e pluribus unum

lawrence 1994-11-13 1:00 PM No Comments
अश्वत्थ

“Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.”

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

tat tvam asi

lawrence 1994-11-13 1:00 AM No Comments

1. Somya, before this world was manifest there was only existence, one without a second. On this subject, some maintain that before this world was manifest there was only non-existence, one without a second. Out of that non-existence, existence emerged.
2. The father said: ‘O Somya, what proof is there for this—that from nothing something has emerged? Rather, before this world came into being, O Somya, there was only existence, one without a second’.
3. That Existence decided: ‘I shall be many. I shall be born.’ He then created fire. That fire also decided: ‘I shall be many. I shall be born.’ Then fire produced water. That is why whenever or wherever a person mourns or perspires, he produces water.
4. That water decided: ‘I shall be many; I shall be born.’ That water then created food. This is why whenever and wherever there is rain, at once food grows in great abundance. It is from water that food is produced.

Chāndogyopaniṣad

mayflower

lawrence 1994-11-13 12:24 AM No Comments

“IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.”

 Anonymous, Mayflower Compact.

history

lawrence 1993-11-13 4:44 PM No Comments

Wherever a moving ship may be heading, at its bow will always be seen the swirl of the wave it cuts through. For people on the ship, the movement of that swirl will be the only noticeable movement. Only by following closely, moment by moment, the movement of that swirl and comparing that movement with the movement of the ship, will we realize that at every moment the movement of the swirl is determined by the movement of the ship, and that we were misled by the fact that we ourselves were imperceptibly moving.

Tolstoy, War and Peace

causa sui

lawrence 1993-11-13 6:42 AM No Comments

“The victory in this kind of battle is truly Pyrrhic: character is a face that one sets to the world, but it hides an inner defeat. The child emerges with a name, a family, a play-world in a neighborhood, all clearly cut out for him. But his insides are full of nightmarish memories of impossible battles, terrifying anxieties of blood, pain, aloneness, darkness; mixed with limitless desires, sensations of unspeakable beauty, majesty, awe, mystery; and fantasies and hallucinations of mixtures between the two, the impossible attempt to compromise between bodies and symbols.”

Ernest, The Denial of Death

antrum platonicum

lawrence 1993-11-13 12:24 AM No Comments

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

descent of inanna

vadodara 1987-11-13 5:54 PM No Comments

Per me si va ne la città dolente,
Per me si va ne l’etterno dolore,
Per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

creazione di adamo

vadodara 1987-11-13 6:47 AM No Comments

“Stretched on the grass, he [Narcissus] saw twin stars, his own two eyes, rippling curls like the locks of a god, Apollo or Bacchus, cheeks as smooth as silk, an ivory neck and a glorious face with a mixture of blushing red and a creamy whiteness. All that his lovers adored he worshipped in self-adoration.”

Metamorphoses 3:420

aśvattha

vadodara 1987-11-13 12:24 AM No Comments

And when the woman saw, that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she tooke of the fruit thereof, and did eate, and gaue also vnto her husband with her, and hee did eate.

Genesis 3.6

ardhanarishwara

vadodara 1986-11-13 5:54 PM No Comments

He was not at all happy. Therefore people (still) are not happy when alone. He desired a mate. He became as big as man and wife embracing each other. He parted this very body into two. From that came husband and wife. Therefore, said Yājñavalkya, this (body) is one-half of oneself, like one of the two hálves of a split pea. Therefore this space is indeed filled by the wife. He was united with her. From that men were born.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.3

dialectic

vadodara 1986-11-13 6:47 AM No Comments

In the beginning this was Self alone, in the shape of a person (puruṣa). He looking around saw nothing but his Self (Atman). He first said, “This is I”, therefore he became I by name.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.1

medium

vadodara 1986-11-13 12:24 AM No Comments

Upâdhi (Sk.). Basis; the vehicle, carrier or bearer of something less material than itself: as the human body is the upâdhi of its spirit, ether the upâdhi of light, etc., etc.; a mould; a defining or limiting substance.

Helena Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary

scale

vadodara 1985-11-13 5:54 PM No Comments

“Beauty is a matter of size and order, and therefore impossible either (1) in a very minute creature, since our perception becomes indistinct as it approaches instantaneity; or (2) in a creature of vast size—one, say, 1,000 miles long—as in that case, instead of the object being seen all at once, the unity and wholeness of it is lost to the beholder.”

Aristotle, Poetics

time

vadodara 1985-11-13 6:47 AM No Comments

Heraclitus: Everything flows, and nothing abides, everything gives way, and nothing stays fixed.

Plato, Cratylus

center

vadodara 1985-11-13 12:24 AM No Comments

“Cosmically we find that matter organizes around centers, which are often marked by a dominant mass. Such systems come about wherever their neighbors allow them sufficient freedom. In the vastness of astronomical space the rotating galaxies and the smaller solar or planetary systems are free to create such centric patterns, and in the microscopic realm so are the atoms with their electrons circling around a nucleus.”

Arnheim, The Power of the Center

dark

vadodara 1984-11-13 5:54 PM No Comments

“What is called substance, that which stands underneath—“sub:” underneath; “stance:” stands—to be substantial is to be underlying, to be the support, to be the foundation of the world. And of course, this is the great function of the feminine: to be the substance. And therefore, the feminine is represented by space—which is, of course, black at night. But were it not for black and empty space, there would be no possibility whatsoever of seeing the stars. Stars shine out of space, and astronomers—very high-powered astronomers—are beginning to realize that stars are a function of space.”

Alan Watts, The Tao of Philosophy

light

vadodara 1984-11-13 6:48 AM No Comments

Now that light which shines above this heaven, higher than all, higher than everything, in the highest world, beyond which there are no other worlds, that is the same light which is within man.

Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7

maxwell’s daemon

vadodara 1984-11-13 12:24 AM No Comments

“Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower ones to pass from B to A.”

James Maxwell, Theory of Heat

satkāryavāda

delhi 1947-08-15 12:00 AM No Comments

WHAT time, first springing into life, thou neighedst, proceeding from the sea or upper waters, Limbs of the deer hadst thou, and eagle pinions. O Steed, thy birth is nigh and must be lauded.

The Rig Veda 1.1.163-1

ab ōvō

hiroshima 1945-08-06 8:16 AM No Comments

Bless us, divine number, thou who generated gods and men! O holy, holy Tetractys, thou that containest the root and source of the eternally flowing creation! For the divine number begins with the profound, pure unity until it comes to the holy four; then it begets the mother of all, the all-comprising, all-bounding, the first-born, the never-swerving, the never-tiring holy ten, the keyholder of all.

Mystic Tetrad

ōṁ

hiroshima 1945-08-06 8:15 AM No Comments

“Once we have answered the question “Which fact?” we have already established truth, because, according to Strawson, there are not two independent entities, the true statement and the fact. Rather, “facts are what statements (when true) state; they are not what statements are about.” Facts are not things in the world independent of language; rather, the word “fact,” like the words “statement” and “true” themselves, has a certain type of word-world-relating discourse built into it. Facts in short are not extralinguistic things, but facts already have the notions of statement and truth built into them, because in order to specify a fact we have to state a true statement.”

John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality

zero

jornada del muerto 1945-07-16 5:29 AM No Comments

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that one way or another.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Decision to Drop the Bomb