräche und Logik und gutes Aussehen und ein bißchen Treue und dann dieser nie zu unterdrückende Wunsch, von der Frau wie ein Beefsteak gefressen zu werden, daß die Kinnbacken krachen... . ~ Kurt Tucholsky, #NFDB
1302:Sind denn Ideale zum Erreichen da? Leben wir denn, wir Menschen, um den Tod abzuschaffen? Nein, wir leben, um ihn zu fürchten und dann wieder zu lieben, und gerade seinetwegen glüht das bißchen Leben manchmal eine Stunde lang so schön. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1303:Wie fühlen Sie sich?', fragte der Arzt.
'Etwas in Sorge, ehrlich gesagt. Ich habe geträumt, dass mich Jesus Christus besucht und wir ein langes, tiefgehendes Gespräch geführt haben.'
'Worüber?'
'Hauptsächlich über Fußball. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n,#NFDB
1304:Wissen sie, Daniel, manchmal denke ich, Darwin hat sich geirrt, und in Wirklichkeit stammt der Mensch vom Schwein oder vom Hund ab, denn in acht von zehn Hominiden steckt ein Schweinehund, der darauf wartet, rausgelassen zu werden. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1305:Das Fräulein stand am Meere
Und seufzte lang und bang,
Es rührte sie so sehre
Der Sonnenuntergang.
Mein Fräulein! sein Sie munter,
Das ist ein altes Stück;
Hier vorne geht sie unter
Und kehrt von hinten zurück. ~ Heinrich Heine,#NFDB
1306:Der Mensch ist für mich ein Wesen, das nur durch paradoxe, komödiantische Mittel, Formen, dargestellt werden kann, denn der Mensch geht nicht auf wie eine Rechnung, und wo der Mensch so aufgeht, ist die Rechnung sicher gefälscht. ~ Friedrich D rrenmatt, #NFDB
1307:Ich habe in meinem Leben bestimmt tausendmal an diesen letzten Kuss und die letzte Umarmung mit ihr gedacht, an ihren Geruch und an ihre beruhigende Stimme. Ich habe so oft daran gedacht, dass ich nicht mehr sicher bin, ob es wahr ist. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1308:Selbst durch und durch böse und verdorbene Seelen waren intelligent genug, um früher oder später zu begreifen: Da ihnen Körper mit Nervenfasern fehlten, gab es abgesehen von Angewohnheit keinen Grund, unerträglichen Schmerz zu spüren. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1309:Wäre ich ein Zimmermann, würde ich dir ein Fenster zu meiner Seele zimmern.
Wenn du hineinschauen würdest, sähest du dich selbst in der Scheibe gespiegelt.
Und dann wüsstest du, dass meine Seele ein
Spiegelbild von deiner ist. ~ Colleen Hoover,#NFDB
1310:[A]ber eigentlich ist doch gerade ein starker Wille das Markenzeichen des schwachen Menschen. Denn als solcher muss er ständig etwas wollen. Er muss wirken und werken, probieren und trainieren, derweil dem Starken alles wie von selbst gelingt. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1311:Alle Sprachen der Welt kennen dieses Sprichwort: "Aus den Augen aus dem Sinn." Nichts ist weniger wahr: Je weiter etwas weg ist, desto größer ist die Sehnsucht, desto stärker die Gefühle, die wir zu unterdrücken und zu vergessen versuchen. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1312:Freudvoll
Und leidvoll,
Gedankenvoll sein;
Langen
Und bangen
In schwebender Pein,
Himmelhoch jauchzend,
Zum Tode betrübt,
Glücklich allein
Ist die Seele, die liebt.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
1313:Für voreingenommene Menschen, namentlich für solche, deren Herz den Verstand besiegt hat, beweisen Ereignisse nichts. Da sie unwiderruflich Partie dafür oder dagegen genommen haben, sind Beobachtung und Beweisführung gleich Vergebens. ~ Joseph de Maistre, #NFDB
1314:[...] je mehr sich einer begrenzt, um so mehr ist er andererseits dem Unendlichen nah; gerade solche scheinbar Weltabseitigen bauen in ihrer besonderen Materie sich termitenhaft eine merkwürdige und durchaus einmalige Abbreviatur der Welt. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1315:Louises Trauer war wie der Fluss: konstant und doch nie gleich. Sie konnte Wellen schlagen oder alles überschwemmen, vorübergehend abebben oder dahinströmen, an manchen Tagen kalt und dunkel und tief sein, an anderen reißend und blendend. ~ Paula Hawkins, #NFDB
1316:Nun sahen sie in den sinnlosen Ausschweifungen, dem übertriebenen Luxus und der unbändigen Unzucht von einst nur Hindernisse und beklagten, wie viel Leben es sie gekostet hatte, das Paradies der geteilten Einsamkeit zu entdecken. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
1317:Wenn Leute, die schreiben und lesen können, für andere Leute kämpfen, denen diese Kenntnisse fehlen, ist das Ergebnis nur eine neue Art von Dummheit. Wenn ihr etwas für sie tun wollt, baut irgendwo eine Bibliothek und laßt die Tür offen ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1318:Alle Zwerge sind von Natur aus pflichtbewußt, ernst, tugendhaft, gehorsam und nachdenklich. Ihre einzige Schwäche besteht in der Tendenz, nach einem Drink Feinden entgegenzustürmen, ›Arrrrgh!‹ zu brüllen und Beine in Kniehöhe abzuhacken. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1319:Die Menschen, die dich umgeben, sind ein Teil von dir. Ihr habt eine gemeinsame Geschichte. Sie können sie sogar mit dir gemeinsam schreiben. Und wenn du einen verlierst, verlierst du damit ein Stück von dir, egal wie du ihn verloren hast. ~ Danny Wallace, #NFDB
1320:Es gibt zweierlei: Wissen und Sein.
Es ist leicht, die Wahrheit zu wissen,
aber sehr schwer, Wahrheit zu sein.
Nicht im Wissen der Wahrheit erfüllt sich der Zweck des Lebens;
er erfüllt sich dadurch, dass man Wahrheit ist. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan,#NFDB
1321:Flucht ist hier nicht die Beschäftigung mit der Vergangenheit, sondern gerade die entschlossene Konzentration auf Gegenwart und Zukunft, die blind ist für das Erbe der Vergangenheit, von dem wir geprägt sind und mit dem wir leben müssen ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
1322:Man darf nichts erwarten, nur so hält man durch. Geduld reicht nicht, weil nichts geschieht. Im Wald gibt es keine Zukunft und keine Vergangenheit, alles findet im Moment statt oder über Zeiträume, die nicht in Jahren gemessen werden können. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
1323:Die Leute lebten viele Jahre lang friedlich nebeneinander und nickten sich jeden Morgen auf dem Weg zur Arbeit zu. Und dann geschah irgend etwas Banales, mit dem Ergebnis, daß sich jemand eine Mistgabel aus dem Ohr entfernen lassen mußte. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1324:Eine große Erkenntnis vollzieht sich nur zur Hälfte im Lichtkreise des Gehirns, zur anderen Hälfte in dem dunklen Boden des Innersten, und sie ist vor allem ein Seelenzustand, auf dessen äußerster Spitze der Gedanke nur wie eine Blüte sitzt. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1325:Ihre Gedanken scheinen stillzustehen und mit ihnen die Zeit, und alles verbindet sich mit ihr, wird zu einem einzigen, wunderschönen Gefühl, das Licht, die Gerüche, die vereinzelten Geräusche, die die plötzliche Stille noch intensiver machen. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
1326:Ja. Es ist wirklich möglich Dinge hinter sich zu lassen, Rakel. Es kommt bei diesen Gespenstern darauf an, sie lange und intensiv genug anzuschauen, damit man erkennt, dass es bloß Gespenster sind. Das ist die Kunst. Tote, ohnmächtige Trugbilder. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
1327:Jemand anderes mischt die Karten, mit denen wir spielen, und sooft wir darüber verzweifeln, so dankbar sind wir letzten Endes über die Gnade des Systems. Denn würden wir den Weg des Lebens weitergehen, wenn wir die Zukunft sehen könnten? ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
1328:Nach Kant ist die Bildung der Weltkörper leichter zu deduzieren als die Bildung einer Raupe. Dasselbe gilt für das Besingen; und ein bestimmter Kleinstädter ist schwerer poetisch darzustellen als ein Nebel-Held aus Morgenland. ~ Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, #NFDB
1329:Nicht diejenigen haben die Bücher recht lieb, welche sie unberührt in ihren Schränken aufheben, sondern sie Tag und Nacht in den Händen haben, und daher beschmutzet sind, welche Eselsohren darein machen, sie abnutzen und mit Anmerkungen bedecken. ~ Erasmus, #NFDB
1330:»Schmerz ist wie ein Schleifstein. Gebt ihm die Gelegenheit, und er schleift und schleift, bis nichts mehr da ist außer Staub, doch geschickt gehandhabt kann er die schärfsten Klingen hervorbringen.« (Kelly McCullough, Krieg der Klingen) ~ Kelly McCullough, #NFDB
1331:Alles in der Welt läuft doch auf eine Lumperei hinaus und ein Mensch, der um anderer Willen, ohne daß es seine eigene Leidenschaft, sein eigenes Bedürfnis ist, sich um Geld oder Ehre oder sonst was abarbeitet, ist immer ein Tor. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1332:Der gewöhnliche Sterbliche ist nicht nur zufrieden, sondern geradezu stolz, daß er innerhalb der etablierten Grenzen bleibt, und die geläufigen Ansichten tun das ihre, sein Zagen schon vor dem ersten Schritt ins Unerforschte zu bestätigen. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1333:einst ein braver Mann namens Gottfried Nickleby, der sich ziemlich spät noch in den Kopf gesetzt hatte zu heiraten. Da er aber weder jung noch begütert war und daher nicht auf die Hand einer vermögenden Dame rechnen durfte, so verehelichte ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1334:Proaktiv bedeutet für etwas zu handeln. Du widmest deine Handlung dem, was du gewählt hast und nicht dem, was dir die alte Wirklichkeit gerade präsentiert. Reaktiv bedeutet gegen etwas, das bereits da ist, zu handeln und es dadurch zu stärken. ~ Veit Lindau, #NFDB
1335:SNAPE
Ein Mensch. Es braucht nur einen Menschen. Ich konnte Harry nicht für Lily retten. Deshalb gilt meine Treue nun der Sache, an die sie geglaubt hat. Und vielleicht habe ich – irgendwann dabei angefangen, auch an mich selbst zu glauben. ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
1336:Wenn man verstehen will, was einer meint oder sagt, muss man im Grunde das, was er meint oder sagt, immer schon wissen. Ist dann ein gelungener Dialog nur Wiedererkennen? Und das Verstehen nicht etwas ein Weg, sondern vielmehr ein Zustand? ~ Jenny Erpenbeck, #NFDB
1337:Die Mode jener Jahre war umständlich und töricht. Die Männer knöpften sich steifleinerne Krägen um die Hälse, enge, überflüssige, unschöne Kleidungsstücke, und umwanden sie mühsam zu schlingenden, zwecklosen Binden, sogenannten Krawatten. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
1338:Die Zeit macht etwas mit einem Menschen, weil ein Mensch keine Maschine ist, die man an- und ausschalten kann. Die Zeit, in der ein Mensch nicht weiß, wie sein Leben ein Leben werden kann, füllt so einen Untätigen vom Kopf bis zu den Zehen. ~ Jenny Erpenbeck, #NFDB
1339:Er glaubte ans Überleben. Entgegen aller Wahrscheinlichkeit. Vermutlich war er verrückt. Das musste es sein, mit etwas anderem war seine Zuversicht nicht zu erklären. Ja, Daniel war noch verrückter als ich. Aber auf eine bessere Art und Weise. ~ David Safier, #NFDB
1340:Er schob die erste Rate zu Sergej Sergejewitsch hinüber.
"Wo bleibt denn Ihr Taktgefühl!", sagte der Unauffällige enttäuscht, erhob sich und nahm die Kugeln an sich. "Der Mann ist doch im Dienst! Was denken Sie denn, wozu ich hier bin? ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky,#NFDB
1341:Manchmal war sie sich nicht sicher, wer die größere Macke hatte: der Autor, der sich diesen kranken Mist ausdachte, oder sie, die sie sogar Geld dafür bezahlte, um es sich mit Axtmördern und Psychopathen am Pool gemütlich machen zu können. ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
1342:Ob Links- oder Rechtsterrorismus – da sehe ich keinen Unterschied”
“Doch, doch”, ruft das Känguru, “die einen zünden Ausländer an, die anderen Autos. Und Autos sind schlimmer, denn es hätte meines sein können. Ausländer besitze ich keine. ~ Marc Uwe Kling,#NFDB
1343:Wenn zwei voneinander scheiden,
So so geben sie sich die Händ
Und fangen an zu weinen,
Und seufzen ohne End.
Wir haben nicht geweinet,
Wir seufzten nicht Weh und Ach!
Die Tränen und die Seufzer,
Die kamen hintennach. ~ Heinrich Heine,#NFDB
1344:Wir Juden standen den Deutschen in Weg.
Und was lag dahinter?
Keine Ahnung. Die Weltherrschaft? Eine arische Gesellschaft? Die Glückseligkeit? Oder einfach nur ein virusfreies Leben?
Wir waren Bazillen, die vernichtet werden mussten. ~ David Safier,#NFDB
1345:Dann zünde ich mir eine Zigarette an und denke daran, daß ich Partys hasse, auf denen es Prosecco gibt, weil Prosecco weder Wein ist noch Champagner, sondern nur so ein blödes Zwischending, das eigentlich gar keine Existenzberechtigung hat. ~ Christian Kracht, #NFDB
1346:[Der Mensch] würde dem Wahnsinn verfallen, wenn er sich nicht aus diesem Gefängnis befreien könnte - wenn er nicht in irgendeiner Form seine Hände nach anderen Menschen ausstrecken und sich mit der Welt außerhalb seiner selbst vereinigen könnte. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1347:Du würdest mich benützen und dann wie eine Papiertüte wegwerfen, sollte es darauf hinauslaufen. Gott hat dich versaut, mein Freund. Du bist gerade schlau genug, dass dir das wehtun würde, aber gerade hart genug, dass du es trotzdem tun würdest. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1348:Ganz unabhängig davon, daß wir uns schon lange nicht mehr geküsst und auch keinen Sex mehr miteinander hatten... ich würde nie wieder inmitten der Dunkelheit so unbefangen, wie man einen Schluck Wasser trinkt, alles mit ihm teilen können... ~ Banana Yoshimoto, #NFDB
1349:Ich finde, dass das Glück zu einem kleinen Schlage, den es uns versetzen will, oft erschrecklich weit ausholt. Man sollte glauben, es wolle uns zerschmettern, und hat uns am Ende nichts, als eine Mücke auf der Stirne tot geschlagen. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
1350:In Wirklichkeit brauchte man nur Willenskraft. Und daran mangelte es den Brüdern gewiß nicht. Es mochte engstirnige, bornierte und haßerfüllte Willenskraft sein, von naiver Bosheit durchtränkt, aber sie konnte die notwendige Macht entfalten. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1351:Unfaßbar das erste Tier, das von einem anderen träumte. Ungeheuerlich das erste Wirbeltier, dem es gelang, sich auf zwei Füße zu stellen und so Schrecken zu verbreiten unter den normalen Wesen, die noch in froher Erdnähe im Urschlamm krochen. ~ Carlos Fuentes, #NFDB
1352:ein hübsches mädchen sollte sich damit befassen zu ficken und niemals zu zeugen
la philosophie dans le boudoir , ou les instituteurs immoraux | philosophy in the bedroom |
die philosophie im boudoir oder die lasterhaften lehrmeister ~ Marquis de Sade,#NFDB
1353:In Wahrheit sind all diese Nihilisten und Zyniker Schisser. Sie tun so, als wäre alles bedeutungslos, denn dann gibt es am Ende auch nichts zu verlieren. Ihre Haltung scheint unangreifbar und überlegen, aber sie ist im Innern auch nichts wert. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1354:So lebte Barbara, und vielleicht gab der Umstand, das sie auf Nicoletta wartete,daß sie zu jeder Stunde des Tages auf Nicolettas überraschende Ankunft vorbereitet war, ihren Leben den geheimen Sinn, das rätselhafte Zentrum, das es bedurfte. ~ Klaus Mann, #NFDB
1355:Wie ich darüber denke, daraus habe ich dir nie ein Hehl gemacht und habe dir immer gesagt, daß es ihr sicheres Verderben ist, wenn sie deine Frau wird. Und auch dein Verderben wird es sein, vielleicht in noch schlimmerem Grad als das ihre. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1356:Nun gut, dann sagen Sie mir einmal selbst, wie ich nach Ihrer Meinung am besten sterben würde ... damit es möglichst tugendhaft herauskommt, meine ich. Nun, so reden Sie!«
»Gehen Sie an uns vorbei, und verzeihen Sie uns unser Glück!« ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,#NFDB
1357:Wir träumen von Reisen durch das Weltall: ist denn das Weltall nicht in uns? Die Tiefen unseres Geistes kennen wir nicht. – Nach Innen geht der geheimnisvolle Weg. In uns, oder nirgends ist die Ewigkeit mit ihren Welten, die Vergangenheit und Zukunft. ~ Novalis, #NFDB
1358:Es hat auch viel Gutes, wenn manches im Dunkel der Geschichte verschwindet. Die Wahrheit ist nicht notwendigerweise bereichernd. Objektivität ist der Subjektivität nicht notwendigerweise überlegen. Und Fakten vertreiben keine Wahnvorstellungen. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1359:Wenn wir nicht wüssten, wieviele Millionen von außerordentlichen Talenten an jedem Tage in aller Welt verkümmern müssen, weil sie von keinem aufgehoben und angepackt und entwickelt und schließlich zu den höchsten Höhen hinauf entwickelt werden! ~ Thomas Bernhard, #NFDB
1360:Aber wenn das menschliche Schuldgefühl auf die Tötung des Urvaters zurückgeht, das war doch ein Fall von 'Reue', und damals soll der Voraussetzung nach Gewissen und Schuldgefühl vor der Tat nicht bestanden haben? Woher kam in diesem Fall die Reue? ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1361:Der Einzelfall ist nie gewöhnlich: das Allergewöhnlichste für den Gedanken und die Aussage sind Geburt und Tod: wohne aber einer Geburt bei oder einem Sterben und frage dich, frage die Kreißende oder den Abscheidenden, ob das etwas Gewöhnliches ist! ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1362:Ich möchte vermeiden, daß jemand glaubt, ich würde die Rückkehr zur schlechten alten Zeit befürworten«, sagte der Professor für unbestimmte Studien und versuchte, sein Ohr von Sand zu befreien. »Aber früher haben wir Zauberer wie ihn umgebracht. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1363:und diese war so lebendig und so gesprächig und machte sich aus seiner Gegenwart und aus seiner Schüchternheit so wenig, daß er unbehilflich und ein wenig beleidigt die Fühler einzog und sich verkroch, wie eine vom Wagenrad gestreifte Wegschnecke. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1364:Wer lebt
Man sieht die Blumen welken
Und die Blätter fallen,
aber man sieht auch
die Früchte reifen
und die Knospen keimen.
Das Leben gehört
den Lebendigen an
und wer lebt,
muss auf Wechsel gefasst sein. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
1365:Die Frauen liebten ihn zunächst abgöttisch (...), bewunderten ihn (...) dann ließ irgend etwas sie die Leere ahnen, sie machten kehrt und er erleichterte ihnen die Flucht, öffnete ihnen die Tür, damit sie weglaufen konnten, um anderswo zu spielen. ~ Julio Cort zar, #NFDB
1366:Die Moral unserer Zeit ist, was immer sonst geredet werden möge, die der Leistung. Fünf mehr oder weniger betrügerische Konkurse sind gut, wenn auf den fünften eine Zeit des Segens und des Segenspendens folgt. Der Erfolg kann alles vergessen machen. ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1367:Ich mag eure kalte Gerechtigkeit nicht; und aus dem Auge eurer Richter blickt mir immer der Henker und sein kaltes Eisen. (Ich don't like your cold justice; and from the eyes of your judges seems to always gaze the hangman and his cold iron.) ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1368:In der Fabrik hing oben am Giebel, der am höchsten in den Himmel und am tiefsten in den Hof schaute, eine Losung:
Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt euch.
Und unten auf dem Boden gingen Schuhe, die das Land nur in der Flucht verlassen durften. ~ Herta M ller,#NFDB
1369:Jede Folgerung, die wir aus unseren Beobachtungen ziehen, ist meistens voreilig: Denn hinter den wahrgenommenen Erscheinungen gibt es solche, die wir undeutlich sehen, und hinter diesen wahrscheinlich noch andere, die wir überhaupt nicht erkennen. ~ Gustave Le Bon, #NFDB
1370:Oy hatte Mühe, sich auf Jakes Schoß zu halten, und versprühte einen Mund voll Truthahn mit einem Wort, das er von Eddie gelernt hatte.
Irene starrte den Bumbler mit großen, verblüfften Augen an. »Hat dieses Geschöpf eben fuck gesagt, junger Mann? ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1371:Das Blöde an einem Labyrinth ist, dass man erst am Ende weiß ob der Weg, für den man sich entschieden hat, richtig oder falsch war. Und wenn man am Ende merkt, dass man sich geirrt hat, ist es meistens zu spät. Das ist das Problem bei Labyrinthen. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1372:Dieses warme Hochgefühl war seiner Natur so fremd, daß es ihm fast wie eine Krankheit vorkam. Er versuchte beim Essen, es zu isolieren und zu verstehen. Er sah auf, betrachtete die Gesichter ringsum und glaubte zu verstehen, was es war. Glücklichsein ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1373:Francis wollte etwas erwidern, doch es war zwecklos. Der Blick seines Stiefvaters schweifte in die Ferne, vermutlich dachte er mal wieder an seine Kindheit, die ihn hart und stark gemacht hatte. Ein innerer Diavortrag mit den immergleichen Bildern. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1374:schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff"
(loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue) ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
1375:Sie dachte noch an Unkes Maske, als sie einschlief, und im Halbschlaf fragte sie sich, ob nicht jedermann bisweilen eine Maske trug.
Eine Maske der Freude, eine Maske der Trauer, eine Maske der Gleichgültigkeit.
Eine Maske aus Ihr-seht-mich-nicht. ~ Kai Meyer,#NFDB
1376:Sparsamkeit, so lobenswert sie auch für einen Privatmann ist, wäre dort übel angebracht, wo die Kräfte mehrerer Menschen in Bewegung gesetzt werden müssen, denn sie schwächt die Betriebsamkeit, die durch Belohnungen genährt und erhalten werden muss. ~ Thomas Hobbes, #NFDB
1377:Aber vielleicht hast du Recht, vielleicht gibt es so etwas wie Schicksal gar nicht. Nur Gelegenheiten - und das, was wir aus ihnen machen. Ich glaube langsam, dass uns die große Liebe nicht einfach in den Schoß fällt. Wir müssen sie selbst gestalten. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
1378:Emmi sprach zu Hillegonda vom Tod, um ihr die Nichtigkeit des Lebens zu beweisen, und sie führte sie in die hohen dunklen Kirchen, um ihren Sinn auf die Ewigkeit zu lenken, aber die kleine Hillegonda schauderte vor dem Tod und fror in den Kirchen. ~ Wolfgang Koeppen, #NFDB
1379:Und so sagte ich ihr, dass ich ihrem Daddy wehtun müsste, damit wir fliehen könnten, und da trat ein Ausdruck in ihre Augen, den ich gut kannte. Denn trotz ihrer Wohlanständigkeit mochte Quilla June ihren gottesfürchtigen Daddy nicht besonders gern. ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
1380:Das hier ist alles wie eine Saat. Das Internat, die Schule, was mit meinen Eltern passiert ist. Das alles wird in mir gesät, aber ich kann nicht sehen, was es aus mir macht. Erst wenn ich ein Erwachsener bin, kommt die Ernte, und dann ist es zu spät. ~ Benedict Wells, #NFDB
1381:„Deutschland“ war der Name eines Systems, in dem es nur darum ging, was wem gehörte und wer woran die Schuld trug. Jola war Deutschland. Sie kam von dort und würde dorthin zurückkehren. Theo und sie hatten ein Stück Kriegsgebiet mit auf die Insel gebracht. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1382:Er ging fort, um betrunkener zu sein als schonst. Weil nämlich die Welt irgendwie verdreht und falsch war, als sähe man sie durch gesplittertes Glas. Sie gewann erst dann wieder klare Konturen, wenn man sie durch den Boden einer Flasche betrachtete. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1383:I then asked his assistant for a pen, opened up the hardbound edition, and wrote, Zwischen Immer und Nie, for you in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties. In years to come, if the book was still in his possession, I wanted him to ache. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
1384:Und so vernahm und verstand Hans zum erstenmal in seinem Leben den Hymnus der ARbeit, der wenigstens für den Anfänger etwas Ergreifendes und angenehm Berauschendes hat, und sah seine kleine Person und sein kleines Leben einem großen Rhythmus eingefügt ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1385:Von Geburt an in den engen Grenzen einer abgeschlossenen Gemeinschaft aufgewachsen, fiel es ihnen schwer, die Regeln eines ausgedehnteren Umfelds zu verstehen und zu akzeptieren. Oftmals waren sie verunsichert und trauten ihrem eigenen Umfeld nicht. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1386:Ah, die Menschen, sie halten sich, obwohl sie sich nicht verstehen, obwohl sie ein völlig falsches Bild voneinander haben, ihr Leben lang für Busenfreunde und rezitieren, ohne je etwas bemerkt zu haben, einander noch am Grabe tränenreiche Abschiedsworte. ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
1387:Denn dies haßte, verabscheute und verfluchte ich von allem doch am innigsten: diese Zufriedenheit, diese Gesundheit, Behaglichkeit, diesen gepflegten Optimismus des Bürgers, diese fette gedeihliche Zucht des Mittelmäßigen, Normalen, Durchschnittlichen. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1388:Eine Führerpersönlichkeit kann ohne Gedächnis sein. Vollkommen amnesiert. Denn die besondere Begabung des Führers ist nicht das Aufräumen trockener Fakten - seine besondere Begabung ist die rasche Entscheidung und die Übernahme der Verantwortung darfür. ~ Timur Vermes, #NFDB
1389:Er trat ruhig und gelassen auf den Tisch zu. Ohne sich vorzustellen - >Ihr wißt, wer ich bin, und wer ihr seid, interessiert mich nicht<, schien diese Unhöflichkeit zu besagen -, begann er mit fachmännischer Trockenheit die sachlichen Anordnungen. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1390:Ich ging in die Wälder, weil ich bewusst leben wollte.
Ich wollte das Dasein auskosten. Ich wollte das Mark des Lebens einsaugen!
Und alles fortwerfen, das kein Leben barg, um nicht an meinem Todestag Innezuwerden, daß ich nie gelebt hatte. ~ Henry David Thoreau,#NFDB
1391:Man will Sie unter Kuratel stellen, können Sie sich das denken? Sie mit allem, was drum und dran ist, mit Ihrem freien Willen und mit Ihrem Geld, das heißt mit den beiden Dingen, durch die sich ein jeder von uns von einem Vierfüßler unterscheidet! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1392:Mathematics in general is fundamentally the science of self-evident things. ~ Felix Klein, Anwendung der Differential-und Integralrechnung auf Geometrie (1920) p. 26, as quoted by Robert Edouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica or The Philomath's Quotation-Book (1914)., #NFDB
1393:Morgana hat viel erlebt, und durch die Jahrtausende weise geworden, blieb es doch im Herzen ein Kind. Es ist bis heute noch kindlich genug, Neuem gegenüber Verwunderung zu empfinden. Und wer im Herzen ein Kind bleibt, wird vom Leben mit Wundern belohnt. ~ Rafik Schami, #NFDB
1394:oder auch durch die direkte Pflanzung schon kräftiger Jungpflanzen gefördert werden. Die Wiesenblumen wie Lupinen, Margeriten, Wiesensalbei und dergleichen bilden aber nur dann flächige Bestände, wenn sie in Ruhe abblühen und Samen bilden können. Wiesen mäht ~ Various, #NFDB
1395:Sie genossen üppige Mahlzeiten, und nach einem wirklich guten Essen und einer Zigarre neigt selbst der gemeinste Dunkle Lord dazu, die Füße hochzulegen und der Welt mit Wohlwollen zu begegnen, vor allem dann, wenn sie ihm einen weiteren Brandy anbot. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1396:Why since I am myself subject to birth, ageing, disease, death, sorrows and defilement, do I seek after what is also subject to these things? Suppose, being myself subject these things, seeking danger in them, I were to seek the unborn, unageing, und. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
1397:Aber irgendwann hörte die Erinnerung an sie auf, mich zu begleiten. Sie blieb zurück, wie eine Stadt zurückbleibt, wenn der Zug weiterfährt. Sie ist da, irgendwo hinter einem, und man könnte hinfahren und sich ihrer versichern. Aber warum sollte man. ~ Bernhard Schlink, #NFDB
1398:„Angesichts all dessen, was auf der Erde geschehen ist seit ihrer Erschaffung, hat Gott nur eine Art von Liebe an den Tag gelegt: die Vorliebe für interessante Geschichten. Erst brockt er irgendwem was ein, und dann schaut er, was dabei herauskommt. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky, #NFDB
1399:Bibliothèque Nationale. Ich sitze und lese einen Dichter. Es sind viele Leute im Saal, aber man spürt sie nicht. Sie sind in den Büchern. Manchmal bewegen sie sich in den Blättern, wie Menschen, die schlafen und sich umwenden zwischen zwei Träumen. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1400:Der Verrückte nickte. "Horus", sagte er. "Ich bin der Falke des Morgens, der Greifvogel des Nachmittags. Ich bin die Sonne, so wie du. Und ich kenne den wahren Namen von Ra. Meine Mutter hat ihn mir verraten."
"Das ist großartig", sagte Shadow höflich. ~ Neil Gaiman,#NFDB
1401:Die Elsässerin, die man mir zur Frau vorgeschlagen hat, hat sechs Zehen am linken Fuß: ich kann mit keiner Frau leben, die sechs Zehen hat! Das spräche sich herum, und ich wäre lächerlich. Sie hat nur 18000 Francs Rente! zuwenig Geld und zuviel Zehen! ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1402:Neue Bücher rochen nach Druckerschwärze, nach Leim, nach Erwartungen. Alte Bücher dufteten nach Abenteuern, ihren eigenen und jenen, von denen sie erzählten. Und gute Bücher verströmten ein Aroma, in dem das alles steckte, und dazu noch ein Hauch von Magie. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
1403:Sie entsann sich, wie sie an einem heißen Julitag unter dem Baum gesessen hatte an der Seite von jemandem, der sie mit solchem Verlangen angesehen hatte, daß nichts sonst Bedeutung hatte. Und in jenem Augenblick hatte sie sich zum ersten Mal verliebt. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
1404:So viel hast du getan, und so viel mehr hättest du noch getan, aye, und alles ohne Hemmungen noch Skrupel, und so wird die Welt dereinst enden, dünkt mich, kein Opfer des Hasses, sondern der Liebe. War die Liebe doch schon immer die vernichtendere Waffe. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1405:Die wissenschaftliche Überlegenheit der liberalien Theologie, heißt es nun, sei zwar unbestreitbar, aber ihre theologische Position sei schwach, denn ihrem Moralismus und Humanismus mangle die Einsicht in den dämonischen Charakter der meschlichen Existenz. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1406:Rätselhafterweise ist Schriftsteller trotzdem der schönste Beruf der Welt. Mehr als das. Schriftsteller zu sein, ist eine Auszeichnung. Ein Privileg. Das hat mit Freiheit zu tun und mit drei Dingen, an die ich glaube: Liebe, Literatur und Liebe zur Literatur. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1407:When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is that always in the book? - Original German: "Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das allemal im Buche?" ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Vermischte Schriften, E (1775 - 1776), 103., #NFDB
1408:Außerdem kommst du vielleicht nie in Petes Alter, sagte die beunruhigende innere Stimme. Wie konnte man bloß eine so kalte und beängstigende Stimme in sich haben? Eine solche Verräterin an der eigenen Sache? Vielleicht kommst du nie aus diesem Wald heraus. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1409:Es war eine traditionelle Zwergenaxt: auf der einen Seite eine Spitzhacke, um interessante Mineralien aus dem Boden zu lösen, und auf der anderen eine Axt – weil die Besitzer des Landes mit den interessanten Mineralien manchmal unvernünftig sein können. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1410:Ich sehe Deine Schönheit ganz,
schließ ich die Augen mein,
Und schließ' den Mund ich, trinke ich
nur immer Deinen Wein.
Verboten gilt mir das Gespräch
mit Menschen in der Welt -
Doch wenn von Dir gesprochen wird:
lang wird mein Wort dann sein! ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1411:Ich wollte meine Augen öffnen, um Gideon ein letztes Mal anzusehen, aber ich schaffte es nicht.
"Ich liebe dich, Gwenny, bitte verlass mich nicht", sagte Gideon, und das war das letzte, was ich hörte, bevor ich von einem großen Nichts verschluckt wurde. ~ Kerstin Gier,#NFDB
1412:Wissen ist Wohlstand! Keine Stadt ohne Weltklasse-Universität wird am Ende des 21. Jahrhunderts noch der Rede wert sein. Die Ballungsräume der Zukunft formen sich mit Sicherheit um Forschungseinrichtungen, nicht um Häfen, Lagerhäuser und Autobahnknoten. ~ Christoph Keese, #NFDB
1413:Zu den Dingen, die Kunst zu einer Kraft machen, mit der man rechnen muss, selbst wenn einem nicht daran gelegen ist, gehört die Regelmäßigkeit, mit der der Mythos die Wahrheit verschluckt – und zwar ohne einen einzigen Rülpser wegen einer Magenverstimmung. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1414:Zwei Jahre Ferien', davon träumt gewiß jeder Junge, wenn ihm die Schule zum Hals heraushängt, aber auch auf einer einsamen und noch so herrlichen Insel muß man sich zusammenreißen, Ordnung halten und sich auf die anderen einstellen, wenn man überleben will. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1415:Dann sprach er über die Abgründe des Daseins, wo alles Mysterium und Rätsel ist: "Wir wissen nichts über die Person, die wir sind, und ihr Dasein", sagte er. (Die Sehnsucht, zu wissen, bleibt natürlich, selbst in der größten Verzweiflung des Nichtwissens. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1416:Der Himmel bewölkt sich. Und da ist auch wieder meine Angst, da, tief in mir drin, wie eine böse Wunde, die bei jeder Bewegung schmerzt. Ich weiß, wie sie heißt. Das ist die Angst vor der ewigen Einsamkeit, die Furcht, dass es vielleicht keine Antwort gibt. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1417:Die christliche Sitte, träge aufrecht dazusitzen wie bei einer Unterhaltungsveranstaltung, deutet darauf hin, dass Gott als Unterhaltungskünstler gilt, der von der Bühne entfernt und durch eine andere Nummer ersetzt werden kann, wenn er nicht mehr unterhält. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
1418:Die Geschichte beweist leider, daß der Krieg in gewissem Sinne der gewöhnliche Zustand der Menschheit ist, d. h. daß Menschenblut ununterbrochen auf dem Erdball fließen muß, bald hier, bald da, und daß der Friede für jedes Volk nur eine Kampfpause ist. ~ Joseph de Maistre, #NFDB
1419:Es ist sehr nett, verheiratet zu sein. Man muss nur wissen, dass zwei Menschen niemals ein Herz und eine Seele haben können. Sie bleiben immer zwei Leute, zwei Herzen. Es kommt nur darauf an, angenehm nebeneinander zu leben und doch nie allein zu sein. ~ Annemarie Selinko, #NFDB
1420:Linda hatte viele Narben. Die meisten von ihnen waren größer als die auf der Stirn und schlechter verheilt, denn sie lagen an Stellen, an die keine Wundsalbe und kein Chirurg jemals herankommen würden: tief unten, verborgen im Seelengewebe ihrer Psyche. ~ Sebastian Fitzek, #NFDB
1421:Was mich richtig umhaut, sind Bücher, bei denen man sich wünscht, wenn man es ganz ausgelesen hat, der Autor, der es geschrieben hat, wäre irrsinnig mit einem befreundet und man könnte ihn jederzeit, wenn man Lust hat, anrufen. Das kommt aber nicht oft vor. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
1422:Wiederholung und Erinnerung sind die gleiche Bewegung, nur in entgegengesetzter Richtung; denn dasjenige, woran man sich erinnert, ist gewesen, wird rückwärts wiederholt, während die eigentliche Wiederholung eine Erinnerung in vorwärtiger Richtung ist. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1423:Artus führte die Frau und den Mann und doch folgten ihm beide nicht, wie ich euch jetzt erklären will: sie tauschten beide untereinander die Herzen, die Dame und Herr Iwein: Artus folgten ihr Herz und er selbst, und zurück blieben sein Herz und die Frau. ~ Hartmann von Aue, #NFDB
1424:Auf einmal hielt er es nicht mehr aus. Er stand ruckartig auf, wollte irgendwas tun, irgendwas verändern. Seine Fäuste waren geballt. Da war so viel Wille.
Eine Weile stand er einfach nur so da und wollte.
Dann setzte er sich wieder hin und sah fern. ~ Benedict Wells,#NFDB
1425:Freund, mein getreuer Sklave, wie Sie sagen, wenn Sie noch ferner die Notwendigkeit des Krieges leugnen und noch länger die Greuel verteidigen wollen, welche dieser Antichrist begeht, denn es ist der Antichrist selbst, davon bin ich überzeugt. Setzen Sie sich ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1426:Ein Weib mit Herz ohne Verstand ist ebenso unglücklich wie ein Weib mit Verstand ohne Herz. Das ist eine alte Wahrheit. Ich bin ein Weib mit Herz ohne Verstand und du eines mit Verstand ohne Herz; wir sind beide unglücklich und müssen beide viel leiden. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1427:Er erklärte mir, der Faschismus habe doch auch viele Menschen aus dem Proletariat getäuscht und sie müßten aufgeklärt, wie er sagte: ‘umerzogen’ werden, denn es handle sich um ‘entwicklungsfähige Proletarier’, die auf den richtigen Weg gebracht werden müßten. ~ Imre Kert sz, #NFDB
1428:Ich habe schreckliche Dinge erlebt, gelitten, geschuftet, Staub gefressen, den kürzeren gezogen, ich wurde schon verlassen, besiegt, erniedrigt und durch den Dreck geschleift, aber noch nie, niemals wurde mir soviel abverlangt, wie dich nicht anzurufen. ~ Fr d ric Beigbeder, #NFDB
1429:Morgenluft! Wenn die Menschen von ihr nicht an der Quelle des Tages trinken wollen, werden wir ein wenig von ihr auf Flaschen füllen müssen und sie in den Läden verkaufen, zum Wohle derer, die ihr Rezept für Morgenstunden in dieser Welt verloren haben. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1430:AD Jones' Büro ist fensterlos und nüchtern. Er hat sich ein Eckbüro mit großartiger Aussicht nehmen können, doch als ich ihn einmal deswegen gefragt habe, lautete seine Antwort sinngemäß: "Ein guter Chef sollte nicht allzu viel Zeit im Büro verbringen." p. 26 ~ Cody McFadyen, #NFDB
1431:Alle Befriedigung, oder was man gemeinhin Glu« ck nennt, ist eigentlich und wesentlich immer nur negativ und durchaus nie positiv. All satisfaction, or what iscommonlycalled happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1432:Anscheinend hatten alle und jeder Probleme. Sie regneten geradezu vom Himmel auf uns hernieder, wir sammelten sie ein uns stopften uns damit die Taschen voll. Warum wir das taten, weiß ich nicht mehr. Vielleicht hielten wir sie irrtümlich für etwas anderes. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1433:Auch bei ihm, auch bei deinem großen Lehrer, ist mir das Ding lieber als die Worte, sein Tun und Leben wichtiger als sein Reden, die Gebärde seiner Hand wichtiger als seine Meinungen. Nicht im Reden, nicht im Denken sehe ich seine Größe, nur im Tun, im Leben. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1434:[D]ie spezielle Müdigkeit, die jeden befällt, der sich anhören muss, was gut und böse, richtig und falsch sei, obwohl niemand mehr die Grundlagen dieser Unterscheidung zu erklären oder auch nur zu benennen vermag. Moral dient der Herbeiführung von Berechenbarkeit. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1435:Doch gerade in diesem Moment, in dem alle die Angst, die sie gehabt haben, oder die vielmehr sie gehabt hat, schnell aus ihren Gedanken wischen wollen, gerade da geht auf einmal das Licht aus, und einen Moment lang sind alle Menschen in diesem Raum schwarz. ~ Jenny Erpenbeck, #NFDB
1436:Es gibt Bücher, die dich unterhalten, dich aber nicht wirklich im Innersten bewegen. Und dann gibt es Bücher, die dich zweifeln machen, sie geben dir Hoffnung, sie erweitern die Welt und machen dich mit Abgründen bekannt. Auf diese Bücher kommt es an. ~ J n Kalman Stef nsson, #NFDB
1437:Rosemary, warum magst du Bücher so gern?" Und ich sagte: "Naja, ich weiß nicht (...) Ich schätze mal, ich mag sie, weil sie leise sind und ich sie in den Park mitnehmen kann (...) Naja, also eigentlich mag ich Bücher so gern, weil sie meine besten Freunde sind. ~ Robin Sloan, #NFDB
1438:Das war alles ein wenig viel für mich heute: Anstatt zu schlafen, eine Feuerleiter hinaufzuklettern, zu saufen, was das Zeug hält, mal eben ein bisschen zu vögeln und nebenbei erwachsen zu werden. Das reicht für eine Nacht. Da würde jeder kotzen, glaube ich. ~ Benjamin Lebert, #NFDB
1439:Der Mensch durchschreitet die Gegenwart mit verbundenen Augen. Erst später wird ihm die Binde abgenommen, und wenn er dann auf die Vergangenheit zurückschaut, stellt er fest, was er wirklich erlebt und welche Bedeutung das Erlebte gehabt hat. (Milan Kundera) ~ Guillaume Musso, #NFDB
1440:Er erzählte mir Geschichten, und vor allem ging er mit mir spazieren. Er zeigte mir Straßen und Plätze, Quais und Kanäle, die Friedhöfe, die Hafenplätze und Lagerhäuser, die unsicheren Viertel, die Kneipen - so viele Ecken von Paris, die ich nicht kannte. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
1441:Immer müssen die Denkenden darauf verzichten zu leben, und die Lebenden haben es nicht nötig zu denken. Die erlösende Tat wird nie getan werden, denn der die Kraft hätte, sie zu tun, weiß nicht, dass er sie tun muss, und der Wissende ist unfähig zu handeln. ~ Marlen Haushofer, #NFDB
1442:Jedes Mädchen würde ihn toll finden", sagte ich. "Zumindest vom Aussehen her. Aber er bringt mich die ganze Zeit auf die Palme und er kommandiert mich herum und er ist einfach... er ist einfach unwahrscheinlich..." "... toll?" Leslie lächelte mich liebevoll an. ~ Kerstin Gier, #NFDB
1443:Seiner Erfahrung nach wurden die schlimmsten Übel auf der Welt nicht durch böse Menschen bewirkt. Von denen gab es in Wahrheit erstaunlich wenige. Viel gefährlicher waren Leute, die sich im Recht glaubten. Sie waren ungeheuer zahlreich, und sie kannten keine Gnade. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1444:Alle grosse Liebe ist noch über all ihrem Mitleiden: denn sie will das Geliebte noch – schaffen!
»Mich selber bringe ich meiner Liebe dar, und meinen Nächsten gleich mir« – so geht die Rede allen Schaffenden.
Alle Schaffenden aber sind hart. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
1445:Denn nichts lenkt den Menschen so von seinem gesunden Urteil ab wie geografische Ortsnamen, geladen mit alter Sehnsucht und bepackt mit tausend Gedankenverbindungen, und wenn er dann hinkommt, ist es alles halb so schön. Aber wer traut sich denn, das zu sagen? ~ Kurt Tucholsky, #NFDB
1446:Ihr glaubt, ihr seid dazu verpflichtet -
ja, das wolln wir aber gar nicht - ja, das wolln wir aber gar nicht!
Auch ohne Liebe sind wir manchmal glücklich und froh -
es geht auch ohne das - es geht auch so!
Es geht auch ohne das - es geht auch so! ~ Kurt Tucholsky,#NFDB
1447:Manchmal", sagte sie, "gehen zwei Menschen aneinander vorbei, sehen sich kurz in die Augen, und alles, was bleibt, ist ein Wunsch. Ein Traum von dem, was hätte geschehen können. Und dann gehen sie mit jedem Schritt weiter voneinander fort und von all ihren Träumen. ~ Kai Meyer, #NFDB
1448:Sie sieht ihn fortwährend an und wendet kein Auge von ihm; nach jedem Wort von ihm hascht sie ordentlich und klammert sich daran fest!« sagte Lisaweta Prokofjewna nachher zu ihrem Gatten. »Aber wenn man ihr sagt, daß sie ihn liebt, dann ist der Teufel los! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1449:Alles wird man ja satt, des schlafes sogar, und der liebe,
Auch des süßen gesangs, und bewunderten reigentanzes:
Welche doch mehr anreizen die sehnsuchtsvolle begierde,
Als der krieg; doch die Troer sind niemals satt des gefechts! (Ilias; 13. Gesang V. 636-640) ~ Homer,#NFDB
1450:Der Kapitän sah sich nach dem anderen Singhalesen um; der stand etwa hundertfünfzig Meter entfernt und wartete gleichgültig, die Hände auf den Schultern gekreuzt. Nun ja, wohin soll ein nackter Mensch auch mit seinen Händen? Er kann sie nur auf die Schultern legen. ~ Karel apek, #NFDB
1451:Ich widerspreche mit keinem Ton, weiß wieder, wie einfach und einlullend das Leben sein kann, wenn man nicht fragt, nicht nachfragt, wenn der Geist und sein Hunger nach Erkenntnis und Wissen nicht auftauchen und keinen Augenblick lang den Seelenfrieden stören. ~ Andreas Altmann, #NFDB
1452:Das Spiel ist der Inbegriff demokratischer Lebensart. Es ist die letzt uns verbliebene Seinsform. Der Spieltrieb ersetzt die Religiosität, beherrscht die Börse, die Politik, die Gerichtssäle, die Pressewelt, und er ist es, der uns seit Gottes Tod mental am Leben hält. ~ Juli Zeh, #NFDB
1453:Ein Jahrhundert, das sich bloß auf die Analyse verlegt und sich vor der Synthese gleichsam fürchtet, ist nicht auf dem rechten Wege; denn nur beide zusammen, wie Aus- und Einatmen, machen das Leben der Wissenschaft.
1829, "Analyse und Synthese ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
1454:Faulheit und Feigheit sind die Ursachen, warum ein so großer Teil der Menschen, nachdem sie die Natur längst von fremder Leitung frei gesprochen, dennoch gerne zeitlebens unmündig bleiben; und warum es anderen so leicht wird, sich zu deren Vormündern aufzuwerfen. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
1455:Leben ist nur ein wandelnd Schattenbild;
Ein armer Komödiant, der spreizt und knirscht
Sein Stündchen auf der Bühn' und dann nicht mehr
Vernommen wird; ein Märchen ist's, erzählt
Von einem Dummkopf voller Klang und Wut,
Das nichts bedeutet. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1456:Lebenslängliche Theaterkerkerhaft
ohne die geringste Begnadigungsmöglichkeit
Und doch niemals aufgegeben
Strafanstalt als Theater
Zehntausende Insassen
die alle keine Aussicht
auf Begnadigung haben
Nur die Todesstrafe ist ihnen allen sicher ~ Thomas Bernhard,#NFDB
1457:Man hielt ihn für verrückt, aber das stimmte nicht, zumindest nicht ganz. Seine Kontakte mit der Realität fanden auf einem kosmischen Niveau statt, deshalb fiel es ihm schwer, sich auf kleine Dinge zu besinnen, wie zum Beispiel andere Personen, Wände und Seife. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1458:Dabei steckte mir nach meiner traurigen Jugend das altbekannte, für die späte Pubertät so typische Gefühlsgemisch aus Stolz und Verzweiflung noch tief in den Knochen, wenn man sich hochnäsig für etwas Besseres hält, aber gleichzeitig an sozialer Paranoia leidet. ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
1459:...des verstorbenen Philosophen Pinchas T., der in seiner einzigen bedeutenden Abhandlung "An den Staub: vom Menschen bist du, und zum Menschen sollst du werden" argumentierte, es sei theoretisch möglich, das Leben und die Kunst gegeneinander auszutauschen. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
1460:In Hamburg sind alle Mädchen barbourgrün, in Berlin ziehen sie sich betont schlecht an, damit sie so aussehen wie Künstler, und in München haben die Mädchen wegen dem Föhn so ein seltsames inneres Leuchten. Aber in Frankfurt, da sind die Mädchen einfach lässig. ~ Christian Kracht, #NFDB
1461:Und daraus schöpfe ich die Bestätigung meiner Überzeugung, daß, was den Geist im Innersten bewegt, das Verlangen nach uneingeschränkter Freiheit ist, und daß dieser Drang ausnahmslos von seinem Gegenteil begleitet ist, von der Furcht vor den Folgen der Freiheit. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
1462:Wir sehen die Welt nicht wie ein Botaniker, der gleichzeitig Architekt, Arzt, Geologe und Kapitän ist. Das Kennen geschieht nicht so wie das Sehen, es verträgt sich nicht einmal allzugut damit, und es ist oft eine schlechtere Methode, um festzustellen, was es gibt. ~ Sten Nadolny, #NFDB
1463:Alt ist, was man vergessen hat. Und das Unvergeßliche war gestern. Der Maßtab ist nicht die Uhr, sondern der Wert. Und das Wertvollste, ob lustig oder traurig, ist die Kindheit. Vergeß das Unverglißliche nicht! Diesen Rat kan man, glaub ich, nicht früh genug geben. ~ Erich K stner, #NFDB
1464:„Dieser Faktor künstlerischer Vision ist so real und offensichtlich, dass ein Film selbst dann seine unbestreitbare Brillanz behält, wenn ein Regisseur wie Stanley Kubrick einen so ärgerlichen, perversen und enttäuschenden Film wie SHINING macht; sie ist einfach da. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1465:Du hast ja keine Ahnung, was du getan hast. Die beiden Welten auf diese Weise zusammenzubringen, könnte uns alle ins Unglück stürzen."
"Uns alle interessiert mich nicht, mir geht es nur um mich. Und glauben Sie mir, Captain, mir wird nicht das Geringste passieren. ~ Eoin Colfer,#NFDB
1466:Er liebte den intensiven, leicht märchenhaften Geruch von Büchern, und manchmal schlenderte er an den Regalen für Erwachsene entlang, betrachtete Tausende von Büchern und malte sich aus, dass jedes eine Welt für sich war, von den verschiedensten Gestalten bevölkert. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1467:Es wird eine weiße Weihnacht geben", sagte Shadow, während er das Benzin einlaufen ließ.
"Jau. Scheiße. Dieser Junge war ein verdammtes Glückskind."
"Jesus?"
"Mehr Glück als Verstand. Der konnte in die Jauchegrube fallen und hat trotzdem nach Rosen geduftet. ~ Neil Gaiman,#NFDB
1468:Meinem Eindruck nach ist der arme Martin nicht einmal in der Lage, seine Schugröße niederzuschreiben, und verharrt meistens in einer Art von Fegefeuer, das er in seinem eigenen Kopf aufgebaut hat, wo ihn Gewissensbisse und Schmerz bei lebendigem Leib aufzehren. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
1469:Vielleicht hat es so begonnen. Du denkst, du ruhst dich einfach aus, weil man dann besser handeln kann, wenn es soweit ist, aber ohne jeden Grund, und schon findest du dich machtlos, überhaupt je wieder etwas tun zu können. Spielt keine Rolle, wie es passiert ist. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1470:Die meisten Menschen entwickeln ihr soziales Gewissen in jungen Jahren, während der kurzen Phase zwischen dem Schulabschluß und der Einsicht, daß Ungerechtigkeit nicht immer schlecht ist. Sein soziales Gewissen erst mit Sechzig zu finden, war ein ziemlicher Schock ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1471:Inzwischen brannte die ganze Innenstadt von Morpork. Die reicheren und ehrenwerteren Bürger von Ankh auf der anderen Seite des Flusses reagierten ausgesprochen tapfer und mutig auf diese bedrohliche Situation, indem sie in fieberhafter Eile die Brücken zerstörten. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1472:Alsdann kam ihm für eine Stunde zum Bewußtsein, daß er ein seltsames Leben führe, daß er da lauter Dinge tue, die bloß ein Spiel waren, daß er wohl heiter sei und zuweilen Freude fühle, daß aber das eigentliche Leben dennoch an ihm vorbeifließe und ihn nicht berühre. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1473:Auf diesem Platz hat schon mancher gedacht, hier wäre der Ort für ein tüchtiges Stück Leben und Freude, hier müßte etwas Lebendiges, Beglückendes wachsen können, hier müßten reife und gute Menschen ihre freudigen Gedanken denken und schöne und heitere Werke schaffen. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1474:Children's and Household Tales (German: Kinder- und Hausmärchen) is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales (German: Grimms Märchen). ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1475:come/bring to a standstill erlịscht [εəˈlI∫t] 3. pers sing pres von erlöschen erlogen [εəˈloːgn] adj not true pred; (= erfunden) made-up attr, made up pred; das ist erstunken und erlogen (inf) that's a rotten lie (inf) Erlös [εəˈloːs] m -es, -e [-zə] proceeds pl erlọ̈schen ~ Collins, #NFDB
1476:Geld kann seinen praktischen Wert vervielfachen, abhängig davon, wie viele "Ws" Sie in Ihrem Leben selbst kontrollieren: was Sie tun, wann Sie es tun, wo Sie es tun und mit wem Sie es tun. Ich nenne das den Freiheitsmultiplikator. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1477:In the Nuremberg documents “not a single case could be traced in which an S.S. member had suffered the death penalty because of a refusal to take part in an execution” [Herbert Jäger, “Betrachtungen zum Eichmann-Prozess,” in Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform, 1962]. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
1478:Und alles hatte den leichten Schimmelduft, den Bücher im mittleren Texas haben. Zuviel Feuchtigkeit. Zuviel Wärme. Ein Land, das niemals imstande sein wird, Bücher längere Zeit aufzubewahren. Bücher halten sich hier nicht. Sie schimmeln.
(Die Sache mit dem Hund) ~ Lars Gustafsson,#NFDB
1479:Wer ein mathematisches Buch nicht mit Andacht ergreift, und es wie Gottes-Wort liest, der versteht es nicht. - Whoever seizes a mathematical book without devotion, whoever does not read it as if it were God's word, doesn't understand it. ~ Novalis, Fragmente vermischten Inhalts., #NFDB
1480:Auch, wenn ihre Nachbarn litten - solange das Leid nicht bei ihnen selbst Einkehr hielt, zogen sie es vor, wegzusehen und so zu tun, als würden die schlechten Dinge nicht existieren. Es war nicht immer Feigheit. Für manche erforderte das Leben an sich schon sehr viel Mut. ~ Marc Levy, #NFDB
1481:Ich dachte, die Minoriten seien nach dem Willen des barmherzigen Gottes arm und mittellos?"
"Ja, und darum gehört alles auf ihrem Grund und Boden einzig dem Herrn. Aber solang ders nicht abholt, muss es ja verwaltet werden."
"Oder gegessen?"
"Und getrunken. ~ Frank Sch tzing,#NFDB
1482:Ich kann nicht beten:"laß mir sie!"und doch kommt sie mir oft als die Meine vor. Ich kann nicht beten:"gib mir sie!"denn sie ist eines andern. Ich witzle mich mit meinen Schmerzen herum; wenn ich mir’s nachließe, es gäbe eine ganze Litanei von Antithesen. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1483:Die Abgrenzung Jahwes als einzigem Gott von seiner vormaligen, bunten Familie - seiner Frau Aschera, selbst eine Göttin des Bodens, und ihren begabten Kindern, dem wilden Baal, der promisken Astarte, der Jägerin Anat und dem Meeresgott Jam - erscheint als Sysiphosarbeit. ~ Shlomo Sand, #NFDB
1484:Die Revolution hätte mich mitgerissen, hätte sie nicht mit Verbrechen begonnen: beim Anblick des ersten Kopfes auf der Spitze einer Pike zuckte ich zurück. Niemals wird für mich der Mord Gegenstand der Bewunderung und ein Argument für die Freiheit sein. ~ Fran ois Ren de Chateaubriand, #NFDB
1485:Es war einmal ein Mensch, der wurde geboren, lebte, und aus dem einen oder anderen Grunde starb er schließlich. Bitte schön. Die Einzelheiten möge man aus der eigenen Anschauung ergänzen. So wenig originell wie nur je eine Geschichte, so einzigartig wie nur je ein Leben. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1486:Garraty dachte, dass Erinnerungen Ähnlichkeit mit in den Sand gezogenen Linien hätten. Je weiter man zurücksah, desto verschwommener und undeutlicher wurden sie, bis zum Schluss nur der glatte Sand übrig blieb und das Nichts, das schwarze Loch, aus dem man gekommen war. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1487:Ich hatte die ganze Zeit gedacht, die beiden ziehen über meinen Großvater her, aber dann wurde mir klar, die meinten mich. Das heißt, natürlich meinten sie irgendeinen verrückten Killer, aber das war immer noch ich, die ich da in Häschenpantoffeln und Pelzmantel saß. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1488:Von Leuten wie mir hat man immer nur verlangt, dass sie warten, bis es irgendwo zu einem Krieg kommt – um dann ein Beispiel für unglaublich dumme Tapferkeit zu bieten und zu sterben. Unsere Hauptbeschäftigung bestand darin, an Dingen festzuhalten. Vor allem an Ideen. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1489:Wir haben also immer eine Wahl? Was ist mit den Entscheidungen die andere für uns treffen und die unser Leben versauen, nicht deren eigenes? Wo bleibt da unsere Wahlfreiheit? Seine Entscheidungen haben mein Leben verändert. Meine ganze Zukunft. Sie haben mich verändert. ~ Chris Carter, #NFDB
1490:[Z]urück blieb ein gebrochener, von der Leere zerrissener Mensch, harrend, dass sich ihm, spürbar, wieder das Knochenbein der Gewohnheit bildete, Haut der Gewohnheit ihn wieder überzöge, und er bald, vielleicht schon am Tage darauf, ruhig und gefasst antworten könnte... ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
1491:Es ist seltsam, aber ich sehne mich umso mehr nach dem Leben, je mehr ich davon getrennt bin. Es ist seltsam, meinen Sie nicht auch, dass Verzweiflung in Lebensdurst umschlagen kann und dass man selbst in diesen düsteren Zeiten das Glück in den kleinen Dingen finden kann. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
1492:Leck mich im Arsch!
Laßt uns froh sein!
Murren ist vergebens!
Knurren, Brummen ist vergebens,
ist das wahre Kreuz des Lebens,
das Brummen ist vergebens,
Knurren, Brummen ist vergebens, vergebens!
Drum laßt uns froh und fröhlich, froh sein! ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,#NFDB
1493:Nicht, dass ich es dir verdenken könnte. Ich bin ausgesprochen koitabel – im Grunde das große Los. Eine Weile war ich sogar König.«
»Wenn Worte Reichtum wären«, seufzte der Mohr. »Du wärst ein König unter Königen, aber im Moment bist du nur klein, nass und laut.« ~ Christopher Moore,#NFDB
1494:Was ich wünschte, war Bewegung und nicht ein ruhiges Dahinfließen des Lebens. Es verlangte mich nach Aufregungen und Gefahren, nach Selbstaufopferung um eines Gefühlswillen. In mir war ein Überschuss von Kraft, der in unserem stillen Leben keinen Raum zur Bestätigung fand ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1495:But if the sky were paper and a scribe each star above, And every scribe had seven hands, they could not write all my love. ~ Dürsli und Bäbeli; old public house ditty of the Canton de Soleure or Solothurn. Original in Swiss dialect. Given in Notes and Queries (Feb. 10, 1872), p. 114, #NFDB
1496:Die Geschichte der Monstrositäten und des Grauens ist ein Korb, vollgepackt mit Problemen; wenn der Schriftsteller vorbei kommt, nimmt man einen von seinen imaginären Schrecken aus dem Korb und legt einen eigenen wirklichen dafür hinein - für eine Zeit lang jedenfalls ... ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1497:Gott ist ein echter Sportsgeist. Er ist so ein Sportsgeist, dass er eine Welt wie aus einer komischen Oper zusammengebastelt hat, in der Christbaumkugeln aus Glas älter werden als man selbst. Hübsche Welt, und ein wirklich erstklassiger Gott, der dafür verantwortlich ist. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1498:Ich hatte das gefühl, er hat in der Vergangenheit gelebt, eingeschlossen in seinen Erinnerungen, ganz für sich, für seine Bücher und in ihnen drin, wie ein Luxusgefangener."
Sie sagen das, als beneiden sie ihn."
Es gibt schlimmere Gefängnisse als Worte, Daniel. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n,#NFDB
1499:Jetzt verachten Sie mich wohl sehr, nicht wahr?«
»Weswegen sollte ich das tun? Weil Sie mehr gelitten haben und leiden als wir?«
»Nein, weil ich meines Leidens nicht würdig bin.«
»Wer mehr hat leiden können, muß auch würdig sein, mehr zu leiden. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,#NFDB
1500:Sie töten so gerne Tiere, weil es unter Strafe steht, Menschen umzubringen, und weil sie doch so gerne auslöschen, am liebsten sich. Wie die Augen blind werden, im Augenblick des Übergangs von einem beseelten Lebewesen zu einem Fleisch. Seele. Das Wort für den Herzschlag. ~ Sibylle Berg, #NFDB
2211 Integral Yoga
820 Poetry
275 Occultism
222 Philosophy
171 Christianity
154 Fiction
128 Yoga
123 Mysticism
88 Psychology
37 Science
30 Hinduism
24 Education
23 Philsophy
22 Mythology
17 Theosophy
16 Integral Theory
13 Buddhism
12 Sufism
10 Kabbalah
8 Cybernetics
7 Zen
6 Baha i Faith
3 Taoism
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
1430 The Mother
889 Satprem
819 Sri Aurobindo
367 Nolini Kanta Gupta
131 Aleister Crowley
102 H P Lovecraft
99 Walt Whitman
93 William Wordsworth
87 Carl Jung
82 William Butler Yeats
64 James George Frazer
62 Percy Bysshe Shelley
61 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
57 Sri Ramakrishna
53 Friedrich Nietzsche
51 John Keats
50 Plotinus
47 Robert Browning
39 Rabindranath Tagore
36 Swami Krishnananda
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
32 Swami Vivekananda
30 Anonymous
29 Jorge Luis Borges
28 Aldous Huxley
27 Saint Teresa of Avila
26 Lucretius
25 A B Purani
23 Rudolf Steiner
23 Ralph Waldo Emerson
21 Saint John of Climacus
20 Franz Bardon
19 Vyasa
16 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
16 Friedrich Schiller
14 Rainer Maria Rilke
14 Ovid
14 Nirodbaran
13 Li Bai
12 Plato
12 Paul Richard
11 George Van Vrekhem
11 Edgar Allan Poe
10 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
9 Jalaluddin Rumi
8 Sri Ramana Maharshi
8 Norbert Wiener
8 Joseph Campbell
8 Aristotle
7 Lewis Carroll
7 Jordan Peterson
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Baha u llah
6 Thubten Chodron
6 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
6 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
6 Alice Bailey
6 Al-Ghazali
5 Ramprasad
5 Peter J Carroll
5 Patanjali
5 Kabir
5 Bokar Rinpoche
4 Farid ud-Din Attar
3 Thomas Merton
3 Taigu Ryokan
3 Solomon ibn Gabirol
3 Saint Therese of Lisieux
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Omar Khayyam
3 Naropa
3 Ken Wilber
3 Hafiz
3 Chuang Tzu
2 Wang Wei
2 Saint John of the Cross
2 Saint Francis of Assisi
2 Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
2 Moses de Leon
2 Mechthild of Magdeburg
2 Matsuo Basho
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jetsun Milarepa
2 Jean Gebser
2 Ibn Arabi
2 H. P. Lovecraft
2 Hakuin
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Alfred Tennyson
190 Record of Yoga
131 The Synthesis Of Yoga
112 Prayers And Meditations
102 Lovecraft - Poems
96 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
94 Whitman - Poems
93 Wordsworth - Poems
92 Agenda Vol 01
85 Magick Without Tears
82 Yeats - Poems
78 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
78 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
78 Agenda Vol 10
77 Agenda Vol 08
70 Agenda Vol 13
68 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
68 Agenda Vol 09
64 The Golden Bough
63 Agenda Vol 04
63 Agenda Vol 03
62 Shelley - Poems
60 Agenda Vol 02
59 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
59 Agenda Vol 11
59 Agenda Vol 06
57 Agenda Vol 12
56 Agenda Vol 07
55 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
54 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
54 Agenda Vol 05
53 The Life Divine
51 Keats - Poems
50 Questions And Answers 1956
50 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
49 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
47 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
47 Browning - Poems
45 Letters On Yoga IV
44 Savitri
44 Liber ABA
42 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
39 Questions And Answers 1953
37 Tagore - Poems
36 The Study and Practice of Yoga
36 Questions And Answers 1955
36 Letters On Yoga II
35 Questions And Answers 1954
34 Mysterium Coniunctionis
29 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
28 The Perennial Philosophy
28 Essays On The Gita
27 The Divine Comedy
26 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
26 Of The Nature Of Things
25 The Bible
25 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
24 The Practice of Psycho therapy
24 On Education
23 The Human Cycle
23 Letters On Yoga I
23 Emerson - Poems
22 Words Of Long Ago
22 The Future of Man
22 City of God
21 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
21 Essays Divine And Human
19 Vishnu Purana
19 Letters On Yoga III
19 Labyrinths
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
18 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
17 The Way of Perfection
17 Collected Poems
16 Schiller - Poems
16 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
16 Bhakti-Yoga
15 Words Of The Mother II
15 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
15 On the Way to Supermanhood
15 Let Me Explain
14 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 Some Answers From The Mother
14 Rilke - Poems
14 Metamorphoses
14 Letters On Poetry And Art
14 Isha Upanishad
14 Aion
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 Li Bai - Poems
13 Faust
13 Anonymous - Poems
12 The Secret Of The Veda
12 The Practice of Magical Evocation
12 Talks
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
11 Twilight of the Idols
11 Theosophy
11 Raja-Yoga
11 Preparing for the Miraculous
10 Vedic and Philological Studies
10 The Problems of Philosophy
10 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
10 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
10 Poe - Poems
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
10 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
10 Hymn of the Universe
10 General Principles of Kabbalah
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
9 Borges - Poems
8 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
8 The Blue Cliff Records
8 Poetics
8 Kena and Other Upanishads
8 Initiation Into Hermetics
8 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
8 Dark Night of the Soul
8 Cybernetics
7 Walden
7 Maps of Meaning
7 Alice in Wonderland
7 5.1.01 - Ilion
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Alchemy of Happiness
6 Rumi - Poems
6 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
6 Crowley - Poems
6 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
5 Words Of The Mother I
5 The Red Book Liber Novus
5 Tara - The Feminine Divine
5 Song of Myself
5 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
5 Liber Null
4 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
4 Words Of The Mother III
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Songs of Kabir
4 Amrita Gita
3 The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
3 The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Integral Yoga
3 The Gateless Gate
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Ryokan - Poems
3 Naropa - Poems
3 Goethe - Poems
3 Chuang Tzu - Poems
3 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice
2 Notes On The Way
2 Milarepa - Poems
2 God Exists
2 Basho - Poems
2 Arabi - Poems
2 Agenda Vol 1
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One day, we were like this first man in the great, stridulant night of the Oyapock. Our heart was beating with the rediscovery of a very ancient mystery - suddenly, it was absolutely new to be a man amidst the diorite cascades and the pretty red and black coral snakes slithering beneath the leaves. It was even more extraordinary to be a man than our old confirmed tribes, with their infallible equations and imprescriptible biologies, could ever have dreamed. It was an absolutely uncertain 'quantum' that delightfully eluded whatever one thought of it, including perhaps what even the scholars thought of it. It flowed otherwise, it felt otherwise. It lived in a kind of flawless continuity with the sap of the giant balata trees, the cry of the macaws and the scintillating water of a little fountain. It ' understood' in a very different way. To understand was to be in everything. Just a quiver, and one was in the skin of a little iguana in distress. The skin of the world was very vast.
To be a man after rediscovering a million years was mysteriously like being something still other than man, a strange, unfinished possibility that could also be all kinds of other things. It was not in the dictionary, it was fluid and bo undless - it had become a man through habit, but in truth, it was formidably virgin, as if all the old laws belonged to laggard barbarians. Then other moons began whirring through the skies to the cry of macaws at sunset, another rhythm was born that was strangely in tune with the rhythm of all, making one single flow of the world, and there we went, lightly, as if the body had never had any weight other than that of our human thought; and the stars were so near, even the giant airplanes roaring overhead seemed vain artifices beneath smiling galaxies. A man was the overwhelming Possible. He was even the great discoverer of the Possible.
--
'spiritual life': it was all so comfortable, for we had a supreme 'symbol' of it right there. She let us do as we pleased, She even opened up all kinds of little heavens in us, along with a few hells, since they go together. She even opened the door in us to a certain 'liberation,' which in the end was as soporific as eternity - but there was nowhere to get out: it WAS eternity. We were trapped on all sides. There was nothing left but these 4m2 of skin, the last refuge, that which we wanted to flee by way of above or below, by way of Guiana or the Himalayas. She was waiting for us just there, at the end of our spiritual or not so spiritual pirouettes. Matter was her concern. It took us seven years to understand that She was beginning there, 'where the other yogas leave off,' as Sri Aurobindo had already said twenty-five years earlier. It was necessary to have covered all the paths of the Spirit and all those of Matter, or in any case a large number geographically, before discovering, or even simply understanding, that 'something else' was really Something Else. It was not an improved
Spirit nor even an improved Matter, but ... it could be called 'nothing,' so contrary was it to all we know. For the caterpillar, a butterfly is nothing, it is not even visible and has nothing in common with caterpillar heavens nor even caterpillar matter. So there we were, trapped in an impossible adventure. One does not return from there: one must cross the bridge to the other side. Then one day in that seventh year, while we still believed in liberations and the collected Upanishads, highlighted with a few glorious visions to relieve the commonplace (which remained appallingly commonplace), while we were still considering 'the Mother of the Ashram' rather like some spiritual super-director (endowed, albeit, with a disarming yet ever so provocative smile, as though
--
Where, then, was 'the Mother of the Ashram' in all this? What is even 'the Ashram,' if not a spiritual museum of the resistances to Something Else. They were always - and still today - reciting their catechism beneath a little flag: they are the owners of the new truth. But the new truth is laughing in their faces and leaving them high and dry at the edge of their little stagnant pond. They are under the illusion that Mother and Sri Aurobindo, twenty-seven or four years after their respective departures, could keep on repeating themselves - but then they would not be Mother and
Sri Aurobindo! They would be fossils. The truth is always on the move. It is with those who dare, who have courage, and above all the courage to shatter all the effigies, to de-mystify, and to go
--
'Are you conscious of your ceils?' She asked us a short time after the little operation of spiritual demolition She had undergone. 'No? Well, become conscious of your cells, and you will see that it gives TERRESTRIAL results.' To become conscious of one's cells? ... It was a far more radical operation than crossing the Maroni with a machete in hand, for after all, trees and lianas can be cut, but what cannot be so easily uncovered are the grandfa ther and the grandmo ther and the whole atavistic pack, not to mention the animal and plant and mineral layers that form a teeming humus over this single pure little cell beneath its millennial genetic program. The grandfa thers and grandmo thers grow back again like crabgrass, along with all the old habits of being hungry, afraid, falling ill, fearing the worst, hoping for the best, which is still the best of an old mortal habit. All this is not uprooted nor entrapped as easily as celestial 'liberations,' which leave the teeming humus in peace and the body to its usual decomposition. She had come to hew a path through all that. She was the Ancient One of evolution who had come to make a new cleft in the old, tedious habit of being a man. She did not like tedious repetitions, She was the adventuress par excellence - the adventuress of the earth. She was wrenching out for man the great Possible that was already beating there, in his primeval clearing, which he believed he had momentarily trapped with a few machines.
She was uprooting a new Matter, free, free from the habit of inexorably being a man who repeats himself ad infinitum with a few improvements in the way of organ transplants or monetary exchanges. In fact, She was there to discover what would happen after materialism and after spiritualism, these prodigal twin brothers. Because Materialism is dying in the West for the same reason that Spiritualism is dying in the East: it is the hour of the new species. Man needs to awaken, not only from his demons but also from his gods. A new Matter, yes, like a new Spirit, yes, because we still know neither one nor the other. It is the hour when Science, like Spirituality, at the end of their roads, must discover what Matter TRULY is, for it is really there that a Spirit as yet unknown to us is to be fo und. It is a time when all the 'isms' of the old species are dying: 'The age of
--
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 aro und. 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 surro unding 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
BECOME. To worship was so much easier. And then they bury you, solemnly, and the matter is settled - the case is closed: now, no one need bother any more except to print some photographic haloes for the pilgrims to this brisk little business. But they are mistaken. The real business will take place without them, the new species will fly up in their faces - it is already flying in the face of the earth, despite all its isms in black and white; it is exploding through all the pores of this battered old earth, which has had enough of shams - whether illusory little heavens or barbarous little machines.
--
Then we have caught the tail of the Great Possible, we are upon the wayless way, radically in the new, and we flow with the little lizard, the pelican, the big man, we flow everywhere in a world that has lost its old separating skin and its little baggage of habits. We begin seeing otherwise, feeling otherwise. We have opened the gate into an inconceivable clearing. Just a light little vibration that carries you away. Then we begin to understand how it CAN CHANGE, what the mechanism is - a light little mechanism and so miraculous that it looks like nothing. We begin feeling the wonder of a pure little cell, and that a sparkling of joy would be enough to turn the world inside out. We were living in a little thinking fishbowl, we were dying in an old, bottled habit. And then suddenly, all is different. The Earth is free! Who wants freedom?
It begins in a cell.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mysticism is not only a science but also, and in a greater degree, an art. To approach it merely as a science, as the modern mind attempts to do, is to move towards futility, if not to land in positive disaster. Sufficient stress is not laid on this aspect of the matter, although the very crux of the situation lies here. The mystic domain has to be apprehended not merely by the true mind and understanding but by the right temperament and character. Mysticism is not merely an object of knowledge, a problem for inquiry and solution, it is an end, an ideal that has to be achieved, a life that has to be lived. The mystics themselves have declared long ago with no uncertain or faltering voice: this cannot be attained by intelligence or much learning, it can be seized only by a purified and clear temperament.
The warning seems to have fallen, in the modern age, on unheeding ears. For the modern mind, being pre-eminently and uncompromisingly scientific, can entertain no doubt as to the perfect competency of science and the scientific method to seize and unveil any secret of Nature. If, it is argued, mysticism is a secret, if there is at all a truth and reality in it, then it is and must be amenable to the rules and regulations of science; for science is the revealer of Nature's secrecies.
But what is not recognised in this view of things is that there are secrecies and secrecies. The material secrecies of Nature are of one category, the mystic secrecies are of another. The two are not only disparate but incommensurable. Any man with a mind and understanding of average culture can see and handle the 'scientific' forces, but not the mystic forces.
A scientist once thought that he had clinched the issue and cut the Gordian knot when he declared triumphantly with reference to spirit sances: "Very significant is the fact that spirits appear only in closed chambers, in half obscurity, to somnolent minds; they are nowhere in the open air, in broad daylight to the wide awake and vigilant intellect!" Well, if the fact is as it is stated, what does it prove? Night alone reveals the stars, during the day they vanish, but that is no proof that stars are not existent. Rather the true scientific spirit should seek to know why (or how) it is so, if it is so, and such a fact would exactly serve as a pointer, a significant starting gro und. The attitude of the jesting Pilate is not helpful even to scientific inquiry. This matter of the Spirits we have taken only as an illustration and it must not be understood that this is a domain of high mysticism; rather the contrary. The spiritualists' approach to Mysticism is not the right one and is fraught with not only errors but dangers. For the spiritualists approach their subject with the entire scientific apparatus the only difference being that the scientist does not believe while the spiritualist believes.
Mystic realities cannot be reached by the scientific consciousness, because they are far more subtle than the subtlest object that science can contemplate. The neutrons and positrons are for science today the finest and profo undest object-forces; they belong, it is said, almost to a borderl and where physics ends. Nor for that reason is a mystic reality something like a mathematical abstraction, -n for example. The mystic reality is subtler than the subtlest of physical things and yet, paradoxical to say, more concrete than the most concrete thing that the senses apprehend.
--
For it must be understood that the heart, the mystic heart, is not the external thing which is the seat of emotion or passion; it is the secret heart that is behind, the inner heartantarhdaya of the Upanishadwhich is the centre of the individual consciousness, where all the divergent lines of that consciousness meet and from where they take their rise. That is what the Upanishad means when it says that the heart has a h undred channels which feed the human vehicle. That is the source, the fount and origin, the very substance of the true personality. Mystic knowledge the true mystic knowledge which saves and fulfilsbegins with the awakening or the entrance into this real being. This being is pure and luminous and blissful and sovereignly real, because it is a portion, a spark of the Divine Consciousness and Nature: a contact and communion with it brings automatically into play the light and the truth that are its substance. At the same time it is an uprising flame that reaches out naturally to higher domains of consciousness and manifests them through its translucid dynamism.
The knowledge that is obtained without the heart's instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita describes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a product and agent of one's limited and isolated self, easily put at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge, whether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry in its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructivewi thering and blasting in its career like the desert simoom.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
Have you understood all that you have read?
Not much, but I like poetry, it is because of that I read it.
It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
--
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is fo und in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
--
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We can make a distinction here between two types of expression which we have put together indiscriminately, figures and symbols. Figures, we may say, are those that are constructed by the rational mind, the intellect; they are mere metaphors and similes and are not organically related to the thing experienced, but put ro und it as a robe that can be dropped or changed without affecting the experience itself. Thus, for example, when the Upanishad says, tmnam rathinam viddhi (Know that the soul is the master of the chariot who sits within it) or indriyi haynhu (The senses, they say, are the horses), we have here only a comparison or analogy that is common and natural to the poetic manner. The particular figure or simile used is not inevitable to the idea or experience that it seeks to express, its part and parcel. On the other hand, take this Upanishadic perception: hirayamayena patrea satyasyphitam mukham (The face of the Truth lies hidden under the golden orb). Here the symbol is not mere analogy or comparison, a figure; it is one with the very substance of the experience the two cannot be separated. Or when the Vedas speak of the kindling of the Fire, the rushing of the waters or the rise of the Dawn, the images though taken from the material world, are not used for the sake of mere comparison, but they are the embodiments, the living forms of truths experienced in another world.
When a Mystic refers to the Solar Light or to the Fire the light, for example, that struck down Saul and transformed him into Saint Paul or the burning bush that visited Moses, it is not the physical or material object that he means and yet it is that in a way. It is the materialization of something that is f undamentally not material: some movement in an inner consciousness precipitates itself into the region of the senses and takes from out of the material the form commensurable with its nature that it finds there.
0 0.02 - Topographical Note, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Algeria and in France or of her current experiences; and gradually, She opened the mind of the rebellious and materialistic Westerner that we were and made us understand the laws of the worlds, the play of forces, the working of past lives - especially this latter, which was an important factor in the difficulties with which we were struggling at that time and which periodically made us abscond.
Mother would be seated in this rather medieval-looking chair with its high, carved back, her feet on a little tabouret, while we sat on the floor, on a slightly faded carpet, conquered and seduced, revolted and never satisfied - but nevertheless, very interested. Treasures, never noted down, were lost until, with the cunning of the Sioux, we succeeded in making Mother consent to the presence of a tape recorder. But even then, and for a long time thereafter, She carefully made us erase or delete in our notes all that concerned Her rather too personally - sometimes we disobeyed Her.
--
From 1960, the Agenda took its final shape arid grew for thirteen years, until May 1973, filling thirteen volumes in all (some six thousand pages), with a change of setting in March 1962 at the time of the Great Turning in Mother's yoga when She permanently retired to her room upstairs, as had Sri Aurobindo in 1926. The interviews then took place high up in this large room carpeted in golden wool, like a ship's stateroom, amidst the rustling of the Copper Pod tree and the cawing of crows. Mother would sit in a low rosewood chair, her face turned towards Sri Aurobindo's tomb, as though She were wearing down the distance separating that world from our own. Her voice had become like that of a child, one could hear her laughter. She always laughed, this Mother. And then her long silences. Until the day the disciples closed her door on us. It was May 19, 1973. We did not want to believe it. She was alone, just as we were suddenly alone. Slowly, painfully, we had to discover the why of this rupture. We understood nothing of the jealousies of the old species, we did not yet realize that they were becoming the 'owners' of Mother - of the Ashram, of Auroville, of
Sri Aurobindo, of everything - and that the new world was going to be denatured into a new
Church. There and then, they made us understand why She had pulled us from our forest, one day, and chosen as her confidant an incurable rebel.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A certain rationalistic critic divides the Upanishadic symbols into three categoriesthose that are rational and can be easily understood by the mind; those that are not understood by the mind and yet do not go against reason, having nothing inherently irrational in them and may be simply called non-rational; those that seem to be quite irrational, for they go frankly against all canons of logic and common sense. As an example of the last, the irrational type, the critic cites a story from the Chhndogya, which may be rendered thus:
There was an aspirant, a student who was seeking after knowledge. One day there appeared to him a white dog. Soon, other dogs followed and addressed their predecessor: "O Lord, sing to our Food, for we desire to eat." The white dog answered, "Come to me at dawn here in this very place." The aspirant waited. The dogs, like singer-priests, circled ro und in a ring. Then they sat and cried aloud; they cried out," Om We eat and Om we drink, may the gods bring here our food."
Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important to bear in mind that the Upanishads speak of things experiencednot merely thought, reasoned or argued and that these experiences belong to a world and consciousness other than that of the mind and the senses. One should naturally expect here a different language and mode of expression than that which is appropriate to mental and physical things. For example, the world of dreams was once supposed to be a sheer chaos, a mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is held to be quite otherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered a methodeven a very well-defined and strict methodin the madness of that domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant world; but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered. It is not a jargon, but a foreign language that must be learnt and mastered.
In the same way, the world of spiritual experiences is also something methodical, well-organized, significant. It may not be and is not the rational world of the mind and the sense; but it need not, for that reason, be devoid of meaning, mere fancifulness or a child's imagination running riot. Here also the right key has to be fo und, the grammar and vocabulary of that language mastered. And as the best way to have complete mastery of a language is to live among the people who speak it, so, in the matter of spiritual language, the best and the only way to learn it is to go and live in its native country.
--
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 f undamental 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.
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking, however, symbols are not chosen in a subtle or spiritual experience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
--
The duty of life consists, it is said, in the repaying of three debts which every man contracts as soon as he takes birth upon earth the debt to the Gods, to Men and to the Ancestors. This threefold debt or duty has, in other terms, reference to the three fields or domains wherein an embodied being lives and moves and to which he must adjust and react rightly -if he is to secure for his life an integral fulfilment. These are the family, society and the world and beyond-world. The Gods are the Powers that rule the world and beyond, they are the forms and forces of the One Spirit underlying the universe, the varied expressions of divine Truth and Reality: To worship the Gods, to do one's duty by them, means to come into contact and to be unitedin being, consciousness and activitywith the universal and spiritual existence, which is the supreme end and purpose of human life. The seconda more circumscribed fieldis the society to which one belongs, the particular group of humanity in which he functions as a limb. The service to society or good citizenship entails the worship of humanity, of Man as a god. Lastly, man belongs to the family, which is the unit of society; and the backbone of the family is the continuous line of ancestors, who are its presiding deity and represent the norm of a living dharma, the ethic of an ideal life.
From the psychological standpoint, the four oblations are movements or reactions of consciousness in its urge towards the utterance and expression of Divine Truth. Like some other elements in the cosmic play, these also form a quartetcaturvyha and work together for a common purpose in view of a perfect and all-ro und result.
--
We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more conscious and courageous, knowledge of things that were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower, darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the unveiling and the natural and not merely naturalisticdelineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective sub specie aeternitatis. The sexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double movement of ascent and descent that is secreted in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakriti in the cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his movementsof soul and mind and bodyin the light and rhythm of that integral Reality.11
The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, f undamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bo und human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
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In Yajnavalkya's enumeration, however, it is to be noted, first of all, that he stresses on the number three. The principle of triplicity is of very wide application: it permeates all fields of consciousness and is evidently based upon a f undamental fact of reality. It seems to embody a truth of synthesis and comprehension, points to the order and harmony that reigns in the cosmos, the spheric music. The metaphysical, that is to say, the original principles that constitute existence are the well-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit, Ananda; and (ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mindthis being a reflection or translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is fo und in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says 14 yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a portion, a fraction of the One. And in the end, in the ultimate analysis, or rather synthesis, there is but one single undivided and indivisible unity. The thousands and h undreds, very often mentioned also in the Rig Veda, are not simply multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its many-sidedness; it indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete completeness (prasya pram) of the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a ro unded totality, a full circle. The h undred-gated and the thousand-pillared cities of which the ancient Rishis chanted are formations and embodiments of consciousness human and divine, are realities whole and entire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness.
Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
--
Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant conclusion that leads one to choose a path of religion or spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity the spiritual blood-relation as it were that determines the choice and adherence. And it is this that we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend such adherence and which go "by the "name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., a;e a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it must not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original is one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being that attains such a status is not bo und or wholly limited to one particular formation: its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.
The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness that reveals itself.
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The secularisation of man's vital functions in modem ages has not been a success. It has made him more egocentric and blatantly hedonistic. From an occult point of view he has in this way subjected himself to the influences of dark and undesirable world-forces, has made an opening, to use an Indian symbolism, for Kali (the Spirit of the Iron Age) to enter into him. The sex-force is an extremely potent agent, but it is extremely fluid and elusive and uncontrollable. It was for this reason that the ancients always sought to give it a proper mould, a right continent, a fixed and definite channel; the moderns, on the other hand, allow it to run free and play with it recklessly. The result has been, in the life of those born under such circumstances, a growing lack of poise and balance and a corresponding incidence of neuras thenia, hysteria and all abnormal pathological conditions.
Chhandyogya, II, III.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The white Mother comes reddening with the ruddy child; the dark Mother opens wide her chambers, the feeling and the expression of the beautiful raise no questioning; they are au thentic as well as evident. All will recognise at once t at we have here beautiful things said in a beautiful way. No less au thentic however is the sense of the beautiful that underlies these Upanishadic lines:
na tatra sryo bhti na candratrakam
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And what else is the true character, the soul of beauty than light and delight? "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." And a thing of joy is a thing of light. Joy is the radiance rippling over a thing of beauty. Beauty is always radiant: the charm, the loveliness of an object is but the glow of light that it emanates. And it would not be a very incorrect mensuration to measure the degree of beauty by the degree of light radiated. The diamond is not only a thing of value, but a thing of beauty also, because of the concentrated and undimmed light that it enshrines within itself. A dark, dull and dismal thing, devoid of interest and attraction becomes aesthetically precious and significant as soon as the artist presents it in terms of the values of light. The entire art of painting is nothing but the expression of beauty, in and through the modalities of light.
And where there is light, there is cheer and joy. Rasamaya and jyotirmayaare thus the two conjoint characteristics f undamental to the nature of the ultimate reality. Sometimes these two are named as the 'solar and the lunar aspect. The solar aspect refers obviously to the Light, that is to say, to the Truth; the lunar aspect refers to the rasa (Soma), to Immortality, to Beauty proper,
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most f undamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very prof undity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profo und and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
Indeed delight is the third and the supremely intimate element of the poetic personality. Dear and delightful is the poet, dear and delightful his works, priya, priyi His hand is dripping with sweetness,kavir hi madhuhastya.24 The Poet-God shines in his pristine beauty and is showering delight.25 He is filled with utter ecstasy so that he may rise to the very source of the luminous Energy.26? Pure is the Divine Joy and it enters and purifies all forms as it moves to the seat of the Immortals.27Indeed this sparkling Delight is the Poet-Seer and it is that that brings forth the creative word, the utterance of Indra.28
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
When planning to visit a foreign country, the wise traveler will first familiarize himself with its language. In studying music, chemistry or calculus, a specific terminology is essential to the understanding of each subject. So a new set of symbols is necessary when undertaking a study of the Universe, whether within or without. The Qabalah provides such a set in unexcelled fashion.
But the Qabalah is more. It also lays the fo undation on which rests another archaic science- Magic. Not to be confused with the conjurer's sleight-of-hand, Magic has been defined by Aleister Crowley as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will." Dion Fortune qualifies this nicely with an added clause, "changes in consciousness."
The Qabalah reveals the nature of certain physical and psychological phenomena. Once these are apprehended, understood and correlated, the student can use the principles of Magic to exercise control over life's conditions and circumstances not otherwise possible. In short. Magic provides the practical application of the theories supplied by the Qabalah.
It serves yet another vital function. In addition to the advantages to be gained from its philosophical application, the ancients discovered a very practical use for the literal Qabalah.
Each letter of the Qabalistic alphabet has a number, color, many symbols and a Tarot card attributed to it. The Qabalah not only aids in an understanding of the Tarot, but teaches the student how to classify and organize all such ideas, numbers and symbols. Just as a knowledge of Latin will give insight into the meaning of an unfamiliar English word with a Latin root, so the knowledge of the Qabalah with the various attri butions to each character in its alphabet will enable the student to understand and correlate ideas and concepts which otherwise would have no apparent relation.
A simple example is the concept of the Trinity in the Christian religion. The student is frequently amazed to learn through a study of the Qabalah that Egyptian mythology followed a similar concept with its trinity of gods, Osiris the father, Isis the virgin-mother, and Horus the son. The Qabalah indicates similar correspondences in the pantheon of Roman and Greek deities, proving the father-mother (Holy Spirit) - son principles of deity are primordial archetypes of man's psyche, rather than being, as is frequently and erroneously supposed a development peculiar to the Christian era.
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The tragedy of civilized man is that he is cut off from awareness of his own instincts. The Qabalah can help him achieve the necessary understanding to effect a reunion with them, so that rather than being driven by forces he does not understand, he can harness for his conscious use the same power that guides the homing pigeon, teaches the beaver to build a dam and keeps the planets revolving in their appointed orbits about the sun.
I began the study of the Qabalah at an early age. Two books I read then have played unconsciously a prominent part in the writing of my own book. One of these was "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), which I must have first read aro und 1926. The other was "An Introduction to the Tarot" by Paul Foster Case, published in the early 1920's. It is now out of print, superseded by later versions of the same topic. But as I now glance through this slender book, I perceive how profo undly even the format of his book had influenced me, though in these two instances there was not a trace of plagiarism. It had not consciously occurred to me until recently that I owed so much to them. Since Paul Case passed away about a decade or so ago, this gives me the opportunity to thank him, overtly, wherever he may now be.
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All sorts of books have been written on the Qabalah, some poor, some few others extremely good. But I came to feel the need for what might be called a sort of Berlitz handbook, a concise but comprehensive introduction, studded with diagrams and tables of easily understood definitions and correspondences to simplify the student's grasp of so complicated and abstruse a subject.
During a short retirement in North Devon in 1931, I began to amalgamate my notes. It was out of these that A Garden of Pomegranates gradually emerged. I unashamedly admit that my book contains many direct plagiarisms from Crowley, Waite, Eliphas Levi, and D. H. Lawrence. I had incorporated numerous fragments from their works into my notebooks without citing individual references to the various sources from which I condensed my notes.
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The importance of the book to me was and is five-fold. 1) It provided a yardstick by which to measure my personal progress in the understanding of the Qabalah. 2) Therefore it can have an equivalent value to the modern student. 3) It serves as a theoretical introduction to the Qabalistic fo undation of the magical work of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 4) It throws considerable light on the occasionally obscure writings of Aleister Crowley. 5) It is dedicated to Crowley, who was the Ankh-af-na-Khonsu mentioned in The Book of the Law -a dedication which served both as a token of personal loyalty and devotion to Crowley, but was also a gesture of my spiritual independence from him.
In his profo und investigation into the origins and basic nature of man, Robert Ardrey in African Genesis recently made a shocking statement. Although man has begun the conquest of outer space, the ignorance of his own nature, says Ardrey, "has become institutionalized, universalized and sanctified." He further states that were a brotherhood of man to be formed today, "its only possible common bond would be ignorance of what man is."
Such a condition is both deplorable and appalling when the means are readily available for man to acquire a thorough understanding of himself-and in so doing, an understanding of his neighbor and the world in which he lives as well as the greater Universe of which each is a part.
May everyone who reads this new edition of A Garden of Pomegranates be encouraged and inspired to light his own candle of inner vision and begin his journey into the bo undless space that lies within himself. Then, through realization of his true identity, each student can become a lamp unto his own path. And more. Awareness of the Truth of his being will rip as under the veil of unknowing that has heretofore enshrouded the star he already is, permitting the brilliance of his light to illumine the darkness of that part of the Universe in which he abides.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
the option exists; 99 percent of humanity cannot understand the mathematical
language of science. The people who make up that 99 percent do not know that all
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000.125 The fact that 99 percent of humanity does not understand nature is the
prime reason for humanity's failure to exercise its option to attain universally
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Rudyard Kipling labored under the only-you-or-me philosophy, but he was inspired
by thoughts that it might some day be otherwise:
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Ramkumar could hardly understand the import of his young brother's reply. He described in bright colours the happy and easy life of scholars in Calcutta society. But Gadadhar intuitively felt that the scholars, to use one of his own vivid illustrations, were like so many vultures, soaring high on the wings of their uninspired intellect, with their eyes fixed on the charnel-pit of greed and lust. So he stood firm and Ramkumar had to give way.
--- KALI TEMPLE AT DAKSHINESWAR
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The whole symbolic world is represented in the temple garden — the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the Absolute (Siva), and Love (Radhakanta), the Arch spanning heaven and earth. The terrific Goddess of the Tantra, the soul-enthralling Flute-Player of the Bhagavata, and the Self-absorbed Absolute of the Vedas live together, creating the greatest synthesis of religions. All aspects of Reality are represented there. But of this divine household, Kali is the pivot, the sovereign Mistress. She is Prakriti, the Procreatrix, Nature, the Destroyer, the Creator. Nay, She is something greater and deeper still for those who have eyes to see. She is the Universal Mother, "my Mother" as Ramakrishna would say, the All-powerful, who reveals Herself to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarnations, the Visible God, who leads the elect to the Invisible Reality; and if it so pleases Her, She takes away the last trace of ego from created beings and merges it in the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated God. Through Her grace "the finite ego loses itself in the illimitable Ego — Atman — Brahman". (Romain Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
Rani Rasmani spent a fortune for the construction of the temple garden and another fortune for its dedication ceremony, which took place on May 31, 1855.
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Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenomenal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bo und by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing aro und it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic K undalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
Ramkumar wanted Sri Ramakrishna to learn the intricate rituals of the worship of Kali. To become a priest of Kali one must undergo a special form of initiation from a qualified guru, and for Sri Ramakrishna a suitable brahmin was fo und. But no sooner did the brahmin speak the holy word in his ear than Sri Ramakrishna, overwhelmed with emotion, uttered a loud cry and plunged into deep concentration.
Mathur begged Sri Ramakrishna to take charge of the worship in the Kali temple. The young priest pleaded his incompetence and his ignorance of the scriptures. Mathur insisted that devotion and sincerity would more than compensate for any lack of formal knowledge and make the Divine Mother manifest Herself through the image. In the end, Sri Ramakrishna had to yield to Mathur's request. He became the priest of Kali.
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And, indeed, he soon discovered what a strange Goddess he had chosen to serve. He became gradually enmeshed in the web of Her all-pervading presence. To the ignorant She is, to be sure, the image of destruction; but he fo und in Her the benign, all-loving Mother. Her neck is encircled with a garland of heads, and Her waist with a girdle of human arms, and two of Her hands hold weapons of death, and Her eyes dart a glance of fire; but, strangely enough, Ramakrishna felt in Her breath the soothing touch of tender love and saw in Her the Seed of Immortality. She stands on the bosom of Her Consort, Siva; it is because She is the Sakti, the Power, inseparable from the Absolute. She is surro unded by jackals and other unholy creatures, the denizens of the cremation gro und. But is not the Ultimate Reality above holiness and unholiness? She appears to be reeling under the spell of wine. But who would create this mad world unless under the influence of a divine drunkenness? She is the highest symbol of all the forces of nature, the synthesis of their antinomies, the Ultimate Divine in the form of woman. She now became to Sri Ramakrishna the only Reality, and the world became an unsubstantial shadow. Into Her worship he poured his soul. Before him She stood as the transparent portal to the shrine of Ineffable Reality.
The worship in the temple intensified Sri Ramakrishna's yearning for a living vision of the Mother of the Universe. He began to spend in meditation the time not actually employed in the temple service; and for this purpose he selected an extremely solitary place. A deep jungle, thick with underbrush and prickly plants, lay to the north of the temples. Used at one time as a burial gro und, it was shunned by people even during the day-time for fear of ghosts. There Sri Ramakrishna began to spend the whole night in meditation, returning to his room only in the morning with eyes swollen as though from much weeping. While meditating, he would lay aside his cloth and his brahminical thread. Explaining this strange conduct, he once said to Hriday: "Don't you know that when one thinks of God one should be freed from all ties? From our very birth we have the eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief. The sacred thread reminds me that I am a brahmin and therefore superior to all. When calling on the Mother one has to set aside all such ideas." Hriday thought his uncle was becoming insane.
As his love for God deepened, he began either to forget or to drop the formalities of worship. Sitting before the image, he would spend hours singing the devotional songs of great devotees of the Mother, such as Kamalakanta and Ramprasad. Those rhapsodical songs, describing the direct vision of God, only intensified Sri Ramakrishna's longing. He felt the pangs of a child separated from its mother. Sometimes, in agony, he would rub his face against the gro und and weep so bitterly that people, thinking he had lost his earthly mother, would sympathize with him in his grief. Sometimes, in moments of scepticism, he would cry: "Art Thou true, Mother, or is it all fiction — mere poetry without any reality? If Thou dost exist, why do I not see Thee? Is religion a mere fantasy and art Thou only a figment of man's imagination?" Sometimes he would sit on the prayer carpet for two hours like an inert object. He began to behave in an abnormal manner
--
and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother." On his lips when he regained consciousness of the world was the word "Mother".
--- GOD-INTOXICATED STATE
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Mathur had faith in the sincerity of Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual zeal, but began now to doubt his sanity. He had watched him jumping about like a monkey. One day, when Rani Rasmani was listening to Sri Ramakrishna's singing in the temple, the young priest abruptly turned and slapped her. Apparently listening to his song, she had actually been thinking of a law-suit. She accepted the punishment as though the Divine Mother Herself had imposed it; but Mathur was distressed. He begged Sri Ramakrishna to keep his feelings under control and to heed the conventions of society. God Himself, he argued, follows laws. God never permitted, for instance, flowers of two colours to grow on the same stalk. The following day Sri Ramakrishna presented Mathur Babu with two hibiscus flowers growing on the same stalk, one red and one white.
Mathur and Rani Rasmani began to ascribe the mental ailment of Sri Ramakrishna in part, at least, to his observance of rigid continence. Thinking that a natural life would relax the tension of his nerves, they engineered a plan with two women of ill fame. But as soon as the women entered his room, Sri Ramakrishna beheld in them the manifestation of the Divine Mother of the Universe and went into samadhi uttering Her name.
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Two famous p undits of the time were invited: Vaishnavcharan, the leader of the Vaishnava society, and Gauri. The first to arrive was Vaishnavcharan, with a distinguished company of scholars and devotees. The Brahmani, like a proud mother, proclaimed her view before him and supported it with quotations from the scriptures. As the p undits discussed the deep theological question, Sri Ramakrishna, perfectly indifferent to everything happening aro und him, sat in their midst like a child, immersed in his own thoughts, sometimes smiling, sometimes chewing a pinch of spices from a pouch, or again saying to Vaishnavcharan with a nudge: "Look here. Sometimes I feel like this, too." Presently Vaishnavcharan arose to declare himself in total agreement with the view of the Brahmani. He declared that Sri Ramakrishna had undoubtedly experienced mahabhava and that this was the certain sign of the rare manifestation of God in a man. The people assembled
there, especially the officers of the temple garden, were struck dumb. Sri Rama- krishna said to Mathur, like a boy: "Just fancy, he too says so! Well, I am glad to learn that after all it is not a disease."
--
According to the Tantra, the Ultimate Reality is Chit, or Consciousness, which is identical with Sat, or Being, and with Ananda, or Bliss. This Ultimate Reality, Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, is identical with the Reality preached in the Vedas. And man is identical with this Reality; but under the influence of maya, or illusion, he has forgotten his true nature. He takes to be real a merely apparent world of subject and object, and this error is the cause of his bondage and suffering. The goal of spiritual discipline is the rediscovery of his true identity with the divine Reality.
For the achievement of this goal the Vedanta prescribes an austere negative method of discrimination and renunciation, which can be followed by only a few individuals endowed with sharp intelligence and unshakable will-power. But Tantra takes into consideration the natural weakness of human beings, their lower appetites, and their love for the concrete. It combines philosophy with rituals, meditation with ceremonies, renunciation with enjoyment. The underlying purpose is gradually to train the aspirant to meditate on his identity with the Ultimate.
The average man wishes to enjoy the material objects of the world. Tantra bids him enjoy these, but at the same time discover in them the presence of God. Mystical rites are prescribed by which, slowly, the sense-objects become spiritualized and sense attraction is transformed into a love of God. So the very "bonds" of man are turned into "releasers". The very poison that kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Outward renunciation is not necessary. Thus the aim of Tantra is to sublimate bhoga, or enjoyment into yoga, or union with Consciousness. For, according to this philosophy, the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Siva and Sakti, the Absolute and Its inscrutable Power.
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Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profo und and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compo und. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great so und Om, of which the innumerable so unds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
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There are three kinds of formal devotion: tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. If a person, while showing devotion, to God, is actuated by malevolence, arrogance, jealousy, or anger, then his devotion is tamasic, since it is influenced by tamas, the quality of inertia. If he worships God from a desire for fame or wealth, or from any other worldly ambition, then his devotion is rajasic, since it is influenced by rajas, the quality of activity. But if a person loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his duties to please God alone and maintains toward all created beings the attitude of friendship, then his devotion is called sattvic, since it is influenced by sattva, the quality of harmony. But the highest devotion transcends the three gunas, or qualities, being a spontaneous, uninterrupted inclination of the mind toward God, the Inner Soul of all beings; and it wells up in the heart of a true devotee as soon as he hears the name of God or mention of God's attributes. A devotee possessed of this love would not accept the happiness of heaven if it were offered him. His one desire is to love God under all conditions — in pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and dishonour, prosperity and adversity.
There are two stages of bhakti. The first is known as vaidhi-bhakti, or love of God qualified by scriptural injunctions. For the devotees of this stage are prescribed regular and methodical worship, hymns, prayers, the repetition of God's name, and the chanting of His glories. This lower bhakti in course of time matures into para-bhakti, or supreme devotion, known also as prema, the most intense form of divine love. Divine love is an end in itself. It exists potentially in all human hearts, but in the case of bo und creatures it is misdirected to earthly objects.
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Totapuri was the bearer of a philosophy new to Sri Ramakrishna, the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy, whose conclusions Totapuri had experienced in his own life. This ancient Hindu system designates the Ultimate Reality as Brahman, also described as Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Brahman is the only Real Existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no multiplicity. But through maya, Its inscrutable Power, time, space, and causality are created and the One appears to break into the many. The eternal Spirit appears as a manifold of individuals endowed with form and subject to the conditions of time. The Immortal becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God
is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his liberation, therefore, by piercing the veil of maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with the Universal Spirit, he realizes ineffable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. 'And this is the ultimate goal of all religions — to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
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Totapuri arrived at the Dakshineswar temple garden toward the end of 1864. Perhaps born in the Punjab, he was the head of a monastery in that province of India and claimed leadership of seven h undred sannyasis. Trained from early youth in the disciplines of the Advaita Vedanta, he looked upon the world as an illusion. The gods and goddesses of the dualistic worship were to him mere fantasies of the deluded mind. Prayers, ceremonies, rites, and rituals had nothing to do with true religion, and about these he was utterly indifferent. Exercising self-exertion and unshakable will-power, he had liberated himself from attachment to the sense-objects of the relative universe. For forty years he had practised austere discipline on the bank of the sacred Narmada and had finally realized his identity with the Absolute. Thenceforward he roamed in the world as an unfettered soul, a lion free from the cage. Clad in a loin-cloth, he spent his days under the canopy of the sky alike in storm and sunshine, feeding his body on the slender pittance of alms. He had been visiting the estuary of the Ganges. On his return journey along the bank of the sacred river, led by the inscrutable Divine Will, he stopped at Dakshineswar.
Totapuri, discovering at once that Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But Totapuri explained that only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the stipulation that the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been living with him at Dakshineswar.
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"Brahman", he said, "is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute." Quoting the Upanishad, Totapuri said: "That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another
. What is shallow is worthless and can never give real felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains the Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject?"
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Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware, like his guru, that the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also fo und here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the ro und of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the K undalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
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The Knowledge of Brahman in nirvikalpa samadhi had convinced Sri Ramakrishna that the gods of the different religions are but so many readings of the Absolute, and that the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed by human tongue. He understood that all religions lead their devotees by differing paths to one and the same goal. Now he became eager to explore some of the alien religions; for with him understanding meant actual experience.
--- ISLAM
Toward the end of 1866 he began to practise the disciplines of Islam. under the direction of his Mussalman guru he abandoned himself to his new sadhana. He dressed as a Mussalman and repeated the name of Allah. His prayers took the form of the Islamic devotions. He forgot the Hindu gods and goddesses — even Kali — and gave up visiting the temples. He took up his residence outside the temple precincts. After three days he saw the vision of a radiant figure, perhaps Mohammed. This figure gently approached him and finally lost himself in Sri Ramakrishna. Thus he realized the Mussalman God. Thence he passed into communion with Brahman. The mighty river of Islam also led him back to the Ocean of the Absolute.
--- CHRISTIANITY
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Without being formally initiated into their doctrines, Sri Ramakrishna thus realized the ideals of religions other than Hinduism. He did not need to follow any doctrine. All barriers were removed by his overwhelming love of God. So he became a Master who could speak with authority regarding the ideas and ideals of the various religions of the world. "I have practised", said he, "all religions — Hinduism, Islam, Christianity — and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have fo und that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion — Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it 'jal'; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it pani'. At a third the Christians call it 'water'. Can we imagine that it is not 'jal', but only 'pani' or 'water'? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him."
In 1867 Sri Ramakrishna returned to Kamarpukur to recuperate from the effect of his austerities. The peaceful countryside, the simple and artless companions of his boyhood, and the pure air did him much good. The villagers were happy to get back their playful, frank, witty, kind-hearted, and truthful Gadadhar, though they did not fail to notice the great change that had come over him during his years in Calcutta. His wife, Sarada Devi, now fourteen years old, soon arrived at Kamarpukur. Her spiritual development was much beyond her age and she was able to understand immediately her husband's state of mind. She became eager to learn from him about God and to live with him as his attendant. The Master accepted her cheerfully both as his disciple and as his spiritual companion. Referring to the experiences of these few days, she once said: "I used to feel always as if a pitcher full of bliss were placed in my heart. The joy was indescribable."
--- PILGRIMAGE
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Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
--- SUMMARY OF THE MASTER'S SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
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The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
By far the ablest leader of the Brahmo movement was Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884). Unlike Raja Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore, Keshab was born of a middle-class Bengali family and had been brought up in an English school. He did not know Sanskrit and very soon broke away from the popular Hindu religion. Even at an early age he came under the spell of Christ and professed to have experienced the special favour of John the Baptist, Christ, and St. Paul. When he strove to introduce Christ to the Brahmo Samaj, a rupture became inevitable with Devendranath. In 1868 Keshab broke with the older leader and fo unded the Brahmo Samaj of India, Devendra retaining leadership of the first Brahmo Samaj, now called the Adi Samaj.
Keshab possessed a complex nature. When passing through a great moral crisis, he spent much of his time in solitude and felt that he heard the voice of God, When a devotional form of worship was introduced into the Brahmo Samaj, he spent hours in singing kirtan with his followers. He visited England land in 1870 and impressed the English people with his musical voice, his simple English, and his spiritual fervour. He was entertained by Queen Victoria. Returning to India, he fo unded centres of the Brahmo Samaj in various parts of the country. Not unlike a professor of comparative religion in a European university, he began to discover, about the time of his first contact with Sri Ramakrishna, the harmony of religions. He became sympathetic toward the Hindu gods and goddesses, explaining them in a liberal fashion. Further, he believed that he was called by God to dictate to the world God's newly revealed law, the New Dispensation, the Navavidhan.
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential followers accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine Mother also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine Mother of Hinduism fo und no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts of India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity, scoffed at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship. Influenced by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its own members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the abolition of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect of the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture in the estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and eclectic religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism, it was not fo unded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its influence was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It so unded monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus.
--- ARYA SAMAJ
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Gradually other Brahmo leaders began to feel Sri Ramakrishna's influence. But they were by no means uncritical admirers of the Master. They particularly disapproved of his ascetic renunciation and condemnation of "woman and gold".1 They measured him according to their own ideals of the householder's life. Some could not understand his samadhi and described it as a nervous malady. Yet they could not resist his magnetic personality.
Among the Brahmo leaders who knew the Master closely were Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, Vijaykrishna Goswami, Trailokyanath Sannyal, and Shivanath Shastri.
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The Brahmo leaders received much inspiration from their contact with Sri Ramakrishna. It broadened their religious views and kindled in their hearts the yearning for God-realization; it made them understand and appreciate the rituals and symbols of Hindu religion, convinced them of the manifestation of God in diverse forms, and deepened their thoughts about the harmony of religions. The Master, too, was impressed by the sincerity of many of the Brahmo devotees. He told them about his own realizations and explained to them the essence of his teachings, such as the necessity of renunciation, sincerity in the pursuit of one's own course of discipline, faith in God, the performance of one's duties without thought of results, and discrimination between the Real and the unreal.
This contact with the educated and progressive Bengalis opened Sri Ramakrishna's eyes to a new realm of thought. Born and brought up in a simple village, without any formal education, and taught by the orthodox holy men of India in religious life, he had had no opportunity to study the influence of modernism on the thoughts and lives of the Hindus. He could not properly estimate the result of the impact of Western education on Indian culture. He was a Hindu of the Hindus, renunciation being to him the only means to the realization of God in life. From the Brahmos he learnt that the new generation of India made a compromise between God and the world. Educated young men were influenced more by the Western philosophers than by their own prophets. But Sri Ramakrishna was not dismayed, for he saw in this, too, the hand of God. And though he expo unded to the Brahmos all his ideas about God and austere religious disciplines, yet he bade them accept from his teachings only as much as suited their tastes and temperaments.
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Sri Ramakrishna never taught his disciples to hate any woman, or womankind in general. This can be seen clearly by going through all his teachings under this head and judging them collectively. The Master looked on all women as so many images of the Divine Mother of the Universe. He paid the highest homage to womankind by accepting a woman as his guide while practising the very profo und spiritual disciplines of Tantra. His wife, known and revered as the Holy Mother, was his constant companion and first disciple. At the end of his spiritual practice he literally worshipped his wife as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Divine Mother. After his passing away the Holy Mother became the spiritual guide not only of a large number of householders, but also of many monastic members of the Ramakrishna Order.
--- THE MASTER'S YEARNING FOR HIS OWN DEVOTEES
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-melting love of the Purana. Twenty hours out of twenty-four he would speak without out rest or respite. He gave to all his sympathy and enlightenment, and he touched them with that strange power of the soul which could not but melt even the most hardened. And people understood him according to their powers of comprehension.
^The word is generally used in the text to denote one devoted to God, a worshipper of the Personal God, or a follower of the path of love. A devotee of Sri Ramakrishna is one who is devoted to Sri Ramakrishna and follows his teachings. The word "disciple", when used in connexion with Sri Ramakrishna, refers to one who had been initiated into spiritual life by Sri Ramakrishna and who regarded him as his guru.
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But he remained as ever the willing instrument in the hand of God, the child of the Divine Mother, totally untouched by the idea of being a teacher. He used to say that three ideas — that he was a guru, a father, and a master — pricked his flesh like thorns. Yet he was an extraordinary teacher. He stirred his disciples' hearts more by a subtle influence than by actions or words. He never claimed to be the fo under of a religion or the organizer of a sect. Yet he was a religious dynamo. He was the verifier of all religions and creeds. He was like an expert gardener, who prepares the soil and removes the weeds, knowing that the plants will grow because of the inherent power of the seeds, producing each its appropriate flowers and fruits. He never thrust his ideas on anybody. He understood people's limitations and worked on the principle that what is good for one may be bad for another. He had the unusual power of knowing the devotees' minds, even their inmost souls, at the first sight. He accepted disciples with the full knowledge of their past tendencies and future possibilities. The life of evil did not frighten him, nor did religious squeamishness raise anybody in his estimation. He saw in everything the unerring finger of the Divine Mother. Even the light that leads astray was to him the light from God.
To those who became his intimate disciples the Master was a friend, companion, and playmate. Even the chores of religious discipline would be lightened in his presence. The devotees would be so inebriated with pure joy in his company that they would have no time to ask themselves whether he was an Incarnation, a perfect soul, or a yogi. His very presence was a great teaching; words were superfluous. In later years his disciples remarked that while they were with him they would regard him as a comrade, but afterwards would tremble to think of their frivolities in the presence of such a great person. They had convincing proof that the Master could, by his mere wish, kindle in their hearts the love of God and give them His vision.
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But to the young men destined to be monks he pointed out the steep path of renunciation, both external and internal. They must take the vow of absolute continence and eschew all thought of greed and lust. By the practice of continence, aspirants develop a subtle nerve through which they understand the deeper mysteries of God. For them self-control is final, imperative, and absolute. The sannyasis are teachers of men, and their lives should be totally free from blemish. They must not even look at a picture which may awaken their animal passions. The Master selected his future monks from young men untouched by "woman and gold" and plastic enough to be cast in his spiritual mould. When teaching them the path of renunciation and discrimination, he would not allow the householders to be anywhere near them.
--- RAM AND MANOMOHAN
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Suresh Mitra, a beloved disciple whom the Master often addressed as Surendra, had received an English education and held an important post in an English firm. Like many other educated young men of the time, he prided himself on his atheism and led a Bohemian life. He was addicted to drinking. He cherished an exaggerated notion about man's free will. A victim of mental depression, he was brought to Sri Ramakrishna by Ramchandra chandra Dutta. When he heard the Master asking a disciple to practise the virtue of self-surrender to God, he was impressed. But though he tried thenceforth to do so, he was unable to give up his old associates and his drinking. One day the Master said in his presence, "Well, when a man goes to an undesirable place, why doesn't he take the Divine Mother with him?" And to Surendra himself Sri Ramakrishna said: "Why should you drink wine as wine? Offer it to Kali, and then take it as Her prasad, as consecrated drink
. But see that you don't become intoxicated; you must not reel and your thoughts must not wander. At first you will feel ordinary excitement, but soon you will experience spiritual exaltation." Gradually Surendra's entire life was changed. The Master designated him as one of those commissioned by the Divine Mother to defray a great part of his expenses. Surendra's purse was always open for the Master's comfort.
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Kedarnath Chatterji was endowed with a spiritual temperament and had tried various paths of religion, some not very commendable. When he met the Master at Dakshineswar he understood the true meaning of religion. It is said that the Master, weary of instructing devotees who were coming to him in great numbers for guidance, once prayed to the Goddess Kali: "Mother, I am tired of speaking to people. Please give power to Kedar, Girish, Ram, Vijay, and Mahendra to give them the preliminary instruction, so that just a little teaching from me will be enough." He was aware, however, of Kedar's lingering attachment to worldly things and often warned him about it.
--- HARISH
Harish, a young man in affluent circumstances, renounced his family and took shelter with the Master, who loved him for his sincerity, singleness of purpose, and quiet nature. He spent his leisure time in prayer and meditation, turning a deaf ear to the entreaties and threats of his relatives. Referring to his undisturbed peace of mind, the Master would say: "Real men are dead to the world though living. Look at Harish. He is an example." When one day the Master asked him to be a little kind to his wife, Harish said: "You must excuse me on this point. This is not the place to show kindness. If I try to be sympathetic to her, there is a possibility of my forgetting the ideal and becoming entangled in the world."
--- BHAVANATH
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Balaram Bose came of a wealthy Vaishnava family. From his youth he had shown a deep religious temperament and had devoted his time to meditation, prayer, and the study of the Vaishnava scriptures. He was very much impressed by Sri Ramakrishna even at their first meeting. He asked Sri Ramakrishna whether God really existed and, if so, whether a man could realize Him. The Master said: "God reveals Himself to the devotee who thinks of Him as his nearest and dearest. Because you do not draw response by praying to Him once, you must not conclude that He does not exist. Pray to God, thinking of Him as dearer than your very self. He is much attached to His devotees. He comes to a man even before He is sought. There is none more intimate and affectionate than God." Balaram had never before heard God spoken of in such forceful words; every one of the words seemed true to him. under the Master's influence he outgrew the conventions of the Vaishnava worship and became one of the most beloved of the disciples. It was at his home that the Master slept whenever he spent a night in Calcutta.
--- MAHENDRA OR M.
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One day Girish felt depressed because he was unable to submit to any routine of spiritual discipline. In an exalted mood the Master said to him: "All right, give me your power of attorney. Henceforth I assume responsibility for you. You need not do anything." Girish heaved a sigh of relief. He felt happy to think that Sri Ramakrishna had assumed his spiritual responsibilities. But poor Girish could not then realize that He also, on his part, had to give up his freedom and make of himself a puppet in Sri Ramakrishna's hands. The Master began to discipline him according to this new attitude. One day Girish said about a trifling matter, "Yes, I shall do this." "No, no!" the Master corrected him. "You must not speak in that egotistic manner. You should say, 'God willing, I shall do it.'" Girish understood. Thenceforth he tried to give up all idea of personal responsibility and surrender himself to the Divine Will. His mind began to dwell constantly on Sri Ramakrishna. This unconscious meditation in time chastened his turbulent spirit.
The householder devotees generally visited Sri Ramakrishna on S unday afternoons and other holidays. Thus a brotherhood was gradually formed, and the Master encouraged their fraternal feeling. Now and then he would accept an invitation to a devotee's home, where other devotees would also be invited. Kirtan would be arranged and they would spend hours in dance and devotional music. The Master would go into trances or open his heart in religious discourses and in the narration of his own spiritual experiences. Many people who could not go to Dakshineswar participated in these meetings and felt blessed. Such an occasion would be concluded with a sumptuous feast.
--
The Europeanized Kristodas Pal did not approve of the Master's emphasis on renunciation and said; "Sir, this cant of renunciation has almost ruined the country. It is for this reason that the Indians are a subject nation today. Doing good to others, bringing education to the door of the ignorant, and above all, improving the material conditions of the country — these should be our duty now. The cry of religion and renunciation would, on the contrary, only weaken us. You should advise the young men of Bengal to resort only to such acts as will uplift the country." Sri Ramakrishna gave him a searching look and fo und no divine light within, "You man of poor understanding!" Sri Ramakrishna said sharply. "You dare to slight in these terms renunciation and piety, which our scriptures describe as the greatest of all virtues! After reading two pages of English you think you have come to know the world! You appear to think you are omniscient. Well, have you seen those tiny crabs that are born in the Ganges just when the rains set in? In this big universe you are even less significant than one of those small creatures. How dare you talk of helping the world? The Lord will look to that. You haven't the power in you to do it." After a pause the Master continued: "Can you explain to me how you can work for others? I know what you mean by helping them. To feed a number of persons, to treat them when they are sick, to construct a road or dig a well — isn't that all? These, are good deeds, no doubt, but how trifling in comparison with the vastness of the universe! How far can a man advance in this line? How many people can you save from famine? Malaria has ruined a whole province; what could you do to stop its onslaught? God alone looks after the world. Let a man first realize Him. Let a man get the authority from God and be endowed with His power; then, and then alone, may he think of doing good to others. A man should first be purged of all egotism. Then alone will the Blissful Mother ask him to work for the world." Sri Ramakrishna mistrusted philanthropy that presumed to pose as charity. He warned people against it. He saw in most acts of philanthropy nothing but egotism, vanity, a desire for glory, a barren excitement to kill the boredom of life, or an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience. True charity, he taught, is the result of love of God — service to man in a spirit of worship.
--- MONASTIC DISCIPLES
--
The first of these young men to come to the Master was Latu. Born of obscure parents, in Behar, he came to Calcutta in search of work and was engaged by Ramchandra Dutta as house-boy. Learning of the saintly Sri Ramakrishna, he visited the Master at Dakshineswar and was deeply touched by his cordiality. When he was about to leave, the Master asked him to take some money and return home in a boat or carriage. But Latu declared he had a few pennies and jingled the coins in his pocket. Sri Ramakrishna later requested Ram to allow Latu to stay with him permanently. under Sri Ramakrishna's guidance Latu made great progress in meditation and was blessed with ecstatic visions, but all the efforts of the Master to give him a smattering of education failed. Latu was very fond of kirtan and other devotional songs but remained all his life illiterate.
--- RAKHAL
--
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything aro und him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have my father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself. He returned home more confused than ever, resolved to be henceforth on his guard before this strange man.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. While he was still in that state, Sri Ramakrishna questioned him concerning his spiritual antecedents and whereabouts, his mission in this world, and the duration of his mortal life. The answers confirmed what the Master himself had known and inferred. Among other things, he came to know that Narendra was a sage who had already attained perfection, and that the day he learnt his real nature he would give up his body in yoga, by an act of will.
--
Jogindranath, on the other hand, was gentle to a fault. One day, under circumstances very like those that had evoked Niranjan's anger, he curbed his temper and held his peace instead of threatening Sri Ramakrishna's abusers. The Master, learning of his conduct, scolded him ro undly. Thus to each the fault of the other was recommended as a virtue. The guru was striving to develop, in the first instance, composure, and in the second, mettle. The secret of his training was to build up, by a tactful recognition of the requirements of each given case, the character of the devotee.
Jogindranath came of an aristocratic brahmin family of Dakshineswar. His father and relatives shared the popular mistrust of Sri Ramakrishna's sanity. At a very early age the boy developed religious tendencies, spending two or three hours daily in meditation, and his meeting with Sri Ramakrishna deepened his desire for the realization of God. He had a perfect horror of marriage. But at the earnest request of his mother he had had to yield, and he now believed that his spiritual future was doomed. So he kept himself away from the Master.
--
Sashi and Sarat were two cousins who came from a pious brahmin family of Calcutta. At an early age they had joined the Brahmo Samaj and had come under the influence of Keshab Sen. The Master said to them at their first meeting: "If bricks and tiles are burnt after the trade-mark has been stamped on them, they retain the mark for ever. Similarly, man should be stamped with God before entering the world. Then he will not become attached to worldliness." Fully aware of the future course of their life, he asked them not to marry. The Master asked Sashi whether he believed in God with form or in God without form. Sashi replied that he was not even sure about the existence of God; so he could not speak one way or the other. This frank answer very much pleased the Master.
Sarat's soul longed for the all-embracing realization of the Godhead. When the Master inquired whether there was any particular form of God he wished to see, the boy replied that he would like to see God in all the living beings of the world. "But", the Master demurred, "that is the last word in realization. One cannot have it at the very outset." Sarat stated calmly: "I won't be satisfied with anything short of that. I shall trudge on along the path till I attain that blessed state." Sri Ramakrishna was very much pleased.
--
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 profo undly 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
--
One night he had a hemorrhage of the throat. The doctor now diagnosed the illness as cancer. Narendra was the first to break this heart-rending news to the disciples. Within three days the Master was removed to Calcutta for better treatment. At Balaram's house he remained a week until a suitable place could be fo und at Syampukur, in the northern section of Calcutta. During this week he dedicated himself practically without respite to the instruction of those beloved devotees who had been unable to visit him oftener at Dakshineswar. Discourses incessantly flowed from his tongue, and he often went into samadhi. Dr. Mahendra Sarkar, the celebrated homeopath of Calcutta, was invited to undertake his treatment.
--- SYAMPUKUR
In the beginning of September 1885 Sri Ramakrishna was moved to Syampukur. Here Narendra organized the young disciples to attend the Master day and night. At first they concealed the Master's illness from their guardians; but when it became more serious they remained with him almost constantly, sweeping aside the objections of their relatives and devoting themselves whole-heartedly to the nursing of their beloved guru. These young men, under the watchful eyes of the Master and the leadership of Narendra, became the antaranga bhaktas, the devotees of Sri Ramakrishna's inner circle. They were privileged to witness many manifestations of the Master's divine powers. Narendra received instructions regarding the propagation of his message after his death.
The Holy Mother — so Sarada Devi had come to be affectionately known by Sri Ramakrishna's devotees — was brought from Dakshineswar to look after the general cooking and to prepare the special diet of the patient. The dwelling space being extremely limited, she had to adapt herself to cramped conditions. At three o'clock in the morning she would finish her bath in the Ganges and then enter a small covered place on the roof, where she spent the whole day cooking and praying. After eleven at night, when the visitors went away, she would come down to her small bedroom on the first floor to enjoy a few hours' sleep. Thus she spent three months, working hard, sleeping little, and praying constantly for the Master's recovery.
--
"I shall make the whole thing public before I go", the Master had said some time before. On January 1, 1886, he felt better and came down to the garden for a little stroll. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. Some thirty lay disciples were in the hall or sitting about under the trees. Sri Ramakrishna said to Girish, "Well, Girish, what have you seen in me, that you proclaim me before everybody as an Incarnation of God?" Girish was not the man to be taken by surprise. He knelt before the Master and said, with folded hands, "What can an insignificant person like myself say about the One whose glory even sages like Vyasa and Valmiki could not adequately measure?" The Master was profo undly moved. He said: "What more shall I say? I bless you all. Be illumined!" He fell into a spiritual mood. Hearing these words the devotees, one and all, became overwhelmed with emotion. They rushed to him and fell at his feet. He touched them all, and each received an appropriate benediction. Each of them, at the touch of the Master, experienced ineffable bliss. Some laughed, some wept, some sat down to meditate, some began to pray. Some saw light, some had visions of their Chosen Ideals, and some felt within their bodies the rush of spiritual power.
Narendra, consumed with a terrific fever for realization, complained to the Master that all the others had attained peace and that he alone was dissatisfied. The Master asked what he wanted. Narendra begged for samadhi, so that he might altogether forget the world for three or four days at a time. "You are a fool", the Master rebuked him. "There is a state even higher than that. Isn't it you who sing, 'All that exists art Thou'? First of all settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will experience a state even higher than samadhi."
--
The words were tender and touching. Like a mother he caressed Narendra and Rakhal, gently stroking their faces. He said in a half whisper to M., "Had this body been allowed to last a little longer, many more souls would have been illumined." He paused a moment and then said: "But Mother has ordained otherwise. She will take me away lest, finding me guileless and foolish, people should take advantage of me and persuade me to bestow on them the rare gifts of spirituality." A few minutes later he touched his chest and said: "Here are two beings. One is She and the other is Her devotee. It is the latter who broke his arm, and it is he again who is now ill. Do you understand me?" After a pause he added: "Alas! To whom shall I tell all this? Who will understand me?" "Pain", he consoled them again, 'is unavoidable as long as there is a body. The Lord takes on the body for the sake of His devotees."
Yet one is not sure whether the Master's soul actually was tortured by this agonizing disease. At least during his moments of spiritual exaltation — which became almost constant during the closing days of his life on earth — he lost all consciousness of the body, of illness and suffering. One of his attendants (Latu, later known as Swami Adbhutananda.) said later on: "While Sri Ramakrishna lay sick he never actually suffered pain. He would often say: 'O mind! Forget the body, forget the sickness, and remain merged in Bliss.' No, he did not really suffer. At times he would be in a state when the thrill of joy was clearly manifested in his body. Even when he could not speak he would let us know in some way that there was no suffering, and this fact was clearly evident to all who watched him. People who did not understand him thought that his suffering was very great. What spiritual joy he transmitted to us at that time! Could such a thing have been possible if he had 'been suffering physically? It was during this period that he taught us again these truths: 'Brahman is always unattached. The three gunas are in It, but It is unaffected by them, just as the wind carries odour yet remains odourless.' 'Brahman is Infinite Being, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Bliss. In It there exist no delusion, no misery, no disease, no death, no growth, no decay.' 'The Transcendental Being and the being within are one and the same. There is one indivisible Absolute Existence.'"
The Holy Mother secretly went to a Siva temple across the Ganges to intercede with the Deity for the Master's recovery. In a revelation she was told to prepare herself for the inevitable end.
--
After another long period Narendra regained full consciousness. Bathed in peace, he went to the Master, who said: "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this revelation will remain under lock and key, and I shall keep the key. When you have accomplished the Mother's work you will find the treasure again."
Some days later, Narendra being alone with the Master, Sri Ramakrishna looked at him and went into samadhi. Narendra felt the penetration of a subtle force and lost all outer consciousness. Regaining presently the normal mood, he fo und the Master weeping.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
mind. I understood that I held in my hands the key
to the future progress of humanity...."
--
The Student is then charged to understand the
spiritual importance of this physical procession in
--
Pyramids, under the Night of Pan.
There was Lao-tzu.
--
Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, are only to be under-
stood by the Master of the Temple.
--
underworld; but it is called the Stag-Beetle to emphasise
his horns. Horns are the universal hieroglyph of energy,
--
It is not necessary to understand; it is enough to
adore.
--
Work under the figure of a man ridding himself of all
his accidents.
--
blindness. Those who are under the dominion of reason
are called blind.
--
above the Abyss, comprehended under the title of the
First.
--
A new character is now introduce under the title of
IT, I being the secret, and T being the manifested,
--
reason under control.
As soon as the reason is vanquished, the garotte is
--
understood in the most ordinary and commonplace
way, without any mystical sense.
--
a spiral force. It will be difficult to understand this chapter with-
out some experience in the transvaluation of values, which occurs
--
it is because such sacrifices come under the Great Law
of the Rosy Cross, the giving-up of the individuality,
--
holy Thy name and undefiled!
Thy reign is come: Thy will is done.
--
mended is scepticism, but a scepticism under control.
Doubt inhibits action, as much as faith binds it. All
--
Here is Wisdom. Let Him that hath understanding
count the Number of Our Lady; for it is the
--
There is nothing movable or immovable under the
firmament of heaven on which I may write the
--
(33) Twig? = dost thou understand? Also the Phoenix
takes twigs to kindle the fire in which it burns itself.
--
The last paragraph will only be understood by
Masters of the Temple.
--
Sat no Elijah under the Juniper-tree, and wept?
Was not Mohammed forsaken in Mecca, and Jesus
--
The key to the understanding of this chapter is given
in the number and the title, the former being intelligible
--
Paragraph 2 will easily be understood by those who have practised
Asana. there is perhaps a sardonic reference to rigor mortis, and certainly
--
may this book be understood.
How much more then should He devote Himself to
AIWASS for the understanding of the Holy Books
of {Theta-Epsilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha}?
Yet must he labour undergro und eternally. The
sun is not for him, nor the flowers, nor the voices
--
in every land that is under the dominion of the
Sun, and I have sailed the seas from pole to pole.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"M", as the author modestly styles himself, was peculiarly qualified for his task. To a reverent love for his master, to a deep and experiential knowledge of that master's teaching, he added a prodigious memory for the small happenings of each day and a happy gift for recording them in an interesting and realistic way. Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he fo und himself, "M" produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. No other saint has had so able and indefatigable a Boswell. Never have the small events of a contemplative's daily life been described with such a wealth of intimate detail. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute a fidelity. To Western readers, it is true, this fidelity and this wealth of detail are sometimes a trifle disconcerting; for the social, religious and intellectual frames of reference within which Sri Ramakrishna did his thinking and expressed his feelings were entirely Indian. But after the first few surprises and bewilderments, we begin to find something peculiarly stimulating and instructive about the very strangeness and, to our eyes, the eccentricity of the man revealed to us in "M's" narrative. What a scholastic philosopher would call the "accidents" of Ramakrishna's life were intensely Hindu and therefore, so far as we in the West are concerned, unfamiliar and hard to understand; its "essence", however, was intensely mystical and therefore universal. To read through these conversations in which mystical doctrine alternates with an unfamiliar kind of humour, and where discussions of the oddest aspects of Hindu mythology give place to the most profo und and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality, is in itself a liberal, education in humility, tolerance and suspense of judgment. We must be grateful to the translator for his excellent version of a book so curious and delightful as a biographical document, so precious, at the same time, for what it teaches us of the life of the spirit.
--------------------
--
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is the English translation of the Sri Sri Rmakrishna Kathmrita, the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees, and visitors, recorded by Mahendranth Gupta, who wrote the book under the pseudonym of "M." The conversations in Bengali fill five volumes, the first of which was published in 1897 and the last shortly after M.'s death in 1932. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, has published in two volumes an English translation of selected chapters from the monumental Bengali work. I have consulted these while preparing my translation.
M., one of the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, was present during all the conversations recorded in the main body of the book and noted them down in his diary.
--
But these words were not the product of intellectual cogitation; they were rooted in direct experience. Hence, to students of religion, psychology, and physical science, these experiences of the Master are of immense value for the understanding of religious phenomena in general. No doubt Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu of the Hindus; yet his experiences transcended the limits of the dogmas and creeds of Hinduism. Mystics of religions other than Hinduism will find in Sri Ramakrishna's experiences a corroboration of the experiences of their own prophets and seers. And this is very important today for the resuscitation of religious values. The sceptical reader may pass by the supernatural experiences; he will yet find in the book enough material to provoke his serious thought and solve many of his spiritual problems.
There are repetitions of teachings and parables in the book. I have kept them purposely. They have their charm and usefulness, repeated as they were in different settings. Repetition is unavoidable in a work of this kind. In the first place, different seekers come to a religious teacher with questions of more or less identical nature; hence the answers will be of more or less identical pattern. Besides, religious teachers of all times and climes have tried, by means of repetition, to hammer truths into the stony soil of the recalcitrant human mind. Finally, repetition does not seem tedious if the ideas repeated are dear to a man's heart.
I have thought it necessary to write a rather lengthy Introduction to the book. In it I have given the biography of the Master, descriptions of people who came in contact with him, short explanations of several systems of Indian religious thought intimately connected with Sri Ramakrishna's life, and other relevant matters which, I hope, will enable the reader better to understand and appreciate the unusual contents of this book. It is particularly important that the Western reader, unacquainted with Hindu religious thought, should first read carefully the introductory chapter, in order that he may fully enjoy these conversations. Many Indian terms and names have been retained in the book for want of suitable English equivalents. Their meaning is given either in the Glossary or in the foot-notes. The Glossary also gives explanations of a number of expressions unfamiliar to Western readers. The diacritical marks are explained under Notes on Pronunciation.
In the Introduction I have drawn much material from the Life of Sri Ramakrishna, published by the Advaita Ashrama, Myvati, India. I have also consulted the excellent article on Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nirvednanda, in the second volume of the Cultural Heritage of India.
--
In the preparation of this manuscript I have received ungrudging help from several friends. Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson and Mr.Joseph Campbell have worked hard in editing my translation. Mrs.Elizabeth Davidson has typed, more than once, the entire manuscript and rendered other valuable help. Mr.Aldous Huxley has laid me under a debt of gratitude by writing the Foreword. I sincerely thank them all.
In the spiritual firmament Sri Ramakrishna is a waxing crescent. Within one h undred years of his birth and fifty years of his death his message has spread across land and sea. Romain Rolland has described him as the fulfilment of the spiritual aspirations of the three h undred millions of Hindus for the last two thousand years. Mahatma Gandhi has written: "His life enables us to see God face to face. . . . Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness." He is being recognized as a compeer of Krishna, Buddha, and Christ.
--
He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were that he could not get on with some of the managements on gro unds of principles and that often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so that his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
Imparting secular education was, however, only his profession ; his main concern was with the spiritual regeneration of man a calling for which Destiny seems to have chosen him. From his childhood he was deeply pious, and he used to be moved very much by Sdhus, temples and Durga Puja celebrations. The piety and eloquence of the great Brahmo leader of the times, Keshab Chander Sen, elicited a powerful response from the impressionable mind of Mahendra Nath, as it did in the case of many an idealistic young man of Calcutta, and prepared him to receive the great Light that was to dawn on him with the coming of Sri Ramakrishna into his life.
--
It did not take much time for M. to become very intimate with the Master, or for the Master to recognise in this disciple a divinely commissioned partner in the fulfilment of his spiritual mission. When M. was reading out the Chaitanya Bhagavata, the Master discovered that he had been, in a previous birth, a disciple and companion of the great Vaishnava Teacher, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and the Master even saw him 'with his naked eye' participating in the ecstatic mass-singing of the Lord's name under the leadership of that Divine personality. So the Master told M, "You are my own, of the same substance as the father and the son," indicating thereby that M. was one of the chosen few and a part and parcel of his Divine mission.
There was an urge in M. to abandon the household life and become a Sannysin. When he communicated this idea to the Master, he forbade him saying," Mother has told me that you have to do a little of Her work you will have to teach Bhagavata, the word of God to humanity. The Mother keeps a Bhagavata Pandit with a bondage in the world!"
--
An appropriate allusion indeed! Bhagavata, the great scripture that has given the word of Sri Krishna to mankind, was composed by the Sage Vysa under similar circumstances. When caught up in a mood of depression like that of M, Vysa was advised by the sage Nrada that he would gain peace of mind only qn composing a work exclusively devoted to the depiction of the Lord's glorious attributes and His teachings on Knowledge and Devotion, and the result was that the world got from Vysa the invaluable gift of the Bhagavata Purana depicting the life and teachings of Sri Krishna.
From the mental depression of the modem Vysa, the world has obtained the Kathmrita (Bengali Edition) the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in English.
--
Though his children received proper attention from him, his real family, both during the Master's lifetime and after, consisted of saints, devotees, Sannysins and spiritual aspirants. His life exemplifies the Master's teaching that an ideal householder must be like a good maidservant of a family, loving and caring properly for the children of the house, but knowing always that her real home and children are elsewhere. During the Master's lifetime he spent all his S undays and other holidays with him and his devotees, and besides listening to the holy talks and devotional music, practised meditation both on the Personal and the Impersonal aspects of God under the direct guidance of the Master. In the pages of the Gospel the reader gets a picture of M.'s spiritual relationship with the Master how from a hazy belief in the Impersonal God of the Brahmos, he was step by step brought to accept both Personality and Impersonality as the two aspects of the same Non-dual Being, how he was convinced of the manifestation of that Being as Gods, Goddesses and as Incarnations, and how he was established in a life that was both of a Jnni and of a Bhakta. This Jnni-Bhakta outlook and way of living became so dominant a feature of his life that Swami Raghavananda, who was very closely associated with him during his last six years, remarks: "Among those who lived with M. in latter days, some felt that he always lived in this constant and conscious union with God even with open eyes (i.e., even in waking consciousness)." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXXVII. P. 442.)
Besides undergoing spiritual disciplines at the feet of the Master, M. used to go to holy places during the Master's lifetime itself and afterwards too as a part of his Sdhan.
He was one of the earliest of the disciples to visit Kamarpukur, the birthplace of the Master, in the latter's lifetime itself; for he wished to practise contemplation on the Master's early life in its true original setting. His experience there is described as follows by Swami Nityatmananda: "By the grace of the Master, he saw the entire Kamarpukur as a holy place bathed in an effulgent Light. Trees and creepers, beasts and birds and men all were made of effulgence. So he prostrated to all on the road. He saw a torn cat, which appeared to him luminous with the Light of Consciousness. Immediately he fell to the gro und and saluted it" (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda vol. I. P. 40.) He had similar experience in Dakshineswar also. At the instance of the Master he also visited Puri, and in the words of Swami Nityatmananda, "with indomitable courage, M. embraced the image of Jagannath out of season."
--
I now understand why none of us attempted His life before. It has been reserved for you, this great work. He is with you evidently." ( Vednta Kesari Vol. XIX P. 141. Also given in the first edition of the Gospel published from Ramakrishna Math, Madras in 1911.)
And Swamiji added a post script to the letter: "Socratic dialogues are Plato all over you are entirely hidden. Moreover, the dramatic part is infinitely beautiful. Everybody likes it here or in the West." Indeed, in order to be unknown, Mahendranath had used the pen-name M., under which the book has been appearing till now. But so great a book cannot remain obscure for long, nor can its author remain unrecognised by the large public in these modern times. M. and his book came to be widely known very soon and to meet the growing demand, a full-sized book, Vol. I of the Gospel, translated by the author himself, was published in 1907 by the Brahmavadin Office, Madras. A second edition of it, revised by the author, was brought out by the Ramakrishna Math, Madras in December 1911, and subsequently a second part, containing new chapters from the original Bengali, was published by the same Math in 1922. The full English translation of the Gospel by Swami Nikhilananda appeared first in 1942.
In Bengali the book is published in five volumes, the first part having appeared in 1902
--
In 1905 he retired from the active life of a Professor and devoted his remaining twenty-seven years exclusively to the preaching of the life and message of the Great Master. He bought the Morton Institution from its original proprietors and shifted it to a commodious four-storeyed house at 50 Amherst Street, where it flourished under his management as one of the most efficient educational institutions in Calcutta. He generally occupied a staircase room at the top of it, cooking his own meal which consisted only of milk and rice without variation, and attended to all his personal needs himself. His dress also was the simplest possible. It was his conviction that limitation of personal wants to the minimum is an important aid to holy living. About one hour in the morning he would spend in inspecting the classes of the school, and then retire to his staircase room to pour over his diary and live in the divine atmosphere of the earthly days of the Great Master, unless devotees and admirers had already gathered in his room seeking his holy company.
In appearance, M. looked a Vedic Rishi. Tall and stately in bearing, he had a strong and well-built body, an unusually broad chest, high forehead and arms extending to the knees. His complexion was fair and his prominent eyes were always tinged with the expression of the divine love that filled his heart. Adorned with a silvery beard that flowed luxuriantly down his chest, and a shining face radiating the serenity and gravity of holiness, M. was as imposing and majestic as he was handsome and engaging in appearance. Humorous, sweet-tongued and eloquent when situations required, this great Maharishi of our age lived only to sing the glory of Sri Ramakrishna day and night.
--
As time went on and the number of devotees increased, the staircase room and terrace of the 3rd floor of the Morton Institution became a veritable Naimisaranya of modern times, reso unding during all hours of the day, and sometimes of night, too, with the word of God coming from the Rishi-like face of M. addressed to the eager God-seekers sitting aro und. To the devotees who helped him in preparing the text of the Gospel, he would dictate the conversations of the Master in a meditative mood, referring now and then to his diary. At times in the stillness of midnight he would awaken a nearby devotee and tell him: "Let us listen to the words of the Master in the depths of the night as he explains the truth of the Pranava." ( Vednta Kesari XIX P. 142.) Swami Raghavananda, an intimate devotee of M., writes as follows about these devotional sittings: "In the sweet and warm months of April and May, sitting under the canopy of heaven on the roof-garden of 50 Amherst Street, surro unded by shrubs and plants, himself sitting in their midst like a Rishi of old, the stars and planets in their courses beckoning us to things infinite and sublime, he would speak to us of the mysteries of God and His love and of the yearning that would rise in the human heart to solve the Eternal Riddle, as exemplified in the life of his Master. The mind, melting under the influence of his soft sweet words of light, would almost transcend the frontiers of limited existence and dare to peep into the infinite. He himself would take the influence of the setting and say,'What a blessed privilege it is to sit in such a setting (pointing to the starry heavens), in the company of the devotees discoursing on God and His love!' These unforgettable scenes will long remain imprinted on the minds of his hearers." (Prabuddha Bharata Vol XXXVII P 497.)
About twenty-seven years of his life he spent in this way in the heart of the great city of Calcutta, radiating the Master's thoughts and ideals to countless devotees who flocked to him, and to still larger numbers who read his Kathmrita (English Edition : The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna), the last part of which he had completed before June 1932 and given to the press. And miraculously, as it were, his end also came immediately after he had completed his life's mission. About three months earlier he had come to stay at his home at 13/2 Gurdasprasad Chaudhuary Lane at Thakur Bari, where the Holy Mother had herself installed the Master and where His regular worship was being conducted for the previous 40 years. The night of 3rd June being the Phalahrini Kli Pooja day, M.
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. Advancing science has now discovered that all the known cases of biological extinction have been caused by overspecialization, whose concentration of only selected genes sacrifices general adaptability. Thus the specialist's brief for pinpointing brevity is dubious. In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others.
Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war.
--
Such packages consist of complexedly interrelated and not as-yet differentially analyzed phenomena which, as initially unit cognitions, are potentially re-experienceable. A rose, for instance, grows. has thorns, blossoms, and fragrance, but often is stored in the brain only under the single word-rose.
As Korzybski, the fo under of general semantics, pointed out, the consequence of its single-tagging is that the rose becomes reflexively considered by man only as a red, white, or pink device for paying tribute to a beautiful girl, a thoughtful hostess, or last night's deceased acquaintance. The tagging of the complex biological process under the single title rose tends to detour human curiosity from further differentiation of its integral organic operations as well as from consideration of its interecological functionings aboard our planet. We don't know what a rose is, nor what may be its essential and unique cosmic function. Thus for long have we inadvertently deferred potential discovery of the essential roles in Universe that are performed complementarily by many, if not most, of the phenomena we experience.
But, goaded by youth, we older ones are now taking second looks at almost everything. And that promises many ultimately favorable surprises. The oldsters do have vast experience banks not available to the youth. Their memory banks, integrated and reviewed, may readily disclose generalized principles of eminent importance.
--
Living upon the threshold between yesterday and tomorrow, which threshold we reflexively assumed in some long ago yesterday to constitute an eternal now, we are aware of the daily-occurring, vast multiplication of experience generated information by which we potentially may improve our understanding of our yesterdays' experiences and therefrom derive our most farsighted preparedness for successive tomorrows.
Anticipating, cooperating with, and employing the forces of nature can be accomplished only by the mind. The wisdom manifest in the omni-interorderliness of the family of generalized principles operative in Universe can be employed only by the highest integrity of engagement of the mind's metaphysical intuiting and formulating capabilities.
--
Intellectually advantaged with no more than the child's facile, lucid eagerness to understand constructively and usefully the major transformational events of our own times, it probably is synergetically advantageous to review swiftly the most comprehensive inventory of the most powerful human environment transforming events of our totally known and reasonably extended history. This is especially useful in winnowing out and understanding the most significant of the metaphysical revolutions now recognized as swiftly tending to reconstitute history. By such a comprehensively schematic review, we might identify also the unprecedented and possibly heretofore overlooked pivotal revolutionary events not only of today but also of those trending to be central to tomorrow's most cataclysmic changes.
It is synergetically reasonable to assume that relativistic evaluation of any of the separate drives of art, science, education, economics, and ideology, and their complexedly interacting trends within our own times, may be had only through the most comprehensive historical sweep of which we are capable.
There could be produced a synergetic understanding of humanity's cosmic functioning, which, until now, had been both undiscovered and unpredictable due to our deliberate and exclusive preoccupation only with the separate statistics of separate events. As a typical consequence of the latter, we observe our society's persistent increase of educational and employment specialization despite the already mentioned, well-documented scientific disclosure that the extinctions of biological species are always occasioned by overspecialization. Specialization's preoccupation with parts deliberately forfeits the opportunity to apprehend and comprehend what is provided exclusively by synergy.
Today's news consists of aggregates of fragments. Anyone who has taken part in any event that has subsequently appeared in the news is aware of the gross disparity between the actual and the reported events. The insistence by reporters upon having advance "releases" of what, for instance, convocation speakers are supposedly going to say but in fact have not yet said, automatically discredits the value of the largely prefabricated news. We also learn frequently of prefabricated and prevaricated events of a complex nature purportedly undertaken for purposes either of suppressing or rigging the news, which in turn perverts humanity's tactical information resources. All history becomes suspect. Probably our most polluted resource is the tactical information to which humanity spontaneously reflexes.
Furthermore, today's hyperspecialization in socioeconomic functioning has come to preclude important popular philosophic considerations of the synergetic significance of, for instance, such historically important events as the discovery within the general region of experimental inquiry known as virology that the as-yet popularly assumed validity of the concepts of animate and inanimate phenomena have been experimentally invalidated. Atoms and crystal complexes of atoms were held to be obviously inanimate; the protoplasmic cells of biological phenomena were held to be obviously animate. It was deemed to be common sense that warm- blooded, moist, and soft-skinned humans were clearly not to be confused with hard, cold granite or steel objects. A clear-cut threshold between animate and inanimate was therefore assumed to exist as a f undamental dichotomy of all physical phenomena. This seemingly placed life exclusively within the bo unds of the physical.
--
It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.
The overconcentration on details of hyperspecialization has also been responsible for the lack of recognition by science of its inherently mandatory responsibility to reorient all our educational curricula because of the synergetically disclosed, but popularly uncomprehended, significance of the 1956 Nobel Prize-winning discovery in physics of the experimental invalidation of the concept of "parity" by which science previously had misassumed that positive-negative complementations consisted exclusively of mirror-imaged behaviors of physical phenomena.
--
And whence will come the wealth with which we may undertake to lead world man into his new and validly hopeful life? From the wealth of the minds of world man-whence comes all wealth. Only mind can discover how to do so much with so little as forever to be able to sustain and physically satisfy all humanity.
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
structural unity under the superficial juxtaposition of successions
and collectivities.
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita (second chapter) occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: "What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?" Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment, the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also that the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature, because according to him the divine Reality has to manifest itself in nature. So, all the parts of nature including the physical and the external are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.
The Evening Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of his external personality and give the seeker some idea of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 a span of forty years he led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practising some kind of very special Yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of a spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public', 'altruistic' or 'beneficial'. Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
on, at your leisure, will enable you to understand those parts
which eluded you at first glance. Moreover, these "conversations" make no claim to exhaust their subjects or even to deal
--
does not go beyond the understanding of the Western mind.
India has far greater geniuses than these and in the most
--
will readily understand why I am telling you all this; it is so you
can bear it in mind just in case.
--
was beginning to set in. I must say that under the circumstances
the Governor (Solmiac) showed great kindness and resolve at
--
consciousness; but for ease of explanation and understanding,
they may be divided into two main opposing tendencies: those
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rajayoga, for instance, depends on this perception and experience that our inner elements, combinations, functions, forces, can be separated or dissolved, can be new-combined and set to novel and formerly impossible workings or can be transformed and resolved into a new general synthesis by fixed internal processes. Hathayoga similarly depends on this perception and experience that the vital forces and functions to which our life is normally subjected and whose ordinary operations seem set and indispensable, can be mastered and the operations changed or suspended with results that would otherwise be impossible and that seem miraculous to those who have not seized the rationale of their process. And if in some other of its forms this character of Yoga is less apparent, because they are more intuitive and less mechanical, nearer, like the Yoga of Devotion, to a supernal ecstasy or, like the Yoga of Knowledge, to a supernal infinity of consciousness and being, yet they too start from the use of some principal faculty in us by ways and for ends not contemplated in its everyday spontaneous workings. All methods grouped under the common name of Yoga are special psychological processes fo unded on a fixed truth of Nature and developing, out of normal functions, powers and results which were always latent but which her ordinary movements do not easily or do not often manifest.
But as in physical knowledge the multiplication of scientific processes has its disadvantages, as that tends, for instance, to develop a victorious artificiality which overwhelms our natural human life under a load of machinery and to purchase certain forms of freedom and mastery at the price of an increased servitude, so the preoccupation with Yogic processes and their exceptional results may have its disadvantages and losses. The
The Conditions of the Synthesis
--
God. Therefore we see in India that a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection, and although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little or else very imperfectly exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is popularly supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. So strongly has the idea prevailed, so much has it been emphasised by prevalent philosophies and religions that to escape from life is now commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga. No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious
Yoga in man becomes, like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous with life itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: "All life is Yoga."
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To understand is good, but to will is better.
Self-love is the great obstacle.
--
for the Truth expression to be easily understood by ordinary
people. It is this seeking which gives the impression of hesitation,
--
It is impossible to put a child of under eight to work. It would
be criminal.
--
it is easy to understand that someone who carries in and aro und
himself peace and goodwill, will in a way impose on others
--
Genevieve." I don't understand the phrase "diverted
Series Two - To a Sadhak in the Building Department
--
Sadhak: Yes, we are not all under a hallucination!
Mr. Z: Are you sure it isn't a hallucination?
(The Mother underlined most of the remarks above
in red pencil.)
--
red pencil. This falls under the "powers" that it would be better
not to mention. Either the person you are speaking to does
not understand at all and takes you for a fool suffering from
hallucinations, or else he understands and then gets frightened,
which is always dangerous.
--
When I read a novel or anything in print I clearly understand, say, eighty per cent. But when someone speaks,
I have great difficulty in following him. I miss more than
--
2) Too many different projects undertaken at the same time.
3) Lack of consciousness in some of the supervisors.
--
the number of projects undertaken at one time, in order to meet
the difficulty of supervision.
--
which is very easy to understand: doubt veils the consciousness
and the subconscious sincerity, and into the action some small
--
fully understood.
May Peace be with you - I bless you.
--
fellow-worker.) I don't understand these two completely
different movements in me: (1) one which decides to
--
No, it is not correct - and I see that you have not understood the
implications of my remark the other day. If you see something
--
It all depends on what you mean by spoil. I had understood
from what you told me that it would cause extensive damage.
From what X wrote, I understood that the nails were loose
and that a little scraping and pulling would be enough to ease
--
several times if necessary; ponder every word so that you understand exactly what I am saying and nothing else.
20 July 1935
--
me; I was sure that one day you would understand.
Series Two - To a Sadhak in the Building Department
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in order that we may be wisely guided in our effort, we must know, first, the general principle and purpose underlying this separative impulse and, next, the particular utilities upon which the method of each school of Yoga is fo unded. For the general principle we must interrogate the universal workings of Nature herself, recognising in her no merely specious and illusive activity of a distorting Maya, but the cosmic energy and working of God Himself in His universal being formulating and inspired by a vast, an infinite and yet a minutely selective
Wisdom, prajna prasr.ta puran. of the Upanishad, Wisdom that went forth from the Eternal since the beginning. For the particular utilities we must cast a penetrative eye on the different methods of Yoga and distinguish among the mass of their details the governing idea which they serve and the radical force which gives birth and energy to their processes of effectuation.
--
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this that is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga that kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
annakos.a and pran.akos.a.
--
to this conclusion that mental life, far from being a recent appearance in man, is the swift repetition in him of a previous achievement from which the Energy in the race had undergone one of her deplorable recoils. The savage is perhaps not so much the first forefa ther of civilised man as the degenerate descendant of a previous civilisation. For if the actuality of intellectual achievement is unevenly distributed, the capacity is spread everywhere. It has been seen that in individual cases even the racial type considered by us the lowest, the negro fresh from the perennial barbarism of Central Africa, is capable, without admixture of blood, without waiting for future generations, of the intellectual culture, if not yet of the intellectual accomplishment of the dominant European. Even in the mass men seem to need, in favourable circumstances, only a few generations to cover gro und that ought apparently to be measured in the terms of millenniums. Either, then, man by his privilege as a mental being is exempt from the full burden of the tardy laws of evolution or else he already represents and with helpful conditions and in the right stimulating atmosphere can always display a high level of material capacity for the activities of the intellectual life.
It is not mental incapacity, but the long rejection or seclusion from opportunity and withdrawal of the awakening impulse that creates the savage. Barbarism is an intermediate sleep, not an original darkness.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
why and understanding the deeper cause of your happiness and
confidence.
--
With these two images, I think you will understand.
Tender love.
--
for her." "Yes," the doctor said, "I understand that he
asked me about that just out of curiosity and I will say
--
organ for me, and it made me feel proud. I understood,
even at that moment, that it was a wrong feeling and I
--
I don't understand what you mean. My help is always with
you, as complete as it can be; it is up to you to open yourself
--
were talking at once and I can understand nothing of
what they say. And I feel as if this noise has been going on
--
people are all talking at once and one can understand
nothing of it.
--
sees more clearly and better understands what ought or ought
not to have been done.
--
diseases? I understand nothing of it.
Psychological diseases are diseases of the thoughts and feelings,
--
I understand absolutely nothing of what you mean to say. You
seem to be saying that I like to see you suffer; but this is so
--
is only so you may understand that I don't hold you responsible for this change which has come over you from outside.
Now there is only one way open, the way of progress - since
--
Light".4 What does this mean? I don't understand.
If you put "Divine" instead of "supramental", does that make
--
Now do you understand?
23 March 1933
--
spent nearly two hours this evening making her understand how to write things very clearly. But in vain.
The trouble one takes like this for someone is never in vain. The
--
I have only to undo this work - which took me three
days - so as to do it better.
--
exact image of life, where one must constantly undo what has
been done in order to redo it better.
--
I don't know how to feel outward. I don't understand
what You mean by "outward".
--
to hide something from me. When you started crying under the
pressure I was putting on you in meditation to calm the restlessness of your mind and vital, I thought that it might relieve you
--
of water and underline them with a fine gold thread; then it will
look as if it were done deliberately and it will be even lovelier.
--
My heart? Or something else? I don't understand all this.
I want my heart to open to You and to feel Your love
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But the spiritual life, like the mental, may thus make use of this outward existence for the benefit of the individual with a perfect indifference to any collective uplifting of the merely symbolic world which it uses. Since the Eternal is for ever the same in all things and all things the same to the Eternal, since the exact mode of action and the result are of no importance compared with the working out in oneself of the one great realisation, this spiritual indifference accepts no matter what environment, no matter what action, dispassionately, prepared to retire as soon as its own supreme end is realised. It is so that many have understood the ideal of the Gita. Or else the inner love and bliss may pour itself out on the world in good deeds, in service, in compassion, the inner Truth in the giving of knowledge, without therefore attempting the transformation of a world which must by its inalienable nature remain a battlefield of the dualities, of sin and virtue, of truth and error, of joy and suffering.
But if Progress also is one of the chief terms of worldexistence and a progressive manifestation of the Divine the true sense of Nature, this limitation also is invalid. It is possible for the spiritual life in the world, and it is its real mission, to change the material life into its own image, the image of the Divine. Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration. Ordinarily, the effort is concentrated on a mental and moral change in humanity, but it may extend itself also to the alteration of the forms of our life and its institutions so that they too may be a better mould for the inpourings of the Spirit. These attempts have been the supreme landmarks in the progressive development of human ideals and the divine preparation of the race. Every one of them, whatever its outward results, has left Earth more capable of Heaven and quickened in its tardy movements the evolutionary Yoga of Nature.
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
and once more I shall try to make you understand it.
The bullocks are not mischievous. On the contrary, they are
--
working under the previous one they were happy and cheerful
and worked well. Since this one is driving them they are sad and
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
those functionings which determine the state and the experiences of our nervous being; through the mentality, whether by means of the emotional heart, the active will or the understanding mind, or more largely by a general conversion of the mental consciousness in all its activities. It may equally be accomplished through a direct awakening to the universal or transcendent Truth and
Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
with my studies - finding things out, learning, understanding,
knowing. That was my interest, even my passion. My mother,
--
hope that you will understand them.
Your mother who loves you.
--
You will no longer revolt when you understand that it is the
most useless and foolish of all things; and when you give up this
--
made progress. The progress is undeniable even though it may
not be apparent. Certainly the path of yoga is a very difficult
--
I understand your difficulty very well. It is very common
and can only be solved with much endurance in the will and
--
and understand it so that you can realise it. In what way do
you feel yourself going down? Are desires becoming stronger in
--
that you have understood it completely, and when you have seen
very clearly within yourself, write to me again.
--
(2) You will live here, as all of us, night and day under the
constant threat of a sudden bombardment.
--
The Mother underlined the words "all will be well" and wrote beside them: "This is
the voice of truth, the one you must listen to."
--
yet understand. What is it you want me to do? What
is your will? I cannot express how deeply I feel your
--
(The following letters are undated. Most were written
between 1932 and 1938 during the sadhak's first stay in
--
your life. As soon as you have understood the need for this,
everything will become easier - and you will at last be able to
--
be? I understand your difficulties and I know your goodwill;
I know that you want to do well, that you want to conquer,
--
Yes, I understand you very well, my dear child, and my affection
is always with you and it wants you to have a vast and lasting
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An undiscriminating combination in block would not be a synthesis, but a confusion. Nor would a successive practice of each of them in turn be easy in the short span of our human life and with our limited energies, to say nothing of the waste of labour implied in so cumbrous a process. Sometimes, indeed,
Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess
--
- and Yoga is nothing but practical psychology, - is the conception of Nature from which we have to start. It is the selffulfilment of the Purusha through his Energy. But the movement of Nature is twofold, higher and lower, or, as we may choose to term it, divine and undivine. The distinction exists indeed for practical purposes only; for there is nothing that is not divine, and in a larger view it is as meaningless, verbally, as the distinction between natural and supernatural, for all things that are are natural. All things are in Nature and all things are in God.
But, for practical purposes, there is a real distinction. The lower
--
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change.
Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some element or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefa thers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
of Mount Carmel and fulfils the undertakings given in it:
The first night or purgation is of the sensual part of the soul, which is
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I do not understand a phrase in Your Prayers: "and that
all are equal - infinitesimal grains of dust or identical
--
It is that part of your being which is under the influence of the
psychic and obeys the Divine impulsion.
--
if, instead of expressing their advice under cleverly perverted
forms, they were to speak of things as they are, it would come
--
Mother, I do not quite understand what a peace of
"hardening" means.
--
Should one always avoid a circumstance which is conducive to undesirable impulses? Or should one rather
accept the circumstance and try to be its master?
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
Begins the exposition of the stanzas which treat of the way and manner which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love with God. Before we enter upon the exposition of these stanzas, it is well to understand here that the soul that utters them is now in the state of perfection, which is the union of love with God, having already passed through severe trials and straits, by means of spiritual exercise in the narrow way of eternal life whereof Our Saviour speaks in the Gospel, along which way the soul ordinarily passes in order to reach this high and happy union with God. Since this road (as the Lord Himself says likewise) is so strait, and since there are so few that enter by it,19 the soul considers it a great happiness and good chance to have passed along it to the said perfection of love, as it sings in this first stanza, calling this strait road with full propriety 'dark night,' as will be explained hereafter in the lines of the said stanza. The soul, then, rejoicing at having passed along this narrow road whence so many blessings have come to it, speaks after this manner.
BOOK THE FIRST
--
IN this first stanza the soul relates the way and manner which it followed in going forth, as to its affection, from itself and from all things, and in dying to them all and to itself, by means of true mortification, in order to attain to living the sweet and delectable life of love with God; and it says that this going forth from itself and from all things was a 'dark night,' by which, as will be explained hereafter, is here understood purgative contemplation, which causes passively in the soul the negation of itself and of all things referred to above.
2. And this going forth it says here that it was able to accomplish in the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave to it for that purpose in the dark contemplation aforementioned. Herein it extols the great happiness which it fo und in journeying to God through this night with such signal success that none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they that ever impede this road), could hinder it; inasmuch as the aforementioned night of purgative20 contemplation lulled to sleep and mortified, in the house of its sensuality, all the passions and desires with respect to their mischievous desires and motions. The line, then, says:
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
eyes can see and understand somewhat of its working in
spite of the dull and heavy veil which lies thick upon
--
that I am forgiving. Love does not forgive, it understands and
cures.
--
so in words which I can understand and I will drop it.
So please rest assured that I can drop this scheme if it
--
my love is capable of understanding and that my blessings do
not depend on such surface movements.
--
give you that help under whatever form it can take.
With my love and blessings.
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
a photographic imprint) left in the subtle physical by the superficial mental form, an image that can become visible under
certain conditions. These images can move about (like cinema
--
observes, it tries to understand and explain; and with all this
activity, it disturbs the experience and diminishes its intensity
--
For this, the first step is to understand that the Divine knows
better than we what is good for us and what we truly need, not
--
to convince it that its perception and understanding are too
limited for it truly to be able to know and that it judges only
--
instead of being understood only by the mind?
To read my books is not difficult because they are written in the
--
be able to understand and generally this preparation takes time,
unless one is specially gifted with an innate intuitive faculty.
--
the mind as quiet as one can, without making an effort to understand, but keeping the head as silent as possible and letting
the force contained in what one reads enter deep inside. This
--
can reveal of a passing psychological condition and fragmentary soul-state. Even if the photograph is taken under the best
possible conditions at an exceptional and particularly expressive
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
books when they are difficult and when I don't understand? Savitri, The Life Divine, for example.
Read a little at a time, read again and again until you have
--
and you will understand what he means.
Sri Aurobindo says: "In whatever form and with whatever spirit we approach him, in that form and with that
--
have understood it. Talk little, remain quiet and concentrated,
and speak only when it is indispensable.
--
a mother who is very close to you, who loves and understands
you; that is why it is easy for you to approach me with a loving
--
which must be undertaken with sincerity and continued with an
increasing sincerity ever more scrupulous and integral.
--
My reply contained the answer to your question, for I understood very well that you were not claiming anything, but had
expressed yourself poorly.
--
It should be understood clearly that there is no question here
of any physical embracing, as practical jokers with the tastes
--
widening of the consciousness, understanding and feelings - a
widening that enables you to understand everything and love
everything, without preference or exclusiveness.
--
will make you understand how necessary it is to take care of the
things we use. That is what I mean when I speak of living with
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When Sri Aurobindo said, Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity, many heaved a sigh of relief and thought that the great soul was after all not entirely lost to the world, his was not one more name added to the long list of Sannyasins that India has been producing age after age without much profit either to herself or to the human society (or even perhaps to their own selves). People understood his Yoga to be a modern one, dedicated to the service of humanity. If service to humanity was not the very sum and substance of his spirituality, it was, at least, the fruitful end and consummation. His Yoga was a sort of art to explore and harness certain unseen powers that can better and ameliorate human life in a more successful way than mere rational scientific methods can hope to do.
Sri Aurobindo saw that the very core of his teaching was being missed by this common interpretation of his saying. So he changed his words and said, Our Yoga is not for humanity but for the Divine. But I am afraid this change of front, this volte-face, as it seemed, was not welcomed in many quarters; for thereby all hope of having him back for the work of the country or the world appeared to be totally lost and he came to be looked upon again as an irrevocable metaphysical dreamer, aloof from physical things and barren, even like the Immutable Brahman.
--
Here is the very heart of the mystery, the master-key to the problem. The advent of the superhuman or divine race, however stupendous or miraculous the phenomenon may appear to be, can become a thing of practical actuality, precisely because it is no human agency that has undertaken it but the Divine himself in his supreme potency and wisdom and love. The descent of the Divine into the ordinary human nature in order to purify and transform it and be lodged there is the whole secret of the sadhana in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. The sadhaka has only to be quiet and silent, calmly aspiring, open and acquiescent and receptive to the one Force; he need not and should not try to do things by his independent personal effort, but get them done or let them be done for him in the dedicated consciousness by the Divine Master and Guide. All other Yogas or spiritual disciplines in the past envisaged an ascent of the consciousness, its sublimation into the consciousness of the Spirit and its fusion and dissolution there in the end. The descent of the Divine Consciousness to prepare its definitive home in the dynamic and pragmatic human nature, if considered at all, was not the main theme of the past efforts and achievements. Furthermore, the descent spoken of here is the descent, not of a divine consciousness for there are many varieties of divine consciousness but of the Divine's own consciousness, of the Divine himself with his Shakti. For it is that that is directly working out this evolutionary transformation of the age.
It is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent that happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work therealthough it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine action for the mind, the higher mind that is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances that descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.
Another question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some astronomical distance in future, like the cooling of the sun, as someone has suggested for an analogy. In view of the magnitude of the work one might with reason say that the whole eternity is there before us, and a century or even a millennium should not be grudged to such a labour for it is nothing less than an undoing of untold millenniums in the past and the building of a far-flung futurity. However, as we have said, since it is the Divine's own work and since Yoga means a concentrated and involved process of action, effectuating in a minute what would perhaps take years to accomplish in the natural course, one can expect the work to be done sooner rather than later. Indeed, the ideal is one of here and nowhere upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very bodynot hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much.
As to the extent of realisation, we say again that that is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the substance that counts. Even if it were a small nucleus it would be sufficient, at least for the beginning, provided it is the real, the genuine thing
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Apart from the well-recognised fact that only in distress does the normal man think of God and non-worldly things, the real matter, however, is that the inner life is a thing apart and follows its own line of movement, does not depend upon, is not subservient to, the kind of outer life that one may happen to live under. The Bible says indeed, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are they that mourn"... But the Upanishad declares, on the other hand, that even as one lies happily on a royal couch, bathes and anoints himself with all the perfumes of the world, has attendants all aro und and always to serve him, even so, one can be full of the divine consciousness from the crown of the head to the tip of his toe-nail. In fact, a poor or a prosperous life is in no direct or even indirect ratio to a spiritual life. All the miseries and immediate needs of a physical life do not and cannot detain or delay one from following the path of the ideal; nor can all your riches be a burden to your soul and overwhelm it, if it chooses to walk onit can not only walk, but soar and fly with all that knapsack on its back.
If one were to be busy about reforming the world and when that was done then alone to turn to other-worldly things, in that case, one would never take the turn, for the world will never be reformed totally or even considerably in that way. It is not that reformers have for the first time appeared on the earth in the present age. Men have attempted social, political, economic and moral reforms from times immemorial. But that has not barred the spiritual attempt or minimised its importance. To say that because an ideal is apparently too high or too great for the present age, it must be kept in cold storage is to set a premium on the present nature of humanity arid eternise it: that would bind the world to its old moorings and never give it the opportunity to be free and go out into the high seas of larger and greater realisations.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That Power, that Spirit has been growing and gathering its strength during all the millenniums that humanity has lived through. On the momentous day when man appeared on earth, the Higher Man also took his birth. Since the hour the Spirit refused to be imprisoned in its animal sheath and came out as man, it approached by that very uplift a greater freedom and a vaster movement. It was the crest of that undergro und wave which peered over the surface from age to age, from clime to clime through the experiences of poets and prophets and sages the Head of the Sacrificial Horse galloping towards the Dawn.
And now the days of captivity or rather of inner preparation are at an end. The voice in the wilderness was necessary, for it was a call and a communion in the silence of the soul. Today the silence seeks utterance. Today the shell is ripe enough to break and to bring out the mature and full-grown being. The king that was in hiding comes in glory and triumph, in his complete regalia.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rejected the undying rapture's boon:
Offered to the daughter of infinity
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So the problem that concerns man, the riddle that humanity has to solve is how to find out and follow the path of creativity. If we are not to be dead matter nor mere shadowy illusions we must be creative. A misconception that has vitiated our outlook in general and has been the most potent cause of a sterilising atavism in the moral evolution of humanity is that creativity is an aristocratic virtue, that it belongs only to the chosen few. A great poet or a mighty man of action creates indeed, but such a creator does not appear very frequently. A Shakespeare or a Napoleon is a rare phenomenon; they are, in reality, an exception to the general run of mankind. It is enough if we others can understand and follow themMahajano yena gatahlet the great souls initiate and create, the common souls have only to repeat and imitate.
But this is not as it should be, nor is it the truth of the matter. Every individual soul, however placed it may be, is by nature creative; every individual being lives to discover and to create.
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To joy clutched under the silent shadow of doom
In a last turn where heaven raced with hell.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And heard the footsteps of the undreamed Idea
In the far avenues of the Beyond.||6.19||
--
There have been other philosophical poets, a good number of them since thennot merely rationally philosophical, as was the vogue in the eighteenth century, but metaphysically philosophical, that is to say, inquiring not merely into the phenomenal but also into the labyrinths of the noumenal, investigating not only what meets the senses, but also things that are behind or beyond. Amidst the earlier efflorescence of this movement the most outstanding philosopher poet is of course Dante, the Dante of Paradiso, a philosopher in the mediaeval manner and to the extent a lesser poet, according to some. Goe the is another, almost in the grand modern manner. Wordsworth is full of metaphysics from the crown of his head to the tip of his toe although his poetry, perhaps the major portion of it, had to undergo some kind of martyrdom because of it. And Shelley, the supremely lyric singer, has had a very rich undertone of thought-content genuinely metaphysical. And Browning and Arnold and Hardyindeed, if we come to the more moderns, we have to cite the whole host of them, none can be excepted.
We left out the Metaphysicals, for they can be grouped as a set apart. They are not so much metaphysical as theological, religious. They have a brain-content stirring with theological problems and speculations, replete with scintillating conceits and intricate fancies. Perhaps it is because of this philosophical burden, this intellectual bias that the Metaphysicals went into obscurity for about two centuries and it is precisely because of that that they are slowly coming out to the forefront and assuming a special value with the moderns. For the modern mind is characteristically thoughtful, introspective"introvert"and philosophical; even the exact physical sciences of today are ro unded off in the end with metaphysics.
--
The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in the past, more or Jess methodically and absolutely non-intellectual and anti-intellectual: but the modern age, the age of scientific culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: he has to explain, not only present the object but show up its mechanism alsoexplain to himself so that he may have a total understanding and a firmer grasp of the thing which he presents and explains to others as well who demand a similar approach. He feels the necessity of explaining, giving the rationality the rationale the science, of his art; for without that, it appears to him, a solid gro und is not given to the structure of his experience: analytic power, preoccupation with methodology seems inherent in the modern creative consciousness.
The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his exclusively or predominantly vital nature into an increasing mental poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only subsequently that the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the backgro und at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in man's creative activity.
--
Created glories under Thee,
Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is Reason, the faculty that is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of knowledge that Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the particular faculty or instrument by which we know, that determines the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them. It has three component elements that have been defined as observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition of Reason shows that it cannot be a perfect instrument of knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of the component elements. As regards observation there is a two-fold limitation. First, observation is a relative term and variable quantity. One observes through the prism of one's own observing faculty, through the bias of one's own personality and no two persons can have absolutely the same manner of observation. So Science has recognised the necessity of personal equation and has created an imaginary observer, a "mean man" as the standard of reference. And this already takes us far away from the truth, from the reality. Secondly, observation is limited by its scope. All the facts of the world, all sense-perceptions possible and actual cannot be included within any observation however large, however collective it may be. We have to go always upon a limited amount of data, we are able to construct only a partial and sketchy view of the surface of existence. And then it is these few and doubtful facts that Reason seeks to arrange and classify. That classification may hold good for certain immediate ends, for a temporary understanding of the world and its forces, either in order to satisfy our curiosity or to gain some practical utility. For when we want to consider the world only in its immediate relation to us, a few and even doubtful facts are sufficient the more immediate the relation, the more immaterial the doubtfulness and insufficiency of facts. We may quite confidently go a step in darkness, but to walk a mile we do require light and certainty. Our scientific classification has a backgro und of uncertainty, if not, of falsity; and our deduction also, even while correct within a very narrow range of space and time, cannot escape the f undamental vices of observation and classification upon which it is based.
It might be said, however, that the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the f undamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
--
The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
***
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Evidently the eminent politician and his school of activism are labouring under a Himalayan confusion: when they speak of Sri Aurobindo, they really have in their mind some of the old schools of spiritual discipline. But one of the marked aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teaching and practice has been precisely his insistence on putting aside the inert and life-shunning quietism, illusionism, asceticism and monasticism of a latter-day and decadent India. These ideals are perhaps as much obstacles in his way as in the way of the activistic school. Only Sri Aurobindo has not had the temerity to say that it is a weakness to seek refuge in contemplation or to suggest that a Buddha was a weakling or a Shankara a poltroon.
This much as regards what Sri Aurobindo is not doing; let us now turn and try to understand what he is doing. The distinguished man of action speaks of conquering Nature and fighting her. Adopting this war-like imagery, we can affirm that Sri Aurobindo's work is just such a battle and conquest. But the question is, what is nature and what is the kind of conquest that is sought, how are we to fight and what are the required arms and implements? A good general should foresee all this, frame his plan of campaign accordingly and then only take the field. The above-mentioned leader proposes ceaseless and unselfish action as the way to fight and conquer Nature. He who speaks thus does not know and cannot mean what he says.
European science is conquering Nature in a way. It has attained to a certain kind and measure, in some fields a great measure, of control and conquest; but however great or striking it may be in its own province, it does not touch man in his more intimate reality and does not bring about any true change in his destiny or his being. For the most vital part of nature is the region of the life-forces, the powers of disease and age and death, of strife and greed and lustall the instincts of the brute in man, all the dark aboriginal forces, the forces of ignorance that form the very gro undwork of man's nature and his society. And then, as we rise next to the world of the mind, we find a twilight region where falsehood masquerades as truth, where prejudices move as realities, where notions rule as ideals.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He feels his substance of undying self
And loses his kinship to mortality.
--
He owned the house of undivided Time.
Lifting the heavy curtain of the flesh
--
And heard the footsteps of the undreamed Idea
In the far avenues of the Beyond.
--
Till at last the frustrate universe sank undone.
Even his godlike strength to rise must fall:
--
A rapture of the thrilled undying Word
Poured into his heart as into an empty cup,
--
On the undiscovered depths imposed a form,
Lent a vibrant cry to the unuttered vasts,
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The best way to prepare oneself for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and surro undings is to cultivate an entire equality and detachment and the samata of the Gita with the faith that the Divine is there and the Divine Will at work in all things even though at present under the conditions of a world of Ignorance. Beyond this are the Light and Ananda towards which life is working, but the best way for their advent and fo undation in the individual being and nature is to grow in this spiritual equality. That would also solve your difficulty about things unpleasant and disagreeable. All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of samata.
I may say briefly that there are two states of consciousness in either of which one can live. One is a higher consciousness which stands above the play of life and governs it; this is variously called the Self, the Spirit or the Divine. The other is the normal consciousness in which men live; it is something quite superficial, an instrument of the Spirit for the play of life. Those who live and act in the normal consciousness are governed entirely by the common movements of the mind and are naturally subject to grief and joy and anxiety and desire or to everything else that makes up the ordinary stuff of life.
--
I must say in view of something you seem to have said to your father that it is not the object of the one to be a great man or the object of the other to be a great Yogin. The ideal of human life is to establish over the whole being the control of a clear, strong and rational mind and a right and rational will, to master the emotional, vital and physical being, create a harmony of the whole and develop the capacities whatever they are and fulfil them in life. In the terms of Hindu thought, it is to enthrone the rule of the purified and sattwic buddhi, follow the dharma, fulfilling one's own svadharma and doing the work proper to one's capacities, and satisfy kama and artha under the control of the buddhi and the dharma. The object of the divine life, on the other hand, is to realise one's highest self or to realise
God and to put the whole being into harmony with the truth of the highest self or the law of the divine nature, to find one's own divine capacities great or small and fulfil them in life as a sacrifice to the highest or as a true instrument of the divine
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian disciplinesay, of Janaka and Yajnavalkyalabours, however, in reality, under the influence of European activism and ethicism. It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress has not been thoroughly obliterated even in the best of our modern exponents. The bias of the vital urge and of the moral imperative is apparent enough in the modernist conception of a dynamic spirituality. F undamentally the dynamism is made to reside in the lan of the ethical man,the spiritual element, as a consciousness of supreme unity in the Absolute (Brahman) or of love and delight in God, serving only as an atmosphere for the mortal activity.
Sri Aurobindo has raised action completely out of the mental and moral plane and has given it an absolute spiritual life. Action has been spiritualised by being carried back to its very source and origin, for it is the expression in life of God's own Consciousness-Energy (Chit-Shakti).
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, what is the intuition that lies behind the movements of the new age? What is the intimate realisation, the underlying view-point which is guiding and modelling all our efforts and achievementsour science and art, our poetry and philosophy, our religion and society? For, there is such a common and f undamental note which is being voiced forth by the human spirit through all the multitude of its present-day activities.
A new impulse is there, no one can deny, and it has vast possibilities before it, that also one need not hesitate to accept. But in order that we may best fructuate what has been spontaneously sown, we must first recognise it, be luminously conscious of it and develop it along its proper line of growth. For, also certain it is that this new impulse or intuition, however true and strong in itself, is still groping and erring and miscarrying; it is still wasting much of its energy in tentative things, in mere experiments, in even clear failures. The fact is that the intuition has not yet become an enlightened one, it is still moving, as we shall presently explain, in the dark vital regions of man. And vitalism is naturally and closely affianced to pragmatism, that is to say, the mere vital impulse seeks immediately to execute itself, it looks for external effects, for changes in the form, in the machinery only. Thus it is that we see in art and literature discussions centred upon the scheme of composition, as whether the new poetry should be lyrical or dramatic, popular or aristocratic, metrical or free of metre, and in practical life we talk of remodelling the state by new methods of representation and governance, of purging society by bills and legislation, of reforming humanity by a business pact.
--
Now, in order to understand the new orientation of the spirit of the present age, we may profitably ask what was the inspiration of the past age, the characteristic note which has failed to satisfy us and which we are endeavouring to transform. We know that that age was the Scientific age or the age of Reason. Its great prophets were Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists or if you mount further up in time, we may begin from Bacon and the humanists. Its motto was first, "The proper study of mankind is man" and secondly, Reason is the supreme organon of knowledge, the highest deity in manla Desse Raison. And it is precisely against these two basic principles that the new age has entered its protest. In face of Humanism, Nietzsche has posited the Superman and in face of Reason Bergson has posited Intuition.
The worship of man as something essentially and exclusively human necessitates as a corollary, the other doctrine, viz the deification of Reason; and vice versa. Humanism and Scientism go together and the whole spirit and mentality of the age that is passing may be summed up in those two words. So Nietzsche says, "All our modern world is captured in the net of the Alexandrine culture and has, for its ideal, the theoretical man, armed with the most powerful instruments of knowledge, toiling in the service of science and whose prototype and original ancestor is Socrates." Indeed, it may be generally asserted that the nation whose prophet and sage claimed to have brought down Philosophia from heaven to dwell upon earth among men was precisely the nation, endowed with a clear and logical intellect, that was the very embodiment of rationality and reasonableness. As a matter of fact, it would not be far, wrong to say that it is the Hellenic culture which has been moulding humanity for ages; at least, it is this which has been the predominating factor, the vital and dynamic element in man's nature. Greece when it died was reborn in Rome; Rome, in its return, fo und new life in France; and France means Europe. What Europe has been and still is for the world and humanity one knows only too much. And yet, the Hellenic genius has not been the sole motive power and constituent element; there has been another leaven which worked constantly within, if intermittently without. If Europe represented mind and man and this side of existence, Asia always reflected that which transcends the mind the spirit, the Gods and the Beyonds.
However, we are concerned more with the immediate past, the mentality that laid its supreme stress upon the human rationality. What that epoch did not understand was that Reason could be overstepped, that there was something higher, something greater than Reason; Reason being the sovereign faculty, it was thought there could be nothing beyond, unless it were draison. The human attribute par excellence is Reason. Exactly so. But the fact is that man is not bo und by his humanity and that reason can be transformed and sublimated into other more powerful faculties.
Now, the question is, what is the insufficiency of Reason? How does it limit man? And what is the Superman into which man is asked or is being impelled to grow?
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Well, it is sheer incantation. It is word-weaving, rhythm plaiting, thought-wringing in order to pass beyond these frail materials, to get into contact with, to give some sense of the mystery of existence that passeth understanding. We are very far indeed from the "natural" poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton, or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a m undane poet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of the poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration has evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be speaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery, of the underworld of ignorance and ugliness,
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
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Ifso long the poet was more or less a passive, a half-conscious or unconscious intermediary between the higher and the lower lights and delights, his role in the future will be better fulfilled when he becomes fully aware of it and consciously moulds and directs his creative energies. The poet is and has to be the harbinger and minstrel of unheard-of melodies: he is the fashioner of the creative word that brings down and embodies the deepest aspirations and experiences of the human consciousness. The poet is a missionary: he is missioned by Divine Beauty to radiate upon earth something of her charm and wizardry. The fullness of his role he can only play up when he is fully conscious for it is under that condition that all obstructing and obscuring elements lying across the path of inspiration can be completely and wholly eradicated: the instrument purified and tempered and transmuted can hold and express golden truths and beauties and puissances that otherwise escape the too human mould.
"The Last Voyage" by Charles Williams-A Little Book of Modern Verse, (Faber and Faber).
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Towards an undying Light for ever lost;
Only it hears, sole echo of its call,
--
And meets, not understanding why it came
Or for what reason is the suffering here,
--
Come maned with light from undiscovered worlds,
Hear, while the world toils on with its deep blind heart,
--
Winding undetected through the sceptic days
And to meet it guide the unheedful moving world.
--
A few shall see what none yet understands;
God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;
--
His prow pushes towards undiscovered shores,
He chances on unimagined continents:
--
Through a strange mid-world under supernal skies,
Beyond earth's longitudes and latitudes,
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely m undane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was that, Kalidasa was that, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets remains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than that. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
The world being nothing but Spirit made visible is, according to Tagore, f undamentally a thing of beauty. The scars and spots that are on the surface have to be removed and mankind has to repossess and clo the itself with that mantle of beauty. The world is beautiful, because it is the image of the Beautiful, because it harbours, expresses and embodies the Divine who is Beauty supreme. Now by a strange alchemy, a wonderful effect of polarisation, the very spiritual element in Tagore has made him almost a pagan and even a profane. For what are these glories of Nature and the still more exquisite glories that the human body has captured? They are but vibrations and modulations of beauty the delightful names and forms of the supreme Lover and Beloved.
01.05 - The Nietzschean Antichrist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nietzsche as the apostle of force is a name now familiar to all the world. The hero, the warrior who never tamely accepts suffering and submission and defeat under any condition but fights always and fights to conquersuch is the ideal man, according to Nietzsche,the champion of strength, of greatness, of mightiness. The dominating personality infused with the supreme "will to power"he is Ubermensch, the Superman. Sentiment does not move the mountains, emotion diffuses itself only in vague aspiration. The motive power, the creative fiat does not dwell in the heart but somewhere higher. The way of the Cross, the path of love and charity and pity does not lead to the kingdom of Heaven. The world has tried it for the last twenty centuries of its Christian civilisation and the result is that we are still living in a luxuriant ab undance of misery and sordidness and littleness. This is how Nietzsche thinks and feels. He finds no virtue in the old rgimes and he revolts from them. He wants a speedy and radical remedy and teaches that by violence only the Kingdom of Heaven can be seized. For, to Nietzsche the world is only a clash of forces and the Superman therefore is one who is the embodiment of the greatest force. Nietzsche does not care for the good, it is the great that moves him. The good, the moral is of man, conventional and has only a fictitious value. The great, the non-moral is, on the other hand, divine. That only has a value of its own. The good is nothing but a sort of makeshift arrangement which man makes for himself in order to live commodiously and which changes according to his temperament. But the great is one with the Supreme Wisdom and is absolute and imperative. The good cannot create the great; it is the great that makes for the good. This is what he really means when he says, "They say that a good cause sanctifies war but I tell thee it is a good war that sanctifies all cause." For the goodness of your cause you judge by your personal predilections, by your false conventionalities, by a standard that you set up in your ignoranceBut a good war, the output of strength in any cause is in itself a cause of salvation. For thereby you are the champion of that ultimate verity which conduces to the ultimate good. Do not shrink, he would say, to be even like the cyclone and the avalanche, destructive, indeed, but grand and puissant and therefore truer emblems of the BeyondJenseitsthan the weak, the little, the pitiful that do not dare to destroy and by that very fact cannot hope to create.
This is the Nietzsche we all know. But there is another aspect of his which the world has yet been slow to recognise. For, at bottom, Nietzsche is not all storm and fury. If his Superman is a Destroying Angel, he is none the less an angel. If he is endowed with a supreme sense of strength and power, there is also secreted in the core of his heart a sense of the beautiful that illumines his somewhat sombre aspect. For although Nietzsche is by birth a Slavo-Teuton, by culture and education he is pre-eminently Hellenic. His earliest works are on the subject of Greek tragedy and form what he describes as an "Apollonian dream." And to this dream, to this Greek aesthetic sense more than to any thing else he sacrifices justice and pity and charity. To him the weak and the miserable, the sick and the maimed are a sort of blot, a kind of ulcer on the beautiful face of humanity. The herd that wallow in suffering and relish suffering disfigure the aspect of the world and should therefore be relentlessly mowed out of existence. By being pitiful to them we give our tacit assent to their persistence. And it is precisely because of this that Nietzsche has a horror of Christianity. For compassion gives indulgence to all the ugliness of the world and thus renders that ugliness a necessary and indispensable element of existence. To protect the weak, to sympathise with the lowly brings about more of weakness and more of lowliness. Nietzsche has an aristocratic taste par excellencewhat he aims at is health and vigour and beauty. But above all it is an aristocracy of the spirit, an aristocracy endowed with all the richness and beauty of the soul that Nietzsche wants to establish. The beggar of the street is the symbol of ugliness, of the poverty of the spirit. And the so-called aristocrat, die millionaire of today is as poor and ugly as any helpless leper. The soul of either of them is made of the same dirty, sickly stuff. The tattered rags, the crouching heart, the effeminate nerve, the unenlightened soul are the standing ugliness of the world and they have no place in the ideal, the perfect humanity. Humanity, according to Nietzsche, is made in order to be beautiful, to conceive the beautiful, to create the beautiful. Nietzsche's Superman has its perfect image in a Grecian statue of Zeus cut out in white marble-Olympian grandeur shedding in every lineament Apollonian beauty and Dionysian vigour.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The will to live under a reign of death,
The thirst for rapture in a heart of flesh,
--
The moulds of form and person are undone:
The ineffable Wideness knows him for its own.
--
And underwent a new and bourneless change.
An Omniscient knowing without sight or thought,
--
Huge workings bared his undiscovered sheaths,
Strange energies wrought and screened tremendous hands
--
Her will shaping the undetermined vasts,
Making a finite of infinity;
--
Its powers can undo all Nature's work:
Mind can suspend or change earth's concrete law.
--
Climbed back from Time into undying Self,
Up a golden ladder carrying the soul,
--
It took the striving undertones of mind
And took the confused refrain of human hopes
--
It lifted from an undergro und of pain
The inarticulate murmur of our lives
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One is not sure if such reasoning is convincing to the intellect; but perhaps it is a necessary stage in conversion. At least we can conclude that Pascal had to pass through such a stage; and it indicates the difficulty his brain had to undergo, the tension or even the torture he made it pass through. It is true, from Reason Pascal went over to Faith, even while giving Reason its due. Still it seems the two were not perfectly synthetised or fused in him. There was a gap between that was not thoroughly bridged. Pascal did not possess the higher, intuitive, luminous mind that mediates successfully between the physical discursive ratiocinative brain-mind and the vision of faith: it is because deep in his consciousness there lay this chasm. Indeed,Pascal's abyss (l' abme de Pascal) is a well-known legend. Pascal, it appears, used to have very often the vision of an abyss about to open before him and he shuddered at the prospect of falling into it. It seems to us to be an experience of the Infinity the Infinity to which he was so much attracted and of which he wrote so beautifully (L'infiniment grand et l'infiniment petit)but into which he could not evidently jump overboard unreservedly. This produced a dichotomy, a lack of integration of personality, Jung would say. Pascal's brain was cold, firm, almost rigid; his heart was volcanic, the faith he had was a fire: it lacked something of the pure light and burned with a lurid glare.
And the reason is his metaphysics. It is the Jansenist conception of God and human nature that inspired and coloured all his experience and consciousness. According to it, as according to the Calvinist conception, man is a corrupt being, corroded to the core, original sin has branded his very soul. Only Grace saves him and releases him. The order of sin and the order of Grace are distinct and disparate worlds and yet they complement each other and need each other. Greatness and misery are intertwined, united, unified with each other in him. Here is an echo of the Manichean position which also involves an abyss. But even then God's grace is not a free agent, as Jesuits declare; there is a predestination that guides and controls it. This was one of the main subjects he treated in his famous open letters (Les Provinciales) that brought him renown almost overnight. Eternal hell is a possible prospect that faces the Jansenist. That was why a Night always over-shadowed the Day in Pascal's soul.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
And yet we have no hesitation today to call them Huns and Barbarians. That education is not giving us the right thing is proved further by the fact that we are constantly changing our programmes and curriculums, everyday remodelling old institutions and fo unding new ones. Even a revolution in the educational system will not bring about the desired millennium, so long as we lay so much stress upon the system and not upon man himself. And finally, look to all the religions of the worldwe have enough of creeds and dogmas, of sermons and mantras, of churches and templesand yet human life and society do not seem to be any the more worthy for it.
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Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realitiesrealities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather than Nature's Truth-Power. For this must be understood that the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws that guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force that fashions the realities on the physical plane; it is what creates the character. The power of thought and sentiment is often much too exaggerated, even so the power of the body, that of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bo und to come in the end.
This is the meaning of the Reformist's pessimism. So long as we remain within the domain of the triple nexus, we must always take account of an original sin, an aboriginal irredeemability in human nature. And it, is this fact which a too hasty optimistic idealism is apt to ignore. The point, however, is that man need not be necessarily bo und to this triple chord of life. He can go beyond, transcend himself and find a reality which is the basis of even this lower poise of the mental and vital and physical. Only in order to get into that higher poise we must really transcend the lower, that is to say, we must not be satisfied with experiencing or envisaging it through the mind and heart but must directly commune with it, be it. There is a higher law that rules there, a power that is the truth-substance of even the vital and hence can remould it with a sovereign inevitability, according to a pattern which may not and is not the pattern of mental and emotional idealism, but the pattern of a supreme spiritual realism.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The recent science of Psycho-analysis has brought to light certain hidden springs and undercurrents of the mind; it has familiarised us with a mode of viewing the entire psychical life of man which will be fruitful for our present enquiry. Mind, it has been fo und, is a house divided, against itself, that is to say it is an arena where different and divergent forces continually battle against one another. There must be, however, at the same time, some sort of a resolution of these forces, some equation that holds them in balance, otherwise the mind the human being itselfwould cease to exist as an entity. What is the mechanism of this balance of power in the human mind? In order to ascertain that we must first of all know the f undamental nature of the struggle and also the character of the more elemental forces that are engaged in it.
There are some primary desires that seek satisfaction in man. They are the vital urges of life, the most prominent among them being the instinct of self-preservation and that of self-reproduction or the desire to preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities that are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order that he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most f undamental elements that enter into his structure and composition.
It would have been an easy matter if these vital urges could flow on unhindered in their way. There would have been no problem at all, if they met satisfaction easily and smoothly, without having to look to other factors and forces. As a matter of fact, man does not and cannot gratify his instincts whenever and wherever he chooses and in an open and direct manner. Even in his most primitive and barbarous condition, he has often to check himself and throw a veil, in so many ways, over his sheer animality. In the civilised society the check is manifold and is frankly recognised. We do not go straight as our sexual impulsion leads, but seek to hide and camouflage it under the institution of marriage; we do not pounce upon the food directly we happen to meet it and snatch and appropriate whatever portion we get but we secure it through an elaborate process, which is known as the economic system. The machinery of the state, the cult of the kshatriya are ro undabout ways to meet our fighting instincts.
What is the reason of this elaboration, this check and constraint upon the natural and direct outflow of the animal instincts in man? It has been said that the social life of man, the fact that he has to live and move as member of a group or aggregate has imposed upon him these restrictions. The free and unbridled indulgence of one's bare aboriginal impulses may be possible to creatures that live a separate, solitary and individual life but is disruptive of all bonds necessary for a corporate and group life. It is even a biological necessity again which has evolved in man a third and collateral primary instinct that of the herd. And it is this herd-instinct which naturally and spontaneously restrains, diverts and even metamorphoses the other instincts of the mere animal life. However, leaving aside for the moment the question whether man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a mere dissimulation of his animal instincts or whether they correspond to certain actual realities apart from and co-existent with these latter, we will recognise the simple fact of control and try to have a glimpse into its mechanism.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
From the twentieth century back to the fourteenth is a far cry: a far cry indeed from the modern scientific illumination to mediaeval superstition, from logical positivists and mathematical rationalists to visionary mystics, from Russell and Huxley to Ruysbroeck and Hilton. The mystic lore, the Holy Writ, the mediaeval sage says, echoing almost the very words of the Eastern Masters, "may not be got by study nor through man's travail only, but principally by the grace of the Holy Ghost." As for the men living and moving in the worldly way, there are "so mickle din and crying in their heart and vain thoughts and fleshly desires" that it is impossible for them to listen or understand the still small voice. It is the pure soul touched by the Grace that alone "seeth soothfastness of Holy Writ wonderly shewed and opened, above study and travail and reason of man's kindly (i.e. natural) wit."
What is day to us is night to the mystics and what is day to the mystics is night for us. The first thing the mystic asks is to close precisely those doors and windows which we, on the contrary, feel obliged to keep always open in order to know and to live and move. The Gita says: "The sage is wakeful when it is night for all creatures and when all creatures are wakeful, that is night for the sage." Even so this sage from the West says: "The more I sleep from outward things, the more wakeful am I in knowing of Jhesu and of inward things. I may not wake to Jhesu, but if I sleep to the world."
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Here is the Augustinian mantra taken as the motto of The Scale of Perfection: We ascend the ascending grades in our heart and we sing the song of ascension1. The journey's end is heavenly Jerusalem, the House of the Lord. The steps of this inner ascension are easily visible, not surely to the outer eye of the sense-burdened man, but to the "ghostly seeing" of the aspirant which is hazy in the beginning but slowly clears as he advances. The first step is the withdrawal from the outer senses and looking and seeing within. "Turn home again in thyself, and hold thee within and beg no more without." The immediate result is a darkness and a restless darknessit is a painful night. The outer objects of attraction and interest have been discarded, but the inner attachments and passions surge there still. If, however, one continues and persists, refuses to be drawn out, the turmoil settles down and the darkness begins to thin and wear away. One must not lose heart, one must have patience and perseverance. So when the outward world is no more-there and its call also no longer awakes any echo in us, then comes the stage of "restful darkness" or "light-some darkness". But it is still the dark Night of the soul. The outer light is gone and the inner light is not yet visible: the night, the desert, the great Nought, stretches between these two lights. But the true seeker goes through and comes out of the tunnel. And there is happiness at the end. "The seeking is travaillous, but the finding is blissful." When one steps out of the Night, enters into the deepest layer of the being, one stands face to face to one's soul, the very image of God, the perfect God-man, the Christ within. That is the third degree of our inner ascension, the entry into the deepest, purest and happiest statein which one becomes what he truly is; one finds the Christ there and dwells in love and union with him. But there is still a further step to take, and that is real ascension. For till now it has been a going within, from the outward to the inner and the inmost; now one has to go upward, transcend. Within the body, in life, however deep you may go, even if you find your soul and your union with Jesus whose tabernacle is your soul, still there is bo und to remain a shadow of the sinful prison-house; the perfect bliss and purity without any earthly taint, the completeness and the crowning of the purgation and transfiguration can come only when you go beyond, leaving altogether the earthly form and worldly vesture and soar into Heaven itself and be in the company of the Trinity. "Into myself, and after... above myself by overpassing only into Him." At the same time it is pointed out, this mediaeval mystic has the common sense to see that the going in and going above of which one speaks must not be understood in a literal way, it is a figure of speech. The movement of the mystic is psychological"ghostly", it is saidnot physical or carnal.
This spiritual march or progress can also be described as a growing into the likeness of the Lord. His true self, his own image is implanted within us; he is there in the profo undest depth of our being as Jesus, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jesus nor of his spouse, our soul, because of the obsession of the flesh, the turmoil raised by the senses, the blindness of pride and egoism. All that constitutes the first or old Adam, the image of Nought, the body of death which means at bottom the "false misruled love in to thyself." This self-love is the mother of sin, is sin itself. What it has to be replaced by is charity that is the true meaning of Christian charity, forgetfulness of self. "What is sin but a wanting and a forbearing of God." And the whole task, the discipline consists in "the shaping of Christ in you, the casting of sin through Christ." Who then is Christ, what is he? This knowledge you get as you advance from your sense-bo und perception towards the inner and inmost seeing. As your outer nature gets purified, you approach gradually your soul, the scales fall off from your eyes too and you have the knowledge and "ghostly vision." Here too there are three degrees; first, you start with faith the senses can do nothing better than have faith; next, you rise to imagination which gives a sort of indirect touch or inkling of the truth; finally, you have the " understanding", the direct vision. "If he first trow it, he shall afterwards through grace feel it, and finally understand it."
It is never possible for man, weak and bo und as he is, to reject the thraldom of his flesh, he can never purify himself wholly by his own unaided strength. God in his infinite mercy sent his own son, an emanation created out of his substancehis embodied loveas a human being to suffer along with men and take upon himself the burden of their sins. God the Son lived upon earth as man and died as man. Sin therefore has no longer its final or definitive hold upon mankind. Man has been made potentially free, pure and worthy of salvation. This is the mystery of Christ, of God the Son. But there is a further mystery. Christ not only lived for all men for all time, whether they know him, recognise him or not; but he still lives, he still chooses his beloved and his beloved chooses him, there is a conscious acceptance on either side. This is the function of the Holy Ghost, the redeeming power of Love active in him who accepts it and who is accepted by it, the dynamic Christ-Consciousness in the true Christian.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bo und rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ideal was Blake's. It will not so und so revolting if we understand what the poet meant by Hell. Hell, he explains, is simply the body, the Energy of Lifehell, because body and life on earth were so considered by the orthodox Christianity. The Christian ideal demands an absolute denial and rejection of life. Fulfilment is elsewhere, in heaven alone. That is, as we know, the ideal of the ascetic. The life of the spirit (in heaven) is a thing away from and stands against the life of the flesh (on earth). In the face of this discipline, countering it, Blake posited a union, a marriage of the two, considered incompatibles and incommensurables. Enfant terrible that he was, he took an infinite delight in a spirit of contradiction and went on expatiating on the glory of the misalliance. He declared a new apocalypse and said that Lucifer, the one called Satan, was the real God, the so-called Messiah the fake one: the apparent Milton spoke in praise of God and in dispraise of Satan, but the real, the esoteric Milton glorified Satan, who is the true God and minimised or caricatured the counterfeit or shadow God. Here is Blakean Bible in a nutshell:
But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged.. . . If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
--
Touching the very core of the malady of our age he says that our modern enlightenment seeks to cancel altogether the higher values and install instead the lower alone as true. Thus, for example, Marx and Freud, its twin arch priests, are brothers. Both declare that it is the lower, the under layer alone that matters: to one "the masses", to the other "the instincts". Their wild imperative roars: "Sweep away this pseudo-higher; let the instincts rule, let the pro-letariat dictate!" But more characteristic, Monsieur Thibon has made another discovery which gives the whole value and speciality to his outlook. He says the moderns stress the lower, no doubt; but the old world stressed only the higher and neglected the lower. Therefore the revolt and wrath of the lower, the rage of Revanche in the heart of the dispossessed in the modern world. Enlightenment meant till now the cultivation and embellishment of the Mind, the conscious Mind, the rational and nobler faculties, the height and the depth: and mankind meant the princes and the great ones. In the individual, in the scheme of his culture and education, the senses were neglected, left to go their own way as they pleased; and in the collective field, the toiling masses in the same way lived and moved as best as they could under the economics of laissez-faire. So Monsieur Thibon concludes: "Salvation has never come from below. To look for it from above only is equally vain. No doubt salvation must come from the higher, but on condition that the higher completely adopts and protects the lower." Here is a vision luminous and revealing, full of great import, if we follow the right track, prophetic of man's true destiny. It is through this infiltration of the higher into the lower and the integration of the lower into the higher that mankind will reach the goal of its evolution, both individually and collectively.
But the process, Monsieur Thibon rightly asserts, must begin with the individual and within the individual. Man must "turn within, feel alive within himself", re-establish his living contact with God, the source and origin from which he has cut himself off. Man must learn to subordinate having to being. Each individual must be himself, a free and spontaneous expression. Upon such individual , upon individuals grouped naturally in smaller collectivities and not upon unformed or ill-formed wholesale masses can a perfect human society be raised and will be raised. Monsieur Thibon insistsand very rightlyupon the variety and diversity of individual and local growths in a unified humanity and not a dead uniformity of regimented oneness. He declares, as the reviewer of the London Times succinctly puts it: "Let us abolish our insensate worship of number. Let us repeal the law of majorities. Let us work for the unity that draws together instead of idolizing the multiplicity that disintegrates. Let us understand that it is not enough for each to have a place; what matters is that each should be in his right place. For the atomized society let us substitute an organic society, one in which every man will be free to do what he alone is qualified and able to do."
So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming that is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature, must seize God in his highest and sovereign status. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits must seek to impose its law. Thus, for example, in the matter of redeeming the senses by the influx of the higher light, our author seems to consider that the senses will remain more or less as they are, only they will be controlled, guided, used by the higher light. And he seems to think that even the sex relation (even the institution of marriage) may continue to remain, but sublimated, submitted to the laws of the Higher Order. This, according to us, is a dangerous compromise and is simply the imposition of the lower law upon the higher. Our view of the total transformation and divinisation of the Lower is altogether different. The Highest must come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest must give up altogether its own norms and lift itself into the substance and form too of the Highest.
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities that man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of that Supreme Will. That is the Hell that has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond-that shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
The Life Divine
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I understand nothing about them. What are these two
things and how can one experience them?
--
minds. But we must understand all the irony in these sayings, and
especially the intention behind his words. Moreover, cowards or
--
judge, but more difficult to understand, and far more difficult
still to realise.
--
one does not understand.
5 January 1963
--
In any case, this ab undance should make you understand
that the desire to see films, which is so imperious in some people,
--
The Mother underlined the phrase "in his lifetime".
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
--
with You, or is there another reason? I do not understand
myself.
--
You would do better to make an effort to understand them,
for behind the words there is always something profo und to be
--
cannot take the trouble to understand.
But if one rises above the individual mentality and enters
into the consciousness of Unity, then one can understand.
18 August 1963
--
To be sure of making myself clearly understood, I will add
that it is not due to any fault of hers that he is inconstant and
--
I regret to have to tell you that you have understood absolutely
nothing of what Sri Aurobindo has written - for you have tried
to understand with your superficial mind, while what Sri Aurobindo has said comes from the highest intellectual light, far
above the mind. All I can tell you, which perhaps will put you
--
"Not to live for oneself" is understandable and one
can try to put it into practice; but what does "to live
--
Later on, you come to understand that others are a mirror
reflecting the image of what you are.
--
that is free of all desire and attachment because it is under the
influence of the divine Light and Force. It is a long and exacting
labour which must be undertaken with an unfailing sincerity
and a tireless perseverance.
--
the physical life and you understand and appreciate only that.
The two extremes always alternate in experience until one has
--
they leave to undergo the test of ordinary life.
11 November 1964
--
Who can understand Sri Aurobindo? He is as vast as the universe
and his teaching is limitless...
--
You will then see that he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood
a little, one sees that all the contradictions complement one
--
of goodwill, understanding and mutual help.
To feel deeply, intensely and constantly a total gratitude
--
little, one comes to understand and appreciate.
Both are equally true and equally incomplete.
--
could be done under the circumstances?27
They could not do otherwise.
--
Mother, I do not understand what You mean by the
formation of a hierarchicised group.
--
Those who are pure - that is to say, exclusively under the
Divine influence - have no fear.
--
Well, all three are true, but on different planes, and to understand something of the problem one has to reach the domain
where the three complement one another and unite.
--
This is also the way to avoid going to undesirable places during
your sleep, for in those places you are sure not to meet us. Try,
--
people who are here, there are only 250 or so who understand Sri Aurobindo's yoga, only forty-five who practise
it, five who are capable of realisation and only one who
--
Mother, I do not understand You! On one occasion
You say to me: "You may go. This decision is final";
--
Truly, I understand nothing about all this except
that You are not enthusiastic about my going. But why
--
it is the Divine under a certain aspect - a rather distorted one,
but still...
--
said that the Ashram is undergoing a financial crisis?
But perhaps it is just because certain individuals and certain
--
In order to understand these apparent contradictions, one has
to rise to the intellectual level on which all opposite ideas can be
--
of all this, I have not quite understood its significance.
Is it necessary that it should have a significance?
--
Knowledge of past lives is interesting for an understanding of
one's nature and a mastery of one's imperfections. But to tell the
01.10 - Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nicholas Berdyaev is an ardent worker, as a Russian is naturally expected to be, in the cause of the spiritual rehabilitation of mankind. He is a Christian, a neo-Christian: some of his conclusions are old-world truths and bear repetition and insistence; others are of a more limited, conditional and even doubtful nature. His conception of the value of human person, the dignity and the high reality he gives to it, can never be too welcome in a world where the individual seems to have gone the way of vanished empires and kings and princes. But even more important and interesting is the view he underlines that the true person is a spiritual being, that is to say, it is quite other than the empirical ego that man normally is"not this that one worships" as the Upanishads too declare. Further, in his spiritual being man, the individual, is not simply a portion or a fraction; he is, on the contrary, an integer, a complete whole, a creative focus; the true individual is a microcosm yet holding in it and imaging the macrocosm. Only perhaps greater stress is laid upon the aspect of creativity or activism. An Eastern sage, a Vedantin, would look for the true spiritual reality behind the flux of forces: Prakriti or Energy is only the executive will of the Purusha, the Conscious Being. The personality in Nature is a formulation and emanation of the transcendent impersonality.
There is another aspect of personality as viewed by Berdyaev which involves a bias of the more orthodox Christian faith: the Christ is inseparable from the Cross. So he says: "There is no such thing as personality if there is no capacity for suffering. Suffering is inherent in God too, if he is a personality, and not merely an abstract idea. God shares in the sufferings of men. He yearns for responsive love. There are divine as well as human passions and therefore divine or creative personality must always suffer to the end of time. A condition of anguish and distress is inherent in it." The view is logically enforced upon the Christian, it is said, if he is to accept incarnation, God becoming flesh. Flesh cannot but be weak. This very weakness, so human, is and must be specially characteristic of God also, if he is one with man and his lover and saviour.
Eastern spirituality does not view sorrow and sufferingevilas an integral part of the Divine Consciousness. It is born out of the Divine, no doubt, as nothing can be outside the Divine, but it is a local and temporal formation; it is a disposition consequent upon certain conditions and with the absence or elimination of those conditions, this disposition too disappears. God and the Divine Consciousness can only be purity, light, immortality and delight. The compassion that a Buddha feels for the suffering humanity is not at all a feeling of suffering; pain or any such normal human reaction does not enter into its composition; it is the movement of a transcendent consciousness which is beyond and purified of the normal reactions, yet overarching them and entering into them as a soothing and illumining and vivifying presence. The healer knows and understands the pain and suffering of his patient but is not touched by them; he need not contract the illness of his patient in order to be in sympathy with him. The Divine the Soulcan be in flesh and yet not smirched with its mire; the flesh is not essentially or irrevocably the ooze it is under certain given conditions. The divine physical body is composed of radiant matter and one can speak of it even as of the soul that weapons cannot pierce it nor can fire burn it.
***
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This latest work of Aldous Huxley is a collection of sayings of sages and saints and philosophers from all over the world and of all times. The sayings are arranged under several heads such as "That art Thou", "The Nature of the Gro und", "Divine Incarnation", "Self-Knowledge", "Silence", "Faith" etc., which clearly give an idea of the contents and also of the "Neo-Brahmin's" own personal preoccupation. There is also a running commentary, rather a note on each saying, meant to elucidate and explain, naturally from the compiler's standpoint, what is obviously addressed to the initiate.
A similar compilation was published in the Arya, called The Eternal Wisdom (Les Paroles ternelles, in French) a portion of which appeared later on in book-form: that was more elaborate, the contents were arranged in such a way that no comments were needed, they were self-explanatory, divided as they were in chapters and sections and subsections with proper headings, the whole thing put in a logical and organised sequence. Huxley's compilation begins under the title of the Upanishadic text "That art Thou" with this saying of Eckhart: "The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without". It will be interesting to note that the Arya compilation too starts with the same idea under the title "The God of All; the God who is in All", the first quotation being from Philolaus, "The Universe is a Unity".The Eternal Wisdom has an introduction called "The Song of Wisdom" which begins with this saying from the Book of Wisdom: "We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors".
Huxley gives only one quotation from Sri Aurobindo under the heading "God in the World". Here it is:
"The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullnessto its heights we can always reachwhen we keep our feet firmly on the physical. 'Earth is His footing' says the Upanishad, whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe." Huxley's commentary is as follows:
"To its heights we can always come. For those of us who are still splashing about in the lower ooze, the phrase has a rather ironical ring. Nevertheless, in the light of even the most distant acquaintance with the heights and the fullness, it is possible to understand what its author means. To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer worlds of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusivelyto realise the divine Gro und in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental."
The neatness of the commentary cannot be improved upon. Only with regard to the "ironical ring" of which Huxley speaks, it has just to be pointed out, as he himself seems to understand, that the "we" referred to in the phrase does not mean humanity in general that 'splashes about in the lower ooze' but those who have a sufficiently developed inner spiritual life.
There is a quotation from Lao Tzu put under the heading "Grace and Free Will": "It was when the Great Way declined that human kindness and morality arose".
We fear Mr. Huxley has completely missed the point of the cryptic sentence. He seems to take it as meaning that human kindness and morality are a means to the recovery of the Lost Way-although codes of ethics and deliberate choices are not sufficient in themselves, they are only a second best, yet they mark the rise of self-consciousness and have to be utilised to pass on into the unitive knowledge that is Tao. This explanation or amplification seems to us somewhat confused and irrelevant to the idea expressed in the apophthegm. What is stated here is much simpler and transparent. It is this that when the Divine is absent and the divine Knowledge, then comes in man with his human mental knowledge: it is man's humanity that clouds the Divine and to reach the' Divine one must reject the human values, all the moralities, sarva dharmn, seek only the Divine. The lesser way lies through the dualities, good and evil, the Great Way is beyond them and cannot be limited or measured by the relative standards. Especially in the modern age we see the decline and almost the disappearance of the Greater Light and instead a thousand smaller lights are lighted which vainly strive to dispel the gathering darkness. These do not help, they are false lights and men are apt to cling to them, shutting their eyes to the true one which is not that that one worships here and now, nedam yadidam upsate.
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A modern society or people cannot have religion, that is to say, credal religion, as the basis of its organized collective life. It was mediaeval society and people that were organized on that line. Indeed mediaevalism means nothing more and nothing lessthan that. But whatever the need and justification in the past, the principle is an anachronism under modern conditions. It was needed, perhaps, to keep alive a truth which goes into the very roots of human life and its deepest aspiration; and it was needed also for a dynamic application of that truth on a larger scale and in smaller details, on the mass of mankind and in its day to day life. That was the aim of the Church Militant and the Khilafat; that was the spirit, although in a more Sattwic way, behind the Buddhistic evangelism or even Hindu colonization.
The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that gives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this 'sphere of sorrow' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding that was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.
--
Only, the religious spirit has to be bathed and purified and enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: that is to say, one must learn and understand and realize that Spirit is the thing the one thing needfulTamevaikam jnatha; 'religions' are its names and forms, appliances and decorations. Let us have by all means the religious spirit, the f undamental experience that is the inmost truth of all religions, that is the matter of our soul; but in our mind and life and body let there be a luminous catholicity, let these organs and instruments be trained to see and compare and appreciate the variety, the numberless facets which the one Spirit naturally presents to the human consciousness. Ekam sat viprh bahudh vadanti. It is an ancient truth that man discovered even in his earliest seekings; but it still awaits an adequate expression and application in life.
II
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Goe the carries the process of convergence and even harmony of the two powers a little further and shows that although they are contrary apparently, they are not contradictory principles in essence. For, Satan is, after all, God's servant, even a very obedient servant; he is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty to work out His purpose. The purpose is to help and lead man, although in a devious way, towards a greater understanding, a nearer approach to Himself.
The Challenge and the Pact
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It might be objected here however that actually in the history of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less pugnacious than that of Right. In certain ages and among certain peoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the faithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible belonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to burn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of high and solemn duty that perpetrated what has been termed "purges"brutalities undertaken, it appears, to purify and preserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial aggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not duty but fanaticism. And there is a considerable difference between the two. Fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but what we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but duty proper self-poised.
One might claim also on behalf of the doctrine of Right that the right kind of Right brings no harm, it is as already stated another name for liberty, for the privilege of living and it includes the obligation to let live. One can do what one likes provided one does not infringe on an equal right of others to do the same. The measure of one's liberty is equal to the measure of others' liberty.
Here is the crux of the question. The dictum of utilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate but not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one's own rights and the equal rights of others is so undefinable and variable that a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and establishing and even maintaining one's rights there is always the possibilityalmost the certaintyof encroaching upon others' rights.
What is required is not therefore an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control it, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is usually more aggressive and militant (Rajasic) and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate (sattwic): neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.
--
We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Consciousness at Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the principle of inertia (tamas); in that state things have mostly an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence of each and everyone, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself first and foremost. It is a necessary development; for it signifies the growth of self consciousness in the units out of a mass unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is the expression of rajas, the mode of dynamism, of strife and struggle, it is the corrective of tamas.
In the earliest and primitive society men lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind obedienceobedience to the chief the patriarch or pater familiasobedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Word was made flesh and the Word was made Poetry. To express the supreme Word in life, that is the work of the sage, the Rishi. To express the Word in speech, that is the labour of the Poet. Eliot undertook this double function of the poet and the sage and he fo und the task difficult. The poet has to utter the unutterable, if he is to clo the in words the mystic experience of the sage in him. That is Eliot's ambition:
.... Words, after speech, reach
--
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,...15
And a lower and more facile inspiration tempts the poet and he often speaks with a raucous voice, even as the Arch-tempter sought to lure the Divine Word made flesh:
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is how I understand the Purusha:
The Lord is the Supreme Purusha, the Purushottama.
--
Is my understanding correct?
This is one way of putting it. Mental definitions are never more
--
which has not yet understood that it is nobler and loftier to
recognise one's faults in order to correct them, than to conceal
--
One thing escapes my understanding: how can You find
time to do all that You do? Perhaps physical time does
--
From what I understand, You said that the psychic beings
of the disciples of the Ashram all belong to the same family. In spite of this, there is often a lack of collaboration
--
which is formed in this life and is not yet under the rule and
influence of the psychic. As soon as one is united with one's
--
Because most people, when they hear the word "unity", understand uniformity and nothing can be further from the truth.
25 September 1967
--
property, I understand that what should come is more
a change of psychological attitude on the part of those
--
time, simultaneously. This cannot be understood, it must
be experienced; one can have the experience of it."
--
to understand.
23 April 1968
--
aspiration of the day and undo its work.
Vigilance, sincerity, continuity of effort, and the Grace will
--
It is undoubtedly out of ignorance and fear of what he doesn't
know.
--
when the body is undergoing transformation, the body keeps its
automatic perception of the outer world; but this perception is
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
regularly. I do not understand the true value of these
things. Should one do them regularly or only when one
--
One reads Savitri to develop one's intelligence and to understand
deeper things.
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Selfishness means wanting everything for oneself, understanding nothing but oneself, caring for others only insofar
as they are necessary or important to oneself. In French, selfrealisation (réalisation du Soi) means discovering the divine
--
could see things as they really are; and in the hope of understanding better, they have sought for a diviner vision, a global and true
vision - with the result of Yoga. And those who have succeeded
--
The fifth and ninth in understanding what death is.
The birthday in finding out the purpose of life.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Divine and uniting with Him. When one has understood this,
then one is ready to gain the strength to surmount all difficulties.
--
effort is to understand and progress.
The mind describes and explains.
The psychic sees and understands.
13 December 1971
--
Human beings could be classified under four principal categories
according to the attitude they take in life:
--
The first thing the physical consciousness must understand is
that all the difficulties we meet with in life come from the fact
--
It is under the psychic influence that the Divine manifests in
man and thus prepares the coming of superhumanity.
--
receive Your force and understand Your will.
11 February 1972
--
(2) To understand ever better and more completely what
one knows.
--
To learn to understand and do more and more things. To
purify oneself of all that prevents one from being totally surrendered to the Divine. To make one's consciousness more and
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The first condition was: Nothing more to do with your family Well, we are a long way from that! But I repeat that it only happened because of the war and not because we stopped seeing the need to cut all family ties; on the contrary, this is an indispensable condition because as long as you hang on to all these cords which bind you to ordinary life, which make you a slave to the ordinary life, how can you possibly belong to the Divine alone? What childishness! It is simply not possible. If you have ever taken the trouble to read over the early ashram rules, you would find that even friendships were considered dangerous and undesirable We made every effort to create an atmosphere in which only ONE thing counted: the Life Divine.
But as I said, bit by bit things changed. However, this had one advantage: we were too much outside of life. So there were a number of problems which had never arisen but which would have suddenly surged up the moment we wanted a complete manifestation. We took on all these problems a little prematurely, but it gave us the opportunity to solve them. In this way we learned many things and surmounted many difficulties, only it complicated things considerably. And in the present situation, given such a large number of elements who havent even the slightest idea why theyre here (!) well, it demands a far greater effort on the disciples part than before.
Before, when there were we started with 35 or 36 people but even when it got up to 150, even with 150it was as if they were all nestled in a cocoon in my consciousness: they were so near to me that I could constantly guide ALL their inner or outer movements. Day and night, at each moment, everything was totally under my control. And naturally, I think they made a great deal of progress at that time: it is a fact that I was CONSTANTLY doing the sadhana2 for them. But then, with this baby boom The sadhana cant be done for little sprouts who are 3 or 4 or 5 years old! Its out of the question. The only thing I can do is wrap them in the Consciousness and try to see that they grow up in the best of all possible conditions. However, the one advantage to all this is that instead of there being such a COMPLETE and PASSIVE dependence on the disciples part, each one has to make his own little effort. Truly, thats excellent.
I dont know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday3 No, I dont know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONES help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekanandas Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.
I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, Read the Gita (this translation of the Gita which really wasnt worth much but it was the only one available at the timein those days I wouldnt have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and well, Sri Aurobindo hadnt done his yet!). He said, Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within. That was all. Read it with THAT knowledgewith the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you. Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!
So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlerseverything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery and then you just go on drifting along: When it comes, it will come.If you even spare it that much thought!
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am not so absurdly pretentious as to blame the divine, nor yourself and I remain quite convinced that all this is my own fault. undoubtedly I have not known how to surrender totally in some part of myself, or I do not aspire enough or know how to open myself as needed. Also, I should rely entirely upon the divine to take care of my progress and not be concerned about the absence of experiences. I have therefore asked myself why I am so far away from the true attitude, the genuine opening, and I see two main reasons: on the one hand, the difficulties inherent in my own nature, and on the other, the outer conditions of this sadhana. These conditions do not seem to be conducive to helping me overcome the difficulties in my own nature.
I feel that I am turning in circles and taking one step backward for each one forward. Furthermore, instead of helping me draw nearer to the divine consciousness, my work in the Ashram (the very fact of working for to change work, even if I felt like it, would not change the overall situation), diverts me from this divine consciousness, or at least keeps me in a superficial consciousness from which I am unable to unglue myself as long as I am busy writing letters, doing translations, corrections or classes.1 I know its my own fault, that I should know how to be detached from my work and do it by relying upon a deeper consciousness, but what can be done? Unless I receive the grace, I cannot remember the essential thing as long as the outer part of my being is active.
--
Consequently, I understand much better now why in the traditional yogas one settled all these difficulties once and for all by escaping from the world, without bothering to transform a life that seems so untransformable.
I am not now going to renounce Sri Aurobindos Yoga, Mother, for my whole life is based upon it, but I believe I should employ other meanswhich is why I am writing you this letter.
--
In all sincerity, I must say that when I was at Brewsters place in Almora, I felt very near to that state in which the Light must surge forth. I quite understand the imperfection of this process, which involves fleeing from difficulties, but this would only be a stage, a strategic retreat, as it were.
Mother, this is not a vital desire seeking to divert me from the sadhana, for my life has no other meaning than to seek the divine, but it seems to be the only solution that could bring about some progress and get me out of this lukewarm slump in which I have been living day after day. I cannot be satisfied living merely one hour a day, when I see you.
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, I am sufficiently awakened not to rebel against your Light and to understand that the vital is but one part of my being, but I have come to the conclusion that the only way of convincing this vital is not to force or stifle it, but to let it go through its own experience so it may understand by itself that it cannot be satisfied in this way. I feel the need to leave the Ashram for a while to see how I can get along away from here and to realize, no doubt, that one can really brea the only here.
I have friends in Bangalore whom I would like to join for two or three weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less, however long it may take to confront this vital with its own freedom. I need a vital activity, to move, to sail, for example, to have friends etc. The need I am feeling is exactly that which I sought to satisfy in the past through my long boat journeys along the coast of Brittany. It is a kind of thirst for space and movement.
--
Mother, I would like you to forgive me, to understand me and, above all, not to deprive me of your Love. I would like you to tell me if I may leave for a few weeks and how you feel about it. It seems to me that I am profo undly your child, in spite of all this??
Signed: Bernard
0 1956-03-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French. At this period, Mother's back was already bent. This straightening of her back seems to be the first physiological effect of the 'Supramental Manifestation' of February 29, which is perhaps the reason why Mother noted down the experience under the name 'Agenda of the Supramental Action on Earth.' It was the first time Mother gave a title to what would become this fabulous document of 13 volumes. The experience took place during a 'translation class' when, twice a week, Mother would translate the works of Sri Aurobindo into French before a group of disciples.
AGENDA OF THE SUPRAMENTAL ACTION ON EARTH
0 1956-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I understand now that as long as my whole being has not ACCEPTED that it must finish its life here, there is no way out nor any recovery possible. Through my mental force alone, this acceptance is impossible; I have been turning infernally in circles these past two months, and the mind is in league with the vital. Therefore, a force greater than mine must help me accept that my way is here. I need you, Mother, for without you I am lost. I need you to tell me that the Truth of my being is indeed here and that I am truly ready to follow this path. Mother, I beseech you, help me to see the truth of my being, give me some sign that my way is here and not elsewhere. I beg of you, Mother, help me to know.
I also had a very clear sensation that you were abandoning me, that you had no further interest in me and I could just as well do as I pleased. Perhaps you cannot forgive some of my inner rebellions which have been so very violent? Am I totally guilty? Is it true that you are abandoning me?
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If you want to look at it as an object of curiosity, then you have only to look at it, to try to understand.
If you want it to change you, you must open yourself and strive to progress.
--
But inevitablyit will increase more and more! Which is why I cannot do what I used to do when there were one h undred and fifty people in the Ashram. If they had just a little bit of common sense, they would understand that I cannot have the same relationship with people now (just imagine, 1,800 people these last days!), so I cannot have the same relationship with 1,845 people (exactly, I believe) as with thirty or even a h undred. That seems an easy enough logic to understand.
But they want everything to remain as it was and, as you say, to be the first to benefit.
--
You may call it whatever you like, it makes no difference to me, but we must understand each other.
What I call a descent takes place in the individual consciousness. In the same way, we speak of ascent (there is no ascent really, there is no high or low, no direction: its all a manner of speaking)we speak of ascent when we feel ourselves rising up towards something, and we call it a descent when, after having caught this thing, we bring it down into ourselves.
But when the doors are opened and the flood pours in, it can no longer be called a descent: it is a Force that spreads everywhere. understood? Ah!
I dont care what words you use. I do not essentially insist upon my words, but I explain them to you, and its better to agree on words beforehand, for otherwise theres no end to explanations.
0 1956-08-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In fact, following the 'Supramental Manifestation' of February 29, 1956, all of Mother's physical difficulties increased, as though all the obscurities in the physical consciousness were surging forth beneath the pressure of the new light. The same observation applies to the disciples who were aro und Mother and undoubtedly to the world as a whole. A strange 'mysterious acceleration' was beginning to take hold of the world.
***
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Go to Brazil, to this good rich man, make him understand the importance of our work, the extent to which his fortune would be used to the utmost for the good of all and for the earths salvation were he to put it, even partially, at the disposal of our action. Win this victory over the power of money, and by so doing you will be freed from all your personal difficulties. Then you can return here with no apprehension, and you will be ready for the transformation.
Reflect upon this, take your time, tell me very frankly how you feel about it and whether it appears to you, as it does to me, to be a door opening onto a path that will bring you back, free and strong at last to me.
0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And suddenly, I understood.
It was because I hadnt thought of it. It hadnt even grazed my consciousness. The divine will is not at all like that, it is not a will: it is a VISION, a global vision, that sees and No, it does not guide (to guide suggests something outside, but nothing is outside), a creative vision, as it were; yet even then, the word create does not here have the meaning we generally attribute to it.
--
I used to be different (although I was said to be non-interfering); I acted, if at all, to defend myself But I understood very quickly that even this was a reaction of ignorance and that things would be set right automatically if one remained in the true consciousness.
A consciousness that sees and makes you see.
0 1957-04-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I realize that all the progress I was able to make during the first two years has been lost and I am just as before, worse than beforeas if all my strength were in ruin, all faith in myself undoneso much so that at times I curse myself for having come here at all.
That is the situation, Mother. I feel my unworthiness profo undly. I am the opposite of Satprem, unable to love and to give myself. Everything in me is sealed tight.
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 aro und 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!
So to help you understand this enigma, let me tell you that the mother is physical Nature as she is, and the daughter is the new creation. The manageress is the worlds organizing mental consciousness as Nature has developed it thus far, that is, the most advanced organizing sense to have manifested in the present state of material Nature. This is the key to the vision.
Naturally, when I awoke, I immediately knew what could resolve this problem which appeared so absolutely insoluble. The vanishing of the manageress and her key was an obvious sign that she was altogether incapable of leading what could be called the creative consciousness of the new world to its true place.
--
And now you understand why I had thought it would be useful to have a few meditations in common, to work at creating a common atmosphere a bit more organized than my big hotel of last night!
So, the best way to use these meditations (and they are going to increase, since we are now also going to replace the distributions with short meditations) is to go deep within yourselves, as far as you can, and find the place where you can feel, perceive and perhaps even create an atmosphere of oneness wherein a force of order and organization can put each element in its true place, and out of the chaos existing at this hour, make a new, harmonious world surge forth.
0 1957-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And this new vibration in the body has allowed me to understand the mechanism of the transformation. It is not something that comes from a higher Will, not a higher consciousness that imposes itself upon the body: it is the body itself awakening in its cells, a freedom of the cells themselves, an absolutely new vibration that sets disorders righteven disorders that existed prior to the supramental manifestation.
Naturally, all this is a gradual process, but I am hopeful that little by little this new consciousness will grow, gain gro und and victoriously resist the old forces of destruction and annihilation, and this Fatality we believed to be so inexorable.
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Now, I recently had a very striking experience: a discrepancy occurred between my physical consciousness and the consciousness of the world. In some instances decisions made in the Light and the Truth produced unexpected results, upheavals in the consciousness of others that were neither foreseen nor desired, and I did not understand. No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand and I emphasize this word understand. At last, I had to leave my highest consciousness and pull myself down into the physical consciousness to find out what was happening. And there, in my head, I saw what appeared to be a little cell bursting, and suddenly I understood: the recording had been defective. The physical consciousness had neglected to register certain of your lower reactions. It could not have been through preference or through personal will (these things were eliminated from my consciousness long, long ago). But I saw that this most material consciousness was already completely permeated with the transforming supramental truth, and it could no longer follow the rhythm of normal life. It was much more attuned to the true consciousness than to the world! I couldnt possibly blame it for lagging behind; on the contrary, it was in front, too far ahead! There was a discrepancy between the rhythm of the transformation of my being and the worlds own rhythm. The supramental action on the world is slow, it does not act directlyit acts by infiltration, by traversing the successive layers, and the results are slow to come about. So I had to pull myself violently down in order to wait for the others.
One must at times know how not to know.
--
Humility, a perfect humility, is the condition for all realization. The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause that appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is almost impossible to make it see that there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions, with this God that belittles his creatures and only likes to see them down on their knees. When I was a child, this kind of humility revolted me, and I refused to believe in a God that wants to belittle his creatures. I dont mean that kind of humility, but rather the recognition that one does not know, that one knows nothing, and that there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested. True humility consists in constantly referring oneself to the Lord, in placing all before Him. When I receive a blow (and there are quite a few of them in my sadhana), my immediate, spontaneous reaction, like a spring, is to throw myself before Him and to say, Thou, Lord. Without this humility, I would never have been able to realize anything. And I say I only to make myself understood, but in fact I means the Lord through this body, his instrument. When you begin living THIS kind of humility, it means you are drawing nearer to the realization. It is the condition, the starting point.
***
0 1958-01-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
During one of our classes (October 30, 1957), I spoke of the limitless ab undance of Nature, this tireless Creatrice who takes the multitude of forms, mixes them together, separates them again and reforms them, again undoes them, again destroys them, in order to move on to ever new combinations. As I said, it is a huge cauldron. Things get churned up in it and somehow something emerges; if its defective, it is thrown back in and something else is taken out One form, two forms or a h undred forms make no difference to her, there are thousands upon thousands of formsand one year, a h undred years, a thousand years, millions of years, what difference does it make? Eternity lies before her! She quite obviously enjoys herself and is in no hurry. If you speak to her of pressing on or of rushing through some part of her work or other, her reply is always the same: But what for? Why? Arent you enjoying it?
The evening I told you these things, I totally identified myself with Nature and I entered into her play. And this movement of identification brought forth a response, a new kind of intimacy between Nature and myself, a long movement of drawing ever nearer which culminated in an experience that came on November 8.
Nature suddenly understood. She understood that this newborn Consciousness does not seek to reject her, but wants to embrace her entirely. She understood that this new spirituality does not stand apart from life, does not timorously recoil before the awesome richness of her movement, but on the contrary wants to integrate all her facets. She understood that the supramental consciousness is not there to diminish her but to make her complete.
Then, from the supreme Reality came this command: Awaken, O Nature, to the joy of collaboration. And suddenly, all Nature rushed forth in an immense bo unding of joy, saying, I accept! I will collaborate! And at the same time, there came a calm, an absolute tranquillity, to allow this receptacle, this body, to receive and contain without breaking and without losing anything of the Joy of Nature that was rushing forth in a movement of grateful recognition like an overwhelming flood. She accepted, she sawwith all eternity before her that this supramental consciousness would fulfill her more perfectly and impart a still greater force to her movement and more richness, more possibilities to her play.
--
We must have a great deal of patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things work.
(silence)
0 1958-02-03a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I would like to tell you that I am staying, very simply, for something in me wants this, but I am afraid to make a decision that I may not be able to keep. A force other than mine is needed. In short, you have to do the willing for me, to utter a word that would help me understand truly that I must stay here. Grant me the grace of helping and enlightening me. I would like to decide without preference, in obedience to the sole Truth and in accordance with my real possibilities.
I have received a long letter from Swami,1 who in essence says that I should be able to realize what I have to realize right here with you, but he does not refuse to take me with him should I persist in my intention.
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Between the beings of the supramental world and men, there exists approximately the same gap as between men and animals. Sometime ago, I had the experience of identification with animal life, and it is a fact that animals do not understand us; their consciousness is so constituted that we elude them almost entirely. And yet I have known domestic animalscats and dogs, but especially catswho made an almost yogic effort of consciousness to understand us. But generally, when they watch us living and acting, they dont understand, they dont SEE US as we are and they suffer because of us. We are a constant enigma to them Only a very tiny part of their consciousness is linked to us. And it is the same for us when we try to look at the supramental world. Only when the link of consciousness has been built shall we see itand even then, only that part of our being which has undergone the transformation will be capable of seeing it as it isotherwise the two worlds would remain as separate as the animal world and the human world.
The experience I had on February 3 proves this. Before, I had had an individual, subjective contact with the supramental world, whereas on February 3, I went strolling there in a concrete wayas concretely as I used to go strolling in Paris in times pastin a world that EXISTS IN ITSELF, beyond all subjectivity.
--
I fo und myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that the light was like that, the people were like thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
--
As for the people I saw aboard ship, I recognized them all. Some were here in the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I knew them as well. I saw everyone, but as I realized that I would not remember everyone when I came back, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is unnecessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them, I understood the feeling that I have had here, on earth, while looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy On the whole, the people were young; there were very few children, and their ages were aro und fourteen or fifteen, but certainly not below ten or twelve (I did not stay long enough to see all the details). There were no very old people, with the exception of a few. Most of the people who had gone ashore were of a middle ageagain, except for a few. Several times before this experience, certain individual cases had already been examined at a place where people capable of being supramentalized are examined; I had then had a few surprises which I had noted I even told some people. But those whom I disembarked today I saw very distinctly. They were of a middle age, neither young children nor elderly people, with only a few rare exceptions, and this quite corresponded to what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not stay until the end, it would be impossible for me to draw an exact picture, for it was neither absolutely clear nor complete. I do not want to say things to some and not say them to others.
What I can say is that the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the substance constituting the peoplewhe ther they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As for me, I am totally out of my element in this new life, as though I were uprooted from myself. I am living in the temple, in the midst of pujas,1 with white ashes on my forehead, barefoot dressed like a Hindu, sleeping on cement at night, eating impossible curries, with some good sunburns to complete the cooking. And there I am, clinging to you, for if you were not there I would collapse, so absurd would it all be. You are the only realityhow many times have I repeated this to myself, like a litany! Apart from this, I am holding up quite well physically. But inside and outside, nothing is left but you. I need you, thats all. Mother, this world is so horrifyingly empty. I really feel that I would evaporate if you werent there. Well, no doubt I had to go through this experience Perhaps I will be able to extract some book from it that will be of use to you. We are like children who need a lot of pictures in order to understand, and a few good kicks to realize our complete stupidity.
Swami must soon take to the road again, through Ceylon, towards March 20 or 25. So I shall go wandering with him until May; towards the beginning of May, he will return to India. I hope to have learned my lesson by then, and to have learned it well. Inwardly, I have understood that there is only you but its these problem children on the surface who must be made to toe the line once and for all.
Sweet Mother, I am in a hurry to work for you. Will you still want me? Mother, I need you, I need you. I would like to ask you an absurd question: Do you think of me? I have only you, you alone in the world.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was waiting for things to be well established in me before writing you again. An important change has occurred: it seems that something in me has clickedwhat Sri Aurobindo calls the central will, perhapsand I am living literally in the obsession of divine realization. This is what I want, nothing else, it is the only goal in life, and at last I have understood (not with the head) that the outer realization in the world will be the consequence of the inner realization. So thousands of times a day, I repeat, Mother, I want to be your instrument, ever more conscious, I want to express your truth, your light. I want to be what you want, as you want, when you want. There is in me now a kind of need for perfection, a will to abolish this ego, a real understanding that to become your instrument means at the same time to find the perfect plenitude of ones personality. So I am living in an almost constant state of aspiration, I feel your force constantly, or nearly so, and if I am distracted a few minutes, I experience a void, an uneasiness that calls me back to you.
And at the same time, I saw that it is you who is doing everything, you who aspires in me, you who wants the progress, and that all I myself am in this affair is a screen, a resisting obstacle. O Mother, break this screen that I may be wholly transparent before you, that your transforming force may purify all the secret recesses in my being, that nothing may remain but you and you alone. O Mother, may all my being be a living expression of your light, your truth.
--
And I, who understood nothing of love, am beginning to suspect who Satprem is. Mother, your grace is infinite, it has accompanied me everywhere in my life.
We are still in Kataragama, and we shall only go up to northern Ceylon, to Jaffna, aro und the 15th, then return to India towards the beginning of May if the visa problems are settled. Only in India, at the temple of Rameswaram, can I receive the orange robe. I am living here as a sannyasi, but dressed in white, like a Hindu. It is a stark life, nothing more. I have seen however, that truth does not lie in starkness but in a change of consciousness. (Desire always finds a means to entrench itself in very small details and in very petty and stupid, though well-rooted, avidities.)
0 1958-05-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Only now am I beginning to understand what Sri Aurobindo has written in The Synthesis of Yoga! And the human mind, the physical mind, appears so stupid, so stupid!
***
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I saw and understood very well that by concentrating, I could have given it the attitude of the absolute authority of the eternal Mother. When Sri Aurobindo told me, You are She, at the same time he bestowed upon my body this attitude of absolute authority. But as I had the inner vision of this truth, I concerned myself very little with the imperfections of the physical body I didnt bother about that, I only used it as an instrument. Sri Aurobindo did the sadhana for this body, which had only to remain constantly open to his action.1
Afterwards, when he left and I had to do the Yoga myself, to be able to take his physical place, I could have adopted the attitude of the sage, which is what I did since I was in an unparalleled state of calm when he left. As he left his body and entered into mine, he told me, You will continue, you will go right to the end of the work. It was then that I imposed a calm upon this body the calm of total detachment. And I could have remained like that.
--
No. From the minute it is conscious, it is conscious of its own falsehood! It is conscious of this law, of that law, of this third law that fourth law, this tenth laweverything is a law. We are subject to physical laws: this will produce such and such a result if you do that, this will happen, etc. Oh! It reeks! I know it well. I know it very well. These laws reek of falsehood. In the body, we have no faith in the divine Grace, none, none, none, none! Those who have not undergone a tapasya2 as I have, say, Yes, all these inner moral things, feelings, psychology, all that is very good; we want the Divine and we are ready to But all the same, material facts are material facts, they have their concrete reality, after all an illness is an illness, food is food, and everything you do has a consequence, and when you are bah, bah, bah, bah, bah!
We must understand that this isnt trueit isnt true, its a falsehood, all this is sheer falsehood. It is NOT TRUE, it is not true!
If only we would accept the Supreme inside our bodies, if we had the experience I had a few days ago3: the supreme Knowledge in action along with the complete abolition of all consequences, past and future. Each second has its own eternity and its own law, which is a law of absolute truth.
When I had this experience, I understood that only a month ago I was still uttering mountain-sized imbecilities. And I laughed to the point of almost approving those who say, But all the same, the Supreme does not decide the number of sugar cubes you put in your coffee! That would be to project your own way of being onto the Supreme. But this is an Himalayan imbecility! It is a stupidity, the minds pretentious stupidity projecting itself onto the divine life and imagining that the divine life conforms to its own projection.
The Supreme does not decide: He knows. The Supreme does not want: He sees. And it is so for each thousandth of a second, eternally. Thats all. And it is the only true condition.
--
It is a hard path. I try to make it as comfortable as possible, but nevertheless, it is a hard path. And it is obvious that it cannot be otherwise. You are beaten and battered until you understand. Until you are in that state in which all bodies are your body. But at that point, you begin to laugh! You were upset by this, hurt by that, you suffered from this or that but now, how laughable it all seems! And not only the head, but the body too finds it laughable!
(silence)
--
From the positive point of view, I am convinced that we agree upon the result to be obtained, that is, an integral and unreserved consecrationin love, knowledge and actionto the Supreme AND TO HIS WORK. I say to the Supreme and to his work because consecration to the Supreme alone is not enough. Now we are here for the supramental realization, this is what is expected of us, but to reach it, our consecration to it must be total, unreserved absolutely integral. I believe you have understood thisin other words, that you have the will to realize it.
From the negative point of view I mean the difficulties to be overcomeone of the most serious obstacles is that the ignorant and falsifying outer consciousness, the ordinary consciousness legitimizes all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences, all that science has discovered physically and materially. All this is an unquestionable reality to the consciousness, a reality that remains independent and absolute even in the face of the eternal divine Reality.
0 1958-05-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As a matter of fact, my tendency is more and more towards something in which the role of these hostile forces will be reduced to that of an examinerwhich means that they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual quest. These elements have a reality in their action and for the workthis is their great reality but when you go beyond a certain region, it all grows dim to such a degree that it is no longer so well defined, so distinct. In the occult world, or rather if you look at the world from the occult point of view, these hostile forces are very real, their action is very real, quite concrete, and their attitude towards the divine realization is positively hostile; but as soon as you go beyond this region and enter into the spiritual world where there is no longer anything but the Divine in all things, and where there is nothing undivine, then these hostile forces become part of the total play and can no longer be called hostile forces: it is only an attitude that they have adoptedor more precisely, it is only an attitude adopted by the Divine in his play.
This again belongs to the dualities that Sri Aurobindo speaks of in (The Synthesis of Yoga, these dualities that are being reabsorbed. I dont know if he spoke of this particular one; I dont think so, but its the same thing. Its again a certain way of seeing. He has written of the Personal-Impersonal duality, Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti but there is still one more: Divine and anti-divine.
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was represented by a kind of image in which I was as vast as the Universe, and each way of approaching the Divine was like a tiny image containing the characteristic form of this approach. And my impression was this: Why do people always limit, limit themselves? Narrow, narrow, narrow! They understand only when it is narrow.
Take all! Take all within you. And then you will begin to understandyou will begin.
***
0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I recall that once I tried to speak of this, but no one followed me, no one understood, so I did not insist. I left it open and never pursued it further, for they could not decipher anything or find any meaning in what I was saying. But now I could give a very simple answer: Let the Supreme do the work. It is He who has to progress, not you!
Ramdas does not at all consider that the world as it is, is good.
--
But this crystal clear vision Sri Aurobindo had, where everything is in its place, where contradictions no longer existthey never soared to that height. This was the thing, this really crystalline, perfect supramental vision, even from the standpoint of understanding and knowledge. They never went that far.
***
0 1958-07-05, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have just explained to Z my program for getting out of the present difficulties,1 and I think if he has not concluded that I am totally mad, it is because he has an immense respect for me! But as always in these cases, there is such a joy in me, such an exultation: all the cells are dancing. I understand why people begin singing, dancing, etc. It takes a formidable power to remain like that (gesture of solidity): there is such a desire in the throat to sing!
***
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This morning I asked myself the question, is money truly under Natures control? I shall have to see Because for me personally, she always gives everything in ab undance.
When I was young, I was as poor as a turkey, as poor as could be! As an artist, I sometimes had to go out in society (as artists are forced to do). I had lacquered boots that were cracked and I painted them so it wouldnt show! This is to tell you the state I was inpoor as a turkey. So one day, in a shop window, I saw a very pretty petticoat much in fashion then, with lace, ribbons, etc. (It was the fashion in those days to have long skirts which trailed on the floor, and I didnt have a petticoat which could go with such things I didnt care, it didnt matter to me in the least, but since Nature had told me I would always have everything I needed, I wanted to make an experiment.) So I said, Well, I would very much like to have a petticoat to go with those skirts. I got five of them! They came from every direction!
--
She didnt do a thing! Nothing, absolutely nothing: a complete refusal. Did she refuse or was she unable to? It may be that I always saw that money was under the control of an asuric force. (I am speaking of currency, cash; I dont want to do business. When I try to do business, it generally succeeds very well, but I dont mean that. I am speaking of cash.) I never asked her that question.
You see, this is how it happened: theres this Ganesh2 We had a meditation (this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where Prosperity3 is now distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the god of money, of fortune, of the worlds wealth), I thought, Isnt this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination? Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk that long and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, Ah! So its true that you exist!Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!
--
You see, the human species is a part of Nature, but as Sri Aurobindo has explained, from the moment mind expressed itself in man, it put him into a relationship with Nature very different from the relationship all the lower species have with her. All the lower species right up to man are completely under the rule of Nature; she makes them do whatever she wants, and they can do nothing without her consent. Whereas man begins to act and to live as an equal; not as an equal in terms of power, but from the standpoint of consciousness (he is beginning to do so since he has the capacity to study and to find out Natures secrets). He is not superior to her, far from it, but he is on an equal footing. And so he has acquiredthis is a fac the has acquired a certain power of independence that he immediately used to put himself under the influence of the hostile forces, which are not terrestrial but extra-terrestrial.
I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earths existence, it is self-existentwell, they have brought that down here! They have made what we see! And such being the case This is what terrestrial Nature told me: It is beyond my control.
--
Perhaps it would not be necessary to have this power over all men, but in any event, it should be great enough to act upon the mass. It is likely that once a certain movement has been mastered to some degree, what the mass does or doesnt do (this whole human mass that has barely, barely emerged into even the mental consciousness) will become quite irrelevant. You see, the mass is still under the great rule of Nature. I am referring to mental humanity, predominantly mental, which developed the mind but misused it and immediately set out on the wrong pathfirst thing.
There is nothing to say since the first thing done by the divine forces which emanated for the Creation was to take the wrong path!6 That is the origin, the seed of this marvelous spirit of independence the negation of surrender, in other words. Man said, I have the power to think; I will do with it what I want, and no one has the right to intervene. I am free, I am an independent being, IN-DE-PEN-DENT! So thats how things stand: we are all independent beings!
0 1958-07-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But the Supreme Lord answers that the comedy is not entirely played out, and He adds: Wait for the last act; undoubtedly you will change your mind.
***
0 1958-08-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its remarkable that things you have understood in your consciousness reappear as problems to be solved in the cells of the body.
In the cells, both things are there. The body is convinced of the divine Presence everywhere, that all is the Divineit lives in that; and at the same time, it shrinks from certain contacts! I saw that this morning, both things at once, and I said, Lord, I know nothing at all!
0 1958-08-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So the door had to be opened and I felt and said, Lord, may your will be done. I opened the door and behind it was Z1 in the same clothes he wears when he drives, and he was leaning against one of those big tractor tiresor perhaps he was holding it at the same time. I was so dumbfo unded that I woke up. It took me a little while to be able to understand what it might mean, and afterwards Even now, I still dont know What was I? Was I India, or was I the world? I dont know. And what did Z represent? It was as imperative and clear, as positive and absolute as could be: the certitude that destruction was behind the door, that it was inevitable. And it had the form of those great Tartar or Mongol invaders, those people who came from the North and invaded India, who pillaged everything Thats what it was like. But what Z was doing there I dont know. What does he represent? The first impulse was to tell Abhay Singh, Forbid him to drive the tractor.
(Pavitra:) What was he holding in his hands, Mother?
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had a mantra in French before coming to Pondicherry. It was Dieu de bont et de misricorde [God of kindness and mercy], but what it means is usually not understoodit is an entire program, a universal program. I have been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the century; it was the mantra of ascension, of realization. At present, it no longer comes in the same way, it comes rather as a memory. But it was deliberate, you see; I always said Dieu de bont et de misricorde, because even then I understood that everything is the Divine and the Divine is in all things and that it is only we who make a distinction between what is or what is not the Divine.
My experience is that, individually, we are in relationship with that aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice that it was formulated in a certain way I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bont et de misricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects that were not this one. And it lasted for I dont know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.
--
I understood those who withdraw from everything to live that totally.
And it has such a transformative power! I felt that if it continued, something would happen, something like a change in the equilibrium of the bodys cells.
--
The different mantras or prayers that came to Mother and which She grouped under the heading Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells, are included as an addendum to the Agenda of 1959.
***
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When you asked me if X4 were thinking of me, I consulted my atmosphere and saw that it was true, that even many times a day Xs thoughts were coming. So I know that he is concentrating on me, or something: it simply passes through me, and I answer automatically. But I dont particularly pay attention to X, unless you ask me a question about him, in which case I deliberately tune into him, then observe and determine whether its like this or like that. Whereas this vision the other day was something that thrust itself on me; I was in another region altogether, in my inner contemplation, my concentrationa very strong concentrationwhen I was forced to enter into contact with this being whose vision I had and who was obviously a very powerful being. After telling me what he had to tell me, he went away in a very peculiar way, not at all suddenly as most people appear and disappear, not at all like that. When I first saw him, there was a living form the being himself was there but upon leaving (probably to see the effect, to find out whether he had truly succeeded in making himself understood), he left behind a kind of image of himself. Afterwards, this image blurred and it left only a silhouette, an outline, then it disappeared altogether leaving only an impression. That was the last thing I saw. So I kept the impression and analyzed it to find out exactly what was involved; all this was filed away, and then it was over. I began my concentration once again.
I intentionally carry everybody in my active consciousness for the work, and I do the work consciously; but the extent to which people in the world, or those who are here in the Ashram, are conscious of this or receive the results depends upon them, though not exclusively.
--
Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything that education in all its forms can providenot as its generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything that leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment that and to augment the material base for the earths progress, the best use of what the earth can giveits intelligent utilization, not the utilization that wastes and loses energies. The use that allows energies to be replenished.
In the universe there is an inexhaustible source of energy that asks only to be replenished; if you know how to go about it, it is replenished. Instead of draining life and the energies of our earth and making of it something parched and inert, we must know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not just words; I know how its to be done, and science is in the process of thoroughly finding outit has fo und out most admirably. But instead of using it to satisfy human passions, instead of using what science has fo und so that men may destroy each other more effectively than they are presently doing, it must be used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, generous, productive and to make all life grow towards its maximum efficiency. This is the true use of money. And if its not used like that, its a vicea short circuit and a vice.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
To know life utterly Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And its strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras1 (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, like that):
It is the Supreme Lord who has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the universal concert, but whatever be this place, you have equally the same right as all others to ascend the supreme summits right to the supramental realization.
--
To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.
Then and this becomes rather amusing like lifes play Depending upon each ones nature and position and bias, and because human beings are very limited, very partial and incapable of a global vision, there are those who believe, who have faith, or to whom the eternal Mother is revealed through Grace, who have this kind of relationship with the eternal Mother and there are those who themselves are plunged in sadhana, who have the consciousness of a developed sadhak, and thereby have the same relationship with me as one has with what they generally call a realized soul. Such persons consider me the prototype of the Guru teaching a new way, but the others dont have this relationship of sadhak to Guru (I am taking the two extremes, but of course there are all the possibilities in between), they are only in contact with the eternal Mother and, in the simplicity of their hearts, they expect Her to do everything for them. If they were perfect in this attitude, the eternal Mother would do everything for themas a matter of fact, She does do everything, but as they arent perfect, they cannot receive it totally. But the two paths are very different, the two kinds of relationships are very different; and as we all live according to the law of external things, in a material body, there is a kind of annoyance, an almost irritated mis understanding, between those who follow this path (not consciously and intentionally, but spontaneously), who have this relationship of the child to the Mother, and those who have this other relationship of the sadhak to the Guru. So it creates a whole play, with an infinite diversity of shades.
But all this is still in suspense, on the way to realization, moving forward progressively; therefore, unless we are able to see the outcome, we cant understand a thing. We get confused. Only when we see the outcome, the final realization, only when we have TOUCHED there, will everything be understood then it will be as clear and as simple as can be. But meanwhile, my relationships with different people are very funny, utterly amusing!
Those who have what I would call the more outer relationship compared to the other (although it is not really so)the relationship of yoga, of sadhanaconsider the others superstitious; and the others, who have faith OI perception, or the Grace to have understood what Sri Aurobindo meant (perhaps even before knowing what he said, but in any event, after he said it), discard the others as ignorant unbelievers! And there are all the gradations in between, so it really becomes quite funny!
It opens up extraordinary horizons; once you have understood this, you have the keyyou have the key to many, many things: the different positions of each of the different saints, the different realizations and it resolves all the incoherencies of the various manifestations on earth.
For example, this question of PowerTHE Powerover Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised that our power is not absolute. They are surprised that we have not merely to say, Let it be thus for it to be thus. This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power that proceeds from the eternal position and the power that proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it that those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things?Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time that they were this particular being. They were not born as this or that, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It should be said that we are speaking of the Puranic gods, because the Christians, for example, do not understand what this can mean. They have an entirely different conception of the gods.
It could apply to the old Greek mythology, though.
No, not uniquely. It could apply in many other eases. Even if the Christians dont understand, there are many others who will!
Those who have read a little and who know something other than their little rut will understand.
There is something similar between the Puranic gods and the gods of Greek or Egyptian mythology. The gods of Egyptian mythology are terrible beings They cut off peoples heads, tear their enemies to pieces!
--
In Europe and in the modern Western world, it is thought that all these gods the Greek gods and the pagan gods, as they are calledare human fancies, that they are not real beings. To understand, one must know that they are real beings. That is the difference. For Westerners, they are only a figment of the human imagination and dont correspond to anything real in the universe. But that is a gross mistake.
To understand the workings of universal life, and even those of terrestrial life, one must know that in their own realms these are all living beings, each with his own independent reality. They would exist even if men did not exist! Most of these gods existed before man.
They are beings who belong to the progressive creation of the universe and who have themselves presided over its formation from the most etheric or subtle regions to the most material regions. They are a descent of the divine creative Spirit that came to repair the mischief in short, to repair what the Asuras had done. The first makers created disorder and darkness, an unconsciousness, and then it is said that there was a second lineage of makers to repair that evil, and the gods gradually descended through realities that were ever moreone cant say dense because it isnt really dense, nor can one even say material, since matter as we know it does not exist on these planesthrough more and more concrete substances.
--
However, you must have at least a little experience of these things to understand them. Otherwise, if you are convinced that all this is just human fancy or mental formations, if you believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have imagined them to be like that, or that they have such and such defects or qualities because men have envisioned it that wayas with all those who say God is created in the image of man and exists only in human thoughtall such people wont understand, it will seem absolutely ridiculous to them, a kind of madness. You must live a little, touch the subject a little to know how concrete it is.
Naturally, children know a great dealif they have not been spoiled. There are many children who return to the same place night after night and continue living a life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoiled with age, they can be preserved within one. There was a time when I was especially interested in dreams, and I could return exactly to the same place and continue some work I had begun there, visit something, for example, or see to something, some work of organization or some discovery or exploration; you go to a certain place, just as you go somewhere in life, then you rest a while, then you go back and begin againyou take up your work just where you left it, and you continue. You also notice that there are things entirely independent of you, certain variations which were not at all created by you and which occurred automatically during your absence.
--
Once you have worked in this field, you realize that when you have studied a subject, when you have mentally understood something, it gives a special tonality to the experience. The experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact of having known this subject and of having studied it gives a particular tonality; on the other hand, if you have learned nothing of the subject, if you know nothing at all, well, when the experience comes, the notation of it is entirely spontaneous and sincere. It can be more or less adequate, but it is not the result of a former mental formation.
What happened in my life is that I never studied or knew things until AFTER having the experienceonly BECAUSE OF the experience and because I wanted to understand it would I study things related to it.
It was the same thing for visions of past lives. I knew NOTHING when I would have the experience, not even the possibility of past lives, and only after having had the experience would I study the question and, for example, even verify certain historical facts that had occurred in my vision but about which I had no prior knowledge.
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Suddenly, while I was speaking (it was while I was speaking), I felt, Well really, can anything be done with such material? Then, quite naturally, when I stopped speaking, oh!I felt that I was being pulled! Then I understood. Because I had asked myself the question, But what is HAPPENING in there behind all those forms? I cant say that I was annoyed, but I said to myself, Well really, this has to be shaken up a bit! And just as I had finished, something pulled meit pulled me out of my body, I was literally pulled out of my body.
And then, down into this hole I still see what I saw then, this crevasse between two rocks. The sky was not visible, but on the rock summits I saw something like the reflection of a glimmera glimmercoming from something beyond, which (laughing) must have been the sky! But it was invisible. And as I descended, as if I were sliding down the face of this crevasse, I saw the rock edges; and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives. There was one here, one there, another there, everywhere, all aro und. And I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I went down and down and downthere was no end to it, and it was becoming more and more compressing.1 It went down and down
--
Later, after I returned (to the Ashram), I wondered, What was that? What does it signify? Then I understood.
Thats all.
--
I dont think I am mistaken, for there was such a superab undant feeling of power, of warmth, of gold It was not fluid, it was like a powdering. And each of these things (they cannot be called specks or fragments, nor even points, unless you understand it in the mathematical sense, a point that occupies no space) was something equivalent to a mathematical point, but like living gold, a powdering of warm gold. I cannot say it was sparkling, I cannot say it was dark, nor was it made of light, either: a multitude of tiny points of gold, nothing but that. They seemed to be touching my eyes, my face and with such an inherent power and warmthit was a splendor! And then, at the same time, the feeling of a plenitude, the PEACE of omnipotence It was rich, it was full. It was movement at its ultimate, infinitely swifter than all one can imagine, and at the same time it was absolute peace, perfect tranquillity.
(Mother resumes her message)
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I write something, I dont expect people to understand it, but I try to avoid the least possible distortion of the experience or the image in this kind of shrinking towards expression.
What is this spring?
--
But as soon as you want to express it, it escapes like water running through your fingers; all the fluidity is lost, it evaporates. A rather vague, poetic or artistic expression is much truer, much nearer to the truth something hazy, nebulous, undefined. Something not concretized like a rigid mental expressionthis rigidity that the mind has introduced right down into the Inconscient.
This vision of the Inconscient (Mother remains gazing for a moment) it was the MENTAL Inconscient. Because the starting point was mental. A special Inconscientrigid, hard, resistantwith all that the mind has brought into our consciousness. But it was far worse, far worse than a purely material Inconscient! A mentalized Inconscient, as it were. All this rigidity, this hardness, this narrowness, this fixitya FIXITYcomes from the presence of the mind in creation. When the mind was not manifested, the Inconscient was not like that! It was formless and had the plasticity of something that is formless the plasticity has gone.
--
It is not the experience, which I had once before, of the original Inconscient. The experience I had this time is of the Inconscient that has undergone the influence of the Mind in creation. It has become It has become a FAR greater obstacle than before. Before, it did not even have the power to resist, it had nothing, it was truly unconscious. Now it is an Inconscient organized in its refusal to change!
It was a very new experience.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The quality or the kind of relationship I had with the Supreme at that moment was entirely different from the one we have hereeven the identification had a different quality. One can very well understand that all the lower movements are different but this identification by which the Supreme governs and lives in us was the summit of our experience herewell, the way He governs and lives is different depending on whether we are in this hemisphere here or in the supramental life. And at that moment (the experience of November 13), what made the experience so intense was that I came to perceive vaguely both these states of consciousness at once. It was almost as if the Supreme Himself were different, or our experience of Him. And yet, in both cases, it was a contact with the Supreme. It is probably how we perceive Him or the way in which we translate it that differs, but the fact is that the quality of the experience is different.
In the other hemisphere, there is an intensity and a plenitude which are translated by a power different from the one here. How can I formulate it?I cannot.
--
Last night, my effort to understand what was missing in order to help you completely and truly come out of the difficulty reminded me of what I said the other day about Power, the transforming power, the true realizing power, the supramental power. When you enter that, when you suddenly surge into that Thing, then you seeyou see that it is truly almighty in comparison to what we are here. So once again, I touched it, I experienced both states simultaneously.
But as long as this is not an accomplished fact, it will still be a progressiona progression, an ascension; you gain a little, you gain some gro und, you rise higher and higher. But as long as the new reversal has not taken place, its as if everything had still to be done. It is a repetition of the experience below, reproduced above.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont have all the information, otherwise certainly Two things made me see I saw them the other day. First of all, when you didnt understand my letter, for I wrote it to a part of you that without any doubt should have understood; I was referring to something other than what is seen and known by this part of you which is this center, this knot of revolt that seems to resist everything, that really remains knotted, in spite of your experiences and the strides you have made, as well as your openings. And what made me see is especially the fact that it resists experiences, it is not touched by experiences; this was the point that did not understand what I wrote. Because the part of you that had the experience must necessarily understand what I wrote, without the shadow of a doubt.
Time is needed
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The other indication is what I told you the other day. When you thought of leaving to join Swami, I immediately saw a stream of light: Ah, the road is opening up! So I said, It is good. And while you were away in Ceylon, I followed you from day to day. You called much more than the second time, when you were in the Himalayas; and with the physical hardships you were undergoing, I was very, very close to you I constantly felt what was happening.
And then I saw a GREAT light, like a glory, when you were at Rameswaram. A great light. And when you returned here, this light was upon you, very strong and imposing. But at the same time, I felt that it needed protectingto be shielded, protected that it was not yet established. Established, ready to resist all that decomposes an experience. I would have liked to have kept you apart, under a glass case, but then I saw that this would have drawbacks as well as advantages. Also, I liked the way you wanted to fight against an uncomprehending reception due to your orange robes and your shaved head. Of course, it was a much shorter path than the other, but it was more difficult.
And then, more and more, I felt that if what I saw, as I saw it, could be realized I saw two things: a journeynot at all a pilgrimage as it is commonly understooda journey towards solitude in arduous conditions, and a sojourn in a very severe solitude, facing the mountains, in arduous physical conditions. The contact with this majesty of Nature has a great influence upon the ego at certain moments: it has the power to dissolve it. But all this complication, all these organized pilgrimages, all that it brings in the whole petty side of human life which spoils everything
Yes, that whole journey was odious
--
But when you returned the second time, from the Himalayas, you didnt have the same flame as when you returned the first time. And I understood that this kind of difficult karma still clung to you, that it had not been dissolved. I had hoped that your contact with the mountains but in a true solitude (I dont mean that your body had to be all alone, but there should not have been all kinds of outer, superficial things) Anyway, it didnt happen. So it means that the time had not come.
But when here the difficulties returned and because of their obstinacy, their appearance of an inevitable fatality I concluded that it was a karma, although I knew it with certainty only now.
But I always had a presentiment of the true thing: that only a VERY COURAGEOUS act of self-giving could efface the thingnot courageous or difficult from the material point of view, not that There is a certain zone of the vital in you, a mentalized vital but still very material, which is very much under the influence of circumstances and which very much believes in the effectiveness of outer measuresthis is what is resisting.
That is all I know.
--
Only, and this is what I wrote to you the other day which you did not understand: it is precisely at the most painful point, at the time when the suggestions are strongest, that one must hold on. Otherwise, it has always to be done all over again, always to be reconfronted. There comes a day, a moment, when it has to be done. And now, there is truly an opportunity on earth that is offered only once in thousands of years, a conscious help, with the necessary Power
But thats about all I know.
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And when I studied this, when I looked at this science of processes, of intermediaries, suddenly I clearly understood the working of karma, which I had not understood before. I had worked and intervened quite often to change someones karma, but sometimes I had to wait, without exactly knowing why the result was not immediate. I simply used to wait without worrying about the reasons for this slowness or delay. Thats how it was. And generally it ended, as I said, with the exact vision of the karmas source, its initial cause; and scarcely would I have this vision when the Power would come, and the thing would be dissolved. But I didnt bother about finding out why it was like that.
One day I had mentioned this to X1 when he was showing me or describing to me the different movements of the pujas, the procedure, the process of the puja. I said to him, Oh, I see! For the action to be immediate, for the result to be immediate, one must acknowledge, for example, the role or the participation of certain spirits or certain forces and enter into a friendly relationship or collaboration with these forces in order to obtain an immediate result, is it not so? Then he told me, Yes, otherwise it leaves an indefinite time to the play of the forces, and you dont know when you will get the result of your puja.
That interested me very much. Because one of the obstacles I had felt was that although the Force was acting well, there was a time lag that appeared inevitable, a time element in the work which seemed unavoidablea play left to the forces of Nature. But with their knowledge of the processes, the tantrics can dispense with all that. So I understood why those who have studied, who are initiated and follow the prescribed methods are apparently more powerfulmore powerful even than those who are conscious in the highest consciousness.
What interested me is that in their case (those who follow tantric or other initiations), what is doubtful is whether or not they can succeed in receiving the response of the true Power, the divine power, the supreme power; they do everything they can, but this question still remains. Whereas for me, it is the opposite situation: the Power is there, I have it, but how can I make it act here in matter? The process for making it act immediately was missingthough not totally; I know from the psychological standpoint, but there is something other than the psychological power, there is the whole play of conscious, individualized forces that are everywhere in Nature and that have the right to exist. Since it was created this way, it must express something of the supreme Will, otherwise He wouldnt have made use of intermediaries but in His plan, it is obvious that the intermediary has a legitimate place.
0 1958-12-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have just received your letter which I read with all my love, the love that understands and effaces. When you return here, you will always be very welcome, and we shall certainly take up our work together again. I shall be happy, and it is very much needed. But first of all, it will be good for you to go to Rameswaram. I know that you will be welcome there. Stay there as long as necessary to find and consolidate your experience. Afterwards, come back here, stronger and better armed, to face a new period of outer and inner work. At the end of the labor is the Victory.
With all my confident love.
0 1958-12-15 - tantric mantra - 125,000, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Swami received me warmly and is doing all he can with all his heart. I am following his instructions to the letter for I believe that your grace is acting through him. Furthermore, he is totally devoted to you and spoke of you as no one ever hashe understands many things. I was unfair in my reactions towards him.
At the new moon, when I felt very down, he gave me the first tantric mantraa mantra to Durga. For a period of 41 days, I must repeat it 125,000 times and go every morning to the Temple, stand before Parvati and recite this mantra within me for at least one hour. Then I must go to the sanctuary of Shiva and recite another mantra for half an hour. Practically speaking, I have to repeat constantly within me the mantra to Durga in a silent concentration, whatever I may be doing on the outside. In these conditions, it is difficult to think of you and this has created a slight conflict in me, but I believe that your Grace is acting through Swami and through Durga, whom I am invoking all the time I remember what you told me about the necessity for intermediaries and I am obeying Swami unreservedly.
--
Mother, I believe I understand something of all that you yourself are suffering, and the crucifixion of the Divine in Matter is a real crucifixion. In this moment of consciousness, I offer you all my trials and little sufferings. I would like to triumph so that it be your triumph, one weight less upon your heart.
Forgive me, Mother, for all the pain I may have thrown on you, but I am confident that with your Grace I will emerge from this victorious, your child unobscured, in all the fibers of my being. Oh Mother, how alone you are to bear all our suffering if only I could remember this in my moments of darkness.
0 1958-12-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Swami told me that the mantra to Durga is intended to pierce through into the subconscient. To complement this work, he does his pujas to Kali, and finally one of his friends, X, the High Priest of the temple in Rameswaram (who presided over my initiation and has great occult powers), has undertaken to say a very powerful mantra over me daily, for a period of eight days, to extirpate the dark forces from my subconscious. The operation already began four days ago. While reciting his mantra, he holds a glass of water in his hand, then he makes me drink it. It seems that on the eighth day, if the enemy has been trapped, this water turns yellow then the operation is over and the poisoned water is thrown out. (I tell you all this because I prefer that you know.) In any event, I like X very much, he is a very luminous, very good man. If I am not delivered after all this!
In truth, I believe only in the Grace. My mantra and all the rest seem to me only little tricks to try to win over your Grace.
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If you wish, two things can be done to help your action: either X can undertake certain mantric operations upon you here in Rameswaram, or better still, he can immediately come to Pondicherry with Swami and do what is needed in front of you.
Sweet Mother, I indeed suspect that you want to endure, to bear this struggle all alone. Oh, I think I understand a number of things about the mechanism of these attacks and their connection with me, about the Divine Love that embraces all and takes into itself the suffering and the evil of menall this overwhelms me with a sudden understanding. It seems to me that I am seeing and feeling all that you are facing, all that you are taking upon yourself for us. The suffering of the Divine in Matter has been an overwhelming revelation to meAh! I see, I want to fight, I want to be totally on your side; I am now and forever determined.
But you have enough to do with the higher beasts of prey without still having to fight the little scorpions. I beg of you, Sweet Mother, accept the help that is being offered to you, preserve your strength for the higher struggle. I quite understand that your Love can even go to the scorpions that are attacking you, but it is not forbidden to protect yourself from their venom. You have enough to do on other planes.
X is at the summit of tantric initiation, and his power is not the fruit of a simple knowledge. He holds it directly from the Divine, and these things have been in his family traditionally from ten generations. No black magic can resist his power. His action is not brutal, he does not mechanically apply formulas, he holds this Science and knows how to apply it like an expert chemist, always in Light, Love and sweetness. If you agree that he come to see you, he will immediately know the source of these attacks upon you and will even be able to make the attacking force speak. He has this power. Of course, neither X nor Swami will divulge this to anyone, and everything will be kept secret. You have only to send word, or a telegram: No objection.
--
X has decided to continue his action upon me beyond the eight days foreseen, which doubtlessly corresponds to dosages that exceed my understanding.
Mother, I am fighting beside you, for you, for your Victory.
--
It seems to me that everything has changed since I have understood that it is not a personal battle, and that I can serve. Your grace is everywhere, everywhere.
***
--
I have just now received your letter of the 28th. On that day I definitely felt that there was a decisive change in the situation and I understood right away that you had spoken to Swami and also that what I had written to you gave you the opportunity to take a great step. I am very happy and can say with certitude that the worst is over. However, from several points of view, I infinitely appreciate Xs offer. And although I do not think it necessary, or even desirable, that they both come here (it would create a veritable revolution and perhaps even a panic among the ashramites), I am sure that their intervention in Rameswaram itself would not only be useful but most effective
Yes, everything has changed since you now understand that your battle is not only a personal battle and that by winning it, it is a real service you are rendering to the Divine Work.
Happy New Year, my dear child! I am sure it will bring us a decisive victory.
0 1958 12 - Floor 1, young girl, we shall kill the young princess - black tent, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Two or three days after I retired to my room upstairs,1 early in the night I fell into a very heavy sleep and fo und myself out of the body much more materially than I do usually. This degree of density in which you can see the material surro undings exactly as they are. The part that was out seemed to be under a spell and only half conscious. When I fo und myself at the first floor where everything was absolutely black, I wanted to go up again, but then I discovered that my hand was held by a young girl whom I could not see in the darkness but whose contact was very familiar. She pulled me by the hand telling me laughingly, No, come, come down with me, we shall kill the young princess. I could not understand what she meant by this young princess and, rather unwillingly, I followed her to see what it was. Arriving in the anteroom which is at the top of the staircase leading to the gro und floor, my attention was drawn in the midst of all this total obscurity to the white figure of Kamala2 standing in the middle of the passage between the hall and Sri Aurobindos room. She was as it were in full light while everything else was black. Then I saw on her face such an expression of intense anxiety that to comfort her I said, I am coming back. The so und of my voice shook off from me the semi-trance in which I was before and suddenly I thought, Where am I going? and I pushed away from me the dark figure who was pulling me and in whom, while she was running down the steps, I recognized a young girl who lived with Sri Aurobindo and me for many years and died five years back. This girl during her life was under the most diabolical influence. And then I saw very distinctly (as through the walls of the staircase) down below a small black tent which could scarcely be perceived in the surro unding darkness and standing in the middle of the tent the figure of a man, head and face shaved (like the sannyasin or the Buddhist monks) covered from head to foot with a knitted outfit following tightly the form of his body which was tall and slim. No other cloth or garment could give an indication as to who he could be. He was standing in front of a black pot placed on a dark red fire which was throwing its reddish glow on him. He had his right arm stretched over the pot, holding between two fingers a thin gold chain which looked like one of mine and was unnaturally visible and bright. Shaking gently the chain he was chanting some words which translated in my mind, She must die the young princess, she must pay for all she has done, she must die the young princess.
Then I suddenly realized that it was I the young Princess and as I burst into laughter, I fo und myself awake in my bed.
0 1959-01-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is to tell you that a knot has very perceptibly come undone in me, for no apparent reason; suddenly, I was breathing easily.
And it happened just as I was despairing of ever getting out of it. I seemed to be touching a kind of f undamental bedrock, so painful, so suffering, and full of revolt because of too much suffering. And I saw that all my efforts, all the meditations, aspirations, mantras, were only covering up this suffering bedrock without touching it. I saw this f undamental thing in me very clearly, a poignant knot, ever ready for an absolute negation. I saw it and I said to you, Mother, only your grace can remove this. I said this to you in the temple that morning, in total despair. And then, the knot was undone. Xs action contri buted a lot, with your grace acting through him. But truly, I have traversed a veritable hell this last while.
X continues his work on me daily; it is to last 41 days in all. He told me that he wants to undo the things of several births. When it is over, he will explain it all to me. I do not know how to tell you how luminous and good this man is, he is a very great soul. He is also giving me Sanskrit lessons, and little by little, each evening, speaks to me of the Tantra.
His action upon you is to continue for another five days, after which he is positive that you will be entirely saved. According to him, it is indeed a magic attack originating in Pondicherry, and perhaps even from someone in the Ashram!! He told me that this evil person would finally be forced to appear before you I am learning many interesting things from him.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As for the true tantric initiation, this is what X told me: I will give you initiation. You are fit. You belong to that line. It will come soon, some months or some years. Shortly you shall reach the junction. When the time has come, you yourself will come and open a door in me and I shall give you initiation.1 And he made me understand that an important divine work was reserved for me in the future, a work for the Mother. The important practical point is that I have rapidly to develop my knowledge of Sanskrit. The mantra given to me seems to grow in power as I repeat it.
Sweet Mother, by what Grace have you guided and protected me through all these years? There are moments when I have the vision of this Grace, bringing me to the verge of tears. I see so clearly that you are doing everything, that you are all that is good in me, my aspiration and my strength. Me is all that is bad, all that resists, me is horribly false and falsifying. If your Grace withdraws for one second, I collapse, I am helpless.2 You alone are my strength, the source of my life, the joy and fulfillment to which I aspire.
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
By a special grace, X gave me both stages of the tantric initiation at the same time, although they are normally separated by several years; then if all goes well, he will give me the full initiation in 6 months. I have thus received a mantra, along with the power of realizing it. X told me that a realization should come at the beginning of the fifth month if I repeat the mantra strictly according to his instructions, but he again told me that the hostile forces would do all they could to prevent me from saying my mantra: mental suggestions and even illness. X has understood that I have work at the Ashram, and he has exempted me from the outer forms (pujas and other rituals), but nevertheless I must repeat my mantra very accurately every day (3,333 times, that is, a little more than 3 hours uninterrupted in the mornings, and more than 2 hours in the evening). I must therefore organize myself in such a way as to get up very early in the morning in Pondicherry, for in no case will your work suffer.
Apart from this, he has not yet entirely finished the work of purging that he has been doing on me for over a month, but I believe that everything will be completed in a short time from now.
0 1959-01-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
X knows very little about your true work and what Swami has been able to explain to him is rather inadequate, for I do not believe that he himself understands it very well. So I shall have to try to make myself understood quite clearly to X and tell him exactly and simply what it is you need. The word transformation is too abstract. Each mantra has a very specific actionat least I believe soand I must be able to tell X in a concrete way the exact powers or capacities you are now seeking, and the general goal or the particular results required. Then he will find the mantra or mantras that apply.
My explanations will have to be simple, for X speaks English with difficulty, thus subtleties are out of the question. (I am teaching him a little English while he is teaching me Sanskrit, and we manage to understand each other rather well all the same. He understands more than he can speak.)
I do not want to mention this to Swami, as X is not very happy about the way Swami seizes upon every occasion to appropriate things, and particularly mantras (I will explain this to you when we meet again). It is especially the way he says I. Nothing very seriousit is Swamis bad side, though he has good ones too. You know that, however.
--
I have reflected a great deal on a possible mantra, and I have also seen the difficulty of receiving something that does not have a narrowing effect One must at least have an idea of the possibility (at least) of the supermind to understand what I need
As for your arrival here, the day you mentioned is the Saraswati Puja I will go downstairs to give blessings. If you arrive on the previous day, the 11th I will arrange to see you at 10 oclock, and then you can begin your mantra on the 12th.
0 1959-03-10 - vital dagger, vital mass, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo calls this realm the intermediate zone, a zone in which, he says, you can have all the experiences you wish if you enter into it. But it isnt (laughing) very advisable!and I understand why! I had that experience because I had just read what Sri Aurobindo says on this subject in a letter in this latest book, On Yoga; I wanted to see for myself what it was. Ah, I understood!
And I express this in my own way when I say1 that thoughts come and go, flow in and out. But thoughts concerning material things are formations originating in that world, they are kinds of wills coming from the vital plane which try to express themselves, and most often they are truly deadly. If you are annoyed, for example, if someone says something unpleasant to you and you react It always happens in the same way; these little entities are there waiting, and when they feel its the right moment, they introduce their influence and their suggestions. This is what is vitally symbolized by the being with his dagger rushing forward to stab youand in the back, at that! Not even face to face! This then expresses itself in the human consciousness by a movement of anger or rage or indignation: How intolerable! How ! And the other fellow says, Yes! We shall put an end to it!
0 1959-03-26 - Lord of Death, Lord of Falsehood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Behind the Titan attacking us particularly now, there is something else. This Titan has been delegated by someone else. He has been there since my birth, was born with me. I felt him when I was very young, but only gradually, as I became conscious of myself, did I understand WHO he was and what was behind him.
This Titan has been specially sent to attack this body, but he cant do it directly, so he uses people in my entourage. It is something fated: all those aro und me, who are close to me, and especially those capable of love, have been attacked by him; a few have succumbed, such as that girl in my entourage who was absorbed by him. He follows me like a shadow, and each time there is the least little opening in someone near me, he is there.
0 1959-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I read your P.S. and I understand. This too confirms my feeling. I am not happy that you are plagued with work, and especially urgent work that has to be done quicklyit is contrary to the inner calm and concentration so indispensable for getting rid of ones difficulties. I am going to do what is necessary to change this situation. Besides, this is why I have been telling you recently that my work is not urgent. But this work for the Bulletin should stop for the moment.
The other point also has its element of truthwe shall speak of it later.
0 1959-04-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Below this center is the body. And this body has indeed the concrete sensation of the Divine in each of its cells; but it needs to become universalized. Thats the work to be done, center by center. I understand now what Sri Aurobindo meant when he repeatedly insisted, Widen yourself. All this must be universalized; it is the condition, the basis, for the Supramental to descend into the body.
According to the ancient traditions, this universalization of the physical body was considered the supreme realization, but it is only a fo undation, the base upon which the Supramental can come down without breaking everything.
0 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I can easily understand that your task on this earth is not particularly encouraging and you must find our human matter stupid and rebellious. I do not wish to throw upon you more bad things than you already receive, but I wish you could also understand certain things. I am not made for this withered life, not made for putting sentences together all day long, not made for living alone in my holefriendless, loveless, with nothing but mantras, and waiting for a better that never comes. For three years I have wanted to leave and each time I yielded out of scruples that you needed me, though also because I am attached to you. But after the [book on] Sri Aurobindo, there will be something else, there will always be something else that will make my departure look like a betrayal. I am fed up with living in my head, always in my head, with paper and ink. It was not of this that I dreamed when I was ten years old and ran with the wind over the untamed heaths. I am suffocating. You ask too much of me; or rather, I am not worth your expectation.
A love for you might have held me here. And indeed, for you I have devotion, veneration, respect, an attachment, but there has never been this marvelous thing, warm and full, that links one to a being in the same beating of a heart. Through love, I could do all, accept all, endure all, sacrifice all but I do not feel this love. You cannot give yourself with your head, through a mental decision, yet that is what I have been doing for five years. I have tried to serve you as best I could. But I am at the end of my rope. I am suffocating.
--
Only someone who loves you and has the knowledge can find the true solution to the problem. X1 fulfills these conditions excellently. Go to him and simply be what you are, without blackening nor embellishing, with the sincerity and simplicity of a child. He knows your soul and its aspiration; speak to him of your physical life and of your need for space, solitude, untamed nature, the simple and free life. He will understand and, in his wisdom, will see the best thing to do.
And what he decides will be done.
0 1959-05-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So there. I can find no solution. X will not understand, and I will not say anything to him. But I obey you because everything is futile and there is too much pain in this world, and also someone in me needs you, someone who loves you in his own way.
Signed: Satprem
--
I did not utter the words that you heard I wanted to speak to you of my experience during the night, but I was paralyzed because I clearly felt that you no longer understood me. As soon as I received your letter, I concentrated on you in an effort to help you, and when night fell, just at the hour I enter into contact with X, I called for his helpwhereupon he sent me this little Kali whom he had already sent once before. So I went to your house, I took you in my arms and pressed you tightly to my heart to keep you as sheltered as possible from blows, and I let Kali do her warrior dance against this titan who is always trying to possess you, creating this rebelliousness in you. She must have at least partially succeeded in her work, because very early in the morning the titan went away somewhat discomfited, but while leaving, he flung this at me as he went by: You will regret it, for you would have had less trouble if he had left. I flung his suggestion back in his face with a laugh and told him, Take that, along with all the rest of your ugly person! I have no need of it! And the atmosphere cleared up.
I wanted to tell you all this, but I couldnt because you were still far away from me and it would have seemed like boasting. Also the mis understanding created by the distance made you hear other words than those I uttered.
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Also, I explained to him that a mantra had come to you which you were repeating between 5 and 6 in particular, and I told him about this culminating point where you wanted to express your gratitude, enthusiasm, etc., and about the French mantra. After explaining, I gave him your French and Sanskrit texts. He felt and understood very well what you wanted. His first reaction after reading it was to say, Great meaning, great power is there. It is all right. I told him that apart from the meaning of the mantra, you wanted to know if it was all right from the vibrational standpoint. He told me that he would take your text to his next puja and would repeat it himself to see. He should have done that this morning, but he has a fever (since his return from Madurai, he has not been well because of a cold and sunstroke). I will write you as soon as I know the result of his test.
Regarding me, this is more or less what he said: First of all, I want an agreement from you so that under any circumstances you never leave the Ashram. Whatever happens, even if Yama1 comes to dance at your door, you should never leave the Ashram. At the critical moment, when the attack is the strongest, you should throw everything into His hands, then and then only the thing can be removed (I no longer know whether he said removed or destroyed ). It is the only way. SARVAM MAMA BRAHMAN [Thou art my sole refuge]. Here in Rameswaram, we are going to meditate together for 45 days, and the Asuric-Shakti may come with full strength to attack, and I shall try my best not only to protect but to destroy, but for that, I need your determination. It is only by your own determination that I can get strength. If the force comes to make suggestions: lack of adventure, lack of Nature, lack of love, then think that I am the forest, think that I am the sea, think that I am the wife (!!) Meanwhile, X has nearly doubled the number of repetitions of the mantra that I have to say every day (it is the same mantra he gave me in Pondicherry). X repeated to me again and again that I am not merely a disciple to him, like the others, but as if his son.
This was a first, hasty conversation, and we did not discuss things at length. I said nothing. I have no confidence in my reactions when I am in the midst of my crises of complete negation. And truly speaking, at the time of my last crisis in Pondicherry, I do not know if it was really Xs occult working that set things right, for personally (but perhaps it is an ignorant impression), I felt that it was thanks to Sujata and her childlike simplicity that I was able to get out of it.
--
Before five months are over (in September, October or November), Pakistan will attack India with the help or the complicity or the military resources of the United States. And at about the same time, China will attack India because of the Dalai Lama, under the pretext that India is supporting the Dalai Lama and that thousands of Tibetan refugees are escaping into India to carry on anti-Chinese activities. Then America will offer its support to India against China and then, said X, We shall see what will be the political policy of the Congress Party, which pretends to be unaligned with any bloc. If India accepts American aid, there will be no more Pakistan but rather American troops to prevent conflicts between Muslims and Hindus, and a single government for both countries. I pointed out to X that this so unded very much like a world war
Then he made the following comparison: When you throw a pebble into a pond, there is just one center, one point where it falls, and everything radiates out from this center. There are two such centers in the world at present, two places where there are great vibrations: one is India and Pakistan, and that will radiate all over Asia. And the other is.
--
That is all, Sweet Mother. In spite of my anesthesia, I think of you. (I am not blocked; on the contrary, it seems to me that the bond has been renewed since our last meeting, but I feel strangely empty.) I am unable to understand how you can love me. Oh Mother, I have truly to begin living, truly loving!
Your child,
--
Certainly his political rage is not only understandable but justified. However, when one begins looking at things from the external viewpoint of the manifestation, they are not as simple as that. I cannot speak of all this in detail, but as an example I can tell you that here in Pondicherry, those who are maneuvering (and not without some hope) to oust the Congress are our worst enemies, the enemy of all that is disinterested and spiritual, and if they come to power, they would be capable of anything in their hate.
For all these world events, I always leave it to the Divine vision and wisdom, and I say to the Supreme: Lord, may Thy Will be done.
--
Indian National Congress: the formative freedom organization against the British that became India's major political party under Jawaharlal Nehru after independence.
***
0 1959-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Regarding Xs predictions which I mentioned in yesterdays letter, X said something untranslatable which meant, Let us see Mothers reactions for I told him that I had written it all to you. Then he said, There are several other secret matters which I shall tell you. And he added, by way of example, I shall tell WHERE the atomic bombs will be cropped. So if these things interest you, or if you see or feel anything, perhaps it would be good to express your interest in a letter to me which I would translate for X. Spontaneously, I emphasized to X that it would undoubtedly facilitate your work to have details. But it is better that these things come from you, should you see any use in it.
As for me, X said, Something will happen.
--
For you, my dear child, it is true that something must happen and will happen. Will you please tell X on my behalf that I will participate with all my power in what he wants to undertake. He will understand.
I am with you and wish to repeat to you: infinite is the Grace and invincible is the Love; be confident and will the victory, for this is what X means by your collaboration.
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
2) X gave me certain details about his powers of prediction, but perhaps it would be better not to speak of this in a letter. On that occasion, he told me that he did not want to keep any secrets from me: I want you to know everything. I want you to be chief disciple in my tradition. When the time comes, you will understand what I mean. With you I have full connection, not only connection in my mind, but in my blood and body.
On another occasion, he said to me, I am ALWAYS taking care of you. And when I asked him why he was taking such trouble for me, he replied, Because I have orders. This attention that comes to me from you and him surprises me, for I do not feel that I am good, and upon the least occasion I know that I am seriously prepared to quit everything because something in me is profo undly revolted by this excess of suffering, by a lack of love and flowering, by an excess of solitude. Yesterday evening, it was still fully there, with all my approval, and at such a time no one in the world can hold me back. It is this POINT OF SUFFERING that makes me want to turn my back on everything. Not to commit suicide: to turn my back.
--
I have no other details to give you, except that I am not happy. The fact is that these last three years I have been tied down by my penury, otherwise I would be travelling along other roads, far from herewith no greater hope in my heart, but with space before me, at least. I am only here to render you service, but I do not know if I shall be able to repress my need for space much longerit has already been going on too long. This is the undisguised truth. But what can I do?I am tied down. If I truly loved, things would be different, but it seems I love no one, not even myself, and the only love of which I am capable, human love, is forbidden to me. So I can do nothing, not on any plane, and I have no hope in anything. Forgive me, I do not wish to pain you, but neither can I pretend any longer to be happy with my lot.
Signed: Satprem
0 1959-06-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have a world of things to tell you about all I have heard, seen and done concerning you these past days. New doors of understanding have opened but all these things are impossible to write.
As for the mantra, since two days I am sure about it, and all is well.
0 1959-06-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
These last days I have come to realize that to blame all my crises on the hostile forces is perhaps to oversimplify things. I understand better and better, for in my suffering, my soul is all I have and I rely on that alone; otherwise I could never bear all that I have borne, all that I still bear. I understand, too, that there was also a truth in the force which periodically impelled me to leave, the truth of that destiny in me which is not fulfilled in the Ashram.
Mother, I have suffered so much and prayed so much this last while that I am sure my soul cannot but arrange circumstances in such a way that somehow I may live at last that somehow EVERYTHING may truly become reconciled: not later on or one of these days, but soon for it cannot go on any longer; I am at my end.
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.
During my last existence, the monk succeeded in making me a sannyasi, and when my wife came to plead with me, I told her, Too late, now I am a sannyasi. So she threw herself into the void, and horror-stricken by the sudden revelation of all these dramas and of my wifes goodness (for it seems she was a great soul), I threw myself in turn into the void.
0 1959-07-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
You will understand that I do not have the strength to come to see you. My only strength is not to rebel, my only strength is to believe in the Grace in the face of everything. I believe I have too much grief in my heart to rebel against anything at all. I seem to have a kind of great pity for this world.
Well, this time I shall remain silent.
0 1959-07-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is what I should have told you this morning, but I was afraid. For the last month I have been afraid of you, afraid that you might not understand. But I cannot leave with this weight on me. I beg of you to understand, Sweet Mother. I want nothing bad, nothing impure. I feel I have something to create with Sujata, I feel she is absolutely a part of something I have to achieve, that we have something to achieve together. For the five years we have known each other I have never had a single wrong thought but suddenly she opened my heart, which had been so completely walled-off, and this was like a wonder in me and at the same time a fear. A fear, perhaps because this love has been thwarted for so many lives.
Mother, I need Sujata like my very soul. It seems to me that she is a part of me, that she alone can help me break with this horrible past, that she alone can help me to love truly at last. I need peace so much, a quiet, PEACEFUL happinessa base of happiness upon which I could use my strength to build, instead of always fighting, always destroying. Mother, I am not at all sure of what must be, but I know that Sujata is part of this realization.
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And Sri Aurobindo was there, with a majesty, a magnificent beauty. He had all his beautiful hair as before. It was all so concrete, so substantialhe was even being served some kind of food. I remained there for one hour (I had looked at my watch before and I looked at it afterwards). I spoke to Sri Aurobindo, for I had some important questions to ask him about the way certain things are to be realized. He said nothing. He listened to me quietly and looked at me as if all my words were useless: he understood everything at once. And he answered me with a gesture and two expressions on his face, an unexpected gesture that did not at all correspond to any thought of mine; for example, he picked up three combs that were lying near the mirror (combs similar to those I use here, but larger) and he put them in his hair. He planted one comb in the middle of his head and the two others on each side, as if to gather all his hair over his temples. He was literally COIFFED with these three combs, which gave him a kind of crown. And I immediately understood that by this he meant that he was adopting my conception: You see, I embrace your conception of things, and I coif myself with it; it is my will. Anyway, I remained there for one hour.
And when I awoke, I didnt have this feeling of returning from afar and of having to re-enter my body, as I usually do. No, it was simply as though I were in this other world, then I took a step backwards and fo und myself here again. It took me a good half an hour to understand that this world here existed as much as the other and that I was no longer on the other side but here, in the world of falsehood. I had forgotten everythingpeople, things, what I had to do; everything had gone, as if it had no reality at all.
You see, its not as if this world of Truth had to be created from nothing: it is fully ready, it is there, like a lining of our own present world. Everything is there, EVERYTHING is there.
--
I understand why certain tantrics advise saying the japa in the heart center. When one applies a certain enthusiasm, when each word is said with a warmth of aspiration, then everything changes. I could feel this difference in myself, in my own japa.
In fact, when I walk back and forth in my room, I dont cut myself off from the rest of the worldalthough it would be so much more convenient! All kinds of things come to mesuggestions, wills, aspirations. But automatically I make a movement of offering: things come to me and just as they are about to touch my head, I turn them upwards and offer them to the Light. They dont enter into me. For example, if someone speaks to me while I am saying my japa, I hear quite well what is being said, I may even answer, but the words remain a little outside, at a certain distance from the head. And yet sometimes, there are things that insist, more defined wills that present themselves to me, so then I have to do a little work, but all that without a pause in the japa. If that happens, there is sometimes a change in the quality of my japa, and instead of being fully the power, fully the light, it is certainly something that produces results, but results more or less sure, more or less long to fructify; it becomes uncertain, as with all things of this physical world. Yet the difference between the two japas is imperceptible; its not a difference between saying the japa in a more or less mechanical way and saying it consciously, because even while I work I remain fully conscious of the japa I continue to repeat it putting the full meaning into each syllable. But nevertheless, there is a difference. One is the all-powerful japa; the other, an almost ordinary japa There is a difference in the inner attitude. Perhaps for the japa to become true, a kind of joy, an elation, a warmth of enthusiasm has to be added but especially joy. Then everything changes.
0 1959-11-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The deathless state is what can be envisaged for the human physical body in the future: it is constant rebirth. Instead of again tumbling backwards and falling apart due to a lack of plasticity and an incapacity to adapt to the universal movement, the body is undone futurewards, as it were.
There is one element that remains fixed: for each type of atom, the inner organization of the elements is different, which is what creates the difference in their substance. So perhaps similarly, each individual has a different, particular way of organizing the cells of his body, and it is this particular way that persists through all the outer changes. All the rest is undone and redone, but undone in a forward thrust towards the new instead of collapsing backwards into death, and redone in a constant aspiration to follow the progressive movement of the divine Truth.
But for that, the body the body-consciousness must first learn to widen itself. It is indispensable, for otherwise all the cells become a kind of boiling porridge under the pressure of the supramental light.
What usually happens is that when the body reaches its maximum intensity of aspiration or of ecstasy of Love, it is unable to contain it. It becomes flat, motionless. It falls back. Things settle downyou are enriched with a new vibration, but then everything resumes its course. So you must widen yourself in order to learn to bear unflinchingly the intensities of the supramental force, to go forward always, always with the ascending movement of the divine Truth, without falling backwards into the decrepitude of the body.
0 1960-01-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of course, things are now going better, especially since Sri Aurobindo became established in the subtle physical, an almost material subtle physical.2 But there are still plenty of question marks The body understands once, and then it forgets. The Enemys opposition is nothing, for I can see clearly that it comes from outside and that its hostile, so I do whats necessary. But where the difficulty lies is in all the small things of daily material lifesuddenly the body no longer understands, it forgets.
Yet its HAPPY. It loves doing the work, it lives only for thatto change, to transform itself is its reason for being. And its such a docile instrument, so full of good will! Once it even started wailing like a baby: O Lord, give me the time, the time to be transformed It has such a simple fervor for the work, but it needs timetime, thats it. It wants to live only to conquer, to win the Lords Victory.3
0 1960-03-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But what is surprising is that in a flash, no one was there any longer. No one, you understand I was gone. Perhaps I was everywhere (but in fact I am always everywhere, I am always conscious of being everywhere at the same time), though normally there is the sense of the body, a physical center, but that evening there was no more center! Nothing, no one, not even the sense that there was no onenothing. I was gone. There was indeed something handing out the medals which felt the joy of giving the medal, the joy of receiving it, the joy of mutually looking at each other. It was simply the joy of the action taking place, the joy of looking, this joy everywhere, but me?Nothing, no one, gone. Only later, afterwards, did I see what had happened, for everything had disappeared, even the higher mind that understands and organizes things (by understand I mean contain, which contains things). That also was gone. And this lasted the entire distribution. Only when that [the body] had gone back upstairs to the room did the consciousness of what is me return.
There is a line by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri which expresses this very well: to annul oneself so that only the Supreme Lord may be.
0 1960-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A few lines to tell you that I miss you. I truly realize more and more that I shall never be happy until I have disappeared in you entirely. There must be nothing left but That. I understand well enough, but Im so blocked, so thick. In any case, I think of you a lot and I really only live by this something that pulls me deep within. If that were not there, it would all be so absurd.
Ive booked my ticket to Rameswaram for the evening of the 13th, so I will probably reach there on the 15th.
0 1960-04-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is to make you understand that whenever you are ill, something is ill in your being.
***
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If there is one f undamental necessity, it is humility. To be humble. Not humble as it is normally understood, such as merely saying, I am so small, Im nothing at allno, something else Because the pitfalls are innumerable, and the further you progress in yoga, the more subtle they become, and the more the ego masks itself behind marvelous and saintly appearances. So when somebody says, I no longer want to rely on anything but Him. I want to close my eyes and rest in Him alone, this comfortable Him, which is exactly what you want him to be, is the egoor a formidable Asura, or a Titan (depending on each ones capacity). Theyre all over the earth, the earth is their domain. So the first thing to do is to pocket your egonot preserve it, but get rid of it as soon as possible!
You can be sure that the God youve created is a God of the ego whenever something within you insists, This is what I feel, this is what I think, this is what I see; its my way, my very ownits my way of being, my way of understanding, my relationship with the Divine, etc.
And then they say, I want to close my eyes and see nothing but Him I want nothing more of the outer world. And they forget theres Love! That is the great Secret, that which is behind the Existent and the Non-Existent, the Personal and the ImpersonalLove. Not a love between two things, two beings A love containing everything.
--
I spent the whole day yesterday trying to understand this experience.
And in that kind of physical eternity (which lasted two and a half hoursits a long time for an experience), I was aware of something missing, something not there: the joy of the consciousness. Because throughout my life I have developed the habit of being conscious of everything, always, at each second. And the joy of the consciousness was not there. So I thanked the Grace that made me see that this kind of nirvana was quite simply physical tamas.2
--
X has the power of rendering things very material thats his great power, which is why things get upset when he comes here. Overnight, someone progressing well comes to grips with difficulties; money on the way stops coming; you fall sick, things break downall because he has the power to give materiality to things from above. For, you see, you can go right to the height of your consciousness and from there sweep away the difficulties (at a certain moment of the sadhana, difficulties truly dont exist, its only a matter of nabbing the undesirable vibration and its over, its reduced to dust). And everything is fine up above, but down below its swarming. When X comes, its precisely all this swarming that becomes tangible.
The mastery must be a TRUE mastery, a very humble and austere mastery which starts from the very bottom and, step by step, establishes control. As a matter of fact, it is a battle against small, really tiny things: habits of being, ways of thinking, feeling and reacting.
0 1960-05-21 - true purity - you have to be the Divine to overcome hostile forces, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When X is here, I get the impression that things are going backwards instead of forwards. But once hes left, I suddenly leap ahead. And then I perceive that the progress is a real progress, that things won have really been won and they dont come undone again. That is Xs true power, a very material power. For I often feel that things could come into being, they could be realized in the consciousness above (and the vision is there, the Power is there, I have it the invisible power over the earth). But when you come down to the material plane, everything is uncertain. Whereas with X, once things have come down, they no longer dissipate. This is certainly why the Supreme put him on my path.
For example, there was one difficulty he helped me resolve. I have always been literally pestered, constantly, night and day, by all kinds of thoughts coming from peopleall kinds of calls, questions, formations2 that have naturally to be answered. For I have trained myself to be conscious of everything, always. But it disturbed me in the work, particularly when I needed absolute concentration and I could never cut myself off from people or cut myself off from the world. I had to answer all these calls and these questions, I had to send the necessary force, the necessary light, the healing power, I constantly had to purify all these formations, these thoughts, these wills, these false movements that were falling on me.
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I went back to bed, the transitional period lasted 45 minutes. During this time, I tried to locate the role of the individual consciousness on earth. In a flash, I understood its purpose. For you see, as long as the experience lasted, I did not feel any necessity at all of an individuality for this supreme flood to manifest. Then I understood, precisely, that the individuality served to put into contact, in this flood, all that reached out towards what is called Ithis individualized representation of the Divinein order to receive help and support from it, and to be put into contact. I did not say put into contact WITH this flood but put into contact IN this flood, for it was not happening outsidenothing was outside this flood, nothing exists outside it.
And what was really very lovely was the ACCURACY and the power which directed the forces. I watched this for three quarters of an hour: for each thing that presented itself (it could have been someone thinking, something taking place, anything at all), a special little concentration of this flood went exactly onto that point, like a special insistence.
--
This experience last night also enabled me to understand what X had felt during one of our meditations. He had explained his experience by way of saying that I was this mystic tree whose roots plunge into the Supreme and whose branches spread forth over the world,3 and he said that one of these branches had entered into himand it had been a unique experience. He had said, this is the Mother.
And now I understand that what he had seen and translated by this Vedic image was that kind of perpetual flood.
And you see, this experience he had, this contact between him and me, is just a point, a drop, its nothing; its merely something the consciousness puts into words, but the THING itself is universal. Last night it was universal; there was no room, no bed, no door and it was concrete, concrete, so concrete, with such a splendor! There was all the Joythis perpetual downpour in a limitless splendor.
0 1960-05-28 - death of K - the death process- the subtle physical, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
During the operation and just afterwards, I had simply put the Force on him, as I always do in such cases, so that everything would turn out for the best. Then a few days ago, during my japa, a kind of order camea very clear orderto concentrate on him so that he would be conscious of his soul and able to leave under the best conditions. And I saw that the concentration worked wonderfully: it seems that during his last days he was ceaselessly repeating Ma-Ma-Ma1even while he was in a semi-coma.
And the concentration grew stronger and stronger. The day before yesterday it became very, very powerful, and yesterday morning, aro und half past noon, it pulled me inward; he came to me in a kind of sleep, a conscious sleep, and I even said almost aloud, Oh, K!
0 1960-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
undated May (?) 1960
0 1960-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Ah, thats what it is! Your cave it IS like that, its really like that, I understand why you feel you have to blast it with dynamite! But if you go right to the endright to the endtheres no more top to the cave, its wide open to the stars. I can see it. Go to the very end. Its very dark. Its very dark and not very enticing, and it feels as if it may still be worse but it wont be worse. Go right to the end, and suddenly youll be able to stand up straight.
(long silence)
--
undated June 1960
0 1960-06-Undated, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
undated May (?) 1960
(Letter to Mother from Satprem)
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What was me was up above, and the Ashram was It began just here (the navel) and went that way (downwards), and it was encircled, to show that it was a special formationencircled in the inconscience of the terrestrial creation. And I was everything else, with the usual vibrations of power and light. And then one current and another current and another were passing into it, into this formation, and they kept going in and in and in, accumulating. They kept going in, and yet they did not come out, they did not leave. It was not an undulatory movement, but rather a pulsating movementit had no beginning, it didnt go out, and yet it kept moving. Its very difficult to describe.
The formation represented by the Ashram was located approximately here, at the height of the navel in relation to what I was but although the body was not delimited, it had certain attributes or undefined forms, each one of which was situated in relation to the other as though each represented one part of the body; each was symbolic of either an activity or a part of the world or a mode of manifestation. So the formation started from about here, near the navel, and went down towards the appendix Here, Ill draw you a sketch:
Image 1
--
Heaven and hell are at once true and false. They exist and dont exist. Ive seen various people go to heavens or hells after their death, and its very difficult to make them understand that it is not real. Once it took me more than a year to convince someone that his so-called hell was not hell, and to get him out of it.
But there is something else the psychological condition that you yourself create, the asuric hell you live in when you cultivate an asuric nature within you.
--
undated, June 1960
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The vehicle and the forward movement are the sadhana, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I understood that the speed of sadhana was greater than the speed of the forces of destruction. And it ended in certain victory, there is not a shadow of doubt. This feeling of POWER once I was firmly gro unded there [in the square], enough power to help others.
These were universal forces. I cant say it means war. Ive foreseen many warswidespread wars, local wars, so many warsand up to now they have never been presented to me in that form. Theyve always come as a fireflames, flames, the home burning. Not as an in undation.
--
Mother means that the Ashramites themselves create the armor. See also X's reflections in an undated letter of May 1959.
One lakh = 100,000.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Once Ive drummed that into their heads long enough, they may end up understanding.
Then Z asks about languages: should they choose ONE language or I dont know. And then, if only ONE language, which language? She said, Should it be a common or international language, or their [the students] vernacular? I answered her, If only ONE language is known [well], it is better (international or common).1
--
What I call studying is to take Sri Aurobindos books, where he quotes or speaks of one thing or another, then have the corresponding bookswhen he quotes something, you must take the book it corresponds to; when he speaks of something, you must study the writings on that subject. This is what I call studying. Then, after having read the corresponding works, you compare them with what Sri Aurobindo has said, and in this way there may be a beginning of understanding. If someone is very studious, he can review all that has ever been written or taught by going through Sri Aurobindos books. I mean this for someone who loves working.
I SEE this state of mind, this mental attitude Oh! Its its so repugnant. People are so afraid of taking sides, so afraid of appearing biased; they are so afraid of appearing to have faith, so afraid Oh, its disgraceful.
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Pondicherry was a French enclave, under French administration. The neighboring territory was the Indian state of Madras, or Tamil Nadu.
Perhaps it was the beginning of Auroville.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But this way of seeing is too far removed from the state of mind and spiritual education in which X has lived,4 of course, for him to understand. Nor am I in favor of proselytizing (to convince X); it would disturb him quite needlessly. He has not come here for that. He came here for something special, something I wanted which he brought, and I have learnt it. Now its excellent, he is a part of the group in his own fashion, thats all. And in a certain way, his presence here is having a very good effect on a whole category of people who had not been touched but who are now becoming more and more favorably inclined. It was difficult to reach all the traditionalists, for example, the people attached to the old spiritual forms; well, they seem now to have been touched by something.
When Amrita,5 seized with zeal, wanted to make him understand what we were doing here and what Sri Aurobindo had wanted, it almost erupted into an unpleasant situation. So after that, I decided to identify myself with him to see I had never done this, because normally I only do it when I am responsible for someone, in order to truly help someone, and Ive never felt any responsibility in regard to X. So I wanted to see his inner situation, what could and could not be done. That was the day you saw him coming down from our meditation in an ecstatic state, when he told you that all separation between him and me had dropped awayit was to be expected, I anticipated as much!
But when I did that, I saw what X wanted to do for me. As a matter of fact, I recalled that when we first met I had told him that everything was all right up to this point (Mother indicates the region above the head), but below that, in the outer being, I wanted to hasten the transformation, and things there were difficult to handle.
--
Later on, when Sri Aurobindo left his body, I said to myself, If only I knew what he had known, it would be easier! So when Swami and later X came, I thought, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity. I had written to Swami that I was working on transforming the cells of the body and that I had noticed the work was going faster with Xs influence. So it was understood that X would help when he came thats how things began, and this idea has remained with X. But I have raced on I dont wait. Ive raced on, Ive gone like wildfire. And now the situation is reversed. What I wanted to find out, I fo und out. I experienced what I wanted to experience, but he is still He is very kind, actually, he wants really to help me. So, when I identified with him the other day during our meditation, I realized that he wanted to give silence, control and perfect peace to the physical mind. My own trick, if you will, is to have as little relationship with the physical mind as possible, to go up above and stay therethis (Mother indicates her forehead), silent, motionless, turned upwards, while That (gesture above the head) sees, acts, knows, decidesall is done from there. Only there can you feel at ease.
Along the way, I once went down into this physical mind for awhile to try to set it right, to organize it a little (it was done rather quickly, I didnt stay there long). So when I went inside X, I saw It was rather curious, for its the opposite of the method we follow. In his material consciousness (physical and vital), he has trained himself to be impersonal, open, limitless, in communication with all the universal forces. In the physical mind, silence, immobility. But in the speculative mind, the one there at the very top of the head what an organization, phew! All the tradition in its most superb organization, but such a ri-gi-dity! And it had a pretty quality of light, a silver blueVERY pretty. Oh, it was very calm, wonderfully calm and quiet and still. But what a ceiling it had!the outer form resembled rigid cubes. Everything inside was beautiful, but that There was a very large cube right at the top, I recall, bordered by a purple line, which is a line of powerall this was quite luminous. It looked like a pyramid; the smaller cubes formed a kind of base, the lower part of which faded into something cloudy, and then this passed imperceptibly downwards to a more material realm, or in other words, the physical mind. The cube on top was the largest and most luminous, and the least yieldingeven inflexible, you could say. The others were somewhat less defined, and at the bottom it was very blurred. But up at the top!thats where I wanted to go, right to the top.
--
This lasted a good half hour before I could calm it down, make it quiet, quiet. And I saw that this came from the fact that he wanted to bring the Power down, to transmit the Power into the physical mind! But as soon as Im put in contact with the Power, you understand, it makes everything explode! (Mother laughs) It felt exactly like my head was going to explode!
I felt better that night because I was concentrated, but my head was still hurting a little. Then the following day I said to myself, or rather I told him inwardly, Whether you like it or not, I am bringing down whats up above; it is the only way I can feel comfortable! And I told you what happenedas soon as I sat down I was so surprised, for he didnt start doing what he had done the day before; I myself did the same thing, I participated, so to speak, in his will (so as to find out), but with the resolve to remain consciously in contact with the highest consciousness, as always, and to bring it down. And it came in a marvelous flood. He was quite happy, he did not protest! All the pain was gone, there was nothing left, it was perfect. Only towards the end of the meditation did he again want to start doing his little trick of enclosing my physical mind in this construction, but it didnt last I watched all this from above.
--
Especially at the beginning, Sri Aurobindo used to shatter to pieces all moral ideas (you know, as in the Aphorisms, for example). He shattered all those things, he shattered them, really shattered them to pieces. So theres a whole group of youngsters7 here who were brought up with this idea that we can do whatever we want, it doesnt matter in the least!that they need not bother about all those concepts of ordinary morality. Ive had a hard time making them understand that this morality can be abandoned only for a higher one So, one has to be careful not to give them the Power too soon.
Its an almost physical discipline. Moreover, I have seen that the japa has an organizing effect on the subconscient, on the inconscient, on matter, on the bodys cellsit takes time, but by persistently repeating it, in the long run it has an effect. It is the same principle as doing daily exercises on the piano, for example. You keep mechanically repeating them, and in the end your hands are filled with consciousness it fills the body with consciousness.
I have a hard time making X understand that I have work to do when Im with him. He doesnt understand that one can work.
Of course not! A disciplined work, which to us seems important, is to him basically an ignorance. What is true to such a person is a contemplative, ecstatic lifealong with a sentiment of compassion and charity, so that nonetheless you spend a bit of your time helping out the poor brutes! But the true thing is ecstatic contemplation. As for those who are advanced and yet still attach some importance to workits irrational!
The only way I can make him understand that I have work to do is to tell him, Mother asked me to do it; then he keeps quiet.
Yes, he doesnt dare say a thing He doesnt understand it very well. What funny ideas, eh! He must think I have funny ideas, but anyway In the end, he tells himself, Oh, its just because shes born in France that she is still carrying this burden!
Its quite funny.
--
I didnt speak of it to anyone, but it caused me some concern. And just the next day the machine broke down! When I was informed, immediately I thought It was then repaired, and again it broke downthree times. Then the following night, just before ten oclock I should mention that during the day I had thought, But why not attract these forces to our side, take them and satisfy them, give them some peace and joy and use them? I thought about it, concentrated a little, but then I didnt bother any further. At ten oclock that evening, they came upon mein a flood! They kept coming and coming. And I was busy with them the whole time. They were not ugly (not so luminous either! ), they were wholesome, straightforwardhonest forces. So I worked on them. This began exactly at 9:30, and for one hour I was busy working. After an hour, Id had enough: Listen, this is quite fine, youre very nice, but I cant spend all my time like this! We shall see what to do later for it absorbed my whole consciousness. They kept coming and coming (you understand what that means to a body?!). So at 10:30 I told them, Listen, my little ones, be quiet now, thats enough for today At 10:30, the machine broke down!
I fo und out, of course, because they log everything at the factory, so when they came to inform me of the breakdown the next morning, I asked them what time it had happenedexactly 10:30.
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of course, I much prefer being in my great currents of forcefrom a personal standpoint, such immensity of action is much more interesting. But these documentary things are also valuable. It is so tremendously different from the dreams and even the vi. signs you have when you enter certain representative realms of the mind (which is what I used to do). It is so different, it has another content, another life altogether: it carries its light, its understanding, its explanation within itselfyou look, and everything is explained.
It always gives me the feeling that I am shrinking a little, but its interesting. And its useful, for I am constantly moving about and doing things with people; it indicates to me what I have to say and do with each one. Its useful. But all the same, I miss the fullness and joy of the more impersonal Movement of forces.
--
This has protected me from all seeking for pleasure in life. It was a wonderful protection, because pleasure always seemed so futile to meyes, futile; for the sake of your personal satisfaction. Later, I even understood how foolish it is, for you can never be satisfiedthough when youre small you dont yet know that. I never liked it: But is it really useful, does it serve some purpose? And I still have this attitude in regard to my nights. I have this widening of the consciousness, this impersonalization, this wonderful joy of being above all that. But at the same time I also have, Im here in this body, on earth, to do something I mustnt forget it. And this is what I have to do. But probably Im wrong!
Im waiting for the Lord to tell me clearly.
0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And its true, those things I saw this morning which seemed so above all stupid and ugly (Ive never had a sense of morality at any time in my life, thank God! But stupid and ugly things have always seemed Ive always done my best to distance myself from them, even when I was very small). And now I see that these things which seem not only ridiculous but, well, almost shameful were considered, as I recall, remarkably noble earlier on and they represented an exceptionally lofty attitude in life the very same things. So then I understood that its quite simply a question of proportion.
And thats how the world isthings which now seem totally unacceptable to us, things we CANNOT tolerate, were quite all right in the past.
The day before yesterday, I spent the whole night looking on. I had read the passage by Sri Aurobindo in The Synthesis on supramental time (wherein past, present and future coexist in a global consciousness). While youre in it, its marvelous! You understand things perfectly. But when youre not in it Above all, theres this problem of how to keep the force of ones aspiration, the power of progress, this power which seems so inevitableso inevitable if existence (lets simply take terrestrial existence) is to mean anything and its presence to be justified. (This ascending movement towards a progressive better that will be eternally better)How is this to be kept when you have the total vision this vision in which everything coexists. At that moment, the other becomes something like a game, an amusement, if you will. (Not everyone finds it amusing!) And when you contain all that, why allow yourself the pleasure of succession? Is this pleasure of succession, of seeing things one after the other, equal to this intensity of the will for progress? Words are foolish!
The effort to see and to understand this gripped me all night. And when I woke up this morning, I thanked the Lord; I said to Him, Obviously, if You were to keep me totally in that consciousness, I could no longer I could no longer do my work! How could I do my work? For I can only say something to people when I feel it or see it, when I see that its what must be said, but if I am simultaneously in a consciousness in which Im aware of everything that has led to that situation, everything that is going to happen, everything Im going to say, everything the others going to feel then how could I do it!
There are still many h undreds of years to go before it becomes entirely what Sri Aurobindo describes theres no hurry!
--
I told this to Xor rather had someone tell himto see his reaction. And I realized that he did not understand in the least! Once Amrita asked him how he himself SAW and KNEW things. So he tried to explain; he told Amrita that he had to pull his consciousness upwards by a gradual effort, to go beyond the heart, beyond the throat center to pull it right up here (the top of the head), and once there, youre divine, you know! All of a sudden, I understood that when I said it was there, above the head, it must have seemed absolutely impossible to him! For him, its the crown of the head1 (what they call the thousand-petalled lotus), just at the top of the head, whereas in my experience it opens, it rises and you go above, and then you settle there For a number of years it even changed my [physical] visionit was as if I were looking at things from above. It returns from time to time, too, as if suddenly I were seeing from above instead of from here, at eye level.
But the faculty of forming thoughts is now there, up above; its no longer here (Mother points to her forehead). And thats contrary to their teachings.
--
Even now, when something or other is not all right, I have only to reproduce the thing with the same type of concentration as at the beginning for, when I say the japa, the so und and the words together the way the words are understood, the feel of the wordscreate a certain totality. I have to reproduce that. And the way its repeated is evolving all the time. The words are the same, however, the original so und is the same, but its all constantly evolving towards a more comprehensive realization and a more and more complete STATE. So when I want to obtain a certain result, I reproduce a certain type of this state. For example, if something in the body is not functioning right (it cant really be called an illness, but when somethings out of order), or if I wish to do some specific work on a specific person for a specific reason, then I go back to a certain state of repetition of my mantra, which acts directly on the bodys cells. And then the same phenomenon is reproducedexactly the same extraordinary vibration which I recognized when the supramental world descended. It comes in and vibrates like a pulsation in the cells.
But as I told you, now my japa is different. It is as if I were taking the whole world to lift it up; no longer is it a concentration on the body, but rather a taking of the whole world the entire world sometimes in its details, sometimes as a whole, but constantly, constantlyto establish the Contact (with the supramental world).
--
So I understand more and more. Everythingthis whole organization, this whole aggregate, all these cells and nerves and sensorsare all meant uniquely for the work, they have no other purpose than the work; every foolish act that is done is for the work; every stupidity that is thought is for the work; you are made the way you are because only in that way can you do the work and its none of your business to seek to be somewhere else. Thats my conclusion. Very well, as You wish, may Your will be done!No, not be done; it IS done. As You wish, exactly as You wish!
And in the end, its quite fun.
--
In these Questions and Answers, for example, you had wanted to edit out the words Sweet Mother since people from the West might not understand. But then, we have just now received a letter from someone who suddenly had a very beautiful experience when he came across those words, Sweet Mother. He saw, he suddenly felt this maternal presence of love and compassion watching over the world. The moment had come and, precisely, it did its work. Its very interesting.
Mentally we say, Oh, that cant go. And even I am often inclined to say, Dont publish this, dont speak of something or other. Then I realize how silly it is! There is something that uses everything. Even what may seem useless to usor perhaps worse than useless, harmfulmight be just the thing to give someone the right shock.
0 1960-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And I couldnt even imagine he was gone once he had gone, just there, in front of meit seemed so far away And then afterwards, when he came out of his body and entered into mine, I understood it all Its fantastic.
Fantastic.
--
Now I understand it.
Its tre-men-dous.
--
We can put it this way: the world was not ready. But to tell you the truth, it was the totality of things aro und him that was not ready. So when he SAW this (I only understood this afterwards), he saw that it would go much faster if he were not there.
And he was ABSOLUTELY right, it was true.
Once I saw that, I accepted. When I saw it, when he made me understand, I accepted; otherwise
There was a difficult period.
--
And later (I dont knowit didnt take twelve days; I said that on December 9, and on the 12th it was all decidedseen, clear and understood), on the 12th, I saw people, I saw a few people. However, we began all the activities again only after 12 days from December 5. But it was decided on the 12th.
Everything was left hanging until the moment he made me understand the COMPLETE thing, in its entirety But thats for later on.
He himself will tell you, its truelater on.
--- Grep of noun und
afghan hound
alicyclic compound
aliphatic compound
american foxhound
anchorage ground
anionic compound
anti-tnf compound
apothecaries' pound
aromatic compound
background
basset hound
battleground
bed-ground
bed ground
bedground
binary compound
black-and-tan coonhound
black horehound
blighty wound
bloodhound
boarhound
bottom round
bound
breeding ground
british pound
burial ground
burial mound
burying ground
campground
camping ground
cannibal mound
chelate compound
chemical compound
closed-end fund
common ground
common horehound
compound
coonhound
coordination compound
cosmic microwave background
cummerbund
cypriot pound
dachshund
daily round
deerhound
dog pound
dortmund
egyptian pound
elkhound
endowment fund
english foxhound
exchange traded fund
explosive compound
ezra loomis pound
ezra pound
fairground
fetid horehound
flesh wound
florida smoothhound
foot-pound
foreground
found
foxhound
fund
gazelle hound
gerund
gill-over-the-ground
go-around
grave mound
greyhound
ground
half pound
hedge fund
hedgefund
hellhound
heterocyclic compound
high ground
home ground
homebound
horehound
hound
hunting ground
ibizan hound
index fund
inorganic compound
international monetary fund
iodocompound
irish pound
irish wolfhound
italian greyhound
lebanese pound
long island sound
lost-and-found
lower bound
lund
mahound
maund
merry-go-round
monetary fund
mound
mutual fund
norwegian elkhound
open-end fund
organic compound
osmund
otter hound
otterhound
paper round
parade ground
paul ludwig von beneckendorff und von hindenburg
pension fund
picnic ground
piece of ground
pitcher's mound
playground
pleasure ground
plosive speech sound
plot of ground
plott hound
pound
proving ground
puget sound
quarter pound
quarter round
quaternary ammonium compound
queen charlotte sound
raw wound
rebound
refund
reserve fund
retirement fund
revolving fund
round
royal osmund
russian wolfhound
sausage hound
scottish deerhound
screen background
sinking fund
sleeping around
sleuthhound
slush fund
smoothhound
solid ground
sound
spackling compound
speech sound
staghound
stamping ground
stinking horehound
sturm und drang
sudanese pound
superannuation fund
superfund
surround
syrian pound
teeing ground
testing ground
theater in the round
top round
troy pound
trust fund
turn around
turnaround
turnround
ultrasound
undecagon
undecylenic acid
undependability
undependableness
underachievement
underachiever
underbelly
underbodice
underbody
underboss
underbrush
undercarriage
undercharge
underclass
underclassman
underclothes
underclothing
undercoat
undercover agent
undercover operation
undercover work
undercurrent
undercut
underdevelopment
underdog
underdrawers
underestimate
underestimation
underevaluation
underexposure
underfelt
underframe
underfur
undergarment
undergrad
undergraduate
underground
underground press
underground railroad
underground railway
undergrowth
underlay
underlayment
underline
underling
underlip
undernourishment
underpants
underpart
underpass
underpayment
underperformer
underproduction
underrating
underreckoning
underscore
underseal
undersecretary
underseller
undershirt
undershrub
underside
underskirt
undersoil
understandability
understanding
understatement
understructure
understudy
undersurface
undertaker
undertaking
undertide
undertone
undertow
undervaluation
underwater archaeology
underwater archeology
underwater diver
underwear
underwing
underwood
underworld
underwriter
undescended testicle
undescended testis
undesirability
undesirable
undies
undine
undiscipline
undivided interest
undivided right
undoer
undoing
undress
undset
undulant fever
undulation
undulatory theory
undutifulness
united nations children's fund
united nations international children's emergency fund
upper bound
voiced sound
volund
vowel sound
walker foxhound
walker hound
water horehound
whip-round
white horehound
wolfhound
wound
wraparound