--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

--- QUOTES [8 / 8 - 302 / 302] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

KEYS (10k)

   6 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   1 The Mother
   1 Aleister Crowley

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   27 Sri Ramana Maharshi

   7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   6 Deepak Chopra

   5 Clarice Lispector

   4 Soren Kierkegaard

   4 Richard Rohr

   4 Neil Gaiman

   4 Haruki Murakami

   3 S ren Kierkegaard

   3 Sathya Sai Baba

   3 Douglas Adams

   3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer

   3 Christopher Moore

   2 Wayne W Dyer

   2 Thich Nhat Hanh

   2 Steven Pressfield

   2 Sean Covey

   2 Richard Siken

   2 Rajneesh

   2 Rachel Jankovic

   2 Nicholas Sparks

   2 Michael Grant

   2 Matt Haig

   2 Madeleine L Engle

   2 Louis C K

   2 Jonathan Sacks

   2 John Piper

   2 Isaac Bashevis Singer

   2 Henry Miller

   2 Henri J M Nouwen

   2 Hanya Yanagihara

   2 G Willow Wilson

   2 Frederick Lenz

   2 Eckhart Tolle

   2 Cynthia Hand

   2 Cassandra Clare

   2 Carson McCullers

   2 Carl Sandburg

   2 Cal Newport

   2 Ali Smith

   2 Adyashanti

   2 Aasif Mandvi

1:There are two ways: ask yourself 'Who am I?' or submit. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

2:Who am I? The Divine under many disguises. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II "The Divine" and "Man",

3:Ask: 'Who am I?' until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

4:... happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep, when there is no mind. To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-Enquiry, Who am I? is the chief means. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

5:Who am I?' is not a mantra. It means that you must find out where in you the 'I-thought' arises, which is the source of all other thoughts. But if you find that vichara marga (path of enquiry) is too hard for you, you go on repeating 'I-I' and that will lead you to the same goal. There is no harm in using 'I' as a mantra. It is the first name of God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Gems ,

6:As long as there are impressions of objects in the mind, so long the inquiry "Who am I?" Is required. As thoughts arise they should be destroyed then and there in the very place of their origin, through inquiry. If one resorts to contemplation of the Self unintermittently, until the Self is gained, that alone would do. As long as their enemies within the fortress, they will continue to sally forth; if they are destroyed as they emerge, the fortress will fall into our hands. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

7:In your early struggles you may have found it difficult to conquer sleep; and you may have wandered so far from the object of your meditations without noticing it, that the meditation has really been broken; but much later on, when you feel that you are "getting quite good," you will be shocked to find a complete oblivion of yourself and your surroundings. You will say: "Good heavens! I must have been to sleep!" or else "What on earth was I meditating upon?" or even "What was I doing?" "Where am I?" "Who am I?" or a mere wordless bewilderment may daze you. This may alarm you, and your alarm will not be lessened when you come to full consciousness, and reflect that you have actually forgotten who you are and what you are doing! This is only one of many adventures that may come to you; but it is one of the most typical. By this time your hours of meditation will fill most of the day, and you will probably be constantly having presentiments that something is about to happen. You may also be terrified with the idea that your brain may be giving way; but you will have learnt the real symptoms of mental fatigue, and you will be careful to avoid them. They must be very carefully distinguished from idleness! ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA ,

8:34D: What are the eight limbs of knowledge (jnana ashtanga)?M: The eight limbs are those which have been already mentioned, viz., yama, niyama etc., but differently defined:(1) Yama: This is controlling the aggregate of sense-organs, realizing the defects that are present in the world consisting of the body, etc.(2) Niyama: This is maintaining a stream of mental modes that relate to the Self and rejecting the contrary modes. In other words, it means love that arises uninterruptedly for the Supreme Self.(3) Asana: That with the help of which constant meditation on Brahman is made possible with ease is asana.(4) Pranayama: Rechaka (exhalation) is removing the two unreal aspects of name and form from the objects constituting the world, the body etc., puraka (inhalation) is grasping the three real aspects, existence, consciousness and bliss, which are constant in those objects, and kumbhaka is retaining those aspects thus grasped.(5) Pratyahara: This is preventing name and form which have been removed from re-entering the mind.(6) Dharana: This is making the mind stay in the Heart, without straying outward, and realizing that one is the Self itself which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.(7) Dhyana: This is meditation of the form 'I am only pure consciousness'. That is, after leaving aside the body which consists of five sheaths, one enquires 'Who am I?', and as a result of that, one stays as 'I' which shines as the Self.(8) Samadhi: When the 'I-manifestation' also ceases, there is (subtle) direct experience. This is samadhi.For pranayama, etc., detailed here, the disciplines such as asana, etc., mentioned in connection with yoga are not necessary.The limbs of knowledge may be practised at all places and at all times. Of yoga and knowledge, one may follow whichever is pleasing to one, or both, according to circumstances. The great teachers say that forgetfulness is the root of all evil, and is death for those who seek release,10 so one should rest the mind in one's Self and should never forget the Self: this is the aim. If the mind is controlled, all else can be controlled. The distinction between yoga with eight limbs and knowledge with eight limbs has been set forth elaborately in the sacred texts; so only the substance of this teaching has been given here. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-Enquiry 34,

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Who am I? I’m the Breeze, bitch! ~ Michael Grant

2:"Who am I?" The Self alone. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

3:By the inquiry 'Who am I?'. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

4:Who am I? this or the other? ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

5:And without guilt and dread, who am I? ~ Christopher Moore

6:Who am I? The great inquiry indeed. ~ Paramhansa Yogananda

7:The letters dance before my eyes. Who am I? ~ Patrick Modiano

8:I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? ~ Haruki Murakami

9:Of all the japas, 'Who am I?' is the best. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

10:We have to constantly ask ourselves: "Who am I?" ~ Frederick Lenz

11:Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end? ~ Nicholas Sparks

12:And who am I? The wrong person; I can tell you that. ~ Philip K Dick

13:Who am I? Let's put it this way: who has the best tunes? ~ Salman Rushdie

14:There are two ways: ask yourself 'Who am I?' or submit. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

15:If who I am is what I have and what I have is lost, then who am I? ~ Sean Covey

16:Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me? ~ Chuck Klosterman

17:Who am I?" My first spoken words. "No one," she said. "Nosoul. ~ Jodi Meadows

18:Who am I supposed to be again? Just be yourself. But who am I? ~ Candace Bushnell

19:Who am I? What will I be? Why am I here? Where am I going? ~ Constantin Stanislavski

20:We can't continue to be like this. Who am I? Your fiancée or your concubine? ~ Ha Jin

21:Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? ~ Soren Kierkegaard

22:The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ turns the mind inward and makes it calm. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

23:Who is that girl in the mirror? Who am I? Why is this happening to me? ~ Shalini Boland

24:It is only through the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ that the mind subsides. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

25:Often the question of, "Who am I?" should be answered with, "Whose am I? ~ Matt Chandler

26:You have to figure out who am I? What do I want to do? What do I want to say? ~ Ryan Eggold

27:The means to abide in Self is to begin enquiring inwardly, "Who am I?" ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

28:The means to abide in Self is to begin inquiring inwardly, "Who am I?" ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

29:Who am I? is the only question worth asking and the only one never answered. ~ Deepak Chopra

30:...you have to ask yourself two questions: Who am I? And how may I become myself? ~ Paul Beatty

31:Q.= WHO AM I? WHO ARE YOU? U.G = You are what you are doing RIGHT NOW! ~ U G Krishnamurti

32:If one inquires, "Who am I?", one will see that there is no such thing as the "I." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

33:The only truth is that I live. Sincerely, I live. Who am I? Well, that's a bit much. ~ Clarice Lispector

34:Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? ~ Soren Kierkegaard

35:Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear. ~ Neal Shusterman

36:The purpose of life is to find out 'Who am I?', 'Why am I here?' and 'Where am I going?' ~ George Harrison

37:To realize happiness, the enquiry, 'Who am I?' in quest of the Self is the best means. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

38:If you enquire ‘Who am I?’ the mind gets introverted and the rising thought also subsides. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

39:Who am I?    The Divine under many disguises.    ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, "The Divine" and "Man",

40:For obtaining such knowledge the enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ in quest of the Self is the best means. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

41:"Before you ask any other question, first ask the most fundamental question of your life: Who am I?" ~ Eckhart Tolle

42:Is it not a wonder of wonders? The quest “Who am I?” is the axe with which to cut off the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

43:Who am I? Whence am I? On finding the source, you realise the state of Absolute Consciousness. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

44:And who am I? That's one secret I'll never tell...You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl ~ Cecily von Ziegesar

45:The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts. Then, there will arise Self-realization. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

46:By directly inquiring, "Who AM I?" ... 'I' reveals itself as the Perfect Being, the Absolute Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

47:The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I? ~ Adyashanti

48:Who am I? After negating all as 'not this', 'not this', that Awareness which alone remains - that I am. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

49:I am a nightmare to most, and a dream for the broken; who am I?’ and the answer to that is death.” “Correct. ~ Roshani Chokshi

50:I doubt my doubt, doubt itself is unsure I love, but who is it for whom I sigh? Not Muslim, yet not heathen; who am I? ~

51:'And how, who am I? I will remember, if I can! I'm determined to do it!' But being determined didn't help much. ~ Lewis Carroll

52:Do you know the three great spiritual questions?" he asked..."Who am I?...Why am I here?...And how shall I live? ~ Dani Shapiro

53:Who am I?" She whispered. Alex opened his mouth as if to correct her, but then he said, "You are my love. ~ Deirdre Riordan Hall

54:The might of God's grace and the quest of the Self in the form of 'Who am I?' lead the seeker to the Heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

55:Who am I? If this once I were to rely on a proverb, then perhaps everything would amount to knowing whom I 'haunt.' ~ Andre Breton

56:Even though the mind wanders, involved in external matters, one should remember: The body is not I. Who am I? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

57:When you get your “Who am I?” question right, all the “What should I do?” questions tend to take care of themselves. ~ Richard Rohr

58:If by the enquiry, 'Who am I?' you understand the seer, all problems about the seen will be completely solved. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

59:"Who am I?" is not really a question because it has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. ~ Rajneesh

60:I think that the second we find ourselves asking 'who am I?' is the second we become the perfect person for the job. ~ Katie Ganshert

61:To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-enquiry, 'Who am I?' is the chief means. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

62:So long as subtle tendencies continue to inhere in the mind, it is necessary to carry on the enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

63:When you get your,'Who am I?', question right, all of your,'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves ~ Richard Rohr

64:About Pranayama ~ “Na aham” I am not this = out-breathing. “Koham” Who am I? = in-breathing. “Soham” I am He [She] = Retention of breath

65:In India and other places, there are people who fool themsleves. They walk around all day saying, "Who am I? Who am I?" ~ Frederick Lenz

66:Ask: “Who am I?” until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

67:The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is the principal means to the removal of all misery and the attainment of the supreme bliss. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

68:Questions about the existence of evil in the world will all cease when you enquire 'Who am I?' and find out the seer. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

69:Ask: 'Who am I?' until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith.    ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

70:want the lies to end. I pull my gun from my purse and point it at him. “Who are you to me, Kayden? Who am I?” from Denial ~ Lisa Renee Jones

71:Who am I?” I ask softly, heart pleading. “Who am I to you?” She turns to face me… “You’re Lachlan McGregor. And you’re mine. ~ Karina Halle

72:Who are you?’ Gaia gasped. The girl froze for a moment. Looked at her. Smiled and said, ‘Who am I? I’m the Breeze, bitch! ~ Michael Grant

73:My God, my God, whose performance am I watching? How many people am I? Who am I? What is this space between myself and myself? ~ Fernando Pessoa

74:Richard opened his hand, and the key stared up at him from his palm. "By my crooked teeth," asked Richard, remembering, "who am I? ~ Neil Gaiman

75:. . . and that revelation murdered all that I once did know. Where once I asked of the God, 'Who are you?' now I ask, 'Who am I? ~ R Scott Bakker

76:You are prime matter, who am I? The looking-glass in your fingers. I become all that you display - The mirror to prove you exist. ~ Rumi

77:The question 'Who am I?' is not really meant to get an answer, the question 'Who am I?' is meant to dissolve the questioner. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

78:And who am i? Do you know who i am?" She smiled up at him, showing him her pointed teeth. "Of course i do. You're Damon and I love you. ~ L J Smith

79:In an ideal world everyone would ask “Who am I?” every day, and since “I” is constantly shifting, each new day would bring a new answer. ~ Deepak Chopra

80:So you contemplate this, and you realize that never in your life have you asked yourself that question and really meant it. Who am I? ~ Michael A Singer

81:Perhaps the essence of our evolution as human beings is to keep answering, on deeper and deeper levels, the basic question: Who am I? ~ Nathaniel Branden

82:Who am I? I am that. Nothing can change that. Words, intellect and concepts can never reach that. It is the perfect silence without vibration. ~ Amit Ray

83:Religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? ~ Jonathan Sacks

84:These are not easy questions. Who am I? Why am I here? They're not easy because the human being isn't wired to function as an individual. ~ Steven Pressfield

85:Francis’s all-night prayer, “Who are you, O God, and who am I?” is probably a perfect prayer, because it is the most honest prayer we can offer. ~ Richard Rohr

86:I stick my finger into existence.. it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? What is this thing called the world? What does this word mean? ~ Soren Kierkegaard

87:WHO AM I?2 Who am I? They often tell me I stepped from my cell’s confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a Squire from his country house. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

88:Find your true self. The old question, asked in many ages, "Who am I?" Once you figure out who am I, and you know who am I, then you have that knowledge of self. ~ RZA

89:I turn my head, and you may go where you want. I turn it again, you will stay till you rot. I have no face, but I live or die By my crooked teeth—who am I? ~ Neil Gaiman

90:The ancient human question 'Who am I?' leads inevitably to the equally important question 'Whose am I?' - for there is no self outside of relationship. ~ Parker J Palmer

91:Within our whole universe the story only has the authority to answer that cry of heart of its characters, that one cry of heart of each of them: "Who am I?" ~ Isak Dinesen

92:Who am I? is then answered with, I am an infinite being who originated not from my parents, but from a Source that is itself birthless, deathless, and changeless. ~ Wayne W Dyer

93:turn my head, and you may go where you want.     I turn it again, you will stay till you rot.     I have no face, but I live or die     by my crooked teeth—who am I? ~ Neil Gaiman

94:Lots of people go through life not having the slightest idea what names to put in the blanks on their “Who Am I?” work sheets, and they aren’t bothered in the least by it. ~ Meg Cabot

95:Part of my identity for as long as I can remember is being a baseball player. If I'm not that anymore, then who am I?" "Who do you want to be?" "Harry Potter ~ J Sterling

96:He’s a great mysterious Bodhisattva I think maybe a reincarnation of Asagna the great Mahayana scholar of the old centuries.” “And who am I?” “I dunno, maybe you’re Goat. ~ Jack Kerouac

97:I begin to feel I have no personality. I’m a server of food and a putter-on of pants and a bedmaker, somebody who can be called on when you want something. But who am I? ~ Betty Friedan

98:You can't shape me anymore. I am the uncontrolled element, the random act. I am forward movement in time. You think you can see me? Then tell me, who am I? You don't know. ~ Janet Fitch

99:Humans have always wondered the big questions, "Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?" It's part of human nature. It's perhaps the underpinnings of religion. ~ Sylvia Earle

100:When all is stripped away, who am I? Even if our abilities are diminished or removed from us, there are deeper gifts we can give. We can love others with our very selves. ~ Vesper Stamper

101:It's hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I? ~ Christopher Moore

102:It’s hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I? ~ Christopher Moore

103:The question 'Who am I?' is not an idle one. How you answer the question will determine how you live the rest of your life. It will determine the quality of your life. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

104:And now?" came my dad's voice. "Now who am I?" "The man who chose his girlfriend over his family." I turned and looked at my father. "Someone whose words I don't believe. ~ Jenny B Jones

105:When girls are asking themselves 'Who am I?' for the first time and they hear all this bad PR about math, they think, 'Well, whoever I am, I'm not somebody who likes math.' ~ Danica McKellar

106:When I was 10 I used to walk around shopping centres and go, "Oh, they've recognised me!" And I would think, "hold on, who am I? I'm nobody famous yet!" - Darren on 60 Minutes ~ Darren Hayes

107:How do we get out of our small mind? When we enquire into the core of our existence. What is life? Who am I? This spirit of self-inquiry can awaken something inside you. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

108:That lost-self cry of “Who am I?” is the cry of a person who suddenly realizes that the philosophy he has been following around in the grocery store isn’t his mother after all. ~ Rachel Jankovic

109:We want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question. ~ Paulo Coelho

110:When you inquire 'Who am I?' if you are honest, you'll notice that it takes you right back to silence instantly. The brain doesn't have an answer, so all of a sudden there is silence. ~ Adyashanti

111:That’s not who you are,” Blythe said. “Who am I?” “My little wolf.” She traced my jaw, the ridge of my knuckles. “All teeth and claws. Cunning, and fierce, and insatiable. ~ Leah Raeder

112:Every day, take some time to meditate and cultivate inner quiet. Then ask yourself what I call the "soul questions": Who am I? What do I want? What is the purpose and meaning of my life? ~ Deepak Chopra

113:Right after 'Raymond' I had a world-is-my-oyster attitude, but I found out I don't like oysters. I had this existential emptiness.'What is my purpose? Who am I?' I had a big identity crisis. ~ Ray Romano

114:The romantic wants to create a world where he or she will possess a fully integrated, unconflicted identity—where the answers to the questions Who am I? and What are we? are exactly the same. ~ Mark Lilla

115:George Foreman. A miracle. A mystery to myself. Who am I? The mirror says back. The George you was always meant to be. Wasn't always like that. Used to look in the mirror and cried a river. ~ George Foreman

116:It was heartbreaking . . . I think it was disappointing because I had such an identity in being 'Mrs. Parker', and being a wife, and so when that's taken away from you, you [think], 'Who am I? ~ Eva Longoria

117:Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?-are not questions with an answer but questions that open us up to new questions which lead us deeper into the unshakeable mystery of existence. ~ Henri Nouwen

118:... happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep, when there is no mind. To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-Enquiry, Who am I? is the chief means.    ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

119:Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. ~ Richard Siken

120:The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals. Each asks the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? ~ Steven Pressfield

121:If the Loki in 'Thor' was about a spiritual confusion - 'Who am I? How do I belong in this world?' - the Loki in 'Avengers' is, 'I know exactly who I am, and I'm going to make this world belong to me.' ~ Tom Hiddleston

122:The primary needs can be filled without language. We can eat, sleep, make love, build a house, bear children, without language. But we cannot ask questions. We cannot ask, 'Who am I? Who are you? Why? ~ Madeleine L Engle

123:Who am I? It seems so natural to think thoughts that contain the word I. But each of my thoughts are hollow and weightless, because the word “I” is attached to no one. No name, no face. I am… nothing. ~ Colleen Hoover

124:I was dealing with a lot of spiritual questions like "Who am I?" "What is God" "What is the meaning of life?" All of these questions that I think we can either face head on or choose to ignore, it's up to us. ~ John McLaughlin

125:There comes a moment when the things one has written, even a traveler's memories, stand up and demand a justification. They require an explanation. They query, 'Who am I? What is my name? Why am I here? ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

126:I think it's pretty clear that the internet as a whole has not had a strong notion of identity. And identity means, 'Who am I?' Fundamentally, what Facebook has done has built a way to figure out who people are... ~ Eric Schmidt

127:There are essentially two questions in life - a spiritual question and a material question. The spiritual question is 'Who am I?' The material question is 'What am I to do with my life?' One leads to the other. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

128:What is your name?” I asked, voice hoarse. “Alexandria,” she repeated in a soft voice I’d never heard Alex use in real life. “And who am I?” “Aiden.” She smiled, and I flinched. “You are my Master. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout

129:Who am I? It seems like an easy question. And then I realize... Maybe what I said to those cops wasn't a joke. Maybe the name belongs to whoever has the courage to fight. And so I tell them. I tell them who I am. ~ G Willow Wilson

130:I feel like your generation is like, "We deserve a place at this table, we have a right to be here," whereas when I was in my 20s I was like, "Who am I?" It's exciting because I do see a lot of young women feeling empowered. ~ Miriam Shor

131:Ah . . . ! What’s happening? it thought. Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now . . . oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? ~ Douglas Adams

132:who am i? i don't really know. everybody calls me wise, and i have tried to learn very much about the world, but i don't feel very wise. and i know that owls are supposed to be wise. so then i don't feel owly enough to be an owl. ~ Jomny Sun

133:I work more now because at this time of my life I am not disturbed from my aim by outside pressures such as family, passionate relationships, dealing with 'who am I?' - those complications when one is searching for one's self. ~ Jeanne Moreau

134:You have to ask yourself the question 'Who am I?' This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem and you will solve all other problems. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

135:Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

136:Sometimes I wake up at night in a panic. Wondering: What will my life be like? And sometimes I even wonder: Who am I? What am I doing here, on this planet, in this city, in this house? And it gives me the shivers, makes me panic. ~ Robert Cormier

137:You should be constantly asking yourself: What do I want to say next? What do I believe in? Who am I? What is my image? To be a successful photographer, you have to have a unique point of view otherwise you'll get lost in the mix. ~ Mario Sorrenti

138:I want to know the age. The sex. Most of all, the fingerprints. I'd like to identify who it is. After he had agreed, and I had left the office, walking to calm myself, I thought: And who am I? Please tell me who I am and what I'm doing. ~ Paul Theroux

139:Question yourself every day. Ask yourself: Who am I? What have I learned? What have I created? What forward progress have I made? Who have I helped? What am I doing to improve myself—today? To get better, faster, stronger, healthier, smarter? ~ Jocko Willink

140:We all make rules for ourselves. It's these rules that help define who we are. So when we break those rules, we risk losing ourselves and becoming something unknown. Who is Deb now? Who am I? Is this a new beginning? Or the beginning of the end? ~ Jeff Lindsay

141:You do find a lot of your time in the West kind of searching for your place in the world - your voice, your identity, like, who am I? Like, what is my reason for being here, you know? And in that same way who am I to be partnered with, you know? ~ Aasif Mandvi

142:I don’t love or hate humans. I respect them. They shape themselves, in a way that we angels do not. They tell lies and sleep around and curse, and they try to define themselves so valiantly. Who am I? they keep asking. Why am I here? ~ Cynthia Hand

143:Some students are in a hurry to begin "real" pranayama. They go right to the later stages without first laying a quality foundation, and their practice often suffers. First find out what is. This is also part of the answer to the question Who am I? ~ Richard Rosen

144:There are some questions that we all ask ourselves in different ways: Who am I? Who is God? What am I here for? What matters most? What matters least? What are my unique talents and abilities? What will my contribution be? What happens when we die? ~ Matthew Kelly

145:You want him to watch me hurt you?” “Oh, oui” “So he can see what he’s missing?” “No.” Kingsley shook his head. “So he can see who you really are.” “And who am I?” she asked… “That’s for me to know, and for you to beat out of me. ~ Tiffany Reisz

146:Who am I? But it was like trying to identify one particular cell that coursed through the torpid veins of my body. Maybe I was just this blackness and bewilderment and pain, but that seemed less like a suitable answer than something I'd read somewhere. ~ Ralph Ellison

147:Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him. ~ S ren Kierkegaard

148:Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? These are questions to which the answer is prescriptive not descriptive, substantive not procedural. The result is that the twenty-first century has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning. ~ Jonathan Sacks

149:You are asking yourself, as all of us must: 'Who am I?' . . . 'Where am I?' . . . 'Whence do I go?' The process of enlightenment is usually slow. But, in the end, our seeking always brings a finding. These great mysteries are, after all, enshrined in complete simplicity. ~ Bill W

150:What is there? I know first of all that I am. But who am I? All I know of myself is that I suffer. And if I suffer it is because at the origin of myself there is mutilation, separation. I am separated. What I am separated from -- I cannot name it. But I am separated. ~ Arthur Adamov

151:Tucker: I'm glad it happened. because then I got to know who you really are. Clara: Oh yeah? Who am I? Tucker: A really, really spiritual, spoiled California chick. Avery: Shut up. Tucker: It's cool though. My girlfriend is an angel. ~ Cynthia Hand

152:Often she would lock herself in her room and sitting before the mirror, apply the makeup of John Barrymore, Barrymore of The Sea Beast or of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Seeing these gruesome images in the mirror she would being to rave. "Who am I?" she would say. "What am I? ~ Henry Miller

153:The words had acted like a charm. They'd released it all, in seconds. They'd made everything happening stand just far enough away. &emsp It was nothing less than magic. &emsp Who needs a passport? &emsp Who am I? Where am I? What am I? &emsp I'm reading. ~ Ali Smith

154:Twain broke with the tradition of asking “Who Am I?” and its species-wide variant “Who Is Man?” on the grounds that a “who-question” is a leading question. It predisposes us to expect the answer to be a sentient being, not unlike ourselves, “whom” we’re trying to characterize. ~ Robert W Fuller

155:Who am I? What do I believe? Never lose sight of what I believe in. Never, no matter what happens. What one person does affects all of us. We're all bound together. We're all threads in a single garment of destiny. I make my destiny myself. By the choices I make. ~ Moira Young

156:Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which come back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are. And who am I? ~ Alexander McCall Smith

157:You like Superman?” I shrugged, “He lacks the boyish charm of Spiderman, but he’s alright.” “I’m like Superman.” I rolled my eyes. “This should be good. And who am I? Louis Lane?” A solemn shake of his head, and then his hands were tangling in my hair. “You’re kryptonite. ~ Adrianne Brooks

158:It seems to me that Canadian sensibility has been profoundly disturbed, not so much by our famous problem of identity, important as that is, as by a series of paradoxes in what confronts that identity. It is less perplexed by the question "Who am I?" than by some such riddle as "Where is here? ~ Northrop Frye

159:The rabbi thought he saw an expression of perplexity in the golem's eyes. It seemed to the rabbi that his eyes were asking, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the secret of my being? Rabbi Leib often saw the same bewilderment in the eyes of newborn children and even in the eyes of animals. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

160:The Rabbi thought he saw an expression of perplexity in the golem's eyes. It seemed to the Rabbi that his eyes were asking, 'Who am I? Why am I here? What is the secret of my being? Rabbi Leib often saw the same bewilderment in the eyes of newborn children and even in the eyes of animals. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

161:Things can be really empty in this world, and I don't just mean the music world. It can become a very meaningless place if you don't really understand: Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? To feel fulfillment and have a deeper level of understanding, personally, that is the most important thing. ~ Alicia Keys

162:Open the GIFTS actually came out of this quest. I ended up going into a pretty deep depression that people don't know about, and now I'm talking about it. I was too focused on, If I'm not working, who am I? Why am I not doing that thing that I want to do the most? Why am I not successful in this moment? ~ Kim Coles

163:Enquire: 'Who am I?' and you will find the answer. Look at a tree: from one seed arises a huge tree; from it comes numerous seeds, each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree. So, it is the same Atman everywhere. ~ Anandamayi Ma

164:It would not be the first time that Jove and Stella had covered the traces of where I began and where they ended. I liked the playfulness of the lovers' argument: who are you and who am I? Which of us is which? Liked it less when the erotic twinhood developed into forged letters and faked signatures. ~ Jeanette Winterson

165:...: we live blindly. We repeat the same mistakes by rote until an emotional punch to the gut brings us up short. ...Sometimes it requires intense pain before we can take a good hard look at ourselves, before we ask the important questions. ... Who am I? What is important? What do I believe? What do I want? ~ Joan Medlicott

166:Riddle me this - she is my daughter but I am not her father: who am I? I am a step parent. Ah, but I don't really believe in the term step-parent. I don't think the role exists. Not really. For either in the end you are either a child's parent or you are not. And blood does not have a lot do to with it. ~ Tony Parsons

167:We’re here with a special offer for you, Mr. Steele. A once-in-a-lifetime type of opportunity. (Joe) Oh, wait, I’ve seen this movie. I do a job for you, and you let me go. So who am I? I can’t be Eddie Murphy, wrong ethnicity. I’m not bald, so I can’t be Vin Diesel. So where does that leave me? (Steele) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

168:My identity was a big issue when I was a teenager, and I had a lot of questions, like: 'Who am I?' 'Who do I belong to?' But when I was still quite young, I decided that belonging is a tough process in life, and I'd better say I belonged to myself and the world rather than belonging to one nationality or another. ~ Hiam Abbass

169:When you get your “Who am I?” question right, all the “What should I do?” questions tend to take care of themselves. The very fact that so many religious people have to so vigorously prove and defend their salvation theories makes one seriously doubt whether they have experienced divine mirroring at any great depth. ~ Richard Rohr

170:People who become great leaders are those who take time to reflect every day on the big questions: Who am I? What is my purpose? Who are my heroes in history, mythology, and religion? What are my unique talents and how do I express them? These are the qualities of silent reflection that make a great leader, like Jesus. ~ Deepak Chopra

171:    Who am I? It seems like an easy question. And then I realize.. Maybe what I said to those cops wasn't a joke. Maybe the name belongs to whoever has the courage to fight.    And so I tell them.    I tell them who I am    You can call me Ms. Marvel. And if you cooperate, I won't throw you again. ~ G Willow Wilson

172:There's this existential crisis in America and in the West of, like - who am I? - based on this searching for individual fulfillment, which you don't necessarily have in the East in the same way because you're kind of told what to do. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying that's just, like, the reality. ~ Aasif Mandvi

173:Inside our mind there is hidden place that contains the mind within the mind. There, you will find another version of yourself that may be your true self. We do not find that self by travelling, by searching. We find that self by sitting still, being quiet and looking inside. Ask yourself: who am I? And your true self will answer. ~ Chloe Thurlow

174:/Farsi & Turkish Love is here; it is the blood in my veins, my skin. I am destroyed; He has filled me with Passion. His fire has flooded the nerves of my body. Who am I? Just my name; the rest is Him. [1722.jpg] -- from Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom, by Andrew Harvey / Eryk Hanut ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, Love is Here

175:Who am I? The shell-selling Lace girl, the attendant of Lady Arilou, Mother Govrie’s other daughter, the thing of dust, the victim, the revenger, the diplomat, the crowd-witch, the killer, the rescuer, the pirate? I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be. ~ Frances Hardinge

176:You start questioning yourself: Who am I? Where do I belong? Where am I going? Why is my city divided? Why are we not allowed to enter in certain areas? We used to ask my father why the Christians lived in another neighborhood and didn’t come to our neighborhood. I think my father was trying to avoid having us think about these issues. ~ Rula Jebreal

177:Give up the idea of being a person, that is all. You need not become what you are anyhow. There is the identity of what you are and there is the person superimposed on it. All you know is the person, the identity - which is not a person - you do not know, for you never doubted, never asked yourself the crucial question: 'Who am I?' ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

178:All this stuff is so mind-blowing to me that I get to do in my life. Throwing the first pitch out at the White Sox game on a random Wednesday? Like who am I? How did I get this life? I'm glad I'm not jaded, and little kids are the least jaded people in the entire world, so it's fun to be around people that still find wonder in how cool things are. ~ Jonah Hill

179:Who am I? Oh, yes: I'm the kind of person who doesn't like fiction, country music, or cilantro. We use these defining truths to help us stay in the lines of ourselves. We think we have to hold on to these labels, we feel comfortable holding on to these labels, but it turns out the labels are removable, you can peel them right off. ~ Amy Krouse Rosenthal

180:Who am I? I'm the one you love to love and love to hate. I make you laugh, cry & cringe. You'll forever remember me or easily forget me. I'm past, present & future in black and white. I'm unique but always compared. You want me to take you away from your life if only for a little while. My pen knows no morals or boundaries. I'm a writer! ~ Eveli Acosta

181:I have at least the whole of my life to answer a question: Who am I? And who is the other? A gust of wind at dawn? A motionless landscape? A trembling leaf? A coil of white smoke above a mountain? I write all these words and I hear the wind, not outside, but inside my head. A strong wind, it rattles the shutters through which I enter the dream. ~ Tahar Ben Jelloun

182:First of all, I must make it clear that this girl does not know herself apart from the fact that she goes on living aimlessly. Were she foolish enough to ask herself 'Who am I?', she would fall flat on her face. For the question 'Who am I?' creates a need. And how does one satisfy that need? To probe oneself is to recognize that one is incomplete. ~ Clarice Lispector

183:Who am I? What am I doing here? I fall between the cold walls of human malevolence, a white figure fluttering, sinking down through the cold lake, a mountain of skulls above me. I settle down to the cold latitudes, the chalk steps washed with indigo. The earth in its dark corridors knows my step, feels a foot abroad, a wing stirring, a gasp and a shudder. ~ Henry Miller

184:I don't want to be lofty when I say this, but I don't know what a success is any more. I know how we define it, but that was a moment where I went, "Wait, who am I?" You could feel the business, in particular, kind of go "He's all right, let's go over here." I started to go, "Wait, I know why I love to do this." I think I got off track in why I love to do it. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal

185:Pursue the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ relentlessly. Analyse your entire personality. Try to find out where the I-thought begins. Go on with your meditations. Keep turning your attention within. One day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking stop, and it will eventually lead you to the goal. ~ Paul Brunton

186:Who am I?' is not a mantra. It means that you must find out where in you the 'I-thought' arises, which is the source of all other thoughts. But if you find that vichara marga (path of enquiry) is too hard for you, you go on repeating 'I-I' and that will lead you to the same goal. There is no harm in using 'I' as a mantra. It is the first name of God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Gems,

187:Who am I? is the only question worth asking and the only one never answered. It is your destiny to play an infinity of roles, but these roles are not yourself. The spirit is non-local, but it leaves behind a fingerprint, which we call a body. A wizard does not believe himself to be a local event dreaming of a larger world. A wizard is a world dreaming of local events. ~ Deepak Chopra

188:One of the most fundamental ways that the Christian faith disrupts the questions of philosophy about self and identity is actually by bypassing the whole issue: who I am is not actually my concern. It is far from my responsibility and life’s work to create and curate myself. For the Christian, the question of “Who am I?” is actually just another way of asking “Who is He? ~ Rachel Jankovic

189:Heaven works extensively with the fact that we're currently placed here in 3D as the 'spirit' part of what is to come. Each being in heaven represents the human factor dimensionally, therefore our focus is the direction of the dimensions to be able to assist all here as one. My 'daily' focus here is the discovery/growth of self, if I am to use such a word, meaning who am I? ~ Timothy Treadwell

190:Who am I? I'm a survivor. I'm a woman with tremendous inner resources and resilience. I care about people. I believe in 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,' and I live by that. I am becoming authentic, and that's important to me. I have surpassed both my parents in terms of emotional stability, happiness and well-being. And I'm a lucky woman. I've deserved my luck. ~ Jane Fonda

191:If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me if I do? You’re a human being, with a unique story to tell, and you have every right. If you speak with passion, many of us will listen. We need stories to live, all of us. We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle. ~ Richard Rhodes

192:Who am I?” Laia muttered to her invisible audience, and they knew the answer and told it to her with one voice. She was the little girl with scabby knees, sitting on the doorstep staring down through the dirty golden haze of River Street in the heat of late summer, the six-year-old, the sixteen-year-old, the fierce, cross, dream-ridden girl, untouched, untouchable. She was herself ~ Ursula K Le Guin

193:I went through that stage every teenager goes through: Who am I? What am I? Where do I fit in? In my case I had to deal with newspapers saying I looked fat or tired or my hair was a mess. People always criticize: they either love you, or they don't. But you have to block that out and concentrate on the work. And I feel I am doing good work, and I'm finally getting to see who I really am. ~ LeAnn Rimes

194:Who am I?” he whispered. “For years I pretended I was other than I was, and then I gloried that I might return to the truth of myself, only to find there is no truth to return to. I was an ordinary child, and then I was a not very good man, and now I do not know how to be either of those things any longer. I do not know what I am, and when Jem is gone, there will be no one to show me. ~ Cassandra Clare

195:You can't take yourself too seriously. Like, yeah, I'm doin' all that, but still I don't feel like I've done anything, really. I feel blessed 'cause I'm doin' all these things, but I'm not satisfied. I still have that feeling like, "Who am I? Who am I to have an ego? Who am I to change up and act like some Hollywood character?" Technically, in the grand scheme of things, I haven't done anything. ~ J Cole

196:Hope is always about the future. And it isn't always good news. Sometimes, hope can imprison us with belief or expectation that something will happen in the future to change our lives. Similarly hopelessness isn't always about despair. Hopelessness can bring us right into this very moment and answer all of life's most difficult questions. Who am I? Where am I? What does this mean? And what now? ~ Daniel Gottlieb

197:I turn my head, and you may go where you want. I turn it again, you will stay till you rot. I have no face, but I live or die by my crooked teeth—who am I?” Door took a step forward. She licked her lips and half closed her eyes. “I turn my head . . .” she said, puzzling to herself. “Crooked teeth . . . go where you . . .” Then a smile spread over her face. She stared up at Brother Fuliginous. “A key, ~ Neil Gaiman

198:[about being a father] I don't really remember what it was like before. Whatever I had going on, it was bullshit. It wasn't important. It's kind of a nice thing about being a dad. My identity is really about them now, and what I can do for them, so it sort of takes the pressure off of your own life. What am I going to do, who am I? Who cares, you've got to get your kids to school. So I like it that way. ~ Louis C K

199:That's a good question. I don't really remember what it was like before. Whatever I had going on, it was bullshit. It wasn't important. It's kind of a nice thing about being a dad. My identity is really about them now, and what I can do for them, so it sort of takes the pressure off of your own life. What am I going to do, who am I? Who cares, you've got to get your kids to school. So I like it that way. ~ Louis C K

200:I had lost confidence and a sense of self. Who am I? Am I a person who cowers in fear at the back of a spin class, avoiding everyone’s gaze? This uncertainty about who I am, this confusion over where I truly was in the time line of my illness and recovery, was ultimately the deeper source of the shame. A part of my soul believed that I would never be myself, the carefree, confident Susannah, again. ~ Susannah Cahalan

201:You have a self that can look down from a more exalted position upon that lower, ego-dominated self. So begin to know yourself as something far greater than the ever-changing, ever-dying aspects that have dominated your picture of who you are. Who am I? is then answered with, I am an infinite being who originated not from my parents, but from a Source that is itself birthless, deathless, and changeless. ~ Wayne W Dyer

202:There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I? ~ Jean Rhys

203:Who am I? What have I done with my life? Who can I trust? That last one is a doozy. It haunts you in moments of doubt. Sometimes when you wake up at night, you wonder if you've put your faith in the right people. Sometimes when you find yourself alone, for whatever reason, you review every little thing you know about someone, searching your memory for small, subtle things you may have missed about them. ~ Jim Butcher

204:Take a trip in my mind see all that I've seen, and you'd be called a beast, not a human being... Fuck it, cause there's not much I can do, there's no way out, my screams have no voice no matter how loud I shout... I could be called a low life, but life ain't as low as me. I'm in juvenile hall headed for the penitentiary. George Trevino, sixteen, "Who Am I? ~ Edward Humes

205:He strips his shirt over his head and I catch my breath, watching those long hard muscles ripple. I know how his shoulders look, bunched, when he's on top of me, how his face gets tight with lust, as he eases inside me. "Who am I?" "Jericho" "Who are you?" He kicks off his boots, steps out of his pants. He's commando tonight. My breath whooshes out of me in a run-on word: "Whogivesafuck? ~ Karen Marie Moning

206:This is the hour I hide everything Behind my eyes To see if you can see All the trouble my brain's been brewing. Yes, I feel I am the worst and you are the best And yet, and yet, Nothing bad unfolds as we sit, Young and nervous, Alive and bursting, With futures that may not entwine. Who am I? Who am I to sabotage what may be too small For even chaos to notice And disassemble? ~ Evan Roskos

207:Jake still won’t talk to me, and I miss him so much, it’s like I’ve been hollowed out by a nuclear blast and there’s nothing left but ashes fluttering inside brittle bones. I’ve sent him dozens of texts that aren’t only unanswered; they’re unread. He unfriended me on Facebook and unfollowed me on Instagram and Snapchat. He’s pretending I don’t exist and I’m starting to think he’s right. If I’m not Jake’s girlfriend, who am I? ~ Karen M McManus

208:The question "Who am I?" really asks, "Where do I belong or fit?" We get the sense of that "direction" -- the sense of moving toward the place where we fit, or of shaping the place toward which we are moving so that it will fit us -- from hearing how others have handled or are attempting to handle similar (but never exactly the same) situations. We learn by listening to their stories, by hearing how they came (or failed) to belong or fit. ~ Ernest Kurtz

209:For fear is a primary source of evil. And when the question "Who am I?" recurs and is unanswered, then fear and frustration project a negative attitude. The bewildered soul can answer only: "Since I do not understand 'Who I am,' I only know what I am not." The corollary of this emotional incertitude is snobbism, intolerance and racial hate. The xenophobic individual can only reject and destroy, as the xenophobic nation inevitably makes war. ~ Carson McCullers

210:Every living being longs always to be happy, untainted by sorrow; and everyone has the greatest love for himself, which is solely due to the fact that happiness is his real nature. Hence, in order to realize that inherent and untainted happiness, which indeed he daily experiences when the mind is subdued in deep sleep, it is essential that he should know himself. For obtaining such knowledge the inquiry 'Who am I?' in quest of the Self is the best means. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

211:If you're not focusing on becoming so good they can't ignore you, you're going to be left behind. This clarity is refreshing. It tells you to stop worrying about what your job offers you, and instead worry about what you're offering the world. This mindset–which I call the craftsman mindset-allows you to sidestep the anxious questions generated by the passion hypothesis—"Who am I?", "What do I truly love?"—and instead put your head down and focus on becoming valuable. ~ Cal Newport

212:And then we jumped off Mount Olympus and flew through the clouds and you held your knee to your chest because you skinned it on a sharp cloud and then we fell into a salty lake. Then I woke up and the window frightened me and I thought: Eurydice is dead. Then I thought—who is Eurydice? Then the whole room started to float and I thought: what are people? Then my bed clothes smiled at me with a crooked green mouth and I thought: who am I? It scares me, Eurydice. Please come back. ~ Sarah Ruhl

213:As long as there are impressions of objects in the mind, so long the inquiry "Who am I?" Is required. As thoughts arise they should be destroyed then and there in the very place of their origin, through inquiry. If one resorts to contemplation of the Self unintermittently, until the Self is gained, that alone would do. As long as their enemies within the fortress, they will continue to sally forth; if they are destroyed as they emerge, the fortress will fall into our hands. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,

214:Outward ritual cannot destroy ignorance, because they are not mutually contradictory,” wrote Shankara in his famous Century of Verses. “Realized knowledge alone destroys ignorance....Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than enquiry. ‘Who am I? How was this universe born? Who is its maker? What is its material cause?’ This is the kind of enquiry referred to.” The intellect has no answer for these questions; hence the rishis evolved yoga as the technique of spiritual enquiry. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

215:Think, "I am beyond the body. This body is just a water bubble. I am beyond the mind. This mind is just a mad monkey. I am the Atma. I and God are one. Before this body was formed I was there. After this body leaves I am there. Without this body I am still there. I am omnipresent. I am all." To reach this truth you have to do some spiri­tual practice. You have to inquire, "What is God? Who is God? Who am I?" Jesus spent twelve years in the desert; then he realized. You must also do some Sadhana. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

216:Take five minutes every day and just sit in silence. In that time, put these questions to your attention and heart: “Who am I? What do I want for my life? What do I want from my life today?” Then let go, and let your stream of consciousness, your quieter inner voice, supply the answers. Then, after five minutes, write them down. Do this every day and you’ll be surprised at how situations, circumstances, events, and people will orchestrate themselves around the answers. This is the beginning of synchrodestiny. ~ Deepak Chopra

217:A lot of blues music seems like it's moving away from God, or the center, and Gospel music is moving towards it. It's embracing a higher reality. When you look a little closer, the way that I define it or explain it, is that the blues is the naked cry of the human heart, apart from God. People are searching for union with God. They're searching to be home. There's something in people that seeks this union with their creator. Why am I here? Where am I going? What's it all about? Who am I? All this kind of stuff. ~ Dion DiMucci

218:'Who am I?' The answer is 'I am God'. The body comes and goes, but the Atma is permanent. The body has birth and death, but the spirit does not have any of these. You reach the stage where you say, 'I am God', but even there, there is duality, 'God and I'. That is not the full Truth. When we breathe, the breath makes the sound of 'So-Hum', 'He am I'. There is still the body consciousness, the 'I'. But in deep sleep, the declaration of 'He' and 'I' falls away and only '0' and 'M' remain, 'Om'; there is only the One. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

219:Swami cannot give peace of mind; you must work for it yourselves. First, stop the questioning and ask, 'who am I?'. This is my body, my mind, my intelligence. But who is this 'My'? Who is it that claims the ownership of that which is declared to be 'mine'? 'My' indicates ownership. That 'My' is the life. As long as the life is in the body, there is this connection between the 'my' and the intellect - 'my' body, 'my' house, 'my' land. But the moment you remove the life from the body, there is no 'my' or sense of possession. Life is God. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

220:To a significant degree, the commitments we make in life define us. They reveal our interests, passions and goals, and give important clues in discerning meaning and finding happiness in life. While many seem to struggle with the archetypal human question, "who am I?" one simple look at who and what you're devoted to, what takes up your time and fires your imagination can clarify your life direction. It can help you to make authentic decisions that are rooted in your deepest convictions. We are happiest when we are in harmony with our passion. ~ Monks of New Skete

221:Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations and just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in the big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? If I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager-I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint? ~ S ren Kierkegaard

222:Religion is a valid inquiry; whether society accepts it or rejects it, it doesn't matter. Man is a religious animal and is going to remain that way. Religion is something natural. To ask from where you come is relevant; to ask, 'Who am I?' is going to remain relevant always. But the modern mind has created a climate of atheism so you cannot ask such questions. If you ask, people laugh. If you talk about such things, people feel bored If you start inquiring in these ways, people think you are slipping out of your sanity. Religion is no longer a welcome inquiry. ~ Rajneesh

223:In a seminar at New York University in 1980, Foucault is reported to have said that the difference between late antiquity and early Christianity might be reduced to the following questions: the patrician pagan asks, "Given that I am who I am, whom can I fuck?" That is, given my status in society, who would it be appropriate for me to take as my lover, which girl or boy, woman or man? By contrast, the Christian asks, "Given that I can fuck no one, who am I?" That is, the question of what it means to be human first arises for Christians in the sight of God. ( 239) ~ Simon Critchley

224:He questioned us one after the other. Each one of his questions—all of them very simple: Who were we? Why had we come?—caught us completely off our guard and seemed to probe our very insides. Who are you? Who am I? We could not answer him as we could a police official or a customs inspector. Give one's name and profession? What does that mean? But *who* are you? And *what* are you? The words we uttered—we had none better—were worthless, repugnant and grotesque as dead things. We realized that with the guides of Mount Analogue, we could no longer get away with just words. ~ Ren Daumal

225:Hard and cruel though it may seem," said the Cardinal, "yet we, who hold our high office as keepers and watchmen to the story, may tell you, verily, that to its human characters there is salvation in nothing else in the universe. If you tell them -- you compassionate and accommodating human readers -- that they may bring their distress and anguish before any other authority, you will be cruelly deceiving and mocking them. For within our whole universe the story only has authority to answer that cry of heart of its characters, that one cry of heart of each of them: 'Who am I? ~ Karen Blixen

226:The hood is also a low-stress, comfortable life. All your mental energy goes into getting by, so you don’t have to ask yourself any of the big questions. Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Am I doing enough? In the hood you can be a forty-year-old man living in your mom’s house asking people for money and it’s not looked down on. You never feel like a failure in the hood, because someone’s always worse off than you, and you don’t feel like you need to do more, because the biggest success isn’t that much higher than you, either. It allows you to exist in a state of suspended animation. ~ Trevor Noah

227:Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love. Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. The lover responds in a new way to nature and may even write poetry. Love is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" "Why am I?" "Where am I going?" - and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable. ~ Carson McCullers

228:The real drive to understand the self, though, comes not from the need to develop treatments, but from a more deep-seated urge that we all share: the desire to understand ourselves. Once self-awareness emerged through evolution, it was inevitable that an organism would ask, ― Who am I? Across vast stretches of inhospitable space and immeasurable time, there suddenly emerged a person called Me or I. Where does this person come from? Why here? Why now? You, who are made of star-dust, are now standing on a cliff, gazing at the starlit sky pondering your own origins and your place in the cosmos. ~ V S Ramachandran

229:Who Am I? My head knocks against the stars. My feet are on the hilltops. My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life. Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny. I have been to hell and back many times. I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God. I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible. I know the passionate seizure of beauty And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading "Keep Off." My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe. ~ Carl Sandburg

230:Who am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes gazed wonderingly upon the world, whose horizon hides this real life from thee. I am that which in thy heart thou hast prayed for, demanded as thy birthright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am that which has lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years. Sometimes I lay in thee grieving because thou didst not recognize me; sometimes I raised my head, opened my eyes, and extended my arms calling thee either tenderly and quietly, or strenuously, demanding that thou shouldst rebel against the iron chains which bound thee to the earth. ~ Leo Tolstoy

231:Because, no matter how bad her situation, she didn't want to be deprived of herself, she wanted to be herself. She thought she'd incur serious punishment and even risk dying if she took too much pleasure in life. So she protected herself from death by living less, consuming so little of her life that she'd never run out. This savings gave her a little security since you can't fall farther than the ground. Did she feel she was living for nothing? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Only once did she ask a tragic question: who am I? It frightened her so much that she completely stopped thinking. She sometimes on payday bought herself a rose. ~ Clarice Lispector

232:Because, no matter how bad her situation, she didn't want to be deprived of herself, she wanted to be herself. She thought she'd incur serious punishment and even risk dying if she took too much pleasure in life. So she protected herself from death by living less, consuming so little of her life that she'd never run out. This savings have her a little security since you can't fall farther than the ground. Did she feel she was living for nothing? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Only once did she ask a tragic question: who am I? It frightened her so much that she completely stopped thinking. She sometimes on payday bought herself a rose. ~ Clarice Lispector

233:Because, no matter how bad her situation, she didn't want to be deprived of herself, she wanted to be herself. She thought she'd incur serious punishiment and even risk dying if she took too much pleasure in life. So she protected herself from death by living less, consuming so little of her life that she'd never run out. This savings have her a little security since you can't fall father than the ground. Did she feel she was living for nothing? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Only once did she ask a tragic question: who am I? It frightened her so much that she completely stopped thinking. She sometimes occasionally on payday bought herself a rose. ~ Clarice Lispector

234:She’d opened the book she bought today. She’d started to read, from the beginning, quite quietly, out loud. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us. The words had acted like a charm. They’d released it all, in seconds. They’d made everything happening stand just far enough away. It was nothing less than magic. Who needs a passport? Who am I? Where am I? What am I? I’m reading. ~ Ali Smith

235:Still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. Narcissism, the unstable self, the fractured ego, Maud thought, who am I? A matrix for a susurration of texts and codes?It was both a pleasant and an unpleasant idea, this requirement that she think of herself as intermittent and partial. There was the question of the awkward body. The skin, the breath, the eyes, the hair, their history, which did seem to exist. ~ A S Byatt

236:Who am I? According to the prevailing worldview in our postmodern culture, I'm nothing. Why am I here? I am here to make the most of it, to consume and enjoy while I can. What Is Wrong with the World? If you ask proponents of postmodernism what is wrong with the world, the answer is very simple. People are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. That's what's wrong with the world. People either don't know enough, or they are not being watched enough. How Can What Is Wrong Be Made Right? The solution to our woes is more education and more government. That's the only answer our culture can propose: teach people more stuff and give them more information. How ~ John Piper

237:Life is a valuable and unique opportunity to discover who you are. But it seems as soon as you near answering that age-old question, something unexpected always happens to alter your course. And who it is you thought you were suddenly changes. Then comes the frustrating realization that no matter how long life endures, no matter how many experiences are muddled through in this existence, you may never really be able to answer the question.... Who am I? Because the answer, like the seasons, constantly, subtly, inevitably changes. And who it is you are today, is not the same person you will be tomorrow. ~ Richelle E Goodrich

238:I stick my finger in existence — it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint? ~ S ren Kierkegaard

239:Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness. Lord, how I’d respect myself then. I’d respect myself precisely because at least I’d be capable of being lazy; at least I’d possess one more or less positive trait of which I could be certain. Question: who am I? Answer: a sluggard. Why, it would have been very pleasant to hear that said about oneself. It would mean that I’d been positively identified; it would mean that there was something to be said about me. “A sluggard!” Why, that’s a calling and a vocation, a whole career! Don’t joke, it’s true. Then, by rights I’d be a member of the very best club and would occupy myself exclusively by being able to respect myself continually. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

240:Who am I? You know who I am. Or you think you do. I’m your florist. I’m your grocer. I’m your porter. I’m your waiter. I’m the owner of the dry-goods store on the corner of Elm. I’m the shoeshine boy. I’m the judo teacher. I’m the Buddhist priest. I’m the Shinto priest. I’m the Right Reverend Yoshimoto. So prease to meet you. (…) I’m the one you call Jap. I’m the one you call Nip. I’m the one you call Slits. I’m the one you call Slopes. I’m the one you call Yellowbelly. I’m the one you call Gook. I’m the one you don’t see at all—we all look alike. I’m the one you see everywhere—we’re taking over the neighborhood. I’m the one you look for under your bed every night before you go to sleep. (…) I’m your nightmare… ~ Julie Otsuka

241:And Jazz snapped. He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person. Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze. In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father). "Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am. ~ Barry Lyga

242:And just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being f***** over? If I could love without he fear being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not feat the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live? ~ Matt Haig

243:The moment they came together, Cassie understood why they belonged to each other. He filled her, and she took away his scars. Cassie wrapped her arms around Alex's neck, surprised by the tears that leaked from the edges of her eyes. She turned her face to the open window, breathing in the sweet mix of herself and Alex and endless ocean. She was drifting off to sleep when Alex's voice slipped over her. 'You don't have to get your memory back, Cass. I know who you are.' 'Oh?' she said, smiling. She drew Alex's arm around her. 'Who am I?' She felt Alex's peace curl against her like a benediction. He pulled her back against his front, into the place where she just fit. 'You're my other half,' he said. ~ Jodi Picoult

244:And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live? ~ Matt Haig

245:You wanted me,” he said. Lying would only give him greater satisfaction. I had to keep him on the other end of the tub or I would throw myself at him again. “Yes, I did.” “What happened?” “I remembered who I am and who you are.” “And who am I? Enlighten me.” “You’re the man who likes to play games and hates losing. And I’m the idiot who keeps forgetting that. Turn around, so I can get out, please.” And he almost had me too. He sprawled against the tub wall in a leisurely fashion, showing absolutely no indication of moving. “Fine.” Let’s get this over with. I crouched on the bench and rose quickly. The water came to my midthigh. A rough noise emanated from him. It sounded almost like a groan. ~ Ilona Andrews

246:Suffering is the fuel in the engine of civilization. Now he begins to understand: because pain is a god—he has been in the grip of this cruel god ever since Anakin’s death. But it is also a teacher, and a bridge. It can be a slave master, and break you—and it can be the power that makes you unbreakable. It is all these things, and more. At the same time. What it is depends on who you are. But who am I? he wonders. I’ve been running like Dad—like Anakin. I think they stopped, though; I think Dad was strong enough to turn back and face it, to use the pain to make himself stronger, like Mom and Uncle Luke. Anakin did, too, at the end. Am I that strong? There’s only one way to find out. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

247:In the ancient Indian Upanishads, the answer to the question “Who am I?” is “Tat tvam asi.” This succinct Sanskrit sentence means literally: “Thou art That,” or “You are Godhead.” It suggests that we are not namarupa—name and form (body/ego), but that our deepest identity is with a divine spark in our innermost being (Atman) that is ultimately identical with the supreme universal principle (Brahman). And Hinduism is not the only religion that has made this discovery. The revelation concerning the identity of the individual with the divine is the ultimate secret that lies at the mystical core of all great spiritual traditions. The name for this principle could thus be the Tao, Buddha, Cosmic Christ, Allah, Great Spirit, Sila, and many others. ~ Stanislav Grof

248:Who am I? What am I doing here? Who are these others? This trilogy of spiritual conundrums is as practical as it is philosophical. Mindful inquiry devoted to these three questions is as spiritual as it is material and as obvious as it is unanswerable. Knowledge isn’t to comfort our souls; it is to enhance awareness—that is what some call an awakening. Some things have to be believed to be seen. Feelings articulate truth in ways that our brains cannot. We may have a sense about who we are, what our purpose is and how we relate to the rest of the world even without the vocabulary to articulate it. Recovery is visceral as much as it is intellectual. The Eleventh Step is our spiritual barometer, feeding back sensations, feelings and thoughts as we observe our life. ~ Joe C

249:Jem—Jem is all the better part of myself. I wouldnot expect you to understand. I owe him this. “I know. I know it. And yet I feel such dread in my heart, as if it were the last hour of mylife. I have felt hopelessness before, Tess, but never such fear. And yet I have known—Ihave always known …”That Jem would die. She did not say it. It was between them, unspoken.“Who am I?” he whispered. “For years I pretended I was other than I was, and then I gloried that I might return to the truth of myself, only to find there is no truth to return to. I was an ordinary child, and then I was a not very good man, and now I do not know how to be either of those things any longer. I do not know what I am, and when Jem is gone, therewill be no one to show me. ~ Cassandra Clare

250:Stay down if you know what's good for you." Colin said. He put his foot on the man's neck and applied a little weight. The man coughed into the dirt. "Who...who are you?" Who am I?" Colin replied. He had been waiting for this moment. "I'm the the one bogeyman is afraid of. I'm the new face of justice. I'm your worst nightmare." He crouched down, leaning closer to the man. "You'd better warn the rest of your low-life friends that there's a new hero in town. You and your kind wont be tolerated any longer." Colin stood up and folded his arms. He wished there was a breeze that would make his cape fly a little. "Who am I? I am Titan." And that was when one of the other muggers hit Colin across the back of his head with a plank of wood. ~ Michael Carroll

251:My flesh is stone. My blood rages hot as molten iron. I have a thousand eyes. A thousand swords. And one mind. I have heard the death-cry. Was she kin? She said as much, when first she touched me. We were upon the ground. Far from each other, and yet of a kind. I heard her die. And so I came to mourn her, I came to find her body, her silent tomb. But she dies still. I do not understand. She dies still—and there are strangers. Cruel strangers. I knew them once. I know them now. I know, too, that they will not yield. Who am I? What am I? But I know the answers to these questions. I believe, at last, that I do. Strangers, you bring pain. You bring suffering. You bring to so many dreams the dust of death. But, strangers, I am Icarium. And I bring far worse. ~ Steven Erikson

252:The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. There may be a moment in life when our compensatory activities, the accumulation of money, learning and objects, leaves us feeling deeply apathetic. This can motivate us towards the search for our real nature beyond appearances. We may find ourselves asking, 'Why am I here? What is life? Who am I?' Sooner or later any intelligent person asks these questions. What you are looking for is what you already are, not what you will become. What you already are is the answer and the source of the question. In this lies its power of transformation. It is a present actual fact. Looking to become something is completely conceptual, merely an idea. The seeker will discover that he is what he seeks and that what he seeks is the source of the inquiry. ~ Jean Klein

253:Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. “Compulsive” is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same—more work, more money, more friends. ~ Henri J M Nouwen

254:Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. 'Compulsive' is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failure and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same - more work, more money, more friends. ~ Henri J M Nouwen

255:Just say it, she thought. Say what everyone in this bunker is thinking. Say what we all know to be true. The truth that we are all going to die down here, and death is the end. Nobody wakes up to a heaven or paradise. Your life will be gone. You will be gone. Forever. Uncover the truth. Tear off the bandages of delusion. Open your hearts and minds to the real world. We were doomed the day we were born. We lived and we will die and the only immortals are the people who did something worth remembering while they lived. My genetics are prime. I am pleasing to the eyes of man and machine. A dripping fountain of pleasure. Their organic sanctuary. And in time? Aging. Fading. Graying. What am I? Who am I? What makes me human? Emotions? My conscience? The soul is an old testament myth. No one shall ascend anywhere except into annihilation. The dust of earth and stars are the only eternals, she said. ~ C J Anderson

256:I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me, and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great men, and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine, plus, the intelligence of a man. You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you. Who am I? I am a HABIT! ~ Peter Voogd

257:It’s a diamond isle of paradise beneath a black sky! Welcome to a crisp Italian January! We’re so much more than lavish travelers now… We’ll go down in history, Down like this vessel that sank so swiftly, Down to the depths below… These angels are splashing through neon casinos, Lifeboats are launching, and first up’s Schettino . Don’t blame him, he claims he fell in! That’s why he’s safe and we’re sorry. Vada a bordo, cazzo! Our beautiful floating carnival is DYING! Velvet carpets soaked with seawater, elevators sealed shut! The sour taste of death flows through in waves, Pulling people down to icy graves, Down to the depths below… Who am I? I’m his purser, and I might survive, If the coastguard realizes I’m still alive. For now I’m down here, as you might overhear, At the trial where he’ll share his story. Vada a bordo, cazzo! ~ Rebecca McNutt

258:This is where the Christian Story stands out dramatically from all the rest.5 The Story answers the question “Why?” It tells us why man is different, why humans are special, why you and I are wonderful in a way that can never change. It tells us that in all the world, God created only one creature who was, in a unique and important and almost indescribable way, like himself, bearing his own likeness, having a soul imprinted with his very image. If you have ever asked yourself the question “Who am I?” you now have your answer. The Story says you are a creature, but you are not just a creature. You are not a little god, but you are not nothing. You are made like God in a magnificent way that can never be taken from you. No matter how young or old or small or disfigured or destitute or dependent, you are still a beautiful creature. You bear the mark of God. He has made you like himself, and that changes everything. Two ~ Gregory Koukl

259:What are you about?" said the vehicle as a panel popped open to reveal delicate components. "I am not accustomed to such usage." The little man said nothing, but began to rearrange connections and sever some linkages within the autocab's mechanism. The vehicle lurched and then spiraled down to a meadow bordered by trees. "I will be compelled to summon assist-" said the car, then broke off as Gaskarth made a final adjustment. The autocab dropped the remaining few inches to the grass, and the dwarf twisted the emergency release handle to open the doors. Filidor followed him out of the autocab. "Who am I?" inquired the car. "Have I a function?" "Perhaps you are a type of bird," said Gaskarth. "If so, it is your function to fly." The autocab digested this information briefly, then lifted slightly. "Experimentation tends to support the hypothesis," it said, and flew in widening circles out of their ken. ~ Matthew Hughes

260:Who Am I? I’m a creator, a visionary, a poet. I approach the world with the eyes of an artist, the ears of a musician, and the soul of a writer. I see rainbows where others see only rain, and possibilities when others see only problems. I love spring flowers, summer’s heat on my body, and the beauty of the dying leaves in the fall. Classical music, art museums, and ballet are sources of inspiration, as well as blues music and dim cafes. I love to write; words flow easily from my fingertips, and my heart beats rapidly with excitement as an idea becomes a reality on the paper in front of me. I smile often, laugh easily, and I weep at pain and cruelty. I'm a learner and a seeker of knowledge, and I try to take my readers along on my journey. I am passionate about what I do. I learned to dream through reading, learned to create dreams through writing, and learned to develop dreamers through teaching. I shall always be a dreamer. Come dream with me. ~ Sharon M Draper

261:WHO AM I? I have seven heavenly panels Leading up to a pointed sphere I’m multidimensional like a crystal And my center is never clear. I’m an inventor and pioneer. A mentor to my peers. But I'm not as sound as my shell reveals, Because I’m tormented by my fears - That may appear to be grounded But my insides are filled with tears. And the sadness is well-founded, From years and years Of traumatic experiences Compounded In the most demented Atmospheres. I talk but feel like nobody hears. Has reason disappeared? And, God, are you near? This is Giza’s 7th light force And I'm asking you to interfere. I can no longer walk amongst the blind and dead With open eyes and ears. I’m trying to maintain my sanity And to straighten up my veneer As I roll amongst the growing calamities Flowing on Earth’s severely trashed Frontier. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010) ~ Suzy Kassem

262:If these two worldviews--postmodern secular humanism and Christian theism--are juxtaposed, something very interesting happens. With the former you are left empty and hopeless; man is left worthless, and you are left to pursue your own satisfaction and never find it. But with the latter, you are precious; you have purpose, and you are powerless--but it's okay because you were purchased. This is the supremacy of Christ in truth in a postmodern world. Ultimately, this is what Christian theism tells us: Who am I? I am the crown and glory of the creation of God. Why am I here? I am here to bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ. What is wrong with the world? What is wrong is me, and everyone like me who refused to acknowledge the supremacy of Christ and instead chose to live in pursuit of the supremacy of self. How can what is wrong be made right? What is wrong can be made right through the penal, substitutionary, atoning death of the Son of God, and through repentance and faith on the part of sinners. ~ John Piper

263:He slotted some ice, connected the construct, and jacked in. It was exactly the sensation of someone reading over his shoulder. He coughed. "Dix? McCoy? That you man?" His throat was tight. "Hey, bro," said a directionless voice. "It's Case, man. Remember?" "Miami, joeboy, quick study." "What's the last thing you remember before I spoke to you, Dix?" "Nothin'." "Hang on." He disconnected the construct. The presence was gone. He reconnected it. "Dix? Who am I?" "You got me hung, Jack. Who the fuck are you?" "Ca--your buddy. Partner. What's happening, man?" "Good question." "Remember me being here, a second ago?" "No." "Know how a ROM personality construct works?" "Sure, bro, it's a firmware construct." "So I jack it into the bank I'm using, I can give it sequential real-time memory?" "Guess so," said the construct. "Okay, Dix,. You are a ROM construct. Got me?" "If you say so," said the construct. "Who are you?" "Case." "Miami," said the voice, "joeboy, quick study. ~ William Gibson

264:Horatian Epode To The Duchess Of Malfi Duchess: Who am I? Bosola: Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. The stage is about to be swept of corpses. You have no more chance than an infusorian Lodged in a hollow molar of an eohippus. Come, now, no prattle of remergence with the ovtws ov.(Greek word) As (the form requires the myth) A Greek girl stood once in the prytaneum Of Carneades, hearing mouthings of Probability, Then mindful of love dashed her brain on a megalith So you, O nameless Duchess who die young, Meet death somewhat lovingly And I am filled with a pity of beholding skulls. There was no pride like yours. Now considerations of the void coming after Not changed by the 'strict gesture' of your death Split the straight line of pessimism Into two infinities. It is moot whether there be divinities As I finish this play by Webster: The street-cars are still running however And the katharsis fades in the warm water of a yawn. ~ Allen Tate

265:Who am I? Am I Caleb? Am I James? I've often asked myself this very thing and have always come up with a different answer. Perhaps the only truthful answer is, "I am both." Caleb will always be a part of me--probably the largest part. I want to be James. James is a 29-year-old from Oregon. He was raised by his mother and always wondered about his father. He grew up with respect for women but also a need to display his masculinity to make up for his lack of a father. He went to college but took time off before grad school to go and see the world. He met Sophia at The Paseo de Colon and fell instantly in love. James never met anyone named Livvie. He never hurt her. We know different. We know the truth. So, for the purposes of this story you begged me to tell--I am Caleb. I am the man who kidnapped Livvie. I am the man who held her in a dark room for weeks. I'm the one who tied her to a bedpost and beat her. I'm the one who nearly sold her into sexual slavery. But, most importantly, I am the man she loves. She loves me. It's quite sick, isn't it? ~ C J Roberts

266:Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you… What would you think? Never mind, it’s not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself? It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods. I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature. You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe? If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being. ~ Jostein Gaarder

267:Come unto me. Come unto me, you say. All right then, dear my Lord. I will try in my own absurd way. In my own absurd way I will try to come unto you, a project which is in itself by no means unabsurd. Because I do not know the time or place where you are. And if by some glad accident my feet should stumble on it, I do not know that I would know that I had stumbled on it. And even if I did know, I do not know for sure that I would find you there. … And if you are there, I do not know that I would recognize you. And if I recognized you, I do not know what that would mean or even what I would like it to mean. I do not even well know who it is you summon, myself. For who am I? I know only that heel and toe, memory and metatarsal, I am everything that turns, all of a piece, unthinking, at the sound of my name. … Come unto me, you say. I, … all of me, unknowing and finally unknowable even to myself, turn. O Lord and lover, I come if I can to you down through the litter of any day, through sleeping and waking and eating and saying goodbye and going away and coming back again. Laboring and laden with endless histories heavy on my back. ~ Frederick Buechner

268:I find it hard to talk about myself. I’m always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors—values, standards, my own limitations as an observer—make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I’ve always been disturbed by the thought that I’m not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of thing doesn’t seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. “I’m honest and open to a ridiculous degree,” they’ll say, or “I’m thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world.” Or “I am very good at sensing others’ true feelings.” But any number of times I’ve seen people who say they’re easily hurt hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they’re doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those “good at sensing others’ true feelings” are duped by the most transparent flattery. It’s enough to make me ask the question: How well do we really know ourselves? ~ Haruki Murakami

269:Seven and a half million years our race has waited for this Great and Hopefully Enlightening Day!” cried the cheerleader. “The Day of the Answer!” Hurrahs burst from the ecstatic crowd. “Never again,” cried the man, “never again will we wake up in the morning and think Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if I don’t get up and go to work? For today we will finally learn once and for all the plain and simple answer to all these nagging little problems of Life, the Universe and Everything!” As the crowd erupted once again, Arthur found himself gliding through the air and down toward one of the large stately windows on the first floor of the building behind the dais from which the speaker was addressing the crowd. He experienced a moment’s panic as he sailed straight toward the window, which passed when a second or so later he found he had gone right through the solid glass without apparently touching it. No one in the room remarked on his peculiar arrival, which is hardly surprising as he wasn’t there. He began to realize that the whole experience was merely a recorded projection which knocked six-track seventy-millimeter into a cocked hat. ~ Douglas Adams

270:What do you want?” He spreads my thighs so he can stand between them. “You.” “Me?” I squeak. He grabs my bottom and yanks me closer to him. “Yes. You.” “But I’m just a girl. And there are so many of them crawling after you that you can’t keep all the names straight.” Tears sting my eyes and I blink them back. He looks at me quizzically. “I hurt you,” he says softly. My nose is starting to run, so I sniffle. “No, you didn’t.” “I did. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean what I said.” Sniffle. “Then why did you say it?” “Because those assholes were asking questions about you and I didn’t want to tell them anything, so I downplayed it. I didn’t want them all sniffing around you. You’re too important.” “You just met me yesterday,” I remind him. “And you’re all I’ve thought about ever since.” “Really?” “Really,” he says. His lips hover over mine, so close that we’re sharing breaths, but he doesn’t kiss me. My blood thrums in my veins. “I can’t believe you stood me up. I showed up with flowers, wearing a tie, and driving a car I borrowed, just to impress you.” “I don’t need all that stuff. I just need you.” “Who am I?” he asks. His blue eyes look deeply into mine. “You’re everything,” I breathe. ~ Tammy Falkner

271:In your early struggles you may have found it difficult to conquer sleep; and you may have wandered so far from the object of your meditations without noticing it, that the meditation has really been broken; but much later on, when you feel that you are "getting quite good," you will be shocked to find a complete oblivion of yourself and your surroundings. You will say: "Good heavens! I must have been to sleep!" or else "What on earth was I meditating upon?" or even "What was I doing?" "Where am I?" "Who am I?" or a mere wordless bewilderment may daze you. This may alarm you, and your alarm will not be lessened when you come to full consciousness, and reflect that you have actually forgotten who you are and what you are doing! This is only one of many adventures that may come to you; but it is one of the most typical. By this time your hours of meditation will fill most of the day, and you will probably be constantly having presentiments that something is about to happen. You may also be terrified with the idea that your brain may be giving way; but you will have learnt the real symptoms of mental fatigue, and you will be careful to avoid them. They must be very carefully distinguished from idleness! ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,

272:Who am I? Who am I?” “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.” "And who are you?" "I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

273:As tears become rivers emptying into a sea of pain, there you'll find my heart, smashed into a thousand pieces littered in the rain. Amongst the shadows is where you'll see a glimpse of the woman I used to be. I used to believe in the good of everything, everyone; an optimist...nothing could cloud my day; my world I met him on a sunny June day and knew he was heaven sent the sun shined brighter, the world was happier; here standing in front of me was the one I'd waited my whole life for Him, my destroyer, the man that cracked my universe and taught me things and people weren't always what they seemed and no matter how I tried, there was no longer a sun in sight to see I trusted him, gave my heart to him; he used me; did he ever love me? Does he know what love means? Loyalty?  Please! He has none, except to himself... I lost myself in him and his world; who am I? I'm not sure They call me Ananda, I call me damaged I'm not who I used to be and unsure of who I'm supposed to be and there is the problem... I'm a broken reflection of someone I used to know and can never be again am I better or worse after him? My heart is definitely worse, but my spirit--the one thing he couldn't touch is unbroken my spirit survived his wrath and in due time so will I.... ~ Mychea

274:When you ask the question, “Who am I?”—if you have enough time and concentration—you may find some surprising answers. You may see that you are a continuation of your ancestors. Your parents and your ancestors are fully present in every cell of your body; you are their continuation. You don’t have a separate self. If you remove your ancestors and your parents from you, there’s no “you” left. You may see that you’re made of elements, like water for example. If you remove the water from you, there’s no “you” left. You’re made of earth. If you remove the element earth from you, there’s no “you” left. You’re made of air. You need air desperately; without air you cannot survive. So if you remove the element of air from you, there’s no “you” left. And there’s the fire element, the element of heat, the element of light, in you. You know that you are made of light. Without sunlight, nothing can grow on Earth. If you continue to look, you see that you are made of the sun, one of the biggest stars in the galaxy. And you know that the Earth, as well as yourself, is made of the stars. So you are the stars. On a clear night, look up, and you can see that you are the stars above. You’re not just the tiny body you normally may think of as “yourself. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

275:Who am I?" she snaps. "I am America, Israel, England! What am I doing?" She waits another long moment, her eyes shining. "I'm shutting up and listening." She draws the last word out so it hisses through the air. "I am the presidents, the kings, the prime ministers, the highs and the mighties—L-I-S-T-E-N!" She spells the word in the air. "The woman who made the baklava has something to say to you! Voilà! You see? Now what am I doing?" She picks up an imaginary plate, lifts something from it, and takes an invisible bite. Then she closes her eyes and says, "Mmm... That is such delicious Arabic-Jordanian-Lebanese-Palestinian baklawa. Thank you so much for sharing it with us! Please will you come to our home now and have some of our food?" She puts down the plate and brushes imaginary crumbs from her fingers. "So now what did I just do? "You ate some baklawa?" She curls her hand as if making a point so essential, it can be held only in the tips of the fingers. "I looked, I tasted, I spoke kindly and truthfully. I invited. You know what else? I keep doing it. I don't stop if it doesn't work on the first or the second or the third try. And like that!" She snaps the apron from the chair into the air, leaving a poof of flour like a wish. "There is your peace. ~ Diana Abu Jaber

276:When you ask the question, “Who am I?”—if you have enough time and concentration—you may find some surprising answers. You may see that you are a continuation of your ancestors. Your parents and your ancestors are fully present in every cell of your body; you are their continuation. You don’t have a separate self. If you remove your ancestors and your parents from you, there’s no “you” left. You may see that you’re made of elements, like water for example. If you remove the water from you, there’s no “you” left. You’re made of earth. If you remove the element earth from you, there’s no “you” left. You’re made of air. You need air desperately; without air you cannot survive. So if you remove the element of air from you, there’s no “you” left. And there’s the fire element, the element of heat, the element of light, in you. You know that you are made of light. Without sunlight, nothing can grow on Earth. If you continue to look, you see that you are made of the sun, one of the biggest stars in the galaxy. And you know that the Earth, as well as yourself, is made of the stars. So you are the stars. On a clear night, look up, and you can see that you are the stars above. You’re not just the tiny body you normally may think of as “yourself. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

277:Whereas the craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you. This mindset is how most people approach their working lives. There are two reasons why I dislike the passion mindset (that is, two reasons beyond the fact that, as I argued in Rule #1, it’s based on a false premise). First, when you focus only on what your work offers you, it makes you hyperaware of what you don’t like about it, leading to chronic unhappiness. This is especially true for entry-level positions, which, by definition, are not going to be filled with challenging projects and autonomy—these come later. When you enter the working world with the passion mindset, the annoying tasks you’re assigned or the frustrations of corporate bureaucracy can become too much to handle. Second, and more serious, the deep questions driving the passion mindset—“Who am I?” and “What do I truly love?”—are essentially impossible to confirm. “Is this who I really am?” and “Do I love this?” rarely reduce to clear yes-or-no responses. In other words, the passion mindset is almost guaranteed to keep you perpetually unhappy and confused, which probably explains why Bronson admits, not long into his career-seeker epic What Should I Do With My Life? that “the one feeling everyone in this book has experienced is of missing out on life. ~ Cal Newport

278:Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house. Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win. Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all. Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine! ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

279:Whenever any kind of deep loss occurs in your life — such as loss of possessions, your home, a close relationship; or loss of your reputation, job, or physical abilities — something inside you dies. You feel diminished in your sense of who you are. There may also be a certain disorientation. “Without this...who am I?” When a form that you had unconsciously identified with as part of yourself leaves you or dissolves, that can be extremely painful. It leaves a hole, so to speak, in the fabric of your existence. When this happens, don't deny or ignore the pain or the sadness that you feel. Accept that it is there. Beware of your mind's tendency to construct a story around that loss in which you are assigned the role of victim. Fear, anger, resentment, or self-pity are the emotions that go with that role. Then become aware of what lies behind those emotions as well as behind the mind-made story: that hole, that empty space. Can you face and accept that strange sense of emptiness? If you do, you may find that it is no longer a fearful place. You may be surprised to find peace emanating from it. Whenever death occurs, whenever a life form dissolves, God, the formless and unmanifested, shines through the opening left by the dissolving form. That is why the most sacred thing in life is death. That is why the peace of God can come to you through the contemplation and acceptance of death. ~ Eckhart Tolle

280:Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?” And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

281:My Faithful Mother Tongue Faithful mother tongue, I have been serving you. Every night, I used to set before you little bowls of colors so you could have your birch, your cricket, your finch as preserved in my memory. This lasted many years. You were my native land; I lacked any other. I believed that you would also be a messenger between me and some good people even if they were few, twenty, ten or not born, as yet. Now, I confess my doubt. There are moments when it seems to me I have squandered my life. For you are a tongue of the debased, of the unreasonable, hating themselves even more than they hate other nations, a tongue of informers, a tongue of the confused, ill with their own innocence. But without you, who am I? Only a scholar in a distant country, a success, without fears and humiliations. Yes, who am I without you? Just a philosopher, like everyone else. I understand, this is meant as my education: the glory of individuality is taken away, Fortune spreads a red carpet before the sinner in a morality play while on the linen backdropp a magic lantern throws images of human and divine torture. Faithful mother tongue, perhaps after all it's I who must try to save you. So I will continue to set before you little bowls of colors bright and pure if possible, 70 for what is needed in misfortune is a little order and beauty. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

282:I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors--values, standards, my own limitations as an observer--make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of thing doesn't seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. "I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree," they'll say, or "I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world." Or "I am very good at sensing others' true feelings." But any number of times I've seen people who say they've easily hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those "good at sensing others' true feelings" are duped by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: How well do we really know ourselves? The more I think about it, the more I'd like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am. ~ Haruki Murakami

283:We are all, of course, wayfaring strangers on this earth. But coming out of the rainbow tunnel, the liminal portal between Marin and San Francisco, myth and reality, I catch sight of a beautiful, sparkling city that might as well be on the moon. I can name the sights, the streets, the eateries, but in my heart it feels as unfamiliar as Cape Town or Cuzco. I've lived here for fourteen years. This is the arena of my adult life, with its large defeats and small victories. Maybe, like all transplants (converts?), I've asked too much of the city. I would never have moved to Pittsburh or Houston or L.A. expecting it to save my soul. Only here in the great temple by the bay. It's a mistake we've been making for decades, and probably a necessary one. The city's flaws, of course, are numerous. Our politics can suffer from humourless stridency, and life here is menacingly expensive. But if you're insulated from these concerns, sufficiently employed and housed, if you are -in other words- like most people, you are in view of the unbridgeable ideal. Here, with our plentiful harvest, our natural beauty, our bars, our bookstores, our cliffs and ocean, out free to be you and me; here, where pure mountain water flows right out of the tap. It's here that the real questions become inescapable. In fact the proximity of the ideal makes us more acutely aware of the real questions. Not the run-of-the-mill insolubles-Why am I here? Who am I?- but the pressing questions of adult life: Really? and Are you sure? And Now what? ~ Scott Hutchins

284: ~ glow of the light of daybreak is in your emerald vault, the goblet of the blood of twilight is your blood-measuring bowl author class:Jalaluddin Rumi /Farsi & Turkish The glow of the light of daybreak is in your emerald vault, the goblet of the blood of twilight is your blood-measuring bowl. Mile on mile, torrent on torrent come dancing and gliding to the shore of your sea. With all the abstention and aspiration of the moon, the cap falls off the head of the moon when the moon raises its face to gaze upon your height. Every morn the nightingales lament like the heart-forlorn ones to the melodies of those attaining your verdant meadow. The spirits seek vision, the hearts all seek the Beloved; you in whose broad orchard four streams are let flow -- one stream pure water, another honey, the third fresh milk, the fourth your ruby wine. You never give me a chance, you are giving wine upon wine; where is the head, that I may describe the drinking-cup of your wine? Yet who am I? Heaven itself in the round of this heavy bumper finds not a moment's peace from your love and the craving for you. Moon of silver girdle, you have experience of love; heaven, loverhood is apparent in your features. When love is yoked to the heart it wearies of the heart's chatter; heart, be silent! How long this striving and inquiring of yours? The heart said, "I am His reed pipe, I wail as the breath inn me." I said, "Be lamenting now, the slave of whose passion is the soul." We have opened your door; do not desert your companions; in thankfulness for an all-embracing love which has seized you from head to toe. [1494.jpg] -- from Mystical Poems of Rumi: Volume 2, Translated by A. J. Arberry

285:Moses Come. When? Now. This way. I will guide you. Wait! Not so fast. Hurry. You. I said you. Who am I? Certainly I will be with thee. Is nothing, then, what it is? I had rather the rod had stayed a rod and not become a serpent. Come. Quickly. While the blast of my breath opens the sea. Stop. I'm thirsty. Drink water from this rock. But the rock moves on before us. Go with it and drink. I'm tired. Can't you stop for a while? You have already tarried too long. But if I am to follow you I must know your name. I will be that I will be. You have set the mountain on fire. Come. Climb. I will be lost in the terror of your cloud. You are stiff-necked and of a stiff-necked people. YOUR poeple, Lord, Indubitably. Your wrath waxes hot. I burn. Thus to become great. Show me, then, they glory. No man may see my face and live. But I will cover you with my hand while I pass by. My people turn away and cry because the skin of my face shines Did you not expect this? I cannot enter the tent of the congregation while your cloud covers it and your glory fills the tabernacle. Look. It moves before us again. Can you not stay still? Come. Follow. But this river is death. The waters are dark and deep. Swim. Now will I see your face? Where are you taking me now? Up the mountain with me before I die. But death bursts into light. The death is what it will be. These men: they want to keep us here in three tabernacles. But the cloud moves. The water springs from a rock that journeys on. You are contained in me. But how can we contain you in ark or tabernacle or You cannot. Where, then? In your heart. Come. Still? I will be with thee. Who am I? You are that I will be. Come. ~ Madeleine L Engle

286:At a time which seemed to him as far distant as the dim and distant past of his ancestors, his father, Okumana, the man who could make better spear tips than anyone else, had explained to him that there was always a way out of any situation, as long as one was alive. Death was the last hiding place. That was something to keep in reserve until there was no other way of avoiding an apparently insuperable threat. There were always escape routes that were not immediately obvious, and that was why humans, unlike animals, had a brain. In order to look inward, not outward. Inward, toward the secret places where the spirits of one’s ancestors were waiting to act as a man’s guide through life. Who am I? he thought. A human being who has lost his identity is no longer a human being. He is an animal. That’s what has happened to me. I started to kill people because I myself was dead. When I was a child and saw the signs, the accursed signs telling the blacks where they were allowed to go and what existed exclusively for the whites, I started to be diminished even then. A child should grow, grow bigger; but in my country a black child had to learn how to grow smaller and smaller. I saw my parents succumb to their own invisibility, their own accumulated bitterness. I was an obedient child and learned to be a nobody among nobodies. Apartheid was my real father. I learned what no one should need to learn. To live with falsehood, contempt, a lie elevated to the only truth in my country. A lie enforced by the police and laws, but above all by a flood of white water, a torrent of words about the natural differences between white and black, the superiority of white civilization. That superiority turned me into a murderer, songoma. And I can believe this is the ultimate consequence of learning to grow smaller and smaller as a child. For what has this apartheid, this falsified white superiority been but a systematic plundering of our souls? When our despair exploded in furious ~ Henning Mankell

287:Boyfriend/Girlfriend-Centered This may be the easiest trap of all to fall into. I mean, who hasn’t been centered on a boyfriend or girlfriend at one point? Let’s pretend Brady centers his life on his girlfriend, Tasha. Now, watch the instability it creates in Brady. TASHA’S ACTIONS BRADY’S REACTIONS Makes a rude comment: “My day is ruined.” Flirts with Brady’s best friend: “I’ve been betrayed.   I hate my friend.” “I think we should date other people”: “My life is over. You don’t love me anymore.” The ironic thing is that the more you center your life on someone, the more unattractive you become to that person. How’s that? Well, first of all, if you’re centered on someone, you’re no longer hard to get. Second, it’s irritating when someone builds their entire emotional life around you. Since their security comes from you and not from within themselves, they always need to have those sickening “where do we stand” talks. if who I am is what I have and what I have is lost, then who am I? ANONYMOUS When I began dating my wife, one of the things that attracted me most was that she didn’t center her life on me. I’ll never forget the time she turned me down (with a smile and no apology) for a very important date. I loved it! She was her own person and had her own inner strength. Her moods were independent of mine. You can usually tell when a couple becomes centered on each other because they are forever breaking up and getting back together. Although their relationship has deteriorated, their emotional lives and identities are so intertwined that they can never fully let go of each other. Believe me, you’ll be a better boyfriend or girlfriend if you’re not centered on your partner. Independence is more attractive than dependence. Besides, centering your life on another doesn’t show that you love them, only that you’re dependent on them. Have as many girlfriends or boyfriends as you’d like, just don’t get obsessed with or centered on them, because, although there are exceptions, these relationships are usually about as stable as a yo-yo. ~ Sean Covey

288:Centuries of navel-gazing. Millennia of masturbation. Plato to Descartes to Dawkins to Rhanda. Souls and zombie agents and qualia. Kolmogorov complexity. Consciousness as Divine Spark. Consciousness as electromagnetic field. Consciousness as functional cluster. I explored it all. Wegner thought it was an executive summary. Penrose heard it in the singing of caged electrons. Nirretranders said it was a fraud; Kazim called it leakage from a parallel universe. Metzinger wouldn't even admit it existed. The AIs claimed to have worked it out, then announced they couldn't explain it to us. Gödel was right after all: no system can fully understand itself. Not even the synthesists had been able to rotate it down. The load-bearing beams just couldn't take the strain. All of them, I began to realize, had missed the point. All those theories, all those drugdreams and experiments and models trying to prove what consciousness was: none to explain what it was good for. None needed: obviously, consciousness makes us what we are. It lets us see the beauty and the ugliness. It elevates us into the exalted realm of the spiritual. Oh, a few outsiders—Dawkins, Keogh, the occasional writer of hackwork fiction who barely achieved obscurity—wondered briefly at the why of it: why not soft computers, and no more? Why should nonsentient systems be inherently inferior? But they never really raised their voices above the crowd. The value of what we are was too trivially self-evident to ever call into serious question. Yet the questions persisted, in the minds of the laureates, in the angst of every horny fifteen-year-old on the planet. Am I nothing but sparking chemistry? Am I a magnet in the ether? I am more than my eyes, my ears, my tongue; I am the little thing behind those things, the thing looking out from inside. But who looks out from its eyes? What does it reduce to? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? What a stupid fucking question. I could have answered it in a second, if Sarasti hadn't forced me to understand it first. ~ Peter Watts

289:Preparatory Meditations - First Series: 38 (I John 2:1. An Advocate with the Father) Oh! What a thing is man? Lord, who am I? That Thou shouldest give him law (Oh! golden line) To regulate his thoughts, words, life thereby; And judge him wilt thereby too in Thy time. A court of justice Thou in heaven holdst To try his case while he's here housed on mold. How do Thy angels lay before Thine eye My deeds both white and black I daily do? How doth Thy court Thou pannel'st there them try? But flesh complains: 'What right for this? Let's know. For, right or wrong, I can't appear unto't. And shall a sentence pass on such a suit?' Soft; blemish not this golden bench, or place. Here is no bribe, nor colorings to hide, Nor pettifogger to befog the case, But justice hath her glory here well tried. Her spotless law all spotted cases tends; Without respect or disrespect them ends. God's judge himself; and Christ attorney is; The Holy Ghost registerer is found. Angels the serjeants are; all creatures kiss The book, and do as evidences abound. All cases pass according to pure law, And in the sentence is no fret nor flaw. What say'st, my soul? Here all thy deeds are tried. Is Christ thy advocate to plead thy cause? Art thou His client? Such shall never slide. He never lost His case: He pleads such laws As carry do the same, nor doth refuse The vilest sinner's case that doth Him choose. This is His honor, not dishonor: nay, No habeas corpus gainst His clients came; 20 For all their fines His purse doth make down pay. He non-suits Satan's suit or casts the same. He'll plead thy case, and not accept a fee. He'll plead sub forma pauperis for thee. My case is bad. Lord, be my advocate. My sin is red: I'm under God's arrest. Thou hast the hint of pleading; plead my state. Although it's bad, Thy plea will make it best. If Thou wilt plead my case before the king, I'll wagon-loads of love and glory bring. ~ Edward Taylor

290:No need about the world to roam And suffer from depression; Make poppadum within the home According to the lesson Of 'Thou art That', without compare, The Unique Word, unspoken 'Tis not by speech it will declare. The silence is unbroken Of Him who is the Adept-Sage, The great Apotheosis, With His eternal heritage That Being-Wisdom-Bliss is. Make poppadum and after making fry, Eat, so your cravings you may satisfy. The grain which is the black gram's yield, The so-called self or ego, Grown in the body's fertile field Of five-fold sheaths, put into The roller-mill made out of stone, Which is the search for Wisdom, The 'Who am I?'. 'Tis thus alone The Self will gain its freedom. This must be crushed to finest dust And ground up into fragments As being the non-self, so must We shatter our attachments. Make poppadum and after making fry, Eat, so your cravings you may satisfy. Mix the juice of square-stemmed vine, This association With Holy Men. With this combine Within the preparation Some cummin-seed of mind-control And pepper for restraining The wayward senses, with them roll That salt which is remaining Indifferent to the world we see, With condiment of leanings Towards a virtuous unity. These are their different meanings. Make poppadum and after making fry, Eat, so your cravings you may satisfy. The mixture into dough now blend And on the stone then place it Of mind, by tendencies hardened, And without ceasing baste it With heavy strokes of the 'I-I' Delivered with the pestle Of introverted mind. Slowly The mind will cease to wrestle. Then roll out with the pin of peace Upon the slab of Brahman. Continue effort without cease With energetic lan. Make poppadum and after making fry, Eat, so your cravings you may satisfy. The poppadum or soul's now fit To put into the fry-pan, The one infinite symbol it Of the great Silence, which can Be first prepared by putting in Some clarified fresh butter Of the Supreme. And now begin To heat it till it sputter, On Wisdom's self-effulgent flame Fry poppadum, 'I', as That. Enjoying all alone the same; Which bliss we ever aim at. Make poppadum of self and after eat; Of Perfect Peace then you will be replete. [1468.jpg] -- from The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, Edited by Arthur Osborne ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, The Song of the Poppadum

291:Who am I? And how I wonder, will this story end? . . . My life? It is'nt easy to explain. It has not been the rip-roaring spectacular I fancied it woulf be, but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers. i suppose it has most resembled a bluechip stock: fairly stable, more ups and downs, and gradually tending over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say this about his life. But do not be misled. I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am common man with common thought and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough. The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind, it's a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that involves a great deal of my life and the path I've chosen to follow. I have no complaints about the places it has taken me, enough complaints to fill a circus tent about other thins, maybe, but the path I've chosen has always been the right one, and I would'nt have had it any other way. Time, unfortunatley, does'nt make it easy to stay on course. The path is straight as ever, but now it is strewn with the rocks and gravel that accumulated over a lifetime . . . There is always a moment right before I begin to read the story when my mind churns, and I wonder, will it happen today? I don't know, for I never know beforehand, and deep down it really doesn't matter. It's the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee, a sort of wager on my part. And though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any other thing, I believe that anything is possible. I realize that odds, and science, are againts me. But science is not the answer; this I know, this I have learned in my lifetime. And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things. So once again, just as I do ecery day, I begin to read the notebook aloud, so that she can hear it, in the hope that the miracle, that has come to dominate my life will once again prevail. And maybe, just maybe, it will. ~ Nicholas Sparks

292:34 D: What are the eight limbs of knowledge (jnana ashtanga)? M: The eight limbs are those which have been already mentioned, viz., yama, niyama etc., but differently defined: (1) Yama: This is controlling the aggregate of sense-organs, realizing the defects that are present in the world consisting of the body, etc. (2) Niyama: This is maintaining a stream of mental modes that relate to the Self and rejecting the contrary modes. In other words, it means love that arises uninterruptedly for the Supreme Self. (3) Asana: That with the help of which constant meditation on Brahman is made possible with ease is asana. (4) Pranayama: Rechaka (exhalation) is removing the two unreal aspects of name and form from the objects constituting the world, the body etc., puraka (inhalation) is grasping the three real aspects, existence, consciousness and bliss, which are constant in those objects, and kumbhaka is retaining those aspects thus grasped. (5) Pratyahara: This is preventing name and form which have been removed from re-entering the mind. (6) Dharana: This is making the mind stay in the Heart, without straying outward, and realizing that one is the Self itself which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. (7) Dhyana: This is meditation of the form 'I am only pure consciousness'. That is, after leaving aside the body which consists of five sheaths, one enquires 'Who am I?', and as a result of that, one stays as 'I' which shines as the Self. (8) Samadhi: When the 'I-manifestation' also ceases, there is (subtle) direct experience. This is samadhi. For pranayama, etc., detailed here, the disciplines such as asana, etc., mentioned in connection with yoga are not necessary. The limbs of knowledge may be practised at all places and at all times. Of yoga and knowledge, one may follow whichever is pleasing to one, or both, according to circumstances. The great teachers say that forgetfulness is the root of all evil, and is death for those who seek release,10 so one should rest the mind in one's Self and should never forget the Self: this is the aim. If the mind is controlled, all else can be controlled. The distinction between yoga with eight limbs and knowledge with eight limbs has been set forth elaborately in the sacred texts; so only the substance of this teaching has been given here. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-Enquiry, 34,

293:I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors - values, standards, my own limitations as an observer - make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of things doesn't seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. "I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree," they'll say, or "I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world." Or "I'm very good at sensing others' true feelings." But any number of times I've seen people who say they're easily hurt or hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those "good at sensing others' true feelings" are taken in by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: how well do really know ourselves? The more I think about it, the more I'd like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am. These are the kind of ideas I had running through my head when I was a teenager. Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint - or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn't the easiest thing in the world. The upshot of all this is that when I was young I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with, I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person's attitude so that they wouldn't get any closer. I didn't easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music. As you might guess, I led a lonely life. ~ Haruki Murakami

294:No Name “A stone upon her heart and head, But no name written on that stone; Sweet neighbours whisper low instead, This sinner was a loving one.” — Mrs. Browning. 'Tis a nameless stone that stands at your head — The gusts in the gloomy gorges whirl Brown leaves and red till they cover your bed — Now I trust that your sleep is a sound one, girl! I said in my wrath, when his shadow cross'd From your garden gate to your cottage door, “What does it matter for one soul lost? Millions of souls have been lost before.” Yet I warn'd you — ah! but my words came true — “Perhaps some day you will find him out.” He who was not worthy to loosen your shoe, Does his conscience therefore prick him? I doubt. You laughed and were deaf to my warning voice — Blush'd and were blind to his cloven hoof — You have had your chance, you have taken your choice How could I help you, standing aloof? He has prosper'd well with the world — he says I am mad — if so, and if he be sane, I, at least, give God thanksgiving and praise That there lies between us one difference plain. You in your beauty above me bent In the pause of a wild west country ball — Spoke to me — touched me without intent — Made me your servant for once and all. Light laughter rippled your rose-red lip, 205 And you swept my cheek with a shining curl, That stray'd from your shoulder's snowy tip — Now I pray that your sleep is a sound one, girl! From a long way off to look at your charms Made my blood run redder in every vein, And he — he has held you long in his arms, And has kiss'd you over and over again. Is it well that he keeps well out of my way? If we met, he and I — we alone — we two — Would I give him one moment's grace to pray? Not I, for the sake of the soul he slew. A life like a shuttlecock may be toss'd With the hand of fate for a battledore; But it matters much for your sweet soul lost, As much as a million souls and more. And I know that if, here or there, alone, I found him, fairly and face to face, Having slain his body, I would slay my own, That my soul to Satan his soul might chase. He hardens his heart in the public way — Who am I? I am but a nameless churl; But God will put all things straight some day — Till then may your sleep be a sound one, girl! ~ Adam Lindsay Gordon

295:Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it. Ah … ! What’s happening? it thought. Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now … oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of … yawning, tingling sensation in my … my … well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach. Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what’s about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that … wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do … perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What’s this thing? This … let’s call it a tail – yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can’t I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn’t seem to achieve very much but I’ll probably find out what it’s for later on. Now – have I built up any coherent picture of things yet? No. Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation … Or is it the wind? There really is a lot of that now isn’t it? And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me? And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence. Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now. ~ Douglas Adams

296:In the Bible, God called Gideon a mighty man of (fearless) courage. Gideon looked around and said, “Who’s He talking to? That’s not me.” God had an assignment for Gideon, something great for him to accomplish, but Gideon had not renewed his mind. He had these toxic thoughts. God saw him as strong, but Gideon saw himself as weak, defeated, not able to. God wanted him to lead the people of Israel and to defeat an opposing army, but Gideon said, “God, I can’t do that. I’m the least one in my father’s house. I come from the poorest family. I don’t have the education, the skills, the courage.” Notice how Gideon perceived himself compared to how God saw him. God said he was a mighty man of fearless courage. If God were to call your name today, He wouldn’t say, “Hello, you weak worm of the dust. Hello, you failure. Hello, you ol’ sinner. How’s My loser doing today?” God would say the same sort of thing to you that He said to Gideon: “Hello, Mary, you mighty woman of fearless courage.” Or “Hello, Bob, you mighty man of fearless courage.” I wonder if you would be like Gideon and say, “God, who are You talking to? Don’t You know what family I come from? Haven’t You seen the mistakes I’ve made? Let me remind You of some of them. God, You know I’m not that talented. Why are You calling me a mighty man?” The problem is, you have allowed these wrong thoughts to infect your thinking. But thank God this is a new day. You are beginning a new diet. You are starting a fast by cutting out every negative, discouraging, can’t do it thought. When those wrong thoughts come up, instead of saying like Gideon, “I’m not able. Who am I?” Turn it around and say, “I know who I am. I am well able. I’m ready for my assignment. God I am who You say I am.” I believe in the coming days God will present you with new opportunities. New doors will open. New people will come across your path. Maybe there will even be a new career opportunity. If you are to reach a new level, you must have a new way of thinking. You have to clean out the old so you’ll have room for the new. I’m asking you to detox all the garbage telling you what you’re not and what you can’t do. Remove all those strongholds. Detox little dreams. Detox low self-esteem. Detox the negative words. Stay on your diet. Every morning go through a good cleanse. Start the day off in faith. If you’ll guard your mind and instead of letting it get toxic keep it full of faith-filled thoughts, God promises you’ll overcome every obstacle, you’ll defeat every enemy, and every dream and every desire God has put in your heart will come to pass. ~ Joel Osteen

297:I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, his voice growing curt with anger again. “Deceitful little minx. I’m of half a mind to put you to work, milking the goats. But that’s out of the question with these hands, now isn’t it?” He curled and uncurled her fingers a few times, testing the bandage. “I’ll tell Stubb to change this twice a day. Can’t risk the wound going septic. And don’t use your hands for a few days, at least.” “Don’t use my hands? I suppose you’re going to spoon-feed me, then? Dress me? Bathe me?” He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “Don’t use your hands much.” His eyes snapped open. “None of that sketching, for instance.” She jerked her hands out of his grip. “You could slice off my hands and toss them to the sharks, and I wouldn’t stop sketching. I’d hold the pencil with my teeth if I had to. I’m an artist.” “Really. I thought you were a governess.” “Well, yes. I’m that, too.” He packed up the medical kit, jamming items back in the box with barely controlled fury. “Then start behaving like one. A governess knows her place. Speaks when spoken to. Stays out of the damn way.” Rising to his feet, he opened the drawer and threw the box back in. “From this point forward, you’re not to touch a sail, a pin, a rope, or so much as a damned splinter on this vessel. You’re not to speak to crewmen when they’re on watch. You’re forbidden to wander past the foremast, and you need to steer clear of the helm, as well.” “So that leaves me doing what? Circling the quarterdeck?” “Yes.” He slammed the drawer shut. “But only at designated times. Noon hour and the dogwatch. The rest of the day, you’ll remain in your cabin.” Sophia leapt to her feet, incensed. She hadn’t fled one restrictive program of behavior, just to submit to another. “Who are you to dictate where I can go, when I can go there, what I’m permitted to do? You’re not the captain of this ship.” “Who am I?” He stalked toward her, until they stood toe-to-toe. Until his radiant male heat brought her blood to a boil, and she had to grab the table edge to keep from swaying toward him. “I’ll tell you who I am,” he growled. “I’m a man who cares if you live or die, that’s who.” Her knees melted. “Truly?” “Truly. Because I may not be the captain, but I’m the investor. I’m the man you owe six pounds, eight. And now that I know you can’t pay your debts, I’m the man who knows he won’t see a bloody penny unless he delivers George Waltham a governess in one piece.” Sophia glared at him. How did he keep doing this to her? Since the moment they’d met in that Gravesend tavern, there’d been an attraction between them unlike anything she’d ever known. She knew he had to feel it, too. But one minute, he was so tender and sensual; the next, so crass and calculating. Now he would reduce her life’s value to this cold, impersonal amount? At least back home, her worth had been measured in thousands of pounds not in shillings. “I see,” she said. “This is about six pounds, eight shillings. That’s the reason you’ve been watching me-“ He made a dismissive snort. “I haven’t been watching you.” “Staring at me, every moment of the day, so intently it makes my…my skin crawl and all you’re seeing is a handful of coins. You’d wrestle a shark for a purse of six pounds, eight. It all comes down to money for you. ~ Tessa Dare

298:Sam’s the man who’s come to chop us up to bits. No wonder I kicked him out. No wonder I changed the locks. If he cannot stop death, what good is he? ‘Open the door. Please. I’m so tired,’ he says. I look at the night that absorbed my life. How am I supposed to know what’s love, what’s fear? ‘If you’re Sam who am I?’ ‘I know who you are.’ ‘You do?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Who?’ Don’t say wife, I think. Don’t say mother. I put my face to the glass, but it’s dark. I don’t reflect. Sam and I watch each other through the window of the kitchen door. He coughs some more. ‘I want to come home,’ he says. ‘I want us to be okay. That’s it. Simple. I want to come home and be a family.’ ‘But I am not simple.’ My body’s coursing with secret genes and hormones and proteins. My body made eyeballs and I have no idea how. There’s nothing simple about eyeballs. My body made food to feed those eyeballs. How? And how can I not know or understand the things that happen inside my body? That seems very dangerous. There’s nothing simple here. I’m ruled by elixirs and compounds. I am a chemistry project conducted by a wild child. I am potentially explosive. Maybe I love Sam because hormones say I need a man to kill the coyotes at night, to bring my babies meat. But I don’t want caveman love. I want love that lives outside the body. I want love that lives. ‘In what ways are you not simple?’ I think of the women I collected upstairs. They’re inside me. And they are only a small fraction of the catalog. I think of molds, of the sea, the biodiversity of plankton. I think of my dad when he was a boy, when he was a tree bud. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say, and then the things I don’t say yet. Words aren’t going to be the best way here. How to explain something that’s coming into existence? ‘I get that now.’ His shoulders tremble some. They jerk. He coughs. I have infected him. ‘Sam.’ We see each other through the glass. We witness each other. That’s something, to be seen by another human, to be seen over all the years. That’s something, too. Love plus time. Love that’s movable, invisible as a liquid or gas, love that finds a way in. Love that leaks. ‘Unlock the door,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to love you because I’m scared.’ ‘So you imagine bad things about me. You imagine me doing things I’ve never done to get rid of me. Kick me out so you won’t have to worry about me leaving?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Right.’ And I’m glad he gets that. Sam cocks his head the same way a coyote might, a coyote who’s been temporarily confused by a question of biology versus mortality. What’s the difference between living and imagining? What’s the difference between love and security? Coyotes are not moral. ‘Unlock the door?’ he asks. This family is an experiment, the biggest I’ve ever been part of, an experiment called: How do you let someone in? ‘Unlock the door,’ he says again. ‘Please.’ I release the lock. I open the door. That’s the best definition of love. Sam comes inside. He turns to shut the door, then stops himself. He stares out into the darkness where he came from. What does he think is out there? What does he know? Or is he scared I’ll kick him out again? That is scary. ‘What if we just left the door open?’ he asks. ‘Open.’ And more, more things I don’ts say about the bodies of women. ‘Yeah.’ ‘What about skunks?’ I mean burglars, gangs, evil. We both peer out into the dark, looking for thees scary things. We watch a long while. The night does nothing. ‘We could let them in if they want in,’ he says, but seems uncertain still. ‘Really?’ He draws the door open wider and we leave it that way, looking out at what we can’t see. Unguarded, unafraid, love and loved. We keep the door open as if there are no doors, no walls, no skin, no houses, no difference between us and all the things we think of as the night. ~ Samantha Hunt

299:The Windy City [sections 1 and 6] The lean hands of wagon men put out pointing fingers here, picked this crossway, put it on a map, set up their sawbucks, fixed their shotguns, found a hitching place for the pony express, made a hitching place for the iron horse, the one-eyed horse with the fire-spit head, found a homelike spot and said, "Make a home," saw this corner with a mesh of rails, shuttling people, shunting cars, shaping the junk of the earth to a new city. The hands of men took hold and tugged And the breaths of men went into the junk And the junk stood up into skyscrapers and asked: Who am I? Am I a city? And if I am what is my name? And once while the time whistles blew and blew again The men answered: Long ago we gave you a name, Long ago we laughed and said: You? Your name is Chicago. Early the red men gave a name to the river, the place of the skunk, the river of the wild onion smell, Shee-caw-go. Out of the payday songs of steam shovels, Out of the wages of structural iron rivets, The living lighted skyscrapers tell it now as a name, Tell it across miles of sea blue water, gray blue land: I am Chicago, I am a name given out by the breaths of working men, laughing men, a child, a belonging. So between the Great Lakes, The Grand De Tour, and the Grand Prairie, The living lighted skyscrapers stand, Spotting the blue dusk with checkers of yellow, streamers of smoke and silver, 451 parallelograms of night-gray watchmen, Singing a soft moaning song: I am a child, a belonging. The wheelbarrows grin, the shovels and the mortar hoist an exploit. The stone shanks of the Monadnock, the Transportation, the People's Gas Building, stand up and scrape at the sky. The wheelbarrows sing, the bevels and the blueprints whisper. The library building named after Crerar, naked as a stock farm silo, light as a single eagle feather, stripped like an airplane propeller, takes a path up. Two cool new rivets says, "Maybe it is morning." "God knows." Put the city up; tear the city down; put it up again; let us find a city. Let us remember the little violet-eyed man who gave all, praying, "Dig and dream, dream and hammer, till your city comes." Every day the people sleep and the city dies; every day the people shake loose, awake and build the city again. The city is a tool chest opened every day, a time clock punched every morning, a shop door, bunkers and overalls counting every day. The city is a balloon and a bubble plaything shot to the sky every evening, whistled in a ragtime jig down the sunset. The city is made, forgotten, and made again, trucks hauling it away haul it back 452 steered by drivers whistling ragtime against the sunsets. Every day the people get up and carry the city, carry the bunkers and balloons of the city, lift it and put it down. "I will die as many times as you make me over again, says the city to the people, I am the woman, the home, the family, I get breakfast and pay the rent; I telephone the doctor, the milkman, the undertaker; I fix the streets for your first and your last ride— Come clean with me, come clean or dirty, I am stone and steel of your sleeping numbers; I remember all you forget. I will die as many times as you make me over again." Under the foundations, Over the roofs, The bevels and the blueprints talk it over. The wind of the lake shore waits and wanders. The heave of the shore wind hunches the sand piles. The winkers of the morning stars count out cities And forget the numbers. ~ Carl Sandburg

300:Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than the desperation. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up in a stranger’s bathroom, standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. In the living room, in the broken yard, in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light, my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, smiling in a way that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade, up the stairs of the building to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window and said This doesn’t look that much different from home, because it didn’t, but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights. We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud. Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. Okay, if you’re so great, you do it— here’s the pencil, make it work … If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you. I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again, years later, in the chlorinated pool. I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have these luxuries. I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together. I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside. ~ Richard Siken

301:THE UGLIEST MAN And again Zarathustra's feet ran over mountains and through woods, and his eyes kept seeking, but he whom they wanted to see was nowhere to be seen: the great distressed one who had cried out. All along the way, however, Zarathustra jubilated in his heart and was grateful. 'What good things," he said, "has this day given me to make up for its bad beginning! What strange people have I found to talk with Now I shall long chew their words like good grains; my teeth shall grind them and crush them small till they flow like milk into my soul." But when the path turned around a rock again the scenery changed all at once, and Zarathustra entered a realm of death. Black and red cliffs rose rigidly: no grass, no tree, no bird's voice. For it was a valley that all animals avoided, even the beasts of prey; only a species of ugly fat green snakes came here to die when they grew old. Therefore the shepherds called this valley Snakes' Death. Zarathustra, however, sank into a black reminiscence, for he felt as if he had stood in this valley once before. And much that was grave weighed on his mind; he walked slowly, and still more slowly, and finally stood still. But when he opened his eyes he saw something sitting by the way, shaped like a human being, yet scarcely like a human being-something inexpressible. And all at once a profound sense of shame overcame Zarathustra for having laid eyes on such a thing: blushing right up to his white hair, he averted his eyes and raised his feet to leave this dreadful place. But at that moment the dead waste land was filled with a noise, for something welled up from the ground, gurgling and rattling, as water gurgles and rattles by night in clogged waterpipes; and at last it became a human voice and human speech-thus: "Zarathustra! Zarathustral Guess my riddle! Speak, speak! What is the revenge against the witness? I lure you back, here is slippery ice. Take care, take care that your pride does not break its legs here! You think yourself wise, proud Zarathustra. Then guess the riddle, you cracker of hard nuts-the riddle that I am. Speak then: who am I?" But when Zarathustra had heard these words-what do you suppose happened to his soul? Pity seized him; and he sank down all at once, like an oak tree that has long resisted many woodcutters-heavily, suddenly, terrifying even those who had wanted to fell it. But immediately he rose from the ground again, and his face became hard. "I recognize you well," he said in a voice of bronze; 'you are the murderer of God! Let me go. You could not bear him who saw you-who always saw you through and through, you ugliest man! You took revenge on this witness!" Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he wanted to leave; but the inexpressible one seized a corner of his garment and began again to gurgle and seek for words. "Stayl" he said finally. "Stay! Do not pass by! I have guessed what ax struck you to the ground: hail to you, 0 Zarathustra, that you stand again! You have guessed, I know it well, how he who killed him feels-the murderer of God. Stay! Sit down here with me! It is not for nothing. Whom did I want to reach, if not you? Stay! Sit down! But do not look at me! In that way honor my ugliness 265 They persecute me; now you are my last refuge. Not with their hatred, not with their catchpoles: I would mock such persecution and be proud and glad of itl "Has not all success hitherto been with the wellpersecuted? And whoever persecutes well, learns readily how to follow; for he is used to going after somebody else. But it is their pity-it is their pity that I flee, fleeing to you. 0 Zarathustra, protect me, you my last refuge, the only one who has solved my riddle: you guessed how he who killed him feels. Stay! And if you would go, you impatient one, do not go the way I came. That way is bad. Are you angry with me that I have even now stammered too long-and even advise you? But know, it is I, the ugliest man, who also has the largest and heaviest feet. Where I have gone, the way is bad. I tread all ways till they are dead and ruined. "But that you passed me by, silent; that you blushed, I saw it well: that is how I recognized you as Zarathustra. Everyone else would have thrown his alms to me, his pity, with his eyes and words. But for that I am not beggar enough, as you guessed; for that I am too rich, rich in what is great, in what is terrible, in what is ugliest, in what is most inexpressible. Your shame, Zarathustra, honored me! With difficulty I escaped the throng of the pitying, to find the only one today who teaches, 'Pity is obtrusive'-you, 0 Zarathustra. Whether it be a god's pity or man's-pity offends the sense of shame. And to be unwilling to help can be nobler than that virtue which jumps to help. "But today that is called virtue itself among all the little people-pity. They have no respect for great misfortune, for great ugliness, for great failure. Over this multitude I look away as a dog looks away over the backs of teeming flocks of sheep. They are little gray 266 people, full of good wool and good will. As a heron looks away contemptuously over shallow ponds, its head leaning back, thus I look away over the teeming mass of gray little waves and wills and souls. Too long have we conceded to them that they are right, these little people; so that in the end we have also conceded them might. Now they teach: 'Good is only what little people call good.' "And today 'truth' is what the preacher said, who himself came from among them, that queer saint and advocate of the little people who bore witness about himself: 'I am the truth.' This immodest fellow has long given the little people swelled heads-he who taught no small error when he taught, 'I am the truth.' Has an immodest fellow ever been answered more politely? You, however, 0 Zarathustra, passed him by and said, 'No! No! Three times no!' You warned against his error, you, as the first, warned against pity-not all, not none, but you and your kind. "You are ashamed of the shame of the great sufferer; and verily, when you say, 'From pity, a great cloud approaches; beware, 0 men!'; when you teach, 'All creators are hard, all great love is over and above its pity'-O Zarathustra, how well you seem to me to understand storm signs. But you-warn yourself also against your pity. For many are on their way to you, many who are suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, freezing. And I also warn you against myself. You guessed my best, my worst riddle: myself and what I did. I know the ax that fells you. "But he had to die: he saw with eyes that saw everything; he saw man's depths and ultimate grounds, all his concealed disgrace and ugliness. His pity knew no shame: he crawled into my dirtiest nooks. This most curious, overobtrusive, overpitying one had to die. He 267 always saw me: on such a witness I wanted to have revenge or not live myself. The god who saw everything, even man-this god had to die! Man cannot bear it that such a witness should live." Thus spoke the ugliest man. But Zarathustra rose and was about to leave, for he felt frozen down to his very entrails. "You inexpressible one," he said, "you have warned me against your way. In thanks I shall praise mine to you. Behold, up there lies Zarathustra's cave. My cave is large and deep and has many nooks; even the most hidden can find a hiding-place there. And close by there are a hundred dens and lodges for crawling, fluttering, and jumping beasts. You self-exiled exile, would you not live among men and men's pity? Well then Do as I do. Thus you also learn from me; only the doer learns. And speak first of all to my animals. The proudest animal and the wisest animal-they should be the right counselors for the two of us." Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he went his way, still more reflectively and slowly than before; for he asked himself much, and he did not know how to answer himself readily. "How poor man is after all," he thought in his heart; "how ugly, how wheezing, how full of hidden shame! I have been told that man loves himself: ah, how great must this self-love bel How much contempt stands against it! This fellow too loved himself, even as he despised himself: a great lover he seems to me, and a great despiser. None have I found yet who despised himself more deeply: that too is a kind of height. Alas, was he perhaps the higher man whose cry I heard? I love the great despisers. Man, however, is something that must be overcome." 268 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE UGLIEST MAN

302:I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! You need not clap your torches to my face. Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, Do,harry out, if you must show your zeal, Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company! Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat, And please to know me likewise. Who am I? Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend Three streets offhe's a certain . . . how d'ye call? MasteraCosimo of the Medici, I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, How you affected such a gullet's-gripe!   But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves Pick up a manner nor discredit you: Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets And count fair price what comes into their net? He's Judas to a tittle, that man is! Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hang-dogs go Drink out this quarter-florin to the health Of the munificent House that harbours me (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) And all's come square again. I'd like his face His, elbowing on his comrade in the door With the pike and lantern,for the slave that holds John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal or the like? or you should see! Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so. What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, You know them and they take you? like enough! I saw the proper twinkle in your eye 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, Flower o' the broom, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! Flower o' the quince, I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? Flower o' the thymeand so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,three slim shapes, And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, All the bed-furniturea dozen knots, There was a ladder! Down I let myself, Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, And after them. I came up with the fun Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, Flower o' the rose, If I've been merry, what matter who knows? And so as I was stealing back again To get to bed and have a bit of sleep Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head Mine's shaveda monk, you saythe sting 's in that! If Master Cosimo announced himself, Mum's the word naturally; but a monk! Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) And so along the wall, over the bridge, By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month: "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,-- "To quit this very miserable world? Will you renounce" . . . "the mouthful of bread?" thought I; By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici Have given their hearts toall at eight years old. Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 'T#was not for nothingthe good bellyful, The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, And day-long blessed idleness beside! "Let's see what the urchin's fit for"that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do! They tried me with their books: Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! Flower o' the clove. All the Latin I construe is, "amo" I love! But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets Eight years together, as my fortune was, Watching folk's faces to know who will fling The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, And who will curse or kick him for his pains, Which gentleman processional and fine, Holding a candle to the Sacrament, Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch The droppings of the wax to sell again, Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, How say I?nay, which dog bites, which lets drop His bone from the heap of offal in the street, Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, He learns the look of things, and none the less For admonition from the hunger-pinch. I had a store of such remarks, be sure, Which, after I found leisure, turned to use. I drew men's faces on my copy-books, Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, And made a string of pictures of the world Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. "Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say? In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. What if at last we get our man of parts, We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine And put the front on it that ought to be!" And hereupon he bade me daub away. Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, Never was such prompt disemburdening. First, every sort of monk, the black and white, I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church, From good old gossips waiting to confess Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there With the little children round him in a row Of admiration, half for his beard and half For that white anger of his victim's son Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, Signing himself with the other because of Christ (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this After the passion of a thousand years) Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. I painted all, then cried " `T#is ask and have; Choose, for more's ready!"laid the ladder flat, And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. The monks closed in a circle and praised loud Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, Being simple bodies,"That's the very man! Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog! That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes To care about his asthma: it's the life!'' But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked; Their betters took their turn to see and say: The Prior and the learned pulled a face And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here? Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game! Your business is not to catch men with show, With homage to the perishable clay, But lift them over it, ignore it all, Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. Your business is to paint the souls of men Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . . It's vapour done up like a new-born babe (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul! Give us no more of body than shows soul! Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, That sets us praisingwhy not stop with him? Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms! Rub all out, try at it a second time. Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say, Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off! Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask? A fine way to paint soul, by painting body So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white When what you put for yellow's simply black, And any sort of meaning looks intense When all beside itself means and looks nought. Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, Left foot and right foot, go a double step, Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, The Prior's niece . . . patron-saintis it so pretty You can't discover if it means hope, fear, Sorrow or joy? won't beauty go with these? Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? Or say there's beauty with no soul at all (I never saw itput the case the same) If you get simple beauty and nought else, You get about the best thing God invents: That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed, Within yourself, when you return him thanks. "Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short, And so the thing has gone on ever since. I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: You should not take a fellow eight years old And make him swear to never kiss the girls. I'm my own master, paint now as I please Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front Those great rings serve more purposes than just To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, The heads shake still"It's art's decline, my son! You're not of the true painters, great and old; Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" Flower o' the pine, You keep your mistr manners, and I'll stick to mine! I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please themsometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints A laugh, a cry, the business of the world (Flower o' the peach Death for us all, and his own life for each!) And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, The world and life's too big to pass for a dream, And I do these wild things in sheer despite, And play the fooleries you catch me at, In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, Although the miller does not preach to him The only good of grass is to make chaff. What would men have? Do they like grass or no May they or mayn't they? all I want's the thing Settled for ever one way. As it is, You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: You don't like what you only like too much, You do like what, if given you at your word, You find abundantly detestable. For me, I think I speak as I was taught; I always see the garden and God there A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned, The value and significance of flesh, I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. But see, nowwhy, I see as certainly As that the morning-star's about to shine, What will hap some day. We've a youngster here Comes to our convent, studies what I do, Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop: His name is Guidihe'll not mind the monks They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk He picks my practice uphe'll paint apace. I hope sothough I never live so long, I know what's sure to follow. You be judge! You speak no Latin more than I, belike; However, you're my man, you've seen the world The beauty and the wonder and the power, The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, Changes, surprises,and God made it all! For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, The mountain round it and the sky above, Much more the figures of man, woman, child, These are the frame to? What's it all about? To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon, Wondered at? oh, this last of course!you say. But why not do as well as say,paint these Just as they are, careless what comes of it? God's workspaint any one, and count it crime To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works Are here already; nature is complete: Suppose you reproduce her(which you can't) There's no advantage! you must beat her, then." For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; And so they are better, paintedbetter to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, And trust me but you should, though! How much more, If I drew higher things with the same truth! That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh, It makes me mad to see what men shall do And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us, Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: To find its meaning is my meat and drink. "Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!" Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain It does not say to folkremember matins, Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this What need of art at all? A skull and bones, Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best, A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. I painted a Saint Laurence six months since At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style: "How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?" I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns "Already not one phiz of your three slaves Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, The pious people have so eased their own With coming to say prayers there in a rage: We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. Expect another job this time next year, For pity and religion grow i' the crowd Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools! That isyou'll not mistake an idle word Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot, Tasting the air this spicy night which turns The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! It's natural a poor monk out of bounds Should have his apt word to excuse himself: And hearken how I plot to make amends. I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns! They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet As puff on puff of grated orris-root When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. And then i' the front, of course a saint or two Saint John' because he saves the Florentines, Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white The convent's friends and gives them a long day, And Job, I must have him there past mistake, The man of Uz (and Us without the z, Painters who need his patience). Well, all these Secured at their devotion, up shall come Out of a corner when you least expect, As one by a dark stair into a great light, Music and talking, who but Lippo! I! Mazed, motionless, and moonstruckI'm the man! Back I shrinkwhat is this I see and hear? I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake, My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, I, in this presence, this pure company! Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing Forward, puts out a soft palm"Not so fast!" Addresses the celestial presence, "nay He made you and devised you, after all, Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw His camel-hair make up a painting brush? We come to brother Lippo for all that, Iste perfecit opus! So, all smile I shuffle sideways with my blushing face Under the cover of a hundred wings Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off To some safe bench behind, not letting go The palm of her, the little lily thing That spoke the good word for me in the nick, Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. And so all's saved for me, and for the church A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence! Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks! NOTES Form: unrhyming 1. First published in Men and Women, 1855.In this poem, Browning makes use of the account of Lippi in Vasari's Lives of the Painters, from which the following is an extract: "The Carmelite monk, Fra Filippo di Tommaso Lippi (1412-1469), was born at Florence in a bye-street called Ardiglione, under the Canto alla Cuculia, and behind the convent of the Carmelites. By the death of his father he was left a friendless orphan at the age of two years, his mother having also died shortly after his birth. The child was for some time under the care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, the sister of his father, who brought him up with very great difficulty till he had attained his eighth year, when, being no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she placed him in the above-named convent of the Carmelites. Here, in proportion as he showed himself dexterous and ingenious in all works performed by hand, did he manifest the utmost dullness and incapacity in letters, to which he would never apply himself, nor would he take any pleasure in learning of any kind. The boy continued to be called by his worldly name of Filippo, and being placed with others, who like himself were in the house of the novices, under the care of the master, to the end that the latter might see what could be done with him\; in place of studying, he never did anything but daub his own books, and those of the other boys, with caricatures, whereupon the prior determined to give him all means and every opportunity for learning to draw. The chapel of the Carmine had then been newly painted by Masaccio, and this being exceedingly beautiful, pleased Fra Filippo greatly, wherefore he frequented it daily for his recreation, and, continually practising there, in company with many other youths, who were constantly drawing in that place, he surpassed all the others by very much in dexterity and knowledge .... Proceeding thus, and improving from day to day, he has so closely followed the manner of Masaccio, and his works displayed so much similarity to those of the latter, that many affirmed the spirit of Masaccio to have entered the body of Fra Filippo .... "It is said that Fra Filippo was much addicted to the pleasures of sense, insomuch that he would give all he possessed to secure the gratification of whatever inclination might at the moment be predominant .... It was known that, while occupied in the pursuit of his pleasures, the works undertaken by him received little or none of his attention\; for which reason Cosimo de' Medici, wishing him to execute a work in his own palace, shut him up, that he might not waste his time in running about\; but having endured this confinement for two days, he then made ropes with sheets of his bed, which he cut to pieces for that purpose, and so having let himself down from a window, escaped, and for several days gave himself up to his amusements. When Cosimo found that the painter had disappeared, he caused him to be sought, and Fra Filippo at last returned to his work, but from that time forward Cosimo gave him liberty to go in and out at his pleasure, repenting greatly of having previously shut him up, when he considered the danger that Fra Filippo had incurred by his folly in descending from the window\; and ever afterwards labouring to keep him to his work by kindness only, he was by this means much more promptly and effectually served by the painter, and was wont to say that the excellencies of rare genius were as forms of light and not beasts of burden." 17. Cosimo of the Medici (1389-1464): the real ruler of Florence, and a patron of art and literature. 53. The snatches of song represent a species of Italian folk-song called Stornelli\; each consisting of three lines of a set form, and containing the name of a flower in the first line. 67. Saint Laurence: the Church at San Lorenzo, now famous for the tombs of the Medici, the work of Michael Angelo. 73. Jerome: one of the Christian Fathers, translated the Bible into Latin\; he led a life of extreme asceticism. 117-18. A reference to the procession carrying the consecrated wafer. 121. the Eight: a body of magistrates who kept order. 130. antiphonary: the service-book. 140. Preaching Friars: the Dominicans. 172. funked: turned to smoke. 176 ff. Lippi belonged to the naturalistic school which developed among the Florentines. These showed a greater attention to natural form and beauty, as opposed to the conventional school, who were men under the influence of earlier artists and inherited an ascetic timidity in the representation of material things. 189. Giotto (1267-1337): the earliest of the greater Florentine painters. 196. Herodias: sister-in-law of Herod, and mother of Salome. See Matthew, 14 for the story of Salome's dance and the beheading of John the Baptist. 227. See line 18 above. 235. Brother Angelico: Fra Angelico (1387-1455), "By purity of life, habitual elevation of thought, and natural sweetness of disposition, he was enabled to express the sacred affections upon the human countenance, as no one ever did before or since" (Ruskin). 236. Lorenzo: Lorenzo Monaco (1370-1425), a Camaldolese friar who painted in Florence. 273 ff. Tommaso Guidi (1401-28) better known as Masaccio (which means "hulking") "because," says Vasari, "of his excessive negligence and disregard of himself." He was the teacher--not, as here represented, the pupil--of Filippo Lippi (see first note above). 324. Prato: a town some dozen miles from Florence\; in the Cathedral are frescoes by Filippo, but they represent St. Stephen, and the Baptist, not St. Laurence. 328. According to tradition, St. Laurence was roasted on a gridiron. 339. Chianti wine: the common red wine of Tuscany. 346. Browning proceeds to put into Fra Filippo's mouth a description of what is considered his masterpiece --a Coronation of the Virgin--which he painted for the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio. Browning, following Vasari, believes that the painter put a self-portrait in the lower corner of the picture. Recent research has shown that the figure is a portrait, not of Fra Filippo, but of the benefactor who ordered the picture for the church. In this case, perfecit opus means "caused the work to be made," not, as Browning takes it, "completed the work himself." 354. St. John the Baptist is the patron saint of the Florentines. ~ Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi

--- IN CHAPTERS (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

10

   3 Poetry
   1 Yoga
   1 Occultism
   1 Integral Yoga


   6 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   2 Jalaluddin Rumi


   10 Talks

1.00_-_Preliminary_Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      In your early struggles you may have found it difficult to conquer sleep; and you may have wandered so far from the object of your meditations without noticing it, that the meditation has really been broken; but much later on, when you feel that you are getting quite good, you will be shocked to find a complete oblivion of yourself and your surroundings. You will say: Good heavens! I must have been to sleep! or else What on earth was I meditation upon? or even What was I doing Where am I? who am I? or a mere wordless bewilderment may daze you. This may alarm you, and your alarm will not be lessened when you come to full consciousness, and reflect that you have actually forgotten who you are and what you are doing!

1.03_-_The_Sunlit_Path, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga      We are Bill Smith, a name without a meaning, a legal artifice to tie us to the great Machine and to an obscure genealogy we do not know much about, except that we are the son of our father, who was the son of his father, who was the son of his father, and that evidently we shall be the father of our son, who will be the father of his son, who will be the father of his son, and so on endlessly. And we walk up and down the great boulevard of the world, here or there, in a Los Angeles which looks more and more like Tokyo, which looks more and more like Mexico City, which looks more and more like every city in the world, just as one anthill looks like another. We can very well take a plane, but we will find ourselves again everywhere. We are French or American, but, to tell the truth, that is only history and passports, another artifice to bind us hand and foot to one machine or another, while our brother in Calcutta or Rangoon walks the same boulevard with the same question, under a yellow, red or orange flag. All this is the vestige of the hunting grounds, but there is not much left to hunt, save ourselves, and we are well on our way to being crushed out of that possibility, too, under the steamroller of the great Machine. So we go up and down the stairs, make phone calls, rush around, rush to vacation or enjoy life, like our brother under a yellow or a brown skin: in English, French and Chinese, we are harassed on all sides, exhausted, and we are not quite sure whether we are enjoying life or life is enjoying us. But it goes on and on all the same. And through it all, there is something that goes up and down, rushes and rushes, and sometimes, for a second, there is a sort of little cry inside: who am I? who am I? Where is me? Where am I?

1.07_-_Jnana_Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism      20. Enquire who am I? Deny or sublate the limiting adjuncts (body, mind, etc.); know the Self and be free.

1.240_-_1.300_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism      D.: The booklet who am I? speaks of swarupa drishti (seeing the essence). Then there must be a seer and the seen. How can this be reconciled with the Ultimate Unity?   M.: Why do you ask for salvation, release from sorrow, etc.? He who asks for them sees them also.   --      The interpreter advised the questioner to study who am I? The doctor was ready with his protestations: "I have read it also. I cannot still make my mind concentrate."   M.: By practice and dispassion - abhyasa vairagyabhyam.

1.240_-_Talks_2, #unset, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   Talk 257.   D.: A certain young man from Dindigul spoke to Sri Bhagavan, saying that he had learnt by his stay for a few days; that all that he need do was to enquire, who am I? He wanted to know if any discipline was to be observed and started with the question: Where should I do the enquiry? meaning if he should do it in Guru sannidhi (the presence of the Master).   M.: The enquiry should be from where the I is.   --   M.: Yes. Right.   D.: The booklet who am I? speaks of swarupa drishti (seeing the essence). Then there must be a seer and the seen. How can this be reconciled with the Ultimate Unity?   M.: Why do you ask for salvation, release from sorrow, etc.? He who asks for them sees them also.   --   M.: The feeling I work is the hindrance. Enquire, Who works?   Remember, who am I? The work will not bind you. It will go on automatically. Make no effort either to work or to renounce work.   Your effort is the bondage. What is bound to happen will happen.   --   They obstruct bhakti also.   The interpreter advised the questioner to study who am I? The doctor was ready with his protestations: I have read it also. I cannot still make my mind concentrate.   M.: By practice and dispassion abhyasa vairagyabhyam.   --   A cultured lady, daughter of a well-known solicitor of Madras asked:   What should one do in order to remain free from thoughts as advised by you? Is it only the enquiry who am I?   M.: Only to remain still. Do it and see.   D.: It is impossible.   M.: Exactly. For the same reason the enquiry who am I? is advised.   D.: Raising the question, no response comes from within.   --   D.: Thoughts rise up more and more.   M.: Then and there raise the same question, who am I?   D.: Should I do so as each thought arises? Well. Is the world our thought only?   --   The audience in the hall were very attentively listening. One of them, a sincere devotee of Sri Bhagavan, was so impressed by it that he soon lost himself. He later described his experience as follows:   I was long wondering where the current starts, within the body or elsewhere. Suddenly, my body grew tenuous until it disappeared. The enquiry who am I? went on very clearly and forcibly. The sound of I-I-I alone persisted. There was one vast expanse and nothing more. There was a hazy perception of the occurrences in the hall. I knew that people stood up to salute at the end of the Vedic chant. I      --   Illustration: the necklace supposed lost. One does not see the world or ones own body, being away from the Self. Always being the Self, one sees everything else. God and the world are all in the Heart. See the Seer and everything will be found to be the Self. Change your outlook. Look within. Find the Self. Who is the substratum of the subject and the object? Find it and all problems are solved.   The lady was then told of the pamphlet, who am I? She agreed to read it before asking further questions of Sri Bhagavan.   Talk 332.   --   M.: So long as you seek to know how to realise, this advice is given to find your Self. Your seeking the method denotes your separateness.   D.: Is it not better to say I am the Supreme Being than ask who am I?   M.: Who affirms? There must be one to do it. Find that one.   --      Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi enquiry of who am I? - even as the central blade of grass is delicately drawn out from its whorl - that which is different from all the three bodies and is existent as one and universal in the heart as   Aham or I and denoted by the words Tvam (in the Scriptural dictum   --   Later Sri Bhagavan continued: It is said I AM that I AM. That means a person must abide as the I. He is always the I alone.   He is nothing else. Yet he asks who am I? A victim of illusion would ask who am I? and not a man fully aware of himself.   The wrong identity of the Self with the non-self makes you ask,   --   Who are you?   M.: Ask yourself the question, who am I?   D.: Please tell me how you have found it. I shall not be able to find it myself. (The I is the result of biological forces. It results in silence. I want to know how the Master finds it.)   --   M.: How do you know its existence - rather than your own existence?   D.: What is new in the existence of anything? I take up your book and read there that the one question one should ask oneself is who am I? I want to know Who are you? I have my own answer. If another says the same, and so too, millions of others, there is the probability of the Self. I want a positive answer for the question and no playing with words.   M.: In this way you are in the region of probabilities at the best.   --   I was indeed fortunate that I never took to it. Had I taken to it,   I would probably be nowhere - always in confusion. My purva vasanas (former tendencies) directly took me to the enquiry who am I? It was indeed fortunate!

1.300_-_1.400_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism      The lady was then told of the pamphlet, who am I? She agreed to read it before asking further questions of Sri Bhagavan.

1.400_-_1.450_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism   Naham - I am not this - corresponds to rechaka   Koham - who am I? (search for the I) - corresponds to puraka   Soham - He am I; (The Self alone) - corresponds to kumbhaka.

1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism   Naham - I am not this - corresponds to rechaka   Koham - who am I? (search for the I) - corresponds to puraka   Soham - He am I; (The Self alone) - corresponds to kumbhaka.   --   Nothing else can be without Him. Everything has its being in Siva and because of Siva.   Therefore enquire who am I? Sink deep within and abide as the   Self. That is Siva as BE-ing. Do not expect to have visions of Him repeated. What is the difference between the objects you see and   --   M.: Leave Isvara alone. Speak for yourself.   D.: What about myself? who am I?   M.: That is just it. Know it, when all will be known; if not, ask then.   --   M.: First ascertain who the wife and the husb and are. Then these questions will not arise.   D.: Engaged in other pursuits, can the mental activities be checked and the query who am I? pursued? Are they not contrary to each other?   M.: These questions arise only in the absence of strength of mind. As the mental activities diminish its strength increases.   --   Talk 486.   Mr. Ganapatram: How shall I find out who am I?   M.: Are there two selves for the one self to find the other?   --   After a time he continued: Please say how I shall realise the I. Am   I to make the japa, who am I?   M.: No japa of the kind is meant.   D.: Am I to think who am I?   M.: You have known that the I-thought springs forth. Hold the Ithought and find its moola (source).   --   M.: There is only one way and that consists in not losing sight of ones Self under any circumstances.   To enquire who am I? is the only remedy for all the ills of the world. It is also perfect bliss.      --   M.: Any other vidya requires a knower, knowledge and the object to be known, whereas this does not require any of them. It is the Self.   Can anything be so obvious as that? Hence it is the easiest. All that you need do is to enquire, who am I?   A mans true name is mukti (liberation)   --   The aim of such advice is to help the mind to concentrate. It is one of the forcible methods to check the mind and prevent its dissipation. It is forcibly directed into one channel. It is a help to concentration.   But the best means of realisation is the enquiry who am I? The present trouble is to the mind and it must be removed by the mind only.      --   Statements are made, their pros and cons are argued, and the truth is thus made clear to the intellect.   When the matter is understood intellectually the earnest seeker begins to apply it practically. He argues at every moment, For whom are these thoughts? who am I? and so forth, until he is well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us.   That is firmness of faith. Then all his doubts are cleared and he needs no further instructions.   --   Talk 625.   Miss Merston, an English lady visitor: I have read who am I? While   inquiring who the I is, I cannot hold it for any length of time.   --   M.: There must be one to hear sounds or see visions. That one is the   I. If you seek it, asking who am I? the subject and objects would   coalesce. After that there is no quest. Till then thought will arise, things   --   are ways to winning it. One must not get stuck in the upasanas,   but must query who am I? and find the Self.   D.: I have no pleasure in the house. There remains nothing for me to   --   What is the difference between the two?   M.: The former is vichara - who am I? (Koham?) It represents jnana.   The latter is dhyana - Whence am I? (Kutoham?) This admits a

1.450_-_1.500_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism      D.: What about myself? who am I?   M.: That is just it. Know it, when all will be known; if not, ask then.

1.550_-_1.600_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism      When the matter is understood intellectually the earnest seeker begins to apply it practically. He argues at every moment, "For whom are these thoughts? who am I?" and so forth, until he is well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us.