PHILOSOPHY

Power does not corrupt: it is the corrupted people who become attracted towards power-OSHO

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I am in love with life in its totality. My love excludes nothing; it includes all. Yes, political action too is included in it. That’s the worst thing to include, but I can’t help it! But everything that is included in my vision of life is included with a difference.

In the past, man has lived without awareness in all the aspects of life. He has loved without awareness and failed in it, and love has brought only misery and nothing else. He has done all kinds of things in the past, but everything has proved a hell. So has been the case with political action.

Each revolution turns into antirevolution. It is time we should understand how this happens, why this happens at all – that each revolution, each struggle against injustice, finally turns into injustice itself, becomes antirevolutionary.

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સર્વોદય: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી-1908

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Sarvodaya – M K Gandhi 1908

સર્વોદય-1908
મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી –

પ્રસ્તાવના

પશ્ચિમના દેશમાં સાધારણ રીતે એમ માનવામાં આવે છે કે વધારે માણસનું (મૅજોરિટીનું) સુખ – તેઓનો ઉદય – એ વધારવાનું માણસનું કામ છે. સુખ એટલે માત્ર શારીરિક સુખ, પૈસાટકાનું સુખ, એવો અર્થ કરવામાં આવે છે. એવું સુખ મેળવવામાં નીતિના નિયમોનો ભંગ થાય તેની ખાસ દરકાર કરવામાં આવતી નથી. તેમ જ વધારે માણસોનું સુખ જાળવવું એવો હેતુ રાખ્યો છે, તેથી જો થોડાને દુઃખ દઈને વધારેને સુખ અપાય તો તેમ કરવામાં હરકત છે એમ પશ્ચિમના લોકો માનતા નથી. એવું માનતા નથી તેનું પરિણામ આપણે પશ્ચિમના બધા મુલકોમાં જોઈએ છીએ.

વધારે માણસને શારીરિક અને પૈસાટકાનું સુખ હોય એ જ શોધવું એવો ખુદાઈ કાયદો નથી, અને જો તેટલું જ શોધવામાં આવે ને નીતિના નિયમોનો ભંગ થાય તો તે ખુદાઈ કાયદાથી વિરુદ્ધ છે, એવું કેટલાક પશ્ચિમના ડાહ્યા પુરુષોએ બતાવ્યું છે. તેમાં મરહૂમ જૉન રસ્કિન મુખ્ય હતો. તે અંગ્રેજ હતો, ઘણો જ વિદ્વાન માણસ હતો. તેણે હુન્નર, કળા, ચિત્રકામ વગેરે ઉપર સંખ્યાબંધ અને ઘણી સરસ કિતાબો લખી છે. નીતિના વિષયો ઉપર પણ તેણે ઘણું લખ્યું છે. તેમાનું એક નાનું પુસ્તક છે તે તેણે પોતે પોતાનાં લખાણોમાંનું ઉત્તમ માન્યું છે. જ્યાં જ્યાં અંગ્રેજી બોલાય છે ત્યાં તે પુસ્તક બહુ વંચાય છે. તેમાં ઉપર બતાવ્યા છે તેવા વિચારોનું બહુ જ સરસ રીતે ખંડન કર્યું છે અને બતાવી આપ્યું છે કે, નીતિના નિયમો જાળવવામાં આમની બહેતરી છે.

આજકાલ હિન્દુસ્તાનમાં આપણે પશ્ચિમના લોકોની નકલ બહુ કરીએ છીએ. તેમ કેટલીક બાબતમાં કરવાની જરૂર પણ અમે માનીએ છીએ. પણ પશ્ચિમનાં ઘણાં ધોરણો ખરાબ છે એમાં શક નથી. ખરાબ છે તેથી દૂર રહેવાની જરૂર તો સહુ કોઈ કબૂલ કરશે.

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Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: The arousing of thought[ch-1]

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G.I.GURDJIEFF

Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man

Table of Contents

FIRST BOOK

CHAPTER 1

The arousing of thought

AMONG ALL the convictions formed in my “common presence” during my responsible, peculiarly composed life, there is one unshakable conviction that people—whatever the degree of development of their understanding and whatever the form taken by the factors present in their individuality for engendering all kinds of ideals—always and everywhere on the Earth feel the imperative need, on beginning anything new, to pronounce aloud, or if not aloud at least mentally, that particular invocation understandable to even the most ignorant person, which has been formulated in different ways in different epochs, and in our day is expressed in the following words “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen.”

That is why I now also, in setting forth on this venture quite new for me, namely authorship, begin by pronouncing this invocation, and pronounce it not only aloud but even very distinctly and, as the ancient Toulousites used to say, with a “fully manifested intonation”—of course only to the extent permitted by data already formed in my whole presence and thoroughly rooted in it for such a manifestation, data, by the way, which are generally formed in man’s nature during his preparatory years, and which later, during his responsible life, determine the character and vivifyingness of such an intonation.

Having begun thus, I can now be quite at ease and should even, according to contemporary notions of “religious morality,” be completely assured that from now on everything in this new venture of mine will proceed, as is said, “like a pianola.”

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The Message of the Gita: Sri Aurobindo

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“ THE SECRET of action,” so we might summarise , the word of its divine Teacher, “is one with the secret of all life and existence. Existence is not merely a machinery of Nature, a wheel of law in which the soul is entangled for a moment or for ages; it is a constant man-ifestation of the Spirit.

Life is not for the sake of life alone, but for God, and the living soul of man is an eternal portion of the Godhead. Action is for self-finding, for self-fulfilment, for self-realisation and not only for its own external and apparent fruits of the moment or the future.

There is an inner law and meaning of all things dependent on the supreme as well as the manifested nature of the self; the true truth of works lies there and can be represented only incidentally, imperfectly and disguised by ignorance in the outer appearances of the mind and its action.

The supreme, the faultless largest law of action is therefore to find out the truth of your own highest and inmost existence and live in it and not to follow any outer standard and dharma. All life and action must be till then an imperfection, a difficulty, a struggle and a problem. It is only by discovering your true self and living according to its true truth, its real reality that the problem can be finally solved, the difficulty and struggle overpassed and your doings perfected in the security of the discovered self and spirit turn into a divinely authentic action.

Know then your self; know your true self to be God and one with the self of all others; know your soul to be a portion of God. Live in what you know; live in the self, live in your supreme spiritual nature, be united with God and Godlike. Offer, first, all your actions as a sacrifice to the Highest and the One in you and to the Highest and the One in the world; deliver last all you are and do into his hands for the supreme and universal spirit to do through you his own will and works in the world. This is the solution that I present to you and in the end you will find that there is no other.”

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On Love-Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Jiddu Krishnamurti

ON LOVE

THE DEMAND TO be safe in relationship inevitably breeds sorrow and fear. This seeking for security is inviting insecurity. Have you ever found security in any of your relationships? Have you? Most of us want the security of loving and being loved, but is there love when each one of us is seeking his own security, his own particular path? We are not loved because we don’t know how to love.

What is love? The word is so loaded and corrupted that I hardly like to use it. Everybody talks of love – every magazine and newspaper and every missionary talks everlastingly of love. I love my country, I love my king, I love some book, I love that mountain, I love pleasure, I love my wife, I love God. Is love an idea? If it is, it can be cultivated, nourished, cherished, pushed around, twisted in any way you like. When you say you love God what does it mean? It means that you love a projection of your own imagination, a projection of yourself clothed in certain forms of respectability according to what you think is noble and holy; so to say, `I love God’, is absolute nonsense. When you worship God you are worshipping yourself – and that is not love.

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The Madman: His Parables and Poems by Kahlil Gibran

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The Madman

His Parables and Poems

By Kahlil Gibran

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,—I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

God

In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, “Master, I am thy slave. Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for ever more.”

But God made no answer, and like a mighty tempest passed away.

And after a thousand years I ascended the holy mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “Creator, I am thy creation. Out of clay hast thou fashioned me and to thee I owe mine all.”

And God made no answer, but like a thousand swift wings passed away.

And after a thousand years I climbed the holy mountain and spoke unto God again, saying, “Father, I am thy son. In pity and love thou hast given me birth, and through love and worship I shall inherit thy kingdom.”

And God made no answer, and like the mist that veils the distant hills he passed away.

And after a thousand years I climbed the sacred mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “My God, my aim and my fulfillment; I am thy yesterday and thou are my tomorrow. I am thy root in the earth and thou art my flower in the sky, and together we grow before the face of the sun.”

Then God leaned over me, and in my ears whispered words of sweetness, and even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that runneth down to her, he enfolded me.

And when I descended to the valleys and the plains God was there also.

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The Arhat-Jaina Darshan: Madhavacharya

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MANGALACHARAN

1. I worship Śiva, the abode of eternal knowledge, the storehouse of supreme felicity; by whom the earth and the rest were produced, in him only has this all a maker.

2. Daily I follow my Guru Sarvajña-Vishṇu, who knows all the Ágamas, the son of Śárṅgapáṇi, who has gone to the further shore of the seas of all the systems, and has contented the hearts of all mankind by the proper meaning of the term Soul.

3. The synopsis of all the systems is made by the venerable Mádhava mighty in power, the Kaustubha-jewel of the milk-ocean of the fortunate Sáyaṇa.

4. Having thoroughly searched the Śástras of former teachers, very hard to be crossed, the fortunate Sáyaṇa-Mádhava[5] the lord has expounded them for the delight of the good. Let the virtuous listen with a mind from which all envy has been far banished; who finds not delight in a garland strung of various flowers?

THE ÁRHATA SYSTEM

The Gymnosophists (Jainas), rejecting these opinions of the Muktakachchhas, and maintaining continued existence to a certain extent, overthrow the doctrine of the momentariness of everything. (They say): If no continuing soul is accepted, then even the arrangement of the means for attaining worldly fruit in this life will be useless. But surely this can never be imagined as possible—that one should act and another reap the consequences! Therefore as this conviction, “I who previously did the deed, am the person who now reap its consequences,” establishes undoubtedly the existence of a continuing soul, which remains constant through the previous and the subsequent period, the discriminating Jaina Arhats reject as untenable the doctrine of momentary existence, i.e., an existence which lasts only an instant, and has no previous or subsequent part.

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Buddha Darshana-Madhavacharya

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I worship Śiva, the abode of eternal knowledge, the storehouse of supreme felicity; by whom the earth and the rest were produced, in him only has this all a maker. Daily I follow my Guru Sarvajña-Vishṇu, who knows all the Ágamas, the son of Śárṅgapáṇi, who has gone to the further shore of the seas of all the systems, and has contented the hearts of all mankind by the proper meaning of the term Soul.

The synopsis of all the systems is made by the venerable Mádhava mighty in power, the Kaustubha-jewel of the milk-ocean of the fortunate Sáyaṇa. Having thoroughly searched the Śástras of former teachers, very hard to be crossed, the fortunate Sáyaṇa-Mádhava the lord has expounded them for the delight of the good. Let the virtuous listen with a mind from which all envy has been far banished; who finds not delight in a garland strung of various flowers?

Buddha System of Philosophy

At this point the Buddhists remark: As for what you (Chárvákas) laid down as to the difficulty of ascertaining invariable concomitance, your position is unacceptable, inasmuch as invariable concomitance is easily cognisable by means of identity and causality.

It has accordingly been said—

“From the relation of cause and effect, or from identity as a determinant, results a law of invariable concomitance—not through the mere observation of the desired result in similar cases, nor through the non-observation of it in dissimilar cases.”

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THE VEDAS, BRÂHMANAS AND THEIR PHILOSOPHY – Surendranath Dasgupta 1922

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The Vedas and their antiquity.

The sacred books of India, the Vedas, are generally believed to be the earliest literary record of the Indo-European race. It is indeed difficult to say when the earliest portions of these compositions came into existence. Many shrewd guesses have been offered, but none of them can be proved to be incontestably true. Max Müller supposed the date to be 1200 B.C., Haug 2400 B.C. and Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak 4000 B.C. The ancient Hindus seldom kept any historical record of their literary, religious or political achievements. The Vedas were handed down from mouth to mouth from a period of unknown antiquity; and the Hindus generally believed that they were never composed by men. It was therefore generally supposed that either they were taught by God to the sages, or that they were of themselves revealed to the sages who were the “seers” (mantradrastâ) of the hymns. Thus we find that when some time had elapsed after the composition of the Vedas, people had come to look upon them not only as very old, but so old that they had, theoretically at least, no beginning in time, though they were believed to have been revealed at some unknown remote period at the beginning of each creation.

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A Guide for the Perplexed: Moses Maimonides 1140 CE

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Freedom

Moses Maimonides, A Guide for the Perplexed, translated from the original Arabic text by M. Friedlaender

THE GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

Moses Maimonides, A Guide for the Perplexed, translated from the original Arabic text by M. Friedlaender

THE GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
by MOSES MAIMONIDES
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL ARABIC TEXT
by M. FRIEDLÄNDER, Ph.D.

THE LIFE OF MOSES MAIMONIDES

Moses Maimonides was one of the foremost intellectuals of medieval Judaism. He became physician to Sultan Saladin (1137/8-1193), the famous Islamic military leader.
Moses, the son of Maimon, was born at Cordova, on the 14th of Nisan, 4895 (March 30, 1135). Although the date of his birth has been recorded with the utmost accuracy, no trustworthy notice has been preserved concerning the early period of his life. But his entire career is a proof that he did not pass his youth in idleness; his education must have been in harmony with the hope of his parents, that one day he would, like his father and forefathers, hold the honourable office of Dayyan or Rabbi, and distinguish himself in theological learning. It is probable that the Bible and the Talmud formed the chief subjects of his study; but he unquestionably made the best use of the opportunities which Mohammedan Spain, and especially Cordova, afforded him for the acquisition of general knowledge.

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