Reverence for Life by Albert Schweitzer Reverence for Life (Ahimsa or do no harm) is a philosophy that says that the only thing we’re really sure of is that we live, and want to go on living. And this is something that we share with everything else that lives. So we are brothers and sisters to all living things, and nothing else should be more important than this one deepest, most extraordinary thing connecting us. Reverence for my will-to-live leads me to the necessity of being sincere with myself...If I am a thinking being, I must regard other life than my own with equal reverence. For I shall know that it longs for fulness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life (because our ability to neglect, to destroy, to cause suffering and death). And this holds good whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development.
O friend, You came to see the Sun rise, But instead you see us, Whirling like a confusion of atoms - Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water And sees the reflection of the moon? Who, blind like Jacob, Seeks his lost son, And regains the light of his own eyes? Who, parched with thirst, Lowers a bucket into a well And comes up with an ocean of nectar? Who could be so lucky? Who, like Moses, approaches a desert bush And beholds the fire of a hundred dawns? Who, like Jesus, enters a house to avoid capture, And discovers a passage to the other world? Who, like Solomon, cuts open the stomach of a fish And finds a golden ring? Who could be so lucky? An assassin rushes in to kill the Prophet And stumbles upon a fortune. An oyster, opens his mouth for a drop of water, And discovers a shining pearl within himself. A poor man, searches through a heap of garbage And finds a magnificent treasure - Who could be so lucky? O friend, Forget all your stories and fancy words. Let friend and stranger look upon you And see a flood of light! - The door of heaven opening! Let them be so lucky! And what of those Who walk toward Shamsuddin? Their feet grow weary, They fall to the ground in utter exhaustion But then come the wings of His love, Lifting them, upward. Who could be so lucky?
YOU CAME TO SEE THE SUN RISE - Rumi
Tonight we go to that place of eternity. This is the wedding night – a never-ending union of lover and Beloved. We whisper gentle secrets to each other and the child of the universe takes its first breath. Jelaluddin Rumi
I have come to lay my face in the dust of the Beloved’s feet, I have come to beg pardon for a moment for my actions. I have come to take up anew the service of His rosebower, I have come to bring fire and set my thorns alight. I have come to get purification from the dust of all that has passed, to reckon my good deeds as evil as performed in the cause of my Beloved; I have come with eyes weeping, that my eyes may behold paradise—fountains consisting of the love of that blandisher of mine. Rise, disencumbered passion, take up love anew; I have died and become void of my old faith and unbelief; For without your strtraining-cloth it is impossible to become unsullied in existence, without You it is impossible ever to escape from one’s sorrows and griefs. Outwardly I have fallen silent; but You know that inwardly I have bloodstained speech in my blood-consuming heart. Jelaluddin Rumi
“All things in heaven and earth are wonderful! But the greatest wonder is man’s freedom to choose between good and evil.” God tells Mephistopheles , Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust
Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. Johann Wolfgang Goethe
The great Goethe has given us a distinct and visible description of this denial of the will, brought about by great misfortune and by the despair of all deliverance, in his immortal masterpiece Faust, in the story of the sufferings of Gretchen. I know of no other description in poetry. It is a perfect specimen of the second path, which leads to the denial of the will not, like the first, through the mere knowledge of the suffering of the whole world which one acquires voluntarily, but through the excessive pain felt in one's own person. It is true that many tragedies bring their violently willing heroes ultimately to this point of complete resignation, and then the will-to-live and its phenomenon usually end at the same time. But no description known to me brings to us the essential point of that conversion so distinctly and so free from everything extraneous as the one mentioned in Faust. Arthur Schopenhauer
Goethe’s masterwork and deeply esoteric drama, Faust is filled with insights that developed and became Anthroposophy. Whether it is a question of the spiritual nature of matter, the reverence for truth and knowledge, reincarnation, the nature of the elemental world, aesthetics, the challenge of our times, human destiny and the nature evolution Goethe work was an influence on Rudolf Steiner ideas on the psychology of colour who wrote “Natural science sees darkness as a complete nothingness. According to this view, the light which streams into a dark space has no resistance from the darkness to overcome. Goethe pictures to himself that light and darkness relate to each other like the north and south pole of a magnet. The darkness can weaken the light in its working power. Conversely, the light can limit the energy of the darkness. In both cases color arises.”
Destiny, Necessity, Enlightenment and Freedom - Buddhism and Anthroposophy
Mozart Piano Concerto No.9 in E flat Major K. 271 "Jeunehomme" (1777)
"Faust is the Gnostic seeker of truth who experiences the fall of the soul and then redemption. He achieves the alchemical task of converting base metal (his fallen state) into gold (his admission to the realm of light)."
Wild Scandinavia by Oliver Goetzl & Ivo Nörenberg
Erik Satie - Gymnopedies Gnossiennes
America: a Prophecy by William Blake
America: a Prophecy by William Blake "The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations; The grace is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrappèd up; The bones of death, the cov’ring clay, the sinews shrunk and dry’d Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening, Spring like redeemèd captives, when their bonds and bars are burst, Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field, Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air; Let the enchainèd soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing, Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years, Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open; And let his wife and children return from the oppressor’s scourge. They look behind at every step, and believe it is a dream, Singing: “The Sun has left his blackness, and has found a fresher morning, And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night; For Empire is no more, and now the Lion and Wolf shall cease.”
Here Orc is a force of revival of new life and of passion in the cycle, the polar opposite to Urizen, the cruel and tyrannous god. As such, Orc and Urizen appear in their evolution from one to the other in the the seven historical cycles of Blake's myth. Each cycle is divided into three phases, which begins with Orc's birth and then describes Orc's binding, which is connected to the time in a human's life where they are at their imaginative greatness. This is followed by the creation of abstract religion and a view of the universe as mechanical. This is then followed by rationalism and other empirical-based scientists. The second phase is where Urizen takes over the fallen world, which is represented by the Enlightenment in the seventh cycle. This leads to materialism, the death of the soul, and warfare. This phase ends with prophets declaring that Orc will appear. The third phase describes a Orc's crucifixion and a return of human life to nature.
Orc is also connected to the inner workings of the human self. After Blake renounced the revolutionary leaders who he thought were like Orc, he distrusted all hero worship. Blake believed that the imagination, represented by Orc, was part of the divine energy in man. As such, Orc is an internal life cycle that ends with a rebirth of the self. In general, Orc represented the freedom of the self. In this later work, Orc is born during the winter solstice and Urizen begins to search for him. Urizen, believing that Orc is connected to chaos, seeks predictability and order by creating laws which enslave humankind.
To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour.
For a New Beginning by John O’Donohue In out of the way places of the heart Where your thoughts never think to wander This beginning has been quietly forming Waiting until you were ready to emerge. For a long time it has watched your desire Feeling the emptiness grow inside you Noticing how you willed yourself on Still unable to leave what you had outgrown. It watched you play with the seduction of safety And the grey promises that sameness whispered Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent Wondered would you always live like this. Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And out you stepped onto new ground, Your eyes young again with energy and dream A path of plenitude opening before you. Though your destination is not clear You can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning That is one with your life’s desire. Awaken your spirit to adventure Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk Soon you will be home in a new rhythm For your soul senses the world that awaits you
The Bach Cantata Project, Cantata BWV 132 Who are you? Ask your conscience, then without hypocrisy whether you,O Man, are false or true you must hear the right judgement about yourself.
Hafiz
Hafez Ghazal 2 Where is sensible action, & my insanity whence? See the difference, it is from where to whence. From the church & hypocritical vestments, I take offence Where is the abode of the Magi, & sweet wine whence? For dervishes, piety and sensibility make no sense Where is sermon and hymn, & the violin's music whence. Upon seeing our friend, our foes put up their defense Where is a dead lantern, & the candle of the sun whence? My eye-liner is the dust of your door and fence Where shall I go, tell me, you command me whence? Take your focus from your chin to the trap on the path hence, Where to O heart, in such hurry you go whence? May his memory of union be happy and intense Where are your amorous gestures, & your reproach whence? Make not restlessness & insomnia, Hafiz's sentence What is rest, which is patience, and sleep whence?
Pauline Johnson was the child of a Mohawk chief and a Quaker Englishwoman. The tragedy of her early death, and the secrets of her loves and personality that went to the grave with her, lend themselves to opera. Haunted by failure, torn by her dual identity as both Mohawk and white, Pauline fights to confront her past before the end, as her doctor tries to control the pain and her sister tries to control the story that will be told.
However much we differ from our fellow men, there is one peculiarity common to us all—that of hoarding up a collection of old letters and papers, and never re-reading them. If we all do not actually commit this folly, we at least feel a strong disposition to do so, and yet we are annually tempted to gather the old time letters and their attendant memories and toss them into the flames we so fervently wish could burn out the years wherein those memories had their birth, for ashes are really so beautiful, such blow-away pearl-grey things, they are quite like the afternoon petals on some odd and exquisite grey flower. But if I can help it this old paper beside me will never see the flames. Pauline Johnson
The Song My Paddle Sings West wind, blow from your prairie nest Blow from the mountains, blow from the west, The sail is idle, the sailor too; Oh wind of the west, we wait for you. Blow, blow! I have wooed you so, But never a favour you bestow. You rock your cradle the hills between, But scorn to notice my white lateen.
