Enquiring Mind Quotes

Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.

God loves an enquiring mind, a fact that has been a great encouragement to me in my study of mathematics and the history and philosophy of science.

Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and enquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding

This may be why Einstein once said; "Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind." The fact is that we need the insights of the mystic every bit as much as we need the insights of the scientist. Mankind is diminished when either is missing.

Art transforms those that witness the creation, into philosophers, enquirers led down a path of mind; of quiet contemplation.

For me integrity and enquiring mind are the most important assets.

I paid the taxi driver, got out with my suitcase, surveyed my surroundings, and just as I was turning to ask the driver something or get back into the taxi and return forthwith to Chillán and then to Santiago, it sped off without warning, as if the somewhat ominous solitude of the place had unleashed atavistic fears in the driver's mind. For a moment I too was afraid. I must have been a sorry sight standing there helplessly with my suitcase from the seminary, holding a copy of Farewell's Anthology in one hand. Some birds flew out from behind a clump of trees. They seemed to be screaming the name of that forsaken village, Querquén, but they also seemed to be enquiring who: quién, quién, quién. I said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our Lady, do not abandon your servant, I murmured, while the black birds, about twenty-five centimetres in length, cried quién, quién, quién. Our Lady of Lourdes, do not abandon your poor priest, I murmured, while other birds, about ten centimetres long, brown in colour, or brownish, rather, with white breasts, called out, but not as loudly, quién, quién, quién, Our Lady of Suffering, Our Lady of Insight, Our Lady of Poetry, do not leave your devoted subject at the mercy of the elements, I murmured, while several tiny birds, magenta, black, fuchsia, yellow and blue in colour, wailed quién, quién, quién, at which point a cold wind sprang up suddenly, chilling me to the bone.

According to her conception of education, one should learn, not think; and above all, one must not enquire. The history of the human race, as it lay behind one, was already explained; and so was its destiny, which lay before. The mind should remain obediently within the theological concept of history.

A society that values order above all else will seek to suppress curiosity. But a society that believes in progress, innovation and creativity will cultivate it, recognising that the enquiring minds of its people constitute its most valuable asset. In medieval Europe, the enquiring mind – especially if it enquired too closely into the edicts of Church or state – was stigmatised. During the Renaissance and Reformation, received wisdoms began to be interrogated, and by the time of the Enlightenment, European societies started to see that their future lay with the curious, and encouraged probing questions rather than stamping on them. The result was the biggest explosion of new ideas and scientific advances in history. The great unlocking of curiosity translated into a cascade of prosperity for the nations that precipitated it. Today, we cannot know for sure if we are in the middle of this golden period or at the end of it. But we are, at the very least, in a lull. With the important exception of the internet, the innovations that catapulted Western societies ahead of the global pack are thin on the ground, while the rapid growth of Asian and South American economies has not yet been accompanied by a comparable run of indigenous innovation. Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University in Virginia, has termed the current period ‘the great stagnation’.

All students know the dangers of approaching their subject with preconceived ideas. Yet many would-be enquirers come to the Bible with their minds already made up.

She did it on purpose," hissed Treble. "I know she did. But why? Why expose Childersin, and then cause so much chaos that we cannot pursue him properly? I know him. Even now he will be looking to turn all this to his advantage. Men – be alert. He will probably try to have me assassinated any moment n—" Enquirer Treble had a good set of instincts. Two faint, metallic scraping sounds caught her ear, one to her left and one to her right, and before her mind had even registered them as the sound of drawing swords she had already flung herself to the ground. Looking up, she saw that her two bodyguards had managed to impale each other, whilst stabbing at the place she had been a moment before. They crumpled to the ground, one even managing a surprised Face before he expired. "Not again," snarled Treble as she clambered to her feet. "Core of the Earth! Is there anybody working for me who is actually working for me?

There is no freedom, but everything in the world takes place entirely according to nature....Transcendental freedom is therefore opposed to the law of causality, and represents such a connection of successive states of effective causes, that no unity of experience is possible with it. It is therefore an empty fiction of the mind, and not to be met with in any experience. We have, therefore, nothing but nature, in which we must try to find the connection and order of cosmical events. Freedom (independence) from the laws of nature is no doubt a deliverance from restraint, but also from the guidance of all rules. For we cannot say that, instead of the laws of nature, laws of freedom may enter into the causality of the course of the world, because, if determined by laws, it would not be freedom, but nothing else but nature. Nature, therefore, and transcendental freedom differ from each other like legality and lawlessness. The former, no doubt, imposes upon the understanding the difficult task of looking higher and higher for the origin of events in the series of causes, because their causality is always conditioned. In return for this, however, it promises a complete and well-ordered unity of experience; while, on the other side, the fiction of freedom promises, no doubt, to the enquiring mind, rest in the chain of causes, leading him up to an unconditioned causality, which begins to act by itself, but which, as it is blind itself, tears the thread of rules by which alone a complete and coherent experience is possible.

Where then shall Hope and Fear their objects find? Must dull Suspense corrupt the stagnant Mind? Must helpless Man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the Torrent of his Fate? Must no Dislike alarm, no Wishes rise, Nor Cries invoke the Mercies of the Skies? Enquirer, cease, Petitions yet remain Which Heaven may hear, nor deem Religion vain. Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, But leave to Heaven the Measure and the Choice.

As on enquiring agnostic one seeks, not the smugness of atheism, not the blindness of idolatry - nor even the complacency of established religion - but the intelligent quest of the unknowing, in humility and with a clarity of mind

Philosophers who have denied that there are any innate ideas probably meant only that all ideas were copies of our impressions. [W]hat is meant by ‘innate’? If ‘innate’ is equivalent to ‘natural’, then all the perceptions and ideas of the mind must be granted to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in opposition to what is uncommon, what is artificial, or what is miraculous. If innate means ‘contemporary with our birth’, the dispute seems to be frivolous—there is no point in enquiring when thinking begins, whether before, at, or after our birth.

First of all I will confess quite simply—I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, “pondering them in our heart,” so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible. . . .

The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder that there should be misunderstandings! The fact is (again!) that usually we don't really want to know; it is so very much easier to drift down the river of discourse, "lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily, In the noonday sun." Why is this so satisfactory? Because although we may not know what a word means, most words have a pleasant or unpleasant connotation, each for himself, either because of the ideas or images thus begotten, of hopes or memories stirred up, or merely for the sound of the word itself.

First of all I will confess quite simply—I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, “pondering them in our heart,” so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible. . . .

Perhaps it is a deep-seated reluctance to face up to the gravity of sin which has led to its omission from the vocabulary of many of our contemporaries. One acute observer of the human condition, who has noticed the disappearance of the word, is the American psychiatrist Karl Menninger. He has written about it in his book, Whatever Became of Sin? Describing the malaise of western society, its general mood of gloom and doom, he adds that ‘one misses any mention of “sin”’. ‘It was a word once in everyone’s mind, but is now rarely if ever heard. Does that mean’, he asks, ‘that no sin is involved in all our troubles...? Has no-one committed any sins? Where, indeed, did sin go? What became of it?’ (p.13). Enquiring into the causes of sin’s disappearance, Dr Menninger notes first that ‘many former sins have become crimes’, so that responsibility for dealing with them has passed from church to state, from priest to policeman (p.50), while others have dissipated into sicknesses, or at least into symptoms of sickness, so that in their case punishment has been replaced by treatment (pp.74ff.). A third convenient device called ‘collective irresponsibility’ has enabled us to transfer the blame for some of our deviant behaviour from ourselves as individuals to society as a whole or to one of its many groupings (pp.94ff.).

An autumn evening... An autumn evening, I ran hurriedly, made my way I did to that special bench in the park, Where in a likewise special week, I used to meet my Amily. My dear Amily with her mischievious eyes, Hear songs do my ears, whenever she speaks. With her fragrance and aura of jasmine, Feel I do that I am in heaven. Words spoken between us are of course less, but the thoughts that we share are, a lot. See each other we do, very less. Yet an urge to keep seeing each other, we have got. As I sat on the bench today, waiting for her, I wondered how today she would be. Would she dress grand or just come casually, in a simple manner and her hair let out freely. After a while, glance I did at the time. “Why hadn't she come by now?” Did she meet with trouble on the way that she came? Or didn't it cross her mind what the time was now? Then my worries were put to rest, When I saw her in front of me. I smiled at the way, that she had dressed for me. Wearing a dress of my favourite colour, and herself appearing royal with grandeur, she came slowly towards me, with doubt in her eyes, as her eyes enquired if she looked good that way? I smiled again and gestured that she looked like a princess. Then I offered my hand, to walk the rest of the day. So holding each other's hands, we walked gently, with our minds out of the world and lost in our own dreams; Just the two of us, me and my Amily.

Consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of evil desires, and how much exertion others expend for the sake of making profit, and how much suffering those who are pursuing fame endure, and bear in mind that all of these people submit to all kinds of toil and hardship voluntarily. Is it then not monstrous that they for no honorable reward endure such things, while we for the sake of the ideal good - that is not only the avoidance of evil such as wrecks our lives, but also the acquisition of virtue, which we may call the provider of all goods -- are not ready to bear every hardship? And yet would not anyone admit how much better it is, in place of exerting oneself to win someone else's wife, to exert oneself the discipline of one's desires; in place of enduring hardships for the sake of money, the train oneself to want little; instead of giving oneself trouble about getting notoriety; instead of trying to find a way to injure an envied person, to enquire how not to envy anyone; and instead of slaving, as sycophants do, to win false friends, to undergo suffering in order to possess true friends? Since toil and hardship are a necessity for all, both for those who seek better and worse, it is preposterous that those pursuing the better are not much more eager in their efforts than those for whom there is small hope of reward for all their pains. ... It remains for me to say that who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since all good is gained by toil.

Walt Whitman's proclamation that a leaf of grass was a miracle to confound all atheists did more justice to the findings of science than a positivism that stopped with the breaking down of the chemical reactions between sunlight and chlorophyll. This isolation of science from feeling, emotion, purpose, singular events, historic identity, endeared it to more limited minds. But it is not, perhaps, an accident that most of the great spirits in science, from Kepler and Newton to Faraday and Einstein, kept alive in their thought the presence of God-not as a mode of explaining events, but as a reminder of why they are ultimately as unexplainable today to an honest enquirer as they were to Job. (That thought has been admirably translated in Conrad Aiken's poetic dialogue with 'Thee.')

But far more dangerous are the others, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. The disseminators of this tale are the accusers whom I dread; for their hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not believe in the existence of the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they were made by them in the days when you were more impressible than you are now—in childhood, or it may have been in youth—and the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And hardest of all, I do not know and cannot tell the names of my accusers; unless in the chance case of a Comic poet.

The men who had inhabited prehistoric Egypt, who had carved the Sphinx and founded the world‘s oldest civilization, were men who had made their exodus from Atlantis to settle on this strip of land that bordered the Nile. And they had left before their ill-fated continent sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a catastrophe which had drained the Sahara and turned it into a desert. The shells which to-day litter the surface of the Sahara in places, as well as the fossil fish which are found among its sands, prove that it was once covered by the waters of a vast ocean. It was a tremendous and astonishing thought that the Sphinx provided a solid, visible and enduring link between the people of to-day and the people of a lost world, the unknown Atlanteans. This great symbol has lost its meaning for the modern world, for whom it is now but an object of local curiosity. What did it mean to the Atlanteans? We must look for some hint of an answer in the few remnants of culture still surviving from peoples whose own histories claimed Atlantean origin. We must probe behind the degenerate rituals of races like the Incas and the Mayas, mounting to the purer worship of their distant ancestors, and we shall find that the loftiest object of their worship was Light, represented by the Sun. Hence they build pyramidal Temples of the Sun throughout ancient America. Such temples were either variants or slightly distorted copies of similar temples which had existed in Atlantis. After Plato went to Egypt and settled for a while in the ancient School of Heliopolis, where he lived and studied during thirteen years, the priest-teachers, usually very guarded with foreigners, favoured the earnest young Greek enquirer with information drawn from their well-preserved secret records. Among other things they told him that a great flat-topped pyramid had stood in the centre of the island of Atlantis, and that on this top there had been build the chief temple of the continent – a sun temple. […] The Sphinx was the revered emblem in stone of a race which looked upon Light as the nearest thing to God in this dense material world. Light is the subtlest, most intangible of things which man can register by means of one of his five senses. It is the most ethereal kind of matter which he knows. It is the most ethereal element science can handle, and even the various kind of invisible rays are but variants of light which vibrate beyond the power of our retinas to grasp. So in the Book of Genesis the first created element was Light, without which nothing else could be created. „The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Deep,“ wrote Egyptian-trained Moses. „And God said, Let there be Light: and there was Light.“ Not only that, it is also a perfect symbol of that heavenly Light which dawns within the deep places of man‘s soul when he yields heart and mind to God; it is a magnificent memorial to that divine illumination which awaits him secretly even amid the blackest despairs. Man, in turning instinctively to the face and presence of the Sun, turns to the body of his Creator. And from the sun, light is born: from the sun it comes streaming into our world. Without the sun we should remain perpetually in horrible darkness; crops would not grow: mankind would starve, die, and disappear from the face of this planet. If this reverence for Light and for its agent, the sun, was the central tenet of Atlantean religion, so also was it the central tenet of early Egyptian religion. Ra, the sun-god, was first, the father and creator of all the other gods, the Maker of all things, the One, the self-born [...] If the Sphinx were connected with this religion of Light, it would surely have some relationship with the sun.

All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us. Now, religion used to be essentially viral -- a piece of information that replicated inside the human mind, jumping from one person to the next. That's the way it used to be, and unfortunately, that's the way it's headed right now. But there have been several efforts to deliver us from the hands of primitive, irrational religion. The first was made by someone named Enki about four thousand years ago. The second was made by Hebrew scholars in the eighth century B.C., driven out of their homeland by the invasion of Sargon II, but eventually it just devolved into empty legalism. Another attempt was made by Jesus -- that one was hijacked by viral influences within fifty days of his death. The virus was suppressed by the Catholic Church, but we're in the middle of a big epidemic that started in Kansas in 1900 and has been gathering momentum ever since." "Do you believe in God or not?" Hiro says. First things first. "Definitely." "Do you believe in Jesus?" "Yes. But not in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus." "How can you be a Christian without believing in that?" "I would say," Juanita says, "how can you be a Christian with it? Anyone who takes the trouble to study the gospels can see that the bodily resurrection is a myth that was tacked onto the real story several years after the real histories were written. It's so National Enquirer-esque, don't you think?

PARTIES, CONFERENCES AND NETWORKING EVENTS. You’ve got to be honest with yourself; this was the actual lesson you’ve been dreading, only if you are a natural extrovert, there are some things that are more stressful than going to parties and other networking activities. Today is going to be a bit tough, so you are going to have to be tougher. This is where all the lessons you’ve learnt so far will pay off. When you’re in a party, a conference or networking event, you are likely to hold one of four possible roles. How you react to the event will depend on this role. The possibilities include: Host/Greeter. Guest. Networker. Support. People will definitely come to you if you’re in the first category, making introduction moderately easy and opportunities for small talk plentiful. You may be in charge of giving a presentation or attending to a table at a convention or any similar event. Make sure to create eye contact and smile at strangers to acknowledge them, someone will approach you in no time. Topics that may outstand may include how successful the turnout was or other positive factors that craved out of the event. If you happen to be a guest or a visitor, the challenge is on you to approach and kick start conversations. The golden rule for breaking ice at events and starting small talks ate networking arena are remarkably the same. You have to keep one thing in mind; everyone attends a party with the intention of meeting a new person and talking with them. So, if you find out that your introduction is not so much an imposition as making it up to meet new people, you will find it much compelling and easy. Your best topics in this case are basically probing enquires about what brings your other party to the event and if you have mutual acquaintances. Your own work as a networker is a little bit different from being a host or guest. As a networker, you have to join groups, or even groups of groups in a cohesive way. You may need to go in to many conversations in the middle. The best way to go about this is to smile or enthusiastically go with something that was just said. When this is done, be careful not to shoehorn your conversation topics in to small talks, but try to carefully merge in to each of them as if you’re approaching from a highway on- ramp. Support is the final role, and the sad part about this is that you might find yourself at the end catering an event or working as a neutral staff. Even with that, you may still create opportunities for personal networking or even very revealing small talks during the course of the event. Conversation with other staff, special guests or even the host can turn out to invaluable connections that you can make use of later. With this at the back of your mind, always prepare for short conversations when you’re working an event just as seriously as if you were attending the event as a special guest. Maybe you’re not that kind of person that can withstand large crowd, take a break to regain who you are and review the topical assessments you prepared in the previous lessons. Don’t forget to excuse yourself so you can move around in the event centre on a regular basis, perhaps going for another role you think you’re capable of. This particular aspect does not have any other way to go about it. In fact, it might take the next 5 days before you put the whole concept together, and you may need to combine the zeal with tomorrow’s lesson. Now, you should go for a party or be the host to one yourself so you can utilize all these principles you learnt today. There’s no way to wave this, you have to learn it and be perfect. Bring your partner who has been your support all this while along to tackle the four roles and many more within the time frame. Until then, maintain the free flow with ease.

Article 5 of the Nauruan Constitution provides: (1)No person shall be deprived of his personal liberty, except as authorised by law in any of the following cases: (a) in execution of the sentence or order of a court in respect of an offence of which he has been convicted; (b) for the purpose of bringing him before a court in execution of the order of a court; (c) upon reasonable suspicion of his having committed, or being about to commit, an offence; (d) under the order of a court, for his education during any period ending not later than the thirty-first day of December after he attains the age of eighteen years; (e) under the order of a court, for his welfare during any period ending not later than the date on which he attains the age of twenty years; (f) for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease; (g) in the case of a person who is, or is reasonably suspected to be, of unsound mind or addicted to drugs or alcohol, for the purpose of his care or treatment or the protection of the community; and (h) for the purpose of preventing his unlawful entry into Nauru, or for the purpose of effecting his expulsion, extradition or other lawful removal from Nauru. (2)A person who is arrested or detained shall be informed promptly of the reasons for the arrest or detention and shall be permitted to consult in the place in which he is detained a legal representative of his own choice. (3)A person who has been arrested or detained in the circumstances referred to in paragraph (c) of clause (1) of this Article and has not been released shall be brought before a Judge or some other person holding judicial office within a period of twenty-four hours after the arrest or detention and shall not be further held in custody in connection with that offence except by order of a Judge or some other person holding judicial office. (4)Where a complaint is made to the Supreme Court that a person is unlawfully detained, the Supreme Court shall enquire into the complaint and, unless satisfied that the detention is lawful, shall order that person to be brought before it and shall release him. Detention of asylum seekers in Nauru is contrary to the Nauruan Constitution. By offering financial and personal incentives to Nauruan politicians, the Australian government has engaged in unlawful people trading. The

By noon, we had run almost every test we could do in our own small lab, and found one or two useless things. First, the basic broth was made from one of the commercially popular high-octane energy drinks. Human blood had been added in and, although it was difficult to be absolutely certain using the small and badly degraded sample, I was reasonably sure it had come from several sources. But the last ingredient, the organic something, remained elusive. “Okay,” I said at last. “Let’s go at this a different way.” “What,” Vince said, “with a Ouija board?” “Almost,” I said. “How about we try inductive logic?” “Okay, Sherlock,” he said. “More fun than gas chromatography any day.” “Eating your fellow humans is not natural,” I said, trying to put myself into the mind of someone at the party, but Vince interrupted my slow-forming trance. “What,” he said, “are you kidding? Didn’t you read any history at all? Cannibalism is the most natural thing in the world.” “Not in twenty-first-century Miami,” I said. “No matter what they say in the Enquirer.” “Still,” he said, “it’s just a cultural thing.” “Exactly,” I said. “We have a huge cultural taboo against it that you would have to overcome somehow.” “Well, you got ’em drinking blood, so the next step isn’t that big.

I twittered, “Did anything develop from the liaisons?”               “No. We never exchanged words about it. It was purely to get our rocks off. But…” he went silent.               “But? Carry on,” I encouraged.               “It was difficult. I cried and missed him terribly after he returned to the States.”               “Did he write to you?”               He said remorsefully, “He wrote me a generic letter but mentioned nothing about our encounters.”               “Do you still miss him?” I asked.               The boy sobbed quietly before replying. “I haven’t told anyone about this until now.”               Putting my arm around him, I enquired, “Would you like to have a fling with Jules?”               “I can’t. It’s not allowed.” My tent-mate turned away uneasily.               “Not allowed by whom?” I questioned.               “By the authorities.”               “The only authority that’s stopping you is you. Are all Singaporeans afraid of authority?”               He hadn’t expected me to ask such an unorthodox question. “You don’t know who is listening or watching your every move,” he shushed.               “Where I come from, we speak our minds.”               “You are one of the lucky ones to go to school in England. I wish I could go to an American school.” He paused before resuming, “My parents are very strict. That’s why I’m here at OBSS.”               I injected, “You don’t want to be here?”               He shook his head timidly. “Neither do I. Let’s do something roguish and get expelled together,” I joked. The lad exclaimed, thinking my deliberation serious. “Good god, No! My parents will be furious. They’ll lose face and be devastated if I misbehave.” “Are you going to be forever under your parents’ control?” I voiced. “You are here to learn to take responsibility for yourself. Now is the perfect time to come into your own,” I championed. “Do something you truly desire, not what others want you to do.” The lad did not know how to respond to my suggestion. Neither did he contradict me. When Jules entreated me privately for an after-dinner stroll that evening, little did I imagine what would happen.

simply—I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, “pondering them in our heart,” so it will be with the words of the Bible.

First of all I will confess quite simply—I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, “pondering them in our heart,” so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible. . . . If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament. . . .

So for our suffering we must thank God, for our lessons learnt, we thank God also.  For the love we experience and the love we receive from fellow human beings we must thank God – also for the hatred we encounter, because we are given an opportunity to turn that hate around, to convince an adversary of the error of their ways, by putting love or at least affection in its place. Thus we grow and our soul expands.” One thing is an absolute necessity for the enquirer into all aspects of Spiritualism, and that is an open mind.

Vivaldi, as he said this, took his station within the thickest gloom of the arch, which was of considerable depth, and near a flight of steps that was cut in the rock, and ascended to the fortress. His friend stepped close to his side. After a pause of silence, during which Bonarmo was meditating, and Vivaldi was impatiently watching, “Do you really believe,” said the former, “that any effort to detain him would be effectual? He glided past me with a strange facility, it was surely more than human!” “What is it you mean? enquired Vivaldi. “Why, I mean that I could be superstitious. This place, perhaps, infests my mind with congenial gloom, for I find that, at this moment, there is scarcely a superstition too dark for my credulity.

Andy enquired, "Which do you prefer?" For the first time since entering our chambers, Rizq looked less serious. "The experiences were vastly different. Maybe I should try experiencing both at the same time and see how it feels. That might be fun!" he responded. A thought raced through my mind. "Maybe you should try Caroline, Gaston, and Jacques, together. Then you can be both dominant and passive, at the same time." “I’m more interested in my next lesson with you," replied a delighted Rizq.

As Dr. Jung points out, the theory of the archetypes is by no means his own invention.[18] Compare Nietzsche: “In our sleep and in our dreams we pass through the whole thought of earlier humanity. I mean, in the same way that man reasons in his dreams, he reasoned when in the waking state many thousands of years....The dream carries us back into earlier states of human culture, and affords us a means of understanding it better.”[19] Compare Adolf Bastian’s theory of the ethnic “Elementary Ideas” (Elementargedanken), which, in their primal psychic character (corresponding to the Stoic Logoi spermatikoi), should be regarded as “the spiritual (or psychic) germinal dispositions out of which the whole social structure has been developed organically,” and, as such, should serve as bases of inductive research.[20] Compare Franz Boas: “Since Waitz’s thorough discussion of the question of the unity of the human species, there can be no doubt that in the main the mental characteristics of man are the same all over the world....Bastian was led to speak of the appalling monotony of the fundamental ideas of mankind all over the globe....Certain patterns of associated ideas may be recognized in all types of culture.”[21] Compare Sir James G. Frazer: “We need not, with some enquirers in ancient and modern times, suppose that the Western peoples borrowed from the older civilization of the Orient the conception of the Dying and Reviving God, together with the solemn ritual, in which that conception was dramatically set forth before the eyes of the worshippers. More probably the resemblance which may be traced in this respect between the religions of the East and West is no more than what we commonly, though incorrectly, call a fortuitous coincidence, the effect of similar causes acting alike on the similar constitution of the human mind in different countries and under different skies.”[22]

But though I know that the reverend elders of this church, and some others, do very well apprehend that the church cannot enquire into the proceedings of the court; yet, for the satisfaction of the weaker, who do not apprehend it, I will declare my mind concerning it. If the church have any such power, they have it from the Lord Jesus Christ; but the Lord Jesus Christ hath disclaimed it, not only by practice, but also by precept, which we have in his gospel, Matt xx. 25, 26. It is true, indeed, that; magistrates, as they are church-members, are accountable unto the church for their failings; but that is when they are out of their calling. When Uzziah would go offer incense in the temple, the officers of the church called him to an account, and withstood him; but when Asa put the prophet in prison, the officers of the church did not call him to an account for that. If the magistrate shall in a private way wrong any man, the church may call him to an' account for it; but if he be in pursuance of a course of justice, though the thing that he I does be unjust, yet he is not accountable for it before the church.

The core of Sri Nisargadatta’s simple and direct message is this: focus on the ‘I am’ (consciousness, beingness) and enquire into its Source. In becoming conscious of consciousness itself, we may discover we are not limited to the body, mind, or any passing identity, thereby realising our unlimited nature in this very life.

Dalia was headstrong. She came into the world screaming, letting no doubt that she was there. She hated school. When she was a child, she had to go three days a week. She spent most of her time fighting with the instructor - telling him, or her, they were wrong. Dalia asked questions." He let out a gentle laugh. "Dalia was what was known as an 'enquiring mind'. But even though she was brighter than most of the people around her, she wasn't interested in academics. She didn't perform well in the tests at school.

The world is full of wretchedness. Nobody can deny it. Our bodies are subject to decay, disease, pain and death. And there are the miseries of the world such as poverty, inequality, hatred. Every single person whether well-known or unknown, rich or poor, young or old, carries his own bundle of misery— his body—to which he is bound by karma. A sensible person should not only recognise the immense misery in the world but should also enquire into its cause. According to a Buddhist doctrine, misery is caused by karma which is conditioned by pleasure, the product of an impure mind. This impure mind is created by the illusion of the self, avidyā or ignorance. The illusion of self can only be eradicated by prajñā or wisdom or the understanding achieved through samādhi, the concentrated mind. And the concentrated mind can only be achieved if we have observed śīla, the moral or righteous way of living. Therefore, the entire Buddhist teaching is summarised in triśikshā, the three doctrines—śīla, samādhi and prajñā. It is clear from this that meditation becomes indispensable for anybody who tries to achieve right understanding of Truth, the realisation of Truth, the realisation of selflessness or of Self as it is. Thus, we should meditate in order to develop our mind and attain an insight into the inner

Miss Eulalie Butts and her colleague, Miss Delcross, had founded the college on the astonishing idea that, since gels had nothing much to do until someone married them, they may as well occupy themselves with learning things. There were plenty of schools in the world, but they were all run either by the various churches or by the Guilds. Miss Butts objected to churches on logical grounds and deplored the fact that the only Guilds that considered girls worth educating were the Thieves and the Seamstresses. But it was a big and dangerous world out there, and a gel could do worse than face it with a sound knowledge of geometry and astronomy under her bodice. For Miss Butts sincerely believed that there were no basic differences between boys and gels. At least none worth talking about. None that Miss Butts would talk about, anyway. And therefore she believed in encouraging logical thought and a healthy enquiring mind among the nascent young women in her care, a course of action which is, as far as wisdom is concerned, on a par with going alligator-hunting in a cardboard boat during the sinking season.

As they continued, Humboldt also investigated the cinchona forests in Loja (in today’s Ecuador) and once again recognized how humankind devastated the environment. The bark of the cinchona tree contains quinine which was used to treat malaria, but once the bark was removed, the trees died. The Spanish had stripped huge swathes of wild forest. Older and thicker trees, Humboldt noted, had now become scarce. Humboldt’s enquiring mind seemed inexhaustible. He studied layers of rocks, climate patterns and the ruins of Inca temples, and was also fascinated with geomagnetism – the study of the magnetic fields of the earth. As they climbed across mountain chains and descended into valleys, he set up his instruments. Humboldt’s curiosity originated in his urge to understand nature globally, as a network of forces and interrelationships – just as he had been interested in vegetation zones across continents and the occurrences of earthquakes. Since the seventeenth century scientists had known that the earth is itself a gigantic magnet. They also knew that the needle of a compass doesn’t show the true north, because the magnetic North Pole is not the same as the geographic North Pole. To make matters even more confusing, the magnetic north and south move, which caused great navigational problems. What scientists didn’t know was whether the intensity of magnetic fields across the world varied randomly, or systematically, from location to location. As Humboldt had moved south along the Andes from Bogotá to Quito, coming closer to the Equator, he had measured how the earth’s magnetic field decreased. To his surprise, even after they had crossed the Equator near Quito the intensity of the magnetic field had continued to drop, until they reached the barren Cajamarca Plateau in Peru which was more than 7 degrees and about 500 miles south of the geographic Equator. It was only here that the dip of the needle turned from north to south: Humboldt had discovered the magnetic equator. They