The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in and takes away the necessity of the current arrangements as the “real world.” In the imagination our own beliefs are also only possibilities, but we can also see the possibilities in the beliefs of others. Bigots and fanatics seldom have any use for the arts, because they're so preoccupied with their beliefs and actions that they can't see them as also possibilities.
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...William Blake
Samadhi is Sanskrit for “that state of consciousness in which the individual soul merges with the universal soul.” Samadhi is the main subject of the first part of Yoga Sutras.
Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds - Akasha by Daniel Schmidt and Eva Dametto
Tattva in Sanskrit means Thatness, which generally means Truth or principles. In this context it means building blocks of the universe, its internal aspects and the creation including living beings, down to the physical reality. Everything that you see, feel, touch, measure... is made of Tattvas. It may be one Tattva or many Tattvas in combination, cooperation or conflict. They are the brick and mortar of our existence and of the universe. It is derivation, transformation, augmentation, mutation, transmutation, amalgamation or any other processes that you can think of in this world.
What good is the study of literature? Does it help us to think more clearly, or feel more sensitively, or live a better life than we could without it? What is the social value of the study of literature? Northrop Frye
"The Educated Imagination" - Northrop Frye
A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the days that are past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward. The brighter the light diffused around him by the progress of reason, the thicker is the darkness of antiquated barbarism, in which he buries himself like a mole, to throw up the barren hillocks of his Cimmerian labours. Thoamas Love Peacock
The men of God rent the veil of thought
The men of God rent the veil of thought meaning they saw none but God anywhere. They received from the same hand from which they gave they heard back same pont whatever points they made. one group are happy and having a great time another crowd are biting their fingers in envy and regret. one group are smashed behind the wine-house another are praying, followers of the spiritual guide. one group reached their destination without effort another crowd ran along and did not arrive. Hear my shout hear my cry: in this passageway on earth many have poured seeds and many have laid traps. seek motivation from the hearts of those early rising wise ones for they sought to uncover one or two secrets of the two worlds. when the people come to the market of Truth i fear they will not sell the food they had bought. that myopic one who looks only at his feet can't see the tall pine for they didn't cut this cloth to fit everyone's size. those keen light-flying birds of light flew away from the traps of dust into the blue heavens. (By Foroughi Bastami)
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice You must note the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. The stairs are your mentor of things to come, the doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you, and the tiny speaker in the phone is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you. David Whyte
Everything is waiting for you. David Whyte
Hafiz verses are rich in fancy, powerful in imagination, original, sublime, wild and glowing, grave and gay. He dwells on the degeneracy of his age, on the vanity of the world, on the power of sin, on the greatness of the Creator, on the pleasures of the time of youth, on the enjoyments of the world, on universal charity, and on toleration and liberty of conscience.
We have not come here to take prisoners But to surrender ever more deeply to freedom and joy...For we have not come here to take prisoners, or to confine our wondrous spirits, But to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom, and Light!
The subject tonight is Love, And for tomorrow night as well, As a matter of fact I know of no better topic for us to discuss until we all die! Hafiz
Hafez Ghazal 138
Hafez Ghazal 138 remember him who did not remember us when leaving, who did not comfort our grief with a goodbye.
that one blessed with youth who kept good accounts- i don’t know why he didn’t free the old slave!
let us wash the shirt of regret with tears of blood- for the heavens guide me not to the cry of justice!
the heart in hope of a voice reaching you sobbed such stony cries as Farhad did not know.
from the time you withdrew your shadow, dawn’s bird has not made its nest in the box tree’s branching curls.
if the dawn breeze learned to ply its trade from you, a more subtle motion than this it would not know.
the designer’s reed draws not desire’s portrait save for he who has confessed to beauty god-given.
minstrel! lift the veil and strike the note of hejaz- for by this note the friend has left and forgotten us!
Edmund Burke’s Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
On the Sublime, Longinus refer to a style of writing that elevates itself "above the ordinary". He sets out five sources of sublimity: "great thoughts, strong emotions, certain figures of thought and speech, noble diction, and dignified word arrangement". A writer's goal is not so much to express empty feelings, but to arouse deep emotion mixed in pleasure and exaltation. The sources of the Sublime are of two kinds: inborn sources ("aspiration to vigorous concepts" and "strong and enthusiastic passion") and acquirable sources (rhetorical devices, choice of the right lexicon, and "dignified and high composition"). The sublime, in fact, is a denominator of the greatness of the one who approaches to it, both the author's and the reader's. Between them an empathetic bond must arise. Then, the Sublime is a mechanism of recognition of the greatness of a spirit, of the depth of an idea, of the power of speech. This recognition has its roots in the belief that the striving towards greatness is rooted in human nature.
Edmund Burke’s Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful deal with the theory of the Sublime as a reaction the instinctual human fears. Burke’s distinction explains the formula that is Gothic Fiction; violence and other past atrocities can only be contained in secret for just so long until their projection upon the natural world overwhelms those unwittingly involved
The Ring of the Dove: A Treatise on the Art and Practice of Arab Love by Ibn Hazm (eminent prose writer of eleventh-century Muslim Spain) is a compelling book on the psychology of love viewed in relation to such subjects as compliance, secrecy, accident, correspondence, fidelity, and separation. Drawn from Ibn Hazm's own experience and various scenarios from the lives of the people he knew or was told about, be they righteous or sinful, it contains many examples of Ibn Hazm's poetry, including verses inspired by passion, ecstasy, and despair.
Ibn Hazm defines love as 'to become attached to someone' and to do so you have to use your reason to bring your partner to trust you enough and allow you to get closer! This is the total opposite of giving in blindly to desire because you need to negotiate with the other. Ibn Hazm dismisses "love at first sight" as utterly ridiculous because it confuses love with desire and consider such love as merely a kind of lust. When a man falls in love at first sight, and forms a sudden attachment as the result of a fleeting glance, that proves him to be little steadfast, and proclaims that he will as suddenly forget his romantic adventure; it testifies to his fickleness and inconstancy. So, it is with all things; the quicker they grow, the quicker they decay; while on the other hand slow produced is slow consumed. He is convinced that when you use your reason and manage to create a stable relation you don't long for a change for change's sake.
"we know in our gut that with somebody valuing us, loving us, listening to us and supporting us, we are the best we can be then,” Dr. Sue Johnson in in Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships
Puccini - Tosca (Act 3)
Puccini - Tosca (Act 3) A shepherd boy sings "Io de' sospiri" ,"I give you sighs", and the pastoral aura is accentuated by the sounds of sheep bells and church bells.
Cavaradossi is led in by guards and informed that he has one hour to live. He refuses to see a priest, but asks permission to write a letter to Tosca. He begins to write, but is soon overwhelmed by memories: "E lucevan le stelle" ,"And the stars shone", a farewell to love and life, an anguished lament and grief built around the words 'muoio disperato' (I die in despair)
How the stars used to shine there, How sweet the earth smelled, The orchard gate would creak, And a footstep would lightly crease the sand. She'd come in, fragrant as a flower, And she'd fall into my arms.
Oh! sweet kisses, oh! lingering caresses, Trembling, I'd slowly uncover her dazzling beauty. Now, my dream of love has vanished forever. My last hour has flown, and I die, hopeless! And never have I loved life more!
Arvo Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel “mirror in the mirror” (Violin And Piano) referring to the infinity of images produced by parallel plane mirrors: The tonic triads are endlessly repeated with small variations as if reflected back and forth.This simple tintinnabular style was influenced by the composer's mystical experiences with chant music. "Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers - in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises - and everything that is unimportant falls away."
Arvo Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel “mirror in the mirror” (Violin And Piano)
Franz Liszt - Piano Concerto No 1 in E flat major
Unveiling Salome: the dark side of the human soul. Richard Strauss’ opera Salome using dissonance of depraved obsession, desire, lust, revulsion, horror, doom and death; who took it off for a king and in return got ahead, in more ways than one. "epoch-making dissonance with which Strauss takes Salome...to the depth of degradation", and "the quintessence of Decadence: here is ecstasy falling in upon itself, crumbling into the abyss". Derrick Puffett. Richard Strauss, Salome
Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of Thus Spoke Zarathustra published in 1885 "I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche's great work. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its development, religious and scientific..."
"Thou great star! What would be thy happiness, were it not for those for whom thou shinest? For ten years though has come up here to my cave. Thou wouldst have got sick of thy light and the journey but for me, mine eagle and my serpent. But we waited for thee every morning, and receiving from thee thine abundance, blessed thee for it. Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath collected too much honey; I need hands reaching out for it. I would fain grant and distribute until the wise among men could once more enjoy their folly, and the poor once more their riches...Zarathustra's Prologue (the motif representing the "World-Riddle" and rising to a climax of shattering intensity)
Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30,
