Freed From Desire Quotes

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY”. As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it “RESPECT”. As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it “MATURITY”. As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment. So I could be calm. Today I call it “SELF-CONFIDENCE”. As I began to love myself I quit stealing my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it “SIMPLICITY”. As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is “LOVE OF ONESELF”. As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is “MODESTY”. As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worrying about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where everything is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it “FULFILLMENT”. As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection “WISDOM OF THE HEART”. We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born. Today I know “THAT IS LIFE”!

...I take as a point of departure the possibility and desirability of a fundamentally different form of society--call it communism, if you will--in which men and women, freed from the pressures of scarcity and from the insecurity of everyday existence under capitalism, shape their own lives. Collectively they decide who, how, when, and what shall be produced.

Humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.

The sadist desires to command and control. The masochist desires to be freed from the burdens of liberty. That is Socialism.

We live in a world of breathtaking material plenty. That has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to-day struggles and liberated us to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.

The truth is that this is the only way I can live: in two directions. I need two lives. I am two beings. When I return to Hugo in the evening, to the peace and warmth of the house, I return with deep contentment, as if this was the only condition for me. I bring home to Hugo a whole woman, freed of all 'possessed' fevers, cured of the poison of restlessness and curiosity which used to threaten our marriage, cured through action. Our love lives, because I live. I sustain and feed it. I am loyal to it, in my own way, which cannot be his way. If he ever reads these lines, he must believe me. I am writing calmly, lucidly while waiting for him to come home, as one waits for the chosen lover, the eternal one.

I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when.

There Self must die; there the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from the empire of Fate.

They are part of his imagination, part of his story, and so, part of him. If he would not hurt you, then it only makes sense that they would not be able to do so either. They are the deepest parts of his subconscious. Shrapnel of his inner self. As you might have learned, they have the same desires and conflicts as their maker. As separate pieces, freed from the soul and from the confines of a human conscious, however, they develop minds of their own. And, as demons created in the dreamworld, they are compelled by law to answer to its queen. That is why they attempted to harm you but in the end could not.

If I don’t passionately desire freedom for all of my fellowmen, it’s likely that I haven’t been sufficiently freed from my selfishness so that I might see their captivity.

In truth, Serenus, I have for a long time been silently asking myself to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I can find nothing that so closely approaches it as the state of those who, after being released from a long and serious illness, are sometimes touched with fits of fever and slight disorders, and, freed from the last traces of them, are nevertheless disquieted with mistrust, and, though now quite well, stretch out their wrist to a physician and complain unjustly of any trace of heat in their body. It is not, Serenus, that these are not quite well in body, but that they are not quite used to being well; just as even a tranquil sea will show some ripple, particularly when it has just subsided after a storm. What you need, therefore, is not any of those harsher measures which we have already left behind, the necessity of opposing yourself at this point, of being angry with yourself at that, of sternly urging yourself on at another, but that which comes last -confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and have not been led astray by the many cross- tracks of those who are roaming in every direction, some of whom are wandering very near the path itself. But what you desire is something great and supreme and very near to being a god - to be unshaken.

She leant over him, touched him. He felt her hair, smelling of lilac and gooseberries, brush his face and he suddenly knew that he’d never forget that scent, that soft touch, knew that he’d never be able to compare it to any other scent or touch. Yennefer kissed him and he understood that he’d never desire any lips other than hers, so soft and moist, sweet with lipstick. He knew that, from that moment, only she would exist, her neck, shoulders and breasts freed from her black dress, her delicate, cool skin, which couldn’t be compared to any other he had ever touched. He gazed into her violet eyes, the most beautiful eyes in the world, eyes which he feared would become . . . Everything. He knew.

The barest movement and his lips brushed her skin—warm, smooth, beaded with moisture. Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine—the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.

The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. For a long time there may be no perceptible reward for women other than their new sense of purpose and integrity. Joy does not mean riotous glee, but it does mean the purposive employment of energy in a self-chosen enterprise. It does mean pride and confidence. It does mean communication and cooperation with others based on delight in their company and your own. To be emancipated from helplessness and need and walk freely upon the earth that is your birthright. To refuse hobbles and deformity and take possession of your body and glory in its power, accepting its own laws of loveliness. To have something to desire, something to make, something to achieve, and at last something genuine to give. To be freed from guilt and shame and the tireless self-discipline of women. To stop pretending and dissembling, cajoling and manipulating, and begin to control and sympathize. To claim the masculine virtues of magnanimity and generosity and courage. It goes much further than equal pay for equal work, for it ought to revolutionise the conditions of work completely. It does not understand the phrase 'equality of opportunity', for it seems that the opportunities will have to be utterly changed and women's souls changed so that they desire opportunity instead of shrinking from it.

Strong-Armed One, the one who neither hates nor desires should be known as the eternal renouncer - the one for whom opposites are the same, easily freed from bondage.

No greater affirmation of life is possible than to wish every part of it to return to you forever. It is the sublime moment when a person can look at his life, no matter what it consists of – good, bad, or indifferent – and find within himself the desire never to be freed from any aspect of it that allows a human being to be transformed into an Übermensch, the supreme life affirmer.

And I have always had an especially great desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see my way clearly in my actions, and to go forward with confidence in this life. It is true that, so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and that I noticed there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I little by little freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason.

He took up another long strip of towel in his right hand. He had to lean in to loop it behind her. He was so close now. His mind took in the shell of her ear, the hair tucked behind it, that rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Alive, alive, alive. It isn’t easy for me either. He looped the bandage around again. The barest touches. Unavoidable. Shoulder, clavicle, once her knee. The water rose around him. He secured the knot. Step back. He did not step back. He stood there, hearing his own breath, hers, the rhythm of them alone in this room. The sickness was there, the need to run, the need for something else too. Kaz thought he knew the language of pain intimately, but this ache was new. It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms. It isn’t easy for me either. After all she’d endured, he was the weak one. But she would never know what it was like for him to see Nina pull her close, watch Jesper loop his arm through hers, what it was to stand in doorways and against walls and know he could never draw nearer. But I’m here now, he thought wildly. He had carried her, fought beside her, spent whole nights next to her, both of them on their bellies, peering through a long glass, watching some warehouse or merch’s mansion. This was nothing like that. He was sick and frightened, his body slick with sweat, but he was here. He watched that pulse, the evidence of her heart, matching his own beat for anxious beat. He saw the damp curve of her neck, the gleam of her brown skin. He wanted to … He wanted. Before he even knew what he intended, he lowered his head. She drew in a sharp breath. His lips hovered just above the warm juncture between her shoulder and the column of her neck. He waited. Tell me to stop. Push me away. She exhaled. “Go on,” she repeated. Finish the story. The barest movement and his lips brushed her skin—warm, smooth, beaded with moisture. Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine—the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.

Thus prolonged infancy shapes human desires in two contradictory directions: on the one hand, on the subjective side, toward omnipotent indulgence in pleasure freed from the limitations of reality; on the other hand, on the objective side, toward powerless dependence on other people. The two tendencies come into conflict because the early experience of freedom and absorption in pleasure must succumb to the recognition of the reality-principle, in a capitulation enforced by parental authority under the threat of loss of parental love

She said, You cannot hide forever, though you may try. I’ve seen you in the kitchen, in the garden. I’ve seen the things you have sewn — curtains of dawn, twilight blankets and dresses for the sisters like a garden of stars. I have heard the stories you tell. You are the one who transforms, who creates. You can go out into the world and show others. They will feel less alone because of you, they will feel understood, unburdened by you, awakened by you, freed of guilt and shame and sorrow. But to share with them you must wear shoes you must go out you must not hide you must dance and it will be harder you must face jealousy and sometimes rage and desire and love which can hurt most of all because of what can then be taken away. So make that astral dress to fit your own body this time. And here are glass shoes made from your words, the stories you have told like a blower -with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets of light out of what was once sand. But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not for running away.

And I have always had an especially great desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see my way clearly in my actions, and to go forward with confidence in this life. It is true that, so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and that I noticed there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I little by little freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason. But after I had spent some years thus studying in the book of the world and in trying to gain some experience, I resolved one day to study within myself too and to spend all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths that I should follow.

How many ills, how many infirmities, does man owe to his excesses, his ambition – in a word, to the indulgence of his various passions! He who should live soberly in all respects, who should never run into excesses of any kind, who should be always simple in his tastes, modest in his desires, would escape a large proportion of the tribulations of human life. It is the same with regard to spirit-life, the sufferings of which are always the consequence of the manner in which a spirit has lived upon the earth. In that life undoubtedly he will no longer suffer from gout or rheumatism; but his wrong-doing down here will cause him to experience other sufferings no less painful. We have seen that those sufferings are the result of the links which exist between a spirit and matter; that the more completely he is freed from the influence of matter – in other words, the more dematerialized he is – the fewer are the painful sensations experienced by him. It depends, therefore, on each of us to free ourselves from the influence of matter by our action in this present life. Man possesses free-will, and, consequently, the power of electing to do or not to do. Let him conquer his animal passions; let him rid himself of hatred, envy, jealousy, pride; let him throw off the yoke of selfishness; let him purify his soul by cultivating noble sentiments; let him do good; let him attach to the things of this world only the degree of importance which they deserve – and he will, even under his present corporeal envelope, have effected his purification, and achieved his deliverance from the influence of matter, which will cease for him on his quitting that envelope. For such a one the remembrance of physical sufferings endured by him in the life he has quitted has nothing painful, and produces no disagreeable impression, because they affected his body only, and left no trace in his soul. He is happy to be relieved from them; and the calmness of a good conscience exempts him from all moral suffering.

College students’ bizarre actions are incomprehensible until scrutinized under the lens that they are simply defying their mortality. A person learns how to live by contemplating death, because when a person faces death, it strips everything superfluous away, revealing the sterling qualities of life. University students newly freed from parental restraints desire to ascertain the essence of their life, but they lack the maturity and life experiences meaningfully to contemplate the weighty subjects of life and death. Realizing their immaturity and resultant angst, collegiate students act recklessly in order to loudly proclaim that they do not care if fate demands that they die will, when in fact they are terrified of both living and dying.

The reason for entering the struggle is a desire for more; a taste of what life and love could be if freed from the dark memories and deep shame. No one leaves the lethargy of denial unless there is a spark of discontent that pierces the darkness of daily numbness. To live significantly less than what one was made to be is as severe a betrayal of the soul as the original abuse.

No greater affirmation of life is possible than to wish every part of it to return to you forever. It is the sublime moment when a person can look at his life, no matter what it consists of – good, bad, or indifferent – and find within himself the desire never to be freed from any aspect of it that allows a human being to be transformed into an Übermensch, the supreme life affirmer.

Everything lives on earth according to the law of nature, and from that law emerges the glory and joy of liberty; but man is denied this fortune, because he set for the God-given soul a limited and earthly law of his own. He made for himself strict rules. Man built a narrow and painful prison in which he secluded his affections and desires. He dug out a deep grave in which he buried his heart and its purpose. If an individual, through the dictates of his soul, declares his withdrawal from society and violates the law, his fellowmen will say he is a rebel worthy of exile, or an infamous creature worthy only of execution. Will man remain a slave of self-confinement until the end of the world? Or will he be freed by the passing of time and live in the Spirit for the Spirit? Will man insist upon staring downward and backward at the earth? Or will he turn his eyes toward the sun so he will not see the shadow of his body amongst the skulls and thorns?

Why God sometimes allows people who are genuinely good to be hindered in the good that they do. God, who is faithful, allows his friends to fall frequently into weakness only in order to remove from them any prop on which they might lean. For a loving person it would be a great joy to be able to achieve many great feats, whether keeping vigils, fasting, performing other ascetical practices or doing major, difficult and unusual works. For them this is a great joy, support and source of hope so that their works become a prop and a support upon which they can lean. But it is precisely this which our Lord wishes to take from them so that he alone will be their help and support. This he does solely on account of his pure goodness and mercy, for God is prompted to act only by his goodness, and in no way do our works serve to make God give us anything or do anything for us. Our Lord wishes his friends to be freed from such an attitude, and thus he removes their support from them so that they must henceforth find their support only in him. For he desires to give them great gifts, solely on account of his goodness, and he shall be their comfort and support while they discover themselves to be and regard themselves as being a pure nothingness in all the great gifts of God. The more essentially and simply the mind rests on God and is sustained by him, the more deeply we are established in God and the more receptive we are to him in all his precious gifts – for human kind should build on God alone.

Being a Sabbath-keeper is basically the art of letting people down at a rate they can handle. There are times we cannot meet the needs of others. There are times we trust God to help others through others. Not every need represents God’s will for our lives. How freeing! Sometimes we cannot do everything we desire, even if those desires are good and wholesome. Jesus is Lord—we are not. Paul had to learn that lesson through his Bithynia experience. If this remains true, we are freed from any kind of messiah complex that maintains that we must do something about everything. If Jesus said no, so can we.

Vaishampayana said, “I shall recount the entire history, that which was composed by the great-souled maharshi Vyasa, whose powers are infinite and who is worshipped in all the worlds. This contains 100,000 sacred shlokas, composed by Satyavati’s son, Vyasa, of infinite powers. The learned man who recites it to others and also those who hear its recital attain the world of Brahma and become the equals of the gods. This is equal to the Vedas. It is sacred and supreme. It is the best of all that can be heard. It is a purana worshipped by the rishis. It contains all the useful instructions on artha and kama. This immensely sacred history makes the mind desire to attain salvation. The learned man who recites Krishna’s33 Veda to those who are noble, generous, truthful and faithful, will attain great fortune. Even sins like the killing of embryos in wombs are destroyed. On hearing it, the most evil is freed from the most evil of sins. This history, called jaya, should be heard by those who wish to attain victory. On hearing it, a king can bring the entire world under his subjugation and defeat all his enemies. This is the best way to obtain a son and the great path to ensure welfare. It should be heard several times by heirs apparent and their wives.

The soul, all-perfect and ever perfect, is compelled by the law of evolution to incarnate repeatedly in progressively higher lives— retarded by wrong actions and desires and accelerated by spiritual endeavors—until Self-realization and God-union are attained. Having then transcended the Lord’s delusion, the soul is forever freed. “Their thoughts immersed in That (Spirit), their souls one with Spirit, their sole allegiance and devotion given to Spirit, their beings purified from poisonous delusion by the antidote of wisdom— such men reach the state of non-return” (Bhagavad Gita V:17). In the Bible it is similarly written: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out” (Revelation 3:12)

That casing of white armor traps the meat's juices, its fragrance and the umami goodness of its blood inside, waiting to explode the moment you bite into it! The dish's enormously delicious flavor impacts every sensory organ you have! "Not only that, its already impressive flavor has been imagined by the appetizer. By being presented after an appetizer centered on mushrooms- which pair exceptionally well with venison- and being accented with the flavor booster formic acid... ...its deliciousness has been raised to even greater heights!" "Rindo's dish pointed the way... ... but not to a mere final dish in a banquet. It was a signpost to a Gourmet Eden! A paradise where all chefs are freed from earthly troubles... a beautiful land of peace and tranquility that we all desire!

Chapter One: The Dawn and the Dread Heartbeat, heartbeat comes from Valhallan way, To meet down in judgment, to ply its trade. Two →swords← to join in worthy cross, Actions to be rendered, one to be lost. She did come now from ’yond northern slope, A day of reckoning did she again once hope. A devout meeting was her qwesterly bane, To stay her hand was to go insane. St. Kari of the Blade to meet her past, A wicked enemy, peerless of match. Rode Kari she her charger on down, Past the Dead Land where Gaul sat crowned. A killing job, yea, she desired to lastly kill, To set things right so her heart might lie still. Upon the mist and roaring plain, She entered in, a soul uncontained. A fierce wind in deed, and forever freed, Enemies she annihilhates (’tis hur’ creed). Her own advanced guard of a sort, Multitudes to follow in her report. Know this Valkyrie from on cold, An ancient maiden soft and bold. A warrior spirit from Ages past, A fragmented mind like broken glass. Solid in stature this eternal framed being, Yet crippled within from internaled bleedings. A sword saint so refined in the poetic art, A noble character yet with a banshee’s heart. Rhythmed horse now to the beats, Kari emboldened amid the sleet. Beyond the mountain she does come, Unto southern fields wherein rules hot sun. Far from that murderous Deadlands ground, The land up swells; the dead still abound. Traverses she those bygones of leprous civilizations Those cities crumbled by the exhalted of oblivions. Stark traces etched now bare in the land, That are no more again, save dust in the hand. A cool stream now in desert sans (Does more good when one is damned). Stopped she her mount to admire the flow, A lovely stream with skeletons packed below. Blue air whisps; dragon flied motion. Flintsteel striking!!! Sparked of commotion. Cold water chortles rushtish with tint, Told of past carnage, it whetted her glint. Fallen warriors, they are no more, Swirls and eddies mark their discord. Gurgled shouts slung and gathered, Faces glazed while steel lathered. Refreshing though it was to her mouth, She smelled an air; she flared about. Came up that ridge of loud, sanded hill, Below a man and his half-score of kills. Kari’s eyes waxed in smug contempt, Possibilities ran deep with no repent . . . On Kari, Valkyrie, Cold Steel Eternity Vol. II

British and perniciously bred into their economic life. The First Continental Congress, however, pledged itself to oppose the slave trade generally; Rhode Island, noting that “those who are desirous of enjoying all the advantages of liberty themselves should be willing to extend personal liberty to others,” ruled that slaves imported into the colony would thereafter be freed. Connecticut followed suit; Delaware prohibited the importation of slaves; and Pennsylvania taxed the trade so heavily as almost to extinguish it there. Abigail Adams spoke for many when she wrote on September 24, 1774, “I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me—to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.

[A]s the Fathers tell us, the souls of the dead remember everything that happened here -thoughts, words, desires- and nothing can be forgotten. But, as it says in the Psalm, 'In that day all their schemes shall be brought to nothing.' The schemes he speaks of are those of this world, about houses and possessions, parents and children, and business transactions. All these things are destroyed immediately when the soul passes out of the body, none of all this is remembered or considered. But what he did against virtue or against his evil passions, he remembers, and nothing of this is lost. And if a man helped somone or was helped by someone else, this is remembered as is the persons concerned, or if he injured someone, or was injured by someone, all this is remembered. In fact, the soul loses nothing that it did in this world but remembers everything at its exit from this body more clearly and distinctly once freed from the earthliness of the body.

All this is accomplished by the inner power of an artistic nature alone; but that purely objective disposition is facilitated and assisted from without by suitable objects, by the abundance of natural beauty which invites contemplation, and even presses itself upon us. When ever it discloses itself suddenly to our view, it almost always succeeds in delivering us, though it may be only for a moment, from subjectivity, from the slavery of the will, and in raising us to the state of pure knowing. This is why the man who is tormented by passion, or want, or care, is so suddenly revived, cheered, and restored by a single free glance into nature: the storm of passion, the pressure of desire and fear, and all the miseries of willing are then at once, and in a marvellous manner, calmed and appeased. For at the moment at which, freed from the will, we give ourselves up to pure will-less knowing, we pass into a world from which every thing is absent that influenced our will and moved us so violently through it.

Gotama takes a noun, “the unconditioned,” and treats it as a verb: “not to be conditioned” by something. He seems acutely aware of the relational nature of language. There is no such thing, for example, as freedom per se. There is only freedom from constraints, or freedom to act in ways that were not possible because of those constraints. Nor is there any awakening per se, but only awakening from the “sleep” of delusion, or awakening to the presence of others who suffer. And there is no such thing as the unconditioned, only the possibility of not being conditioned by something. Nirvana, therefore, does not refer to the attainment of a transcendent, absolute state apart from the conditions of life but to the possibility of living here and now emancipated from the inclinations of desire, hatred, and delusion. A life not conditioned by these instincts and drives would be an enriched one. No longer would one be the victim of paralyzing habits; one would be freed to respond to circumstances in fresh, unimpeded ways.

After a few sips, he picked up his sax and started jamming with the storm. Most days, Rivers meditated twice, when he awoke and again in the evening before writing or reading. But he still found a special relaxation and renewal in solitary playing. Contemplation through music was different from other reflective experiences, in part, because his visual associations were set free to mutate, morph, and meander; while the other senses were occupied in fierce concentraction on breathing, blowing, fingering, and listening. Within the flow of this activity, his awareness would land in different states of consciousness, different phases of time, and easily moved between revisualization of experience and its creation. The playing dislodged hidden feelings, primed him for recognizing the habitually denied, sheathed the sword of lnaguage, and loosened the shield and armor of his character. His contemplative playing purged him of worrisome realities, smelted off from his center the dross of eperience, and on those rare and cherished days, left only the refinement of flickering fire. Although he was more aware of his emotions, the music and dance of thought kept them at arm’s length, Wordsworth’s “emotion recollected in tranquility.” . . . As he played, his mind’s eye became the fisher’s bobber, guided by a line of sound around the driftwood of thought, the residue of his life, which materialized from nowhere and sank back into nothingness without his weaving them into any insistent pattern of order and understanding. He was momentarily freed of logical sequencing, the press of premises, the psycho-logic of primary process, the throb of Thought pulsing in and through him, and in billions of mind/bodies, now and throughout time, belonging each to each, to none, to no one, to Everyone, rocking back and forward in an ebb and flow of wishes, fears, and goals. He fished free of desire, illusion, or multiplicity; distant from the hook, the fisher, the fish; but tethered still on the long line of music, until it snagged on an immovable object, some unquestioned assumption, or perhaps a stray consummation, a catch in the flow of creation and wonder.

Societies to be integrated politically through an ideology are typically planned with a concern for the “output” of specifíc, politically desirable effects. For example, planning takes place with an eye to the goals of pow er politics or today especially with an eye to the goals of economic development. Such societies favor goal programs. Goal programs can be meaningful and successful only if the input of the political system can be varied and selected in conformity with the desired results— that is, only if the political system is relatively free to determine what kinds of information will influence it. The social expectations, demands, and conditions of political support must then be regulated ideologically, as soon as they are loosened from the unchanging bonds of tradition through the process of civilization and freed for a greater mobility. “Public Opinión” must be regulated in such a way that the dominance of ideological values and goals is not put into question and that there is only a technical and instrumental discussion about the best means by which to realize them.

But we may fairly say that they alone are engaged in the true duties of life who shall wish to have Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as their most intimate friends every day. No one of these will be "not at home," no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day. No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; conversations with no one of these will bring you peril, the friendship of none will endanger your life, the courting of none will tax your purse. From them you will take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you do not draw the utmost that you can desire. What happiness, what a fair old age awaits him who has offered himself as a client to these! He will have friends from whom he may seek counsel on matters great and small, whom he may consult every day about himself, from whom he may hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and after whose likeness he may fashion himself. We are wont to say that it was not in our power to choose the parents who fell to our lot, that they have been given to men by chance; yet we may be the sons of whomsoever we will. Households there are of noblest intellects; choose the one into which you wish to be adopted; you will inherit not merely their name, but even their property, which there will be no need to guard in a mean or niggardly spirit; the more persons you share it with, the greater it will become. These will open to you the path to immortality, and will raise you to a height from which no one is cast down. This is the only way of prolonging mortality—nay, of turning it into immortality. Honours, monuments, all that ambition has commanded by decrees or reared in works of stone, quickly sink to ruin; there is nothing that the lapse of time does not tear down and remove. But the works which philosophy has consecrated cannot be harmed; no age will destroy them, no age reduce them; the following and each succeeding age will but increase the reverence for them, since envy works upon what is close at hand, and things that are far off we are more free to admire. The life of the philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the human race; all ages serve him as if a god. Has some time passed by? This he embraces by recollection. Is time present? This he uses. Is it still to come? This he anticipates. He makes his life long by combining all times into one. But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and troubled; when they have reached the end of it, the poor wretches perceive too late that for such a long while they have been busied in doing nothing.

In times of distress everyone calls for help; in times of toothache, and earache, in doubt, fear and insecurity. In secret everyone calls out hoping that One will hear and grant their requests. Privately, secretly, people perform good deeds to ward off weakness and restore their strength, trusting that Life will accept their gifts and efforts. When they are restored to health and peace of mind, then suddenly their faith leaves, and the phantom of anxiety soon returns. “O God,” they cry again, “we were in such a terrible state when, with all sincerity, we called upon you from our prison corner. For a hundred prayers you granted our requests. Now, freed of the prison, we are still as much in need. Bring us out of this world of darkness into that world of the prophets, the world of light. Why can freedom not come without prisons and pain? A thousand desires fill us, both good and deceitful, and the conflict of these phantoms brings a thousand tortures that leave us weary. Where is that sure faith that burns up all phantoms?” God answers, “The seeker of pleasure in you is your enemy and My enemy. When your pleasure-seeking self is imprisoned, filled with trouble and pain, then your freedom arrives and gathers strength. A thousand times you have proved that freedom comes to you out of toothache, headache and fear. Why then are you chained to bodily comfort? Why are you always occupied with tending the flesh? Do not forget the end of that thread: unravel those bodily passions till you have attained your eternal passion, and find freedom from the prison of darkness.

She thinks no one would ever marry ‘a reckless society miss’ and a ‘troublemaker.’” He winced to hear his own words thrown back at him. Celia was all that…and so much more. Not that he dared tell her. Bad enough that he’d revealed too much of how he felt yesterday. For now, she could chalk it up to mere desire. If he started paying her compliments, she might guess how far his feelings went, and that wouldn’t do. So he tempered his remarks. “Your grandmother is merely worried that you will waste yourself on some man who doesn’t deserve you.” Like a bastard Bow Street Runner. “I suspect that if you tell her you’re going to marry the duke, she won’t be a bit surprised. And she certainly won’t agree to rescind the ultimatum, now that she’s finally achieved what she wanted.” “Yes, I’ve come to that conclusion myself. And besides…well…it wouldn’t be fair to involve him in such a plot behind his back when he’s a genuinely nice man offering marriage. If word got out that he had offered and I’d accepted, only to turn him down, people would assume I’d done it because of the madness in his family. That would just be cruel.” Now that Jackson knew she wasn’t actually going to marry the duke, he could be open-minded. “It certainly wouldn’t be kind,” he agreed. “But I’d be more worried that if word got out, you’d be painted as the worst sort of jilt.” She shrugged that off. “I wouldn’t care, as long as it freed me from Gran’s ultimatum.” It took him a moment to digest that. “So you lied when you said at our first discussion of your suitors that you had an interest in marriage?” “Of course I didn’t lie.” Her cheeks pinkened again. “But I want to marry for love, and not because Gran has decided I’m taking too long at it. I want my husband to genuinely care for me.” Her voice shook a little. “And not just my fortune.” She cut him a sidelong glance. “Or my connections.” He stiffened in the saddle. “I understand.” Oh yes, he understood all right. Any overtures he made would be construed as mercenary. Her grandmother had made sure of that by telling her of his aspirations. Not that it mattered. If he married her, he risked watching her lose everything. A Chief Magistrate made quite a lofty sum for someone of Jackson’s station, but for someone of hers? It was nothing. Less than nothing. “So what do you plan to do?” he asked. “About your grandmother’s ultimatum, I mean.” She shook her head. “If presenting her with an offer and begging her forbearance didn’t work, my original plan was just to marry whichever of the three gentlemen had offered.” “And now?” “I can’t bring myself to do it.” He stopped clenching the reins. “Well, that’s something then.” “So I find myself back where I started. I suppose I shall have to drum up some more suitors.” She slanted a glance at him. “Any ideas?

If we really desire God’s help, we should not look to ourselves, but to him... The more we are able to look outward and forget ourselves, the more easily our mind can be freed and healed by God.

He could have broken the man's neck with little difficulty, and it had taken a portion of his legendary self-control to keep from giving in to the impulse. Particularly when the cold, killing rage that had sustained him for ten long years had suddenly burned white-hot at the sight of his enemy mauling Emma. Perhaps that was what was troubling him. He'd ruthlessly stripped himself of all weakness, all emotion, anticipating little from this life except a passably entertaining evening and the bloody death of Jasper Darnley. And yet, suddenly, desires were churning inside him, stronger than he'd felt in years. He didn't like it. Emma didn't like it either, he thought absently. He had felt her animosity, hot, intense, almost sexual, radiating out at him during the ride home. It had been very... arousing. That, and the memory of her face at the opera, eyes shining with delight. He'd wanted to reach for her, put his hands on her, and pull her against him, to touch her and wipe out the touch of Darnley's fat-fingered hands. She'd have fought him, of course, and he had yet to find the struggles of an unwilling woman to be the slightest bit entertaining. But the interest lay in how long it would take him to make her cease struggling. What kind of sounds would she make when he pulled the black silk down to her waist and freed her breasts from the soft chemise he'd bought her? What kind of sounds would she make when he pushed her down on the bed upstairs and drove into her? Would she be easy to pleasure? Or would she be shy, wary, making him seduce her oh, so carefully?

When misunderstood autonomy governs our life, it is inevitable that the dignity of others must be rejected, for everyone else threatens our unchecked sovereignty. This terrible covenant is especially acute given the new power of technology. Not only have we freed ourselves from the bonds and bounds of creation, but we have alienated ourselves from them, declaring them enemy. Not only against the physical world, although that too, but also other persons and ourselves, as everything is bleached out and rendered defenseless against our frightful autonomy. Finding the world as nought, and ourselves as unchecked, we consume ourselves and all other creatures. To be free as we wish requires hatred of being, even hating life itself, just as Evagrius warned. As John Paul II recognized, this “encourages the ‘culture of death’ creating and consolidating actual ‘structures of sin’ which go against life. The moral conscience, both individual and social, is today subjected . . . to an extremely serious and mortal danger.”10

Even I," went on Spiro, "denounced blasphemers and thought it holy that each should yield a little of his blood to the Almighty Ones. Then I woke from darkness to find myself—a Head. At first I could not understand, for I was in love with Ah-eeda—and can a machine mate? But it is true that love is largely desire, and desire of the body. With the death of the body, desire died; and it may be that pride and ambition took its place. But, for all that, there were moments when I remembered my lost manhood and dreamed of Ah-eeda. Yes, though the laboratory of the Heads revealed wonders of which I had never dreamed, though I looked into your world and studied its languages and history, though I was worshipped as a god and endless life stretched ahead of me—nevertheless, I could see that the strength of my race was being sapped, its virility lost!" His voice broke. "In the face of such knowledge what were immortality and power? Could they compensate for one hour of life and love as humanity lived it? So I brooded. Then one day in the temple I looked into the face of a girl about to be bled and recognized Ah-eeda. In that moment, hatred of the fiends posing as gods and draining the vitality of deluded worshippers, crystallized and drove me to action. So it was I who denounced the Heads, aroused the people!" Spiro's voice broke; died. Miles and Ward stared at him, horrified; and after a while Miles exclaimed, "We never suspected! We would never have fought to maintain such a thing had we known!" "Nonetheless," said Spiro inflexibly, "you fought for it, and many people died and more are afraid. Superstition is a hard thing to kill. Already there are those who murmur that truly the Heads are gods and have called up demons from the underworld, as they threatened they would, to smite them with thunder until once more they yield blood in the temple. But I know that without blood the Heads must die miserably and the people be freed from their vampire existence. It is true that I too shall die, but that is nothing. I die gladly. Therefore, to keep the people from sacrificing blood, to show them that you are mortal and the Heads powerless to save the demons they have raised, you must be slain in front of the great palace. "Yes; you, too, must die for the people!

God does not desire our lip-service or our religion, but our hearts. Our religion sickens him without a heart that is genuinely seeking to please him. Thinking that we can be reconciled to God through a prayer while our hearts remain far from him in disobedience and sin is no less hypocrisy than going through the motions of the law.

Birth after birth the conditioned soul is entrapped with so many pleasing and displeasing elements, which are all false and temporary. They accumulate due to our reactions to material desires, but when we get in touch with the transcendental Lord in His variegated energies by devotional service, the naked forms of all material desires become manifest, and the intelligence of the living being is pacified in its true color. As soon as Arjuna turned his attention towards the instructions of the Lord, as they are inculcated in the Bhagavad-gītā, his true color of eternal association with the Lord became manifest, and thus he felt freed from all material contaminations.

John Calvin wrote, “The children of God are freed through regeneration from bondage to sin. Yet . . . there still remains in them a continuing occasion for struggle whereby they may be exercised; and not only be exercised, but also better learn their own weakness. . . . There remains in a regenerate man a smoldering cinder of evil, from which desires continually leap forth to allure and spur him to commit sin.”2

Their corner She withdrew her hand from his soft but firm grip, And that was all about their romantic trip, She went her way and he went his way, And they got busy chasing the mammons of the day, The hands that held on to each other had slipped away, To feed the obsequious vanities of every new day, But at that discreet corner where she freed her hand, There she does often for a moments few stand, To hold the same sensation and to grab the same feeling, Under which her heart had discovered a new healing, And as her bus arrives, she occupies her seat, And keeps looking at the fading away corner in that narrow street, Where at dusk two shadows often meet, Holding each others hands as they wish and greet, The memory of the hands that held on to each other, Under the sun, under the moon, under the rain, in every weather, The man stands there moments after the woman has left, And his mind turns contemplative in ways simple yet deft, He too catches the bus and goes away, Leaving behind the shadows that you will find there every night and every day, Today the woman did not visit the corner, Today the man too did not surrender, His wishes and his desires, To this corner where he often her memories admires, And where she experiences his sensations crawling all over her, This corner where she felt him and he felt her, Where could they be wondered the street? And the corner, sadly in its obscurity clad dimension did retreat, The following day, they walked together holding their hands again, The street overflowed with joy and the corner had nothing left to disdain, They caught the bus together and looked at the corner and the narrow street, Where they now often meet, And the corner resonates with their whispering smiles, Because now in their minds they cover journeys of endless miles!

In Reference to Germany + Russia - The hunger for national unification, for national importance, and the desire for a special 'spiritual' kind of freedom unknown in the West, were not the only traits that the two most autocratic societies in Europe had in common: in the post-Napoleonic era, they both rejected the values and body of beliefs of the Enlightenment coming out of Western Europe; both turned ferociously against the French Revolution with its emphasis on the leveling of classes and the fraternite of equal men; both rejected the idea of parliamentary democracy, which they saw as a triumph of numbers over values, of quantity over quality. Indeed, for both Germany and Russia, Western Europe was a marketplace that destroyed integrity and principles for the sake of compromise and gold (the word they used for this notion was "corruption". And both societies turned away from the idea of the private man, living anonymously in the city, freed from the moral pressures of community, village, and town (they saw this as "alienation").

One factor that obstructs our understanding of the world is our insatiable desire to understand it at any cost. If we insist on understanding the world at any price, we will not understand it or will only partially understand it. Such an attitude is motivated more by self-promotion than a desire for fundamental understanding. If we freed ourselves from all possible chains, we would expand our views, and what we wanted to achieve at any cost could be achieved at a lower price.

The monastic way is very different. Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real, true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God’s help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. Which is most capable of conceiving a great idea and serving it—the rich man in his isolation or the man who has freed himself from the tyranny of material things and habits?

Indeed, Jesus came to earth to battle for human souls. Sexual relationships, based on the profound spiritual dimension of sexuality itself, therefore become a primary context for that conflict. Contrary to the world’s view, however, the “battle of the sexes” is not between the man and the woman, one trying to dominate the other—but rather between God and the self-centered desires of the “flesh” in both man and woman. Victory in that battle was won by Jesus on the cross, when He yielded His body to the God who created it. The Good News in this for men and women is that those couples who have surrendered themselves to Jesus at the cross are freed from the urgent demands of their self-centered human nature to love like Jesus—for the other’s sake and not their own.

Encounters with the Bible during Slavery Before it was commonplace for African-Americans to learn to read, African-American Christians reverenced the Bible, the mysterious “talking book” they saw whites read and preach. Freed African slave James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (ca. 1705–1775) recounts his first encounter with the Bible: [My master] used to read prayers in public to the ship’s crew every Sabbath day; and when I first saw him read, I was never so surprised in my life, as when I saw the book talk to my master, for I thought it did, as I observed him to look upon it, and move his lips. I wished it would do so with me. As soon as my master was done reading, I followed him to the place where he put the book, being mightily delighted with it, and when nobody saw me, I opened it, and put my ear down close upon it, in great hopes that it would say something to me; but I was very sorry, and greatly disappointed, when I found that it would not speak.1 Another slave, John Jea, recounts a very similar impression of the Bible as a “talking book.” Jea writes, “I took the book, and held it up to my ears, to try whether the book would talk to me or not, but it proved to be all in vain, for I could not hear it speak one word.”2 Despite these early frustrations, Jea persevered in his longing to know the Book. He writes, “Such was my desire of being instructed in the way of salvation, that I wept at all times I possibly could, to hear the word of God, and seek instruction for my soul; while my master still continued to flog me, hoping to deter me from going; but all to no purpose, for I was determined, by the grace of God, to seek the Lord with all my heart, and with all my mind, and with all my strength, in spirit and in truth, as you read in the Holy Bible.”3 These were the early encounters of an illiterate people with the Holy Scriptures. Their illiteracy was forced upon them through the cruel oppressions of slavery, and self-interested slave owners often used the Bible to justify enslaving Africans. But that did not prevent them from being drawn to this almost magical book. To be sure, not every African was drawn to the Bible or sought its content. But pretty soon, it became the great ambition of some enslaved Africans to know the contents of this book and preach it for themselves.

Which is to say, our indwelling sin causes us to cherish the forthcoming day when it will be removed forever. The sense of our indwelling sin now entices our anticipation for the day we see Jesus, the day when every evil and every imperfection and every hindrance to full joy in Christ—every desire we have for sin—will be exterminated from our hearts. With the eradication of indwelling sin will come a full possession of eternal happiness to perfectly reflect the riches of God’s love for us and the sufficient work of Jesus. We will live in a curse-less creation, all will be made new, and all things will once again be freed from sin.41 But for now, indwelling sin is what sets our hope on this future day, prevents us from storing up treasures on earth, readies us for death, and keeps us in eager anticipation of our “glorious liberty” to come.42

Into Our Future   Our eyes light up Our hearts are on fire Newly freed and full of desire Your voice pulls me in from my here to your now I’m ready to explore all doors leading to allow To find my way in feeling the room spin I tripped and fell under your spell You picked me up Our possibilities propelled Into our future flushed, hushed and blushed I felt my heart captured With a look and a touch  

our indwelling sin causes us to cherish the forthcoming day when it will be removed forever. The sense of our indwelling sin now entices our anticipation for the day we see Jesus, the day when every evil and every imperfection and every hindrance to full joy in Christ—every desire we have for sin—will be exterminated from our hearts. With the eradication of indwelling sin will come a full possession of eternal happiness to perfectly reflect the riches of God’s love for us and the sufficient work of Jesus. We will live in a curse-less creation, all will be made new, and all things will once again be freed from sin.41 But for now, indwelling sin is what sets our hope on this future day, prevents us from storing up treasures on earth, readies us for death, and keeps us in eager anticipation of our “glorious liberty” to come.

Through the death of Christ, every Man was freed from the old man and made alive together with Christ, literally, legally, as an eternal reality, so that he may hear God, and understand God, and respond to God.

Adam's sin would have brought all mankind to eternal death (i.e. damnation), but that God's grace has freed many from it. Sin came from the soul, not from the flesh. Platonists and Manichæans both err in ascribing sin to the nature of the flesh, though Platonists are not so bad as Manichæans. The punishment of all mankind for Adam's sin was just; for, as a result of this sin, man, that might have been spiritual in body, became carnal in mind.10 This leads to a long and minute discussion of sexual lust, to which we are subject as part of our punishment for Adam's sin. This discussion is very important as revealing the psychology of asceticism; we must therefore go into it, although the Saint confesses that the theme is immodest. The theory advanced is as follows. It must be admitted that sexual intercourse in marriage is not sinful, provided the intention is to beget offspring. Yet even in marriage a virtuous man will wish that he could manage without lust. Even in marriage, as the desire for privacy shows, people are ashamed of sexual intercourse, because 'this lawful act of nature is (from our first parents) accompanied with our penal shame'. The cynics thought that one should be without shame, and Diogenes would have none of it, wishing to be in all things like a dog; yet even he, after one attempt, abandoned, in practice, this extreme of shamelessness. What is shameful about lust is its independence of the will. Adam and Eve, before the fall, could have had sexual intercourse without lust, though in fact they did not. Handicraftsmen, in the pursuit of their trade, move their hands without lust; similarly Adam, if only he had kept away from the apple-tree, could have performed the business of sex without the emotions that it now demands. The sexual members, like the rest of the body, would have obeyed the will. The need of lust in sexual intercourse is a punishment for Adam's sin, but for which sex might have been divorced from pleasure. Omitting some physiological details which the translator has very properly left in the decent obscurity of the original Latin, the above is St Augustine's theory as regards sex. It is evident from the above that what makes the ascetic dislike sex is its independence of the will. Virtue, it is held, demands a complete control of the will over the body, but such control does not suffice to make the sexual act possible. The sexual act, therefore, seems inconsistent with a perfectly virtuous life.

That is the message of Jesus in black and white: Bring people into contact with God and you will be feeding thousands. And what happens? The disciples leave everything and follow him. This means that the disciples freed themselves of everything. To follow him, you have to deny yourself, release your elf from your own need to be right all the time, to be in charge all the time, to have your own way all the time, all those desires that make you inaccessible from the Holy Spirit.   This is how you are transformed. This is how you become a light in this world so that others want what you have found.

But part of loving is sacrificing our ego's need to be right. Part of loving is realising that all of us are on the same journey, seeking the same things, but find ourselves at different places. When we are able to acknowledge and accept this reality; we are freed from the desire to force others into our systems, our beliefs and our points of view.

A second way of sharing in these meanings belongs to those who so highly esteem what is disclosed to them of the attributes of majesty that their high regard releases a longing to possess this attribute in every way possible to them, so that they may grow closer to the Truth-in quality not in place; and with the possession of such characteristics they become similar to the angels, who have been brought near to God-great and glorious. Moreover, it is inconceivable that a heart be filled with high regard for such an attribute and be illuminated by it without a longing for this attribute following upon it, as well as a passionate love for that perfection and majesty, intent upon being adorned with that attribute in its totality-inasmuch as that is possible to one who so esteems it. And if not in its totality, the esteem for this attribute will necessarily provoke in him the longing for as much of it as he can assimilate. No-one will lack this longing except for one of two reasons: either from inadequate knowledge and certainty that the attribute in question is one of the attributes of majesty and perfection, or from the fact that one's heart is filled with another longing and absorbed by it. For when a disciple observes the perfection of his master in knowledge, longing will be triggered in him to be like him and to follow his example-unless he be filled with hunger, for example, so that the preoccupation of his innards for food could prevent the longing for knowledge from arising in him. So it is necessary for the one who would contemplate the attributes of God most high to have emptied his heart of desiring anything except God- great and glorious. For knowledge is the seed of longing, but only to the extent that it encounters a heart freed from the thorns of the passions, for unless the heart be empty the seed will not bear fruit.

From this forceful realization that the numinous element in spirituality can heal, an individual was freed from his addiction to alcohol and a worldwide self-help organization was born. Once the true underlying craving for spirit was effectively addressed and integrated into daily life, the desire for alcoholic ecstasy could be held in check.

Anyone who remained fixated on mundane wealth could never be liberated from the cycle of suffering and rebirth, but “a man who does not desire—who is without desires, who is freed from desires, whose only desire is his self (atman)—his vital functions do not depart. Brahman he is and to brahman he goes.

Tender yet poignant... the journey invites you to a gentle opening... so you will step out of the shadows and step into the reflections...thus you will recognize your journey as a pathway to transformation....for you will deepen in vulnerability.....awakened by long- forgotten dreams and desires....letting your longing come to life...so you will sense what it truly means to be human.... Along your journey,....you will feel deeply seen and felt....for what was lost will be restored...as honored you will be for your humanness.....your life will appear as unrestrainedly unfolding....where truth and beauty abide...where you are boundless freed from the shadows of fear...for this journey will gently carry you to another world...the world of a life beyond the loss and regrets.. ' Finding Momentum

The possibility of criticizing the state makes the at least moral or discursive rejection of the demands of the state possible; one can be a “citizen of the world,” as the Stoics declared. Here we have the “new ideas” Coulanges mentioned much earlier, but they are ideas that provide no way of thinking about how to restore civil order. Philosophical reflection seemed mostly to serve as a way of forming communities of discourse freed from the utterly disfigured language of decadent ritual and degraded public order alike. If it served any political purpose, it was that of imperial conquest, insofar as it encouraged individuals to think of themselves as having no ties and obligations, and to desire only peace for themselves.

The Upanishads have minutely classified every stage of spiritual advancement: - Jivanmukta ("freed while living") - a siddha ("perfected being") has progressed from the state of jivanmukta ("freed while living") to that of: - a paramukta ("supremely free" - full power over death); the latter has completely escaped from the mayic thralldom and its reincarnational round. The paramukta therefore seldom returns to a physical body; if he does return, he is: - an avatar, a divinely appointed medium of supernal blessings on the world. An avatar is unsubject to the universal economy; his pure body, visible as a light image, is free from any debt to Nature. The casual gaze may see nothing extraordinary in an avatar's form; but, on occasion, it casts no shadow nor make any footprint on the ground. These are outward symbolic proofs of an inward freedom from darkness and material bondage. [...] Krishna, Rama, Buddha and Patanjali were among the ancient Indian avatars. [...] Agastya, a South Indian avatar. - Mahavatar (Great Avatar) - Babaji's mission in India has been to assist prophets in carrying out their special dispensations. He thus qualifies for the scriptural classification of Mahavatar (Great Avatar). [...] Babaji is ever in communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully illumined masters is to inspire the nations to forsake wars, race, hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang evils of materialism.[...] Only one reason motivates Babaji in maintaining his physical form from century to century: the desire to furnish humanity wit ha concrete example of its own possibilities. Were man never vouchsafed a glumpse of Divinity in the flesh, he would remain oppressed by the heavy mayic delusion that he cannot transcend his mortality. - pg305-310, Chapter 33, Babaji, Yogi-Christ of Modern India

Had these Africans been a cruelly oppressed people, restlessly struggling to be freed from their bonds, would their masters have dared to leave them, as was done, and would they have remained as they did, continuing their usual duties, or could the proclamation of emancipation have been put on the plea of a military necessity, if the fact had been that the negroes were forced to serve, and desired only an opportunity to rise against their masters?

The manifestation of supernatural power aroused the superstitions of the people, and excited their fears. Further calamities might follow from having this Stranger among them. They apprehended financial ruin, and determined to be freed from His presence. Those who had crossed the lake with Jesus told of all that had happened on the preceding night, of their peril in the tempest, and how the wind and the sea had been stilled. But their words were without effect. In terror the people thronged about Jesus, beseeching Him to depart from them, and He complied, taking ship at once for the opposite shore.

Pray for your child Parents who are suffering pain and grief in their relationship with a rebellious child tend to interpret things through the lens of their pain and grief. This is understandable because we are emotional beings, but it is not helpful for healing the relationship and does not facilitate godly prayer. Prayer should not become a digest of our desire for our child’s change, and the ways that we are hurt and grieved. When that happens, prayer becomes more about us than the lost and needy child. Certainly, prayer for our own or our spouse’s agony over rebellious children is appropriate as we struggle with these emotions, but even in those appropriate personal seasons of prayer, God’s comfort and provision of Christ for our loss must be our focus. Pray that you will be freed from your preoccupation with your own devastation so that you can see clearly to pray for specific needs in your child. Think about the misery, lostness, guilt, and loneliness behind your child’s growling and disrespect. As you pray for the hold of sin to be broken in your child’s heart, pray that this weary, heavy-laden sinner will find rest for his hurting soul. Pray that God’s Spirit will bless your efforts to disarm your child’s sense of justification for their thoughts or feelings against you as you do the work of listening and asking for forgiveness. Pray that God will do that awakening work that only he can do by his Spirit, to authenticate the truth of the gospel to your child’s heart. Pray that you will have the endurance and confidence in God to see this process through, regardless of how long you must endure.

Perhaps she stood in the street attracted by the crowd, and, as she listened to our Saviour’s talk, it seemed to hold her fast. She had never heard a man speak after that fashion, and when he spoke of abounding mercy, and the willingness of God to accept as many as would come to him, then the tears began to follow each other down her check; and when she listened again to that meek and lowly preacher, and heard him tell of the Father in heaven who would receive prodigals and press them to his loving bosom, then her heart was fairly broken, she relinquished her evil traffic, she became a new woman, desirous of better things, anxious to be freed from sin. But she was greatly agitated in her heart with the question, could she, would she, be really forgiven ? Would such pardoning love as she had heard of reach even to her? She hoped so, and was in a measure comforted. Her faith grew, and with it an ardent love. The Spirit of God still wrought with her till she enjoyed a feeble hope, a gleam of confidence; she believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah , that he had appeared on earth to forgive sins, and she rested on him for the forgiveness of her sins, and longed for an opportunity to do him homage, and if possible to win a word direct from his mouth... and I have already derived such benefit from him that I love him better than all besides; I love him as my own soul... Now, when she came to the door, the Saviour was reclining at his meat, according to the Oriental custom, and his feet were towards the door; for the Pharisee had but little respect for Christ , and had not given him the best and innermost place at the feast ; but there he lay with his uncovered feet towards the door, and the woman, almost unperceived, came close to him, and, as she looked and saw that the Pharisee had refused him the ordinary courtesy of washing his feet, and that they were all stained and travel-worn with Lis long journeys of love, she began to weep, and the tears fell in such plenteous showers that they even washed his feet. Here was holy water of a true sort. The crystal of penitence falling in drops, each one as precious as a diamond. Never were feet bedewed with a more precious water than those penitent eyes showered forth. Then, unbinding those luxurious tresses, which had been for her the devil’s nets in which to entangle souls, she wiped the sacred feet therewith. Surely she thought that her chief adornment, the crown and glory of her womanhood, was all too worthless a thing to do service to the lowest and meanest part of the Son of God. That which once was her vanity now was humbled and yet exalted to the lowest office; she made her eyes a ewer and her locks a towel. “Never,” says bishop Hall, “was any hair so preferred as this ; how I envy those locks that were graced with the touch of those sacred feet.” There a sweet temptation overtook her, “I will even kiss those feet, I will humbly pay reverence to those blessed limbs.” She spake not a word, but how eloquent were her actions ! better even than psalms and hymns were these acts of devotion. Then she bethought her of that alabaster box containing perfumed oil with which, like most Eastern women, she was wont to anoint herself for the pleasure of the smell and for the increase of her beauty, and now, opening it, she pours out the costliest thing she has upon his blessed feet. Not a word, I say, came from her; and, brethren, we would prefer a single speechless lover of Jesus, who acted as she did, to ten thousand noisy talkers who have no gifts, no heart, no tears. As for the Master, he remained quietly acquiescent, saying nothing, but all the while drinking in her love, and letting his poor weary heart find sweet solace in the gratitude of one who once was a sinner, but who was to be such no more.

To be free from thoughts, one has to be freed from the bonds of desires and expectations.

...i was freed from desire, purifying my mind and sense like in Gala's song.

Even nonradicalized authoritarian regimes glorified the military. For all his desire to stay out of the war, Franco seized the opportunity offered by the defeat of France in 1940 to occupy Tangiers, as we saw earlier. Military parades were a major form of public ritual for Franquist Spain. Defeated France, under the Vichy regime of World War I hero Marshal Pétain, put much energy into military pomp and patriotic display. It never stopped asking the Nazi occupation authorities to allow the tiny Vichy Armistice Army to play a greater role in the defense of French soil from an Allied invasion. Even the quietist Portuguese dictator Salazar could not neglect the African empire that provided major emotional and economic support for his authoritarian state. But there is a difference between authoritarian dictatorships’ glorification of the military and the emotional commitment of fascist regimes to war. Authoritarians used military pomp, but little actual fighting, to help prop up regimes dedicated to preserving the status quo. Fascist regimes could not survive without the active acquisition of new territory for their “race”—Lebensraum, spazio vitale—and they deliberately chose aggressive war to achieve it, clearly intending to wind the spring of their people to still higher tension. Fascist radicalization was not simply war government, moreover. Making war radicalizes all regimes, fascist or not, of course. All states demand more of their citizens in wartime, and citizens become more willing, if they believe the war is a legitimate one, to make exceptional sacrifices for the community, and even to set aside some of their liberties. Increased state authority seems legitimate when the enemy is at the gate. During World War II, citizens of the democracies accepted not only material sacrifices, like rationing and the draft, but also major limitations on freedom, such as censorship. In the United States during the cold war an insistent current of opinion wanted to limit liberties again, in the interest of defeating the communist enemy. War government under fascism is not the same as the democracies’ willing and temporary suspension of liberties, however. In fascist regimes at war, a fanatical minority within the party or movement may find itself freed to express a furor far beyond any rational calculation of interest. In this way, we return to Hannah Arendt’s idea that fascist regimes build on the fragmentation of their societies and the atomization of their populations. Arendt has been sharply criticized for making atomization one of the prerequisites for Nazi success. But her Origins of Totalitarianism, though cast in historical terms, is more a philosophical meditation on fascism’s ultimate radicalization than a history of origins. Even if the fragmentation and atomization of society work poorly as explanations for fascism’s taking root and arriving in power, the fragmentation and atomization of government were characteristic of the last phase of fascism, the radicalization process. In the newly conquered territories, ordinary civil servants, agents of the normative state, were replaced by party radicals, agents of the prerogative state. The orderly procedures of bureaucracy gave way to the wild unstructured improvisations of inexperienced party militants thrust into ill-defined positions of authority over conquered peoples.

This is how God frees us from the conditions of “original sin”—not so much by eradicating them or suppressing them but by overwhelming them. By relying on God's work in our lives, we are freed from the domination of our physical desires. We can say “No” to ourselves and “Yes” to others, devoting ourselves to their good rather than our own and thereby reflecting God's loving nature. By finding our anchor in God's love for us, we are freed from the need to please others. We need no longer seek their approval or fear their disapproval because we are no longer focused on ourselves. We are free to love regardless of how other people respond.

Damn it, Shea, I swear if you keep that up, we will not make it to the springs.” “I never heard of any springs,” she murmured absently, stroking the beating pulse again, her teeth playfully nipping. Her mouth wandered farther up his neck to his ear. “Hot springs. It is only a little way farther,” he groaned, but he leaned his head toward her attentions. Her hand slipped down the front of his shirt, played with his buttons, slowly sliding them open so that her palm could rest on his hot skin. “I think you’re hot enough, Jacques,” she whispered wickedly into his ear, caressing his earlobe with her tongue. “I know I am.” He stopped, leaned against the curved wall, and allowed her feet to touch the ground. There were no words to describe the hunger, the urgency of his body, or the chaos of his mind. He bent over her, forcing her slender body backward as he took control of her mouth. His hand spanned her throat, tipping up her chin for better access. Shea experienced a curious shifting of the earth beneath her feet. Colors whirled in her head, and flames licked at her body. She could hardly bear the feel of clothes against her sensitive skin. Her breasts swelled and ached, her nipples pushing into the material covering them. Jacques was on fire, his jeans so tight, he could no longer breathe. He tore at them, freed his body from the restrictive fabric and ripped at the cotton covering hers. “I have to have you right now, Shea,” he said hoarsely.

The boy was just another wanderer amongst us who'd desired to fit in and asked for nothing more of this world than that simple wish to bear his fruit. He was a vagabond, a soul freed from heaven and tarnished, dipped in this earthly pool and rusted like iron, the scars shown upon his heart like Adam when he'd eaten the apple.

If any living beings are afflicted with a great deal of lust, let them keep in mind and revere Regarder of the Cries of the World Bodhisattva and they will be freed from their desire. If they have a great deal of anger and rage, let them keep in mind and revere Regarder of the Cries of the World Bodhisattva and they will be freed from their anger. If they are deluded by great folly, let them keep in mind and revere Regarder of the Cries of the World Bodhisattva and they will be freed from their stupidity.

What we need most is a heart ruled by the Lord rather than by “evil desires.” We need to be progressively freed from our slavery to the god-replacements that imprison us in self-absorbed pursuit of our own glory.

Sexual yoga needs to be freed from a misunderstanding attached to all forms of yoga, of spiritual 'practice' or 'exercise,' since these ill-chosen words suggest that yoga is a method for the progressive achievement of certain results - and this is exactly what it's not. Yoga means 'union,' that is, the realization of on man's inner identity with Brahman or Tao, and strictly speaking this is not an end to which there are methods or means since it cannot be made an object of desire. The attempt to achieve it invariably thrusts it away.

The high tide of Montparnasse was brief, from 1920 to 1935. Since their work sold mainly outside France, expatriate writers and publishers suffered less in the stock market crash of 1929 than the restaurateurs and shopkeepers who served them, but as the Depression eroded even “old money,” exiles whose wealth had freed them to escape early to Paris became the first to leave. Those accustomed to living by their wits stayed on, at least as long as magazines and newspapers wanted news of the city. Not until the mid-1930s, amid a general feeling of “the parade’s gone by” as far as France was concerned, did they drift back to New York, London, and Madrid.

And when we go to sleep, we ought to greet the bed completely out of breath from the day. We must have tree sap on our hands from climbing. Sand in our pockets and not know how. There must be some fresh wound on our body somewhere—a cut on the ankle, a bruised eye, or a chipped tooth. Our lips are to be kissed by anyone happy, our fingernails dirty, and we might have brought a bug or two home with us. On our wrist should be two bracelets: one from the hospital and another from the concert that got us there. We should have freed the heart in a streak of spoken desire, kind attempts to hold another hand, and by missing a thousand former lovers that you wish the best. We must find a way to revel in the dissatisfaction of a weary heart.

August 16, Johnson issued an order that allowed southern whites to recapture land confiscated from them during the war—a move that made him heroic to whites while dealing a crushing blow to black hopes. It forced freedmen to abandon the forty-acre plots they had started to work, turning the men into powerless sharecroppers, bound to land owned by whites. Within weeks, a white delegation from the former Confederacy rushed to the White House to express “sincere respect” for Johnson’s desire “to sustain Southern rights in the Union.”88 By the end of 1865, so-called Black Codes began to forge a new caste system in the South, a segregated world where freed slaves worked as indentured servants, subject to arrest if they left jobs before their annual contracts expired. It was a cruel new form of bondage, establishing the foundations of the Jim Crow system that later ruled southern race relations. In South Carolina, blacks were confined by law to their plantations, forced to work from sunup to sundown. In Florida, blacks who showed “disrespect” to their bosses or rode in public conveyances reserved for whites could be whipped and pilloried. In Mississippi, it became a criminal offense for blacks to hunt or fish, heightening their dependence upon white employers. Thus, within six months of the end of the Civil War, there arose a broadly based retreat from many of the ideals that had motivated the northern war effort, reestablishing the status quo ante and white supremacy in the old Confederacy. During

Success freed the vast majority of those who are successful from the enslaving desire to be successful, only to replace it with the enslaving desire to remain or to be even more successful.

Temperance and wisdom, as well as diligence, were essential to Athenodorus, and they played an integral part in his teachings to his young emperor. “You will know you’ve been freed from all desires when you’ve reached the place where you will pray to God for nothing but things you’d ask for openly,” he would say. “Live among men as if God were watching, and speak with God as if men were listening.

I have walked amongst mortals for many years and I know the dizzying joys of humanity: the fragile, ferocious power of human love and the savage force of grief. When I share wine with mortals, we celebrate together and I feel the clustered hopes and yearnings, the pain and fears that you all share. In those sacred rites, as simple and ancient as the world itself, we raise a cup and we drink together and our souls are freed from the constraints of the everyday. We find what unites us, what we have in common with one another. I have felt the gaping wound and the bruised, ragged edges of grief. I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze, The gods do not know love because they cannot imagine an end to anything they enjoy. Their passions do not burn as brightly as a mortal's passions do, because they can have whatever they desire fir the rest of eternity. How could they cherish or treasure anything?