Quotes, Excerpts, Anecdotes.

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"Every masterful race of the world’s history has its epic. It is the tale of the fathers told to the sons. But side by side with the spoken epic is another, unspoken, yet truer and deeper. It is the tale of the race life, not told in words, but lived in deeds done. And the epic lived is always more wonderful than the epic told. The true epic is found, not in the story of the battles or of the deeds of the rulers, but in the race life. In the perspective of time men become less, man grows greater. Race life is broader, deeper, richer than the life of any man, or of any men. The great men of a race are only an evolution of its race force; and the reserve force is greater than its product. They are indices, race marks. The great man is as the mountain peak; for the mountains that loom up above the widespread plain are not the land; they are only the land-marks, marks of the land. Kings are the accident; the people, the law. The Greek colonies, not Ilium and Atreides Agamemnon, are the true epic of Hellas, vastly more marvelous. So of the Aryan folk; not the Vedas, not the Avestas, not the Iliad, or the Nibelungenlied, or Beowulf, but the marvelous tale of what the Aryan man has lived—how he has subdued the wild and waste lands—how he has made the desert to blossom as the rose—how he has built up empire with ax and plow, and has sailed the unknown paths of the seas—these are his true race epic. The others are only as the fairy tales which old wives tell to their children. We read between the lines of the written epic to find the truer and greater epic which lies beyond. This book is an attempt to unfold somewhat of the race epic which the Aryan peoples have lived."
[Joseph Widney, 1907]

"We get to know a man or state of affairs far differently when they represent a danger to our possessions, honour, life and death, or to those of our loved ones: as Tiberius, for example, must have reflected more profoundly on the nature of Emperor Augustus and that of his system of government, and known more about them, than the wisest historian possibly could.
Now, we all live, comparatively speaking, in far too great security for us to ever acquire a sound knowledge of man: one person studies him from a desire to do so, another from boredom, a third from habit: it is never a case of: 'study or perish!'. As long as truths do not cut into our flesh with knives, we retain a secret contempt for them: they still appear to us too much like 'winged dreams', as though we were free to have them or not have them - as though there were something in them which stood at our discretion, as though we could awaken from these truths of ours!" [N; Daybreak, 460]

"O Zos, thou art fallen into the involuntary accident of birth and rebirth into the incarnating ideas of women.

"On earth the circle was fabricated.

"What is all nature but thy past will incarnated and removed from consciousness by its further desires?

"Remoteness from self is pain.

"What is all thought but a morality of the senses that has become sex?

"'I multiply' is creation: the sexual infinity.

"Conscious desire is the negation of possession: the procrastination of reality.

"The soul is the ancestral animals. The Body is their knowledge.

"Brave laughter - not faith.

"Judge without mercy, all this weakness is thy self-abuse.

"Eternal Self! these millions of bodies I have outworn!

"Respect thy body: it will again become thy parents.

"Retrogress to the point where knowledge ceases, in that law becomes its own spontaneity and its freedom.

"The living Lord speaks: 'In disciples is my satisfaction.' A weary one asked: 'Is it not written on the sandals of the prostitute - follow me'?

"The I thinks, the Self doth.

"Procreation is with more things than women. ...Do I still need a loin-cloth for my passions?" [A.O.Spare, Focus of Life]

"Beans. Pythag'oras forbade the use of beans to his disciples—not the use of beans as a food, but the use of beans for political elections. Magistrates and other public officers were elected by beans cast by the voters into a helmet, and what Pythag'oras advised was that his disciples should not interfere with politics or "love beans"—i.e. office.
Aristotle says the word bean means ven'ery, and that the prohibition to "abstain from beans" was equivalent to "keeping the body chaste." [E.Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable]

"The time-honored tradition that Pythagoras forbade his disciples to eat beans, for which various reasons, more or less ingenious, were assigned by ancient and medieval writers, has been upset by some recent writers, who understand the phrase, "Abstain from beans" (kyamon apechete), to refer to a measure of practical prudence, and not to a gastronomic principle. Beans, black and white, were, according to this interpretation, the means of voting in Magna Græcia, and "Abstain from beans" would, therefore, mean merely "Avoid politics"... [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"The ancient Greeks and Romans made use of the beans in gathering the votes of the people, and for the election of magistrates. A white bean signified absolution, and a black bean condemnation. Beans had a mysterious use in the lemuralia and parentalia, where the master of the family, after washing his hands three times, threw black beans over his head nine times, reiterating the words "I redeem myself and my family by these beans."
[Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, Bean, vol III, p. 572-573.]

"During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and small, I came upon this thought : In the web of the world the one may well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest must join in submitting itself." [Goethe]

"I can't understand why rational and spiritual man uses artificial means to attain poetic bliss, since enthusiasm and will-power are sufficient to elevate him to a supernatural existence. The great poets, the philosophers, the prophets are beings who by the pure and free exercise of their will reach a state in which they are at once cause and effect, subject and object, hypnotist and sleepwalker." (Barbereau, quoted by Baudelaire; On Wine and Hashish)

"But man is not so abandoned, so deprived of the honest means of winning heaven that he is forced to call on pharmacy and sorcery; he does not need to sell his soul to pay for the intoxicating caresses and friendship of houris. What is the paradise that you purchase at the cost of your eternal soul? I can imagine a man (shall I say a Brahman, a poet, or a Christian philosopher?) who has climbed the arduous Olympus of spirituality; around him the Muses of Raphael or Mantegna...

...the divine Apollo, that master of all knowledge (the Apollo of Francavilla, Albrecht Durer, Goltzius, or any other, what does it matter? Isn't there an Apollo for every man who deserves one?), produces with the strokes of his bow his most vibrant chords. Below him, at the foot of the mountain, in the briars and the mud, the troop of human beings, the band of serfs... and the saddened poet says to himself: 'Magic deceives them and sheds on them the gleam of a false happiness and a false light; while we, poets and philosophers, we have regenrated our souls by sustained labour and contemplation. By the assiduous exercise of our will and the permannet nobility of our intentions, we have created for our use a garden of true beauty. Trusting in the word which says that faith can move mountains, we have accomplished the only miracle for which God has granted us permission!'" [Baudelaire, On Wine and Hashish]

"vaasitham syaath vanam sarvam suputhreNa kulam yaThaa

The whole forest, becomes fragrant, by one good tree, which puts forth fragrant flowers, just as by one virtuous son, the whole clan, becomes illustrious." [Subhashitani]

"I greet the sword's honed edge that bites into my flesh, knowing that this courage was given me by my father." [Gisli, Gisli Sursson's Saga]

"Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and anyone were to dispute them.… It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in ordinary speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted like something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.… "Nobility" does not appear as a formal expression until the Roman Empire, and then precisely in opposition to the hereditary nobles, then in decadence." [Gasset, Revolt of the Masses]

"The price of creation is never too high, but the price of living with other people is"-Charles Bukowski

Love this one.

"There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution. One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it." [Kafka]

"THESE Dawns have raised their banner; in the eastern half of the mid-air they spread abroad their shining light.
Like heroes who prepare their weapons for the war, onward they come bright red in hue, the Mother Cows.
O thou who shinest forth in wondrous glory, urged onward by thy strength, auspicious Lady,
Dawn, may I gain that wealth, renowned and ample, in brave sons, troops of slaves, far-famed for horses.

Bending her looks on all the world, the Goddess shines, widely spreading with her bright eye westward.
Waking to motion every living creature, she understands the voice of each adorer.

Ancient of days, again again born newly, decking her beauty with the self-same raiment.
The Goddess wastes away the life of mortals, like a skilled hunter cutting birds in pieces.
Diminishing the days of human creatures, the Lady shines with all her lover's splendour.

O Dawn enriched with ample wealth, bestow on us the wondrous gift
Wherewith we may support children and children's sons.

Thou radiant mover of sweet sounds, with wealth of horses and of kine
Shine thou on us this day, O Dawn auspiciously." [Rig Veda, 1.92]

“True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.

“What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity…

“Beauty is something that burns the hand when you touch it.

“Real danger is nothing more than just living. Of course, living is merely the chaos of existence, but more than that it's a crazy mixed-up business of dismantling existence instant by instant to the point where the original chaos is restored, and taking strength from the uncertainty and the fear that chaos brings to re-create existence instant by instant. You won't find another job as dangerous as that. There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.

"I stuttered silently inside my mouth, like when one vainly searches for something in a bag and instead keeps on coming across some other object that one does not want. The heaviness and density of my inner world closely resembled those of the night and my words creaked to the surface like a heavy bucket being drawn out of the night’s deep well.

“Isao had never felt that he might want to be a woman. He had never wished for anything else but to be a man, live in a manly way, die a manly death. To be thus a man was to give constant proof of one’s manliness–to be more a man today than yesterday, more a man tomorrow than today. To be a man was to forge ever upward toward the peak of manhood, there to die amid the white snows of that peak.
But to be a woman? It seemed to mean being a woman at the beginning and being a woman forever.

“…the samurai ethic is a political science of the heart, designed to control such discouragement and fatigue in order to avoid showing them to others. It was thought more important to look healthy than to be healthy, and more important to seem bold and daring than to be so. This view of morality, since it is physiologically based on the special vanity peculiar to men, is perhaps the supreme male view of morality.

"The vague uneasiness surrounding my sexual feelings had practically made the carnal world an obsession with me. my curiosity was actually purely intellectual, but I became skillful at convincing myself that it was carnal desire incarnate. What is more, I mastered the art of delusion until I could regard myself as a truly lewd-minded person. As a result I assumed the stylish airs of an adult, of a man of the world. I affected the attitude of being completely tired of women.
Thus it was that I first became obsessed with the idea of the kiss. Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter. I can say so now. But at that time, in order to delude myself that this desire was animal passion. I had to undertake an elaborate disguise of mu true self. The unconscious feeling of guilt resulting from this false pretense atubbornly insisted that I play a conscious and false role.

“Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?

“Only through the group, I realised — through sharing the suffering of the group — could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain. And for the body to reach that level at which the divine might be glimpsed, a dissolution of individuality was necessary. The tragic quality of the group was also necessary, the quality that constantly raised the group out of the abandon and torpor into which it was prone to lapse, leading it to an ever-mounting shared suffering and so to death, which was the ultimate suffering. The group must be open to death — which meant, of course, that it must be a community of warriors.

“The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority." [Mishima]

"One must trust nothing but the bodily sensations." [Metrodorus; DK, 70B1]

"It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the psyche of a new-born child is a tabula rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in it. In so far as the child is born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception. These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori and formal conditions of apperception that are based on instinct. Their presence gives the world of the child and the dreamer its anthropomorphic stamp. They are the archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in this way produce, in the fantasy-images of children's dreams as well as in the delusions of schizophrenia, astonishing mythological parallels such as can also be found, though in lesser degree, in the dreams of normal persons and neurotics. It is not, therefore, a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas." [Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious]

"If we cannot save the world from its curse, at least we can present it with symbols that will direct it to deep insight and the possibility of salvation." [Richard Wagner]

"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.
...Control and discipline refer to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented, not in a selfish way but in the sense of a total examination of the self. ...Petty tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness while warriors do not. What usually exhausts us is the wear and tear on our self-importance. Any man who has an iota of pride is ripped apart by being made to feel worthless.
To tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is called control. Instead of feeling sorry for himself a warrior immediately goes to work mapping the petty tyrant's strong points, his weaknesses, his quirks of behavior.
To gather all this information while they are beating you up is called discipline. A perfect petty tyrant has no redeeming feature.
Forbearance is to wait patiently--no rush, no anxiety--a simple, joyful holding back of what is due.
A warrior knows that he is waiting and what he is waiting for. Right there is the great joy of warriorship.
...A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has nothing in the world except his impeccability, and impeccability cannot be threatened. Nonetheless, in a battle for one's life a warrior should strategically use every means available.
We must live our lives impeccably for no other reason than to be impeccable." [Carlos Castenada, The Teachings of Don Juan]
(Chapters are at the bottom:
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“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.” [Charles Bukowski]

Ambition...
Another one of those concepts hijacked by western civilization.

All are ambitious but most consider themselves not so when they compare their own ambitions to the ones they are told they should have.

I have the most challenging ambitions of all: to be the least ambitious in regards tot he most popular ones.
Another way to define it in this way: To be the most free from social and modern cultural ideals as possible. That is my ambition.

"Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

The thief
Left it behind-
The moon at the window.

The winds gives me
Enough fallen leaves
To make a fire" [Ryokan]

Arjuna's Distress

"Killing these
Must breed but anguish, Krishna! If they be
Guilty, we shall grow guilty by their deaths;
Their sins will light on us, if we shall slay
Those sons of Dhritirashtra, and our kin;
What peace could come of that, O Madhava?
For if indeed, blinded by lust and wrath,
These cannot see, or will not see, the sin
Of kingly lines o'erthrown and kinsmen slain,
How should not we, who see, shun such a crime-
We who perceive the guilt and feel the shame-
O thou Delight of Men, Janardana?
By overthrow of houses perisheth
Their sweet continuous household piety,
And- rites neglected, piety extinct-
Enters impiety upon that home;
Its women grow unwomaned, whence there spring
Mad passions, and the mingling-up of castes,
Sending a Hell-ward road that family,
And whoso wrought its doom by wicked wrath.
Nay, and the souls of honoured ancestors
Fall from their place of peace, being bereft
Of funeral-cakes and the wan death-water.
So teach our holy hymns. Thus, if we slay
Kinsfolk and friends for love of earthly power,
Ahovat! what an evil fault it were!
Better I deem it, if my kinsmen strike,
To face them weaponless, and bare my breast
To shaft and spear, than answer blow with blow.

So speaking, in the face of those two hosts,
Arjuna sank upon his chariot-seat,
And let fall bow and arrows, sick at heart." [Bhagavad Gita, 1]


"So spake Arjuna to the Lord of Hearts,
And sighing, "I will not fight!" held silence then." [BG, 2]


Krishna.

"Krishna. Thou grievest where no grief should be! thou speak'st
Words lacking wisdom! for the wise in heart
Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die.
Let them perish, Prince! and fight!
He who shall say, "Lo! I have slain a man!"
He who shall think, "Lo! I am slain!" those both
Know naught! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain!
Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
... Do thy part!
Be mindful of thy name, and tremble not!
Nought better can betide a martial soul
Than lawful war; happy the warrior
To whom comes joy of battle- comes, as now,
Glorious and fair, unsought; opening for him
A gateway unto Heav'n. But, if thou shunn'st
This honourable field- a Kshatriya-
If, knowing thy duty and thy task, thou bidd'st
Duty and task go by - that shall be sin!
And those to come shall speak thee infamy
From age to age; but infamy is worse
For men of noble blood to bear than death!
...Therefore, arise, thou Son of Kunti! brace
Thine arm for conflict, nerve thy heart to meet-
As things alike to thee - pleasure or pain,
Profit or ruin, victory or defeat:
So minded, gird thee to the fight, for so
Thou shalt not sin!
.. Let right deeds be
Thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them.
And live in action! Labour! Make thine acts
Thy piety.
...No man shall 'scape from act
By shunning action; nay, and none shall come
By mere renouncements unto perfectness.
Nay, and no jot of time, at any time,
Rests any actionless; his nature's law
Compels him, even unwilling, into act;
[For thought is act in fancy].
...Finally, this is better, that one do
His own task as he may, even though he fail,
Than take tasks not his own, though they seem good.
To die performing duty is no ill;
But who seeks other roads shall wander still.
...Put forth full force of Soul in thy own soul!
Fight! vanquish foes and doubts, dear Hero! slay
What haunts thee in fond shapes, and would betray!" [BG, 2, 3]

". . . naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating and self-directing; that the world-process is not teleological and anthro- pocentric, but purposeless, deterministic . . . and only incidentally productive of men; that human life, physical, mental, moral, and spiritual, is an or- dinary natural event attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of nature; and that man’s ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified on natural grounds, without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny." [Naturalism, Dictionary of Philosophy]

Franz Kafka

Before the Law

This translation by Ian Johnston of Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, has certain copyright restrictions. For information please use the following link: Copyright. For comments or question please contact Ian Johnston.. For more links to more Kafka e-texts in English click here. This text was last revised on February 21, 2009]



Before the Law

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

"Mr. Chairman, Your Royal Highness, Your Grace, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
In my last lecture I led you into the quag of delusion; I smothered you in the mire of delusion; I brought you to thirst in the desert of delusion; I left you wandering in the jungle of delusion, a prey to all the monsters which are thoughts. It came into my mind that it was up to me to do something about it.

But now let me begin to unleash my indignation. My job-the establishment of the Law of Thelema-is a most discouraging job. It is the rarest thing to find anyone who has any ideas at all on the subject of liberty. Because the Law of Thelema is the law of liberty, everybody's particular hair stands on end like the quills of the fretful porpentine; they scream like an uprooted mandrake, and flee in terror from the accursed spot. Because: the exercise of liberty means that you have to think for yourself, and the natural inertia of mankind wants religion and ethics ready-made. However ridiculous or shameful a theory or practice is, they would rather comply than examine it. Sometimes it is hook-swinging or Sati; sometimes consubstantiation or supra-lapsarianism; they do not mind what they are brought up in, as long as they are well brought up. They do not want to be bothered about it. The Old School Tie wins through. They never suspect the meaning of the pattern on the tie: the Broad Arrow.
...There are not going to be many Yogis in England, because there will not be more than a very few indeed who will have the courage to tackle even this first of the eight limbs of Yoga: Yama. I do not think that anything will save the country: unless through war and revolution, when those who wish to survive will have to think and act for themselves according to their desperate needs, and not by some rotten yard-stick of convention. Why, even the skill of the workman has almost decayed within a generation! Forty years ago there were very few jobs that a man could not do with a jack-knife and a woman with a hair-pin; today you have to have a separate gadget for every trivial task. If you want to become Yogis, you will have to get a move on. Lege! Judica! Tace!
Love is the law, love under will." [Crowley, Lectures on Yoga]

Magic is the female correlate to Philosophy. It is because of this, Crowley didn't develop from a fairly young age until his death, as a writer. He rejected all of these forms of ordering, as a complete occultist. It takes masculine ordering in the feminine nature, to establish the higher forms of magic (Philosophy). Why did he not leave it at: "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" and added the "love is the law, love under will"!? Was there a judeo-christian influence he couldn't shake off? I assume it was his imbalance towards the feminine, that made his writings rather weak. Though I recommend people to look at it. Have you read the Hubbard Bio "Bare Faced Messiah"? Crowley appears in it too. Wild stories.

Quote :

Tilopa's Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa
in Twenty Eight Verses



Homage to the Eighty Four Mahasiddhas!
Homage to Mahamudra!
Homage to the Vajra Dakini!

Mahamudra cannot be taught. But most intelligent Naropa,
Since you have undergone rigorous austerity,
With forbearance in suffering and with devotion to your Guru,
Blessed One, take this secret instruction to heart.

Is space anywhere supported? Upon what does it rest?
Like space, Mahamudra is dependant upon nothing;
Relax and settle in the continuum of unalloyed purity,
And, your bonds loosening, release is certain.

Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases;
Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself,
The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends
And supreme enlightenment is gained.

Like the morning mist that dissolves into thin air,
Going nowhere but ceasing to be,
Waves of conceptualization, all the mind's creation, dissolve,
When you behold your mind's true nature.

Pure space has neither colour nor shape
And it cannot be stained either black or white;
So also, mind's essence is beyond both colour and shape
And it cannot be sullied by black or white deeds.

The darkness of a thousand aeons is powerless
To dim the crystal clarity of the sun's heart;
And likewise, aeons of samsara have no power
To veil the clear light of the mind's essence.

Although space has been designated "empty",
In reality it is inexpressible;
Although the nature of mind is called "clear light",
Its every ascription is baseless verbal fiction.

The mind's original nature is like space;
It pervades and embraces all things under the sun.
Be still and stay relaxed in genuine ease,
Be quiet and let sound reverberate as an echo,
Keep your mind silent and watch the ending of all worlds.

The body is essentially empty like the stem of a reed,
And the mind, like pure space, utterly transcends
the world of thought:
Relax into your intrinsic nature with neither abandon nor control -
Mind with no objective is Mahamudra -
And, with practice perfected, supreme enlightenment is gained.

The clear light of Mahamudra cannot be revealed
By the canonical scriptures or metaphysical treatises
Of the Mantravada, the Paramitas or the Tripitaka;
The clear light is veiled by concepts and ideals.

By harbouring rigid precepts the true samaya is impaired,
But with cessation of mental activity all fixed notions subside;
When the swell of the ocean is at one with its peaceful depths,
When mind never strays from indeterminate, non-conceptual truth,
The unbroken samaya is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness.

Free of intellectual conceits, disavowing dogmatic principles,
The truth of every school and scripture is revealed.
Absorbed in Mahamudra, you are free from the prison of samsara;
Poised in Mahamudra, guilt and negativity are consumed;
And as master of Mahamudra you are the light of the Doctrine.

The fool in his ignorance, disdaining Mahamudra,
Knows nothing but struggle in the flood of samsara.
Have compassion for those who suffer constant anxiety!
Sick of unrelenting pain and desiring release, adhere to a master,
For when his blessing touches your heart, the mind is liberated.

KYE HO! Listen with joy!
Investment in samsara is futile; it is the cause of every anxiety.
Since worldly involvement is pointless, seek the heart of reality!

In the transcending of mind's dualities is Supreme vision;
In a still and silent mind is Supreme Meditation;
In spontaneity is Supreme Activity;
And when all hopes and fears have died, the Goal is reached.

Beyond all mental images the mind is naturally clear:
Follow no path to follow the path of the Buddhas;
Employ no technique to gain supreme enlightenment.

KYE MA! Listen with sympathy!
With insight into your sorry worldly predicament,
Realising that nothing can last, that all is as dreamlike illusion,
Meaningless illusion provoking frustration and boredom,
Turn around and abandon your mundane pursuits.

Cut away involvement with your homeland and friends
And meditate alone in a forest or mountain retreat;
Exist there in a state of non-meditation
And attaining no-attainment, you attain Mahamudra.

A tree spreads its branches and puts forth leaves,
But when its root is cut its foliage withers;
So too, when the root of the mind is severed,
The branches of the tree of samsara die

A single lamp dispels the darkness of a thousand aeons;
Likewise, a single flash of the mind's clear light
Erases aeons of karmic conditioning and spiritual blindness.

KYE HO! Listen with joy!
The truth beyond mind cannot be grasped by any faculty of mind;
The meaning of non-action cannot be understood in compulsive activity;
To realise the meaning of non-action and beyond mind,
Cut the mind at its root and rest in naked awareness.

Allow the muddy waters of mental activity to clear;
Refrain from both positive and negative projection -
leave appearances alone:
The phenomenal world, without addition or subtraction, is Mahamudra.

The unborn omnipresent base dissolves your impulsions and delusions:
Do not be conceited or calculating but rest in the unborn essence
And let all conceptions of yourself and the universe melt away.

The highest vision opens every gate;
The highest meditation plumbs the infinite depths;
The highest activity is ungoverned yet decisive;
And the highest goal is ordinary being devoid of hope and fear.

At first your karma is like a river falling through a gorge;
In mid-course it flows like a gently meandering River Ganga;
And finally, as a river becomes one with the ocean,
It ends in consummation like the meeting of mother and son.

If the mind is dull and you are unable to practice these instructions,
Retaining essential breath and expelling the sap of awareness,
Practising fixed gazes - methods of focussing the mind,
Discipline yourself until the state of total awareness abides.

When serving a karmamudra, the pure awareness
of bliss and emptiness will arise:
Composed in a blessed union of insight and means,
Slowly send down, retain and draw back up the bodhichitta,
And conducting it to the source, saturate the entire body.
But only if lust and attachment are absent will that awareness arise.

Then gaining long-life and eternal youth, waxing like the moon,
Radiant and clear, with the strength of a lion,
You will quickly gain mundane power and supreme enlightenment.

May this pith instruction in Mahamudra
Remain in the hearts of fortunate beings.

Quotes by Carlos Castaneda (his mentor: Don Juan)

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it.

You have little time left, and none of it for crap. A fine state. I would say that the best of us always comes out when we are against the wall, when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.

My benefactor told me that my father and mother had lived and died just to have me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points enough to realize the tremendous price that has been paid for their lives. This shift gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for life in general, or for being alive in particular.

The art of being a warrior is to balance the wonder and the terror of being alive.

Seek and see all the marvels around you. You will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else.

A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as a grounds for regret but as a living challenge.

A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge. A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes him a nagual.

Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it–what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.

A warrior knows that he is waiting and knows also what he is waiting for, and while he waits he feasts his eyes on the world. The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.

Never dwell on past events except in reference. To emphasize them would mean to take away from the importance of what’s taking place now. A warrior cannot possibly afford to do that.

People hardly ever realize that we can cut anything from our lives, any time, just like that.

What makes us unhappy is to want. Yet if we would learn to cut our wants to nothing, the smallest thing we’d get would be a true gift.

We choose only once. We choose either to be warriors or to be ordinary men. A second choice does not exist. Not on this earth.

To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.

The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.

Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.

Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. He knows his death is stalking him and won’t give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything.

Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.

Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude, before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called “stopping the world”, the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it’s always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it “total freedom”.

If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our humanity.

Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.

A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.

It isn’t that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.

Silence is a passageway between worlds. When our mind stays silent, incredible aspects of our being emerge. Starting from that moment, a person becomes a vehicle of intent, and all his acts begin to ooze power.

We have been trained to live and die meekly, following unnatural codes of behavior which soften us and make us lose that initial impulse, until our spirit is hardly noticeable. We are born as a result of a fight. By denying our basic tendencies, the society we live in eradicates the warring heritage that transforms us into magical beings.

Don Juan was always moving, coming or going, supporting this or rejecting that, provoking tensions or discharging them in a burst, shouting his intent or remaining silent; doing something. He was alive, and his life reflected the ebb and flow of the universe.

We are beings who are going to die. We were programmed to live like beasts, carrying loads of customs and other people’s beliefs until the very end; but we can change all that! The freedom which the warrior’s way offers us is within the reach of your hand; take advantage of it!

The tragedy of today’s man is not his social condition, but the lack of will to change himself.

When a warrior learns how to toss self-importance aside, his spirit unfolds, jubilant, like a wild animal liberated from its cage and set free.

"And so long as you have not attained it,
this, "Die and become!",
you will only be a gloomy guest
on this dark earth." -Goethe

"If the eye were not sun-like, it could not see the sun; if we did not carry within us the very power of God, how could anything God-like delight us?" -Goethe