She had lost herself in this old work, her personality dissolving into it, so that she had been set free. The immortality of the soul lies in its dissolution; this was the cryptic comment that so frustrated Olivier and which Julien had only ever grasped as evidence for the history of a particular school of thought. He had known all about its history, but Julia knew what it meant. He found the realization strangely reassuring.
Yes, sex is troublesome and beautiful. And only when we drop our expectations, and know that we'll have moments of great sex and moments when our sexuality confounds, pains, or infuriates us, will we be liberated to enjoy it in a way that's true to ourselves.
An afternoon drive from Los Angeles will take you up into the high mountains, where eagles circle above the forests and the cold blue lakes, or out over the Mojave Desert, with its weird vegetation and immense vistas. Not very far away are Death Valley, and Yosemite, and Sequoia Forest with its giant trees which were growing long before the Parthenon was built; they are the oldest living things in the world. One should visit such places often, and be conscious, in the midst of the city, of their surrounding presence. For this is the real nature of California and the secret of its fascination; this untamed, undomesticated, aloof, prehistoric landscape which relentlessly reminds the traveller of his human condition and the circumstances of his tenure upon the earth. "You are perfectly welcome," it tells him, "during your short visit. Everything is at your disposal. Only, I must warn you, if things go wrong, don't blame me. I accept no responsibility. I am not part of your neurosis. Don't cry to me for safety. There is no home here. There is no security in your mansions or your fortresses, your family vaults or your banks or your double beds. Understand this fact, and you will be free. Accept it, and you will be happy.
Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention.
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.
Life may try to knock you down but be persistent with your passions - cultivate grit, resilience, tenacity and endurance success will come.
Even scientists and academics are frequent prey to the delusion that reality is reducible. Fear, deep and wide, is the secret motive force of much human behavior, and I think reduction is often rooted in fear. Passing over fear, I think, is the beginning of every liberatory project.
Don't be afraid of books, even the most dissident, seemingly 'immoral' ones. Culture is a sure bet in life, whether high, low, eclectic, pop, ancient or modern. And I am convinced that reading is one of the most important tools of liberation that any human being, and a contemporary Arab woman in particular, can exploit. I am not saying it is the ONLY tool, especially with all the new alternative - more visual, interactive and hasty - ways of knowledge, learning and growth. But how could I not be convinced of literature's power, when it has been my original emancipator?
We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.
I just wondered what a thing it would be...if overnight everything you owe anything to, justice, or love, had really gone away. Free.It would be...heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and...Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unemcumbered, into the morning.
Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of. Here's to the eternal tandem.
Anon from the castle wallsThe crescent banner falls,And the crowd beholds instead,Like a portent in the sky,Iskander's banner fly,The Black Eagle with double head;And a shout ascends on high,For men's souls are tired of the Turks,And their wicked ways and works,That have made of Ak-HissarA city of the plague;And the loud, exultant cryThat echoes wide and farIs: "Long live Scanderbeg!
You are not in any way aware that you are already victorious, that life has happened to you. You are already a winner and nothing more is possible, all that could happen has happened to you. You are already an emperor, and there is no other kingdom to be won. But you have not recognized it, you have not known the beauty of the life that has already happened to you. You have not known the silence, the peace, the bliss that is already there.And because you are not aware of the inner kingdom, you always feel that something more is needed, some victory, to prove that you are not a beggar.
All the colours in the rainbow don't compare, With one look in your impossible eyes, And I walked into the trap with my eyes wide shut, But I never knew what it would be like. All the plans were made, In the wooded glade, Where your body was split wide open, And I count to ten, As the race begins, Round your hairpin bends. Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Without you to hold me. I can't count the times I forgot my lines, And you pretended that you didn't know, Let me take you through each stage of the male mistake, And we'll adopt our natural roles. And I need you more, Than you need to be needed, So I sign my will one stab at a time, And I count to ten, As the race begins, Round your hairpin bends. Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Without you to hold me. Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Without you to hold me. Away, away, away, away ".
You can do anything you want. You don't believe me. You think, she's out of her head. Yeah, I'm out of my head- on being me. What are you on? On being them. You don't even know. I bet you were never given a chance to know. ....Listen. You can be anything you want to be. Be careful. It's a spell. It's magic. Listen to the words.... You are anything...everyone, anyone. ...You listen to them, teachers, parents, politicians. They're always saying, if you steal you're a thief, if you sleep aroung you're a slut, if you take drugs you're a junkie. They want to get inside your head and control you with their fear. ...Don't play their game. Nothing can touch you; you stay beautiful.
In learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of words, we have gained a great deal. But if we stop at that point and concern ourselves only with the marvels of the formation of a language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices, we do not reach that end, for grammar is not literature… When we come to literature, we find that, though it conforms to the rules of grammar, it is yet a thing of joy; it is freedom itself. The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends them. The laws are its wings. They do not keep it weighed down. They carry it to freedom. Its form is in law, but its spirit is in beauty. Law is the first step toward freedom, and beauty is the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law. Beauty harmonizes in itself the limit and the beyond – the law and the liberty.
It's the duty of every man to free himself. Never accept to live an underdog's life in god’s world.
Every revolution starts with the aim to help the poor, but when the poor get it they forget who they were and become the new oppressors. The cycle goes on forever
Let no one ever intimidate you, you are standing on no one's ground. But again, some have claimed the earth as their own and usurped power from the rest of us. But they are usurpers; power belongs to every one of us. Seek it as much as possible. There is no shame in that. In fact it's a necessity. Either you have power or you are trampled to death in the stampede to get to the top
Liberate yourself as far as you can, and you have done your part; for it is not given to every one to break through all limits,or,more expressively, not to every one is that a limit which is a limit for the rest. Consequently,do not tire yourself with toiling at the limits of others...He who overturns one of his limits may have shown others the way and the means; the overturning of their limits remains their affair.
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?
Sometimes what is said to be a gift may appear more of a curse only because the greatest gifts of all are the gifts that have enough disruptive force to break us out of everything that’s breaking us. And God loves us far too much not to give us exactly those kinds of gifts.
Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.
Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.
When I say that we must establish values with originate in sisterhood, I mean to say that we must not accept, even for a moment, male notions of what non-violence is. These notions have never condemned the systematic violence against us. The men who hold these notions have never renounced the male behaviours, privileges, values and conceits which are in and of themselves acts of violence against us.
The method that is required is not one of correlation but of liberation. Even the term “method” must be reinterpreted and in fact wrenched out of its usual semantic field, for the emerging creativity in women is by no means a merely cerebral process. In order to understand the implications of this process it is necessary to grasp the fundamental fact that women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our power to name ourselves, the world or God. The old naming was not the product of dialogue- a fact inadvertently admitted in the genesis story of Adam’s naming the animals and the women. Women are now realizing that the universal imposing of names by men has been false because partial. That is, inadequate words have been taken as adequate.
Who doesn’t allow one to attain siddh gati (the final state of Liberation, moksha)? The body-complex (pudgal - that which charges and discharges). Similarly, what doesn’t let a gourd covered with mud, to go on top and float on water? The mud. The negative atoms, they weigh very heavily. They drag the Soul, the Self lower down.
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).
Fruit of discharge karma with shukladhyan (contemplation as the Self, Pure Soul) is moksha, and fruit of discharge karma with dharmadhyan (auspicious contemplation; to not hurt anyone, to give happiness to others) is tremendous punya. It binds punyanubandhi punya (merit karma which binds more merit karma).
With love, we can save every soul from self-destruction.
A journey to make real impact that changes lives, give meaning to life and living, and turns vision of the masses into realities demands a true focus, an utmost zeal and robustness and an unfailing tenacity to do whatever necessary within the powers and reach of a true leader, and with all needed dexterity, wit and wisdom, to make real impact have a meaning and give real liberation to the masses!
One's liberation begins once he does the darshan of kashaya-free (absence of inner anger, pride, deceit and greed) Gnani purush [the enlightened one]. Who is considered kashaya-free? The one whose state is that where there was no kashaya, there is no kashaya, and there never will be any. The one who is never in the state of the non-Self. Doing darshan of such a One brings ultimate well being.
Physical action [paudgalik kriya] will give only worldly fruits; it will not go in vain. If you plant sugar cane, you will eat sweet food and if you plant bitter gourd, you will eat bitter food. Plant whichever taste appeals to you and if you want liberation [Moksha], then don’t plant anything. Stop sowing seeds altogether.
If attachment becomes fixed on a 'Gnani' [The enlightened one], then it becomes Real attachment (prashastaraag). It will get one’s work done. It will uproot attachment in all other places. Because the Gnani is Vitarag, attachment-free. Attachment for a Vitarag gives liberation from all the suffering.
You cannot still your mind - it is the nature of mind to keep moving. You can only be the stillness that is beyond the mind and be free from thoughts, yet watch the mind experiencing the true essence of life. Transcending the mind is Sanyasa (detachment or renunciation) and freedom that comes with it is Nirvana (liberation).
As Liljana sat stitching a sampler or darning a sock, she dreamed her way into life as a grown woman with her own household to run, her own home to tidy, her own children to mind, and her own husband to cheer after a long day's work as they sat together by the fire. The life that future generations would dismiss as dull and degrading offered Liljana the liberating prospect of being mistress in her own home rather than living to serve others.
God can allow you to pass through storms and get to your success. But what the devil loves to do is to make you not to realize it that the storm is over. He wishes to keep you in condemnation even at the time you have to feel liberated.
When enforcing our boundaries, first and foremost, we are caring for ourselves, but we are also helping others to have a clear understanding of what we consider acceptable behavior. We are reflecting back to them what is not acceptable and, therefore, providing them an opportunity to consider that information and make necessary changes.
Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state ... Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.
How should a system convince people that they do not possess their sex properly? Teach them that in their possession it is shapeless and unconditioned. Only once it has been modified, layered with experts, honeycombed with norms, overlaid with pictorial representations, and sold back to them can it fulfill itself as what its possessors "always wanted".
If you can't tell from my rap lyrics already, yes I am a feminist. And when I'm saying "hoe" or "bitch" I am actually referring to men. ...That sounded bad, in someway. But at the end of the day, I'm sick of rappers using "bitches" and "hoes" as terms towards women. Feminists are NOT a hate group. Feminists are not all female. Nor has it got an anti-male agenda. It's about equality! I've had a weird, special bond with women since I was a kid. And it's just a shame really that I'm gay.
Human history is the ancient story of the umbilical conflict between a lone individual versus a cabalistic society. A love-hate relationship defines our personal history with society, where the suppression of individuality for the sake of the collective good battles the notion that the purpose of society is to enable each person to flourish. A conspicuous feature of cultural development involves societies teaching children the sublimation of unacceptable impulses or idealizations, consciously to transform their inappropriate instinctual impulses into socially acceptable actions or behavior. The paradox rest in the concept that in order for any person to flourish they must preserve the spiritual texture of themselves, a process that requires the individual to resist societal restraint, push off against the community, and reject the walls of traditionalism that seek to pen us in. The climatic defining event in a person’s life represents the liberation of the self from crippling conformism, staunchly rebuffing capitulating to the whimsy of the super ego of society.
With the way a lot of men function, I'd say "single" womyn are a threat to society. In fact, I'd go as single womyn are a threat to the system. As a womyn, if you aren't spending all your time looking for what you were socialized to, you're doing something productive. I'd say that scares a hell of a lot of people.
Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt.
No other drug can compete with cannabis for its ability to satisfy the innate yearnings for Archaic boundary dissolution and yet leave intact the structures of ordinary society. If every alcoholic were a pothead, if every crack user were a pothead, if every smoker smoked only cannabis, the social consequences of the ‘drug problem’ would be transformed. Yet, as a society we are not ready to discuss the possibility of self-managed addictions and the possibility of intelligently choosing the plants we ally ourselves to. In time, and perhaps out of desperation, this will come.
Education is the key for self liberation.
Thoughts close more doors then they open. This causes limitation. Action opens more doors then it closes. This results in liberation. I suggest spending less time on trying to change thoughts and more time on the action steps you will take to prove your current thoughts wrong. Once you take consistent, habitual action the thoughts change, spontaneously.
People who want to acquired powers over somebody else, for them imagination is a powerful tool. If you are seeking liberation, if you want to become free, the first thing that you must become free from is your imagination, because that is the deepest trap. Your memory and your imagination are the two traps. Do you see? One of your legs is stuck in memory; another leg is stuck in imagination. If you release yourself from these, meditation is just natural. When you sit for meditation, what is your basic problem? You are either thinking about tomorrow or thinking about what happened yesterday, isn't it? If you are free from memory and imagination, you will always be meditative.
Humanity is not without answers or solutions regarding how to liberate itself from scenarios that invariably end with mass exterminations. Tools such as compassion, trust, empathy, love, and ethical discernment are already in our possession. The next sensible step would be to use them.
Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians… and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for as Greeks we should not be slaves to barbarians.
What does Jinmudra (Tirthankar God’s sitting posture) say? The lotus position of Vitrag Lords, one hand and foot placed over the other, preaches, “Oh, humans! Understand this if you have the wisdom. You have already brought with you the food, drink and all things you need; therefore, let go of the awareness that ‘I am the doer’ and make effort to attain Moksha (ultimate liberation)!
The person who wants to progress on the path of Vitrag (the enlightened ones), should keep the focus of the awareness to progress from the non-auspicious (bad) to the auspicious (good). And if one wants to go to final Liberation [moksha], he should keep ‘pure focus as the Self (Soul)’ (shuddha upayog). The person, who wants to go to Moksha, should not concern himself with the auspicious (good) or the inauspicious (bad). He should keep them both as the things to be cleared out.
Who is considered as not living in the worldly life? The person who doesn’t have focus on the non-Self. ‘I’ (the Gnani Purush) do not live in the worldly life even for one moment. Liberation (Moksha) is to be found through the one who does not live in the worldly life. What can you not attain through the grace of such a person?
Shukladhyan (pure contemplation of the Self, the Soul) is the direct cause for moksha (liberation). Dharmadhyan (auspicious contemplation; to hurt no one, give happiness to others) is the indirect cause for moksh (liberation). Artadhyan (inner mournful contemplation that hurts the self) is a cause for a birth in animal life form (non-human). Raudradhyan (wrathful contemplation that hurts the self and others) is a cause for a life in hell.
People tended to forgive only partially. They forgave in order to, one day, get a chance to remind those they’d forgiven about their failings. They forgave to feel righteous. That’s why forgiveness was so painful – because it meant conceding. It meant letting go of her case without a rebuttal. True forgiveness knew no justice. It was liberating, most probably… but freedom comes at a cost. Freedom is never free.
Self-hatred is self-imprisonment. Self-forgiveness is self-liberation. You have the right to suppress yourself, oppress yourself and depress yourself. You have the right to impress yourself too. Feel happy!
Military intervention cannot liberate women because it is embedded within a set of assumptions, beliefs, and social relations that reinforce and reproduce gender inequality, as well as other social inequalities within and across nation-states. Military intervention depends upon a belief in the legitimacy of armed violence in resolving political problems, which in turn depends upon our adherence to particular ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman.
Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and renders them slaves to the illusory. Kundalini can only awaken people if she travels up along the spine.'--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004
Nothing could be easier than disturbing a status quo instituted by others; the real work of the sinistercurrent is to break the rules we rigidly establish for ourselves.”-Zeena Schreck for "Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity," University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004
Zeena Schreck believes that the right-hand path and the left-hand path have traditionally had the same end goal; it is only the method that is different and the fact that adepts on the left-hand path seek liberation in this life.--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004
Zeena believes that the breaking of taboos creates access to blocked energy that is let loose in a forceful way. The left-hand path is about consciously breaking with a ‘sleepwalker orthodoxy’ to be able to act as a fully awaken and conscious individual. In her book, George Orwell (1984) is quoted: “Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” At the same time she notes that the left-hand path is the ‘way of action’. It is not about intellectual contemplation, or worse, just reading about action.'About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger from: Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its backgroundand role within new Western religiosity, University of Stockholm, 2004
In Demons of the Flesh, Zeena describes how Shiva and Shakti are actually ‘two sides of the same deity’. The goal of the initiate on the left-hand path is to become ‘this bisexual twin godhead’ and activate a state of perceptual sexual ecstasy within one's own consciousness. Zeena points out that a corresponding symbolism is found in the western hermeticism in the idea of ‘the inner androgyne.’--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004
Zeena Schreck believes that the right-hand path and the left-hand path have traditionally had the same end goal; it is only the method that is different and the fact that adepts on the lefthandpath seek liberation in this life.--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004
A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully manifests.'--Zeena Schreck for “Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its backgroundand role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004
The most elusive and ultimately impossible act of liberation is freedom from sin and self, and no document or declaration of man regardless of how exquisitely penned can do that. Such an astonishing act of liberation could only have been penned in one place: the cross.
When someone is cruel, harsh, mean, to not take their words personally is one thing, but to hear the silent cry within those words is another. This sort of perspective can not only liberate us from crippling self-doubt in the face of criticism, it can also liberate us from automatically becoming blind participants in the interaction patterns that the cruel person has become accustomed to—a favour we do for the other person as much as for ourselves.
BASIC LIFE ATTRIBUTESFour purusharthas or goals of the life be,So very crystal clear in life undisputedly;1Artha getting useful wealth and prosperity,Finding the meaning for living herein truly;2Kama fulfilling desires, acting repeatedly,It the physical, material desire fulfillment be;14Dharma – the foundation of all human goals be,Refers to obligations, conduct, moral duties;25Moksha – the liberation from the web of maya be,Freedom from the cycles of birth and death clearly;33As all the rivers must lead to the sea eventually,All spiritual paths leading to the same goal finally;43And all of the variety of life are created certainly,By combination of the three Gunas undisputedly.44
I had no idea that "letting go" would be so complicated; that it would sometimes feel liberating and other times more sorrowful and lonely. In the long run, most of it was like standing on the shore, watching your family set sail for America, and they're smiling and waving good-bye, and getting smaller and smaller, but you are still the same size with no one to talk to.
...[A]ccording to Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, a being that achieves Buddhahood, although freed from Samsara,the 'wheel of suffering', as the phenomenon of existence is known, will continue to return to work for the benefit of all other sentient beings until such time as each one is similarly liberated.
The answer to the problem of suffering is not away from the problem but in it. The inevitability of pain will not be met by deadening sensitivity but by increasing it, by exploring and feeling out the manner in which the natural organism itself wants to react and which its innate wisdom has provided.
He remembered a version of himself untrammeled by expectation, unimpeded by Ego. He had suffered in the many years since then, seeking to return to that original self, if, in fact, it ever existed. And yet, he was helpless but to regard that unmistakable fear that gripped him in his dream as a sign that his unevenness lent him now to utter incongruity with this specter of past.
We fail so easily to see the difference between fear of the unknown and respect for the unknown, thinking that those who do not hasten in with bright lights and knives are deterred by a holy and superstitious fear. Respect for the unknown is the attitude of those who, instead of raping nature, woo her until she gives herself. But what she gives, even then, is not the cold clarity of the surface but the warm inwardness of the body - a mysteriousness which is not merely a negation, a blank absence of knowledge, but that positive substance which we call wonderfull.
Medicinal Spirit, Inside MirrorTherapy becomes a harmony, and that harmony is built on levels,No one knows how to upscale another, for it has to come from the inside grails,Striking inflicts at the mirror and hatred to the being of creator,Causes hate in mirror too and abused flesh to the author,Changes come from its prudence and rationalism liberation,Not its pardon,A mirror is but a substance of a conscious,But identity says "let me fly" when journeying from the subconscious to the conscious.
Lies, greed, pettiness, and ugly emotions ensnare a person. We are free people whom construct our own cages that we allow to suppress our vital instinct to live a wholesome life. Truth telling demands an awareness of what sins cage a person in. Truthfulness also commands that a person fess up to the role that he or she played in scripting unpleasant scenes in a tarnished personal history.
The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. Crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny—two vultures—have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intellectual development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes.Every science has been an outcast.All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves. The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous regime the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypo
Unfortunately we find systems of education today that have departed so far from the plain truth that they now teach us to be proud of what we know and ashamed of ignorance. This is doubly corrupt. It is corrupt not only because pride is in itself a mortal sin, but also because to teach pride in knowledge is to put an effective barrier against any advance upon what is already known, since it makes one ashamed to look beyond the bounds imposed by one’s ignorance.To any person prepared to enter with respect into the realm of this great and universal ignorance, the secrets of being will eventually unfold, and they will do so in a measure according to his freedom from natural and indoctrinated shame in his respect of their revelation.
...the total number of galaxies in the universe seems to be in the region of ten billion, and that each of them has about a hundred billion stars the size of the sun. These numbers are so absurd that I strangely find myself in a good mood. It's all so immense. I think Paul feels a bit like this as well. There is so little I can do to make a difference. It is liberating.
But, despite everything, it was almost a pleasure to suffer those torments. I had crawled through life blindly and dully for so long, my heart had kept silent and had sat, impoverished, in a corner for so long, that even these self accusations, this horror, this whole ghastly emotion in my soul was welcome. After all, it was an emotion, flames were still rising, it showed that my heart was still alive! In a confused way, in the midst of misery I felt something like liberation and springtime.
The entire path of the Vitraag Lords (the enlightened one) is one of humility (vinaya). The practice of humility (vinaya dharma) begins from Hindustan (India). There are endless practices of humility, starting from putting two hands together (in the gesture of Namaste) to prostrating. And ultimately when one attains absolute humility (param vinaya), he attains moksha (ultimate liberation).
Like some homeopathic cure, our very sense of imprisonment can be a step toward liberation. We need not rebel against our temporally determined roles. Merely to recognize them is to limit their power over us. The liberation implied by such awareness is threefold. To understand one’s own temporal determinism is to establish, above and beyond what one says and does, an analytic posture toward the present as history; it is to achieve, amid the earnest vanities of contemporary society, an easing humility; it is to mark off, as territory precious and imperiled, the moments and pursuits that are left to our choice.
One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally rank among the best organized and most coherent groupings in society. They constitute ready-made organizations - social-based NGOs, if you will - for maintaining Islamic culture and practices under periods of extreme oppression and for fomenting resistance and guerrilla warfare against foreign occupation. The history of Sufi participation in dozens of liberation struggles is long and widespread across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Sufi groups were prominent in the anti-Soviet resistance, and later against the American in Afghanistan and against US occupation forces in Iraq.
Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable.
Freedom is an expensive gift always worth fighting for. Even if it costs us!
We must overturn so many idols, the idol of self first of all, so that we can be humble, and only from our humility can learn to be redeemers, can learn to work together in the way the world really needs. Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation. Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence and takes away lives of others or abases the dignity of others cannot be true liberty. True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others.
But, nevertheless, if there is even the slightest recognition, liberation is easy. Should you ask why this is so—it is because once the awesome, terrifying and fearful appearances arise, the awareness does not have the luxury of distraction. The awareness is one-pointedly concentrated.
I find that there are a lot of objects and subjects within the world today. There's so much going on, that it seems like reality itself is trying hide something. Not only do we have to deal with illusions that the media, literature, states, governments, religions, and all of the plentiful theatrics of life entrances us with, but we have to deal with reality's false face. People continuously livelife, go to work, play, stress, dance, eat, sleep, and step back into yesterday, not understanding that there are invisible curtains blinding the truth from the surface. Become empty, just for a moment, and ask yourself simple paradoxical questions. Do you know where you are? Do you understand where you are? Do you understand who you are? Do you understand why you are? Gain a sense of glory, by being defeated by your own question, and liberate yourself from the mask that reality has given you since adolescence. However, that is the problem. So many have worn this invisible mask for so long, that they are unable to take it off, and are bound by the illusion that reality wants them to see. Liberation is a goal that you may no longer obtain, but don't worry, for ignorance and deception are your only true friends now. They can carry you to God, but they cannot wake you up.
Shiva is saying: the body is a product of nature and your will to do. The nature is merely the source, the womb. Your ego functions like a seed in it. Your will to do this or that, to achieve this or that, to become this or that – acts like a seed. And the moment the art of your doing meets the womb of nature, a body is formed.Therefore, buddhas say: ”Give up all desires, only then will you be liberated.: If you desired for heaven, you will become an angel, but that won’t be liberation either. Because as long as desires persist, there can never be any liberation. All desires lead to the formation of bodies.
I became aware that there was no barrier between what was inside and what was outside. My body was illuminated by a bright light. I heard with my eyes and saw with my ears. I used my nose as mouth and my mouth as nose. I experienced the world with the totality of my senses as my spirit gathered and my form dissolved. There was no distinction between muscles and bones. My body stopped being heavy and I felt like a floating leaf. Without knowing it, I was being carried by the wind. Drifting here and there, I did not know whether I rode on the wind or the wind rode on me.
This is all very personal for me, but it's also collective, and the two are not disconnected. I have never believed that you only advocate for the things that you stand for and embody. I've always believed that our liberation, my liberation, is tied up with yours. To make a country that works for me, there's gotta be a country that works for you.
Every historical form of society is in its foundation a form of organization of labor. While every previous form of society was an organization of labor in the interests of a minority, which organized its State apparatus for the oppression of the overwhelming majority of the workers, we are making the first attempt in world history to organize labor in the interests of the laboring majority itself.
I want to live in a liberated intersectional society. As long as inequality and discrimination exists, I cannot be satisfied with the life that we are forced to live. Everyone deserves to lead the life they want to and not what is prescribed for them. We must be who we want to be. In this we must be happy.I am also tired of seeing black people fight to live. This is what drives my activism. I literally (as clichéd as it sounds), dream of a moment where we can be free to exist as we want to.
Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail . We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.
Like racism and all forms of prejudice, bigotry against transgendered people is a deadly carcinogen. We are pitted against each other in order to keep us from seeing each other as allies. Genuine bonds of solidarity can be forged between people who respect each other's differences and are willing to fight their enemy together. We are the class that does the work of the world, and can revolutionize it. We can win true liberation.
If we have learned anything from the liberation movements, we should have learned how difficult it is to be aware of the ways in which we discriminate until they are forcefully pointed out to us. A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable.
There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeding the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself a great art.This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, to invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of a work of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective. The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end.
Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions.
If it supports the liberation struggle of Black people then it is good. If it is in opposition to the liberation struggle of Black people then it is bad. If it supports the liberation struggle of Black people then it is moral. If it opposes the liberation struggle, then it is immoral. If it supports the liberation struggle of Black people, then it is the will of GOD. If it opposes the liberation struggle of Black people, then it is satanic. With this simple key to the mysteries of life both events and institutions can be judged.
The highest happiness is when one reaches the stage of Liberation, at which there is no more suffering. That’s genuine, lasting happiness. True happiness relates more to the mind and heart. Happiness that depends mainly on physical pleasure is unstable; one day it’s there, the next day it may not be.
The chief means of liberating women is replacing of compulsiveness and compulsion by the pleasure principle. Cooking, clothes, beauty, and housekeeping are all compulsive activities in which the anxiety quotient has long since replaced the pleasure or achievement quotient. It is possible to use even cooking, clothes, cosmetics and housekeeping for fun. The essence of pleasure is spontaneity. In these cases spontaneity means rejecting the norm, the standard that one must live up to, and establishing a self-regulating principle.
Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own real interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else… . Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child!
So as long as you have not attained to desirelessness, as long as you have not renounced desires completely, you will go on taking births and wandering in different bodies. And howsoever different the forms of the body may be, their basic condition is always the same. The ills of the body are the same, regardless whether it’s a bird’s body or man’s. There is no difference in their miseries, because the fundamental misery is only one: the soul becoming confined in the body, the entering of the soul into the prison of body. A prison after all is a prison; it makes no difference whether its walls are circular or angular no matter what you think.
..the struggle to end sexist oppression that focuses on destroying the cultural basis for such domination strengthens other liberation struggles. Individuals who fight for the eradication of sexism without struggles to end racism or classism undermine their own efforts. Individuals who fight for the eradication of racism or classism while supporting sexist oppression are helping to maintain the cultural basis of all forms of group oppression.
In terms of experience, we want to make this (referring to the self) very pleasant. We want this to be blissful, ecstatic. But, as I said before, even being ecstatic is not goal by itself. If you are blissful by your own nature, then the important thing is that you are no more the issue. There are other issues in this existence; we can look at those. But if you are an issue, what other issue will you take in your hands? You will not touch anything. When I am enough trouble myself, why do I want to take on this one or that one? When I am no more an issue, now I am willing to dig into the whole existence and see what it is all about.
People always did like to talk, didn't they? That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention.