http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat
especially interesting is the history and General non fiction to me
http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/General-Nonfiction
http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/History
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Belief in hell and heaven
One is asked to be pious and religious to reach heaven or else will be transported to hell after death. But our present life on earth has turned into hell. How will the almighty greet us in heaven when we cannot handle ourselves on earth and take care of this land? If we cannot take care of earth we are not fit to be in heaven. We need to first make earth a peace land to be eligible to heaven. We have to reconcile our differences and learn to accept people of a different beliefs. We need to show the Almighty that we know how to love everything on earth.
Monday, January 25, 2010
stink of death
I smell the stink of death everywhere
Death is unpredictable and a great leveler
Earth is the place for this drama
man the protagonist and death the enemy
Death is the usual winner and man the loser
One feels as if all conditions on earth
favor the tactics and ruse of death.
you are given only some time to achieve
and enjoy spurts of happiness meanwhile
As long as you live on this piece of universe
death haunts you as your shadow.
What can be done to escape this suffering?
You may die of disease, mental agony,
accident of nature or man.
Death is everywhere and every day.
Yet man treats death as a distant relative
though hears its name does not bother
to know more about it or know it.
Death is born along with life
as a shadow it sleeps with man
on his cradle and follows till the grave.
Death is body's constant challenge.
Amid the loss of lives, suffering and war
some hope for some great power to save
But suffering continues and continues unabated
Seems as if there is no end to man's suffering.
What can be done to escape this suffering?
I see some artists, musicians,bards,
scientists fighting the shadows of death on earth
and to lift the darkness
and to bring unearthly joy into life.
Man cannot escape the pinch
of other human and animal suffering.
I want to embody the goddess of happiness
on this land of suffering and death
Lift the torch of bliss on this land of suffering
Lift the spirit of the suffering man
With my energy and aspiration
bring smile on the lips of the dying man.
One feels as if earth were made
to be the land of the dead
Life struggles the earth's catastrophes
life struggles the ignorance of man
Life suffers the war and hatred
On this land of death
shall we sow the seeds of bliss
I shall embody the goddess of bliss.
Replace the stink of death
with the fragrance of rose.
Death is unpredictable and a great leveler
Earth is the place for this drama
man the protagonist and death the enemy
Death is the usual winner and man the loser
One feels as if all conditions on earth
favor the tactics and ruse of death.
you are given only some time to achieve
and enjoy spurts of happiness meanwhile
As long as you live on this piece of universe
death haunts you as your shadow.
What can be done to escape this suffering?
You may die of disease, mental agony,
accident of nature or man.
Death is everywhere and every day.
Yet man treats death as a distant relative
though hears its name does not bother
to know more about it or know it.
Death is born along with life
as a shadow it sleeps with man
on his cradle and follows till the grave.
Death is body's constant challenge.
Amid the loss of lives, suffering and war
some hope for some great power to save
But suffering continues and continues unabated
Seems as if there is no end to man's suffering.
What can be done to escape this suffering?
I see some artists, musicians,bards,
scientists fighting the shadows of death on earth
and to lift the darkness
and to bring unearthly joy into life.
Man cannot escape the pinch
of other human and animal suffering.
I want to embody the goddess of happiness
on this land of suffering and death
Lift the torch of bliss on this land of suffering
Lift the spirit of the suffering man
With my energy and aspiration
bring smile on the lips of the dying man.
One feels as if earth were made
to be the land of the dead
Life struggles the earth's catastrophes
life struggles the ignorance of man
Life suffers the war and hatred
On this land of death
shall we sow the seeds of bliss
I shall embody the goddess of bliss.
Replace the stink of death
with the fragrance of rose.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Continued
Her hand's deflecting and retarding weight
Is laid on the mystic evolution's curve:
The tortuous line of her deceiving mind
The Gods see not and man is impotent;
Oppressing the God-spark within the soul
She forces back to the beast the human fall.
Yet in her formidable instinctive mind
She feels the One grow in the heart of Time
And sees the Immortal shine through the human mould.
Alarmed for her rule and full of fear and rage
She prowls around each light that gleams through the dark
Casting its ray from the spirit's lonely tent,
Hoping to enter with fierce stealthy tread
And in the cradle slay the divine Child.
Incalculable are her strength and ruse;
Her touch is a fascination and a death;
She kills her victim with his own delight;
Even Good she makes a hook to drag to Hell.
For her the world runs to its agony.
Often the pilgrim on the Eternal's road
Ill-lit from clouds by the pale moon of Mind,
Or in devious byways wandering alone,
Or lost in deserts where no path is seen,
Falls overpowered by her lion leap,
A conquered captive under her dreadful paws.
Intoxicated by a burning breath
And amorous grown of a destroying mouth,
Once a companion of the sacred Fire,
The mortal perishes to God and Light,
An Adversary governs heart and brain,
A Nature hostile to the Mother-Force.
The self of life yields up its instruments
To Titan and demoniac agencies
That aggrandise earth-nature and disframe:
A cowled fifth-columnist is now thought's guide;
His subtle defeatist murmur slays the faith
And, lodged in the breast or whispering from outside,
A lying inspiration fell and dark
A new order substitutes for the divine.
A silence falls upon the spirit's heights,
From the veiled sanctuary the God retires,
Empty and cold is the chamber of the Bride;
The golden Nimbus now is seen no more,
No longer burns the white spiritual ray
And hushed for ever is the secret Voice.
Then by the Angel of the Vigil Tower
A name is struck from the recording book;
A flame that sang in Heaven sinks quenched and mute;
In ruin ends the epic of a soul.
This is the tragedy of the inner death
When forfeited is the divine element
And only a mind and body live to die.
Explanation
Here Sri Aurobindo is talking about the devious nature of the terrible ignorance in the making of man. He is personifying the ignorance and void in matter that opposes the climb of the soul towards light and knowledge. "She" here personifies the falsehood in matter that puts her "deflecting and retarding weight" of her hand and deviates the evolutionary Idea of the aspiring soul towards greater knowledge and light. Man is not aware of her dangers and he is open to her attacks. She is the opposite of the brilliant light of the Mother.
What does she do to the human soul awakened to the divine reality, the divine Child, that wants to climb the heavens staircase?
She hates the awakened soul and would do anything to bring him back to her darkness. Like a wild animal full of fear and rage to inhibit the movements of its
captured pray, she stealthyly plans to destroy the aspiring soul for god knowledge and bliss.
This is a beautiful explanation of the fall of the aspiring soul. Here this evil, enjoys the death of the aspiring soul. She is cunning and spots the weakness of the aspiring soul. Hits him on the bleeding wounds and weak spots, so that he cannot recover and loses hope of his heavenly destiny.
Who is the pilgrim on the Eternal's road? The aspiring soul. When the aspiring soul
is not yet connected with higher consciousness completely and when he is on the precarious journey of ill lit knowledge, when his mind is clouded with insufficient faith in the mind or when he feels hopeless and lost, this evil nature mercilessly attacks him with her dreadful paws. Here Sri Aurobindo comparing her to a lion but the distinction is that the wild animal sometimes leaves the pray when not hungry but this evil is nature would never do that. Evil is her nature. She takes pleasure in her victory over the aspiring soul every time he falls to her ruse.
Fallen is the aspiring soul from the true bliss and he has fallen to the ruse of falsehood and false pleasures. This line " and amorous grown of a destroying mouth" may mean the aspiring soul once a traveler to the heavenly bliss has fallen to amorous( could mean sexual) pleasures. Once it was a companion of the sacred fire(the yagna or sacrifice the aspiring soul performs), the light of god recedes.
The enemy now governs the actions of the aspiring soul. The soul has fallen to falsehood.
Mother-force means the higher super conscious force of the Divine Mother, that helps and prods the aspiring to the divine bliss, light and conciousness. This evil nature which is hostile to the Mother-force, uses all its instruments in its ruse box to inhibit this divine movement.
"The self of life" means the aspiring soul who is the spark of the divine has lives in the body and manifested on earth in contrast to the Self or Atman which is never manifest.
A fifth columnist is someone who secretly supports and helps the enemies of the country or organization they are in.
cowl - a loose hood or hooded robe (as worn by a monk)
A nimbus is a large grey cloud that brings rain or snow.
Is laid on the mystic evolution's curve:
The tortuous line of her deceiving mind
The Gods see not and man is impotent;
Oppressing the God-spark within the soul
She forces back to the beast the human fall.
Yet in her formidable instinctive mind
She feels the One grow in the heart of Time
And sees the Immortal shine through the human mould.
Alarmed for her rule and full of fear and rage
She prowls around each light that gleams through the dark
Casting its ray from the spirit's lonely tent,
Hoping to enter with fierce stealthy tread
And in the cradle slay the divine Child.
Incalculable are her strength and ruse;
Her touch is a fascination and a death;
She kills her victim with his own delight;
Even Good she makes a hook to drag to Hell.
For her the world runs to its agony.
Often the pilgrim on the Eternal's road
Ill-lit from clouds by the pale moon of Mind,
Or in devious byways wandering alone,
Or lost in deserts where no path is seen,
Falls overpowered by her lion leap,
A conquered captive under her dreadful paws.
Intoxicated by a burning breath
And amorous grown of a destroying mouth,
Once a companion of the sacred Fire,
The mortal perishes to God and Light,
An Adversary governs heart and brain,
A Nature hostile to the Mother-Force.
The self of life yields up its instruments
To Titan and demoniac agencies
That aggrandise earth-nature and disframe:
A cowled fifth-columnist is now thought's guide;
His subtle defeatist murmur slays the faith
And, lodged in the breast or whispering from outside,
A lying inspiration fell and dark
A new order substitutes for the divine.
A silence falls upon the spirit's heights,
From the veiled sanctuary the God retires,
Empty and cold is the chamber of the Bride;
The golden Nimbus now is seen no more,
No longer burns the white spiritual ray
And hushed for ever is the secret Voice.
Then by the Angel of the Vigil Tower
A name is struck from the recording book;
A flame that sang in Heaven sinks quenched and mute;
In ruin ends the epic of a soul.
This is the tragedy of the inner death
When forfeited is the divine element
And only a mind and body live to die.
Explanation
Her hand's deflecting and retarding weight
Is laid on the mystic evolution's curve:
The tortuous line of her deceiving mind
The Gods see not and man is impotent;
Oppressing the God-spark within the soul
She forces back to the beast the human fall.
Here Sri Aurobindo is talking about the devious nature of the terrible ignorance in the making of man. He is personifying the ignorance and void in matter that opposes the climb of the soul towards light and knowledge. "She" here personifies the falsehood in matter that puts her "deflecting and retarding weight" of her hand and deviates the evolutionary Idea of the aspiring soul towards greater knowledge and light. Man is not aware of her dangers and he is open to her attacks. She is the opposite of the brilliant light of the Mother.
Yet in her formidable instinctive mind
She feels the One grow in the heart of Time
And sees the Immortal shine through the human mould.
Alarmed for her rule and full of fear and rage
She prowls around each light that gleams through the dark
Casting its ray from the spirit's lonely tent,
Hoping to enter with fierce stealthy tread
And in the cradle slay the divine Child.
What does she do to the human soul awakened to the divine reality, the divine Child, that wants to climb the heavens staircase?
She hates the awakened soul and would do anything to bring him back to her darkness. Like a wild animal full of fear and rage to inhibit the movements of its
captured pray, she stealthyly plans to destroy the aspiring soul for god knowledge and bliss.
Incalculable are her strength and ruse;
Her touch is a fascination and a death;
She kills her victim with his own delight;
Even Good she makes a hook to drag to Hell.
For her the world runs to its agony.
Often the pilgrim on the Eternal's road
Ill-lit from clouds by the pale moon of Mind,
Or in devious byways wandering alone,
Or lost in deserts where no path is seen,
Falls overpowered by her lion leap,
A conquered captive under her dreadful paws.
Intoxicated by a burning breath
And amorous grown of a destroying mouth,
Once a companion of the sacred Fire,
The mortal perishes to God and Light,
An Adversary governs heart and brain,
A Nature hostile to the Mother-Force.
This is a beautiful explanation of the fall of the aspiring soul. Here this evil, enjoys the death of the aspiring soul. She is cunning and spots the weakness of the aspiring soul. Hits him on the bleeding wounds and weak spots, so that he cannot recover and loses hope of his heavenly destiny.
Often the pilgrim on the Eternal's road
Ill-lit from clouds by the pale moon of Mind,
Or in devious byways wandering alone,
Or lost in deserts where no path is seen,
Falls overpowered by her lion leap,
A conquered captive under her dreadful paws.
Who is the pilgrim on the Eternal's road? The aspiring soul. When the aspiring soul
is not yet connected with higher consciousness completely and when he is on the precarious journey of ill lit knowledge, when his mind is clouded with insufficient faith in the mind or when he feels hopeless and lost, this evil nature mercilessly attacks him with her dreadful paws. Here Sri Aurobindo comparing her to a lion but the distinction is that the wild animal sometimes leaves the pray when not hungry but this evil is nature would never do that. Evil is her nature. She takes pleasure in her victory over the aspiring soul every time he falls to her ruse.
Intoxicated by a burning breath
And amorous grown of a destroying mouth,
Once a companion of the sacred Fire,
The mortal perishes to God and Light,
An Adversary governs heart and brain,
A Nature hostile to the Mother-Force.
Fallen is the aspiring soul from the true bliss and he has fallen to the ruse of falsehood and false pleasures. This line " and amorous grown of a destroying mouth" may mean the aspiring soul once a traveler to the heavenly bliss has fallen to amorous( could mean sexual) pleasures. Once it was a companion of the sacred fire(the yagna or sacrifice the aspiring soul performs), the light of god recedes.
The enemy now governs the actions of the aspiring soul. The soul has fallen to falsehood.
A Nature hostile to the Mother-Force.
Mother-force means the higher super conscious force of the Divine Mother, that helps and prods the aspiring to the divine bliss, light and conciousness. This evil nature which is hostile to the Mother-force, uses all its instruments in its ruse box to inhibit this divine movement.
The self of life yields up its instruments
To Titan and demoniac agencies
That aggrandise earth-nature and disframe:
A cowled fifth-columnist is now thought's guide;
His subtle defeatist murmur slays the faith
And, lodged in the breast or whispering from outside,
A lying inspiration fell and dark
A new order substitutes for the divine.
What else does the evil nature( titan an demoniac agencies) do to the yielding soul? Once the aspiring soul allows this demoniac agencies to influence him, they work as "cowled fifth columnist" in his mind. They either possess the mind from the inside or give suggestions from outside in the form of nature thoughts, that destroy his faith in the Divine. They give him wrong suggestions and show him the wrong path. Now, a new order substitutes the fallen soul, his actions lead to suffering ,pain and darkness.
A silence falls upon the spirit's heights,
From the veiled sanctuary the God retires,
Empty and cold is the chamber of the Bride;
The golden Nimbus now is seen no more,
No longer burns the white spiritual ray
And hushed for ever is the secret Voice.
Then by the Angel of the Vigil Tower
A name is struck from the recording book;
A flame that sang in Heaven sinks quenched and mute;
In ruin ends the epic of a soul.
This is the tragedy of the inner death
When forfeited is the divine element
And only a mind and body live to die.
The end result is that even God retires and the aspiring soul (also called a flame that sang in Heaven) sinks quenched and mute. Here Sri Aurobindo explain the fate and dark struggle that the aspiring soul goes through
in his journey to the Divine Mother. There is a danger in very groove, danger hides in every temptation and suggestion of the possess and ill lit mind.
"When forfeited is the divine element"
What is the Divine element. It is the soul that lives hidden in the body apart from the active mind. When that is soul has given up this struggle to face the adversary, the evolutionary journey and the agent of God has lost the purpose and battle of life.
A fifth columnist is someone who secretly supports and helps the enemies of the country or organization they are in.
cowl - a loose hood or hooded robe (as worn by a monk)
A nimbus is a large grey cloud that brings rain or snow.
The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness Book II, canto xiii
It chilled the heavens with the menace of a face.
A nameless Power, a shadowy Will arose
Immense and alien to our universe.
In the inconceivable Purpose none can gauge
A vast Non-Being robed itself with shape,
The boundless Nescience of the unconscious depths
Covered eternity with nothingness.
A seeking Mind replaced the seeing Soul:
Life grew into a huge and hungry death,
The Spirit's bliss was changed to cosmic pain.
Assuring God's self-cowled neutrality
A mighty opposition conquered Space.
A sovereign ruling falsehood, death and grief,
It pressed its fierce hegemony on the earth;
Disharmonising the original style
Of the architecture of her fate's design,
It falsified the primal cosmic Will
And bound to struggle and dread vicissitudes
The long slow process of the patient Power.
Implanting error in the stuff of things
It made an Ignorance of the all-wise Law;
It baffled the sure touch of life's hid sense,
Kept dumb the intuitive guide in Matter's sleep,
Deformed the insect's instinct and the brute's,
Disfigured man's thought-born humanity.
A shadow fell across the simple Ray:
Obscured was the Truth-light in the cavern heart
That burns unwitnessed in the altar crypt
Behind the still velamen's secrecy
Companioning the Godhead of the shrine.
Thus was the dire antagonist Energy born
Who mimes the eternal Mother's mighty shape
And mocks her luminous infinity
With a grey distorted silhouette in the Night.
Arresting the passion of the climbing soul,
She forced on life a slow and faltering pace;
"The Spirit's bliss was changed to cosmic pain", a profound statement about the condition of sorrow and pain on earth.
The mind in ignorance sought to find the truth as the blind leads the blind. In the darkness it needs the help of the guide. The hidden guide is the innermost soul ineffable and intangible. The mind does not have the map to the destination. It tries but has not the clue for directions.
Man struggles to know the purpose of life where bliss is not his ordinary condition. To be happy he has to do something exciting. But the ignorance prevents his soul's ambition to know itself and progress and relegates him to suffering.The progress if possible is faltering and slow.
A nameless Power, a shadowy Will arose
Immense and alien to our universe.
In the inconceivable Purpose none can gauge
A vast Non-Being robed itself with shape,
The boundless Nescience of the unconscious depths
Covered eternity with nothingness.
A seeking Mind replaced the seeing Soul:
Life grew into a huge and hungry death,
The Spirit's bliss was changed to cosmic pain.
Assuring God's self-cowled neutrality
A mighty opposition conquered Space.
A sovereign ruling falsehood, death and grief,
It pressed its fierce hegemony on the earth;
Disharmonising the original style
Of the architecture of her fate's design,
It falsified the primal cosmic Will
And bound to struggle and dread vicissitudes
The long slow process of the patient Power.
Implanting error in the stuff of things
It made an Ignorance of the all-wise Law;
It baffled the sure touch of life's hid sense,
Kept dumb the intuitive guide in Matter's sleep,
Deformed the insect's instinct and the brute's,
Disfigured man's thought-born humanity.
A shadow fell across the simple Ray:
Obscured was the Truth-light in the cavern heart
That burns unwitnessed in the altar crypt
Behind the still velamen's secrecy
Companioning the Godhead of the shrine.
Thus was the dire antagonist Energy born
Who mimes the eternal Mother's mighty shape
And mocks her luminous infinity
With a grey distorted silhouette in the Night.
Arresting the passion of the climbing soul,
She forced on life a slow and faltering pace;
A vast Non-Being robed itself with shape,
The boundless Nescience of the unconscious depths
What is the cause of all these suffering, falsehood and pain? It is the Non-Being who lives in the unconscious depths of Nescience in matter.
"The Spirit's bliss was changed to cosmic pain", a profound statement about the condition of sorrow and pain on earth.
"A seeking Mind replaced the seeing Soul"
The mind in ignorance sought to find the truth as the blind leads the blind. In the darkness it needs the help of the guide. The hidden guide is the innermost soul ineffable and intangible. The mind does not have the map to the destination. It tries but has not the clue for directions.
Arresting the passion of the climbing soul,
She forced on life a slow and faltering pace;
Man struggles to know the purpose of life where bliss is not his ordinary condition. To be happy he has to do something exciting. But the ignorance prevents his soul's ambition to know itself and progress and relegates him to suffering.The progress if possible is faltering and slow.
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