Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.
He moves suddenly so that his hand is cupping my sex, and one of his fingers sinks slowly into me. His other arm holds me firmly in place around my waist. “This is mine,” he whispers aggressively. “All mine. Do you understand?” He eases his finger in and out as he gazes down at me, gauging my reaction, his eyes burning.“Yes, yours…”Abruptly, he moves, doing several things at once: Withdrawing his fingers, leaving me wanting, unzipping his fly, and pushing me down onto the couch so he’s lying on top of me.“Hands on your head,” he commands through gritted teeth as he kneels up, forcing my legs wider…“We don’t have long. This will be quick, and it’s for me, not you. Do you understand?Don’t come, or I will spank you,” he says through clenched teeth.
Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.
Every action (‘doing’) causes bondage. ‘Doing’ is not needed for Liberation. For liberation, ‘action’ of Knowledge is required. Action of ignorance [of the self] is bondage. Action done with egoism is known as ignorant-action and the action done without egoism is known as knowledge-action.
Is it possible that my walls are specifically erected and intentionally reinforced out of the fear that God calls me to an existence without walls? And if this is so, do I realize that I am the warden of prison that I created in which I myself am the prisoner?
There is no means other than vitrag-science (science that frees us from all attachments) that will give Final-Liberation [Moksha]. Other means [methods, instruments] will cause bondage; they only help to pass the time; [whereas] means to attain the Eternal Thing (experience of Pure Soul) can be attained from the ‘Gnani Purush’ (the enlightened one).
Jesus came to bring life more abundantly. He came to save the soulsick, to deliver those bound up in sin, to break the chains of bondage and addiction. He came to heal the hurting, and comfort and restore the used, abused, bruised, battered, and broken. He came to forgive the worst sinner and to bring life to the lifeless. He came to reconcile us with God so we can have relationship with our Father.
Growing up in my family meant ambushes on your birthday, crossbows for Christmas, and games of dodge ball where the balls were occasionally rigged to explode. It also meant learning how to work your way out of a wide variety of death traps. Failure to get loose on your own could lead to missing dinner, or worse, being forced to admit that you missed dinner because your baby sister had tied you to the couch. Again.
We breathe too fast to be able to grasp things in themselves or to expose their fragility. Our panting postulates and distorts them, creates and disfigures them, and binds us to them. I bestir myself, therefore I emit a world as suspect as my speculation which justifies it; I espouse movement, which changes me into a generator of being, into an artisan of fictions, while my cosmogonic verve makes me forget that, led on by the whirlwind of acts, I am nothing but an acolyte of time, an agent of decrepit universes. (...)If we would regain our freedom, we must shake off the burden of sensation, no longer react to the world by our senses, break our bonds. For all sensation is a bond, pleasure as much as pain, joy as much as misery. The only free mind is the one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity.
To run the worldly life, Egoism is not required. To bind [karma] for the next life, Egoism is required. If one doesn’t want the bondage for the next life, then also it is possible to conduct the worldly life without egoism. Entire worldly life is in the ‘discharge’ form. So it will continue to ‘discharge’ by itself.
The Gospel shows people their wounds and bestows on them love. It shows them their bondage and supplies the hammerto knock away their chains. It shows them their nakedness and provides them the garments of purity. It shows them their poverty and pours into their lives the wealth of heaven. It shows them their sins and points them to the Savior.
I learned by heart the lines of your face. I can draw them blindly on a water canvas.Your face in the middle of an inflamed argument. Your face in the middle of a mild one-- when you're at fault.Your face filled with rainbows of laughter. Your face filled with clouds of distress.Your face, fluttering, when I open you the door. Your face, agonizing, every time I stand waiting, for the elevator.Your face, eager, when you kiss me. Your face, surprised, when I lead you to bed.Your face in the middle of pain. Your face on the outskirts of pleasure.Your face, with a baffled look, when you wake up. Your face falling asleep, with total surrender.Your face the first night we met. Your face the last night we parted.I learned by heart the lines of your face. They all led me into hell.They all led me into heaven.
The most ironic thing was that, the thing she valued the most was freedom. For according to her, happiness can never occur in bondage. In spite of the fact that death will set her free from all humanly bondages, she wanted to live, let life be the only bondage she was tied with. She wanted it. That one single bondage, to live boundlessly.
I reach forward for him, expecting to feel the hardness of his chest or at the very least one of his arms coming to halt my progress, but there is nothing. I expand my reach a little and then, feeling slightly spooked, I listen… Nothing. No breathing, no footsteps; nothing.
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
You stand fully clothed in a dark room with a spotlight on you. It’s bright but not blinding. So bright, you think the light should warm you. “Will you take off your clothes now, please.” he says from the dark.A calm voice, but definitely a commanding voice. I can imagine when it’s raised it could be, but in all the time he never raised it, the tone was always just right; even when he would say. “Yes, please let me hear you moan now. Louder” It was always pitched just right.Except that one time.
I was Mrs. Taylor yesterday.” I grin at Taylor, who flushes.“That has a nice ring to it, Miss Steele,” Taylor says matter-of-factly.“I thought so, too.”Christian tightens his hold on my hand, scowling. “If you two have quite finished, I’d like a debrief.” He glares at Taylor, who now looks uncomfortable, and I cringe inwardly. I have overstepped the mark.“Sorry,” I mouth at Taylor, who shrugs and smiles kindly before I turn to follow Christian.“I’ll be with you shortly. I just want a word with Miss Steele,” Christian says to Taylor, and I know I’m in trouble.Christian leads me into his bedroom and closes the door.“Don’t flirt with the staff, Anastasia,” he scolds.I open my mouth to defend myself—then close it again, then open it. “I wasn’t flirting. I was being friendly—there is a difference.”“Don’t be friendly with the staff or flirt with them. I don’t like it.”Oh. Good-bye, carefree Christian. “I’m sorry,” I mutter and stare down at my fingers. He hasn’t made me feel like a child all day. Reaching down he cups my chin, pulling my head up to meet his eyes.“You know how jealous I am,” he whispers.“You have no reason to be jealous, Christian. You own me body and soul.
As the uneasiness and... reluctance to face [his problems] cut him off more and more from all real happiness... habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo... All the healthy and outgoing activities [he shouldn't want to avoid] can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may... "I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked." The Christians describe [Heavenly Father] as one "without whom Nothing is strong." And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in [dire] sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them... in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life.